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The death rattle of the Grotesque was lost amid the roaring jeers of the crowd as Heldanis von Valancius shoved the end of his sword through its eye socket – the final kill that sealed yet another hard-won victory within the Fatal Thirst’s arena. He took a breath and ran a gloved hand through his hair, the white now streaked with crimson. He stood up to his full height and glared up at the throng that called down to him – cheers and hisses, a cacophony of both delight at the carnage and outrage that once again the rebels and runaways were the victors.
He kicked the severed head of a fallen Kabalite over the edge of the platform and went to help Idira Tlass to her feet. Across the way he could see Abelard and Argenta checking over weapons and tending their injuries in the few short moments they had before the next battle commenced. Heldanis was in no doubt that there would be another, and he did not relish the thought of what fresh horror would be unleashed on them. He put a hand to his head and tried to quell the raging headache that had flared – his telepathy still in overdrive and eager for an outlet. He quickly found the balance between its instinctual need to lash out and the unnerving whispers of the warp that threatened to overwhelm him when he suppressed his power.
Aside from himself, Abelard, Idira and Argenta, there were two others still standing with them on the platform amidst the pools of blood and scattered, cooling corpses. Heldanis strode past one – the red-haired xenos, Yrliet, whose foolishness had led them here. She nodded but remained silent at the sight of Heldanis’s simmering fury and merely inserted another bullet into her elegant Asuryani rifle. She had no wish to draw more ire upon herself, and was happy to let the final member of their sorry band to take his share.
The Rogue Trader felt the skin of his knuckles strain as he clutched his sword, and his feet carried him swiftly over to the Drukhari, Marazhai Aezyrraesh, who was shaking the blood from his blades and snarling down at his latest victim, cut open from navel to nose and with its guts spilling around his armoured feet.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Heldanis hissed. ‘You almost took my head off when you swung at that xenos!’
He despised how tall the Drukhari was. It made trying to assert any kind of authority over him seem impossible, ridiculous even. That insufferable arrogance did not help any. Marazhai’s fall to the bottom rung of Commorrite society had not tempered his sense of superiority, even if he was indebted to Heldanis for sparing his life and giving him the opportunity for revenge. In the face of the Rogue Trader’s outrage, he merely smirked and tossed his head, peering down with those turquoise eyes, still bright with the hunger of battle.
‘Do not hold me responsible for your slow, mon-keigh reflexes, Heldanis,’ he said. ‘Perhaps in the future you will finally learn to stay out of my way.’
‘Damnit, Marazhai, if this alliance is going to work, we have to actually function as a team. That includes not accidentally killing me or any other members of my retinue because you don’t know the meaning of self-control!’
A little of the arrogance faded, and genuine anger flared up in its place.
‘Self-control? Have you any concept of how –’
That was as far as Marazhai got before there was a fresh chorus of cheers – almost a frenzy of bloodthirsty joy – in the crowds that stared down. Such a sound could bring northing but ill-tidings for the fighters of the arena. But that was not what made Marazhai halt, it seemed. Heldanis’s human senses took several more seconds to realise what was happening. Over all the other noises, a great metallic groan built and built under their feet, and Heldanis felt a tremor begin to slip up through his boots, vibrating all along the bones of his legs and into his pelvis and spine. He saw that Marazhai had adjusted his footing, bracing himself as if for another onslaught, and did the same. But nothing prepared him for the sudden jolt as the entire platform beneath them suddenly cracked and shifted. Instinctively he reached out for the nearest stable object, which just happened to be the Drukhari’s arm. The contact only lasted a moment – Heldanis made sure of that – but he did not see the expected mockery on the xenos’s face. He was too busy turning his head, as though searching for something among the balconies that held his contemptuous kin.
‘What –?’
