by Ophelia Bell
“This will not do, little beast. My touch used to light you up. Does this not hurt enough to turn you on? Do you need more pain?”
Belah ignored his hand and met his eyes with eyebrows raised. With her free hand, she gripped his cock again and squeezed the soft length of flesh.
“I could say the same, Nikhil. Do I not please you in the least? Your little beast seems distinctly uninterested.”
His jaw clenched and he released her. Water surged around her as he climbed out of the tub and reached for a towel, tossing a second one to her. Without another word, he left the room.
Belah contemplated ignoring him and staying in the bath, but she hadn’t agreed to these seven days with the intention of torturing him. He had information she needed, that she’d been willing to give up her body to get. As a dragon, that should have been the easiest thing in the world for her to do. Despite being freshly mated to a pair of turul royalty, she should have been able to become aroused by another. No dragon in history had ever had issues responding the prospect of well-earned energy. It was a matter of survival.
Except for her, it wasn’t. She would survive well enough without it, though survival wouldn’t be pleasant. Otherwise, she would not have made the promise she’d made to Iszak and Lukas when she submitted to them.
“This is going to be a long week,” she sighed, and climbed out of the bath to follow Nikhil.
Cinching a white silk robe around her, Belah stopped short in the doorway, her eyes widening at the sight beyond. The room before her swam for a moment in her disorientation at being thrown back into the past. It was an almost perfect replica of her bedroom, the one she’d left behind back in Alexandria, Egypt, three thousand years ago.
Where the hell had he taken her?
The bed was the same, down to the blue silk coverlet. The wooden chest at the foot possessed the same delicate gold latches. If she opened it, she imagined it probably contained the same collection of toys and implements she once enjoyed using with Nikhil in this room.
Not this room. It can’t be the same room. Yet everywhere she looked, she saw some reminder of the past. Of the time when they had been lovers in every sense.
She swallowed hard, trying to force the hot stone out of her throat, but it only sank lower and ate harshly at her gut.
“If I could love you that way again right now, I would,” she said. “I didn’t want to love you before … the night you found me last week. I hated you so much. I especially hated you for how much I wanted you to own me again.”
Nikhil stood beside one of the most beautiful gifts he’d ever given her, though this version of it was enough to relieve her worries that he’d somehow transported her to the past. The X-shaped device was more elaborate than the original. This one was built of highly polished wood with well-crafted cuffs attached to each point. It was also covered in padded blue cushions and stood in the center of the room on a slightly raised platform, surrounded by runnels in the stone floor, all of them leading toward a larger central channel that followed a path to a silver-lined basin nearby.
Nikhil watched her gaze travel across the floor and moved in front of her, touching her chin to direct her to look at him instead. “I planned this room before I saw you in the flesh again. I had different ideas then about how our meeting would go, until … well, until I got you in here.”
“But you hoped … Where are we, exactly? We aren’t in Egypt. The air feels wrong … too thin. The energy is wrong.”
“We’re in New York, but not the present. It’s the recent past. I couldn’t risk anyone else chasing you here. Only someone with nymphaea magic and a link to this time or to either of us can find their way in. I wanted to make sure the week you promised me would be uninterrupted. The actual date of this time bubble is insignificant. And only Sterlyn knows it.”
Belah walked around the room, admiring how exquisite every detail was. In all her years on earth before meeting Nikhil, her time in Egypt had been her favorite. She’d been worshiped as both a queen and a goddess. Her subjects were among the most advanced of all the world’s civilizations, the most intelligent, and by far the most attractive and interesting. She’d had a personal harem of pets at her beck and call to satisfy her need for energy, and they were all willing and ready to serve at her whim.
“I was a good leader then. And with you as my general, we were the strongest of all the dragon Ascendancies.”
“Conquering in your name was my greatest honor, Belah. If I could turn back time and return to those days, I would. Believe me, I have tried.”
She paused at the bed, running her hand over the silk. The pleasing texture of the embroidered surface bumped against her palm. Golden threads were sewn into the shapes of tiny scarabs all over the fabric. It wasn’t quite identical to the one she used to have, but it was close.
“It was a shame what happened there … Were you there, at the end?”
“When the Romans came? I was in hiding by then, but managed to save many of the treasures.”
His eyes darted to the chest at the foot of the bed. Belah knelt to open it. The familiar fragrance of jasmine oil wafted to her nose, engulfing her in a fresh wave of nostalgia. She let out a little gasp at the contents of the box.
“It can’t be …” she murmured, reaching inside for a large, oblong, marble shape. But when her hand wrapped around the polished stone, she knew it was the same item she believed. She would remember its heft and balance, the way the veins that colored the marble mimicked those of a man’s cock. How the length of it felt in her hand and how the heavy ridge of its large head used to feel between her thighs. She set it down again in its velvet bed, and with a pang was reminded of another cherished instrument that rested in another velvet bed somewhere else in the city. She doubted she would ever get more pleasure than she did from the music of Lukas’s saxophone.
