Chapter 8 #2
The floor chilled her feet, but she ignored the cold. She stared at the winch and the spreader bar under it and felt a twist low in her belly that wasn’t arousal, but dread.
There was no way to back out now, though. Supernatural law was clear on the value and use of contracts. She’d owe him for his time if she backed out, and there was no telling what his per-hour fee would be.
But more than that, she’d be considered unreliable. Someone who wasn’t to be trusted.
And while it was true she had no compunction following rules she deemed stupid, the only promises she’d ever gone back on were those she’d made to her parents when she was younger, and she’d promised to stay out of trouble at college.
And mostly, she’d done that. She’d had either a four-point-zero GPA or damned close to it at every school, but everyone needs to cut loose and have some fun between all that damned learning and studying and research.
She sighed and walked to Spence in the middle of the room. All the naked partying had eventually brought her to this. Your life is a result of all the choices you’ve made, and she’d made some doozies.
Spence’s gaze was both apologetic and sad, but also steady, and she remained silent while he put suspension cuffs on her wrists and ankles.
Two minutes later, she was suspended midair by her wrists, shoulders already aching. Her ankles were spread and tethered to both the floor and walls with heavy chain.
She’d been spread by a bar, at first, to position her nearly in the splits until the chains could hold and stretch her legs wide.
Emmy was open and available in every possible way. Every inch of her was exposed — thighs strained to the point of tears, cunt and ass not only bared, but held open by the damned pose.
And the pull in her hips might have her crying long before whatever the bastard she’d signed forty minutes of her life away to could manage. The splits were no problem for her, but suspended in them like this was another story.
Lucien entered, but she couldn’t see him with her back to the door.
Spence touched her shoulder one final time, brief and grounding. “I’ll return in forty minutes.”
Lucien didn’t bother with introductions or the drama of circling her, he just began.
The first strike impacted her inner thigh with a thud that took her breath away, and then an instant later, the site heated and stung, pain blooming like fire ants under her skin. A heavy cane.
She didn’t cry out, ridiculously thinking she was going to be able to handle whatever happened.
Then the second strike not even five seconds later, closer to her cunt. Then the third. She tried to regulate her breathing, tried to count, but he broke rhythm deliberately, keeping her body guessing.
She cried out before she could stop herself when he flicked her clit, and she finally got a look at him — cold, callous, and vampire through-and-through.
Naked, but she imagined he leaned toward bespoke suits, like the wool blend one he’d worn for the meeting.
He was lean without being gaunt. Black hair slicked into a low ponytail that hung to the top of his shoulder blades, centered between.
And dark, obsidian eyes set into a face with sharp features.
Another flick to her clit and she jerked and gasped, but there was no escape. Before the pain of the flicks faded, his fingers pressed into her — first one hole, then the other. Completely impersonal. No arousal.
Just access.
This wasn’t a man playing with a woman. This was a predator checking the texture of his meat.
And she finally got a good look at the cane. Black Delrin, wickedly cruel and notorious for driving pain deep into muscle and bone. She’d used it on others a handful of times, but only when she knew they liked intense pain.
This man didn’t care about her preferences.
When he’d systematically bruised the inside of both legs from cunt to just above her knees, he brought out the horsewhip and, as if showing off, struck each nipple and her clit. Three strikes, three direct hits.
Her screams filled the room now. There was no way to manage this kind of pain.
Would he have given her longer between strikes if she’d given him an hour? Or would he have merely hit her more times?
He moved behind her and struck with long, lashing strikes across her lower back, thighs, ass. The cracks echoed, and so did her screams.
The bastard had only stopped a few seconds when he stepped in front of her, attached chains hanging down from the winch to her ankles, adjusted the chains going out to the sides, lifted her ankles near the ceiling, and then released her hands.
Her body fell, now held up by her ankles, still stretched out to the sides. Was this what it was like to be drawn and quartered? Fuck, her inner thighs hurt, both from the damned cane and the fucking stretch. The burn was intense while she hung upside down, blood rushing to her head.
He secured her wrists to the floor, out to the sides.
She saw the strap before she felt it. At first, she’d thought it was a leather belt, until she saw the handle.