When she lies back against me, I can practically feel the wheels turning in her head. I’m just about to demand she say whatever she needs to say when she opens her mouth and her quiet whisper fills the room. “Sir, why don’t I have a safe word?”
I rest my chin on her head and frown. “Because I tell you when you’ve had enough. Because you trust me to know what’s best for you.”
“That’s not how it works out there.”
“Fuck out there.”
“I need boundaries, Ares. You’re my Master, you’ll always be my Master, and I trust you, I do, but I need to feel as if I’m still in control of my own life. I’ve given you everything—my heart, my pussy, my soul. There isn’t a single part of me that you don’t own. But I need this.”
“You need a safe word?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit.”
“You took my life from me twice, and you can’t give me this one thing?”
“You’re about to be Vladik’s slave. You don’t need a fucking safe word—you need a noose.”
“I’m not talking about with Vladik. I’m talking about with you, with us.”
“You want a safe word? Fine, have a fucking safe word. If you think a word will keep me from flogging your ass, will keep you safe from me, then choose a goddamn word, Pet, and let’s see if we can’t put it to use.”
“Fine. I will.”
“Great,” I clear my throat. “Then what is it?”
“Asshole.”
“Too close. A safe word should be something you’d never yell in a scene. You’ve often used asshole to tell me to fuck yours. Let me guess—Atticus and Violet told you that you needed one, didn’t they? What was your safe word with them?”
“I’m not telling you—”
“You don’t have to. Let me guess . . . it was peaches, wasn’t it?”
Her face falls, and tears spring up in her eyes. So fast. She’s so quick to cry, so easily broken, but I guess I’ve always known that. It’s what I love about her.
“Do you miss them, Pet? Do you miss the way they were sweet and fair with you? So unlike me.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.” I grin. “That doesn’t change the fact that you love me though.”
“And you? You’re incapable of love, aren’t you? Unless, of course, we’re talking about your little Achilles. I hate you both.”
“Careful, Pet. It sounds very much like you learned nothing from your last punishment.”
“Why do you torment me? Why come back for me at all?”
“I told you—you’re mine. I didn’t like being without my property.”
“Did you say those same words to him?”
“No, Pet. I’ve only ever said those words to you.” I kiss her hair and let my nose linger in the soft lavender and rosewood scent.
“Then why is he here?”
“We’ve been over this. Because Hermes thought it was best for your training.”
“Shouldn’t you be the judge of that?”
“Shouldn’t you be watching your smart mouth, lest I stick another rubber cock inside it to shut you up?” I pull her chin up to look at me. “I know you don’t want him here, but you could learn a lot from Israel.”
“I hate him. I’d rather die than have him touch me.”
I chuckle. “Was that before or after you came with his fingers inside you?” I shake my head. “It’s not forever, Pet. It’s just until you’re ready. He’ll be gone soon.”
So will she. I must be mad to agree to this.
“Will you miss him?”
“A part of me will always miss the men and women I’ve trained.”
“And if I die in Vladik’s household, will you buy him back from Texas and bring him here so the two of you can carry on your affair?”
I sigh. “He’s a slave, Pet. I can’t just buy him back. He’s not for sale. Texas is far too fond of him for that.
“But you’d do it if you could, wouldn’t you?”
I smooth my hands down over her breasts and sink my fingers into her flesh. “We are not talking any more about Israel. He doesn’t exist for you outside of this house—are we clear? You will think only of him when it aids in your training, but I do not want another word said about Israel and me or my love for him. When I said I was incapable of it, I meant it. You have as much of me as I can give, and it’s more than I’ve given anyone my whole life.”
“But you said—”
“Not another word, Pet,” I order, fed up with the badgering. “I will gag you again if you force my hand. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Sir.”
I slap the outside of her thigh and she squeaks and drums her heels on the floor.
