His Bride

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

M ila

“No! Why?”

“Believe me, brat, I would rather not be here,” Lydia says, turning her eyes skyward for a moment.

“Then don’t be here. Go somewhere else.”

She doesn’t dignify that comment with a response. I know she has no choice. Arthur told her to guard me, and so she must. Everybody has to do what Arthur says all the time. Except Edward Idaho, and other aristocrats who break the law he enforces at their own peril.

I don’t think I’ve fully appreciated his position in society. He’s not just a military leader. He’s also the chief of police, judge, and jury for many. He’s as close to an autocrat as it is possible to be while still following the edicts of the Artifice.

Lizzie meets me at the gardens. Her smile broadens when she sees me, then fades a little when she sees who is behind me.

“Hi, Mila! How are you?”

She sounds a little forced.

“I’m good. How are you?”

Great, now I sound weird. The two of us are never going to be able to have a normal conversation.

We smile at one another, silently communicating the awkwardness with our eyes. I can see her casting dubious looks at Lydia, and I know that she will not speak truly freely in front of her. This is not going to be any kind of fun if we can’t get away from her.

“Let’s walk in the gardens,” I suggest.

“Yes, a walk in the gardens would be nice,” she replies.

We walk into the gardens together, walking rather closely.

“Does she follow you everywhere?” Lizzie whispers to me.

“Yes, Arthur says I need protection,” I whisper back.

“From what? There’s nobody here but us and some old ladies. Which one of the old ladies is supposed to be the assassin?”

“I know,” I sigh. “I’ve tried to tell him nobody cares about who I am, but he insists on sending her. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Hm,” Lizzie murmurs.

I start to get very afraid she’s simply going to make an excuse and go home. I’ll be stuck here in Lydia’s company again. I can’t imagine anything worse. I’m so tired of this constant supervision. It feels like being a baby again, having a nursemaid following me about. I am very much the younger woman, and my age has been brought up time and time again. I need to show that I am not a baby. I need to show everyone that I can handle myself without a guard.

There’s a candy seller nearby. That gives me an idea. Lydia isn’t as close right now. She’s letting us have our conversational privacy, sort of. Maybe. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was some kind of trick at play.

“Want some candy? I’m going to get some candy.”

“Hello, young lady,” the candy seller says.

He’s a tall man wearing a pink striped shirt. He doesn’t look scary in this outfit, but he is absolutely a large male, and I think that’s enough. I am going to come up with a way to pursue my social life independently, and I’m going to do it right now.

“I will give you… what’s a lot of money? A hundred dollars. No?” I look at the contents of my purse containing the allowance Arthur gave me. “I’ll give you all of this money if you pretend to grab me right now.”

His expression contorts in a mystified way. I know he probably thinks it’s very strange.

“Wait. Actually, don’t do that. Damnit. That’s not safe.”

I’ve just realized that if he does what I want him to do, he’s going to be killed. I can’t have blood on my hands like that. I need to form some kind of distraction that won’t cause anybody to get killed.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “That was a reckless request. I’m just trying to get my bodyguard to give me some space.”

“The tall woman in the military uniform?”

“Yes. That’s her.”

He holds out his hand. It takes me a moment to realize that he is asking for the money. I trust him, because frankly I have no idea how much money I have in terms of what it is worth, and I am desperate enough to try anything right now.

I give him the money. He pockets the cash, takes off his little paper hat, rolls his sleeves up his arms, and walks over to Lydia.

“Hello,” he says, smiling broadly in a way he did not smile at me when I wanted candy. “I’m Ellis.”

I see Lydia smile back at him. And then he starts talking, and she starts responding.

He’s providing a distraction.

He’s doing it. Oh, my god. It’s happening. It’s working.

I grab Elizabeth’s hand. “Run!” I hiss.

The two of us dash through the gardens as fast as we can. This is not the most mature thing I’ve ever done. In fact, it makes me feel like a very small child doing something she really should not be doing. There’s a thrill in it that I enjoy anyway, and Lizzie seems to like it well enough too.

We stop in a section of tall bushes that obscures us from general view. I am so pleased, I can’t stop smiling. I actually managed to lose Lydia. Maybe Arthur will be angry at me, but I bet he’ll be angrier at her.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “There’s just no way to get rid of her that doesn’t involve something ridiculous happening. Arthur is obsessed with the idea I need to be followed.”

