Engines howling under the strain of its cargo, the Raider cuts through the Dark City's skies. Reavers and Hellions circle and swarm in the weak light of Commoragh's captive suns as we soar through the shattered towers and war-torn shantytowns of the city's Lower districts, passing the ragged banners and mutilated captives the lesser Kabals string from every street to denote their territory. The darkly glittering peaks of Corespur loom in the distance like barbed mountains, the screaming of Overlord Vect's thirteen statues faintly audible even from so far away. Bound with lengths of barbed cord, the slaves piled on the Raider's decks shudder and moan at the terrible keening, some of them opening their eyes to stare accusingly at me. 

I was one of them, once, but I feel nothing for them now. I sneer back at one man - a thick, heavy-set brute with the tattoos of an Imperial Guardsman - and let my hand fall to the electrified pain-goad at my hip, staring him down until his resolve wavers and he looks away. Weak, I think. Weak, like all the others. Of all the slaves taken from the bowels of Hive Secundus on the day the Eldar came, only I accepted the truth of the situation; that there was no hope, there would be no rescue and no escape. We had truly passed beyond the Emperor's sight. Survival depended upon making ourselves too useful to be slaughtered for sport or bartered off as currency, and so I made myself useful. I whispered of escape plans to our alien Guards, and colluded in the torture and executions of the ringleaders. My hands are soaked in the blood of my own species, but I have clawed my way over the bodies of my fellow slaves to stand above them; trusted, insomuch as our captor can trust anyone, to keep them under control and granted a degree of freedom and protection in return.

Flanked by a pair of Kabalite bodyguards, that same captor sits on an ornate throne beneath the Raider's thrumming aethersail, her long, violet hair billowing out behind her like a conqueror's flag. Eluriq Shiverblade, Archon of the Kabal of the Vengeful Blow, the Eldar pirate that tore through our Hive and dragged us to her alien city in chains. Her face is sharp and poised, her pointed ears pierced with fine silver chains, dressed in a skirt that looks to have been made from shattered fragments of black glass which hangs from a bodice carved from the bones of some terrible predatory beast. It rattles and clinks as the Raider cuts through Commoragh's tainted air, occasionally parting to show the Archon's long, pale legs as she shifts in her throne or issues an order to her steersman.

The Raider banks over a river of thick, green ooze dotted with pleasure-barges and crossed with crumbling bridges and begins to climb, rising past the jagged peaks of the crashed spacecraft in which the Starslayer Kabal holds court and powering towards a distant tower. My heart begins to beat faster and a thin smile creeps over my face as the rush of cool air tugs at my supple body, clad in a bastardized version of the same jagged armor the rest of Eluriq's Kabal wears, and rustles through my short, ash-blonde hair. I have to fight down the urge to whoop in exuberance as the grav-craft rocks back and forth in the chill wind, each motion threatening to pitch me over the side as it knifes through the Raider's open hull. The air in the hive was thick and hot, like soup; I didn't know what wind felt like until I was brought to Commoragh. In many ways I'm just as much a slave as the wretches that huddle around my feet, but the freedoms - or illusion of freedoms -  that I have are nothing less than beautiful.

Behind me, the Steersman calls out to the Archon in the Eldar's own tongue as we pull into one of the yawning docking ports carved into the tower's surface, announcing our arrival with a series of harsh, grating syllables. He doesn't deign to use his translator, but I can still pick up perhaps one word in three - enough to understand that we've arrived at the holdings of a Hekatarii cult, and I feel quietly smug at that as the Raider comes in to dock. Great swarms of slaves rush back and forth, loading and unloading the other vehicles docked at the rows of jetties, driven on by gangs of bored looking Commorites with whips and shock-prods. A runic hexcage filled with hissing, slavering Hormagaunts stands next to a confused mob of chained Orks, and a pack of Dark Eldar have gathered to watch as a blind, crippled Space Marine is dragged towards a Venom transport. They laugh and jeer, spitting at him or cutting shallow gashes in his broad back, mocking his cries of anguish and impotence as they drink in the fallen hero's suffering.

