by Joey W. Hill
Except she really didn’t know what would make him proud in a situation where she was going behind his back to do something he didn’t want her to do. Damn it.
“He says I can answer your question. Since the beginning. Since he heard a nightingale singing in the window of a New Orleans brothel and found a child-whore who wanted to see the world.”
Ella remembered the pictures Chantal had brought back from her trip to New Orleans, and how she’d described the city to James, giving him recommendations on where to go, what to see. Graceful gardens, dancing and music everywhere, the aroma of wonderful food. Second story balconies with wrought iron railings painted different colors.
She could easily see Seanna there. And she’d been right about the bordello. Wow. A small way to bolster her faith in her instincts.
“I’ve been with him for decades,” Seanna continued. “He is my home now, and always. Oh, look at your hips, dancing against my fingers as I rub your rim. Such a sweet, responsive thing. My Master looks forward to hearing you scream.”
It wasn’t malicious. It was…sexual. She could feel Seanna feeding on the power of having her here at her mercy, her Master in her head feeding on it as well.
“Now, speaking of shafts…” Seanna removed a soft-sided cooler from the bag, and opened it, expelling a cool mist. She removed two ice dildos. The frost-covered, translucent phallic shapes were both sizeable.
“There we go. The lotion has lubricant in it. So versatile.”
Ella bit her lip as the first one was inserted into her rectum. Hell, it was cold. So cold. But the moment it came in contact with the nerves on her rim that had been treated with the lotion, it started to burn. Burn like someone had forced a much bigger thing into her backside without any lubricant at all. Oh…Oh Goddess, that hurts.
“It will become very painful, but not leave any damage. And the lasting effects…even if I removed it this very minute, the pain you are feeling will continue for quite a while. There is a special wash in my bag that eases the effect, makes it bearable. Only one substance, other than time, eradicates it completely. I will not tell you what that is. That is a surprise, one you might not experience.”
Ella had to choke back a whimper as Seanna efficiently parted her labia and worked in the other curved ice dildo. “It’s all a lesson, isn’t it? Teaching you your place in the vampire world. It is very important you learn it. You attack one of them again, my sweet pussy, your life will be forfeit.”
Ella was focusing on breathing. In, out, in, out. Fuck, fuck, fuck, this hurt. Rise above the pain. Rise above it. She needed her Master. Needed him so much. She could bear anything with him, if it was his punishment. This was making her feel so isolated, so alone. Where was Anwyn? She was getting scared. She didn’t want to be scared.
The door opened, bringing her head around. Her heart plummeted as her stomach twisted. It was Allan. He’d stripped down to his jeans. And he already had his weapon of choice in hand.
An intense impact cane, with rubber grip handle and wrist strap to make it easier for the Dom to hold during a prolonged caning session.
She’d received very pleasurable canings from Mistresses or Masters who knew how to warm her up, find her sweet spot, where even with the pain, she’d still want more. A caning was typically a slow build, deep tissue pain, but once it reached a certain point, it could be shudderingly memorable. She’d been at the mercy of those who knew how to make it hurt, make her cry, because that was the kind of scene they wanted. She remembered one Dom who held her afterward, dried her tears, and told her how very pleased he was with her, which had made it all worth it. But each time he came back to do that scene, she’d still dreaded it.
She had a feeling that was going to be a picnic compared to this.
Seanna stepped back as Allan took her place. He stared down into Ella’s face, tipping up her chin.
“If you cry out, we start over,” Allan said quietly. “Do you understand?”
There was no way she wouldn’t cry out from a hundred strikes from a cane. Her voice shook. “Yes, sir.”
Allan gripped the collar of her shirt with both hands and ripped it off her shoulders, tearing it down the middle of her back. He left it hanging that way, in tatters. He tore the waistband of the skirt, down the seam. The fabric fell around her ankles. She still wore her sneakers, no socks.
