The Unburnt
by Pan
“Stop!” Lonyssa commanded, struggling against her captors. “Don’t you understand who I am? I am the Queen of...—“
She was interrupted by the back of a leather glove, striking her neatly across the face. Her eyes glowed hot with fury.
“I do not know who you are,” she said after a brief pause. “But I promise, you will pay with your life.”
“Sure sure,” the solider jeered. “But until then, I’m gettin’ paid quite handsomely.”
The eyes of the Flame Queen narrowed, and she considered offering the soldier wealth beyond his imagination. It was clear that he knew who she was; he would know that her offer was true.
But the idea of paying a man to not kidnap her sickened the blonde ruler, and she instead pursed her lips and decided to remain silent.
When she was free, he would suffer. He, and all those who had supported him in this crime.
“Get out,” he grunted, and the wagon stopped. She was trussed up like an unruly slave; her hands and feet bound, and her robes askew. Lonyssa knew that if anyone tried to molest her, they would have unfettered access...but she smiled at the idea.
She was the One of Heat. Touching her bare skin without permission would result in scalding pain, and she hoped that one of the soldiers attempted it. The one who had slapped her, ideally, but she would take joy in the suffering of any of her captors.
“How?” she replied icily, and he rolled his eyes. Grabbing her robes, he dragged her to the edge of the wagon, and then cut her feet loose.
Before he even had time to react, Lonyssa kicked him in the face, as hard as she could. He stumbled back, blood leaking from his shattered nose.
“Whad the...”
“Leave it!”
The other guard, the ginger-haired one, spoke up. His words halted the bleeding guard in his tracks.
“You bloody idiot—what did you h’expect? You know she’s a warrior.”
“She hid me in de nose...”
“Yeah, and you well deserved it. Now clear h’off—I’ll ’andle ’er from ’ere.”
The ginger guard turned to Lonyssa, and spoke softly—almost respectfully.
“Your ’ighness...”
“Let me go.” she interrupted sternly, but he continued undeterred.
“I think we both know that’s not going to happen, m’lady. Now we can turn this ’ere into a fight if we need to, but there’s h’eight of us, and one of h’you. Either way, you’re comin’ with us—the h’only difference is whether yer bleeding and bruised or not...”
Again, Lonyssa paused. She weighed up her odds, and realized that the guard was right. She nodded, and a smile spread over his face.
“Thank you, m’lady. This way.”
As the guards led her through the castle, she wondered who the hell had kidnapped her, and why they’d brought her to what looked like a castle from her youth. They’d only been traveling for a few hours, so she knew they hadn’t sailed across the ocean to her homeland—they were still in the Eastlands.
“H’okay, ma’am.”
They had stopped in front of a bath.
“Master wants you all cleaned up right, ’ear me?”
“If your master wants me clean,” Lonyssa said in a chilly tone, “then I intend to remain as filthy as I possibly can.”
There was a chuckle from some of the guards at that, and the ginger one looked uneasy.
“’E said h’you might say that. I’m sorry, ma’am.”
Lonyssa moved into a defensive stance.
“Sorry for wha—...”
Before she could finish the question, four buckets of ice-cold water hit her from behind, drenching her and her robes.
“Sorry for that, ma’am.”
Lonyssa was stunned. The guards stepped back, the doors closed, and Lonyssa was alone, freezing cold, and furious.
She was unsurprised to find no obvious route of escape from the small room—what did surprise her was when hot water began trickling out of a pipe in the ceiling, stopping only when the bath in the middle of the room was filled.
After half an hour of teeth-chattering and unsuccessfully trying to find a less obvious route of escape from the room, Lonyssa gave into temptation and slipped into the hot bath.
Despite her predicament, she couldn’t deny that it felt amazing—she’d never gone from being so cold to so hot in such a small amount of time, and it actually managed to help take her mind off the fact that she was a prisoner in a strange castle—a castle which not even her most well-connected spies had ever breathed a word about.
With her hands still bound, she was unable to remove her robes, and so they floated above her in the water as she enjoyed the warmth of the bath against her bare skin. She had small breasts, no bigger than a handful each, and sensitive nipples which hardened as the water engulfed them.
