Mercy [Valerius]

[Achenar]

He wasn't Zaelsen. He wasn't Zaelsen. So why was he making him feel the way he was? His body and mind were wracked with mixed emotions, and it was always the hardest when he was restrained. He couldn't move like he wanted to; couldn't pace and move his hands. And though he had serviced in the Caged Sun for many years, this client was one of the few that had ever elicited from him such a strong response. And truthfully, that frightened the ethaefal. His master had torn down his walls, stripped him of everything that made him Maddoch and forced the slave to the surface once more. But in the wake of his torment, his dark passenger had arisen like a plague in his thoughts, wanting things he smothered. Craving the thrill of defiance for one last lash of the whip.

He had been broken, both physically and emotionally, but the Ravokian would never know that, not unless he pried it from his mouth like he had all of the others he'd tortured and interrogated. Achenar.. he could never admit to it, not to himself, and not to anyone else. He was afraid, even in the face of this man. He was afraid of his own emotions.

And those same emotions crashed down on him like a tidal wave when the man pressed his lips to his. There was a surprised sound in his throat, and he furrowed his brows at the harsh grip, stunned more than he was angry. It almost reminded him of his master, and that churning, fluttering feeling in his gut only grew. He could feel his heart pounding like a drum. This is wrong. His mind was screaming. This is petching wrong.

There was a fire in his silver eyes as he looked at him. Though his outward demeanor was cold and seemingly uncaring, despite the harsh treatment, the ethaefal could tell that something was changing in the Ravokian. Yet he could still feel the indent of those lips as though they left an imprint. And when the man began to speak, the ethaefal's face turned a subtle shade of red. His jaw was tight and every inch of his muscles were coiled, like he was ready to spring, despite the chains.

Shut up, he wanted to yell. Shut the hell up. But instead, his lips were pressed together and he lowered his gaze, refusing to meet his eyes. The man's roaming hands; the way their bodies were close enough to touch, to feel his radiating heat, made the ethaefal shift uneasily where he precariously stood. He was so tense, he could feel his shoulders cramp in a dull ache that did nothing to deter the ministrations of the invasive hand.

Finally, he breathed hard through parted lips, his head turned away, mostly out of shame. Both. His mind echoed. I enjoyed both. "This... this is not about what I want, m'lord," he forced out, instead. He was going to concede, to lay down this defiance that drained his energy, but when the Ravokian mentioned his Radacke master, it triggered a spark of rage and shame and irrational fear. "I can't deny that I want it," he hissed at him. "Because that was how my master made me. I never asked for this. Never, I... I just..." His breathing shuddered, and he took a deep breath, shaking his head. He was going to be in so much shyke.

"Do what it is that your kind does best, m'lord," he muttered. "Your time is valuable, is it not?"

[Valerius Nitrozian]

There was something about the sound that Achenar made as their lips touched, about the way that the Ethaefal’s heart suddenly seemed to flutter that awoke something deep inside of him. There was nothing tense about his posture now, there was finally more than cold and arrogance. There was desire now, unmistakeable as he closed what little space had remained between them thus far. Another kiss followed, and then more, down the Ethaefal’s neck.

This here is wrong, in so many ways.

The thought entered his mind abruptly, unbidden and unwelcome. His cousin Trevinus, the soon to be Druvin, would despise him if he could see him now, frequenting places such as this one and using a man like others used a woman. His aunt would laugh at him because nobody ever wanted to be with him voluntarily and he had to resort to chains and threats to get what he needed. His sister would see it as further proof of his mental instability and his all encompassing weakness. Her dear little brother couldn’t even petch a woman! What a useless piece of shyke, barely worthy of the name Nitrozian …

He pushed the laughing, sneering faces of his relatives away from him with all his might. How dare they judge him? They meant nothing to him. He was not weak. He had never been weak, and he would never be weak. One day he would come for them all. He would be Rhysol’s Voice, the most powerful of all, Trevinus would grovel at his feet, and his sister would beg for her life with tears in her eyes, even as he plunged a dagger into her heart.

