Shattered (25 page)

Adara stopped a little more than an arm’s length away
.

“Can I touch them?” She asked, and
her hands were still pressed up to her chest.  Only when Robin acquiesced with a small nod did she take that final step.  Robin felt two warm palms closed around her left hand and soft, feminine fingers trace along the ridge of her knuckles and across the top to her wrist.

“Does it hurt still?”

“No,” Robin replied.  There was something fascinating about the girl, the way she cradled her hand, how gingerly she touched.  There was nothing forced in it, no action born of duty.

Adara turned her hand over and ran her thumb over Robin’s wrist too li
ghtly.  The girl’s accidental caress sent a jolt to Robin’s center and she squeezed her thighs to stifle that ache.  She withdrew her hand.

Adara stepped back and pulled her shirt off over her head.  She was scrawnier naked and rather flat, and it made her nipples stand out that much more.

It took a full three seconds before Robin could disengage her surprise enough to find her voice.  “What are you doing?”

“The whip. 
I’m to be punished?”

Robin followed her eyes down to the whip in her hand and
, again, she ran her thumb over the handle.  She should toss it away, clear this misunderstanding, but she was hesitating.  She wondered if Adara might sound anything like Lily had, beneath the lash.  And she was disgusted with herself, just as she was aroused.

“Turn around,” Robin said
.  Her voice sounded strained coming out.  Adara didn’t seem to notice though.  She faced away and pulled her hair over one shoulder in front of her.

Robin touched at the top of her neck
and ran her hand down the ridges of her spine.  Adara trembled a little, but Robin didn’t think for a second it was anything more than trepidation.  She could see a few faint white lines across her back, hardly visible at all, and she knew well enough what those were.

“
You’ve been whipped before.”

Adara nodded.  “I
’m always making Jeremy angry.  He says I talk too much,” she replied, almost cheerfully.  But after a moment of silence she dropped her voice to a whisper.  “I never got it as bad as some of the other girls though.  The ones he sleeps with.  I think he enjoys hurting them.”

Robin knew all about Jeremy and none of that was new to her.  But to hear it, to be reminded of it, that sent a knot into her stomach.  She was about to do the same thing to Adara that disgusted her about Jeremy.

“Put your shirt back on.  Nathan didn’t send me in here to punish you, he doesn’t have it in him.  In fact, he didn’t send me in here at all.  You and I need to talk.”

Adara turned and looked like such a perfect mix of vulnerability
and hesitation that Robin had to toss her whip down on the bed to keep from raising it.  She averted her eyes and studied the messy creases in the sheets until the girl was dressed again.

“You enjoy it too, don’t you?”
Adara asked.

Robin looked up, studied those pretty blue eyes of hers.  She looked for anything more than curiosity
in the question and couldn’t find it.  “I can’t decide if you’re the most innocent spy I’ve ever met or simply the most cunning.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Adara mumbled.  She dropped her head a little and a strand
of hair fell over her face.  When she pushed it back it fell forward again and she left it.

“I’m not offended.  Yes, I enjoy it.  I’m chasing some high I got with Nathan and it scares the hell out of me.  And I have no idea why I’m telling you these things.  But it’s no wonder Nathan clings to you.  You’re easy to talk to.”

“I don’t know how to help him…”

“Why do you want to?”

“Because he’s different now,” Adara said.  She looked up and met Robin’s eyes.  “I remember him from before you… before he disappeared.  He was arrogant and spoiled.  He took whatever he wanted, him and Jeremy both, and the best any of us could do was try to stay clear of them.”

“But then he came back and
he was completely withdrawn.  I could tell something happened, we all could, but the rumor was he didn’t remember anything.  The other girls said whatever it was he got what he deserved, and maybe I agreed, maybe we were all a little happy that we had only one brother to avoid now.  But as the days added up we could all see he was withering away, that something was eating him inside.  How could I watch that and not want to help?”

Robin sat down on the edge of the bed and smoothed a wrinkle from the sheets beside her hand.  “Whose idea was it that you should spy on him?”

Adara hesitated only a moment before answering.  “Mine.  I wanted to get close to him.  And I wanted to get away from Jeremy.  I really didn’t think he’d agree to it, but he did.  They’d been so close… I had no idea Jeremy was responsible. Not at first anyway.”

“
I see,” Robin said.  She dragged the handle of her whip over her lap and followed one braided cord with her eyes.  She knew when someone wanted to say more, and the way Adara shifted, from one foot to another, she knew if she waited the rest would come out.  Sometimes silence was a greater motivator than pain.

“He told me you left a hole in him that he doesn’t know how to
fill…,” Adara whispered.  She twisted the hem of her shirt around in her hands and, for the first time, Robin heard the accusation in her voice.  She may have tried to hide it but it was there.  “I’ve tried to, but he loves you and I don’t know how to help him.”

Robin didn’t look up, she didn’t need to.  “I didn’t leave a hole.  I just made him aware that one exist
s, and has always existed, and for a time I was able to fill it for him.”

“How?”

“I took everything away from him,” Robin said. “Everything.  Dignity, comfort…  But it must have been more than that.  I think I took away the burden of his birthright too.  For a time anyway I freed him from everything”  She shook her head. “He doesn’t love me, I’m just the first person to make him feel that.”

Adara was quiet for a while and Robin could see her working over things in her head.  Her eyes scanned the air, though there was nothing to read there, and she chewed on the corner of her lower lip.

Her voice was barely audible when she spoke again.  She sounded afraid of the answer, but too invested not to ask.  “How? What did you do to him?”

