Chapter Thirteen
Kristina
This isn’t happening.
The panicked statement bounded around Kris’ mind, echoing again as she tried to think. But flattened against the strange effervescent wall, she realized that, unless she was the one suffering from a psychotic break, everything she was witnessing was, in fact, taking place.
The room she’d woken up in, without any windows and doors, was some type of cell, designed to confine her. The binds that had been at her limbs until recently had held her in place, and then there was Kronos…
The man before her, who claimed to be some preternatural power and insisted she call him Master was like no one else she’d ever encountered.
Physically more like a mountain than a man, he had released her binds with little more than a wave of his hand, and he appeared to be threatening her with physical force.
Her throat dried. She didn’t know how any of it was transpiring, but unless she was hallucinating the entire affair, it was taking place, and she needed to wrap her head around that.
“But you said!” Her voice rang out with recrimination as her heart pounded faster. He hadn’t moved from his seat, but she believed in his threat. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me!”
“I said I wouldn’t harm you,” he reiterated slowly. “And I stand by that vow. I will care for you, feed you, and make sure you rest when it’s required. All of your needs will be met.”
“But you’ll spank me?” She heard the indignation in her voice, but even then, her head couldn’t keep up with the unravelling reality.
“And I will,” he confirmed in an absurdly calm tone.
“Spanking you will not cause you permanent harm. It will, however, remind you what happens the next time you ignore one of my instructions.” His smile stretched into a grin.
“And of course, you’ll now be receiving additional swats for repeatedly refusing to refer to me correctly. ”
“But…” Her head was fuzzy, almost as though she’d had one too many drinks the night before and couldn’t think straight, except she’d only been drinking herbal tea before she’d gone out for pizza. Not a drop of alcohol had passed her lips. “This isn’t fair, Master!”
How dare he belittle her with talk of physical reprimands?
Kris was a grown woman, not a child. It was awful enough that he was insisting she call him her master, a demand she was adhering to avoid escalating her predicament.
She didn’t merit being snatched from her own street, let alone spanked like a wayward infant.
For the hundredth time since she’d stirred, she was at a loss to understand how she’d ended up there.
He’d said he brought her after dealing with the men who’d attacked her, but she only had hazy recollections of that time, a vague memory of curling up in his arms coming to mind as her gaze flitted to his.
“Fair?” He tilted his head, his lips twitching as though she was the most amusing thing he’d ever seen.
That expression only irritated her, amplifying her angry denial as he went on.
“You don’t know anything about fairness, little one, so do not speak to me of it.
Concentrate on impressing me. You shall only suffer more if you fail to please. ”
“No.”
She hadn’t meant to say the word out loud, but staring at his imperious expression, how could she help it?
She could scarcely grasp his temerity. Had he brought her there so he could hurt her?
She shuddered at the thought, ignoring the low thrumming panic in the pit of her chest that reminded her what men usually wanted when they snatched women.
Sex.
He wanted sex. That was why he’d stripped her. That was why he made no bones about manhandling her. He saw her as nothing more than an object; a female to use and abuse at will.
She wrapped her arms around her legs and rocked herself on the bed, trying to assuage her spiraling anxiety and make sense of her competing feelings.
It had been relatively easy to placate her sense of doom when she’d woken up, yet sitting there, her plight was all too evident.
Naked and trapped, she had no chance against a hulk like Kronos, and worse still was the lingering reality that she might not want to resist him.
“Even now you tell me no.” Scoffing at her response, the giant shook his head, but she was relieved to see her reply didn’t seem to have angered him. “And you do so without acknowledging that I am your master.”
“But you’re not!” she contended, surprised at the tears blurring in her eyes. Fury was mingling with her fear, and she hoped, with enough impetus, the two emotions could erase any doubt that she was anything but outraged. “Taking me and making me say it doesn’t make it true.”
