But as he cut into his omelet, his thoughts were already racing ahead. New humiliations. Longer stretches. Different ways to bend her shame into arousal until she begged for things she swore she’d never take.
He’d get her there. Step by step, edge by edge, and she’d thank him for it.
Silas ate and listened while Kenny moved the talk toward routines, and Boone discussed adding exercises to help her hold up to suspension scenes better.
Willow leaned back on her wedge, chewing thoughtfully, clearly trying to absorb the scope of what had happened and what might come next.
He let her think she was getting a breather. Let her believe the hard questions were done. But his mind never stopped.
She’d admitted to craving days of being stripped down. Admitted the pony ordeal needed more time. Admitted the cage turned her on as much as it broke her down. That wasn’t just consent, it was a motherfucking invitation.
He leaned back in his chair, fork dangling loose in his fingers, and let his voice cut through the room. “You know what I’m hearing? You don’t just want to be made less than human for a night. You want us to keep you there until you forget what it feels like to be anything else.”
Her breath hitched. A tiny thing, but Silas caught it.
He grinned. “That means there’s ground we haven’t touched. Layers to peel back. Shame you haven’t tasted yet.” His tone softened, coaxing, dangerous in its calm. “You think last night was the edge? It was the warm-up, little hawk. Next time, we’ll strip you of your humanity, grind you down to athing, and keep you there until you forget there was ever anything else to be.”
Kenny shot him a look, a silent warning not to spook her too far, too fast. Silas shrugged, let the moment cool, and speared a bite of steak like he hadn’t just mapped out her future.
But in his head, the outline was already taking shape: the cage as her default, meals stripped down to ritual, endurance pushed past her own expectations. More object, less girl. Not long enough to break her for good, but day after day of pushing her deep enough that crawling back out would take some time.
That was what she’d asked for, whether she realized it yet or not.
And Silas intended to give it to her.
* * * *
Willow had sent all the healing energy to her clit, pussy, asshole, and nipples the night before while Kenny had held her in the bath, simply because they hurt the most.
After the trip to the bathroom that morning, she’d directed it at her feet and knees. By the time she finished breakfast, she was pretty sure she could bear her weight in her special cloud slippers.
“I’d like an Epsom salt bath. Can one of you bring my monster-feet slippers, please, kind Sirs?”
Boone wasn’t far from her shoe cabinet, and he retrieved them, his face stoic, like handling hot pink furry monster feet with black claws offended both his pride and his wolf, but he’d take one for the team.
These were the softest, most comfortable house shoes she’d ever owned, and they all knew that’s why she favored them. They still gave her a lot of shit over them, but that was okay. She wore them anyway, wiggling her toes in the silly fluff with something bordering defiance.
She heard the water come on and realized Kenny had gone to draw her bath.
She soaked for over an hour, then Silas fed her again.
She napped a few hours, and when she woke, Silas brought another huge tray of food.
She was back on the wedge, sitting up, and Silas set the same tray table over her lap he’d used that morning, a wicked gleam in his eyes when he told her to sit on her hands.
Boone and Kenny sat in armchairs nearby, bowls of venison stew in their laps, watching like men at a private show. That should’ve been her first clue something was up.
Silas held up a piece of meat on the end of a bone, the glazed meat glistening dark red. He turned it slowly, letting the scent waft toward her. “This,” he said, voice low and theatrical, “is your opening act. Grass-fed lamb, grilled just past rare, kissed with fire, brushed with pomegranate reduction and rosemary oil. It’s practically foreplay on a bone.”
She lifted her brows. “Is it really foreplay if I’m not allowed to use my hands, Sir?”
“Oh, I didn’t say you weren’tinvolved. Open.”
She obeyed, and he placed the meat between her teeth. Her mouth closed around it, and he didn’t release it right away but made her pull the meat from the bone, eyes locked on hers as she pulled, and he let his fingers drag slow across her lips.
A low, involuntary sound escaped her throat, more whimper than moan. The smoky meat hit her tongue with heat, juices slicking her lips, the pomegranate bright and sharp with a whisper of sweet beneath the char. Her thighs clenched from a series of memories — the way raw pain had bled into punishing pleasure the night before until she hadn’t known where one ended and the other began. Her core pulsed, a flicker of need sparking low and sudden, as if her body remembered the night more vividly than her mind dared to.
Boone gave a grunt. “You gonna feed her or make her blush to death?”
