Five thousand years ago a great rock fell from the skies into the oceans of Earth. Waves fifty stories high crashed down on the shores of civilization, destroying the world men had made. From the ashes of destruction, New Earth arose…a brutal, hostile land…Shadowlands

Assassins After Dark

By

Mark James

i.

The banging on the door worked its way into Haken's head like a rotten, throbbing tooth.

“Alright!” he bawled out, throwing back the matted, filthy furs he slept in.

Where the hell was the bitch?

“The World ain't ending is it?” he said, drawing on his trousers.

The banging got louder, like maybe the man on the other side had decided to dance on the door.

“You fucking better have a Gods-cursed good reason for - ”, Haken said, yanking the door open. The words died on his lips when he saw Diogo and Valak.

“Bright morning to you,” Diogo said, smiling cheerily and walking past Haken.

The assassin was tall and powerfully built, with swarthy skin that looked permanently tanned. His dark eyes fell heavily on Haken. Valak followed close behind Diogo, tall, silent and deadly. His black eyes scanned the darkness.

“Find the bitch,” Diogo said to Valak.

“Right,” the other man said, disappearing into the darkness beyond the tiny room.

Diogo sat on a chair, tilted it back on two legs and put his black boots up on a rickety wooden table. He looked Haken up and down, a tall thick man whose bloated belly showed the ale he packed away nearly every night. His sleep bleary eyes were squeezed down to tiny points in the bright morning sunlight streaming in from outside. His scent filled the small room, stale liquor, piss and a nearly overpowering odor of sweat. Great oily drops rolled down the sides of his face as he stood looking at Diogo.

There was a thud in the other room, followed by a small, yipping cry, then Valak's low, grating voice saying, “No you don't, bitch.”

Haken stood perfectly still as if to say, you're not here. This is a nightmare and soon I'll wake up and take a piss. You're nothing but a full, aching bladder, mister .

“Your payment's late,” Diogo said, looking at the sack of shit in front of him.

“I been meaning to come by,” Haken said. He licked his dry lips and tried a smile. He didn't quite make it and ended up bearing his teeth in an idiot grin instead.

“Yeah?” Diogo said, looking him up and down.

His dark brown eyes bore into Haken. Diogo's thickly muscled body always gave him the look of a crouched tiger, poised and ready to strike, even when he was sitting with his feet up and his arms crossed against his wide chest.

Valak came back into the room, dragging a pale, frightened slaveboy by the arm. He backed the frantically struggling boy into a corner and let him pull away, afraid that if he held his frail arm too tight, he would break his thin bones. The boy cowered in the far corner of the room, biting his ruby lips, looking from one man to the other, his dark green eyes round with fear. His hair, the color of new gold, gleamed in the shaft of sunlight that stabbed into the dank rooms and fell across his pallid face, giving him the wild look of an animal caught in a trap.

“You hear that Valak? He's been meaning to come by,” Diogo said to his friend. He'd taken out a knife and now he used it to clean his nails.

“Right,” Valak said, looking down at the boy in the corner.

His hard, angular face, nearly lost in dark shadows, showed no emotion. In the small room, he towered over the slaveboy, tall and built hard and compact somehow. He had a deadly air about him, like a cross bow always cocked and ready to deal death at a moment's notice.

He pulled the boy from the corner, dug his long fingers into his golden hair and pulled his head back hard. His other hand moved eerily fast, and a knife appeared from nowhere. He pressed the wickedly sharp blade to the pulse in the boy's throat, and looked at Diogo, waiting.

The slaveboy tried to pull back from the knife, but Valak paid no mind. He pulled the boy's hair tighter to keep him from cutting his own throat in panic. Unshed tears glistened in the boy's eyes and hung like gems in his long lashes. Tiny desperate sounds came from the slaveboy, but no words escaped his lips.

“Where's my fucking tokens?” Diogo said, looking at the tableau of Valak and the boy.

Diogo wasn't smiling anymore. His hard eyes had gone a cold shade, the color of freshly turned grave dirt. Haken glanced nervously from Diogo to Valak. The one time farmer turned veteran gambler and hopeless drunk, wished mightily that the earth would open and swallow both of these dark eyed assassins.

“My friends,” he said, in his best let's-be-reasonable voice.

He smiled broadly, and this time it lit up his whole face, like sunshine coming out from clouds. He looked like the young man he used to be before he found his true calling at the bottom of a mug of ale.

“I can work this out, give me time.”

“Cut the bitch,” Diogo said in a low, irritated voice. He didn't look up from his work on his nails. “Make him scream.”

Valak increased the pressure on his knife ever so slightly. A drop of blood formed on the boy's throat. He was used to using knives on men. That's why what happened next took him completely by surprise.

ii.

The slaveboy went purely crazy, thrashing and screaming, begging Valak not to kill him, to please have mercy on a worthless slaveboy. Valak was forced to drop his knife, or the boy's struggles would have slit his throat from ear to ear. Valak slapped the boy's face hard, leaving a brilliant red mark on his too pale cheek.

“Quit it, you stupid bitch,” Valak yelled into his face. “Or you'll fucking kill yourself.”

He grabbed the boy's too thin arm again, Gods, nothing's right about this bitch , he had time to think, and bent to get his knife, but the boy kicked out a scrawny leg and the knife went twirling across the dark stone floor. Valak glared at the boy. He wasn't stupid then, just scared.

Valak gave his arm a rough shake and the feel of the boy's bones just beneath his skin damped his anger. The boy grimaced in pain and cringed from the blow he expected.

Valak did something he never did. That's what kept him alive in his line of work. He acted without thinking. Without realizing he was going to do it, he swept the boy up into his arms and slung his impossibly light weight over his shoulder like the world's lightest sack of potatoes.

The boy immediately beat his small fists on Valak's back, but he was ready for that. The boy's tunic had pulled up and his naked ass stuck out over Valak's shoulder. He brought his big calloused hand down on the boy's naked ass, with not even half the force his hard, muscled arm could have given the boy. But it was enough to make the slaveboy yelp and scream, until his white ass turned beet red.

“Behave bitch, or I'll lay into you real good,” Valak said in his hoarse voice.

The boy's struggles stopped as if a switch had turned off. Diogo saw something that gave him a bad feeling in the pit of his belly. A tiny smile touched the corners of Valak's mouth. He looked from that hint of a smile on his friend's face to Haken, who stood with his mouth hanging open like a door that's come unhinged. Oh Gods, I don't need this , Diogo thought.

Beads of sweat stood out on Haken's oily forehead. His hair was scattered helter skelter from sleep, like grass grown wild. He brushed at it, as if neatness counted.

“If you got a stash Haken, now's the time to dig it out of whatever filthy hole you got it in,” Diogo said. “Down your pants, up your ass, I don't care. Get my fucking tokens. Now.”

“I got half,” Haken said, inching around Valak and the boy. “Half Diogo. I'll give you the rest come Good Day. Someone owes me.” Haken's voice was desperate and somehow whiny at the same time.
“Nobody owes you nothing, you stinking drunk. You owe half the town and you're in hock to the other half.”

“I swear. This sailor, he'll be back in town come Good Day. He owes me.”

Diogo let the chair slam to the ground and dropped his feet to the floor. The sound was loud in the silence. The only other sound was the slaveboy's sniveling whimpers.

“I don't want half you lying shit sack. You got ‘til Good Day to get me all of it. Any later and I take it out of his ass,” Diogo said, pointing to Haken's slaveboy. “Bring the bitch, Valak.”

“Hey, wait,” Haken said. “My bitch's worth five - no - ten times what I owe you.” He started to go after the men and his boy.

Valak put the boy down and shoved him toward Diogo. He headed for Haken and both men met in the middle of the darkly shadowed room.

“No!” Diogo cried out. “Valak, back off him.”

But it was as if Diogo had said nothing. Valak grabbed Haken's shoulders and jammed his right knee viciously into the other man's crotch. Haken doubled over, screaming. Valak grabbed his hair and whispered into his ear, “Don't pay shit sack. I'll enjoy coming for you.” He let him go and stood back as Haken crumpled to the floor, holding his balls and gasping for breath.

Valak turned to the boy and grabbed his skinny arm. He bent so he was eye to eye with him. “You going to fuck with me?”

The boy shook his head back and forth slowly, watching Valak warily, like a lion that might pounce and eat him. He looked past Valak to his Master, still squirming on the floor, then tore his eyes away and looked at Valak again. The tears in his eyes slipped down his cheeks. Valak wiped the boy's wet cheeks with the back of his hand.

“Do what I say and I won't hurt you,” he told the scared slaveboy. He picked up his knife and held it up in front of the boy. “Fuck with me, and I'll cut on you just for fun. You got me?”

The slaveboy nodded enthusiastically. Valak thought if the boy shook his head any harder, it might fall right off his body.

He held out his hand and after a moment's thought, the boy took it obediently and went out into Emyhr's bright morning sunshine with Valak. Diogo marveled at that. He could have never gotten the boy to take his hand. He would have to take him by force.

Just before they left, Valak gave Haken a sidelong look that Diogo knew better than he wanted to – cutter's eyes . Haken was too busy writhing on the floor, trying to catch his breath, to see his coming fate in Valak's furious eyes.

iii.

“Jasari,” the boy had said in a kind of oh Gods, I'm fucked voice when Diogo asked his name. He sat on the floor beside Valak. Diogo sat behind his writing table in the back room of The Pit, the whorehouse both men owned. It was a grotto like room, with a low ceiling, carved out of the dark red stone behind the whorehouse. Two torches burned on the wall behind Diogo. The walls and ceiling had a fine dusting of soot from countless torches.

Besides the massive table, the only other furniture in the room was two cherry wood straight back chairs that matched the table. The dark red wood glowed with a mellow gleam that made the stark walls look more like a room and less like a stone crypt.

Valak, who didn't hurt slaveboys for the sake of it, had bought the boy a plate of sausages, bread cakes and scrambled eggs. Jasari shoveled the food down his throat, with hardly a pause in his mouth, with almost alarming speed.

Diogo and Valak exchanged a silent glance.

“Gods boy, when's the last time you ate?” Valak said.

The boy paused a moment, a thick bread cake wrapped around a sausage that dripped oil poised at his lips, thinking.

“Yesterday Sir. Master had meat,” the boy said. “He gave me bread and gravy.” His face brightened. “ All the gravy.”

He popped the sausage and bread into his mouth, making his cheeks bulge comically.

“Well slow down. You're not worth anything dead,” Valak said with a rough edge in his voice.

His boys were used to Valak's rough ways. They knew when their Handler was mildly annoyed, and when he was about to whip ass. But Jasari wasn't one of his boys. A shadow of fear crossed the slaveboy's pale face. The memory of Valak's cold knife pressed to his throat haunted his eyes.

“Go on boy, eat,” Valak said in a softer voice. “I'll bring you more if you gobble it all.”

The boy looked up at him, unbelieving. “You would do that Sir?”

Valak nodded. “Yeah. So slow down. I mean it.”

