He gave her no warning before he laid the first stripes across her shoulders. Pain bloomed like some dark flower, spreading out from the point of contact and through the rest of her body. By the time it reached her quim, the sting had become sweetness. She drew in a breath, "One, sir," and he struck her again. Aflogger, she thought as her flesh welted. Wielded with a masterful hand, the second stripes laid below the first, two, sir.
"She takes it without a shout." Cillian's murmur tickled her ears, though he was out of her range of vision. "Make her cry out."
"In good time."
She braced unconsciously for the third strike, and it stung all the more for that tightening of her muscles. Not enough to loose more than a whimper from her throat. It was exquisite. Her clit pulsed and her hips moved forward of their own, seeking and not finding something against which to rub her swollen flesh.
The flogger fell again and again until her entire back was on fire. She hadn't moved her fingers. She counted each one aloud. By the time he reached ten she was sobbing the words. He'd stopped before reaching her tender buttocks.
"She's not even close to having enough," said Cillian authoritatively. "Edward. She can take more."
She felt heat on her already burning skin, and a hand slid between her legs from behind. She moaned, pushing back against it. Fingers stroked her, found the bead of her clit and pinched it gently so her entire body jumped. Breath caressed her cheek.
"This arouses you," Edward whispered. "You are so wet, I could slide inside you without any effort, all the way to your womb."
He demonstrated with his fingers, thrusting gently in and out. Nessa shook in waves of pre-orgasmic pleasure. She would come in another moment, if he moved a finger over the ripe bud of her clitoris, but Edward knew how to hold her off.
"Cillian thinks you can take more. Can you, Stillness? Can you take more from me?" Eyes closed, she ran her tongue across her lips before answering. ! "I can give you more, Edward."
Tenderly, he smoothed her hair and rearranged it so the heavy I braid hung over her shoulder and across her breasts. Then he moved away from her, and chill air replaced the warmth of his ; breath.
She did cry out at the next blow; her body had had time to acclimate to the pain it had already absorbed. This fresh insult over-r top the previous stripes was more excruciating and all the more E exquisite for it. She tasted the tang of salt, tears and sweat, and pain !
exploded on her back and ecstasy burst inside her womb as he laid j another series of stripes over the first.
Oblivion beckoned, and she embraced the stillness for which she'd been so appropriately named. Everything went away but for the hiss of leather in the air, the slap of it on her skin, the smooth workings of her inner muscles as her body responded. She heard Edward's grunt, and Cillian's low murmurs of approval. She heard them talking about her, admiring, praising, two voices rising and falling as the crop rose and fell, but she didn't pay attention to what they said. She was aware she counted, as she'd been ordered, but couldn't be sure if her voice cracked or whispered, only that each time a new line of pain seared her, she saw Edward's face.
Her orgasm surged and retreated, flaring with every strike. Her fingers didn't move. She was coming, over and over, deep in that place where everything had become pleasure, r She heard the low rumble of laughter, sated, and smelled the l musky scent of semen. Not Edward. Cillian, then, had finished, and she moaned, waiting for Edward to fill her as heel promised to I do.
"You've beaten the breath fair out of her." Cillian sounded amused. "Fuck the cunna before she passes out, Edward—"
And then it all went bad.
This time the crack of leather on flesh didn't result in pain. The cry wasn't hers. Edward shouted something, voice tight with fury, and Cillian replied. Stillness heard the crunch of fists on bodies, and she whirled in alarm.
Edward, bare chest agleam with the sweat of his exertions, had knocked Cillian to the floor. He'd fisted his hand in the other man's collar, holding him still while he punched at his face. Bright blood streamed from the prince's lip, and she saw the red slash of a flogger's kiss on his cheek.
"Edward!" she cried.
He didn't turn. Cillian, quite capable of defending himself, yanked Edward down with a calculated move. The men, punching and shouting, rolled on the floor. She thought they might be trying to kill each other
"It's your breath that should be stoppered, you foul-mouthed prick!" Edward shouted, punching. "You won't speak of her that way!
