CHAPTER 1
Penelope
The chains around my wrists and ankles have started to feel familiar. The feel of rough fur between my thighs has not. I am aching with desire, dripping with need. There is a steady thrum between my thighs that pulses as my captor circles me slowly.
“Did you really think you would get away with it?”
“I didn’t do anything.” Why does that sound so very untrue? Have I stopped believing myself? Or do I know that I’m guilty of enough that the exact charge doesn’t really matter?
Guilt is a strange thing. Blame is an even more difficult creature to understand. I used to think I was completely innocent, but over the past few months, the beast before me has taken every bit of imagined innocence I had and shown me its opposite. In his possession, I am a craven, twisted, culpable little wretch deserving punishment.
He makes a snorting sound, like the beast he is.
He is very attractive when he is angry, and he is very angry right now. His hair falls over his shoulders in a rough mane, dark black flecked with silver that does not indicate age, but status. His eyes bore into mine.
“How many times are you going to lie to me, Penelope?”
My name is like rough honey on his hostile alien lips. I feel a tremor run through me, followed by a delicious heat of anticipation. The shackles that hold me have begun to feel like a caress, lined as they are with the furs of unfortunate animals likewise captured by this animal.
His features are that of a man crossed with a beast of prey. The ancient Egyptians had some sense of what a creature like this might look like, though their hieroglyphics did not do the majesty of such a beast justice. His eyes hold sentience, as well as animal fury. They are a piercing blue, shooting through to the very core of me with every flashing glance. The structure of his face is strong and muscular. He has a powerful jaw and great long teeth designed to rend flesh. He is a predator and a carnivore. His nose is flattened and covered in short dark fur. He has very dark brows that cascade over his eye sockets with dramatic flair. He would have a beard, but his hair is trimmed short against his jawline, extending from his head all the way down the sides of his face in what I can only describe as a mane.
The chains attached to my wrist shackles jangle as he lifts them up, placing them over the hook that is suspended from the ceiling. This stretches me out, elongates my body for his gaze. I am barely clad in a light mesh bikini, which was given to me when I informed my captor that humans need to wear underwear.
“I have come to you over and over,” he says. “I have whipped you. I have pleasured you. I have tried to teach you obedience and submission. But you have learned nothing. You have chosen to disobey me at the moment it mattered most, and now you insist on innocence in spite of the fact you have nothing but guilt in your heart.”
His hand slides between my legs. I feel his strength and his power there as he turns his palm into the fulcrum of my existence. I cannot help my hips as they begin to grind out of a conditioned response, seeking pleasure, knowing pain cannot be far away. He is wrong when he says he has taught me nothing. He has taught me what it is to be the captive of a truly depraved beast, and what is it in my own psyche that makes me such a perfect pet for him.
He chuckles, detecting my movement and finding great satisfaction in it. I know he can smell me. His senses are so much keener than mine, and are all entirely focused on me. His ears, the tips of which are just visible through his silvered mane, are pricked forward. His mouth is slightly open, allowing him to taste the dancing pheromones escaping my skin in light clouds.
He moves closer, and now I smell him. He is always the same—strong and masculine. He lowers his head toward my neck, the soft brush of his pelt a reminder of how tender he can be when he chooses.
“You’re so naughty,” he purrs, squeezing the soft lips between my thighs, making my clit pulse with the pressure. I could come like this. I have come for him so many times, and in so many ways. Still he does not have what he wants. But he will get it. It is inevitable. As inevitable as the pleasure starting to work its way serpent-like up my spine.
“I can’t help it,” I moan, my breath catching in my throat.