33. Chapter 29
Chapter 29
Raven
I was flying. The thermals that held up my wings were the sensations swelling, rising and falling in my body as Caelan played with me like his little toy. The pain had grown big enough to force out thought. I no longer knew my own name. I knew only his name. I remembered only the words to say to beg for more.
They tumbled from my lips as blood droplets rolled down my chest and stomach in neat lines. The dungeon air tickled my open wounds, sharp as cold breath on raw flesh. My thighs felt hot and thick where he’d whipped them. My legs shook from the effort of standing and I felt grateful for the chains that held me up. I could have kissed them in gratitude, debasing myself without loss of pride, if Caelan had told me to.
But right now, it was something else he wanted.
I’d seen the moment he changed. The moment his hazel eyes became cold. The hesitation had left his movements. He prowled around me like a lion around his prey, owning the small cell where he held me. Owning me . Owning every object in the room, including the thin wooden cane on the table.
Heady anticipation flooded me as he placed the bloodied knife down and lifted the cane. He whipped it experimentally; it moved so fast, it became a blur. My heart skipped a beat at the whooshing sound it made as it cut the air.
Caelan rounded on me. The grin on his face was cruel, yet somehow also full of joy. Maybe it was his eyes—the red specks in the hazel seemed to dance like sparks coming off a fire. “You ready, my little toy?”
My heart skipped another beat. I found I was more ready than I’d ever been for anything in my life. My normal walls and defenses were down, shattered by his blows. It was all I could do to nod.
The cane descended on my skin. I heard the whoosh of the air parting before I felt the hit on my thigh in the swollen, sensitive place he’d already whipped. The pain came after, bursting through me in an explosion as hot and sudden as the Mother’s Womb erupting.
There was no time to recover from one before the next blow came. Intensity swelled as the cane descended over and over, marking me with lines as hot as fire.
Caelan did not confine his blows to my thighs as he had with the whip. I never knew where the next blow would fall.
The thin wood snapped against my bleeding breast before, a moment later, stinging on my oh-so-sensitive thighs. My ribs sang the song of pain before the cane bit the trail of blood he’d carved just above my most sensitive place.
Heat pulsed beneath my skin like a throbbing beat. The rush of the cane through air preceded the flush of stinging agony that followed. I felt as though my skin were splitting open. Did the cane draw blood or did it only spread around the blood drawn by the knife? I didn’t look down to see the source of the droplets I felt trickling down my skin.
I heard myself crying out but I felt no shame. Tears leaked from my eyes and rolled down my cheeks and I could not wipe them away. I didn’t even want to.
I gave myself up to arousal and agony. The pain was a friend that welcomed me into its warm embrace with open arms. The heat of flushed skin and the molten fire of want were one and the same. They drowned me like a wave of enveloping liquid fire, turning the black dungeon cell red.
The entire world disappeared. Only the sensations of the flesh existed now. With every lash, my consciousness became smaller.
Traitor.
Priestess.
Companion.
Rosa.
Caelan hit me until I forgot everything but him. The dualities inside me disappeared. All that endured was a single question: Where and when would the next blow fall?
I watched Caelan wind up his arm. Anticipation filled my entire being.
Snap. The sound of the cane came first, and then the pain rolled in. Sharp and hot like a bee sting before it spread outward, dissipating as it traveled.
Each sharp lash felt like something new. I was a canvas and Caelan was my painter, filling me up with color. One landed along the side of my breast, beneath my armpit and I gasped, jumping. The skin there was extra sensitive. Immediately I felt it swelling, rising, growing hot.
Snap.
Another landed near my nipple and that sting was entirely new, too. An extra flare of sharp agony.
I forgot Caelan’s orders and closed my eyes, allowing my head to dip back. I disappeared entirely into the sensations. The throbbing heat that gathered between my legs and the throbbing heat of the welts on my chest and the lingering dull ache from the beating he’d given my legs.
I felt gloriously inside my body. Every piece of hot flesh belonged to me. And more…every piece of me belonged to him.
The realization shouldn’t feel right, but it did.
