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Dominion Over Her (BennyQ x Sketchyequine)

There was still no sense of awareness in Kordavo, of the outer world, of things beyond that space within the shower. He did not care anymore for fathers, for duty, to fly or the ongoing war between their peoples. They had their own ongoing conflict, of which was evident who was the supreme winner between them. Both. She lusted for him with a passion he had not seen before and he craved her with an addictive desire he had never experienced before. It was so arousing and intoxicating, becoming drunk off the other and the passions galvanized from their conflicting loyalties. But there was one truth above all. None could make them feel the way they did as they did with each other.

It was more invigorating to see Solstice on her knees, to have a royal Princess presented with his impressive manhood and eager to accept it. And when her tongue touched his most sensitive and intimate flesh, everything changed. And stopped. He went rigid, nearly lurching onto his toes as an invigorating sensation diluted powerfully from his groin in paralyzing waves. His toes then curled intensely, as if seeking some sort of purchase on the smooth shower floor that it would not find. Nothing would relieve the sensation as Solstice worked his shaft, causing Kordavo to become very vulnerable and hollow inside, tickled by the repeating waves of pleasure that shocked its way through. Don’t stop…

At first he strained his neck back, eyes closed as he gawked with mouth ajar to the ceiling, absolutely at the mercy of this little redhead and her little tongue and small hands on his cock. How she stroked the flesh and bathed with her mouth was indescribable to him and his mind could only reel from the lacerations she inflicted to his spearhead. Then his head dipped forward when she made her own declaration, pumping his manhood, his green eyes locked on hers. His hands tightened on her hair and his body seemed to finally react to his own commands, rather than hers. His hips began to sway in rhythm with her motions and his hands helped to bob her head at increasing speeds. Further and further he felt himself being consumed by her mouth and throat.

“Sol..Solstice…” He murmured here and there, his whole body strained, every muscle flexed, for her pleasure. And then she did it, reaching the apex, taking the whole of him in. Another orifice conquered and claimed. All he had left was to stake his claim. Tingles struck his body and any touch to the head of his cock left him breathless, which was often. Kordavo marveled at the sight of her lips stretched around his cock, her face against his pelvis and lower abdomen. “Good girl.” He commented in a husky whisper, barely audible above the pouring hot water that steamed around them. “Good little birdie. Now…now put your hands behind your back.” He commanded, as his hand gripped her hair tighter. Now he was going to have some fun.

Slowly he drew back with his hips, while pulling Solstice by her hair in the opposite direction. He got to see, inch by hard inch, withdraw out of her mouth, lathered in her salvia. He pulled back until the head remained beyond, before he began to press back in with a deliberate slowness, repeating her own motion. He gagged her, careless if he choked her, as he pushed and forced her face back to his stomach. Then again, slowly out to the very tip, before repeating. Each stroke would come a bit faster than the last. Did it make it easier? He didn’t care. Soon he was fucking her mouth, wet sounds emitting as his hips pumped with regularity and vigour. She was at his mercy, her head controlled and strained by his massive hands. With most of the water blocked by his frame, it must be cold down there, kneeling on the hard shower floor, mouth full of her captor’s cock. As it should be. “Ugh, fuck…good girl…” he praised more than once or twice to her, as he pulled her head backwards and forwards by her hair.

It happened before he knew it. No warning, though the signs were there the more urgent Kordavo’s actions became. He held her hair harder, very hard to an almost painful point. He kept her mouth stretched and her throat rammed raw. He again forced her to take him in wholly when he could not restrain the swelling fire in his abdomen. He growled out in a feral manner, head straining back and hips thrusting out into her face. His cock throbbed and out came spewing his seed in rapid ejaculations, copious and tremendous, forcing her to swallow or have it burst forth from the corners of her mouth. He continued to pump in short thrusts, even after his orgasm, ensuring she had swallowed all she could until his manhood grew semi-flaccid. It was then he pulled out completely and released her, staggering back a step and shooting his arm out, with a loud thud, to balance himself with the shower wall. He panted, staring at her, mouth ajar. That had been excellent.

Kordavo reached down and grabbed the royal princess under her arms. With one swift motion, his arms flexed to the maximum, he yanked her up off her knees and into the air, until she was level with his face. He pressed her to the wall, feet off the ground, and then came at her with his own bulk, trapping her between two hard places. For a moment, he just looked into her face, inches apart, letting her wrap and grab on to him so he could drop a hand to heft her under her rear.

“Good girl.” He whispered again. Then he licked up her jaw and attacked her mouth with more kisses. Still, there was no awareness of the outside world. All he focused on was Solstice, hugging her to his chest above the ground. He kissed her for some time, head tilting one way or the other, tongue playing with hers, while the waters drenched them. And his cock regained its vitality soon after. It was time for more.

Still carrying her, Kordavo turned slowly and made his way out of the shower, which turned off automatically when it sensed no presence within. Dripping wet, with water trickling down their bodies and squishing between their conjoined bodies, Kordavo carried Solstice to the bed and dropped her there, detaching her quite roughly. Almost as if he didn’t want her anymore, but he did, if the hardness of his cock was any proof. He looked at her splayed on his bed and smirked from ear to ear. “Your hands have no discipline. Let me fix that for you.” He remarked and turned about for a moment, before marching close by and opening some drawers. Out came a length of dark green silk and he returned with it to the bed, the mattress dipping as he mounted on and came over her. It was no trouble at all to wrestle her onto her stomach and twist her arms behind her back. He tied them there, tightly, before rolling her over. He reached up, grabbed a breast, and pinched her nipple. Then he twisted it firmly to the left, then to the right, and then he released it.

“You’re mine. I’m going to remind you of it. And you’re going to sing your ownership to your Lord the entire time.” He ordered her, moving back off the bed but grabbing her legs and dragging her towards the edge anyways. He raised both her legs vertically next, concealed a little from her sight behind them. One hand clamped around them, his cybernetic left arm, which was tight like steel.

She would feel his finger graze up her slit. And then down her slit. And then deep into her sex before drawing out. Kordavo raised it to his mouth and suckled it again. She tasted very good. Looking down at Solstice, he slowly sank to his own knees and even then, his upper abdomen and shoulders still sat higher than she did on the bed. He kept her legs raised, hands on the underside of her thighs, spread a little to expose her own sex. His eyes remained fixed on hers, unmoving, even as his face came forward.

He planted the softest of kisses on her sex, never blinking as he did so. And soon another followed, and another, as he began to explore and commit to memory the unique shape of her flowerbed and what nectar it had to offer.
 
Sol…Solstice… The way he whispered her name urged her forward. She never wanted to stop pleasing her Lord. It made her push even harder before she was met with even more praise in the midst of a harsh gag ripping through her throat and causing it to construct around his girth as she forced herself not to pull back even against her instincts. Good girl. She didn’t stop. Even as he tightened his grip on her hair. Now put your hands behind your back. she hesitated: one hand on his thigh as the other lingered not far away from her lips on his abdomen. He was asking her to surrender, and that was something she had never learned how to do before. Especially not in the bedroom. She had always been an initiator. A tease. He wanted to be completely in control and it worried her. But she did it anyway. She tucked her arms behind her back and grabbed one wrist in the palm of the opposing hand.

Her eyes widened at first as he drew back, completely unaccustomed to not having complete control of the cock in her mouth. In an attempt to remain obedient Solstice squeezed her own wrist hard as he began the process of fucking his princess’ mouth. The gagging and choking only got worse the rougher his hip thrusts got, causing tears to flow freely from her reddening blue eyes. He was violent and unrelenting hip thrusts made her body tremble from the effort. She could hardly breathe, but she didn’t fight back. She just kept taking his harsh movements even as they threatened to make her vomit. Her fuel was each and every time he complimented her for her willingness to obey, and it urged her to continue tolerating his vigor as he claimed her mouth as his own.

His rhythm became less predictable and his body shuddered and became more urgent. Solstice had made this Lord cum three times prior. She knew that these were the signs that he was almost there. She hunkered down, ready to be half way suffocated by his sticky semen spewing into her mouth and throat, but she was met by his hands tightening around her hair and threatening to rip it clean out of her head. She would have cried out in pain if it weren’t for the phallic cork in her mouth. Her cry turned into a stifled whimper that was silenced quickly thereafter when Kory actually did cum: flooding her with his tangy essence. The same essence that had placed the baby in her belly. It was much more pleasant in taste than she had anticipated, and she swallowed it with ease and he gently thrust it into her throat. As Kordavo pulled back and stumbled Solstice gasped and coughed to catch her breath, panting as she remained on her knees under his gaze.

She grunted a bit as he picked her up and pressed her to the wall. She watched him with kind eyes as he moved closer to her, wrapping her arms and legs around him in turn once he was close enough and pressing close with her stomach and swollen breasts. Was he… romancing her? She wondered, leaning in to hiss him back as he offered his lips to her once more. She loved kissing him. She quite possibly even loved it more than she loved fucking him. It was almost more intimate because he had never taken a kiss from her. She had almost always wanted to kiss him back. And for every time he had stolen an unwanted kiss from her she had stolen two from him. Solstice Nabeshin was addicted to the Lord’s surprisingly soft lips and sweet tongue. He wasn’t all thorns, and Solstice was beginning to see right through him. That was why it cut deep when he threw her onto the bed.

He is tired of you. The dark voice in her mind scolded her. Remember that you are a prisoner. You’ve given him what he wanted and now he will dispose of you for the night. It told her and her brows furrowed as she watched him. It couldn’t be true… could it? He had just been kissing her as if she were so much more and his shoulder still stood tall. He couldn’t be done. She only found any solace when he smiled down at her while she dropped onto his expensive bedding. “My…. what…?” She mumbled, confused, as she looked up at him: watching as he moved to fetch the silk. Upon seeing it, she couldn’t help but smile. It was green. The same color as those enchanting eyes that had prevented her from killing this man to begin with. It was quickly becoming her favorite color.

She tensed initially as he mounted the bed and rolled her onto her stomach to bind her uncomfortably tightly with the soft fabric. But even in her state, she looked at him when he rolled her back over, allowing her to gaze into his eyes for a handful of moments. “I trust you, Kordavo.” She whispered to him, perhaps foolishly. She trusted a man who had kidnapped her and dragged her to a planet where she was a prisoner. However, not once since he had pulled her from the clutches of IB had Kordavo hurt her except for in fits of passion. She had no reason not to trust him now that he dutifully cared for her as the mother to his child and, perhaps, even a lover to himself. He could have her.

“I am yours.” She whispered in response. Never send me away again. She hopes, tensing as he manhandled her towards the edge of the bed. His grip on her legs was so tight it threatened to leave bruises behind as souvenirs. She could hear the quiet buzzing of the mechanics within the arm as it made quick work of her bulk. And then he pleasured her again, bringing a blissful moan from her lips as his human fingertips touched her oh-so-expertly. He could have her body reeling for him with a flick of his wrist it seemed. She watched, fingertips fidgeting with her binds as he sank down to his knees- a position she was not sure she had seen him take before. A lord bowing down to his princess even if he did not see it that way. She gazed into his eyes, handing him her trust on a platter as he moved forward toward her vulnerable sex.

When he kissed her, she couldn’t stop from moaning out in pleasure, her back already arching from the simplest of touches as he mouth met her vulva for the first time. “I am yours.” She repeated. Much more desperately now.
 
There had been very little care or consideration in the beginning whether Solstice wished to be privy to his lust and desires. Kordavo had desired and so he had taken what he had desired. It had barely occurred to him how Solstice might feel about it. He had not asked for her consent before, even when she happily indulged him. Nor did he ask for it now, when she had indulged him, many times over. But to hear the proclamation of her trust vocalized to him, despite not answering it, it still felt…empowering. As if she herself was assenting to his desires, to take what and all he desired of her, with no restraints upon the limits of his passion.

I am yours she repeated. He gave no answer, typical of his demeanor. Silence answered her, thick within his high chambers, ascending far above the artificial surface of this world, itself many miles above the actual ground level. A princess trapped in a tower…with her unbridled lover. And what a lovely sound he got from her, when his lips brushed against the outer folds of her sex. Taste exploded into his mouth as he tasted her most intimate place, his eyes glancing over her abdomen and breasts to her face. His smirk was concealed below the level of her body. She is yours.

So he had her.

His soft pecks continued at first, traveling up one side, reaching the apex of her slit, before coming down the other side, dipping to the bottom, and repeating. He peppered her all over, alternating the passages of his lips. His hands dug into the underside of her thighs to keep them raised like two great pillars, guarding the secret treasure between, which his mouth soon spread to engulf, open and spread horizontally to meet the vertical cavern of her sex. Then he would drag them down to close, brushing her womanhood, drawing any and all droplets of her pure essence to the center which he suckled. Her folds would be caught between the soft, closing clamp of his lips, tugged a little for a brief instance before he repeated. Then he dragged his tongue upwards across her entire opening, the point of it digging firmly against her slit, and then down again, lacerating her with skillful strokes.

Her sex became the canvas, his tongue the brush. First he had been slow and diligent, exploring her folds to learn every nook and curve of her shape. Now he assaulted her with sudden and unprovoked ruthlessness. His mouth opened wide to cover her sex, anchoring his face while his tongue wiggled and lashed in all manners of direction. Long and wide, even her hips would be risen with each forceful thrust of his tongue upwards. Juices were whipped to glisten on her thighs as his tongue whipped side to side. Always it was ceaseless, his hands holding her lower body tight to keep her pinned, never to escape his attentions. He painted her sex and coated his mouth with her nectar and still he dug in for more. Yet the greatest treasure lay deepest in the cave and after a brief glance to her face, he began to penetrate into her depths with his tongue.

The texture of her interior surrounded his invasive organ and yet it wiggled with resistance against the enclosing walls. Swirling patterns he drew like a ferocious drill, moving inwards and then outwards, ever returning the prized taste back to his mouth before he resumed his focus. His eyes often closed during the most vigorous of his assaults but at times they glimpsed open but a crack to observe the waves of consequences he inflicted upon Solstice and her captive body. Who knew a Princess could taste this good yet was it not expected? He had her all to himself, tied like a well earned bounty during the greatest of hunts. Her canvas he lashed and whipped, drawing pictures and then overlapping it all with renewed inspiration. There was no escaping.

And then he stopped, lips drawing away at first as his tongue continued to lacerate her sex back and forth but it too slowly drew back out of reach, leaving no stimulus upon her. He released her thigh and brought his cybernetic left arm under his jaw, a finger extended. Glancing up again to make eye contact, Kordavo slid his finger into her with a slick noise, pushing in slowly to its furthest reach. He kept it there, unmoving, smirking as he glanced at Solstice. He said nothing of course, taunting her with the unspoken power he had over her body. Slowly, after a moment, he brought his mouth back and alongside his thrusting finger, began to tickle her clit with his tongue, up and down, left and right, alternating every few strokes.

Together they worked her, often in tandem, sometimes at differing speed. Was it design or accident? For truly Kordavo did not know himself, sometimes eager to press his finger or more concerned with bringing a fresh coat to cover the walls of his own mouth and tongue. Yet each worked towards a singular goal, to have her moaning and crying out in pleasure. Nothing would please him more than then result. His cybernetic finger, despite its layer of skin, punched into her with more hardness than his own manhood, drilling tirelessly even as his jaw ached and his tongue began to exhaust itself. But on it went, never ceasing, always rigorous, slick noises whiffing up to his ears, her fragrance heavy within his noise, and her taste covering his mouth and dripping onto his jaw.

