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The floating city of Pearl hangs over Heartsplit Canyon, impossibly balanced in the empty space between the canyon's edges, a mile above the churning river at the canyon's bottom. It's beautiful, glorious, a paradise of knowledge and bounty. It's the biggest mark in the known world. People up there are the richest, the most fortunate, the chosen, enjoying the freedom to pursue whatever indulgences they're into without worrying about the ants scurrying around down below.
Janre has been in Conchara, the city on the western cliffside, for a few days now, recuperating from the caravan journey here. It was a pretty big gamble coming out this far, but his luck in the seaports has been running dry and it seemed smart to go ply his trade someplace where not quite as many people know this particular pretty face. He could probably do pretty well here, if he wanted to—the cliffside cities on both sides of the canyon stay busy providing trade goods to Pearl, and they're the the first stop for fine art and new works of literature and so on coming down from above. But Janre didn't come all the way out here to play it safe and pick up a simple con on the ground while the prize of a lifetime sparkles in the sky above.
And that means Janre needs a way to fly.
The official transports are right out; even if he wanted to spend the money on the exorbitant passage fees, he doesn't have any of the paperwork that would name him a citizen of Pearl or demonstrate that a citizen requested his presence. No, what he needs is a mount who'll carry him up to the heights, ideally after dark, ideally quietly. Discreet inquiries have gotten him the names of a few stables he might try, places that make their coin renting out steeds instead of caring for beasts in private ownership.
Late afternoon sun is turning Conchara's cobbles gold as Janre picks his way down the steep streets to Stable Row. First come the more ordinary ones, home to the mules and sturdy horses that pull carts through the city and across the plains outside. Down at the city's very edge, near the cliffs they use for takeoff, there are the more unusual stables, where trainers and beastmasters with a more-than-natural talent care for wyverns and griffons and pegasi.
He has no luck with the first two places he tries. At the first one, the stablemaster lays out terms for collateral to be left behind and gently but firmly refuses to negotiate when Janre has nothing of the requisite value to offer. At the second, he's told in no uncertain terms that the stablemaster doesn't trust him as far as she could spit, and if one of her steeds should throw him she'd take no responsibility for where it happened. He's heard of cases where beastmasters spend so much time communing with their charges that they react to other people on instincts they can't even articulate, but this is the first time he's encountered one.
But that still leaves one more he can try, one more before he has to settle into Conchara and find a way to drum up enough cash for that unreasonably high collateral deposit. Third time's the charm, isn't it?
The sign outside the stable is a hatching griffin stretching up out of the egg as one of its parents leans down toward it. That's about as wholesome as anyone could hope for. Janre ducks through the doorway into the dim warmth of the interior.
One of the griffons screeches as soon as he steps inside—a greeting? a challenge?—and a deep voice says, "Easy, Tiberon."
Janre looks toward the voice and oh, that's a sight worth the trip. The man walking toward him, presumably the stablemaster, is tall and broad, with a strong jaw and the sturdy shoulders that come from hard work. His arms are bare, and when he gets close enough for Janre to see him in the daylight there's a faintly green cast to his skin, like some relative a few generations back had a fling with an orc.
"Don't mind him," the stablemaster says with a smile that makes Janre not mind much of anything. "He has a hot date he's looking forward to, and it's making him antsy."
"Can't blame him for that," Janre says. He offers his hand. "Janre Ptarmigan, pleased to meet you." He's not sure what a ptarmigan is but he likes the sound of the word and he hasn't used it as a name before, so it suits his purposes fine.
The stablemaster's hand is warm and rough, his grip enticingly firm. "Rhakh Janaam, at your service." He has a faint lisp from the not-quite-tusk extensions of his lower canines, and Janre must have been on the road for too long because he finds it completely charming. "What can I do for you, friend?"
Janre can think of several answers to that; it's been too long since he got fucked and he's easily distracted. He lets go of Rhakh's hand a second too late. "I'm looking for a ride up to the Pearl. Something private and quiet, the sooner the better."
