Power from Pain – Part 2.

	The scar was long and ugly looking, reddened around the edges and crusted with the flaky remains of lingering scabs. It stretched down from underneath one of the boy's large, cool blue eyes all the way to his chin, just creasing the corner of his mouth. An education, the leering sadist who had wielded the knife had called it, not a wound. It still hurt a little, especially when he smiled. Fortunately for him – although it was strange to think of anything as “fortunate” these days – Lython had little occasion to smile.
	The young Eldar still remembered the day he had been snatched from his home by the murderous gang of slavers. They had broken through one of the Craftworld's Webway gates - although what arcane technology had allowed that violation was a mystery – and rampaged unhindered, killing anyone who resisted and seizing anyone who had not. By the time the Guardians had arrived, the raiders had already made good their escape.
	Lython wondered if his parents were okay, or if they had been caught up in the last few moments of the skirmish. Both of them had been members of the Guardians, but even with all of their training they were still just citizens. They wouldn't have stood a chance against the bloodthirsty slavers, even with the raiders focussing on retreating with their precious cargo. The thought that his parents might have made it out alright brought Lython small comfort, but it was enough to lighten his heart nonetheless.
	His mother and father might have been okay, but Lython himself was far from it. After being stolen from the Craftworld he had called home he had been delivered to Melisidae, Archon of the Stolen Innocence Kabal. An outsider to the cut-throat world of Commorrite politics, Lython only had the faintest idea of what a “Kabal” was, or what it meant to be an “Archon”, but the domineering woman had made one thing perfectly clear – she was not someone to cross.
	The Commorrite noblewoman was a perverse creature, driven by some unknowable urge to seek out young lovers. Like a predator toying with its prey, she had teased and tormented Lython before finally defiling his body, plucking his innocence away in a savage act of coupling. His lip, bitten clean through at the first moments of her climax, was still sore days after the event. She was a cruel partner, driven to slake her lusts without care or consideration for her young lover. Yet, for all her erratic actions and harsh punishments, there was something about her that captivated Lython.
	For the young Craftworlder, used to living within the strict rules of his ascetic society, Melisidae represented a chaotic ideal, a triumph of will over restraint. All of her kind, the dwellers of the Dark City, lived with the simple rule of taking whatever they wanted from anyone too weak to defend themselves. It was terrifyingly primal, and yet the bloodthirsty lifestyle had a creeping allure that appealed to the churning storm of repressed passion within the boy.
	There had always been stories whispered among the youngest members of the Craftworld, tales of Eldar who had fallen prey to their passions and fled into darker parts of the Webway. Lython had heard of the forbidden city of Commorragh but he had never expected to see its shadow wrapped spires, much less find himself taken as consort to a member of the dark aristocracy.

	Lython returned his gaze to the rest of his face, trying to ignore the disfiguring wound that was still so unfamiliar. He was slender, as androgynous as all of his race, with long golden hair. In better times, he would have worn his hair in an elegant pattern of braids, but now it hung around his shoulders in untamed waves. He was bare chested, but he had at least been given some short robes to cover his lower half. Faint markings, a wild combination of shallow wounds and faded paint, decorated his slender body.	
	His mistress fancied herself an artist, and had taken to using her young slave as a canvas. So far, all of her designs had been the product of her fleeting tastes, praised as glorious one day and detested the next, but she persisted with her work. By now, Lython's torso looked like something that had been torn apart and sewn back together with an inky black thread. Eventually - Melisidae claimed - she would have him marked permanently, her violent art tattooed into his skin. In a way, the prospect was of some comfort to Lython. If she was willing to spend so much time on decorating his body, she was less likely to dispose of him on a whim.
	“Lython!” Melisidae's strident voice rang out, echoing through the baroquely decorated halls of the Commorrite's private chambers, “Where are you boy?”
	“I'm here,” the boy replied. His voice – though hushed – carried easily through the still air. Melisidae had never insisted on any kind of respectful title, apparently placing his obedience over any sullenness in his manner. If anything, his little rebellions gave her an excuse to lavish new punishments upon the boy. Putting any thought of both rebellion and punishment out of his mind, Lython followed the sound of Melisidae's voice through the lonely chamber.
	Without a trace of shame, the Commorrite noblewoman stood naked in the middle of her bathing room, a thin sheen of water still clinging to her long, tightly muscled limbs. Though he had seen her naked many times before Lython still couldn't suppress a gasp before averting his eyes, only for his curious gaze to creep back towards her as soon as he let his guard down. Just as her capricious spirit tugged at the young Craftworlder's mind, Melisidae's flawless body never failed to stir an irresistible attraction in the boy – and she knew it.
