Chapter Ten
He’s struck me with something hard, across my buttocks, and with enough force that the vines rock. I squeeze my eyes shut, grit my teeth, but a pained gasp escapes, nevertheless.
“You’ll count each one,” he orders. “And you’ll thank me for them. Try it now.”
“Yes, Guardian.” I sniff back tears. “One. Thank you, Guardian.”
I’m barely finished when the object hits me again, igniting a fire in my already inflamed skin. I cry out and say, “Two. Thank you, Guardian.”
“Can you guess what I’m using on you?” he asks, and scrapes a broad, rough edge over my screaming flesh, digging in as he drags it down.
It’s wide, flat, and totally unyielding. “Is it a book, Guardian?”
He strikes me again, harder, and this time, he doesn’t pause between blows.
“Three, thank you, Guardian! Four, thank you, Guardian!” I yelp as the fifth lands. “Five! Thank you, Guardian!”
My chest heaves. My stomach roils.
“Guess again.”
It seems the punishment for a wrong answer will be more smacks. I should wish to avoid that, shouldn’t I? But all I can think of is the shock of the pain and the way my body is responding to it. I’m growing slick between my thighs, and heavy there with growing need.
“Answer,” he barks, and slaps me with the object again.
“Six! Thank you, Guardian!” But still, I have no clue, only guesses. “Is it a wooden plank, Guardian?”
The time, I receive five, all in a frenzy, alternating between cheeks. I can barely keep up with the counting, shrieking, “Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten! Thank you, Guardian! Eleven! Thank you! Thank you, Guardian!”
Tears stream freely from my eyes now, and drool from my slack mouth.
“Guess again, my honey flower,” he whispers in my ear.
If I guess again, there will be more pain. If I don’t guess, the pain will be much worse.
“A breadboard?” I try, and again, he strikes me with the implement. The vines tighten, driving their thorns deeper. There’s a broken scream from somewhere. From me? I must be the source, but I have no control over my body. I’m alight with pain, yet I somehow crave more. The anticipation is delicious.
“Ah ah, you didn’t count that one,” he says.
I tremble all over. “I’m so sorry, Guardian! I won’t disappoint you again, Guardian! Please, just—”
“Hmm? Are you making a request of me, now?” This time, when he strikes me, it’s not with such force. He comes to stand before me and shows me the object of my torture. “A paddle. This one, you see, is studded with iron. That’s something to keep in mind for faeries who wish to be dominated by you. Iron is deeply uncomfortable.”
He passes his hand over the blunt, flat studs and a curl of white smoke comes up. Then, he flips over his palm to display a rime of frost across it. The skin bubbles black, then heals before my eyes. “But you must be cautious. Too much can be fatal.”
I know this too well.
“Yes, Guardian. I’ll remember. Thank you, Guardian.” My throat is parched, and my body is weak. I must rely on the stinging vines for stability, but there is no shifting to make them more comfortable. They tilt me again, tipping me back and raising my knees, holding me wide open.
“You were worried that you haven’t been penetrated by a cock before,” he says, turning to the disturbingly fleshly ones he’s left on the table. “I think you’re correct; you do need the experience before we go to court, and frankly, before we continue our lessons here.”
The one in his hand is huge, easily as wide as my own fist, and I silently beg him, no, not that one. Not this .
The corners of his mouth unfurl a grin and I know that he’s seen my fear plainly. “I do have a centaur’s, if this is too small.”
He moves as if to retrieve it and I shriek, “No! No, please, Guardian!”
“You needn’t fear this.” He holds the appendage up. It looks even larger upright. “It will fit. And if it does not, I can always repair the damage. You’ll be traumatized, of course—”
I sob aloud.
“Oh, my honey flower, I’m only teasing.” He beckons the vines at my feet, and one rises up between my legs again. It wraps around the phallus and holds it tight while he sprinkles more of the potion from the ampoule onto it. I watch, eyes wide, as the thorns shed from the plant and it fuses to the cock. It waves menacingly close to my unguarded center. Luthian brushes it aside and touches his fingertips to my slit. “You’re positively dripping.”
