A/N: Buckle up. I expect some flames for this, but it is so worth it. *evil laugh*

Obi-wan's body flopping profoundly to the floor was the last thing she heard and saw. The whole ordeal had been terrible yet somewhat expected; however, the anticipation was nothing compared to the actual thing.

Whereas her heart had been on the verge of cracking, she was sure that it was snapping in two. Every time she tried to justify or rationalize her actions, it only ended in suffering.

It was destined to get much worse.

For instance, she was still in Maul's clutches, her strangled gasps and exploding chest contrasted with his almost cat-like silence. She did not even hear him breathe, his horned, devilish head right beside hers.

Nor could she snap a retort, could not utter a plea, but could only agonize mutely—the collar doing its job.

"That will cost you dearly, Duchess," he hissed, his snaked breath wheezed.

She knew that calling out to Obi had been foolish, but she could not just sit idly and watch as the brutes beat him within an inch of his life—not after what she had forsaken to save him, not after seeing how broken he was already.

Quiet, nothing was heard beyond the door. It began to worry her. Surely, she was to be taken back to her lonely room, await her next trial. Yet, the way Maul spoke, it made it seem that she was to be flung right back into the lion's den.

Heart bursting, veins swelling, blood coursing, she was going in blind, no preparation this time. He began walking backward again, not willing to drop his advantageous, humiliating hold.

Obviously, no one was in this part of the palace, there was not a cricket of noise, just his padding feet and her rough scramble.

Desperate, she fought, struggled, tried to hang onto the floor by her toes. With each attempt to slow the progression, he only gave a menacing chortle.

"I told you," he mocked. "I gave you fair warning, but did you listen? No. Now pay the price, Satine."

The use of her first name by him sent a blizzard, a blanket, of petrified nerves whipping all over her skin. Frigid, she shuddered, and she faltered in her attempts, her feet got swept along, useless.

The last corner was turned, she recognized the familiar doors, and she kicked out, using all of her weak strength.

She heard him grunt with effort, not wanting to use the Force to coerce her, he relied on his strength alone, but she was putting up a desperate, animalistic fight.

"L-l-let…go!" she heaved, one final push.

And he did.

A dirty elbow, she hit him square in the gut, and his grasp loosened. That was all she needed.

Wriggling away, she took off. He just missed the chains that flew behind her. With prayed hands, she ran recklessly, ignoring the smolder of her lungs, how she could never get enough oxygen.

No thought in her mind other than run she dashed around corners, tried to keep her footing silent, tried to pick random halls, hide her trail. Constantly looking over shoulder, she didn't see his silhouette, no incoming footsteps. But, then again, he was lethally noiseless.

Speeding up, she slid into a wall, the slippery marble doing nothing to aid her escape. In a corner, she looked for a place, a barrow, anything that would cover her. Panting hard, she put her back against a set of panels, catching her nonexistent breath.

None of the portals would open for her, she couldn't conceal her obvious form—which was probably his intention.

Muttering a thousand swears, she pushed off and began running again, a hopeless cause. After a few minutes, her endurance was sapped, the edges of her vision blackened, brain screeching for air. Going to her knees, sweat pooled on the ground below her.

She had never been well acquainted with the Force, but she was desperate. Scrunching her face, she let her panic detonate, let it overwhelm her. Maul would certainly find her now, but maybe it would also send out a distress signal of some kind.

"Please…please…please…" she chanted pulling at her necklace to loosen it, trembling. "Let someone hear this! Help us!"

Two sounds, two little clunks of a boot, her senses prickled, and her flight drive took over once more. Not looking back, she shot up, but she did not get away this time.

The shackles betrayed her, as was their wont, and she was pulled down from behind, colliding with the hard ground like a meteor.

This impaired her breathing even more, and not even a breeze could make its way to her starved lungs. Stars glittered sporadically, her eyes tried to spot him, and they found Maul, leaning over.

"Your prayers have been answered," he said calmly, usual grin intact, although his pupils told a different story.

He was sorely pissed, a rabid dog, a spitting canon. His stare was consuming, hellfire. Her escape may have been shortsighted, for things could only get worse from here.

Incapacitated, her muscles and bones rebelled. Her will was strong, but the body was weak.

"Well, well," he pondered superficially. "This does change things. I was just going to give you a slap on the wrist, but now…"

As he trailed off, her expression widened in fright. The whites of his eyes barely had any white in them at all, red irises and bulging veins engulfed it, a stone-cold black in the center.

Death seemed imminent; she turned away, the tiles against her cheek.

"Oh please," he growled. "Don't be so dramatic."

Instead of making her stand, he simply scooped her up, his rough, nailed fingers penetrating through the flesh of her arm and torso. It was surely uncomfortable, yet her weariness was crippling, she did not react.

Resources exhausted, she was taken back to her chambers. His quickened steps surged through the panels, her bare, dirty feet swung like a ragdoll.

