Fuck, everything was swimming around her. Maybe if she didn’t watch the world go by, she could keep from puking.
Spence floored it on roads they usually took slow, managing curves in an SUV like they were in a racecar.
The daylight above the trees put them into light and shadow, but Emmy kept her eyes closed and only saw the moving, changing lights through her eyelids. There was no room for thought, no space for shame or anger.Only pain.Her clit was a molten brand between her thighs, and every nerve screamednever again, never again, never again.
When they hit the city, the light patterns changed, and when she opened her eyes, buildings blurred past, but she closed them again lest her nausea took hold so she couldn’t keep it at bay.
This hadn’t been worth a hundred thousand dollars. Even a million dollars was questionable.
She got herself out of the SUV and then stood while Spence used an old-fashioned key on the outer door to get them inside.
She listened for heartbeats once inside to be damned sure no humans saw herchange, ripped the tee over her head on the way to the center of the largest room, and thenburst into dragon form, the magic ripping through her with glorious violence.
And then breathed in the world through her magnificent, giant, four-legged form. She stretched her wings out as much as possible, arched her neck, and wished she could take to the skies and blow fire, but that would need to wait for a trip to Faerie. Anddamn, could she use a conversation with her Aunt Mab about now.
“Better?” Spence asked.
“Yes. Thank you for taking care of me. I know it’s your job, but still, thank you.”
“You’re more than just the job, Emmy, and wow, you aregloriousin your dragon form. It’s suddenly obvious why you were named Emerald.”
Sapphyre’s dragon form is blue, and Hunter’s is a deeper hunter green, while she had this brilliant emerald green. She took another deep breath and asked, “How long can I stay dragon?”
He looked at his wrist. “Maybe another five or ten minutes? Do you need more time to heal?”
She shook her head. The burn was gone. Skin smooth, nerves whole. She’d wanted some time to consider things in this brain, larger and faster than her human one, but if Spence needed to get back, her human-sized brain could sort through it just as well. It might take an hour rather than five or ten minutes, but she’d get to the same place. She shook out her wings again, claws scraping the polished stone floor, stretched her body, and then shifted back tohuman, put the tee on, and padded barefoot back out to the SUV.
Spence drove at a normal pace this time, pulling out of the parking lot, and she noted they had security tailing them now.
“Will you be in trouble for leaving before security could keep up?”
“No. Special circumstance, and they weren’t far behind.” He sighed. “I have to admit, I was a little jealous of the bruises, the cane stripes, the lashes and welts from the whip. I would cherish those marks, but not the burn. I’m a masochist, but never would I want my dick burned like that. Not what he did to your clit. That’s not the kind of pain I’d ever want.”
His words landed heavy, but not cruel. Just honest.
“I know you’re aware of everything that happens in the flock, so you know I enjoy giving pain, not receiving it. I thought — naively, I now understand — that I could handle anything for forty minutes. I thought my list of hard limits kept him from…”
She sighed. “He didn’t break the rules, I just didn’t realize chemical play should be on the list. No burns should mean no burns, but he’s a damned vampire, and…” She cut herself off before she admitted her father had warned her a thousand times to always have a supernatural lawyer look over any contract she made with a supernatural older than her, and maybe two or three lawyers to look over a contract with someone ancient.
Fuck, but she hated when he was right.
“How much does Zander tell my parents about me?”
“You’d have to ask Zander any questions you have about him.”
“Kind of hard to do when he’s never around for me to ask.”
“You applied for actress status at Mordnik, but you haven’t sent in your application to be a feed-and-fuck, or more.”
It was a statement, but she knew where he was going with it. When you applied to go, you had to put yourself into one of the three categories.
She’d held off because she’d been seriously considering going as level two, but after this experience, not just no, but hell-fucking-no.
“Yeah,” she finally answered. “I was debating between the first and second because the pay difference seemed substantial, but after today, it doesn’t seem anywhere near big enough. I didn’t enjoy the cane or the whip, even before the damned capsaicin oil on my clit.”
Spence pulled into the garage, and the door closed behind them. Someone was waiting, a younger shifter Emmy recognized from the security team, tall and lanky, and she had the idea he knew more about the technology stuff than protection. He handed Spence her neatly folded clothes from the dungeon and left with a nod.
Spence handed them to her, and she slipped into the slate cargo pants while seated, then stepped out and took the tee off before donning her ice-pink thermal henley.
