The Uprising (GRIT Sector 1 Book 2)

by Rebecca Sherwin

  “It’s why I can switch from one person to another. It’s why I created these walls. I always knew my father was fuelled by something other than the principles we live by from birth. I’d known as soon as I found out about GRIT that I would have to protect myself from him.” He bowed his head before composing himself, his head snapping up as his eyes desperately sought something in mine. I didn’t know what to give him in return for this brutal honesty. “It’s why I have to hurt you. Because I can love you afterwards…” He choked, backing out of his explanation and I watched the mask physically slide into place. He may as well have pulled the lion mask over his head. This Eli was as mysterious as any stranger in the street, and darker than Satan himself. “The punishment for elusion is bastinado.”

  “Basti-what?”

  Another strike made me shudder and scream, the sharp edges of the stick ripping into my pain receptors and setting those motherfuckers on fire. I was dying. This was the most pain I had ever felt in my life and I couldn’t take it. My feet. He was whipping my feet, much like he’d flicked my clit with the crop in the stable, only this time there was just one goal.

  Pain.

  The Eli who had joined us in the Sector today had been born in 1689. His name was Elis Blackwood and he’d been the leader of GRIT until he had decided to travel to parts of the world still largely unexplored.

  He returned a different man.

  His transition was the least documented, the biggest mystery of our family tree.

  But I had taken one lesson from the story of his existence.

  Pain.

  How to inflict it with maximum effect. Where to strike, how to strike, and how to soothe the burn so the following assault hurt ten times worse.

  Elis had been a torture master in Asia. That was all we knew, but it was enough. He was granted the power to extract agony from those he felt needed to suffer long and hard for their sins.

  Trixie had sinned. She had tried to run. She had tried to escape.

  She really had no idea there was no escape.

  Sure, she could break free of the estate, she should scale the walls and land on the other side, but what then?

  It was a sin to walk away from one’s family. It was a crime punishable by death to walk away from GRIT, to rebel when it was not your time, place, or destiny to refuse what we offered.

  As much as I loved her, she had threatened my position. She had tried to claim the right to walk away from this house, when the right was mine and mine alone.

  I struck her again. I wasn’t gentle, I didn’t hold back, I wasn’t hesitant or comforting or worried that I’d really hurt her. If she couldn’t walk for a few days, her feet swollen and weeping as they tried to heal in the one place that prolonged its own recovery, it would grant me a reprieve. I could fuck her when I wanted, knowing she couldn’t walk away from me. I could watch her for every minute of every day, learn her body language, anticipate her actions and map out her mind. I could own her, once and for all, and lead her through the door that would guarantee her devotion.

  Her screams cut me to the core, but it was Elis’ pleasure I allowed myself to feel. I relished in the satisfaction that I could do this and no matter how hard she screamed, until her lungs bled and throat burst from the force, the only person who could stop me was…me.

  And I had no intention of stopping until I’d had my fill of Lady Trixie Ashford Blackwood.

  That was a mouthful…much like my cock would have been if I’d shoved it into her mouth while I whipped her feet.

  I was no longer here, on this earth, in this Sector and lying on this table. I was fire. I was ice. I was an inferno frozen over by a blizzard. I was the Ice Age, Big Bang, every meteor shower of past, present, and future, and I was every volcano on earth erupting all at once to turn me into molten lava. I didn’t just have it swimming around my veins with the hunger for Elias to just fuck me until I flew into the stratosphere. I didn’t just have it rippling, crashing, exploding from where he whipped my feet with the stick. It was in my eyes, burning them from the inside out as steaming tears trickled down my cheeks to singe my hair. It was in my mouth as I screamed and sucked the flames into my lungs to breathe fire at him again and again and again. It was in my stomach, deep in my core where it was red, searing heat that turned black as it burned itself with desperation. It was in my heart, as the organ fought to keep me alive and conscious, crushing under its own weight as the fire threatened to burn me to ash on the fucking torture table.

