Disclaimer:
The following story contains explicit, non-consensual sex between women.

Xena warded off the innrats with one glance as she strode through the smoky room. The assorted traders, craftsmen and cutthroats lurking in the gin-soaked shadows were content to let the tall warrior pass -- it was late, they were drunk, and she was spooky as hell anyway.

Xena was targeted on Gabrielle, seated at a corner table, a glowing candle in these murky depths. The corner of Xena’s mouth lifted as she reached the table -- she was rarely subject to such lyrical thoughts, but this bard did inspire lyricism.

Gabrielle’s summons had been urgent, though, so it was time to address priorities. She lifted one long leg over a stool and sat. “Are you all right?”

“I’m good.”

Okay, Xena thought. White as a sheet, but good. Her voice grew gentle. “Did you hear from your family?”

Gabrielle raised her eyes from the table for the first time. “Xena, there’s a darkness in you I can’t forgive anymore.” Gods, it came out so studied. Breathe, Gabrielle. Keep eye contact and breathe.

Xena just looked at the girl, waiting. Every mental shield the warrior had ever wielded slammed down around her, tight.

“I’m sorry. I’ve tried.” Gabrielle swallowed, and heard a dry clicking in her throat. Her words sounded mechanical, she must focus. “I love you. I always will. But when you touch me, I feel blood on your hands.”

Like a knife gritting deep into spine. Xena thought about it. Yeah, that was exactly how this felt. I’ve been expecting it, gods know. But I’d better get out of here before I go straight for her throat or burst into tears. Which would be worse?

“Bed is . . . . “ Here her adroit bard faltered, and her mist-green eyes dropped. “Bed is sweet. I know that.” Beneath the table, Gabrielle dug her fingernails into her knee. “But we have to stop. The darkness in you is too strong, Xena.” Her bare shoulders hunched forward, wrapping around her. “Something about -- the way you take me, the rough sex, it brings it out. If I stay with you, you’ll lose control one night. Sooner or later -- you’re going to hurt me.”

There, that was the crossbow bolt, released fast and clean. Gabrielle watched it slam home into the base of Xena’s throat; the warrior was motionless, but her throat moved when she swallowed. Gabrielle didn’t dare lift her eyes to see the very real crossbows targeted on her lover’s back. Xena would have sensed them long ago, if her senses hadn’t been swamped with emotion.

She couldn’t avoid Gabrielle’s assault -- Xena had walked into her ambush wide open and unprotected. And Gabrielle went for her juglar, she had no choice. She had to get the warrior princess out of here, and far away, now. Gabrielle’s hands clenched on the table urgently.

“I want you to leave me.” Gabrielle spoke as deliberately and ruthlessly as she would have used her hands to extract a poisoned arrowhead from her lover’s flesh. “Ride out tonight. I’m going to Athens, Xena, to the Academy. Don’t follow me. This has to be a clean break. I do not want to see you again. But I want one promise.”

“A promise,” Xena murmured.

“Listen to me. You have to take care of yourself.” Gabrielle leaned forward and lowered her voice, the sternness in her now entirely genuine. “Don’t go off and make yourself sick over this. You have to eat. And sleep. And cover yourself with a blanket, when it snows.” Gabrielle gripped the warrior’s wrist suddenly, her fingers ice-cold. “I know you, okay? I know what I’m doing to you. And you have to promise me you won’t let your grief in the next few months kill you. Mourn if you have to, but let me go, and live. It’s all I’ve ever asked of you, Xena. You must promise.”

Gabrielle went still, intent on Xena’s face. A carpenter lounging by the bar happened to glance at her, and his glass stopped half-way to his lips. She was a beautiful girl, her honey-gold hair tumbling over her shoulders, the line of her cleavage clearly visible above the green halter. And the way she was looking at that big banshee -- man! If those emerald eyes turned on me I’d be a puddle on the floor. The carpenter raised his glass sadly to Xena, saluting her, and then downed his gin.

Xena watched the play of tendons on the back of her partner’s hand. A quiver of relief ran through her. The words she needed were coming to her, she could speak her heart. She hadn’t traveled with a bard for three years for nothing.

“Thank you, for your honesty, Gabrielle. I’ll try to take care of myself.” Xena pushed back the stool, her wrist sliding from Gabrielle’s grasp, and stood. She looked down at the top of the red-gold head. She waited, and finally Gabrielle lifted her face to her. Xena watched the slow progress of a single tear down the girl’s cheek. She smiled down at her, and then leaned forward and braced herself on the table with her hands, her lips next to Gabrielle’s ear. When she spoke her voice was a whisper, rich with warmth:

“I will love you to the end of my days, and beyond. If you ever need help, send for me. My sword will always defend you and yours. Thank you for lighting my life for three years, with the most sweetness I’ve ever known. Goodbye, Gabrielle.”

