The sun was just beginning to lower in the sky, the edges of the far horizon painted a warm orange. It was only a short walk back to the Dove, but Maeve’s legs were lethargic, and she felt as though she was exerting so much effort just to use them. Ashton had had her controlled for hours, and there was a part of her that seemed to need to readjust to using her own body. She took her time through the bustling streets, surrounded by people out drinking early, eating, shopping. Oblivious to her and what she'd been through.

Finally, she got to the inn, and she looked up at the worn sign, the door with the burnished handle, the glow of lights through the windows. With a sigh, she entered.

It was loud and raucous, most of the tables full with patrons laughing and enjoying meals. But her eyes were pulled over to the side, to a small square table where Castian was seated alone.

Maeve was filled with emotion -- relief, shock, joy, frustration, desire, all knotted up and overwhelming.

He looked up at her and smiled, and her heart thudded in her chest, and her perception of time seemed to wobble.

She was walking over to him, helplessly.

“Sit,” he said pleasantly.

She sat, her body sagging in the chair.

“...It’s done, right?” Maeve said finally, quietly.

“Yes,” Castian said. “You did perfectly.”

The praise from him felt like a hit of a drug, despite all of the horror of the past day, something warm and sweet and heady, and she felt herself taking a deep, sighing breath.

They were silent for a few moments as Castian simply looked at her, observing. Maeve’s sense of the culmination of all of this was so strong, but as they sat, she felt the uncomfortable buzz of unease and confusion.

“What…” She swallowed, her throat feeling dry. “What happened? Where were you?”

“I know you have a lot of questions,” Castian said, and then his lips curved up in a way that made her anxious. “So, as a treat, I will gamble with you for the answers.”

A wave of exhaustion and disbelief hit her at his suggestion of it. “I -- I am so tired --”

“A simple game,” he murmured. “For closure.”

…She didn’t want to -- not now, after everything, after all of this; though her body was conditioned for excitement, she didn’t know if she could even handle the cognitive strain of it --

“Let me put it this way,” Castian said. “If you refuse, I’ll never tell you what you seek.”

Why… Why… Why…

Maeve’s fists clenched, her teeth gritted, her throat tightened. His blunt coercion -- now, of all times, when she was beaten down, when she could take no more --

She thought she might cry out of frustration, but she just made a horrible little raw noise and laid her head in her folded arms on the table, squeezing her eyes shut.

There was the sound of Castian’s chair dragging along the floor, and she looked up to see that he’d pushed himself closer to her, from the opposite side of the table to the one adjacent to her -- right next to her. 

Smoothly, casually, he extended one arm behind her, holding her into him as though for comfort, but with the other hand he grasped her wrist and led it under the table. She was too confused and surprised to react as he -- pulled her hand down -- into his lap -- onto --

-- the unmistakably hard outline of his cock through his pants.

Maeve gasped and jerked up, away from him in shock, but his arm around her back and his hand holding her wrist tightened, pinning her and trapping her. In the middle of the Dove. People all around them. She couldn’t move -- she couldn’t make a scene --

He leaned into her ear, and whispered, “It is sweeter when you don’t want it.”

Desire, arousal, yielding consumed her exhausted body, relaxing automatically in his grip.

“A simple game,” he repeated quietly, stroking her hand under the table as it lay trembling on his cock. “For a simple elf girl.”

She felt childish and soft once more, brought to thorough and immediate submission.

“...OK,” she whispered.

He released her and she withdrew her hand slowly, her cheeks hot, glancing quickly around to see if anyone was staring at them.

“The game is this,” Castian murmured, drawing her attention razor-sharp to him. “I can reveal everything to you now, here, and then you can go to rest. Or, I can take you to your bed and finally fuck your mind away as I tell you.”

Her eyes went wide.

“But if you cum,” his voice lowered, “I'll stop telling you anything.”

