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Fire Emblem Echoes - Celica - F/M, Non-consent, humiliation
~ ~ ~The war for Valentia had been over for more than a year. The land was at peace, the scars of the lengthy, brutal conflict slowly fading away, and the royal lines of Zofia and Rigel were bound together as one, the marriage of Valentia's king and queen the final page in the history books of the land's most terrible period.If only the Valentians had not sought to open a new chapter by crossing the treacherous sea to the continent of Archanea, their queen might not now have been on her knees in the bowels of a decaying pirate ship, naked but for the chains bolted tight around her wrists, the damp tip of a foully unwashed cock pressing firm against her soft pink lips."Open up, slut."The pirate towered over her forcibly kneeling form, ragged pants torn down to rugged knees, clothes and beard and face as disheveled and filthy as hairy bear of a man smelled. He was enormous and Celica was defenseless, her shackles bolted to the wall at her back to spread her arms away from her body, but her lips remained closed, her fiery eyes flashing in rebellion.She knew that he was going to have his way, but she would not make it easy for him. The Queen of Valentia could not surrender. Not like this.She didn't know where Alm was now, or what had happened to the rest of the army, her comrades and friends. All she knew was that she had been knocked unconscious during the battle against the pirate vessel, and when she had awoken she was on the deck of the strange vessel, surrounded by a savage crew that thought themselves 'wronged' by old Rigel and Zofia both. They hadn't been shy about telling her of corsair friends executed and pirate dens burned as they stripped her naked, bound her arms, crushed her tiara underfoot and touched her, wherever and however they pleased, as they dragged her into the bowels of their ship where the sun could never find her. As they used her.The reek of the brigands' disgusting cocks had made Celica recoil in disgust at first, but after a full day chained up in the depths of the dingy ship she was reluctantly accustoming herself to foul scents and worse. None of them had actually gone so far as to thrust themselves between her legs - a prize they had told her that they were saving to save for the pirate lord who supposedly waited for their return in their lair - but the crew had still found plenty of ways to use her for their enjoyment, and it showed. Her long red tresses were matted with countless streaks of pearly white semen, some of the sticky fulids still sickeningly damp and warm against her hair, some dried to clotting. Half of them had been 'gifts' from the same cruel beast among the crew who gloried in spurting his loads into her once beautiful hair and wiping his cock clean on the lustrous strands he had missed, but Celica's long red mane offered a great deal of ground to cover, and the bastards hadn't hesitated to paint every last vibrant lock in filthy, clinging white. Every waking hour she could smell it, and every waking hour there was more, always fresh leavings to dampen the dry spots.Of course, they hadn't stopped with her hair. With her arms spread out to her sides and her wrists locked in place against the wall in chains, there had been nothing that Celica could do to protect herself from the thick ropes of seed that they had sprayed over nearly every inch of her exposed, pale skin. Of course, the revolting gang of apes had their preferred targets; her face always bore at least one pearly splash that glistened in the dim lantern-light they brought with them, her creamy breasts a permanent maze of crisscrossed lines that drizzled over nipples and seeped into the valley between, but their sordid stains were everywhere, from stretched arms and limp hands to stomach and thighs and knees, most dry, some wet, every one a wound to her flagging dignity.How much of their filth had been spent down her throat, she could barely make a guess."I said fucking open up."The owner of the fetid cock currently pushing against Celica's lips was a man that the despoiled Queen had only been forced to service once before, and she had not forgotten how viciously he had slapped her when she had refused him before, but she turned her encrusted face away from him nonetheless, stubborn defiance burning in her eyes. She had endured far too much in her torrid life to surrender to a man like this.Whatever happened, they wouldn't kill her. The Queen of Valentia was far too great a prize for that."You're not in your fucking castle now, bitch." Her current 'client' was far from impressed with the monarch's bravery, his thick, dirty fingers violently wrapping themselves in her messy red hair without a care for the sticky dampness that greeted them, twisting Celica's face back around to meet the violent thrust of his slick-tipped prick. Her mouth slipped open around a pain-spurred yelp, and the bastard needed no greater opportunity to shove himself between her lips, battering down her tongue as he rammed his length deep inside. "An' keep yer teeth to yerself unless you want me to knock 'em out."She'd considered it. She had fantasized about biting down every time one of them had forced their filthy member into her mouth, but she hadn't. If one of them lost control of themselves, blinded by pain