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“The others you decimated in three or four months. You probably could have done it sooner, if you didn’t enjoy taunting and playing with your prey so much. With Lauren, you had to play the game a hundred percent for almost a year. Couldn’t jerk her chain the way you did with so many others, running hot and cold from day to day, playing with their baggage. First time you tried, she almost left you. So you realized to win this round you’d have to be the perfect sub in all ways. No gratifying little torments. ”
“No… It wasn’t like that. ” His voice was hoarse, the words clumsy with his tongue bitten and swollen. She pressed on, ignoring him.
“When you’d completely won her trust, you’d break it off. Because you couldn’t play with her until that point, the only way to let her know what you’d done was to do it with just the right expression. A little smirk, an offhand attitude. I bet you practiced that look in the mirror for days. It had to be clear as a stop sign. In one blink, she’d understand that the past twelve months of her life, the vulnerabilities and love she’d offered you, had meant less than nothing. Making her feel like she was less than nothing. ”
The moment was there, all around them. The night Lauren had told him she wanted more with him. Wanted it all. The transformation as his rejection registered.
Her disbelief, the incredible shock.
When Nathan looked at Lauren’s face, he saw what he hadn’t seen then in the glow of his triumph. A stricken desolation in her expression that made the beating he’d just taken look like a toe-stubbing. He had stabbed her through her soul.
No. That’s absurd, the fucking manipulation of this place. She was fine. I wanted…
“You didn’t know what you wanted by that time, Jonathan. Just like an addict, the getting became everything. The worse your soul felt, the more you craved to do it.
That’s why the next Mistress you chose turned out to be a psychopathic serial killer. ”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said hoarsely. He just wanted those images to go away. He’d seen it. Fine. Take it away.
“Shut up,” Dona said mildly. The cat twitched in her hand, making him flinch. If she struck him again, he was pretty sure she’d strip exposed muscle, leave grooves in his organs. “The soul can take only so much bullshit before it seeks annihilation, even if the rational mind isn’t aware that it’s being tugged into harm’s way. The soul is the catastrophe center. Too many people, too much strain on the environment, here comes a tornado or an earthquake, not only to reduce numbers, but to remind us there are consequences, things bigger than ourselves. If we create imbalance, it will be balanced.
The S&M Killer was your tornado, so you thought she destroyed your life. But it was Lauren that made you step into her path. ”
The shadows took Lauren away, but the mirrors were moving, closing in on him like the inside of a funhouse. Dona was behind him again, increasing his apprehension.
“Is this Hell’s pathetic copycat version of Dickens?” He said it through clenched teeth. Fighting panic. He could hear his heart beating irregularly, responding to the stress of the pain even if it could not succumb to it. His fluids made him stick wetly to the faceless, nameless woman beneath him. He wanted her gone too. He wanted it all gone.
Dona chuckled, the sound grating on his nerves at the evidence that he could not shake her, even as his body responded traitorously to the sultry tones of her voice.
“Do you know why you hated Mac? So much that it clouded your judgment and landed you in prison?”
“Because he was a cop, and bullshit. ”
She lifted a brow. “Because he got what you’ve always wanted. ”
“I didn’t want Violet. But I could have taken her away from him if I wanted to do it. ”
“Mac Nighthorse would have ripped your arms off if you’d so much as breathed on her. You know I’m not talking about Violet. Don’t fuck with me. Don’t fuck with yourself. ”
The mirrors turned and now Dona was holding a bullwhip with the diameter of a python. No. Please… He swallowed, bit back the plea. The fact she was holding a new whip meant she’d be using it.
“What is it Mac had that you want? What is it that Lauren found after you mercifully left her life?”
He shook his head. A moment later his body arched, a scream tearing the lining from his throat as the bullwhip landed a full stripe down his back that made his upper body feel as if it had been seared by acid. His muscles constricted against the pain so forcefully he thought he felt his ribs crack under the strain. His head snapped down, inadvertently striking the temple of his bound companion. She made a sound of pain.
“Trust. Trust in a Mistress. ” Dona answered the question. “Nirvana with a Mistress.
The ability to let go and believe she’ll take care of you. The state where bringing her pleasure becomes the most important thing in your life. ” Four more lashes, one for each point. He’d never thought there could be such a level of pain. The whip snagged the strips of skin that remained, ripping them loose.
More blood ran down his sides, making him itch. The chamber echoed his cries, overlapping, bouncing back on him, making his head scream with agony.
“You thought Mac could see that weakness in you, the fact you didn’t have what it took to get there with a woman. ” Her voice penetrated all of it. “When we’re insecure, we make up stories of what people see when they look at us. Funhouse mirrors again, mocking us so that we project the images of others over the image of ourselves. But it always comes back to you, because that’s the only thing any of us control in this life.
You made the choices that put you here. ”
With the bones of his wrists grinding against the stone hold of the gargoyles, he couldn’t control the spasmodic convulsions of his upper body as he waited for the next blow to come. He could barely open his eyes, clogged with tears and perspiration running off his brow. He was as cold as he imagined death felt, and would have welcomed it if that was what it heralded.
Two minutes of silence passed, punctuated only by his rattling breath and the woman’s frightened noises beneath him. Saliva from his clenched teeth had dampened her hair.
