Chapter Seven
………………………….
Henri
I SANK INSIDE MYSELF AND surrendered.
I shut off all my humanity and became that shadowy beast within.
A beast that’d been collared by a new Master. A Master who told me when to eat, drink, and sleep. I didn’t question him. I didn’t bite back. I let him steal every ounce of dignity all because I loved another far more than I loved myself.
Days turned into weeks.
Evenings into nightmares.
The things he did pushed me to the brink of madness.
Things I erased immediately. Things I refused to accept were happening.
And through every one of his lessons , I didn’t look at her.
I didn’t seek out her gorgeous golden eyes.
Didn’t have the strength to be selfish enough to look at her even though every part of me was dying.
I needed to see her.
Needed to hear her.
Touch her.
Hold her.
But…we were kept apart.
Once his taunting and schooling finished for the day, I was thrown into that beige and black chamber. I was given just enough rations to stay alive. Told to stay clean and presentable for my owner. Ordered to kneel and bow and yield.
Ily and Peter were kept elsewhere, and most nights, I woke up screaming, begging to return to the dungeon where at least we faded together.
That had been hell, but this…this was fucking purgatory.
* * * * *
I huddled on the ground as Victor stood over me, watching his guards kick me like they had in the temple. Cupping my head and curling as tight as I could, I did my best to switch off.
Pain came in bursts.
Despair clawed at my soul.
I hadn’t done anything to deserve this punishment, but…I took it.
I took every little infraction he blamed me for.
I breathed too loudly at dinner.
I didn’t leap to my feet quick enough.
I didn’t say Sir or please or thank you.
Every day, more of the same.
Every night, similar abuse.
Each time he ordered me to kneel, I fought a savage war not to snap. Not to hurt him. Kill him . But all he’d have to do was look in Ily’s direction, and all my fight would snuff out.
Behaving was the only way to protect her.
So…I behaved.
It took every ounce of courage I had left.
Every atom in my body bellowed how wrong it was. How abhorrently, grotesquely wrong to simper at this monster’s feet and not slaughter him.
I held my tongue.
I choked on my rage.
And I never once looked at her.
Fuck.
Every evening he tormented me, she was there.
I could feel her.
Sense her heart. Hear her whispers. Touch her energy.
I didn’t want her to see this.
Didn’t want her watching when I could barely watch myself.
I stopped looking at her to protect her, but I couldn’t bear to see how she looked at me in return.
Did she see a broken man who’d failed her?
A worthless beast who couldn’t save her?
I’d never forgive myself for bringing her here, but I’d never forgive her for making me this weak.
If I didn’t love her, I would’ve been free by now.
He would’ve killed me because no way in hell would I have submitted.
It was comical really. The hardest lesson I’d ever learned, and it wasn’t Victor teaching me but Ily: be careful what you wish for.
I’d longed for love and devotion my entire life.
I’d believed such gifts would free me from the black filth inside me.
Yet the opposite was true.
Love fed me to the darkness, and devotion kept me shackled.
I became nothing more than this thing kneeling at Victor’s feet.
I hated him.
I despised him.
Yet when he fed me morsels from his own plate, I was grateful.
Fucking grateful .
Those nights, I threw up.
I purged the meagre contents in my stomach and slipped into yet more nightmares where I woke up screaming.
But the next day, the sun would rise, the guards would come, and hell would demand another piece of me.
* * * * *
“Stand on the stage, Henri.”
Hauling myself to my feet, I stepped onto the podium and waited for a guard to strap me to the pole like usual.
Only…no one came.
Crates appeared, carried in by long-suffering staff. Crates I’d seen before.
I stiffened as Victor smirked. “Friends…please, help yourselves.” Marching to the nearest crate, he pulled out a familiar paintball gun. Cocking it, he faced me squarely and grinned. “You’re not bound. You can run if you want.”
I flinched and looked around the ballroom. My gaze landed on Ben and Stewart. They’d flown back in this weekend and hadn’t touched their dinner. Ben gave me a horrified look, and Stewart looked green.
At least they had the decency to care about my downfall.
At least they hadn’t been caught up in it.
“Not running?” Victor pouted. “Come now, Henri. Shooting you point blank isn’t very sporting.”
I sighed heavily as every Master armed themselves and crowded the podium. Muzzles of their guns pointed at my very naked, very vulnerable body.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Peter hunching in his chains and Ily straining to get to me.
I had to give it to Victor.
He knew people. And he knew weakness.
Ily didn’t step out of line for fear that her actions would hurt Peter, and I didn’t step out of line because I would never hurt her again. We condemned each other to hell through love.
Balling my hands, I stood straight and glowered at Victor.
