Chilled to the Bone (17 page)

“I’m not safe,” she told him. She didn’t know whether she meant she was in danger, or that she wasn’t safe to be around.

“Yes, you are.” He didn’t move, and his voice didn’t betray any doubt.

She wondered if a drink would calm her nerves, but she knew even if it would, it wasn’t safe to bite him in front of everyone.

She leaned back against the pole, feeling the smooth wood against her back, a corner of the square pole nestling in the crease of her butt. Her arousal hadn’t gone away in the midst of her terror. “So. You like me like this? On display?”

“Shh, love.” He drew a finger across her lips, as if to zip them shut. “No more words, unless you need to use your safe word, or if I ask you a question.”

She pursed her lips. She wanted to say
Yes, Master
, to tell him she’d obey. But she could show him, too.

He dragged his fingers across her nipples, the touch too much and too light at the same time. The heat from them made her entire breasts feel swollen. “Ah, lovely,” he said. “Already at attention. Perfect for what I have in mind.”

What did he have in mind? Other than the cuffs he’d carried at his waist, he didn’t have any obvious implements of torture on him. She wanted to ask, but she kept quiet, watching him.

He brought a length of chain from his pocket.
Light little thing. Nothing I can’t break in a heartbeat. Nothing to be afraid of, whatever he’s going to do with it.

Then his hand uncovered the end, and she saw a rubber tipped pincer with a little ring around it.
No. Oh god no. Can’t you see they’re already sensitive as hell?

He watched her face. She shook her head. He nodded. She shook her head harder. He took hold of her chin, and his lips covered hers. She melted into his kiss.

When the broke off, he nodded. She started to shake her head, and found his hand still had a good grip on her chin. He raised his eyebrows, as if asking a question, but obviously only one answer was acceptable. Reluctantly, she nodded.

He attached the clamp, sliding the little ring forward as it pressed her tight and tender peak. She gritted her teeth, and he slid the ring back a millimeter. It didn’t stop the jolts of pain from shooting through her breast, but it did make it more bearable. She felt the warmth travel all the way to her pussy. He saw her reaction, too.
Oh god. This is turning me on. And worse, he knows it.

The other one went on, same as the first, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much. He stepped back to watch. The shiny silver chain dangled between her tits, pulling on the clamps ever so slightly. In a few seconds, she got used to them. Pleasure fought with the pain, mixing until she couldn’t tell which was which.

He stroked her cheek, and that grounded her. She looked into his eyes.
Thank you Master
. She wanted to say it, but rules were rules.

“I hope you feel as beautiful as you look.”

Beautiful? Me? If he says so.
She could see the way his eyes lit up as he looked at her, and she knew to his eyes she was, and his eyes were the only ones that mattered.

She wiggled seductively and regretted it almost immediately as the chain pulled on her swollen peaks. Two firm hands on her waist stilled her. “Not your first time, love. Someday, you’ll dance for me with that chain on.”

Her first reaction had her eyes widening in terror, and then she realized what he’d let slip. Someday. He had plans. She had to live long enough to make them come true. She just had to.

“What are you grinning about?” he asked.

He’d asked; she could speak. “I will, Master. Someday, I will dance for you with this chain on. Even though I don’t know much about dancing.”

He chuckled. “I don’t think it will matter much, somehow. It’s more about enthusiasm than knowledge.”

She bit her lip. It wasn’t a question. She could take lessons, though. She grinned at him some more.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small flogger made of purple leather. She’d seen larger models in the club; this one had tails less than a quarter inch wide, and maybe six inches long, lots of them, and the handle was made of wrapped leather, nearly as flexible as the tales themselves. It had a little ring at the end, presumably so it could be hung from a belt or on some kind of chain. The idea of it hanging from the chain between her nipples made her eyes widen.

He seemed to have something else in mind. He flicked it against her thigh, softly, the tails more of a caress than a sting. “Open,” he told her.

As soft as it feels, he can do that anywhere.
She spread her legs, feeling tension on her arms as she did so. It brought her closer to the ground, and her arms had to stretch farther to reach the place her wrists were attached to the pole.

A few more soft flicks to the inside of her thighs. This time there was a sting to them, but it passed quickly into a gentle warmth. She didn’t think she could get much more turned on, but she was wrong. Her nipples felt like they were on fire now, her breasts swollen, her pussy engorged and needy. She wiggled, careful to move her hips rather than her torso, trying to get his hands or the flogger to brush against her clit.

“Longer floggers pack more oomf,” he told her. “But you’re still a beginner. And this one is good for sensitive spots.” He barely caressed her belly with it, working his way up before flicking it against the underside of her breasts.

She eeked as the twin sensations of the flogger and the clamp confused and overloaded her senses. She closed her eyes as he paused and let the feelings wash over her.

Then he did it again, on the other side. And again. Back, and forth. She kept her eyes closed. Her whole body was moving now, making it worse—and better—as she wiggled against the pole.
One touch. I’m one touch away. Please.

“Thinner tails may not look as impressive, but they increase the sting. A long tailed flogger with tails this small could be pretty nasty.”

She didn’t care.
Just give me more.

He moved back to flogging her inner thighs again, his fingers running lightly down her right side at the same time, making more nerves come alive. She felt everything he did between her legs now. She lost track of what was being touched by fingers and what was being caressed with the leather tails.

