“Bryn! Please!”
The cry came not from the monster who destroyed evil men, but from the girl she had once been. But it was not loud enough yet. It was a little crack of light peering through an overwhelming veneer of darkness, and that crack was sealed shut almost as quickly as it opened. She would not submit to Bryn. She would not be small for him again. That time had passed. She was a woman now, in every sense of the word. She was agile and she was dangerous. She was empowered, and no mere whipping could take that from her.
“You are not his!” Bryn hissed. “You are mine!”
He was speaking to her, but Hail did not feel as though the words were being directed at her. He was speaking to the shadows which were crawling up the walls with the end of day and the sinking of the sun. Every time the lash landed, her burning, punished flesh was the incidental target. She had become the whipping girl for the Dark. Her master was doing battle with the entity behind her, beneath her, the one who had claimed her and whose essence flowed through her veins in a dark river.
She wailed because it was in her nature to cry when thrashed. But that did not mean she was sorry, or that she was intending on being obedient to this man. Bryn was weak, to her mind. He wanted her to be weak too. She refused.
“Let her go!” Now Bryn was addressing the Dark directly, but the mocking creature was not there. The shadows were empty, and so were Bryn’s actions. He was nothing more than a desperate man taking his shortcomings out on the flesh of a woman. He was just like the ones she had hurt, and as the lash landed one more time, imparting that humiliating sting, she thought it might not be so terrible if she turned on him.
The lash did not find her cheeks again. It hit empty bed as she rolled to the side and leaped at Bryn, her fingers held like claws, her mouth open, teeth bared like a wild animal. The sound which emerged from her throat was beyond feral. Now the Dark was there with her. Now it empowered her.
Bryn cursed and caught her, his big hands wrapping around her slim wrists. She slashed at him with her teeth and raked at him with her hands until he forced her down on her back, pinning her beneath him. His big, masculine body loomed over hers, full of virile threat. They were both panting from exertion, love and hate combined into something more potent than either.
“What are you beating me for, Bryn? Is it to punish me? Or to punish yourself? What do you think this will do? Or do you think you have to beat me because that’s what you think you should have done? It’s too late, Bryn. I am lost to you.”
“You were lost. Now you are found. I whip you because you are mine, and because I know you, Hail. I know you will resist me, and I know without pain you are nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You seek pain. I made your life soft and easy. You were loved. Even adored. The others knew that you held a special place in my heart. There was jealousy. Always. Of you. And in the end, of course, it was you who broke my heart. Three long years, I have mourned you. The others too.”
“Elise looked right through me.”
“She wouldn’t recognize you.”
“Why not?”
“Because Elise is part of this world in a way you no longer are. She sees you, she just doesn’t recognize you. It’s the taint of the Dark. It’s the consequences of your actions. One of many. I wish you had listened to me.”
She squirmed against the bed, the flaring pain in her ass a reminder that this incarnation of Bryn knew her a little better than before. This one would hurt her.
Somehow, that calmed her. She settled and became peaceful again.
“You beat me, Bryn.”
“Barely.” He reached out to caress her cheek, his eyes kind. “I will do so much worse when the time comes.”
“What will you do?”
“Whatever it takes.”
She felt another chill of excitement. He meant every word of that. He would hurt her, and that she found intriguing. Far more interesting than him telling her to behave over and over, and her refusing, over and over. That was a loop they had played before, too many times, and to no useful end.
He tipped her face up toward his, one finger beneath her chin. She felt his breath on her face. Her eyes locked on his lips. Those lips had kissed her forehead as he tucked her into bed, once. They had censured her as a naughty whelp. Now they parted and fresh words, new words, met her ears.