32

Chester opens his eyes between pillows and silk sheets. He sees translucent canopies surrounding the wide circular mattress on which he lies. Still drowsy, he is tempted to call aloud to his earthly maid and ask her what day it is. Attempting to move stabs of pain all over his body stiffen him. The pain activates his nerves, he now notices the springs snapping against his back, the eaten edges of the sheets, and the fact that the pillows are filled with foam instead of feathers. Covered in bandages and bandages, and tucked into that replica of a nobleman's bed, he senses that something is wrong.

He crawls between the canopies. Limping, he crosses that vast room of red carpet and cheap leopard tapestry. The only definite thing in his blurred vision is the door. Ten steps from the exit, something pulls on his leg and he falls chest down. Chester lies very still on the floor, his whole body a bell with continuous echoes of suffering. He mumbles a barbarity, and sits up to check what is biting his leg. The shackle clings tightly, connected to a chain that is lost under the bed. The shackle and links were given a coat of gold paint to match the bad taste of the bedroom, but that doesn't fool Chester, he's a prisoner, and he doesn't quite know whose.

He lost to Ricote, and Achú must have captured him, setting the stage for God knows what torment. The Lancasterian smiles bitterly and looks up at the ceiling as if ready to face a mocking divinity, but instead confronts a stupefied red gaze on a well-delineated face under a shock of blue hair. A good head on good men following a good body, covered in malluggles, bandages, and muscles. He is practically naked, except for a purple thong. The mirror covers the entire ceiling.

Apprehensive about a possible round of torture, Chester crawls over and checks under the bed. He discovers that the chain is connected to an anchor in the wall. He lies down on the floor, places the soles of his feet against the legs of the bed, and as the bed is wide, he has to stretch his legs quite far. Seeing herself in the mirror is embarrassing, but she does her best, and with the golden iron chain in her hands, she pulls with the strength of her legs and arms. In the reflection, the face contracts and reddens, the muscles swell as well as the veins, and the bandages are dyed a warm red. The metal of the chain groans, and the anchor bolts threaten to pop, but then Chester hears footsteps and a door opening.

He stops pulling and throws his head back, discovering an upside-down woman in the doorway, watching him back with a playful smile, and a hand placed on her curvaceous waist.

(This one I know!) He thinks, but without locating her among the faces of his memories.

The female comes and bows.

"You careless little fool! If you keep flailing you'll bleed to death"

Chester arches an eyebrow, and lets his guard down a little. For the moment he perceives no threat or malice in the woman's voice.

"I kept your things in the closet, so nothing to worry about. Just relax"

"Ma'am..."

"Don't call me ma'am! I'm Shura"

"Shura...?"

He allows himself to be carried to the bed, where she adjusts the bandages with a soft and affectionate touch. Meanwhile, the nobleman keeps trying to locate her in his memories, the name rings a bell, but.... Could she be a slut he forgot to pay? She could look the part, with that dyed hair, and that cleavage that pushes out two feisty loaves of bread. He stops staring at her tits when the touch that runs through him goes from healing him to resting on his leg. The lurid-haired woman is pressed against him, practically lying down, her intense perfume moistening the swordsman's eyes and making him blink.

"That's what a real man feels like..." She says, biting her lip, and squeezes his thigh. "All my life surrounded by chickens and cocksuckers, I thought you guys were just for fun. But that attitude of yours, so intense, so manly.... I can't take it anymore!"

"Ah!"

He pushes Chester up against the cock and straddles him like a stallion. The slave queen's kisses and caresses rain down, and Chester, dazed, but feeling more and more the inner caveman, begins to respond to those fleshy lips assaulting his mouth, and crotch rubbing against his own. What's wrong with a little cannoli in the air before escaping?

However, even if the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak? Or in her case, soft. Even when Shura reaches under the thong and massages in cyclical motions, Chester's member remains limp. Both man and woman lose fire, and discomfort sets in.

Shura is the first to separate, she flees to the other end of the mattress, where she sits hugging her legs and pressing her face between her knees.

"It's me, isn't it...? I knew it wouldn't be reciprocated. I'm old!"

Chester bares his teeth in an uncomfortable grimace, and feels the full weight of guilt for not complying. He takes a deep breath, remembering military training, how he must remain calm on any battlefield. He crawls over the mattress and takes Shura's shoulders gently.

"You're beautiful! You're super hot!"

The slaver turns suddenly with teary eyes, almost bumping her forehead against his.

"Then why doesn't get up?!"

Chester spreads his hands apart, startled. He averts his gaze, takes a breath and lets it out.

"It's not you... It's me..."

In another situation it would be an excuse, and so thinks Shura, who almost jumps for her laser whip to turn the Lancastrian into a pile of ground meat. But then Chester relates, with pain afflicting his tone, how in the middle of a fight his enemy struck him in the honor.

"A cruel mercenary hurt you..." Shura repeats part of his words. Chester, too embarrassed to look her in the eye, nods. The slaver lowers her head, giving herself a moment to process everything. "I understand..."

Chester remains silent and nervous, not picking up that the woman has feelings for him. The strong, hard-headed nobleman, who challenged her and stole her heart, because beyond the cruelty of the whip, there are feelings and weaknesses.

The story of the war wound, instead of causing repulsion to Shura, awakens an unknown empathy, a protective, warm, almost maternal instinct, which leads her to look for the Lancaster's gaze and frame his face between her hands.

"If I can love a husband, I can love his impotence"

"Husband...? Love...?" Chester is stunned, not comprehending how escalated so quickly. The situation strengthens his theory that women, although nice and smelling good, come from another universe or have a different brain.

"I won't tolerate you wandering around with another woman" Shura says as she lowers her hands. "Any little girl or slut that comes near you, I will order her to be skinned starting from her feet"

With every word spoken, in Chester's head, the position of the stranger goes from strange broad, to particularly cruel bitch. Shura speaks like someone given to carrying out threats, and enjoys doing so.

"I will personally supervise the torture, not for me, for us" she holds Chester's hand in hers and squeezes. "Now with things clear, how about I make you dinner? Something light, your body is still recovering from combat, dear"

Chester hears no more. He imagines Nadjela tied up on an iron bed, crying, screaming in despair, being cut inch by inch by a razor wielded by the woman who is touching him.

"What is it, love? You are very quiet-"

No sooner does he finish the sentence than Chester's fist attacks Shura's cheek. The woman lies on the mattress, unconscious and with a dislocated jaw.

The lion gets out of bed and struggles again with the golden shackle on her ankle, finally tearing the chain from the bracket.