For Her Favor, Pt 11
For Her Favor, Pt. 11
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Cara/Kahlan/Dahlia, Denna/Snake
Warnings: Extreme non-con, torture, Agiel violence, hurt/comfort, bdsm, gore, angst, Mord’Sith temper, domestic violence, evil!cara, language
Author’s Note: AU. Snake trained Denna to be Mord'Sith.
Summary: Mistress Cara wants to own a Confessor. Dahlia wants to give her one.
Disclaimer: I only own my sickness. Not for profit, only for demented fun. Legend of the Seeker characters and depictions belong to Terry Goodkind, Disney and ABC Studios.
For Gizmo :D
Sleet was pouring just outside the high window of Cara’s room but, to Denna, it was falling all around them as she sat on her Mistress' lap, facing her, licked the sweat off her cheek and continued roughly fucking her, rocking them back and forth in Cara's chair.
Snake moaned her name, digging both hands into each of Denna's sides, controlling the thrusts, the speed, the hate of it all. She hadn’t even bothered to take her pet's dirty dress off again. Snake felt Denna had responded best to her phallus and she was eager for this streak to continue.
"You’re taking me just like Dahlia does," Snake panted, taking some of Denna’s drenched hair between her teeth, enjoying the ride, "only she’s better."
Denna tried to slow herself, to pace herself against Snake’s maddened need to damage her, to absorb all she was and could’ve been and give it back somehow. She opened herself more, allowed Snake to go deeper, to fill her and rob her in the same motion.
"Good, Denna," Snake praised, running her fingernails into Denna’s back, bunching up the material and shifting her to receive heavier hits, "you’re still my good girl, aren’t you?"
Denna nodded, keeping her eyes somewhere dark, somewhere she hoped would be invisible.
"Tell me what you are," Snake drove her, softening her clutch.
"I'm…" Denna choked, wrapping her arms around Snake's neck, "coming."
"Stop," Snake said, purposely finding her best rhythm, "Denna, stop. Control yourself. That's not what you are."
"Mistress," Denna whispered, pounding hard, tearfully, "stop me."
A single bead of sweat from Denna’s forehead dripped onto Snake’s nose and just as suddenly as it dropped, Denna was thrown to the ground, landing raggedly onto her back, knocking the wind out of her, leaving her gasping for more than she knew.
"Have you forgotten…" Snake growled, lifting one finger and motioning her to come to back to the place she had just been tossed from, "that the closest thing to being control you will ever be with me is the final moment when you come to understand that you never will be."
Denna refused to crawl forward, and instead, defiantly edged herself up on her toes, three of which were broken and stood up. With her eyes strict and locked with her Mistress, she wiped the blood, the juices, the sweat from between her thighs and smeared it on the back of her dress. It was precisely the part Snake had just handled.
She climbed back on Snake’s lap, each of her own legs over each of Snake’s thighs, facing each other again. Denna had another chance.
Snake smoothed the wooden sides of her seat with her palms before she brought her hands back tauntingly to Denna‘s hips. "Is it the chair? Does it distract you?"
"Yes." Denna kept her head lowered, and Snake gently brought it to rest in the dip of her shoulder blade. It was the safest place.
"I expect you to enhance, not ruin, my memories of Cara here," Snake reprimanded, replaced the phallus once again inside Denna, jolting her, and tightening her down. "Does it hurt?" she asked, cupping the back of Denna’s head further into her.
"You always hurt," Denna replied, aware that the honesty would most likely soothe Snake’s ears. The gamble was worth it.
"Be grateful for that," Snake urged her, kissing her ear and letting her words flow into it, "for your ability to always feel pain over feeling nothing. I gave you that."
Denna moved more understated, more needy as she tried again. It was more like Cara did when they were far away from the Temple and she was hungry for Dahlia.
"Good..." Snake smiled, tangling her fingers along her scalp, "let your body love me like it used to. I care for you."
Denna exhaled, finding her lips felt a singe of dominance as they touched the leather of Snake's neckpiece. She wished she could rip into it with the best of her teeth and tear it apart like it was something that needed to die.
"I'm sure it’s hard, Denna," she said, allowing Denna to emphasizing her more tame and even strokes, "to have such insight into so much and the power to do nothing about it."
Denna's groans where more like cries disguised as bursts of pleasurable release. But Snake felt she could never be fooled, in any capacity, by Denna's mouth as long as she lived to hear it. She knew that Denna was torn apart inside, literally and figuratively, and still Denna took it all, she wanted to serve. She wanted to endure. She yearned to survive this brokenness, this battered demotion, and this reversal of self.
Denna was bleeding, conscious that it was seeping into her Mistress' lap, and every muscle was battling the frenzy of over-exertion and exhaustion. But still, Denna kept her face pressed into Snake and took what she had to offer.
Snake had found a more gentle and more doting way to penetrate Denna and dealt her a few more thrusts of that endearing variety before she stopped altogether, smoothing down Denna's hair.
"Would you like to sleep in their bed? Are you tired, my precious thing?"
Denna raised her head, looked into her Mistress' eyes. Denna saw right through the sense of entitlement that lived there as she nodded sheepishly, considering the weight of what the price would be for any rest, any rare exchange of respite.
"First, tell me what I taught you about pain. Indulge me with your favorite words of mine."
Denna choked on something she sensed was fright within her throat, and caution in retrieving her memories.
"Pain is only valuable once you know you've learned from it."
"Why do you continue to love it?"
"Value and love are two different things."
"That's my girl. Why do you value pain, Denna?"
She bit her lip, stifling the urge to mirror her Mistress and smile. "Because sometimes I learn from it."
"And why do you love pain?"
"Because sometimes I don't learn from it."
Snake touched the side of Denna's face, briefly proud of it, and tucked the wettest, dirtiest parts of her hair behind her ears.
"The tragedy is..." Snake began, kissing her only to savagely break it, "is that you were never suppose to disappoint me."
Denna lowered her eyes but kept her head high.
