Chapter 17

Chapter

Seventeen

DAPHNE

I remember once when I was really young, I had watched a huge storm brewing in the west. The dark clouds swirled around and came at me faster than I could take shelter. I had run as fast as I could while the wind howled around me, slapping at my face. Rain, lightning, hail. A torrential downpour of chaos all around. I remember that storm clearly and the fear that I had felt.

It was nothing compared to the storm standing before me.

My bravado has dissipated completely.

“You think you can try to kill me and get away with it?” he bellows out.

“You can’t expect me to go back in that cage and not do a thing,” I stammer, terrified at the fury I see in Apollo’s eyes.

I hate myself for it, but my words come out as a sob as the tears follow. I don’t want him to see my weakness. It makes me hate him even more.

He reaches out, grabbing a handful of my hair, pulling me mere inches from his face. “Do you think tears will work? Should I have mercy on you now ? Now that you show fear in your eyes and remorse in the quiver in your voice?”

“I’m sorry,” I squeak. The sting from my hair being yanked by the man causes tears to well in my eyes even more. “What do you expect from me? Do you want me to just give up? I have to fight to the death. You know this.”

He tugs my hair harder, forcing my head to go back so I have to stare into his demon eyes. My throat stretches—so exposed. I wonder if he’ll bite down and suck from my blood like an ancient monster that tales are told of.

“I was fucking kind to you this morning, and you repay me by trying to throw me down to the foyer of my family manor? Did you actually think that would work?”

“I hate you. I always have.” The words shoot past my lips like a bullet before I have time to think them through. Before I have time to really ponder the consequences that will come from such a defiant utterance.

Apollo’s eyes darken. Fury is visible. Wrath is inevitable.

“You don’t know me.”

“I do. You pretended to be the nice guy. The hero to save me. But you’re the villain in the story.”

He smirks. “Yes, well… Villains are made. And you just created the worst villain of all.”

“All I wanted was out. To forget you and the Godwin name forever. But you refused.”

“No one forgets the Godwin name. Never. And right now… You’ll remember right now forever,” he snarls.

I want to apologize. I want to plead for compassion. I want to reach into the depths of his evil and pull out even an ounce of humanity.

And yet, I want to kill.

I want to decimate. To destroy. To rip his flesh from his bones with my teeth. Beg or kill. Plead or destroy. Fuck him. The powerful woman in me won this battle. The courageous queen in me takes full control.

I spit in his face, smiling when I can see the shock caused by my rebellion twinkle in his eye.

“Fuck you,” I say as my eyes lock with his, daring him to unleash the true villain inside.

Show me.

Show me the villain I created.

“Right now,” he repeats. “Right now, you will remember for the rest of your life.”

Without wasting another second, Apollo takes hold of my body and lifts me off the ground.

I try to fight him off, even though I know it’s pointless. He’s bigger. Stronger. Apollo will win this battle regardless of how hard I struggle.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t try .

“Don’t you dare fucking touch me!” I scream as I try to scratch out his eyes.

Gripping my hands above my head, he flings me back hard against the bed, only giving me a second to realize I’m completely nude at this point—and on a bed—with a man raging.

“I will do more than touch you.” Gripping both my wrists with one of his beefy hands, he pauses long enough to stare into my eyes. I can feel his breath against my face. His cologne poisons my nose and nearly seduces me with its toxic fragrance. My body reacts to the close proximity, no matter how much I internally curse it for doing so.

I take a deep breath and cease in my struggles.

Still clasping my hands above my head, he reaches for his belt buckle and releases it from his waist.

His eyes tell me what he’s going to do even before his actions do. The fury pulses all around the darkness of his demanding eyes. I know this very moment that I have no choice but to succumb to his vexation.

“When you went to war with Godwins, did you think you’d win? Surely, you know the kind of people we are and what we do to people who cross us. Are you a fool?” he asks as he wraps the leather around my neck, pulling it through the clasp.

I shake my head. “Please,” I beg.

“No!” he bellows as he tightens the belt. “You are Mrs. Godwin. Mrs. Apollo Godwin. Do not show weakness! Do not beg! You are the all mighty who can take down someone in this family. Right?”

He tightens the belt even more as he straddles my body. He releases my hands, so I’m able to pull at the leather to no avail. The more I struggle, the tighter he pulls.

