Reverse-Cowgirl Diplomacy

Elissa attempted to find some comfort on the filthy blanket on the floor of her cell, but her skin was crawling. Maker only knew what sort of vermin were infesting the blanket and the straw beneath. The more she thought about it, the more she was certain she could feel them crawling upon her, and she knew if she didn't find something else to focus her attention upon, she'd soon be scratching her skin off.

Luckily it was summertime, or the dungeon cell would certainly have been freezing. As it was, she and Alistair were mourning the loss of their weapons far more than the armor the prison guards had stripped from them. The blazing heat of summer--just days ago such an unbearable burden--had become an unexpected blessing, however; tempered by the damp, cool air of the dungeon, they could be nude in relative comfort.

Her eyes traveled to Alistair, who was pacing the cell anxiously, magnificent in his nudity even now. Elissa thought with a wry twitch of amusement that this particular scenario was certain to fuel her more perverse fantasies for some time to come.

"You really ought to rest while you can," she said, forcing her voice to remain calm.

"Rest?" Alistair looked at her incredulously. "You've got to be joking. Do you hear what's going on out there? Those are screams. Someone is being tortured."

"Yes, that's often what happens in prisons," Elissa said patiently.

"This is the royal prison!" he protested. "Do you think Cailan would have sanctioned such treatment of prisoners?"

"I sincerely doubt Cailan ever troubled himself to consider what might be done with prisoners in this or any other prison in his realm," she replied dryly. "This is where his master of spies—whom, I might add, answered to Loghain as general of the royal army—has brought political prisoners for decades. The people incarcerated here are accused of spying, conspiracy, and treason. Of course they're tortured."

"Are we next?" he asked tightly.

She nodded with a composure she didn't feel. "It's possible. We may be handled slightly differently. Our capture was not without witnesses. By now, Arl Eamon knows Loghain has us. He'll have a great deal of explaining to do to the Landsmeet if Eamon and Fergus demand he produce us and he fails to do so with both of us in relatively good health."

"Then what are we going to do?" Alistair asked, turning a desperate circle in the middle of the cell as though searching for some weakness or route of escape he hadn't seen before.

"Well, I could attempt to seduce the guard into freeing us," she answered, irony heavy in her voice as she rubbed her abdomen where it felt her child was doing his level best to turn a cartwheel, making her wince in discomfort. "But I'm afraid my appeal isn't what it once was. I suppose we could hope he shares your predilection for pregnant bellies. Or perhaps you could try to seduce him."

Alistair gave her a look and she shrugged nonchalantly. "It was just a suggestion."

"Any other suggestions?"

"I'm in no shape to fight our way out," she said regretfully. "The assault on Howe's estate was more taxing than I had assumed it would be. So we must wait. Sooner or later, either our people are going to rescue us, or Eamon is going to demand our release. We simply need to hold out until that happens."

"Right," Alistair dropped onto his pallet of straw with a heavy sigh. "I can do that."

"The point of torture is to get the subject to yield something they don't wish to give up. The name of a contact, a bit of intelligence, a confession of wrongdoing. Knowing Loghain, he's likely going to want us to confess to being in league with the Orlesians. We've done nothing wrong, so we have nothing to confess. Unfortunately, that could make things worse for us, since protestations of innocence rarely do anything but convince one's tormentors to try harder, which is why torture is a singularly ineffective means of acquiring reliable intelligence."

Elissa drew a deep breath. "We need to make sure to avoid saying anything that could be used to incriminate us before the Landsmeet. Beyond that, we simply tell the truth and keep telling it as long as we have breath in our bodies. Don't let them force you to lie and incriminate yourself falsely."

"Very wise words," Loghain's deep, strangely sensual voice echoed through the damp stone chamber as a heavy steel door with a grill for a window clanged upon and he entered, his bulk nearly filling the entire portal. "Though based on idiotic suppositions. I don't need a confession of collusion with the Orlesians. After Ostagar, people will believe just about anything of the Grey Wardens, especially when I tell them how you murdered the Arl of Denerim in his own estate and kidnapped my daughter."

Kidnapped? Elissa stared at Loghain where he stood with his knight—Ser Cauthrien, she remembered—positioning herself near the door behind him.

Anora hadn't returned to him. It hadn't been a trap after all.

Interesting.

"No, what I'm after is somewhat different," he announced with a self-satisfied smile, gesturing his guards forward. "Take her. Leave him."

The door opened and Alistair charged the guards as they entered, only to be knocked back by one gauntleted fist to the gut, leaving him without even sufficient breath to protest as they advanced on Elissa. "Don't injure him!" Loghain snapped.

Elissa did not struggle as they grabbed her arms and dragged her forward. She would do nothing that would force them to be any more brutal than they were already set on being and endanger her child. Their steel-covered hands bruised and pinched her arms, but still she did not struggle.

"Look how Maric's bastard bristles. So very protective," Loghain observed. "And we haven't even done anything with you. Yet."

Something cold settled in her chest. He intended to use her suffering against Alistair. Andraste's mercy, Loghain could not possibly have chosen his tactic better, for Elissa knew without a doubt that even estranged as they were, Alistair would not sit by if he could stop her from being tormented.

"It's not surprising to see yet another of Maric's sons dancing to your tune after your performance at Ostagar," Loghain smirked. "But does he realize just what a depraved whore you truly are? I wonder, does he think it's his bastard you carry? Did you manage to convince him of that? You've already spread your legs for Cailan and Duncan and Maker only knows who else. So, why not me as well?"

He gave her a calculating look. "I'll make you a very simple offer. Beg me to fuck you, so that Maric's whelp can see just how eager a slut you are. You'll enjoy having an actual man between your thighs for once; I'll make sure of it. Beg me to fuck you, and you both may walk out of here today."

Elissa felt ill as she realized just how neatly Loghain had laid his trap. After his appearance at Arl Eamon's estate, Loghain knew quite well that Alistair despised him. There was no one Alistair hated more. If he saw Elissa fuck the man who had killed Duncan—worse, if he saw her take pleasure in it—Alistair would never forgive her. He'd never love her again, but moreover he'd never again be led by her advice, never again cooperate with her leadership. Their united efforts to save Ferelden from the Blight would be shattered.

Elissa closed her eyes, trying to hide her despair. Such an easy concession to make, if only she wanted to sacrifice everything that meant anything to her.

She said nothing.

"No?" Loghain's smooth voice raised in amused disbelief. "It's a bit late to play the virgin, don't you think?" The steel of his gauntlet scraped painfully as his finger thrust roughly into her cunt, and when he withdrew it, it was wet and shining with evidence of her arousal.

"Interesting," he sneered, holding it out to display it for Alistair before sucking it clean. "Well, perhaps some old acquaintances might help convince you," he said casually.

