Chapter 5
The four books remain beside my furs. I gather them from the cage and carry them to the enormous chair beside the hearth, then climb onto the seat.
It swallows me, the broad leather arms rising on either side.
I settle facing the hallways that lead deeper into the residence.
From here, I can watch for any of them coming.
I arrange the books beside me. I have read the guide to Colossian birds so many times that I can picture every illustration.
The calligraphy book is still completely useless, and I could read the mystery again, but even a third reading will not change the fact that everyone was being poisoned by that sneaky old woman.
She wanted revenge because the baker’s great-great-grandfather stole her great-great-great-grandmother’s sourdough starter and built the family bakery around it.
I stare at the final book.
It has come to this.
Fluid dynamics.
I pick it up and open it to the first chapter.
Dense blocks of text surround diagrams of water passing through pipes at different pressures. I flip and flip until I reach a section about rivers bending around sharp curves.
One diagram makes me stop.
Arrows show the main current rushing around the outside of a bend, while a smaller current circles backwards along the inner bank.
There is a place downstream where the river does exactly that. Whenever I swim too close to the inside of the bend, the water seems to catch me and push me backwards. I have watched leaves travel upstream there before circling out and rejoining the main current.
I always thought there must be some strange formation beneath the water.
According to the book, the river pulls away from the inner bank as it turns. Some of the water curls back into the space left behind, creating a current that flows against the rest.
“Huh.”
“Enjoying it?”
I look up. Arrek walks into the kitchen, his enormous arms folded across his chest. He has washed and changed since training, and a clean shirt stretches too tightly over his shoulders and chest.
“More than I expected.”
His gaze drops to the book in my lap. “Which section?”
I hold back a sigh. I’m not in the mood to be quizzed. “The one about currents separating around river bends. There’s a place downstream where the water pushes me backwards. I never understood why.”
“Glad I could be of service.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wrote it. Talarin found a version in the Common tongue.”
“Hmm. Is that why the Headmaster wants you to teach?”
“He wants me to teach combat engineering.” He sits in the huge leather chair across from me, as though I invited him to join me. “It’s a lot easier to theorize when you’re not under mortar fire.”
I can’t help the smirk that comes to my lips for an instant before disappearing. “That sounds like the first thing you’d say to a class.”
He points to the open page. “Explain the diagram.”
“Really? Look, I didn’t want to bother you three by asking for more books, but this was kind of a last resort. If you’ve got any more mysteries lying around…”
“Explain it.”
This time, I can’t hold back the sigh. “The main current pulls away from the inside of the bank as the river turns. Some of the water curls backwards into the space left behind, so it flows against the rest until it rejoins the river.”
“Good.”
I close the book. I don’t like the way he says it, as though he expected me not to be able to answer. “My turn. What species of tree has sap that can heal a cut?”
“We don’t need that. We have Med-Bays.”
“Interesting. And if you’re under artillery fire in a forest and can’t reach one, I don’t suppose that would be useful information.”
His eyes narrow.
“That wasn’t an answer, so you have zero. Next question. Two trails cross in soft mud. One set of prints is an inch wide, the other two. Name a likely animal for each.”
“Squirrel and raccoon.”
“That’s true. I would have also accepted fox for the second.” I settle deeper into the chair. “Very good. Last one. Let’s see if you can get two out of three. What keeps bringing the weed back beside the lower vineyard?”
“The wind carries its seeds over the south wall. I cut it back every month, and every month it returns.”
“Wrong. It spreads through pale runners beneath the soil. Every time you cut it back, you leave broken pieces behind, and each one grows into another plant. Wait until the ground is wet, then pull out the entire web at once.”
Arrek becomes very still. I can see it in his frustration: he’s remembering the day I signed the contract, when he announced he was going out to do the back-breaking work of clearing it yet again. Now he knows I could have saved him all that wasted effort.
But I wasn’t allowed to speak…
And I hadn’t wanted to. I hadn’t made a single gesture to stop him.
“One out of three.” I smile sweetly. “Well, isn’t it fun being quizzed?”
He leans back, frustration simmering behind his slate-gray eyes.
Then his grin turns wolfish again.
“Perhaps I’ll quiz you while I spank you. Every wrong answer, I’ll turn your ass a little redder.”
I grip the closed book against my lap. “You don’t need to torture me.”
His nostrils flare as he draws in my scent.
“I think you like being tortured by me. You were thinking about it last night, weren’t you? Pretending to be asleep while that little pussy got wet?”
My face burns.
“Where are you going to do it?”
“Here.” His gaze moves over the enormous chair surrounding me. “Right here, where you’re sitting. I think I’ll have you in a pretty little skirt, one I can pull up, and pink, frilly panties. You’re going to get dolled up first.”
“Why?”
“So your tears streak your makeup.”
“Arrek, you’re scaring me.”
“I know. You’re frightened, and you want it anyway. I’m becoming addicted to that mixture, that little spice of fear mingling with your lust. I can’t wait to breathe it in while you’re over my lap. I’m going to make you count every spank against that gorgeous little ass of yours.”
“Please, I…” My fingers tighten around the book. “I’ll let you do it twice if you don’t do it so hard.”
He snaps his fingers.
“Cage. Now, pet.”
I stand instantly, my body obeying before my mind can process the command, and look towards the cage. Arrek leans back, watching me, and I remember his words.
No clothes in the cage, pet.
The fluid-dynamics book remains clutched against my chest. I place it upon the cushion, then cross to the bench.
The bell announces every step. I strip quickly, without ceremony, and hastily fold my clothes, placing them in my spot beneath the bench.
I’m not going to give him time to enjoy a show, nor am I going to delay and risk giving him another excuse to punish me.
I lower myself onto my hands and knees and crawl through the open cage door.