Unhurried, Xena slid her hand beneath Gabrielle’s thick hair and cupped the back of her neck. Gabrielle didn’t flinch at the stark chill of her palm -- she couldn’t take her gaze from the kind eyes above her. Xena brushed her lips against Gabrielle’s full ones. She did it again, lightly, and Gabrielle’s parted. The bard’s tongue snaked out and sought the safe cave of her lover’s mouth, greedily. Xena accepted her, sheltered her, sucking gently, until she could soften again. Then she lifted her head, rested her lips briefly between Gabrielle’s brows, and then released her.

Gabrielle sat there, staring at her hands, flat on the splintered surface of the table. The image trebled in her eyes as tears filled them, then fell, dotting the old wood. She didn’t have to look up to know Xena was gone.

A rough male hand nudged the bard’s bare shoulder. She rose, keeping her eyes downcast because she knew who watched her, and followed the soldier through the smoky darkness to the stairs, that led up to Callisto’s chamber.

“I wonder how many innocent lives you saved tonight.”

Callisto circled the bard, who stood quietly in the middle of the candle-lit room. “Hands behind your head, please.”

Gabrielle obeyed.

“Not just that butch-dyke bully of yours, though she’d be screaming on the end of my sword right now, if not for you. But all the pathetic, sheep-like villagers Xena will live to protect in the years to come. Because of your noble sacrifice.” Callisto came around in front of Gabrielle, enjoying the flex of the taut muscles of her upper arms, stretched by her position.

“Spread your legs.”

Gabrielle shifted, placing her feet as widely apart as possible. She kept her green eyes focused on nothing, staring into the shadows ahead of her. She was dead inside.

Callisto withdrew a dagger from her belt and began to cut off the bard’s clothing. She stripped her slowly, purring as the wicked blade hissed through cloth, baring the young woman’s breasts, her hips. Finally Callisto backed up a few steps to see her creation, standing naked in the middle of the room, her white body glowing red in the candlelight.

The lush swells and curves of Gabrielle’s body could have been sculpted from finest marble, they were so beautiful. Even Callisto’s withered soul swelled briefly with life, watching the firelight dance across Gabrielle’s large breasts, pulled erect by her lifted arms. The girl’s face was austerely lovely, carefully expressionless, the jaw set in a grim line of endurance. She dared meet Callisto’s gaze, now, staring at her in silent defiance as she stood spread before her.

“Why, Gabrielle, you’ve become a woman.” Callisto’s musical tone danced with mock admiration. “And all this time, I’ve thought you a little girl. A girl Xena rapes nightly. This will take some adjustment.” Her brow furrowed as she strolled to the bard.

“I suppose these are womanly enough.” Callisto flicked a finger across Gabrielle’s breasts, but her eyes moved to the furred triangle between her wide-spread legs. “This is what I’ve come for, though. Xena’s Golden Snatch. That’s what we call you, Gabrielle. All of Xena’s enemies. Her rich, creamy little bard-snatch.” Callisto smiled down into the still green eyes as her fingers touched her, probing. “You’ve started to get wet, sweetling. Are you very sure you didn’t send Xena away because you wanted this, wanted me?”

Gabrielle spat in her face. Callisto jerked back, splattered with saliva and rabid with rage. She lifted her hand, and Gabrielle snarled at her mindlessly. Callisto slapped her to the floor with one sharp blow. She landed on her back at Callisto’s feet, and felt the blonde woman place one black boot at either side of her waist.

Gabrielle braced herself on her elbows, knowing, and not caring, that her breasts swelled under Callisto’s gaze.

“Beg me to fuck you, little slut.” Callisto didn’t touch her, she just looked down at her, pinned between her booted ankles. “Say it. Say the words. Tell me to rub you, and lick you, and rape you until you scream. It’s going to happen anyway, Gabrielle. If you go shy on me, your warrior dies, horribly. Tell me what you want.”

The green eyes sparked with rage, a deep, banked anger that her love struggled mightily to subdue. She made herself lie still, her breasts offered , the nipples beginning to quiver. She thrust them toward Callisto, a contemptuous challenge.

“Bite me,” Gabrielle hissed.

Callisto’s knees hit the floorboards on either side of Gabrielle’s waist, and still the bard didn’t flinch.