A second finger would soon join the first but before he did so, he drew the other out in order to fill her again with just his tongue, reaping the most sweetest juices coaxed from her before resuming his assault twofold with his conjoined digits and his skillful tongue. And when he finished, witnessing the spiraling abyss he cast Solstice into, only then did he withdraw once it had run its course within her, rising swiftly up to his full height over her. He grabbed her legs…and threw them aside to the right, before his hand smacked down on her rear and turned her over as well, bending her over the edge of the bed.

His manhood pressed between her cheeks yet again. “You are mine. And now you’re going to sing it again.” Kordavo commanded, raising his hand and once more slapping her rear hard. He delivered two more glancing blows, first to the left, whacking her body that way, then to the right, shifting it back with the mere force of his hits. Both curves of her rear would be reddened after the mere assault of his wide, rough palms. But he had an even better treat. Turning and leaving her there over the bed, he returned to the refresher and picked up his trousers. From the hooks he drew out his long leather belt, folding it half and in half once more. To give her a warning, he smacked it down hard on a countertop, a loud noise rippling through the room, before he returned behind her.

To give her a taste, he whipped her already battered rear with the belt, before laying it aside. He reached forward and wound her blood-red hair about his hand, straining her face up to look directly ahead. It would be impossible for her to see her Lord behind her, even as his hand took hold of his other instrument and directed it to her flushed sex. It was no difficulty to enter in, spearing with a deliberate slowness until she stretched about him. He could feel the wetness surround him and he shuddered heavily at the feeling. Once he was to the hilt, his pelvis to his battered ass, he picked up the belt again.

“Say please. Ask me to begin.” Kordavo demanded, as he brought the belt down on her rear once more. He wanted to hear his title and her voice begging for her body to be destroyed by his passion.
 
Princess Nabeshin as defenseless. Her wrists were bound and even if they weren’t, Kordavo could outdo her in strength every single time unless she managed to get some sort of advantage. He was bigger, stronger, and now he even had a mechanical arm to help him get the upper hand over his new found lover. She didn't stand a chance. Yet, it didn't bother her. For one reason or another, Solstice was happy to be vulnerable in his presence if it meant that she pleased him. If he was pleased, he was happy. If he was happy, he was kind. Kordavo didn’t seem like the type to giggle and snuggle up, but Solstice was slowly learning how to earn his affections: mainly through spreading her thighs.Luckily, that was beneficial to her as well.

She laid her head back and took a sharp breath as her partner got to work. His sporadic kisses kept her guessing, her body tensing up slightly between each kiss in anticipation. Kordavo was unpredictable and there was no telling if he would kiss her again, lick her, or even bite her. She feared for the safety of her vulva, but she was also dying to be brought to orgasm yet again fby the man so easily stealing her affections. Her mind was being torn in a thousand different ways and Kordavo Chenoweth was at the center of it. His palms threatened to bruise the underside of her thighs as he help them up if they hadn’t already and his lips teased at Solstice’s labia, but his biggest threat to her still hung erect from his own pelvis and its presence was always in the back of the young woman’s mind.

“Fuck….” She whispered, her body jolting in reaction as his tongue came into contact with her: spreading her soft folds apart with its presence. At first his tongue moved softly: grazing her skin in not-so-innocent exploration as it got to know her intimates. Then Kordavo got much more aggressive. His tongue and mouth assaulted her with a roughness she had not known was possible during cunnilingus; however, Kordavo had introduced her to many things she had not known were possible within her limits. Why shouldn’t oral sex be one of them? She cried out him and time again as her back arched and her body squirmed. She had half a mind to try and get away just to give her drooling womanhood a break from his affections, but the other half wanted to press closer and allow him to force the orgasms out of her petite, underweight frame.

When Kordavo penetrated the woman with her tongue, Solstice’s toes curled in the air so hard that they turned white. In their airborne location, it was impossible for them to find anything to grip and gain leverage on but they tried nonetheless. He had her hips and thighs pinned with sheer strength, but Solstice still attempted to roll her hips in close to his mouth. She wanted to move and grind, but the overpowering Kordavo Chenoweth prevented that. “God! You’re killing me!” She moaned out the words as his assault only continued to deepen. He dined on her as if it would make up for the meal he had missed less than an hour before. She was a princess, but she was moaning like a whore.

He pulled back only briefly, and Solstice gasped for air in the moment of relief, but he was upon her once more before she could bring her heart rate down even a beat. Baby blues met emerald greens as Solstice took fast, frantic breaths. What was he going to do to her now? He fingered her. Solstice groaned and arched her back as he remained unmoving, dying for him to just give her a release rather than adding to her pent up tension. When he finally did, Solstice sang for him all over again almost as though she had never done it before. In the bedroom, she truly was his little songbird. She was beginning to hate this cage a little less than before. At least she had a lover, whether either of them would admit to it or not. The tandem work of his mouth and fingers would have brought Solstice to her knees if she weren't already lying on her back: it was just that good.

Her orgasm built slowly. He reaped its benefits with his tongue before finishing her off with his false fingertips: leaving her soaked in her own essence and gasping for air once her orgasm was complete. The scores were even now that they had both been able to cum yet again. Solstice would have been content to call it a night then, but she was quickly made aware that Kordavo had other plans as he pushed her legs aside and brought his harsh palm down on her rump eliciting a yelp from the mouth that he had gotten to know so well a handful of minutes prior. And then she was bent over the bed with her ass in the air for his amusement, feeling like a piece of livestock.

“K...Kory…” She muttered, tensing as he let his erection come to rest against her plump ass. She listened, nodding at his words. “Yes my Lord. I’m yours, Lord.” She spoke quickly, wincing as his hand came down upon her again, jolting her body to and fro as if she weighed nothing compared to him, which, in all reality, she didn't. She could feel the heat pooling in her glutes as blood rushed to the area making her creamy flesh quickly pinken from his force acknowledging silently that it had stung. Kory was capable of causing his little muse so much hurt. Then… he left her.

She waited, hyping herself up as the nerves and anticipation continued to build. How did her Lord have this way of always keeping her between sanity and insanity? He pushed all of her buttons, tugged all of her, and crossed every line she laid down but she was intoxicated by it. She was drunk on the feeling of being with him and she never wanted to let it go. However, hearing the belt come down hard on the countertop made her second guess even that. Holy shit… is he going to beat me with that? She wondered. Her concerns were warranted seeing as just moments later the hard, cold leather came down forcefully on her already tender ass: surely leaving a bruise in its wake and making the woman cry out in pain.

With her hair wound around his fist her entire body tensed and her back arched making him a prime target to be impaled, and her Lord did not hesitate. He speared her, causing her inner walls to tremble around his girth after already being used so much within the period of being on Vorzania with Kordavo. Her stamina was running low, yet her body still begged to be brought to orgasm once more. She wanted him more than she wanted anything else in the universe in that moment as his cock prodded at her cervix deep within her crypt. She truly did belong to him.

So she would obey.

“Please!” She cried out, so loudly that she could only hope his room was well insulated. Otherwise Janus or the help might have even more reason to hate her as Kordavo fucked her again. “Please, my Lord.” She whispered, straining against the grip on her hair.She wanted to see him, but he would only allow her to feel him. So she took advantage of the close proximity: pressing her haunches back into him as much as possible to deepen his touch. “Please begin.” She cooed. “I’m ready to be made yours all over again, my Lord.” Her hips wiggled, pressing into him impatiently and making her moan a little in pleasure.

“I need you.”
 
Never had such music been heard by the ears of Kordavo Chenoweth,

He had heard preview of it in the days leading up to here but nothing as sweet as the sounds elicited in that chamber. The welts against flesh and the cries of desire from his little birdie were oh so enjoyable to hear. He almost thought about reneging on the deal he had forced of her, to begin upon her good manners, just to hear it more. But the mental games could not compare to the physical sensation of being lodged within Solstice, so tight and clinging to his shaft. She shifted but a little and tremendous stimulus electrocuted through his manhood and into his body, leaving his knees weak and his toes digging into the carpet. No, he would adhere, simply because to delay any further would probably break his mind.

No answer came from his lips at her acknowledgement of his superiority. She used his title. She begged him, she wanted him, she moaned and pleaded for him. So Kordavo gave himself to her. Her hair was around his left knuckle, the mechanical servos holding it tight behind its false flesh. His right hand held the belt at his side, ready to lash out. He spread his legs a little and wiggled his hips but a moment, the head of his invasive organ rubbing against the walls of her womb. Straining a little more on her hair to pull up her head, he slowly began to roll his hips in and out. It was a slow, sensual grind at first, simply enjoying the way his cock listed and pitched inside of her, coating itself upon her welcoming juices. Little by little though the strokes began to grow longer, more of him withdrawing out before it would thrust back in to its apex, right to her cervix.

It was a little nudge of pain to add to the pleasure but that was only one source of stimulus from him. For a moment Kordavo pumped her in a growing fashion with his hips, until he was ravishing her with a good pacing, half of him entering and exiting, always ending with the hard kiss of his pelvis to her battered rear. But it didn’t end there for once a modest rhythm was established, the belt made itself known to her already welted skin. Every three or four thrusts, he raised his right hand and brought the folded belt down upon her rear. His mind drowning in pleasure, he didn’t at first spread it out, striking the right side of her rear perhaps a little too excessively at first, until the bruises turned from red to a purplish-black. Groans and grunts escaped his clenched teeth occasionally, reminding Solstice that there was a man behind her, even as a mechanical arm pulled on her hair, adding thousands of pinpricks of pain to her scalp.

The dance soon picked up in earnest, a panoply of beautiful music to accompany it. “Ugh,” Kordavo huffed more than once, panting as he began to drill her more vigorously, pushing his body to express his fondest desires and lust for his Solstice. He watched with delight as her ass would shudder and squish, trapped between the edge of the bed and his relentlessly pounding of his pelvis. His cock dove in and out, glistening soon like a flower stalk after a spring dew. The belt kept striking, only alternating every few lashes to hit her other cheek or upon her back, where criss-crossing angry red welts soon appeared. Sitting was going to be a bitch for her.

He didn’t like it if she fell silent though. The belt would rise and lash, occasionally overwhelming the slick sounds of his flesh crashing into hers every second as he pumped her hard. “Say please.” He huffed at her with a growl. “Who do you belong to?” He would occasionally demand. “Solstice.” He would moan at other times. Kordavo felt as if he might break her in half and frankly he was alright with that. He crashed harder, more firmly, a sudden desperation and urgency swelling in his body. He wanted to feel it, to embrace it, to let it wash all over him. The other half wanted to delay it, to extend the pleasure, to have this heavenly bliss never end. The two sides competed and fought, his body and his mind contesting for control of his actions. Each swelled to such a great fire that they fueled each other and he could no longer contain it.

The belt was dropped. Her hair was released. Both hands gripped her hips so tightly his fingernails dug into her flesh, especially on her left where his cybernetic hand clenched. His head was tossed back and his eyes shut, colours swarming in the darkness as he exerted himself to the utmost limit. With a great cry of her name, into her depths he unleashed his most generous and copious seed, still thrusting with a dying momentum. Then he collapsed upon her back, huffing and panting, his cheek laid against her upper back and his arms lazily digging under her torso to hold her. His body convulsed the last of his essence into her and his sweaty, warm body draped her like a heavy blanket for a long time.

It might be quite suffocating, until he rose up with both his hands now upon her back, holding her down as his hips drew back and he came out of her with a very wet noise. Nothing to plug the leak and he eyed a moment the damage he had wrought to her lower body. It did not possess the ivory hues her flesh once had. Both her cheeks were reddened, the right more than the left, turning purple. Her back was covered in welts, the lines almost perfect where they did not overlap. His hand went to her bounded arms and he undid the silk, pulling it free. Then he crawled beside her and lay on the bed, his back to the bedrest, still panting with his eyelids heavy over his green orbs.

“You…you should stay on your stomach…” he suggested to Solstice, before a bemusing smirk came over his lips.
 
Her song echoed off of his walls as he began to grind into her with a gentle sensuality. His touch electrified her senses, and the stimulation of her dear man inside of her body for the second time hat day damn near made her head explode. No one could bring Solstice pleasure like the Chenoweth boy could, and as a result she was no stronger than putty in his hands each and every time he fucked her. His shaft filled her better than any intruder before him: pushing all of her buttons and pleasure points at once when he thrust in and out each and every time. It made her moan, even as he pulled back on her hair so hard that threatened to rip out and scalp the poor girl. Did he know his strength with that mechanical arm? Perhaps not, but he certainly knew his strength with his human one.

His beating of her cervix and his tugging on her hair were not the only causes of discomfort for Solstice. In addition her lover couldnt stop hitting her with he smooth leather of his belt: causing her to groan in pain alongside her moans of pleasure. As the battery continued, she could soon feel tears welling up in her eyes from the pain, but even as she wept she wished not to be relieved of his passions. The pleasure he offered her was dulled by the pain, but is was pleasure nonetheless. His brutality and force as he hit her with that blasted belt were just a reminder to Solstice that she was alive. And that she was his. So long as she obeyed and endured his passions he would keep her, and that satisfied the young woman beneath her even as he beat her ass and lower back black and blue.

“Please, Lord! I am yours!” She cried in response to him.

By the time he was nearly finished with his prize, Solstice was letting out little sobs each time he hit her, but her pleasure did not cease. She came for him time and time again: sometimes even while he was bringing the belt down onto her. Her essence coated him and dripped onto her thighs the longer he fucked her leaving her soaked and slick: an easy target. Even her unclaimed ass became lubed by her womanhood’s pleasure; it would have have been so easy for him to slide right into it with the lube she had already provided. But that was an adventure for another night as evidenced by his lack of interest in anal sex. He was far too enthralled in the pleasures her flowerbed had to offer him. And she was far too enthralled in the way it felt to have him take her as his own. But oh how she ached from his whacks. Sitting WAS going to be a bitch for her. But for some reason she wasn’t angry about it now like she had been in the past.

Finally the beating stopped, allowing Solstice to let out a quiet sigh of relief between her moans as he continued to pound into her relentlessly. She heard the belt drop, and she knew the worst of it was over. Now she could focus on orgasming just one more time. Her head fell and her eyes closed when his cybernetic arm released her fiery locks. She panted, her sides heaving as she tried, and failed, to catch her breath between her lustful moans. More bruises began to form where his fingertips dig into her hips, but she hardly noticed as he pumped her full of his seed and her own orgasm mixed with it deep within her cavern.

She laid still, panting, as he came down upon her with his head on her back and her arms wrapped about her waist. He held her like she was precious even after he had ravaged her like a whore. I made her smile softly as her head turned to the side to allow her to breath. HE was heavy, yes, but it didn’t concern her. Instead, he felt like a huge protector. Solstice knew, in the depths of her gullet, that the only one allowed to lay a hand on her from that moment on was Kordavo Chenoweth, and as long as he enforced that she would follow him faithfully like some sort of lovesick puppy. The expansion of his chest with each deep breath his took lulled Solstice into a relaxed state even as her wounds throbbed. This was the aftermath of the man’s passions, but Solstice loved every moment of it. But did she love him? That remained to be seen.

