Page 158 of Taken By Touch and Torment

He grabbed my ankle, yanking me back as I collapsed against the floor.

If only I could get out of his damn rooms.

There was this deep, feminine rage filling the space inside of me that used to be a cold, dark void.

I wasn’t drowning or regressing. All the new trauma Durian was forcing into my body was feeding a fire, strengthening a poison.

“What a beautiful masterpiece your body has become,” he said.

My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t been fed once, and my only source of water was a pet bowl by the bathroom that I had to drink from without using my hands.

Durian wanted me weak. He wanted me incapacitated. I couldn’t think clearly through the venom on an empty stomach. My only hope of utilizing my succubus magick was in short moments of clarity between feeding sessions. And that was only if Durian wasn’t conjuring nightmarish visions of monsters feeding on my flesh.

A window of opportunity finally opened. I wouldn’t let it go to waste.

I turned to face him, staring deeply into those beady, crow eyes.

Those golden threads flickered with power, and I fought through the panic, the pain, the hunger.

I summoned from my deepest wells, and I forced my way into Durian’s mind. I breathed in his bitter paranoia, and I amplified it. I needed Durian to think it was his genius idea to let me out of his chambers.

You need to show off your masterpiece to the lords, especially to Kole—who clearly still wants to steal your pet away. Everyone needs to see she’s yours and you can do with her whatever you wish.

“I wish I could show Rune the masterpiece I’ve created with your pristine, milky skin,” Durian said, staring down at me as he placed a boot on my stomach.

My wounds seared with pain, and I gasped. The ceiling above was painted in ugly, bright colors—a depiction of Lillian’s underworld.

I imagined Rune’s ceiling instead. Me in that golden dress, surrounded by oceans and stars and the glittering lights of Aristelle.

“Does Rune fuck you, pet?”

My eyes snapped to his.

His boot pressed harder. “Answer me,” he bellowed.

“Yes.”

His eyes flashed, disdain curling his lip. “Disgusting pets don’t deserve to be fucked. Powerful men don’t succumb to base temptations.”

If Durian’s asexuality was preventing me from being raped, then all I could do was nod in agreement and keep feeding him a steady stream of magickal reinforcement.

“But I’m afraid a reclaiming is in order,” he whispered.

No. I watched his hands, prepared for them to go for his belt.

He grabbed me by the collar. “After a trip to court, where you will get my cock hard by showing off your brutalized body to every man and woman there, I will take you back here to be fucked mercilessly. You will not enjoy a second of it. Your reclaiming will be a punishment for being a filthy slut and allowing a blasphemous bastard’s cock inside you.”

He let go, and I sucked in air after being deprived for so long. My stomach rumbled again, and Durian regarded me as if he were revulsed by the sound of my own starvation.

I wouldn’t be returning to his chambers tonight. I didn’t care what I had to do.

Durian’s manhood would be cut from his body before it got anywhere close to what belonged to Rune—what belonged to me.

62

SCARLETT

Court was business as usual in the throne room. Witch lights floated about, illuminating the garish displays of wealth in rich crimson and shiny gold. Durian didn’t take to the dais. He paraded me around, and I was clothed in nothing but a golden thong and a bra that pushed up but didn’t actually cover my breasts. I was essentially nude.

---