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You've no idea how long you've been here. Time has long since lost all meaning, would have even without all that flip flopping between the past and the present.
The lights here in this room never change, save for the flickering of the fire and the glittering glow of molten gold. The temperature here never rises, never drops. You've grown used to the heat by now, so it must have been days. Maybe weeks. There's no point even guessing. The bruises you came here with have faded away, replaced by new ones, and more still. You refuse to believe it's been months.
François himself seldom leaves the palace, so you can't even use his coming and going for consistent information.
The gold he's wrapped you in is heavy, chains at your wrists and ankles keeping you close to the throne, so you can't even attempt to flee his side. He's even custom-made a cage just for you, to trap you even while he's away. To your dismay, he's returned from his outings more than once with a renewed supply of food and water for you. It seems he fully intends to keep you as long as he can. He even washes you on occasion.
You're not sure what he wants from you anymore. Well, no, that's not true. You're sure that, for a shut-in like François, a good lay is hard to come by--you know damn well you're nothing if not good in the sack. And if what you saw of him in the present time could still apply here, he's rather possessed of a passion for breeding his pets.
For all his talk of greater purpose, it seems he has little better to do than play with his newest toy. Childish. Reminding him of this fact resulted in a rather unpleasant burn that still hasn't had a chance to heal. Thankfully--should you be thankful?--he allows you to keep your meagre possessions. When he lets up, opium is a hell of a thing. You don't even feel the burns then, just a haze of mush and serenity. You'd been so hesitant to use it before, pocketing it just in case but never personally touching the stuff. Growing up witness to its ill effects had made you afraid. You're glad--is that the right word?--for that old fear, now, just means you have more stockpiled. You really don't know what you'd do without it. The pain is so crushing, so all-consuming when you're sober, alone with your thoughts. It weighs on your fraying sanity. The pulsing drumbeat in your skull, the cold sting of burnt flesh, dark, blooming bruises pressed against far too harsh metal grating. That old, poorly-treated fracture in your leg. The dull ache in your hips and core is very nearly the least of your problems.
You'll run out someday soon, you're already on rations. You dread having to kowtow before François and beg him to bring you some. What he would demand in turn, or worse, to be denied, and debase yourself further for nothing.
Right now, at least, his hand in your hair doesn't hurt. It's rough as it pushes you down, tugging somewhat at your curls, but not painful. Heat radiates from him, a gentle warmth compared to the molten core you know well churns beneath the surface. Really, it's not the worst fate you could've gotten yourself stuck with. His cock in your throat is uncomfortable, but you have some practice here, and you'd much rather him than the guards, or the harvestman. Somewhat surprisingly, he's almost gentle when he fucks you. Almost. Though the bruises littering your pale skin protest otherwise.
He can afford to be gentle. He knows he's--mostly--broken you in by now. François doesn't even take your taunting quite so seriously anymore, no longer dignifying you with a proper discussion. Having seen you bend to his will, he knows you're something he can train.
At the start, you'd fought violently. François hadn't even deigned it necessary to confiscate your weapons. Arrogant. Not that it made any difference. Nothing you do makes a difference. You've screamed, you've begged, you've lied, Lord, you've tried to escape countless times. The Shark Teeth came close to sawing his arm clean off and he'd merely molded it back on with more molten gold. None of that has managed to scratch his polished demeanor. Nothing save for the insults, of course. That might be how you got into this mess, actually. Made him mad enough, made him want to knock you down.
François is almost comically susceptible to taunts. It would have been funnier if use of your sharp tongue didn't always result in him beating you, tearing you down, dominating you, as he puts it. Conditioning, you recognize. You'd first insulted him what felt like eons ago. You came here to kill him, and he knew it. That, already was enough, but a few jabs at his godhood had him huffing and puffing, practically stamping his feet. The girl had very nearly laughed. D'arce had laughed. That's probably why he killed her first.
You still remember the look on the girl's face when D'arce went down, dropping like a stone. The panic when François first got a hold of you. Kids shouldn't have to witness something like that.
