Chapter 31: Cort

He pulled his ear away from the crack in silent rage. The hollow passage in the wall of the barracks had always been a font of information. It had helped him keep on top of his recruits, listen in and learn when they were plotting against him, and discover which women would serve him best. Cort had discovered the passage early in his first year in the Westfall Arena; he knew most of the old Grixoninian buildings had at least one secret passageway built in the nation’s bloody past, and he had sought them out obsessively in the arena until he had found all he suspected existed. The passages that slinked past the barracks and the mess were the most rewarding. He could listen to the soldiers as they talked and know in advance what problems were arising. Of course, the passage that led past the bathhouse was also entertaining, but that was more for pleasure than business.

It was how he had avoided complications from his training methods for so long. He knew that Commander Thorpe didn’t have the stomach for the kind of training that the men required. Worse still, Thorpe was soft enough to let women into the Blades as soldiers, instead of just kitchen and scullery maids. No slit was worthy of being in his arena and Thorpe had just signed up another three! The older bitch, the one who foolishly asserted that the boy could easily kill him, she would need to be broken. Lauraphine. He could have sworn he’d broken her collarbone. He’d heard the crack. But she was fighting fit the next day. His ego railed against the acknowledgement that she was tough. She must have been in excruciating pain the next day, training with that injury. Not that she showed it, but there was no way she had healed that quickly. And then she said he was ‘almost as good as her’? It wasn’t possible that a mere woman could be close to his skill, let alone better than him. Regardless, he knew that she wouldn’t submit to him quickly; that would take time. He’d have to break her will, remove her support and make her beg for it. The elves though, they were ripe for plucking; he’d been looking forward to giving them an order to report to his chambers.

But now he withdrew from the passage, absolutely seething with anger at what he had heard. The recruit Mathew had an ‘understanding’ with the two sluts, the stupid boy. A man would have fucked them raw already. A real man would have taken what was his. But there he was, being a little bitch. Weak. Pathetic. Rubbing their shoulders and serving them. He might have respected the boy if he’d seen the four women all choking themselves on the boy’s cock. At least then Mathew would be a real man and Cort would deal with him honourably, then. The boy would still die, but at least it would be in a fair fight.

But the way he was fawning over the women like a cuckold and letting himself be treated like an equal? Disgusting. Cort spat. This complicated things; they wouldn’t simply follow an order to bed him now. No, they’d want to save themselves for their precious Mathew. Of course, Cort could force them, but they looked like the type to cry and he hated the pitiful blubbering that cunts made when he had to be assertive to get what he wanted.

No. If he had Mathew killed off, the girls would be distraught, but then there would be a hole, a vacancy for a real man. They would want strength, power, someone who could hold their world together. Someone who they could serve properly.

And then Rio. She knew more about how he operated than he would have thought possible for her simple, primitive intelligence. Still, that bitch actually thought her brother was the reason he hadn’t fucked her in all her holes? Like he would sully his dick in her mud-skinned cunt. If he weren’t above her in every way possible, he’d consider it just to show he wasn’t afraid of that black cur. No, she’d need to meet with an accident soon.

They would all pay. But Mathew especially. The boy had dared to lay a finger on him and threatened to kill him! No amount of his honeyed apologies would save him now. Sure, he was getting all cuddly with the women and the white blades, but that didn’t mean shit.

A plan began to form in his mind, one that would show how weak the boy was. How much of a soft-cocked cuck he was.

Then, when the boy was found dead, they’d all realise it was because he was soft, like a bitch.

Then they would appreciate a real man.