by Sarina Dorie
“I want to make you happy,” I said.
I meant it. I wanted both of us to be happy and close—like we once had been. If we were close and he felt comfortable sharing with me, perhaps it wouldn’t require treachery.
“I have something specific in mind. Something appropriate for your skill level and talents.”
I steeled myself. I could do this. I loved him, and it was what he needed.
He wet his lips. “I want you to finish tattooing the spell onto me.”
My breath came out in a rush. “Oh, sure. No problem.” I picked up the wooden tool.
He chuckled and rearranged my grip. Already I felt like I’d started things off wrong.
“I’ve never tattooed anyone before,” I admitted. “I’ll probably mess it up and give you an ugly tattoo.”
“You won’t be using ink, only water, so even if you do make a mistake, the tattoo will show up as pink skin. The scab won’t last more than a few weeks. It’s the rune activated with pain magic that I need.”
Of all the torture I could have had to perform, this was the least horrible.
“Show me how to use the tools correctly.” I thought back to the time I had gone to the tattoo parlor with him. “I promise I’ll stick to the sketch and not give you a tattoo of the word ‘Yolo’ made from penises.”
Thatch selected a sensitive area along his ribs. He was already covered in the white lines of a previous tattoo in that area, but he didn’t care that I was covering those up.
After a crash course in using primitive needles to repeatedly prick the skin like a tattoo machine would do, I set to work. I spent hours bent over him as he lay across the table. He looked so at peace, breathing steadily, eyes closed in meditation. Only once did he squirm, but considering the smile on his face as he did so, I suspected it was because he liked how it felt more than that it had “hurt” him.
His skin flushed a healthy pink. The white outlines of his older tattoos grew move visible. That seemed like a good sign. The pupils of his eyes expanded into the gray. I didn’t know if that meant I was doing a good job bringing him pain, or too good of a job so that he might lose control. We took a break for lunch and then set to work again.
I worked until my eyesight blurred. I had to keep blinking the fatigue away.
“You’re tired. I’ve kept you at this for hours,” he said. “You need to rest.”
“Maybe I can finish tomorrow.”
“Of course.” His gray eyes were bright and alert.
I was relieved to see he looked normal. He didn’t resemble someone from the Raven Court.
He radiated magic, almost as much as Elric when he didn’t tone down his glamour. Only this was a dark kind of magic, the halo around him a fog that was hard to see through.
Tattooing Thatch had been the gateway to his secret world of dungeon magic. After work each evening, he invited me to tattoo him with runes for enhancing his magic. I knew it was a sign he was opening up to me. I hated to take advantage of his trust, but I needed to trick him, using the same dirty tactics he’d used on me in the past.
Thatch’s dungeon was as clean and tidy as always when I showed up at our appointed time after school. He had laid out all his tools, a variety of needles mostly. His sketchbook lay open, a new tattoo on the page.
“I was thinking about trying something a little different today,” I said.
His brows lifted with curiosity. “One of your drawings?”
“No. I thought we might be able to step it up a notch. I want to be able to give you real pain.” I smiled. “Or pleasure, depending on how you look at it.”
He studied me in silence. He probably thought I was too much of a wimp for this. That would be a fair assessment.
This was a delicate balance I was walking. I didn’t want to humiliate or traumatize him with what I was about to do. He would push me away and never let me into his heart after this if I wasn’t careful.
“Let’s take things slowly,” he said. “I excel at being in control and assessing someone else’s pain. However, that isn’t going to work for our purposes due to your . . . condition.” He drummed his fingers over the table. “That means I must trust you, someone untrained, with no experience in this matter, and hope you will be able to gauge my boundaries of tolerance without magic.”
I squeezed his hand. “I’m willing to learn if you’re willing to teach me.”
“I’m willing to teach you. If you succeed, you will help me increase my powers and aid in my recovery faster. If you fail, you will leave me with broken bones.” He smiled at that.
I gulped.
He stood up abruptly. “I have work to do. While I prepare, find yourself something more appropriate for the occasion.” He eyed my pink dress with puff sleeves. “That is going to get stained.”
I suspected I needed kinky patent leather attire. The only person I knew with a proclivity for black was Vega, and she wasn’t wearing her Gothic flapper clothes these days. I went to her anyway. She was nursing Sebastian in her room.
I toed the floor, feeling awkward as I attempted to phrase my words. “Do you have anything black I can borrow that would be appropriate for torturing Felix in the dungeon?”
She grinned. “Do I ever! But in your size? No, they don’t make dominatrix attire for midgets.”
She looked in her wardrobe anyway. Her wardrobe was a lot like mine, but you could walk inside the cabinet. It went on forever, like Mary Poppins’ purse. I could see if I ever needed a place to hide, it would be in there. She found something for me that she gave to the maid to alter. The maid worked quickly, tailoring the red lace bodice and hemming the black pants. I didn’t have black heels that would fit, so Vega stuffed hers with wool. I didn’t feel like a witch without my stripes, so I wore a pair of black-and-white-striped arm warmers. That would also help mitigate some of the cold from the dungeon.
