Chapter 27
CIPHER
Annie tensed beneath my fingers as I traced a slow path along her thigh. The crowd around us roared as Hellhound slammed Nightshade into one of the Spires, cracking the reinforced concrete. Impressive, but predictable. Hellhound always relied on brute strength over strategy.
“Relax,” I murmured. “You’re too stiff.”
“Everyone is watching,” she hissed, her legs trembling as she tried to clamp them shut against my wrist. Her voice was a tight thread of panic, barely audible over the crowd below as Hellhound tore a chunk of debris from the arena floor.
I couldn’t blame anyone for watching her.
The League stylists had poured her into a black leather dress that acted as a second skin and left nothing to the imagination and everything to my access.
They’d even fastened a collar around her throat, a thick band of leather.
It was a bit heavy-handed, a cliché that usually made me roll my eyes at the theatrics of this city, but looking at it now and seeing how it marked her as property... Fuck.
I couldn’t deny there was the urge to snap a leash onto it and drag her wherever I pleased.
“Good, let them watch.” I slid my hand higher.
I wanted to remind her that she hadn’t minded my hand last night at Eclipse, that she’d come on my fingers in public, but I understood the difference.
At Eclipse, she’d been mostly hidden. Baron Ash had been the only one watching me finger fuck her. But here, anyone would be able to see.
My fingers slipped past the hem of her dress, disappearing into the darkness between her thighs. She jolted, but didn’t pull away.
Two rows down, a pair of League members were fixated on us. Their eyes were glued to the purple bruises I’d left on her inner thighs this morning, tracking the movement of my hand.
A spike of possessiveness twisted in my gut. My first instinct was to sever their optic nerves, to blind anyone who dared to look at what was mine. She was for my consumption, not their entertainment.
But that wasn’t the game. To the League, she was a pet, a disposable plaything that boosted my ratings. My apparent apathy was my armor, and her public degradation was the shield that kept anyone from looking too closely at her.
So I forced the murderous urge down and gave them a better view of exactly who owned her.
“Look at them, Annie,” I whispered. “They want you. But they know they can’t touch you because you belong to me.”
“I hate this,” she whispered.
“The fight?” I asked, deliberately obtuse. “Hellhound’s form is sloppy. He relies on mass, not leverage.”
“You know what I mean.”
I did. For the past week, I’d paraded her around like a trophy, touched her publicly in ways that made it clear she existed only for my pleasure.
It was the cover we needed, the Villain and his plaything, but the line between acting and reality was blurring.
She didn’t hate my actual ownership, she’d made that clear when we were alone, but she hated the performative ownership.
She had far more bite than she could ever show in public as my plaything and it was slowly eating away at her.
I tightened my grip on her thigh, digging my thumb into the soft flesh until she gasped softly. We couldn’t afford her breaking her role.
“Play the part, Sparks,” I warned. “Or I’ll give them a real show.”
The Colosseum erupted in cheers as Hellhound delivered another blow to his opponent. Blood splattered across the arena floor, nothing fatal, but dramatic enough to please the crowd.
Annie shifted slightly, adjusting her position on my lap. To anyone watching, it would appear she was merely pressing herself closer to me. Only I could feel the subtle tension in her muscles, the carefully controlled breathing.
“How much longer?”
“Three more bouts. Then we mingle.”
She nodded stiffly, her spine rigid. I hated that tension, it was the kind that said she was only enduring rather than enjoying.
Her eyes scanned the crowd, using whatever ability she had to sense Trueborns, looking for our mysterious rogue. To bad she couldn’t appreciate the irony that she was sitting on one.
“See anything interesting?” I asked. Her breath caught as my thumb brushed dangerously close to the edge of her underwear.
“What about him?”
I followed her gaze across the sea of Villains and their entourages. The boxes were filled with League members of varying ranks, most accompanied by henches or companions dressed similarly to Annie.
My eyes landed on the hulking figure she’d indicated. I pulled her closer.
“He’s a known.” I sighed. “You don’t seem to be enjoying my attentions much.”
She turned her head just enough that her lips brushed the edge of my mask. “I like your attention when it belongs to me,” she whispered. “When we’re alone and you actually look at me. Out here, I feel like a piece of equipment you brought to show off.”
I stopped the lazy tracking of my fingers and pressed my thumb firmly into the soft flesh high on her thigh. I mapped the sudden spike in her heart rate, committing the rhythm to memory.
