by Winter Fox
“What were you doing in her room for the last two hours?” Charles snapped.
“Checking her body was fully healed, after your nephew nearly broke her.” Adonis drank from the bottle again.
“You have five weeks to give me a perfect wife, Adonis. The clock is ticking,” Charles reminded.
“She’ll be ready, Charles. We begin her training again tomorrow.”
The line was silent for a moment.
“If I think you’re going easy on her. If I think you’re falling deeper under her spell. If I think that you’re going to take what’s mine, and run away, then I won’t hesitate to end her life, Adonis. Although, I am starting to think I might give her to Erebus first after all. I could make you sit and watch what he does to her, when there’s no one to control his…urges.”
Adonis gripped the whiskey bottle so tightly that his hand started to cramp and spasm around the thick glass.
“That won’t be necessary,” he said calmly. “You’ll have your obedient wife, Charles. And in just over a month, I’ll be gone.”
Charles grunted. “Good. And, by the time a year has passed, I would hope that you will be more willing to accept the situation. Perhaps you’ll have a new sister, by the time you return.”
“Perhaps I’ll stay away a little longer,” Adonis said absently.
“You’re my first, and only son. When I tell you to get your ass back here, and help me run my empire, you’ll do it,” Charles snapped.
Adonis said nothing; instead he drank back more whiskey and glowered at the phone.
“I look forward to seeing you putting the little whore through her paces tomorrow, Adonis.”
Charles hung up, and Adonis slowly replaced the handset; before standing up and launching the whiskey bottle at the wall. He watched the glass shatter in a burst of glittering shards, and the contents running down the wall, with a kind of dark fascination on his face.
He hadn’t been prepared for anyone to knock at the office door at this time in the morning, and he jolted back to reality at the sound of a timid tap against the wood. Adonis stood up and quickly crossed the room to the door. He opened it, and was surprised to find the witch—Emma—standing in the hallway.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. Can I talk to you for a minute, please?”
He raised one eyebrow in surprise, but stepped aside to allow her to enter the room. She hesitated, a look of fear on her pretty face; before walking tentatively into his office.
“Sit.” He gestured to the chair which waited on the opposite side of the desk from his own.
She sat down, and Adonis took his own seat; before selecting a fresh bottle of whiskey from his drawer. He’d always thought it was wise to have a back-up.
He placed two glasses on the desk, and filled them both with a good dash of his favorite drink. Using two fingers, he pushed a glass across the desktop toward the nervously fidgeting girl. She smiled stiffly at him, but took the whiskey and sipped at it. Adonis lifted his own glass to his lips, and drank deeply.
“So. What did you want to talk to me about, Emma?”
She hesitated. Taking a second sip of the whiskey, almost as though it would give her the courage to speak. She reached into her pocket, and produced a small vial of clear liquid. Setting it down on the desk in front of him, she finally found her tongue.
“I know what Cara is, and I know that’s why you want her.”
He was about to stop her dead in her tracks. What eighty-eight was, was none of this girl’s damn business. But she pushed on quickly, and what she had to say made him glad he’d had the spare bottle of whiskey on hand.
“I made this, and I haven’t tested it yet—for obvious reasons. But I’m certain it will work. It can make any woman able to give birth to an incubus child in the same way that a succubus can.”
Adonis leaned across the desk. His eyes wide with disbelief. “What?”
“It’s a mixture of herbs, which should work to suppress the demonic traits of the baby whilst it’s in the womb. It should also help to strengthen the human woman who drinks it.” Emma bit her lip fearfully as she spoke.
“Will it make them able to have girls, as well as boys?”
“Yes.”
“Will it stop a woman from dying when an incubus takes too much of her aura?”
“That too,” she confirmed.
He narrowed his eyes at the trembling girl. “Why would you give me this? Your people hate my people. Why would you want to help us to create more demons?”
She stared at him, and he could see that she was terrified of telling him the next part.
“How long have you had this knowledge, Emma?”
She blinked slowly before replying. “Almost a hundred years. At least the witches have.”
He nodded. “That, I understand completely. What I don’t understand, is why you’re telling me now.”
Emma took another sip of her drink, and seemingly emboldened by the whiskey, she explained.
“We had hoped that your kind would eventually either die out, or make a big enough mistake that you exposed yourselves to human society. But, thanks to your father, you found a way to serve your incubi needs, and stay under the radar. The reality is, that the witches have sat back for a hundred years, and let women die for you. Even though we could have done something about it.”
He studied her intently. “So. What’s changed?”
She shrugged, as though the answer were obvious. “Cara.”
He hadn’t been prepared for the feelings which speared their way through his chest when she said the name.
“What about her?” He queried.
“She can give you new succubi. We’ve already lost the war with you. But Cara has become my friend, and I don’t want her to have to live two centuries as a slave to your family. So, I have nothing left to lose by giving you this. And Cara has everything to gain.”
Adonis picked the bottle up. Holding it in front of his eyes, he studied the contents as though he could see the truth of the witch’s words inside the tiny vial.
“How do I know this will work?”
