"Now," Camille said, her voice regaining its absolute, crushing authority. "Fetch the kit."
The command was a physical shove. It snapped the strange, suspended moment of intimacy in half, replacing the wet, breathing silence with the cold architecture of their contract.
Yanna scrambled back, her sneakers squeaking on the black rubber floor. The distance between them felt sudden and freezing. "Yes. Yes, Ma'am."
She didn't need to ask where it was. The location of emergency supplies was listed in the sub-clauses of the household manual she had been forced to memorize in the library. Master Bathroom. Vanity. Lower Cabinet.
Yanna turned and ran. Her knees, still screaming from the munggo beans, buckled with every step, sending jagged bolts of fire up her thighs. But she didn't slow down. The image of Camille's hand—that ruined, weeping meat—was burned into her retinas.
She navigated the labyrinth of the penthouse, bursting into the master bathroom. It was the room from her vision. The room from the future. The marble was white and cold, the panoramic window lashed by the ghost of a storm that hadn't happened yet. She fell to her knees before the sink, wrenching open the cabinet.
There it was. The kit. It wasn't a family box of plasters; it was a gray, tactical case. A trauma kit. Yanna grabbed it, the handle cold in her palm, and sprinted back.
When she re-entered the gym, the air had grown heavier. The smell of iron was thicker now, coagulating in the humidity.
Camille hadn't moved. She sat on the bench, her legs spread in a display of unconscious, terrifying dominance. Her chest was still heaving, the sweat drying on her skin in a sticky glaze. She looked like a king resting on a battlefield, indifferent to the gore on her own body.
Yanna approached slowly, the kit clutched to her chest like a shield. She knelt between Camille's legs—the designated spot, the altar.
"Open it," Camille ordered, not looking down. Her head was tipped back, staring at the ceiling.
Yanna set the case on the floor and unlatched it. Inside, everything was militarily precise. Gauze. Antiseptics. Sutures. She reached for the saline solution and a packet of sterile gauze. Her hands were shaking so bad she almost dropped the bottle.
"Steady," Camille murmured. It wasn't reassurance; it was a calibration instruction.
Yanna took a breath. She reached out and took Camille's right hand. It was heavy, hot, and limp. The swelling had worsened in the few minutes Yanna had been gone; the knuckles were shapeless purple mounds, the skin burst open in ragged, weeping craters.
"This is going to sting," Yanna whispered, the words automatic, a ghost of the bedside manner she used for her sister.
Camille just smirked at the ceiling. "Pain is information, Yanna. Do it."
Yanna poured the saline. The liquid washed over the raw wounds, mixing with the blood and dripping onto the black floor. Camille didn't flinch. Her pulse, which Yanna could feel thrumming against her fingertips, didn't even skip a beat. She accepted the sting as if it were a tithe she was owed.
Yanna dabbed at the cuts with the gauze. The white fabric turned red instantly. She worked with frantic delicacy, terrified of causing more damage, yet mesmerized by the destruction. How much force did it take to do this to oneself? How much rage had to be stored in a human body to drive a fist through leather and skin and bone?
She cleaned the index knuckle. Then the middle. She wrapped them efficiently, her movements becoming fluid, muscle memory taking over.
When she finished, she didn't let go. She held the bandaged hand in hers, hovering in the space between service and something else.
Camille's head snapped down.
Those amber eyes locked onto Yanna's. They were clear now. The berserker fog had lifted, replaced by a razor-sharp, predatory focus. She looked at her bandaged hand, then at Yanna's trembling fingers holding it.
"You have a gentle touch," Camille said softly. "For a girl who sharpens her nails like shivs."
Yanna flinched, pulling her hand back, but Camille was faster. Her left hand—the uninjured one, the one wrapped in the dragon—shot out and gripped Yanna's chin.
The grip was iron. It forced Yanna's head up, exposing her throat.
"I didn't say you were finished," Camille purred.
"I... the wound is dressed, Ma'am," Yanna stammered, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. "The bleeding stopped."
"The hand is dressed," Camille corrected. "But the body... the body is still in distress. The body is full of lactic acid. The body is cooling too fast."
She leaned forward. A drop of sweat fell from her chin and landed on Yanna's cheek. It was hot. It burned like holy water.
"You massaged the muscle," Camille whispered, her thumb stroking Yanna's jawline, a parody of tenderness. "But you didn't finish the job. You left the tension there. You left the heat there."
She released Yanna's chin and sat back, opening her arms wide, displaying the magnificent, wrecked landscape of her torso.
"Worship it."
The command hung in the air, absolute and obscene.
Yanna blinked, her brain short-circuiting. "W-what?"
"You heard me," Camille said, her voice dropping to a low, gravelly timbre that vibrated in Yanna's stomach. "You are the acquisition. You are the resource. I have just expended a great deal of energy. I require... restoration."
