"Wicked Game" Ch. 11

By Shawna

Katsu's brain cleared away the fog of unconsciousness painfully slow. She did not open her eyes immediately upon waking, something that was unusual for her. She lay where she was and groaned at the throb of pain in her head that resulted from the slightest movement on her part. For a second she could not remember what had happened, and then it all flooded back to her. She had tried her escape plan. It would have worked beautifully if not for the collar Vegeta had put on her neck. At this she grimaced and, despite the pain it caused, clenched her fist and bashed it against whatever was under her.

Whatever it was, it was relatively soft, softer than her old cot, and this caused her to open her eyes. For a moment there was nothing in front of her but a blur of color. She blinked a few times and things slowly began to come into focus. An ornately decorated room; far away from her, the familiar chair in front of a large window, the enormous and comfortable bed on the other end of the room. Vegeta's bedroom. What was she doing in here? And on a makeshift bed on the floor?

She tried to raise her hands and it was then that she felt something heavy around one of her wrists. Her other hand went immediately to the wrist and she raised her head painfully to look at it. A thick manacle was wrapped around her wrist, attached to a thick chain about six feet long that was held securely to the wall. For a moment she only stared, not fully comprehending. Then anger started to build inside her, but when she moved to sit up, pain exploded in her head and she fell back onto the thin mattress beneath her.

"You probably shouldn't try to move much."

Katsu turned her head slowly toward Vegeta, who had emerged from the bathroom and was watching her. She could only look at him, with no emotion on her face. She felt angry, and wanted to say something to him, but she felt too weak to even open her mouth to speak. He approached her slowly, kneeling down next to her head.

"I told you not to try anything with that collar on," he said. Katsu noticed that though his tone was hard and his words cocky as usual, he was speaking very softly, as if aware that her head was throbbing and loud talking would cause her significant pain. She mumbled incoherently in reply. He slipped a hand under her head and raised it just a bit, gently.

"Drink this," he said, bringing a small vial to her lips. "It tastes terrible but it will make you feel better."

For a moment she kept her lips closed, planning on rejecting any help he offered, but the pain in her head got the best of her. She opened her mouth and let Vegeta pour the bitter liquid down her throat. She gagged a bit at the taste, but swallowed it all. Vegeta recapped the vial and rose.

"Rest," he said. "I'll come back in a while and... we'll talk about what's going to happen to you." He turned and left the room quickly, before Katsu could say anything. Of course, she could not have said anything if she had wanted to. She could think of nothing to say and felt too weak to say it anyway. She turned over on her side, facing the wall, and left herself drift back to sleep.

She had no idea how long it had been when she woke again, but the reddish sunlight streaming in the window told her that it was late evening. She looked around the room and found that she was alone. The pain in her head had subsided to a dull ache in the back of her skull, and it did not worsen when she sat up. She stretched; her legs felt stiff and sore. The thin mattress felt soft immediately under her, but the floor beneath it was hard and this had caused painful pressure points against her back and knees to form while she slept. She stretched again, rubbing at the sore spots. She wondered how long she had been out and what would happen when Vegeta came back. Would she be punished or even killed? She did not want to think about it, and so put her back against the wall and brought her knees up so she could rest her head on them. She wrapped her arms around her legs and sat, waiting.

More than an hour must have passed before the doorknob turned and the door fell open. It was mostly dark by now, but Katsu had been sitting in this darkness and so her eyes were well adjusted and she could see Vegeta perfectly as he came into the room. His eyes shone as he looked at her for a few seconds, his gaze almost predatory. Katsu swallowed hard, feeling suddenly a bit frightened as to what would happen now.

Vegeta came towards her, but stopped while he was still some distance away. "Feeling better?" He asked, but his tone was unpleasant. She did not reply.

"I warned you, didn't I?" He said. "I told you something bad would happen, but you chose not to listen to me. You could be dead right now. Lucky for you, not only does that collar choke you, it also sends a signal to me alerting me of your exact position. I came out there and found you, passed out on the lawn. I could have just thrown you into the dungeon, or I could have even carried you farther outside of the castle grounds and let the collar kill you. Instead I brought you here, to my bedroom. I gave you a bed and medicine for your pain. Even I don't know why I'm treating you so kindly."

Katsu said nothing, and for awhile they simply stared at each other in silence. Katsu averted her eyes first, looking down at her hands. "How long was I out?" She asked quietly.

