I wake to pain in my wrists. Rope burns. I'm tied to a wooden chair, arms bound behind me, ankles lashed to the legs. The room is elegant—velvet curtains, a chandelier of polished crystal, a fire crackling in a marble hearth. A guest room. A wealthy one.
Lady Samantha Suckling stands in front of me, arms crossed, sapphire eyes cold. Her blond curls are perfect. Her gown is immaculate. She looks at me like I'm a stain on her floor.
Behind her, a small elven woman in a frilly maid outfit stands silent. Jet-black hair, black eyes, hands clasped in front of her. She doesn't move. She doesn't blink.
"You're awake," Samantha says. "Good. I was worried we'd broken you."
I test the ropes. Solid. I don't answer.
"You've been a very difficult person to find," she says, circling me. "Always moving. Always in the shadows. But we have our ways." She stops in front of me, leans in close. Her breath smells like wine. "What are you really?"
I meet her eyes. Stay quiet. Stay still.
Her fist connects with my jaw.
Stone. The skin of her knuckles is rough and grey, a thin layer of rock that cracks against my cheekbone with a sound like a mason's hammer. My head snaps to the side. The ropes bite into my wrists as my body jerks against the chair. I taste copper on my tongue.
"I asked you a question, half-breed."
I work my jaw. It pops. Nothing's broken, but I let the blood pool between my teeth and dribble down my chin. Let her see the damage. Let her think she's winning.
"Don't know what you want me to say."
She hits me again. Same fist, same stone, same spot. My vision blurs at the edges. I focus on her rings—four of them on her right hand, each one enchanted, faint glyphs flickering in the firelight. Her dress is layered with ward-silk, the kind that costs more than I'll earn in a year of bounty work. Expensive. Dangerous. She's not just rich. She's armed.
"You're not a null." She grabs my hair, yanks my head back. Her sapphire eyes are narrow, cold. "Nulls don't survive sewer slime nests. Nulls don't sneak into noble estates and leave no trace. So I'll ask again. What are you?"
I meet her gaze. Stay flat. Stay dumb. "Half-orc."
Her fist drives into my stomach. The air leaves me in a rush. I double over as far as the ropes allow, coughing, spitting blood onto the polished floor. She steps back, breathing hard. I hear her heartbeat through the ringing in my ears. Fast. Excited.
And I see it—her eyes drop to my thighs. Just for a second. Her tongue wets her lips before she catches herself. Her pupils are dilated.
I keep my face slack. Stay stupid. But I remember. I remember Arelle's face when she smelled me. I remember Kitty's hand on my chest, the hunger in her green eyes. Samantha wants to hurt me. But something else is stirring under her cruelty. Something she doesn't understand yet.
"Take him to the basement." She turns her back on me, waves a hand dismissively. "No food until he talks. Water only."
Nikki steps forward. The elven maid doesn't speak. She just unties the ropes from the chair legs, leaves my hands bound, and hauls me to my feet. She's stronger than she looks. Far stronger. I don't resist. I let her drag me out of the guest room, down a narrow stairwell, into a chamber of damp stone and rusted iron.
A basement cell. Cot in the corner. Bucket for waste. Chains bolted to the wall.
Nikki chains my wrists to a ring set in the stone, then leaves without a word. The door slams. The lock turns.
I sit in the dark and breathe slow. My jaw throbs. My stomach aches. But I'm alive, and she didn't find out a damn thing.
Days pass. I lose count.
Nikki comes twice a day—morning and evening—with a cup of water. She holds it to my lips, waits until I've drank, then leaves. She never looks at me. She never speaks. But I catch it, every time. Her nostrils flare when she gets close. The slightest hitch in her breath.
She smells me. They all do.
I focus on my Primal magic. Slow my heartbeat. Slow my breath. I don't know if it's working, but I feel the ache of hunger dull, the sharp edges of starvation blunted by something deeper. I feel my body burning less, conserving more. I can stretch this out. I have to.
Samantha comes on the third day. She's holding a whip—leather, braided, tipped with metal shards. She doesn't ask questions this time. She just hits me. Across the chest, the shoulders, the arms. Each strike splits skin. Blood runs down my ribs, pools in my lap. I clench my jaw and let her work.
I breathe through the pain. Focus on the space behind my navel. I've been practicing regeneration in the dark, knitting the deepest wounds back together while the surface stays raw and red. Let her see the welts. Let her think she's breaking me. Underneath, I'm healing.
