Hold Me Never (Holding Never) (16 page)

With a violent shudder, he turns stiffly away from me.
Silently, he climbs onto the bed where the Empress is waiting, her
eyes glinting coldly in the dark.

She lies on her back and spreads her legs. “Service
me, Owen.”

He kneels and positions his erection between her legs.
Twisting his head to look at me, he slams into her. He thrusts hard
into the Empress, staring into my unblinking, unfeeling eyes all the
time. I no longer feel anything. No fear, no shock, no anger. I
just feel dead and used.

Owen's eyes never leave me. They show no pain, no pity,
no pride as his body provides the Empress with the pain and pleasure
she craves. She drinks from him, sucking his cock and the blood from
the deep wounds on his body. Even as she feeds on him, he keeps his
vacant eyes on me.

The shadows move and darken, spreading and bleeding
across the walls as the candles burn out one by one. Owen services
the Empress the whole night. Her moans and shrieks fade as the dawn
arrives. His back is a raw, bloody mess, but still the Empress
continues marking him, her nails making deep gashes in his flesh as
she sinks her cruel, ravenous claws into him, taking him deep and
hard.

With one final scream, she finally disengages from him.
She shoves him away and rolls to her side, panting, tendrils of black
hair plastered to her face.

Owen staggers back, reeling into a statue. His cock
instantly deflates, as if he has maintained his erection by sheer
force of will. His tensed muscles loosen and slump, his body
becoming boneless, like his life, his lust, his blood have all been
sucked out of him, leaving him an empty shell reeling and rattling
around the room.

His flailing hand finds a candle and the pain from the
blood red flame seems to awaken his senses. He manages to regain his
balance just as he is about to take a rocking statue down with him.
With heavy thuds, the statue and Owen both sway back into position.
Owen slides to the ground on his knees. He blinks slowly, and shakes
himself as if waking from a dream, a nightmare. He wraps his arms
tightly around himself as his body starts to spasm uncontrollably.

Owen seems to be going into shock, shaking violently as
he collapses to the floor.

I watch helplessly, my eyes darting to the Empress.
Surely she would do something. She wouldn't leave him to die. Would
she?

“
Ah...” I stutter. “Owen...”

The Empress is lying on her bed, her eyes closed with a
smile on her face. She has used him and he can drop dead right now
for all she cares.

I find my voice. “Hey, hey! Owen!”

The Empress has gotten up from the bed and walked to a
silver door at the far corner of the room. Humming, she closes the
door behind her and I hear the sound of water.

“
Owen!” I hiss urgently. Owen is shivering
and shaking even more violently now. A thin trickle of blood oozes
from the corner of his mouth.

Oh God, there is no way I can watch him die. After all
the horrors I have been forced to witness, I don't want to bear
witness to yet another one.

“
Owen! You...look at me! Open your eyes! Owen!”

His eyes float over to me before rolling back. “No,
no, Owen, stay with me!” I urge in a fierce whisper. “Come
on, fight! You're a fighter, right? Fight, for yourself!”

His eyes close, and his fists grind into the floor. He
seems to have heard me. His muscles jump and twitch as he strains
against his body's reaction. But no one can help him. Just like no
one can help me. The excruciating shame, revulsion and hatred is
directed inward, towards the very pit of his soul.

His body had been used, against his will, for pleasure
he doesn't wish to feel. Just like mine.

The numb, seething shame and hate that I had felt in the
immediate aftermath of what he did to me was not directed at him.
Not even at the Empress. It was at myself.

This is a fight that Owen has to fight on his own,
alone.

No one can fight his demons for him.

And after what he has done, the demons preying on him,
closing in on him must be way more horrifying and unforgiving than
those dwelling in my soul and endlessly torturing my mind.

I continue calling out to him, calling his name. After
the darkest, longest time, his shivers gradually subside, and his
eyes start to focus. Gasping for breath, like he has just surfaced
from a shadowy underwater world, he blinks up at me, his emerald eyes
blurry and wet. He lets out an anguished yell and scrabbles
backwards, like he can't get away from me fast enough.

Maybe I look like a ghost. Or a demon.

In his blind panic, Owen knocks over a chair and sends a
vase of dead, dried flowers crashing to the floor. Reeling round, he
catches a two-headed statue before it topples and grabs the dripping
black candle. The hot wax drips onto his hand, but he doesn't seem
to feel it.

He scrambles to his feet just as the Empress strides out
of the bathroom. She has let her hair down and her naked body is
shining with a film of pungent oil.

Tilting her head to the side, she regards us with a
finger on her chin. Yawning, she sighs, “We had fun, didn't
we?”

When Owen backs away from the bed, she sniggers, “Does
my bed repulse you so, Slave? You will learn to love it. Love me.
Love me with that spectacular cock of yours. I haven't been so
satisfied for a long time now. I think I'll keep you. For now.”

With a languid, satisfied smile, she presses a button at
the side of her bed.

A beep sounds. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

“
Take the Slave and the Siren away,” she
barks into the speaker. “Send them back to their cells. Don't
kill them—” she adds as an afterthought. “Yet.”

Turning around, she squints at Owen and me critically,
like she is assessing the condition of our broken minds and bodies.

With a huff, she jabs the button again. “And send
Dr. Rolin up to my chamber. With the Serum.”

I wake up in my cell, on my mattress. Shielding my eyes
from the glare of the naked bulb buzzing overhead, I push myself up
and stare groggily around. Those tiny brown cloths are back around
my breasts and hips, protecting my modesty in the most immodest way.

My head is pounding madly, like there's something trying
to tear out of my skull. A fractured memory perhaps.

The cell is completely empty and silent. I turn to look
at Hani's empty mattress in the corner. There is a tray of food at
the door. One tray. Not two.