But once again there was an interruption. Heldanis felt a breeze against his face and through his hair and realised that the crowd around him was moving. No. They were moving. Their entire section of platform split away from the others section, carried off by some foul Drukhari technology. He could only watch helplessly as Yrliet and Idira were likewise spirited away into the distance as their fragment of floorspace drifted off to some unknown part of the arena. Argenta and Abelard were moving too. Heldanis heard his seneschal calling out to him, both angry and helpless. But his voice was quickly lost, drowned out by thrumming energy and cackling xenos.
‘What’s happening?’
Marazhai did not answer the question. He was staring up into the distance, his eyes narrowed and his blades still gripped in armoured hands. Following his gaze, Heldanis realised he could make out their destination. They were being transported towards a series of small balconies, closer to the throng of watching xenos than they had been in any other battle up to this point. Instantly he could see that these were a higher class of Drukhari. They sat behind shimmering forcefields that did not obscure their view – and presumably protected them from any gladiator that might try to target them. Their chairs were carved from bones, upholstered with tattooed skin and decorated with skulls both human and xenos. Naked odalisques perched on their laps or crouched at their feet, bejewelled and practiced fingers working under sheer robes woven from the finest fabrics. They held goblets of wine and raised gilded opera glasses to their eyes, and although they did not shout like the rabble below, somehow their sinister joy and sensual writhing was a thousand times more unsettling.
And then the chanting began.
On his belt, the elucidator crackled with static. But as sophisticated as the device was, it could not distinguish between so many voices at once, at least not at this distance and with the din of the lesser xenos still present in the background. Heldanis saw fingers tapping in rhythm against chalices and chair arms as the platform ground to a halt in the midst of this eerie crowd. He pulled the elucidator from his pocket, smacking it with his palm in the hopes that it would pick up something, even a word, amidst the noise. Nothing.
‘Marazhai? What’s happening? What are they chanting?’
‘The true-born nobility of the spires,’ the xenos growled. ‘They demand their entertainment.’
‘Isn’t what we’ve already given enough?’ Heldanis asked, and immediately felt like a fool for it. As if it shouldn’t have been plain to him by now that there was no such thing as “enough” in the Dark City. There was always a crowd hungering for fresh slaughter. ‘What will we be fighting?’
He looked around but couldn’t make out any other entry point where an opponent might enter. There weren’t even any higher platforms where something might plunge down from above. He turned back to Marazhai, who was snarling at the crowd and seemed to be wrestling with something internally, much as he had done in those brief moments before he had finally accepted the alliance Heldanis offered to him.
He must have felt the Rogue Trader’s eye on him. He turned that angry poison in his direction and Heldanis felt something inside him quake. He understood – or thought he understood – and not a moment too soon…
… before Marazhai lunged for him.
Heldanis did not have the chance to unleash any kind of psychic attack on his assailant, too stunned by the turn of events. He raised his sword and barely managed to deflect the blow, but he did not expect his riposte to be used against him. With effortless grace, Marazhai adjusted the angle of his blade, turned his wrist, and the edge of his sword dragged across Heldanis’ knuckles. His grip loosened, and the sword went flying to the opposite side of the platform. Before he could even reach for the gun in his belt there was a flash of metal and the feel of the tight leather around his waist was suddenly gone. It all went clattering to the floor and before he could bend down to snatch it up, he felt a heavy, crushing pain in his chest, as though someone had dropped a boulder on him from a great height. The world turned to a blur as the savage kick sent him flying backwards. He stumbled and fell, mercifully still far enough from the edge of the platform that he was in no danger.
Heldanis tried to sit up and agony bloomed white-hot across his chest. No surprise, some of his ribs must have cracked under the force of that kick. His breath came in hard wheezes, and he felt a crackle in his lungs.
‘Are – you – mad?’ he finally managed to splutter. He’d had no illusions about Marazhai’s hatred for him, but still he had not imaged the Drukhari would forsake his chance at escape so quickly. Even if it was a fight to the death the crowd wanted, this was hardly a show to tantalise them.
