“Please, I’ve already learned so much,” she said.

Melena had to beg. It hurt her pride to do so, but she had to beg. She couldn’t feel her hands. Her back was throbbing. She was naked. It all added up to her being the most uncomfortable she had ever been in her life.

He laughed, a low rumble of sound. He placed a knee on the bed, getting closer to her, picked up thick strands of her hair and lifted them to his nose. She watched his nostrils flare as he breathed deeply of her. He kept doing that. Smelling her. Why? What was so special about the way she smelled? Then again, his women in the harem had perfumed her from head to toe. Between the scented lotions, the almond paste they used to remove her body hair, and the soaps she bathed with, it was no wonder she smelled. One would think all those scents would be overwhelming, but clearly they were not.

His laugh was, surprisingly, pleasant to listen to. It was masculine and deep, but it did not mock her. Instead he found genuine amusement in her words. Which frustrated her. “What’s so funny?”

“What’s funny is we’ve only just begun. There’s so much more to learn. Tell me… tell me one thing that gives you pleasure. Anything. Any normal thing.”

She thought about it a moment, absently twisting her aching wrist against her bonds. “I like ice,” she said. “Flavored ice. Strawberry.”

“Hmm. Very well. I will get you some.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Just like that? You’re not going to make me… do things? You’ll just give it to me?”

“Do things? Do what things?” His eyes were dancing with humor.

“Things like this!” she said heatedly, struggling against her bonds. “Like tying me up!”

“You’re already tied up.”

“Stop it! You know what I mean!”

“Perhaps. No. I won’t make you do things. You’ve done enough to earn a flavored ice. Strawberry.”

He reached for the bell pull by his bed, and she squeaked in distress. “No! I… I don’t need it!”

He cocked a brow at her. “It’s not about need. It’s about reward. You have earned a reward.”

“Please don’t!” she squeaked again when he went for the pull once more.

He hesitated and cocked that brow again. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

“I… I don’t want anyone to see me like this!”

“It’s just a servant,” he said dismissively. “And it pleases me right now to have someone else view you like this. Even if it is only a servant.”

He pulled the pull decisively. Melena groaned. She panted. She struggled. She wanted to hide. To cover up. But she was helpless. She was at his mercy… and he was not in the mood to be merciful.

“Relax,” he told her sternly. “If you come through this well I will unbind you.”

That stopped her squirming. She wanted to be unbound. She didn’t like feeling so helpless… at the same time she didn’t like to be so exposed.

The servant entered the rooms through the main door and hurried over to Valerian. He kept his eyes averted from Melena. He had been trained well in the art of being discreet. He knew he mustn’t notice anything in the private chambers of his masters.

But just when she was feeling relieved by this fact, Valerian turned it on its ear. “What is your name?” Valerian asked in a hard tone. He probably didn’t realize he was even using the authoritative tone, he was so used to doing so. It made her realize that his tone with her was completely different. It was softer… kinder. She preferred his rich, rumbly voice in that tone. It was… gentle. Like a caress. When coupled with his laugh, it was beyond wonderful to hear.

She caught herself in the thought and tried to sternly tell herself she should find nothing appealing about him at all. But it didn’t work. She was having a harder and harder time hiding from the truth.

“Shim,” the slave answered after a small hesitation. Servants were meant to be invisible in the household. When a master asked for or knew their name it was either to reward them or punish them.

“Shim, what do you think of my pet?” he asked, nodding in Melena’s direction.

Melena groaned, her face burning with embarrassment. She wondered how the slave felt. Fear? Most definitely. She could see it in his eyes as he looked at her. But there was something more. A blatant male appreciation for her naked female form.

“Go on. Take a good long look at her,” he encouraged. “Get closer to her. But do not touch. She is mine.”

“Yes, my lord,” he said shakily.

“Answer my question,” he said, watching as the slave neared Melena. “What do you think of her?”

“She’s beautiful,” he breathed.

Melena didn’t know why, but a flash of self-pride swam through her. She felt her posture becoming as correct as was possible considering how she was tied. She didn’t want to appear to be slouching or lazy in front of this stranger.

Realizing she cared what he thought of her was a shock. A moment ago she hadn’t wanted him to look at her at all. Now she wanted to be seen as beautiful and wanted?

Valerian closed the distance between them and knelt on the bed with a single knee. He reached out and ran a curved finger down the line of her throat. “She is magnificent, is she not?” he asked the servant. “Look at how her skin glows in the candlelight. Have you ever seen such beautiful, pristine hair?” He ran a hand down the sheaf of her hair where it lay over her left shoulder and breast. Then he moved the hair aside, exposing her breast. “And see how perfect her breasts are? The perfect handful for a man like me, is she not? Tipped with divine dark nipples. Very responsive ones. Look how even now they grow hard and pointed at merely the promise of my touch.”

He ran the backs of his knuckles over one of her aforementioned thrusting nipples, and she drew in her breath on a gasp. The sensation that it caused to jolt through her was shocking… shocking because it made her grow warm and excited. It aroused her. She turned her face away from him. She didn’t want him to see the shameful reaction in her expression… and she knew just how easy she was to read. That was becoming more and more obvious the more he was able to divine her thoughts and emotions.