He’d done it brutally, a deliberate lack of sexual finesse, matching the stark bleakness of the room. All of it screamed this is not a fantasy. Yet that didn’t mean every bit of it wasn’t arousing to the vampire watching through his servant, or to the vampire executing the punishment.
She saw it in Allan’s face, in the way he touched her as he checked the security of the restraints, discovered the studded lining. But she also saw something else. He was reining it back. Which suggested he wouldn’t be having sex with her as part of this, a relief that almost balanced her fear about everything else.
He was still human enough to respect his friend, to try not to get off on hurting his servant. Or think about taking her, even in this situation where Ella suspected it was entirely permitted, if Lord Richard sanctioned it.
Ella’s heart hammered against her chest, her mouth dry. She really, really, really wished Wolf was here. Don’t talk to him, don’t try to talk to him…
She’d hoped Anwyn would be in the room, but there was a camera. She expected Anwyn was watching from there, so if she revealed any discomfort about this, Richard wouldn’t see that. Or maybe Richard had required she view it through a camera, rather than being physically present.
Ella wished at least Gideon was here, but she understood why he wasn’t. It was possible Anwyn hadn’t even told him about this, knowing it would be very difficult for him not to interfere. She was protecting her servant.
As Ella was protecting her vampire. It was all she wanted, though a close second was her desire for this to be over.
Seanna, now positioned at the wall where Ella could see her, was moistening her lips, her eyes glittering. She wanted to be where Ella was, Ella realized. With her Master wielding the cane.
Goddess help her, Ella understood that. Just as she knew her Master’s absence was going to make this even more unbearable than the pain itself.
Though that was saying a lot, because those ice dildos were pushing her even now to start screaming, and keep doing so, until the echoes reached all the corners of Atlantis.
Maybe, since he didn’t listen in on her mind the way other vampires did, she could talk to him during this. The knowledge that he could listen in might be enough of a substitute to help her.
I’m so sorry, Master. This is so wrong, but I don’t know what to do.
That’s my fault. Because I haven’t taught you to trust me the way you should.
Goddess. The flood of feeling was instant, breaking through every flimsy wall she’d been trying to build to get her through this. She closed her eyes, hating herself for the weak-kneed relief she felt at the sound of his mind-voice. Would he be willing to stay there in her head throughout, despite her doing what he hadn’t wanted her to do? She imagined him sitting on a bench in Savannah, watching the boats come and go as she was caned. Could he let her watch the boats with him? Or would he be so angry with her, he’d leave her closed in the darkness of her head. But he was here with her, even in that darkness. She could get through it.
Allan had stopped circling her. He’d turned toward the door. Then she felt him, her Master, coming down the hallway. Her stomach lurched.
You were in Savannah.
Yes, I was. Then I started thinking about my girl, and how her mind works. I thought of my friends and what they might do if my friends and my girl got together and decided to try and protect me. And I knew nothing but my actual presence could stop this from happening.
He was angry, but a cold, controlled anger that she knew didn’t bode well. Even so, that relief didn’t abate. He’d be here during her punishment.
There will be no punishment. This
is not happening.
He entered the room, stood on the threshold. Seanna had put her in the center of the wall, so she had to crane her neck to a straining angle just to see him in her peripheral vision. Whoever had designed the room had had a wicked understanding of how to make a sub feel even more helpless.
But she saw enough to see he wore a long-sleeved dark shirt, loose over his jeans, with a pair of boots under the denim. He looked so good, smelled so good. She inhaled him and his heat through all her senses.
But the thunderous look on his face was unmistakable. He was going to order Allan out of the room, take her out of the cuffs. Seanna was watching—Lord Richard was watching.
Please, Master. If you aren’t going to be with me, please don’t let the last thing I remember between us be this. That I did something that got you hurt, in trouble. Please…I couldn’t bear to think of it, if you were trapped in a coffin for months as a punishment, if someone was hurting you…please, this is just a moment.
He moved fully into her view, standing at her side. She bit back a sob of pure relief. Closing his hand on her throat, he tipped up her chin.
