“Oren!” The snap in his voice pulled me from my trance. “Go do it.”
With a shaky nod, I went to go find my friends and collect them. I didn’t want to leave Thorne behind, but this would make it faster for him to get into a bed, somewheresafe. That’s all I wanted… Wanted him to feel a semblance of the safety he’d given me, despite destroying the trust I’d built.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THORNE
The towel conformed to my face, my lungs screaming for even the smallest break. Each thrash sent a searing agony up my arms, the bindings responsible for keeping me in place digging into my skin with a bite intending to leave a mark. My legs were no different, unable to flail despite my desperate attempts to free myself.
A haunting laugh pierced through the indescribable agony, a voice that would forever mark my nightmares. “Look at you taking it like a good boy, Thorne.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.
I was drowning.
Drowning.
The towel lifted from my face as he settled in front of me, the dark lust I’d grown accustomed to in the privacy of his quarters returning. “What is it going to be? Another round of screaming from pain, or would you like the reprieve of pleasure?”
“P-Please…” I whined, my body trembling from the onslaught of shock and agony. “I-I… Please…”
His hand struck my cheek, the slap echoing in the stillness of the room. “You know you have to state it, otherwise it’s marked as assault.”
Bile bloomed in the back of my throat, every inch of my body sensitive from the multiple lacerations that coated it. I was at my breaking point—I couldn’t… I couldn’t take…
“P-Pleasure…” I sobbed, shaking my head as every part of me recoiled with the expectations he’d drilled into me. “P-Please… S-Sir…”
“Are you that much of a whore to beg?” He grinned, tossing the towel to the side as the sound of his zipper tainted my ears, prefacing every unholy thing I’d have to endure for the next hour.
“Y-Yes… I-I…”
Stop.I screamed internally, wishing for nothing more than to be bled dry than for him to violate me for another second.
But the words kept coming.
“I am… A…” I gulped, tears welling in my eyes. “W-Whore…”
“My dirty whore. My commander. A weapon both on the field and in these cramped walls, so do what you do best and serve.”
My bottom lip quivered, my mouth opening out of the need for this to be over. As he stepped forward, freeing his length from his dress pants, I drifted to a place far beyond the room. Somewhere…
Gasping, I sat up abruptly. My head swam, sweat coating my body and the sheets wrapped between my legs. Each breath was fractured, my mind struggling to understand where I was as the lines blurred between memory and reality.
“Thorne?” The softness in his voice startled me, those cerulean eyes staring at me.
Oren. God, it was Oren, but those eyes… Those fucking eyes…
All I could see washim.
My chest hitched as I shoved myself from where I lay, my back slamming into the headboard as my panic spiked. “P-Please… I can’t…”
“Baby, what’s wrong? Talk to me.” His timbre was choked, but it was that fucking blue that kept me spiraling further away from him.
“I-I can’t… I can’t…” I whined, my body trembling beneath the weight of my recollection.
Bringing my hands to my neck, I clawed downward, reddening my skin, trying to pull myself from where I’d headed. My inability to breathe only worsened, my desperate need to find air leading each motion as I dug my nails deeper and deeper. I knew he was screaming at me to stop, but every sound vanished, the incessant drum of my heart in my ears creating a white noise that only exemplified my trepidation.
Muffled voices rang in the background until a new, clear timbre replaced the broken horrors surrounding those cerulean irises. With a firm grip, hands cradled my cheeks, turning me to face the one person I had found comfort in during my episodes.
