Page 163 of Scars Run Deep

I went down, smacking onto my hands, just managing to brace myself.

I pushed back to my feet, but he shoved me back with a hand to my face.

“Leave him!” Aurora cried.

He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me over to the other chair, telling me, “You’re going to watch me take her from you. I’ll defile every inch of her, brand her as mine, ruin that cunt you’ve mistakenly claimed as yours, tear into her ass too. I’ll have her tears, her screams, her cum, and her blood. All you’ll see as you look upon her from now on is me.”

As we passed by Aurora’s chair, I snatched the right armrest.

My father kicked at my inner arm, breaking my grip.

But it was too late.

I’d done what I’d needed to, and I saw the glint of my tie clip disappearing beneath her fingers as she managed to hide it quickly from his view.

With a roar, he hauled me into the other chair and snapped the left cuff to my wrist.

Instead of reaching for the right one, he shoved the baton into my side.

Burning pain shot from the point of contact, ripping through my entire body in seconds, making me convulse against my will.

I heard Aurora screaming, struggling in her binds.

When it finally stopped, I slumped against the chair, my head lolled forward.

I heard him telling her in that sadistic excited tone of his, “You’ll open to me, or he’ll suffer for every ounce of resistance you continue to put forward.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Believe me, I can. Now, don’t get me wrong, Asher can take a mass amount of pain. It’s the reason he’s still conscious to enjoy this little show. But that pain is a lot harder to take while having his mental fortitude taxed. More so even when he’s being tormented emotionally. Given that he’s developed deep affection—possibly even love—for you, what I’m about to subject you to will torment him beautifully.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment at the awful choice he was forcing her to make.

No. I wouldn’t let it play out this way. I wouldn’t allow her to suffer for me, to be subjected to him like this, while he was at his most malicious, desperate to punish me, and now having found a weak spot to exploit in me—the way I felt about her.

“Don’t give in,” I told her. “Don’t allow this to happen. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Asher—”

Carson thrust the shock baton into my torso, the blinding pain tearing into me once more.

I gritted my teeth against it, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream.

“Stop! Stop!” Aurora cried.

“Submit and I will.”

My muscles were locked tight, spittle dripping from my mouth, the cuff clanging violently against the arm of the chair.

And through it all, the drug he’d shot me with was doing battle with me too, wearing on me, making the beatdown he’d levied on me harder than it should’ve been to overcome. Aurora’s screams, us being forced to endure his merciless bullshit, his fucking depravity, and knowing this was just the beginning… it had that rage sparking that I always buried down deep. After all these years, here I was at his fucking mercy again.

“All right!” Aurora called over. “Fuck, all right! Just stop torturing him!”

He pulled the baton away and smiled.

“There we are. Now we’re getting somewhere.” He fisted his hand in my hair and jerked me to him as he whispered hauntingly at my ear, “You won’t be alone in the dungeon this time, she’ll come to play too.”

The threat hit me down deep. After being subjected to that hellscape one too many times, the things that had been done to me there changing me forever, the idea of Aurora suffering through the same was beyond comprehension on any level whatsoever. It just couldn’t happen. I couldn’t… I wouldn’t allow it.

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