Cillian wasted none of his apparently ill-deserved breath in insults. He dodged Edward's punches and landed a few of his own. Stillness shouted at them both again, but neither paid her any mind. Leaving the fracas, she went to Edward's privy chamber and brought a basin of water, which she threw over both of them.
They flew apart, cursing and dripping. She tossed the basin to the floor, where it clattered loudly. Then the world tilted a bit again, and she reached for the support of the back of Edward's chair.
Both men got to their feet, glaring, fists clenched, but well apart from one another. Cillian drew the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing crimson upon his lips like an overabundant application of cosmetic. "Your mercy, Edward. I didn't know—" But Edward wasn't appeased. "No more, Cillian! No more of this! No more serving you, no more pandering, no more living my life beneath the shadow! I won't have it!"
"I never asked it of you!" Cillian's cry was sharp as a blade. "I only ever wanted your companionship, Edward, for things to be the way they were before—"
"They can never be! Don't you understand? We can't go back! And I won't go on with this lie, yielding to your whims, doing whatever pleases you out of fear!" "I don't want you to be afraid of me!" In the silence left behind after the shout, the sound of dripping water seemed very loud. "I never did. It was my father who bade you attend me, my father who threatened you. I lied for you, Edward, because you were the brother of my heart, and I loved you. And you have ever hated me since."
Stillness didn't know what to do. She looked from the prince to her patron and back again, but Edward's fierce pose prevented her from going to him. Wherever he was, it was a place she couldn't go.
Cillian reached a hand toward him, but Edward turned away Cillian turned toward Stillness, his vivid green gaze bloodshot. The blood from his mouth had drawn a line down his throat and stained the pristine collar of his fine shirt. The welt on his cheek was already going purple.
"Your mercy lady," said Cillian. "Serve him well, for he is in sore need of what you are bound to provide."
Helplessly, Stillness watched as Cillian left the room, not looking back. Edward's shoulders hunched, and she watched, horrified, as he went to his knees, head cradled in his hands, and began to weep.
She went to him, and took him to her bosom, heedless of the agony in her back when he clutched her with the desperation of a man who has no hope of ever finding peace.
"Hush," she soothed, stroking his hair over and over. "It will be all right." We were boys," Edward told her as they lay together in his bed. "Alaric and I the sons of merchants aspiring to nobility and friends since boyhood, but Cillian, of course, the son of a king. I saw Cillian right away, for how could anyone miss him. That hair, the swagger, his sense of innate right to the best of everything." Edward smiled at the memory. "He was instantly loathed by most of the other lads, though none dared balk him. There were other rich boys there, but no other princes. He had many admirers."
"But no friends," she murmured. "Until you."
"The day I found him as part of a group teasing Alaric about the shabby condition of his best cloak, I punched him in the face for being a snotty bastard." Her chuckle sent warm breath over him. "And that's how you became friends?"
"Nobody had dared stand up to him before that. At any rate, the day I bloodied his nose, Cillian declared me his boon companion, along with Alaric. And the three of us discovered we had much in common besides our nationality."
"Your inclin
ations." Her hand smoothed and stroked, smoothed and stroked.
"Yes. By the time we were ten and eight, we'd discovered the lure of doxies to be had for a few coins and eager to serve those such as us. We took them together, sometimes. The one who introduced us to it called herself Lady Gentia, and I think we were all mostly in love with her. Or at least in awe, for she was easily twice as broad as any of us and more than a head taller."
This made her giggle again.
"She took the crop to Alaric's back when he displeased her. Then to each of ours."
"But you enjoyed employing the punishment rather than receiving it." Even now, his balls tightened at the memory of how it had felt, that first time. Watching the skin turn color and grow warm beneath his hand. Hearing the woman cry out, but not begging him to stop. Begging for more. How she'd tasted, like sweet honey, as she writhed beneath him.
