Chapter 50 Grace
We hand the bodies over to Magnus. I say ‘we’, but I mean ‘he’. He does it. He gets out, hand extended for a shake, leaving me to cower in the car.
But I can hear them talking, hear them exchange pleasantries, hear Magnus make some joke about how he thought his reaping days were over now that he’s become Chapter Lord.
Antonio says something back that I don’t catch, and then the boot opens and the weight of the car shifts enough for me to notice.
I clench my fists, burying my nails into my palms, wondering what the fuck I’m doing here. Would it not be easier to goad Antonio into killing me and just be done with it? It’s clear I’m so far in over my head, and I’m not even pretending to tread water – I’m drowning.
The door opens, Antonio gets back in but he’s slow enough about it that Magnus sees me. And that cold, deadly look he gives me is enough to make me wish that gun Antonio used barely an hour ago really was pressed against my head.
The door shuts, Antonio says something I don’t catch and we drive off. We drive back to that same private airfield, onto the same private jet and I sit beside Antonio, trying to avoid the unimpressed look from his brother who travelled with us from his castle and yet remained on board.
“Is it done?” He asks Antonio as soon as the seat belt light goes off and the pretty lady gets to her feet to start making drinks.
“It’s done, but it’s not the end.” Antonio says, massaging his temples.
I glance between them, more than aware that they’re speaking in riddles right now, and I’m too emotionally exhausted to figure out what it means.
Every time I blink, I see it.
The man, the sharp, percussive crack. The way he folded, like a marionette with its strings cut. The perfect, horrifyingly small hole in his temple.
I shiver, pulling the cashmere blanket tighter around my shoulders. It smells of him, of sandalwood and power. It doesn’t help.
Across the aisle, Antonio’s brother types furiously on his phone. His brow is furrowed, his jaw set. The air hostess moves with a practiced, silent grace in the galley, the clink of ice in a glass a delicate, normal sound.
I am the only one who seems to remember a man just died. I am the only one whose hands won’t stop trembling.
Antonio is beside me, his presence a physical force even as he stares out the window at the clouds below. He hasn’t spoken since we boarded. The silence is a weight, pressing down on me, and I know it’s deliberate.
He is letting me stew, letting the image fester.
Finally, he turns his head. His eyes, dark and impossibly deep, land on me. There is no anger in them. There is nothing at all, and that is so much worse.
“You disobeyed me, Pup.”
His voice is quiet, almost conversational, but it slices through the hum of the engines and freezes the blood in my veins. The memory of the gunshot evaporates, replaced by a more immediate, personal terror.
My heart jackhammers against my ribs. “I-I’m so sorry, Master” I stammer, the words tumbling out in a rushed, panicked whisper. “It was so loud, and I was scared. It won’t happen again., I promise. I’m sorry.”
He listens, his expression unchanging until I run out of breath and apologies. He doesn’t blink, he simply leans back in his plush leather chair, the movement fluid and controlled. He crosses one leg over the other, and his gaze drifts over me, from my tear-filled eyes down to my shaking hands.
“Strip.”
The word is soft. Absolute. It hangs in the air between us, sucking all the sound from the cabin.
My breath hitches, and my eyes dart instinctively to Mateus. He doesn’t look up from his phone. His thumbs keep flying across the screen. I look toward the galley, where the air hostess is stirring a drink with her back to us.
Antonio’s voice comes again, lower now, a velvet-wrapped threat. “If I have to repeat myself you’ll be in far more trouble, Pup.”
I swallow convulsively, a loud, painful gulp that seems to echo in the silent cabin.
This is my punishment, this is the price of my disobedience. I think right now I’d take the finality of a bullet.
With fingers that feel thick and clumsy, I reach for the thin straps of my blue silk dress.
I push them off my shoulders, and the air in the cabin is cool against my suddenly exposed skin.
I shift, letting the fabric whisper down my body, pooling in a dark puddle at my feet on the deep pile carpet.
I stand there, naked, my arms crossing over my chest in a futile attempt at modesty.
The heat in my face is unbearable. I stare at the floor, at the intricate pattern of the rug, wishing I could sink into it.