	“There you are,” she said, indifferent to her nakedness and Lython's sneaking glances. Lython could stare at her for hours, peering at her from every angle imaginable, and she would do nothing but encourage him to look some more. The Commorrite wielded her body like a weapon, artfully dismantling his defences and cutting straight to his core. “Well, don't just stand there!” she snapped, dragging Lython back to reality.

	Nodding hastily, Lython grabbed a dry cloth and stepped closer to the dripping noblewoman. A faint tremor gripped his body as he swabbed her body with the cloth, tracing the outline of her long, smooth limbs with only the thinnest layer of material preventing them from touching. It was a task he had been given often, and one that never failed to send a rush of blood to his swelling manhood.
	She knew this, of course, and was always finding new ways to prolong his torment. All Lython could do was ignore the pulsing erection against his thigh as she stooped down, running the scrap of cloth up the inside of her leg before dropping back to the ground to repeat the process. Every time he lowered himself to the ground his vision was filled with the firm curve of her buttocks and the slightest glimpse of her slit. Freshly washed, her whole body had a clean scent with only the faintest hint of feminine musk born of her mounting arousal.
	“Don't stop there,” she murmured, a hard note lurking in the background of her voice. Lython jumped, realising that his motions had slowed to a stop as his attention had wandered. Shaking his head – and trying to put all thoughts of his stiffened shaft out of his mind – the Craftworlder straightened up and hurriedly began to finish drying Melisidae's body. Even from behind he could picture her breasts in his mind, vividly imagining his hands running up her body to cradle to firm flesh. Like most Eldar, Melisidae's breasts were small, held tightly against her muscled torso, although unlike any other woman Lython had ever known she had ornamented her breasts with a long bone needle pierced through each nipple.
	“Now you can stop,” the Commorrite teased, just as Lython was about to reach her bosom. She took a step away from the boy before turning, sparing him the briefest of glances before sliding past him. A moment later, she returned with a small porcelain bottle, thrusting it into Lython's hands. “Something new today, I think,” she mused, “Oil, scented with Rose of Saim-Hann. Not an easy thing to get, as you can imagine.”
	“Is this... for me?” Lython asked, his tone guarded. Melisidae laughed in response, a mocking shout that devolved into disbelieving chuckles when she realised that the boy's question had been a serious one.
	“You're getting ideas above your station, boy,” she sneered, stressing the last word to remind Lython of his lowly position. “A treasure like this would be wasted on you. No, you'll be anointing my body with it. You can handle that, can't you?” Melisidae's eyes flicked down to the bulge in Lython's robes, the lingering sign of his arousal, and narrowed with disdain, “Maybe it'll teach you a little self-control.” 
	“Self-control...” the words slipped out of Lython's mouth as his gaze crept down Melisidae's body. But for a smirk the Commorrite offered no reply, merely turning and presenting the boy with her back. Gritting his teeth, Lython uncorked the bottle and poured a thin stream of the silky liquid into his open palm, rubbing his hands together to warm the oil. The exotic scent wafted up to Lython's nostrils as he touched Melisidae's skin, his slick palms sliding across the expanse of her back with sensual ease.
	A soft sigh of contentment escaped Melisidae as Lython's hands followed the smooth line of her back, parting to trace the curve of her hips as his touch slid lower. Oil glistened in the candlelight, illustrating the curving pattern his fingers had painted down the Commorrite's pallid skin. Just as she had marked Lython with ink and scars, now he was marking her with the perfumed unguent. Far from making them equal, however, every moment Lython spent with his hands sliding over Melisidae's elegant body was a new torture, taunting him with the knowledge that he was under her control. No matter how aroused he became, she would only grant him release when it suited her own desires. 
	Even so, knowing that it would only deepen the aching lust building in his loins, Lython was powerless to stop his hands from creeping down Melisidae's legs, leaving her skin gleaming like a freshly polished weapon. She shifted her weight from foot to foot as he massaged the fragrant oil into her skin, soft gasps and sighs of pleasure escaping her. The balm – infused with some other, less innocent compound – brought a warm flush to whatever it touched. Lython's hands were tingling madly, like his skin was bristling with delicate needles. He could only imagine how maddening it would be to have the stimulant daubed across his penis, or some other equally sensitive place.