“
I hurt him.  I replaced everything with suffering the only way I know how – through pain.  I tested every limit, pushed him to every edge I could find, and then further, and he went because he had no choice.  I intended to break him, make his final days despair, and it was all for a past I couldn’t see beyond.  I’m so much worse than Jeremy, I did it for vengeance.  I didn’t think he’d get off on it.  On the pain.  And I had no way to know I would either.”

Robin realized she
was frowning but she kept going.  “It was entirely by accident that I stumbled upon the rest.  I thought he was weak, at first, but I found in him a tremendous strength to endure, if only he can find a reason to.  And I gave him a reason, because it was that or death.”

The color had drained a little from Adara’s face and she was quiet.

“I suppose it doesn’t need to be that extreme.  But he has to know you’re in control.  Even if you’re not…,” Robin said.  “I’m starting to think that’s why, all his life, he’s shirked every responsibility given to him.  He’s tried to give up control of everything else because he doesn’t know how to find a balance.  He doesn’t know how to ask for this,” she said and, with one finger, she tapped the whip in her lap.

“I don’t k
now if I can do that.”

“Maybe, maybe not.  But right now he’s gotten it into his head that he’s using you and I want to break him of that.  He doesn’t need t
hat guilt.  There are much larger things I need him to worry about.”

Adara nodded and her voice was a whisper, but underneath Robin could hear her strength
too.  “I want to be there.  Tell me what I have to do.”

“Be yourself, but try to
understand that no matter what I do to him he has the option to end it.  But I know him, he’s going to push himself to please me.”

“And that will make him happy?”

Robin shrugged again.  “That’ll have to be your job.  I don’t make people happy, I break them.  But he needs it. And he seems to need you too, he just can’t seem to get over that title of his.  We’ll see if he still feels the same after I put him at your feet.”

“
You love him too, don’t you?”

Robin felt her eyes narrow involuntarily
.  “I’m going with cunning, by the way, but I know when I’m outclassed.  I just hope Nathan’s trust in you isn’t completely unfounded.”

**

No matter how hard Nathan strained he couldn’t hear any of what was going on in the other room.  Robin didn’t want to hurt him, he told himself, and after a few minutes of quiet he was able to quell his anxiety.  Whatever was going to happen would happen and he didn’t control any of it.

It was a nice sentiment but he realized just how superficial it was when he heard the door open again.  All that stress came back in an instant and fear flooded his stomach.  There was silence still and he hazard a glance up.  Robin was leaning against the doorway, whip in hand.

“Come here prince,” she said, and pointed at the ground near her feet.  He couldn’t see anything in the room behind her but he knew what awaited him.

He almost stood, but a sharp look from her made him realize that’d be a mistake.  She wanted him to crawl and the thought made him burn through with shame, just as it made him aroused.  He kept his eyes down between his hands as he moved across the rug and stopped when her bare feet peeked into view.  She didn’t move, didn’t say anything, not until he went back onto his knees and grabbed his ankles.

Robin
looped the thin length of the whip around his neck and tucked the end in.  She was fashioning him a leash, though one that wouldn’t hold if tension was put on either end.  But he could tell she didn’t expect that to happen.

“Please don’t do this Robin.”

“When has begging ever worked for you?” She let out a short laugh and patted him once on the cheek.  “I’m going to let this one slide prince, but you better call me Mistress from now on.”

“Yes Mistress,” he whispered.  He could always stand, he knew that, but he wanted this.  He’
d wanted it for a while now, it just terrified him.

“That’s better,” Robin said.  She leaned forward and her lips brushed his ear.  “
You have to trust me,” she whispered, and then she straightened up and turned like she hadn’t said anything at all.

Nathan crawled behind her before the short tether of her whip could go taut.  He kept his eyes down to the floor.  He didn’t see Adara, but as it was he wasn’t able to look around.  It was all he could do to just move forward
and breathe.

Robin stopped at the base of his bed and sat down, and Nathan knelt again at her feet.  She didn’t remove the whip from his neck and the thin end dangling down his back. 
His floor was hard beneath his knees, the air cool on his naked skin.  He focused on those things to take his mind off the weight of a second set of eyes.  Adara hadn’t made a sound yet but he knew she was there, and he knew if he just looked up he’d be able to read everything in her face.

Robin extended her foot outward and ran it up the inside of his thigh.  She felt at his erection through his pants and teased him with her toes.

Shame heated his cheeks and spread through to the rest of his body.  He felt too hot, but Robin’s hand again on his face soothed it a little.  Then her hand fell away, back to the bed, and she brought her other foot up.

“
Go ahead,” she said quietly, and pressed both into his middle.

Permission to touch. 
Nathan took all his anxiety, all his discomfort, and focused all of it on that one task.  He cupped her feet and dug his thumbs into her arches.  He felt her relax and he listened to the soft breaths she let out whenever he touched her right.  He couldn’t believe he’d been so worried before.  She wasn’t asking anything he couldn’t do and the relief was tremendous.

“So where are you from originally Adara?” Robin asked.

Nathan’s breath caught in his throat and his hands froze on Robin’s feet.  He had forgotten about Adara, somehow, and the reminder paralyzed him now.  Robin leaned forward and stroked his face again and Nathan glanced up from beneath his brow, without raising his head, but she wasn’t looking at him.  She gave him no attention but her hand and when he resumed massaging her feet even that touch fell away.

“Originally?
” Adara replied.  “Miro.  But I haven’t been back there in years now.”

Nathan shut his eyes and listened for any hint that she might find him repulsive, but her tone was cheerful
, even if it was a little forced.

“You hardly look old enough to have been gone for years,” Robin remarked
.  She curled her toes and arched her feet, and Nathan’s attention went there.

“
I ran away when I was fourteen,” she replied, and her voice betrayed a little shrug.  “Doesn’t seem to matter how long I spend here though, I can’t seem to lose the accent.”