Entangled

23, Hope's Howl

Dahlia slept peacefully in her huge luxurious bed. Dillan was silent. Haru stared at me, ears flat down on his head and his tail tucked anxiously in his lap.

I trembled and sobbed against the wall. No sound left my throat, though. Just air. As part of my punishment, I had my voice blocked for the day and the next night. Another part of my punishment was no food or water, and no bath. 

But that wasn't why I was crying and shaking again. When the fox girl led me back to the throne room, Dahlia's rage suffocated me the moment I came close enough. She was so, so pissed that I had been too slow in returning to her. First, she screamed at me as she kicked me to the floor and stomped on me over and over, on various body parts. Then she ordered for someone to heat up her branding iron. As she waited for it to be heated, she continued to kick me and spit insults at me. 

When the branding iron came, she burned her insignia into my skin wherever she could, for as long as the iron was hot. She shut my cries of agony up by lodging a magic rock in my throat again, and she never removed it. She burned me a dozen times, at the bottom of my feet, on my stomach, on my neck, on my chest, my back, my inner thighs, anywhere that was sensitive.

And even now, hours later, I still felt the burns. No ointment had been applied, no one had tended to them, and I wasn't allowed to go tend to them myself. 

Burns took so long to heal. 

The day went by with fitful sleep and more pain. I had choppy, incomprehensible dreams consisting of Storm, of his home, of my Masters, of their mansion. I even dreamed of the pack, of their forest, and I dreamed of Malik's body folded over the metal pole in the foyer. Bloody, abused. Like mine.

The next night, I made sure to be faster. I did as Dahlia commanded as soon as she said it. She made me torture another prisoner, a different one than before. This one was an old human woman. When Dahlia got bored of her, she sent her away and ordered me to lie down on my back on the hard marble floor. 

From there, she mounted me. She pinned my arms and legs down with magic and raped me, riding me and forcing me to cum inside her. I tried to keep my aura barrier up, tried to remain apathetic, but I could still feel the recoiling of my gut, the rising of bile in my throat. The overwhelming need to scrape any remnants of her off my skin.

I hate this place. I hate this place so fucking much.

When she was finished raping me, she fed from me until I fainted. When I woke, I found myself still lying on the hard marble floor. Her, her sister, and the tall vampire whose name I had yet to learn all reclined and conversed with each other as if I didn't exist.

When Dahlia noticed I had recovered, she ordered me to go cook and bring the three of them a meal. Reluctantly, dazedly, I did so. I made something simple and fast, but hopefully would be good enough for her. Much to my gratitude, two other servants helped me bring the trays of food out to them.

But, of course, Dahlia hated what I had made. She shoved me down on the floor by my throat and choked me, slapping me in the face as she spat more insults at me. Telling me how incompetent I was, how stupid, how worthless. 

She threw me into a cramped, tiny cage for the next day while she slept. I had no room to move, and was stuck in a fetal position the entire time. When she woke again, she removed the magic rock from inside my throat and told me this was my last chance to not mess up. To learn how to be a proper pet. One last screw-up, and she would remove my vocal cords.

I knew she was dead serious. I tried my utmost best to be good, to be fast, to comply, to do anything that would please her. 

It left finding escape routes and forming escape plans nearly impossible. I knew I had to leave, but I didn't want to become mute for the rest of my life, either.