Maeve’s face flushed completely and there was a throbbing, needy heat between her legs, a buzz over her mind. His sudden, uninhibited, callous talk of sex stunned her -- their relationship so far had only danced around intimacy, used suggestions of it… She herself had been suppressing those thoughts about him for so long; it was so unfair, so inappropriate…

It was obvious -- it was so obvious -- she was going to risk losing the information, she was going to risk her need to know -- for the promise of a sexual satisfaction that she felt ashamed to crave from him --

“Please,” she said softly. “Please…”

“I could tell you things that you don’t want to hear,” Castian said, his voice cool and smooth. “I could tell you things that make you hate me with my cock deep inside of you. I could be manipulating you, right now, by implying that you’ll struggle to keep from cumming.”

“Please,” she whispered feverishly, dimly aware that she was beginning to move her hips in her chair, that her mind was fogging over.

“I won’t stop.” Castian’s voice took on a low, growling tone. “I would let you shriek your loathing and subdue you against your will until I was satisfied.”

Maeve was whimpering, losing her grip on control, one of her hands moving as though reaching out for him.

“Say it.” Castian’s voice was firm.

“F-fuh…” She was gasping breaths. “Fuck me…”

“Stupid decision,” he said. “Stupid girl. Take me upstairs.”

His eyes were piercing her, haughty, hungry.

She struggled on wobbling legs to get up from the table and walk with her head down to the stairs, ascending one by one, her body on fire, her mind weak. She fumbled with the lock; she opened the door. He entered and closed it behind them, immediately casting a deafening spell on the room before turning to her.

All Maeve could do was stare dumbly up at him as he embraced her, one hand behind her head, one sliding down the small of her back, his head tilting down to slide his lips against hers. She was tingling all over, inside and out, in her body, in her brain, in her lips and tongue and open, yielding mouth. She was moaning into him as he deepened the kiss, pulled her tighter against him until her breasts were squished and she could feel the hardness of his cock through his clothes against her lower belly.

Her arms wrapped around his back, clutching on, and Castian made a satisfied, masculine noise that went straight to her cunt.

He withdrew from her and guided her to the bed, giving her a little nudge backwards so she sat, dazed. He removed his coat and tossed it aside, then placed his hand on her shoulder and pushed her onto her back before climbing on top of her, his arms caging her.

Oh -- oh, oh; this was happening -- she had surrendered herself to this --

“This is such a pleasure,” Castian murmured, bringing one of his hands to the hem of her shirt, shamelessly pulling it up to expose her breasts. “I cannot even tell you what it feels like.”

Maeve whimpered as his fingers dragged over one of her nipples and roughly gripped and jiggled her breast in an appraising way -- so much smaller than the last time he touched them, the barest wondering if this was less satisfying for him, but hot pleasure tingling in her chest.

“You’re not going to last very long, are you?” he said, and he gripped her chin and gently tilted her head back and forth on the pillow, causing her vision to blur and her sense of balance to be thrown, eyes fluttering, neck completely limp to his touch. She couldn’t tell if he was talking about her orgasm, or her rapidly fading thoughts.

“I warned some of the Foxtail members not to go tonight,” Castian said, idly stroking down her ribs and gripping her waist. “The rest of them will probably be arrested when the guards go to investigate. We’ll lay low for a while before starting back up…”

He gripped her calf and removed one boot, then moved to the other, tossing them onto the floor. He moved to her belt, undoing it and untying the lacing on her shorts, pulling them down and hooking his fingers in her panties to slide all of them off of her at once. Maeve made a little noise in embarrassment, but lifted her hips and pulled her legs out, leaving her bare from the waist down, breathing heavily, looking away in shame from the sight of him above her.

“You might break, Maeve,” he murmured, sliding his hands up the undersides of her thighs, then pushing her legs back, exposing her cunt, making her squeal. “I am so hard, sweetheart. I don’t feel kind.”

Castian pressed his hips into her, still clothed, just rubbing against her, and her mind felt like it was melting in response to the intense need throbbing inside -- surely getting his pants wet, embarrassed --

“I’m going to fuck you,” he said, adjusting his hips so she could perfectly feel the outline of his cock against her clit. “I am going to fuck you, and it’s too late to say ‘no.’”

