Retribution (4 page)

For me, too,
Dominic answered the
thought. His hand moved down from my lips, followed the curves of
chin and throat into the wide neck of the borrowed gown to brush my
tender nipples with open palm. My mouth opened, blood rushing to my
face, my heart pounding.

Amalie!
Reynaldo’s voice was in my
mind. I opened my eyes that I had shut to receive Dominic’s kiss.
The face leaning over me was a bloody horror, an infected hole
where a nose had been, dirty beard caked with dried blood. The eyes
squinted in pain.
You know me, Amalie
, the thing
whispered.

“No!” I shouted, raising my arms to block the
sight, swatting as at a buzzing fly. “Keep away from me!”

Dominic jerked his hand from me as if it had
been scalded and sat back in the chair in surprise. “Amalie!” It
was his voice, although I had rarely seen him look so angry. “By
all the gods, Amalie—”

I had never rejected Dominic, not like this.
With our gift it was easy to know when I was in the mood, when not.
Dominic had never approached me when I was unwilling or could not
be persuaded. And I had just now invited him…

I felt unable to tell Dominic what had
happened. After Lucretia’s chastisement, I was frightened at what
Dominic might do, provoking another ugly confrontation with our
strong-willed hostess. I held my hand out to Dominic. “Forgive me,”
I said. Tears stung my eyes. “I don’t feel well– I’m not
myself—”

The cruel smile I had seen earlier was back
on Dominic’s face. “So I see.”

“Hold me, Dominic,” I said. “Just put your
arms around me.”

Dominic shook his head. “No, thank you. I can
take a hint. And hot-and-cold is not a game I care to play.” His
voice, as I recognized now, was scratchy with fatigue. There was
even a suggestion of relief, as if Dominic welcomed the easy
escape. With the remainder of communion between us, did Dominic
suspect something of the truth? If intimacy with me had become a
risky business, his masculine pride would not allow him to admit
it.

There was the lightest of knocks at the door
and Niall slipped silently into the room rather than waking me with
talk. When he saw Dominic and me in apparent communion he withdrew,
but Dominic waved him in. Again I felt my husband’s relief at the
interruption.

“Lady Amalie,” Niall said, “I hear you’ve
recovered in the nick of time to save us all from unceremonious
ejection.”

“No,” I said. “Lady Ladakh has made it clear
we’ve outstayed our welcome. I told her we’d be gone by first light
tomorrow.”

Niall whistled, impressed. “Are you sure
you’re well enough? You must have been delirious to have promised
such an early start.” He laughed, assuming so energetic a plan was
proof of my return to health.

Dominic was meanwhile subjecting his lover to
intense scrutiny. “What have you been up to, cheri?”

Niall gave me a quick glance. “I’ve been
introducing the uninitiated to the delights of love,” he said.

Dominic gave a snort of disgust. “In case you
haven’t noticed, this is a Christian household. If you’ve been
buggering the stable hands you must confess and do penance.”

“Thank you for your candid opinion of my
taste in amusement,” Niall said.

“As Amalie just said, Lady Ladakh practically
asked us to leave. All to do with some nonsense about vengeance and
blasphemy.” Dominic explained briefly, wanting Niall to understand,
not liking to linger over the unpleasant events this day had
brought. “It’s better if we try to observe Christian morality for
the short time we remain here. And despite what they claim,
Christians are not—” Dominic thought for a word. “—comfortable with
vir
sexuality.”

Niall laughed again despite Dominic’s stern
manner. “Is that so? Then it might surprise you to learn that this
nominally Christian household has produced an apostate, a young man
wearing Christian insignia, yet displaying a most pagan appetite
for—” He stopped, embarrassed now by my presence, and frightened by
Dominic’s angry face.

“Are you telling us,” Dominic asked in the
ominous silence, “that you’ve been fooling around with a boy from
the family, the immediate family?”

