Ares turns and disappears through the door. I sag against my restraints and sob.
***
I’m dehydrated andfamished when he enters the room again. His clothes are different from the previous two times he’s visited. Did I lose hours or days? Or is he just toying with me? My head hangs low, but he grasps my chin and jerks it up to meet his eyes. “Who owns you?”
I’m tired of fighting. My body is broken. My mind is broken. All common sense has leached through the cracks and left only a weak, agreeable girl in its wake.
“You,” I whisper, the word falling from my traitorous mouth before I even know what I’ve said.
“Good girl.” He smooths the sweaty strands of hair back from my face.
“Who gets to touch you?”
“You.”
“That’s right.” Ares’ smile is devastating. Monsters should never be this pretty. It isn’t fair. “Are you going to behave, little one?”
I swallow thickly. “Yes, Sir.”
I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.
“You’ve done well, Pet.” He reaches up and unfastens my restraints with one hand. The other is firmly wrapped around my waist, catching me so I won’t fall. And thank god, because I can’t keep my body upright any longer. As the blood flows back in, the pain in my limbs is so great that I collapse against him, my body shaking with silent sobs, my tears having long run dry.
I think I hear him chuckle as he rubs my arms, one after the other, assisting the blood to flow through again in agonizing bursts. I breathe in his clean, spicy scent and curl into his chest as if he wasn’t the man who just tortured me until I broke.
Ares sweeps me up in a honeymoon hold, and I can’t keep my eyes open. I hear the beep of the door. I don’t want to be here in this room anymore. I don’t want to be alone in this cell, in the dark, the cold. I want out. I’ll do whatever he wants, but I want out.
I attempt to say this before he leaves, but then I realize that nothing in my cell is this warm, and this comfortable. Am I dead? He shushes me, pressing a kiss to my hair, and I realize that he hasn’t let me go at all. He’s carrying me out of that horrible room, and I hope I never have to go back.
I sleep, I must, though I never would have thought it possible to fall asleep as a man carried you upstairs, but when I wake again he’s lowering us both into warm water. The bath. Just like my first day. Only this time my captor is in here with me, naked, erect, and strangely comforting.
I lie back against his chest as the warm water laps at my breasts. He cleans me with a sweet-smelling soap and a soft cloth, and I close my eyes because I’m so tired I can do nothing else.
He’s washing between my legs when I open my eyes again. It feels nice after all the teasing and the horrible blows from his belt. A moan escapes me.
“Who owns you, Pet?”
“You, Sir,” I mumble, unsure if I’m actually speaking aloud, or just inside my head.
“Good girl.” He presses a kiss to my hair again as he continues to stroke me down below. The water splashes against the tub with his movements. His hands work me faster, and when I come, I break apart. Like a china doll thrown on the concrete. I shatter, and it’s both cruel and glorious.
Ares wraps his arms around me, and whispers, “Good girl.”
I preen. I’m warm and safe, and free from pain—at least for a little while.
Eventually, he pulls me from the tub and dries my body. He rubs me down with the gardenia oil again, and I become putty in his hands.Malleable. I’m a good girl, one who is willing to do whatever he asks of me.