"How does that make you feel, Anjanette?" 

The Archon's voice is like the caress of a blade; as soft as silk, but thick with the promise of violence if my answer displeases her, and a shudder of fear runs up my spine as I turn towards her. She sits in her throne with her chin resting atop her thin, steepled fingers, her dark eyes boring into me like a torturer's drills. I look back to the Marine as a pair of twisted, ghoulish Wracks sink their envenomed syringes into his chest, pumping him full of some kind of paralytic ichor for the journey back to their master, and feel nothing but contempt. 

"He was weak." I say, my lip curling into a sneer as the Venom's engines scream into life and it swoops away, quickly becoming lost in Commoragh's jagged skyline. "They call themselves angels, but he still let himself fall into someone else's hands, didn't he? So he deserves everything he gets."

I bite my tongue as Eluriq watches me with her dark, cruel eyes, her thin, alien face as inscrutable as that of the monsters being loaded and unloaded around me. The seconds creep into each other, and a tight knot of tension begins to form in my guts as I wonder if I mis-spoke. Even the other slaves have fallen silent, watching us from where they lie on the Raider's decks, as if waiting to see their hated overseer being cut down before them. Then, finally, the Archon gives a small nod a turns away. 

"Get the cargo unloaded." She says, rising with her guards, and I feel my shoulders sag a fraction in relief. "I want it off board and fit to walk in the next five demicycles."

One of the slaves - a young boy, perhaps twelve, his great blue eyes wide with terror - starts screaming into his gag as I sever the cord around his legs and drag him over the Raider's balustrade like a piece of awkward luggage.  That sets the others off, their wails and moans mingling into a fearful cacophony as, one by one, they're hauled out of the skimmer and deposited onto the dock. The once-Guardsman tries to fight back, kicking out at me as soon as his legs are freed, and receives a sharp blow from my pain-goad in return. He drops back against the Raider's hull, gasping and convulsing. I shock him twice more, snarling in fury and smashing the goad into his belly and genitals, grinning in cruel pleasure as he curls up in a futile attempt at protecting himself. The other slaves aboard the Raider look away as his twitching, sobbing body is rolled over the balustrade and dropped face first onto the dock, the faint crunch of his nose breaking almost lost in the background noise. The rest don't give me any further trouble, staggering meekly onto the dock and staring at their feet. I glare venomously at them, then as Eluriq and her guards motion for us to follow, begin to herd the weeping people deeper into the Hekatarii tower.

I wasn't always like this, I think. I was never a nice person - petty and spiteful, yes, but never cruel. Never vicious or merciless. Commoragh changes everyone who visits it, even the desperate or foolhardy merchants who dare the Dark City to trade illicit goods. Misery and suffering hangs thick in the air and infects you with every breath, like a black canker that takes root in the heart and strangles every trace of goodness out of you. But as we venture through the twisting corridors, lithe gladiatrixes and glowering emissaries from other Kabals parting like a wave before the Archon's domineering gaze, I can't bring myself to care. The person I was died the moment I was lashed to the hull of a Raider and dragged through the pulsing gateway that led to Commoragh. 

The corridors here are lined with skulls, each one impaled upon a bronze spike below an intricate carving of how its owner was slain. From any other people, such mementos might be displayed to honour worthy foes fallen in honourable combat, but here they are presented simply to be mocked. Mighty Warbosses, noble Astartes heros, strange aliens harvested from the length and breadth of the galaxy - each one humbled in the arenas by the callow Hekatarii who live and die here, their humiliation enshrined for an eternity. At length, the ghoulish corridor opens up into a large, low-ceilinged chamber, thick with the scents of blood, spoiled meat and animal musk. Like some sort of demented zoo, the walls are lined with cages, each filled by some manner of terrible beast. Some bark and roar, hurling themselves time and again at the bars of their cages and lashing out at any who stray too close, while others simply pace back and forth, glaring patiently as if waiting to be released. Still others sit slumped in a corner or curl up to shield themselves from the horrors around them; these ones, I realize, are those who are more than simple beasts, yet condemned to be treated as such by the freakishness of their appearance. A Vespid looks up as we pass, its wings buzzing forlornly again the tumult of animal shrieks and howls.

