Chapter 23 Selma
Selma
“It’s time.”
Time. It was a concept that’d long since stopped making sense.
Selma didn’t have the strength to look up at the sound of Valarina’s gentle voice, so she remained facedown on the bed, breathing shallowly through the pain.
At first there had been pleasure after Maell’s manipulation of her ring, like there always was. Sick, throbbing, overwhelming pleasure as the dark magic locked within the sleek metal assaulted her trapped clit, driving her to insanity with need.
Yet there’d been no release no matter how much she’d begged, and she’d been aware enough those first few days to comprehend the humiliation all too keenly.
They’d kept her locked in this room since her arrival, Valarina bringing her food and water and urging her to eat to preserve her strength. And Governor Maell visited her once a day to tighten the vicious ring on her throbbing, oversensitive nub of nerves as she screamed.
There was only pain now. Pain and despair.
“Selma,” the other woman murmured, the cool touch of a wet cloth pressing between her legs taking the edge off her torment for the briefest of moments. “It’s almost over, child.”
Selma managed to twist her neck to look at the blonde Breeder. There was so much empathy in her eyes, but no matter how often Selma had pleaded with her, she had never left the door unlocked.
It had been a while since she’d had the strength to plead.
“Over?” she rasped. When a glass of water pressed against her dry lips, she drank on instinct alone.
“Your auction is today. You just need to get through the next few hours and then… then it will be better.”
Her auction.
“Better?” Selma bit, finding enough strength in her anger to push up into a half-seated position as she stared at the other woman. “They’re… They’re going to rape me. Hurt me. Sell me. You, of all people…”
She drew in a deep breath, gritting her teeth through the throbbing pain between her thighs as she moved. “How can you say it’s better?”
Valarina grimaced, but stroked her forehead with a blessedly cool hand.
“He hasn’t broken you, has he? When I was in your place, I was willing to do anything to make the pain stop.
I begged for it when he finally mounted me in that arena.
But you’re still fighting. I’m sorry. It would have been so much easier for you, but it doesn’t change what lies ahead. ”
She was right. If there was one thing Governor Maell’s torture had accomplished, it was to drive home the inescapable fact that there was nothing more she could do to escape the fate that had awaited her since birth.
She didn’t have the strength left to fight anymore, and no one was coming to save her.
The painful memory of Kain’s stern face and black eyes made her heart spasm. Ruthlessly, she pushed it away. The time for fanciful dreaming had passed. Only stark reality lay ahead.
“I don’t want this,” she whispered as Valarina helped her to her feet.
“None of us do,” the other Breeder offered gently. “But we all find a way to live with it, and so will you.”
She was naked during her escort through the old mansion, save for a few chains decorated with precious stones wrapped around her body.
Valarina guided her down creaking staircases and into a subterranean level deep in the bowels of the earth.
The concrete underneath her bare feet spoke of the basement being from a more modern time than the rest of the house, as did the depth.
Valarina stopped in front of a pair of massive metal doors at the end of the wide hallway. Here she turned to grasp Selma’s shoulder with surprising strength.
“You can get through this. Just submit. It will make it easier.”
Submit. The echo of Marathin’s demand shivered up Selma’s spine and she clenched her hands against the ensuing nausea. These beasts—these monsters—all wanted the same thing. But the price…
Despite the all-consuming pain rendering her weak and hopeless, she understood what the price of submission was. Marathin had taught her that.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I… I’d rather die.”
Valarina smiled, but only sadness radiated from her eyes. “They won’t let you die. You’re too valuable. Submit to them, little sister. There are other ways to fight. But first, you must make it through today with your sanity—”
The striking of a gong resonated through the hallway from beyond the metal doors, silencing her.
“It’s time,” she whispered. She gave Selma’s shoulders a squeeze and stepped back as the doors swung open. “Go.”
Selma drew in another shuddering breath and turned toward the bright lights shining from within. She was too weak to run, but she thought of refusing to enter of her own will. Let them force her in—let them know she didn’t want any part of this sick show.
“It’s better if you go,” Valarina said softly.
She was right. Selma closed her eyes for a moment, mustering the strength she needed. She was about to experience every indignity a woman could. At least she could spare herself the humiliation of getting dragged in kicking and screaming.
