He had to admit her words made sense. If she was getting closer to Scintil they were in for trouble. The nearest stable wormhole that came out near Rageron was still days away. If this could keep her from entering the second stage too early…
“Hurt her,” he heard the voice of his old master saying. “Hurt her to help her, Tragar. Keeping the Tenrah in check is more important now than anything else, even the respect you feel for her as a female or the reverence you have for her as a Khalla.”
Could he do it? He didn’t want to but the fire in her eyes decided him—he had no choice.
“Goddess, forgive me,” he muttered as he unbuckled his belt and looped it carefully over his fist. He held it by the buckle, letting the black length of leather dangle from his hand like a snake. Then, raising his arm, he brought it down on her quivering buttocks.
Emily moaned and gasped, jumping as the belt snapped against her naked ass. But she only spoke one word: “Harder.”
“What?” Tragar couldn’t believe it. He’d given her a fairly decent blow. Nothing like what he would have given another male but still, it had left a wide red stripe across her soft, innocent bottom—a mark he was already regretting.
“I said harder!” She braced against the bedpost again, sticking her bare ass out further, spreading her legs to give him an easy target. “Do it harder—now!”
Almost by reflex he raised his arm again and brought down the belt much harder than before. She moaned and jumped but held tight to the bedpost.
“Emily? Khalla?”
“Don’t stop.” Her voice was a tight whisper. “Don’t stop—I think it’s working. Do it again!”
He whipped her again and then again, his arm rising and falling as if moved by her will alone. And indeed, maybe it was. The fire of a Khalla was nothing to dismiss lightly. A male could very well get burned if he was not careful, playing with such a flame.
At last, when her soft bottom was criss-crossed all over with red stripes he stopped.
“Why did you stop?” She turned to look over her shoulder, her pale blue eyes awash with tears. “Do it, Tragar—hit me again.”
“No! Goddess damn it—no.” Her tears and the way he had marked her filled him with remorse the hundreds of assassinations he had performed could not. He untangled the black leather belt from his hand and dropped it as though it was a poisonous creature that had bitten him.
“Do it!” she insisted but her voice sounded faint and far away. Suddenly she collapsed, crumpling to the floor in a little heap.
“Emily!” Her name was a groan on his lips. Rushing forward, he took her in his arms, trying to support her without hurting her. She was limp and lifeless in his arms—completely unresponsive.
Goddess, he thought as her head rolled loosely on his arm. Oh Goddess forgive me—what have I done?
Chapter Eleven
Someone was patting her cheek. “Emily, come back to me! Emily, please.”
The deep, urgent voice seemed to penetrate her brain, making her stir.
“What…?” Emily came back to consciousness slowly, feeling very strange indeed. She looked up at Tragar who was cradling her in his arms, an anxious expression on his face. “What happened?” she asked uncertainly.
“You fainted,” he said roughly. “Gods, I shouldn’t have done it—shouldn’t have used my belt on you. I should be beaten or killed for treating you so.”
“I asked you to,” she pointed out. She lifted a hand to her face. “And…my eyes, they’re not burning anymore.”
“Your Kit’tara has been driven back…though at a very high price.” Tragar sighed and shook his head. “Don’t ask me to do that to you again, Emily. I cannot.” The anguished look in his golden eyes spoke volumes of remorse.
“You have to do whatever’s necessary.” She sighed and tried to sit up. “I…I think I’m all right now. I just—ow!” Her bare bottom had brushed the carpeted floor, causing a flaring jet of agony to her wounded posterior.
“I’ll get a cooling cloth. Here.” The big Kindred helped her up, holding her as gently as though she was made of fine china and might break at the least touch. He laid her carefully on the bed, face down and left the room.
Emily lay there, very aware that her nightgown was hiked up and her panties were down somewhere around her ankles. But her ass was on fire and it was hard to think about anything else except how much it hurt.
Still, it was worth it if it got rid of the other—if it drove her back into whatever little box inside me she hides in, she thought grimly. Except…how many times would she have to go through this? How often would she have to get rid of the other, how many blows with the belt would she have to endure to keep holding her back? Could she stand it? Could she bear the pain to hold the other at bay? If I have to, I’ll do it, Emily decided. Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it, damn it! Anything to keep her from taking over.
But could she count on Tragar to keep helping her? She couldn’t help remembering the stricken look on his face when she’d come to after fainting. He might be a brutal and deadly assassin but he hadn’t been kidding about how hard this was for him. Emily sensed he was close to hating himself for beating her with his belt, even though she’d all but commanded him to do it. What would she do if he refused to help her? If he—
Just then something cool and soft and wet connected with her bottom.
“Oh!” She jumped and looked around.
“It’s just me.” Tragar’s deep voice still sounded faintly strangled and the remorse on his face was clear. “Gods, look what I’ve done to you.”
“You did it because I asked you to,” Emily reminded him again. “And it worked, right? So it was worth it.” She tried to smile at him as he pressed the cool cloth very, very gently to her wounded bottom.
He sighed, looking deeply troubled.
