“Now. Now. Please,” he gasped, rotating his hips wantonly and grinding up against Bloodraven’s hand. Bloodraven squeezed his ass harder, fingers scissoring inside him, stretching him this way, then that. A third finger went in and Yhalen pressed his face against the furs, drooling.
Bloodraven pulled him up, one hand under his hips and fingers still inside him, and Yhalen shifted position eagerly. When the fingers pulled out, the tip of Bloodraven’s cock, pressing firmly against Yhalen’s opening, immediately replaced them. It was bigger than three fingers, and he had to push to force it inside. He stopped, the flared head of his cock resting outside the grasping mouth of Yhalen’s ass. He held steady for a moment, thumbs parting Yhalen’s buttocks as his fingers bit into the fleshy 231
muscle of his cheeks—and then he pushed in, and Yhalen’s body stretched to accept him as fingers of pain lanced out from protesting flesh. But the pain faded, replaced by a constant sensation of tension that increased by increments as Bloodraven slowly inched his way inside.
Six inches in, and he would pull out so only the head was still buried, then slide back in. Eight inches and he would repeat the process, slowly and methodically allowing Yhalen’s body to adjust to the presence of his cock. Slowly and methodically driving Yhalen senseless with need, until all he could think or feel or focus on the thick heat of what stretched his body, the rapid pulse of a heart beat thrumming through the silken skin of that cock, independent of his own.
Bloodraven bent over his back, big balls warm against the back of Yhalen’s thighs, as he rested skin against skin for long moments, while Yhalen quivered on splayed knees, his face against the furs as he trembled.
Then Bloodraven pushed himself up, a hand on the floor to either side of Yhalen’s shoulders, and began to move. Slow and powerful strokes that threatened to steal Yhalen’s breath upon each deep-seated thrust.
Bloodraven pulled him backwards, back against his chest, so that he was sitting on Bloodraven’s cock, impaled on a length that weight and his position allowed to sink deeper into his bowels. He moaned, head back against the twitching muscle of Bloodraven’s shoulder, Bloodraven’s hands firm on his hips as he moved him up and down upon his lap. Yhalen stroked his cock, the pain in his hands a forgotten, trivial thing in comparison to the sensations in his guts. His balls tightened into hard little globes and he came a second time, spilling on his hands and his belly. Bloodraven still thrust into him, into his rhythm now. Without the stimulation of Yhalen’s own erection, the pleasure began to fall more into the category of pain. His gasps became louder, his moans more desperate, the little sounds he made beginning to sound more like whimpers than cries of pleasure.
Bloodraven pushed him forward and pulled out of him without coming, deftly turning him over onto his back and pushing his legs up to his chest. Yhalen could not see his expression in the pitch-blackness of the den, but he knew from experience it would be determined and grim, every particle of Bloodraven’s essence focused in on the fucking. He pushed back in, hard, bearing down with his considerable weight to full insertion, then began thrusting quickly, his own growling groans drowning out the sounds Yhalen made. A dozen thrusts and he cried out, straining as his cock spasmed and he spilled into Yhalen’s bowels.
Yhalen screamed, and Bloodraven did as well—a hoarse cry of shock and his body jerked forward, crushing Yhalen almost in two. He rocked almost in impact before he rolled to the side, and Yhalen’s dazed eyes saw the pelt at the door held open by a huge silhouette of an ogre body. He saw the glint of a long blade as it rose and plunged into the shadowy contours of Bloodraven’s body, and he screamed again, propelling himself forward against that huge body. Trying to stop another plunge of the blade, because Bloodraven wasn’t moving to deflect it himself.
He was shoved backwards, into the wall of the cave, as the big shape moved into the cramped den.
Shaking off the pain of shoulder and head against the stone, he scrambled in the dark to shield Bloodraven.
He felt skin slick with blood. Throwing out his senses in panicked desperation, he felt the slow, shuddering beats of a heart failing, of mortal wounds that pierced kidneys and heart.
He heard an ogre voice growling something. Heard words filled with seething hate and he knew who it was, even without seeing. Deathclaw, striking the only way he could now at Bloodraven—from behind in the dead of night.
