Henric and Alex XIX (v1.4)

Tags: Villainous Male Knight/Virtuous Female Squire/Well-Meaning Male Squire, reverse-trap, rape, accidental voyeurism, choking/breathplay


Alex stowed the new shield from her father and the armor Henric had given her in the back of the wooden cart that Cyrus’ and Isaac’s horses were going to be pulling. It was early in the morning, even earlier than she was usually awake to meet Ellis before the other boys got up. Mist was trying to burrow into her clothes to make them damp and cold.

It had been hard to sleep between her own anxieties over sightings of Kerran again (coupled with the knowledge that they would have to confront him) and Henric’s anxieties that he dealt with through Alex. She rubbed her tired eyes. Her left shoulder ached miserably today, deep down in the muscle, and the scar tingled and itched.

“Do you need help loading things?” asked Ellis. He walked up with a tired gait that made him seem like the mist was trying to trip him.

Alex shook her head and blew her hair out of her eyes. “I’ve got it.”

Ellis leaned against the cart while Alex lifted a crate of food to the cart and slid it in. He smiled lazily for a moment, adjusting the placement of some things in the cart to maximize space. For the most part, his eyes were on Alex. Ellis was used to seeing her in states of exhaustion and disconnection, and it wasn’t unusual for her to not talk for a while when she worked on something.

“Do you want to cut your hair today?” he asked her. Every six or seven months it had been falling to him to help her cut her hair. It wasn’t a problem for Ellis--he cut Micah and Glenn’s hair too--but it was a problem for Alex. She told him she liked having her hair as short as she could keep it to look more boyish, but Ellis was better at putting pieces together than she wanted to believe. She didn’t want it long enough to be grabbed and pulled.

She stopped loading things and sighed. “Yeah. That’s a good idea, actually. Will be easier to wear my helmet with short hair.”

Ellis nodded along. It would be a good time because once they were on the road Henric wouldn’t be able to get away with hurting her--at least so long as she could still walk the next day without visible bruises. He looked at the girl he loved and felt sick and anxious in his gut just thinking about it. But she liked to pretend as much as possible that nothing was wrong when she was around him. It was a feeble effort and he could see through her confident front, he just didn't want to tear her down.

Alex finished loading the cart and stretched her back and finally smiled at Ellis like she was just now aware of his presence, just now waking up. “We have a while before we have to go. Let’s get some alone time.”


The loft in the stables was the preferred hideout. As a page, Alex had lived and slept in a stable loft and the scent of hay would forever remind her of those carefree days spent with other boys getting their basic educations.

Now it was the best place to hide out with Ellis. They’d made a wall of hay to sit behind, so that even if someone climbed the ladder and looked into the loft they wouldn’t be visible at a glance. Ellis used a short knife to cut Alex’ hair lock by lock. Alex smiled and blushed the entire time, her blue eyes flitting up to examine Ellis' studious expression every once in a while.

When he was finished he put away his knife and brushed all the brown strands of hair from her shoulders. Alex sighed and ran her hands through her hair, now only an inch or so long. Not every lock of hair was the same length, but they were all so uneven that her hair as a whole looked planned and balanced. Ellis thought her smile was positively blissful as she felt the short strands. He saw her close her hand as if she were testing to see if her hair was grabbable--it wasn’t.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Of course,” he said, and held out his arms. Alex scooted to him until she was sitting between his legs and leaning on his chest and let him wrap his arms around her. He kissed her forehead and kissed her cheeks, and after a moment she moved and kissed him on the lips.

Her demeanor changed in an instant. She started to cry a moment later and pulled her face from him and hid it against his shoulder. The boy's stomach dropped to feel her become fragile in his arms. Before Ellis could even ask what was wrong, Alex explained:

“He pulls my hair,” she told him, and when she next inhaled it was with a tremendous amount of shame. “He grabs it all the time and yanks me around. He gets so mad when I cut it. He wants to be able to control me, he wants me to have long hair so I look like a girl…”

Ellis had assumed these things at some point, but hearing them confirmed made him deflate and feel like the energy had been swept out of him. He hugged her tightly and then said in a mutter, “His hair is all the way down to his shoulders, he’s the girly one.”