“Look at me.”
I force my gaze up. He is watching me, his eyes now gleaming with a dark, possessive light. He enjoys this. He enjoys the flush on my skin, the tremble in my limbs, the absolute vulnerability.
“Lay yourself across my lap. Face down.” he says, his voice a low thrum that vibrates deep within me.
There is no hesitation left in me. The fight, the shame, the fear, it all coalesces into a single, driving need to obey. I step out of the puddle of silk and move to him. I can feel the phantom stares of the other two people witnessing this, though I know neither is openly looking.
I lower myself awkwardly across his hard thighs, the cool leather of his seat and the rough texture of his trousers against my now feverish skin.
I’m not exactly small in stature and being put in this position makes me only too aware of how big my thighs are, how round my body is, especially compared to the likes of Felice.
Well, that bitch is dead now. I killed her. No, I can’t think like that. I can’t.
My cheek rests against the seat, my face turned toward the window, toward the endless blue. My bare bottom is exposed to the cabin, to him.
His hand rests on the small of my back as a heavy, warm weight. “You will count each one,” he instructs, his voice calm, didactic. “And you will thank me for it. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master,” I whisper into the leather.
The first spank lands without ceremony. It’s not a love tap. It’s a sharp, stinging crack of his palm against my flesh meant to hurt, to chastise. The pain is bright and shocking.
“One,” I gasp. “Thank you, Master.”
Another, harder this time, on the other cheek. A gasp is punched from my lungs. “Two. Thank you, Master.”
He continues with his relentless, rhythmic punishment. Each blow is precise, deliberate, lighting up my nerve endings with fire. The pain is intense, overwhelming. Tears well in my eyes and spill over, dripping onto the seat beneath me.
I start to cry softly, the numbers and thanks becoming a tear-soaked mantra.
“Six. Thank you, Master.”
“Seven. Thank you, Master.”
I doubt I’ll be able to sit down after this. I doubt I’ll be able to even lie down or just move without pain.
A treacherous thing is happening beneath the pain.
I don’t know if it’s because of all the torture they put me through, or all the abuse I endured before Antonio let me back out again, but a warmth is spreading through my lower belly, a pooling heat that is entirely separate from the sting on my skin.
With each brutal impact, a jolt goes through me, a pulse that echoes between my legs because of that piercing he put into me.
I am ashamed, horrified by my body’s betrayal.
He is punishing me, and I am aroused by it? What the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is he turning me into?
He must sense it. He must feel the subtle shift in the tension of my body across his lap. The spanking stops. His hand, instead of landing another blow slides down over the heated, aching, battered flesh of my bottom and delves between my thighs.
I flinch, a sob catching in my throat. His fingers are both knowing and cruel. They explore, parting my labia, and find me utterly drenched.
He lets out a low, dark laugh that if anything degrades me further. “You filthy little slut,” he murmurs, and the words are like a caress. “Being punished like a naughty child, and your cunt is dripping. You love this, don’t you? You love being put in your place by your Master.”
He works his fingers against me, circling my clit with a ruthless precision that has me bucking against his lap. The pain in my rear is a heavy, throbbing ache now, a counterpoint to the exquisite torture he’s inflicting with his hand.
He’s building me up, coiling the tension inside me tighter and tighter.
My hips move of their own accord, seeking more friction, more of his touch. I am lost in a whirlwind of shame and desperate, clawing need. I’m horribly aware that they are watching me, that his brother and that woman are witnessing what he is doing to me, what I am allowing.
He brings me to the very brink. I am panting, my fists clenched, my entire body taut as a bowstring, poised to shatter.
And then he stops, removing his hand completely.
The denial is a sharper pain than any spank.
A whimper of pure anguish escapes me.
He pushes me off his lap and I stumble to my knees on the carpet, disoriented, trembling desperately with unmet need. He looks down at me, his eyes blazing with ownership. He undoes his belt, the click of the buckle obscenely loud, then the rasp of his zipper.
He frees his erection, thick, hard, and demanding. He doesn’t touch himself, he simply looks down at me.