The guards who were not holding her removed their helmets, and Elissa winced as she recognized their faces. They were the men from Lothering, all but the commander she had slain in the Pearl.

"I see you recognize my men," Loghain said, sounding pleased. "I hear you gave quite the performance in Lothering. Maybe Maric's bastard would like to see the encore. Your friends here think they have a score to settle; I wouldn't want to disappoint them." He turned his back and strode from the chamber. "Do nothing that will injure her, and do not rape her," he barked the command over his shoulder as Ser Cauthrien followed him out. "Other than that, she's yours."

Loghain's soldiers were only too eager to display their appreciation for the way she had humiliated them in Lothering. Particularly brutish was the one with the small cock who had beaten her for laughing at him. He had to be pulled off of her by his fellows when it looked as if he might step beyond Loghain's mandate and begin to beat her in earnest rather than just handling her roughly.

The lieutenant, who had never spoken a word as he raped her jointly with his commander, turned out to actually be an intelligent and well-spoken man. He possessed the subtlety and quickness of wit to grasp Loghain's aims. He leaned casually against the wall just outside of Alistair's reach and regaled Alistair with lurid tales of what had passed in that inn room in Lothering.

"I've never seen a slut as eager for cock as that one," he narrated conversationally while the one with the small prick grabbed her by the hair and ground his cock against her face. The lieutenant paused in his tale to bark at him to mind Loghain's orders not to rape her.

"That includes her mouth!" he snapped before continuing his tale with an ugly laugh. "So there Barty and I were, fucking her front and back. She's got spunk pouring out of every hole and she's still coming like it's the best lay she's had in her life."

Fingers insinuated themselves rudely between her buttocks, in the cleft of her cunt. There was nothing of pleasure in it; the ecstasy of rage and despair that had fueled her perverse responses that day in Lothering was nowhere to be found. She could find no way to gain the upper hand, seize control, turn their brutality to her favor. Worse, she could not help but feel the jolt when they accidentally brushed her clitoris and the fear that Alistair would see it and mistake it for pleasure only heightened her mortification.

When their fingers came away slick with moisture her body insisted on producing despite her horror and outrage, they declared her wetter than Andraste's tears for Alistair's benefit. They placed wagers on which one of them had planted the babe in her belly. They postulated that she was hot for a repeat performance, and wondered if she would hold out long enough for Loghain to lift his mandate against raping her.

"Maybe we should show the bastard prince how it's done," one of the soldiers jeered. He grabbed Elissa by the hips and began mimicking fucking her in the ass with rough thrusts of his cock against the cleft of her buttocks. The meagerly-endowed one who had been grinding himself against her face began to masturbate furiously, and soon his seed sprayed hot and foul against her face.

When his lieutenant would have scolded him, he protested, "The regent didn't say we couldn't wank on her!" The others agreed and soon that became the game, egged on by Alistair's shouts of protest. They took turns holding her there on her knees, and soon she had their seed blurring her vision, caught in her hair, dripping down her breasts. Elissa made no effort to check her tears of humiliation; they could not be detected in the mess on her face anyway, so what was the use?

The lieutenant approached with a malicious smile, his fist pumping vigorously. Just as he appeared to be ready to reach his climax, one of his hands shot out and grabbed Elissa's nose, cutting off her air until she was forced to open her mouth to gasp for breath. His seed was bitter as it sprayed on her tongue, and he clamped his hand over her mouth and continued to hold her nose until she was forced to swallow.

Sickened with humiliation, Elissa sank to the floor when they released her. She curled into a miserable ball on the bare stone, making no effort to fend off the cruel pinches and groping of their hands. Only when the vicious one with the small cock began to piss on her did she attempt to shield her face. Her hands were wrenched behind her back, then, and soon she was drenched and reeking of their urine.

Declaring her too filthy for their sport, they tossed her roughly back into the cell, where she immediately curled upon her pallet of straw, never looking at Alistair.

"Thanks for the good time, my lady," the lieutenant mocked, and the soldiers left, the heavy metal door clanging shut behind them.

"Elissa...." Alistair crawled to her, reaching for her, his voice choked with tears.

"Don't touch me," she whimpered, shrinking from his outstretched hand. With her next words, her voice hitched on a sob. "Please, just... leave me alone."

Alistair resumed his pacing while she lay there, aching from the uncomfortable position but unable to unfurl her body enough to seek something that would hurt less. She wanted to make herself small and invisible, wanted to hide the filth that covered her from Alistair's eyes.

Not after Lothering, not even after the abominations in the Circle Tower, had she ever felt so humiliated and violated and utterly depraved. The lieutenant had not said a single untrue word to Alistair. She had found pleasure in their abuse that day, had reveled in her agony and degradation. And now Alistair had seen and heard all that was done to her and knew she had enjoyed it.

How could he ever bear to look at her again?

For the first time in her life, she had no defense against shame. It ripped at her, flogged her with indictments of her own depravity and perversion. Of course she was unfit to be Alistair's wife, much less his queen. Now he would see that as well.

Somehow, miraculously, she slept, with Alistair sitting watchfully nearby, within reach but honoring her request not to be touched. When the metal door opened again, she awoke with a start and the first thing she saw was Alistair's face, before she remembered not to look at him. She had expected to see disgust in his gaze, but instead there was just a haggard concern that made his eyes seem hollow and his cheeks gaunt.

"Are you all right?" he asked tenderly before she could look away. That loving solicitude almost undid her.

"No," Elissa muttered, ripping her gaze away from his and pushing herself to her feet to face Ser Cauthrien as she came through the door. As she moved, she became away of just how foul she smelled, just how filthy she was covered with dried spunk and piss.

She looked squarely at the other woman, lifting her chin, trying not to let her shame show. "Please," she asked calmly, "may I have some water to bathe?"

The knight raised a hand to her face to ward off the odor before she could check her reaction. Her jaw tightened and her eyes hardened. She glanced at Elissa's swollen belly at the very moment the babe within moved, the visible bulge of an elbow or a foot rising and sliding under her skin. Cauthrien shuddered, though whether in sympathy or revulsion Elissa couldn't be certain.

The knight seemed torn with indecision for a moment, and then she snapped at one of the guards who had accompanied her, "Bring a bucket of water and a bar of soap. Now."

The bucket was produced forthwith, and Elissa rubbed the harsh lye soap vigorously over her face and skin, ignoring the way it burned where she had been scraped by the stone floor, trying to stifle her sobs as she did so. She splashed enough water in her hair to damp it and scrubbed the soap into it, then dumped the bucket over her head and let the water sluice down her bare body, rinsing away the soap and the filth it carried with it.

When she was as clean as she was going to be under the circumstances, Ser Cauthrien gestured the guards into the cell. "Take her. Put her in the manacles like the regent instructed."

