Corroded

by Karina Cooper

  His other hand slid lower, closer to the bloomers. The inordinately powerful heat of his palm seared through the material, as if I wore nothing at all.

  In that instant—when my body clenched and my mind shrieked a terrible warning—I hated him.

  I clamped my eyes shut.

  If this was all the Veil demanded of my punishment, so be it. I would suffer under Hawke’s ministrations, knowing that it was no suffering but that of my pride.

  I had already given my flesh to him once. My choice, my doing. That the Veil now demanded it was nothing I would not survive.

  His grasp tightened at my throat. Caught my surprise, I choked on the deliberate cruelty of it, my airways compressed, and screwed my eyes tighter shut as tears of fear gathered where I had sworn there would be none.

  “How I have longed to see you so debased,” he whispered. His voice carried an undercurrent of such menace, such terrible spite, that I flinched. The whole of my body convulsed; the bonds held fast. My breath wheezed out from between his cruel fingers. “That what you did with him will seem a gentle whisper to what I will see you do.”

  His fingers let go so suddenly, I sagged against the silks, gasping for air. “Do?” I was able to frame, a harsh sound.

  “Do,” he repeated. “Perform. Commit.” His lips nuzzled the curve where my throbbing neck met shoulder. “By the end of this night, you will beg for more.”

  Left no other recourse, I snorted.

  Teeth closed over that spot, bit down hard enough that a streak of red fragmented through my sealed eyes. Scorn flipped again to fear. And then to conflicted arousal as his other hand tucked neatly between my legs. When I screamed, even I could not be sure whether it was pain or pleasure I felt.

  Everything seemed so unreal.

  “I will take from you what he was too weak to seize,” Hawke said. The warning did not growl. It did not resonate. He spoke calmly, matter-of-factly, his breath hot on my throbbing skin. His fingers stilled. “I will give you what you seek.”

  I held myself motionless, breath held.

  What I sought was... What I needed was—

  I...I didn’t know.

  Tears burned like acid behind my eyelids. “Why?”

  The word bore so many questions in one. Why do this to me? Why force me?

  Why did he hurt me and feel nothing?

  “Why?” Both hands left my body, left me feeling bereft, relieved. Cold. “Because he won’t.”

  He? What he? What had I missed?

  None of this felt right at all. I felt a player in a stage play with no direction, no script. He demanded something of me, and I couldn’t imagine what it was that drove him.

  This was Hawke—the Midnight Menagerie’s wicked serpent. He had always been so difficult to read, and no hours spent in his bed lessened that, but this was something beyond understanding.

  I took a deep breath, and swayed when the fragrance I had long associated with Hawke’s presence filled my nose.

  “The price they pay to see a countess humbled.” His voice left my back, circled me until I could all but feel him come to a halt in front of me. Seized with the sudden fear that he reached for me again, I jerked back, eyes flaring open.

  Yet it was his back I saw, his gaze focused on the doors leading out to the grounds. His hair was loose and straight, a dark stain across the fit of his black coat. He wore a top hat of black silk, banded in bloody red, and his arms were spread as if in welcome.

  I’d been right. The gloves he wore tonight were white. I could not recall ever seeing him choose formal white for his gloves before. It was always too...predictable.

  “Welcome!” he called, and his voice projected over the amphitheater with trained finesse.

  I gasped, struggling to look beyond him, yet all I saw were more shadows. Shapes, silhouettes, faceless and without name.

  An audience. God help me, how long had they been there? How long had they watched him taunt me? Touch me?

  Fear stole my breath. I struggled to inhale, to force oxygen into my shivering body.

  It came on another wash of spice. Warmth filled me. Eased the shiver.

  Euphoric.

  Bloody hell and the devil’s own tricks. Opium or something derivative to loosen the inhibitions, free the purse strings. I recognized it, now. The underpinning of the incense, the thing that made it so different and still so familiar. It was to be another skin-show, was it?

  With my skin the lure.

  Reluctant arousal faded to shuddering fear, and fear gave rise to an anger no opium could ease.

