Castor pulls me tight against him, a zip tie securing my wrists together. My vision blurs around the edges, and blood trickles down from the gash in my head, mingling with the cuts on my thighs.

I clench my teeth when Castor’s hands brush across my torso, dancing around my navel. My skin burns in the absence of his touch, and every inch of me is fighting desperately to maintain control, to keep myself calm and collected. It’s been used on me before—the silent threat of what they can do, how they can hurt me without even needing to break skin. It’s pathetic and fucking barbaric and the longer he touches me, the more that murder creeps up into my mind and making me tremble with rage.

Kill them. Kill them. Fucking kill them.

I keep my gaze steady, void of any emotion at all. “He’ll find you. Both of you.”

Baron steps forward, caging me in between the two of them. He pinches my nipple, rolling the hardened bud between his two fingers. “I’m counting on it,” he says with a sadistic grin.

My lip curls when he pinches the other, but I swallow down the pain, the sick pleasure.

Focus. It’s just a tactic. That’s what terrorists do. They don’t play by the rules. They lie and kill and steal and fuck, they’ll humiliate me by touching me.

My mind scrambles for control, to remind me this is strategy, but I can’t stop the rolls of pleasure spiking with his touch. It’s survival. It’s not me.

Baron spins me around, pressing me back against him, while his foot kicks my legs apart until I’m spread wide, and the cool air of the mine stings between my legs. I can’t move. My hands are tied and my feet are pinned, locked around his. My body aches, crying out for food, water, something human. Instead, the sharp sting of his sheathed knife keeps me tethered to the moment, reminding me of their control. I would’ve dismissed this as another cruel hallucination, but the evidence of their abuse is etched into me, drawn onto my skin.

Escape. Find the intel. Kill them .

He grips the back of my neck, his voice a chilling unhinged whisper. “I warned you, doll. You think you have any power here?” His fingers glide to my throat, tightening just enough to make my pulse pound against his palm, leaving a blood handprint underneath. “One more time…”

“Where’s Bane?” Castor cuts through.

I glare at him, but his eyes remain cold and vacant. Even when he’s several feet from me, his large frame casts a shadow. They both stand tall, the bruises I served them nothing in comparison to what I got in return. I can barely stay on my feet. The exhaustion wears at me and it fights with my own consciousness.

Talk. Sleep…

“I don’t know where he is.” I say again.

Baron forces my legs further apart until my muscles strain to keep myself upright.

Castor’s hand slides over the small of my back, just above the curve of my ass. It sends a shiver down my spine, settling between my legs. There’s something behind his eyes now, something that makes my skin crawl.

I jolt, and Baron pulls me tighter against him, replacing Castor’s hands with his own, giving my ass a rough squeeze. “You look uncomfortable, doll.” His hand comes down in a sharp slap.

I bite down on my lip until I taste blood. It’s one thing to cause me pain, but this? This is torture—torture to watch my own body betray me. It’s harsh, aggressive. Another slap and my throat constricts, my pulse racing against my will. It’s wrong. It’s all so wrong, but the cinders stoking between my legs is a fire, burning with something it needs—something it won’t have. I bite my lip, the pain grounding me. That’s what they want. It’s not me. It’s survival. It’s just my body. Kill them.

His hand comes down again, slapping my ass harder and I swallow down a moan, biting it into a sneer. “Get off me! I told you, I don’t know where he is!”

Castor’s eyes shift—a tiny flicker of movement from my eyes to my body.

“I think you’re lying to me,” Baron slides a hand down from my collarbone, grazing my breasts. “You’re lying about Bane. You’re lying about how afraid you are.”

Castor finally steps forward, his brows furrowed as he watches me. When his thumb runs over my nipple, I flinch, legs tensing in restraint. One tiny twitch in the corner of his mouth is all it takes to make my heart sink.

“I don’t think that’s fear, Baron…” His hands slide down the curves of my body, caressing the sides of my hips with an alarming gentleness.

Oh god no.

Beat me, cut me, torture me, but don’t do this. This touch promises something very different—something I know I don’t want.

