It was difficult to sit today, but wearing the clothes he had put out for me to wear was easier than the clothes Thomas had given me to wear for the Leaders.
Leather corsets always made my lashings sting that much worse, but the dresses Azrael let me wear were soft and silky, not pressing on the bandages at all.
It still hurt to breathe though.
It was my fault for painting that picture. My fault for allowing my imagination to run wild. My excitement had gotten the best of me.
But it was more than that. I wasn’t the only one in pain.
I had felt the difference as soon as the door opened. Something terrible had happened. Something that had shifted the storm that had been brewing all these years.
I couldn’t find the right word for the electricity I felt in the suddenly heavy air, but it made me want to shrink away from him as he sat before me, watching me.
It made me want to shrink away and lean in at the same time. I wanted to know everything, but I didn’t want those angry eyes directed at me.
We’d just been sitting for a while now, so long that the mint had already disappeared on my tongue. His eyes on me, my eyeson where the soft black fabric of the dress rested between my legs. Black and red today.
I liked this dress. It puffed up in the skirt, layers of red tulle underneath. It made the skirt sit higher on me. Mid-thigh. Ireallyliked this dress.
But I was not excited about today. I couldn’t be. My back burned today, and all I wanted was to sleep until it was fully healed so that I wouldn’t have to feel it anymore.
What I didn’t mind feeling was that chilling burn in my stomach. It had grown a little larger after the lashings Thomas had given me. I wasn’t sure what it was or what it meant, but I reveled in the way it felt because it felt almost as good as the ache between my thighs.
It was my belief that they were one in the same and I wanted them both to grow.
“What do you have in your left hand?”
My right hand tightened. Before the lashings, he had ripped my painting into pieces. I managed to hold onto one single piece of it. It was easy because of how I was told to sit and stand. Nobody ever looked at my hands. No one would ever suspect that I was holding onto something important.
Azrael saw everything though. He probably saw the bruises on my knees from when Thomas had shoved me down after tearing up my painting and made me suck his cock. He probably saw the way my spine straightened a little more just to try and lessen the pain of those lashings. He probably saw it all.
“Anger,” he said, his voice quieter, more calculated than it had been before. “Show me.”
Anger. Is that what it was? The ice in the pit of my stomach, the burning in the back of my eyes, the way my muscles tightened and flexed. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like feeling this at all.
At the quiet command in his voice, I felt any hesitation within me dissipate. I was angry and he was…electric. All I wanted to do was make him happy again. Hear that lilt again.
I lifted my hand, turned it over, and opened my fingers one by one, revealing the piece I had kept. It was just a corner of it. A piece of paper with random colors, a line or two, and part of the word‘tock’.
A moment passed before I felt the paper disappear from my hand and I felt my heart skip. His fingers had been so very close to touching mine, yet the chasm hadn’t closed an inch. I wondered if I would ever feel his touch. I wondered if I ever wanted to.
“Your painting,” he hummed, much to my shock.
But of course, he was watching the cameras. Everyone with access to the Back Hall watched those cameras. They had to make sure I always obeyed the rules.
“Your betrothed did this?”
I tapped my finger on my thigh, my left hand still outstretched, waiting for my next command.
“Hmm.” Seconds ticked by before I heard a soft shuffle. “I’ll keep it safe,” he told me. “You have my word.”
His word?
“Like a promise, but stronger,” he explained.
I felt the tightness around my lips shift. I felt my lips fight to part, dull sparks, like the sound of the bass in the church band, thrumming through me. I wondered what the name of this feeling was.
When I could no longer keep my hand up. It slowly fell to my thigh, my ears straining to hear any shift in his demeanor, any breath of a command. We were following his rules now, I could move when I needed, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t change the rules without telling me. Thomas did that sometimes. Hesaid it was to ‘keep me on my toes’, but all it led to was more punishments.