Valak ran a gentle hand through the boy's soft, golden hair while Jasari ate. Diogo saw a look on his friend's face that he had come to know and dread.

“No,” Diogo said, making the word two syllables. He shot up his forefinger, ticking it back and forth. “Don't be thinking of it.”

“What?” Valak said, his eyes wide.

“Don't be looking at him like no stray pup. He's going back or we're selling him.”

The stray pup look vanished from Valak's face and that hard, dangerous look that was never far came into his eyes. Cutter's eyes , Diogo called them. That's how Valak looked when he was carving up a screaming man like a Gods-Blessed Feast Day bird.

“Haken's scum,” Valak said.

Diogo let it go. Long summers of friendship had taught him not to argue with those cutter's eyes.

All this seemed to go by the boy, who went on eating without looking up at the men. Outside, seven bells rang.

“Call them in,” Diogo said. “Let's take care of this. Daylight's wasting.”

The boy spared Valak no glance when he left. Diogo sat back with the air of a man at a particularly good magic show and watched the boy stuff another tremendous bread wrapped sausage into his mouth.

The moment the boy swallowed the last of the food, he looked afraid again. He wiped the crumbs from his full ruby lips and knelt between Diogo's legs looking up at him with his dark green eyes, more scared than ever.

“You going to sell me off, Sir? To Tooth n' Claw?”

The boy misread the surprise on Diogo's face.

“I'm sorry Sir. I didn't mean no disrespect. I know it's your decision Sir. Please Sir, I - ”

“What makes you say that boy?” Diogo said, studying the boy close.

Jasari squirmed under his hard gaze, shrugged and looked down at Diogo's boots.

“Master's always saying he'd sell me if I was worth something. Always says a place like Tooth n' Claw is where a useless slut like me belongs.” He looked up at Diogo. “Is that where you're selling me?”

Diogo was no good at handling slaveboys. Anything he said or did made things worse. He wished like hell Valak would hurry up.

“I ain't selling you nowhere. You're going home as soon as your Master pays me.”

The boy fought back tears. Gods-curse it , Diogo thought, where the fuck's Valak ?

“Softly boy. You'll be home before - ”

“He won't pay you,” Jasari shouted in a high screechy voice that grated on Diogo's nerves. “He probably left town already. He'll be on the first ship out.”

“You're wrong boy,” Diogo said quietly. “No one would do that to me. He'll pay, and come Good Day you'll be back home.”

“Yeah,” the slaveboy said, and sat at Diogo's feet and put his face in his hands.

Valak walked in. The relief on Diogo's face was ecstasy, salvation.

“They're coming,” his Handler said. He was about to say more, but he caught the look on Diogo's face. “What's up?”

Diogo told him. In a few minutes, by some magic that made Valak the best Handler Diogo knew, he had the boy smiling. It was a small smile, but it was better than anything Diogo could have done.

Jasari knelt at Valak's feet, fidgeting with the man's trousers in a way that would have annoyed Diogo beyond all reason. He didn't know how Valak did it. Slaveboys all over him all the time, with their petty nonsense – this one took that, he said this, it wasn't me, he got more cake than me - bawling, laughing, noisy. He cringed inside at the thought.

Valak watched over the whores with a savage passion that was nearly frightening. The boys loved him. They obeyed Diogo out of fear, but they followed Valak's least command out of gratitude.

In the way of men whose friendship was born in the bloody brotherhood of the battlefield, the men had split the business between them without speaking of it. Diogo managed the money side, Valak managed the whores.

With men Valak was a murderer, a torturer and a ruthless enemy. With slaveboys he was a benign God who ruled fairly and whipped ass like the Devil Man himself. Every time Diogo thought he had Valak figured out, he'd see him with some new pretty he'd bought for the whores or a silly scrap of rug they'd begged him for.

Yet it was Valak who had talked him into the Kathara cut. When he and Diogo started the whorehouse, Valak convinced Diogo to part with over half their fortune to get the Kathara Sacrifice for the whores. It was only for boys who had been chosen to follow the Path of the Flaglent, or whatever the fuck they called it. But gold talked louder than the Gods in the ears of the Brothers, and the Temple had done the whores. The Kathara cut sewed up a boy's ass and left them with a deliciously tight hole that drove men into wild ecstasies of pleasure.

Valak took every boy they bought for The Pit to the Temple and had them pierced first, then took them back for the cut. Once a boy was pierced through the top of his cock, he never got hard again.

The piercing and the Kathara cut made the boys valuable slave whores, perfect for serving and giving pleasure. Men came from miles around to use the whores, even men with their own boys. Most men didn't have the gold to bribe the Temple for a Kathara cut.

Valak trained the whores they bought to take a good hard fuck without begging for it to stop or pleading for mercy. After a few hard ass whippings, they learned to take a man's cock with silent tears and whimpering moans.

iv.

The whores came trooping in, quiet and nervous, as they always were around Diogo. He leaned against his desk, watching them walk in and kneel in front of him in a half moon. He didn't know why they were so afraid of him. He didn't beat them any worse than Valak.

Nisha, a boy whore with shimmering copper hair, light pink lips and sultry blue-grey eyes that made men desperate, came too close to Diogo's desk. He brushed some papers off. The boy tried to save them and an inkwell went toppling to the floor, spilling across Diogo's trousers. The boy looked up at Diogo, horrified. He tried to clean the ink and succeeded only in making bigger stains, leaving handprints all over the trousers.

“I'm sorry Bahari,” the boy kept saying. “Sorry.”

The boys never called Diogo anything but Bahari . It was from the High Speech and translated roughly to ‘Great Sir' or ‘Lord'.

Diogo jerked his leg out of Nisha's reach. “Get off me bitch,” he said through clenched teeth.

The boy paled and shoved his hands behind his back like Diogo's trousers had caught fire.

“Yes Bahari,” Nisha said miserably. “Sorry. I'm real sorry Bahari. About your trousers and all.”

Valak watched in silence. This kind of thing always happened to Diogo around the boys. He took pity on his friend, who looked ready to slap Nisha into roughly the middle of next week.

“Nisha,” Valak said, snapping his fingers. “That's enough. Quiet.”

The boy dropped his eyes. Anything was better than the look on Diogo's face. Even the beating Nisha was sure was coming.

“You whores like the life I give you?” Diogo said.

All four of the boy whores knelt on the floor in front of his desk. He sat behind his desk. Valak sat on the opposite side of the desk in the corner, watching over his boys, as always.

“Yes Sir,” Yahsi said softly.

He pushed his wavy honey brown hair back from his face. His dark pink lips trembled with fear. All the boys knew what was coming. Or at least, they thought they knew.

“You treat us good Bahari,” Reya said in a soft murmur.

The blonde highlights in Reya's straight dark brown hair gleamed in the torchlight. The boy bit his dark pink lips.

“You hear that Valak? My whores think I treat them good.”

“Right.”

“What about your Handler? He treat you good?”

The boys all nodded.

“Yes Bahari, real good,” Taj said.

The boy's jet black hair framed a cinnamon colored face gone pale with fear. He licked his soft lips and tossed his hair, slipping a trembling hand into Yahsi's hand. Yahsi took Reya's hand on the other side of him.

Diogo leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk, trying to ignore the ink soaking into his trousers.

“You're bathed, clean and fed everyday. That's more than some men in this town have.”

Taj stole a glance at Valak, who looked right back at him. The boy dropped his eyes, sorry he'd ever looked up. Valak was serious and pissed. This was bad. Real bad.

“You're all prime slave flesh,” Diogo was saying. “We paid a wagon load of tokens for every one of you.”

Diogo put his feet down with a hard thump that made the boy whores stiffen and huddle closer together.

“You're all the kind of whores that make a man dig deep into his pockets, then sell what he don't have to fuck your ass.”

All the boy whores were looking down at the floor. None dared raise their eyes to him. Diogo looked at his Handler over their bent heads and winked.

Jasari, silent and watchful beside Valak, saw it.

“Valak, there's one thing I don't ever do. I never force a boy to be a whore for me.”

“It's not worth it,” Valak said in his low, raspy voice. He always sounded like a man on the edge of losing his voice.

“No,” Diogo went on, “I like my bitches to be happy.”

Diogo looked at the slave property that he and Valak owned, half and half, all of them beauties that had cost them dearly. Not one boy would fetch less than five thousand gold tokens at auction.

“There's always Tooth n' Claw,” Valak said.

A gasp of horror passed among the boys.

Taj, the slave whore closest to Diogo said softly, “Please Bahari.”

“Who gave you permission to speak bitch?” Valak said, his voice soft and dangerous.

The boy cringed at the sound of Valak's voice as though he'd been slapped.

“Tooth n' Claw, down on the docks.” Diogo went on, as if Taj had said nothing. “It's the first place sailors and soldiers hit to get some ass.”

“He keeps his whores chained up in the day, but I hear he takes them out every three or four moons,” Valak said.

“You think Kadiz would buy one of my whores if they didn't like it here?”

“I don't see why not. He's always looking for fresh slavemeat.” He looked over at his boys. “You think they deserve another chance?”

Diogo shrugged. “That's up to you. And good thing for them. If it was me, I'd sell the bitch. Teach the others not to fuck with me.”

The boy who had spilled the ink crawled to the front and knelt at Diogo's feet.

“Please Bahari. It was my fault. I refused him. Don't sell me,” the boy said. He cried at Diogo's feet. “Please, let me stay.”

“Why did you refuse a man?” Diogo said in a low voice that betrayed none of the anger that boiled in him.

“I already served four men, Bahari,” the boy said. He wiped tears from his eyes.

“So you refused a man your ass?”

The boy nodded, twisting the front of his tunic into a bunch. “It hurts so much Bahari,” he said in a small voice.

“No one gives a fuck how much it hurts you whore,” Valak said in that same soft voice. You pissed me off bitch , that voice said. I'm going to make you pay .

Nisha pushed his coppery hair back from his tear streaked face and said nothing. It was safer to keep your mouth shut when Valak sounded like that.

“We hand picked all of you,” Diogo said.

He leaned back against his desk. The boy at his feet took hold of his leg and wet his trousers with his tears, getting ink all over his tunic. Diogo let him stay like that, ignoring him. If he touched Nisha right now, he might beat his stupid face in.

“You got privileges most whores wouldn't dream of. In the day, you have the run of the whorehouse. You go out on the back balcony, instead of being locked in downstairs. On Festival Days, you eat sweetmeats. You don't have to kneel when I come in a room. You bitches live good here.”

Diogo leaned down and grabbed the front of Nisha's ink stained tunic.

“You see this tunic?” He shook the boy and let him go. “ I have to pay for another one. You're whores,” he yelled at them. “That's why we bought you. I'm generous. I tell you only four men a night. But if a man wants your ass, how dare any of you refuse?”

“Bahari, please,” Nisha said, raising his smoky blue-grey eyes to Diogo.

“Shut the fuck up,” Diogo shouted into the boy's face. Spit flew from his lips and landed on Nisha's cheeks.

v.

“You cost tokens last night bitch,” Diogo said to the boy. “I'm giving that man your ass tonight, free.”