Then, abruptly, the sensations changed. Caelan’s hand pressed against my chest, cool palm on flushed skin. His breath teased my neck as he leaned in, curling his body against mine. It was unexpectedly tender and new tears sprang into my eyes. I had never been cradled this way before. Not one single time that I could ever remember.
“Are you alright?” he murmured. Though his words were tender, there was no masking the desire in his voice. It was deep and growly and urgent .
“Yes,” I breathed. My voice didn’t sound like me, either. It was soft and compliant, almost peaceful. The blade edge that usually made it sharp had been sheathed. I floated like a bird on a thermal.
“You did so good, baby. So good.” No mistaking the hungry wanting in his voice this time, either. He might be done beating me, but he was not done using me as his toy. Not yet.
“I’m going to release you, Eave,” Caelan said softly. His chest supported my head as his arms lifted. I felt him turning the key in the shackles and holding onto my slim arms, guiding them safely down so that they wouldn’t drop too suddenly. As if I were a delicate doll, he guided me to the floor before unlocking the cuffs around my ankles.
He sat back against the wall and I, to my surprise, found myself curled up against him in a ball. My knees were tucked up to my chest and my head rested on his heart. He still wore his court finery, though the silks were damp with his sweat. I liked the scent of it, salty and earthy like straw and fresh like open sky. As I cuddled him, my blood smeared on the rich fabrics, staining them. Caelan didn’t seem to care.
For long moments, we lay there like that. Caelan’s hand petted my head, mussing the long braid that restrained my hair. Then his touch became forceful. The pressure built on top of my head and I found myself following its direction. I sank lower and lower, until I understood.
“You didn’t think we were done, did you?”
No, I’d known we weren’t. If I could still feel shame, I might feel some at my eagerness. At how much I wanted what was about to happen. My heart was a hammer in my chest. Nervousness along with a soup of feelings including desire and a vague sensation of guilt drifted around my muddled mind.
Caelan’s hand loosened the waistband of his pants. His pants draped over his cock like a sheet; it was hard as stone.
Slowly, I reached out my hand to tug them back and set his cock free. Caelan did not move but his breathing sped up. His hand, which lay against my back, jerked.
Caelan's cock was as large as one might expect, given his unusual size, and well-shaped. I wanted to dip my head and lick around the ridge of the well-defined head, teasing him with pleasure as he’d teased me with pain.
But he would not give me the satisfaction of such power. His hand on my head pressed me down. He was gentle but insistent. I could have resisted, had I wanted to, but I didn’t. I allowed him to guide me close enough for my hot breath to make his cock jump.
I wanted to linger there, not yet touching him, teasing him with anticipation, but Caelan had other ideas. His hand pressed more firmly down on my head, guiding my lips around him.
He groaned as I took him inside me. His hand maintained its pressure, but he didn’t shove himself in deep—not yet. He gave me a chance to get used to the way his size stretched my cheeks and filled up my mouth. I experimented with rolling my tongue over his skin and was rewarded with a satisfying twitch.
He growled deep in his throat. His hand fell away from my head and power surged through me. The prince was at my mercy.
“Fuck, Eave,” he said, and I risked a glance up. Caelan was leaning against the wall with his head thrown back and his eyes closed.
I backed off his cock only to slide back down it again, deeper this time. I took as much as I could of him into my mouth. He made a small, vulnerable sound in his throat. He sounded lost.
Good.
Get lost in me, Prince Caelan. Get lost in me as I got lost in you.
I began to rise and fall on his cock, taking my time, enjoying the feel of his smooth, warm skin on my tongue. I caressed the length of him, even dipping to take his balls into my mouth and suck on them. I took him out of my mouth so that I could flick the ridge of his head with the very tip of my tongue. Then I plunged back down, pressing his cock deep in the back of my throat. His hand reappeared on my head and pressed down, keeping me there until I choked and sputtered. Only then did he let me up to breathe before shoving me back down again.
He began to fuck my face. My delicate techniques were of no use to him now; I was only a hole for him to shove into. I felt wetness and heat flooding out of me to coat my thighs as I choked and struggled to take him.
His tempo picked up and it was all I could do to keep my mouth open.