My breath catches when his hands press between my thighs. I stiffen, my panic rising. “Get off me! Don’t fucking touch me!”

Castor ignores me, hands sliding up between my thighs while Baron’s feet wrap around my own when I fight, his grip on my wrists tightening. “What’s the matter, doll? Something you don’t want us to see?” His lips graze against my ear before he delivers a sharp nip, the bastard delivering pain down my back and right between my legs.

My breaths shallow and uneven, my hardened facade crumbling despite my efforts to push them anywhere else but here. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

Castor leans in, so close that I can feel his soft groan when he sinks two fingers into me.

I try to suppress a moan, but it escapes me just as Castor pulls back. He raises his hand to the bright lights, and my eyes lock on the embarrassing evidence of my arousal.

“Interesting,” he mutters.

I can’t see him, but the derisive laugh Baron gives me is enough to know that he saw it too. One of his hands releases from my wrists, snaking up between my shoulder blades before they rest on my throat.

“I don’t think our doll has been very honest with us, buddy.” Baron’s hand tightens around my neck, squeezing just hard enough to make my head spin and my body shake. “Do you like the pain, doll? Do you like the humiliation?”

“No,” I say, my voice tight.

Castor regards me with nothing more than a raised brow before he sinks his fingers back into me.

I clamp down on my lip, but it doesn’t stop the sharp sting of pleasure winding through me with each thrust of his fingers.

“Don’t lie to me, Helena.” He lifts his fingers, showing off the evidence of my arousal dripping onto the floor. He sucks them clean, his eyes brightening with dark amusement.

The taste of metal floods my mouth from my abused lip. My heart is pounding and everything in this room is silent, my senses working overdrive with every squeeze of Baron’s hands, the cold air on my body and Castor’s ministrations forcing my body to succumb to him.

He slides his index from his mouth, his darkened eyes sharp and fixated on me even as he sinks to his knees.

“This pussy is going to be the death of me,” he mutters.

The word is hot on my tongue—the word I want to use but can’t and the same damn word they’re trying to pull out of me. Mercy. Please. Begging. That’s what they want, to force my body to disobey me, and give them that cruel satisfaction if they can’t beat those words out of me.

Don’t break, Bane said. That’s the one phrase that’s stuck with me all these years to give me some kind of strength and control. But it doesn’t stop my lip from quivering and a tear sliding down my cheek before Castor wraps his hands around my thighs and latches his tongue around my clit.

Oh my god.

My body instantly changes, and the tiny little pinpricks of pleasure swimming in my core are blasting around my body. It’s an electric current, running straight from my clit and right up to the strangled cry that comes out with it.

I can’t move, can’t shift away and every little movement I make to force him off my body is met with another violent shock of pleasure that turns my sharp breaths into shaky pants.

His movements are slow, his tongue roving over the sensitive bud, measured and calculated, and even with every part of me wanting him to stop, its enough to drive me mad, keeping me just enough on the edge to make my legs tremble

“Fuck,” I whisper. “No…stop.”

I’m not sure either of them heard me. I’m not sure if I even spoke it aloud because Castor never slows or speaks. Baron watches me silently, occasionally gripping me tighter when I pull too far away. Fuck, it’s too much.

My legs start to tremble and buckle from the pleasure. Castor grips my thighs tighter and lifts me up, effortlessly holding each of my thighs in his hands, spreading my legs further without Baron’s hold on them. I’ve lost all ability to move them, my legs, my hands. Even as I’m screaming for me to kick him, to fight back, I can’t and when I manage to shift my body ever so slightly, a warning growl vibrates between as he shoves one finger, then two, inside me.

Baron laughs when a moan rips through me and echoing off the dead air.

“Look at you,” Baron hums. His lips traverse the curve of my neck, relishing when I shiver. “I thought you didn’t want this. Lied to us again, didn’t you?”

“No, I–”

My plea is cut short when Castor sucks my clit into his mouth and curls his fingers inside me. The moans stuck in my throat come out in a scream and Baron clamps a hand over my mouth, leaving my bound hands pressed against his hardening cock. I’m trapped, caged in between these two men who elicit the most feral unwanted sounds from me, forcing my body to move with Castor’s thrusts.

