Perfect Rearing and Imprinting

"Make a sound for me."

Cayen's voice was low as he gave the order, his hand stroking down over Ella's chest.

She clutched at her throat and shook her head. The auction master — the abusers of her past — had crushed her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠vocal cords underfoot. Every time she tried to speak, pain lanced through her throat, and all that rose was the taste of blood.

"It isn't that you can't. It's that you won't."

His fingers undid the ties of her gown. Thin silk parted, laying bare the tender skin still glistening with herbal salve. It was a ruined body, mapped with whip marks and the scars of branding irons, yet there was not a flicker of distaste in Cayen's eyes.

If anything, what stirred there was the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deep sadism of a man gazing upon a masterpiece soiled by other hands — and the hunger to rebuild it.

"If pain is what keeps you silent, then I will crush it beneath a greater pain."

His mouth came down on the red brand seared into her collarbone.

"Ah...!"

The feel of teeth biting down hard. Ella's body jerked at the bright spike of pain. Cayen chewed at the scar, wetting her oversensitive flesh with his tongue, and a strange heat rode in on the hurt, setting her whole body alight.

"Ah— nngh...! Mmh...!"

A voice long suppressed tore its way through her ruined throat. It was closer to a moan than speech, but it was, without question, a living sound that Ella herself had made.

Cayen lifted his mouth from the bite and laughed, low and quiet. His tongue dragged slowly up the collarbone where a bead of blood had welled.

"There. You can do it after all."

He drove his knee between her legs and pinned her completely. The overwhelming size of him, the sheer pressure of his body, left Ella panting for breath.

His hand traveled up the inside of her slender thigh. One by one he traced the scars that torture had left behind, and his touch was terribly cold and, at the same time, hot as flame.

Ella shuddered at that dominating grip closing around her body and clung to his shoulders. Her long nails tore through his silk shirt and scored shallow lines down his back.

"I like that look in your eyes."

As if savoring the pain she was carving into him, Cayen pressed his mouth to her ear.

It was a declaration of perfect rearing, wearing the mask of salvation.

But to Ella, who had been discarded amid beatings and curses, Cayen's relentless, ice-cold obsession was a sweeter drug than any tenderness in the world. She opened her silent throat, nuzzled her cheek against the nape of his neck, and chose, of her own will, to step into the cage.

"Nnh... mmh..."

Her small hands fisted in his thick chestnut hair. It was a desperate motion, as if she were begging him to crush her further, to drive himself deeper, to finish making her his.

The corner of Cayen's mouth twisted, dark ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and satisfied.

He lifted her by the waist and gathered her fully into his arms. In the deep night of the ducal house, beneath moonlight pouring down like rain, the strange imprinting of a broken doll and her cruel master was taking shape.

Cayen's voice, dropped low, filled the room.

The next morning, in the study of House Genoa.

Dozens of documents lay scattered across a heavy marble table. Cayen's eyes, cold to the point of cruelty, raked down the figures written there.

"Your Grace, you must reduce the meal allowances paid to the retainers and slaves back to previous years' levels. In the late Duke's time, even a scrap of rotten bread was considered too good for them. To provide proper meals and rest to mere tools — the nobles of the neighboring territories are laughing, Your Grace. They say you have gone mad!"

The old butler, Baran, bowed until sweat beaded on his brow. He was a snake of a man who, since the days of the previous Duke, had taken the lead in directing the house's blood-soaked tortures and abuses.

Cayen set down his quill and leaned back. A chill thread of laughter slipped between his lips.

"Gone mad, is it."

"Forgive me, Your Grace! But a house's dignity comes only from terror and the tip of a whip! Fill the bellies of those beast-like servants and they will lift their heads and dream of revolt!"

"You idiot."

At that single, quiet word, the air in the study froze solid.

"A starving dog will bite its master's fingers. A well-fed dog licks the soles of his boots. Starving them until their work suffers, beating them until their bodies are ruined — was that the late Duke's so-called refined method of rule?"

Cayen looked down at the butler's aged face as if it were a thing of pity.

"Have you forgotten why my parents died with their heads cut off, Baran? Needless cruelty and terror only breed a resentment that waits to strike. Give them proper meals and rest. Pay them according to the work they do. Then they will volunteer, of their own accord, to be my slaves."

"B-but, Your Grace...!"

"This is my rational method of managing tools. Speak one more word of the late Duke's primitive, barbaric ways, and I will cut out your tongue first and throw it to the dogs."

Baran flinched and smashed his forehead against the floor. The old butler felt a chill crawl through him at the merciless killing intent in Cayen's eyes. Cayen swept the documents aside, propped his chin on his hand, and asked, almost lazily,

"More to the point. The thing I brought home yesterday?"

"Ah... you mean the slave girl who cannot speak? I have had her placed in the central bedchamber of Your Grace's private annex. Physicians were summoned to treat her wounds, but... to eyes such as ours, she looks like nothing more than a common slave wench."

"She is not an object for eyes like yours to appraise."

Cayen rose from his chair. His arrogant height and overwhelming presence crushed the entire study beneath them.

"If anyone lays a hand on what is mine, or harbors so much as a stray thought toward her, I will tear them limb from limb on the spot — whoever they are. Remember that."

Leaving a stunned Baran behind him, Cayen walked toward the bedchamber where Ella was waiting.

The Duke's private annex.

Ella, curled on white silk sheets, startled at the sound of the door and her shoulders flinched.

