“You’re not permitted to touch anyone, and I’m not getting my ass beaten because you’re too fucking dense to follow an order.”
“Sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Anything by it? You know, if you were my slave, I would have beaten your ass bloody by now.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I belong to Ares, and not you.”
Israel’s eyes flare with the use of my Master’s name, but there’s more than just anger I see on the surface. There’s heartache, too.
“He trained you, right?”
He scoffs and begins walking again, this time a little slower, and though his strides are still far too long for me to keep up at a relaxed pace, I hurry alongside him, needing the shelter of his body from the cold that sinks deep to the bone. “Yeah, he trained me, but I was never allowed to call him by his real name, so maybe you’re special.”
“I’m not allowed to either. I don’t always follow the rules.”
“Then you don’t deserve him.”
I wait in silence as he opens the stable door. I’m not sure I really want to follow behind a man whose disdain for me is so glaringly obvious, but the threat of staying out here on my own, unprotected, is even greater.
I enter the darkened building. It’s blissfully warm after the cruel cold of the elements. The smell of hay, and what I assume is human excrement fills my nostrils, and I scrunch up my nose in distaste.
“We can’t all live in the ivory tower, princess.” Israel chuckles, glancing over his shoulder as he walks on ahead of me.
“Do you . . . live here? All of you?” I glance around as we walk, finding the stables empty.
“Yeah, we really live here.” Israel’s tone is sharp, brimming with contempt.
Suddenly, the room I’ve occupied since Ares released me from my cell doesn’t seem so bad. “But there’s so many of you, and one of him. Why don’t you run?”
“Why don’t you?” he counters, and I swallow hard.Because I’m in love with him. Because I’m afraid. Because I both love and hate the things Ares does to me. Because I might run and discover it’s the worst mistake of my life.
I don’t answer.
Israel nods. “I never would have left him either.” I turn to look at him, but Israel moves forward. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
He presses his finger to his lips and pads softly forward over the concrete floor. He enters a stable and I just stare at him, wondering if I should follow. Fear pricks up and down my spine as he beckons me forward. From the next stable, I hear the muffled cry of a human and a sound I’d know anywhere: the sharp slap of a riding crop against bare skin. I flinch. My mouth grows dry, and Israel raises a brow in challenge. I move into the stable alongside him.
Through a grate built into the wooden frame, I see a man wearing hooves, a long black tail, and a rubber horse’s head. He wields a crop, bringing it down on the bare ass before him. The woman lets out a cry of pain mixed with pleasure—another sound I’m all too familiar with.
Israel leans in and whispers, “Even when we’re not being dominated by our Masters, we crave the pain and pleasure. It’s a part of you now, and it always will be.”
The man in the horse head pulls the woman’s tail—a butt plug. He wiggles it up and down, and she moans with each movement. I squirm where I stand, my whole body igniting with desire. The whole idea of horse play is both terrifying and creepy to me, and yet this scene is so erotic, so dark, twisted, and so far removed from anything Ares has asked me to do, but it’s the same. The players are different, the game different too, but the rules are clear. It’s a power exchange between Dominant and submissive, and I understand it all too keenly. I’m no better than the woman on all fours with a butt plug in her ass and a bit in her mouth. We’re the same, she and me.
The man in the horse head whinnies and yanks out the plug, discarding it on the floor, then he shoves his erect cock so far inside her that a shrill scream escapes her throat. As he thrusts in and out they grunt, making animal sounds so base in nature that I’m both disgusted and aroused. I’m vaguely aware of Israel leaving my side, but I don’t follow.I can’t.
“Enjoying the show, Pet?”
I gasp as my Sir’s warm breath brushes my ear. He covers my mouth, snaking his other arm around my waist and between my legs. I don’t know if Israel is watching. I no longer care. “So wet. Does it turn you on to watch the other slaves fucking, to smell it on the air, and crave it deep within your core?”
“Yes, Sir,” I breathe.
He strokes my clit, rubbing the sensitive flesh in hard fits and bursts. He brings me to the brink in a millisecond, and edges me away again. His gravelly voice whispers in my ear, “Shall I debase you the way he is debasing her? Bend you over, and shove my cock so deep in your ass that every time you sit, stand or kneel you’ll feel me there?”
I’m panting now, fast, moaning, and unperturbed that the couple can probably hear us. “Yes,” I whimper. “Yes, Sir, please?”
The horse-man intensifies his speed, thrusting in and out so hard I don’t know how it isn’t tearing her flesh. Ares widens my legs, kicking my ankles apart as he takes my weight, and shoves me up against the wall. “Is that what you want, little one? Shall I give you over to our fine stallion in there so he can fuck you next?”
“No, please, Sir. Only you. Just you.”