2
M
ind reeling, wrenched nearly out of her body by the shattering orgasm that had rocked her on every level, she clenched the knife over her head, the drying blood welding her fingers to the hilt.
Her thighs protested the strain of straddling the Master’s muscular hips. He lay beneath her, peaceful, a beatific smile on his lips beneath the black mask that remained the only thing he wore. The terrible wound in his midsection no longer bled. The flesh was torn, blackened near the center, where it had touched the silver blade, but spreading out it showed the healthy pink of healing tissue.
Her own cuts—so much more shallow, not nearly so crippling, at least not physically—had been that way. They’d knitted themselves together of their own accord. Over time, angry red turned to healing pink to the crystal white of the scars that never fully disappeared.
Peeling one hand off the sticky hilt, she braced herself and lifted off him. She missed the sense of him inside her immediately, and his seed followed, sliding down her inner thighs.
She’d never had condomless sex before. A funny thought, given all that had occurred. Abruptly she became aware that they were alone again. No drums, no hairy creature with a leather lash, no shadowy figures. The prosaic concerns of disease and unplanned pregnancy hadn’t mattered in that realm.
Moving around the immense slab, she used the broad-bladed knife to sever the ropes binding him to the altar. Which of them had been the sacrifice?
Or had they sacrificed themselves to each other, somehow?
He lay still, though his chest rose and fell with his breathing. Once she’d freed him, she climbed over him again, knife still in one hand, and straddled that massive chest. The even thump of his heart resounded against the sensitive, open tissues of her spread sex. He seemed larger now than he had back in that strange carousel living room of his. An anteroom to this world. His skin glowed alabaster against the obsidian slab, his white-blond hair piled beneath his head. Leaning over him, she kissed him, soft and sweet.
Wake, my prince.
The icy-blue eyes opened, warming at the sight of her, and his big hands slid up her back, one cupping the nape of her neck, urging her down to kiss him again. They savored one another for a while, mouths interweaving like melody and harmony, desire rising again between them, growing out of every spot their skin touched, candlelight dancing over them in a warm blessing.
She sat up. Gathered herself. It was time to show all of herself to him.
Working the knife blade under the fabric wrapping her waist, she sliced it away. The Master watched, his hands on her thighs. She shrugged the gold belt away, along with the shard of silk that had been trapped beneath it. Without judgment he took in the chain of scars across her belly, where she’d carved out her pain.
The Master’s hands slid up her thighs and feathered over her belly, caressing her, touching the soft skin between the evil lines. Accepting them as both part of her and unimportant. Holding her like this, his large hands nearly spanned her waist, holding her safe and loved.
Gravely, the Master wrapped his hand around hers, holding the blade through her agency. He brought it up to the side of his head, turning his face away and sliding the point under the ribbon that bound the mask to his face.
Steadying the massive knife with her other hand, because she trembled with the surging emotions tossing her on their waves, she cut the ribbon.
The mask fell away.
He rolled his head back to face her fully, the crystalline blue of his eyes deepening with the same tide of feeling, his heart thumping against the wet core of her womanhood.
Whatever had happened to his face had been different from the knife wound. His cheek and temple on the left side looked partially melted away, like chocolate left in the sun. Finally unwrapping her hand from the knife they no longer needed, she tossed it aside and cupped his face in her palms, fingers caressing the scars and the whole skin alike, and kissed him.
Straightening her legs, she stretched herself out over him, their mouths joined, each holding the other’s scars. She felt like a tea cozy, a bit of lace draped over the top of his powerful body.
Her sex throbbed for more of him and his cock rose hot and hard against her belly. Their kisses grew deeper, more demanding, more desperate.
He rolled her over onto her back and she barely registered the sting of abraded flesh and bruised muscle. He took her wrists in his hands and stretched her arms above her head. She spread her legs and took him between them, raising her hips in welcome.
He plunged into her slick and willing flesh, swallowing her cry of intense pleasure with his mouth. Setting the rhythm to a strong and steady percussion, like the beat of his heart, he worked his cock in and out. Her legs wrapped around his waist, held fast by his hands and mouth, she opened to him, yielding with each thrust, opening for him like the roses piled around them.
She must have fallen asleep, because she woke, still on the polished black altar, cuddled into the curl of his body, her sore bottom pressed against his muscular thighs.