With his hand around your throat and boiling lava in his, he'd asked if you knew what the ultimate form of dominations is. Asked if you loved him. Of course, you rebutted him with some backhanded comment about not knowing what he was talking about, something about his looks. Probably about him not being your type. You don't remember. Then he'd punched you. It came as a shock, the first time. Even coated in gold, the way François hit you was so human, something you hadn't experienced since before you came here. Humanity in these caves was sorely lacking, and the bluntness of a human fist had caught you off guard. If nothing else in this dungeon felt real, that one certainly did. The Shark Teeth lay on the ground, achingly out of reach. D'arce was clearly already dead, Moonless not far behind, snarling and trying to bite at her foe's legs as always. Moonless was a strange creature, but a good girl. It was a shame you'd brought her this deep. You shouldn't have brought any of them here, should have just left. Again François asked the question. "Do you love me?" Hit you again when you stood firm in your denial. You've got a girl back home, you're a free spirit, etc, etc. Again and again, bizarrely he chose to fixate on this sole point. Deliriously, it reminded you a bit of the orphanage. The other boys could be brutal, you'd learned to be quick and evasive, a skill you'd apparently forgotten, to get captured here.
A thought festered in you. He must have been holding back, or surely your teeth would have been destroyed, your ribs would have cracked. Regardless, you were beginning to feel dangerously weak and lightheaded. All this, and a simple human beatdown is what gets you? No, you knew you would have to swallow your pride and lie to get out of this. Maybe he would kill you after, maybe, maybe something else, something that didn't bear thinking about, but you had to do something to get him to stop.
Lies always slipped so freely past your lips, it's how you'd survived. Putting up a fight was always pointless when appeasement would make things move so much smoother. People were easy to fool, if you knew how to play the part. Just give em a few pretty words and they'll show their backs to you, won't even notice you emptying their pockets. This time shouldn't have been any different, but you suppose you just didn't want to look so pathetic in front of the kid. Foolish. On the edge of your vision, the girl was just out of reach. She was trying to do something, to use any of the spells you'd given her access to, but her nose bled and she ran empty. Her trembling knife barely grazed your attacker, who shoved her away like she was nothing. Moonless gnawing at his leg was similarly dealt with. She fell and did not stand up again.
It was frightening to see them so helpless against him. You knew he was no safer to approach now, with his eyes locked entirely on yours, than when his full attention was on fighting all four opponents equally. So you demanded the girl stay back, don't get any closer to him. In fact, running would be her best choice, and you told her as much. Hell, that's what you'd have done. And, gods below, she's just a kid. She shouldn't even be down here. You don't even know why you came here, but for the siren call of something greater just a little deeper beneath the earth. Fortune and riches, you'd thought. An urge you were finally starting to regret following, here, surrounded by the corpses of your companions.
So you told him, spitting the words out along with your pride. They were caustic in your throat, and the devilish grin that twisted his face suggested that perhaps you truly would have been better off keeping your mouth shut. His laughter echoed around the chamber before he'd asked, mirthful, "you do know that with love there also comes the physical side of attraction?" Your head spun, dizzy and dazed with horror.
When he'd started talking about the ultimate form of domination, you'd already known dreadfully well where this was headed. Despite knowing better, you'd sincerely hoped that when he'd demanded your love, he'd meant in worship like a true god. That when he'd threatened to bend you over, he'd meant it as merely a crass promise of violence. You'd thought, worse came to worse, you could beat him before it got this far. Of course, of course you'd already known what he wanted from you, now that he had you, now that you'd told him what he wanted to hear. Reality had still crushed you.
You couldn't let this happen, not here, not now. Not after you've come so far.
All your struggling amounted to nothing. Though he punches like a human, François's grip truly feels like the metal he's made of himself. Far-too-warm hands had ripped your sash off your hips, not even bothering to untie the poor thing. It fluttered sadly to the ground, and you briefly worried about it falling between the grates and catching fire. No time to spare for it, you clutched tight to your leggings, already torn under his brutish grip and hanging loose, but those, too, were yanked away. They caught on the tops of your boots to tangle around your knees, restricting your movement. You could see frightfully well how singed the leathers were, what his bare body could do to you if he so chose. François didn't even bother to rid you of your vest, yet. He didn't need to remove it to gain access to what he sought.
