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A Useful Mouth

Chapter 16

"What are we to do with you?" Red Mane said wearily.

Aina perched on her knees before him and said nothing. They were in his bedchamber and it was the middle of the day. Sunlight poured through the open windows, falling pale across the carpet.

It had been days since the terrible incident in the forest. Since their return to Howlester Manor - for Aina had learned the name of the large place -- Evelyn had been locked away in her room. The court healer was - to Aina's shock - an old fox who was allowed to practice healing magic and served as a personal physician to the royal family. He cared for Evelyn in the days that followed, and even cared for Aina, healing her torn sex with a touch and magically sealing the cuts on her face. Aina was healthy and whole after the healer's touch but had not seen Evelyn in days. She had to wonder why. Surely Evelyn was well once more? The frightened part of her ached to ask Red Mane, but the proud part of her refused. She did not want Red Mane to realize how much she cared.

Aina tried to ask the old fox . . . but he never spoke to her. In fact, he seemed to refuse. It was only later that she realized the fox's refusal was more pragmatic than rude: he did not want to give the dogs a reason to believe they were in cahoots. The next time she saw him in the hall, she smiled at him and giggled inside when he winked at her.

Red Mane sat at his desk, nursing a glass of brown liquor and pouring over a piece of parchment. From listening to his complaints to Long Face, she knew it was a letter from his mother. He sneered at the letter, then gestured idly at his glass. The meek servant Mousey stepped forward, and with a swing of her long golden mane, leaned over to refill his glass.

Aina scratched her nails through the fur on her knees and kept her head down. She was completely naked, as they had insisted she remain so. Her perky breasts trembled slightly when Red Mane gently tugged the leash fastened around her neck. They kept her like a pet, on a collar and lead. He had the end of the lead lying across his lap. She glanced up at him when he tugged.

"Hmm?" he said. "What should we do? Evelyn said we should release you, but after seeing the way your fellow foxes treated you in the forest . . . that wouldn't be the wisest course of action, would it?"

"Why can't she stay, m'lord?" Long Face said sheepishly. He was lurking behind Red Mane's chair, holding a stack of papers for him to look over. His small eyes went to Aina and he smiled.

Red Mane sighed and took another long bit of parchment from Long Face. He spread it on the desk and looked at it down his snout. "We've been through this before, Haskell. Charles doesn't want her here, as her presence more than encourages Evelyn to keep running off. I dare say I agree."

"I thought she was to be a pelt, m'lord," Mousey shrilled and haughtily jerked her chin as she smirked at Aina.

Aina glared at the golden dog. Mousey had been pushing her death for days. Red Mane had made something of a sex slave out of Aina, and instead of Mousey, it was she who rubbed her breasts on his penis each evening. It was she who ran his bath, gave him oral pleasure, and massaged his shoulders. A small part of her enjoyed all of it. But the more she enjoyed it, the angrier Mousey became. Sometimes Aina found pins in her supper.

Red Mane didn't look up from his papers. "She's too useful to be a pelt."

Mousey snorted. "Useful," she grumbled under her breath. "Foxes only have two uses, m'lord. And that's clothing and wall décor." She giggled.

Red Mane lifted his eyes and regarded Mousey with a disapproving frown that withered her. "That will be all, Sarah. Shouldn't you be helping to start supper anyhow?"

Mousey flattened her ears in her golden mane. "Yes, m'lord," she said unhappily, and glaring at Aina a last time, she grudgingly left the room.

"That one's gonna kill Miss Fox before the week is through," Long Face anxiously vowed. "We got to keep her away, m'lord. I'm telling you --"

"Yes, Haskell," Red Mane sighed, his eyes trailing down the parchment. "So you've said before. Why don't you leave those papers and go out for a smoke? I'll send for you if I need you."

Much like Mousey, Long Face looked unhappy to be sent away, but he muttered, "Yes, m'lord. Of course, m'lord . . ." And leaving the stack of papers on the table, he smiled at Aina before slipping out.

Aina knelt before Red Mane's boots and stared at her thighs in the silence that followed. He tugged lightly on her lead again and she crawled dutifully toward him and stopped. When he tugged a second time, she realized what he wanted. She swallowed hard and crawled between his thighs. They were hard in his tight breeches, and the bulge between them was heavy with the musk of his sex.

"You only talk to me when we're alone," he said, stroking his lip as he regarded her. "Why is that?"

Aina blinked and didn't answer. Part of it was because she hated Mousey, but she couldn't tell him that.

Red Mane sighed. "You have to help me here. I haven't the foggiest what to do with you. Your own kind seem to hate you - for reasons you won't tell me - and yet you can not stay here. If I could figure out what you wanted, perhaps I could make a decision."

Aina finally lifted her eyes and found that his face was creased with concern. She looked at her slender thighs again. "I thought this was something . . . Gentle Eyes would decide. They say you're a visitor here."

Red Mane chuckled. "Ah, you've been eavesdropping. Charles is too distraught at the moment. He's spent the last week coddling Evie. So it's my job for the time being to manage the affairs of the estate." He patted the stack of parchment. "Including you." He looked at her and waited.

"I . . ." Aina's lashes fluttered. She didn't know to say. What did she want? She wanted to stay with Evelyn forever. She wanted to see her again, hold her, kiss her . . . taste her. She wanted to look into her eyes and know that she was well. She heard the servants whispering about fits of melancholia, and she realized for the first time that Evelyn was far more fragile than she'd ever guessed. It was not a comforting thought.

