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LAVINIA

“It’s time for therapy,” Dorin says when he comes into my cell sometime after breakfast the next day.

I stare at him with blank eyes, thinking I didn’t hear right.

But I did.

His words were clear as day.

“Therapy?” I finally manage.

“Therapy,” he confirms.

“I promised to make you feel better. This will help.”

That’s what he said the first time.

But this time, I know it’s not real therapy.

I know how fucked up and wrong it is.

I want to say that it won’t help, but those words would feel like a lie.

Because Dorin’s fucked up brand of therapy has been all I’ve wanted since he stopped touching me—until someone else took me from my cell and touched me.

That guard who dragged me from my cell, caned me, and fucked my ass.

Suddenly, it’s all I see, those ghastly memories.

The room draws back yet closes in all at once, my vision blurs, and breathing becomes like heaving underwater.

Words assault me, vile and malicious.

You’re not so special now, are you?

Just a dirty whore getting used the way she deserves—fucked in your dirty little ass like a useless…

Squeezing my eyes shut, I cover my ears, but it does nothing to shut out the cruel voice.

And then Zoltan is there too.

Beg me, bitch!

Cry for me!

Come for me, fucking slut!

“No, no, no,” I pant, burrowing my head between my legs as the memories come rushing back with a vividness I haven’t experienced in months.

The horrible pain—the knife across my ribs, the cane ripping into my skin.

The gut-wrenching humiliation as some stranger forced himself into me in an alley, or in a sordid dungeon room, or when I willingly let my abuser slide inside me and fuck me, all just for a little hope that always was hopeless.

I can’t even remember who did what.

It all blurs together.

The faces, the voices, the pain, and the despair.

“Please, make it stop, just drug me again. Just kill me.”

“Look at me,” a voice demands, ripping into my despair.

“No.” I can’t face another man who wants to harm and humiliate me.

I just can’t.

Hands carefully grab my wrists and pull them from my face.

“Look at me, Lavinia,” the voice repeats.

No slut, whore, or bitch.

“Please,” I beg as I peel my eyes open and stare at another man who can easily force me into submission.

But as I watch him, it’s neither terror nor despair I feel.

Blinking rapidly, I flicker my gaze across the cruel scar, the rough features, and the hard eyes—the man more scary than any of the others.

But most of all, the man who found me at my lowest and saved me.

The man who breathed new life into me.

“Dorin,” I whisper, my lips suddenly trembling.

“I can’t—I don’t—” I drop my head, suddenly bone-tired.

He scoops me off the floor, into his arms, cradling me against his strong body.

I burrow my head into his shoulder, and I keep it there as he carries me from the cell, down the halls, into a new room, and sets me down on some kind of table.

Carefully lifting my head, I look around.

We’re in the medical room—the one where he administered “electrotherapy”—and I’m in the strange gynecologist’s chair.

A shudder rolls through me, but I don’t try to protest as Dorin presses me into the chair and starts strapping me in.

“I’ll obey,” I say weakly as he pulls a long strap over my chest.

“You don’t need to do that.”

He pauses and looks at me with a solemn expression.

“No, but you need it.”

I give a slight shake of my head, not following.

“You need the helplessness to let go.”

“I don—” I swallow the negation.

Because I think he’s right.

No matter how much helplessness I’ve been subjected to, no matter how much it has destroyed me, it seems to be the only thing that will make me forget the pain.

So I change my words.

“I don’t understand this.”

“Neither do I.” He grabs my hand to strap it into the wrist cuff at the side.

He’s silent as he goes about restraining my other wrist too and strapping my legs to the stirrups.

Then he comes to stand at my side and looks into my eyes as he says, “Nothing has made sense since I found you in that tub.” He grabs the bite block off the side table and holds it before my mouth.

“Open up.”

I stare at him as his words send a new wave of bewilderment through my mind, making me see things from Dorin’s perspective.

If those pictures of the toothless girl the guard showed me really was Dorin’s doing, he is not a good man.

If anything, he’s a monster.

Yet somehow, he’s been protective and caring of me.

I know he has felt this weird bond between us too.

I want to ask if he’s ever felt like this with another girl here, but I’m not sure I want to know.

A yes would only kill the comfort I’m finding in this connection.

So I hold back the words and open my mouth.

He looks stunned for a moment as he stares at my parted lips, the way I’m readily obeying.

Lifting his hand, he traces his thumb across my bottom lip and slowly leans down.

His breath comes hard against my mouth as he hovers right in front of me.

I gasp as he sweeps his tongue across my bottom lip.

It’s curious and careful in a way that makes me think he hasn’t done much kissing in his life.

I remember the first time he kissed me.

It barely qualified as a kiss as he forced his mouth upon mine and invaded me with a ferocity that snuffed out my breath.

But now, he takes his time, tasting my lips and testing my reactions as he licks the corners of my mouth.

I mewl as a tickly sensation sends tiny shudders of pleasure through me.

I don’t try to reciprocate or deepen the connection into a kiss.

I just lie there, lips parted, letting him test and try.

When he ventures into my mouth, it’s awkward at first as he licks my inner lips and my teeth.

But when he finally dips in, connecting our lips and joining our tongues, it feels like two wires connecting, coming alive.

I match his rhythm, moving my lips with his in perfect harmony.

He growls as he pulls my lower lip into his mouth, giving it a quick bite.

Then he’s back in my mouth, exploring and tasting, twirling my tongue with his, claiming my mouth with a possession that has me panting and mewling.

When he pulls back, I feel slightly lost.

