Chapter 170: Trial 3/4 - Grace
The black chaise was cleansed again. The process was swift, silent, and profoundly unsettling. Like wiping away evidence. The wet cloth passed over the leather, and the stagehands retreated, their faces blank slates.
Amir Dahan stood in the center of the arena, feeling the weight of a hundred thousand gazes. He felt, not like a showman, but like a surgeon about to make an incision in a conscious patient. The horror of the previous act was a taste of medicine still coating his tongue. Xia had been taken away, a wraith in a blanket. Rasmus was held back by Aurum guards, his anguished screams for Grace having subsided into a low, animal keening that he could still hear echoing in his skull.
He inhaled. The air was charged, heavy with the pheromones of fear and cruel anticipation.
He walked to the edge of the stage, his footsteps loud in the new silence. He looked at the competitors’ section. He saw Fabrizio’s cool, evaluating stare. He saw Rita’s feline focus, Shen’s analytical detachment. He saw Amine’s clenched fists and Lucas’s haunted, distant eyes. He saw Rasmus, head bowed, held by guards.
Amir’s gaze shifted to the coaches’ dais. The ones who had been used—Layla, Jonas, Yuna, Kelechi—sat swaddled in silver cloaks, their heads down or turned away. The remaining coaches—Zara, Diego, Isla, Alex—sat rigid in their seats, a fragile line of defiance. The wounded and the soon-to-be wounded. He wondered if there was any real difference.
His voice, when it finally emerged, was stripped of all pretense of spectacle. It was flat. Dead.
“TRIAL THREE OF THE FINAL. BOTH XIA AND GRACE WILL HAVE A GANGBANG WITH THE COACHES FROM THE RIVAL CAMP. AFTER BOTH FINALISTS’ PERFORMANCES, THE PUBLIC WILL VOTE.”
He paused, swallowing against a dry throat.
“NOW, GRACE.”
Grace was led out. She wore another fresh, plain shift. Her blonde hair was damp, combed back severely. Her blue eyes were not hollow like Xia’s; they were focused, shockingly clear. They were the eyes of someone who knew exactly what this was, and was, in her own way, already prepared. Her profession, her past life on screens—it had offered no true armor, but it had provided a script. A role. The optimist fights to the end.
“A GANGBANG WITH ISLA, ALEX, ZARA, AND DIEGO.” The names dropped like stones.
On the dais, Zara Adekunle’s fire didn’t bank; it exploded. “No,” she said, the word final and sharp. Diego, beside her, moved to his feet, his immense frame a wall of silent refusal. On the other side, Isla Bennett’s steel-grey eyes widened a fraction. Alex—Lerok, the man who had been remade from an emotionless instrument—paled further, his knuckles white where they gripped the rail.
Aurum guards ascended the dais. More this time. Stun-staffs were drawn, the hum louder.
“This will happen,” a new voice cut through the tension, low and resonant with an alien timbre. Lord Larothus had risen from his observation box. His bioluminescent skin cast a faint green glow. “You accepted the roles. You accepted the Crucible’s authority. Your duty is not to protect. It is to obey. To test.”
His mercury-colored eyes swept over them. “Do not force us to find more… creative means of compliance.”
Isla’s hand shot out, gripping Alex’s arm. “Don’t,” she whispered, a command and a plea.
“Isla,” Alex breathed, his haunted eyes finding hers. “We can’t—”
“We do,” she said, her voice cracking. “Or they will make us watch while they do worse to someone else. To each other.”
Zara was struggling, but Diego, with a painful gentleness, placed a huge hand over hers and pried her fingers from the rail. “Zara,” he murmured, his voice thick. “Look at Grace.”
Grace stood on the stage, looking at them. Her face was serene, a soft, heartbreaking smile on her lips. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of her head. It’s okay. Don’t fight.
The fight left Zara in a rush. Her shoulders slumped. She let the guards take her arm. Diego let them take his. Isla rose, releasing Alex’s arm, and walked ahead of the guards. Alex followed, his steps mechanical, like a man walking to his own execution.
They were stripped on stage, as the others had been. This time, the guards did not use the shock-staffs. The defiance was gone, replaced by a frigid surrender that was somehow more terrible to witness.
