The Fifth Beast (ManxMan Chinese/Celtic Fantasy Story)

Chapter 16

Warning: This chapter contains a description of rape, not too graphic, but you will definitely feel sorry for Niall, he didn't deserve that much punishment. But you can skip the second half of this chapter or even all of it and go right for the next one, there will be dubious consent, not rape there. 😇😎😈 That's why I decided to upload two chapters at once, this one alone may be too depressing. 

But, quite frankly, I don't recommend for anyone to read my novels if they have no stomach for non-consensual sex. There is always a bit of it in my every story, at least at the background.

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There was no fair fight. The unfamiliar weapon wasn't the problem; the problem was that Faolan Three Swords was about ten times a better swordsman than Niall Mac Nechtan. What Niall took for his own sword skill, was nothing more than the natural strength and dexterity of an immortal Tuatha Dé lord. And even those qualities decreased greatly as soon as he had lost access to his element.

The blade slashed his upper arm, and Niall automatically pressed his left palm to the wound, summoning a magical charge to stop the blood. Cursed and took the palm away. The wound hurt, and the blood ran down his arm, tickling the skin unpleasantly and making the hilt of the sword slippery.

"Do you yield, Sidhe?"

Niall didn't answer, just silently raised his sword and attacked again.

The next time the saber struck the outside of his thigh. The pants and the hem of his travelling cotta began to soak with blood. The shooting pain in his thigh prevented him from stepping on his leg properly.

When the tip of the saber scratched his cheek, Niall finally realized that the barbarian chief was playing with him, taunting him. He howled, enraged, and rushed at the barbarian, ignoring his sword. He only needed to reach with his hands, and he would break the barbarian's neck, tear off his head, even if the barbarian would manage to run him through with his sword. One wound would not kill the Lord of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Even dying, he would plunge his teeth into the barbarian's throat and bite him to death!

The damned barbarian gracefully stepped aside and struck Niall across the stomach. With the blunt side of the blade, knocking the air out of him.

Niall fell to his knees, desperately trying to breathe in, opening his mouth like a fish on dry land. The sword struck him twice more, quick as a charging snake, and both his arms below the elbows went numb. The battle rage receded, leaving in its place a clammy, cold fear. Niall couldn't get up, couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't even tear at the cotta on his chest, as a mortal does when he's out of breath.

He couldn't dodge when the point of the saber darted to his neck.

Now Niall was helpless, on his knees, and the barbarian stood over him with a naked sword and a victorious smile. The blade cut the first clasp on the collar of his cotta, cut the second, the third. Then it cut his undershirt to the skin. Touched the skin lightly and then in one fell swoop cut all his clothes down to his waist. Threw the edges open, exposing his chest and stomach.

Some part of Niall's mind still retained the ability to think, and he had a fleeting thought that the barbarian wouldn't be satisfied with only one bloody scratch on Niall's chest, to mirror the outcome of their first fight. There was no point, he had already made Niall bleed several times. Was he thinking where to land the killing blow? Yes, he did say that Niall would tell no one about this meeting.

Surprisingly, the real reason didn't even cross Niall's mind. Even when, on the orders of the Yuizhen, two barbarians tore off pieces of his clothes and tied his hands — in the front, not behind his back, as if they were going to drag him on a rope behind a horse. What horse, they don't have kirin horses here, inside the Shield, but the Yuizhen had come to Airenn to buy ordinary horses, would he drag the captive and bound Lord of the Tuatha Dé Danann back to Airenn? Cumal would burn him to ashes, him and his entire retinue!

Niall was dragged somewhere, and he could finally breathe, but still couldn't resist. He was still hurting from painful impotence, from the inability to call forth his element. It felt like a noose around his neck, like paralysis, like a fever shaking his body, like all of that combined. The feeling simply had no name in Gaelic. The barbarians were chatting and laughing, and the Yuizhen was saying something loudly, or was it the ringing in Niall's ears? No, the ringing came after, when he was thrown onto a bearskin in his own tent, and the tall figure of the Yuizhen blocked the entrance.

"Now I'll take my prize," he said, unbuckling his belt.

And then Niall Mac Nechtan understood why he would tell no one about this meeting. But it was already too late.

He resisted, of course, out of pure instinct. He had some wrestling skills, again from the days of training at Ath Luain Castle, where he had to fight off Daire Mac Cormac's drunken advances more than once or twice. But then he had magic and something more powerful than magic: the confidence that no one would dare harm the Lord of Lightning, the son of Nechtan Mac Ethliu.

Why, he never even had a notion that someone could force the Tuatha Dé Lord to have sex with them. The Queen, of course, could order him to share her bed. Theoretically, the Keeper of the North could too. But would they? And if they did, would it resemble this dirty, humiliating scuffle in the dark? The scuffle resulted in his pants and boots having been roughly torn off, but not completely, from one leg only, his kicking legs parted with a knee, and he was pressed face first into the prickly bearskin.

It hurt unexpectedly much, and he bit his lip until it bled, stifling a scream. Screaming seemed shameful, even more shameful than lying silently under his rapist. But never before had he been taken so roughly. Yes, Daire's dick was larger, like most of the Tuatha Dé Lords. Yes, that one time with Daire very much resembled a rape, but then Niall was drunk with wine and lust, and Daire used healing magic... No, he never felt anything like those hard, vengeful thrusts between his buttocks, which shook his entire body, extorting sharp, painful sobs from his chest, which Niall muffled with his knuckles. Did they tie his hands in the front, so that he could clasp his mouth shut?

The barbarian violently drove into him a few more times and came. He got up and fumbled with his clothes (he didn't take off his pants, just unfastened them and lowered down to his knees). Great Danu, make him leave as soon as possible. Let him say something rude and mocking, and then make him ride off to his freaking North, while Niall would be lying on this freaking bearskin, and maybe in a day or a week he would find the strength to close his legs, get up and find his clothes. In a month, perhaps, he would be able to reach his castle and look his mortal subjects in the eye...

Faolan Three Swords pulled back the flap of the tent, letting in the glint of the fire, and shouted something to his warriors. Niall, who had just been lying indifferent, wanting only never to get up again and preferably die, suddenly choked from a terrible thought that sent a chill through his whole body. Everything was relative. The fact that he was raped once was monstrous and disgusting so much that it defied description. But what if they did it again, five more times, twenty-five more times, not only the Yuizhen, but all his retinue? Niall darted away from the entrance, holding his bound hands out in front of him, prepared to fight back so fiercely that he would at least be stunned first.