Chapter 10 #2
Mero’s expression does not change, but his hand slowly retreats to the table. For the first time, the Commissioner shows surprise, his eyebrows furrowing.
“And what would that be?”
I point towards the cage beside me. “When they caught me, Mero carried me over his shoulder, which I believe was legal, since he believed I was stealing. They put me in that cage, which was also fine. But when I needed to use the washroom, they only allowed me to do it if I wore a leash.”
The Commissioner’s gaze moves towards the cage, then returns to my bare throat.
“I’m just one human. I had no weapon; there were three of them, and I had no way to escape.
Talarin told me that if I didn’t put on the collar and leash, he wouldn’t let me out.
My only choices were to put it on or wet myself inside their cage.
So I put it on. It was very humiliating, and I don’t think it was legal. ”
Silence settles over the table. The Commissioner turns towards Talarin. “You did that?”
“Yes, I did.”
There is no hesitation or shame in his voice.
“Gods. She cannot weigh more than one hundred pounds. What possible legal justification could you have had?”
Talarin meets his gaze without looking away, but he does not respond.
“What? One hundred pounds? I’m at least one-forty.” I stare at him, confused, before it occurs to me that the women in Aurelian harems probably tell them they weigh thirty or forty pounds less than they actually do. These men are so enormous that they have no frame of reference.
“There were actually two transgressions involving the collar and leash.” I look directly at Mero.
“He did it again this morning. I didn’t argue this time.
I just put the collar on because I didn’t want to be humiliated into doing it again.
He took the leash and used it to walk me through the house.
I was still trapped inside the estate, and there was nowhere I could possibly go. ”
Mero’s slate-grey eyes remain fixed upon mine.
“When Talarin said your Reaver was almost here, I took off the leash myself. I left the collar on to see whether Mero would try to hide it from you. He told me to remove that as well.”
The Commissioner turns towards him. “Is that accurate?”
“Yes.”
“Did you believe the restraint was necessary?”
Mero pauses. “She evaded us for six months. She is skilled. But inside these walls, there was no threat of escape.” His eyes remain locked upon mine. “We simply wanted to.”
The Commissioner sits back, looking between the three of them as he shakes his head.
“Your status as Elites does not place you above the law. If I were acting as your legal counsel, I would have advised you not to incriminate yourselves. These are serious allegations that the three of you have just admitted to. If she chooses to pursue them, I will be required to bring them before the court.”
A moment of silence passes.
“Actually...” I place my fingertips beside the contract. “I’ll withdraw both complaints if the Term is reduced to three months.”
Arrek looks at me, slowly shaking his head as a slight smile pulls at his lips. For the first time, I understand the grudging respect in his eyes, the respect I earned through month after month of being hunted by him. He thought I was broken. Beaten.
Now, in some sick way, he is enjoying being outmanoeuvred by me again. But I can’t pretend this is a true victory, and he knows it, too. Because I’m still playing his game.
Mero reaches across the table before the Commissioner can answer. He draws the contract towards himself and takes up the pen. With one hard stroke, he crosses out Two calendar years. Beneath it, in large, precise letters, he writes:
ONE HUNDRED DAYS
His eyes lift and lock upon mine. He repeats the alteration in the Aurelian version, then signs beneath both changes in the same fine, controlled hand that filled the contract.
“One hundred days, and you withdraw both complaints. Sign, or go with him. Perhaps we’ll have prison cells beside yours.”
Arrek chuckles.
Talarin takes the pen next. His signature flows across the page in beautiful, precise script, every stroke given the same care he brings to everything else.
Arrek signs last. His handwriting is far finer than I expected, nearly as elegant as Talarin’s, but his strokes are quicker and more forceful. He does not take his time with it.
Then he places the pen on the table in front of me.
One hundred days.
One hundred days under their total control.
One hundred days of being fed, groomed, controlled and kept as their pet.
