I couldn’t say anything. “Lick!” She commanded, so I did. As soon as I relaxed into her, the next blow came. I imagined a crowd of Amazons surrounding me, jeering at me, laughing at my helplessness. Fire beneath my skin, fire driving deeper and deeper, pain so pure that it drove everything out of my mind, everything but the pain and my scream and the pure white light of nerves pushed beyond what they could endure. Whoever had me in their mouth gave me a hard bite, adding to the pain before spitting me out. “You’re particularly good at that. Defiance seemed clever at the time. Nothing happened for an indeterminate amount of time. It was the voice of a woman with violence in her very bones. I felt him attach something to the chains on my wrists and then they were slowly pulled above my head, until the pressure in my shoulders pulled me onto my tiptoes.