Once his cock was removed and her hands were unbound, Solstice pushed herself to stand up on wobbling legs. She stumbled, having to catch herself using the mattress, and it caused her to chuckle. He really had gotten her good. She looked at her wrists. They were slightly reddened from the binds, but nothing that would remain the next morning. Her ass? That was an entirely different story. She looked destroyed, and she was, but it was not against her own will. She had wanted to have sexwih the Lord’s son, and so she had. And she would continue to so long as they desired one another. She was devoted now in more ways than one. A normal woman would have ran away after taking a beating like that. Solstice? She crawled right up into bed beside him, resting on her stomach with her head on the pillow beside him. Her hair, mostly dry now, sprawled out on the pillow beside her like a burning flame: far from extinguished.

“You’re going to have a lot of explaining to do with that nurse tomorrow.” She whispered, her eyes drifting closed. “Like why your prisoner can’t sit down anymore after I had been fine at dinner.” She let out a crooked smirk, but her eyes remained closed. The girl was exhausted. Her hand reached out, laying it over Kordavo’s abs even as they were pin pricked with sweat. It did not deter her. He was hers. He was hers.
 
Kordavo Chenoweth’s mind still reeled with the memory of a joyous and delicious union of bodies with Solstice. Already though it seemed he was forgetting the wonderful sensation of being squeezed by her in her moments of passion and lust. His groin throbbed with the remnants of his own pleasure and his mind struggled to compose the memories of the event that occurred not moments before. He was losing it! Yet how better to remind himself then to go at it again perhaps? He was still breathing hard, having poured out tremendous emotion and energy, more than he expected or even knew he had. Solstice lit a fire in him and it was still going.

He watched Solstice try to recover. He had battered her worse than perhaps dragging her behind a hovercar. A snicker escaped his smirking lips as she wobbled, consequences of his tremendous fucking that he inflicted on her slender, vixen-like body. His eyes drank it all, refusing to look away and not even helping her in any way at first. It had been wonderful. Glorious even. Kordavo didn’t want to do anything else but spend more time with this strange woman he had scooped up. She made his heart race and excited his limbs with a hollowness. And when she touched him or spoke to him or even looked at him, that emptiness flared up with electricity that made him feel as if he could fly.

She crawled up beside him, her hair spread about like a curtain of flame, and she whispered a remark of anxiety about how they were going to deal with it. He didn’t answer at first but she reached out and laid a hand on his still panting gut, rising and falling, feeling like hard metal beneath her palm. There was that electricity again.

Kordavo reached over and put his hands under her shoulders and in one motion, dragged her to lay on his chest. His feet moved under hers and shifted her legs to follow next, until his chest became her pillow, with her silky, still wet hair tickling his flesh. He put one hand to the back of her head and began to stroke it, while the other lay upon her back. It didn’t matter how filthy or wet they might still be, from the shower or from sweat. They belonged to each other. They were one. “I won’t have to explain anything. Besides, this night isn’t over yet and there’s plenty of time.” He simply said to her, raising up his hand and letting her hair fall from it like cascading water, doing so again and again idly.

“Computer!” He suddenly snapped in a bellowing voice. No answer. A look of irritation came over his expressions momentarily. “Computer!” He said again.

“Yes, Lord Chenoweth?” A robotic voice from nowhere and everywhere answered.

“Bring me some biofoam. One canister.” Kordavo commanded.

“Biometric scans report no bodily harm to your person-“ the computer tried to reason at first.

“Just bring it!” Kordavo said and shook his head with a sigh. The computer did not answer or protest. Silence fell again and he continued to stroke back his lover’s red hair as she lay on him. And just doing so, unmoving, was making him start to grow again down below, prodding her leg. “We won’t have to say anything to Nurse Stethave, because there won’t be anything to say.” He said to her, staring across the room to a blank point on the far wall. “I’ll take care of you, little birdie.” Kordavo then added in a very slight whisper.

A robotic dolly soon fluttered in, a hatch opening in the ceiling where a maintenance corridor existed for such things. On a tray carried between its robotic arms was one canister of biofoam, the quality kind and expensive. Nurse Stethave would know it was taken from the medical bay supply. And why would it be needed, she might wonder. Kordavo took it and used his finger to gesture the dolly away when it tried to inquire if there was anything else he needed. It departed and he watched the shut flap a moment. Then he opened the canister and a clean, minty scent emitted from it. He dipped his fingers into it and rubbed it to his other hands. “Stay where you are, Solstice.” He said to her and reached onto her welted back, where he began to rub it, starting from her upper regions and moving slowly. His fingers kneaded her flesh and it might feel like a sensual massage, if he wasn’t touching bruised flesh. Bruised flesh that he caused.

“I need you to sit up more.” He asked her. That would cause her to straddle his hips, right where his manhood was becoming fast erect once more. When she did so, it allowed him to reach around her hips and touch her rear, where the worst had been doled out. He looked up into her blue eyes as he did so, adding a second coat and soon a third coat to her rear. Was it even necessary at that point or did he just like touching her there? Well, Kordavo liked to think it was both, as he wasn’t shy about admitting when he wanted something. And he did want her again. It was going to be a long night.

“Do not roll onto her back for one hour, or you’ll stain my sheets. And I don’t think I ever saw a Princess doing laundry before.” Kordavo said, as his hands came up from her rear and stroked caressingly up her sides and below her breasts, cupping them gently as he looked to her.
 
Solstice could not give him any more physicality if he begged for it. Her body was shot, and having sex again was out of the question. She needed to sleep, recover, and bake the bun in her oven. She couldn’t have sex anymore. She was too tired and battered to do much of anything anymore except for stay close and whisper in his ear. All sweet and affectionate means of showing her gratitude to her new found lover. When he hoisted her onto his chest she couldn’t help but let out a contented giggle before nuzzling her face into his chest like a little schoolgirl. She was getting emotionally attached to an enemy combatant.


“It must be nice to never have to worry about your actions. It seems as though the Chenoweths can get away with murder and still steal the hearts of locas and enemies alike.” She whispered. There was an ounce of bitterness in her voice, but no more than Kordavo deserved. However, it was mostly embedded and hidden in sweetness. He had his hook dug into the girl even after she had tried so hard to keep them out. He was the last person she should care for. He had the blood of her friends on his hands and she of his. That was…. If Kordavo was capable of having any friends to begin with; if not, Solstice had at least played a part in killing his family's’ hired guns. They should have hated each other and not cared if the other met the most horrible death known to mankind. But Solstice did care.She didn’t want to ever live a life again that Kordavo wasn’t in, and that scared her to death.


She was so lost in her own thoughts that when he suddenly shouted out into the nothingness of the bedroom it made her jump, her body tensing against his just like it had so many times during their love making sessions during that day. She couldn’t help but grin, pressing light kisses into his hard, sharpened collarbones. “They don’t care what happens to my body. Yours is the only one of any concern and you… you’re perfect.” She whispered, keeping close to him as she listened to the movement as the little robots fetched his canister of medication to treat the bruises he had so graciously inflicted upon her during his passions. Bruises that, despite her better judgement, she wasn’t even upset that she had. Something sick and twisted deep inside her enjoyed that he got so into the moment that he struck her in his passion. She caused so much pent up energy in him, and it invigorated her.


She smiled as he soothes her further: toying with her hair and whispering empty promises into her ear. By all reason she shouldn’t pay them any mind, and she knew it, but he made her melt nonetheless. She wanted to curl up in his arms and never leave. I’ll take care of you, little bird. It made her stomach twist into knots even as she felt yet another erection prodding at her inner thighs. She rolled her eyes at him, grinning the entire time before she rose off of his chest so that she could look into his eyes as he filled his palms with the medical foam. “I’ll take care of you too, you royal pain in my ass.” She cooed, leaning in to steal a soft kiss.


She was still and patient as he rubbed the medication over her welts. The cooling sensation brought instant relief and allowed her loins to quit aching for the first time since their endeavors in the medical bay. But, more importantly, she just stared into his face and eyes the entire time he massaged the foam into her body. He was so handsome. He was worthy of any Dominion girl he laid his eyes one yet, for some reason, he had settled on a little redhead from a rival planet. A woman who had nearly killed him a half a dozen times. A princess who had already promised a noble in her own kingdom her hand, but now no longer wanting to be given to anyone besides Kordavo Chenoweth. This entire situation was messed up and broken, but she needed him.


Solstice laughed as he mentioned staining his sheets and she leaned in, pressing her lips to his once again and allowing this kiss to linger. Her tongue raking over his lower lip softly as he kissed her lover sweetly and tenderly even as he cupped her breasts. She finally pulled back and pressed her forehead against Kordavo’s with a laugh. “Those are going to get bigger, you know. Thanks to your baby in my belly my boobs and butt are just going to grow.” She laughed, kissing him again. “Are you still going to want to screw me when I’m fat and have a baby on my hip?” She asked, raising one playful eyebrow before kissing him yet again. “And just for the record, I didn’t do laundry back home. I mucked the stables instead.”


“I’ll try not to stain your sheets, but I also can’t sleep on your chest. It’s like laying on a concrete floor. I had enough of that with IB.” She carefully crawled off of him, leaving her hand only atop him: resting it over his beating heart while she let her eyes close and her body relax. Exhaustion hit her all at once and sleep nipped at her unmoving heels. So she moved in close and let out a long breath.


“You’re going to break my heart so many times, Kordavo.” She whispered with one last deep breath, and then sleep took her.


***


The last few days of Solstice’s pregnancy had included a grim rouine. The baby seemed to wake as soon as the sun broke the horizon and gifted it’s mother with an undying urge… to vomit. That day was no different from the last. Solstice’s bright eyes shot upon and she quickly ripped herself from any grip that Kordavo or his bedding might have had on her and she sprinted, stark naked, to his washroom where she threw herself to her knees in front of his toilet and rid her stomach of any contents that remained there from the night before. The retching ripped through her body even as she tried to suppress it to avoid waking her lover. When the first round was finished she flushed it away and wiped her mouth, but she did not move. She knew all too well that there would be a second and third round to come before she would even have an opportunity to wash the taste of bile from her mouth.


Shit. I don’t have a toothbrush here. She cursed, her mind trying to think of something else asher eyes stared down into the crystal clear toilet water as she sa like a heap on the tile waiting to vomit yet again. Who said pregnancy would be beautiful?
 
Not a word was forthcoming at Solstice’s final remark on the fragility of her heart. It wasn’t even supposed to turn out this way. And what of his own heart? He thought it would be a matter outside of his experiences in life. He might break hers many times. She had already broken his when he first met her, shattering his previous life and giving him…this, whatever this was. Unbridled and uncontrolled passion had led him to this. He had a new heart himself, one she had put together for him even if she didn’t know it. But of her own heart? To that, Kordavo could make no promises, as he simply didn’t know what he was supposed to do with it.

Night began with them cradled together, arms together, bodies caressing, their warmth shared so that they could lay naked and content outside the covers. Never had Kordavo a deeper and more restful slumber than that night. Rare was it to have a woman in his bed, at least one that stayed from sun set to sun rise. He cradled her intensely despite his mind being at rest and his body seemed to portray a truer sense of intimacy in the way he clutched her, sometimes tightly at random intervals. Long overdue would have been his rise had Solstice not been overcome with sudden sickness.

Her abrupt and urgent break from his arms jerked him awake as well, shooting up in the realization of his vulnerability. He was naked, feeling a strong ache in his groin and body, and feeling very…cold. Lonesome. He managed to catch the tail end of the Fraundian Princess streaking to the washroom, soon followed by the gurgling sounds of retching and sickness. His mind worked out the reasoning and he turned his back to it, swinging his legs over the bed and rising up. A grey robe was pulled over his body, leaving his upper chest and calves exposed. Holopad in hand, he strode to the door and leaned against to watch her heave.

Upon the pad, he put down an order for drinking water and garments. There were spare toothbrushes in one of the counter.

“It said it would be like this.” Kordavo noted, pulling up medical pamphlets on pregnancy and its effect, data scrolling across the holopad. He was not uneducated, though perhaps he lacked a sense of empathy in how she might be experiencing it. It wasn’t his job to fix. They would be having an official trip to the medical bay soon. In fact, checking the time on his pad, Kordavo saw it would soon be upon them. “Morning sickness. Impulsive behavior.” He pointed out, fixing his green eyes on her a moment. It was going to be miserable for her, all because he had lost control of himself in a moment of passion, where such things could not have been stopped. Or maybe he just shouldn’t have in the first place.

It was too late for that. “Get showered. Get dressed…however you can. Once you’ve had your medical physical, your dimensions and portfolio will be known. There will be garments more appropriate to your size and comfort.” Kordavo explained to her, showing little regard for her state at present. There were such textile manufacturers in this very building. Knitted by machines to perfection with the best material and shipped back up at the Family’s discretion and desires. It took only a quarter hour between the tapping of buttons on the holopad and final deliverance to receive the clothing, fitted to one’s size.

As if on cue, the robotic dolly returned, with a tray of four water bottles, towels, and clean undergarments and scrubs for Solstice. It hovered in front of her and Kordavo stood behind it, gesturing to the shower. “I said I’ll take care of you, little birdie. Now let’s be at it.”

Three quarters of an hour later, Kordavo in dark silken robes and his trench coat around his shoulders, walked Solstice from the elevator back to the medical bay. Head Nurse Monkali Stethave was there, in her doctor’s jacket and a headset and visor covering the top half of her face, where biometrics and other such data was available. “Take a seat, Your Highness.” She gestured towards a table, which at least had a protective shell to cover her lower regions, where the doctor could have access for gynaecology purposes. There were monitors and other instruments nearby.

Above the shoulder of the nurse hovered a floating device, with a camera protruding from it. This session would be recorded, in case something needed to be reviewed. They would all be filmed and not a person cared for the privacy of Solstice, for she was a prisoner. At the very least, it would be used for medical purposes if anything went wrong.

Despite the nurse’s remark being intended for Solstice, Kordavo glanced around and dragged a chair over, sitting and looking thoughtfully at the Head Nurse. He had never been called Your Highness but by some instinct he was used to being the highest titular ranking person in the room. Monkali just sighed and waited for Solstice to comply.
 
With her head over the toilet she felt the urge to slap the man. Here he was talking about pregnancy symptoms. Well guess what, Jackass, I’m living them. She thought, but the profanities streaming through her head were interrupted when the next round of vomit blessed the young Lord’s washroom. When things were finally finished, Solstice stood and grumbled as she found an unopened toothbrush and went about getting herself cleaned up. The entire time she just glared at the green eyed hot shot as he kept talking to her so matter-o-factly. It was so much easier just being the sperm donor. She envied the fact that he could pretend none of this was real until the baby actually ripped its way through it’s mother’s vagina. Only then would Kordavo truly have to suffer any consequence.

Without word or kindness, the irritated princess stepped her already naked form into the oversized shower and washed the salt and grime from her body that remained from the night prior which had been filled with the passions of both parties. After a quick wash she dressed in the clothes provided by the Chenoweths and she took a bottle of water: downing it quickly. Kordavo had promised to take care of her, but Solstice was still quite capeable of taking care of herself. But was it not still better to have a partner in life who made sure you were well? Solstice hadn't decided yet.