He'd shoved you to the floor, jarring your fracture painfully and digging sharp metal edges into bruised flesh. Rumpled clothing made a poor barrier for your knees. Before you, blood and sweat dripped down between the grid. His body set upon your back like a ten tonne weight, unshakable. Thrashing against his grasp yielded no results, his arms caged you in, coiling around your middle to hook under your vest, prodding at your abdomen. It truly felt like fighting against a statue. François sounded so smug when he laughed at your struggles. He had been right, as pathetic and stupid as he was, you were still no match for him. Or maybe you were just unlucky.
You were expecting it to hurt more. Sure, the stretch burned, but he was alarmingly slow entering you. Likely ensuring you would experience every moment and every motion of it. And experience you did, the horrible sensation of warm fingers gripping your ass and spreading you wide before a blunt, hard rod made itself known between your cheeks. It slipped up and down, past your asshole, savoring the dread that rose within you. Slick fluid spread over your perineum, then up across your hole when he began to prod at the entrance, slowly bullying his way in. A scream burst from your chest as the far-too-solid head finally popped past the rim. He didn't immediately bottom out, instead choosing to slowly rock against you, finding his depth inch by agonizing inch. The tinny scraping of your nails against the iron still echoes loud and sharp in your ears, accompanied by rasping, shocked vocalizations which alight your core now with shame.
François certainly seemed so relish in this easy pace, like grinding his hounds' noses into the dirt. He wanted you to understand exactly what he thought your place was.
You've had plenty of experience with intimacy, you know it could have been much worse if he'd wanted it to be. Being an orphan and a thief and a swindler granted you free access to the beds of many, if you knew the right words. Or the wrong ones. Whichever got you undressed the quickest. This wasn't even your first time being forced. It wasn't a common experience in your life, thankfully, but you were very well aware that things like that happened to people like you. You knew the best way to survive this would be to submit to his desires, let him have his fun then stab him in the back the second he climbs off of you. You really, really didn't want the girl to see you like that, but your options had dried up. It was happening, whether you wanted it or not. Your body still squirmed pathetically beneath his immaculate gilded weight.
You didn't even notice how deep he had gone until his hips finally nudged your ass. His balls knocked up against your own. Suddenly, uncontrollably, you'd coughed out some watery approximation of a laugh. How absurd. Solid 24-carat gold balls. You'd make a fortune off of those. He paid you no mind, likely mistaking the weak hitches of breath for sobs. They sure sounded close enough, and it didn't take much longer for that to become the truth, anyways.
It was so unfair, even more so as pain faded, transformed beneath domineering thrusts. Fuck, he's disturbingly good at this. Your gasping and crying slowly took on a softer edge, morphing into something far more shameful. Pride had only ever gotten in the way of your survival, though, so you did your best to discard it for the time being. Even as he sneered down at you, chortled at your pitiful state. Even as your companions' carcasses seared against the scorching metal.
Just survive, just get through it. That's how you've made it this far.
The girl was gone when you finally looked up, you could only hope she'd gotten away. It's for the best, she didn't need to be involved in this, not after every other horror she's witnessed in her short life. You allowed yourself to dream that, perhaps, she'd even escaped, and with the skills you taught her she'll be able to make it on her own. You would never find out, it was impossible to tell one charred corpse from another.
Your body was burning. The heat radiating up from the grate and off his glimmering surface and building within you. Your breaths came hard and heavy at this point, struggling to suck suffocatingly torrid air into your lungs. You could feel yourself getting close, the way he kept nudging your prostate was driving you steadily towards a peak, though you prayed the edge would never find you. This sensation was a unique one, and one you hadn't enjoyed for quite some time now. Among the pain your subconscious had latched desperately onto that pleasure, despite your wishes. François's steady hands wrapped around your torso, dragging you upright against his chest, angling just so. His pace quickened, slamming hard into that point which made your vision turn static and dark. Your arms flew up to scrape at his, the room spinning with stars across your view. Tension rose urgent within you. With nowhere to go, it pushed on your vocal cords, ripping wails and moans from you at an utterly humiliating volume.