Despite the pain I’ve endured, the fear and the helplessness I’ve experienced at his hands, the words make me wetter.
Perhaps because of the fear and pain. Is it possible that violence is, to me, as arousing as gentleness?
He goes to his potions and returns with an unguent in a pot. “This will help ease the way,” he assures me, scooping out a large dollop on his fingers. He slaps it onto my parted flesh and spreads it about my folds as if his hand is a trowel. The matter-of-fact way he applies it makes it almost redundant, because my arousal grows more as he treats me like an object to be prepared for use.
Then, he scoops out more and his hand glides lower. I tense, but the thorny vines urge my cheeks apart and hold them open; Luthian smooths a liberal amount of the ointment there, too, and I shudder in embarrassment. I can’t imagine what the purpose of it could be.
Then he pushes his fingertip forward, and I understand.
He goes to the table and picks up the other, smaller phallus.
I fight the vines, not caring how their thorns score my flesh. “No, no, you can’t—”
“I can’t?” He blinks at me.
At once, I understand that I’ve breached our contract, simply by denying him. I’ve allowed him to debase me, to violate me, to display me, to hurt me, and now with my words, I’ve wasted the opportunity he’s offered.
I can’t lose my revenge. I can’t lose my wishes.
I swallow and clear my throat, “You can’t mean to pleasure me with these, alone, Guardian. I wanted your cock in me. I’ve craved it since I tasted it this morning.”
“That’s what I thought you meant.” He nods in approval. “But you haven’t earned it. And I daresay, you wouldn’t survive the pleasure I would give you. Not yet.”
Not yet. The words tingle at the bottom of my feet, tease my tightened nipples. But I still recoil as I watch him grease the other phallus and walk behind me with the ampule.
“Do you know what creatures provided these?” He asks, walking around to lovingly stroke the monstrous vine between my legs.
“No, Guardian.” I’ve never even seen creatures other than faeries or humans, aside from in stories.
“The one behind you is a werewolf.” He crooks his fingers and the vine bearing the organ shifts over my shoulder. “You’ll notice the large bulb at the base. It will swell further when it’s inside of you.”
The cock-vine slinks out of view again.
“And this happy fellow is a vampire,” he says, patting the vine between my thighs. “See the bumps here?”
Nodules like pearls beneath the skin lie in a ridge from base to tip on the top and bottom of the shaft, ending at the bulbous head.
“You’ll like how those will feel,” he promises. He motions the vine forward, until the tip of the horrible thing touches me. I choke back my disgust. I’ve always assumed this moment would happen with someone , not something . And the vine, phallus and all, seems somehow aware of me and its purpose. It’s alive, but not, a creature of magic, nothing I can reason with.
“Go slowly, pet,” he croons to the appendage, and gently opens my petals to it. “This one is pretty. Let’s not break it until we’re ready.”
I tremble in terrified anticipation as the head of the phallus stretches my opening.
“Tell me it’s too big, Cenere,” Luthian murmurs.
This requires no acting on my part. “It’s too big, Guardian!”
It moves slowly forward, but steadily, and at the first sign of resistance, I try to twist away. The vines hold me firm, and Luthian snaps his fingers. Another lashes across the burning skin of my backside, the thorns gouging my skin. I cry out pitifully, and the cock never stops advancing. The head forces into me, opens me painfully, pushes my untried channel so wide I think I’ll split in two.
“Beg me to stop. You have my permission, just this once,” he growls.
“Please!” I cry. “Please, take it out!”
And it’s barely inside.
“Tell me you’re afraid, Cenere.”
Another command that requires no pretending. I’m shaking, tears running down my face as the vine advances. “I’m afraid, Guardian!”
“Good. You’re meant to fear this,” he says with a note of satisfaction. “Fear is a torment of its own.”
I can barely hear him over the instinct roaring in my head, urging me to fight, to struggle, to free myself. The phallus is deep now, but there is so much more of it go, and it doesn’t seem intent on stopping.