She allowed herself to be lead back to the medical bay where memories had been made just a day prior, and she offered a sheepish smile to the nurse. There was no doubt that the older woman had a good enough to remember just why Solstice hadn't made the best of first introductions. Even though it had been Kordavo's fault. Either way, she feared foul treatment from the head nurse, but was relieved to see she would not have to endure such discomforts. To the nurse's demand, she gave a nod, but quickly cocked and eyebrow at her Lord partner as he pulled up a chair.

"I think she was talking to me, darling." She chuckled. She outranked him: at least on her own planet. That must be so strange to him.

Solstice removed the scrub pants and the undergarments and assumed position on the table with her heels placed obediently in the stirrups. She hated the fact that there was a camera hovering overhead and getting just as familiar with her vulva as Kordavo himself was. This place had a way of constantly making Solstice feel like she were some sort of animal of display. Walking the halls, sitting in the dining hall, even Kordavo looked at her as though she were something wild and exotic. An exotic little bird.

Solstice sat patiently as he nurse did her examination, making sure that all was right and well with her reproductive system and their child. It was quiet in the medical bay as Solstice stared up at the ceiling to avoid contact with either of the humans or the camera in the room, but her hand reached out and gripped Kory's the entire time. In all honesty, the spitfire little princess was afraid. She had never planned on having a baby so young. Especially not with a man she hadn't even been in love with. She let those thoughts fog her mind until the sound of snapping gloves brought her back to the present. The nurse was finished.

"You have a lot of bruising on your cervix, your highness." Nurse Stethave spoke up, eyeing Kordavo in particular. "Being that rough threatens the fetus. You guys have to get a handle on your love life. If you cant be careful about it you've just not going to be able to have vaginal sex anymore. The health of the heir is at stake."

Solstice nodded, mostly shaking it off before she stood up, pulling back on her panties and the scrub bottoms: looking like a rectangle once more. A light flush coated her cheeks just over the fact that this whole thing had been filmed including the bit where the nurse scolded them on having too rough of sex.

"Yes ma'am." Solstice finally said. "I promise it will be improved before our next appointment. This child is important." She said, hen quickly left the medical bay, dragging Kordavo in tow. She wouldn't admit to her embarrassment, but her blush and eagerness to leave were evidence enough that she was less than thrilled by all of this. I just want to go home...

They went to get her measurements done next. The bots moved easily around her: gaining all the information they would need to creae her the lavish wardrobe that Kordavo desired for her. Now that all of her information was on record: he would just have to make selections on his halopad. Easy. But for now, Solstice remained in the scrubs. They were comfortable enough, and she didnt mind wearing them. They would do until something more lavish could be arranged.

Then they left, and Solstice remained quiet as she began retracing her steps to her room. Afterall: where else would he take her?
 
Kordavo didn’t find any humour in his mistake and he just stared, large, unblinking green eyes fixed on Princess and nurse. He showed little regard for Solstice’s dignity as she undressed. It would have been polite for him to step outside but he did not, viewing her like his own personal chattel who had no secrets or hidden places from him. Indeed, as Nurse Stethave began her procedure, it was into those hidden places that she looked and began to examine. Still, he was unashamed as he was reproached for his barbaric behavior. Instead he grew irritated at the criticism. None of your business, woman he nearly snided at Stethave. Fortunately, she worked for his father, not him, and there was nothing he could do.

The health of the heir is at stake. As far as Kordavo was aware, he was the heir so again he took it as meaning him. “I’ll be perfectly fine. My sex life isn’t up for examination here though, Nurse.” He said under his breath, in a warning tone, though thankfully Solstice offered up a polite and obedient answer to the Head Nurse. Probably the reason why Stethave retained her job was because of her blunt honesty in things and she was glad to receive some sort of promise from the would-be mother, if not from the would-be father.

He made no promises of anything.

Clothing measurements were easy, at least for Kordavo, since he would have nothing to do with it other than providing the means. “You’re going to have a lot of downtime so prepare your garments and dresses well. If you lack creativity, then we’ll employ a tailor or seamstress. You Fraundians probably still do it by hand, don’t you.” Kordavo mocked as they began to walk back to the upper chambers of the tower, passing through long corridors and spacious chambers, each with differing décor, yet all lavish and pomp all the same. In times past, great and powerful men and women schemed here under the auspices of the Chenoweths, either as part of some conspiracy or budding one themselves. The luxurious façade was only a cover for the bloodshed and turmoil that could be unleashed with a conversation in this place.

But as they came into the residential regions of the great tower of nobility, Kordavo’s steps faltered and paused. And without the thudding of their footsteps, alone in the vaulted hallways, a deep and brooding silence soon followed. Instead of going further to where both her cell and his suite were, he turned towards one of seemingly endless and identical doors, with a datapad beside it. Bio-scans opened for Kordavo, revealing a semi-circular chamber that stretched deep and wide, perhaps taking up half of the entire level they were on within the tower. That in itself was equivalent to a large clearing, the size of a park or ground space for an apartment complex. It was all black matted, criss-crossed in even, identical squares on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Virtual reality reflectors and panels. They looked like nothing outside the device. Inside the device was different.

They entered onto a platform with a central terminal and monitors. A lower platform contained three stations in a retractable pod, each containing a replica cockpit of a starship or space fighter. Once inside one of these pods, the black, squared chamber that stretched before it would present the illusion of some atmosphere, environ, or battlezone. “This is our personal flight simulator. Here you can indulge in practice flights of all manner of craft, from leisure vessels to racing craft to Starfighters.” Kordavo explained, tugging Solstice to the upper terminal that allowed one to monitor all the stations below. He powered it up, allowing a preview of various scenarios, copied environments, and personnel records of those who used it. Only one named entry was listed for almost all the scenarios. K. Chenoweth.

“You’ll have a lot of downtime and I know knitting fabrics will not hold your attentions for long. Therefore I will give you access to this simulator, to come and go when you please, until you swell to a size where you can no longer fit behind the throttle.” Kordavo said, creating her a profile to use on her own, giving it a simple name as S. Nabeshin. Then he motioned for her to get into one of the pods, while he remained up on the higher platform, pressing one of the special flight helmets into her hands. “Give the racing one a try. You’ll be using RF-24 Flight Craft. No weapons, just really intense speed. Try not to crash into the canyon walls.” Kordavo said with a smirk. “As you can see, my best time was just under twenty-two minutes. I’d be surprised if you even hit thirty. Or not crash in less than a minute.”

He spent his youth and childhood in this room. It took weeks, months, years even to master some of the scenarios. Only relentless practice every day had what gotten Kordavo to possess such flight instincts as he had. No one would expect any less formidability from a Chenoweth. But while Solstice was engaged, her progress shown on one of his monitoring screens, he used the opportunity behind her back to check his personal comms. And true to his gut instinct, there was indeed a message from Fleet Command. They would review his medical status and invited him (ordering the son of a powerful Conclave Lord was beyond their purview despite being in the armed forces) for another meeting. Tomorrow. His heart fluttered with excitement. First he had worried that he might lose Solstice. Now that he had her safe in his cage, he might return to what he enjoyed most.

A true challenge, not against machine or simulator, but against real opponents, real pilots, to fight and succeed in the most thrilling game of all; war. Against her people. So he made sure she had access now. Access not only to her room, but to the corridors, to his chamber, to the proper gym and pool, and to this room. Two levels, including a few parlours and dining areas rarely used, but no more. She could not go outside. She could not go up to the levels where his father dwelt, or below to the offices and workshops of their political clients. But it was still a cage, one he would soon leave her in.

“You’re doing well, Solstice.” He said over the comms to her.
 
Solstice chose not to respond to the dig toward her people, just walking along side. She would protect the child, but the doctor’s appointment had drained her. She was treated as nothing better than an incubator in this damned place. It was humiliating, and so was the way the bots and people went about taking her measurements without a courtesy to her. Solstice found some fake happiness in the moments that Kordavo was sweet and passionate, but when that faded away so did most of the light burning within Solstice’s bosom. It was in these darker moments that she thought of home and all of her loved ones that resided there. Would anyone she loved survive this war? She knew already that they had killed her eldest brother… but what of the rest? Would Fraundia have an heir left after the Dominion killed her?


She stopped alongside the hesitant lord, and she looked up at him blankly. What is wrong? She wondered in the eerie silence all around him. And then they walked gain, and Solstice took note that they were going the wrong way. What was going on now? She followed him faithfully nonetheless. She had nowhere else to go besides where he took her, so there was no point in diverging.


Solstice was surprised by the simulators. They were certainly intricate, realistic, and expensive.The Chenoweths certainly chose to live live very lavishly, but that was no surprise to her: they had proven that well before that moment. However, the sight of the cockpit brought a smile to her face. Solstice loved to fly. At least she would find some sort of happiness here even if it was fake. She smiled at him as he spoke of granting her access, and planted a soft kiss on his lips before she crawled into the cockpit upon his command. Solstice Nabeshin was home again as she saw the canyon landscape that looked so much like the planet she had been stranded on with Kordavo:the same planet she had raced her brothers through throughout her young life. But, of course, the first attempt was a little rocky, and she finished with a time of 32 minutes. All the while Kordavo was plotting his escape unbeknownst to her. Solstice would be very alone very soon.


***


The next months were trying for the young princess. She was indeed alone, and there was nothing she could do about it. Kordavo had left shortly thereafter he had introduced her to the simulator: the next day in fact. From then on, for the rest of her pregnancy, her child’s father was mostly absent. It instilled a depression and disdain in the mind of the scornful woman.


At first, things were reasonably bearable. She had enough room to roam around the fortress and keep herself sane. She spent many hours in the gymnasium rebuilding her strength and in the simulator room honing her skills in between the six meals the baby encouraged her to have on a daily basis. Solstice was always hungry and tired, but she still but on her best face whenever Kordavo would come home for a quick visit. She would smile and let him court her in an almost gentlemanly way. She would even drop her panties upon his request or open up that pretty little mouth. Was is because she cared for him or because she cared for the safety of both her and her child? Well. It was probably a little of both, but deep in her gullet Solstice knew she couldn’t betray the man.


However, even as she dreamed of better circumstances, things kept getting worse. She knew the Fraundia bloodshed continued, yet at the same time she feared the death of Kordavo Chenoweth in battle as he kept fighting her allies. What was more important to her: the fraundian people winning the war or her child having both parents? The answer varied from day to day, but the longer Kordavo stayed away from her physically the more she leaned toward the Fraundian shooting him down and winning the war. She knew he was an asset to the Dominion army, just as she had been to the fraundians, and if he were dead her people stood a better chance. But, even as she grew to dislike him as their time apart increased, she didn’t like the idea of him being dead. Solstice was torn between two worlds, and it was destroying her.


The last four months of her pregnancy were the hardest. She began getting too fat to fit into the simulators where she had spent so many hours beating her baby daddy’s high scores in over half of the arenas. It gave her great pleasure to beat him in something even while he was away, but the pleasure was taken when she couldn’t safely climb behind the throttle. Those months she spent doing light cardio, eating, and reading anything she could get her hands on. Her faureading allowed her mind to escape even as her body remained trapped with a new life growing inside it. Wandering the halls in search of new reading material proved tricky as to attempted, at all costs, to avoid Janus Chenoweth’s hateful glare.


When the time came to deliver the child, Solstice had hoped that the father would show face at least to meet the daughter he had sired. Solstice had used her holopad to send ultrasound photos and more to Kordavo whenever she received them from the head nurse. She hoped that they would somehow pull at the heartstrings of the cold man, but she saw no change in him. Even when she sent him her delivery date his responses disappointed her. She had been disappointed so many times by his lack of care that she wasn’t even that surprised when he missed the tub birth of their beautiful baby girl: baptized in the warm water as she was brought to life. Holding the soaking infant brought a light to Solstice’s eyes once more that had died long ago. Now she had something to life for once more.


“My Kezra…”


***


At eight weeks of age, Kezra was still giving her mother fits. She was as hot headed as her mother and as inconsolable asher father. She was a royal pain in the ass for her mother, but Solstice was sure that no mother had ever loved a child more than she loved her Kezra. The babe had never met her father, and Solstice had refused sending any photos or allowing Kordavo to see the child in any way until he could tear his happy ass away from the war long enough to acknowledge his god damn family. Her hatred had regrown since the birth, and she wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t kill the man herself upon his return. The only thing stopping her was the fact that is she acted so rashly there was no way she would be ripped away from Kezra and sent back to IB… or worse.


But then the news hit: Puny Fraundian Empire falls to the Unriveled Strength of the Dominion. The war was over, and her father had lost.


She threw Kordavo’s tablet on the bed of her own room having not visited Kordavo’s chambers in weeks. She had been seeing headlines like that for a week now. These people were very proud of their victory for a group who seemed to think they were unbeatable to begin with. She sauntered across the room in the simple grey silk gown that hung comfortably around her body and cinched at the waist. She scooped up her daughter, clad in a white nightgown, and gave her eskimo kisses in the soft light of the setting sun outside her bay of windows as she carried her toward the view they had from their room.


“At least we gave them a run for their money, my love. I swear to you that you will know the beauty of my homeland before it is destroyed.” She promised, looking out into the bright lights as the news played on the smoky glass television behind her. She could hear it, although she cared very little to learn more untrue ideas about the Fraundian people. It was despicable the lies that the Dominion news reporters were telling. But the television caught her attention as they switched from one segment to another.


”We’re live now as the famed Kordavo Chenoweth lands his ship in the Chenoweth spaceport. A victorious fighter returns home to his family: including his new born child whose mother is Fraundian Royalty. Will this be a bridging of worlds? What do you think?”


Solstice traversed the length of the room and switched off the television with babe still in arms. She didn’t care to see the grand ship her rival flew after seeing the war to a close. She cared not to see how good or how bad he looked after being away none stop for the last half of a year. And she sure as hell couldn’t give a fuck about what they would say in the interviews about him, her, or her daughter who’s name had yet to make it onto the news. Would he ruin that too? She wondered. She had even convinced Janus to keep the baby out of the public eye at least for now. Although she wasn’t sure how. He never agreed with her, so it was strange that he would even talk to her about the manner.


“Asshole…” She muttered. Cradling the girl to her breast as she stared at the blackened television. Tears of rage tung her eyes, but she never allowed them to fall. He could be thee any minute, and he couldn’t see her cry. She was not weak, and she would not allow him to see her that way. The stolen blaster she had hidden in her mattress would assure that. She placed Kezra back safely into the bassinet, tucked away from the sunlight so that the child could rest, and she dug for the gun. She retrieved it from where she had hidden it within the innards of the mattress and tucked it into the back of the silk belt of her dress that cinched in her waist. If Kordavo dared to enter that room, she would not hesitate to pull it on him.
 
That very same week, Kordavo finally got his marching orders. Reassigned at last, with elements of his old squadron along with some new, to be assigned to the Dominion flagship, the supercarrier Sunfire, once again under the command of Admiral Kassandra Cleram, though he rarely saw her. He was under her command, a mere Flight Captain and nothing more, though he still had rank and status of a son of a Conclave Patriarch and high-standing family. He was to depart in a matter of days. He didn’t tell Solstice until the day before, not thinking it was her concern to begin with where he went. It was just in his nature not to be idle or restful for too long, seeking some new challenge or ordeal to immerse himself within.

