“Does that feel good, my little whore?”
I nod, fighting against my body that’s longing for the freedom of release.
“You want me to fuck you, don’t you?”
Yes, sir. Please, please fuck me now.
“Not yet, Pet. First, you’re going to be punished.”
Oh, God. Why do I love those words so much?
He grabs one of the ropes suspending me from the ceiling and leans his weight into it. I swing back and forth, and the plug inside me shifts with my movements as I clench my cheeks together. Ares pulls a black massaging wand from the floor and turns it on. The deep rumbling buzz makes my toes clench, and my whole body tenses up as he places it directly on my clit. I scream behind my gag, because the sensations are too much. But my Sir is anything but merciful.
I shake in my restraints and beg for him to stop. Hot tears spring from my eyes and stream across my face, meeting the sweat from my hairline. My neck hurts, all the blood has rushed to my head, and my body jerks as if it’s possessed. I never knew a vibrator could cause so much pain, but it’s the only device he needs.
My Sir rolls it slowly over my clit and down my labia. Every turn brings more torture until my body is shaking so violently with the need to come, with the need for it to stop, and the need for me to fill my lungs without the rope impairing my breath.
“Please, please, Sir. Please make it stop,” I scream behind my gag, but the words are indecipherable even to my ears.
“You got stoned with my brother.” Ares thwacks me with the paddle again. The pain is blinding; it halts my breath, and a strangled cry rips free of my throat. I wasn’t even aware he’d picked it up. “You lied to me about it.” Thwack. Thwack. “You left my bed and roamed my house when it’s not safe to do so.” Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. “And you came on my fucking cock without my permission.” Thwack.
The last paddling is so hard, it propels my body forward, and I swing back and forth on my ropes. I’d scream, but I don’t have the breath. I’m stunned by the pain and sheer violence of my Sir.
Ares grips my ass, kneading my flesh, but it hurts. It all hurts. Everything. I knew he was capable of tremendous cruelty, but that’s not what this is. This is punishment, designed to ensure I don’t forget.
With the paddle gone, Ares picks up the vibrator again. I shake my head, but the rope prevents it. I twist my lower body, trying to escape the intense vibrations. “Don’t fight it, Pet. This will all be over soon, and you’re not going to forget my rules again, are you?”
“No, Sir.” I cry around my gag.
“No.” He rolls the wand over my pubic bone. The plug inside me vibrates too, and I moan. “Good girl. Now if that hungry little pussy of yours wants to come, you’re going to have to beg for it.”
“Please, Sir.”
He clicks a few buttons and the speed intensifies. “I can’t hear you, Pet.”
“Please, Sir, please?” The sounds coming from my mouth aren’t just hindered by the ball gag. They’re raw, and animal, guttural cries of pain. I’m right on the precipice, aching to fall, but doing so without his permission means more pain, more torture, and more deprivation. So I hold it at bay. I’ll be his good girl, because the alternative hurts too much.
“Please what?”
“Please may I come, Sir, please?”
“Well, since you asked so nicely.” He lowers the wand to my clit. Pleasure and pain explode inside me. I’m light. I’m weightlessness. I’m tethered to the ceiling, tethered to him, and I’m free.
I scream my pleasure as the last of my orgasm rocks through me. My pussy clenches, my asshole doing the same around the plug. I try to move. The cord at my neck pulls tight, intensifying everything the way his hand did previously when he cut off my oxygen and I came.
Slowly, he lowers me to the floor and unfastens the ropes connecting me to the ceiling, but he leaves the others in place, so I’m still completely bound and at his mercy. He rolls me over, hooking his fingers in the riggings and hauling me up on my knees. The lines cut and abrade my flesh but I’m so needy, so desperate for him to fuck me, use me, and make me come again, that I don’t care. I’ll deal with the bruises and the aching limbs because I love this. I love every second of being Sir’s dirty fucking whore. I was born for this.