Alex smiled again, but her eyes were still sad. “He’s gonna do something since it’s cut.”

“We did it today for a reason.” Ellis tried to remind her. But he didn’t know what would happen to her. Sometimes he stayed up at night, scared that the next day they'd all find his best friend dead and Henric vanished. He never told Alex about this fear.

She nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be okay. He can’t hurt me bad in the tent because he can’t explain it away.” She sounded more like she was reassuring herself than Ellis.

“Yes,” Ellis said. “And we can stay out late by the fire.”

“I would enjoy that,” she murmured. “Can we just stay like this for a while though?”

He nodded and hugged her, wishing that they didn’t have to worry about Henric so he and Alex could go outside and just have fun together. Henric’s influence on Alex’ life was like a miasma that hung in the air around her and pulled Ellis into the sickness of her misery.

He loved her, she was his best friend. He wanted to help her. He was impotent and becoming impatient.


Henric was packed but unable to find Alex. He tried to walk around the barracks without wearing a snarl on his face.

He didn’t wear armor today. There was no reason, since they weren’t going to be training or fighting for a while. He didn’t need to weigh himself down, and jogging up and down stairs was simple except that his hair fell into his eyes every other step. There was no sign of Alex either packing (her chore was complete, the cart was full) or cavorting with her friends. Nor was there sign of Ellis.

The knight gave up and went to ready Ian himself. His horse was already in his stall, despite field access being open to him.

“Why aren’t you grazing?” Henric asked rhetorically in a muttered tone.

Ian nickered, repeatedly making a low whuffling noise and rocking his head up and down. Henric became suspicious, and he looked around the stables. His eyes narrowed and he would have given up after checking the closets, but Ian stomped the ground and kept him from abandoning his search.

“Alex?” he called. He tried to control his tone to make it seem as though he knew she was there, and simply wanted to speak with her. He scanned the room again and then remembered the loft. His cold blue eyes marked the ladder, sliding up it. He took a guess. “Alex, come down from there. Or I’m coming up.”

The squires in the loft held their breath. How did he know? Did he know they were both there? They looked each other in the eyes, terrified and feeling ice squeeze their innards.

After a moment Alex stood up and broke the silence by clearing her throat and faking a sleepy voice: “What do you want?” she asked in her finest tone of fake annoyance.

Ellis shut his eyes miserably and listened to Alex pull herself from their hiding place, go around the wall of hay, and start climbing down the ladder. He panicked and it took everything he had not to lunge after her. He couldn’t protect her so long as she wouldn’t protect herself--and normally he could live with that (albeit sadly) because it was her choice. But this time she was protecting him.

The girl wouldn’t look at Ellis while she left him in the loft because she’d cry if she saw the look on his face. Instead she fixed a glare to her features and ignored Henric until her boots were on the floor of the stable.

Henric glared at her and invaded her space, stepping in until she felt his exhalations on her face. “I see why you’ve been hiding all day.” He ran a hand against the grain of her hair to make it messy before stroking the soft locks back into their places.

“Yeah, well,” she muttered. “I didn’t want to look like a girl.”

“Every few months you play this game,” Henric sighed. “You try to act like a man by disobeying me and cutting your goddamn hair, but you know--you fucking know--that you are just a bad little girl.”

Ellis trembled where he sat in the loft. It was one thing to imagine the kinds of hurtful things Henric might say to her, but hearing them from his lips was ghastly. Alex stepped back from Henric with a look of disgust.

He smiled and grabbed her tunic to pull her back to him, and his other hand fit around her neck. The feeling of his fingers squeezing on her soft skin, her breathing stopping and her lips turning blue. It was a pleasure to steer her by her neck into one of the permanently empty back stalls, her footsteps nervous and awkward as he forbid her from breathing.

Alex was as compliant as she could be with her sight starting to dim. When she bumped into the wall all the way in the back of the farthest stall from the front of the barn, Henric deigned to let her breathe again and Alex’ head swam when she inhaled. His palm stroked her head, petting her short hair like she was Ian again until she could see properly.

Henric pulled her up to stand straight by her lapels and then pinned her against the wall very casually with his hips. The squire tried to remain straight-faced and aloof, but tears for Ellis pricked at the corners of her eyes. She didn’t want him to know about this, or hear the way Henric talked down to her like she was a child.