“Something has lit that spark in you, little beast. What was it?” Nikhil asked from behind her. “Did an inanimate object really turn you on more than I do?”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t the dildo that had aroused her, but the memory of Lukas’s mating call.
“Memories can be powerful things,” she said. She reached back into the chest and picked up another object. “How does this one make you feel?”
Nikhil’s eyebrows shot up when he caught sight of the slender, elongated, egg-shaped instrument she held. She was sure she caught the glimmer of a smile beginning to curl the corners of his mouth.
“As I recall,” Belah purred, “you weren’t too keen on my use of it the first night we spent together.”
His expression darkened. “That’s because I would rather have been using it on you.”
She shrugged and put the anal plug back in the box. “I needed to make sure you understood who had the upper hand in our relationship. Besides, what kind of challenge would it have been for a warrior of your prowess if I had simply lain down and let you have your way with me?”
In a rough voice, he answered, “I have never forgotten your power, ‘Iilahatan. I worship you still. Let me worship you again the way I always did. Let me give you what you need.”
With a sigh, Belah closed the chest and sat on the lid, facing him. “My needs have changed, my love. And I believe neither of us are capable of fulfilling each other’s needs any longer. If you still wish to try, I will happily let you bind me to that cross again, though I wish you wouldn’t cut me as deeply as you did before. I no longer seek oblivion.”
“I won’t take you anywhere you don’t wish to go. Just tell me what will please you most.”
“What would please me most right now is to understand why you went to such lengths. Why all the torture and killing? You knew me well when you served as my general—you never killed or tortured without my interests at heart, and you were always well-attuned to what would grant me glory. Unnecessary bloodshed wasn’t something
I ever wanted. So why, Nikhil?”
He frowned and turned away from her, heading toward another doorway to another room. She couldn’t help but feel like his departure was a form of escape, even though he still had the upper hand.
She rose to follow him, passing through the heavy door that eerily resembled the door to her own bedroom from so long ago. Instead of the long hallway she would have encountered in her palace, however, the door led directly into a scaled-down copy of the grand hall, complete with gilded throne at the back of the room. The rear wall in this version was a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that were slowly revealed as Nikhil slid the draperies aside.
Beyond the windows was the night-lit city, alive with human activity and invention, and filled with every emotion imaginable. If she chose to, Belah could send her power out into the night and sense it all, but only one man’s feelings mattered to her in that moment. For the first time since he’d taken her, she focused her power past Nikhil’s aura and went deeper.
“Don’t you dare dig into my head,” he growled. “I can sense you starting to do it. You know I can read minds too now? I can’t get into yours, though … I’ve tried. I keep thinking if I could just understand what it is that’s keeping you from reacting to me, I would know what to do to change it. Ever since our wedding night, I’ve had this power … think it was your blood that was the catalyst. After all those blessings the others gave me. But ever since I lost you, it’s been like this extra pressure has weighed down my consciousness. Being with you here is the first time I’ve felt unburdened by that feeling in thousands of years. It makes me wonder what they really did to me on our wedding day.”
He turned and looked over his shoulder at her. “They were immortals too, weren’t they? The ones who were there that day. Magic that powerful had to come from creatures like you. But all those blessings feel more like curses now. I can’t even fucking feel the way I used to. But I could feel everything at first. On our wedding night and for at least two centuries after … it was too much for me, Belah. You were right to think the magic would ruin my mind—my will. I had no will to live without you, but I couldn’t fucking die.”
She quietly stepped up beside him and touched his arm. “So you killed instead. It was all you knew.”
“Killing—pain—it’s what I’m good at. I am the best at destruction. I gave into it because I had nothing else. You were gone—I believed you were dead, that I’d somehow managed to actually fucking kill you for real, and your family refused to let me mourn properly. When I learned you were still alive, it only made me angrier. Something took over me … I don’t know how to explain it, but today’s the first day I’ve been relieved of that feeling since.”
Belah recalled the only memory she had of Nikhil from that time shortly after she’d been revived. She’d gone to find him against her brother’s warnings, but what she’d found was a man more brutal and devoid of humanity than anyone she’d ever known. He’d been in the process of torturing and then fucking a human woman who closely resembled Belah herself, and who had also apparently enjoyed his torture almost as much as Belah once had.
“You took it out on women who looked like me,” she said.
“Not entirely. I still wanted something good. The one thing I had wished for to the depths of my soul with you … to have a child. I suppose I figured if it could at least look like it came from us both, I would be satisfied.”
“And were you? It did happen eventually, I know that much.”
He let out a soft snort and shook his head. “Omar was as weak as his mother. I was furious when he was killed, of course, but the clarity of time has made me understand what a waste of time it was to want a human child. I have since set my sights higher.”
“How so?” She was alert for a shift in his aura, to at least catch some emotional cue she would miss otherwise, but he abruptly shut down, his aura turning gray and inert in a shocking fashion. He’d developed some unique powers the likes of which she’d never seen before.