	Having sheathed her legs in a glistening sheen of oil, Lython turned his attentions upwards, rising up to the plateau of the Commorrite's shoulders and the further peak of her long, slender neck. As his hands brushed up against the delicate stem of her neck, Lython's mind wandered to dark thoughts of insurrection. He wasn't strong, and Melisidae had a height advantage on him, but with the element of surprise tilting the odds in his favour he might have been able to choke the life from his captor. With murderous schemes blackening his mind, Lython's hands grew still, lingering on the smooth lines of her neck. He could feel her pulse, slow and luxurious, as though she was utterly without care.

	“You won't do it,” Melisidae's voice, shockingly casual, jolted Lython from his lurid imaginings, “And do you know why? You – all of your kind – lack the will to stab someone right in the back.” The Commorrite's hands covered Lython's, enclosing them in a firm grip. Rather than take them from her throat, however, Melisidae tightened the boy's grip.
	Panic swept over Lython as Melisidae forced his hands to close in on her neck, pressing deeply down into the flesh. The slightest moment of hesitation had been enough to lay bare his entire plan, and now Lython was at her mercy. His terror lent him a potent strength, enough to pull away from the Commorrite who – only after she felt his touch leave her – deigned to turn around and look him in the eye.
	“Like I said, you don't have the will for this. We're both manipulators, in a way, but I do it properly. Your kind, you like to tug at fate's strings to get what you want, but I've never had the luxury of working from the background,” Melisidae began to circle the boy, who was frozen to the ground in fear, “If I wanted someone dead, I had to stick the knife in their back myself, but...” she paused, placing her hands on the boy's shoulders from behind, “I appreciate the effort. You would have made a good Commorrite, if we'd taken you sooner.”
	“You take children?” It seemed a ridiculous question – they had taken him, after all – but Lython couldn't stop himself from blurting it out.
	“Of course! The Haemonculi are always looking for new test subjects – let that be a warning to you – while others...” Melisidae's voice lowered to a sinister purr, her hands sliding down Lython's shoulders and onto his chest, her nails leaving stinging trails behind them, “They take children to feed their perversions, but you already knew that, didn't you?”
	Before Lython could answer – or even consider what his answer would be – Melisidae's hand shot out and grabbed the boy's crotch, her grip tightening around the rigid bulge in the front of his robes. “My my,” she murmured, her other hand snaking under his robes to grope the boy's testicles, “Were you planning on strangling me, or having your way with me?”
	“I wasn't...” Lython began, before his voice broke down into a choking gasp. Melisidae's hands were slick with oil, the same that Lython had been spreading across her body not moments before, and now it was starting to burn its way into his sensitive testicles. He sighed in relief as the Commorrite released him, only to stiffen in fear as her hand wandered back up, one oiled finger pressing against the tightened hole of his anus.
	“It would be such a waste,” Melisidae whispered in his ear, her voice low with sadistic excitement. As she spoke, her finger pressed harder against Lython's sphincter, slowly dilating the puckered hole and teasing him with the burning aphrodisiac oil. “You'd just kill me, is that it? Don't you want to get some revenge? To break me, to dominate me?” Terrified by the older woman's salacious whispers, Lython shook his head desperately, his voice rising into a high yelp as she finally pushed her finger into him.
	“Pathetic,” the Commorrite murmured as she reached under Lython's robes to stroke his shaft, “You're more like a girl than anything else,” she added with a vicious sneer, pressing her finger deeper into the clenching tightness of Lython's anus as she caressed his throbbing member, “You certainly seem to like being fucked like one.”
	Lython flushed in shame at the cruel jest, even as he was unable to fully stifle a moan from slipping out. There was some pain, especially as Melisidae was thrusting her finger into his virgin entrance with no concern for his well being, but there was a perverse pleasure as well. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing, probing his sensitive prostate to the same rhythm with which she stroked his manhood. After the drawn out frustrations of the long massage, it seemed like mere seconds before Lython's shaft was tensing in anticipation, a thin stream of precum leaking from the tip.
	Another whimper escaped Lython as the tingling oil began to sting his shaft, spreading waves of intense sensation – the pain and pleasure were so mixed that it was impossible to tell where one ended and another began – through his body. He squirmed, impaling himself on Melisidae's probing finger as it explored his body, teasing his prostate with fleeting touches. His penis felt heavy, thickened with blood and the desperate need for release. In giddy anticipation of his orgasm, Lython let his eyes drift shut and felt his breathing deepen into a fevered rhythm.
