Being raped by a human wreck of a woman is like being forced to shoot heroin against your will.

  The Mediator was in the kitchen.

  It was a spacious room, more functional than lavish, yet clearly designed to impress. Mauve still dominated, though with less arrogance than in the bedroom—muted, diluted into pale walls and heavy drapes that filtered a milky light.

  The floor was polished dark stone, warm underfoot.

  At the center stood a massive table, carved from a single slab of veined wood, large enough to host a small war council. Around it, sturdy chairs with simple, enduring lines.

  Along the walls, irregular shelves held opaque glass containers, utensils of ambiguous purpose, objects that seemed suspended somewhere between the ritualistic and the domestic.

  A kitchen from a civilized world, yes.

  His body had almost fully regenerated.

  He was wearing a pair of house trousers made of fine fabric by this world’s standards. They were one of those garments he kept around for when Audrey felt like a sex marathon. Often he didn’t end up using all of them, and over time they had piled up.

  He also had on a cheap but soft nightshirt.

  The only part of his body that still hurt was his penis—a dull, throbbing pain that hammered relentlessly at his lower abdomen.

  He was drinking straight from the bottle, some Varn, an amber-violet liquor, strong and sweetish, typical of those regions.

  He sat down.

  He sighed.

  He still hadn’t understood why Audrey had gotten angry.

  It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d been “kidnapped” just for fun, but this time, judging by what she’d done to him in bed, it seemed like he’d seriously fucked up.

  The last task she had assigned him was to break Katherina’s spirit—a woman who, for reasons unknown to him, got deeply under her skin.

  And he had broken it permanently.

  She had never explicitly said to keep her alive.

  He hadn’t violated the instructions.

  So what the fuck did she want?

  Useless to think about it.

  Impossible to understand.

  Katherina.

  Her calm face came back to him, just before she kicked the bucket.

  That day he had managed to take control, even while fighting for the throne with Psycho-Mike, who sometimes got the upper hand. The decision to kill her had been his.

  At the time, he didn’t regret it.

  And yet the guilt was there, heavy.

  The Mediator admired her. He might even have fallen for her.

  A sharp, educated, proud woman. Sometimes reckless, sometimes judicious.

  But he couldn’t leave her alive.

  Maybe his methods had been wrong.

  But how could he not feel resentment toward her, after she had allowed a rat like Psycho-Mike to shatter her fighting spirit?

  On the panoramic pergola he had despised her deeply.

  A woman who was genuinely changing the world for the better in just five years, reduced to a wreck in barely a week.

  And yet, in the end, he regretted not having at least told her that, in part, she was right about what was happening inside that brain.

  Or even just having talked about something else.

  He had even thought about letting her escape.

  But Audrey would have found her in the blink of an eye.

  Katherina.

  He shook his head firmly, as if to dislodge the memory, when the last words he’d spoken to her resurfaced.

  He rubbed his face with his right hand.

  What a fucking idiot I am.

  At least she wouldn’t be abused by that bastard anymore.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He would have gone on for who knows how long.

  Poor thing.

  If only I had managed to step in sooner.

  Audrey walked into the kitchen.

  She was wearing a mauve dress, short and tight, cut high on the thighs, with no concessions to modesty. The fabric clung to her body like a second skin, following her curves with an almost arrogant ease. That saturated mauve—more vivid, more carnal than the shade dominating the room—seemed deliberately chosen to seize the eye and refuse to let it go.

  On her feet she wore high heels—yes, high heels existed in that world—sleek, unstable just enough to make every step feel like a promise.

  She had taken care with her hair, letting it fall softly over her shoulders, and she had put on makeup: nothing excessive, but enough to bring out her eyes and lips.

  On her face, a radiant smile. Genuine. Disarming.

  She stopped in front of him.

  Then she slowly turned on herself, theatrical, and said,

  “Ta-dan! What do you think?”

  She planted her hands on her hips, striking a pose.

  Jesus Christ, she’s hot, the Mediator thought.

  His cock tried to stiffen.

  The response was immediate: a stab of pain so sharp it tore a groan out of him.

  She looked concerned.

  As if she weren’t the same fucking whore who had caused those injuries.

