38. Krynn

Iflexed my wings, enjoying the feeling of letting them stretch wide around me. For the first time in years the skin between them wasn't tight with scar tissue. Somehow Princess Lilliana had healed me completely—well, she'd healed my wounds, anyway. But the Needing was still inside me—still clawing at my soul and gnawing at me with insatiable need.

Sometimes I pictured it as a monster inside me—a beast made of shadows with sharp, white teeth that was never truly satisfied. Sel did the best he could for me, beating me much harder than he wanted to in order to sate its cravings. But no matter how he bloodied my back, I still longed for something more than just the superficial pain.

I knew what I needed—I needed to submit. To be taken and fucked—to be used sexually. It was the one thing Sel couldn't give me, though I knew he would if he could. But that kind of relationship simply wasn't to be between us—he was my best friend but he could never be my lover.

But I would have to find someone to use me soon. The Needing was growing stronger with every cycle—and the beatings and whippings Sel gave me no longer completely satisfied the cravings of the beast inside me. I didn't want to have to go crawling back to Lady Elgiana. She had been a cruel Mistress who delighted in my pain in a way that Sel never did.

The first time I had confessed my Needing to my best friend and begged him to help me, I had seen tears in his eyes after he whipped me. Not that he would ever admit to crying, but that's Sel—he pretends to be stoic but he feels deeply for those he loves. He was used to hurting me now, but he never took pleasure in it.

Mistress Elgiana did. Back when I was her servant and had no choice other than to submit to her, she liked to fuck me with a phallus studded with thorns. Worse, she would laugh as I screamed in agony and the blood ran down my thighs.

"Shut up! I'm feeding your Needing, aren't I?" she would demand scornfully when I begged her to stop. "This is what you need, Krynn. This is what you deserve. So be still and take it—open yourself like a good boy for me and maybe I'll be finished soon."

Just the memory of my old Mistress and her cruel treatment made me shudder. The Needing demanded submission and pain, but she had always taken everything to the extreme. I didn't want to endure such treatment again, but I knew I'd have to undergo some kind of sexual submission soon or the beast inside me would turn on me and begin to eat me from within.

It was only a matter of time.