“I'll serve him Bahari. I'll obey,” the boy said in a shaky voice.

“You're fucking right you'll obey. You're a whore. What do you think you're here for?”

“I'm sorry,” the boy said. “I didn't know - ”

“Didn't know what?” Diogo said, losing his temper. “That you're here to suck cock and get fucked?”

Suddenly, Diogo grabbed Nisha's silky, coppery hair and pulled the boy's head back, looking down into his scared eyes. Without warning, he undid his trousers and took out his thick cock.

“This is what you're good for,” he said and shoved his hard cock into the boy's mouth.

All the boys watched Diogo's fat cock disappear between Nisha's light pink lips.

“You better not spill a drop or I'll make you lick it off the floor,” Diogo said.

Diogo fucked Nisha's face hard, digging both of his hands into the boy's hair, holding him still while he drove his cock deep down his slave whore's throat. His balls hit Nisha's lips with every stroke.

“Fucking whore,” Diogo said, thrusting his hips into the boy's face. “What the fuck you think you're here for?”

The slaveboys watched Diogo use their friend's mouth, too scared to look away. If they turned away, Valak would punish them. Nisha choked and gagged, but he kept his hands behind him. He didn't dare struggle.

Diogo fucked the boy's mouth hard, jamming his cock deep again and again, while Valak looked on impassively. The whores knew better than to piss off Diogo. The boy was getting what he deserved.

Finally, Diogo shuddered and arched his back urgently. He pulled Nisha's hair and thrust into his mouth, hard, moaning. All the boy whores saw Diogo's come trickle from their friend's lips.

Diogo pulled out of the boy's mouth and pulled up his trousers.

“Don't piss me off,” he said, looking at his slave property. “Or you'll see how bad things can get.”

He looked down at Nisha, who was wiping his mouth with a trembling hand. His tunic was stained with ink, and drops of Diogo's come.

“You're lucky I don't make you lick my come off the floor, you whore,” he said to Nisha.

He raised his hand to slap the boy.

“Not his face,” Valak said quietly.

“I'm sorry Bahari,” the boy was saying, over and over.

Diogo threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Whatever you do to them Valak, make sure you teach them a lesson.”

“I'll take care of it,” Valak said. “You done with them?”

Diogo nodded.

“Go downstairs and bathe,” Valak said. “I'll be down.”

The boys all rose to their feet and hurried out as fast as they could without running. Jasari looked up at Valak, unsure what he should do.

“Go with them,” Valak said.

The boy followed after the whores, running to catch up to them.

Valak closed the door behind him and turned back to Diogo. A smile surfaced on his hard face.

“Tooth n' Claw? I wouldn't let you sell a rabid dog into that slime pit.”

“They don't know that,” Diogo said.

He sat at his writing table and pressed his tented fingers to his temples. “Refusing a man.” He shook his head. “Who bought Nisha, you or me?”

“Doesn't matter,” Valak said. “He's a good bitch. I'll take care of it before they go to sleep.”

The laughter left Valak's face. He paced the tiny room. His long legs covered the small open space between the dark walls in three or four steps.

Diogo put his feet up again and leaned back in his chair. Coming in the boy's mouth had relaxed him. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Before Emyhr, Diogo and Valak had been what Diogo called purveyors of information. Sometimes powerful men needed information. Or needed things done. Things they couldn't risk getting dirty with.

That's where Diogo and Valak came in. Diogo negotiated the deals and Valak handled the blood work. Diogo softened up men with words that conjured such horrors that men fell to their knees, begging to tell anything, give up any friend, yield any secret. The men who didn't succumb to Diogo's words, faced Valak's knife. His talent was carving up men like a roast of meat, one screaming piece at a time.

Between the two of them, they had made a fortune, selling their talents to the rich and powerful. Eight summers ago, the two friends came to Emyhr and pooled their riches and bought The Pit and a couple whores. In two summers, they made all their tokens back. The whorehouse and the back room gambling had made them rich. Now they were business men by day, and assassins after dark.

Diogo opened his eyes and watched Valak pace the room. He had known his friend for too long not to know that something was eating at him.

“What's on your mind?” Diogo said.

Valak turned to him.

“You think Haken will pay?”

Oh Gods. Back to that , Diogo thought. He put his feet down and looked up at Valak.

“The bitch said he already left town, ran out on us.”

“That's too bad,” Valak said, sounding genuinely disappointed. “I was looking forward to slicing off a couple fingers.”

“What's he done to you?” Diogo said, although he knew his friend well enough to know the answer.

Valak looked at Diogo like he'd turned suddenly stupid. “Did you see how he kept his bitch? The boy dirty, hungry and whip marks all over his back. What could a scared boy like that do to deserve scars on his back? Fucking drunk. Coward.”

“If he ran out, we'll sell the boy at - ”

But Valak didn't let Diogo finish. “No,” he said.

“Valak, he'd be a worthless whore – scared, skinny and all scarred up. We can't - ”

“I said no.” Valak looked his friend in the eye.

“Be it,” Diogo said, giving up. There was no use arguing with Valak when he looked at you like that. “But he belongs to you, not the business. I don't want any part of him.”

“Agreed,” Valak said.

“I'm going,” Diogo said. “Don't beat them too bad, I need them in the whorehouse tonight.”

“I know how to take care of my boys,” Valak said quietly.

Assassins After Dark, Part Two

By

Mark James

“You got a name?” Yahsi said to Jasari when the boys got downstairs.

“Forget his fucking name. Hurry up ,” Taj said. His voice was tinged with hysteria. “Don't let him come and find us standing around flapping our lips at the new bitch. We're already in it for thirty lashes.”

“He never gives us thirty,” Reya said, pushing his dark brown hair back from the tawny skin of his smooth face.

Taj whirled on the boy. “Shut up. He will if he hears you.”

The door opened and Valak walked into the slave quarters. Taj looked around at him, frozen in the act of taking off his tunic. All the boys froze, their eyes riveted on Valak.

Reya's confidence crumbled like wet sand. Did Valak hear him? Oh Gods, please – don't let it be .

Ten pair of eyes watched Valak take off his tunic. He only did that when he planned to work up a sweat. His lean, muscled chest sloped down to his flat belly, ridged with muscle.

“Finish bathing,” he said. “Take a bath Jasari.”

The slave quarters was basically a big square hole that had been carved out of the stone underneath the whorehouse. Valak let the whores put up silks on the black walls and he'd bought them cushions that added bright splashes of color that did nothing to push back the gloom of the stone darkness the boys lived in.

Candles, lit by the whores when they came down, burned around the room, making more shadow than light. In the clusters of candlelight that danced along the black walls, nervous strain showed on the boys' faces as they undressed.

In one corner of the room, three round holes had been scooped out of the floor so long ago that the stone was worn smooth with age. A pump stood on the edge of each round hole. The baths were filled with cold water and the boys stripped quietly, getting ready to bathe. Bath time was usually noisy, filled with gossip from the night before and the boys' laughter. But today they were quiet and solemn. They shot quick glances across the room at Valak, as if they hoped he'd disappear like a bad dream.

The far corner of the stone room, opposite the door, was the Devotion Corner. A life size statue of Zah Nar, God of slaveboys, stood there. A stone slaveboy knelt on all fours, on a stone altar, in front of Zah Nar. The God's hands were clamped down tight on the boy's hips, caught in the act of thrusting his great stone cock into the slaveboy's ass. The muscles in his arms flexed, standing out in thick cords of strain. The boy's mouth was stretched into a silent scream. His face was a study in pain and fear. “To Suffer is to Serve” was carved into the stone pedestal that supported Zah Nar and the worshipping boy.

A dark wooden table, Zah Nar's altar, stood in front of the pedestal that supported Zah Nar's statue. The table had a hump in the middle that was just the right height for a boy to bend over and lift his ass to a man's cock or a waiting whip. Manacles were built into the table on opposite sides of the rising bulge, two on each side.

Valak sat on the edge of the altar. On the wall to his left, a series of metal hooks stuck out of the wall. A collection of whips, canes, floggers and slave plugs hung there. Valak chose a short, bamboo cane from the wall.

“When you're bathed, come over here,” Valak said to the whores. “No tunics. Someone find Jasari something to put on.”

Taj came first and knelt with his legs spread wide, his hands behind his back. Between his legs, his pierced cock hung limp and useless. The rest of the boys came one at a time until a half moon formed with Valak and the altar in the middle. Jasari stood back, in a tunic far too big for him.

“To me boy,” Valak said, looking at him and pointing to the floor beside the altar.

Valak stood up from his place on the edge of the altar and paced in front of the boys. His lithe, lean body had the smooth grace of a sleek panther on the prowl, or an assassin on the hunt. His black hair was pulled back in a round, silver tube.

“I'm good to you whores. Diogo says, ‘punish the bitches'. I don't. I stand up for you. I tell him you're good whores,” Valak said in his hoarse, grating voice. “You bitches embarrassed me.”

He stopped in front of them and snapped his fingers.

“Nisha.”

The boy hurried forward and knelt at his feet, looking up at him. Valak looked down into his sultry blue-grey eyes. They sparkled with unshed tears like perfect, round jewels.

“Why did you refuse a man last night?”

Nisha parted his lips to speak, but only a thin whimper came out. He tried again.

“Please Sir. I already had four men. It hurts us so much to get fucked,” Nisha said.

His light pink lips trembled so badly, it was hard to get the words out.

“I'm sorry Sir. I didn't know. You tell us four – I – I - should have come to you. Please don't sell me,” he finished, almost too low to be heard.

Valak looked down at the boy whore's tear stained face without pity.

“If a man wants your ass and ten men already used you, and your ass hurts so bad you feel like screaming, show me what you do bitch,” he said.

The boy bent over right away and lifted a tight, round ass that was every man's dream. He spread his legs and lifted his hips like Valak had trained him to do, so his pink hole showed.

“Why didn't you do that last night? You're my whore. You obey me.”

“I'm sorry Sir. Please,” the boy begged, “please don't sell me.”

Valak brought the cane down on the boy's ass, hard. Nisha cried out, but he knew better than to put his ass down.

Behind Valak, beside the altar, Jasari cringed. He knew what it felt like to get hit like that.

“Fucking whore,” Valak said. A look of irritated impatience crossed his face.

He paced in the gloom of the dim candle light, passing each kneeling boy so close they smelled his sweat. He hung his head, like a man in prayer.

The slaveboys waited in silent fear. Their naked bodies gleamed with a thin sheen of sweat in the cool air of their dungeon home. Nisha cried softly into the carpet. A thick red welt had already risen on his creamy ass.

Valak stopped in front of the whores, looking down at their frightened faces.

“What's the punishment for disobeying a man?”

None of the whores answered. On days like this, it was best not to speak until spoken to. By name.

“Reya,” Valak said.

The boy raised his hazel eyes to Valak.

“Thirty lashes for disobedience to a man Sir,” the whore said in a trembling whisper.

“I will never sell you.” Valak said each word with slow deliberation. “But if you disobey my rules, you'll get no mercy from me.”