As the last of the slaves is herded into position in the center of the room, one of the Commorites detaches from a group of his peers and approaches. There are very few of the snide gladiatrixes in this part of the tower, I notice; the only women are Kabalutes like Eluriq, coming and going on business like we are. The Eldar who greets us is broad and heavily-set for one of his people, clad in fur and scale like a savage, his face covered by a polished Tyranid skull and his scarred, muscular chest bared. I watch as he and Eluriq exchange greetings, before the Archon turns to me.

"Vek, you and the human will remain here." She orders before departing with her other guard and the savage. Several of the slaves - those who aren't staring at the caged monsters with terror in their eyes, at least - glance towards the exit, as if trying to work out how far they could run before Vek or myself cut them down, but drop their eyes after a few warning taps from the goad. For his part, Vek, the other guard, barely pays attention to me, his slit-visored helm gazing around the room in abject boredom as our Archon conducts her business. I amuse myself by watching the other Kabalites conducting their affairs, trying to see how many I can recognize while keeping half an eye on the sobbing gaggle of men and women before me. Eventually, Eluriq and the savage return, a lumpen shape ambling along behind them like an ape. Feathered antennae sweep the air in front of it as the trio emerge from the hustle, the other Eldar stepping back either to give the chitinous creature, or more likely, to avoid contaminating themselves by touching such a lesser creature. It's an Ambull, I think - half again my height and twice as broad, a brutish hulk of claws and chitin. The pit-fighting rings in the lower Hive used to have them battle one another for the crowd.  

"Anjanette!" The Archon barks. I quickly step forwards, back straight, the pain-goad held neatly at my side. 

"Yes, Archon!" I reply on instinct, the words drilled into me after several long, painful punishments for tardiness. The Eldar sweeps one of her slender hands out towards the creature.

"I wish to purchase this creature for my personal entertainment." She says, laying one of her delicate hands upon the creature's insectile face, tracing the arch of one great mandible with her fingers. "You will lay with the creature first, to assess how well it has been trained." 

"Yes, Arc-" The words come out on my mouth before the ramifications of the Eldar's instructions hit me. I come to a stumbling halt, the bottom dropping out of my stomach as i realize what Eluriq is asking - no, not asking, ordering - me to do. Have I done something to displease her? Am I being punished? My mind jolts back to the crippled Space Marine in the docking bay. I thought the Eldar had been satisfied with my answer. Did she think I was lying, or toadying? Was this her real reason for demanding my presence?

"Archon?" I ask, my eyes frantically flickering between her and the creatures as the slaves are led away in payment. 

"I am not given to repeating myself, slave." Eluriq spits. She uses the word like a lash and I cringe back, already fumbling with the catches of my armour as cold, icy terror begins to work its way through my gut. "You are Mon-keigh. You are a lesser entity. The prospect of mating with this  animal should not trouble you."

"Y-yes, Archon. Of course, Archon." I stammer, too afraid to question further. My breastplate drops away with a dull clang and I bend to unclasp my greaves, the dark skinsuit pulling tightly over the curve of my backside. Already, several of the Commorites browsing the cages have noticed the commotion and, like sharks scenting blood, wandered over to spectate. I can see them out of the corner of my eye as I struggle out of my boots and drop my pain-goad - a dozen or so pale, thin faces, their eyes dark, cruel and hungry as they whisper and laugh amongst themselves at the prospect of the coming show. Vex rasps something in his own language and shoves me a pace forwards, the ring of aliens closing smoothly around me as my heart hammers wildly against my breastbone. 

