Currency in Flesh

Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

T he walls fell away with a rush of heat, and a crackling sound like snapping branches. I squinted against the sudden, bright light. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust, but Lady Cora came into focus beside the bed. She was dressed in a black gown which clung to every willowy line of her body. Her hair was loose and straight, fluttering slightly in the arid breeze, and her eyes drifted down my flesh in a languid slide of vibrant green. The way I was bound, splayed out and unable to lift myself, kept me from being able to see anything except for her.

“Why?” I asked.

She raised one eyebrow. “Why, what?”

I shook my wrist against the cuff, and the metal of the connector jingled. When I had fallen asleep, I had the hope that my time here might not be terrible. She had been considerate, if a little cold. But waking up chained to a bed had cast my situation in a different light. Was this just a holding place until I was moved further along in the trafficking ring?

“I think, perhaps, I failed to explain our arrangement properly,” she said as she walked around the perimeter of the bed. “Your husband made a bargain a decade ago. He bartered a soul for success, and I granted him cunning, persuasion and charisma. With my assistance, he was able to secure investors, smooth out problems with nothing but his smile , and he plotted with a foresight none of his competitors could have even imagined.”

She dragged one black-tipped nail up my thigh, and I knew it left a thin, raised line in its wake.

“The deal was simple, but your darling husband, as most men do, wanted more than he had been given. Originally, the terms decreed that I would collect his soul in the moments before his death. Perhaps you noticed his tattoo?”

I had. It was a small line of symbols on his right wrist. He had told me it was something from college, an old joke.

“I could sense his heartbeat, would come calling when it was time. He thought he was clever, that a laser would somehow circumvent my mark, nullify our bargain. But when he attempted to remove it, I paid him a visit.”

I remembered that day. His anger, the bandage, the near-frantic look in his eye when he came home. It was winter, and I had been wearing a puffer jacket. I remember being grateful that it had cushioned me slightly against his blows.

It was the first day he ever hit me.

“His lack of respect led to a couple adjustments to the bargain. He had two options: either willingly give me his soul in five years and spend that time savoring his wealth and success, or give it all up and keep his soul until his natural death.”

“And he tried to offer me in his place.” It was a statement, not a question. He had said as much on the drive to the bar—telling me I’d be someone else’s problem.

“That he did,” she replied. “But that was not the deal.”

“Why didn’t he know you when he saw you?” I asked, remembering his shock that she knew his name. “If you had struck this bargain, why was he so surprised?”

“You know as well as I do that powerful men expect power from other powerful men.” She tilted her head to the side as though trying to crack her neck, and when she straightened it—a dark-haired man in a tailored suit looked down at me. I jerked back, my fingers scrabbling against the bedding, the chains holding true as I pressed my eyes shut. He bent toward me until I could feel his warm breath against my cheek. “Look at me, Grace,” Lady Cora’s low, feminine voice brushed against my ear.

I was shaking—confused about what was happening, afraid of what she was, but I opened my eyes. The man still stood before me, but I recognized his eyes. They glowed faintly, an impossible shade of green.

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked. The words trembled in the air between us and I wondered if she liked hearing me afraid. Would she stay in that male body? Hurt me like a powerful man would, since she seemed to move among them so freely?

“I told you, little blossom. You were too pretty and too pitiful to leave behind. You could never have left the bar anyway—it’s not a real place. The moment your husband’s car left the paved road, it touched the Underworld. The bar is—” The dark-haired man shifted on his feet, screwing up his lips. “The bar is a sort of doorway. A passage to my realm. You drank from the river of the dead, and like always calls to like.”

“That’s what you made me drink?” My stomach churned, and I fought the urge to gag.

“I made you do nothing,” her voice was icy, and as I looked into inhuman, green eyes, she seemed to fade back into existence. It was like placing a piece of tracing paper over an image. She was blurry, but as her outline settled over his, she came into focus—entirely changed. She rolled her shoulders, and the suit slid into nothingness, leaving only the black gown behind. “ You drank the water, Grace.”

“You told me I’d do it either way. You were going to force me,” I bit out. Resentment and anger colored my words, momentarily displacing my fear.

A wicked smile crossed her face, and I thought I caught a glimpse of elongated, sharp fangs. “Everyone drinks from the river eventually,” she said. “I did not lie.”

“You manipulated me. I was scared and in pain and you used that to trick me into, what, killing myself?” I felt sick. Without my consent, tears filled my vision and distorted her face like a funhouse mirror. “I wouldn’t have chosen that.”

“Death comes for everyone, daffodil. Whether you choose it or not. This way, however, I get to keep you. As I said before, someday you may find yourself grateful for that. At the very least, you’ll have the pleasure of watching your husband pay for his insolence.”

“What will you do with him?”

She brushed tangled tendrils of my dark hair from my face and I felt it stick to my sweat-damp skin. Her fingers were so cold they burned, like stepping into a hot bath in the dead of winter. She lowered herself closer to me again, and I was once again surrounded by the heady fragrance of jasmine and rich amber. Something thin and warm flicked over my neck. Her lips pressed against the shell of my ear as she whispered, “Only what he deserves.”

I didn’t know what that meant, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. But deep down, buried below ten years of shame, I was glad. I wanted him to feel afraid, to feel powerless, to feel pain. I didn’t doubt for a moment that Lady Cora planned to ensure all three.

“And me?” I asked. She had made clear her intention to keep me, but I still didn’t understand why. Did she just want to fuck me? Keep me chained for her personal use? How was that any better than life with Sean?

“There is a darkness in you I think everyone in your life has tried to bury. How many times did he tell you it was your fault? Did you apologize for making him so angry?”

I turned my head, refusing to let her see the hot tears that burned a path down my cheeks.