“Diogo would sell us in a blink for a profit,” Taj murmured to Yahsi under his breath.

Valak turned on his heel so quick, he was a blur. “Not unless he thought it was a good day to die,” Valak said, standing over Taj.

For a brief moment, Taj saw a hard, flat shine in Valak's eyes that frightened him badly. Had Diogo had been there, he would have known that look - cutter's eyes . The boy's bladder went all soft and loose inside him. A tiny trickle of piss was all that escaped his cock, but only because reserves were low. Otherwise he might have capped this nightmare day by spraying piss all over Valak's trousers.

“No one messes with my bitches,” Valak said. “Diogo's Bahari, but I'm a fucking God when it comes to you whores.”

He looked at Taj. “You talked in line. Don't piss me off today bitch.”

Valak glanced over at the altar and saw Jasari cringing beside the big wooden table. He looked back at Valak with dark green eyes full of fear.

“Come here bitch,” he said, motioning the boy to him.

Jasari hurried to him and knelt at his feet, his eyes on Valak's boots.

“Take a good look at my whores. They're scared ‘cause they think they're getting a beating. But they're not.”

“They're not Sir?”

“No,” the assassin said, looking at the boy whores.

The whores cringed. They knew what was coming. Every boy at Valak's feet would have gladly taken a whipping rather than endure the punishment they knew was coming.

“Tonight, in the whorehouse, they'll each give their ass to eight men, instead of four.”

The whores all looked at Valak with the horror of condemned men.

“Please Sir - ” Taj started to say.

But Valak whirled and sliced the cane through the air, stopping inches from Taj's naked back.

“You say something bitch?” Valak said, looking down at the boy with darkly furious eyes.

Taj swallowed hard. “No Sir,” the boy said, almost too low to hear.

“If something like this happens again,” he said, looking into each boy's eyes, “I'll lock the door to upstairs. You'll spend one moon locked in down here in the dark when you're not serving. No torches. No fucking candles.”

Jasari looked around in disbelief. He couldn't imagine this stone room without any light. It would be like sleeping in a tomb.

“There's no windows down here Sir,” Jasari said quietly. “It'll be black as coal with no candles.”

“That's right bitch, you can't see your hand in front of your face without candlelight down here,” Valak said, looking at the boy whores.

“Please,” Taj said. “Gods. Don't Sir.”

“Don't lock us up,” Reya said miserably, “please Sir.”

“I can make things real bad for you. You know that don't you?” Valak said.

vii.

The whores all knew that if Valak locked them up in darkness, there would be no begging or pleading with him. He was God in their universe; a merciful God with a wickedly hard streak, more real to them than any stone statue.

“Don't fuck with me,” Valak said, bringing the cane down hard on the altar next to him.

Beside him, Jasari cringed and ducked his head. Upstairs, in the world of light, eight bells rang.

“Go to sleep. No talking. It's late,” Valak said to the whores.

He looked down at the boy kneeling beside him. “You're coming to my furs.”

The boy dropped his eyes, but not before he saw the bulge in Valak's trousers.

“Yes Sir.”

Jasari waited by the altar while the boys slipped into their furs. Valak locked the door that led upstairs and went around the dark stone chamber, lighting fat, midnight blue candles with three wicks each. He didn't like his boys to wake up in the dark, frightened. When he was done, Valak stood in the middle of the furs, looking around at his whores.

“I better not hear that anyone takes this out on Nisha. You were all new once. You all made mistakes.” He bent the cane in his hands, looking around at them. “Besides, you whores don't want me to settle anything that comes up, do you?”

They all shook their heads.

“No Sir,” Reya said quietly.

“Come on bitch,” Valak said to Jasari.

The boy followed him to his rooms.

Jasari hesitated in the pitch blackness of Valak's rooms. The assassin lit a candle, then took off his tunic. The boy waited for him to light more, but only the lone candle pushed back the heavy darkness of the room that felt like a stone cave with it's curved walls and low ceiling.

Valak stripped out of his trousers and stood stroking his hard cock, looking down at the slaveboy. Jasari waited on his knees, beside the furs, unsure what he was supposed to do.

“Get on all fours and service me,” Valak said to the scared boy. “And you better do it good. That cane ain't gone nowhere,” Valak said, grabbing the boy's hair and pushing his face down into his crotch.

Jasari licked up and down Valak's thick cock with agonizing slowness, sliding his hot tongue all the way down to his balls, then back up to the engorged head of his fat cock. The bitch was on his hands and knees, his round ass sticking out while he serviced Valak.

“Move that bitch ass around while you suck me,” he said.

Valak watched the boy's ass writhe sensually and sway slowly from side to side while he pleasured his cock with his incredibly hot mouth. Jasari slid his wet tongue across Valak's balls in slow circles, then opened his mouth and took his ball sack between his soft lips, running his tongue over his balls inside his mouth. Valak groaned softly in pleasure.

“Fuck, you got a hot tongue,” the assassin said.

He pulled the boy's hair and forced his head back. “Open your bitch mouth.”

The boy's ruby lips parted and he took Valak's cock deep down his throat, until he nearly choked on it. Valak twined both hands deep into the boy's hair, holding his face still. He looked down at the boy's gyrating ass while he fucked his face, pumping his fat cock slow and deep into the boy's mouth, choking Jasari on nearly every stroke.

“Look at me,” Valak said.

Jasari obeyed. Unshed tears filled his dark green eyes.

“Moan for me,” Valak said to him. “Moan like a desperate gutter whore. And keep moving that ass.”

The boy started moaning softly around Valak's cock, moving his round ass, taking Valak deep down his throat. The boy's soft red lips were stretched tight around his pumping cock, his cheeks hollow, as he struggled to please Valak. The sight of tears on the boy's face while he moaned and serviced him drove him crazy.

“That's it,” Valak said, riding the boy's mouth. “That's what a bitch is good for. To pleasure a man's cock.”

Looking down at the slaveboy on all fours, moaning and sucking his cock and moving his tight round ass like a whore made Valak unbearably hot. He wanted nothing more than to come in the boy's hot mouth. He slid his cock in and out fucking the boy's face hard, making him take every inch of him.

“Oh yeah, bitch, that's it, take it deep,” Valak said, rocking his hips in pleasure, driving his throbbing cock hard down the boy's throat.

Jasari moaned in pain with every hard thrust, but he didn't pull away or struggle with Valak. Instead the boy looked up at him with fear in his eyes, scared that Valak would cane him if he didn't pleasure his cock the way he liked.

“Oh fuck,” Valak said, and grabbed Jasari's face in both hands, stroking harder and faster into his mouth. After a while, moaning and panting, Valak drove his cock deep into the boy's mouth and clenched his teeth, groaning as his cock exploded and jetted come down the slaveboy's throat.

“You're a hot fuck, boy,” Valak said, pulling out of Jasari's mouth. He lay back in his furs.

“You want me to go sleep with the other boys Sir?” Jasari said, looking down at the floor.

Valak was about to send the boy to the slave quarters when he realized something. He didn't want Jasari to go. He wanted the boy next to him, in his furs. He didn't quite understand why, but he wanted to wake up with the bitch next to him tonight.

“No,” Valak said. “Come up here. You sleep with me.”

The boy slid into the furs next to him. Valak's heavy eyes closed almost immediately, and he drifted off to sleep. A while later, the boy woke him, whimpering softly in his sleep, as if outrunning a nightmare monster.

He moaned in terror, tossing his head back and forth. Valak pulled the boy into his arms and ran a gentle hand through his hair until Jasari settled.

After that the assassin lay looking up into the darkness, holding the boy, but it was a long time before sleep claimed him again.

To be continued . . .

viii.

The main room of the whorehouse was an oval that had been carved out of the volcanic stone of Emyhr untold eons ago. The dark red stone walls, rough and unfinished, pressed close in the intimate space. Torches hung in black iron sconces every few feet, casting a dull red orange glow that gave the room the look of a forgotten underworld grotto.

In the center of the oval, a big stone pit that gave the whorehouse its name had been made into the bar. Wooden stools on slightly raised stone chunks with jagged sides and smooth tops were arranged all around the bar for men who wanted to eat or drink at the bar. Delicious smells came from the back, where a cook made simple meals of stew, soup and boiled spicy flour.

Low stone tables were scattered all around, surrounded by pillows. Manacles hung from the walls for men to chain whores there and use them. A few crosses with iron manacles were spread around the stone room and altars with manacles stood between some tables, where a man could chain a boy and mount his ass while another man used the boy's mouth. An empty pleasure sling filled a display stage that opened on the alley. Three nights a week, Valak kept a whore there all night, so that passing men would stop and watch a boy getting used and be lured into The Pit.

A big hulk of a man stood by the front door, his huge, chiseled arms crossed over his thick chest. He wore an open leather vest that showed the rippling muscle beneath every time he moved. Verik was the chief of the bodyguards for The Pit. The ex-gladiator wore a sword that was bigger than most men could carry, let alone use in a fight. And he had knives and various other weapons stashed under his vest and loose trousers.

Another bodyguard, a bald man who was blacker than midnight, and looked mean enough to chew glass, stood on the far side of the whorehouse, lounging against the wall. A big knife with a white bone handle stuck out of his belt. Tequir nodded to Valak.

The whores knelt in front of the bar, listening to Valak's instructions for the night. The doors weren't open for business yet, but all the boys heard the crowd of eager men waiting outside. Some of the men came to eat and gamble in the back room. Most of them could afford a boy's mouth, but only some of them were rich enough to rent a whore's ass. The boys' only hope was that not enough men would be able to afford to rent ass tonight.

Jasari knelt beside Valak. He'd put a collar and leash on the boy, and attached the leash to his belt. The slaveboy's hands were cuffed behind his back.

“Remember,” Valak said, looking at his whores. “Eight men tonight. I'll be watching.”

“We got to take eight different men Sir?” Taj said.

“What?” Valak said.

“What if a man comes twice up our ass. Is that two times?”
Valak thought about it. “No. Eight different men. Unlimited in your mouth. No refusals.”

The boys all nodded.

“Taj, with me. You got the first shift of sling duty.”

The boy tried to hide his anger, but Valak saw it in his eyes.

“You got a problem with that bitch?”

“Ain't it bad enough we got to take eight men? And you're giving us sling duty too?”

Jasari stared from Taj to Valak, sure that the boy whore was in for a whipping.

“You want me to chain you on an altar tonight?” Valak said.

The boy knew what that meant. Valak chained whores to the altar as “specials”, and it was free to use their mouth all night long. Men would stand in line to use Taj.

The boy opened his mouth, about to say something else, but suddenly his eyes locked on something across the room. Jasari followed his gaze and saw Diogo walk into the room. Without another word, Taj rose to his feet and went to the harness, waiting for Valak to strap him in.

“You whores ready to make me some gold tonight?” Diogo said, walking up to the boys.

The boys all nodded, keeping their eyes on Diogo's boots.

“They're each taking eight men tonight. That way they'll be grateful when we let them take four,” Valak said.

“Only tonight?” Diogo said, seeing the fear on the boys' faces.

