12. LION
12
LION
Lion woke up beside the girl, not feeling rested at all.
The bed was small, and he was not used to sharing it with another. No matter how petite the girl was, it was cramped and uncomfortable. However, it wasn't the lack of space that kept him up all night — it was the girl's silent sobs.
She’d been crying again.
She was facing the wall as usual, with the blanket pulled over her hips. The room was dark except for a dash of moonlight seeping through the narrow window. The moonlight bathed her body, making her skin appear pale and delicate, almost like the porcelain statues one of the Northern lords had gifted to Queen Arasanara. Lion’s eyes traced the soft curve of her hip, the scars on her back, and the outline of her shoulder blades. Her body shook with silent sobs and soft cries.
He glanced at the square window. The moonlight was still bright. He wasn’t allowed to leave his room this early.
This had been their third night together, and he had woken up to her silent sobs on every one of them. Hearing freeborn slaves cry at night was nothing new to him. He could sleep through any noise, but this one kept him awake.
He was being gentle with her; following her lead, making sure not to touch her bruises, being slow and careful. He wasn’t hurting her. She wasn’t in any physical pain, as much as he could tell.
Then why was she crying?
And more importantly, how could he make her stop?
The sound of her sobs made his chest tight. He had tried to ignore them; he had tried numbing himself to sleep, sending his mind to that place . Nothing had worked. Every quiet sob she let out felt like a spear going through his chest and left him feeling like… like he was bleeding out on the arena sands. He had to make her stop.
Hesitantly, he reached over her and pressed a finger against her lips.
She tensed, but stopped sobbing. He could feel her heart beating faster. He shifted closer, his large body spooning hers. He nuzzled his face in her wildfire hair; his blonde mixed with her red. His fingers caressed her face, wiping the warm tears away. For a brief moment, it seemed to be working. He was almost proud of himself.
Then she pushed his hand away, firmly.
The rejection felt like a punch to his guts, and he had no clue why. She inched away from his warmth, though there was not much room to move. She chose to snuggle against the cold wall rather than accept the comfort of Lion’s body.
He blinked at the back of her head. Although he wasn’t hurting physically, he still felt like hot branding irons were pressing deep inside his chest. He could hardly wait until the moon started fading. As soon as it was light enough to justify leaving his room, he rolled out of the bed, got dressed, and left.
The rest of his day went by as usual: he trained, he ate, he trained more. Badimar was still cautious about straining his shoulder too much. Lion didn’t share his caution today. His mind went blank as he immersed himself in the training drills, pushing his body harder than he ever did before. The more intensely he worked, the less he had to think about the confusing tightness in his chest. That girl was a distraction. What she did to him was a distraction. He couldn’t afford that. He was the King’s champion Beast. He was the Lion of Zarall. He was a purebred, not some emotional freeborn.
He made no mistakes in any of the training drills. He even elicited two appraising grunts from Badimar. Not only were they rare, they were also unexpected, given Badimar’s current mood.
The Master of the Beasts was snappy, intolerant, and on edge ever since the incident with the girl. After Lion’s first night with her, Badimar had dragged him to Vanalten first thing in the morning to check his eye. Although at first the old physician was shaken by the sight of dried blood that still clung to Lion’s face and beard, he was quick to dismiss the scratch after examining it.
Throughout the examination, Lion had clasped his right hand in his left casually, hiding the bite mark in his palm. After witnessing their concern over a minor scratch like this, he wasn’t sure how Badimar would react to another injury, no matter how insignificant the injury was. He imagined Badimar storming back to his room and beating the lights out of the girl. He had kept his hand dirty for the rest of the day to hide the scars.
He had found out that Badimar had tried to kick the girl out. He had requested an audience with King Leonis, but was fended off by Fauwyn, the royal secretary, saying the King would not annul his agreement with Lord Hosten over a scratch. Badimar had breathed fire for the rest of the day, being exceedingly generous with his whip and his use of Pain Words against all the beasts.
Even today, every time Badimar glanced at Lion’s face and saw how close the girl had gotten to blinding him, he barked at the nearest beast for anything they had done wrong, and cracked his whip.
