Operation Honey Trap vs The Emperor of the Apocalypse-Chapter 202: Back in the Emperor’s Clutches

[Suggested song for this Chapter – Wicked Game by Chris Isaak]

The maid took Delphi’s jilbab, headscarf, veil, and boots, leaving her barefoot in her combat uniform, and weaponless of course.

Delphi’s eyes darted quickly around the room, taking in the contents and their locations, and assessing everything as a potential weapon.

The cell looked like she imagined a bedroom in a high-end brothel might look. Plush carpets, pink walls, pink satin sheets on a huge circular canopy bed that appeared to be built so that the posts attached to the floor and the ceiling.

For what purposes a bed needed to be screwed to the floor and roof, she could only imagine.

The bedposts included manacles, and manacles dangled on chains from the ceiling above the centre of the bed.

An array of ’implements’ hung on the wall in a long glass cabinet. Whips, ropes, blindfolds... sadly, it reminded Delphi of Lili’s tongue-in-cheek selections for her charm bracelet.

There was a huge sunken bath in one corner of the room. It was already filled with warm water which was lightly steaming. Pink rose petals floated all over the surface of the water, looking all the more tacky for the over-the-top amount of pink in the room.

There was a shower with a clear glass wall and some scary looking manacles. Near the door was a small dining table for two, a reading area with a comfortable seat and a wind up record player, and a set of gym equipment, running machine, stepper, bike... no free weights that might be used to bash someone on the head, unfortunately.

She couldn’t see any tools for torture, unless it was of a sexual kind... So she supposed that if the Emperor planned to torture her for information, he would take her to a different room for those activities.

She wandered over to the library and blanched when she saw that it contained her favourite books; Pride and Prejudice, A Suitable Boy, War and Peace, Little Women, Harry Potter, All the Rivers Run, Game of Thrones...

Did the bastard intend for her to live in this cell? Was that why he had furnished it with books she enjoyed and exercise equipment?

She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before deliberately letting it slowly out, as she calmed her racing pulse. There was no point projecting her fears into the future. At this juncture she could only survive from minute to minute, hour to hour, for as long as that was possible.

Her life was dedicated to the Rebellion, so she must continue to survive if she could, to try to help the Cause. That meant subsuming her own desires to the higher needs of the Rebellion, including if that desire might be for the blessed relief of death to escape the monster she knew was coming for her...

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear, she thought, as the lock sounded at the door, and it opened.

The man she had so hoped never to see again, the man she had hoped to kill with that bomb, or with her own hands, she wasn’t at all precious about the means of his demise, stepped into the den of iniquity he had built for her.

Unfortunately, he looked hale and hearty. If they had injured him, it appeared not to be too serious...

Like a lion sniffing its prey, his head swung in her direction, his cold eyes zeroing in on her, seemingly drinking her in.

He looked at her slowly and lasciviously, dragging his eyes from her face, down her curvaceous figure, to her bare feet.

Then he threw back his head and laughed. It was the long, crazy laugh of a madman, so far as Delphi was concerned. She had no desire to analyse it any more deeply than that. Suffice to say, she could hear the delight in it.

She tried to stare coldly at him, but she knew her unfriendly gazes were wasted on the man, who cared not a whit for her feelings generally, or for how she felt about him.

When the Emperor had finally collected himself from his long, lonely laugh, he moved towards her, and she felt for all the world that he was stalking her like a big cat. Perhaps he would pounce on her and tear her flesh with his claws and teeth...

Unfortunately, she knew he would figuratively be doing exactly that, whatever the actual punishment he had in store for her was.

"Delphine, Delphine, Delphine," he crooned as he approached her, and she winced to hear him call her like that.

"Finally... I have you back, my dear."

He stood in front of her now, and he reached out and ran a finger deceptively gently along her jawline.

"You’ve had quite the adventure outside the palace, haven’t you, my little wife?"

"We’re not married yet," she said coolly, as he shifted his finger to trace across her pretty lips.

"Oh, but we will be, little wife, very soon... Assuming you’re still a virgin. Are you?" he asked her deceptively lightly.

A question she knew was deeply important to him.

Now she wished with all of her heart that she had given her virginity to Alton. If only she’d made love to the man she loved...

Who knew what the Emperor would have done with her if he’d discovered that... but if it prevented him from marrying her, it could only be a very good thing.

Instead, here she was facing into being raped by this psychopath.

She didn’t want the Emperor targeting the Honour Guards any more so than he already would be, so she quickly nodded her head.

"Yes," she replied, "I am still a virgin".

"We’ll see about that tomorrow," he narrowed his eyes at her. "You’ll be checked by the doctors before our wedding ceremony."

"They’ll find that what I’ve told you is true."

"Is that so, little wife?"

He moved around behind her, his body hovering a scant inch from hers, dipping his head into her neck where he drew in her scent.

He really was simply an apex predator, she realised, more animal than man...

He pulled out the band which held up her pony tail and let her long hair fall down around her shoulders and tumble free down her back.