“It’s okay! That was fun,” Elizabeth laughs. “Edward doesn’t send anybody out to follow me. I would find that quite strange. Arthur seems like a… I hope you don’t mind me saying. But he seems very odd. Very serious. And he’s not rich, is he? Not like Edward is.”

I am starting to find her bragging about her husband just the slightest bit obnoxious. But then again, I suppose it is good that she is happy. She’s proud of her mate, and her mate is apparently proud of her? I don’t know. Edward didn’t really speak to her much when we were all at dinner together. But Arthur didn’t really talk to me either. It wasn’t that sort of affair.

“You didn’t even get any candy sweets in the end, did you?” She laughs. “Never mind, I brought some with me. Edward always gives them to me before we, you know… here, have some.”

Lizzie hands me a little chocolate-covered treat. I think nothing of putting it between my lips and letting it dissolve on my tongue. It tastes good. Almost instantly, I find myself realizing that I am having the absolute best time. I feel free. I feel happy. I feel light. Losing Lydia might have been the absolute best thing I ever did.

“Tasty,” I say, hankering for another, but not wanting to be rude and ask outright.

“They’re so good,” Elizabeth says, dropping another one into my palm, which I guess I stuck out, oops. “Edward gives me so many treats. I can’t even tell you. I get everything I want.”

I don’t get anything I want. I haven’t even thought about asking for anything, except this time with Lizzie. I bet I don’t get allowed to do this again. I bet Lydia will tell him and he’ll say I can’t be trusted and I’ll be locked up in that big fortress with a thousand soldiers keeping me guard.

The idea is dramatic and I know if it happens, that I’ll have brought it on myself, but at the same time, I deserve to live a little.

“Here,” Lizzie says. “Drink this.”

I take the flask she’s offering me and have a little sip. Bubbles dance over my tongue and a delicious flavor runs down my throat.

“Mmm, what is this? I’ve never tasted anything like it before.”

“I don’t know. I call it bubbly,” she says. “It’s so good.”

“Bubbly is a good word for it.”

The two of us sit and nibble the treats and drink the bubbly and have a lovely fine afternoon together. I find myself forgetting my worries. I find myself actually forgetting that I ever had worries at all.

I’ve almost entirely forgotten how we ended up in our little bushy hideaway when I am grabbed roughly by the fabric at the back of my neck, scruffed up like some errant kitten.

“You’re going to come with me,” Lydia says coldly. “Elizabeth, I have contacted your husband. He has a car waiting for you out front.”

Lizzie looks at me, horrified. “What are you doing? Let her go!”

“Worry about yourself,” Lydia says. “The two of you have caused a scene.”

“How? By talking? What’s your problem?”

Lizzie is coming to my defense very sweetly, but I know it won’t do anything. I can feel the tension in Lydia’s grip. She’s angry. I’ve obviously caused her a great deal of trouble today. I hope I cause her even more.

“Go!” she orders, using a very military tone. She can be quite imposing, and though Lizzie wants to help me, her courage runs out at about the same time Lydia takes a step toward her. Neither one of us Angelish girls are a match for her. It’s a great pity, and an even greater shame.

Elizabeth scurries off in her finery, and I resign myself to the fact that this absolutely scandalous encounter is going to cause me shame until the end of time. Lydia is trying to push me toward the exit, and I cannot help but resist her.

I go limp in her hands. There’s no way I’d ever let her take me anywhere. I’m not going to make this easy. I’m not even going to make this faintly dignified. If she wants to manhandle me, she can.

When I do that, she counters it easily by just picking me up and throwing me over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The indignity of the whole affair is growing by the moment. I can’t win, no matter what I do. I am carried out of the gardens, past the candy seller. He smiles and waves at Lydia. He has my money, which I don’t love, but I suppose he could only distract her for so long.

“You deserve to be beaten,” Lydia mutters. “Absolutely spoiled brat.”

We get to the car and she drops me into the backseat unceremoniously. I almost curse at her, but I manage to restrain myself because I am not that uncouth a person. I might be acting out somewhat, I suppose, but even I draw a line every now and then.

She gets in beside me, and the soldier at the wheel starts driving the vehicle back home. Lydia turns to look at me with ferocious eyes.

“When the Archon-General sees you, you’re going to…” She doesn’t finish her sentence, because I am giggling. I can’t help it. I want to, but suddenly I’m absolutely overwhelmed with the urge to laugh. There’s something awfully funny about all of this.

