Chapter 46: Ownership Demonstrated
The cold glass pressed against Sera’s bare back, stealing her breath. Rhys’s hand remained a vice on her arm, the other hovering near her throat, a constant threat. The city sprawled below, a glittering cage mirroring her own. His words – property, weakness, consequences – echoed in the silence he left hanging. Fear was a cold stone in her gut. Then, movement at the door.
The handle turned. It wasn’t locked. Rhys hadn’t re-engaged the deadbolt after Elias left.
The door opened slowly, hesitantly. Ben stood there, framed in the dim hallway light. He wasn’t gone. Marco hadn’t reached him yet, or Elias’s order hadn’t been executed. He looked like a ghost. One side of his face was a ruin – swollen, split lip, eye already purpling shut. Blood crusted his temple and stained the collar of his disheveled uniform shirt. He swayed slightly, bracing himself against the doorframe. His one good eye, wide with pain and residual terror, swept the room – the rumpled bed, the discarded silk sheet, Rhys’s bloodied knuckles, and finally, Sera, pinned naked against the window by Rhys’s unyielding grip.
"Ben?" Sera gasped, the name torn from her in a horrified whisper. Relief warred instantly with a fresh wave of terror. He’s alive. But… He shouldn’t be here!
Rhys didn’t turn immediately. His head tilted slightly, a predator registering unexpected prey. His grip on Sera’s arm tightened, grinding bone. A low sound, more vibration than audible noise, rumbled in his chest. Not surprise. Anticipation. Cold, dark anticipation.
"I… I was… disoriented," Ben stammered, his voice thick, slurred. He tried to focus his good eye on Sera, the confusion warring with dawning horror at what he saw – her nakedness, Rhys’s possessive stance, the raw atmosphere of violence and sex clinging to the air. "The hallway… I got turned around…" He took a shaky step back. "I’ll… I’ll go."
"No," Rhys said. The single word cut through the air like shattering glass. Calm. Absolute. He finally turned his head, just enough to fix Ben with a stare that rooted the injured man to the spot. "Stay."
Ben froze. The blood drained from his already pale face, leaving him the colour of old parchment. "Mr. Kade, please…"
"Shut up." Rhys’s command was casual, dismissive. He turned fully now, keeping Sera pressed against the cold window, his body shielding most of her nakedness from Ben’s view, yet simultaneously exposing her vulnerability. His gaze never left the guard. "You wanted to see her? Wanted to listen?" Rhys’s lips curled in a smile devoid of any warmth, only cruel amusement. "Now you get to watch."
He moved with terrifying speed. Before Sera could process the words, Rhys spun her violently away from the window. Her shoulder slammed into the wall beside the glass. Stunned, she had no time to brace herself before his hands were on her hips, lifting her clean off her feet. He threw her backwards onto the rumpled velvet expanse of the bed. She landed hard, the breath knocked from her lungs, sprawling amidst the tangled silk sheets that still smelled of their earlier violent coupling.
Rhys was on her before she could even try to scramble away. One hand fisted in her hair again, yanking her head up off the mattress, forcing her to look towards the door. Towards Ben, who stood paralyzed, horror dawning in his one visible eye. Rhys’s other hand pushed roughly between her legs, spreading her thighs wide open with brutal efficiency, exposing her completely to the guard’s view. Her pussy, still slick and swollen from Rhys’s previous brutal fucking, glistened obscenely in the low light.
"See what you almost had, Ben?" Rhys’s voice was a dark purr against Sera’s ear as he positioned himself between her splayed legs, his cock already thick and hard again, jutting aggressively. "See how wet she gets for the man who owns her?"
Sera whimpered, humiliation burning her face, tears blurring her vision. Ben looked like he might vomit. He took another shaky step back, his hand braced on the doorframe for support. "Mr. Kade… don't…"
"Don't what?" Rhys growled, his patience evaporating. He lined up the thick head of his cock with her slick entrance, already swollen and sensitive from his earlier assault. "Don't fuck my property in front of you?" He didn’t wait for an answer. He slammed into her, hard, burying himself to the hilt in one brutal thrust.
Sera screamed. The invasion was agonizing, tearing into her tender flesh. Her body arched off the bed, not in pleasure, but in raw, reflexive pain. She clawed at the velvet coverlet, trying to find purchase, her gaze locked on Ben’s horrified face near the door. His expression was one of utter revulsion and pity. It was worse than the physical pain.
