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Chapter One
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MIRA DIDN’T KNOW MUCH about St. Andrew, but she was thankful for the existence of the contraption that bore his name, so commonly found in dungeons like this one. When a man was bound to a St. Andrew’s cross, the curve of his shoulders enticed her. The X-shape spread his limbs invitingly and supported his torso, but left his head free to move, to hang in shame or exhaustion, to buck backward in agony or exultation. So convenient.
Mira trailed the suede tresses of her softest flogger across the shoulders of the man she’d chosen to play with and was rewarded by the shiver down his bare back. A beautiful back. He was a well-made specimen, athletic but not overbuilt, his dark hair prone to curl where it had grown past his ears, providing a comfortable thicket to sink her fingers into. She pulled his head back and turned it so she could take a kiss from his mouth. Even though he hummed pleasingly into the kiss, his lips were still firm and full of the natural resistance that Mira couldn’t wait to beat out of him.
In time. It had been months—six? already?—since she’d last done this and she would not rush. She let go of his hair and ran her nails lightly down his back, waking the skin, making him arch like a cat, the wrist restraints rattling as he did. She stopped when she reached the waistband of his underwear. In a public nightclub like this, people’s dangly bits were not allowed to, well, dangle. Six nights a week this place was for drinking and dancing, but on the seventh it was for people who preferred the dance of pleasure and pain. Mira ran her palm over one cloth-covered buttock. The black briefs were stretchy and smooth. She tugged his underwear into an impromptu thong, exposing both cheeks. She smacked each one playfully and heard his chuckle over the background throb of music.
“Clive,” she said, into his ear. Before they went any deeper, she wanted to remind herself of his name and of one other important thing: “What’s your safeword?”
“It doesn’t matter, since you won’t be hearing me say it,” he answered.
Mira smacked him a bit harder. “Cheeky boy. I’m testing your memory. You told me you had a word you preferred. Were you lying to me to make me think you’re more experienced than you are?”
That produced a hearty laugh. “No, no, my lady. The word is ‘divinity.’”
Well, it’s better than aardvark, she thought. That had been her safeword when she first got into the scene. When she was too young to know the difference between being attracted to a sexy dom and actually being submissive.
She knew better now. She pressed a line of kisses along the top of Clive’s shoulder, the pristine skin she’d soon be covering with welts. Mira didn’t regret having played submissive for a couple of hot doms back in the day. It had been fun to be tied up and spanked and have sex six ways from Sunday. But to be the one holding the whip? Much more satisfying. Even when there wouldn’t necessarily be sex to follow. Meeting new people at a dungeon night like this often led to some casual play in public, but not necessarily anything more. As a rule Mira didn’t go home with them, at least not the first time.
She certainly didn’t think she’d be going home with this one. Tonight she was just dipping her leather-booted toe back in the water after too long away. She was looking for some casual play, nothing more, and Clive was aesthetically pleasing.
Mira stepped back and trailed the suede over his back again, then checked behind her. Sometimes bystanders got swiped by the backswing if they were too close, but it was early and the club wasn’t crowded yet. A suburban couple stood quietly nearby, a vampirish figure of unknown gender leaned against a column; no one else was close enough to be paying attention. The throbbing techno music seemed louder than usual without the typical chatter from the bar and noise of other scenes drowning it out. Mira swung the flogger in a slow circle, striking Clive’s back lightly on each pass. Bit by bit she ramped up the speed and the force of each blow.
Clive’s body rocked slightly as he fell into her rhythm, as his skin turned pink, then red. Was his mind going through changes, as well? Mira wondered. The ones with the deepest submissive streaks could let a dominant lead them into a zone of selfless abandon, where they no longer belonged to themselves but to the dom.
You didn’t come here to get a stray puppy, she reminded herself. Besides, Clive was too much of a cheeky bastard to fall into that category, wasn’t he? He was funny and confident and not like her last submissive at all, except perhaps in the looks department.
