“Should we wake her up?”
A calm, elegant voice answers. “She’s awake. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
I am awake, but barely. My mind keeps drifting off into darkness.
Except it’s not total darkness. There are images there.
Of blood splattering on walls.
Of cells flittering within veins.
Of a pumping heart.
There are images of orgies, cocks hard and erect, plunging inside people, the cries of pleasure and agony, the writhing bodies beneath bodies on bloodstained satin sheets.
There is a feeling of something inside me, a beast, that wants to break free of my skin and run and fuck.
There’s another being too, one born of moonlight and darkness, who wants to hide myself, to shrink, to sink inward.
I don’t know what I am anymore.
I don’t think I ever did.
I am changing.
“Lenore.”
It’s Absolon’s voice. To my detriment, it’s now a familiar one.
I open my eyes, expecting to see the basement ceiling.
But it’s not.
It’s lace.
A canopy of lace high above me.
I blink and try to move.
I can’t.
Story of my life.
I lift my head.
I’m on a four-poster bed, on top of black satin sheets.
I’m in only my bodysuit now, my skirt gone.
My wrists and ankles are wrapped in ropes that connect to each corner of the bed, spread eagle.
At the
foot of the bed stand Absolon and Wolf, both staring at me with interest. Absolon is in a tailored navy shirt that shows off his shoulders, arms, slim V tapering to black pants, his skin luminous. Wolf is in a leather jacket, Henley shirt, jeans. The dark one and the light one.
I should be terrified.
I should be screaming.