“Your instruction will be quite thorough, and it is not as though you will have to guess my desires. I will make them very clear to you.”

“I already know what you want of me. You want me to trade myself for my sisters. You want me to couple with you like a bartering whore.”

He cocked his head and regarded her for a moment. “What have I done to you that has made you feel like a whore?”

She clenched her teeth a moment. She was biting back her retort. This pleased him. She was exhibiting thoughtfulness and control. Discipline. An undisciplined child would have screamed and shouted at him with her accusations and frustrations. She was putting thought into her response and the way in which it was delivered.

“You have me bathed and primped and powdered and prepared for you like a whore. You touch my body as a man would touch a whore.”

“No. Whores are wholly unappealing creatures. They are not worth my time and effort to improve their bodies and their minds. Whores are good for a back-alley fuck… something that has never and will never interest me. There is nothing exciting or titillating about a coupling of that manner. You are worth much, much, much more than a whore, Pet. You are worth being bathed and perfumed and dressed in rare silks. You are worth having your hair brushed with brushes made of thousands of strong bristles and dried with warm silk. You are worth every touch of soap and smear of lotion that is afforded to you. Should you want them, the cosmetics the women used will enhance your outer beauty to match that which I see inside. But you don’t need those artifices, I can tell. You are breathtaking just the way you are.

“No, Melena, you are the farthest thing from a whore that can be imagined. You are innocence and light, depth and beauty. And just because you will couple with your perceived enemy, that does not make you a whore. You come to the situation pure, and you will leave it just as pure.”

“You don’t make sense,” she said in frustration as she handed the letter to the boy. “If we couple I will no longer be pure.”

“You will no longer be a virgin. But you will remain an innocent. Innocent in the way only the truly pure can be. You will come into it honestly and leave it honestly.”

“Stop. Your words don’t make sense,” she said, a bite of hardness in her retort. But he could tell she understood more than she was letting on to. He was speaking to a part of her; she just refused to listen. “You’ll be taking my innocence from me.”

“Your innocence cannot be taken away. It must be given up voluntarily. You choose when you capitulate to the evil that is out in the world and let yourself become jaded by it. Or you can choose to keep clean and young and fresh in your mind and heart. In your soul. If you don’t let the taint of the world touch you, you will remain innocent.”

“The taint of the world has already touched me. My innocence is already lost. You will just be robbing me of my physical innocence.”

“If your innocence were truly lost, you would not continue to hope and believe in a better world. Am I wrong in thinking you do believe in a better world?”

“I believe the world could be better… but I don’t believe it will happen in my lifetime.”

“So, both innocent and jaded. An intriguing contradiction. There are such depths to you. The contradictions within you fascinate me.”

“There is nothing about you that I find interesting,” she said with a prim sniff.

He chuckled at that. “You shouldn’t lie to me. Do you know what happens when you lie?”

“It’s not a lie!” she insisted.

“Do you know what happens when you lie?” he repeated, this time more slowly and with purpose.

She was silent, her teeth clenching. He could tell by the flex of her jaw. He frustrated her. Good. He wanted her on loose footing. All the better for her to learn to trust him. She must learn trust the hard way. Only he knew what her limits were. Or rather, only he could discover them. He had much to learn about her first.

“So. I have kept my part of the bargain,” he said, letting her get away with not answering for the moment. “I am going to find your sisters and bring them here to you. Now you must fulfill your part of the bargain.”

“What is my part?” she asked, her mood quite surly.

“I think you know the answer to that. Why don’t you tell me?”

“To let you do whatever you want with me and not fight you,” she said.

“That’s… almost right. But it’s also wrong. You can fight me all you like. I will not hold it against you.”

“No, you’ll just punish me for it!”

“True. I will. And I’ll take great pleasure in it. But this isn’t about my pleasure. It is about yours. Whatever I do, I will do for you. For your benefit or for your pleasure.”

“Then leave me be. I will take great pleasure in that.”

He chuckled. “I don’t think you know what will give you pleasure. I think you need to learn. And the exciting part is that we will learn together.”

He reached down to her and stroked his fingers through her hair. She looked away from him, but she didn’t jerk away from his touch. It was progress, albeit a small amount of progress. “Did I not give you pleasure last night?” he asked.

She stubbornly refused to answer. He grabbed her chin, gripping her tightly as he turned her face up to him. “Answer me. And answer me honestly, or you’ll feel my whip.”

He felt a tremor run through her body at the threat. “Yes,” she said in a small voice. But she closed her eyes when she said it. Hiding from the truth.

“Look at me. Look at the man who gave you that pleasure.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. Another tremor ran through her. Her fear of herself was intoxicating. She knew she had depths only he could touch. She just wasn’t in the space where she could admit it.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“I see a bastard who seeks to control me and use me!”

