Page 69 of The Kingdom of Flames

In response, Celestine stripped off her homespun gown, feeling the sun on her naked shaved body. She felt wondrous, stepping into the water of the lake, the cold liquid sliding around her calves, her sore feed prodded by smooth stones. She could see several spires of his mansion up high and far away.

When she turned back, Tristien was there, shirtless, holding her. Chest to chest, in the sunlight, his slim frame held her.

“Will you don your circlet?” Celestine asked.

A shadow passed over Tristien’s face. Then he shook his head. “No, Celestine. I cannot. That would not be… wise.”

She wanted to protest, caught in the moment, but knew not to. She settled back into her submission, the parts that they played in this grand dance.

“Well?” she raised her arms

“Well.” Tristien stared at her.

He bound her in silken ribbon, the color of his yellow banners. Tight around her body. First through her legs, then up to her thighs. He bound above and below her breasts. She felt like an insect trapped in a spider’s spinning hands. Her breasts swelled, turning red.

Tristien commanded the blood flow in her body. Slowing it, moving it, denying it.

He led her by the leash along the shoreline. She was nude, swollen, so exposed. Anyone could see, but she knew he would never permit that.

She was his property. His slave. Her entrances, her flesh, her bones. All was his.

“Come,” he said and continued their walk. She toiled, the bindings were tight, and her legs could only move so far, but as she reached the peak of her exhaustion, he led her to a downed tree in the water line. It had fallen, branches first, into the lake. In the far distance was his golden estate, yellow streamers and banners held high.

He eased the knots around her bound body and bent her over the tree, running silken loop after silken loop through her wrists and legs. She was bent over, her rear in the air, completely red and controlled.

Tristien did not gag her. She looked up at his mansion across the sparkling lake.

This could be mine. Ours. And these afternoons could be plentiful.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, struggling against the bindings. There was no choice left for her, no decisions. Anything could happen to her. He could do anything.

“I find this.” Tristien stepped near her, holding a flask from his pocket. “Entices the nerves.” Hot oil, like that from the bath in Scalehall, slid over her entire body. More than the flask could possible contain. It glazed her, sliding down to her shaved lips and folds. It felt like falling into the mouth of a beast. Like drowning in honey.

“He is a glutton, but he makes wondrous oil.”

“Who does?” Celestine turned to ask, but Tristien wasn’t listening. He was staring at her body. Then he brought forth two more ribbons, binding them around the lips of her cunt, making it pout and swell, tightening it like a sailor to the lines of control along her back.

“I love to see it, bound, ready for me,” he murmured. This was for him and her, she knew, unlike the carriage. Never had someone stared at her privates like a painting. He was transfixed.

The flog whispered out through the air, striking across her ass. She never even saw him pull it out. The sting was like the wax of a candle, for a briefest moment, and then it ceased.

Again, he flogged her down her thighs. Celestine grunted and groaned.

“More,” she pleaded.

“Little brat,” Tristien growled and struck her harder. Celestine cried out, loving it. His flog sent lightning through her body, the briefest flash of pain—then such peace. It wasn’t just sexual. Tied to this log, exposed, glazed with oil, she felt her cunt and anus clench and flex involuntarily upon every strike. He flogged her back, her rump, and finally, she moaned his name when he flogged her quim. The barest kiss of it sending her panting.

It was delicious. He worked her flesh with precise care. The spaces, the pauses, all tantalizing. She anticipated him, and he knew when to answer her flesh with punishment.

Her body sang with the crack of his silken flail, and then he came forward and slid the end of the flog into her cunt, leaving it there.

“You will behave,” he growled with authority.

“Yes, Tristien.” Celestine was eager to answer. The sun danced on her oiled skin. The lake moved around in glittering sunlight. He fucked her with the flog, smaller than his whip but thick and perfect. Then he withdrew it and whipped her, softening her hide, readying his feast.

Tristien stopped and bent to her, stroking her face. “Are you doing alright?”

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