"If I sent you away," Red Mane said heavily, "it would kill Evie. Don't think I haven't noticed how she dotes on you. You know her father died recently? She was Daddy's girl. But he wanted her to marry me and she defied him. Right to the very end. Came as a bit of a shock when he put it in his damn will that she should have to do it. Probably thought she'd be off the hook once the old dog was dead." Red Mane lifted his glass and took a lazy sip. He looked at Aina unhappily. "Then some lover of hers leaves her, and my crazy mother decides it's time to move in and take back what's hers. Namely," he waved a paw, "this estate. And then you happened." His eyes drank Aina in slowly. He shook his head. "You made the world tremble when you came along. You know that?"

Aina blinked in the silence that followed: he was waiting for an answer. "No," she muttered. "I didn't do anything . . ."

"You loved her," Red Mane said sharply, and she could feel his gaze like a burn. "Don't deny it. Look at me and tell me you don't love her now."

Aina stared at her knees and swallowed hard. She heard the swish of liquor as Red Mane drank again.

"As I suspected," he muttered. "And of course she would love you. You know she spent the better part of her life out in your forests? Drooling over your ancient ruins and tablets and mumbo jumbo?" he said bitterly. "She thinks the foxes of antiquity were peace-loving creatures of beauty and serenity who wove magic that made farts into rainbows." He took another dismal drink.

Aina couldn't resist a soft laugh. She raised her eyes. "And you know the truth?"

Red Mane set down his glass and smiled. "I know the truth," he said, reeling her closer by her lead. She was forced to climb into his lap. She lowered her lashes as he stroked her mane, staring at her small face and silently admiring. "I also studied ancient foxes," he said, "but unlike Evelyn, I actually studied them at a university - they don't let bitches attend, you see. I attended archeological dig sites with my professor. I watched as foxes were pried from elaborate tombs. I looked at the walls of those tombs, and what I saw there would break Evelyn's naïve little heart."

Aina swallowed hard, not sure she wanted to know. "Why are you telling me this?" she said angrily.

"The poor 'downtrodden' foxes," Red Mane said, shaking his head. "You were so innocent and pure before we doglords came along, weren't you? No, you weren't. You sacrificed your own and drank fox blood in the light of the moon, thinking it would empower you."

Aina gasped.

"When my kind came to this dusty corner of the world, it was to discover savages happily gorging on the blood of their children. We hadn't the heart to do more than chase you into the darkest corners of the forest, where you lurk even now, complaining around fires about what great an injustice the dogs have done you." He smiled crookedly and took another sip. His eyes were like glass. Aina realized he was drunk.

"You lie."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I have no reason to lie."

"Then why tell me!"

"So I could see that look on your face," he whispered, and his eyes drank her in. "Yes . . . _that_look."

Aina glared at him.

"She loves you," Red Mane said bitterly. "And she doesn't even know who you truly are." He shook his head. "But isn't that how love goes?"

"You love her?" Aina suddenly realized.

"Yes . . . and she loves you. That's my life." He raised the glass for another drink but hesitated. His lip curled. "Oh, and get this . . . I'm going to marry her."

Aina's heart shrank. "No!"

"Yes," he said unhappily. "I'm going to marry her and I'm going to fuck her every night. My cock will slide through the hot moisture of her pussy. Every night. For the rest of her life. Swallow that." He smiled and took another drink.

Aina resisted the urge to glare. "But you don't look happy about it."

"No," he said at once and shook his head. He waved his glass and the liquor sloshed his waistcoat. "Why should I be? She doesn't love me. She loves you. Every time I'm with her, she'll be thinking of you! But I'll never let her have you. . . . you are mine now, pretty thing."

"Why marry her?" Aina said wretchedly to her lap. "If you don't want the marriage --"

"I have no choice," Red Mane said heavily. "Charles asked me to do it. To keep her from going to the king . . ."

Aina dropped her head on his shoulder. Oh god.

"I know, darling," Red Mane said and wrapped his arm around her. "But I've no choice. If Charles asked me to bring him the moon on a string, I'd bring it in my teeth. So goes love."

"Maybe I could convince Charles?"

Red Mane laughed flatly. "Convince him? You barely speak to me, but you'll have a full conversation with him? That's rich."

"I could try," Aina said unhappily.

"Mm . . . how about you just . . . put your mouth where it's more useful." Red mane unbuttoned his trousers, and Aina watched stiffly as his erection pushed free of the cloth. If she didn't do something, that erection would be making love to Evelyn in a matter of days. Evelyn would have that erection's pups. Evelyn would ride that erection . . . lick it and suck it. The thought made her sick.

Red Mane tugged on the lead, guiding Aina to her knees. She knelt between his thighs, and as he watched hungrily, she extended her tongue and licked him. He sighed. She licked him again and again, like a sweet treat, until her spit had left him glossy. She finally devoured him in long, slow sucks - just as he liked. When he flinched in her mouth, she stopped.

"Shit, you've gotten good at that," he whispered breathlessly. He rose from his chair, and she cried out when he swiped everything off the desk. Papers swirled through the air as he lifted her bodily by the shoulders, and slamming her back on the table, he punched his hard passion without hesitation between the swollen lips of her sex. Aina's eyes fluttered wide at the sudden intrusion and she wriggled, arms above her head, mouth screaming softly and he pealed her lips open with his thumb and sank even deeper. He tugged on the leash as he rode her, urging her to buck against his hips. She obeyed with flapping breasts. He leaned down to suckle them hungrily, and as he humped her over the table, her head turned and her eyes alighted on Long Face, who was watching through a crack in the door as he fondled himself. His eyes found hers and he smiled. As her cries of ecstasy filled the room, a sudden idea clicked in her mind.