He chuckled. “I am not a bastard as I know who my father is. But yes, I seek to control you. Use you… not so much. Not in the way you mean. Now, undress for me.”

She hesitated. He could see her desire to defy him. He wanted her to defy him. He didn’t want someone who was weak willed and weak of spirit. The more spirited she was, the better.

But seeing the fire in her eyes was enough. Knowing she was defiant on the inside was what pleased him. Even more, he was pleased when she began to disrobe, untying the silks from her body. She let them fall to the floor around her.

He made a show of looking her over. He walked around her, viewing her from all perspectives. She was gorgeous. Did she even know how beautiful she was? She would be even more beautiful bound for him. The anticipation of it made him hard. Harder. He was already hard from the sight of her.

He walked back over to the chest. There were things in that chest that he wanted to use on her… but there were other things in his immediate reach as well. Common things. He opened the chest and took out a long length of silken rope. It was specially made, the fibers among the softest in the entire Jorku nation. Considering how big the Jorku nation was, that was saying something.

He walked back over to her, sliding the silky rope through his fingers. He watched her watch him. Anticipation built in him as he saw it build in her.

“Reach back and grab your ankles,” he instructed her.

“Why?” she demanded in return.

“Are you really talking back to me? It appears you are quite eager for correction. Very well, I will accommodate you.”

“No! I didn’t mean… “

“Oh, but you did. Every action you take has an equal reaction. You must consider those reactions before you speak. I am assuming, with you being intelligent and mature, that you are aware of what your actions will bring down on you. Therefore it is by choice that you want to be corrected.”

“That’s backward logic!”

“Not at all. You know I will punish you if you don’t behave. So when you purposely misbehave you are obviously seeking out punishment.”

“No one wants to be punished!”

“Now there you are wrong. I have had women beg me to punish them. You, I think, will be one of them one day.”

“Never!”

“Never is a very long time. Now grab hold of your ankles.”

“I won’t do it!”

She launched to her feet and ran. She made it about two feet before he caught her. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his mouth to her ear.

“You made a promise. I would bring you your sisters and you would become mine. That was our deal.” He pushed her down to the floor, looping the rope around her wrists as he did so. She fought with him, so it was not an easy task. But eventually he had her on her knees, her hands bound to her ankles. She sagged in defeat, tears of abject misery falling from her eyes.

“This is not the end of the world,” he said to her softly. “Merely the beginning of a new one. Think of it. Think of all the things you will learn.”

“There’s nothing you could teach me that I would want to know!”

“We’ll see.” He got to his feet and walked around her again. She strained against the bonds, wriggling her hands. He had not bound her overly tight, so there was a possibility she could eventually get out. In the future he would tie a slip-knot around her throat so that whenever she moved it would tighten against her. For now he was satisfied with his work.

Her shoulders were pulled back by the bindings, so her pretty breasts thrust out. He couldn’t resist reaching out to caress one of the ripe mounds. He avoided her nipple, simply feeling the weight of her in his hand. She didn’t flinch, but she looked like she was bearing up under the worst of torture.

If only she knew.

He left her like that, kneeling and bound on the hard stone floor. Had she behaved he would have bound her on the softer carpet, but she had not and so had not earned the small comfort.

He walked back to the chest and looked inside, considering the possibilities and what she was ready for. He would start off slowly. Bend her to his will. Confuse and arouse her.

He reached into the chest and pulled out a whip. But this was no ordinary whip. It was not made of leather. In fact, it was quite similar to the ropes he had bound her with. It had five tails, and each tail had been tied into large knots. They would hit hard, but not too hard. They would not break the skin. He would save that for a future session.

He walked back over to her, letting the whip’s tail drag across the floor. She watched him approach with ever widening eyes. He reached her and squatted down before her. “I’m going to whip you. Consider it a lesson to be learned.”

“Can’t I just learn the lesson without the whip?” she asked pleadingly.

“It doesn’t work that way.”

He reached out and gathered up her hair, pulling it forward over her shoulder, off her back. Once her back was sufficiently bared, he rose back up to his full height and circled around behind her. She strained to see him, as if seeing the whip’s approach would somehow make it easier on her.

“Turn your head away… unless you wish for me to strike your face.”

She turned away, lowering her head. Perfect. He pulled back the let the whip fly. The knots landed on her shoulders with soft thuds. She didn’t cry out, but her body did jerk in its bindings. She almost toppled over, but she corrected her balance. She silently waited for his next strike. She didn’t have to wait long.

He whipped her for a solid five minutes, watching as her back grew red. He aimed his strokes right between her shoulders, where he knew she could bear it best. She began to whimper with each strike after a short while, and he could imagine the pain she was feeling. He had felt it himself once. Only that had been a bullwhip, and his attacker had not been kind or considerate. This was nothing compared to that.