“I’m guessing your family did more of the same. Taught you to be a good girl, to be seen and not heard, not to dress a certain way or act a certain way lest some man be unable to handle you.” Her hand closed around my throat, squeezing at the sides and blocking off my breath for a moment before angling up to clutch my jaw and turn my head back towards her. “I intend to unearth that darkness and water it until it blooms. I want to smell just how sweet your springtime will be, to see you unfurl your petals before me.”

She held my face tightly, nails pressing against the thin skin of my jawline. Another cascade of tears broke free, and I knew they were running down her fingers. I allowed my eyes to find hers once more. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I gritted out. “I’m a good person. I don’t deserve this.”

She gave me no warning. In an instant, Lady Cora’s mouth was so close to mine that I could taste her breath—spiced honey and dark fruit. “Is that so?” she said into my open lips, and then she pressed her mouth to mine.

I opened for her, my body betraying me as a soft moan hummed between us. Her tongue flicked into my mouth, curling around my own in a way that kindled a flame in my desperate, lonely core. I tipped my chin back, angling myself to give her full access, and her hand moved back to my throat. Her tongue was too thin, too long, but I couldn’t feign disgust even as it slid further back until it was nearly at my throat. How was she doing this? Without breaking the kiss, she climbed up onto the bed, straddling me and pressing her silk-clad chest against my bare skin.

For the briefest moment, she pulled her lips from mine and smiled against my mouth. “Is this what good girls do?” Before I could answer, she stole my breath with another, deeper kiss. This time, her tongue didn’t stop. It caressed mine, tasting and exploring, and kept going. Her fingers tightened as her arm pressed up, forcing my head back. She moved slowly, but there was no hesitation as she licked her way down my throat. My body protested, gagging at the intrusion—but her grip tightened and I couldn’t move. She groaned, and I felt it in every part of me. My eyes watered as I tried to keep myself from gagging again, swallowing her tongue down like I had asked for it, and even through the haze of fear and discomfort, I felt my thick thighs growing slick with molten treachery. I didn’t understand how this was happening, how she could be a normal woman one moment, and this the next.

I realized suddenly that I couldn’t breathe, her hand and tongue cutting off my air completely. I bucked against her, and she rolled her hips in response. I could feel the heat of her pressing against my bare skin, and my involuntary response sent a hedonistic shudder through me as my clit ground against her. It was too much—the pleasure and the way my vision began to darken at the edges. I made a pathetic sound, but she only rocked her hips again, fucking my throat with her tongue. I heard her voice in my mind and it was uncannily clear—cutting through the shadows which threatened to claim me. “Do good girls buy ricin in dark alleys? Do they tamper with the brakes of their husbands’ cars?”

There’s no way she could know. I had told no one when I flew to Gujarat to purchase the poison. I paid cash that I had painstakingly hidden, dollar by dollar, for months. The man I met with never even knew my name. I had gone to the public library to research brake repair. I used a fake ID, logged my activity under the pseudonym Daisy Kane. I wore a pale blonde wig. How could she know?

I wouldn’t apologize for having a plan to get out. Should I have left long before that point? Absolutely. But when your husband is a multimillionaire with the means to take everything from you, things get complicated. I didn’t have close friends, didn’t have any remaining family. I could have disappeared and never been seen with this name and face ever again. And I would’ve, eventually. I would’ve.

I felt her withdraw her tongue, fought the urge to gag again when it pulled free of my throat and slid over my teeth. Her lips pressed into mine again, a final kiss, as she pulled away. “I don’t think you’re such a good girl after all,” Lady Cora said with a teasing little smile. I pulled at my restraints.

“I had a plan, is that so terrible? What else could I have done? He could ruin me without even having to try.”

“All I am saying, little flower, is your plans were not fragile, dainty dreams of you riding off on horseback. Your plans would have brought him here anyway. You are not as innocent as you would have me believe, and this is entirely why I chose to keep you.”

Her hips still straddled mine, and despite the simmering anger bubbling just beneath the surface of my skin, I was still achingly aware of all the places our bodies met. It was shameful, abhorrent. There was something horribly wrong with me. But still, the slick between my legs exposed the humiliating treason of my anatomy.

Again, like she could read my mind, her lips quirked up in a smile as she released my throat and straightened. My eyelids pressed together as I willed her to let it go and not continue this degradation.

If she could hear my thoughts, she ignored that plea.

Lady Cora reached back with one slender arm and ran her fingers from my knee up to the apex of my thighs. I stopped breathing, going so still it felt like time had frozen, but my control shattered the moment her deft fingers traced their way through the drenched folds of my pussy. My face felt as though it was on fire, cheeks so hot I was sure I had gone entirely crimson. My chest jiggled with my ragged breathing, and I wished I could hide the way my breasts hung low to my sides. I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want her to know how wet I was, that I had been turned on when she violated my throat with her inhuman tongue, that hearing her detail my plans to murder Sean had made my body throb with a twisted arousal I could only attribute to the trauma of his abuse. I didn’t want Lady Cora to know that part of me wanted nothing more than for her to keep me restrained to this bed while she used that wicked tongue to make me come.

She slapped me—fingers coated in my own arousal—and my eyes flew open. My lips parted as I sucked in a shocked breath. My skin stung from the impact, tingling like the faint buzz of electricity. I was too stunned to speak, and I didn’t want to anger her any more than I already had, but I didn’t know what to apologize for doing.

“What did you think just now?” she asked. I blinked up at her, not knowing how to answer. “I struck you for no discernable reason—was your first thought to apologize?”

“No,” I whispered.

“Liar.” She lifted her hand and slowly sucked on her fingers one at a time, cleaning them of what remained of my wetness. “I told you already, one day you will beg for me, but I do not intend to reward you for being a cowardly little mouse. I want your teeth, and until you learn how to bite, I want nothing from you at all.”