Azael's Chains

Painted

Hermione flinched back into the wall, drawing a soft chuckle from the Death Eater. "Where would you like to begin, kitten? There are so many possibilities." He tapped his wand against his thigh. "Shall I strip off your flesh? Brand you? Create new mouths across your flesh?"

Her pulse thrummed in her throat, eyes widening to take in all of the predator before her. Hermione spread her arms along the cool dampness of the wall, sidling away.

"Ah," he admonished. "I don't think so." A flick of his wand sent chains snaking down to her wrists. Manacles tugged her onto her toes as more wound up from the floor to splay her legs wide. "There, now. You have no way to escape this, pet. You are completely at my mercy." Dolohov stalked closer, nose sliding into her hair.

No escape. The words echoed and her skin felt too tight for her ribcage, as though her bones wanted to flee her flesh and leave this Hell behind. She was trapped. Pain was inevitable. Hermione closed her eyes and pushed back against the flood of helplessness that threatened to overwhelm her. The surface shone like a mirror, but in its depths she could see the shadow of Malfoy Manor and Bellatrix Lestrange.

She jerked her headway from him, trying to burrow into herself, scrabbling for a safe haven in her mind. Potions recipes. She could go through the process to make Draught of Peace. Asphodel. Powdered moonstone.

A line of heat seared down her chest and cool air rushed in to send gooseflesh pebbling across her midsection. Her eyes snapped open as her front was bared, dress and undergarments waffling around her. Rough fingertips skimmed her ribs and she threw herself against her restraints, her body arcing painfully against the restrictions. "No!"

Dolohov's grip tightened bruisingly in the spaces between her ribs and the point of his dark wand was against the pulse of her throat. "You beg so prettily, I cannot resist giving you what you so obviously want. Crucio ."

At Bellatrix Lestrange's wand the Cruciatus had been nearly maddening. Her body had shaken with the aftermath for a week afterward, though she'd hidden it from the boys. It had raced through her veins molten-hot, and her body had thrashed against the marble floor to cover her in bruises purple as night. It was a shallow imitation of what Dolohov did to her now.

In those moments, Hermione did not exist. She was pain, and it was never ending. There was no awareness of before, no knowledge that there would be something after. She could not conceptualize anything. Her mind failed her.

So spectacularly did it fail that she lived in the pain for long breaths when it had finally stopped. She came to herself with ragged sobs accompanied by the metallic chiming of the chains, trembling and wheezing as aftershocks racked her stretched-taut body. She was too hot, but her skin was ice and drenched in sweat and more.

"There, now." A hand stroked in her damp hair and she could just make out his wand held there as well. The other was still curled around her waist. "I know it hurts. My Cruciatus is like nothing you've felt before, is it?" He hummed into ear, breath stifling against her sensitive skin. "And now everything I do to you will draw forth these lovely after-pains. Each tense muscle will send the pain signals dancing down your nerves again. Lovely, isn't it?"

Another sob choked out of her as she began processing his words, and as that brought first more pain, it became a bitter laugh. "You're a monster."

He hummed again, a low, pleased note. "Yes." When his fingers trailed up her side and plucked at one of her nipples, the grit of her teeth sent a spasm through her head hard enough to make her dizzy. His thumb continued to tease at the little nub and she tried to deepen her breath and ignore it, but even that made her ache. "What a delightfully responsive little body you have, kitten. I can see every flinch, every little pain. And you look so breakable." His hand roamed her body possessively, digging against starkly covered bone and into sinewy muscle. "A little softening and you will be perfect." Dolohov's large, hot palm flattened above her pubis. "Tell me, Hermione, has anyone ever touched you like this before?"