Bloom: A Dark Romance (The Order, 1)

by Nikki Rae

  He stood right in front of me, making sure my legs were together and, I kneeled on the hardwood as my arms stretched behind me, my elbows already aching. “Where?” he asked.

  I stared up at him. “I’m sorry, sir?”

  Master Lyon looked at me as if I was the most pathetic thing in the world. “Where have you been hit before?” He didn’t sound angry, but I could see the emotion flickering deep within his eyes.

  “My back, sir,” I finally answered.

  He started rolling up his sleeves again, taking his time in unbuttoning them at the wrists. “Anywhere else?” he asked. “Face, arms, legs, chest?” The words were fired as if from a gun.

  I shook my head. “O-only my back and lower, sir.”

  Pausing, he raised an eyebrow. “Lower?”

  I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. “Y-yes, sir.”

  He had finished rolling up his sleeves and sighed. I could tell he was becoming beyond impatient. “Despite what they would have you believe,” he said, speaking slowly as if I wouldn’t understand otherwise, “you are not a child. I expect clear answers when I ask you a question. Understood?”

  I suddenly realized that my eyes had drifted back to the floor, to my knees, which were no doubt turning red and sore from the hard surface. I looked up at him. If he’d noticed my indiscretion, he didn’t say anything about it. “Yes, sir.”

  I wanted to take his belt and beat myself for how small I sounded. How compliant and easy to control. I had been beaten countless times; I had learned that the only thing I had been afraid of in the early days was the pain. However, I had since trained myself to leave my body and focus on my mind whenever I was being hurt, making sure to cry out or scream or whimper at the appropriate times so they wouldn’t make my punishment more intense or longer. This was a different type of fear. For once, I didn’t care about the pain. I cared about what he was about to do so calmly. Why was he asking me such questions when anyone at the Compound would have started the punishment by now?

  “Sit,” he said. “On your back.” He was teasing me.

  I stared at him as I complied, slowly swinging my legs from under me so I was sitting squarely on the floor, my feet in front of me. My knees were already red, but I didn’t think it would be anything compared to what he was about to do to me.

  “So you can listen,” he said. “I suppose I have to threaten bodily harm in order for you to hear me.”

  I didn’t think he wanted a response this time, so I bit the inside of my cheek in order to keep my mouth shut. I almost shook from his cool tone but he didn’t speak again for a short while. Instead, he strolled to the white armoire, which looked antique and faded with age, yet still sturdy and beautiful. Though I wanted to know what was inside, what he was doing or retrieving, I forced myself to look away as I heard it open and didn’t look back up at him until it was closed.

  He came back to me with his hands behind his back as if he was hiding a deck of cards. He looked as if he was thinking, wondering what he was going to do. He was drawing this out on purpose; he wanted me to go over all the possible scenarios in my head so it was that much worse when the real event came to pass. Try as I might not to feed into it, I had a hard time concentrating on anything else. Slowly, he pulled whatever was behind his back to the front, staring at it with an almost reverent expression.

  The implement was made of something similar to his belt; leather, yet thicker and shorter. One end was wider than the other, and he held the more narrow end in his palm. His fingers squeezed around it and I watched his jaw tighten as the material groaned from the strain. For a moment, he looked as if he thought it was just as unpleasant as I did.

  I was no fool. Men like him lived for whenever a girl stepped out of line so they had an excuse to “correct” them. I wouldn’t fall for his attempt at trying to convince me he felt otherwise.

  He came closer, his footsteps sounding as if he was walking across cement. “You will keep your eyes open and on me the entire time,” he said. “If you choose not to obey these instructions, it will last longer.” I could hear the leather strap protest as he gripped harder. “Do you understand me, Doe?”

  Right now I had a hard time looking at anything but his fist, how the knuckles turned white and then back to normal as he clenched and unclenched his fingers. It took everything in me to direct my gaze at him. “Y-yes, sir.”