	Before the intoxicating rush of his climax could finally wash over him, Melisidae pulled her finger from his body and snatched her hand away from his shaft. Instead, she seized his wrists, preventing the sweat-slick boy from finishing himself off. Lython wriggled and groaned, his pent up lust souring into aching frustration as he was denied release. Melisidae held him for a long time before his prick finally wilted, lingering spasms sending the occasional twitch through his shrunken member.
	“Clean yourself up,” her voice brusque, Melisidae threw the boy a rag to mop up his sweat and turned to leave the room, “We're going outside today. I think it's time you saw the Dark City in all her glory,” a cruel smile parted her lips as the Commorrite ran one hand through Lython's hair, “I have such wonders to show you...”

In all his time as a captive, Lython had only ever seen the Dark City of Commorragh from the windows in Melisidae's citadel. From there, he could only see the spires and towers of rival Archons, wrapped in black clouds and gloom. The city had always seemed to possess a great and terrible beauty, but the street level was a different creature entirely.
	On his first day as a captive, Melisidae had threatened Lython with throwing him out into the streets and letting him fend for himself. While the threat had been all too effective – the young Craftworlder had few illusions about his chances of survival – it hadn't driven home the sheer anarchic nature of Commorragh's lower levels. The streets were packed, countless examples of esoteric alien races rubbing shoulders with disdainful Eldar and stranger things aside. The worst were the members of the Haemonculi covens, wheezing creatures beyond all sane recognition that defied death with every moment they spent walking the streets. Suddenly, Lython's life as a pleasure slave seemed almost luxurious in comparison.
	A pair of stoic bodyguards, drawn from the elite ranks of some murderous warrior cult, roamed ahead of Melisidae and her slave, clearing a path through the crowd. They could have travelled by air – the sky was thick with passing skimmers and aircraft – but Melisidae seemed to draw some arrogant satisfaction from making her presence known. With the crowd closing around them as they passed through, it would have been easy for Lython to vanish into the swirling stream on anonymous strangers, had his mistress not been keeping him on a tight leash.
	In this case, the leash was literal - a length of heavy chain connected to a thick leather collar that Melisidae had locked around Lython's throat. The collar was tight enough that the boy was unable to put it off his mind. Every breath was a reminder of the bindings, and the chain clenched in Melisidae's fist. The leash seemed to send a message, telling every leering onlooker that the young Eldar was even less than a slave, dragged down to the level of a simple pet.
	A curious tension had seeped into Lython's body, filling his limbs with a strange kind of nervous energy. At first, he thought that this spurned libido had diffused into a more generalised vigour, but then he noticed that the crowd seemed to share his baseless enthusiasm. Out of all the countless masses heading in the same direction, the only unifying factor seemed to be that unexpected eagerness.
	Even Melisidae seemed to be under the influence, her pace quickened and lively. Her skirts swished as she walked, the glistening white plastic reminding Lython of a surgeon's garb. He had watched her dress, slowly picking each piece of her outfit and donning it like a striptease played in reverse. All the while, he had yearned to touch her body, whilst hating himself for the control she held over him. With his attention honed in on the armoured figure of his mistress, Lython was slow to notice that the crowd was approaching a grand structure, built like a giant ring and decorated with lavish statues.
	“Welcome!” Melisidae announced, the leash tightening as she threw her hands up into the air, “To the Grand Arena!”

	Whatever influence Melisidae held in Commorragh, it had been enough to secure her a prime seat in the arena. Set aside from the common masses, her seat loomed high above the sandy floor of the arena, with others of equal power and influence seated nearby. These were seats for those with a retinue, although all but the nobility were forced to stand or sit on the floor. At her behest, Lython stood at Melisidae's side, peering down into the arena. Finally, he had been able to place the contagious energy sweeping through the crowd. It was bloodlust.
	There was something almost childlike about the giddy, unrestrained excitement with which Melisidae stared down into the arena, waiting for the violence to begin. Her eyes were wide, lined with swipes of black paint that gave her gaze a lunatic intensity and clashed with the great sweeping mane of her pure white hair.
	It seemed like the height of barbarism, packing into a grand stadium in baying hordes while slaves and prisoners were put to the sword, but Lython couldn't deny that the enthusiasm was hideously infectious. Before he had quite realised it, Lython had joined the crowd in their eager anticipation, even matching their exuberant cries as the gladiators entered the arena.
