Queen Yavara

ELENA

The drip of water, the howl of wind. The cold on my naked body.

One breath, then another. That was what Adarian taught me so long ago.

The room was lit by a barred window. It cast a dim ray onto my body, centering my exposed belly with a square of light. I was strapped to a wooden board in my cell, my limbs stretched in a spread-eagle, open and helpless. The binds were unescapable, I knew, for I'd placed many beasts in them myself. Only for them, the worst interrogation practice had been waterboarding, and that would be the best of it for me. If I was lucky. I wasn't under ranger jurisdiction anymore. I'd been handed off to the royal guard. I felt a sudden surge of panic, and my limbs flexed against the board, my teeth gritting to suppress my shriek of terror. One breath, then another. I brought myself back into my mind, and felt the mania ebb from me, but not the dread. I knew what was going to happen.

I am going to be tortured.

I thought rationally,

They aren't going to stop when I scream, or when I spill every secret, or when I beg for death. They aren't going to stop until there's nothing left.

My mind raced with the possibilities, each one darker than the last. Was it the pain that terrified me the most, or the mutilation? The mutilation. Each smash of the hammer, each grind of the saw, each cut of the knife would remove more than just flesh and bone. No more playing the violin, no more drawing a bow, no more making love, no more running, no more walking, no more standing, no more tasting, no more seeing. Another wave of panic gripped me, my blood running cold, my heart pounding against my chest until I thought it would explode! One breath, then another. I looked at the ceiling, and saw my reflection in the body-length mirror that was secured to the rafters.

"If you knew this is where you'd end, would you have stayed with her?" I asked myself. My voice echoed with the drip of water, the howl of the wind.

"But this is not where you end, Elena. This is where you begin." A soft voice answered. My breath caught. I looked up, and there were a pair of blue eyes staring at me from the cell door, rimmed with black liner above ebony lips. The door creaked open, and Queen Leveria Tiadoa walked in. She was encased in leather, her blonde hair in a ponytail, her gloved hand holding a velvet box. She shut the door behind her with a clang, then walked toward me. Click, click, click, went her heels on the stone floor, the rub of leather sounding between her thighs, the tinkling of her hooped earrings. She stopped before me, and set her box down. Her eyes took in every inch of my splayed body, a wild, hungry glint in their sapphire depths.

"Amazing." She said with a hushed voice. She looked me in the eye, "It is amazing what my sister has done to you. When Adarian told me what you'd become, I pictured a freak show, but the elegance..." Leveria's heels clicked as she walked around me, "you're not an abomination, but something new and beautiful. Yavara has transformed you. I wish to do the same." She stopped on my other side, then reached across me, and opened her velvet box. Little mechanical shelves unhinged and sprouted, displaying a shining cutlery set, the gleaming edges honed to a deadly sliver. "Elena, I know we never saw eye to eye, but I truly want us to start anew." She brought her lips to my ear, "I'm so glad we have this opportunity."

"I bet you are." I hissed, a droplet of sweat rolling down my forehead.

"I see the feeling is not mutual," Leveria chuckled, "and I got all dressed up just for you."

"I would have put on something more suitable if I'd known I'd be visited by royalty."

"You're fine the way you are." Leveria smiled as she reached into her box, and pulled out a purple syringe.

"It won't work on me." I said, watching her lower the needle to my crotch.

"Oh?" Leveria paused, "and why's that?"

"I've built up an immunity."

Leveria's smile turned crooked. "An immunity to pussy? You've been busy." She pushed the needle into my cock, and I seized, swallowing the scream. I felt the pressure of the injection, the sublimation of aphrodisiac in my loins, and my cock engorged with blood, curving backward as it rose. Leveria watched it with fascination, then looked into my eyes, and frowned. She withdrew the needle, and my erection deflated. "That is... disappointing."

"This never happens to me, I swear!" I croaked.

Leveria narrowed her eyes at me, then broke into a wide grin. "Elena, you've grown a sense of humor!"

"Where? Oh god! Doctor, tell me it's benign!"

