Each lash was measured—pain given shape but never allowed to turn cruel. Tears spilled down Selene's temples as her body writhed, her cries echoing in the dim chamber.
"Good," Alistair murmured, pausing to admire the crimson bands across her torso. "You endure so well."
It hurt at first—sharp, unfamiliar, almost unbearable—but the pain did not last. It softened until it melted into something far more dangerous.
Pleasure followed, slow and intoxicating, threading itself through her senses in a way Selene—or the soul bound within her—had never known before.
It was a new kind of pleasure, unsettling in its intensity, awakening something dormant inside her. She did not yet understand it, did not wish to admit it… but she knew, with a quiet certainty, that this was a sensation she would come to crave.
Alistair set the strap aside and reached for something small, metallic—a clamp of gleaming silver.
Selene's breath hitched.
"What… is that for?" she whispered.
