The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

They were only twelve, but they rode through the Shadowlands as though they led an army.

If they had led an army, it would have gone much the worse for them; the hordes of the Shadowlands that were in thrall to the dark god Kauroth bred ceaselessly in the dark realms beyond the power of Istan, Lord of Light. The nightlings and sunbanes and shadowmancers of the dark realms could not cross the border of the Shadowlands, but those of the race of Man who passed that border did so at their own risk. Ten thousand men would not be enough to pacify the Shadowlands.

But Auric and his men did not seek to pacify the dark creatures that lay beyond the Kingdom. It was neither pride nor folly that spurred them on, deeper and deeper into the darkness. They rode out of desperation, and Istan’s blessings rode with them. (Although as Auric looked over at Bectan, the elderly, half-deaf priest who struggled to control his horse, he thought that perhaps they would have done better to bring Istan’s blessings in a more abstract form.)

He only prayed that Bectan would not slow them down. Every second was of the essence; from the moment they had discovered the Queen’s disappearance, time had begun to run out for Her Royal Majesty Glorianna the First. The enemy had achieved through stealth and subterfuge what force of arms never could, and now Auric and his handpicked force knew that they had to duplicate the effort and rescue the Queen with but a few men.

They did not lead an army, but they knew they must do what no army could.

Onward they rode, silently through the endless night of the Shadowlands, through strange forests of trees nourished by darkness instead of light, through marshes and bogs of brackish water that flowed from the obsidian mountains to the north. They did not need to track the kidnappers; the Tower of Kauroth stood out, dark even against darkness, a blacker shade of night than all the evil surrounding it.

Auric and his men rode to the Tower, all the while praying to Istan that they were not too late.

Glorianna woke out of a nightmare into a nightmare. Her eyes fluttered open, still blinking away tendrils of a dark dream in which men transformed themselves into vast, featherless black birds and gripped her in their talons, and she let out a scream as she saw the room around her. Hideous faces, carved out of black stone, seemed to leer at her—no, not seemed, she realized. It was no trick of the firelight. The very walls of the tower were alive with the dark power of their god, and they gazed upon her naked flesh with twisted desire.

Terrified, she searched for something to conceal her body from their lascivious gaze, but she had been left to lie there, naked and alone in the tiny circle of torchlight with darkness all around her. Alone. Helpless. Abandoned by all.

No, she thought as she rose to her feet. Not all. Even in this dark place, Istan has not abandoned me.

“Not yet, Your Highness,” a voice said in the darkness. Glorianna flinched as she realized the speaker had read her thoughts. “But soon, you will step away from his side. You will cast aside the harsh light of Istan’s embrace for the cool, soothing, comforting darkness...and you will love it.”

“Never!” Glorianna’s voice rang out, echoing defiance from the walls of the tower. “I am Queen of the Kingdom, Istan’s chosen. The Light shines through me, and the love of my people reflect it back through me unto the glory of Istan.”

“But your people are far, far away from here, Your Majesty.” The voice was nearer now. She wanted to back away from it, but she could only go so far before she pressed herself back against the wall, and she could not bear the touch of the lustful gargoyles for even a second. “You are in the very heart of darkness, the center of Kauroth’s power. And by the time you return to the Kingdom, you will be broken to my will, broken to the darkness of Kauroth. And that darkness will fall over the Kingdom entire, like a flame fading to an ember, until the Shadowlands flow over all that is.”

Glorianna thought she recognized the voice now. The memory of the dream returned to her, and she felt a chill run through the very marrow of her bones as she realized it was no dream at all. “Yeandros?” she asked, hesitantly. “It...it cannot be.” She choked back a sob as he stepped into the circle of the fire, and she realized her most trusted physic was, indeed, the man who had brought her here. “Oh, Yeandros,” she sighed. “When did you fall into the shadows?”

Yeandros chuckled, his eyes drinking in the sight of her nudity as though he had never seen a woman before. “Before you were even born, my Queen.” The firelight flickered off of his shaven head and glittered darkly in his eyes as he spoke. “Don’t look so surprised, Your Highness. It is the nature of darkness to conceal. Kauroth granted me the means to deceive, long ago when I first entered His service. Just as He will grant you the means to conceal your own, far more vast treachery from your people until it is too late.”

Glorianna almost fell to her knees in despair over his betrayal, but the pride of a queen would not let her. “But you have been in service to the Royal Family for decades! You bore me out of my mother’s womb, eighteen summers ago!”

“And what a shame it was, that your mother died in childbirth.” His voice sounded as sorrowful and as sympathetic as it ever had when the subject came up, but the wicked smile on his face finally showed the truth. “It’s amazing what a few herbs can do to thin the blood and make it flow all the quicker.”

A lesser woman would have broken under the weight of the truth, but Queen Glorianna only let it harden her heart. “And my father? You tended to him after his riding accident. Was he another of your victims?”

Yeandros shook his head. “A lucky happenstance, My Lady. He was already beyond saving when I was called. It saved me the trouble of having to arrange his death, for you were always intended to inherit the throne young. Kauroth wanted a monarch who was unready for the challenges of power. He promised you to me when you were only a girl, Glorianna. And now it is time for that promise to be fulfilled.”

“I would die first,” Glorianna said. Her voice was calm, composed. Even here, in Kauroth’s darkness, she felt the peace of Istan readying her for a martyr’s death.

“Such a pity that the choice is not yours,” Yeandros said. He gestured, and Glorianna felt the floor beneath her feet turn to damp, thick, glutinous mud. “You will find that death is a luxury you are to be denied, My Queen. Though you might wish for it, even beg for it, you will find that the only escape is to submit to my will...and through my will, to give in to the eternal might of Kauroth.”

Glorianna felt the warm mud slowly oozing around her toes. She could see solid ground just a few feet beyond her at the edge of the torchlight, but when she raised one foot to step towards it, the other sank into the mud up to the ankle. “You have confused me with a peasant,” she snarled out, “or one of the pitiful wretches that dwells within Kauroth’s domain. I am a Queen. I do not beg.”