  I was a slave to the medicinal tar, I would say that much, but I would not be a docile thing for him to exhibit.

  I glared at Hawke’s back, hurling insults at him that did not take shape beyond the muzzle he’d forced upon me. My skin burned, not all of it the substance I breathed upon the air. Shame and anger conspired to strip me of what dignity I had left.

  Hawke turned to bestow his devilish smile upon me.

  In his eyes burned blue fire; his lips, always a cruel edge, spoke of malice I had never before seen upon his face.

  I could no longer convince myself that I dreamed the change.

  My fingers tightened on the silks. “Who a’ y’u?” It was a terrible butchering of the question, but I did not let that stop me. As I looked up into the wild blue of Hawke’s eyes, one truth became abundantly clear—a warning I recognized far too late.

  This was not Hawke.

  He lifted his left hand to his mouth, touching his lips with the tip of his forefinger before pressing that indirect kiss to my lower lip. He did not content himself with a gentle touch. He pushed that gloved finger against my lip until my flesh gave way, smearing the rouge over his pristine white glove and causing gathered saliva to leak over my chin.

  I heard gasps from the audience behind him.

  Humiliation pricked tears into my eyes.

  “To be owned,” the creature wearing Hawke’s face intoned. “A dream denied by a prudish society too frightened to embrace the vices that give us life.” Slowly, he brought his finger to his mouth once more. His tongue darted over the red stain, but it was not me he paid attention to.

  When he stepped aside, revealing me completely to the shadowed audience, I wrenched my face to the side, eyes squeezed shut.

  His fingers curled in my hair. The pain of his grip demanded I look where he willed it, or lose my scalp. The sound I made was more a grunt.

  This could not be Hawke. The devil of this earthly Garden of Eden had always been dangerous, even cruel, but he had never been...this.

  Had he?

  I shuddered, forcing my eyes wide lest the shameful tears fall.

  “You’ve dreamed of it, haven’t you?” Hawke asked, his voice slipping through the hazy candlelight as if it were the very serpent I’d accused him of being. “You yearn for freedom, to be relieved of all expectation and burden.” A born showman, even I found my senses pulled to him—sight, sound, even the yearning of secret flesh.

  I swallowed, bit down hard enough on the wooden shaft that pain split through my skull.

  “Who better to afford such freedom,” he added, doffing his top hat with exaggerated courtesy at the audience, “than fine men, and such extraordinary ladies.”

  I heard a woman’s sultry laugh.

  I peered into the golden glow, barely making out the shapes of a dozen or so avid viewers. In the reflected haze that was as much the smoke as it was the glare, I saw the rich color of dyed fabric, lazily flicked fans and the glint of fine jewelry. Enough that I recognized wealth.

  What madness was this? That the audience bore the entitled, the wealthy, I had no doubt; no one else could afford this show. What horrors would the uppercrust I’d once been part of encourage? Would they truly watch this and say nothing? All for the sake of what?

  A humiliation? A reprieve from endless ennui?

  I glared at the audience, staring hard enough that I hoped to shame them all. Each and every one who’
d given his coin for this unholy entertainment.

  In the leaping candlelight, I saw the glint of flame on copper red hair, but I did not recognize the aristocratic face that watched without expression. A glimpse of finely barbered chops in golden shade, masked by the sudden turning of his head, left me uneasy with fading awareness.

  I saw elegant emerald taffeta, and the wide-lipped smile of a lady who did not turn away from my stare. Beautiful, with her brunette hair in a stunning array of loose curls, Lady Sarah Elizabeth Persimmon trapped my gaze with her own.

  I could not fathom what dark desires had brought the earl’s daughter so far afield, but I would never forget the look of abject malice upon her lovely face that night.

  What was left of my reputation was in tatters.

  What had I left to lose?

  Nothing.

  And so nothing would I give them, these vultures and thieves. Baring my teeth around the wooden rod, I snarled my loathing at them all.

  “There are those who deny these wants.” As if I’d given him the cue he desired, Hawke stood beside me. His fingers came to rest over my nape. “Poor creatures that they are, forever burdened by the demands of those who do not understand them.”