"Hmm." Rhakh gives him a thoughtful look, maybe taking in Janre's clothes—which were nice enough a few months ago but have seen a little too much wear recently—and sizing up his ability to pay for the service. Janre's expecting another disappointing talk about collateral, but Rhakh surprises him. "We might be able to work something out. I was thinking about making a trip up top tonight myself. Could be you could convince me to bring you along."
"Well. Convincing handsome strangers is always an exciting challenge." He looks Rhakh up and down, more slowly than is polite, letting himself linger on the bulge in the stablemaster's trousers. "Maybe there's something I could do for you, hmm? Something to make your night a little more enjoyable."
"Maybe there is," Rhakh agrees. Oh, they're definitely on the same page here. "Are you the accommodating type?"
"I can be flexible," Janre says.
"Can you?" Rhakh takes a step closer, so Janre can really get a sense of how imposing he is. "I can be very demanding."
Janre licks his lips. "Try me."
"If you stick around," Rhakh purrs, "I'm going to tie you down and wreck your sweet little ass hard enough you won't be able to walk."
He should be careful about letting a stranger tie him up, knows better than to take that risk, but all Janre says is, "And give me a ride up to Pearl afterward?"
Rhakh laughs. His voice is rich and low and gorgeous. "A ride for a ride. Deal."
Janre offers his hand again to shake on it, and Rhakh grabs him by the wrist to twist his arm up behind his back. His heart skips a beat and then heat rushes to his cock, and he finds himself reaching back to offer his other hand before Rhakh can even reach for it. That earns him a bite to his nape, quick and savage and enough to make him shiver, before Rhakh pushes him toward the back of the stable.
Janre stumbles past the stalls with their fantastic beasts and into a back room, another packed dirt floor with a scattering of straw, and in the middle a sturdy-looking padded table with benches attached to its sides. Rhakh pushes him down on his belly over the table, pushing him forward until it's easiest to kneel on the bench instead of keeping his feet on the floor. Rhakh's grip shifts from Janre's wrists to his nape, holding him down and pulling up a strap from the other side to snap around his neck. It's so quick, so practiced, Janre doesn't even have time to react before he's already in position.
"Hells," he says as he tries to sit up just to see how much slack he has. Almost none. "You don't do things halfway."
"I don't," Rhakh says. "So you'd better take off any clothes you care about."
Janre's cock throbs. He's face down and restrained for a hot stranger in a city where nobody gives a damn about him, and this is the best terrible idea he's had in a long time. He tugs his shirt unbuttoned as fast as he can, squirming out of it and feeling cool air hit his skin. "Can't believe you just keep kinky shit like this around at work," he says as he kicks his boots off.
"We breed a lot of hybrids here," Rhakh says casually, running a possessive hand down Janre's back. "Sometimes one of them needs a little help getting into position to make everything go smoothly."
"Fuck." Janre shoves his pants down off his hips and Rhakh takes over, stripping them off him. "So you're treating me like one of your beasts?"
"Not quite." Rhakh smacks Janre's ass. "Most of them take more coaxing."
Janre bites down on the incoherent noise that rises in his throat. He already seems desperate enough—no need to go losing all his dignity before Rhakh is even fucking him.
He nearly loses his resolve when Rhakh's fingers slide into the crack of his ass, slick with something thick and oily that warms to his skin at the first teasing friction against his hole. He spreads his legs wider, clinging to the edge of the table as Rhakh pushes a thick finger into his ass with no hesitation. Like this is routine. Like he's checking a beast's readiness to breed. Janre pushes back into the touch, trying to take it deeper. The impersonal confidence in the way Rhakh touches him is humiliating in the awful, perfect way where it makes his cheeks burn and his cock ache in equal measure.
No, to speak true, the heat is building in several places at once. Every catch and drag of Rhakh's fingers feels more intense than it should, the flesh around Janre's hole so hot and tender it makes him squirm. In no time he's taking two, and it feels easy, not even a stretch, even though he saw—and felt—how big Rhakh's hands are.
"Good boy, you take that nice and easy," Rhakh murmurs, rocking harder, more maddening slick touch that makes Janre feel like he's just melting. "Work you right open and get you loose for it."
"Yes," Janre gasps. He feels almost dizzy, heat pulsing under his skin, like he's downed a full skin of mead without coming up for air. "What—what's in that stuff? what did you do to me?"
