The third novella in the Rogue series.

“Lady Oksana, it is a pleasure.” A pudgy hand was extended towards the object of the greeting, the red haired warrior lady of the north, a woman who carried scars with the honor of men, the inimitable, the terrible Lady Oksana. Feared, revered and now after the death of Colban, ruler of all Northern states, surrounding leaders naturally sent their respects and well wishes. None wished to be the target of an army lead by this icy eyed beauty.

The handshake was not to be however. Before he could take her pale hand and press his thin, effeminate lips to her flesh in a pledge of loyalty, a dark shape flung itself out of the shadows and the unfortunate emissary collapsed into a high pitched screaming mess.

“Rogue! Release Lord Brach at once!” Oksana rose to her feet, her shining black leather leggings and chest piece creaking menacingly as she did. Where there was not leather, there were the stark lines of tattoos and scars earned in battle, each one made with meaning, each one fraught with significance, each one the memory of a death missed by a hair’s breadth or less. Oksana focused her angry gaze on the smaller woman with her fangs embedded in the unfortunate emissary’s leggings. Rogue. Typical Rogue. When the totem of the serpent rose within her, all conscience, all notion of right and wrong, good and evil escaped her, she became as cold blooded as the beast of her totem and just as deadly.

Her eyes golden and slitted, Rogue looked fearsome and otherworldly, but that did not intimidate Oksana in the slightest as she gripped the little monster by the back of her neck and forced her to release the very shaken rotund man.

“Sorry, thought he wasss an intruder,” Rogue grinned unrepentantly, licking the blood from the fangs she could extend at will. The freckles that dotted the bridge of her nose gave her the appearance of a malevolent small imp. Her light brown hair fell into her malevolently slitted eyes and she shook it out as they returned to their usual greenish gold color.

“I apologize, Lord Brach,” Lady Oksana released Rogue and turned her attention to the man trying to overcome the barrier of a rather portly stomach to staunch the flow of blood on his lower leg.

“Not at all. It’s hard to find good minions,” he replied offhandedly, his high voice thick with the sort of stupidity that can only result from generations of aristocratic inbreeding.

“Your mother mated with a donkey,” Rogue muttered, then yowled as Oksana’s palm caught her square across one rounded bottom cheek.

“Wait outside,” her Mistress ordered.

Rogue slinked out obediently, muttering curses as she went. Pin and Prunella were waiting outside, smirking with their silly smiles. Pin and Prunella were Oksana’s albino lover twins. Their eyes pink, their hair white as snow, in Rogue’s eyes, they were the most horrid and loathsome creatures on the planet, but their pretty features and nimble bodies earned them the admiration of many a woman and many a man.

“Trouble again, Rogue?” Pin sneered, her arm around Prunella’s waist.

“She’s going to beat you, you know,” Prunella added.

“We’ll watch,” Pin said.

“From the shadows,” Prunella finished.

They liked to complete one another’s sentences almost as much as they enjoyed taunting Rogue.

“Go die in a fire,” Rogue replied, wiping the last traces of blood from her mouth and stalking away from the terrible twosome. It still blew her mind that these were the girls Oksana had tried so hard to protect. They were good for nothing more than being pretty bookends.

Rogue hadn’t known what to expect when Lady Mari sent her to the North with Oksana. She hadn’t known what to expect when Oksana finally revealed the girls she had kept so carefully hidden away from danger whilst Rogue had risked her neck for the nation and done battle with Colban. But to discover that Oksana’s prized possessions were little more than pretty human fluff was disappointing in the extreme.

It was cold in the north, so Rogue donned her furs as she left the castle and made her way onto the ramparts. Ice winds blew steadily, carrying sleet and snow, whiting out the lands around Icebane. Her heart yearned for the lower lands, for warmer climes. The serpent was restless here, uncomfortable, constantly on edge.

As she pondered fate’s cruel twists and the obligation that kept her chained to an ice locked nation a single tear rolled down Rogue’s cheek and froze there.

“Rogue, Oksana wants you,” a gruff male voice cut through the gale and broke over her shoulder.

“Leave me alone, Hans,” Rogue replied, hastily wiping her eyes.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that m’lady,” Hans said, his voice warm with humor.

“Yes you can, just tell her you can’t find me,” Rogue pointed out.

“Then what will she do to me?” Hans draped a large, muscular arm over Rogue’s shoulders and squeezed her against the side of his body comfortingly.

“Nothing compared to what she’ll do to me,” Rogue said, wiping her eyes. “I’m not her much bigger brother.”

Hans laughed heartily, and Rogue felt her spirits rise slightly. Hans was perhaps the only bright spot in this forsaken place. Though he was indeed Oksana’s much larger brother, he was the younger of the two. He’d inherited his sister’s coloring and sported an impressive red mustache that bristled like a live creature from his top lip. Unlike Oksana however, his eyes were not ice blue, but a much warmer brown. He was full of life and charm and good humor, and he was the closest thing to a friend Rogue had found in the place.

“Come on, she won’t kill you,” he urged.

“No,” Rogue replied stonily.

“You’re not giving me any choice, is it going to be a shoulder ride?” he asked.

“Don’t you darrreee!” Rogue squealed as he swept her up off her feet and easily threw her over his shoulder.

“Hans, put me down, or I swear to god!” she threatened lamely as he carried her back inside the castle, where it was slightly warmer.