When I returned to Thatch dressed as a witch-dominatrix, I nearly tripped down the steep stairs in the heels.
Thatch, being the methodical teacher that he was, had prepared worksheets. I felt like I was doing a high school science lab—only he was the experiment. He watched me read the worksheets. He was very thorough. Each one documented a different variable to test, with places to make notes of his reactions to various levels of pain. I glanced up from the chart detailing increments to turn a screw in a vise.
His smile was tentative. “I like the outfit.”
Thatch sat at the bench beside me, talking me through the easy methods to try first, pinching and paddling. We reviewed safe words and discussed the agreed-upon tools.
He tormented me by making me fill out a new worksheet for each new area of the body I was to paddle. At this rate, I suspected it would be weeks before he let his guard down enough that I would be able to torture the truth out of him.
I needed answers now. I needed magic. My fairy godmother needed me.
After a few days, we moved on to vises, scourges, and cutting. I didn’t particularly like the blood, but it was essential for advancing to blood magic, which could be combined with pain for many forbidden spells. Unlike the times when Thatch had used pain magic on me to make me control my affinity, he didn’t heal his bruises. He made me put them to use in our studies.
In the evening when we danced after dinner and I placed my hand on his shoulder, he smiled when my fingers accidentally prodded his bruises. If someone had told me a month prior to this that I would have willingly volunteered to hurt someone I loved, I wouldn’t have believed them.
After days of this, he allowed me to chain him up to the wall of his dungeon. Impatience ate at me, but I forced myself to wait longer. It was after we had practiced for hours on the weekend that I finally decided it was time to spring my trap on him.
It was a scourge day. He was manacled to the wall, naked, and faced away. The leather whip was short, made up of a group of tethered leather ribbons. I used a mixture of soft, playful flicks with harder ones
in the way he had taught me. It was the contrast that he liked best.
He moaned as his affinity swelled inside him. I flicked the whip at him harder. I used my ability to shift my awareness to the sensations in his body. With the incremental rise of my own magic, I was slowly regaining this power. I could tell that he was close to orgasm.
Thatch panted, his cheek pressed against the stone wall. I massaged his muscles and kissed his spine before whipping him again. I waited until his erection pressed against the stone wall and he was whimpering with wanting before I launched my attack.
“How badly do you want to come?” I asked.
“Very much.”
“Bad enough to kiss me?”
“Indeed.” He leaned toward me and kissed me with salty lips tasting of his sweat.
I struck him again, harder. The magic inside him swelled. I didn’t need to move my awareness to feel how it radiated from him.
“Bad enough you’ll beg for it?” I tried to keep my tone teasing and light.
“I want you to make me come,” he said. “Hit me harder until my magic overflows. Give it to me. Please.”
I massaged him instead.
He groaned. “Stop teasing. Let me finish.”
“Only if you promise me something.” He once had played this game with me. I had hated him for manipulating me this way, but now I was in the same role. “What will you give me if I let you finish?”
“Anything.”
“Tell me about the bargain you made with Elric.”
The rapture on his face drained away. “Anything but that.”
“Tell me what happened to us in the Raven Court.” I struck the scourge against his flesh again.
He pressed his lips together.
I dropped the scourge on the floor and sat down at the table. “I guess you don’t get to finish, then.”
“I’ve taught you well.”
He tried to turn his head over his shoulder, but I was out of his line of sight.
I waited to see if he would take the bait.
“Do you understand what it’s like to be haunted by what happened in the Raven Court day after day?” He leaned his forehead against the wall. “I would give anything for someone to remove the memories from my mind. You’ve been blessed with the gift of no memory. Why must you fight it?”
My suspicions rose. “Who gifted me? You?”
“No, your subconscious.”
I couldn’t tell if this was another lie. “I didn’t ask for this. I need to understand these feelings inside me. Once I do, I’ll be able to heal.” I couldn’t stand this emptiness inside that never left.
“Let me out,” he said.
“No.”
He said his safe word. “Electrocution.”
“I already stopped,” I said.
“Very well. If that’s the way you’re going to play.” He growled in pain as he attempted to yank one hand out of a manacle.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“That’s my hope.” He tugged harder.
“You aren’t supposed to do that. It’s cheating.”
He growled, “It’s a safety feature.”
The metal scraped up his knuckles, and his thumb didn’t look right. He pushed his hand against the wall and popped his thumb into place. I wondered how many times he’d escaped from dungeons in his life. He lifted his head, glowering at me. The gray of his eyes had been swallowed up by black.
That was never a good sign. I knew I was always in trouble when pain consumed him like this. I raced for the door. As I glanced over my shoulder, I found him pushing the pin out of the other manacle. I attempted to slide the bolt to the door out of the way, but it was jammed. I turned to find him bending over to free his ankles.
I pushed harder. The bolt came free. I threw open the door and ran. His legs were longer, and he was strong with magic with the pain fresh in him.
In a few quick strides, he blocked my exit to the cellar. “So you thought you would . . . trick me?”