“Count on it,” Callisto whispered, taking the girl’s nipple in her lips.

*******

It was sometime during the second night. Gabrielle had lost track of time. She’s safe, she thought. I kept her safe.

Callisto had made her kneel, clasp her hands behind her back, and then lower her upper body across three woven lengths of fishline that were strung across two chairs. The harsh cords dug into her breasts, suspending her chest an inch from the floor. She hung, tense and rigid, her nipples barely blushing the wooden floorboards, the full weight of her upper body forcing the strands deeply into her breasts. Callisto made her keep her chin lowered so she had to look at them, the white flesh bulging through the constricting line.

It was one of Callisto’s favorite ways to make her wait.

The blonde warlord sat, fully clothed, in a wide chair across the room, listening to the soft grunting emerging in Gabrielle’s breath, as she struggled to lift her shoulders to ease the strain on her breasts.

“Down,” she intoned mildly, and Gabrielle forced herself to relax, catching her lower lip in her teeth as her nipples scraped the floor again.

Callisto giggled, pleased with her new protege. She watched the red play of firelight over the flexing muscles of Gabrielle’s back. But after a few minutes, Callisto yawned, bored. “All right, dear. Turn over.”

Gasping, Gabrielle straightened. It was a hideous process. With her hands clasped behind her, she had to jut her buttocks into the air to lift her body, and she knew how Callisto relished her brief writhing. Moving as quickly as she could without appearing insolent, she spun on her knees and lay back down, this time draping her upper back over the suspended lines. She lifted her arms over her head and lowered them, so that the back of her hands rested against the dusty floor. Now she lay with her breasts jutting into the air, the fishline digging into her shoulderblades. She tried to quiet her breathing, and drew her tongue across her dry lips.

Thank the gods, she had moved quickly enough this time. She wouldn’t have to listen to another bloody, loving description of Xena’s torture at Callisto’s hands. Callisto told Gabrielle these stories while she played with her body, as if hearing her sadistic ramblings would arouse her, but the images she invoked only made the bard shudder with horror. Callisto didn’t seem to mind that, either.

She could hear Callisto walking around her, the slow clocking of her boots on wood. She could feel those sparkling brown eyes on her, on her breasts.

At first, her breasts had stung and sang as she lifted them off the line. Now they buzzed warmly, white and red splotches covering them, the pink nipples enormous. Gabrielle tried again to quiet her breathing, and she tried to rest.

She was conserving her strength. Callisto was conserving it, too, which unnerved Gabrielle. The madwoman hadn’t physically harmed her. Her skin had not been broken, and if she bore marks, it was because her fair skin bruised easily. Callisto forced her to eat and drink from her hands, kneeling naked beside her as she fed her. Any refusal would bring on another description of Xena dragged naked through a bed of glowing embers. She was allowed to take care of personal toilet needs, and bathing, though not unobserved. She was made to brush out her hair frequently, keeping it tumbling lush, full and soft around her naked shoulders.

I am, Gabrielle thought, as physically healthy as I was when I tore Xena’s heart with my tongue last night in the lower room. My spirit is already dying, but it’s going to take my body a hellishly long time to get the idea. Gabrielle glanced down her flushed body in sorrow, then turned her head on the floor, her eyes closing. I’m so strong. This could last forever. There are many inns in Greece.

She had not been penetrated yet. Gabrielle tried to lift one shoulderblade off the biting fishline, but succeeded only in making her breast bounce and quiver. She knew Callisto missed nothing, and she forced herself to lie still.

No penetration, but everything else had been done to her. She had been forced to do everything. (Or so she thought -- Gabrielle had not even a ghost of an idea how rich were the depths of Callisto’s imagination.) But she had been spared intercourse. Gabrielle smiled, her eyes still closed, her naked breasts jutting upward, grimly amused at the proper word that appeared in her raging mind. Tell the truth. She hadn’t been fucked yet. But she would be. Soon, Gabrielle thought, turning her head as Callisto stood up.

Her slow, gliding approach was interrupted by a muted knock at the door. Gabrielle was so startled she began to sit up, and Callisto’s dagger was in her hand in an instant. She whirled and threw the knife, hard. Only blind instinct saved the bard, instincts honed through years with a dark warrior. She jerked her knees apart with a cry, and the knifeblade thudded into the wood an inch from the jerking slit of her pussy.

“Lie down,” Callisto hissed, pausing a moment to enjoy how Gabrielle tried to widen her knees to distance herself from the blade, exposing her clit briefly. “I’ll be back,” she promised, a little breathless herself, after that.

