Chapter 3
After spending the first three days as the sole focus of three sets of flinty eyes, it is strange when they do not exactly forget about me, but seem to see me as simply another thing that is... there while they lose themselves in their training.
One of them lets me out of the cage each morning, and when I return, tired after a day of living in the forest, there is always food waiting for me, a plate set inside among the furs.
I do not eat at the table with them, and they do not force me, or even invite me.
They eat in silence, mostly. I get the feeling they are communicating through their minds, and that whatever they are discussing is nothing good.
These last three days have felt as though we are living parallel lives.
The only thing they never leave with my food is a glass.
The broad water bowl remains inside my cage. Outside, I can drink however I please. Fresh water from the river, clear and glacier-fed from the mountains north of the capital. In here, I am not allowed to use my hands.
I wait until the last of their heavy footsteps fade into the passage, then kneel in front of the bowl and lower my mouth to the water.
Each time, I remember being caught.
The punishment waiting for me.
On the first day, the thought comes as my lips touch the surface.
Five more days.
The next evening, it returns.
Four more days.
Tonight, I lower my face towards the water, and it is already waiting for me, the bell at my pink collar tinkling and mocking me as I slurp.
Three more days.
I am alone. There’s almost no sound of them in the residence, and if I listen very, very carefully, I can just make out the steady breathing from one of the bedrooms. A wave of guilt and shame hits me alongside the rush of need. I wipe the water from my mouth and curl back up in my furs.
My gaze moves through the bars towards the enormous chair beside the fire. Is that where Arrek will do it? Right there, where he dragged me over his lap the first time?
Or will they take me downstairs?
I picture the underground room. The enormous bed surrounded by smoked mirrors. The dark restraints lying across the furs. Everything built for my body and waiting in the darkness.
My pussy clenches, and the heat grows stronger.
I listen, waiting for those heavy bootsteps, waiting for one of them to enter the hall and smell the lust I can’t hide.
To know that I’m sitting in the kennel with my pussy slick and forbidden from touching myself.
My hand runs lower, and the fact that I’m not allowed makes it even worse, this spiking shame and need and humiliation all rushing together and making me feel so hot.
They have relaxed so many rules, letting me outside and leaving me to choose how I spend my days, but not that one.
Worse, I’m too ashamed to ask for it. To ask one of those three for permission.
“Please, sir, may I be allowed to touch my pussy at night?”
I can imagine Arrek’s eyes turning hot, his lips curling upwards as he answers me.
“Only if you think of me spanking your ass red while you cum, bitch.”
Fuck!
Another wave of lust pulses through me, and my nipples are hard, aching points. That part of their attention—I hate that I miss it. I hate that I crave it. And the more ashamed I become, the more fiercely I ache.
I curl tighter beneath the furs and trap both hands against my chest.
Sleep comes in thin, broken pieces. I drift beneath it, only to wake with my heart pounding and the imagined sting of Arrek’s palm burning across my ass. Each time, I listen for footsteps and hear only the low crackle of the fire or the distant breathing of one of the men.
At some point during the night, iron scrapes softly against stone.
I open my eyes.
Arrek crouches before the hearth, his enormous body outlined by the low red glow of the embers.
He stirs them with the poker, lays another heavy log across the top and waits until flames begin licking around its edges.
Fresh heat rolls through the entrance hall and reaches me inside the cage.
He is shirtless, wearing only gray sleeping pants, and his muscled bulk glows in the firelight, a monster made of marble.
His eyes move towards the bars.
I lower my eyelids before he can catch me watching, leaving only the tiniest slit through which I can see him. He moves closer and crouches in front of the cage, watching me, his slate-gray eyes burning with reflected firelight.
The furs have twisted around my legs during my restless sleep, leaving most of my body bare.
Beneath the edge of the bench are the clothes they allow me, neatly folded beside my shoes.
Three days ago, when I returned sweating from another day in the forest, Arrek was equally sweaty and bruised from training.
He took one look at me and gave the command.
“No clothes in the cage, pet.”
And that was that.
Ever since, I have been naked whenever I am in here. The only thing around my neck is the pink collar with the loud, ringing bell, as if even as they ignore me, they want me to remember every humiliation, so that every movement tells me exactly what I am.
Now his eyes roam over my body, and I wish I had pulled the furs higher before pretending to sleep. His gaze runs over every exposed inch of me, shamelessly staring.
At my ass.
He is imagining it. I know he is. Imagining how he will pull me over his lap and spank me so hard that I cry. I know his brutal heart. Only Mero rushing in and commanding him to stop stayed his hand the first time.
He wants to hurt me.
My nipples harden. I can’t help it. He is just so big, so strong. I want to twist away, to cover myself, but heat grows between my legs, and to my horror, he inhales, his huge nostrils flaring as he breathes in my scent.
Then he licks his lips. A wolfish grin spreads across his face, and I know he knows I am awake. He sensed the change in my scent. There is a victorious, cruel gleam in his eyes as his cock hardens, thickening at my arousal.
He reaches for the blue-black ring around his finger.
I bite back a gasp as he pulls it off.
The change is instant. One moment, he is wolfish and cruel. The next, his lips draw back to bare his teeth. He drags in a breath, his eyes rolling upwards as his cock throbs and swells to its full, terrible length, thickly outlined beneath his pants.
He shoves the ring back onto his finger and leaves, his bare feet striking heavily against the stone. A moment later, I hear flesh slapping against flesh from his bedroom, the sound fast and insistent as he pleasures himself while imagining me. It ends with a low, growling grunt.
I know how much seed he has just spilled.
My hand slips down between my legs, my pussy burning with need, but I clench my jaw and trap it against my thigh, trying desperately not to touch myself.
Hating the unfairness of it all, because until these hundred days are over, these three own me, and they decide.