Onyx
To say that he was apprehensive was an understatement.
He didn’t want to do it, but the Bancroft witch wasn’t going to give him an out.
He stared into the fogged-up unbreakable glass of the bathroom mirror and scowled. This was not going to be a good night.
It was smaller than the others he’d worn, and it wasn’t phallic, but he knew what it was.
He went rigid. “I’m not wearing that,” he announced.
First the kissing, then the frotting, and now a cock cage and a plug? No. Absolutely the fuck not.
Dominic glanced over from where he was finishing dressing. “Come here.” He held out his hand.
Onyx saw the writing on the wall the second he did it, and it made rage boil just beneath the surface.
Dominic was going to do that thing where he tried to make everything seem oh-so-reasonable.
He would try to talk Onyx into wearing it while making it seem like it was something he wanted to do.
He scowled even as he crossed the room and went to stand next to Dominic.
“I’m not,” he repeated. “I’ll wear the cage because, whatever, but I’m not wearing the plug, Dominic.”
Dominic tipped Onyx’s face up with a finger under his chin and dropped a kiss on his lips.
Onyx had gotten used to the kisses over the past several days, though it was still new and strange, and he didn’t think he liked them. He didn’t pull away, but he was annoyed enough to where he didn’t even pretend to kiss back.
“This isn’t like the others that caused discomfort and arousal,” Dominic told Onyx in some misguided attempt to reassure him. “No enchantments on it whatsoever. You won’t even find it uncomfortable, I promise.”
“You wear it if it’s so comfortable,” Onyx retorted.
“I’m not wearing it. I’ve done everything you want.
All the…” The rubbing their cocks together, the way Dominic had touched him, and even the way Onyx had tentatively touched Dominic that morning.
“Stuff. But I’m not doing that. You just want me to get used to having something in my ass,” he accused.
Dominic smiled. “You have. You’ve been doing very well, and I’m proud of you. And I haven’t pushed you for more than you’ve been ready for, have I?” He lifted a hand to stroke Onyx’s cheek lightly, but Onyx stepped back out of the range of that touch.
“Don’t,” Onyx warned, his voice low. “Don’t try to manipulate me like that. Don’t try to make it sound reasonable.” He may not have had a finger on the pulse of most of Dominic’s games, but he understood this one.
Dominic tilted his head to the side. “I’m willing to negotiate on this,” he offered after a moment. “I won’t make you wear it now, but later tonight, you’ll let me use my fingers.”
Onyx blinked at him, not following at first. “Use your fingers…” It dawned on him, and he scowled at Dominic. “I thought you weren’t going to push me?” he retorted. “That it was about you giving me the world and whatever, that it was what I wanted? I don’t want anything in my ass.”
“I will give you the world and anything I can reasonably offer you, so long as you are in my arms,” Dominic agreed.
“In my arms and in my bed. I know you don’t, for now, and I’m not demanding to fuck you, am I?
But having things in your ass, including my fingers and plugs, is something that we’re going to work on.
So you can pick which of the two you’d like.
Either you can wear the plug for the duration of the dinner party, and it can be removed right afterwards, or I can use my fingers in your ass tonight in bed. ”
Onyx’s eyes were dark with fury — and, weirdly, he felt betrayed, too.
He’d thought they were past Dominic making demands like this.
Hadn’t he been trying to meet him halfway?
He’d fucking touched Dominic’s cock that morning.
“Why isn’t it enough?” he demanded, his voice little more than a growl.
“I keep giving and giving, and you just waltz in and demand more.”
But he was the one making the mistake of thinking that he was what Dominic treated him like: a lover. He wasn’t. He was a slave, even still, and that meant Dominic thought he owned him.
Dominic did own him.
Fuck.
“Why are you doing this now? Trying to impress your fucking friends?” Onyx demanded.
Dominic sighed. “Onyx, I’m not asking you to do anything more than has always been implicitly included in anything I’ve said before.
I’m not asking to fuck you now, and I’m not expecting to.
We both know that you’re not ready for that.
And why would I try to impress anyone when there’s nothing that they would know about it one way or the other? ”
Onyx hugged his arms against his chest, that nagging sense of betrayal only growing.
He hadn’t thought Dominic would do anything like this, would demand anything like this, and even the negotiation was bullshit.
Maybe Dominic had even set him up so he’d be grateful for the idea of only having fingers inside of him.