He looked up at Achenar again abruptly as he heard those muttered words, as the Ethaefal turned his head away, as if he were ashamed. What right did he have to be ashamed?

“Everybody has a choice”, he retorted as the slave insisted that he had not asked for it, implying that he could have resisted his master. Deep down he knew that it wasn’t true though. Nobody ever really had a choice. There was no escape. Freedom was only an illusion. They were all slaves, of their emotions, pawns of their masters and their gods, even though some chains were heavier and more visible than others.

“And I can spend all night here if it’s necessary.” Time was one of the few things that was of no concern to him. The Ethaefal in all his otherworldly glory had managed to touch something inside of him, to make him feel despite those attempts at defiance, but at the same time he infuriated him, almost beyond measure. Why did a mere thing affect him so?

He reached up and released Achenar from his chains abruptly and without any explanation, even though he had been so afraid of an unchained slave before. The illusion just wasn’t enough anymore, enough to quell the anger and the desire and fill the emptiness. Illusions could only sustain you for so long before a taste of reality became a necessity.

The gesture itself might have seeemed kind, merciful even, but the look in the Ravokian’s eyes was anything but merciful. Those blue eyes that had always been filled with so much cold before seemed to be ablaze now.

He grabbed the Ethaefal and pushed him against the wall. It was not the whip that Achenar craved to feel again, but pain nevertheless, sudden and unexpected.

[Achenar]

The kisses the man left on his lips and along the flesh of his neck felt like a hot, burning trail that spread a shiver down his spine. Achenar inhaled deeply. He'd been in situations like this before, but he'd been able to detach himself; to forget that he even existed in this body. He reacted the way the client wanted and did as he was directed, whether man or woman, and as long as he was not a simpering mess, they left contented. But this one... this one did things to him that the slave couldn't understand. It angered him, it scared him... because it had reminded him of the feelings that had formed for a certain Lorak doctor...

He stared at the Ravokian at those words, as though he had suddenly sprouted a growth from his head. Everyone has a choice? Was this man as ignorant, as callous as he had seemed? Was there a hollow shell of a heart beating in that chest? He would never know the torment he'd gone through for years at the hand of Zaelsen Radacke. But it was most likely that this man had detached himself from his play things as much as his own master does. Perhaps that was why the ethaefal felt the way he did, conditioned by brutal treatment.

"You know nothing of torment," Achenar retorted quietly. He'd expected anything else; a whipping, a beating, a slap, anything at all except for the abrupt release of his wrists from the chains that had bound him overhead.

There was a momentary look of confusion on his face as he looked from his hands to the Ravokian's face. He had not uttered one command. He had not even established rules or boundaries, and yet the chains were gone and he stood with his back throbbing dully from the stuffy air.

But the momentary reprieve was shattered when he was grabbed and slammed into the wall. The impact caused a burning pain to shoot up his spine like white hot embers. He yelped in pain, and stared, wide eyed at the Ravokian.

What does he want? He wracked his mind for answers. Any answers. He didn't know what to do without direction. His gut was churning in anticipation. Yet in that moment, as he looked into his face, he suddenly reached up and held onto the Ravokian's shoulders, and pressed his mouth to his, kissing him hard, just as he had kissed him. What am I doing? He felt despair and thrill clawing at his mind.

He broke the kiss, breathing heavily. "What do you want from me?" He whispered. "Tell me what to do, master." He had to bend the knee, that was what his gut, his instincts told him. No matter how much he tried to fight it, Achenar was a creature of submission.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

„I know more about torment than you think“, he replied. Most of the time he had been the tormentor, the one who made others suffer. Pain made him forget, it gave him a temporary sense of power, because he found it hard to deal with his feelings in any other way, but there were also those moments of weakness that he tried to forget, in Ravok and Zeltiva, always in Zeltiva. He didn’t know why he suddenly thought of it again, after all this time. Why did Achenar make him remember everything that had gone wrong, all those times when he had been less than what he could have been? He had only come to the Caged Sun to satisfy his needs, to hurt, like all those other men and women. He had no interest in anything else.

