VIOLENT/NON-CONSENSUAL SEX WARNING/DISCLAIMER: It is a story portraying a Conqueror/slave relationship, so it would appear non-consensual at first. As for sexual violence, there are scenes (In parts 3 and 4) which are detailed and graphic, and may not suite some readers.
Other Disclaimers: See Part 1
SPECIAL THANKS : My humble most ardent gratitude to the excellent, most brilliant Beta readers nancyjean and alexandriaruth , whom I can't thank enough.
Comments & Feedback : MOST WELCOMED – The more you write me, the quicker I post.
http://www.angelfire.com/id/DarkAngel/stories.html
Part 30
“Majesties, your Grace, the Horde,” was a servant's urgent words that interrupted the Royal family as they were taking their supper at the dining hall.
The Conqueror put her knife down, she calmly raised the daintily embroidered piece of cloth that rested on her thigh and wiped her mouth with it.
The Queen's reaction wasn't as calm. She remembered the stories about the Horde, which her Lord had told her. How fierce and formidable their warriors were.
“Where?” the Conqueror asked.
" Phrygia , " the servant replied.
"A scroll and a quill," the Conqueror ordered.
The servant approached the Conqueror and placed a blank scroll, a quill and an inkwell before her. As the Conqueror put quill to scroll and wrote down her orders, she muttered, "Tomorrow at daybreak we head out to Phrygia ."
"We, my Lord?" asked the nervous Queen even though she already knew the answer to that question. It wasn't her life she was scared for, but the life of her daughter.
"Her Grace and I," the Conqueror confirmed her wife's worst fear. She put the scroll into the servant's hand. "Deliver this to the commander of the Imperial Guard , " she commanded, "Now!"
He bowed before her then backed away and made haste to do his Master's bidding.
The Queen's blood rushed from her face. She couldn't bring herself to take another bite of the food resting on the plate before her. She pushed the plate further away from her and let out a gasp, for she felt like she was about to faint.
The Conqueror maintained her stoicism and continued to eat as if nothing had happened. The Princess looked at the both of them and inwardly she pitied her mother. What she saw playing before her at the dinner table hadn't been a novelty. She had seen years' worth of silences between them. She had seen the Queen's weak will being trampled over and overruled by the Conqueror's iron will.
"If I may, my Lord…" the Queen began to say, but the Conqueror cut through her speech.
"Her Grace's training days are over. The sooner she readies her stomach to the sights of war the better. She will lead the Realm's forces one day. It is high time she spilt enemy blood."
"Of course, my Lord," the Queen replied with resignation, yet her appetite was beyond repair. She wasn't disappointed for she had held no great expectations to succeed in changing her Lord's mind and forestalling her daughter from facing war.
The following day, soon after the sun stretched out her rays, the Conqueror and the Princess made their way to the armory. Their grooms fastened the battle attires to their persons.
Both the Conqueror and her heir wore light armor made of brass and plated gold with a front breastplate with muscle cuirasses and a lion imprint, along with bracers and greaves. In their hands they held the Royal Corinthian style helms, with horsehair plumes adoring the tops.
The Princess was only too eager to face the battlefield. Like many her age, especially those who have never faced death in their short lives, she felt invincible and immune to death. As a matter of fact, death wasn't tangible in her eyes, and didn't even rank amongst one of the outcomes of war.
"To Phrygia , Majesty?"
"Before we head out, we shall take our leave of her Majesty the Queen and bid her farewell," the Conqueror said, knowing full well that despite the early hour, the Queen was ready and waiting for them in her chambers.
"The Lord Conqueror and her Grace, Princess Athena," one of the Queen's ladies in waiting announced.
"Your Majesty," the Queen and her ladies curtsied.
The Queen's ladies in waiting curtsied before the Princess and greeted her by her honorific.
"Your Majesty," both the Conqueror and the Princess bowed before the Queen.
"You may take your leave, ladies," the Queen addressed her servants and they all left her presence.
"We came to say goodbye, my Lady," the Conqueror told her Queen.
For her Lord's benefit, the Queen upheld and preserved a formal and detached expression on her face.
"May all your enemies fall before you, my Lord," the Queen said.
"Thank you, my Lady. You are to act as regent in my absence," the Conqueror informed her.
