The Price of Peace

Chapter Sixteen –

The air was thick with smoke and death. That was the way of her life, her constant need for attention and affection. If she had to incinerate and kill everything and everyone in her path, then so be it. She would kill her own child if the need arose. Maybe that’s why Qiang had taken the little boy from her. She’d threaten to kill it so many times, angry that her “husband” had planted his seed within her womb. After all, that is what a concubine was for – to produce an heir if the honored wife could not.

She’d had power during her pregnancy. All she’d had to do was increase the temperature of her uterus to fry the little bastard. But Qiang had been even more ruthless than she had, promising a swift retribution of the kind of death even she shuddered just imagining.

She sighed longingly. She respected her husband. He reminded her of her beloved father. He knew of her desire to seek revenge against the traitors – her brother for writing her off so easily and murdering their father, and her uncle for sheer spite.

The nerve of her brother! To think that she could be killed so easily! Yes, he had broken her root. Actually, the current of the river had broken her root. He’d only managed to get a few lucky shots in, wounding her and scarring her for the rest of her life. She hadn’t burned for long, seeing as she was drowning in the river. But, then she had fallen over the waterfall.

The rapids had almost killed her, but not quite. After she had managed to pull herself from the river she had collapsed. She had woken to find herself bound and gagged, a war trophy for Earth Kingdom General Qiang and his troops, delegated to the role of a powerful general’s concubine.

She was not his honored wife, but his lowly concubine. She was not Fire Lady of the Fire Nation. She was whore and mother. The irony of fate twisted its cruel knife in her gut and she stirred from her slumber. Her status had been stripped away so long ago that she still had some difficulty recognizing herself in the mirror.

A man groaned next to her. The man lying next to her was not her lover, but a man of great wealth. She had endured his fumbling touch and had acted the part of enthusiastic lover to garner his upcoming support. He had been tender to the beautiful dethroned daughter of the once proud Fire Nation. She despised displays of tenderness. They appalled her.

Her husband used her in this manner – to garner support for his campaign and kill anybody in his way. She was a proficient assassin. Unfortunately, this man was a supporter and could not be killed. She longed to kill him. She longed to tie him up and burn him slowly; starting with his flaccid, putrid excuse of a cock. Actually, she should forgo tying him up. She always loved it when her victims would run around and try to put the fires out. It was much more entertaining.

The flap of the tent opened and the moonlight outlined her husband’s masculine form. “Azula, come to bed,” he commanded, his voice riddled with undisguised lust. “I’m sure chairman Lin has had his fill of you.”

Pushing the arm of the snoring fop from her hip, Azula stood and stretched in the moonlight, giving her husband a view of her naked form she knew he would appreciate. She inhaled deeply, relishing the smell of death in the air. Burying her resentment over having to stay behind and entertaining their “honored” guest, she did not even bother with a robe. She walked up to her husband and brushed against him seductively, walking out of the tent and into the encampment.

She walked through the men without a stitch of clothing on. Some of them had blood on their armor. Those are the ones she cast a coquettish smile toward. Azula could feel the raw power thrum through them and her husband. Qiang was always this way after a raid, needing her body to carry the high of the kill just one step closer to the insane depravities they both shared.

A swift swat on her backside got her to move into his tent. As soon as the flap closed, he was on her, showing her his displeasure of teasing the men with something he was not willing to share at the moment.

For an older man, he was virile. He made it known that he wanted more children of her, but she made sure that his seed did not catch. All she had to do was regulate her body temperature to prevent any more accidents.

Pushing her face first onto the bed, Qiang forced her legs apart and pressed against her, rubbing his armor and crotch against her ass and wetness. “You drive me crazy,” he rasped, biting her shoulder and mocking the violence of taking her in such a brutal manner.

Azula move her hand to the triangle of curls, but Qiang would not let her and he grabbed her wrists and held them above her hands.

“I could almost shame myself, looking at you,” he growled huskily. “I thought of you as I slit a man’s throat tonight. Do you know how often I wished that same fate upon you? But you have purpose, Azula.”