He stopped the whipping when he saw tears begin to stream down her face. It was enough. For now. He walked up to her, dragging the whip behind him. He stood at her back and pulled the whip forward over her shoulder, the knots dangling teasingly against her breasts.

“Have you learned anything?” he asked her.

“I’ve learned that you’re a sadistic bastard,” she ground out.

“I thought we already discussed my heritage. And I am not sadistic. If you want sadistic I can easily refer you to my brother. No. What I am is something infinitely more refined than sadism.”

At the threat of his brother, she shivered.

“Do not be afraid. I would never give you to him. Someone else perhaps… someone I trusted… but never him.”

She looked at him anxiously. “Someone else? Who?”

“That remains to be determined. And it won’t happen until you are ready.”

“But I don’t want anyone else. Can’t it just be you? I don’t want anyone else to see me like this!”

“Putting you on display once you are trained would give me great pleasure. Don’t you want to please me?”

“Please… I’m begging you… “

“And you are doing so quite prettily. Don’t think I don’t appreciate that. But don’t worry about the future now. There is time for that later. Tell me how your back feels.”

“It hurts! How else would it feel? You’ve bruised me for certain!”

“Perhaps. We’ll see tomorrow, won’t we? Do you bruise easily?”

“No.”

He sighed.

“No, Sir,” she corrected herself immediately.

“Good girl. Now. I have a few letters to write. Stay here.”

“Where am I going to go?” she said dryly.

“Don’t be cheeky. I still have the whip.”

He walked over to his work table, which wasn’t far away from her, placed the whip on the corner of the table closest to her, right within her line of sight, and then sat. He pulled out a piece of blank parchment and inked his pen, watching her out of the corner of his eyes. Watched her wriggle and try to get comfortable in a wholly uncomfortable situation. She kept glancing up at him… or more specifically, the whip.

He let her stay like that for the better part of an hour, although he hardly got any work done. He kept looking at her, seeing her so beautifully bound and naked. Simply waiting for him. It was a distracting aphrodisiac. He eventually put his pen aside and stood up. He could hear her struggling breath.

“Please… my knees hurt. I can’t feel my hands or feet.”

“Which distresses you more? Pick one, and I will relieve the pain.”

“My knees. Please… Sir.”

“Since you asked so nicely… “

He reached down and plucked her up off the floor. He carried her to the bed and put her on her knees in the center of the soft mattress. She flexed her fingers, no doubt trying to work sensation into them.

“Is that better?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Now thank me.”

“What?”

“Thank me for the privilege I have just given you.”

“Th-thank you, Sir.”

“Good girl. See? This is not so bad. Do you not feel the relief of your body now that you are on a softer surface? Doesn’t it feel good?”

“It does, but --”

“No buts. It does. It feels good. It almost makes the pain worthwhile, doesn’t it? Without it you could not feel the relief and pleasure you are feeling now.”

“I would hardly call it pleasure.”

“Of course it is pleasure. We all feel pleasure when we are afforded even the simplest of comforts. Now, here’s what I want from you. Tell me how your back feels now.”

“Sore. Numb. Why don’t you have someone whip you if you want to know so badly?”

“I have been whipped before. I know what it feels like. But it was not with a silken knotted rope I assure you.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Someone whipped you?”

“Yes. When I was much younger.”

“Who?”

“My father. And he did not pull his strokes as I do for you. He put all his strength behind it. I still bear the scars from it.”

“Why? Why would he do that to his own son?”

“To make certain I knew my place. To make me know I was the second son… that I had no use except as a spare heir. That my life would be and should be devoted to my brother’s rule.”

“Is that why you put up with him?”

“Put up with him?” Valerian asked.

“He is a monster, and you know it. We have all heard the stories of the perversions he enjoys. Of the abuses he makes others suffer. You are just as bad. Look at the things you do to me.”

“Am I? Do you really think I am just as bad as my brother?” he asked archly.

“Yes, Sir!”

“That shows you just how little you know. That shows me you do not appreciate the blessing of being chosen by me and being taken out of my brother’s line of sight. Would you prefer I turn you over to him?”

“No!” she gasped.

“Why not? We are the same in your estimation.”

She struggled in silence. She wriggled in her bonds.

“You might be less evil than he is,” she relented at last. “If I have to choose between two evils… I choose you.”

He smiled at that and reached out to pet her along her hair. “That’s a good girl,” he said softly.

“I’m not trying to be good!”

“And yet you are succeeding. You should be happy about that.”

“I’m not happy about any of this!”

“You must learn to be. You must learn to take your pleasures, however small, when they come. If nothing else I will teach you to appreciate every little pleasure in life.”

“I would really appreciate it if you untied me now.”

“I’m not sure you would.”

“I would. I promise I would,” she said eagerly.

“Not yet. You still have much to learn.”