Mistress of Redemption (22 page)

As the pain built into a roaring

crescendo, drowning out everything

else, he began to wonder. Maybe he

was
evil… He never thought of his

very last Mistress by her given name

because it brought back images of

other things they’d shared. Things

that hadn’t been about death and

mayhem…

Stop it. That’s bullshit.
But the pain drove everything but the most

horrible possibilities from his mind.

Mac Nighthorse had not cried out, but

then the murderess had told him up

front it would be ten strikes. Mac

hadn’t been in some surreal dream of

Hell where the strikes could

conceivably fall forever, with the

torment building and building, no

oblivion promised or hoped for.

Still, Nathan took some grim

satisfaction in the fact he held out

past fifteen before he cried out, when

Dona started crisscrossing the same

open flesh. At thirty he was

screaming, his hands clenched into

hard fists as he pulled against his

restraints with enough strength to

dislocate his bones. The gargoyles

were implacable, not giving even a

millimeter of relief as it continued

and continued. He stopped wanting.

He just became a creation of pain,

wanting to pass out, knowing he

wouldn’t.

Please, Mistress. Have mercy…

How much torture could he bear for

her pleasure? To win her gentlest

touch, the kiss of her lips…

“Look at the mirrors.” Dona was

suddenly at his head, grabbing his

chin and jerking it up, making him

look. He blinked through tears,

tasting the blood of his bitten tongue.

The shadows were back, just as he

knew they would be, flirting at the

edges.

Oh God, his back and ass were in

agony, his shoulders. He was almost

grateful not to see images of himself,

because he didn’t think he could

handle seeing his back stripped of

skin. Whatever was left had to be

hanging off the altar in gruesome

ribbons. He hurt so much he wanted

to throw up, loose his bowels, but he

knew that wouldn’t happen.

The inability of his body to function

as it naturally would under extreme

duress underscored how long she

could keep doing this—forever if she

wanted to do so.

The mirrors swam with colors and

Mistress Lauren materialized in the

mirror directly in front of him.

Quietly serene and so temptingly

strong. Hair like golden wheat and

eyes like the summer sky, just like the

books said. The one that hadn’t been

in the dance crowd, because she was

different, just as Dona said.

“The others you decimated in three or

four months. You probably could

have done it sooner, if you didn’t

enjoy taunting and playing with your

prey so much. With Lauren, you had

to play the game a hundred percent

for almost a year. Couldn’t jerk 86

Mistress of Redemption

her chain the way you did with so

many others, running hot and cold

from day to day, playing with their

baggage. First time you tried, she

almost left you. So you realized to

win this round you’d have to be the

perfect sub in all ways. No gratifying

little torments.”

“No… It wasn’t like that.” His voice

was hoarse, the words clumsy with

his tongue bitten and swollen. She

pressed on, ignoring him.

“When you’d completely won her

trust, you’d break it off. Because you

couldn’t play with her until that point,

the only way to let her know what

you’d done was to do it with just the

right expression. A little smirk, an

offhand attitude. I bet you practiced

that look in the mirror for days. It had

to be clear as a stop sign. In one

blink, she’d understand that the past

twelve months of her life, the

vulnerabilities and love she’d

offered you, had meant less than

nothing. Making her feel like she was

less than nothing.”

The moment was there, all around

them. The night Lauren had told him

she

wanted more with him. Wanted it all.

The transformation as his rejection

registered.

Her disbelief, the incredible shock.

When Nathan looked at Lauren’s

face, he saw what he hadn’t seen then

in the glow of his triumph. A stricken

desolation in her expression that

made the beating he’d just taken look

like a toe-stubbing. He had stabbed

her through her soul.

No. That’s absurd, the fucking

manipulation of this place. She was

fine. I wanted…

“You didn’t know what you wanted

by that time, Jonathan. Just like an

addict, the getting became everything.

The worse your soul felt, the more

you craved to do it.

That’s why the next Mistress you

chose turned out to be a psychopathic

serial killer.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking

about,” he said hoarsely. He just

wanted those images to go away.

He’d seen it.
Fine. Take it away.

“Shut up,” Dona said mildly. The cat

twitched in her hand, making him

flinch. If she struck him again, he was

pretty sure she’d strip exposed

muscle, leave grooves in his organs.

“The soul can take only so much

bullshit before it seeks annihilation,

even if the rational mind isn’t aware

that it’s being tugged into harm’s

way. The soul is the catastrophe

center. Too many people, too much

strain on the environment, here comes

a tornado or an earthquake, not only

to reduce numbers, but to remind us

there are consequences, things bigger

than ourselves. If we create

imbalance, it will be balanced.

The S&M Killer was your tornado,

so you thought she destroyed your

life. But it was Lauren that made you

step into her path.”

The shadows took Lauren away, but

the mirrors were moving, closing in

on him like the inside of a funhouse.

Dona was behind him again,

increasing his apprehension.

“Is this Hell’s pathetic copycat

version of Dickens?” He said it

through clenched teeth. Fighting

panic. He could hear his heart

beating irregularly, responding to the

stress of the pain even if it could not

succumb to it. His fluids made him

stick wetly to the faceless, nameless

woman beneath him. He wanted her

gone too. He wanted it all gone.