“Can you breathe?” he asks with a seductive evil lining his question.

I can’t speak and can only shake my head. Blackness threatens to take over as my ears ring. I really can’t inhale as the leather gets tighter and tighter.

“Look at me,” he demands. “Eyes on me, princess.”

I open my eyes and stare into his, silently begging for my life. My trachea feels the pressure of the belt, so much so that I can’t even swallow the saliva building up in my mouth.

“I want you to remember this. Whenever you think something I do, or something I dictate is so awful, I want you to remember that it can always get worse. Stop acting out against me. Stop thinking you are a match.” He tightens the belt, causing blackness to edge around my vision. “If you doubt me, if you disobey me, if you ever question my actions, just know that it will be much worse for you.”

I buck my hips in an attempt to throw Apollo from my body before the inevitable darkness completely takes hold.

He looks over his shoulder and down at my writhing legs and then back into my eyes. Without saying another word, he loosens the belt just enough that I can take in a shallow breath of air. It isn’t enough to fully fill my lungs, but enough to keep me alive. Just when I hoped Apollo had finally felt it had taught me my lesson enough and he would remove the belt, he surprises me by getting off my body and flipping me over onto my stomach.

A familiar feeling of fear takes over as the memory of the belt spankings from before.

He loosens the belt a little more, this time allowing me to wheeze and gasp. The burn of my lungs ease with every inhale, and the shadows on my vision disappear. I can breathe—though uncomfortably.

He crashes the palm of his hand against my bare behind. “I have expectations for tonight. Expectations that will be met.” He continues to spank my ass. The loud sound of flesh hitting flesh echoes against the walls of the room.

The continued humiliation of this awful act that Apollo seems to favor threatens to take back the little air I have just got. Why does the man feel the need to constantly punish me this way when he never placed a finger on me before?

The belt is still tight around my neck, but I can no longer focus on the struggle to breathe. The searing swats of his hand on my ass are the only thing my mind can address. Desperation crackles from my core, all the way to the tips of my toes. I can’t cry out, I can’t plead, I can’t demand. I can do nothing but gasp for air against firm leather and allow the assault of another spanking to continue.

And oh how it continued.

Over and over, Apollo rains down slap after slap against the entire surface of my exposed skin. I try to wiggle away to no avail, and am only rewarded for such an action by a harder spank to my ass. The palm of his hand feels the same as if he were using a solid piece of wood or metal. Such strength. Such sting. Such mortifying pain.

Silently, I beg him to stop. Hoping somewhere deep inside he can read my mind and know how terribly sorry I am. I should have never tried to kill the man. My life is in his hands, and I should never forget that. I am a prisoner, not his match.

Spank after spank, fire erupts from the depths of my ass and sizzles its way to the surface. Tears fall freely from my eyes and my wheezing grows louder against the choking belt that Apollo still holds firmly against my neck.

“Would you like me to remove the belt?” he asks while still continuing to spank with fury.

I nod my head, as it is the only thing I can do.

“Very well. But I’m not done with it yet.” He pauses in the blistering punishment and removes it from my neck. The rush of air that enters my body the moment the pressure releases makes my head spin with the intensity of oxygen my body so desperately hungered for.

I remain on my belly, absolutely still. I don’t want to give him any reason to continue on and just pray that he views my lack of movement as complete defeat. He is the victor in this battle. I am merely a fallen soldier hanging on by a thread. My prayers are not answered, however, when I feel the lash of leather crack against my already punished ass.

I scream out in pain, but more out of shock than agony. “No,” I rasp, barely having a voice. “No more.”

“Yes.”

Apollo whips me with the belt again, and although I want to turn around and fight him from doing so, I know I have no choice but to lie there and take it. I reach for a pillow with both of my hands and squeeze tightly as the next blow comes down harder than the one before.

“Do you understand I expect complete submission tonight?” he asks as he licks me with the harsh sting of leather again.

“Yes,” I answer between clenched teeth, though I have no idea what is going to happen tonight, and why it seems so important to him.

“Do you value your life?” he asks as he whips me again.

“Yes!” I cry. “Please!”

“Then never strike out at me again. I’ve lost all patience for your feisty acts.” He cracks the belt against me again, this time to the awfully sensitive spot where my ass meets my thighs.