Lion found himself looking forward to the sparring session this afternoon, and was disappointed when Badimar grunted at him to sit this one out too. He hadn’t held a weapon for more than three days; he had never gone this long for as long as he could remember. The frustration was more potent than he had anticipated, and he barely kept his hands from forming fists at his sides. He watched the other beasts pair off, clashing swords and exchanging grunts.
After dinner and a bath, he headed to his room early, scratching his chest absentmindedly. The fourth brand had stopped hurting and had started itching instead. It was starting to scar, and Vanalten’s poultices only made the itch worse. When he arrived at his room, he walked straight to the basin to soothe the brand with cold water. He didn’t even glance at the girl until he was out of his tunic and pressing the wet towel against the mark on his chest.
His eyebrows were drawn together when he finally looked at the girl sitting cross-legged on the bed. There was nothing unusual about that, since there was no other furniture to sit on. Her red hair reached down to her elbows in unruly waves. Her freckles stood out against her pale skin, almost translucent in the dim light.
But there was something different about her today that made Lion’s skin crawl. Although her eyes were still puffy from crying over the past few days, they were dry now. Moreover, they had a gleam in them as they perused Lion’s face attentively. Her lips were pursed, and a curious scowl graced her features. She sat still, looking both excited and guarded at the same time. Her expression unnerved him.
Just when he’d decided to ignore her and put the towel away, he froze. Her hands were resting on her lap and one of them was tightly closed around a small object. The sight of her clenched fist sent a shiver down his spine. When he saw what she held, the towel slipped from between Lion’s trembling fingers.
A grin played across the girl’s lips, while Lion’s stomach plummeted into a dark pit.
He lunged at the girl, at the same time, she jumped out of the bed and held out a hand. “Stop, or I’ll scream,” she hissed without hesitation.
Lion halted, frozen only by an arm's reach from the girl. She was holding her free hand in front of his chest and had tucked the other one behind. Lion could easily grab her, restrain her, and snatch the object out of her fingers.
As if reading his thoughts, she forced a confident smile on her lips. “Go ahead and beat me unconscious for all I care. The first thing that’ll come out of my mouth will be ‘look under his bed’.”
Lion let out a weak groan that sounded like a whimper. She licked her lips. “That’s right. You hurt me, and I’ll tell your Masters all about my discoveries. Now, back off!” She pressed a hand against his chest and pushed him away.
Lion walked backwards until his back hugged the far wall. The girl wasn’t yelling, but she wasn’t whispering either. Anyone who walked past the corridor outside could hear her. His eyes darted to the door, then to the wall which neighboured Badimar’s room. She followed his gaze.
“He hasn’t returned to his room yet,” she said with a sneer. “I’ve been listening all day. I recognise how that prick walks.”
It didn’t matter. If any free man or woman heard what Lion had done, he would be sent straight to White Tower.
The thought of White Tower sent his mind into a spiral of unfinished thoughts and fractured images that blended together in a chaotic jumble: White Tower... White Tower! I’m going to White Tower. The black hooded figure… Not human… A whole lot of them… Pale, wrinkly, parchment-like skin… The cold, wet tongue on his palms… Mouth and teeth sucking the blood off his fingers… Sucking everything out of him… I’m going to White Tower! The slave named Ratsack… Like an empty shell… Slicing his own ear, biting his fingers off .
“Hey!” the girl hissed cautiously. Lion barely heard her. The sound of his heart pounding in his ears blocked everything else. “What’s wrong with you?”
Black spots started flying across Lion’s sight. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe. His life was over. The fate he dreaded the most, the one he believed he could avoid by adhering to his training and being a good slave, had now become his reality. All his efforts had been in vain, and his worst nightmare was now irrevocably sealed. Like a tight collar around his neck, slowly shrinking, strangling him.
“Merciful Alunwea, you’re shaking like a leaf,” the girl frowned. Despite looking angry, she lowered her voice. “Relax. I won’t tell them anything…”
Lion was leaning against the wall, his legs shaking under his weight. His throat was so dry, he half expected it to bleed when he swallowed.
She won’t tell. She won’t tell them anything.
He clung to that promise as if his life depended on it. It did. He managed to reign in his growing panic.
Until she added, “… as long as you do what I say.”
Lion groaned.
