The field didn’t hurt as long as he didn’t touch his shaft, but it delivered a sharp, startling zap of static shock the instant his fingers moved within six inches of his own groin. An instinctive attempt a few minutes ago to adjust the maddening pressure in his cock had resulted in a jolt that made his teeth click together.
The message was brutally clear—only she could touch him there now. His “wife.” His Mistress.
Which meant Kaitlyn would have to be the one to put the thick cock ring on him before the banquet. And later, she would have to be the one to lock him into that small, gleaming silver cage.
The thought of the ring didn’t bother Braze—it was familiar, in a dark, shameful way. His old Mistress on Yonnie Six had favored such displays, parading him before her guests with a similar band around the base of his shaft emphasizing his arousal—making him a living ornament of her power.
That memory and the shameful reminiscence of the mixture of humiliation and desire he always felt when Mistress Lovelyone had displayed him that way was a wound, but a scarred-over one.
The cage, though… that was different. It was a denial…a nullification of his desire. To be rendered physically incapable of coming, after all the stimulation he’d endured today…it was a specific kind of torment he hadn’t experienced before. Braze didn’t know how to feel about it.
One thing was certain, though—there was no way in the Seven Hells that cage was fitting over his current erection. The steel cylinder was sized for his flaccid state, and he was currently hard as a fucking iron spike. He was going to have to come at least once before it could be slipped on him.
The problem was the how. Asking Kaitlyn to do it was unthinkable. Letting her “map” him under orders was one thing—begging his charge, a Kindred Ambassador, to jerk him off was a catastrophic breach of conduct that made the nipple-sucking he’d done earlier seem like a minor transgression.
Should have just let myself come in the Wardrobe room, Braze thought ruefully.
He’d been right on the edge, his balls drawn up tight, that sweet, coiling tension in his belly ready to snap. The image of spurting hot seed all over Kaitlyn’s pretty, soft hand…of her fingers slick with his release… Goddess, the thought alone made his cock jump against the silk panel he still wore, a fresh bead of pre-cum soaking through the fabric.
He’d used every ounce of his warrior’s discipline to hold back, and now he was trapped in this endless, aching plateau.
His thoughts were cut off as the golden-liveried servant stopped before a pair of doors. They weren’t like the others they had passed—these were carved from a single, immense slab of polished obsidian, so black it seemed to drink the light from the glowing sconces on the wall. Set into the dark surface in intricate, swirling patterns were thousands of clear, faceted diamonds, catching the light and scattering it in cold, brilliant prisms across the hallway.
“Your suite, my lady.” The servant bowed deeply to Kaitlyn and then slipped away, leaving the two of them alone.
Braze looked at the diamond-studded doors.
“So this is the Black Diamond Suite,” Kaitlyn remarked. She sounded awed.
“Looks like it. You’d better let me go in first to clear it,” Braze told her.
He pushed one door open, the obsidian moving silently on hidden hinges, and entered first. As he did, his mind and body automatically shifted into threat-assessment mode, despite the screaming need below his waist.
The suite was a study in monochromatic luxury. The floors were slabs of the same polished black stone, covered in places by rugs of deepest charcoal woven with silver thread. The walls were paneled in dark, matte wood, but every molding, every piece of trim, was edged with bands of either clear crystal or more of those brilliant diamonds. Braze couldn’t tell which, but did it really matter? There was enough wealth in this one room to keep even the greediest ruler happy for life.
The sitting area held furniture upholstered in black velvet—two overstuffed chairs and a low, sleek couch crouching before the fireplace like a panther. The fireplace itself was made of raw, glittering black granite. It dominated one wall but there was no fire burning in it, which made the room feel cold and empty.
Braze moved through the archway into the bed chamber. The bed was a vast platform of the same dark wood, heaped with pillows and a duvet in shades of charcoal and slate. The headboard was a mosaic of tiny black and clear tiles, forming an abstract pattern that seemed to shift and deepen the longer one looked at it. There were metal rings at the top and sides, clearly meant for chaining or tying someone up.
Fuck—that someone would be me, he thought and tried not to think of the way Mistress Lovelyone had tied him, so long ago, before she flogged him and then stroked him, crooning in his ear,
“Good boy—don’t come yet. I know you want to come but you can’t until I tell you to.”
Braze shook his head, trying to push the memory away. Gods, it had been over twenty cycles since that happened to him—why couldn’t he forget it?
Opposite the bed, a wide archway led to the bathing chamber, and from his vantage point, Braze could see a sliver of its opulent interior. He stepped into it, searching for threats.
A current of air, faint and perfumed, curled around him, carrying the scent of mineral salts and exotic blooms. The bathing chamber was a temple of indulgence—all veined black marble so dark it was almost purple, shot through with streaks of crystalline white that glittered like frost.
The centerpiece was a sunken tub large enough for four, carved from a single, mammoth block of that same marble, its edges softened by a rim of polished jet. The faucet was a twisted silver sculpture of intertwined vines that looked more like a decoration than a practical bath fixture.
To one side of the tub stood a padded massage table, upholstered in the same black velvet as the sitting room furniture. Its surface was long and wide and a recessed shelf beneath it held a collection of crystal bottles. Each bottle contained oils of different hues—amber, pale green, deep ruby—their labels written in the elegant, flowing script.
Recessed into one wall was an enormous shower stall with multiple, gleaming fixtures. It was almost as opulent as the tub and looked big enough to fit for or five people at once.
The whole space was lit by recessed lights hidden behind more clear crystal formations, making the dark marble shine like a night river under moonlight. It was a room designed for intimate, luxurious pleasure—every sensual detail laid bare for the watching lenses he knew were embedded in the marble leaves of the wall carvings and the silver vines of the waterfall fixture.
Braze stepped back into the bed chamber. His eyes, sharper than any human’s, scanned the shadows. There—he saw a glint in the carving of a wall sconce. Another, almost invisible device, nestled in the filigree of the ceiling’s central medallion. A third peaked from behind a seemingly decorative cluster of crystal grapes on a side table.