“That’s right, my little toy,” Caelan said. His voice was breathy and hard at once. He seemed lost to himself, yet still utterly in control of me. “Take it for me. That’s a good girl.”
His words spurred me on. I could do it. I could gag on him for just a little longer. I opened my mouth wider. The world narrowed again to just this—just him and the fullness of my mouth and the pressure of his desire filling the back of my throat.
His rhythm became punishing. It took all my will not to pull back. His hands helped; they held me captive.
And then, finally, Caelan groaned once more, long and drawn-out. He shoved in deep and held himself there as his warm cum shot into my mouth, filling my throat. I felt triumph at the pulsing of his cock. I felt full and warm and all used up in the most pleasant way possible as I swallowed him down.
Then I waited, breathing heavily, for him to release me. For a long moment, he didn’t. His cock began to grow soft inside my mouth and I wondered if he’d start to thrust again, letting my tongue make him hard once more. Maybe after that, he’d slide himself between my legs and fill me up in a whole new way. Maybe that’s what I wanted.
A kiss surprised me, descending on my head. Soft, gentle lips so at odds with the rough hardness of the experience we’d just shared. I slid off his cock and gazed up at him.
His face was unlike I’d ever seen it before. He was smiling, his eyes soft and warm, his expression utterly genuine. He leaned over again and planted a kiss on my forehead. A fresh wave of emotion flowed through me, but this time, it wasn’t desire. It was…tenderness? I didn’t have the right word for it; I’d never felt it before. Tears filled my eyes and I closed them so they wouldn’t fall. I was probably just emotional from the release of the pain—that sometimes happened. I had to get ahold of myself.
"Shh," he said softly. "Stay."
Yes, that was what I wanted. I laid my head down on his lap and closed my eyes. I floated in the emptiness of my mind and the hot, delicious, throbbing sensations in my body. Caelan's hand stroked my hair, absent-minded and soft. Was he, too, brought peace by what passed between us? Asking him would break the moment and so I didn't. I only laid there in his lap. Tears filled my eyes and then receded. My breathing normalized.
Caelan must've sensed the moment when his touch stopped comforting me and started to feel strange again. He was an Havard. What was I thinking?
I shifted in his lap and his hand disappeared. I opened my eyes and looked up at him to see his mask back in place. He firmly but carefully shifted me off him and laid me down on the cold stone floor. He tucked himself back into his pants and stood up, straightening his clothes.
My mind had been floating on a sea of clouds, my identity lost in the immediacy of Caelan’s sexual demands. With each breath I took without his hands on me, I remembered who I was. Where I was. And what I’d just done.
What would Farad think if he knew? Would he applaud my cleverness in bonding myself more tightly to the prince or would he condemn me for actually enjoying it? There was no denying that I had. My arousal was slippery on my upper thighs. I longed to press my fingers there and give myself release.
“You didn’t fuck me." Was that really the first thing I said to him? Was that disappointment I heard in my voice?
Caelan was already was practically presentable again. Meanwhile here I still was, naked and beaten and smelling of desire.
“You didn’t beg me.” Caelan stretched out his hand to help me up. It wasn’t the most romantic of gestures, as they go.
“Are you—are you serious?” I took Caelan’s hand and he helped me stand. My legs felt heavy and shaky. They throbbed with heat and spots felt tight where blood had dried on my skin.
“Yes. I’ll fuck you when you beg me.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. What kind of prince let his companion choose how to serve him? And yet, coming from Caelan, I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was nothing like I’d been taught a Slayer would be. He wasn’t like the other courtiers, either. He was like no one I’d ever met.
“Now stand up straight and let me see,” he said.
I straightened my spine, though my body felt stiff. The heat and pain of the beating had transformed into a heightened sensitivity. The surface of my skin felt very awake. I was aware of the touch of the moist dungeon air, though there was no breeze. If Caelan were to run just the tip of a feather down my chest, I might collapse into a puddle on the stone.
But Caelan didn’t touch me. He stepped back and studied his handiwork with cold, assessing eyes. “Good. When we get back upstairs, I’ll order a bath. Your cuts must be cleaned.”