Elissa was again roughly manhandled out of the cell while one of the guards held Alistair at sword-point to prevent him from interfering. Her arms were hauled up over her head and her wrists secured in heavy steel cuffs suspended by a chain from the ceiling. The chain was winched upward until she was stretched almost as far as she could go without actually being lifted off her feet.

The guards left them, and after a moment of staring at Elissa with an unreadable expression, Cauthrien followed.

The strain on her back was immediate and agonizing, as she could no longer shift her weight to relieve the addition burden the bulk of her belly placed upon her spine. The torment in her shoulders took a bit longer to blossom, but soon enough her back and shoulders were hurting unbearably.

Even more alarmingly, she could feel a periodic tightening in her belly that concerned her greatly. Nothing strong enough to be called labor, but a ripple of tension that hinted at what might come with contractions. Fear clutched at her heart, for she knew she absolutely could not have her child in this place. If the waves of tension became stronger, she would give in to Loghain's demands rather than take the risk.

Her shoulders burned as her muscles screamed in protest, but it was the agony in her back that soon had her biting her lip to stifle her whimpers. Soon that proved insufficient and she moaned, beyond possibility of suppressing the sound. Her entire body quaked with the unending strain. Tears flowed down her face as she whimpered and tried in vain to shift her weight, tried to find some relief.

She didn't know how long she was bound there; certainly it seemed like an eternity but she lost all perception of time in her suffering. Minutes felt like hours. Once she began weeping and moaning softly, Alistair began yelling for the guards, cursing them and screaming for someone to come release her. His voice grew distant and indistinct as she began to drift, as her mind relinquished its hold on her body and sought someplace less fraught with misery.

It was another voice altogether that drew her back into herself.

"Quit your whining, boy," Loghain's smooth voice filled the room as the heavy iron door opened. He was still in his armor, but he had removed his gauntlets. As before, Ser Cauthrien entered at his heels and took up station by the portal. "I can hear your complaining all the way over at the palace. Of course, perhaps the nobles of Ferelden should hear just what a sniveling whelp Maric's bastard is."

"Let her down, you Maker-forsaken whoreson," Alistair spat. "You want me, come and get me! Don't use her to do it."

"Don't make me come in there and teach you manners, boy," Loghain growled. "You're the only whoreson here. Well, you and this bastard brat."

Loghain's rough hand stroked over Elissa's belly in a gentle, sensual caress. Alistair made the mistake of snarling a jealous protest and, spying weakness, Loghain seized his opportunity. He pressed his veridium-clad form close to Elissa's back and embraced her from behind, running his hands over the mound of her abdomen as though laying claim to it, his huge hands nearly covering it entirely.

Alistair practically howled in rage.

"Get your hands off her!"

"Oh, I'll have far more than my hands on her before I'm done, boy," Loghain boasted. "And she'll love every minute of it. Won't you, little whore?"

One of Loghain's hands cupped her breast while the other drove down between her legs, caressing her skillfully. Not even the misery in her back and shoulders could completely dampen the unwilling pleasure of that touch. Elissa whimpered in protest.

Her moan of denial, of both the pleasure and his question, was lost in Alistair's shouts and curses.

"No?" Loghain asked in disbelief. "Shall I show you how easy it will be?"

Loghain dragged his hands across Elissa's skin as he stepped around her and knelt before her. His fingers gripped her hips and pulled her cunt toward him, and his tongue unerringly parted her folds and found her nub.

Elissa bit her lip to stifle moans of an entirely different sort as the pain in her back began to be overridden by the sensation of his tongue stroking her with consummate skill toward climax. She wouldn't give him that, wouldn't let herself prove him right. She wouldn't allow Alistair—shouting like a madman—see her receive pleasure at this man's hands.

He had her trembling on the brink of release, on the verge of losing her ability to suppress her response, when Loghain pulled away, his face shining with her fluids.

"Beg me to fuck you, little whore," he taunted enticingly. "Beg me, and this will all be over."

Elissa shook her head violently. "I won't!" she sobbed, the ache of unfulfilled arousal nearly as painful as the agony in her back.

"You will," Loghain said with complete assurance, rising. He was calm and casual as he released her wrists from the manacles. Elissa staggered against him before she could gain her balance and he caught her, pulled her in close, seized upon the opportunity to grope her backside. "You see? Such an eager slut! Why not spare us all this pretense and admit you'll gladly take any cock? Beg me. It will spare you much."

She shook her head again, struggling weakly to push herself away from the cold metal of his armor. Her only refuge now was silence. If she didn't open her mouth, the chances that the words he was demanding from her would spill forth were considerably diminished. If she could keep silent, perhaps she could hold out until they were rescued or freed.

Loghain snorted in disgust at her obstinacy. He summoned his guards and they seized Elissa by her arms and dragged her toward a low-backed wooden chair. It looked alarmingly like a birthing stool, a comparison that raised no small amount of alarm in her heart, tempting her to cry out in protest despite her determination to remain silent. It had no seat to speak of except for planks upon which her thighs rested, spread wide apart. Leather cuffs immobilized her arms and straps buckled around her thighs, spreading her obscenely and trapping her there.

Loghain's fingers expertly found her nub and slid over it, again and again. She was slick with the desire his mouth had evoked, and once more she found herself biting her lip to resist surrendering to pleasure she desperately didn't want. Her lip split open and began to bleed, and still he caressed her, bringing her ever closer to unwilling fulfillment and once again abandoning her as she hovered on the edge of release.

"Beg me, and you can come right now. You needn't suffer any more."

A tear squeezed from her eye and blood trickled down her chin as she shook her head in emphatic refusal.

"Idiot slut," he sighed and snapped his fingers.

One of the guards handed Loghain a small bundle rolled in black silk, and Loghain spread it open upon the table nearby to reveal several tiny leather sheaths. He lifted one and withdrew from it a gleaming silver spike, pointed at both ends. It was perhaps two or three times the bore of a sewing needle, or half as thick as a nail; thin but still substantial enough to appear menacing.

Loghain knelt between her thighs with a clanging of his armor. He caught her breast up in his hand and bent his head, drawing her nipple into his mouth and working it to a hard peak with expert suction and strokes of his tongue. The act raised a new chorus of shouts and protestations from Alistair.

When he drew back, her nipple shone with his saliva. "Beg me to fuck you," he murmured, scraping his teeth gently along the erect peak.

Staring down, knowing she should close her eyes but transfixed in spite of herself, Elissa said nothing. Her mouth opened in a wordless scream and her eyes squeezed shut in pain as he put the spike to her flesh and very slowly began to push it through the base of her nipple, just before it widened into her areola.