If she only knew no one else exists for me anymore. No one comes close.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Pet
Four days. Israel had been here only four days, and I want to murder him. I hate the way he looks at my Sir, and the way he preens when Ares tells him he’s a good boy, or when he stares at me with a licentious gaze while his mouth is wrapped around my Sir’s cock. I especially hate the way he moans when Ares makes him eat me out. As if he isn’t being forced to do it or risk a beating.
But the very worst thing about Israel being here is that, little by little, I can see why Ares fell for him in the first place. He’s charming as fuck, talented with his hands, and knows how to inflict the right amount of pain and pleasure that keeps me coming until my Sir says stop. He’d make a fantastic Dom, if he didn’t love to serve so much.
Ares pulls me up by the hair and leads me to the middle of the room to a dome-shaped ottoman. Israel kneels beside it, naked, his erect cock jutting proudly out from his body. I try to avert my eyes, but I can’t look away. He’s beautiful with the leanly muscled build of a swimmer, so different from Ares. He’s also uncut, and a perverse part of me wonders what he’d feel like coming down my throat.
Ares’ grip tightens in my hair as he follows my line of sight. “See something you like, little one?”
My cheeks flame. “No, Sir.”
“Liar.” My deceit earns me a sharp slap to the rump. “On your back, little one. Arms, head, legs, and feet on the floor.”
“Yes, Sir.” I bend myself over the furniture. It’s small, and lying across it like this leaves only my midsection and ass supported. Ares unravels a short bundle of rope, and fists my hair in his hand. Without being told to, Israel crawls to my Sir’s side and hands over the line, then he takes hold of the ponytail Ares created and ties the length around my hair, pulling tightly on the long ends. I gasp, my instinct to grab his hands and pull my hair free, but I can’t do that. My Sir won’t be happy.
“Going into Vladik’s house, you will need to be prepared for anything. Are you ready for that?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“We’ll see.” Ares comes around the ottoman and grabs hold of a shiny spreader bar with ropes tied to the end. He fastens each one around my ankles, and tethers more rope to a ring in the ceiling. I can’t move my legs. They’re thrust up in the air, and no amount of wriggling will help free me. My arms and head are secured with more rope so I’m pinned down and spread out, just the way my Master likes me.
“Israel?” Ares’ voice is cunning from behind my legs—I can’t see on account of being tied to the floor, but I know that tone. “Get me the Hitachi in the top drawer.”
“Yes, Sir.” Israel hurries across the room and returns with the Magic Wand. He hands it to Ares, who trails kisses along the soles of my feet and down my ankles. He sinks his teeth in my flesh, deep. I cry out, but he releases me with a wink.
“Israel, eat my Pet’s asshole while I make her come.”
“No, no, no, please, Sir,” I beg, but it’s clear my protests fall on deaf ears.
“It will be my pleasure, Sir.”
“Of course it fucking will. It’s a beautiful asshole.” Ares shoves the younger slave to his knees. “Now get down there and eat it like you’re a starv
ing man.”
Israel leans forward, and his tongue glides all the way from my clit to my ass.
I shriek and squirm, but I’m going exactly nowhere.
“I didn’t say you could eat her pussy. That belongs to me,” Ares snaps.
“Sorry, Sir.”
“No, you’re not, you filthy fucking whore.” Ares grabs the back of Israel’s head and shoves him forward. “Be sure to get right on in there. She loves a little tongue.”
A beat later, Israel’s tongue is on me, and an involuntary moan escapes my throat.
“Told you she loved it,” Ares says, turning on the wand. Its loud vibrations fill the room. He moves to my head, spreads his legs either side of me, and leans forward, pressing the wand to my nipples. I cry out. “That’s because you’re my needy little slut, aren’t you, Pet?”
“Yes . . . yes, Sir.”
He crouches and angles his hips down so his hard cock bobs before me. I dart my tongue out and lick the tight seam of his balls. “Do you like having Israel tongue your hole?”
“Yes.”
He slaps my cheek with his cock. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He slides the vibrator down my abdomen to my pussy. My whole body jerks. I scream, because it’s too much. It’s always too fucking much, and he knows it. He loves to torture me with that fucking wand.
