Page 19 of Bottoms Up (Mythic Beast #4)

Silver

I had a clock going behind Julian, so he couldn’t see. I was beyond exhausted, shaking with the effort to keep going, and we still had forty minutes to go.

But stopping wasn’t an option. Neither was slowing down.

Back and forth from every direction. Ten minutes on one nut, ten minutes on the other. The first time, I’d spent seventeen minutes on the left before I felt it was flat enough for a good start, and I’d made sure I spent the same on the right one before I started just timing it at ten minutes each.

My shoulders screamed, my palm was bruised from the handle, my wrist ached.

But I didn’t let up. My pain was inconsequential compared to Julian’s.

And he needed it to be as real as before .

Also, it had to be enough that Marco was satisfied.

At one point, when he’d gone wild in the restraints — thrashing, choking, borderline convulsing — I’d forced him to look at me. Made him open his eyes and hold my gaze.

“You aren’t alone, slaveboy. I’m here with you. I see you.”

I’d caressed his thigh, talked him through some deep breaths.

And then I’d had to get started again, but I hadn’t let him close his eyes for more than a few seconds during the next twenty minutes, and I think it helped, pulling him out of the past and into the present. Anchoring him here, reminding him he is mine .

His dick was soft in the cock cage now, but I left it on. It was going to be caged a while.

Mine wasn’t caged, but it wasn’t hard, either.

Not even close. Not from the start, and certainly not now.

My body ached from well over an hour of crouching and reaching and pressing and rolling, but not in any of the ways that make it easier.

This wasn’t a scene, it was medicine — the kind that tastes like poison going down.

I was going to add ten minutes onto Marco’s mandated two hours, enough to be certain I covered all the moments I’d paused to speak to Julian, to reassure him and keep him tethered to this reality rather than the old one.

Most breaks had been well under a minute, but one had gone close to two, and I needed there to be no doubt I’d followed Marco’s decrees to the letter.

Before this latest round, I’d stopped just long enough to cup his thigh, order him to look at me, and then told him, “I know it hurts terribly, and I love you so much for offering your balls up to me, gifting me not only your pain, but also your devotion. For offering yourself to me. For trusting me to take everything without breaking you.”

I didn’t wait for a reply. Didn’t need one. Just went back to it — to the work of destruction, to the sounds of his screams and shrieks clawing at my skin. At my soul.

I kept going.

But now, somewhere in that murky place between grit and collapse, Marco’s voice filled my head.

Finish this ten-minute stint and then move to the next stage. This is enough. The entire scene will last two hours, but the rolling portion is finished once you’ve balanced the time.

My breath hitched, and I pressed harder again, hands cramping, shoulders on fire. I could survive three more minutes. He could, too. And he’d know, even through the agony, that I was giving it everything — just like he was.

The pressure increased, the roller crushing already bruised tissues all over again, and Julian roared. A sound from the bottom of his soul, not just his lungs.

His balls were pulp. Ruined. The damage done.

Marco was right. It was time to end it.

When time was up, I desperately wanted to take a five-minute break to hydrate and get some salt, but I wasn’t going to leave him alone. Not for anything.

I stood on the table, clipped another strap to a ceiling hook, and went back to my knees.

I’d only wound the two lowest straps on Julian’s torso around his body and the wedge earlier, skipping the table.

Now, I hooked the ceiling strap to them and used the pulley system to tilt him up, canting his pelvis so his asshole was right where I wanted it.

Vampires don’t shit. If they drink too much liquid, they sometimes piss, but mostly their bodies use everything they take in. Which meant there was no need for gloves.

I lubed my hands and arms, and pressed the fingers of my right hand into his ass. He was still raw and inflamed from the giant dildo earlier, his body not able to heal much of anything, with so much ongoing damage happening.

But I didn’t take it easy on him. I doubted the doctor who’d raped him after back then had taken his time. The sadistic bastard was probably impatient to bury himself in a tight little asshole after destroying yet another boy’s balls, and I was supposed to be recreating that. Mirroring it.

