A sad story of how her Mother died

Lyra shrugged off her top, tossing it one side to land in a crumpled heap on the floor. She straightened back, standing there half-naked in the candelight, her chin up and her whole body bared to the young prince's anxious gaze. There was a challenging sneer on her face, almost like she expected him to scream or turn away at what he saw. Knowing that would only make her angrier, Marcus **** himself not to flinch, instead staring wide-eyed at her muscled torso. She...would have been beautiful, her skin pale and smooth as cream, her two bare boobs round and high on her chest, with lovely pink nipples capping each soft mound. Only, he felt his stomach clench as his anxious gaze flickered over the right side of her body. Across her shoulder, part of her chest and then down her flank and muscled belly the flesh turned rough and red, patches of white and waxy ridges in amongst the angry scarlet of one huge scar that covered most of her side. It was...horrible. The sheltered prince could hardly even imagine what kind of awful injury could have marked the young woman so, nor the agony it must have caused her. Despite everything, he felt a sharp pang of sympathy for Lyra in amongst the fear and nervousness churning in his stomach.

"Hardly a beauty like you, am I?" She growled at last, her one good eye fixed on him with a cold, furious glare. "The fire was bad...but let me tell you, the weeks afterward were far worse, screaming in agony as my flesh peeled and oozed, every part of me wracked with the pain of it until I hardly knew where I ended and the burns began. I should have died, or so the healer told me, and there were moments I wished I had. Only one thing kept me alive, only one thing stopped me from biting through my own tongue in those moments of pure agony and drowning in my blood to escape it." She paused, taking in a hoarse, shuddering breath as Marcus stared at her in horror. "I needed...**** on the person who'd done this to me, and so much worse besides." Her good eye blazed fiercely, like a simmering coal. "Aren't you going to ask me who it was, boy?" She growled, the rough anger in her voice leaving him little choice but to obey.

"Who...?" Marcus stammered out, already half-knowing and dreading the answer she'd give him.

"It was your Father, of course." Lyra sneered. "Our former king Castor Valerian." The young prince gasped out, feeling his stomach drop like a stone. There was no way! Maybe his Father wasn't a good king, like she'd always said and proven with those letters...but he was still a good man! There was no way he'd do this to anyone, especially not a girl!

"No!" He protested, his voice high-pitched and trembling, but filled with conviction all the same. "My Father wouldn't!"

"He did." The scary woman snapped at him. Marcus shrank back, afraid she was going to leap forward strike him, but she just stood there, her arms by her sides to bare her scarred torso to him, utterly without shame. "It was almost five years ago now, but I remember that night like it was yesterday. Men wearing his colors barred the doors and set fire to my home while I was trapped inside. I doubt he was really trying to hurt me, I was just in the way. The one our former king truly meant to kill was my Mother, Valerie Black, and in that he succeeded. She gave her life to save me, used her body to shield mine, and was burned alive on top of me because of your Father." She spat the words, a mixture of rage and pain Marcus could hardly even grasp burning in her one good eye. There was silence for a moment as he shivered and trembled, naked in front of her but so shocked he didn't even bother to cover himself. He felt sick...

"No..." Marcus stammered. Even as sure, even as bitter and vengeful and angry as she sounded, it was impossible. His Father wouldn't do that!

"She was his whore, you see." Lyra continued like he hadn't said anything, that one cold eye boring into him like a dagger. "Well eventually anyway, she was everyone else's whore first. Sold to a brothel when she came of age, she spent her adult life fucking nobles and merchants for coin and having most of it taken from her by the fat pig who owned the place. They hurt her...they used her for whatever sick desires they wanted, and when she was barely twenty one of those monsters sired me in her womb." She shivered, a pained look passing over her face. Marcus stared uncertainly at this scary woman. One moment she sounded so furious he wanted to dive under the bed and hide from her, the next the despair and grief in her voice as she spoke of her Mother made his heart ache with sympathy. He couldn't imagine such a thing even happening in his Father's kingdom, but then in the past few days he'd learned just how much he didn't know. "I was born and raised in that place, seeing the bruises on my Mother's body when she was done with one of her rougher clients, hearing her primp and preen to attract these men who saw her only as a piece of meat to be used. I know she wanted to escape that life, but it was all she knew. And what other choice does a dishonored, abandoned peasant girl have to feed herself and her daughter in this Kingdom your family built?" She fell silent again, her lip trembling. Her gaze had dropped to the floor while she spoke.

"I'm sorry..." Marcus whimpered. He didn't know...what else to say. No wonder Lyra was so angry and hurt...only he still didn't know where his Father fit into any of this.

"Words, boy, just words." She grunted sourly, raising her head back up to glare at him like that moment of sorrow had never happened. "It isn't your fault what happened, you just got to enjoy the benefits. Some years later, when I was old enough to realize the only reason I hadn't been thrown out of that place on the day of my birth was because the pig who owned it figured I might replace my Mother one day, she got herself a new client. She wouldn't tell me much, but after the night they spent together I'd never seen her happier. Suddenly she seemed to think we were going to escape this life. This handsome, kind and gentle man was going to take us both away and let us live in comfort and luxury far away. He was arranging things with the pimp, that's what she said. She even took me to meet him that very next day, he was kind, gentle and handsome, just like she'd promised, and the way he looked at her, I...started to believe as well. That he loved her, that he was going to save her and save me too." She scoffed hoarsely, but there was a wistful look in her one good eye. "This was your Father of course, our former king, only I didn't recognize him them. He had us moved out the brothel the very next day to a small place in town he owned, he told us it was just while he arranged his home for us to stay there with him. My Mother was so eager to be his, she taught herself to cook and sew just so she could be a good Mistress even to a nobleman. Then, about two weeks later, armed men wearing his crest on their cloaks trapped us in that fucking house and burned it to the ground. I never found out why, I never got the chance to rip the answer out of him...but I can guess. Maybe your mother found out about his whoring and your bastard father did it to please her, or maybe he just figured he was done with my Mother and it was time to move on."

