Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“Keep going,” Luthian commands me.
Firo’s eyes fly open, wide. I see “No!” form on his lips, but his voice doesn’t come out.
“I’ve silenced him,” Luthian explains. “Some students find the screaming involved in the next part...disquieting. Same tempo, please.”
I can’t help but note the agony twisting Firo’s features. He’s long since stopped coming, and he struggles against the bonds, bangs his head against the table. But I do as Luthian commands, watching Firo’s feet flex, his hands grasp for something intangible.
I don’t know what comes over me. “Guardian, if you don’t mind... I would quite like to hear him.”
A cruel smile passes over Luthian’s lips. “Very well.”
He lifts the spell with a wave of his hand and Firo’s hoarse, painful screams echo through the cavernous library.
“Please! Stop!” he cries. “I’ll give you anything!”
I don’t know what’s come over me. I imagine my smile is very much like Luthian’s, mocking tenderness, pretend concern. And though my Guardian hasn’t instructed me to, I coo sweetly, “Anything?”
“Anything! Please!” He sobs, squeezes his eyes shut.
And I laugh at him. I laugh at his torment.
And I understand.
There is pleasure in pain. Pleasure can become pain. They are inseparable. It doesn’t matter if I’m giving the pain, as I am now, or receiving it, as I did spread wide for Sarta’s needle. I revel in his agony.
Luthian tilts his head at my taunting. Is he proud? Is he angry? I can’t tell. I can imagine the cane slicing into my feet and they tingle. So does my aching, stiff pearl.
“I’m... I’m...” This time, when Firo comes, his emission trickles.
And I laugh at him again. “That’s not nearly so impressive, Guardian. Will the next one be?”
Luthian smiles indulgently. “I wasn’t going to continue, but what an excellent question. Shall we test it out, Firo?”
“No, please, no more. No more!” he begs.
Luthian pretends to consider, then nods to me. “More.”
I feel dizzy with the power I’m exerting over poor Firo, and guilty at the pain I’m causing. But it’s exhilarating, too, to watch him fight his bonds uselessly, then give up, then struggle again with renewed vigor.
“Pay more attention to the head,” Luthian advises. “If you wish to be truly cruel.”
On the next upward slide, I twist my palm roughly over the bright red, sore-looking tip, and I’m rewarded with more pitiable sobbing and shrieking. I put my other hand to work on his shaft, still slow and steady.
When he comes a third time, he begs for it not to happen. A pathetic few drops escape him. He’s entirely dry.
“That’s enough,” Luthian says finally. I take my hands away and, with no other way to clean them, wipe them on my skirt. They’re sticky, the remnants of multiple releases pilled on my fingers and palms. Luthian leans over Firo, presses his hand on the faery’s trembling, jerking chest. He places the softest kiss on the hollow of Firo’s throat and runs a hand over the cum turned watery on his stomach.
“You’ve done so well,” my Guardian murmurs. Then, he takes his dripping hand and smears it over Firo’s face. With a snap of Luthian’s fingers, the bindings are gone. He helps Firo sit up. “I’m very proud of you.”
I feel the strangest flicker of jealousy at that. After all, I’ve done the work. It’s my arm that aches. My body that throbs in desperate need of release.
“I haven’t forgotten you,” Luthian says with a crooked smile, and I wonder if he can read my thoughts. “Your lesson isn’t done today. You have my permission to relieve your need. Then, you may join me in my study. Brujon knows the way.”
“Thank you, Guardian,” I say, and bow my head to him before I leave the library.
As I walk away, I hear him murmuring words of comfort to Firo.
Chapter Nine
As commanded, I go to Luthian’s study, my core still wet and slick from my release. Since he found my choice of dress “studious,” I’m still wearing it when I knock on the door.
“Enter,” he calls from within, and I step inside.
At first sight, I realize that what Luthian “studies” is not a subject with which I am familiar.
The room is an octagon beneath a glass dome like a spiderweb. Daylight streams down on a dais in the center that’s surrounded by polished wood railings, but somehow the illumination doesn’t reach the dark outer perimeter. Candles light sixteen corners and the walls painted with murals.
Luthian himself stands in one of these shadowy places, browsing a shelf.
It doesn’t hold books.
“I am here, Guardian,” I say, shifting nervously on my feet.
He doesn’t turn to me, but says, “Still dressed for the archives? Well, that won’t do.”
I gasp at my instant nakedness. My nipples pucker in the chill; there is no hearth to warm me.
“Step onto the dais,” he orders. “I’m selecting the tools we’ll need.”