  I expected the usual, “let us begin” or “start counting”, but nothing like that came. There was no prelude to this pain. No chance to make the slight adjustment from helpless to hopeless—if only for as long as the punishment lasted.

  And I wasn’t allowed to close my eyes. I couldn’t escape his stare as he hit me no sooner than the words had left his mouth. The pain was immediate, biting into my right thigh like a snake, coiling itself around the spot where it had struck as a welt swelled and became increasingly hot with the blood rising to the surface. I wasn’t aware I had cried out at the very first blow until I felt it scrape past my vocal cords. All I could hear was the sharp sound of the leather as it sailed through the air and made contact with my vulnerable skin. All I could see were his brown eyes as he glanced up at me every once in a while to make sure I was obeying his instructions and then as the traveled back to my legs as he administered measured, perfectly placed blows.

  I had never been beaten on top of my scars before. I had always thought that if it ever did happen, it would somehow hurt less, the skin thickened by extra tissue and less sensitive than other areas. I was wrong. If anything, it was more intense, more painful than I had been beaten in years. I was so unprepared for it that I couldn’t withdraw into myself, couldn’t escape. Unwittingly, my body moved with the instinct to get as far away from the sting that would bring more welts but there was no use. There was nowhere to go mentally or physically.

  “Do you need me to tie down your legs as well?” he asked simply during a pause. He wasn’t joking or teasing. He was genuinely curious if I wanted him to restrain me more.

  I struggled to catch my breath. “No, sir.” I shifted back into my original position, waiting for the next whip. I kept my eyes trained on him, squeezing them shut for the slightest of seconds before opening them again when I felt another lash.

  “You’re not crying,” he mentioned like an observation. “Maybe you do like being hit.”

  I shook my head. I was too overwhelmed with sensations to add one more. I couldn’t cry if I forced myself. “No. No, sir. I don’t. I don’t like it.”

  A small smirk appeared on his lips, but it didn’t exactly look happy. He studied my welts as if looking at a painting and deciding where to place the brush next, which shade of red he wanted to use. “If you keep obeying me,” he said, “We will be done soon.”

  The muscles in my thighs tightened and I willed them to relax, knowing it would hurt less if the skin wasn’t so tight. I stared up at him, waiting.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  No one had ever said something like this to me during a punishment. Ready? Why did he care? Why did it matter? Surely he wouldn’t wait until I was.

  I nodded. “Yes, sir,” I whispered.

  The leather strap glided through the air and made contact with my thighs, the air it created shifting my robe in such a way that had I still been kneeling, I would have been exposed to him. Thankfully, my legs were held tightly together and he wouldn’t be able to see anything other than what he was currently doing. I didn’t want to give him more of me. He already had my full attention and my pain. That was enough.

  The next blow was the most painful, strangling my yelp in my throat. “Hurt?” he asked.

  He even gave me a few extra seconds before he hit me again, but I didn’t get to answer.

  “It hurt when you bit me,” he said, repeating the same motion in the same spot. When I glanced down for a fraction of a second I could see it was swollen and already beginning to bruise. I wondered if he would continue until it spread down to my knees. “Maybe I should draw blood the
way you did.”

  I shook my head, pathetically begging. “Please no, sir.” I swallowed a sob, my throat raw.

  Master Lyon smiled without looking at me, his eyes on my thighs and the marks he was creating. “You might like it,” he said. “I think you’re enjoying this.”

  That was the second time he’d said something to that effect. It didn’t take a genius to realize what would make him stop. He wanted me to show him I was hurting. More than screaming or telling him to stop, he wanted my tears. He wanted to show me that he was in control of even the smallest things in my life now and that my body was one of them.

  With the next blow, I concentrated on forcing all my energy into crying. I did this for at least four more strokes of the leather, only managing to squeeze out one or two tears.

  When my head was throbbing just as much as my skin, I whispered, “Please, sir. It hurts. I’m sorry.”

  “Ah,” he said, admonishing me. “Giving up already?” Another blow. This time it knocked the air from my lungs and I felt it in my spine.

