by Alexa Black
Cailyn fidgeted as the door slid open. Teran hadn’t frozen up—not like before. But what would she do now, fresh from the interrogation room?
Nothing, apparently. Teran didn’t touch her or prick her or even greet her. Instead, Cailyn immediately felt the tip of Teran’s dildo pressing against her opening.
“My lady Nivrai?”
She twisted to look at Teran and caught a glimpse of glittering eyes and a hard-set mouth. A clawed hand slammed her head into the bed sheets.
The device rammed relentlessly into her, the force of it stinging as it pushed her open.
Again and again, it ripped into her, its strokes measured and cold. She writhed in a desperate attempt to make herself comfortable, a twisted parody of pleasure. Teran snarled and drove into her harder. The force froze her in place.
Behind her, Cailyn could hear the clipped, harsh panting of Teran’s breath. Teran made no other sound, neither moan nor snarl nor hiss. Cailyn willed herself to be still as Teran’s motions grew more insistent.
They tore at her, cleaving her. Wetness oozed onto her thighs. But she took no comfort in it. When her body clamped hard over the dildo, she thought she might retch.
Teran snarled and drove in deep. Cailyn wasn’t sure if it was worse or a relief, not even when Teran finally collapsed over her body.
She slid free of Cailyn’s stinging flesh. The hand around Cailyn’s head withdrew.
Cailyn turned to look and saw the same expression as before. Teran’s eyes stared ahead, fixed. Her jaws clamped shut. Cailyn shivered and turned away.
She heard the hiss of the doors sliding shut as Teran left her alone. For a long moment, she did nothing, lying there in the empty room. Her flesh yawned open, wide and obscene. It burned with the sting of Teran’s roughness.
No servants came. Why should they? This was sex. If it stung, that hardly mattered.
With a sigh, Cailyn stood up, drew back the covers of the bed, and climbed in. She wished she had someone to talk to. Lord Darien. Valik.
Even talking to Teran, whatever black mood she was in, would be better than being alone now.
Chapter Thirty-four
“Did you sleep well?” Teran sipped at a glass of vakren. “You look tired.”
Cailyn took her own sip and coughed. How dare Teran ask a question like that?
“No, my lady,” she answered in as calm a voice as she could muster.
She looked down at her goblet. She knew many ways to smooth truths over, but she wasn’t sure which to use now. When things went badly, a courtesan smiled. She found something to compliment, unless something truly bad had happened and she wanted to take it up with the Guild.
“Last night,” she said. “You didn’t say a word. And you had just come back from—from your work for the Councils.”
“I had, yes.”
“It unnerved me, my lady.”
“Of all the things you could take exception to, you choose that.”
Cailyn glared. Teran laughed.
“My experiment must be going well, little one, if you object to hard use more than pain.”
Cailyn dropped the fork she’d been holding, the food on it untouched. “Experiment?”
“I’ve been seeing you for months now. You don’t think I would’ve kept calling you back if I didn’t have something in mind.”
“Experiment?” Cailyn said again. “I was an experiment to you, my lady?”
“Of course.”
“I thought I was your gem in a world of stones.”
“You were. You are. But do you really think I would have taken the care I did to seduce you just because I liked you?”
Cailyn felt the world tilt under her chair. “I don’t understand.”
“You are one of the most famous of the courtesans. One of the best there is—beautiful, intelligent, and skilled. But I’ve rarely called anyone back. And never hired anyone I didn’t find on the dark channels. Until you.”
Cailyn felt the blood drain from her face.
Teran speared a bite of meat. “It should have been obvious I had a plan.”
Damn it.
Teran had asked so many questions. About her lovers. About her preferences. About her desires. She’d volunteered more information about herself than she ever gave to anyone.
“A plan, my lady? What plan?”
“You know already, little one.”
Cailyn’s teeth clenched. “What plan?”