His fingers entered her roughly, and she screamed as her channel contracted around them, squeezing, pulsing. Her body shook against the pole, making the wooden base of it rattle on the floor. His fingers touched her right nipple, and suddenly, pain blossomed blindingly bright, suffusing her breast and mixing with the throes of her orgasm. His fingers moved, thrusting inside her. Three strokes, and she felt her pleasure roll over her, swamping the white hot pain from the release of the nipple clamp. She whimpered as her pussy clamped tight on his thrusting fingers.

Another jolt of pain, this time from her other breast, and she came again. He held her this time in one strong arm as her body shook, but he kept his fingers inside her. “Master, Master,” she said, remembering vaguely she wasn’t to speak after she said it. But he didn’t rebuke her, just held her with one arm until she stopped shaking and then with two afterward.

“You’re even more beautiful when you’re coming,” he told her.

“You too,” she told him.

“I want inside you,” he told her. “And I can’t do that legally in the club.”

“Then let’s go some place private.”

“We don’t want to confuse your guards. I’ll have to take a rain check.”

“You can have me with or without a rain check anytime, Master.” She grinned.

He grinned back, picked her up, still naked, and carried her to a comfy couch, where he held her for the rest of the evening.

Chapter Nine

Charles woke up to the sound of gunfire.

“Hide!” Doreen whispered urgently.

He grabbed the wand and got to his feet. “What the hell?” But the gunfire stopped nearly as quickly as it had started.

“Get under cover, Charles. It’s me they’re after.”

“We’re in this together now, love.”

Seconds ticked by as Charles waited and listened. There wasn’t any more gunfire, just footsteps.

Twenty seconds later, a man walked in, broad shouldered, dressed in a black ski mask and black clothes. Another man, slimmer, dressed the same, followed. Their clothes had a dozen holes in them. Bullet holes. They had an aura of magic like Mickey, and they were covered, trying to protect themselves from daylight, although all the holes couldn’t help.

John and Carla walked right in behind them. It didn’t take much to guess that the ex-SEALs weren’t going to be of much help.

“You know,” said John, “it took us a while to figure the weak point in your defenses. If we used vampires against you at night, you had vampires ready to stop us. If we waited for day, those human guards might have made things dicey. Technology has done a lot of catching up to magic in the past two hundred years. But there’s a half hour or so after the vamps leave to find shelter when it’s still dark. Mine didn’t want to come either—it’s cutting things awful close for them—but they’re bound by their oaths. And a little magic makes me capable of inviting them in. Those lovely mortals you left outside? Well, they shot their weapons, but they don’t do much to vampires. I imagine we’ll have to deal with police in twenty minutes or so, so we’ll make your deaths quick. Tomas, and whatever your name is, kill them.”

The vamps moved as one, two sudden blurs. Doreen moved in front of him, trying to intercept both. Charles raised his wand. He wasn’t sure it would do any good against vampires. He didn’t like targeting the one human woman in the group, but he hated to lose more, and he had a plan. Under the circumstances, it was desperate. He’d thought when the moment came they’d have more help and he could focus on his little part. But it still looked like the best chance they had.

“
Parte morfi nychtas
,” he said, and a streak of blue came from the wand. Blue fire enveloped Carla, and she screamed and fell to the ground.

“Really,” said John calmly. “How weak.” He waved his hand. “
Nil cadrima
,” he said. The same words he’d said before, when negating the spell on Brennan’s adversary in the basement of the house in Georgetown, but this times Charles heard the words quite clearly. The flames vanished from Carla, although she was still shaking and hugging herself.

Doreen flew through the air past him, thrown by one of the vampires, and hit the brick wall of the club hard. It took everything Charles had not to run to her. She was strong. And she didn’t need his strength right that moment. She needed his brains.

“Anything you can do with that wand, and I’m betting you’ve learned just the one spell, I can undo,” John gloated. “You’ve lost. Might as well give up, really.”

Charles turned the wand towards the bigger vampire.

“I’m afraid they’re immune to—“ John mocked.

Doreen picked herself up from the wall and charged the two vampires.

Here goes nothing.
Charles pulled a vial he’d been keeping in his pocket. Blood. Doreen’s blood. What threat it posed to the mages’ machinations, he didn’t know, but he had a wild guess. “
Nil cadrima,”
he said. The wand glowed, and for a moment, so did the vampire. Thin cracks appeared in the wand, spreading along its length. The red inside the vial turned clear.

“—the flame,” John finished. But his voice didn’t hold the same triumph to it. Fear and then outrage contorted his features.

Doreen hit the thin vampire and bowled him over. They rolled on the floor, bodies locked together, as they struggled to gain an advantage.

The big vampire turned around.

“Foolish mortal!” John held his hand out, clenched like a fist. A ruby sparked in a thick ring on his middle finger. “
Flamel nychtas—“

But whatever it was he had to say, he didn’t finish. Vampires moved awfully fast. The vampire hit him like a ton of bricks and kept moving, carrying him against the far wall. Charles wasn’t even sure the man was still conscious after the vamp hit him, but after they collided with the wall, he was very definitely dead. His body made an ugly crunching sound, and when the vampire let it go, it fell to the floor with an inhuman limpness.

“Oh my god!” screamed Carla.

The vampire ran out the door. Seeking shelter, Charles reasoned. A moment later, the other vampire ran past him and followed the first. Doreen got to her feet, her hair wild. She was still naked, and she looked like a goddess to him, pale as Grecian marble.

Carla ran to John’s body. Doreen walked over to Charles.

“He’s dead, you killed him, he’s dead, you killed him,” Carla kept saying over and over.