I flinched, hands coming up. Defensive, though I knew there was no escaping the second half of his threat. To make me swallow that girth. Beg for it.Crawl.
He reached over my head, pulled open a drawer, and rummaged through the contents, retrieving something that clanged when he set it down. Metal on wood.
Then, once more taking a knee, the captain pulled my hands away from my face with a touch that was as deadly as it was gentle. His thumb sweeping across my cheek, he brushed my tears away and gathered my hair away from my throat…
… so he could snap an iron collar around my neck.
9
Hooking one finger beneath the band of cold iron, I shifted the collar and scowled at the broad shoulders bunching and flexing before me. Eyes hot and dry,itchy, I watched him move without blinking. My gaze fixed to a beast until he produced a length of creamy blue satin and turned to face me once more.
“Up.”
I bared my teeth.
The captain smirked and flicked the fabric out in a billowing curtain with a snap that made me recoil until I saw what it was he offered. A barrier held between us. The illusion of privacy.
“Up,” he said again, and made a show of looking away. As if he hadn’t already seen every part of me.
Touched.
Trembling, I did as he asked.
With a flourish, he swept the fabric over and around me. Wrapped me up from collarbones to ankles, but left my back exposed and the whiplashes on full display. Practiced fingers twisting in the material, he tied two ends together just below my breasts and again at my nape. Adjusting the flowing drapery until it swished with my every subtle movement, a waterfall of color both soothing and enticing.
My cheeks flushed hot. Fingers damp and twisting.
“Come along, Hob,” he drawled, one large hand clamping high at the back of my neck as he led me from his office—the very same digits that had ravaged my pride and left me in ruins. Fingers so long they nearly touched at the front of my throat, his thumb playing with my pulse where it thrashed beneath my skin.
Betraying me.
The blunt edge of his nails teasing the fine hairs at the base of my skull, he guided me through the hall. His touch drawing up a wash of shivers that spilled down my back.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, pleased that my voice held no hint of the mortified humiliation knifing through my guts.
He stooped without stopping, pressing close enough that his heat blistered my cheek, his arousal left unchecked. Still ravenous and unspent. “Now, now, Hob,” he purred, breath a sweet and sinister fan. A promise. “Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise, hmm?”
I licked my lips, fighting the urge to recoil. To hiss and spit against the unconscious display of elite strength.
“We’re beginning your training today,” he added, looming at my back. “And I have so many plans for you, but first, we need to do something about those teeth. Can’t recoup my investment on a pleasure slave with only two useable holes…”
My breath caught, and with a rush of blood screaming in my ears, I began to sweat. At first, a bloom of heat, my face flushing a deep shade of red I could feel prickling into my hairline.
And then I went cold. All the way to my core. Teeth clenched hard enough to make my molars squeal, I swallowed back the urge to vomit all over the captain’s clean wooden floors.
I had known slavery to the empire was a brutal life for females of any nation, but to stare into those inky depths and see my own undoing?
“You’ll be trained for it, of course,” he said, conversational as he reached over my shoulder to unlock his front door. “And I think you’ll be surprised by just how much you can take. Even a skinny thing like you. Some of the men like to save some coin by sharing”—he shrugged—“which isn’t to my taste, but I do applaud those frugal enough to overlook a rather tight fit…”
“I would rather d-die than—” A horrified sob burst free of my lips. “P-please, don’t do this to me,” I whispered and glanced up. Fell into eyes gone darker than pitch, and was ensnared by the wicked sparkle glimmering in those ebon depths.
Flames of elite energy billowed off his skin, a cruel lash of amusement. A predator toying with his next meal. “You’ll be apleasureslave, girl. When I’m done with you—”
“Captain!” Cam said, panting as he stumbled to a halt before us. Breathless and flushed. “You’re needed on the front lines, sir. It’s urgent. The general—”
“Report,” the captain barked, and fingers tightening on my nape, he drove me into the street at a pace I couldn’t match with any amount of ease. Made to take three steps for every one of his long-legged strides, my every stumbling step jarred my bones.
Murmuring in low tones, Cam spoke a string of militant gibberish I had no hope of understanding. Speaking of troop movements and the loss of “more fuckin’ ground to those Eloran scum gurglers.”
