Depraved by Trent Evans

Chapter 25

The fan was a low hum above them, the breeze upon their bodies welcome in the heated shadows, both of them lying on their sides upon his bed. After setting her down, and clasping the broad collar about her neck, he’d affixed the heavy chain to it. She wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

He’d stripped to just his pants, and laid down with her then. He was behind her, her back to his front, his cock pressed to the curve of her soft, cool buttocks, his arm resting upon her, his palm loosely clasping her naked hip. Yulia was silent and still, but he could tell from her breathing that she was not yet asleep.

It was an exceedingly odd sensation, as he’d only once had a captive even in this chamber—and that only because the structure of his bed was conducive to stretching her out in a standing position, arms and legs lashed to the posts at the foot of his bed.

She’d been the twenty-year old niece of a lieutenant general who’d been caught making open statements of disapproval of Chairman Kaman.

Using a broad strip of soft leather, Rexall had whipped her little tits as she’d stood there lashed to his bed, until she was shrieking with the pain, begging him, telling him she’d do anything—everything—to just make it stop.

Rexall had continued, regardless, until her voice had gone hoarse, her weeping continuous.

He’d eventually delivered the girl, naked, crying, and blindfolded, to her own front door. Before Rexall had sent her back though, the girl cooling her heels in the metal cell, he’d sent the video of that session to Kaman. The Chairman made sure the problematic general viewed it immediately.

Days later, when ordering Rexall to return the girl, Kaman had been confident “…that will be the last report I’ll ever hear of that arrogant general’s insubordination.”

What was odd though, was how it was an almost out of body experience remembering it, as if watching the memory in third person. He knew he had enjoyed punishing the young woman. Very much.

Now? It unsettled him, somehow. It wasn’t that he felt rough treatment of the female was wrong, per se, but doing it with such… brutality. He wasn’t sure why that was really necessary.

Why had it been necessary then? He couldn’t pinpoint it—the why—but he knew it was there.

Somewhere inside him.

“Why did you ask that question?”

He actually jerked slightly at the sudden, if muted, sound of her voice.

“Which question?”

Her body tensed slightly against him, but she made no overt move to get away from his touch. Something that was somewhat of a surprise, considering what had just happened.

“Why did you ask me about my father?”

He took in a breath. “I have only vague memories of my father. He disappeared when I was… very young.”

Why are you telling her this?

He didn’t know, and it was probably ill-advised, but he couldn’t think of a reason why he shouldn’t answer her question truthfully. Perhaps it would… comfort her, a little.

Comfort her? She’s your captive, Jon.

The truth was he had very few memories—period—beyond a few years ago. What he did remember was disturbing: the repeated ruthless abductions, and violation (and degrading) of political opponents. Even the relatives of political opponents weren’t spared, as was the case with the general’s niece.

He knew of the whispered, fearful name for HKUs—Ravagers.

But those memories played in his mind with a sort of old celluloid movie reel artifact, the imagery rendered in an arm’s-length, almost academic sort of way.

Part of him questioned that, too. What was memory? How did he know what was all he’d done?

In the end though, it likely didn’t matter. If you’d lost a memory, how did you know you ever had it to lose in the first place?

“My father was with me in every memory I have. Even my… earliest ones.” She made a tiny sound, as if swallowing down something especially bitter.

“What was he like?” He stroked his hand up and down her hip very slowly, barely even touching her, ready for her to tense or perhaps even lash out.

But she stayed utterly still.

“Why does it matter to you? He was your enemy, wasn’t he?”

He shrugged, even though she couldn’t see it. “My only enemies are those who directly prevent me from completing a mission. I had no animosity toward Benton Wyndham.”

Had it always been that way though?

HKUs were only given specific mission parameters. Outside of those, they were trained to ignore. Deviation from parameters was unthinkable. It served them well, and it had served Jon well.

Until now.

Because nothing, not a single thing in either his mission parameters, his training, or his instincts had prepared him or trained him to do what he was doing at that moment.

He was already outside his parameters. The real questions though, were why. And what to do about that.

What if you do nothing, Jon?

The question was more than merely germane to the situation though.

It might be the most important question of all.

For he had no desire to forcefully violate a woman anymore, not truly against her will. None. The very idea held no appeal at all.

Especially with Yulia.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t take great, selfish pleasure in edging and denying her drippy little cunt over and over until she was begging to be taken once more. That he maintained a very healthy—and growing—interest in.

Perhaps that was a distinction without a difference for him in the past. Now? Right or wrong, it made all the difference in the world.

Because he had a deep desire to make a woman face her own desires and fantasies, even the dark, secret ones. Especially those. And he was determined to learn every single one of Yulia’s.

He suspected she harbored some very dark needs indeed. It was merely his job to find them, bring them to the fore—and force her to admit the true, twisted depth of her desires.

But she surprised him then, turning over onto her back, looking at him, her eyes bright and brimming. He’d left her wrists cuffed together, so she was forced to bring them both up to her face to wipe away the track of a tear with the heel of her palm.

“Do you know what happened to him? Why he was killed?”

“I do not. Outside my mission… is irrelevant to me.”

Or it was.

She scoffed, her smile as devoid of warmth as it dripped with bitterness. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes—because it’s the truth. I’ve got no inclination to lie to you, Yulia. Though you have every reason to lie to me.”

“Not about this.” She sniffled once. “Do you know he told me once that the saying ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ wasn’t quite right?”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed. “My dad—Benton—he always believed that his need to do what was right wouldn’t result in him being punished. He said it would result in his death. He was convinced of it.”

“We’re convinced of many things.”

“It wasn’t just that my dad wasn’t convinced of it. It’s that he was fucking right.”

Jon squeezed her hip the slightest bit, and her gaze flickered downward for the briefest instant. But still she didn’t resist.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Beckett Carter and my dad… they hadn’t gotten along. For a…long time. They’d been the leaders, both of them, until my dad decided to… ‘walk a different path,’ is how he liked to put it. And a lot of the rebellion followed him when he did.”

“The Awakening.”

“Yes. That was what really got it started, the rift, I guess. The Schism. We were still on the same side, mostly, but it was beginning to fall apart.” She wiped another tear, sniffling again. “But one day Beckett ordered my dad’s unit to conduct… reprisals.”

“Reprisals? You mean killing TSS?”

He hardly considered that reprisals. That was war. Especially compared to what TSS did to rebels unfortunate enough to be captured.

And compared to what you did to your prey.

“No. It was against innocent civilians, in Old Vickers! They were supposed to support us—I guess—and hadn’t. Or wouldn’t. I don’t really know, either. But my father refused. He wouldn’t obey the order, and neither did the men under his command. My dad told Beckett he wanted no part of a rebellion where the oppressed were no better than the oppressors.”

“I see now.”

Her voice warbled, and broke, tears streaming down her face as she turned away once more, curling up. “But… he was right. Dad was right about what he said, that s-saying… and they killed him. They took him from me. For doing what was right!”

Her weeping spilled over into sobs then, and she shook with them, the heartbreaking sounds of her crying filled with misery, and pain, and loss.

Jon recoiled in a way he’d never experienced before, feeling things he didn’t even know how to identify.

Still, he laid a hand on her shoulder, simply uttering the words suddenly so difficult and unfamiliar, they were almost a foreign language to him.

“I’m…sorry, Yulia.”