Fuck, he hated Dominic sometimes, and it was easy to lose sight of that until he pulled shit like this.
“I’m just a toy to you,” Onyx said bitterly. “Fuck, I’m…” He shook his head, letting out a despairing huff of a laugh. “I’m so stupid.”
Because he’d let himself think that maybe Dominic wasn’t so bad, these days.
“Onyx, come here.” Dominic held his hand out again. “You are not a toy to me, my beautiful tiger.”
“That’s bullshit, and we both know it’s bullshit,” Onyx snapped at him, crossing his arms against his chest. “This whole thing is bullshit.”
Dominic held his hand out and waited.
Onyx let out an irritated huff, but he knew that refusing was only going to lead to more things he didn’t want.
He closed the distance between them again, but he didn’t take the outstretched hand, only staying within reach of it.
“I’m not wearing the fucking plug. Not now, not ever. ” He glared at Dominic.
Dominic took hold of Onyx lightly by the hips and tugged him in to kiss him again. “Have I lied to you?” he asked softly. “Has anything I’ve done caused you pain when I’ve promised only pleasure?”
“Stop that,” Onyx muttered. “You’re doing that thing I hate. The lesser of two evils is still fucking evil, Dominic!”
“What is evil about feeling pleasure?” Dominic countered in that smooth way of his that tried to make everything sound reasonable.
“Don’t,” Onyx snapped. “Just… don’t.” He let out an agitated sound, wanting to pull away but knowing Dominic would only draw him in closer again, over and over, because Onyx apparently wasn’t allowed to have any fucking space anymore.
“There’s nothing evil about pleasure, and you’ve entrusted me with showing you how good things will be. I take that trust seriously.” Dominic squeezed Onyx’s hips lightly. “Go get dressed. Our guests will start arriving soon.”
Onyx eyed him. “I didn’t agree to anything,” he muttered, but he had a feeling he’d gotten outmaneuvered.
Not that that was anything new; he was used to Dominic being able to manipulate circles around him.
He went to the bed, dropping the towel. He let out a long-suffering sigh before fumbling with the cock cage.
Maybe if he wore this, Dominic would forget about the plug, or his fingers.
Or maybe this had been Dominic’s plan all along, to get him distracted by the idea of something worse so he didn’t protest the cock cage.
“I don’t need this either,” Onyx complained. “I’m not going to get turned on around your crazy fucking friends.”
Dominic chuckled as he moved to help Onyx into the cage and secure it. “I know you won’t,” he said. “This is just because I enjoy knowing you are wearing it sometimes.” He dropped another kiss to the back of Onyx’s neck before returning to finish getting dressed.
“You’re sick,” Onyx muttered, but he finished pulling on the uncomfortable clothes.
He wondered if Dominic was going to keep pushing the plug, if one day he was going to accept it like he accepted the cock cage.
He chased those thoughts away immediately, then turned back to Dominic. “All right, fine, I’m ready.”
“I’m afraid you can't have your headphones tonight,” Dominic said. “But all you need to do is sit beside my chair and ignore anything going on, though you will socialize after dinner.”
The idea of the dinner was bad enough; the knowledge that he couldn’t have his headphones made it worse.
He sighed, but this wasn’t something worth fighting Dominic on.
Besides, then he was continuing, and the idea of socializing had him both horrified and fascinated all at once.
“Who will I socialize with?” he asked suspiciously.
Dominic chuckled. “You will see." He stepped out into the hall and held the bedroom door open for Onyx to join him.
Here went nothing.
Dominic’s hand on the back of his shoulder made his skin crawl, but Onyx didn’t fight it as they went downstairs, straight into a sitting room.
Two witches were already standing there, along with a girl who was seated on a cushion on the floor.
Dominic guided him to a similar cushion, right next to the biggest chair in the room, then stepped away so he could approach his other guests.
Even as he fought the instincts that told him to fight, Onyx plopped down onto the cushion without a word.
He recognized all too well that he was becoming well-trained, and it made him want to do something, anything, to make it clear he was still feral.
But Dominic would consider that acting out, and it likely wouldn’t lead to anything he liked.
He eyed the girl, who knelt quietly with her hands on her knees, palms up, and made a face.
She was obviously not a problem, not like he was, and he didn’t think he’d want to socialize with her — or any of the other submissive slaves that would be there.
Onyx wasn’t like them.
