She tripped on the wet cobblestones of the passageway, and he caught her. The satin of her black veil wrapped itself into the fabric of his own hooded cloak, as she made a tiny yelp of surprise.
“It is dangerous in these corridors for a queen, my lady.”
His voice made the hair on her arms stand up, and though his grip on her body was firm, she could feel her eyes widen as she looked up at him. “I am not queen, yet.”
He smiled at her. “The rumor maintains that you never wanted to be queen.” He made some movement that twisted her spine and landed her back against the stone wall behind them, her hands pinned above her head. “That you only wished to devote yourself to God. That you turned down the proposals of six kings across Europe.”
“Five. Give me no more credit than I deserve, my lord.”
“Your piety becomes you.” He ran a finger across her jawbone, and she turned her head as far from his gaze as the wall would allow. He growled, and closed his hand around her chin, turning her back so he could watch the emotions play out across her eyes. “And yet you are here, again. Looking for me.”
Some of the tension in her body melted at the truth of those words, and she blushed. “Yes, my lord.”
He squeezed her wrists, savoring the hiss of pain as the spiked bracelet dug into her tender flesh. He took a certain amount of pleasure knowing that he was the one who made it for her. “And tell me why our virtuous queen seeks me out.”
“I. Am. Not. Queen, yet.” Each word was pushed through gritted teeth.
“Are you avoiding my question?” His hand snaked down to rest around her throat. “Do you remember what happens when you avoid my questions?”
She shivered and blushed deeper, deep enough to be obvious even in the low light of the corridor. “Yes, my lord, I remember. Yes, I am avoiding your question.”
He tightened his grip around her neck and spoke low against her ear. “I had the object you requested, made. An associate in Holland tells me this is similar to the tool they use to produce confessions from criminals. Shall we see if it works as intended, my queen?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, but did not argue. “Yes, my lord.”
His smile broadened. He lowered her hands, but kept them in his grasp behind her back, as he rotated his grip so he could guide her by the back of her neck. “Only a Catholic would ache for suffering like this.” Then, more to himself than anything, he added, “It truly is a disease.”
He marched her down the dark passages as his willing prisoner, the shape of their clothing lost to the darkness of the night. When they reached his workspace, he produced a key and unlocked the heavy wooden door. The sound of it closing behind them held an echo of finality.
She broke his grasp and stood, facing him, in all the power the small woman could muster. The luster of her golden hair was lost against the color of her veil, though her eyes were almost too bright, too eager.
“Tell me why you seek me,” he asked again.
The seconds dragged, and eventually, she lowered her eyes to the floor. “You have done something to me, my lord.”
His laughter filled the space around them. “What have I done to you, my queen? Gotten the hems of your skirts dirty?”
Her lip twitched. “Please, my lord. Do not make this more difficult than it needs to be.”
“Oh, but you don’t understand.” He closed the distance in between them and rested his hand on the back of her neck, keeping her looking at the floor. “That is, in fact, why you’re here, isn’t it?”
She said nothing, for a long time. “Please let me kneel, my lord,” she said, finally, her voice a little ragged.
“Why?”
A tiny sob escaped her lips. “You have done something to me, my lord. You have invaded my very thoughts, so that I cannot think of anything but you. There is an ache in my chest, when I think of you.”
“Tell me why.”
Her head snapped up, and the tears in her eyes glittered in the low light. “I do not know! You have bewitched me.” Her gaze fumbled uneasily from his face, to the whips and chains mounted on the walls of his chamber. This time, softer, she added, “Please, my lord. You make me ache. Please let me kneel before you.”
He took a small step backwards and crossed his arms.
“It’s like you’ve forgotten what happens when you don’t answer my questions. Surely my work doesn’t lose its effectiveness in only a fortnight?”
“It’s been an eternity, my lord, since you made me scream for you. Visions of you, haunt me. I wake up in a cold sweat, and I ache for you. A fortnight is an eternity.”
“An eternity?” He circled around her, his prey. “Strip for me. You will be bare for your confession, on your knees.”
He stood behind her, watching her fingers shake as she released the cords of her dress. Pale shoulders gave way to slender curves, meant only to be seen by her husband. Her veil was added to the puddle of fabric on the stone floor, showing him an elaborate braid that left no room to cover her modesty. As she stood nude, her back to him, he could see the tiny goosebumps appearing on her arms.
“Now, kneel, where you belong.”
She sank to her knees. “Thank you, my lord.”
He traced the faint red lines across her back, whip marks from her last visit. “You mark beautifully, my queen.”
“I do not require your praise,” she hissed.
“No?” His tone was light, conversational. “Then what do you require?”
She stilled, but did not answer.