With little warning, the pressure burst, and you screamed as your body locked up, hips jerking and vision flashing white. When you opened your eyes, head drooping low, you could see the evidence of your defeat on the grate before you. Your vision bleary with tears, head fogged over in the afterglow. It had taken you a long moment to realize François wasn't slowing down. Conversely, he had continued to gain speed, brutalizing your prostate viciously as before, though he was laughing like a damn maniac now. You're sure he said something, but you were too far gone to recognize even a single syllable.
You spasmed around him, walls slamming down as pleasure crashed back into pain. Your desperate cries for relief went unacknowledged. Hysterical, you'd twisted as best you could beneath his hold to slam your fists into his side. "Stop," you'd howled, "just stop! Enough already!" Naturally, he'd merely grabbed your arms, pinning them to your chest, and your body squashed against his own gleaming pecs as he cackled madly in your ear. He fucked you like that for a torturous minute longer.
And then, he let you go.
The action caught you so off-guard you'd fallen, his cock slipping hot and slick from you as you collapsed onto the floor beneath him. You didn't waste a second beyond that, staggering to your feet with legs so unsteady you risked tripping and meeting with the lattice once more. You stumbled as you fought to tug your leggings back up without slowing, and within your thigh, fractured bone screamed. The cruel sounds of François's amusement echoed around you as you ran, mindless on long cultivated instinct, back the way you had come. He didn't let you get very far. A blazing inferno rose up to block your path, and in an instant he was upon you again, taking visible delight in the way you'd cursed and sworn, all but frothing with rage and devastation.
His length breaching you once more taught you a new depth of anguish.
It took far longer than you'd thought possible for him to finish with you. His stamina was something else. He gratified himself like that for a long, long while, occasionally letting you off of his cock to further toy with you. You'd fight him, or curse him, or try to run, or just plead with him to stop, then he'd beat you down and get right back to it. Deep, haughty laughter echoing off the walls of the chamber all the while, mixed with the wet smacking of skin on metallic skin. At some point he'd ripped your leggings fully away from you, granting himself the ability to spread your thighs apart. Flames had popped the ties on your vest, enabling him to tear it easily from your body. Hands pawed at your bare breast, gripped the meat of your waist. In most other places, with most other partners, being divested of all but your boots and gloves had empowered you, made you feel handsome, seductive. Here, it just felt degrading as all else he had done to you. All reason had long since abandoned you, the only words you were able to eke out being an indecipherable jumble of pathetic pleas and hopeless blubbering. The chamber's constant, stifling swelter would have driven you mad even if he hadn't been there to torment you.
At long last, François seemed somehow to be nearing completion. His laughter grew rough, breaths sharp. Again he demanded it, like some ridiculous test, "Do you love me, pet?" You, already delirious and shattered and wanting nothing more than for an end, could only give him what he wanted. It was your trembling "yeh, y-yes, ah, yes, I-I love you, I love you," that seemed to do it for him. His hips sputtered, slamming into yours hard enough to make your balls ache where his steely ones bounced against them, and he buried himself deep. Your body crushed up against his as he groaned long into your ear. You still managed to muster up some distaste at that, though you were relieved. Wet, gushing heat burst in your core, and you knew he had finally, finally finished.
When he pulled out, warmth oozed from the now empty space between your thighs. A brief glance down revealed to you that unlike his flashy exterior, his semen wasn't gold. It was just semen, indistinguishable from your own, glistening against your skin and dripping from the heated metal grating, down into the darkness below. That would have brought some humor to you if you were anywhere close to coherent.
Maybe he would kill you now and be done with it, maybe he would let you go, satisfied with a successful domination.