She was moaning, her hips traitorously thrusting up to meet him, begging. He pulled back and undid his own pants, pulling his cock out -- she couldn’t look -- 

He was going to do it, he was going to do it, he was taking advantage of her, he had made her need this --

“If you make it without cumming,” he said softly, darkly, “I will blank out your wasted little head until you do, and it will be a gamble to see if you ever come back.”

Maeve’s eyes shot wide and her body went tight, hot, wet, gripped, pushed dangerously close to the edge by his threat alone. She could feel the head of his cock pressing bluntly against her -- he gripped her thighs, her brain was narrowing in completely on the hot arousal and anticipation between her legs, he was sliding in -- in -- in -- silken, molten pleasure in her pussy, melting her, filling her --

“Oh -- oh -- oh --” Her eyes were glazed and blank, unblinking, staring up, unable to process anything but the extreme satisfaction of him inside of her, her consciousness tenuous and wobbling --

Castian’s hips began moving, out and then in, starting to fuck her slow and deep, his thrusts forcing rhythmic noises out of her -- he was fucking her -- the realization -- the friction --

“I forged the parchment with his magical imprint,” he said, his voice thick with pleasure. “I didn’t steal it. I made an exact copy of what we found.”

She could barely follow what he was saying as he began snapping his hips into her, hitting deep inside --

“I knew I just needed to find your friends at the guild or the Dove, to give it to them, to send them after you, to let them do the work.”

Maeve knew he had manipulated them too -- the overtness of his admission, the suggestion of his control was making her clench around his cock, moaning.

“One of my spells on this room was alarm magic,” he purred, gripping harder at her thighs. “So I’d know when Ashton broke it, so I knew when to come for you…”

When --

Castian leaned down suddenly, releasing her thighs, bracing himself right over her face, bending in to catch her lips in a rough kiss that she made awful noises through -- his lips and tongue so hot and wet, her fractured and frail attention completely enthralled in her mouth and in her mercilessly fucked cunt.

He pulled back, still inches away from her dazed eyes and slack jaw.

“Did he violate you?” he purred. “Did you hate it? Did you like it?”

Maeve’s focus snapped back, her mouth opening in shock even as his cock kept pounding pleasure inside of her. Castian’s lips twisted up into a cruel grin.

“The plan didn’t go wrong,” he whispered, and then he pushed himself back up to roughly grab her hips. “That was the plan. I used you as bait.”

“You -- ah! -- y-you --” She was choking on her words. 

“I told him that I caught you,” he growled. “I told him you were an elf in disguise. I knew he would take you as soon as he could.”

The undercurrent of fear, the little horrible wondering if her trust had been betrayed coursed through her, turning sure, mixing with her arousal, the feeling of having been so callously used --

She was so close to losing herself in it -- so close to being fucked into cumming --

“But you knew that,” he said. “You can’t lie. You knew I was using you for that. You knew.”

Her whole body was tensing, his harsh words making her jaw tight, making that awful feeling in her chest grow more consuming, making pleasure bloom hot all through her pussy and her lower belly.

“But here is something you may not have known,” he said, and his voice was dripping with a venomous sadism and satisfaction. He leaned down again, hooking her legs over his shoulders, pushing them perversely far up as he gripped her.

“I didn’t need to do any of that,” he whispered.

Her mind felt suddenly as though it was a thin thread being pulled, beginning to split under tension.

“I could have gone straight to the guards,” he growled, and his hips started snapping into her harder, faster, abusively. “After we broke in and I forged the parchment. You didn’t need to be bait. You didn’t need to go through all of that, the fear, the uncertainty, the violation. I could have made it work.”

“No --” she whispered suddenly.

“I told him where you were staying. I told you where to go. You went obediently there and back. You didn’t have to. I didn’t have to. I just wanted to use you, for no reason. I just wanted to damage you.”

Everything snapped.

