"Yes, mistress. I'll be a good kitten."
"She learns quickly," Kali said, pleased. "Cats have a strong instinct for survival."
Jean stepped closer. His presence pressed on the room like a hand laid on a chest.
"Clever girl. Look, Sophie. A talking kitten. She knows the right words."
"But her mouth was so foul." Sophie ran a finger over the prisoner's lips, took her by the cheeks, turned her face. "She needs a lesson. She will lick your boots, so she remembers what does not belong in her mouth."
Sophie walked the enkai across the floor on her knees and brought her to Jean. His boots were polished black, smelling of beeswax and good leather. The cat lowered her head and touched her tongue to the toe of one boot, tasting wax and her own ruin.
"See how she yields to you both." Kali watched with the interest of a philosopher considering an experiment. "She feels the spark of the divine in you."
Sophie laid a hand on the prisoner's hair and let her fingers sink into it.
"Good girl. There. Much better. I think she likes it. Kitten, do you like it?"
"Mm-hm..." the enkai purred, her body easing under their hands.
Sophie clapped a palm to her backside, not hard, but enough to bring the colour up through the thin gauze of her trousers.
"Say 'yes, mistress'."
"Yes, mistress." The cat's voice came out broken, breath uneven, her tongue still working at the leather.
"She likes it. Look at her, my love. She's all wound up."
Sophie sank behind the enkai and set her hands on the cat's hips to guide her.
"Unbuckle his belt and apologise properly."
"In my time," Kali said, "we cut their throats and watched. The blood. The cries. The dying." She drew a finger along the arm of her chair. "But if this is the way you prefer it..."
The prisoner's hands shook as she undid Jean's belt and then the buttons. He was already hard, hot under her fingers. She took him in both hands the way you handle a thing that might burn you, and she felt him pulse against her palms.
"Don't be afraid, kitten." Sophie ran her hand down the cat's back. "Show us how sorry you are."
The enkai bent and brushed her lips against the head, salt on her tongue. Jean let out a low sound and stroked her hair in reward.
"Good girl," Jean praised her. "But not enough."
Sophie laid a hand at the back of her head and guided her lower, easing his cock deeper into her mouth. The first movements were uncertain. Sophie taught her with patience, the way a woman teaches a kitten to lap milk.
"Slow," she breathed at her ear. "Take every centimeter. Remember the taste of the man you wronged."
The enkai's saliva ran down the length of his cock in a long thread, gathering at the root. Her lips had gone white at the corners, stretched to their limit around him, and a thin line of spit hung from her chin to the floor.
Kali sank into her chair and let her hand fall to her own lap, drinking their pleasure off the bond. Their version of the rite of penitence was more intoxicating than she was ready to admit.
With every stroke Sophie grew more exacting. She fastened her hand tighter at the cat's nape, set the rhythm, dictated the depth.
"Deeper, kitten. Show us how sorry you are."
She was choking. Tears brimmed, but she tried to get him deeper, gazing up at him, her look full of gratitude for the humiliation.
"Look at me." Jean raised her chin. "I want to see your eyes when you ask forgiveness."
Their gazes met. He held a dark authority in his look that he had not known was in him; she held only yielding.
"She likes it." Sophie slid a hand between the cat's thighs. "She's soaking wet. Our kitten gets turned on by submission."
"Yes, mistress." The cat came up for air. "I... I like to serve you."
The truth of it had settled into her chest before the words had finished. She did not look at him.
"Of course you do." Sophie smiled, all teeth. "You have finally found your place."
Kali nodded approvingly.
Power. A sweet languor rolled through their bond at that single thought.
"Kitten. Do you like my husband?"
"Yes, mistress." The enkai's cheeks burned, shame and hunger together.
"Do good kittens covet other women's husbands? Bad kitten." Sophie cracked a hand across her ass.
Jean sat down on the cell's single chair and dragged the enkai across his knees. He pinned her writhing body easily under his massive hands. He drew down the thin trousers and bared the tanned curve of her backside, marked by a fine mesh of dark temple ink that ran up under the waistband. He passed his palm over her, feeling the fine hairs lift in anticipation.
"For thoughts like that, a punishment." He set his other hand against the small of her back. "Count aloud."
The first slap was almost ceremonial. The sound rang from the walls.
"One," the enkai breathed.
"Louder," Jean ordered. "And thank me."
"One! Thank you!" Her voice cracked.
He paused, palm hovering above the reddening skin.
"Thank me for what?"
She swallowed. Her tail jerked.
The second blow was harder. Heat spread across her, and down to core. Her breathing quickened.
