The pain was terrible, her nude chest covered with purplish-black bruises from when she had smashed into the bars, but the burning hatred was much worse. Paige loathed Gideon with every fiber of her being and his smirking face was all that she could think about as she sat there with the others. A monster with a human face, that’s what he was. The way that he had crushed that woman Stacy had been brutally inhuman. She could only imagine what he would eventually do to them.

But there was nothing that she could do about it at the moment. She was imprisoned here, listening to the distant murmur of voices in other cages. If she could get out…but that was impossible, considering that the cage was locked. Besides, where would she go? Certainly not outside, with all of its dangers.

Paige closed her eyes and tried to rest, unable to get into a comfortable position. She was attempting to count backwards, a technique that sometimes worked, when she heard a sharp intake of breath and someone hissed, “He’s back!”

So he was, standing there with his hands on his hips in an arrogant stance. Gideon’s size was still frightening, as was the complete lack of compassion in his eyes as he surveyed his possessions. To her disappointment, he strolled toward her cage, becoming larger and larger until he filled her entire vision.

“Hello, my little darlings,” he said, tapping one enormous finger against the bars.

“Please don’t hurt us!” Alicia squealed.

“Well, I can’t promise that, can I?” Gideon swung the cage door open, placing his hand inside palm side-up. “Four of you get on. Now.”

No one moved until they recalled the edict about disobedience. Then two of the women climbed up onto the palm, followed by a third. Paige glanced over at Alicia, who was too paralyzed with fright to do much besides stare at the immense hand. She decided that she would go and spare her friend. Reluctantly, she clambered up between the giant’s fingers, kneeling with the rest of the women.

Paige gave Alicia one last glance before Gideon removed his hand from the cage. He wasn’t careful at all and they were nearly thrown to their deaths. Somehow, they all managed to hold on, clutching the huge fingers with desperation. This seemed to amuse the Alpha and he chuckled, tilting his hand this way and that as they struggled to hold on. At one point, Paige was convinced that she would lose her grip and splatter against the floor, which, at her height, seemed to be hundreds of feet away.

The giant seemed to become bored of the game and he carried them out of the room, everything rushing by an insane rate. Paige had no clue where they were going and her mind fabricated a thousand gruesome fates. When they reached a small room, almost empty except for a plain wooden chair and a table, she had imagined almost every possibility of what he planned to do with them.

Except for this one. There was several objects on the table, including bottles with the labels missing, a pair of gloves, cotton balls and what looked like a small, strange power drill. The presence of that weird drill, with its wickedly-sharp bit, made her shiver. Whatever could he want with that machine? She hesitantly looked up at Gideon but at this angle, she couldn’t see his face, let alone his expression. Besides, he was putting them on the table, pulling them off of his fingers.

The Alpha sat down on the chair and slipped his hands into the black gloves. He arranged the other objects before him, like a surgeon prepping for an operation.

“I like to mark my slaves,” Gideon informed them, removing the cap from one of the bottles. The strong odor of rubbing alcohol assaulted her nose, making her wince. As she was pondering his words, his gloved hand shot out and seized the person closest to her, a petite woman named Christina.

The giant laid her down on her stomach, soaking a cotton ball with the rubbing alcohol and swiping the cotton along her bare back. His instructions were issued in a clinical, detached sort of manner: “Now, don’t move. I would be lying if I said that this won’t hurt, but if you move, I guarantee that you’ll regret it.”

When he turned on the drill-like instrument, a high, horrible noise issued from it and as he positioned it over the tiny woman, Paige saw the gleam of a needle. A tattoo needle, that’s what it was. Not a drill at all. She blinked, horrified, as the giant lowered the needle down onto the Christina’s exposed flesh. To a normal-sized human, there may have been some slight pain; to a person of her size, it was probably excruciating agony. The shrill hum of the tattoo almost drowned out the poor woman’s howls.

It seemed to take an eternity for Gideon to finish tattooing the woman, his handsome face hanging high above her as he worked. Finally, he was satisfied with his work and he picked her up by her legs, revealing the huge black “G” on her back, the skin surrounding it bloody and swollen. He eyed her, allowing her to dangle between his massive fingers, and then put her down so that he could select another.

