Chapter 25

She curled against him, shivering, and whispered softly, "You'll take care of me."

Gabriel nodded, slowly. "I'll take care of you. No one ever has, have they? Your mother ... she made sure you were healthy, but not because she cared, and your father just ... abandoned you to her. Tandi loved you, but she wasn't in any position to take care of you, so ... oh, love. Oh, love." He held her close. "I'll take care of you. I promise you, I'll take care of you."

Pandora shuddered against him. "I need you. So much ... oh please, please..." She looked up at him, her eyes pleading. "Whatever you want ... I mean it. Even if it's crazy, I mean it. Anything. Because I can't ... can't go back to being alone again." Her voice tightened, and tears overflowed. "I never knew, but now I do, and I can't live like that again!"

"You aren't alone, love. You'll never be alone." He closed his hand over hers, folding her fingers over beneath his longer ones. "Whatever I have to do, whatever it takes, you'll never be alone again. Never."

She moaned, shaking hard, and clung to him. Her terror was a palpable thing, thick and choking in the air. She'd never had anything to lose before, and now the fear of losing what she'd never dreamed possible rose so strong it crippled her, paralyzed her, and, through their connection, sent chills down his spine and wrapped icy fingers of horror around his heart.

"Never, love. I swear to you, on -- on all I am, all I ever hope to be, I will never leave you. You will never be alone again."

Slowly she calmed, rubbing her cheek against his chest, his arms and hair wrapped around her like a protective cocoon. With a deep, shaking sigh she looked up at him. "Gabriel?" she asked softly. "Would you ... take me downstairs?"

"I'll give you anything you need, love." He squeezed her gently. "What do you need?"

"I need ... I need to be yours. I... " She bit her lip, looking uncertain. "I don't know how to explain, I just ... please."

"You are mine." He lifted her left hand, the silver ring glinting in the light, and kissed her knuckles.

She shivered. "Sh-show me, please?"

Gabriel nodded and stood, lifting her in his arms. He didn't speak again until he stood in front of the door to the dungeon. "What do you need, pet?"

She raised a trembling hand towards his face, then hesitated and drew it back, lowering her eyes. "I ... I ... need you to..." She shivered and licked her lips. "Use me," she whispered. "Take me, mark me ... show me you'll still ... still want me ... afterward." The words were hard for her to force out, and her trembling increased with each of them. "P-please ... I'm so scared!"

Gabriel hesitated, then nodded. "Okay." He opened the door. "Follow me. On your knees."

Pandora slid down to her hands and knees, shaking, her whole body flushed pink. She hesitated for only a second at the doorway, then followed him in, her hair hanging like a wavy curtain around her face and trailing on the floor between her hands.

Gabriel stopped in the center of the lowered area and turned to face her, gesturing to the laces in the front of his pants.

She looked up at him, her soft green eyes huge and scared. She seemed paralyzed for a moment, then shakily raised her hands and started awkwardly fumbling with the laces.

Gabriel reached out and cupped her cheeks. "You're mine, love. Mine."

Pandora whimpered quietly, her hands freezing, and stared up at him. Fear, pleading, need, excitement, and dread were all in her eyes.

"Mine. And I will always love you."

She closed her eyes with a little shudder, and her hands resumed their inefficient plucking at the laces, finally managing the slides and loosening them all the way down.

Gabriel gripped her chin, tugging her forward. "Take me in your mouth, love."

Pandora whimpered again, her breath catching in her throat, but let him move her face forward and obediently opened her mouth.

"You're afraid that I won't be able to respect you, because of the things you're willing to do. I'm going to mark you as mine and prove to you that I will, all at once. Do you understand?" he asked.

She started shaking, so hard that she had to reach out and put her hands on his thighs to stead herself, and a high, scared, keening sound came from her throat. Her eyes were locked on his, filled with something akin to panic as she gave a jerky little nod.

"I don't want you to spill anything. And I don't want you to look away, understand?"

Pandora whimpered, and her grip on his legs was unconsciously tight. A tear rolled down her cheek, dripping onto her breast where it traced a wet path along the white skin, hanging from the hard nipple for a long moment before dropping to the floor. Again, the tiniest of nods.

She was expecting it ... trembling in fear from the expectation, in fact ... but somehow, it still startled her when it happened, and at the first little spurt of piss on her tongue, she jerked back with a loud gasp, her nails accidentally digging into his legs, her eyes large and wild as a bit of the warm liquid splashed across her lips, dripping down her chin.

Gabriel carefully folded his arms behind his back. "Careful, love. You'll have to clean up any you spill ... with your tongue."

She moaned, her face bright red as she slid her mouth back over the head of his cock and looked up at him expectantly.

As he relaxed and let the next spurt flow into her mouth, he said, "You can play with yourself while you drink my piss, pet."

Her eyes flew up to his face, and he could feel her embarrassment, hot and heavy as it flowed from her. But he could also see her thighs, squeezed tightly together, and feel her hard little nipples as they brushed against his legs, and he knew she wanted to, needed to, however much the thought embarrassed her.

Gabriel smiled. "Go ahead."

She closed her eyes and clenched her little hands into fists on his thighs, trembling hard as she sucked gently on his dick, her soft tongue pressing it up against the roof of her mouth.

"Pet," he said firmly, "I want you to reach down and play with yourself. I want to see you come while I'm pissing in your mouth."

She moaned around his cock, opening her eyes and looking up at him. Obediently, one little shaking hand slid down over her soft stomach and between her thighs. She moaned again, loudly, her fingers sliding into the slick, wet flesh, and her hips thrust instinctively. She shuddered, sucking at him, the head of his cock pressed against the back of her throat.

"Oh yes. Good girl, good little piss-drinker ... Come for me. Come for me right now, pet!"