It was downright beautiful, the way Clive’s chest heaved and his shoulders bunched as the “soft” flogger began to sting where Mira snapped it hard against his skin. She switched to the heavier flogger and plied it up and down, from buttocks to shoulders, gradually nudging him from pleasure to pain—or was it the other way around?—increasing the intensity until she was swinging with both hands, full force, the leather thudding against his back.
He took everything she threw at him, soaking it in with gorgeous abandon. His hands, which had been clenched fists, opened like flowers blooming, reaching for the sky. Had his pain transformed to ecstasy? Seemed likely.
She let him catch his breath as she ran her fingernails lightly down his arms, then took it away again as she scratched down his back, leaving gasps and shivers in her wake. He was lovely. So lovely.
She made a decision. “Clive. Remember when I mentioned my single-tailed whip?”
He nodded while he gathered enough breath to speak. “Yes, of course.”
“And remember when I said I rarely used it with someone I didn’t know?”
“Yes, my lady?” His voice held a hopeful note that made her blood surge, warm and lustful.
She probed. “I thought I detected a little disappointment coming from you when I said that.”
“Yes, my lady. I...I would love to feel your whip.”
“Have you been whipped before?”
There was something too quick, too automatic about his answer. “Yes, my lady.”
“Is there anything you need to tell me before I start?”
Just as quick: “No, my lady.”
Well, he was a consenting adult. If there was something he needed to say, she hoped it was something that could be said afterward with no ill consequences. Maybe he was simply eager and trying to not seem too eager. As if she might dangle the temptation and then pull it away. Plenty of doms played that way.
Not Mira. “Since it’s our first time with the whip,” Mira what are you saying? ‘First time?’ Have you already made up your mind you’re going to play with him again? “I am only going to give you three strokes.”
“Only three?” He sounded positively plaintive.
“Greedy boy. I’ll give you the chance to safeword out after each one.”
This time there was a moment of hesitation before he said, “Ah. Yes, my lady.”
Yes, angel, this is going to hurt. She stroked his luxurious half-curls, damp now with sweat.
There were ways to use a whip sensually, gently. That was not what she was going to do. He seemed to understand, but to be sure, she sank her hand into his hair again and bent his face toward her. Looking him in the eye, she said, “I may draw blood.”
His answer surprised her—“I would be honored if you did”—and again she felt a surge of desire for him, lust and possessiveness and dominance cresting all at once. It had been too long since she’d felt like this. The music and the murmured conversations of the other clubgoers receded, as if she and Clive were enclosed in a world of their own. She wanted to kiss him once more, but resisted, holding his gaze and letting the feeling coalesce, hoarding it.
Even as she uncoiled the short whip from her bag, even as she stepped back to measure the distance, she felt the connection between them, as the envelope of their private world stretched and expanded.
She teased him first, of course. She cracked the whip in the air in front of her and was gratified to see his response: a moan and an undulation of his spine as if he had caught a sensual lick of stimulation out of the air. When he humped the wooden cross, Mira let herself imagine he was sheathed in someone else, a slaveboy or slavegirl from her imaginary harem. In that moment she pictured herself the exotic queen of a faraway world, testing the mettle of her captain of the guard.
Her grin was as predatory as the look in her eye. She cracked the whip again, this time to one side of his ear, and the humping increased in speed and force. Yes, Clive apparently did like whips a great deal.
Mira was practiced enough with whips to give demonstrations to BDSM community groups. One of the best demonstrations began with a volunteer from the audience holding a banana at his belt buckle. She would sensually wrap the whip around the fruit again and again until the man was lulled, unsuspecting...and on the next stroke, blast the tip of the banana clean off with a hard crack.
That was usually the finale. Only if the volunteer had nerves of steel would she be able to show the next step, slicing the banana down, inch by inch. Or if she had brought her own submissive to hold the banana.
This is not the time to be thinking about Guy. Or any old failures.
Mira cracked the whip once more, this time over her head, then struck Clive squarely on one buttock, leaving an instantly visible dark red mark. Clive threw his head back and opened his mouth like a wolf howling, but no sound came forth. He shook against the wood of the cross.