  My arms shook behind me and my head felt like it was impossible to hold upright, to keep my eyes on him. I hated this man. More than causing me pain, he was toying with me. He wanted me to be ashamed of what I’d done—that I’d dare hurt him. Maybe he would make me bleed. Maybe he wouldn’t stop until then. I could wait, but my body couldn’t. I felt the room growing cold around me, my vision tunneling in a cloud of blackness so the only thing I saw were his eyes.

  I hated this man and any man like him. I hated the Order and everything they stood for. It was because of men like him that Members were so powerful that they could keep thousands of girls locked up and sold like livestock for centuries without anyone knowing. He was the reason I had no past and no present, but I would have a future whether he beat me or not. Men like him wouldn’t take that from me. I would burn everything to the ground if I had to.

  SEVEN

  It was incredibly quiet. From the dim light outside the window, I guessed it was mid-evening. I wasn’t in the other room any longer. I was back in mine, on top of the neatly made bed. My head spun as I struggled to sit upright and my arms ached as I used them to help. When I looked down at my thighs, they were swollen and bruised deep purple and red. I could hardly see the scars underneath through these new injuries. I gently ran my fingertips over them, surprised by the instant hot rush of pain despite the fact that I had been expecting it.

  Next to the bed, on the night table, I found a china plate with toast and fruit, a cup of lukewarm tea beside it. He had been here, and not too long ago if my food was still warm. I also found the same antibiotics and my birth control pill on the napkin. My eyes felt swollen, my throat was raw, and my stomach was painfully empty. I hadn’t eaten anything today besides orange juice, and now I was beginning to feel it.

  I decided I should eat before figuring out what I should do next. It was colder in my room than it was downstairs, and I figured it was because the fireplace was farther away. I shifted as carefully as I could in order to wrap the blankets around me. The robe wasn’t enough to hold in heat.

  The toast was as warm as the tea, but I had been starved for so long that I barely noticed and it was gone in a few bites. Next, I took the pills with the tea, drinking the rest of it before it completely cooled down. Once I was finished, I decided that trying to stand was my next best option. My legs shook, and moving them made the blood flow to my new marks like liquid fire, but once I had taken a few steps around the room, I had adjusted to the throbbing pain. I cinched the robe around myself tighter, letting the blanket fall to the floor so it was easier to maneuver. I shuffled towards the closet in search of something more substantial, finding another robe hanging up. When I reached out and touched it, the fabric was damp and smelled of the bath oils I’d used. When I looked down at the robe I wore now, I realized it was a slightly darker shade of purple. He had taken me out of my wet clothes and changed me before putting me in bed. For what purpose?

  I shivered and it brought me back to the task at hand: finding actual clothes. However, there wasn’t anything else hanging up. I opened the armoire next, pushing the thought of the one in the other room out of my mind as I opened its doors and went through the drawers. I was as silent as I could be, not wanting to alert my new Owner that I was awake. I’d never passed out from a punishment before, and I wondered if he would continue with it once he knew I was conscious.

  A knock at the door sent my heart into my throat, and I carefully closed all the drawers and left the armoire the way I found it. There weren’t any clothes inside anyway. I tried rushing back to the bed to feign being asleep, but I’d already taken off the covers and my sore legs couldn’t carry me as fast as I needed. Instead, I went to the door. I didn’t open it or answer, just waiting to make sure I’d actually heard it.

  “Are you decent, Miss?” It wasn’t my Owner’s voice, and now that I thought about it, he wouldn’t have knocked either. He would have just come in.

  I tiptoed closer, trying to place whether I’d heard his voice before. There wasn’t a crack in the door I could see through and the little peephole looked as if it was only for aesthetic purposes.

  “There’s no need to fear me, Miss.” I could hear his English accent, yet it was slightly tinged with French. It was an odd combination. “I’m here to collect your tray and deliver you some clean clothes. Nothing more.”

