Armela held her hands to her chest as if they were her most prized possessions.

  She had absolutely gotten me dead to rights. Despite all my careful planning, she had outmanoeuvred me without issue.

  Regardless of whether she had intended for this to be how things worked out or not, I could admit when I was bested, and Armela had earned every part of this victory.

  I held my hands up with the backs facing her and spoke.

  “Thank you for letting me do that with you, Armela. I’m both honoured and humbled to be called your mate. Looks like you’ve marked your territory without issue, too.”

  She glanced up to see the rings on the backs of my hands, and she reached out to hold them and kiss them.

  “I swear to you, Vita, I’ll be the greatest mate you’ve ever had.”

  The conviction in her voice gave the vow an almost religious ferocity.

  “I will do everything I can to protect what we have together. I knew from the moment I saw you that my destiny was tied to yours; I just couldn’t bring myself to believe it.”

  The sheer amount of hope in her voice was palpable, and I wondered once again if no small part of this was trauma bonding.

  “But after everything we’ve done… the things we’ve shared… The way you’ve made me feel… I couldn’t put it off any longer.”

  I nodded along with her words.

  I understood what she meant, as I’d experienced that same feeling with Ava when I’d first met her.

  While I hadn’t immediately been struck with the same call of fate when I’d met Armela, I did have a feeling she would be something special to me after she leapt off the back of that wagon.

  I was happy with her, and I believed she would be a steadfast partner over the coming aeons.

  I reached for her hands and kissed the backs of them like she had done with mine.

  “Well, my dear, it looks like this was your win after all. I would most certainly consider having my hands pierced as ‘landing a hit’, wouldn’t you?”

  She quirked an eyebrow as though she wasn’t following what I was talking about until I spoke the last few words and clarity dawned across her face.

  Well, at least this had worked out in my favour; I wouldn’t even need to act my way through a brawl to get her to think she’d won.

  In this instance, her victory was absolutely genuine, and I had learned not to underestimate her.

  “As a man of my word, and as a bonus, I will place myself into your care for the remainder of today. As much as it may chafe me, a win is a win. You may command me as you like, Armela.”

  I materialised a collar in my hand and presented it to her as though it were a family heirloom.

  I did not know what to expect, but it was only early morning and she had the look of a woman being offered a kingdom.

  She reached out tentatively, as though the collar would burn her hands.

  Finally curling her fingers around it, she inspected it, tracing her fingers across the polished steel, seemingly in awe of it, before turning her eyes back to me.

  At which point, she grinned like a demon.

  “Once you put this on, you belong to me, right?”

  I nodded.

  “And you’ll have to do whatever I tell you, right?”

  I nodded once more. Growing just a little alarmed at the tone the mood was taking.

  “You can’t say no to anything I tell you no matter what it is, right?”

  I nodded for the third time. Even though I knew she wouldn’t ask me to do anything outrageous, I had the distinct feeling the next day would be a trial.

  And even if she did ask me to do something like destroy the planet, I would simply refuse.

  We both understood the implication that her requests would be within reason… I hoped.

  “You won’t hate me if I do some real fucked-up shit to you, will you?”

  I raised an eyebrow and hesitated before finally nodding. I was open-minded… to a degree.

  “Like, if I cross a line, you won’t stop wanting to be my mate, will you?”

  I pursed my lips and shook my head.

  Just what the fuck did this woman have in mind? Surely it couldn’t possibly be that disturbing.

  But she was panting now, her face flushed, staring down at the collar like it was a cliff she was about to leap off of.

  “As long as I deem it to be within reason, I will not deny your requests.”

  Either I wasn’t as well versed in the ways of sex as she was, or her definition of ‘fucked-up’ was so alien to mine that I didn’t recognize the actual risks I was taking.

  Either way, there was no backing out of this now. I had made my bargain, and she had earned her right to this.

  Consequences be damned, I supposed.

  She eagerly nodded her head, and saying nothing further, she stood and stepped around my back.

  I felt the hard steel wrap around my throat before the clasp locked into place, and the small key lock was snapped shut with an audible ‘tink’.

  She stepped back around to my front, but the shy, reserved, giddy nervousness from before had vanished from her face.

  Instead, I saw a cold, calculating look of savage disinterest. It was the distilled essence of domination.

  As though I were looking into the eyes of a tyrant. A merciless, sadistic god of conquest.

  She crossed her arms under her perky breasts, forcing them up into a more eye-catching shape.

  “Don’t fucking stare at me, you mutt.”

  She pointed down at her feet, and I averted my eyes to where she had directed.

  So this was her desire. To control. To reign superior. She wanted to be at the pinnacle. Not chained down, not abused and discarded or overlooked.

