by Alta Hensley
He bolted in my direction and reached out, grabbing a handful of my hair, pulling me mere inches from his face. “Do you think tears will work? Do you think that begging for mercy will make my brother go against me? Against my will?”
“I’m sorry,” I squeaked. The sting from my hair being yanked by the man caused tears to well in my eyes. “I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.”
He tugged my hair harder, forcing my head to go back so I had to stare into his demon eyes. My throat stretched—so exposed. I wondered if he would bite down and suck from my blood like an ancient monster that tales were told of.
“Are you nothing but a weak little slave?”
“Fuck you.” The words shot past my lips like a bullet before I had time to think them through. Before I had time to really ponder the consequences that would come from such a defiant utterance.
Pike’s eyes darkened, and the red hue of his skin seemed to turn a bolder crimson. The color that once flowed freely through his body of bright red, seemed to clot in patches of blood red. Fury was visible. Wrath was inevitable.
“Right now. You will remember right now forever,” he growled.
I wanted to apologize. I wanted to plead for compassion. I wanted to reach into the depths of his evil and pull out even an ounce of humanity. And yet, the trained soldier in me wanted to kill. I wanted to decimate. To destroy. To rip his flesh from his bones with my teeth. Beg or kill. Plead or destroy. Fuck him. The soldier in me won this battle. The soldier in me took full control.
I spat in his face, smiling when I could see the shock caused by my rebellion twinkle in his eye.
“Fuck you,” I said again.
“Right now,” he repeated. “Right now you will remember.”
Without wasting another second, Pike tore my clothing off so fast and furious that I didn’t even have time to comprehend and try to stop the onslaught. Soon, clothes that once concealed my opaque body, became shreds of fabric tossed around by a beast before me.
I tried to fight him off, even though I knew it was pointless. I was a soldier, trained to assess my opponent. He was bigger. Stronger. Pike would win this battle regardless of how hard I struggled.
But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try.
“Don’t you dare fucking touch me!” I screamed as I tried to scratch out his eyes.
Gripping my hands above my head, he flung me back hard against the bed, only giving me a second to realize I was completely nude at this point.
“I will do more than touch you,” he growled. Gripping both my wrists with one of his beefy hands, he punched at the buttons on my collar with the code. A synthetic-sounding beep let me know that the collar had been unlocked. “Don’t want the collar? Allow me to help you then,” he said as he snapped the latch open, removed the metal, and tossed it to the floor.
I took a deep breath, and ceased in my struggles. Freedom.
Still holding my hands firmly above my head, he reached for his belt buckle and released it from his waist. “Not a fan of metal? How about leather?”
His eyes told me what he was going to do even before his actions did. The red lifeblood pulsed all around the darkness of his demanding eyes. I knew that very moment that I had no choice but to succumb to his vexation.
“Scared of tight spaces? Scared of a collar? What kind of soldier is scared?” he asked as he wrapped the leather around my neck, pulling it through the clasp. “Did you not have a commander to break you of such weaknesses? Weakness of any kind will get you killed on the battlefield, soldier. I think we need to break you from such a weakness.”
I shook my head. “Please,” I begged.
“No!” he bellowed as he tightened the belt. “You are a soldier. Do not show weakness! Do not beg! Remember what you told me. You are a fucking soldier and not a slave.”
Damn him for throwing my words back at me, and damn him for shaming me for my fear.
He tightened the belt even more as he straddled my body. He had released my hands, so I was able to pull at the leather to no avail. The more I struggled, the tighter he pulled.
“Can you breathe now?” he asked with evil lining his question.
I couldn’t speak and could only shake my head. Blackness threatened to take over as my ears began to ring. I really couldn’t breathe as the leather got tighter and tighter.
“Look at me,” he demanded. “Look at me!”
I opened my eyes and stared into his eyes, silently begging for my life. My trachea felt the pressure of the belt, so much so that I couldn’t even swallow the saliva building up in my mouth.
