"Gabrielle, where are you?" called Xena sternly as she looked around the dimly lit tent. The thought flipped through her mind that the girl had escaped and she felt an unusual pang of disappointment, but then she heard the soft voice behind her, "I'm here, Princess," and she turned to see the angelic form of her newest slave. To cover the flush of arousal that the girl had induced she turned her eyes to thunder and demanded harshly "Where have you been!?"
Gabrielle lowered her own eyes and replied "I'm sorry, Princess. I was talking to some of the women."
"Really?" asked the warrior, her hand flashing out to grab Gabrielle and fling her through the doorflaps, where she landed on her knees. "What were you talking about?"
"I...I...was asking them...." she stuttered, her frightened green eyes rising falteringly to Xena's stormy face, "I.....I needed their advice."
"About what?" asked the warlord as she loomed over the cowering girl, hands on hips.
"About how....how to please you...in bed" the girl answered, her eyes closing and her body tensing in preparation for the anticipated blow.

The blow, however, did not come and Gabrielle opened her eyes to see the Warrior Princess kneeling before her with eyes full of appreciative amusement. "Oh, Gabrielle" she soothed, her fingertips running slowly down the girl's cheek, "you don't need to worry about that. I'll teach you how to please me, but I want to please you, too."
Gabrielle's eyes widened in surprise, "you do!?" she asked tentatively.
"Of course I do."
"But I thought....."
Xena looked at the ground to hide a transient flush and finished "you thought I didn't care about your pleasure. A fair assumption, I suppose, but let me explain..."

She lifted Gabrielle and led her tho the enormous bed, sitting her down on the edge and crouching before her. "Giving a woman pleasure is what turns me on, Gabrielle," she said softly, as she began slowly to undo her slave's dress, "it makes me feel powerful. You see, it's easy to destroy a town if you have enough trained warriors at your command, but to make a beautiful woman beg me for her sexual release gives me an infinitely greater thrill." The warrior rose to sit beside Gabrielle as she slowly removed the binding that kept her golden hair held back, and then continued "conquering a woman in bed, especially one that hates and fears me, making her need what she knows only I can give and making her beg me for it.......well, that is a greater and more stimulating victory than any I could have on the battlefield." Xena smiled as she pulled the girl's dress down slightly over her shoulders and bent forward to trail soft kisses across her shuddering chest. Gabrielle wanted to say 'I don't hate you, Mistress; I fear you sometimes but I could never hate you.' She tried to speak but the breath caught in her throat as warm lips danced over her skin, and she could make no coherent sound.

"Many women have tried to fool me," Xena continued, "pretended to be in ecstasy, tried to fake orgasms, but that doesn't work with me. It has to be real and I have always been able to tell when it wasn't. In the end I have always won, bent them to my will, made them burn for my touch." she laughed lightly as she pulled away and observed the girl's fluttering eyelids, running her thumbs over the full, moist lips of her captive, "but I don't think you would know how to pretend, would you, my pretty maiden?" and she laughed again at Gabrielle's blush.

All the while she had been speaking, Xena had been undressing Gabrielle, slowly, carefully, letting the fabric skate smoothly over her fair skin. Unaware, the girl had become mesmerised and, as Xena's whispering lips came closer to her ear, and her clothes dropped silently to the floor, she closed her eyes and trembled softly. She could feel Xena's power shimmering in the air and it made her tingle all over, even though she didn't understand why.

"Tell me what you want" Xena whispered and the hypnotised girl opened her heavy eyelids and turned to the beautiful face of her mistress.
"I.....I don't know the words" she admitted breathily.
"But you do want it, don't you?" Xena said, her tone clearly stating rather than questioning and she smiled in triumph at the immediate reply.
"Yes! but I......I don't know.....what...."
"Then let me show you."

* * * * * *

Gabrielle gasped as Xena pushed her roughly down onto the bed. The warrior's eyes raked slowly over the naked form that lay prone before her and a smile broke on her lips. "Gabrielle," she said approvingly, "you really are quite beautiful." As Xena began to remove her own clothes, the blonde lay, staring impassively at the high ceiling, trembling under the almost tangible stare of her owner, trying to calm her heart, but when she heard the warlord's clothes land on the ground she dared to steal a look. At the sight of Xena in all her naked glory, Gabrielle's breath stopped entirely, sticking audibly in her suddenly dry throat. A smug smile settled on the magnificent warrior's lips as she asked "do you like what you see, village girl?"
Gabrielle swallowed hard, her eyes darkening rapidly as she took in the lean, muscled form. "Yes," she whimpered, "you're....perfect."
Xena laughed throatily, "hardly!" she said, "that would be somewhat boring, don't you think?"

