I drag the glass votive over the curve of her spine and into the dip of her lower back. The warmth against her delicate skin makes her arch for me, and she sucks in a breath and begins to plead with me in earnest.
“You don’t have to do this, Santiago.”
“Yes. I do.”
I hold her firmly in place with one hand and tilt the jar with the other. The first drop of wax splatters against her ass, making her hiss. I watch in fascination as it drips all the way down to her thigh, hardening within seconds. She jerks beneath my palm, and I press more of my weight into her, tilting the candle again on the other side. Another river of wax bleeds down her flesh, and I find that I could do this all night.
Ivy’s breathing gradually begins to settle as I pour another drop. She stops fighting me altogether when my free hand snakes up her back to settle on the nape of her neck. Warm fingers caress her there as I paint the lower half of her body like a canvas. Scarlet blooms across her ass as I repeat the process over and over again, creating long meandering streams all the way down to her calves.
She is obedient and still, nails digging into the wood when I finally set the candle aside and admire my work. I have no doubt it stings, but she did not shed a single tear. I drag my palms over her ass, brushing the hard wax away, and in the process, it exposes her pussy to me again. When the cold air hits between her thighs, she squirms in my grasp and then nearly jumps out of her skin as I slide my fingers over the moisture gathered there.
“How strange it must feel to like such a punishment,” I murmur.
Her voice is strangely absent as I slide my fingers back and forth through her wetness, toying with her clit with torturous slowness. After a few passes, she begins to melt onto the table, her body going slack as her eyes shut. She is no longer arching to pull away but arching into my touch instead. I press my body against her, playing with her pussy as I drag my fingertips through her hair, gathering a fistful and tugging until her head bows back. My lips hover over the skin of her neck, inhaling her. A shiver moves through her and my teeth graze down over the length of her shoulder before I bite into her skin, marking her. She whimpers as I press my hardness against the soft flesh of her ass and dip a finger inside her.
“Never forget who this belongs to,” I growl into her ear.
She moans as I tease her so slowly it must feel as agonizing for her as it does for me.
“Say the words.” I tighten my grip on her hair, disregarding the unrecognizable roughness in my voice.
“Santiago,” she pants. “Santiago De La Rosa.”
I groan into the sweetness of her skin, my fingers working without mercy as I bring her to the edge of sanity. It would not take much to make her come. Already, she is biting her lip, trying to contain the strangled noises in her throat. I bring her so close she can taste it. Every muscle in her body is tensing. A few more strokes and she could be free.
Right before she falls, I stop and pull away, leaving her aching and swollen for me. Agony is the only gift she deserves. When she opens her eyes and glances over her shoulder, she looks confused and frustrated by her own response. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t too.
I drag the fabric back over her hips and cover her. Slowly, she brings her body upright, and I pull her toward me. My fingers come to rest on her jaw, our breaths only an inch apart.
“Close your eyes.”
She does as I request, and I tilt my head down to meet hers. She does not recoil as I’d expect when my lips graze hers. It is only a second and nothing more, but it’s enough to feel what it’s like before she truly learns to hate me. She opens her eyes and peers up at me, studying me too intently for my liking.
“Now, thank me for being so lenient,” I tell her.
“Thank you,” she answers bitterly.
The torment in her eyes unsettles me, and I’m not sure why it compels me to stroke her cheek, showing her a softness she doesn’t deserve, at least for a moment.
“Prepare yourself,” I order. “The time has come for you to bear my mark.”
14
Ivy
“The time has come for you to bear my mark.”
I step on the ruined veil as Santiago closes his hand around my arm and walks me to the chapel door.
I watch his back as I stumble along behind him. I smell him still, his cologne of wood and leather and money. I will forever associate this scent with him. It will forever make my stomach feel like the bottom has dropped out.
He had been there, sitting silent in the confessional as if he were my confessor. And if he didn’t hate me before, he surely does after hearing what I asked.
