FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

--1

Desmond waited by the fireplace, warming his paws and counting his meager blessings. His soaked clothes hung above the flames, but his shivering body wasn't so easily dried. The hovel had no blankets for vermin such as he, let alone towels, and the rainy night was a cruel thing to be stuck in.

It's not supposed to be like this! the fox angrily thought. Scurrying from one roach-infested inn to the next, trading my partner's body for lukewarm slop and leaky roofs...

Sounds of brutal ecstasy cut through the thin walls. Desmond splayed down the cups of his ears and closed his tired eyes, but he couldn't shut out the intensely sexual noises. Those sounds were that of his partner Lizeron taking one for the team, but occasionally he could hear lustful cries from the drake. This, in particular, annoyed Desmond: Lizeron was sleeping with the innkeeper's husband so they wouldn't die of exposure. He wasn't supposed to enjoy it!

He walked to the window and looked out of the grimy panes. It was so dark and wet as to preclude any and all sightseeing, but there was one building which stuck out brilliantly even in the gloom. It was clearly a palace, gleaming in the inky darkness like a gold tooth jutting from a rotten gum. Its whorishly gilded exterior could mean only one thing: money. Sickening wealth flaunted to the world; a hoard of treasures which practically invited thieves. Desmond had seen fabulous displays like it in the past.

While his partner was sodomized just one narrow wall away, Desmond leaned so close to the window's glass that his breath fogged it. He stared at the glistening building on the hill, and he thought about his old way of living.

Desmond being a foxcoon, two species of vermin, precluded any chance he had at real wealth. The best he could hope for was slavery, perhaps of a sexual nature - and for the right master, that might not have been a bad life, but Desmond took another route: he stole. That gilded house was like so many he had robbed before. The loot was always gone fast and he ended up a vagabond again in days, but just getting inside was an enormous chunk of the thrill for him. As he stared at the gleaming palace, he started to smile and swish his tail.

--2

Lizeron limped from the bedroom of the innkeepers. A thin, stained towel wrapped around his hips kept him decent but did nothing to cover the bruises and scratches on his torso and snout. These were recent additions to his black and green palette given by the innkeeper's husband, a drake of much great stature with a sadistic taste for young men like Lizeron. He liked Lizeron's company so much, in fact, that he allowed the foxcoon vermin he traveled with to stay the night.

The sex had been remarkably good for both parties, but not without its toll. Young Lizeron limped down the creaking hall and descended worrisomely crooked stairs with much difficulty. Every little exertion made him wince and huff, but he was used to it. Unyielding submission to larger, stronger men always seemed to lead to sadism. In lieu of money or trade from Desmond, Lizeron's body paid their debts.

When he entered the room he had just finished earning, Lizeron dropped the towel where he stood and sprawled on his belly before the crackling fireplace. There he lay in peace and silence, counting the painful throbs of his gaped, swollen anus.

Desmond seemed to emerge from a trance, since only now did he even realize Lizeron was in the room. "Hello," he murmured, still sounding like a daydreamer. "I've been thinking."

The dragon kept his eyes closed and didn't move from his prone spot, but he grunted curiously.

"It's time you I got back into the old ways," the foxcoon cryptically said.

Lizeron murmured, "You mean stealing things?" He laughed. "There's nothing here to steal. The only valuable thing the innkeeper's husband owned is inside of me right now."

Humorlessly Desmond snapped, "Not here, you fool." Lizeron frowned and huffed. He pressed his finger to the window pane, which left an egg-shaped smudge when he removed it, and he clarified, "There. That gilded palace there. I'm willing to bet there's loot just hemorrhaging from those walls, ours for the taking."

The green-bellied dragon rolled onto his back, wincing along the way. Each breath he took required labor to draw for all his bruised hide. "I can't see the place you're talking about," he evenly said, "but I talked to the innkeeper's hubby before and after I paid for our room. He mentioned a wealthy lord whom nobody sees, but he's quite the philanthropist here."

Desmond laughed. "Then it's perfect! Think of it - some decrepit hermit, locked away from the world, only opening his doors to sprinkle a little wealth on the peasants beneath him. Arrogant!" he effused, his charismatic voice rising. "Easily fooled!" he added, gesticulating with closed fists in short punches. "Or," long raccoon fingers splaying now, a calming of his voice, "if guile doesn't clear our path, easily subdued. This is the take we've been waiting for, Lizeron."

Although Lizeron was of the opinion that Desmond's self-given title of master thief was overstated, for he had only seen the fox steal loaves of bread and half-rotten fish so they could survive, it was hard not to be swept up in the face of a real heist. He stood with noted difficulty and hobbled his naked self to the window. Something warm and wet drizzled down his thigh and he hoped it was semen. The gleaming palace caught his eye at once, and he tightened his jaws.

"That has to be the place he talked about. It's the House of Sinti, I think he said." Looking uncertainly at Desmond and smiling to match, he asked, "Are you sure about this?"

"I've never been more sure in all my life," Desmond grandly said, patting Lizeron's hip. The touch made him wince. "Tonight, we rest. Tomorrow, we plan."

Lizeron nodded. Just the word rest made his eyelids heavy, like the sight of food causes the mouth to salivate. He trudged to the bed and as soon as he crawled under its dusty blankets, he was ready to pass out. A night of exhausting, sadistic sex behind him and a day of reconnaissance in front made the young drake very weary indeed. But Desmond yanked back the blankets, startling Lizeron into an annoyed, albeit harmless hiss.

"Roll onto your belly," the foxcoon quietly ordered, kneeling on the bed with his erection in his grip. "You know I do my best planning when I've been satisfied."

It was with petulance that Lizeron capitulated, rolling over and holding his tail high. "After him," he tutted, referencing the innkeeper's husband, "I doubt if you'll even touch the edges."

--3

"Will you be able to climb?"

Lizeron noted the lack of concern in Desmond's voice. His reply was appropriately catty: "I will if you're still afraid of heights."

The foxcoon hissed and went red-faced. "I am not afraid of heights! But you have wings."

"Vestigial at best," Lizeron huffed. "I can't fly with them. The best I can do is glide, and even then..."

"Even then, if something goes wrong, you can get down safely enough. And besides," Desmond put on a sneer, "you seem to enjoy being bruised, as often as you let it happen."

They took a moment to look each other over. Their bodies, slender and bordering on malnourished, nevertheless cut fine figures in new attire - loaners from the innkeeper's wife whom took pity on Lizeron due to dragon kinship, and on Desmond when he posed as Lizeron's lover. That Desmond was the implied bottom in their phony relationship had given the green-bellied dragon no shortage of amusement.

"It's important that I look presentable, at least," Desmond murmured. "You, not so much."

"Ah, yes, you must look good as the face of our daring operation - a ploy so genius you can't even be bothered to come up with a plan for it."

The House of Sinti loomed large, gleaming like a polished nugget of gold. Finer details could be picked out, specifically windows and the textures of its roofing tiles. Lizeron winced at the sight of them. They were visibly smooth to slough off the rain, and still damp from last night's storms. Clouds still carpeted the sky and precluded the drying heat of the sun.

"We should do this another day," Lizeron grumbled.

"I don't think you can take anymore from that innkeeper's husband," Desmond said with a hint of genuine care. "I need you without broken bones." He surprised further Lizeron with a rallying kiss on the cheek, then gestured around the palatial building. "Look for some means to climb in. Remember that we're here only to look. No breaking in unless the security really is that lax."

Lizeron, bolstered by the affection, nodded obediently and started around the building, deftly hopping the wrought iron gate and vanishing into the gardens. Desmond took the much more blunt approach and neared the front door. He pounded the heavy oak with the iron knocker.

--4

"I am very sorry, mister--, Desmond, was it?"

"Yes, Desmond, but you see--."

"I am sorry," the young gecko said firmly, which implied I am not sorry in the least, flea-ridden vermin. She was eyeing him dubiously. "Lord Sinti has no time for guests."

Desmond was clearly flustered. "I'll have you know, young lady, that I am of great use to fellows such as Lord Sinti! I assure you, vermin I may be," he gestured to his breast and swept the paw downward, "but I have an uncanny knack for investment opportunities. I just need a little capital from your master."

