It was cold, and the moon was out.

Lucivar stood at the open window and shivered, staring at the circle with just the slightest sliver out of the corner. He was inside tonight, but that meant nothing – nothing good, at least. He looked over his shoulder at the bed, perfectly made and set up, the restraining straps hidden by the blankets. As if if he couldn't see them he wouldn't know they were there.

Damn Tersa – seven hundred years! Seven hundred years of waiting and this was what it got him – standing at a window and waiting for the inevitable, unable to fight back because he had something to live for. But that something –

Not a sound, not a word, nothing. He hadn't seen Daemon for years, now, though the occasional flash of Black rage could only be from him. He shivered when he felt those, though he wasn't sure if it was with fear or with envy that his brother could destroy them, kill them again and again, knowing what the punishment would be. More shame, more pain, more humiliation.

More safframate mixed with the water, turning it to a drink worse than poison.

Please – let there be a Queen, let there be a Queen I can be proud to serve – soon, soon –

The wood outside the door creaked and the door opened briefly, just enough to shove a tray through and onto the table before it slammed shut again. Lucivar paced over to it, ripped off a chunk of bread and shoved it in his mouth, hunger a tight and familiar knot in his belly. He finished off the bread in moments and devoured the small hunk of meat, half-cooked, that had been left. Meat. A luxury for evenings like this. They must be planning something special. He couldn't help a mirthless laugh as his hand moved over to the glass, pouring himself a cup of the clear, cold water.

He stared at the glass, swirling the water absently, imagining how it would go. He would drink the water. The lust would begin as an itch, then change to a maddening tingle of pain. Even the slight brush of clothing would become unbearable. And when the desire was an intoxicating flood of need, when he could hardly move or breathe without screaming, then they would come and begin their horrid game and all he could do was struggle and scream with maddening need and pain and disgust.

It was too familiar – it had all been played before.

The cup shattered before it hit the floor as Lucivar dashed it aside, temper flaring. Damn them all. Damn them all to Hell before he would play their cruel games any-

He dropped to his knees, grabbing for the bedpost before he could fall any further, the agony in his groin sudden and piercing. He doubled over, panting, refusing to scream. A sharp knock came at the door.

"Yaslana, drink it or we'll force you to." There were no more words, no more threats. They didn't have to. He knew, too well, what they could and would do to him for trying to resist. He got up slowly, gingerly, throbbing agony lingering in his crotch. He moved over to the table and gripped the sides, head down, trying to breath deeply.

Daemon wouldn't give in. Daemon wouldn't drink the water, wouldn't submit to those damned whores who called themselves witches, wouldn't flinch from the punishments they meted out. Daemon wouldn't be a coward, a weak coward who would rather whore his body for those bitches than endure the humiliation of their punishments.

Another stab of pain came through the Ring, making Lucivar catch his breath, the table the only thing that kept him upright as his knees buckled. It wasn't even the full strength of the damned thing, was only a taste – a reminder. He shuddered.

Daemon wouldn't, but damn him, he wasn't Daemon.

He shed his jacket, picked up the pitcher, and strode over to the window. Staring out at the barren land that was the desert of Pruul, he raised the pitcher to the sky, a bitter smile twisting his mouth.

Please, my Queen. Please, come soon.

"To the Darkness," he murmured, and drank.

It was too hot. He'd shed the shirt and his pants as they rubbed on his skin, but sweat streamed from every pore and he couldn't stop moving, twitching, pacing back and forth and snarling at nothing. He itched all over but couldn't scratch the right spot, even the cool touch of the breeze through the open window agony on his hypersensitive skin. The room rocked strangely, heat churning through his veins and need for something, something –

A psychic scent flooded the room and he wheeled, eyes glazing, snarling with the surge of mingled revulsion and painful desire that accompanied it. A witch, too young, staring at him with wide eyes full of terror. Bait, he thought bitterly with the little bit of sanity left in him, bait to see if I'm ripe for the rest of them…

She stepped forward, the terror flooding his senses and overcoming the lust pounding hot and red with the safframate through his veins. He wheeled with a roar of fury and turned on the table, slamming into it with all the force in his feet and hands, the clean pain of the splinters in his hands soothing compared to the needful agony in the rest of his body, the table reduced to kindling and the pain, oh Mother Night the pain!

The scream surged in his throat but he gritted his teeth, clenched his jaw and held it in, on his hands and knees unable to breathe for the stabbing pain that drove unrelentingly through the Ring around his organ as the female psychic scents surrounded him, intoxicated him, drove him mad with lust and revulsion and hatred. Their hands on his shoulders – his back – his body – agony in their handprints on his skin as they clutched and held and dragged and he tried to stagger to his feet, to resist and to withstand the unending pain from that damned Ring of Obedience – the bonds, holding his feet and his hands so he couldn't move, couldn't thrust, couldn't –

The faces blurred into one another, sheathing themselves on him, crying out in ecstasy as the pain intensified and intensified to unbearable, unspeakable heights with the need for release, agony pulsing through every single limb –

The scream swelled in his throat, but he clenched his teeth together, refused to scream, refused to give them that satisfaction as he thrashed his head from side to side in a futile bid for release of some kind, the feel of them making his flesh flinch away in disgust even as his body arched into them, seeking some kind of easing of the lust throughout his body –

It went on and on in a bizarre and horrendous rhythm of sweat and moans and agony and bursts from the Ring of Obedience when he snarled and bit at them, trying to beat them away, the ropes chafing at his wrists until they bled as he wrenched at them, trying to get free, to kill them, kill them all – he rode the killing edge, his vision red, fury mingling with lust and hatred and making him giddy with the need to shed their blood, to kill – Mother Night, to break free and kill and howl an Eyrien war cry to the lightening sky…

The sun was rising, daylight pouring in through the window. Lucivar woke cold and alone, his heart thumping loudly in the utter silence of the stone slave pens. Curled in a fetal position, he tried to move, every muscle afire and aching, still mostly naked. They hadn't bothered to dress him after they'd finished using him, just thrown him back here like a worn out toy. Which was approximately how he felt.

He crawled over to the bucket of water, hardly caring what it was laced with, and tried to open his mouth to drink. It was locked so tightly shut that it took him fifteen minutes of working the muscles to loosen them enough to move. He drank, and to his relief the water was clean.

He stumbled to the grate and dragged himself to his feet, leaning on the bars. "More water," he tried to say, but the words would not come out. His throat ached.

He wondered if he had screamed.