I’ve already passed a length of rope through the holes in the wall. I loop the rope around Cat’s wrists, tying them in place.
Cat’s lips part. I catch the sharp scent of adrenaline rising off her skin.
She’s already frightened, and we haven’t even started.
“Spread your legs,” I order.
Cat widens her stance so her feet are shoulder-width apart. I tie her ankles to the wall so she can’t close her legs.
Now her whole body is taught and trembling. She knows she’s trapped, in the most vulnerable position possible. Completely at my mercy.
And yet, she allowed me to do it. Which means she trusts me to some degree.
She really shouldn’t.
I stand before her, looking at her stretched frame, pinned to the wall like a butterfly. All that soft, tender flesh completely under my control.
Searching through my backpack, I pull out a leather scourge.
I made this myself, just like I made Cat’s collar, in the workshops adjacent to the old forge.
It took several hours to knot the leather thongs and attach them to the carefully-wrapped handle. The leather is soft and supple, but it can sting. I tested it out on my thigh.
I grip the handle loosely, letting the leather threads trail.
Cat watches my every movement, eyes wide.
With her hands up above her head, her breasts are bare and completely unprotected. I swing the scourge, letting the leather thongs nip at her left breast. Cat jumps and lets out a little shriek. A dozen pink lines mark her delicate chest.
I trail my fingers along the leather strands, letting the anticipation build. Then I whip her again, on the other side. The knotted leather flicks her nipple sharply and Cat shrieks even louder.
I step closer, trailing the scourge gently up her inner thigh.
Cat shivers, her knees weak, held up mostly by her arms bound over her head.
I bend to whisper in her ear. “I saw you sitting with Hedeon at dinner.”
I caress her left breast in my hand, feeling the warmth of the whipped flesh.
I seize her nipple between my thumb and index finger and squeeze it hard. Cat moans.
“I saw him talking to you.”
I grab her face and force her to look me in the eye.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing!” Cat cries. “He just asked about my programming class.”
I grab her nipple again and pinch it even harder.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not!” she gasps.
She’s sweating slightly, from fear and pain.
I grab her chin and run my tongue up the side of her throat, from collar bone to ear, passing over the leather collar, tasting the salt on her skin. Then I kiss her hard on the mouth, shoving my tongue through her lips, making her taste it too.
“I’ve seen him walking with you. Talking with you. He’s barely friends with Leo and Ares. Why is he friends with you?”
“I don’t know!” Cat cries, trying to twist her chin out of my grasp.
She’s not quite meeting my eyes.
She’s lying, I know she’s lying.
Her resistance infuriates me.
I whip her again, across both breasts and her belly. I whip her lightly at first, to bring the blood to the skin, and then harder, until I can see the marks of the lash everywhere.
Cat squirms and twists against the rope, until it bites into her wrists.
She’s not crying out anymore. Stubbornly she bites those pink lips with her sharp white teeth, glaring up at me.
I kiss her again, and this time I reach down and slip my fingers between her pussy lips. Her sweet little cunt is open and unprotected. She can’t even close her legs. I rub her clit roughly, and she does cry out, half plea and half moan of pleasure. Her wetness drenches my fingers.
“Let’s try this again,” I say.
I grab her face and I make her look at me. I drill down into those beautiful eyes, so dark that it’s hard to find the intersection of pupil and iris. Eyes that reflect only the tiniest flecks of light, like a glimmer of stars across a deep, black pool.
“What does Hedeon want? Does he like you? Does he want to fuck you?”
“No!” Cat cries.
I rub her pussy again, pushing my fingers inside her the way she likes. I’ve already learned the perfect technique to bring her to the edge in seconds. It’s not hard when the blood is already rushing through her body, whipped into a frenzy by the scourge and her own fear and arousal.
I know I have her right where I want her when she tries to press her hips against my hand, hindered by how tightly she’s bound to the wall.
She pants and groans, needing just a little bit more.
“Tell me,” I growl in her ear. “Tell me what he wants.”
“He’s trying to find his parents!” Cat cries out.
I pull back to look at her, surprised.
“What?”
Cat tosses her head angrily, making her dark curls fly.
“He wants to know his biological parents,” she says. “You know he was adopted by the Grays. He doesn’t have a crush on me.”
Her tone is disdainful, like that should have been obvious. She’s so irritated at me wringing this piece of information out of her that it must be true.
“Why didn’t you just tell me that,” I say, sliding my fingers inside her warm wetness once more.
Cat groans.
“Because he doesn’t want anyone to know,” she mutters.
“I don’t care what Hedeon wants,” I hiss in her ear, “I only care what I want. And you’d better share that attitude. Or I won’t be so nice to you . . .”
I pump my fingers in and out of her until her whole body starts to shake. She’s trying to squeeze her thighs together but she can’t. She can’t do anything except bite down hard on my shoulder with those sharp teeth.
“Argggghhhh!” she screams as I make her cum.
A rush of fluid runs down my hand.
I think I just made her squirt.
I wipe my palm off on the thigh of my trousers, for once not giving a fuck if my clothes are dirty.
I only care to look at Cat, at the sheen of sweat on her chest, at the lingering marks of the lash across of her breasts.
Her head lolls limp against her shoulder, wrung out by the strength of her climax.
We’re not finished.
Not even close.
I cut the ropes binding her to the wall. Cat falls into my arms. I lift her easily, one arm supporting her back with her knees draped over my other arm. She weighs almost nothing, even limp and exhausted.
I carry her over to the stack of cushions I stole from the gallery on the ground floor of the Keep. I throw her down on the cushions, watching her legs splay apart.
Her little pussy is like a soft pink shell, delicate and inviting.
I’ve never eaten pussy before. I always thought it was beneath me.
But I tasted Cat on my fingers and I want more.
I strip off my clothes and lay between her legs, pushing her thighs apart. I dive my tongue into her cunt, seeking the source of that enticing flavor, wanting it to fill my mouth. I lick her like an animal, ravenous and wild. I explore every part of her with my tongue.
When I find a sensitive spot, Cat purrs like a kitten. She lets out a long exhale that makes her teeth chatter together like she’s shivering cold. But she’s not cold—her body burns at a thousand degrees, and her pussy is the furnace generating that heat.