“You’re high again,” she accuses me.

“I am not. I didn’t snort anything.”

“That is not the only way someone can get high. You know that.”

“How would I know that?”

She gives me a long, hard look, then says nothing.

“Am I going to need to carry you upstairs?” She asks the question when we are home.

“Of course not,” I say. “I can walk.”

I want to present the most cool and collected version of myself to Arthur. I know she’s probably already told him what I’ve done. But really, I haven’t done anything. She lost track of me because a hot guy talked to her.

I walk in the front door to find Arthur waiting for me in the foyer. It looks as though he has been pacing back and forth, because he rounds on me as I walk in, his powerful body turning toward me. God, he’s tall. Everybody here is tall, come to think of it.

I get that giggly feeling again, though I try to choke it down. I feel a little guilty, and actually a lot like I am in trouble, which is bad news and doesn’t feel entirely fair. It’s not like I murdered anybody. Which is more than he can probably say. He is wearing tight dark pants and a black shirt. His hair is hanging loose around his face, and his eyes are flashing under his brows.

Coming into this place is always like coming into a cave. There’s a darkness and a closeness to it that could verge on the claustrophobic. It’s the exact opposite of everything I came from.

“What happened?” He asks the question curtly.

“Nice to see you, my husband,” I reply. “I’ve had a lovely day.”

He looks at me with a hard expression. “You’ve been brought home in disgrace.”

“I’ve been brought back in dis dress,” I reply. “It’s a very nice dress, but there’s no need to be grumpy about it.”

“This is not the time to be cute, Mila,” he says. “I allowed you to go out on your own, and I am notified that you have run away from your guard.”

I look over at Lydia. If I was a petty person, I could tell my husband that the reason I got away from her is because she was talking to the hot candy man, but I decide not to. I’m surprised at myself, actually. I was going to drop her right in it. It was part of the plan, but I think better of it.

“I must not have noticed that I was getting too far away from her,” I say sweetly. I think this situation can be salvaged. I don’t think there’s any reason for anybody to be in a whole lot of trouble. I am sure Lydia got scared when she realized she’d lost track of me. I’d be afraid of Arthur’s rage too, if I were her. But this doesn’t have to be a big deal.

“She knew very well. She paid someone to try to distract me, and she ran the moment she got the chance. I found her imbibing and consuming illicit materials inside a bush. Hardly the behavior of an Archon-General’s wife.”

Wow. I didn’t tell on her at all, but she decided to drop me right in it.

Arthur is looking at me with disbelief and profound annoyance. “So you ran away from the guard I have repeatedly told you is there for your own safety, and you got drunk and high with a girl you barely know.”

“A woman I barely know. She’s older than me, and I’m not a girl, so…”

“Why are you arguing with me?” He asks that question as if he’s genuinely confused that I dare talk back to him. I don’t think people usually say a word when he is in this mood and mode. I think he is used to dressing down soldiers and sending people to colonies and such. He has no idea how to talk to a wife.

“She’s high,” Lydia interjects.

Now it is my turn to be very, very annoyed. Maybe I am high, but I don’t think so. I feel a little buzzed and a little brave, but I’m tired of people talking to me as if I am entirely out of my mind when I am actually very close to normal.

“I am not high. I am just happy. I know that probably seems to you like I’m on some crazy cocktail of drugs because you’re both so miserable all the time, but it is actually possible to just be happy, you know? You should try it sometime, instead of having that sour, bitchy…”

“Mila!” Arthur thunders my name in a fury. “Bedroom. Now!”

I am sent to the bedroom to await my fate. It takes a long time for anybody to come, so long, in fact, that I fall asleep on the bed. By the time I wake up, it is dark outside. Darker than usual, even. Proper nighttime dark. My stomach is growling. I am starving, actually. It has been a while since I ate, and I’ve taken quite a bit of exercise.

I get up and leave the room. I can smell food cooking. In fact, I’ve arrived at dinnertime. Arthur is sitting at the dining table with his friend, Lance, the same man I met on my first day here. He looks at me and smiles. Arthur looks at me and does not.

“Lydia, take Mila back to the bedroom. She seems lost,” he says.

“I’m hungry,” I say.

My comment is ignored. It is an entirely awkward situation, one that I do not know how to navigate. I find it almost unbelievable that my very own husband could not invite me to join him for dinner. He isn’t even looking at me now. Instead he is engaging in conversation with his companion. It’s enough to make me want to snatch up the nearest glass and throw it.

