17. Aron
ARON
The fire’s dying out, but I don’t feed it any more wood. It’s a warm night. Better not be too visible while we sleep. I doubt there are any patrols this deep into the Rifterland. But there could be raiders roaming around.
Distracting me from my thoughts, Riley gets up and stumbles, nearly falling on top of me as she walks around me on unsteady legs, her swaying curves teasing me.
“And just where do you think you’re going, Hotshot?” I stop her in her tracks with my hand on her hip.
“I need to pee,” she slurs, stomping her foot. “Why, is that not allowed, Mr Control Freak?”
She’s absolutely hammered and has no idea what she’s saying.
Which is the only reason I don’t give her a hard time.
I consider her question. Even if she tries to run, she won’t get far in this state.
Should I come with her to make sure she doesn’t fall off the cliff?
Maybe, but Lena’s already getting on my nerves with her judgemental gaze as it is. Better not make it worse.
“Don’t go far and don’t go near the cliff,” I tell Riley. “If you’re not back soon, there’ll be consequences. The longer you take, the less you’ll like those consequences. Understood?”
“Yessir!” She mock salutes me. “You’re so fucking mean, you know that?” she adds, stepping out of my hold.
“Don’t make me prove to you just how mean I can really be,” I call after her before she disappears around the ruin’s wall.
“And just what the fuck are you doing with the girl?” Lena’s voice is sharp and accusing, commanding my attention.
And here we fucking go. I have my ways of shutting up unwanted voices and unsought-for arguments. But sadly, none that I have the stomach to use on a scavenger.
“What?” I ask like I’ve no idea what she means.
“Riley. Is she your fuck-toy or your prisoner or what? She looks like she hasn’t slept, eaten or been outside for a while.”
“She’s not my fuck-toy,” I assure her dryly, even as something in the thought tickles me more than I’d like to admit. “She’s a traitor. You know what I do with traitors.”
Lena shifts in her seat, her mouth hanging open. Her eyes dart in the direction of my tableau before returning to my face.
“You cannot be serious!” she gasps.
I shrug and draw my knife, tracing patterns in the dirt.
“Aron, come the fuck on. Are you a fucking Reprobate now? You wouldn’t ... you can’t!”
My anger flares, buzzing right under my skin. “Why the fuck not?” I snap. “Because she’s young and beautiful?”
“Because she’s on our side!” Lena shuffles closer to me until she’s right in my face, forcing me to look at the outrage in her expression. “Since when do you not trust my word?”
“I trust your word.” My tone is lethal. “I just don’t give a shit. Nothing can erase what she did.”
I flip the knife in the air, catching it, over and over.
“Use your brain, Aron. Tristan already sees you as more of a liability than an asset. He made it clear he wants to get more people on the inside. What do you think he’ll do when he hears he could’ve had this one and you took her out of the game?”
I stab the ground at hearing that man’s name. He may have managed to unite all the rebel groups, and for that he had my grudging respect for a while. But he lost it all by assuming this made him my boss.
“I don’t give a shit what Tristan wants. Just because he can stomach working with traitors doesn’t mean I have to,” I snarl. “As for her, you can’t expect me to forget what she did just because she’s beautiful.”
“You keep talking about beautiful, not me,” she points out. “Aron, she is so young. And she’s been through so much.”
Her words gnaw at me more than I’d like to admit.
“Can’t you see? She was a victim more than anything.”
I open my mouth to contradict her. But then I recall Riley telling me matter-of-factly that she had been raped three times, but only twice on the job.
I remember the photos of her from when she was shot and beaten.
I remember how shocked I was when she first emerged, and instead of stopping her, the world collectively decided to turn her into a symbol, pressuring her to keep going no matter the staggering risks to her life.
I remember signing a petition stating that she was being exploited by others’ greed when she should’ve been protected instead. I close my mouth, vaguely ashamed.
“Mercy is a vice,” I growl, grinding my teeth.
“What about forgiveness? Is that a vice too?”
“More often than not.”
“Come on, Aron. Don’t tell me you feel good about this?”
My stomach clenches, and my chest hurts.
“It doesn’t matter how I feel. It’s about right or wrong. Rule number one, traitors don’t get second chances. No exceptions. I’m an extinct breed, a man who lives by his principles.”
“What you are is wrath on legs,” she scoffs. “I’ve known you for five years. And year after year, I’ve watched you grow angrier and angrier. Your wrath became your religion, your moral compass, your sole purpose in life.”