  Still he didn’t stop. He flicked and tapped; he held his hand behind his head and allowed the atmosphere to sing as the stick flew through the air to collide mercilessly with the only tools I had to escape. He back-handed, striking my heels, my toes, the balls of my feet until I swear, the lava leaked from hundreds of nicks and cuts and slashes.

  I wanted to kill him.

  I wanted to fuck him.

  I wanted him to take the pain away.

  I wanted him to give me more pain.

  I was an absolute mess of sadism, masochism, lust and rage.

  I was dying. It was like death had come to me and my soul hadn’t left my body before it burned to nothing but ash and memories.

  “Elias!” I screamed. I screamed again, no words—just sounds of agony and despair and need.

  “Trixie.”

  His voice sounded far away as I slipped from consciousness and forced myself back into the real world. He called me again and I shook my head. My ankles burned, my feet no longer belonged to my body, the pain so raw I couldn’t feel it anymore; my shoulder throbbed from my fall earlier—my attack, when the dogs had pounced with the promise to eat me for lunch; my hands were numb, my fingers wedged so tightly into my closed fists I couldn’t pull them out. I was covered in sweat, trembling from head to toe and crying, for which reason I didn’t know. There were so many. But mainly I was aching for him. Even now, with my husband nowhere to be found, I craved him. His presence drew me closer, invited me to dance to music I couldn’t hear, for reasons I still couldn’t understand.

  “Elias.”

  My voice wasn’t mine. It was a whisper. It was echoic and musical, like harps had taken over my vocal chords. It was ethereal and ghostly. It was angelic and demonic.

  It was home. It was freedom. It was peace. It was eternity. It was history and future, it was space and time, it was love and hate; it was Heaven and Earth.

  It was fucking delirium.

  “Trixie?”

  “Take me,” I sang, the angels still carrying my voice with the demons releasing my horrific words. “Fuck me, Elias. Take me, fuck me, hurt me. Show me. Let me live inside you, with you inside me.”

  I faintly heard the sound of the stick falling to the stone and it echoed in my ringing ears. I heard the whoosh of released leather, the thud of metal on dense wood. I felt the pang of blood rushing back to my ankles. I wondered if I’d bleed out from the cuts on my feet now my blood flow had been restored. My heart was hammering, so I knew I’d be bleeding thick and fast…and yet, I didn’t care. I just continued to lay on the table and look up at the clouds, the stars in my vision barely out of reach now. I felt hands cup my ankles and bend my knees; I felt thick, hot wetness smear from ankle to calf, to thigh. I felt rough cotton—or whatever trousers were made of; in heaven, it was silk. Silk and clouds. I knew Heaven was just an illusion. Elias would be naked in my Heaven. Always naked. And gagged so his fucking mouth couldn’t take over my paradise. I was happy with the illusion. I was happy with him locking my assaulted feet at the base of his spine. Sticky. Sticky heat. He’d undressed. Had he done that while he whipped me, or since I’d asked him to fuck me while I barely clung onto my sanity? I didn’t care. I managed to flex my calves, which—I think—urged my feet to draw him closer. His hands cupped my breasts, squeezing them together, his thumb stroking over my nipples and making me shudder, making me moan for more, making the angels sing in pleasure while the devils cackled in sick pride.

  Yes, I wanted this. No, I di
dn’t have control, I wasn’t of complete mind, but what I did have wanted Elias to take the pain away and join me in paradise.

  I felt the tip of his cock nudge into me as he gripped my hips and tilted them up. His legs were closed beneath me, my ass settling on taut muscle and natural power as he knelt up, dragging my bottom half further up, until he was above me. He drove slowly down, sinking into me in one move that opened the golden gates stained with grime, and granted us access to another realm of this heavenly hell…this hellish heaven. Fuck if I knew where we were, but I didn’t want to leave.

  “Trixie?”