“Blessed be to Kauroth,” Yeandros whispered reverently as Glorianna tried to pull her foot free, only to wind up sunk to the knees in warm, clinging mud. “So many times, He has sent me visions of this day, of your defiance breaking beneath the endless will of Kauroth until you beg to be my slave, but to actually experience the reality of it...”

Glorianna tried to keep her balance as she fought the sucking, grasping mud. “You have not seen it yet, Yeandros. Do not feast upon a harvest not yet sowed.”

“Oh, but we both know the terror hiding beneath that royal stoicism, My Lady. Remember it? When you were a child, crossing the footbridge over the Silver River?” Glorianna tried to keep the shadow of fear from crossing her face, but she felt the mud clinging to her thighs, and her panic betrayed itself in ever more frantic struggles instead. “Remember the rotten wood of the bridge collapsing?”

“I...will never...serve!” Glorianna shouted, but the chill fingers of childhood terror grasped at her mind nonetheless. She could feel things moving in the muck, brushing against her naked skin as she sank deeper with each thrashing attempt to struggle free. The mud itself seemed to be alive. It seemed to caress her, promising an eternity in its dark embrace. She remembered mud filling her mouth as she screamed for help, that horrible moment that seemed to last forever when she thought she would drown in it...her father had saved her, pulled her free of the muck of the riverbed. But her father was long dead now. She was all alone.

“The more you struggle, Your Majesty, the faster you sink.” Yeandros’ eyes glittered more strongly now, as though lit with their own internal fires. “Struggling and fighting only make you more helpless, only drag you deeper down into the darkness. The more you resist, the deeper you sink into the nightmare.” Glorianna felt the oozing muck pressing up against her crotch now, and she wasn’t sure if it was her imagination that made it seem like the sticky mud pressed against her maidenhood with a lewd eagerness. “The only way to escape is to stop fighting. Stop resisting. The terror can stop then, I can save you from this if you stop fighting.”

Glorianna felt a sickening rush of dizziness, and she flung her hands forward to stop herself from falling. They, too, sank easily into the mud, but she only managed to pull one hand back out. It came away thick with grasping, clinging mire, and she thrashed all the more violently in revulsion. Yeandros just watched, his eyes burning brightly now with blood-red fires. “You cannot escape, Glorianna. You are not strong enough. You will be dragged down, down into the darkness forever, entombed in filth. Every effort to free yourself merely seals your fate. Only through me, through my aid and my will can you be free of your fear, free of your terror, free of your nightmare. Just reach your hand out and ask me for help, and I can free you.”

Glorianna felt the mud around her belly now, but she couldn’t look down to see herself sink into it. She couldn’t look away from Yeandros’ burning eyes. She continued to struggle, but a strange lethargy seemed to make her muscles leaden. She felt despair taking her over. Every effort to resist just brought her worst childhood nightmare to life. Yeandros had always been there for her, after her parents had died. He’d always taken that nightmare away. He’d always held her, stroked her hair, whispered softly in her ears as she fell back to sleep. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to let him take this nightmare away one more time? Nobody else could, she knew. He was all she had, he was all that stood between her and the choking, grasping darkness beneath her. Everyone else had left her, even...

Her parents. Her parents dead, and Yeandros their murderer. With a titanic effort, Glorianna clenched her eyes tightly shut, blocking out Yeandros’ gaze. She redoubled her efforts, not striking out in any particular direction this time, but merely thrashing around in the muck with blind fury, almost willing herself to sink deeper. The mud oozed around her breasts, buoying them up for a few moments before it swallowed them.

She could hear Yeandros’ voice, warning her of the doom that awaited her should she keep struggling, but she blocked it out. Deliberately, she plunged her other hand into the mud, pressing it as deeply into the filth as she possibly could. Her struggles now took place almost entirely below the surface; only her head stuck out now.

The mire seemed to welcome her like an old friend, caressing her whole body as she sank ever deeper. She could feel her blonde hair floating above the surface now, her tresses becoming dirty as the mud clung to them. Her chin pressed against the surface of the muck, and she swallowed a deep breath and pressed her lips together in anticipation.

The black mud against her mouth felt different from the chaste daydreams she’d had, back in the Kingdom as she’d imagined her first kiss. It pressed against her insistently, seeking to find its way into her just as it had oozed its way between her nether lips. Even as she thrashed harder, seeking now just an end to the nightmare and a martyr’s death, she found that she could barely move. The mud held her tighter than any lover’s embrace.

Yeandros’ voice became muffled now, as the muck oozed into her ears and blocked off all the sounds from the outside world. Now all she heard was the sickening squish of mud, the strange noises seeming to form another, darker language that whispered darker promises to her. Strange currents of black mire stroked her and told her of Kauroth, of the pleasures that awaited her in his service, and there was not a single spot on her body that the mud could not touch now.

Glorianna felt her lungs burn for air. Victory would be hers soon, she knew. She thought one last time of Istan, and offered up a silent prayer that he would find a worthy successor for the throne...

“I told you, Your Highness.” The words rang clear in her ears, and Glorianna opened her eyes to find herself lying once again on the obsidian floor. She would have thought it all an illusion, save for the thin coating of black slime on her body. “Death is a luxury you are to be denied.”

Glorianna wanted to weep, but she would not give him the satisfaction.

Without Bectan’s aid, they would never even have made it into the tower. Even with Bectan’s help, they still lost a man—Shon had been the boldest of them, perhaps too bold. They had spread out to search for an entrance, but when they could not find a door anywhere on the outside of the tower, it had been Shon who had said, “Perhaps one of these gargoyles has a hidden knob, or something,” and it had been Shon who had reached out to touch the nightmare carvings that covered the entire surface of the tower.

And it was Shon that the gargoyles grabbed, taking hold of his hand and pulling him into their waiting arms. Auric had grabbed Shon’s other hand, and for long moments, he fought a gruesome tug-of-war with the creatures as he cried out for aid. Desperation lent him strength, but the creatures scratched and bit and clawed at every inch of Shon’s flesh they could grab, and when they clutched at his hair and pulled his head into their nightmare embrace, Auric had taken the only course he could. He pulled out his sword and put his friend and comrade out of his misery.