It was enough to make me sick to my stomach if I thought about it, so I focused on getting my fist into Julian’s ass, pushing with an already tired shoulder.

Four fingers, and then to get past the knuckles.

Brute strength, because this wasn’t about finesse, so I drew on the kind of energy I sometimes need while climbing mountains, when there’s all that space between me and the ground and I have to pull myself up.

Finally , I pressed my entire fist into Julian. I held him in the palm of my hand.

He bellowed, but I didn’t let it slow me down — I immediately added the fingers of my left hand around my right wrist.

My left palm followed, my thumb tucked into it, then the joint of my thumb, and the second full fist was in four minutes later.

Both hands buried in his body, shoulders straining from the angle, while Julian bellowed beneath me.

Pain layered over pain — his ruined balls, his stretched asshole, his cock caged and throbbing against the unyielding titanium.

And still, he was hard.

Not just aroused — defiant. Radiating need and pride and fuck-me strength like it was carved into his bones.

“Look at me, slave.”

He met my gaze and I had to swallow to keep my eyes from going all watery. His face radiated naked emotions: adoration, agony, surrender.

I’ve been fisted before and I know what it does to you, how raw it makes you, how small and precious you feel — not because you’ve been made less, but because someone you trust is holding all of you, every piece. You aren’t drifting in the void. You are claimed .

Part of me wanted to be where he was, craved it like air. But more than that, I was happy, and relieved, I’d been able to bring him to this place.

“Who owns you, Julian?”

“You do, Master.”

“Ask me to split you open.”

He hesitated. Eyes wet. Breathing ragged. He gave a little shake of his head, but said, “Please split my asshole open, Master. Slaves aren’t afforded such things as mercy. Show us both you won’t bestow mercy on your slave.”

I threaded my fingers together, deep inside him. Impossibly deep. Palms locked together.

And I pulled my elbows apart.

His body fought it. His hole stretched. And stretched. I went super-slow, drawing it out as long as possible, opening him millimeter by agonizing millimeter, the skin taut and trembling.

He was panting in ragged bursts, full-throated sobs between screams, his chest slick with tears and spit, but I had to be ruthless. I watched the flesh go pale and thin to the point of translucency.

And then it gave. A jagged rip split upward like a zipper tearing open flesh, and Julian howled, his whole body jerking in its bonds.

But slaves can’t be given mercy, and this was just the start.

“Good,” I whispered, knowing his vampire hearing would catch my words despite his screams. “Take it. Let it break you open.”

I pulled my fists out, blood-slick and shaking, only to drive them back in. I fucked him with my joined hands, elbow-deep and brutal, again and again. Pulling out to the knuckles, pressing in to the elbows. Every stroke was deliberate. A punishment. A promise.

My shoulders burned, and I was out of breath, gasping from the effort, but I didn’t stop.

Julian didn’t beg. He couldn’t. He just cried — steady, shuddering tears that streaked his face and throat and cascaded down his chest.

Pain and surrender in liquid form.

When I finally withdrew, both of us were shaking.

I had to clean up before I could see to him.

No way around it, but I moved fast, washing my hands and arms in the sink, scrubbing until the water ran clear.

My dress shirt was ruined, dark with blood and sweat.

Probably should’ve thought that through better, but it was fine.

I’d at least thought it through enough to wear a short-sleeved dress shirt, but I hadn’t considered why pale indigo might not be the best choice.

I tossed it in the trash and put a black dress shirt on before I returned to him. The contrast mattered. He was naked and wrecked and wholly mine. I was composed, dressed, in control.

That’s how it had to be.

Marco had drawn a tiny little circle on my arm, to show me where to stick myself.

I poured six ounces of wine into a measuring cup, used a little stickpin thing on the tiny little circle, and measured out three ounces of my blood into the cup before I put my finger behind the circle, upstream, so to speak, to stop the blood.

I counted to twenty, let go, and just as Marco had said, the blood didn’t keep coming out.