And yet he did not recoil as the Ethaefal reached up, as he held onto him and kissed him, as if he were a free man who had every right to do so and not a mere slave, a thing to be used, beaten and discarded. He had never allowed such a thing before. He should have beaten him, he should have whipped him until he broke down and apologized for his insolence, but instead he found himself reaching for him as well. Their fingers intertwined for a moment before he pinned him against the wall. For a moment he closed his eyes so that nothing existed besides the sensation of the Ethaefal’s body against his and the faint smell of blood that still lingered in the air, so that he could imagine that they were somewhere else, far away from the swamp.

He broke the kiss just as abruptly, and his eyes snapped open. He did not let go though, but kept the Ethaefal pinned against the wall. What did he want from him? A part of him wanted Achenar to keep doing what he had done, to take a more active role, to make him forget that he was a slave despite the wrongness of it all, but he would never allow himself to say such a thing out loud. “I want you to hold still”, he whispered into his ear instead, in much the same tone that another man might have used to speak to a lover, even as he took one of the knives he had prepared earlier and placed it against his chest. The steel would feel cool against the Ethael’s warm skin. “Tell me, did anybody ever do this to you or did your master only whip you and beat you bloody until you were begging for mercy because he knew no other way?”

As he said this, he increased the pressure and drew a line across his skin. Gradually, a thin red welt would appear. He increased the pressure again by a certain amount so that the knife would break the Ethaefal’s skin. Another cut followed and then another one,executed with an almost surgical precision as if he were still a doctor rather than whatever he had become now. The cuts would bleed and burn, but the wounds would seal themselves again soon and leave no scars.

[Achenar]

He must have been expecting the Ravokian to retaliate for such a courageous action because he was more then surprised to find that the only thing he did was grasp his hands and pin him against the wall. He was trapped, pressed between the wall and the hard surface that irritated his wounds, and yet that only stoked the fire in his veins. At the moment, he couldn't find it in him to break the kiss, but that hadn't mattered, as the Ravokian did that for them. What scared him the most was that the slave had wanted him to continue.

Achenar bit his lip when the man whispered into his ear. He was conflicted, he was confused, he didn't know what to do when he had no direction. And so he had to rely on the only thing he had: his instinct. An ember was growing in him, his heart was fluttering, his brow beaded with sweat. The heat between them was palpable. Holding still was the one command the Ravokian had uttered, and the ethaefal obeyed as far as that. The glint of metal caught his eyes, and when he saw the knives, his heart practically jumped to his throat.

The question Valerius asked was momentarily lost on the ethaefal when the knife bit into his opalescent flesh. The slave inhaled sharply, lifting his face and pressing his head back against the wall. The pain was sharp and stung almost as badly as the lacerations on his back. He let out a heavy sound that resembled a painful gasp. The more incisions the Ravokian made the faster his heart beat.

"He has done worse things to me than your knives and your whips, m'lord," the slave answered with a rasp, lowering his head to look him in the eye. "I have never..." He inhaled, "Never seen anyone reach his level of depravity."

The pain was mounting, stirring his core. Achenar swallowed hard. The Ravokian had told him to hold still, and yet his free hand twitched, rising, reaching toward the man. He wanted to do this. He. Achenar. Not the slave.

His fingers traced the rim of Valerius' pants, dipping underneath his shirt to trace lightly across the skin of his torso. It was a fleeting touch before suddenly, his hand began to undo his pants. He reached to touch him where the man had touched him before; a slow, methodical stroking and nothing more. If he had gone to far, it was no doubt that his client would let him know.

He had stepped beyond his station, and though his mind was screaming that this was dangerous, he was driven only by his desire. "What are you waiting for?" He whispered.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

„What makes you think that I’m not like him, somewhere deep down, that I’m not just holding back and saving the worst for later?” he whispered as Achenar spoke of his master’s depravity and met his gaze. He had the feeling that he could see his own reflection in the Ethaefal’s eyes that seemed to be made of pure silver, as bright as the stars or the moon over Ravok on a clear night. “Do you want me to be more like him?”