The conference in the hallway was swift and furious. Callisto slammed back into the room, and Gabrielle could hear the muffled thuds of a flailing soldier tossed down the stairs. His booted footsteps raced into silence.

Callisto crossed the room to her in three long strides. She bent and retrieved the dagger, jerking it out of the wood, and then threw herself full-length on top of Gabrielle’s body. Her crotch slapped solidly over her exposed cunt, her leather-covered breasts smothered the naked ones beneath her. Gabrielle gasped in pain as the thin cords dug into her back.

“Listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Yes,” Gabrielle stammered.

“Xena’s here. And I will cut off your nipple if you move again.”

Gabrielle rested the backs of her hands on the floor once more, but it was very, very difficult.

“They keep hitting her and she keeps coming.” Callisto’s spit-flecked lips smiled in reluctant respect, and for a moment Gabrielle remembered Callisto’s beauty. “She’s fought through three patrols, trying to get to you. That’s twenty-seven soldiers. They’ve beaten the hell out of her. She’s coming anyway.”

“Callisto --”

“Shut up.” Callisto showed her the dagger, and then pressed the tip of it gently against Gabrielle’s right nipple. She watched the tight bud swell and fill with color against the cold steel. “They’re bringing her in here. I want her to see you. I want her to see us, together. And I want her to see you having a very, very good time.”

She traced a circle around the girl’s nipple with the tip of the blade, very lightly, not breaking the skin. Gabrielle caught her lower lip in her teeth, until Callisto tapped her cheek with her free hand.

“Don’t bite.” She waited until Gabrielle met her gaze. “You can fight me. You can tell Xena about our little agreement. And from what I hear of the shape she’s in, I can subdue her, and drag her up here in front of you and slit her gizzard while you watch..”.
“No.” Gabrielle forced the words out in spite of buzzing of the sharp steel tickling her other nipple. “Callisto, no! Don’t -- please -- ”

Sweet Artemis, was she begging? Gabrielle shuddered in revulsion, hearing the frightened entreaty in her own voice.

“Okay.” Callisto smiled down at her, winked, and then bobbed her head to bat the flat of her tongue once against the girl’s left nipple. “C’mon, bardie, let’s get ready!”

Callisto leaped up, grabbed Gabrielle’s wrist, and pulled her erect. She dragged her to the center of the room and put her in position -- her right hand covering her mons, the fingers of her left hand spread over the swells of her breasts in a parodied attempt to conceal them, both hips and chest jutting forward in her arched-back stance, legs spread.

“Perfect,” Callisto breathed, as she heaved and tugged the heavy iron-wood bed to the middle of the chamber. Only the galvanized sexual power streaking through her gave her the strength to move the huge thing, but she managed to position it just behind Gabrielle.

She darted around and set the wide armchair in front of the motionless young woman. Then she scurried onto the red-sheeted bed itself, reveling in the cool, tight expanse of the bottom sheet under her ass. Callisto snuggled up against the stack of pillows at the head, and regarded the scene dreamily. When the knock sounded on the door, she jerked her head impatiently and yelled, “Come!” Then she giggled. “You can consider that an order, Gabrielle.”

Gabrielle stood with her back to the bed, holding position, the tense half-moons of her buttocks shifting under the strain of her arched back. She looked like Aphrodite done right, Callisto thought, pleased. Immediately in front of Gabrielle was the chair. She would be the first thing Xena saw when she came to -- which, Callisto thought, probably wouldn’t happen for awhile.

Callisto frowned. Geeze, they had pounded the poor bitch! Xena sagged unconscious in the grip of two guards, her feet dragging across the floor as they carried her toward the chair. Her thick, dark hair was tousled wildness, her face streaked with dirt and blood. Her leathers were covered with dust and small patches of blood from minor wounds. Her muscular arms were banded with darkening bruises, and covered with a light sheen of sweat.

One of the guards stumbled, and Xena’s inert form fell heavily to the floor. In the same instant, a cry of fury erupted from Gabrielle.

The bard threw herself down beside Xena, lifting the warrior’s head into her lap even as Callisto’s enraged bellow shattered the air. Her shadow loomed over the bard and the fallen fighter, but the green fire streaking from Gabrielle’s eyes stopped even Callisto in her tracks.

“This was not our agreement,” the girl hissed, her fingers flexing on Xena’s shoulders, her bare breasts heaving over her battered face.