  I jerked sharply. Though there was too much knowing in his words, I did not like the sound of this little monologue.

  “Is it not our responsibility to free them from such?”

  I flinched when the fingers at my nape tightened.

  “Is it not our duty, as greater men, to bring these fragile birds to our hands? To treat them as they deserve to be treated?” His free hand, rouge-stained, cupped my cheek. I averted my gaze rather than be forced to meet that blue stare again. Devil-bright—filled with a knowledge I myself had handed him.

  What a fool, I was.

  “Let ‘e go,” I rasped. That more of my gathered saliva dribbled from my straining lips seemed to titillate the crowd who watched; I heard murmuring, even a chuckle.

  Hawke’s fingers drifted to my throat. Then lower. Sifting through the froth of lace, they skimmed over the swell of my breast.

  My flesh heated where he touched.

  My face burned with mortification.

  “She fights, because she has been told no self-respecting woman would allow herself to be so revealed.” Hawke’s gentle reproach was not so soft as to be for my ears alone. No, he knew what it was he did, projecting such kindness and understanding across the amphitheater. “No one has allowed her the opportunity to be free of the burden of choice.”

  “Tou’ ‘e an’ I wi’ ki’ y’u!” What didn’t make it through the gag, I made bloody sure burned in my stare.

  The devil laughed. “And still, she fights. Come, Countess. Let go your obligations. Let go the prudery that has all but strangled the heart from you.” I leaned as far away as I could from his grasp, but the ribbons left me no avenue. He crowded me, his hard features twisted into a mockery of kindness. Of platitudes that twisted like knives within my chest.

  “Free yourself of sorrow,” he coaxed, his hand flattening over the front of my corset. As if I wore nothing, I felt it press against my constricted ribs—a brand, a mark of possession. “Free yourself of the guilt you feel when choice is all you are offered.”

  Slowly, his free hand splayed over my cheek. Warm. Gentle enough that my senses could not distinguish what was real and what came of my own hazy fantasy.

  Was this Hawke speaking to me? Was it a stranger in his skin?

  Did he promise me safety?

  His hand lifted from my cheek. Crack! Pain blossomed beneath his palm. “A body so owned has no worries but that which her protector bestows.” Crack! The other cheek. Tears filled my eyes. “Her passions so enslaved, she has no sorrows but those he allows.”

  Crack! My teeth ground against wooden rod. Fire bloomed over my face, crawled down my neck.

  “Such a treasure, my lady, is adored, utterly and completely. She is consumed, until she is nothing—” another slap, “—but obedience—” Another. I cried out. “—and love.” Hawke’s palms framed my face, drew me to my toes as his mouth slanted over mine. His kiss reeked of arrogance, of lust given flesh and heightened arousal so sharp, I could taste it on his breath.

  Behind him, I could hear the crowd murmuring. Feel their intensity as they watched.

  I forced myself to remain still. To remain lifeless under his kiss, noisy and wet and messy as it was against my gagged mouth. When he lifted his head, it was not to me he looked, but the crowd.

  I was a prop, a thing. This show, this demanded submission, was nothing like that which I’d offered Hawke of my own will. This was a mockery—a bloody performance for jeering apes dressed in silks, twisting that which had been my gift to him.

  What joy I might have felt in Hawke’s arms before now turned to ash and rot.

  I shuddered with revulsion. With fear.

  “Think of nothing,” Hawke said, his voice a deep drag within my skin. That he could still force an element of feeling from me was something I despised with all my being. “Worry for nothing but that which we demand. That is our responsibility. Our gift to the likes of you.”

  When he circled me, I saw him lick his lips—as if he would taste the red rouge that had rubbed off on his mouth from mine. Raw delight, depraved in ways I had never seen before, filled a face I had once thought of as familiar.

  I did not know this monster.

  I did not know how to rationalize what I felt now. Only that I would escape, the very instant he gave me opportunity.

  And then he would be sorry.

  “Bring them,” Hawke called. On cue, the side doors that were usually used for Menagerie staff opened, and out came four women—midnight sweets, all of them. I recognized Talitha and Jane, girls I had befriended. Beside them, Delilah, who had been so kind when I’d seen her last, and Black Lily.