Tossing her onto the bed harshly, she kept herself from rolling off the other side and into the wall. But this was all she could do, and she curled upon the sheets like a child as soon as she steadied herself. Maul simply stood there, hands clasped behind his back, dressed in his usual black.

"W-what…" she exhaled in a barely audible whisper. "Now?"

Hair seeping into her eyes, her blood was cooling quickly.

Sarcastically surprised, he gave a slight guffaw.

"Nothing to concern your pretty little head about," he hissed, glare-stricken expression. "After all, it's not your legs that are about to be cut off."

Frail, quaking, she tried to get up, tried to bargain. At odds, she could just barely hold herself up by the elbow. He watched her pathetic attempts nonchalantly, though his eyes still seared.

"Don't even bother, girl," he advised cruelly. "There's nothing you can do or say to make me change my mind. My apprentice is already on his way."

Gulping, closing her eyes, she tried nonetheless:

"Anything!"

Lifting a considering hand to his chin, as if he was actually doing so, he feigned interest. Then, with a smirk, he replied:

"No."

The image of Obi being cut into pieces sent her into practical hysterics. But she had to believe she could offer something.

"P-please…" she whispered, crawling to the edge of the bed.

He rolled his eyes, but didn't move.

"Didn't you hear me? There is nothing."

Putting her feet upon the floor, she sat, clutching the comforter corners, taking a moment. She was not one to give up.

"I don't think you understand, fool," he hissed, anger boiling. "The Jedi is going to die. I will have his head! My revenge cannot be bartered. I've waited too long for this."

Rising to a stand, she could not hold herself against gravity, and fell forward onto her face—literally groveling at his feet. She was a persistent one, and it gave him a colorless joy that she was failing.

Clutching at his boots, snagging a piece of his baggy, obsidian pants, she let her tears wash away the dirt on them. For a fleeting moment, he considered kicking her while she was down, but he paused, truly baffled by her.

It was not pity that emerged within his black-hole heart, but a deep pleasure at the suffering he was causing. If she would react this way every time the Jedi inched closer to death, what great humiliation and sorrow could he cause? The possibilities were practically infinite.

Killing was as easy as breathing, but torture was a skill.

Openly weeping with pained breaths, it was as sweet as honey, better than birdsong. Feigning disinterest, he leaned onto one foot. With every shift, she clung religiously.

"Anything…anything….anything…" she kept whispering incessantly.

"Cease your whining!" he snapped, and she immediately obeyed.

Lifting her grieved head, she had a faint glimmer of hope in her swollen, red eyes. Tear trails on her cheeks with unkempt blonde locks, it meant a great deal to him that he had the privilege of destroying her splendor—that he got to rip her wings off.

"I will consider sparing Kenobi from ending his last days as a cripple if," he proposed cruelly.

All ears, she nodded her head vigorously, not even considering what horror he had in store.

He grinned at her naivety, knowing he could ask her to do anything and she would comply. For a minute, he wondered if he should give her a knife and ask to have her cut her own fingers off, one by one, but that would make her cries all the more annoying.

Plus, he liked having her as an intact trophy, something he could lord over for the rest of his reign. More savage kings than he had far more extensive prizes, it was only proper that he should have at least one.

He had to think of something that was both humiliating and domineering without resorting to trivial bloodshed. He rather liked keeping her untouched physically while the Jedi received the opposite—an appalling dualism that mocked her pacifism.

Face and body as tight as a drum, she waited for his offer.

"If," he continued. "You make it worth my while."

Confused, she didn't know how she could pay him anything, there was nothing left to give of herself. Or so she thought.

Bestial grin, he was only too happy to explain.

"One kiss."

Shock did not begin to describe her emotions. What game was he playing at? It was so unlike anything that she had yet to experience from the Dathomirian, it hadn't even been on her radar. One hundred lashes, a century of jeers and kicks to the stomach, acid burns or brands were far more appealing.

He was a coward, but a perceiving one. He knew that her dignity was her most treasured asset. It was something that could endure the storms of bodily pain, for dignity and martyrdom went hand-in-hand. Subtly was the game—little actions that eroded her self-worth like waves against mountains.

"You're running out of time, Satine."

She flinched again at the sound of her name coming out of his putrid mouth. Seconds were wasting, the clock was betraying her, and she knew if she did not agree, Obi would be chopped into bits. It seemed like a no brainer, but her pride howled with stubbornness.

"Thirty seconds before your precious Obi-wan becomes a new man," he announced with a barbaric hoot.

The ticking seconds boomed like a bomb in her mind.

Twenty…fifteen…ten…

She clenched her eyes shut, she denied everything. The thought of Obi being mangled mixed with the image of her in the arms of the Sith.

…five…

"Fine!"

Pleasantly surprised, he had begun to think that she had become far more selfish, but she was still the same uncompromising, myopic idealist.

"Was that so hard?" he asked with fake concern.

She said nothing.

Whisking out a hologram-communicator, he ordered Savage to return. His apprentice had been within seconds of knocking down the Jedi's cell door.

