by Joey W. Hill
If he refused to carry out the punishment, would they make it quick like he had? A blink, and the light that was Ella, who loved carnivals, gardens, laughter and music, who had the sultry singing voice of a siren, whose appetite for submissive sexual play seemed limitless, whose parents had died in a fire… Her story would be over, past, present and future.
A soldier did what needed to be done. One person extinguished was like extinguishing one flower in a field of them. But there would never be another flower like that one. That was the part a soldier couldn’t think about. Until war was over and it hit him like a ton of bricks at unexpected times.
Weighing all the variables, Ella’s logic was despicably hard to argue. The little pest was still working on him in her head, perhaps sensing he hadn’t yet made the decision.
It’s one caning. An hour of our lives. Then we can move on. Please, Wolf.
She was wishing she was free, so she could drop to her knees at his feet, press her cheek hard against his thigh. I know how very much you don’t want to do this. That you don’t want to hurt me. But there’s some part of you…it enjoys the fact it can take everything from me I can bear to give and even beyond that. Just like some part of me craves you to take that much…and more.
Which was pretty much the fucking definition of the vampire-servant relationship, when it was done right.
Showing just how deep in his head he’d been, Fort was now somehow in the room, and Saturnia was at the door, her expression still. Fort stopped parallel with Wolf’s shoulder, facing away from Seanna and the others. “So what’s it to be?” he said, low. “Do you do this, or do we start a shitstorm?”
He turned his head to meet Wolf’s gaze, and the look in his eyes reminded Wolf of one of the great truths in life. The loyalty of brothers-in-arms trumped pretty much everything, including common sense. “I’m thinking there’s another question you’re not asking,” Wolf said.
Fort’s lips twisted. “Okay. Question two. One I haven’t had to ask you in a good long time. Are you man or vampire, Leroy?”
Ella lifted her face. Her fingers were tight around the rings holding her manacles, her brown eyes on him. Pleading. Needing him to take charge. To make this work.
Wolf held her gaze a long moment, then he turned to Allan and held his hand out for the cane.
“I’m her Master.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ella let out a relieved breath. She didn’t know a tenth of what she suspected she needed to know about vampires and servants, but she’d been pretty sure that things were going to be really bad if this didn’t happen.
Now, that worry had been removed. There was just the nervousness that came with facing something she wasn’t sure she could handle. But no safe word could stop this, so there was no other choice but to handle it. In a not-funny-at-all, laughable way, it made it easier.
Wolf’s fingers dug into her hair, twisted, and pulled her head back. She saw that demonic face again. This time the shudder that went through her was the kind that a lesser minion felt at the feet of Satan. Knowing she faced her absolute Master, and his approval and disapproval were everything that governed her life.
She didn’t want it any other way. Though she quaked at the words he said.
“You think I don’t want to hurt you? Think again, little girl. You’ve gone so far over the line, it’s going to take every stripe of this cane to bring you back to the right side of it. And when it’s all over, I’m going to be inside you. You’ll make me come while you bleed, and remember who you serve.”
His eyes were sharp, slicing to her core. His face was rigid tight, all the muscles defined, making him look even more formidable. The hand coiled in her hair reminded her he could break her neck with the strength in it.
It wasn’t an act. That was what made it so terrifying and impressive. Gideon had promised her she had no idea how deep it could go. Wolf was showing her, up close and personal. It served the right purpose. Even Seanna had edged a little further away along the wall.
Wolf shifted back. He removed her ripped T-shirt and picked up the skirt, tossed it out of his way.
He moved her hands from the fixed rings in the wall to one with a chain running through it, then had Seanna go to the wall and draw up the slack. After the cuffs were attached to the chain and her arms were stretched above her head, Wolf slid an arm around her waist. “Keep your muscles tight around those ice dicks,” he ordered. “They better be toothpicks before they fall out.”
He tightened his arm, lifting her off the floor as the chain continued to retract. “Toe off your shoes.”
She complied and he kicked the small set of sneakers out of their way. When she was about a foot off the floor, Wolf nodded toward something else, which Allan brought him. A wooden stool was placed beneath her toes. Just her toes. Her body was stretched upward like a taut cord.
Wolf had modified the setup. Without changing anything proscribed by Lord Richard, he’d made it a bigger challenge than it already was.
He backed up a step, put his hand on the juncture of her shoulder and neck. “As Lord Richard has ordered, you will not cry out, or we start over. You will keep your toes on this stool. You won’t struggle or twitch in a way that takes you off it. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master.” Her voice was garbled, tearful.
“Does the ice hurt?”
“Yes, sir. It really, really does.”
“And yet, water is dripping down your legs. The heat of your cunt and eager little ass is melting it.”
She bit back a whimper that would have been a wail if she could let it out. He feathered his fingers over her clit and she nearly choked on the sound she wanted to make. When she blinked up at him, she was certain her eyes reflected the unbearable surplus of what was within. Agony and need.
“Lord Richard is punishing you for striking a vampire with malice. I am punishing you for taking matters into your own hands. As such, your punishment at my hands will be far worse than what he has designated.”
I don’t care. It feels better, having you do it. I want you to punish me, however you desire.
