I stared at it for a long moment, then slipped it out of the scabbard. The blade was about as long as my arm—so not really a short sword, but nowhere near the length of the flameblades that Ellie, Miriam, and Laxmi had. Also, no flames.
The titanium and obsidian swirled through the blade, making a gorgeous whirling pattern of gunmetal gray and shimmering black. The handle was covered with supple leather, and the cross guard curled around and down, with two finial jewels of shocking blue that seemed to glow.
“This is a masterpiece,” Lincoln said, assessing it with a money changer’s eye.
“Uh, he’s the god of the forge and fire,” Fischer said. “You expect anything less?”
I watched Lincoln shake off the greed persona we could now clearly see, and nod. “You’re right. God of forge and fire. If it wasn’t perfect, it wouldn’t exist.”
“So, where the hell—ugh!—do I keep it?” I asked. “I can’t exactly go around wearing a sheath on my belt and whipping it to the side when I sit. Swords aren’t exactly legal in the city.”
Lincoln shrugged.
“What about the way Ellie carries hers?” Fischer asked. “It simply doesn’t exist until she needs it, and then the wings and blade do exist.”
“I’m not exactly practiced at this whole exist-not-exist thing,” I said.
Fischer leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “You’re the devil’s twin sister. You probably need a little practice anyway.”
“I’m not going to make this disappear right now,” I said. “I’m going to ask for help. This blade is too pretty, too dangerous, and probably too useful to fuck this up. Lily or Ellie will help.” I let out a deep sigh. “And now to earthly matters, I’m hungry. I just lost my lunch. Literally.”
“Change of subject?” Lincoln asked laughing.
“If I don’t, I’m going to freak out completely,” I said. “Shit, I want a cheesesteak.”
Lincoln and Fischer gasped and chorused, “No!”
Sebastian
“You’re doing better with all of this,” Wren said, putting her pen down. “But, Bastian, you’ve started struggling with something else. I can tell.”
“That’s something that I don’t want to talk about,” I answered.
“It’s all connected, you know that.”
“I realize that, but…I’m here about my wife, and my children. I can handle my own shit.”
Wren tipped her head down and stared at me. “Crock of shit, Doctor Mederos. Crock of shit. You’ve been through one of the worst traumas a person can go through and I know you’re currently full of it.”
Staring down at my shoes, I let out a sigh. “I am not ready to move on from dealing with the murders. I need some kind of closure on this. I need to feel like I have my feet under me before I face…that.”
Wren scribbled something in her notebook. “So that is what we’re going to call this other obstacle you’re dealing with right now?”
“I’m not dealing with it.”
“Exactly the problem.”
“Wren…”
“Doctor Mederos. I know you don’t want to move on from your family. Moving on from them signals that you’re starting a new phase of your grief. It means you’re healing—and even though we don’t have their killers in custody, that doesn’t mean you can’t start to really heal.”
“You’re right, I’m not ready to move on. Vic and I were a couple. We were each other’s everything. And I’m not interested in moving on from that,” I said, my words clipped.
“More bullshit, Bastian. More lies.”
Staring at her. “Victoria was my rock. She was my everything. She helped guide me to be the man I am. Without her I feel untethered. I feel there’s no reason to be who I am right now. And I’m not okay with that, and I’m not ready to move on from her.”
“Are you looking for a safety net to fall into?”
“No. I’m looking for a reason to care again. I’m seeking the balance I got with her to be who I am.”
Wren shook her head. “That’s a lot of responsibility to put on one person, Bastian. Did you really rely on Victoria to keep you on your path?”
I worked my jaw for a moment. “No. I didn’t make her do that. She did it on her own, simply by being in my life. The goal of keeping her happy kept me on my goal of being the best version of me.”
“So now that she’s gone, you see no reason to keep this farce?”
“It’s not a farce, she kept me at my best.”
“But you don’t necessarily feel like that right now.”
The words pulled me up short. Victoria had been my reason to be the man I was. Now that she was gone, I was going to stop being the best? I was going to walk away from the career I had built to keep her smiling, and give me reason?
“Fuck.”
She nodded. “There you go. You got it.”
“I shouldn’t stop being who I am because that’s going to dishonor her and the kids. If I am anything less than the best person they helped me to be.”
Wren gave me a half smile. “Just because she’s not here doesn’t mean you can’t still strive to be that very same man she made you into.”
Damn. Lily had told me Wren was good. I didn’t think she’d get me to admit I wasn’t doing my best.
“So, whatever else this is that’s bothering you, Bastian, I want you to think about what Victoria did that made you want to be who you are. I want you to consider that she’d still want you to be that person, even as you’re moving into the next stage of grief. Good?”
I nodded. “Yes. I get it.”
“Excellent. Then I’ll see you next week, same time.” She handed me the appointment card with the date and time already on it. “Take it easy, Bas. We’re making great progress, even if you don’t completely trust me.”
I snorted, but she wasn’t wrong.
I also didn’t really trust myself either at this point.
