Chapter 4: A Troll's Tender Mercy
@Slave Collar
The portal tore open above the pasture with a sound like wet canvas ripping, and the smell that poured through was wrong—like burnt sugar and rotting flowers and something alive that had been dead for a very long time.
Athena's knees hit the frost-bitten grass before she knew she was falling, her body moving on instinct she didn't remember developing.
The dead collar hung around her throat like a frozen snake, and she kept waiting for the weight of it to lift, for the fog to clear from her skull. It didn't.
Grond and Gash stomped through the shimmering wound in reality first, their massive bodies casting long shadows that made the pasture look like a graveyard at midnight. Their lances dragged furrows in the earth, green light spitting from the tips.
"Four cows," Grond grunted, his voice like rocks in a blender. "We hungry. We take four."
Gash nodded, his eyes scanning the horizon where the distant lowing of cattle had turned to something more frantic. "Cows run. Cows know. Smart cows."
They lumbered off toward the noise, their heavy footfalls making the ground shudder with each step. Athena watched them go, and a small voice in the back of her mind—the voice that sounded like her own, the one that had been cataloguing exits and calculating odds since she was fifteen years old—told her this was the moment to move.
But her legs wouldn't cooperate.
Slag settled onto the fallen oak beside her, the ancient wood groaning under his weight. His lance lay across his lap, its glow dimming to something almost gentle, and for a long moment he just stared at the unconscious Pink Pussycat sprawled in the grass.
The silence stretched between them like taffy, filled only by wind and the far-off screams of cattle that were learning what it meant to be chosen.
"You cold," Slag said finally, and it wasn't a question.
Athena shook her head. She wasn't cold. She wasn't anything. Her skin felt like it belonged to someone else, and her thoughts kept slipping sideways, like trying to hold water in cupped hands.
"Play-Meat sad," Slag continued, his broken English soft in a way that should have been impossible for a creature his size. "Slag see. Slag sad too."
He turned to look at her then, and the moonlight caught the deep grooves in his face, the places where centuries of stone had cracked and reformed.
"Slag not always stone," he said.
Athena's breath caught. The collar around her throat felt warm against her skin.
"What do you mean?" she asked, and her voice came out smaller than she intended.
Slag's massive shoulders rolled in something that might have been a shrug. "Long time ago. Before witch. Before brothers sleep in sun."
He picked at a splinter in the oak, his clawed fingers surprisingly delicate. "We trolls. Real trolls. Had home. Had sky that never burn us. Had..."
He paused, and something flickered across his ugly face—something ancient and wounded.
"Had mother," he finished quietly.
Athena felt something crack open in her chest, and she didn't know if it was the collar or grief or something worse.
"The witch," Slag continued, his voice dropping. "Morgana. She find us. She promise us revenge on men who hunt us. She give us lances. She give us purpose."
He looked up at the stars, and his expression was almost human in its loneliness.
"But she not give us back our sky. Now we only wake when moon full. We only walk when witch say walk. We monsters now. Real monsters."
A tear slid down Athena's cheek before she registered that she was crying. It dripped onto the frozen grass, and she watched it disappear into the earth like a secret.
"Play-Meat cry for Slag?" he asked, and his voice cracked on the words.
She nodded. She couldn't speak.
"Slag never had nobody cry for him before," he said, and his massive hand reached out to brush her wet cheek with a tenderness that made her stomach clench.
The touch was rough, calloused, and it sent a jolt through her body like lightning finding ground.
"Play-Meat want keep her," Athena heard herself whisper, and the words came from somewhere deep and dark and hungry. "Pink cat woman. Play-Meat want her as pet."
The minute the words left her mouth, a ripple of something cool moved through her mind—a sensation like silk sliding across water—and then it was gone, leaving behind only the certainty that she meant what she'd said.
Slag's face split into a smile that should have been terrifying, all tusks and teeth and crumbled stone, but somehow it wasn't.
"Play-Meat want pet? Slag make brothers say yes. Slag give Play-Meat anything."
He pulled her into his arms, and she went willingly—more than willingly—her body molding against his massive chest like she belonged there. His skin smelled of earth and iron and something beneath that, something old and patient and alive.
And then he kissed her.
His mouth was rough, tusks pressing against her lips in ways that should have hurt but didn't. He tasted like the ground after rain, like minerals and time, and Athena kissed him back with a fervor that would have horrified her if she'd been capable of horror anymore.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, a door slammed shut.