“Now,” he says, his voice controlled in such a way that I could believe I haven’t affected him in the slightest. “Take your time. Show me how sorry you are. Make me believe it.”
I reach up, my hands shaking. The awareness of our audience is a live wire in my brain. His brother is still there, a silent statue, watching me with an almost bored look on his face. The air hostess is waiting, her eyes politely averted yet her presence is a palpable thing.
Antonio’s command overrides everything.
I lean forward and take him into my mouth.
I start slowly, as instructed. I worship him with my tongue, tracing the velvety length of him. Swirling around the head, savouring the salty, masculine taste of him. I am performing my penance with my tongue.
I hollow my cheeks, taking him deeper, my lips stretched tight around him. I set a slow, deliberate rhythm using my tongue, my lips, my throat.
He groans, a deep, gratifying sound that vibrates through me but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t thrust. He makes me work, he makes me serve.
I hear the clink of glass as the air hostess brings him his whisky. I hear the low murmur of his brother’s voice as he begins discussing logistics, security details, Brethren business that continues around my intimate degradation.
Antonio gives short, clipped answers, his voice perfectly steady even as his fingers thread through my hair. Not guiding, just possessing.
The duality is intoxicating. I am the centre of his universe, and utterly invisible at the same time. I am a secret being shared in plain sight.
The shame begins to morph, to simmer into a different emotion, a fury at my own debasement. I am good at this, at pretending. I can please him like this, make him groan, and forget about everything but the feel of my mouth on him. All the while I’m planning my escape, planning his demise too.
I lose myself in the rhythm, in the taste, in the power of my own faux submission. I am his perfect pet, earning her Master’s favour.
His breathing changes, grows shallower as his grip in my hair tightens almost imperceptibly. I know his tells, I feel the tension coiling in his thighs. I redouble my efforts, proving the power I actually have over him in this moment.
With a final, guttural groan he comes, pulsing hot and bitter down my throat. I take it all, swallowing diligently until he is spent.
He withdraws himself slowly as I sit back on my heels, my lips swollen, my eyes down. He looks at me with a satisfied, predatory smile playing on his lips as he tucks himself away and does up his belt.
“Good girl,” he says, and the praise goes straight to my core, warmer than any spank. “Now, go to the other side of the cabin. On your knees. Bend over the seat. You’re a piece of art, the finest in my collection and I want to admire you.”
I move on unsteady legs to the opposite row of seats.
I kneel on the floor as instructed and bend forward at the waist, folding myself over the seat, presenting myself to him.
My face is pressed into the cool leather, my arms hanging down.
My bottom, surely marked with the red imprint of his hand, is raised high.
And between my legs, my sex is exposed, glistening and utterly open for his inspection.
He doesn’t touch me. He just looks, but I feel his gaze like a physical touch roaming over the curves of my arse, the pink, swollen lips of my pussy, the tiny silver hoop that pierces my clit.
“Look at it.” Antonio says, his voice conversational, as if discussing a painting. “Have you ever fucked a pierced woman before?”
There’s a pause. I hear his brother shift in his seat. “Can’t say that I have.” His voice is bored, disinterested, but he is looking. I know he is looking.
“It’s a delightful thing,” Antonio continues, as if he hadn’t spoken.
He’s talking to himself, narrating my body.
“So responsive. This plump, perfect little cunt.” I flinch as if his finger is right there, outlining me.
“I love how soft she is. How I can dig my fingers into her fat, juicy flesh and feel her yield.”
I chew my lip, trying not to speak my outrage. Trying to be docile, to be his pet.
“And the way she bruises, it’s exquisite. Her skin marks so easily, holding the memory of my touch for days.”
He continues his degrading monologue, describing my body in crude, obscene detail. Praising the very things I’ve often been insecure about; my softness, my fullness.
He owns me, every inch, inside and out. He had me murder two women yesterday, killed a man today without blinking, and now he is admiring the way the light plays on my flesh. What the fuck is wrong with him?
As I kneel here, exposed and displayed, listening to him boast about the way I bruise, I have never felt more disgusted in my entire life.