“I’ve been too gentle with you, Ella,” he said. “Too much of a Daddy and not enough of a Master. You don’t make decisions about punishment, when you deserve it, how you ask for it. Do you?”
She wet her lips, but before she could say anything, he barked it, making her jump as if he’d struck her with a single tail. “Do you?”
He was right. She’d forgotten just how scary he could be. There were rules about things, like contracts and consent and all that, and he followed them in the expected, reasonable ways with his session guests and within Atlantis’s walls. But the face she was seeing now said that, once a submissive was under his care, there was no civilized world and contracts about things like this. There was only His Will, and hell to pay if she didn’t obey him.
“I fucking own you. Don’t I?”
He’d said that one night to a sub he’d reduced to jelly. The woman who’d asked for a more extreme scene had quavered, “Yes, sir.” Then she looked into his face. Three breaths later, she safe worded to end the scene. She’d reached a limit she hadn’t expected to have, and Wolf had pushed her to that understanding, knowing she’d needed it.
Ella understood that, because that expression was inches from her own. But unlike that woman, she wanted his large body looming over her, whether like this or in tenderness. She’d take him however she could get him. But oh Goddess, she was trying her best not to writhe. The ice had to melt, right? It should be melting now, yet the agony didn’t abate. Just as Seanna had warned.
But there were more important things. Wolf was more important.
It took an effort of will she hadn’t known she had, but her gaze lifted, locked with his, so he’d see the truth of her thoughts. If the punishment is at your hands, the pain is nothing. Let me prove to you just how worth it I think you are. You’ve told me what you did, what happened. And it’s okay. You believe I have a pure heart. A pure heart sees true. You are a good man, Wolf. I don’t need a third mark to feel your soul, to give you mine. You deserve goodness. Please…just please. I don’t know the right combination of words…I need you. I need my Master to get me through this.
His gaze flickered, his features tightened. She couldn’t say anything aloud, and neither did he, the both of them cognizant Richard was watching through Seanna’s eyes.
If you want Allan to do it, I accept that. I know you don’t want to hurt me like this. But please, please stay here. Stay in my mind. I need you.
He was going to fucking kill Fort for telling her the consequences of him saying hell no to this.
It didn’t matter, though. When he walked into this room, he’d been resolved, knowing what needed to be done. It had terrified her, the idea of Allan caning her. Then she’d spoken in his mind. Yes, it scared her, in all the wrong ways. Yet knowing she’d be facing the same kind of pain, the same punishment, if Wolf was doing it, she wasn’t afraid. Just fiercely determined to prove to him how much, how deeply she was willing to serve him. That she trusted him, even if the pain frightened her.
Fucking hell, all those months he’d avoided any kind of intimate interaction with her, it was because his mind had told him he’d find her too appealing. Now he knew it was his very soul that had avoided her, understanding the truth. He simply couldn’t resist her. He had to have her, possess her, even if it damned him. Even if it damned her. That was the fucking tragedy of it.
The difference in her reaction to him administering the punishment, and Allan doing it, triggered Wolf’s Dominant sadist side in a very tempting way.
I don’t need a third mark to feel your soul, to give you mine. She’d said that to him.
Damn right. She was his.
He’d lifted his hand, palmed her skull. She pressed her cheek hard into his hand. She was shuddering. She was in serious pain. What was happening?
He saw the open cooler, the foam forms inside that were meant to hold two dildos, and put it together. He also saw the green lotion sitting on the side bar. He’d observed its use at the first overlord dinner he’d attended. A vampire who operated a lotion and scents kind of place had brought it as a gift to Lord Richard—and to promote it to the gathered vampires, of course.
She was doing everything she could not to writhe, not to cry out.
“Lord Richard approved a hundred cane strikes,” Allan said, filling in the gap. “While impaled on ice and her skin coated with a nerve stimulant. She is not allowed to cry out, or the count starts over.”
There was no fucking way a second mark was going to get through all that without crying out, and every one of them, including Ella, knew it.