“Oh, fuck! Please, Sir, please may I come, please?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Please? Please?” I sob. Israel thrusts his tongue inside me. The vibrator makes everything worse, or better, depending on your definition. It’s both bitter and sweet, pain and pleasure. “Please, Sir.”
“Come, my little slut. Ride Achilles’ tongue with your hot little ass and come.” Ares grinds the head of the Hitachi against my clit, and I come so hard I see stars. The orgasm goes on for what feels like an eternity, and it’s hard to know if it’s just one long continuous contraction or multiple.
Israel keeps piercing me with his wicked tongue until Ares removes the vibrator. I’m a sweating, gasping mess, but it’s obvious my Sir isn’t done yet. He unfastens the ropes binding my legs, along with my arms and hair. They don’t stay free for long, because he jerks me upright and binds them in front at my wrists. My Master leads me to the bench in the middle of the room. The one he strapped me to when Israel first showed up and I disrespected him. Like before, I’m tied to the bench, though this time I’m face-up with my legs secured in a frog-tie position.
“We’re going to play rough with you, little one.”
“Yes, Sir,” I breathe, sounding every bit the wanton slut he accuses me of being. “I like it rough.”
“I know you do. I know your limits. I know how close to them I can push you, but remember this: Vladik won’t stop if you cry for help.” Icy dread stabs my heart. Why would he say that? Why bring up Vladik now? Is he trying to scare me? I don’t say anything in response. I can’t. “Israel, choose a flogger from the wall.”
Israel comes back with a black flogger with . . .
“Holy shit, is that barbed wire?”
“Fucking sadist.” Ares chuckles, pulling a chair from the corner of the room. He places it in front of me and sits. He’s right between my thighs, and he strokes them, gently massaging my tense muscles. “It’s not real barbed wire, Pet. Only rubber, but it stings like a fucking bitch. A fact Israel knows all too well.”
The slave shrugs. “You did say we were playing rough.”
Ares raises a brow. I know that look. It’s the “you’re three fucking seconds away from a sound beating” look. Apparently, Israel is familiar with it too, because he casts his eyes to the ground like a good little sub. “You break the skin, and I will crucify you.”
“Yes, Sir,” Israel says. Why do I get the feeling he’d enjoy that?
Ares squirts massage oil into his palms and covers me with it, sliding the silky lubricant over my thighs and sex before continuing up my torso to my breasts. I squirm as much as the ropes will allow. “When you said you were playing hard, I didn’t realize a massage was what you had in mind.”
He chuckles. “Oh, there will be plenty of pain, Pet. Don’t worry your pretty head about that.”
He sits back down and lavishes his attention on my pussy, rubbing my clit until I almost come as Israel lets the first few lashes fly. Ares was right; they do sting like a bitch, and try as I might to keep quiet, I can’t. I wind up screaming from the repeated flogging of both nipples, and the teasing from Ares’ expert hands. Desire, anger, need, and despair all trade places until it’s too much, and my orgasm builds to the point where I couldn’t hold back even if Ares ordered me to.
“Come on my hands, Pet.” Sir keeps up his stroking and slides three fingers inside as the first wave of pleasure sluices through my body. With brutal thrusts, he fucks my pussy, sweeping my G-spot until I come all over his hands and the floor.
I barely have time to bask in the afterglow when he slides his hand free and enters me again, this time with more fingers. I cry from the pressure. “Relax, little one. Before you leave this room, you will take my whole fist inside your precious, perfect cunt.”
“No,” I shriek, attempting to sit up despite the ropes that pin me down. “I can’t. Please, Sir.”
“You can, and you will.”
Israel peppers my Sir’s words with lashes of the flogger. The falls land on my thighs, and the top of my pubic mound. Ares continues fucking me with his fingers, long, slow strokes that cause me to cry for more, despite how his threat of fisting scares me. I come again without being told to, and when I meet my Sir’s eyes with fear and trepidation, I see nothing but confidence, adoration, and perhaps even a little excitement.
