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Chapter Text

Aral reeked of that hillman’s rotgut he had a commoner’s taste for. Ges couldn’t stand the stuff, but he was developing a conditioned response to the sickly sweet fumes that seeped from Aral’s pores when he’d been indulging.

Particularly when mixed with sweat and come, as it was now. Aral was near-boneless on his back, one leg sprawled on top of the sheets and the other a limp weight over Ges’s shoulder. His stomach was sticky with his own drying spend. His cock was shriveled and small in the coarse hair at his crotch.

Ges continued to pound into him. The lubricant was spent as well, tacky where Ges was driving in and out, hot with friction. The only sounds in the room were the slapping of skin against skin, Ges’s measured breathing, and the faint grunts Aral couldn’t completely suppress at every stroke.

Ges’s own orgasm was still distant, the fucking purely mechanical. What he was really after, what he was ravenous for, was just. . .

There. The grunts shifted, edged higher into something akin to a whine. Even through his maple mead fog, Aral could feel that: the burn of stretched, dry skin and overstimulated nerves. His eyes and jaw lost their slack vacancy; his face screwed up; and finally, tears began to form at the corners of his eyes, saltwater quickly spilling to join the sweat at his temples.

Ges drew in a sharp breath, pleasure zinging straight to his balls. He shifted Aral’s leg higher, bending Aral nearly in half as he forced the long thigh muscles to stretch as far as they would go, changing the angle so that every piston in and out scraped directly across Aral’s prostate.

Aral was whimpering now, his numb lips struggling to form words. Ges bent closer, grinning ferally when he heard: “Too much... Ges... please... no more...”

“Oh kitten, I’m not done yet.”

Aral whined again, his hips trying to twitch away. Ges gripped him tightly, fingers pressing deep into Aral’s thigh and hip, keeping up the relentless attack on Aral’s prostate as his own desire spiraled higher and higher.

Aral began to hiccup. His tears ran faster, filling the creases of pain in his face. Then he gasped, and Ges looked down to see Aral’s flaccid cock begin to ooze come, small blurts forced out with each thrust.

That was it. Ges pushed in one last time and began to come, filling Aral up even as Aral continued to leak from his eyes and his prick.

When his own balls were empty, Ges pulled out, dropping Aral’s leg carelessly back onto the bed. He took the few steps to the ‘fresher to wipe himself clean, at least enough to redress.

Aral was still sprawled as Ges had left him. He was silent now, but the tears still ran and Ges couldn’t resist – he bent down to lick the track they followed toward Aral’s hairline.

“Cheer up, kitten. You are a much better lay than you used to be.”

Chapter Text

Kareen awoke from an old nightmare, heart pounding. She had been standing on the wedding circle, but instead of the heavy, jewel-encrusted gown that glinted and sparkled in the holos, she had been naked.

Serg, in his parade uniform, had circled her. Inspected her, lifting limbs and turning flesh this way and that, poking to judge muscle and skin tone. He had pushed her down onto a bed, spreading legs to inspect there as well, those most private places which he was contracting sole access to.

The crowd whispered and tittered all around.

In reality, of course, Serg had waited until after the ceremony, alone in his quarters, to perform that inspection. It was his right, he said, to confirm her genetic fitness to continue the Vorbarra line. But their galactic guests would not have understood the need.

Her eyes were dry. Some days she felt she had used up all her tears and would never cry again.

Other days, of course, she felt the well of her tears bottomless. When they took Gregor—

But tonight it was only her own pain and humiliation that disturbed the peace of her quarters. Serg was a wormhole away, with all the worst of his entourage, playing the conquering hero. Gregor was just next door, and ImpSec agents rather than Vorbarra Armsmen kept watch through the long night.

Kareen breathed carefully, in and out with a steady rhythm. She pulled her knees up and her nightgown tight around her, taking comfort in the weight of the fabric.

She had Gregor. He was worth all that had come before.

And now that she had Gregor, she had Ezar’s hand extended in protection over them. Serg might still insist on exerting his conjugal rights, but he could not hurt her where it mattered.

Not anymore.

Chapter Text

It took some coaxing, but eventually Kareen convinced her private physician to obtain the full ImpSec report of Ges Vorrutyer’s murder. He had been inclined to hold back the details, fearing for her delicate sensibilities. Some days, all he could see was the Princess.

But he had been the one to treat the woman too, to monitor the concussion and wrap the broken ribs and apply the synth-skin to the damage left in places no one could see. He knew whose hands inflicted that damage, and he knew that those hands liked to grant special viewing access to his favorites as well.

Serg was vaporized; Kareen had no body, no frozen remains however damaged to prove that he truly posed no further threat.

But Vorrutyer had left a body, and she convinced the kindly old man that while it was no sight for a princess, it was nonetheless needful for their victim.

She made sure Gregor was far away when she accepted the report. She had managed to keep Vorrutyer away from Gregor in life, and she would not let his death touch her sensitive boy now.

Anything that once was delicate or sensitive about Kareen was destroyed long ago. She gazed, rapt, for long minutes at Vorrutyer’s corpse. The sagging jowls, never again to tighten in a leer; the empty eyes, never again to light in sadistic glee.

The blood, a river of it, splattered and pooled across the wall and the bed and the floor.

So many times Kareen had regretted her choice, early on, to use her Vorfemme knife to attempt to take her own life. They had wrestled it from her, and from that point on the meat on her plate arrived pre-sliced, and discreet servants appeared when she moved to prune her small garden or work on her embroidery.

After Gregor was born, the Vorbarra Armsmen prudently searched Kareen before presenting her to their Prince. Serg laughed at the precaution, but enjoyed her humiliation at their pawing too much to stop them. If she had only had her knife then—

But another woman, from Beta Colony of all places, had not squandered her opportunity. Kareen’s eyes lingered on the unnatural angle of Vorrutyer’s head, gaping at the throat from a cut as deep as any butcher’s.

Cordelia Naismith. Kareen was deeply in her debt. She hoped there would someday be an opportunity to meet her.