"And if I told you I want you to suffer until the end of your days for what you have done, what would you want?" Snake inquired, interested.
"I want to live forever."
Snake scoffed, twisting Denna's neck to the side and moaning as her tongue kneaded sloppily against it. She had been careful not to bruise it too horribly for herself.
She raised Denna's dress, giggling in between slurps how excruciating it had to be for Denna to raise her arms straight in the air she did. It wasn't so much amusement as it was sheer satisfaction.
"When I fuck Cara," Snake whispered, digging into her back, glad for the material to be gone, "she begs me to do it in her bed. She pleads. Do you know why?"
It hurt to say, and she took a single ride up and down onto her Mistress, guessing she could get away with it as she felt the name in her weary mouth. "Dahlia."
"She needs to be close to her. It keeps her alive, passionate, predictable. It keeps her in service. But you..."
Denna gulped and shuddered, wishing she could find the courage to repeat the exquisite action.
"You are my most unfortunate mistake."
***
For the first time, Cara was able to look in Kahlan's eyes and not see everything she wasn't.
Kahlan massaged Cara's back and shoulders with the most care and attention that she had ever used on anyone, including Dahlia. The warm water felt busy and delightful on each set of their separate injuries. They were numerous, for each of them.
When she was sated, Cara touched Kahlan's hand and pulled her back around, splashing and disturbing the peace of the liquid, and cradling the Confessor in her arms though not bringing her anywhere near enough to her chest to connect them.
"What's so good about holding you?" Cara asked, genuinely wondering.
"I don't know," Kahlan admitted. "You can hold me closer."
"I know what I can do," she scoffed, mildly amused by Kahlan's permission.
"Mistress?"
Cara looked at her, sharpness returning gradually to her eyes. They told her to speak.
"Are we safe here? Is Mistress Dahlia safe?"
"Yes," Cara lied, "Dahlia never has to worry."
Kahlan looked down, pouted visibly though unaware it showed half as deep as it did.
Cara brought her arms in a few inches, hugging Kahlan closer, but still at a considerable distance. "I will protect you too," she added casually. "I wouldn't have brought you if I couldn't."
"From the other Mord'Sith? Darken Rahl?"
Cara squinted, trying to see the kind of woman that Dahlia consistently saw. "From everything."
Kahlan smiled, and as she fixated on the bruise she left on Cara's mouth and cheek, the smile faded, and she wished the wound would fade along with it.
"What will happen to us?" Kahlan asked.
"We will stay here until Dahlia recovers. You will serve her," Cara said, clutching her tighter, "and me."
"For how long...?"
Cara blinked, uncertain if she heard correctly. She parted her lips, resisting the urge to push the Confessor's head under.
Kahlan realized her poor choice of words and quickly reworked her thought. "How long until she recovers, Mistress?"
"I don't know," Cara replied firmly, matter-of-factly, "I always ensured a wizard cured her immediately."
Kahlan thought back to when Dahlia used a wizard to mend her spine. The forbidden darkness and danger of it, the accompanying notion that even the most sacred rules could be tossed aside by Mord'Sith when love and therefore the potential for loss entered into their lives.
"It takes most people-
"Dahlia is not like most people," Cara snapped, personally insulted. "She's stronger in ways you could never comprehend."
She longed to know as much as Cara did. "She's always been that way?"
"She's always been a lot of things."
"Was it very bad for you?" Kahlan asked softly, pausing, "the training, I mean?"
"There is nothing "bad" about training, Kahlan."
Kahlan nodded, looking away. It had been bad for her. "Mistress Dahlia will like it here."
"That's why I found it," Cara said, releasing Kahlan from her arms and swinging back her head, letting the steamed water untangle and saturate her hair. She glared as Kahlan who had grown increasingly unattached to the idea of separation and was edging back, wanting to be embraced again.
"Can you tell me a story about her?" Kahlan asked, trembling at her fleeting courage. "From when she was little?"
Cara brought her palms through the water and splashed it up at her own face. She felt ridiculous. "When we were seven years old, Dahlia liked the watch the sun go down from the top branches of this tree," Cara recalled, imagining how the greenest leaves blew through it in the summer wind and could almost convince them that they were in flight.
"What kind of tree?" Kahlan asked, her eyes wide and overly expectant.
"It was an orange tree. A very orange one."
"You just sat there? Together? Was it very beautiful?"
Cara thought about it, looking off for a moment as if she could will that same orange tree to grow for them right there on that bank in the middle of this winter. "We would play a game," Cara finally admitted. "She would compare the colors of the fruit we ate to the color of the sun as it set. She was awful at it."
"She was a sweet child, wasn't she?"
Cara nodded uncomfortably, recalling the red bows in Dahlia's hair and her little hands picking at them. "She could pretend the oranges were small suns too. One time she gave me her sun to hold, and I threw it. She went after it and I lost my grip on her and she fell."
Kahlan gasped, horrified by the image. "What happened, Mistress?!"
Cara cleared her throat. "She got up and we walked home. She hid her arm from me and I couldn't see how broken it was," she said, touching her own lip, thinking of Dahlia, "and that was innocence...when I thought pain was when she fell from a tree."
"Oh Mistress..." Kahlan squeaked, choking up, "please tell me another one."
"No," Cara said, nudging her away, gentle by her standards. "The past has no power."
***
Snake slept on Cara's side of the bed and allowed Denna the privilege of sleeping next to her on Dahlia's side. The pillows still smelled of them. Their room remained untouched, unclean, and unforgotten.
"Are you looking out that window, Denna?" Snake asked, watching Denna's back, stroking it, gnawing the majority of her nails over the lines of indecent scratch marks and lash burns.
"The moon just passed over us."
"Everything passes over you, doesn't it?"
Denna swallowed her sadness and nodded, knowing her Mistress expected some sort of response, even if it was a cowardly one.
Snake pulled Denna securely into her, kissed once at her neck as she spooned her, and considered the night around them.
"They are out there," Snake said, squeezing Denna's waist comfortingly, "and they will be home soon."