She grinned smugly. Coldly. Her eyes glimmered with a ferocity that reminded him of every freeborn beast he fought against. That girl who had sobbed and cried underneath him was gone. She had the power to ruin his life, and she had no reservations about using it. She stood straighter, like a free woman. Her busted lip and bruised cheekbones no longer marked her as a victim. They made her look like a fierce fighter.
Can’t disobey.
If she asked him to do things that conflicted with his orders, with his training… If she asked him to commit an Act of Defiance…
Can’t go to White Tower either.
He was trapped. His life was finished either way.
She brought her other hand in front of her, turning and twisting the object between her fingers. It was a piece of hard rock, small enough to fit into her palm. One end was sharp and pointy. Her grin spread wide as she studied the longing etched across Lion’s face. She relished the helplessness that suffocated him.
“I saw this under the bed the first night I was brought to this room,” she explained quietly. “I thought it was just a piece of rubble. A useless rubbish. Then I realised; there is no rubbish in this room. You’re not allowed to possess anything, not even rubbish.”
Lion’s shoulders sagged. His stomach clenched as he listened to her continue.
“Then I realised how this is sharpened. You must have spent days grinding this thing against the floor to make it sharp like this. At first, I thought maybe you wanted a weapon or something, but you are a weapon yourself, aren’t you? You don’t need a primitive thing like this.”
She shook her head, then continued, her voice low and laced with something that almost sounded like pity. “Then I thought maybe you were just planning to… you know… end your misery. Slit your wrists or something.”
Lion was leaning against the wall with his full weight now. His knees wouldn’t carry him. He kept his eyes fixed on the girl’s hands. She shrugged. “But I know purebreds don’t do things like that.”
She was right, and she knew she was right. She grinned with pride as she whispered, “Then I had another look under the bed.”
Lion glanced at the bed and shuddered. The girl stared at him like she was trying to split his skull open with her gaze and see what he hid inside. “Care to explain, why do you have a map of Chinderia carved under your bed?”
Lion’s head sagged. He closed his eyes. No, he couldn’t explain this. Not to her, not to Master Badimar, nor to anyone. Not even to himself.
The girl’s face lightened, her breath caught. She lowered her voice until it was barely audible. “Are you planning to escape?”
Lion flinched and snapped his eyes open. He shook his head frantically. Escape? Never! He would never, ever even think about escaping.
Hunters always find you.
Hunters were not human. They could track escaped slaves all the way to the Darkhome. And the punishment for escape was a straight trip to White Tower.
No. No, no, no, no. He would never escape.
Besides, he didn’t even want his freedom. What was he going to do with it? Not having someone to tell him what to do was terrifying.
The girl’s face hardened. She levelled him with a glare. “Then why did you draw the map?” When Lion didn’t answer, she snorted. “You’ll have to speak to me.”
Lion shook his head again. He wasn’t going to speak without permission from a free man or woman. She flashed him a cruel grin. Tilting her chin up, “Speak,” she ordered. “Tell me to stop now, or I’ll scream.”
Lion glanced at her face, trying to assess if she would really do that. Surely she knew how much trouble she would be in as well. He imagined the events that would occur if she screamed; Badimar or someone else walking in, the girl telling them about the map before they started beating her. He imagined the look on Badimar’s face as the Master of the Beasts flipped his bed upside down and saw the map. He would probably arrive at the same conclusion as the girl; that he was planning an escape or something! Every scenario he could think of ended in Lion heading to White Tower with the Hunters.
“Tell me to stop, or I’ll scream,” the girl hissed again.
Lion shook his head. He wouldn’t commit an Act of Defiance.
“Fine,” the girl said with a shrug. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth.
“Stop!” The word burst out of Lion’s mouth in a harsh breath. He resisted the urge to cover his lips with both his hands.
The girl closed her mouth and flashed him a loathing smile. “See?” she said arrogantly. “It’s not that hard.”
Lion swallowed hard. She was wrong. Sweat trickled down from his face and his body felt too hot. He had committed an Act of Defiance! He half-expected to hear Breeder Astaldo’s voice bark his Pain Word. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and took deep breaths to suppress the nausea.
“Why did you draw the map?” she asked. “Speak.”
Lion pressed his lips together. He shook his head, his mouth too dry to speak.