My shaking fingers work the seal of the skinsuit, parting it between my breasts and opening a slash down the front of the tight, black material to the base of my shaven mound. One of the Eldar whoops something appreciative as I wriggle out of it, pulling the skintight garment off my shoulders and rolling it down my body, stripping myself just as the paltry freedoms I claws from my fellow slaves have been stripped from me. Inch by inch, I feel my skin crawling under the gaze of the crowd as the skinsuit rolls down my body, over the generous swell of my breasts and down the muscles of my belly, scarred and made strong by life in the Dark City.

Not that such power matters any more. I peel the suit from my shapely thighs and kick it away, trying not to shake as I turn towards Eluriq. She stands with me and the Ambull within the circle, one hand rubbing her sharp chin as if in thought, and I feel myself wilting under the cruelty and malice in her dark, alien eyes.

"How does my Archon wish me to - to take it?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper, already dreading the answer. 

She makes a show of deciding, cocking her head and tapping one perfect cheek, making a theatrical "Hmmm..." of thought. 

"You will take the entirety of the beast's organ. I have been informed that the creature can pair with my own kind, so it should be entirely within your capabilities." She says, a look of wicked delight upon her narrow face. " Oh, and, slave? You shall refer to me as mistress for the time being."

"Of course, mistress." I say, swallowing down my fear as the Ambull is led forwards. Mandibles the size of my forearm click-clack as it lumbers towards me, its heavy, pincered claws scraping along the ground. It glares at me with dull yellow eyes set deep into its broad, armoured head, feathered antennae sweeping the air in front of it. 

They want me to have sex with this thing, I think. And I'm going to. I'm going to have sex with this thing, because the alternative is worse. I step forwards and reach for the Ambull, placing my hands either side of its head, running my hands over the lumps and ridges of its knobbled, green-brown carapace. My breath catches in my throat as its eyes focus on me for the first time and its antennae brush over my skin like feathers, scenting the fear-sweat beading across my brow. It hunches down until its head is almost level with mine, a long, segmented tongue sliding out from the beast's maw. One of the feathered antennae flickers downwards and brushes against my breast, the sudden contact making me hiss in surprise as the Ambull laps at my face, its mandibles resting either side of my head as the dripping tongue caresses my face and runs through my short, scruffy hair, leaving a shimmer of pale slime in its wake.

"Ambulls are social creatures, or so Barragash informs me." Eluriq calls. "I believe this one wishes to kiss you. It would be terribly rude to refuse him, don't you think?"

The crowd laughs, and I can feel myself flushing with embarrassment. Worse, not just embarrassment. The Ambulls' antennae flicker back and forth across my sensitive breasts, tracing the soft mounds and drawing a thin gasp each time the feathery, ticklish tips brush across my stiffening nipples, and I can feel a hot kernel of shame burning inside me at my own mounting arousal. 

Taking a tighter grip of the Ambull's head, I stand up on my tiptoes, stretching upwards and - against every ounce of sane judgement I possess - place my head between the monster's mandibles. Letting my mouth fall open, I chase its writhing tongue with my lips until the sopping appendage twists into my mouth and picker my lips around it, our tongues dancing in the heat of my mouth in a grotesque parody of a kiss. The Ambull's saliva drips onto my chin and trickles down onto my breasts, coating them in a thin sheen as the crowd lets out a soft 'aah' of appreciation.

Something hot, wet and hard bumps against my thigh. I don't need to be told what it is. In a way, I'm pathetically grateful that I don't need to waste time fumbling with the creature trying to find its genitals, and let one of my hands drop away from the Ambull's head to explore the length of turgid flesh swinging against my legs. It's as gnarled as the Ambull's chitin plates are, my questing fingers working their way over fleshy nodules that exude a sheen of lubricant and thick, pulsing veins that tremble under my touch. It doesn't have a distinct head, just a tapered tip that oozes strings of sticky precome over my fingers, and I find myself wondering what the alien monster's tool is going to feel like. I thrust the thought out of my head with a quiet cry of disgust. I don't want to do this. I don't want to be here. Part of me, a little part of me that I thought I had excised long ago, starts to scream like a little girl in the back of my head; I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home.