Rhys set a punishing pace immediately. No finesse. No tenderness. Just relentless, jackhammer thrusts, driving into her core with enough force to shake the heavy bed frame. Each downward plunge felt like being speared, the friction burning. He pinned her hips down, his fingers digging into the soft flesh near her hip bones, holding her wide open, ensuring Ben had a perfect view of where his cock disappeared into her body, saw the way her cunt stretched obscenely around his girth, saw the slick juices forced out with every powerful withdrawal.
"Look at him, Sera," Rhys commanded, his breath hot and ragged against her temple. He punctuated each word with a savage thrust. "Look at the pathetic fuck who thought he could listen his way into your cunt!" He snapped his hips harder, driving deeper, making her cry out again. "Tell him! Tell him who owns this tight little fuck-hole!"
He released her hair only to bring his hand down between their bodies. His thumb found her clit, swollen and exposed. But he didn't caress. He pinched. Hard. Viciously. Twisting the sensitive nub between his thumb and forefinger with deliberate cruelty.
Pain exploded, sharp and shocking, radiating out from her clit like lightning. It mixed horribly with the deep, brutal ache of his thrusts and the overwhelming tide of shame. A strangled sob ripped from her throat. Her body convulsed beneath him, a cocktail of agony and the horrifying, unwelcome spasm of her traitorous muscles trying to clench around his invading cock.
"SAY IT!" Rhys roared, increasing the pressure on her clit, twisting. He slammed into her cervix. Stars burst behind Sera’s eyelids. "Tell him whose desperate, fucking whore you are!"
The pain at her clit was blinding, unbearable. It overrode the humiliation, the fear, everything. Her body was betraying her utterly, caught between the agony of the pinch and the brutal invasion. A second, violent climax ripped through her, born purely of overstimulation and degradation, utterly beyond her control. She arched violently off the bed, a raw, guttural scream tearing from her lips as her pussy convulsed in tight, involuntary spasms around Rhys’s cock. Her juices gushed, hot and sudden, splattering Rhys’s lower abdomen and thighs, dripping onto the velvet below.
Through the blinding haze of pain and unwanted release, Rhys’s command echoed. Tell him. Ben’s horrified face swam in her tear-filled vision. The kind eyes, now filled with sickened pity. The promise of sanctuary, shattered.
"HIS!" Sera sobbed, the word ripped from her raw throat, thick with tears and the aftershocks of the violent climax. "I BELONG TO RHYS!" It wasn’t submission. It was surrender. A desperate plea for the torture to end. "Rhys! Only Rhys!"
Rhys grunted, a sound of dark triumph. He drove into her one last time, deep and grinding, as she shuddered beneath him, her pussy still fluttering weakly around his cock. He held himself buried inside her, his gaze fixed on Ben, who looked physically ill, swaying on his feet, his knuckles white where he gripped the doorframe.
"Yours," Ben choked out, the words barely audible, a surrender of his own. "She’s yours, Mr. Kade." He looked broken. Defeated. Utterly destroyed by the spectacle.
Rhys slowly withdrew from Sera, his cock glistening with her mixed fluids. He stood up, towering over her prone, trembling form. He adjusted himself with a rough tug, his eyes never leaving Ben. The raw, violent energy still radiated from him, but it was tempered now by a chilling sense of absolute control.
"Get out," Rhys said to Ben, his voice devoid of inflection. "Clean yourself up. Report to Marco. Now."
Ben flinched as if struck. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, his good eye darting to Sera’s tear-streaked, vacant face. Then, with a shuddering breath, he turned and stumbled out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him with a soft, final click.
The silence that followed was hollow. Sera lay on the ruined bed, utterly spent, her body a landscape of pain and humiliation. She felt raw, hollowed out. Rhys looked down at her, his expression unreadable. He scooped up the discarded silk sheet and threw it over her, not gently, but covering her nakedness. He didn’t speak. He walked to the en-suite bathroom, the sound of running water starting a moment later.
Sera curled onto her side under the thin silk, trembling uncontrollably. She could still feel the phantom imprint of Rhys inside her, the burning pinch on her clit, the cold glass against her back. Ben’s horrified, pitying face was burned onto her retinas. I belong to Rhys. The words echoed in the silence, tasting like ashes. Outside the door, the muffled, heavy tread of boots approached – Marco, coming for Ben. Sera closed her eyes, pressing her face into the pillow that smelled of Rhys and blood and sex. The gilded cage door had slammed shut. There was no kind listener now. Only the Reaper, and the terrifying silence of ownership.
