Most of that was when things seemed especially hopeless.
11
NOW, DATHOR HADthem all sit at tables in the great hall and he walked up and down with his hands clasped behind his back and took great delight in the fact that they all looked so subdued and terrified.
Except Aerhril, of course, who was glaring at him the entire time.
That woman was the worst woman in the world. She wanted him, but she did not want him the way a woman wants a man but rather the way a woman wants a plaything. He was there to be her servant, her toy, to see to her needs. She was above him, and the maddening thing about her was that she seemed to be entirely unaware of how much she was above him, how little esteem she kept him in and how much she thought of herself as entitled to his body.
He knew this, and he told himself over and over not to submit to her.
But…
Well,lookat her.
He was sort of annoyed with himself for throwing away his first time in her cunt on that travesty in the chapel. He wasn’t sentimental about it. It wasn’t as if he thought that the first time he’d kissed her had been better than the other times he’d kissed her.
Well, perhaps there had been something about that kiss, the way he’d been beaten and bleeding and full of despairandthen, the softness of her pink lips, the give of her body, the taste of her…
All right, he regretted forcing her.
She was going to forgive him, however, because she always did, and… and…
He had to admit that his plan thus far had hinged on her forgiving him and his not forgiving her and using her for his own means from then on, but he had forgiven her a very long time ago and not realized it.
Or, even if he hadn’t forgiven her, it didn’t matter.
Lookat her.
She could treat him like a thing, like an animal, like a slave created entirely to do her bidding and see to her pleasure, and he wouldn’t really be able to ever fight it. Some part of him agreed with her. Some part of him thought,I was made to see to every shallow whim of this woman’s fancy. I was born for the precise purpose of doing whatever she bids. I was createdforher. I am her slave.
It was also very inconvenient that when he thought about being her pleasure slave, it tended to make his cock stir. He purposefully looked away from her, staring straight ahead as he continued his circuit around the dining room.
Where was he?
What had he been saying?
Oh, yes. “You are not to leave the keep,” he said. “We will feed you and we will see to your needs, and if you follow the rules I lay down for you, no harm will come to you. If you disobey or cause trouble, you will find that none of us have qualms about killing elf women.”
“Oh?” spoke up Aerhril. “So, that’s why we’re currently alive? It doesn’t bother you at all, so you haven’t killed any of us? Yes, I quite believe you.”
He met her gaze. “Shut. Your. Mouth. Bitch.”
She let out a gasp. “Did you just call me—”
“Quiet,” he interrupted.
She huffed, shaking her head, setting her jaw, very angry.
If you wish to silence her, to silence themall, go over there and strike her. One slap across the face, and she will never do anythinglike this again.
He clenched his hand into a fist and resumed walking. “You will sleep in the room on the lower level of the tower, the one you have been staying in. We will bring blankets.”
“There is not enough room for everyone to stretch out on the floor in there,” cried Aerhril.
Should have hit her.“Well,” he said to her in a very nasty voice, “anyone who would like to volunteer to warm one of my men’s beds can sleep in comfort.”
“You’re appalling.”