“This will hurt, Pet, but it will hurt so fucking good.” He pulls out of me, oils up his hands and wrists again, and slowly, so slowly I can feel every callous and groove, he eases back in with all five digits. I shudder as my pussy stretches to accommodate him. He’s right. It does hurt, but it feels good too. It’s the perfect mix of pleasure and torture, and I feel as if the world is shattering around me. Israel beats my breasts, each fall of the flogger landing exactly where he intends. Then he takes the flogger and turns it so that the braided leather handle is flush with my skin. For a beat I think he’s going to hit me with it, but he slides it across my slick skin and down my abdomen to my pussy, where he runs it back and forth over my clit. I cry, I scream, and I come with Ares’ hand buried in me to the wrist.
For hours, they toy with me like this, Ares fucking my pussy and ass with his fist, Israel alternating between stroking, beating, and sometimes choking me by covering my mouth and nose until I almost pass out, but come instead from their torturous ministrations. I no longer know up from down, lover from enemy, or Sir from slave. My mind is so twisted, so broken, and I couldn’t care fucking less.
“She’s ready.” Israel sucks on my nipple, one last tariff of pain for all that pleasure.
I glance at Ares, at my Sir, and see my own fear reflected in his face. What if Vladik kills me? What if he breaks me beyond repair? Once upon a time, I’d thought I couldn’t be any more broken. Then Ares set me free, and I truly knew what it was to be left in pieces. This time, I’m asking for it. I’m willing to risk my life for his sister because it’s the right thing to do, but at what cost?
Ares doesn’t respond; he doesn’t need to. We both know what he’s thinking. He knows Israel is right. I am ready, because it’s what my Sir has trained me for from day one, and he never met a slave he couldn’t break.
We’re about to find out if the same is true for Vladik.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Pet
Ares squeezes my hand and presses a kiss to my forehead. Anxiety flutters inside my chest, forming its own heartbeat of flutters and dips.
“Do everything Vladik tells you, you hear me?”
“Yes, Sir.” My voice quakes as I say the words. I don’t want to do this, but I agreed to. I volunteered, and I won’t leave
Ares’ sister in the hands of a monster. I’ll free her, and as many others as I can.
“It’s okay to be afraid, Pet.”
I relax against his embrace and give up control. As of this moment, any control or dominion I thought I had over my life is gone. The trembling I’d tried so hard to hold at bay breaks free, and I quake in his arms.
“You’ll be there no more than a week, and you have your tracker, so I’ll be close by.”
“You will?”
“Yes, Pet.” He smooths his long fingers over the collar at my neck, and gives my leash a little tug. “He will treat you as his possession, but you must never forget that you are mine. You’ll always be mine. Vladik will beat you. He’ll punish and fuck you, but you’re mine.”
My head swims with all of the horrors that await me. There are so many things that could go wrong.
“Listen, this is imperative, Pet. You need to find Athena and tell her Hermes is coming for her. From the intel we gleaned a few years ago, Vladik doesn’t keep her with the other slaves. You must be quick and clever, and never, under any circumstances, get caught. If you do, I can’t promise I’ll be there to help you in time.”
“I’ll do my best, but . . . what if he doesn’t buy me?”
“He won’t be able to resist. You were chosen because you’re perfect.” He kisses my head, his lips lingering longer than they should with so many other vehicles and guards around. “We’ve never had better bait.”
That’s not as comforting as he might think.
Ares takes my mouth by force, spreads my thighs with one brusque hand, and thrusts inside me. I open for him, instantly spreading my legs and welcoming his warm, talented fingers. I moan into his mouth, and his thumb gently strokes my clit. The feeling is strange. I’m used to pain and brutality from my master, not sweet caresses.
“Do not fight him, Pet. Things will go much worse for you if you do.”
In the Land of Gods and Monsters, Part Two (Gods & Monsters Book 2) Page 16