The Prince stroked Prince Alexi's organ and gave it another playful slap, and then another.

The submissive Prince looked down again and there was nothing in him but the grace and dignity Beauty had witnessed before.

"I must behave like this," she thought. "I must have this manner, this strength, to bear it all with the same dignity." Yet she marveled. The captive Prince must at all times show his desire, his fascination, while she could conceal this craving between her legs, and she could not stop herself from wincing as she saw the Prince pinch the tiny hardened ni**les on Prince Alexi's chest, and then lift Prince Alexi's chin again to inspect his face.

Beyond them, Squire Felix watched all with obvious pleasure. He had folded his arms, his legs rather wide apart as he stood, and his eyes moved hungrily over Prince Alexi's body.

"How long have you been in the service of my mother?" the Prince demanded.

"Two years, your Highness," said the humble Prince softly. Beauty was quite astonished. Two years! It seemed to her all of her life before had not been so long, but she was more rapt with the sound of his voice than with the words. The voice made him seem more palpable and visible.

His body was a little thicker than that of the Prince, and the dark brown hair between his legs was beautiful. She could see the scrotum, no more than a shadow.

"You were sent here in Tribute by your father."

"As your mother demanded, your Highness."

"And to serve how many years?"

"As long as it pleases your Highness, and my mistress, the Queen," Prince Alexi answered.

"And you are what? Nineteen? And a model among the other Tributes?"

Prince Alexi blushed.

The Prince turned him towards Beauty with a rough blow on the shoulder, and steered him towards the bed.

Beauty drew herself up, feeling her face flushed warm.

"And the favorite of my mother?" the Prince demanded.

"Not tonight, your Highness," Prince Alexi said with the barest trace of a smile.

The Prince acknowledged this with a soft laugh. "No, you have not comported yourself very well today, have you?"

"I can only beg forgiveness, your Highness," said Prince Alexi.

"You can do more than that," said the Prince into his ear as he pushed him nearer to Beauty. "You can suffer for it. And you can give my Beauty a lesson in willingness and perfect submission."

Now the Prince turned his gaze on Beauty, scrutinizing her mercilessly. She looked down, terrified of displeasing him.

"Look at Prince Alexi," he told her, and when she raised her eyes, she saw the beautiful captive Prince only a few inches from her. His disheveled hair partially veiled his face, and his skin appeared deliciously smooth to her. She was trembling.

Just as she feared he would, the Prince lifted Prince Alexi's chin again, and when Prince Alexi looked at her with his large brown eyes, he smiled very slowly and serenely at her for an instant the Prince could not have witnessed. Beauty drank her fill of him with her eyes because she had no choice and hoped the Prince would see no more than her distress.

"Kiss my new slave and welcome her to this house. Kiss her lips and her br**sts," said the Prince. And he lifted Prince Alexi's hands from the back of his neck so they went silently and obediently to his sides.

Beauty gasped. Prince Alexi was smiling at her again, secretly as his shadow fell over her, and she felt his lips close over hers and the shock of his kiss pass through her. She could feel that misery between her legs formed into a tight know, and when his lips touched her left breast and then the right, she bit into her lower lip so hard she might have drawn blood. Prince Alexi's hair stroked her cheek and her br**sts as he carried out the command and then he stood back with that same beguiling equanimity.

Beauty put her hands to her face before she could stop herself.

But immediately the Prince took them away.

"Look well, Beauty. Study this example of the obedient slave. Become accustomed to him so that you do not see him but rather the example he sets for you," the Prince said. And roughly he turned Prince Alexi about so that Beauty could see the red marks on his bu**ocks.

Prince Alexi had received far worse punishment than Beauty. He was bruised and there were many white and pink welts on his thighs and on his calves. The Prince inspected all this almost indifferently.

"You will not look away again," the Prince said to Beauty, "do you understand me?"

"Yes, my Prince," Beauty said at once, only too eager to show her obedience, and in the very midst of her painful distress, an odd feeling of resignation came over her. She must look at Prince Alexi's exquisitely muscled young body; she must look at his taut and beautifully molded bu**ocks. If only she could hide her fascination, feign only submission.

But the Prince was no longer looking at her. He had taken both Prince Alexi's wrists in his left hand, and had taken from Squire Felix not the golden paddle, but rather a long flat leather-sheathed stick which appeared heavy and with which he struck Alexi several loud blows on his calves rapidly.

He pulled his captive to the center of the room. He placed his foot on the wrung of the stool as he had done earlier, and pushed Prince Alexi over his knee just as he had done to Beauty. Prince Alexi's back was to Beauty and she could see not only his bu**ocks but also the scrotum between his legs, and she saw the flat leather stick and its blows in red crisscrossed marks over Prince Alexi. Prince Alexi did not struggle. He made hardly a sound. His feet were planted on the floor, and nothing in his form suggested any attempt to escape the aim of the stick as Beauty might.

Yet even as she watched, amazed, wondering at his control and his endurance, she could see the sighs of strain in him. He moved ever so slightly, his bu**ocks rising and falling, his legs quivering and then she could hear the slightest sound from him, a whispered moan, which he was obviously concealing behind his closed lips. The Prince flailed at him, the skin growing a darker red with each broad stripe from the stick, and then, when his desire seemed to have reached a crest, he ordered Prince Alexi down on his hands and knees before him.

Beauty could see Prince Alexi's face. It was stained with tears, but the composure had not broken. He knelt before the Prince, waiting.

The Prince lifted his pointed boot and thrust it under Prince Alexi, touching the tip of Prince Alexi's penis.

Then he took Prince Alexi by the hair and lifted his head.

"Open it," he said softly.

Immediately Prince Alexi moved to put his lips to the seam in the Prince's breeches. With a skill that amazed Beauty he unsnapped the hooks that concealed the Prince's bulging sex, and revealed it. The organ was enlarged and hardened, and Prince Alexi freed it from the cloth now and tenderly kissed it. But he was in great pain still and when the Prince thrust the organ into Prince Alexi's mouth he was not prepared for it. He fell backward a little on his knees and had to reach for the Prince, caressingly, to stop himself from falling. But immediately he sucked the Prince's organ, and he did it with great back and forth motions that amazed Beauty, his eyes closed, his hands hovering at his sides ready for the Prince's command.