Marazhai quickly closed on him, still brandishing his swords. Heldanis groaned as an armoured foot was placed on his already bruised sternum. Through the fog of pain, he tried to summon up enough of his psychic ability to pummel the Drukhari’s mind, but in the instant his face contorted in concentration Marazhai pressed down with greater force and Heldanis found himself overwhelmed with agony, certain that his chest was about to cave in from the pressure. He coughed and gasped and his bleeding hands lashed out, trying to push the foot off. It was no good. His strength was no match for the Drukhari, even if he hadn’t been surprised by the wretched creature’s shameless duplicity.
But he wouldn’t give in. He refused to admit this was the end. He had not come all this way only to die at the hands of this abomination!
‘That’s it,’ came a sneering voice above him, cutting clear through the chanting of the crowd. ‘Fight. Struggle. For all the good it will do you. It is what they want, after all.’
Heldanis snarled up, collected a glob of bloodied saliva in his mouth and spat it out. It didn’t even come close to hitting Marazhai, but he smirked at the effort, which made Heldanis realise that he had not been smiling beforehand, despite his gloating.
‘Come on then,’ he wheezed, still clutching at the boot and wincing. ‘Try it. I won’t make it easy for you, you filthy wretch. I’ll take you with me if I can!’
Marazhai’s eyebrows furrowed. ‘Take me?’ A shadow of something passed behind those turquoise eyes, and he threw back his head, giving a great bark of laughter. ‘You think that is what this is? A fight to the death?’
Heldanis stared up at him. There was an unnerving, twisted delight in the xenos’s features now, lurking under the savagery and anger. But Heldanis still didn’t understand. Or perhaps he didn’t want to.
‘These are the nobility, Heldanis. You think they satisfy themselves with the petty brutality of the arenas? Spilled blood, churning guts… mere physical pain. No, no. You have forgotten what I told you.’ He stabbed one blade into the ground, close enough to cut into Heldanis’s thigh. ‘Your value, your only value as the low creature you are, is your ability to suffer. And not the suffering of your body,’ he punctuated this reminder with another press of his boot. ‘That is easily drawn. But the anguish of the soul? A rarer and finer delicacy.’ His other blade now stood upright on Heldanis’s other side.
A deep, throbbing sensation was starting to form in Heldanis’s chest. Not the pain, which still pulsed through him with every beat of his heart, but a gnawing horror as the possibilities of what Marazhai meant began to stir. If they weren’t to fight to the death, and there were no other enemies to be seen… then what were they expected to do? And what was that incessant chanting?
And then Marazhai’s hands went to his own belt.
The crowd’s call grew louder.
‘A shame you were so slow to understand the stakes, Rogue Trader. We might have drawn out the struggle for dominance a little longer.’ The belt clattered to the floor, with its collection of knives, empty scabbards and the dark crystal that Marazhai had told him was a Soul Trap meant for his own sister. Heldanis’s eyes flew painfully wide, and he made another effort to get up. But Marazhai barely shifted from the effort, and the moment he saw the Rogue Trader attempt to summon a psychic barrage – the very instant he felt the contact of their minds – he simple leaned his weight all the harder onto his chest, and Heldanis groaned and fell back. He tore one of the armoured plates from his thigh and cast it aside.
‘But I’ve had my share of humiliation in these pits,’ the Drukhari snarled, grasping for the plate on his other leg. ‘Enough for centuries. To be in the position to personally give you a taste of my own experience… I will take it as a small consolation.’
The second plate fell to the ground. Looking up, Heldanis could see, as he had done briefly as they shared words in the Chasm, a glimpse of the form beneath the vicious, sharp-edged armour – pale, scarred skin streaked with blood from where the armour had been held in place with hooks. There was nothing but lean muscle to be seen, and then…
‘Fuck…’
Marazhai removed the codpiece, held in place with two hooks embedded in his groin, and an appreciative roar came from the assembly that looked on. That single expletive, however, was all Heldanis could force from between his teeth. He’d had male partners in his life. Several in fact. But he could not lie to himself and say he had seen anything to match what was now before him. Marazhai was already hard, the sturdy column of flesh jutting out from his body to an impressive degree. Was it the battle, or the thought of what he was about to do that had roused him? Heldanis couldn’t say. He could barely think. All he could think of was that erect, pale organ… and the gleaming metal piercings that adorned it: studs placed at regular intervals along either side, metal bars lining the underside, and close to its base a sharp, silver hook that glinted wickedly in the arena lights as it hung from a small chain.