Bectan had arrived moments later with the other knights, but too late for Shon. The carvings cackled and gibbered, the sound spreading until the entire tower laughed in sinister triumph. “I fear there is no entrance,” Bectan said. “At least, none that will allow us in. Only the corrupted creatures of this realm can pass freely into Kauroth’s tower.”

“Then how can we rescue the Queen, old man?” Auric asked. “If we cannot even enter the tower...”

“No,” Bectan said, “I don’t think we can wait an hour.” Auric sighed. He knew Bectan’s wits weren’t addled, but he wished the old man’s pride didn’t force him to pretend he still had his hearing. “We’ll have to force our way in. I’d hoped to keep our presence here a secret, but...”

He straightened up. Suddenly, Bectan didn’t seem like a doddering old man at all. He seemed to fill with an inner light, glowing in a sharp contrast to the darkness of the Shadowlands. He held up his staff, and the symbol of the sun at its tip glowed like the dawn in the night. “One warning, creatures,” he said, and his voice rang with authority. “Let us pass, or I shall burn you where you stand.”

The creatures hissed and spat defiance at him. “So be it,” he said, and light poured out from him, through the staff, and onto the walls of the tower. The creatures melted away like shadows under its power, and Auric heard a sizzling sound he’d never be able to forget as the light burned a passage into the tower. “Quickly,” Bectan said. “They’ll send reinforcements to seal the breach soon enough.”

“You did it!” Auric gasped in astonishment as he and his men raced into the tower. Thankfully, the inner walls were mere stone. “Praise be to Istan!” Perhaps he’d underestimated Bectan after all.

“Lazy old man?” Bectan snapped out indignantly. “I might be getting on in years, but I’m as ready to handle these stairs as the rest of you!”

Auric decided not to comment further. Instead, he brought his sword out, and his men did likewise as they began to climb the tower. Here, in the stronghold of Kauroth itself, there was no telling what creatures might block their path. They might come face to face with nightbearers, or dreadspiders, or...

Or beautiful, dusk-skinned women, dressed in shimmering green dresses and bright golden necklaces, kneeling on the wide-open landing and gazing up at the knights with wide, pleading eyes. “Help us,” one of them whispered. “Kauroth holds us here, imprisoned by dark magic and awaiting the call to become handmaidens to His dark will.”

Another took up the call. “Help us,” she said, her voice a hissing whisper in the echoing hallway. “These necklaces bind us more surely than any chains, for we cannot remove them ourselves. We are doomed, without your aid.”

Auric stepped closer, his instincts suspecting a trap, but all he saw in the girls’ eyes was wide, desperate innocence. “Help us,” the closest cried out. “Without your help, we are doomed to a fate worse than death. Can you not help us?”

Auric tore his gaze away from the beautiful women to look at his fellow knights. The expression of steely resolve on their faces matched his own, he was sure. Besides, the task seemed to be an easy one. Turning back to the girls, he reached out to one and pulled the necklace from her shoulders, then tossed it lightly to the ground.

She rose to her feet. “Oh, thank you, good sir knight!” she cried out, hugging him tightly. “My name is Kama, and I know not how to reward you for your kindness...your bravery...your nobility...” Something in the way she shifted against him told Auric that she knew exactly how to reward him, and he tried to push her away. As beautiful as she was, this was neither the time nor the place for any such activities, even if he hadn’t taken a vow of chastity to Istan.

But she merely clung to him all the tighter, gazing up into his eyes and whispering her gratitude again and again. All around him, out of the corner of his eye, Auric saw his fellow knights aiding the other girls, but Auric was taken with the strange and beautiful color of Kama’s eyes. He’d never seen anything like it back in the Kingdom, not in any of his travels. Her eyes were the most beautiful blue...but then the blue shifted to green, right where her iris met her pupil...and then the green spread outwards, pushing the blue to the edges of her iris until it vanished completely...and then the green was, in turn, cast aside for a pale yellow...

Auric distantly realized that Kama’s embrace had stirred his member to life beneath his armor, but it somehow didn’t seem surprising. The soft, sinuous motions of her body against his were so enticing, so erotic, that it didn’t seem unusual at all when she beckoned him down to the floor with her hands and her body. They had time enough for a reward, after all. Auric found all the time he needed deep within Kama’s eyes.

She kissed him passionately, and somehow his vow of chastity seemed distant, unimportant next to the sensuous flickering of her tongue into his mouth. He sighed in pleasure as she kissed her way down his chin and neck, his eyes fluttering in bliss at the wondrous sensations. All around him, he noticed his fellow knights receiving their own rewards from their own women; even Bectan had a woman wrapped around him, although the old man seemed a little more agitated than the rest of them. At his age, he should be ashamed, Auric thought absently. Bectan tried to speak, but the dark-skinned beauty caressed his mouth with her hand, silencing him.

Kama embraced him all the tighter now, seeming as though she wanted to press every bit of her body against his own. “Darling,” she whispered, “can’t you remove this armor? It will only be in the way...”

Eagerly, Auric’s hands seemed to spring to life of their own accord, undoing buckles and unfastening straps. He pulled his breastplate away from his chest without a second thought, and Kama wrapped herself around him once more. “Perfect,” she whispered to him, her hand encircling his cock and her mouth everywhere on his chest, kissing and licking with that soft, flickering tongue as he prepared to cast his armor aside...

And then he saw her reflection, shining mirror-bright in the polished armor of his Istan-blessed breastplate.

She was no dusky beauty from the southern lands; indeed, she was not human at all. The shimmering green was not a dress, but her skin, glittering with hundreds of iridescent scales as she wrapped her snake-like body around his and began to squeeze. She had arms and hands, but what he’d imagined to be legs was merely a long, powerful tail that had encircled him over and over again. She smiled, and her reflection revealed needle-like fangs as she unhinged her jaw and tasted the air with a forked tongue, waiting for the moment when the air left his lungs once and for all so she could feed...

She noticed him staring at her reflection, and she reached out a scaly hand to tug his head back to face her own. Auric knew that once he looked into the depths of those hypnotic eyes once more, he would be lost. Instead, he closed his eyes and felt with his one free arm for where he had let his sword fall, unheeding in his trance.

