Page 55 of The Cruelty of Thorns

It was at that moment that I resolved if I made it out of this alive, I would dedicate whatever was left of my life to destroying hers.

“I’m all for torture and mayhem,” Christopher spoke up behind her, “but can we move this along? I’m getting bored.”

“You always were an impatient one,” Anastacia murmured. “It takes as long as it takes.” She squeezed my cock again and smiled. “You’d like me to end things, wouldn’t you? Send you off to Hell with a goodbye kiss?”

She released me and I sucked in a breath, willing my mind to focus past the pain. In this case I agreed with Christopher; just get whatever she was going to do over with. If that was death, then so be it. I knew from the moment I woke up in this garden that my life was forfeit. My rashness had landed not only myself but Rosetta in dire straits, and hers was one death I didn’t want to live with. All I’d wanted to do was to get us away from this madness.

“You’ve made a mess of him, which I’m sure you don’t want all over your bed,” Christopher mused, strutting past her to stand in front of me, his cold eyes roving over me.

“I was going to use the playroom in the cellar.”

He nodded. “Good choice. Might as well have some fun with him while we do this.”

She sighed. “Very well. Untie him.”

If I thought getting freed from the bower was a blessing, the reality of how that was accomplished soon erased any hope of relief. Christopher wasn’t at all concerned with how he untied me. He grabbed hold of the vines and ripped them away from me, tearing bloody trenches in my flesh that ran so deep I could see the white of bone. If the intention was for me to bleed out, I’d say they accomplished their objective.

With the vines out of the way, he took his time with the ropes, lingering over me to lick the blood off my arms, and despite my disgust, I had no control over how my weakened body responded to the touch of his cursed tongue. Even in my contempt, I couldn’t stop craving these two. Whatever witchcraft had brought them to their current forms had twisted my own lust into an unwilling slave to their whims.

Once my arms were free, I sank to my knees, too weak to support my own weight. “Oh, bugger,” Christopher swore before reaching down and effortlessly lifting me up to swing over his shoulder. “Lead the way,” he said to Anastacia.

In my current position, I couldn’t see where we were going, my head banging against Christopher’s ass as we left the garden and reentered the house, descending into what I assumed was the cellar. It was noticeably colder and damper here, and I nearly gagged from the smell of feces and rot. We moved down a long corridor lit by sporadic lanterns mounted on the walls, passing several rusted metal doors, and I wondered if Rosetta was behind one of them.

When we finally stopped, I heard the click of a lock echo in the stillness. A door was opened, then Christopher followed Anastacia into a cavernous room and waited while she lit several lanterns, throwing the space into dim, flickering light.

I was deposited on the bare mattress of an iron-framed bed in the middle of the room. I looked around and sucked in a breath at my surroundings. There were metal cages and wooden tables equipped with machinery, for what purpose I did not know. Hooks were embedded in the stone walls and several chains hung from the ceiling, two of which were placed right over the bed where I lie.

I had never seen one before, but I had heard stories of torture chambers, though I had always thought they were found mainly in prisons. It seemed the Contessa had her own version right here in her cellar. The fact that they had brought me here did not bode well for my future, and I swallowed the dry lump that had formed in my throat and steeled myself for my fate.

I didn’t recognize my voice when I asked, “What is this place?”

Christopher spread his arms and grinned at me. “The playroom. Like it?”

I shook my head. My first instinct was to run, but I could barely move my head, much less my feet. Christopher sat down on the edge of the bed and dragged a single finger across my thigh, eliciting goosebumps in its wake. “Think of it as the last place you’ll see in your human life.”

“Tie him up,” Anastacia ordered.

“I don’t think he has the strength to go anywhere,” Christopher replied, his hand sliding around to cup my ass.

“I don’t care. I want him tied up.”

Christopher shrugged and, with a final pat on my ass, stood up and dragged my body to the middle of the bed before stretching my arms and legs out. I wanted to fight him as he began to lash my appendages with ropes secured to the four posts of the bedframe, but all I could do was watch helplessly as though I was a passenger in my own body.

When he was done, he stood back to admire his work. “He really is a pretty one,” he murmured. “I can’t wait to see what kind of monster he’ll make.”

The Contessa had started to undress. “Get him hard.”

Christopher glanced at her. “Me? What’s wrong with your mouth?”

“You like his cock so much, I thought you would jump at the chance.”

“As I recall, you’re the one who screamed when he fucked you.”

She sighed. “Just do it.”

He grinned at her and climbed onto the bed between my legs. “I thought you were the one who wanted to make him suffer. I can do the turning myself, if you’re bored.”

She quirked a brow at him and he laughed and bent his head over my cock, wrapping his lips around my head and running his tongue down its length. Despite my weakness, I couldn’t stop my dick from growing harder. The wounds left from the thorns burned when his tongue lapped at them, causing me to try to squirm away, but he persisted, sucking my cock down until it hit the back of his throat. When he opened wider and swallowed the tip, my eyes rolled back in my head. I bucked against him, trying to drive deeper into his mouth, surprised that I had the strength to do even that. It seemed my cock had decided it wasn’t party to the weakness and injuries in the rest of my body.

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