“The dark channels are nothing to me. You know that. I have never known anyone as eager for pain as Mariel was. And Mariel served me personally.”
“What does that have to do with me, my lady?”
“Even those who do kindle to pain only go so far. People like our friend Valik”—she licked her lips—“are few and far between.”
Cailyn chewed a bite of food. It tasted like chalk in her mouth.
“And even people like Valik get boring far too soon.”
“I—my lady—again. What does all this have to do with me?”
“People on the dark channels wanted me. At least, the people who weren’t too afraid of me to see me. The people off them? I couldn’t hire them, as far as I knew. As far as I knew, I was their favorite monster.”
Horns. Wings. Spines. A tail. The fangs of a demon. Hell made flesh. Cailyn had known the wildest of the rumors couldn’t possibly be true, but wondered about them anyway. What might it be like to bed a woman with wings?
Teran chuckled. Cailyn put a hand to her ear, not liking the harsh sound. “You were intrigued. Weren’t you, my little one?”
“Yes,” Cailyn breathed, her stomach sinking.
“Which is exactly what I wanted.” The claws emerged, gray and gleaming. “Someone from outside the dark channels. Someone intelligent, curious, skilled enough to be worth my time.”
“I know,” Cailyn said. The vakren stung her throat.
The newsteel slid in and out of Teran’s fingertips. “I wanted to train you, my little one. To take someone who’d never wanted pain and teach them—”
“To want it,” Cailyn finished for her.
Teran nodded. The newsteel at her fingers sparkled as she raised the glass to her lips.
Cailyn dropped her fork. It clattered against her plate. “You called me back to see if it was working. Not because I impressed you. Because you had more work to do.”
Teran raised an eyebrow. “Of course you impressed me. Would I have called you back if you hadn’t?”
Cailyn chewed and swallowed, the movements automatic. So all Teran had wanted was someone to seduce.
“That’s all I am to you,” she said. “An experiment.”
She thought of her other assignments. Of the clients she’d visited after seeing Teran. Of the delight she should have felt in serving them. Of all the moments she’d thought only of newsteel-tipped fingers.
I don’t want her love. I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I had it. I want her loyalty.
“You were manipulating me,” Cailyn whispered. “All this time, you were—”
“Manipulating you?” Teran slid out of her chair and walked over to Cailyn. “Of course I’ve been manipulating you.” She reached down to touch Cailyn’s hair. “I’ve been manipulating you from the beginning. Are you telling me you didn’t know?”
Cailyn brushed the steel-tipped hand away. She squirmed in her seat to tamp down the heat rising in her flesh.
Not now. Not now. Not now.
“You became a courtesan for the same reason as your father. You enjoy serving. It fulfills you, as it did him.”
“Leave my father out of this, Teran Nivrai.”
Teran’s lip curled. “Very well. But you knew what you were getting into when you chose to serve me, little one.”
“I knew this? I knew that you’d hurt me, yes. I agreed to that. But not to this.” She glared at Teran. “Not to being your test subject.”
“You didn’t know what I’d do with you. But you knew that I would challenge you. That I wa
nted to.”
“No!”
“I did. I enjoyed it. Did you expect anything different from a helldemon?”
Cailyn glowered. “Don’t call yourself that.”
“I called you back. I tested you again and again.”
“Tested me?” Cailyn thought of that first night. She remembered the heavy flogger, made of braided leather.
Too much for a beginner. Too much, too fast.
A test.
A gods-damned test.
Teran nodded. “You passed them all.” A smile spread over her face. “You should be proud of yourself, not angry with me.”
“Proud of myself?” Cailyn swatted away Teran’s hand, heedless of the newsteel’s danger. “For what? For letting you manipulate me?”
The ice in her chest spread out through her veins. It chilled every part of her. “You wanted to change me. To make me into what you wanted.”
Her lips pulled back into an ugly snarl. “Did you ever stop to think about what would happen to me if it worked?”
“What would happen to you? You’ve already been on the dark channels.”