  I heard her suck in a breath as her arousal flared. She shuddered involuntarily, and her weight shifted between her feet before she regained her composure.

  She was taking to this role with such alacrity that I wondered briefly how she hadn’t become a warlord herself.

  Giving her the means to experiment with this kind of domination would hone the edge she used to bring the rest of this universe to heel.

  I re-contextualized this roleplay as just another form of training. As much as there would be sex, asserting herself as the one giving orders was crucial.

  Letting her get a sense of how to behave, how far she could push the envelope, and what true power felt like would all further my goals.

  “As if some pathetic little dog like you would be worthy of looking upon my body, ugh, bow your head when you’re in my presence!”

  She slammed a foot down on the back of my head as she spoke, forcing my nose into the dirt.

  She twisted her ankle, rubbing my face in it.

  Well, it could very well be that I would come to regret this decision immensely… but in for a penny, in for a pound.

  “That’s more like it, bitch. Right where you fucking belong, in the dirt beneath my feet!”

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  She breathed raggedly as the pleasure coursed through her.

  “Unnnffff… fuck yes…”

  She huffed out a lust-filled breath.

  “What are you, Vita? Tell me, what are you to me right now?”

  I had no qualms about playing into this scenario for her.

  Clearly she needed to take back some of her agency, and if I could help her do that through a healthy channel, I would.

  “I’m your dog, mistress. I’m just a bitch for you to command as you wish.”

  She groaned loudly as I answered.

  “Awwaauuuuu fuuuuuuuuuuck…”

  She was enjoying this to a perverse degree.

  “Fuck… yes… you are.”

  She swept her foot past my cheek and then forced my chin up with the tips of her toes.

  “Ahhh… hahaha you sick fuck. You're enjoying this, aren't you, you fucking mutt?”

  Her laugh wasn’t so much manic as it was imperious. Condescending. Baleful.

  “If you’re that into it, I suppose I could do you a favour by allowing you to clean my foot off with your tongue.”

  I looked up at her as she spoke.

  She had an indescribable look of rapturous pleasure painted across her face.

  A level of sheer bliss I’d never seen on anyone.

  Armela was gone now; instead, there was only ‘the owner of Vita’. Whoever that was.

  Once it registered that I had looked at her without her express permission, a violent rage warped her face.

  She slammed her foot into my face, pushing me onto my back as she stepped forward along with my rotation and onto my head.

  She forced her toes between my lips, and I started licking and sucking.

  Dirt, stones, and bits of straw from the horses had collected across the bottom of her foot, but she didn’t stop trying to work the whole thing down my throat.

  “I thought I fucking told you not to look at me? How hard was that to understand, you useless sack of shit!”

  I wondered absently if I could actually entrust her to conquer anything without just flat-out destroying it instead.

  “How could you have possibly thought that was a good idea? You disgusting pig! Make me a fucking blindfold."

  She 'harrumphed' and snapped her fingers impatiently.

  "I’m going to make sure you see nothing the rest of the day, let alone me. Ugh.”

  The sound of revulsion in her voice shocked me. I was still rather confident this was nothing more than roleplay, but the bitter rasp of her tone was biting.

  With as much faux-shame as I could muster, I produced a silken blindfold and presented it to her like I had with the collar, being sure to keep my eyes averted.

  “Mistress, please forgive this hapless whelp; it won’t happen again.”

  I wasn’t a theatre kid growing up, so I wasn’t sure what level of ham I needed to inject into my performance.

  Hopefully, just enough to keep the fantasy going for her.

  She snatched the blindfold from my hands, ordering me to my feet so she could bind it around my head.

  “If this blindfold comes off, or I even so much as suspect you’re peeking, I’ll have those filthy little balls of yours over the fire.”

  She snarled into my ear as she cinched the knot. Being sure to yank on it enough to stretch the fabric until it creaked.

  “Don’t think for a moment that you’re forgiven, pervert. That’s twice now you’ve offended me with your gaze, and I’ll have my satisfaction from your apology. Lie on your back and don’t you dare move.”

  As I complied, one of my drones detected movement on the periphery of its patrol.

  Splitting my focus, I tapped into its point of view and off to the north about 5 kilometers, two wagons crept down an obscured path.

  They were headed directly for our camp at a casual trot, and I expected they would arrive within 20 minutes.

  “Armela, the sl—”

  She kicked me in the knee and hissed.

  “What the fuck did you just call me?! I don’t remember saying anything about you being allowed to use my name?”

  I dropped back to my knees in response to her badgering, and she kicked me in the ribs.

  “And to speak without being instructed to?! I’ve half a mind to gut you where you lay! Be silent!”