She felt no guilt. That was the worst part.
No guilt about her husband, who was under Morgana's love spell. No guilt about the vows she'd made in a white dress under a summer sun. She told herself it was strategy. She needed to know where Morgana took her husband. Of course, that did not explain her enjoyment of her current situation in Slag's embrace. The idea that the collar might still be influencing her never crossed her mind.
@Troll Cum
The idea that the collar might still be influencing her never crossed her mind.
Slag's tongue filled her mouth, thick and rough as bark, and Athena sucked on it like she was starving. His massive hand cradled the back of her skull, claws carefully retracted, and she moaned into him with a sound that belonged to someone else entirely.
The frozen grass bit into her knees through the shredded remains of her leotard, but she didn't feel it. All she felt was heat—Slag's heat, bleeding through his stone skin like a furnace, and the wet slide of his mouth against hers.
A twig snapped somewhere behind them.
Slag pulled back, his breath fogging in the cold air, and Athena whined at the loss of contact. The sound was pathetic, desperate, and she heard it leave her throat without recognizing it as her own.
"Brothers come," Slag rumbled, his yellow eyes flicking toward the tree line.
Grond emerged first from the shadows, a black-and-white heifer slung over each shoulder like sacks of grain. The cows were limp, their eyes rolled back, and a thin line of drool hung from the nearest one's muzzle.
Gash followed a moment later, carrying his own pair with equal ease despite his smaller frame. Blood matted the fur around both their mouths, dark and glistening in the moonlight.
"We bring food," Grond announced, dumping his cows onto the grass with a wet thud that made Athena's stomach turn. "Four cows. Good cows. Fat cows."
Gash dropped his load beside Grond's and wiped his snout with the back of one massive hand. "Cows scream loud. Brothers like."
Slag stood, his body unfolding like a mountain rising from the earth, and Athena felt the absence of his warmth immediately. Her body leaned after him before her mind could catch up.
"Play-Meat help," Slag said, turning to look down at her. "Take lance. Point at sky. Think of home."
Athena blinked. "Home?"
"Troll home," Grond clarified, his voice scraping like gravel under tires. "Place we not see for many years. Witch keep us here. Witch use us here. But now we go back."
Gash nodded, his face splitting into something between a grin and a wound. "Go back. Take Play-Meat. Take pink pet. Show troll home."
Athena's fingers closed around Slag's lance before she made the conscious decision to reach for it. The weapon hummed in her grip, warm and alive, and she felt its magic pulse up her arms like blood returning to a sleeping limb.
"Point at sky," Slag repeated, guiding her hands with his own. "Think of mountains. Think of stone. Think of place where no sun burns."
She did. The image came unbidden—not from memory, because she'd never been there, but from somewhere deeper. The lance recognized her intent and responded, splitting the air above them with a sound like tearing metal.
The portal yawned open, a wound in reality rimmed with sickly green light, and through it Athena glimpsed jagged peaks and endless twilight skies.
"Go," Grond commanded, and he didn't need to say it twice.
Athena stepped through first, the Pink Pussycat's limp body cradled in Slag's arms behind her, and the world shifted around her like a fever dream. The air on the other side was thin and cold and tasted of copper, and the ground beneath her feet was dark stone that seemed to drink the light.
They emerged into a vast cavern, its ceiling lost in shadow, its walls veined with minerals that glowed faintly blue. Natural pillars rose from floor to ceiling, carved by centuries of water and time, and between them sprawled piles of bones—some animal, some not.
"Home," Slag breathed, and the word carried five hundred years of grief.
Grond and Gash moved past her, their lances casting long shadows across the cavern floor, and dumped their cows onto a flat slab of rock that served as a table. The animals didn't stir. They wouldn't ever stir again.
"Play-Meat feed," Grond said, turning to face her. "Must eat. Troll food make strong. Make Play-Meat strong too."
Athena's stomach clenched with something that might have been hunger and might have been dread. She looked at the raw cows, at the blood pooling on the stone, and her mouth filled with saliva despite herself.
"Play-Meat like food cooked," she said, and her voice sounded small in the vast space.
The brothers stared at her for a heartbeat. Then their laughter erupted like an avalanche, echoing off the cavern walls and filling the darkness with sound.
"Cooked," Gash wheezed, slapping his knee with enough force to crack bone. "Cooked! Play-Meat funny. Food not cooked here. Food is food. Food is alive."