“I don’t give a damn about the dark channels! This is about you. You didn’t give a damn about what experimenting with me would do to the rest of my life.” She set her glass down hard. It rang as it hit the table. “Or you wanted it that way.”
“Cailyn, listen to me.”
“That’s it, isn’t it, my lady? That’s what you wanted.”
“Cailyn, I—”
“That’s what you meant yesterday. The end of the experiment. Me becoming yours. Me coming to Nivrai to serve you permanently.”
“Cailyn—”
“Say it. Just say it. You’ve twisted the truth enough, my lady Nivrai.”
Teran let out a slow breath. “I would like that, yes. But that was never part of the plan.”
“Wasn’t it?” Cailyn snarled.
“You were just an amusement to me, like any other. I didn’t think I would even call you back.”
She laid a hand on Cailyn’s shoulder. Cailyn pushed it away. She glared at the food cooling, uneaten, on her plate.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, little one. I was looking for someone to toy with. I admit that. But it never would have become more than that if you hadn’t impressed me.”
She leaned in, her face inches from Cailyn’s. “I could have chosen anyone. I chose you.” Her hand moved to Cailyn’s neck. Metal clinked as Teran’s claws tapped her collar. “Yes, you’ve been my experiment.”
Cailyn flinched. Teran didn’t move. “But you never would have been if you hadn’t earned my respect first.”
Cailyn wanted to believe it. To delight in the gesture. To give herself up to the possession.
But how could she?
“If you respect me so much, my lady, why did you come in last night like I meant nothing to you?”
“Teran’s whore, they call you, but you get angry when I use you like one.” Her hand clutched Cailyn’s shoulder. The newsteel pricked it. “If I didn’t know better, I would say you missed the pain.”
A growl welled up from somewhere inside Cailyn. “How can you say that?”
“Pain is what we do. It would remind you of my desire for you—and of yours for me.” The clawed hand released Cailyn’s shoulder. Newsteel skipped over Cailyn’s skin.
Teran leaned down to kiss her hair. “We both know the experiment worked.”
Cailyn closed her eyes. She bit her lip, used the sting to recover herself. “You didn’t even speak to me.”
“I wanted to lose myself, little one.” Teran looked up, her eyes bright as crystal. “There’s the Councils’ work: dirty, thankless, and difficult. There’s you, and you are mine.”
“So you do think you own me, then,” Cailyn snapped. She pulled away.
Teran made no move to draw Cailyn back. “I asked you yesterday to come with me to Nivrai. You refused.”
The proof will come when you want to leave and she lets you.
“I did.”
“Your life is your own.” Her eyes glittered, the gleam in a hawk’s eye just before it descends. “Unless you’re reconsidering.”
“No,” Cailyn answered. She studied her fork to avoid Teran’s gaze, then speared a bit of fruit. “I can’t leave my life behind for you, my lady. That hasn’t changed.”
“Then I have nothing else to say.”
Cailyn bit her lip. Teran had lied. That much she knew. Had Lord Keriel lied too?
Would anyone around her tell the truth?
Chapter Thirty-five
“Will you be going to Lord Darien’s party?”
Cailyn stopped. She hadn’t even thought about that.
A party for the dark channels. If she went, the nobles who patronized them would see her. Use her, if she let them.
Some would surely call her afterward. That would be fine from someone like Darien. But what about the rest? Even if she wanted them, could she serve them now, knowing she craved what they offered only because Teran made her?
Then there was Lord Darien himself. He would want to see her. It would be nice to see him too. She thought of the soft touch of his hands, the odd gentle sting of his whips.
Kneeling to him would be easy after all of this intrigue with Teran, too. No matter where her desires came from.
“We should go,” she said.
“We, little one?” Teran’s lip curled like she tasted something bitter. “I told you I wasn’t going.”
Cailyn breathed deep. She thought of the claws opening her skin, of Teran’s head bent down to kiss the wounds. She cursed herself for the little thrill of heat between her legs.
