J. Geissinger - Edge of Oblivion

The chamber was retrofitted with an enormous, intricate limestone skeleton that hugged the soaring walls and created the illusion of the interior of a medieval cathedral with clustered columns, pointed ribbed vaults, and flamboyant tracery in stained-glass windows that looked out onto nothing.

There were statues and oils and carved figures of saints, gargoyles leering down from peaked columns, suits of armor and displays of antique weaponry, rows of crested flags hanging far above.

It was astonishing, morbidly beautiful, and very cold. No fireplace or other visible source of heat warmed the chamber, and the damp, clinging air sank down to chill her bones.

And there was the matter of her head .

She gingerly explored the back of her skull with her fingers and found an enormous, tender knot lurking just behind her left ear. When she pulled her hand away it was slick with blood.

“Damn,” she muttered. What had happened? The last thing she remembered was the tomb of the Egyptians, the sarcophagus, the steps—

“My apologies,” said a low, silky voice to her right, “but my guards tend to be a bit overzealous in their treatment of intruders. How are you feeling?”

She snapped her head around—the room went spinning—and there he was, the feral Alpha in white. He was as slickly handsome as she remembered, reclining on an elaborately carved velvet divan a few feet away. He watched her with hooded black eyes and a lazy, sinister smile.

Her body went cold, colder even than the room. “ You ,” she whispered.

He looked faintly amused. His brows lifted. “My name is Dominus, Morgan. And yes, me. You were expecting Santa Claus?”

Fight-or-flight adrenaline coursed through her body, electrifying, primal. She kept herself in the chair through sheer force of will, but her hands began, slightly, to shake.

“How do you know my name?”

“I know everything about you, elegant guest. Your strengths and weaknesses, your greatest joys, your deepest fears. You might even say I know you better than you know yourself. The inside of your mind is a very...interesting place to be.” His sinister smile grew wider. “By the way, you’re in terrible denial about that problem of yours.”

She stared at him, the shaking in her hands growing worse by the second.

“In love with an assassin?” he mused. “Hired to kill you ? Tsk. That’s more than just your garden-variety self-loathing, my dear. That’s truly pathological. “

Morgan tried to leap to her feet—and couldn’t. Horrified, she looked down at her legs, but there were no restraints, no visible injuries, just the chair beneath her, another chunky dark velvet affair that looked transported from an eighteenth-century bordello.

I don’t need restraints to keep you where I want you, deliciae , a voice whispered in her mind.

Even without spoken words she heard his amusement, his smug tone of victory, and the anger that flooded her body finally provided some much-needed warmth.

“Stay the hell out of my head!”

His face darkened. Suddenly she couldn’t move her arms either. They fell limp to her sides, and though she tried frantically to get them to respond, nothing happened. It was as if her spinal cord had been severed at her neck.

“Demands are not something I tolerate from my females,” Dominus said, deadly soft, gazing at her from the shadows with menaced focus like a predator contemplating its next meal.

“Since you know everything about me, you should know I’m not yours ,” she snapped.

Pain exploded in a white-hot firework behind her right eye. She stiffened and gasped.

Languidly Dominus unfolded himself from the divan. He came to stand beside her and slowly stroked a cold, cold finger down her cheek, watching its progress with glittering, hungry eyes.

“Aren’t you?” he murmured. His smile struck a note of pure terror in her heart.

Stand , came the unspoken command.

Without a breath of hesitation, her limbs leapt to comply, and she was on her feet, speechless and furious and terrified, her body a puppet to his invisible strings. The pain behind her eye radiated through her head, searing, blisteringly hot, and she had to bite her lip hard to keep from screaming.

Dominus began a slow circle around her, inspecting, smiling his malevolent smile. She was frozen, mummified, unable even to move her eyes to follow his progress. She felt a soft touch on her shoulder, a slight tug as his fingers combed through her hair, a gentle hand caressed her back. As his hand slid down to linger possessively at her waist, her skin crawled as if a thousand spiders were scuttling over her body.

“All of this is mine,” he murmured. “Your every thought, your every feeling, every muscle and bone and sinew in this perfect, beautiful body is mine. And from now on, it always will be.”

“ No. ” Half whisper, half moan, it brought him to a standstill.

“No?” came his softly spoken challenge. The pain in her head gathered into a shrieking, howling monster with sharp, gnashing teeth that ripped and tore and shredded her flesh, a dragon devouring villagers and spewing fire inside her skull.

Dominus said, “You sound unconvinced. Perhaps a demonstration is in order.”

He grasped her by the wrist and lifted her arm away from her body, turned it in various positions until he found one he liked. Then with a murmured, “Stay,” he released it, took up her other arm, and repeated the same procedure, then angled her head. In a moment she was posed like a Renaissance statue in the posture he’d chosen, and she stood helpless in suffocating, blistering agony, buried alive.

“Venus in chains,” Dominus murmured, transfixed.

His gaze raked over her figure, ravenous, and he looked for a moment as if he would pounce on her and devour her whole. But he took several slow, deep breaths, and the rabid excitement in his eyes eventually dimmed. “Pain is a very powerful motivator, Morgan. Most creatures will do anything to avoid it. Anything at all.” He licked his lips, slow and deliberate. “Can you guess what I require from you in order for the pain to go away?”

Unable to answer, she made a high-pitched sound of terror that sounded like a mouse when it spots the cat in midleap.

“ O-be-di-ence. ” He drew it out, lovingly emphasizing each syllable. “You will obey me in all things. You will do whatever I ask without hesitation or I will leave you standing here like this, in agony, until you rot on your feet. Which, I happen to know from experience, takes about three weeks.”

With an elegant gesture of his manicured hand, he indicated a pile of bleached bones jumbled in a huge, hideous white mess in one dark corner beside a basalt statue of the devil.

Her heart heaved. Sputtered. Started up again with a painful throb.

Dominus moved closer. “But I don’t want to do that.” His voice was tender now, stroking, and his eyes had grown soft. He touched a finger to her lower lip. “I have other things in mind for you. For us . Give me your word you will behave and I will release you, and we can begin again.”

“And in return?” she whispered, stalling. Sweat beaded along her hairline, trickled in a cold rivulet down the back of her neck. “If I agree to...obey...what will you give me?”

First he looked angry: his eyes flared; his handsome mouth drew to a hard, flat line. He dropped his hand from her face and made a fist at his side, and she braced herself for a punch. But then another emotion softened his face, and for a moment he looked younger, almost wistful.

“Are you negotiating with me?”

He sounded amused, amazed, but most of all intrigued.

“I would like to not rot on my feet,” she said, faint. “But I will if it means I have to sacrifice free will. I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees, which if you really knew me would be obvious.” She moistened her lips. “And because you don’t—that makes me think you might be full of shit.”