YAVARA
The arrow was deep in my breast, blood flowing freely from the wound. I coughed wet iron, my throat flooding. The vampires came flowing from below deck, covered head to toe in black clothing. They moved like ebony blurs, passing right through the pirates and turning them into clouds of red. I grabbed a mental hold of one of the men dragging Prestira and made him kill the other. One of his comrades put a hatchet in the back of his head and continued to drag the woman away. I feebly titled my head up and launched the kidnapper into the sea. Another one grabbed hold of the witch and continued to drag her. The black cloaks of the vampires obstructed my vision, preventing me from seeing what my mind searched for. Severed limbs flew, guts and awful splattered on the deck, and the black blurs advanced toward the pirate ship like mist. A salvo of flame-shot burst from the torches on the pirate vessel. The clothes of the vampires were burned off them, and the exposed flesh hissed and melted in the sun. Screams sounded from all around, horrible and agonized, beautiful faces half-crisped and smoking before my eyes. Our ship lurched to its side as the harpoons disconnected. The Sea Serpent vessel keeled and sailed away, the oars pulling it further. I reached out with my mind, focusing on its bow, pulling back with every atom between me and it. It slowed down for a second, but I wasn't strong enough to stop it. Its massive sails caught the wind and swelled, and the ship grew smaller, and smaller, and smaller. I felt gentle hands take me and carry me below deck. I screamed out for them to chase the pirate vessel, but they didn't listen to me. I screamed and screamed, tears streaking down my face. What was I screaming about? Who were these people? Where was I? The ceiling began to spin, my vision began to fade. A concerned face blurred above me as the world went black.
Prestira, I'm so sorry.
PRESTIRA
"Wake up sleepy-head." A gravelly voice teased as I ebbed into consciousness. My wrists and ankles were bound, and my fingers were entwined. I looked down to see a syringe was protruding from my forearm. Captain Timothy Two-Shot stood over me, his glass eye looking in the opposite direction, a cigarette smoked from between his lips. "Prestira Rasloraca, you have made some powerful enemies."
"I've made some powerful friends too, Tim," I murmured as I sat upright, "and they'll be coming after me."
"The vampires don't have a ship fast enough to catch us," Tim said, smiling, "but you don't need them to, do you? You just need to wait out until nightfall, and then you can reveal your true nature and slaughter my crew. That was your plan, wasn't it?"
I tried to keep the despair off my face, but Tim's widening grin told me I'd failed. I looked down at the needle sticking in my arm.
"When we heard you and Yavara were aboard Titus's ship, we figured he bit you. I mean, Titus wouldn't just join you if you didn't give him something in return, right? So we performed a little test, and lo and behold, the Witch of Ardeni has become a day-walker. We injected you with a garlic solution; you can't turn on us anytime soon."
I laughed helplessly. "So what now, Tim?"
"Well Prestira," Tim said as he crouched down to eye level, "my crew was really hoping we'd get Yavara. There's a half-million-dollar price on her head, but you're the next best thing. What happens now, Prestira, is you're going to Bentius to answer to Queen Leveria Tiadoa."
"Yavara will make you a better offer than anything Leveria can give you." I said weakly, "We have millions stashed away on our ships."
"So I heard," Tim laughed, "but I'm not making an enemy of a nation as powerful as the Highlands to join your doomed cause." Tim pulled out two small gems from his coat. "Do you know what these are?"
I nodded. They were neuron disruptors. They would prevent me from using my magic even if I got my fingers free. Tim placed them on my temples. The gems spun rapidly, growing hot, then searing as they drilled their way into my skull. My eyes watered in pain and I cried out, collapsing onto the floor. I watched my blood-connections between Titus and Yavara disappear from my mind. I was alone.
Tim tilted my head upright by the chin. He was grinning broadly now, his rotten yellow teeth black around the gums. "There's some fellas here who've been dying to make your acquaintance, Prestira Rasloraca. You'll not want for quality company while you're aboard my ship. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. The Sea Serpents are always happy to accommodate our guests."
Two men grabbed me by the shoulders and dragged me from the cabin. They pulled me across the deck until we reached the hatch, and then pushed me down the steps, my body tumbling roughly to the wood floor. My eyes adjusted to the darkness of the hold. I wish they hadn't. This was a slaver's vessel, and the crew had taken it upon themselves to "train" the slaves. At least thirty elf women and twenty Ardeni human women were in holding, their bodies secured like cattle in stockades. The smell was horrific, but the screams were worse. Those that weren't being tortured were being raped, and the unlucky few were receiving both accommodations.
"These will be your quarters, Prestira." Sneered an orc, "I hope they're to your satisfaction."
"They could use some drapes, maybe a few decorative pillows-" my witty comment was cut short by vicious slap across the face. My head spun to the side, my neck straining with whiplash. I was dragged into a pen between two dawn-elves who were being filled by three men each. Their emerald eyes were glazed over, their scarlet hair was matted and crusted, and their olive flesh was marred with scores of welts, bruises, and burns. They operated instinctively, their minds long gone. They writhed and screamed and gushed their orgasms, then obediently swallowed what had been deposited in their mouths, and opened for the next man.
The orc chained my wrists to a loop in the deck, then bolted my ankle shackles to the floor. I was forced in a bent over position, my legs spread wide. The pen gate shut behind me, and the bolt snapped into place with metallic twang. It was then that I fully realized my situation. I was going to be raped and tortured, and no one was going to save me before it happened. I hadn't come to terms with reality until it was staring me in the face. Reality was a young scarred human with a ring-gag in his hands.
"Open your mouth." He commanded.
I shook my head. A whip sliced across my back. I screamed, my spine bowing away from the pain, my belly touching the filthy floor.
"Open your mouth." He said again. I complied this time, knowing they would keep whipping me until I submitted. The ring-gag was roughly forced between my teeth and strapped behind my head.
"Think of it as bitch training-wheels," the human sneered, "after a while, you won't need it anymore. Isn't that right, Twenty-Three?" He asked the dawn-elf beside me.
"It's true!" She smiled stupidly, her gaping mouth expiring moaning pants, her hips rocking as she took two men to the hilt, "After a while, you just give up. It makes it
so
much better."
"That's a good girl, Twenty-Three." The man stuck a thumb in her mouth, "Our newest slave is called Fifty-One. She'll be your roommate until we get to Bentius."
Twenty-Three sucked her master's thumb, moaning delightedly to be to be so attended by him. Her slender olive body was hogtied with crude rope, her wrists and ankles bound together at her tailbone, the suppleness of her flesh revealed by the tautness of her binds. Her eyes were glossed and unseeing, the light behind them gone. I didn't know how long it took them to break her, but I wouldn't give in easily. There had to be hope. Yavara was coming for me.
The human dropped his pants and pulled out his cock. I'd hoped the vicious bastard was just compensating for something with his cruelty, but I was wrong. He smeared his fat stinking junk all over my face, leaving his scent stuck in my nostrils. Then he placed the head of his cock against my open mouth, and drove in. I gagged involuntarily, my throat closing around the revolting meat ravaging it. He gripped the back of my head and forced it forward, pressing my nose into his loins, making me choke until I surrendered to him. There was no use in resisting, not when each gag just made it a tighter fit for him. I opened my throat as I had done for my lovers, and let my rapist have it. Again, and again he buried himself into my neck, groaning with his fists in his hair, squishing my face against his crotch. I swallowed around him each time, trying to finish him as quickly as I could.
