p.m., but he needed to go out. He knew places where the city came alive after dark. And that’s where people might have information on NightWhere.
He wasn’t going to find NightWhere sitting in his house…or looking on the Net.
And based on what he’d just seen online, it looked like he didn’t have a lot of time left to find it before the authorities came looking for him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The sound of the leather on his back sent a shiver down Rae’s spine. Mark would never have allowed her to flog him like this…and if she’d tied him up and beat him anyway…he certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed it. The enjoyment of pain just wasn’t in his makeup.
But Peter couldn’t get enough.
The skin of his back was burning pink when someone asked her to stop. Rae looked up from her focus and smiled. Perplexed.
“Stop…why?” she asked.
The man, decked out in blue jeans and a leather vest, looked at Peter and said, “Because you’re really hurting him.”
“Exactly,” Rae had laughed and turned away to continue the process.
She swung her arm harder with every stroke and reveled in seeing his body shift and arch off of the rack. She could see that part of him yearned to be beaten and part was, at the same time, pulling away, afraid. She wanted to warm the skin of both sides. She would turn his fearful side into a slave of the whip.
But maybe not tonight.
Peter’s back was welting and red, and her arm tired. And at this point, what Rae honestly wanted to do to him…
A clock tolled.
A cool hand closed around her wrist. “It’s time,” a familiar voice said. Kharon removed the flogger from her hand, as two other Watchers undid Peter’s bonds.
“Tonight is a special night,” he said. “And I have something special in mind for you and Peter.” Kharon put his arm around Rae and let his lips graze the top of her head.
“You have a cruel streak that I adore,” he said. “Let’s see how deep it runs.”
He led the way to the heavy wooden door of The Red. They passed the velvet ropes and Kharon pulled the iron ring to open the way. They stepped inside to the candlelit foyer. Screams echoed from somewhere in the distance. A girl with silver hair gently rubbed down Peter’s back with a wet rag. He arched his back when she hit the tender spots, but when he looked at Rae he smiled. “Thanks,” he said.
They walked down the long hallway and passed the crucifixion room and the others that Rae was familiar with. But soon they were in a part of NightWhere that she had never been to before. The bricks seemed to change with their progress; the walls grew from modern and smooth to darker red, with uneven grout and chipped and pitted bricks. The walls all glinted with heavy moisture. In some areas, the wetness seemed to flow steadily across the bricks in what looked like a stream of blood.
“Where are we going?” Rae asked after walking a while.
“The last room before The Black.”
“What is The Black?” she asked.
“You’ll find out, depending on what you do in this room,” Kharon said. “I have every confidence that you will meet the Night Mother very soon.”
Finally, they reached the end of the hallway. The brick here seemed to weep cement, and the air smelled of heavy mold and something richer. Almost metallic. The light was low too; everything was cast in a long shadow, and scuttling sounds came from the dark places on the floor as they walked. Rae wanted to lift her feet higher than they could ever reasonably go, uncertain of what lurked along the damp floor.
They stepped into a room that looked like a medieval castle dungeon. The walls were rough-hewn grey stone, and the lighting was provided by flames in sconces set every few feet at eye level along the walls. In the center of the room was a stone table. It was raised just three feet off the ground, and its center was adorned with the ubiquitous symbol of NightWhere-a scaled serpent that ate its own tail.
Kharon went and stood at the head of the table, while six followers took positions on either side, men to the left and women to the right. All of them wore black silk robes, loosely sashed. They were obviously naked beneath. Rae thought the scene looked like a Victoria’s Secret version of a druidic ritual. Sackcloth had been replaced by obsidian, sensual silk. And nobody wore hoods. This was a different group of people than she was used to seeing out in the Blue Room of the club; though, like all the Watchers, they had a similar look to Kharon. They were pale and thin, with complexions like corpses. The women all had small breasts; two of them had barely sashed their robes, and the grey nubs of their nipples were exposed as they stood next to the table. Their ribs were visible beneath what looked to be flawless marble skin.
The men appeared strangely thin and as hairless as the women from what she could see beneath their robes.
“Strip him, and then lay him down before us,” Kharon commanded. His voice was quiet, but firm.
Rae turned to Peter and pushed the robe that someone had covered him with to the floor. She kissed him softly on the lips and then pushed him back to the table. He lay back and scuttled forward until his head lay in the indentation that was also the dark head of the snake carved into the rock’s surface.
Kharon nodded at the chains coiled at the corners of the table. “Restrain him,” he said. The twelve gathered around the table remained silent.
Rae walked in front of them and picked up a dark iron chain. At its end was a manacle, and she stretched it out to cuff Peter’s left hand. She walked in front of Kharon and did the same to the right. Then she returned to the foot of the table and fastened heavy cuffs around his ankles. They snapped together easily. Peter shifted on the table, pulling halfheartedly against the bonds and rattling the metal as he did. Testing. He wasn’t really trying to escape, but he did discover that his limbs barely could move. He was lying there completely vulnerable-spread-eagled and trapped.
Rae smiled when she noticed his cock; it was half-erect and shifted slightly across his upper thigh as it grew. This complete loss of control was exciting him.
“Now strip and mount the table,” Kharon said.
Rae took a breath. She’d known that this was coming and she wasn’t shy, but to have such a formal array of watchers as she knelt over a man…she wasn’t used to that sort of attention. She undid her studded neck collar and its weight fell forward, pulling the strap of leather away from her breasts and belly. Her skin goose-bumped, even though the room was warm. Then she loosened the buckle and released the last hold of the leather on her waist. It fell to the ground, leaving her naked. Her body was damp beneath the leather, from all the exertion of flogging Peter just a few minutes earlier, and now that sweat on her groin and between her thighs felt cool. She breathed in deeply again and climbed onto the table, straddling his thighs-kneeling upright, eye to eye with Kharon, who remained at the head of the stone table. He nodded, and those pale lips seemed to hint at a smile. He reached into his robe and pulled out a knife. It looked ceremonial; its handle was jet black and glimmered in the flicker of the torchlight. The silver blade also caught the orange light and looked to be six to eight inches long. It curved upwards in a graceful arc to its needle-thin point.
Kharon handed the knife to her. “Carve your name in his heart.”
Rae took the knife but didn’t move instantly. She wasn’t sure what he meant, not really. She had drawn blood on people before with the whips, but she had never intentionally cut someone.
“He is lucky that your name is short. Start on his breast and cut your name into him. When your name bleeds from his chest, we can begin.”
Rae swallowed. The knife felt heavy in her hand. She laid the blade against Peter’s right breast and drew it down gently, trying not to cut too deep. But the knife was razor sharp. Blood welled instantly as she drew it down.