Yhalen was sobbing, clutching to Bloodraven’s shoulder and rocking as he cried. He could feel death creeping up, fast and inevitable. Deathclaw’s hand shot out and slammed against Yhalen’s chest, knocking him backwards before the withered ogre began to crawl over Bloodraven’s body to crush him.
One huge knee in his gut pressed the air out of Yhalen as a hand covered his face, pressing it back against the rock floor. Smothering him even as his skull was slowly crushed. As Bloodraven died beside him.
No. He wouldn’t allow it. He couldn’t. As desperate as he was to save his own life, saving Bloodraven’s seemed a greater urgency. He summoned that subtle, inconsistent power within him and grasped hold of the wavering aura of Deathclaw’s vitality. Saw it as a dimly glowing, splotched thing.
He snared it like a man gathering the web of a spider around his hand, letting the strands cling to his hand as he wound them around and around his fingers, destroying the structure as he withdrew.
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Deathclaw gasped, a dry, choking sound, and the weight of his body on Yhalen lessened, the strength of his grip on Yhalen’s head letting up suddenly as his arms trembled. Yhalen shoved up at him, and he toppled with a wisp of dry skin. Yhalen rolled, digging both hands into Bloodraven’s arm, willing that stolen vitality into his failing body. He plunged into the depths of his flesh, instinctively finding the worst of the damage, and willing wounds to close. Willing torn flesh whole again. There wasn’t enough stolen life-force from Deathclaw, who had already been depleted, to finish so grave a healing. Unflinchingly, Yhalen gave of himself, letting his vitality flow into Bloodraven like water dribbling through his hands. He was barely able to concentrate as it left him upon the vital task of directing the flow.
He collapsed atop Bloodraven, head spinning, vision dark around the edges, body heavy and leaden. A sudden flare of light blinded him and the deafening cries of ogre voices echoed in his head.
He saw in the flare of torchlight, the hide ripped off the mouth of the den and a collection of wide-eyed, snarling ogre faces glaring in. Saw the withered collection of flesh and bone he had made of Deathclaw, the body seeming like a corpse dug up, dried and shrunken from its grave, only identifiable by the tattoos and the multitude of gold rings in his ears. Bloodraven still and bloody, and himself, hands and arms smeared with red.
They stared, seeing what he saw, and horrified at the implications. Then the natural ogre impulse to destroy what one feared set in and the first one crowded in, crouching low to enter the small den.
Grabbing him by the hair, the ogre flung him against the wall, next to the husk he’d made of Deathclaw.
He hit headfirst this time and slid down, choking on the blackness that rushed into the void the air made as it left his lungs. He vaguely felt the wrench as he was grabbed up by the arm they’d injured this morning, felt muscle scream and bone grate, and with his last drowning thought, bemoaned the fact that he didn’t know whether he’d saved Bloodraven or not and never would.
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Consciousness was a shock, Yhalen not having expected to ever regain it. The fact that it came hand in hand with pain was not such a surprise. He emerged in darkness, though there seemed a hazy glow of orange flickering in the corner of his vision. His eyes refused to focus enough to pinpoint the source.
His shoulder ached, though his body was too leaden to move and attempt to relieve it. He was cold.
Cold and naked as he lay on frigid stone in a dark room. It took him a while to realize his hands were bound behind him, as were his feet and knees. He was gagged against a wad of cloth stuffed in his mouth with a rope holding it in so tightly, it cut into the sides of his mouth.
His mind moved in sluggish circles, falling back into the pool of unconsciousness before drifting back up to focus on the pain and the cold, flittering across a distant fear that as a whole was swallowed up by the utter weakness that stole independent thought and action. He’d done it to himself, he mused, in one of the periods where clearer thought prevailed. He’d stripped himself of strength and life-force and vitality in a vain effort to—what?
Blood stirred in his memory. Blood on his hands, blood pooling out of wounds that he struggled to close. Not his wounds.
Bloodraven. Bloodraven.
Bloodraven....