This time it was Nicole, who, like Alicia, had always tended to be high-strung. To her credit, she tried to cooperate, lying still as the tattoo needle came down for her. But as soon as the needle touched her, she screeched and tried to wiggle away. Either Gideon lost control of the instrument or he purposely bore down, but the needle punctured deep into her flesh. Nicole convulsed spasmodically, blood squirting up and onto the table. Before Paige’s eyes, the red blood darkened until it was a terrible black, the color of the ink.

Gideon turned off the machine and withdrew the needle, but the damage was already done. A ragged, gaping wound was torn into Nicole’s back, blood and ink flowing down over her buttocks and legs. The giant made a “tsk” sound and poked at her.

“You really should have listened to me,” he said. “Now you’re damaged.”

Casually, Gideon swept her off the table with the back of his hand, her little body catapulted into the air. Paige didn’t have to peer over the side of the table to know that she was probably killed when she landed.

Her turn was next and her skin crawled as the hand plucked her up, the leather of the glove astoundingly soft. She gazed up into the monster’s face, his lips parted slightly to reveal his perfect white teeth. I hate you, she thought as she hung there in his grip. And I won’t give you the satisfaction of hearing me scream.

But when he laid her upon the table, the bruises on her chest hurting once more, she couldn’t help but shake violently. And when the needle sank into her flesh, she screamed until her throat was raw.

***

The pain from the tattoo was a constant and throbbing presence as Paige sat in the cage, brooding. At one point, several Nulls had appeared, nimbly climbing up the wall-to-ceiling ladders and visiting each cage. When one of the Nulls had arrived at their cage, she had noticed that he was older, his hair peppered with gray. For a Null to be that age was astonishing; most of them died early on, either killed by accident or on purpose.

His hands had passed through the golden bars, depositing food in a neat little pyramid. No one had moved toward the bread and cheese and vegetables except for Paige. She hadn’t been particularly hungry but she wasn’t scooping up handfuls of food for herself. No, it had been for Alicia, who had been huddled in the corner, reliving the tattooing over and over in her head. Except for a slight movement of her eyes, Alicia hadn’t responded much. There hadn’t been much that Paige could do except leave the pile of food there, hoping that her friend would eventually eat it.

So far, she hadn’t touched it. Paige was contemplating how she could coax Alicia into eating when there was commotion in the cages. The floorboards creaked ominously as Gideon approached. He had changed out of the clothing from earlier; now he wore a black and scarlet robe, the sort of garment that a man would use at night. Paige shook as he peered into their cage. The bars and the prisoners were reflected in his dark blue eyes, each as large as her body and fringed with thick blond eyelashes.

“Stand up and come here, all of you,” the giant commanded, opening the cage door. Paige obeyed, her back still burning. When Alicia didn’t stir, she hurried over and yanked her up by one arm, practically dragging her toward the door. They stood there, uncomfortably nude before the immense eyes. The Alpha hadn’t given them any clothes since he had removed their dresses and Paige gritted her teeth as her studied her, his eyes sliding possessively all over her exposed body.

She was almost thankful when he reached into the cage and his hand enveloped them. At least she didn’t have to see those eyes anymore. Nonchalantly, he dumped them into the pocket of the robe, a jumbled mass of women who clawed at one another as they tried to pull themselves upright. He didn’t seem overly concerned about their writhing as he started to walk. It was dark in the pocket, the only light filtering in through the opening high overhead, but Paige could make out the frightened faces around her.

Someone kneed her in the back, right where that awful tattoo was located. The searing pain that slammed into her a moment later was enough to make her fold up in half. By the time that the agony faded away, Gideon had stopped walking and reached into the pocket once more, pulling them up in handfuls. She was one of the last to be snatched up and then placed down on a cold, hard surface, gleaming white walls rising up all around her. The other women shivered together in a group, looking around fearfully.

They were in a bathtub, Paige realized. If she squinted, she could see gigantic light fixtures in the distance. Then Gideon crouched down next to the bathtub, glancing down at them. He had some sort of expression on his face, mischievous or sadistic or perhaps both. Without a word, the Alpha reached over them, his mammoth arm passing by and casting a dark shadow on the tub floor. His hand closed around the faucet handle and turned, a deluge of water roaring out from the faucet a second later. Gideon snickered as the women all ran from the flood of water, only to find that they couldn’t escape it. They ended up wading through the warm water at first, then paddling as it steadily rose, filling the tub.

