Cantrips: Volume #1: Minor Magics Crafted to Amuse and Entertain

by Joey W. Hill

  “Be sure and say please, as you would to a Mistress or Master.”

  “Please...I would like you to collar me.” Her voice broke enough that she saw a flash of concern in Amara’s eyes, but Jess tightened her chin and lifted it, giving the woman access. “I turn myself over to your pleasure...Mistress.”

  “Very good,” Enrique murmured.

  Amara’s eyes glowed with similar approbation as she fastened the silver cuff around Jess’s throat. The fit was not tight, lying on her collar bone. Jess wondered how they would react if she now blithely decided “yep, that’s enough for one night,” and hightailed it for the safety of her horses and her usual evening routine. The handful of staff who had quarters on site would be in the communal and workout areas provided for them. They’d be watching TV, playing pool and possibly talking the cook into making them snacks before they turned in for the night, if they didn’t get embroiled in a marathon poker game. It was a safe hangout for her, a familiar haven.

  Amara snapped the silver tether on the collar and gave it the tiniest of tugs, her fingers curling in Jessica’s loose hair adding to that pull. “Come, darling,” she said. “You’re so beautiful. You can’t imagine how we’re looking forward to this.”

  Jess made that first step, then the second. She was going along just fine, if a bit hesitantly, until she reached that fateful curve in the stairs. Then she stumbled.

  In an instant, Enrique’s touch went from an easy caress at the small of her back to a full cinch around her waist, and Amara was pressed up against her, holding her steady so she didn’t take a headlong tumble down the stone steps.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” Jess said. “I shouldn’t be asking you to do this.”

  “Yes, you should.” Amara’s voice was no longer seductive, teasing. The even tone revealed the core of steel that hid inside the otherwise perfectly submissive and beautiful dancer. She met Jess’s gaze. “We believe you’re doing the right thing, Jessica. He needs this side of you, and we think you’re ready for it as well. We believe in you.”

  Jess glanced up to find Enrique’s green eyes on his wife’s face, but he turned his attention to Jessica and nodded, his handsome jaw set. “We will force you to do nothing, but we will not let you quit on yourself, either. This is too important, for both of you. We are here for you, Jessica.”

  Jessica remembered how often she’d let rage take over her terror, in order to get through horrible moments with Raithe. She’d used rage because she’d had nothing and no one else to help her get through it. Here she was, surrounded fore and aft by a man and woman who had given her friendship to the deepest level, enough that she thought of them as family. And the greatest threat she faced from Mason was his overprotective nature, the lengths he would go to keep her safe, happy and unafraid.

  It made her feel foolish, even as it frustrated her. If she couldn’t do this in such ideal circumstances, how would she ever do it at a Council event, where there would be unfamiliar faces, hands? Just that thought alone froze her feet into place. But they were ready for that as well.

  “Enrique.” Amara’s voice had returned to that liquid purr. “I know how much you enjoy carrying a lovely naked woman in your arms. Will you do the honors?”

  “My pleasure.” He bent just enough to slide his arm under Jessica’s legs, guiding her other arm around his neck as he lifted her. Though he had a third mark’s strength, he also had a power of his own that made the way he carried her feel very capable, very secure. She knew Amara loved Enrique for his own unique traits, but he had much of Mason in him too, which she suspected enhanced their bond all the more.

  “She’s gained a bit of weight since she showed up here like a thin scarecrow,” he observed, a teasing smile on his lips. “Now there are squeezable curves in all the right places.”

  Jess gave his hair, short though it was, a yank. He flashed her his devilish grin. “That will likely earn you your first punishment, not-so-little slave.”

  “You have to be in the practice room with me sometime,” she pointed out, giving him a narrow look, though her lips quivered at the teasing. “And I’ll put my not-so-little foot up your—”

  “Tsk, tsk.” Amara threw a look over her shoulder. “Don’t make us start off the evening with a gag. Particularly when we were looking forward to hearing your cries of pleasure, dearest.”

  Just like that, the cold terror flooded her. Gags. Straps. Devices. They were approaching that door.