The searing pain grew until she felt the spike pass through her flesh, becoming unendurable as it began to push out the other side of her nipple. Once it was clear, however, there was relief, the agony replaced by a hot, throbbing ache. Unable to resist the impulse, she looked down to see the gleaming pointed ends of the spike standing out from either side of her nipple, the wound nearly bloodless. The sight made her feel ill.

She was shaking and sweating from the shock of the initial pain, but now that the spike had passed through, it was bearable. It hurt, but if she could bear nipple clamps, she could bear this.

Without repeating his entreaty that she could end this by begging him, Loghain roughly pinched her other nipple into a hard peak and repeated the process, and Andraste's mercy, it seemed to take even longer for the pointed end to emerge out the other side, and then both nipples throbbed and ached and burned in unison, the silver shining against her abnormally dark areolas.

Almost playfully, Loghain hooked his fingers behind a spike, on either side of her nipple, and gave it a gentle tug. Pain blossomed and spread through her breast and Elissa moaned and thrashed against the leather straps binding her to the chair. The fingers of his opposite hand thrust with no ceremony whatsoever into her cunt. She was mortified to see them come away again absolutely dripping with her arousal. In other circumstances, this might have been a marvelous game, but now it was simply humiliating to see her body's uncontrollable preferences used to shame her.

"Why bother denying it, slut?" Loghain purred, smearing her fluids across her belly. "This is what you do, isn't it? Howe told me all about your family long before you murdered him. How your father found your mother in a whorehouse and pimped her out for political favors and profitable trade contracts. How he raised his children to do the same, a new generation of Cousland whores, selling themselves for an advantageous land deal or alliance. You'll suck anyone's cock, bend over and let yourself be fucked in the ass no matter how repulsive the man is, if the price is right. You'd even spread your thighs to convince your king to betray your nation to the Orlesians."

As he spoke, calmly, seductively, he tugged on the spikes, harder and harder, until the whole weight of her breasts was suspended by those needles through her nipples. She cried out in pain. It hurt. Maker, it hurt! But in this, at least, Elissa thought she might be able to defeat him, for she was no stranger to this variety of pain. She knew she could endure it, could overcome it.

She couldn't quite manage it, however. Her attempts to find that floating place, that place where she stopped fighting the pain and rode it instead, were disrupted by Loghain's shaming taunts and the shouted imprecations Alistair heaped on Loghain's head.

"Why not simply admit what you are?" Loghain asked, his voice almost tender. "Surely you've sucked far more repulsive cocks than mine, many times over. So, simply beg me to fuck you like the whore you are, and all this will be finished. You'll be back at Eamon's estate with your ridiculous band of mongrels and misfits before supper."

Though she cried out in pain at the burning ache in her pierced and abused nipples, she did not give him the words he demanded, and so he stood and moved away from her. "Summon the mage," he snapped at his guards.

Soon a man in Tevinter-style robes appeared, and Elissa's heart sank, for it was clear this was no Circle mage, bound by the Chantry's rules regulating the use of magic. Elissa feared he might be another of Loghain’s blood mages, intent on seizing control of her mind and forcing her to give Loghain the consent he required. Instead, he simply knelt before her. She still did not grasp his purpose until she heard the crackle of electricity. She barely had time to draw in her breath in alarm before his fingers grasped both ends of one of the silver spikes, and then she screamed.

The pain that sizzled through her nipple was like nothing she could have imagined; it felt as though her breast was being burned to cinders. Alistair's shouting renewed and redoubled as it continued, and her own wails were a shrill, constant chorus, punctuated only by sobs and pleas to the Maker. The mage paused only long enough to change sides, and then the other nipple received the same torment.

Elissa arched and writhed, struggled and screamed in breathless agony. When it finally ended, she sagged against her bonds, unable even to hold herself upright. She would have fallen off the stool had she not been strapped to it. Her nipples sang a fiery chant of lingering pain, which was not aided by Loghain, reaching down over her shoulders to lift her breasts and squeeze them.

"Do you know why he grabs both ends of the spike, little whore?" he said softly. "Because if he didn't, the power he's channeling would travel through your body seeking another outlet. It would pass through the bastard in your belly on its way to the ground beneath your feet, stopping its heart. Who knows? It might even be a merciful fate for the brat. As for you, if the mage were to channel through both spikes at once, with one in each hand, the power would pass directly through your own heart, killing you instantly."

Alistair's pleas and curses were a distant din in the pain and fear humming through her body. She licked lips that were dry and cracked and bleeding, and whispered, "Please...."

"Please what? Make it good, little whore. Tell me what I want to hear."

"...Please don't harm my babe," she sobbed.

"Those were the wrong words," Loghain said tightly, as though annoyed by her refusal to capitulate.

Power sizzled from the mage's fingertips and again he grabbed one of the spikes in the fingers of both hands. Elissa's wails echoed off the stone of the walls. First one breast, then the other, then back again. On it went, with little reprieve between, until Elissa barely had breath left to scream.

The mage was looking drained, even though she knew the power he was channeling was minor, by the time Loghain finally commanded him to stop. The regent stood there staring at Elissa impassively, his arms crossed forbiddingly before him, as she whimpered and shuddered with the echoes of pain still throbbing through her nipples. Still, there was something in his eyes as he watched her, a glow of something she might have called respect, or admiration, had she been able to conceive of anything other than her own suffering.

As the pain began to recede, ever so slightly, she became aware of pressure in her bladder and knew she needed a pot. But she could not bring herself to ask for such a thing, not before all these people. If she opened her mouth to speak, to make any request, ask for any concession, no matter how insignificant, she was afraid of what might come spilling out. She felt like she was on the edge of a treacherous cliff; the smallest misstep would have her tumbling over and gratefully yielding to Loghain anything he demanded.

When she continued her silence, Loghain sighed and took up another leather-encased spike from the table and approached, kneeling between her thighs once more and slowly drew the spike from its sheath.

"Do you want to guess where this one will go?" he asked tauntingly. At the far edge of her consciousness she heard Alistair growl and rattle the bars of his cell, apparently having given up on his futile shouting, but it no longer seemed to matter. She was fighting to remember why it seemed important not to give in to Loghain's demands, but the reason eluded her and only sheer stubbornness kept her silent.

Loghain ducked down and his tongue slid slowly, sensually up her dripping cleft and as she seized in pleasure, her head snapping back on her neck, the reason came back to her. She felt Alistair's hopeless eyes on her and knew he recognized her response, for he had wrung it from her many times of the last months, taking her to that knife's-edge where pleasure was so intense it was nearly pain. A tear spilled down her cheek as she realized she had failed to check her reaction before he could see it.

She wanted to beg his forgiveness, plead for his understanding, but she dared not speak, even now.

She was slipping, losing her resolve, and she knew with agonizing certainty that sooner or later, Loghain was going to win. He would win because he was correct in all he had said. She was a whore, and Alistair would know her for one before it was all over.

