Steel and Promise

by Alexa Black

  Her gaze moved down Valik’s body. She could see the tiny scrap of fabric covering his straining member. The cloth struck her as ridiculous. It made his desire all the more obvious by so poorly hiding it.

  This really is what he wants, she thought.

  A hot spike of jealousy flared through her. Valik wanted this. Valik was here as much for this as he was to serve Teran’s pleasure. What more would Teran do with someone who craved what she had to offer?

  But for the moment, Teran seemed content to pay attention to her. Clawed hands slid over the thin, transparent fabric she wore. A few flicks of the claws and it fell from her body. Deep blue waves billowed around her bare feet.

  Then Teran’s hands moved on her breasts, as they had on that first day, so long ago. Cailyn’s nipples hardened under Teran’s fingers. She pushed out her chest to feel more.

  Teran took the buds of flesh between her fingers and pinched. Cailyn cried out, more for Valik’s benefit than her own. She pulled away just enough to heighten the sensation. Teran growled low.

  Cailyn could feel Valik’s eyes on her as Teran’s claws slid back. Teran ground a fist against Cailyn’s vulva and Cailyn rocked against it.

  No one had ever watched her do these things but Teran. How did she look, eager for pain?

  “Easy now, little one,” Teran laughed. “I have another use for you now.”

  She opened a drawer, drew out her harness, and handed it to Valik. He turned it over in his hands, feeling its shape.

  “Undress me,” Teran ordered him.

  Valik set the harness down next to Cailyn and slid to the floor in front of Teran. Cailyn smiled, thinking of the training it took to make motions like that look easy.

  Cailyn stared as he began to kiss and lick Teran’s boots. She hadn’t thought of that.

  Valik breathed deep, clearly savoring the scent of the leather. He licked its length with slow deliberation, pressing his lips and tongue against it with reverence and art, as though he were licking Teran’s vulva instead.

  Cailyn envied him. She’d been taught to savor whatever she was given. The taste of sweat on skin, the smoothness of a breast, the length of a long neck.

  The boots must smell wonderful, she thought. And feel soft against his lips.

  Teran reached down to stroke his back. She grabbed his hair as he licked back up the length of a boot. The ends of her mouth twitched. She loosened her grip as he moved back down again.

  She dragged his head up. He looked up at her, his mouth still open. He blinked once, bereft, and slid the boots off Teran’s feet with practiced ease.

  He kissed the fabric of her clothes. She let him linger a moment and pulled him away again.

  He whispered an apology and kissed the fasteners of her clothes. With slow, practiced movements, he drew them down and slid them off of Teran’s body.

  He held out the harness while she stepped into it, then eased it into place with his hands. He watched the metal shift to the shape of her body with shining eyes.

  He looked from her to Cailyn, half-stretched on the bed. “Is it me you want to use, or her, my lady?”

  “She’s there for you. I told you I’d find a use for that.”

  Valik smiled. He ran a hand along Cailyn’s back as he positioned himself. Cailyn twisted to see Teran but could see only the shadow of her body over Valik’s.

  She sighed and shifted her legs to allow Valik better entry. He froze, not moving until Teran entered him.

  She thrust into him and everything changed. Teran’s movement drove Valik deep into Cailyn. His flesh opened and warmed her. How unlike Teran’s tools, unyielding and cold until her body heated them.

  But all this happened because Teran willed it. Valik drove deep into her, pushed her flesh apart, but it was Teran who forced her open. The warm flesh inside her served only as her tool.

  Valik thrashed as Teran drove him into Cailyn again and again, as much an object for Teran’s use as the apparatus he’d helped her into.

  He cried out behind her, his throat opened wide to let out the sound. His fingertips dug into Cailyn’s flanks as if he needed her flesh under his hands to anchor him. His frenzied pace told Cailyn just how deep Teran plunged into him.

  He wanted Teran, wanted pain at her hands. He’d found only the teasing glide of Cailyn’s knives, a few stinging cuts from the newsteel, and this.

  Was it enough?