I drag the tray and myself to the corner of Hani's
mattress and close my eyes. When did I last see her? It was in the
Great Hall. With all that wine and blood and...sex. The night, that
nightmarish night, seems so recent yet so distant. I seem to have
lost track of time. Was it just last night, or many nights ago?

There was blood. I can remember the blood, lots of it.
And there was sex. With a dead man.

Flickering images of leering lips, heaving breasts,
scarred backs, grasping hands, probing tongues and fingers, erect
penises flash in rapid succession behind my eyelids. The images are
stark, raw, and too real to be imagined. I clutch my head between my
hands, squeezing my eyes shut.

I know something happened after we left the Great Hall.
But what? Why can't I seem to remember?

I stare down at the red bite mark on the inside of my
thigh. And in that moment, everything comes rushing back, the
memories of the night before surging through my mind in a numbing,
terrifying wave.

I double over and retch violently.

I see those black candles, the gruesome statues, the
Empress on the bed, Owen...I see their writhing, fornicating bodies,
thrusting and undulating in torment and ecstasy.

That ugly throbbing mark on my thigh—he left his
mark on me, as a reminder of what he did to me. He used me to get
himself hard for the Empress. He fucked me with his tongue, and he
would have fucked me with his cock as well, if the Empress hadn't
forbidden him to touch me with what was hers.

He would have taken me, right there and then, if not for
the threat hanging over his head. Taken my virginity, for himself,
against my will. Deflowered and defiled me forever.

I remember how he collapsed after satisfying the
Empress. He had been taken and broken as well. And he would do the
very same thing to me, take me and break me. I pity him, and I
despise him.

I remember Dr. Rolin coming into the Empress's chambers
with a metal briefcase. The doctor had walked up to me without a
word and released me from the clamps and restraints. My eyes could
close at last, but instead of shutting out the horrors of the night,
I'd just kept on staring at the doctor. I knew that he wasn't here
to save me. When he snapped his silver briefcase open and extracted
a large syringe, I had stared at the transparent liquid in morbid,
resigned fascination and anticipation. If I'm lucky enough, that
would be a fatal dose. I remember Dr. Rolin sliding the needle into
my arm, and pushing the plunger. For a while, I felt nothing. Then
everything became kind of hazy, like a thick fog had just rolled into
the room. The last thing I recall seeing is the doctor bending over
Owen with a spurting syringe in his hand. As he lowered the needle
to Owen's arm, the room had abruptly spun upside down and everything
went black.

How much time has passed since then?

Is Owen back in his cell, like me, or is he dead?

What about...Hani, and the blond girl?

Where are they now?

Are they still alive?

I miss her. The cell feels so empty and desolate
without her. I wish I could talk to her, have her listen to my fears
and regrets, have her hold my hand and wake me from my nightmares. I
feel so, so alone.

“
Hani...” I whisper her name, as I grip the
corner of her crumpled blanket. I last saw her in the Great Hall,
dressed in red gossamer, marked as a virgin. I press the heel of my
palms to my temples to stem the throbbing pain at the memory. The
Emperor chose her and the other girl, and ordered them brought to his
chambers.

The blackness behind my eyelids pulse blood red as I
fall forward to the cold floor. Wrenching sobs explode from me as I
curl into a ball. I don't try to stop my tears or muffle my cries.
There is no one to see me, no one to hear me. I cry, long and hard,
the tears scalding my eyes and my face. I cry until I am utterly,
completely spent. Empty. Exhausted.

Don't cry
.

Hani's words echo ceaselessly in my mind. I cling on to
my splintering memories of her. Her soft voice. Her strange,
warbling song. Her quiet stoicism. Her purity and humanity. I will
never see her again. Even if she hasn't been killed...

The thought of her mutilated and maimed and forced into
a gray serving uniform cuts me like a knife. Which is worse? Being
tortured and killed, or being tortured forever?

Very slowly, I push myself up on my shaking arms. I
have cried long enough, long and hard enough for me to deplete my
tears and my emotions.

I look down at the tray of food and simply lean against
the wall and start eating. I swallow without tasting. I eat just to
fill the gnawing emptiness in my stomach and my soul.

Numbly, I push the empty tray away and pull Hani's
blanket over my body. Even though I try to fight the memories, they
invade every corner of my mind, the images jumping and flashing
before me.

I shake away the image of the Empress's contorted face
and her pale naked body only to see Owen's face looming in front of
me. His expression is stony, his eyes dark and tortured. I can
still feel his rough hands on my thighs, forcing me wide open. I hug
myself, but even the feel of my own hands on my bare skin makes me
wince. I feel so violated, so defiled, so vile. Why should he drag
me down with him? The selfish bastard!

“
No!” I jerk upright, my fists tightly
clenched. I know that I may not have long to live. My life may be
taken at any time at the Emperor or Empress's whim and fancy. I have
no control over that. But my body, my heart and my virginity is
still mine, mine to give away so that the Emperor can never have it.

Hani's virginity has been taken away from her by force.
In the same way that Owen has taken what he wants from me by force.
Forcing his mouth on me, forcing his erection with his eyes raking my
naked body, the taste of me lingering on his tongue.

For however short a time that I still live, my body, my
virginity, my pleasure...is mine. I will not let the Emperor or
anyone else take that from me.

It is mine.

Mine to give. Mine to lose.

My skin starts to tingle and the chill fades from my
body as I recall that fleeting kiss I shared with Jaxon. He held me
like I was precious to him. His touch was searing, but gentle. His
kiss deep, tender, passionate. Not rough and forceful, relentless
and heedless to my protests and tears. Jaxon wanted me, but not
against my will. I felt cherished—and safe, in his arms.