An hour later I found myself sitting in the back of Independence Hall, staring at my phone. I had the dark web browser open—and I knew what I was looking for.
A way to slake my feelings. To lose myself in the sexual drive that had been riding my ass for a few days. I needed a fuck, and I hated that I needed one. Since the oddly intimate encounter with Lincoln in the hospital, it felt like my libido was a thing alive.
Victoria and I had had a more than robust sex life. She was perfect for me because she could keep up with me. There were days that were tender and sweet and days that were nothing but debauchery and filth—and we loved every minute of it.
I had hoped it died with my family.
But no. The simple touch Lincoln had given me brought the dragon roaring back. Even my own hand couldn’t curb it. I was grateful for cocoa butter at that moment—my dick was a soft as silk. No ashy shaft for me.
Now, after my session with Doctor Warner and all the shit she had pulled out of me—accurately reading everything going on in my head without me saying a fucking word—I was desperate to calm myself down or to lose myself.
Drugs were out. That was stupid. I saw what happened to people who did that, and I saw it all the time at the office.
So, sex was in and I was looking for the closest brothel to where I sat. Whorehouse? I had trouble with that word, but not what it could give me.
The dark web offered me a discrete house just up in Northern Liberties, or a little further in Fishtown.
Gentrified brothels. Yay.
The next thing I remembered, I was walking up the front steps of a neat, unremarkable house in Fishtown. I stopped with my hand over the bell.
How the fuck had I gotten here? I didn’t remember standing, or looking up how to get here. Had I walked? Uber’ed? Taxied? Bussed it? Glancing at my watch I had lost nearly an hour of time.
Christ, now I was fuguing out?
My finger pressed the doorbell before I could pull it away and force myself to think.
What the hell was I doing?
A woman in a
ridiculous maxi dress with bangles on both arms and scarf on her head in a poor imitation of a Roma woman opened the door. She looked me up and down and sucked her teeth. “Male or female.”
I froze.
What the fuck was I doing?
“Honey, I can’t leave this door open. If you don’t know, we have both and more. Step inside.”
Step inside.
…the belly dancer swirled her skirt, pulling the pieces off and spinning them with her. Her flat stomach undulated with the music. A hip popped. She turned. Her perfect ass popped. The coins of her belt were lyrical in their tinkling collisions over her skirt.
She grinned at me, moving closer and closer, her dark delicious hair falling free in taunting strands from the pins that held it up.
The prince across from me motioned to her. “She is yours, my friend, if you want her. I have many more who dance and fuck as well as she does.” He laughed, and the sound ripped through my chest.
I knew that laugh. I knew it too well.
This was a trap. He was trying to lay a trap for me, to reel me in and trick me into some mad scheme of his. I wouldn’t have fallen for it—my libido might have been a beast to manage, but no one away from the Sins held my heart or interest.
But that didn’t stop him from trying.
“What are you doing, Prince Ahmed?”
“Oh, you’ve spoiled the game!” he crowed, rising from the reclining position. The visage he maintained flickered, and I could see the Tartarian below. “I was so hoping this would take more time!”
“I am—”
“I know who you are, Min. Or whatever fucking name you’re going by now.”
“Fareed bin Abraham, for the record.”
“Well, Fareed, let us talk.” He gestured to the curtain to the right of reclining couch.”
“I am not a fool.”
“But you are. Because if we talk here…” He swept his hand across the room. “Well, you know the rules. They all have to die.”
They did. There were too many people in the room.
Ahmed smiled again. “Step inside.”
I did.
I felt the knife slide into my back, into my heart.
I gasped, as best as bloodfilled lungs could. I stared at Ahmed as he let me slide down the wall after pulling the knife back out.
He held it up. “Hades steel. I couldn’t convince that idiot blacksmith to make me an anjir blade. But this will do, I realized, since I plan on torturing you, your compatriots and that slut you all adore for all eternity.” He wiped the blade on my sleeve. “Goodnight, sweet prince. May hordes of demons drag you through the bowels of Hell.”…
I gasped and stepped back.
“Are you questioning?” the Roma-ish woman asked. “I can’t leave this door open while you decide if you want to fuck a man or woman. Or whatever. Go have your sexual crisis somewhere else.”
Stumbling backward, I was barely able to catch myself as the stairs went out from under me. The woman huffed, and slammed the door.
It was too much. My brain was going to explode. What the hell had I just seen? Why had I had gone to a brothel? What was wrong with me?
I was losing control of everything.
I dropped onto the curb in front of the house, dropping my head between my legs. I had never wanted a tab of ecstasy as much as I did at that moment. I wanted to feel happy, and light and clear. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t—God, if I dropped molly I’d probably end up fucking a palm tree in a reception hall.
I needed help. But Wren wasn’t the right kind of help. I needed to figure out my sex drive, my curiosity. I needed to find out the depths I was willing to go—without jeopardizing everything I had built for myself.
Dangerous sex that wasn’t dangerous.
I whipped my head up.
Holy shit.
The room was dark, with flashes of white and blue cutting through that black. It was disorienting on one hand and on the other—this was the disorientation I was craving.