“You’re not in any position to renegotiate, bitch!” Callisto snarled, twisting her fingers in Gabrielle’s tumbling hair.

“She goes free, Callisto.” In that moment, the Amazon queen was in command. “You release her, and she goes free. And whole. Or I swear to you, I’ll open my throat with my own fingernails, I’ll bite open my wrists. I’ll die, and escape you somehow.”

“Well.” Callisto perched her free hand on her hip in pretended perplexity. She lifted her boot to nudge the warrior’s thigh, and laughed in delight when Gabrielle surged over Xena’s body, shielding it with her own at the supposed threat. “I must admit, seeing the Golden Snatch sprawled naked over her bleeding lover is almost worth this interruption.”

Callisto grinned at the two soldiers who had been Xena’s escort. She strolled around behind Gabrielle, and looked down at her body, extended over Xena’s still form. “Split me a little beaver, kiddo.”

“Callisto,” Gabrielle whispered.

“I said . . . show me some bardsnatch, Gabrielle, or I’ll make you hold Xena’s legs apart while I ram my fist up hers.”

Gabrielle lowered her head and parted her knees widely. She arched her back, hard, exposing the opening of her vagina. She held the position, trembling, feeling the cold air on her wetness and listening to the guard’s snickering.

“Nothing like a little restored authority.” Callisto snatched Gabrielle off of Xena with the fist twined in her hair. She dragged her to the wide bed, and then threw her on top of it. “On your knees, little one.”

Gabrielle struggled to comply, her eyes on Xena’s face on the floor below. She stiffened as she saw the guards lift Xena’s limp body into the wide chair, and bolt her wrists to the manacles on its arms. “Oh gods, no,” she whispered, not knowing she’d spoken the words aloud until she heard the hot breath of Callisto’s laughter on her shoulder.

The warlord was kneeling on the bed behind her. She snuck one leathered arm around Gabrielle’s waist and pulled her up, erect against her, her small breasts poking into the girl’s back.

“Xena’s going to see you come. I’m going to make you. No faking, little bard, you’re going to explode all over me.” Callisto’s voice broke with excitement, but she managed to inject reassurance into her next words. “Do a good job, and your pervert over there will be thrown in a wagon, driven three leagues away, and dumped outside some village in the sticks As is.” Calllisto tilted her head, regarding Xena’s sprawled form in the chair, a panther’s power restrained, and then she nodded. “She’s strong, she’ll live. Which is more than I can say for her if you don’t let me tickle your slit in a moment. Do we have an understanding.?”

“Yes,” Gabrielle whispered.

“And I’m not doing all the work,” Callisto breathed into her ear, her breath moving the golden hairs on Gabrielle’s cheek. “You do the talking. All of it. Convince Xena it’s what you want. Convince her, or see her bleed. Make her believe it.”

Gabrielle turned her head against the base of Callisto’s throat. “Kill me,” she pleaded.

“Never, honied one. Never.”

Xena stirred, and Gabrielle closed her eyes. She couldn’t see it, the look on Xena’s face when she saw her kneeling on the bed, naked, in Callisto’s arms. She knew when that blue gaze focused on her. A moment later there was a high shrieking of wood as Xena tried to pry her arms free from the manacles screwed into the arms of the chair.

But shutting out the sight was cowardice, and Xena’s lifemate was no coward. Gabrielle opened her eyes and lifted her head. She looked Xena full in the face. Her green eyes moved over her lover’s battered features, wincing at the blood, her throat tightening. Xena was hurt -- badly, from the looks of her. Gabrielle craned her neck, trying to see more of Xena’s body, but stilled when Callisto’s arm tightened across her waist and pinned her against her.

Xena had used those precious seconds before Gabrielle’s eyes opened. She had registered what was happening, stopped struggling, and composed her features. She sat relaxed in the wide chair now, no longer pulling against the cuffs. She rested her dark head against the back of the chair and lifted an inquiring brow. Xena gathered her strength.

“Spread your legs, Gabrielle,” Callisto whispered. The bard did. Callisto’s nudge in the small of her back forced Gabrielle to thrust her pelvis forward, exposing her pussy to the captive warrior. “So near, and yet so far, Xena,” Callisto crooned sympathetically. “Now listen up, dumpling, Gabrielle has something to say to you.”

Gabrielle looked into Xena’s steady gaze. Her hands settled on Callisto’s arm, still pressed against her waist. “I told you to leave me alone.” She looked down at the warrior with lifeless eyes. Xena’s gaze moved down to the bard’s glistening cunt, and then back to her face. “I meant it, Xena. I didn’t want -- I didn’t ask you to come busting back in here, after me. I didn’t want you to see this.”