  Teran gasped. Cailyn drove back over Valik’s member, desperate to reach her. Valik shook, their movements tossing him between them. He foundered and gave in, letting Teran use him fully. As mindless a piston as any other tool, he plunged into Cailyn over and over.

  Cailyn felt her flesh cleave, battered like fragile tissue as it opened further and further. She forgot Valik, forgot everything. She felt only Teran, tearing all else away, her flesh flimsy gauze before the force of it. She drove back on Valik’s flesh harder. The body between her and Teran only got in the way.

  Teran responded, thrusting into Valik with all her strength. He bucked hard and came, flooding her aching insides. That was too much for Cailyn, who felt her own body clench, seizing him as her own spasms overtook her.

  Aftershocks ran through her, little pulses of white lightning. She twisted to look back at him as he pulled free. His long hair clung to his head and neck. His head drooped. His mouth twitched, the corners upturned in a dreamy smile.

  Teran slid the harness from her body. Sweat glistened on her skin as well. A servant, silent as a cloud, appeared from nowhere to take it away.

  *

  “Surely you didn’t think I was done with you.”

  Valik’s eyes, half-lidded, fluttered open. “No, my lady,” he whispered, still lost in his pleasure.

  “You don’t want me to be finished with you, do you?”

  “No, my lady.”

  “Then kneel there.”

  To Valik’s credit, he sprang up from the bed and slid to his knees with the grace the academy trained into every courtesan. He lowered his head and peered up at Teran through the dark fall of his hair.

  Teran drew out a set of needles from the stand by the bed. Valik stared at them. It looked like nervousness to Cailyn, but from what she’d seen before, it must have been eagerness. Teran reached down between his legs. To touch him, Cailyn assumed, but she only slid a claw over the flesh of his member.

  It stirred at her touch. Had they been resting for that long? Or was Valik so greedy for pain that his flesh answered its call?

  Teran chuckled in approval and drew out the first of the needles. Cailyn winced as she realized where Teran intended them to go.

  Valik hissed as Teran’s claws pinched part of the sensitive flesh of his shaft. She pulled the skin up so that the needle could pierce it.

  His hissing breath became a cry as the needle drove through his skin. His lips and hands clenched, but he did not flinch or pull away.

  Teran ran her claw over the skin near where the needle had pierced it. His pinched mouth relaxed.

  “Please,” he said. “My lady.”

  He wanted more of this? He was so young, only just out of his training! Surely it should take years to learn to do this, to come to crave it.

  She blinked at Valik as he gasped his way through another needle. So this was what Teran really wanted.

  So this was what Mariel had given her.

  Cailyn watched, forcing herself to keep her eyes open as the needles went through, one after the other. Valik’s hisses melted away with his rising need. Transformed by his need, his grunts and groans became deep, low moans.

  Teran’s claw trilled over his soft flesh. A helldemon petting her beast. Cailyn peered at a shadow on the wall and thought of wings.

  Her skin tingled. She couldn’t imagine being pierced through her vulva, but she remembered Teran’s needles, sharp and clean.

  Her gaze moved to Valik’s face. His head lolled, his eyes half-open, his teeth clenched as the needles drove through his skin, his lips open in a wide O as he c
ried out his pleasure or pain.

  Do I do that?

  She shifted, letting her thighs rub against one another, sure neither Teran nor Valik would notice. She wanted to feel something, however faint.

  Teran admired her handiwork for a long moment. Then she slid the first of the needles free, twisting it as she pulled it back out. Cailyn cringed at the thought of it scraping its way back through the sensitive skin.

  Cailyn watched it bleed, mesmerized, as Teran pulled the other needles out, one by one. She watched the metal emerge from his skin, blood running from the punctures.

  The dark channels, she thought. She stared at the blood, coursing over Valik’s most sensitive parts. Did the academies teach this to students destined to serve on them? Were there classes?

  She remembered her own lessons, reviewing them in her mind, trying the techniques on herself in the stillness of her room at night. Had Valik done the same?

  Had he pierced himself, whipped himself, dragged the points of knives along his skin? Had he wondered what it would be like to kneel before one of the real nobles, awaiting the same thing at their hands?