“I want you to remember this. Whenever you think something I do, or something I dictate is so awful, I want you to remember that it can always get worse. I bet you are wishing for the metal collar right about now.” He tightened the belt even more, causing blackness to edge around my vision. “If you doubt me, if you disobey me, if you ever question my actions, just know that it will be much worse for you.”
Where was Cross? Would he really allow his brother to kill me? If not for the fact that I was another human being, would he not want to save me simply for the cost of my head when we reach Canary?
I bucked my hips in a final attempt to throw Pike from my body before darkness completely took hold.
Pike looked over his shoulder and down at my writhing legs and then back into my eyes. Without saying another word, he loosened the belt just enough that I could take in a shallow breath of air. It wasn’t enough to fully fill my lungs, but enough to keep me alive. Just when I was hoping that Pike had finally felt I had been taught my lesson enough and he would remove the belt, he surprised me by getting off my body and flipping me over onto my stomach.
A familiar feeling of fear took over as the memory of my former commander raping me took hold of my emotions. Would Pike do the same? Would he take what wasn’t his? Would he steal from me like what had been done in the past? Would he fuck me and then choke me out until I died? Would I be nothing more than a fucked and strangled slave—white, dead, forgotten?
He loosened the belt a little more, this time allowing me to wheeze and gasp. The burn of my lungs eased with every inhale, and the shadows on my vision disappeared. I could breathe—though uncomfortably.
“So which are you? A soldier? Or a slave?” he asked as he crashed the palm of his hand against my bare behind. “Soldier or slave?” He continued to spank my ass, the loud sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed against the walls of the room.
The humiliation of such an act threatened to take back the little air I had just managed to obtain. The belt still tight around my neck, but I could no longer focus on the struggle to breathe. The searing swats of his hand on my butt were the only thing my mind could address. Desperation crackled from my core, all the way to the tips of my toes. I couldn’t cry out, I couldn’t plead, I couldn’t demand. I could do nothing but gasp for air against firm leather and allow the assault of a spanking to continue.
And oh how it continued.
Over and over, Pike rained down slap after slap against the entire surface of my exposed skin. I tried to wiggle away to no avail, and was only rewarded for such an action by a harder spank to my ass. The palm of his hand felt the same as if he were using a solid piece of wood or metal. Such strength. Such sting. Such mortifying pain.
Silently I begged him to stop. Hoping somewhere deep inside he could read my mind and know how terribly sorry I was. I should have never tested him like that in the head. I should have never for one second have forgotten that he is my captor and my life was fully in his hands. I was a prisoner, not a guest.
Spank after spank, fire erupted from the depths of my ass and sizzled its way to the surface. Tears fell freely from my eyes and wheezing grew louder against the choking belt that Pike still held firmly against my neck.
“Would you like me to remove the belt?” he asked while still continuing to spank with fury.
I nodded my head, as it was the only thing I could do.
“Very well. B
ut I am not done with it yet.” He paused in the blistering punishment and removed it from my neck. The rush of air that entered my body the moment the pressure released made my head spin with the intensity of oxygen my body so desperately hungered for.
I remained on my belly, absolutely still. I didn’t want to give him any reason to continue on and just prayed that he viewed my lack of movement as complete defeat. He was the victor in this battle. I was merely a fallen soldier hanging on by a thread. My prayers were not answered, however, when I felt the lash of leather crack against my already punished ass.
I screamed out in pain, but more out of shock than agony. “No,” I rasped, barely having a voice.
“Yes.”
Pike whipped me with the belt again, and although I wanted to turn around and fight him from doing so, I knew I had no choice but to lie there and take it. I reached for my pillow with both of my hands and squeezed tight as the next blow came down harder than the one before.
“Are you a soldier or a slave?” he asked again as he licked me with the harsh sting of leather again.
“Slave,” I answered between clenched teeth.
“To who?” he asked as he whipped me again.