The bathroom door clicked open, shattering the fragile silence. Steam curled out, carrying the sharp, sterile scent of antiseptic soap. Rhys emerged, a towel slung low on his hips, water gleaming on the hard planes of his chest and tattooed shoulders. The raw knuckles of his right hand were now clean, stark white bone visible through torn skin. He moved with that same unnerving silence, a predator returning to cornered prey.
He stopped at the foot of the bed, looking down at the small, silk-covered mound that was Sera. She hadn’t moved. Her breathing was shallow, hiccuping gasps muffled by the pillow she’d buried her face in. The sheet trembled. The sight of her raw vulnerability, the aftermath of his calculated brutality, sent a fresh, jagged edge through the cold fury still gripping him. The image of Ben's pitying gaze, the imagined whispers, the audacity of her seeking solace elsewhere… it reignited the embers.
"Get up," his voice rasped, stripped of the earlier roar but layered with an even deeper, more dangerous resonance. It wasn't a request. It was the scrape of stone on stone. "Shower. Now."
Sera flinched violently under the sheet. A low, broken whimper escaped the pillow. The thought of moving, of standing under scalding water that would sear her abused flesh, was unbearable. The memory of his cock splitting her open, the cruel pinch, Ben's horrified stare – it crashed over her again, a suffocating wave. She shook her head minutely against the fabric, a silent plea for oblivion.
Rhys didn’t repeat himself. He moved. In two strides, he was beside the bed. His hand, still damp but radiating heat, closed around her bicep beneath the silk. Not the brutal grip from before, but implacable. He hauled her upright. The sheet slithered down, pooling around her waist, exposing her tear-streaked face, the red marks blooming on her hips where his fingers had dug in, the faint bruises already shadowing her inner thighs. She swayed, her legs trembling, threatening to buckle.
"Can't..." she choked out, eyes downcast, avoiding the inferno she knew waited in his gaze. The vulnerability in that single word, the sheer broken exhaustion, snagged something unexpected – a flicker of memory. The tub. Steam rising. Her wide, innocent eyes looking up at him with terrified, trusting awe as he’d taken what no one else ever had. His virgin. His alone.
His grip tightened fractionally, not in anger now, but in a possessive reflex that felt disturbingly close to… something else. "Fucking walk, Sera," he growled, the command laced with a rough thread of… necessity? He began pulling her towards the steaming bathroom doorway, her bare feet stumbling on the plush carpet. "Or I'll carry you. Your choice."
The humid air inside the expansive marble bathroom hit her skin. Condensation beaded on the cold surfaces. The oversized shower stall, tiled in black slate, stood open, steam still billowing. Rhys guided, no, steered her towards it. He released her arm only to nudge her forward under the multiple showerheads. Then he reached past her, his bare chest brushing her back, and turned the water back on full. Scalding needles instantly pelted her skin.
Sera cried out, jerking away instinctively from the heat, colliding with the solid wall of his chest. His arm snaked around her waist, holding her in place under the punishing spray. It was too hot, stinging her sensitive skin, turning the ache between her legs into a fresh throb. "Too hot!" she gasped, trying to twist away, her hands coming up weakly to push against the iron band of his forearm.
"Feel it," he commanded, his voice low and harsh against the drumming water, his breath hot on her wet shoulder. His other hand slid up her slick back, fingers tangling roughly in her soaked blonde hair, pulling her head back against his collarbone. "Feel every fucking mark. Every bruise." His lips grazed the shell of her ear. "My marks." He adjusted the temperature fractionally, just enough to stop the scalding, leaving it punishingly hot. Water sluiced over them both, plastering her hair to her face, his chest to her back. His erection, thick and insistent once more, pressed against the cleft of her ass. The towel was gone.
His hand slid from her waist down, over the curve of her hip, fingers skimming the tender flesh he’d bruised earlier. Then lower, through the slick heat of the water, reaching between her legs. She tensed, a fresh sob catching in her throat, expecting the cruel pinch again. But his touch, though unyielding, wasn't punitive. His fingers parted her, finding her swollen, sensitive folds, exploring the puffy lips with deliberate, invasive sweeps.
"Still wet," he murmured, the observation rough, almost accusatory. His middle finger slid along her slit, gathering the mixture of water and her own lingering arousal. He pushed inside, not deep, just the first knuckle, a testing probe. She gasped, arching slightly against him, a traitorous throb answering his touch despite the shame, despite the pain. "Always fucking wet for me. Even after." He added a second finger, stretching her tender opening. "Even when you hate me."