“Oh, but my Lord,” she whispered (and how had he not noticed the hiss in her voice?) “If you but open your eyes, your last moments will be naught but bliss.” Her hand closed on his own, pulling him away from his sword with inhuman strength. “It will only hurt if you allow it to, gentle savior. There is no way to save yourself, so why not let me take you with sweet caresses instead of crushing agony?”

His hand fumbled, searching for something, anything. The coils tightened, pressing the breath from him, and it took all he had not to open his eyes out of sheer alarm. His fingers closed around metal—not his sword, but merely the necklace he had discarded. With a silent prayer to Istan, he grabbed the necklace and looped it around Kama’s neck.

She merely chuckled. “The necklaces were but a ruse, My Lord,” she said, her sibilant voice still as sweet as any lover’s. “Just something to distract you and draw you close. They hold no power.”

“But,” Auric gasped out, “they might hold.” And with that, he twisted the coils of metal tightly around his hand and pulled them taut against Kama’s throat.

His luck held true that day—the necklace was, indeed, strong enough to hold together even as he pulled it tight against serpent-flesh. Suddenly, Kama realized that it was she who had to struggle for air, and she thrashed tightly in an effort to draw breath. Her struggles cracked ribs and crushed tender flesh, but Auric held on for all his worth. He’d timed his assault perfectly, waited until he heard Kama exhale before he pulled, and sure enough, she ran out of breath before he did.

He opened his eyes cautiously, sucking in deep lungfuls of air. It had been a near thing.

Grabbing his sword, he sliced Kama’s head off with a single swift stroke. No sense in taking chances. Then, careful to watch only in the reflection of his armor, he dispatched the other snake-women one by one as they lay with their knights in a deadly embrace. The others helped him once they regained their senses, but three of his comrades would never rise again.

But there was no time to mourn, not now. There was only time to don their armor once more and continue the hunt.

Glorianna wanted her freedom, she wanted a sword that she could stick into the traitor Yeandros’ guts until his blood bubbled up from his mouth and spilled out onto the cold floor...but most of all, what she wanted right now was a bath.

She didn’t get any of those things. No sooner had she even started to her feet than Yeandros gestured, and a whirlwind blew up out of thin air, catching her and spinning her even as it lifted her up off the floor. “Oh, but there is no time for you to catch your breath, My Queen, not here. There will be time enough for rest once you are broken to my will.”

“Nuh...nuh...” She was trying to say, “Never,” but every time she opened her mouth, it seemed like the wind sucked the air out of her lungs faster than her lips could form words. Before she could even finish the word, she was out of breath, and it was all Glorianna could do to take some breath back inside her. The room spun around her in a dizzying blur, one that even closing her eyes could not block out.

“There will be no end to it, Your Majesty,” Yeandros said over the rush of wind. “Never an ending, not until you are mine. Kauroth has foreseen it, He has shown it to me. Your will is strong, but even the strongest rock wears away under the wind.”

Glorianna tried to take in another breath, but the air came out quicker than she could take it in. Her vision faded to a gray blur as she panted for breath. At least, she consoled herself, she could never fall victim to Yeandros’ hypnotic eyes like this. As it was, she barely even noticed him as he flashed past her with every revolution of her body within the heart of the whirlwind.

“How long do you think you can endure?” Yeandros asked. “An hour? Two hours? How long before your mind goes hazy with lack of air, your will fades under the endless spinning, and it becomes too hard to think, too easy just to accept? I guarantee you, Your Highness, we will find out. I look forward to finding out. I have waited my whole life to find out.”

Glorianna wanted to tell him she could resist forever, but she had no breath to speak. She knew she would, though. Her mind was growing accustomed to the dizziness now. She felt like she could spin within this endless wind for all time, letting the breath of Kauroth caress her body, feeling it gently blow across her nipples, her belly, her...her...she had never known any name for it other than ‘maidenhood’, but she heard words whispering in the rush of the wind, telling her the peasants’ crude terms for it, calling it her cunt, telling her of all the pleasures it was made for.

The voice of the wind seemed louder now than Yeandros’ crude taunts, speaking within the wind instead of over it. It teased her with its quiet breath, tickling her breasts and blowing gently, oh so maddeningly gently onto her cunt (and how right that word seemed, how hot and needy and powerful just like the feelings building in it!) She bucked her hips, trying to catch more of the sensation, but there was nothing to press against, nothing but air blowing against her body as she floated weightless in the empty air.

And then, just as suddenly as it had blown up, the whirlwind subsided. Glorianna fell to the ground with a sharp smacking noise, utterly unable to keep her footing as the room swayed and danced in her vision. She lay there, clinging to the ground and panting for breath. Finally, she looked up at Yeandros. “Told you...wouldn’t break...” she gasped out, watching him spin gently in her field of vision.

“Oh, you misunderstand,” Yeandros said. “I didn’t stop because I failed. I stopped because my glorious lord Kauroth has seen your weakness, and He has told me of it. Kauroth knows all, Your Majesty. He knows what will bind your soul to me forever...and truly, it is sweeter than I could have imagined.”

He gestured, and several of the gargoyles detached themselves from the wall and skittered around her, grabbing her body. “Prepare her,” Yeandros said, his voice quivering with dark pleasure.

Auric’s sword dripped with black blood now, as he and his men fought their way up the tower. The deaths of the serpent women seemed to act as a signal to the other creatures of the night. They fought purely in the realm of the physical, but their numbers were vast. The light of Bectan’s staff revealed sunbanes, their hides dripping with the black ichor they smeared onto their bodies to protect themselves from even the false dawn the priest provided. It cast shadowmancers into sharp relief, even as they forced the darkness to crawl unnaturally into the light to battle Auric and his men. It showed Auric all manner of beasts he had never even imagined, things from so deep in the Shadowlands that they had never even made it into the stories that terrified him as a child.

It mattered not. They all died under Auric’s Istan-blessed sword, and their weapons were turned away by his enchanted armor. He and his men put down what seemed like endless waves of monsters...but Auric was more worried when the hordes of enemies melted back into the shadows.

