Page 157 of Plug and Drain

No answer. “What is it you do…? Leave enough blood so that they don’t quite die? Genius. I keep meaning to try it, but while I am loathe to say it, I lack that self-control. It’s either a sip, or I suck them dry. There is no happy medium.”

The words sounded faraway, and they no longer made sense.

They no longer mattered. They were not for her.

She was beneath the level of vampires, and their conversation was of no consequence to her. She was just a body to be used.

She was outside it now, hovering above against the drab ceiling. She watched the lifelessness of her own face as her body jerked back and forth whilst Henrikk pumped into her. His words were like poison, and he took turns first speaking to Arken, trying to goad him into action, and then speaking horrible truths into her ear, loud enough that Arken would hear, too.

“Tell him to come help you, little wolf,” Henrikk taunted, his face contorting with effort as he fucked her harder. “Tell him to come save you.”

A sharp thrust.

“Tell him to pull me off you.”

Another thrust, his hips snapping hard against her.

“Tell him to kill me. I promise, I won’t lift a finger to stop him.”

It was a game.

But she had no idea what the rules were. Something was off, but she didn’t have the capacity to pinpoint what it was Henrikk was trying to achieve. He was manipulating her, trying to get her to do…what?

It was safest to ignore him.

She needed to pretend she was someplace else, but her tailbone hurt as he jostled her. The pain grounded her, forcing her back into her body so she was very much present and aware of what was happening to her as she stared up at Henrikk’s leering face.

She could not pretend to be a passive observer. She could not remain detached the way she needed to be to get through this. To survive the assault that Arken was simply allowing to happen.

She was so tired.

She wanted Arken here. She didn’t care about anything anymore. Not factions and morals. She just wanted him to not be so aloof as to stand by.

He might have at least held her hand. As bizarre as that would have been. He might have at least stood where she could see him. That was so little, but it would have been something. She no longer craved a knight in shining armour. She didn’t deserve one. But she just wanted to not feel so tragically alone. She would have accepted any sign that he cared.

I don’t understand.

Why?

He hadn’t so much as said a word in her defence. He hadn’t pleaded, or shouted, or tried to negotiate on her behalf. He hadn’t even cried ‘stop’.

She couldn’t even see him properly. If she threw her head back, He was a blurry figure at the edge of her vision, upside down, his features indiscernible.

The agony of abandonment was fire burning through her almost as painfully as the jolting pain of her tailbone.

It hurt. Henrikk was raping her, and it wasn’t even the worst thing that was happening.

They seemed oblivious or unbothered by her cries of pain.

“Since she isn’t yours, Arken, perhaps I will make her my pet,” Henrikk was saying. “I’ll keep her by my throne and have her suck my cock before my courtiers. Perhaps that will finally convince you to attend court and pay homage.”

Henrikk paused, as if waiting for either Susie or Arken to react. When neither of them did, he laughed.

“Never fear. She is not nearly pretty enough to appear in court. Perhaps one of the guards would take her in the stables. We could keep her there, with the other less desirable pets.”

Arken…

His name kept circulating in her mind.