The gecko couldn't stop herself from smiling. "I will pass along that you had services to offer," she patiently said. "Where could he send for you if need be?"

"Uh," Desmond stalled before he remembered the name of the inn he and Lizeron were staying in.

Grumbling and grousing, his hide aching and his rear still pulsing, Lizeron climbed the trellis and grabbed the edge of the roof. Slowly then, with his wings tucked, he sidled along the roof and looked into the windows. All, he found, were closed; and worse still, they were barred with beautifully decorative but strong iron. Around front he could hear the familiar voice of his partner, distorted by the distance into echoes. He kept climbing, pausing to regain his strength when he found a balcony. It, too, was barred shut.

The door out front closed, and Lizeron leaned over the side of the balcony, peering downward to look for his partner. Very soon he came into view. As soon as he spotted Lizeron he began gesturing with his arms. It was a sign Lizeron knew: it meant get down from there.

Before Lizeron could start the climb down, another gecko girl caught sight of his tail through the glass. She shrieked, "Intruder! There's an intruder on the balcony!!"

Lizeron's expression blanched. He bit his lip, put his feet up on the guard rail and dived, splaying his wings and hoping for the best. It had been years since he relied on his wings. He glided well past Desmond, over the hedges dividing Lord Sinti's land from that of the commoners. Desmond followed on foot as fast as he could.

--5

Still catching his breath and slumping on the wall, Desmond hissed, "What do you mean she maybe saw you?"

"I mean," Lizeron grunted, pulling thorns out of his soft hide and a few tickling sprigs out of his sleeve, "that she might have seen my face. But maybe she didn't."

"They saw my face, you blasted idiot."

The dragon paused, considering, and then he whined. "Well--! You weren't the one trying to find an open window, so maybe--!"

"There is no maybe about this," Desmond snapped, plucking a thorny piece of brier from Lizeron's arm. The dragon yowled and covered the pricks which wept blood. As comeuppance, the brier stuck in Desmond's finger pad and drew a little blood on him too. He sucked his finger. "It's very plain to see that we are a team. They know what I look like - I am quite distinctive, wouldn't you say?" he said in deadpan.

"But--."

"No! They also know we're here, at this inn. At this room."

Another pause, and Lizeron narrowed his eyes. "Why would you tell them that?"

It seemed like a good idea at the time, Desmond felt like saying. But he was too indignant for such a simple admission, too hot-blooded to say that. "It's none of your business!" he instead snapped, feeling the sting of embarrassment. He brushed past the dragon, pushing him firmly with his shoulder.

Lizeron let himself be pushed, but he abruptly lunged and pinned the foxcoon to the wall in a burst of angry strength. Desmond tellingly shrieked. "It is my business!" the drake snarled. "We need to leave town, then. Wonderful planning!" he hissed, and he knocked Desmond's head against the wall for emphasis.

"Actually," the innkeeper's husband said, drawing Lizeron's incensed gaze and Desmond's stunned one, "I'm afraid you're staying in town for a while longer."

Before either would-be thief could ask, the big dragon stepped aside to permit a quartet of reptilian goons. Two were geckos, one an iguana, and one Lizeron recognized as a drake not unlike himself, albeit with wings amputated down to stumps of scarred-over muscle and bone which occasionally shifted. Only the symmetry of the stumps prevented them from being completely sickening. The goons all had ropes and burlap sacks and they put the fussing pair into bondage without a word spoken among themselves, moving like one body. Before they left with their fugitives, the wingless dragon put a sizable ingot of gold in the hand of the innkeeper, whom stood close by with her husband.

"What, ah--," the husband murmured, watching the transaction, "what will come of these two?"

"Lord Sinti does not tolerate thieves on his property," the wingless dragon tonelessly said. "Execution."

Lizeron accepted his fate with but a whimper. Desmond was much more fussy, demanding his release, then demanding at least a trial before the geckos swung their truncheons into his gut. Just one strike shut him up, but they went on and on until the effeminate fox crumpled in their arms. Lizeron listened and trembled, his lack of vision making the whump, whump, whump of the truncheons more grisly.

The green-bellied dragon marched between the geckos. Desmond's unconscious body was slung over the wingless drake's shoulder like a worn-out rug.

--6

Desmond awoke shivering and weak. It was terribly cold, wherever he was - and so was it dark. He righted himself, and the pain in his abdomen rose to a crescendo. He moaned in pain and drew quick, haggard breaths which had a whooping quality. "Lize--, Lizeron, are you there?" he bleated.

"No. He is not."

This voice was of a deep register, almost better felt than heard, but a forked tongue added a hiss to the fricatives. Desmond's heart raced. "I demand to see my partner. He is--," he fell back quickly on his old standby, "we're lovers. Please."

A hissing snicker. "Lovers? Not what he told me. I didn't have to wring it out of him at all. You are the leader of this," another snicker, "brilliant little plan, yes?"

"I don't--, no. I have no idea what you mean." Desmond sucked his jowl and shuddered. "I'm so cold. I want my lover, please. Let me die with him at least."

Something slithered near, but it was large, frightfully so. Desmond instinctively scooted away and whimpered.

"I would like to think that you are cold. This is my dungeon, after all," the voice hissed, nearer than before. Now Desmond felt a strong, large hand on his naked body, caressing his flank without skipping the bruises. When Desmond yelped, the creature chuckled. "Tender. And young. The folly of youth, to try and rob Lord Tiakin Sinti."

Desmond looked where he heard the voice. "You're Lord Sinti? I--, sir, listen. Please. This is a misunderstanding. I was only here to offer my--."

"Your services, as an investor," Tiakin disdainfully said. "Yes. My maid relayed your tripe to me. I must say, composed though she often is, she couldn't keep the smirk off her face."

"But--, but you see, now it's very clear to me," Desmond stammered, "that you don't need my services! So I can just leave, and you can do as you will with Lizeron, right?"

Tiakin tutted. Desmond imagined, rightly, that he was shaking his head. "You would sacrifice your lover to get away? My, my. What disregard you have for others. You would even leave empty-handed, with none of my treasures, just to save yourself?"

"Please," Desmond whimpered. "Please, I didn't mean for this to happen."

"You didn't mean to get caught!" Tiakin roared, and he slammed his great, clenched fist into Desmond's testicles. The pain was so sudden and severe that the fox gagged and would have retched if he'd had anything in his stomach. Instead it balled into an angry fist in his gut not unlike that which Tiakin had punched him with.

Tiakin watched the boy tremble and listened to the ill noises he made. "You are a revolting little thing. Vermin twice over comes to my domain to rob me blind," he growled, his voice quavering with fury. "I should tear your head off right now!"

Desmond yowled in terror. He sobbed against the wall, blubbering inarticulate promises and pleas. Hissing dangerously, Tiakin grabbed the boy's neck and began to wrench. As he felt the arteries throbbing and the spasming pulse of the windpipe, he shuddered in sadistic pleasure. "If I kept squeezing like this, you'd be dead in minutes," he huffed. "And if I twisted, I'd snap your neck and kill you instantly." Slowly he eased off, then pulled apart the knot holding the burlap on.

At last, Desmond put eyes on Lord Tiakin Sinti, by no means a decrepit or senile beast, but a naga of unspeakable size. His serpentine body sprawled for many feet behind him, dressed in tan and white hide, but it was his stark yellow snake eyes which Desmond was most afraid of. Though the naga could have certainly broken him with his hands, and although his head could have fit neatly into the beast's maw, the seething, but worrisomely lustful gaze was what petrified him.

"Oh my god," Desmond breathed.

Tiakin sneered. "You have made a grave mistake, boy."

The naga began to slither away, and he purposefully let the tapered tip of his tail drag over the vermin's foot. The warm, creepy feeling of the hide made Desmond groan sickly. Glancing back at the sound and grinning with obvious malevolence, Tiakin said, "We're not through, boy. When I next return, we'll find a good use for your sorry hide. Be quiet until then."