“On your guard, men,” he whispered as they ascended the stairs. No enemy barred their path as they came to another broad landing. “I fear the worst may be yet to come.”

“And right you are to fear, gentle knight.” The voice whispered from the darkness, and yet Auric could swear the speaker stood right behind him. The woman’s tones seemed to mock him, yet at the same time they promised some strange and dark pleasures beyond imagining. He shivered as though the room had turned cold. “Fear is the wisdom of your ancestors, distilled through generations of survival down into an arrow-sharp purpose. Fear tells you things that bravery does not know.” Auric wheeled sharply, looking for the source of the voice, but it echoed strangely off the walls as though it came from all around them. “Fear tells you now that it is already too late to run...and it is right.”

She dropped down from the ceiling like a stone, her fist lashing out at Bectan even as she fell. Her blow sent the old man sprawling across the polished floor, his staff sliding out of sight as the light it cast dimmed into shadow.

Even so, Auric could see her. She had pale skin, paler than alabaster, practically gleaming in the darkness. Her eyes glowed in the night-dark room, wine-red and seductive. But hers was a terrible beauty to behold. Her lithe, naked form promised death, but at the same time it made death sound like a sweet promise to Auric’s soul. She gazed upon them and smiled, and Auric knew on seeing her fangs that doom was upon them all.

She swooped onto Farran first. Auric watched his fellow knight die as fear and desire combined to root him to the spot. She took Farran by the throat, knocked his sword from nerveless fingers, and sank her teeth into him with a moan of ecstasy that made Auric sway as though on the edge of a precipice. Vertigo held him in place; all he could do was watch as she suckled at Farran’s neck like a babe at her mother’s teat.

She let him fall to the floor after a few moments. Auric would remember the look of joy on the corpse’s face for the rest of his life. “Come, now,” she said. “I had thought the servants of Istan were made of sterner stuff. Where are the battle cries? Who will call me damned? Who will strike down this servant of evil?” Farran’s blood flecked her lips and trickled down her chin as she spoke. “Oh, but I can see it in your eyes. You do not know whether to fight me, flee me, or beg for my fierce kisses. And so you stand. And so you wait.”

She moved faster than the eye could possibly follow, crossing the distance to Leland before he could even blink. “You shall not wait long, I promise,” she said just before she sank her fangs into Leland’s throat.

Leland lasted slightly longer than Farran had. He struggled weakly in her grasp, his motions causing a jet of blood to spray across the floor as her fangs wiggled in the wounds she had made. But in the end, he too succumbed to the strange death-wish she had laid upon them all, meekly submitting to her will like a lamb trotting to the slaughter. As he fell, Auric could see that he had the same saint’s smile in death that Farran had worn.

“Oh, but this is a feast for the ages!” she cried out. “It has been too long since I have tasted the blood of men. I have feared you for too long, Knights of Istan. You have grown weak since last I fought with thee. It is the vow of chastity, I suspect. The men who once drove me into the Shadowlands were not awed by woman’s form, but you...I scent nothing but virgin blood here tonight. Your desire makes you weak.” She dashed to Marcus, pressing her body against his and delighting in his shudder of bliss. “But you taste all the sweeter for it.”

Even knowing the cause of his helplessness could not rouse Auric from it. His knees still quivered with desire as though made of water, even as he watched her drain Marcus dry. Even as his mind told him he would die if he submitted to her caresses, his body told him that such a death would be worth it for that final, eternal moment in her embrace.

“Perhaps I should ask for volunteers!” she said as she let Marcus’ body fall to the floor to join that of his comrades. “Who wishes to be next? Who will be Verusha’s next lover?” She swayed her hips from side to side and thrust out her breasts. Rivulets of blood dripped off her nipples, the legacy of three messy feasts. “Oh, worry not, eager men. You will all get your chance with me.”

Osmark shamed them all, then, as he managed to thrust clumsily forward with his sword at Verusha’s back. It was a foolish, doomed gesture, but it was more than Auric could manage. He even felt a momentary stirring of hope, watching Osmark find his will, but Verusha dodged the blow as though Osmark was moving underwater and dashed the sword from his hands. “Such a mighty weapon,” she cooed, “and so eager to thrust it inside me! But your technique is lacking. Let Verusha take your innocence from you.”

But Osmark was not granted the same sweet death as the others. Barely had she begun drinking his blood when Bectan’s voice rang out in the darkness, wavery with pain but filled with determination. “No more, dark temptress. The blood you have tasted shall be your last.” Verusha spun to face him, blood spraying out from Osmark’s wounds onto her face and body.

“And what have we here?” she cried out. “A withered old raisin of a man? Are you so old, priest, that my body holds no charms for you? Or did I separate you from both your rods of might when I struck you?” She giggled, a laugh that seemed all the more wicked for its innocence. “Have you taken a vow beyond chastity when you entered the order?”

Bectan’s voice seemed stronger now. “Do you think I fear you? Mine is the strength of Istan, demon. The light you fear is my nourishment.”

Verusha dropped Osmark’s corpse and swooped at Bectan, her face filled with fury. “There is no light here, mortal. These are the Shadowlands, where the dawn never comes, and your staff is far beyond your reach. This is my darkness, and I fear nothing here.” She grasped him by the neck, pressing his head back, baring his throat to her teeth. “While you...you are my nourishment.”

Bectan grabbed her wrist with his own hand. “My staff?” he croaked out. “You think I need my staff?” Her flesh sizzled and steamed where his hand grasped it, and she cried out in pain, but Bectan continued as if he had not heard it. “The light of Istan flows not from a staff. The light of Istan flows from Istan, and it flows where he directs it.”

Auric could see Bectan now as clear as day. The old man’s body radiated light from every pore, his back was straight and his voice thundered in the hall as he grabbed Verusha’s face with his other hand. “For too long, you have scuttled in the dark, demoness. Your night has been too long already, and the dawn of judgment too long delayed.” Verusha screamed and thrashed, but all her strength and speed seemed to have deserted her in the full light of Istan’s power. “In the light, servant of evil, you can see what you truly are. Can your soul bear to see itself without the cloak of shadow to hide in?”