Loghain's fingers seized her, just above her clitoris, pulling out the thin, fragile skin there, and she felt the sharp poke of the spike on that skin. He didn't even give her an opportunity to yield, not that she could have found the words in the surge of terror that choked her. Instead, he simply drove the spike through her skin, and her eyes widened in amazement when the excruciating pain she'd barely had a chance to brace herself for did not materialize. A vicious pinch, quickly gone, and then only a lingering, stinging heat. Nothing more.

She nearly wept with relief, but when Loghain wriggled the spike, she felt the diabolical design of its placement, for the smooth side of it rested directly upon her nub. Any movement sent jabs of pleasure so intense they were nearly unbearable through her. Elissa groaned, for it was too much, the stimulation painfully acute, and the tension of arousal throughout her lower body was not helping the throbbing of her bladder.

"Say it." Loghain's voice was a sensual purr, like velvet stroking across her frayed nerves. "Tell me what a whore you are. Tell me how badly you want me to fuck you. Beg for it."

She thrashed her head desperately in denial, her face locked in a rictus of agonized pleasure. Loghain quickly pushed himself away from her and she barely heard the sizzle of power before the mage had seized the ends of this new spike and suddenly the world around her exploded in blinding light and a cacophony of sound and she was coming, coming, wave after wave of terrible, excruciating pleasure dragging her under, wrenching screams from her abused throat.

The pleasure ended almost as abruptly as it had begun, leaving her limp and shaking violently, sobbing with relief. The mage stepped away from her quickly, disgust on his face as he looked down at his wet robes, and only then was Elissa aware that somewhere along the way she had lost control of her bladder.

The humiliation burned, setting her face aflame, and Loghain, Maker curse him, looked like he was on the verge of laughter, his hand covering his mouth while his eyes twinkled.

Elissa prayed for death to carry her off to the Fade, away from her mortification.

"Clean her up," Loghain ordered the guards, striding from the room.

A bucket of water was produced and splashed unceremoniously upon her obscenely displayed sex. She half-thought they might release her and dump her back in the cell with Alistair, but she was left bound to the strange chair. It was uncomfortable, but not the agony that having her arms shackled above her head had been.

"Are you all right?" Alistair asked wretchedly when they were alone once more.

"I'm fine," she sighed tiredly, too relieved at the reprieve to really feel the intense shame with which she knew she must face him. She didn't have the endurance for an emotional scene. She simply wanted to rest.

"It doesn't matter what they do," she mustered the energy to say. "Don't give them anything."

"Why are you doing this?" Alistair demanded, sounding angry and forlorn all at once.

Elissa looked at him in disbelief, and blast him, the pain on his face made her want to weep and she didn't have the tears left for his suffering as well.

She closed her eyes and looked away. "Could you ever bring yourself to look at me again, touch me again, listen to me again, if you saw me fuck Loghain?" she asked, her voice hollow and uninterested.

"I—" Alistair's voice trailed away, and he didn't attempt to answer. Thank the Maker for that, at least. He wouldn't tell her a comforting lie to tempt her into yielding.

"He's trying to break us," Alistair said at last. "Weaken us before the Landsmeet."

"Yes," she agreed, and in that word there was a spark of pride. How far he had come, to be able to grasp that concept, however belatedly.

Maker, she loved him.

Vaguely she wondered if he wasn't aroused by his own jealousy, as he had been in the past, but she decided it didn't matter. If he found pleasure in watching her give in to Loghain, it would only make him hate her more. She knew a moment of despair; it was hopeless. Sooner or later, she would submit, and thereafter she and Alistair would be irreparably broken.

Loghain would win.

She felt herself growing heavy and drowsy, almost asleep, when a sudden slam jerked her awake. "Damn you, Loghain!" Alistair screamed, banging his fists on the bars of his cell. His voice echoed off the stone walls, but no response from outside the cell came. Alistair sank miserably to the stone floor, laying his head upon his knees, and Elissa closed her eyes again.

She dozed, though she wasn't certain for how long. Long enough for the throbbing of the spikes through her nipples to settle into a low, almost pleasant burning. Now that it was not moving, she could hardly feel the lower spike at all, except for perhaps a bit more pressure in the area than she was accustomed to.

She couldn't say what woke her. Alistair was curled into a ball on his straw pallet, snoring softly, his face slack and almost child-like in his slumber. Perhaps it was merely the discomfort of the stool, or perhaps it was some prescience that told her her ordeal was about to begin anew, for not long after she awoke, Loghain appeared again, Ser Cauthrien a ubiquitous presence behind him.

He had removed his armor, and stood in the simple yet well-made tunic and breeches worn beneath. Everything in his demeanor clearly said he was done waiting and would have her submission.

Elissa feared he was right.

If it was to be, then she would make him fight for it, she thought in resignation. If for no other reason than as a final, desperate attempt to convince Alistair of her unwillingness.

"Have you decided to be reasonable, little whore?" he asked coldly.

Strangely, with the knowledge that the battle would eventually be lost, she found new reserves of determination to draw upon. She would make it a good fight.

She shook her head, slowly, a strange calm coming over her.

It wasn't to last.

A man dressed in black and hooded, like an executioner, stepped into sight. He had a coiled whip secured at one side of his belt and a sheathed dagger at the other side.

"Over my years directing Maric's—and later Cailan's—intelligence operations, I managed to acquire quite a few exotic and skillful torturers," Loghain said conversationally. "After all, a dead spy yields very little information, and so it's best to inflict as much suffering with as little permanent damage as possible. Observe."

The hooded man produced a narrow yam from a sack he had placed upon the table, and drew his dagger. Displaying both for her, he silently made a thin, nearly invisible scratch in the skin of the yam and handed it to Loghain. With a malicious gleam in his eye, Loghain stood and held the yam ostentatiously high before his face.

A sharp crack rent the air, painfully loud, leaving her ears ringing as the hooded man snapped the whip once. Then he stood before Loghain, drew a deep breath, and swung the whip again. Another deafening crack sounded, and when Loghain lowered the yam, a deep gouge had been carved into it, precisely where the fine line had been etched into the skin.

Loghain, however, had not a scratch upon him, despite having held the yam mere inches from his eyes.

"Observe the whip, little whore," Loghain said softly, and obligingly the hooded man displayed it for her. Though long and heavy at the base, it was astonishingly thin, tapering down to barely more than the width of a piece of yarn. "No crude instrument, this, unlike those wielded by Howe’s ham-handed sadists. It is not wide, nor unduly heavy. It will not rend your flesh and tear it from your bones, leaving great bloody gashes until you take an infection or bleed to death. No, skillfully wielded, it will slice like the finest, sharpest dagger. Look what it did to the yam, and imagine what it will do to your skin."