Before he left, Tiakin reached up with his great height and closed the slats in the ceiling. Precious light from outside vanished, and when the naga's guards closed the cell door at his back, Desmond was left in cold darkness.

Tiakin found Lizeron in the dining hall. Though the young drake was shackled about the neck and ankles with his wings lashed to his middle by a length of clothesline, and though guards at the doorways policed his movements, he enjoyed relative freedom. At this juncture he ate his fill of food, currently chowder with enormous chunks of potato and clam meat bobbing in its thick, yellowed broth. Near his bowl was a loaf of bread, lovingly sliced and buttered by one of the gecko maidens on hand.

Lord Sinti cracked what looked to be a pleased smile. He slithered into view of the drake, putting his body between Lizeron and the fireplace across the table. "Still eating, are you?"

"I am, yes sir," the bruised dragon said with a nod and a mouthful of food. "This is really something special! My compliments to your chef."

"I'll pass them along," Tiakin chuckled. "I was just making your companion feel more welcome. It seems he's still sleeping off that little misunderstanding at the inn."

Lizeron smiled. "Yes, Desmond's always been a very heavy sleeper. I thank you for your hospitality, Lord Sinti. If there's, ah, anything I could do for you," he suggestively murmured, "please let me know, won't you?"

The naga narrowed his eyes to slits and began to grin. "I will keep the offer in mind. Please, now, enjoy your food. I've a fine book waiting for me in my bedroom."

With that, the naga slithered away. Lizeron smiled as he left and said sincerely to the gecko, "What a hospitable master you have."

--7

For the best part of the hour, Tiakin enjoyed a tome detailing the history of nagas in the plushness and decadence of his master bedroom. His colossal body was sprawled on a bed which was no doubt custom made to accommodate his size, and he leaned against the padded headboard with pillows under his flank for support. The rain against his windows made for a delicate pitter-patter which he found exquisitely relaxing.

All good things eventually came to an end. A soft rap at the door was followed by female words: "Lord Sinti, the prisoner has become unruly."

He sighed and pulled off his reading spectacles. "The vermin?"

"Yes, Lord Sinti." A pause. "Shall I have him silenced?"

"No," said the naga with another sigh. "I find his long tongue intriguing, I'll not have it cut out." He slammed shut his book and slithered first out of bed, then the room, moving his implacable bulk quickly. The gecko closed the door behind his lengthy tail.

Tiakin heard Desmond well before he saw him. "You will unhand me right now! Clearly you're too afraid to strike me - so unhand me!" Batting in all of the cell's surfaces, door included, kept noisy prisoners silenced, but the door was presently ajar.

A smirk graced Tiakin's face. He slithered through the open door and at once, the foxcoon's eyes fell on him. The boy clapped his mouth shut and splayed down his ears.

"No? Nothing more to say?" Tiakin tutted, sounding disappointed.

"Ah--," Desmond squeaked, tugging pointlessly at the chains holding his wrists together. "Your guard here," he spat. "He's a coward."

"Is he," asked Tiakin dryly.

"Yes! Why, he won't lay a finger on me except to restrain me," the fox explained, gaining an unwarranted grin.

The naga slithered nearer, and Desmond noticeably backpedaled; at least he tried to, but the dragon with the clipped wings held him fast by the bicep. Desmond's sallow, loose skin appeared fat framing the drake's hand. Tiakin leaned low, putting himself nearly nose to nose with the sass-mouthed vermin. The size of his head filled much of Desmond's vision. "You misunderstand," hissed the naga. "My men are not cowards. They are obedient. Do you understand the term? Obedience?"

Desmond swallowed heavily. Like his ribs notching out in his flanks, his Adam's apple bobbed grotesquely in his narrow neck. "Is this a test?"

"It is a question," Tiakin clarified. "Answer," he firmly commanded, allowing his tongue to slip out and taste the air around the boy in the midst of the word.

When Desmond looked at the mutilated dragon, he saw only stony eyes which seemed to gaze straight through him. The hollow stare unnerved him, and it said much that he found the naga's deadly glare more tolerable. Fidgeting nevertheless, Desmond answered, "I understand it."

"And yet," growled Tiakin, straightening up and looming massively above the fox, "I gave you a clear and direct command when I last saw you, and you have not shown obedience. Do you know what that tells me?"

Desmond shook his head. The movement was barely distinguishable from his growing tremble.

"It tells me you are not ready to leave this room. Not until you're able to follow my commands. Your dragon friend, that creature," he spat, "is currently upstairs glutting himself. He enjoys limited freedom and well-lit rooms and yet he lies to me. Only of simple things, harmless white lies as you may say, but lies nevertheless."

"Then you should take that up with him!" Desmond said, summoning up all the defiance he could, but his voice was a frightened rattle.

Plainly angered by the outburst, Tiakin swung downward with a closed fist, crashing it sideways between Desmond's ears which flinched downward and aside, as if to get out of the way. The foxcoon fell slack, and the dragon allowed him to crumple.

Seconds later, breathing deeply to calm himself, Tiakin hissed, "Raise him."

Put on his feet and held up from behind by the dragon's capable arms, Desmond tried to focus on the swirling images of Tiakin. He was obviously dazed in the wake of the blow, and his deeply-set eyes appeared glazed.

"I shall deal with him in due time, and you, foul vermin, will learn not to speak out of line. Crushing your skull would not bother me," he paused to hiss venomously, and the fox recoiled against the dragon instinctively, "so do not assume I would hesitate."

With normal vision slowly returning to him but a bruise forming on his crown, Desmond wisely pursed his lips. He nodded. Tiakin appeared only mildly pleased.

"If fair treatment and a full stomach will not produce a loyal slave, then I shall see," the naga wrapped a large hand around Desmond's neck, "if suffering and terror offer better results."

Even though Tiakin had not begun to squeeze, Desmond shrieked and palmed the naga's wrist, which he found denser than his own thigh. "No--! Please! Obedience, you want obedience! I can be obedient!"

"Leave us," said the naga dispassionately to his guard, letting such a hiss into the last word that it came out as uzzz. The dragon dipped his head and left the dungeon, closing the door at his back. The muffled cries which warbled out of the cracks made no difference to him as he sat at his post.

--8

Lizeron awoke the next morning refreshed and, all things considered, very happy. The guards had decreased his bondage to just the rope around his wings, which he found peculiar and silly yet dared not question. A day and a night of good food and easy rest left him feeling stronger. He rubbed his thin stomach and felt across his ribs, but even so soon, they had begun to feel like only a haunting reminder of life on the streets.

Lord Sinti, he thought, was an affable and kind individual. A bit misunderstood and with some ogre tendencies from decades of self-imposed isolation, but Lizeron shared his smile with the naga whenever the chance presented itself, and he felt within a few more days he could secure freedom for himself and his partner. Then, finally, Desmond would have to admit that just maybe he had more uses than an extra set of hands or a piece of sexual bait.

Down in the dining hall, where he had the night before seen still-warm pastries (and which he had covertly pilfered one, then two, and ultimately four of before the night was done), Lizeron now found a tray of cooling breakfast rolls. With no eyes upon him that he could see, and content in the knowledge that nobody would miss a single roll just like nobody had missed a quartet of jelly-filled pastries, he took one and bit into it. He devoured it in seconds, loving especially its warm center. This was a far cry from the stale bread he and Desmond had subsisted on for too long.

Lizeron's belief that he went unseen could be forgiven, for the presence of Lord Sinti was always a difficult thing to notice. It was a shock mostly because of his gigantic size, but he moved almost silently by virtue of his slithering locomotion. Therefore, when he touched Lizeron on the shoulder, the dragon gasped and flinched away. He whipped around and gazed into the naga's breast, then slowly canted back his head.

Tiakin smiled. With dry humor he asked, "Contemplating breakfast?"

"I was, but--, but I've not had permission." He added meekly, "Sir."

The naga's smile widened, growing all the more sardonic to match his withering tone. "Very good. Because, of course, I would not tolerate deception and disobedience from the thief I was rehabilitating - would I?"

Lizeron began to smile nervously, guiltily. He fidgeted. "Nuh--, no. Of course you wouldn't, Lord Sinti."