Ellis cried too, but didn’t even notice the pair of tears that overflowed from his wide eyes and gradually slid down his face. He wondered what the worst thing that could happen would be if he stopped Henric, but took no action. Alex didn't want him to get involved.

“Alex,” Henric said, mildly surprised by her tears. “What is this little display of emotion? Not regret I hope.” He was already growing in his pants as he grinded against the front of hers. Her tears were exquisite, representing all of the things that Henric controlled that she could not.

She turned her head away from him so her cheek was against the  wall in the corner of the empty stall. “Not regret,” she said in very soft tones, her voice dry and husky after being choked.

“Then what? Ashamed you could not hide from me properly?” He pressed his nose to her temple, his words growling in her ear.

“No,” she said with more force now, her lips pulling into a frown while more tears slipped down her face. “You’re gonna do something awful to me. Just let me cry about it. I deserve to fucking cry about this and about you.”

“Do something awful to you,” He coughed out a scoff. “What we do is a beautiful act. You’re the one who makes it awful with your constant struggle and animosity. Think how much more you’d enjoy it if you would just accept it.”

“You think that because you’re insane, and you’re a monster, and you don’t care about anyone but yourself,” she said flatly. After the hundredth time reminding him of these things it was hard for the words to carry the anger they had in the beginning. Now they were a dull repetition spoken almost from habit. No amount of repetition would convince Henric he was anything less than perfect.

“Nonsense. I care about you. I care about your face, notice how I’ve left it untouched? That’s not just for me, that’s for you too,” His toothy grin showed up once more. “If I was found out, you’d no longer be able to be a knight. I’m keeping you able to live out your dream. No sense in not getting something out of it myself though.” His fingers had snaked their way into the waist of her pants and he was already pulling them down.

Alex grimaced, and when he touched her pants she twisted, elbowed him in the chest, and shoved him back as hard as she could, pulling herself from his grip and trying to get out of the barn. She pulled up her pants and started to run past him, but Henric was faster than her. She should have known this by now. He reached and grabbed the collar of her shirt idly. With grace and practiced ease, the wicked knight snatched up her wrist, kicked her running legs out from under her. He landed on her, but not lightly. Twisting and pulling her wrist up to the center of her back caused some pain where she lay on her chest, but wouldn’t cause too much more so long as she behaved.

“What has gotten into you today? Afraid we’ll get caught in here?”

The girl cringed and whined when he twisted her arm too far. Her tears slid into the dirt on the floor. “Henric, people come in and out of here all the time, please… for the love of everything please, not here, not now.” She thought of Ellis in the loft and shut her eyes. She didn’t want him to hear this. She didn’t want him to know how absolutely pathetic she was.

“Not today, little squire. Or have your forgotten?” His knees laid atop her calves, keeping her right where he wanted her. She’d made it far enough that she’d landed with just her head sticking out of the stall. “The horses are all out grazing. The knights will pick them up from the fields when they’re ready to ride. That will be several hours from now. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

Alex quaked, and once more tried to twist out of his grip. All she managed to do was hurt her arm and tire herself, kicking up a bit of dirt around her face. “Please. Please, Henric. Not here.” Not where Ellis will hear how.

“Oh, quit your whining. We won’t get caught here.” He pulled his pants down and pulled her up onto her knees with his hand again wrapping around her neck. Alex felt his cock gently resting against her lower back, the curve of his erection almost perfectly matching that of her spine. He throbbed against her back.

Henric found it poetic--there were so many things about the girl that were evidence to him that she was meant to be his, even if she wouldn’t acknowledge it. He held her neck and arm firmly, and then shifted them both to bend her forward, lift her ass, and force himself into her tight hole.

The girl groaned and balled her hands into fists and grit her teeth, furious and miserable. Her free hand tried to get him to release her neck, but his grip was iron and she was weak. With him inside her, just for a moment her eyes flicked to the ladder up to the loft.

She thought, Please don’t hate me for this.

Henric held her neck harder, looking at the back of her short-haired head. He pounded her a few times and felt her tighten with each passing moment as she went without air. The knight was unconcerned with her fingernails raking at his hand to try to make him let go--he just squeezed tighter, wrenched her arm more roughly behind her back.

