“You wanted down,” he said with a slow roll of a shoulder, the fullness of his lower lip drawing taut to twist up into a sneer. “Now wash.”
“I…” Aida crossed her arms over her chest, sinking into the water up to her shoulders. Dark gaze bouncing wild from one implement of her personal torture to the next before she looked down in something too close to shame. Not only did he expect her to bathe herself, an act she’d never performed, but she had no idea if he wished her to subject her body to the same torturous regime Otaso had.
“You what?”
“I’ve… I’ve never… myself.” Tongue twisting as the acrid ashes of her pride settled in the back of her throat, Aida huddled deeper in the water that seemed far too warm to be good for her. Perhaps that was only the heat still raging inside of her, flaring brighter each time she dared a peek at the beast measuring the length of the floor as he stared.
Muttering something in a tongue so foreign Aida didn’t even know where it might have come from, he abandoned the room to bellow an order for someone far beyond. The rustle of robes hurried towards the bathing room.
Hate was a powerful word, but the jagged knife digging into her sternum was as close to it as Aida ever felt at the first sight of the woman. An unwarranted tangle of emotions that nonetheless whipped through her, the other woman the target of every explosion of roiling bitterness. Not so much for the blue robed female as much as the way she kept her fingers over the beast’s arm, his nonchalant touch of her shoulder. Plump cheeks of tawny amber, smooth as polished glass, rose high with an incandescent smile as she looked at Aida shivering in the steaming water. Rich umber eyes fair sparkled in the bright light of the room. Every torch and candle blazing, they bathed the beauty with their warm glow as she turned to the beast and murmured something in dulcet tones Aida could not make out over the roar of her thundering heart.
Grunting his assent, the man’s lurid gaze settled on Aida, a dark brow perching high on his forehead as he looked Aida over with such scrutiny she slid even deeper into the water. They remained that way for what felt like ages, Aida chin deep as the man watched. Neither tried to speak, though the quiet splashes from Aida’s panting breaths were more than enough sound for her to bear.
“Immari,” Aida cried, lurching towards the last familiar face with a frothy wave surging over the edges of the tub. Careless of the man’s attention, ignoring the prickling heat scalding her backside as she slung a leg over the side to reach her one friend.
“Sit down,” Immari hissed, grabbing up her skirts before the rush of water coasting towards the drains by the walls could drench them.
Aida flinched, shoulders high against her ears to ward off the cruel strike of Immari’s command, easing back into the bath. Assuming her usual position with back straight and proud, Aida worried at her lower lip with the edge of her teeth. Blinked hard and fast to will away a fresh wash of tears as it left her adrift, abandoned in yet another moment of need.
Not that she should have expected anything different. Immari had never been soft or kind. Strict and sometimes cruel, she wasn’t wont to soothe Aida’s fears. Hope that their sudden circumstances would change something lying flat and dead before her, Aida fell into the pattern of her life that came so easy. A living doll, only now it appeared she had a new master to answer to.
Except the man was pulling away from the wall. Shoulders shrugged as if to loosen the muscles, a hand going to his side to play over the hilt of a blade there. Gaze fixed on Immari for a mere instant, he caught Aida’s surprise, holding onto it with easy domination as that rush of fire seared through her once again.
This time there was no hand holding her still, no grip at her throat to silence her. Low cry racing through the room, it echoed back at her in wanton disarray over the slosh of water as Aida fumbled for the edge to remain upright. Hips bucking once, twice under the churning water, she uttered a breathless squeak of dismay as something hot and thick made itself known between her thighs. Spreading over tender flesh, far different from water, Aida did not understand what was wrong with her. Shoving a hand down there, cupping over that space, she shrieked when her panicked touch sent a ragged wave of sensation through her entire body. A silent roar that suffused her with glimmering light as if she’d drunk down the sun itself.
The man’s low chuckle brought her back in an instant, the languid darkness in his gaze all the more disturbing before he turned and quit the room. Though he didn’t go far, his heavy boots clomping around her chambers where he started pawing through her things.
Fire simmering in her cheeks, Aida recoiled from the frigid weight of Immari’s damning glare. Shuffling upright, she couldn’t help the bow of her spine or the way she shivered with the lapping waves of sensation teasing at her. She didn’t even voice a complaint as Immari brought the coarse pumice down on Aida’s shoulders, scrubbing over the yet healed welts. Whatever the man had used to heal her didn’t appear to work as fast as Otaso’s methods, leaving the pained red lines abraded by Immari’s rough scouring. Which made little sense, considering how easy it was for him to prepare the bath. He had the power to stop Aida’s pain, but hadn’t. Perhaps he wanted her to feel this particular agony, to maybe even carry the marks from the whole ordeal though he’d seemed so angry when she’d
