Break Me (Enslaved #2)

22 DAX

“She needs to be punished,” Dorin says, casting a furious glance at my sub. “By me.”

Dorin’s girl squeals a protest in the background, but all my attention is on Dorin as I dart up off the floor. “The hell she does,” I bark, about to fly in his face, but Mikhail stops me with a hand on my chest.

“What happened here?” he demands, the only person keeping his cool.

“She bothered my girl.” Dorin points his thick baton to my sub. “Made her cry.”

“Why was she here in the first place?” Mikhail looks between Dorin and me, and it’s only then that I wonder the same thing. When Mikhail called and said the words “cell number one” and “your girl” in the same sentence, I got tunnel vision. I just knew there was trouble with Dorin. He’s been oddly protective and acting strange about this girl from the day he came into my office and asked me to make her a paper bracelet instead of chipping her. I was so focused on keeping my sub safe from Dorin that it didn’t even occur to me to consider why she was here.

“To harass my girl,” Dorin accuses.

“Dax?” Mikhail asks, probably hoping for a less dramatic explanation.

“If Dorin didn’t bring her here, I have no clue.” Turning my gaze toward my sub, I clench my jaw as the realization strikes. She fucking wandered off. I remember how she asked about the singing girl. She surely came here to hear it again. I rub my stubbled jaw harshly as I try to rein in a sudden flare of anger. “Did you walk off?”

She gives the tiniest nod, and shame is heavy in her eyes as she lowers her gaze to the floor.

“See, she has to be punished,” Dorin repeats. “Since she bothered my girl, it’s only fair that she gets it from me. If you want to have a go at her too, be my guest and continue once I’m done,” he tells me.

“No, Dorin,” the blonde begs again. “It’s not her fault. She tried to help me.”

“She fucking went to you without permission. She gets punished,” Dorin says with finality, then turns to my sub and threatens, “You’ll learn your lesson hard.”

The blonde scurries around him, pressing herself into him to gain his attention. “No, Dorin. If anyone has to be punished, punish me. I’ll take it for her.”

He shoves her aside, but the girl is reckless, moving straight back into the eye of the fucking thunderstorm.

“Please, Dorin. Let me take it.”

“Silence,” Mikhail demands, his voice cutting through the space and quieting everyone. “I’m sick of this. You two clearly aren’t capable of figuring this out yourselves, so I decide who gets to punish who.”

Dorin and I both watch him, accepting his decision. I don’t know how the hell he does it, but Mikhail can gain the respect of the most brutal, willful men and make them accept his rule without much effort. It’s more than a little impressive, to say the least. So is his composure in the face of two bulky men with violence itching in their fists.

Mikhail looks from one girl to the other, assessing the situation and their reactions. Gesturing to Dorin’s girl, he says, “She gets the punishment.” He moves his hand to my sub. “She gets to watch.”

Relief is a weight off my chest that makes the air swoosh into my lungs with a deep gush. I’m not sure what I would have done if Mikhail had let Dorin punish my sub. Punch him in the face, fight Dorin, or fling my sub over my shoulder and take her out of here before Dorin could lay a hand on her. I don’t know. Something reckless and impulsive, that’s for sure.

Mikhail’s choice of punishment seems ridiculous, but right now, keeping my sub safe from Dorin is all that matters. I can remedy the lack of punishment later when I’m alone with her. Because watching another girl get beaten won’t be enough for her major infraction. At least, that’s my first thought. As I watch her frantically shaking her head as she grips my jeans, begging me through her eyes, I realize the shrewdness of the plan. These two girls have bonded. So much so that they’re willing to offer themselves up to protect the other. Seeing Dorin punish the blonde will break my sub.

With that realization comes another. One that has me biting down on my molars as it dawns on me that this is not the first time she has run off to come here. I fucking thought she’d obediently stay put when I put her in the hall. Apparently, my training isn’t working as well as I thought, and it almost angers me more than Dorin’s ridiculous demand to punish my sub did.

Dorin is about to protest Mikhail’s decree, but Mikhail cuts him off before he can get a word out.

“I don’t have time for this. Get on with the punishment, or I’ll hand your special little project off to someone else.” With that, he walks off, leaving no room for discussion.

Dorin casts a sour look my way, then steers his girl down the hall.

I follow suit, gripping my sub’s arm to pull her off the floor and bring her along.

My mind does another one-eighty as I follow Dorin to a whipping room, making worry spike within me anew. My sub might be safe physically, but seeing Dorin deliver a punishment might just leave a huge mental scar. Dorin is not the type to go easy, and when given the chance to punish for a severe infraction, he usually lets loose the beast. If a girl walks away from one of his punishments with only a few broken bones, she’s lucky.

