by Alexa Black
No other sounds came from Teran’s rooms. Cailyn slid out of the dress and followed.
No servants stopped her. Perhaps they had been ordered not to interfere. Or perhaps they understood.
Teran stood nude in the center of the wide shower. The water poured down over her body. Powerful as she’d always seemed to Cailyn, she looked small now. Her hands slid soap over her flesh, wiped it away, soaped it again, wiped it away. Her eyes stared, empty and blank, heedless of anything happening around her.
Cailyn watched for a long moment and stepped inside.
Teran did not turn. She ran her hands over her own body again, her movements jerky and unnatural. Her face showed no expression. Her eyes moved only to blink.
“My lady? Don’t do that,” Cailyn said, reaching back through her years of training for the most soothing voice she could muster. “Please. Stop it,” she repeated, over and over. “I’ll bathe you.”
Teran turned around. She stared ahead, unblinking, but didn’t respond to Cailyn.
“Teran?” Cailyn tried.
Teran blinked at the sound.
“Let me do this for you,” Cailyn said again. Maybe she couldn’t cope with Teran’s touch tonight, but Teran clearly needed something.
And the purpose she’d chosen, all those years ago, was about more than giving pleasure. She’d learned to serve so that she could use her body to soothe and comfort. She’d trained her hands, her lips, her flesh itself to serve it. She couldn’t fail to use them now.
No matter what Teran had done.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t make this harder than it is, my lady.”
Teran twitched.
“For you or for me.”
Teran shuddered. Her body jerked as if to shake off some attacker. It stilled again. She nodded.
Cailyn turned the shower off but left the bathtub faucet on.
She held her hands just above Teran’s skin for a long moment. Then she bit her lip and reached for Teran’s hand. Teran didn’t take it. She wrapped her fingertips around it and squeezed. Teran’s fingers curled halfheartedly over hers.
“Come here.” She guided Teran into the water with her hands, touching and coaxing. Teran let Cailyn lead her and followed with automatic footsteps.
Cailyn stepped into the tub. Teran walked in after her. She stared ahead without blinking. Cailyn flinched but wrapped her arms around Teran.
Teran shuddered at her touch. Cailyn held her as her body twitched.
“It’s all right,” Cailyn soothed her, not sure she believed it. “It’s all right.”
Teran wrapped her arms around Cailyn. Cailyn cooed and reached up to stroke her hair. Teran shook. Cailyn held on while the tremors subsided and repeated soothing words as Teran stilled.
Teran’s eyes focused on her. Her mouth twitched once, twice, and then composed itself into a smile.
“I still like your touch,” Teran said, her voice soft. She clutched at Cailyn. “You still like mine.”
Cailyn froze.
“My lady, I already told you I can’t let you. Not now.”
Teran pulled away. “I know. It doesn’t matter.”
Cailyn opened her mouth to speak. Teran shook her head.
“Here,” Teran said. “Can you touch me?”
Cailyn nodded. Teran leaned out of the pool and opened her legs to give Cailyn access.
Cailyn bent down and began to lick. She closed her eyes, taking in the scent and feel. Even after all this, it was just like any other skin, soft against her lips and tongue. She lapped at the moisture she found there.
The sounds of Teran’s pleasure came as always. Cailyn twitched as she listened to them. Still, her flesh responded to that voice. Her flesh tingled as the body above her ground against her.
Teran’s gasps came quick, desperate. Like she expected Cailyn to turn away, at any moment. She pressed her flesh hard against Cailyn’s face.
Cailyn hesitated. Even now, Teran sought to take control, to trap and claim her, to turn her offer of comfort into possession.
Cailyn wrapped her hands around Teran’s body, wanting as much to still it as to draw it closer.
Her mind went back to that first time. Her lips and tongue had sought Teran’s pain. She had licked old wounds, soothed them. She’d pressed her flesh against old scars. Now, the wound was fresh, like those Teran had left.
