Chapter 5 #2
He rose from the throne in one fluid motion, releasing my chin, and suddenly he was towering over me—all that impossible height and ancient power condensed into a form that made my body ache with want.
The shadows seemed to gather around him, clinging to his shoulders like a cloak made of darkness itself.
"Stand."
I stood. My legs trembled. The sheer fabric shifted against my skin, cool air kissing all the places it failed to cover.
He circled me slowly, predator assessing prey, and I felt his gaze track across my exposed sides, the curve of my spine, the bare swell of my backside beneath the thin white panels.
"Hands on the armrest."
I turned toward the throne. That massive seat of carved shadow, ancient and terrible and still warm from his body. The armrest was at exactly the right height—
I bent forward.
Placed my palms flat against the dark stone.
And presented myself.
The position arched my spine, lifted my barely-covered backside toward him, spread my thighs just enough that he could see—could see everything, the fabric hiding nothing, my arousal probably already glistening between my legs.
I heard his breath catch. Felt the bond flare with hunger so intense it nearly buckled my knees.
"Good girl," he said roughly.
The praise shivered through me, straight to my core.
Then I heard the clink of metal, and everything changed.
The restraints closed around my wrists with a soft, final click.
Cool metal against my pulse points—not cold, not warm, but something in between.
Something that felt alive. The cuffs were beautiful, I realized distantly.
Forged from the same silver-gold alloy as my egg, delicate chains connecting them to the carved arms of the throne with links so fine they looked like captured starlight.
I tugged experimentally.
Nothing. Not even a whisper of give.
Magic pulsed through the restraints, ancient and absolute, and I felt it settle into my bones like a second skeleton. My arms were locked in place. My body was bent over the throne's armrest, exposed and vulnerable and completely at his mercy.
I couldn't move even if I'd wanted to.
"These were made for you."
His voice came from behind me—close, closer than I'd expected, his breath warm against the curve of my neck. I shivered, and he must have felt it, because his hand came to rest on my lower back. Just resting. Steadying. A point of contact that made everything else feel sharper by contrast.
"I forged them when I believed you would come to me willingly. When I thought we would have an eternity together."
His hand slid up my spine, following the visible line of my vertebrae beneath the thin white fabric. The touch was gentle. Exploratory. As if he was relearning a map he'd memorized long ago.
"I imagined binding you like this." His voice had roughened, the controlled silk giving way to something rawer underneath. "Teaching you to surrender. Showing you that submission to me would only ever mean pleasure and safety."
His fingers reached my shoulder blades and spread, palm pressing flat between them. I could feel the heat of him through the fabric—the barely-contained furnace of a dragon in human form.
"I would have worshipped every inch of you while you wore these." The words came out broken. Almost reverent. "Learned every sensitive place. Mapped you with my tongue and my hands until you understood—truly understood—that giving yourself to me was the safest thing you could ever do."
My throat closed around a sound that wanted to be a sob.
Ten thousand years. He'd spent ten thousand years alone with restraints made for a bride who never came. Had probably touched them, maintained them, imagined how they would look on my wrists while the darkness of his prison pressed in from all sides.
And now—
"Instead," he said, and his voice hardened again, the ice returning, "I'll use them to remind you who owns this body."
He tore the gown away in one motion.
The sound of ripping fabric filled the throne room—sharp, decisive, final. Golden chains scattered across the obsidian floor like fallen stars. The sheer white panels fluttered down around my ankles, leaving me naked and trembling against the dark stone of the throne.
The cool air hit my heated skin like a slap.
I gasped, my back arching involuntarily, my bound wrists pulling against restraints that gave nothing.
Every inch of me was exposed now—the curve of my spine, the swell of my backside, the wetness already gathering between my thighs.
He could see everything. Could see how desperately I wanted this, even though I should have been terrified.
His hand returned to my back. Traced down, down, over the curve of my rear, pausing just above where I ached the most.
"You're wet," he observed. His voice was clinical, detached—but the bond told a different story. The bond was screaming with hunger, with want, with the effort it was taking him to maintain even this much control. "Already. Before I've even touched you properly."
