Private Tales Where Even the Stones Scream

[Keres]

Keres flinched at the whip’s crack, her chest tightening in dread as the air seemed to split with its song. “I took him to bed… because you told me to,” she bit out, teeth clenched, eyes glistening as she stared up at him, defiance and fear tangled in her gaze.

Her words died on her lips as the leather tore through air and flesh, slashing across her back with a sting that made her whole body seize. A sharp, involuntary cry ripped free from her throat, ragged and raw. Hot blood trickled down her spine, soaking the silk of her top, and she shivered violently.

Yet even through the pain, a thrill laced her senses, electrifying and maddening. “More… please,” she hissed, her breath trembling as she fought to steady her shaking hands. Her voice was a mixture of challenge and surrender, daring and need all at once.

“Don’t be a tease,”

 

[Shrike]

“I gave you a choice.”

The Shrike’s lips curled in a sneer at her impudence, masking the sudden spike of desire that drove through him.

This woman.

“Again,” he hissed.

The whip whirled through the air.

Crack.

“Again.”

Crack.

But the Anirian thrall did not have the skill, or the precision. Angrily, Alarak snatched the whip away from him.

“Tell me what it is you want, wretch.”

He let the whip fly with the shallowest of cuts.

“If I gave you your freedom in this instant, where would you go? You are hunted in every land. You are worthless.”

Crack.

“You are discarded trash that washed up on my shores.”

Crack.

He savored her screams and the shuddering of her form and the way her silks flayed open before his whip.

Alarak coiled the length of bloodied whip in his hand and stepped forward, pressing the worn, braided, and stained leather to her lips and smearing her own blood across them with a smack.

“You have nothing. You have no one. Save me. And you crave my attentions, do you not? Even the attention of the whip.”

Keres

 

[Keres]

The bite of the whip was too much to ignore. Each strike tore a ragged cry from her throat, her body twisting as though trying to flee the pain though she had nowhere to go. The chains rattled above her, holding her upright when her legs could no longer bear her weight. Blood ran down her form and spattered and dripped on the floor beneath her.

Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck... you.

The mantra thudded through her mind with every searing lash, half curse, half prayer.

Her breath came in gasps, trembling and wet. She could taste copper when she finally dared to lift her head. A low, rasping laugh clawed its way out of her chest, broken and wild.

“Look at you,” she breathed, voice hoarse but edged with venom, “doing your own dirty work for a change…” Her mouth curved into a blood-smeared smirk. “Looks like I got that attention I wanted after all.”

She spat on the floor at his feet, defiance glinting faintly through the haze of agony.

“Come on, love,” she rasped, barely above a whisper. “Don’t stop on my account.”

"What I want, is to repay every ounce of pain you inflict upon me, ten-fold. I'm keeping note."