  Teran took his member in her hand, blood and all. Her fist closed over his shaft with slow, deliberate care. Then her fist moved over his punctured skin.

  Cailyn stared at Teran’s hand. Blood stained it as it moved. She had seen her own blood on Teran’s hands before. But watching Teran’s curled hand move over the bleeding flesh, she felt her gorge rise.

  She looked up from Teran’s bloodied fist to her face. Her wide eyes shone, and she gave a trill of laughter.

  This is what she really wants.

  She looked up at Valik’s face. He’d closed his eyes, and his lips were pulled tight in a grimace. Small sounds escaped him, the rough, sharp sounds of someone forced to endure.

  His hips bucked and his breath came quick as Teran moved on him. Then he yipped with disappointment as she pulled away.

  “You’re done,” Teran said.

  He opened his mouth to protest, looked down at Teran’s loosening grip, and nodded without a word.

  As if in answer to a summons, two servants appeared, expressionless and silent. They carried salves, cloths, and water.

  Cailyn let out a slow breath. She’d been so engrossed in watching Teran and Valik that she hadn’t even thought of the cleaning up he’d need.

  Or of the servants doing it for him. Teran had done it for Cailyn so many times herself.

  “Lovely,” Teran laughed. She nodded to Valik, then tilted her head toward the servants. “Go with them. They will attend to you.”

  More servants appeared. Valik sagged between them. Cailyn stared at the blood-smeared spot between his legs. Had he really just done all this?

  Teran’s hand on her shoulder drew her away.

  “Not you,” the rich voice purred. “I have other plans for you, little one.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “He’s out there by himself.” Cailyn scowled, her sleepy afterglow gone. “Bleeding. From—from—there.” She’d never had any problems calling body parts what they were. Courtesans had no need for false modesty. But now, thinking of what Teran had done to his most sensitive flesh, she could only gesture. “How could you?”

  Teran cocked her head. “The servants are attending to him.”

  Cailyn couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Not even from Teran. “You’re leaving that up to the servants? The last time you made me bleed like that I went so lightheaded I could barely stand.”

  Teran chuckled. The sound scraped Cailyn’s ears. “Did you think I’d leave him with just anyone? I trained them myself.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better? You poked him full of holes!”

  Teran turned. “Lie down.”

  “You should be out there.”

  “Like I told you, he’ll be well cared for.”

  “No. You. Not them. You.”

  “Why? Because I did it for you?”

  “Because—”

  “I’ve spoiled you, my little one.”

  “That doesn’t matter. He deserves it.”

  “Lie. Down.”

  Cailyn did. She glared up at Teran, her lip curled.

  Teran leaned over her. The shape of her body blotted out the light from the ceiling. “I wanted him, yes. To scratch an itch. To do what I had been holding back from doing.” Her hands reached down to caress Cailyn’s chest.

  “But surely you realize the one I really want is you.”

  The hand tightened around her breast, beginning to squeeze.

  “I thought you weren’t going to do that.”

  “Did you think I could hold out forever?” Teran’s other hand reached out for her wrist, pushing it toward a waiting restraint. “Remember, I hired you.”

  Cailyn twisted away. “But you said you wouldn’t.”

  Teran gripped her wrist, tight and bruising. “I’ve waited long enough. If you wanted to leave me for this, you would have by now.”

  Cailyn’s mouth felt dry. “And if I refuse? You said before—”

  “I said before I would not break any promises to you without your consent.”

  She leaned down, her face inches from Cailyn’s. Her grip relaxed. “Go ahead. Refuse me. Leave. I won’t stop you.”

  Cailyn wondered, from someplace outside herself, whether she wanted to stand or to lie back down. She stared at her own body in confusion, wondering what it would do.

  Teran kissed Cailyn’s cheek. “Go on, if that’s what you want. You’ll be paid in full. I broke my word to you once. I won’t do it again.”

  Cailyn turned her head, not wanting to look into Teran’s eyes. This wasn’t her body’s decision. This was her decision to make. She would have to make it.

  She opened her eyes again, forced herself to look into Teran’s eyes. They glinted, fierce, a raptor’s stare.