“She is magnificent,” the servant said enthusiastically.

“Indeed she is. Would you want her, if it were possible?” he asked, his hand traveling from her breast in a gentle trail down the center of her flat belly. His fingertips paused to circle her navel, then continued on lower, heading straight for her sex. The anticipation of what was going to happen next was excruciating. She remembered what she had felt the last time he had touched her between her legs, and the memory made her go weak and warm inside. No. Not warm. Hot. She felt as though her skin were misted in perspiration and… well, she was wet in other places as well. The reaction disturbed her. Why would she find anything he did exciting? Why would she want anything from him?

And she did want something from him. She wanted him to keep touching her. She wanted him to make her feel what she had felt last night. It had been the most glorious sensation she’d ever known. Living a life of toil and hardness, it had been so indulgent… It had been the sort of thing she’d never had time for in her life. She had been too busy caring for her family to indulge in any pleasures of her own. Now here she was, surrounded by indulgence and richness and sensations built specifically for her senses. Now she had nothing to do but wait for this man to dole out punishments or pleasures as he saw fit.

Or as she saw fit to ask, she realized. All she had to do was ask him for something the way he liked for her to ask him, and he had seen fit to make it happen. Everything except cease her punishments or her bindings. But even that… it was not as bad as it should have been. As he had promised, there had been a sort of pleasure to the way he whipped her. Not that she would ever confess it to him, but she had reached a sort of space in her mind where her awareness had been shifted. When the pain had been so focused that she had felt relief and pleasure every time he pulled his arm back, dragging the whip away from her body.

It had left her in a state of confusion like nothing she had known before. How could she like anything about what he was doing to her? He was cruel and sick and twisted… wasn’t he? There was no pleasure to be found in his practices… was there?

She was panting softly for breath by the time his fingers tickled at her cleft. Then they slid further in, testing her textures.

“And what a surprise,” he said softly. “She is wet.”

The slave shifted in discomfort… or some other kind of restlessness. Valerian chuckled. “Look, Pet, I think you’ve made him hard.”

Melena couldn’t resist the urge to look as instructed. Her eyes tripped down the length of the servant’s body, dressed as it was in the simple brown cotton shirt and breeches most slaves of the royal household wore. His pants clung to his thighs and crotch snugly, so it was obvious that he had an erection. Melena’s eyes went wide, and she felt heat steam up from all over her body.

She felt unexplainably powerful in that moment. Here was this slave, who lived in fear of doing or saying the wrong things to his master every minute of every day and had therefore learned discipline and control, and she had broken through all that and caused him to lose that control. She had aroused him simply by being. It made her wonder what she could do had she put any effort into it. She looked quickly at Valerian. What about him? What could she do to him?

“Ah. See? She is recognizing the power she has over men. How glorious to see it given birth in one so young and so inexperienced. You are witnessing something very special my friend.”

“Y-yes, Sir,” the slave said shakily.

“Enough. You’ve had enough I think,” Valerian said to the slave as he gained his feet again. “You will fetch strawberry ice. It is what she likes, and she has earned it,” he said, touching her face with fondness. She felt an answering sensation within her. Something like… gratitude and pleasure at having pleased him. This time she was not confused by her feelings. This time she accepted them for what they were… a step in the process he was subjecting her to.

He wanted her to feel these things. It was important to him that she did. And she wanted him to be satisfied with her performance. She needed him to be. He could just as easily send another note to his people telling them to stop looking for her sisters. Or he could tell them to find them and mistreat them.

No. He wouldn’t see them purposefully mistreated. She knew that much at least. She was learning a great deal about him as every moment ticked past… and her instincts told her this. No. He would find her sisters… and then keep them from her until she earned the right to see them. He would probably do that anyway. She had no doubt he was going to make her earn the privilege to see them. And she would do whatever he asked in order to see them again. She would do whatever he asked between now and then.

But… that didn’t mean she had to make it easy on him. She would do what he asked, but she would do so grudgingly. And yet… it was as he said. She was learning the power she could have over a man. And Valerian was very much a man. Perhaps she could tie him into knots mentally the way he had tied her physically. He seemed to thrive on his control of the situation. What would happen if she made him lose control?

But how was she supposed to do that? She knew next to nothing about what it took to please a man. Knowing she looked attractive wasn’t enough. She tried to think of what would excite him to the point of losing control of himself.

What if… what if she acted like she was beginning to take pleasure in the way he treated her? Was that what he wanted? Hadn’t he said as much? She would not really feel pleasure of course, but she could pretend.

She had this ghosting fear that it wouldn’t all be artifice. She had already begun to feel…

“Right away, Sir,” the servant said before hustling out of the room.

“Now. Let’s loosen these bonds.” He reached down to her ankles and untied her. She sagged with relief when her hands came undone. It was only then that she realized just what an effort it took to remain in that position for so long. He eased her down onto her face on the bed and then began to massage her back and shoulders. She winced because she was clearly bruising beneath her skin, but the relief and pleasure of his hands working free the knots in her muscles was too good to resist. She sighed and allowed herself to relax under his touch.