An edgy hush filled the space, an unhurried silence that brought with it its own perils. Clutching at her knees, she found she missed the relief of their banter. The quiet offered nothing but menace. As if to confirm the point, he glowered in her direction, his eyes narrowing when he spoke again.
“You will come to me for your spanking.” He didn’t shout, but his voice boomed around the room with the resonant power of thunder.
“I will not,” she whispered, dismayed at the comparative weakness of her response.
Still, she had responded. There was no way she was getting up and ceding to his ridiculous request. She’d done nothing wrong.
How was she supposed to know that the messages she’d received the prior day had come from Kronos, and even if she’d upset him, inflicting pain on her was not the answer. She would not give in to his lunacy.
“You have made your choice, then.” Disappointment hardened in his stare, and something about that dark look in his hazel eyes tightened the knot of tension in her tummy. “I want you to remember that.”
“What choice, Master?”
She threw in his self-imposed title in a desperate attempt to mollify the obviously angering Goliath. She stood by her denial of his theatrics—there would be no spanking—but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t pacify him if she could.
“I am going to spank you, little one.” He cocked that same eyebrow at her, her heart rate missing a beat.
Such a subtle physical signal. It shouldn’t have affected her so profoundly, but it did.
Not only was her pulse racing, but she sensed the heat rising to her face.
“The only decision you had to make was whether you accepted your fate with grace or chose to fight.” His lips twisted into an arrogant smirk.
“Not that it is much of a fight. Now, come.”
Time stood still, her every sense attuned to his physicality.
Yes, he was vast, and he’d already evidenced his power, but it was more than that.
An air of authority surrounded him, sending a vibration through her body that insisted she yield.
It wasn’t only his ability to overwhelm her and force her to obey, but the potent way she suddenly believed she might want to.
I can’t want him to spank me. Puzzlement echoed through her head. So why does the thought of being flung over him sound so good?
She clenched the muscles between her thighs, her body betraying her need, even if she wasn’t ready to admit it.
In some base way, she did long to yield to him.
Her childhood had been tumultuous, and her father had been absent for years.
The lack of a father figure had affected her more than she cared to admit.
She wanted to know what it was like to have someone to rely on, someone who would set boundaries and follow through when those boundaries had been crossed.
There had never been structure like that in her life.
What would it be like to submit to someone as strong as Kronos?
Her throat dried at the tantalizing idea. How would it feel to be sprawled over him and given no choice?
As though he’d read her thoughts and sought to answer her, he lifted one hand, and right on cue, her legs slid away in front of her. She startled at the change of tack, knowing she hadn’t commanded her limbs to move and dreading what his control over her might mean.
It’s going to happen. She could barely catch her breath, her mind still trying to fathom how he was manipulating her into movement without saying a word. He’s going to spank me whether I want him to or not.
“No!” She called out as another flick of his fingers saw her standing at the side of the bed, her toes pressing into the oddly warm, glowing white floor while her hands still grasped for the relative cover of the blanket tumbling down in front of her. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t know why she was asking. He’d been nothing but frank about his intentions.
“What I told you.” His index finger beckoned her forward, and step by step, her feet responded, bringing her closer to his foreboding body. “You are going to be spanked, little one.”
Stunned at her inability to prevent the motion and appalled at the way she secretly yearned for it, Kris heaved in air, the hand not holding her blanket waving in protest as her shins neared his feet.
Her mind boggled at her apparent impotence, she was once again reminded of the desolate feeling she’d experienced when Kronos had snatched away her right to speak.
One moment, she’d been comforting herself on the covers, and the next, it was as if an alien force had taken her over.
Fixing her stare on the alien responsible, she didn’t know whether to sob, scream, or succumb.
How was he able to maneuver her legs and feet while she continued to retain authority over the rest of her body?
But then, how had he been able to instruct any part of her with, she presumed, only the power of his mind?
“Please don’t.” In the end, with her thoughts reeling, she opted for a plaintive plea, regretting her pathetic tone as soon as it met her ears.