Welts formed on Kid’s ass as Deter continued assaulting him with the paddle. Mika came up alongside him. Removing a bullwhip from his bag, he twisted it around Kid’s throat. Kid moaned. Mika tightened the whip, restricting Kid’s breath until he gagged.
“Fuck you, you bastards!” Treycore shouted.
Craetis, with an arm around Treycore’s neck, pet Treycore’s back like he was trying to soothe him.
“No…more! He…can't…take it,” Treycore said.
Vera giggled.
“Hasn't he already?” she asked, her eyebrow arching.
“You fuck—”
Craetis tightened his chokehold.
“I’m so fucking tired of hearing you talk!” he whispered. He rubbed his free hand along Treycore's tense ass. “Mmmm…yeah, I like that.”
Mika’s eyes lit up as he loosened the whip just enough for Kid to catch a breath, then tensed it again.
The suffocation was unbearable. It was worse than anything Kid had experienced with Treycore. The spots were all around, but with Treycore, he trusted that he would protect him, keep him from reaching a point that was too far. With these monsters, they would take him to the depth of pain, and then he would die. And no amount of screaming or crying or desperately gasping for air was going to save him from that inevitable end…the end that he had agreed to.
***
“Leave…him…alone…you…bitch!” Treycore called out through gritted teeth, his voice straining from Craetis's chokehold as he watched his lover being destroyed. It was an agonizing sight, especially knowing that there was nothing he could do to bring Kid any relief.
Vera clicked her way over to him.
“Your mortal is pathetic,” she said. “I don't imagine he can stand much more of this, do you? I remember when you would have suffered to see that happen tome. You would have wanted to rescueme. Time gives so much, so much that you can't hold on to, and promises to rip it all away from you. How many times have we been in love, Treycore? How many times have we longed for companionship only to be dissatisfied with this one or that one? How many times have we been betrayed? It's a miracle any of us can keep going on after all the sadness…all the disappointment. You think that we would have all discovered by now the futility of love. And yet, I long for it more. You think I take pleasure in the misery of others, but truly, I am the one who suffers, the one who is constantly being tortured, ravaged by my need for you. I'll admit that it gives me satisfaction to hurt him. I'll admit that it's perverse, but in some way, it lessens the pain.”
Deter reached the paddle as high as he could and dropped it on Kid’s ass with an intensity that left Kid convulsing.
“Enough,” Vera said.
Deter stopped, a dissatisfied expression strung across his face. Mika begrudgingly loosened the whip. Kid’s naked ass and legs trembled.
Vera approached him and rested her hand on his back. “How do you feel?” she asked with concern and worry.
He panted as his body forced air back into his lungs.
“Oh, you poor thing,” she said. She lifted him up and slipped between him and the desk. As she rested his head on her lap, he vomited beside her.
“There, there. Shh…shh.” She skimmed the back of her finger across his blood-and-vomit-stained cheek. “I know it hurts. I know. Be strong. You have to. You don't have any other choice.”
Lifting his head off her lap, she slid across his vomit and set his head back down.
She stepped around the desk, opened a side drawer, and tucked her hand inside. As she retrieved it, coiled around her arm was a snake-like creature. It was thicker than a snake, and it didn't have any eyes. It was nearly twice the size of Vera's forearm, and just below its serpent-shaped head were two limbs that looked like lizard legs.
“Do you remember blaggovites, Treycore?”
“Stop!” he whimpered. “Just stop.”
“You must.” She twisted her arm as she stroked the blaggovite with the back of her free hand. “So much easier to control than Morarkes.”
Vera lowered her arm and rubbed the blaggovite against Kid's back.
“As I recall, you were almost killed by one.”
“I'm the one you want! Do it to me, you bitch!”
