Page 41 of Eternal Surrender

“I’ve never trusted Sunaria.”

“I thought you’d both gotten over that.”

He grabbed me by the throat.

I didn’t flinch. “We used to hang out at Madam Rouge’s,” I said, “well you more than me. It was the place that gave you the idea for Belshazzar’s.”

He squinted my way. “What year?”

“1596 wasn’t it?” I lowered my voice. “I caught my doppelgänger kneeling between your legs⁠—”

“What do you want?”

“Marcus, it’s me.”

“I’m going to lash you within an inch of your life.”

Yet we merely stood in the bar staring at each other with a wary respect.

My mind drifted, desperate to feel his leather strikes slicing through my flesh, overlaying previous strikes, promising a continuous hypnotic rhythm, bringing with them relief from the internal voices, a terrible chattering refusing to fade.

“I can’t figure out whose side to be on.” I pressed my hand to my chest. “Marcus, I need you to get at it.” I clutched my shirt. “Cut it out of me.”

“Cut what out?”

“Him.”

Marcus faltered, showing a moment of weakness as though hoping he’d found me, and yet fearing he had. “Orpheus believes pain is the pathway to the soul.”

“Evidently I’m not right in the head,” I said.

Marcus shook off his hesitancy and took the whip from Zachary, who’d reappeared out of the lift.

“Go get our friend here some fresh clothes,” Marcus ordered him.

Zachary froze where he stood, his face full of dread.

Marcus threw Zachary a look. “Shall I use it on you first?”

Those words forced his fledging to fly from the bar.

Marcus peered into my eyes. “Jadeon?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“Enlighten me?”

“I seemed to have developed an annoying conscience.” I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them again, trying to focus. “Apparently, this thing can be reversed.”

He lowered the whip.

“Aren’t you sick of red hair?” I asked. “I mean really, you look ridiculous.”

“Orpheus has a thing for redheads.”

“That would be bed head.”

Marcus threw down the whip. “I don’t doubt you can take it.” He grabbed my shoulders and shoved me upright. “We need to get to the truth.”