AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When his Mistress did not laugh, Nathan swallowed. His stomach felt as if it were rubbing against the jagged edges of his spine. “So I avoided Hell. ” He made another attempt. “I guess that was some kind of miracle. ” With the theater dark, he couldn’t see her reaction. Could see nothing but thoughts like a blurred landscape flashing by, his foot pressing down on a useless brake in a car headed for a cliff.
“In a manner of speaking, yes, I guess it is. ” Her answer sounded cautious.
“Dona, how did I…” He needed to shut up or change topic. Everything in him screamed that ignorance was bliss. He wished he could see her face. “When can you leave here?”
“I could have left a decade ago. I chose to stay. ”
“Why would anyone stay here?”
“Because here evil only wears one mask. I know to the nth degree how good or bad someone is. No dissembling, no way to hide behind façades. ”
“No chance of love or happiness. ”
“I had that chance. I’d rather not risk pain like that again. ”
“So you’ll never leave here. I’ll never… After I leave… Dona…” He reached out in the dark, didn’t question how he knew perfectly where her face was to cup th
e delicate oval in both hands. “No. No,” he repeated. Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead to hers. He was amazed that she hadn’t drawn away from him—not that he would have let her at this moment if he could prevent it—but…
God in heaven, why was this so important?
“Dona, who are you to me? All of your…assignments… They don’t all feel like this about you, do they?”
He was as much as admitting she’d drawn something out of him no one had, but his curiosity now burned more fiercely than his fear of giving her an advantage. A long moment passed as he held her face like that. He could feel her staring at him in the pitch darkness. When she drew back, he reluctantly let her go, feeling her jaw slide along his fingers, her chin as she turned her face back to the stage. “We all go through things in our lives. ” There was a tremor in her voice, a raw reaction that made him wonder if he was going to regret asking the question. “Some things we handle right.
Some things we handle wrong. Do you know what we’re most afraid of?” He shook his head. “No. ”
“That no one will understand us. Nothing means anything if your soul believes it will always be lonely. Alone. You know how you sometimes wake up in the deadest part of the night by yourself and wonder if this is what it’s like to die, not able to take anyone with you for company, to give you courage? It can be overwhelming. ” He’d done that in prison countless times, his body drenched in a cold sweat of fear.
What was strange was remembering having the same type of panic attacks in his expensive townhouse. As if all the trappings he’d collected around him were silent, futile sentinels against his nightmares.
“I don’t know why they do many of the things they do, but the Lord and Lady knew that. Knew that even belief in Them wouldn’t be enough to give most of us enough strength to realize our full potential. So They made us in Their image. For every one of us, there’s a soul mate out there. We may not meet him or her in every lifetime, but the connection between us is felt, even when our lives don’t touch. ” He knew what she was going to say. He should have been ready to scoff, but it was as simple a truth as if she was about to tell him an innocuous fact. My eyes are blue, I’m six foot three and…
“You’re my soul mate. I’m yours, you’re mine. That’s why I asked to be your Mistress in Redemption. ” She said it flatly, giving him a hint of the roiling sea of emotions going on behind the tone. “We can’t help but want to be together, protect each other. ” He thought he heard a faint smile in her voice, but it had the cold desolation of a ghost. “You should take that as a sign of hope. The soul is so pure in its love that no matter what wrong paths we take, it has the ability to guide us. ” When she began to draw away from him, he reached out, clamped his hand down on her wrist, holding her. “If you never leave here… Am I worth redeeming but not loving?”
The lights returned on dim mode so he could see her face. She wore the corset again. In stunned shock, he saw she’d been crying. The Goth makeup was smeared and running, turning her face into a mask.
“I don’t know, Nathan. Are you worth it? Do I deserve you?” The question punched him in the gut. All the crimes he’d committed flashed through his head, bringing back his despair. He’d been accused of so many things, but no one had ever asked him to pass sentence on himself. Not like this, where there was no way out of the answer.
Even with her makeup messed up she was beautiful. Her sin had been that she’d loved someone so much it had compelled her to commit a horrible crime of passion. He didn’t feel worthy of even touching her now, so he withdrew his hand, folded it in his lap. He was still in the tux and wished he could be naked again, her slave rather than a boy playing dress-up, pretending to be a man who deserved to sit by her side.
“No, I’m not worth it. But you are. You’re worth everything. ” The seconds ticked away as she regarded him in silence. He could tell nothing of her reaction from her streaked face.
“I know you’re my soul mate,” she said in that non-emotive tone. “When you touch me, when our eyes meet, I know it, but I’m not ready for it. I may never be ready to make myself that vulnerable again. ”
“You would if you could believe in me. If you could believe in yourself. You’re worth loving, Dona. Don’t give up on that. Any man… I’d…” He stumbled to a halt, not sure where he was going. For the first time in his life he didn’t want to say the perfect thing. He wanted to say the honest thing. The truth was he didn’t deserve her. If he was her soul mate, the person supposed to keep her from feeling that deep-in-the-dark desolate loneliness, she was screwed, because he wasn’t worth the shit on her shoe.
“It’s time to face the rest of your mirrors. ” She spoke at last. “Can you do it? Shatter them and face what’s left?”
“I…I don’t know. ”
Her expression shifted. His terrifying Mistress was back, and the look in her eyes turned his bowels to water.
“It’s not a choice. It’s time, whether you think you’re ready or not. ”
Chapter Eight
The next setting for his merry-go-round was, appropriately, a circular chamber, a place that looked as if it were designed for performing rituals. Everything of earth or stone, torches in sconces on the walls. Dozens of mirrors were embedded in the rock stratum so it was hard to separate Dona and the other features of the room from their reflections. The odd wall treatments were not as distracting as what lay in the center of the room, however.