and fury, there was no telling what they might do to her. She was not ready to die. Not here, and not now, when there was so much left for her to do.So, she let him.She didn't bite. Didn't resist any more than she already had, for now that he was in her mouth she had no other means of forcing him out. He gripped both sides of her head and thrust, pistoning himself in and out of lips that were becoming far to used to such degrading treatment, his cock thick and hard and hot but tasting no different to the others she had been made to take. She breathed when he let her, coughed and spluttered when he didn't, tried to shut out the scratch of his thin black hairs against her face and the slap of his balls against her chin and just focus on sucking in air, no longer caring for how much drool cascaded down her face or how badly her arms ached.She just needed to survive until Alm came for her.That was what she told herself as he used her mouth, as he spat curses upon her sex-soaked head, as he groaned and gasped and sent a fresh load of thick seed spurting down her royal throat. The dregs of his warm, sticky leavings soiled her mouth and tongue as he pulled himself out, and Celica closed her eyes tight and forced herself to swallow them, knowing that he was watching her. They had made it plain from the moment they had broken her in that there would be no spitting."That's what you fucking deserve."She hadn't expected him to speak. They rarely did after they were done with her, and Celica warily opened her tearful eyes, the bitter, salty taste of semen lingering on her tongue."Royal cunts let the whole fucking country go to shit." He was Zofian, Celica was able to tell from his accent, twisted though it had become. 'Her' half of Valentia, ruled by her family, not that it would have made any difference to a man like this. "Don't give a shit about the people till you can win some points by protectin' em from men like us, and we're supposed to be the bad guys. Men who were just picking on fat merchant ships so's we could eat."It might have been easier to sympathize with him if he hadn't spent the last few minutes ramming his cock down her throat."Might want to get some rest." He had clearly expected the gasping, disheveled, exhausted queen to cough out an apology, and when he didn't get what he wanted, he had no more use for her. He pulled up her pants, wiping the mess from his soiled cock with a tattered rag from his pocket, then, after a moment's sadistic thought, balled the rag up in his fist and leaned down to force it between Celica's lips, grinning wickedly as the queen of Valentia choked and moaned around its slimy, scratchy bulk. "We're at the lair tomorrow mornin'," he warned her as he snatched a length of bandage from another pocket and wrapped it between her lips, forcing the first cloth deeper in, knotting the makeshift gag at the back of her soiled red hair. "Get you cleaned up nice and pretty for the boss man. He's yer king now, Queen Anthiese."He left, and he took the lantern with him, but though tears flowed freely down Celica's cheeks, slicing trails through the white fluid dried on her face, the Queen of Valentia had no plans to bow before anybody tomorrow. Alm and the heroes of the Deliverance would come for her, and when they did, it would be the men of this ship in chains, and their king humbled in surrender.
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Fire Emblem Heroes - Olivia, Niles, Aversa, Camilla and Narcian - F/F, M/F, dubious consent, objectification
~ ~ ~Olivia had been far from eager to attend the intimate little party, a gathering of heroes from distant worlds at which she would know almost nobody beyond the sight of them, but Niles had been persuasively insistent in the way that only the Nohrian archer could, and his assurance that her role would be merely decorative had comforted the shy girl into reluctant assent. Social events might have been daunting to the stammering maiden sometimes, but if her only role would be dancing for the irrepressible rogue and his friends, perhaps the party was nothing for her to fear, after all.If only she had known how much Niles's taste in decoration differed from her own. By the time his guests had arrived for the gathering, Olivia was already the center of attention, but there would be no dancing tonight. Instead, the Nohrian fiend had made an ornament of her.They would find her standing in the middle of the archer's chambers, but it was not by the dancer's free will. It was the ropes that kept her there, callously winding around her naked body and the wooden pillar at her back, binding her wrists together behind it and her left leg to its rough wooden bulk at thigh and knee and ankle. Wretchedly tight patterns of thin, scratchy cord spidered across her nearly nude body, knots anchoring her in place against the pole at her back at chest and hip, digging into the snowy curves of breasts barely covered by the skimpy black brassiere of her dancer's costume. Most of the dark-colored costume had been taken from her, but Niles had been kind enough to leave her a few scraps of modesty to hide behind...Not that the tiny black panties she had worn beneath her loincloth provided her much protection against the rope hitching tight between her legs, tormenting the delicate flower between with friction when she moved and unrelenting pressure