"I will, my Lord."
"What are my orders, your Majesty?" the Princess asked the Conqueror.
"You are never to leave my side from the moment we leave Corinth to the moment we return. That is all for now," the Conqueror stated.
The Queen then turned to her daughter and embraced her tightly. "Be safe, Athena," she whispered and could barely pry open her own arms from around her beloved daughter.
"Go and wait for me outside, Athena," the Conqueror said after the Queen had released her tight hold from around her daughter and the latter vacated the Queen's chambers.
As soon as the doors were closed behind the Princess, the Conqueror collected her wife in her arms and pressed her tightly against her. "My love," she whispered softly in her ear, and inwardly she was missing her already.
"How long before you return to me, my Lion?"
"It is hard to determine. It won't be two armies meeting on the battlefield. The Horde hunt like a pack of wolves, and as such, I will try to end their attacks by killing their Alpha, their leader. I will return to you as soon as I'm able," the Conqueror said, still not prepared to lose physical contact with her wife.
"Swear to me that you shall return back to me alive, my Lord," Queen Gabrielle demanded, arresting her worries so as not to distract her Lord from the mission at hand.
"I do so swear, my Lady," the Conqueror vowed then added whispering , "When I return…"
"I know, my Lord, I shall be prepared to receive all of you," the Queen answered, fully aware of what lay on her Lord's heart. She blinked away her unshed tears and sniffled when she finally let go of her Lord, and began straightening the dark cloak covering the Conqueror's shoulders.
"I reckon we shall soon find out if the same curse that streams through my veins also streams through hers," the Conqueror cast her gaze briefly at the direction of the entrance, signaling her wife that she was referring to their daughter.
A shiver ran through the Queen's spine. Back between the Conqueror's arms, she lost herself in a scorching kiss.
After long moments in each other's arms, the Conqueror released her Queen and made her way to the doors.
"Xena," she heard her Queen call from behind her just as she reached the door, using a tone of voice that the Conqueror had never heard her use before, "Bring back our daughter to me alive and unharmed."
The Conqueror turned and bowed before her Queen. "By your will, your Majesty," she said and left the Queen's presence.
***
It took the Conqueror and her forces a little less than a moon to subdue the Horde. The Conqueror's strategy of defeating their leader and thus defeating their warriors proved to be correct and accurate. Princess Athena exhibited all the earmarks of a supreme warrior. She was baptized by the Horde's blood in front of her fellow warriors' and future subordinates' spurring cries of admiration.
On the ride back from Phrygia , soon after the Horde had been defeated, the Conqueror saw the clear signs of battle-lust on her daughter.
"Are you troubled by what you've seen and done during battle?" the Conqueror asked, knowing only too well that wasn't the reason for her daughter's uneasiness and restlessness.
"No, Majesty. I am not entirely sure of what it is… I can feel my blood seething and I can hear it rushing in my ears. I'm… overwhelmed with raging need… like something sinister and malicious brewing in me," the Princess tried to explain, but when she looked at the Conqueror it was as if she was looking into a mirror.
"It is battle-lust, daughter," the Conqueror gravely informed her.
By the time they have reached Corinth , the Conqueror had explicated all there was about the curse their blood shared. They halted the horses near the brothel, which the Conqueror had brought her daughter to be educated.
"Are you coming in, your Majesty?" the Princess asked, standing on the establishment of ill repute's threshold, logically assuming that the Conqueror would join her.
"Have you frequented this establishment often since you've first came here?" the Conqueror inquired.
"I have, your Majesty," the young Princess replied without an ounce of shame in her voice, quite the contrary.
"Then it is unseemly and uncouth that I should use the same women you have. You go in and I shall go to a different establishment to sate my needs," the Conqueror replied with darkened eyes.
Of course, the Conqueror had no intention of going anywhere but straight back to her Queen, whom she could barely wait to see. The last exchange of words she had with the young Princess was a mere ploy designed mainly to plant two notions in Athena's head. The first, that the Queen would be safe with her dignity and respectability intact. The second, to further cultivate the idea that neither love nor fidelity existed within her, only lust. But most importantly, the Conqueror wished to set an example for her successor.
