revelations 02 - on a white horse

by corwin, monica

  “A man, huh?” Katherine teased.

  “He is human, and if he gets drawn into this fight I don’t know if he would survive it. I don’t want him stuck in the middle of a battle he doesn’t know about or understand.” She attempted to describe the feeling to Katherine, but she had no touchstone from which to go about it. She needed to explain it though. “I have a feeling about him.”

  “You mean you have a feeling or a feeling…”

  It occurred to Bianca that she desired Victor because of her powers and whatever role he might play in their little war. Maybe his fate was already entwined with theirs and denying herself would continue to make her unhappy. She considered what the next course of action might be if he was the machination of fate. Only one answer came to mind: keep him safe at all costs. “I have to go back to the club.”

  Katherine bit her lip. Something Bianca witnessed countless times. “Just say it, Kat.”

  Clearing her throat, she said, “I think I should call the others.”

  She would call them against Bianca’s protestations regardless. “Fine. Do it. I’ll start closing the shop.”

  Working comforted her while she waited for the others to arrive. She shooed out the straggling customers and put the sign on the door.

  Katherine unlocked the door as Bianca finished the last of the dishes. Cloris, Hades, Tyr, Scarlet, and Baldr entered together and took seats at the countertop. They whispered together as she put away the rest of the coffee beans and took off her apron before heading out to the counter.

  She feared meeting their gazes as she bellied up the counter. The memory of her time with Victor would no longer be a private. She’d given a piece of herself to him no other would have, and she wished she could keep the memory of it to herself.

  As usual Cloris took command. “What did you see?”

  Bianca sighed, looked at Cloris, and decided to ignore the fact that her blonde hair lay straight as a pin down the sides of her face and neck. She could talk to her. If anyone understood a darker side, it would be her…Death. “I saw a dark room and my seal guarded by a hellhound. I also saw a friend chained up there.” Her mind began to fog over. Something else was there too, but all she could recall was a flash of white in dim lighting.

  “A friend?” Scarlet piped in.

  Bianca shook off her vision. “Yes, I can have friends. Human friends…that is the point of life out here, isn’t it?”

  The moment the words filled the room she regretted her harsh tone. “I’m sorry. I’m a little on edge from the vision. I thought we had some downtime. That maybe the crazy bitch in the Underworld was playing it cool for a while.”

  Hades snorted, his perfect face and chuckle drawing her attention, as was the purpose of his beauty. The former ruler of the Underworld turned every head. The snort summed up what they all knew about Hel by now in one noise.

  “So about this friend,” Cloris changed the subject, drawing Bianca’s attention away from the golden brown skin of Hades’ throat.

  Bianca let out a long sigh and focused on calming herself down and focusing. After spending two-thousand years with Hades, he no longer had such an effect on her. But after a vision, when her guard lay fractured…his magic drew her easier. The blame for the situation lied squarely with her. They didn’t need her sharp tongue stirring unrest between them. “I met a guy at the club last night. We hit it off really well. I want to keep seeing him. Now I’m not so sure because of all this.” She plucked at a dishrag in an attempt at distraction.

  Hades leaned down to place his elbows on the counter. The urge to push them off to watch something so perfect stumble assaulted her.

  “Doesn’t bode well in any situation,” Hades finally said.

  Tyr chipped in. “If he is a friend or an enemy he needs guarding either way. Right?”

  Bianca stared up the six-and-a-half feet of Tyr. He had a warmth about him. The god of justice possessed a gentle soul wrapped in a menacing package.

  The others nodded their agreement and everyone cast a glance at Bianca. What on Earth was she supposed to say to him. “So…thanks for letting me top you the other night…oh, and I had a vision you might be in mortal danger…sorry”

  She sighed, resigned, and a little turned on by the prospect of being near him again. “I met him at the club last night, and I don’t know how to contact him again.”

  Cloris laughed, an utterly perfect sound. “I think we can help there. What’s his name?”

