Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Was that one of the guards Ben and Stewart said were on our side?
Closing my eyes, I committed him to memory. Lean but tall, narrow chin and short dark hair. Clean-shaven with a tattoo of a fading butterfly on his hand.
Henri cried out, wrenching my attention to him.
“D-Don’t…” I reached a feeble hand toward Victor as he wrenched off Henri’s hood.
My heart fisted with despair as I caught Henri’s gaze.
Last night, his eyes had been clear and fierce. Lucid and full of fury. Now…
God, now…
I flinched as Henri’s nostrils flared. He tried catching a breath around the ball gag. His face dripped with condensation from his breath trapped in the hood, and those stunning silver eyes no longer belonged to a man but to a creature.
A creature that’d been pushed to the brink of sanity and had stared into the pitch-black darkness all night. A darkness full of silence and terror, starvation and torment.
Henri… I smiled through my tears, begging him to come back to me. I’m here. It’s me.
Slowly, the wildness in his stare faded a little. Breath by frantic breath, the animal inside him crawled back inside, leaving the man I’d fallen so in love with.
You’re okay… I nodded, begging him to stay sane.
He blinked slowly, hearing me, loving me.
Victor sniffed and snapped a finger in front of his face. Wrenching off Henri’s headphones, he barked, “Your ears belong to me now. You will obey every instruction I give you without question. Do you understand?”
Henri glowered at him. His chin covered in spit from the gag.
“The same goes for your eyes. Whenever I am in the room, you will only look at me,” Victor said far too softly. “If you dare look at Ilyana, I will whip her with the very same whip I gifted you. Nod if you agree.”
Henri threw himself forward, the chains clanging as his arms stayed tethered above him. A feral noise growled in his chest.
“Why must you make me do this the hard way?” Victor rolled his eyes. “No matter.” Reaching into the back waistband of his aubergine suit, he pulled out the coiled whip that Henri used on me in Sapphire Scars.
Henri instantly went slack in his binds. His eyes flared. He groaned.
Victor shrugged and stepped off the stage toward me. “I warned you, my pet. Your eyes belong to me now. Your ears belong to me now. Everything you hear and look at must be approved by me from this day forward. You will understand how serious I am about this new rule, Henri. Otherwise, I’ll cut off your ears and scoop out your eyes and be done with it.”
Henri fought his cuffs as Victor stood over me. “Stand up, Ilyana. Hold on to a chair if you must.”
Henri roared behind his gag. He shook his head. His knees buckled as starvation tore through whatever meagre strength he had left.
Peter stepped toward me, yanked backward by his own chain. “Sir V…don’t—”
“You will be quiet, Peter. Otherwise, I’ll shackle you up there with Henri.”
It took everything I had to stand up and shuffle to the closest chair, my chain following me.
I grabbed the scrolled carved wood with trembling fingers, my vision spluttering in and out.
At least Victor didn’t make me wait.
The familiar hiss of the leather crackled in the air.
For a second, my body tried to find pleasure, remembering the ecstasy of Henri’s delivery. The way he layered me with his autograph. The way he fed fire into our hearts and then detonated us with pleasure.
But then everything shut down as pain erupted across my ass. The silver satin teddy split from the whip’s sharpness, gaping in the icy morning.
“Three little swats.” Victor grunted as he delivered yet another stinging punishment. It landed across my lower back, biting, tearing.
His strike hurt far, far worse than Henri’s.
Unrefined. Pure cruelty.
I had no strength to hold onto the chair. No strength in any muscle and no ability to hold my throbbing bladder.
Collapsing to my knees, I screamed with fury and heartache as Victor whipped me a third time and a warm wet stream flowed down my legs.
Cupping my face, hiding my shame, I couldn’t look at anyone.
Not Henri, not Peter, not Victor.
I huddled in a disgraced, painful puddle all while Victor tossed the whip onto the table and stalked back to Henri.
My fear for him overrode my own disgrace.
My horror over what Victor would do gave me just enough strength to look up and catch Henri’s stare.
He looked away immediately.
Cutting me off.
Refusing to see me.
And I couldn’t do it.
I knew he did it to protect me. To prevent Victor from whipping me again.
But it hurt.
Fuck, it hurt.
Hurt so much to be denied.
Refused.
Avoided all because he loved me.
I was the one person who had the power to make Henri’s life so much better than it was, and instead…I’d become the worst thing to ever happen to him.