The Ambull's tongue slithers out of my mouth with a wet pop and a spray of fluid. I try to tell myself that the bead of liquid creeping down my thigh is just a spatter of drool or precome, but the building heat between my legs puts the lie to that. Everything in Commoragh comes down to power, to control; taking it, holding it, using it. Sex is no exception, and it has been a long, long time since I have taken the risk of sleeping with someone. I can feel that repressed need, that deep and infernal itch beginning to bloom inside me; a deep and primal part of myself that aches to be filled and satiated, no matter how monstrous the partner, and no matter the audience.

"Did you enjoy that, slave?" The Archon's voice calls out. I jump, startled, and turn towards her, flushing like a girl caught sharing an intimate moment by her parents. Shamefully, I find myself nodding.

"He has a beautiful tongue, mistress." I whisper. "And his antennae feel good as well." 

"I'm sure." Eluriq purrs, placing a hand on the creature's throbbing length and drawing her fingernails down the shaft, gathering up the fluid that collects upon it and drawing a low rumble from the Ambull's throat. She lifts those fingers to her mouth and tastes the thick beads of slime there, her pale tongue lapping at her pointed fingernails like a cat. "But I want to see you atop this. Proof, perhaps, that even the most inferior of species may be put to some use. Now push it backwards. It should," she stresses the word, and I cringe at the idea of what will happen to me if the Ambull has not, "have been trained to respond appropriately."

I obey without thinking, placing my hands on the Ambull's armoured chest and gently pushing. There's no way I could move such a huge creature on my own, but it seems to take the hint and awkwardly sits backwards, its stumpy lower legs flopping out and its huge claws hanging loose by its side. The creature's cock slaps wetly against its chitinous torso and swings back, jutting up into the air like a thick, fleshy tower. I bite my lip and run a hand through my hair, feeling a little of my old self - the self I cultivated in Commoragh, at least - coming back. For such a brutally powerful creature the Ambull looks strangely helpless, lying there like a crab flipped onto its back with its genitals exposed for all to see. An aching twinge pulses through me at the sight of the tower of ridged, pulsing flesh, and I cringe inside at the realization I've taken a step forwards without thinking about it.

I don't want to do this. I don't want to be fucked by this thing - this monster, least of all for the amusement of the crowd. The Commorites leer and chuckle, whispering amongst themselves, their dark, hollow eyes never leaving my nervous, shaking body for a moment as I position myself above the Ambull. But it has been so long, so very, very long, and I can no longer deny the awful heat of arousal flushing through my body. Strings of moisture thread their way down my inner thigh as the tip of the Ambull's cock brushes across my entrance, the heat of it pulsing against the engorged lips of my aching pussy.

And of course Eluriq, my mistress, my tormentor, is there. She glides up behind me and wraps her slender arms around my chest, drawing a shuddering gasp of surprise as her fingers sink into the soft flesh of my breasts.

"Tell me, slave." she hisses, her warm breath whispering across my ear, "How does it feel?"

I whine, gritting my teeth as the Archon takes my hard, sensitive nipples between her fingers and pinches, rolling the little pink nubs back and forth as she slowly pushes me down onto the Ambull's length. It can feel it pulsing as my labia are spread aside, the thick, wet feeling of blood and mucus beating through the pillar of hot flesh as it creeps inside me.

"It's big. It's - oh, by the Muses, it's-" I gasp, screwing my face up as the first inch pops inside me. I can feel myself being stretched out, my body struggling to cope with the monster's hulking phallus as the Archon forces me irresistibly down upon it. 