François did not take either option. Instead, he had opted to keep you. His first action after fucking you, aside from petting your hair (and it feels slimy in your mind, but you lacked the strength to recoil) was to forge thick shackles from the molten metal all around you. There would be no lock for you to pick, just smooth gold that could be melted away or reconnected at his will. They were weighty, bulky things that you were too tired to even attempt to lift. "You should feel honored I'm wasting gold on a filthy little pig like yourself." François had informed you. When you said nothing, he slapped you. "Well? What do you say?" You couldn't look him in the eyes as you thanked him. He harrumphed. "It's a start. We can work out the specifics of how you address me at a later time." How generous. You were sure he just didn't feel like putting in effort to correct your behavior when he was still freshly satiated from fucking you stupid.
Lord, your ass ached. It felt like a hefty leaden stone had settled between your hips. A sensation you've since grown used to.
Back straight and laced with triumph, François had crossed over to his throne, sitting with an air of authority you felt ill-suited a man like him. He'd tugged your chain, a vile smirk contorting his cheeks. His pointed visage bordered on cartoonish, but you were no longer in a joking mood. Exhaustion had set in deep and stilled your tongue. All you could do was obediently scoot towards him as he slowly reeled you in. When you'd arrived at his side, he released the lead and set his palm upon your head. The way you'd flinched felt like the purest form defeat. You'd sat there for hours, slumped against his throne as he stroked your hair. It's impossible to tell when you fell into a fitful sleep, but when you woke, François was waiting for you.
Really, the man's hardly taken his hands nor eyes from you since you'd entered these accursed chambers. He'd begun your 'training' in earnest, teaching you to heel, to come when he called, to sit, stay, bend over. He beat you when you made any attempt at rebellion, praised you with slimy condescension oiling his words when you were obedient, and of course, he fucked you into a filthy puddle of heated flesh either way.
Today, his request had been a common one. Simple enough. Kneel before the throne and suck him off. You knew how to do this one, it should have been easy, save for the fact his stamina remains the same as the first time he'd fucked you. Possibly, he was now lasting even longer. Your jaw aches and you breathe slow and even through your nose as you work your mouth around him. A passive-aggressive scrape of your teeth around the ridge of his glans results in a warning growl and a pull of your hair.
You angle your face up towards him, looking through your bangs and past his broad forearm to meet his eyes. You don't know whether or not you hope he can see the hatred burning within you, and you squeeze your lips around his shaft, caressing the head with your tongue. You wish you could speak if only to demand he hurry the fuck up. He laughs, speaking filthy words into the open air above you. With all the gods new and old as witness, you are sick of that sound. You would bite down if it wouldn't destroy your teeth to do so.
Your throat is going to be quite sore, later.
A thumb soothes its way across your brow, and you loathe how good it feels, how you have to fight not lean in to the touch. You're just so damned tired. You have not been able to properly sleep since long before you came to the dungeons of fear and hunger. The dark lines beneath your eyes had sharpened, reshaping your face gaunt and hollow.
The tip of his foot brushes deliberately against your limp cock, and you startle so badly he has to hold you in place against his hips. "Easy, piggy, just continue your worship, that's it," he offers in idle acknowledgement. It's quite uncommon for him to touch you there, save for when he'd threatened to remove the organ outright. He prefers you whole, though, you think. You send a worthless prayer into the void you're right on that one.
François draws you up, then back down again, guiding your head to bob until you begin to mimic the action on your own. His fingers in your hair relax as you move, loosening enough to toy with sweat-slicked curls. "Such a pretty pet," he mutters, voice low with dark pleasure. His foot between your thighs presses up hard, grinding you against him. A whine rises unbidden in your throat. "You've been such a good little bitch, so obedient for me." His tone carries a mocking lilt, and you understand he's about to ask you to debase yourself for him. He doesn't disappoint. "I believe you've earned a little treat. Would you like that?"