"NO!" Alistair shrieked, grabbing the heavy steel bars of the cell as rattling them as though he would jerk them free of their moorings by brute force. "Elissa! Just do it! Give him what he wants!"

Her entire body quaked with fear and hysterical sobs were building within her chest. Her despair warred with fear for her child, and she sat there paralyzed, unable even to nod or shake her head. Her eyes rolled wildly as she looked about the room, seeking salvation where none could be found as she saw Alistair, helpless and enraged, behind his bars. Her eyes traveled past him to the knight, Ser Cauthrien, who stood stiffly at attention beside the door. She did not look at Elissa, but her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

Loghain stared at her for a long moment, and his face gradually suffused with anger, as though unable to believe that she had not capitulated immediately. He muttered a vile curse, and Elissa felt a surge of triumph amidst her terror as she realized that that this was going far beyond what he had intended. He was not as in control as he imagined himself to be. He had thought to frighten her into submission with the theatrics and had not meant to carry through.

What would happen, if she could find the courage to refuse just one more time? Would he be the one to yield? she wondered.

A look of cold resolution came over his face, and her heart sank.

“I don’t bluff, whore. I’ll give you one hour to decide. If you do not speak the words I want to hear, you’ll learn first-hand what the whip feels like upon your flesh.”

His movements sharp with anger, Loghain unstrapped her from the stool and hauled her up. Her wrists were bound once more in the manacles above her head, and then he took the yam and set it deliberately on the floor before her, where she could not help but to see the vicious gash cut into it each time she glanced down.

He ordered the guards and the hooded man from the room, and then he left with Ser Cauthrien behind him as always. She and Alistair were alone.

When the clanging echo of the door closing had faded and her own rushing blood stopped pounding deafeningly in her ears, she became aware of Alistair whispering. It took Elissa a long moment to realize he was reciting from the Chant of Light.

...seas shall rise and devour them,
The wind shall tear their nations
From the face of the earth,
Lightning shall rain down from the sky,
They shall cry out to their false gods,
And find silence.

She found her voice, and whispered the next verse along with him.

Let the blade pass through the flesh,
Let my blood touch the ground,
Let my cries touch their hearts.
Let mine be the last sacrifice.

Alistair's voice broke on a sob, his face wet as he looked through the bars of his cell at her. The ache in her back and shoulders was beginning to bloom again, and she knew soon she would be insensible to all but the pain.

But it was his tears that broke her.

"Please, Elissa. Please give him what he wants. Don't do this. Not to prove a point to me."

"It's Loghain, Alistair," she said, as though he didn't already know. Her voice was as dead and empty as she herself felt. "Will you ever be able to love me again if I do?"

"I don't know," he said mournfully. "But I know beyond a doubt I'll go mad if I have to watch him do what he’s threatened. Please, my love. I'm begging you."

Elissa nodded mutely, and they both fell into a wretched silence. She hadn't even the energy to moan when her back began to hurt unbearably, and she could find no relief by shifting her stance. Distantly she wondering if she looked as horrific as she felt, nude and bedraggled, her hair matted and snarled, silver spikes gleaming against her nipples and cunt, her body stretched out so that her enormous belly was on prominent display.

Once again, time ceased to have meaning as the agony in her back and shoulders took hold. Her head hung limply, her chin to her chest, and she tried to focus on her breathing, focus on the warm ache of the spikes through her nipples, focus on Alistair's quiet, broken crying. Anything but the pain in her lower back where the weight of her child pulled on her spine.

Strangely, when Loghain came back, she felt almost calm, peaceful. Calm enough to notice he looked considerably more cautious than he had the last time he had entered.

He feared what she would do next, she realized. She had driven him beyond the point to which he'd wanted to carry his game, forced him to take measures he had not intended to take. She wondered again, briefly, if he might be the first to give in, if only she refused him one last time.

Then she wondered what the price would be if he didn't, and realized it was too high to pay.

"Yield to me," he commanded. No teasing, no taunting, no boasting. Just that command, nothing more.

"I yield, my lord regent," Elissa whispered, hanging her head.

He took her down from her restraints immediately, lifting her in his arms like he would a child and laying her upon the high table. Again, she was struck by the enormity of the man, his sheer, overwhelming size. Maker help her, she felt safe when he'd cradled her in his arms like that.

She wondered if she was going mad.

The mage was summoned again, and Elissa felt the warm energy of a healing spell wash over her, felt the weals on her wrists rubbed by the manacles begin to knit shut. Loghain gently pulled the spikes from her nipples and her hood of skin covering her clitoris, and those wounds, too, began to heal. There would be no tell-tale signs of her torture to display as proof of his iniquity.

Then the cool energy of a rejuvenation spell began to tingle across her skin, and Elissa realized that once again, she had misjudged his intent. He had no qualms about owning up to his handiwork; he simply didn't want her to have the excuse of injury or exhaustion to prevent her from taking pleasure when he fucked her.

A cup of fresh water was delivered, and Elissa drank it greedily, wetting her parched lips and throat. Thanks to the rejuvenation spell, she felt clear-headed and energized, despite her dread of the mortification she knew was to come. She briefly considered demanding food and water for Alistair, but she knew he would not accept them. He was pacing his cell in agitation, torn between relief at seeing her ordeal come to an end and fury over what he knew was to follow. Solicitude from her at this point would only drive the dagger in deeper.

Loghain was patient until she was healed and composed, watching impassively until the mage left, and then he ordered the guards, all except for Ser Cauthrien, grim and silent, from the room. Elissa sat on the table, feeling more exposed now that she was invigorated once more than she had when she was weak and weary. But she had nowhere else to go, other than to move down onto the floor, and there didn't seem to be much point to that.

"Now," Loghain said calmly. "Beg."

Elissa closed her eyes, unwilling to let him see the defeated tears so dangerously close to falling. "I beg you to fuck me, my lord regent," she said perfunctorily.

Loghain snorted, and she knew he wasn't going to make this easy upon her. "You'll have to do better than that, little whore. Tell me what a slut you are. Tell me how badly you want me. Make it good."

"You're right, my lord regent," she forced herself to say, tears leaking out from under her eyelids despite her best efforts to check them. "I am a slut. I've fucked dozens of men from one end of Ferelden to the other, nobleman and peasant alike, soldier or common brigand. I've taken pleasure in every single one of them, no matter how vile or disgusting I found them to be. I've seduced virgins and templars and mercenary thugs and even abominations. And now I want you."

"When did you know you wanted me?"

"From the moment I saw you, my lord regent, and I realized you recognized me for the whore I am. I desired you because you were disgusted by me," she confessed in a trembling sigh.

"Go on," he said, nodding in satisfaction. " Tell me what you want me to do with you. Be explicit."