Wolf kept his hand on Ella, his eyes on her. He heard the words, but acknowledged no one in the room but her. He set aside everything, even the turbulent emotions storming inside him. She needed her Master, and he needed to be rational, steady, cool. Think all this through.
Allan would understand, give him the time to do it, uninterrupted. Ella did, too. Her head dipped, and he shifted forward so her forehead could rest on his chest. She emitted a little sigh at the contact. He kept his hand curved around her head, fingers in her disheveled hair. He didn’t stroke. He couldn’t appear too reassuring or tender, too attached, even as every vampire, even the one watching, knew in their gut what a fucking lie that was.
If he refused to let any of them do it, Richard would default to the idea that it was best to neutralize Ella. While she’d kept her cool so far, there was no doubt in his mind what Anwyn’s response to that would be. And Daegan would not tolerate anyone raising a hand to Anwyn. Wolf had the distinct impression that Daegan obeyed his own laws, not the Council’s.
But if Daegan came to Anwyn’s defense for refusing Ella’s execution, that would force Lyssa’s hand. She’d have to act against her servant’s brother and his vampires. Fuck, a mini-civil war could be started right here, right now. Lady Lyssa might figure out some phenomenally clever way around it, because it was rumored she preferred not to take human life when other options were available. But it left a lot to chance.
Worse, Anwyn’s response would be reactive, because she couldn’t prevent Ella’s execution. Within certain parameters—and this fell within them—Richard had the authority to kill a human without consulting the Council. He was in Atlanta now, and there were vampires under his jurisdiction who would not hesitate to join him at Atlantis to handle a matter like this. So Wolf could potentially be overwhelmed, bound, placed below ground as punishment. When he was finally allowed out of the horror of his living grave, Ella would already be gone.
It took so little time to take a human life. While it was the last thing he wanted at this moment, his flashbacks were rarely convenient. In an indrawn breath, he was back in Vietnam. His team, slipping through the jungle, had had the bad luck to run into a Charlie out foraging. A young girl. She’d been carrying a grenade and had tried to pull the pin. They’d been faster. Th
ey’d disarmed her, then put her on the ground on her stomach, gagged and bound, while they evaluated their options.
They had to complete the mission. They couldn’t leave her tied up in the jungle, because she could be found and the mission compromised. They couldn’t take her with them.
They’d all known what needed to be done. He was team leader. The longer they dicked about it, the more frightened she became, though she was doing her best to hide it. But by that time, Wolf knew every mask fear and hate could wear.
He remembered Smitty, his boot pressed to her bound hands, resting against the small of her back. A reminder that she was under someone’s direct view, and shouldn’t move. Wolf met Smitty’s gaze, then drew his knife. Smitty inclined his head, his gaze flickering, and backed up, giving Wolf room.
Wolf dropped to one knee, put his hand on the back of her shoulder to hold her steady, and stabbed. Quick, fast, just as he’d been trained, severing the spine at the base of the brain. Her body went limp.
He’d wiped the blade, risen. “Weight her body and drop it in the water.”
He picked up her basket, saw the greens she’d been collecting. Tucked into the weave on the inside was a dog-eared fashion magazine. He couldn’t imagine where she’d gotten it, but she’d probably planned to take a break and sneak a look at it while doing her chores. It had been in there with the grenade. He also found a pistol she hadn’t had time to draw.
He pocketed the gun and handed off the basket to another of his guys to hide or destroy. He’d held onto the magazine, pushing it into his pack, because things like that could be useful. When at last they’d returned to base, mission accomplished, he’d offered it to a teenage hooker at one of the bars they frequented. He’d watched her slim fingers close on it, saw her smile. Two different girls, both wanting to look at pretty pictures about makeup tips and the best dresses to wear for the winter season. Christ.
All that went through his head in a blink, but he felt the light sheen of sweat that popped up when he damn well didn’t want it to do so. He reminded himself where he was, using the proximity of Ella’s trembling body to ground him, but the memory intertwined with the present in a way he couldn’t ignore.