“One last chance.” Victor cocked his head with a smirk. “Run and Ilyana can wear these bruises.” He sniffed as he took in the state of me. “After all, you’re already wearing quite a few.”
I gritted my teeth and didn’t reply.
“Come on, Vic. Enough dilly-dallying. Can I shoot?” a Master in the shadows asked.
Victor took his time, but finally, he nodded as if he’d agreed to a quiet luncheon. “By all means.” Throwing me a look, he added, “Seeing as you didn’t run, Henri. I suggest you get very good at staying still. If you so much as twitch, I’ll put Ilyana in your place. If you scream, I’ll make her scream twice as loudly. Ready?”
I barely had time to brace before the Masters fired—
* * * * *
I lost count how many colours layered me that night.
How much pain ricocheted through my abused frame.
How Roland shot me with blue, and Ian with green, and the ballroom of men pummelled me with a vicious, violent rainbow.
Somehow, I didn’t move.
I could’ve run.
I wanted to goddamn run.
But if I moved a fucking step, Ily would replace me.
I’d have to watch her flawless skin transform with a million new bruises.
And I couldn’t do it.
And so, I stayed.
And I hurt.
Victor was the last to shoot me.
He stepped onto the stage, slipping in paint splashes, his black shoes treading garish colour wherever he went.
With a sick chuckle, he shot me right in the cock with a neon pink bullet.
I woke up in the beige and black room.
Dr Belford at my bedside and something cool and comforting between my throbbing legs. “He’s lost his damn mind,” she whispered, shooting me full of anti-inflammatories and another dose of her wonderful cocktail of peace and energy. “I’ve always suspected he was mentally unstable, but what he’s doing to you—” She cut herself off. Packed up her supplies. And left.
I faded.
I escaped into dreams where Ily was safe, and I was finally allowed to let death come for me.
It would be so easy to die.
So simple to enrage Victor enough to kill me.
But…Ily.
Peter.
Promises and hopes and—
So I stayed.
The next night, as I stood bare in front of the Masters—my entire body riddled in round blackened bruises—Victor said I looked a little peckish.
The Masters agreed and threw food at me. An avalanche of asparagus spears, potatoes, and succulent prawns. Some struck me in the face. Some bounced off my shoulders. Melted butter rolled down my chest in sticky rivers.
It was demeaning. Demoralising.
I burned with fucking fury to fight back .
But through it all, I felt her eyes on me.
Her love for me.
And I wanted to fucking cry.
I went cold. Empty.
I accepted the ridicule and torment.
I cleaned up the mess at Victor’s command.
I bent over his chair at the end of the evening and let him flog me sixteen times just because.
* * * * *
“Eat, my sweetling.”
I blinked and looked at the perfectly seared piece of steak in Victor’s fingers. Juicy and rare, my mouth watered for such a delicious morsel.
Without a word, I leaned forward on my knees and accepted the gift.
My eyes snapped closed with ecstasy as the flavours exploded on my tongue.
Pleasure didn’t come often anymore, but when it did, I gave myself over to it completely. I didn’t judge myself. I stopped suffering shame for clinging to tiny moments that kept me sane.
I no longer burned with humiliation that Victor kept me naked.
I stopped existing as a man and accepted my place because I needed to protect Ily.
Out of all the Masters I could have had, Victor was true to his word. Even if that word was psychotic.
He didn’t once lay a finger on her if I jumped to his command. He barely even looked at her as long as I behaved. He never gave her to another Master, and she and Peter spent most of their time chained to the wall of the ballroom or in their quarters, far away from me.
“You’ve done so well these past few weeks, my pet,” Victor crooned, tucking my longer hair behind my ear. “I keep waiting for you to snap, but I do believe you’re truly in love with that girl if you’re willing to go this far for her.”
I kept my chin down.
Bile gushed up my throat.
“You haven’t earned my trust yet, but…I do believe you’re ready for the next stage of your training.” Victor wiped his hands on his napkin.
I hid my flinch.
Up till now, my lessons had been purely physical in their abuse.
Whippings, floggings, beatings.
Not a single whiff of sexual prostitution or pushing me into places I honestly didn’t know if I would survive.
“You’re aware Rachel will soon be unavailable as she nears her time of delivery. And I’ve promised her—for being such a good jewel—that I won’t touch her for two months after she has given birth to my son.”
My heart stopped.
I almost retched the steak back up.
Physical abuse I could handle.
His psychological warfare of holding Ily’s life over me slowly undid me as a man, but hearing his unspoken promise—the images he painted in my head—
“I will need a replacement while Rachel heals. It’s serendipitous that you’ve become so obedient.”
Fuck.
Fuck!
“I don’t think you’re ready to give yourself to me completely yet,” Victor murmured. “But…let’s test if you’re ready for those games to begin, hmm?” Pushing away from the table, he pointed at his fly. At the hardness hidden behind it. At the cock I wanted to eviscerate.
