The Princess' heels echoed loudly on the stairs as she descended into the cold stone bowels of the castle, paying no mind to the grime her ornate skirts gathered as they trailed behind her. A squalid dungeon was a place ill-fit for the daughter of a King, but Senna was no ordinary Princess. Behind her innocent, youthful countenance lurked a dark secret; an unnatural, indecent appetite unbecoming of a girl of her pedigree.
This was not the first time she had descended those stairs, to watch jealously as her father's torturer meted out punishments. Senna's frequent visits to the dungeons were the source of countless rumors among the castle's servants and maids, a scandalous secret discussed in hushed tones and furtive whispers. Many among them feared their Princess a sadist, a cruel noble who dampened her linens to the suffering of those beneath her—a rumor that was, perhaps, preferable to the truth considering her station. In reality, it wasn't the torturer who was the subject of Senna's salacious envy, but his victims. The Princess was a masochist; nothing made her young heart beat faster, nor brought a deeper flush to her unblemished cheeks, than the thought of her own delicate body being subject to such brutal indignities. Imagining herself in the prisoners' places, her own flesh being whipped and crushed, her own limbs being stretched and broken—it was enough to make Senna's pulse race, enough to make her breath quicken. How she longed to trade places, to be the one tied upon the rack or bound to the chair, to be lashed, beaten, branded, and broken...
But she was a Princess, a woman of noble birth and royal blood. None would think to raise even a hand against her, let alone punish and torture her as she so desperately desired. None would dare spoil the daughter of a King, not even by her own request. She was untouchable, the one woman in all the kingdom no man would dare harm.
And so her unseemly appetite went unsated, save for the times she could steal away to the dungeon to spy on the jailor at work—and for the fantasies she entertained, alone in her bedchamber. It had almost become a nightly ritual for her, slipping a hand beneath the hem of her skirts and smock, and letting her depraved desires guide her imagination wherever they pleased. From brigands to betrayals, coups to conquests, Senna would indulge herself imagining countless tragedies, and all ended the same way—with her, bound and gagged, unable even to scream her pleasure as her naked form writhed beneath the merciless cruelty of her captors. Sometimes she would even fantasize about her own execution, about being hung by the neck or forced to kneel over a headsman's block. The noose tightening around her throat, the axe looming overhead, the crowd jeering at her humiliation—such perverse fantasies never failed to leave her panting in indecent bliss.
The Princess knew she should be ashamed of her unseemly obsession, and yet, such was it's hold on her that she couldn't help herself. She had tried to deny herself, tried to ignore the deviant urges that gripped her, but to no avail. They were simply too strong. The longer she tried to abstain, the more powerful her temptation grew, intruding on her conscious mind in the form of vivid waking dreams: debauched reveries that left her feverish with need.
And so, Senna was burdened with a desire no man would indulge her, a hunger she could never sate—or at least, that was what she had thought, until providence had seen fit to tempt her with an opportunity, one the Princess had seized upon without hesitation.
After a lifetime of loyal service—and discretion—the Castle's torturer had passed away, leaving his post vacant. Finding none of adequate cruelty among the guard with which to replace him, the King had sought a skilled replacement from beyond his borders—and found one, in the form of a disgraced soldier by the name of Edward Carrow. Now he was to serve as the new master of the same dungeon Senna now hurried through, a stolen key clutched tightly to her laced bodice.
Senna's heart thundered with barely restrained excitement as she made her way from cell to wrought-iron cell, searching the darkness within each in turn until she found one that stood empty. It was a wretched cage, an inhospitable stone enclosure bordered on one side with rusted metal bars set deep into the surrounding brickwork. The once-gray flagstones had long since been stained brown with grime, neglect, and the filth of the previous occupants. Her heat thudding with excitement, she began to strip, the cold, still air of the dungeon raising goosebumps on her supple flesh as she discarded her fine clothes, one by one, concealing them beneath a pile of hay in the corner. She quickly redressed as a prisoner, in a coarse hessian tunic as filthy as the cell she stood in. At last, disguised as a common—if strikingly beautiful—criminal, Senna closed the door behind herself, locked it, and concealed the key beneath the same clump of hay that hid her clothing. She had barely finished when the sound of footfalls rang out, echoing ominously throughout the stone undercroft. It was Carrow.
"Well well, what a fine cut of meat to start with," the torturer mused as he appeared at the door to Senna's cell, flanked by a pair of soldiers, his dark eyes regarding her with barely concealed lust. To him, she seemed as nothing more than a prisoner. His eyes roamed up and down her body, taking in every inch of her pale, unblemished flesh with glee. "Oh yes, she'll do. This one, bring her."
Wordlessly the guards seized Senna, grasping her slender shoulders and dragging her from her dreary cell. They hauled her down the hall like a sack of grain, heedless of her struggles to gain her footing. The torturer led the way through a great black door, down a flight of stairs, and into a room Senna knew all too well—the torture chamber.