  Suddenly, she was eight years old, going for her first operation. She was getting her tonsils out. Her mother had soothed her, just as Enrique and Amara were doing now, with their strategic teasing and artful touches, but when the moment had come, her mother had to withdraw and Jess had faced that operating room of sterile, sharp instruments, strangers in masks, bright lights. She’d felt terror deep in her gut, knowing she couldn’t run, but sensing there were things that could go so terribly wrong in such a place.

  “Jess.” Enrique was trying not to tighten his hold against her struggles, trying not to add to her sense of being trapped, but not wanting to drop her either. “Look.”

  She saw the door had already been opened. The threshold and short series of stone steps just beyond it had been covered with petals. Soft white petals from the gardens outside. As she stilled enough for Enrique to take her over that threshold, Amara leading the way, she saw that all those devices, as well as the wall of paddles and whips, were covered with gauzy fabrics—blues, whites and lavenders, a few golds and reds with sequins, part of Amara’s endless array of costumes and props for her private performances. The graceful draping transformed such objects into features in a sky, and she was just a cloud floating among them.

  “You weren’t supposed to do this. You weren’t supposed to change things.”

  “Hush.” Enrique spoke, his firm tone returning. “You ask too much of yourself, Jessica. We know this about you. You asked us to serve as your surrogate Master and Mistress tonight. What is the first role of a Master or Mistress? Not only to understand when a submissive is ready to stretch herself further, surrender more deeply, but also to know where her limits are. For tonight, this will be more than enough. Both to prove your serious intentions to my lord, and to yourself.”

  Amara nodded. “And if you’ll notice, sweet, you’ve refused to look toward the one thing that is uncovered. Look toward it now.”

  Enrique let Jess down so she could stand on her own two feet, but Amara kept the tether taut and his hands were on her hips, both steadying her and reinforcing the command she’d given them over her person tonight. Swallowing, she forced her eyes toward the St. Andrew’s cross. Tall and imposing, the heavy wood made it clear that anyone strapped to it would only be getting loose at the direction of their Master. There were no cuffs on it tonight, though. Just the metal handles for a slave to grasp, and the foot rests to support her if the cross was raised to a vertical position, as it was now.

  Amara led her over to it, Enrique shepherding her from behind, male fingers teasing her flesh. It made her ache, thinking of Mason’s return later tonight, how his strong hands would move over her, grip her hips to hold her still as he stretched her with his length. He’d make her stay completely still until he was fully to the hilt. Then he would slowly, slowly withdraw and surge forward, still keeping her motionless, repeating the torturous rhythm until the first climax would tremble over her like a shudder through the earth’s plates. He’d devour her cries with his mouth.

  But such a provocative imagining wasn’t enough to banish other, far darker thoughts. When she was within ten feet of the cross, she had to stop again. Amara turned, looked into her face, and her own expression shadowed. “The horror in your eyes, love...” Threading her fingers into Jessica’s hair, she brought her forward until her face was pressed into Amara’s shoulder. “Those memories cannot have you here,” the woman whispered. “We won’t let them. Use that great courage of yours, sweet girl.”

  She needed Mason. She wasn’t going t
o be able to do this without Mason. Yet Mason wouldn’t allow her to do this. This room was the bridge between past and present, and she had to cross it. But he’d taught her she didn’t have to do these things alone. He would be with her. Was she ignoring her own earlier revelation? By going ahead and doing this in this manner, was she not trusting him enough? Or was it because she needed to prove it to herself first?

  “I can’t look at it and do this,” she whispered back. “I want to, but I can’t.”

  “Then don’t. Just hold onto me.” Amara turned her, like they were practicing their dancing together. She started humming one of those haunting, exotic tunes, moving her feet forward and back, getting Jess to follow her lead, still holding her close. Adding some hip circles to it, Amara dropped her hands to Jess’s hips, guiding her in the figure eights they’d practiced together and at which Jessica was now pretty good, enough that Mason would sometimes ask her to dance for him, just as he did Amara.

  Jess was usually naked when he made the request, just as she was now. The idea gave her a tiny smile, and then her breath left her in a cold gasp as she was pressed against the hard wood. But Amara had her hands, was still dancing with her. She guided her arms around, up, then down, a graceful swan’s wing move. Jess’s eyes opened to find the woman’s intent gaze on hers, as if to say, Just dance with me, look at me. That is all this is. A dance.