None of them could swim well; pools and ponds and oceans were usually things that only Alphas experienced. The giant watched them struggle to stay above the water, their arms and legs thrashing desperately. After the tub was almost full, he turned off the water and dipped his arm into the water, stirring it slowly and creating small waves that heaved the women around. Paige swam away from the gargantuan arm, toward one side of the tub. At first, the distance didn’t seem so bad; then her limbs became heavy, the exertion of paddling around quickly taking its toll. She paused, treading water; then she mustered up all of her remaining strength and swam the rest of the way to the wall.

The wall soared high above her, unscalable. Even trying to hold onto it was difficult, the gleaming white porcelain too slick to gain much purchase. Slowly, it began to occur her that if Gideon didn’t lift them out of the water, they would all drown. But he wouldn’t let that happen…would he? Paige gazed over at the giant, who had withdrawn his arm and who was observing the women as they floundered in the water. The complete lack of mercy in his eyes answered that question.

Her arms transformed into lead weights and when she stopped moving them, her head plunged beneath the water. She flailed, raising her face back up and coughing fitfully. No matter how much she tried to cling onto the porcelain wall, she couldn’t, her hands slipping. What a horrible way to die, to drown from exhaustion in a bathtub. Paige inhaled more water, sputtered again. Just as the weariness threatened to overcome her, Gideon stood up and removed his silk robe. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath, his massive body sculpted in a way that suggested that he spent considerable time exercising it. There was no doubt that he was handsome, towering there above the bathtub, but Paige was too focused on not drowning to admire him.

The giant swung one seemingly-endless leg into the tub, the movement causing enormous waves that pummeled the tiny swimmers. High above, the huge, heavy globes of his balls and penis swung ponderously, and far past that, his eyes glittered with terrible anticipation. Then another wave struck Paige and she was pulled underwater, her body flopping around helplessly. All that she could see was churning water and then darkness as her vision began to fail, her lungs aching for breath.

She was only barely aware when she washed up onto a hard, warm mass. Everything hurt — her back and her lungs and her limbs — and she was too weak to do anything but just lay there, panting, as her eyesight returned. The ground beneath her was soft and clearly alive; gigantic hairs grew like tall, bent reeds and she could detect the rhythmic pulse of a heartbeat. Paige glanced up and saw Gideon’s titanic torso and head propped up against the end of the tub. He was sprawled out, the tiny women trying to climb onto him like survivors from a shipwreck. Several others crawled up onto his thigh near Paige, water dribbling from their hair and shuddering bodies. The Alpha merely watched them drag themselves up onto his legs and abdomen, neither helping nor hindering their efforts.

Paige was relieved to see that Alicia had made it to safety, curled up near the giant’s navel. Her eyes moved from friend to Gideon’s face again. Just a sick game, that’s all that had been. And unfortunately, it wasn’t over. The Alpha reached over, sending a few women plummeting back into the cooling water, and picked up a large bottle of body wash. To Paige and the others, the bottle was the size of a grain silo yet he lifted it up effortlessly, squirting some of the soap into his palm. Dabbing some of the soap here and there on his body, he pointed to the women.

“Get to it,” the giant ordered in his deep, thunderous voice and Paige rose, her weary legs wobbling and threatening to collapse. She headed to one of the blobs of fragrant soap and began to lather it along the huge expanse of flesh that stretched out all around her. All over the Alpha’s body, the other women were doing the same, some working with desperation, others with a sort of awed fascination. Well, except for Alicia. She remained where she was, a small, shivering ball who was too exhausted or too petrified to do anything.

But Gideon didn’t seem to notice Alicia, for which Paige was thankful. He was too busy watching the minuscule women as they slithered around his broad chest, his abs, his legs. His face was inscrutable, his mouth set in a neutral expression that gave away nothing, although he groaned slightly when some of the women began to gently rub the soap over his balls and cock. Draping his arms over the sides of the tub, he tilted his head back and closed his eyes, his immense body visibly relaxing.

Paige stopped soaping up the flesh beneath her and furtively snuck a glance around the bathroom. It was opulent, like everything else in this mansion, but her attention wasn’t on the gold and tan tiles or the glittering chandelier that hung from the vaulted ceiling. No, her eyes were on the window, where she could make out the violet evening sky. How long would she survive out there, past that window? Assuming that she could somehow escape outside, would she be able to outrun the cats and the birds and the various other hazards? In her most secret thoughts, she liked to believe that she could.