"This is no home," Denna replied, cringing at Snake's voice and suffocating on the implication that she could've ever believed it was.
"Easy now, Denna," Snake warned, kissing again at her, moving her fingers between Denna's legs, forcing them apart. "I love you more than your pathetic mother ever could. Though..." Snake edged inside, circling Denna's walls, "you feel like her."
Denna crashed her own tongue between her own teeth and concentrated on the window as she attempted to ban any images of her mother from her aching head. But all she saw was that woman who bore her, outside the window, and waiting desperately for her little girl.
"Denna..." Snake said, "I want you to beg for your mother like you used to."
"She's dead," she replied with a meager groan, her body coming alive with Snake's delicate strokes inside her. "You killed her."
"All for you."
"And for nothing," she purred, pushing against Snake's toughening motion.
"Beg for someone else you love."
"There is no one else, Mistress."
"Oh Denna, my poor child," Snake felt her wetness, the heated contracting within her pet. "Deception only brings misery. Beg for me. Beg for Cara. For Lord Rahl."
Denna tried. She tried to plead for her Mistress, or to say Cara's name, even attempting to beg for reinstating into Lord Rahl's favor. She tried to convince her voice that servitude was sometimes the only option, and more often, could be the only lasting cure for this pain.
But Denna was above that. She said nothing. Denna felt like nothing. She was like the window, caught shiftless between two separated worlds, one protected and one forever uncertain.
In her heart, she knew she was breaking even more. Part of her welcomed it, while another part, the one that held the more thankless pieces of her, never wanted to surrender and whether she lived one more minute or another hundred years, this part of her always knew more.
"Dahlia..." Denna said, feeling herself start to come, reaching down and covering Snake's hand, keeping her moving.
"You want Dahlia?" she asked, angrily changing her speed to match her emotion.
"No…" Denna bucked back, her hair tingling the pores on Snake's cheeks. "You feel like Dahlia," she sneered, "only softer."
***
The next few days passed slowly and quietly in he cabin. Cara burned the bodies of Aven and Thomas under each respective tree and walked away from their ashes. She barely said a word, leaving the bed early to chop wood, hunt for game, walk circles around their perimeter, brush down the horses, and sit alone.
To Cara, it was all a slave's work, a pet's work, Kahlan's rightful work. The alternative, keeping vigil over Dahlia, was the greater of the two feelings of smallness and helplessness.
Though she tried to remain skillfully out of sight, Cara didn't travel too far off and kept her watchful eye on the cabin for any attempts to escape or any potential need for her Breath of Life. But the cabin stayed peaceful, and warm.
When she returned in the night, Dahlia and Kahlan would often each be asleep, and there would be a distinct spot in the middle for her. She would cuddle the best she could with Dahlia but her body was more stiff and cold than she ever knew, and she would only occasionally return any affection, usually in her sleep.
On the fifth night, when the moon was high and the room was at it's darkest, Cara turned to Kahlan and covered her mouth, jolting her from a soundless dream. Cara quickly replaced her hand with her mouth and kissed her, climbing onto her, eager for her hair to cascade down over them, secluding them, until she could no longer see Dahlia's head out of the corner of her eye.
"Cara..." came the voice, hazily turning over.
Cara whipped her head up, licked her lips, resentful of the taste. "Go back to sleep," she said, reaching over and touching the side of Dahlia's cheek.
"She's finally healing..."
"She's still mine too," Cara replied, turning back to look down at Kahlan. "Behave and I'll be fast."
"Wait," Dahlia said, sounding like more of a plea than she ever intended.
Cara exhaled, and it turned into a condensed and surprised laugh all at once. Dahlia knew better than that. Cara didn't know the meaning of such a word.
Slowly, Cara swung her leg around, off Kahlan and moved to Dahlia. Although Dahlia's eyes were hopelessly locked on Cara, her voice spoke to the Confessor. "Go sleep by the fireplace where it's warmer," she said carefully. "Take a blanket."
Kahlan scrambled, taking the thinnest sheet with her, and disappeared as quickly as she always did when ordered to relocate by one of her Mistresses.
Cara looked down at the empty spot that once contained Kahlan and shook her head. She moved next to Dahlia, slithering close enough to share the same pillow, relaxing her body close to hers and looking into her.
Cara opened her mouth but swallowed the sentence once before she formed another one. "I know what you have to do. And you know it too, don't you?"
Dahlia took a breath, distantly lowering her head. "I can't."
"Dahlia," Cara started, bringing it back up, "don't you want to go back in time?"
She followed the thought painfully. "We cannot permanently live in the past."
"We can do anything," she replied, stroking Dahlia's face with the back of her soft knuckles, letting her melt into it. "Look at you," Cara continued adoringly, "I've made you stronger than this."
"You didn't..." Dahlia pressed, wrapping her fingers around each of Cara's hips. She nearly kissed her, but at the last moment, looked into her eyes, saw the unfamiliar woman that was there and refrained.
A darkness crept into Cara's gaze as she moved Dahlia's hands off of her. "I'm aware of the consequences."
Cara climbed out of bed and thundered to the floor, rocking the floorboards, and her bare flesh suddenly lighting the room.
Dahlia sat up quickly on one elbow, weakened. "What are you-
"Kahlan," Cara seethed, grabbing her Agiel and licking it's tip. "We have some unfinished business."
Dahlia gasped, caught between saying Cara's name and calling to warn Kahlan as the Mord'Sith stormed out, running full speed down the hall and throwing her free hand into the Confessor's hair, satisfied only when Kahlan was forced to her hardened knees, begging for Dahlia.
"Cara, stop!" Dahlia commanded, hearing the feeding whine of the Agiel, hurrying as fast as her sore balance would allow. "Cara!"
In the softened glow of the dying fire, Kahlan's mouth was already being pressed between Cara's legs, her whimpering muffled by the force of both Cara's grinding and her unrelenting, frenzied grip. She inched towards them, and Cara didn't even look up.
