Page 6 of Currency in Flesh

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 stoppedbreathing, 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 beenturned onwhen 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.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Ididn’t know how to reply. I took a moment to try to compose my thoughts, but another male scream rent through the air. Lady Cora smiled so casually at the sound—like her favorite song was playing on the radio.

“What is that?” I asked, my horror flanked by sick curiosity.

“When souls drink from the river, they become mine. Their lives are judged, and most are sent to the meadows, where they spend eternity in a perfectly pleasant, mundane existence. There are a small number of the dead who earn the right to enter the isles, where they are rewarded handsomely for the good deeds they enacted in their lives. And then there are those who fall to the pit.”

I didn’t need her to explain what the pit was. Sound began to trickle through the silence all around us, filled with agony and despair. The air felt heavy and I was struck by a sense of ominous dread that seemed to settle over me like a heavy blanket.

“I move amongst each place,” she continued, “seeing to theneeds of each and every soul. The souls in the pit have very specific… requirements.” With this, she winked.

“I’m in the pit.” I meant it to come out as a question, but what left my lips was a statement. I wasn’t sure why I was surprised, she had already shown me that she knew I had planned to kill Sean, eventually. I couldn’t imagine anyone who had plotted murder being given a comfortable afterlife. I didn’t feel like a bad person, but maybe other killers felt the same. Maybe there was an entire pit full of people who had no idea what they had done to earn eternal torment.

“You are nowhere, for now. Your pretty little soul would never have found its way to the isles, but you also don’t seem worthy of the pit. I don’t think you had a fair chance, in life. It wasn’t your fault, I know; it never is.” She smoothed my hair where it spread across the bed beside me. “I am not in the habit of facilitating redemption, but much as life in the meadows is a pleasant monotony, so is my role at times. I find enjoyment where I can, and I think you hold the potential to be very enjoyable.”

The cuffs at my wrists and ankles fell away, and I sat up, folding my arms tight to cover my chest and embracing myself in a futile attempt at comfort. Tucking my knees beneath me, I looked up at Lady Cora with wide eyes and a racing heart. She stroked the top of my head as one would pet a labrador, but when her hand slid down over my back, it brought with it clothing—wrapping my naked body in soft fabric from my bust to my thighs. “Come, pet. Let’s take a walk.”

I rubbed at my wrists, still sore from their restraints. “You don’t need to tie me up for this?” my voice came out with a note of impertinence, emboldened as I stood. She hadn’t given me any explanation why I had been chained in the first place.

I was afraid, yes, but I was always afraid. Now, I was also annoyed.

The smile that lit her face was like sunshine. I didn’tunderstand. She had stolen my life from me, dragged me to hell, chained me to a bed and nearly forced herself upon me, but my bratty response to a tiny bit of freedom is what made her happy?

“Such a quick learner,” she quipped. “Did it feel good to flex your little claws?”

“I don’t understand what you want from me. You say you want me as your pet, but then act like you want to fuck me. You chain me to a bed, then say you want me to learn how to bite? What do you want? Companionship? Or do you just want something to control?”

I flinched when she stepped closer. “All of those things. Each and every one.” I hadn’t realized how much taller she was than me until this moment. She stared down at me with a sharp, viridescent look. This close, I became painfully aware of how squat and wide I felt in comparison. Sean always called me fat, but also seemed to want me for my curves more than for my face. I was sure Lady Cora’s breasts were pert and perky above her trim, flat stomach. My thoughts briefly drifted to what her pussy might look like… neat and compact rather than the plump, pink petals between my own thighs.

Jesus Christ.I should be institutionalized. Why the fuck was I thinking about her like… that? Maybe my sanity was tied to mortality and I could look forward to slowly losing my mind.

“Oh, daffodil—you are so transparent I don’t even need to try in order to see what you’re thinking. You might as well scream your thoughts at me.” She made a little hum deep in her throat. “I would like to hear you scream, in fact.”

I looked away. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of a response. Instead, I opted for respectfulness. “Thank you for letting me free.” I reconsidered, “Well, unrestrained.”

“Come,” she said, smiling as she placed her hand at the curve of my lower back. “I have work to do.”

The pit looked oddly serene.I wasn’t sure if you’d call it a sky, but the expanse of cloudy space above me was lit with a soft orange light from some indeterminate source. It reminded me of the sunsets when Sean and I had camped in the deserts of Morocco, albeit absent of the sprawling white tents and ice-filled champagne buckets. The ground was rocky but mostly flat, and a snaking, paved walkway curled around the scattered structures surrounding us. Lady Cora must have caught my slowed steps, following my gaze down to the spotless path. “I don’t like to get my shoes dirty,” she said with a shrug.

It was surprisingly empty here, not at all the Hieronymus-Bosch-esque pit of writhing torture I expected from the sounds of torment I had heard. But then Lady Cora approached a clay building and lifted her hand, pushing aside some illusory curtain to reveal?—

I turned so quickly I nearly fell, bracing my hands on my knees as I bent double, breathing heavily and trying not to vomit.

---