“Are you lost, little lady?” The first man asked me as I stepped through some trees to their left. Áine had always told me to never speak to strangers, but I was lost.
“A little. Can you point me in the direction of the road? I’ll be able to find my way from there,” I replied with a kind smile.
“You’re lost and alone?” the second burley man commented. At first, I thought it was because he worried for my safety, so I nodded my head.
The third one opened the back of their wagon to show me a flask of water. “Are you thirsty?”
Thinking they cared, I walked down to their campsite, seeing they were gearing up to leave. When I got to them, the third man held out the flask for me to take, but when I did, the second seized my arms. He held them behind my back as the first stepped in front of me.
“A traveling whore, aye?” he asked, so I shook my head vehemently to deny his accusations.
“Please, let me go,” I whimpered as my leather foot coverings crunched over the dry leaves on the ground. “My mother will worry. I’m not of age.”
My pleas fell on deaf ears. They didn’t care that I was underage or that I was urgently petrified. Rope bound my wrists as the man in front of me grabbed a handful of my right breast. “Perky and still firm,” he told the others.
Closing my eyes, I let myself suffer through the vulgar words as they took my virginity in the depths of the forest. I remembered crying and yelling for help as they shoved me in new positions. Never once did I open my eyes because I was too afraid to see the face of the men as they laughed about what they did to me. Their joyous sounds still echoed in my mind because they were happy to be hurting me.
The parallel with what I just underwent in the library had to be the connection to this now. A fuck that was hateful and cruel like the cold prince of this castle.
Time passed differently as the men handed me off to each have a go. I remembered the pain of my virginity being taken, marking me unproper in our society. The smell of mildew from the decaying leaves was something I still struggled to inhale. With my face pressed against them for the man to take me from behind, they were my worst enemy in the forest now. The scent often found me when I least expected it, triggering this moment.
The rope began to burn around my wrists the more I writhed to release myself. Hands endlessly groped me, but I could do nothing against the three of them. I was nothing but a broken girl now. No one would find enough value in me to have me in their future.
“Briar!” a familiar voice shouted my name.
Crying out, I wanted it to be real. I wanted him to come save me. “Philip!”
Knowing it was just my imagination seeking him out to end my torment, I let myself think of him. With my face pressed to the ground, I never tried to open my eyes to see if my fantasy might be real. Instead, I just let myself think of him as the man rutted into me from behind.
A splattering of fluid hit my face, making me believe he ended as the others had before him, but the dick was still inside of me. That’s when I finally listened enough to hear another man scream beside me. “No, no! Please!”
The sound of a blade being drawn grated against my ears. When I finally braved opening my eyes, I found Philip shoving off the man that was in me. An arrow was through his head. The man sitting beside me also had one to his head that stuck to the side of the wagon, keeping him upright in his death.
The last man had his head cut off from rounding the wagon after his friends were killed. His eyes were still wide on his head as it tumbled on the ground. The body fell a few feet away from it, the bone jutting out of its severed neck.
Before I could take in more of the sickening scene, Philip threw his arms around me. He was shaking with rage from what he had just found. “I didn’t find you in time.”
Crying against him, I didn’t want this to be how the memory ended. I didn’t want to remember the faces of the men who had stripped me of my virtue. Fisting my hands into his tunic, I never wanted to let go. “Change it,” I pleaded, rubbing some snot and tears across the front of his shirt. Some dirt joined it from how my face was held down in the ground.
“What?” Philip wasn’t sure what my request was, but I could hear him fighting some tears of his own for finding me in that state. The man just killed three people in my honor without thinking twice about it. I knew we had exchanged that we loved each other, but he had proven it to me.
“Take me, Philip. Have me as yours, so I don’t have to remember my first time ending like this. I don’t want it to be this. I wanted it to be you.”
“Briar, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he worried.
“Please.” I moved to place my face into the crook of his neck. Everything still hurt, and my legs still shook from the fear and pain of what the travelers had done to me. “Please help me not remember it this way.”
Philip held me tighter, knowing how badly I needed him to help me through this painful memory. His hand gently brushed my cheek to turn his way for his stare to meet mine. “I need you to be sure this is what you want, my light. I don’t want you to hate me later for it.”
“I could never hate you, my love. You’re the only person I’d ever trust to do this. You’re the only person who I trust with my heart.” After I spoke, he tenderly kissed my lips, tasting the saltiness of my tears in doing so.
“And you have mine,” he whispered, pulling away from me.
Quickly standing up, he removed his cloak to lay on the ground, pointing at it for me to lie on. I did so by crawling that direction from the pain between my legs. It felt stupid of me to have him take me after the pain I had suffered, but I didn’t want this to be my first time. I didn’t want them to take what was his to have because he was the only one that I’d ever offer myself to.
He looked down at me, seeing the puffiness of my eyes, checking again that this was what I wanted. Nodding my head, I began undoing my dress properly for him to see me, all of me. His eyes feasted over every ounce of my exposed flesh, delighting in how attracted he was to me. Philip never made me wonder if he found me pretty because of his stolen glances in my direction. It often made my cheeks heat from never experiencing it before.
Undoing his weapon belt, Philip removed his clothes slowly to ensure this was what I wanted. There’d be no changing my mind on this because everything I wanted was right before me. Clearing his throat, he revealed his cock to me in all its glory, letting me know that he wanted me as well. “We won’t have too much time, though. My brother is due for his arrival soon.”