“Why did you draw the map?” she asked again. When Lion still didn’t reply, she took another sharp breath in, filling her lungs and straightening her shoulders to yell.
“I don’t know!” Lion hissed through clenched teeth. He tapped the back of his head against the cold wall behind him, closing his eyes and grinding his teeth. “I live to serve; I breathe to please.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I live to serve; I breathe to please.”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You live to serve, you breathe to please…” She held up the little rock. “And you sharpen rocks to carve maps under your bed. A very detailed map, too. Did you draw it from memory?”
Lion tapped his head on the wall again. His jaw ached from grinding his teeth, and he still felt like he was about to pass out.
“Are you saying you just woke up one day and decided to carve a map under your bed? For no reason?”
“Yes, Mast…” Lion slammed his mouth shut just in time before he finished forming the word. He clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms. She was a freeborn brat. How could he almost call her Master? The girl’s lips pressed tight. She didn’t find the slipup funny.
He couldn’t explain why he drew the map, because there was no reason for it. Lion had been studying and admiring the map on the floor of the throne room ever since the day he was bought by King Leonis. Unconsciously, he had begun memorizing its intricate details until the map floated before his eyes whenever he’d closed them. It had haunted him. For over three years, he’d denied its call. But several months ago, he could no longer resist the urge to bring those vivid images to life.
Like a relentless itch begging to be scratched, he had crawled under his bed and started carving under the wooden bedframe with his fingernails. No one would have noticed it unless they had crawled under the bed and looked up. Even then, the darkness made it difficult to discern any shapes.
He was making very slow progress with his fingernails, not to mention risking splinters and drawing unwanted attention to his bleeding fingers. A couple of days later, he managed to smuggle a rock from the training yard into his room. By grinding one end against the stone floor, he sharpened it until it was sufficiently pointed. After that, his progress was much quicker.
He was close to completing the entire map when the girl was dumped into his room. He hadn’t had the time or the opportunity to crawl under the bed and hide the rock more effectively. Any attempt to do so would have aroused her curiosity. He hoped she would be gone before she’d made the discovery.
He was wrong.
He was doomed.
She squinted her eyes at him, studying his face carefully. Lion felt like he was being displayed at an auction, naked, being prodded and examined by potential buyers. He hated to think of the girl as a Master or an Owner. She was a slave.
Yet, she had power over him now.
“I’ll keep your secret,” she decided, still twisting the rock between her fingers. “But you’ll do exactly what I say.” When Lion shifted uncomfortably, anger flashed across her face. “Relax. I won’t ask anything nearly as difficult as lying still under a slobbering repulsive animal, praying to Alunwea he won’t break your arms and legs.”
Lion flinched. A slobbering repulsive animal? He had gone out of his way to be careful and gentle with her. The quiet fury and the welling tears in her eyes indicated she didn’t see it that way. Lion’s shoulders sagged and blood rose to his neck as he drowned in disgust.
The girl tilted her chin. “I want you to look at me,” she ordered. She said it so casually, not realizing her request was impossible for him. He shook his head, his eyes bulging in panic.
She took a step forward. “You’ll do as I say.”
He shot a quick glance at her face, focusing his eyes on a freckle on her cheek. She shook her head. “No. You’ll look into my eyes.”
A whimper slipped past Lion’s lips. He shook his head again as his breathing quickened. She didn’t understand. He couldn’t do it.
She took another step forward. “It’s not that hard,” she said. “Just do it. Look at me.”
Lion’s head was spinning. He had no choice. Helplessness struck him like a physical pain. He closed his eyes, and he was back at Faychill Ranch, standing in front of Astaldo. The slave breeder was yelling…
“Look at me!”
The slave who wasn’t given the name Lion of Zarall yet, had no more than nine winters behind him. He had lined up in front of Breeder Astaldo, along with four other boys. They all had their heads down, hands clasped in front, eyes on the floor; their stances had already been mastered.
Astaldo paced back and forth along the line, looking down at the young slaves. Each had a Beast tattoo, the ink still dark and fresh. They were all naked, trembling slightly under his hard gaze. Unless it was part of an armour, they never wore any clothing. They were used to nudity. Feelings such as embarrassment or shame have long been scraped off of them. The only thing left was fear.