My Sir’s hard, thick cock drives into me. Over and over, he fucks me on the ground, mashing my already abused body into the floor. It’s violent. It’s perfect, and when he tells me to come like the dirty fucking whore that I am, it’s heaven. He pulls out and comes on my back, spurting slick, creamy cum all over me. The message is clear—his.
Ares unfastens the knots over my arms. I cry out as blood rushes back to my extremities, and he massages my arms and shoulders, all the way down to my fingertips. He unties the ropes at my thighs, and a few quick passes of his hands sees my breasts and chest unbound too.
I’ve never been more tied to another human being in my whole life.
Ares comes back from the bathroom with a soft washcloth and cleans me up, then he pulls my boneless body from the floor and carries me back to bed where his caresses send me even further into a dreamlike state.
“I want you to stay away from my brother,” Ares whispers in the dark. He wraps his hand around my waist and draws me closer.
“Is that an order, Sir?”
“It’s the most important order you have right now.”
“I thought welcoming you into my body and taking a beating were the most important commands I had to follow.”
“Don’t get cute, little one. I love my brother, but I don’t trust him. Not with this. Not with you.”
I snuggle closer, moved by his protectiveness. “I thought twins were supposed to be inseparable?”
“They are, until something comes along to separate them.”
Is he saying that I have separated them? Or is he referring to Athena? “Did you . . . did you love her like a sister, or a lover?”
Apparently, he doesn’t need to ask who I’m talking about. He already knows. He takes a deep breath and releases it slowly as his hand caresses the curve of my hip. “He told you?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I cared for her once as a lover, but then I saw the way my brother looked at her, and I knew I had to step away.”
“And me? If he looked at me like that?” I know there’s little chance of that happening, but I have to know all the same.
“My days of selflessness are over, Pet.”
“So you’d never give me to him?”
He bops my nose. “Not if you were the last woman on Earth, and the human race depended on it.”
“But you shared me with him at The Ranch?”
He nods and kisses my temple, my cheek, and down my neck to my collarbone. “For your training. I did it to break you, and it killed me to do so.”
“Ares?”
His impatient breath lets me know he’s not happy. “I thought I told you never to call me that?”
I look up into those mercurial dark eyes so filled with war and desire, it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes. “I need you to sell me to Vladik.”
He stiffens. Gone are the sweet caresses of swollen lips and idle hands. Instead, they’re replaced with violence, and darkness, and a hand around my throat. I swallow hard, and fight back tears, my only weapon against the brutality of his touch. “I do not want to hear another word about selling you to Vladik. You’re mine. He can never have you.”
“You would sacrifice your sister for me, even though I’m willing to do this?”
He exhales sharply, his lip curling into a sneer. “Why?”
“Because I know what it’s like to be caged.”
He releases my throat and shoots up off the mattress, stalking toward the glass doors and flinging them wide. He walks out onto the balcony and leans against the railing, his hands splayed, his head bent, and his powerful naked body casting an even larger shadow in the moonlight.
I climb out of bed, as naked as
he is, and pad slowly over to him. I wrap my arms around him, and he removes one of his from the railing and presses our joined hands against his chest.
“I can’t give you up to him. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I do, and I have to do this.” I press a kiss to his back.
“You’re stubborn. You’re not ready. You’d get yourself killed before I could even find you.”
“You’ll find me.”
“No.” He shakes his head, resolute. “I forbid it.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“I’m your Master. I own you. You do what I tell you to.”
I slip beneath his arm and stand in his embrace. His cock is soft, but the pressure of it against my belly tightens my insides. “Not this time.”
I drop to my knees, and look up at him. His cock twitches as he threads his fingers in my hair and pulls hard, exposing the line of my throat. I reach up and take his cock in my hands. He’s thickening fast, and I open my mouth and draw him inside because I know I’ve just taken all the power from him. The balance has shifted. He no longer makes all the rules. Yes, he’s my Sir, and I’ll try my best to obey him, but I have to do this for me, for her, and for every slave they’ve ever stolen.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Pet
For two days, Ares has been cold and distant, but he’s resumed my training with vigor. Sometimes Hermes comes to watch, which I find unsettling, but they both remind me I’m going to be a lot more than unsettled in Vladik’s house. Besides, there isn’t much I can really say about it. I want him to train me. I want to be prepared for whatever Vladik might throw my way for however long I’m there.