My mind is scattered and every muscle in me is wound painfully tight. I want to scream. Please. Please stop. Please make me come. Please do something to end the unbearably tight feeling that’s building inside me.

“Look at this pathetic little doll.” Baron rips my head back until my eyes are forced to meet his. “Nothing but a pathetic whimpering mess.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to ignore the way Castor’s low moan makes my body vibrate with pleasure, or the way Baron’s insults make the coil wind tighter inside me.

“Do you want to come?” He asks.

I shake my head, clenching my teeth hard enough to cause pain.

Baron doesn’t answer this time, instead, Castor doubles his efforts, sucking my clit into his mouth and running his tongue over it while his fingers move faster.

Tighter, tighter…

“Oh god…” I whisper.

“That’s it,” Baron answers. “Come for us.”

I can’t stop myself from coming any more than I could’ve stopped them from detonating our base. When I come apart, my resolve shatters along with my pride.

I throw my head back, screaming incoherently as my orgasm rips through me, my body grinding involuntarily on Castor’s face. My vision fades for a moment or two and even when it comes back, Castor doesn’t back down, devouring me with as much measure as he has before.

My body twitches and tenses, shocking my system with the sensitive remains of my orgasm. That word sets on my lips again but doesn’t fall through, instead I buck and writhe against Castor’s hold, lost to the waves of pleasure he continues to force from me.

“No more…” I breathe.

Baron moves his hand back to my wrists, gripping them tightly before speaking. “Castor, she’s had enough.”

Seconds later, my feet are placed back onto the cool concrete floor and Castor slides his fingers out of me. I struggle for a moment, still using Baron as a weight to catch myself on.

Was that all they wanted? To pleasure me?

My breath slows. My mind is still fuzzy and I can barely make out the few words spoken between the two men even as Castor speaks from the floor. My eyes shut for a moment, enjoying the brief respite that I haven’t had in years.

There’s worse things for a captive to experience. To be beaten, burned, drowned, raped, starved, and killed. But pleasured was never one of them.

When Castor shifts from underneath me, I tense. It’s still too sensitive. It’s only been a few seconds. There’s no way he could possibly want to do this again. I can’t—

A searing pain cuts me from my thoughts and I scream, unhindered and blindsided by it. Castor clamps down on my clit again, his teeth crushing the sensitive nerves together. I shake and thrash and Baron wraps an arm around my chest, holding me tightly when Castor bites down again.

“Stop!” I cry.

Baron laughs.

“Did you forget where you were, doll? Did you think we were going to let you off easy?” His hand digs into the skin on my wrists, his grip bruising. “You must be awfully sensitive after an orgasm like that.”

It’s agonizing. Each time Castor’s teeth dig into my flesh, my body feels like it’s being ripped apart. The poison they’d cut me with doesn’t compare and when he bites down again, I can’t stop the tears from falling.

“Make it stop,” I sob.

Baron jerks me away, and my clit is ripped from between Castor’s teeth. “I’m not fucking around anymore, Helena. You know exactly how to make it stop.”

The sound of metal against metal makes my blood run cold. Castor forces my legs apart and the sharp metal of a knife parts my lips.

“No!” I cry.

“Now, Helena!” Baron growls.

The knife drags up to my clit.

“Lienz! They’re in Lienz! There’s a base at the bottom of the mountain!”

My sobs echo back at me, a mocking repetition that repeats long enough that I don’t realize that the knife is gone until Castor stands up. Tears stain my cheeks and the lump in my throat burns my lungs as I try to suck in air.

Baron releases my hands, the zipties snapping free with that same knife.

“Very good,” Baron says as he tucks the knife away.

The two of them stand side-by-side as I crumple to the floor. My legs refuse to listen to me, even now. My clit is throbbing and every tiny movement is agony.

They watch me for a moment, their eyes cold and dull—the same ones that brought me in here. Terrorists. Devils. Baron regards me for a moment or two before walking out the door later, leaving me curled and sobbing into my beaten body.