She breathed deep, taking in Teran’s scent. If she couldn’t give Teran control, she could at least dive into those memories. She slipped her tongue inside Teran’s slick flesh, seeking new poisons by delving for old ones.
Teran shuddered hard as her body opened. She thrashed again. Cailyn’s grip tightened to steady Teran as she came.
“Come with me,” Teran said. She stepped out of the water and wrapped a towel around herself.
The silver eyes became cold, shimmering ice. They stared past Cailyn, through to the wall behind her. She dried herself with another towel and hurried to follow.
Don’t slip away again, my lady.
“Kneel there with your legs spread,” Teran ordered her, her lips pressed together in a severe line.
“My lady—” Cailyn stammered. “I—”
Teran tilted her head, cold and imperious.
Cailyn dropped to her knees, graceful and smooth as ever. “I will obey, my lady. But you know I can’t let you touch me.”
“Relax.” Teran lay down on the bed and stared at Cailyn through half-lidded eyes. “I only intend to look, for now.” Her hand moved between her legs.
All right, then. If Teran wanted a show, Cailyn would give her one. Nervous as Cailyn was about Teran’s touch, she’d done this a thousand times for a hundred different nobles. There was nothing wrong with letting Teran look at her.
She tossed her head, puffed out her breasts, pulled a pin from her hair, and shook out her curls. Her hair fell down her chest and back, ringing her naked flesh.
Teran’s gaze swept over every part of Cailyn’s body without blinking, the cold stare of a bird of prey. Cailyn shivered.
She thought of her old fantasy from so many years ago: the eyes of a noble, sweeping over her, seeking and capturing her anew whenever she tried to cover herself or hide.
What would she say to that girl-child now if she could?
She remembered her father’s warnings. “The life of a courtesan isn’t all elegance and romance. It’s easy to give your body to some of them. But sometimes they want it when you’re not sure you can give it.”
She’d frowned up at him. “Guild law says you don’t have to do that.”
“Sometimes it’s not them, Cailyn. Sometimes you want to leave, but don’t. Sometimes you know you can invoke Guild law and go away, but you don’t.”
She’d made a vow to herself that night: whatever she did, whatever offers she accepted, she’d leave if she needed to. She wouldn’t let them coax her into things like her father had. No one like that crazy councilwoman would ever come after her. Not if she was careful.
Returning to herself, Cailyn sighed. She wished she could rush back into the study of that old house, throw her arms around her father, and tell him he’d been right after all.
“I bought you these,” Teran said, her free hand drawing out a set of clamps from the nightstand. Jewels dripped from the chain that linked them. It glittered in the light.
Teran shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. But I would have liked to see you in them.”
“Still, my lady? After all that has happened today, you still want my pain?”
“Always.”
Cailyn looked down.
“The things I do stir your desire,” Teran said. She turned the clips around in her hands. The jewels flashed as they caught the light.
Teran looked back at Cailyn. “Or, at least, they did before.”
Cailyn tilted her head down to peer at her breasts. Her nipples were already erect. They throbbed as the chains tinkled. She wished she could forget all of this, Councils and meetings and jobs and
today, and give herself over to them. She wanted the pressure to compress her skin, wanted Teran to press her lips to her neck, bury her fingers deep inside her—
“Yes, my lady,” she admitted. “They did.”
“Then let me.” Teran stepped closer. On another day, she might have bitten her earlobe or kissed her neck. So strange now, to be sure she wouldn’t. “I won’t touch you after that unless you ask me to. I promise.”
Cailyn drew in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and thought of her goddess. She’d chosen the goddess’s path. Her training had taught her, from the very beginning, to serve. To give solace with her hands, her lips, her sex. Could she deny it to Teran now?
She nodded once, the goddess’s image swimming in her head.
She did not open her eyes. She gasped as the first pinch came. Pressure flared through her nerves. She felt the second, hissed, and opened her eyes.