"Two! Thank you... thank you for the lesson!"
"Whom are you thanking?" Jean kept training her.
Slap. She bit her lower lip.
"Three! Thank you, Master, for the lesson!"
Sophie crouched at her side and trailed her fingers up the cat's thigh.
"Such a docile girl. You learn fast. But I don't see that you've understood your fault yet."
The fourth lifted her off his knees. Her skin blazed, and a wet ache had begun beating between her legs.
"Four! Thank you, master, for the lesson! I was bad!"
Jean swept his palm over the heated skin, soothing now.
"What were you?"
"A bad..." She gasped. "A bad kitten."
"Say it properly." Sophie buried her fingers in the cat's hair and tilted her face up at Jean.
A shock rolled through her body. Pain, shame, surrender ran together. Tears spilled. Between her thighs the heat doubled.
"Five! Thank you, master, for the lesson! I was a bad kitten!"
The slaps went on. Kira wept and laughed, snarling and losing count, while Jean patiently brought down his hand time after time. When she lost track completely, her muttering thinned to a slurred mumble.
"...teen... thank you, ma-er... I was... a bad... kitten. Forgive me..."
Jean stopped. She went limp across his lap, all resistance finally gone.
Her body had gone soft across his lap. The last of her fight had melted out of her.
"Now you understand." Sophie traced the handprints. "Pain and pleasure are one and the same." She bent to the enkai's ear. "Do you think, kitten, that you have made amends?"
The enkai went still, then shook her head and pressed her cheek against Jean's knee.
"No, mistress. I need more punishment. I coveted another woman's husband..."
You've struck the deepest strings of her shabby little soul, Kali marvelled, watching with growing admiration as she continued to caress herself. Bravo.
"Now show us how well you've taken the lesson." Sophie stood and lifted her dress by centimetres. "Serve your mistress."
The enkai went to her knees in front of her. Her hands fumbled as she carefully parted Sophie's legs and bent her head between them.
"Steadily," Sophie whispered, fingers working into the cat's hair. "We have time. Show me how grateful you are for our patience."
The cat touched her tongue to the hot, slick folds. Groaning softly, Sophie pressed forward. The sweet, delicate taste flooded her mouth. Swallowing, the enkai shuddered. The skin of her buns still burned from the recent slaps, and as heat flushed into her groin, her thighs locked together, squeezing her swollen, aching clitoris.
"There, kitten. Just there."
Behind her, Jean lifted aside what was left of her clothing and slipped two fingers between her legs. She was ready to take him.
"So wet," he murmured. "You really do enjoy your punishment."
"Mm-hm," the prisoner answered without lifting her mouth from Sophie.
Jean pressed the head of his cock against her slick entrance and pushed in, feeling her pussy tighten around him and then open, drawing him deeper. The enkai's breath punched out against Sophie's inner thigh, short and sharp, and then a low moan built as he buried himself to the hilt, his hips flush against her smarting skin. The vibration of it ran into Sophie and snapped her spine taut.
The enkai had not expected to press back. Her hips did it before she knew.
"Don't stop, kitten." Sophie tightened her grip. "Show us how well you can serve two at once."
Kali leaned forward, locked on the tangled bodies. Her spouses had at last shown their true faces. Their passion warmed her like a sweet, potent Vin Santo, quietly stealing the strength from her legs and any trace of worry with it.
Jean drove with measured force, every thrust pushing the enkai harder against Sophie. The three of them ran on a single current of dominion and pleasure.
"Faster," Sophie rasped. "I want to feel you shudder under his touch."
Jean took the rhythm up. He worked his hand beneath the enkai and found her clit, swollen and slippery, and ground two fingers against it in circles. A current shot up through her belly before she had drawn a breath. Her fingers clawed at the floor. Her vision blanked at the edges. She cried out into Sophie's pussy, her hips lurching back against his cock and forward against his hand both at once, pinned between them, unable to move in either direction and unable to hold still.
"Don't you dare stop," Sophie warned, though her own voice was barely steady.
"She's learning to be good," Jean said, hoarser. "Our kitten understands now what it is to serve with pleasure."
Their heavy breathing, low moans, and the slap of skin on skin filled the cell. The old walls buried one more secret within them.
"I'm... I'm close," Sophie moaned, her knees betraying her.
"Then let's finish it." Jean drove the rhythm to its limit.
The enkai lunged back against Jean, beyond any intention. She locked the muscles of her thighs, curling her toes against the stone, and tore out a raw, wordless sound, a crushed vowel with no shape that built against Sophie. She clenched her pussy around Jean in one long rhythmic spasm, squeezing him in tight rolling waves, and pressed her face harder between Sophie's thighs, scraping her palms against the cold stone for purchase.