87

Joey W. Hill

Dona chuckled, the sound grating on

his nerves at the evidence that he

could not shake her, even as his body

responded traitorously to the sultry

tones of her voice.

“Do you know why you hated Mac?

So much that it clouded your

judgment and landed you in prison?”

“Because he was a cop, and

bullshit.”

She lifted a brow. “Because he got

what you’ve always wanted.”

“I didn’t want Violet. But I could

have taken her away from him if I

wanted to do it.”

“Mac Nighthorse would have ripped

your arms off if you’d so much as

breathed on her. You know I’m not

talking about Violet. Don’t fuck with

me. Don’t fuck with yourself.”

The mirrors turned and now Dona

was holding a bullwhip with the

diameter of a python.
No. Please…

He swallowed, bit back the plea. The

fact she was holding a new whip

meant she’d be using it.

“What is it Mac had that you want?

What is it that Lauren found after you

mercifully left her life?”

He shook his head. A moment later

his body arched, a scream tearing the

lining from his throat as the bullwhip

landed a full stripe down his back

that made his upper body feel as if it

had been seared by acid. His muscles

constricted against the pain so

forcefully he thought he felt his ribs

crack under the strain. His head

snapped down, inadvertently striking

the temple of his bound companion.

She made a sound of pain.

“
Trust
. Trust in a Mistress.” Dona

answered the question. “Nirvana

with a Mistress.

The ability to let go and believe

she’ll take care of you. The state

where bringing her pleasure becomes

the most important thing in your life.”

Four more lashes, one for each point.

He’d never thought there could be

such a level of pain. The whip

snagged the strips of skin that

remained, ripping them loose.

More blood ran down his sides,

making him itch. The chamber echoed

his cries, overlapping, bouncing back

on him, making his head scream with

agony.

“You thought Mac could see that

weakness in you, the fact you didn’t

have what it took to get there with a

woman.” Her voice penetrated all of

it. “When we’re insecure, we make

up stories of what people see when

they look at us. Funhouse mirrors

again, mocking us so that we project

the images of others over the image

of ourselves. But it always comes

back to you, because that’s the only

thing any of us control in this life.

You made the choices that put you

here.”

With the bones of his wrists grinding

against the stone hold of the

gargoyles, he couldn’t control the

spasmodic convulsions of his upper

body as he waited for the next blow

to come. He could barely open his

eyes, clogged with tears and

perspiration running off his brow. He

was as cold as he imagined death

felt, and would have welcomed it if

that was what it heralded.

88

Mistress of Redemption

Two minutes of silence passed,

punctuated only by his rattling breath

and the woman’s frightened noises

beneath him. Saliva from his

clenched teeth had dampened her

hair.

Lifting his lashes, he looked for Dona

in the mirrors. He blinked, trying to

wet his parched lips with his abused

tongue. Trying to focus, because he

wasn’t sure if what he was seeing

was real.

The mirrors showed an image from

the past, a few moments ago. Dona

whipping him. She was crying, a sob

breaking from her lips at his every

scream.

Then it was gone as if it had never

been and those shadows were

moving again.

Was the quick glimpse reality or

illusion? It didn’t matter. Her tears

for him caused a different kind of

anguish, one that striped him from the

inside, lashed his vital organs in

truth. Breaking him down in a way

even the extremes of physical pain

could not.

As she circled the tablet now, he

didn’t see any evidence of her

distress on her face, but he knew now

that reality here changed every

moment. He stiffened as she touched

his back, but she was touching

smooth skin, skin that no longer felt

the pain, though the experience was

indelibly printed on his mind. His

limbs were still trembling from the

lingering effects. The tears, discharge

from his nose and saliva from the

corners of his mouth remaining from

the torture made him avoid focusing

on his own image.

Dona bent before him, her hair

tumbling over her shoulders. He was

ashamed for her to see him like this.

When he tried to duck his head, she

merely caught his chin, lifted it and

began to wipe him clean with a soft

handkerchief.

“Vain man. Always so vain. Be

still.”

He swallowed, his eyes falling shut.

He’d survived her lash, but he didn’t

think he could survive her tenderness.

He was going to break into a million

pieces, just like a mirror, cursing

himself seven years times forever. Or

perhaps that deed was already well

and done.

When she dabbed at his eyes, her

voice was soft but merciless as the

lash. “Mistress Lauren would have

loved you, kept you, but you couldn’t

stand that. You had to use her, make

her fall in love with you. You had to

tell her in every way she’d been a

fool, that you’d played with her mind

from the first. She’s one of the

mirrors. Look into her eyes and see

yourself. I wonder what you would

say to her if you could see her now,

at this very moment?”

* * * * *

He was in a park, standing at the

entrance to a small private glade

where a woman sat on a picnic

blanket. Her lover was stretched out

there as she pushed up his T-shirt,

ran an ice cube slowly down his flat,

hard stomach, traced the curve of his

navel as he trembled. His lean arms,

marked with Celtic-styled tattoos,

were curved behind his head, the