  This time when she guided Jess’s hands up, Enrique slid in between them and lifted Jess, putting her feet on the foot rests. Amara threaded her fingers under the silver handles, molding them over the cool steel so Jess was grasping them.

  “Do not let them go.” Enrique straightened. “Eyes down, and listen to me with all your senses. Your eyes do you no good here. They keep you from truly seeing.”

  “Don’t blindfold me.” It was a panicked request, and his voice gentled.

  “No. Not this time. But keep your eyes down or closed unless we tell you otherwise. You are restrained by our command. You will not let go of those handles, no matter what.” Then his attention turned to his wife. “Take off your robe.”

  It was an entirely different tone, similar to what Mason had started using with Jess in the intimacy of their bedroom. A commanding timbre that had told Jess her vampire` was becoming more confident in what level of Mastery she could handle, and which had helped to start her on this road.

  Amara complied instantly, loosening her own sash and letting the silk pool at her feet. She had a clitoral hood piercing, the jewel there a trio of silver links, a tiny diamond threaded on the one that hung down over her labia. It complemented the silver links at her throat. Jess saw all that with a surreptitious look under her lashes. Now they were both naked, and her stomach was quaking as if a new enemy had been unveiled, rather than an ally.

  She shouldn’t be thinking of this in terms of enemy positioning, should she? That in itself said she wasn’t in the right mindset. Her palms were sweating, such that the metal handles were slick. She could do this. She could.

  “Go to her,” Enrique said to his wife. “You may seek your pleasure with her, arouse her as you will, but your hands must clasp hers, your feet on the outside of the footrests, your body covering her in a spread position, facing her. Your hair needs to be out of my way for what I wish to do next.”

  Amara knelt, a brief obeisance, and turned to Jessica. As Enrique moved away among the swathes of cloth, Jessica imagined that there was a secretive, anticipatory smile playing on the dancer’s lips. Amara twisted up her long, black hair, knotting it deftly before she moved to obey Enrique’s direction. She positioned her feet on the outside of Jess’s, lithely balanced on the not-so-wide platforms, then clasped her hands over the silver handles. It stretched her lithe body in a matching X to Jess’s, their bare breasts pressed together, those tiny rings at Amara’s pussy brushing against Jessica’s pubic mound, making her quiver.

  She’d felt a tiny sensation when Enrique kissed her neck, but most of what she’d experienced so far had been warring with icy fear and tension. Now she was dealing with a woman who had superlative experience in arousing men and women, who knew that the idle, erratic friction of that pierced clit against Jess’s, the grip of her hands, would help stir her blood.

  “You are already thinking of what he will do to you tonight, aren’t you?” Amara’s mouth found the tender flesh under Jess’s ear. Instead of Enrique’s light brush of lips, this was a heated, wet nip and tease of the tongue, stroking with unerring accuracy along Jess’s increasing pulse. “He will be wild for you, having been gone so long. Longer than he’s ever been away from you. You already feel the quickening for him between your legs, I can smell it.” With an impish smile that told Jess she was testing her own Master’s command, Amara dropped one hand from the handle to stroke through the slickness between Jess’s legs. Jess emitted a soft whimper, another shudder. “You miss his cock inside of you, his body holding you down, reminding you that you are his, helpless to his desire for you.”

  “Yes,” Jessica whispered, arching her throat as Amara bit harder. Her fingers stayed between Jess’s legs, spread and vulnerable to her touch. Though it felt so good, it made Jess imagine her legs actually bound, unable to close. “Amara, I’m afraid.”

  “There is nothing to fear. You belong to him. Anything you do to serve him only brings you pleasure.”

  Enrique returned then, and, though she wasn’t supposed to look, Jessica saw he’d withdrawn a flogger from the wall. Multiple leather tails that would make a loud thwack when they landed. She knew from personal experience that style of flogger could also deliver a sharp, cutting sting when wielded hard enough. Over time, it would raise welts, then burst open the skin as the flogger was applied again and again and again.

