14

	For a prison cell, the room they’d put her in was reasonably comfortable.  There weren’t any bars, just a metal door with a heavy padlock on the outside, which Jacob had shown her before he’d locked her in.  It had a full-sized bed with clean sheets, and the legs had been cut off so it sat close to the floor.  There was a square of red carpet in the middle of the room so she didn’t have to stand on the bare stone floor, and red drapes on the one high window.  The walls were panelled with oak, and a vase with a single paper rose had been hung on a hook beside the door.  Beside the bed was a table with a glass pitcher of iced water, and a bowl holding a cloth, but her hands were still cuffed behind her back so she couldn’t drink or wash.
	She wanted to scream.  She wanted to kick at the door or knock the water pitcher over, just to break something, but that was what they expected her to do.  She was supposed to get angry so they could laugh at her.  So she sat on the edge of the bed, instead and worked on getting out of the cuffs.  Because she was smaller than most of the people in the city, the steel bracelets were looser on her wrists and she had worked one side down onto othe ball of her thumb.  If she could get her left hand free, she might be able to pick the lock on the other side, or at least defend herself.  But after she had gotten that far, she’d gotten stuck.
	She was about to switch and work on the other side for a while, when she heard the key click in the lock.  She stood up and turned to face it, so she could keep her hands hidden behind her back.  The door opened just enough for Marcus to slip into the room, and he left it ajar, to tease her.  He was shirtless, and dressed in only a pair of pants that were too tight around the crotch.  She could see that he was aroused, and he clearly enjoyed the fact that she’d noticed.  He smiled at her, and rubbed his muzzle with his fingers.
	“All healed now, as you can see.  But that doesn’t make up for the shirt.  It was silk and quite expensive,” he said.
	He came across the room and punched her in the nose.  The blow snapped her head back, and knocked her glasses off into a corner of the room.  She heard them break when they landed.  The pain in her muzzle made her head start to ache, but it made her angry, too.  She lunged at him, teeth bared, though the tears of pain in her eyes blinded her.
	He hit her again, because she was too blind now to dodge.  The blow drove her to the floor, and she felt sick with the sharp throbbing in her head.  She could feel herself bleeding and she felt the drops of blood hitting the front of her dress.
	“Real brave of you, hitting a girl with her arms behind her back.  Are you really that frightened of me?” she said.
	“Don’t talk.  There’s only one thing your mouth is good for, and you need to be reminded what that is,” he said.
	“I remember you rented me once.  I was sixteen, and I'd never been with anyone before,” she said.
	“You were cute then.  Sometimes I think it's a mistake to let any of your girls grow up.”
	“You were nearly twice my size, and so limp I couldn't feel anything.  You were scared of me,” she said.
	Her right hand slipped free of the shackles, and she brought her left arm around fast, aiming for Marcus's head.  The blow missed, and he was on top of her with his hands around her throat.  His claws dug into her skin, drawing little trickles of blood, and she could feel his excitement pressing against her through the fabric of his pants.  She scratched at his arms, but his fur was too thick fo her to hurt him.  He answered her by squeezing his fingers together until she couldn’t breathe, and he forced her to her knees.
	“I know what you've been doing.  I know how much you want to hurt me, but you're too weak.  You should have stuck to spreading your legs for money, and now I’m going to show you,” he said.
	The edges of her vision were growing dark, and all she could feel were his fingers and the bulge of his erection which was pressing against her mouth.  She could taste the blood from her broken nose dripping on her tongue, and the warm saltiness made her want to gag, but she didn't want to open her mouth.  She knew what would happen if she did.
	The cartilage in her neck crackled when he pulled her over to the bed and bent her backwards over it.  Pain shot down her right side, from her shoulder to her hip, and it brought fresh tears to her eyes.  He leaned down on top of her, holding her on the bed with his weight, and let go of her throat so she could breathe again.  She sucked in lungfuls of air, between fits of coughing, and she didn’t have the presence of mind to resist when he pulled her arms out from under her.  He fastened her shackles again, which left her chained to the bed.
	“If you tell me where Megan is, I might let you go,” he said.
	“You can’t have her.  I'm going to take her somewhere you can't touch her,” she said.
	“Not while you're shackled to my bed.  I don't ever have to let you go.”
	“You’re scared of me.  I can smell it.  You’re frightened of females, aren’t you?” she said.
	The little part of her that was still capable of rational thought knew she should keep quiet.  Her best chance of getting out of this was not to upset him.  She'd heard enough stories to be terrified of him, and of what he might do to her.  The last girl he'd kidnapped had been found floating in the bay with her stomach torn open.  But all of her carefully hidden anger was laid bare, and she could feel Alice urging her on.
	“This is the only way you can have someone, isn’t it?  That’s why you had to buy a slave.  You’re too much of a coward to get it any other way,” she said.
	He slapped her twice, and the second time he split her upper lip with the rings on his fingers.