“It doesn’t matter now, because you’re finally with me.” He turned to face her then, and the wildness in his eyes startled her. It wasn’t the wildness of insanity—no, he still had a perfect grasp on his mind, but he was as determined as a warrior on the battlefield. The man who stood before her was prepared for a fight, and the look in his eyes was the certainty of victory. His aura abruptly flashed bright red again. It was such a stark contrast to that strange, momentary shift to null that she wasn’t sure she’d even seen it.
“Nikhil,” she said cautiously, “what are you thinking?”
“The only thing I want in exchange for telling you where your son is, is for you to give me that child, Belah. Mate me. You know my mind can handle it, after all the magic I’ve endured. This little pocket of time we live inside can be made to last as long as it takes. No one will find us here. When it’s done, you can go, and those on the outside will never even know how long you’ve been with me.”
She gaped at him. “I’m not concerned about your mind, Nikhil. It simply cannot happen. Dragons don’t get pregnant just because we’re mated. There’s an element of desire required that can’t be coerced. I have to want to bear your child, and I’m very sorry, but I don’t.”
She had, once, very much. Enough that it had indeed happened despite his lack of mark. But she understood that the wedding blessing bestowed on him by the ursa shaman had been enough for her to conceive in the end. Belah wasn’t prepared to tell him of his daughter’s existence yet. Not when she was still so uncertain of Nikhil’s intentions, or how he would react to her ultimate rejection.
He gripped both her arms and squeezed, giving her a slight shake. “This is all I ask, and it is something I know you want—at least, you did once.”
“I promised you a week, Nikhil. Seven days to have me, and no more.”
He narrowed his eyes, and she sensed the devious calculation of a military mind seeking a new assault tactic.
“Fine. Seven days. By the end of it, if I can convince you to bear my child, you will stay with me long enough for that to happen. If not, I will take you to your son.”
She gave him a sad look and raised her hand to his cheek. “I will agree, but only as long as you acknowledge that some things may be beyond our control. We have at least one major obstacle standing in the way of your wish.”
“Let me worry about that. Getting you in the mood was always one of my specialties. Your pleasure is all I need.” His eyes glinted with excitement as he slid his hand to the back of her neck and tangled his fingers into the wet strands of her hair. He twisted them tight and pulled her head back in a move she remembered well from their time together.
The force of his pull lowered her to her knees, the position itself one of her favorite triggers to deep arousal. In the past, she’d already be flooded with wet heat and eager to do his bidding.
This time, her heartbeat remained slow and steady, her nethers inert. And Nikhil’s cock equally unresponsive.
With a roar of displeasure, he yanked hard at her hair, twisting it until her neck ached and she was forced to spin onto her butt. He pulled her across the floor toward the bedroom, her feet scrambling against the marble to try to keep up. Her insides roiled with anger at his inability to accept the truth, but she knew she had to let him come to terms with their situation on his own.
When they reached the bedroom, he hauled her to her feet and spun her around to face the cross.
“Climb on, belly first,” he commanded, shoving her toward the contraption.
She went, dropping her robe to the floor before stepping up onto the dais and placing her feet on each of the small ledges at the bottom points of the cross.
The cross had been built with her exact proportions in mind, and her wrists fit neatly into the fleece-lined leather cuffs at the top. She found small, polished handles above that fit perfectly into her palms and gripped them.
Nikhil cuffed her wrists and ankles, then disappeared for a moment. She heard the rattle of a latch and knew he had opened her chest of toys.
The disturbance of the air over her skin telegraphed the strike of the whip a split second before the crack sounded and her back exploded in pain. She screamed, more from surprise than from the sting that bloomed into bright red behind her eyes. Another strike soon followed the first, then another. They grew progressively harder and quicker, each one preceded by a grunt of frustration from their deliverer.
“Why won’t you respond?!” he yelled. “What is wrong with you?”
After a final cursing outburst from him, the strikes ceased and the whip handle cracked against the floor. Nikhil’s ragged breathing echoed through the room.
“Do you remember the first time I whipped you, beast?” his voice rumbled, the tense edge to it barely betraying the pain he must be in after inflicting such punishment on her.
“I remember it vividly. You were magnificent then. As you are now. Even more now for enduring what you give me. You know I have an infinite tolerance for pain, Nikhil. Don’t do this to yourself.”
She twisted her head just enough to catch a glimmer of movement from the corner of her eye. He’d fallen to his knees to catch his breath and now rose with a wince.
“My pain is worth it if it wakes you up, little beast.”
“Nikhil … don’t …” Belah protested, but was interrupted by something foreign and strange-smelling being pressed against her lips. She opened and a round, smooth object settled against her tongue. It was slightly bitter tasting and cool on her tongue. She tested with her teeth and found the surface had some give, the rubbery texture springing back when she released her bite.
As he fastened the buckles at the back of her head, he said, “Not one of your original toys, but I knew I might need it when I got you here. No more talking, little beast. I know you can endure everything I have to give, and I am not here to torture you, after all. We will keep trying.”