‘Fuck,’ he said again, and once more attempted to struggle. He was shocked when Marazhai actually took his foot off his chest, but the reprieve was short lived. Although he managed to raise himself up on his elbows, he found himself seized by his bloodstained hair as Marazhai stepped over him, his feet placed on either side of his heaving chest. The Drukhari had taken himself in hand, his long fingers finding the gaps between all that metal, and he twisted his other hand into Heldanis’s hair, dragging him further upright. Instinctively he put up his hands to try and push Marazhai back and away from him. When that failed Heldanis clawed at the exposed thighs as his head was dragged ever closer to that glinting shaft of flesh and metal. The chanting was still going, louder than ever now, and accompanied by fresh jeers and laughter at his attempts to resist.
‘Get the fuck off me!’ he snarled.
‘Oh yes,’ was the hissing response. ‘Struggle. It is what they want. And I must say… having the front row seat to your anguish is the perfect repayment for your offences against me.’
Heldanis turned his head to the side. Something hot pressed to his cheek.
‘You put that thing in my mouth, you’ll lose it, xenos!’ he warned.
‘I can see why you’d think that a good idea,’ Marazhai chuckled above him, taking an even firmer grip on his hair and not even acknowledging the nails that raked across the exposed flesh of his thighs. ‘But if you don’t play your part in this, Rogue Trader, you will die here and now. And if I have to ravage your corpse to secure my own life, don’t doubt for a moment I will do it. That’s what it means to survive here. If that’s how you want this to end, then by all means, use those teeth on me as you will. If, on the other hand, you want to see your companions again, win your freedom and have your revenge, I suggest you behave like a good little pet and open… wide.’
The xenos’s strength was too much for Heldanis, and void take him he was right. Loathe as he was to do this – with this creature he loathed and in front of this slavering xenos crowd – it was the price of freedom. Or a chance at freedom at least. This time, although he still resisted, Heldanis felt his head turn, and it was his lips that felt the pressure of hot flesh. His stomach roiled at the thought of what he was about to do, and he uttered a long slew of curses inside his head before finally willing his mouth to go slack.
There was no gentleness. He hadn’t expected any, but still the viciousness of that first thrust into his mouth shocked him. Not nearly as much as how deep Marazhai drove himself in, to the point where Heldanis thought he would choke and his gag reflex caused his throat to pulse and close around the intrusion. The piercings scraped against his lips and tongue, and it was only quick action on his part that avoided any of that metal catching on his teeth. He was dimly aware of the cheers that broke out around him, but his senses were mostly overridden by the thought of his defilement. That he was allowing it to happen. When Marazhai began to pull back he almost sighed with relief, but there was nothing relieving in the sensation of the studs and bars withdrawing. He tasted blood and, to his horror, the familiar salty tang of precum as the thick head slid over his tongue.
He kept his mouth open as Marazhai thrust his hips forward again, but he still gagged as the head of his cock pressed against the back of his throat. He’d pleasured partners with his mouth before, but this? This was so far beyond anything he had ever experienced. He had never felt so degraded; as if he were nothing more than a toy to be used and discarded once broken. Not only did this act go against everything he believed in, it went against all he was. He was a Rogue Trader, damnit! Not some xenos plaything! And yet he sat there, with Marazhai’s cock pumping in and out between his lips, in front of this baying crowd, chocking and gagging around the twitching flesh. By now Marazhai was grasping his head in both hands, his claws twisting into his hair and raking across his scalp, making sure every thrust was as deep as it was possible for him to go, until Heldanis could feel his cock rounding the curve of his throat, how it blocked off his airway and bulged in his gullet. Snarls and moans fell from the Drukhari’s pale lips. And as much as he tried to summon up memories of other things, distract himself with past exploits with sexual partners male and female, Heldanis could not summon up even one image to rival this.