Realizing she had forgotten her Agiel, Dahlia looked down at her hands. They were shaking. She turned them over, inspected her palms, the tops. She took a deep breath and curled them into fists.
The first hit smashed monstrously across Cara's cheek, the same one Kahlan had damaged, and the second one came from the other direction, stunning Cara enough for her momentarily release her hold, giving Dahlia the time to pull the Confessor tactfully back by her arm.
With a spiteful gleam bouncing off her pupil, she rushed forward as Cara was straightening herself and snatched the Agiel viciously from her hand, diving it into Cara’s shoulder with equal contempt, finally allowing it to rattle it’s way to Cara’s neck and frost the blood under her chin.
Cara blindly, though passionately, tried to return the hits, but Dahlia had positioned the weapon well and it immobilized her. She was upright, though only in the physical sense.
"Stay on your knees, Cara!" Dahlia cried, kicking her legs out from under her as the magic ate through Cara's most vital veins, crippling her, forcing her bodily submission below Dahlia.
Kahlan watched a timeless short distance across as Cara tried to get up, grabbing violently at Dahlia's knee, but was only knocked again across her hardened face, and this time, so jaggedly that a pointed splatter of blood gushed from Cara's mouth and nose simultaneously and landed across the stark whiteness of Dahlia's dress.
It reminded Kahlan of Richard's blood, only Cara's squirted more forcefully and stained more demeaningly.
Dahlia kicked her stomach once, mercilessly, and when she didn't immediately fall onto her back, she focused all her pain into her lower body and kicked her again, slamming her back into the floor.
Only when Dahlia stomped on her, cracking bone, did Cara finally release a single stifled cry and squirmed under the bare foot that pierced down hard into her abdomen.
When she looked up, all she could see was her Agiel and her love had both turned against her.
"You're weak," Dahlia spit, biting back on her emotion, "and you deserve neither of us."
"I deserve a hundred bitches better than you," Cara swore, gurgling on her own blood, and smirking.
Kahlan crawled over and huddled next to Dahlia's feet, burying her face into her Mistress' shin. "It's ok, Kahlan," Dahlia soothed her, "it'll all be over soon."
"She will only be your death," Cara snarled to the Confessor, showing all her teeth. "She loves no one but me."
Dahlia gently kneeled down, brushing some hair away from her eyes and pressed Cara's own Agiel a centimeter from her heart, convulsing her up, watching each line of undiscriminating magic crawl up Cara's face and become a part of her twisted expression.
When she was ready, and not before, Dahlia reclaimed the Agiel and heedfully brought it back to smack it wildly across Cara's face. "Don't you dare speak about love."
The stale and horrific sounds of her struggling to breathe severed both Dahlia and Kahlan's thoughts as Cara bitterly hung onto the consciousness as best she could. But a considerable amount of time had passed since she'd been overpowered by an Agiel, and never like this from Dahlia.
"She needs her chain," Dahlia said, stroking Kahlan's head, nodding her away.
"I will kill you," Cara promised, staring coldly, choking on the sourness of how she bled.
"You already did that." Dahlia slammed the Agiel back into Cara's ribs, feeling it connect to her cage and digging it down.
Cara gasped and writhed but wouldn't scream. She wouldn't look anywhere but into the center of Dahlia's eyes, hating and overtly punishing her with them.
Dahlia would never go through with any of this, Cara thought. She was incapable of doing anything but loving her and spoiling her and bending to any position Cara desired. Dahlia only valiantly fought this war, tortured others and took pets because it was a necessary component to both please and serve alongside her Mistress. Or so Cara had almost come to believe.
Mistress Dahlia rose proudly to her feet.
Kahlan returned, sniffling back on her shock and fear and turmoil and produced the chain to Dahlia. The metal clashed against Dahlia's fingernails and stung the warmness of her hand with it's coarse frigidness and power. It could restrain Cara, bind her, and subdue her. It could do all the things she never could. And it was just a piece of metal.
"Stand up, Cara," Dahlia ordered, nudging Kahlan behind herself, shielding her.
"I will never..." Cara panted, winded and fractured, "obey you." She swallowed and took an angry baited breath and it was fire. "Do your worst, Dahlia."
"Stand up, or Kahlan will hold you down."
Cara's head whirled towards Kahlan, smugly demanding her attention. "Just try, you disgusting bitch."
"Kahlan?" Dahlia said, sternly over her shoulder, "you want to help your Mistress, don't you?"
"Mistress, I can't."
Dahlia reached behind her back, felt for the softness of Kahlan's hair and pulled her around by it, throwing her to her knees. "Hold her down."
Dahlia kneeled back down and shoved her Agiel into the heel of Cara's foot as Kahlan moved in back of Cara, and took hold of both her shoulders, and pressed them down. She was holding her down.
Finally, as Dahlia relented with the Agiel, she quickly took hold of Cara's big toe and in one enraged action, destructively ripped her toenail clean off.
The raw nerve endings immediately buckled at the excruciating loss and white hot searing pain shot up Cara's leg and jolted her in six different directions, toyed with her vision and senses, and any other woman would've cried out, if only to release small portion of the unbelievable agony and emotional betrayal.
"Stay still or I'll do each toe and all your fingers," Dahlia ordered firmly. She looked up at Kahlan, reading the paralyzed pulses of shock in her eyes. "Turn her over."
Cara closed her eyes, working through the varying multitudes of pain that began to collide into each other, as she was flipped over and Dahlia grabbed her wrists, locked each cuff in place and rolled her again onto her back.
With her knuckles swelling, Dahlia released another punch into Cara's face, and then clawed the remaining force to shove one more hit into her stomach.
"You deserve to die," Dahlia said, climbing on top of her, "and you deserve to suffer."
Cara spit in her face. "So do you."
"It's Mistress Cara..." Kahlan whimpered, gently touching the top of the Mord'Sith's head. "She's sorry."
Dahlia leaned down, enjoying the feel of Cara's subtle trembling the closer she got into her face. She touched her lips and whispered poignantly into her ear. "You're not Cara," she said, grabbing into her neck, "but you will be."