Don’t let him be a monster.
I hadn’t meant physically, but how do I explain that to him?
Santiago chooses that moment to glance back at me, and I shudder. Maybe I’m a hypocrite after all. It’s the skull side of his face. The tattoo that makes my breath catch, that makes me unable to look away. It’s grotesque and captivating at once.
I see the scars beneath if I look closely. I wish I could take my time and study them, but he doesn’t allow for that. They’re on the other side of his face too, the beautiful side, but not nearly as bad as what I see hints of beneath that ink.
Did he do it to hide them? The scars?
Why a skull? It’s like he’s already dead.
Or did he do it out of shame?
We reach the door, and he grins as he reaches for the doorknob, and I think no, not out of shame. It’s a dare. A challenge. Look at me if you can stand it.
Or a big fuck you to anyone who would otherwise stare at the damage.
The oddest thing is that although I know it’s meant to terrify, that he means to terrify me, I don’t feel that. Not only that, at least. Because I know if I wake in the middle of the night to be greeted by the inked side of his face, he will succeed. I will be terrified.
But there’s more there. I glimpse it in his eyes, too, when it edges out the rage. The hate.
I see pain.
“Keep up,” he commands as he pulls the door open, and I wonder why he married me. Why he chose me when it’s apparent he hates me. So why choose to tie yourself to someone you hate?
Or does he think no one else would have him with his deformity? He’s a Sovereign Son. No matter what he looks like, any father would hand over his daughter should he demand it.
Demand.
That is what he’s done with me. Demanded me. And here I am. Married to the beast.
We step into the dark corridor, and I stumble as I try to keep up. The air grows cooler as we head toward the courtyard.
The Society’s seat in New Orleans is in the French Quarter, the main building a massive and ancient mansion three floors tall with a huge courtyard at the heart open to the sky. A fountain stands off-center. The building was expanded over time, but at one point, it must have been the centerpiece. Water trickles softly, the sound almost lost beneath the haunting melody playing over speakers hidden throughout the property inside and out. Something dark and gothic and modern. I recognize it, but I can’t name the artist. I’m too distracted.
I hear voices too, a low hum of men talking. The clanking of glasses and the smell of whiskey and melting wax again, like at church. Because the place is lit by a thousand candles. The only electric lights are those antique lampposts that only cast the softest yellow light set here and there in patches of trees, near the half dozen sitting areas.
I have an idea of what will happen next although the ceremony is secret. Only founding family members and, of those, only men are invited to be present. But there were always rumors at school. Girls who would claim to have seen the mark on their mother or on a new bride. The stories were always grotesque, and I guessed them to be dramatized. But when I smell the burning wood of fire, all those stories come crashing back in vivid detail, and I instinctively pull back.
He wouldn’t do that to me, would he?
Santiago turns to me, clearly annoyed. I take another step, trying
to pull free, but he holds fast.
“What’s going to happen?” My voice is a broken whisper. I’m scared, and I can’t hide the fact.
He comes closer maybe to better study me in the dim light. He pushes the hair back from my face to make a point of looking at my strange eye. Maybe we have something in common. He is not repulsed by me as I am not repulsed by him.
I lick my lips, remembering his kiss. His lips on mine. His taste. Lace scratches my hardened nipples. My dress did not come with a bra. With each small movement, I feel the remnants of hardened wax on my skin, and I take a deep breath in at the memory of his punishment.
And of my arousal.
I swallow, goose bumps covering every inch of exposed skin.
Santiago steps to within an inch of me, the toes of his shoes against my bare ones.
I have to crane my neck to meet his eyes. I wonder if others look or if they cringe away? What is he used to?
“What’s going to happen is you will do as you’re told,” he says.
“Will it hurt?” I ask stupidly. It’s what I’m afraid of. Not that I’ll bear his mark, that will come later, but the method of putting that mark upon me.
He cocks his head, one corner of his mouth curving upward. “Are you afraid of a little pain?”
