Page 103 of Command

“Autonomy,” the luxurious roll of his chuckle made her close her eyes, a shiver running down her spine, melting with the remnants of the burn from his slap.

“Y-yes. You can’t just decide everything for me—”But it would be so relaxing.“I’m not an animal.”

Threxin cocked his head.

“You can be my animal.” Threxin’s voice held an awful smile.

“Fucking hell,” Alina began to shove herself up on her elbows. This little game was over. He clearly was not getting it.

“Hush,” he chided. The next crack reached her ears before the burn did. It made her jump forward, hips smashing into the edge of the mattress. “I will be your animal too.”

Alina opened her mouth and closed it, all arguments out of reach as she tried to process what he said—what he meant.

“Spread your knees, little animal,” Threxin commanded with a low, toe-curling chuckle, and already Alina’s legs were betraying her, her knees shuffling sideways as instructed before she could even think to hesitate.

Alina shoved her face into the bed between her outstretched arms. She wished she could just melt through the floor and disappear already. Instead, the lingering burn in her stricken skin built into a pulsing sensation that radiated all through her body, igniting every nerve ending in a way entirely foreign to her. It crawled into her chest, expansive and prickly. It slithered up her throat and behind her eyelids, worming into her brain and, once there, made something inside her pool into blissful nothingness.

Maybe she was disappearing after all.

It felt fucking amazing.

“You see?” Threxin’s words reached her from far away, though she vaguely felt his lips brush her ear. The lightcontact skittered down her neck and flared through her from her spine, unwinding every muscle until she was slumped limply over the bed. “Everything feels better when you just stop fighting.”

There was something meditative in that deep tenor. Alina closed her eyes with a sigh, her spine feeling like it was melting right into the bed, her knees the only thing still holding her up. Her pussy clenched at the new sensation of pressure gliding down her opening. If Alina had stopped to think about it, she’d guess it was a talon, but she didn’t. Her aching body had turned to supple mush beneath the uhyre’s manipulations, too far away to recognize anything as trivial as bodies or digits anymore.

Something pressed to the most sensitive parts of her, eliciting a long, drawn-out sigh.Somethingentered her, making her contract desperately around it. A chill pressed at her back, followed by sharp points running down her spine and ribs, over and over, making her back arch into the sensation.

Alina was a pool of wet nothing. There was nothing around her except the physical sensations being administered and the deep baritone speaking words that had no meaning. The sound burrowed into her soul, each low mutter invoking bliss. When the touching stopped, Alina frowned and forced her heavy lids open, turning her head to look for where it went.

Threxin was reaching down behind her, shoulder shifting in front of her face as he dug around in his pocket. His hand returned with a sealed silver vial.

“What’s that?” she heard herself mutter.

Threxin leaned back slightly and then his other hand was there with an injection gun in it. He clipped the vial into the cartridge and aspirated it; a silvery droplet oozed from the tip of the needle.

Why the heck was he coming at her with a needle?

Only he wasn’t coming at her with it. He was drawingaway, the effect of the tension between them dissipating as questions had room to rise to the surface.

“Threxin?” She flipped onto her back, staring up at him. Threxin’s jaw was tight as he tracked her with a stony intensity.

“You wanted autonomy,” Threxin’s words were cold, controlled as he watched her. “So tell me. Do you want to be safe from my exorin?”

Alina’s mouth went dry as he held the injection gun up for her to see, a clear liquid loaded in the frosty cartridge within it. It took her a few attempts to speak. “Threxin, what is that?”

“It is a vaccine which will make you immune to the side-effects and addiction of exorin, if you choose to take it.”

She’d been dreaming for this. Yearningfor it knowing it could never happen. And now it was here, and all Alina could be was terrified.

How much would it hurt? How long would it take to work? What if itdidn’t, and how would they know? Would there be tests?Hadthere been tests? How did they know it would even work? And… if it failed… what would happen to them? A hundred questions that flapped through her head, crowding out everything else. Alina wished she could just turn around, put her face back in the sheets, and drift out of herself again.

She opened her mouth to ask, then closed it.

Threxin would not be offering this to her if it weren’t safe and effective. That she knew in her core by now.

She was so tired of questioning.

Alina held her arm up and offered her bicep. “Do it.”

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