The Slave Queen of Etherion Ch. 10

Chapter 10

Tharnirion

Many of Jade's former suitors had chosen to stay in Lysannum, given that two unmarried princesses had come to stay. Prince Arthur and Prince Robin had left; apparently Amorette wasn't beautiful enough for Arthur to bother with, even though she was a lovely young woman, and Robin preferred men. The remaining princes all came on the hunt, as did Biblis, and Florimel, even though she hadn't been inspired by any of the princes.

Jade participated as the hostess, though Rodger permitted her to wear nothing but crotchless riding trousers, making that concession only because bare skin might blister against the saddle.

The first day was spent pursuing a deer buck. Rodger, Jade, Amorette and Florimel led the rest of the hunters, and Biblis, Duke Carle, and Prince Silvermark weren't far behind.

Amorette took the honor of the kill when the buck turned at bay, and the quarry was prepared for a feast in the field.

That evening, as the hunters were retiring to their tents, Biblis came to the huge tent that Rodger and Jade were sharing with his sisters and uncle.

"Would Florimel like to go on a hunt for a unicorn?" the maga asked Rodger.

"Yes, please," Florimel replied from inside. "Just let me change back out of my night shift."

Biblis entered the tent. "That shouldn't be necessary," she said. "It's best to go unarmed and lightly clad."

"Can Rodger, Jade and Amorette come?" Florimel asked.

"Of course, provided that they go unarmed too."

It was only a few minutes later that Biblis led Rodger Jade, Amorette and Florimel through the forest that was illuminated by the light of the full moon. As they walked, Rodger noticed a subtle shift in the woods, the trees being somehow bigger, and the air was somehow more... electric.

"What happened?" Rodger asked Biblis.

"You noticed that?!" Biblis asked rhetorically, surprised. "We passed into a regio. I'll explain later."

After a while, a lake illuminated by fireflies became visible some distance ahead, a mossy clearing at its bank.

"Florimel, perhaps you could go ahead while the rest of us sit here," Biblis suggested. "You might want to bathe in the lake."

Florimel agreed and walked ahead, and removed and folded her nightshift before placing it on a log and wading naked into the shallow water. She ducked beneath the surface, and swam for a little while before she emerged and stripped the water from her pale body and her long blonde hair with her hands.

She dried off quickly in the warm breeze as she sat beside the lake, and as she shook out her hair, a creature with white fur that almost glowed in the moonlight emerged silently from the woods. It was the size of a large goat, about the same size as a man, with a very equine body, a goatee beard, a short-furred tail tufted at the tip and a yard-long spiral ivory horn protruding from its forehead. It was quite obviously male, given the penis sheathed beneath his belly and the scrotum the size of an apple, containing balls that swung heavily from side to side as he walked.

Florimel looked up, surprised by something that the others couldn't hear. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "He's talking to me!"

There was a pause as Florimel listened. "You're beautiful too!" she replied to his unheard statement. "You're the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen!"

She paused again, listening. "Can I?" she asked. "Let's try..." she paused, and a moment later, the unicorn nodded its head.

Unicorn and woman gazed into each other's eyes for a long time, before Florimel reached out and stroked his cheek. His horn dipped toward her, and he stroked her cheek with its side, and she sighed and shivered with pleasure, then she looked toward Rodger.

a masculine voice made itself heard in Rodger's head, bypassing his ears.

"Please, Rodger," Florimel said aloud. "I want to be with him so badly. Sternenspitze is what I've been looking for ever since I began to bleed every month."

"If you're sure that this is what you want, Florrie." He replied.

"I've never wanted anyone like I want Sternenspitze. Not even the stallions that serviced my mare," she laughed.

"Very well, you have my blessing."

Florimel and Sternenspitze kissed, mouth to mouth, their tongues fencing as lovers' do. He stroked her body with his tufted tail and the side of his horn while she caressed his face and body, and reached beneath him uncertainly to fondle his balls and the thick cock that was emerging from his sheath. He suckled upon her breasts, and then licked her between her legs, and she fell back, her legs parting to allow him better access.

"I need you inside me!" Florimel gasped to her lover.

"I, Florimel, take you, Sternenspitze as my mate. I shall have no other as long as we both shall live!"

"Yes!' Florimel gasped.