Cayen stepped inside. The girl who only yesterday had been filthy with blood and filth was now dressed in a white silk gown trimmed with frills, expensive herbal salve smoothed over her skin. She was still frail, still a map of wounds, but a faint vitality was returning to the flesh beneath the medicine.

"Have you looked in the mirror?"

He came to the bedside and slowly brushed her hair back from her face.

Ella shook her head. She was afraid to see herself. The wounds abuse had carved, the brand of another house.

Cayen took her wrist and dragged her, without gentleness, to the full-length mirror beside the bed. In the glass stood a strange girl in a splendid dress, still trembling with unease.

"Look closely. This is what you are."

He stood behind her and closed his hands over her shoulders. The vastness of his body and the slightness of the girl in the mirror made a stark contrast.

"The marks of another house carved into your skin. I find those scars... displeasing."

His fingers undid the collar of her dress. Her white skin and the red brand seared into it were reflected in the glass without mercy.

"Hhk...!"

A soundless scream, and her body shook. Cayen drew a small silver dagger from his belt. The cold blade pressed down, slow and firm, over the foreign brand on her collarbone.

"Ah...! Nngh—!"

Not enough to draw blood — but hard enough, with the flat of the blade, that the flesh beneath the scar went numb and ringing. Ella clutched at his clothes in pain and fear.

He flung the dagger aside and took the scar on her collarbone with his hard mouth, swallowing it roughly.

"Aah...!"

Teeth grinding into flesh, a tongue licking up blood and the red mark — an act of fierce imprinting. A bruise the color of blood bloomed dark across her collarbone. Cayen's arrogant obsession filled her to the edges of her body.

It was in that exact moment.

A faint click.

The door eased open a fraction, and from outside came the sense of someone secretly watching the room.

It was the old butler, Baran. He had been spying, trying to discover why Cayen had poured a million gold into a mere slave girl — and hoping to seize some weakness.

A chill, blood-red killing intent slid through Cayen's black eyes.

He eased Ella back onto the bed, crossed the crimson carpet to the door, and without a heartbeat of hesitation wrenched it open.

"Ghk—!"

Cayen's hard hand snaked out and seized the nape of Baran, who had been holding his breath in the hall. He hurled the old butler's body onto the corridor floor.

A heavy thud.

"Y-Your Grace...! Th-this servant was only...!"

"You sniveling rat."

Cayen's leather shoe came down on Baran's fingers and crushed them.

A sickening crunch.

"Aagh! Your Grace! Spare me! Aaaagh!"

The sound of bone breaking, and Baran's splitting scream rang down the corridor.

Without so much as a flicker of his eyelid, Cayen drew a silver pistol from his belt. He set the muzzle against the skull of Baran, who lay wailing on the red carpet, clutching his ruined hand.

"It seems you forgot my warning, Baran."

"Y-Your Grace! I was wrong! My life, only my life...!"

"The crime of spying on what is mine. And the crime of trying to obstruct my reforms."

Bang.

A dry gunshot cracked through the quiet corridor. Baran's head snapped back and he crumpled to the floor. Fresh blood and brain matter fouled the white marble.

Cayen wiped the blood from the back of his hand with a fine handkerchief, unhurried, and looked through the bedroom doorway at Ella, who was trembling there.

"Did you see, Ella."

He walked back through the blood-stinking corridor and into the bedchamber. He lifted the chin of the terror-stricken girl and smiled, slow.

Ella accepted his touch through the reek of blood. Absolute power, absolute cruelty, and a wastrel's obsession directed at her alone.

The girl nuzzled her cheek against his wrist once more, and sank completely beneath her cold god.

Before Baran's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠corpse had even been cleared away, a chill silence hung over the great banquet hall of the ducal house.

Dozens of the old aristocratic stewards and senior servants who had, since the previous Duke's time, fattened themselves by abusing the retainers and lining their own pockets stood in a line. Their eyes were still full of unbroken terror. Baran's blood had not yet dried on the marble of the corridor.

Seated at the head, Cayen turned a page of documents with a gloved hand, slow and unhurried.

"Baran embezzled three hundred thousand gold from this house. And the rats who sucked blood alongside him are all of you standing here."

His dry voice rang cold through the hall.

"Y-Your Grace! We are innocent! We only followed Head Butler Baran's orders...!"

One of the stewards flattened himself to the floor and wailed. Cayen did not even glance at him. He jerked his chin at the guard knight standing beside him.

A wet slice.

"Aagh!"

The steward's fingers, severed in a single stroke, rolled across the floor. In an instant the hall became a chaos of screams and horrified gasps.

"Anyone who lies in my presence will lose their tongue and their fingers, in that order."

Cayen propped his chin on his hand and went on, almost lazily.

"You are mistaken. I am not punishing you for anything so grand as morality or justice. I am punishing you because your incompetence and greed have diminished this house's efficiency."

He ordered the knights to drag every steward of serious guilt to the estate prison. Then he turned his gaze on the lesser retainers and slaves who remained. In their shaking eyes still lived the memory of the hellish abuse of the previous Duke's reign.

"However."

Cayen's eyes shone with arrogance.

"We greet Your Grace! We pledge our loyalty to Your Grace!"

The servants scrambled to smash their heads against the floor. In a house that had been a hell ruled by terror, they felt an irresistible submission taking root — submission to Cayen's new method of rule, a method of reason, efficiency, and overwhelming force.

House Genoa was being rebuilt, swiftly and perfectly, inside Cayen's grasp.