	The first gladiators were human, and particularly burly examples of that graceless species at that. Stripped naked, and armed with only the crudest of knives, the humans were herded into the centre of the dusty circle. They paced and stomped, the fear beneath their bravado obvious even at such a distance, before a great gong was struck. The dolorous sound rang out through the grand arena but the noise quickly died away, only to be replaced by a frightful snarling as a pack of beasts leapt from their cages.
	Gore-slick hounds with leering skull faces and wavering tendrils, the creatures burst from the shadows and pounced on the fleeing, broken mass of humans. The slaughter was absolute, every one of the human slaves vanishing beneath the rolling tide of teeth and claws until the air was thick with a bloody mist. After watching, rapt with a hideous mixture of fascination and revulsion, for the first few deaths, Lython finally tore his eyes away from the violence unfolding beneath him, turning his gaze to Melisidae instead.
	With her burning eyes fixated on the carnage below, Melisidae cast a frightful figure. As if mirroring the bloodied dirt in the ring, her face had flushed a vivid red while each breath came in short, hot gasps. From her lurid expression to the rhythmic clenching of her fists, every part of her body spoke of a potent arousal that had overtaken her mind, drowning out sense and reason with the pursuit of pleasure.
	As if sensing his anxious gaze, Melisidae gave Lython's leash a harsh tug, dragging the boy down onto all fours. Sparing him the briefest of glances she pulled him closer and parted her legs, the glossy material of her long skirt riding up as she uncovered her sex. Squirming in discomfort, Lython glanced to the nobles sitting not so far away from them, but the few that weren't absorbed in watching the butchery below gave the young Craftworlder little more than a disinterested look or a cursory sneer. Before he could spend any more time looking at those around him Melisidae seized his heavy collar and yanked him forwards, pushing his head under her skirts.
	
	The perfumed oil that he had massaged into her skin did little to cover the scent of her lust from such a close distance. Instead, the two odours mixed into a single intoxicating musk that crept into Lython's head and muddled his senses. The young Craftworlder had but a moment to see her sex before Melisidae pushed his face deeper into it, but it was long enough to recognise the familiar details of her intimacy.
	Clean and totally hairless, the lips of her slit were fanged by a pair of metal rings. In any other light they would gleam like finely honed daggers, but the plastic sheath of her skirt blocked out all but the barest minimum of light. A final spike was pierced through the delicate hood of flesh covering her clitoris. It was this spike – thankfully blunted – that traced a line down Lython's tongue as he began to lap at her sex with long, slow motions.
	Though he couldn't see her face, Lython knew that Melisidae's lips would be pressed into a firm line, her nostrils flaring with each fevered breath. Certainly, he had spent enough time in her private chambers to know the signs of her pleasure in intimate detail. Lython licked her again, running his tongue up the length of her slit with a deliberate lack of haste, savouring the taste of her sex. Her folds parted under his attentions, growing slick with both saliva and other fluids as he lapped at her.
	Strong thighs tightened around Lython's head as the tip of his tongue flicked across the Commorrite's clitoris, teasing the nub of flesh with quick little touches. Every time he felt the muscles clenching around him Lython heard a short gasp, muffled by the toned flesh pressing in around him. Melisidae's skirts rustled as she lifted them some more, granting the boy a rush of blessed air as she reached underneath, her fingers plunging into the boy's tousled hair and seizing a handful of it, like a rider taking the reigns of their trusted steed.
	Even with a nagging pain rushing from his scalp with every one of Melisidae's cruel tugs at his hair, Lython quickly felt his member stiffen as a deep arousal crept into his body. His shaft ached, seemingly filled with every drop of frustrated seed that had built up since his earlier, denied orgasm. He yearned to touch himself but didn't dare, thoughts of the Commorrite's wrath staying his hand. His one hope was to satisfy his mistress, and throw himself upon her capricious mercy.
	Urged on by her none too subtle encouragement, Lython thrust his tongue deeper into Melisidae's sex, parting the pierced folds flanking her sex and drinking deeply from her chalice. Hot walls of muscle clenched around his probing tongue as a deep shudder ran through Melisidae's body. Her passage grew wetter and wetter, sweetness flowing into Lython's mouth as the first stirrings of her climax were set into motion.
	Shifting and squirming in her seat, Melisidae pressed down harder on Lython's head, grinding her crotch into his face with a groan of shameless pleasure. The boy's tongue lashed out faster, flicking across her clit to the manic rhythm of her trembling thighs. His lungs burned with a desperate hunger for breath, but Melisidae's insistent grip offered him no chance of respite. Finally, with an almost overwhelming scent of musk, the Commorrite's body was gripped in a grand convulsion as she was plunged into the throes of orgasmic bliss.