Xena knelt on the bed with one knee and took hold of Gabrielle's hands, pulling her into a sitting position. Her hands went around Gabrielle's head, her fingers burying themselves in the luscious, golden hair, and she suddenly yanked the girl's head toward her chest, so that her lips were almost upon Xena's rigid nipple. "Suck it!" she ordered and, with only the slightest hesitation, the girl obeyed, taking the erect nub into her mouth and sucking it gently. "That's it, Gabrielle" Xena assured her as the girl's hand instinctively moved up to envelop the other breast and her other arm went around Xena's waist to pull her closer. "Use your teeth and your tongue as well" Xena urged, and her eyes fluttered closed in appreciation as Gabrielle blossomed into her role. "Harder! Mmmm, that's it, Gabrielle, that's...very....g..good!"

Arousal stabbed at the Warrior Princess, stoking the fire that had been simmering within. She pulled away and looked down at the blonde that was now hers, examining the young woman's face, its green eyes fogged with arousal, thrilling to the sound of the stilted, heavy breath. She took in the smoothness of Gabrielle's skin, the brightness of her red-gold hair that seemed to flicker in the candlelight, the trust and innocence in her young face. Suddenly the mighty warlord was overwhelmed with feelings she had thought lond dead, emotions she had cold-bloodedly murdered the day she had become the Warrior Princess as her Egyptian Gallic lover lay dead in her arms with a Roman arrow sticking out of her. She had killed these feelings there and then, as mercilessly as the Romans had killed her love, her beautiful M'lila. Now this innocent village girl had reawakened them and suddenly she had to admit to herself that she was scared. She pulled away and backed off, turning so that Gabrielle would not see the confusion and pain in her eyes.

Gabrielle's desire turned to fear as she watched Xena's shuddering back in horror. "P...Princess?" she said after a while, "have I....done something wrong?" No answer came as the warrior gripped onto the edge of a table and squeezed her eyes shut against the panic. Gabrielle, desperate to make amends for her unknowing transgression, rose and approached the warlord, tentatively reaching out to lay her hand on the warrior's shoulder. "Mistress, please" she asked, her voice wavering, "what is it? What's the matter?" Xena flinched at the touch and jerked around, her eyes burning into Gabrielle's without mercy, her expression unreadable. The slave, however, read it as fury and dropped to her knees, bowing her head in submission, "I'm sorry, Princess. Please, tell me what I've done." Silence. Gabrielle looked up at Xena's darkened, staring face. "Please, Mistress" she whimpered, unable to bear the penetrating gaze and the stony silence any longer. Tears began to roll down her face and she stuttered "p...please, forgive me."

With a burst of will power Xena pushed away the humiliating emotions and buried her compassion deep, hardening her heart and rebuilding the wall around it. "Get up and stop your sniveling" she snapped and slowly the girl obeyed, keeping her face angled towards the floor. Yet even as she opened her mouth to reprove her slave, something stopped her blaming the girl for the incident and she changed her intended explanation for another. "It was merely an old wound paining me," she said impatiently, annoyed at her strange unwillingness to lay the blame on her slave. "It has passed now" she added as she turned and flopped down onto the bed

Gabrielle's eyes filled with concern and she stood before the warrior, asking in a quavering tone "did I cause it?"
"No" the dark woman reassured her wearily, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a long sigh. Calm control resettled on her like a warm blanket and she reached out to the girl, taking her hand and raising it to her lips, "really, it's wasn't your fault." Relieved that she had recovered herself and pushing all anxiety over the incident to the back of her mind, she looked up at the worried girl. "I'm a warrior, Gabrielle," she said, her smile returning gradually, "I've recieved many wounds in my life and some of them will never be fully healed." If the warrior knew that the wounds she had been refering to were not the numerous physical ones she had endured over the years, she did not acknowledge it to herself. Certainly Gabrielle had no inkling of the double meaning in her mistress's words and the answer seemed to satisfy her, even as it caused her natural compassion to flower in her heart. "Oh, Princess" she sighed, "why did you not tell me you were in pain?"
"It was sudden," Xena placated, "it comes that way sometimes."

Gabrielle crouched down between the warrior's knees, placing her warm hands on the tanned thighs, and asked "where does it hurt?" The smouldering of her eyes was in stark contrast to the innocence in her voice and Xena was struck by dichotemy. She raised a hand to her heart, adorned by a now faint scar and murmured "here." Gabrielle rose steadily a leant in, placing her lips over the mark, kissing and licking gently, almost imperceptibly pushing the warrior down onto her back.