Nothing… nothing could ever rival this…
Between his own legs, Heldanis felt a sudden and terrifying sensation. The slightest twitch.
No… no…
The urge to fight back rushed through him again. Desperate hands scrabbled at the Drukhari, bleeding fingers finding the sharp edges of armour plates. Without even thinking he wrenched at them, as if somehow that might be enough to throw off Marazhai or at least distract him. Of course it didn’t work. But it did spur something else. Suddenly the xenos flung him back against the platform. Heldanis tried to use the opportunity to stand, or at least scramble away, not sure what terrified him more now… what was surely about to come next, or that horrifying betrayal his body seemed determined to commit.
His fear must have been fragrant to Marazhai. His eyes, the turquoise now little more than a line around the soul-sucking blackness of his pupils, rolled back into his head and he laughed as he drew in a deep breath.
‘Oh yes, Heldanis. You should fear what comes next!’
He lunged again, seizing Heldanis’s arms as he tried to strike out with his fists.
‘No!’ Heldanis shouted, hating how raspy and strained his voice now sounded. ‘Get back! Get the fuck back!’
But he was quickly overwhelmed once more, and this time a sharp knee dug into each shoulder, pinning his upper body down. Heldanis could only watch in helpless outrage as Marazhai reached up and pulled the two sharp slivers of metal from his hair. They cut cleanly through the leather binding that held his black tresses up, and it all came tumbling down around his armoured shoulders, long enough to almost reach the uncovered part of his abdomen where Heldanis had clawed away more armour plates.
Once again, the Rogue Trader’s body betrayed him in the most unspeakable way. Because despite what had just taken place, and knowing what was about to happen, the sight of this tall, brazen Drukhari warrior bearing down on him with his fevered eyes, the angular features contorted with a mix of rage and lust… it made something stir in his groin. He felt his cock throb, even as he continued to shout and buck in a feeble attempt to throw Marazhai off him. He’d heard stories of Aeldari allure. Tales of how they beguiled humans so they would lower their guard and make for easier prey. He’d been so certain in his resolve, arrogantly assuming that he was above such base temptations.
But nothing could have prepared him for this shocking enticement. He could not have imagined anyone or anything so monstrously alluring, let alone that it would be bending over him, as Marazhai now was, erect and ready to take whatever he desired.
His assailant caught one flailing hand. Heldanis had a split second to realise what was happening as his wrist was pinned against the platform and one sharp sliver pierced cleanly between the tendons. He screamed in pain and outrage, and then again as his other wrist was likewise secured. Only then did Marazhai stand, relieving the pressure in Heldanis’s aching shoulders. Quickly he repositioned himself between the human’s legs and hooked his clawed fingers into his breeches. A few vicious tugs was all it took for Heldanis to be naked from the waist down. But it seemed that was not enough for Marazhai. He grasped his shirt next and wrenched it apart, sending buttons and shreds of cloth everywhere. The crowd gave an approving cry while Heldanis writhed, loathing them all, loathing Marazhai and, most of all, loathing the sudden sick thrill as metal hands traced the musculature of his abdomen. There was a look of admiration on those angular features, one that morphed into something bordering on triumph.
‘Don’t fucking touch me!’
Marazhai didn’t. Not just then. But only because he was pulling off his gauntlets. This time, when he ran his hands over his body, Heldanis felt the warmth of his palms and wandering fingers. He felt himself convulsing again as they travelled lower, lower, and finally wrapped around his aching cock, half-erect in spite of his roiling disgust. He could not stop himself from watching as Marazhai’s slender, skilled hands stroked all along his length, and when his eyes briefly met that turquoise gaze he felt the tension in his groin surge again as the sinister, lustful smile stretched across those alien features.