She looked down at herself. The golden chains shone, a bright adornment that shifted as she twitched. If not for their bite, they could have been jewelry, worn to draw the gazes Cailyn had craved from the beginning.
“You’re very beautiful,” Teran said, her hand thrilling between her legs. Cailyn watched her hips rise and fall.
Teran had said that once before, so long ago in the beginning. It had sounded wrong then and it sounded wrong now.
“Such a shame I can’t use you properly now.”
Cailyn twitched in response to Teran’s words. Damn Lord Darien. He’d said he wanted to send her back to Teran greedy to be used. He had.
“As long as you don’t hurt me,” she gasped, as startled as Teran to hear herself say it.
“You want me that badly?”
“Use that,” Cailyn said, nodding her head toward the harness and dildo, her voice curt.
Teran’s fingers stilled. A smile spread across her face. “Very well.”
Cailyn sighed with relief and watched the harness shape itself to Teran’s body. At least she’d decided something. At least Teran would settle for using her this way.
Cailyn stared at the transforming metal fitted tight around Teran’s flesh, the phallus jutting out from it, ready to claim her. She drank in the muscled body that had used her, explored her, probed every part of her. Her flesh spasmed in anticipation.
Teran stepped up behind her and pressed the tip of the dildo against her entrance. She sighed, expectant.
Teran entered her with one swift, fluid thrust. She moaned as the phallus plunged into the flesh that had burned for it for so long.
This was no slow seduction. Teran slammed into her hard, driving deep and fast. The friction burned, a lightning heat that set Cailyn’s nerves aflame.
Cailyn was glad for the speed. She didn’t want time to regret it. She pushed herself back on the dildo, desperate to forget.
The chain between her nipples swayed. Jolts of sensation raced through her body as Teran’s movements clove her again and again. She threw back her head and cried out, long and loud.
Encouraged, Teran battered into her harder. Cailyn gasped, startled for a moment. Then she opened her legs wider, letting it slide in deep.
Somewhere dim in her mind, she remembered that she ought to be frightened. But it felt so good to be filled, to make herself a vessel for Teran’s use, that the ache in her nipples as the chain moved only added to her pleasure.
Cailyn had felt this once before: in the pool, months ago, just after Lord Darien had videoed her to tell her about this conference. Something had driven Teran on, the methodical seduction seared away by the bright pulse of some need Cailyn couldn’t name. The same thing fueled her now. She slammed into Cailyn again and again, driving in and in, moving faster and faster as Cailyn’s body opened around her.
Cailyn drove back on the dildo impaling her so hard that it hurt too. Her flesh clenched. She cried out as Teran drove deeper.
She was only her body, only the opening, stretching out and out and out.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“These will need to come off.” Teran touched the small chain.
Before, such a delicate touch might have surprised Cailyn, or made her suspicious. Now, Teran was keeping a promise.
“I suppose I should ask permission.” Teran’s lips twisted as if she’d just taken a sip of vakren. “After all, I can use you, but not touch you.”
Cailyn swallowed a retort.
“Go ahead, my lady,” she said, her voice as even as she could make it. “I let you put them on in the first place.”
Teran bent her head and paused a moment. She reached out to unclasp the clips, her fingers small and fragile with no steel tipping them.
Cailyn cried out as her nipples sprang free. Sensation returned, pure pain now, as the blood rushed back into the compressed flesh. Tears pricked her eyes and she keened.
Why now? Why from so little? It made her angry. She wished the sensation would just go away.
But experience had taught her she’d be sore for quite a while. The thought sent a wave of nausea through her. She thought of asking to be excused to her rooms.
No. She’d done this much. She pressed her lips together. She wasn’t about to run off and hide, not now.
Teran exhaled. A smile curled the corners of her mouth. “Thank you.”
Cailyn looked down. Her nipples throbbed.
Teran sighed. “He’s only a boy. He’s so young.”
Cailyn froze.
“He could be anyone. Any idealistic fool.”
Cailyn hung her head. She thought of her training, all the words a courtesan knew to make a noble feel heard, valued, special.
