Chapter 4

Nora and Roger gave us time to move past the awkwardness of realigning our relationship before rejoining us.  We spent the evening playing scrabble and teasing each other about made up, screwed up vocabularies.  By the time my best friend and her lover were ready to call it a night, Killian and I were back on track with our friendship.

“I should probably go home,” he said with hesitation as he watched Nora and Roger climb the stairs.

“You shouldn’t have moved out,” I complained with conviction.  “This house already felt too big without the void that was created when we lost you.”  Then, after a brief moment, I giggled and added, “Nora saw us in the closet.”

He stifled a snicker.  “How much did she see?”

“She yelled at me for having sex with you and driving you away,” I admitted.

“Ouch,” he moaned.  “I’m really sorry.”

“Enough of being sorry,” I said as I reached up and placed the palm of my hand on his cheek. “It’s late and freezing out there.  Why don’t you just take your old room for tonight?”

He placed his strong hand over mine and looked as if he was debating on what to do.  Just when I thought that he was going to decline my offer, he smiled, nodded, and made a motion with the swooping of his arm for me to lead the way up the stairs.  I took his hand and pulled him along, but when we reached the door that belonged to his room, I kissed him on the cheek and said ‘good-night’.

Making my way into my own room, I entered as quickly as I could and closed the door behind me.  My heart emphasized my loneliness by beating wildly with desire, longing, and a bit of excitement over the fact that my handsome and sexy friend was, once again, under my roof as I leaned my back against the door.  A part of me wanted to go bounding into his room and demand that he make love to me.  I wrestled with the desire until it was overruled by the sensible and, somewhat, fearful side of me that insisted that it was far too soon for something like that to occur. If I wanted our friendship to return to the comfortable place that it was once in, I needed to tread carefully when it came to having sex with him again.

There was also the matter of Lance.  It was important to remember that having sex with Killian not only affected my relationship with him, but it carried over to my relationship with Lance.  How could it not?  If I loved both men like I believed that I did, then, I needed to consider them both before I took action in that direction.  Like it or not, if Killian and I became lovers, either he or Lance would end up getting hurt if Lance was able to reunite with me.  Maybe both. 

Was I ready for the pain that would cause?

I took a quick shower and then put on the pajamas that Nora had whined about my needing until I broke down and bought a few pair.  I was still in the habit of sleeping naked and only putting on the pajamas to wear beneath my newly purchased robe that I’d bought to replace the one that got ruined when I was kidnapped.   I normally wore them to wander around the house, but this particular night seemed like a good night to put them on to sleep in.  Perhaps it would deter me from thoughts that I shouldn’t be thinking about my hot and sexy friend who was just across the hall.

It took a bit longer than normal for me to fall asleep.  I attributed a good deal of the difficulty to the unfamiliar feel of the pajamas, but I also had to admit that sexual tension played a role in it as well.  It took pleasuring myself to get enough of a release to let sleep take over.

I’d fallen into a deep and restful slumber when I felt his weight on the bed.   As it had been all of my life, when I was in a deep sleep and someone wanted to interact with me, I didn’t fully wake up right away; if at all.  This time, it was no different.

I came around enough to understand and enjoy the fact that I was about to have sex.  I sighed a sigh of satisfaction as I felt him unbutton my top and pull it open to expose breasts that were already anticipating what was to come.  It was amazing how my body could come alive even in my sleep when it came to sex.

The way that he suckled and laved a nipple while he gently slid my bottoms off my hips felt tantalizingly erotic.  I moaned with anticipation and want as I spread my legs a bit wider apart.  

He emitted a low, deep throated chuckle of satisfaction as his mouth found my already wanting womanhood and his tongue began to work its magic.   Feeling like he was neglecting my breasts, I searched the darkness for his hands until I found one and pulled it to them.  A moan of ecstasy left me as his  knowing hand kneaded my breast in just the right way while his tongue brought me to a height of pure erotic insanity.

I wrapped my legs around his neck as I raised my hips to meet the stars.  He waited until I’d relaxed them again before gently freeing himself and, then, entered me with a gusto that matched my own.

Our bodies were slick with sweat by the time he poured his seed deep into me.  I could feel the warm pulsing as I slowly grew more and more alert.  By the time he rolled off of me, I was fully awake.

“It took you longer to wake up this time,” Jason said as he turned on the table lamp beside my bed before collecting and putting on his pants.  “You are more willing and abandoned when you sleep.  I like it.”  When I sucked in air at the realization that it was Jason and not Killian who I’d just had sex with, he added, “Was that brandy that I tasted?  You should drink more often before you go to bed.  It makes you a much better lover.”

“Get out!” I bellowed as I threw my pillow at him.