She fell silent again, taking deep, ragged breaths, her one eye misty with painful memory. Marcus couldn't speak either, standing there naked in front of her...and feeling so sad and lost he could hardly bear it. This awful...horrible woman who'd stripped him, abused him and taken his home from him...this was her story? All these terrible things had happened to her? And more dizzying still...their parents had met, her peasant Mother and his Father the King had been together many years ago. She'd told him before his Father liked to visit whores...was this how she knew? Only, no matter the certainty with which she spoke, and her bare, scarred torso speaking to the truth of some of it at least, there was one part of her story the young prince knew he'd never believe. His Father would never have done that to her! If she was right...and the King had truly loved her Mother, then he would have done anything and everything to save her instead!

"I survived...somehow, and once I was able to walk again I spent months searching for that man my Mother loved so I could gut him and watch him bleed for what he did to us." Lyra continued at last, her lip trembling with bitter rage. "Everywhere I travelled I saw the state of this country, the beggars, the starving peasants, the same fat nobles who'd used my Mother like meat taking everything from the helpless, using their guards and knights to bully anyone who dared resist. When I learned at last he was the King of this fucking country it felt like a bad joke. Only then it came to me...what I'd suffered, what my Mother suffered, it was all because of him...because of the way your family made this fucking country work. I knew I couldn't just kill him, as much as I wanted to. All that would mean was someone else rising in his place and doing the exact same fucking thing. No, I needed to overthrow everything, tear it all down and build something new, a place where women like my Mother wouldn't be at the mercy of monsters like him. I found others who wanted the same, who believed the same, who'd also lost family and friends because of nobles and royalty. And that's how it all got started, see? Your Father's cruelty and blindness made the army that drove him from his own castle. Poetic, in a way." She chuckled darkly. Her lips curled into a thin smirk, but there was no pleasure in that cold grin. "Shame we never caught the bastard so I couldn't tell him so, before I had him hung in front of a crowd of the very peasants his sorry rule has starved."

Marcus shuddered, torn between sympathy for the scarred woman's tale and horror at what she intended. He didn't...couldn't believe his Father responsible, but she did, with all her heart. Suddenly it all made sense...why she'd been so cruel to him, why she hated nobles and his family so very much. What she and her Mother had suffered through, it was no wonder she was angry enough for that. To her...he must have just been a symbol of all the bad things that had happened to her, and with his parents out of her grasp he was the only one she could take her vengeance on. Marcus shuddered at that thought, this should never have happened. Even if his Father would never have hurt Lyra or her Mother...the fact that he ruled over a kingdom where things like this occurred still left him at fault in the young prince's mind. He was King...he should have looked after his subjects better! And if he really had loved Lyra's Mother, he should have protected her too!

"So, you know the whole sorry story now." Lyra sneered, crossing her muscled arms over her bare chest. "You don't believe me, do you? But that's fine...I wouldn't expect someone like you to. Someone who's lived his life in a fancy palace, who loved his murdering Daddy and thought he was a hero and a good king, you've got no idea what life's really like. Hopefully these past few days whoring yourself out to my people has been a good lesson for you, even if you keep escaping the worst of it by being so cute and pathetic no-one wants to treat you the way whores usually get treated." She breathed a sharp sigh, tossing her long, black hair. "Don't think I missed how Jack clearly told you we don't have your parents captive after all, despite me warning him not to." Marcus yelped in shock at that, breaking through the confusion and misery he felt over Lyra's awful story. She'd guessed that...no wonder when she'd just revealed the same and he hadn't even managed to act surprised. So stupid...now Jack was in trouble with her too!

"Please...I begged him to." The young prince stammered, **** to spare his lover her anger. "It's not his fault."

"Yet another reason you'd better make this night good for me, boy." Lyra purred, her one good eye moving down his bare chest. "If I'm very satisfied tomorrow, perhaps I might forget." She licked her lips, making Marcus shiver. She seemed to have shrugged off her own miserable memories, and had now gone back to staring at him like a hungry predator, like she was trying to bury what she'd just told him under lust instead. Then why tell the story at all if she was just going to ignore it now and make him pleasure her anyway? She clearly didn't care much what he thought of her, so why had she thought he needed to know any of that?

Before he could wander any further, the scarred woman stepped forward, stalking towards him like a lioness. Marcus trembled, his arms stiff by his sides, resisting the urge to cover his dick or chest with his hands. Like she'd warned him...he had to make sure she enjoyed this. Not just to save Jack, as important as that was, but also to make sure she paid all that money she'd promised towards his debt. If he could just be free of her, none of this would matter anymore. He could run away with Jack, far away, and never worry again about whether his Father had killed her Mother. Raising his head, the young prince met her lustful glare, promising himself he'd do everything she wanted and make it as good for her as he could....