"Cillian and Alaric had become the brothers of my heart, but Cillian was the one who knew best how I felt. Alaric joined our escapades but he cared less for them than we did. And his school-work called him, for though Alaric is clever of wit, he struggled with lessons.
"Cillian was the one who urged us to greater adventures, but I was more than willing to follow. Nothing seemed too debauched to try, not when Lady Gentia's girls were all well trained and eager for it."
His heart skipped at the memories of how it had been. Nights of sexual excess, of slick bodies, hot mouths, tight, wet cunts. How he'd spent himself inside one after the other, Cillian often at his side while they rode whore after whore.
"It was Cillian who bound her and he who put the ribbon round her throat, but I was the one who rode her when she suffocated and died."
He closed his eyes at the memory. "She had told us how stifling the breath led to greater orgasms. She gave us the ribbon and bade us put it around her throat, told Cillian to pull it tighter as I fucked her. We thought she was just. . ." He faltered, cold sweat washing over him at the recollection. "We didn't know it had gone too far until it was too late. We never even knew her name."
He shuddered, and Stillness's hands were there again, rubbing his skin.
"We thought we were men. But we weren't. There was to be an investigation. The penalty for murder, even accidental, is death by hanging."
She murmured against him and kissed his neck. He stroked her hair, drawing strength from her.
"Cillian said he'd been the one to do it. That I had naught to do with it. He said I'd drunk too much worm and passed out. He took the blame for me, entirely, and I was released from responsibility."
"But he wasn't hanged."
"No. He was sent to an asylum. His father had enough influence and money to do that for him." He laughed, bitterly and ashamedly. "He lied for me, and I let him. I finished my schooling and came back to take my place in society while Cillian went to a house for madmen. And he came out more than a little mad, himself. His father, who perhaps knew more of the situation than he'd ever let on, made a place for me in his court. I would be Cillian's watchdog, guarding him against future accidents. He was my responsibility. My burden. My reminder of what happened when desire was left to run unchecked." She propped herself up to look into his face. "But you blamed yourself."
"For the girl's death, aye. For his madness, certainly. And yet I could do nothing but be what his father had bade me become, his hovering angel. His restraint. I couldn't look at him without remembering what had happened, nor what he'd done for me. There are rumors he'll not be allowed to take the throne because of his madness. That no good monarch will troth his daughter to him, for fear of gaining insane grandchildren."
"Do you think he blames you for that?" Her soft words made him shake his head.
"No, the bastard never did." He smiled, looking up into her face. "He has ever been the Cillian of our youth, impetuous, smart, and just this side of dangerous. It was I who changed."
She bent to kiss his mouth, softly. "Your sorrow has faded, but you can never stop grieving."
He nodded, relieved to have found someone at last who understood. She took his hand and put it on her breast, where the nipple immediately sprang to life. Her next kiss was deeper, urging his lips to part.
"We are lock and key," she whispered against him. "I need what you give. You need never hold back with me, Edward, for I can take what you give." She reached between them and took his cock, stroking it to life. He echoed her sigh as she straddled him and pushed him inside her. She kissed him again, harder, with lips and teeth and tongue. He breathed in. She breathed out.
She rode him slowly at first, leaning over to kiss him, or to allow him to suckle her nipples. Edward pressed his thumb to her clit, rubbing as she rode him. At last she sat up straight, head thrown back in ecstasy, and the glory of her hair tumbled down all around them. He lost himself in her. The sight, the touch, the smell, and something deeper. Something that couldn't be touched or seen or smelled, but something inside him. It broke him open, and he gasped with it, at the sudden pretty pain of realization.
"I love you," he gasped as their bodies joined their release. Stillness looked down at him, her dark eyes wide and her lips curved in joy. "I love you, too."
And there it was. The moment of utter, perfect solace. He had found it with her, and he cried her name as she answered with his, and together they found a place where the thorns of grief had no room to prick them.