Moving calmly, like a zen philosopher with life boiled down to a single maxim, Tiakin brought a bruised hand with bloody knuckles to the dragon's breast. He brushed crumbs off of Lizeron's shirt and said nothing.

The drake was afraid, still smiling but hollowly. This much Tiakin could see in his eyes, which threatened now to weep, but he managed to ask with remarkable sincerity: "My god, what happened to your knuckles? They're bloodied."

A deadly pause. Tiakin's smile did not fade, but Lizeron's did. "This isn't my blood," he quietly said. "Come with me, Lizeron. There is something I wish to show you."

Lizeron walked with Tiakin, descending stairs into the sprawling cellar. Tiakin made his way on a roughly-textured slope adjacent to the stairway. In spite of his predicament, Lizeron grinned at the idea of sliding down the slope on his behind. It was the last whimsical thought he'd have for a long time.

Now the naga took Lizeron past many casks of fermented drinks, standing in long, even rows. The smell of fruit seeped into the room and he sniffed the air delicately. "Your wine cellar, Lord Sinti?" he asked in a small voice, attempting to spur some levity.

"It is," the naga quietly replied.

Past the casks, they went through a threshold and down a few wooden steps, which was all that separated the reddish timbers of the cellar from the ragged brick and dirt floors of the dungeon. Here, the torches was staggered much further apart. Breath from the dragon's snout made mist in this dank passage. To Lizeron's surprise, Tiakin's breath did the same.

"Where, ah, mmm--, where are we going, Lord Sinti, sir?"

Tiakin, still slithering ahead and leaving a ripple in the dirt, looked back and down at his guest. He smiled jauntily but said nothing, and Lizeron chose not to ask again.

Terminating the passage was a guard station warmed by a potbelly stove and manned by the clipped-wing dragon whom sat penning a journal. Lizeron peeked at the manuscript but couldn't read it; though a dragon himself, he didn't know the ancestral tongue whether spoken or written.

The naga took a key which hung on the wall and passed it to Lizeron. Indicating a stout metal door, he said, "If you would."

Lizeron unlocked, then stepped through the door at Tiakin's insistence. The naga followed him into the darkness.

"I can't see a thing in here," the drake puffed, looking back at the open doorway to center himself. The weak shaft of light it threw into the cell was of little use, and when Tiakin pulled his tail through the doorway, the clipped-wing dragon closed it behind him. The lock clicked.

"Lord Sinti?" Lizeron quivered.

The naga did not reply. In the dark, by aid of the heat-sensing pits in his snout, he found Desmond's mangled body. While touching the beaten thing's shoulder, he said to Lizeron, "Come this way. Walk slowly. Be mindful of where you step."

While following the sound of Tiakin's voice, Lizeron became aware of breathing. It was not Tiakin's breathing, which was deep and healthy; this was small, wheezing, and pitiful. The sound made him wish to render assistance. "What is that noise...?"

"Kneel," Tiakin commanded. "And feel ahead of yourself."

Lizeron did as he was told. Fingers trembling, he reached out slowly until he put his palm on something noticeably warm. He recognized the cuddly texture of Desmond's fur, and he petted down what he realized was the foxcoon's shoulder. His boniness was something Lizeron was used to, even thought of as normal. "It's Desmond," he whispered. "Whuh--, what's wrong with him?"

Lord Sinti did not speak. He let the dragon rub and feel the body at his knees. Very soon, Lizeron gasped, "Oh--, oh my god, is this blood? It's everywhere, oh my god...!"

Tiakin allowed himself a smug smile. The fear welling up in Lizeron's voice gratified him. The game had grown weary, however, and he straightened up to his full height. By familiar touch, he opened the slats in the ceiling and glorious sunlight filled the room. When Lizeron saw the abused form of Desmond, he shrieked and recoiled.

Now Lizeron understood the pathetic breaths his friend took. The fox's breast appeared caved in, and where it was out of shape, hideous splotches of bruise painted the flesh beneath the fur. Bloody mucous caked the boy's snout, running from nostrils, and lesser bruises of sickening colors marked his body like the continental shades on a globe. He gazed sadly at Lizeron with green eyes marred by bright blood vessels.

"Desmond," Lizeron whimpered, wringing his bloody hands uselessly. He had begun to cry. "Whuh--? I don't get it, why?" he bleated to Tiakin.

"Why?" the naga emphatically parroted, slithering around Desmond's broken body. He left the boy in the open loop of his body. "I won't lie - because I wanted to." Gazing down at the fox, he mused, "But also to satisfy my curiosities."

"Your curiosities?" the dragon asked, staring then into Tiakin's eyes, searching desperately for some hint of decency in them. "What kind of curiosities could you have to provoke thih--, th--," he stuttered and gestured at Desmond with his bloody hands, "this!?"

A modest smile from Tiakin both silenced Lizeron and stopped his gesticulations. "I wanted to see how best to produce loyalty and obedience. In your case, I offered you food. A warm bed. My tentative trust. And you have failed me."

"I--, well, I took a little food here and there, forgive me," Lizeron blurted, hugging himself with a shudder. Desmond sputtered and coughed, spitting blood up. Mucous laced with it dribbled from his nose. The young dragon groaned and closed his eyes tightly. "Please don't make that noise, Desmond, please..."

Tiakin was unmoved both by Lizeron's sudden honesty and the pitiful display of his recent prey. "Your admittance of guilt does nothing for me, dragon," he spoke with a greater hiss than normal. "But Desmond - he obeys now. All night, I pummeled him. I crushed him in my coils, squeezed the life from him until he fell unconscious." Proudly he said, "His little bones snapped like twigs under my scales." He gestured then to a smear of blood on the wall, and allowed the drake's imagination to fill in the blanks. "He was quite shameless at first. Begging for mercy, issuing futile threats, voiding himself when he felt death was near. Through it all, I beat him. I've no sympathy, not for vermin."

Lizeron slowly backpedaled to the featureless wall. He exhaled slowly, trying pointlessly to hide his fear. "He's harmless," he puffed.

"Everybody is harmless to me," said Tiakin grandly. He chuckled and hissed at the same time. "Ah, but your friend here. I must admit, I tried to snuff out this miserable life of his. I tried so very hard. I've not bruised my fists in decades," he ruefully noted. "Yet he clings to life. Why? Why do you refuse to die, Desmond?"

Against his better judgment, Lizeron crept near again, leaning forward to observe and hear. God, please just let him die, he thought.

It was a ghoulish display. Desmond rolled himself over slowly, and flopped limp as a corpse when he was on his face. As he exerted his broken form, the wheezing grew louder. It was a sound like phlegm in his throat, but the blood dribbling from his jowls offered a different explanation. He pushed himself up with his paws, and in straightening his broken back, coaxed himself into a bleating cry of pain. Lizeron began to weep in sympathy. Tiakin watched the fox impassively.

"I must please you, sir," he shakily answered.

Lord Sinti smiled broadly. On his reptilian face, it was the expression of a demon. "Wonderful. Spoken like a devoted slave." On his all fours and bereft of all dignity, Desmond looked at Lizeron pleadingly.

The dragon numbly said, "Let me be your slave. Please let him die."

"Why must I let him die? Does it bring you discomfort to see him so broken?" Tiakin asked, lying down in the cool dirt. He rolled his long body over, exposing a white underbelly unbroken aside from a cloacal slit. "Pleasure me, slave, as you did last night."

Before Lizeron's revolted eyes, Desmond dragged his borderline-carcass to the prostrate form of Tiakin. He more or less collapsed against the naga with a stifled cry of pain, and he thrust his bloody face against the slit. Whether spurred by Desmond's rough nuzzling or just the blatant agony of the boy, the slit began to swell. Desmond licked the soft hide with his bloodstained tongue and the swelling grew more full, and soon the twin shafts within peeked.

"If his injuries and his servitude to me truly bothers you," said Tiakin, gazing at the dragon as Desmond began to suckle one of his exposed shafts, "you may kill him."

"I--, what?" Lizeron squeaked.