Even as he said those words he moved the knife away from the Ethaefal’s chest without a warning. The pain that had continually been increasing stopped abruptly and would likely leave Achenar breathless and confused for a moment. With his hands he traced the cuts he had made so that his fingertips were colored red before he kissed him where he had caused pain before and moved further downwards, towards the juncture of his thighs.

His touch was feather light and barely noticeable for a moment before he increased the pressure again. For a moment it was gentle, almost loving, as if the celestial being that stood before him fascinated him beyond measure, as if he were looking at a work of art that he was afraid to damage, even though he had caused harm before and would do so again. How could Achenar be so beautiful and yet bleed red, like a mere mortal, like all those Kelvic that had died on his aunt’s operating table?

For a moment he was tempted to intercept the Ethaefal’s hand and push it away. He didn’t know why he didn’t do it, why he nearly yearned for his touch instead. Maybe it was Achenar’s otherworldly beauty that made most that walked the world of Mizahar look like Rhysol’s gluttonous spawn in comparison. The Ethaefal had stepped beyond his station, but nobody outside this room would ever have to know. This would be their secret.

Maybe …

Any thoughts of his were abruptly interrupted as Achenar touched him. He kept the Ethaefal’s hand pinned a moment longer before he released it. The knife that had been in his right hand a moment before clattered to the floor and was soon joined by whatever clothes he had still been wearing. The Ethaefal’s touch, no matter how brief it was, sent shivers down his spine. A light gasp escaped his lips. The heat was almost palpable now.

“I didn’t tell you to stop.” Like Achenar he spoke in but a whisper, but that whisper was laced with a hint of a threat as he reached for the Ethaefal once more. A moment later their positions were reversed, and he was leaning against the wall, with the Ethaefal in front of him now. Another tick later Achenar would find himself pushed against the bedpost though where a pair of manacles hung, which would possibly give him a hint of where their night together would end.

“Never stop unless I tell you so.” He grabbed the Ethaefal, and his fingers dug into his skin, so that he would not be able to move away, so that he would have to go where he wanted him to go, without a doubt causing him pain before he loosened his grip slightly and guided his hand to where he wanted it to be.

"Don't stop."

[Achenar]

"Yes," the ethaefal found himself saying to the man. There was no thought to his words, it came out more like an instinct than anything. Reason and logic had slowly been chipping away the longer they were close together. The longer he touched him. "I want that."

He would have said more, he wanted to say more, but as those lips trailed along the incisions made across his chest, the ethaefal inhaled. He was shaking his head. No. He willed himself. No. But yes; he needed this. He wanted this more than he could ever admit. The combination of the Ravokian's kisses and his roaming touch left him breathless and gasping. The blood smeared across his skin, leaving a burning fiery throbbing that joined the dull ache of the wounds on his spine. He knew what that feeling was; the tremble down his body as it ignited every one of his senses.

In his momentary distraction, his own ministrations had paused. The Ravokian's words had cut through his reverie like the very knife he'd used on him, and the ethaefal stared at him with a mixture of anxiousness and attraction. The command had an affect on him that little else could meet. He would obey voluntarily, had he not been grabbed and subsquently shifted from where he'd been pinned against the wall. Now he found himself with his back to the bed, and a man who was more than intent on not letting him stop.

The grip he had on him was harsh, and the Ethaefal would have winced had he not been inflicted with cuts and lacerations. He touched him where he was directed, stroking with more intensity, his fingers wrapping almost as tight. You can do better, his thoughts told him, like an insidious echo. And he could. He could give this man what he wanted, and more.

"I won't," he told him, as if to reassure him as the slave slowly sank to his knees in front of him and brought his mouth down to his navel. His lips caressed the skin of his stomach first, his fingers kneading along his thighs. He alternated between lips and tongue and teeth, making a trail along his flesh that left light marks. But it was when he reached his loins that his mouth truly began to pick up the pace. He left a wet trail where his tongue found warm flesh, teasing the only way he knew how.

