NightWhere

Chapter Eighteen

Relation Slip

Mark heard Rae come home, but instead of leaping up to interrogate her, he rolled over and listened with his eyes closed as she stripped, threw her clothes in the hamper and got in the shower.

When she finally did come to bed, it was almost 6:00 a.m. She cuddled up behind him, slipping her arms around his neck and chest, spooning herself against his ass. It felt nice, but didn’t diminish Mark’s anger at being left behind.

“Fun night?” he asked finally.

“The best in my entire life,” she murmured sleepily. “I can die happy now.”

“Glad I could be there to share it,” he said.

“Sorry, baby, the invitation was just for one of us.”

“So I don’t even get the courtesy of you answering my phone calls or letting me know? You knew I’d be worried.”

Her arms slipped away from him. “I just didn’t want to argue about it,” she said.

“Are we still a team, or what?”

“We are,” she said. “But NightWhere is what I need.”

“And you are what I need,” he answered.

“I know,” she said. Her voice was very quiet. Almost sad.

“Next time will be different,” she promised.

The alarm went off, and Mark hit the Off button.

“This is going to be a long day,” he grumbled and rolled from the bed. His eyes burned from lack of sleep, and the heat of the shower didn’t do much to help.

Rae curled into a ball, hugging a pillow between her legs, as she listened to Mark move about in the bathroom. When she closed her eyes all she could see were scenes of her being kissed and beaten, petted and fucked. She opened her eyes to clear the visions, but as soon as she closed them, the moments of penetration and violence returned. The ghost memory of the warmth of bodies enfolding and loving and hurting her all at once tingled beneath her skin. She tightened her hold on the pillow as she agreed quietly with Mark.

“Yes it is,” she whispered.

There was a new princess in the castle of perversion. And Amelia was not happy about it. The worst part was, Amelia had given the girl some training herself. And Rae had taken to the lash like an addict to heroin.

Tonight, Kharon had chosen Amelia to stand in the Living Path as the new girl ran the rabbits along with Gordon.

Amelia had been sidestepped. Kharon had come to her in her house and had given her the strength to survive to see The Crossing. But he had witnessed her weakness then too. And so the baton had passed. Kharon had chosen another to fawn on.

Very few ever survived the torture of The Red long enough to pass through into The Black. In Rae, Amelia saw her own chances dwindle. Those who ran the rabbits were being tested. It was an important moment for the Watchers. Who had enough desire, mixed with enough cruelty, to bring an innocent to NightWhere to endure the ultimate degradation?

Could it be that the Watchers were wrong, and Rae didn’t really have it? Perhaps she was still too stupid and naïve about what NightWhere really was? Amelia prayed that was the case. Rae had only been here a few times, after all. She did not have the history of pain and understanding etched on her skin, like a road map to every conceivable destination of pain, as Amelia did.

With Gordon the loser in the rabbit race, his own star had fallen some too, leaving a newbie as the star in the Watchers’ eyes.

Amelia knelt in the bathtub as dawn slipped in the window of her small apartment. Drops of blood dribbled down her thighs, and she rinsed it with warm water and soap before lubing up a finger with antibiotic cream. Then she slid it inside her to coat the ripped flesh where Kharon had seen fit to pin a snake.

The cruel bastard had told her it was the only place that he could find without a scar.

Well, she was going to have one there now. A big one. And it gave her an idea. Something that would bring the princess down and remind the Watchers who could really take-and dole out-the pain. Who could enjoy cruelty the most.

Nobody should ascend to The Black ahead of her. Certainly not a pretty little clueless girl.

Amelia put on a pad to staunch the flow and dressed. Then she went to her dresser drawer and pulled out a flesh-colored dildo. One of her favorites. She fingered the fake veins and the bulbous head, and considered how she might have it modified before the next invitation from NightWhere. She knew a guy who did all sorts of steel and plastic model making, and he was also a pretty dark soul. She’d seen him at plenty of fetish nights over the years. She thought he might be willing to help her make some alterations to the way this particular sex toy functioned. Something that might really give the princess a “pop” when she tried to use it.

“I’ll show you what it means to get nailed,” Amelia grinned. “We’ll see who can take the pain.”