I see the scars beneath the ink again and wonder how much those hurt.
“Are you?” he prods.
“Just tell me.”
His mouth moves into a smirk as his gaze moves over my face, hovering at my lips before returning to my eyes. “Your answer is written all over your face, Ivy. So easy to read.” He shakes his head like he’s disappointed, but a moment later, that smirk is gone. “I like you scared, actually. You’re very pretty when you’re scared.” He wipes his thumb across my cheekbone, and we both look down at the smear of black. Mascara. I must look a mess. “I like your tears too, and I’ll have more of those.”
He wraps his hand around the back of my neck. The intricate twist his sister forced my hair into is tight enough to give me the beginnings of a headache.
I gasp when he jerks me to him, fingers rough on the bare skin there like he’s testing it. They mark the back of a woman’s neck. It’s how the stories went at school, at least. I imagine a barcode there so male members can scan to see who they can touch and who they can’t.
I hate everything about The Society from what it’s done to our family to what it requires of women. What it requires of me.
“You’re mine. And tonight, you’ll bear a mark for all to know exactly that,” Santiago says.
Abruptly he lets go of the back of my neck and turns, fingers digging into my arm as he pulls me forward. I stub my toe on a stone, stumble and hear a woman’s gasp. I look in the direction of the sound and see a flash of color, a rustle of leaves, and behind the half-faced sculpture I can’t name, I see a woman. She’s young, my age, I’d guess. It’s just for a moment that I see her, but when I meet her wide eyes, she quickly puts a finger to her lips, urging me not to give her away.
She’s not supposed to be here. The women, if they’re on the property, would be cloistered inside. Is she afraid I’ll tell?
Santiago stops, turns in the direction of the sound. He heard her too.
I mean to take a step away from the sculpture to distract him but he tugs my arm and I end up bumping into his chest. I bounce off and he looks down at me.
“Are you always so clumsy?”
“I—”
“There they are, the bride and groom,” someone calls out from the courtyard. “You’ve kept us waiting, Santiago.”
Men laugh.
I see my husband’s face morph and his expression shift. Something akin to an almost physical discomfort. Jaw tight, he closes his eyes and draws a slow, deep breath in. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s steeling himself. But I do know better. What reason would this man need for steeling himself? He is a king here.
When he opens them again, they’re empty. It’s like he’s just slipped a mask on, another one.
We take the last few steps and we’re in the courtyard.
I gasp when I see the gathering. I remember that night Santiago first came into my bedroom and put his ring on my finger. Because the sight that greets me is a terrifying one. All those men wearing those black robes with the hoods pulled up, white and black masks gleaming underneath.
“I don’t want to,” I say stupidly, sounding like a child.
Santiago laughs. “You think you have a choice?”
I shift my gaze from them to him.
“Besides, it’s not those men you have to worry about,” he adds.
I swallow.
He turns to them, and I understand all those candles. People are curious. I wonder if any have seen him fully. Santiago is careful. I get the feeling only those he allows actually see his face.
“I needed a moment with my new bride,” Santiago says casually to a slew of nods and chuckles. He nudges me ahead of him.
The men shift their attention to me. I shrink back but behind me is the wall of Santiago’s chest.
“Where are you going, sweet Ivy? We haven’t yet begun,” he whispers, arm wrapping around me from behind, fingers on my jaw lifting my face, making me look at all those men. A little more than a dozen. No women. Like at the church.
At least my brother isn’t here to witness this next humiliation. Or is he one of them?
No, only the upper echelon wear the robes. They wouldn’t allow Abel in even if they did allow my father.
Santiago keeps hold of me as we cross the courtyard. The rain has cleared, but the sky remains cloudy. The stone is cold and hard beneath my bare feet with the debris of dried, fallen leaves from the trees.
I have only been here once before. My father brought me when I was little, and he had business here. The babysitter had canceled at the last minute. I remember being awed by it then. I’m as awed now.