  All were dressed in simple shifts. All bound. They did not shuffle, or walk with rounded shoulders. They were sweets, quite used to the peddling of their flesh to the highest bidder, but Lily stumbled. It was Talitha who caught her, an arm around her shoulders, and in that moment, I saw Talitha’s face turned in my direction.

  Fear flickered there. Fear, and anger.

  Lily’s face was bandaged, but the way she moved told me she was as drugged as I—with none of the tolerance to afford her understanding.

  He’d brought all the women I’d come to know, to enjoy the company of.

  The Veil had lied. Even though I’d capitulated, though I stood here now, these women would be made to suffer—and I had no choice but to watch.

  I think I must have lost my mind, for the next thing I knew, I was raving at Hawke in words that would not form fully around the wooden rod. His laughter filled the amphitheater, fused with the sudden surge of delighted chatter from them what watched.

  The stays of my corset loosened, so sharply that I know he did not untie them. The panels eased, my natural curves pushing them away.

  A knife. I’d bet my life upon it.

  A literal wager.

  Gripping the ribbons, I waited; held my breath with the effort.

  His fingers slid beneath the corset’s edges, pulled it farther apart. The sudden ceasing of pressure upon my wound woke the deadened flesh, and I flinched.

  Only to scream in shock and pain as his fingers found the puncture and pressed.

  The sound tore through the amphitheater.

  “A possession’s reward,” Hawke said in the pulsating silence that followed, “is punishment. Our kindness is in the demands we make. We have too long been made to suffer in silence, persecuted by societies determined to stamp out the vices that give us control. Remember where you come from!” This last was spoken so sharply, filled with so much menace, that many gasped.

  I glared out over the firelight, panting tiny breaths lest deeper ones aggravate the agony he’d provoked. Very carefully, I eased one foot out of my slipper.

  I saw the color of Lady Sarah Elizabeth’s emerald gown, b
ut could not see her face as she bent to cup Black Lily’s chin in her hand. Her thumb pressed against the bandage.

  Spots of red turned black against the white cloth.

  Lily did not flee. Rooted to the spot, kneeling beside the woman, she sobbed.

  My vision went red in kind.

  Bollocks to waiting. I would see blood for blood now. I straightened my arms, providing slack in the ribbons where there had been none. I whirled, graceful as the dancer Fanny had always wanted me to be. Hawke’s strange blue eyes laughed at me, but his smile was one of sinister mockery as my corset slid to the stage floor, cut laces drifting in its wake.

  I don’t believe he expected me to behave as I did then. I certainly hadn’t expected it of myself. All I know was that my heart thudded hard enough in my skull to drown Lily’s pitiful cries, the protestations of the girls he would see abused, and my fury would wait for nothing.

  Tightening my arms, I lifted my legs and braced both upon Hawke’s chest. I was quick; much more so than he expected, and perhaps more than my wound could allow, but pain would not stop me.

  The knife, a simple dagger without ornamentation, glinted in his gloved hand. With a deft move I hadn’t planned through, I kicked out, toes splayed, and deftly plucked the blade from his grip.

  Laughter turned to surprise.

  Pain sheared up my leg.

  I could not let it stop me.

  Clenching my toes tightly around the sharp edge, I rolled my body up, until I was upside down upon the ribbons.

  Hawke laughed outright. His hands caught my head, cradled it. The veil they’d placed upon my head floated between us, caressed my cheek. With one hand, he seized it at the base, and wrenched the whole thing off. The shear ruthlessness of it hardened my resolve, and though he tore my hair free of its pins, I did not scream. Forcing my upside down stare to meet his, he drawled, “And where do you think to go, my lady?”

  A twist of my foot, toes clamped upon the blade, and fabric tore.

  Crimson silk pooled over us both. It slid across his cheek, trailed down my body, and abruptly left one arm loose. I would have swung—a strange echo of the way I’d freed Hawke from his own chains—were it not for Hawke’s own grasp on my hair.