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The sight of the banner hanging the throne room was one that greeted Svetlana, Mother Empress of Zmetar, every day since her ascension to the throne. A deep red standard, the symbol of Kerevyast - her city, and the source of power over all the lands of Zmetar under her thumb - in brilliant gold in the center, gazing down at her, calling out to her - and yet so far from her reach. Since the collapse of the Zmetari Empire, many warlords had emerged from the anarchy, carving little fiefdoms for themselves among the frigid wastes of the north. Like so many others before her, Svetlana dreamed that one day, the fractured lands of the Zmetari would one day swear allegiance to one single banner, but just whose banner that would be, however, was the question.
That question would finally be resolved after three bloody years of fire and blood that brought what was left of Zmetar under Svetlana's thumb, in a conference hall in the heart of Kerevyast. Those who she didn’t simply have executed had gathered in the hall to make one final oath to Svetlana, where they would relinquish their offices and their powers to her, and retire to remote provinces in the arctic north. And even this still was not enough for Svetlana. For to the west and south, the most developed, most fertile lands of Zmetari, lay occupied - snatched up like carrion by the neighboring states of Aiseruaz during the collapse all those years ago. The industrial heartland of Zmetar, and the rare metals that fueled their furnaces - all of it now under the control of the Aiseruadze.
All of it would one day be hers again, whether by diplomacy, or whether she would have to smash them away with a blizzard of artillery.
"Your Highness," came a voice from one of the Royal Guard. In that instant, Svetlana's eyes shot up, meeting the guardswoman's eyes. "A visitor seeking your audience."
"And who might that be?"
"Shamil."
At that name, a thin smile crept onto Svetlana's face.
"Bring him here," she orders.
The men of the Overwaald Eirisborg - or Tskhameli, as it was known to the natives themselves - were an oddity this far north. Clad in long, dark robes devoid of any embellishment save for the holsters they kept their knives in - a tool which every Tskhamelian over twelve possessed - visitors from there stuck out among the finely-clad Zmetari nobles in the Capital. By and large they lived ascetic lives, subsisting on the rough game and berries they built their auls, their mountain villages in. Their bodies reflected this reality - a Tskhamelian man over a hundred and seventy five centimeters tall was rare. Their thin, sallow faces were covered by streaks of hair that they rarely cut, allowing it to grow over their eyes and past their shoulders. Their olive-skinned faces were framed by long beards that made men in their twenties look like sages. To them belonged the man who stood before Svetlana now.
Licking her lips, the Empress approached him, just close enough for the height difference between the two to become painfully apparent to him. If he tiptoed, the man before her could barely reach the tip of her chin. Yet the Tskhameli were formidable fighters, a fact that Svetlana was made painfully aware of when she captured Shamil while solidifying her control over the Tskhamelian capital - a race for control of the Overwaald between herself and the Aiseruadze General Kjaer.
Caught between the two powers, the Tskhameli people chose to fight both, with Shamil joining his countrymen as they went up in arms. Shamil's path crossed Svetlana's one fateful afternoon, as he bid his time hiding within the sewers. During a lull in the fighting, he leapt out, stabbing Svetlana's bodyguard in the throat, and the Empress would have been next had she not twisted his arm, disarming him, then delivered an uppercut to his liver that sent him doubling over in pain, hacking and vomiting over her boots. Impressed with his prowess, she had offered him a choice - unconditional service to her, or a bullet to the head right where he lay. He chose the former, thinking he would be used as a hitman of sorts - which he was.
But, as he would find out that first night in Svetlana's quarters, gagged and shackled to her bed posts, the definition of unconditional service encompassed a great many things indeed.
"Strip him," the Mother Empress ordered.
"He's fine, we searched him before- "
"I said strip him."