She waited until he was still again, until he had prepared himself, before she painted the matching stripe on the other buttock, the welt again leaping into view against his skin. She wanted to touch the marks, to run her hands over those ultra-tender spots, to dig her nails in and feel him scream. A wicked thought sped by: You could do that whether he’s on the cross or between your legs...
He stilled himself again, or tried to, for no force of will could stop the trembling in his shoulders, the all-over quivering that wracked his entire body. She took a deep breath, visualizing her target: a hard slash across his shoulders where the skin was already primed from the flogging. She wanted to lick that skin, to love and caress it, to cherish and possess it. She promised herself she would: after.
She swished the whip lightly, preparing for the final strike, synchronizing her breathing with the rhythm of her arm. Watching, she saw that he had begun to rock in time with her. It had to be an illusion or a coincidence, since in his position he could not see her. Crack—the strike burned across his back like lightning and this time he loosed the scream that had failed to emerge earlier. Seizing the desire she’d been holding back, Mira pressed against his back and licked across the streak of the blow—tasting blood, feeling him tremble. Mine!
When she raised her head, she found him slumped forward, his head hanging. Those shoulders rose and fell gorgeously as he rode through the aftermath. She sank her fingers into his hair once more, turning his head for the kiss she had denied herself earlier, and found his lips utterly pliant. Not an ounce of resistance remained in him, and she plundered his mouth gleefully, savoring his surrender.
The kiss over, she looked into his face. He bit his lip and showed a hint of...shame?
“How are you, angel?” she asked him.
“I...had a bit of an...unexpected reaction,” he said, as if the large words were a challenge to say.
“Can you be more specific?” she probed, her hand slipping down to his neck and massaging possessively.
“I came,” he said, the blush on his cheeks coming up as sudden and bright as any welt. “My lady.”
Oh, you treasure. She kissed him again, harder than before. When she let his mouth free, she said, “Did you expect me to be disappointed by that?”
“Well, you didn’t give me permission.”
“I also didn’t say you couldn’t,” she pointed out. Clive was turning out to be more compelling than she’d expected, so compelling that she decided against caution. “I’ll only be disappointed if you can’t come home with me and give me another.”
Now he couldn’t meet her gaze. “Um. Actually, I’m sorry. I...have to be somewhere tonight.”
The bubble that had enclosed them since she’d first mentioned the whip burst, letting in a cold wave of laughter from clubgoers by the bar. More of the regulars were arriving now and the place was filling up. How nice of him to stick to euphemism rather than say he already had a date. “Oh. You didn’t mention.”
He kept his gaze lowered. “I know. I...didn’t expect we’d, um, connect like that. I mean, most of the women I meet here...well, none of them have ever asked me home before...” He seemed to realize he was digging the hole deeper and deeper. “I’m sorry. I really would like to...serve you, do whatever I can for you! Just not tonight?”
Mira tried to impose some order on her jumbled thoughts and feelings. After all, she hadn’t planned to take anyone home tonight in the first place. You didn’t bring home a random dude just because he came in his pants when you whipped him. You met for coffee in daylight before you did something like that. Maybe Clive’s previous plans were the universe’s way of looking out for her.
Or for him. The grain of possibility that he had said it as a self-preservation measure, as if he knew the damage she could do—had done—grated under her skin.
“All right.” She kissed him on the cheek to try to show she wasn’t angry at him. She undid the restraints around his wrists and rubbed his arms as he lowered them to his sides, then unlatched his ankles.
He went down to all fours, touched his head to the floor, and kissed the toe of each of her boots. Not the actions of a man who wanted to run away. Her heart ached a little when he stayed on his knees to accept her business card. He was perfect. Exactly what she wanted—what she needed, if she’d let herself admit it.
Time to prove she wasn’t a predator and that he wasn’t just a good actor.
“I do not chase men,” Mira said, trying to sound firm but not angry. “So I expect you to call me. Am I understood?”
“Yes, my lady. I’ll call,” he said. And he sounded so sincere when he said it, too.
(Initiates of the Blood is forthcoming from Tor Books in 2019! To receive updates on when and where you can get it, hop on the newsletter at http://bit.ly/ctannews)