The bathwater churned violently around her as Gideon moved, sitting up. Paige looked away from the window and to her horror, she saw that the giant had finally noticed Alicia. There was a cold, almost reptilian, gleam in the Alpha’s eyes and the primitive part of Paige’s brain immediately recognized the danger. Her friend, however, didn’t react, remaining in a fetal position even when Gideon reached down and poked at her. Frowning, he wrapped his titanic fingers around her still form, starting to lift her up until Paige cried out, “No! Don’t!”

Her frantic words startled everyone, including herself. The giant’s hand stopped in its ascent; Alicia’s legs were the only part of her that was visible, dangling out from Gideon’s fist.

“What did you say?” He demanded.

Paige shuddered, partly because she was wet and the air was chilly; partly because she felt even smaller than usual under the Alpha’s intense gaze. She managed to answer, “Please don’t hurt her.”

Gideon’s gaze didn’t move from Paige and as she looked on, a horrible expression began to contort his otherwise handsome face. It was the expression of a sadistic boy who had found an injured animal in his path and unlimited time and freedom to torment it. The hand holding Alicia opened and her friend plunged into the bathwater with a loud splash. Paige backed up until she came to the edge of the giant’s thigh, the water lapping at her bare feet. There was no where to go and just as she considered diving back into the tub, Gideon snatched her up with amazing speed.

She struggled futilely, trying to free herself, until the giant opened his hand. Instinctively she froze at the sight of his cruel smile.

“You’re a bold little thing, aren’t you?” Gideon asked, bringing her uncomfortably close to his immense face. His breath, hot and moist and redolent of his last meal, stirred her damp hair. He didn’t bother waiting for an answer. “I know your type. Strong-willed, indomitable. But I’ve broken so many others like you.”

The giant’s gale-like exhalations were coming in more rapid succession, washing over her skin, as he reminisced. “There’s nothing quite as satisfying as crushing someone’s spirit.”

“I-I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to hurt her,” Paige apologized, but Gideon didn’t reply. Still holding her in his hand, he stood up from the tub, water cascading from his towering frame. The women who had been scattered all over his body either clung onto him or tumbled into the bathwater. The Alpha paid them no heed as he stepped out of the tub, reaching for a towel. One of his little passengers lost her grip and screamed all the way down to the tiled floor. She landed with a splat, bounced once, then was still, her slender limbs twisted at odd angles. Gideon paused, glancing down disinterestedly; then he slowly and deliberately placed his foot on the tiny woman. A sharp crack and a violent squirt of bright blood later, and her corpse was flattened into the tile.

The giant just left the smashed body on the floor, ignoring the pitiful smear of blood and broken bones that was once a person. He plucked the women off of his body, setting them by the sink, then retrieved those who were still in the tub. As soon as he set Alicia down, Paige tried to reach out for her friend but a massive finger stopped her, ramming into her solar plexus and knocking the breath from her lungs. Wheezing, she looked up into Gideon’s smirking face. Arrogant, murderous asshole. Hatred swelled up in her chest, making it even more difficult to breathe.

Paige balled up her hands into fists as he dried off and slipped the robe back on. He padded out of the bathroom, returned a moment later with a simple wooden box. The sight of that nondescript box filled her with overwhelming dread. But when he opened it, what sparkled inside weren’t implements of torture but a multitude of minute precious stones, sapphires and emeralds and diamonds.

And all of those glittering jewels were set in miniature collars.

Gideon selected one woman at a time, carefully slipping a collar around each. He was rough with Alicia, however, making her squawk in pain when he forced the diamond collar down around her neck. Paige’s cheeks burned like two hot coals as the hatred grew and festered inside of her. Somehow, she held her tongue as he pinched her between his mammoth fingers and put an amethyst collar on her.

Once they were all collared, he gathered them up, as if they were nothing more than pretty little statues, and returned them to the room with the cages. By then, Paige was exhausted, longing for sleep. She eagerly awaited going back into the cage, but although he put the others inside, he kept her imprisoned in the warm darkness of his hand.

Paige knew that she was in trouble when he started to walk away, and his next words only confirmed this:

“It’s time for us to get to know each other better, Paige.”