The Guardswomen obeyed, shoving and pulling them between themselves as they tore off his fatigues. Sweat glistened on Shamil's skin, pooling in the furrows of his abdominal muscles. Svetlana's lips curled into a frown as she sized up the man. Allowing him to regrow his beard was necessary - how else would he have blended back in with the Tskhamelians? But the thick coat of hair over his chest and pubis - no, that simply wouldn't do. She would shave it all off herself. The Tskhameli regarded beards as a sign of manhood - any male without at least some stubble was simply a boy. And that was exactly why she insisted he be regularly shaved. Without his beard, it was so much easier to appreciate how gentle his face really was - the soft curve of his chin, large, deep set brown eyes, the skin of his cheeks stretched over his high-set, round cheekbones. He looked boyish. He no longer had the wizened look of the Tskhamelians, but looked something like a juvenile wolf-cub. Bare, naked. His skin a blank slate ready to be marked by her.
"Your report, Shamil."
"Yes, mist- I mean, Your Highness-"
"You have only been away three months, wolfling. Have you already forgotten your manners?"
The queen strode up to him and gave him a tap on the mouth with her boot. Apologizing, Shamil knelt before her, kissing it, bowing low enough that Svetlana could rest her foot on his head with a minimum of effort. The greeting she had taught him when she had first captured him - a symbol of his complete subjugation, that the lowest part of her body was higher than all of him.
Satisfied, she lifted the man's chin with the tip of her shoe.
"I report, Your Highness," he began, "our operation in Tskh- the Overwaald has been a success. Two outposts have been taken out of commission with minimal losses. In addition, several geographic surveys have been completed, showing- "
"Spare me the details. What of Kjaer?"
"Kjaer?" The faintest of smiles passed over Shamil's face. "Gone."
It was only now that the Empress noticed Shamil's pendant. Worked from white gold, no doubt mined somewhere in Tskhameli itself - the mountain province certainly had no lack of precious minerals. A curved halberd, emblem of Aiseruaz, hanging over the neck of the totem animal and symbol of Eirisborg, the she-wolf. She recognized the emblem before, which the General had always kept pinned to his uniform - a symbol of his rule over the mountains. Now he had no use for it anymore, and so it dangled from the Tskhamelian's neck, worked into the pendant for a necklace he had made out of some cheap twine. Svetlana's long fingers curled over the band as she removed it, a shiver running down the man's spine as her nails brushed against his skin.
"Well done, Shamil," she said. "How did he die?"
"Single shot. Had someone hide under his car before the rest of us went in. Soon as he made a break for it, bang. Two shots to the back of his head. Quick and clean."
"That sounds very quick. Too quick. Didn't I tell you to make him scream?"
"Yes-" Shamil started, but the words caught in his throat. There was no use arguing with her. Though the race for the provincial capital was won by her, much of the surrounding areas - and their mines - still lay under the Overwaald's control. It was a humiliation that still burned in Svetlana's stomach, one that the General never failed to taunt her about whenever they met.
"I told you to make sure he screamed, Shamil, and you couldn't even do that. Therefore, I shall make you scream in his place. Take him upstairs."
Slash.
Snip.
Flinch, slash.
Another glint flashed through the Empress' chambers as the last few strands of hair fell off Shamil's chest. It was a sight only Svetlana could see - from his blindfold, the darkling captive could only make out the silhouettes of candlelight and shadows, and the occasional flash of silver reflected off the knife. Filling in the gaps in his senses was cold - the cold autumn air on bare skin, the manacles that bound him to the pillars Svetlana had built specifically for him, the rhythmic brush of steel on skin with the occasional sting as steel bit into flesh. Specks of blood dotted his chin from where she had cut him while shaving off his beard - all his fault, of course. He shouldn't have flinched. But he hadn't screamed - no, he wouldn't scream. He wouldn't cry out in pain. The words of his elders repeated in his mind as steel bit into his skin.
Cattle scream. Babies scream. A Tskhamelian man is not cattle - he does not cry out in pain.
