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Looking up the line of his body, Sajia swallowed tears at the thought of marring perfection, of using the flogger to cut his skin and make him bleed when in that moment, all she wanted was to give him pleasure, to press kisses to his flesh and stroke him with her hands.
She forced herself to pick up the cat-o’-nines he’d dropped to the floor before placing his arms against the smooth wood and steel of the saltire. Rimmon moved a short distance away, taking a seat on what looked like a throne.
Sajia stepped back. She couldn’t suppress the tears then, or the whimper, as she raised her arm and delivered the first strike.
Pain streaked through Addai. Wrapped in flesh, he felt it as a human might, though unlike a human, all he had to do was give up any pretense of mortality to be free of it.
A second blow followed the first, and then a third. He didn’t bother to count beyond th
at. It would take more than what a human could survive for Rimmon’s price to be met.
He watched Sajia in the mirror. His heart both wept and rejoiced at the sight of her tears.
Again and again she raised her arm and brought the cat-o’nines down in punishing strikes. Flaying his skin so the muscles in his arms stood out in rigid relief as he fought to remain constrained by flesh.
The present dominated until blood flowed down his back. Then he gave himself over to memories.
Physical agony took the place of emotions he’d carried for thousands of years. Guilt and regret. Rage and hate.
There was catharsis in the pain and the bleeding. He embraced it, letting it wash the past away.
Endorphins rose. Where once fury had filled the abyss created by emotional agony, now desire filled the one carved out by physical pain.
Addai felt Sajia’s anguish, and even more sublime, the strengthening of the bond between them as her tears continued to flow and her arm shook with fatigue and reluctance.
Her whimpers of protest were a serenade to his heart. He hardened and remained that way, each additional lash becoming another thread weaving their souls together.
Finally she threw the cat-o’-nines to the floor in a signal that payment had been made. Rimmon rose from his throne and touched one of the lions carved into the wood. Curtains closed over the glass separating dungeon from office. “It seems you made the better bargain. I’ll be back in a little while to take you to Saril.”
Sajia went to Addai on a shuddering sob, freeing him of the manacles around his wrists before Rimmon left the room. She knelt, undoing those around his ankles with fingers that trembled and a soul that ached.
He turned and her eyes traveled upward, soaking in the beauty of him, the unmarred skin. Felt the shock of remorse pushed aside by the sight of testicles hanging beneath a potent display of hardened masculinity.
She licked her lips in unconscious reaction, only aware of having done it when his penis bobbed, pulling away from his abdomen as if it would come to her mouth. She lifted her eyes to meet his and pushed words through a throat clogged with emotions that shouldn’t be able to coexist. “Can you heal yourself?”
“Of course,” he said, arrogance in his voice and something she wouldn’t have thought possible except for the evidence of it only inches away from her face. Hunger. Dark and dangerous. Commanding and all-encompassing.
FIVE
The air shimmered, and Sajia felt the caress of it against her face like a faint icy breeze. In the mirror his back became whole, unblemished, as if the terrible damage, the pain she’d inflicted because of her oath, her family, had never been.
It wasn’t compulsion as the vampires were capable of, but it was equally compelling. She could no more resist the pull of desire, the need to deliver pleasure after having delivered so much pain, than a blood-slave could a master’s command.
Her hands settled on Addai’s thighs. His muscles flexed beneath her palms, vibrated with tension though his lips remained sealed, his face austere, challenging her to coax an expression from him, a cry where he’d remained mute under the lashes of the cat-o’-nines.
She laughed softly, something she would have thought impossible moments earlier. He wouldn’t be able to hold against the torment of her tongue, the teasing prelude to taking him in her mouth, sucking until he was once again at her mercy. In this his immense power didn’t matter, he was still male.
Sajia leaned forward as her hands slid upward on his thighs. In the mirror there was the subtle flexing of his buttocks as he braced himself for the instant she would touch his cock.
She’d wielded the flogger without stopping, wanting to get it over with quickly, to hurry through it rather than commit each strike to memory. And now she found herself at risk of going quickly once again, but for far different reasons.
Her hands settled on either side of his thick erection, and she had to force them to remain there, just as she had to force herself not to press kisses along his hardened length. Where she’d hastened through the pain, she wanted to linger in pleasure.
She rubbed her cheek against his cock, soft skin against soft skin. It jerked at the contact, and he wrapped her braid around a hand, using it in a silent command to turn her face.
She complied, lips touching heated flesh, tongue darting out for a first taste. Savoring it.
A shudder went through Addai, a wave of such pleasure he only barely managed to remain standing. He’d been without a woman since her death.