  Bianca cleared her throat before answering, sure the longing in her tone would betray her. “Victor, but I can go back to the club and make contact.”

  “What if he isn’t there?” Cloris said.

  “Then we do it your way. Look, I like him. I don’t want to scare him away unless it’s vital to his life or future safety.”

  Katherine rubbed Bianca’s shoulder gently. After two-thousand years, her friend possessed a sixth sense to her emotions. At least it made their working and living relationship easier.

  “Then it’s settled,” Cloris announced. “You’ll go the club, hunt him down, and try to establish a more permanent connection.”

  The prospect wasn’t terribly upsetting.

  Katherine hovered until Bianca’s patience wore out. “Please, Kat, I’m fine. Stop mothering me.”

  Bianca knew her tone would hurt her, but she didn’t care at the moment. She loved Katherine dearly, but she needed space before her head exploded. The pressure to conquer constantly pushed at her. Last night had taken a huge chunk of the edge off, but now she didn’t know what to do with herself. She would have gone back to the club regardless of the vision. She wanted to touch Victor again, taste his skin with her whip. Every part of her yearned to be near him.

  A wave of dizziness crashed over her. The vision had taken a lot out of her, and her energy waned. Despite Bianca’s protests, Katherine pulled a bench up and sat her down. “I know you don’t like me mothering, but sometimes it’s okay to need help. We’re your friends, your sisters, and we will always help you, even as you push us away.”

  Her vision swam, and she glanced away out of the plate glass window toward the sun. A man stood outside, staring at her through the window. Dark glasses covered his eyes, but the weight of his gaze on her skin marked her. She straightened and glanced to the others, wanting verification of him too, but when she sought him again he was gone. Maybe another vision? Her body could handle another one, and in the interest of self-preservation, she usually didn’t receive a lot of visions in one day.

  She laid her head down on her arms. “Cloris, can you give me a ride home, please?”

  Everyone shuffled and began to exit the cafe. Cloris’ car sat on the curb, and Bianca lay across a leather limo seat with her head pressed into the cool black material. She needed to pull herself together if she wanted to see Victor again.

  Who wanted a Dominant who couldn’t dominate?

  ______

  This time, Gwyn didn’t bother with shadows but remained invisible outside the little coffee shop Bianca owned. He never understood why such powerful beings lived simple human lives. They could literally end the world, yet two of them worked at a coffee shop for goodness sake. To him, it seemed like a surrealist painting come to life.

  As she huddled into herself exiting the cafe, he began to question his task. She appeared so fragile as she climbed into Cloris’s limo. This little woman appeared more human to him than some of the actual humans. Could she survive what he had planned? He’d seen her backbone in the many times he’d watched her from the corner of the cafe or her visit to the club. What he didn’t know was if she was excellent at pretending or really contained everything he could want in a woman.

  The limo rolled away and he watched the glass, imagining her huddled into the black leather with a cold water bottle pressed against her flushed neck. The curve of her neck flashed in his mind, and he closed his eyes to ward it off. Her very essence intrigued him, and the power she radiated called to the dark depravity he fa
ncied lived in his soul. If he possessed such a thing. The jury was still out on that.

  As he headed uptown, humans passed him without a second glance. The world continued as the fairy king parted the masses with not so much as a shudder. He recalled the days when he would walk into a village and there would be homage left at every house and children offered to him in the woods. Okay, he didn’t miss the children thing. It always creeped him out a little bit.

  His brother—he stopped the memory before it could fully form. The white sheen of his brother’s hair flashed behind his eyes, and he forced it away by imaging the curve of Bianca’s back encased in leather. It didn’t do anyone any good to think about his brother at a time like this.

  He quickened his pace. The faster he arrived home the faster he could drown himself in gin. A martini would improve his mood, but he wouldn’t be satisfied until he could touch her. The time to move forward had arrived, and his skin itched in anticipation of her wrath.