  I heard him call my name, but I shook my head, silently asking him to shut the hell up and let me enjoy this. But then…his voice, the dark, hoarse, lust-filled rasp of my demon took me higher. It made my tingling body coil up and tense. I suddenly felt every thrust, every deep plunge as Elias continued to drive down into me. I was almost vertical, almost upside down, the blood rushing to my head and prolonging the release in my core. Elias leaned over, almost folding me in half as he trapped me beneath him and stroked my throat. I couldn’t swallow for a second, couldn’t breathe for a few seconds after that and then his hand covered my mouth and nose, forcing my body to tighten in panic and clamp down on him. My eyes opened wide, as full-consciousness found me and my gaze connected with the man controlling my soul. He smiled, the cocky twitch of a smirk I’d fallen in love with. My chest convulsed as my lungs bucked. Tears streamed from my eyes and all I could feel was Elias stretching me, filling me, owning me, sending me to another galaxy with his skilful cock, tight abs and brute aggression. He let go, allowing me to take a deep breath as my head fuzzed and my lips tingled with impending numbness. He growled, grunted, and snarled as he relaxed our position, exhaustion finding him too, and he hooked my legs over one shoulder, folding me in half again as he leaned over me and drove in and out slowly. My own legs restricted my breathing; everything about this session was designed to steal my breath, to be totally reliant on him for the one thing that should have mine to control. Then his lips fused to mine in a kiss so desperate, so deviant, so catastrophic, I came. I tore my lips from his as soon as his tongue had speared into me, to throw my head back and cry out like a wolf howling at the moon. Only my howl was still musical, rough with breathlessness, coarse with emotion, tight with exhaustion. It was the cry of a harlot. I was a fucking harlot. I loved it, every second of the assault on my body as Elias stole my orgasm from me with his hand gripping my chin and his mouth closing over mine to swallow every breath back and reward me with oxygen infused with our sex.

  It was intoxicating. I was drunk on him. I was spinning and spiralling and nosediving into a blackout. I could feel it creeping in from the outside of my eyes, stealing my vision as Elias stole my body.

  “Come,” I breathed, ordering him to let go before I exploded with intensity. Before I died during sex. I had no doubt I was close to death’s door and I needed him to drag me back with his hands in my hair and his cock buried inside me where it belonged. “Come for me, Master.”

  The word caught him. He stilled. He threw his head back and roared like a lion, barely pulling out before his cum jetted out and landed on me, reaching from my navel to my nose. The scent of his release drove me over the final edge, forcing another orgasm from me without another touch from him. I crashed into the cliff and closed my eyes, finally letting the walls close in.

  Master.

  She'd called me Master. She'd acknowledged my possession of her. She'd willingly climbed inside me and shown me her flavour. Domination. Fuck if that sent my mind whirling with the images of her bound and at my mercy, always.

  But that was before she'd passed out.

  Trixie lay motionless beneath me, her eyes fluttering closed, head falling to the side. I froze as panic struck and I listened for breath. Nothing. I searched for a pulse; she was still alive, her blood pounding in her veins. The intensity had stolen her from me. It had sucked everything she had until she'd given me her all.

  Elis had succeeded in commandeering my princess, and I was filled with a sudden worry for her will. It was the one thing I couldn't lose because it was the only thing keeping us together when the ancestral influence inside me threatened to tear us apart.

  "Trixie?" I called, hoping my voice would be enough to revive her.

  Nothing.

  She looked peaceful, if a little contorted in agony. I jumped off the table, shaky legs making me buckle and sway. I shoved myself back into my trousers and checked her feet. They were red and angry, maimed and scarred, weeping and raw.

  "Trixie?" I called again.

  Still nothing. My heart lurched and shot me forward to unclasp the cuffs that kept her bound to the table. Grabbing my shirt off the ground, I bundled her up in it, buttoning it up backwards and inside out. I set her underwear back into place and scooped her up in my arms, rushing from the cell and towards the exit.

  Now I regretted barricading her in. I didn't know what was wrong with her, why she wouldn't come back to me and now I had a bookcase between us and almost-freedom. I set her down and her limp body bundled in the corner while I slid the door open before picking her back up. She'd paled and I stupidly looked behind us as I left the Sector to see the spots of blood trail back to the dungeon. Fuck. How much blood had she lost? I managed to hold her in one arm while I unlocked the office and stepped out. I hadn't locked up behind me, but I didn't care. The staff knew they'd pay with their lives if they entered the Sector without order. I ran up the stairs, passing a shocked Lola who gasped and dropped the basket of laundry.

