Chapter 6 Lex
Lex
The pounding in my head woke me first, followed by the throbbing in my neck.
I groaned, but the sound hurt my ears, so I stopped.
“Lex? Lex, are you awake?” The concerned voice was familiar and warm. Like honeyed whiskey.
Who would be worried about me?
I groaned again, and the throbbing in my skull only intensified.
“Can one of you help him?” The voice was angry now.
Not angry at me, I realized.
At someone else in the space.
“No, no. It’ll wear off in a minute. We have to alert Lord d’Refan,” a raspier voice sounded from somewhere far away before a door opened and closed with a snap, causing my head to pulse again.
I felt a warm palm stroke my forehead with a loving caress, and I leaned into the touch. Or tried to. My head was still restrained.
I mumbled something incoherent and felt the tight leather give way on my forehead, the pain from the strap instantly replaced by a warm, calloused palm.
Gradually, with each stroke of the kind hand, I felt my headache subside, and my body turned to jelly. After a period of time, the stroking on my forehead ceased, and I creased my brow in annoyance.
I heard a chuff of a deep laugh before I felt the straps pinning my arms, chest, and legs to the table give way, and the hand returned to my face. Large fingers smoothed away the lines in my forehead and between my eyebrows.
Pain receded, and I felt my mind drift into a space of peace and comfort. The repeated motion of the warm hand pulled me under, into sleep.
“Rest, brother. Rest,” the honeyed voice said, and I instantly obeyed.
I’d follow that voice anywhere.
I woke all at once. This time, to a lack of pain, thankfully.
My limbs were loose, and I felt more refreshed than I had in a relatively long time. I vaguely remembered the feeling of a thick palm against my forehead and the deep timbre of a voice I recognized, but the memories were fleeting and faded. Like a wispy haze I had no business attempting to catch.
“Good, you’re awake. Lord d’Refan is here,” the gravely voice of the elderly man rasped through the space, and I pulled my eyes open.
The other two once-occupied beds were empty, the men in robes conspicuously absent.
The only people who remained were myself, the old man, Rohak, and Lord d’Refan.
The latter two stood together against the farthest wall but seemed to ignore each other.
Instead, Lord d’Refan’s unnerving black eyes focused on me, even as his pupils shook.
He looked so much like Rohak it was almost uncanny.
But where if found warmth and love in Rohak’s eyes, I only saw cold calculation and intelligence in Lord d’Refan’s. I shivered involuntarily.
Lord d’Refan seemed to catch the motion and he smiled, though his grin was more of that of a predator rather than of humor or friendship.
“Lex d’Talionis. We meet again,” his silky voice carried through the space easily.
I nodded, unsure of what to say.
The last time we met, I was naked and trying to escape the Academy. I’d been conscripted into service within his army after that meeting, which only heightened my uneasiness.
“How do you feel?” he asked as he strode to my bedside.
“Uhm. Fine?” Lord d’Refan quirked a brow at my less than confident answer, and I cleared my throat in response. “Fine, sir.”
“That’s good. Most are extremely tired and unable to move for nearly forty-eight hours after injection and sample removal. You’ve recovered in less than five.” His words were factual but carried an edge of intrigue.
Again, I struggled with something to say in response.
“That’s . . . good.” I rubbed the pins and needles out of my hands as Lord d’Refan perched on the edge of my bed. The pose was completely undignified for someone of his station, but something in the way he moved and spoke told me that propriety didn’t matter a lick.
“It is. You’re quite extraordinary, Lex.
Did you know that? Of course you didn’t.
” He continued to talk without giving me the opportunity to speak.
“The son of a pleasure house whore. Father unknown. Found on the streets near death. What a . . . happy coincidence that General d’Alvey was able to find you and bring you here that day. ”
Again, I said nothing, unable to tear my gaze away from the man on my bed.
“Each of my unAwakened soldiers goes through this same test. It’s standard procedure, as I’m sure General d’Alvey told you.
We test for a variety of things—communicable diseases, possible genetic abnormalities, blood type.
And, most importantly, your blood’s affinity.
Did you know that our Magical Experiments department can test for that?
” I shook my head at his rhetorical question.
“It’s amazing, really, what they’ve been able to come up with.
