Because what comes next will be more humiliating than any of it. And again, I know it is only the beginning.

I wonder once more why he chose me. Why he wanted me.

As if my thought reminds him it’s not finished yet, not until I speak the words, he returns to me, crouches down to unlock the chain, then straightens to his full height. At well over six feet tall, he towers over my five-and-a-half-foot frame when I’m standing, so when I’m on my knees, he’s a giant.

Chairs creak as the men take their seats to witness this next scene. I wonder if they go home to fuck their wives with the image of me submitting to my husband on their minds.

But when Santiago touches the underside of my chin to raise me to kneel up, I stare up at him standing in the shadowy, dim light of the candles. I feel more his, strangely. More so than after the wedding.

And I realize I’ve given him more of what he wants when he wipes his thumb across my cheek. He closes his hand over the top of my head, that same thumb coming to my forehead, tracing a symbol there with my own tear as if blessing me. As if he’s some god. His lips move, and I think he’s saying a silent prayer, and again, I wonder what we look like, me kneeling at his feet, his mark fresh on my bloodied neck.

He closes his eyes, bows his head momentarily, then opens them again, and the look inside them is dark.

“Say the words,” he tells me with his hand still on the top of my head.

I know this part. The words. The act. I know exactly what I must do. Every daughter of The Society knows because every one of us will be made to submit no matter how high ranking.

And I know there’s no way around it. There never was, even when I believed for those short six months that I’d somehow escaped and was in charge of my own destiny. I never was.

I hold his gaze a moment longer than is proper or than he’s used to. I see a flicker of anger. Good.

He thinks I’ll be easy to break. He thinks I’m weak. He thinks my tears are weak. I see it. But I’m stronger than he knows. I almost got away. And I’ll survive him. I have to.

I empty my eyes of any emotion. I lock myself off from him, and I tell myself the words mean nothing. This is not an oath I choose.

“Dominus et Deus.”

But when I say them, it’s as if the act is sealed, and again, I wonder if God truly is on their side.

Dominus et Deus. My lord and my god.