Before I can do anything, I am grabbed.

Lydia takes me back to the bedroom, by taking hold of my ear and marching me back. At first it is almost a relief to be removed from the situation, then the pain exceeds the relief.

“I didn’t think I could dislike you anymore than I already do,” I say as she twists painfully. “But there’s always something new.”

“I didn’t think you could get in any more trouble than you already were, but you’ve managed it,” Lydia replies. “Try keeping your mouth shut and going to bed. Trust me when I tell you, you do not want to cross the Archon-General when he is in this mood.”

“I didn’t tell on you,” I say. “I didn’t tell him that the ruse worked, and that you did get distracted by that candy man. I could have made a big deal of that. I could have told him that you are a bad guard distracted by men. But I didn’t. You should be grateful. I probably saved your life today.”

“Well, thank you, Lady Darken, for saving my life,” Lydia replies sarcastically.

“Am I going to get dinner? Or is the intention to starve me?”

She leans down toward me. “You don’t know your husband very well. He trained my regiment many years ago. Trust me when I say being sent to bed without dinner is very light punishment, and how you act now is going to inform what eventually happens to you. There. I might not have saved your life today, but I have definitely given you enough information to help save your ass.”

Arthur

My bride is young, immature, irrepressible, irresponsible, and an absolute handful. I know I have to do something with her, but Lance has my attention this evening and for good reason.

“Trouble in paradise already?” Lance raises a brow after Mila is taken away.

“Nothing that’s unexpected with such a young bride,” I say. “She needs a guiding hand. Perhaps more. An entire guiding army.”

He chuckles. “It doesn’t matter the age, women are always a handful. Your problem is you’re used to dealing with people who are under your command. But your wife isn’t a soldier to be dressed down. She’s your partner.”

I didn’t ask for his advice, and I don’t want it. Mila will have to follow the same rules as everybody else. It seems to me that she has been under the influence of the most badly behaved ladies our city has to offer. If she was high today, then she was once again dosed by a member of high society.

“She’s impressionable, and everybody seems intent on making a terrible impression on her. I am very close to not letting her out of the house again. Lydia cannot keep a close enough eye on her, but that is not Lydia’s failing. When she was my guard, I did her the favor of not attempting to lose her so I could go and get high.”

Lance is chuckling. “One day you will look back on all of this and see how funny it all is,” he says. “These are fleeting, but formative moments. Try not to take them too seriously. You love her, remember that.”

He has the nerve to tell me that I love her. I haven’t said that to her yet myself.

But I do love her.

It’s strange. It happened all too quickly and all at once. I think that is part of the reason my disappointment in her behavior goes so deep. It feels like a betrayal of sorts. I feel as though she should have known better and wanted to do better for me. She should respect Lydia, because Lydia is someone I have put there to protect her.

“I had the wrappers in her pocket tested for Soma as you requested,” Lydia says later on, once Lance is gone and I am preparing to go and deal with my wife. “I’m sorry, sir, but they came back positive for Soma and several other lesser substances.”

“Damnit.” I grit my teeth. That is the second time she has been exposed to that pernicious crap. She’ll be an addict before I know it. She probably already is.

“I don’t think she intended to get high either time,” Lydia says. “I think she just wanted to have some time to herself. Unfortunately, Elizabeth came with a collection of substances. It may be difficult to find a suitable companion for her.”

I sigh. “Here you are, arguing on her behalf. She has nothing nice to say to you.”

“She’s been displaced from everything she knows and she wants friends. I cannot be her friend. You cannot be her friend.”

“And the fact that we cannot find a friend suitable for her says very dangerous things about the state of high society in New Boston. I believe I am uncovering corruption from within at a rate I have never been able to before. So in some sense, her delinquency is useful. But that does not mean that I will tolerate it.”

I am going to discipline Mila. There is no doubt about that.

I am going to enjoy it, too. There’s even less doubt about that.

Mila

Having been sent back to bed, I try to get some sleep. Whatever Lizzie and I were indulging in has worn off now, well and truly. I feel very tired, and also very depressed. Sitting in this darkened room, I think of sunny valleys, milk straight from the cow, and freshly made bread. I think of Maraline, and what fun we had when we were younger.

I am going to be lonely here, I can feel it.