She pointed to her own abs. The muscles were rigid, defined blocks of power, slick with sweat and oil. The dragon tattoo on her ribs seemed to be watching Yanna, its ink eyes glistening.
"Taste," Camille commanded.
Yanna's world narrowed down to the patch of skin in front of her. Taste.
This is insanity, the scholar in her brain screamed. This is not in the contract. This is degradation. This is the biopolitical reduction of the subject to a biological function. Foucault would call this the ultimate subjugation—the body of the sovereign consuming the dignity of the subject.
But her body wasn't listening to Foucault. Her body was reacting to the pheromones flooding the small room. The smell of Camille—that overpowering, primal musk of exertion and iron—was bypassing her logic centers and hitting something reptilian in her brainstem.
She was terrified. She was repulsed. And god help her, she was electric.
Yanna leaned forward. She felt like she was moving through molasses. She closed her eyes to shut out the humiliation, but that only heightened the other senses. The heat radiating from Camille was a furnace.
She pressed her lips to the center of Camille's abdomen.
Salt.
It was the first thing she registered. The sharp, mineral tang of dried sweat. Then, the texture. The skin was hot and incredibly smooth, but beneath it, the rectus abdominis was hard as armored plating. It twitched against her lips, a microscopic spasm of reaction.
"Open your mouth," Camille instructed. "Don't just peck at me like a bird. Use your tongue."
Yanna whimpered. It was a sound of pure defeat. She parted her lips. She extended her tongue.
She licked.
It was a long, slow drag up the valley between the abdominal muscles. She tasted the salt, the soap, the metallic tang of the room. She felt the rough texture of the ink as her tongue crossed the tail of the dragon.
Camille exhaled—a sharp hiss of breath. Her thighs tightened, boxing Yanna in.
"Good," Camille whispered. "Again. Higher."
Yanna obeyed. She had no choice. She was a machine built for obedience. She moved up, tracing the line of the linea alba. She licked the sweat from the solar plexus. She felt the heavy, rhythmic thud of Camille's heart beating against her own mouth. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It was hypnotic. With every lap of her tongue, Yanna felt herself getting smaller, dissolving into the floor. And with every inch she cleaned, Camille seemed to grow larger, more mythical. She was cleaning an idol. She was anointing a god.
She reached the sternum. The tattoo here was dense—black scales, sharp claws. Yanna kissed the ink. She licked the dragon's teeth.
"The scars," Camille said. Her voice was strained now, tight with a tension that wasn't just physical.
Yanna pulled back slightly, looking up. Camille was looking down at her, eyes half-lidded, lips parted. She looked wrecked. She looked ecstatic.
"The scars on my ribs," Camille clarified, guiding Yanna's head with a firm hand on the back of her neck. "They ache."
Yanna looked at the serratus muscles on Camille's left side. There, amidst the ink of the dragon, were three parallel white lines. Old cuts. Deep ones.
Yanna pressed her lips to the scars. The tissue was different here—smoother, raised, devoid of hair or pore. It was dead tissue on a living canvas. She kissed them gently, reverently. She traced them with the tip of her tongue, soothing the phantom pain of a wound that had healed years ago.
Camille's hand tightened in Yanna's hair. She didn't pull; she anchored. She held Yanna there, pressing her face into the wet skin.
"Do you know what those are?" Camille asked, her voice a breathless rasp.
Yanna shook her head against the skin, her nose brushing the underwire of the sports bra.
"Failures," Camille whispered. "Reminders. Every time I hesitated. Every time I let sentiment get in the way of necessity. My father... he believes in tactile learning."
The horror of it washed over Yanna, cold and sobering. Her father. The man on the board. The man who held Maya's life in his hands. He had done this? Or he had made her do it?
"Kiss the failure away, Yanna," Camille commanded, her voice cracking. "Make it clean."
Yanna did. She licked the scars with a desperate fervor. She wasn't just obeying a master now; she was comforting a survivor. The line between them blurred. Who was the victim here? The girl kneeling on the floor, or the woman who had been carved up to become a weapon?
Yanna's hands came up, resting tentatively on Camille's thighs. The muscles jumped under her palms. The sheer power in those legs was terrifying—Camille could crush Yanna's skull between her knees if she wanted to. But she didn't. She stayed open. Vulnerable.
"Higher," Camille groaned. "The neck. The pulse."
Yanna crawled up. She rose on her bruised knees, ignoring the stab of pain. She was eye-level with the throat now. The carotid artery was pulsing visibly, a frantic fluttering beneath the pale skin.
Yanna pressed her open mouth over the pulse point. She sucked. Not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to claim. She felt the lifeblood rushing through the vein, the erratic, chaotic rhythm of Camille Navarro's existence.
