Shattered (8 page)

Robin pulled back from him and he breathed out his disappointment.  He hadn’t meant to, but even he could hear the longing in his groan.  No doubt she did too.

“Have you always got off on pain like this?” Robin asked.  Her voice was suspended in darkness and water, for without her touch he stood alone in the pool.

“No,
never... I mean, no one has ever hurt me like you have Mistress.  I didn’t know,” Nathan replied.  It was easier to talk to nothing.  The blindfold had its benefits.  He had no one to be embarrassed before.

“That’s sweet, in a way.”  Robin’s body touched his again and she slid across him, aro
und his side and up between the space in his spread arms.  “I like knowing I’ve ruined other women for you,” she whispered.  Her skin glided across his so easily in the water.  Nathan never would have imagined she was so smooth.

She ran
the sponge across his neck and up under his chin. Her stomach press against his erection and she leaned up into him, sliding up as she stood on her toes.  The movement of flesh and water across his cock made his legs tingle.

Robin
ground her body against his as her arms wrapped around his middle.  His cock pushed awkwardly between them and she slid around until it sat flat against her stomach. Short movements of her body, the up and down on her toes only, stroked him just enough to tease.  Nathan groaned in frustration and that only encouraged her.

She
dragged the sponge down the very center of his back until it submerged and dove off the curve of his ass. The coarse swath of cloth rubbing over his welts blossomed into agony.  Nathan arched his back outward and leaned his head forward, until it was beside hers. Behind the waves of pain he caught a whiff of her hair.  He trapped that scent in his mind and clenched his eyes shut, sucking in a breath through his teeth.  When he exhaled again it was with a frustrated moan.

His face was flush with warmth as
Robin leaned up and pressed her cheek to his.  Nathan could feel the rapidity of her pulse against his skin, but it was all lost to blindfold.  It was as though the darkness itself pulsed around him.  He pushed his hands harder against the wall to make sure this was all still real before lowering his head into the hollow of her neck.  His lips pressed into her shoulder.  He wanted to kiss her there and all over, he wanted to please her, but he knew better.

Robin balled the sponge in her
hand and pressed her fist into the back of his thigh, slowly.  Nathan trembled as he channeled that pain through his body and out in a long, hot breath against her skin.  A powerful shudder rippled down him and his lower body arched into hers.

Behind the blindfold Nathan had no way to know how
carefully Robin was studying him.  He felt her hands leave his back as she ducked beneath his arm again.  Then a splash as she left the water, but soon her hand was beneath his chin again.  Water dripped down from the sponge she still held and over his chest as she turned his face towards hers.

Nathan dropped his hands to his side as he followed her
touch around to the left.  He turned no more than a quarter of the way before he was center with her again.  Robin was perched up on the rim of the pool.  She sat a little above him and ran her legs up his sides, displacing his arms until they draped over her knees.  She squeezed her legs together to draw him in, and he did, until he was flat against the ledge she sat upon.

“Don’t move,” Robin whispered.

Her lips brushed against his.  Nathan could taste her breath as she exhaled a hum against his mouth.  She was so soft and for a long time she just hovered over him, lips pressed to his lightly.  Her nose brushed his from side to side.  He had never felt a caress so tender.

Robin’s breathing became more rapid
the longer she held her mouth to his. It took everything not to kiss her, not to move.  Nathan balled his hands into tight fists and buried his nails into his palms.  Eventually she took more, exploring his lower lip with her tongue, and then deeper, pulling it gently with her teeth.

Nathan trembled as she
ran her tongue over his and gasped as she pressed her heels into his bruised backside.  He yelped against her mouth and brought his hand to her cheek, cupping it and cradling her face.  Robin didn’t recoil at the touch but leaned over him further, claiming more dominion as she sucked on his tongue.

Her
breath came out ragged when she finally pulled back.  She tilted her head ever so slightly into his open hand.  Her face was soft against his palm.

“
You’re beautiful,” Nathan breathed out against her lips as she pulled away from him.  He let his hand slip away from her face as she straightened up.  He felt her go rigid as his words made it across the space between them.

Robin
laughed then, a disappointed little chuckle that soon turned cruel.  It sucked the warmth out from between them.  Nathan froze as a chill went down his back.  He was suspended in a darkness that once again smothered.

“Do you know what I do here prince?”  Her voice cut through the isolation of the blindfold
, but it offered no comfort this time.

“No Mistress…”  Nathan swallowed
as he forced out the words.

“
I’ll tell you then.  You see, the parties I serve deal in information.  A small thing you might think, but you would be amazed at what a secret can buy.  And a commodity like that doesn’t come easily.  Some information can only be bought with force.  That’s what I do.  I motivate the most unwilling to part with their secrets so that my benefactors might profit.”

“You torture people,” Nathan whispered.

“Does it really surprise you so much?”

Nathan frowned behind the blindfold.  He was surprised by the revelation but, in hindsight, he was more surprised that he hadn’t
suspected it before.  Robin was horribly cruel and fantastically equipped to inflict pain.  It should have been obvious.  He might be just another job for her, if she hadn’t made this so personal.

“If I ever had a chance at a different future it died the same day your men razed my village,” she continued on.  Nathan wanted to reach out and touch her again, but she was inaccessible to him now.

“
I don’t just hurt our enemies either prince.  I hurt friends too.  You see, we have very strict rules here and whenever someone infringes on one of those rules it’s my job to see that they’re punished.  Its motivation really, so that they don’t repeat their mistakes.  Do you know what mistake you made?”

“I move
d,” Nathan mumbled, “after you told me not to.” Acknowledging her rules made him feel empty again.  It made him sad, but whether he was sad for himself or sad for her he couldn’t tell.

