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Rimmon’s smile was victorious, as if goading Addai into acting had been part of his price. “So she is aware of your nature. Good. Then let us discuss terms.”
He paused, a silent command for Addai to put away his weapon before they continued. Addai complied, jaw clenched.
“One search,” Rimmon said. “Assuming of course that Saril agrees to perform it for you. Done in my presence. And in return, I will give you a choice of payments.”
He gestured to the room on the other side of the glass. “If death is still yours to deliver, then show me one given with pleasure and survived in ecstasy. Strip your companion and bind her to any piece of equipment, then attend her until her screams cease and she falls silent in la petite morte.”
Addai’s cock throbbed at the images Rimmon’s words created. Desire burned through him, and he fought against revealing just how much he longed to join his body to hers. What Rimmon described was tame compared to the fantasies he harbored, the things he wanted to do with Sajia.
Next to him she sat ramrod straight, bristling with resistance and rebellion, seething in her silence but managing to keep her promise to allow him to negotiate with the vice lord. Had Rimmon’s terms allowed for privacy . . .
She was safe from this particular bargain. He would never allow another to look at her naked form or witness her in pleasure and live to dream about it.
“And the second choice?”
“If you don’t prefer pleasure, then there is only one other. Pain. The terms for access to Saril are the same, only it will be you who is bound, and your companion who selects which of my toys will be applied to your back.”
Sajia jerked in denial, a small sound of distress escaping. Addai’s hand moved from the back of the couch to her arm, his fingers lightly tracing the vampire marks, reminding her of what there was to lose if something happened to the scion, or if he decided to end their truce and risk her hatred by taking her back to the chalet and holding her there.
“How many strikes?” Addai asked. Compared to the agony of Sajia’s death so long ago, physical pain was easily endured.
“As many as it takes for your back to resemble the bloody mess of mine when flesh and wings were burned away.” Rimmon leaned forward abruptly, the cold eye alight with fire. “You are no less guilty than I was judged to be, and I would argue that your transgressions are greater.”
“True enough,” Addai said, following it by restating the terms, modifying them. “And for this, there will be one search, done before sunset on this day, in your presence and accompanied by your vow not to use what you learn in any way, or reveal it to another.”
“Agreed.”
Addai stood, and with a thought his shirt disappeared. “Let us begin then.”
No! Sajia silently screamed as Addai tugged her to her feet. But she couldn’t force herself to give voice to it, not with the lives of her family, and possibly Corinne’s, at stake.
Rimmon touched a place on the wall, and it slid open to reveal a doorway into the dungeon. He didn’t bother to close it after they entered.
She hadn’t been able to see it from her seat in his parlor, but one wall was done fully in mirrors, and anchored to it was a saltire. Though she had never been bound spread-eagle for punishment, carnal or otherwise, she was well familiar with its use. No vampire estate housing servants or progeny was without one. In private or in public, in play or in deadly seriousness, vampires enjoyed torment and drawing blood.
“Perhaps you’d like me to assist you in choosing the best tool for the task,” Rimmon said as he led them to a wall where whips and floggers and paddles hung from hooks, while canes and switches lay in narrow, ornate cradles.
Sajia shuddered at the thought of applying any of them to Addai. Of willfully cutting his skin and making him bleed.
Her reaction didn’t go unnoticed. Rimmon laughed and said, “It’s not too late to choose pleasure over pain.”
Addai reached out, plucking a cat-o’-nines from the wall. Sajia’s heart cried out at the sight of the thin strips of leather, the tails braided to form sharp edges.
“Use this one,” he said. “It will make our stay here shorter.”
Rimmon laughed again. “But far more painful. I’m not sure whether to feel pleased or cheated by your choice. But if you’ve made it, then we’ll adjourn to the crux decussata.”
He preceded them to the St. Andrew’s Cross. The single eye shone like a multifaceted gem as he turned it on Sajia. “You’ll have to do the honors of binding him.”
Sajia’s heart pounded in her chest, horror building there as Addai faced the mirrored wall. At the chalet, she’d claimed the past had no relevance, but as he lifted his arms and allowed her to place a manacle around his wrist, the first tender shoots of love took root in her soul. It humbled her that he would subject himself to such torment all because they’d once lived as man and wife.
She secured the buckles with trembling fingers. He turned his head and their eyes met, his holding a depth of commitment almost beyond her imagining.
Emotions flooded her, joy and tenderness and hope—all overlaid by a rising despair at what this bargain demanded. She knelt at his feet and a glimmer of the future they might have together once Corinne was found worked its way into her thoughts. Yet even as images of home and children came, part of her feared that one day he would decide he loved a memory, not her.
“The rest of it or our agreement is null,” Rimmon said.
Addai’s pants slid into nonexistence, and she bound his ankles. Regardless of the pose and the restraints, there was no diminishment of his innate arrogance and pride.