Her skin was smooth and hairless, and goosebumps ran across her entire body as she adjusted to the water’s temperature. It had been near-boiling when originally poured, but—of course—she was unbothered by the heat.
As the water began to grow tepid, the door opened, and she jumped in shock.
“Ma’am.”
It was the guard whose nose she’d bloodied. It was clear that he had been commanded to be respectful; a task that he was finding challenging.
“The master will see you now.”
“Tell the master,” the Flame Queen said with a sweet smile, “to fuck off and die.”
“I see you decided to join me,” the thin man said with a leer.
“Quite the contrary,” Lonyssa replied. “I most firmly decided not to join you.”
“And yet...here you are.”
“Not of my own free will.”
“Was I imagining?”
There was a long pause, until Lonyssa sighed., and asked the question he so clearly wanted her to ask.
“Were you imagining what?”
“The sight I saw not a minute ago, of you walking into this room and taking a seat across the table from me.”
“Under duress.”
“There was no sword at your back, no rope around your neck.”
“It has been forty-eight hours,” Lonyssa replied, as calmly as she could under the circumstances. “I was told that if I did not join you, no food would be provided.”
“Ah.”
With that, the thin man snapped his fingers, and food appeared on the table, conjured by means she could not understand. The blonde girl’s heart leapt at the sight of it—boar, poultry, apples, bread...over the past two days, she’d spent almost as much time dreaming of eating as she had trying to find an escape from the wretched castle.
Even with her hands freed, she’d had no luck.
The two sat in silence, broken only by Lonyssa’s gulps as she tried to inhale as much of the magically-conjured food as she could before it was taken away again. Finally, when she couldn’t eat more without risking a stomach upset, she sat back and breathed a deep sigh of contentment.
“Happy?” the thin man asked, poking at the cured meat on his plate.
“Of course not,” she replied regally. “I’m here against my will, while my people suffer without me. Of course I’m not happy.”
“Your sigh would suggest otherwise...”
“Stop trying to tell me I’m lying,” Lonyssa snapped. The room was still swimming slightly, even as her body desperately extracted nourishment from the feast she’d just partaken in.
“But you are, my dear.”
“I’m not your dear.”
“Not yet.”
Again, Lonyssa took a deep breath. Her hand clenched the dinner knife she’d slipped under the table while eating. If only this damned table wasn’t so long, her captor would already be dead, and she’d be a step closer to freedom.
“What do you want?” she asked, shutting her eyes and imagining the thin blade slipping into his neck, causing a spray of blood.
“That’s simple. I want you.”
When she opened her eyes, she felt much calmer. She was fed, clean, and armed. If she was careful, she could be out of this by nightfall.
“Very well,” she said with a slight smile. “If I let you have me, will you release me?”
The thin man surprised her by laughing at her response.
“Oh no no no, you underestimate me. I don’t just want your body, and I don’t just want you for a night. I want you as my wife—my willing, obedient slave-wife, eager to obey my every command.”
Lonyssa tried not to allow her eye to twitch in anger as she processed his response. He was clearly mad...very powerful, but mad.
A dangerous combination.
“Very well,” she repeated. “What can I do for you first?”
“First,” the thin man said with a thin grin, “you can drop both the knife and this charade.”
This time, Lonyssa couldn’t keep her emotions from showing. Shock, anger, fear—they were all easily read on her face as she moved the knife to the table, and dropped it beside her plate.
“You can’t honestly think this will work, can you?”
“Of course, my dear. Oh calm down—I know you’re not yet my dear. But you will be.”
“I...—“
“Tut tut tut, let me explain! Always so quick to jump in. That will be one of the first things to go. When you’re my wife, you’ll be seen far more than you’re heard. And far more of you will be seen...”
“I will never be your wife.”
“And yet, you shall.”
There was a pause as Lonyssa glowered at the smiling man.
“Let me explain. You see, people are simple. Put the knife down, deary, you’re really not as subtle as you think you are. They’ll always take the path of least resistance, no matter how much they despise it. You’ve proven that yourself, three times over.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You swore that you wouldn’t get clean for me, and yet...”