I am not sure what time it is when Arthur wakes me up.

“So,” he says, removing his shirt. “We need to talk about what happened yesterday.”

I guess I slept an entire day. Good for me.

I sit up in bed, wrapping my arms around my knees. I know he must be quite furious with me if he did not come to bed with me.

“Did you stay up all night?”

He runs his hand through his thick hair and shakes his head at me. “There is a lot of work to be done,” he says. “It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Artifice faces serious challenges closer to home than previously expected.”

“You mean everybody I’ve met being on drugs all the time?”

“Yes,” he says. “I mean everybody you’ve met being on drugs all the time.”

“I guess I’m surrounded by bad influences,” I say. I hope he forgives me this time like he did last time. It wasn’t really my fault, after all. Lizzie brought the drugs. I know he won’t let me see her again probably anyway, so she may as well take the blame.

He looks at me, deadpan. “The first time it happened, you could be presumed innocent, but I don’t believe you’d fail to recognize the effects a second time.”

“I didn’t think about it. I was just having a nice time!”

“Mhm.”

It’s not working. He doesn’t believe me. Not even a little bit.

I feel myself starting to shrink with fear. Arthur is speaking in a very cool, very matter-of-fact way. It’s the same way he talked to the fine lady before he banished her. I’ve already forgotten her name, that’s how erased someone is when Arthur decides he’s had enough of them.

Clementine? No. That wasn’t it.

“Soma is illegal. The penalty for possession is deportation, or death,” he says. “It’s as simple as that.”

“Will you deport Lizzie?”

He gives me a long, hard look. “Not at the moment,” he says. “But it is not a small matter, and I dislike how casual you continue to be about it. And that is before we deal with the issue of you deliberately trying to defy me by running from your bodyguard. Lydia does not follow you about because she wants to. She does it because she is ordered to.”

He is angry at me, and the sight of him angry at me is incredibly fearsome. I see his scars, some of them anyway, and I remember the rest of them. He is an incredible creature, and he is dangerous and I have crossed him.

My lower lip starts to quiver. I am trembling. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe just that he would never turn this energy on me. I thought that all the rules were for other people. I thought I was special. That was foolish.

“Are you going to make me disappear?”

“What?” He stops for a moment. “What do you mean?”

“Like the man in the sex shop. Or Emmaline…” That’s it! Emmaline, not Clementine.

He narrows his eyes at me for a moment, then shakes his head.

“No, Mila. I am not going to make you disappear. I am going to make you very, very sore, and very, very sorry.”

I take in a sharp breath.

“I’m already very sorry, and I don’t want to be sore,” I whimper.

“You should have thought about that before you did what you did today,” he says. “We’ve talked about all of this before. I am wasting my breath talking more. Get up. Now.”

I get up immediately. He has a kind of gravitas that comes with being Archon-General. He commands thousands, so of course he commands me too. All my previous actions and decisions seem like the most stupid things ever. He’s right to say that I knew better. Of course I did. Even a small child knows how to follow basic directions.

I think I must have been testing him on some level. Did I want this? Do I need his anger for some sick reason? Or was I testing to see if he’d send me away too?

It doesn’t matter.

He strips my nightgown off me by picking it up by the hem and lifting it up over my head. I am instantly naked. He towers above me, tall and fearsome and so very stern. He is still wearing his pants, but his torso is as naked as I am. His muscles and his scars meet my eyes as I lower them away from his face. I can’t meet his gaze right now.

“Last time you did this, I told you it needed to be the last time. This time, it will be,” he promises me grimly.

He sits on the bed and turns me over his knee. I grip his thigh, holding onto him even though I know he is about to cause me pain. My hips press against the other side of his lap, my naked ass vulnerable to his harsh hand.

Much as I expected, he smacks my ass hard several times, going from cheek to cheek with his leather-hard palm. It hurts, but it’s not enough to worry me. What I’m worried about is what will come next. Will he get that cruel cane out again? Will he beat me to a point I can’t take it?

“Relax,” he says suddenly.

“Hm? What?”

“You’re so tense. It will make it worse for you. Take a breath.”

I am immediately confused. “Don’t you want it to be worse for me?”

“I want it to hurt as much as it should. I do not want… this,” he says, finishing his sentence in a way that does not make things any clearer for me at all.

“What am I doing wrong?”