Regardless, being on active duty again did not necessarily mean an endless foray of combat patrols, precision strikes, and spectacular naval engagements over new and exotic worlds. The Fraundians possessed a dogged determination to resist to the bitter end. Victories were costly to the point of even some Dominion officials desiring to refuse open battle outright because of the damage done to the precious capital warships of the already thinned fleet. The Fraundians may not match them on sheer scale and armaments but an unwieldly beast that the Dominion armed forces were, there were plenty of gaps and weak points to exploit. For months, it was an endless struggle of chasing and being chased, hunting or being hunted. And yet Fraundia itself seemed beyond reach no matter how badly they might throttle their foes.

The galaxy was vast and the stars within innumerable. The ancient generational sleeper vessels that left mythical Terra spread to many regions of that vast web of light and darkness. Each were separate from one another, knowing very little of their brethren vessels or nothing at all. Yet each of these states were based or centered upon these ancient ships, from which these interstellar empires and kingdoms arose from. Fraundia itself, the Dominion had no knowledge of, for the Fraundians were farseeing and cautious. Enemy ships had their navigational data often erased before capture or purposefully compartmentalized to prevent Fraundian worlds being discovered. Some were found simply by accident or treachery but it was only the outskirts. There were at least four major engagements where an intact Fraundian navigational star map was the target. Each time, some daring Fraundian maneuver put it out of Dominion reach. The war continued in a stalemated fashion.

In these lulls, Kordavo Chenoweth returned to Vorzania on leave to visit his family, to handle planetside dealings, and to see Solstice, the expecting mother of his child. These visits ranged from short drop-ins to an entire day or two’s worth of rest at her side. Or often upon her, or her upon him. He rarely talked about the war with Solstice on these visits, preferring to keep her in the dark about her people’s struggle. She was still considered an enemy combatant, a prisoner of war, and not meant to be privy to such sensitive intelligence as to the actual conduct of the war. HoloVids and news reports all stated the Dominion was emerging victorious but always in vague detail, with doctored results. But as the months rolled by since his reassignment, there was an unexpected jolt in activity that drew him away from the one Kordavo should have stuck by.

The first four attempts to discover Fraundia actual had been a failure. The fifth proved more fruitful. Though strong encryption prevented immediate exploitation, Dominion tech experts were not dismayed. Before it had been a guessing game. Now the clock was ticking. Leaves and absences were canceled and recruitment was spiked, as the final stages of the conflict began to filter into the minds of Dominion strategists. Kordavo Chenoweth could no longer return to Solstice. Where engagements had been sparse, perhaps once or twice a month, now there was action occurring weekly as Dominion forces spiked directly into Fraundian territory. Communications with Solstice were still vague. He did not speak of the war to her. He asked about her status, her living conditions, but always with a distant air. His focus was on staying alive, while dozens and hundreds perished all around him. Her people were no push-overs and distraction was the least of his desires.

It was ten months since the battle over Skarvis that the war saw it’s conclusion. The Battle for Fraundia was a vicious affair, the full might of both Fraundia and the Dominion gathered for this final showdown. A thirty-three day battle, that left drifting hulks of capital warships dead in space, new craters added to moons and planets from orbital bombardment, along with a million dead in space and land, the Dominion prevailed. Admiral Cleram devised the assault, one that was not easy or plain, though she had the strength of will to commit to such an action and see it through to the end. The King of Fraundia surrendered and as part of the ensuring peace negotiation, in which he retained his Crown as a vassal of Dominion rule, he had to watch his flagship steered into the local star and consumed by its flames. Fraundia would never rise again as an independent polity. It and all its fiefs and territories belonged to the Dominion.

The victorious fleet and soldiers could come home now, to Vorzania and dozens of other Dominion worlds from which they hailed.

Kordavo Chenoweth, after five months of relentlessly duty and combat, was coming home. And he knew there was more than just Solstice and his father waiting for him. There was a third. A girl, from what little he knew from what Solstice sent to him. Her name, he knew not. How she looked, he knew not. Was she Fraundian like her mother? Or was she Dominion like her father? After all, this child, his firstborn, was to be his heiress and the future leader of the Chenoweth family and all they owned and held dear. It was one year, almost to the date, when he had met Solstice on that fateful day, when they crash landed together, and fought, and survived…and kissed.

Yet when he landed, he did not come to see her. Film-droids fluttered around his craft and a crowd of reporters from the media presentation March of War strained at the arms of security personnel to speak to the enigmatic Chenoweth heir. Kordavo ignored them, even keeping his helmet on to muddle their video of him. But it did gnaw his patience a little that some of the varied questions shouted at him mentioned Princess and Nabeshin. One even went so bold as to inquire about his child.

Out of sight within the planet-side naval port, he changed from his flight-suit into ceremonial uniform and went to engage in post-action debriefing and be processed from Active Duty to Reserve, among thousands of others. Old comrades, jockeying for future postings, and all sorts of politicking between officers, pilots, shipboard technicians and haughty bridge staff swirled about him. Promotion was there, certainly available for a super-elite like him but he wasn’t interested in commanding battleships with thousands of personnel. Kordavo decided he had enough for a time, sated with bloodshed and action. His kill count had risen from mid-twenties to high fifties. His name could be seen on a billeted record showing the top aces of the now designated Fraundian Submission Conflict. Dozens of Fraundians dead from a handful of his people.

That only took two hours to clear out. The naval offices would be in touch, though he would likely receive orders more directly from some authority figure given his social rank. Most likely he would get some garrison command or flight leader on a patrolling carrier along the outer colonies. A Chenoweth shuttle came to take him home and that was when it did finally hit him. Home was more than just a structure now, one of many towering monoliths that shrouded over the endless ecumenopolis that was Vorzania. Not just a domineering father who saw life like a chessboard. He had a child waiting for him. And a woman…with whom he had very intimate relations. The stress and duty of war had put his focus above them. Was that wrong?

He had the pilots fly him about for a time, debating in his mind this philosophy…and doubt. What he did was for the greater good, his world and people and the Dominion that united it all. But he felt a need, a very selfish need, to see Solstice and his child. In the early days, during her pregnancy when the war really picked up, it was easy to put it aside because of the violent reality he was in. But that was passed and the urgency of it gone. Now he was forced to reflect and wondered about the impassionate monolith he had become instead. He thought about his daughter and wondered if he could have perished without ever seeing her, or being seen by her. And what am I doing here?

The sun had been shining when his craft had been shown landing at the spaceport. Now it was setting, bathing all in an orange glow when he came home. His father was there to receive him. Janus Chenoweth had lived in that structure, same as Solstice, and stayed planetside on Vorzania throughout the war as a civilian and political leader, organizing resources and economy. Yet in that entire half-year of Kordavo’s absence, it could be counted on one hand the number of times he had seen Solstice. He had seen Kezra on her birth and acknowledged her existence, speaking her name in full. Kezra Chenoweth. The child bore the same surname as Janus so he didn’t seem to have any slight against her for having a Fraundian mother. Still, after witnessing her existence after her birth, he hadn’t come to see his granddaughter or whelp of a mother either.

He withheld any news of Kezra from his meeting with Kordavo. He wanted the boy to go see his daughter himself. And so, Kordavo Chenoweth came to the room assigned to Solstice Nabehshin immediately after that.

And walked in to find Solstice holding a gun to him. His thoughts blanked at the sight, for in the corner of his vision he saw the bassinet and found everything go suddenly distant. Kordavo forgot his danger as he took a step towards it, the door sliding shut behind him, trapping the trio of them together. But his lack of composure did not last. His face hardened and his fierce eyes returned to Solstice, regarding her with her weapon. Was she going to shoot him dead with her child in the room? Perhaps some last act of Fraundian pride? “You stupid girl.” He said to her flatly, assuming the worst intentions in her. No smile to see her, even when their last physical interaction months ago had their naked bodies rolling in bliss and intimacy. She had been obedient then and he assumed she would be now. But she had a gun. His gun. The irony stung and irritated him.

“You have something to say evidently. Chirp it out, little birdie.” Kordavo challenged her, taking another step towards her, closing the distance between. Would she really shoot him dead? She would not survive a day after. Kezra would be given to his parents to raise. What if she tried the underpower shots? She better unleash a barrage cause he would charge and power through the pain to tackle her down. “I’m here to see my daughter. You’re not going to stop me.” He said, beginning to move towards the bassinet.
 
Perhaps his sins would have been more forgivable if he had rushed to them. If he had offloaded that ship and sprinted to meet his daughter and the woman he had forced into carrying it. If he had embraced mother or child in his arms and begged forgiveness for being away. If he had made promises to improve and whispered how he had missed them. If Kordavo Chenoweth had done ANY of that, maybe Solstice would have put down the gun. But instead he waited hours to come to them, and when he entered he was just as cold ever. Why couldn’t a nice man with a sweet smile and good heart be the one who had sired her first born? Did she not deserve a shot at a semi normal life? Nope. She just got called stupid all the time.

“I am not stupid.” She snarled at him. “And as punishment for saying that I should relieve you of your testicles, Lord Chenoweth.” She sneered as she spook his title as if it left a nasty taste in her mouth. In that moment she hated him just as much as she had the first time she saw him on Skarvis. And this time it was personal. “The only stupid one is the one who walked into this room just now expecting a warm welcome. You are no hero to me, Kordavo. Not only did you go back to war, killing MY men while I laid here shackled with my child, but you had the audacity not even to return for her birth or even give a fuck when it happened. Do you even know her fucking birthday, Kory? Not that it matters. You didn’t show up for her actual birth so why would you care about the annual parties celebrating her existence?”

She just stared at him. He looked the same and so different all at once. Had the battles hardened him? Was he even worse than before? Solstice herself looked much different than she had the last time he saw her. She lacked the baby bump now and, thanks to her copious boredom it had been replaced with a body that rivaled her tone and strength from those days on Skarvis when Kordavo had first taken a physical interest in what she had to offer. Her hair was longer and her eyes brightened even as she shot daggers from them. The room was redecorated with flower vases peppering all of the counters and colorful paintings on the wall. The bedding was brighter and purple, Sol’s favorite color, and, if one looked closely, an old shirt of Kordavo himself was stuffed underneath the pillow. Pajamas or a security blanket?

“You are not a father and she is not your daughter. She is mine and only mine. I’m the only one who deserves that precious little girl. You’re nothing but an unfortunate choice for a sperm donor, Lord.” She mocked him further as he stepped closer to the bassinet. “Father’s raise their children. They at least give two shits about the kid even if the mother wasn’t worth anything more than a few sessions in the bedroom. You’re no lover to me, Kordavo, and you’re no more a father to her than your birth mom is a Mother to you. You Chenoweths are really fucked up, Kordavo. You don’t deserve any of the good things that are dropped into your perfect little laps.”

There were tears welling up in her eyes. She didn’t want to cry in front of Kordavo. She just wanted to hate him, but she was emotionally invested now, and that made everything so much harder. She aimed the blaster at him again, targeting his mechanical arm and she fired. She was angry at him, but she couldn’t bring it upon herself to truly hurt him. The shot from the blaster was on low power, indicating that she had never planned on killing him, but it would be enough to permanently singe the synthetic skin that covered his arm. He’d need it replaced if he ever wanted it pretty again along with the uniform she ruined by burning a hole through it.

When it was done, Solstice turned away. She lowered the weapon and eventually tossed it on the bed before walking away. She couldn’t stop him from holding the babe. If she truly tried she knew she would just get hurt… or worse. Kezra deserved one competent person in her life while being raised surrounded by heartless idiots. Kezra would need her mom to survive and not wind up like one of these Chenoweth psychopaths. Solstice stood with her back to the unwanted guest and stoop near the windows. Her arms crossed over her strong core and she just stared at her reflection in the glass as tears streamed. She didn’t want him to see what he did to her.

“Kezra.” She whispered. “Her name is Kezra.”
 
Dead set green eyes locked upon the vocal offender towards Kordavo, brow furrowing and upper lip quivering as his wrath soon soared. No, words and chirping did hurt him. She threatened to relieve him of one of his testicles. He didn’t care about being her hero. They were on opposite sides of the war. This was no fairy tale. “This is war. I’d do it again.” He simply declared in regards to killing her people. But her next words struck more fiercely. Yes, the birth of his daughter, which she had missed. And he was frozen from moving forward to see her only by the tenacity of the woman who birthed his child. But it took two to do so and one wasn’t there for the other.

“I know the date.” He sneered with absolute venom at her, rising suddenly before he could even understand why. Yes, he recalled the message and he did feel a tremendous amount of anxiety. Perhaps if he told her or acted like it, things might be different. As for annual parties…well, birthdays weren’t celebrated in his family. The marking of a year since one’s birth did not fall under celebration in his world. In fact, few things actually did warrant an actual celebration. He never had one before.

They locked eyes. He didn’t see the rest of the room. She dared to strike his title of father from the child, continuing her vulgarity in such base words. Sperm donor? Now he was furious and he barely heard her next words or the crack in her voice as tears came upon her. She insulted his family. Mocked them. Tried to take away all his accomplishments as if they weren’t earned by his relentless sense of duty and inexhaustible efforts. His virtue was beyond reproach. She was just some crushed Princess who saw her people lose and fall from grace.

She’s the mother to your child. It takes two to complete a family like that.

Kordavo had about enough and he stepped towards her before she raised the blaster and shot him. She shot him. The lance of low-heated energy struck him upon his left arm, where it seared through the fake matted flesh and left a scorch mark upon the metallic scales beneath. The force of the blow staggered him back and whipped him about, nearly knocking him down to one knee. He growled at once and shot back to his full height with his teeth bared, ready to pounce. His handsome uniform was smoking from the burned fabric. His pain sensors ached. He advanced upon her with three endangering steps but found her simply tossing the weapon aside and turning her back. Giving up? She had always wanted to fight but this was…different. It paused his movement and he huffed a moment.

Kezra. Her name is Kezra.

A whirlwind seemed to be raging inside his body now. There was anger towards Solstice for her words, but acceptance that they were a blunt truth of course. Where had he been for his own child’s birth? His own parents had always been absentee in his but the birth mother of his progeny did not accept this as an excuse. He should know better. He should be better! And he was still caught up in his own selfish wants, focusing on his justifiable rage towards Solstice, rather than focusing on the one person who needed them both. He turned away from Solstice and went to the bassinet, getting his first look upon his daughter. He didn’t notice his shirt under. He would not have cared.

Did he give two shits about this kid? He saw a toddler wrapped in cloth, a fragile creature that needed tending and supervision, who could do nothing on her own. She was needy and could vocalize that demand quite profoundly. Kordavo had never held a baby before. She is a sapling. What she is now is irrelevant. She will become something grand. She will become many things. Leaves, branches, her core, roots. But I will be her soil, her nourishment, and her light. She is mine. Kezra Chenoweth. Kordavo reached forward with his right hand and touched the child’s cheek, which caused her to stir and open her eyes. Kezra stared up at her and Kordavo stared down at her. Kezra made a short gurgling sound and then did nothing else, simply watching.