A little Band-Aid, which seemed silly, but Marco had insisted. I pressed it down with my thumb, more tired than I’d let myself admit, and carried the cup to Julian.

He was still bound, still blinking slow from pain, exhaustion or likely both. His lips were dry. His chest rose in shallow stutters.

I knelt beside him on the bondage table and held the measuring cup to his mouth, bracing his head with one hand.

He drank from it without question. No hesitation, no resentment.

Just trust. Three ounces wasn’t enough to nourish him.

He’d still be hungry, but along with the wine, it should be enough liquid to replenish what he’d cried out, and Marco said giving him a little of me would help cement our new power balance.

I wanted to give him more, but Marco said it would be good to keep him hungry this first week, to reinforce ownership and the idea he gets what he’s allowed and nothing more.

So I ran my fingers through Julian’s hair, and trusted Marco knew what he was talking about. Trusted that he and I both wanted the same thing — for Julian to succeed and not fail.

I set the measuring cup aside and brushed a damp curl off Julian’s cheek. His eyes were bloodshot, lips cracked from panting, and his body was slick with sweat, smeared with blood.

He didn’t speak, just looked at me. Open. Wrecked. Mine .

I went to work releasing him, fingers and hands shaking while I unbuckled straps, let his pelvis back down, and released his legs, holding them and lowering them one at a time until they both rested on the table.

He whimpered when I shifted him, a high, animal sound he probably didn’t mean to make.

I pressed my forehead to his. “The hardest parts are over, Julian. Work with me, and we’ll get you released and into the shower.”

He gave a single nod, and I unbuckled his torso, and then decided I wasn’t fucking with the torso sleeve, so I found medical sheers and cut the damned thing off.

I couldn’t carry him. I’d barely been able to let his legs down gently, even one at a time. “Can you walk, or should I call for someone to help?”

“I can walk, Master. I just need permission to get off the table.”

“Permission granted, but take it slow.”

The shower has a built-in bench, and I settled him onto it and used the handheld sprayer to wash his hair, then worked my way down his body, cleaning every inch I could get to.

You don’t have to worry about infections with a vampire, but I still wanted to clean the ruin of his asshole. I made him stand and bend over, hands on the bench so I could get him good and clean, but I was as gentle as I could manage.

And then I sat him back down and washed his dick through the cock cage, and his inner thighs, careful not to touch his balls with my fingers. The gentlest setting on the showerhead was enough to rinse them.

He’d had enough pain without me unnecessarily adding more.

I didn’t talk much. Just offered steady hands, gentle touches.

He stood and let me dry him once the water was off, and I walked him back into his room.

I know where his hidden hidey-hole is now, the secret compartment in the wall. It’s a huge deal for a vampire to allow someone access to them when they’re dead to the world, and he’d long since let me see where he disappears before the sun takes him.

He was still trembling when he settled himself into the hidey-hole. I hated that it was so small, but that’s how they’re built — barely enough room to lie flat. Fireproof, lightproof. Sealed against anything that might harm them when they’re vulnerable.

I crouched and looked at him, my hand on his chest.

He had three hours until the sun took him, but I was going to crash soon, and he wasn’t in any shape to do any work for Marco, which meant he had to be locked up. I didn’t have to explain it to him. He knew the deal.

“Use the time before the sun takes you to direct healing where it’s needed.”

His hand found mine. Weak. Cool. “I’m okay.”

“You’re not, but you will be.”

He wasn’t going to have enough blood to heal himself fully for weeks, but Marco said he’d be able to get started healing his asshole, knowing it was the messiest of his injuries.

I closed the compartment, locked it from the outside, and sat on the floor, my back against the wall, breathing through the emotions I could finally let out.

A few minutes later, a knock came at the door and Cora spoke through it. “Marco says you need salt. I’m leaving what he says you need outside your door. Get it when you’re ready.”

I couldn’t help my smile. Marco was looking out for both of us. He’d made us do this terrible thing, but he was keeping an eye on us — letting me stop hurting Julian a little early, making sure I have enough salt.

I hoped the worst was behind us, but I worried it might not be.