She could say them now. They might even help. But somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to form the words.
“It’s not like we haven’t done anything. It’s not like Councils’ taxes aren’t ridiculous. It’s not like they—not like we—don’t live like kings and queens while they starve.”
“My lady—”
“It’s not like we don’t know why they’re angry. It’s not like we don’t know why they try to kill us. What else can they do?”
Cailyn’s insides chilled, right down to the flesh that had, just before, clenched with aftershock.
So much remorse in Teran’s voice. But this was only the beginning of the long assignment she’d been given.
“And yet…” Cailyn whispered, her voice cracking.
“And yet I do it,” Teran spat. “They meant to kill one of us, after all.” Her hand toyed with the golden chain of the clamps. “As if that’s enough to deserve what the Councils are having me do.”
Cailyn had whispered comfort earlier, her arms wrapped tight around Teran as she shook. She’d seen the hurt and reached to soothe it. But what could she do now? Embrace Teran again? Swear that would be all right?
Teran set down the clips in her hand with a soft sound. Cailyn’s flesh throbbed as she looked at them, their chains all snaking gold.
The pain sent another wave of nausea through her. She blinked, suddenly woozy. What was she doing here?
“You should go,” Teran said, her voice soft.
Cailyn nodded. At least Teran wasn’t pressing the issue. She crept back to her rooms, careful to be quiet.
She thought for a moment about searching through her things for a nightdress. She wasn’t there for Teran now anyway. The warmth might soothe her. But she gave up after a moment, sighed, and slipped under the covers.
She drew them tight around herself and stared up at the ceiling.
From the beginning, she’d slept beside Teran. Tonight, Teran slept by herself, and so did she.
*
“Teran Nivrai. I must say I never expected to see you here.” The brightly painted mouth turned up in a smile. “And this must be Cailyn Derys.”
The woman’s red lips and curly dark hair matched the room’s red walls, its black, lacy curtains. Jewels dripped from the woman’s ears and circled her neck. Her long nails glittered red.
They might have impressed Cailyn a year
ago. Now the bright paint on them seemed garish, a bright apology for not being newsteel.
She felt a twinge of jealousy. She’d served nobles alongside other courtesans before, but she hadn’t done it often.
Nothing she and Teran could do alone would cut the tension that breathed like a misshapen shadow between them. She agreed with Teran about that. Having someone else around, especially someone Teran could turn to for the things Cailyn couldn’t give, could only help.
But Cailyn still didn’t like being here. She clasped her hands together behind her back and stared ahead, unblinking.
She wondered what the courtesans’ quarters here looked like. Her father’s fame had made it easy for her to choose to work for herself. After a few months working for a house near the academy where she’d studied, she’d bought herself a small home and worked from there.
She’d liked her fellow students and had been sad to leave. She’d grown close to the few she’d practiced with and the fewer she’d taken as lovers. But even in those early days, she’d hoped to work alone. Her father’s name had given her the chance.
Most of these people didn’t have that option. But what about the ones who did? Why might they choose this? Did they get along well with one another? Did they compete for the nobles’ attention? What happened when they won or lost? Did that make it hard to come back later, to face their rival?
“Most people don’t expect me anywhere.” Teran’s voice cut into her thoughts.
The madam laughed. Her grin shifted into a smirk. “No, I suppose not, my lady.”
“Who do you have that I might be interested in? You should, I think, have some idea of my standards.”
“Of course. Your reputation precedes you, Lady Nivrai.”
Cailyn stifled a laugh. The woman had barely blinked. Training, indeed.
Teran didn’t answer.
“I’ll send for Valik,” the madam went on. “The man has an endless appetite for pain. I can’t promise that you, of all people, won’t discover different.”
Cailyn doubted anyone else would notice the slight creasing of Teran’s brows. “Fine.”
Red-painted fingertips tapped at a console. The madam spoke a few soft words and eased back into her chair.