By My Side ... (A Valentine's Day Story) (18 page)

She knew he was referring to
the flogger in her hands and to their conversation that night. She
was almost too tired, too dejected to answer, only the ingrained
need to respond to the demands of a Lord with respectful politeness
moving her to speak.

"It wasn't punishment."

"No."

Calm, collected. His breath
stroking over the sensitive side of her neck with each exhalation -
but still he did not touch her. And suddenly she needed to
know.

"Why not?"

"You did not need it."

"I deserved it." She was
surprised by the harsh anger in her own words. His answer was slow
in coming.

"For the lie, you did deserve
it and you did receive your punishment for that." A sharp pain
bloomed on her back as he rested his palm against the one place she
still was sore. "Nothing else you did deserved punishment."

"I disobeyed you."

"Yes, but because you could not
help it. I do not punish a woman for something she could not
control."

She did not know what do say,
did not understand his reasoning, did not want to. She just wanted
to be left alone in her little corner of misery, wanted to sit here
and allow it to take over. Was that too much to ask? A few hours of
alone time before it all came crashing down around her.

"A tool, alright? It was a
tool. Nothing more, nothing less."

There, he had the answer to his
question. The flogger had been neither punishment nor reward, it
had been a tool. Now he could go and leave her be. There were paths
to clear, food storage to dig out, people to protect -- he did not
need to sit here with her. So, why did he not leave?

Elena waited for him to say
something, to either comment or ask for clarification but he
remained silent. His silence was a more effective incentive than
any encouragement to speak could have been. It drew at her, filled
the room and scraped at her. To break it, to fill the silence, she
continued.

"It was neither punishment, nor
reward. It was a tool to open my mind to you."

She did not need to hear his
assent, did not need him to confirm her assessment, she knew it was
the truth. A single tear fell from her eye, burned a path down her
cheek. She was glad he could not see it.

"It did not work."

It was better to tell him now
if he had not realised it yet under the pressure of all the demands
which had filled all his waking hours. She preferred being the one
to say it anyway, not to wait for him to bring it up.

Now he touched her, his large
hands stroking along her arms, spanning her wrists, stilling the
restless movements. He replaced her fingers with his around the
tool in her hands.

"What do you mean, little
one?"

She wanted to lean into him,
wanted to turn her head so that she could smell him, taste his
breath on her lips as he whispered the words against her cheek. She
could not, not when she had to tell him what would destroy all his
hopes, all their hopes. No expression coloured her tone when she
spoke, all emotion carefully locked into the vault of her
being.

"The bond is almost gone."

She felt him start, felt his
muscles tense, his body hardening behind her, rigid and alert in
his shock. Silence reigned for long moments. Then he said:

"Look at me, Elena."

She could not, did not want to
see the disillusionment, the hardness there. Silently she shook her
head.

"Elena."

It was a warning. Slowly,
reluctantly, she turned to him, still avoiding his gaze.

"I am sorry." Her whisper was
barely audible to even her own ears. A finger under her chin forced
her to meet his eyes, the yellow gaze calm. She repeated: "I am
sorry. I am broken."

Laughter filled the room, loud
and free. It took her a moment to grasp that it was him laughing.
Misery changed to shock, then to hot anger in her. As quick as the
laughter had risen in him it seemed to make place for pity. She
hated pity. She would face what would come, would face her own
death, but she would do so with a straight back and her pride
intact. She had come here with open eyes, knowing it would most
likely come to that. She did not deserve his pity.

Before outrage could find its
expression, before she had done more than begin to rise from the
bed, his arm snaked out and took hold of her, pulling her back. Her
impact on the bed was hard, surprisingly so for such a soft
surface, and it knocked the breath from her lungs. Before she could
move, or even regain sufficient oxygen, he was over her, his knees
bracketing her hips, his weight holding her in place. Instinctively
her hands had come up to ward him off -- but any resistance was
futile under the pressure of his body on her.

His lips covered hers, forced
them open and plundered, invading with taste, teeth and tongue. He
only let off, gentled to a leisurely play, when she yielded all to
him, her arms circling his neck, her mouth savouring his touch, his
taste. Her lips felt swollen and bruised as he lifted his head. The
smile still played on his lips, but his eyes now held a deep
seriousness.

"You, Elena Garibaldi, are
exactly as you should be. You are exactly who I need. You are
perfect and complete."

He pushed the words at her as
if he wanted to imprint them on her mind, as if he needed her to
realise that there was no doubt of their veracity in him. Hearing
them, hearing the way he spoke them left her in no uncertainty of
that. She tried to explain.

"But..."

It is impossible to speak when
the words are being stolen by the rampaging power of a kiss. Only
when she was breathless again did he let her resurface.

"No, Lena. There is nothing
wrong with you. I am the reason why the bond is waning."

The words froze her mind, the
idea never having occurred to her. So he took the opportunity to
explain.

"I am not a territory lord in
the traditional sense, I do not hold a bridge to the Summerlands. I
have no link to any Elven court, small or large. An ErGer bond is
established with a territory Lord, with someone who has sufficient
strength and grounding to anchor the ErGer to him -- but it is
fixed into place and held through the blood link to the Elven
courts a territory Lord would normally hold. Without that, our bond
will not be permanent, at least not anytime soon."

She was not sure if she could
assemble the information into a coherent whole in her mind. Her
expression must have warned him of her difficulties. With
deliberate care he framed her face with his large hands, held her
still under his gaze, and repeated.

"Everything is as it should
be."

"But ..." She did not know what
to say, what to ask. It was hard to step away from her deep
despair. It was even harder not to resent the amusement in his
yellow eyes as he looked down on her.

