Anne Bishop - Dreams Made Flesh

"Don't touch me," he snarled softly.

"But…" Confused, she pushed her hair away from her face. "Then why are you here?"

"I came to give you what you want from me. I came to give you what you deserve from me."

A low-backed stuffed chair drifted across the floor, then turned until it faced her freestanding mirror.

"Sit down," Daemon said.

She could almost feel his voice on her skin, as if it were some intoxicating lotion he was pouring over her. She couldn't defy it, couldn't disobey that voice. It scared her a little that she couldn't rouse herself enough to make her own demands. Not demands. Requests. She would never make demands. Not with him.

As she moved to obey, he said, "Not in the seat. On the back of the chair."

Being low enough and wide enough, she often perched on the back of that chair, but now she felt self-conscious as she climbed into position and saw her reflection in the mirror.

Daemon stepped up behind her. "What do you see?"

She gave him a coy smile. "I see my lover."

"And I see a woman so obessed with a man she tried to harm a Queen."

Her pleasure at having him in her bedroom vanished. "Is that why you're here? Because of stupid Jaenelle?"

For a moment, his face became a cold mask carved out of fine wood. Then he smiled. "You're right, darling. Jaenelle has no place in this room. This is between you and me."

His hands caressed her arms beneath her nightgown. He wasn't actually touching her…he couldn't take his eyes off the woman in the mirror any more than she could stop watching him…but she felt his hands caressing her arms. Then another pair of hands caressed her breasts…and another pair lightly stroked the insides of her thighs.

"How…" she gasped. But she couldn't form the question because a pair of lips brushed over hers. Two mouths closed over her nipples, licking and suckling. And another mouth…

Moaning, she arched her back and rested her head on his shoulder. This was so delicious, she never wanted it to stop, never wanted it to end.

Gently, relentlessly, those hands caressed her, those mouths licked and suckled… until the pleasure became an unbearable craving for his real hands, his real mouth.

"Touch me," she gasped, ripping open the nightgown to reveal her breasts. "I need you to touch me."

"Not yet," he whispered. "Not yet."

It didn't stop, didn't end. The pleasure went on and on until she began weeping from the need for release.

"Daemon… please!"

His right hand curled around her neck, and the warmth of that hand was ten times better than the feel of those phantom hands and mouths.

Feeling intensified until the pleasure became excruciating. As she finally crested, she felt a sharp prick in her neck, which somehow only added to her climax. The fierce release gradually eased to warm waves of pleasure, and finally faded to a delicious glow.

Still watching her, Daemon stepped away from the chair.

Gasping, Lektra stared at the flushed, wild-eyed woman in the mirror. A woman thoroughly satisfied by her lover. Brutally satisfied. And now…

Feeling strangely heavy and numb, she twisted on her perch to face him. "Now you…" It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing…and what she wasn't seeing. "You…You're not aroused."

"Why would I be?" he replied, sounding bored and cold. So terribly cold.

"It didn't excite you to make love to…"

"I serviced you like I serviced the bitches in Terreille who tried to play games with me. Love had nothing to do with it."

She slid down into the seat. Her legs didn't feel right. Neither did her arms. And she couldn't quite draw a full breath.

"You don't mean that," she panted. "You love me, and I love you."

"I don't know you…and you don't know me."

"But…" She pushed herself out of the chair and tried to walk over to him, but her legs wouldn't hold her. She collapsed on the floor. "There's something wrong with me."

"Everything has a price." Holding out his right hand, he flexed his ring finger. "The price for playing with the Sadist is pain."

She watched the snake tooth slide out beneath the long, black-tinted nail. "You…you poisoned me?"

He looked at her and smiled a cold, cruel smile. "Yes."

Remembering the prick she felt, she tried to reach up and touch her neck. "You poisoned me… while… I… was…"

"Coming. Yes."

"Why?"

"Because of your obsession with me, you tried to hurt Jaenelle. So you will be the lesson for any other bitch who thinks she can have me if she eliminates the competition. Just between you and me, darling, if I have to kill every witch in Amdarh to assure no one tries to hurt Jaenelle again, I'll do it and have no regrets. You're all expendable, and she is… everything."

Lektra stared at him, fighting for each small gasp of air. Pain danced through her limbs, setting her nerves on fire. She would have screamed if she could have drawn enough breath.

"Daemon… help me."

"I will," he promised. "Before you draw your last breath, I'll finish the kill. At least you won't have to face the High Lord and endure this kind of pain a second time."

As her lungs failed and her vision faded, she tried to see her beautiful love one last time. And even though he stood in front of her, the only thing she saw as the cold Black rage ripped through her was those glazed, sleepy eyes and that cold, cruel smile.

After he finished the kill, Daemon studied the room. The Blood had a saying: The walls remember. Wood and stone could hold strong emotions, and a skilled Black Widow could draw out those feelings and replay a ghostly image of what happened in a room.

At another time in his life, he would have walked away from this room, would have, most likely, added a few seduction spells that would have been triggered by drawing the memories out of wood and stone. Whoever had come to watch the events leading up to Lektra's death would have felt those phantom hands, those phantom mouths. They would have stood there, helpless to escape, knowing how the previous seduction ended.

It wouldn't have killed them, but the message would have been clear: anyone who tried to play games with his life or someone he loved would die.

But there was Jaenelle to consider, and he didn't want this game paraded before the rest of the Blood. He felt soiled enough being near Lektra and Roxie. So he would leave enough of a warning for the witches in Amdarh. As for the rest… He could deal with that easily enough.

Surreal stood across the street and watched the town house burn. She'd spent the evening wandering the nearby streets, passing by the town house often enough to keep an eye on things. Because Sadi had said Lektra was his business, not hers, she'd kept her participation to a passive watch.

So she'd been nearby when witchfire suddenly filled two of the upstairs rooms. She didn't run to the town house to pound on the door and alert the servants. There was no need. The Sadist had his own kind of justice, and the fire remained in those two rooms until the last servant had fled. Then the witchfire took the town house, roaring up to twice the structure's height, a beacon for the rest of the Blood in Amdarh.

They'd come running, but witchfire was fed by power, and there was nothing they could do to extinguish a fire fed by the Black. The water wagons were brought out, and the roofs of the neighboring town houses were doused, but the fire remained confined. He would have made sure of that before he walked away.

"Here," Lucivar said, joining her. He handed her a steaming mug of coffee. "It's damn cold to be standing around."

"Is it this cold a couple of blocks away?" she asked, taking a sip of coffee.

"No."