For the Sake of an Empire Ch. 04

"She told you all this?"

"Yes, by the Goddess Ania I swear! I would never commit treason, Captain Sirrus, but I cannot defy my lady. She misspoke in a fit of temper and tried to rectify it. Please do not tell her what I have said."

"You are accusing the future Queen of high treason. If this is true, the High Council must know about it. You will have to come forward."

"I cannot! No one will believe me. It will be my death!"

"As your act of treachery would have been the death of the people's favorite."

"Please have mercy. I simply did as my lady asked."

The young captain said nothing, watching as her breasts rose and fell beneath the thin silk with every ragged breath. She had stopped struggling, her face hidden in the soft flesh of her upraised arm.

This was the woman Portia had entrusted a mission to; an insignificant servant girl who betrayed her as soon as her own life was threatened. He felt a wave of anger at Portia's stupidity, the emotion soon swallowed by a deeper rage. Portia had wanted Marcus spared to be her consort. He swallowed, murderous red haloing his vision as he looked down at the crying girl.

Long fingers gripped her chin, forcing her gaze to meet his. "What did she tell you to do with the vial?"

"She told me to get rid of it."

"Have you told anyone else?"

"No! I obeyed my lady's orders. No one knows of this."

"Good. You will keep it that way." He paused, his gaze lingering on the soft curve of her breasts revealed by the fabric that had been torn in the scuffle.

Gemella cried out as his fingers tangled in the low neckline of her gown, ripping suddenly downwards despite her shriek of fear and embarrassment. The silk split apart with a wet sound like flesh tearing, baring lush, rose-tipped breasts to his gaze. Gemella blanched, her skin growing pale, then hot and flushed as she struggled again, trying to cover herself.

"No!"

"Scream all you like. No one will hear you."

"Captain Sirrus stop! Please!"

Gemella pulled one arm free from him, slapping him with all the strength she had, hearing his roar of displeasure and pain just an instant before he returned the gesture, slapping her face with much more strength than she had. Her ears stung with force of the blow, feeling disoriented as he struggled with his pants to free himself. He was so much stronger than she was, her mind spinning as spots danced before her eyes. She wanted to lay there and let him do with her what he would, but she could not. Her body had been meant for one man. The Goddess had decreed it. She could not submit.

Tears streaked down her battered cheeks, her body writhing as she squirmed beneath him, managing to get one slender leg free. Her knee caught him hard in the groin, his groan of pain declaring her momentary victory. He fell to the side, clutching his body as she struggled to her feet to flee. Her torn gown fell around her shoulders, slim fingers desperately gripping it to keep it from baring her nakedness to the air.

A roar of anger came from behind her a moment before she felt herself tumbled to the ground again, the wind knocked out of her. Her vision was blurred with pain, her lungs screaming as Sirrus pushed her head harder into the ground, the earth filling her nostrils, smothering her as she hungrily gasped for breath.

She didn't struggle when Sirrus pushed her torn gown up to her hips to reveal long creamy thighs and a curved backside he pushed higher into the air. Heat emanated from his flesh as he pressed harder against her, his arms encasing her entire body. Gemella could see his hands pressed over hers on the ground, mercilessly pinning her.

Sirrus stared down at her naked beauty, his hand rubbing roughly over the silky triangle of pale hair that covered her woman's mound, pushing between her thighs to part her nether lips with a cruelty that made her cry out sharply.

She was dry as a desert, her flesh resistant to fingers that would not be deterred. He had experienced rejection at Portia's hands but Gemella, a mere servant girl, would not defy him. He owned every inch of her, but it wasn't her silky thighs he spread with hands shaking from lust. It wasn't her sweet flesh that he forced his straining cock into, relishing the moment when he pushed past that thin resistance and heard her cry her pain to the heavens.

Gemella's sobs stirred him into a deeper frenzy, his fingers biting into her wrists as he thrust his body into hers in an unrelenting rhythm, feeling her flesh tear from his attentions. Her blood eased his way, slickening her virgin passage.

"You will not play me like a puppet, Portia. You will marry me, not Marcus Aurelius. Do you understand me? Do you hear me?!"

"Yes!," Gemella screamed, feeling his body jerk into hers once and then again before he roared out Portia's name, filling her body with a flood of heat that left her defeated, aching beneath him.

Sirrus's breath was ragged as he looked down at the sobbing woman beneath him. He had been lost in his rage, punishing her the way he could never harm the woman who haunted his every thought. Portia had damned him, just as she damned everything she touched.

Sirrus sat back on his heels, tucking his wet, deflating cock back into his pants. Gemella's wrists were bruised and bloody when he let her go, getting to his feet. She made no move to stand, curling into a fetal position when he tossed the vial down beside her.

"You tell no one of this. You will go to Marcus Aurelius tonight and you will serve him a drink with that draught in it. If he still lives tomorrow morning, you will die before the High Council for treason against the crown. Do not dare to defy me. No one will believe your word against mine."

He straightened his clothing as he walked away, turning back for a moment to look at her with her arms curled over her head, her body bruised and broken, all for the sake of the empire.

Gemella lay quiet, waiting till his footsteps faded away. She didn't know how long she stayed there, her body aching from the assault that had torn away her last vestige of innocence.

Every breath burned her lungs like living fire, her legs wobbly as she forced herself to her feet. She stumbled forward only a few feet before she fell to her knees again, the vial clutched in one hand. It mocked her, offering her an escape from everything. She had only to drain the contents and she would be free of this world and the pain loyalty had caused her.

The heavens opened, rain drenching her battered body. The silk molding itself to her body, her screams lost in a clap of thunder, the sky illuminated as she cursed the fates and the gods above, their tears coming too late for her. She had been damned and the strands of her fate woven. She would do her duty as was expected of her.

All for the sake of the empire.

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