“Walk to the table and lower your dress.”
I ponder his demand for a few seconds. He wouldn’t hurt me unnecessarily… would he?
∞ Kade ∞
Clive the brander handed Kade his iron branding pole. It was long, thin, and heavy, bearing his family’s lion symbol on the bottom. Nine peered up through long dark lashes for a second too long. He knew it, the crowd knew it, and they murmured their excitement, hoping she’d disobey him. Kade didn’t know why he gave her an extra second to contemplate what she was going to do… maybe he was hoping she’d disobey him, too. After a quick exhale of air, Nine pulled the fabric knot on her shoulder and lowered it, exposing her entire left shoulder and the top of her full breast. She looked at Kade for reassurance, but Kade had never comforted anyone in his life and he’d never been one to lie, so he smirked at her instead. Colour drained from her face as she stepped off her pedestal.
“Bend over the table.”
Kade’s insides twisted over the words and he watched as she stepped forward and braced herself over the table, digging her fingers into the wood. He came up behind her, desperately fighting the urge to press himself into her backside. She looked quite alluring from this angle and his insides twitched in agreement.
Kade had dragged this on long enough, and without a second thought, he lowered the glowing metal towards her flesh, watching her face as she squeezed her eyes shut. Before the metal had a chance to cool down, he pressed it into her skin. She gritted her teeth. It sizzled and burnt her flesh. Nine began to cry, despite how hard she tried to fight it, and Kade was intrigued by her response to the pain. She didn’t scream like he thought she would and he was sure he was the only one who could hear her. It bothered him as much as it aroused him, and as her clear tears rolled off the sharp edges of her face onto the table, they made him feel odd, but he refused to acknowledge the alien feeling of guilt swirling in his stomach. He pulled the metal back and the smell of her melted and blistered flesh did nothing to deter him from his ongoing arousal—the same arousal that had been pulsing inside him since he saw her.
He handed the man his stick and waited as Nine pushed herself up off the table, trembling with the aftershocks of the branding. Kade swiped his hand through a jar of black sludge and pressed it into Nine’s blister. The black sludge would make the scar black and prominent, making his mark visible for all to see. She turned to Kade, her face red from the pain, and bowed her head. Good.
“Thank you, Master Kade,” she said, but the hint of disgust he heard in her tone didn’t pass him by.
Her violet eyes were trained on his. If anyone else witnessed the death stare she was giving him, they’d beat her within an inch of her life, but Kade enjoyed the display of courage. It would only make it more fun to strip it from her, as easily as he stripped her from her dress.
“Keep glaring at me, Unfortunate,” he whispered. “You’re only making me harder.”
Her eyes widened a fraction, the angry glare softening into fear. She stepped past Kade, and the cherry smell that emanated from her auburn hair as she brushed past him seeped in through his nostrils and set fire to his blood. Nine strolled back to her pedestal and stood still. She kept her head up and confident, so confident you’d never think she was just branded with a hot iron.
She was tough… he’d give her that.
∞
Kade sat at the table, ignoring the other Fortunates who boasted about their new slaves. His sights were focused on his Unfortunate, Nine. She stood straight, her hands behind her back. Her face betrayed no sign of what she might be feeling deep down. Her chin was angled slightly, like she refused to cave to the pressure. Next to her, the other Unfortunates sobbed, feeling sorry for themselves… but not her, why? What made her stronger than the others? They were raised in the same place and yet Nine refused to cave to the same distress. It infuriated Kade. He wanted Nine to feel distressed, he wanted to make it worse and then better. He wanted her entire existence to revolve around him. Kade wanted her to despise him, to crave him—to even love him. He wanted to control the strings to her limbs like a puppet master. It was only to prove his own control to himself. It would piss his father off, too. To turn a gift he was certain was supposed to sabotage him into a fiercely loyal slave. Kade was complex and insecure. Inside, he never denied it, but on the outside he always had to put on a hard front. It was a hard world he was living in and he couldn’t afford to be seen as weak. Power balances were shifting. The Knowles were growing rapidly, dabbling in all kinds of trades—mining, weaponry, and farming, and Michael did nothing about it. He did nothing to increase the Sarios’ profit and power. Michael refused to see that the Sario name was crumbling, and in due time, Kade knew other houses would soon swoop in and take what belonged to Kade. Kade wouldn’t let that happen. When his father died and he took over, the Sario household would claim all of its rightful power back and strike fear in the hearts of all of the other houses once again. But first, he had to deal with the mine. He had to take control of the situation before news spread to the other houses.