With a final, despairing scream, Verusha’s body flared up in a burst of flame, then crumbled to ash. “I thought not,” Bectan said. His body sagged slightly as he walked slowly across the room and picked up his staff.

It took a moment for Auric to find words. “You saved us all,” he said at last. “We were doomed, but for your faith...I doubted thee, Bectan. Truly, I am sorry.”

“Starry? No, you’re probably just seeing spots from that bright light, my boy.” Bectan patted him on the shoulder. “Now come on. We’ve got a queen to rescue.”

Glorianna twisted and struggled, but the iron frame held her at the wrists, the ankles and the waist. She tried to tell herself not to feel shame, but the gaping split of her legs exposed her sex in a way that she knew no queen before her ever had.

Yeandros looked upon her naked form with unconcealed lust. “Oh, Your Majesty, truly you were born for this! No woman has ever looked so lovely in chains as you. You wear them as if born to slavery.”

“I was born to rule!” Glorianna shouted, glaring up at him with fury in her eyes. She’d never thought she had such pride within her. She’d always imagined herself to be a humble servant of Istan, playing her part in the great design of the Kingdom just like the lowest of peasants. But that illusion, at least, had been stripped from her forever by Yeandros’ indignities. She realized that her resistance stemmed as much from the arrogance of a noble-born as it did from any love of Istan, and right now, at least, she accepted that if it meant thwarting Yeandros’ desires. There would be time to confess to the priests when she was back in the Kingdom.

“But you are a slave, Your Highness,” Yeandros said in oily, sinister tones. “Mighty Kauroth sensed it. He instructed me of the proper way to demonstrate it.” Yeandros gestured, and flames sprung up from beneath the iron frame. Glorianna let out a brief shriek of terror, but the flames did not sear her flesh. They felt merely...warm.

“All this time,” Yeandros said, “and I had thought that fear would bind you to me.” He took out a handful of dry leaves and threw them into the flame. “I should have known better. You are no slave to fear, My Queen. You would never break if that was the only tool I used.”

The leaves burned quickly, and the thick, heady scent of their smoke filled Glorianna’s lungs. “But desire? That, Your Highness, you cannot control.” Glorianna took another breath almost before she realized she had done so. Something about the smoke felt...nice. It smelled sweet as she breathed it in, a smell like...Glorianna was suddenly aware of a rush of desire between her thighs. She felt a trickle of moisture making its way from her cunt (and a tiny, whispering voice told her how good it was to think of it as her cunt) down her thighs. She knew that Yeandros must see it, but somehow, she no longer cared.

“Think on it, Your Highness. Think of the need, the ache between your legs.” Glorianna bucked within the frame again, but this time, it was seeking some contact, something she could rub her suddenly burning cunt against to ease the need that seemed to consume her. “Istan never taught you of this, did he? He never spoke of the pleasures of touch, of the desire that grows within your body.” The smoke stung Glorianna’s eyes, and her vision swam as the smoke billowed and swirled around her. “Your body longs for those secret pleasures, Your Majesty. You cannot deny it, no matter how hard you try.”

Glorianna did try, then. Her mind struggled to convince her body that she needed to resist these strange stirrings in her cunt, that if Yeandros wished her to give in to her desires like a bitch in heat, then that was exactly what she must not do. But she heard the voice again, whispering in the rush of the flame. It told her of the darkest rituals of Kauroth, of the decadent orgies where Kauroth’s priestesses gave themselves over completely to the pleasures of the flesh. Visions swam before her eyes of men, ravishing her with their straining cocks (for so the voice called them) and pounding into her, as many as she desired.

Glorianna shook her head, trying to clear it, but she could not stop herself from breathing, and the sweet smell of the smoke seemed to send the blood pounding through her body to hammer in her ears, to throb down between her thighs where a man’s cock should go. “That’s right, Your Majesty,” Yeandros said, sensing her lust. Not even sensing, she knew. Her nipples stood up, stiff and aching for him to see. “Feel that desire, drown in it. Become a slave to it. Let it control you. Let it have full reign over you.”

The smoke swirled around her, becoming almost so thick as to be tangible. It brushed over her breasts, tweaking and rubbing her nipples with its almost-substantial caresses. It pressed up against the entrance to her cunt, and now Glorianna wished for her freedom so that she could open her legs even further to let it inside her. It swirled before her eyes, billowing and flowing in patterns that only heightened Glorianna’s lust. She knew there had to be a release to this growing need, but the smoke’s caresses could not bring it forth. All she could feel was aching, endless, desperate longing building within her.

“You want to cum, don’t you, Your Majesty?” Glorianna didn’t even understand what the words meant, but the voice of the fire told her. It whispered to her of pleasure beyond pleasure, ecstasy beyond imagining, rapture that would send her to the heights of sexual desire. It showed her a vision of herself, dressed in the robes of a priestess of Kauroth—but only for moments, until she let the robes fall to the floor so that a man could kneel before her and press his tongue into her wet and willing cunt. The image alone almost sent her over the edge, made her cum like the voice had described, but she could not quite bring herself off.

“You want to cum, Your Majesty.” This time, it was not a question. Glorianna realized her head was nodding back and forth, without any conscious effort on her part. Her need controlled her, without her even thinking about it. Without her even being able to think about it, she admitted. The ache in her cunt simply denied all else around it. She needed...the voice of the fire supplied the words, but the desire was hers. She needed to be fucked.

“But the Queen of the Kingdom serves Istan, Your Majesty,” Yeandros said in tones of calm reason. “A servant of Istan cannot give in to the pleasures of the flesh. A servant of Istan cannot cum...and cum...and cum...” Each repetition was accompanied by another caress of the smoky tendrils, and soon Glorianna’s body quivered like the strings of a lyre as she lay on the frame. She felt the slick warmth between her thighs as her mind blanked out for a long moment, leaving nothing in her head but desire.