“Worth it to keep you alive, I suppose and to keep your Tenrah from progressing. But I will still carry the memory of what I did to you to the grave.”
“Hey, come on,” Emily said, trying to ignore the awkwardness of talking to him while he was gently bathing her ass with the cool cloth. “I mean, you kill people for a living, right? How much worse could giving me a little whipping be?” Then she wanted to bite her lip—last time mentioning his career as an assassin had set him off in a big way. But this time he only answered quietly.
“Infinitely worse. The ones I killed—they were just targets. And I was ice inside—I felt nothing when they died.” His eyes had a faraway look, as though he was remembering someone or something only he could see. “I never thought to feel anything ever again. Not after Landra and Jalex…”
“Who?” Emily asked in a low voice.
The faraway look in his eyes faded to be replaced by a closed coldness.
“No one,” he growled. “I am getting off track. Sufficient to say I do not wish to beat you again.”
“Well, I hope you won’t have to but if the other starts coming back, I—ow!”
“What is it? Did I hurt you?” He withdrew the cooling cloth at once, frowning.
“No, it’s not that…” Emily shifted again and again the sharp pain lanced through her. But it wasn’t her ass that was hurting this time…it was her breasts. “I have to sit up,” she said, turning on her side. No matter how much her backside still stung, it was nothing to the sudden, stabbing pain she’d just experienced.
Tragar helped her up without comment and she sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, grateful that the cooling cloth he’d used on her had helped a little at least.
“Where are you hurting?” he asked.
“It’s nothing. Just, um…” Emily didn’t exactly want to say she’d felt like someone was poking hot needles into her nipples although that was certainly the sensation she’d had a moment before when her breasts rubbed against the bed. She tried to look down as unobtrusively as she could, wondering if she could see anything through her nightgown. To her mortification, she absolutely could.
The pale blue, s
ilky material, which had been loose and comfortable when she put the nightgown on, was stretched tight across breasts which were much, much larger than she remembered. She’d always had a fairly large chest—a full C cup verging on a D. But what she was looking at now was in E cup territory at least. Her nipples were poking out too, pressing obscenely against the thin fabric and making her look like some kind of a porn star.
“Oh my God!” Emily whispered, horrified. “It looks like I went and got really bad breast enhancement! What’s wrong with me?” She looked up at Tragar and saw there was a grim expression on his dark face. “What?” she demanded. “What is it—you know something, don’t you? Tell me what it is!”
He sighed heavily. “I hope I am wrong but…you may be entering Scintil, the second stage of your Shift.”
“What? No!” Emily protested. “You mean I’m further along than I was? But how is that possible?”
“Because Tenrah is a natural progression that all Khalla go through.”
“But you spanked me! It made the other go away and I thought—”
“Your Kit’tara might have been driven underground not by the beating I gave you, but the onset of Scintil.” He looked troubled. “If I remember my training correctly, your second self is in a kind of stasis or hibernation during the second stage of the Shift.”
“Well that’s good, I guess,” Emily said doubtfully. “But I don’t know about the trade off. On one hand I’m glad not to have some other entity trying to take over my body. On the other hand I apparently had to get porn star titties to get rid of her.”
Tragar frowned in evident confusion.
“Porn star titties? I’m sorry—I thought I knew your language but some of the vernacular still confuses me.”
Emily blushed. What was getting into her? She felt like she was changing and not just physically. She was more assertive—less scared and shy than she had been. Was it just because of everything she’d been through in the past twenty-four hours or was it part of what Tragar had called Tenrah or the Shift?
“I, uh…” She shook her head. “Never mind. The point is, how long does this stage last? And how can I reverse the whole process and just go back to being normal?”
Tragar sighed. “As for reversing the process completely, there is no way that I know of. And any of the stages of Tenrah may be gone through quickly or slowly, depending on your body’s own rhythm.” He looked grim again. “In your case, we have to hope you go through them slowly or we’ll never make it to Rageron in time. I just hope you’re only in the early stages of Scintil and not the later stages.”
“What? There are stages to the stages?” Emily shook her head. “This is crazy. How can you even tell what part of Scintin I’m in?”
“Scintil,” he corrected. “And there is a way to tell—a small test which may be preformed.”
“There is? Well then let’s do it—what are we waiting for?” Emily demanded. “I need to know where I stand and what’s going on with me!”
He looked uncomfortable.
“You may not…wish to perform it.”
“What? Why not? Is it embarrassing?”
“Potentially.” He cleared his throat. “It would involve showing me your breasts.”
“What? I mean, you’re already looking at them,” Emily protested, feeling her cheeks heat with a blush.
“I would need to see them without your night garment in the way.” He kept his tone absolutely neutral and Emily suddenly had the feeling that this situation embarrassed the huge warrior almost as much as it embarrassed her. It was that feeling that made her bite her tongue instead of demanding to know if he was being a pervert. Clearly he was strong enough to take advantage of her any time he wanted and just as clearly, that wasn’t what he wished. He didn’t want to hurt or embarrass her—this was somehow necessary.
“All right,” she said at last, taking a deep breath. “Here goes.”
