Topping-The-Duke-08

This is an entirely fictional story that is licensed solely to Nifty for workshopping purposes. It may not be reproduced, distributed, or commercially exploited in any form without express written permission from its author.

This story is Historical Fantasy set in the Early Victorian Era and may be too slow burning for some folks. Although this is a sort of dark erotic steampunk, not every chapter will be steamy. If you're looking for a quick wank, this probably isn't for you. But if you like action, intrigue, magic and character growth between sex scenes, then this is your cup of tea.

This story contains graphic M/M sex between teenagers, and between adults and teens. The sex is sometimes romantic, sometimes rough and/or non-consensual with an authoritarian, medical, or BDSM bent. Slavery, forced indenture, medical experimentation on the destitute and corporal punishment in schools were still common occurrences during this time period, so things may happen that should never occur in modern real life. Protect yourself and your health by using PReP and condoms and do not try these things at home, especially if they violate the laws of your locality.

CW: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS VIOLENT NON-CONSENSUAL SEX.

If you are a minor, or think something in this story might bother or offend you, STOP HERE.

If you enjoy this sort of thing, read on, and feel free to email me with comments or encouragement at:

taxandros@protonmail.com

A big thank you to all you who have written to let me know how much you enjoy this story. Your enthusiasm and kind words inspire me to keep going. I don't have any other stories posted anywhere else yet, but I plan to cobble some together, soon. Thanks also for your patience. Real life sometimes gets in the way of my creative one.

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Your humble author, Taz

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End of Last Chapter:

Charles winced. Sympathy stabbed through him, battling with the lust that still coursed in his veins. "Call for a wagon. I want all the men from Jones' butty taken to hospital, at your expense."

"My expense?" Champness' jaw dropped. He sputtered, speechless for a few moments before he could protest further. "Those are their costs. That's the risk they take, working down below. They're paid a decent wage."

"You will see that they are all examined by a doctor, and receive any necessary treatment, and you will pay every shilling needed for their care, and any lost wages. Or I will tell my father to refrain from renewing your lease when it is due next month. And you will pay all funeral costs to the widow Moss, for both her husband and her daughter, and to the families of the other lost children."

The mine owner's great fat belly bounced as his sputtering continued, until, at last he throttled it down to a series of hisses. He shook his head, raising his hands, palm up, in supplication. "I can't afford that. The entire pit is out of operation until repairs can be made."

"You have two other pits currently in operation. Pay the costs, or lose your mine. As for the damage here, set your smiths and tinkers to work on the water ram I design tonight, and C pit will be back in operation within a week, providing you can obtain the needed hose quickly enough."

"Aye, Your Grace," Champness sighed and then turned towards the stables, shouting: "Hitch up a wagon!"

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Topping the Duke (Chapter 8 --The Forge)

Bran twisted and thrashed, swept up in a churning maelstrom of darkness that felt like oily water but was far, far worse. It seemed to consist of distilled nothingness. Unbridled possibilities gone dark and fetid, fermenting in a soup of bitterness and despair. His arms and legs flailed, while his wings--those glorious wings--remained folded and tucked tight against his body to protect their fragile nature from the toxic swill all around him.

His lungs had filled with the vile stuff. It burned his throat and sinuses. His eyes stung, even though they were screwed shut. His entire being clamored for the sweet air of freedom, but he could not battle his way out of the whirlpool.

He sensed that he had been drawn inside of the dragon. She--somehow, he knew the fearsome beast was a she--was playing with him, exhausting him as she swished and swirled him around her cavernous mouth before swallowing him completely. Thinking to fool her, he stopped resisting and went limp as a rag.

He was immediately battered against her huge, flinty teeth. Spun round and round, his flesh was sliced and scraped until at last she seemed to tire of this game, and spat him out in a great gout. He almost unfurled his wings as he felt the air brush across his face, but a sudden, sharp impact drove a shock of pain through every nerve and sinew. Momentum propelled him further, tumbling him over and over, until at last he came to a stop, face down, too dazed to do anything but moan. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he felt himself to be in a cavern deep underground.

His left arm and right leg were broken. He bled from a thousand cuts and scrapes, but he could feel the healing fire of Beli Mawr pulsing inside him, setting his blood aflame. His bones and skin tingled as his flesh knit back together.

As the pain lessened and his strength returned, he expelled the liquid in his throat and chest through several racking coughs. When at last his lungs had cleared, he drew in a deep breath. The air tasted of coal and sulfur, with a gritty texture, as if it had been mixed with ash. The hissing whine and metallic hammering that filled the cavern reminded him of the steelworks on Llanelli hill. The stone floor vibrated beneath him with each ringing blow.