“She is beautiful.” He said aloud, to no one in particular but aimed at Solstice regardless as she stood away. Now their backs were to each other. “And she will not be fucked up. She will become something great. And she will deserve all the good things that come to her.” Kordavo declared, taking off his cap and continuing to look down to his baby girl. Kezra was still regarding him carefully as well. Looking down at her, he found it hard to stay angry or even remember why. He made this child. She was his. His successor, his legacy, his scion, a promise of things to come and a future secured. She was his daughter and Kordavo held an unconditional love for her from that moment onwards. This was real.

Solstice on the other hand. “You are upset and I will give you that. Your people lost the war. You feel betrayed and disappointed. I only did my duty.” Kordavo said, speaking firmly but quietly, still focused upon Kezra. Perhaps she was his shield, to prevent Solstice from shooting him but more importantly to prevent him from getting out of hand either. “But she is my daughter. She bears my name. And I will be there for her. You can’t take that from me. I am her father. But I will do it my way, just as you will do it your way. Maybe it will come to make sense at a later date.” He said, implying that compromises would come and could happen. Because if one loved something, they could make changes for it could they not?

“But I only did my duty, nothing more. When she is older, she will understand. Because she will do her duty for this family, as I will. And you will do your duty for your family. But the two need not be incompatible.” Kordavo said, musing over another aspect that Kezra was also a Princess through her Fraundian side. Not that it meant anything in Dominion society. She might get a cute moniker because of it. “I’m here now and you’re going to have to accept it. But let me warn you Solstice.” Kordavo said, turning from the bassinet to face her now. “Don’t ever use that tone or fire a weapon when she is around. That makes you stupid, to unveil your grudges in sight of her. Save your grievances for me in a more private setting.” He said, looking to her backside and her dazzled reflection in the window.

She was crying. Crying because of him. But he had made her cry before, upon Skarvis, when he gave in to his passions. That had brought them to this however. One soul was already beaten down by his actions. He could prevent Kezra from being so as well. But could not Solstice still be saved? “Solstice.” He said, changing his tone to a softer one. “I am here now. It’s not good in your books I suppose but I did promise…it will get better.”
 
“She is beautiful.” Solstice agreed with the man, still looking out the window with tear stained cheeks. “And those green eyes don’t hurt.” It was true. The little girl’s eyes were just as green as her father’s, and the short, silky hair sprouting from her delicate head were dark just like his. Kezra was a spitting image of her father and Solstice was hard pressed to see any of herself in that little bundle of joy. She didn't even look like her own daughter. What else could be taken away? Solstice blamed Kordavo for all of it. He had shot her down. He had fucked her. He had brought her here. He had left her alone. She was mad at him. She wished her father had killed him. She needed him. Did she love him?

“Do not use this as some rant about how I’m too emotional. You weren’t there for her. Your promises are empty for now, Kordavo Chenoweth, but I hope that you can prove them not only to me, but to that little girl. She deserves a father who loves her and would shoot down the stars just to see her smile. That little girl is the most important thing you or I had ever done, and if you’re absent in her life I will shoot you down myself. That’s MY way of being a mother, and you know I’m more capable of killing you than anyone else you have ever met. From now on you best be a good dad if not for anything more than the fear of what I’ll do to you if you aren’t. Call me stupid for my act of passion, just like you always call me stupid, but your stupid act of passion is the reason we’re having this fight right now.”

She didn’t look at them. The entire time she spoke her fingers moved to fidget with the charm she wore around her neck. It hadn’t been there the last time that Kordavo had seen her. She had had it custom made on the holopad. A silver chain with a round pendant on the end peppered in greens and blues in the sale of unique land masses. Over one section a heart marked the land. The planet was Fraundia, and the heart marked Home: the place she so desperately wanted to be with her baby girl.

“Things aren’t getting better. Things got worse with you, and the only reason I didn’t off myself during your absence was the fact that little baby came into my life and gave me a reason to live.” She whispered. “So you have to be here for her too just in case I can’t keep doing this.” She looked down at her feet as the words slipped out of her mouth. Solstice has gotten this far, and she had slipped into a suicidal depression. Postpartum depression was common and it was manageable, but Solstice couldn’t manage it on her own. Not like this surrounded by people who hated her just because she came from the opposite side of the game board. Not with the only person somewhat rooting for her disappearing to kill her family. She feared the worst. “Things never got better.”

She burst into sobs then. Her body raking as she pressed her forehead into the window and cried. He had softened his tone towards her and the dam had broken. She had been crying before but now she sobbed as all of her burdens overwhelmed her senses. She dropped the charm around her neck and pressed both hands into the glass as she sobbed. She wanted to break things and hit him, but he was right. Kezra shouldn’t see that. Solstice also knew she wanted to push Kordavo up against the wall and kiss him because she had missed him so badly. She had wanted him to be right next to her for every appointment, every tear, and every moment of Kezra’s birth. But he had been absent, and now she could never again trust that he would be there when she needed him.

She choked back her sobs just enough so that she could talk again, closing her eyes as she did so. “You know what, Kordavo?” She whispered softly. “Whenever I dreamed of having babies and falling in love with a man… it was so much better than this. He cared for me and he made me smile and I was always happy to have babies with him because I knew that they were in good hands and I would never have to worry because our babies would be loved and I would be loved, and no one could take it away from me.” She let out a little sarcastic laugh between her tears before she looked up at Kory and the bassinet. “This isn’t my dream. This is my nightmare.”
 
Kordavo could only scoff and fight the urge to immaturely roll his eyes at the threats from Solstice. Sure, you shot me down. Living in a fantasy world, like an emotional girl would. But her words did strike a chord of his heart. The baby was the most important thing in his life, for all his reasons and all of hers. She was his future and he had a duty to protect her. That didn’t come from his own guilt or what Solstice did. He just knew it to be true in his heart. He had to live for this girl, that his stupid passion had created.

But the abrupt confession of possible suicide was enough to halter Kordavo’s thoughts. It tempered his impatience and cooled his anger with her. He always knew that he had her but the thought of losing her was a sore blow to his mental. Losing her to IB had been a strain. Losing her to death would be an endless torture. That much he came to understand and his lips parted to say something when she became to weep, his entire expression breaking down in sympathy at the sight of it. No sound came though. He couldn’t find any words of comfort. No promises came to his mind. He felt helpless, while Solstice wept against the window. He stood there and watched and it gnawed him on the inside to be unable to stop her crying.

He had created her nightmare. Kordavo was her nightmare. A man who could give her all of that, dangling its pleasures and happiness, but giving her otherwise in the end like some trickster. He sighed and averted his gaze from Solstice, even as she cast her teary eyes at him. He probably couldn’t give her that life. He didn’t know how. But he was serious when he said it would get better.

Well he had to follow through upon that now. His green eyes returned to her and he girded his jaw as he made his decision. The blaster had been thrown aside. Solstice was not the same woman she had been a year ago, a starving slender piece he ruled and controlled. She had developed and grown herself in the ensuing months. Decoration and colour were upon her and the room. It was surreal to see such vividness in a place that was usually so bleak and austere. He was becoming a moth drawn to her light. His foot twitched and then stepped forward, followed by the other, until he closed the distance and approach Solstice. No threats in his demeanor were visible. His hands were open and they raised up and came down on her shoulders, encompassing them as he stood before her like a tall statue, motionless and unblinking.

Then he pulled her towards his chest and wrapped his arms around her upper back, squeezing her gently to his frame. His hand caressed her back and even stroked her red hair, holding her firmly in this embrace. “I will be here. I’m going to do this. And you will be able to keep doing this as well. My daughter is important to me and I should have been there to greet her when she was born. She is precious to me. You are precious to me.” He said to her as he stroked her hair, the other arm locking about her torso. “I’m here now. So come with me Solstice, and tell me everything and I will do what I can. For you. For Kezra.” Kordavo promised her in a low, quiet voice. He held her for a moment longer, before he separated her from him, his real hand sliding down her arm to find her hand and intertwine their fingers.

He looked down into her eyes, before he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. Passion. That was what invoked all of this. Passion, set off and fueled by something so simple as a kiss. It was how it all started and brought them to this road. It would be short and it left him with a sense of hollowness in his chest. The complex artificial intelligence would keep an eye on Kezra, deploying advanced baby monitoring dollies to ensure her every need. Leading by the hand, Kordavo tugged Solstice away from the window and towards the door. He didn’t want her to stay in here, where she dwelt with her spiralling depression. They had a home all about. “Kezra will be fine. She will be given her own nursery in time to see to her more immediate needs. You need not exhaust yourself throughout the nights, unless that is your desire. But she will have the best care that can be provided.” He reassured her and let Solstice do any last minute interactions with Kezra before the robotic dollies began their vigilance over her crib.

They walked a short distance to one of the many lounges and dining halls. This wasn’t as grand as the hall she had shared dinner with Janus and Kordavo. It was more modest, intimate, yet just as luxurious. It was a round table with four chairs at either pole, allowing them to sit across or next to one another. Computerized pads allowed them to pick their dinner options and a kitchen several floors below would begin to operate. Kordavo fetched wine from a nearby cabinet that was always stocked with liquor, though if Solstice wanted anything else they probably had it. He poured her a particularly large drink and another for himself, before seating himself, his jacket across the back of his seat, while his muscles bulged at the tight uniform.

“I want you to tell me everything then.” Kordavo asked her as he handed her the drink. Whatever she was feeling, whatever hurt or pain she was in, she needed to get it all out. So I can get inside her. “A communiqué or memo isn’t satisfactory for me anymore. Was it a…difficult birth? I hope Nurse Stethave was cooperative and not obtrusive to you. But I see you have not been idle either.” He said, looking at her intently, with her new dress and colours and…Kordavo reached for her neck, taking her necklace in hand and examining it as it lay against his fingers. He recognized the shapes and knew what it was, having seen it a week or two before. “Fraundia.” He noted, releasing the charm to flutter back to her chest, comfortably above her cleavage.

Did Solstice know Kordavo had been to Fraundia? She must have not seen it in a whole year. He had seen it. He had seen orbital platforms in flames above and the streaks of downed craft burning in its atmosphere. He saw its green and blues, profound as any Dominion sanctuary world. But it was real, not artificial. And beautiful. And before him sat its Princess. He had also seen her father, on HoloVids displayed on ships and more. He heard his voice. Heard the pain in it. He was certain Solstice would want to know. And it would not be easy to tell her, which is why he brought her away from Kezra, as she did not need to see the conflict between her parents.
 
The hug was unexpected, but it did offer some comfort to the princess. The last six months the only human contact she had had were either checkups from the head nurse or holding her child after the birth was complete. She had not been held, comforted, or shown any care beyond being provided basic human needs and a place to stay. Not a person in this hellish fortress cared about her or her emotions. She was a burden to everyone around here: only allowed to stay because the Lord's son had taken some morbid interest in her. Not a single soul wanted her to be here besides Kordavo himself and perhaps Janus for only the fact that she had proven fertile.

She didn't believe him when he said that she was precious to him. How could she? If it were true he would have at least called rather than falling off of the planet. It was one thing to be left behind by a stranger, but it was an entirely different hurt to be left behind by the father of one's child. She had expected so much more of him, and she had just wound up hurt and disappointed. She nodded in agreement, wiping the stray tears from her blue eyes and doing her best to calm down. Nonetheless, when he kissed her the salty tears met his mouth as his lips collided with her own.

She kept the kiss brief, turning her face away. He may have found some sympathy for her, but that didn't right all of his wrongs, She was still incredibly angry with him. She just wasn't going to shoot at him anymore. At least not right at the moment. She would discuss with him as he desired, but she was pessimistic about the results. There was only one thing she truly wanted, and she didn't think it would be given. She didn't think that Kordavo alone was capable of giving it to her, whether she was precious to him or not.

It was hard to leave Kezra. Solstice hadn't left her since she was conceived, and she had never once been alone. Solstice felt an uncontrollable urge to protect the infant from the clutches of the Dominion hierarchy. She hated it here and projected her own hatred onto the baby girl who slept peacefully in her bassinet. Of course Kezra was too young to decide right over wrong, so these worries by Sol were unwarranted, but the existed in the back of her mind anyway forcing her to glance over her shoulder repeatedly even as Kordavo lead her out of her room shere the baby was left in the care of robots. "I want full, unrestricted access to her nursery at all times and the ability to overrule the fuvking robots who will be hovering around her all the time." She muttered as the door finally closed behind them.

She entered the smaller dining hall, paying little to no attention to the extravagant architecture that surrounded her at all times in the home of the Chenoweths. Taking a seat opposite of Kordavo she watched with unwavering eyes a she poured them both unreasonably large glasses of wine. She wrapped her dainty hand around the steam and tapped glasses with the man in a toast before drawing the glass to her lips and staining them with the hint of red. She sat tight as her reached out to toy with her necklace, nearing valuable real estate on her body in the process. She half expected him to move in for a grab, so she cocked a brow at him when he didn't. In the absence of being gropped, she ordered her food: Spinach and artichoke stuffed chicken breast with a side salad.

"The birth was difficult as all births are. Nurse Stethave was cordial with me, but I wouldn't go so far as to say friendly. No one here is friendly with me. Most go out of their way to avoid me." She let out a sarcastic laugh and took a long swig of her wine willing it to intoxicate her bloodstream. It had been over a year since she had last tasted the sweet bitterness of wine or any booze. It would feel nice to get a bit drunk tonight and drown some of her sorrows. "You should see the way the hallways clear out when anyone sees me walking their way. It's quite impressive, really, the way your people run away from me like I might scalp them and drink their blood at any second. I think they believe that I'm truly a savage." She scoffed, taking another drink.

By the time their meals arrived Solstice could already feel the heat rising into the apples of her cheeks and she was only down half the glass of wine that Kordavo had served to her. She started to eat her food. Even in her state she still took dainty bites and chewed carefully and politely as a princess ought to. "You want to know what would make me happy, Young Lord? To never see any of these sorry faces again. But I'm cursed to live this life you have given me. I don't get to run away, so why do you get to run away from me just so that you can go to war? I'll tell you what. That shit isn't fair. Not even letting you fuck me whenever you were remotely in the mood was enough to get you to stay." She chuckled, taking another bite.

"If you want me to be happy you'll let me go home." She shrugged it off, knowing it wouldn't happen. "Otherwise I just wish you and all of your minions around here would leave me alone. I wanted you once- before you left me behind. Now? I don't want you anymore. Here's to breaking bad habits." She lifted her glass in a mock toast then chugged down the rest of the wine.
 
Kordavo gave only a grunt of acknowledgement in his throat to the request of Solstice, to have unfettered access to the nursery. Of course she would have, being the biologically mother. But making someone who wasn’t a Chenoweth to have unrestricted access, even in a single room over nursery robots, was pushing the limits. He hoped he wouldn’t regret this in any way but he would make it happen regardless. He knew it would be best for Kezra and that was more important to him at the moment. He knew what it was like to be raised by one parent, especially a father alone. Solstice perhaps was right in that Kordavo wasn’t normal given his upbringing. Kezra deserved the best of both worlds though, a father and a mother.

He sat and watched her now, the cup of wine seeming too big in her little hands. Solstice was looking healthier and more fit, though compared to him she would forever be a little birdie. He did not share her laugh or find any jest in her remark about people avoiding her. Truthfully, they avoided her because her own rank and status were still undetermined. She was an enemy combatant and she was supposed to be kept here under confine and imprisoned. But she was also a Princess, something acknowledged by the Chenoweths and thus an unofficial dictate to everyone else that they should treat her the same. “I can imagine.” He simply replied to her explanation of clearing the hallways. They did for Kordavo too, though out of respect and deference.