	When her tense muscles finally loosened up and her legs parted, Lython leaned back and tasted the air with great hungry gasps. It could hardly be considered fresh, with the mingling scents of blood and sweat ravaging his lungs with each breath he took, but Lython savoured it nonetheless. The cheering and roaring of the crowd, he noticed slowly, had subsided into an excited hum.
	“Your timing is impeccable,” Melisidae purred, her voice low and breathless, “The main event is coming up next, and I guarantee you won't want to miss it.”
	“The main event?” Lython asked. As he spoke, he realised that the taste of the Commorrite's sex was still clinging to his lips and tongue. Glancing down at the floor in embarrassment, he scrubbed his mouth and chin clean of the musky fluid, carefully wiping his wet hand on the hem of his robes.
	“Oh yes,” Melisidae's smile grew a fraction of an inch wider. She shuffled on her seat for a moment, spreading her legs so that there was enough room for the boy to sit between them. “Why don't you take a seat?” she offered, although her tone allowed no refusal. Tentatively, expecting trickery at every moment, Lython sat on the edge of the seat and let the older woman shift until her body was pressed against his own. She felt hot, her skin flushed with the afterglow of her orgasm and a bloodthirsty thrill. Lython's penis was heavy and aching, pushing shamelessly against his robes as if to deny any attempt at hiding it.
	“My my,” Melisidae murmured in the boy's ear, one of her warm hands gliding up the outside of his thigh, “You must be so desperate. Do you want to finish that badly?” Unwilling to trust his voice, Lython simply nodded, glad that the Commorrite couldn't see his reddened face. “A wager, then,” she decided, “If my champion wins the next round, I'll let you finish. If your champion wins... Well, I'm sure you can wait a little longer.”
	Lython frowned deeply, confused by the unexpected offer. Surely, he thought to himself, he should want his champion to win, and yet the Commorrite's bargain was the exact opposite. What did she even mean by “champion”? He was still puzzling out her terms when a bone-shaking roar rose up from the crowd as the main event began.

	Lython's heart sank as he realised the true, sadistic nature of Melisidae's offer. His champion – although he had never picked her for the role – was unmistakably a Craftworlder, her simple lack of tattoos or piercings marking her out from the rest of the crowd. Clad in the most perfunctory of armours and armed with a simple sword, she nevertheless held her head up highly. A warrior for sure, that much was obvious.
	“Taken from one of your Banshee cults,” Melisidae informed him, her thighs tightening around Lython's waist as if to stop him from jumping up and fleeing, “Captured in the same raid that brought you here. Anyone you recognise?”
	Like all aspect warriors, the Howling Banshees were part of the same society as he was in the loosest possible sense. All those who had dedicated themselves to the path of war were apart from the rest of the Craftworlders, separated as much by their impersonal armour as by their war-like temperament. Even if he had seen her every day, he wouldn't recognise the woman's features.
	“And that's my champion,” Melisidae reached over Lython's shoulder, pointing out a barbaric looking Commorrite. Clad in a costume that looked more like instruments of bondage than a suit of armour, the fiendish warrior woman carried a pair of long daggers and smiled wickedly, relishing the upcoming battle. “You want her to win, don't you?” Melisidae purred in the boy's ear, “One of your own down there, and you're going to cheer when she gets butchered, isn't that right?”
	Icy fingers seemed to grip Lython as he stared, wide-eyed, down into the bloodstained dust of the stadium. Any other wager, he would have accepted, but this was too cruel, too calculated for him to comprehend. A kind of bleak weariness crept over him as he realised that this had been Melisidae's intentions all along. The entire day, with all her teasing and denial, had been leading up to this sadistic gamble. 
	The worst thing, Lython realised, was that the temptation to give in was too strong, preying on his muddled thoughts and frustrated desires. As much as he yearned to see the Craftworlder win the duel, to see Melisidae's champion broken and beaten in front of countless baying villains, a darker impulse tugged at his mind. The same buried passion that had drawn him into Melisidae's dark orbit was now crying out for blood and pleasure as much as anyone else in the stadium, silently urging him to abandon the foolish constraints of morality. All around him, faces alive with emotion taunted him with the possibility of what he could become, if only he shed the lingering fragments of his restraint.