  I swallowed hard as I contemplated my next move. This man sounded a little older than Master Lyon. If he was feeble in some way, I could open the door fast enough to sprint past him or maybe I could hit him over the head with something. But that was a plan based purely on assumption. He could have been bigger and stronger than me. He could easily overpower me and then I would be beaten again, proving again how I wasn’t trustworthy. The key to my escape was his trust, and I wouldn’t gain it if I was constantly giving him reasons to doubt my loyalty to him. Besides, I had no idea what lay beyond that door. I could have been running directly into a dead end if I wasn’t careful.

  “Miss?” he asked after a few moments. “I don’t wish to bother you, but I was instructed to deliver these clothes and take your tray. I cannot leave until I do my duty.”

  It was a thinly veiled threat. One that told me he would come in without my permission if he had to, but he preferred I let him in.

  My hand shook on the handle as I willed it to turn. Another man in this world. He could be lying. He could just want to come in and beat me, hurt me in some other way. I wrapped the robe around myself tighter, clutching the opening at my chest closed as I opened the door.

  The first thing I saw were folded clothes over an arm. He was wearing a black vest over a pressed white shirt. There was a formal black tie around his neck, which I followed up to finally look at his face. He was indeed older than my new Owner, small, faint wrinkles around his eyes, but he wasn’t as old or as feeble as my last Owner. Not by a long shot. His arms looked slightly muscular, his shoulders narrow yet strong. His hair was an auburn color, a few gray hairs peppered throughout the neatly trimmed style. He also wore glasses, but instead of making him look older, they fit his features. Made him look intellectual instead of aging. He also had a few faint wrinkles around his mouth.

  Smile lines, they were called. I couldn’t see how anyone could smile enough in this place to cause permanent evidence of the emotion. Perhaps he was paid well enough to turn the other way as his friend—or whatever Monsieur Lyon was to him—could do as he pleased. Or there was the more obvious: he was part of the Order as much as my Owner was and didn’t see anything wrong.

  He cleared his throat when I had stared for too long, the door partially cracked. “May I enter, Miss?”

  I blinked a few times, trying not to entertain the idea of smashing something over his head and running. “Y-yes, sir,” I finally choked out, stepping aside as I opened the door the rest of the way.

  He walked in with purpose, like he knew this place well and had entered this room many times.
I was the intruder here. He set the folded clothes on the unmade bed before he turned back around to face me, a slight smile on his face to indicate he meant me no harm; I hoped it was genuine but I kept my guard up. There was never a reason to lower it in my world.

  “My name is Monsieur Bonhomme,” he said. “I am the butler of Lyon Estate.” Well that explained why he had knocked, I supposed. He wasn’t here for me, he was here for my Owner. “You may call me Mr. B if you like, except of course in front of the master. He doesn’t approve of such informality.” He rolled his eyes and I inched that much closer to liking this man. “What is your name, Miss?”

  Up until my final Suitor meeting, before Master Lyon purchased me, no one had asked me that…Had anyone ever asked me that question? Everyone just simply knew it, as it was told to them or written in one of my many files. Or they didn’t care. They would call me whatever they liked. I was more surprised his “master” hadn’t told him, but then again, what did a glorified slave’s name matter?

  “Fawn, sir,” I said in a voice too small for my liking. “But Monsieur Lyon calls me Doe.”

  He smiled and it almost felt warm. “Please call me Mr. B.”

  I had never called someone outside of a title unless they were another girl awaiting their Suitor. He seemed to realize this and said, “Or “sir” is fine if it’s more comfortable for you.”

  I nodded. That was all I could manage.

  There was a pause between us as we ran out of things to say.

  “Well,” he broke the silence. “Clean clothes are on the bed for you, Miss Fawn.” He went to the nightstand and took the tray. “Dinner will be in a few hours. We didn’t want to leave anything more than the tea and toast,” he said as he walked towards me again. “Are you feeling better?”

  It took maximum effort to keep my expression even. Better? No doubt he was in on everything that went on in the estate, and if he hadn’t been told about my punishment he could certainly see the welts on my thighs.