When I surface, Domanikk looks down with concern before it’s replaced by a smile. He kneels beside the tub, and I flinch away when he dips a sponge into the water, adds more of that silvery liquid, and begins gently cleaning my skin. I move to push his hand away, but he resists.
“Let me take care of you, Alaya,” he says in a soothing voice, lifting my arm and running the sponge slowly down it, the sensation making my skin prickle with heat.
“Why do you care?” I say, annoyed by his words and more annoyed by my own betrayal, the pleasure his touch brings me.
“I told you before—I am not a monster, Alaya. While you are here, you are mine, and I care for what is mine.”
My brows draw together. My lips press into a thin line. “I’m not yours.”
He moves behind me and gently pushes me forwards, the sponge smoothing across and down my back, dipping under the water and sweeping the top of my rear.
“Oh, but you are, my love. Youaremine,” he murmurs, his voice dropping to a velvet whisper. “And I have so many exquisite things to teach you. The pleasures I’ll show you—they’ll consume you, transform you. There will be no end to what you’ll feel beneath my touch.”
“Never.”
“See? You’re learning already. Nothing kindles my passion quite like defiance. Good girl.”
He stands and moves to the tub’s end, reaching to lift one of my legs by the ankle, cradling my heel in his palm.
“Why did you step in to stop Reth from killing me?” I blurt out, biting my lower lip in frustration that my private thoughts have escaped unbidden.
“What a waste you would have been—this beautiful body without a head,” he says, his surprisingly gentle hand smoothing down my calf.
“He seems to listen to you. He doesn’t strike me as someone who takes direction well.”
“Reth and I are … complicated, shall we say. My loyalty belongs to him above all else, even my own life. That’s why I’m his Lieutenant, his Beta Stallion. The light to his dark, the conscience at his shoulder to temper and guide him.”
His voice turns wistful, almost worshipful.
I gasp as his hand cups behind my knee, his fingers splaying over the soft, sensitive flesh of my inner thigh. That fire in my belly stirs; tiny flames awaken and stretch like a waking beast.
“I don’t believe he has a conscience to temper,” I reply, Heller’s dead eyes flashing painfully through my memory.
Before I can process what I’ve just said, he grabs my other ankle, raises my leg, and, holding both, pulls them towards him. My shoulders and head plunge below the water. I struggle to raise my head, panic rising. My lungs squeeze, barely half-full of breath from the quickness of his actions.
I thrash my arms and twist my body, unable to move my lower half due to his tight grip. I can faintly hear water cascading over the tub’s edge from my feeble exertions.
My mind focuses entirely on finding air to fill the painful crush in my lungs, yet it starts to feel futile. His grip remains firm, and a minute passes, feeling like eternity.
Finally, as the pain becomes unbearable and my mouth starts to open involuntarily to take a watery breath, he releases my ankles.
I lurch for the surface, a cry escaping as I take a deep, relieved lungful of air. Sitting in silence, only the drip of water from the tub’s rim and my shallow breaths break it.
I look up at Domanikk, his yellow eyes flashing dangerously.
“You’ve learnt another lesson, my dear. I may appear driven mindlessly by my dick, but I am Equitae. Everything I am belongs only to Reth and this Herd. Even that pretty pussy between your legs will never break that fidelity.”
He grabs a thick black towel from the nearby chair and holds it up, gesturing for me to rise. As I do, his arms envelope me, wrapping the towel around my damp body and drawing it under my arms, his fingers lingering a touch too long on my breast.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, confusion and guilt swirling through me as he walks towards the wooden chest.
“These are lessons I’m only too happy to share with you. You’ll learn our ways, and I’ll learn what pleases you. See, that excites me,” he drawls, turning back towards me.
My cheeks flame when I notice he’s half-erect, twitching. I don’t have much to compare, but I’m certain his is well above Kiernan’s glorious cock; even half-hard, his length is impressive.
He opens the chest and pulls out clothes: black leather trousers first, which he tucks himself away into, followed by black leather straps that hug his broad chest, his glinting yellow Enchantra at the centre.
“Do I get anything to wear? I’m kind of over walking around naked,” I say with a small laugh.
