Depraved by Trent Evans

Chapter 8

After that ordeal over the bench, brought to the edge on his thick fingers so many times she’d lost count, he’d taken her back to her cell, leaving her alone for a few hours.

She’d curled up on the makeshift bed—little more than a mattress laid upon the concrete and a thin blanket—and tried not to think about the deeper implications of what was happening to her.

During those quiet hours alone, in her cell, she turned it over again, all the things she’d thought in her last cell at Base Gamma, the “guest” of that traitor Commander Harling.

Her father had always wanted her to know the truth, ugly and terrifying though it may have been. She was sure he’d have told her she was well and truly fucked in this situation… but that such was no excuse to lose hope. He taught her to never, ever, lose hope.

Still, as her father, she knew he shielded a lot of it from her, much of the troubling truth about how the rebellion was unfolding—and especially when the Schism happened.

Beckett Carter was the problem, and he always had been. Her father remarked more than once that an alliance with Beckett Carter was little better than an alliance with TSS. Carter was every bit as ruthless, but had been opposed to Kaman from the start.

Kaman wiping out almost the entirety of Carter’s family during the Uprising had hardened the brilliant, but unstable, leader of the rebels though. It was that stiffening of resolve that her father had said had spilled over into something dark, a Machiavellian streak within Carter seeming to assert itself more and more often.

And that was when the schism began between Carter and her father, Benton. Two friends slowly became estranged, under the strain of the never-ending struggle against the vicious, and seemingly all-powerful, TSS.

Her father had said the words once, and she hadn’t understood their meaning at the time.

But she knew it now. Bitterly.

“Some men are strengthened by the fire, and some of them… become the fire.”

And thus, the beginning of the Awakening.

That she understood them now, those almost prophetic words, was a dark source of if not strength, then at least resolve.

What if he’d meant her, too? Could she become the fire?

Because she would, if it meant she could have her vengeance.

Eventually, she’d drifted off to sleep, troubled by such dark thoughts, and even darker, lurid dreams.

The next few days followed the similar pattern: awakened, much too early, and bound once more either in her cell, or outside it to one of the many pieces of bizarre apparatus he seemed to keep there just for tormenting his captives.

What she found most disconcerting was that he never asked her anything but the one, simple question.

“Do you want me to fuck you, Yulia?”

It was always the same answer, of course. But the consequences of her refusal varied. She’d become intimately and painfully familiar with almost every implement on that “Wall of Woe” as she thought of it.

The cane and the heavy oak paddle were by far the worst of them, both leaving her in sobbing, pleading tears within minutes.

The teasing and denial though, that was far, far worse a torment.

Whether the rough pads of his fingertips, the harsh, relentless vibration of a wand, or the cold, cruel high-pressure stream of water as she was chained up to the tiled walls in the corner, her clit, and her nipples, they ached, and wanted, and needed.

Her clitoris was worked so much it was now almost twice its original size, inflamed, the color deeper, and much too sensitive—to pleasure or pain. It seemed to pulse, angrily, in cadence with her heartbeat.

Her nipples were swollen, crimson berries, throbbing from either the harsh pinches of fingers, the rasp of his tongue, or the agonizing heat from the soft little strap he reserved exclusively for whipping, endlessly, remorselessly, her nipples until her tears dripped upon the upper slopes of her defenseless breasts.

With all of that torment though, he never once let her come, not a single time granted her respite from the gnawing, ever-growing need building within her, regardless of whether or not what he was doing to her was dreadfully wicked or not.

Her body simply didn’t care anymore. It needed.

But it was what he always did to her after those extended sessions of torment, of denial, after she’d been reduced to pleading, humiliating desperation.

Afterward was the most devastating, the most insidious—and the most effective.

How could a man who could inflict such grievous pain, and humiliation, and cruelty… be so gentle, caring, even tender afterward? She had no defense against it. None at all.

Curled in his arms, sobbing against his chest, she felt completely turned inside out. He would stroke her so softly, caress her stinging, aching bottom, coo at her ear, even rock her now and then.

At the same time though, she resolved deep in her mind to resist, to fight. She knew what he was doing, but knowing wasn’t enough. Because it was deadly effective, and she knew she was running out of time.

She wasn’t sure she knew anymore how to resist it, how to avoid succumbing to it.

And it seemed her body, increasingly, wanted to surrender to it completely.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to simply give Jon what he wanted?

No!

It was at those moments that she remembered her father, his smile, the way he never, ever, raised his voice at her. How he took the time to explain everything to her, but not in a patronizing way. Rather, in a way that respected her intelligence.

It always gave her strength. She had to keep her wits about her. Now was no time to be weak.

She would get through this.

She would survive.

Because she was going to find out, no matter what it took, who’d taken him from her.

Unless Jon Rexall makes you forget who you are first.