  "You say nothing," I growled as I headed along the hallway, past Trixie's bedroom door and directly to my wing of the house. The darkness cursed me, as her face disappeared into the shadows of my chambers. I swung the door open and kicked it shut behind me, crossing the room to the bathroom to run the shower. I climbed in and dropped to the tiled floor, holding Trixie on my lap as water cascaded over her lifeless face. I tore the shirt from her, flung it across the room and pulled her closer so her chest was pressed to mine. She was still warm. She still had a pulse; I felt it thump against my lips as I kissed her neck.

  "Trixie?"

  I called her name over and over again, cupping water and dripping it onto her face to try and revive her. She stirred, licking her lips before pressing them together and frowning as discomfort slammed into her.

  I wanted to thank the heavens for granting me mercy by not punishing Trixie, but she hadn't opened her eyes yet. She hadn't looked at me. She hadn't given me a reaction.

  "Are you back?" she finally asked, sleepy and lethargic.

  She slurred like she was drunk.

  "What?"

  "From the Sector." She cleared her throat and licked her lips again. "Do I have my Elias back?"

  "Yes."

  She hadn't thrown hate at me yet. She hadn't served me with rage or a tantrum, or tears of pain and betrayal.

  "Good." She smiled wearily. "I'm not a fan of the man down there."

  "I needed to do it."

  Did I?

  "I know."

  Did she?

  "I'm sorry."

  "I know that, too." What was going on? Where had her anger gone? Where had her fear gone? Who was this woman? "Elias?"

  "Yes, princess?"

  "Fix my feet."

  Her feet!

  "Can you sit up?"

  "Yes."

  Her eyelids twitched, but she didn't look at me. She could have opened her eyes but she didn't want to. She didn't want to see me, she just wanted me to right what I'd done. Truth was, I didn't know how. I'd been taught how to whip someone's feet with sticks so they'd be disabled for a while but without permanent damage, but I hadn't been taught how to treat them.

  I helped Trixie sit up, spraying the wall with hot water to warm the tiles before I sat her back against them. She bent her knees up and shifted to extend her legs, resting her feet on my lap. Her toes brushed my cock, but I didn't react. My body deserted me when
I saw what I'd done to her. I'd done it consciously; I'd chosen to hurt her, inflict pain and cause damage to her beautiful body, but I couldn't face it now. I couldn't switch it off. I wasn't supposed to; I was supposed to wallow in my remorse.

  The cuts weren't deep; deep enough to bleed and hurt her more than I was sure she'd ever felt, but they would heal. The mental scars, I wasn't so sure about.

  "It's okay," she whispered. "I shouldn't have run. I didn't want to, really. It's why I stayed in the village, I just wanted some space."

  "I know. I shouldn't have pushed. I shouldn't have used it as an excuse to hurt you."

  "It's what we do." She opened her eyes, finally looking at me with tears glassing her violet orbs. "We're dark, Elias. I should have realised before that it's nothing to be ashamed of. Who cares if we hurt each other if we heal each other with love that outweighs it all. If being bad with you is what I was destined for, I don't want to be good."

  I still wasn't sure she understood. It wasn't about being black or white; it was about living in the grey and having a reason for both. But she was here, she was open, she was beginning to explore this world with me, and she'd as good as confessed to enjoying it.

  "Why can't I go back?"

  "Are you hungry?" I asked, avoiding her question.

  I didn't want to tell her. I knew why, of course I did, but I couldn't tell her. Not yet. Not until I knew she would choose to stay with me instead of running to them.

  "I am." She nodded.

  "Good. I'll have the staff set out some food. What do you want?"

  "Hmm..." She pursed her lips in thought. It was adorable. It made my overused clock stir. "I want chicken," she said, licking her lips. "With potatoes and broccoli."