I glanced down to see the paint he’d drawn out from beneath my skin and spread across my body. There were only a few lines that had leaked blood. Two on my chest, near the old ones from the ritual at the Mother’s Womb. One circle around my nipple. I shuddered, remembering that one. And a cut between my hips, trailing down towards my slit. The blood had dried in streaks across my body, spread around by the lashes he’d given me with the cane.
Those strikes had not bled, though they’d felt sharp enough to as I received them. They’d left narrow red marks instead, each one raised and hot. My thighs, where he’d beaten me thoroughly with the paddle and the whip, were swollen and red with pricks of blood that had risen to the surface of my skin, but not been released. I ran my hands along my skin and shivered at the feel of a thousand tiny blades pricking me. I was so sensitive, even the soft and gentle touch of my fingers felt like a knife’s edge.
“Thank you.” The words fell out my mouth without thought. I guess I was still drunk and high. Shame flushed my cheeks as I glanced up at Caelan’s face to see it frozen in shock. As I watched, the shock transformed into suspicion. A hint of vulnerability leaked back into his expression. His mouth opened and I wondered what he’d say.
But then his mouth snapped closed. “Get your dress on,” was all he said.
It was strange to be escorted into the hall and out of the Emperor’s Dungeon. Though guards had sometimes led me from place to place down here when I was a child, I was most used to walking these corridors alone. I’d been alone often, back then. Eymen preferred I stay out of sight. The fewer who noticed me, the fewer questions would be asked about where the small Touched girl had come from.
I knew these halls like the back of my own hand. I knew the secret chambers where Eymen had met me to practice fighting and teach me to read. I knew where the older women were kept, including Magna, the halfling medicine woman who’d treated a fever I had at the age of six that might have killed me. I knew where the rapists and murderers taken from inside Vaharilar were left to rot; that room, Eymen had told me never to enter. I’d disobeyed him once, and had to kill a man to get out. I was lucky that day, Eymen told me with thunder in his voice and fear in his eyes. I was fourteen cycles old when I did that; soon after, Eymen gave me to the Coterie. For a long time, I wondered if it had been a punishment. Or if he’d done it because I’d made him too afraid.
It felt right that this moment between Caelan and me had happened here, in this dungeon I once called home. This was where I’d grown up in darkness. Where I’d learned to love pain. Sometimes it was all life gave you to help you keep going. Pain, emptiness, hopelessness, loneliness—they could be relentless in a place like this. It was only by learning to feel gratitude for them that I’d survived.
Caelan’s play with me today had made me feel anything but empty. Anything but lonely. Anything but hopeless. My heart had grown so full that it overflowed, emotion spilling out from it to flood my heavy, shaking limbs with heat. Tears had welled in my eyes, and not only from the sharp sting of the cane and the cut of the knife. I’d felt close to him. Closer than I’d ever allowed myself to be with another person before. I’d felt seen.
Caelan might not know my name, but the other parts of me? The parts that belonged to no one but me—he’d seen those. I hadn’t even known they were there.
Now it wasn’t only the flesh on my chest that was raw and split open. My heart was, too. My soul was. Prince Caelan and his knife had excavated the softness that I’d tried to bury deep enough that no one could ever touch it. To that part of me, his pain was as sweet as a gentle caress.
He’s a Slayer, I reminded myself. I repeated the warning Farad had given me—I must not allow my nature to cloud my judgment.
But maybe my judgment already was clouded because Caelan being a Slayer didn’t mean the same thing to me that it had before I’d met him. Back then, I’d thought all Slayers were shells of humanity with nothing inside but cruelty and ice. Now his being a Slayer meant something almost beautiful. It meant that he could do this. Caelan Havard possessed a power over me more dangerous than any crown or sword. If I wasn’t careful, I would forget why I came here.
Yes, my judgment must be compromised if I was thinking these thoughts. When Caelan wasn’t looking, I touched my hand to my back, where the dark mark of the raven flew. I pretended its outline was raised and touchable like the welts Caelan had left on my skin. I must not forget who I was and what was important. I must not allow the desire that still pulsed with a desperate ache in my core to cloud my judgment.
But the thing was, it didn’t feel like my judgment was clouded. It felt like the clouds were finally clearing. It felt like the sky was blue for the very first time.