He lept onto the bed and pushed me back down.  Holding my arms above my head, he placed his angry face only inches from mine. “Shh, my lovely.  We do not want to awaken the household, do we?”  His grip on my wrists was painful, but it didn’t stop me from struggling against it.   I even went so far as to try to bite him. “Ah, my little spitfire.  You like being bound, do you not?”

“Get out,” I heaved in a softer tone, but with equal venom.

“Where did you get such a goodly supply of magic?  I was surprised to find so much in your shine so soon after my last visit.  We know that it did not come from Lance,” he mused. “Perhaps I am staying away too long?  Are you seeking sexual pleasure from another magical person?  Is it a male or a female?”

I hadn’t realized that I had any amount of magic in my shine.  Since I’d recently had sex with Killian and he was also a member of the secret society, I assumed that I’d either unwittingly syphoned it from him or he’d deliberately given it to me, but I didn’t let Jason know that.  Instead, I hissed, “If you don’t get out right now, you’ll find out soon enough.”

“Hmm,” he mused with a tone that sounded like it held a good deal of disdain.  “Are you threatening me?  Never threaten me, my love.  It never bodes well for those who threaten me.”

“It won’t bode well for you if you don’t get off me and leave right now,” I hissed.

I thought that he was doing just that

when he lept off the bed and went to my closet.  I watched in what I can only refer to as shocked  surprise as he pulled out a belt and snapped it into the air.  The sound reminded me of a whip belonging to a lion tamer.  “Perhaps you need a lesson in respect and manners.”

“Have you gone insane?” I gasped as I took the covers and pulled them over my body for protection.

He lept back onto the bed with lightning speed and slapped my face so hard that I saw stars.  With me taken aback and stunned into silence, he seized the opportunity to gag me with a scarf that I hadn’t seen him remove from the hanger in my closet.  After which, he fastened my wrists to my bedpost with the belt.  It was all done so quickly and efficiently that it was impossible not to believe that he’d done this many times before.

When he yanked the covers off to expose my naked flesh in the lighted room, visions of him entering me once more flashed through my head.  Taking me while I was asleep and vulnerable was one thing, but I had no intention of letting him have me when I was fully awake.  I thrashed and kicked as wildly as I could.  His solution to the problem was to force me onto my stomach.  This act twisted my wrists in the belt to the point of painfully cutting off a good deal of the circulation to my hands.  I immediately stopped fighting.

With the full weight of his body forcing me into the mattress, he put his mouth close to my ear.  His breath felt hot as he wheezed his words with anger. “Behavior such as yours demands punishment, my love.  I was going to leave a bit of magic for you in your shine, but I see that you do not deserve this gesture.  Therefore, as punishment, I shall take it all. There are a few ways to syphon someone’s magic.  Sex is the easiest and most pleasurable.”

I thought that he was going to enter me again to syphon the rest of my magic, but he didn’t.  Instead, while holding me so that I was completely motionless with my head shoved so far into the pillow that breathing was a challenge, he said a few words that I couldn’t make out.  Almost immediately, the room began to spin past us.  As it did, I felt a drawing sensation on my flesh that intensified to the extent that it was painful.

 “You see, my love, no matter how much I love and cherish you, I will never allow you to treat me with disrespect.  Disrespect warrants punishment.  I am your man.  I will always be your man.  As your man, I deserve your respect.  You would do well to remember that,” he grunted before uttering a few more words that I couldn’t understand.

Tears escaped my eyes as the pain turned into a burning sensation, but I made no sound.  I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he’d humiliated and hurt me.

When it was finally over, he climbed off of me and rolled me onto my back.  This gesture somewhat eased the pain in my wrists.  He didn’t remove the gag in my mouth.  All I could do to express my opinion of this vile, insane man was to watch with hate filled eyes as he silently finished getting dressed with an attitude of an arrogant lord who hadn’t a care in the world.  It was clear that, in his sick mind, he believed that he’d simply given his underling the punishment that she deserved.

When he came back to me and placed his hands upon my naked flesh, I tried to scream for him to leave me alone, but the gag in my mouth prevented me from doing much more than grunting.

He slowly ran his hands over every inch of my body like an artist might do with an object that he was trying to memorize. “You are so lovely.  Your body is perfect.   It pains me to have to cause you pain.  It looks like I might have drawn your magic from you a bit too hard.  There are tiny droplets of blood oozing from your skin.”  He scowled as he inspected my flesh more closely.  Then, with a slight shrug, he said, “No matter, it will heal quickly, but you may feel sore for a few days.”  He massaged my flesh in a caring way as if to nurture me back to normalcy.  A broad smile formed on his handsome face as his hands encased my breasts and his thumbs played with my nipples. “You enjoy my touch.  Look at your nipples.  Even after what you just endured, they are taught and pert.”