Releasing her, Qiang took a step back and removed enough armor and clothing to free his erect member. He grabbed her hips and thrust into her lithe, young body with a vicious move. She was already slick from her encounter earlier that evening with chairman Lin’s petty ejaculate.

He was a large common man and she was petite nobility. She craved his brutal side, reveled in the carnal way he treated her.

Pressing his chest against her back, he fondled her breasts and suckled her earlobe. “Give me another child, Azula,” he growled, pushing his length deep inside her and bottoming out against her cervix.

“No!” she replied mockingly, enjoying the buffeting movements against her body.

With a shuddering huff, Qiang pulled out of her as though he meant to deny her the pleasure she sought. But he quickly impaled her and flexed his member deep inside her. “Please,” the general husked. “You’ll be rewarded handsomely.”

Azula gasped as his fingers fondled the juncture of her thighs. She grunted another denial.

Withdrawing from her, Qiang flipped her onto her back and grabbed her ankles. He entered her swiftly, maneuvering her ankles against her shoulders.

Azula screamed as her lover deepened the penetration. “No!” she hissed another denial.

He silenced her with his lips and spurted his essence within her slick channel.

Surprised by her lover’s “quick” finish, she gasped as he rolled away. Her body ached with unspent passion.

Qiang rolled onto his side, facing away from her. “Then I don’t suppose you would be interested in assuming your rightful place on the throne of the Fire Nation.”

She chuckled, knowing he was only teasing her. “Am I to believe that you would extend your campaign to my homeland just for little ole me?”

Not answering her, her husband got out of bed and strode to the desk. He gathered a piece of parchment from the top drawer and flung it onto the bed next to his naked concubine. “Recent events have changed my plans,” he replied solemnly.

Azula’s eyes widened as she scanned the letter. “I don’t believe it,” she gasped in disbelief, forgetting the fact that she was still unsatisfied. She read the letter over, reading Iroh’s shaky scrawl as he lamented the loss of his beloved nephew and offered Qiang succession to the throne.

“I don’t believe it,” she repeated the words softly, continuing to stare at the letter and looking for some hidden meaning. Hope stirred within her, but her nature would not accept the token peace offering.

Qiang threw his head back and roared. “I offer you what you’ve always sought, yet you sit there and ‘don’t believe it.’ Have I treated you so poorly that you have lost all hope?”

“…My beloved nephew and his wife…?” Azula studied the puzzle before her. “Who did Zu Zu marry?”

A salacious grin spread across his face and he knelt between her open thighs, rubbing the flesh with intent. His beloved little Firebender was concentrating, trying to strategize. He loved distracting her when she was like this. “My spies tell me that he married the daughter of a Water Tribe warrior,” he murmured, licking her inner thigh and inhaling the musky scent of sex. “I think her name was Katana, or something like that.”

“Katara,” replied Azula, glaring at the note as if daring it to reveal more secrets.

“Yes, that’s her name,” Qiang chuckled, spreading his concubine before him like a feast for a dying man. Her nether lips wept and he smiled as his lover tried to discourage him from his current course of action with a mean little shove. Before she could protest further, he swept his tongue between her feminine lips and teased her clitoris.

“Will you focus?” she groaned lowly.

“I…am,” he muttered as he feasted. “I could…die…a thousand…deaths…like this.”

Wanting to give in to him, Azula grabbed his shoulder and thrust her hips against his face. His words reverberated in her mind, tickling her suspicious nature, but her lover’s attentions tugged on the strings of lust, which quickly overrode common sense. Something wasn’t right. The letter was too good to be true. Zu Zu was dead and the old man was the last in line. Something wasn't right. She just couldn't trust an old man who had given her a doll. Iroh wasn't stupid. Underestimating him would be like signing her own death warrant.

Azula grinned and relaxed as her lover focused on her pleasure. Perhaps she could sign his death warrant.

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TBC