Gabrielle swallowed, as Callisto’s hand lowered and her long forefinger began tickling through her pubic hair.

“You didn’t deserve this, Xena. Not after . . . all you’ve done for me. I’m sorry you’re here, and I’m sorry you’re injured. But you have to accept it, now that you know. I’m with Callisto. It’s where I want to be.”

“Xena, I’m going to ask Gabrielle to play with her breasts.” Callisto said softly. “And tell you what she wants me to do to her.”

Gabrielle’s hands rose slowly and covered the tips of her breasts. She began rubbing them, feeling Callisto’s finger trace patterns across the gentle swell of her mound.

“I want her to touch me. Down there.” Gabrielle dropped her eyes to her jutting crotch and watched Callisto’s finger skate across her mons. “I want her finger in me. I want her to -- fuck me. Hard.”

“Good bard,” Callisto giggled into Gabrielle’s hair. “I’m sorry, Xena, but a gracious hostess sees to her guests’ every wish.”

She reached into her leather vest, and pulled out a long, thin shape. It was a phallus of polished wood, smooth and gleaming in the candlelight. A sob escaped Gabrielle when she saw it, but she forced herself to hold still. Callisto put a hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder and pushed her gently forward, so that her hands dropped to the bed. She let her wait there, on all fours, while she tickled the tip of the phallus down the goose-bumped planes of the bard’s back.

“By the way, do you see any wounds on your prized whore, Xena?” Callisto asked, rubbing her palm over the downy, upraised globes of Gabrielle’s bottom. “You suspected what was happening in here, but you expected to find the kid half-dead, didn’t you?”

“The thought occurred to me.”

Xena’s voice sent a sharp pulse of sexual heat through Gabrielle, and her eyes darted quickly to her face before focusing again on the bedspread below her.

Callisto brought the phallus around behind Gabrielle, and used it to nudge her thighs more widely apart. “I love it when her tits dangle like that, don’t you? Shake them for your lover, Gabrielle, would you?”

Gabrielle dug her hands into the bedspread and moved her shoulders, making her hanging breasts wobble above the bed.

“You thought I’d have to beat her to get her into this position, didn’t you? So did I. But I haven’t laid a hand on her. That way, with force or violence. I ask, Gabrielle spreads. Shake your boobies again, blondie.”

Callisto crooned happily as Gabrielle complied, and then she slipped the head of the phallus inside the steaming slit of Gabrielle’s cunt. She wiggled it back and forth gently, gathering juices, letting the bard feel it’s cool smoothness against her greasy inner lips. “Tell her what’s happening, Gabrielle.”

“Xena, she’s fucking me.” Gabrielle burst into tears, and the phallus plunged deeply inside her, making her surge forward on her hands. “Oh, gods -- “

Callisto pulled the phallus out slowly, her eyes widening as the slick redwood emerged between the gripping lips of the girl’s pussy. Then she pushed it in, hard, and dragged the handle in small circles, her tongue snaking out to dab over her lower lip. She pulled it out, then pressed it back in again.

Gabrielle felt a flush of shame so deep it was physically painful, as she realized her wetness allowed the rod to plow smoothly into her, and she emitted a strangled moan.

“Oh look, her little asshole is winking.” Callisto laughed and inserted a fingertip in Gabrielle’s anus. Gabrielle’s head shot up at this appalling violation, her nostrils flaring, but then the phallus sucked out of her and plunged back in, and her head lowered again.

Callisto found her rhythm, grunting softly to herself to provide appropriate musical accompaniment. Xena watched, fully conscious, her eyes lidded like a jungle cat’s, still as stone.

“On her hands and knees, from behind, like a dog,” Callisto sang, twisting the phallus as it moved in and out of the girl’s straining twat. “She always followed you around like a poodle, Xena, so I find this symbolically gratifying. This is my cock raping you, young slut, fucking you so fine . . . “ Her voice trailed off in a happy humming. “But I can’t hear you, pussygirl.”

“F-fucking me.” Gabrielle’s face was suffused with color. Her breasts bobbed back and forth from the motion of the hard smoothness impaling her. “She’s fucking me, fucking me . . . “

“All night, darling.” Callisto rotated the tip of her finger in Gabrielle’s anus, fascinated with the small opening. “I’m going to fuck you all night.” She snagged the bard’s wet clit in the bend of her finger and flicked it, hard, delighting in Gabrielle’s harsh gasp.

