“Yes,” leaves my lips before I think better of it.
She kneels before me and begins to unlace my boots. With the utmost gentleness, she pulls them off and sets them aside. I begin to work on the laces on the front of my dress, shifting my weight off my hip. As I do, I catch sight of the pouch Renault gave me, lying innocuously on the pew by my leg.
On our walk to this very chapel, Nyatrix directed me to several pitch-black crevices where I could’ve thrown it. But I couldn’t—because I’m weak, because I thought he was my friend and then I watched him die, because I need to know what’s inside. So now, with a fuller belly and my thirst quenched, I abandon the laces of my dress and open the pouch.
A small, elegant square of parchment with delicate calligraphy—a verse of the Catechisma about how new brides are to serve our husbands the same way we serve the Church.
At my feet, Nyatrix stills, her attention razor-sharp, though she says nothing. I reach back into the pouch, my fingers brushing something leathery. Confused, I pull it free, only to find I’m holding my flail by one of its knotted leather strings, the material stained with my blood.
Revulsion floods every inch of me, and I toss the flail down onto the pew with a feral howl, not unlike the Godwinds outside. I yank my hand away from it, clutching it to my chest as though I’ve been burned.
“Is that...” Nyatrix trails off, understanding dawning on her expression. She meets my gaze, taking in my heaving chest, my face probably pale and tight, looking like a stupid child terrified of a simple object.
“Yes,” I manage, the word hoarse and brittle.
Something in the depths of her eyes darkens, like a storm rolling in. “No,” she says simply, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “No more of this. No more of your pain for the sake of a man’s pleasure, his dominance, his ambition. No.”
In fervent movements that lack her usual lithe grace, she grabs both of my hands. “Ophelia, I want to do something for you. But I want it to be foryou. And that means that if you don’t like anything, anything at all, you tell me to stop. And I’ll stop immediately. You don’t need to explain why.”
I stare at her, my mind racing, heart throwing itself against the cage of my ribs. “All right,” I manage, unsure.
“You have to promise that you’ll tell me to stop,” Nyatrix says, her fingers closing around my wrists, eyes wild.
“I promise,” I whisper.
She releases me and settles back on her haunches, wolf-like. “Then go to your bedroll,” she says, picking up the flail, “and lie down on your back.”
Chapter 32
Ihesitate, my pulse fluttering. I watch as Nyatrix does nothing, says nothing. She just holds still—like she’s waiting to see what I want. Her fingers run down the handle of the flail with a delicacy that makes me shiver. Madness or sin or probably both drive me to pick up my cane and move to my bedroll, where I do as she commands.
“Are you comfortable?” Nyatrix asks, coming to kneel beside me. “With your back?”
“Yes,” I tell her, a little surprised myself. But the bedroll is padded and the pain that pulsed through me is replaced by something else entirely, drum-like and irresistible.
She nods and settles back, placing the flail down beside me. “Just ask me to stop and I will,” she repeats.
My mind wheels and I nod, my tongue too big in my mouth, the pounding between my legs reaching a fever pitch I swear I canhear.
Then the Lupa Nox bends over me and begins to unlace the front of my dress. I watch her, pulse fluttering in my throat, my breath quickening. After only a few moments, she pulls my wool gown down over my legs and drapes it on the pew, leaving me in my corset and shift.
Then Nyatrix takes the flail and runs the knotted leather ends along my arm, soft as anything. Gooseflesh breaks out across my body, and I tremble, pulling in a deep, sharp breath. I watch with wicked gratification as her eyes dip to my straining bust. She continues her path, the flail kissing my collarbones.
“Do you like that?” she breathes, her blackberry mouth moving in the lamplight.
“Yes,” I whisper as she guides the flail down the center of my chest.
When she comes to my corset, Nyatrix pauses, her gaze on mine. “Tell me to stop,” she says, her breath catching as she begins to unlace my corset with one hand, the other caressing my arm with the flail tips.
I am all trembling flesh and forbidden desire, the door to my inner room opening. But instead of folding myself up inside, something I thought long dead strides from the chamber, resurrected and renewed.
“I don’t want you to stop,” I tell the Lupa Nox, the words hitching when she folds my corset back from either side of my rib cage. I am yet again bare to her, dressed in nothing but my shift and underthings.
Her mouth moves into an expression that sends fire racing down from my breastbone to the place between my thighs, and she trails the leather cords to my chest. Carefully, with the same kind of precision she wields a blade, Nyatrix runs the flail over my already-pebbled nipples. Pleasure soars in me, and I gasp, my back arching.
“Lovely,” she murmurs, a rich color rising to her cheeks. “Just lovely, Ophelia.”
“Don’t stop,” I whimper, just in case.