“I didn’t.”
“No no, but that’s exactly my point. You didn’t get clean for me, you got clean for you. I just provided the incentive. Cold water, hot bath—I provided the scenario, and you willingly stepped in. Happily, even.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“Of course it does! This is life, my future bride—everything counts. Number two: you swore that you wouldn’t come and meet me. And yet not even an hour ago, you willingly step through that door, you sit at my table. You met me on my terms, and I didn’t have to lift a finger.”
“Fuck you.”
“And thirdly, and this is the most beautiful example of all—the moment I told you to put that knife down, you did. Twice, even. Now why would a gorgeous young warrior like you drop your only means of defending yourself?”
“Once you knew I had it, the element of surprise was lost.”
“And yet, having a weapon is surely a more desirable state than being completely unarmed...”
There was a pause, and Lonyssa bowed her head. “You’re right.”
The thin man raised one eyebrow.
“Oh?”
“You’re right. You have bested me, and now I’m yours to control.”
Lonyssa stood up, carefully placed the knife on her plate, and began to approach the other side of the table.
“What will you do with me...master?”
As she spoke, she submissively got down on one knee. A strange noise filled the room, and she looked up in surprise to see her captor laughing, a high-pitched laugh that she knew she would never, ever forget.
“Oh dearest, do you really think I don’t know about your talents? I’ve been studying you for years—as convincing as your performance is, I’m not going to touch your bare skin. No... you’re smart, talented, and very beautiful, but I’m afraid your guiles aren’t going to work here.”
With that, Lonyssa leapt to her feet, her arms outstretched. Just before she reached her captor’s throat, the room began to go dark.
The last thing she heard before blacking out was the thin man’s soft voice, whispering directly into her ear.
“Sleep now, my precious. You are going to be the prize of my collection...”
When Lonyssa awoke, she was back in her bedroom.
“No!!”
She began tearing paintings off the wall, destroying the ornate furniture—partially in the hope of finding an escape route she’d failed to notice earlier, but mostly out of sheer frustration.
A madman had kidnapped her, and seemed insistent on making her his bride. No, worse than that—a slave.
It would never happen. She swore it would never, ever happen.
That night, Lonyssa ate with him again. While she had no idea how long she’d been out, the ravenous hunger had returned a few hours after she awoke, and she frantically gulped down the food on the table.
Just as he had before, the thin man ate no more than a few bites.
“You have questions,” he stated, and Lonyssa resisted a contrary urge to claim that she didn’t.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Please, ask.”
“What do you want from me?”
He laughed again—that thin, high-pitched laugh that seemed to penetrate Lonyssa’s very soul.
“I feel as though I made that quite clear. You, by my side, my adoring and obedient wife.”
“Surely you can see that will never happen.”
“You say a lot of things are impossible—I tend to see them as inevitable...after all, are you not again seated at my table, willingly eating my food?”
“Yes,” Lonyssa admitted after a brief pause. “But this is different. This is a base need, something that I’ll die without.”
“So is love,” the thin man replied, and the rest of the meal was eaten in silence.
Lonyssa spent the next day thinking about what he’d said, and when she returned the next night, again hungrier than she’d ever imagined being, she had more questions.
“Even if you threaten my people, threaten my life...I’ll never love you. Not willingly.
“Don’t you understand that?”
“You’d rather die than love me?”
“Yes,” the Flame Queen replied firmly. “A thousand times, yes.”
The thin man just smiled in response, his thin lips crawling across his face and revealing thin, blade-like teeth.
“I would die before I ever loved you,” she repeated.
“You say that,” he replied, unfazed. “And yet, I do not believe you. People grow and change. What you would kill for today may be anathema to you tomorrow.
“People change.”
The next few weeks passed in a similar fashion. Every morning, Lonyssa swore she wouldn’t speak to the man again. Every night, an intense hunger came across her and she dressed herself for dinner, and debated the thin man’s insane proposal.
