Fuckin run like the wind

It had barbed ends, carefully made to be an instrument that cut through the flesh. I looked up at him pleadingly. "No, no, please no..."

He swallowed

He swallowed. "Akira, get on your knees."

I pulled against the leash, trying to keep my distance from the whip. "No no no!"

He did his best to restrain me. "They'll kill you!" he hissed.

I kicked his arm so that he dropped the leash and I took off running.

I didn't get far.

While officials screamed and fled, guards rushed forward, having anticipated a fight from me.

They dog-piled me, and had me hogtied and held down in moments.

The guards whipped me as hard as they possibly could.

I screamed in abject agony, failing to break free.

Eventually, I stopped moving. My vision shifted in and out of darkness, everything spinning, losing more blood than I could manage.

Then there was a lot of yelling...a lot of it coming from the Prince. Something about them killing me.

Then the whipping stopped, and I was being carried. Lights flashed in my eyes from the pain. I knew I was ruining his clothes.

Slam! went the grand doors.

In a blur, the ceiling flew past, as he ran me back to his chambers.

"I'm sorry, Akira, I didn't expect that from him. You need to trust me, I wouldn't have gone that far."

He kept saying that and things like that, while I was too deluded to reply, until I felt so sleepy I couldn't help but close my eyes.

"No, Akira, no, stay with me!"

Everything went black.

.

~ ~ ~

.

Conscious and laying on the floor, clutching fistfuls of carpet to brace myself against the pain, I was crying.

The Prince dabbed a cloth on the wounds on my back before applying a cream to each cut in my skin.

He wrapped me in bandages and gave me a bottle of ****. "Drink this. It's the only way to numb it that I've got."

He didn't eat dinner that night. He gave it to me and walked out of his chambers, leaving me in my cage alone.

He never locked my cage.

An hour later, he came back with a box, which he set by the door. He changed into his pajamas and went straight to bed, leaving the drapes open and my cage ajar.

As the moon rose, I opened the door and crept to the box, wincing and groaning silently in pain. Peeking inside, I saw a shiny, newly sharpened dagger.

I held it up to the moonlight. It was freshly made, freshly bought from the swordsmith. Never been used.