“No!” Maeve cried, her body jerking and twisting away, but Castian held her tight, laughing roughly, grinding his hips in harder -- to her horror, her body weakening helplessly to the shattering pleasure throbbing deep where his cock was hitting inside of her -- the shame plunging her deeper into it --

She felt his cock get harder inside --

“I promised, didn’t I?” Castian’s voice was rough; he was breathing heavily now, slowing his hips to a sensual roll. “Didn’t I promise that you were stupid to trust me? Didn’t I promise that I would hurt you more? Didn’t I promise that I was doing it for my pleasure, my desires?”

She was moaning wordlessly, helplessly, her voice pitching high and anguished --

“Didn’t I manipulate you so well? Didn’t I break you in and tame you so well?” He muffled her with an aggressive kiss, gripping her face and holding her still before breaking away. “And now I’m in your bed because of your tainted, weak will, and you’re going to cum around my cock because of the humiliation, the betrayal that I forced on you.”

It burst inside of her, choking her as she began crying, wailing in the complete and total loss and submission, as her hips bounced against him, seeking more of his cock, feeling herself addicted to the pleasure and emotional anguish of it, her mind fraying --

“Beg,” he commanded. “Beg and I’ll erase you into cumming, I'll take it all away --”

“Please!” she shrieked, no hesitation, no rationality. “Please! Please! Please --”

Her voice was cut off by feeling the magic pooling in his palm against her head, not moving through any space before sinking through her skull, the thread snapping into sparks and darkness.

Her will was dissolving into perfect pleasure, no longer any thoughts filtering the feeling of his cock, completely and totally raw physical sensation destroying her mind. His control over her was brutal and instant, melting her awareness of herself, melting all of her thoughts, melting her impulses.

The magic was tingling in her eyes and lips and blood, inescapable, powerfully subduing her until she was just an obedient body being fucked, flopping limply on the bed in an awful facsimile of sex. A body right on the edge of cumming. A susceptible, weak body. A cunt with no thoughts. A cunt feeling pleasure. Identity dwindling.

“Yes,” Castian hissed, humping into her harder. “Your pussy feels even better like this…”

She was going to cum. She was going to cum. She was going to cum.

The magic surged more -- it was perfect, it was the most perfect thing she had ever experienced in her life, tears streaming down her face as she felt her consciousness grow smaller, dimmer, darkness in her eyes, unseeing -- further than she’d ever given up before -- there was going to be nothing left -- she was so close -- the inside of her head was throbbing as her eyes rolled up -- body stiffening --

The pleasure reached a dangerous peak, her pussy squeezing and cumming, exquisitely hard, mind-breakingly hard, something snapping right behind her eyes as she --

Lost --

…

…The first thing she was aware of was her body, beyond any exhaustion and heaviness she’d felt before, and sticky with sweat. She moaned low and soft at the idea of having to move, and when she made noise, she felt the bed under her shift with motion.

“I guess you’re not permanently gone,” came Castian’s voice.

She exerted an immense amount of effort to crack her eyes open to see him sitting there, disheveled himself, smiling at her. The sun was fully down, just a soft twilight glow illuminating him in the room.

“That was very nice,” he said, airily.

He had done it. She had let him. She had begged for it. Her body felt limp and satisfied, but there was a hard pit of shame in her stomach.

Her lips were dry and her tongue felt thick, and she didn’t know what she wanted to say.

“You don’t have to move,” said Castian, who began getting up and tidying their clothes.

“I…” she managed. “I don’t know… how to feel…”

He paused.

“You will feel what you feel,” he said, after a moment. “You will gasp, and you will cry, and you will feel pleasure. You may curse me, you may long for me and curse yourself for it, but you’ll never forget how that felt.”

It was horrifically true.

Castian began putting his coat back on.

“You’re leaving?” she said weakly.

“You need rest,” he replied.

“...But --”

“I’ll come back.” He gave her a smile. “I’m having too much fun to leave you alone.”

Maeve’s body relaxed into the bed. He walked over and pulled the blanket up and over her, and leaned down to her ear.

“I’ll hurt you again,” he whispered. “I promise. I promise you’ll never be sure how much to trust me.”

And with that, Castian walked out of the room, gently shutting the door behind him.