Desmond also flinched. Tiakin glanced down and slightly narrowed his golden eyes. The foxcoon resumed his work.

With Desmond's insubordination quashed, Tiakin explained, "His misery clearly disturbs you. Indeed, I can see why. Cracked spine, punctured lung, and I'm quite sure I've permanently injured his testicles. I know his every waking moment is sheer agony. You may kill him. See the guard in the adjacent room. Ask for a weapon."

"I can't do that!" the drake cried, shedding hot tears.

"You would let your partner suffer, then?" A chuckle. "I see." Offhandedly, still gazing up at Lizeron, he added, "Harder." Desmond's suckles grew louder. The boy halted suddenly, turned aside to spit up a wad of phlegmy blood as one spits out a piece of gristle, then resumed his work.

"Oh, god," Lizeron whimpered, walking to the door in a daze. He knocked on it tentatively, but it went unanswered until Tiakin called for it to be opened.

Faced with the wingless dragon, Lizeron fumbled to say, "I need a--, I require something to--," but he couldn't say it without blubbering. He pointed at the swords and axes on the wall.

"Get him one," the naga affirmed.

The drake with the clipped wings took down an ax from the wall and put it in Lizeron's quaking hands. As the green-bellied dragon approached both Tiakin and his dutifully suckling slave, he pitifully reiterated, "I can't do this. Desmond took care of me. He kept me alive. I love him. Maybe things were never perfect between us, but--, but I can't."

"Now he exists only in misery and you have the means to save him from it. If you do love him, whether romantically or as a mere friend, you will end that misery." Tiakin grabbed his broken slave by the hair on his head. Once it had been soft and well-groomed, but that was so long ago that Lizeron and even Desmond himself had forgotten it. These days it was brittle and losing its color from countless vitamin deficiencies, and more presently, it was a matted mess streaked with blood and dirt. But it served its purpose well enough as a leash, and Tiakin pulled Desmond off of his drooling, black cock. The pull prompted a weak scream.

After Tiakin thrust the foxcoon down on his back, he pointed at the suffering boy's neck with a long, clawed finger. "Swing here, and be careful. You don't want to miss and bury it in his head," he chuckled.

Lizeron raised the ax in his trembling hands, but he let it drop, burying its edge in the dirt. "Please don't make me do this to him," he blubbed. "I won't ever lie again, I swear, but please..."

"Raise the ax," Tiakin coldly said, "and let the weight of the weapon's head do the work. Beheading is an art."

"I can't! I won't!" Lizeron cried, looking away from Desmond's body. He tossed the ax away, and it landed in the dirt with a soft paff. Disarmed, he trudged to the far corner of the cell where he sat and wept. "I'm sorry, Desmond, I'm so sorry," he blubbered, hiding his crying eyes against his knees.

The naga banged on the door and said when his guard answered it, "Take the vermin upstairs. Summon my physician, and tell her to stay. You will compensate her time and give her one of the guest bedrooms."

Wordlessly, the dragon without wings picked up Desmond's broken form. The foxcoon screamed in agony and clung to him like a child with its mother, but the guard seemed not to notice.

When the cell contained only himself and Lizeron, Tiakin closed the door again and slithered near the drake. His twin shafts remained exposed, the lower one still damp with Desmond's saliva. Lizeron stared at him with wet eyes.

"Desmond learned obedience through violence," the naga lowly said. "As shall you."

The first strike from Tiakin came fast but heavy. The dragon couldn't believe a creature so enormous could move with such speed, but it was the reality of his situation when Tiakin's closed fist crashed into him. The blow was intended for his snout, but he flinched just fast enough that instead, the naga pounded the side of his head, cracking but not breaking off one of the white horns rising from his crown. Its keratin was brittle for the same reason his bones poked through his emaciated hide.

Being punched in the skull things was considerably for the worse from Lizeron's point of view, leaving him so dazed and certain he was suffering an aneurysm that he staggered to the side and collapsed against the wall, rubbing, almost petting its rough surface as he fell to his knees. He was easy pickings for a bloodlusting naga.

Tiakin, hissing savagely, grabbed Lizeron by his cracked horn and thrust the drake forward, forcing him to face plant into the dirt with a grunt. What little slapstick comedy there was in this injury didn't change the tone of the scene.

With his yet unbroken slave in the corner of the wall and floor, Tiakin lowered his body, caring not when his twin penises (which throbbed and drooled to the tune of the violence) smeared against the dirt. He drilled the drake's bared gut with one hammering fist after another. Lizeron got wise quickly and covered his belly, but Tiakin simply moved to the chest. And when Lizeron covered that - albeit much more feebly, for such was the lopsided equilibrium of a savage beating - Tiakin pummeled what was most convenient.

It went on for ages from the drake's perspective, yet to Lord Sinti it was just a dandy blur which he scarcely wanted to put an end to. Pulped organs and crushed bones be damned; Tiakin made earnest attempts to punch through the young drake. He swore he could feel the stone on the other side of the dragon's body. What came as no surprise to the naga was when Lizeron started to sputter, coughing up blood one moment, vomit the next. The beating continued, and so did Lizeron's grisly regurgitation.

The naga realized he was huffing in exertion, just as he had huffed when Desmond got his due. Gradually bringing his breathing under control as one does after vigorous exercise, Lord Sinti gave Lizeron a respite, and he loomed over the beaten dragon with painfully throbbing, discolored knuckles. The pain exhilarated him, and his penises throbbed as though he were nearing climax.

"My god," Tiakin shuddered, straightening himself out. His members were a little dirty from rubbing on the dirt floor, but no less threatening to the prone, crying drake. "Before you and your partner came here, I'd been so bored. You foolish thieves," he said with what Lizeron unmistakably heard to be reverence. "You stupid thieves. Bringing me your fragile bodies to play with."

He pulled Lizeron up out of the corner and was delighted to hear the dragon hiss in pain. Pulling the dragon's shirt up, he saw that he had turned the green hide many sickening colors all in the spectrum of bruises. Knowing the boy would crumple if set on his feet, Tiakin held him up and eyed him thoughtfully.

"Ooh, my god," Lizeron winced, trying to touch his bruised body without quite touching it, broaching the tenderized hide in an awkwardly uncertain way. "I've never--, I've not ever felt a pain like this before," he whimpered. "I will obey you, I will--, I'll obey, I swear it..." He was stammering, sounding dozy, like one on the edge of sleep.

Whether you do or don't, I get my pleasure, thought Tiakin, his evil countenance growing more wicked still. He wanted to laugh, to bray like the sadistic beast he was, but he didn't. He let Lizeron go, and to his surprise, the drake stood up... For all of five seconds. Then he fell onto his behind, and the jostling caused him great enough pain that he warbled and rolled onto his side with a whimper.

Tiakin allowed himself a chuckle but nothing more as he rolled Lizeron onto his belly. He grabbed one of those wings, finding its membrane quite luxuriant, its fingers delicate. Already, Lizeron could sense what was coming and he began to babble and sob, but the naga's mind had been made up from the start. His grin so wide as to split his head in two, Lord Sinti began breaking the wing, snapping its fingers, crushing the bones, ripping the delicate membranes. Over the sounds of crunching bones came the cacophonous yowling of the dragon as he begged incoherently for mercy.

As he reached down around the main stalk of the wing, Tiakin found that his slave had truly begun to struggle. He thrashed with such vigor in spite of his very likely internal bleeding that the naga found it a challenge to grip the stalk, and that was when he lost his temper. He balled up a fist and pounded the back of the dragon's skull, hitting him only once with a sideways fist, but once was enough. Lizeron fell immediately unconscious.

Tiakin jostled him by his broken wing, seeing if the pain might spur him, but it did not. He snorted his disgust and dropped the wing, though he was at the very least amused that it hung so mangled at his side.

Although Tiakin had mostly come down from his violent high, his members still needfully ached. He shamelessly pulled off the dragon's urine-soiled trousers.