His eyes cracked open and he peered through a hazy film. He could hear the dragon moving to his left. Her glacial coldness contrasted sharply with the intense, crackling heat to his right. He knew she meant him further harm, so he drew himself up onto his hands and knees to face her. He saw a gigantic, amorphous black blob in front of him, illuminated by a pulsing ruddy glow coming from the heat behind him. A fire, of some kind. Or a furnace. But he did not have time to puzzle through the mysteries of their location. The dragon was coming for him.

He blinked several times to clear his vision, and for the first time, was able to see his tormentor clearly. She was serpentine in nature, but also formless. Iridescent like oil in water, her huge black coils constantly whirled round and round. They flattened and reshaped in eddying currents of that strange, despairing liquid. Pale yellow eyes glinted with cruel intensity. Her maw opened, revealing double rows of slate-colored teeth the size and shape of headstones. Her breath smelled of decay and rot and hopeless anguish. She drew her head up to tower above him and formed tentacles that terminated in four long, raking fingers, each graced with a glittering, obsidian talon.

Bran could not see past the blackness surrounding her. He wasn't sure if there was room to fly, but he knew to stay in one place meant death, or worse. He unfurled his wings, flinging oily black liquid off his feathers as he launched himself up into the smoky air.

She lunged and grabbed for him. He darted up and twisted mid-air, evading her as his wings beat frantically up and back. The dragon hissed, coiling and recoiling, but not advancing any further towards the fire.

The source of the light and heat behind him revealed itself to be a blacksmith's furnace. He glanced down at it, hovering above the bellows in fearful wonder as his gaze fell upon a huge crucible bubbling with molten metal. An anvil the size of a sailing ship held all manner of massive tools. But the most fearsome thing of all was the figure holding the hammer. A jet black man with eyes of blue flame. His beard was the color of limestone and he wore an apron of red leather scaled with brass. His arms were the size of tree trunks, his torso a muscled mountain that exuded power and control.

"Gofannon," Bran whispered, recognizing him from the stories the matron used to tell at the mill.

"You." The Smith of the Gods regarded Bran with a hateful sneer. He set his hammer down on the anvil and whipped his gnarled hands around in a circular motion. Bran felt invisible chains bite into his ankles. More chains entangled his wings. He struggled to free himself, but, Gofannon grabbed the chains and snapped Bran out of the air and into the clutches of the dragon.

Sharp talons pierced Bran's shoulders and calves. Icy tendrils wrapped around his arms and ankles. Beneath him, a huge coil rose up, sprouting spikes that impaled Bran's trunk along the dragon's spine. The chains stretched him taut and spread-eagled on his back, like a slaughtered lamb tied to a barrel. Bran writhed, searching for respite from the searing pain of his wounds and the maddening itch of his body healing itself. He finally forced himself to lay still. The thrashing had only served to make things worse.

Gofannon laughed, peering down at his prize. He ran a callused hand up Bran's belly, then across his chest, deftly avoiding the bloody spines that protruded through the pierced flesh. "I've caught you at last, you little thief."

"No," Bran's voice quavered with terror. "I've stolen nothing."

"A liar, as well. You stole five souls from Arawn. And that was just within the hour." That huge black hand encircled Bran's throat, squeezing in triumph. "You think by falling into a human form you could hide those stolen wings? The promises you made to earn them have never been fulfilled. Instead, you used them to steal from my very forge. Now, at last, I shall avenge the insults against me, and mete out the punishment due to every thief."

Bran tried to explain that he had no memory of such things, or even to beg for mercy, but no air escaped.

Gofannon smiled, waiting until Bran's entire body spasmed and fought to breathe. Try as he might, Bran could not stop his limbs and wings from pulling against the hot chains and icy tentacles binding him, causing the spikes to harrow his flesh and grind against his bones. His lungs threatened to burst with the screams held captive in his chest.

At last, the angry smith released his throat. Shrieks tore out of Bran, his jaw open wide, tears streaming down his face. Gofannon flicked his fingers in another magical gesture. Something hard and rigid wedged between Bran's back teeth, forcing his mouth to remain open. Bran stuffed his tongue against the wedges, trying to force them out, but a fine chain held them in place.

"How many ages have I waited for this justice?" Gofannon's smile showed bright, silvery teeth. They reflected the red glow from the furnace. He removed his apron and draped it across the tip of the anvil. His massive hand reached down to the coal black pego between his legs and gave it several lazy strokes. His flaming eyes sparked, his face alight with cruel intention as his cock grew rigid.