“Maybe.” I tried to dodge around him, but he caught me.
He grinned. The black pupil hadn’t completely surpassed the white of his eyes at least. That meant he was still partly in control. I hoped.
“Perhaps I should punish you for a change,” he said.
“No. I’m not supposed to have pain. It’s bad for my health.”
He smacked me on the rear end, more playful than painful. “Who said anything about pain? This is about getting even.” He kissed me. “I can just as easily tease you and withhold what you want as you can.”
He didn’t hurt me, but he certainly could be wicked when he wanted.
My manipulation didn’t go without consequence. In the days that followed, Thatch didn’t invite me to torture him again. He permitted me to tattoo him, mostly I suspected, because he needed another artist to reach places on his back that he couldn’t. I could see the distrust in his eyes now when we spoke. There was an invisible wall erected between us made of all the lies we told each other.
At dinner he made polite conversation when it was required, but he left the moment Elric permitted him.
One night while Imani was away with the children on an excursion to the Jade Court, he appeared especially sulky. We’d just finished the second course when the butler hurried in, a lidded tray in his hand. Usually the help removed the lids from trays discreetly and waited for the diners to notice, but the older man shoved the tray under Elric’s nose, a note on the ornate metal. The servant leaned forward to whisper something in Elric’s ear, who paused, midsentence to read.
He leapt to his feet, toppling his chair over, though his butler caught it before it struck the floor. “Vega, our presence is required at the Jade Court. Imani and the children need us.”
“Have they been attacked?” Vega rose. “By the Raven Court?”
Thatch stood. “How can we help?”
Elric didn’t acknowledge Thatch’s offer. His attention was fixed on Vega. “It doesn’t say who. They were attacked in transit. Captain Errol needs our assistance. Bring your bag of potions. We may have need of them.” Elric turned to his butler, dictating orders in a no-nonsense tone that left little room for manners. It was rare I saw him so serious.
Vega shook my shoulder. “We have to go protect the children. If anything should happen to us . . . you will watch over Sebastian, won’t you?” Worry pained her face.
I stood. “Yes, but maybe I can help—”
She shoved me back down into my seat. “No. You’re too weak.”
Elric looked at me sharply. “Both of you are to stay here. Neither of you are in any condition for battle.”
Thatch’s face was crestfallen. I doubted he was used to taking orders from Elric, much less being too weak to protect those around him. Now he knew what my world was like. I scooted my chair closer to his as Elric and Vega left.
Imani was with the children. She was strong, but I suspected she had never used defensive magic before. And even if she had learned some, practice was different from execution—especially in a battle. I now wished I had shown her how to harness lightning to defend herself. It was dangerous business, and she could get burned, but injury was better than torture at the hands of the Raven Court.
“Do you think the Raven Court knows what Imani is?—knows what the children are?” I asked.
“It would be the only logical reason they would attack another Fae house. They must want the children.” Thatch steepled his fingers. “It’s a great risk attacking a court as large and powerful as the Jade Court. It won’t go without notice. There will be repercussions. A war perhaps.”
“They aren’t just attacking the Jade Court, but the Silver Court as well.”
“Elric is no longer affiliated with his father’s court. Now that he’s been disowned, he isn’t under their protection. There is less likelihood that a slight upon his household—an independent house—will be treated as a serious crime. I
f his Witchkin charges are stolen from him, that is considered a smaller matter. It’s a Fae eat Fae world out there. Witchkin are often the victims caught in between.”
A few minutes later, the butler brought us the next course. I stared at the soup, too worried to eat. I tried a few bites. Thatch sat in his chair, staring off as he thought.
Not ten minutes later, Imani rushed into the dining room. “Sorry I’m late.” She looked around the table, eyes resting on Elric’s chair. “Where’s Grandpa Elric?”
I stood. “Does Elric know you’re back?”
“No. I’m sorry. One of the carriages broke a wheel,” she said out of breath. “I sent the children up to their room with the nurse and came straight here.”
Thatch’s eyes met mine. “There was no attack. That note was sent to lure Elric away. This was a trap.”
No sooner had Thatch spoken than something crashed into the house.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It’s a Fae Eat Fae World
The Raven Court hadn’t attacked the Jade Court. They had drawn Elric and Vega away, possibly with a party of guards that would otherwise have been left protecting the household.
Shattering glass and splitting wood came from one side of the mansion, the sound so loud it rattled my bones. Horror painted across Imani’s face. She tried to speak, but her voice was lost under the rumble of stone on stone.
I rushed toward the door of the dining room. The noise died away enough for me to make myself heard. “The children! We have to get them some place safe.” Vega had asked me to look after her baby. I couldn’t let her down.
“They aren’t their target. You are.” Thatch grabbed my arm. “We need to get you underground.” Thatch looked to Imani. “Go with Clarissa to the cellar.”
“I have students to protect!” She lifted her skirts and dashed out the door.
I tried to twist away from Thatch, but he wouldn’t let me go. He circled an arm around me, ignoring the screams of someone as he ushered me toward the servant entrance.
“We have to help them,” I said.