Not fear of physical pain.
Fear of disobedience.
Astaldo stood in front of a boy. “Look at me,” he ordered.
The boy’s chest heaved. He forced his head up, his neck visibly clenched with the effort. As soon as his eyes met Astaldo’s, the slave breeder spoke: “ Caniarepetois .”
The boy fell down, consumed by excruciating pain. Astaldo watched his thrashing, convulsing body until the effects of the Pain Word receded.
He ordered him to get up. The boy had to bite his lips until they bled, just to stop himself from begging. They’d learned that begging was another form of defiance; it was no different from rejecting the punishment, or requesting for mercy. All punishable behaviours.
The boy kept his mouth shut. When he took his stance, still shaking, Astaldo spoke again: “Look at me.”
The boy forced himself to obey, lifting his head until he met Astaldo’s eyes again.
“ Caniarepetois ,” said Astaldo, the second they made eye contact. The boy fell one more time.
They practiced this a few more times — Astaldo ordering the boy to get up, to look at him, and speaking his Pain Word as soon as their eyes met — then Astaldo moved on to the next boy.
“Look at me.”
They’d been practicing this for weeks already. His body started shaking as soon as he heard the command. His knees felt weak. He raised his head, slowly, to look at the Breeder’s eyes. They were dark as pain.
“ Prihjtivaviula .”
He fell, writhing in agony. It was hard to believe the Pain Word only lasted for thirty seconds. One eternity was trapped in every heartbeat. His blood, bones, and flesh burnt from the inside, consumed by pain.
“Get up,” Astaldo ordered, and when the boy did, “Look at me.”
They continued the training at different times of the day, with different trainers. Even an accidental eye contact was punished immediately. Sometimes the trainers even went as far as tricking them into looking up, just to catch their gaze and punish them for it. By the time he was auctioned at fourteen, the slave had become an expert at avoiding any eye contact. Even the thought of looking at another person in the eye was enough to make him tremble.
“Look at me,” the girl repeated impatiently. “Now!”
Lion held his breath, closed his eyes, tilted his head up slowly. He tensed, his stomach clenching. Forcing his eyes open, he looked at the girl’s sky-blue eyes. It only took the length of a heartbeat for his body to react.
He dropped to his knees, doubled over, and threw up. His body shook with the expectation of the Pain Word. The pain was not there, but the fear was strong enough to trick his body into believing it was. His muscles twitched and convulsed. He hugged himself, clenching his teeth and gasping for breath.
It’s not real. It’s not real.
It was surprisingly difficult to convince himself that there was no pain; just the memory of it.
For freeborn slaves, eye contact was just a taboo. For purebreds, it meant pain.
The girl mumbled something that sounded like, ‘What have they done to you?’ under her breath. She paled. By the time Lion had finally recovered and stood, shaking slightly, she had an irritated glimmer in her eyes.
“Again,” she ordered.
Lion stomped down the urge to beg her. He retched again, but had emptied everything in his stomach. He desperately reached for the words in his head: It’s not my body, it’s their property. It’s not my body. Not my body .
“Look at me.”
His attempts to escape from his body weren't as effective this time, but he managed to calm himself. He sucked in a deep breath, tensed his stomach as if bracing for a gut punch, and raised his gaze. He almost expected to see Astaldo’s cruel eyes. But his eyes met hers once again, and he held for two heartbeats before he averted them and crumpled against the wall, hugging himself and shaking. It was just as bad as the first time.
“You’ll get better,” the girl said triumphantly. “We’ll practice every night. You’ll look at me and you’ll talk to me. I want you to tell me something nobody knows about you. Not even your Owners and Masters.”
A sickening chill ran down Lion’s spine. He rested his head against the wall, his eyes closed. Every night? He pressed his palms over his eyes. Why? Why was she doing this? Revenge was another abstract concept free men and women were obsessed with. Was she torturing him because he fucked her? Didn’t she understand he didn’t have a choice?
When she came near him, carefully stepping over the puddle of vomit, he flinched. She picked up the towel he dropped earlier. The little rock was nowhere to be seen, hidden from him. There weren't many places to hide it here. He could ransack the room and find it.