"Does it hurt?" She coos, twisting and pulling sharply on one of my nipples. I do my best to blot out the twinge of pain and nod desperately, silently praying that the monster behind me will relent and let me take the monster below me at my own pace.  She does not. I grit my teeth as the crowd leans in, determined not to give them the satisfaction of crying out as the Ambull's length is forced inside me. And yet, through the sharp pain of my entrance being spread open and the dull ache spreading through my belly as it fills with alien flesh, there is pleasure. Ridges of flesh rub against my taut, throbbing inner walls as rough patches of nodules grind over my clit, sending little electric sparks shooting through my abused body while the Ambull's feathery antennae flicker back and forth across my sweat-streaked skin. 

I don't want this, I think again. I shouldn't want this. But as my own wetness mingles with the fluid coating Ambull's cock and the penetration becomes easier, the pain becoming subsumed by the beautiful, heavy sensation of being filled, of taking another living creature inside my body, I find my hips beginning to move back and forwards upon the length of heaving flesh almost of their own accord. Like chasing an itch upon the back, I grind and swivel my body down the monster's length, feeling the meaty folds and throbbing veins shifting inside my hot, wet passage as the chitinous beast below pushes up into me. Oh, it wants me -  I fancy I can see it in the Ambull's eyes as it awkwardly thrusts upwards, dragging a sudden gasp from my mouth as my clit grinds against the rough chitin of its body and the furthest tip of its cock pushes me to my absolute limit. Is this why Eluriq wants it, I wonder? Like all her people, she is so tall, so thin - even with my more curvacious body, taking the thing inside me is a stretch. But as I look down at the helpless Ambull, its great, pincered arms waving awkwardly and its antennae sweeping across my sensitive breasts in desperate, ticking archs, I feel a perverse rush of power - like a conqueror standing over a defeated foe, knowing its life is mine, free to take what I want from it.

The crowd shifts, stepping closer for a better look as I lean forwards, pressing my hands against the Ambull's rough chest and leaning into it, bringing my face down towards the beast's insectile face and clacking mandibles. My fingers scrape along the edges of chitin plates as I grind my hips forwards, letting out a soft grunt as the bottom inch slips out from between my folds, only to be greedily sucked back in as I swing back again. It feels incredible - the little twinges of pain as the bottom few inches slide in and out of my abused slit, the little crackles of sensation whenever my clit catches against the Ambull's armoured plates, and the deep, animal satisfaction as its hot, hard cock finally scratches the deep, internal itch that I've neglected for so very, very long. The Ambull's tongue slithers out of its mouth again and I push into it, lapping at the coiling tendril as it slobbers over my face, my own tongue tickling the underside as slippery drool drips against my stiff, aching nipples. A long overdue orgasm begins to swell within me like a great wave, and I can feel my body shaking and twisting as the first eddies make their way down my trembling limbs.

Distantly, I can hear words from the crowd - cruel, sneering words, only half of which I understand and none of them kind, but not one of them looks away. Of all the terrible and wonderful sights in the Dark City, the circle of aliens remain locked upon me, and even through the building haze of orgiastic bliss I feel a stab of vicious pleasure at that. The women amongst them even seem drawn forwards, watching me like hawks as they whisper to one another, or cast furtive looks at the other cages around the room. Even the Archon has stepped back, walking around me in slow circles, examining my every gasp and heave as I writhe atop the Ambull's cock. Its tongue slips from my face and slaps against my breasts, curling around one of the heavy, swaying globes even as the hot, hard pillar of unyielding meat lodged in my body begins to pulse in time with the creature's slow, awkward upwards thrusts. 

"I believe the beast is about to reach its peak." Eluriq mentions blandly. I look up at her, and part of me purrs in guilty pleasure at the slight flush that has coloured the Archon's ivory skin. Is she jealous, I wonder? Is some private little part of her desperate to trade places, and be fucked by an alien monster before the eyes of a crowd? Perhaps, perhaps, she chose such a powerful creature not for the thrill of controlling it, but so the satisfaction of being controlled by it might relieve the stresses of her position. "Would you like that? The beastmasters here lead me to believe their ejaculations are quite prodigious."