“Yes,” Niall said, his voice shaking a
little. “The third son, the youngest.” He looked into Dominic’s
eyes, seemed to take courage from what he found there, and spoke
more confidently, with real enthusiasm. “The boy is quite innocent,
only just released from seven years of servitude at their
monastery. He’s here for a short visit home, on his way to the
‘Graven Military Academy—” He raised his eyebrows at Dominic.
“—where you will see what I mean, if you don’t get a chance before
we leave. Turned sixteen a month ago, the last of his baby fat
changing to hard muscle—and I do mean hard.” He slanted his eyes to
me, worried that he had spoken too crudely.

“Tell us more,” I said, in sympathy with
Niall’s hidden jealousy of Stefan, so similar to mine of Lady
Melanie. “He sounds very attractive.”

Dominic sent me a quelling look, but Niall
took me at my word. “Yes, he’s well-educated, gifted, with the
sensitivity of the seminary-trained telepath and the looks of a
god—a pagan god of love, not that poor emaciated one the Christians
portray in bondage.” Niall held his arms out and hung his head like
the barbaric image of their crucified god.

Dominic couldn’t help laughing at Niall’s
graphic imitation. “Cheri,” he said, “whether that’s idolatry or
blasphemy I’m not qualified to say. But after what’s happened with
Amalie and me, seducing Lucretia Ladakh’s son is not a good idea
right now.”

Niall sank into a chair. “Too late.” He
studied his fingernails. “Besides, it wasn’t difficult. The boy’s
been following me everywhere for three days, and when he learned
about the small part I played in the rescue—” He lowered his voice
and eyes, a picture of modesty. “—he literally fell to his knees
and begged me to be the first to—”

“That’s enough,” Dominic said. “We don’t need
all the pornographic details right this minute.” He wasn’t angry, I
decided, so much as envious. Envious of the boy who had engaged
Niall’s attention in Dominic’s absence.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Niall said, drawling out
the words. “Sometimes pornography can be most beneficial to the
circulation.” He winked at me, knowing I at least understood
him.

Dominic had spent so much time here looking
after me that Niall was bound to feel neglected. He had seduced the
boy, no doubt had enjoyed the experience of being hero-worshipped,
playing the man of the world to the boy’s virginal admiration. But
the purpose had been to arouse Dominic, the telling staged so as to
make the most of what may have been a rather unexciting incident. I
suspected Niall was now as eager as Dominic and I were to get away
home, to shake off what was proving to be the burdensome adoration
of a boy for his first love.

Dominic was being deliberately obtuse. “If
the boy was seven years at a monastery, and as eager for experience
as you claim, I doubt very much that you were the first.” Dominic
had often commented on the absurdity of scores of men and boys
living in one house and expected to be celibate; his memories of
Christian school encompassed more than scripture. “For all you know
he might have used that line on everyone with a hard-on, students
and monks alike.”

“Wait until you see Justin,” Niall said,
“before you say a lot of things you’ll regret.”

Dominic lowered his eyelids in a look of
disdain. “I’ve seen him. Pudgy blonds do nothing for
my—circulation.” He waved his hand, equanimity returning. He, too,
had come to see what Niall was after. “Run and kiss him good-by. As
Amalie said, we’re leaving at first light tomorrow, and I think
I’ll keep you out of trouble until then.” He put his arm around
Niall’s slim waist, lowered his hand to grab a firm buttock.
“Amalie’s ready for an early night, aren’t you, beloved?”

“Yes,” I said, although I wasn’t. Three days
of sleep had left me refreshed and wide awake. Dominic leaned down
to kiss me goodnight. He was in a good humor again, and his kiss
was affectionate if quick. We were in accord now.

It was a godsend, I thought, no doubt
blasphemously, that Niall had indulged in a little tomcatting.
Niall’s provocative behavior might distract Dominic from his
vengeful activities during these last hours of our stay. And if
Dominic found relief with Niall, it would benefit all three of
us.

I am an empath as well as a telepath; I can
experience other people’s feelings, not merely know of them, but my
early life on Terra, isolated among the ungifted, had made me build
a self-protective wall in my mind around such an area of
vulnerability. Only with Dominic do I truly empathize. When Dominic
makes love to his companion, so can I, in communion, from my own
bed in my own room. I can share Dominic’s own active pleasure, a
brief, fantastic excursion into the masculine being and sensations,
returning to the safety and familiarity of womanhood when I have
had enough.

