Descent Into Darkness (20 page)

CHAPTER X
XXIX – Red Rage

The winch lowered Mela’s arms. The crowd had a different spectacle to draw their attention now. Amber meticulously unhooked the chains which still welded Mela’s wrists as one. Having worked the hook free from her chained ankles, she stood to scoop up the delicate girl in her arms.

Mela shook her head violently, seeing Katarina first buckle, then disappear from sight as the crowd pressed in around her.

“Easy Mela, I have an idea,” Amber soothed as the elfin girl in her arms slithered and bucked. An unspoken understanding was reached as their eyes met. The girl in Amber’s arms stilled her protests, curled arms around her neck and they moved away barely noticed.

== ~ ==

Her heartbeat was off the scale. She’d won even though she couldn’t quite believe what she had done. “One hundred thousand,” Jade whispered to herself again and again, her throat parched and barely able to swallow.

It could have been her security, her safety net, but that money was tainted. It was guilt money from a man who didn’t even have the courage to tell her face to face that it was over. Now that guilt money had been used. She had rescued the woman the anonymous note had begged her to save.

She had rescued Mela from Raven, who now stood in front of her. The two women simply exchanged looks that passed beyond dislike.

“Poetic. My cast off is bought by the discard herself.” Raven’s tone was sickly sweet, dripping with the smugness she felt. It was all Jade could do not to lash out as her head hunted for the right words to shoot back.

A strong hand gripping Raven’s arm drew her away. “Come. Be with my guests.” Immelmann steered Raven’s glare from Jade, moving her away to take congratulations for the show.

== ~ ==

Red’s hold on Katarina’s hair was excruciating. The proximity sensor in her collar was redundant and she bent and bucked, trying somehow to dislodge the grip. The last shred of Katarina’s dress fluttered away in their wake and took with it the last of the mirage of dignity and sophistication.

== ~ ==

The rest of the evening slipped by and eventually guests started to leave, smiles on their faces, pronouncing their thorough enjoyment of the evening’s entertainment. A self-satisfied smile never left Immelmann’s face as he bade each “Goodnight and safe journey,” while they stooped again to kiss his hand.

He didn’t notice Raven slip away, nor that she slid through the door behind the platform, heading toward the room where Katarina would be.

She moved as quickly as the clinging latex of her long gown would allow, discarding elegance for functional speed, knowing it wouldn’t be long before she was missed.

Down the corridor, a few twists and turns and she hurried into a room. She saw exactly what she had been expecting. Red stood proudly, smiling at the arrival of her mentor and Mistress who, in return, nodded unspoken thanks.

On a high table lay Katarina, a short chain connecting her collar to a bolt anchored to the thick slab on top. She was unable to move her neck and her torso was similarly held immobile by a chain drawn tightly across her, beneath her breasts.

It was a sight that held so much opportunity. Raven had been embarrassed, the efficacy of her methods shown up as imperfect. She was enraged and she would inflict that on the girl presented before her.

A slow nod to Red permitted her approach, silvered punch in hand. Raven would adhere to the letter of his command not to harm the girl, but not the spirit of it. With a second nod, Red closed the instrument on the prone girl’s nipple.

CHAPTER X
L – Kicks Like A Mule

A scream. Deep and chilling, it was different to the usual screams he heard in his house and Immelmann turned to listen, frowning in thought as the tail lights on the car of his last guests disappeared from view. It was only then that he realised Raven was missing from his side.

It was an unusual feeling for him but Michael Immelmann was concerned. Raven. The woman he had virtually picked off the street had surprised even him. He’d given her a home and a place. He’d taken a raw but clearly talented dominant and made her into the captivating woman that could now hold a high-powered room spellbound. She was his Eliza Doolittle - though one with distinctive kinks.

Over the months, he’d first rounded the sharp edges before polishing her to a fine lustre, drawing upon his contact network to provide slaves on whom she could inflict her education. Several times she’d gone too far, showing a brutality born of something hidden deep. Each time though, he’d managed to draw her back, talk to her and move her forward again along a slightly different path to continue her growth.

