My Lady Gambled (26 page)

“Is that blood sex?”

Brynmore recognized Dame Baset’s accented voice behind him. He turned with Kit’s cheek laid to his bare chest as his arm curled over her shoulders. “One of its many forms,” he said, embedding low intensity into his voice.

“Bring them closer.” It was Hellion’s voice behind where Dame Baset blocked the view of him. Brynmore took a calculated risk, however and he curled one side of his upper lip, starting to turn away in dismissal.

“No wait!” Dame Baset said, with her hand grasping his forearm. “This will interest you,” Dame Baset’s last words rose with intensity above the thrumming music and vocal menagerie of sexual sounds bloating the belly of the club.

Kit made herself hold onto some of the numbness she felt after discharging overloads of emotions. She was going to need to use dead-ened feelings to approach the company of Hellion, she thought. Grasping a glass of champagne from a passing servant’s tray, she gulped the liquid down with a following effort not to choke on the bubbles. Brynmore said nothing, only squeezing his wide hand over her shoulder as she hurriedly set the empty glass on the railing and turned to follow his guiding arm. So fortified, she walked into Hellion’s immediate presence. Perhaps it was the exhausting of intense emotions that cleared the way for more reasonable and intelligent thinking, or maybe it was Brynmore’s reminder that other people were risking their lives and depending on her. Whatever it was, more reasoned determination returned and she vowed silently that she would do this with as much skill as she could manage. She would outwit the devil. She had it in herself to do so and Clay’s life held, like a bright beacon in her soul, lighting her way toward that goal.

The first thing she noticed about Hellion, when she set her loathing aside, was his presence. It exuded omnipotence. She realized right away that he expected reverence as his natural due, even from people he had not met. It was insanity in the light of his pink eyes that contorted this and she was certain that some people saw his dementia as incited proph-ecy from an oracle of greater things than they could imagine. That was why she followed her first, crazy—but she knew correct instinct—and broke from Brynmore to sink to her knees, bowing before Hellion.

It was what the crazy man expected. She knew it in her heart and a moment later when his hand lifted toward her with a royal gesture of kissing it, her instincts were confirmed. Furthermore, she knew Brynmore would not grovel and that might irate Hellion, so someone had to work around it in this game they played. She never let herself think how disgusting it was to kiss the hand of a murderer.

“Pet, come here,” Brynmore commanded.

Kit rose to her feet and dutifully slid with undulations to Brynmore, who she found sprawled on pillows across from Hellion. That put her between Hellion and Brynmore around the half circle of pillows. Dame Baset reclined on the other side of Hellion and a mysteriously robed and hooded figure sat on the other end, facing the opposite direction as if not interested or included in the group. The nude male servant was gone.

“Do you feel the power of the presence you are in, as your pet does?” Hellion questioned in a low voice of languid, but somehow sinuous pace.

Bloody hell. With the increased noise in the club, the only way Brynmore could catch Hellion’s suddenly lowered tone was by reading his lips. The only problem with that was he thought his mind was playing tricks, incredulous that Hellion had said what he did. So therefore, doubting if he had caught it right, Brynmore slanted a glance at Hellion, then away. He shrugged. “That would depend, lord, on who ye are suggesting is powerful.” 

Hellion’s thin lips flattened as his skeletal face seemed to draw inward. Brynmore noticed that Hellion’s glance returned to the ruby. It was now outside his pants and Brynmore touched it with two fingers, stroking it lightly as if he did it absently, perhaps to bring it erect. Then inspiration hit him. “I do have one so powerful that I gladly bow to,” Brynmore added.

Hellion sat forward, it was a stationary leap actually, like the attack of a white bat. Brynmore held back his flinch, with only his eyes blinking, as Kit gasped, wordlessly.

“Minion baron, peon laird, I can raise you to places you never dreamed of! Power, you only think you have seen. Kings and princes will be my congregation. They will seek me,” Hellion spat.

Brynmore heard Hellion now! The voice was powerful. It had Kit slightly enthralled beside him, even if the words were convoluted. But Saxon had warned him of this, hidden meanings if one looked closely. Brynmore was particularly interested that Hellion mentioned kings and princes to people he barely knew.

“The blood is very powerful,” Brynmore offered, hedging on a conversation in which he felt nearly lost in. Talking to madmen who believed they were Gods was not an easy task. He decided at the last second to add, “My patron believes in the power.”