My cheeks burned. My whole body burned. I couldn't answer—couldn't form words around the need that was choking me.
"Twenty strikes. For your dragon constitution they should be manageable." His hand lifted from my skin, and the loss of contact made me whimper. "You will count each one. You will thank me for each one."
A pause. Heavy with anticipation.
"And you will not come." His voice dropped to something dark and sweet and devastating. "That pleasure is mine to give."
I pressed my forehead against the cool stone of the armrest. Tried to breathe. Tried to prepare myself for what was coming.
The bond pulsed between us, his anticipation mingling with mine, his hunger feeding my own. He was going to mark me. Punish me. Teach me that my body was his to command.
And some desperate, broken part of me wanted it so badly I could taste it.
"Do you understand?" he asked.
"Yes," I whispered. Then, because the word alone felt insufficient, because the bond was demanding more: "Yes, Daddy."
The sound he made was barely human.
I felt him step closer. Felt the heat of him behind me, the coiled power of a dragon held in check by will alone. The air seemed to thicken, to press in around us, as if the palace itself was holding its breath.
His hand settled on my lower back again. Grounding. Warning.
I clenched my fingers around the armrest's edge. Steeled myself. Tried to remember how to breathe.
The first strike landed before I was ready.
Pain bloomed across my right cheek—sharp and sudden, stealing my breath, sending shockwaves rippling through my entire body. But underneath the pain, underneath the sting that made my eyes water—
Pleasure.
Dark, molten pleasure that radiated from the point of impact straight to my core. My inner muscles clenched around nothing. A moan escaped my lips before I could stop it.
"Count," he commanded.
"One," I gasped. The word came out ragged, broken. "Thank you, Daddy."
His hand smoothed over the heated flesh, soothing the sting, spreading the sensation until my whole body was humming with it.
"Good girl," he murmured.
And raised his hand again.
Two.
The strike landed on my left cheek, balancing the sting, and I heard myself count through the ringing in my ears. "Two. Thank you, Daddy."
His hand soothed over the heated flesh, spreading the sensation, then lifted again.
Three. Four. Five.
Each blow was methodical, devastating. He wasn't hurrying, wasn't losing control—he was taking his time, placing each strike with precision, ensuring that the pain bloomed evenly across both cheeks before radiating into that dark, molten pleasure at my center.
By five, I was trembling.
By seven, my voice had gone ragged.
By ten, I was dripping down my thighs.
"Ten," I heaved. The word barely sounded like language anymore. "Thank you, Daddy."
He paused. His hand rested on my burning flesh, palm hot against skin that felt like it was on fire.
Through the bond, I could feel his satisfaction—not cruelty, not sadism, but something deeper.
He was pleased with me. Pleased with how I was taking his punishment, how I was counting and thanking him through the tears that had started streaming down my cheeks.
"Halfway," he murmured. His thumb traced the crease where my thigh met my backside, and I shuddered. "You're doing so well."
The praise undid me more than the pain.
Eleven landed before I could recover.
"Eleven—" The word cracked in the middle. "Thank you, Daddy."
Twelve. Thirteen.
I was sobbing now. Not from pain—or not only from pain.
The sensation had transcended simple hurt and become something else, something I had no name for.
Each strike pushed me deeper into a place where thinking stopped and feeling became everything.
My whole world had narrowed to his hand, his voice, the throne beneath my bound wrists, the unbearable ache between my legs.
"Fourteen. Thank you, D-Daddy."
Fifteen.
I screamed on fifteen. Screamed and pressed my face against the cool stone and felt myself break apart into pieces he could rearrange however he wanted.
The pleasure was too much. The pain was too much.
Everything was too much, and I was drowning in it, floating in it, losing myself to the overwhelming reality of belonging to him.
"Fifteen," I managed. Somewhere. Somehow. "Thank you."
"Three words, little one."
"Thank you, Daddy." The honorific came out like a prayer.
Sixteen through nineteen blurred together.
I counted—I know I counted, know I thanked him—but the words felt distant, spoken by someone else while the real me floated in a space beyond thought.
My entire being had focused down to a single point: him.
His hand rising and falling. His presence at my back.
His control holding me together while he took me apart.
Twenty.