"Ye-yes, mistress." The words end in a strangled gasp as I'm rocked by another convulsion, waves of pleasure singing through my body as I moved inexorably towards the coming climax. "I want to feel it inside me, mistress."

She sniffs, staring down at me in contempt. "I suppose you would." And yet, just like the others, the Archon's makes no move to look away; her eyes remain locked on my breasts as they sway back and forth, the Ambull's tongue still curled around one of the slippery globes. "You've taken to rutting with that thing far more readily than I imagined."

One little protrusion, a small nub of flesh that has been relentlessly grinding into my g-spot with every rocking motion of my hips, drags over my most sensitive spot one final time. I twist and howl as the dam holding back my climax finally breaks, sweeping away any hopes of a coherent response to the Archon's jibes. The Ambull lets out a dry, grating roar and I slam my hips down upon the its cock as hard as I can as the beast reaches its own peak. My fingers clench, digging into chitinous armour as its length heaves and twitches inside me, spilling a torrent of thick, hot seed into my aching depths. I can feel it - every pulse of fluid as it gushes into me, plastering my inner walls with its alien seed and forcing its way past the seal my lower lips have made around the leng th of meat spearing them, the slippery liquid heat coursing over my screaming clit as I thrash in time with the waves of pleasure coursing through my body.

The world comes back a drop at a time, the fireworks bursting behind my eyes dying away as the reality of the scene begins to creep back. The orgiastic haze begins to clear, leaving me, once again, terribly aware of the crowd of eyes upon me. My hair hangs around my eyes in a mad tangle, the Ambull's saliva has coated my face and bust in a wet sheen that even now drips from the stiff peaks of my nipples in long strings, and a thick web of cooling, alien semen trickles out of me around the base of the beast's cock. My whole body is flushed with shame and fading arousal, sweat pricking in the cool air as Eluriq grasps me by the shoulders. I swallow hard, wrapping one hand around my breasts in the absurd hope that it'll salvage some scrap of dignity, staring resolutely at the Ambull for fear of seeing the faces upon the crowd of spectators. The Archon converses with the savage beastmaster, and even in my bedraggled, battered state, a little part of me wants to laugh at the tiny, eager hint in her voice as she tells him she'll make the purchase.

"You may stand now, slave." Eluriq calls out to me almost as an afterthought, taking the Ambull's chain from the beastmaster and wrapping it possessively around her wrist. I let out a soft, mewling sigh as I carefully lift myself off the monster's deflating length, a thick torrent of seed spilling out from between my battered folds to course down my legs. My legs tremble, twinges of cramp shooting through them as I stand and step backwards, cringing shamefully as the crowd leans in, hungry eyes drinking in my discomfort and humiliation. I stand there silently, shaking, feeling like a raw slave once more - weak, helpless, victimized. 

But this is how the Dark Eldar wish their slaves to be. They want them to be broken, easily controlled and abused. Swallowing the shame and humiliation, I turn my gaze upwards and pick the first Commorite I see - a young male, his delicate face marred by jagged gang tattoos - and stubbornly match his leer until he sneers and turns away. I am not weak, I think. I have suffered, but I have endured, just as I have since the moment I was dragged into this dark place. Every day is a triumph; every breath I take is one I have earned. 

The Ambull staggers back to its feet, and Eluriq gives me a dismissive look as she drags the creature behind her. "Collect your things, Anjanette. Don't bother dressing, we haven't the time." She calls. I leap to obey, quickly picking up my fallen clothes and armour, then scurry over to her side as she strides towards the exit. The crowd parts for her like water as I fall into step behind the lumbering Ambull, two slaves to live and die at the mercy of a creature who has none, yet who have earned the right to see the dawn of another day in the Eternal City of Commoragh.