“A tiny request, my dear sweetling.” He chuckled under his breath. “Like I said, I don’t trust you to put my entire dick in your mouth, so for tonight, just remove me gently and…kiss me.”
I gagged on sour spit.
My jaw clenched to bite.
Kiss him?
Kiss that part of him?
Fuck no.
Jesus no .
Images of slicing my teeth through his cock and making him bleed consumed—
“Ah, ah, don’t you think I can’t see your thoughts?” His hand lashed out and grabbed my chin. Wrenching my eyes to his, he smirked. “I see them clear as day.”
His fingers dug painfully into my cheeks.
His eyes flashed pure evil as he hissed, “Ferdinand, would you be so kind to take Ilyana on stage? You have my permission to fuck her and then cut off her tits with your steak knife if Henri even twitches wrong.”
No—
“Be my pleasure, Vic.” The sound of wood on wood screeched as Ferdinand shoved his chair back and stalked toward where Ily was chained to the wall. I didn’t dare look at her but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him grab her, unhook her, then drag her tripping onto the stage.
She squeaked in pain as he shoved her against the same pole Victor had chained me to for forty-eight hours when this all began.
“I’m ready when you are, Vic.”
“Excellent.” Letting my cheeks go, Victor reclined and shrugged. “If you so much as think of biting me, my pet, you can watch my friend cut off your lover’s very nice breasts, and then I will personally feed them to you for breakfast.”
Ily cried out as Ferdinand grabbed her left breast.
Pure homicidal rage crackled like lightning in my body. “ Don’t you fucking —”
Electricity.
Hot, vicious, biting electricity.
Seconds or minutes or hours.
I could never tell.
The pain stopped as suddenly as it’d begun.
I lay on my side, gasping, twitching, my entire body fried with maiming power.
“Try again.” Victor tapped his shiny shoe against my bare hip. “What were you going to say?”
It took every willpower to push upright with shaking arms and kneel before him again. Swallowing every shred of self-respect, I bowed my head and said, “You know you don’t have to threaten me.”
Leaning forward, he pressed a kiss to my forehead.
Every part of me recoiled, but I didn’t pull away.
“Do you think I’m bluffing?” He smiled. “Do you think I believe this little act that you’ve perfected? That you truly are this docile?”
“No.”
“No what?”
I swallowed back all my hatred. “No , Sir V .”
That title.
That respect.
It burned my tongue.
It made me sick.
One day, I would kill him.
The day I couldn’t protect Ily anymore. The day she was free from this place…I would fucking slaughter him. Slowly. Mercilessly. Messily.
“You’re aware that I will eventually have to dispatch Ily to break the rest of you, yes?”
My eyes flashed to his. “Hurt her, and you’ll see just how much you need her to keep me in line.”
He laughed. “I’m well aware of that, but don’t you see, my dear Henri? While I enjoy your forced obedience, it’s nothing like true submission. That strength inside you? That violence? It turns me on…for now. I enjoy the hunt, and I enjoy the thrill, but there will come a time when your stubbornness will grow tiresome. I am not you, mon ami. I do not enjoy a jewel to withhold their true feelings or harbour hatred toward me. I don’t want a fight every time I want a fuck. I want to feel the shattering of your soul. So…consider this your first warning.”
Grabbing me around the nape, he pulled my face toward his crotch. “Kiss me under duress tonight, but soon, you will suck me because it pleases you to please me. You will moan as I fuck you because nothing else will exist in your mind apart from how best you can serve me.”
Letting me go, giving me back control where every cell begged to grab a fork and jab it as far as I could in his bowels, he spread his hands and winked at his tenting trousers. “I’m waiting.”
Rachel sucked in a gasp at the table.
Ily cried out on stage.
Even Peter grunted in misery.
There was no end to this.
No one coming.
No help on the horizon.
Eventually, I wouldn’t be able to keep behaving.
Eventually, Victor would kill Ily to break me.
Eventually, we would all die anyway.
But today, she was alive.
And I had no choice.
Forgive me, little nightmare.
Don’t watch.
I beg you…don’t watch.
With hands that didn’t shake and a soul that turned into snow and sleet, I unbuttoned the trousers of the man I hated most in the world. I unzipped the monster I would one day murder. And I pulled out the erection of a dead man.
Ily’s sob echoed in my ears as I bent over his lap—
“Behave, Henri…” Victor purred. “My one and only warning.”
I pictured Ily being hurt because of me.
I pictured her beautiful breasts hacked off her gorgeous body and slapped onto a plate because of me.
I pictured her dying because of me.
And I shut down the final pieces, the true pieces, the last good and true pieces…
…and kissed him.