	“You know, if that little Banshee down there were to win, I'd be terribly unhappy,” Melisidae whispered, the hot rush of her breath tickling Lython's pointed ear. Beneath them, both gladiators circled each other carefully, the true battle yet to erupt into life. “I'd feel the need to take my anger out on something - some other Craftworld mongrel perhaps. Ask yourself this...” the Commorrite's hand slipped higher up Lython's thigh, dipping down beneath his robe and seizing his erection in a tight grip, “Would she lift a finger to save you, let alone throw away her own life?”
	“She's sworn to defend the Craftworld,” Lython murmured, unconvinced by his own paltry argument. In truth, his mind was already made up, although he was loathe to admit it. “Every time she goes into battle, she wagers her life for the good of the Craftworld.”
	“We're not on one of your pitiful little world ships now, boy,” Melisidae reminded Lython with a wicked voice, “This isn't some grand battle, where she can offer her life gratefully. If she dies here, the only higher purpose she'll serve is to amuse everyone in this glorious arena,” she paused to squeeze Lython's shaft, forcing a single drop of clear precum from the burning tip, “And to get you off, of course. A parting gift, you could say.”

	Lython's reply was cut off as the crowd roared, the battle beneath them surging into life. As if moving in perfect synchronisation with the whirling blades, Melisidae began to stroke Lython's shaft, tugging at the immature length with short, aggressive motions. The boy squirmed in place, certain that the first few caresses would be enough to send him over the edge, and yet his orgasm eluded him, held at bay by Melisidae's expert skill. She knew the boy's rhythms, and her practised touch could play him like a finely tuned instrument, bringing him up to the brink of climax and leaving him there, straining against her motionless grip.
	It was torturous, although such a thing was perhaps to be expected, considering the Commorrite's base nature. Lython couldn't tear his eyes away from the swirling melee below, every cut and thrust answered by the nagging pleasure of Melisidae's artful touch. At first blood – a long cut drawn across the nameless Banshee's thigh – the Commorrite noblewoman leaned down and nipped at Lython's ear with her sharp teeth, growling like a playful beast all the while. As a counterpoint to the needling pain of her bite, she began to stroke the boy's manhood harder, coaxing him closer to a climax as the fight continued below.
	“I've got you,” she taunted, her whispered voice rough with a rekindled arousal. As much as Lython wanted to deny it, she was right. His back was arched, muscles taut as he took deep, panting breaths that escaped his slack mouth as lustful moans. Though the exact moment had eluded him, at some point he had started grinning madly, his smile only widening with every mistake and missed parry the Banshee suffered. He was cheering for the death of one of his own, a noble Craftworlder, and yet the realisation brought him little shame or suffering.
	“You've wanted this from the start,” Melisidae insisted, her sinuous voice reaching deep into Lython's tender mind and planting vicious seeds, “You've got more power here than you'd ever have back on that pathetic Craftworld.”
	“I'm a slave!” Lython gasped, shuddering deeply as the older woman reached between his legs and grabbed his hanging scrotum, teasing it with a gentle squeeze.
	“You're the slave of a powerful woman,” she corrected him, releasing him for a moment to gesture around the arena, “Look at them! Free people, slaving away for the sake of one more miserable day. Stick with me, Lython, and you can have it all!”
	“Until you tire of me,” Lython grunted through gritted teeth. His body was coated with a glistening sheen of sweat, while his throbbing shaft leaked a constant stream of sticky precum. In the ring below them, the luckless Banshee had slowed to a feeble pace, her life dripping away with each drop of blood. “Then I'll be cast out!”
	“So keep me amused.” With that, Melisidae twisted Lython's jaw up and planted a firm kiss on his lips, her pointed tongue pushing deep into his mouth and coiling around his own. With his eyes closed, and all his senses honed on the constant waves of pleasure she coaxed from his sensitive body, Lython was only dimly aware of the crowd howling with ecstasy. Their cries were unmatched by anything he had ever heard before, a non-stop outpouring of primal celebration that could have only been caused by a killing blow.
	As if driven into her own throes of barbaric delight, Melisidae's grip on the boy's shaft tightened, a new urgency entering her strokes. Her closed fist pumped up and down, hard enough that Lython's shameless moans were shaken by occasional cries of pain, the two sensations blending together until neither one could be separated from the other. If his discomfort bothered the Commorrite, or if it even registered with the sadist, she gave no sign of slowing her relentless pace.