Florimel rolled and went to her hands and knees, and looked behind her as Sternenspitze approached. He reared, placing his forelegs on Florimel's back, his cloven hooves curled back so that they would not hurt her, as his pointed penis twitched and probed at her backside before it found her vagina and pushed in.

Florimel cried out as she was penetrated for the first time in her life, and as Sternenspitze's thick cock withdrew, a ring of blood could be seen on the shaft of his cock. His horn dipped and caressed her, and then he began thrusting in earnest.

Jade found herself getting wet at the erotic sight of the unicorn and the woman coupling, and as she felt Rodger's hand pushing her down, she too went to her hands and knees before Rodger slipped his pierced cock into her cunt, grasped her swaying breasts, and began to thrust enthusiastically.

Florimel was gasping with each thrust of her unicorn mate's cock into her cunt, and as she approached her climax, her gasps deepened into panting moans, then she held her breath and shuddered before she screamed again and again with the pleasure of her orgasm. As she climaxed, Sternenspitze's forceful thrusts paused, his cock pressed as deeply into her cunt as possible, and he had his own orgasm, his heavy balls lifting with each spurt of semen that his cock was pumping into his mate's cunt, and as he came, he spoke for all to hear, his cries of pleasure sounding as an eerie, beautiful harmonic wordless song.

Rodger fucked Jade hard, pulling hard on her hair so that her back arched and her breasts were thrust forwards as his hips slapped vigorously against her backside. Then Rodger pressed her head forward until he was pushing the side of her face against the ground while he fucked her cunt. Jade reached back between her legs and caught hold of Rodger's balls, and as he spurted his seed into her eager cunt, she pulled on them, pulling his cock deep into her as he ejaculated, the stretching of his balls adding to his pleasure before she joined the others as she, too, orgasmed.

Florimel didn't return to the camp, or even reclaim her nightgown. After lying beside her new mate for a while, gazing into his eyes as they communicated soundlessly, she rose to her hands and knees again so that her mate could mount her once more. Once they were done, and she had recovered from another powerful orgasm, Florimel, hugged and said farewell to her family, then returned to climb naked onto Sternenspitze's back, and rode away upon him into the forest.

"Do you think that we'll ever see Florrie again?" Rodger asked Biblis not long after they had returned from the regio to their pavilion.

Amorette came over and sat down nearby to hear Biblis' response.

"I don't know," Biblis replied, staring out into the darkness beyond the dying embers of the camp fire. "It's not unheard of for a unicorn's mate to return for a brief visit with her family, but it is rare... unless the unicorn dies first and she returns to her family permanently. It's a lot more likely that in ten to twenty years, her daughter could return. Of course, it's not impossible to go and find a unicorn's mate wherever she is. There are a few stories about that actually."

"What sort of stories?" Amorette asked.

"Oh... the main one is The War of the Unicorn's Bride, which is a story that begins with Lady Olinda, daughter of the Baron Calogero," Biblis began. "Her hand in marriage as second wife had been promised to one of the Baron's allies, old Count Gonzalo, but during an extended hunt -- much like the one we're on now -- Olinda went for a walk in the forest one evening with her younger brother, Catellus, where she met and ran away with a unicorn. Count Gonzalo challenged Baron Calogero to a duel over breach of promise, and Baron Calogero was killed. Count Gonzalo commanded the new Baron Catellus to sign over his family's barony to him within the year, or else when the time was up, the Count would come with his army and take it by force. Because Catellus was young, he hadn't listened when his father had spoken of their family's secrets, but his older sister Olinda had. So, Catellus had to grow up very quickly, and went on a quest several months long to find his sister out in the wilderness with her unicorn husband. When he found her, Olinda told him the secrets that he had previously been too callow to pay attention to, including where to find his grandfather's retired general, Ratomir, whom he convinced to come out of retirement for one last battle, where they defeated Count Gonzalo's army and Catellus killed the Count during the battle thanks to Ratomir's training.

"There's a copy of the story in the palace library if you're interested," Biblis finished. "It's not really a romance though, it's more about military strategy, logistics and tactics, with lots of fighting, gore and quite a long list of casualties. About the only romance in it is that Olinda falls in love with the unicorn and runs away with him -- which takes less than half a chapter -- and at the end, Catellus marries Gonzalo's daughter, his only child from his first marriage... and it's a political marriage that's far from a love match, and that's in the afterword."