Isla’s lithe, elegant form was bared. She held her chin high, staring straight ahead at a point on the far wall. Zara’s body was athletic and powerful, scars like silver whispers on her skin from a life lived fiercely. Now it was rigid with shame. Diego was a mountain of sculpted muscle, every line tense with suppressed violence. Alex was leaner, more finely drawn, the physical map of a man rebuilt from the inside out, now being publicly dismantled.
They were guided naked to the chaise, where Grace now lay, her shift lifted to her waist.
Amir watched it happen, his own soul shrinking. “MAKE HER CUM,” he recited, the words ashes in his mouth. “EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU HAS TO GET INVOLVED!”
A new silence fell. Who would start this carousel of ruin?
Zara moved first. She stepped to the head of the chaise. She knelt, her dark eyes locking with Grace’s. Her voice was rough, stripped bare. “You’re a good girl, Grace. Better than this fucking place.”
She leaned down and kissed Grace. Not violently, as Layla had kissed Xia. It was deep, slow, and startlingly tender. It was an apology, a shared secret, a moment of intimacy stolen from the jaws of atrocity. Her hand slipped between Grace’s legs, her fingers finding the wetness there—not from arousal, but from the body’s sick, terrified instinct. She pushed two fingers inside, feeling the clench and shudder.
“Easy,” Zara breathed against her lips. “Let it be me first.”
Diego, seeing his wife do this, finally broke from his paralysis. He moved to Grace’s side. His huge, boxer’s hand was surprisingly gentle as it cupped Grace’s small breast, his thumb circling her nipple. “I am sorry,” he rumbled, his Brazilian accent thick with emotion. “I am so sorry, menina.”
Isla, as if following Zara’s lead on a grim dance floor, moved to Grace’s other side. She ran her fingers through Grace’s damp hair, a motherly gesture grotesquely out of place. Her other hand joined Zara’s between Grace’s legs, her finger tracing Grace’s clit with a clinical, then deliberate precision. “You are strong,” Isla whispered, her voice soft. “You are so fucking strong. Feel this. Let it pass through you.”
Grace’s breath began to hitch. Her professionalism was dissolving under the double assault of their hands and the unbearable tenderness of their touch. A whimper escaped her.
“Alex,” Isla said, not looking at him.
Alex stood frozen, watching his wife touch this young woman with such intimate, horrible care. His past, his time as Lerok, Arkan’s blade, flooded back—a cold, efficient cruelty. This was hotter, uglier, more human.
“You have to,” Isla said, her gaze steady on Grace’s face. “Or they win.”
Alex’s face crumpled for a second. Then he moved, kneeling at the foot of the chaise. He took one of Grace’s feet in his hands, his touch feather-light. He bent his head and pressed his lips to her arch, a bizarre parody of Fabrizio’s act earlier, but devoid of lust. It was an act of penance.
Amir’s voice, hushed but amplified, wove through the scene. “Observe the sacrifice. The protectors becoming predators. Zara’s fingers, skilled from a lifetime of fighting, now buried inside the girl she was meant to train. Diego’s champion hands… squeezing her tits like he’s trying to pull the soul out of her. Isla… so calm, so analytical, working her clit like it’s a puzzle to be solved. And Alex… tasting her. Devouring the innocence he lost long ago.”
Grace’s body arched. The combined, unwanted sensations were overwhelming. Her own hips gave a small, involuntary jerk against Zara’s and Isla’s hands.
“She’s close,” Isla murmured.
“Let it happen,” Zara breathed against her mouth. “Come for us, baby. Show them you can take it and still fucking breathe.”
Diego leaned down, his massive bulk a shadow over her, and took her other nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, his stubble scratching her skin.
It was too much. A fractured cry tore from Grace’s throat as an orgasm seized her, sharp and convulsive, a betrayal by her own nervous system.
The moment she peaked, Zara’s lips curled into a snarl against hers. “Good girl,” she growled, filthy now, leaning into the performance. “Your little fucking cunt is dripping all over my hand.” She pulled her glistening fingers out and, staring directly at the cameras, licked them clean. “Tastes like victory.”
Amir’s voice gained a sick momentum. “SHE CUMS! BUT WE’RE NOT DONE! WE NEED THEM INSIDE HER! ALL OF THEM!”
Diego stood up, his cock hard, a brutal, thick length. Grace’s eyes widened. He looked at Zara, a whole world of pain in that glance. Zara gave a tiny nod, a queen sending her knight to slaughter.