Valak shrugged, playing along with his friend. “Up to them. If they behave, I'll be merciful and go back to four men. If they piss me off, it'll be ten men tomorrow night.”

“You whores hear that? You better start looking like you need to get fucked,” Diogo said, walking past them to the back of the whorehouse.

Jasari looked up at Valak, trying to read his face in the shifting torch light. The boy didn't think he'd really make the whores take ten men. But he wasn't sure.

“Positions,” Valak said, clapping his big hands at the kneeling whores.

The boys went to various spots around the whorehouse, waiting for men to start trickling in for the night. Jasari followed Valak to the front door where Taj waited. While Jasari watched, Taj was strapped to a leather pleasure sling, on his back, with his legs spread wide enough for a man to stand between them and use his ass. The last thing Valak did, after Taj's hands and feet were cuffed to the sling, was put a Pleasure Gag in the boy's mouth. The gag held the boy's full pink lips open in a sensual “o”, inviting any man with a hard cock to use his mouth. Men usually put in together for the harness and shared the boy between three or four of them.

“You alright?” Valak said to the boy. “Anything hurting you?”

When the boy shook his head, Valak put a double hourglass next to him, with the sand already trickling slowly from the top. “When this is up, I'll come get you.”

Taj settled back in the harness, waiting for the long night to begin.

Valak took one last look around the whorehouse, checking on the boys, then he opened the door and let in the waiting men.

ix.

The whorehouse was full of noisy men, drinking, eating and fucking. From the back room came the desperate sound of men gambling away tokens they couldn't afford. Diogo stood watch back there, making sure no drunken fights that broke out ended in a knifing.

Valak walked the floor of the whorehouse, making sure that men were happy with what they paid for. Jasari walked along behind him on his leash, his hands cuffed behind him in leather cuffs. It was well into the night and many of the whores had already taken six men up their ass. Valak stopped to watch a man use Yahsi.

The boy whore was bent over a table and the man was behind him, holding the slaveboy's hips tight, riding his ass hard. Yahsi's face was twisted into a grimace. The boy's eyes were filled with pain. He held on to the edge of the table, whimpering quietly while the man fucked him, showing him no mercy, using him like a whore.

“How come it hurts them so bad to get fucked Sir?” Jasari said.

“They're sewn up,” Valak told the boy. “It makes it more pleasing for a man to fuck a boy like that.”

“You like my whore?” Valak said, walking up to the man.

“Oh fuck yeah,” the customer said, not breaking his rhythm. “This bitch is fucking hot.”

Valak smiled and moved on, weaving slowly in and out of the tables of men, mindful of Jasari walking along behind him.

A man stopped Valak.

“How much to fuck a bitch?” he said.

“One fifty,” Valak said.

“Hundred and fifty tokens?” the man said. “What? They got gold up their asses?”

“They're cut. Kathara. You won't believe how fucking tight my whores are,” Valak said.

“How much to use their mouth?”

“Seventy five,” Valak said.

“I want the bitch on the sling,” the man said, counting out tokens.

“Go in with a friend. Two hundred for the sling bitch gets you and a friend the slaveboy's mouth and his ass.”

Jasari watched the man think it over. It was Nisha's shift on the sling. He watched while two men used the boy, one in his mouth, the other between his legs, up his ass.

“How long they got left?” the customer said.

“Their hour glass is almost done,” Valak told him.

The man raised a beefy hand and called two friends over. Two big, hulking men came. Their strongly built bodies told of the long hours they spent working the land.

“How much for the three of us with the bitch on the sling?”

“I'll make you a special deal,” Valak said and negotiated with the three men, selling them an hour and half with Nisha. His shift was nearly over, but they requested the red headed boy whore.

“They all going to use Nisha?” Jasari said, looking up at Valak when the men walked away.

“Why not? They paid me.”

Valak walked slowly between tables with the boy trailing behind him.

“You like my whorehouse, bitch?” he said to Jasari

“The men are mean to the boys, Sir,” Jasari said.

“Why?” Valak said, turning to caress the boy's soft cheek.

“They fuck them and they don't care if it hurts. They just keep going.”

“They're whores. That's what they're for. To get fucked, and suck cock and give men pleasure. Men don't care if it hurts them. Why should they? They're paying good gold to use whore ass.”

Valak walked over to the display stage and climbed the three steps that led up to the raised platform. The stage was actually a small hole in the original structure of The Pit. It had been Valak's idea to put doors to the outside on it, and make it into a display stage. Two torches burned on the stone walls, lighting the men that surrounded Nisha with a hellish orange glow.

Jasari knelt beside Valak looking up at Nisha on the sling. The three men were taking turns with the boy. The man who'd come to Valak was using Nisha's mouth. One of the other men stood between the whore's legs, using his ass. Jasari saw the tension in the boy's body, how much it hurt to take the man's cock up his ass. The third man waited, stroking his cock, watching his friends use the boy whore.

“How you men liking my bitch tonight?” Valak said.

“I never had such a sweet ass,” the man between Nisha's legs said, thrusting slowly in and out of the boy.

Valak smiled, looking out at the small crowd of men who stood in the alley, watching the men use the boy.

“That one's a slut for cock. Make sure you give it to him hard,” Valak said to the men and turned and went back down into the main whorehouse.

The men using the boy laughed, pumping their hard cocks into him, enjoying the boy's mouth and his ass.

“Do you care if it hurts them Sir?” Jasari said, kneeling at the bottom of the stone steps, looking up at Valak.

“They're whores. I take good care of them. When they're obedient, I'm merciful and I only make them take four men a night in their ass. Tonight's a punishment.”

Valak ran his fingers along the boy's ruby lips. His cock grew hard remembering how he'd used the boy.

“I liked fucking your mouth last night. You got a real hot tongue. Is that ass nice and tight for a man's cock?”

Behind them Nisha moaned in pain, while one of the men grunted in pleasure. All around them, the sound of men using whimpering boys filled the whorehouse. The boy looked at the unmistakable bulge in Valak's trousers.

“Men say my hole's real tight Sir,” the boy said softly.

“Yeah boy? Does it hurt you to get fucked?”

“Not if a man goes in slow, Sir,” Jasari said in a low, scared voice.

Looking up into Valak's dark eyes, the boy was suddenly sure that Valak wanted to take him right here, just bend him over an altar and fuck him hard.

“Sir?”

Valak turned to find Yahsi standing beside him.

“What is it bitch?”

x.

The boy slipped to his knees and looked up at Valak with pleading eyes.

“I can't Sir. Please. It hurts so bad. I had six men. I can't take two more. I can't. They all hurt me bad Sir. They fucked me real hard.”

Valak had been watching his boys all night. He knew Yahsi was telling the truth. For some reason, the men who rented him tonight had used him hard.

“Two more, no exceptions,” Valak said in a cold voice.

“I can't Sir,” the boy said. Tears filled his eyes.

“You better not cry in front of customers, bitch,” Valak said. “Or I'll take you downstairs and cane your whore ass.”

Yahsi rose quickly to his feet and retreated into the shadowy darkness of the whorehouse, wiping his cheeks before his tears showed. After he left, Jasari looked up at Valak in silence.

“What are you looking at bitch? They disobeyed me, they'll pay.”

“You're hard with them Sir,” the boy said.

“Kiss my boots,” Valak said, pushing the boy down to the floor.

The boy bent over, making his round little ass peek out from under his tunic.

Valak leaned against a stone wall, watching the crowd, watching over his boys. He reached down and ran his fingers through Jasari's hair, while the boy licked his boots. He liked having the bitch at his feet.

“You got a new whore Valak?” a man said, running his hands over Jasari's ass roughly.

The boy jumped up and pressed close to Valak's legs, looking up at him with scared eyes.

“Get your hands off my property,” Valak said through clenched teeth. “He's mine.”

Verik, who was standing close by, heard the anger in Valak's low voice. He headed for the assassin and the boy, sensing trouble.

The man saw Verik coming and backed off immediately.

“Sorry Valak,” the man said, seeing the fury in the assassin's dark eyes. “I didn't know you had a bitch,” he said in a desperate rush. “I wasn't disrespecting you. I thought he was a whore. You ain't pissed, right?”

Verik came and stood beside Valak, looking from one man to the other. Valak shook his head, waving off Verik.

“You got no trouble with me,” he said to the customer. “Your drinks are on me tonight. Tell the bar keep I said so.”

“Thanks Valak,” the man said, looking relieved. He headed for the bar, happy to escape with his life. He'd never needed an ale so badly.

Verik gave Valak a confused look, then melted into the shadows of the whorehouse. Valak cursed himself. Scaring customers was bad for business. He looked down at the boy cowering at his feet. He didn't know why he'd said the boy belonged to him, but he suddenly found himself hoping the boy was right, and Haken skipped out on them. Then he wouldn't have to give him back. The assassin was confused by these thoughts.

“How come you told him I'm yours Sir?” the boy said.

“Why ain't you kissing my boots?” Valak said to cover his confusing feelings. “No one told you to stop.”

The boy bent over again and pressed his lips to Valak's black leather boots, while the assassin watched, feeling utterly unsure of himself for the first time in his life.

The rest of the night went by in a blur for Jasari. An endless parade of men came and went, using the whores, making them moan in pain. He followed behind Valak while the assassin worked the crowd of men, making jokes about how good the whores were, negotiating deals for the boy whores and collecting gold tokens in payment for using the boys.

They ended up back at the front of the whorehouse, next to the display stage. Yahsi had the last shift on the pleasure sling. The boy lay there, bound helplessly while four men shared him. Two men were using him now, one at his mouth, the other up his ass. Both men moaned softly while they used the boy, forcing him to take their thick cocks, even though they knew he didn't want it. Behind them, their friends urged them on.

“Oh yeah, fuck that bitch, give it to him hard,” one of the men said.

“Hurry up,” another man said. He was stroking his cock, waiting his turn. “You take forever with a bitch,” he said to the man at Yahsi's mouth.

Valak walked along, making another round, stopping this time at an altar where Nisha was manacled. A big bald man built like a stone mountain, dressed in a sleeveless tunic that showed his hard, chiseled muscles had rented the whore. The slaveboy was bound helplessly on all fours, the hump of the altar lifting his round ass to the man's cock.

“You got a beautiful ass boy,” the man said, rubbing his rough hands all over the soft skin of Nisha's ass. The copper haired slaveboy moved his ass, like Valak had trained him to do, moaning softly.

“Please fuck me,” the boy said in a low, seductive voice. “I need it real bad Sir. I need a hard cock pumping into me.”

Jasari met Nisha's scared eyes and knew the boy was dreading the moment when the man took his ass.

“Yeah boy?” the customer said, pinching Nisha's pretty ass. “You need to get fucked good and hard?”

“Please Sir,” the boy whore said, moaning. “I need your cock up my ass. Fuck me Sir. Use me hard.”

Manacled to the altar on all fours, with his legs spread wide, Nisha moved his round ass, lifting it high, showing the man his pink hole.

