He hadn't touched her once since that day.
Vera narrowed her eyes at the thought, feeling rather whorish and desperate for even acknowledging that fact.
By most standards, a woman like The Courier—hell, even a societal figure of her stature—should be disgusted by the events that transpired a few weeks earlier.
To be humiliated to such a degree in front of a group of sexist, sadistic men was enough to break a woman, and it should have.
Vera was only left wanting…
Perhaps that's what he had wanted from the very beginning… Maybe Vulpes Inculta rattled her in a way that she had never anticipated.
That, however, was not the situation Vera wanted to concentrate on. The main objective was a safe escape. An attempt on the slaves' safety was tempting, and even more so an attempt on Caesar's life, but she couldn't risk it. The rationalist in the Courier told her to watch her ass and only that.
She'd deal with Caesar in due time…
However, Vera would be lying if she said she had it particularly hard here in The Fort. The worst part of her day was being subjected to the sneers and lingering eyes of the men who knew of her apparent free ways. Most likely a detailed summary of Vulpes' domination of the infamous Courier was a tale to be told for many years to come.
Other then such trivial things, she was mostly bothered by her constant thoughts surrounding Vulpes' plot to ruin her.
She didn't care enough about the man to hate him, but she couldn't help the rather carnal urge to bend over or fall to her knees when in close contact with him.
The very thought of such weakness disgusted her, Vera's nose scrunching up as she roughly tore a piece of gamey gecko meat from the bone in her fist.
She took her meals with the rest of the men, although she was spared possible harassment by sitting with the superior's of the camp—namely Vulpes, Lucius, various large Centurions, and, on occasion, a visit from Caesar himself.
However, when Caesar graced the table with his presence, Vera was chained to her chair with the key tucked safely away in Vulpes' armor. Just in case she got a little stir crazy, she supposed.
It was almost insulting for them to think she was truly so stupid. Although, now that she thought it over, perhaps such accusations were with good cause.
She had strolled into the Fort with a reputation fit for the shitter and challenged one of its most powerful men to a fight in the famed arena, losing in a close but ultimately fair fight.
That either took balls or serious lack of tactical choices. Vera preferred the former, but that was neither here nor there at this point.
Vulpes was momentarily distracted from his eavesdropping of a Cottonwood Cove informant speaking with Lucius when his right ear picked up the rather revolting sound of his Courier tearing into flesh like the dog she was.
He glanced over at her from the corner of his narrowed eyes, studying her furrowed brow, twitching knee, and the whiteness of her knuckles from clenching the Gecko bone so terribly hard.
So wonderfully easy, yet he found himself endlessly intrigued instead of immediately bored.
He had made a point of making no physical contact with the woman, testing the weakness in her strength that he had penetrated—no pun intended—the day of her initiation of cleansing.
She was a dirty, unforgivable piece of trash, Vulpes knew. But to the NCR, to the wretches of the Mojave, to her ragtag team of whores, she was a hero…
A martyr for the sake of the Mojave's safety. Such an interesting woman, he hated to admit, but how could he not? Not at all captivating in a visual sense; pretty, he supposed, but only due to her feminine features.
No, Vulpes was not interested in her body or her face, more so what made her so determined, so wicked. He had decided the day of her initiation that he would make her his and solely his, not to be touched physically by any other man.
He had marked her, after all, and still had seven very important lessons to teach her…