The trick, he had found in his years of fun with Alex, to making sure he didn’t let her pass out was to wait until she stopped struggling to release her. Until then, her vagina was squeezing at his cock as hard as he was choking her.

He let go, and without the support she slid forward, her head lolling helplessly. Her head hurt, her eyes swam with black splotches mingling with colors. Alex was barely aware that he was still fucking her for a few moments, not realizing that she was burning hot between her legs and dripping liquids to the floor.

A few of her raucous inhalations later, still holding her wrist with one hand, Henric’s other hand grabbed her pale, white ass. He gave it a few rough squeezes, kneading the soft flesh in his hand. He closed his eyes and took a moment to enjoy the feel of her in his hand and her wet walls hugging his cock. He breathed in and released labored sigh at the same time he was giving her his usual rough pounding. She made noises for him and wished she didn’t. The throaty moans he got out of her made her ashamed every time.

Even with his ears covered, Ellis couldn’t do anything to get the sounds out of his head. He heard Alex’ pained groans--her misery, but also the telltale tones of a girl having sex.

When her vision was better, Alex realized how she’d fallen, the top of her head visible from the stable doors. She panicked.

There was the chance of someone coming into the stables, Henric knew this, but the chance was low enough to take the risk and high enough to cause him an added flow of adrenaline and pleasure. As the energy poured through his veins he pushed into Alex with extra vigor. He’d always been a risk-taker in his own way--usually by forgoing heavy armor for lighter stuff--and there was at least part the fault that he enjoyed the sensation of risk.

Alex was the opposite. She played it safe, at least when she wasn’t enraged. The possibility of being found horrified her. Alex panted and tried to lift her torso, getting up on one arm to minimize her discomfort and pushing herself back into Henric only to try to convince him to pull them both back into the stall where they could hide better “Henric,” she panted between moans, moving each time he thrust into her. “Please, this is insane.”

“Quiet down,” he pushed her arm up her back further and touched her bruised neck again. It was good she wore high collared shirts. “The louder you get the more risk we share.”

When he pulled her arm up she straightened her back, now sitting up on her knees while he took her. There was a dirt splotch on the side of her face.

His hand moved from her neck to her chin, twisting her head so he could look at her face. It was her eyes that really show her womanhood. They were gorgeous and so bright. He looked forward to a day that brightness would extinguish like a flame covered in sand. His thumb reached up and wiped the dirt from her face and it was easy thanks to her tears.

She cringed at his touch and her tears drained down onto his thumb to wash off the grime with him still taking her from behind. Alex did what she could to contain her sounds, but it wasn’t easy and many of them still came out of her throat as small grunts. “There’s nothing beautiful about this,” she muttered.

Henric ignored her words, he was too lost in the moment. He had been enjoying this meeting rather more than his usual quick fucks. Alex gave one last stuttered moan and came, falling back against Henric unsteadily. Her body was a traitor, diverting her energy again to squeezing his cock and letting him force her to feel pleasure. There was no winning in this.

As the pleasure caused her to ripple and tighten around Henric, he was soon to follow. He pushed a hot load into her with a contented groan when she tumbled back to him. He pulled himself from her, reluctantly as always. His hand fell to the top of her pants and pulled them up, keeping his warm fluids from leaking too far from her. Her hands fumbled for her belt to cinch it.

“Now go on, start preparing for our trip.”

She fell forward on her hands and knees, panting still and watching tears fall onto the ground. “I already did. Everything’s ready to go.”

“Did you get my things?” He stood up and pulled his pants up, sternly looking down to his squire.

“They’re right next to Ian’s stall,” she said, pointing angrily to where the bags hung under Ian’s saddle.

“So, take them to the cart.” His voice sounded rather annoyed.

“Cart’s full. Your armor’s there. Ian can carry the rest like always,” she said, frustrated now that he wanted to boss her around after she believed she had done her job as a squire perfectly well. None of the other squires had packed their knights’ personal things, only the suits of armor.

“Find room on the cart. Ian won’t be expected to carry this all.” He approached the horse and stroked its neck softly. Alex was jealous that Henric was more considerate of an animal than of her. Ian let loose a whinny and a gruff grunt.