Ares tolerates his brother’s presence, but otherwise ignores him, and I wonder if this is a usual occurrence when training a slave. It certainly wasn’t my experience at the house they kept me in, but then, Ares has done this for ten years. Perhaps his methods change each time.
The basement of this house is set up like a torture chamber with sleek black tiles that can be washed clean, so I assume he’s trained many slaves here, though there are no cages here like in the New York house. Perhaps he only brought his lovers to his home. Did he bring Israel here? Did he fuck him in the basement, make him choke on his cock? And bring him pleasure like he’s never known?
On the third day of hardcore fucking, Hermes doesn’t join us, for which I am glad. Logically, I know privacy is a thing I gave up returning to Ares. My nudity does not bother me; I’ve spent my entire life on the stage. My body has always been the topic of scrutiny, in one way or another. Why should this be any different?
Ares pulls me back into the warmth of his embrace. His own body is slick with sweat, and I’m covered in bodily fluids and I don’t care because this peace—this is what I’ve searched for as long as I can remember.
He chuckles, but it’s not the cruel and bitter laugh I’m used to. He sounds . . . happy. “Are you still with me, Pet?”
“Ye-yes, Sir.” I could so easily fall asleep here.
“Come. Let’s get cleaned up.”
I expect him to make me walk, or worse, crawl, as he’s become accustomed to doing these past few days, but he carries me up the flight of stairs, and only pauses at the base of the next set to heft me closer because our bodies are so slippery. He sets me down in the bathroom, and I stare at the floor, breathing deeply of the rich gardenia and lavender oils he adds to the bath.
Ares holds out his hand to me and I take it, but my body is heavy even while I float.
“Careful, Pet. I can’t have you falling and cutting open that beautiful little skull of yours.” He kisses my hair and helps me into the bath, and then climbs in behind me, pulling me back into his embrace.
“I’m so sleepy.”
“Really? I never would have guessed.” He reaches one long, muscled and tattooed arm outside the tub and picks up a bottle of water. Taking off the cap, he hands it to me.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Drink, Pet. You know you have to keep your fluids up.”
“I’m not thirsty. I just want to sleep.”
“I know, little one. Lie back and open for me.”
I do as he asks, and I let him bring the water to my lips. It’s cool as it slides down my abused throat. He was rough last night, and again today when he fucked my mouth, and the cool water brings welcome relief.
Next, he hands me a banana, breaking off the tip. I shake my head as he presses it to my mouth, but I open anyway when he growls. I chew and swallow on autopilot because my Sir wants me too, not because I require the sustenance. He is all I need.
“Tell me, Pet. How do you feel?”
“Like I’m floating, Sir.”
He sighs against my hair. “Sometimes, I envy you.”
I sit up and turn to see his face. The tub is large but it isn’t so big that I can rotate fully, so my upper torso is strained as I attempt to face him. “Why on earth would you envy me?”
“I envy your courage, the way you love so freely, the way you give all of yourself to me, to Athena.”
I drop my gaze. His is too telling. His fear is written all over the hard lines of his face, but why? Is he afraid of losing me to Vladik, or afraid I might take my freedom and not come back? “I envy your ability to love.”
“Do you not love me, Sir?”
His inhalation is sharp, unexpected. I should not have asked him that. How will I cope when the answer is no, or if he tells me not to be stupid, that he could never love a slave? Oh, God. I gave up everything for this man because I believed he loved me, but what if I’ve been wrong?
“As much as I am capable, Pet.”