Hollow words, they were. That first night she fucked him in Tskhameli, not a single sound escaped his lips - he bore everything quietly, thinking of the crisp air, the temperate summers, his herds, the taiga paths he would lose himself in, praying and gathering wild berries for his ailing mother. There, he was a proud mountaineer, a creature of the lands that - so they said - God loved so much that He kept them for Himself. Now he was no longer in Tskhameli. Here, in the heart of Kerevyast, he was no different than her herds of cattle, painstakingly selected for the refined palates of the royal court. And what a palate the Empress had. Hidden behind a false door at the back of her cabinet was a veritable assortment of whips, prods, and all manner of devices she had used on him at some point or another. Guarded by women trained specifically to ignore his cries echoing down the halls, thousands of miles from his homeland, there was nothing to stop him from crying out in pain every time the Empress had her way with him.
She would shackle him in this position, arms spread and shackled between two pillars, his neck bound by a steel collar with a vice to tighten its grip on his neck. Over him she stood now, close enough to his face for his breath to tickle his skin, tightening the collar with one hand, the other holding the knife, sliding it down to his underwear and slicing the cloth clean off. Svetlana once told him that the more you choke a man, the harder he gets down there - and wondered whether how much fun he would be if she had just broken his neck. She never actually did, though she came damn close one time - when he finally came, he didn't even have the air to moan, and his vision had all but faded from his eyes.
Thankfully, she was more merciful this time. She only tightened the vice enough to keep him erect, so she could shave the hair off his genitals as well.
"You know," she said quietly, "I could just slice your dick off right here. They say a kick to the balls feels more painful than giving birth. I'm sure you'd sound just delightful getting your penis cut off."
A shudder ran down the man's back and the faintest of whimpers escaped from his lips.
"…But of course, it's so much more fun with the rest of you attached."
When she finally finished, she let the tip of her knife rest on his navel, then slid it ever so lightly downwards, drawing a few specks of blood, which the Empress licked off. A clatter followed as the knife fell to the floor, then a moment later, she was behind him, her hand resting on his shoulderblades, fingernails biting into his skin. Shamil's breathing quickened as she pierced his flesh, his arms straining against the chains as she tore deep gashes across his back. He bit his tongue so hard he could taste blood. Truthfully, it wasn't the pain that really got to him - God knew he had endured much worse before. But between the chains and the blindfold in his eyes, and the oath he himself swore to her, this time was different. It was his complete powerlessness before the woman staring down at him that terrified him - the impotence he felt as muscles strained against metal, the knowledge that he would never escape Kerevyast. That his place in the world was now the Empress' personal fuck toy, a role that had been beaten into him over countless nights in her quarters.
And he loved every last moment of it.
At some point, he noticed that the scratches had stopped. Another sweet jolt of pain, this time on his neck, brought him back to reality. Svetlana was biting him.
"Such a sweet boy," she cooed. "Aren't you going to try to escape like you did the first couple times?"
"N-no…" he replied.
"Good. But you aren't gonna cry out either? Not too painful?"
"F-fuck you." Shamil spat on the floor, the thinnest of smiles appearing on his face. She was ever so cruel to him when he riled her up a little…
There were a few moments of silence as the Empress grip faded from his senses. Then suddenly, the loud thwack of leather biting into skin, and the sting of sweat on raw flesh. The blow knocked the air out of Shamil's lungs, and it took all he had to stop himself from crying out. Behind him, Svetlana stood, brandishing a nine-tailed whip in one hand, the other scratching another wound onto his upper back. The whimpers and moans he made as rope bit into him, the deep furrows they left over his back drove the Empress mad with lust.
"I told you I was gonna make you scream, slave."
Another blow. This time, Shamil couldn't stop himself from uttering a gasp. Then the sensation of fingernails raking over the whip marks, the stinging growing more and more unbearable with each blow.
"Still not going to cry out for me? Maybe I'm not wounding you deep enough. Maybe I ought to tear out your muscles, too."
And then another blow, and a scratch so deep Shamil thought she actually did rip into his muscles. And finally, he let out a groan - a soft, pathetic whine that caught in his throat as the whip robbed his lungs of air again.
"Good…good little wolfling…! Scream! More!"
Smack. Smack. Smack.