"Nothing that'll hurt you," Rhakh says. "Just has a few extra ingredients to help you feel good and open up."
It's working, that's for sure. "To... Oh, hells, this is for your beasts too?"
Rhakh pushes another finger into him and Janre's back arches helplessly at the heat and growing fullness. "Matter of fact, it is. Feels like you don't mind that at all, do you?"
Janre shakes his head, panting. The only thing he minds is that he wants to get fucked deeper and Rhakh's fingers only go knuckle-deep as they spread him open. "More," he says, "please, I'm ready."
"You’re a randy little beast," Rhakh says approvingly, and his tone makes Janre feel fluttery and pleased, makes him try harder to fuck himself on the broad fingers opening him up. "Couldn’t spread your legs fast enough at the idea of getting tied down and bred. You're going to take it so well."
He slides his fingers out and the emptiness hurts, but it's a good hurt, because his cock has to come next—but then it doesn't, just his fingers again with more of that warm, thick lube, pushing the stuff into him and then following it with a fat plug to hold the mess inside. Janre whines in frustration, struggling to come up with words as his head swims. The plug doesn't go nearly deep enough.
"Almost ready," Rhakh says. His voice is so calm and soothing, and he's stroking Janre's thighs—when did Janre start trembling so much?—before he presses them further apart, until the position is almost hard to hold, until Janre's knees rest on the edges of the bench. Then he ties them there, one after the other, so Janre can barely move: he's bent over and spread wide, his cock drooling at the idea of Rhakh using him like a beast in rut.
"Please," he slurs. Every little touch feels amazing but he's still not getting what he really wants, what he needs. He wants to say so but his tongue is heavy in his mouth and words are so hard.
Rhakh slips a hand between his legs and gives his balls a tug, making him whimper with need. "Good boy. Need it real bad now, don't you? Don't worry, gonna get just what you're hungry for."
He lets go, and Janre can hear him moving, but he's not touching, and that's the worst thing that's ever happened. Janre moans, struggling against his bonds, but it doesn't help. He looks back over his shoulder and sees Rhakh leaving, heading back to the rest of the stable, and that's the worst thing that's ever happened. He tries to protest and his voice won't even work.
There's a screech from out in the stable and a few heartbeats later Rhakh comes back in, leading a griffon who prances and tosses his head like he doesn't appreciate being controlled at all. Janre stares. This can't be what it looks like. It's not physically possible, is it?
Rhakh pulls the plug out of him and the griffon leans down, close enough that Janre can feel its breath against his ass. It makes a long trilling sound, and Rhakh laughs. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Janre, this is Tiberon. He's giving you a ride up to Pearl later tonight. But first you need to give him a ride so he'll calm down enough to take orders in the air."
The griffon's clawed feet thunk down on the bench on either side of Janre's head, and he can feel its fur and feathers brushing his back. He can't find and words to protest how impossible this is. His hole feels hot and loose and so achingly empty.
"There you go, Tib. You got it," Rhakh prompts, as the griffon's cock rubs against Janre's ass. It finds his crack and slides on the mess of lube there, and the griffon trills again. Janre makes a desperate, incoherent moan, as one part of him tries to cringe in fear and the rest of him—his pounding heart, his trembling limbs, his aching cock and gaping hole—craves what he can't escape.
The griffon finds its mark and its cock presses past his rim, almost human in size at the tip, so he catches his breath and thinks perhaps he was afraid for nothing—and then it seems to find its certainty, shifting its weight and digging claws into the bench before it drives forward, filling him more than he would have thought he could bear.
Janre cries out helplessly, his head thrown back and the beast's great body on top of him. Were it not for the unnatural properties of that slick he's sure he would be utterly ruined by the cock spearing him, stretching him out so completely he feels his whole body will be reshaped around it. It's so deep in him he feels like he doesn't have room to breathe. It's everything his feverish blood was craving as he squirmed on Rhakh's fingers.
And this is no leisurely coupling like he might expect from another man; this is a beast's urgent fucking, rutting into his tender hole mercilessly. There's some strange roughness to the skin of its giant cock, setting his nerves alight as it rubs against his rim on every thrust. His cock hangs untouched and drooling between his legs, his balls drawing tighter as he's pounded by the creature he's been offered up to.
