15 Targeted (18 page)

Almost by reflex he raised his arm again and brought down the belt much harder than before. She moaned and jumped but held tight to the bedpost.

“Emily?
Khalla?”

“Don’t stop.” Her voice was a tight whisper. “Don’t stop—I think it’s working. Do it again!”

He whipped her again and then again, his arm rising and falling as if moved by her will alone. And indeed, maybe it was. The fire of a
Khalla
was nothing to dismiss lightly. A male could very well get burned if he was not careful, playing with such a flame.

At last, when her soft bottom was criss-crossed all over with red stripes he stopped.

“Why did you stop?” She turned to look over her shoulder, her pale blue eyes awash with tears. “Do it, Tragar—hit me again.”

“No! Goddess damn it—
no.
” Her tears and the way he had marked her filled him with remorse the hundreds of assassinations he had performed could not. He untangled the black leather belt from his hand and dropped it as though it was a poisonous creature that had bitten him.

“Do it!” she insisted but her voice sounded faint and far away. Suddenly she collapsed, crumpling to the floor in a little heap.

“Emily!” Her name was a groan on his lips. Rushing forward, he took her in his arms, trying to support her without hurting her. She was limp and lifeless in his arms—completely unresponsive.

Goddess,
he thought as her head rolled loosely on his arm.
Oh Goddess forgive me—what have I done?

Chapter
Eleven

Someone was patting her cheek. “Emily, come back to me! Emily,
please.”

The deep, urgent voice seemed to penetrate her brain, making her stir.

“What…?” Emily came back to consciousness slowly, feeling very strange indeed. She looked up at Tragar who was cradling her in his arms, an anxious expression on his face. “What happened?” she asked uncertainly.

“You fainted,” he said roughly. “Gods, I shouldn’t have done it—shouldn’t have used my belt on you. I should be beaten or killed for treating you so.”

“I asked you to,” she pointed out. She lifted a hand to her face. “And…my eyes, they’re not burning anymore.”

“Your
Kit’tara
has been driven back…though at a very high price.” Tragar sighed and shook his head. “Don’t ask me to do that to you again, Emily. I
cannot.”
The anguished look in his golden eyes spoke volumes of remorse.

“You have to do whatever’s necessary.” She sighed and tried to sit up. “I…I think I’m all right now. I just—
ow!”
Her bare bottom had brushed the carpeted floor, causing a flaring jet of agony to her wounded posterior.

“I’ll get a cooling cloth. Here.” The big Kindred helped her up, holding her as gently as though she was made of fine china and might break at the least touch. He laid her carefully on the bed, face down and left the room.

Emily lay there, very aware that her nightgown was hiked up and her panties were down somewhere around her ankles. But her ass was on fire and it was hard to think about anything else except how much it hurt.

Still, it was worth it if it got rid of the other—if it drove her back into whatever little box inside me she hides in,
she thought grimly. Except…how many times would she have to go through this? How often would she have to get rid of the
other
, how many blows with the belt would she have to endure to keep holding her back? Could she stand it? Could she bear the pain to hold the
other
at bay?
If I have to, I’ll do it,
Emily decided.
Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it, damn it! Anything to keep her from taking over.

But could she count on Tragar to keep helping her? She couldn’t help remembering the stricken look on his face when she’d come to after fainting. He might be a brutal and deadly assassin but he hadn’t been kidding about how hard this was for him. Emily sensed he was close to hating himself for beating her with his belt, even though she’d all but commanded him to do it. What would she do if he refused to help her? If he—

Just then something cool and soft and wet connected with her bottom.

“Oh!” She jumped and looked around.

“It’s just me.” Tragar’s deep voice still sounded faintly strangled and the remorse on his face was clear. “Gods, look what I’ve
done
to you.”

“You did it because I asked you to,” Emily reminded him again. “And it worked, right? So it was worth it.” She tried to smile at him as he pressed the cool cloth very, very gently to her wounded bottom.

He sighed, looking deeply troubled.

“Worth it to keep you alive, I suppose and to keep your
Tenrah
from progressing. But I will still carry the memory of what I did to you to the grave.”

“Hey, come on,” Emily said, trying to ignore the awkwardness of talking to him while he was gently bathing her ass with the cool cloth. “I mean, you kill people for a living, right? How much worse could giving me a little whipping be?” Then she wanted to bite her lip—last time mentioning his career as an assassin had set him off in a big way. But this time he only answered quietly.