	“I’m tired of hearing your voice.  I’m not scared of anyone, and if you ever tell a soul I’ll find you wherever you run,” he said.
	He raked his claws down the front of her body, and tore open the front of her dress to expose her breasts.  He bit her nipples to make her squeak with pain, and he shoved her dress up around her waist.  She had squeezed her legs together, but he kicked her ankles until she was forced to part them again.  Tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked them away, but he noticed the wetness rolling down her cheeks and he licked more out of the corners of her eyes as he shredded her panties.  He had sharpened his claws, and he left deep scratches down the side of her hip when he tore them off.
	She screamed when he entered her.  He laughed at her and squeezed her breasts, rolling her nipples painfully between his fingers.  She snapped at him again, everything forgotten but the desire to make him go away.  She caught his forearm in her teeth, before he could move it, and held on.  He howled, and she bit harder until his blood dribbled out of the corners of her mouth, but he didn't stop.
	“This is what I’m going to do to your little girl when I get her.  Just like this,” he said.
	His words came in harsh little gasps, every third one emphasized by a push forward.
	She twisted her head to rip at the wound.  He screamed and raised himself up to hit her again.  It wasn’t a hard blow, but it didn’t have to be.  His fist struck her nose again and she dropped back, to hurt and dizzy to fight anymore.
	When he climaxed, all she could feel was the heat between her legs as his semen squirted inside of her, and a fresh wave of pain as something in her shoulder tore.  It was an effort for her not to cry, and that embarrassed her.  This was no different from what had happened to her every day for most of her life, except that usually she got paid first.  But he had taken away her illusion of control and he knew how much that hurt her.
	When he was finished, he rolled off of her, and used the hem of her dress to wipe himself clean.  He zipped himself up and straightened her clothes in a gesture that, from anyone else, might have shown a touching concern.  She lay still, and didn't let herself so much as shiver at his touch.  She hadn’t thought that she could be any angrier, but a fresh fury welled up, until her chest ached with it.
	“Jacob will see you out.  If you’re nice to him, he might even give you a dollar on my behalf,” he said.
	She heard him get up and pour some water into the bowl.  He dipped the cloth and wrung it out, careless of whether the water ended up back in the bowl or on the floor.  He cleaned the blood out of his fur, grunting when he touched the places where she’d bitten him.  She was glad to have caused him that much pain, and she wanted to hurt him again so much that the frustration choked her.  When he was finished washing, he prodded her stomach with a finger.
	“You’re quite lucky.  There aren’t very many girls who can say they’ve had me twice.  And maybe you’ll have a little something to remember today by.  If you’re a good girl,” he said.
	She howled and lunged against the shackles, not caring how much it hurt if she  could get to him, but he was already gone.  All that was left was the stink of him on her fur and in the air, blotting out the smell of perfume.  She continued to struggled, ignoring the sharp tearing pains in her shoulder or around her wrists, until Jacob put a hand on her knee.
	“What good will that do?  He’s done with you, and that’s your good fortune.  You get to go home again,” he said.
	“I’ll kill him.  And I’ll kill you, too, for bringing me to him,” she said.
	“Is that really how you want to end your life?” Jacob said.
	Jacob knelt down by the side of the bed and balanced her glasses on her muzzle.  One lens was cracked, but it was a relief to be able to see again.  He fumbled under the bed for a minute, and she felt the chains around her wrists let loose.  She rolled off the bed with a snarl, wanting to bite him, but she ended up on the floor, retching, as the muscles in her legs and stomach cramped up.
	The pain passed slowly, until she was able to pull herself up onto her knees.  Jacob helped her the rest of the way up, and led her over to the night table.  He picked up the cloth to wash her, but she slapped it out of his hand.  Then she picked up the pitcher and drank.  
	The water was clean, and cold, and that was what she needed.  Water couldn’t do anything about the burning between her legs, but it washed away the taste of the blood.  It also meant that she was holding a heavy piece of glass that could be used as a club.  She spun fast, and brought the pitcher around in a shallow arc.  
	Jacob caught her arm before she could connect and clucked his tongue at her while waggling a finger under her nose.
	“Go away, Miss Bryar.  Give yourself some time to calm down before you do something stupid.  Maybe you should go to Hope Street and pray to God to save you from your sins,” he said.
	“My sins?” she said.
	“You tempt others into lust.  Don't pretend you didn't want this just as much as Marcus did,” he said.
	He put the pitcher back on the table and twisted her arm behind her back.  With one arm injured already, she couldn’t risk having this one hurt as well.  He pushed her out of the room and down a narrow, poorly lit hall to a metal door.  It had been poorly hung, and cold air leaked in through the cracks.  Jacob opened it with a kick, and pushed her out into the snow.
	“Better hold on to any clever thoughts you might be having.  This isn’t a nice part of the city, and there’s nothing so tempting as a soft target,” he said, and he slammed the door.
	She stood on the steps for the space of a few breaths, getting herself back together.  Then she stepped down, into the street.