Corroded

of walking the tightrope, and of dodging the knife-thrower’s blades.

Some of these engendered a fear that only heightened the dreamy atmosphere of the whole. Too many memories, some real and some formless as ghosts haunting my imagination, fluttered on all sides.

I forced myself to squint beyond the dancing colors and shapes of my mind.

If I’d ever been tested upon the ribbons, I could not recall. Those what utilized them best were graceful creatures, sleek muscle and lengthy control, and I had never assumed myself among their number.

In any case, these were not meant to be used by an acrobat. Obviously, I’d been bound with an intent towards security, but with a flamboyance I had come to expect of the Midnight Menagerie. The trailing material folded about my wrists and arms, pulling both arms at angles above my head, and the rest had been left to cascade to the ground. It framed my body—pristinely pale in shades of white against the starkness of the vermillion ribbon. The candles danced off the multitude of glass beads, sheathing every movement in a shower of golden sparks. I could not so much as draw breath without scintillating light declaring the act.

Display. I was on display.

The candles wavered, pulling my gaze as a moth to that unforgiving flame, and I sucked in a breath around the wood between my teeth.

So much effort to think. What was it they demanded of me?

I forced my mind to focus through the haze I floundered in. Inhaling deeply only filled my nose with the fragrance of spice—sweet, thick, and different enough from the incense I’d smelled in the Veil’s own chamber that I found myself again distracted trying to place it.

It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, it wasn’t likely to help me escape this predicament.

I rifled through what I knew of the Menagerie’s acts. They employed knife-throwers—two, to be precise, though only one was as good as Monsieur Marceaux’s, I think.

However, the binding they’d put me in wasn’t nearly effective for a good knife-throwing display. So, something else?

Blast it. Why couldn’t I think?

A step behind me was all the warning I received before a hand reached around me to cup my chin. The fingers were long, severe, gloved in what looked like white—not a color Hawke usually wore. Yet I could not mistake his voice beside my ear. “Awake at last...” The fingers bit at my jaw. “Countess.”

I flinched, yet had no room with which to move away. “Ha’ke,” I managed, straining against the binding at my mouth. “Unha’ ‘e!”

In answer, he forced my chin higher, my head back, until I was all but balanced upon my toes. Saliva I had not been able to swallow filled my throat, earning me a reprieve from drooling like an abram flaunting his false insanity.

“You don’t look scared.” Was that disappointment I heard?

Bollocks to that.

I cursed at him to show just how scared I wanted him to believe I wasn’t, but the finer detail fell short behind the constraining muzzle.

Slowly, the grip at my face eased, until I could once more balance my weight upon both feet. Yet I was given no reprieve, for his gloved fingers trailed lower, to skim my neck beside the false cravat. I shuddered. To my dismay, my vision distorted.

When his palm spanned my throat, fingers tightening without warning or gentleness, my breath fragmented. Pain plucked at the cords tightened beneath his palm, fingers biting hard enough to pinch.

“There,” he murmured. “Now you look scared.” A wicked heat entered his voice; a mocking, knowing lilt that I had never heard from him before. “I like it.”

I did not. I wrenched my face away, heedless of the grip upon my throat, and gagged when it did not loosen. Yet I did not cry.

This was naught but a dream—and dreams, I had come to realize, were too ephemeral to last.

Hawke did not loosen his grip. Instead, his free hand came about my other side, splayed possessively over my corseted stomach. His laughter slid over my skin like a mocking benediction. “You have done this dance before.”

No. Not this one. I could not shake my head, not beneath the grip he claimed about my throat, but I garbled a denial.

“Liar.” His breath touched my ear. His tongue flicked the sensitive skin.

His other hand slid lower, closer to the bloomers. The inordinately powerful heat of his palm seared through the material, as if I wore nothing at all.

In that instant—when my body clenched and my mind shrieked a terrible warning—I hated him.

I clamped my eyes shut.

If this was all the Veil demanded of my punishment, so be it. I would suffer under Hawke’s ministrations, knowing that it was no suffering but that of my pride.

I had already given my flesh to him once. My choice, my doing. That the Veil now demanded it was nothing I would not survive.

His grasp tightened at my throat. Caught my surprise, I choked on the deliberate cruelty of it, my airways compressed, and screwed my eyes tighter shut as tears of fear gathered where I had sworn there would be none.

“How I have longed to see you so debased,” he whispered. His voice carried an undercurrent of such menace, such terrible spite, that I flinched. The whole of my body convulsed; the bonds held fast. My breath wheezed out from between his cruel fingers. “That what you did with him will seem a gentle whisper to what I will see you do.”

His fingers let go so suddenly, I sagged against the silks, gasping for air. “Do?” I was able to frame, a harsh sound.

“Do,” he repeated. “Perform. Commit.” His lips nuzzled the curve where my throbbing neck met shoulder. “By the end of this night, you will beg for more.”

Left no other recourse, I snorted.

Teeth closed over that spot, bit down hard enough that a streak of red fragmented through my sealed eyes. Scorn flipped again to fear. And then to conflicted arousal as his other hand tucked neatly between my legs. When I screamed, even I could not be sure whether it was pain or pleasure I felt.

Everything seemed so unreal.

“I will take from you what he was too weak to seize,” Hawke said. The warning did not growl. It did not resonate. He spoke calmly, matter-of-factly, his breath hot on my throbbing skin. His fingers stilled. “I will give you what you seek.”

I held myself motionless, breath held.

What I sought was... What I needed was—

I...I didn’t know.

Tears burned like acid behind my eyelids. “Why?”

The word bore so many questions in one. Why do this to me? Why force me?

Why did he hurt me and feel nothing?

“Why?” Both hands left my body, left me feeling bereft, relieved. Cold. “Because he won’t.”

He? What he? What had I missed?

None of this felt right at all. I felt a player in a stage play with no direction, no script. He demanded something of me, and I couldn’t imagine what it was that drove him.

This was Hawke—the Midnight Menagerie’s wicked serpent. He had always been so difficult to read, and no hours spent in his bed lessened that, but this was something beyond understanding.

I took a deep breath, and swayed when the fragrance I had long associated with Hawke’s presence filled my nose.

“The price they pay to see a countess humbled.” His voice left my back, circled me until I could all but feel him come to a halt in front of me. Seized with the sudden fear that he reached for me again, I jerked back, eyes flaring open.

Yet it was his back I saw, his gaze focused on the doors leading out to the grounds. His hair was loose and