Page 67

Perfection.

I’ve waited for this longer than you can imagine, little bug.

Every single time I came undone for him was the same as before. He wouldn’t let me simply come once. It was part of his sweet torture by now. The same thing over and over again. He would push me to the brink of pain and dance me there along its edge until I begged him for reprieve. Sometimes, he would grant it, sometimes not. I never knew which I would get more of, the knife or the leather gloves, but they had become synonymous with each other. Even the sensation of the flat of the knife gliding against my arm could kick my heartbeat up and send throbbing precursors to a tidal wave of orgasms skittering through me.

I had become Pavlov’s dog, barking and drooling at the sound of stone grinding against metal and braying to the unseen moon when he even touched me.

I was also aware that though I existed in limbo, torn between the heaven his fingers ripped from me and the hell his knife drew out, I would eventually succumb to the wounds that must litter my skin. I imagined myself a twisting and intricate web of slashes and cuts. My whole body felt fiery and icy at different intervals from each slice of a blade that was no longer there.

My wrists had become mangled wrecks. I could feel the mushy grinding of the chunks of my flesh every time I moved. The teeth had, long ago, stopped biting, though I wasn’t sure anymore if that was because I had severed the nerves that fed the skin that they munched on so happily or if it was because The Raven had stopped asking me questions I didn’t want to answer honestly.

I would tell him anything at this point. He barely needed to bribe me with the crook of his fingers or the kiss of his steel. Those had become rewards. Whenever I answered a question, regardless of its answer, I was gifted with the lavish touch of one or the other, and I moaned and begged for each of them. Anything to feel him again. Anything to hear him panting with need for me.

My body shivered with exhaustion and need whenever he left me. I longed to feel his touch. I longed for a time when my blanket was not my own blood leaking down my back and into fresh wounds. I longed for a time when I could lie down, even if it were on dank, moldy stone.

“Little bug.”

The steady thunder of his voice filled the chamber, rousing me from one of many times I had lost consciousness.

I had stopped being concerned by them and lost count of how many times. Eventually, they, too, bled together with the dark around me. What was the difference between the blackness of my prison and the blackness of my mind? There wasn’t much of a difference at all unless I had slipped into the liminal space between there and dreams. Color only existed in dreams for me now, and it was always the same dream, dawn breaking over a dark evergreen forest.

“Raven,” I replied.

The flat of his blade found the meat of my ass, pressed into the globe of it, and traveled down to press the round pommel to the rim of my asshole. I made a sound that was half whimper of need and half moan of anguish. He played with me, the iciness of the metal teasing every nerve that had not yet been burned away into cinders.

I wanted to move away, wanted to resist him. I wanted so bad not to give into the frenzy that we had created with each other in this strange place, yet I was powerless to prevent my hips from thrusting back into the intrusion, begging for more of his sweet, sweet tormenting.

“Are you hungry, little bug?” he asked as he dragged a leather-gloved finger up the bend of my arching back.

“For you.”

I’d lost all semblance of shame or reservation sometime around the fourth or fifth time I came so hard my entire body shook and flooded his palm.

“Mmmm, I’m sure you are. But I meant for food.”

“I probably should be.”

“Yes, you most certainly should be. Though I could feed you again if you need me to.” His breath was hot on my ear, clawing a shiver from me. “You don’t need to beg me to feed you, little bug. Know that I can’t wait until I can stuff you full again.”

My whole body shook with the power of my whimpering as the ice of the metal fled me and without warning the cuffs that had held me aloft came undone, and I was falling.

I never hit the floor, though. Instead, I was cradled into the heat of his embrace, my head pressed to the fire over his heart, where I listened to the strong solid thuds of his heartbeat as he picked me up and carried me a few feet away.

“For now, I’ll be satisfied with you sharing a meal with me,” he purred, setting me down. “You will want to cover your eyes. You’ve been in the dark for almost a week. It will take some time for your eyes to readjust.”

I felt the light hit my skin like a physical blow. Felt it skitter over my broken flesh and seep into each slice as I squeezed my eyes shut. Even the amount that bombarded my eyes from behind the curtain of my eyelids was too bright. It hurt like a raw wound being cleansed with lemon. A hollow, sharp pain that sank deep and rattled around in my head.

I could hear The Raven moving about, could hear the scuff of his boots along the stonework. The slight creak of his leather pants was too loud. The swish of his linen shirt as he moved was an assault to my ears. The rattle of dishes of some sort against wicker pounded like a drum. It was all so fucking loud after next to nothing for almost a week. But the knife was quickly dulled, slowly blending into a soft kaleidoscope of richness I appreciated like fine music.

The light was the same. Slowly unclenching my lids allowed me to adjust. Until finally, I could open them again. I found the brilliant sun I suspected had been dragged into the cell with me was only a collection of what looked like fireflies dancing in the air and casting a warm yellow glow over a tiny barrel table. A candle would have been brighter, even a rushlight would have been ten times brighter. But it was enough for me to see the glint of silverware next to a ceramic charger plate The Raven was slowly filling with all manner of small morsels. It was a bounty to be sure, a few bites of almost everything he probably could have gotten his hands on.

The last to join the pile were six slices of dripping milúll that made my mouth water with delight.

“I wasn’t sure which would be your favorite, so I got a little of everything.” That soft, steady rumble I had once been so familiar with filled my ears and was the silk my harried brain needed. He was moving still, even though the plates had been filled to the brim and crystal-clear cool water had been poured into two wooded mugs. “With your wounds, I didn’t think you’d want a blanket, but I do have a spider silk shawl if you’d like to try it?”

I looked from the plate back up to him and stared. “Spider silk?”

“It’s what we use for field dressings, sick bed linens and, for the wealthiest of us, silk velvets to wear in the summers. It feels like ice on the skin. Ice that never steals your heat and is light as air. It helps with healing, too. Something about the venom of the orchard spiders on the webbing. Well, at least it does with Fae. I’m not sure about humans. I think you might be the first human to have ever had their blood even touch spider silk, let alone their wounds draped in it.” A large square of nearly translucent fabric was stretched out before him and folded into a triangle.