Xena shuddered lightly as, driven by instinct, Gabrielle ran her supposedly inexpert tongue over the warrior's tanned chest, kissing and nipping gently as she went. 'No' thought the warlord, 'this is not right. She's taking control!' Disgusted with herself for letting this happen, Xena grabbed the girl's wrists tightly and flipped her onto her back, pulling her arms sharply up above her head. "Open your legs, girl" she ordered gruffly and, when Gabrielle obeyed she brought her knee up smartly to slam into the springy golden down that covered her prize, smiling as the young woman cried out and unconsciously arched into her. "I own you, village girl," she announced, grinding her knee and thigh into her slave's moistening centre, "remeber that."
"Y...yes....Mistress" came the breathy reply as the girl squirmed beneath her.
"Your pleasure is mine, Gabrielle, just as your body is. Mine to do with as I will." She thrust viciously with her knee once more and a ripple of excitement ran over her flesh as the girl cried out again. "What are you, Gabrielle?" she asked, more than a hint of warning and threat in her tone, but Gabrielle didn't need threatening, she was only too willing to admit the truth.
"I am.....your s..slave, Mistress."

* * * * * *

Xena lay on top of her willing captive, pining the girl's trembling body to the bed and kissing her more deeply and roughly than she had intended. Several times the warrior had expertly driven her slave to the edge and then pulled her back before she could reach her climax, and watching the girl's desperate movements and hearing her moans had brought the warrior herself into a highly aroused state.

A number of times in the past, Gabrielle had tentitively experimented with touching herself and one time she had brought herself very close to a climax but, knowing nothing of orgasms, she had ended her experiment without ever knowing that if she had just pushed a little harder for a little longer she would have been released from her agony of need. Now, with Xena confidently stroking her into a frenzy, her mind reeled around the images of that time and her body remembered how close it had come to fulfillment.

Xena moved her mouth down to Gabrielle's shuddering breasts and ravaged them without mercy, wrenching gasps and cries and eventually a desperate plea from the girl's dry throat. Xena stopped abruptly and smugly smiled into the trembling chest beneath her before raising her now dark eyes to Gabrielle's sweating face. "'Please' what, Gabrielle?" she asked breathlessly, her own need and desire hammering in her loins, "do you want me to stop? I will if you want."
"NO!" cried Gabrielle in horror at the very thought, bringing another knowing smile to Xena's lips, "don't stop! please!"
"Then what?" teased Xena innocently.
"I....I...." the girl was on the verge of tears in her desperate frustration. She knew Xena was playing with her but she didn't understand the game. Something, however, made Xena take pity on her slave as her tears began to fall. She moved up until she was face to face with the girl and looked down into the confused green eyes. "It's alright, Gabrielle" she whispered in her ear, "I know what you need and I won't keep it from you any longer, not tonight." She lowered her head and kissed Gabrielle thoroughly but unusually tenderly, at the same time coating her middle finger in Gabrielle's juices and caressing her slit. "Relax, Gabrielle," she crooned, "let me in, let me inside you."

A high-pitched rasping sigh emanated from the blonde as the warlord's long finger slid effortlessly into her well-lubricated entrance, quickly joined by two of its colleagues. Her back arched involuntarily as Xena's thumb landed on her aching clit and a shiver ran through her glistening body. Xena was careful not to push too far just yet. She wanted the girl to come first and relax so that she could then claim her violently - 'yes' she thought, shivering with anticipation, 'give her her first orgasm and then, when she's sated and relaxed, claim her firecely and make her a woman.'

The Warrior Princess smiled as she felt muscles gripping her fingers and the girl's body tensing for the final release. Gabrielle whimpered and stopped breathing as tension like she had never felt gripped her muscles and her mind went blank. Xena's breath caught too as her own body tensed in sympathy and she raised herself so as to see the girl's face when she came. This was the moment the warrior loved most, both when she herself experienced it and when she caused others to do so, this calm before the storm of release, this moment of absolute, blind clarity that vanished at the very moment of fulfillment. For Gabrielle the moment of hovering expectation felt like an eternity. She felt that Xena was holding her suspended over a precipice and, at once, she wanted - needed - to fall, even as she feared it. And then, quite suddenly, the explosion came and she willingly pulnged into....into....