Upon hearing the Conqueror's response, Princess Athena was surprised. Not by the content, for in her mind, the Conqueror merely affirmed what she thought she had already known, but that the Conqueror raised such delicate and private matter, which had never been her habit.
"I shall see you tomorrow after breakfast at the Great Hall, your Grace. Remember what I've instructed you regarding consent."
"She must agree to each and every act I wish to commit on her and stop when she asks," the Princess recited the Conqueror's instructions almost word for word.
The Conqueror nodded her head and mounted her mare.
"Your Majesty," Princess Athena bowed before her Ruler and entered the brothel.
When the Conqueror entered the Imperial chambers, she was greeted by her wife the Queen, who dashed towards her as soon as she heard the doors being opened.
"My Lord," the Queen exclaimed as she saw the familiar and hideous sight of her Lord as she returned from the battlefield.
"Gabrielle," the Conqueror answered, clinging as hard as she could to the last shreds of her humanity before allowing the darkness inside her to volley forth like an irregular gale.
"Athena?" the Queen looked back over the Conqueror's shoulder and to the door as if expecting her daughter to follow right behind the Conqueror.
"She is safe and unharmed," the Conqueror replied quickly so to put an end to the suspense and the Queen's mind at rest.
"Where is she?"
The Conqueror became less than forthcoming. "I trust you shall see her tomorrow morning," though the look in her Lord's eyes told more than the Queen wanted to know.
The Queen unclasped the Conqueror's dark cloak from around her shoulders, and as soon as the cloak was off, a gash on the Conqueror's bicep was revealed to the Queen's astonished and aghast eyes.
"As I was fighting the Horde's leader, one of their warrior's must have recognized Athena as my daughter due to the striking resemblance between us, and threw his axe at her. I caught it in midair but the Horde's leader managed to put his blade on me," the Conqueror explained. "Only then did I notice that Athena was well aware of the weapon flying at her direction and would have caught it without my help."
"Take off your attire, my Lord, I will go and fetch my needle and a thread," the Queen said.
While the Conqueror was soaking in the lukewarm bath, the Queen returned to the Imperial chambers with what she needed to sew the opened wound, along with a goblet filled with strong spirits.
The Conqueror rose from the bath, and the water cascaded down her heated body.
The Queen led the Conqueror to her favorite armchair and took a seat herself on a low stool to the Conqueror's left. First she doused the open gash with the spirits to clean it.
The burning sensation made the Conqueror, slouched in her armchair, to wince. " It hurts," she told her wife.
"Forgive me, my Lord. I shall try and do better," the Queen said and went on attending to the Conqueror's injury. She threaded the needle and began to stitch the gash, occasionally wiping the fresh blood that oozed from the Conqueror's flesh with a piece of clean cloth.
When she felt the needle piercing her wounded flesh, tearing burn lances to it, the Conqueror squared her shoulders, launched her healthy hand and gripped the Queen's wrist tightly, stilling its movement. "It hurts," she repeated, and when the Queen looked into the Conqueror's eyes she realized it wasn't her loving Lord that was staring back at her through the steel cobalt orbs but the dark beast.
When the gash was clean and closed, the Queen unknotted the laces of her nightgown, letting it billow to the ground like a feather. She then went to the pile of the Conqueror's garments, which had been lying in disarray on the bath chamber floor. She picked up the Conqueror's riding crop and went to kneel before her.
At her Lord's feet with her head down and her backside resting over her heels, the Queen lifted up the crop with both hands and presented it to her Lord.
The Conqueror leaned back into her armchair, glared at the small woman at her feet and rhythmically tapped her fingers over the arm of her seat.
"Did you receive pleasure from it?" the Conqueror asked.
Gabrielle hadn't the slightest idea as to what her Lord was referring to.
"My Lord?" she asked meekly, her hands still raised in the air with the Conqueror's crop on top of them.
The Conqueror's blazing glare remained fixed on her wife. She saw the petite woman swallow nervously. She remembered how much it used to excite her to see Gabrielle terrified when she had been a slave, unable to understand her Lord's mind.
"Causing me pain," the Conqueror finally clarified. The tapping of her fingers stopped and she folded her arms over her naked chest.
"I did not, my Lord. It pained me more than it pained you," Gabrielle replied quietly.