The vibration of that broken sound against Sophie's clit made her nape numb. She clamped her thighs shut around the enkai's head, trapping her in place, and lurched forward, short and hard. She drove herself against the cat's mouth again and again, fingers clawed into the enkai's hair, and froze at the peak. She cried out, a high, breathless sound that cut into silence. She arched her back, parting her lips, while her thighs still squeezed the enkai's ears.
"More..." Kali gouged deep furrows into the armrests of her chair.
Jean drove his cock into the enkai to the hilt and went still. She felt him come before she heard it. A thick scalding surge flooded her from inside, then a second pulse, a third, each one filling her deeper as the heat spread wider. She let out a soundless moan that died between Sophie's thighs. Her walls gripped him again and again, drawing out each wave. Then she began to move, rocking her hips back, pressing into him and taking what was hers while he was still pouring himself into her. He dug his fingers into her hips hard enough to bruise, growling through clenched teeth. She kept rocking until his come ran down the inside of her thigh and she had nothing left to draw from him.
"Now she is truly ours," Kali pronounced, with the satisfaction of a priest at the close of a rite. Their ecstasy fed her power as offerings fed the gods.
They subsided. The enkai's arms gave first; she slid to the cold floor, her thighs not yet steady, his come already running between them cooling on reddened skin. The marks he'd left had darkened and still burned. Sophie's fingers unclenched from the prisoner's hair one by one. She leaned back against the stone, breathing hard. Her pussy throbbed on. Jean withdrew and stood, his cock wet and still hard in the lamplight, and dropped his hands to his sides.
Sweat cooled on four sets of skin. The air held the close, dense smell of bodies and spent sex, and the old walls absorbed it without comment.
Kali sat without moving. The taste of their ecstasy, beside which even her oldest memories paled, still lingered on her tongue. She had received what she wanted, but was it "enough"? Did such a concept even exist for her? A hint of dried berries makes wine exquisite, but overdo it and the noble vintage turns into a cheap compote. Oh, who are you trying to fool? Bring the whole cask!
"Put the tired kitten back on her bed," Sophie said softly.
Jean lifted the prisoner with care and laid her on the cot, drew the thin blanket over her. He and Sophie sat down on either side. Their presence weighed on her now with a soft and unrelenting pressure.
Jean rested a hand on the enkai's shoulder, and she tipped her cheek into its warmth, cat to the last.
Sophie bent, her fingers lightly tracing the holy ink on the enkai's shoulder, and whispered into her ear.
"Of course. The Guild, the Silver House... they mean nothing to one of the temple's own. You answer to none but your goddess. What will she do when she sees you dripping with the pleasure of these 'decadents'?"
The cat opened her eyes. They were full of fear.
"I'm a prisoner. I didn't want to..."
"You can try that lie." Sophie left a white trail with a claw down her cheek. "But we all watched you take your pleasure of my husband. Bastet need only look once into your soul, and she will see the whole of it."
The enkai turned her face away. Jean turned it back.
"I serve the goddess alone. She knows my name. You have no power over me."
"Then give us your name, kitten," Sophie cooed.
A tremor ran through the girl.
"Kira."
"We will come again tomorrow, Kira. Until then, think on the mercy of your goddess."
Sophie closed the cuffs back onto the cat's wrists. They felt more ornamental than binding now.
Kali cut the flow of power as suddenly as she had loosed it. Jean and Sophie rocked, as if an invisible hand had let go of them. The thickness in Jean's body ebbed. Sophie's claws drew back into ordinary nails.
They looked at the broken, quietly weeping Kira, and then at each other.
"How dare you seize control of us again?!" Jean wheeled on Kali.
"I did no such thing." Kali spread her hands. "I only freed you of your fetters."
"We did not choose this." A sudden wave of nausea cut Sophie short. The heavy smell of cooling sweat became unbearable.
Jean stopped where he was. He looked from Kali to Sophie, then down at his own hands. The seconds stretched, and only Kira's quiet sobs filled them.
"No..." he weighted every word. "We did not choose to begin. But we did not stop when we could have."
Sophie looked at him, a painful understanding surfacing in her face.
"Because that is your true nature," Kali observed evenly, like a woman remarking on the weather.
Jean dragged a hand over his face. His fingers had not stopped shaking.
"Kali. We need to talk. Properly."
He drew Sophie into his arms. She pressed against him, and through the thin fabric between them he felt her heart beating, perfectly in time with his own.