As blow after blow landed on his back, his whines turned into screams, every last thought vanishing from his mind as the whip tore more and more skin off his back. The sight of his blood only filled the Empress with more and more glee, multiplying the strength of her blows on his skin.
"Louder, wolf-bitch! I ought to-" the Empress' voice caught in her throat as a spasm rocked her body- "I ought to break your fucking spine-"
Then a final blow to his back. Pausing for a moment to let him enjoy the warmth on his back, Svetlana then scratched a new wound into his bare ass, tearing deep red streaks that were topped off by the whip. Cries mixed with choked sobs, barely recognizable as words, were the only thing that came out of Shamil's mouth now.
"If I didn't need your skills, wolfling, I would have hamstrung you so long ago."
"Please…please, my Empress, my love I can't…aghh!" Rope bit into his legs again. And again.
Over and over again, until he was too weak to stand, collapsing in a half kneel, suspended by his arms from the pillars. As blood ran down his legs, his knees buckled under him. Even standing up took all of his strength, only for one more swing of her arm to send him crashing down again.
"Stand up!" she commanded. When he couldn't, she grabbed his hair, lifting him up, only for another blow of the whip to send him back down."
"No- no more…" he said.
"Hm? I didn’t hear you. You want some more? Gladly!"
Another blow, another yell, and his body collapsed again.
As the torture continued, his screams grew louder and more incomprehensible, the Empress shivering almost as much as he was with every last blow. Then suddenly, she stopped, unshackling him, dragging his limping body over to her bed, her muscular frame pinning the Tskhamelian down by the wrists. For the first time since she brought him inside, the Empress could stare deep into the man's eyes, drinking him up like a ravenous beast about to devour its prey. Her hands muffled the whines he made as she slid him inside her, throwing her head back as she felt how full he felt inside her, how nervous and shaky the rest of his body felt compared to how hard his cock was. And for the next half-hour, the halls outside her chambers were filled with a cacophony of noises, punctuated by the thumping of her bed against the walls, her own cries mixing with Shamil's until nobody could tell which noises were whose, male or female, human or animal.
It was almost midnight now, and the Empress lay beside an open window, her afterglow fading with the candles.
The darkling Tskhamelian lay under her arm, his breaths tickling her chest, his seed fresh and warm inside her. When he finally did come, she was in the midst of the throes of orgasm, her body wrapped around his like a lioness over her kill. Her teeth were sunk into her neck, her jaw clenched so tight around his skin he felt for a moment she was going to bite into his jugular. He certainly had a lot stored up in him - after all, he'd been away for months. And now all of it was inside her, trickling out onto her bedsheets - a warmth that lasted even after his seed's warmth had faded into her body's. Silly as it was to admit it, Svetlana did need her little wolfling. At times, it seemed, almost as much as he seemed to need her, begging for more pain even as blood flowed over the bite marks on his back.
A draft entered the room and Shamil instinctively curled up in his sleep, pressing himself against her breasts. He looked so soft, so childlike in his sleep, a far cry from the assassin who would hide in the shadows, knife in hand, slitting the throats of those who stood in her way. With a towel, she wiped the blood off his wounds. Svetlana had long since learned to appreciate their aftercare, the come-down as she treated his wounds, almost as she enjoyed inflicting them in the first place. Every twitch of Shamil's muscles as she re-traced his scars was another reminder. You are mine. I have the power to hurt you and I have the power to take your pain away. Whichever she chose was ultimately irrelevant - he would beg for it all the same.
Her thoughts drifted away to far off places. To Tskhameli, where she had first found her wolfling. In her free hand she played with Kjaer's emblem. As awful as that son of a bitch was, she had to admit it- he did a damn good job holding the Eirisborger elites together. And now he was gone. The storm clouds must be gathering right now, she thought. Any day now, the powder keg would erupt, and while the Aiseruadze squabbled amongst themselves, Zmetari standards would ride into the mountains again, driving all who were there back under her heel. They would be forced to submit to her. They would quickly learn to fear her. And in time, they would learn to love her totally, just as the Tskhamelian beside her did, whimpering and pleading more desperately the tighter she held on to him.