“Every time I touch you, it’s real, Sparks. Whether we are in my bed or surrounded by seventy thousand people, my hands on you mean exactly the same thing.”
She opened her mouth, most likely to argue, but stiffened as a group of mid-ranked League members approached us.
I’d deliberately chosen a more public location today rather than my box, the better for Annie to do her thing and for me to be seen with my pet.
But that left us open to potentially having to interact with assholes.
Leading the group was Thief, a man whose ambition far outstripped his intellect. The prick had a way of moving like he owned whatever space he occupied, a trait I respected professionally and despised personally.
“Cipher,” he drawled. He sauntered up to the railing, his eyes sliding over me before locking onto Annie. “Nice accessory. New model?”
Annie went perfectly still on my lap.
“Something like that.” I kept my voice casual, but I was already calculating the trajectory required to snap his hyoid bone.
Thief stepped closer. He looked Annie up and down, his gaze lingering on her exposed legs, then drifting up to her breasts. He licked his lips.
“She come with special features?” he asked, leering. “Or just the standard package?”
“Standard,” I lied. “Tight cunt. Decent mouth. Follows instructions if you hold the leash tight enough.”
Annie flinched and I regretted every fucking word I’d just said.
Thief laughed, the sound grating. “When you’re done breaking her in, maybe pass her my way? I’ve got some motivational techniques she might appreciate.”
The roar of the crowd faded into a dull buzz as my vision sharpened, focusing on the pulse beating in Thief’s throat.
“Thief.”
He stopped laughing and looked at me.
“I don’t share,” I said softly. “And if you look at her like that again, I will remove your eyes.”
Thief swallowed and took a step back, his bravado evaporating. “Right. Got it. Touchy.”
He retreated, disappearing into the crowd.
I looked down at Annie. I expected gratitude that I’d sent him and his friends on their way and kept the interaction brief. Instead, she turned to me, her eyes burning behind her mask.
“A decent mouth?” she whispered.
“I got rid of him.”
“You humiliated me.” She tried to stand, but I clamped my arm around her waist, keeping her right where she was.
“What did you expect? That I’d tell him about your sparkling personality and how we discuss Super philosophy after I fuck you?
” I tightened my grip on her, feeling her muscles tense beneath my fingers.
“I’m a Villain. You’re my plaything. That’s the story and it’s not far from the actual mark.
If you want to keep your cover and survive in my world, you’ll let me tell it. ”
Annie’s eyes narrowed behind her mask. “So I’m just a ‘decent mouth’ and a ‘tight cunt’ to you?”
The scent of her subtle vanilla perfume was fucking distracting.
“I’m not the fantasy Cipher from your favorite fanfictions, Sparks. I’m an actual bastard.”
“You think I could forget?” Her eyes flashed. “I’m sitting on your lap in a dress that barely covers my ass while you talk about my ‘decent mouth’ to other Villains.”
“And yet here you are.” I slipped my thumb under the edge of her panties, feeling her shiver despite her anger. “Letting me touch you.”
A small part of my brain calculated the exact pressure needed to make her gasp versus make her slap me.
“Maybe I’m just doing my job,” she whispered.
“Keep telling yourself that.” I shifted her slightly on my lap. “We both know the truth.”
Annie’s breathing quickened, her chest rising and falling against the tight confines of her dress. The arena lights caught the flush creeping up her neck, highlighting the pulse point where I’d left a mark the night before.
She leaned forward and bit my lower lip hard. It was a genuine bite with enough force that if I were a regular man I knew I’d be tasting copper.
My cock throbbed, straining against my suit.
I gripped her thigh tighter, my other hand sliding up to curl around the back of her neck. “Careful,” I murmured against her lips.
Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “If you talk about me like that again, we’re going to have a problem.”
I raised an eyebrow, amused despite myself. “A problem? And how exactly do you plan to report that, Keeper? Is there a special form for ‘My Villain fuck-buddy hurt my feelings’?”
“Don’t push me, Cipher.”
“What’s the procedure here? File it in triplicate? Submit to the proper authorities?” I leaned closer. “Or maybe you could add it to your little notebook. ‘Day twenty-seven: Cipher said mean things about my pussy to other League members. Must remember to dock his Villain points.’”
Annie’s fingers dug into my arm with surprising strength. “You think this is funny?”
“A little bit, yes. I’m just trying to understand the rule book for this particular situation. Is there a chapter on ‘Maintaining Your Dignity While Being Finger-Fucked By A League Member?”