Callisto twisted the phallus into her wetness. Slowly, now, there was no rush. Fill her completely, empty her. Pinch the clit. Again. Push the phallus into her again, and this time Gabrielle groaned. Lovely.

“Gabrielle.”

Callisto’s eyes flew open as Gabrielle went still in her grasp. Both of them stared at Xena, whose eyes were brilliant as sunlight. Her voice had been weak and ragged, but the natural command of her presence asserted itself even now, through the weakness that followed a severe beating. “Gabrielle. You may not come without my permission.”

Gabrielle just stared at her, panting, her eyes enormous, the phallus poised outside her cuntlips.

A smile of joy lit Callisto’s face. “Why, Xena,” she murmured. “You’re issuing a challenge? You honestly believe I can’t make this little trollop come? Look at her, she’s half in rut already!” Callisto tugged Gabrielle erect on her knees by her hair, then reached down and swept three fingers through her pulsing nether lips. Gabrille’s mouth formed a silent “oh” and she closed her eyes. “Really ravishing little Snatch, here, make her beg to grind her cunt on my teeth? Get down there, little girl, Callisto’s ready to ream.”

The rape continued.

Eventually the twitching of Gabrielle’s buttocks worsened. Nothing the bard could do could keep them still, the tension building in her couldn’t be contained any longer. She arched her back slightly, rooting against the wooden length digging in her. Callisto pummeled into the bard, smacking the phallus home, yanking it back out, slamming it deep again, scraping her clit with it, her other finger skewering deeper into her asshole.

Gabrielle screamed, once. Then again. Her breasts flopped heavily between her forearms, her back arching hard. The tendons stood out on either side of her neck as Callisto scrubbed her fingers across her dangling clit again. Gabrielle shook her head fiercely, trying to quell the rising tide of carnality coursing through her loins. She snapped her eyes open, the whites glimmering, her breasts jerking wildly beneath her.

“Xena,” she gasped, her eyes widening, a tremor shaking her shoulders. “Help me.”

She had but to ask.

Sexual power had allowed Callisto to move a bed of ironwood across the floor. That same power, of a purer strain, propelled Xena out of the chair. She snapped the cuffs and launched toward Gabrielle and Callisto with such speed, Gabrielle wasn’t sure exactly what smacked hard into her shoulder and spun her around on the bed, knocking her head against the footboard.

Things clouded then. The oblivion Gabrielle had prayed for descended, and she was only dimly aware of her surroundings. She caught glimpses of flying soldiers, and heard the harrowing scream of rage that was Callisto’s callsign.

When her vision cleared, it did so slowly.

Gabrielle was aware that she was still naked -- always, vividly aware of this first -- and still on the wide bed. On her back, now, in the bed’s center, her limbs splayed in a wide X. Gabrielle’s brow furrowed as she struggled to free herself -- but then she realized that she wasn’t bound. Her eyelids fluttered and lifted.

At first her fogged vision was blinded by Xena’s tall form, silhouetted against the harsh light of the open window. The warrior stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at Gabrielle, bracing herself with her hands against both bedposts. Rays of sunlight shot past her to illuminate Gabrielle’s pale body on the bed. The young woman closed her legs in instinctive modesty, one hand lifting to shade a breast. Then she focused more clearly on Xena’s face, and saw her close her eyes in pain. Whatever power had filled Xena was gone, and what was left was one human and badly beaten warrior.

Alarm spurted through the bard and she sat up, bracing her upper body with her hands. “Xena.” That was all that came out, just her name.

Hera’s light, Gabrielle thought. If I could write something that beautiful I’d be remembered forever. Covered with bruises and bleeding scratches, the strong shoulders trembling with fatigue, Xena perched one elbow on the bedstead and smiled smugly down at her bard. Blood wended slowly down her throat from a small cut above her brow.

Gabrielle burst into tears. Again.

“We’re safe,” Xena said quietly.

“I know that,” Gabrielle snapped. She worked herself up on her knees and inched forward, reaching for Xena, completely oblivious to the picture she created. She wanted a closer look at that cut. “Lie down, Xena, before you fall on me.”

“No,” Xena said. She caught Gabrielle’s reaching hands in her own and held them, firmly. She cleared her throat and winced, but shook her head when Gabrielle began to speak. “Lie back, Gabrielle. Now.”

Oh, gods.

Gabrielle settled back on the bed, her eyes on Xena’s face. A little afraid, now. She lay down, hands at her sides.

“Spread your legs,” Xena murmured. “Bend your knees.”