I don’t want my sub to witness that. But I also don’t want to risk her falling into his claws again. This might be what she needs to stay the hell away from him and his girl. And it will teach her a lesson she clearly needs to learn.

When Dorin starts unstrapping the straitjacket on the blonde, I grab my sub’s arms and force her attention on me. “How many times have you snuck away when I told you to stay put? Show me with your fingers.”

Worry widens her eyes as she lifts her shoulders.

“More than ten times?”

Her stuttered breath makes her nostrils flutter as she once again lifts her shoulders.

My jaw tightens, and I shove the back of my hand under her chin as her eyes fall to the floor. I don’t say a word, but her shrinking posture tells me she can read my anger more than plenty on my face. If watching this punishment doesn’t send her into tears and strings of apologetic pleas, I’ll make sure to find something else that will.

Grabbing the chair in the corner, I move it to sit at the center of the far wall, where I haul her onto my lap. Then I grab a bundle of rope off the wall and make quick work of tying her hands together and securing the rope around her waist. Grabbing a handful of her hair, I force her attention onto Dorin and the poor girl that he’s stringing up to a hook in the ceiling by ropes on her wrists, her back to us.

“You’d better watch every single moment of this, or I’ll make him repeat it on a new girl,” I say into her ear, making her shudder at the threatening note in my voice—or maybe the prospect of being responsible for yet another girl’s suffering.

Tugging at the wrist restraints, she points her fingers up at the mask while whimpering unintelligible words. When I don’t respond, she even starts straining against my grip on her hair. She’s trying to beg me to stop this, but I’m not relenting. With each passing second I think about her deliberate disobedience, I grow more determined to force her to witness this. Hell, as she keeps fighting me, kicking her legs against the ground as her whimpers grow more desperate, I’m even tempted to string her up on the hook and let Dorin punish her alongside the other girl.

I’m not sure why I feel so strongly about this. I punish girls for disobedience on a daily basis. And severe disobedience that calls for a bigger punishment like this one is just another part of the job. But this feels personal. This girl is no longer just an unwilling victim. She’s a good little sub. My sub.

Fuck. I shove the thought out as I trap her legs beneath mine and force my temper down. “Did you enjoy being a bad, disobedient sub?” I ask in a level tone as I watch Dorin fasten the blonde’s legs in a spreader bar.

My sub shakes her head almost as ardently as when Mikhail made Dorin’s girl take the punishment. Her scalp must hurt from the way she struggles against my grip on her hair, and the knowledge makes my dick stir in my pants. Good girl, she regrets it. But she doesn’t deserve those two words yet.

“Are you gonna take responsibility and take your punishment like the obedient sub you want to be?”

She sniffles, and I lift a hand to feel a wet trail on her cheek as she nods her head. I don’t need her words to know what she’s thinking. She’s torn, feeling like she’s not the one getting punished, but she knows this is the only way I’m going to let her repent, so she’ll accept it. Because she needs to repent.

“Watch this for me and I’ll forgive you.”

Her sniffling becomes louder, but her shoulders sag. My cock grows beneath her, feeling how she gives in. How she accepts this cruel punishment to please me. Her legs go still, her arms go limp against the rope, and her back leans into me. She’s mine and she knows it. No, even better: She wants it.

But the moment Dorin unclips his baton from his belt, she goes frantic again, straining and whimpering desperately.

Dorin delivers a blow to the blonde girl’s ass, one to her right thigh, and one to the left. She barely even releases a sound, but the agony is palpable in her jerky movements, the harsh thuds of the impact, and in the way her knees cave in on the last blow.

My sub goes livid, screaming behind the muzzle. Her entire body tenses like Dorin just delivered those three blows to her body.

He lifts the baton again, and my sub claws at her own skin, pushing her feet into the stone floor so hard she must be scraping her skin, and her muffled screams are growing manic.

Fuck, this is worse than I thought. I’m about to turn her around on my lap and let her seek shelter against my body when Dorin throws the baton aside.

Draping an arm around the blonde’s waist, Dorin supports her weight, relieving her wrists from holding it all. Then he delivers a smack to her ass with his bare hand.

I’m stunned for a moment, almost forgetting about the despairing sub in my arms as I watch Dorin—fucking Dorin—holding a girl steady against him as he smacks her with his bare hand. It’s like a strange dream that doesn’t add up with anything that happens in real life. Yet, what I’m witnessing is very real. Dorin pulls her closer as he delivers another smack. Leaning his head against hers, he delivers two more. The girl starts shaking, but it’s not from the pain as Dorin presses a kiss to her temple. The small gesture makes her break into a loud sob. She has been holding back, refusing to scream and cry, trying to stay brave. And now, this big beast offers her a little tenderness, and she can’t hold back.