Two sets of staircases lead to the upper floors where any glass door or window has been shuttered against curious eyes. Green cascades from the railings, growing lush in the damp Louisiana climate. Even the air in this place is that of money. Of power.
The men fall quiet as Santiago walks me toward them, our steps slowed, him not so much dragging me anymore. No, not toward them. We’re walking toward the ornately carved wooden canopy that looks to be centuries old. It’s draped thickly with cascading red roses woven into vibrant green ivy. The floor beneath the canopy is littered with the flowers too. I can almost smell them there are so many.
The men’s expressions grow more serious as they begin to take their seats in the chairs lined up across from this makeshift stage.
Beneath the canopy are a small table with golden legs and a single chair, large and golden to match the table, the pattern on the upholstered cushions too worn to make out from here.
As we near the table, I see equipment on top. Some of which I can’t place, but others, like the leather restraints, have my stomach falling away. I stumble, catching my toe on a slightly raised stone as my gaze shifts to the firepits scattered throughout the courtyard and to the one closest to the canopy with the iron pressed into the fire.
That’s the one that scares me.
I don’t back up consciously. I don’t realize I’ve done it until both of Santiago’s hands come to my arms and turn me to face him.
“Wife,” he says, and I drag my gaze from that iron up to him.
“You can’t—”
He leans down toward me, his cheek brushing mine, igniting a spark. “I can,” he whispers against my ear. He holds me like that for a moment, then licks the shell of it, making me shudder as he draws backward and nearly lifts me off my feet to take me to the center of the canopy. He crushes the roses beneath his shoes, and the smell and roar of the fires overwhelm all of my senses. Once I’m standing before the chair and table, he turns me to face the men, and keeping his hands on my shoulders, he gives me a single-word command.
“Kneel.”
&nbs
p; I swallow hard. I look up at him, and he looks down at me. Behind him, a sea of faces watches curiously, intently. Will I obey? Will I submit? And what happens if I don’t?
“Please don’t,” I start, but no more words come. Please don’t hurt me. It’s pointless. He enjoys hurting me. Didn’t I just learn that?
His hands tighten on my shoulders, and I go down, the lace of the dress rough between my naked knees and the cold stone. I kneel up, staring at him. My husband. I feel the first tear slide down my cheek. Is this what he wants? He hasn’t even touched me yet, and I’m already giving him my tears.
But if it is, he doesn’t acknowledge it. His expression is unreadable as he walks behind me.
I don’t move, concentrating on keeping my gaze from roaming to that fire. To the branding iron in the flames. My heart races, a cold sweat covering me as my vision blurs around the edges. I’m not sure I can take that kind of pain. No, I’m sure I can’t.
Santiago draws my wrists behind my back, and I feel cool leather cuff first my right wrist, then my left.
I still don’t move.
Next come the cuffs at my upper arms. These force me to sit up, making my breasts jut out toward the watching men.
I swallow hard as he tightens the bonds, immobilizing me. I can still run, I think. I’d be clumsier than usual bound as I am, but I can still run. Although I know I won’t get far.
Something cold wraps around my neck and I gasp, wanting to reach up but unable to. It’s thin, whatever it is, and it fastens with a click.
I feel him stand and hear him as he walks around me again. I look up at him. At the two sides of his face.
He watches me for a long minute. Only when I drop my gaze does he crouch down to take my face into his hand. His touch is gentle as he studies me, studies the few tears that drop from my eyes.
I want to tell him not to hurt me. I want to beg him not to brand me. But I can’t form words. Can’t make sound.
He lets something drop from his other hand. It makes a clinking noise when it hits the stone, and I shift my gaze to it. It’s a long, thin chain. He lifts my chin higher and hooks it onto the choker he just placed around my neck and runs the other end through a small ring attached to the stone floor that I hadn’t even noticed.
Requiem of the Soul: A Sovereign Sons Novel Page 9