“But you’re too little to be a savage.” He added as well, again the jest and sarcasm lost on him. Maybe it was his own perspective but he didn’t see how anyone would see her as some blood sucking savage, given how petite and slender she was. She was also drinking at a faster pace than he was, having only a few sips compared to her gulps. The meals arrived, Kordavo having a mixture of cut meat mixed into a vegetable salad, with spices and a loaf of bread. It would still be evident the treatment Solstice was getting, given that she got an almost juvenile knife to cut her meat, while Kordavo’s knife for his own meal was a lot sharper and more efficient, despite his meal not even needing a knife at all.

He ate relatively gracefully, though proportionally to Solstice, he probably did eat like a savage. His eyes were downcast on his food, ever watchful of what he put into his body, honed like a living weapon that he was. He didn’t speak when she began her next tirade. His eyes did not even flicker to her as she spoke of never wanting to see his people again, accusing of him fleeing, calling it unfair like some pouty child, and demanding to be taken home or at the least be left alone. That last wasn’t going to happen, at least from him. He had come here for her, next to Kezra. He was not about to relinquish his greatest prize. She spoke of not wanting him and only then did he raised his eyes to her, regarding her intently as she mocked toasted him and drained her cup, while Kordavo finished chewing.

Then he looked back into his bowl again. “You’re being far too dramatic.” He said again simply after her tirade was finished. His eyes flickered back to her and remained there as he chewed his next morsel down. She was discontent and unhappy, that much Kordavo could see. The last time he had been separated from her, she had been in IB and had been all too happy to see her. Why was this any different? They weren’t torturing her here. They weren’t trying to make her betray her people, though they were beaten now. There was a deep resentment in Solstice and the way she chugged her wine betrayed her anxiety. But anxiety over what?

“Let’s speak reality now, Solstice.” Kordavo said, putting his fork down and pushing his bowl aside, scooting closer to the table – and her. “You still want me.” He declared with a haughty rise of his chin, lips forming a half-smirk. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here arguing over how many times I…” he struggled a moment to say the vulgar word, “fuck you, or complaining to me about how you perceive yourself to be mistreated. If you prefer, you may return to the confines of IB and remain there as what you are. Because let’s face it, you are a prisoner of war and you aren’t even supposed to have rights, let alone comforts. If you wish to forgo all of that for this foolish bitterness of yours, be my guest. But that would be pointless, for I will let you return to Fraundia, though you may find your home different from how you departed it.” He said, now taunting her with the knowledge he had of her home, to which information was limited on what she could know from other sources.

“But you won’t leave here, even if I opened your cage little birdie. Because simply put, I will not, under any circumstance, allow you to take my daughter from me.” The smile was gone. The mocking light was extinguished. Now there was just hardness in his expression, a threatening hardness. “You can run away but Kezra stays with me. Always. And I think…you will too.” Kordavo said, lifting his wine and drinking deeply from it, before setting that aside as well. The wine wasn’t affecting him as much but he didn’t need it to have his passions flared for her. He wanted her and he would have her. But would he take it like he always took it, whether she wanted to or not? Could he do that…to the mother of his child?

He wouldn’t have to because she will give it to him.

As Kordavo presumed. That’s what it was, just like when he took her from IB. She wanted to be rescued, this time from her loneliness. He would give it to her. Beneath the table, he reached over and set his hand on her leg, just above her knee. “You want to speak of breaking bad habits? I think what you want is to indulge it more, to be reminded of the passion I can put into you and what heights I can send you soaring to. What happened to my little birdie who was so eager to have her tasted by me? Or to enjoy my charms inside of her. I can give it to you, right now, if you want. You do want, I reckon.” Kordavo said, his hand shifting higher on her leg, eyes again gleaming with a light, this time of desire. His hand was now clutching her thigh, very close to her hips, fingers grazing into the softness between. “I think you only need to be reminded of what makes you happy here, young Princess.”
 
Dramatic. There was that fucking word again. If she heard him call her dramatic one more time she would aim for the family jewels next time she had a blaster. Then when he was crying and wheezing on the floor in agony it would be her who called him dramatic. That would be the sweetest victory. A drunken Solstice giggled aloud at merely the thought of it, probably seeming like some sort of crazy person as she did so. Oh how she would love to teach this spoiled shithead a lesson in manners. And the best way to teach such a lesson was through physical pain. Then who would be dramatic?

It was a dark fantasy concerning the man she had been so affectionate towards during her pregnancy. In the back of her mind, Solstice quickly chalked up her passionate emotions to the fact his DNA was helping to build the child inside her. She did not care for him. Kezra cared for him, but not her mother. And if Kezra knew what a deadbeat father she had she would quickly learn to resent him as well. Never in the history of her family had the father been absent from a child’s birth unless he was dead. Kordavo would be the first to screw that all up even before one of her brothers had the chance to. If she even Still had brothers. Or even family of any kind. Solstice feared being left alone in this cruel Dominion world.

“I can’t be a prisoner of war now that the war is over, you fool. I no longer offer any leverage so either off me, release me, or admit to yourself that I’m not a prisoner of war. I’m just a prisoner. A slave perhaps seeing as enduring your bodily passions have proven to be quite a chore to me. I don’t want you. I want stability for my child and that is all. It’s time for you to step down off of that fucking pedestal you’ve built yourself out of the bodies of my friends and family and look at all of this from a reasonable perspective you spoiled, rich brat. Where I come from we don’t take prisoners of war. It’s more humane to kill a rabid dog in the field than allow it to suffer and die in confines. Do you want me to die here, Kordavo?” She cocked a brow already knowing the answer. He had an attachment to her, and she was willing to bed he wouldn’t try to hurt her. Not like this at least.

“You forget that it will be impossible for me to take away your daughter because you don’t have a daughter. You are not a father, Kordavo. Not by my definition of the word. You don’t know a thing about that girl. I know everything about her. She is mine, and she is the only thing on this dreadful planet that is worth anything to me. So do us both a favor, Lord. Go get somebody pregnant who actually wants this life. Who wants you and loves you dearly. Who will be happy to be your little trophy wife. Stop pushing your wants into me!” She snapped, pushing her plate back and moving to get up before he drew her attention back by pressing his hand into her thigh below the table.

She cocked s brow, hesitating a moment as she just looked at his face as he grabbed for her beneath the table. His hand even pressed her dress between her thighs so he could attempt at teasing her womanhood. It was to no avail. Solstice wasn’t interested in sex. Not even drunk was she willing to give into him just because he had made her orgasm in the past. A dildo could make her orgasm. It was no special achievement for him to know how to touch a desperate woman’s button. Solstice wasn’t desperate anymore. She would be much harder to convince this go around. But that didn’t mean this couldn’t be fun for her.

Beneath the table Solstice kicked a foot out of its shoe and pressed her dainty foot into his calf- slipping it beneath his pant leg to provide skin on skin contact as she began hiking up his trouser’s pant leg. She stroked up and down his calf slowly as she gazed into his eye wordless before she slouched in her chair just enough to be able to teach her target. Solstice ran her pedicured foot over his thigh and to his groin where she rubbed gently in little circles as she made eye contact. She wanted him to believe that she wanted him. Just for now… so that she could crush his disgusting fantasy.

Solstice them moved her foot away and slipped it back into her shoe. One hand grabbed onto his wrist and jolted it forward so it pressed into her womanhood hard and dragged him closer. She was sure that combo would thoroughly distract him meaning it was time to claim her revenge. “Kordavo Chenoweth…” she started, readying herself. “You are a sex crazed fool if you believe I will ever allow you into my chambers again. Pervert.” She smirked before pushing his hand away roughly and kicking forward: her shoe slamming into his shin with a lot of power packed behind her tiny body as he would say. Her strength made her hits not feel so tiny.

“Goodnight, Kory.” She said firmly, pushing away from the table and walking swiftly back towards her room. She didn’t want to speak anymore.
 
Her arguments seemed a matter of technicality, which had Kordavo mentally rolling his eyes. He would neither off her, release her, nor admit that she wasn’t a prisoner of any kind. A slave might be closer to the truth but he would not allow the mother of his child to be deigned slave in any way. Regardless, love and romance were not high on his priorities with Solstice. He didn’t answer her remark on whether he wanted her to die here but her next argument of refusing to acknowledge him as father got under his skin. His nostrils flared from a hitched inhale and his eyes narrowed in fury, disliking her definition. “I am the father.” He stated again through gritted teeth but managed to keep her at the table when his hand stroked upon her thigh.

For a moment he thought he might have gotten through her thick skull. Regardless of love or romance, there was an undeniable passion that existed the moment they first laid eyes on one another upon Skarvis. That was what it was all based on, that was what would keep them going. It seemed to silence her childish arguments, fortunately for his ears, and he figured he could avoid such an unnecessary waste of breath by trying to reason with her. It seemed an irony to him that during her pregnancy, she was more than willing and open to receive him, whereas after the birth she was now irrational and unreasonable. Or maybe he was too blind to see that accepting him was the irrational thing to do. But what did he know, following but the example of his own upbringing and all that he knew.

Her foot surprised him and he jerked a little when he felt it on his calf, grazing up seductively. So, you finally come to an understanding. His eyes bore into her, even as his hand trailed higher on her leg, grazing against her underwear next. A shudder ran over Kordavo’s spine and he had to steel his jaw from taking another visible breath that showed how he was feeling. She was having a tremendous effect on him, indeed being a bit sexually frustrated over the long months of war. He could have had any woman, willingly, yet he came back here to have her. He thought she was finally going to accept her place beneath him. Tingles flushed up from his groin, making his eyelids flutter a little. It felt good. But then she removed her foot and yanked his own hand closer, which was the first sign of breaking the spell. Her words completed it.

Kordavo Chenoweth hissed as sudden pain jolted into his ankle. “You…!” He snarled, nearly calling her a bitch though his Lordly instincts kicked in and stopped that. Did she think that was funny? “Where do you think you’re going? Get back here, Solstice.” He snapped when she beckoned goodnight, struggling to his feet but feeling the throbbing pain in his foot delay his reflexes. He might have grabbed her and yanked her back but she was already out the door, much faster and stronger than when he had left her. No, he had grown complacent with her, thinking she had been made docile by being confronted with worse threats at IB. He had forgotten who she was, Princess of Fraundia and fighter pilot, who thought she could shoot him down. He growled like a feral beast of Skarvis and strode after her, his wrath enabling him to ignore the pain.

He got to her room and found the door closed. It was locked from the inside when he tried it and he cursed himself for not adding an override. “Solstice, open this damn door.” He snapped, teeth bared in anger at her games. First she insulted him, then she toyed with him, then she had the nerve to strike him and lock him out? “I said open this door!” He shouted, more agitated, slamming his cybernetic fist into the door frame. It was a loud thud, one that echoed down the corridor and no doubt within the room. The blow was tremendous, denting the door, leaving crumpled metal on the other side for Solstice to see.

He could only pant and heave with fury, a red mist before his eyes, fist a little lodged into the door. He drew it back with metal creaking and took a full step back, recovering his composure. What had gone over her? She was a prisoner in his home, yet managed to keep him out. But as his mind turned from fiery rage to cold pragmatism, he remembered one vital aspect. Kezra had been taken to her new nursery while they were at dinner. She was alone in there, missing the one vital piece of her existence. Reaching for the controls, Kordavo locked it on his side. Even if she unlocked it on hers, she still wouldn’t be able to come out. The click sounded so satisfactory as Kordavo decided on this course of action.

“Alright then, Solstice. Stay in there and rot for all I care. You want to act like a stupid, dramatic little girl, be my guest. But while you stay in there and fume on your fury, I hope you will be comforted by the fact that Kezra will be enjoying some much needed time with her father. With her father, Solstice. Not her mother. When you come to your senses, I will be awaiting your apology.” Kordavo said, loudly enough to carry through the door. “Goodnight, Soly.” He added with his own smirk and thudded more lightly on the door, before he walked down the corridor and left her there. But did he feel triumphant? Not at all. The dumb Princess had gotten the better of him. She had gotten on his nerves. She had struck him with impunity and denied to him his greatest desire. No, he walked away feeling as if he had been defeated. Perhaps tomorrow she would come to her senses.

He slept uneasily that night and before the break of dawn, he went down to Kezra’s nursery, to actually spend a moment alone with his daughter. He had the robotic caretakers show him the proper form to hold his daughter and he did. But not before giving a command. Within Solstice’s quarters, the holo-screen would light up, showing her a live feed of Kordavo in the nursery with Kezra. She would see him tenderly pick up his daughter and that handsome smile he so rarely showed formed on his lips as he peered down into her sleeping face. By the stars, she was beautiful and fragile. She was precious, precious to him, and he looked over to the camera where he figured Solstice would be watching.

Then he departed the room, to take his Chenoweth daughter and to go have breakfast with his father. Three generations of Chenoweth in one room. It would be something remarkable, no doubt. And Solstice would be left behind, to stew over her actions. Two can play at this game.

But as much as she might be hurting, so was Kordavo. Barely an hour after the live streaming, he came to her quarters, Kezra in his arms still, for he was too scared to put down so fragile a creature. Just holding her made him into a different person, more thoughtful of his own actions and even his words. He presumed the baby would know much from just observing him, even if it was still focused on sleeping and eating. He came back to Solstice’s quarters and knocked gently. “Do you have something to say to me, to say to us, Solstice?” He demanded through the door. But the moment Solstice spoke, Kezra would react, hearing the voice of her mother. And then she would begin to weep, which would throw Kordavo into a panic. If he didn’t get what he wanted from Solstice, he would turn and flee back to the nursery, where the robotic caretakers could feed Kezra. “Shh, baby.” Kordavo attempted, but a gentle tone had never been his strong suit. He needed help.
 
Once behind her locked door Solstice huffed. The race to beat him here was difficult on her drunken body, but she had beaten him here nonetheless. But as he chased her, even his loud footsteps intimidated her as they approached her locked door. “Please hold…” she muttered, referring to the door as it was pounded against. If that man got through that door she had no doubt in her mind that he would hit her, and his hits would cause much more damage to her than her kick to his shin had done him. Plus. Who could blame her for that? He wouldn’t have let her leave, May have even raped her again if she hadn’t gotten him to let her go. She had to do it.


Solstice winced at the realization that she was, indeed, completely alone in that room. Kezra was gone and Kordavo would likely try and batter her if she let him in or put up a fight. Alone. All alone. And the viscous tyrant of a man was about to spend time with her child while she was locked in here. She had heard that same click as he locked the door from the outside. She couldn’t change her mind even if she wanted to. She could only hope he wouldn’t be so barbaric as to be cruel to Kezra just because her mother had pissed him off. Luckily… he seemed genuine when he spoke of loving the girl even if he had hardly even met her.


The night was difficult for the depressed mother. Her only reason for living was gone because of her dislike for the man who had done all of this to her. Solstice wasn’t supposed to live like this. She was supposed to fight in the war until she either died or the war came to a close. She wasn’t supposed to be a trophy, and it was driving her mad. Now that she had had a glass of wine at dinner it was all she wanted. She wanted to drink until she no longer felt sad and alone. So? She ordered a bottle of merlot and she drank the entire thing through the night as she danced around her room and cried.