***
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Cara/Kahlan/Dahlia, Denna/Snake
Warnings: Extreme non-con, torture, Agiel violence, hurt/comfort, bdsm, gore, angst, Mord’Sith temper, domestic violence, evil!cara, language
Author’s Note: AU. Snake trained Denna to be Mord'Sith.
Summary: Mistress Cara wants to own a Confessor. Dahlia wants to give her one.
Disclaimer: I only own my sickness. Not for profit, only for demented fun. Legend of the Seeker characters and depictions belong to Terry Goodkind, Disney and ABC Studios.
For Gizmo :D
Sleet was pouring just outside the high window of Cara’s room but, to Denna, it was falling all around them as she sat on her Mistress' lap, facing her, licked the sweat off her cheek and continued roughly fucking her, rocking them back and forth in Cara's chair.
Snake moaned her name, digging both hands into each of Denna's sides, controlling the thrusts, the speed, the hate of it all. She hadn’t even bothered to take her pet's dirty dress off again. Snake felt Denna had responded best to her phallus and she was eager for this streak to continue.
"You’re taking me just like Dahlia does," Snake panted, taking some of Denna’s drenched hair between her teeth, enjoying the ride, "only she’s better."
Denna tried to slow herself, to pace herself against Snake’s maddened need to damage her, to absorb all she was and could’ve been and give it back somehow. She opened herself more, allowed Snake to go deeper, to fill her and rob her in the same motion.
"Good, Denna," Snake praised, running her fingernails into Denna’s back, bunching up the material and shifting her to receive heavier hits, "you’re still my good girl, aren’t you?"
Denna nodded, keeping her eyes somewhere dark, somewhere she hoped would be invisible.
"Tell me what you are," Snake drove her, softening her clutch.
"I'm…" Denna choked, wrapping her arms around Snake's neck, "coming."
"Stop," Snake said, purposely finding her best rhythm, "Denna, stop. Control yourself. That's not what you are."
"Mistress," Denna whispered, pounding hard, tearfully, "stop me."
A single bead of sweat from Denna’s forehead dripped onto Snake’s nose and just as suddenly as it dropped, Denna was thrown to the ground, landing raggedly onto her back, knocking the wind out of her, leaving her gasping for more than she knew.
"Have you forgotten…" Snake growled, lifting one finger and motioning her to come to back to the place she had just been tossed from, "that the closest thing to being control you will ever be with me is the final moment when you come to understand that you never will be."
Denna refused to crawl forward, and instead, defiantly edged herself up on her toes, three of which were broken and stood up. With her eyes strict and locked with her Mistress, she wiped the blood, the juices, the sweat from between her thighs and smeared it on the back of her dress. It was precisely the part Snake had just handled.
She climbed back on Snake’s lap, each of her own legs over each of Snake’s thighs, facing each other again. Denna had another chance.
Snake smoothed the wooden sides of her seat with her palms before she brought her hands back tauntingly to Denna‘s hips. "Is it the chair? Does it distract you?"
"Yes." Denna kept her head lowered, and Snake gently brought it to rest in the dip of her shoulder blade. It was the safest place.
"I expect you to enhance, not ruin, my memories of Cara here," Snake reprimanded, replaced the phallus once again inside Denna, jolting her, and tightening her down. "Does it hurt?" she asked, cupping the back of Denna’s head further into her.
"You always hurt," Denna replied, aware that the honesty would most likely soothe Snake’s ears. The gamble was worth it.
"Be grateful for that," Snake urged her, kissing her ear and letting her words flow into it, "for your ability to always feel pain over feeling nothing. I gave you that."
Denna moved more understated, more needy as she tried again. It was more like Cara did when they were far away from the Temple and she was hungry for Dahlia.
"Good..." Snake smiled, tangling her fingers along her scalp, "let your body love me like it used to. I care for you."
Denna exhaled, finding her lips felt a singe of dominance as they touched the leather of Snake's neckpiece. She wished she could rip into it with the best of her teeth and tear it apart like it was something that needed to die.
"I'm sure it’s hard, Denna," she said, allowing Denna to emphasizing her more tame and even strokes, "to have such insight into so much and the power to do nothing about it."
Denna's groans where more like cries disguised as bursts of pleasurable release. But Snake felt she could never be fooled, in any capacity, by Denna's mouth as long as she lived to hear it. She knew that Denna was torn apart inside, literally and figuratively, and still Denna took it all, she wanted to serve. She wanted to endure. She yearned to survive this brokenness, this battered demotion, and this reversal of self.
Denna was bleeding, conscious that it was seeping into her Mistress' lap, and every muscle was battling the frenzy of over-exertion and exhaustion. But still, Denna kept her face pressed into Snake and took what she had to offer.
Snake had found a more gentle and more doting way to penetrate Denna and dealt her a few more thrusts of that endearing variety before she stopped altogether, smoothing down Denna's hair.
"Would you like to sleep in their bed? Are you tired, my precious thing?"
Denna raised her head, looked into her Mistress' eyes. Denna saw right through the sense of entitlement that lived there as she nodded sheepishly, considering the weight of what the price would be for any rest, any rare exchange of respite.
"First, tell me what I taught you about pain. Indulge me with your favorite words of mine."
Denna choked on something she sensed was fright within her throat, and caution in retrieving her memories.
"Pain is only valuable once you know you've learned from it."
"Why do you continue to love it?"
"Value and love are two different things."
"That's my girl. Why do you value pain, Denna?"
She bit her lip, stifling the urge to mirror her Mistress and smile. "Because sometimes I learn from it."
"And why do you love pain?"
"Because sometimes I don't learn from it."
Snake touched the side of Denna's face, briefly proud of it, and tucked the wettest, dirtiest parts of her hair behind her ears.
"The tragedy is..." Snake began, kissing her only to savagely break it, "is that you were never suppose to disappoint me."
Denna lowered her eyes but kept her head high.
"And if I told you I want you to suffer until the end of your days for what you have done, what would you want?" Snake inquired, interested.