She stops after twenty lashes. Her arm is shaking. Her breath is ragged. She's standing too close, her chest heaving, her eyes fixed on my lap again.
"I'll be back tomorrow," she says. Her voice is rough. She leaves quickly. The door slams.
I let out a long breath. My balls ache, full and heavy, and I can smell myself—that thick musk that makes women's eyes go dark. It's stronger now. From the sweat. From the strain. From the magic simmering beneath my skin.
She'll be back. But she's losing. I saw it in her eyes. I saw the moment her cruelty became something else.
On the fifth day, Nikki comes alone. She stands there, silent, her jet-black eyes fixed on the floor.
I watch her. The slight tremble in her hands. The way her breath comes shallow through her nose.
"You don't have to stay," I say. My voice is a croak.
She doesn't move. Doesn't answer. But her fingers twitch at her sides, and I see her throat move as she swallows.
I lean for the cup in her hands. Drink. The water is cold and clean.
Nikki finally looks at me. Just for a second. Her eyes are hungry. Her nostrils are wide. She turns and leaves without a word.
Samantha visits again that night. No whip this time. Just her fists, coated in stone, fists that crack against my ribs with a sound like thunder. She hits me until I can't breathe, until the room spins, until I'm slumped in my chains, bloody and gasping.
Then she stops.
Her hand is on my thigh. Her fingers curl against the muscle, and she's trembling, her breath coming in ragged bursts, her eyes fixed on the bulge in my trousers. Her mouth parts. Her pupils are blown wide.
"Fuck," she whispers. She pulls her hand back like she's been burned. Stumbles backward. Her back hits the wall. "Fuck."
I watch her from half-closed eyes. My body screams. My blood pools. But I smile inside. Because she knows now. She knows what she wants. And she has no idea what to do with it.
She doesn't come back the next day. Or the day after.
I count the water deliveries by Nikki's footsteps. Six. Twelve. The thirst is a living thing now, coiling in my throat, cracking my lips. My stomach is a hollow knot. But it's my balls that scare me. They ache with a different kind of emptiness. The Primal magic I've been feeding on—the regeneration, the slow hardening of skin—it's been drawing from somewhere deep. And that well is running dry.
On the third day, the door opens and Samantha stands in the torchlight. She's wearing a thin silk robe, tied loose at the waist. Her hair is unbrushed. Her eyes are wild.
She doesn't speak. She crosses the cell in three strides, drops to her knees, and pulls at my trouser laces with shaking hands.
I watch her. I don't move. I don't speak.
Her fingers fumble. She yanks the leather loose, pulls my trousers down to my knees. My cock hangs heavy between my legs, soft but thick, my balls full and sloshing in their sack. She stares at them. Her breath catches. Her hand hovers, trembling, over the curve of my thigh.
"Don't look at me," she whispers.
I look at her.
Her eyes meet mine for half a second. Then she flinches, yanks my trousers back up, and scrambles to her feet. She backs out of the cell, her face burning red, her hands pressed against her mouth. The door slams. The lock turns.
I let out a long breath. My heart is hammering. But I smile in the dark.
She's back within the hour.
This time she carries a strip of black cloth and a leather gag—a ball with straps, the kind they use on slaves in the market. She doesn't meet my eyes. She circles behind me, ties the cloth over my eyes, cinches it tight. Darkness. Then the gag—she pries my jaw open with rough fingers, fits the leather ball between my teeth, buckles it behind my head. I can't speak. Can barely breathe through my nose.
Her hands find my trouser laces again. This time she doesn't stop. She pulls them down, and I feel cool air on my thighs, my cock, my balls. She gasps. A small, strangled sound.
Then her mouth is on me.
It's clumsy. Inexperienced. Her teeth scrape, her tongue presses too hard in the wrong places. She doesn't know what she's doing. But she's desperate. Her hand grips the base of my cock, her lips work the head, her breath comes in ragged, wet bursts. I feel her other hand moving between her own thighs—fast, frantic, the wet sound of her fingers working herself.
I stay still. Let her work. Let her teeth catch, let her gag. She moans against my skin, her rhythm breaking as her hand between her legs speeds up. She sucks harder. Loses her rhythm. Chokes. Pulls off with a wet gasp, then goes back down, her tongue sliding along the shaft, her lips stretching around the head.