“
I suppose you did.”  Robin wave dismissively, but in darkness the gesture was lost to Nathan.  He could hear it in her voice though.  “I take responsibility for that.  I put you in a situation that practically demanded that you disobey me, when I knew that you don’t have that kind of control.  But that doesn’t excuse the rest.  Do you know what else you did?”

“No Mistress,” he whispered again.  His mind was muddled by his
arousal and while fear and confusion had dampened that some it still clouded his thinking.  Nathan tensed as he heard her rise off the stone ledge.  She left him there, waist deep in water, as she moved around the room and got dressed.

“Get out,” Robin commanded
.  She was somewhere near the entrance.  Nathan followed her voice, spreading his hands in front of him to feel his way out of the water.  He dripped still and cold air flowed over his skin from the door left ajar.  Robin thrust his robes into his hands.

“
Outside of my quarters no one needs to know you’re here.  Put it back on.”

Nathan gave a short little nod as he slipped the robe on.  Any discomfort he felt then he hid
as she yanked the hood up over his head.

The way back was shorter
it seemed, or Nathan was just more distracted.  He stopped focusing so much on what was outside the blindfold and the times he stumbled were no more than blips in his thoughts.  Robin had told him a lot.  He was so much closer to home than he would have ever guessed and the people here, whoever they were, didn’t know who he was.  If he could get word to the castle they would send men after him.

By the time they reached her quarters they weren’t alone.  Two hallways ago they gained company.  Nathan already knew Robin had some signals worked out with his handlers
, but it unnerved him how well she could communicate with them without speaking.

Robin left him
with them and stalked off towards the door.  The distinct click of her boots faded as hands fell upon him.  They stripped away the thin sheet of cloth that divide him from nakedness.  They moved with a singular aim, like a cohesive unit without voice.

Nathan waited until they had the leather cuffs back on his wrists and were tying knots over them before he worked up the courage to defy Robin.  It was strange – now that he didn’t know what he had done wrong, now that he couldn’t determine what she wanted, he finally felt free to exhibit his own will again.

“Stop it,” he commanded, as firmly as possible.  He was in Surnat still.  These were his people.  “My brother is Trent Dorthorial, King of Surnat and all her surrounding providences.  I am the second heir and I demand you release me.”

H
e did his best to hide his uncertainty, his fear, but something was odd about these people.  They were too quiet.

And t
here was no change.  He felt his arms being drawn up over his head by the rope tied to each wrist.  He began to panic.

“Whatever she is paying you I will
triple. One letter to the castle and you will want for nothing ever again.”

The tension on the rope continued to increase until Nathan hardly made contact with the floor at all.  His handlers were worse than cruel, they were indiff
erent, and no amount of struggling or pleading got any reaction at all out of them.

“Say something,” Nathan shouted at them, frustrated by how diligently they worked within that silence.

“That’s enough prince,” Robin said from the doorway, and Nathan felt the blood drain from his face.  Her voice was flat, emotionless, just like it’d been on that first day.  “Your handlers are deaf, all of them.  Didn’t I just tell you that I deal in secrets?  Did you really think the men that serve me would be able to hear them?  You can plead and shout at them all you like, but I’d much rather you save your voice.  You’re going to need it today.”

Nathan felt that last shred of hope disintegrate.  What little slack he was afforded he slumped against.  His chin went to his chest and he
found no will to raise it.

Robin moved around but the sound barely penetrated the outer most parts of
his awareness.  He surrendered to his despair, to having hope and losing it, to whatever it was she would do to him for his gross disobedience.  Worse was realizing it was the same thing she’d do to him even if he hadn’t.  She enjoyed his suffering immensely, and no wonder, she did it for a living.

“Have you figure out what you did wrong yet prince? Or did you spend the
entire walk back concocting that miserable little plan?”

Nathan didn’t respond.  He didn’t see the point.  And when her whip connected across his shoulder blades he knew one wasn’t required of him.  His head shot upward and he cried out
, in surprise and in pain.  There was no warm up, no testing of her aim.  Robin laid that first one into him harder than she had any of the last.

There was nothing arousing about the beating she gave him as he hung there. 
He could feel her frustration behind each blow.  The blindfold made it bad and the rope made it worse.  He’d never felt so helpless in his life.

He
twisted and pulled as she vented into his skin.  There was no pace this time and he was out of breath from screaming long before she stopped.  He was covered in sweat and he couldn’t stop his shaking, and somewhere in between blows he found time to beg her, but never in more than a few pitiful words.  If she heard him, if his whimpering was even comprehensible, she gave no sign of it.

S
he paused for breath and Nathan sucked down gulps of air too.  His throat burned nearly as bad as his back and Robin had him crying again.  He had no dignity left, no will, no purpose.  His whole body shook in between gasps.  He wasn’t aroused.  He didn’t want this.  He didn’t want her to be angry.

Robin yanked the blindfold off and pressed the hardened end of the whip’s handle beneath his chin until his head was raised enough that he met her eyes.
  He saw her face, saw her neutral composure sundered by her rage.

Her hair was disheveled around her shoulders and her cheeks were rosy.  The candlelight around them gleamed off the thin sheen of sweat that matted a few strands of hair to her neck.  Her chest, exposed from the rise of her breasts and up, rose and fell against the exertion she pu
t into beating him.  Her brows were knit together in a tight frown.

“
I can’t believe I fell for that this morning,” Robin said, speaking more to herself than to him.  She’d exhausted herself but she seemed no less angry, no less disappointed.  “So you thought you could manipulate me, is that it? This was some game to you and you thought that was what I wanted to hear?”