when she didn't.Gods, how had she let him talk her into this?! How had that silver tongue of his twisted her love of entertaining until this had seemed like an acceptable idea?She was accustomed to physically strenuous positions in her dances, he had pointed out to the faltering girl, and she always affected daringly revealing costumes for the good of the performance, despite her overwhelming shyness. Was this really so different? He could even blindfold her so that she wouldn't have to see them looking at her, and in the traditions of the his world, or so he claimed, this was a common method dancers used to train their flexibility. It would be a win for both of them, Niles had assured her, and she simply hadn't been able to say no...Perhaps if he had deigned to tell her about the thick pink rubber ball he intended to strap inside her mouth, or the hideously uncomfortable way he planned to haul her right leg up in front of her, pointing it forward and holding it aloft in an intricate web of rope, her answer might have been different.The awkward position her leg had been forced into did not help the pressure on her aching cunt, nor did it improve her faltering sense of balance. Had she not been fastened to the sturdy pole at arm and chest and hip and leg she might well have toppled over, but Olivia could not quite find it within herself to be grateful to the man who had bound her here for such security. It felt as if she had let the Nohrian man make a fool of her twice over, and the satin blindfold tied over her eyes did little to help her forget that she was being watched when the archer's guests were so very eager to remind her."She has quite the body, doesn't she?" Her face swiveled toward the source of the smug male voice, a speaker that she didn't recognize by sound alone, but the blindfold tied over her wide pink eyes ensured that she could see only darkness."She's from the World of Awakening, you say?"This voice was sultry, feminine, but Olivia was no more able to ascertain who it belonged to, and her cheeks heated still further as she realises how close to her its owner must be standing. Close enough to touch."That's right." This voice was unmistakably Niles, smooth and silken and laced with sinful delight, and Olivia longed to make her displeasure known. The gag, of course, would not allow it, filling her mouth to its limits, the warm, wet sensation of drool trickling down her chin and spattering against her chest intensifying the dancer's humiliation. "One day, I really must thank the Summoner for bringing so many fascinating people together like this. Perhaps I should have invited her?""I thought I recognized this one..." A new voice, again, but this time the husky feminine strains were horrifyingly familiar to the blindfolded dancer. Memories of battles hard-fought in her own world unfurled themselves in her head, images of a white-haired woman swathed in foreboding tattoos and unearthly malevolence swimming back to the surface. Cultist. Witch. Aversa. What was she doing here?! "One of Prince Chrom's followers, yes? I think I like her better like this..."Cold sweat broke out across Olivia's body, the dancer stiffening against the pole, but the witch did not lay a finger upon her, metaphorical or otherwise.Not all of Niles's guests were so polite, however. "Are we permitted to touch, or only look?" queried the other feminine voice, footsteps coming ever nearer, and Olivia's aching body shivered as cool air moved against her bare skin. She was close. Too close. "I would so love to play..."A long moment of silence, sparks of anxious tension exploding throughout Olivia's chest. She wanted to touch her? That was never a part of the arrangement, nor had it ever been a feature of her dancing act...Then, finally, Niles filled the void with his silken voice. "Why don't we ask her?"More footsteps approached, heavier and more purposeful, and Olivia felt warm hands circling around her head, seeking out the buckle hidden beneath a veil of long pink hair. An uncomfortable pull against the corners of her parted lips, and the gag was eased out from between her teeth, leaving drool to spill out from her lips as she gratefully sucked in air. With her mouth blocked and her chest compressed by rope, breathing had been harder than she had realized."Well, darling?" That seductively female voice again, her words breathed against Olivia's ear, heat clouding against the dancer's cheek as stray hairs drifted against her bare, straining shoulder. "Would you like to be touched? Is that why you are here?"It wasn't, and the idea made her want to bury herself in the floorboards, but countless minutes of rough, uncompromising pressure rubbing against her delicate breasts and scything between the lips of her womanhood had softened her mental defenses to the point that it no longer seemed the most terrible of ideas. She barely felt like herself at all here, disoriented by blindfold and asymmetry she couldn't fight, her entire body sore and stretched, need pooling between her legs. She wondered if they could see her want on her half-covered face. How wet her panties had become.She didn't even know who was here. Niles. Aversa, for whatever unholy reason. At least two other people, a woman and a man, but for all she knew there were still others waiting in the wings, looking at her. Waiting their chance to lay their hands