Into Xena's waiting arms she fell, melting into the soft body that seemed to engulf her. She floated for a while between the real world of Xena's tent and some unkown realm that felt like.... like...Elysium. Gradually the half-glimpsed place dissolved around her and she found herself in the arms of a warlord. She tried to rouse herself, knowing she would be punished if she slept without permission, but Xena held her tighter and said in strangely soft voice "relax for a while longer."

"What are you thinking about?" asked Xena a little while later, as she gazed down into her slave's emerald eyes. At Gabrielle's expression of trepidation Xena laughed and inexplicably (as she considered it later) reassured "it's alright, you can tell me. I swear by almighty Ares, whatever it is I will not be angry." Reassured, Gabrielle began to speak and, once she had begun, found she was unable to stop until she had said everything she felt, whether she would be punished or not. "I'm thinking how unpredictable you are" she said. "Sometimes you are so kind to me, so gentle, almost loving, but then at other times you are cruel and violent, as if you don't care for me at all. You can change in an instant, without warning. It's as if you are two people, or maybe more.

"I know that if I am not acceptable to you, you will punish me terribly, or kill me without a thought, but I also know that what is acceptable to you can change in the blink of an eye. I feel you are holding me over a cliff and there is always the possibility that you could decide to let me fall." She observed Xena's face, watching for any sign of hostility or anger but, finding none, continued "I want to please you, Princess. I want to be everything you need and desire, not because you command it or threaten me, but because it is my desire too. But I'm afraid of you, afraid every second that you'll deliberately let go of me, or at least stop trying to hold me so that eventually I will slip from your grasp and plunge into the abyss. I know you need conquest, but there's no need to conquer me, Princess, I'm yours already. Perhaps my willingness and desire for you will be my downfall." Gabrielle lowered her eyes and let her tears flow unhindered.

No one had ever spoken to Xena like that before, she was mesmerised and before she knew what she was saying, she answered "Gabrielle, I know you're mine. I've made you mine, and before this night is through you will be mine still more. I think you're right about my need to conquer, but if you think I'd kill you for being too easily won then you don't understand me yet. You're not like the others, Gabrielle. I have let many of my women fall over that cliff you mentioned and some I have pushed over, but I wouldn't do that to you." She raised Gabrielle's face towards her and looked deep into her eyes. "I can't imagine ever getting tired of you, Gabrielle" she whispered, "but I will make you a promise now. If I ever do I will not let you fall, or push you. I will release you back to your family, unharmed, and I will not interfere with your village again. You have my word." Confusion once more raced in the warrior's veins as she wondered what it was that had compelled her this oath, but she pushed it aside and kissed the girl softly on the mouth. Gabrielle's confusion was unconcealed, however. "Why?" she murmurred wonderingly, "why me?"
"I told you," replied the warrior, as she backed away from the intensity of green that sparkled in the girl's eyes, "you're different."

* * * * * *

Gabrielle cried out as the warlord's hand plunged deep inside her, pulling half way out and thrusting in again with more force. The time had come for the conqueror to claim her property once and for all and with the third vicious thrust, her fingers tore through Gabrielle's last barrier and claimed their rightful territory. A scream tore from the girl's throat, sending a thrill of power into Xena's core and she thrust again, feeling the blood begin to well around her invading hand. Gabrielle pulled at the manacles that tethered her wrists above her head, her hands balling into tight fists against the pain of the warrior's violent intrusion, her hips jerking indiscriminately, as if undecided as to whether to move towards or away from Xena's unrelenting pounding.

The warlord was in a state of intense arousal, and as her desire and need grew hotter, her thrusts became faster and deeper until the writhing girl could bear it no longer. "AAAAGH GODS!" she screamed, "PLEASE, I...I...CAN'T!" but the more the desperate and vocal the girl became, the more intense was Xena's arousal. "aagh, G...Gabrielle!" rasped Xena as her whole body began to quake with the tension of her impending release, "yes....yes...huh!" The girl was sobbing now, and on the point of unconsciousness but Xena took no pity on her this time, her own need too overwhelming in its demmands and her determination not to be controlled by unwanted feelings too strong. As she felt the moment approach she raised herself up in preparation for the welcome spear to pierce her through and when it finally struck home, burning a path to her very core, she gave one more mighty thrust into her captive and screamed her ecstacy into the night.

The warrior collapsed on top of her now unconscious slave and relaxed her hand so that it slid easily out of its bloody sheath. Another glorious conquest was hers and she smiled wearily at the thought of this wonderful creature belonging to her so completely. "Oh, Gabrielle" she whispered as she slid off the motionless form and flopped bonelessly onto her back, "This is going to be so good."

End of Episode Two

SW
12/08/01