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“I’m cold,” she whispered. A shiver coming on cue, her aching joints tightening to make her whimper.

“I know.” His gaze slid over her body again. “Would you like to get up? Leave this room?”

Something dangerous lurked behind the offer, something with teeth, but she couldn’t resist. “Yes.”

That strange smile graced his features again. “Then tell me the rules, slave.”

Even her reaction to that word was dulled, slowed by the cold, the pain, the memory of the knife in her mouth. “Don’t bite.”

A strange huff left him, what might have been a laugh had he been a real person. “That is not one of the rules, but I am encouraged to know you retained that lesson. Now… recite the rules.”

Bastard.

Beth wanted to scream at him again. To shout like she had that morning, but her fingers were stiff and almost useless in the cold. Even the stinging burns from the rope had faded from her awareness, and that was concerning.

Turning her head, eyes focusing on the inflamed, broken skin at her wrist, she knew it should hurt more than it did — but nothing was getting through the cold. She needed out of this room.

“I am not a person.” Everything was empty as the words moved past her numb lips, but she continued in a daze, struggling to remember his poster of fucked up expectations. “I should address you as Master.”

Never, she promised herself. Holding onto that one flapping scrap of her dignity.

“Continue.” He walked away from her towards a panel on the wall, pressing buttons before it popped open.

“I have to crawl. Ask permission for everything.”

“For what specifically?” he asked, shifting something inside the panel just before a click came from the far side of the bracket in the floor. The sound of water rushing into pipes made hope flicker inside her. Dim and desperate.

I just want to be warm.

“Slave?” The man was looking at her, his hand still inside the panel, and she dropped her head back to the floor so she didn’t have to see his dead eyes.

“Permission to orgasm,” never going to happen, “to speak to you. And I cannot wear clothes.”

Air sucked loudly into the pipe, the swirl of the water down the drain visible as she turned her head to the side. Shivers rushed through her again, tightening her weak, exhausted muscles once more.

So tired.

She was so tired.

Would it be so terrible to die?

“There are worse things than the cold, slut. You’re not done.” He leaned against the wall by the panel, watching as she turned onto her side.

Beth answered the thinning water instead of him. “I must keep my eyes down. Thank you when you hurt me.”

“Punish,” he corrected.

“Right.” She did not repeat the correction, racking her brain for the list, but there was nothing more in her head. Nothing but the horrible memories of everything he’d already done to her, the nagging ache between her thighs as she clenched her internal muscles.

“You forgot that you must kneel in all rooms, and again whenever I return.”

“I can’t kneel.” Moving her feeble grip to the chain, she tugged it so that it clattered against the metal in the floor.

“I am aware. I didn’t want you able to kneel, I wanted you on the floor.” His footsteps slapped wet and heavy against the concrete as he approached her once more, but she didn’t turn her eyes to him. Not even when she could see the towering form of him in her peripheral vision. “Do you understand that this is where you belong?”

“No.” The word was out before her blurry mind could think to stop her, and she just closed her eyes, waiting for pain. Another shock.

Instead, he simply crouched down and used a key to open the padlock that held the chain to the floor. Wrapping his fist around the metal links, he stood, dragging her up by force, her body rebelling against the movement. Joints screaming, muscles revolting. Reminding her in fits and starts of the chill, the lingering aches from the electricity and so many hours on the concrete.