Page 140 of Every Shade of Shadow

I quiver on the spot wondering how many times he’s performed this same routine.

“Sometimes,” continues the Professor, now stroking the release lever, “for those truly debased criminals, the worst of the worst, the blade would be removed altogether, allowing the weight to crush the windpipe, though it does not always do so completely. And now,” he says, “with the right incantation, you will look death in the eye. You will welcome it, and in doing so, grow yet more powerful, more present. I say to you this: after tonight, should you survive, the shadows will see you as one of their own. They will welcome you and there, in their embrace, you will find what you’ve been looking for.”

Which is? I wonder.

Shards of fear pierce my gut. Cold, brutal terror soars across my insides. So he means to kill me? Is that it? It that what this has come down to?

If there was ever a time to back out, it’s now.

But no. I’ve come too far to throw everything away.

He promised my father my protection, not my death.

“What do I do?’ I query, the nervousness in my voice obvious even if I’m doing my best to downplay it.

He instructs me to lie back on the bench, placing my neck in the lunette. I remove my coat and comply, feeling the solid weight of the bench below as I lie down, the worn ring of the lunette against the back of my throat, the scent of the melon just cut, its juices staining the wood.

The bench ends just after my buttocks. My feet are planted on the floor, knees bent.

The Professor lowers the top of the lunette. It sits against the front of my neck and now I am at the mercy of the monster, caught within its wooden grip, unable to see my body, to see only the paper-thin blade that rests above swinging ever so slightly in the dim breeze of the dungeon.

I am unsure what to do with my hands, so I grip the sides of the bench below. I grip it until my knuckles harden and my nails dig into the wood fibers.

I can hear the Professor’s boots on the cobblestone as he rounds the machine. Quietly, I detect his fingers tracing their way over my skin, running over my breasts and down to the shallow dip before my hips.

My nipples stand stiff, the air cool against my sex. It would all be very arousing were it not for the instrument of death poised above me.

I hear the Professor removing his pants, the clinking of his belt buckle unmissable in this silence. He sheds his clothes and I’m left wondering about the purpose of this guillotine. If Damien wanted sex, he could have just said so.

Something is pulled free of a sheath. I get the briefest glimpse of a dagger before Darkwood is rounding upon me.

Something cold and firm rests against my hole.

No.

I inhale sharply with realization. He has placed the tip of his dagger against my opening, resting the flat edge against the floor of my sex, pressing downwards and stretching my slit. He inches forward slightly, the tip shifting inside.

I dare not move or breathe. The smallest motion and I will be cut.

It’s cold, like being penetrated by death itself.

Does he mean to skewer me? To cut me open? Is this part of it? Is this the true Damien Darkwood, the psychopath, now revealed in full?

I’m drowning with these questions as the dagger is withdrawn, replaced by thick fingers pressing through my folds.

A spell is whispered.

“Umbra, see mors. Umbra, see Umbra.”

Shadow, see death. Shadow, see purpose.

“Repeat it,” says the Professor.

I do so as his fingers continue to move. As always, he knows exactly where to press, to stroke, to elicit pleasure.

I grow wet under his touch, a whimper rising up in my throat. A gentle stroke over my clit has me flexing my thigh muscles.

Looking at the blade above has turned me giddy. I consider if, should the blade part my head from my body, I will remain conscious, spinning on the ground below.

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