25 - #TeaserThursday Excerpt from a "draft" chapter

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A/N: Well, technically, I was never specific about the draft originating from a chapter of an ongoing series...so, loopholes? 😜

This excerpt contains material that may be disturbing to some viewers. Reader discretion is advised.

I stopped counting when my body became too weak to recoil. The nerves around my spine withered into numbness with each brutal blow. Tears pooled at the cinching rope suffocating my neck, and rapid breaths fanned against my cheeks. I pushed aside claustrophobia, concentrating on the strained tendons tearing at my shoulder sockets chilled from blood loss.

A particularly cruel downstroke slayed my resolve; I screamed bloody fucking murder. But they whipped harder, faster, relentlessly vicious in their pursuit of my pain. Even when my voice strangled to a thin rasp, they sought blood like the leeches they were.

"Please." I whimpered. "No more."

The lashes ceased, mercy triggered by something as simple as pleading for a reprieve.

Series of laboured breaths muddled with incoherent cries as flames permeated the fuming welts. Shuddering with perspiration, I winced when the collared rope loosened and the sack lifted. Light stung my eyes like a thousand bees.

"It's over. They're gone," Pepper said.

Bowing to gravity, my toes touched first, and my eyes rolled back once my soles landed and knees buckled. Once he laid me on the floor, I cocooned against the freezing tiles.

"You need to roll over."

I unravelled, submitting to Pepper's calm voice and rest with cement beneath my front. Swift movement caught my peripheral, and my spine zipped straight, instinct bracing for another wallop.

"Take it easy, kid," Pepper coaxed my bruised trust. "You're done for today." His hand hovered my forehead after looping my hair behind my ear. "I need to clean you up. Hold still."

Vision blurring with dizzy questions, my pulsing back kept me borderline conscious. Deliriously, my cheek scraped against the cement, writhing from the humidity pinching my welts.

Working in tandem with my fighting, Pepper operated without complaint. "Bite down on this." Picking up my chin, he worked my jaw, and wedged the threadbare cloth between my lips before promptly counting down. "One."

My eyes bulged and I clenched the sweaty, blood stained hand towel soaking up my strangled sobs. Flopping and twisting like a fish on a dock, tears flooded my eyes as my back boiled with protest.

"Okay, okay! We're done. I promise." With deft motions, Pepper propped me up without brushing my welts. "Shh. Just relax. It's over." He found a part of my forehead untouched by the slick oil of perspiration and palmed it.

As strange as it seemed, I didn't scuttle across the room, shrieking with terror that yet another lash would swing out of left field. Drunk with toe-curling agony, my body craved a semblance of comfort, even if it was from him.

Resting my ear on Pepper's shoulder, soft-spoken words lulled me from panic-ridden to exhaustion as we rocked.

He stopped caressing my hair and careful hands prodded my thighs.

My knees sealed on command as fear rushed through my veins.

Pepper whispered, "I'm just going to straighten out your legs. That's all."

Dropping my defences, I let him spread them even as spiders prickled my nerve-endings.

"You're okay." Pepper pecked my scalp. "Relax."

With no choice, my vision spaced like a morning tide on the shore, and I slipped under, into the deep blue nothing then surfaced. Listening to the tempo of my shallow heartbeat, Pepper cupped that special spot again.

Tears swelled when he suddenly twisted, his shoulder jostling a particularly large welt. Squeezing my eyes shut, sweat corralled my nape, but once he righted himself, I released my breath.

"I know you're in a lot of pain right now. I see it in your tensed body. Fuck, I feel it." He breathed, his chest tightening as he squared his shoulders. "You're not going to like what I'm about to do, but if I don't, you'll never find any relief."

I processed his offer but remained mute with his fingers palming that ring just left of my temple summoning peace. Blinking nice and slow, a whiff of sharp alcohol nipped my nostrils and smooth glass bumped the seam of my lips. My mind careened into awareness, recognising his intentions, and I flinched away.

"No, I'm not going to let you suffer just because you hate the taste." Gripping my chin, Pepper weaselled the rim past my lips.