Page 59 of Twisted Magic

And cracked wide open.

She burst into tears, weeping and crying piteously. The tears flowed hot and without reserve, all temptation to withhold any scrap of poise or consciousness gone. She was shredded, without will, emptied and aching. The spanking continued, pain and arousal intertwined, her mind floating somewhere in an endless sea of it. Time ceased to have meaning. The boundaries of self blurred. She was only that which yielded.

She became aware of being lifted and lowered to the floor, where she collapsed, panties still partway down her thighs and binding them together, making her ever more aware of how slick they were, her sex throbbing in time with her burning bottom. Jadren moved her like a limp doll, arranging her onto her knees, then came around to stand before her, nudging his glossy boot tips into her field of vision. “Kiss them,” he ordered softly.

Still weeping copiously, with a wrench of her heart, she did, pressing reverent kisses to his boots. She loved him without reserve, with boundless trust and a depthless need she could reveal only in this way. Fervently, she kissed his boots, willing him to understand how he’d flayed her open.

“Good girl,” he murmured, and a fresh spate of tears escaped her. “Kneel up and look at me.”

She did her best, given that her entire body felt like lettuce left in the sun to wilt. Gazing up at him, she found him looking on her with a kind of terrible compassion. “How does it feel,” he asked her softly, “to weep that way?”

“Exhausting,” she answered tremulously. “Exhilarating. Liberating.”

He caressed her cheek, wiping the tears away with his thumb. “Then you should thank me.”

“Thank you, Jadren,” she whispered, turning her face to kiss his wet fingers, excruciatingly aware of her bottom, hot and aching on her heels. “I love you.”

“Even now?” he asked, a hint of raw vulnerability in the question.

“More than ever,” she told him, willing him to believe it.

He smiled, then grasped her jaw, lifting her chin and stretching her neck so she rose a bit off her heels. “Was it enough, do you think?” he asked with that same lethal compassion.

Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, salt in her mouth. “Yes.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, but she had no answer. “I think I need to see. Stand up.”

He helped her to stand, wobbly as she was. “Bend over the stool,” he told her, “and grasp the rungs nearest the floor.”

She started weeping again, or was still weeping, thinking to tell him no, but she obeyed, helpless to resist. Fabric rustled as he lifted the dress, draping the long, lavish skirts over her upper body, enshrouding her in the dim light, exposing the rest of her. The panties bit into her thigh as he pulled them tight. They gave with a hiss, ripped apart, as flimsy as her thoughts of resistance.

Because, she realized on some vague level, she didn’t want to resist. Being putty in his hands allowed her to melt into a state of pure being, of utter relaxation. Jadren, she purred in her mind. So, when he told her to spread her legs wide apart, she did, opening her most intimate, vulnerable, and sensitive part of herself to him, along with her heart and soul, all of her utterly excavated and offered to him.

He caressed her, delivered more stinging slaps, the pleasure and pain intertwining to become the same sensation, and she whimpered, writhing in encouragement and escape that were somehow also the same. The gown shivered around her, loosening as he triggered the magical fastenings. Briskly, he stripped it from her, leaving her naked and returned to her splayed position over the stool, exposed, his to toy with.

And toy with her, he did. Running his hands over her possessively, indulging himself and exploring every crevice, bringing her close to orgasm but never quite there, offering that pleasure-pain in ceaseless rounds until she knew her body to belong fully to him, an instrument for him to play.

His magic clicked into her, oiled clockwork penetrating her, sipping along the inside of her skin, delivering small shocks that wound her tighter. Climax hovered, inevitably drawing near and impossibly distant. Her wizard, marking her with his magic, taking her magic as he extracted and wrung responses from her quivering body.

She barely discerned the trigger, so like the rest of the endless torment, the ceaseless teasing, exploding without warning into pure moonlight, silver white hurled into a starless night. Contorting, convulsing, climaxing with wild abandon, she folded and unfurled, blossoming into a dark flower, birthed by all that had nearly drowned her before.

A long pause.

Stretching, she purred at the elasticity of her body, the languid, lightning-fast feel of it. Sitting on her haunches, she wrapped her tail around her forepaws and looked around the room. The colors had changed, still vivid, but all in shades of reds and greens. The minute differences between small changes in texture stood out like shadowy chasms. The world exploded with scent, varied and full of depth as the colors. Oh, and…

Jadren.

He sat, sprawled on the floor, knees akimbo and hands dangling between, his hair and beard fiery, black eyes wide pools, as he regarded her with astonishment, delight, and a whiff of faint alarm. The emotions colored his scent, rich and masculine, delicious, all of him. Prowling to him, she rubbed her whiskers along his jaw on either side. Marking him. Hers. Satisfied, she licked him, one long swipe up the side of his throat and face. He tasted good, too, quivering under her raspy tongue, emitting a low laugh.

“Is this how I’ll die then?” he asked her, unmoving. “Eaten by an enormous black, wildcat, more fearsome than ever seen by any swamp creature.” Tentatively, he lifted a hand to rub behind her ears. That was lovely, so she butted against his hand for more. “If you did, Seliah,” he breathed in wonder, “if you chose to rip out my throat and feast on me until nothing remained, I’d die happy. Look at what we accomplished.”

She decided curling up in his lap would be even lovelier, so she did, ignoring his yelps of pain and reminders not to use her claws, as he collapsed backward under her weight, laughing hysterically. This was fun! Sprawling over him, she pinned his slighter form with her heavy, feline one, holding him down with big paws on his shoulders—and just a tiny bit of claw, only enough to make him yip—she washed his face while he flailed at her.

“Enough, Seliah,” he begged through gasps of laughter. “You’re rasping my face raw, you great beast. Let me up.”

She decided not to. Flexing her claws, she informed him of her decision, playfully biting the join of his neck and shoulder.

“All right, swamp creature,” he yelped. “I was kidding about letting you eat me alive.” Clockwork magic ticked along the underside of her skin, bones folding, spinning, flesh moving through invisible cogs, and she was back in human skin, naked and folded in Jadren’s arms, draped over him on the floor. “Hello, beautiful,” he murmured, pulling her into a deep kiss.

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