Tags & warnings: Noncon, slavery, nonconsensual body modification, sexual sacrifice, tentacle sex, monsterfuck
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The day of the wedding, Arthur is roused from his restless sleep before the light of the Hyades has even begun to shift, so his attendants—attendants he certainly never asked for, and who frankly aren’t there for his benefit—can begin preparing him.
To say he shudders at the prospect doesn’t do it justice. He’s been in horrors about it ever since he was first presented to the King. He had been a glorious nightmare, inhumanly tall even where he lounged on his throne, robes of golden samite covering a body draped in ways not even remotely human with a carved mask for a face. A mask that Arthur had known instinctively, atavistically, had hidden features his mind was not made to see.
They said that his brides went mad from gazing upon his uncovered face. And that it was a terrible way to die.
Read more: Malevoween Day 25: Cursed Jewelry & TreasureHe’s been through three days of rituals, meant to prepare and sanctify his body for the King’s enjoyment. Now they ritually bathe, anoint and bind him. He sits still—fighting could accomplish nothing but his death and the King’s disfavor on his people—as they rub him with scented oils and wrap him in an elaborate golden body chain. It catches at his throat and spreads in a collar about his shoulders, then drapes in a net down over his chest and torso to weave in beautiful designs over his abdomen, and about his hips and ass.
The designs it shapes over his belly and hips are sigils of fertility, and he knows the moment the first links of the chain touch his skin that it’s spelled.
“It’s blessed,” one of them tells him in reverent tones, as the arousal shivers out like ripples on water from the places the chain lie against him, “with the favor of our lord.” To make Arthur eager to serve him.
That ‘favor’ soaks into him while they keep adorning him. He can feel it working; feel his body ripening, growing wet and lush with anticipation, with the desire not just for pleasure but conception.
He closes his eyes and begins trembling. He’d known the form his sacrifice to the King would take. He hadn’t expected to lose even the dignity of self-possession for it.
They decorate him in bands of precious metals and bangles with tiny chiming bells around his biceps, wrists and ankles; pendants of black opal from the piercings they gave him in his ears and nipples and nostril. When they hang the little weighted pendants of black opal and hematite from his nipples, he pushes his chest into their touches with a moan.
He can’t keep from squirming under their hands when they cinch a floor-length skirt low on his hips. It’s made of layers of tulle so fine that even multiple layers of it do little to conceal his body—or the body chain, shining golden with its myriad tiny chips of precious stone glinting in the light.
He wishes one of his attendants would defy their god, push him down and make him spread his legs for them. He’s not certain whether that’s his body talking, hungry to the point of madness to be fucked and fertilized, or his mind, wishing desperately for a last chance at escape from the one he’s destined for.
Instead they bind his hands, shackling his wristbands to each other and filling his hands with a bouquet, tied there so he can’t drop it. With his consecration complete, no one may enjoy his body until the King has taken his fill of it—not even Arthur himself.
Finally they drape him with a veil that cascades from the crown of his head to sweep the floor. Beneath it, nothing can touch him. He’s trapped, sealed in with the unspeakable desire and unable to even touch himself.
The wedding is a splendid whirl of colors and textures, sounds and scents. Half-drowning in the need of his body, Arthur barely has the mind to process them all. The chamber is draped in rich clothes and ornaments and it’s full of crowds of people; their whirl of colors and adornments grows brighter and richer the closer he approaches to the front. Strange, agile music fills the air, played on thin strings. The air is filled with heady, expensive scents.
The King is not an uncivilized monster. He does honor to those who are sacrificed to his appetites. And in so doing, he signals to his people that their offering is accepted, and they are safe for another cycle.
At least Arthur can face his fate knowing that he’s bought his family protection.
Gowned, pierced, made up and bejeweled, Arthur walks down the aisle between two of the King’s guards.
At the front stands the King on the dais. When his attention finds Arthur, the guards and shackles become clear. Many a bride must have sought the final mercy of a quick death instead of going to him.