"Oh... I think I'll pass," Amorette considered. "That sounds like the sort of thing that our brother Benedict would read."

"It really does," Rodger agreed.

Lysannum, Tharnirion

Amorette, having announced that she may issue a nuptial challenge on her return to Lysannum, was met by a veritable throng of suitors on their return from the hunt. She announced her challenge much as she had planned, requiring her suitors to pass three tests, that she find them amongst the top ten percent most handsome, that those who were selected offer her the top ten percent most romantic gifts, and of those, she would accept the man and the gift of the one who gave her the best kiss.

Hundreds of men had presented themselves. Amorette examined each one closely, even going so far as to ask several to strip down to their underwear. Of all of those men, fifty-three were selected over the course of a week, including many of the visiting princes who had elected to participate, though Princes Kael, Jan and Earle were not among those selected.

There was a gap of a week while the suitors searched for suitable gifts for the foreign princess.

During this time, Rodger made a point of getting to know Xenia intimately. He had the faun come to his bedchamber, and while he lay naked on the bed with his arms behind his head, he had Jade hold his erect cock for Xenia to mount, and then while he and Xenia fucked, he had Jade kneel beside the bed and watch them. Later, he fucked one or the other of his two slaves, while he had the one he wasn't fucking sit over the first's face so that she could be pleasured orally while kissing Rodger. Neither woman showed any jealousy when Rodger fucked the other woman.

At the end of the second week, Princess Amorette examined the gifts her suitors were offering, and selected six to go on to the final stage, Princes Tigh and Silvermark amongst them.

Amorette met her six candidates on the steps of the High Lord's cathedral, wearing her wedding gown, a white and silver embroidered garment that covered her to the neck, but was slit down the sides, revealing the skin of her waist and the base of her breasts, and the narrow skirt was also slit down from her hips so that it revealed her legs as she walked.

Amorette was blindfolded, and the suitors jostled for position. Prince Tigh kissed Amorette first, though he was rather awkward. The next man, a stranger in hunter's leather, almost knocked Amorette from her feet as he bent her over and kissed her, setting her breathless back on her feet as he withdrew. The next three were more decorous, though only the third seemed to have much of an effect on her. Prince Silvermark went last, having apparently manoeuvred to let the others go first. He took Amorette confidently into his arms, though he rudely slipped his hands into the slits in the princess' dress, and caressed her intimately as he kissed her, touching her bare waist and bum beneath the dress, teasing the sides of her breasts, and even reaching down to her crotch, making her literally weak at the knees, only releasing her when she was flushed and gasping.

"Oh, my..." she panted. "There is a clear winner... Number Six." She took off her blindfold to look at her husband to be, Prince Silvermark, who offered her his gift, a plain leatherbound diary with a tiny lock.

"Please accept my gift and my hand in marriage, Amorette," he said. "I offer you the story of my life, which, for reasons you will come to understand, I beg you to keep to yourself."

All that remained was for the engaged couple to enter the cathedral, followed by those of the watching crowd who had an invitation to the ceremony.

An hour later, the bishop pronounced them to be husband and wife. After a brief, whispered conversation, they both smiled and began to remove their clothing, evidently having chosen to consummate their union in public too. They kissed and caressed one another frantically, then Silvermark lay down on the altar, and Amorette put her leg over him to squat astride him. She lifted his cock and placed it at the entrance to her cunt and pushed down. It only went in a little way despite her pushing down on it, until she dropped her full weight onto it, and her maidenhead tore with a pop, and she found herself fully impaled on her husband's cock, giving a gasp of surprise.

Silvermark rolled his bride over onto her back and lifted her legs from beside his hips and spread them as widely as they would go, and pushing them up toward her head before he began to thrust his cock in and out of his wife's cunt for the first time. She took hold of her own ankles, and he began to tease her clit and her nipples as he pounded her pussy. He fastened his mouth onto one of her nipples and sucked and licked it while he massaged her clit, and her panting rose to a shriek as she had the first orgasm of her life, releasing her ankles and holding her husband to her with her arms and legs as he roared wordlessly as he came and filled her cunt with his seed.