‘Are you sure you do not want me to touch you, Rogue Trader,’ the Drukhari mocked. ‘Your body tells quite a different story. Perhaps you’d like me to return the favour? I can’t deny… I’d enjoy tasting you.’ His tongue darted out, running in a circular motion around his lips, and he bared his sharp teeth. His hand was still stroking up and down, coaxing that trembling flesh to full arousal. He made it seem so shamefully easy, and with a swift motion he dipped that dark head downwards. Silky hair tickled against Heldanis’s thighs and as he looked he saw a bead of fluid was glistening on the tip of his cock. A long and skilful tongue darted out and caught it, sweeping against the trembling slit where that drop had gathered. A groan, long and lustful suddenly broke from Heldanis’s mouth as the thought of what Marazhai teased entered his mind. Too late to snatch the sound back. Too late to stop his hips from lifting as he thought of that tongue gliding over him as those hands had done, the image of being sucked dry while white fangs grazed against him.
The Drukhari looked elated, lifting his head once more and tilting it in that bird-like motion as he took in this unbidden reaction. And then he sneered. ‘No… not now. Let us push forward. I think our audience are eager for what comes next. As am I!’
He released Heldanis’s erect shaft and shifted position again, hefting one leg up and over an angular hip. Their height difference was so great that Heldanis felt his lower back lifting off the ground, making his attempts to struggle even more difficult. Yet still he tried, especially when he watched Marazhai sweep his hand through a nearby pool of blood. His crimson-stained fingers curled under Heldanis’s backside, and the Rogue Trader clenched both his teeth and the muscle of his anus as this new violation drew near.
But Marazhai was merciless, with no care for his victim’s comfort. One slick finger pressed against the puckered hole and began to push and wriggle against the resistance. It did not take long for him to be buried up to the second knuckle in Heldanis’s tight exit. The Rogue Trader hissed and writhed, a plea for this to stop only halted by his need to hold onto some small shred of his pride. This… he had never done this before. No lover had touched him in such a way. It was his way to always take charge, to be the one on top. But now Marazhai was adding a second finger and in place of pleas another moan tore from his aching throat. He clenched around those exploring digits as they reached for places inside him no one had ever touched before, stretching him. Preparing him.
A throaty chuckle resounded over his head. ‘Heldanis… am I mistaken? Is this your first taste of such pleasures? Oh, but this is even more delightful than I ever imagined!’
‘No…’ Heldanis groaned, but the desire was there, unbidden and unmistakable. Fuck, he whimpered as Marazhai withdrew his hand, sweeping up more blood from the arena floor and coating his own cock with it, the crimson drops glinting alongside the metal and dripping from the twitching head. ‘No,’ he said again, as his lower body was lifted higher once more, and he felt something far bigger than a fingertip press against his sore and throbbing hole.
‘What a way to be avenged,’ Marazhai growled about him as he began to push. ‘To use you as I please… and better yet to make you want it!’
‘I don’t!’ Heldani’s protested. ‘I do – ah!’
It was no good. Marazhai overwhelmed him, and he felt that first resistance give way as the head of Marazhai’s cock penetrated his gut. And it wasn’t long before the first stud caught against the ring of muscle as he continued to push, deeper and deeper, another stud and then a sharp-edged bar, all catching and pulling against his insides as he stretched to accommodate the painful intrusion of that thick shaft. He felt a hand on his lower stomach and was aware of an uncomfortable sensation of swelling beneath his own skin. Marazhai was filling him up, and when he looked down he could see the bulge as Marazhai caressed it through the flesh of his abdomen. And still he stretched, further and further, his arms straining against the spikes that held him in place. His body was slick with sweat now. It dripped along his thighs as Marazhai grasped them and, finally, finished his advance. Heldanis could feel the Drukhari’s narrow pelvis pressed against his buttocks, his cock now buried almost to the hilt in his gut. Heldanis shuddered and felt Marazhai do likewise.
