23
Jase
Istood up and followed him into the living room, my hands still behind my back and my eyes down. Never in my life did I suspect that I would be someone’s sub. Over the past several days, and last night, in particular, I learned a few things about myself. For one, I might be able to kill strangers in cold blood, but I feared my own death. Secondly, I was not as hardcore as I had led myself to believe. While I sipped at the noodles in broth Keeper made for me, the words of one of my drill instructors came back to me.
He’d said, “You all might think you’re a bunch of badasses now, but get you out there facing enemy fire, you’ll be wishing so damned hard that you were at your mama’s house baking cookies. You might be able to trash talk yourself into believing that if you ever got captured, you’d not break. I’m telling you now, you will break. And there’s no shame in that. It’s not the breaking down that makes a man weak. It’s the giving up and letting yourself die. It’s stopping to look for opportunities to take on your captors and win. It’s when you longer look for a means of escape. You ever watch Hogan’s Heroes?”
Of course, we had. It might be an old show but it was one that ran on various channels running classic TV shows in syndication.
“They followed the rules that mattered, but they didn’t give up. You find yourself in doubt, remember that. Heroes don’t wait to die. They do what they must to get to back to the fight.”
I knew then I’d been very stupid, which was a very bitter pill to swallow. I’d forgotten his lesson. I’d also forgotten something else. Subs aren’t weak. They are the ones with all of the power. I might not have a safe word, but his talk of rules and rewards let me know that there was a system. I simply had to stop being pig-headed and learn it so I could manipulate it in my favor. I could put up with the sex. I liked a good fucking, and the way he ate out my ass had felt divine, soothing the sting away until it morphed into pleasure, albeit temporarily. It didn’t kiss away the actual boo-boo his torture device left. It also didn’t get rid of all of my resentment.
Lord Willow sat down in an armchair. I knelt down before him. He spread his legs apart, and I remembered the words he spoke in the bedroom. He wanted me to keep his cock warm. I hovered my hands over his belt in question, my throat still raw to speak with ease.
“Go ahead,” he urged. I undid his pants and pulled out his cock, which was half hard. I carefully settled down onto my heels and obediently sucked his cock down, resting my head on his thigh. He stroked my head, and if I didn’t know he was such a cold bastard, I’d have thought he did it out of affection, so gentle was his touch.
“The way we are now,” he began, “is how you must be when it is just you and I. There are instances when the rules state you must act thusly among others as well, for example, if we have guests or if we are at court and you are not there in a professional capacity.”
I suckled gently. He might be a tyrant, but his cock tasted good and I figured I might as well get some enjoyment out of all this. He continued to pet me.
“Mm, your mouth is so hot and wet,” he mused. “Basically, at any private gathering, if you’re not there in an official or professional capacity, this is your role. I am the only one who can order you about, though, as you belong to me. Anyone else, who is above your position, must be treated with respect. Again, that does not include obeying their whims.”
I got it. I had to bow and say yes, sir, and no sir, and all that. Act like the subs I’d at clubs. I could do that.
“Court,” he sighed. “At Court, you’ll be there officially as my lover or professionally, as my assassin. That doesn’t mean you’ll be killing someone there. It just means I have you on show. You’ll still have to bow to me, and if I ask you to bend over and let me fuck your ass right then and there, let me do it.”
Because the rules say I’m your sub no matter what, gotcha.
“I’ve arranged for us to go visit my cousin Puzzle while he’s in residence at Court. We’ll be visiting him in his private quarters, though he may or may not have friends also visiting. Just because he’s my cousin doesn’t mean you can ignore protocol. It’s merely a safer space for you to show what you’ve learned, and if you do make a minor slip, I have a better chance to mitigate the fallout.”
That sounded ominous. A mistake would result in severe punishment, but my boss would do his best to make sure it didn’t involve my death. Boss. That word no longer felt right. Willow isn’t my boss, at all, even though he promised rewards upon completion of eliminating targets he’d contracted me for. He was my owner, my master, plain and simple. His to do with as he wanted, as long as it didn’t break some rule.
I nuzzled closer, nestling my nose against his hairless groin. He continued petting me.
“Just remember these things, and as needed, I or one of the household will inform you if there’s a rule you need to know and don’t. Other’s you’ll figure out by observing others, minor things.”
I hoped so. I also hoped that by minor, he meant that I wouldn’t end back up on that cross or in the box for breaking it.
“Would you care for some mead, Lord Willow?” Keeper asked, appearing. The woman moved as quiet as a cat. I still hadn’t figured out how she kept her feet on the floor, yet the counter and stovetop were always the right height for her as she worked, all while nothing appeared to change size. It was most unsettling.
“Yes, please. And bring me my book from next to my bed.”
I closed my eyes, still exhausted from my ordeal, and lulled by the gentle strokes of his hand in my hair. Sleep soon found me, catching me sometime between the sound of the clink of his drinking glass and the soft sounds of his pages turning.