“Why are you being punished?” he barked.
“For overriding your will. For striking Allan, another vampire and Master.”
“You will tell him you are sorry with the first twenty-five strikes. Then Anwyn, since Allan was a guest in her home. Then Lord Richard, as the Region Master of this territory. The final twenty-five strikes you will apologize to me, for not controlling yourself and not relying on your Master’s guidance. Tell me you understand.”
“I understand, sir,” Ella stammered. He closed the distance between them again and ran the cane along her flank, slow, caressing.
“Tell me you understand again.” He struck her thigh with it, a tap, but even a faint sting sent a tingle of burning electricity over her leg. The lotion. She’d forgotten.
“Yes, Master, I understand.” Her voice was high and tight. “I welcome your punishment.”
He tightened his hand on her throat in reproof. “Not if I do it right.”
Wolf stepped back, and not just physically. He would have to stay mindful that she wasn’t third marked, because all of her reactions matched a third mark’s. Able to take anything from her Master and still be aroused. Even as she suffered, all for him.
Staying in that mind frame, he let himself appreciate, savor, and let her feel that in him. She was gorgeous and all his. Her pert round backside, stretched back muscles, straining legs and calves, her whole body reaching. As he moved around her, he caressed a quivering breast, flicked a nipple. The dildos continued to melt, making him think of her honey running down her thighs after she came. He played with her clit some more, running the cane up and down her legs as he did.
There was no rush to this now. Vampires were the ultimate voyeurs, and he could take the time he would have if he’d been here from the beginning, getting her in the right mindset.
By telling her to call out her apology, he’d giv
en her a way to respond to the pain without incurring more strikes. A screamed apology was still an apology, not an involuntary cry.
Richard could easily call him on it, but he intended to put the right amount of detail and effort into this. He’d bring to life that amazing part of Ella that mesmerized anyone with a Dominant bone in their body. Let alone vampires, whose entire skeletal system vibrated with that orientation.
“We’re missing one more thing.” He went to the cabinet that held additional supplies and returned with a ball gag, a large one. He fitted it into her mouth. The size of the gag filled her mouth, stretching her jaw. He Velcro’d the straps securely around her head. “Don’t want you biting through your tongue.”
It would also help her not scream out the apologies so loudly. As he looked at her profile, her wide eyes, stretched mouth, her body strained and bound, Wolf knew he could come just by looking at her, helpless like this, all for him. It didn’t matter how much pain she was in, how agonizing the punishment was—when this was over, he could shove his cock into her and find wet, dripping heat. She’d know she’d pleased him, and that was what she needed, more than anything.
That level of giving and receiving tore a person open, down to the quick. She was giving him her soul.
He trailed the tip of the cane down her back, saw her body ripple, the lotion increasing the sensation.
After every apology, Ella, I will tell you how much you have pleased me. You will earn my approval with every strike, sweet girl. Can you do that?
She nodded, vehemently, a muffled whimper coming around the gag. He pressed a kiss to the back of her head, his arm coming around to hold her against him for one moment, then he stepped back.
And landed the first blow.
Wolf administered the blows exactly as he would as a Master of Club Atlantis. A pause after each one, holding the cane against her flesh, letting the sensation build and roll. Amateurs hit fast and sharp, never realizing how much was felt if there was a pause for the brain to process the strike. To let the pain radiate out.
Ella said she was sorry as he’d instructed, on every strike. Identified to whom she was apologizing. She made it through twenty-five for Allan, and then the same for Anwyn. Earned her Master’s approval. He not only told her he was pleased, in their shared minds, but added in some comments, at unexpected moments.
That’s my girl. Allan’s face needed the improvement. He was too pretty.
It almost startled a hysterical chuckle out of her. She thought her cunt and ass might have caught fire by now. He kept reminding her to hold the phalluses tight, tighter, which made her thigh and backside muscles more rigid, increasing the pain. The cane fell again and again. The welts began to rise, and there was no way Wolf couldn’t hit them again, with the number of blows that had been mandated.
Halfway through Lord Richard’s twenty-five, the cane struck one particularly sensitive part. She screamed against the gag before she could get the apology out. The wave of pain was too much to suppress the sound.
Oh Goddess. She just couldn’t. She couldn’t bear starting over.
Gideon’s words rolled through her head. Their darkness... Property… You belong to your Master and Mistress entirely…
She was going to know exactly what that meant before this was over.
There was a significant pause. Then Wolf began at one again. He made her say she was sorry again. The next involuntary shriek happened somewhere during Allan’s count. She hadn’t made it as far.
She was failing him. Failing her Master.
You aren’t failing me, Ella. Not crying out was Lord Richard’s requirement, not mine. He intended you to fail. I love the beauty of your sweet cries. I’m looking forward to unchaining you, taking care of you, tending your wounds. I’ll make you lie on your stomach, and I’ll look at the marks you accepted from your Master.
I know you are strong. Strong enough to obey me, when I tell you I don’t want to hear another sound from your beautiful lips. But I do want to hear you sing for me in your head, talk to me, say whatever you wish.