“Besides,” Teran continued, “I have a reputation to uphold.”
“By not showing up.”
The claws extended, retracted, extended again. “As impressive as these things are, they’re nothing next to wings and a tail. Much less a retractable metal phallus. Their imaginations can come up with far worse than I ever could.”
She reached out to stroke Cailyn’s hair. Cailyn froze. She didn’t want to respond.
“If I send you alone, they’ll go on believing whatever they want about me. And you’ll get to see some people I suspect you miss.” Teran grinned. “My lord Darien, for one.”
Cailyn cast her eyes downward.
“Embarrassed, little one?” Teran pulled Cailyn’s head up by the hair. Newsteel tangled in Cailyn’s hair, and Teran leaned in to kiss her parted lips. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed. You never were before this.”
Cailyn let Teran kiss her. Her anger hadn’t cooled, but she had agreed to serve. She’d have to break her contract to refuse.
And she still couldn’t do that. Not when she didn’t know the truth.
Teran’s tongue slipped into her mouth. She distracted herself by thinking of Lord Darien. She remembered his warmth inside her and moaned around Teran’s tongue.
She’d thought so often of Teran when others touched and used her. And now she thought of him while Teran touched her.
How had things gotten so turned around?
“Nervous, my little one?”
“A little,” Cailyn answered. “What can I expect, my lady?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been to one.”
Cailyn blinked. “Never?”
“No. Why would I? When I first came of age, I hired someone from the dark channels to teach me technique. I did nothing on them since. I had Mariel for that.”
“Mariel.” Cailyn tasted the word.
She had meant to ask Teran so much more about him. About how he’d died. She didn’t want Ben Keriel’s words to be the last ones she heard about that.
But she had so much to think about. The boy. The Councils. Teran’s duty here. Her strange, distant behavior after the sessions.
And she’d rejected Teran. She couldn’t just ask how Mariel died.
She’d asked about their relationship, his service. She’d never asked about who he
was. About what he wanted. About how he’d taken sick. What happened after.
Why Lord Keriel would call him a slave.
“He wanted to serve you?”
Teran chuckled and shook her head. “He wanted pain. In the arena, he let his opponents hit him. He pretended it was for show, but I knew better.”
Of course you did, Cailyn thought.
“I don’t think he ever expected it to get anyone’s attention.”
“But it got yours.”
“Why go to the dark channels and pay when a man let others bruise him in front of me in the arena every weekend?”
Teran chuckled. “Why bother with politics? I had what I wanted already. I just needed to claim it.”
Claim it. She thought of Teran braving the sands of the emptied arena. What had her body looked like before she’d met Mariel, before she’d practiced fighting forms with him and torn into him at the end?
It would still impress him. Cailyn had no doubt of that. Teran had said she was always cruel, after all.
Cailyn envisioned thin fingers pressing into Mariel’s bruises. Mariel’s answering hisses, filled with sweat and hunger.
Had he felt any of the same misgivings she felt now? “He went to you—”
“I goaded him into it.”
“Goaded him, my lady?”
“I taunted him. I told him I could see his desire. I worried his bruises, kissed his cuts.”
Her hand moved as if the remembered flesh lay under it. “He wanted me to stop, to leave him alone. He didn’t want to want me. He knew what it would mean.” She chuckled again. “But he couldn’t have refused me anyway.”
Cailyn pulled back as if burned.
Teran’s head snapped up.
“Nervous, little one?”
“A little, my lady.”
“Do you want me to finish the story, or not?”
Cailyn swallowed. “Yes,” she said. She felt faithless. Teran didn’t know what she was asking, not really.
“No. I snuck into his rooms in the arena after most of the fighters had gone to sleep or left. We hoped that the sounds we made would seem enough like training that no one would care if they did hear us.”
Cailyn winced again. “That was a risky thing to do, my lady.”