Page 36 of Jewel of the Assassin

After pressing a cold, sterilized cloth over the site of the mark, I apply a moderate amount of a healing salve. No fabric may touch it for the next three nights.

“I could live in this moment,” I whisper. “And die happy.”

One more element.

I move to the side table and lift a piece of ginger root. Thick. Gnarled. Full of sting. Her eyes grow wide as I peel it slowly, then begin carving. A moment later, I slide the ginger into her anus.

This has been used as a form of punishment since ancientGreece to inflict pain and humiliation without damaging one’s property. Soon, she will feel the burn. The figging encourages movement to the extreme. I stand back, hugging my elbows, waiting.

“It’s burning!” she shrieks. With her adrenaline ebbing from the lack of Devil’s Fire, her senses are narrowing to the pain in her ass.

I turn and smirk because the more she clenches her cheeks, the more the ginger will release its potent juices to heat and sting the delicate anal rings more. No matter how much she works the muscles, trying to shove it out, she can’t. It will feel like salt on an open wound.

Soon, the feeling will grow more intense.

Because I retrieve mywhip.

13

I’m going to die now. Just like he said.

VALENTINA

“Why are you doing this?”I plead, my voice dry and cracked.

The pain in my ass levels me. My only saving grace is this feeling of floating in velvet shadows. Everything is a blur, except for Roman. He seems sharper than ever as he slowly drags the ends of the whip across my body.

“You will associate every touch with me, Valentina,” he says with excruciating intensity in his eyes. “Every spark of pain, every peak of pleasure, and ripple of desire. They are all mine to own and to unleash within you.”

My heart thunders, and I take a deep breath, preparing for the pain, for the oncoming torture.

A muscle bounces in his granite jaw. “I am destroying you tonight, maya Valya. Destroying you and remaking you.”

The proclamation is bone-chilling and soul-shattering.

He moves in, grips my hair, and yanks my head back to expose my neck. I gulp but cage a whimper.

“Do not ever try to dominate me tonight. If you do, I may not control my actions.”

All the hairs on my body prickle to attention from his words and the shadows deepening around his hooded eyes. He trails the whip down the center of my body.

“Once you learn to trust beyond the pain, you’ll feel something holy, liberating in a way nothing else can touch. Tonight, I will forge a bond so deep into your body and soul, no amnesia could ever hope to sever it.”

My pussy pulses, dripping more. Because I know he will whip me everywhere, includingthere.

“I’m not consenting to this,” I snap, but my mind reels, already betraying me, bending beneath the heat pooling between my thighs.

He drags the tip of the whip across my slick folds, and my hips roll toward him, desperate for more.

His voice drops, low and primal. “No. You’re not. And that’s what makes it real, Moya Koroleva.”

It is real. And raw. My anal rings continue to clench, releasing more of the stinging juices of the ginger root, mirroring the stinging needle-brand on my chest.

Roman begins to circle me like a predator. “I am not a safe man. I am not sane. I will punish you. I will hurt you in all the ways I know you crave, even if your mind refuses to admit it. Because I know what you need to come back to me. To remember. To surrender.”

He pauses behind me. “But I vow this—when I’ve bled you and broken you, I will also soothe and bind you. I will put you back together, piece by piece, until you know exactly who you belong to.”

The first strike lands like a tongue of fire—on my abdomen.