“To you!” I cried. “To you!”
“To who, what?” He cracked the belt against me again, this time to the spot where my ass met my thighs. “Call me sir!”
“I am your slave, sir. I am yours,” I said as I struggled for air. Between a still sore throat, and the belt lashing, I could barely squeak the words out.
“Good girl,” he said as he tossed the belt to the side of the bed. He replaced the belt with the palm of his hand and began caressing my flesh that burned at the most gentle of touch.
I hissed in response.
“Remember that, slave. Your survival will depend on you understanding that you are no longer a soldier. You lost that title the moment the lifeblood left your body. You are a Pallid Slave, and as long as you are on this ship, you are my slave.”
I nodded between ragged breaths.
“Never question. Never disobey. Never for one second act like the trained soldier you once were. You are a captured slave now. Nothing more.” He dipped his finger between the juncture of my thighs and collected the juices of my heated sex on his fingertips and brought them to my nose. “Do you smell your arousal?” He raised them to my eyes. “Do you see how wet you are?” He brought his fingers to my mouth and pressed them past my lips. “Do you taste it?”
He forcibly swirled his fingers along my tongue, giving me no choice but to suck his fingers into my mouth, tasting my own musky essence. I had never been this aroused, let alone known what it smelled like, looked like, or tasted like. I stared into his eyes and licked his fingers clean.
“You like discipline, you like pain.”
I shook my head with his fingers still invading my mouth. “No,” I mumbled against his fingers.
“Yes,” he argued with a slight smile. “Your body betrays you.”
Fuck. How could this be? I hated him. I hated everything about it…and yet I wanted his finger to return to my pussy and rub my clit. I wanted his touch. I wanted it more than anything. I hungered. I craved. I needed. My ass burned, my neck throbbed, but my soul burned for more. I wanted it again. Choke me, beat me, and please oh please fuck me.
He said I would remember right now forever. Forever I would remember.
Pulling his fingers away from my mouth, Pike put his face right up to mine. So close that I could feel his breath against my lips. “I will not tolerate. I will not forgive. Where my brother may care, I do not. My brother may be nice; I am anything but. My brother possesses everything that I do not. Remember that.”
He pressed his mouth to mine in what I thought would be a kiss, but instead, he pulled my bottom lip in between his teeth and bit hard.
“Do not make me teach you another lesson,” he warned as he turned and walked out of the room, leaving me with the taste of blood in my mouth.
Chapter 5
I didn’t even bother getting dressed again. It didn’t matter. I had no dignity left. It had literally been choked and beaten out of me. The worse part wasn’t the pain. It was the fact that I lay there in bed feeling remorse. Sadness that Pike had left me. I wanted his touch. I wanted him to claim what I would willingly give. Rejection hurt far worse than the welts on my ass.
“Please go away,” I whispered as I heard Cross enter the room. I knew it wasn’t Pike, and the knowledge that he hadn’t returned to offer any form of comfort, or even more discipline stabbed at my heart.
“Truth?” Cross walked to where I lay completely nude. “Are you all right?”
“No.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for my hand. Even though I was completely naked, he didn’t seem to notice. He only stared into my eyes. “What did Pike do?”
“Why do you care?”
“I do.”
I held my stare with his and allowed the tears to fall. “Why didn’t you stop him? If you care, why did you let him come in here and do what he did?” I swiped at my tears and turned to my side, facing my back to him. “You didn’t hear me cry out?”
“I heard you.” His voice was so quiet. So sad.
“And yet you did nothing.”
Cross sighed loudly. “There are things about my brother and me that you don’t understand. We are Lifeblood Twins.”
“I too was a Lifeblood Twin. Don’t act like I know nothing about it.”
“Then you understand the yin and yang of our bond. If he is bad, then I am good. If he is mean, then I am nice. If he is stronger, then I am weaker. It is the way.”