He wasn’t broken.
Yet, a tiny voice in the back of his head taunted him.
Gritting his teeth, Onyx looked up to watch Dominic interact with the other witches. All three of them ignored Onyx, which was both irritating and a relief. He’d liked the way Dominic’s guests had reacted to him at the last party, wary of him and what he might do, except…
Except everything had fallen apart after that. Except he had fallen apart after that.
How much of that had come from the stress of the party, and how much had come from the weight of Dominic’s expectations?
Movement alerted him to the arrival of another person, and Onyx glanced in that direction — only to freeze when he recognized the blond witch. All of the color drained from his face and while he tried to tell himself to be silent and still, panic quickly eradicated everything else.
Before he could stop himself, he was on his feet, backing quickly away.
He needed to get away from the monster who’d taken him down with such ease, who was responsible for the jaw lock and the piercings and the plugs and so much more.
Where was Onyx’s fight now? Where was his aggression, his ability to defend himself? It felt as though it had drained out of him, replaced only by the cold breath of fear.
“Please, have a seat,” Dominic told Nathan Warwick, then turned to Onyx.
Why had Dominic brought him here? Was he going to do something else to him? Had Dominic decided to break their agreement after all, despite how fucking obedient Onyx had been?
Dominic approached Onyx, swiftly but without visible aggression, holding his hand out toward him. “Everything is all right, Onyx,” he said quietly as he got closer. “He’s not going to touch you. No one is.”
Onyx’s paranoia made it impossible for him to keep his panic completely at bay. While he was aware of Dominic’s presence — of the presence of others, too, who were seeing him react out of something that felt suspiciously like fear — his eyes lingered on the blond witch.
He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, which was strange because he wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t. He was fine. There was no need to be afraid.
But he couldn’t get a full breath into his lungs.
“I c-can’t,” Onyx whispered, giving a quick shake of his head. He’d retreated deeper into the room, he realized, in his attempt to put as much distance as possible between himself and that witch. His eyes flicked toward the door, but Nathan was in the way. “Please, I can’t.”
Dominic slid a hand under Onyx’s hair as he stepped close. “Shh,” he murmured softly into Onyx’s ear. “You can. He’s not going to be anywhere near you. Just like the party, you don’t have to be involved. You don’t have to do anything but sit there.”
Onyx loathed himself for his own reaction. He should’ve been reacting like a soldier, lashing out at the enemy. He shouldn’t have turned inward like he was doing, damn it! But that day so long ago had been particularly brutal, and it was like all of it was being brought back to the surface again.
One touch, and Onyx had gone down, fully aware and conscious but unable to do a damn thing while Nathan had done so many things to him.
Do you want him to feel the piercings, or should I prevent the pain?
Onyx stepped closer to Dominic, aware that he was using the Bancroft witch for comfort and thinking of how absurd that was but unable to stop it from happening. “I don’t think I can do this,” he managed to get out.
Fuck, he was pathetic.
Dominic frowned as he looked down at Onyx, lifting a hand to brush against Onyx’s cheek. “You can,” he stated. “You will.”
Dominic’s guests were at least pretending not to watch, but Onyx knew they could see the way he’d turned to Dominic after his visceral reaction to Nathan.
Onyx didn’t want to be a coward. He wasn’t a coward. So the urge to run away was foreign to him. Even with Dominic, he always wanted to fight. But with that witch…
Yeah, he wanted to retreat.
To flee.
“I’m not weak,” he threw out in a low voice, tense as he tried to work through his own reactions. “I’m not.”
“No,” Dominic said. “No, you are not.”
Onyx took a deep breath.
“I will not let him touch you,” Dominic said quietly. “I promise.”
This time.
Onyx swallowed hard, then nodded. “I didn’t mean to…” To what? Make Dominic look bad? He should’ve been downright pleased that he was doing that. But he wasn’t, because it made himself look even worse. “Okay,” he said, trying to gather himself. “I’ll be okay.”
He wished he had his headphones. He wished he had lashed out. He wished he’d done anything but turn to the man who was ultimately responsible for what Nathan had done to him for solace.
“His ability requires touch, and his magic is no match for mine otherwise,” Dominic murmured, giving the back of Onyx’s neck a light squeeze.
Keeping the hand on the back of Onyx’s neck, Dominic returned to his chair, guiding Onyx back to his place on the cushion nearby.