  She kicked me again for emphasis.

  Never in my entire life had I ever been this dramatically aware of how profound the possession of power could be.

  She took to this like fire to napalm. Even just the fumes of power would ignite her. I didn’t believe she was even aware of who she had been just minutes before.

  The Armela who had cried and clung to my chest had been instantly and brutally erased. Before me stood an entity of pure indulgence.

  Basking in the euphoria of dominance without restraint or self-awareness. Nothing else on this planet mattered more to her now than fulfilling whatever whim she felt.

  “Mistress, please, the sla—”

  She stepped on my face, shutting me up once again.

  “Vita, just shut the fuck up and let me fucking enjoy this for once in my Gods-damned life. Please.”

  Ah, there she was.

  A mental weight lifted off my chest as it became apparent that I had simply been overthinking her transformation.

  It hadn’t been that she was consumed completely, just that she had been fully reveling in the experience. There was still some common sense rattling around in her head.

  I tapped her shin, indicating I needed to speak to her.

  “I know you don’t need to breathe, bitch. Service my foot well enough and I might find you worth listening to. Until then, shut up and be a good foot-cleaner.”

  I mentally shrugged. If this was what she wanted, then this was how it would go.

  I pulsed a quick impression over our link.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Her brief moment of confusion about the message was overwhelmed by her unrestrained joy at having me at her mercy.

  The wagons were coming into earshot, but Armela was completely in her own little world.

  The moment she had stepped on me, she had slipped right back into berating me harshly, calling me just about every possible name and insult she could think of; it had been one long string of mumbled profanity.

  This was the scene that greeted the slavers as they entered the camp.

  Armela stood above me, kicking and prodding me while maniacally raving about my inferiority and submission.

  She was smack-dab in the middle of calling me a particularly disturbing string of sexual slurs when she first noticed the wagons breaching the edge of the camp.

  She froze instantly, completely surprised by their presence, and as she began to panic, I sent a gentle pulse over our connection telling her to calm down and focus.

  She settled her nerves and worriedly hissed at me.

  “Vita, what the fuck do I do?! I have no clue what the fuck to do?!”

  I didn’t know how she expected me to answer with her heel firmly planted on my face, but I tapped her calf tenderly and encouraged her over the bond.

  This was her rodeo now, since she wanted to be in charge.

  “Just keep going like you were; it’ll work out, you know what we need from them.”

  This seemed to bolster her confidence, and she straightened her back as she fully swivelled her attention onto the closing wagons.

  “You fucking ass, why didn’t you warn….”

  She trailed off as the memory of my attempt at warning her played across her mind.

  “Ah, Dersio’s fucking taint, alright, ya got me there.”

  I believed she would handle this appropriately, and if she didn’t, then it wouldn’t matter since everyone excluding the slaves would no longer be alive before the end of the day.

  Forming a set of ‘eyes’ on my ribcage, I turned my attention to the wagons to observe how Armela handled this interaction.

  I wasn’t really surprised to see a pair of hardy brigands atop the driver’s bench of each.

  Travelling cloaks and cowls up to obscure any observation from prying eyes.

  They looked well-muscled, lightly bearded, and very much like the sort of fodder that would just be ‘following orders’.

  The leader of this group would probably be in the back of one of the wagons. Switching to infrared, I scanned them.

  Both wagons were of identical make, steel cages lined with canvas tarps. Small aisles were partitioned down the sides of the wagons for seating and slave inspection.

  There were 8 cages per wagon and a host of 10 men on watch for each. This brought the grand total for the brigands to 24 and the slaves to 16.

  I relayed this information to Armela over our link as pings overlaying her vision. One brigand in the back of the rear wagon stood out, though.

  Almost a head taller than the rest, he was being fed information by one of the other guards closer to the front of the canvas tarp.

  He looked like a suitable candidate to be their leader.

  One driver from the lead wagon spoke up as they came to a stop roughly 10 metres away.

  He had glanced around, and the lack of both goblins and prisoners put him on edge immediately, not to mention the naked couple engaging in incredibly animated copulation in the middle of the camp.

  “Who are you?! Where is the Warlord?!”

  Armela seemed to hesitate, taking in the information I’d been relaying to her and processing what to do, but a gentle squeeze of her thigh seemed to bring her back to the here and now.

  The swagger returned to her demeanour, and she addressed me first.

  “Get up, filth, I want a bench upon which I can sit and entertain our guests!”

  I turned over onto my hands and knees and allowed her to sit on my back; the soft sensation of her ass settling onto my back was pleasant.

  “We’ve been expecting you, travellers. Though you know it not, there has been a slight… change of management.”

  Armela waved a hand to encompass the surrounding compound.