"I want your cock inside me," Elissa breathed, trying not to glance at Alistair. She couldn't bear him seeing this, especially knowing that every word she spoke had been the truth since that day in Ostagar when Loghain first confronted her. "I want you to bend me over this table and take me, and if I'm too tight, I want you to force me. Shove your cock deep in my ass; rip me open. Hurt me; I don't mind. I deserve it for being such a filthy whore. I want to lick your balls, your ass. I want to take you deep in my throat and taste your seed as you come in my mouth."

"I notice you don't ask for your own pleasure," Loghain taunted with a smug smile.

"No," she whispered, not adding that it was pleasure that she dreaded beyond all else. "I don't."

"Well, that would hardly be gallant of me, to ignore such a thing," he tsked, drawing near as he lifted his tunic over his head. Elissa flinched when she heard Alistair growl in his cell. "Rest assured, little whore, I'll show you more pleasure than you dared imagine."

"Just because you've coerced her consent doesn't make you any less of a rapist," Alistair spat as Loghain ran his hands up Elissa's thighs, grabbing her ass and dragging her to the edge of the table.

"Shut up, boy," he snapped impatiently. Something about his mouth and eyes tightened; somehow, Alistair’s words had cut him. He didn’t like being called a rapist. "Or I'll have my guards in here to gag you and bind you to the bars so that you'll be forced to watch. Be thankful I haven't done it already. Go ahead and try to ignore us, if you think you can.

"Now, little whore," he said, standing between her thighs, "wrap those pretty legs around me and kiss me like you mean to seduce me."

Trying to shut thoughts of Alistair from her mind, Elissa did as she was bidden, hooking her ankles around the backs of his thighs, which immediately brought the large bulge beneath his breeches flush against her belly. He bent to her, and she had no choice but to lift her face, to close the distance between them, pouring all her skill into kissing him as she had been commanded to do. It was an impossible thing to do without feeling some passion and she felt her body responding, growing warm and pliant. She teased him with her tongue, let it slide across his lips, slowly pushing between.

Suddenly his mouth opened and slanted across hers, and she was the one being devoured, his hand hard on the back of her head, pulling her unrelentingly into the kiss. Maker, she hated herself for finding it pleasant, for enjoying the taste of him, or the feel of his tongue frankly fucking her mouth. He was as skillful and experienced a kisser as he was a warrior. No amount of understanding that he was doing this to torment Alistair, or that it was he who had unleashed Howe upon her family, could stop her hands from sliding up his chest to grip his shoulders, or the low whimper of wretched pleasure that rose from her throat.

She could feel her cunt twinging, flooding with slick heat. She felt sickened at her own depravity, that she should desire this man despite the hatred she felt for him, despite all he had done to her, despite the fact that she knew it would destroy the love Alistair had for her to see her respond to him.

It only made her draw him closer, cling to him more desperately.

She drew a deep, gasping breath when his mouth finally relinquished hers, practically a sob, as his hands found her breasts and lifted their heavy, aching weight. Despite the healing spell, her nipples were still tender and throbbing, and Loghain drew his body away to bend over further and take one into his mouth, suckling expertly. Elissa was no more able to prevent herself from arching and mewling than she had been to keep herself from responding to his kiss.

When he switched nipples, her hips shifted in a wanton thrust, and before she knew it, he had her upon her back on the table, lavishing kisses and soft, tantalizing bites upon her breasts, nibbling upon her nipples until she writhed with pleasure. It was uncomfortable to lay upon her back, but the discomfort eased if she drew her legs up to wrap them around him once more, so that was what she did, knowing with agonized shame how eager it made her seem.

She thought she heard a low, desperate sound from Alistair, but she couldn't be certain, because awareness of their surroundings retreated into the haze of mounting pleasure.

Her fingers were threading through his soft hair without her having any knowledge of how they got there, clutching him to her breasts. His large fingers plucked one nipple roughly while his tongue soothed and stroked the other. His other hand thrust between her legs, two fingers, hard and fast, slamming into her cunt, ripping a startled cry from her lips that was imbued with far more pleasure than she wished to admit to.

His lips moved down to her belly, and that drew a definite reaction from Alistair, a filthy oath that only egged Loghain on. He ran his tongue across her belly, slowly, sensually, teasing her distended navel while his fingers fucked her without pause. The pleasure built, and she knew it seemed like her moans were in response to his attentions to her belly, but she was helpless to stop them.

"Whose brat is this, anyway?" Loghain asked softly, almost tenderly, his fingers slamming rapidly into her sopping wet cunt.

Elissa had to slam her eyes shut and grit her teeth to keep from blurting out the answer as he worked her toward climax. She would not give him that. "I can't say, my lord regent!" she gasped, bucking her hips in time to the thrusts of his fingers. She prayed frantically that he would interpret the answer as an admission of ignorance, rather than a refusal to answer.

He seemed to accept it, adding a third finger to those pumping quickly in and out of her. She was shaking, so close to the pinnacle that even a little more stimulation would push her over. When his mouth closed over her sex, gently sucking on her clit, she melted, falling, flying, her head thrashing back and forth as she bucked and humped and cried out her pleasure.

Loghain didn't relent, barely gave her time to catch her breath. He guided her knees over his shoulders and made far more noise eating her cunt than was necessary, growling and slurping. More theatre, she imagined.

Two of the fingers he had moistened in her cunt worked their way into her ass, not taking any particular care to be gentle. She stretched and burned but he was relentless, his mouth lapping eagerly at her cunt, licking and sucking her clit, his tongue fucking her hard and deep. When his fingers were buried in her ass as far as they would go, his thumb thrust roughly into her cunt and he seized the flesh between his fingers like a vise, holding her by it as though it were a handle, using it to anchor her to the table when she would have tried to push away.

His mouth worked vigorously at her clitoris, and the pleasure so hard on the heels of her last climax was too much, too intense, too great a sensation. She could feel everything tightening again and she knew that when her orgasm stuck her, it would be its own brand of exquisite torment, and she didn't want it, but he wasn't giving her a choice.

She screamed when she came, long and loud, sobbing in pleasure so intense it was agony, sweating and panting and shaking violently. When Loghain lifted his head, he looked despicably pleased with himself, and she wondered just what words she may have spoken in her rapture.

She feared she may have screamed his name.

"Very good, little whore," he said smugly, pulling her off the table and setting her onto her feet. It was a relief to no longer be lying on her back, but her legs would scarcely support her and she had to cling to his arms for balance.

"Now, you were saying something about sucking my cock and licking my ass?" he taunted, pushing his breeches off his hips. His cock came into view and Elissa closed her eyes with dismay. It had been too much to hope that he wouldn't be well-endowed, but she had been praying nonetheless for just that.

Loghain's fingers gripped her hair brutally and jerked her head back. "If you even think of biting, I'll kill Maric's bastard and defy the Landsmeet to do their worst."