The customer stripped out of his tunic, revealing a hard, muscled chest. Then he undid his trousers and his hard cock jutted up, thick and veined, with a fat head. Jasari knew it would be agony for Nisha to take the man's cock.

“That one's a natural born whore,” Valak said. “He can't get enough of a man fucking him and using him.”

“Yeah? Well I got all the cock a bitch needs,” the customer said.

He guided his cock to the boy's hole and grabbed Nisha's hips in a tight grip. Little by little he inched his way into the boy's tight ass. Nisha whimpered, but he knew better than to resist with Valak standing right there.

Once his cock slid all the way into the whore, the man settled into a hard rhythm, using the writhing boy's ass in long deep thrusts, groaning in pleasure. To Jasari, it seemed that the man took forever to come. The last of the hourglass sand was trickling into the bottom when the man finally clenched his teeth and sank deep into the boy, grunting as his cock spasmed and filled the boy with his come. He pulled out of Nisha, put on his trousers and tunic, and thanked Valak for a hot fuck before he went to the other side of the whorehouse to buy a drink.

Valak undid the boy's manacles. Nisha got up, wiped his face carefully so there was no sign of the tears that had leaked from his eyes. He fixed his tunic and walked off, without looking at Valak . He had to go clean himself and get ready for the next man.

Valak knew the whore was mad at him. They all were after what he'd made them do tonight. But that didn't matter to him. What mattered was that it would be a long time before one of them said no to a man again.

“How many is that boy?” Valak called after the whore.

“Seven Sir,” the boy said, refusing to look at Valak. The low tone of anger in the boy's voice was clear.

Valak had heard the half hour of eleven bells ring not too long ago. It had to be near closing time.

“You better go and get one more. It's almost closing time. Find a man and beg him to use your ass,” Valak said, knowing that was the last thing the boy wanted to do.

“Yes Sir,” the boy said, turning to go. Fury was written all over the whore's face.

Later, at the end of that long night, the whores sat at a low, round stone table with their abused asses on silk cushions. They ate the chicken and vegetable soup the cook had made for them in silence. None of the boys felt like saying anything that could be said with Valak standing a close watch over them from the bar.

Jasari sat with the boys, eating quietly.

“I'm sorry that happened to you,” he said to them softly.

“You better hope your Master comes and gets you. Or you'll be in here with us,” Nisha said.

“It wasn't fair,” Taj said. “We didn't deserve that.”

“Shut up,” Reya said in a low, tired voice. “Don't let him hear you.”

“You got something to say to me bitch? I'm right here,” Valak said softly.

None of the boys had heard Valak walk up behind them.

“Yeah,” Taj said, looking up at Valak. He was scared of their Handler, but he couldn't keep his mouth shut. “We didn't deserve that. You treated us like animals.” The boy shrugged. “Not like you care, right? You got extra gold tonight.”

“Taj, please,” Yahsi said in a low, trembly voice. “My ass hurts enough.”

Jasari looked up sharply at Valak. The boy was sure he would descend on Taj in a rage and whip him senseless. The whores held their breath, waiting for their Handler to hand down another punishment.

Valak looked at his whores' tired, drawn faces.

“Next time don't refuse a man, or it'll be ten men in one night,” Valak said, and walked away.

Taj looked around at the other boys. He saw his own look of fury and resentment mirrored on their faces. It took a great effort for the boy to resist the urge to throw his soup after Valak, bowl and all.

xi.

Valak didn't go anywhere without his knives. He felt naked without the feel of cold, hard steel pressing close against his flesh. Only one candle gave unsteady light in his silent rooms. Valak was at home in the dark.

In the darkness of his rooms, the assassin strapped a knife to his right arm under the loose fabric of his sleeve. He'd designed the spring load device himself. A quick flip of his wrist would fill his hand with ten inches of deadly steel. He slipped another battle knife into his left boot. He'd just put the whores to sleep. Jasari had fallen asleep in his furs after the boy serviced him. Valak had work to do before he could sleep for the day.

“Sir?” Jasari said, sitting up.

The boy startled Valak. He whirled on him, nearly drawing his knife. Jasari shrank back in the furs.

“Sorry Sir. Didn't mean to scare you.”

“What is it? Why ain't you sleeping?”

The boy peered around into the gloom a moment, spooked by the shifting shadows cast by the lone candle.

“Please don't sell me to that man Sir,” Jasari said, looking up at Valak.

“We've been through this boy. I found you a home. Lothar's a good man. He'll take good care of you.”

“No,” Jasari said, slipping from the furs and kneeling at Valak's feet. The boy looked up at him with pleading eyes. “I know I ain't pretty like your whores. But I can cook and clean and - ,” he looked around wildly, thinking of something, anything to tell Valak. “I'll wash tunics, scrub floors, anything, only please don't sell me off.”

Valak looked down into the boy's earnest green eyes, and saw the way his honey gold hair tumbled across his delicate face. His ruby lips came together in a full kiss. The boy was lovely, but he didn't know it because no one had ever told him so.

“After what you've seen me do, how come you're stuck on staying with me?”

The first night Jasari had spent with Valak in the whorehouse was a week past. The boy had been right. Haken, his Master, had skipped town.

“You don't know what it's like to be a slaveboy Sir. If someone does you wrong, you're a man. You take care of it. And they don't bother you no more. Not a man like you. It's different for us.”

The boy looked down into his lap, twining his nervous fingers together.

“I seen you beat the whores. Sure. Sometimes they don't obey. So you beat them.” The boy shrugged. “That's just the way it is for a bitch. But you don't beat them mean and make them bleed.”

Valak paced around the boy kneeling in the middle of his shadow filled rooms.

“The whores tell you to ask me?” he said.

Jasari nodded.

“Yes Sir. I was going to Master Diogo. But the boys, they said to talk to you, because you was a good man.”

Valak put his hands on his hips, looking down at Jasari. “You know what this place is boy?”

Jasari nodded. “A whorehouse Sir.”

“And if I let you stay, and I make you into one of my whores, you know what I'll do to you?”

A shadow of fear crossed Jasari's pretty face. “The boys, they told me Sir.”

“I'll pierce your cock, you'll never get hard again. I'll take you to the Temple and have them sew up your ass real tight. You'll only come if I let you, and every time a man fucks you, you'll cry. You want that?”

The boy stared up at Valak. In the wavering light, his dark green eyes looked haunted by terrible dreams. He was a long time answering.

“Some men, they just like to hurt slaveboys,” he said in a low voice. “And they do it over and over so sometimes, you wake up screaming, dreaming about his whip leaving scars on your back.”

Jasari dropped his eyes and Valak saw two tears slide down his soft cheeks.

“You don't like hurting slaveboys. You do it ‘cause sometimes a man's got to beat a bitch. That's just the way it is.”

Valak wiped the boy's tears away with the back of his hand.

“Listen boy,” he said gently. “You'll be happier some place else. This ain't no place to take a boy in. You'll - ”

But Jasari didn't let him finish. He pushed Valak's hand away impatiently, looking up at him again.

“My Master, he beat me bad, mostly ‘cause he was mean when he was drunk. You ain't like him. I know what I got here. How do I know what I'll get if you sell me?”

“What if I put you in the pleasure sling all night long and let men and their friends use you?” Valak said, his voice turning suddenly cruel and hard.

Unbelievably, the boy shrugged.

“I'm a bitch ain't I? I'd suck cock for you Sir. And get fucked,” Jasari said, looking down at his fidgeting fingers.

Valak ran a rough hand over his face. “You don't know what you're saying boy.”

Jasari looked up at him again, only this time, he looked at Valak like a teacher with a promising, but dull student.

“No Sir. With respect, you're the one don't know what you're saying. You think sucking cock and serving men is worse than living with a man who leaves scars on your back ‘cause his tea ain't hot enough?”

Valak had no answer for that. The boy took his silence as refusal.

“Sorry,” Jasari said, getting to his feet. “I shouldn't of bothered you.”

As Valak watched the boy walk sadly back toward his furs, he thought of selling Jasari, handing him over to another man, not having the boy at his feet at the snap of his fingers anymore, not waking up next to him at night. The assassin made a sudden decision.

“Who gave you permission to get up bitch?” Valak said. “If you're staying with me, you best learn to obey me.”

The boy ran back to Valak and knelt at his feet, kissing his boots and thanking Valak over and over.

“I ain't doing you no favor,” he said, stroking the boy's silky hair gently. “I make life good for my boys, but this a whorehouse and they're whores. And I'll make you into a whore too.”

The boy looked up at him with quiet adoration, as if he'd seen a God. Valak saw in his eyes that Jasari worshipped him. None of the whores looked at him like that. His boys loved him, but to them he was part keeper, part jailer. No boy had ever looked at Valak the way Jasari did. The assassin realized he liked having a boy look at him like that.

He ran his hand gently along Jasari's soft cheek. “You'll make me gold. You're a real pretty bitch.”

Jasari dropped his eyes, blushing at the compliment. His Master had never said such things to him.

“Go to the furs. Get some sleep.”

Valak sat on the furs until the boy fell asleep, wondering how he was going to tell Diogo about this.

“Sooner started, sooner done,” he muttered to himself.

Valak found Diogo in his back room behind the whorehouse, bent over a long parchment sheet of tiny numbers. Diogo could barely read, but he knew how to do sums. He hated keeping track of who owed them what. This wasn't the best time, but it couldn't be helped.

He looked up when Valak walked in. The assassin sat down and started talking. Diogo listened for a long time in silence, then he sat back in his wooden chair and looked hard at his friend.

“You told him what ? I don't fucking believe this,” Diogo said, banging a fist on his thick writing table.

“He can start on light duty, sucking cock. I'll chain him to an altar. A fresh whore will bring in men,” Valak said.

Even as Valak said it, the thought of Jasari sucking cock like that made him uneasy. He brushed it off.

“I told you. Not the business,” Diogo said, pointing a finger at Valak. “You found him a home, what happened?”

“He didn't want to go,” Valak said quietly.

Diogo looked hard at his friend. “Since when do you care what a bitch wants?”

Valak shrugged, looking away from his friend's dark, penetrating eyes.

“Something going on? You hard for this bitch, or what?”

Valak shook his head, not sure if he was telling the truth. “No. What do you want me to do Diogo? Put a terrified boy on the auction block and sell him off to the highest bidder?”

“Gods curse it Valak that's not our fucking problem.”

“We took him out of his Master's house. He's staying,” Valak said quietly.

“Oh yeah. I know that. Now I'm stuck with a fucking worthless whore.”

“He won't be worthless. He's afraid and he feels like he's useless garbage. He'll be a perfect whore. You'll see,” Valak said.

Unease crept up on him again at the thought of the boy serving and being used like a whore. To cover his discomfort, Valak flipped his right wrist and ten inches of lethal steel suddenly filled the palm of his hand. He played idly with the knife, avoiding his friend's eyes.

“You're lying to me Valak,” the assassin's friend said. “Something's going on. I don't know what it is. But we ain't no damn charity. You better put that bitch to work.”

“I'll train him and put him in the whorehouse.”

