A soft knock on the support post to Selemnus’s tent preceded an almost as soft, “Master…” He watched as Iona, his guard, gently pushed a short plump woman barely past her girlhood into his tent and then just as swiftly secured the door behind her. Iona was his most faithful soldier. If she felt that his slave’s presence in his command tent was safe he would ask her about it later.

Selemnus looked over his slave. She was acquired recently in… trying circumstances. Fucking debt collectors, he thought to himself. She stood nervously in the doorway fidgeting with the hem of her tunic. Though she was young she was just starting to blossom into her womanhood. Her body was a little plump and short, unlike most of the farmer’s daughters in the area. The amount of work needed to bring in the harvest combined with not always having enough food made the locals thin and wiry. They favored strong children and the region tended toward tall. She on the other hand had some curve to her hip and breasts that were above average for the region despite her height and her life as a farmer’s child. She was plain faced… ish. Her eyes were big but her nose and mouth were small. But then again, Selemnus wouldn’t exactly be able to tell humans for attractiveness, he was a wolven beastkin.

“What can I do for you tonight Melanie?”

The name fit her. She was darker skinned than the locals, a light dusky olive that he had seen on military campaigns in the southern lands. Her dark curly hair stood out in that it was not blond or straight like the locals. She was clearly not the ‘daughter’ of her mother who was closer in body shape and bearing to the locals. Perhaps she was the daughter of a slave or traveler. Maybe she was a bastard like him. He guessed it didn’t matter much now.

“I wanted to ask if you could do something for me?” She still fiddled with the hem of her tunic. Her eyes flicked up to his briefly before swiftly looking away. God, he realized she was nervous.

“It depends on what exactly you need.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs. This was a good distraction, he had been sitting too long at his desk anyways.

She approached his desk, her eyes still not meeting his, “Um, last week my mother made you an offer…”

He remembered the offer. Her mother had limped in asking to see him. She was still recovering from the ‘treatment’ that the debt collectors had put her through while waiting for him to rule on the division of the debt collection after her husband had abandoned her and her daughter when they had come to seize his farm and family as collateral. She was still recovering from the physical trauma of the rape she had endured, not to say the emotional trauma.

Still she walked in asking him to spare her daughter’s chastity if he would accept her as his bed slave. She offered to submit herself to anything as long as Melanie was spared. Selemnus only had to reach out to caress her cheek for her to close her eyes and flinch away. He sighed at the time and simply said to her, “I will take your offer, but you need to heal more before you are ready for me.” He didn’t think she would ever be ready for him, no matter how much she healed.

“Yes, what of it?” He asked curiously.

She glanced up at him through her lashes, “... will you take me instead of her?”

“Curious. Why should I? I made a deal to protect you and preserve your virginity in exchange for your mother serving me in my bed. She is comely and I would be eager to use her in my bed.”

“I don’t want her to be hurt more,” she looked up at me with a pained expression on her face, “when they…” She paused to take a breath, “when those men raped her they did so because she put herself in front of me and told them they would get more money selling me as a virgin than not. She then made the same deal to them as she did to you.” She shuddered. “They hurt her a lot. I saw it all. She was hurt because of me. I don’t want her to be hurt anymore… I…”

Selemnus has been an Imperial soldier since he was twelve and the madam at his mother’s brothel accidentally caught him masturbating while watching one of the whores serving one of her clients through a peephole. She sold him to military recruiters the next week. The day he left was the last day he had cried. In the sixteen years since he has seen soldiers with severed limbs, terrible injuries and so much death fresh battles no longer give him nightmares. He was hardened and callous to life. But, he was unsure what to do with a crying girl. Comforting people was not a skill assigned to the Centurion of a Cohort. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the door to his tent open and Iona mime and wordlessly say, “hug her.”

So Selemnus did. He held her for long minutes while she cried. Her body was warm and soft against his. He was slightly ashamed to admit that her form pleased him. His mother was one of the vanishingly few humans that could be impregnated by a beastkin. He supposed the bits of him that were human were responding. From time to time Iona would peek inside to keep an eye on the two of them. She was a quiet presence in the room without being inside of it. Selemnus was grateful for it.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

It wasn’t until Yassica rushed into his command tent in a panic that the two disengaged. The panicked look on her face changed from one of a mother concerned for her daughter’s chastity to one of concern when she found Selemnus comforting her with gentle caresses while she quietly cried against his chest. Selemnus didn’t even realize that he was singing one of his favorite lullabies that his mother sang to him when he was still young and she hadn’t been taken by the sweetleaf smoke.

“Master… I… are you?” she stammered.

