Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“Have you had enough or do you need another taste of the pain whip?” she asked coldly.
“Gods, no more—please!” Thrax rasped out. “I’ll do what you want—just stop with the fucking whip!”
“Language!” Mistress Stoneheart snapped. The whip cracked again and another bloody stripe appeared across Thrax’s shoulder blades.
Andi couldn’t bear to watch her partner beaten.
“Stop it!” she shouted and ran to try and get the whip out of the other woman’s hand. She still couldn’t touch the whip or the woman wielding it, but she found she could get between the whip and the younger Thrax. It hurt when the whip fell—a kind of sharp, stinging shock. But Andi’s interference kept the whip from breaking the big Hybrid’s skin again—it was almost like she was muffling the blows as they came.
Mistress Stoneheart clearly couldn’t understand what was going on.
“What’s wrong with this thing?” she muttered angrily to herself, after a few more blows that didn’t even make a mark, let alone break the skin. Finally, she threw the whip down in disgust and stalked away, muttering about faulty equipment.
Andi wondered if the scene would change again, but the younger Thrax remained there, tied to the whipping post, bleeding and panting. The last few blows might not have hurt him, but it was clear that Mistress Stoneheart had gotten in plenty of good hits before Andi had appeared to stop her.
Wishing she could help to heal him somehow, Andi stepped closer.
“Thrax,” she whispered in his ear. “Thrax, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m with you now. I care about you—you’re not alone.”
Her partner didn’t reply but he leaned towards her voice and Andi got the feeling that he could feel her presence somehow, even if he couldn’t actually see or hear her clearly.
“I wish I could heal you,” she whispered in his ear. Tentatively, she put a hand on his wounded shoulder. To her surprise, it didn’t pass through him. Instead, she felt a kind of tingling coolness in the palm of her hand. The feeling spread to her fingertips as well and Andi began to wonder if it was the effect of touching her partner…or something else.
Carefully, she ran her tingling hand down his wounded back. Thrax flinched at first…then let out a relieved-sounding sigh.
“Goddess,” he rasped, looking her way. “I don’t know you and I don’t know why the pain is easing, but thank you for helping me.”
The pain was easing? Andi looked in surprise at her tingling hand and saw that it was glowing a cool blue. Carefully, she pressed the glowing hand to Thrax’s wounded back again. Wherever she touched him, the bleeding slowed and then stopped and the wounds began to heal.
I’m healing him—I really am doing it! she thought. She wasn’t sure how it was possible—maybe the Kindred Goddess had heard her wish to heal him and allowed her to help. But for whatever reason, she was making a difference for the younger Thrax. She ran her hand all over his back and while the wounds didn’t heal completely, they stopped bleeding and her partner gave a grateful sigh.
“Thank you…whoever you are,” he said aloud.
“It’s me—Andi,” Andi said to him as the edges of everything around her began to get misty and indistinct. “You don’t know me yet, but you will. I’m going to get you through this—I swear I will…”
The blinking motion happened again and then she was in the middle of another memory. This time she thought Thrax looked a little older. Possibly he was of age this time—maybe he’d had a birthday during his captivity. It seemed possible, anyway.
Her partner was kneeling on a cushion on a raised platform, much like the one where he’d been sold by the slaver. He had his hands and arms tied behind his back and he was nude again. His thighs were spread, showing what looked to Andi like a painfully erect shaft. Mistress Stoneheart was standing over him and Andi saw that she was wearing a thin, black leather glove.
The glove was glistening with oil and when Andi looked again, she realized that Thrax’s shaft was as well. Clearly his old Mistress had been putting it on him.
“There now,” she said to the younger Thrax, who was grimacing in what looked like a mixture of pain and pleasure. “You’ll wear the burning plum oil until you’re ready to submit to me. I’ll come back and check on you in a few hours.”
Then she swept away, leaving Thrax bound and helpless.
“Goddess, it burns!” he growled, shifting on the cushion and wincing uncomfortably as his shaft thrust out in front of him. “I can’t bear this…I fucking can’t!”
This time Andi went to him at once.
“I want to heal you—to stop the burning,” she told him and looked down at her hand. Sure enough, it had started glowing with the healing blue light again. But Andi didn’t want to just grab her partner’s shaft. She leaned down to put her face near his.