"I have spoken to some with
knowledge about mental bonds and the suggestions seems to be that
there is the possibility that the ErGer bond might harden, become
permanent, with practice and constant use." Amusement turned to
wicked teasing as he bent to her, his next words spoken against her
mouth:

"I cannot say that I mind."

His teeth found her lower lip,
nipped at it. Heat ignited in her body, her nipples already hard
enough to scrape painfully against her blouse. She moaned into his
kiss.

"There are other tools to try,
other ways to practice the bonding. I am sure, if we work
diligently on it, we might become quite proficient at it."

The whisper against her skin
made her shiver all over.

"I will teach you to submit to
me, to the bond." A dark promise, and one which pricked her
pride.

"I know how to submit."

Why could she taste his smile
on her lips?

"No, sweetheart, you know the
rules of a game called submission. And you are good at those rules,
only as long as they do not reach into what is your core. You know
the shape, but not the substance." A hard kiss silenced her
protest. "I will enjoy teaching you, will love to make the game
reality, a necessity, for you."

His yellow eyes brimmed with
pleasure, with the anticipation, with power. On some level she knew
he was right. It had always been a game to her, a competition. It
would not be with him.

"I might fail."

Her biggest fear, the quiet
certainty in her heart. He shook his head, a smile tugging at his
corners.

"No, little one. You are mine.
Mine to do with as I please -- it is all that matters, all there
is. You cannot fail to simply be yourself."

But it was not that easy to
switch off her mind, to put aside all. Even if the bond could be
re-established there were other worries. What place would she have
here among these people? Would she ever be able to make them see
her as anything other than a cosseted pet or would she slowly
atrophy under their adoration and love? Would she have to worry
every few days if he would manage to strengthen the waning
bond?

He sank his teeth into her
shoulder, the bite just short of drawing blood. She cried out in
surprise and pain. It was a reprimand, a clear punishment and as he
lifted his head the passion in his heavy-lidded eyes said more than
words would have that he had enjoyed it.

"That mind of yours, clever as
it is and as much as I admire it, will have to quiet when I want it
to -- or I will have to ensure your attention remains on me in
another way."

Anticipation and a little bit
of fear coiled in her stomach. The predator under the surface of
this man was not something wise to ignore or forget.

Though before he could bring
action to his words the door blew open, the heavy wood hitting the
door behind it with unrelenting force. Something splintered but she
had no time to wonder what it had been before the heavily panting
youngster leaning against the door frame, blood running in large
drops from a scratch on his forehead, said in a tone bordering on
hysteria:

"Sir, there are vampires
braking down the gates."

She let her head fall back to
the bed with a sigh. An emergency. Another one. Alright, deal with
invasion now, self-doubt had to wait until later!

...... To Be Continued! There
will be Dwarves. And Elves. And some vampires -- of course.

About the Author,

If you have come this far then
you have at least like my friends enough to follow their stories to
the end. My characters are exactly that, friends. I see them in the
corner of my eyes when I go out to the market, they run alongside
when I am in the gym. They have always been there -- and I love to
share them now. In a way, each of my characters also belong to one
of my friends. As children I started telling them stories and never
quite stopped.

Stories are my life, in a way.
I am an academic and most of my life is concerned with finding the
little pieces, the clues, that make up the big story, the story we
all live but are too intimate with to see it as such. I study the
way we live, the way we interact, the way we are and the way we
want to be. Surprisingly, that leaves me more naive and ideological
than you might think. And as I am not allowed to let my imagination
come out in my work, I give it space here.

Aside from a love for learning,
my haphazard parents have left me with speaking seven languages, a
love for embroidery and a fascination with debates. Don't ask. My
husband has added a fascination with pointed objects. I met him at
my first fencing lesson (yes, the one with the swords) and told me
it was physical chess. I have never been able to sit still long
enough for a game of chess -- so it is fortunate for our
relationship that the physical version includes a lot more
movement. It is fortunate for me that he is laid back to the
extreme and therefore able to put up with my constant shenanigans.
And even more fortunate for my stories that he knows how to
cook.

When I don't fall in love with
my characters, I write a blog on erotica and feminism -- come talk
to me:

www.christineblackthorn.eu

Or email me at:
[email protected]

Read on for an excerpt from

A Variety of Chains

Coming Summer 2014

A Variety of Chains

Need

She pulled her green cotton
T-shirt, still wet and clinging unpleasantly to her cold skin, over
her head without hesitation, only pausing for a second when she
realised there was nowhere to put it. She was not used to being
careless with her clothes, as money was precious and her almost 6
foot 2 inches made it hard to replace clothing. But then she tossed
her shirt on the floor; she might not need it again after
tonight.

Over the last ten years, each
and every Lord and Lordling having captured her over the last ten
years had informed her gleefully that they would keep her chained
and naked -- not because her body pleased them, but because it
would mean they, and their people, would have instant and constant
access to what it could provide through blood and sensation. She
unsnapped her jeans and piled them on top of the shirt. Her bra and
panties followed.

Her scarf was last, if one
ignored the wristbands she had no intention to remove. Her hands
hesitated over the cheap fabric she habitually kept closely knotted
around her neck. The scars marring the skin of her neck were
hideous and graphic, but had strangely excited the last Vampire
Lord Paul had had sold her to. With trepidation pulled on the tight
knot, let the cloth drop from her throat to the pile of clothes on
the floor.

This Lord, though, did not
react at all, at least not visibly, as she stood there naked, but
for the two broad wristbands, her eyes fixed on the pattern of the
dark red carpet at her feet. She wondered fleetingly if it was red
to hide the blood spilled, then pushed that thought into the cold
too.