"Only the rest of that night and all this morning. I came in and gave you the medicine around midday and its nighttime now, as you've probably figured out. You weren't out long."

She brought one of her hands to her neck, slowly. The collar was still there and the flesh under it was painfully bruised. She shook the chain on her wrist. "Why the chain?"

Vegeta smirked. "If I can't keep you here with advanced technology like that collar, then I'll do it the old-fashioned way. I'll chain you like an animal."

She narrowed her eyes and arched her fingers. The chain clinked as she shifted, getting her feet under her. Vegeta watched her calmly. She tensed her legs and then sprung at him, stretching out the arm that was not chained. She slashed at his face, but the chain went taut and her nails raked only the air, missing his nose by barely more than inch. She snarled and hissed at him.

He laughed. "Chaining you like an animal is appropriate, isn't it? You've been acting like one lately. Perhaps this is a show of your true nature. Too bad you can't remember what you are. You might have an excuse for this behavior then."

She drew back, pressing her back against the wall and arching her fingers against it. "When will you unchain me? When can I leave?"

He yawned. "When I feel like letting you go," he said with a wave of his hand. "I'm sure you won't try to escape again, but consider being locked in here your punishment for your attempt. I'm actually being very lenient with you. Normally the punishment for trying to escape is death. Fortunately for you, I'm the only one who knows about your little escapade and I've decided to spare you."

Katsu turned her head and pressed her cheek against the wall, saying nothing. He yawned again and then moved for the door.

"I'll be back later," he said as he opened the door. Katsu did not look at him as he cast a final glance at her before shutting the door behind him.

She slid slowly down to a seated position and rested her forehead on her drawn up knees. She sat this way alone in the darkness, thinking of nothing in particular. The bruises on her neck ached where the collar still pressed against them and the manacle was starting to chafe her wrist because she kept jingling it without thinking about it. Her thoughts scrambled, shifted, raced through everything that had happened since she had first arrived here. The way she felt about Shiro, and about Vegeta... Even she was not sure exactly how she felt about either of them.

Katsu contemplated this for some time, and more than an hour passed. The door opened slowly, soft light from the hall pouring into the darkened room. Katsu looked up, startled, not having realized how much time had passed. Vegeta stood still in the doorway for a moment, looking at her. He took a step into the room and let the door close slowly behind him on its own. They were shut into darkness again, and Katsu's eyes took a few seconds to readjust.

She could feel Vegeta's face next to her own before she could see it. Her eyes finished adjusting and she could just barely make out his outline now. His breath was warm on her face. He said nothing as he reached up and grabbed her chin, forcing her head up before bringing his lips down onto hers with bruising force. Her body went tense and she made a small sound of surprise in her throat. Vegeta drew away from her a second later and wrapped his arms around her shoulders before burying his face in her hair. He brought her against him and held her.

For a moment Katsu did not know what to think and stayed still. Slowly, very slowly, she brought her arms up and put one around Vegeta's back and the other around his shoulder, letting her hand fall on the back of his neck. She traced his hairline gently with her fingers. He brushed his lips across her neck, nibbling gently. She slid her hand lower on his back and, without thinking about it, slipped it under the hem of his shirt. Her fingers traced over his bare skin.

What am I doing? Katsu thought suddenly. A few hours ago I was ready to rip him open with my bare hands. Now her hands were on his back, under his shirt, touching him gently. A brief flash of anger came over her and her nails dug into his skin. What made him think he could just come in here and start touching her this way?

He bit her neck with enough force to make her cry out, and she took her nails out of his skin. Still he did not speak, but resumed his attentions on her neck. She ran her hands lower, just above the waist of his pants, and found the base of his tail. She wrapped her fingers around it.

Vegeta froze, obviously thinking that she might try to hurt him. The urge to grip his tail painfully tight came to her, but her sudden need to have him keep touching her prevailed. She was not quite sure why, but instead of trying to cause him pain, she stroked the base of his tail gently with one hand, and traced her fingers lightly over the skin just around his tail with the other. He sucked in a ragged breath through his teeth, resting his forehead on her neck. She grinned. His tail was sensitive to more feelings than just pain.

Vegeta moaned and she took one of her hands away as he lowered himself to the thin mattress, his arms around Katsu's shoulders making sure he took her with him. She ended up flat on her back with Vegeta on his side next to her. He leaned over her, putting one of his arms on the ground on the other side of her. The darkness was almost complete and she could make out very little of him through it. A second later his lips were groping for hers in the darkness and then they met, Katsu opening her mouth to his exploring tongue.