Diogo shook his head. “He's scared of his own fucking shadow. You'll never train him to do shit.”

xii .

“Please Sir,” Jasari said, looking up at Valak with soft eyes, “Please fuck my slave ass.”

“No,” Valak said, trying to hide his irritation with the boy. “Not like that. You sound like a hawker in the market place. Make me believe it. Make me believe you want my cock plowing up your ass.”

Jasari was tired and he hated the training. Only his fear of Valak kept him from snapping back with an angry answer.

“Do it again,” Valak said.

“Can't we do it more tomorrow, Sir?” the boy said.

Valak took a step toward him. Jasari fell back a step, fear springing into his eyes. “Get on all fours and do it again. Beg like a desperate whore who needs cock so bad you can taste it.”

The boy obeyed him, putting his ass up to Valak, moving in sensual circles, and from side to side while he moaned like a dying man. “Please Sir. I need to get fucked.”

Valak scrubbed a hand across his face. Diogo was right. The boy was a useless whore. He'd been at it with the bitch for over two weeks and the more he trained him, the worse he got. He was pretty, and he was a hot fuck, but he wasn't a born whore, like his boys.

“You want me to take my belt to your ass, bitch?” Valak said.

“I'm sorry Sir,” Jasari said in a shaky voice. “I'm doing what you said.”

“You sound like a dying animal. Do it again. Don't groan, moan , softly, like you need cock.”

The boy did it again, but it was no use. He was too scared of Valak's belt to get anymore out of him today.

“Enough,” Valak finally said.

The boy hurried to kneel at Valak's feet.

“Don't sell me Sir,” he pleaded, kissing Valak's boots. “I can be a good whore for you, you'll see. Please Sir. Don't sell me.”

It was the same thing everyday. The boy was terrified Valak would sell him if he didn't find him pleasing.

“I told you, I'm not,” Valak said. “Stop saying that to me.”

“I'm sorry,” the boy said. “I don't care if you whip me. Just please don't sell me,” Jasari said, ignoring Valak's words.

The assassin looked down into the boy's scared face and caressed Jasari's cheek gently.

“You're staying boy. If I can't make a whore out of you, then you'll cook and clean and service me and Diogo and the bodyguards. You're staying. Don't be scared.”

Jasari had served no one but him and Diogo since he'd been here. Night after night, Valak kept finding reasons to keep Jasari away from the customers. Diogo had given up telling him to put the bitch on the floor, serving men. Valak had never acted like this with any bitch.

He knew that the sooner they started serving, the sooner they learned and stopped being scared. Every night he told himself he'd put the boy out on the floor, and every night he kept him near, kneeling at his feet. Tonight he'd almost killed a man for touching the boy and asking Valak how much to fuck his ass. What the hell was happening to him?

“I'm sorry,” the boy was saying miserably.

Valak smiled, despite the long night he'd had in the whorehouse.

“Pay attention to the whores when they're serving. Learn to do what they do.”

“I will Sir,” the boy said. “I'll serve men for you. I'll take cock up my ass.”

A shadow of anger crossed Valak's mind at the thought of the boy getting fucked like a whore by a customer. He tried to shake it off, but he couldn't.

“Go to sleep, boy,” Valak said quietly. “It's getting late.”

He watched the boy go, puzzled by the feelings that flooded his mind. Valak wasn't used to looking into his own thoughts. He was a man of action who lived and worked in the long shadow of death. In his line of work, men who thought too much on things, fell under that cold shadow and were no more. But he couldn't shake the thought of Jasari in the whorehouse, on all fours, being fucked while another man used his mouth. The vision made a red haze fall over the assassin's mind. It was the way he felt on the battlefield, just before he used his knives to carve out a man's heart.

xiii.

Jasari lay awake in Valak's furs. He'd heard the assassin slip quietly from his rooms and cross the slave quarters to the door that led up stone stairs to the whorehouse. The boy tried to fall asleep, but he couldn't. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the look of murderous rage that used to come into his Master's eyes right before he beat him and left scars on his back. The boy had terrible nightmares nearly every day when he slept.

Somehow, being near Valak always made Jasari feel safe and unafraid. Besides, he was hungry. He'd been eating nearly non stop since Valak took him in. Having a man buy a treat just for him was something Jasari wasn't used to yet. He slipped out of the furs and went up the steps, following after Valak. In the back of the whorehouse, he heard his voice. The boy crept quietly along the dusty hallway, hoping maybe Valak would get him a sweet bread from the bakery next door. Sometimes he did that, if Jasari couldn't sleep.

He stopped just outside the door to the back room. Valak and Diogo were talking. If the boy interrupted, Valak wouldn't like it and he would have no chance of getting anything from the bakery. Jasari crept closer waiting for the men to finish. But soon he stood transfixed by their talk. Not even his Master had talked like this.

“We doing it tonight?” Valak said.

“You sure they're asleep?” Diogo said, looking toward his cracked open door.

Valak nodded. “I put them to sleep just now. And they wouldn't be sneaking around your backroom anyway.”

Diogo nodded at that. He knew how the whores felt about him, but he didn't care.

“No,” Diogo said. “Not tonight.”

“He disrespected us,” Valak said. “If we don't take care of him, every man in town will be laughing at us behind our backs. How long ‘til they start laughing to our faces?” Valak said.

“We'll make the hit when it's time,” Diogo said.

His hard face was set in the grim lines of a man who must do something unpleasant, but unavoidable.

“I could have taken Sheqhar last night in town,” Valak said, looking at Diogo with mild accusation in his eyes. “Why'd you stop me?”
“You could have taken him?” Diogo's voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Don't be a fool Valak. He had at least five men in the crowd itching to put a knife a in your back. And that's the ones I saw. I know there was more.”

“And what?” Valak said, raising his voice in desperation. “Sheqhar and Rakir and all of them just get away with disrespecting us and we don't do nothing?”

“Calm down Valak,” Diogo said quietly. “Angry men make mistakes.”

“I don't give a fuck,” Valak said. “I had it with that fucking farmer .”

“He's a rich farmer with connections.”

“He'll be a dead farmer with connections if he gets near me again,” Valak said softly.

“Listen to me,” Diogo said. He looked his friend in the eye. “You don't hit him unless I say so. Don't fuck with me.”

“He's nobody to disrespect us like that.”

“I mean it,” Diogo said.

“Fuck,” Valak said quietly.

“When it's time, we'll do it same as always. Only we'll leave him in the square. In pieces. We'll make an example of him,” Diogo said.

“Fucking right we will,” Valak said.

Jasari tried to hold his nose, but too late. The dust in the hallway tickled his nose lightly and he sneezed twice before he could stop himself.

Valak's unnaturally fast reflexes caught the boy. He flowed out of the chair with liquid speed, flung the door open and dragged the scared boy into the room.

“What the fuck you doing there boy?”

Jasari's eyes went wide with fear. “I couldn't sleep Sir,” he said in a breathless voice. The hard look in Valak's eyes unnerved him.

“You been listening to us bitch?”

“I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep,” the boy said again, unwilling to look up into Valak's furious eyes.

“Go down to my rooms and wait for me,” Valak said in a low quiet voice that utterly terrified the boy.

“Please Sir, I didn't mean it,” Jasari said, looking up at him.

“Obey me,” Valak said, raising his hand to the slaveboy.

Jasari backed away then turned and fled down the hallway, back to the slave quarters.

After the boy left, Diogo gave his friend a side long look. “We can't have that bitch talking to the other boys. He heard names. Slaveboys gossip. And the whores go to Temple every Good Day. Keep him quiet.”

“I'll take care of it,” Valak said. “When I'm done with him, he won't be talking to nobody about shit that ain't his business.”

Seeing the hard look in his friend's eyes, Diogo almost felt sorry for the boy.

xiv.

Downstairs, Jasari retreated reluctantly to Valak's rooms, and knelt beside his furs, waiting for the punishment he knew was coming. Valak never lit more than one candle in his rooms. It was always dark and gloomy in here.

After a long time, the assassin walked into the shadowy room, hiding something behind his back. The boy knew from the look in his eyes that he was still angry.

“Come here,” Valak said.

The boy went to him quickly and knelt at his feet, his eyes down on the floor. Valak stroked the boy's gold hair gently.

“I didn't mean nothing Sir. I was hungry and I couldn't sleep and -”

“Look at me,” Valak said, interrupting the boy.

The fear in the boy's round green eyes made Valak hate himself a little for what he was about to do.

“You know what you are boy?” Valak said quietly, caressing the boy's soft ruby lips.

Jasari shook his head slowly back and forth.

“You're fucking worthless gutter trash. I don't need to train you. You were already a whore when I got you. Your Master gambled you away to other men didn't he? He made you suck cock and get fucked for gold, didn't he?”

Jasari's face crumbled as if Valak had slapped him hard. Guilt and shame filled his sad eyes.

“You're lucky I don't fuck you hard everyday, just to hear you scream. That's all gutter whores like you are good for.”

“I'm sorry Sir. I didn't mean it,” the boy said again in a low voice. Twin lines of silent tears tracked down his pink cheeks. “I know I'm worthless. Please don't give me away. I'll obey you.”

The best way to frighten Jasari into silence was to dredge up the boy's memories of his past. Valak closed his eyes a brief moment, then forced himself to go on.

“Did you scream when your Master put those scars on your back?”

Jasari nodded, too terrified of Valak's soft, implacable voice to speak.

“They're good marks. Reminds a bitch of his place, don't they?”
Jasari nodded again.

Valak took his hand out from behind his back. When the boy saw what he held, his green eyes widened and he whimpered in terror. The boy was sure he'd somehow tumbled into one of his nightmares.

“I believe in keeping a bitch in his place,” Valak said, holding a birch in front of the slaveboy's eyes.

The birch was a horrible punisher, made of wooden branches held together with leather twine at the base. Valak ran the birch along the boy's back. Jasari jumped at the feel of the hard wood on his skin and whimpered again, but he said nothing.

“You been hearing things that ain't your business, bitch,” Valak said in that same low, dangerous voice.

Jasari's silence was strange. If the boy had been one of Valak's whores, he would have been kissing his boots, begging not to be whipped. But instead of begging, Jasari shrugged out of his tunic and bent over, baring his ass.

He knelt there, his head to the stone floor, his little fists clenched in front of him, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, not crying anymore, breathing hard, trembling, waiting for the blows. He looked like a man caught in a stormy sea, forced to ride out the fury.

Valak stood over the boy, the birch in his hand. Assassins stayed alive because they never hesitated. He always did what needed to be done, without letting his feelings sway his actions. But this silent boy cowering at his feet, with scars on his back that seemed to twist and writhe in the muted candlelight made him hesitate. In that moment of hesitation, Valak knew he couldn't do it. Not to this boy. Life had already been too cruel to him.

He pulled Jasari up by the hair and forced the boy's head back, making him look up into his angry eyes.

“You remember what I did to Yahsi on the altar? How I fucked him hard and made him cry?”

“Yes Sir,” Jasari said through trembling lips.