His hand smoothed her hair back from her cheek and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Then he sat up and stepped down from the slab, gathering his clothes. She sat, her knees curled to the side, watching his powerful muscles gather and bunch as he dressed. He moved better, now, more smoothly, though the wound in his gut looked much the same.
He replaced the mask, tying the ends of the sliced ribbon together, his icy-blue gaze growing inscrutable behind it. The gloves, though, he left off, and his hands traveled over her nakedness as if savoring every touch, as he gathered her once again in his arms, carrying her like a bride over the threshold.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and burrowed into him, placing little kisses along his temple, cheek, and throat. He carried her down the hill, along the switchback path that led to the glassy lake. Over his shoulder, she could see the candles wink out behind them as they passed. It saddened her, as if something precious were being swallowed up again.
At the dock, he set her down, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her, white hair and black cloak falling around them.
“My priestess, you’ve served me well. Allow me to serve you.”
He knelt, dropping kisses along her throat and collarbone, then gathered her breasts in his hands and rained licks and kisses on them. Under his ministrations, their ache lessened. His hands ran over her back as he kissed her belly, never once hesitating over the horrible scars. Cupping her bottom, he eased the sting there, too, and his tongue between her thighs sent wings of rolling pleasure through her limbs.
She buried her fingers in his silky hair, her thighs flexing as the sweet, slow orgasm suffused her limbs. His mouth drank from her, strong arms holding her steady as she sighed and moaned.
With grave gallantry, he swung off his cloak and draped it over her nakedness. Stepping into the boat, he held out a hand to help her in.
He rowed her back across the lake, darkness deepening as the last of the candles winked out behind them.
Time to return to the other world.
“Does it have to end?” She stopped him, after he removed her blindfold but before he could dissolve or slip away or however he disappeared. She wound her fingers into his still loose hair, white in the shadows. “Come with me. Or let me stay.”
He wrapped his hand around hers, those lips she knew so well curving while he cupped her cheek. “I cannot. And you cannot. Our worlds are divided. I cannot live in yours and you cannot live in mine. Though your sacrifice, the pain and pleasure we shared, has changed much, it hasn’t altered the chains that bind me.”
“What will?”
His thumb passed over her lower lip and he followed it with his mouth, tender and sweet. “To ask the question is to answer it.”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
“You are both the lock and the key.”
“Are you saying that I’m keeping you trapped?”
“In a way.” His lips found the urgent pulse beat in her throat and she lifted her chin, offering herself again and again. “I smell it in your blood—both my captor and my savior.”
“I don’t understand enough.”
“You will. You have brought me gifts beyond price, my priestess. My Christine.”
“I love you.” She said it in a rush, wishing she had better words than the bare phrase that had to represent the depth of emotion rushing through her like a river.
“You are forever my love. Nothing will ever change that. Though I’m trapped below, I am with you in thought and feeling at every moment. Remember that.” And then he gave her one last kiss and slid from under her hand, a drift of white sand sliding from the shore and out to sea.
Her prince, trapped in the tower.
But not forever. Because she had the power to save him.
3
S
he stepped out of the opera house into the cool June night, locking the doors behind her. Overhead, the Milky Way stretched in a brilliant glitter. Stars flickering with prismatic color seemed to wheel in spirals like the swirling galaxies depicted at the planetarium.
Her body ached in every way imaginable and inside she felt as sparklingly alive as the night sky. The two seemed to be reflections of each other. What had Roman’s priest called it?
Mortification of the flesh
. Somehow Christine knew he hadn’t been thinking of the kind of carnal ceremony she’d just gone through. Ursa Major, the great bear, strode through the glittering stream of stars and she smiled to think of him. They would find a way. She knew it.
Love conquered all, didn’t it?
It couldn’t be just a cliché.
Shivering, she pulled out her phone to call a cab company. Then she spotted Hally’s little VW Bug, not far away under one of the muted, downward-facing parking lights. Inside, Hally slept in the driver’s seat, tilted back nearly horizontal, her unnaturally red hair catching glints of light and slanting shadows giving her face a witchy cast.
Reluctant to startle her, Christine knocked on the window with a light tapping. Hally’s eyes opened, not seeing her at first, then sharpened, and she plucked the seat lever, springing herself upright. She rolled down the window.