Camille's head fell back completely. A sound escaped her throat—a low, animalistic moan that shattered the last of Yanna's resistance.
It wasn't sexual. It was more than sexual. It was cannibalistic. It was one soul trying to consume the other. Yanna felt a heat bloom between her own legs, wet and shameful. She hated herself for it. She hated that her body recognized this monster as a mate. She hated that being owned felt so much like being held.
I am a void, she thought, repeating Camille's words from the office. I am a hollow thing waiting to be filled.
And she was being filled. She was being filled with Camille's taste, Camille's scent, Camille's pain.
She moved to the jawline. She licked the sweat dripping from Camille's ear. She kissed the sharp, aristocratic line of the mandible.
Camille's hand—the uninjured one—slid down from Yanna's hair to her throat. She gripped.
It wasn't a choke. It was a brace. Her thumb pressed into Yanna's windpipe, just enough to remind her who controlled the air in the room.
"Look at me," Camille whispered.
Yanna pulled back, gasping. She looked.
Camille's face was inches away. Her eyes were blown wide, dark pools of abyss. Her lips were red, swollen, wet. She looked beautiful. She looked like the end of the world.
"You like this," Camille accused. It wasn't a question. "You are trembling, little scholar. But you aren't pulling away."
"I..." Yanna's voice failed her. "I'm doing... what you said."
"You are doing more than I said," Camille murmured. She leaned in, brushing her lips against Yanna's ear. "You are enjoying the taste of the boot."
Yanna squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking out. "No."
"Yes," Camille hissed. She bit Yanna's earlobe—sharp, sudden pain that made Yanna gasp. "You crave the structure. You crave the gravity. You were drifting out there in the world, drowning in your choices. Here? You just have to kneel. You just have to serve. It's quiet, isn't it?"
It was. God, it was so quiet. No math. No invoices. No medicine prices. Just the smell of sweat and the pressure of a thumb on her throat.
"You are disgusting," Yanna whispered, the rebellion weak and wet.
"I am necessary," Camille countered.
She released Yanna's throat. She placed her hand on Yanna's chest, over her heart. She could feel it pounding.
"My hand," Camille said, her voice shifting back to business, the moment of vulnerability snapping shut like a steel trap. "It throbs."
Yanna blinked, disoriented by the sudden shift. "I... I can get ice."
"No ice," Camille said. She grabbed Yanna's hand and pulled it to her mouth.
She kissed Yanna's palm. Then, she opened her mouth and bit down on the fleshy part of Yanna's thumb.
It wasn't deep enough to draw blood, but it was hard. It was a brand.
"You are the ice," Camille mumbled against Yanna's skin. "You are the distraction."
She pulled Yanna's hand down, placing it on her own thigh, right next to the bandaged ruin of her knuckles.
"We are going to sit here," Camille stated, staring straight ahead at the black wall. "I am going to come down from this high. And you..."
She looked at Yanna from the corner of her eye, a flicker of cruel amusement returning to her gaze.
"...you are going to stay exactly where you are. On your knees. touching me. Until I tell you that you exist again."
"How long?" Yanna breathed.
"Until the heat leaves my body," Camille said. "Or until you beg. Whichever comes first."
Yanna slumped against the bench, her head resting on Camille's uninjured thigh. She was exhausted. She was confused. She was terrified.
But she didn't leave. She didn't pull away. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of her owner.
I polish the silver, she thought, the mantra returning. I pay the debt. I survive.
But a new variable had entered the equation. A variable that terrified her more than the debt.
I like the taste.
They stayed like that for an hour. The silence of the gym returned, heavy and suffocating. The only sound was their synchronized breathing.
Finally, Camille stirred. The heat had indeed faded from her skin, leaving her cool and marble-hard once more. She pushed Yanna's head off her thigh with a casual indifference, as if moving a cushion.
She stood up. The movement was stiff, the adrenaline gone, leaving only the injury. She cradled her bandaged hand against her chest.
She looked down at Yanna, who was curled on the floor, a heap of black clothes and trembling exhaustion.
"Go," Camille said.
Yanna looked up, dazed. "Ma'am?"
"Get out of my sight," Camille said, her voice flat, bored. "You've served your purpose. You're messy again."
She turned and walked toward the door, her silhouette sharp against the dim light of the corridor. She paused at the threshold, her hand hovering over the light switch.
"Oh, and Yanna?"
Yanna scrambled to her feet, clutching the medical kit like a lifeline. "Yes?"
Camille didn't look back. Her voice floated through the darkness, a hook sinking into Yanna's flesh, pulling her into the next nightmare.
"Tomorrow, wear the skirt. The short one. We have a dinner with the board."
The lights clicked off.
"I want them to see exactly what I own."