on her. Someone else she knew, perhaps? From the World of Awakening, as these people termed it, or from Askr itself, this strange kingdom where worlds collided? She considered asking Niles to take off her blindfold, but apprehension stilled her tongue. Was it better if she didn't know? Besides, if Chrom were here, or Robin, or any of her fellow Shepherds of Ylisse, surely she would know it by now, if only by their gasps of horror. She knew not the other voices, and they likely knew not who she was or where she was from. For all she knew, even this Aversa hailed from a different world than her own, one of the myriad unexplored Outrealms. Here, nobody truly knew her, and here her limits no longer seemed solid, more for testing than they were for avoiding.Did it really matter, in a strange world that was not her own...?"O-okay..."~ ~ ~She would never see the fierce intensity of the Lady Camilla's gaze as the Nohrian princess stroked the dancer's soft pink hair, fingertips trailing from braided tresses down shoulder and skin until they reached the swell of her breast and squeezed.She would never witness the delight in General Narcian's eyes as his hand glided between her thighs, tracing the rope wedged in the soaked crotch of the restrained girl's panties, grinding it deeper with a fingertip until she wailed for him to stop.She would never take in Aversa's smile of satisfaction as the witch pulled down the bra that had shielded the helpless dancer's paper-thin modesty, as she remorselessly toyed with her nipples, plucked and pinched and squeezed them, as she kissed her on the mouth with the sure confidence of an owner.She would never know that there were others watching, silent and still, content to watch for afar as the dancer submitted herself as a plaything. There were no Ylissean Shepherds among their number, Niles had made sure, but men and women who were appreciative of beauty confined and tormented, blind and helpless and needful, standing in judgment of the lovely dancer from a foreign world as she moaned and whimpered and writhed in her bonds. She would not see their faces tonight, nor hear their voices, but when next they met in the barracks or on the battlefield, they would see her and they would know.
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Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones - Natasha - M/F, non-consent, humiliation, aphrodisiac use
~ ~ ~Natasha hung limp from her chained wrists, her pure white cleric's robes hanging from her body in scraps and tatters.She was no warrior nor mage, merely a healer in the service of the church. She was no threat to the soldiers of Grado, but they had treated her like their most dangerous enemy from the moment they had apprehended her near the Renais border. They had tied her to tightly she had pleaded for mercy, and since then they had never left her unbound, even after she was thrown into a filthy dungeon cell that she could never have escaped even with the use of her hands. It was cruelty for cruelty's sake, an unnecessary torment for a girl more wont to tend the injured than create them, for ever since she had been taken by the emperor's soldiers, she had been a plaything, a toy for them to abuse as they liked.Perhaps they were taking out their frustrations upon her for how long she had embarrassed them by eluding their pursuit. Perhaps it was a punishment for the things she had said when they had taken her, for the way she had slandered their Emperor's name. Perhaps they merely enjoyed her sounds and shudders, her protests and pleas, muffled though the latter were by the bulky sackcloth gag they had tied into her mouth, the thick, scratchy fabric parting her teeth and sawing at the delicate corners of her lips, trapping dirtied blonde hair between burlap and skin.Whatever the reason, there was no escape. She had almost made it out of Grado, but now the dark secret that she carried would die with her.If only the men had listened to her. If only they had believed her when she had told them the horrible truth; that their Emperor's mad war against the other nations of Magvel was born of a desire to destroy the Sacred Stones that held back the Demon King himself. If only they had let her escape to warn the leaders of Frelia and Renais... but no, they had taken her before she could flee the country, and her attempts to warn them again of the darkness taking hold over Grado when they had dragged her out of her filthy cell had been greeted with a brutal slap that still burned her cheek like stubborn embers. The soldiers of Grado were too fanatically loyal to the throne to entertain the wild stories of an admitted traitor, pain the penalty for impugning their master's good name. They had threatened to take her tongue if she spoke such words again, and the darkness in their eyes had made plain that they had meant it.She had been given a great deal of time by herself, hungry and thirsty and shivering with cold, to dwell on her behavior the next time they returned. The dungeon they kept her in was lightless and cold when the men and their fiery torches were absent, and though Natasha feared and loathed their company, the warmth and illumination they brought with them were welcome, at the least. In the dark it was easy to imagine the very worst of her surroundings, although the image the firelight unveiled was scarcely better than