Yhalen sobbed, the first sound he’d made since his awakening, and pressed his cheek against the stone in grief. It hadn’t been enough. He didn’t think it had been enough, not all of his strength, not all of the life-force he’d ripped from Deathclaw. Goddess—no, not Goddess. Never would he call to her again, tainted beyond redemption. And she’d allowed it, had withdrawn her protection of him long ago. It left him with no one to cry out to in his grief but himself, nothing to do but lie there and shudder while he wondered dismally when his heart had been so thoroughly lost to an enemy. So he cried in silence until he heard the sound of footsteps approaching.
The light grew, bobbing as someone carried a torch around the bend of a tunnel. He caught a momentary glimpse of the tiny chamber he was in, low-ceilinged and barely longer than his body, before two human men entered, The same pale, blonde slaves who had restrained him while the old ogre shaman had practiced his ritualistic magic on Yhalen’s body. Another human followed, holding a torch in trembling hands, and Yhalen saw that it was Vorjd. He was bloody and bruised, his chest striped with the deep cuts of a cruel whipping. The shaman’s slaves grasped Yhalen’s upper arms and hauled him up, dragging him between them into a larger, torch-lit chamber. Wooden shelves lined the walls and held countless painted clay jars. Straw was scattered on the floor and the ceiling and walls were covered in rune signs. The old shaman sat on a fur pallet, rocking back and forth and chanting.
They dropped Yhalen to the floor at his feet. The chanting went on for a few minutes more, the old ogre’s eyes rolling up in his head. The chamber was full of strong incense that burned Yhalen’s eyes and made his head spin. He lay there, concentrating on breathing when his body felt so heavy that it was a struggle to draw breath.
The chanting stopped abruptly. After a moment of silence, the shaman spoke and Yhalen heard Vorjd’s trembling voice translate.
“The spirits and your own actions have condemned you as a practitioner of dark magic.”
Vorjd paused, waiting while the old shaman spoke again.
“The honor of this clan has been sullied, and you will be killed in the manner of a witch who cursed this clan.”
Yhalen moaned into his gag, wanting to ask Vorjd if Bloodraven had survived. He cast his eyes up to the bearded slave, pleading for an answer to the unvoiced question. None came. Vorjd shakily set his torch into a bracket on the wall and backed out of the chamber. Yhalen heard the slap of his feet as he fled.
The shaman made a motion and his slaves dragged Yhalen to his knees before the old ogre, wrenching the cord loose that held his gag and removing it from his dry mouth.
The shaman forced his mouth open and popped in several pellets of the sort he had used earlier to
muddle Yhalen’s mind. There was little enough need to do it, Yhalen having already depleted his own strength. Now his head grew fuzzy and he found it hard to concentrate on anything but the direct touches to his body. Those he felt with excruciating focus. The fingers biting into his arms, the hard stone under his knees, the rough rasp of barbed cord cutting into his flesh.
The slaves let him go, shoving him hard onto his back. The shaman reached down and grasped his bound ankles, dragging him closer to pin Yhalen’s feet between huge knees. He began chanting, low and rhythmic in his rumbling voice, and painted two swift symbols upon the soles of Yhalen’s feet. He then took a knife and dipped the edge into a bowl of the same dark liquid before slicing it slow and deep across the instep of each foot.
Yhalen screamed, his body jerking, legs unable to find freedom from the steely clasp of the ogre’s knees. The cut itself was a torture, but the burning of whatever poison coated the blade made it tenfold. Like his palms with their still embedded thorns, his feet began to swell and throb in agony. The blade dipped again and sliced across his heels, biting to the bone. Yhalen screamed again, voice cracking, world narrowed down to the focus of pain.
One of the slaves put a noose around his neck, then jerked it tight and dragged him back across the floor by it as the shaman loosed his hold on Yhalen’s legs. The other slave sat on his thighs and held his writhing body while his fellow fastened the end of the noose to a crude ring set in the floor. They drew knives then, and he cried out in fear of what they would do, but they only cut the bonds on his knees and ankles. Each of them quickly grabbed a leg, and looped a rope around each ankle, their hands sliding a little in the blood. They spread his legs, stretching his body to reach two more widely spaced rings and causing the noose on his neck to tighten, choking off all but a trickle of air.