“Sometimes, pain can be enjoyable because it’s expected,” Luthian goes on. “By the time I was finished paddling you, you craved the pain, did you not?”
“Yes, Guardian.” But my entire being is focused on escaping the vine between my legs, which feeds more and more of the terrible instrument into me. I want to scream for Luthian to stop, then remember my bargain once more, how I surrendered my will to him.
I think of Cadwyn Thrace’s wings ripped from his body, two trails of blood behind him as he crawls desperately across the floor like a half-squashed insect. I imagine the knife in my hand.
“I’m... I’m...” I gasp out, and I can’t help my movements then. My body is alight with pleasure, spasming all around the invading cock, legs flailing in my bonds. The vines allow this, moving languidly with each spasm and contraction my muscles, rocking me almost tenderly through my release.
Luthian laughs. “Tell me how afraid you are, now.”
“I’m not, Guardian.” I can barely catch my breath, and now the phallus is withdrawing, dragging those ridges over my inner flesh with agonizing slowness, awakening my body’s hunger once more.
My answer takes him aback. “You aren’t afraid?”
I shake my head. “I am not afraid, Guardian.”
I’m determined.
His gaze darkens. Saying nothing, he nods past me.
The pointed tip of the phallus behind me touches my greased ass. I clench, but the vines pry my cheeks apart again, and I can do nothing to escape the insistent pressure. Even with the unguent melting to oil on my flesh, the vine doesn’t penetrate me easily. What begins as a pinprick of pain becomes a splitting, tearing, burning thing.
Luthian watches the horrible thing penetrate me, cruel amusement twisting his features. “It’s barely inside of you. There’s so much more to go.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Are you afraid, now?” he asks.
“Yes, Guardian!” Perhaps, now that my fear is renewed, he’ll feel that he’s made his point.
“As I was saying, the anticipation of the pain, the fear of it, makes the pleasure sweeter. As pleasure can become pain, pain can become pleasure. Fear can be an aphrodisiac.” He points to the glass overhead. “Look up.”
The window transforms into a mirror. I see myself displayed lewdly, see the cocks between my legs. Two more vines unfurl beneath me and rise to curl around my breasts, wrapping and wrapping until they’re tight and flushing. Blood runs in thin streaks from every thorn embedded in my skin.
The image changes, showing me my own body from an angle I could never possibly view on my own; my cunt spread wide around the impossibly huge phallus, the terrible length barely inside my ass. The vampire cock hasn’t stopped moving, but the werewolf vine has, and despite the agony of its intrusion, the nodules tickling the inside of my cunt send spikes of pleasure above the pain.
“Anticipation intensifies every sensation,” Luthian goes on. “You know what this feels like—”
The cock in my ass gives a little wiggle, and I gasp.
“So, imagine how it will feel when, upon my command, it buries itself entirely, in one swift, brutal thrust.”
My skin goes cold all over. I can’t stop my limbs from trembling.
“You’re going to watch, of course,” He says. “If you close your eyes, if you look away, I’ll make sure you can see. You don’t want my pets to mark up your pretty face, do you?”
The thought of the deadly thorns anywhere near my eyes is enough to make me widen them and stare dutifully up at the image above me.
“Beg me,” he instructs again. “Let yourself believe you can convince me to stop, only if you plead desperately enough. Become frantic in your terror and helplessness.”
The werewolf cock is long. The bulb at the base as round as a man’s fist. I swallow and whimper, “Please, Guardian—”
“I’ll count down, shall I?” He comes to stand close to my head, leans down to whisper in my ear. “Three...”
“Please!” I focus on my fear, let it drive my need higher. This is going to happen. I’m going to feel myself split apart, cruel inch by cruel inch, watch it with no way to stop it.
“Two.”
I can imagine it now, the pain I already feel, amplified, and refreshed. I try one last, pathetic time, my throat raw with desperation that I hope pleases him. “I beg you, Guardian, don’t do this—"
His tongue traces the shell of my ear.
“One.”