Chapter 2: The Savage's Revenge
The cold was a living thing in his bones. Aldric lay on the slab, the scent of jasmine and his own release a sickening perfume in the air. Shame was a slower poison than any he’d known on the battlefield. It seeped into the spaces between his thoughts, whispering of his body’s betrayal. He stared at the writhing shadows, counting his breaths, rebuilding the fortress of his mind stone by shattered stone.
A soft, metallic click sounded from his right wrist.
Then his left.
He froze, every muscle coiled. A trick. It had to be a trick. The manacles around his ankles released a second later, falling away with a dull thud onto the obsidian. He was free. The sudden absence of pressure was more shocking than the restraint had been.
Morwen stood across the chamber, her back to him, pouring a dark liquid from a ewer into a bowl. She hummed a tuneless melody, the picture of casual dominion. She had dismissed him. The final, absolute insult.
Rage, pure and undiluted, incinerated the shame. It flooded his veins, hot and blinding. Strategy evaporated. There was only the target.
He moved silently, the discipline of a hundred night-raids guiding him. The ache in his shoulders, the chill in his limbs—all of it was fuel. He crossed the space in five long strides.
She must have heard the whisper of his feet on stone. She started to turn, a question half-forming on her lips.
He was on her.
His hand fisted in the fall of her black hair, yanking her head back. A gasp tore from her throat. He used his momentum to slam her body face-first onto the cold altar. The bowl clattered away, shattering. The breath rushed out of her in a whoosh.
“You think you own me?” he growled, the words scraping raw from his throat. He shoved the sheer silk of her robe up over her back, bunching it around her waist, exposing the full, pale curves of her ass. “You think you’ve seen my truth?”
He didn’t prepare her. He didn’t care. His cock, half-hard from anger and the lingering animal memory of her heat, sprang to full, rigid life. He spat into his palm, gave himself two rough strokes, and notched the broad head against her.
She was tight. Unforgivably tight. He drove into her with one brutal, shearing thrust, burying himself to the hilt in her wet, clutching cunt.
Morwen cried out—a sharp, shattered sound that was part pain, part something else. Her nails scrabbled on the obsidian.
HE FUCKS HER BRUTALLY LIKE AN ANIMAL. There was no rhythm, no technique, only a savage, pounding need to dominate, to defile, to erase the memory of her being on top. He pulled almost all the way out and slammed back in, the slap of his flesh against hers echoing in the chamber. Each thrust jarred her body against the stone. He gripped her hip with one hand, the other still tangled in her hair, holding her down.
“Is this what you wanted, witch?” he snarled, pistoning into her. Her cunt was dripping, adapting, clutching at him with each invasion. “This raw, fucking animal? This is all there is!”
He released her hair and brought his open palm down on the curve of her ass. The crack was loud, startling. A red handprint bloomed on her white skin. He did it again, on the other side, matching the sting to the jarring rhythm of his hips. She shuddered beneath him, a low moan vibrating through her body and into his.
“Tell me to stop,” he demanded, fucking her harder, deeper. His balls slapped against her. “Use your magic. Break my hands. Do it.”
She didn’t. Instead, she pushed back against him, meeting his thrusts. Her moan turned into a ragged laugh, broken by each drive of his body into hers.
“Yes…” she managed, her voice muffled against the stone. “Yes… you furious… bastard… feel it…”
Her approval was the final obscenity. It poured gasoline on the fire of his rage. He leaned over her, covering her body with his, his chest slick with sweat against her back. He bit the juncture of her neck and shoulder, not enough to break skin, but enough to mark. The angle changed, and he hit something deep inside her that made her entire body seize.
She screamed. Not in pain. In raw, unraveling pleasure.
Her cunt spasmed around him, a series of violent, milking contractions that ripped his own climax from him. He came with a raw, guttural shout, pouring himself into her, his vision blurring at the edges as he pushed into her one last, trembling time.
He collapsed on top of her, spent, his breath roaring in his ears. The only other sound was hers, panting, mixing with his. The humid air reeked of sex and sweat and shattered power.
Slowly, he pulled out. The sound was lewd in the sudden quiet. He staggered back a step, his legs unsteady.
Morwen pushed herself up on her arms. She turned her head to look at him, her violet eyes dark and fathomless. A trickle of blood marked where his teeth had pressed. Her hair was a wild torrent. She looked utterly ravaged. And she was smiling.
“There he is,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “I wondered when you’d finally arrive.”
Her smile was the trigger. That bloody, knowing curl of her lips, echoing in the chamber’s hum. It severed the last fraying thread of his control. The aftermath of their brutal coupling still hung on their skin, but the look in her eyes wasn’t submission. It was appraisal. She was weighing him, even now.
