“I’ll have to train you, make some new habits into routine. It won’t be easy. I’m taking a few days off work because it’s always the hardest in the beginning and I’ll need to watch for your reactions, but then it will be just everyday life, with some adjustments. I suppose it will be easier if you move in here. I’m sure you don’t have much to pack, do you? If we don’t count sex, it’s going to be very much like your life at Scholomance. Lots of discipline. Correction when you step out of line. You magicians are all not unlike each other. I mean—not high-ranked magicians but common soldiers. Scholomance, as any other school of magic, is very much militarized, isn’t it? That’s why they gladly accept orphans or young people with no ties to their family. So their loyalty and dedication would be undivided. You’re used to being a part of a huge, well-functioning system, used to taking orders, used to someone else knowing your purpose—how your life should be spent and what you’re going to live and die for. Now that you’re on your own … it must be very lonely and disconcerting. Good that you are a stubborn fighter, otherwise you’d be lost irretrievably. But you know what? You still can have a sense of belonging. If you’re brave enough to trust someone else like you trusted your fellow mages.”
He choked out a laugh. “Oh yeah? Will it end the same way?”
He expected her to mock his doubts, question his courage, but she said seriously, almost sadly, “Not necessarily. But you can never tell unless a time comes when this trust will be put to a test. It might never come, though. And then you’ll never know how things could have turned out.”
This was honest if not exactly optimistic.
“You think it will be difficult for you,” she continued quietly. “But you are wrong. You want to confide in someone, you crave it. Letting me do everything I wanted to you—wasn’t it trust already?”
“Or idiocy, like it often is with me.”
“I think we should start a tally,” Ida suggested thoughtfully. Maybe even dreamily. “For berating yourself, you’ll add a score to it, every time you do it. And at the end of the day we’ll see how many swats you have earned.”
Dragomir suddenly had a vision of himself bent over the couch, humiliatingly bare-assed. He should have been appalled. He found he wasn’t. Maybe because the idea of someone forcibly putting an end to his self-loathing wasn’t so bad.
“Of course I’ll have to trust you that you don’t reprimand yourself silently and that you will tell me if you do,” Ida said. “Because from now on, I’ll be the one to scold you. And I will decide whether you deserve it or not. Understood?”
She didn’t ask him if he agreed to it. Maybe she knew he would. So he nodded. Hesitantly, but still.
“So I’ll be—what? Your plaything?”
“You’ll be … you. Don’t you think I might like that?”
“No,” he said honestly. “I’m not very likeable.”
“Hmm. It should be the first demerit. You’re debasing yourself again. But I’ll be generous, this once, because of your sincerity. Tell me—why do you think I’m doing all this? Why I suggested to help you in the first place?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because I liked you,” she said without any coyness. “Isn’t ‘I want to help you’ a perfect pick-up line? I don’t usually seek company in bars, but you looked really good, I must admit. And haunted, at the same time. I was intrigued. I’m still intrigued.”
Dragomir didn’t quite believe there was something intriguing about him, apart from the masterfully woven curse. Fucked up, yes. Maybe frightening, too. But the notion that Ida found him fascinating was pleasant. Flattering.
“And getting to know you better,” she went on, “only adds to the impression you’re someone worth keeping. You might have your doubts about it, a fair share of them, but I’d rather you simply take my word for it.”
She dangled her leg from the armchair and stroked along his thigh with her bare foot. It made his cock throb hopefully, and he wasn’t surprised at that anymore. The surprising thing was that she looked at him fondly. Like she really meant what she’d said. Like he was more to her than a one-night conquest. More than an experiment.
“You must realize something,” she told him. “What we’re going to do—it’s not demeaning to want this. It doesn’t make you less of a fighter, less of a man. It’s power exchange, just like magic is. And it means you have this power to share.”
The fact that she kept playing footsie with him certainly made her reasoning more appealing. Or at least made all the possible counterarguments vanish from Dragomir’s mind. There was one more thing he wanted to know, though, before he turned into a melted puddle at her feet.
“You’ve hypnotized me. So you could have done something like that to those thugs who tried to harass you?”
“Mmm. I’m not entirely sure I could have handled all three of them, but quite possibly yes.”
