A single tear beaded at the corner of his eye and rolled down his cheek. There was so much pain in this disgusting room, this wretched place. It all needed to burn to the fucking ground.
The council members watched intently, grinning, whispering to each other like our lives—our bodies—were a performance for their entertainment.
Aurelius began to moan as he got rougher with the slave, but nobody seemed to care. No one stopped it.
I felt like I was in hell. The depravity, the lack of basic rights, it was horrible.
The acolytes dragged me to the seeding chair. I kicked and screamed blood-curdling screams. “Titus!!!! Please help me, don’t let them do this to me!!” I wailed and sobbed.
I saw him tense—one single flame on his shoulder—before I was turned away from him and forcefully thrown onto the chair on my stomach. All I could see was the other wall and the chains on my wrists.
I felt cold, bony fingers grab my ankles. I kicked and kicked, managing to catch one of them in the fucking chin.
“She’s a fiery one, isn’t she…” A council member remarked. “Should make things interesting.” Another responded, and
the rest chuckled in amusement.
I turned my head to the council and glared while I spit out the words, “Fuck…you.”
Despite my best effort, it wasn’t long before the robed females had both my ankles cuffed in the stirrups. I was in a downward dog position, legs spread and knees bent on a branching piece of the chair on either side. On full display for Aurelius, Cercies, and Titus. If it wasn’t for the small silk panel covering the very center of me, I would have been utterly exposed.
“General….” The head council member called, but Cercies didn’t move. He was refusing to take part in this sickening, ritualistic nightmare.
Caddver rotated his wrist and clenched his fist with a snap, and the collar on Cercies’s neck tightened. The dagger clicked twice, inching closer to his throat, then stopped a hair away from scraping his flesh.
I turned my head as far as my restraints would allow and saw him wince and groan at the constriction. He fell to his knees.
“Cercies, NO!” I screamed.
He grabbed at his collar, using all his strength to try and pry it apart, but he couldn’t. And he couldn’t get out of what he had to do to me.
I saw that now. I understood, and as much as I did not want him to touch me, I did not want him to die. His life was not worth the brief,meaningless encounter—not worth what it would do to Calpurnia to lose her mate.
He strained for air, his face purpling, and Caddver released the tightness on his airway with magic, but the dagger remained dangerously close to his throat. He coughed and caught his breath, then walked toward me, glaring at the council, his eyes promising death— his heart promising it would be a slow and brutal one.
I felt the heat of his body behind me, and my stomach twisted like it tried to fold in on itself. His hand moved the flap of my dress, and I willed Titus with my eyes: please look at me, look at what is happening to me, please just fucking help me, stop this!
But he wasn’t even looking in my direction. His focus stayed where the wall met the ceiling across the room, as if he didn’t see it, then it wasn’t happening.
But it fucking was.
I felt my skirt drop. Cercies released it and it covered me once again. Then I felt the tremble in his body, but he still wasn’t touching me. I heard one choked breath, not from the collar, but from the internal pain of having to do this.
He knew my story. He knew what happened to me, and here he was now, forced by sick, twisted ideologies. He loved Calpurnia. There was no part of him that wanted this. He wanted to stay true to his fated.
“General!!!” Caddver shouted, and my heart lurched. If that dagger got any closer, it would pierce his skin. He would bleed out and die.
“It’s okay,” I cried. “She will understand… she will forgive us… you need to live for her, Cercies.”
“It’s not ok…I’m sorry…tiny warrior.” He whispered, voice breaking with shame and dejection.
His hand moved the fabric covering me to the side and I felt him, barely erect, press against me. I looked back at Titus, to see if he would look at me now, to see if he would at least witness what I was going through, but his only response was an occasional scattered flame rolling and swirling around him.
Cercies rubbed himself and forced his release. He allowed a few drops to spill into me before he pulled away and another few drops fell to the floor, and that was it. It was over almost immediately. He moved my skirt back in place and walked away.
He spared me the actual penetration, and it seemed as though it was enough to appease the council. I exhaled a calming breath. Cercies would live, and that was the fuel I needed to keep going—to keep enduring this torture.
A hooded female acolyte moved my skirt to the side, examining me. I felt her violating gaze like they were her boney fingers on my skin.