Around them, the chanting still went on, now picking up in tempo as the crowd anticipated what came next. Hands clapped and feet stamped, but Marazhai seemed content to hold a moment, growling and gnashing his teeth as Heldanis twitched and clenched around him. It was not intentional. By now Heldanis felt as though he had lost control of his body entirely. His guts were screaming in agony, but his cock was throbbing and erect. He clenched and unclenched his fingers, waiting, trying to mentally brace himself.
But there was no way he could have prepared for what occurred now. If he thought that first penetration was the limit of his pain, it was nothing to the sensation as Marazhai began to withdraw. Every stud and bar dragged against his insides, a friction that elicited groans of pain and yet made his hips buck and thrust into the air. He heard laughter above him, and then Marazhai grasped his cock once more and began to toy with him, tugging and teasing as he continued to withdraw. The mixture of pain and pleasure was thrilling. Intoxicating. It made Heldanis’s mouth dry and his toes curl. Betraying him once again, his thighs clenched around Marazhai’s waist, and another loud bark of laughter burst from the Drukhari’s mouth. In response, he snapped his hips forward, burying himself fully into Heldanis once more with a savagery that sent a shockwave through the very marrow of his bones. He gave a deep roll against the human’s pelvis, grinding hard, pulled back and then thrust again, faster, faster, again and again.
And all the while he never ceased his attentions to Heldanis. His fingers and palm still wet with blood, they glided over his throbbing erection until the Rogue Trader couldn’t hold back the groans anymore. He told himself they were groans of pain, but with every stroke and every thrust the balance of things tipped further and further from what he knew he ought to feel. His damned, treacherous body thrummed with a frenzied passion he couldn’t remember feeling in all his life, not with any lover up to this moment. He did not even realise that his ecstatic writhing had loosened the spikes in his wrists and freed his arms… not until his hands reached up and grasped for Marazhai’s biceps. Not to shove him away this time… but to pull him closer. To urge him on.
As if he sensed this turning of the tide, Marazhai suddenly withdrew, both his cock and his hands. Heldanis gasped at both the pain and the sudden sense of emptiness. The vacuum where so much pleasure had once been. But it was not over yet. The Drukhari seized him by the hips and easily flipped him over, positioning him on his hands and knees. There was another delighted roar from the crowd as Marazhai once again swept up thick, semi-coagulated blood from the arena floor and coated himself in it. And then he was pressing up against Heldanis, and this second time there was little resistance. In fact, Heldanis felt himself pushing back against the intrusion, his body hungry for something to fill it. For Marazhai to fill it.
‘So eager,’ came the sneering voice behind him. Marazhai had leant over, buried inside once more. But deeper this time. Deep enough, it seemed, for him to reach around for something else. Heldanis heard the clink of metal, and his eyes flew open.
The hook…
He felt the sharp sting as Marazhai pushed it up inside him, stretching him more as he slid it alongside his thick shaft. Heldanis felt it turn, and another, more brutal pinch as the point was dug into his insides. He shuddered and slammed a fist into the hard ground and cursed long and loud. But he did not resist.
Doubly joined now, Marazhai grasped Heldanis’s hair once again, jerking his head back. A hot gust of breath tickled his throat, and then the wet drag of a tongue along the curving tendon before teeth latched and pulled at his earlobe. ‘Yes, eager. Of course you are,’ Marazhai hissed as he began to thrust again, the new position allowing him to delve deeper than ever, the hook and its small chain causing a new friction and a painful pull on Heldanis’s insides whenever Marazhai withdrew too far, so relief only came at the next violent press into him. ‘You’ve never known anything like me before, have you, my little pet.’
‘No!’ Heldanis did not even try to hold back the gasp. He was pushing himself back against every thrust now, and not just to avoid the tug of the hook within him, but because his flesh longed to swallow and suck on the Drukhari’s hot shaft as it penetrated him. The aching pressure built in his cock. Bracing himself on one arm he reached down between his legs. He was shocked to slide a hand along the slope of his stomach and feel the skin bulge with each thrust. He couldn’t lower his head to see, but he found himself pausing to savour and marvel at the strange new sensation before finally taking his cock in his hand.