“Lift her up,” Diego said to Alex, his voice hoarse.
Alex scrambled up, moving to Grace’s shoulders. He helped pull her into a sitting position on the edge of the chaise. Diego positioned himself behind her. He spat into his palm, slicked himself, then guided his cock to Grace’s tight, still-quivering opening.
“This will hurt,” he said, the words almost a prayer.
He pushed. Grace gasped, her head falling back against Alex’s chest. Diego was huge, and she was small, and the intrusion was immense, a stretching, burning fullness. He entered her slowly, inch by torturous inch, until he was buried to the hilt. A single tear traced a line from the corner of Grace’s eye into her hairline.
“NOW THE OTHER ONE!” Amir shouted. “DOUBLE TEAM HER!”
Isla’s composure shattered. “No.”
“Alex,” Zara said, her voice raw. “Do it.”
Alex looked from Zara to Isla. His wife’s face was a sheet of ice, but her eyes begged. The choice was simple: defy Arkan and Lord Larothus, or traumatize Grace further. In this arena, defiance meant worse pain. They had all learned that lesson in blood.
He moved. Gently, he shifted Grace forward, just enough. Diego understood, holding her hips steady. Alex moved behind Diego, his own erection jutting. He spat, clumsily, and pressed the head of his cock against Grace’s other entrance—the tight knot of muscle between her ass cheeks.
“Grace,” he whispered, his face a mask of agony. “I’m sorry.”
He pushed. The resistance was intense, a ring of muscle clamping tight. He pushed harder, forcing his way inside her with a single, brutal thrust.
Grace screamed.
It was a raw, shattered sound that echoed in the vast arena. Diego, inside her pussy, groaned as her inner muscles clenched around him in a vice of pain. Alex shuddered, fully sheathed in her ass, his eyes squeezed shut.
“FUCK YES!” Amir narrated, a horrible enthusiasm forced into his tone. “DOUBLE PENETRATION! TWO COACHES FILLING OUR LITTLE PORN STAR! SHE’S TAKING IT LIKE A CHAMP! IS SHE CUMMING AGAIN OR JUST DYING? LET’S FIND OUT!”
Zara climbed onto the chaise, kneeling in front of Grace’s face. “Suck my tits, Grace,” she commanded, her voice ragged. “Put your mouth on me.”
Grace, her world a white-hot pain between her legs, obeyed. She took Zara’s nipple into her mouth, sucking weakly.
Isla, seeing her husband buried in Grace, saw the last of her control snap. She grabbed Diego’s face, pulling him into a hard, desperate kiss over Grace’s shoulder. It was a claim, a statement of possession in the midst of utter degradation. Diego kissed her back with equal ferocity, his hips beginning to move in a slow, deep rhythm, driving Grace onto Alex’s cock with each thrust.
The movement built. Alex, caught in the awful momentum, began to move in counterpoint to Diego. The two men found a ragged, punishing rhythm, pistoning into Grace from front and back. The wet, slapping sounds of flesh on flesh filled the air. Grace was a conduit of their mutual agony, her body used as a bridge between two couples being violently torn apart.
Zara grabbed Grace’s hair, forcing her head back, breaking the contact with her breast. “Look at them,” she hissed, her face twisted. “Look at your fucking coaches fucking you silly. Taking that little ass. Stretching that pussy wide. Do you love it? Do you feel like a star now?”
Grace’s cries were choked sobs now, lost in the grunts and gasps of the men inside her.
“I’M CUMMING!” Diego roared suddenly, his body locking, his fingers digging bruises into Grace’s hips as he emptied himself into her.
His climax triggered Alex’s. With a broken gasp, Alex followed, his own release pumping into her ass, his body collapsing forward over Diego’s back, his forehead resting on the other man’s shoulder.
They stayed like that for a moment, a tableau of exhaustion and shame: two men spent inside her, Zara holding her by the hair, Isla clinging to Diego’s neck. Grace, impaled and trembling, seemed to have left her body entirely. Her eyes were open, staring at the glaring lights above, seeing nothing.
Slowly, painfully, they disentangled themselves. Diego pulled out of her pussy with a wet sound. Alex pulled out of her ass, leaving her gaping and sore. They backed away, their heads down.
Zara released Grace’s hair, leaning in close one last time. Her lips brushed Grace’s ear. “Now survive,” she breathed, the