Except I won’t be treated like their pet. Legally, I will be their pet.
If they don’t want to let me speak for the next hundred days, there is nothing I can do about it. If they want to make me eat from their hands for a hundred days, there is nothing I can do about that, either.
And if I refuse their commands, I know what it gets me. They’ll finally be allowed to put me over one of their laps and spank me until the next time my obedience is instant.
I take the pen and sign Natalie beneath their names.
The Commissioner looks down at my signature.
“Your full name?”
“No.”
He waits, but I offer nothing else. Mero gives the slightest shrug.
The Commissioner says nothing. He signs beneath our names upon both versions of the agreement.
“The agreement is now in force.”
Mero looks from the signed contract to me, then towards the cage.
“Pet, into your pen.”
The Commissioner is still sitting there. He does not so much as flinch. His expression remains calm, as though seeing a human woman ordered into a cage is the most natural thing in the world.
My face burns, but refusing now would mean breaking the agreement less than a minute after signing it. I gather the enormous robe around my legs, pull myself off the bench and freeze, looking from Mero to the cage.
I wait for him to order me to strip first, to make me crawl inside naked in front of a stranger.
The command does not come.
The little door stands open. I lower myself onto my hands and knees, keeping the robe gathered around my body as I crawl through. The dark heartwood bars rise around me again, dividing everything I see into narrow pieces.
Mero stands. His cock is fully erect beneath the white robe, harder than I have ever seen it.
The enormous length strains upwards like an iron bar, the fabric soaked with Aurelian precum until it clings to every obscene detail.
I can make out a thick vein running along almost the entire shaft, pulsing against the wet cloth.
Despite that monstrous arousal, he takes his time. His slate-grey eyes move slowly over me with such possessiveness that another wave of heat burns across my face. Then he steps away from the cage, leaving the little door standing open.
Only then does the Commissioner rise. Mero joins him, and all three Aurelians accompany him towards the courtyard.
Their cocks tent the fronts of their formal white robes, impossible to miss, but the Commissioner never glances down or alters his expression.
To him, their condition is perfectly ordinary.
The Commissioner reaches the archway, then pauses and looks back towards the three Aurelians.
“There is still the matter of the harvest. I trust you are making arrangements to honour your delivery contract. Ruttelle is quick to litigate, and I would prefer not to make another trip out here.”
Arrek answers with a low grunt. Mero’s jaw tightens, while Talarin’s expression becomes so still that it tells me more than any open reaction could.
The Commissioner’s eyes flick towards me.
“My apologies. That matter falls outside these proceedings.”
He turns and continues into the courtyard, accompanied by the triad.
Ruttelle. I commit the name to memory.
The Commissioner’s Reaver awakens outside.
Its low hum deepens until the limestone beneath my hands begins to vibrate.
Between the bars, through the open archway, I catch a glimpse of the attack ship as it rises above the courtyard wall.
It hangs against the morning sky for one long heartbeat, then turns and disappears over the forest.
The sound slowly recedes, carrying away the only man on this estate who does not own me. Then even the hum is gone.
I am horribly alone with the three who do.
Their boots strike the limestone as they return through the archway and stop together.
All three pairs of grey eyes settle upon me.
Hungry. Ravenous. Their enormous bodies remain perfectly still, but the fronts of their formal white robes twitch and bob in unison, as though even their cocks share a mind.
Precum has soaked through the immaculate fabric, moulding it around erections that look almost as thick as my arm.
The ordered folds and blue-black edging only make the obscenity of them worse.
I try to tear my eyes away, but I cannot.
Mero’s length rises iron-straight, the thick vein running along it visible through the wet cloth.
Talarin’s sweeps upwards in a smoother arc, proportioned with the same frightening precision as the rest of him.
Arrek’s is the heaviest, curving downwards threateningly, as though it were designed to fuck me from behind and reshape my insides around it.
Mero steps forward.
“Strip.”