Her smile curled wickedly. "It's a small growth, but it needs to be removed." She wrapped one gloved hand around my cock, and reached into her box with the other. She pulled out a pair of snippers, and snapped the blades together for effect. Cold terror enveloped me, seizing my limbs in a petrified lock of joints, my ankles and wrists rubbing raw against the shackles. My eyes widened as she stretched my cock with one hand, and opened the blades with the other. I wanted to beg and scream, but the gears of my mind were locked in panic. The curved edges of the snippers were serrated and cruel, the teeth sharpened to jagged points. Their polished reflection showed the full length of my manhood as they came around my base, and opened wider, poised to snap shut. My flesh crawled, my eyes bulged in their sockets, the acrid taste of bile surged in my throat. "This is the worst happy ending ever." Someone said from somewhere. Wait, I said it.

Leveria paused, and blinked. She looked confused for a second. Then she pitched forward in an explosion of laughter, collapsing atop me, the snippers clattering to the floor. The sound that came from her was high and girlish, almost innocent in its purity. "Oh my god!" She cried as she raised her head, tears streaking down her face.

I knew I was only delaying the inevitable, but I felt the relief nonetheless. In that moment, I was still whole, and despite my terror -perhaps

because of it

-, I laughed with Leveria. It was manic and shrill, nearly a scream in its pitch. And when it started, I couldn't stop. I laughed until my belly ached, my chest burned, and my throat went hoarse, and Leveria laughed with me like we were old friends, our voices mingling in their dank air. Then the sound waned, and I took one breath, and then another.

Leveria was watching me, her face flushed with mirth, a warm smile on her black lips. "I enjoy you, Elena." She said, the echoes of laughter still on her voice, "It's a rare person who can bring levity to grave situations." She gave me a guilty look, "I envy the ability. People are always walking on eggshells around me, and sometimes I wish I could just alleviate the tension. My father could always put people at ease, but I..." Leveria sighed, "I only make them more nervous when I try to be nice."

"You don't say?"

Leveria laughed again, slapping my thigh playfully. "See? Like that. How do you do it so effortlessly?"

"It can only be done effortlessly." I said, my mind racing for things to keep Leveria distracted for a few more precious moments.

"Ah, and I'm always such a try-hard." Leveria shook her head, "I've spent so much time with the Noble Court that conversation has become combat for me. Every word is a weapon, and every sentence is an attack! Oh, it's

exhausting!

" Leveria looked fondly at me, "You know, I think I was almost as nervous as you were when I came down here."

I gave her a flat stare, and she screwed her face up in a grin, then burst into a fit of giggles. "Well," she said, wiping her eye, "maybe not, but I did have butterflies. I couldn't..." she grasped at the air like there was something there, "I couldn't become

me.

I felt like an actor before, but now..." She smiled warmly, "now I can be myself. Thank you, Elena."

"I aim to please."

"As do I." Leveria's black lips creased maleficently, and my heart sank. My time was up. She reached down, and grabbed the snippers from the floor. Snipping them in her hands, she circled me, assessing my body. "It would be a shame to remove your source of humor when it gives you such character." She pondered my penis, then moved her eyes to my left nipple, "Do we start by defeminizing you, or perhaps defacing?" She considered my face with a curious expression, "No... no, that would ruin you too early. Hmph. Well, isn't this an odd quandary?"

"You could always let me go."

Leveria giggled and flicked my nipple, apparently quite amused by my 'joke.' "I thought I knew what I wanted!" She lamented to the ceiling, her arms outstretched, "Ah, but the best laid plans are flexible ones." She dropped her arms to her side, and smiled at me. "The game is still the same; I am going to cut a piece off you every day, then I'm going to leave. Once you've accustomed yourself to the new reality, I will come back the next day, and do it again." She crouched so that her face was a few inches from mine, and she stroked my cheek with the back of her hand, "I was going to start with your cock, then your nipples, then your nose, then your ears. When I was done with your face, I was going to remove your eyelids and put your head in clamps so that you had to look at yourself." She gestured to the mirror above, "I wanted to break you early, you understand. After that, I'd do your fingers and toes, and work my way in." She pinched my cheek, and wrinkled her nose, "But I didn't anticipate actually liking you!"

"I'm sorry for spoiling the party." I said, my mouth void of moisture. I tried to keep my face impassive, but I couldn't control the film of cold sweat that had formed over my body. Leveria wasn't going to do me in one day, or even a week; it was going to be months. Months of lying strapped to a table while I watched myself become less with each day. Twenty-three hours of dread and misery followed by one hour of sheer horror and agony. The thought burrowed its way into my mind just as Leveria's eyes lit up, "I know!" She said with a wide grin, "I'll let you choose!"

