Page 79 of Her Viking Master

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Mary

I screamed as themastixlashed across my skin, the knotted tails finding every sensitive spot with unerring accuracy. Each strike sent fire racing through my nerves, pain blossoming like dark flowers beneath my skin. The sound of leather coming down on bare skin echoed in the small cell, along with my helpless cries and Marmareus’ measured breathing.

“Please,” I sobbed, my fingers clutching desperately at the thin mattress. “Please stop!”

“This is nothing,” Marmareus said calmly, his voice a stark contrast to the violence of his actions. “A mere taste of what awaits girls like you.”

Another lash fell across my thighs, making me buck and howl. The mastix was unlike any implement I’d experienced before—not even Beaumont’s cane had prepared me for this unique blend of stinging pain and spreading warmth. Each strike seemed to ignite my skin, yet somehow the pain transformed as it radiated outward, melting into a heat that reached deep into my core.

“Your body understands what your mind refuses to accept,” Marmareus continued, landing another precise stroke across the tender junction where my bottom met my thighs. “Look how your pussy weeps for attention even as you beg me to stop.”

I burned with shame at his words, knowing they contained a horrible truth. Despite the pain, and to my horror because of it, too, my body had begun to respond with mortifying enthusiasm. I could feel the wetness gathering between my legs, my inner walls clenching with each strike of themastix.

As Marmareus continued my punishment, I felt a strange shift within myself. Thevölvapart of me—the seer, the one connected to Yggdrasil—seemed to detach slightly, observing from a distance even as my physical body endured the discipline. This part of me noted with cool appreciation how closely Marmareus’ technique mirrored Sven’s—the careful attention to varying the strikes, the deliberate focus on sensitive areas, the way he read my body’s responses and adjusted accordingly.

I felt nearly as thoroughly dominated as I had felt when Sven disciplined me. The thought slipped unbidden into my consciousness, and I couldn’t deny its truth. Something about Marmareus’ confidence, his unwavering certainty, echoed my true master’s dominance. The realization disturbed me deeply, yet I couldn’t push it away.

I even thought I might have felt the opposite way ifLeoMarmareus had taken my virginity, trained me, and sent me to spy on the Sons of Odin. The thought crashed through my consciousness with the force of revelation, leaving me gasping in its wake. Would I then have seen Sven as the enemy, as the dangerous stranger whose dominance threatened to unravel everything I believed in? Would I have felt this same confused tangle of resistance and surrender when faced with Sven’s mastery?

Themastixfell again, its knotted tails finding the sensitive undersides of my breasts. I arched my back, a strangled cry tearing from my throat. The pain blossomed, bright and sharp, then transformed into something darker, heavier, settling in my core with a weight that made my pussy clench and weep.

“Please,” I sobbed, no longer certain what I was begging for. “Please, I’ll obey. I’ll obey!”

Marmareus paused, themastixhanging loosely from his hand. His dark eyes studied me, seeming to peer past my flesh and bone to the trembling, confused essence beneath. A slight smile curved his lips, not cruel but knowing, as if he had expected precisely this capitulation.

“Yes,” he said softly. “You will.”

He moved to the hidden cabinet in the wall, returning themastixto its place with reverent care. He picked up the collar from the bed. The sight of it in his big hand—the one that had spanked Camille so hard, that had wielded the horridmastix—sent a shiver through me, a complex mixture of dread and unwanted anticipation.

“Kneel,” he commanded, his voice severe.

I obeyed without hesitation, sliding from the bed to the cold stone floor. My body felt hypersensitive, every nerve ending alive and singing with sensation. The welts from themastixthrobbed in time with my heartbeat, a dismaying reminder of my punishment and my submission to it.

Marmareus approached with deliberate slowness, the collar held carefully, almost reverently, in front of him. He circled me once, twice, his gaze assessing every inch of my naked, trembling form. I kept my eyes downcast, afraid of what he might see in them—afraid of what I might see in his.

Standing behind me, he lowered the collar in front of my face. His presence seemed a wall of heat at my back. I felt his fingers brush against my neck as he gathered my hair, lifting it away from my nape. The touch was unexpectedly gentle, almost tender, and it sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with fear.

The leather felt cool against my heated skin as he placed it around my throat. It was wider than I had expected, covering the hollow at the base of my neck and extending nearly to my jawline. The material was supple, molding instantly to the contours of my flesh as if custom-made.

I heard the soft click of the buckle as Marmareus secured the collar around my neck. The weight of it felt both alien and strangely familiar, as if some part of me had always known this moment would come. My breath caught as his fingers lingered at the nape of my neck, testing the fit, ensuring it was snug but not too tight.

“Perfect,” he murmured, and I felt a ridiculous flutter of pride at his approval.

He moved to stand before me again, the belt dangling from his hands, wider than a regular belt, with the metal rings jingling slightly around its circumference. I shuddered at the memory of how Marmareus had used it to ensure Camille’s compliance.

“Stand up,” he instructed. “Arms at your sides.”

I complied, pushing myself to my feet then letting my hands fall limply against my flanks. He looked into my eyes as he wrapped the belt around my waist. His proximity felt overwhelming—the scent of him, clean and masculine with undertones of sandalwood and something darker, more primal; the heat radiating from his body; the intensity of his gaze as he focused on his task.

The belt cinched my waist tightly. I felt how it accentuated the modest curve of my hips and increased the swell of my little breasts above. The leather was cool against my skin, but quickly warmed, seeming to meld with my flesh as if becoming part of me. I quailed at the thought, at how easily these external bonds could become internal ones.

“Hold out your wrists,” he commanded next, his voice soft, but unyielding.

I extended my arms, wrists upturned in a gesture of surrender that felt both shameful and inevitable. The cuffs he fastened around them were narrower than the collar and belt, but still substantial, each one bearing its D-ring for easy attachment to other restraints. Marmareus checked each cuff carefully, his fingers sliding beneath the leather to ensure they weren’t too tight, the touch sending electric shivers up my arms.

“Down,” he said simply, and I lowered my hands back to my sides, acutely aware of the weight of the cuffs, the way they marked me as captive, as owned.

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