A man with fewer scruples than Dominic might
command wife and companion to share his bed simultaneously and
expect us to obey. For Dominic, brothel acts have no place at home;
besides, this communion is not quite the same thing. But the double
communion of love completes the triangle of our marriage, proves
its strength and truth.

When I am joined with my companion, body
and mind,
Dominic told me once, whispering his thoughts
directly that he would not say aloud,
and I sense you with me at
the same moment,
it is unlike any other lovemaking. It is
like—

Like sorcery,
I had finished the
thought.
Magic.
What
crypta
is to the ungifted, this
unusual connection seems to us.

“Not magic, beloved,” he said.
“Perfection.”

I had discovered this manifestation of our
communion early in our marriage, because I must share all my
husband’s strong emotions. Later I had come to admit that, though I
had the skill and more to separate my mind from Dominic’s at
moments of intimacy, I was unwilling always to deprive myself of so
harmless a pleasure. As our years of domesticity jogged contentedly
along, there had never been any indication that Stefan was aware of
the triple nature of many of the nights he spent with Dominic, and
I had become so accustomed to the sharing I had ceased to worry
over the morality of it, or even to question it.

Niall’s gift was more finely attuned than
Stefan’s. There were times when I wondered if he felt something of
my presence in his lover’s consciousness, but he never complained.
That his lover had a wife mattered little to Niall, I imagined. If
the wife enjoyed an occasional vicarious thrill, Niall couldn’t
take such female nonsense seriously enough to be offended.
Certainly, after a year and a half, I was far too comfortable with
the situation to contemplate giving up my gratification now.

“Sleep well,” I said as they hurried out,
fondling each other with playful abandon. Niall sent a silent
afterthought of thanks to me over his shoulder.

When one of Lucretia’s household women
entered my room I was ready to strangle her. It was no trouble, she
assured me, settling herself into a large cushioned chair near the
fireplace. If my husband was not to spend the night with me, Lady
Ladakh insisted that I not be left alone. What if I needed help
during the night?

The woman sat awake for hours, cold and
dutiful. She had picked up on all her mistress’s dislike of us, and
I could not relax in her presence to share in the waves of
sensation that washed over me. Niall and Dominic made love late
into the night—it had been a strong passion that Niall had
provoked. I heard them, through the thick wall between our rooms,
and I felt the traces of Dominic’s emotion, like a man releasing a
pent-up fury, even without full communion.

After my attendant had at last dozed off, I
made communion with Dominic. He and Niall were sleeping now, but I
sensed they would enjoy love again before morning. I settled myself
contentedly into my husband’s mind until the time when he would
awaken and rise…

It was not long. I rolled over onto my
stomach, smiling to myself in the secret darkness of communion.
Dominic knew I liked it when he made love to Niall in this way.
Although I always feel some of Dominic’s pleasure when he is with
me, as he feels mine, sharing in my husband’s active sexuality with
a man is different. Unlike when they use their mouths, it is
something I cannot experience directly as a woman, with my own
body. I rose to my knees, following Dominic in unconscious mimicry
as he straddled the prone body of his companion.

The searing pain took me so by surprise I
almost screamed aloud.
Amalie
, the voice entered me.
Amalie, yes, let me in. You know me
. Reynaldo filled the
place in my mind I had unsealed for Dominic.
You see how well we
fit together. I have the right
.

It was rape, the worst form of violation,
unexpected, obscene in its sudden complete control of my essence.
My body bucked and shuddered, my throat convulsed in a series of
gulping glottal contractions. I fought silently against my
attacker, a battle I had already lost. The thing inside me, that
Lucretia Ladakh had assured us was a man, emptied the filth of his
mind into mine.

I buried my face in the large soft pillow,
muffling the groans I could not completely suppress, so as not to
wake the children who slept beside me. As Reynaldo sent his
thoughts of anal rape to me, I had a moment of realization. He was
paying me back for what Dominic had done to him.

Dominic!
I attempted to call out to my
husband to stop this insanity.

My rapist shuddered with pleasure.
Yes,
Amalie
, he said.
Tell your lord husband what I am doing
.
He pulled back slightly, opened one narrow channel of
communication.