Bran squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the worst. That prick was the size of a cannon. There was no way Bran would survive being impaled on it, regardless of the hole Gofannon decided to fill.

Those hard, rough hands wrapped around the base of Bran's delicate wings and pulled. Bran felt himself expanding larger and larger, but never quite tearing apart. He felt like a loaf of bread rising, or a dried out sponge filling up with water, only the holes that were made bigger filled up not with air or water, but with memories. Scattered and disjointed, each in a separate little bubble, they tickled and itched at his mind, showing him fragments of events that were not only from the distant past, but the far future. He was himself, but he was also many other hims. He was a thousand tiny tongues of flame, each a strand of hair in that eternal blaze that made up the manes of the lions that drew Beli Mawr's chariot. With every savage yank on his wings, the flames leapt higher, as if Gofannon's rage only served to add fuel to the fire.

"Soron!" The smith's bellow drew Bran's wondering attention away from all the forevers and used-to-bes and slammed him back to this moment, where Gofannon barked orders at the dragon. "Quench the fire he has stolen, while I hammer closed that thieving heart."

Bran's eyes snapped open as the icy talons forced his legs even farther apart, lifting and exposing his rear to Gofannon's sinister purposes. Soron the dragon drew her monstrous head back, her dolorous maw cracking wide. For a single terrible second, Bran feared she meant to bite off his cock and balls. Instead, a writhing, twisting tongue of that inky liquid jetted out of her throat, punching through Bran's anus with far more violence than Driscoll ever had. Icy, oily water forced it way inside of him, filling his guts, and then spilling out through his expanded self, quenching the bright fire that Bran only minutes ago had come to know as his own.

Gofannon laughed at Bran's anguished scream, and at how he struggled to keep the foul liquid from snuffing out all those wonderous memories. The smith stabbed his obscenely large prick at Bran's open mouth but Bran whipped his head from side to side to evade each poke. Defiance burned in him, hot and bright despite the inexorable way the dragon's tongue ate away at his newfound truth.

At last, Bran had felt how big he really was. He was not entirely human, and so not entirely helpless, even in this dire circumstance. His wings stretched beyond Gofannon's grasp. That was why the smith could not tear them away, even as the dragon flooded Bran's insides with the frigid black waters of despair. Bran steeled himself, drawing in a deep breath and sending his flames out to the edges of his being, where his wingtips brushed against the few--the very few--people who had touched Bran's heart.

He felt the whores who had cared for him while his mother had been busy fucking, and how they had cuddled and cooed over him and made him feel warm and loved.

He felt Mrs. Priddy, the matron at the mill, who had fed him and tucked him into bed with the other apprenticed children, and told them stories of the Tyllwydd Teg. She had doted over them all, and had never let anyone misuse them the way Driscoll had done to Bran.

He felt the kindly Mr. Jones, and the others in the butty, and their families, all praying to him in gratitude for his sacrifice, and praying for his soul to find its way to heaven.

And finally, he felt Duke Lacock, and that strange, pulsing bond that had tied them together the moment the handsome nobleman got on his knees and wrapped those rosy pink lips around the tip of Bran's cock.

Seeing that had been the most shining moment of Bran's short, brutal life. He lingered there in the brilliance of his brief time with Lacock, knowing that, even now, the young duke's thoughts and prayers were of Bran. Not all of those thoughts were pure, nor the prayers pious. Bran could feel the warm, bright flame of desire burning at Lacock's core. A seething, molten desire that fed Bran's own.

The pain, the horror of what was happening fell away as Bran fed his own fire into Lacock, creating a loop, a current of light and passion that swelled and grew along with Bran's cock.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Gofannon finally released the wings and grabbed Bran's ears, forcing his huge black pego down a throat never meant to contain such a merciless weapon. The smith snarled, eyes throwing off blue sparks in victory as he rammed his unforgiving rod down to the root.

It felt like a hot poker punching against Bran's heart. The searing pain forced his eyes to water, but he could not cry out, stifled by the iron shaft slamming in and out of him like the piston of a steam engine. Each blow knocked more memories loose, while the cruel jet hosed them away. Soon, Bran would be completely empty.

Scraping together the last of his wits, Bran flicked his wingtips for all he was worth, throwing the last bright flickers of Beli Mawr's magic into Duke Lacock, out of reach of Gofannon and his bloody dragon.

Whatever may happen, whether in this life, or the next, Bran would find the duke. He would take his magic back, and fly once more. Providing, of course, that Gofannon didn't keep him in chains forever.