She tried to speak, but all that came out was a whimper. “Only the servants of Kauroth may indulge in all the decadent desires the body is capable of, Glorianna,” Yeandros whispered. She could see them now, the man’s tongue replaced by a woman’s, the cock thrusting now into her ass, her mouth filled with flesh as she sucked on another man’s rock-hard member...she felt her mouth follow in reality along the path of her imagination, forming an ‘o’ as she pictured the cock fucking her face, smoke pouring in through the opening as though it knew all her secret fantasies...

Yeandros smiled. “Almost ready, I think,” he said, pulling out another handful of leaves.

They heard the danger before they saw it.

They had climbed high into the tower now, after they’d poured salt into the mouths of their slain to make sure they would not return from the dead. The beasts of the night no longer poured steadily at them; after seeing so many of their number dispatched, Auric could tell that they no longer felt so eager to hurl themselves into the breach. They possessed all the faults of evil, and that included selfishness and cowardice. Why be the first to attack such strong enemies? Why not let someone else die first, and then strike at a weakened foe? And so, none of them could achieve what they might manage together. Auric almost pitied them.

But up until a few moments ago, they had at least followed Auric and his men towards the top of the tower. Now, they waited below like beasts at bay as Auric headed up the stairs. Auric felt a cold chill. Last time, that had meant the deaths of four of his number. This time...

“Do you hear music?” he said at last.

Bectan, of course, merely shook his head. But the others nodded. “I hear it, m’lud,” Galand said. “A fell voice, raised in sweet song.”

Auric frowned. “I fear further enchantment,” he said. “But there is but one path to follow, and we have not found the Queen yet. Be on your guard, men. Be wary. And be swift.”

But Auric found, as they climbed the stairs, that he could be none of those things. The music drifted into his mind, insistent and enchanting, and he found as he approached its source that his mind slipped off into daydreams and his feet strolled idly instead of marching. A soft sigh escaped his lips, and even that seemed to blend into the music.

They stepped onto the landing, and saw five women ahead of them, all singing in perfect harmony. All around them lay bones, bleached white long ago. Auric’s eyes fluttered in concentration as he steeled himself for an attack, but his sword felt leaden in his hand and he felt as though he were no longer guiding his own feet. With heavy eyes, he looked around to see his remaining men looked just as weak.

When they reached the five women, Auric found that his limbs would carry him no further. He stood stock still in front of them, and it was only by letting the tip of his sword rest on the floor that he could hold it at all. “What...what will you do to us?” he whispered, astonished by the helpless terror in his own voice.

One of the women spoke, her voice somehow blending perfectly into the song. “Why, nothing.”

Auric looked around. The effort exhausted him, and he sank to his knees. “But...” he sighed out, his tongue feeling thick and heavy in his mouth. “The bones...”

Another of the women spoke as the first returned to her singing. “Many have stayed to listen to our song,” she said. “We are flattered by their attention. If they choose not to leave, that is their choice.”

Auric felt the sword slip from his fingers. Somehow, it seemed like too much effort to retrieve it. With a supreme effort, he clapped his hands to his ears. “No,” he said, putting as much strength into his voice as he could. “No...”

The second woman returned to her song as a third took up the role of speaker. “Do you not like our song?” she asked, seeming hurt. “Is it not sweet to your ears?”

The fourth woman spoke as the third rejoined the harmony. “We wish only to sing you to soft, gentle sleep, good knight. We would never seek to harm you.”

Auric tried to block out the words, but just like the song, they crept in around his fingers and into his ears. He tried to shout, but all that came out was a low sigh as his arms fell to his sides in abject exhaustion. “N...no...” he whispered, but there was no force to it now as his eyes slipped shut and he toppled forward into the lap of one of the women. She gently stroked his hair as she sang, and Auric felt the last of his resistance melt away as his face pressed against her smooth thigh.

He heard someone speaking over the song, a man’s voice saying something in a tone of wonderment, and although he didn’t have the strength to care about the words, he recognized them nonetheless. “All these years,” they said. “All these years, I have wondered why Istan would not restore my hearing. And now I see, I see the destiny he planned for me! Oh, Istan be praised!”

Auric could no longer even think of stirring. He sank endlessly into the song. But he heard the speaker come closer, addressing the women. “Am I right,” the man said, “in thinking that you will harm no man, save for any harm he might come to by listening to your song to the exclusion of all else?”

The fifth woman spoke now, and somehow even her words seemed musical and relaxing to Auric. “That is correct, aged one. We wish nothing more than to sing for you. Simply listen, listen and enjoy.”

“Thought so!” the voice said gleefully. Auric heard a loud thumping noise, and suddenly the song seemed less harmonious. He stirred slightly in his half-sleep, wondering what might be going on.

A second thump followed the first, and now Auric could open his eyes slightly. He saw Bectan, a manic grin on his face, walk up to the third of the singers and crack her over the head with his staff. She slumped to the floor, unconscious, and Auric felt the spell lessen even further. By the time Bectan thumped the fourth singer on the skull, enough of his strength had returned that he could lift his sword once more.

Bectan knocked out the final singer as the knights got back to their feet. “I enjoyed that far more than a man of the cloth should,” he said as he looked down at the unconscious women. “What should we do with them now?”

Part of Auric wanted to slay them. He had encountered nothing in the tower that meant goodwill towards them, and these women, for all their gentility, were surrounded by the bones of their victims. And yet, to slay a helpless foe, one who had not harmed him when he lay helpless... “Tie them up and gag them,” he said. “We’ll decide what to do with them on the way back.”

Bectan nodded approvingly at him as the knights scrambled to carry out his orders.

Glorianna knew now that she was lost.

Lost to the cause of Light, lost in the frenzy of lust, lost in a haze of endless need. She looked down at the small patch of skin on her belly and realized that there was no hope for her now.

Yeandros reached out the brush again, daubing the sticky paste of crushed leaves and water onto the inside of her arm, letting it mix with her sweat. The touch of the mixture stimulated her nerves beyond all imagining, making her flesh buzz and tingle as though everywhere the mixture touched became a part of her sex. Her belly now throbbed like her clit and her arm soon joined it in need. She felt the paste drying on her skin, baking onto her in the warmth of the magical fire, and somehow that just heightened the ecstasy, the longing, the need that had become a part of her very being.