"I want to live forever."
Snake scoffed, twisting Denna's neck to the side and moaning as her tongue kneaded sloppily against it. She had been careful not to bruise it too horribly for herself.
She raised Denna's dress, giggling in between slurps how excruciating it had to be for Denna to raise her arms straight in the air she did. It wasn't so much amusement as it was sheer satisfaction.
"When I fuck Cara," Snake whispered, digging into her back, glad for the material to be gone, "she begs me to do it in her bed. She pleads. Do you know why?"
It hurt to say, and she took a single ride up and down onto her Mistress, guessing she could get away with it as she felt the name in her weary mouth. "Dahlia."
"She needs to be close to her. It keeps her alive, passionate, predictable. It keeps her in service. But you..."
Denna gulped and shuddered, wishing she could find the courage to repeat the exquisite action.
"You are my most unfortunate mistake."
***
For the first time, Cara was able to look in Kahlan's eyes and not see everything she wasn't.
Kahlan massaged Cara's back and shoulders with the most care and attention that she had ever used on anyone, including Dahlia. The warm water felt busy and delightful on each set of their separate injuries. They were numerous, for each of them.
When she was sated, Cara touched Kahlan's hand and pulled her back around, splashing and disturbing the peace of the liquid, and cradling the Confessor in her arms though not bringing her anywhere near enough to her chest to connect them.
"What's so good about holding you?" Cara asked, genuinely wondering.
"I don't know," Kahlan admitted. "You can hold me closer."
"I know what I can do," she scoffed, mildly amused by Kahlan's permission.
"Mistress?"
Cara looked at her, sharpness returning gradually to her eyes. They told her to speak.
"Are we safe here? Is Mistress Dahlia safe?"
"Yes," Cara lied, "Dahlia never has to worry."
Kahlan looked down, pouted visibly though unaware it showed half as deep as it did.
Cara brought her arms in a few inches, hugging Kahlan closer, but still at a considerable distance. "I will protect you too," she added casually. "I wouldn't have brought you if I couldn't."
"From the other Mord'Sith? Darken Rahl?"
Cara squinted, trying to see the kind of woman that Dahlia consistently saw. "From everything."
Kahlan smiled, and as she fixated on the bruise she left on Cara's mouth and cheek, the smile faded, and she wished the wound would fade along with it.
"What will happen to us?" Kahlan asked.
"We will stay here until Dahlia recovers. You will serve her," Cara said, clutching her tighter, "and me."
"For how long...?"
Cara blinked, uncertain if she heard correctly. She parted her lips, resisting the urge to push the Confessor's head under.
Kahlan realized her poor choice of words and quickly reworked her thought. "How long until she recovers, Mistress?"
"I don't know," Cara replied firmly, matter-of-factly, "I always ensured a wizard cured her immediately."
Kahlan thought back to when Dahlia used a wizard to mend her spine. The forbidden darkness and danger of it, the accompanying notion that even the most sacred rules could be tossed aside by Mord'Sith when love and therefore the potential for loss entered into their lives.
"It takes most people-
"Dahlia is not like most people," Cara snapped, personally insulted. "She's stronger in ways you could never comprehend."
She longed to know as much as Cara did. "She's always been that way?"
"She's always been a lot of things."
"Was it very bad for you?" Kahlan asked softly, pausing, "the training, I mean?"
"There is nothing "bad" about training, Kahlan."
Kahlan nodded, looking away. It had been bad for her. "Mistress Dahlia will like it here."
"That's why I found it," Cara said, releasing Kahlan from her arms and swinging back her head, letting the steamed water untangle and saturate her hair. She glared as Kahlan who had grown increasingly unattached to the idea of separation and was edging back, wanting to be embraced again.
"Can you tell me a story about her?" Kahlan asked, trembling at her fleeting courage. "From when she was little?"
Cara brought her palms through the water and splashed it up at her own face. She felt ridiculous. "When we were seven years old, Dahlia liked the watch the sun go down from the top branches of this tree," Cara recalled, imagining how the greenest leaves blew through it in the summer wind and could almost convince them that they were in flight.
"What kind of tree?" Kahlan asked, her eyes wide and overly expectant.
"It was an orange tree. A very orange one."
"You just sat there? Together? Was it very beautiful?"
Cara thought about it, looking off for a moment as if she could will that same orange tree to grow for them right there on that bank in the middle of this winter. "We would play a game," Cara finally admitted. "She would compare the colors of the fruit we ate to the color of the sun as it set. She was awful at it."
"She was a sweet child, wasn't she?"
Cara nodded uncomfortably, recalling the red bows in Dahlia's hair and her little hands picking at them. "She could pretend the oranges were small suns too. One time she gave me her sun to hold, and I threw it. She went after it and I lost my grip on her and she fell."
Kahlan gasped, horrified by the image. "What happened, Mistress?!"
Cara cleared her throat. "She got up and we walked home. She hid her arm from me and I couldn't see how broken it was," she said, touching her own lip, thinking of Dahlia, "and that was innocence...when I thought pain was when she fell from a tree."
"Oh Mistress..." Kahlan squeaked, choking up, "please tell me another one."
"No," Cara said, nudging her away, gentle by her standards. "The past has no power."
***
Snake slept on Cara's side of the bed and allowed Denna the privilege of sleeping next to her on Dahlia's side. The pillows still smelled of them. Their room remained untouched, unclean, and unforgotten.
"Are you looking out that window, Denna?" Snake asked, watching Denna's back, stroking it, gnawing the majority of her nails over the lines of indecent scratch marks and lash burns.
"The moon just passed over us."
"Everything passes over you, doesn't it?"
Denna swallowed her sadness and nodded, knowing her Mistress expected some sort of response, even if it was a cowardly one.
Snake pulled Denna securely into her, kissed once at her neck as she spooned her, and considered the night around them.
"They are out there," Snake said, squeezing Denna's waist comfortingly, "and they will be home soon."