the nightmare in the lovely cleric's head; iron bars and hanging chains and dangling gibbets, sights fit to make the blood run cold. She was the only one kept on this lowest level of the claustrophobic prison, beneath the cells that detained the city's everyday thieves and killers. For Natasha, a traitor to Emperor and empire, only the darkest and coldest of places would do. Finally, they had come for her, and the disgusting bowls of gruel and dirty water they had given her had felt like a feast.Now, she was here, her slender arms aching from the strain of holding her up, her cleric's robes hanging from her thin frame in ruins. Every scrap of flesh that a modest cleric would wish to hide from view was on shameful display, from her small breasts to the gentle curves of her ass and thighs to the valley of pink flesh between her legs, graced by a little patch of thin blonde curls. They'd looked, they'd touched, and the fact that her body was plastered with dirt and filth from the floor of the dungeon hadn't seemed to trouble the fiends one ounce.They had made it their mission to disgrace her, after all.To them, she was no run of the mill traitor to the Emperor. To them, a holy woman was worthy of the deepest respect, but to turn against throne and country was a sin against her robes and her vows, in their eyes, and if she had made a mockery of them, then it was the duty of the men of Grado to make a mockery of her, in turn.They would sully her in the eyes of her god, stain her so deeply that no holy water or words of confession could ever cleanse her.It was to that end that they fondled her, toyed with her breasts and slipped their grimy fingers inside of her. That they tried to arouse her, make her wet, make her nipples harden beneath their hands and her breaths waver against their chests. That they took away her gag and kissed her, forced themselves into her mouth and filled her stomach with their seed.That they finally drugged her when they had tired of her stubborn resistance, slipping aphrodisiacs into her slop that made her burn and beg for touch.She did.She held out, longer than any of the men had believed, but after hours of torment, her abused body afire with the need for relief, she whimpered for their help, and when they denied her, she pleaded, cried for them to help her. To make it stop.Even then the words she chose did not please them, and they demanded she ask them to fuck her.She had never spoken such a foul word before in her life, but now it fell from her lips as easily as her own name. She would have said anything to make it stop, to quench the fires of profane lust between her thighs.With tears in her eyes she begged them to fuck her, and with glee in theirs, they obliged.They did not unchain her, for they already had access to all that they needed. Their pants came down, their cocks fell out, already stiff and ready, and they spared no time in shoving themselves into her, each one taking their preference of her cunt or her ass and burying their unwashed manhoods inside her. Taking their pleasure from her so violently that even the aphrodisiac-fueled lust coursing through her body was not quite enough to mask the pain.She hated the sounds she made against her will, the moans and the gasps that fled her lips as they forced themselves on her, but she could not make herself stop.By the time they had finished with her, her lower body dripping with their orgasms and her own, the need that had burned so violently hot within Natasha was dying. Leaving her with only embers, and exhaustion, and the memories of how readily she had accepted her disgrace, even begged for it.Of how a part of her had welcomed her own violation.Their drug had done more to her than inflame her with lust; her mind had grown hazy, clouded, unable to hang onto anything but need and sensation, and in the sweltering, foggy morass that her head had become, the sinful thoughts that she had entertained had seemed entirely her own. As she hung there in her chains, long after the men had gone and their cum had grown cold against her thighs, she told herself that it was because they had drugged her, that such thoughts were entirely forced upon her, that she had never wanted them, that she never would. Even the idea of those foul men coming back and using her again made her sick with fear and revulsion.Yet strung up by her wrists in the now-lonely dungeon, dangling helplessly from the ceiling with her feet barely touching the floor, there was nothing that Natasha could do now but think. To dwell upon her shaky memories, poring over every lurid second of the event that her addled mind had seen fit to retain, again and again. Second-guessing herself, questioning herself, turning her darkening thoughts over and over in her head.The desires she had felt hadn't been hers. She wasn't like that, no matter what the drugs had made her feel.But a drug shouldn't have been able to affect her that badly, should it? Maybe it could make her body ache for sex against her will, but her mind... wasn't a cleric supposed to be stronger than that? Pure? Chaste? Above the sins of the flesh?She could not have stopped them taking her, but could she not have at least prevented herself from enjoying it? Deeply ashamed, of her weakness, of what she had allowed them to turn her into, Natasha closed her tear-filled eyes tight and prayed for forgiveness.