  “Unfortunately, the pitiful warlord simply didn’t quite live up to his name!”

  She gestured to where the disembowelled corpse of the Warlord hung lifeless from its cage.

  The brigand’s eyes darted over to it and summarily bulged out of his skull.

  “W-what is the meaning of this?!”

  He drew his sword and leapt to his feet. The man at his side did the same, and the remainder of their troop came piling out of the wagons ready for a fight.

  The leader pushed his way to the fore of the group, brandishing a long, curved scimitar. They were a motley group, to say the least.

  Sackcloth and leathers haphazardly strung together in a sad attempt at armour, random, mismatched weapons and shields, and no insignias to speak of.

  Armela uncrossed and then recrossed her legs, exaggerating how little concern she had for the threat they were trying to pose.

  “What do you know?! Who sent you?! Was it—”

  The driver’s head separated from his body as the lead brigand’s sword cleaved through his neck.

  Turning his attention back to Armela, he produced another scimitar from his belt and levelled it at her.

  “I dunno what your game is here, girly, but you best prepare yourself for the most painful death you could imagine.”

  He spat in the dirt as he stepped past the line of his men and into the clearing between them and Armela.

  “Powerful folk in powerful seats’re gonna learn what ‘appened here, and once they do, it ain’t gonna be me and my boys over the coals, you ‘ear me?”

  Armela yawned and inspected her claws. Blowing on them lightly as if to dislodge a grain of cloying dirt.

  “I take it that means you’re both the brains and the brawn of the operation?”

  Her tone was somewhere between bored and annoyed.

  She leaned to her side, resting a palm on the back of my head as she drummed her fingers along my scalp, amplifying her apparent impatience.

  “Tha’s right! This ‘ere’s my crew, and you’re about to end up as their communal cock-cozy for the next week before your ‘ead ends up mounted to the end of a pike at this camp.”

  The brigand leader lifted his chin as he sneered down at Armela, licking his lips lecherously as he slid his eyes over her naked form.

  “Far as I see it, all the bosses ever need to know is that I got into a scrap with big ol’ ugly there.”

  He swung his sword toward the dead orc warlord.

  “And took the camp under my… superior command.”

  He tapped his lip with the tip of his sword, shrugging with feigned remorse.

  “Some slaves got a bit… damaged in the tussle but… what’s a few broken toys to a toy maker?”

  A wide, sickeningly devious grin split his lips as the thought of sampling all his available ‘wares’ very obviously slithered through his brain.

  It seemed to me that this was his version of grabbing hold of opportunity when it struck him. The power vacuum left in the warlord's wake needed to be filled, and here he was to fill it.

  Fuck the details, or whatever happened before he arrived, he was taking his chance here and now.

  Very ballsy.

  “A communal… cock-cozy?”

  Armela repeated his words back to him with a confused look on her face.

  “From where I sit, your skull looks about as fuckable as the rest of your men’s. Either way, you’ll be sharing what you know about your bosses with me before you die screaming.”

  She blew him a kiss from where she sat atop me, and the leader grimaced before hauling back and launching his sword directly at Armela’s head.

  Did he just not know how to use a sword? Is that why he kept throwing them?

  With barely any effort, Armela snatched the spinning blade out of the air, inspected it, and then proceeded to use it as a back scratcher.

  “Thanks for this, I guess. Unfortunately, the disgusting pig beneath me wasn’t quite able to get this itch earlier.”

  The leader was gobsmacked.

  The crew grew visibly nervous at the display of raw dexterity and turned their collective gaze back onto the leader.

  “Cute trick, girl, but you’ll be scratching this itch soon enough.”

  With that, the leader grabbed his crotch and threw up a middle finger at Armela.

  I was momentarily dumbfounded at just how pitiful that response had been.

  Based on the looks of his crew, they shared my pain.

  “Ohhhhhh gods!! That was horrendous! Was that truly the best thing you had to say in response?”

  She rose off my back and cocked her head at the leader, the secondhand embarrassment getting to her as well.

  “Was that really what you wanted your last words as a free man to be? Yuthrie weeps for you this day!”

  She shook her head in disgust as the brigand leader flushed with embarrassment.

  “Alright, you’ll be giving me what you know about your bosses now.”

  She started the short walk towards him, rotating the sword lazily in her hand as she made a show of gyrating her hips.

  “Boys, fuck ‘er up! But don’t kill ‘er!”

  For how unsteady they had been, the brigands leapt into action faster than I would have given them credit for.

  23 men sped towards her with a deafening war cry.

  Members of the group with blunt weapons headed the charge, while those with swords and daggers sheathed their weapons and approached with fists raised.