Page 50 of His Bride

“Yes,” she whimpers again. “I am sorry, Arthur. Really I am. I promise I will be good from now on. I promise.”

“Good,” I say. “One more.”

She quivers as the vibrator starts rumbling again.

Mila

By the time he is done with me, my ass is aching and dripping his seed and I feel absolutely exhausted in every way. I have come at least a dozen times. The last ones were not at all pleasurable. They were ripped from me.

What he just did was unspeakably cruel and entirely wrong. It was a crude punishment, an absolute perversion of everything love could ever be. And there is a small sliver of my soul that wants it to happen all over again.

He is being merciful now, tender and caring. He wraps me up in his arms and carries me off to the bathroom where he runs a bath and puts me in it, following me in. He slides in behind me, snuggling me up between his legs, and begins to wash me.

I close my eyes and let the warm water and various potions he adds to it soothe my pain and my exhaustion. I know I will ache tomorrow, and probably the day after. I will never forget what he did to me tonight.

CHAPTER 9

Mila

“Have you learned your lesson, my sweet bride?”

That question, purred sensually in my ear, rouses me from sleep the next morning. I am far too sleepy to recall what the question pertains to at first, but the moment I move and my consciousness leaves the cozy nest of my brain and is forced to sink into my body, I feel what was done. I feel it, and I remember it.

“Yes,” I say, my voice soft and my body aching.

“Good,” he says, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me tight against his body. I breathe in deep, taking so much comfort from him. I’ve decided to be good, because I’ve decided to trust that he wants what is best for me. The other people who keep trying to get me high don’t care about me at all. I’m being used by them as a pawn of some kind. But Arthur’s devotion to me is based in faith and love. He believes the Artifice chose me for him, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to preserve me, and the system that brought me to him.

I have been finding it difficult to settle in. I have been worried about friends. I have been thinking of myself and my entertainment or lack thereof. I’ve barely put any thought into why I am really here—to be his wife and the mother of his children.

“I’m going to be good,” I promise him.

“I hope so,” he says. “Though I can give you a repeat of last night whenever you want. I enjoy bringing my rebellious bride to heel from time to time.”

I blush and hide my face from him. He enjoyed it far too much. And so did I, though I couldn’t possibly confess that. I think he knows it anyway.

We get up and go on with the day. After breakfast, I have someone else to make amends to. Now that I understand what I’ve been doing, and why I’ve been doing it, I know I can stop being so much of a pain.

Lydia is not hard to find. She is still required to guard me, so she is essentially wherever I am. I can only imagine how annoyed she is, though I don’t have to leave everything to the imagination. The look she gives me as I approach her tells me that she’s thoroughly displeased with me.

“I’m sorry, Lydia,” I say. “I’ve treated you horribly. I don’t really recognize myself in the way I’ve spoken to you.”

She looks at me with some surprise and a great deal of suspicion, acknowledging my words with a nod.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk to me. I wouldn’t want to either. I’m not going to be running away from you again.”

“Good,” she says.

I suppose she doesn’t owe me any kind of niceness. After the way I’ve acted around her she probably thinks I am a terrible person. I suppose she’ll learn otherwise over time if I can manage not to make her life hell.

Days pass into weeks, and I do not get high accidentally again. I do not run from Lydia again. I do my best to take up quiet indoor pastimes. I do cross-stitch. I try my best to be a good wife. My husband is a busy and important man, but he makes regular time for me and love to me. I find that I live my life one bedroom encounter to another, for those are the times I feel most alive. In his arms, I forget how small my world has become.

This is my happily ever after. This is what I was made for. This is me fulfilling my destiny. I try not to think too much about the reason why it doesn’t feel like I am living an entirely full life.

And then, I get sick.

It is every now and then, at first, then it starts coming almost every morning. Fortunately, Arthur wakes up long before I do, so I am able to sneak to the bathroom and empty my stomach.

“What is wrong with you?”

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