Grond's laughter died first, and something else replaced it—something hungry that had nothing to do with cows. He stepped toward her, his massive form blotting out the blue glow of the cavern walls.
"But Play-Meat want feed?" he asked, his voice dropping to a rumble. "Brothers feed Play-Meat. Proper food. Food that make Play-Meat never hunger again."
His hand moved to the loincloth stretched across his hips, and he pulled the leather aside with a single sharp tug.
Athena's breath caught in her throat.
His cock was enormous—easily fourteen inches, maybe more—and thick as her wrist, rising from a nest of coarse dark hair. The head was flushed purple, glistening with something that wasn't quite pre-cum, and the shaft was ridged with veins that pulsed with the same sickly green light as the lances.
"Feed," Grond said, and it wasn't a request. "Start sucking."
The collar around Athena's throat pulsed, warm and insistent, and a whisper slid through her mind like oil on water. You'll never find him if you don't obey. Never find your husband. Never save him. Never save anyone.
But the whisper faded the moment her lips touched Grond's flesh.
His taste exploded across her tongue—salt and iron and something sweet beneath, something addictive that made her knees buckle. The ridges on his shaft caught on her lips as she slid down, and the green light pulsed brighter with every inch she took.
Her jaw ached. Her throat stretched. And none of it mattered.
She sucked him like she was drowning and he was air, hollowing her cheeks and swirling her tongue around the thick head with a moan that vibrated through her entire body. Grond groaned above her, a sound like boulders grinding together, and his massive hand fisted in her hair.
"Good," he grunted. "Play-Meat suck good. Brothers keep Play-Meat. Brothers never let Play-Meat go."
Athena pulled back just long enough to gasp for breath, strings of saliva connecting her lips to his cock, and stared up at him with eyes that were no longer ice-gray. They were silver, almost white, pupils blown wide with something that looked very much like worship.
Then she took him again, deeper this time, until her nose pressed against the rough hair at his base and his balls rested against her chin.
She heard Slag and Gash moving behind her, heard the rustle of leather being discarded, but she didn't stop. She couldn't stop. Grond's taste was in her mouth, his cock was in her throat, and for the first time since the collar had locked around her neck, Athena felt something other than fear.
She felt hunger.
When Grond finally came, it was with a roar that shook the cavern walls, and his cum flooded her mouth—thick and hot and tasting like the air after a thunderstorm. The collar blazed white-hot against her throat, inscribing something new into her skin, something she couldn't see but could feel with terrifying clarity.
She swallowed every drop. Then she licked him clean.
And when Gash's hand closed around her shoulder, pulling her toward his own waiting cock, she went without hesitation.
The hour that followed was a blur of flesh and sound and pleasure that rewired something fundamental inside her skull. Gash fucked her face with brutal, rhythmic thrusts that left her throat raw and her eyes streaming, but she never once tried to pull away. Slag was gentler, his movements slow and almost tender, and she cried when he came because it felt like a goodbye.
She memorized each of them with her tongue and her lips and her hands—the way Grond's breath hitched when she licked the sensitive spot beneath his head, the way Gash's balls tightened right before he spilled, the way Slag whispered her name like a prayer when she swallowed his release.
And through it all, she wondered if Captain Valiant would recognize her now.
When the brothers were finally satisfied, they left her on her knees in the middle of the cavern floor, her face slick with their cum and her thighs slick with her own. Pink Pussycat still lay unconscious nearby, and Athena crawled to her, her body moving before her mind could object.
She curled up beside the villainess, naked and trembling, and pressed her face into the other woman's crimson hair.
"Masters," she whispered into the darkness, and the word felt right in a way it shouldn't have. "Play-Meat ready to go home."
Grond looked down at her, his cock now soft but still massive, and something that might have been affection flickered in his deep-set eyes.
"Good," he said. "Mountains cold. Play-Meat need warm. Brothers keep Play-Meat warm."
Gash scooped Pink Pussycat from the ground like she weighed nothing, and Slag lifted Athena into his arms, cradling her against his chest as they started toward a passage at the far end of the cavern.
The path led upward, carved into the mountain itself, and the blue glow of the walls intensified with every step. Athena closed her eyes and let herself be carried, the collar warm at her throat, the taste of troll still heavy on her tongue.
And somewhere in the back of her mind, the door she'd slammed shut began to rattle, as if something behind it was waking up.