He turns away, leaving my side, and it takes me a moment to realize he put the bite gag away, leaving my mouth free.

Sitting on the chair between my legs, he turns his attention to the space between my legs and the items on the rolling table.

I search his attention for a moment, but when I don’t get it, I press my head into the chair, focusing on staying calm.

It gets harder by the second as I hear him moving objects and the crackle of latex gloves tells me he’s about to start.

Breathing through rounded lips, I manage to keep somewhat calm, but when he spreads my ass cheeks and a trickle of cold lube drops onto that hole, I crash.

“No,” I gasp, shooting my head up.

“Not there.” I shriek as he presses a finger into the moisture, breaching that first barrier, invading my ass.

Like he did.

“No! Dorin, no. Not after what he—what happened.”

He sinks in to the first knuckle, then lifts his eyes, boring them into me with undebatable demand.

“I’m gonna erase that memory and give you a new one.”

“It doesn’t work like that. What if—” I squeeze my eyes shut, already feeling the panic drawing in and choking me, threatening to drag me into the black pit he just took me from.

I shake my head as my tight throat cuts off my ability to speak.

Everything spirals as he starts advancing again.

A cruel laughter breaks into my mind, blaring like a shrill alarm, then horrible words spoken in a sleazy voice.

“Dorin won’t want you after I’ve taken you here.” Pain erupts in my ass as he tears at my tissues and forces the head of his cock inside.

“It’s all he cares about, breaking in your tight ass. Once I’ve done that, you’ll hold no value to him. You’ll be a tarnished little slut, good for nothing. He’ll toss you aside to be sold.”

I keep shaking my head, harder and harder, my head hurting from the effort.

“He won’t,” I croak.

“Oh yes, he will. He’s like a dog like that.”

“Lavinia!” A sharp command breaks me out of the horrible memory.

Snapping my eyes open, I stare at Dorin—the man who kidnapped me to be sold, the man who locked me up and lied to me.

The man who is once again invading me against my will.

I shouldn’t want him.

But as the memory of the pain and terror remains fresh in my brain, so does the memory of the mind-numbing terror at the thought of losing Dorin.

I don’t know if it’s some kind of trauma bonding or Stockholm syndrome, but he’s the only person who has made me feel alive and cared for since I lost everything.

So I cling to him.

I lock my eyes onto his and soak up his every word.

Because they’re all I have—and somehow, everything I need.

“Lavinia,” he says sharply again, and there’s a fierce possessiveness to his voice as he calls me by my name for the second time.

“This hole is mine. Not Jan’s, not yours. Mine. I want you to feel that every moment of every waking hour. So you’d better damn well stay with me as I claim it—and get that fucker out of your head.”

I swallow hard, stunned by his ferocity, and nod.

“Good. Now, stay with me and notice how it actually feels. You’ve healed down here. It’s only the tip of my finger. It doesn’t hurt.”

I heave a deep breath and turn my focus to my tight opening—his finger stuck inside.

“Am I right?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, the word coming out breathy.

It feels strange and intrusive, but he’s right.

It’s not painful.

He draws out and applies more lube.

I inhale a sharp breath as the moisture runs down my crack in a cold trail.

I fist my hands as he once again positions his finger.

“Mine,” he says, holding my gaze in the demanding trap of his eyes as he pushes his finger back in.

I cling to his gaze as everything inside me twists wildly, about to spiral.

I automatically clench my muscles tight to block the entrance, but Dorin easily sinks in to the second knuckle, invading me in the most horrible way I could imagine.

“This is my hole. Not Jan’s, not yours. Say it.”

“Uh, I—” I shudder as he advances further, and it takes everything I have to stay with him and not sink into myself and those horrible memories.

“This… this hole is yours. N-not Jan’s, not mine. Yours.” As I say the words, something happens inside me.

It’s a strange well of emotion that builds and fills me to the brim.

Tears pool in my eyes, and my whole world feels upside down, but not in a chaotic way.

It’s like my feet finally touch the ground after having been hanging with my head down for years.

“I’m yours,” I repeat, tasting and testing the words, soaking up that floaty sensation that grounds me and sets me free.

“All yours.”

“That’s right.” He sinks his finger all the way inside, then withdraws and positions two fingers at my opening.

A smirk spreads across his features as he starts pushing against my tight ring of muscle.

“ My little songbird,” he says with a grunt as he breaches my opening.

I gasp as my body gives in, opening up and letting him in.

This time, he doesn’t pause.

He sinks straight in with one slow, steady advance.

Blinking rapidly, I drift off for a moment, floaty and overcome by the intense emotions of belonging to this strong and dangerous man, who has somehow become my pillar of safety.

“Not Jan’s, not yours,” Dorin says as he pulls back out.

“Only my hole to use.”

The moment his fingers disappear, Jan slams back into my mind, poisoning the gentle stream.

It’s all he cares about, breaking in your tight ass.

Once I’ve done that, you’ll hold no value to him.

“Are you gonna leave me once you’ve taken me back there?” I blurt, suddenly gripped by the terror that I’ll hold no value to him once he’s reclaimed what Jan took from him.

Something feral deepens the dark pits of Dorin’s eyes as he gets up and rounds the table.

His movements are slow and deadly as he wraps his hand around my neck and leans in.

“Once I’ve claimed you down there, you’re mine. I’ll want to be inside you over and over, feeling those tight sweet walls clench me, begging to be defiled—begging for my cock. You won’t be able to get rid of me. I hope you’ll be able to live with that because you’re not getting away now.”

I melt into the seat as I stare up at him, open and ready for him to claim every last cell and particle of my broken being.