Chapter Four #2
One thing she did know for certain was ‘inexhaustible’ didn’t count toward her physical wellbeing.
She was bone tired. Wrung dry like some overly used towel.
Heaving for air, stomping through muck, barely able to keep her eyes open, she moved solely because of fear.
If she didn’t put distance between her and the paladins, and if they got back up, she would be worse than tired. Dead.
“Now…now…look what we have here…lost little lady.”
“I really wish people would stop calling me little,” she grumbled to herself as she glanced around dizzily.
In her mad dash to safety, she’d blown past her threshold for giving a fuck.
Her clothes weighed her down. Boots? Full of mud and blood.
And she could feel her hair all but glued to her scalp.
Social propriety went out the window when they chased the mad woman down in the tall grass. “I’m five foot one but not little.”
She motioned flippantly at her soft belly and hips that were doing her no favors at the moment. The chaffing would be insufferable come morning.
“Still lost though…” The voice hissed around her and a shiver tickled up her spine.
Avelina turned more, searching the endless trees for the source of the voice.
Until she twisted forward once more, gasping for air as a large figure formed before her.
A tail wrapped around her and squeezed. With a pop, her world went dark.
“That’s better. Now I can see this pretty face of yers,” a soft coo brought her back to life.
She blinked sluggishly, her body floating in a deep basin.
It wasn’t till she was able to fully see, not in blurry swatches of color, but in full focus, that she recognized a massive tub full of steaming water.
Hands and ankles bound, droplets tickling down her cheek from her hair that was distinctly no longer coated in sinew, she was…
clean? Avelina thrashed backward into a strong hand.
Five long fingers spread along her naked shoulder blade and her whole body tensed.
“Easy there, little viper. Don’t wanna hurt yerself. ”
Avelina could feel the gag between her teeth, a thick fabric that thankfully only tasted of soap.
It was tied tight and burrowed against the back of her skull.
A worried groan escaped her as she turned her head inch by inch toward the voice.
The bathroom she found herself in wasn’t small, but it wasn’t grandiose.
Wooden walls with hints of water damage around the edges, exposed rafters and pillars, and a slanted floor.
She was in a massive basin, deep enough that she was covered in water up to her collar bone.
There were copper pipes that twisted into a large spigot to fill the tub.
The water was draining out of holes in the side of the basin, while it continuously filled up…
until the tip of a snake’s tail cranked it off.
Her heart skipped a beat as she met the gaze of a man.
He sat beside the tub, scrubbing her with some sort of net washcloth.
His focus was on her back, but steadily climbed up her hunched, frightened spine to her face.
Long, heavy strands of brown hair curtained his oval face.
He was all cheek bones and defined brows, but she noticed a distinct break in his nose that made him hard to forget. Especially when they drew him so well.
Cottonmouth.
His nails traced up her back to the nape of her neck, a soft, commanding purr her only warning. “Scream and I’ll give you a reason to howl, got it?”
Avelina nodded vigorously. The gag fell limp with a flick of his wrist. She waited a long time, ensuring those clawed fingers weren’t going to immediately burrow into her skull. Then she bent forward and spat the gag out of her mouth. “What am I doing here?”
“Currently, yer getting’ a bath. Quite the effort, I must say, scraping all that gore off yer skin.
When a pretty thing snaps, she does not disappoint,” he chuckled.
His hand dipped back into the water and she jerked away from his touch.
It was so second nature to curl away from his hand, that she didn’t even think how offensive that might look.
However, Cottonmouth only laughed harder, “No need for that.”
“I’m naked in a tub, bound and previously gagged.
I’d say there’s precedent!” The words flew out of her mouth without a second thought.
They filled the space and stole the air from her lungs.
Have I lost my mind? I must have. There was no explanation why a woman so familiar with the violence of man like Avelina was, would say something like that!
Panic spiked in her blood. She was sure Catalysta not only bought her soul but also replaced her with a woman with a death wish because Avelina Dalethorn would have never been so bold!
Her wide eyes memorized the wicked delight in Cottonmouth’s face.
It made him look even more identical to his wanted poster.
Like he was staring at the artist in the eye, daring him to draw it.
His fangs glinted as his lips spread into a toothy grin.
Her stomach bottomed out. He rose up above the basin, an inch of bone white, mostly yellow belly scales exposed to her around his waist. Cottonmouth bent over the top of it, pinning her to the other side like a gorgon turning her stone.
Except stone statues don’t tremble enough to make waves in the bath water.
His fingers wrapped around the edge of the tub beside her shoulder caps, caging her in. Looming over her, he tilted his head an inch to the right. Bright yellow eyes with sharp slits inspected her face. She stared right back, afraid to look away and miss the attack coming for her.
“Now, darlin’, if I wanted to hurt ya…” he trailed off, letting his gaze rake down over her huddled form.
Muscles that had no right clenching up like that suddenly locked down.
Her stomach twisted up into knots and a warm hum started between her clenched thighs.
Cottonmouth growled as his eyes snapped back up to her face, “I woulda done so already.”
“I’m sorry,” she blurted out and regretted it.
The shame and disgust sank into her skin and left her with a sour taste on her tongue.
Avelina didn’t want to cry, but she sniffled once and broke their eye contact.
Crybaby. Such a crybaby. Weak. Pathetic.
Coward. Tears welled fast, threatening to break her.
She took a hard bite of the inside of her cheek to keep them from spilling down her face. He’d already won.
She couldn’t stand to give him her tears too.
Cottonmouth pulled back from the tub and grabbed the net covered in soap again. “Now, where was I?”