“You say this like there aren’t so many good fucking reasons to be ang—”
“I think that girl is making you feel things other than anger. She’s making you care about things other than your anger.
And I think that scares the shit out of you.
Because she’s making you realise that the neat black-and-white world you created in your head to cope doesn’t exist. And here, in the real world, things are a lot more nuanced. ”
“What the fuck are you even trying to say?” I spit out aggressively, my fuse running short. “That I could ever have ... feelings ... for a traitor bitch?” I grimace with disgust. “You’re full of shit.”
“And you’re not?”
Shaking with searing-white fury, I ball my fists. I’m grinding my teeth so hard they might crack.
“If you hate her and if she’s just a traitor bitch to you, then why the fuck is she on a road trip with you? Why isn’t she in a cell? Why isn’t she a tableau yet?”
My rage finally ignites like fuel ready to explode, burning at the edges of my vision and making me see red. Scavenger or not, I’ll fucking have her for her words. I can see it in her eyes that she knows she’s pushed me too far. I can see her recoiling from me in alarm.
But before I can do anything, I hear a sound that floods my veins with acid.
“Help! Aron, help me!”
I jump up and follow Riley’s pained voice, heading into the shrubs behind the ruins, branches snapping underneath my boots and my mind racing through possibilities.
Raiders? Wild animals? Snakes? Don’t let it be a fucking snakebite.
Let it be something I can kill, something I can rip apart and drown in its own blood for daring to touch her.
I have plans for her! She’s mine to hurt, mine and no one else’s.
Gripping my flashlight like I want to break it in half, I move it from side to side, the shaky circle of light sliding over brambles and undergrowth.
I can’t see her anywhere. Fuck. If someone took her—if someone dared take my fucking prisoner—I will skin them alive. Literally. It’s hard work, but well worth it if the circumstances call for it.
“Riley!” I yell.
“Here! I’m here.”
My heart speeding up, I follow her voice to the right, navigating a maze of bushes and pushing branches out of the way. If someone had kidnapped her, they would have likely gagged her. That leaves injury and wildlife. Fuck.
“Here! Aron, right here!”
I whip around, and she squeezes her eyes shut as my light finally lands on her face. She’s tangled in a thorny bramble. She doesn’t seem hurt, bar shallow scratches all over her body. I groan, my heart rate stabilising.
“I fell,” she explains unnecessarily.
“What the fuck did you come all the way here for?”
“I didn’t! At first. I got lost on my way back,” she hiccups. “Oooow.” She shifts very slightly but groans with pain as the thorns dig deeper into her skin.
My throat constricts, but at the same time, my dick twitches in my pants.
She is essentially bound, helpless at my mercy, and the kind of pain she is in can’t cause her any serious damage.
Crouching down, I tug at one of the bramble branches, and it coils a little tighter around her.
She only hisses at first, wincing, but then lets out another ‘ow’ in that sweet voice of hers.
“Help me, please?” she begs me, her eyes large.
I pull at another coil, drawing more intoxicating noises out of her. “And why on earth would I help you, Hotshot?” I drawl.
I am now rock hard, electric warmth racing through my body.
“It hurts,” she complains, slurring her words.
“I know,” I assure her. “Did you forget, Hotshot? I love your pain.”
I yank the next thorny shoot a bit harder, and she closes her eyes and scrunches her face in reaction. I imagine her expression wouldn’t be all too different the first time I’d push my cock into her.
“Not fair!” she protests when I give her a respite from the torment. “I was only rushing back because you said you’d punish me if I took too long. That’s why I got lost.”
“Trying to be a good girl for me, were you?” I drone, holding one of the thin branches between my fingers, threatening more pain without causing it, getting drunk on the look of anticipation in her face.
Riley’s eyes darken when she finally detects the charged undercurrent to my words.
“Do you like being a good girl, Hotshot?” I taunt her. “Do you like to be praised and rewarded?”
She frowns, blushing. “I don’t know.”
“You’d better guess then,” I tell her. “Because I want to know. And if you can’t tell me, then there’s only one other way to find out ...”
I trace her thigh with my fingers, pausing at a place where a thorn has cut through the fabric of her trousers and scratched the surface of her skin. I push it deeper with my thumb, and she whimpers.
