I took a deep breath, and ceased in my struggles. Freedom.
Still holding my hands firmly above my head, he reached for his belt buckle and released it from his waist. “Not a fan of metal? How about leather?”
His eyes told me what he was going to do even before his actions did. The red lifeblood pulsed all around the darkness of his demanding eyes. I knew that very moment that I had no choice but to succumb to his vexation.
“Scared of tight spaces? Scared of a collar? What kind of soldier is scared?” he asked as he wrapped the leather around my neck, pulling it through the clasp. “Did you not have a commander to break you of such weaknesses? Weakness of any kind will get you killed on the battlefield, soldier. I think we need to break you from such a weakness.”
I shook my head. “Please,” I begged.
“No!” he bellowed as he tightened the belt. “You are a soldier. Do not show weakness! Do not beg! Remember what you told me. You are a fucking soldier and not a slave.”
Damn him for throwing my words back at me, and damn him for shaming me for my fear.
He tightened the belt even more as he straddled my body. He had released my hands, so I was able to pull at the leather to no avail. The more I struggled, the tighter he pulled.
“Can you breathe now?” he asked with evil lining his question.
I couldn’t speak and could only shake my head. Blackness threatened to take over as my ears began to ring. I really couldn’t breathe as the leather got tighter and tighter.
“Look at me,” he demanded. “Look at me!”
I opened my eyes and stared into his eyes, silently begging for my life. My trachea felt the pressure of the belt, so much so that I couldn’t even swallow the saliva building up in my mouth.
“I want you to remember this. Whenever you think something I do, or something I dictate is so awful, I want you to remember that it can always get worse. I bet you are wishing for the metal collar right about now.” He tightened the belt even more, causing blackness to edge around my vision. “If you doubt me, if you disobey me, if you ever question my actions, just know that it will be much worse for you.”
Where was Cross? Would he really allow his brother to kill me? If not for the fact that I was another human being, would he not want to save me simply for the cost of my head when we reach Canary?
I bucked my hips in a final attempt to throw Pike from my body before darkness completely took hold.
Pike looked over his shoulder and down at my writhing legs and then back into my eyes. Without saying another word, he loosened the belt just enough that I could take in a shallow breath of air. It wasn’t enough to fully fill my lungs, but enough to keep me alive. Just when I was hoping that Pike had finally felt I had been taught my lesson enough and he would remove the belt, he surprised me by getting off my body and flipping me over onto my stomach.
A familiar feeling of fear took over as the memory of my former commander raping me took hold of my emotions. Would Pike do the same? Would he take what wasn’t his? Would he steal from me like what had been done in the past? Would he fuck me and then choke me out until I died? Would I be nothing more than a fucked and strangled slave—white, dead, forgotten?
He loosened the belt a little more, this time allowing me to wheeze and gasp. The burn of my lungs eased with every inhale, and the shadows on my vision disappeared. I could breathe—though uncomfortably.
“So which are you? A soldier? Or a slave?” he asked as he crashed the palm of his hand against my bare behind. “Soldier or slave?” He continued to spank my ass, the loud sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed against the walls of the room.
The humiliation of such an act threatened to take back the little air I had just managed to obtain. The belt still tight around my neck, but I could no longer focus on the struggle to breathe. The searing swats of his hand on my butt were the only thing my mind could address. Desperation crackled from my core, all the way to the tips of my toes. I couldn’t cry out, I couldn’t plead, I couldn’t demand. I could do nothing but gasp for air against firm leather and allow the assault of a spanking to continue.
And oh how it continued.
Over and over, Pike rained down slap after slap against the entire surface of my exposed skin. I tried to wiggle away to no avail, and was only rewarded for such an action by a harder spank to my ass. The palm of his hand felt the same as if he were using a solid piece of wood or metal. Such strength. Such sting. Such mortifying pain.