Long fingers closed over his own.
‘No,’ came that growling rasp again. ‘No, you have never known this. Such heights of passion. Of ecstasy. Your body and mind can barely conceive of it. And yet already you crave it. Even from this small taste… I can sense your craving for it. For me!’
‘Yes!’ Heldanis cried out. His hand and Marazhai’s were working in rhythm now, stroking the smooth length while Marazhai’s own continued its relentless assault. Over the taunts of the crowd and the rhythmic sounds of their clapping and pounding, Heldanis could hear flesh colliding with flesh – a sinfully sweet sound that he honed in on; that stirred deeper waves of desire in him. The pain and pleasure were now so unexpectedly and perfectly balanced and he relished both. He could feel himself getting closer, the pressure reaching a point where he thought both his body and his mind would fracture into thousands of fragments.
‘Say it!’ Marazhai hissed against his ear. Heldanis could hear from the ragged panting that he was close too. ‘If you want it… beg for it… beg me… for release…’
‘Fuck, yes, I want it!’ Heldanis screamed, his throat burning, his insides raw. ‘Give it to me! Fuck me! Fuck me! Make me come!’
Marazhai’s mad laughter joined the cacophony of sound around him. He dragged Heldanis up by his hair, displaying him for the crowd to see as together their hands worked in unison. A few more vicious tugs and the pinnacle was finally reached. Like glass cracking from a sudden drop in the temperature, Heldanis felt his hips twist and jerk and he was released. He spurted onto the arena floor, onto his own fingers and onto Marazhai’s as well, hoarse moans still tearing from his throat as he did so. The Drukhari was still thrusting inside him, grinding, but with a great roar suddenly gave one final push against the human’s back that sent him sprawling to the ground. Heldanis screamed as his flesh tore from the piercings and the hook wrenching free of his body, but no one would have been able to say whether it was pain or satisfaction that drew such a shameful sound from him.
Dizzy and quivering on the cold platform, Heldanis only regained some semblance of awareness when he felt a wet splash across his sweating, heaving back. Shoulders shaking, he turned his head to see Marazhai standing over him, his cock in his hand, the piercings dripping with fluids both white and crimson. Heldanis realised that something was trickling between his thighs, and knew that it had not come from Marazhai. For some reason he was overwhelmed with a sense of being cheated, denied something that his body craved.
A hint of what he was feeling must have shown in his face. Marazhai threw back his head and laughed before turning that sneering, arrogant look on him once again.
‘What? Did you think you had earned such an honour?’ His shouldered shook with barely restrained amusement and he shook his head. ‘No, Heldanis. I gave you the release you begged me for. As for the rest…’
He bent to pick up a fallen piece of his armour. He held it up to the crowd as if it were a trophy, and they applauded, satisfied with what they had seen and what they had tasted.
‘You…’
‘Perhaps one day I will deign to do more with you,’ Marazhai went on in Low Gothic, reattaching the fallen pieces of his armour. ‘What a gift to bestow on an obedient little pet. But… first you must be obedient. You’ve already shown me that you can beg on command at least.’
‘You –!’
A hiss from the Drukhari halted the venomous diatribe Heldanis had been about to spill. His face burned with the humiliation of what had just happened. The shame of what it had aroused in him. And an awful, terrifying realisation that he… that he…
‘Perhaps someday I will make you beg for me again. I’ll have the great Rogue Trader on his knees, hungry for the smallest taste of my favour. Until then… pull yourself together, Heldanis. There is still much work to be done.’
And he turned his back, as quickly and easily as if Heldanis had been some back-alley whore not even worth the price they had demanded. His attention was back on their audience as he crowed and jeered as his victory and his victim’s degradation. And Heldanis was left there, on the floor of the arena, covered only in the filth of their fornication…
… and with the seeds of obsession sown deep into the depths of his soul.