“So, how is our lovely, new slave?” Marcos queried as he sat back in the wing-backed leather chair, with one of his more recent acquisitions kneeling at his feet. The girl was plain, certainly nothing like the girl I’d left not long ago in the training room. But this one had submitted quickly and easily under Marcos’ guidance, and that was the way he liked it.

And that’s the way I usually liked it too, at least as far as work was concerned. Usually. It was easy—breaking something that was so weakly held together it crumbled with the slightest touch. Easy. And boring. Of course, something about it always appealed to me—making something submit, to bend it to my will. How could it not? But it was always unfulfilling in the end.

Now though, after just a few minutes with the fiery, new temptress…it seemed things might get interesting.

“She’s more than I could have hoped for,” I replied honestly, thinking Marcos was missing out with his penchant for the weak-willed and weak-minded.

“I’m glad to hear it, but what I want to know is your assessment of her.”

I laughed, but I wasn’t surprised. “I think she’s not typical of the girls you usually give me, but we knew there was a decent chance of that. She’s manageable and I have no doubt it will work out just fine.”

He eyed me for a minute, but he let it go at that. The girl wasn’t the first atypical slave I’d trained, and she likely wouldn’t be the last. Just an interesting and arousing bump in the road.

“So, what do you have planned for her next then?” he queried with a little more interest than usual. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had noticed the girl was unique.

“Dinner,” I said, and it sounded simple enough. I smiled, knowing things were never quite what they seemed.

I rose to leave but then paused. “Has Donovan been informed?”

Marcos glanced at his watch. “Any time now.”

Good. There was no backing out now—not that I had any intention of it. With that knowledge, I left the room, going in search of what I would need next.

And ten minutes later, I unlocked the door and wheeled the cart and chair inside. Closing the door behind me, I glanced around, but the girl was nowhere in sight. The shower was running in the other room though, so I had a good idea where she was. And she either hadn’t heard me come in or else she’d already forgotten the lesson from just a few hours before.

I left the tray and chair by the door and followed the sound and the billowing steam into the bathroom, but the scene wasn’t what I’d expected. It was strange enough to think she’d decided to grab a shower so soon, but she wasn’t even in the shower. She stood just a few feet from it, wrapped in the damn blanket I should have taken with me. She was barely visible through the steam, but as I got closer, I saw the moisture glistening on her skin. She’d turned the room into a fucking sauna. Did she think this was a day at the spa?

“What are you doing?” I asked, keeping my tone light, amused.

She whirled around, startled to find me there so close behind her. The look of panic and indecision on her face was priceless, but it did seem that what I’d told her before I left had slipped her mind. That, or she was a glutton for punishment—not that I minded.

She remained there on her feet, staring back at me defiantly, though I could see the way her lower jaw trembled. I cocked an eyebrow, giving her one last chance to use some common sense.

She didn’t take it.

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin higher, but it had none of the desired effects when her whole body was trembling with fear. It was amusing though. Almost cute. Like one of those pint-sized dogs barking at a pit bull. The pint-sized pup didn’t know it, but everyone else could plainly see that the pit bull could rip it to shreds without breaking a sweat.

“So, you’ve decided to be difficult, have you? I can be difficult too, Pet,” I said as I reached for her.

She pulled her arm out of reach and tried to sidestep me. But not only was I stronger than her, I was faster too. I grabbed hold of her around the waist and yanked off the damn blanket—and made a mental note to take the thing with me this time. And then I dragged her out of the bathroom to the bed.

I shackled her wrists to the restraints protruding from the mattress and her whole body stiffened in anticipation of what she thought was about to come.

Shame on me if I was ever that predictable.

I chuckled and left her there while I went to retrieve the cart and chair I’d brought in, and I pulled them over next to her, just out of her reach. She tried to angle her body away from me, which only emphasized her slender curves. She was scared, no doubt still waiting for the lash of the belt, but she was also clearly confused. Good.

I removed the lid from the tray and breathed in deep. As always, the food was exquisite. And by the way she stilled, she was beginning to realize what was going on. She’d lost several hours unconscious on the trip here, and then several more since then. While her mind wasn’t fully cognizant of the time that had passed, her body was becoming abruptly aware that nearly twenty-four hours had gone by since she’d last eaten.

“I had intended to be kind, to reward your obedience. I was going to feed you, Pet. You are hungry, aren’t you?”

She glared at me, but her nostrils flared, taking in the delicious aroma.

“Answer me,” I growled.

“Y-yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes…I’m hungry.”

“And after the fit, you threw—after you disobeyed me—do you think I should feed you?”

“Yes,” she barked.

“Is that so? Then what would stop you from disobeying me again?” I took a bite of the food on the plate.

She squeezed her lips together. She refused to beg for forgiveness, and of course, she was stubborn, so she couldn’t agree with me.

I took another bite and another. Her stomach growled, but to her credit, she didn’t make a sound, and she barely moved a muscle. Only her eyes moved, following the fork from the plate to my mouth, over and over again. Even when she could see that the last few bites were going fast, she held strong.

When all the food was gone, her shoulders slumped just a little. I’d been hoping she would have put her pride aside for the sake of basic human survival, but I couldn’t say I was actually disappointed. It was just too much fun to watch the exquisite girl battle it out in her head. She was most certainly shaping up to be the challenge I’d hoped for.

