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“Just tell me!”
I try ordering him.
It does not work. He takes hold of me and he tosses me over his thigh. I swing over the fulcrum of his muscled upper leg and I know instantly that trying to leverage whatever small amount of intimacy exists between us will not work.
He spanks me. Hard. He lashes my ass with his palm, retracting his claws so I am not harmed, but left incredibly sore thanks to his previous rough treatment of my punished flesh.
“I won’t push anymore! I won’t ask anything!” I squeal what he wants to hear in the effort to end the punishment early.
“You will know when this is ready to know.” He taps my forehead with his knuckle. “For now, we do what we must do.”
“And I just have to trust you.” I half-phrase it like a question, though it is not a question at all. My life is in his hands. Trusting him is an inevitability. It is the only thing keeping me from an insane void of panic at any moment.
“Not trust. Obey.”
That is what it always comes down to. Doing as he says. Following his orders. Being the complete and absolute slave to his desire and whatever destiny awaits.
“Back in the river.” He orders me down to the watery banks. “We will return to Megaris before night falls. I want there to be daylight.”
“Or we could not.”
Rath answers that by hefting me up in his big, strong arms and throwing me into the river. I fall into the fast current for a second time, splashing and gasping and realizing that this is the second time I have tested him in this way, and the second time he has met me with a watery answer.
He plunges in behind me and rescues me from the rapids with his strong hands and massive body. He makes an excellent raft, and a warm one. I wish the river had a fork in it, one that might carry us away from Megaris and all that it contains. I don’t know why we are returning. When I think of the city, and all the inevitable doom which must surely await there, I feel a dark shadow in the pit of my stomach. Foreboding and fear start to reclaim me. Every moment of my life in Megaris was monitored, and there was a constant threat of loss and perhaps even death.
In this one day free of Megaris, I have been able to breathe. There have been no augmented warnings flashed in my eyes, no direct threats to my life. Not even from Rath, who looks after me so completely I no longer fear him as I once did.
“This feels like a bad idea. Don’t you think this feels like a bad idea?” I lie on his chest and look up into his powerful face, knowing that I’m pushing my luck, but also knowing at this point that all I have is pushed luck. Rath seems to have some softness for me. There is a familiarity between us that might mean the difference between life and death for me. We’ve made love twice. Once could be considered an accident, or curiosity on his part, or just an attempt to further crush my spirit in a very sexy way. But his hunger the second time showed me that there was more to it than simple conquest. Rath wants me. He desires me. Even now, after our second tryst, I can feel him throbbing beneath me. His body and mine call to each other in a way I cannot explain. I used to think I was hopelessly pathetic desiring him the way I did. Now I know that it was not an unrequited need.
“What are you smiling about?”
“You like me.”
His eyes flash with an emotion I cannot fathom. Did I just make him angry? Did I strike a nerve?
“You are prey, human. You are my bounty. I have conquered your flesh and now I will return you to Megaris for the justice you so richly deserve. Do not mistake the physical activities between us for affection.”
His words are designed to sting my pride, and they do. But I do not believe them. I believe what I can feel, and what I feel are his arms snugging ever tighter around me, even as he talks about turning me in. There’s some part of me that hopes he won’t, even as the river draws us closer to the city walls. There is no escape from the river. There is only the captive flow being sucked into Megaris as inexorably as we are. It might have been foolish to ever think of escape. It seems to me, now, held in Rath’s grasp, that there is no escaping anything. Destiny has its own plans, and its own forces.
I lie on his chest and I close my eyes. I let it, and him take me where I am supposed to be. He has made me no assurances, and so I suppose he has told me no lies.