“Get in,” she hissed, though no one could possibly hear them. “We’ve got problems.”
It felt odd to talk to someone from the regular world again. To be wearing her shirt and shorts and to sit in a car while Hally drove it down the road. Her body still pulsed from that last orgasm, her mind spinning from all she’d witnessed and learned, her heart brimming over with sticky-sweet emotion. She hummed a tune, the ancient melody part of it all.
“What song is that?” Hally cocked her head like a bird, listening. “It seems so familiar.”
“A really old one. But I don’t know the name. Names don’t matter anyway.”
Hally slid her gaze over, the whites of her eyes catching the streetlights, then back to the road. “Hoookaaaayyy.”
“What?”
“You haven’t been smoking the peyote or anything, have you?—’cuz you’re acting pretty whacked.”
Christine giggled, the giddiness spilling over, sparkling stars spilling through the darkness. “No. I don’t think any drug could induce what happened to me tonight.”
“Jeez.” Hally shook her head. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
“I wish you could.” Christine turned in her seat. “It was the most incredible experience, but I don’t think I could put it into words.”
“Well, we don’t have time for it now, anyway. Time for you to sober up and deal with the non-numinous. Gritty reality awaits,
chica
.”
“Where are we going?” Christine blinked as they passed Toma-sita’s, now closed for the night.
“My place.” Hally sounded grim. “Hopefully they won’t look for you there again tonight.”
“Who?”
“Christy! Focus, would you?”
“Christine.”
“Huh?”
“Call me Christine, okay?”
The whites of Hally’s eyes gleamed again, this time as she rolled them. “Okay, fine, whatever, Miss I’m a Whole New Person.”
“I feel like I am! I’ll call you Halcyon, if you want me to.”
“Dear gods, please no.”
“Why not? It means peace and tranquility, especially around the winter solstice. I looked it up.”
“I’m perfectly aware of what it means.”
“You’re that for me, an oasis of calm.”
Hally pulled into a parking spot surprisingly close to her apartment, then dropped her forehead to the steering wheel. “We need to bring you down. I wonder if yogurt would work? I might have some acidophilus in the fridge.”
Christine wrinkled her nose and got out of the car. “I don’t like yogurt.”
“Well, it’s not as if you took mushrooms, anyway. Did you?”
“Nope. I haven’t had anything.” She grinned. “Except the most phenomenal sex of my life.”
“That explains a great deal.”
Hally unlocked her apartment door, peering around the edge before she let Christine in. “A hot shower should ground you. Sorry I can’t offer you a glam sunken tub like Roman’s got. Make sure you get the mud out from under your nails, okay? The cops might wonder about that.”
She looked at her hands. Lake mud was caked in nearly black crescent wedges under her fingernails. Hally was in the kitchenette, cooing a singsong to her kitties, giving them some extra supper.
“The cops are looking for me?”
Hally turned, propping a fist on her hip and leaning against the counter. “Aha! There’s a working brain in there, after all.”
“Why are they looking for me?”
The redhead suddenly looked exhausted. And worried. Not a good sign. “Go shower. Pull yourself together and we’ll talk. They’ve already questioned me once, so it’s entirely possible they’ll come looking for you here again. I would really rather you didn’t look like you’ve been crawling around in the bowels of the opera house when they find you.”
“Oh.” Christine obediently headed for Hally’s closet of a bathroom.
“There are clean towels on the shelf. Get started with soap. I’ll bring in some clothes for you to borrow.”
She did feel as if she was coming down from a high. The squalid bathroom, with its stained linoleum, helped. The plastic floor of the shower—one of those cubby kind cheap landlords bought in one piece to create a full bathroom out of a toilet stall—bubbled under her feet. Making the water as hot as she could stand it, she shampooed repeatedly, scratching at her scalp to loosen the dirt under her nails. She couldn’t think how it had gotten there. Maybe from the boat?
“I’m coming in!” Hally called through the door. “Turn your back or whatever, but I won’t look.”
Funny. She’d forgotten about hiding the scars. As if, now that the Master had borne witness to them, they no longer mattered. Maybe they didn’t.