But my sub doesn’t see the tenderness and the connection forming between the two. She doesn’t see the mercy and the comfort. She only sees the violence that she has caused. She’s sobbing now, hyperventilating through her nose. She keeps straining and struggling, but her motions are growing weaker. She’s had enough. I release her legs and her hair to turn her around, letting her crawl into my lap and sink her head into my shoulder. I cover her head with my palm to take the blow of the sound while draping my other arm around her waist.

She doesn’t need to see more, but I need to see this. So I shelter her in my embrace while I watch in fascination as Dorin comforts the girl for the pain he inflicts on her. It’s almost like watching myself in a mirror, yet so very strange. Dorin is the last person on earth I’d expect this from. I always thought us to be fundamentally different, but I guess we’re more alike than I could imagine, and I feel myself drawn to the scenario in front of me, unable to look away until Dorin frees the girl and hoists her up to cradle her against his chest.

A strange pang shoots through me as I watch the girl cling to Dorin as he carries her out. I’m not sure why, because I have a girl of my own clinging to me right now. A sweet, submissive girl, who carries my mark and eagerly succumbs to my command.

“It’s okay,” I say to reassure her. “The girl is okay. Dorin didn’t beat her up too badly. He’s taking care of her.”

She leans out from me, watching me with a question in her tear-stained eyes. She’s not sure she believes me.

“She’s safe,” I repeat. “I promise.”

She blinks back and forth between my eyes, still not convinced. And I get why. I’m still barely sure what just unfolded before me actually happened.

Taking her head between my hands, I assure both her and myself that it was indeed real. “Dorin will take care of her.”

Another moment of her staring with wide eyes passes as she tries to comprehend my strange words.

“I promise,” I add with a depth of sincerity that shocks even myself. Because my promise seems to hold so much more than a promise of simply speaking the truth. I can’t quite grasp what I’m promising, but it’s so much more.

Finally, she nods as a relieved breath flutters through her nose. The fearful strain drains from her arms, and her eyes soften as she sinks forward, into me.

Mimicking Dorin, I hoist her up in my arms and carry her out of there and down the hall. As I reach the end, where the hall splits into two, I stop, looking from one direction to the other. One corridor leads back to her cell; the other takes me to my office. And if I continue, straight ahead, I’ll reach the door leading out of the basement. I could take her upstairs. To my place.

No one has ever brought a girl up there. I’m not even sure any of the girls have ever come through that door. After a sale is finished, they’re always taken through the door that leads straight outside rather than tainting our living quarters with their lowly presence. That custom has always seemed like the natural order of things, but suddenly, it doesn’t sit well with me. Because this girl wouldn’t taint anything up there. She would bring grace and peace to my quarters.

I want to lay her in my bed, pull the fluffy comforter over her delicate body, and crawl in behind her.

But I can’t bring her up there. Not because of some unspoken rule, but because I wouldn’t be able to take her back down here. Somehow, I just know that. Once I take her up there, there’s no going back.

So I turn on my heel and head toward her cell, heart pumping in my chest as I reel from the decision I almost made. But once in her cell, I make a new decision almost as shocking. I crawl under the tattered blankets with her, spooning her on the thin foam mattress in the naked cell like I had promised myself I wouldn’t do again.

She’s not even crying anymore or in desperate need of comfort; she’s just shuddering lightly. I’m not doing this for her; I’m doing this for me.

Fuck. This shit is fucked up. I can’t have it.

With a jerk, I pull away from her, off the mattress.

She makes a tiny mewl and turns to look at me with those huge, vulnerable eyes. She’s not even terrified after what I made her watch. Her gaze is full of trust. Stupid, reckless trust. She shouldn’t trust anything down here. Least of all me. And maybe that’s why that trust goes straight to my dick. I growl as it swells painfully in my jeans while she just keeps watching me. If I removed the muzzle, she’d be begging me to stay. But she can’t speak a single word, so she just keeps begging me with those big eyes, silently asking me to stay.

And I want to. So fucking badly.

But I’m not sleeping in a fucking cell again.

Shoving her legs apart with my boots, I drop to the mattress between her legs and clamp my hands onto her waist. Her tiny, feminine, breakable waist. My eyes must be burning as I watch her and shake her. I can see it in the way her pupils dilate with a heady mix of fear and desire. And fuck, if it doesn’t feed my crazed need. Digging my nails into her skin, I rake them down over her hips and thighs, dragging my eyes across her delicate skin as I go—her flat belly, her waxed mound, and the pussy rings.

Something crazed and feral rages alive within me at the sight of those rings. I want to fuck her. I want her. All of it. Her sweet submission, her reckless trust, her ass, and her tight, unused pussy. But as my eyes flit back to her face, I find there’s something I want even more.

I want her to want me.