After what Lonyssa estimated to be a month of captivity, the pattern was broken. At dinner that night, Lonyssa was surprised to find herself eating alone.
She ate as much as on previous nights, but something about it felt strangely empty. The conversations with her captor were the only interaction she had with another person—all the guards seemed to have disappeared, and the only evidence of their presence was her door being unlocked at meal-times, and locking again as soon as she reentered her room.
There must have been servants—no matter how much damage she did to her quarters, they were always completely clean again when she returned from dinner. Even the damaged paintings were replaced with identical copies, and she had stopped her destructive tantrums weeks ago.
The next night, she was alone once more. And the next, and the next—within a month, Lonyssa thought she was going mad.
And then, a month and a day after she’d last seen another human being, the thin man was back.
“Hello,” he said, flashing her that grin. To her horror, Lonyssa was genuinely thrilled to see him.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said, desperately trying to fill her eyes with hate. “And it’s not going to work.”
“Pass me that fork?” he asked casually, and when she threw it to the ground, disappeared without a word.
He didn’t walk from the room; he literally disappeared, and Lonyssa threw herself to the ground and wept.
It was two months before he reappeared—this time, when he asked for the fork, Lonyssa begrudgingly handed it to him. She’d begun to approach the brink of insanity over the past eight weeks—she’d even considered killing herself, just to escape her lonely, hellish existence...but the hope of escape still glimmered within her, and so she pushed through the isolation.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” she muttered.
Their relationship continued like that for the next two weeks—he would ask her to complete small tasks, and she obeyed, terrified of being alone again. She was afraid of losing him, but it wasn’t love—of that, she was sure.
Finally, on the fifteenth day of his return, she snapped. “Are you going to ask me?” she said, furious.
“Ask you what?”
“You know what.”
“No,” he said with a thin smile, “I’m sure I don’t.”
“To fuck you. When are you going to ask me to fuck you.”
“Ah,” the thin man said. “That’s the beauty of it. I will never ask you for that.”
He paused, and his grin broadened at the confused look on her face.
“No, my dear.”—she had long since stopped correcting him—“I’ll know that I’ve won when you ask me.”
That night, an intense arousal came across Lonyssa—it was as though a thousand hands were gently caressing her all over, and it was followed by the feeling of a thousand tongues. Her hands were rooted to her sides, and she couldn’t move—she could only twitch and quiver as her every nerve-end was gently stimulated, as the feeling of an orgasm began to swell in her womanhood...until, just as suddenly, it ended.
“No!” she cursed. She reached between her legs, but to her frustration, no matter what she did, no matter how she touched herself, she couldn’t reach the erotic heights caused by the phantom tongues.
Lonyssa barely slept that night, and when the uncontrollable hunger came across her, she stormed into the dining room.
“Tut tut tut,” the thin man said upon seeing her face. “We can’t have that.”
And with that, he disappeared.
Lonyssa’s fury grew in intensity—against her will, she’d actually begun enjoying their debates over the past few weeks. He was well-spoken, well-read, and despite his obvious insanity, had a mind which rivaled her own.
After she’d eaten her fill, she threw the rest of the food around the room, desperately searching it for an escape route, as she had on so many previous nights.
As always, there was nothing.
It was three months before she saw the thin man again. Three long, lonely, soul- destroying months. Towards the end, she considered suicide most days, but her strong will and her pride wouldn’t let her do it.
She was going to live. No matter what it took, she was going to live.
With no books to read, no music to listen to, no wine to drink, Lonyssa’s mind began to consume itself, and she felt madness approaching—all she had was her memories, and her regret at angering the thin man.
On the third day of the fourth month since she’d last seen another human being, he was waiting for her at dinner.
Against her will, she ran to him. She ran to him, and let him hold her. She could have burned him, she could have told him how she felt...but instead, she embraced him tightly.
“There, there,” he whispered. “I’m here now.”
“I’ve been so alone,” she whimpered in response.
“You have me now.”
That night, he regaled her with stories of the outside world—she knew that they should have angered her, that she should be furious that she wasn’t there.