  She stepped closer and took his head between her hands.

  “Aww. Poor thing. Want a little kiss on your dick?”

  She bit her lip.

  Her breasts—full, right there at the snap of a finger.

  Damned bitch, he thought, forcing himself not to touch her.

  He didn’t want to touch her.

  He wanted to touch her.

  He didn’t want to want her.

  He wanted to kill her.

  Right there. On the spot.

  “No,” he said.

  “As you wish.”

  She ruffled his hair with her right hand and straightened up.

  “Where are you going dressed like that?” he asked, without thinking.

  “I have a date.”

  “And with who?”

  He asked it knowing she wouldn’t answer—and that even if she did, she wouldn’t be reliable.

  “Are you jealous?” she giggled. “How cute.”

  She bit her lip again.

  What if she wants to do it again with me?

  Go away, bitch.

  He frowned as the thought crossed his mind.

  “Are you really jealous?” she asked, surprised.

  “No.”

  She sat on his legs, turning her left side toward him.

  With her left hand she stroked his hair.

  His cock was on fire. In every sense.

  “Well, you don’t need to be. You’re my favorite little slave. I’d never deprive myself of you,” she said gently.

  Damned. Damned.

  The arousal kept building.

  “I told you I’m not jealous. Go out with whoever the fuck you want.”

  “I’m going out with a man.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Her face moved closer until it was a breath away from the Mediator’s.

  She smiled.

  The Mediator held his breath.

  Then Audrey suddenly stood up.

  “Well. Actually, I still have quite a bit of time, you know? They’re coming to pick me up. They let me know a little while ago.”

  What? He thought.

  “How did they let you know?” He said.

  She looked at him, surprised.

  “These aren’t things a nobody like you would ever need to know.”

  She gave her ass two light pats, as if brushing off something only she had noticed.

  “You should know that.”

  Fucking dickhead.

  Anger gave him courage.

  “But knowing why you brought me here, after killing all my men, I think I’m owed that, don’t you?”

  “Oooh. Is the boring little puppy still a bit angry? How cute.”

  She pinched his left cheek.

  “Nothing is owed to a slave. Isn’t your position clear yet, cockroach?”

  Her tone changed abruptly.

  She bent down until her face was right in front of his.

  “How can I be a good slave if I can’t learn from my mistakes?”

  “Mmh. That’s true. I should scold you, as well as punish you, to be a good mistress.”

  She paused.

  “But do you know the nice thing about being masters?”

  She grabbed him by the hair.

  The slap landed hard and clean, violent enough to stun him.

  She flung him to the floor without effort, like tossing a pillow.

  “That we don’t have to obey any shitty rules.”

  She stared down at him while tapping his ass lightly with the heel of her right shoe.

  The Mediator didn’t dare get up.

  He should have kept his mouth shut.

  She stopped tapping him with the heel and began pressing hard into his right buttock.

  Shit.

  What the fuck is wrong with me? the Mediator thought.

  Don’t skewer me with the heel. Please.

  The session of abuse he had been subjected to had drained his willpower.

  Not simple fatigue, but a genuine case of ego depletion.

  Because of this, within his compartmentalized self, one of the compartments began to move.

  Not deliberately, not consciously — but by inertia, the way something takes over not because it chooses to, but because there is suddenly space.

  The Mediator was being stripped of authority.

  Not by choice.

  Not by error.

  But because, in that moment, he no longer had enough resources left to stay in control.

  He begged her mentally.

  Audrey didn’t stop.

  She stared at him with a grim, hard look that clashed violently with her face.

  “Do you want to know what the fuck-up you committed was?” she asked, without easing the pressure, keeping the heel planted there, steady, deliberate—enough to make him fear for that cheek.

  But the Mediator was gone.

  In his place there was only a whimpering guy, looking at her as if he needed comfort, irrationally convinced that she could provide it.

  She lifted the heel.

  She looked at him with sudden affection.

  She crouched down.

  She stroked his hair.

  Proto-Mike calmed down.

  She pressed a firm kiss to his cheek.

  “Easy, love. Everything’s fine now. I’m here with you.”

