A sluggish throbrolls through my body, filling me with an unrelenting agony. Ryker stands before me, his eyes looking up and down my body, his lips twisted in a maniacal grin.
I know that look.
I know what comes after that look.
Bracing myself, I wait for the pain of his blows, but they never come. Instead, he hunches down in front of me so that we’re eye to eye. His lips are moving, but I can’t hear any sound. It’s as if there’s a clear wall between us muffling his words.
His hand reaches out for me, caressing my face as he used to when I was first in his care, reminding me of the joy I found when we were together. Those first few weeks were heaven - sumptuous food, fun out by the lake. Fishing. Dear God, the fishing. We would bring home a large fish, prep it, then eat it.
But then, the fatherly caresses turned into something far more sinister. He didn’t just force his cock down my throat that first week. No. He groomed me, getting me used to his presence, touching me in ways that seemed like an accident, but when looked back at with adult eyes, were anything but.
What made me recall this? What dragged this hellacious memory from my depths? And that’s when I hear his voice. It’s faint, like a whisper, but all too loud in my ears.
“What is your earliest memory?”
Why is he asking me that? He doesn’t care. He’ll only use it against me. Pulling my lips into my mouth, I stand there like a petulant child refusing to eat. But he presses forward until he’s touching me again, his fingers drifting over my arm and hand.
It hurts. So much pain. Just the featherlight touch of his fingers against mine sends me recoiling back from him, only to find that I can’t move. Why can’t I move? Has he paralyzed me? Has he taken that away as well?
An acrid stench fills my brain, causing the image in front of me to shimmer like a mirage on the scalding Florida highways. It’s like the hint of a shark fin as it dips up from the water, only to find that it’s just an errant wave and nothing sinister lurks beneath.
And that’s when my eyes fly open, disrupting the image in front of me. Instead of Ryker, it’s the shrink and all the other bastards forcing me through this initiation.
“Where were you? You seemed to drift off. Perhaps I’ve uncovered a memory? A traumatic event?”
I refuse to answer him. There’s no way he can handle my story. He works at a fucking university, for God’s sake. The worst he’s probably heard is some whiney bitch complaining about the stress of her academics. There’s no way he’s heard anything nearly as tragic as my experiences.
“Go to hell.” Something in me begs I keep silent, and I know full well what that thing is.
It’s the part of Ryker that infused himself into me, melding with my psyche until I could never be free. I feel him prowling around. I hear the smack of the belt on his palm. The violence from him vibrates in my mind, driving out any other thought except to be safe.
Another loud crack and a surge of pain. Tears stream from my face as my body cries out, demanding to just give in and give the shrink what he wants. My mind is a battleground, a war zone. Inside, the need to keep silent about Ryker wars with the pain the shrink is giving me.
But I can’t give in. I just can’t. I’m Luke fucking Lannister. I don’t succumb. I survived years of torture at Ryker’s hands, and there’s no way in hell I’ll fail with this quack. The pain he’s delivering is temporary. I know this. It always passes.
Even when Ryker did his worst. Even when he hit me so hard I peed blood. Even when he whispered lies about loving me while prying my ass cheeks apart. Even with all of that and more, I survived.
Some think that I’m heartless and cruel. But the fact is, I’m hurting just as much as my victims. Delivering Finn and Junior to that madman was a survival tactic. With him working them over, I was finally free. I was able to walk about unmolested.
I loathed the idea of dragging two innocent boys into my private hell, but I had no choice. No one seems to realize that with Ryker, there are no choices. He would have had no problem hacking off bits and pieces until I was nothing but a nub on the floor for him to fuck.
He’d keep me alive only to torture me until I took matters into my own hands and ended it all. But even then, he’d find a way to bring me back and punish me for the insolence of taking his fucktoy away. Beneath everything, though, the part that I don’t reveal to anyone but Satan himself is that I liked doing these tasks for him.
To do a good job for him meant I got a smidgen of love. I got a break from the never-ending emotional and physical torment. Given another chance, I’d do it all again. Finn and Junior were just collateral damage, two boys caught in this deadly game.
When it came to kidnapping them, it was either obey Ryker and get that Pavlovian response of feeling his pleasure with me or suffer the consequences. When you kick a dog enough times, they learn to cower. They learn to never displease their master. And that’s all I was. A monster trained for Ryker’s use. I couldn’t break free. He would find me. No one seems to ever understand that I had no choices.
The havoc I caused after Ryker’s death, however, was all for my own need to get my power back. No one rescued me. No one came to my aid. So I became the force to be reckoned with, the monster in the night that came after them. I wrestled the power back, unleashing the hell I was given back onto the people that refused to look for me.
That’s why I hate Louis. That’s why I hate the damned Ravens. That’s why I made it my mission to destroy them. They had every opportunity to help, to reach out to me, but they didn’t. They let me sit and stew in the fetid morass that was my life with Ryker, and by God, they would pay for it.
“Where are you?”
The voice drifts into my consciousness, filling me with rage. I haven’t left. I’m stuck here, forced to relive my life when all I want to do is stuff it down. Why can’t he just leave it alone? I know what he’s doing. He’s baiting me, forcing me to confront things in an effort to make me fly into a rage, showing the council that I’m not fit to be a damned Dominant.
But that’s where I have intimate knowledge he doesn’t. Despite the rage, I know how to control it. That was the very first lesson I learned at Ryker’s feet. Nothing Shrinky Dink does will force me to lash out. I only retaliate in a cold, calculated manner. There’s nothing passionate about my revenge. It’s methodical, thought out.
If I ever do fly off the handle, then it would mean that I’m cornered with no way out except to fight. And heaven help them if that ever happens. The show I did in his office was just that - a show, something to get him to stop talking. He seemed to want a reaction, and I gave it to him. Do I want to punch the quack? More than anything. But inside, I know that it will deviate me from my ultimate purpose - getting back at the Ravens.
While here, I can plan; I can plot. I need to keep myself safe and secured, squirreled away until I’m ready to reappear in Ashen Springs. If it means taking this pain, letting others see the violence that’s in this quack, then so be it. He will hang himself with his own damned ropes.
“You have just one finger left, Luke. Is there anything you want to say to me? All this pain can go away if you talk. I need your words. I need you to explain what it is you’re hiding away. I need to know you’re not a threat.”
I can’t give him that. Even if he wasn’t torturing me, I couldn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. I will always be a threat. Granted, this Chastity chick never did anything to me. I don’t wish her any ill will; however, if the shrink insists on pressing the issue, I will make her part of the equation.
At my silence, Shrinky Dink sighs. I can feel the rope slide across my skin as he fingers it, no doubt coiling it around for the final jerk. It’s already too much, but I know with this last jerk, it will be over. There’s no way they’ll let him drag it out for much longer.
Groaning. I let my head rest against the wood and brace for the pain I know is coming. But it doesn’t. He waits there, keeping the rope moving. It puts me on edge. I just want him to get it over with. I want to go back to my house and lick my wounds so I can regroup and get on with my life.
I have to get through this hell to get to the benefits that await - submissives at my beck and call, an amazing track and field team that’s actually good enough to win me some more trophies, and no financial responsibilities.
Dean Anderson laid out the perks of being in this society, and the biggest one for me was the money of my own without having to rely on Louis. It’s just one more step up, one more way for me to slap him in the face.
He wanted to shower me with his fortune, and I refused. It was the principle of the thing. Money couldn’t give me my childhood back. And now, once I can endure these society members, he won’t be able to hold money over my head. Though I’ll never be as rich as he is, it doesn’t matter. I’ll have enough to flourish.