This time he’d pushed the margin further. Under the cover of a photo shoot, he’d called for portfolios from the agencies and suggestions from contacts. Spurred by the promptings of Raven, that was Immelmann’s cover to find their next plaything. Only unknown girls, only those without prior work.

With looks as the first filter, he’d then researched their backgrounds and discarded all those with ties enough to be missed. He’d selected a girl to be taken. Katarina’s picture wasn’t part of a portfolio, just a picture from a person he knew. There were notes on the back telling of her lack of experience, lack of family, lack of cash. She had something though and her unfamiliarity with the industry would give him precisely what he was looking for.

Raven had studied her picture too, eventually purring her approval through a curled smile. Immelmann had made the phone call, marking the target out to his people, selecting the girl for the ‘shoot’. She was called Katarina and, through the misfortune of her good looks and loneliness, she had been selected for a future she could not foresee.

She had been so easily taken. She was trusting,
so
trusting and Raven had played her part to perfection. Or at least she had initially. Now though, she was starting to play to her own tune, not his, and the thought sat uncomfortably with Immelmann. She was his and his word was beyond question and yet the scream that had echoed came from deep within a soul. It told of Raven again forgetting her boundaries.

He would speak to her in the only language she knew. No point explaining, that she would only see as weakness. Force was her medium and force he would deliver. She would be corrected and she would relearn respect.

With that thought in mind and a steely purpose as his foundation, Immelmann marched toward the scream, brushing aside the concern from the staff of his house. Reaching the room, he burst through the door.

What he saw was a shock. There, secured face up on a table, lay his newly chosen girl, Katarina.

Scarlet trickling down her breast first caught his eye then the glint of the silver ring newly in her nipple. Red was standing over her, tool in hand, poised to repeat the process so left matched right. “Stop this immediately!” Immelmann bellowed, his voice resonating in the bare room.

He had said nothing was to be done to her, no harm was to befall her and yet here was the clear disregard for his word. His word. It was everything in this, his house, and anger welled seeing Raven revelling in the pain inflicted by proxy.

Immelmann strode over and knocked away the metal device from Red then struck her across the face with the back of his hand. The tall redhead stumbled, staggered away from Katarina until her back found the wall.

A movement to his right triggered a swift reaction, his hand connecting with Raven’s cheek, stopping her dead in her tracks. Immelmann spun, snatching her hair and twisting it harshly.

God she was beautiful. That porcelain face – it held such appeal and yet such danger. Time with Raven was always adrenaline-filled. You never knew whether she would thrill you or half kill you as her moods swung and unknown motivations drove her. He remembered why he had taken her, why Jade had been cast out. Raven’s danger captivated him in ways even he couldn’t understand, let alone describe. She was anger. She was danger. She was beauty. She was pure adrenalin and she was his.

His pause was all the opportunity Raven needed. That brief hesitation was familiar, her looks having disarmed many that way. She struck back with the full force of a myriad of painful memories.

Her aim was true. The powerful man before her simply melted, crumpling into a heap as agony exploded between his legs. An outbreak of stars followed as Raven broke his nose with a jabbed thrust of the heel of her hand.

Blinded, Immelmann could hear his own heartbeat booming in his ears. He gripped her tight, twisting fingers tried to claw deeper into her hair to both locate her and win respite from her attack. Her head-butt to his shoulder though broke his focus and his hold before the knee driven into his solar plexus snatched the air from him.

It wasn’t the first time she’d struck back but the venom and precision of her attack saw him crumple. Red looked on in awe as her mentor unleashed her frenzied rage on the prone man she had once called Master. “Enough Raven,” Immelmann managed to croak with as much authority as lingered within him -though it already sounded more like a plea.

“Fuck you!” Raven screamed back, thrusting her face down toward his and spitting into it with pure disdain.