Aldric’s hand shot out, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her throat. He didn’t squeeze to kill. He pushed, walking her backward until her shoulders hit the cold cavern wall beside the altar. Her breath hitched, but the smile didn’t fully fade.
“You want the animal?” His voice was low, a vibration of pure menace. “You’ll get the fucking animal.”
His free hand scrabbled among the detritus on a nearby table of dark wood—discarded vials, a basin, the shattered remains of her bowl. His fingers closed around a coil of black leather, thick and supple. It was a leash, meant for some other, darker purpose. Next to it lay a matching collar, the metal buckle cold.
He brought them before her face. “See this?”
She blinked, her violet eyes tracking the objects. A flicker of something—not fear, but sharp interest—passed through them.
He didn’t ask. He moved fast. Releasing her throat, he snapped the collar around her neck with a harsh click of the buckle. It sat against her skin, a stark, possessive band. He clipped the leash to the ring with a definitive metallic snick.
The sound seemed to change the air in the room.
He gave the leash a sharp, testing yank. Her head jerked forward. “You’ll be my dog now.”
He expected fury. He expected her magic to flare and melt the leather from his hands. She did nothing. She watched him, her chest rising and falling steadily. He slapped her then, an open-handed crack across the cheek that whipped her head to the side. The red imprint of his fingers bloomed immediately.
“Look at me.”
She turned her head back, slowly. A trickle of blood welled at the corner of her mouth. She licked it away, her tongue a flash of pink.
He grabbed the front of her ruined robe and tore it completely open, exposing her breasts. They were full, the nipples dark and peaked from the earlier violence. He palmed one, roughly, then smacked it. The flesh jiggled, a red mark rising. He did the same to the other. She gasped, a short, sharp inhalation.
He fisted his hand in her hair again, pulling until tears of pure physical reflex sprang to her eyes. He forced her head back, her throat a long line above the collar.
“Open your mouth.”
Her lips, stained with her own blood, remained sealed. He tightened his grip in her hair, a silent, painful promise. Her jaw unhinged. Her mouth opened.
He leaned close, his face inches from hers. He could smell himself on her, see the dark pulse in her throat. He gathered saliva in his mouth and spat. A thick, warm glob landed on her tongue, then slid over her lower lip.
She didn’t flinch. She held his gaze, and then, deliberately, she swallowed.
Rage and a sick, dizzying arousal twisted in his gut. He uncurled his fist from her hair and shoved her down by the shoulder. She sank to her knees on the cold stone, the leash hanging from her collar like a concession.
He freed his cock. It was hard again, fueled by hatred and this grotesque, absolute power. He slapped it against her cheek, leaving a wet smear. “You’re a hole,” he said, his voice rough. “That’s all you are for me now. A stupid fucking bitch. A slut who needed a collar to understand her place.”
He guided himself to her lips. “You’re nothing but a cocksleeve.”
He pushed into her mouth. There was no tenderness, no permission. He fed his length past her teeth, gripping the back of her head. She gagged immediately, her throat convulsing around the tip. He held there, letting her struggle, watching the tears stream from her wide, watering eyes.
“Take it,” he grunted, and began to move.
He fucked her face with the same punishing rhythm he’d used on her cunt. In, out, his pubic bone hitting her lips with wet, obscene smacks. Her nose pressed into his skin with each thrust. She gagged and sputtered, drool and spit coating his shaft, dripping down her chin and onto her breasts. The sounds were raw, ugly, and deeply erotic.
“Every night,” he panted, his hips driving forward. “I’m going to use you. This mouth. That cunt. I’ll paint this pretty face in my seed every night until you forget any other purpose.”
Her hands came up, not to push him away, but to grip his thighs, her nails biting. She was trying to steady herself, to take him deeper. The submission was absolute, and it made his climax roar up from a dark, secret place. He thrust in hard, holding her head immobile, and came.
He spilled down her throat in hot, pulsing jets. She coughed, trying to swallow, some of it leaking from the corners of her stretched lips. He kept pumping, emptying himself into her, marking her insides.
When he was spent, he pulled out with a slick pop. Seed and saliva webbed between the head of his cock and her mouth. She knelt, coughing, breathing in ragged, shuddering gasps, her face a mess of tears and his release.
Aldric stood over her, the leash still in his hand. His breath slowly steadied. The animal rage receded, leaving a hollow, icy clarity in its wake. He had done it. He had taken the sorceress who broke him and reduced her to this.
Morwen wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, looking at the fluid there. Then she looked up at him from her knees, her eyes reflecting the candlelight. The collar was a black jewel around her throat.
Her voice was wrecked, a scratchy whisper, but the words were clear.
“Good dog,” she said.