Free The King's Pleasure by Kitty Thomas

the latch on her top and let it fall open, exposing her back.
    “You’ll break,” the king said. “This pain will be pointless in the end. Beg mercy now and spare yourself the pain and indignity.”
    Abigail shook her head. She felt numb, some part of her convinced none of this was really happening. People were talking in the background, but it all sounded like it was coming from very far away. She looked up at the king in time to see him nod at John.
    The whip came down, causing a stinging lick of fire to trail down her back. She jerked hard against her bonds. The pain was so quick and brutal that it felt as if she’d been pulled momentarily out of her body, then shoved back in again. She tried to brace herself for the next blow, but having felt the pain of the first strike, it was useless. The second lash was just as hard and frightening as the first and just as unexpected in its intensity.
    Each time the whip struck her flesh, Abigail cried out, but she didn’t beg or plead. She didn’t form any words that might indicate she’d take the king’s insane offer. Although his behavior toward her was abysmal, it still couldn’t kill the gratitude she felt for all he’d given her.
    “Ready for mercy yet?” the king taunted.
    “No, Master.” The words sounded weaker than they did in her head. Somehow the defiant tone hadn’t translated when she’d said it aloud.
    The whip came down again and again and she wondered when it would stop, if it would ever stop. She wondered if the king would let John whip her to death if she didn’t cave. She felt like a witch in an inquisition. Confess! Confess! Confess, and I’ll pardon you. But she hadn’t done anything to confess, and she wouldn’t dishonor her name with a lie to soothe the troubled king.
    As the whip struck her again, she glanced up in time to see Niall flinch.
    Abigail met his gaze as she let out another cry. If he was going to do this to her, she’d make him truly see what he was doing. The king’s eyes were haunted, but he quickly forced the expression off his face. She must be bleeding by now. The pain had numbed out a little, and that scared her even more, almost enough to beg.
    “Stop,” he said. “She’s had enough.”
    The tears fell harder, more relief than anything. She rested her cheek against the table as she listened to the whip being rolled back into a coil and returned to the guard’s belt. Then the footsteps started to recede.
    “Aren’t you forgetting something, John?” the king said.
    Niall had composed himself and was now set on giving the court a show: a show of what happened to a woman who thought to manipulate him to get her way. The would-be harem was in attendance, one or two of them looking smug, but most of them terrified. Abigail bet none of them envied her any longer.
    “Will you beg mercy now, Abby?” the king asked. No one else could detect it, but she knew him well enough to hear the edge of emotion in his voice, the tiny bit of pleading that she would ask for his mercy so it could all stop.
    “No, Master. I don’t wish to go live with my family. I want to stay with you, and I’ll do whatever it takes to prove that.”
    Niall shook his head. “This won’t end like you imagine. I’ve made up my mind.”
    As much as she should hate the king and want to rip out his organs right now, she didn’t. She pitied him. He’d inherited a kingdom with subjects who only respected kings they could fear, because they didn’t know any better way. So the cycle of abuse continued. And now she was caught in the middle of it, more a victim of circumstance than of Niall.
    Abigail closed her eyes while John fucked her, her body limp and loose and unresisting as he entered her over and over. She’d become the king’s receptive vessel, gratefully accepting any and all penetration, and this was no different.
    Niall may have wanted to break her, to be proven right, that no one could make a fool of him, but he was the broken one.