Page 93 of Servitude to Serpents

It's still okay to cry here, right, Master?

“You don’t get to do this.” My finger slips to the trigger as he grows closer, making no move to stay out of the line of the barrel. “I’m yours! I won't fucking let you!” My words leave in screams, sobs wracking my chest as I push the barrel into his chest. “Don’t make me go. Don’t push me away! I want to stay with you. Please!”

“Do something about it then,” he taunts, but I can see it in the flicker of something in his cold hazel eyes. A dare—no, a plea.

I scream as his hand snags mine, but he doesn’t take the gun. My eyes go wide, my heart shuddering as his hand covers mine. I watch in horror as he slowly drags the barrel from the center of his chest to his throat, pressing it in deeper. “Do it, Pup,” he commands, and suddenly, there’s a flurry of activity around me. Armed guards storm the beautiful home. Round brown eyes are held captive by molten hazel ones, and I see it, an agony that matches mine. “Put us both out of our misery,” he whispers under his breath, only for me.

The idea slithers up my spine, a temping and sickening end to it all, and fuck, if it doesn’t obliterate my resolve.

My knees give out, another broken sob ripping from me as he lets me fall to his feet. “I need you.” I'm gasping, my chest a ragged, ugly thing.

Sir clears his throat, quickly looking away from me as he pops the bullet from the gun, tucking it into his waistband with such fluidity, you’d think he was born doing that exact thing. “You will walk out with him. Do you understand?”

“Warrick,please…”

“Enough!” He yells back at me, his eyes lit with emotion.

My hands slap over my ears, my fingers digging into my hair until my nails prick my scalp. “I love you.”

“And I warned you from the beginning—don’t.”

With that, I'm wrenched to my feet, but these phantom hands, they’re real, cruel and bruising as he walks away. My heart ratchets in my chest as the sharp prick of a needle is plunged into my upper arm, my sobs dying when my head grows heavy on my shoulders, and darkness again takes me.

When light finds me again, the bitter tinge of cleaning products assaults my nose, and a jarring, crackling sound fills the echoed space. I groan, panic filling my chest as I find my limbs unresponsive. Only my fingers and toes give into the orders from my brain, and even that comes in tiny, jerky twitches. The crackle sounds come again as scuffed snakeskin boots fill my hazy vision from the floor. Pain overwhelms me as the sound of the prod goes off again, its metal tip being drug along the badly bruised planes of my back.

“Welcome back, Lily. The Master and Mistress pulled all the strings to get you here.” He laughs, a cold, haunting sound that has plagued my nightmares. Bloom. God, of all places, whyBloom?

“I'm not supposed to touch you, but you’ll keep our little secret, right? It’s been too long since my prod has been soaked by a cunt as delectable as yours.”His words batter along my skull as he presses the metal tongs against my entrance, my fingers curling into fists as I brace myself for what comes next.

Chapter thirty-five

To own is to… Crumble

Three months later, Chloe

It's a terrible affliction to have ever loved anyone at all.

Chapter thirty-six

To own is to…. Destroy

The space between my legs is tacky, the crippling, burning pain there like a side note to various other wounds as I walk into the common space outside our cells. Not because I want to, but they whistled. The price for ignoring their calls is too steep for me to pay today. I watch as the other girls look at me, some with various degrees of disgust, others with panic. I’m not obeying.

I can’t even muster the same anxiety I see in their eyes, the sobbing that drifts through the concrete halls at night. Gemma is making her rounds. I’ve found it’s her job to care for the girls, keep them fed and clean like a housemother at a sorority. Only, this isn’t a sorority. We’re sex slaves, and instead of pep rallies and cheer camp, we get gangbangs and torcher games. My blonde hair hangs around my face, oily, my nose now and then flaring as it gets a whiff of something I can only assume is me.

I want to wash.

I’m supposed to wash.

Most certainly, I have a UTI, judging by the whimpers andtears that fill my eyes every time I pee.

But I don’t wash.

I’ve kept track, though. Of the days. It has been five months.

The place I’m kept now isn’t the same cell as before, but it’s barely better. Tiny, rectangular windows let in a modicum of light, far from the expansive stained glass and rolling hills, the grass that moved like waves. The heads of Bloom, Mistress and…Master come and go, taking, biting, fucking and choking. That’s who called today.Her. Her pretty, sharp features seem like a perfect mask for the brutality she holds. Gemma passes me, her eyes going wide before she plants her hands on my chest, shoving me backward toward my room.

“What in the world, child?” She hisses, although she doesn’t sound angry, only…panicked. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? If she sees you like this…” The older woman shudders as she all but shoves me into my days-old cleansing tub. The frigid water makes me gasp, my hands slapping out to grip the edges as she tries to rile the old suds.

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