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Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Leonie and Marianne - Humiliation, references to non-consent and torture
~ ~ ~The subterranean dungeons of the Adrestian Empire's capital held a great many prisoners confined within its oppressive shadows, but the very deepest level, forgotten by the sun's warm light, was home only to the most dangerous captives in the Empire's possession.Not one but two high-ranking officers of the Leicester Alliance were held within, their cells right next door to one another and separated only by thick iron bars, but when the torturers made their daily call, it was always the same cell door that they hauled open, the same woman they dragged out by her hair.It was always Leonie left to clutch the bars of her prison and watch in helpless fury as Marianne was pulled into the torture chamber across the hall, the heavy wooden door sealed behind them.The only gap in that oaken edifice was a tiny barred slot near the top, but it was more than large enough for Leonie to hear her friend's screams, her pleas for mercy, the jeers and growls of the guards and the crack of the whip, noises that would echo in the warrior's nightmares for years to come. They always returned her to her cell in tears, naked and bound, the same leather muzzle strapped over her face to deny her even the right to speak. Straps wove themselves all around her head, through the dirty mess of her soft blue hair, an echo of the ropes crisscrossing her pale, red-scarred body, as much a punishment as a means of securing her. Sometimes she was bruised and battered, sometimes dripping with semen, sometimes barely even conscious, still smelling of flesh burned and healed by magic. Every time they secured her to the floor of her cell by the metal collar about her throat, the chain so unforgivingly short that she could barely lift her head.They never touched Leonie. Never bound her, never stripped her. She had the freedom of her little cell, was given tolerable food, and the only time that they spoke a word to her was when Marianne was safely locked away again, crying and shivering and trying to block out the hurt.That was when they questioned her, demanding information of Leonie that Marianne could never give them.It hadn't taken more than one torture session for the Empire to be sure that the blue-haired noblewoman knew nothing. Her recently recovered self-esteem had snapped like a twig within an hour, her suffering so great that she would have told them anything to end it. They should have discarded her immediately and moved on to her comrade, and Leonie had been grimly prepared for it to happen...Instead, they continued to come for Marianne, every single day.The point was starkly made, though it was never spelled out in words. Leonie would come to no harm, would be treated with the most dignity and respect that could be accorded to a prisoner of war... but as long as she kept her mouth shut, her more fragile friend would suffer. Day after day after day, until Leonie finally broke.It hadn't happened yet, but it was becoming harder and harder for Leonie to stay strong. The resolve in her heart would not endure forever, not when she fell asleep every night - or what she believed was night - staring at her former classmate, imagining in the darkest corners of her mind what they might have done to her. How much it must have hurt. Whether she would ever recover. Whether she would ever forgive Leonie for damning her to this fate.Now that Marianne was finally asleep, Leonie dared to look upon her through the bars that walled them apart, guilt threatening to crush her.Chained down by her throat, limp and bound and beaten, Marianne had never presented a more pitiful figure than she did right now, not even when she was moping her way through their days together at Garreg Mach. It tore at Leonie's heart to see that the dark circles that had once haunted the girl's eyes had returned in force, staining her pale face, a reminder of the mental torment that she was suffering through thanks to her friend's stubbornness. Rope sank into her skin like chafing claws, scything around her slender, vulnerable body and cleaving into her filthied curves in strategically selected places; tortuously squeezing her breasts, savagely tight between her semen-soiled legs and the violated cleft of her ass, arms bent and wrists crossed between her shoulder-blades despite the agony the binding must have caused her. How she had managed to fall asleep, Leonie didn't know; the poor girl must have been exhausted.Anther twinge of guilt stabbed through her at that, overlapping the last, cold as ice and just as brutal.Gods, she longed to ease Marianne's torment. Unbind her fragile body, slide the muzzle from her mouth, hold her close and beg for her forgiveness through a cascade of remorseful tears. Of course, she couldn't reach her even if she slid her entire arm between the bars that divided her cells, the collar and chain about the blue-haired girl's throat keeping her out of reach, and her pleas for her friend to understand had done little to ease Marianne's suffering in the past. No, it only seemed to increase it, Leonie's stoic refusal to break promising Marianne only more pain, more humiliation and disgrace, again and again until there was nothing left of her. The agony in her once-warm brown eyes had begun to seem an accusation, her desperate stare every time the men brought her back here in ruins and chained her down to the floor breaking Leonie's heart every single time.Oh, how she wanted to lie to them, give them a false picture of Claude's clever plots... but they had made it plain whose life would be forfeit if she led them astray, and Leonie had no doubt that they meant it. They had already inflicted so much upon Marianne; killing her would be nothing to them.She just had to give Claude time. They had to keep surviving, the both of them. Leonie's heart had to hold out, as did Marianne's body and soul.Just hold out.One more month.