I feel the pressure building. The heat coiling in my balls. It's been days—longer. I'm going to fill her mouth. I can't stop it.
She feels it too. She moans, a high desperate sound, and her hand between her thighs goes still as her whole body seizes. I hear her wet gasp against my skin as she comes, her mouth locked on my cock, her thighs shaking.
And then I cum.
The first pulse hits her throat. She swallows. The second—she gulps, her throat working. The third—her hands grip my thighs, her body goes rigid, and she pulls off with a strangled cry. I hear her collapse. A thud. A wet breath. Then silence.
I sit in the dark, blind and gagged, my cock still wet, and listen. Her breathing is slow. Deep. Unconscious.
I wait. Minutes. Maybe longer.
A groan. A shuffle. Fabric rustling.
Then a fist hits my cheek so hard my head snaps to the side. The gag muffles my grunt. Another hit—my ribs. Another—my jaw. She's hitting me blind, sloppy, her breath hitching between sobs.
"You—" She chokes. Hits me again. "You did that. You—"
I taste blood. I don't fight. I sit and take it, my body swaying with each blow. She's weak from the orgasm. The hits land but they don't break. Not anymore.
Finally, she stops. Her hand is on my thigh again. Shaking. Her breath is ragged, wet with tears.
"I hate you," she whispers. Then the door slams.
I don't know how long I sit in the dark. Hours. Maybe a day. Nikki's footsteps come and go—water at my lips, the bowl lifted away. I drink. I breathe. I feel the hollowness spreading in my chest, in my groin. My balls feel empty. Deflated. The Primal magic in my blood is a thin, flickering candle, and I feel it guttering. My strength is fading. My arms hang heavy in the chains. My legs tremble when I try to shift position.
When Samantha comes again, I feel it before I hear it. The hunger in the air. The scent of her arousal, sharp and desperate, cutting through the rust and the blood.
She doesn't speak. She drops to her knees, takes my cock in her mouth, and sucks. Hard. Desperate. Greedy.
Nothing comes.
I feel the faint pulse, the ache of empty balls trying to produce, and then a thin trickle—clear, watery, barely a few drops. She pulls off with a frustrated growl.
"There's nothing left." Her voice is flat. Angry. "You're empty."
She stands. Her footsteps retreat. The door slams.
I sit in the dark, my balls aching, my body trembling from the strain. The mana in my seed is gone. I can feel it—the well is dry. My regeneration has stopped. The cuts on my chest are raw and open, not healing. The hunger is a black hole in my gut.
She comes back.
This time I hear two sets of footsteps. The door opens. The blindfold is yanked off. I blink in the sudden torchlight, my eyes watering.
Samantha stands before me, her face hard, her arms crossed. Behind her, Nikki holds a tray—bread, cheese, a pitcher of water. The elven maid's face is unreadable, but her nostrils flare as she steps closer.
"Listen to me, half-orc." Samantha's voice is cold now. Controlled. The fury is banked under something sharper. "I don't care what you are. I don't care how you do it. But I know what you can do now."
She steps closer. Her hand cups my chin, forces my eyes up to hers.
"My mother has been running this family for thirty years. She controls every copper, every contract, every marriage. She decides who eats and who starves."
She smiles. It's not a kind smile.
"But if one taste of your cum can make me—" She pauses. Swallows. "If it can do what it did to me. Then imagine what it will do to her."
She releases my chin. Steps back.
"Nikki. Feed him."
The elven maid steps forward, sets the tray on the cot, and lifts a piece of bread to my lips. I open my mouth. The bread is stale, but it's the most beautiful thing I've ever tasted. I chew. I swallow. I eat like an animal, tearing at the loaf, gulping the water she holds to my lips.
Samantha watches from the doorway. Her arms are crossed. Her smile is wide.
I meet her eyes over the rim of the water cup. I see the plan forming behind those sapphire irises. The ambition. The hunger.
And I know—whatever she's planning, I'm not just a tool.
I'm the weapon she's going to aim at everything she hates.
The routine settles into a rhythm I can track by the quality of the light I never see. Breakfast. Water. A bucket for my waste. And Samantha's mouth.
Every day now, after Nikki feeds me and the door clicks shut behind her, Samantha appears. Her footsteps are quicker now, less measured. She doesn't speak. She pulls down my trousers, drops to her knees, and takes my cock into her mouth with a desperation that borders on religious.
