He stood behind Serva first, and Emmy appreciated the name change for the woman who’d been behind making her so sick, who’d have killed her without a thought. Without hesitation. Without mercy.
And now Zander was punishing her without mercy. It was fitting.
Zander handled the whip skillfully, and she glanced at Spence near the side of the stage, standing tall, watching with an expression that showed respect without emotion.
She looked back to Zander, each strike a deliberate arc, the silver searing into Serva’s ruined back, her screams once again filling the room, and Emmy agreed he’d been right to turn them back on for this.
Vladislav roared through his screams as before, the twelve lashes digging deep, the silver etching the damage permanently into his back.
When the last fell, the theater held its breath, the message clear: hurt Zander’s protected, and this is your fate.
Pillories were brought onto the stage, and while they were set up, Zander forced dental gags into the vampires’ mouths and cranked them all the way open.
Zander stood and supervised while attendants moved the vampires onto the pillories, and then he announced, “Paying guests may use any hole for the next five hours, fifteen minutes at a time before you must get in line again.”
He looked into the audience, met Emmy’s gaze for a few seconds, and then scanned the audience again. “For the six hours after that, anyone in the silo — and that includes security personnel who aren’t on shift, kitchen staff, maids, flock —anyonemay fuck whatever hole you wish, as many times as you wish.”
Spence hadn’t told Emmy that part. Had he known about it?
She watched as a vampire walked onto the stage, released his dress pants enough to free his cock without showing his own ass, and plunged it into Vassal’s asshole. The vampire bellowed, but the man didn’t slow.
Someone did the same with Serva, though Emmy couldn’t be certain which hole they were in. Others fucked their mouths, and four lines formed.
When the time came, later in the day, she wanted to strap a dildo on and fuck them, too. In a perfect world, she’d be able to use a troll dildo and destroyalltheir holes, but that wouldn’t be fair to those in line behind her.
Unless Zander might let her go last.
While the freshly branded and broken slaves were fucked for the first time as helpless chattel, Emmy watched without flinching, and she let the grunts, the wet slaps, the choked gasps around cocks buried in throats — she let the sounds of degradation settle into her like data points. These two deserved worse than death, and she approved of Zander’s decisions.
His goal was to make an example, to show what happens when someone hurts people under his protection, and to do so in a way that people would speak of in hushed tones for centuries. And he’d executed it with ruthless elegance, ensuring the story would serve as a macabre warning long after the screams had faded.
Zander stepped to the front of the stage and said, “If you’re a vampire oathed to me, you’ve noted more power coming to you. I’m sharing what I’m getting through the slave drains.”
He glanced at Emmy, and she had the idea he was meeting the gaze of most on the dais. “When I’ve taken in their assets, a portion will be distributed to the flock members made sick by their actions.”
He looked back to the audience as a whole. “Anyone else who was harmed, financially or otherwise, should get withSpence, who will send you a link to a form you can fill out. Those who wish to stay may do so, those who wish to leave are hereby dismissed.”
Felix kissed her cheek and was gone. Toby looked at her, considering, and said, “Part of me wants to stay and watch, but mostly, I think I’ve seen enough.”
“Are you going to fuck them?”
He tilted his head. “No. Are you considering it?”
She laughed. “Never had to consider it. I knew right away Iwould. I mean, what better closure can I get than literally fucking the people who made me sick?”
Chapter 2
Zander left the theater’s roar behind, the echoes of Serva and Vassal’s muffled screams and cries fading as he strode through the silo’s corridors, his mind a calm sea amid the storm he’d orchestrated.
He was humming with power, and he enjoyed distributing it out to his favorites, which didn’t include Lucien at the moment.
Lucien was more concerned with dollars than he should be. Reputation was more important to Zander than money at this stage of his long existence, and he’d lost respect for Lucien during their strategy conversations over the past days.
Also, Zander wasn’t positive Lucien wasn’t secretly siding with the Concilio vampires, and this was the true cause of his reticence to take action, rather than a worry oftheir bottom line. Zander would need to go through his manager’s mind, and soon, but it would take some planning to pull it off with finesse.
It was more likely that Lucien was merely worried about the reputation of the yearly event, but Zander would always be more concerned with his personal morals over a business venture. Besides, they had to turn down dozens of vampires every year due to the limited amount of space. Even if half chose not to return for a few years, they’d still have a full house.
And Zander felt certain that — as long as there weren’t further problems — everyone would feel good about returning in future years. For one thing, being present for this was huge bragging rights, for another, the odds someone else would act up while here were slim. And finally, in the future, Zander would be hosting Concilio-only one year, Senatus-only the next.