Numb and limp, the fingers that had held onto his legs dropped, she stared without seeing, barely listened to the Sith issue the command.

The translucent Savage flickered off, and Maul turned his steely attention to the woman at his feet.

Paralyzed, she had no idea what to do, how to move, how to think. It was as if she had spent hours in the tundra, all feeling vanished.

"Perhaps I should reconsider…" he insinuated pitilessly.

A burst of strength detonated from her toes to her head and she leapt up, bangles clanging, skirt undulating. Amazon, she gave him an equally fiery glance, and crushed her sorrowful lips against his cracked ones.

Taken off-guard, he could not let her win the battle. Talon fingers, he cupped the back of her head and drew her harshly closer. Hands balled at her side, she allowed it, and tried to press down the blood rushing, to keep her skin cold.

With sharp teeth, he bit her lip, urging the red liquid to ooze. She felt it dribble down, and inhaled suddenly against her better judgment.

A deep growl resonated from within him, humming against her. At first the guilt was manageable, but it was budding into choking vines, worse than her collar. Opposites, he noted that she was as soft and vibrant as expected, better; whereas she could feel the splinters of his mouth, the horns were constantly in her vision, his sharp jaw bones pierced her.

Simply put, their faces did not belong together, like a square smashed into a circular hole. Worse, it was not even that it was bordering on heresy, but the fact that he did not seem to notice the wrongness. The thorn did not care if it destroyed the rose.

The gluttony was clear, the seething hate impaled her, overwhelming. Wanting to pull away from the first second, he was a barbwire noose—the more she tried to resist, the more entangled she became.

It was certain that his claws were puncturing her skull. His other hand came up to aid the brother, and wrapped itself around her neck.

Screaming internally, she understood firsthand what separated Jedi and Sith. It had always plagued her why the former could not seem to love back, she had waited, yearned, prayed for a day when Obi-wan would renounce his knighthood, but it never came.

She had thought that she wanted him to be more emotional, or at least more in tune with them.

Now she understood why he was so intent on detaching. If this was the result, she would gladly never see him again.

After Maul had his fill, which was measured in long, tedious minutes, he retracted his nails. The entire time she had her eyes closed, but out of instinct, she opened them.

Bad move.

His usual bloodshot whites and coal pupils dug into her hungrily. Foot caught in the steel jaws of a trap, she couldn't shake the stare. It consumed her sight, a never sleeping eye, a mushroom cloud midnight. Up close, it was far more intense, and she feared she had opened an unseen Pandora's Box that lurked within him.

It appeared that the rules no longer applied to him. The Sith Lords had turned their backs on him and, in return, he declared his own sovereignty, a hollow thing.

It was clear he was lashing out like a wounded animal, striking out at everything, trying to land a shot.

Perhaps this had been the reason behind the unorthodoxy. Or maybe physical pain no longer gave him that usual thrill—an evolving student, reaching further into the Darkside.

She had not noticed that he still clung onto her wrist, and the throb of his grasp began to vie for attention. It was the pinch that freed her from his imprisonment, and she peered down at his coiled hand which completely enveloped her forearm.

Black swirls decorated his ridged knuckles, swept across the back of his hand until it disappeared under the onyx sleeve. Then the corrupted stream of obsidian became deformed wings on his fingers, crooked stripes against a blood red flesh.

Intricate and lethal, as she gazed, he tightened into a crushing, gnarled fist. It was if she had gotten herself stuck in a vice, and she gasped out a groan, unable to repel a response.

Even though he reveled in the pain he was causing, his expression remained serious and grim. It wasn't enough; her agony would never be enough to satisfy him. A hit of a drug, he was becoming increasingly addicted to her torment.

There was an invulnerable link between her and the Jedi. Like twins, her pain was his. So, in a way, making her suffer was just as sweet, just as needed; however, there wasn't a pull to end her life like there was with Kenobi.

At first, she had been a nuisance and easily expendable. Now, things had changed.

A rough stone for a knife, she would always have a purpose to serve. Plus, as he thought before, all black market warlords needed symbols of power. What attested more to that fact than having the former ruler as one's slave?

The bones in her wrist were snapping, a resonating pop echoed.

The sound brought him out of his thoughts, and he threw her back like she was a leech. She was just happy to be out of his death-grip, and began to cradle her arm, grimaced.

Her blood still on his lips, his tongue protruded to lick it up. Rust and salt played on his palate.

Disgusted, she looked away.

At her reaction his usual sickening grin came back.

"We must do this again sometime," he commented as if regarding the weather.

Her stomach dropped, face paled.

Chortling evilly, he turned briskly around and strode out the door, leaving her in ruins.

The only thing that could have made it better for him was if he had done it right in front of Kenobi. He stopped his pace in the middle of the corridor.

Why couldn't he?

A/N: Just so as not to cause confusion: This is not going to be a Maul/Satine pairing. Not the point of the chapter. Still completely Obi/Satine, but I like throwing monkey wrenches. :D