He stroked the brush along her body, careful never to touch a part of her skin that was already sensitized by the mixture. The brush alone felt torturously good against her feverish flesh, but the trailing sensation it left behind as it left the sticky goo on her...it maddened her, it tormented her, it made her beg openly for more sensation, more pleasure, more desire. But Yeandros would not give in. Even though she was already gasping and sobbing, already half-broken with lust, he continued to paint the mixture onto her body with the patience of a craftsman. She wondered if he would give her the release she craved even once she was coated completely, or if he would leave her there to writhe in need for hours, days, weeks...

She felt his brush on the soles of her feet, and panted in shameless desire. Every inhalation brought more smoke into her lungs, sent more of its poisons into her blood, made her crave the twisted pleasures Kauroth described for her all the deeper. Kauroth would grant her release, she knew. Kauroth would give her the orgasm she needed. Kauroth would fuck her like she needed to be fucked.

Time lost meaning as Yeandros stroked the brush over her willing flesh. She clung to one last, faint hope, even as she babbled out incoherent entreaties to her captors. She knew that she was so close to the release she needed, so very close. If he but brushed against her sex, she knew that she would not be able to contain her desire any longer, it would spill over the edge into orgasmic bliss. She could feel it, she could imagine it so easily now, the brush sliding over her clit, every single bristle feeling like a finger against her sex, the pleasure so strong, the need so great...

She felt him now, running the brush along the inside of her thigh, and tears spilled from her eyes as she waited for him to touch her where she needed it most. Her whole body tensed, her whole being prepared to cum and cum and cum...

And then he passed over her cunt to paint the rest of her belly, and Glorianna knew again that she was lost. She felt her will break in that terrible instant, knew deep within her soul that she would do anything, break any covenant, betray any trust to gain the orgasm she so deeply desired. She wanted to cum again and again and again, and she was a slave to that desire. And she would be a slave to any who could fill that need.

She saw Him now, seeming to loom out of the smoke and flame. She was no longer even certain whether it was another vision or whether he appeared to her in the flesh, for she could no longer tell fantasy from reality. Either way, it did not matter. Kauroth appeared before her, and where the child Glorianna had been once shuddered at the descriptions of the half-goat, half-lizard with three burning eyes, all that she could think of now was how massive his cock was, how badly she needed it inside her.

She looked into His eyes, and for the final time, Glorianna knew that she was lost in them.

The last defenders of the tower fought with the desperation of fear. Auric could sense it in the way they flung themselves at him, at the way that they battled heedless of their own safety. They might fear death in battle at the hands of a Knight of Istan, but they feared their god’s retribution more, should Auric and his men gain the safety of the inner sanctum. Nightlings skittered out of the darkness, their eyes boiling in their sockets under Istan’s light as they attacked, but they did not shrink from battle. Auric silently praised Istan for the strength he provided; without Istan’s blessing, he knew, they would have fallen from exhaustion long ago.

But with Istan’s blessing, they fought their way up through the final steps, up to the final landing, and to the very doors of the traitor Yeandros’ sanctum. The chamber was sealed with dark magic, but Bectan summoned up his faith yet again, and with a wordless cry, he struck the doors with his staff. They swung wide, and Auric led the charge into the enemy’s final stronghold. He was prepared for anything, save what he and the others finally found.

Queen Glorianna awaited them, wrapped in a shroud of dark cloth and holding a bloody dagger. She stood next to the embers of a firepit, gazing down at the corpse of Yeandros.

“My Lady!” Auric said, kneeling at her feet. “Are you unharmed?”

Glorianna stared straight ahead for a moment. Then she looked down at Yeandros’ body. “I am.”

“How...” Auric could scarcely believe his eyes. “How did you free yourself?”

She looked down at the traitor’s body, cold anger in his eyes. “He underestimated the resolve of a queen,” she said at last. “He thought that I would serve him.” She dropped the dagger, letting it fall next to the corpse it slew. “He was wrong.”

Auric nodded in relief. “My Lady,” he said, “we must move. The forces of Kauroth will—”

“They will scatter,” she said, “now that they sense they have failed. Yeandros’ death will demoralize them further. We have a few moments, and I wish to speak to my high priest alone.”

Auric frowned, but the duty of a knight was to obey. “As you wish, Your Highness,” he said, taking his remaining knights out of the room.

Bectan looked over at Queen Glorianna quizzically. She seemed different now, stronger. A woman instead of a child. “Your Majesty wishes to speak to me?” he asked.

She looked at him for a long moment. “My lord saved me,” she said at last. “In that darkest moment, when I truly thought I would break and give in to Yeandros’ seduction. He saved me.”

Bectan smiled gently, putting his hand on Glorianna’s shoulder. “He saves us all, in those dark moments. It is in the darkness, my dear, that the light shines clearest.”

Just then, Bectan felt icy hands clutch him from behind. “He saved me,” Glorianna said, “and he gave me power. Yeandros thought that he would be the master, but he could never have been more than a pawn in Kauroth’s grand design.”

Bectan tried to cry out for help, but Yeandros’ dead hands stifled his shouts. “Yeandros thought I would serve him,” Glorianna said, her face twisting with cruel delight. “I, a queen, serve a dabbler in potions? No, if I am to be a slave, I will be a slave to Kauroth Himself, a dark and potent lord instead of a mortal fool. I gave myself to Kauroth, priest. I took his cock into my cunt and sealed our bargain with the pleasure I craved. Body and soul, I am His. And I cannot risk you noticing that, not before I have mastered the power to conceal His touch.” Bectan struggled, but his body was weak with age, and he had already been through many trials that day. As his last breath left him, all he could see was Glorianna’s eyes, blazing red in the gathering dark...

Glorianna watched him fall. She let Yeandros fall with him. Soon, she knew, all the defenders of the Light would fall the same way. The thought of Auric and his well-muscled body flashed through her mind as she prepared to scream in panic to summon her defenders. Perhaps not all the same way, she decided. Why waste such tempting flesh in death when she could corrupt him to the sins of pleasure?

Glorianna shivered beneath her robes as she imagined the dark temptations to come.