I moved through the sweating bodies on the dance floor, all entranced by the hypnotic music rushing through them. It was only the music and the mood of the room—there were no drugs here. That’s why I had picked this place.
It had taken me a week to work my way in that door. I had been stopped at every turn, seeking entrance. I knew the people in the lifestyle were secretive and protective, especially in the right circles.
Getting into Black Wave had been nearly impossible. I had to call in favors that I had never wanted to, and in one case, threaten someone with a bit of HIPAA violation to get the password and permission to see Master Black himself.
Working my way around the edge of the room, and over to the tables that lined the far wall. The man holding court at one of the tables spotted me, as I hoped he would, and stood from his seat, moving to me. He met me near the end of the dance floor and was clearly shocked.
“Doctor—”
“Bastian, sir, please. I’m not here as a professional.”
He inclined his head. “Why are you here?”
“Escape.”
The man considered me. “Bastian, this is not a place that is meant for the casual participant.”
“I understand. I came here because as much as you trust me as your doctor, I hope I can trust you as my...Dom.”
The word wasn’t foreign on my tongue, but it was foreign in my mind as something I sought out. I hadn’t ever, ever been to a dungeon. I knew of them, I knew how they worked.
I was a doctor of psychology, specializing in sexuality. I knew about Doms, and dungeons. I’d helped people leave them and join them, find a Dom and leave a Dom.
But I needed, desperately, to lose myself. Away from everything that had been fucked up in my life. My dead wife. My murdered children. The patient who had destroyed my trust in myself.
I wanted to disappear.
The man in front of me was, according to several of his subs and friends, the best Dom in Philadelphia. He was patient, strict and absolutely pansexual. Which was also something I needed at that point.
I had never let myself act on that part of my psyche, save for the clinical. My own psychology was why I was in the field.
“Bastian, are you sure?”
“Master Reid, I am lost and I need to lose myself.”
“Black. Master Black. This is not the way to find yourself,” he said.
“This is my safe option, Master. I have already searched out whorehouses and underground clubs that would destroy me and not allow me to find myself again. I am only here because I am desperate to not feel for just a little while.”
Master Black chewed on his lip and motioned me to follow him. I bowed my head and did, trailing behind him and into the back of the club through a curtain. He pointed to a room and I walked in, sitting in the chair there. He closed the door and sat on the couch.
“This is not a good idea, Doctor,” he said, losing all sense of the Dom that he’d had outside the door. “You are not settled, not focused enough to handle all this. You’ve never been here before tonight and what you’re asking for takes time and training.”
“I want to learn. I need this. I fucked up so badly I can barely breathe when I think about it,” I said.
“This is not mean to be a substitution for your life and your obligations—”
“Reid, I know, I know all about what this is and isn’t. I am on a dangerous path. My wife isn’t here anymore. I don’t have a direction without her. I loved her with everything I had, and it was enough to keep me off the path I could have followed…into unrestrained sexual debauchery. But I can’t do that, I won’t do that to her, to our marriage, to the man she helped me be. I am here, as Bastian, to beg your help. To keep me from going down that same path. To help me learn how to keep all this check without my wife.”
He tapped a finger on the couch. “Have you spoken to anyone else about this? Tried to find someone outside this community to help you find your way?”
“Ever
yone on this planet can offer to help me—and I have asked for help—but no one can get me to the place I need. I want to forget for just a little while. To have a chance to let my brain reset. To enjoy a part of me I don’t know yet.”
Tapping his finger again, I could see the indecision on his face. He scratched his nose and sighed. “When you are here, you are Bastian. When you are here, I am Master Black, or Sir. Nothing else. Just as you have a non-disclosure with me, I demand the same. What happens here, stays here.”
I nodded.
Standing from the couch, he walked over to me, looking down. “And the first rule you need is that no one touches you without my permission. Even your permission is not enough. You’re mine and you’ll listen to everything I say. You’ll be punished if you don’t. This is not a game. This is my world you’re walking into, and I am the ultimate final word.”
That was what I needed. Someone else to take the burden of thinking from me.
He ran his finger down my jaw and leaned in close to me. “I have found you incredibly attractive since the very first of our sessions, and I have wanted to kiss you ever since. This is me, taking what I want from you.”
His lips covered mine, and holy shit I was kissing a man. Reid was soft and rough at the same time…his tongue was probing carefully but his lips were strong and possessive. I tried to push for more, but he pulled back and smirked at me.
“No. I expect that you know how all this works, even if we need to practice. I give. You accept. The only thing that will make me stop anything is your safe word. I want you to think very hard on why you’re using it before you do. No harm will come to you, I promise. I know why you came here, to me, Bastian. I am the best. And you don’t get that label in this community without it being the absolute truth. Choose your safe word, make sure it something you would never accidentally say.”
“Tesoro,” I whispered. “Victoria was my treasure and I will never call anyone that again.”
He gave me a long, hard kiss. “Good boy. I am going to have fun breaking you down and rebuilding you, Bastian. So much fun.”
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