Her thighs rubbed against the tight ring, making her bite her lip as she stepped past the threshold. Sawdust prickled underfoot. She sensed she was in a large arena, that outside the cone of light there was a vast space, but it was too bright for her to see anything but the floor.
“Ah, there she is. Selma, come here, precious one.”
A murmur rose from somewhere farther away like the rumbling of distant thunder.
She gritted her teeth and wrapped her arms around her body, shielding it when the sensation of too many eyes became too much to bear.
“There, there, girl. You are perfectly safe. Come to me.” A large man appeared in front of her, framed by the blinding light. She couldn’t see his features clearly, even as he paused a few feet from her, but she recognized Maell’s voice.
He held out a hand to her and she grabbed it on pure instinct, her body recognizing his potential to sate her despite her loathing at the sight of him.
“That’s it,” the Governor cooed, seemingly content with her body’s response to his nearness. “Come to the middle of the arena with me so they can get a proper look at how beautiful you are.”
Selma stumbled after the demon as he led her across the sawdust. There was nothing she could do at this point but obey.
Fight them later, Valarina had said. She wondered if Maell knew his cowed mate was capable of such rebellious thoughts.
He stopped next to a cage only a few feet taller than her and nodded at the open door. “Step in, little Breeder.”
She hesitated for a moment, but the thought of being locked behind bars seemed unusually appealing—according to Maell, more than one hundred and fifty demon Lords were currently staring at her like she was a piece of meat.
Despite everything, she still had enough presence of mind to realize she would be a lot better off securely locked away than out in the open, naked and oozing pheromones.
The door shut with a clank that echoed through the room once she was inside, and Selma felt rather than saw dark energy slither along the bars and over the lock—demonic magic ensuring her safekeeping.
And just like that, the light dimmed.
Selma blinked, her pupils dilating to adjust to the change. Slowly dark shapes came into focus, and she couldn’t hold back a small gasp. In a cone shape straight ahead of her sat a multitude of men on raised benches, all their gazes firmly fixed on her.
It was a curious experience. While her first instinct was to cover her exposed breasts and sex with her hands, her body had a more positive reaction to the attention.
A hot spasm from her core made her gasp again, then groan low in her throat when a rush of the liquid marking her readiness gushed down her legs.
Murmurs rose from the crowd, and several of the nameless faces moved restlessly. A dark force, faintly visible above the raised seats, started gathering like a thunderhead.
“Yes, as you can see, she’s very, very eager to be claimed.” Maell grinned, gesturing toward her with a flourish of one hand. “As your invitation stated, she is twenty-seven years old, extremely fertile according to her Procurer, and responds well to rough courting.”
Selma closed her eyes and gripped at the bars while she tried to control her abdomen’s shuddering at the many males in her presence.
“Those of you who wish to have a closer look at the young lady can approach now before we begin the bidding.”
The instant racket of feet moving down wooden steps made Selma jolt backwards, eyes wide.
They approached in a mob, the many faces nearing her cage too much to take in all at once.
Despite the increasingly persistent throbbing between her thighs, she could hardly breathe from anxiety when they all surrounded her cage, blocking her view with bulky muscle and absurdly wide shoulders.
Each and every one of them was as huge and overpowering as Kain.
“Shh, look up, honey.”
“Little princess.”
“Such a pretty girl.”
“Lovely Breeder.”
“Supreme.”
“So beautiful.”
Words cooed at her from all directions, undoubtedly meant to soothe and flatter. Selma whimpered and sunk into a ball on the floor in the middle of the cage as an impenetrable onslaught of pheromones assaulted her mind.
She wanted—needed—them. It didn’t matter that they’d tear her apart; she needed the strength of their bodies and intoxicating scents, needed to be consumed by everything they were and everything they could offer. Now.
Selma staggered to her feet again and fell against the nearest bars, desperate for their heated touch on her bare skin, but when the demons tried to press their hands into the cage to oblige, black sparks flashed between the bars.
Snarls erupted from the Lords close enough to get hit, but they didn’t withdraw.
“Please,” she gasped, pressing her own hands against the cool metal. No sparks flew at her touch, but she couldn’t penetrate the magic either. “I need…”