“You’re not currently doing anything wrong…” he sighs. “You are difficult to punish.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll be easier to punish,” I say. “What do you want me to do?”

I hear him snort. His hand runs up my ass, along my back, to the nape of my neck and then back down again. It is a long petting motion that makes me relax as he wanted me to.

“I can’t let this slide, Mila,” he says. “I won’t be doing you a service if I do. You’ll think that I don’t really mean what I say. You’ll think that running away from Lydia is acceptable. I have to make sure you’re properly punished. But this… this doesn’t feel right.”

I can feel his hardness against my hip. He likes me naked, sorry, and submissive. I think part of him might even like it when I am in trouble. There’s a charge between us right now, a kind of twisted intimacy.

“I know what to do,” he says. He puts me face down on the bed, lifts me up on my knees, then reaches for my hands and pulls them back, putting one of my hands on each of my tender cheeks.

“Hold your cheeks open like that, spread them for me and don’t you dare move. You are going to take your punishment fucking like a good girl.”

I do as I am told, because I know I have no choice. I am starting to very much regret my decision to act as though I am above the law. I am matched and mated. I belong to someone. A very angry someone who intends to ensure I never disobey him again.

I feel a few drops of some kind of oil on my bottom. I don’t know what the purpose of it is, at least not until I feel his thumb rubbing it against the tight little hole between my cheeks. Not my pussy, which he usually fucks, but a dirty hole that I like to pretend he doesn’t know about.

“Not there,” I whimper.

“Here,” he insists, pushing his thumb into the tight aperture. I feel my ass stretch in a way I didn’t know he could make it. It’s a very different hole than the other one. It is not made to be open and taken. It is made to be shut. But that’s not what’s going to happen.

I burn with shame as he toys with my bottom hole.

“Keep those cheeks spread for me,” he reminds me.

“Does this feel like you are learning a lesson, Mila?” He asks the question with a satisfied growl as he slowly fucks my butt with his thumb. “Does it feel like you’re going to be sorry for trying to escape Lydia, and for disobeying me yet again with drugs?”

“Yes!” I squeak the answer instantly. “I am sorry.”

“So you said,” he says. “But you are going to be much more sorry before I am done with you.”

He pulls his thumb out.

“Don’t you dare close those cheeks,” he says. “Keep yourself open.”

I do as I am told, staying in this shamefully spread position at his bidding. I feel very naughty and very much in trouble. If I had known this would happen when I ran, would I have done it? There is a little voice in my head that says yes, I absolutely would have.

He steps up behind me, and I feel his cock tap against my pussy for a moment. “Spread your legs,” he orders. “Wider.”

I do the best I can to get into the position he wants. I yelp as the reward for that is feeling his fingers whip up against my pussy from below. He is not spanking my ass, but he is going to spank my soft, swelling lips and even the eager bud of my clit.

“You’re going to remember this next time you think about acting like a spoiled little girl,” he growls. “Because you’re not. You’re a woman, and you will be punished like one.”

He whips his fingers against my pussy over and over again, making my lips very sore and swollen. Without warning, he grabs me by the back of my neck and surges inside me, his cock splitting my pussy open in one rough stroke.

“Keep yourself open,” he growls at me, pushing his thumb back inside my ass, using the grip to rock me back against him as he fucks my spanked little hole. This is as perverse as he has ever been with me, but I know I deserve it. I am not a well-behaved wife. I am a rebellious little brat, and I have pushed him to the point of having to do this.

He fucks my pussy roughly and harshly for a few minutes, ensuring that I feel the effects of the spanking punishment. But that is not his end goal, and we both know it.

Arthur’s thumb leaves my ass, and his cock leaves my pussy. A moment later, I yowl as his cock spears inside me, not taking the course nature intended, but instead performing an act of perversion that makes me feel his rampant displeasure.

“You could have been a good girl. You could have enjoyed a sweet session of lovemaking, but instead you wanted to test me. You wanted to see what would happen if you disobeyed me. Now you know. Your tight little ass is going to be fucked and filled with my cum. I am going to breed this naughty hole of yours.”

This is intense. He is so big, so powerful. I feel the weight of his experience and his past being brought to bear on me.

He fucks me with powerful strokes, lubing me every now and then so he can fuck me harder and deeper. He is taking care of me, even in the midst of this brutal anal punishment that leaves me splayed beneath him, begging for his mercy.