  Amara had both of her hands once more, so when she tried to pull her hands free, she couldn’t get them to slip out from under the arch of the metal handles. “Let me go,” Jess said sharply.

  “No,” Amara said, meeting her gaze. “These next few minutes, you are not going to be flogged, Jessica. I am. You will simply feel how my body reacts to it, how it can be when it’s done correctly. Sssh...be still. Serve your Master, Jessica. Be still.”

  Jessica managed to stop yanking against Amara’s hold. She hadn’t gotten loose regardless, a reminder that, though they were both third marked, Amara had been third marked longer and had greater strength. She knew she was wide-eyed, and that spiral of tentative arousal Amara had started had evaporated in an instant of dry-mouthed panic at the site of the tool. But she’d said the right words. Serve your Master. Serve Mason. This was for Mason.

  “Jessica, I want you to close your eyes.”

  “I...I can’t.”

  “Try. I promise it will be worth it.”

  Jessica managed it after a few minutes of deep breathing, as well as some rapid-fire internal arguments, supplemented by Enrique and Amara’s encouragement.

  “I am coming close to you.” Enrique’s calm, relentless voice. “I’m not going to strike you or Amara with the flogger. It’s going to touch your face.”

  She flinched anyway when the straps, deceptively softer like this, brushed her cheeks, her mouth.

  “You cannot imagine how much pleasure Mason gets from using this. It’s one of his favorites.” This from Amara, in a soft, dreamy tone. “He can rouse all the nerves in your back and thighs, then make it lick against your cunt like a rough tongue, over and over. After awhile, he spreads out the strokes, making them harder, until you’re feeling a faint sting, then a stronger one. But even as that happens, your clit is getting fuller, so swollen that you start crying out with pleasure at each strike. You can’t really come, so over-sensitized, but you are so close. When you think you can bear no more, he comes and turns the cross over, so your pussy comes up to the level of his mouth. He buries his tongue deep inside, his mouth sealing over your clit. You explode like a ripe, juicy fruit, and that’s what he likes best about the method. He has taught a different variation to Enrique, which he will show
us now.”

  She could imagine what Amara painted vividly. Could see Mason’s hand curved over the flogger’s handle. The stern, sensual set of his mouth, the glow of the amber eyes as he used it.

  She opened her eyes to see Enrique holding Amara’s hand, the one that had been stroking Jessica. His eyes on his wife’s face, Enrique suckled those two fingers, tasting Jessica and giving Amara a stern, reproving look. “You’ll be punished for that.”

  “Whatever gives you pleasure, Master.” Amara lowered her eyes, a slight smile on her face, and Enrique arched a brow, throwing Jessica a mildly exasperated look that eased some of the tension in her stomach. That is, until he replaced Amara’s hand over Jessica’s and gave the olive-skinned woman a meaningful tap with the flogger on one bare buttock. “Do not move it again,” he warned.

  Enrique’s footsteps moved back and Amara’s hands tightened over hers. “It’s like the start of a roller coaster, love,” the dancer whispered. “That sense of fear and trepidation about to be turned to exhilaration. Trust us to go over that hill. No, don’t close your eyes again. Try to watch.”

  Jess lifted her lids to see Enrique standing at a proper distance behind his wife. Shaking out the flogger, he gave Jess a nod. “First, I will simply warm up her flesh.”

  She had to close her eyes again on that first strike, but she felt the way it struck Amara’s back, the thud of it vibrating, quivering through her breasts. The woman’s gasp against her cheek, the brush of her lips, the flick of a tongue as Amara moistened her own lips. Another strike, the sharp slap making it clear the flogger had a bite when Enrique chose to start using it. The moment he’d thrown the first overhand strike, Jess had started to shake, and now she was fully quivering against Amara, trying to hold her ground. It took ten strikes before she could open her eyes. The woman’s nipples, pressed against Jess’s chest, were hardening. Despite having her legs spread on the outside of Jess’s, she was moving her hips, a slow, short rub against Jess’s pubic bone with each stroke, a mewl of need. Jess expected that Enrique’s view of his wife’s sensually undulating hips, moving in circles over Jess’s naked body, had to be arousing him.