“Or you’ll what, unleash your fangs on me?” he laughed as he kicked open the door to the reception room, where Oksana was pacing with a frown on her face. There he placed Rogue on her feet and gave her a gentle nudge towards her mistress.

“Rogue. Why?” Oksana snapped out the question.

Rogue shrugged. “Didn’t like the look of him.”

Oksana took two strides towards Rogue and caught her up by the front of her furs. “It is not up to you to decide to assault people based on whether you like the look of them.”

Hearing a tittering in the corner of the room, Rogue’s eyes narrowed. The twins had been true to their word. “I know. If it wasn’t so, I’d have killed the pinky mice by now.”

The derogatory term for her girls did not impress Oksana in the slightest. Her brows drew together, and the muscles in her arms tensed in a way that made Rogue’s stomach fizz.

“I have not beaten you enough,” she determined.

“Nor shall you!” Rogue replied, disengaging herself from Oksana’s grip and skipping beyond her reach.

The act brought a look of surprise to Oksana’s face. Rogue had always been a handful, but at the very least her native defiance had faded over time.

“Are you mad, kleinling?” Oksana asked, her voice a dangerously low purr, the look in her eyes becoming predatory.

“I might ask the same of you,” Rogue replied.

Behind her Hans covered his eyes with his hand and shook his head in despair.

“You will not sit for days, I promise you that,” Oksana vowed, reaching for Rogue.

With a hiss, Rogue slid away from her grasp and headed for a side door. It burst open and she barreled through, running for all she was worth. But Oksana was already hot on her heels, and there was no outrunning Oksana, not without a good mile of a head start, perhaps more. It was not possible for normal people to imagine the sort of power that was Oksana’s to unleash. Unless you shackled her to a wall first, running from her and escaping was not an option. She ran with the lithe power of a jungle cat, mercilessly focused.

With a roar, she leaped upon Rogue and caught her at the foot of the main stair case, bringing her to ground easily, her grip on Rogue’s neck inexorable as she drew her upwards.

“You will regret that display, kleinling,” she whispered into Rogue’s ear.

Dragged to her rooms, Rogue fought the whole way. It was a waste of time that only served to enrage Oksana, but she was damned if she was going to submit to a woman who loved those awful specimens of humanity.

“I don’t know what has gotten into you, but it ends now,” Oksana said, stripping Rogue of her furs and her robes, leaving her entirely naked before her Mistress.

For a moment, Rogue’s lower lip trembled, then she found more reserves of stoicism and raised her chin proudly.

Gently, Oksana ran her fingers over Rogue’s cheek and through her hair where they clenched for control. She pulled Rogue closer, until her lips were just millimeters away from the rebellious young woman’s ear.

“I have not forgotten what you are kleinling. You may resist and rebel all you like, it will always end in the same place. You cannot fight this. You cannot fight me. I know you for what you are.”

Rogue squirmed in her grasp, but true to her word, there was no fighting Oksana. Squirming only resulted in pulling her own hair as Oksana’s palm caressed down the side of her body and cupped her bare bottom.

“Now I will have to spank this red, now I will have to draw tears from your pretty eyes, and why? Because you, kleinling, have forgotten me.”

Her words were hypnotic, as was her touch, and Rogue barely struggled as she was pulled over Oksana’s lap, naked as the day she was born.

The trance was broken as Oksana slapped her upraised cheeks with enough force to make her instantly burst into tears. As much as Rogue was no ordinary woman, neither was Oksana. She had survived the unimaginable, weathered storms and battles that destroyed thousands. Her power was primal and she unleashed it with full force upon Rogue’s unfortunate behind.

Rogue’s howls of pain were punctuated by sound slaps that caught her cheeks, her thigh and the tender flesh betwixt them. Though she struggled, there was nowhere to go, there were only the hard stinging blows that demanded her compliance, that left her no choice to be anything but a soundly spanked servant.

“I will not have you wreaking havoc in my court, Rogue. I am not Mari. I will not allow affection to give way to weakness,” Oksana lectured, pressing Rogue’s thighs apart to allow spanking of her inner thighs, the slapping blows landing oh so close to Rogue’s soft sex, yet never so much as making contact with it.

As Rogue found herself bent, spread and spanked, there could no longer be any pretense of who was in control. In place of rebellion and anger, a different sensation was welling up, a tingling warmth that sent ripples of slick moisture about her nether lips.

Just as pleasure began to warm her, Oksana stopped spanking.

“Into the corner with you, kleinling,” she said briskly.

With a small whimper of frustration, Rogue went. Everything burned with pain and passion, but there was no relief, there was only the ongoing rolling of sensation churning in her loins, going unnoticed and unsated by her Mistress.

“Hands by your side,” Oksana ordered dispassionately as Rogue’s fingers attempted to wander.

It could have been five minutes, it could have been fifty minutes. Every moment was a sweet torture.

“Right, into bed.” Oksana ordered finally.

Inwardly, Rogue sighed with relief. Now Oksana would leave and she would be free to relieve the tension, to touch and stroke her sweet wet center.

“Hands,” Oksana ordered as Rogue climbed between the sheets.

“Please?” Rogue whimpered, but Oksana shook her head, fastening Rogue’s hands to the sides of the bed, leaving her lying on her back on her burning bottom. There would be no touching herself now, there would be no pleasure after the pain.

“Good night, Rogue,” Oksana said leaving the room.

To Rogue’s ears, they were the three cruelest words in the world.

This book can be found as part of the classic Rogue Trilogy on Lulu.com.