Astounding. Groundbreaking. Would you like to know what you tested as? ”
Glee shone in his eyes and coated his words.
I nodded my head mutely.
“Pleasure,” he said simply.
“I could have told you that, Lord d’Refan. My mother was a relatively powerful Pleasure Mage,” I said, and Lord d’Refan roared with laughter.
I wasn’t quite sure what was so funny in my statement, but I laughed along anyway.
“My dear boy. Yes, we all could have predicted Pleasure. But your test indicated a high potential for a second affinity.”
I cocked my head at his admission, something like a dream just out of reach niggled at the back of my mind.
“Pain,” he said with a maniacal grin. “You have the potential to carry the affinity for Pain. Which means, after some . . . training. You could be able to wield both affinities. Not just Pleasure Magic. But Pleasure and Pain.”
My eyebrows hit my hairline at his admission. The room was silent.
“I . . . carry both? Is that normal?” My voice shook against my will at the question.
Lord d’Refan set one of his hands on my knee and squeezed. I’m certain he meant the motion to be comforting, but it only made me feel trapped.
“No,” he stated simply. “Not at your current levels. But I know of ways to coax both to the surface.”
I gnawed hard on my lip, my focus still on Lord d’Refan’s hand on my knee.
“And, you’d like to try that with me?”
A second maniacal grin spread across Lord d’Refan’s face at my question.
“Smart boy,” he said as he patted my leg before rising from the bed. “In short, yes. I want to try and coax both to the surface.”
I glanced at Rohak behind Lord d’Refan, but couldn’t make out his expression from this far away. Lord d’Refan and the elderly man, however, looked almost hungry.
“I don’t have much of a choice, do I.”
Lord d’Refan laughed again.
“No, you really don’t.”
My shoulders sank a bit at his admission.
“But think of the elevation in rank you’ll receive for this. Not just a Mage in my army, but a commander of your own battalion. An increase in pay. In freedom.”
The last two had me perking up. An increase in pay meant I could send money home to my brothers and sisters, hopefully get them out of my mother’s clutches in the brothel. Freedom meant I could maybe, eventually, choose what I wanted to do, rather than what I needed to do.
I felt myself nodding before my brain caught up to my decision.
“Wonderful,” Lord d’Refan purred as he strode toward one of the four doors on the opposite wall. “We start now.”
With that, he opened a door, expecting me to follow.
This third room was cavernous—larger than the last two rooms combined ten times over.
And it was full of beds.
Tables really, as, like the last room, there were no linens or mattresses.
My steps immediately halted once I entered the room, my gaze drawn everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Aside from the sheer size of the room, my eyes registered the light first.
Orbs shone brightly on the walls and were embedded within the ceilings. The entire space was bright enough that there were no shadows within any corners of the room. The black obsidian stone practically shone in the light, so unlike what I was used to seeing in the rest of the Academy.
The noise hit second.
A blend of familiar noises created a cacophony of sound that echoed off the high ceilings and stone walls.
The low moans of men and women in the throes of passion, and some pain, morphed together.
The slick sound of skin slapping skin and the telltale slurping noise of a mouth around a cock.
When one stopped, another began, creating a continuous soundtrack that ambled throughout the space.
My gaze immediately snapped to the men and women strapped to the tables. Each was secured in the same fashion as I was mere hours ago—a strap across the forehead, one across the chest and upper arms, and a third across the top of the thighs.
The biggest difference, though, was that my legs and feet hung straight from my body. Here, men and women alike had their legs spread wide, their position held by cuffs and chains at the very end of the table.
The reasoning was immediately clear, causing even me—a boy who grew up in a pleasure house—to blush.
Bare-assed men thrust into the open pelvises of those stretched out on the tables, the muscles flexing in their backs, shoulders, and butts with each thrust. Women balanced on top of tables, their bare pussies exposed to the rest of the room as they glided up and down the dicks of men on the table.
I glanced down the row and noticed both men and women deep throating cocks and eating pussy, the legs of the recipients shaking in ecstasy as they came.
One man even had a woman on his cock while another man thrust deep into his ass. He groaned loudly, his sounds resounding higher than those around him.
Two men in black robes, the same I’d seen in the previous room, rushed to the table at the noise, clutching small instruments that glinted in the light.