"This is no home," Denna replied, cringing at Snake's voice and suffocating on the implication that she could've ever believed it was.
"Easy now, Denna," Snake warned, kissing again at her, moving her fingers between Denna's legs, forcing them apart. "I love you more than your pathetic mother ever could. Though..." Snake edged inside, circling Denna's walls, "you feel like her."
Denna crashed her own tongue between her own teeth and concentrated on the window as she attempted to ban any images of her mother from her aching head. But all she saw was that woman who bore her, outside the window, and waiting desperately for her little girl.
"Denna..." Snake said, "I want you to beg for your mother like you used to."
"She's dead," she replied with a meager groan, her body coming alive with Snake's delicate strokes inside her. "You killed her."
"All for you."
"And for nothing," she purred, pushing against Snake's toughening motion.
"Beg for someone else you love."
"There is no one else, Mistress."
"Oh Denna, my poor child," Snake felt her wetness, the heated contracting within her pet. "Deception only brings misery. Beg for me. Beg for Cara. For Lord Rahl."
Denna tried. She tried to plead for her Mistress, or to say Cara's name, even attempting to beg for reinstating into Lord Rahl's favor. She tried to convince her voice that servitude was sometimes the only option, and more often, could be the only lasting cure for this pain.
But Denna was above that. She said nothing. Denna felt like nothing. She was like the window, caught shiftless between two separated worlds, one protected and one forever uncertain.
In her heart, she knew she was breaking even more. Part of her welcomed it, while another part, the one that held the more thankless pieces of her, never wanted to surrender and whether she lived one more minute or another hundred years, this part of her always knew more.
"Dahlia..." Denna said, feeling herself start to come, reaching down and covering Snake's hand, keeping her moving.
"You want Dahlia?" she asked, angrily changing her speed to match her emotion.
"No…" Denna bucked back, her hair tingling the pores on Snake's cheeks. "You feel like Dahlia," she sneered, "only softer."
***
The next few days passed slowly and quietly in he cabin. Cara burned the bodies of Aven and Thomas under each respective tree and walked away from their ashes. She barely said a word, leaving the bed early to chop wood, hunt for game, walk circles around their perimeter, brush down the horses, and sit alone.
To Cara, it was all a slave's work, a pet's work, Kahlan's rightful work. The alternative, keeping vigil over Dahlia, was the greater of the two feelings of smallness and helplessness.
Though she tried to remain skillfully out of sight, Cara didn't travel too far off and kept her watchful eye on the cabin for any attempts to escape or any potential need for her Breath of Life. But the cabin stayed peaceful, and warm.
When she returned in the night, Dahlia and Kahlan would often each be asleep, and there would be a distinct spot in the middle for her. She would cuddle the best she could with Dahlia but her body was more stiff and cold than she ever knew, and she would only occasionally return any affection, usually in her sleep.
On the fifth night, when the moon was high and the room was at it's darkest, Cara turned to Kahlan and covered her mouth, jolting her from a soundless dream. Cara quickly replaced her hand with her mouth and kissed her, climbing onto her, eager for her hair to cascade down over them, secluding them, until she could no longer see Dahlia's head out of the corner of her eye.
"Cara..." came the voice, hazily turning over.
Cara whipped her head up, licked her lips, resentful of the taste. "Go back to sleep," she said, reaching over and touching the side of Dahlia's cheek.
"She's finally healing..."
"She's still mine too," Cara replied, turning back to look down at Kahlan. "Behave and I'll be fast."
"Wait," Dahlia said, sounding like more of a plea than she ever intended.
Cara exhaled, and it turned into a condensed and surprised laugh all at once. Dahlia knew better than that. Cara didn't know the meaning of such a word.
Slowly, Cara swung her leg around, off Kahlan and moved to Dahlia. Although Dahlia's eyes were hopelessly locked on Cara, her voice spoke to the Confessor. "Go sleep by the fireplace where it's warmer," she said carefully. "Take a blanket."
Kahlan scrambled, taking the thinnest sheet with her, and disappeared as quickly as she always did when ordered to relocate by one of her Mistresses.
Cara looked down at the empty spot that once contained Kahlan and shook her head. She moved next to Dahlia, slithering close enough to share the same pillow, relaxing her body close to hers and looking into her.
Cara opened her mouth but swallowed the sentence once before she formed another one. "I know what you have to do. And you know it too, don't you?"
Dahlia took a breath, distantly lowering her head. "I can't."
"Dahlia," Cara started, bringing it back up, "don't you want to go back in time?"
She followed the thought painfully. "We cannot permanently live in the past."
"We can do anything," she replied, stroking Dahlia's face with the back of her soft knuckles, letting her melt into it. "Look at you," Cara continued adoringly, "I've made you stronger than this."
"You didn't..." Dahlia pressed, wrapping her fingers around each of Cara's hips. She nearly kissed her, but at the last moment, looked into her eyes, saw the unfamiliar woman that was there and refrained.
A darkness crept into Cara's gaze as she moved Dahlia's hands off of her. "I'm aware of the consequences."
Cara climbed out of bed and thundered to the floor, rocking the floorboards, and her bare flesh suddenly lighting the room.
Dahlia sat up quickly on one elbow, weakened. "What are you-
"Kahlan," Cara seethed, grabbing her Agiel and licking it's tip. "We have some unfinished business."
Dahlia gasped, caught between saying Cara's name and calling to warn Kahlan as the Mord'Sith stormed out, running full speed down the hall and throwing her free hand into the Confessor's hair, satisfied only when Kahlan was forced to her hardened knees, begging for Dahlia.
"Cara, stop!" Dahlia commanded, hearing the feeding whine of the Agiel, hurrying as fast as her sore balance would allow. "Cara!"
In the softened glow of the dying fire, Kahlan's mouth was already being pressed between Cara's legs, her whimpering muffled by the force of both Cara's grinding and her unrelenting, frenzied grip. She inched towards them, and Cara didn't even look up.
Realizing she had forgotten her Agiel, Dahlia looked down at her hands. They were shaking. She turned them over, inspected her palms, the tops. She took a deep breath and curled them into fists.