“I know you have to keep… following your orders ,” she said the words with a sneer. She walked over to the basin, soaked the towel, then wrung the excess water. “I won’t even try to stop you. And you know I won’t resist.”
Even if Lion found the rock, she could still tell them about the map. How was he going to keep her quiet?
She kneeled beside him and tilted his chin up. He recoiled from her touch. “But I will make you talk to me,” she said. “Tell me something about yourself. Now.” She reached to wipe his mouth with the towel. Her hand rested on his cheek, steadying him.
He could kill her.
The thought turned his stomach upside down. Just this morning, he was trying to comfort her, and now, he was contemplating killing her. But this was her fault. She left him with no other option.
“It could be anything,” she said, moving down to wipe his hands. “Like your favourite colour or song.”
Lion could see himself killing the girl. It wouldn’t be hard. He calculated how much trouble that would bring him. Free men and women did not appreciate slaves killing each other outside of an arena. Those acts warranted punishments. The girl belonged to someone else — Lord Hosten — which meant if she died while under King Leonis’s possession, it would put the King in a difficult position.
“Tell me something about yourself,” the girl repeated, putting the towel aside. She watched his face expectantly.
Lion could make it look like an accident, as if he lost control and broke her. Or he could stage it in a way that would seem like she had killed herself. He would still get into trouble, but he doubted he would be sent to White Tower over this. His Masters would perceive the act of drawing a map under his bed more incriminating than accidentally killing a freeborn. He was the Lion of Zarall. And he had a feeling Badimar would be pleased to get rid of the girl.
“Speak,” she commanded.
Lion’s eyes glazed over. His heartbeat picked up, though this time it wasn’t the fear that drove him. It was the anticipation of violence. He stood, and the girl followed suit. Her eyebrows twitched as if she had sensed the quiet change in him, but she kept her head high, not showing any sign of concern. Like he wouldn’t dare harm her.
“Speak,” she whispered. “Tell me something about yourself.”
Muscles on Lion’s neck tightened, and the girl swallowed. She lost her composure for a moment and took a small step back. Lion snatched her arm and held her in place. Her breath caught, but she still didn’t make any noise. Lion stepped in and brought his mouth to her ear. “I’m a slobbering, repulsive animal,” he whispered through clenched teeth.
He found those words echoing in his mind. She had threatened him with his greatest fear, of being sent to White Tower. She had filled him with horror and left him feeling hollow and carved out. Yet, of everything she had said, those words stung sharper than any weapon.
He seethed with a mix of anger and violence that brewed beneath his muscles. He tightened his fists around the collar of her dress and yanked, ripping the fabric from neck to waist. Her bare shoulders popped out.
He expected her to cower in fear or struggle against him. He was prepared to muffle her screams and restrain her. Her fight would help the violence spill easier out of him. Instead, her jaw twitched with defiance and she hissed, “Fine.”
She shrugged out of her dress, kicked it away, and stood naked, her shoulders pushed back and her blue eyes burning with spite.
“Is this how you wanna pla—”
Lion grabbed her by the throat, not rough enough to elicit a scream. Not yet. She was dumber than he thought, for still not realizing what Lion was about to do. For not seeing that he was wound tight, on the verge of unleashing his aggression. She rested her hand on his arm, so casually, and she relaxed her neck, as if coaxing him to go ahead and crush her throat. Her eyebrows twitched and the corner of her plump lips curled.
Without taking her fiery eyes off him, she reached and fiddled with the strings of his pants.
Stupid, stupid girl.
Lion pushed her onto the bed. Air whooshed out of her, but she didn’t scream. Within a few heartbeats, Lion had freed himself from his pants and was prowling on her with the grace of an animal getting ready to devour its prey. He pinned her legs apart and sheathed himself in her, much rougher than any of their previous nights. He was prepared to smother her screams, but she only gasped and let out a soft moan, which didn’t sound at all like an expression of fear.
He found his rhythm, still working himself up for the bloodshed. Kill her, make it look like an accident, like he’d lost his control. It wasn’t hard.
He tensed with wariness when he felt the girl wrapping her legs around his waist. A paranoid voice in him wondered if this was a wrestling move, an attempt to throw him off? Then the girl started thrusting her hips in sync with his rhythm.
Lion froze, so taken aback he stopped moving. What was she doing? His mind raced. Was this a trick?