There was no thought or rhyme or reason to his actions. His lips were slick and his head moved up and down, faster and slower. Achenar hadn't met a man yet who didn't enjoy this sort of treatment, but then again, this one seemed like no ordinary man. There was still something in his gut that told him he was unpredictable. That he had something to hide. But in truth, so did everyone else.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

Trevinus, Amanda and all of Ravok with them, the dynasties of Kenash with their petty quarrels and the entirety of Mizahar had ceased to exist. Rhysol had temporarily lost his hold on him. The world had been reduced to just this room and the two of them. The fact that he had paid for the Ethaefal, for just one night, that he was somebody else’s slave, had lost its significance. The Firebringer could have brought a second Valterrian upon them, and he would not have cared. Only the present and only one thing mattered now.

He loosened his grip further only to let go of Achenar entirely a moment later and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see anymore. He didn’t entirely trust the things that his eyes were showing him anymore. That one sense suddenly seemed to be so woefully inadequate and incapable of translating what was happening. He just wanted to feel, to feel the taste of the Ethaefal’s blood that was still on his lips as well as his touch a while longer. He wanted to concentrate on that one sensation, , but Achenar let go again a moment later despite the promise that he had made, that he would never stop.

His eyes shot open abruptly. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but the question that was on his lips remained forever unvoiced as Achenar knelt down in front of him and covered his stomach with kisses – and more – and left his marks upon his skin. Had he still been able to think clearly at this point – or think at all, he would have … but his mind had ceased to function properly a long time ago. He was acting purely on instinct now.

As Achenar moved to the most intimate part of his body he inhaled sharply and pulled him closer even as shivers ran down his spine. His heart was beating even faster now and so loudly that he could hear it inside his head. At the same time, time itself seemed to slow down, and that one moment seemed to last forever, even though it could not have been more than a few chimes.

In the end he pulled him up again wordlessly for any words he could have said would have been inadequate, to wrap his arms around him and kiss him once more before reality would inevitably set in again. Two steps were all it took before Achenar would find himself on the bed, with the human above him, looking directly into his eyes while he ran his hands across his chest and down his stomach, across the cuts that might finally have stopped bleeding and started hurting a little less.

Something had changed between them again. That empty feeling inside the Ravokian’s heart was gone, at least for the time being. He looked at Achenar in much the same way that the Ethaefal had looked at him before. The attraction was mutual, although he would not admit it oud loud, not now. There was something about the Ethaefal that those people he had been with in Ravok or Zeltiva had been lacking, that even the dynasts were unlikely to ever have.

He wanted to do more before he left the room though. The Radackes were unlikely to grant him access again in the near future. Even in his current state, with his mind still slightly clouded, he would never lower himself to doing what Achenar had done – that was the work of a servant or a slave - but there were other ways to go about it. His hand moved to the Ethaefal’s manhood, and he wrapped his fingers around it, but he still looked into the Ethaefal’s eyes as he wanted to see his reaction to what he was doing, to make him wonder what would happen next.

That did not last more than a few moments though before Achenar found himself abruptly and forcibly shifted once more so that the Ravokian was behind him now. His body pressed against the Ethaefal’s while his hands were at his waist. He wanted to do more than just touch him. He wanted to be inside of him, to feel him in a way that was impossible with just his hands and mere kisses. He wanted to mark him, as clearly as he had marked him with whip and knife so that a part of Achenar would belong to him rather than Zaelsen Radacke.

[Achenar]

At the beginning of this encounter, Achenar had assumed this would have ended up the same as his master; harsh treatment that left him scarred, tender and unsatisfied. But the night progressed and the Ravokian's actions had been laced with a need the ethaefal had never felt before. There were women and men who demanded he love them much like a lover would, but he felt nothing for his clients, only the duty that a slave like him was demanded.

When their lips had connected it felt like a spark of fire. His hands were warm; even warmer when they were pressed together, and as he was satisfying him with his mouth and tongue, there was something in his gut that wanted to please him. These feelings had only ever been reserved in a dark corner of his mind, something he tried to stifle over and over. Tonight it came out, as the Ravokian abruptly interrupted his ministrations and pushed him towards the bed.