His arrogant gloating over my body’s involuntary response to being touched was almost as painful to me as his method of punishment.  I hoped that my eyes radiated the genuine hate that I felt for this man.  He may look like Lance, but he was so far from him in personality and action that it was difficult to believe that they were both raised in the same household.

Fleeting visions of Lance killing Jason when he discovered what he’d done to me flitted through my mind, bringing me a minute semblance of satisfaction.

The thought of Lance killing his brother made me long to have the gag removed from my mouth so that I could rip his neck open like I’d done with my kidnapper, Fred.  I lost myself in fantasizing doing just that to the extent that I didn’t notice when he finished dressing, walked to the cheval mirror, and stepped through it.

Again, a mirror!

It was at that moment that I vowed to remove all mirrors from my house.  It was also at that moment that I realized that he’d left me tied and gagged.

I lay in gagged misery while I thought on what to do.  It would be hours before Nora noticed that I hadn’t come out of my bedroom and came to check on me.   The circulation in my hands and arms was already impaired by how tightly he’d bound me to the bedpost and I wanted my mouth freed from the gag.  My body felt soiled and in desperate need of a shower.

I could think of nothing else to do other than kick the lamp and other items on my nightstand off it.  As I’d hoped, the crashing and thudding of things hitting the floor brought Killian into my room.

“Gawd!” he bellowed when he rushed to my aid after turning on the light to see what was happening.

“I’m so glad that you’re a light sleeper,” I said as he pulled the gag from my mouth.

“I’m not,” he replied.  “I just happened to be up and down tonight.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe it’s the anxiety or excitement about reconnecting with you.”

“Whatever it is, I’m glad you heard,” I said as he unbound my hands.

“Apparently not soon enough,” he said as his eyes took in my nakedness and then quickly looked away. “Did Tillman come back?”

“Tillman?” I said with confusion.

“Your kidnapper,” he said. “He was pretty angry with you.  I wouldn’t put it past him to do something vile like this as payback.”

“He’s loose?” I gasped as I reached for the bedsheet to pull over myself.

“He shouldn’t be,” Killian said, “but he does know magic.”

“It was Jason,” I offered with disgust.

“Oh, no,” he moaned.  “I’m so sorry.  I thought that I had his pattern of appearing figured out. Clearly, I don’t.”

“His pattern?” I asked.

“From what I’ve learned from Nora and what I already know, he’s been coming around every seven to eight weeks or so to syphon your magic,” he said.  “I didn’t expect to have to look for him for another week.”

“Has it only been six weeks since I was in the hospital?” I moaned.  “It seems longer than that.”  Then, after lightly touching my hand to my head, I added, “It’s no wonder that I’m still tender.”

“The x-rays showed that your fracture healed, but the bone is still bruised,” he said. 

“I could use more down time,” I complained. “I jumped back into life too early.”

He grabbed my robe from the hook on the inside of the closet door and handed it to me.  I took it, gratefully, and slipped it on.  Even though I’d had sex with him, I was still uncomfortable being completely naked in his company.

“I have to do something about Jason,” I grumbled as I tied the robe’s belt around my waist.  “He’s completely insane.  This has got to be the last time he does this to me.”

When I started toward the bathroom to wash up, I felt a stiffness and pain in my entire body that made me stop in my tracks. 

The veins in Killian’s neck bulged and throbbed as he stared at the tiny pin drops of blood on the sheets.

I looked down at the evidence of Jason’s cruelty.  “Did you know that there are other ways to syphon magic other than through sex?  He’s an animal gone crazy.” 

I was unable to walk in a way that would disguise my discomfort, so I gave up trying to hide it. 

“Do you need me to help you to the bathroom?” he asked.

I vigorously shook my head.  “I’ll survive to see another day. Although, as horrible as it sounds, I wish Jason wouldn’t.”

Killian’s outrage was evident when he expressed his desire to kill Jason with his bare hands.

“I’ve thought of shooting him,” I admitted, “but, I can’t risk changing how history affects me.”

“You know about that?” he asked.

I nodded.  “Lance mentioned something to that effect when I wished Lilith dead after she tried to poison me.  Maybe he was afraid that I’d go ahead and kill her.  He probably saw the killer in me that I didn’t know existed until I was kidnapped.”

“You didn’t mean to kill that man,” he argued.

“Maybe not consciously, but I killed him all the same,” I mused with a sad tone.  “Maybe I am a killer deep down inside.”

“You’re just a strong woman doing what you need to do to survive some of the most atrocious situations that I’ve ever seen befall a female.  I may not be able to kill him,” Killian growled, “but, if I get my hands on Jason, he’ll pay for what he’s done to you.”

“Stand in line,” I snarled as I closed the door to the bathroom far enough to give me privacy and made my way into the shower.