  She hugged him.

  He closed his eyes.

  Then she let go of him abruptly.

  She stood up.

  Stared down at him with that same grim look.

  For a long time.

  Proto-Mike’s eyes filled with tears.

  He didn’t understand.

  He didn’t understand why she had changed so suddenly.

  She had seemed so kind.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  She said nothing.

  The faint echo of Audrey’s restrained brutality left a window of opportunity open for the other fragments of the self.

  Psycho-Mike was still dormant.

  The Mediator was therefore able to exploit that chance to regain control, even though his own self-control was also steadily running out.

  A rictus.

  A sudden transition of micro-expressions.

  They looked at each other.

  “Still you?” Audrey said, irritated, huffing.

  She figured it out immediately, huh?

  Is the difference really that obvious?

  Shit.

  Proto-Mike lost ground again.

  Not that much, thankfully.

  But at this rate, he’ll be devoured.

  How could I have been so careless.

  Fuck.

  She sat down on the same chair he had been sitting on.

  Crossed her legs.

  Grabbed the bottle of varn resting on the table and took a sip.

  Then she scoffed, eyes drifting away.

  Finally, she turned back and looked him in the eyes.

  “Sit on the floor, with your back against the cabinet behind you.”

  He obeyed.

  “I need to talk to you about why you’re here.”

  Really? the Mediator thought.

  “It was only natural for you to think I was angry with you. And I did everything I could to make you believe that.”

  She paused briefly.

  “But in truth, you didn’t do anything truly wrong.”

  Another sip.

  “Sure, I never told you that you were allowed to kill that insolent Slavic woman. I would have preferred for Katherina to stay alive a little longer.”

  She glanced at him sideways.

  “Maybe to kill her with my own hands.”

  She shrugged.

  “But this works too. After all, I never told you otherwise.”

  As usual, she had sidestepped his expectations.

  Now he was genuinely, fervently curious to know why he was there. It didn’t seem like she simply wanted to toy with his nerves.

  But seeming was a verb best discarded when dealing with her.

  “Do you remember Anton?” she asked abruptly, after a brief silence — just long enough, it seemed, to decide where to begin.

  Hearing that name opened an abrupt corridor: a neural shortcut that allowed an engram long relegated to the margins of the connectome to reach the prefrontal cortex.

  A sketch of a memory surfaced — and immediately crumbled.

  A surge of melancholy, mixed with nostalgia, rose inside him.

  He felt his absence.

  It was an unusually muted sensation compared to the intensity those moments usually carried — yet at the same time more vivid, more pleasant, than anything he had felt in the past two years.

  “Anton… yes, of course…” the Mediator said. “I don’t remember much, but I feel he was a close friend of mine before I ended up here. Actually — I don’t feel it. I know it.”

  He looked at her, slightly dazed.

  Then, recovering from the emotional jolt, his gaze hardened.

  “Fantastic,” she said. “I suspected his memory hadn’t been erased yet.”

  She smiled.

  “Then I have some great news for you.”

  She picked up the bottle and drank again.

  A long sip.

  Actually, more than one.

  A small burp — oddly elegant.

  “Fuck. This drink is really good.”

  She set the bottle back on the table.

  The Mediator waited, restless.

  She stretched the pause deliberately, as if pulling on an invisible string.

  “Anton, huh? You miss him?”

  “Of course I miss him.”

  “But you hardly remember anything about him.”

  “I remember that I miss him.”

  “Yeah… you see…”

  Audrey picked up the bottle and held it up against the light.

  She turned it slightly, as if assessing its color.

  “You know what the problem with incomplete memories is?” she said distractedly.

  “They always seem more important than the complete ones.”

  She paused briefly.

  “Anyway. The great news is that… well, how should I put it. Anton is dead. There. I finally said it. Happy?”

  She was smiling, beatifically.

  What?

  That word detonated inside him like a bioelectric earthquake.

  He was incredulous. It couldn’t be true. How could she know?

  But the emotional wave that followed swept away every attempt at rationalization, every effort to deny her credibility.

  It was so unfair.

  Why?

  Fuck. Why?

  He covered his face with his hands.

  And began to cry.