I rolled back on my back to look at him and hissed when my punished flesh made contact with the bed. “Yes. I understand that one twin is stronger in one trait than the other twin. But not to that extreme.”
Cross reached out and rubbed his fingertips along my neck. Tracing the sore areas on my skin the belt had caused. “It is to that extreme with Pike and me. It always has been. We don’t share traits. Either he has it, or I do.”
“That’s not possible,” I argued.
“It is. No matter how hard I try to be strong, Pike is always stronger. And I don’t think it is possible for Pike to feel anything in his heart but darkness. I carry all the light, while he is blanketed in black.”
I studied Cross’s expression and took in how sad his confession made him. “So he is evil, and you are good? Is that what you are telling me?”
“Yes. I believe so. I am gentle; he is rough. I love; he hates.”
“Is he never kind?”
“Never. But he is my twin and together we will always be.”
That much I understood. The bond between a Lifeblood Twin could never be broken, no matter what. Even though Trinity was dead, I could still feel her presence strongly inside of me, although it faded a little bit more every single day that passed.
Cross stood up and walked toward the door. “I will be right back.”
He left me there, naked on my back staring up at the ceiling. I continued to cry. I felt such pity for myself, something I had never felt before. I had nothing. I had no one. I had no reason to go on. My life was on a time clock ticking away as it was.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Every tick brought me closer to the moment that I would arrive at Canary, and it was just a matter of time until I mutated and died in the mines. So why go on? Why wait? Why sit back and make the journey to death? Maybe it was time to join my sister now. On my own terms.
Looking around the room, I noticed the chain that had been tossed to the floor. I could strangle myself. I looked up for some way to hook the chain to the ceiling. I could try to hang to my death. Would Pike feel anything at all if he walked in and found me dead by my own hand? Probably not. He would only feel anger for losing his bounty. No pay for dead merchandise.
The door to my room slid open again when Cross reentered. He came to my bedside wit
h a metal jar in his hand. “Roll over. Let me rub this on you so you won’t have any marks. It burns like hell, but within the hour, you will be good as new.”
I paused for a moment, considering if I even cared about the pain radiating from my ass and neck. Did I want to keep the pain? It was mine. With the pain, at least I felt something besides the numbness of my heart.
“Truth, roll over,” he said again as he pushed my lifeless body over so I lay on my stomach. I didn’t care anymore. What did anything matter?
Trinity, I’m coming, I silently said. I’m coming soon.
“I know you feel lost,” Cross said as if reading my mind. “As if you have no hope at all.”
I remained silent, waiting until Cross left so I could end it all.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel that going to Canary was certain death. It isn’t. I can see you are a strong woman. I’m sure you can survive and figure out a way to change your situation. Not everyone dies. Not everyone gives up.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled into my pillow.
Cross’s fingertip traced the welts of my ass with a cold cream and I cried out. The burn!
“Stop!” I screamed. “Whatever that is, is blistering my skin!” I bucked up and tried to fling him off of me, but Cross held me firmly in place.
“It will go away soon. Allow it to soak in.”
“No! It hurts!” The ointment hurt far worse than the belting itself. “Get it off me!” I began to sob, no longer owning a single ounce of strength. “Please. I can’t take anymore.”
Cross gathered me into his arms and cradled me against his chest. “Shh,” he soothed as he dipped his fingers into the jar again and ran them along the rawness of my neck. “It will all be gone soon. Shhh.”
I just cried. Hollow. Burning. Alone.
“I’m here,” Cross said as he tried to ease all the feelings of despair. “I’m here.”
“It feels like fire, Cross. I hurt,” I cried as I pressed my face into his comforting chest.
Cross stroked my hair, placing soft kisses onto my forehead. “I know. I can make it better. I can take away the pain if you choose.” Cross pulled away enough to look at me. “My lifeblood can help soothe your pain. If we connect, if I’m inside of you, my love can completely steal the pain from your body...if you allow me to take you.”