The girl continued grinding against him. She slid herself up and down along the length of his shaft, moving slowly, like she was savouring the pace. The sight of her writhing underneath him left Lion breathless.
What was she doing?
She moved her hands over the hard muscles on his chest, shoulders, and arms. Her hands were soft and gentle, leaving a trail of fire on Lion’s skin wherever they touched. She avoided his brands and her delicate fingers were careful as they trailed past his bandaged shoulder. She still rocked her hips against him, her perky breasts bouncing with each movement, drawing Lion’s attention. Then, he finally noticed the smug grin on her face.
The bitch was playing. She was having fun.
Lion was about to kill her, and she thought…
He shook her hands off him, ignoring how his skin mourned the loss of her touch. He wanted her to fear him. To hurt. He grabbed one of those round breasts, savouring how it filled his palm, and he squeezed hard enough to make her yelp.
She bit her lower lip to keep that yelp from turning into a scream. Lion’s eyes were drawn to those lips. Were they always this red and full?
She snaked her hand along her navel, over her ribs, and cupped her other breast. Lion forgot how to breathe as he watched her play with herself. He hadn’t realised when he started to thrust again, matching the rhythm she desired.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” she whispered with a self-satisfied grin.
No, she really didn’t.
Lion covered her mouth with his palm, so he wasn’t distracted by those lips and that triumphant smile. Her eyes twinkled like she was winning a game he didn’t know they were playing. With his other hand, he cupped her hip, digging his fingers into her soft flesh. He had to erase that arrogant spark from her eyes. He ploughed her with the ferocity of a barely leashed animal. Her thighs clenched around his waist, her entire body tensing, like she was getting close to snapping. She grabbed his biceps, her fingernails raking his skin. She was whimpering, her muffled moans reverberating against his palm. Her warm and wet breath burned his skin.
Then, violent shudders took over her body.
Lion couldn’t hold back a groan as he watched her shake with wave after wave of release. How could she… She was not supposed to take pleasure from him. She was supposed to fear what he was doing to her, not enjoy it.
He watched breathlessly as she pushed his hand away, then guided his first two fingers into her mouth. She started sucking them, her tongue twirling around his digits. He made another animalistic sound. She still squirmed under him, panting, like she wanted more of him. Sweat plastered her hair to her face, blood rushed to her cheeks. She pushed his fingers back out. One of her eyebrows curled up as she smirked. “What’s wrong? Why did you stop?”
Lion growled, deep and low. “Fuck you.”
She giggled. She actually giggled !
He flipped her facedown, yanked her hips up, while pressing her head down. She gasped when he plunged himself in. She was drenched! He pounded her, his skin slapping against hers with a wet sound. She flailed her arms, and she bit her lips to keep herself quiet. He gathered her wrists at the small of her back and kept them pinned with one hand. He made a primitive sound when she thrashed to break free.
He found his speed, his fingers grabbing her thigh so firm, they left red marks. She turned her head and watched him over her shoulder, her face flushed, her eyes half closed, and her mouth open. Somehow, she freed one hand and reached back, holding onto his thigh. She urged him to move faster, plunging her nails into his skin. His body obeyed begrudgingly. Her pleasure built up to a climax, and she buried her face into the pillow to smother her scream as she came undone again.
Lion spilt himself into her, his grunt louder than he expected. He came down from a high he had never been to, and he was spent as he collapsed next to her.
She turned her head, watching him with those cunning eyes. Her red hair partially covered her face, her cheeks bright with colour, sweat glistening on her forehead. She smiled.
Lion grunted. He spun her, so she faced the wall and didn’t allow her to roll back. He couldn’t bear watching that glowing, victorious, arrogant expression.
“Animal,” she muttered.
Lion expected her to snuggle against the wall, as far away from him, like she had done the previous three nights. Instead, she shifted and spread, forcing Lion to retreat to the edge of the bed. She kept fidgeting, like she was trying to find a comfortable position, and she thrusted her hips against his crotch way too many times to count as accidental.
Lion faced away from her, shut his eyes, and willed himself to sleep. He was too tired to kill tonight. Too spent. The violence was drained out of him. Tomorrow , he thought. He would kill her tomorrow.