Carrick wiped the blood from his eyes and licked it slowly off each finger, like a lazy cat grooming itself after a kill. His head was cocked to the side allowing his hair, a shimmering Tyrian purple, to graze across his thighs. He was clad in a loose fitting pair of black pants and was standing with bare feet on a marble floor, yet there were tiny drops of sweat on his brow.

“Was that thorough enough for you my lady? Carrick asked, his eyes on the bleeding form at Lady Muireall’s feet. Reduced to a whimpering creature, a young fae lay curled upon the floor, his skin covered in angry welts and bloody whip marks. It appeared as if his skin had given birth to a colony of scarlet rubies. His hair was a long tangled mass of blood and dirt, giving it the look of riverbank clay.

“Why don’t we ask Riordan if it was thorough enough,” she said with a sneer, her eyes cold as she looked from the fae curled on the floor to the one standing a few feet away, recoiling the whip. “Riordan my sweet, was your brother thorough enough?”

Riordan rolled one exquisite gray eye up at her. The iris had a brilliant sunburst center the color of fresh plums, but at the moment it was full of pain. Riordan could see the shadow of his brother a few feet behind her.

Lady Muireall reached out and grabbed Riordan by his blood sodden hair. She yanked hard, forcing him up on all fours so she could more easily look in his eyes. His stomach spasmed as another wave of agony overtook him.

“Now, are you going to climb upon the bed and service your mistress the way she wishes to be serviced, or will you continue to lay upon the floor like a scared child?”

“I will not willingly go to your bed, not ever” Riordan spoke through clenched teeth. Lady Muireall used his hair to flip him onto his back.

“Bring your knife Carrick.”

“Yes my lady.”

He handed her a knife that gleamed like a pale sliver of moonlight. The blade was almost too bright for the darkness of the room. Looking at it for too long could steal ones night vision, hypnotize them and leave them defenseless, a prisoner of its spell. She ran the blade up Riordan’s already healing chest and he writhed beneath her.

“This could have been done in pleasure.”

“I do not wish for it to be done at all.”

“But I do Riordan and it is my wishes that matter here, one would think you would have learned that by now.”

“Carrick hold your brother!”

Carrick took hold of Riordan’s arms and wrenched them back over his head, pinning his brother’s body to the ground. Lady Mureall knelt on his legs, while Riordan thrashed beneath them both, but his weakened state made it easy for them to hold him and Lady Mureall made a great show of stripping what little clothing he had away. She reached up a black painted fingertip and caressed the side of his face, and he turned his head away, defiant even then. She jerked his head back towards her, so he could see in her eyes what she was about to do to him.

“NO! Mistress, please no!” He begged, his breathing ragged.

“You who have pressed that willing body against many a fair young fae maiden would recoil now at the prospect of being with me? Why? Why do you scream? Why do you fight when it could feel magnificent.”

“Because I hate you, I despise you and this court of darkness with all its ugly shadows and hatred. And you my brother, who shared a womb with me, how can you help her do this?”

“She has promised to keep me safe, to protect me from the things that dwell in the shadows, things neither elven or fey. And she will protect you too, if only you’ll obey.”

“We are princes of the forest, not some common refuge to be bought and sold. That we have been captured and dragged here is humiliation enough, but I will not service one of their women, not willingly, not for all the protection in the world.”

“But I will have you all the same Riordan, and before the night is through I will make you scream for me.”

She leaned forward, allowing her sapphire hair with its lightning bolts of black streaks to caress his bare stomach and the still healing wounds. She slid her face along that jagged skin as Carrick held him still. Her caresses caused more discomfort than true pain and he fought to show only empty eyes. But when she took him in her mouth and rolled her tongue around him, sucking as if she were sucking the very sounds from his mouth; he did not fail to respond. A gasp of anguish and pleasure tore from his throat and as she straddled him, he could feel the tears slipping from the corners of his eyes as he closed them to the moment, the act. His body betrayed him though, staying hard and erect as she rode him.

She plunged the blade into his stomach as he felt the first moments of orgasm stirring. The pain, sharp and wet flooded through him and he went wild with the release, bucking beneath her, driving himself into her as she jerked the knife upward.

It struck his ribs with enough force to snap the bottom two before she wrenched it out upon reaching the third. The pain was exquisite and he writhed as she rocked above him, reaching her own orgasm as she licked his blood off the blade.

“There now,” she said when he was still. “When you heal you will bear my scar and everyone will see that belong to me.”