“That’s the part that’s up to you, sir. There must be a human woman due to give birth to a child of an incubus somewhere. One drop of that, and she will be as strong as a succubus for the rest of her life.”
He drummed his fingers thoughtfully against the desk. One of Adonis’ trainees—eighty-two—had been auctioned off earlier in the year. She had been bought by Tobias—a very rich friend of Erebus. And he thought she might just be due to give birth any day now.
“Even if I do try this, and it works. What makes you think that I’ll let eighty-eight leave?”
Emma didn’t hesitate. She looked deep into Adonis’ blue eyes, and she spoke with a simple honesty.
“Because you love her.”
He snorted laughter. “Don’t be ridiculous, witch. To be able to love someone, you need to have a heart.”
She shrugged. Her confidence was certainly growing. “That’s something I’m going to have to take a chance on.”
“And if this does work, will you make enough for us to give to all of our women?” He finished his whiskey, and filled his glass again.
“I will,” she said determinedly.
He opened his desk drawer, dropping the vial into a silver box. Then he closed the drawer again, and stood up.
“It’s time you were in your bed, Emma.”
She stood too, making her way toward the door. “Yes, sir. Will you try it?” She paused with her hand on the door handle.
He nodded. “I will. In a couple of weeks, I guess you’ll know if your witchy folklore is actually the truth.”
“Thank you.” She met his eyes as she spoke. Then without another word, she was gone.
Alone once more, Adonis opened the desk drawer, and retrieved the glass vial. Holding it up to the light, he detected a fine swirl of iridescent color in the center of the clear fluid. He had absolutely no idea if it would work, but he was
sure as hell going to give it a try.
If he could confirm the liquid would do what the witch claimed, and he took this to his father; then surely Charles would lose all interest in eighty-eight. Adonis could be holding the means to buy her freedom in his hand. What he couldn’t understand, was why that knowledge seemed to make him feel so miserable.
Chapter Thirty-One
Cara
The note at the side of my bed had instructed me to meet Adonis at the playroom as soon as I woke up and showered.
Firstly, I checked on the puppies. They were already a lot bigger than when I first got them. Both dogs were curled up together in a sleepy bundle inside the blanketed cardboard box which now served as their bed.
I found myself crossing the room with a spring in my step, and making my way into the bathroom; before carefully selecting the nicest smelling soaps to clean my body.
What are you doing, Cara? Last night was different. It won’t be like that today. And you know it.
The rational part of my mind knew that today was not going to be too dissimilar to the first few days after I arrived here. I knew that he’d let me go last night. I knew it. But the other part of my mind—the part which had been completely seduced by Adonis—couldn’t wait to see him again.
The door to my bedroom had been left unlocked. As was the door to the playroom. He knew that I wouldn’t try to run again. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
After dressing myself in another skimpy closet ensemble, and tying my hair back into a copper ponytail, I headed to the playroom. I pushed the door open, and stepped into the room. He was waiting for me. Standing in the middle of the floor, wearing only a pair of dark blue jeans. His feet and his toned chest were bare, and his dark hair was damp from a recent shower.
I sank into a textbook perfect example of “nadu.”
“Come here.” His powerful voice rang through the room.
I stood up, and approached him. When I noticed the bench next to him, I paused for an instant. He arched a brow, and waited silently for me to keep walking.
I started forward again, my eyes taking in every detail of the suede covered bench, which was around the same height as Adonis’ waist. It reminded me of the piece of gym equipment used for vaulting, but it was black; instead of beige. It had four shiny metal legs, which were secured to the ground. And at the bottom of each leg there was a leather cuff, with a buckle.
When I reached Adonis, he didn’t even meet my eyes. He reached out and took a hold of my shoulders. Turning me around so that he could push me forward—making me lie stomach down on the bench. He knelt behind me, and I felt him wrap and buckle one cuff snugly around my right ankle. Then he did the same with the second cuff, around my left ankle.
I didn’t want to be tied up and helpless again. I tried to stand up, but his warm hand pressed heavily down between my shoulder blades, forcing me back against the fabric of the bench. He quickly wrapped the other two cuffs at the front of the bench around each of my wrists—buckling them tightly.
I was now lying face down, with both my legs, and my wrists restrained. I wondered what he was going to do with me. When he moved to stand in front of me, I gasped as I noticed the paddle in his hand. The stiff piece of leather brought memories of Erebus’s torture flooding back to me, and I began to fight against my restraints.
“No,” I howled.
He darted forward and grabbed my chin tightly. “You will not speak unless you are spoken to, slave, and you will not fight against your cuffs. You are here at my pleasure, and you will endure whatever I demand of you.”
“Why?” I whispered, with tears in my eyes.
He moved out of my line of sight. He was standing behind me now, and I knew that he was going to hit me very soon.
“Because you ran, and you haven’t been punished for it.”
His hands hooked my g-string, tugging it roughly down, and baring my body to him once again.
“Please, master,” I begged. “I have been more than punished.”
A long pause. Then the paddle sang through the air, splitting the particles with an audible “whup.” It landed against my skin with such ferocity, that I bucked against the leather cuffs. I screamed.