Her outpouring of pent-up rage continued but was outpaced by Red as Raven drew back. Red’s fifth kick caused the crack, the seventh dislocated the rib but the tenth really did the damage, driving it into his lung. Red was lost in a whirlwind, driving kick after kick home, keen to outdo and demonstrate her worth.

It was too much, even for him. Immelmann slipped into unconsciousness as his body tried to cope. The two woman swooped with chain. There would be a later feast of vengeance but for now they returned their attentions to the shocked girl.

== ~ ==

Lava now exploded in her
other nipple and Katarina wailed. She thought she was safe though safe here was a relative term. Immelmann had arrived, casting her captor as rescuer but even he was powerless against the tsunami of Raven’s malice.

She looked down at him through tear-streaked eyes. He was clearly in trouble, his breath rattling in and out. They had hurt him, badly, though the severity could not even be guessed at. A second silver ring was looped and then squeezed closed through Katarina’s newly pierced nipple and she sobbed at the permanence as a trickle of blood picked its way down her side.

“Come.” It was the only word Raven needed. Red releasing her chains, Katarina swung her heavy legs to the side and slipped off the table to the floor. What choice was there but to follow? She’d been taken and she knew that only acceptance of that fact, for now, would get her through.

== ~ ==

Immelmann slowly woke to the pounding in his side. He tried to flex his legs to relieve the bitter ache that burnt but was unable to, chained as they were.

As consciousness cre
pt over him, a sharp pain in his side accompanied each laboured breath. The stabbing hinted at the seriousness of his injury and he winced, drawing air deeply to reduce the frequency of searing breaths.

The memories ebb
ed back. How easily she'd taken him down as if expecting his move. Confident, strong and yet here he lay, chained tight. A further ache raised its hand for attention, his shoulder clearly damaged where she head butted him and now stretched out. The inflammation would hamper his movement later.

Immelmann
flinched, sending fissures through the veneer of spittle and blood on his face. He flexed and twisted his arm, searching for what little relief he could. None could be found.

== ~ ==

Cathartic. Yes, that’s what it was. She’d taken him down and what a sweet surge of adrenalin it released. That kept Raven nourished. He had served his purpose with title to the manor half hers and now would be used like the cheap toy all men should be. She’d treat him as the slut all males were.

She’d humiliate him, strip away any last vestige of respect. It was delicious and Raven could only smile as she gorged on the image.

She would do it at another grand ball. It was poetic. It would be
her
grand ball,
her
pinnacle of relentless ascent. She would present him chained with
his
chosen girl fully broken at her side as
hers
, snatched from him in the same way that she now took his power and influence. It was intoxicating, and the padding steps of the girl following behind only embellished the feeling.

A slap of leather gloved hand on flesh to hurry up the lagging girl reminded Raven of the presence of another. Red. Raven’s instincts had proven to be correct. She’d done well and proved to be of use just as Raven suspected she would. She would be retained. No doubt she’d be useful again.

== ~ ==

Immelmann’s head pounded harder with each heartbeat. He had underestimated Raven, treating her with arrogant disdain and was now paying the price. She danced in his sleep-kissed thoughts, powerful, confident, aggressive and yet overtly sexual. A predator to perhaps even match him.

His erection grew along with an idea. She would be taken down, a collar welded tight on her neck and made a slave to him rather than the aggressive submissive he had tolerated to date. A cough wracked his body, causing spasms of pain, waking him fully to a now darkened room. Blood gurgled in his throat and Immelmann’s heavy mind turned back to revenge.

First, she would have to be broken, taken apart piece
by piece and reconstructed as she was doing to Katarina. Another thought crept across his mind, painted by the brush of expectation. She would do his bidding, her will his.

She was out of control for now, a monster he had eagerly created. He was the hunter that had captured the beast and was ultimately being consumed by it. He would fix that, make it right. The irony seemed to warm his aching body, the pain finally melting away.

Comfortable now with a warming glow that seemed to well from deep, the smile never reached Immelmann’s lips as a red veil drew closed across his sight. A final cough was all that signified his passing as, lungs pierced and filled with blood, life left him.