Angela was too afraid of saying the wrong thing, to say a single word to Eztli, following their most recent conversation. For the longest time, all she could think about was the warning he gave her and that kept ringing out inside her mind, loud and clear, "If you don't complete your transformation, fräulein, I will kill you myself." Did he know how terrified those words made her? She believed he did, indeed she felt certain he derived a kind of dark satisfaction from her terror, because he kept smirking at her, each time he caught her stealing glances at him. The look of cool superiority in his amazing vampire eyes, coupled with the subtle twist of his perfect lips, was simply breathtaking, causing her steps to falter on more than one occasion, as she followed him from one darkened alleyway to another, in search of prey.
This, then, explained why Angela never considered running away, despite how terrified she felt. The pull Eztli exerted on her was far too strong to allow such thoughts to form in her head, keeping her leashed to him more securely than if he had shackled her and placed her in chains. She could feel this bond clearly, though she could not see it. All she could see, while glancing at him furtively in the darkness, was his clean profile, the masculine angle of his jawline, and those wicked lips twisting upward in a smile. No, not a smile. A smirk.
"Try and keep up, fräulein," he said, on catching her staring at him yet again. "We still have some way to go, and the night is almost over."
She wanted to ask him where they were going and why they could not take the train, or a taxi, but her fear of him held her back. No stupid questions, Angela. She told herself, firmly. In response, she saw him smirk again, while staring straight ahead. He was not even looking at her and yet, he was reading her mind! How infuriating.
"No, fräulein," he intoned, coldly. "What's infuriating is how much you're letting your mind wonder, instead of focusing on the task at hand. It makes me want to whip you. Hard."
Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.
Angela thought, picturing him doing just that. She had to admit, the thought did not just scare her - it excited her, too. And that was messed up, seriously messed up, like some of the other things he did to her earlier, inside his dungeon.
He slowed his step as she thought this and turned his steely, blue-grey gaze on her.
"Face the wall and put your hands on it, above your head," he ordered, his handsome face set in an expressionless mask, making him impossible to read. Since they were in a narrow alleyway with a wall on either side of them, the order should have been easy to comply with, but being nervous, Angela took longer than necessary to turn around.
"Hurry up," he snapped, grabbing hold of her wrists and dragging her into position forcibly, making her yelp - the first sound she made in a while.
"I'm sorry, Eztli," she said in a small voice, as he placed both her palms against the brick wall and stepped back quickly. "I promise I'll.... Aaaah!"
The sharp, stinging pain across her back shocked her, the more so because it was totally unexpected. Tremblingly, she turned her head, trying to look behind her - and felt a second lick of searing pain, undiminished by the shiny fabric of the coat he had made her wear.
"Aaaaah! Fuuuck!" she screamed, as the sting spread between her shoulder blades in a neat, diagonal line.
"Silence," Eztli said, before striking her again, with great force. Unable to make a sound, Angela shook violently and clawed at the wall in front of her, wanting nothing more than to collapse on her knees and curl up into a ball. That, however, would mean showing weakness and breaking the first order he gave her. Two things she did not dare to do, on the pain of death.
"Very good, fräulein," he remarked, in passing. "At last, you're starting to think like a vampire."
He carried on whipping her - quickly, methodically and so brutally, it took only seconds for Angela's skin to split open and for blood to ooze out, causing her coat to stick to her back. He was not using a real whip, she realized as she jerked in agony, because there was no sound of leather cracking and no pause between strokes, either. No, the 'whip' he was using was made of pure energy, which he wielded with great precision and which she felt a lot more keenly than a regular whip. Not that she had any previous experience of being whipped, to compare it to. That was what made it all the more difficult to withstand the harsh punishment, and what made her want to beg for mercy. Only, he had rendered her silent, preventing her from doing so. All she could do - all he wanted to see her do, it seemed - was to shake and jerk before him, and this she did to his utmost satisfaction, dancing to the rhythm that he set, for several long, agonizing minutes.
When, finally, he stopped and spun her back around to face him, she was broken. She trembled before him with her head bowed, cringing from his touch yet offering no resistance as he ran his hand along the back of her neck, slowly.
"Look at me, Angela," he ordered, and she did so instantly, tilting her face up to him and allowing him to cup the back of her head in one large hand. His tenderness surprised her, for she had expected him to still be angry with her. Yet his stunning features were anything but angry as he gazed down on her calmly, contemplatively.
"You may speak again, if you want to."
It was not a question hence she saw no need to respond. She merely whimpered, then bit her lip to stifle any further sounds of pain, which she felt might upset him. There was nothing she could do about the trembling, though. It was a reflection of the pain and the fear he had made her feel, and of her wild attraction to him, on top of that. An attraction that she felt every time she was in his presence and especially while standing so close to him. The very sight, touch, and smell of him made her so aroused, in fact, that she was at risk of expiring at that very moment. She would blame it on the whipping, she decided - and as she thought this, he smiled that same carefree, irresistible smile he used when he wanted to be charming.