The kiss was returned, more vigorously than before, even adding a bite to the Ravokian's lower lip. As he was touched, the ethaefal arched his back slightly, squeezing the blankets on either side of him in a white knuckled grip. I want this. It was a thought that went through his head as though it had been a revelation. He did want this. He wanted the Ravokian's hands to hurt him; to handle him like he was both a lover and a slave, but he couldn't voice it.

Instead, the slave reacted to his client's probing touch, leaving him breathless. Even as his head tilted back and his sounds became strained, those eyes never left his. The man was pleasing him, as though he wasn't just a slave. The haze of sensations radiated from his nether regions, outward until he was spiraling into gasps. But even that was interrupted as he was pulled onto his hands and knees, facing the headboard with its glinting manacles.

They'd come to the culmination of the night. This was when the clients took from him what they wanted. The slave would have felt conflicted had his mind not been strangled by passion's hold. He felt hands grip his waist and the weight of the man press behind him, inciting a heavy gasp. His arms and legs were tense, and he closed his eyes, panting as though he'd run for miles. This shouldn't feel so good. He was desperate; desperate to deny everything. But it does.

It was a different kind of pleasure that radiated inside him. The pressure, the weight, the heat of their bodies pressed together were like coals for the raging wildfire. Achenar gripped the headboard with hard fingers, shifting his legs slightly to widen them. He was done trying to deny what he felt. He pushed his hips back, against the Ravokian, and those gasps soon became sultry sighs. The ethaefal was not unfamiliar with the sensations that came with it. There was always pain, but it was brief and quick. Every nerve ending in his body felt like a a white hot forge, and this man had ignited it. His head dropped and a lock of damp hair fell over his eyes.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

He noticed that the Ethaefal arched his back and squeezed the blanket, as if he was being overwhelmed by his emotions. He heard his gasps and those sounds that were soft at first and became louder and more strained. The sound of Achenar’s voice, the way he reacted to his touches and finally ceased all pretenses of defiance excited him in a way that he would not have thought possible had anybody asked him before he had come here.

He looked at the man that was on his hands and his knees before him, as it should be, for a moment and marveled at the way that the sweat glistened on his pale skin, the way that he gripped the headboard and shifted his hips slightly as if to welcome him. How could anybody – how could he ever have thought that this was a bad thing, that this was wrong?

He had never experienced anything so beautiful and powerful before!

He pulled the man who had become something more than a tool to be used and then forgotten during the last couple of chimes further back, towards him, forcefully. The things that Achenar had done to him before had left him nearly breathless and clouded his mind, but he was able to think clearly again, at least for a moment. He had never been so sure about what he wanted.

He let his hands run across the Ethaefal’s backside that would likely still hurt from the lashes of his whip and stroke his thighs and the spot between them before his hands moved upwards. He tightened his grip again and adjusted the Ethaefal slightly so that his body would be positioned at the right angle. His breathing was louder, more noticeable now, as if he had run for miles, and his heart was pounding madly, even though he had been in the same room for … how long had he been here? A bell? Or had it already been a whole night? It seemed like an eternity, but at the same time it had not nearly been long enough.

He lowered himself towards the Ethaefal’s without hesitation, raising his lower body slightly at the same time before he pulled Achenar onto him, marveling at the way that their bodies seemed to be connected now, as if they were one being, no longer a slave and his client or his master, but something else. something more. He started slowly at first. He wanted this to last, to draw it out for as long as he could, not for Achenar’s sake, but for his, as there was unlikely to ever be more than this one time, but his body demanded release, and he picked up the pace.

There was nothing gentle about the way his body pushed against the Ethaefal’s, but he didn’t need to be gentle, he didn’t need to restrain himself, not with Achenar who had experienced so much worse at the hands of his master. His mind seemed to shut down completely as he the sensations that came from his body threatened to overwhelm him, like a powerful wave that came crashing down on him.

There was nothing now besides the sounds of their bodies pounding rhythmically against each other, almost feverishly, their sighs of pleasure and the smell of blood and sweat and more. He found himself crying out at one point, but he didn’t care about the way that he sounded, not anymore.