My heart clenched like a cramp, painful and so long I thought I might die.
“Why would you care about my joy?” I ventured quietly.
Alexander leaned against the wood wall and watched me from under low lids as I pet his horse. “Do you know why I call you topolina? Because you are a little mouse with no defence against me. I may experiment on you, hunt you down and feast on you or feed you to other beasts as easily as I please.” I shuddered at his words and shot him an unhappy glare that made his lips twitch. “But there are a few fables where the little mouse turns out to be very clever indeed and dupes the cat or the elephant or the falcon into falling for their own tricks. You, my little mouse, are playing this game of ours so well, I’m not quite sure who is winning any longer.”
I licked my dry lips and shrugged as I leaned in to smell my horse’s warm, clean pelt. “I’ve learned that it’s wise not to be taken in by the innocent airs of someone who has previously proven themselves to be dangerous.”
Alexander’s grin was wicked. “Smart girl.”
“Not really,” I whispered to my golden beauty, as if it was the horse I was giving my secret to.
“I have no skills,” I admitted, and it felt as if the words were torn from the delicate fabric of my soul.
It was my biggest weakness and shame.
I was nothing but my packaging, pretty paper wrapped tidily around an empty box.
There was no reason to expose myself further to Alexander’s absolute power over me, yet I felt an overwhelming need to.
It could have been a testament to his conditioning of me, but I thought it was something else.
I’d never met a man so like a maze. Around every corner lurked another shock, some horrific dangerous beast of a kind I could never begin to understand, but others softer, fair like summer Fae. Even his beautiful creatures were hazardous to my health, the seducers and destroyers working in tandem to eviscerate me to my very soul.
Alexander’s heat pressed against my side a moment before he turned me into his arms and lifted my chin with his fingers. “Have I not given you some?”
I snorted. “Fine, I guess I’m a seasoned cocksucker now.”
His frown was fierce. “I don’t like that crude, filth from your lips. Yes, you please me in all the ways a woman can please a man, but I think you’ll find, if you really look, you’ve learned other skills. Riddick says you nearly beat him at foils last week, you’ve learned how to play chess, some cookery from Douglas and some needlework from Mrs. White. You know self-defence, and you speak English now as beautifully as you do your mother tongue.”
He dipped down to run his nose along the length of mine. “These are not the qualities of a stupid, talentless girl. These are the attributes of a queen who was made to think she was only a pawn.”
My heart beat slow and hard in my chest, knocking against my ribs as if waiting for Alexander to answer the door and claim it for himself. A lifetime of insecurity had been neatly squashed under Alexander’s expensive heel as if it were a mere cockroach. I felt the death of that shame in my psyche and sighed as its spirit drifted away.
“You know, topolina, I am very tempted to keep you here with me forever,” he continued.
Sometimes I wondered if he was a telepath or if there was something symbiotic about our Master/slave relationship that gave him privileged access to my thoughts.
Hadn’t I just been wishing for the very same thing?
“I know that won’t be possible for a myriad of reasons, but I want to make sure that you will always remember you belong to me. You will remember when I am absent, and you will feel the loss of me in your cunt, mind, and chest. You will feel the phantom press of my hand against your throat like a necklace you can’t take off. And, my beauty, you will wear the symbol of my bloodline on your skin for anyone who might dare get you naked to see as the bend you over to fuck you.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked before Alexander’s hands on me turned to shackles and he tugged me to the end of the stables where a brick hearth sat well away from the hay filled stalls, crackling with a small fire. Something roasted in those flames, an iron pole submerged in the depths.
Fear flooded through me, turning me on even though I was terrified because my conditioning had taught me that fear at the hands of Alexander could also bring pleasure.
He pushed me up against the bricks, placing my hands on either side of my head for me to lean into and then pulling out my hips, kicking my feet apart so I was displayed exactly to his liking. I shivered as he placed kisses and gentle bites to my neck while his deft fingers undid my wrap dress and let it fall to the ground beneath me. I kicked it to the side, which earned me a pleased hum and his tongue tracing the rim on my ear.