“That’s why you were so calm. Stupid me, spoiling the fun for you.”
“Oh no, you were fun. I don’t think anybody ever tried to save me before, and certainly not in such a spectacular way. It was pleasant to watch you. An angel of wrath.”
He tensed when Ida called him that, but she kept stroking his thigh up and down, soothingly, in a hypnotically repetitive way, and he slowly relaxed into her touch. In this case, it hadn’t been such a bad thing, being an angel of wrath, had it?
“And by the way, that’s one for berating yourself again,” Ida said and pressed her toe against his crotch.
****
Some things became routine easily, like long workouts that made him both focused and empty-minded, or counting demerits. He enjoyed the former; the latter—not so much, but both helped to ground him.
Some things were never routine. Ida turned out to be very inventive when it came to thrashing and fucking bad thoughts out of him.
But anyway, his life was rotating around one and the same center now, sometimes smoothly, sometimes in a wild, tire-tearing race, but never completely spinning out of Ida’s control. She organized it not always according to his wishes, oh no. But she was persuasive enough to make him doubt what his actual wishes had been, like when she prohibited him to take part in illegal boxing fights.
“What else am I supposed to do?” he grumbled. “You know I’m not good at interacting with people.”
“How about obtaining a license for working as a freelance magician? Under my supervision of course. I could vouch for you.”
“What spells will I be selling? I could manage only aggressive ones,” he retorted bitterly. “But I don’t want to work with curses. Besides that it’s illegal, I’m just … I’m bad enough as I am. I don’t want to be worse.”
“How about guarding spells?” Ida proposed. “It’s hostile magic as well, meant to drive intruders and attackers off. And it’s three for today, for calling yourself bad. It counts, too.”
Dragomir rubbed his chin thoughtfully, distracted by a promise of another swat to land on his backside in the evening. “Yeah, maybe this guarding thing could do. But who would employ me?”
“My grandfather owns an antiquarian shop. He’d be very grateful if you help him to set up a really scary security system. And then he might recommend your services to someone else. He’s got lots of wealthy clients who are afraid of losing what they have. We could use my black cat logo for these security services as well. I think it would look catchy.”
Dragomir eyed her with doubt, but didn’t argue anymore. It seemed like everything was decided, and Ida wasn’t going to give him time to get his head around it, as always. Maybe it was for the better. She tended to choose what was best for him.
Just like Ida had said, there was no miraculous recovery. His anger still fumed within him, ready to boil over on any pretext, but it was all right because Ida knew what to do. Sometimes, when Dragomir felt he was going to snap, he just said, “Ida, I think I need—” and she didn’t even require him to finish the sentence. She always got it. If they were alone in their apartment, she ordered hi
m to lower his pants and bend over the nearest surface while she fetched one of her paddles. She wouldn’t stop until his ass was glowing red. Then she ordered him to sit, his pants still pooling around his ankles, and straddled his cock—it was always ready for her to use by then. Dragomir wriggled on his burning ass while Ida fucked him, and held his hands dutifully behind his back, not allowed to touch her.
Or it was bondage instead, itchy knots of rope all over his body, including most interesting places. Or vicious nipple clamps and clothespins. Or drops of hot wax forming intricate patterns on his skin. Points of focus, things that brought him into his body and made the raw energy of his rage flow through it like electric current.
Dealing with his outbursts in public places was more embarrassing, but still manageable. That was what toilets were for. And back alleys. One would think it must be hard to get creative there, but Ida seemed to like challenges.
If there would have been a crow guarding his curse, like in the story Ida had told him, surely it should have flown away by now, scared off by the loud smacks of her riding crop and the dangerous lilt of her voice.
Dragomir often wondered whether he would have longed for something similar to what he had now if it weren’t for the spell. Probably not. But only because he wouldn’t know what to want for himself.
So the curse he hated so much hadn’t brought him only trouble, ultimately.
What was he like before it? Strong, but not in an extraordinary way. Averagely gifted as a mage, with not much energy to spend. Loyal. Yes, he’d been loyal until they had thrown him out. His whole life had been built around Scholomance, as it was with most young magicians, and it felt safe and predictable, his future defined.
Maybe that was what he’d always been looking for. Someone to pledge his loyalty to, but not just anyone. Someone who deserved it. Someone who would care. Someone secure.