The squire hated that horse more in that moment even than times it had bitten her. Alex got to her feet unsteadily. “Fine,” she snapped, and grabbed his things to take them back outside to the cart. It didn’t matter, she felt like she couldn’t do anything right. Her shoulder ached from being twisted and she felt the pain when lifting Henric’s bag and carrying it. Of course breathing hurt, and her knees were definitely bruised too. She scowled.

As Henric began to saddle Ian, the horse seemed to still be rather upset. Pushing his snout upward as he whinnied, he stamped the ground a bit more. Henric raised an eyebrow at the horse, then nodded. It wouldn’t hurt to check? Would it? What had Alex been doing up there?

Henric climbed up the ladder that Alex had come down. Ellis’ heart pounded more and more with every step Henric took up the ladder. He prayed to the gods--all of them he could name--that he would be adequately hidden, and Henric would stop at the top of the ladder, but when he kept coming, Ellis knew it was over.

The knight looked around, seeing only a bale of hay acting as a makeshift wall. He stepped onto the loft and walked around to find the petrified squire.

“Well, well. What do we have here? A voyeur listening to my lovemaking.”

He was caught. And even with Henric standing over him, he was unable to move and react. Fear held him perfectly still, looking into the man’s cold eyes.  Henric reached down and grabbed a handful of the boy’s shirt and dragged him to his feet near the edge of the loft. He held Ellis teetering over the edge just above Ian’s stall.

“Falling from this height may startle my poor horse. He’s never been fond of being startled.” Henric’s voice was calm as he held the startled boy. “He usually just stamps whatever spooked him into the ground.”

Ellis was eighteen and at least as tall as Henric--it wasn’t really fair to call him a boy anymore. He was a young man at the very least. He was almost certainly heavier than the knight, and being verbally threatened finally brought out the fight in him, and he shifted himself to kick at Henric and put the full force of his weight into fighting back, getting his feet on the wood of the loft again, and pulling free from Henric’s grip.

“Back off,” he said, and added something he’d been wanting to say for a while. “You’re a sick piece of shit.”

“Don’t meddle in my affairs boy. It would be a shame to have to tell Isaac how my horse trampled his poor squire.” Henric lunged to grab Ellis again, but he made it out of the way by jumping from the loft. He was smart about it, knew what he was doing like any boy who spends time in a barn. He landed and rolled, and while he felt the pain in his shins and ass when he tumbled, it wouldn’t be a lasting injury.

He looked up at Henric, both furious and terrified. He finally had the chance to give the villain a piece of his mind, and he didn’t know what to say. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I’ve a nasty little thorn in my side that I’ll soon pluck.” Henric calmly walked to the ladder and moved down it. “Speak a word of what you saw or heard to anyone and I’ll make you regret it through Alex.” Henric hesitated, and then went to his horse and lifted a saddle onto Ian’s back as though nothing else had happened.

There was a threat that hit home for Ellis, and he set his jaw angrily. He wouldn’t turn his back on Henric and walked out of the barn backwards, watching the knight until he was far enough that he could sprint to the cart.

Alex saw him come out before Henric and her face turned white. He ran to her and skidded to a stop just before embracing her. They couldn’t do that in the open, they could only stare at each other helplessly.

“He found me,” Ellis said. His voice was apology.

Henric’s squire pulled her collar up higher to hide the condition of her neck, but not before Ellis saw purple handprints, a series of dark blotches arranged over her windpipe. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened in the stables, but couldn’t run from Ellis. “I’m going to do something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, and wiped her eyes. “I’ll think of something.”

“Please tell the other knights. You can trust them, Alex, they know you now. They wouldn’t… at least, Isaac wouldn’t ever tell anyone you were a girl. He wouldn’t care.”

She wanted to believe him. “I can’t risk it,” she said. Visions of her own failure plagued her, particularly an imagined scene of her father’s disappointment in the end of his line with his only daughter. Alex wanted to believe that Ellis was right, but maybe some of the things Henric had been feeding her about knights had poisoned her after all, because she didn’t trust them. “I’m sorry Ellis.”

“I love you,” he begged her.

Alex nodded vigorously and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “I love you too,” she apologized.