Page 19 of Servitude to Serpents

Oh God, right.

I scramble to the front of his desk, wincing at the loud sound of my knees hitting the wooden floor as I drop into my waiting position. My small chest heaves under the modest neckline of the dress, my skin prickling as his attention turns to me for a moment.

Stuart comes to stand beside me, nodding at me with approval. “Good.”

My head snaps up. Even so, I don’t look him in the eyes. A stupid smile sits on my face despite my insides slowly being eroded by my anxiety. How embarrassing to bethatswayed by a simple word. The older man halts for a moment, surprise quickly traded for a frown.

Master simply waves him off, plunging the room into silence, only the sound of my heavy breathing and the rustling papers filling the thick, miasma-like air. My bladder is well past overfull, making me squirm as the minutes tick by. I’ve counted and recounted the grooves in the panel of hardwood in front of me a thousand times over. My feet and legs are long gone to sleep underneath me as the wood bites into my knees. Eventually, the shadows in the room change as the morning sun rises fully into the sky. I can’t be sure how much time has passed, only that the clanking of the keyboard and scrambling of pen on paper lulled me into some sort of state close to sleep. The fire on the other side of the room is making me comfortably warm for the first time in ages.

It’s only then that Master moves, rolling back from his desk with a heavy sigh. “Stand.”

My legs are fully numb underneath me, and my sudden movement only serves to remind me of the critical level my bladder is reaching as I stand, fighting to keep my fidgeting to a minimum. Not even caressing the raised flesh on the back of my hand seems to relieve the pressure in my bloated belly.

“I’m sure you are tired, so your training will start after we’ve both had some rest.” His voice is like honey, deep and smooth. It reminds me of a chord played on the bass side of the piano. The sound of a drawer opening and closing comes seconds before the hint of his scent hits me in full force, like sage and oak. “You are never to remove your collar. Do you understand?”

My chest flutters. “Yes, Master.”

“You are never to let another handle your collar. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Lift your head.”

I do, my eyes settling on a pair of tight lips, stubble decorating what I’m sure is normally a clean-shaven face. The collar itself is simple, a rose gold chain witha hoop at the center. I breathe past the sense of dread as he adjusts it on my neck.

“You will have many collars—some for parties, play, daytime collars if you are permitted to leave the estate with me. This is a downtime collar; it must be worn at all times. Even in the shower, in bed. You are always to be marked.”

My eyes leave his lips, the way they move and the uncomfortable way that makes me feel. Instead, my gaze drops to the white ink lily tattooed on the back of my wrist, another physical reminder I’ll never be Chloe again.

“Look at me.”

My chin wobbles as I obey, staring at his nose as he takes me in, hoping the eye drops I was given earlier helped with the redness in my bad eye. I don’t need 20/20 vision to appreciate how beautiful he is.

Master tilts his head, making his wavy hair fall into his forehead as he appraises every inch of my face. My cheeks heat under his perusal as I shift on my feet again. “You have issues with your vision.”

“I, uhm, yes, I’m mostly blind in my left eye.”

“That’s why you’re wearing a contact?”

I shift again, stumbling over my words. What if he thinks my eye is ugly? Off-putting. “No, Master. Master—uhm, mypreviousMaster at the House of Bloom thought my eye was unsettling. I was told to keep this contact in to hide it. It was not my intention to deceive—"

“Enough. Let me see.”

I lift my head higher, flinching as his warm hands gently grip my chin, angling my head. When he reaches towards my eye, I shrink back, turning my face away. “I can do it—"

My lips part as his grip on my chin tightens, a warning in his voice. “You will never pull away from me. Now, be still.”

“Yes, Sir,” I breathe out.

My eyes water as I fight to keep them open as he carefully removes the contact, discarding it somewhere behind him. My nails dig into my palm as he keeps me there, shifting and uncomfortable as I try to blink water from my eyes. The contact had done a great job of masking most of the light blaring from the backwindows. Now? It burns like hell.

“You keep shifting. Why?” He asks as he drops my chin but remains towering over me, regarding my eye briefly before moving on to the rest of me. His white dress shirt is molded to his muscular form. Flush crawls up my neck, God knows why. I was stripped of any modesty at the House of Bloom, left to urinate on myself, but this isn’t there. This isn’t a bare-bones cement room; this isn’t Sir and his friends. There’s no cattle prod. And I’membarrassed, the same way I was embarrassed when I’d use the bathroom at the dental office, always running the water so nobody could hear.

“I asked you a question.”

I shake my head, just a little. “Nerves. I’m sorry, Master.”

He makes a sound in the back of his throat before moving away, heading toward the built-in bar in the room's corner. “Very well then.”

---