"Really? Just before I left for Phrygia … you told me to bring your daughter back alive to you… It sounded very much like an order," the Conqueror said and leaned forward.
"I pray you, my Lord, to forgive your humble servant."
"Inflicting pain on me, giving me orders… Have you forgotten who I am and what you are!?"
"I have behaved most reprehensibly, my Lord," Gabrielle said. There was no doubt in her mind that the Conqueror's words were uttered for the sole purpose of enticing their desire.
The Conqueror took the crop from her wife's hands and rose to her feet, pattering its leathered tip rapidly against her own muscle-corded calf.
"I ought to put your collar back around your neck and put you on a leash just to remind you of the natural order of things," the Conqueror threatened.
An empty threat, Gabrielle knew perfectly well, but just imagining it in her mind made her hot, wet and aching between her thighs.
"I am yours to do as you please, my Lord," Gabrielle rendered an answer she knew her Lord would relish the most.
"Bend over the stool," the Conqueror commanded.
The order carried by the Conqueror's authoritative voice sounded delicious and stimulating to Gabrielle and sent her heart racing wildly with anticipation. She quickly complied with her Lord's demand and bent over the stool, her stomach pressing on top of its surface, her head hanging down over one side of it along with her ample breasts dangling over her chin and her buttocks prominently poised upwards with both globes exposed and parted. Gabrielle could see as high as her Lord's knees. She saw the crop being raised from the Conqueror's calf and then she lost sight of it. She knew her Lord was aiming her strike.
The Conqueror swung her crop and delivered a harsh lash to Gabrielle's right buttock, making the reddened flesh sizzle.
"Right about now I wager you would have preferred it if I fornicated with some poor wench in a brothel rather than bringing my need to you to cater," the Conqueror said.
"It would have broken my heart, my Lord, if you'd chosen to deprive me of this pleasure and given it to someone other than me," the Queen answered sincerely and braced herself for the second strike that landed equally on her left buttock.
The Conqueror's vicious rod licked and bit the flesh of her buttocks and thighs. The searing flagellations left marvelous pulsating stripes on the Queen, that sent both of their lustful yearnings soaring. The Queen steeled herself and reveled in the fact that she couldn't see where the next blow was about to come from and where it would hit. Only the whistle sound as the crop tore through the air announced it was coming.
When the soft leather tip played delicious havoc on the Queen's bursting rosebud of her womanhood, a torrent of her essence surged out of her and washed her nether lips and made the sensitive area glisten in the firelight.
Then the Conqueror issued an order she had never issued before, much to the Queen's surprise.
"Resist me," the Conqueror demanded.
The Queen's brow furrowed, "My Lord?"
"Fight me! Fight me like your life depends upon it," she elaborated, and then with her leg she shoved the stool away from beneath the Queen.
Just when Gabrielle thought her desire couldn't possibly reach any higher, the Conqueror suggested a new play that nearly made the younger woman explode. Turning to lie prone on the hirsute Persian carpet, Gabrielle saw the Conqueror lowering her magnificent strong body to the ground.
In an instant, Gabrielle crossed her legs tightly, denying access to her Lord.
The Conqueror gripped her Queen's delicate ankles and tried to pry open her legs, but the younger woman seemed adamant to keep them closed. The Conqueror moved to straddle her Queen, resting her length on the Queen's belly. She leaned over and tried to capture Gabrielle's lips with her mouth but the Queen turned her head to the side and refused to allow it.
The Queen saw the Conqueror's strong hands moving steadfastly towards hers, and she realized that her Lord was about to incapacitate them. She knew she needed to land a preemptive strike and so she launched her palm and slapped the Conqueror hard across her face.
An expression of surprise briefly appeared on the Conqueror's face, and for a moment Gabrielle, knowing that her Lord was wired with battle-lust still, felt frightened and exhilarated.
The Conqueror clenched her jaw, rubbed the sting of the slap she had received, and glared at her wife. The sight of her wild Queen made her feral heart pump blood in an increased rate. She moved swiftly and managed to grasp Gabrielle's left arm and secured it effortlessly against the ground above her head.