She's getting better. Her tongue finds the sensitive spots along the shaft. Her throat relaxes when I hit the back of it. She bobs her head with a rhythm she's learning through sheer repetition, one hand wrapped around the base, the other pressed between her own thighs.
I hold.
Not out of strength. Out of calculation. My climax is the only leverage I have left in this dark room. Every time she pulls away, frustrated, breathing hard, I feel her fist clench against my thigh before she stands and leaves without a word.
The blindfold stays on. The gag comes off only for meals. I eat in silence, tasting bread and cheese and the faint copper of my own blood.
On the third day, she hits me before she tries. A punch to the gut that doubles me over, the chains rattling. Then another, across my jaw. She's standing over me, her breath ragged, her knuckles sore from the impact.
"Cum," she says. A command. A plea.
I don't answer. I can't, with the gag. But she feels my refusal in the stillness of my body.
She hits me again. And again. I take it, my lips split, my ribs aching, the Primal magic struggling to knit the damage. My balls ache with the pressure, full and heavy, but I clench that internal muscle, the one that holds the floodgates shut.
She leaves. Comes back the next day. Same ritual.
I don't know how many days pass. Time is a gray slurry of meals and beatings and her mouth on me, always her mouth, never enough.
Then something changes.
The door opens and I hear two sets of footsteps. I hear the clatter of a metal bucket being set on stone.
"Nikki." Samantha's voice is flat, tired. "You stay here until he fills that bucket. Don't come out until it's done."
"Yes, Lady Samantha." The elf's voice is soft. Resigned.
The door slams. The lock turns.
I hear Nikki's footsteps cross the room. Feel her hands untying my trousers with practiced efficiency. She's done this before—not for me, but for other men. The Suckling estate has its secrets, and she's been their custodian for two hundred years.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, and her mouth closes over me.
She's not clumsy. Her tongue is warm and deliberate, tracing long slow stripes from the base to the tip, her lips sealing around the head, her throat opening without a gag reflex. One hand cradles my balls, the other grips my thigh, steadying herself.
She takes her time. She explores my body the way a musician learns an instrument—first the broad strokes, then the subtle pressures that make me breathe faster. The hollow behind my balls. The ridge where the head meets the shaft. The way my hips twitch when she sucks hard on the tip.
I fight it. I clench. I hold.
But she's patient. She finds the edge and stays there, tongue fluttering, rhythm steady, her free hand sliding up my chest, nails grazing my nipples, her breath warm on my skin as she pauses to kiss down my shaft, then back up.
"Please," she breathes against my skin. "She won't let me eat until you do. Please."
The plea twists something in my chest. A fellow prisoner asking for bread.
I feel it coiling low in my gut, the heat building, the surge of Primal magic rushing toward my balls. I try to hold. I try.
But Nikki’s talking now, her voice soft and close, her hand still working my shaft slow and wet. "You don't know how cruel they can be," she breathes, her thumb tracing the head. "Samantha was bad. But Sofia?" She shakes her head, her grip tightening just slightly. "Sofia makes her look like a novice. She'll draw it out for hours. Make you beg. Then laugh when you crack."
Her palm slides down, cups my balls, holds them gently. I can't answer. The gag holds me silent, but my hips betray me, shifting into her hand.
"She'd love you," Nikki whispers, leaning in, her lips brushing the tip. "Soft. Full. Helpless." She kisses the head, slow. "I almost feel sorry for you.
Almost.
Nikki's kindness is a knife I didn't see coming. The softness of her hands, the patience in her mouth—it makes me think of Kitty. Last I saw her, we'd just come back from the mission, blood still wet under my nails. I wonder if she's eating. If she's warm. If she’s found work, a way to get coin and food. The thought sticks. A splinter I can't dig out.
But then Nikki's tongue traces a slow line up my shaft, and the worry dissolves into something hotter, dumber. The well inside me—full again. And her mouth is a promise I'm too weak to break.
I want to resist, But the well isn't empty anymore. The meals, the water, the rest—they've refilled me. And Nikki's mouth is too skilled, too patient, too knowing.
The orgasm rips through me like a wave through a dam. My hips buck, my spine arches, and I fill her mouth with thick, hot seed. She pulls away after a some hesitation, a soft, hungry sound escaping her throat as she lets go. Encourging every drop, her hand caressing my shaft, coaxing out the last pulse into the bucket below.