But she was so hungry, so desperate for stimulation that she lapped up everything he said. She laughed at his jokes, she was enthralled by his tales—she even gasped as he described the twists and turns of Westland politics.
And then, when the meal was over, she realized that he’d done it.
He’d made her love him.
Just as the cold water had made her wash herself, just as her nightly hunger made her come and eat with him...the loneliness, the emptiness of her days had caused her to develop a deep fondness for the thin man.
She hated herself for it, but she couldn’t deny the love that had grown in her heart. But he’ll never have my servitude, she told herself. In my heart, I’ll never be his slave.
The next night, to her surprise, she told him that. He asked what she was thinking, and warned that if she was dishonest then he would go again—and this time, he might never come back.
Lonyssa was tempted to lie, to curse at him and remove him from her life forever...but the months of loneliness were impossible to forget, and she knew she couldn’t put herself through that. Not again, and certainly not intentionally.
And so rather than risk his disappearance, she told him everything—she told him of her love, and she warned him that she would never be his slave.
“We’ll see,” he smiled simply, and Lonyssa worked hard to quell the anger that rose in her heart at his cavalier response.
That night, the hands were back, followed by the tongue. This time, they didn’t let up till morning—the blonde girl spent all night writhing in bed, constantly at the brink of orgasm but never allowed to reach it. As the sun began to rise, the phantom stimulation disappeared, and Lonyssa managed to get a few hours of sleep.
At dinner, the thin man again asked what was on her mind. When she told him of the hands, the tongues, the arousal that it built in her, he simply nodded, and changed the subject.
That night, they returned.
Despite her best efforts, Lonyssa was not able to bring herself to orgasm. Whenever she tried, the feelings of arousal would fade, only to return once her hands were by her side.
“You know you could have me,” she told the thin man at dinner. “You have my heart; you must know that my body is yours as well.”
“I know,” he said, and with that the matter was dropped.
Over the next few weeks, the hands and tongues never let up. It wasn’t long before Lonyssa felt like she was in a constant state of intense arousal.
Finally, when the stimulation was present even through her sleep, even when she was sitting across from the thin man at dinner, she gave in.
“Please,” she pantingly begged. “I need to reach climax. I can’t go on living this way. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Wrong answer,” the thin man said, and with that he was gone.
Lonyssa’s eyes widened in panic, and she cried to the gods to bring him back. As if the loneliness wasn’t enough, she was now being supernaturally aroused twenty-four hours a day, and never allowed to climax.
She lost track of the days; the weeks blurred together as she went past the point of painful arousal, and it was hard to remember a life before being constantly, relentlessly stimulated.
She thought of the thin man often. Near constantly, she wondered what she’d done wrong, how she could bring him back, what could convince him to touch her, kiss her, fuck her...let her finally, finally get off.
Lonyssa considered suicide, but something held her back. It was a few days before she realized what it was:
He wouldn’t like that.
He wouldn’t like it if she wasn’t there when he returned. If he returned. He was the only human she’d spoken to in many months, maybe even a year.
He was her world.
It was that thought which made her realize what she’d done wrong. She’d tried to convince him to touch her, she’d been framing it as her pleasure—obviously, it was about his pleasure.
Everything was about his pleasure.
“Please...” she begged, as she prepared to drift into a sleep full of erotic dreams featuring the thin man. “Please come back...I need you. I need to serve you.”
The next morning, the thin man returned. For the first time, he appeared in her bedroom, and Lonyssa didn’t hesitate. She leapt out of bed, fell to her knees, and frantically unbuckled his pants, and withdrew his long, thin cock.
“Thank you, master,” she said, tears in her eyes as she looked up at him. “Thank you for coming back.
“Thank you for letting me serve.”
Seven months later, Lonyssa smiled down at her ever-growing belly. She’d given the thin man his every desire, and in return—he’d granted hers.
Sometimes she looked back at the foolish, arrogant woman who her husband had cleverly captured. She smiled at her silly disobedience—how could she have known the exquisite pleasure that was servitude?
The Queen of Flames was gone. In its place was the thin man’s most loyal, most loving, and most obedient slave-wife; the prize of his collection.