As much as I’m capable? What does that mean? He set me free because he didn’t want me to suffer at Vladik’s hands, so was it mercy or love that compelled him to do so? He risked his own freedom and came back for me. Again, love or mercy? I don’t know. I’d follow this man through the fires of hell if he commanded it, and he can’t even give me an answer to one simple question. He can’t give me all of him.
Stupid, traitorous tears spring from my eyes and trail down my cheeks. I try to turn away, but he grabs my shoulder and holds me in place, watching as one rolls down my face and glances off my jaw. It lands in his upturned palm, and he leans forward and licks the salt from his hand. I close my eyes, wishing I didn’t love him, praying to gods long forgotten to free me from feeling this way. As much as he envies my ability to love, I envy him too. If I were like him, I’d never cry a single tear again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Pet
The following morning, I sleep late. I’m not sure where Ares is, but I roll around naked between his sheets for far too long. I’m tempted to slide my hand between my legs and play with my pussy, but he’d know. He always knows.
Instead, I climb out of bed, wincing as my muscles protest. I walk to the bathroom and study my naked frame. There are bruises everywhere. I’m an artwork, a masterpiece of my Master’s creation. I poke the heart-shaped bruise over my breast, and press my thumb hard into the discolored flesh. It no longer hurts. It’s just another mark he made, another brand.
As much as I am capable.
His words come back to me like a knife thrust into my heart. I swallow hard around the lump in my throat, and force back my tears as I run the tub. I don’t bother with the oils Ares usually adds. My heart isn’t in it.
I let my hair splay out all around me in the water, and I hold my breath and sink beneath the surface. Bubbles escape my nose and rise to the surface. Underwater, everything is blurred, calm, quiet. Safe.
I close my eyes and when I open them again, my Sir, my salvation and my tormenter, is staring down at me with an ugly sneer on his face. He reaches in and pulls me up. I cough and shrink away from his touch.
“What the fuck were you doing? Trying to kill yourself? Is that it?”
Kill myself? I shake my head. “No, Sir, I was only . . .”
But I don’t finish that sentence because I don’t
know how. Was I trying to kill myself?
“Get the fuck out of the tub, now.”
I scramble to do as I’m told. I slip on the slick floor and go down in a heap. Ares stares at me as if I’ve completely lost my mind. I hurry and kneel in front of him. He grips my hair, hard. My hands fly to his wrist, clawing at him to stop the pain. He hauls me to my feet. His face is red, his eyes as black and fathomless as I’ve ever seen, and then he lets me go. I’d probably topple if his arms weren’t wrapped around me so tightly I can barely breathe.
“Don’t ever do that to me again, Pet.”
I sob into his embrace. I can’t get enough air. I can’t get enough Sir. How did I get so fucked up? How did I fall in love with a man who can’t love me back? “I’m s-sorry, Sir.”
“Don’t scare me like that.”
“No . . . no, Sir.”
He grabs my face in his hands and searches my gaze. I feel like I’m not really here. As if I’m still underwater, but I’m weightless, no longer connected to the earth, to my Sir. I don’t understand. I only meant to soak in the tub. I have no recollection of sinking beneath the water. I know I must have, but what compelled me to do it?
“Jesus, Pet.” He pulls me close again and holds me so tightly I fear I might break. “God, you scared the shit out of—”
“What happened to my birds?” The question springs from my lips, and I close my eyes remembering that room. Wondering if they’re outside and still trying to get back in the cage. I got back in, and now I feel as if I’m banging my head against the door begging to be let out, but there is no escape a second time.
“What?”
“My birds. The police took me back to that house, to my cage, and they were gone. What did you do?”
“It doesn’t matter.” he says, releasing me and grabbing a fresh towel from the rack.
“It matters to me.”
He shakes out the towel and turns, ready to leave. “I told you to leave it.”
“What did you do?”
He whirls around, his face red and his eyes as cold as they’ve ever been. “I killed them!”
In the Land of Gods and Monsters, Part Two (Gods & Monsters Book 2) Page 13