  Chapter Four

  VICTOR SAT ON A bench in the club. He’d worn the red suit as required for submissives, but he kept his key out of his shirt, indicating he wasn’t playing tonight. Both a truth and a lie. He wanted a Domme, but he wanted a specific one and would have no other except Lethe.

  The crowd milled around, new subs in cages for a Dominant’s pleasure and perusal. He gave a few encouraging smiles. He mostly avoided the stares of the others. A few approached, but didn’t push him, and he appreciated the level of respect the club provided. That alone put it tiers above many NYC sex clubs. A place where no truly meant no.

  She arrived late wearing her mask again, and he only noticed her by the way she entered the room despite not an inch of her skin showing. She wore a tuxedo in black, cut for a female figure, and her hair tied up in a severe bun. He would have mourned it if she didn’t stun him strutting in like she owned the place. He stared at her from his seat off to the side and fidgeted as she glared around, seeking something. The second her gaze met his, she stalked straight toward him. He grew hard the closer she trekked. The way she approached could only be described as predatory, and he was more than happy to be her prey for the evening.

  She stopped right in front of him and eyed his necklace. “Are you playing tonight?”

  “I was waiting for you, Mistress,” he said, as he tucked the key into his shirt.

  “Good boy,” she purred, holding out her hand to him.

  He clasped it and allowed her to draw him back to room number two.

  When they entered, he kneeled, awaiting her command. The task damn hard in the custom-fit suit. If he popped a seam, it would be worth it.

  She motioned with her hand, “Stand up, please.”

  He followed her orders and clasped his hands in front of him until she gave further instruction.

  She presented her back. “Help me out of this.”

  He helped her from the jacket, and then the cufflinks, cummerbund, and when he reached for her shirt he stalled. The material rippled iridescent and see-through; the areolas of her nipples stood out against the white. She stopped him from removing the gossamer material and kept her pants on too.

  He swallowed, trying to gain control of himself. This wasn’t like him. As an experienced submissive, he usually had a very hard grasp over his responses. He didn’t go gooey eyed over every Domme passing through his life. Somehow, Lethe was different. Like the difference between control itself and a game of pretend. He longed to sit at her feet and worship her as such.

  “Anything else, Mistress?”

  “Yes, start taking your clothes off too. I’ll have you tonight.”

  The words sunk in, and he ripped into his clothes, bespoke or not. She stalled his disrobement until he removed each piece as fast or slow as she indicated with her hand and folded them on a table near the door. When he stood in his black boxer briefs, she stopped him. For a moment, he feared she meant for him to stand there naked and alone for an eternity, but after a weighty minute she approached him and perused his body with her hands in the same way she did the first night.

  “I love the way you feel,” she said, trailing her mouth across the middle of his back.

  “Thank you, Mistress,” was the only response he managed as he attempted to corral the shiver beginning to quake through him.

  “I want to talk to you a little more later, but for now I want you to go pick out two toys you want me to use on you, and then I will choose of those two which I want to use on you.”

  He eyed the wall across the room holding an imaginative range of devices. As he approached, he ran his hand across the nine tails and the crops. Finally, he landed on a cane. He grabbed a thin one and also a crop with a leather bit on the end. His knees shook as he returned, bent to his knees, and presented his offerings.

  “Hmm…” She grabbed them both from his hand before selecting the crop and placing the cane on a nearby table. “Take off your underwear then bend over and present your ass.”

  He did as she bid. Despite the inclination of what she’d do next, he still wasn’t prepared for the bite of pain to wash over him with her first blow. She was methodical in her practice, never hitting the same place twice, carefully lining up each hit. When he hovered close to the edge of pain he could handle, his knees and arms began to shake and she stopped. As if she could read him like a book.

  He struggled to push his hands up from the floor to kneel, and when his heels met the welts beginning to bloom on his buttocks, pain coursed into him.