He traced a healing welt across her shoulder blade. “What would my queen require, that she would seek the torture master in the middle of the night?”
This time, she shuddered. It was a whole body movement, like something shattering inside of her. “I seek your tender care, my lord.”
“My care is not tender, my queen. Tell me of the perversity in your mind, that is desperate to be under my… care.”
Her head dropped. “They have taken me away from God, from my devotion. I am forced into this marriage for political gain. I will be queen, and I have never wanted anything less. My body aches to kneel, to suffer, to worship. I ache to be broken open, to feel something real; I ache to feel something other than the false pretense and groveling of the Holy Empire.”
“You are certainly selfish enough to be queen.”
She stiffened. “… Selfish, my lord?”
“Indeed. Thankfully for you, and because of your patronage, I have the tools to educate you on the error of your ways.” He put the sole of his boot on her back, and pushed. “Face against the floor, where it belongs.”
She felt forward into a submissive bow, her forehead against stone. He watched the muscles in her body, admiring the way they twitched in need. Her virtue was bare to his eyes, everything that should have been secret, instead, on display.
He took the device she had commissioned out of his pocket and fingered the bulb idly.
She had given him the idea, but he had made it.
The bulb expanded into four petals with the simple turn of a screw near the flange end. In her virgin ass, the pain of the device, even in its closed position, would be exquisite. Eventually he would take every piece of virginity from her body, he was sure of that, but this one was to be first.
He smiled to himself, thinking of what he would steal from Leopold.
It was a small undermining of the authority to which they all bowed, but it would be sweet, nonetheless. To steal the dignity of the Emperor’s newest wife would be a sweetness he would treasure.
And she nearly begged him for it. Never had he had a queen in his torture chamber, begging for his attention. His questions to her were not idle, on some level, she really did perplex him.
He lubed the device with grease from a small jar. “Do you remember what you asked of me, my queen? Do you remember where my fingers were, after your whipping last time?”
“… M-more, my lord. I asked for more…. Of your fingers… in my ass.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “I asked you to make me scream for you.”
“You did. Our devout queen begged to be fucked in the ass like a common prostitute.” He rubbed the tip of the bulb against her hole, watching her contract in fear. “And not only that, she begged to make it hurt. She begged the palace torturer to make it hurt.”
A sob wracked her body, as she prostrated herself further onto the floor, offering her fragile body to him. “Please, my lord. I beg you. Make me scream.”
She hissed as he pushed the tip of the device into her ass, fucking it in and out slowly. “There’s going to be enough pain for you, my queen. Relax.”
She took a deep breath, attempting to relax her muscles. The thing felt huge, and she appeared to struggle not to reach back to feel its size.
“Almost there.” He watched as her distended asshole enlarged around the bulb, and listened intently to her moans of pain as it popped in and her hole closed around it.
She wiggled, though the movement was futile. The device was lodged in her ass, the screw end tantalizingly available for his experimentation.
“Please, my lord, it hurts. Please, take it out, I had no idea it would feel like this.”
“We’ve only just begun, my queen. Soon, you will beg me to return to this starting position.”
She began to cry softly.
He fingered the screw mechanism, and turned it an eighth of a turn. “Fucked like a common prostitute. Say it.”
Her breathing was labored, but she managed to repeat the words back to him. Each one reverberated through her body, and he watched her begin to break. He turned it another eighth turn, and she moaned as she cried.
“Our queen begged to be defiled. But even in that, you are selfish.”
“How?” she sobbed. “How am I selfish, my lord? All I’ve ever wanted was to serve and worship.”
“Listen to the words you use, my queen.” He turned the screw and she screamed; he imagined the petals expanding her insides to be intensely painful. “I want. That’s what you say. Even I am merely a tool for your own gratification.” He turned the screw again, drawing another ragged scream from her throat. “You are devout to nothing but yourself. Your needs and your pleasure.”
Her body jerked as she wept. “That’s not true, my lord.”
“It’s not?” He grabbed a set of manacles and fastened them around her wrists, then to the metal hook in the floor. He screwed the device another quarter turn, luxuriating in the pleasure of her pain noises. “That’s about a quarter of the way open, whore. You will take everything, and then you will confess your true sin as I have named it.”
Big, guttural sobs poured from her throat. “… a quarter of the way? I can’t. I cannot. Please, my lord, I beg for your mercy.”
He laughed, as he threaded each of her feet through another set of metal shackles, fastening them likewise to the floor. “I welcome your pleas, but I will not heed them. Not until you confess, and state your penance to me.”
“Penance…?”
“Of course, my whore. I have done something to you, something to that sick little mind of yours. One day I may tell you, if I want to watch you break all over again. But tonight, you will confess, and you will beg for my penance. You will learn the true meaning of devotion, this night.”
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