That fear grew as the torture continued, and Bran felt the fire in him extinguished to a tiny ember he somehow managed to hide behind his eyes. If he died, he would wind up in the realm of Annwfyn, where Annwn, the Lord of the Other World, would likely be very cross with Bran for cheating him of the souls of those five colliers.

Out of spite, Bran began to work his throat, swallowing around that massive, unforgiving blockage. Beli Mawr had given Bran his seed, and now Gofannon had stolen it. Perhaps by swallowing Gofannon's spunk, Bran could steal a bit of his magic. With that, he might craft a way free of the Other World and back to the duke. Back to the magic that fueled his wings.

His time with Driscoll had taught him much about inducing a man to climax, and Bran used every technique at his disposal. In addition to pulsing and milking with his throat, he curled his tongue to flutter it along that pistoning shaft, and burrowed his nose into those massive, hairy plums slapping his forehead.

It seemed to be working. Gofannon's growly grunts grew in both volume and tempo, until they became snarls, and then deep, rumbling roars interspersed with hissing inhalations. The smith peered down at him past that mountainous black chest. His silvery teeth flashed, the blue flames of his eyes flickering with triumph. He released Bran's ears and reached around to grasp the base of Bran's wings once again. That gigantic ramrod slammed deep, spewing a stream of red hot liquid directly into Bran's core.

Pain exploded through Bran with every throbbing eruption of that massive prick. Every fiber, every whisper of his being seemed to burn away under that onslaught. By the time the smith finished, Bran was only a fragile, ashen husk filled with the frigid waters of the dragon.

As soon as his crisis was complete, Gofannon collapsed atop Bran. His snorting exhalations bathed Bran's prick in steamy blasts, until he drew himself up again. His elbows fanned out. He tightened his grip and wrenched Bran's wings back and forth. His ebon muscles tensed, every cord and sinew outlined in the ruddy light of the forge as the bones snapped with an awful, cracking sound.

Gofannon drew away with a triumphant cry, holding the wings aloft. He pulled free from Bran's wrecked throat, spilling out a shower of sparks and molten slag onto the earth between his feet. He set the wings upon the anvil and Bran saw that the luminous white feathers had all burned away, leaving only a skeletal fan of blackened spines.

Bran wept at the sight. Tears streamed down his temples, joining together at the peak of his forehead. They trickled through his matted hair like water through marsh grass, only to fall in hissing droplets onto the slag-covered ground. He had weathered all the anguish and terror of this brutal assault, only to be undone by the grief of losing those glorious wings.

"They never truly belonged to you." Gofannon's voice held both victory and derision. He motioned to the dragon. "Soron. Away. I'm done with you."

In an eyeblink the dragon evaporated into darkness, leaving Bran to fall heavily and unceremoniously in the puddle of his own tears. He lay there, aching, empty, and sobbing as Gofannon lifted his hammer and began pounding away at what was left of his wings.

By and by, Bran grew vaguely aware of a distant song that grew and grew.

A woman's voice, melodious and exquisite, singing a tune he knew he should remember, in a language he never should have forgotten. His weeping stopped, replaced by the surprise of seeing her in the puddle of his tears. She was pale and delicate and achingly beautiful in a way that no mortal could ever hope to be. But what surprised Bran the most was the gentle kindness and deep affection in her smiling face.

She reached out to him, caressing his cheek with a soothing touch that reminded Bran of those sunny feelings that had swelled up in him when he first laid eyes on the duke. "Come with me," she sang to him, in a quiet lilting tune. "You don't belong here, brother."

Fearing for her safety, he glanced up to see if Gofannon had noticed her, but the smith seemed delighted to be hammering those blackened spines into steely scales. He spared no attention for the broken, chained figure on the ground.

Bran looked back down at the mysterious beauty, and nodded. He tried to sing back to her, but the only sound that left his shattered voice box was a croaking squawk.

Her arm wrapped round his head. Her lips sealed against his in an earnest, chaste kiss that flooded him with sweet, healing water. He swooned as he felt his body shrinking, even as it once again knitted itself back together. The chains fell away, meant to hold his magic self, not his mortal coil.

She embraced him and pulled him through the puddle into the gloomy depths of the ocean where a thousand smiling faces surrounded them, all as surpassingly beautiful as her own. He knew he should recognize them, but his mind was blank. He drew in breath to speak to them, but his lungs rebelled against the salt water a mortal man was never meant to breathe, and the crushing pressure of the deeps squeezed him into unconsciousness.