  She approached and sat beside him on the floor, pulling his head into the curve of her breasts. He inhaled her sweet scent as the high from the pain began to take hold. A wave of pain, a wave of numb clarity bordering on euphoria, and back again. It continued until a deep soreness entered his muscles and he pulled his head from her grip to learn what else she had in store for him.

  He didn’t expect her to cup him through his underwear.

  Her next statement reinvigorated him, “I want you now.”

  Those words shot through the post-beating haze like an arrow through an apple.

  She didn’t take him to the bed, but stood, and removed the shirt and pants she still had on, and everything save her mask before pulling a condom from her pants pocket and tossing them away.

  He felt like a teenager again. His cock hard and straining with waiting. The only thoughts in his mind were of sliding inside her. He took a deep breath, trying to instill a measure of control. She presented a black silk ribbon—he’d focused too hard on not coming to notice where from—and tied his hands above his head. He tested the bond, but her knotting ability rivaled her whipping skills. She stood over him, staring down, and as he peered up at her his mouth watered. He wanted to taste the buds of her nipples and trail his tongue down her taut belly to her core. The memory of her taste and her strong fingers tangled in his hair haunted him

  The one separation between them was the ornate leather mask and the curtain of hair she released from its confines on top of her head. He couldn’t decide if he liked her better with a masculine edge or a feminine. Either way, she strummed every string flowing through him.

  She straddled his knees and took him in hand. He jerked against her warm palm, and she stared into his eyes as she maneuvered the condom, but broke contact as she slid it down and tested its reserve. She let go and shimmied up his legs so his cock pointed straight up along her clit to rest below her belly button.

  “I didn’t tell you before how much I appreciate this.” She stroked him a couple of time before lifting her hips and, agonizingly slowly, slid down his length so she sat completely on him. “Mmm…perfect.”

  He wanted to run his hands up her waist and cup her breasts. Furthermore, wanted to nibble on the column of her neck. He stopped the train in his mind dangerously close to running off the tracks. His muscles began to shake from the onslaught of sensation. She was a wet, hot fantasy that would make him come in minutes if he didn’t gain control of himself. She shimmied on him and then leaned forward t
o press her chest across his. When she began to ride him in earnest, he conjured images of baseball stats and St. Patrick’s Day parade floats in his mind. She rode him for minutes, hours, he couldn’t tell. And all he could do to keep from coming was to remain still and not focus on her orgasm as she cried out his name.

  “You don’t come until I tell you,” she said, her voice husky and her breath fanning across his collar bone.

  “Yes, Mistress,” he managed, but he’d never been so tested by a Dominant before.

  She rode him harder, her body squeezing him tighter. Her breath escaping her in pants, and the second she groaned he prayed for the end because one more similar noise and he wouldn’t be able to hold back. His balls had all but joined his body and his hands ached to grab her and pound into her with the pent up force roiling through him.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, and then she came again, spasming around him. Her body squeezed him and every agonizing second of it he prayed.

  “Come. Now.”

  And he did exactly as she bid with a groan and a tight grip on the ribbon. He held on to it like a lifeline in a storm, his orgasm the maelstrom threatening to bring down the ship. She milked it out of him, and for a second, he blacked out. One moment he came, and the next he lay spent and sore staring at the ornate gold ceiling.

  She patted his cheek and then untied the ribbon. He slipped out of her, limp and spent.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, concern in her voice. He hadn’t flinched from the spot since she untied him.

  He chuckled. “Yes, Mistress. I think I died and went to heaven for a moment.”

  She swatted at him with the silk and grabbed his hands pulling them down to rest in her own across his belly.

  “That was lovely. Exactly what I needed,” she said, squeezing his fingers.

  “Me too; although, I didn’t know it.”

  She laughed and stretched herself out along the floor beside him. He lifted his arm to allow her to tuck herself into the corner and laid her head on his chest. He liked her. More than he was ready to admit. No other Domme used, abused, and cherished him all at once.