Hally, face averted, set some folded sweats on the toilet seat, then handed her something over her shoulder. “Here’s an orange stick.”
“A what?”
“You know—to clean under your nails.”
“I get that. I just never heard that name before.”
“My grandmother called it that. I have no idea why. What does it have to do with oranges?”
“I never knew my grandmothers—either one of them.” A sense of loss she hadn’t realized she carried swept over her. Loss composed of lies, as much as anything.
“Really—both? Did they both die when you were young, or what?” Hally took down her ponytail, brushing out her hair.
“Well, my mom was an orphan. She never knew who her parents were. She was adopted by this foundation that picks out bright kids and sends them to boarding schools.”
“Sounds lonely.”
“She said it was better than the foster families she lived with. And then she met my dad when she was young and there were a lot of Davises, so she said they were more than enough family.”
“But no Grandma Davis?”
“Died in childbirth,” she repeated the old story, not ready to venture into the very strange but entirely possible alternative “There aren’t even any photos of her. My Aunt Isadore raised my dad.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.” Christine turned off the water. “Okay. I’m ready to dry off.”
Hally kept her gaze on her image in the mirror. “Go ahead.”
“Hally—you can look.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I want you to see it. What I was hiding.”
Hally turned, her eyes screwed shut, then slowly opened one, her gaze fixed on her friend’s belly.
She bent over and studied the scars. “You’re a cutter?”
“No.” Christine blew out a long breath and made herself look. “Or maybe yes. I guess it’s like being an alcoholic—there’s always the danger of relapsing. But I haven’t done it for a long time. My dad found out, and I was in this rehab place for a while. I hated him for that.”
“Oh honey—did your mom know?” Hally handed her a towel.
“She knew I’d hurt myself, but not how. I didn’t want her to know. I was so embarrassed. I felt like a failure.”
“It’s not a failure. Everybody has different ways of dealing with pain. You should be proud for overcoming it.”
“I wasn’t crazy. And I’m not crazy now. I’ve learned that much.”
“Okay.” Hally’s bland look reminded her of her promise never to judge. Christine sighed.
“It helps that you know. And . . . and I wanted you to understand at least this part of things. Why I didn’t want my father here. Helping me.”
Hally regarded her quietly. “I get that. But he did the right thing, didn’t he? Even though you were angry then.”
“Maybe. I’m going to need his help, though.”
“Everyone needs help now and again.”
“Well . . .” She sighed and toweled her hair. “I can’t count on the Sanclaro lawyers, and if the cops are talking to my friends, then I need help. What did they seem like they were after?”
“The cops are hinting around that they think you could be part of it.”
A chill from more than the cool tiles sank into her heart. She pulled on Hally’s sweats. “What? Why?”
Hally sat on the toilet and bit her lip. “It’s bad. Carla apparently remembered what happened. And now the cops are talking as if she said you did it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, it hardly matters, does it?” Hally snapped and tightened her ponytail. “They might have enough to arrest you now. That Detective Sanchez wanted to know where you were. And Sanclaro wants to know where you are. Let me tell you—you’re a popular girl tonight. Come morning, you won’t be able to duck them.”
Christine stood frozen, unable to gather her thoughts.
“What did Carla say I did?”
“Well, we don’t know, do we? Here, comb your hair.”
She did, hissing at the snarls she hadn’t known were there.
“See—they won’t tell us exactly what Carla said because they’re trying to draw you out. That Sanchez kept saying ‘don’t you want me to help your friend?’ and ‘the truth will exonerate her, but it looks bad without it,’ and so on.”
“Shit.”
“In a word, yes. You’d better start thinking up your story.”
“My story is that I was with him.”
“Can you prove that?” Hally kept her face and voice studiously neutral.
“How?”
“Exactly. Only you have ever seen him. Unless he’s planning to testify on your behalf, you have a problem.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“It’s not me you need to convince. I’m not interested in judging you.”
“Hally, can I ask you something?”
“I already told you—no judgment.”
“Not that. If someone wanted to bind a spirit to a place, how is that done?”
Hally gave her a considering look. “You’re not the kind of person to want to commit a heinous act like that, so I’m guessing you want to know who trapped your guy and how to undo it.”
Christine nodded. Then shivered.
“Let’s pour some wine. Then we’ll talk.”