“Your daughter is very brave,” He tucked her against his chest again and rested his muzzle on her head behind her ear. “She has seen much that no one should see. She was even brave enough to come to me and offer herself in your stead as my bed slave if I would spare you.” Selemnus gave her a quirked eyebrow. In return Yassica gave her daughter a scolding glance. He caressed her back again as she shrunk into his embrace at this comment and her mother’s harsh unsaid rebuke. “Yes, she is very brave.”

He called out, “Iona!”

The taurian beastkin poked her large head through the doorway she then entered and saluted, “Centurion, how may I serve?”

“Will you please take Melanie to the kitchens and ensconce her with the old aunties that are cooking tonight?” He gently pushed Melanie off of his lap. “Please have Helena escort her back to my rooms when she is finished helping make tonight’s meal if you would.”

Iona saluted again and simply said, “Centurion!” She then took Malanie’s small hand in her large one. Selemnus watched them disappear through the door and into the lane formed by the tents of his Cohort. Before the door closed he noted that she called out to young Jasper who was lounging in the courtyard and pointed at the door to his tent. Well at least Jasper would keep out those who had no right to be inside even if he wasn’t good for much else.

That left Yassica and Selemnus in his tent. A silence stretched between them. She refused to look at him. Where Melanie had fiddled with the hem of her tunic Yassica stood as still as a statue. She looked at the ground unmoving. Her face was blank and Selemnus noticed that her eyes had lost their focus. When she did move again it was to untie the ties to her tunic. She slipped it off her torso and then slipped her skirt off to puddle at her feet. Her ample breasts were bound with a cloth that wrapped around her torso. A loincloth protected her crotch. With shaking fingers she fumbled with the ties to her small clothes.

At this Selemnus stopped her with gentle hands. He drew his own cloak from the peg that it rested on and drew it around her shoulders. It was then that he noticed the small tattoo symbol between her breasts. The symbol of the Maiden Crone, Olses. Goddess of childbirth, virgins, and the innocent. Her worshipers were chaste throughout their lives. Instead of forming families they gathered orphans and took care of those cast off by society for whatever reason. Some would ‘marry’ for appearances, others would gather in small communes and share their resources in common. Their sect was secretive and settled in isolated areas. Selemnus caresses the symbol with a finger, a teardrop with a crescent moon at the bottom. Its horns facing upwards. Out of the upturned moon a leaf sprouted. It was a symbol of Olses’s most devout worshipers. No wonder Melanie didn’t look like her. And Selemnus also knew that Yassica’s rape was her first and only experience of sex.

Selemnus tipped her face up to look at him. She was crying, large drops running down her cheeks. Well, he decided to take Iona’s advice to heart twice in the same day and hugged her to him. She was warm against his fur. He liked the way her breasts felt against his chest. The smooth look of her thighs as they peaked out of the bottom of his cloak. He felt his cock begin to slip out of his sheath. And he chastised himself. Because he also could not ignore the shaking of her shoulders as she sobbed.

“I think you too have been brave,” Selemnus said quietly into her ear. When she started sobbing more heavily he simply held her tighter and let her cry herself out. The late afternoon sun had finally set before she pushed herself away and with shaking hands tried to take his cloak off. She couldn’t look him in the eyes as she tried. Once more Selemnus stilled her hands with his own.

“If I took your offer I would be more of a monster than the men who violated you. I offer you my protection Priestess of Olses.” Iona was obviously listening in and he heard her fumble and drop something outside his door. She was a sticky beak that couldn’t keep a secret. He looked over at the door again and noticed one of her eyes peeking in. He waved her off with his free hand. Well the secret would be out before the sunrise. To Yassica he said quietly, “none will violate you or Melanie. On my order.” Yassica quietly nodded and turned to gather her clothing.

Selemnus took his seat and lit a lamp to catch up on the work he had neglected that afternoon. He astutely did not listen to Yassica dressing, ruthlessly didn’t remember the feeling of her body against his, nor did he breathe a breath of relief when she left his tent. Instead he worked late into the night trying to not think too much of the tragedy of his slaves life. A Virgin, a priestess devoted to a goddess of chastity and virginity raped for a week. When he acquired her, her skin had more bruises than unmarred flesh. Her loins were bleeding. Her anus was torn. It took his healers days to restore her body so she could walk. It had been weeks since the day she had offered herself in her daughter’s stead.

Selemnus guiltily took himself in hand and masturbated. It was his one source of pleasure. He took no prostitutes having grown up with them and seen the poor lot of their lives. No human women looked his way for companionship. And there were precious few wolven beastkin in the empire and fewer still fems that wanted the life of a soldier's wife. When his knot flared he squeezed it tightly simulating the feel of a fems sheath tightening down on his cock. When he did go to bed it was a lonely cold bed.

“Only fourteen years to go until I can retire,” Selemnus said to himself.