His foot grinds incessantly into you, obviously offering a place to rut yourself. You'd love to tell him exactly where he can shove his royal heel, but, truthfully, you've been made too afraid to stop sucking without his permission. You squeeze your eyes shut instead, resigning yourself to simply surviving whatever he decides to put you through. Obnoxious and sleazy, he strokes your hair, scratching blunt nails behind your ear. "A good mutt deserves his reward, yes? Just this once, I shall allow you to satisfy yourself humping your master's leg, such a good hound." Your jaw twitches, the urge to bite down or pull away growing with every filthy word, but you restrain yourself. Just get through it. As much as you loathe the very idea, his words are not an offer of a reward so much as they are a command. Drawing a heavy breath through your nose, brow furrowing intensely, you surrender a small roll of your hips. "That's it," he purrs, somehow darker and more debauched than before, "there's a good boy." You have to pause once more to collect yourself, swallowing thick around his pulsing phallus.
You suppose one can always sink lower.
His palm at your scalp bears down, guiding you to take him deeper. This time, in spite of your expertise, it takes all your strength not to choke. After everything you've been through, you still find yourself able to feel mortified at the task ahead. At length, you give another, careful rock downwards. The weight of his leg pushing up against you renders such a slight motion unbearably intense. It teeters on painful, and you whine again. François groans, evidently enjoying the vibrations of your spasming throat.
You steel yourself, and set to moving. Your pace is slow, jagged and tense. Far from comfortable, you're unsure how he expects you to get off like this. Maybe, if you're lucky, he doesn't intend for you to gain any pleasure at all, seeking only to degrade. Your hopes are dashed, as is typical, after an eternity of far too much tension. François eases his foot back, just a sliver, just enough to grant relief without breaking contact. Your hips freeze at the change in sensation, and your eyes crack open to gaze at him in trepidation. You feel sweat dripping from your temples. He sneers back at you, empty fist curled against his reclining cheek, fingers curling expectant in your hair. This is going downhill fast. You spare a moment to mourn yourself silently before continuing.
As your cock rubs against his smooth, warm surface, you find yourself slowly, awfully, heating up as well. Your hands clutch weak at the sides of his hips, quivering digits curling fruitlessly against his hard thigh. Already you feel lightheaded, like a miasma has entered the room. The prior tension slips alarmingly easily from a cramped ache to an acute carnality. You can't understand what has changed. Why has your body begun betraying you this way? Several times, now, even as your mind screams from afar, you have surrendered yourself so wholly to him, allowing your own emotions to melt away in the haze of pleasing your master, of taking pleasure in turn. It's more than just shameful, you're terrified you're going to lose yourself entirely.
Wretchedly you wrestle with indignity and horror, losing track of your motions in the jumble of thoughts as you, delirious, lave your tongue over his cock. Your wanton groaning sends ripples of wet flesh dancing across its surface, lips stretching as you seek to draw its length deeper. François is more than happy to assist, thrusting himself against your face. Your nose meets the sleek surface of his abdomen and you whine, thin and needy into him. He fucks your skull until your brain is reduced to mush, and it's all you can do to continue your pitiful rut at his shin. Distantly, as if through a thick mist, you hear him speaking, calling you a whore, filth dripping from his tongue in a way you would have greedily lapped up if only you had been here by choice. The coil in your belly winds tight, before reaching its crescendo. So focused were you on entertaining the phallus in your mouth, you failed to notice how close you've come to the edge until you're already falling. Your thighs clamp around his ankle, knee knocking hard upon the throne. Your body shoves damp against that unmoving metal, back arched against the firm hand now pinning you by the nape. You claw at his flesh, ineffectual, serving only to bend your nails.
Your leg sings in pain, but it floats somewhere else in the haze, somewhere you're barely capable of recognizing as your body. Or is it even your own anymore?
Fingers clench in your hair, and François draws you back, moaning in exultation as fluid bursts across your tongue, then further to coat your face. He cups your chin so gently, his essence dripping down your cheeks and weighing on your lashes. Warm digits slip down below your jaw to toy with the collar he'd bestowed upon you, and a chuckle tumbles from his glistering lips. "Tell me, pet. Do you still think me a puppet? Who do you see pulling the strings here?"
Even in your wildest dreams, you could never imagine anything so petty. The fog of apathy you'd fought so hard to gather curdles just a touch at that, and you find it in yourself to laugh.