30. Phoebe

30

PHOEBE

T hey walked down the wide golden corridor, Phoebe in the lead and the angry nurse right behind her, still gripping the blaster. The nurse, Hil'de'guard, barked out commands, telling Phoebe when to go left or right. Before she knew it, they were back at the doors of the Grand Salon.

Phoebe hesitated with her hand on the latch of the door but Hil'de'guard poked her in the back with the blaster and hissed,

"Go on—go in!"

Taking a deep breath, Phoebe did as she said.

The large, high-ceilinged room was filled with males who seemed to be very proud of themselves.

"We got that Grox, by all the Gods!" one man with purple skin and green eyes was shouting, lifting a sloshing glass.

"Blew the fucking thing right out of the sky!" another agreed, lifting his glass as well.

"Three cheers for Lord Thruck—it was his idea to hunt in the first place!" another male said. There was a general shout of approval and all the men lifted their glasses in a cheer.

In the middle of all this stood Lord Thruck. The two headed Trollox was looking especially pleased with himself—well, his sane head was, anyway, Phoebe thought, studying the self-satisfied sneer on its face. The crazy head was, as usual, slumped on one shoulder and drooling.

But it wasn't the Trollox she was looking for—it was Sirex. Search though she might, she couldn't find his familiar face and red-on-black eyes anywhere. Where was her mentor? Why wasn't he here when she needed him?

"I'm not going to leave you." His words echoed in her head, but where was he?

She kept searching for him, even as Hil'de'guard marched her right up to Lord Thruck.

"Lord Thruck, a word please," the nurse said tartly.

The sane head gave her a startled look as he took in the scene with Phoebe being held at gunpoint.

"What's this then? What's going on?" Thruck demanded.

"What's going on is I caught this whore trying to seduce the Emperor! She was right in the Shining One's bed with him!" Hil'de'guard exclaimed.

"I was not!" Phoebe protested. "Or at least, I did get in bed with him but it was a mistake. I was looking for the servant boy to get more fruit and I ended up in the Emperor's room by accident."

"Some ‘accident,'" the nurse snorted. "This little whore was trying to seduce His Majesty—I'm sure of it!"

"Indeed, we are also skeptical," Thruck remarked. He glared down at Phoebe who tried to keep her chin high. "In fact, we think such brazen behavior calls for some kind of punishment."

"No, wait—please!" Phoebe pleaded. "Where's my Master? Where's Sirex?"

"Oh, we're afraid we lost him during the hunt." Thruck shrugged. "Don't worry—we're sure he'll come back eventually. Well, as long as his mount didn't dump him in the Sea of Tears!"

He laughed nastily and the other males in the room joined in.

Phoebe felt like her heart was sinking down into her toes. She'd had a bad feeling about Sirex going on the hunt—she wished desperately that he'd stayed back at the palace with her instead!

"What sort of punishment shall we confer upon this little whore?" The sane head of Thruck looked down at her musingly. There was a cruel light shining in its yellow, piggy eyes and she remembered how Be'ti'ta had said the Trollox loved watching public displays of pleasure and pain. Oh God, she was in trouble now—there was no way out and Sirex wasn't even there to help her!

"Skin her alive! Peel her skin from her body!" one male shouted.

"Better yet, break all her limbs and make her crawl the whole length of the Grand Salon!" shouted another.

"No—I say we tie her legs apart and each have a turn in her pussy!" a third called out, giving her a lustful look. "And after that—burn her alive—assuming she survives," he added.

Phoebe was horrified—what the hell was wrong with the bloodthirsty bastards?

"You can't touch me!" she protested. "I'm wearing a green collar—and I'm another man's property."

"We are afraid, my dear, that your collar means nothing now. You have transgressed our law which means you may be punished in any way we see fit," Thruck's sane head said, leering at her.

But suddenly the hoarse, gravely voice of Lord Thruck's crazy head spoke up.

"The little female won't be so fierce, if at first her nips you pierce!" it said.

Lord Thruck's sane head gave the crazy one a wary look, but seemed to like the idea.

"Indeed—a public piercing!" it called out. "Servants, go get the whipping cross and the piercing equipment. We'll teach this little whore a lesson right now!"

There was another cheer and a burst of trollish laughter and then everything was happening too fast.

Before Phoebe knew it, the servants had brought in a large wooden frame shaped like the letter X. They stripped her naked and chained her to it, hooking the non-con manacles she wore to the top of the wooden X and tying her ankles to the bottom.

"Look at her—not even wearing a harness! Has she no shame?" Thruck's sane head demanded, gesturing at her naked body. He was already holding the nipple piercer—the tool that looked like a pair of pliers with needles attached to its pinching ends.

Phoebe shivered as she saw it coming towards her. Oh God, she didn't want to go through this! And who knew what other nasty things they would do to her once Thruck was done piercing her nipples? The suggestions some of the men had made were horrifying!

As though reading her mind, the sane head gave her a nasty leer.

"Don't worry my dear—this little pain is going to be nothing to what we do to you afterwards. After the public piercing, I think we'll have a public fucking! And every male here will get a turn in your pussy!"

"If you lay a single hand on me, Sirex will kill you!" Phoebe snapped, trying to look fierce instead of scared to death.

" We don't see him anywhere—do you? We do believe your Master is lost, sweet Phoebe. Which means you're a female alone—which makes you fair game for any punishment we can think up for you," Thruck sneered at her. "Now tell us—which nipple did you wish to get pierced first?"

"Please!" Phoebe gasped. "Please, if you'll just listen?—"

"Listen to what? More of your pitiful excuses? We don't think so." Thruck's sane head smiled, revealing rows of sharp teeth. There was sadism dancing in those piggy yellow eyes—the look of a torturer who enjoys his job and who is just getting started. He positioned the piercer around her right nipple and Phoebe clenched her jaw, getting ready to endure the pain when suddenly a new voice rang through the Grand Salon.

"Get your fucking hands off my woman before I kill you!"