His hands soon began to roam in larger areas. Before she knew what he was doing, he was massaging her buttocks.

“This is next I think,” he said softly. “How would you like that I wonder?”

“Like what?” she asked nervously.

“A cane. Across your backside. Or perhaps a paddle. Something… anything that will make these cheeks glow red.”

“If… if you think so, Sir,” she said, testing the waters of how she could try to manipulate him as he liked to manipulate her.

He looked at her in surprise. “You mean you think you would like that? I find it hard to believe you would feel that way so soon. You haven’t quite learned how to reach that place between pain and pleasure.”

“I… I think I’m beginning to,” she said. And it wasn’t at all a lie. As much as she wanted to deny it, there had been a few moments during her whipping when she had reached the place he was talking about. That place between pain and pleasure.

What did that make her? Was she somehow just as perverted as he was? Or did he know something… some kind of strange secret that she had never heard of before. If he treated all his women equally, then why did they fawn all over him? Why did they seem eager to see him and be with him?

When she had been in the harem earlier, things had grown quite strange. Anajou, one of the eldest harem members, had told her that Daria, another of the eldest, was extremely jealous of her.

“Jealous! For what reason? I haven’t done anything!”

“You’ve captured Sir’s attention. He is clearly fascinated with you. She feels his interest in you threatens her standing in his eyes. But don’t worry. She feels that way about every new female that shows up here. She is under the impression that she should have Sir all to herself. That she is somehow loved by him better than all the rest of us. She is threatened by anything that calls that belief into question.”

“Well, I don’t want him! She can have him! Why would anyone seek out being in that man’s company? He is a brute! He is cruel!”

“Is he now? Perhaps in the beginning he seems that way… especially to an untried and innocent woman like yourself. But you will soon learn that Sir has your best interest at heart. He wants nothing more than to see you happy and content.”

“I will be happy if he loses interest in me and leaves me alone!”

“You say that now… but you will change.”

Melena had not seen how. But she was afraid now that was exactly what was happening. That she was changing. And she worried about what that made her. She worried she was losing herself to this hard and unyielding man.

“I am pleased to hear you say that,” he said, bringing her attention back to him. “But I am not certain I believe in your sincerity. Still, you have come far in just the short time we have spent together.” His hands drifted back up to her sore shoulders. Again, his massage hurt so much, yet felt so good.

He ministered to her for quite a long time… long enough for the servant to reappear with the strawberry ice in hand in a small metal bowl.

“Give it here,” Valerian instructed holding out his hand. “Now leave us.”

The servant left quickly, but not without stealing a few glances at Melena. She had the strangest urge to smile. Why? There was nothing to smile about!

“Roll onto your back.”

She obeyed him, rolling onto her back and bringing her hands to meet across her middle. She rubbed at her wrists. Though the ropes had been made of silk, they had still chaffed at her hands because she had struggled against them. Now her wrists were red and sore.

“Open your mouth.”

He scooped a bit of the ice onto a spoon and held it before her lips. She found herself eagerly doing as he asked. He dropped the ice into her mouth, and the flavor exploded across her taste buds. It was cold and divine. She hadn’t tasted the treat for several years. In fact, she didn’t even know what had made her think of it. But now that he was putting spoonful after spoonful into her mouth, she was delighted and content.

Then, unexpectedly, he dropped the next spoonful onto her nipple. It felt shockingly cold, and she gasped. He quickly lowered his head and sipped at her nipple, his tongue taking up the rapidly melting ice and the sweet strawberry flavor that was on her skin. Then he closed his mouth completely over her nipple and sucked hard at it. The answering sensation that zinged down the center of her body took her breath away. He flicked his tongue against her, and she squirmed. She didn’t want to feel what he was making her feel. He was making her feel a craving for more. She wanted nothing from him!

He drew his mouth from her with a sucking pop of sound, then scooped more ice onto his spoon and did the same to the other nipple. Even though she was prepared for it this time, it still took her breath away. The sting of the cold, followed by the warmth of his mouth. The contrast in sensations was overwhelming. It was a small sting compared to the sting of a whip, but this one was so pleasurable she found herself breathing a little faster. Her nipples had hardened into stiff points, and he toyed with those points with flicks of his tongue and the gentle bite of his teeth.

She felt the pleasure of what he was doing all throughout her body. Because of his extreme punishments, these tender touches seemed so much stronger. The pleasure swirled throughout her like a whirlpool.

“How do you do this to me?” she asked breathlessly. “How can I feel this way when you are so cruel?”

“But I am not cruel,” he argued. “I do not make you suffer. I do not destroy you. My intent is to build you up. To make you stronger. To learn the nature of desire and how being submissive to me can bring you more pleasure than you have ever imagined. Tell me you felt no moments of pleasure when the whipping was at its apex.”

She wanted to tell him he was wrong. She opened her mouth to tell him he was wrong. But then she remembered what he might do if she lied to him. But to admit to something so… twisted. How could she? She didn’t even know how to cope with the knowledge. She felt so lost. The only thing that seemed to be holding her steady was… him. His strength. His kindnesses after his brutality. His logic. His insistence that he would care for her like no one else ever had.

She was beginning to believe him.