Hellion’s pink-veined eyes drew sharply to the ruby, before he raised them to stare at Brynmore, saying, “Blood is a powerful sacrifice. It pounds in our sex and shows us the true way!”

Suddenly, Hellion stood with a flurry of his fur-lined, white robes. He began immediately to stalk away. Fuck, Brynmore cursed silently, that went over like a non-virgin bride. He had bloody well fucked it over, Brynmore thought, turning to watch Hellion.

Hellion threw his arm outward, in a direction Brynmore could not see and the instantaneous sound of a loud gong sounded. Brynmore rose, hauling Kit with him as the gong sounded four more times, echoing throughout the club, bringing the beating music to a halt. Brynmore fought the urge to yell at Hellion and try to bring him back. He assumed Hellion was on his way out of the club, but then Brynmore saw that Hellion was climbing a stone dais in the center of the main chamber.

Kit tugged on his arm. “Come on!” she urged.

Brynmore glanced back for Dame Baset, but she was gone. His last chance possibly had vanished. Hell, if he had not tried to act so bloody arrogant and superior. What the hell kind of plan was that, Brynmore berated himself as Kit dragged him through the crowd? She was very pushy and persistent to get to the front and Brynmore barely considered the fact that the patrons in the club were willing to give up their sexual orgies for whatever was about to happen.

Drawn, was more like what was happening, he realized when he came out of his self-flagellating cussing festival and looked around. Suddenly, Hellion’s voice resonated, seeming to pick up strength against the stone walls of the crypt. Its booming vibrations and the quality of its bass tone would have any human being turning their ear toward it.

“Revelers! My lovely, wicked, joyfully copulating minions,” Hellion began. His arms lifted straight outward so that he posed as a hoary cross. “The great God Bacchus admires you. He covets your spirit and lewd revelry. His meaning is clear, this is the way! This is the way he meant for us to be!”

Half the crowd offered their agreeing exclamations as Hellion turned from one side to the other with his arms still outstretched. His gaze encompassed everyone.

“Do we not follow the ideals of kings and princes? Does not the royalty of this land show us the way?” Hellion’s voice thundered, demanding a response.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Shouts rose from the crowd.

“I say it has to be righteous sin not to enjoy the fruits given us!” Abruptly, Hellion stepped forward to the edge of the dais, leaned over with his hand outstretched to Kit. “Clasp my hand!” he ordered, beneath the hearing of the crowd.

Brynmore barely caught Hellion’s words, his instinctive reaction to hold Kit back. However, Kit was clearer and quicker thinking than he, because she immediately grasped Hellion’s hand.

Do it-do it, Kit cried inside her mind. Then, out of nowhere, Hellion tugged the hand she had managed to give him. Even though there were no stairs on this section of the round dais Hellion tugged backward with enough strength to lift her up onto the dais.

“If this is sin, then I am a sinner!” Hellion shouted, grabbing Kit’s cloak and tossing it aside, he spun her by her hand to face the cheering crowd, then spun more and stilled to face the crowd again. Desperately, Kit fought every reaction she had. Her loincloth was gone, she was nude, with a large diamond over her mon’s. Her body trembled with embarrassment, even as her nipple tips peaked.

“I am as the great God Bacchus with the Satyr Lord defending our right to fornicate! I ask you, is it justice to only fuck one in your life?”

“No! Nay!” A great number of the crowd shouted.

“Do your kings and princes not show you the true way? Should not your prince be here with the rest of the great fornicators on this earth? The royalty you serve proves to you that the Gods did not mean for us to limit our lust! The Gods meant us to enjoy this!”

Hellion shook Kit’s hand raised above her head between them, while her gaze latched to Brynmore as she tried to pretend that he was the only one in the room. Brynmore’s gaze, though, was riveted to Hellion. Kit completely lost track of what Hellion shouted to the listeners he was trying to convert as she fought urges to cover herself and flee.

Time seemed to warp. Then abruptly, Kit heard Hellion thundering. “The great God Bacchus says come to my Lord Hellion! Bring him your virgins to feed my joy! Let the wine flow in rivers! Fornicate at Hellion’s feet and live his words. I am him! He lives through me. Bring your kings and princes to worship!”