Gabrielle shivered. She turned her head on the bedspread and closed her eyes, willing to endure whatever Xena needed. Whatever it was, even if it was bloody. She prayed Xena wouldn’t hurt her. She drew her heels to her hips and let her knees fall to either side, exposing her cunt completely to the warrior’s eyes.

The bard was still wet Copiously so. Her vagina held the pent-up fluids of hours of sexual torture without release. She’d never climaxed beneath Callisto’s hand. For the past year, Gabrielle came only when Xena allowed it. And even in her despair, she had kept that pact with the warrior.

“What are you doing?” Gabrielle whispered.

“Hush.”

There was a peculiar warmth washing over Gabrielle’s hips. She opened her eyes and saw Xena staring down into her open pussy. Just staring, with those odd, paralyzing lavender eyes. Focusing -- on her clitoris?

Which was twitching. Gabrielle lifted herself and stared at it, still half-fearful. Her clit quivered and bounced in its nest of wetness, and Gabrielle felt the power gathering deep in her belly.

She pulled her gaze up to Xena’s face, her eyes slowly widening as the roiling heat inside her grew. “Xena,” she whispered. “Xena, no.”

Xena said nothing. She lifted her head, her eyes still focused on Gabrielle’s twitching cunt. She made no move to touch the girl. She just stared.

“It’s too strong.” Gabrielle caught her lip in her teeth for a moment. “I don’t think I can do this -- in front of you -- oh, gods.”

“Come for me, Gabrielle.”

“Xena, it will blow me apart. Xe--Xena . . . “

“Come for me.”

Flame exploded through Gabrielle’s rigid twat, and she shrieked. Her hips bucked up and her head hit the soft bedspread. Her hips hung in the air, rooting, jerking, Xena’s gaze still pinned on her spasming clit. Gabrielle shrieked again, with less breath this time. Her hips crashed down onto the bed and she ground her hips in circles on the spread. She put one hand on each wide-spread knee and pushed, shooting her cunt up into wave after wave of excruciating pleasure.

Which knocked the bard out more thoroughly than conking her head on the bedpost had.

When she awoke, Xena was seated on the bed beside her, her warm palm stroking her stomach. Gabrielle couldn’t move for a moment. She stared at Xena through heavy-lidded, thoroughly sated eyes. Then her gaze sharpened, and she sat up, bracing herself on her elbows.

“Lie down, Xena. Now. And just keep your damned eyes off me, okay?”

Xena looked startled, but she grinned as Gabrielle jumped off the bed and grasped her arm, making the warrior stretch out on the bed. Gabrielle winced and closed her eyes for a moment, resting one hip against the mattress.

“What is it, Gabrielle?”

“What is it?” Gabrielle asked, her eyes opening with effort. She bent and lifted Xena’s legs onto the bed. “You try coming so hard your eardrums pop, and then standing up too fast five minutes later. Still with no clothes on,” she added.

“You were out for at least ten.”

“Well, lovely, we have a new record.” Unmindful now of her own nakedness, Gabrielle unlaced Xena’s shirt, trying to find the worst of the damage. She’d learned to look rather than ask, with Xena, it was faster.

But when Gabrielle got the shirt open, and she was looking down at her partner’s bruised ribs, it caught up with her -- the nights of captivity, the look in Xena’s eyes when she sent her away -- and the look in them, too, when she sent her over the edge.

Gabrielle erupted in tears again. “Bloody hell!”

“Gabrielle.” Xena cleared her throat. “I’m not -- “

“I’m not crying because you’re hurt,” Gabrielle sobbed, slapping Xena’s hand away. “I’m crying because I have things to do and I have to take time out for this little breakdown, first. I can’t see to examine you until I get hold of myself, I can’t see to stitch you -- “

“Bri.” Xena’s palm was warm on her lower back.

Gabrielle let the warrior turn her, lie her down beside her, rest her head on her muscled shoulder. The bard’s arm slid automatically around Xena’s waist as they lay together. She couldn’t stop crying, though.

“Oh, bloody hell.”

“You got that expression from Boadiccea,” Xena murmured, her eyes closing.

Gabrielle’s sigh shook. “Xena, I am so, so sorry -- “

“Gabrielle. Sleep for me.”

And the bard slumped against her, exhausted, her nakedness soft and trusting against the warrior’s aching side. A soft snore emerged from her almost immediately.

Xena looked down at the still, lovely face on her shoulder. She brushed the honey blonde hair off her brow, rested her lips against Gabrielle’s damp forehead, and then she slept, too.

-------------- end ------------------