"What?"

Leveria stood up, proffering the snippers. "What part of Elena Straltaira do you like the least?"

I gaped at her. "My toenails could use a trim."

Leveria giggled again, her face rosy with mirth. "Be reasonable, Elena. If you don't make the choice, then I will."

I gulped, and looked at my body. I never realized before how precious every part of me was, how everything fit perfectly together to complete the puzzle. No matter what I chose, I would forever notice its absence. Leveria clicked her snippers impatiently, and I cleared my throat. "Second toe on the right foot. It curves over one of my other toes; it always bothered me."

"This one?" Leveria said, gently separating the toe from its companions, "It does kind of bend at a weird angle."

"It's a bitch to walk on."

"Well, just lie back, and let Doctor Leveria Tiadoa assist you with that." She whispered, her voice edging. She pulled the toe backward, remarkably tender in her movements. One breath, then another. She brought the snippers around the toe, then frowned, shook her head subtly, and changed the angle. One breath, then another. Her hands were shaking, sweat ran from her brow. She wiped her face with her sleeve, and refocused. She seemed unsure. "Forgive me, Elena." She said, giving me a bashful expression, "This is my first time doing anything like this."

"Maybe surgery's not your calling." I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice, tried to seem like the calming presence.

"You really are a funny one." Leveria giggled, her posture loosening, her tremulous hands relaxing, "You know, I tortured my mother the same way I did Prestira. Sexual deprivation, humiliation, and pain, but nothing permanent on the flesh. I wanted to break their souls, but you... you, I want to keep as you are for a long time. I hope your spirit is strong enough." She took a deep breath, then smiled broadly at me. She squeezed the handles. The first thing I felt was a piercing cold, like my foot had been dipped in an ice bath. Then, the pain. The serrated teeth bit into the flesh, the jagged edges sawed through the tendons, rending the taut sinew. I screamed, thrashing in my binds, my vision blurring, my heart galloping in my ears. Leveria rotated the blades, cutting a circular path all the way around, exposing the white bone beneath the layers of red meat, the stringing tendons snapping like lute strings back into my foot. My vocal chords ruptured with my shriek, the iron taste of blood in my mouth. Then I felt the cold against my bone, scraping, biting, sawing deeper, deeper, deeper, oh god! Then, nothing. Just a horrible throb in my foot, and the caress of cool air where I should never have felt it.

"WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR MEDICAL DEGREE?!" I shrieked through my agony, my straightened leg bouncing with the spasms that wracked it, my remaining toes curling near to cracking.

Leveria held my severed toe in her gloved hand. She stared from it, to me. Her sapphire eyes were wild, her cheeks were flushed, her breathing was heavy and tense, her bodice heaving with it. Her hands shook with adrenaline as she dropped the snippers into the box with a metallic clang, then struggled to place my toe into a velvet pouch. She looked at me as though to speak, but her trembling lips couldn't form the words, and when her eyes met mine, she averted them quickly. She cleared her throat, grabbed her box, then walked out of the room. The door clanged shut, and I was left alone. The drip of water, the howl of the wind, the horrible pain in my foot. When her footsteps faded to silence, I finally let myself weep.

Hours past. My foot beat with its own pulse, but the pain had faded to a persistent ache. I was exhausted, but my senses were dialed in. The sunlight turned to moonlight, and the darkness deepened. Shadows moved in the corners. Metal screeched and clanged. Footsteps? No, it was just my mind. How long did it take to go mad? The darkness allowed me to paint every horror within it, and each one was more real to me than the last. Screech. Clang. Click, click, click. A lie of my waning sanity. Click, click, click. Did I hear the rub of leather? Did I smell perfume? I felt something. A weight atop me, the plaint presses of a woman's thighs straddling me above the knees. Flash, light. A match was sparked to reveal sapphire eyes ringed in black, set above fair features that looked hellish in the underlit luminance. Leveria lit a candle, and set it on the table beside my board.

"Can't sleep?" She whispered, "Me neither. Maybe we can help each other."