I slump in the chains, my chest heaving, my balls aching with the release. My ears ring with the echo of my own pulse.
A few moments pass, my breath still ragged from the release.
"Again," she whispers. "Please, again."
The door opens. Samantha's footsteps. She sees the bucket. Sees Nikki on her knees, still licking my cock clean.
"Did he cum?"
"Yes, Lady Samantha." Nikki's voice is trembling now. Not with fear. With something else.
"You swallowed it all?"
A pause. "No. Most of it's in the bucket."
Samantha is silent. I feel the tension in the air, the crackling fury building. Then she laughs. A short, bitter sound.
"Greedy little thing." She says it like a curse. "You just had to taste him first."
Samantha puts another bucket back down. Lifts the one with my release. Walks out. The door slams shut behind her, rattling the frame. We're both locked in now.
I hear Nikki's breathing change—quicker, shallower. Her body trembles against my leg where she's slumped. The addiction is already blooming, the euphoria fading into a hunger that will never fully leave her.
"I'm sorry," I try to mumble through the cloth. It's the only thing I can say.
She doesn't answer. But her hand finds mine in the dark and squeezes.
The next day, Samantha brings Nikki to my knees again. But this time, when Nikki gets me close, Samantha pulls her off by her hair.
This becomes the pattern. Nikki brings me to the edge. Samantha takes me over it.
Samantha leaves Nikki behind after the first one. Says she wants to see how much I can really give. Nikki stays. She brings me water, wipes the sweat from my forehead. Her touch is soft, hesitant. She tells me about the farm she grew up on, the horses she used to ride before the Sucklings took her. She talks about the sky there, how big it was, how she'd lie in the grass and watch clouds turn into animals. She asks me where I'm from. I can't answer. She doesn't push. She just sits beside me, her hand on my chest, feeling my heart pound. "You're not like the others," she says. "I can tell." Her fingers trace the lines of my ribs. "I wonder what you were before this." She smiles. It's the first real smile I've seen from her. It makes my chest ache worse than the beatings.
Her fingers close around me. The heat of her palm is a brand. My sac aches in complaint, a deep, dragging throb that tightens my gut. I feel the weight of her hand, the slight tremor in her grip. She doesn't squeeze, not yet. She just holds, like she's measuring me. I can hear her breathing, slow and steady. The chains rattle as I shift. The stone floor is cold against my knees. She traces a thumb across the curve of my testicle, and the ache sharpens, blooms into something hotter. I don't make a sound. I won't. But my body betrays me—a shudder, a quickening of my pulse. She feels it. Her lips part.
I learn to hold again. Not forever—I can't. But longer. Longer than they expect. I draw out the sessions, making them work for it, denying them the easy satisfaction. It's the only power I have. The only card I can play.
My balls ache constantly. The Primal magic flows through me in a thick, sluggish river, replenishing what's taken. My muscles grow harder. My bones feel denser. The beatings leave less mark each day.
But I'm still trapped. Still blind. Still chained.
Then Samantha stops coming down for meals. Nikki carries the food trays. I hear her voice when she reports to Samantha upstairs—muffled, through the stone.
"She can't keep food down," Nikki whispers to me one night, her mouth close to my ear as she wipes my chest with a wet cloth. "She tried to eat a normal breakfast and vomited after three bites. She's been drinking watered wine for two days."
I close my eyes behind the blindfold. I knew this would happen. Arelle warned me. The seed replaces normal nutrition. Once the body adapts to it, normal food becomes poison.
And I think of Arelle—her voice thin the last time I heard it, the way she'd go quiet for days when she was running low. Is she starving herself now? Or is it the withdrawal, the way the body claws at itself when the seed is withheld? I picture her alone in that room, trying to eat, vomiting after three bites, the same way Samantha does.
And Samantha doesn't have a regular supply either. She's hoarding my cum like a miser, trying to stretch each dose, but her body is already rejecting everything else.
The rage comes a day later.
I hear the door slam open, feel the violent energy before she even touches me. The blindfold is ripped off. The gag is torn from my mouth. And then her fist connects with my face—not open-palmed, not sloppy. Full force, stone-coated, the impact cracking against my cheekbone with a sound I feel in my teeth.
I taste blood. My vision swims.
"You," she hisses. "You did this."
Another punch. My ribs. I hear something crack. The pain flares white-hot and I gasp, my body trying to curl around the injury but the chains won't let me.