And that was what Ida had become to him. How could it have occurred? He barely knew her, and only from what she told him, but … oh well, some things just happened, without any logical explanations, like in good old fairytales. They were frightening and fascinating, those things, and there was no use in thinking them over.
His soul became glued to her, following the lead of his body. Did it really matter why?
One of the pastimes he’d learned to enjoy the most was spending nights in bondage, in Ida’s bed. It was a privilege. When he was deprived of it, he slept on a mattress on the floor. At first, he’d thought it would be uncomfortable, being shackled to the headboard until morning, but Ida used soft leather wrist cuffs and a fairly loose chain. Besides, she never locked it—he could simply unclip it in case of emergency, so it was more of a symbolic reminder of where he was and what he was. A safety anchor for him, unexpectedly soothing.
Tonight, Ida had decided he would need more than that to calm down because the day had been pretty nervous. Dragomir tried his best to lie still because every movement made a large butt plug shift and wiggle around inside of him. It rubbed against his oversensitized prostate relentlessly, and it was too much, too soon, given that Ida seemed to have stroked every last drop of cum out of him earlier, while fingering him and then inserting this thing. A perfect remedy against restlessness, as she had called it. And yeah, it certainly helped to stop him from fidgeting too much.
Taking advantage of his stillness, Ida rested her head on Dragomir’s shoulder, habitually combing through his curly chest hair with her fingers. Pulling them out was a huge entertainment for her, too, but now she was contented with caresses, and it was another physical sensation to focus on, in addition to the restraints and the plastic hunk expanding his overworked hole. Where the flame of anger roared a few hours ago, was now a sense of resigned peace over the still-hot embers, a sense of a well-earned surrender after a fight.
Dragomir didn’t want to spoil it, but Ida demanded he had to tell her of whatever bad thoughts that bothered him, so he finally mustered the courage to ask, “What if one day I do something horrible? Like, really horrible, in the heat of the moment. You say you feel safe around me, but how can you? I’m still a beast sometimes, aren’t I? I know it probably earns me another demerit for tomorrow, but it’s true.”
She twirled a strand of his chest hair around her finger and tugged gently. “You’d be surprised, but many people do horrible things, and sometimes they don’t even suspect they might. At least you are forewarned. And so am I. So we can prevent this. Actually, I could have asked you the same—how can you feel safe around me? To someone else, I might seem evil as well. A mistress too wicked even for a beast.”
He made an indignant noise. “Huh! You never do anything I can’t handle.”
She playfully poked him in the ribs with her thumb. “So very arrogant. You’re not always that sure in the process. How about tickling?”
“Please not now,” he immediately begged, in a sudden fit of panic. If she made him squirm and twist, with the damn butt plug up his ass, it might be too close to torture. Would the chain of his dog tag break then or not?
“Fine, fine,” she relented with some regret in her voice. “Back to your question… Isn’t it what happens to so many girls? They meet someone who thinks himself to be a bad boy and fall for him, and then the risk seems worth it. I guess I’m no different.”
“You are different.” Embarrassed with the words of awe that slipped unguarded from his tongue, he added awkwardly, “You’re a witch after all.”
She laughed into his shoulder, a warm gust of breath. “True. And that’s what all these girls want to hear, too, that they are special, not like the others. But maybe I’m unlike most of them indeed because in the end, they usually want to transform their bad boys into good ones against their will. And it doesn’t usually work out. Even magic can’t do that.”
“But it works for us, what you do. I might have doubts sometimes, but I should hope so.”
“That’s because you want it, too, not just me. Besides … the thing is, I might have changed your life, your attitude to it, but I haven’t changed you, not really. As I said, I like you the way you are, as difficult as you might be. You can be a beast, and still be nice.”
Dragomir never considered himself to be a nice person, but if she said he was, he wouldn’t argue. She always knew better.
Being a beast was unpleasant. But being someone’s beast was another matter entirely.
The End
If you enjoyed this book, you may also like:
Zero Tolerance by Lynn Burke
Calling All Villains by James Cox
Bloodlust by Ravenna Tate
EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®
www.evernightpublishing.com
Black Cat Security Page 7