“I ever catch you listening to men talk again, I'll do the same to you, but I'll make it worse for you boy. I'll make what I did to Yahsi look like a pleasure ride. You keep your mouth shut about what you heard. You hearing me bitch?” He gave the boy's head a rough shake.

“Yes Sir,” Jasari said in a shaky voice.

Valak let him go and with the eerie speed of a deadly assassin, he backhanded the boy hard and fast. Before Jasari knew what was happening he went sprawling to the ground. He rolled onto his belly, and knelt again, his ass up to Valak, his head on the floor.

“Come here bitch,” Valak said roughly. “I ain't whipping you today.”

The boy crawled to him and looked up at him with terror in his eyes.

“You ain't Sir?”

Valak dropped the birch. “No.”

Jasari's tears started again, low and soft.

“What are you going to do me?” His thumping heart made his words jagged with fear.

“Shut the fuck up,” Valak said.

Seeing the boy on his knees, afraid, his dark green eyes filled with shame and guilt, made Valak want the bitch bad. He grabbed the boy's hair in both hands and rubbed his face into his crotch, then he undid his trousers and stepped out of them. He spread his legs wide, stroking his hard cock, looking down at the boy.

“Get your bitch ass up,” Valak said, giving the boy a hard shove toward the furs.

The boy scrambled onto all fours on the furs, showing his naked ass to Valak. He stood behind Jasari and guided his spit slicked cock to the boy's ass. Then he grabbed Jasari's hips tight and slid into his hot hole without warning. Jasari cried out and struggled briefly, then he clenched his fists and let Valak have his way with him, panting in pain.

Valak fucked into the boy's tight ass hard. He gritted his teeth, fucking him with a savage lust. The force of every cruel stroke shook the slaveboy's whole body.

“This is how I like to fuck a bitch,” Valak said, grunting hard with every hungry thrust into the boy's quivering ass.

Valak used the boy for his own pleasure. He squeezed his eyes shut, driving his cock into the trembling boy's quivering ass in a hard, quick rhythm that he knew gave Jasari no pleasure.

“You see what gutter trash is good for now, bitch?”

The boy whimpered, lifting his ass to Valak's painful thrusts into him.

“Don't give me away Sir, please,” the boy said, clenching his teeth against the pain.

“Shut up, bitch.”

Valak used the boy hard, riding his ass, panting like a stallion, until finally he pulled out of him. Jasari sighed in relief, but he knew it wasn't over. Valak was still hard.

“Get on your back, boy,” the assassin said, breathing hard.

He stood beside the furs, his legs spread, his hard cock jutting up between his muscular legs. He grabbed Jasari's legs and pulled him to the edge of the furs. Then he spread the boy's legs, and rested the slaveboy's feet on his shoulders. Now the boy's pink hole was spread open to him. When he guided his cock to his ass, Jasari squeezed his eyes shut, ready for Valak to shove deep into him and use him hard again.

“You can have it like that, or I can be good to you. It's up to you boy,” Valak said softly.

He slid his cock, slick with his own pre come slowly into the boy's sore ass. The boy's hole was swollen and tight from the hard fucking. Valak eased slowly into him, giving Jasari time to stretch to his big cock inside him.

Jasari had his eyes tightly shut, waiting for Valak to start hurting him again, but the assassin surprised him.

“Look at me bitch. I wanna see your eyes when I pump your bitch ass full of my come,” Valak said, slapping the boy's face lightly.

Jasari's eyes flew open, scared and full of pleas for mercy that he didn't dare say. Valak grabbed the boy's legs, fucking his ass with deep slow, thrusts that started giving the boy pleasure.

“You like it boy? You like my cock?”

“Yes Sir,” Jasari said, moving slowly on Valak's thrusting cock.

Valak fucked the boy's ass in a good rhythm, rocking his hips, sliding his hard thickness in and out of his hot, grasping hole. The boy moaned softly.

“Your Master give you pleasure like this, bitch?” Valak said. He wet his fingers and teased the boy's hard nipples in little circles while he fucked him.

Jasari lifted his hips to Valak's strokes. “No Sir. I didn't know it could be like this.”

Jasari moaned softly again, as Valak's strokes deep into his tight ass sent bright sparks of intense pleasure roaring through him. No man had ever made him feel like this.

Valak used his ass in a hot rhythm that made the boy whimper with pleasure.

“You got a fucking hot hole, boy,” Valak whispered.

The slaveboy looked up into the assassin's black eyes, and said what every man like Valak loved to hear.

“Please Sir, harder.”

Valak smiled and started fucking the boy's ass in hard deep strokes that made Jasari's ass grasp his cock with every deep thrust into him. He looked down into the boy's flushed face while he used his ass.

“You like getting fucked hard like a whore?” Valak said, driving his hips into the boy.

Jasari moaned. “I love how you fuck me Sir.”

The boy wriggled and squirmed in the furs, taking every inch of Valak's cock deep into his ass, riding Valak's cock for all he was worth.

“Please Sir, please let me come,” the boy whispered, writhing against Valak's hardness inside him.

“Oh yeah bitch. Come for me after I used you like a whore,” Valak whispered. “Come on.”

He fucked harder into the boy, looking down into his face. Jasari's lips were pulled back in a grimace, his breath came in desperate little pants, and his hips shoved hard into Valak, meeting every stroke.

“Oh Gods,” the boy cried out, and Valak saw his slave cock suddenly spurt come that landed on the boy's belly.

“See what a fucking bitch you are?” Valak said, thrusting hard into him. “How you come without touching your cock?”

Valak fucked the boy hard, using his hot ass to pleasure his cock. Jasari winced at the hard strokes into his sore ass, looking up into Valak's pitiless eyes.

“I want you to come inside me Sir,” the boy said, whimpering in pain.

The boy squeezed his ass rhythmically, driving Valak crazy with lust.

“Please Sir, give me your come,” the boy whispered.

Valak's cock throbbed crazily inside the boy's hot, grasping hole as he fucked him hard and deep. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He stroked hard into him, slamming his hips into the boy, grabbing the slaveboy's legs tight, and felt his cock about to explode.

“Oh yeah bitch, here I come,” Valak said.

He gritted his teeth, threw his head back and fucked the boy faster. His balls clenched painfully, he groaned deep in the back of his throat and plunged into Jasari's ass one last time, going rigid against the boy. His cock exploded deep inside the boy, pumping hot come into his slave ass. Valak slid in and out of his slick ass a few more times then stood back.

“Clean me. Lick up my come,” he said.

Valak loved the feel of a boy's tongue licking his come off his cock and balls, especially after he fucked a bitch real hard. A wave of tenderness came over him as Jasari got on all fours again and bent to lick the sticky mess from his crotch. The boy's ass was red around his hole, from the hard fucking Valak had given him.

He ran his hand gently through the boy's soft blonde hair, caressing his face, while the bitch licked his cock and balls clean. The thought of how the boy had taken a hard fucking, even after he made him come and begged him to come inside him, was enough to make Valak's cock stir to life again between the boy's lips.

Jasari looked up at him, scared.

Valak smiled softly. “No more for you today boy. Get in the furs.”

Jasari curled into a ball, his back to Valak, and cried softly. Every one of Valak's words had cut into him like a knife.

“Don't give me away Sir. I know I ain't worth nothing. But I'll obey you and service you and your friends. Whoever you say, Sir.”

“Come here boy,” Valak said quietly.

Jasari obediently went to him. Valak felt how the boy trembled against him. The boy looked up at him and Valak was surprised to see the same look of calm adoration in his eyes that was always there, no matter what Valak did to him.

“I'm sorry Sir,” he said quietly. “I didn't mean to make you mad.”

Valak looked down at the boy, stroking his golden hair gently. There was no defiance or anger in his eyes, only a calm acceptance. Jasari believed he deserved to be hurt by men.

“It's over bitch,” Valak said.

The boy rested his head on Valak's chest and cried quietly. Suddenly images flowed through Valak's mind, unbidden. Jasari in the whorehouse, getting fucked. The boy chained to an altar, sucking cock, while men waited in line to use his mouth. The boy getting fucked while another man used his mouth.

He wouldn't be able to stand it. He'd kill any man who treated the boy like a paid whore, something to amuse them for a night. Jasari was a good bitch. He didn't deserve to live like a whore. There was only one solution. As always Valak's decision came to him, and he acted on it, trusting to the instincts that kept him alive.

“I'm collaring you boy,” Valak said.

A boy had to consent to a Promise vow, but a man could collar any unclaimed slaveboy. The boy didn't have to consent.

“I won't force you,” Valak lied, looking up into the darkness of his room. “But I ain't going near that fucking Temple for a Promise Ritual and I want you for my bitch. You want my collar?”

Valak wanted Jasari to come to him willingly. But he didn't fool himself. He meant to have the boy and he would take him by force if he had to. Had Valak been any other man, his whole body would have been tense, waiting for the boy's answer. But he was used to controlling his emotions, so he looked up into the darkness, his calm breathing and cool eyes giving away nothing.

“Why do you want me Sir? I'm nothing but trash,” the boy said quietly, through his tears.

“Not to me you're not. All I know is I want you in my furs next to me every night when I wake up. Will you take my collar?”

Jasari nodded against him. “I wanted to be your bitch the first day I saw you Sir,” the boy said.

They lay together quietly for a while after that. Jasari ran his fingers gently over Valak's body, pressing himself closer to the man who now owned him. He looked up at Valak and met his dark eyes looking down at him.

“You piercing my cock, Sir and sewing up my ass?” The boy's hammering heartbeat sounded behind his words.

“I do that to the whores ‘cause it's business. I'm piercing your nipples, not your cock. Obey me and you won't get sewn up. Piss me off, and I'll sew you up so tight, you'll scream just thinking about me fucking you.”

Jasari was thrilled. Only boys who belonged to men had their nipples pierced. Everyone would know he was Valak's bitch, not one of his whores, unless . . .

“You putting me in the whorehouse?”

“No boy,” Valak said. “Not you.”

Valak lay back, stroking Jasari's hair gently, looking up at the shifting pattern of the candlelight. His body was completely relaxed, his breathing soft and even.

“Don't talk to the other boys about the things you heard,” Valak said, in a quiet voice. “Or I'll hurt you boy. I'll hurt you real bad.”

“I know Sir. I won't say nothing,” Jasari said.

“Good bitch,” Valak said, and kissed the top of the boy's head.

After a while, the boy fell asleep in Valak's arms. He muttered in his sleep, whimpering and moaning.

“No,” Jasari said softly in his sleep.

“Quiet boy,” Valak said, caressing his face softly. “You don't have to be scared anymore. I'll keep you safe, always.”

He soothed the boy until he relaxed in his arms again and fell silent. Valak pulled the boy closer into his arms. After countless summers as a Handler, it had finally happened to him. He'd fallen in love with a slaveboy. Feeling the weight of the boy in his arms, Valak realized that both their lives were forever changed. What had been two, was now one, and they would continue their adventure through life with one heart, one soul, one love.

 

Author's note: This ends Book One of “Assassins After Dark”. Book Two is underway. I expect to begin publication of Book Two in late Winter.