Arthur

Her ass is tight and hot. There’s a small part of me that is enjoying this. It has been a long time since I was able to entertain this part of me, to give the beast free rein. I would never hurt her, but she deserves more than a little pain for daring to engage in illicit behavior. My wife will obey me. I will have it no other way.

New Boston is a large city. Too large to ever really be under control unless every citizen submits to the control. My garrison numbers in the thousands, but this city is home to millions. The policing agents of the Artifice are also a small percentage of available authority. And yet we maintain order. Ruthlessly. Completely.

I face rebellion every day in my job. I know how to crush it.

My bride’s tight little ass is wrapped so satisfyingly around my cock. Her reddened cheeks could take a lot more punishment if I decided that was appropriate. But that’s not the part of her anatomy I want to pay the price.

I spin her on my dick, turning her onto her back. I keep fucking her, but now I have access to her pussy and her breasts. And that is where the most innocuous objects in my punishment arsenal come into their own. I have a very short, small crop with a split leather tongue and I set that tool to work on her pussy, her outer lips covered in that blonde down quickly becoming more swollen and even more wet under the rapid disciplinary action of that slapping leather tongue.

She squirms, her ass clenching on my cock, her pretty face contorting with pain and regret as she comes to understand that I can turn her arousal into a weapon against her. I can see her sex responding to this swift, stinging punishment, flowering, begging for cock it will not receive.

“Do not disobey me,” I growl down at her, holding her desperate gaze as her hips alternately arch and wriggle. “When I tell you something is banned, from your perspective, it may as well no longer exist in this world, do you understand?”

“Yes,” she whimpers. “I’m sorry. I promise I’ll be good.”

My cock throbs inside her tight hole, those little gasped promises absolute music to my ears.

“You’re beautiful,” I tell her. “And you have never been more beautiful than you are right now, soft and sorry. I like doing this to you, my bride. If you ever think about disobeying me again, think about this, and realize that I will enjoy every moment of your punishment.”

She lets out a little whining wail. I slap her hungry little clit with the very tip of the crop and watch her start to quiver and shake. She’s close to orgasm. She can’t hold back much longer. If I were a truly twisted man, I would force her through her climax and continue to punish her…

I am a truly twisted man. I whip and spank her pussy, increasing the intensity and in turn, the pain.

“Come for me,” I order. “Show me how much you crave punishment.”

She shakes and wails obediently, her ass contracting around my cock with the force of her climax.

For a moment she lies peacefully on the bed beneath me. I get up, wash myself off, and then I return to the bed, and simply start fucking her again, sliding into her cunt as if I own it—because I do.

“I will be merciless with you, my bride,” I growl as she looks up at me with a stunned expression.

I rub her clit with the pad of my thumb, giving her no chance to come down from that climax. I want these to roll through her, one after the other, each one of them draining her a little more, forcing her to her limits.

She wails and whines her way through another orgasm, and then another. I know the first ones felt good, but these ones won’t. I whip one out of her sore pussy, fingering her soaking cunt while I smack her clit hard, and then I force another one from her with a penis-shaped toy inside her ass, the dildo keeping that naughty hole open for me as I apply a vibrator to her pussy. Over and over, again and again, I turn my bride’s rebellious body against her until there is no shred of resistance left in her.

“Are you sorry?”

“Yes,” she rasps, her voice hoarse from all the wailing and crying out she has been doing.

“Do you understand that I could do this to you every day if I saw fit, and I will if you cannot follow the very few simple rules I have laid down for you?”

“Yes,” she whimpers again. “I am sorry, Arthur. Really I am. I promise I will be good from now on. I promise.”

“Good,” I say. “One more.”

She quivers as the vibrator starts rumbling again.

Mila

By the time he is done with me, my ass is aching and dripping his seed and I feel absolutely exhausted in every way. I have come at least a dozen times. The last ones were not at all pleasurable. They were ripped from me.

What he just did was unspeakably cruel and entirely wrong. It was a crude punishment, an absolute perversion of everything love could ever be. And there is a small sliver of my soul that wants it to happen all over again.

He is being merciful now, tender and caring. He wraps me up in his arms and carries me off to the bathroom where he runs a bath and puts me in it, following me in. He slides in behind me, snuggling me up between his legs, and begins to wash me.

I close my eyes and let the warm water and various potions he adds to it soothe my pain and my exhaustion. I know I will ache tomorrow, and probably the day after. I will never forget what he did to me tonight.