In the morning when the hologram projected the beeping woke Solstice and she groaned. Her half naked body was tangled in the high quality sheets as she propped her heavy head up enough to see what was happening. Kordavo was bragging and showing off that he was spending time with her daughter while she wasn’t. “Show off.” She muttered then buried her head in blankets. Being awake now and all the lights shining around the room threatened to make the hungover princess vomit.


She slept more until she heard the noise outside her door, causing her to grumble. “Go away!” She called out, curling up tighter in the blankets. She didn’t want to talk to him, and she surly didn’t want to apologize to him. There would be no apologies. He didn’t deserve them, not after everything he had put her through. Where were his apologies? Apologies for raping her, sending er to IB, locking her in his fortress and leaving? Nowhere. He never apologized. She wasn’t going to either. Being the bigger person got very old after awhile.


Then she heard Kezra’s cries.


She sighed. Her baby needed her and she couldn’t ignore that. She crawled out of bed and unlocked the door from her side, rubbing her throbbing forehead as she stepped back and allowed father and child to ender the vicinity. “She’s not used to you yet. She’s going to cry for me until she knows and trusts you. Relationships take time, Kordavo, even relationships with babies.” She whispered, reaching out to lightly stroke Kezra’s soft, mostly bald head. She then carefully took Kazra from his sarms and brought her close to her breast, cradling her into the soft embrace of her bosom. The baby quieted quickly then and closed those green eyes off hers.


Solstice carried the baby to the bassinet that still resided in her room and laid her down to rest. “Plus. She’s a baby. They sleep a lot. She’s probably just tired.” She whispered, looking down at Kezra affectionately before turning back to Kordavo. “There’s still a lot for you to learn. For us both to learn.” She comforted him, eyes squinting to try and filter out some of the light that threatened to make her brain explode. Solstice was hungover and dressed in the bare minimum. She wore a t-shirt over a pair of panties, her breasts hanging naturally underneath. The t-shirt? It was huge on her and barely gave her a feminine figure. It was Kordavo’s t-shirt.


“Listen. I’m hungover and tired. I’m not in the mood for your lectures or yelling.” She said, looking up at him. “I’m not going to apologize to you, but I’m also not going to fight with you, so now you have a choice. We can either have a conversation, or you can leave this room like the empty shell of a man that you seem to be.” She sighed, walking over to the bed and flopping down: laying on her back with her feet dangling off the side. “But if you want to talk,you’re going to have to do it from over here, and quietly. My head is pounding and my daughter is sleeping.”
 
The door slid open and Kordavo, holding the bawling child in his arms, found himself face to face with Solstice once more. And then all the fury and cold anger from the previous day came rushing back to him. She had struck him. Shot him. Called him vulgar names and degraded his role in the child’s life. He felt the urge to do the same, to take this sudden act of extending an olive branch and flinging it all back in her face. Let her stay in there and rot, if she refused to be sane and understanding. His brow contorted with this anger but he found his arms limp in defence when Solstice took Kezra from him. He knew why he couldn’t react, for Kezra immediately found peace and tranquility in Solstice’s arms.

Just like they used to with each other. He missed that. He wanted that. But taking it without consent he realized would not be the same as earning it as he had before. Perhaps Solstice did have a point and through his stubborn demeanor, he was beginning to understand what had driven her to become cold. He stood a little bit past the threshold of the doorway so she couldn’t lock him out again, arms at his side almost in a display of helplessness now that Kezra had been taken from him. He was going to learn how to take care of his baby. He wanted to learn. He had no doubt about that.

Kordavo had come dressed more modestly, if there was ever such a thing about him. He wore a white long sleeved buttoned shirt tucked into his dark breeches, red line up the side, with a black vest around his torso. No trenchcoat or military cap today, as he was home, and his shorn dark hair was visible as he stood. He carried no weapons. He wouldn’t dare around Kezra. He had told Solstice once to not bring any sort of conflict before their child and he had meant it. Not even a weapon could be in her presence. But there were other implements that could be deigned as weapons on him, one that began to grow aroused as he looked to the disheveled state Solstice was in. He didn’t like her like that, as she had been at IB. And no one here was torturing her, except him. He had to stop, if he wanted Kezra to have the best treatment. He knew what he had to do but it wasn’t easy. He had simply never done it before and did not know how to start.

“I don’t care.” He said flatly to her wishes. If her head was pounding, she had done that to herself with excessive drink. But was bottling emotions up any better, as he did? “I tell myself I don’t want to bring conflict around our child but what sort of life will I give to her, one of lies and illusions. I don’t care anymore what effect it might have on her even at this early age but she ought to know the truth, the meaning of what it means to be a part of my family. Same as you. Because I don’t care what you call me, sperm donor or otherwise. I am her father and you are her mother. Yes, we should have a conversation.” Kordavo declared, quite firmly. He walked over to the bed but remained standing away from her, perhaps a few feet in distance. He looked down at her, dipping his chin to his broad chest.

“I have come to tell you…you are right.” He then said, very softly and quietly, as if the confession scared him. “I should not have left you alone. I should not have allowed IB to take you as they did. I should have fought. I should have been there. But my hands were tied and that is the only excuse I can offer. If I pushed, I might have lost you completely. I cannot justify though that my actions alone have only allowed you to be with Kezra today. But I promise you that is all I want for my girl, to have a family that gets along. And talks. And doesn’t say vulgar things to one another out of spite. That goes as much for me as for you, for my actions are, as they say, worth a thousand words and is no different, better or worse.” Kordavo said, admitting to fault and guilt. He had wronged her and he admitted it.

He took a step closer. “Apologies mean little. What is done and said cannot be undone and unsaid. All I can offer is renewed action to head in the reverse direction, away from this abyss. I reacted angrily last night and took Kezra away from you. I promise I will not ever again and to prove it, only you have access now to her nursery, and who you let in. I will have to trust you not to lock me out, of which I can only earn through my good faith.” He looked aside to the window now. “And tonight…I will arrange a deep space transmission to Fraundia, to the royal palace there. You can…speak to your father. These concessions I give to you without condition. Accept them or leave them. I ask nothing in return.”

And with that, Kordavo looked to her briefly, and then turned on his heel to depart. Rather, he was fleeing, because simply put he did not think he would get anything out of it to his liking. He wasn’t even asking for anything, hoping these actions of his would show he was willing to open up and change for the better. That was the only way he could prove his merit, for words were not his strong suit. He could have taken revenge, as he was indeed justified in doing for the violence she inflicted to him. But if she had any further demands, further lessons she might want him to heed, he might be willing to hear them.
 
Solstice had expected another lecture about how stupid or emotional she was. They seemed to be the most common chats with Kordavo as he seemed to think little of her the majority of the time HE treated her poorly when she didn’t allow him in her bed, and she expected no different, so when he…. admitted his wrongs her eyes widened and she almost instantly sobered up as she sat up on the bed to make eye contact with him as he spoke. She appreciated the sentiment more than she could explain to the man, and it was truly unexpected out of him, so she gave him all of her attention. He was going to let her call home. The thought of speaking to her beloved father was more than she had ever expected. Did he even know she was alive? Had the news gotten that far in the short time since the war had ended?

When he went to leave, Solstice rose from the bed and strode after him until she was close enough to reach out and grab ahold of his hand, looking up at searching for his green eyes in her disheveled state. She just looked up at him sentimentally for a while as the stood there for moments without words of even the stirring of the babe nearby. After staring as him for a moment, Solstice stepped closer and lifted onto her tip toes so as to wrap her arms around his broad shoulders and nuzzle her face into his collarbone. He was offering kindness for the first time since his return, so she offered affection in return. He had earned that much from her.

“Thank you.” She finally whispered to him, though the sound was muffled by the fabric of his shirt and the surface of his body. She stood there, wrapped around him whether he hugged her back or not, for a long while. She didn’t want him to leave. There was so much to talk about, and what better way to talk about things than in her pajamas alone in her comfortable room. It was much more casual and therefore much more her speed. All these talks that only took place over the dinner table felt more like a business meeting than a conversation taking place between two people who had been past lovers and who could potentially be lovers again.
When the hug concluded, Solstice separates from the man and looked up at him once more. “Stay. Talk with me. I’ll rub your back. Surely those months of war with a people as strong as Fraundians has left you tense.” She spoke. Then, without asking for any further permission, she lead him to the mattress. The blankets were as disheveled as Solstice was herself, but the comfort remained. She guided him to climb on and lay on his stomach. Shortly thereafter, before he could change his mind, she crawled atop him, straddling his waist as her hands gently moved to relieve him of his vest and untuck his shirt.

“I won’t ever deny you access to Kezra so long as you treat her kindly as a father should. If you desert her as you have done me in the past or ever show her cruelty I will lock her away so that you can not touch her. Don’t make me do that, Kory. I want her to have a father, and she has not had one yet. But... in time... she can love you as she loves me. You must only give her your time.” Knowing hands traveled along the length of his long back, her thumbs pressing down firmly to identify the tense spots on his frame.

“As far as an ‘us’, Kordavo, there isn’t one. Not currently. You’re free to lay or love any woman you wish to. Your only tether to me is through Kezra. That is the only one I will make you keep. You’re relieved of all responsibility relating to me that does not have to do with the welfare of our child.” She spoke, rubbing his shoulders as she stayed hovered over his back. “If I did not keep you satisfied then I hope you can find a woman who can. It’s simple.” She said, looking down at the back of his head and side of his face as she spoke civilly to the man who had exchanged cruelty with her hours before.

“But...” She finally added, after what seemed to be an eternity of just massaging the knots out of his broad and intimidating shoulders. “If I did satisfy you, and you do want an ‘us’.” She stopped rubbing, and sat back on her haunches: tush to rush with the ma’am as she looked down at him. “If I did satisfy you and you want another chance with me and me alone I will be receptive to it. I see no better option than to fall for the man who gave me a child, but things will be different this time.” She spoke, an ounce of authority in her voice. His size and stature did not intimidate her in that moment.

“We won’t have any intimacy until you prove to me many times that you are a changed man. I expect kindness from you directed towards me. I expect you to make time for me amongst all of your Lordly duties. If you truly want me, Kordavo, I am to become a priority right alongside our child. Kezra is first and I am second. Wars, superiors, your father.. they must all come after us. I will be your family and I will be essential.” She rose her brows, looking down at him to see if he would concede. She knew she was asking the world from this man who seemingly did not know how to define love. Would he agree?

“Oh. And I also would like chocolate.” She smirked teasingly at him, trying to ease her own anxiety more than anything else.
 
For someone so surprisingly small, Solstice had a strong pull when she grabbed him from behind, faltering his progress on departing. Kordavo could have sighed at the sudden change in temperament, if it wasn’t what he wanted from the beginning. Nor could he deny that the embrace felt…satisfying and warm. Tingles like butterflies tickled his innards and he felt her nuzzle against him, offering a muffled thanks. What had he even done? He was apologizing. It didn’t warrant gratitude, for it should have been conducted from the start! But he took it, turning to face her and with the slightest of nods, accepted her offer of talk and…massage.

He didn’t speak. It was Solstice that left him tense, not the war. It was their dynamic around Kezra that left him rigid and ill at ease. He did not believe he had deserted anyone, for he only did his duty to state and people, as Kezra would when she was older. If she came to despise him for it, she would eventually forgive her father, as Kordavo had learned to accept with his own parents. He lay and allowed himself to be undressed, enjoying the attentions where before he had been denied all of it. His vest and shirt came off, revealing his strong back and hard tendons of muscle. There was a tension in them that even Kordavo didn’t know he had. He closed his eyes and let her work. What was the danger now?

Should he expect a knife to his throat like on Skarvis?

As her hands worked, little but effective and precise like a medical scalp, he barely heeded her words as he felt himself fall into a trance. Physical relief came twofold, first like a burning sensation as it was targeted, then dissipated as it was pressed away. Where had she learned to massage? He listened to her words and did not speak, for he knew she would have much to say. She paused in her labours to drive home a point, that if he did desire a relationship he needed to make some changes. She wanted proof, which caused his eyebrows to twitch in irritation. The call to her father, the promise of no restricted access to her child, wasn’t it enough? What more could she want from him? Frankly it was a little infuriating, for he did not see what else to do. She wanted to be given time, to be made a priority in his busy life, to earn a shot at intimacy.

Sitting on his waist and groin didn’t help in that last bit. Already he was gaining…mass there, just from the near presence of her keyhole to his key. Wars were finished and both his father and superiors were one and the same really. But was he consenting in his mind or finding loopholes in her words to excuse himself from the difficult changes? He knew he had to go all the way with it and yet it seemed…intimidating to him. At her final request, he opened his eyes and there was no bemusement at all in his features, despite her own grin and teasing tone.

“Chocolate is bad for you, for your teeth.” He simply said dryly. Oh boy was he a dull man at times. Excuses again. He sighed and rolled his eyes, marking his ascent anyways to that. “I do not want another woman. I have had a child with you. I will not have it with another. I have seen the troubles and issues that can cause, when a family is diluted like that. I want us.” He said to her, making a promise that even if they did fight, she was still essential to him. She was still here right? She was making it all so difficult on him and yet he was still here, fighting and pursuing her, no matter how badly she got on his nerves. He could not have another now. He would not have another now. He did not want to be like his parents.

“Only us.” He said, looking up at her, laying limp and still beneath her. He sighed again, the great inhale and exhale of his breath rising up her little body as it straggled up, dipping down as he blew air from his mouth. “Very well. I agree to your…parameters. I will try your differences and I will make time for you. I do want you. Only you. There will be no other and there will be more tethers between you and I.” Kordavo said softly, looking up at her with what could be deigned a soft expression for him. He did not say anything about Kezra because he felt he had already proven she was essential to him. Did Solstice not see them spending time together this morning, even as helpless as he was with his daughter? He was trying. His actions would prove it, not his words.

He abruptly sat up, hands coming to Soly’s side to hold her steady on his strong thighs and lap. They even slipped a little under her shirt – his shirt – and held her naked sides as he came up suddenly to look her right in the eyes. “Come with me to a baile, a ball of sorts. It will be hosted in a few days to…celebrate the end of the war. I want you to come as my guest and my companion.” He asked her, looking very intently into her eyes. “It will be a formal gathering, with dance and dinner, and all the high lords and ladies shall attend, politicians, high officers, and others. I want you to be seen with me. I want everyone to see the strength of this Fraundian Princess. We shall find you appropriate wear and jewelry and all the other signs of your office and rank to showcase in pride.” He reached up to put his large, warm palm to her cheek. “I want you to come with me and be at my side.” He said, imploring her.

There was no ill intent in his words. He did not want her to come to be paraded as a war captive. He did not want her to be humiliated or seen as some trophy wife. His request was genuine. If there was to be a us, everyone had to know it and accept it. They were to be a team, a union, an alliance, and everything between those. Besides, he was certain Solstice could handle herself in any such arrangement if someone did challenge her, if they dared in front of Kordavo anyways. Without waiting for her answer, he slowly slipped back to lay on the bed, falling quite heavily which caused shudders all along the mattress because of his bulk. “But I would understand if you don’t wish to.” He offered her. A choice, rather than the usual forcing he made upon her.
 
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