Katsu felt Vegeta bringing one of his legs over her own, and then he shifted his weight up, straddling her, supporting himself on his knees, one of which was on each side of her thighs. He was still kissing her as one of his hands went for the laces of her dress, deftly undoing them. He pushed the top part of the dress open and brought up his other hand, tracing the contours of her body. He broke their kiss and lowered his head slowly, deliberately. She moaned when his warm tongue began tracing light patterns across her chest. His tail came up, running across her neck, along her jaw line and over her lips. She arched her back as his tail went down and began trailing Vegeta's tongue in its path across her body.

Katsu was aflame. Lust burned through all her senses, emanated from both of them in almost tangible waves. Her feelings of hate towards him, her attraction, her anger, and her pent up sexual frustration all drove her to crave Vegeta with a deep longing that seemed to come not from her mind but somewhere else in her body, and thus she had no control over it. She ran her hands down Vegeta's back, gripping the bottom of his shirt when she reached it, and pulled. He took his mouth away from her long enough to allow her to pull the shirt up and over his head and toss it away. She ran her hands down his now bare back, wrapping a hand around the base of his tail and stroking it gently while her other hand went around his waist and traced over the rock hard muscles of his stomach. He brought one of his own hands up, tracing it over her neck and up to her lips. Her lips had become greedy for contact and she could not be sure if he put two of his fingers into her mouth or if she caught them there herself. Either way, she nibbled and sucked at his fingers as his mouth did the same things to her body.

Presently, he drew his fingers out of her mouth so he could move his mouth lower on her body. He drew back a bit and pushed her dress up around her waist, his hand tracing the line between her closed legs, encouraging her to open them. She reached down to bury her hands in his hair as she let him spread her legs. One of her hands could not reach though, and it jerked back as the chain attached to the shackle around her wrist went taut. They were too far away from the place where it attached to the wall to allow Katsu complete freedom of movement.

"Vegeta," she said.

He mumbled something, his lips against her inner thigh.

"Take this chain off," she said, jingling the chain around her wrist.

His head snapped up, his eyes wide. He stared at her and Katsu was taken aback by the anger in his eyes.

"Don't tell me what to do," he said. "I have that chain on you for a reason."

She was shocked. "What?" She said angrily. "Who cares about that now? Just take it off."

"No," he said simply.

"Then get your face out from between my legs," she said with growing anger.

"What if I don't?" He asked haughtily.

"You're not going to rape me, are you?" She said evenly, leveling a disdainful gaze at him.

He said nothing at this, staring back at her. He grunted in anger and hefted himself to his feet, turning his back on her and walking quickly away.

"Fine," he said with a wave of his hand. "But don't try to act like you weren't begging for it before you decided to throw a fit over your chain. You were."

"And you weren't?" She asked angrily, tauntingly. "You're still in rut, I see. What's the matter? Can't you get any from a willing girl?"

He whirled back around to face her, and before she even knew what he was going to do he was in front of her. A slap echoed in the room as he backhanded her across the face. She left her head turned to the side, bringing her hand up to place gently on the hot sting on her cheek. He stalked away from her again, heading towards his bed. He threw his shoes onto the floor and climbed into the bed, turning off the light beside it as he did so.

"What a mutt," she said. "Sleeping in your clothes."

"I took off my shirt."

"Actually, I took off your shirt. If you weren't so cocky I would have taken off more."

"If you know what's good for you, you'll shut up now."

"You're too stubborn. All you had to do was take off the damn chain."

"What makes you think I want you that badly? To actually do something that you ask of me just so I can have a go at your below average body?"

"You sure pay a lot of attention to this 'below average' body of mine."

"Shut up now or I'll come over there and knock you out myself."

"You should have thought about this before chaining me up in your bedroom."

"Go to sleep! Now!"

Katsu laid down and turned over, facing the wall, not having anything else to say to the prince and not fancying the idea of him knocking her out. She huffed, far too worked up to actually sleep. She lay with her arms crossed over her chest, angry. Vegeta's uneven breathing and frequent changes of position told her that he was not sleeping either.

What are we doing? She wondered. What kind of game are we playing with each other? And why? What are either of us trying to accomplish? Even I don't know what I'm after...

**To Be Continued…**