When he comes like that it hurts, perfectly, his body pinned by the griffon's cock as he shakes through a near-endless, shuddering climax. The griffon screams above him and fucks him harder, as though it can feel him clenching and treats that as resistance to overpower. Janre's cries turn to sobs as the stimulation becomes too much, his cock twitching weakly as it tries to spill yet more seed.
A cool, wet touch to his face makes him realize he'd closed his eyes; when he opens them, Rhakh is kneeling there with a soft cloth, wiping away the sweat and stray tears on his cheeks. "You're doing great," he says. "He really likes you."
"I," Janre says, and then shudders at another wave of sensation washing through him, "I can't..." It's still hard to get words out, to make himself coherent, but surely—
"Ssshh," Rhakh says, putting a finger to his lips. "You're almost done. You can get through without needing a gag, can't you?"
He doesn't want a gag. If he'd been offered a cock to fill his mouth, some part of him might still have been dazed enough to want it, but a gag—no. He bites his lip.
"Good boy," Rhakh says. "Hang in there."
Janre clings to the bench, his hands beside the griffon's massive claws, and tries to stay calm. Almost done, Rhakh said. He's almost done.
And then the griffon's cock stiffens even further, impossibly huge, impossibly hard, and Janre feels its release, the rush of hot fluid deep in his gut. Its cry then is unmistakably one of triumph. It's bred him.
It releases him only shortly after, backing away and sliding free of his wrecked hole. He has a brief moment to feel how completely alien it is to be so empty and so open, and then Rhakh's hands are there, pressing a plug into him again and wrapping some kind of harness around his waist to hold it in place. "There, that'll keep you from making a mess of yourself while we get ready to head out."
Janre thinks he should want to argue, or point out that he could clean himself up, something, but they're almost done and just cooperating seems easier. Besides, he's still dizzy from whatever was in the slick, and now that he's not turned on anymore he can feel how tired he is. He closes his eyes.
The next thing he's aware of is Rhakh unfastening his bonds, and then helping him back into his clothes. The plug is still in him but Rhakh puts a hand over his mouth when he starts to talk, steering him out of the—the breeding stall into the rest of the stable.
The griffon is waiting there, mantling its wings restlessly, watching them with bright eyes. It's wearing a saddle and bridle now, and kneels when they come close. Rhakh helps Janre into the saddle and then settles behind him, sturdy and solid, his arms around Janre's waist to reach the reins.
"Up we go, Tib," he says. His thighs flex. The griffon rises, pads outside, and takes them to the nearest launch platform. When it takes off, the bunch and shift of its muscles almost makes Janre dizzy all over again, aware of the plug he's still sitting on and the bloated feeling low in his gut where he's carrying the beast's come.
The night air is cold as they rise into the sky above the canyon, toward the distant lights of the city. It only seems sensible to lean back against Rhakh for warmth.
Rhakh puts a hand over his swollen belly, keeping him close. "Anybody waiting for you up there?" he asks, a sweet, low murmur in Janre's ear.
Janre shakes his head before sense catches up to him, but by then it's too late. "What do you want?"
"Just thinking," Rhakh says, still in that gentle lover's tone. His hand slips under Janre's shirt to stroke his stomach. "Might have to keep an eye on you for a few days, see if Tiberon managed to get a litter on you. Not many people are fertile cross-species, but there's such demand for the offspring in Pearl. My partner and I are always on the lookout for fresh breeders."
Janre squirms instinctively and then clutches desperately at the pommel of the saddle as that puts him off-balance. "You can't—I'm not—"
"We don't know yet, do we?" Rhakh says. "Gonna find out, though."
All Janre wants is to get away, but there's nowhere to go but down, a long drop to the rocky bottom of the canyon and then nothing. This isn't the time for an escape. When they reach the city, that'll have to be better. He'll think of something.
The floating city of Pearl glitters in the distance, coming closer with every beat of the griffon's wings. Janre watches the lights grow brighter and tells himself: this city is his chance. He'll make it. Whatever it takes.