She screamed, piss overflowing her mouth and splashing over her breasts as she shuddered, twisting hard, almost coming off of his dick but stretching to hold it in her mouth, whimpering and sucking even as she fought to not fall over as the spasms ripped through her. Her legs were spread, her cunt exposed, wet and open, her fingers slick with cunt juices as she rubbed frantically at her throbbing clit.

"Swallow."

Moaning pitifully, desperately, she did, one hand still between her legs, the other wrapped around his thigh, holding tight, trying not to fall.

"You're mine." Gabriel brought his hands around from behind his back, taking her head between them to stabilize her. "Mine."

Pandora moaned again, her body going limp, supported by his hands on her head. She still sucked gently, swallowing around his dick, her fingers moving slowly against her cunt lips. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused, her breathing harsh.

Gabriel held her like that until he was done. "Kneel for me, pet. There's one more thing you need."

She whimpered, but straightened up, back onto her knees, her head bowed and eyes on the floor.

"Look at me."

The haze of arousal was starting to vanish, leaving only fear and a sort of sick horror at what she'd done. Her aura was tight against her skin, still, the colors subdued, and she didn't want to look at him. He could sense that with no doubt at all. Her chin trembled, and she wrapped her arms around her ribs, tightly.

"Now."

"ooooh... " With a little, hopeless moan, she reluctantly raised her eyes to his.

"You have my ring as a symbol of our love, but I think you need something more." He looked down at her, smiling gently. "I think you need a symbol of my control, of your submission, and of the fact that I will always want you. I think you need a collar, pet."

She blinked up at him, not entirely understanding at first, then she started to tremble. Relief pulsed from her, but still the fear lingered ... dulled, changed perhaps, but not removed. She said nothing, though, just stared trustingly up at him.

Gabriel looked down at her, feeling the fear in her mind, and the question itself, tantalizingly just out of reach. "What is it, love? What are you afraid of?"

She licked her lips, and, shivering, forced herself to ask quietly, "Wh-what am I now, to you?" It was a deceptively simple question, and he could sense her fear of the possible answer.

"The woman I love."

"I ... I need to know what you think of me ... beyond love, how you feel," she said awkwardly.

"You mean, do I still respect you? I do. I don't think you're weak, or sick, or anything like that ... I think you're someone who..." He hesitated, glancing at the ceiling uncertainly for a moment. "Who fits even better than Lissa did."

She trembled with the strength of her relief, but something in her just had to ask, had to keep prodding to see if it would hurt. "You're not ... disgusted by me? You still want to ... to do normal things, too?"

Gabriel nodded. "Yes, love. I do. I still want to wake up next to you every morning."

She sagged against him, wrapping her arms around his hips, nuzzling against his stomach, and shuddered over and over again.

"You're still the wonderful girl who showed up at my door and brought me back to life."

She held him tighter. "Oh god, thank you," she whispered.

"I love you." He stroked her hair. "I love you."

Pandora sighed happily, content to kneel, naked, at his feet.

Gabriel reached for the power line which ran through the corner of the room right behind them, then paused, frowning. "No ... that's not right." He held out his hand to Pandora. "Come here."

She took his hand, standing hesitantly.

Gabriel led her over to the concrete pillar in the center of the room. It was thicker than the rest, and the manacles hanging down were heavier, made of black hammered iron. He turned her so that her back was to the pillar and lifted her right hand up. He reached for the manacle, then dropped it as if bitten, the metal ringing against the pillar. "Ow!" he said, sucking on his fingers. Then he shook his head wryly. "Right. Iron. Well, it wasn't that bad." Moving quickly, he closed the manacle around her wrist and slipped the lock through the hasp, then did the same with her other hand before stepping back.

Pandora pressed back against the cold pillar, looking up at him with wide eyes. Her nipples were hard and crinkled.

"You've got a choice now. I can make your collar the way I made the other things, with just the power lines, or I can do something else. I could pull the lines through you, and blend part of your aura in with them, so that you are truly linked with the collar. I don't know what that would do to the collar, or to you. I don't know if it would be dangerous or not. It's your choice, love."

She leaned towards him, unconsciously straining against the chains. "What do you want?" she asked.

Gabriel smiled. "I want you to have this exactly..." He hesitated. "I want it to be everything you've ever dreamed of, and, more importantly, everything you would have dreamed of if you'd had time to do so."

"I just want to be yours. However you want me, as long as you want me."

"You will be, love. Forever," he said.

"If ... If my aura is mixed with it, and yours is mixed with mine, then yours would be mixed in, too?" she asked.

Gabriel nodded, slowly. "I think so. If it does what I expect it to."

"Then that's what I want," she said firmly.

Gabriel nodded. "Okay, love." He held out his hands in front of him, 'reaching' for the two lines that crossed inside the pillar she was chained to, pulling strands out through her. Bits of her aura and his came with them, wrapping around them, and he concentrated, looping the lines around and around above his hand, one line looping one direction, the other coiling in the opposite direction. As he did so, the bits of their auras which were drawn along with the lines flickered and moved with them, layering between the lines in a pattern similar to Damascus steel. When he was satisfied with the shape of the collar, he began to work with bits of his aura and Pandora's combined on the 'surface', forming careful decorative patterns. Finally he was done, and he released the lines.

Pandora closed her eyes while he worked, standing quietly in the chains. When she felt the weight of the warm metal settle around her neck, she moaned quietly, but otherwise held perfectly still while he finished. It fit perfectly, pressing gently against her skin but not cutting into it, and if he looked closely, he could see it flexing with her breathing ... even though the metal was really too thick for that to be possible. It had an organic, 'alive' feel to it, though.

"You're mine now, pet. Now and forever."

She opened her eyes and looked up at him, her face full of love and wonder, and arched her back, straining towards him. "Yes. Please."

"Yes."