Grasping the stretchy lace neck of her nighty, she pulled it out and peeled it down, bringing it just under her extremely full breasts. As she did she brushed one of her nipples with her hand and gave a sharp little cry of pain. Damn, that hurt! And she had barely touched herself!
“Are you all right?” Tragar was looking at her with concern and Emily was surprised to see he was looking at her face rather than her naked breasts.
“Yeah, I just—I had that sharp pain again when I barely touched myself. I just don’t know what’s going…” Her words trailed off as she looked down at her chest again, examining herself more closely. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “What the hell? My boobs are huge. And the nipples are all weird and puffy.”
It was true. Along with her breasts, her areolas seemed to have grown as well. They had been the size of quarters before—now they were bigger than silver dollars. Also, they were a much darker pink than usual and strangely puffed up—almost swollen. Her nipples were tight, erect points that poked out like exclamation points from the tips of her breasts, as though to emphasize how strangely obscene the whole situation was.
“So this is not your normal appearance?” Tragar asked, breaking her horrified contemplation of her new breasts.
“No…no of course not!” Emily looked up at him. “I mean just look at me! This isn’t normal for anyone who isn’t shooting an X-rated film about giant breasts!”
“They are larger but not out of proportion for your body,” he offered.
Emily scowled. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re failing miserably. This is just so weird. I mean, how could this happen all of a sudden?”
He shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling. “It’s part of Scintil. I just hope you are in the early stages yet.”
“Well can’t you tell by looking?” she asked.
The big Kindred frowned, looking uncomfortable again.
“Not exactly, no. As I said, there is a…test to be preformed.”
“I thought looking at them was the test. What kind of test are we actually talking about?” Emily looked at him warily.
“We must determine if your nectar is flowing or not.” He sighed and ran a hand through his long, black hair. “Your nipples must be pinched to see if they are producing or not.”
“My what is flowing? And producing what?” Emily shook her head. This was just getting worse and worse. An unknown biological process she barely knew anything about was taking her over, changing her body completely in strange and frightening ways and there seemed to be nothing she could do about it.
It was like getting her period again back when she was a kid but this time to the tenth power. To say she felt like her body was betraying her was an understatement. “What are you talking about?” she demanded.
Tragar sighed. “During Scintil the Khalla’s breasts fill with sweet nectar. In the early stages it remains within her breasts. In the later stages it begins to flow which signals that she will soon be moving into the third stage or Vlammen.”
“So…you want me to squeeze my nipples and see if anything comes out?” Emily demanded.
He nodded. “Essentially.”
“Well…” She shook her head. “God, this just keeps getting weirder and weirder. I keep thinking it’s all a nightmare and pretty soon I’m going to wake up.”
“This is no dream.” Tragar’s deep voice was sharp. “You cannot afford to let yourself believe that, Emily. What is happening to you is very real and potentially very deadly. I’m sorry to ask you to make this test but it’s important to know where we stand…to try and see how much time we have left.”
“Time before what?” she whispered, almost afraid to ask.
“The final stage when…” Tragar shook his head. “Never mind. Just, please…make the test.”
“Fine.” Cupping one of her new, larger breasts in her hands, Emily took her right nipple between her thumb and forefinger but before she even started to squeeze a horrible jolt of pain speared through her. “Ouch!” she gasped, pulling her hand away as though she’d been stung. “What t
he hell? I’m so sensitive. I barely touched myself but it feels like I just poked myself with a red-hot needle!”
Tragar didn’t look surprised. “It is part of Scintil—the Khalla is unable to touch the private areas of her own body. She must rely on her chosen mate to help her instead.”
“What?” Emily demanded, incensed. “You knew it was going to hurt when I touched myself but you told me to do it anyway?”
“I had to let you find out for yourself.” He looked at her blandly. “How would it have sounded if I told you right away that you needed a male’s touch and not your own? Would you have believed me?”
Emily had to acknowledge that he had a point. But still, that had hurt.
“Well all right,” she muttered. “But what am I supposed to do? I don’t have a, uh, chosen mate.”
“No, but you do have a male of your own species to help.” He looked at her soberly. “I believe that my touch with not be painful to you—your body should recognize me and respond to me as though I was your chosen mate—though I clearly am not.”
“So…you want to perform the test?” She looked apprehensively at his huge hands. As big as her breasts had suddenly become, she was certain he would still be able to palm her full globes.
“It’s not that I want to, although touching your lovely body will certainly be a pleasure,” he rumbled. “But that I need to—to see where we stand.”
“But…” His fingers looked very long and strong and she couldn’t help remembering how her own light touch had felt like needles and knives stabbing her tender nipple. How much more painful would it be, allowing him to pinch her in that most sensitive area?
“If you’re worried that I will take advantage, please don’t be,” he murmured. “I would never—”
“It’s not that,” Emily interrupted him. “It’s that…well…how much is this going to hurt? I didn’t mind the pain when you…when you strapped me with your belt because that was the only way to get rid of the other. But this…my nipples are suddenly so sore. And letting you squeeze them…”