Malachite Palace, Tharnirion

Amorette and Silvermark's wedding reception that evening was quite conventional, though as a slave, Jade didn't have a seat at the dinner table, instead sitting on Rodger's lap and being fed from his plate. She enjoyed that position, especially when Rodger took advantage of her nudity and surreptitiously slipped his cock out of his breeches and into her cunt. Jade just as surreptitiously fucked him, trying to keep her upper body still as she ground her hips against his, biting her lip to stop from crying out as she orgasmed. After the dinner, the guests moved to the palace's ballroom, where the newly-wed couple's marriage was celebrated with a formal dance. The bride and groom danced with as many of the guests as they could, and Rodger saw to it that Jade was passed around to many of the male guests too, where many of them took advantage of her nudity to grope her between the dances. By the end of the evening, Jade was eager for Rodger's intimate attentions once more.

One evening a couple of weeks after Amorette and Silvermark's wedding reception, after Jade and Rodger had retired to his rooms, Rodger laid his slave-wife on the bed, climbed between her splayed legs, and fucked her slowly while he kissed her, their tongues fencing, each delighting in the taste of the other's mouth, while Xenia lay beside them, waiting paitiently for her turn. Rodger and Jade were in the middle of making love when there was a knock at the door.

Rodger lifted his mouth from Jade's. "Enter," he called, though he didn't stop fucking Jade.

Jade blushed when her father entered their bedroom, embarrassed, but also delighted, as he saw her being slowly fucked by her master-husband, her legs spread wide like the sluttiest whore while his big cock stretched her cunt wide open.

"Are you well, Jadie?" he asked.

"Yes, Dad," she replied, a bit breathlessly, as Rodger continued to fuck her. "Never better... actually."

"You're not regretting your lifestyle choices?" he asked with a wry smile.

"Not in... the slightest," she replied. "I'm loving... every moment... of it. Why... do you... ask?"

"I'm dying, Jadie," the king said bluntly. "Biblis has kept me fit for years with her magic, but magic can only do so much, and my life is coming to an end."

Rodger stopped fucking his slave and rolled off her, and she leaped up and ran to her father, and hugged him, not giving a thought to her nudity.

"How long do you have?" she sniffed, tears running down her face.

"I'm going to go downhill very fast after tonight... perhaps as little as a week or two to a few months at most, though it won't be pleasant. Or, I can go out tonight, with a bang, so to speak, and avoid all the vomiting, incontinence and pain. I've chosen the latter, and I wanted to see if you wanted to come see me go."

"I'm not ready to lose you, Dad!" she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Yes, you are, Jadie. You're living your life as you wanted, and you're ready to be queen... or do you really need to see me waste away in bed, in agony, over the next few weeks or months?"

Jade sniffled and hugged her father tighter. "No... I don't need that... I saw how Countess Abela Stanway suffered before she died... and I won't make you live through that."

"That's what I thought," her father said. "Come on, then, love... it's time to see me go."

Rodger, Jade and Xenia followed the King to the library. There was a large arcane diagram drawn on the floorboards in chalk, and Biblis stood beside it, wearing an ankle length black robe.

"Well... this is it," the king said. "Goodbye, everyone."

Rodger shook King Steven's hand, but Xenia and Jade both hugged him and whispered their goodbyes to him.

"Are you ready?" Biblis asked, also hugging the king tightly.

"Yes, love. Let's be about it..."

Biblis doffed her robe, revealing herself to have been naked beneath it, and while she was obviously a mature woman, showed no signs of her actual age. The King also removed his robe. He and Biblis kissed familiarly, intimately, exploring each other's bodies, Biblis humming with pleasure at his expert caresses.

Biblis lay down in the centre of the arcane symbol and spread her legs to reveal her vulva glistening with her juices, while she reached up with her arms toward him.

The king slowly went to his knees between her legs, and carefully mounted her, and then they fucked, Biblis tilting her pelvis in time with his thrusts. She cried out as she orgasmed, twice, and then she fastened her mouth to his in a kiss as he grunted with his own orgasm.

As the last of his seed was pumped into his lover's pussy, he raised his head and spoke. "There you go... I've returned that which you loaned to me," he said, beginning to climb awkwardly to his feet. "Though, to be honest, I thought that I'd be dead by now."

Biblis stood and helped the king stand. "It won't be long now," she hugged him, looking into his face.