It was horrifying to realize she hadn't considered biting, even for an instant. Damn him.

He sat upon the table and lay back, and it was high enough that she did not have to kneel to pleasure him. She wanted to look over at Alistair, but she didn't dare, didn't dare take her concentration off what she was doing. She would get through this. He was a man, like any other. It was a cock, like any other. Nothing she hadn't done a hundred times before, to any number of men. Lover or foe or even her own father.

How was it possible that such a simple thing could make her feel so utterly wretched, even as it made her weak with desire?

She half expected him to grab her head and fuck her mouth, but he didn't. No, he wouldn't make it that simple on her, taking forcefully rather than coercing her to give. She did not dare shirk or make a half-hearted job of it; Loghain would know and call her upon it. And so she used the skills her mother had taught her, used her lips and tongue adroitly, used the judicious, careful scrape of her teeth to bring him to that edge between pain and pleasure as he gave small thrusts of his hips and narrated—for Alistair's edification, no doubt—exactly how much pleasure she was giving him.

"Oh, you are good at this. Possibly the best I've ever experienced; there's no finer cocksucker in any brothel in Ferelden, I'd wager. That little twirl of your tongue, is that an Orlesian grace, or something your whore of a mother imparted before Howe killed her?"

Elissa dipped her head down low to hide the tears his mention of her mother evoked and drew his balls into her mouth carefully. He lifted his long, well-muscled legs without prompting, exposing the cleft of his ass to her tongue, and she complied with the unspoken command, tonguing his knotted entrance, probing and pushing gradually inside as her senses of taste and smell were overwhelmed with his musk. She heard the squeak of Alistair's sweating hands sliding down the bars of his cell as he sank to the floor.

As Loghain's sounds of pleasure grew louder, she returned her mouth to his cock, drawing him deep inside, sucking and bobbing her head frantically. If she could bring him to release with her mouth, perhaps it would be over and she might be spared the need to make any more of an exhibition of herself. She caught upon her finger some of the saliva she allowed to trail down his cock, wetting the digit, and then carefully pushed it inside his ass, seeking the hard lump within....

Loghain's sat up abruptly. His hand shot out, snatching her hair and jerking her away from him just as she managed to rub gently across it once.

"I should have known you'd try to employ a cheap harlot's trick," he sneered, giving her a shake by her hair at the back of her neck, like one would shake a dog by the scruff. "Every strumpet on the docks does the same when she takes her tricks to the sewage-filled alleys, to make a few more coppers before the sun comes up. You betray your nature, little whore."

She said nothing, but glared up at him, even as tears of misery and shame burned her eyes.

He drew her near and kissed her until she was breathless, until warm desire once again tightened her body, leaving no room for defiance. Effortlessly he pulled her up onto the table, into his lap, and continued kissing her. Teasing kisses, exploratory kisses, deep, demanding kisses. He kissed her the way new lovers kiss when they are still just learning each other, unwilling to go farther yet. He kissed her for the pleasure of kissing her. Not as a segue to more, but as its own end.

And sweet Andraste, forgive her, Elissa yielded to those kisses, softening in his arms, her clenched fists unfurling, her fingers unconsciously caressing.

She despised him, but she could not remain passive beneath the coaxing of his mouth.

When he drew away and smiled, she knew she was utterly defeated.

"When you leave here, little whore, you will leave with my seed dripping down your thighs as a reminder of me," he said softly, laying himself out on the table. "Mount me and ride my cock, and I will consider our bargain met. Pretend I'm a paying customer, if it makes it easier for you."

She had no more will to resist, no wherewithal to make her reluctance apparent and drag this out any further. She simply wanted it over with, so that she could collect the shattered remnants of her dignity and attempt to piece them back together.

And so she obeyed, making no effort to repress the groan of pleasure as she sank onto his cock, felt it stretching her, filling her so completely she thought surely she could not bear it. She closed her eyes, refusing to look at Alistair as he slumped helplessly against the bars of the cell. She knew it was by no accident that Loghain had positioned himself so that she would be facing Alistair as he fucked her, so that Alistair would see her face when she came and know her pleasure was genuine.

He was altogether abhorrent. That didn't stop her from rolling her hips to get a better angle once he was seated fully within her. She silently willed Alistair to turn around, not to watch as the first ripple of pleasure shuddered through her as Loghain thrust up and pulled her down simultaneously.

"So tight for a whore! I would have thought you'd be loose and sloppy after all the men you've fucked," Loghain mocked.

She moaned, a wanton, shameful sound, as humiliation only gave a keener edge to her pleasure. Loghain began to guide her hips, adding his strength to that of her thighs to move her up and down upon his cock.

"Touch yourself, little whore. Make yourself come with my cock buried deep inside you."

Maker help her, she obeyed, wedging her hand under the bulge of her belly to seek out her clit. She was defeated. Let him have her pleasure as well as her capitulation.

She came sobbing, screaming, loathing and despair and rage and ecstasy combining in a mad tumult that wrenched one broken cry after another from her throat as Loghain slammed up into her, butting against her womb. The discomfort only brought her to completion again, with deeper, greater intensity.

His huge hands gripped her hips in a crushing grip and drove her up and down, and all she could do was let herself ride the motion, let a new wave of spasms tear through her with each plunge, let her voice surrender desperate, bestial wails at each surge of pleasure.

Loghain was done forcing her cooperation, and took over entirely, using her brutishly until he finally grunted and cursed her for a whore one last time as his cock throbbed and twitched within her, spending his seed deep inside her. She thought she heard a soft groan from Alistair, but she couldn’t be certain.

When it was over, she could not even find the energy to climb off him. All she could do was kneel there, her head bowed in shame as rippling aftershocks of pleasure made her tremble. It was Loghain who pushed her disdainfully aside and climbed off the table first. As he dressed, she began to weep silently.

Her eyes yearned to seek out Alistair, to find some reassurance, but she didn’t dare. She wasn’t sure reassurance was what she would find if she looked at him.

"Bring them their armor and weapons, and have a guard escort them out," he commanded Ser Cauthrien. "They are free to leave."

It was the knight whose gaze Elissa caught. She looked sickened, but after a moment she gave a brusque nod and obeyed.

Their effects were delivered forthwith, and Elissa and Alistair dressed in silence. Only once did he attempt to inquire after her well-being, his voice ragged. She didn't bother to answer, and she refused to look at him.

She felt Loghain's seed seeping from within her, coating her smallclothes, and it nearly made her ill as Alistair followed her out of the prison. They were nearly out when they encountered Zevran and Leliana attempting to bluff their way in to stage a rescue. Zevran began to complain good-naturedly about the wasted effort, but Leliana, taking one look at Alistair and Elissa’s faces, snapped at him to shut up.

Their friends accompanied them back to Arl Eamon’s estate in silence.