Gabrielle squirmed under her Lord's debilitating weight, and tried with all her might to push her off her, but to no avail. With her free hand, though, she clawed leaving a long bleeding scratch on the Conqueror's right breast.
The Conqueror snarled, fueled with raging lust. Determined, she leaned down again and forcefully sucked the Queen's tender neck, snaring the Queen's free hand between their heated, sweaty bodies.
As they were wrestling each other on the ground, it occurred to Gabrielle that her Lord was holding back and wasn't using her entire true and awesome power with her. After all, she had seen the Conqueror bring down strong and able warriors with a single blow of her arm. She realized then that her Lord was careful not to cause any serious injury to her, and also, with using only a fraction of her strength, she was prolonging the arousing play.
“In nature, do you know what happens when a lion kills its rival?”
Gabrielle shook her head, “I don't, my Lord.”
“The lioness goes straight into heat,” the Conqueror replied and exposed her teeth.
When the Conqueror's ravenous mouth traveled further down and suckled the Queen's erect and rosy nipple, Gabrielle succeeded in freeing her hand again and tried to push the Conqueror's head to get her to release her sucking mouth away from her inflamed nipple. In doing so, Gabrielle felt conflicted, for on the one hand she craved the carnal connection more than she needed air to breathe at that moment, but on the other hand, she wished to give her Lord a good and stimulating fight.
Sensing her Queen's turmoil, the Conqueror smiled.
However, it wasn't a sinister smile, but a lascivious and playful smile, and the Queen recognized her loving Lord immediately. The dark beast had retreated.
"You don't seem to try very hard, Gabrielle," the Conqueror jeered in humor.
"I can't resist you, Xena… Not because of your formidable strength… You are simply irresistible," the Queen laughed.
The Conqueror caressed her wife with admiring eyes, "You are so beautiful, Gabrielle," she said hoarsely.
In return, Gabrielle extended out her pink tongue and licked the blood she had drawn from the scratch on her Lord's breast. She savored the metallic flavor of the thick and potent substance.
Upon seeing the Queen's lips sullied with her blood, the Conqueror turned round the Queen's body to lie with her stomach against the carpet.
When the Conqueror finally crouched behind her, the Queen's urgent desire for release was insurmountable.
Like a predatory animal, the Conqueror first sniffed between the Queen's legs to catch a whiff of her scented arousal, then she slammed her shaft deep past her Queen's tight sphincter, making them both grunt heavily.
One of the Conqueror's hands slithered beneath Gabrielle and two long fingers parted the Queen's wet folds and twirled inside the Queen's lubricated slit.
Gabrielle was beside herself. She pressed down her throbbing, molten nub tenaciously against the heel of her Lord's hand.
The Conqueror's hips incessantly circled, creating a delicious pressure in her own core as beneath her Gabrielle trembled, her smaller body unconsciously arching as it strove to make further contact with the object of its desire .
After so many years together, their bodies knew one another completely; anticipated each other's movements, gestures and pleasures. As they danced together on the floor to the cadence of their desire for one another, they both knew they were close. Wordlessly they synchronized their climax and when they reached their peak they clung together, growling and screaming their shuddering release, bathing each other with their nectars.
They kept on lying, still connected to one another, on the carpet, enjoying the sweet waves of the aftershock.
A few long moments later the Conqueror lumbered to her feet. Easily, she hefted the smaller woman into her arms and with shuffling steps they floundered together on their bed, laughing softly.
Gabrielle's fingers unbuckled the Conqueror's leather harness, then combed through the dark, shortly trimmed wet curls before she lifted her glazed fingers to her lips, prizing the familiar tang.
The Conqueror chuckled at her lover's greedy appetite. She moved her tongue over her beloved Queen's buttocks and thighs, soothing the welts she had left on them with her crop, as the Queen moaned and purred with pleasure and delight.
"The Lion is licking the little vixen," the Queen said in a sleepy and amused tone of voice.
"You are not a vixen, but a Lioness," the Conqueror replied, gathering her semi-slumbering wife in her arms and pulling the covers over their cooling bodies.
"Hmmm… Lioness…" murmured the contented Queen on sleep's threshold.
Replete, the Conqueror uttered very softly, "My love for you is endless, Gabrielle," and kissed her wife's temple.
"I love you, too, my Lord."