He withdrew his fingers, the sudden emptiness sharp. Then his hands were on her hips, spinning her around to face him under the pounding spray. Water streamed over his face, plastering his dark hair back, highlighting the stark angles, the fury banked but not extinguished in his eyes. He saw everything: the raw terror, the exhaustion, the flicker of unwanted response, the tears mingling with the water. He pushed her back firmly against the cold, wet tile wall.
No preamble. No gentleness. He hooked one of her legs high over his hip, his hand gripping her thigh hard, spreading her wide. With his other hand, he guided the thick, blunt head of his cock to her entrance. She was slick from the water and her own treacherous body, but still swollen, tender from his previous violent use. He pushed forward, a relentless, unforgiving pressure.
"Rhys—" she gasped, her hands flying to his shoulders, fingers digging into wet skin, bracing against the invasion she couldn't stop.
He drove in. Hard. Burying himself to the root in one deep, claiming thrust that forced a ragged cry from her lungs. He filled her, stretched her, the sensation a brutal mix of pain and shocking fullness that bordered on obscene pleasure. He held himself deep for a heartbeat, his eyes locked on hers, his jaw clenched. She could feel the thick vein pulsing along his length inside her. Then he pulled back almost all the way, the drag agonizingly intimate, and slammed home again.
"Look at me," he demanded, his voice a guttural rasp lost in the water's roar. He set a relentless, pounding rhythm, each powerful thrust driving her shoulders into the tile, his hips pistoning, the wet slap of flesh on flesh echoing off the marble. His cock was a brutal instrument, splitting her open again and again. "Fucking look at me, Sera!"
Tears streamed freely now, indistinguishable from the shower spray. She forced her eyes open, meeting his. The fury was still there, a dark storm, but beneath it, churning in the depths, was a raw, terrifying vulnerability that mirrored her own. The memory of the tub flashed again – her innocence shattered, his possession absolute. The image of Ben’s pitying face – a threat to that absolute claim. The crushing weight of his absence that had driven her to seek the solace of a kind word. The devastating cost.
His thrusts grew harder, deeper, angling, hitting a spot that sent white-hot sparks through the pain and shame. A choked gasp escaped her, her fingers clawing at his back. He saw it. The unwanted response. The betrayal of her own body. He grunted, shifting his grip, his thumb finding her clit, already swollen and exposed. This time, he didn’t pinch. He rubbed. Hard, rough circles, relentless pressure, perfectly calculated to ignite the fire he knew simmered beneath her terror.
"Fuck!" The word tore from her, a sob mixed with a groan as sensation detonated. Pleasure, sharp and shocking, ripped through her core, coiling tight, warring violently with the humiliation, the pain of his cock pounding her cervix, the crushing knowledge of what she’d done, what he’d done, what she was. She was breaking. Not just under his hands, but inside. The fragile shell of the girl she’d been in the tub, the one who thought she craved the thrill of the darkness, shattered completely.
Her climax hit like a seizure. Violent, uncontrollable, wrenched from her by his ruthless expertise and the sheer overload of sensation and emotion. Her back arched off the tiles, her pussy clamped down in fierce, rhythmic spasms around his driving cock, milking him desperately. A raw, broken wail tore from her throat, lost in the steam and water. "I'M SORRY!" she screamed, the words ripped from the deepest, most shattered part of her. "Rhys, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
Her voice cracked. The apology wasn't just for Ben. It was for seeking solace. For needing kindness. For being weak. For the terrifying, desperate thing his possession had forged her into. For the innocence lost in the tub. For everything.
Rhys froze. Buried deep inside her convulsing heat. His thumb stilled on her clit. His breath came in ragged, heaving gasps that matched hers. He stared down at her, water streaming over his face, his expression unreadable for a heartbeat. The fury flickered, momentarily doused by the sheer, broken devastation in her cry. He saw it. The utter surrender. The annihilation.
He didn't soften. But something shifted. A tension bled out of his shoulders. His grip on her thigh eased marginally. He leaned his forehead against the slick tile beside her head, his breathing harsh in the suddenly loud drumming of the water. He stayed buried within her, motionless, as her internal spasms slowly subsided into tremors, as her sobs quieted to broken hiccups against his shoulder.
"Good girl," he rasped, the words rough gravel, almost lost in the steam. Approval? Possession? Something else entirely? He didn't move. He just held her there, pinned between the cold tile and the hard heat of his body, his cock still seated deep inside her, the water pounding down, washing nothing clean. The silence returned, heavier now, saturated with exhaustion and the terrifying ambiguity of what came after the breaking. He didn’t pull out. He didn’t speak again. His eyes, when he finally lifted his head to look at her, were dark, fathomless pools reflecting the broken girl in his arms. His prize. His ruin.