Darkness.
That was all Tara knew as the black leather blindfold pressed against her eyes. The surface was cold, stiff, and clung tightly to her temples. Beneath the hide, beads of sweat began to surface, tracing a slow path down the side of her face. Their rhythm matched the frantic thrumming of her heart—a wild thing hammering against a ribcage that felt far too small.
Her wrists were lashed to the armrests with leather cords, slick and freezing. They lacked the coarse bite of hemp, yet their rigid grip bit into her skin with a punishing precision. Her ankles were mirrored in their captivity, locked to the chair's legs. She sat frozen, caught between the unyielding wood and the leather that claimed her—there was no gap, no lapse, no hope for flight.
From across the void of the room, footsteps approached. Measured, rhythmic, they echoed like the ticking of a clock counting down her final seconds. Tara wanted to turn, to pin down the source of the sound, but her neck was paralyzed by the sheer weight of the tension.
Then—
Whish!
The lash sliced through the air. It didn't find her skin—not yet—but the mere ghost of it made her spine snap straight. Her breath hitched, snagging in her throat. Her fingertips white-knuckled the cold arms of the chair. She knew, logically, that the strike hadn't landed... and yet, her body reacted as if the predator's teeth were already at her throat.
"Are you afraid?"
That voice. Deep, calm, and sharp enough to draw blood.
Tara bit her lip, desperate to anchor her trembling. Her tongue felt like lead. She wanted to say no, to cloak herself in a lie of bravery, but all that escaped was a broken, raspy sound.
The man let out a low, dark chuckle. Close. Far too close. He snapped the whip through the air again, the repetition coaxing a violent shudder from her frame.
"You're shaking. And yet, you haven't begged me to stop."
Tara swallowed hard. She couldn't deny it. There was something in this twisted game that made her want to bolt, yet an invisible tether kept her rooted. It was as if a blackened door had swung open before her—and she, out of either pure idiocy or a reckless kind of courage, was choosing to step through.
Crack!
The whip collided with the wooden backrest, a mere inch from her shoulder. Tara jolted, a stifled shriek dying in her throat. The leather bindings tightened against her skin—slick, relentless, reminding her of the absolute truth: she had nowhere else to go.
The man laughed again, deeper this time, vibrating with a dark satisfaction.
"Good," he whispered, his tone almost sweet, yet edged like a blade. "I admire your spine."
A heavy silence followed, thick enough to drown in. The only sound was the roar of blood in Tara's ears.
Then, she felt it—gloved fingers hooking under her chin, tilting her blindfolded face upward. The touch was light, but the authority behind it was absolute. Tara was powerless to resist.
He took his time. He traced the curve of her cheek with the back of his hand, intentionally smearing the bead of sweat that trailed down her skin. Tara's breath seized as she felt his warm lips press against the shell of her ear, slowly tasting the salt of her fear.
Her entire body convulsed. A visceral sensation—a jagged cocktail of revulsion, terror, and a foreign heat she had never known—jolted down to the base of her spine.
Outside those walls, in some distant world, the night likely carried on as usual. But inside this room, time had bled to a halt.
And Tara knew, with a sinking clarity, that she had just crossed a threshold from which there was no turning back.