“I won’t do it again,” I say as I struggle for air. Between a still sore throat, and the belt lashing, I can barely squeak the words out.

“Good girl.” He tosses the belt to the side of the bed. He replaces the belt with the palm of his hand and begins caressing my burning flesh with the gentlest of touch .

I hiss in response, yet my body hungers for more. Self-hatred suffocates me from how my body reacts to this assault. Everything deep within me knows the sizzling electricity coursing through me is wrong and yet, I want more. What exactly that “more” is, I’m not sure. I just know I need more.

“Remember that, princess. Your survival will depend on you understanding you’re not in the position to fight me. You’ve entered my world. And frankly, I’m tiring of spanking this ass of yours.”

I nod between ragged breaths.

He dips his finger between the juncture of my thighs, collecting the juices of my heated sex on his fingertips, and brings them to my nose. “Do you smell how turned on you are?” He raises them to my eyes. “You can cry and plead all you want, but it’s all for show. A part of you likes this.” He brings his fingers to my mouth and presses them past my lips. “You can’t deny how wet this makes you.”

He forcibly swirls his fingers along my tongue, giving me no choice but to suck his fingers into my mouth, tasting my own musky essence. I have never been this aroused, let alone known what it smells like, looks like, or tastes like. I stare into his eyes and lick his fingers clean.

The way he looks at me. The way he studies my every move…

Am I pleasing him? I want to please him…

Wait, no!

What the fuck has gotten into me?

Who am I?

Has my time in the cage actually turned me into an animal?

I should be screaming. I should be in agonizing torment, praying for death over his touch on my body any longer, and yet…

“You like discipline, you like pain.”

I shake my head with his fingers still invading my mouth. “No,” I mumble against his fingers.

“Yes,” he argues with a slight smile. “My beast likes the claws.”

Fuck. How can this be? I hate him. I hate everything about what he’s done to me…and yet I want his finger to return to my pussy and rub my clit. I want his touch. I want it more than anything. I hunger. I crave. I need. My ass burns, my neck throbs, but my soul ignites for more. I want it again.

Choke me, beat me, and please, oh please fuck me.

Harder.

Forceful.

Apollo Godwin .

He is pulling his pants down. I know. I can hear him, sense him, feel his sexual presence without even having to look over my shoulder. He will fuck me…and God help me—I will allow him to. Actually, I am two seconds from begging him to.

It isn’t a cry for help that escapes my lips when his cock penetrates my wet pussy. It isn’t a curse, or a demand for him to stop. It is a gasp of delight, followed by a moan of pleasure. My mind screams to resist, yet my body demands me to yield. He is inside me, balls deep.

I am one with my villain.

Malevolence has merged with my soul, and all light that held on by a thread becomes conquered by the darkness of my husband’s claiming.

Over and over, his cock thrusts. It doesn’t feel like any other fucking of my life. No, this is animalistic.

Animalistic fucking. Yes, this is nothing but a fucking of the beasts. In, out, in, out. There is a rhythm. There is a cadence. My body marches in tempo to his control. His cock conquers my pussy.

Possession.

There is no way to describe it other than Apollo’s possession of his captive. This is not a husband and a wife making love. This is not how we’ve done it before. This is different. So very different.

His hard cock enters my wet pussy, and it stings because it’s been so long since we last had sex. It burns from the inside out. It scorches my core. It annihilates all that is good left inside. All that is left is fucking broken, as I’m sure he intended to do. All that is left is sex, conquer, demand, hate, and beauty.

A dark, awful, alluring beauty. Fucking beauty. That is what there is. Nothing but dark, fucking beauty.

He says I will remember right now forever. Forever I will remember.

Pulling his cock out of my body, Apollo puts his face right up to mine. So close that I can feel his breath against my lips. “You are my wife. My obedient wife. Remember that.”

He presses his mouth to mine in what I think will be a kiss, but instead, he pulls my bottom lip in between his teeth and bites hard.

“Do not make me teach you another lesson,” he warns, leaving me with the taste of blood in my mouth.

Apollo pulls me to the cage by the hair, although he isn’t being as aggressive as before. With his cum dripping down my leg, I enter the cage like the animal I am, not knowing what’s coming.