--9

Resting at the dining room table and lethargic following so much action, Tiakin was fed by one of his lovely gecko servants as another held bags of ice on his knuckles. There was notably nothing sexual in the way they served him, and neither was there an element of fear. Tiakin treated them respectfully and paid them well, with the cost of residence waived instead of deducted. It was his closely-held belief that the help were better inclined to serve and keep secrets if shown respect.

Tiakin's physician came downstairs from the wing of guest rooms. In her clawed clutch was a carpet bag full of medicines and medical sundries. She caught sight of Tiakin, enjoying his meal of breakfast rolls and eggs, and a smile creased her black beak. "You've not had me save one of your slaves in twenty years. Why the change of heart?"

The naga leered at the physician's cold crow eyes. "A personal preference in this case," he murmured. "Nothing more than that."

"The fellow who lives in a gilded palace is prone to flights of fancy," said the crow dryly. "I'm absolutely shocked."

Tiakin pretended not to hear her, but he smiled mildly. "Go down to the dungeon, if you will, and attend to the partner."

"Partner?"

Tiakin's guilty smile blossomed into a smirk. "The vermin's partner in crime. I believe there may be something more to them, but one is so quick to betray the other that I can't be sure." He heaved his shoulders in a shrug. "His injuries aren't as severe. Do not repair the wings."

"Very well, my lord," said the crow, and she dipped her head before she left his presence.

Let in by the wingless dragon, she found Lizeron cowering in the corner, sobbing and muttering madly to himself. She approached slowly with a palm outstretched and said in a soothing caw, "I'm a lady of medicine, young one. I'm here to help you. Don't be afraid of me."

Lizeron whimpered. "I should have killed him. I should have."

The crow tilted her head. "Lord Sinti?" she asked dubiously.

"Desmond," he bleated. "I should have put him out of his suffering..."

Ah, the vermin, thought the crow. Tiakin's head games were something she wished not to participate in. With a little coaxing, she got Lizeron to swallow a foul-tasting medicine which she promised would help. In reality it was a sedative so mighty that he was unconscious for the best part of two hours - ample time for a skilled doctor such as herself to repair all but the hideously mangled wings which Lord Sinti had ordered be left as-is. Surreptitiously, however, she severed the nerves so as to alleviate the pain. Even if she had been allowed to attempt repairs, she knew those wings would never fly again.

Work on the slaves concluded, she took her leave of Tiakin upstairs and left.

--10

For what seemed like an eternity, Desmond's head swam with the crow's medicine. Every so often he could feel the veil of sleep receding, peeling back like the film of darkness over the night. He began to coo and whine, sounding like an infant. A foul taste, the instinct to gag, and then the veil came down again. It covered everything. The dull pain, the worries, the hunger. He let it cradle him. In his most lucid of moments (which was never saying much), he wondered if this was how babies in the womb felt.

Once, and slowly, like unveiling a prize, the veil peeled back completely. Desmond's eyes opened, milky and unaccustomed to light. Instinctively he squinted them closed, wanting to keep them that way, but the curiosity wouldn't let him. Murmurs around him, soft voices slowed and distorted by his drugged perceptions.

A gentle voice called to him. The words were strange, something he couldn't understand, but he tried his hardest to decipher them. Now a warm, familiar hand touched his head, petted through his sickly hair. He recognized the scent faster than the voice: Lord Sinti. Fear and revulsion were his knee-jerk impulses, and he tried pointlessly to pull away from the naga's hand. He whimpered.

"Wake up," Tiakin murmured. "Wake up, Desmond."

"Is he going to wake up?"

"Silence, dragon. That's twice you spoken out of line now. A third time and I'll have your snout nailed closed." He returned to the gentle tone with hardly a segue, merely cooing to Desmond again, "Please wake up, Desmond. Return to me. You must serve me."

Though lingering drugs dulled the pain, it was still there to attest to his so-called rehabilitation at Tiakin's hands. Whether or not it was wise or even really his own desire, Desmond did indeed need to serve the naga. He opened his eyes all the way and the shape of the naga began to focus before him. The cruel creature smiled, but instead of the expected wickedness, it was a strangely peaceful expression.

"This hurts so much," Desmond winced, referring to no pain in particular. His entire body radiated with it like heat from burning embers, rising red-hot from some place deep inside of him. The crow was skilled with her medicinal touch and the bones had been reset, the punctured lung repaired well enough, but his flesh was stained with sickening bruises. His cracked spine left him in unending pain. It was difficult to appreciate the miracle of working legs in light of the terrible agony.

"Such is the price of your servitude," Tiakin matter-of-factly said, leering briefly at Lizeron. The drake averted his blackened eyes down at once. "Sit up now, my vermin pet. I will not assist you in this, you must do it yourself."

Desmond wanted to ask why he was in such a weakened state. It had in fact been a week he spent drugged up to the heavens and carefully fed by hand. The gecko girls tended to him as they would Lord Sinti himself, cleaning him and debriding his wounds, washing his unconscious form of what messes it made, rolling him now and then to prevent bedsores. But still, his muscles had begun to atrophy slightly. Stretching his waning muscles taut caused him such torment that he fell still on the bed, merely weeping.

The dragon looked at Tiakin pitifully. After a moment, the naga noticed his stare, then quietly said, "Assist him. Do not speak, or your tongue goes the way of your wings."

Lizeron instinctively reached back to touch his wings. They were gone, reduced to bandaged nubs. With a long face and a bitten lip, he put his hands around Desmond's bony shoulders and hoisted the boy to sit. Desmond bawled in pain as his broken back was stretched, but he began to settle into mere choking sobs as he relaxed on his behind and rested on Lizeron. Gaining tears in his own eyes, Lizeron nuzzled Desmond's cheek sweetly only to be batted away by Tiakin.

"He is not yours to comfort, dragon," Tiakin dangerously hissed. He slithered around the seated, quaking form of the foxcoon and supported him with his coils. Merely brushing against Desmond's back caused the boy to groan a shrill sound through his clenched teeth.

Lizeron hardly winced when he heard Desmond's new cry. He was gazing out the window, watching rain droplets tap the glass like pebbles. He looked back at the sick tableau of his broken partner only when Tiakin began to speak. He said: "Dragon, lie on your back. Further up on the bed, as before."

Not a word from Lizeron's lips as he complied. The only sounds in the room were his soft rustles on the bed, the pitter-patter of raindrops (and its accompaniment, the odd rumble of thunder), and the staggered, rattling breathing of Desmond. The dragon left his legs parted. Though impossible to see from the angle, his gouged anus throbbed raw and pink from what seemed like endless rides on the naga's twin shafts, though never both at once. One alone was too big for his body.

"Over here, this way," Tiakin patiently cooed, negotiating fragile Desmond over to Lizeron. Through gentle, protesting hisses and yips from the boy, Tiakin set him atop Lizeron, groin to groin, breast to breast, and nose to nose. The dragon kept still, even avoiding Desmond's pleading eyes when the fox nuzzled him, plainly seeking some desperately-needed comfort. Taking note of the dragon's coldness, Tiakin grinned.

Slithering on the bed, Lord Sinti positioned himself between the legs of both young men. To Lizeron, it was familiar, though he silently wondered if his abused pucker could handle much more of the naga. Desmond was less reserved, exemplified best when he gasped, "Whuh--, what is this? What are you doing?"

In spite of the pain, Desmond leaned and craned his neck to gaze at the naga, catching just a glimpse of those stone-cold eyes. Tiakin smiled wanly and hissed a snicker. "It is time to pleasure me, my little pet," said the noble in a patiently even tone, as if telling a child that the night is dark and the sea is wet. He caressed the curve of Desmond's rear, which was one of the few things he hadn't beaten into the consistency of pulp. Desmond's bushy tail shook and trembled.

The twin black shafts from Lord Sinti's genital slit both rubbed imposingly in the crack of Desmond's ass for the moment. Desmond winced and hunkered down tight on Lizeron. "Please, god no, those will cut me in half," he blubbered.

"Both of my penises? Certainly," the naga said with obvious relish, stressing the hiss at the beginning of the word for emphasis. "They would tear you apart, rip your intestines right out of you. This a thief or two before your time could attest to, at least for a few miserable days spent bleeding out in my dungeon."