Kit gasped, wondering how long she’d not heard Hellion speaking, but then she wondered if that were true. Had she really heard him or had he spoken in her mind. The crowd in the club was exclaiming and cheering as Hellion bowed and the gong sounded four more times. It seemed to signal the end to Hellion’s performance. Kit felt dazed, then she felt her hand being tugged and she tripped forward with the pressure landing in Hellion’s embrace. His skeletal fingers clasped the diamond, pushing and grabbing her entire sex with the diamond embedded between. He bent her back and she heroically fought the urge to scream.

“This is the fruit God’s live for,” Hellion hissed, smearing the diamond around on her sex with the rotation of his palm. Then, his bloodless lips covered hers with his tongue jabbing into her mouth. What control she had, she lost, but before she could attack, Hellion dropped her and stepped backward. The back of her hand leaped to her lips, rubbing them as her gaze fixed upward on Hellion.

“Go back to your master,” Hellion ordered. Then he turned and walked away.

Kit stood suspended. Had she ruined it? Had Hellion read the loathing in her gaze? She could stand it no longer as a whimper escaped her throat and she scrambled to retrieve Brynmore’s cloak. She snatched it off the ground and jerkily wrapped it around herself. She had to find Brynmore and she prayed that it was over because she had nothing left to give.

Abruptly, Brynmore felt long fingernails trail down his bare back. He turned to see Dame Baset, with her heavy makeup cracking in the heat of the crypt, her rouged lips smeared and the flaccid skin on her face pale. Brynmore rallied his demeanor from one of distaste.

“For you,” she said, lifting a white envelope toward him. At the same time, her other hand clasped the blood amulet still hanging around his neck and tugged. He bent with the unexpected pressure feeling her tarnished lips press to his. He growled, trying to use the effort to connive a response. He found it, in disgust that he disguised as anger, and he ravaged her lips back harshly.

She took from him, mewling excitement, but then she pulled away panting, “Take my blood,” she said. Then she turned away and slid back into the crowd.

Brynmore heaved a sigh wondering if Dame Baset was just taunting him and he moved toward the steps of the dais to intercept Kit as he opened the envelope. He pulled the enclosed paper out partially, to catch a glimpse. What was inside it would determine if he stalked after Dame Baset, immediately or…. It was an invitation to the Order of the Satyr. Yes! From what he glimpsed it was written like any social invitation. He pushed it back into the envelope and put the whole missive back into his pocket. 

He admitted his relief that he and Kit had accomplished so much tonight that they could end it for the evening. He was more grateful for this, when he saw the bruised look in Kit’s eyes. She came to him without a word and curled against him. He put his arm around her, pulling her close.

“Time to leave,” He said.

Kit returned a relieved sigh as he guided them through the crowd still reveling through The Satyr Whip Club.

“I’ve devised a plan,” Drummond announced.

Brynmore looked over at Kit where she sat subdued and introspective in a chair off by herself. It was two days since they had made their play at The Satyr Whip Club and Kit had been withdrawn and as much as he had tried to affectionately nudge her back, she remained stoic.

All the Archangels and their women were gathered for this evening meeting Drummond had called. Brynmore was relieved that Drummond had a plan, because he did not think that he and Kit had gathered enough information yet. All they had was that Hellion was insane, he spoke convoluted nonsense about fucking and he had fixations on royalty and kings and princes. Hellion had spouted that half a dozen times that night. Most of it they already knew about the bastard and Brynmore failed to see what miracle Drummond could produce with such slim pickings.

There was the note inside the invitation, but Brynmore thought it did not add anything they could use. It just showed the players of the cult were interested enough in him and Kit try to entice them closer. It remained a mystery who had written the unsigned note that read, “You can become a more powerful man than you realize. Many will hunger to be taught your ways. You will find haven. Send your answer to Dame Baset at the address below, she will explain the price of admittance. Not all are allowed entrance. You have been chosen. Dare to follow your destiny. It is known that you will be pleased.”

Brynmore thought it a contorted message at best. Yet if he tried to put himself in the place of being a man with hidden deviant desires, he could see where it might be alluring. Furthermore, if he truly did run in the underground hedonist crowd, rumors of Hellion’s cult would be readily rampant by now. Therefore the invitation from the cult was already assuming he was interested. Even after such a brief encounter at The Satyr Whip Club.