Chapter One: The Apprentice
Uhrla eagerly drew her moistened lips up and down, thrilling at the throbbing shaft vibrating along her tongue. The prisoner above her moaned and writhed, quietly clinking the chains that held his hands fast above his head. Her hands kneaded his testicles, massaging the seed they held. How she longed to taste his salty cream, the ultimate proof of his love...
She doubled her tempo at the thought, the prisoner crying out softly. Her other hand working furiously beneath her skirts, the base of her thumb vibrating on the nub of her womanhood. Copious droplets of moisture raced each other down her thighs as she moaned sensuously around his shaft.
She had never imagined sucking a man could be so exquisite! She had done it before, and it had been pleasant enough to hear her partners groan and writhe at every flick of her tongue. But she had never imagined it could bring such incredible sensations as these! Every time he thrust into her mouth she felt an electric shock of pleasure echo in the depths between her legs. Oh, Seasons, she wanted to keep him deep in her throat forever...
Unfortunately, she still had to breathe. Very reluctantly she disengaged from his satiny hardness, coughing for breath. She looked up at the handsome young man, pumping him slickly with her hand. He could not have been more than a few turns of the Seasons past twenty Autumns, with a long shock of auburn hair and smoothly chiseled features. His chest heaved. He looked so intensely male, so...perfect.
“C-come for me,” Uhrla pleaded. “Sow your seed in me! Gods, there is nothing I ever wanted more in my life.” She meant that, every word of it. She arced her back, sliding his member along one of her engorged nipples through the fabric of her dress. “Please!”
The young man’s voice was breathless but steady. “You must do something for me in return.”
“Anything!”
“Free me.”
“Of course. Of course!” She clamped her lips back over his engorged head, licking wildly. He shivered and groaned. He must be so close! Oh, Seasons, of course she would free him! It would be easy enough to seduce that oafish, over-muscled guard and sneak his keys away. Then she would steal this perfect male out of the castle and into the heart of the night.
Once he was out of those chains and safely away from his tormentors he could finally take her as a man should. She imagined him throwing her onto a bed of soft sand deep in a secluded oasis she knew of, rough hands ripping open her dress and clutching madly at her breasts. Powerful hips nudge her thighs apart, his molten shaft plunging deep between her legs, sliding into quivering folds already drenched in anticipation...
The thought made her groan loudly around him even as she took his manhood as far into her throat as she could, sucking hard. That sent him over the edge. Crying out, almost laughing in ecstasy, his hips shook then went rigid as his orgasm crashed down upon him, releasing his first jet of seed. Her moaning transformed into muffled screams as she peaked, experiencing the most incredible sensations in all her life. Her inner walls contracted hard around her fingers as she lovingly swallowed his gift.
Powerful hands grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her abruptly away, her lips disengaging from her lover with a loud pop. “No!” she screamed as successive spurts from the young man landed on the hem of dress and then on the cold stone floor. “No, wait!”
His seed was supposed to be hers! Hers!
She thrashed wildly against the arms holding her, sobbing uncontrollably.
A tall, impossibly handsome man strode into the cell, frowning at her. He turned toward the prisoner, one snowy brow cocked high, his tone mocking. “I thought the Order forbade its followers from using our magicks like that.”
The prisoner glowered at him. “I would not have done it, Entos, if not absolutely necessary.”
Entos nodded, walking up to Uhrla. “Hmf. You have spoken more than once of how important it is to warn the Eleven Worlds of my awful threat, Tully. Of going back to your Tholena and the Father Trees on Ximenes. No doubt you thought that doing so was important enough to ignore the most strictly-enforced rule of the Order: You must not use Ecstasy magic to Seduce someone into loving you.”
The prisoner winced at Entos’ words, making the older man laugh. “Your conscience no doubt tortures you for what you did to her, but I find it, well, encouraging.”
Uhrla shuddered, the longing in her still unquenched. She knew they were talking about her, but somehow it did not matter. All she could understand was the pounding of blood in her temples and the rush of heat to her loins whenever she looked upon the young man. Tully, the tall man had called him. His name hadn’t really seemed important, before. “Please...” she whispered.
The Lord of the castle looked down upon her, a bemused smile forming. “Do you love him, servant?”
She nodded desperately. “Yes. Seasons, yes. I would do anything for him! Anything...”
Tully seemed to shrink into himself. Entos laughed at the prisoner. “Don’t tell me that kind of power over another person doesn’t give you even a small thrill, my young apprentice?”
“Of—of course not,” Tully said.
“Odd, that you stutter those words when you are usually so eloquent.” The tall man walked up and stroked Tully’s cheek sensuously. “You do find it exciting, buried somewhere deep in your false morality, don’t you? Like everyone, you find the forbidden arousing. And forbidden Power can be quite an aphrodisiac, even for people such as us. After all, sex is about power...”
“No. Sex is about love, about pleasure...”
“Oh, spare me the Order propaganda. Sex is survival, about your blood being carried on to the next generation. Sex is a vicious conflict carried out by our most basic instincts, a quiet battle most of us fight all our lives without ever knowing its true nature. Every partner is a conquest or a weapon to be used. Sex is a war, Tully, simple and pure.
“The vast majority of people in the Worlds are slaves to their sexual instincts, and often obey their baser impulses without thinking. We Ecstasy Mages, with our training and magicks, rise above this and place those instincts at our beck and command. That is what makes us the better of the mundanes. Even better than the other Sorcerous Orders.”
One of the guards grumbled. They were both tall and thick, steel taut muscles flowing smoothly beneath perfect skin. Their hauberks bore the sword-on-axe crest of the Order of the Body, a guild of mages dedicated to using their magicks to push their physical selves to perfection and beyond.
Tully knew their very presence here was insane. Body Mages and Ecstasy Mages had been mortal enemies since the fall of the Empire of Pleasures three hundred years before. Why would they be working for Entos?
Entos dipped his head momentarily in the guards’ direction. “The Body Mages have also risen above their baser instincts, in their own, if limited, way.” The guard scowled at the semi-insult, but said nothing. Entos continued. “Sex is not a higher calling, Tully. Your mistress has been blinded by generations of Order propaganda. Sex is war, and seduction a weapon. Every woman who has heard a suitor plead for her charms knows this. Every prostitute who has ever blackmailed a customer knows this. Every courtesan who used his or her wiles to bed themselves into high positions knows his.
“The Pleasure Emperors knew it too, except their powers allowed them to do far more than just bat an eyelash or swing a hip. They used their magic to turn the sexual drives of those around them into weapons of conquest, to turn seduction into a world-capturing campaign. Within a generation they had Seduced kings, wizards and generals into handing them the reigns of power on all Nine Worlds then known. It only made sense. For what mundane could ever resist the power of the greatest sex they would ever have, repeated over and over and over? An addiction far greater than any drug.”
Tully shook his head. “The Empire of Pleasures didn’t last. Entos, you have to see that trying to recreate it is insane. The Pleasure Emperors barely lasted three generations before the mundanes tore them down.”
Entos sighed. “Yes, that is unfortunate. I admit they were short-sighted in many ways. They believed that ruling from behind the scenes would be enough, that taking potential enemies to bed was always an unfailing strategy. They did not act to overtly wipe out powers that could still challenge them, like the minor wizard guilds they failed to seduce into compliance."