I barely had time to register what was happening before Leveria dipped her head between my legs, and enveloped my flaccid cock in her black lips. I gasped. Her tongue was a wet pillow that curled along my underside, the tip caressing me like a beckoning finger as her lips sucked generously, their black sheened surfaces moist and pliant against me. My mind seemed to rend with the sudden contrast of sensation, the synapses stuck between pain and pleasure, fear and lust. Leveria watched me intently, her leather clad shoulders hunching as she slurped upon me, squelching noises emanating from her sealed lips. I couldn't stop myself. I got hard. I got harder than I'd been for Sherok, for Prestira, for Destiny, for Diamond, for Sapphire, for Onyx, for Ruby, for Crystal and for Opal. Harder than I'd ever been for Yavara. My entire body seemed to pull into my loins, the sensation bursting from the thinning skin, the veins pulsing. And oh, she was soft and hot, wet and tight, her vacuumed lips taking me into her swallowing throat, her tender esophagus closing around me, pulling me deeper. There was no malevolence in her eyes, no cruelty, but only a yearning for me. She splayed her delicate fingers about my pelvis, framing my base with her pressing thumbs, and she sucked me like I'd never been sucked before. Her tongue slithered along me with each pass, wrapping me in a serpentine undulation of wetness, massaging the tension as her lips pulled so tightly. The point of her nose turned down with the stretching of her muzzle, her cheeks becoming gaunt to highlight their extravagant structure. And her eyes, those sapphires that seemed to burn like cobalt flame, rimmed with black liner like coal. The throbbing in my foot seemed to vanish. I became aware that I was moaning. Moaning for her, and oh god, I couldn't stop! I called her name in the throes of ecstasy, my eyes filmed with tears, my mind hinging on every sensation delivered to my paper-thin flesh. I felt one hand slide from my pelvis and trail between my legs, and the fingers there forked to press questioningly against my nethers.

"Yes!" I screamed, unable to deny my desires. She pushed two fingers into my slit, and two into my anus, and my holes sucked her in greedily, the tender flesh therein embracing her. She kneaded my feminine parts with trepidation, experienced, but very aware of her inexperience. It didn't matter. My senses were heightened to a state I'd never known before, and every gentle press of her fingertips sent my insides into a chaos of convulsion. She buried herself to the bottom knuckle, and slowly moved in and out, making me feel her penetration anew each time, my pussy drooling and spurting my gelatinous nectar, my sphincter closing behind her exiting tips just to be opened again, each violation a celebration of sensation, my pelvic floor flexing in spasms of delight. But it was her mouth that captured me, her black lips ringed around my dark throbbing meat, her alabaster flesh ruby with her exhilaration. She began to hum lecherous moans around me, her hips twisting behind her, her leather-clad glutes bulging in their constraints. She worked my shaft to a fervor, her head bobbing up and down, her humming pitch rising, her brows knitting together. Her platinum pony tail flailed behind her as she plunged again, and again, and again, her fingers moving in accordance with her mouth, raping me, but oh, how could I call it such?! For I wasn't moaning, but crying out, my mouth a smiling oval of sexual awe, tears of ecstasy streaking down my cheeks. Sounds like muffled screeches were emanating from her seal, and I could see in her possessed eyes that she was coming with me, aroused to the point that she could orgasm without even touching herself. With a final plunge of her lips and fingers, I screamed to the ceiling, seeing my reflection above, seeing her black-leathered body feeding from me like a lioness over downed prey. Then the visage blurred in my breaking euphoria, and I arched against the spread of my limbs, and came into Leveria's mouth. She collapsed atop me, her body trembling, my eroticizing nectar pumping down her constricting gullet. My feminine holes contracted in orgasm, and I sobbed as she sucked me dry, swallowing all that I had to offer.

We lay there in the dark cell, a square of moonlight shining from the basement window, framing Leveria's face as she slowly withdrew. My cock popped from her mouth, sheened black with her smeared lipstick. She licked me from base to tip, and when she met my apex, her eyes focused. Her demeanor changed. She looked suddenly very uncomfortable, and she awkwardly shifted off me. I was more than uncomfortable. I had been raped in the worst way. For in that moment of climax, I wasn't terrified, or disgusted, or even ashamed. I was only... but I wouldn't dare think it. Leveria swallowed, then dissipated into the darkness. The door clanged shut, and I was left alone once again. The drip of water, the howl of the wind, the horrible throbbing in my foot coming back to me. But all I could think about, was her.

LEVERIA

"...of course, we all want a quick end to this war," Lord Ternias said grandly on the floor of the Noble Court, "but there are those amongst us that have a vested interest in prolonging it. Families with strong military ties stand to profit immensely from a drawn-out effort."