Whatever expressions had been on Desmond's and Lizeron's faces were replaced with repugnant horror. Seeing such accusatory, fearful looks in their eyes, Tiakin responded with a gaze that was deadpan. It said yes, I'm quite serious. Aloud the naga said, "But you will not be receiving both of them," and to illustrate the fact, he pressed the pre-oozing tip of the upper penis to Desmond's pucker, and guided the other into the gaped donut that was Lizeron's anus. Both slaves let loose hisses, but Tiakin trumped them with a baleful hiss of his own. Desmond's ears splayed down flat; Lizeron flinched and visibly began to tremble. Slowly, taking care for his great size, Tiakin entered his slaves.

Tiakin expressed his pleasure in abundance, hissing and tasting the air one moment, crooning the next as the sensitive, off-gold ridges on his dark penises tweaked against the rectal walls of his slaves. It had been simply too long since he'd had two holes to bury them in. Female thieves were few and far between, but beyond that, Tiakin preferred to quickly execute them out of a misplaced gentlemanly impulse. It would simply not do to torture a lady.

Under his great hands, the naga rolled Desmond's thin shoulders and pressed him down into Lizeron. Over the fox's shoulder, he gazed into the drake's gleaming blue eyes, staring with a smoldering, unblinking gaze until Lizeron flinched and looked away.

Like a key sliding into its lock, Lord Tiakin Sinti's burly shafts settled into the slaves and his belly hide pressed flush to Desmond's bottom and Lizeron's hips. Letting the pre ooze into them, and in particular to give Desmond time to adjust to the stretch, he waited where he was and distracted himself by petting the foxcoon's shoulder blades, then down through his hair.

"My god, oh," the young fox whined. It was not exactly a tone of pain, but one of regret. He clearly wished he had never laid eyes on the House of Sinti. Hearing such remorse in the boy's tone left Tiakin smiling in deep gratification. He wondered what the boy would do with any autonomy whatsoever: an attempt on the life of his new master? An attempt on his own? Perhaps Desmond would try to oust him as a monster, a torturer, a serial killer. Others had escaped and tried. None would hear such vicious rumors of their altruistic, if not eccentric noble. A vermin twice-over would never be heard as anything more than a pest trying to cause a ruckus.

It was time for satisfaction. Lord Sinti drew back his members to the tips, give or take, then thrust them forth again. Lizeron was quiet, but Desmond yowled. His clenching and twitching aggravated the many little fractures in his spine and left agony radiating through his body. That the anal sex was excruciating on its own didn't help matters.

Seeing how smoothly and rapidly the naga could fuck using his muscular coils for locomotion was awe-inspiring to the uninitiated. He seemed to glide on the bed, moving as if without effort, but the reality was that moving such bulk at such speeds took a considerable toll on him. He panted, letting it emerge haggard and pleasured. There was little more to prove in front of the slaves.

Like a punishing hand, the naga's smooth belly smacked Desmond's round behind over and over again, spanking the one part of him which wasn't emaciated. Lizeron was spared that same spanking this time around, which had been considerably more noisy on his soft and pliable hide.

"Nine days, now," Tiakin began pontificating, squeezing harder on the fox's shoulders, digging his claws into them. Blood oozed around their points but the fox, surprisingly, did not react. Too much pain already had his attention. "For nine days I've done my best to turn you whelps into something," he emphasized with a brutal pound against the boys, making both cry out, "which I, which polite society may find worthwhile! And I find instead," now he huffed and quickened his pace, that emphatic thrust becoming the new standard, "that I've been only half-successful!"

"Oh no, oh my god," Desmond whined against Lizeron's neck. "Please don't kill me, don't kill me...!"

"Silence!!" brayed Tiakin, and not even the tiny hiss in his fricatives could detract from his commanding tone. Both young men cowered against one another, openly blubbering and sucking snot, sharing an embrace, thinking it to be their final one. They weren't wrong.

A vast amount of slippery, warm precum had leaked into both Lizeron and Desmond and so, as Tiakin's plump shafts reamed them, slipping in and out of their abused behinds, they started to cause lewd noises. Wet squelches and suckles contrasted with the steady fall of the rain, but fell in perfectly with both Tiakin's huffing and the pained, fairly subtle sounds of his slaves.

For a few moments longer - long enough for the foxcoon to naively think that Tiakin's discontent had slipped his mind - the naga continued to thrust against his fuckthings. He leaned low over them, flitting his tongue on Desmond's quivering ears, slithering it into the cup and down inside. A deep, warning hiss made the fox tremble and whimper.

"I am certain you're wondering," Tiakin huffed, his bucks beginning to slow in exchange for brutal strength, "which of you I'm unsatisfied with. Are you not? You may speak!"

"I--, I am very curious," Lizeron admitted, trying his damnedest not to blubber.

Desmond wasn't so stolid. "Puh--, please, not me! I've led a foul enough life as vermin, please don't cut it short!" His cowardice made even Lizeron snort.

From deep within the naga's form rose a chuckle, graduating to a booming, wicked laugh he'd been holding in for over a week. He brayed on and on as his body slammed away at their bottoms, keeping their inner flesh inflamed and gaped. "You are a pathetic little fool, are you not, Desmond?" he asked, still caught in his mad laughing fit. "To beg for your life even now... Have you learned nothing!?"

The boy said not a word in reply, and just as well, thought Tiakin, whom verged on an orgasm and wanted no distractions. By that point his breathing had become so heavy and labored that his climax was a foregone conclusion, and he pushed his twin members into the thieves one last time. He shuddered in a way which had become familiar to Lizeron, but which was was new to Desmond. From his full internal testes, the naga shot one massive load through both cocks, overfilling the abused young men after just a few shots. The ropes he spurted were, of course, gigantic to match his physique; Desmond and Lizeron leaked around Tiakin's penises as they lay quivering and awaiting judgment.

Warmth from afterglow made Tiakin rather cuddly and affectionate, since even he wasn't immune to the satisfaction which followed a hard fuck. He dismounted, letting his semen gush from the defeated pair of thieves. Desmond shuddered as the salty slop burned the countless tiny rips in his anus, too small to bleed but big enough to sting. Lizeron was used to the feeling, but his tears welled up a bit more.

Already the naga's shafts began receding into their slit; with business concluded, they were ready for a nap. Lord Sinti himself yawned, and he felt as though he could sleep too. Briefly he gazed on the stacked bodies of Desmond and Lizeron, clinging helplessly to one another, quaking and blubbering like young brothers hiding from their alcoholic father.

Tiakin turned out the lights and draped his lengthy, tired form on the bed as he often did, propping up his head with the pillows, letting the tip of his tail hang off on the floor. There was ample surface for him to curl his entire body up on it with room to spare, but this was how he preferred to sleep. Before he closed his eyes, he uttered, "Press close, Desmond."

With much effort and hardly a shortage of pained winces and moans, Desmond scooted near the naga and found himself held fast. Tiakin clutched his warm, clean fluff tightly, snuggling him as though he were a teddy bear. Lizeron was left to sleep where he already lie, several feet away. The dragon curled in upon himself and wept for many reasons.

--11

Desmond and Lizeron awoke alone in the naga's bed. The rain from the night before still fell, now in torrential sheets which slapped the windows and drummed a wild staccato on the roof. They shared looks, a moment of mutual concern, and then Lizeron sat up and turned his back on the fox.

Wearing a frown, Desmond pulled himself over to the dragon. It took effort, and the pain from the night before had hardly lessened. If anything, sleeping in Tiakin's tight clutch had worsened the aches. "Lizeron," he bleated. "We have to escape now. Before he kills one of us."

The dragon snorted. Had he still had his wings, he would have lashed them out to swat Desmond. "I don't know why you're worried. He's all but groomed you to be his cuddly toy. I'm as good as dead." He sounded more dejected than afraid of his fate.

Noticeably bristling, Desmond grabbed Lizeron's shoulder and gave it a shake. "I have no intention of staying here. We finally have some slack on our leashes - let's use it. Forget loot. I don't even know where it would be. I want to escape with my life. With my dignity."