“Maybe,” she allows in a small voice. “But I think I’d like failing at it even more.”
My eyes snap up, my mouth hanging open. She still looks scared, but there’s something hard in her face, something triumphant. She knows she caught me by surprise.
“You like being punished then?” I rasp. My dick jerks violently, commanding me to seek release.
She opens her mouth and then closes it, blushing deeper.
“Will you help me up, please?” she pleads softly instead of replying.
There’s no good reason why I shouldn’t make her untangle herself. Why I shouldn’t make her scratch herself some more. It’s not like she can do herself any serious damage. There’s no good fucking reason at all why I should be reaching for my knife to cut her out of the barbed-wire-like coils.
But maybe I’m just overthinking it. Because if I want to do that, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t either.
She’s my prisoner. I can do with her as I please.
I don’t need to explain it to anyone, least of all to myself.
I want to control her pain. If I feel like sparing her some, then why the fuck shouldn’t I?
I set the flashlight on the ground, and a few knife slices later, she is free.
And since she knew better than to look at me with anything resembling smugness at this little victory of hers, I even hoist her up, helping her to her feet.
She’s now standing very close to me, her chest nearly touching my stomach, the top of her head barely reaching my shoulders.
Looking up at me the way she would look at me with her lips around my cock.
Watering blue eyes raised to mine, freckled cheeks flushed.
That image is all I need for lust to tingle along my spine, my balls aching.
I trace my thumb over her lower lip, feeling her hot breath on my skin.
“Don’t hurt me,” she pleads, her eyes unfocused. “You always want to hurt me.”
I don’t even know what she’s trying to say. I don’t think she does either. Fuck knows what she’d say if she knew just how far from my mind hurting her was.
“Can you even walk?” I ask her sceptically.
“S-sure!” She slips around me and stumbles in the wrong direction, immediately tripping over a branch on the ground.
“Ooops!” She stops and turns around a little slyly, like she’s hoping I may not have seen it.
“Right.”
I march over to her, and before she even has a chance to protest, I throw her over my shoulder. With my arm looped around her thighs, I carry her in the direction of our little camp.
“Hey!” I barely make it two steps before she starts pummelling my back with her fists. “Put me down!”
Just the excuse I needed to put the flashlight into my pocket and slap her ass sharply a few times. I leave my hand there, slipping my fingers between her legs.
She freezes with a sharp intake of breath as I trace her pussy over her trousers, torturing myself more than her.
“Careful, Hotshot,” I growl. “I like your protests. Don’t make me enjoy them more than I have.” I tease her with my fingers.
“You wouldn’t,” she says, sounding a lot more sober. “You hate me.”
“I hate your mind for what you did. But this”—I trace her entrance more firmly with my finger, making the thin fabric sink deeper between her folds—“This sweet little cunt, I take no issue with. Why would I?” My breath hitches when I realise that the textile is soaked.
“And fuck me, Hotshot, I think your pussy takes no issue with me either, weeping for me like that. Poor thing, it’s not its fault that it belongs to a traitor bitch. Maybe I should give it some relief?”
Her body turns to stone under my touch. She’s hardly breathing, her fear radiating off her in waves.
I badly want to touch her and force her to feel good like no one ever has, more than she believes possible.
I want her to get as addicted to the pleasure I can give her as I am to the idea of giving it to her.
The idea of being the first to make her enjoy fucking.
The first and the only man to make her revel in being ruined until all of her belongs to me.
I want to own her fear and mould it into a desire that will make her need me more than she needs air.
I want to corrupt her, reap that overripe innocence of hers until she can no longer remember what it was like to go a single day without craving my cock inside her.
And suddenly, it all becomes clear to me.
This is how I get to her. Not with pain and abuse.
Not with threats and fear. She’s too used to men treating her like shit.
What she isn’t used to is being taken care of.
Finally, it all clicks into place. I know how to crush her.
I’ve already found her weak spot. I’ve been gravitating towards it all along.
I just didn’t see it for what it was until now.
But I won’t do it like this. Not when she’s so drunk she may not even remember it. I want her sharp and aware of every moment. Even if my balls hate me for not fucking her into the ground right where we are.
“Relax, Hotshot.” I pat her ass. “It’s not so long ago that you couldn’t imagine begging me for food and look at you these days. It doesn’t matter what you think you do or do not want. By the time I finally fuck you, I promise I’ll have you begging for my cock too.”