	Melisidae broke their kiss, letting the boy's head loll back as his slack jaw yawned open, insistent breaths panting out the sound of his approaching climax. Lython's brow creased, his face screwing up as the first spasms of his orgasm gripped him. Tension drew his muscles tighter as a delightful heaviness began to rise up from the depths of his body. All the frustrated seed that had been churning within him seemed to flood into his penis, dragged towards the tip of his shaft with an irresistible rhythm.
	Squirming, his sweat-slick body pressed against Melisidae's warm chest, Lython let a long moan escape his lips as his orgasm finally arrived in a rush of blissful ecstasy. After so long in a state of denial the feeling of release alone was glorious, even before the climactic pleasure flooded every inch of his body with indescribable delight. Powerful spasms gripped his body as his seed shot forth in powerful arcs. The absurd thought of it striking one of the spectators below formed in his mind, causing his satisfied groans to devolve into a fit of breathless giggles. 
	His orgasm seemed to last a long time, as if every little bit of pleasure he had been denied was being paid back in full. Melisidae's strokes had slowed, her hand creeping slowly up the length of his shaft as she squeezed every last drop of his seed out, letting it drip onto the stone floor of the stadium with uncaring disdain. Finally, his throes of passion began to peter off, replaced with a warm heaviness that filled his body with a welcome fatigue. The urge to sleep, to lie back against Melisidae's body and let his eyes drift shut, was strong, but it was an unattainable fantasy. As soon as he started to relax, Melisidae got to her feet and yanked his leash, eager to return to the welcome solitude of her citadel.

	Lost in thought, Lython let Melisidae lead him back through the winding, shadow-clad streets, barely noticing the crowds parting around them. His thoughts kept returning to the duel he had witnessed in the arena, and the luckless Banshee's inglorious fate. Even now, without the weight of his lustful body burdening his mind, he felt no shame from the pleasure her death had brought him. What was more of an enigma was the strange mercy Melisidae had favoured him with.
	The moment before the killing blow had been struck, she had drawn his eyes away from the arena, stealing his attention away with a deep kiss. For all her sadistic glee in forcing him watch a fellow Craftworlder fighting to the death, she had shielded him from the moment of bloody climax. It was an uncharacteristically charitable act, and one that he struggled to understand.
	Of course, he could have put it down the the Commorrite's capricious nature and left it at that, but that flimsy explanation – barely an explanation at all – failed to satisfy the boy's inquiring mind. Yet, the only other answer that Lython could think of was so out of character that it was laughable. Could it have really been that she had protected him out of some kind of warped affection? The idea was absurd, and yet Lython couldn't shake the possibility from his mind. In the end, his only hope for an explanation would be to ask his mistress directly, and pray that she favoured him with an honest answer.
	Even asking such questions was dangerous, for the gleefully sadistic noblewoman was always looking for an excuse to lavish punishments on her young slave. To pry into her private thoughts would surely be an outrageous risk, and yet Lython's curiosity would not be sated until he did so. Wisely, he decided that any questions he might have could wait until they had reached the privacy of Melisidae's personal chambers.
	The long walk had, if nothing else, given Lython plenty of time to think of the best way to approach the thorny issue. As he slowly undressed the taller woman, he cleared his throat tactfully.
	“Something on your mind, boy?” Melisidae asked, flaunting her ability to read the boy like an open book.
	“Back at the arena...” Lython turned away and busied himself with hanging up the Commorrite's discarded clothes, unwilling to let himself get distracted by her naked form, “When she was killed. You didn't let me watch.”
	“Oh, is that it?” Melisidae's voice was rich with amusement. Evidently, she had been anticipating the question for as long as Lython had been wrestling with it. “Are you disappointed? Did you want to watch her die?”
	“I just wanted to know why,” Lython replied, expecting a stinging slap with every word he forced out.
	“Perhaps I was overtaken with lust. I just couldn't stop myself from stealing a kiss,” the Commorrite's reply was about as far from sincerity as possible, each word dripping with feigned innocence, “Even if I had some higher reason, do you really think I'd just tell you?”
	“I doubt it,” Lython admitted quietly. Really, he hadn't expected anything less.
	“It's far more fun to keep you guessing,” Melisidae's arms reached around the boy, embracing him from behind as her voice drew closer to his ear, the same ear that she had bitten earlier on. Her voice, as she whispered in his ear, was mocking. 
	“Fun...” Lython repeated in a hushed tone. He was well aware of what the older woman considered to be fun.
	“Now stay there,” she whispered, one hand snaking down his back to trace out a swirling trail, “I've got plenty of ideas for what to do with you...”