I re-covered the tray with the lid and wheeled it to the door and out of the room. While I’d debated leaving her shackled there, I couldn’t help but think of the steamy scene I’d walked in on, and I was curious what she would do next if left unshackled and to her own devices. I left the chair, too, just to add something new to the mix.

As I approached her, she slunk back, still anticipating the spanking that wouldn’t come—at least, not yet. I caressed her cheek when she could slink no further away. She had incredibly soft skin, and I couldn’t deny that I was more than a little tempted to keep touching her just to feel her silken flesh beneath my fingers.

I could see it in her eyes when she started to debate whether to sink her teeth into my hand. I’d seen Vito’s hand—her teeth were a powerful weapon, indeed—but she thought better of it and kept her lips clamped shut.

That was a good sign. She could have easily done it—at least, she would have thought she could—but she already feared the consequences of such a reckless action. Stubborn, but not stupid. I was liking my new slave more every minute.

Without a word, I unshackled her wrists, half-expecting her to lunge at me with teeth bared. But she didn’t move. She eyed me warily as I turned away, and I could feel her eyes boring into my back as I strode out of the room.

I adjusted my cock once I’d closed the door. The girl was the most appealing sight I could remember, but we were just getting started.

I sighed, thinking of the slaves Marcos kept in the house. I could use one now to take the edge off, but somehow it seemed like a poor substitute for what I had in store.

When I returned in the morning and wheeled in the tray laden with food, I was only half-surprised to find her in the bathroom again. The water in the shower was running but there was no steam billowing out into the other room this time. Either she was running it on cold, or else she’d left it running for so many hours that the hot water had run out.

I felt an odd pang when I went to investigate and found her huddled in the corner with her knees drawn up and her head tilted to the side. She was asleep, but the tears she’d cried had dried on her cheeks. Beneath the fan of her eyelids, the delicate skin was darker, the result of a combination of fatigue and a lack of food.

Her hair was dry though, suggesting she hadn’t made use of the shower. But then, why did she have it running? It was odd, and it made me curious, but there would be time enough for answers. Right now, she needed to abandon her hard-headedness for the sake of her health.

“Wake up,” I said, none too gently. I wasn’t there to hold her hand.

She startled awake, but she remained where she was, huddled in the corner.

“You’ve been a fool and you’re suffering unnecessarily. I’m done tolerating it. Kneel. Now.”

She acquiesced more readily than I’d expected, though fatigue and hunger could do a lot to one’s resolve—I would know.

Her shoulders were slumped and her arms hung limply over her body in a half-hearted attempt to cover herself.

Her fatigue was too pronounced. Something wasn’t right.

“When was the last time you ate?” I asked, beginning to suspect the cause.

She stared blankly at the floor.

“When?” I demanded.

“Last…last night. At dinner. At home,” she replied quietly.

But that wasn’t right—her sense of time would have been distorted, so I had to extrapolate what that really meant. Dinner—at home. The last time she’d been home was the morning before her shift on the day she’d been taken. And dinner at home meant the night before that. And that meant when she’d stubbornly refused to submit when I’d come with food yesterday evening, she’d already gone forty-eight hours without food. And now, twelve hours later, the fool had gone somewhere around sixty hours without food.

I was very particular in the taking of any new girl. She was to be surveilled, and every aspect of the day leading up to the event recorded for me. Vito had reported that she’d eaten at the store where she worked just prior to her leaving work. If the girl was telling the truth though—which by her physical state, it suggested she was—it meant Vito had lied to me. No doubt, he’d lied to punish the girl for biting him. But I didn’t give a fuck what his god damned reason was. The son of a bitch had lied. To me. And I’d make sure he didn’t make that mistake twice.

For now, though, I had the problem in front of me to rectify. I turned off the shower and retrieved the cart from the other room, actually wheeling it right into the bathroom. The girl needed food, and I wasn’t going to risk her defying me further and having to withhold it.

With an air of nonchalance, I removed the lid from the tray and proceeded to cut up the food. I shoved a forkful in front of her lips, half-expecting to have to force it into her mouth. But her lips parted and she snatched the food off, chewing greedily. And too fast.

“Slowly,” I cautioned, and filled the fork again, though with half as much food this time.

She devoured the entire plate, though it took quite a bit of time since I started to insist she wait in between bits, in part to make her wait, and partly because a stomach that empty could turn quickly—another fact I knew all too well.

I left when she was done, fully expecting her next feeding to go smoothly after getting past this first battle.

But I’d expected too much. With her body no longer weak from starvation, the fire in her reignited. She was in her corner in the bathroom with the shower running again when I returned, but the moment I walked in, the stubborn light shined bright in her eyes.

I didn’t relish the idea of leaving her with no food—she really did need it after so much time without. But when she glared back at me when I told her to kneel, she left me with no choice. So, I held off on dinner as long as I could and wheeled the cart right into the bathroom—where I knew she would be.

“Kneel,” I said, letting my fingers hover over the belt around my waist.

She glared at me, but she also did what she was told—a fucking miracle, given the same stubborn light had flashed in her eyes. It seemed then, with the way she’d moved quickly after the threat of the belt, that she feared physical discipline more than starvation. And that meant a firm hand would be what this one needed.

And I was more than happy to accommodate that need.