"Really? I don't feel much dif..." he suddenly went limp, seeming somehow to shrink, and he exhaled his last breath into his lover's mouth.

"Goodbye, Steven," Biblis whispered, then began to cry quietly, as she gently lowered his body to the floor and closed his sightless eyes.

High Lord's Cathedral, Lysannum

Jade appeared at the state funeral for King Steven fully dressed in an elegant black dress, and wearing the tiara of the Crown Princess, with Rodger by her side as her husband and not her master, since it was a state occasion as much as a personal one, and Rodger didn't feel like making an issue of Jade's enslavement when she was so obviously grieving.

Xenia was also there, wearing a simple black skirt and a black strip of cloth tied around her breasts, though it didn't cover much more than her nipples and areolae. Biblis attended too, along with many of the palace serving maids, all of whom had been the King's lovers at one time or another.

King Steven was interred in the royal crypt beside his wife, Angharad, who shared a niche with their stillborn son. Despite having ended her life as a slave, she had been interred with full royal honours.

The whole kingdom was in official mourning for a month, and evidently King Steven had been very popular given the vast mass of flowers that seemed to appear spontaneously around the palace fence line.

Etherion

After the funeral, Jade and Rodger went to see the jewellers who would make Jade's crown. Since Tharnirion's tradition was that each monarch was laid to rest with their crown, Jade would of course need a new crown, and as the future Queen, she had a say in its design. However, Rodger insisted that as Jade's master, he should also have some input.

"Isn't the crown supposed to be a symbol of my royal authority?" Jade asked Rodger grumpily. "Not mine and yours?"

"Of course, your highness," Rodger replied, making it clear that he wasn't talking to her as his slave. "However, you won't be exercising your royal authority every hour of the day, and I've seen first hand that crowns are heavy, and also awkward things to carry around... so I just thought that if you had a crown that you could wear one way to show that you are Queen, but could quickly change how you wore it so that it would show that you are a slave, it would mean that you wouldn't have to be constantly putting it on or taking it off, you could just... do whatever it is you would need to do, and visibly switch between your Queen persona and your slave persona, instead of taking it off and carrying it around, or passing it to a servant who would have to come get it when you were done with it, and bring it to you when you needed it."

Jade considered this for a long moment, then bowed her head with a small, brief smile. "You're right, of course, master."

All that remained was to discuss with the jewellers just what form the crown would take. Jade had her ideas, and Rodger had his own, but the challenge was to come up with a design that could be worn in two different ways and incorporated both. They discussed the possibility of a crown that could be worn upside down, a crown with a flip-up mask or visor, one with points that could be either up or down, and a design that could be worn facing forward or backward.

"Nothing which conceals her beautiful face too much," Rodger said firmly. "There will be a time and a place for masks, but not for something that will be worn so frequently. Nothing that includes a gag either," he dismissed a design with a scold's bridle that could be removed and raised like a visor.

The design with points that could flip up and down seemed to be the best option, as long as the points were shaped so that they appeared to cage Jade's head when down rather than becoming a mask, though mechanically it would be quite complicated in comparison to the other designs, and there was still the matter of establishing how it would work in practise. Several options were discussed before a workable solution was found. Then all that remained to be discussed was the matter of its decoration.

One of Rodger's next stops on their shopping spree was at a mask maker's shop in the city of Secarium, a day's sail across the Sweet Sea, where he had Jade, Xenia and himself measured for fitted masks, a process that involved taking a plaster cast of each of their faces. It would be weeks before the masks would be ready, though.

Rodger also took Jade to a shoemaker in Secarium to have her fitted for high-heeled boots; having examined Jade's collection of shoes, he had noticed that they were all flats. While Jade's shoes had all been made to measure, especially for her, this was the first time that she had experienced plaster casts being made of her feet and legs up to her thighs. Rodger also had casts made of his feet and lower legs.

"May I ask why I am to have high heels, master?" Jade had asked. "I thought that you preferred me to be barefoot?"

Rodger gave her a smile. "Every human slave girl needs one pair of heels," Jade thought that he was hiding something. "Xenia's are naturally part of her."

Rodger also took both Jade and Xenia to another shop, where all three of them had casts made of their hands and forearms, though for what purpose wasn't clear, all Rodger would say was that it was a surprise.

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