She didn't have much to pack. A small case of clothes and personal items. The letters of finance that would assure the transfer of her personal monies to her new residence. It took her only moments to gather it all, and Stillness looked around the room that had been her home with a small sigh at the thought of the journey ahead.
"Are you ready?"
The voice from the doorway made her turn, and she smiled. "Yes, Edward. I'm ready." The man she loved smiled, too, and held out a hand. "The carriage is waiting." She went to him and took the hand he offered, laughing when it pulled her close for a kiss.
"Will you regret leaving?" he asked her, pulling away to gaze at her with serious eyes. Stillness looked once more around the room the Order had assigned her. She turned back to kiss him again. "No," she said when she pulled away. "No, my love, I don't regret leaving here. Not when it means going home with you."
"Come then," said Edward. "Let's go home."
"If it pleases you," Stillness said.
Edward reached to cup her cheek. "It pleases me greatly." Indeed, it pleased them both, she thought as they left the room without bothering to close the door behind them. And that was the best sort of solace to be had at any time.
Honesty
Chapter 9
The lamps had been lit, the fire stoked, the wine poured. Cillian had tied fresh lace at his wrists and throat and worn his finest waistcoat. Now all he had to do was wait.
"Sinder's Blessed Balls," Cillian gritted out, pacing. "Where is she?" Alaric looked up from the chair in which he lounged, wine in hand and feet propped carelessly on the ottoman. "I'm sure she's on her way. Perhaps a delay at the station—"
"I had my man posted at the bedamned station. If there was a delay with any of the trains, I'd have been informed as swift as that." Cillian snapped his fingers to demonstrate his utter power.
Alaric raised a brow, too foolish even to make a pretense of being impressed. That was, Cillian reflected sourly, the bane of having a bosom companion who knew you too well. Alaric thought he didn't need to fawn. Thank the Holy Family, Cillian had plenty who did, else he'd have been put even more sorely out of sorts.
Alaric got up, set his wine aside, and embraced Cillian to rub the back of his neck beneath the clubbed braid. "Hush. She'll be here."
Cillian relaxed only a moment into the touch before shrugging it off. Every muscle tensed, every inch of his skin prickled with the thorns of his anticipation. It had been weeks already since he'd been granted the word his application for a Handmaiden had been approved. A full fortnight since he'd had the letter stating she'd arrive on this evening's la
st train to Pevensie Station. He should've ordered another train. He would've, had he the power to do so, but even his father the king would've been hard-pressed to change the running of the trains.
"She's late," he said flatly. "I'm most displeased." Alaric, for all he was a fool, was also a very good friend. He crept close again, this time to rub Cillian's shoulders. Cillian allowed Alaric to push him into a chair and hand him a glass of sweet red wine before he dug again into the knots in Cillian's neck and back.
"She'll be here. The Order said she'd come. They don't lie." Cillian groaned, tilting his head to allow Alaric to get at the sorest spots. "By the Void, Alaric, I'm half mad with the waiting."
Alaric chuckled low, and bent to kiss the top of Cillian's head before taking his own chair and cup again. "You're half mad from many things, my prince. You can't blame the waiting."
"I could have you thrown in gaol for saying so."
Alaric's eyes gleamed, and Cillian's jaw tightened again at the sight of his friend's unflappable good humor. But he couldn't stay angry with Alaric for long, not when the fool was Cillian's dear friend. His only dear friend, since Edward had refused even the king's command to come to court. He'd abandoned Cillian entirely this past sixmonth.
"She'll be here, Cilly."
"Don't call me that. That prat Persis thought to make a pet of me with that name." Alaric understood him only half as well as Edward ever had, but it proved to be enough.
"And you are nobody's pet."
"Indeed. More wine."
Cillian held out his cup, and Alaric filled it, and together they drank in silence, each taken up with the importance of his own thoughts until Cillian could take it no longer and leaped to his feet once more. He drained his glass, and in a fit, tossed it into the fire where it didn't have the grace to shatter nicely but cracked and scattered the drops to make the fire sizzle. Even that would insist on balking him?