He wasn’t alone.
From those shadows, a haughty feminine voice echoed.
“You are not the one I summoned.”
“But I am the one you’ll punish.” Daimon stood his ground when a delicate foot clad in a blood-red sandal emerged from the darkness, followed by the soft sway of layers of sheer black fabric.
Nemesis’s scarlet eyes drilled into his face as she sashayed from the shadows, her face a placid mask that gave away none of her feelings.
Her eyes revealed them all.
She wasn’t happy that he had taken Esher’s place.
“So loyal to your brother,” she murmured and banked right, skirting the edge of the light, her gaze assessing him as it raked over him, sending a cold shiver down his spine. “I always did love that about you, Daimon.”
He shuddered at the sound of his name uttered on her vile lips.
He wanted to tell her to get on with things and announce the punishment he would receive for his brother’s apparent crimes, but knew better than to rush her. Rushing her normally ended with her doubling the punishment.
He preferred to keep the number of lashes in the four-digits area not push them into five.
He tracked her with his senses as she moved behind him, aware that moving would be a mistake. He had to endure this leisurely perusal of him, even if the feel of her eyes on him sickened him. She had always enjoyed tormenting him like this, always pointed out how handsome she found him, had even gone so far as propositioning him once.
Because the bitch was aware that in this world—the Underworld—his ice was no longer a problem and he could touch without hurting someone. She played on that, thought to goad him into surrendering to his base needs and letting them get the better of him, slaking a thirst for physical contact that he was denied in the mortal realm.
It was just another form of punishment.
She appeared to his right and he slid his gaze that way, tracked her as she moved around him and concealed the shudder that wracked him as she licked crimson lips.
Beneath the sheer layers of her onyx robe, her nipples beaded.
When she raked her gaze down him this time, it remained at his feet.
Daimon looked down at the thick metal ring just a few inches in front of his boots.
Metal of the gods.
He cursed that infernal ring, recounting all the times he had been bound to it, how it never moved even when he thrashed and tried to break free of it.
He swallowed and dropped to his knees before it.
Sucked down a fortifying breath as he held his hands out to it.
“Let’s not rush.” Nemesis drifted into the beam of light and it reflected off the gold filigree that formed a corset over her stomach, cinching the black layers of her dress in to reveal her curves.
Cold skated over his flesh as she ran her hand over his shoulders and he closed his eyes as she crouched behind him, her fingers easing down his spine.
“We would not want to bloody this.” She stroked the hem of his top and he dutifully lifted his arms above his head as she pulled it up. “There’s a good boy.”
He scowled at her over his shoulder when she finished removing his top.
She leaned towards him, her crimson hair brushing his bare skin, her breath cold against his ear as she whispered, “Now, now. Best keep that temper in check lest I decide a different sort of punishment for you.”
She skimmed her palms across his shoulders and her hands shook as she sucked in a trembling breath.
He didn’t want to imagine the vile things she was contemplating, tried to shut them and the sudden spike of fear that lanced him out of his mind. She wouldn’t violate him like that. The terms of his punishment were hers to set, but it would overstep a line and his father would have her head.
She brushed her lips across his left shoulder.
Daimon clenched his fists. She wouldn’t.
She chuckled into his ear. “So tense. I would have thought you would be more relaxed these days.”
He wanted to look at her and demand what she meant by that, but he knew the answer in his heart.
She knew about him and Cassandra.
Which was strange.
She had never taken an interest in any of their lives before now. He had never realised she could see such things from her domain in the Underworld.
Rich brown leather snapped around his wrists and jerked him forwards as the straps attached themselves to the heavy metal ring.
Nemesis stroked two fingers down his spine and murmured, “How many lashes are adequate punishment for breaking an exile, entering the Underworld without permission, and murdering hundreds of people here in your father’s domain?”
Daimon really didn’t want to know the answer to that.
“I would have given Esher twenty-thousand at the very least.”
Daimon closed his eyes and bowed his head, fighting the urge to ask her to give him less than that, to use the attraction she felt towards him to bargain with her.
Her lips feathered across his ear. “Perhaps… ten thousand?”
Gods, that was still too many. A few thousand with her barbed metal whip was bad enough, always had him close to blacking out. Part of the terms of penitence was that he had to remain awake for it all to utter an apology, one for each lash of her whip. She would be forced to wait for him to heal and wake again, and would no doubt increase the number of lashes.
Keeping him here in her realm for longer and longer.
She loosed a soft moan as she caressed his shoulders, as she lowered her hands down his back and then under his arms. Her breasts pressed against his back and he bit his tongue as she raked nails over his bare chest.
“It has been so long since I have been with a man,” she whispered into the shell of his ear.
“No.” Daimon jerked backwards as much as he could with his hands bound to the