The first hit smashed monstrously across Cara's cheek, the same one Kahlan had damaged, and the second one came from the other direction, stunning Cara enough for her momentarily release her hold, giving Dahlia the time to pull the Confessor tactfully back by her arm.
With a spiteful gleam bouncing off her pupil, she rushed forward as Cara was straightening herself and snatched the Agiel viciously from her hand, diving it into Cara’s shoulder with equal contempt, finally allowing it to rattle it’s way to Cara’s neck and frost the blood under her chin.
Cara blindly, though passionately, tried to return the hits, but Dahlia had positioned the weapon well and it immobilized her. She was upright, though only in the physical sense.
"Stay on your knees, Cara!" Dahlia cried, kicking her legs out from under her as the magic ate through Cara's most vital veins, crippling her, forcing her bodily submission below Dahlia.
Kahlan watched a timeless short distance across as Cara tried to get up, grabbing violently at Dahlia's knee, but was only knocked again across her hardened face, and this time, so jaggedly that a pointed splatter of blood gushed from Cara's mouth and nose simultaneously and landed across the stark whiteness of Dahlia's dress.
It reminded Kahlan of Richard's blood, only Cara's squirted more forcefully and stained more demeaningly.
Dahlia kicked her stomach once, mercilessly, and when she didn't immediately fall onto her back, she focused all her pain into her lower body and kicked her again, slamming her back into the floor.
Only when Dahlia stomped on her, cracking bone, did Cara finally release a single stifled cry and squirmed under the bare foot that pierced down hard into her abdomen.
When she looked up, all she could see was her Agiel and her love had both turned against her.
"You're weak," Dahlia spit, biting back on her emotion, "and you deserve neither of us."
"I deserve a hundred bitches better than you," Cara swore, gurgling on her own blood, and smirking.
Kahlan crawled over and huddled next to Dahlia's feet, burying her face into her Mistress' shin. "It's ok, Kahlan," Dahlia soothed her, "it'll all be over soon."
"She will only be your death," Cara snarled to the Confessor, showing all her teeth. "She loves no one but me."
Dahlia gently kneeled down, brushing some hair away from her eyes and pressed Cara's own Agiel a centimeter from her heart, convulsing her up, watching each line of undiscriminating magic crawl up Cara's face and become a part of her twisted expression.
When she was ready, and not before, Dahlia reclaimed the Agiel and heedfully brought it back to smack it wildly across Cara's face. "Don't you dare speak about love."
The stale and horrific sounds of her struggling to breathe severed both Dahlia and Kahlan's thoughts as Cara bitterly hung onto the consciousness as best she could. But a considerable amount of time had passed since she'd been overpowered by an Agiel, and never like this from Dahlia.
"She needs her chain," Dahlia said, stroking Kahlan's head, nodding her away.
"I will kill you," Cara promised, staring coldly, choking on the sourness of how she bled.
"You already did that." Dahlia slammed the Agiel back into Cara's ribs, feeling it connect to her cage and digging it down.
Cara gasped and writhed but wouldn't scream. She wouldn't look anywhere but into the center of Dahlia's eyes, hating and overtly punishing her with them.
Dahlia would never go through with any of this, Cara thought. She was incapable of doing anything but loving her and spoiling her and bending to any position Cara desired. Dahlia only valiantly fought this war, tortured others and took pets because it was a necessary component to both please and serve alongside her Mistress. Or so Cara had almost come to believe.
Mistress Dahlia rose proudly to her feet.
Kahlan returned, sniffling back on her shock and fear and turmoil and produced the chain to Dahlia. The metal clashed against Dahlia's fingernails and stung the warmness of her hand with it's coarse frigidness and power. It could restrain Cara, bind her, and subdue her. It could do all the things she never could. And it was just a piece of metal.
"Stand up, Cara," Dahlia ordered, nudging Kahlan behind herself, shielding her.
"I will never..." Cara panted, winded and fractured, "obey you." She swallowed and took an angry baited breath and it was fire. "Do your worst, Dahlia."
"Stand up, or Kahlan will hold you down."
Cara's head whirled towards Kahlan, smugly demanding her attention. "Just try, you disgusting bitch."
"Kahlan?" Dahlia said, sternly over her shoulder, "you want to help your Mistress, don't you?"
"Mistress, I can't."
Dahlia reached behind her back, felt for the softness of Kahlan's hair and pulled her around by it, throwing her to her knees. "Hold her down."
Dahlia kneeled back down and shoved her Agiel into the heel of Cara's foot as Kahlan moved in back of Cara, and took hold of both her shoulders, and pressed them down. She was holding her down.
Finally, as Dahlia relented with the Agiel, she quickly took hold of Cara's big toe and in one enraged action, destructively ripped her toenail clean off.
The raw nerve endings immediately buckled at the excruciating loss and white hot searing pain shot up Cara's leg and jolted her in six different directions, toyed with her vision and senses, and any other woman would've cried out, if only to release small portion of the unbelievable agony and emotional betrayal.
"Stay still or I'll do each toe and all your fingers," Dahlia ordered firmly. She looked up at Kahlan, reading the paralyzed pulses of shock in her eyes. "Turn her over."
Cara closed her eyes, working through the varying multitudes of pain that began to collide into each other, as she was flipped over and Dahlia grabbed her wrists, locked each cuff in place and rolled her again onto her back.
With her knuckles swelling, Dahlia released another punch into Cara's face, and then clawed the remaining force to shove one more hit into her stomach.
"You deserve to die," Dahlia said, climbing on top of her, "and you deserve to suffer."
Cara spit in her face. "So do you."
"It's Mistress Cara..." Kahlan whimpered, gently touching the top of the Mord'Sith's head. "She's sorry."
Dahlia leaned down, enjoying the feel of Cara's subtle trembling the closer she got into her face. She touched her lips and whispered poignantly into her ear. "You're not Cara," she said, grabbing into her neck, "but you will be."
***