Once my scream had subsided into breathless sobs which wracked my entire body, I tried to get through to him again. “Please?”
“Whup.”
The pain was even worse the second time, and my whole body spasmed in agony.
“Adonis, please?” I tried to get through to him, one final time. But those were the words which seemed to send him over the edge.
He rained blows down on my ass, my thighs, and my back. I counted up to eleven, and then I started to lose consciousness. The pain which had begun as a series of stinging bites, eventually blended into one long crescendo of fire across my skin.
I was vaguely aware that he continued hitting me long after eleven. I thought that he must have hit me at least twenty times in total. But, when he stopped the pain carried on, and on. My eyes were half-blind with tears, but I could just make out his image as he approached me from the front.
He crouched down to study my face, and there was no trace of empathy or compassion in his cold, blue eyes.
“I warned you, eighty-eight.”
I didn’t understand what he’d warned me about, and I tried to tell him so. But the words wouldn’t come through vocal chords which had been stressed into silence by my violent screams.
He seemed to understand my predicament. Tilting his head to one side, he spoke again. “I warned you that the only name you were to use for me was master.”
Without giving me a second to process what he had said, Adonis stood up and disappeared behind me once more. I closed my eyes in terror, waiting for the feel of the paddle against my throbbing skin again. But what came instead was in many ways, so much worse.
One brutal, unforgiving thrust, and he was buried inside my very core. He leaned forward so that his chest, and stomach were laid against my back. His hot skin, which pressed against my ass and thighs, made my flesh feel as though I were being covered by molten lava.
He didn’t pause. He just pulled back out and thrust back in. Every single time was as barbarically hard as the first, and I cried out in pain each time his skin burned against mine.
I’d never had a broken heart. Not in the conventional sense of the term anyway. Of course, my heart had broken when my father had been killed, and again when I’d had no choice, but to run away from the orphanage, because of Erebus. But I had never really been close enough to a man to allow one to break my heart properly, before. I supposed it was a defense mechanism, after all of the shit that I’d been through in my life. The closest I’d ever come to romance, was dating a guy for three months And the second shit got real, I walked.
Right then and there. As the man who had been: so tender, so affectionate, so gentle, and so loving, pinned me down with the full weight of his body, and violently raped me—my heart broke apart into a thousand, thousand pieces.
It started with a pain in my chest, which spread further through me with every brutal thrust. The pain suddenly became a numbness which crept along my arms, and legs. Settling almost protectively through every part of my body, as though trying to block out what he was doing to me. A man—who now I truly permitted myself to think about it—I had thought that I was falling in love with.
The ultimate feeling which swept through me, was coldness.
He used one hand to grab my ponytail, and tilt my head back, so that we were looking into each other’s eyes. What I saw inside him was the same thing that I’d seen when I first woke up in my cage.
Adonis Olympus was more than his father’s son. He was a cold, empty, shell of a man.
“I hate you,” I managed to whisper.
His movements sped up ever so slightly—an indication that he was close to his release. There wasn’t going to be any release for me this time around. I was being taught a valuable lesson. I was a possession; here
only for his pleasure. There wasn’t supposed to be any pleasure for me during this exchange. I was here to give, and Adonis was here to take.
When he stiffened, and pressed himself down against me, I bit back the whimper that wanted to come as he agitated my burning skin once again. He ended abruptly, with a few short thrusts, before pulling out of my body. Pressing his mouth against my ear, he whispered, “I know.”
I lay on the bench, unable to move until he uncuffed me. I was trying to understand why I hadn’t felt the tell-tale warmth of his orgasm deep within me. Adonis hadn’t come—he hadn’t reached his release.
So why in the hell had he acted as though he had?
He deftly uncuffed my wrists, and ankles. My body had become stiff after being forced into the unnatural position for so long, and I slid slowly to the floor. Rubbing my limbs, desperately trying to get some feeling back into them; I warily watched my tormentor, as he crossed the room, and leaned himself against the table at the wall.
“I deliberately chose the paddle so that your skin didn’t break. You’ll be sore for a few days, but you’ll be healed enough to come back here and train again tomorrow.”
I shakily found my feet, using the bench to support my unsteady weight. I glared at him, but said nothing.
He didn’t seem to care. When I said nothing, he turned his back on me and opened the door. He paused in the doorway, but didn’t turn around.
“I’ll see you back here at the same time tomorrow, slave.”
As he left, I was almost certain that I heard him mutter, “is that proof enough for you?” underneath his breath.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The next five weeks passed in a haze of disassociated obedience from me, and a sort of tempered brutality from him. He wasn’t violent in the way that Erebus had been, but he was cold, and rough. And he was dark, and mostly silent.
As the days came and went, I became strangely sure that Adonis hadn’t withdrawn from me by choice. I was certain that Charles had threatened him—most likely he’d threatened to cut him from his inheritance, I thought. A spoiled brat like Adonis wouldn’t last five minutes in the world I’d lived in for years; all because of Charles Olympus. Of course, he would do whatever his daddy said.