Lizeron smiled contritely. "As if you ever had any." He stood, effortlessly shrugging off frail Desmond's grasp. The fox, whom had been leaning on his shoulder, fell against the bed and yelped in pain. "I'm sure I've none either, not after all the ways I've dragged myself through the mud for you. If I'm going to die, I do so at least accepting my fate. That's some dignity."

Hobbling after Lizeron and visibly uneasy on his feet, Desmond wheezed, "Are you some kind of fool? Do you think that's noble, to lie down and die? It's not! He took your wings, and clearly he took a little of your mind, too!"

Lizeron whipped around on his heel and, channeling indignation he'd been amassing for years playing the part of vagabond cum thief with Desmond, punched the fox with such strength and so shockingly that the crippled thing staggered to the side and quickly lost his balance, falling on his flank with a sharp, winded whuff! There he lay, pained by his existing wounds, and he spat out the jagged top of a tooth.

"You took my wings!" Lizeron snapped, pointing accusingly at the fox. "Tiakin might have snapped and lopped them off, but you!" He stabbed at Desmond with his finger, and the fox recoiled. "Are the one who led me here!"

"I was--, I tried to--," Desmond sputtered, beginning to sob. Blood dribbled from his lower jaw. "I kept you alive! I stole for you!" he cried back, his voice getting numb and mushy following Lizeron's punch.

The dragon grimaced and snarled skyward, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. "My god, all you've ever done is used me to set off the traps in front of you. I've never been your equal, have I? Even at the inn - you were glad I was there to be fucked by the innkeeper's husband, to be fucked by you when it was relief you needed. But that's all I ever was, a tool for you to use."

"That's not true!" Desmond hollered, and he pulled himself up to a sitting position with the use of Tiakin's writing desk. "Lizeron, please. Please. I don't want to die serving him. And I don't want you to die. Don't make me leave without you."

Lizeron approached the fox, and Desmond, whom had never been intimidated by the narrowly-built dragon before, flinched away. Seconds ago, Desmond would have had a reason to flinch, but now Lizeron helped him to his feet and gingerly kissed his cheek where he'd punched it.

The fox smiled. It was a genuine, happy smile, and the first he had managed in weeks. His cheeks had a rosy hue under his white fur. "We'll be equals after this. I promise. I promise, Lizeron."

Saying nothing but nodding, Lizeron led Desmond out of the room, letting the foxcoon lean on him for support. None of the geckos were cleaning the halls. He led Desmond along, down the stairs into the main hall. In the den, resting on a couch made especially for his great bulk, Tiakin read one of the hundreds of books lining the wall and let the fireplace warm him.

Desmond stared silently at the back of the naga's head, then began to sidestep, moving his injured, naked body towards the front door. It was so terribly close that he could taste the rainy air just past it, feel the drops on his body washing away the sins and woes of his time under Tiakin's thumb. He looked back to see Lizeron had not approached. He stood and stared at Desmond, still standing in the threshold to the den.

For a moment Desmond gesticulated for Lizeron's attention, but his blood ran cold. Oh, no. My god, no. Don't do this to me, silently mouthing the words.

Time ran slow for Desmond as Lizeron turned his head and opened his mouth. Clear as day, calmly as you please, "Desmond is trying to escape, Lord Sinti."

It was impossible. Desmond's ears splayed down, and the fear tangled his stomach into a ragged knot deep in his gut. He heard the slam of a book and then along came Tiakin, slithering fast around the corner, those reading spectacles gleaming in the light of each brazier he passed.

"No!" Desmond shrieked, and he bolted for the door. The chunks of broken vertebrae in his back ground sickeningly on one another. The pain coursed down his legs in big, angry waves, but he still ran. He threw himself at the door, slamming into its great wooden weight. It scarcely rattled, but he started to pull at its big iron locks. He pulled open one, then another. Three more kept the door shut. He looked over his shoulder and saw the naga was nearly on top of him, gliding closer on his smooth hide. Then and there, Desmond wet himself, pissing on the door and the rug beneath.

Before Desmond even slapped open the second-to-last lock, Tiakin had him. His fist closed around the boy's bicep like a vise, making the bottom half of the limb throb. "No! NO!!" he screamed, dragged away from freedom and safety by the silent naga. His geckos came along shortly to re-lock the door and sop up the urine with their unfailing professionalism.

Still Lizeron hadn't moved away from the stairs. Tiakin tossed Desmond down at the dragon's feet, and though tranquil fury burned in his golden eyes, he spoke to the dragon, "You've made me very proud, Lizeron. I am glad I can trust you - and thank you for making this difficult decision for me. How I wanted to keep you both, but two conspiring slaves would simply be too much effort."

The dragon nodded solemnly. "Are you going to kill him, sir?"

Desmond stared up at Lizeron, wincing and sobbing. "Why did you do this to me? You've doomed me."

"I am," Tiakin stolidly answered. "If you wish to say goodbye, I will allow it."

Lizeron dropped to his knees. With a gentle touch, the last Desmond ever feel, he brushed the quivering foxcoon's hair from his eyes, then kissed his bloodstained lips. "I know that things would never change if I had helped you to escape. You can choose not to believe me if you wish, but," he blew out a sigh, "I've always had affection for you. But I also know you would never have reciprocated. And I feel that what I've done is something you would have done to me, given the chance to change our roles."

"Lize--, Lizeron," Desmond stammered, groping for the dragon's bicep, his hand, his knee, thinking desperately and mistakenly that if he could just hold on, Lizeron would do something to save his life.

"Goodbye, Desmond," he quietly said, rising to his feet and sloughing off Desmond's bony grasp. "I wish things could have worked differently for us." He paused, glanced at Tiakin, studied one of the brass braziers flanking the hall, and then uttered softly, "I loved you."

"Touching," said Lord Sinti, expressing no derision whatsoever. He pulled Desmond up by the bicep again, the same one as before. The fox began to grovel and beg, but the naga listened to none of it. With all the strength he had in his dominant arm, he gave a mighty reprisal of his first blow to Desmond's head: a sideways fist, slammed into the top of Desmond's skull. A revolting, slightly wet crrrunch greeted the strike and Desmond's eyes went terribly blank. It was over in less than a second, but noticeable enough that Lizeron looked away and began to whimper and sniff.

The naga let Desmond's body fall to the floor. Blood trickled out of his nose, moving like syrup from a wound in a maple tree. Somehow the boy clung to a narrow thread of life, for he twitched. An infantile coo escaped him.

Lying himself flat on the floor and appearing like an enormous snake if not for his limbs, Tiakin put his nose near the top of Desmond's caved-in head. "And now, Lizeron, observe. If you ever feel your fair life under my roof has become cloying, the life you," he sneered, "sacrificed your lover for, then this is what shall await you, as well."

Twice in so few seconds, Lizeron heard another nasty crunch. This one was from Tiakin as he unhinged his jaws. His maw hung enormously slack, the bottom jaw dangling, the pink and gleaming innards leading to endless black like a portal to hell. With a touch almost delicate in nature, he gummed the top of Desmond's head, and then he started to pull the fox inward with his arms, sliding him into his gullet. Tiakin's throat bulged hideously, mimicking the shape of Desmond's body like a second skin. Just as the feet - one still twitching, offering an instinctively fearful kick - slipped past the naga's jaws, the bulk of Desmond's torso passed down into the great noble's digestive tract.

Lizeron watched the horrible display until the very last moment when Tiakin reengaged his jaws and worked them in a testing manner. The young dragon realized then how shaky his legs had become, and he staggered back, tripping on the stair steps with a cry. His butt landed on a step.

Tiakin slithered ponderously near Lizeron and patted the dragon's head, carefully broaching the cracked horn. It had mostly healed but still bore a zigzagging hairline split. "I must sleep off this meal," he said calmly. "Do entertain yourself, my new pet. I'll save your branding for tomorrow."

But the dragon didn't want entertainment, and the knowledge of a branding in his future didn't frighten him. Now that Desmond was gone, he wanted the fox back. He wanted him back so badly. He curled up on the stairs and wept for hours.