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There was no music tinkling up the stairs as we made our way down, and I tried to pretend the silence wasn’t ill-omened.
So I guessed it wouldn’t be a party/orgy atmosphere tonight?
Then we got into the white ballroom, and I immediately felt Beau tense beside me. All the Elders were there, in their silver robes and their ominous wooden canes, but there weren’t the usual naked women spread around servicing various members.
No, tonight there were simply two little stations in the center of the room.
One was a chair with a small table where it looked like a man was setting up… was that tattoo equipment?
But it was the other piece of furniture that had my eyes popping.
It looked almost like a gynecological exam table, except all done up in leather. But there were absolutely stirrups that seemed meant to spread my legs wide open at an obscene angle, considering I was buck naked. There would be no part of me that was not on display.
Especially once I noticed that the stirrups had straps attached. I would be strapped to that thing, my legs held open.
Beau stepped forward, glaring everyone down. “This is not a white-collar situation. No one’s cock goes in my belle except mine,” he stated firmly.
One of the elders stepped forward. I blanched a little when I saw it was the man who’d roughly ordered me to massage his prostate at the last Trial and then become so quickly displeased when I wasn’t doing it right. But seriously—who has that much experience sticking their fingers up a dude’s ass and can find the prostate on the first try? Not me, obviously.
“You are an Initiate,” the man declared loudly. “It is not for you to make demands. But tonight’s Trial is merely the marking of the belle as belonging to the Order. You will be marked as well, as per tradition.”
The way Beau’s face suddenly went beet red, I thought he might be about to burst a blood vessel. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who saw, because another man stepped forward, much younger than the rest. And then I remembered Beau telling me about him—he was Beau’s friend, Montgomery.
“And as traditions continue forth, we also acknowledge that some of the old ways must be adapted to more modern sensibilities,” Montgomery said. He met Beau’s eyes while he talked. Then he turned to the rest of the Elders and raised a flogger. “Which is why those who would be pleased to, may take their pleasure in flogging the belle on her inner thighs before the piercing of her flesh.”
Oh shit. Flogging? Piercing my flesh?
If I thought Beau was tense before, it was nothing to the concrete pillar he’d become beside me at this pronouncement.
But there wasn’t much time to over-contemplate things, because then Elders came, put hands on Beau, and pulled him away from me toward the tattoo station.
And similarly, Elders came forward and pushed me toward the spread-eagle medical chair.
Beau’s head spun to look over his shoulder. His gaze caught mine and I saw it in his eyes. He was about two point three seconds from calling the whole thing off. From announcing I was pregnant and blowing both of our chances.
I glared him down and shook my head. I could handle this. I would handle this. By God, I would.
But even as determined and stubborn as I was, I couldn’t say my limbs weren’t still shaking as I climbed onto the strange piece of furniture.
Foreign hands were all over me. Stroking down my legs as they lifted each into position in each stirrup. Squeezing as they pulled the leather straps tight around my calves and shins. A squeeze of my breast here and fingers trailing up my inner thighs there.
But they kept to their word and no one unbuckled their belts or came toward me with their cock out.
I let out a deep breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding.
You can do this, I coached myself. No biggie. You got this.
But then the canes began to pound the floor, one of the most terrifying sounds in the world as it echoed back and forth around the huge, otherwise empty room.
I felt like the proverbial ritualistic sacrifice being offered up to the gods, spread out and spread-eagled like I was, tied down and completely vulnerable.
I heard the buzz of the tattoo gun as it started up and my eyes flew over to Beau. They’d set up the two stations, so we had a perfect vantage point of the other. Probably part of the point, I imagined. For each of us to see the other as we endured… all that they had in store for us.
I was still looking at Beau when the first blow hit.
The snap of the leather flogger fringe against my inner thigh had me yelping and sitting up as far as I could while being strapped down to the chair. It wasn’t far, because they’d strapped my torso down as well.