“Infinitely worse. The ones I killed—they were just targets. And I was ice inside—I felt nothing when they died.” His eyes had a faraway look, as though he was remembering someone or something only he could see. “I never thought to feel anything ever again. Not after Landra and Jalex…”

“Who?” Emily asked in a low voice.

The faraway look in his eyes faded to be replaced by a closed coldness.

“No one,” he growled. “I am getting off track. Sufficient to say I do not wish to beat you again.”

“Well, I hope you won’t have to but if the
other
starts coming back, I—
ow!”

“What is it? Did I hurt you?” He withdrew the cooling cloth at once, frowning.

“No, it’s not that…” Emily shifted again and again the sharp pain lanced through her. But it wasn’t her ass that was hurting this time…it was her breasts. “I have to sit up,” she said, turning on her side. No matter how much her backside still stung, it was nothing to the sudden, stabbing pain she’d just experienced.

Tragar helped her up without comment and she sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, grateful that the cooling cloth he’d used on her had helped a little at least.

“Where are you hurting?” he asked.

“It’s nothing. Just, um…” Emily didn’t exactly want to say she’d felt like someone was poking hot needles into her nipples although that was certainly the sensation she’d had a moment before when her breasts rubbed against the bed. She tried to look down as unobtrusively as she could, wondering if she could see anything through her nightgown. To her mortification, she absolutely could.

The pale blue, silky material, which had been loose and comfortable when she put the nightgown on, was stretched tight across breasts which were much,
much
larger than she remembered. She’d always had a fairly large chest—a full C cup verging on a D. But what she was looking at now was in E cup territory at least. Her nipples were poking out too, pressing obscenely against the thin fabric and making her look like some kind of a porn star.

“Oh my God!” Emily whispered, horrified. “It looks like I went and got really bad breast enhancement! What’s
wrong
with me?” She looked up at Tragar and saw there was a grim expression on his dark face. “What?” she demanded. “What is it—you know something, don’t you? Tell me what it is!”

He sighed heavily. “I hope I am wrong but…you may be entering
Scintil,
the second stage of your Shift.”

“What? No!” Emily protested. “You mean I’m further along than I was? But how is that possible?”

“Because
Tenrah
is a natural progression that all
Khalla
go through.”

“But you
spanked
me! It made the
other
go away and I thought—”

“Your
Kit’tara
might have been driven underground not by the beating I gave you, but the onset of
Scintil.
” He looked troubled. “If I remember my training correctly, your second self is in a kind of stasis or hibernation during the second stage of the Shift.”

“Well
that’s
good, I guess,” Emily said doubtfully. “But I don’t know about the trade off. On one hand I’m glad not to have some other entity trying to take over my body. On the
other
hand I apparently had to get porn star titties to get rid of her.”

Tragar frowned in evident confusion.

“Porn star titties? I’m sorry—I thought I knew your language but some of the vernacular still confuses me.”

Emily blushed. What was getting into her? She felt like she was changing and not just physically. She was more assertive—less scared and shy than she had been. Was it just because of everything she’d been through in the past twenty-four hours or was it part of what Tragar had called
Tenrah
or the Shift?

“I, uh…” She shook her head. “Never mind. The point is, how long does this stage last? And how can I reverse the whole process and just go back to being normal?”

Tragar sighed. “As for reversing the process completely, there is no way that I know of. And any of the stages of
Tenrah
may be gone through quickly or slowly, depending on your body’s own rhythm.” He looked grim again. “In your case, we have to hope you go through them slowly or we’ll never make it to Rageron in time. I just hope you’re only in the early stages of
Scintil
and not the later stages.”

“What? There are stages to the stages?” Emily shook her head. “This is
crazy.
How can you even
tell
what part of
Scintin
I’m in?”

“
Scintil,”
he corrected. “And there
is
a way to tell—a small test which may be preformed.”

“There is? Well then let’s do it—what are we waiting for?” Emily demanded. “I need to know where I stand and what’s going on with me!”

He looked uncomfortable.

“You may not…wish to perform it.”

“What? Why not? Is it embarrassing?”

“Potentially.” He cleared his throat. “It would involve showing me your breasts.”

“What? I mean, you’re already looking at them,” Emily protested, feeling her cheeks heat with a blush.

“I would need to see them without your night garment in the way.” He kept his tone absolutely neutral and Emily suddenly had the feeling that this situation embarrassed the huge warrior almost as much as it embarrassed her. It was that feeling that made her bite her tongue instead of demanding to know if he was being a pervert. Clearly he was strong enough to take advantage of her any time he wanted and just as clearly, that wasn’t what he wished. He didn’t want to hurt or embarrass her—this was somehow necessary.