  “Did you decide this before?” Cailyn whispered. “That you would hurt me again?”

  “No. I meant only to give you the knives. To use him and you at the same time. Then to send him away. I will tell you this, though: If I use you now, I will use you completely. And I will not go back.”

  Cailyn swallowed. The hand on her breast froze, still pinching.

  Cailyn drew in a shaky breath and nodded.

  Teran exhaled. The hand around Cailyn’s breast tightened again.

  Cailyn thrashed. Teran smiled and slammed Cailyn’s wrists down into the metal circle. The restraints clenched around them, gripping tight.

  Teran drew a thin metal rod from the nightstand. She ran it up Cailyn’s thighs and back down again. It was cold and Cailyn winced. She willed herself to be still as it rolled along her flesh.

  She sighed. Teran rewarded her by running it over her vulva. Her hips moved to meet it and Teran grinned.

  Without warning, Teran drew back her arm. The cane hit her inner thigh. Cailyn tensed at the impact, a bright burning sting. She relaxed and let its burn crackle through her.

  Teran drew back her arm again. Cailyn breathed deep to ease herself into the rhythm, but Teran didn’t give her time to relax. The sting came again, sharp and sudden.

  More strikes came on its heels. Teran rained blows onto her skin, refusing to allow her to ride the sensation. She twisted and turned as the unyielding metal connected with her tender, hidden flesh.

  Cailyn panted, a harsh sexual sound. She cried out, half from the pain, half to cover the sound of her breath.

  Teran hissed. Cailyn twisted away from the blows, pressing her legs together to shield herself from them.

  “Easy,” Teran chuckled. She traced the tip of the cane along Cailyn’s legs, easing them apart again.

  Cailyn cursed under her breath but opened her thighs. It was this or run away. She wasn’t running yet.

  Teran ran the cane over her inner thighs. It slid over the marks it had made and set them alight with fresh pain.

  Cailyn caught herself before protesting. She could answer with a stop word,
but not with, “I can’t.”

  “Yes, my lady,” she said, her voice breaking.

  Teran leaned down to stare at Cailyn’s welted flesh. Cailyn winced, expecting another blow. Instead, Teran bit, hard.

  The pain washed over her, sharp and pure. She could feel nothing else. She mewled, her nerves overtaken by the sting of Teran’s teeth worrying her already sensitive skin.

  “Please.” She couldn’t recognize the sharp wailing sound as her own voice.

  Teran drew her head away. Caught up in the fantasy, Cailyn half expected to see blood running down Teran’s chin.

  “What is it you want?” Teran asked. She grabbed at Cailyn’s breast again, twisted it like meat. “More pain?”

  “Yes,” Cailyn panted. It had been so long.

  With a cry, Cailyn abandoned herself to the sensation. She twisted against Teran’s grip, desperate to feel more.

  Teran’s hand slid down Cailyn’s body. Her claws traced welts as they went. Then their pointed tips reached Cailyn’s labia. Cailyn froze, trying not to twitch or arch into Teran’s touch.

  “Please,” she begged her. She wanted Teran inside her. She wanted the freedom to move against the fingers that speared her.

  She heard a snick as the claws retracted. She felt the fingers, smooth now, explore her wetness. She pushed against them, wanting to feel them enter her.

  Two of Teran’s fingers sank into Cailyn. Her body yawned a welcome, her nerves already electrified. They flickered to new life as Teran moved inside her. She ground against Teran’s hand and whined, a greedy, shapeless sound.

  Teran drew back to drive in again, deep, pushing a third finger in alongside the other two. The sudden stretch stung Cailyn’s opening, the ache complementing the burn in her thighs.

  Teran’s thumb danced over Cailyn’s clitoris. She rocked back against Teran’s fingers, all resistance gone.

  When Teran squeezed lubricant onto her hand and added a fourth finger, Cailyn writhed in time with every motion.

  Her training had taught her, above all else, to focus on the nobles’ pleasure, rather than her own. Teran had turned all that upside down.

  Did those eyes above her, pale as gems, reflect pleasure? She could see only concentration, fierce and unyielding.