"I can't—" She hits me again. "I can't eat. I can't sleep. I can't—" A kick to my shin. "I need you. I hate you. I need you."
She's crying. I realize it through the haze of pain—she's sobbing as she beats me, each blow weaker than the last, her strength bleeding out through her tears.
"Every day I don't have you I feel like I'm dying. My hands shake. My stomach cramps. I can't—" She chokes on the word. "I can't stop thinking about your taste. Your smell. The way your eyes looked when you came in my mouth. You ruined me."
Her fist connects with my orbital socket. The world goes white, then black, then swimming red. I feel my body going slack, the chains holding me up more than my own strength.
She's hitting me with something now—a rod, a stick, something hard and unyielding that cracks against my shoulders, my arms, my skull. I hear myself grunt with each blow, feel my flesh tear, feel the warm trickle of blood sliding down my back.
The Primal magic is struggling. I can feel it straining to keep my skin hardened, my bones reinforced, but the damage is coming faster than the repair. Each blow chips away at my defense. Each impact drives me closer to the edge of consciousness.
"I'm going to keep you here forever," she screams. "I'm going to—"
A crack. A white-hot explosion in my chest. I feel something give way—a rib, maybe two. The pain is a sun collapsing in my torso, and I hear myself scream, a raw animal sound torn from a throat that's been silent too long.
She pauses. Breathing hard. I don't open my eyes. I can't.
"You're still alive," she whispers. There's something in her voice—not disappointment. Wonder. "How are you still alive?"
I don't answer. I don't have the breath.
She hits me again. And again. And again.
The world goes gray. Then dark. Then nothing at all.
I wake to the taste of water at my lips. Nikki's voice, soft and urgent. "Drink. Please. Drink."
I drink. The water burns going down. My chest is a symphony of agony, every breath a knife twisting between my ribs. I feel the Primal magic knitting, slow, thick, struggling like a river trying to push through mud.
My body is held together by will and magic and spite.
Nikki's hand finds mine in the dark. She holds it. Does not speak.
From upstairs, I hear Samantha retching. The sound echoes through the stone. She has nothing left to vomit—her body is trying to expel emptiness. The addiction is a hook in her throat that can only be dislodged one way.
I lie in the dark, broken and healing, and I wait.
She'll be back. She has no choice. And next time, I'll be ready. Not to escape. Not yet. But to look her in the eyes when she kneels. To make her understand that she didn't capture a weapon.
She captured a man who has nothing left to lose.
And that's a much more dangerous thing.
The lock clicks into place. Samantha's footsteps fade. Nikki doesn't move.
Her fingers find my chest through the torn fabric of my shirt. Tracing the mottled bruises. The ridge of my collarbone. The hollow above my heart.
"I know you can't talk," she breathes. "But I need you to listen."
I feel her shift closer. Her hip presses against my thigh. Her hair brushes my arm.
"When she beats you like that, I feel it. In my gut." Her voice drops. "I feel it right where she makes me kneel. And I hate that I want to touch you. I hate that I want to taste you again when she's not watching."
She's close now. Her lips ghost over my shoulder. My skin prickles.
I think about cutting you down," she whispers. "I think about taking you to the river. Washing the blood off. Laying you in the grass and just holding you. Letting you hold me."
Her hand slides down my stomach. Stops at the waistband of my pants.
"I think about what you'd do if you had your hands free. If you could wrap them around me. Pull me close. Let me bury my face in your chest and just—" She stops. Her breath hitches.
I feel the heat of her palm through the fabric. The weight of her hand. I can't help it. I lean into her touch.
She feels it. Her fingers trace the line of my hip, slow, deliberate.
"Yeah," she murmurs. "I need that.
She doesn't take it out. She doesn't push further. But she doesn't pull away either.
"I'm not her," she says. "I'm not doing this to take from you. I'm doing this because I want to give you something. Even if it's just the thought of it."
Her hand cups me through the cloth. Squeezes once, gentle.
"When this is over—if we get out—I want you to find me. And I want you to hold me until I my lonelyness fades."
She pulls her hand away. I feel the absence like a cold wind.
"I'll keep you alive," she says. "You keep being strong. And we'll both get out of here."
I hear her stand. Her footsteps retreat. The door opens, closes, locks.
My cock aches. My chest burns. My heart hammers against my cracked ribs.
And for the first time in days, I want to survive. Not for revenge. Not for spite.
For her and for Kitty.