I lurched back, scrambling to a ready crouch, and hissed, “Then I’ll take the whipping!”
For a moment, the captain was silent as I scowled at the offensive offering. Sweat beading across my brow as our whispered argument began to draw unwelcome attention.
And then, “What issue could you possibly have with steak?” the captain asked, baffled enough that his glare grew soft and hazy with confusion.
I swallowed, cheeks heating as I tried to hold his gaze. “I don’t eat meat.”
A cold bark of laughter burst from his lips. “You mean to tell me you’re a vegetarian with teeth likethat?”
“Please…” Creeping forward, I dared to touch his ankle. Content with playing the submissive if it meant I might win this one small battle. “Please… don’t make me eat it,” I whispered, staring at him with what might pass for reverence. Artful tears pooled along my lash line, threatening to spill down my cheeks. The very picture of fragile femininity.
Something wicked gleamed at the back of his eyes, and he stroked the side of my face with calloused fingers. “Mmm. It’s not quite the begging I had in mind, but beautiful nevertheless. Unfortunately,” he said, “what you eat is no longer your concern. We can talk about your dietary privileges when you learn to behave.”
A sneer shattered my dainty mask, and without bothering to hide my disdain, I said, “Over my stinking, bloated corpse.”
“It seems,” the general hummed, watching me down the length of his nose, “our wildcat needs a touch more than idle threats to garner true obedience.”
The captain went stiff, his touch growing tight and hot where it sank into the meat of my shoulder.
“But what to do,” the general mused, setting his utensils aside, “for the slave who doesn’t fear physical repercussions, hmm?” He laced his fingers together and hid a smirk behind steepled fingers. “A slave so willing to throw herself in harm’s way can’t be controlled with mere threats of violence. Oh, no. She needs a stronger hand. Something precious to lose, for the little martyr who’d sacrifice herself to spare another.” He clapped those large hands, and drew the attention of every last man and slave present in the dining hall. “Ah, of course”—he cast about, scanning the room as if lost in thought—“Captain Rawlings, every moment of further disobedience from our girl earns…Sashaten lashes. I feel that’s fitting, no?”
“N-no!” I cried, aghast. Horrified and cold, right down to the middle.
“No?” The general smirked, and it was a predatory thing that made the hair at my nape bristle. “Twenty, then. Unless you’d prefer thirty? Though”—dark brows climbed toward the general’s hairline—“I’ll admit, I’m growing leery of your thirst for seeing my Sasha marked! Quite the vicious little thing we’ve got, Asher my boy!”
Nausea swirled in my gut, burning the back of my tongue. And for a moment, I could do little else but sit and stare. Unblinking. Unable to breathe under the weight of such cruelty.
Utterly without options.
Swallowing a sob, I snatched the soggy bit of meat from the captain’s fingers and popped it into my mouth without giving myself a moment to really think.
Warm.
Juicy.
A chunk of fatty grizzle crunched between my molars.
I gagged, eyes squeezed shut. Stomach heaving at the sensation of bloody, half-cooked flesh sliding down the back of my throat. Of sinew caught between my teeth. The rich scent that invaded my sinuses and left a film of grease thick and tacky on my lips.
“Oh, come on, Mila!” the captain said, his laugh a deep rumble of pure amusement, echoed by the rest of the elites and their women. “It’s not half as bad as all that!”
I swallowed.
Heaved.
Swallowed again, and pulled a breath through gaping jaws. “I hate you,” I whispered, low enough that no one butheheard above the ringing laughter.
But he merely smirked, placing another slice of steak on his tongue, eyes closing on a groan of pleasure. Mocking me.
I gagged again, panting, the taste still lingering on my pallet. And, violated in a way I had never thought possible, angry tears threatened to spill over my lashes.
But I’d done it. Without complaint.
Sasha wouldn’t be torn up by an elite with a whip, cursing my name through tears and a gag.
“Mila, darling.” He said it in a song. The captain cooing in the tone of one already drunk on victory. Gloating.
Breath catching, I turned watery eyes up to find his fingers already laden with another strip of steak. One rarer than what had come before. Thicker with glossy ribs of muscle severed with a serrated blade.