“Stop.”
My body locks at the command. My hands are buried in the furs, but my knees remain upon the limestone. My cheeks burn as he holds me there, half inside and half outside, leaving my ass raised and my shaved pussy exposed to him.
Behind me, the heavy feet of his chair grind across the floor as he turns it towards the cage.
Then comes the slow rasp of his zipper.
“You have such a perfect, tight little virgin cunt. I can’t wait to stretch you out, to see it stretched out around my cock.”
Behind me, a slow, slick rhythm begins, skin dragging over skin beneath the faint creak of the leather chair.
“In your cage, pet. Quickly now.”
I scurry the rest of the way inside, my cheeks burning.
After turning within the narrow space, I remain on my hands and knees, facing him through the bars.
I have no idea whether I should kneel, sit or wait exactly as I am.
The only thing I can focus on is trying not to make out the details of that huge, throbbing shape.
“Are you thirsty, pet?”
My lips part, but I cannot tell whether he expects an answer.
“Drink. Show me you’ve learned how. Or perhaps you want to use your hands again and earn yourself another punishment?”
I position myself carefully over the water bowl. There’s no dignified way to do this. I extend my tongue and lap at the water. The bell rings at my throat.
He runs his hand slowly up and down that huge, thick rod of marble, watching me drink. Pre-cum already drips down it. It looks designed to invade, to force its way past all my resistance.
I drink slowly, carefully. I have become practiced at it. Less water drips down my neck than the first time I did it, but the mere fact that I am becoming practiced at this makes it all the more humiliating.
The familiar, frustrating need spreads between my legs and through my body. My nipples always feel so sensitive when I get turned on, and now my breath catches as I drink.
“Kneel,” he orders, and I snap into position.
The change almost feels like a stretching routine. It has become so ingrained, the way my body obeys and turns. I kneel with perfect posture, my breasts pressed out, my nipples hard little points upon which his eyes are fixed. I clasp my hands behind my back, interlacing my fingers.
I know I look like the perfect little cocksucker.
But he doesn’t come forward and force that massive, thick cock through the bars. Instead, he leans back, masturbating, and I can see frustration tightening around his eyes. I don’t know why, unless watching is no longer enough for him.
Even as he enjoys my body, he is craving more.
He wants to be inside me. Wants to ruin me.
And I have denied him that.
He breathes in, tasting the scent of my need. His expression hardens, his hand moving faster as he strokes that huge, throbbing shaft. His hand gleams in the firelight, covered in his thick pre-cum.
I think of how that seed let him slip that huge dick down my throat. How it forced open that passage and claimed it. And how he promised he is going to shove every inch of that too-thick thing into my ass, stretching me around it.
My whole body shivers. Tingles rush up and down my spine, and his expression turns into that wolfish grin as he smells my naked lust.
“You want to play with your pussy, don’t you, pet?”
His voice is low, rumbling and deep. I almost feel it more than I hear it.
My fingers twitch behind me because he’s right. I want so desperately to find my release. But I keep them locked, tight behind my back, resisting, the position protecting me.
“I give you permission to play with yourself,” he continues. “Stop resisting what you want and come for me. Think about how I’m going to spank you until you sob and cry, until you’re totally broken over my lap, craving nothing more than obeying me.”
I gasp. I want so desperately to run my hands over my breasts, between my legs, but I focus on my perfect posture. On keeping my chin exactly level, my eyes exactly how I was trained.
I see the frustration return to his gaze as I resist.
Faster, faster his hand goes, building towards a crescendo.
“Open your mouth,” he says.
I obey, parting my lips.
“Stick out your tongue.”
My tongue juts out as far as it can, and it sends him over the edge.
His cock seems to flex, angling downwards towards me. He is far away, but huge streams of his pulsing seed shoot out with ferocious force, wetting the bars and coating the floor in an obscene river.
He growls and groans, finding his release, but his right hand forms a fist even as his left pumps every last drop out.
He gets up, anger in his movements, zips himself up quickly and marches away into his bedroom.
The second he is out of sight, I roll into the furs, a panting mess. My pussy is a hot, needy thing between my legs. All I can think about is all that anger when he gets me over his lap, when he finally gets what he wants.
And I’m craving it. Craving it so badly it scares me.
Then I realize I have permission to touch my pussy.
He gave it, and he didn’t say it expired. Until that permission is withdrawn, I am allowed.
My hand strays down between my legs. I’m so wet. It’s insane. I know I would come so fast, all this pent-up need filling me.
And the rush of shame.
How they have molded me to crave these dirty, shameful things. How they have corrupted every part of me.
I think of how, when I’m over his lap, I’m going to be a soaking-wet mess, aching for his touch.
And I decide to stop judging myself.
I need to stop pretending my body doesn’t want this, even as my mind rebels. The only way to get through these hundred days is to let myself surrender to the addictive, torturous need while keeping my mind my own.
With that, my hand reaches down as if it is controlled by someone else. I find my clit and circle it furiously, holding back my moans. My hips buck as I imagine his hand against my ass, harder and harder each time.
Then I slow my hand.
Even now, I’m treating this as something shameful, something to be rushed, to finish quickly and pretend it never happened, a release of my dark need before it can twist my mind further.
I slow my fingers, and my other hand runs over my body, touching my hyper-sensitive nipples, feeling my too smooth skin.
I bite my lip, imagining my cries of pain answering that echoing crack of flesh upon flesh.
Begging him to stop, wriggling, trying to escape, unable to get away from his iron grip.
I reach down, and touch the narrow strip of pubic hair that Talarin decided would adorn my body, and feeling the way he’s changed me puts me over the edge.
I clap my hand over my mouth as I come, whimpering.
Then I feel this full, complete satisfaction.
I pull my furs around me, the release freeing something inside me.