He stands before the altar, towering and glorious in cascades of gold, haloed in a light of his own making. There is no priest; what need does a living god need for a lesser authority? The awful majesty of him shudders out through the chamber. His attention beats against Arthur’s body like a drumbeat. The pounding of a great fist, demanding the opening of his gates.
Hidden by the filigreed strains of the music, Arthur gasps. One of the guards has to catch him beneath an elbow as his knees nearly give out, and help him up the steps to the dais.
There, he can only look up. His eyes can’t be moved from the King, who gazes down upon him. Who lifts Arthur’s face with two clawed fingers beneath his veiled chin.
“Exquisite,” the King murmurs to him alone.
On that one word, everything changes. What is exquisite? Arthur’s costume? His obedience? His fear? The desperate flush of his body, whose yearning has throbbed for the King alone since his eyes found Arthur at the entry vestibule? He sways on his feet, pulled toward the King as if on a string.
This creature, this god, whose power clasps Arthur in a possessive embrace already, when he’s barely touched him. Arthur moans, body stretching toward him like a flower to the sun, even while his own voice reminds him beneath the swimming pleasure that this is his sentencing.
His yearning doesn’t go unmarked. The King’s pleasure is palpable, a radiant force flowing from him across the room as he lifts his deep, resonant voice. “Do you choose me?”
“Yes,” Arthur says, and manages the wherewithal to put some projection behind it because the tangled parts of his mind are clear on this much. He does choose the King. He chooses this fate, this doom, chose it when he first left his home to come here, because his sacrifice means the lives and comfort of his family and his people. For that, he’ll give whatever is required, whether what awaits him is horror or pleasure or some bone-shaking combination of both.
He begins to think it might be both when the King cups his face and pulls upward, till Arthur is on his toes and stretched as tall as his spine can go. The King keeps pulling, hand clenching, claws catching in the delicate folds of Arthur’s veil to pull it away and bare him. His own heavy golden robe rustles and parts as he pushes Arthur back till his hips bump the altar.
The altar he’ll be married on, his wedding consummated before this eager sea of people. And yet Arthur can’t look away from the way the robe twists and seethes as it parts. It’s alive, made of endless tendrils, all reaching for him—
They pluck at him, testing his bindings and decorations. Toying with the heavy pendants on his nipples, winding around the body chain till he’s anchored to the King. They slither up beneath the fine layers of his skirt and the audience can see, he knows. Can see the bold golden tendrils winding up his legs to stroke over his inner thighs, cup his ass, tease between his legs where he aches so badly for this being that he can’t— he can’t—
He falls into their embrace as his legs buckle entirely. They take his weight and guide him back onto the altar while he arches up, begging for their touch. He can hear his own voice begging, taken away from his control.
“Lovely little creature.” The King’s murmur is enough to fill the room. One of those tendrils is testing at Arthur’s slit, licking at his entrance and making the pitch of his voice ratchet up with desperation. “You’re ready for me.”
He pushes Arthur’s skirts up; powerful claws shred the fabric out of his way like cobwebs. The tentacles spread him open as they enter him. More curl under his hips to lift from the soft bedding atop the altar, so that the audience can clearly see him opened up and taken. Arthur shivers in his skin at being put so blatantly on display. But oh, he can’t stop his hips from rising, greedily seeking more, an active participant in his own penetration.
They move casually inside him, surging deeper into him with each thrust without hurry or particular force, and yet there’s a toughness to them. A durability that makes him aware of his own fragility. A muscular strength to them as they flex and bend inside him that highlights the delicacy of his own tissues. The King could rip him apart from the inside out if he cared to.
The King doesn’t care to. Instead, he bears down, and Arthur cries out as his tendrils plunge into the hidden depths of his body.
He lifts his legs, wants to wrap them around the King, but his heels slide on rich fabric and broad smooth flanks. Instead, tentacles catch around his ankles and calves. They pull his legs to the King’s flanks and stroke up his thighs like a lover’s hand.
The way the King moves inside him…! He throws back his head and moans.