She tried to obey, until she was sure she was talking gibberish in her head. Inside that contained space, she was crying. She was saying she was sorry. She was singing to him, calling to him, trying to remember poems she hadn’t remembered since childhood. She eventually went with pictures, images of things she liked. A garden statue of a pig with a laughing mouth and floppy ears. Wolf’s body, stretched out on her tiny bed, his powerful thigh muscles flexing as she followed them with her fingertips…
The cane fell again and again, and the pain was never ending. Things felt sticky and wet, and she knew she was bleeding. The welts had broken open and now fire swept up her legs, sickly, excruciating pain.
In a haze, disoriented, she wouldn’t know until later that Richard stopped Wolf at a hundred and seventy-two strikes. But she vaguely heard Wolf’s words, directed toward Seanna, and the vampire who had witnessed this through her eyes.
“Lord Richard, Ella desires only to serve. Her actions came from her lack of understanding of our world. She will be an exemplary servant for Anwyn, because she is one of Atlantis’s most exceptional submissives. She will be a credit to our world. Are you satisfied?”
Seanna’s response was almost instant. “More than satisfied. You may tend to her now as she well deserves.”
Seanna left the room. A blink later, Wolf was with her, touching her, his voice filling her mind. “That’s it. It’s done. Sssh.”
She was somewhere between subspace and unconsciousness, she was sure. It wasn’t a bad place to be, but that burning. Goddess, she hated the burning. The ice had melted away sometime during the punishment, but as Seanna had foretold, her sensitive tissues remained on fire.
Oh no… She hadn’t realized until now, and was mortified. With great levels of pain and stress, the body reacted. She’d thrown up at some point. She’d barely been aware when it had happened, but now she remembered Wolf had removed her gag right before, his attention to her state of mind and body saving her from choking on her own vomit.
Which was good, because ever since that bad night on the stretcher wheel, vomiting kind of scared her. But she was still embarrassed by the condition she was in.
If you’ll free me, Master, I’ll care for myself.
“No, you won’t. Taking care of you is my job tonight.”
The chain was lowered, stool removed, so she could stand fully on the soles of her feet. She sagged against the wall, the manacles bearing her weight because she was unable to hold herself up. Her arches and calf muscles wept in relief, even as they cramped, but Wolf’s strong hands were there, massaging. He knelt by her, guiding her so her hip and thigh rested against his broad shoulder. It relieved the pressure on her shoulders and wrists.
He eased her back against the wall when he was done with the massage, but he didn’t go far. He turned on the room hose, rewarding her with blissfully warm water. He rinsed Ella thoroughly, then used that fragrant wash Seanna had mentioned. As promised, it eased the exacerbated pain wherever it was applied, made it more bearable. He held her as much as possible, banding one arm around her waist while he gently cleaned her with his free hand. Ella nearly sobbed with bliss when he injected the wash into her backside.
She phased out for some of it, but throughout, she was aware of Wolf whispering to her, out loud, in her head, with savage satisfaction. He was so pleased with her. It was in every gesture, the light in his eyes, when she found the strength to look at his face. She’d exceeded his expectations. She could die happy.
You don’t have my permission to die. I have other things I want from you.
Though he’d cleaned her painfully throbbing pussy with thorough fingers, he hadn’t used that wash there. Instead, now, he goaded that discomfort, teasing her clit and labia with his fingers, making her bite back pitiful whimpers.
“I’m not done with you yet, little girl. You owe your Master one more thing, don’t you?”
She fought through
the confusion in her mind, trying to understand. And then she did. “You’re going to take me now, aren’t you, sweet servant?”
She whimpered again, but he’d guided her legs up off the floor and around his waist. He made her look at him, a hand to her face, and she saw the glittering eyes, the set expression. Seanna hadn’t stayed to make sure Wolf delivered on his last threat. But almost before Wolf said it, Ella knew why. The same reason Wolf was doing what he was doing now.
“He didn’t have to see it. He knows a vampire’s nature. He demanded the punishment to satisfy protocol. This is me, reclaiming what’s mine. Mine to fuck and punish, however and whenever I wish, aren’t you?”
She couldn’t get her mouth to work, but she could tell him with her eyes, her mind, that yes, no matter the circumstances, she would never think of denying him. Never.
That feeling of wrongness she’d had, about doing something he didn’t want her to do? He was going to take it away with this act, this demand. She considered that wrong feeling worse than the worst burning lotion in the world.
His eyes darkened. He had his hand cradling her skull in that way he did that made her feel so small and protected. As he pushed into her, she moaned.
That one last spot seemed worse now that it was the only one, as if everything was concentrated there, screaming for relief. It was so painful, and yet she needed him there, filling the emptiness. He seated himself to the hilt, his gaze remaining locked on hers. Then he gripped both her buttocks in his hands.
“You can scream all you want now.” And he squeezed her welted flesh.
She obeyed, and then some. She screamed, moaned, shrieked, wailed, as he thrust into her. She knew he must have restrained himself somewhat, because she was so close to breaking she was like a cracked window on the verge of shattering from the pressure, but it didn’t seem as if he held back. He fucked her strong and thoroughly, her breasts quivering against his chest, her ass held firmly in his hands until he climaxed, bathing her with his seed.
