Page 77 of Spark of Madness

“There’s a stark difference between what will happen here in our preparation and what will happen to you both in the trial, and I want to be very clear about that.” He pauses, his arms falling to his sides. “Here, you’re in control. If you want us to stop what we’re doing or untie you, we will. But for preparation’s sake, I’ll encourage you to push yourself past what you think is your breaking point. Because you’ll have no control in the trial; none of my brothers will stop if you ask them to. No one will untie you if you demand it. The more you can push yourself to withstand excessive time in bondage, the better prepared you’ll be.”

Quiet settles for a moment with the weight of his words. This trial will be much like a night of service, except for the fact that we’ll be bound and suspended. My choice, my will, my self-control will all be lost in a much more significant way than it ever has been in the forest. I lift my palm, absently smoothing it down the side of my shortened hair—another symbol of my lost control.

Arlo steps forward and my downcast gaze lifts slowly, grazing up the length of him so close to me, until my head is lifted high to look at him staring down at me. “You may keep your clothes on if you wish, but you’ll be naked in the trial. At some point you’ll want to take the opportunity to know what the rope will feel like digging into your bare flesh.”

Bare flesh.

There’s something sultry in the way he says the words, as if he’s saying them to me, and only me…speaking them like poetry.

Inexplicably, I wish we were alone.

My lips part as he reaches out and touches my cheek with his bare hand. Skin to skin, flesh to flesh, his touch is striking against the embers of desire that linger from our last encounter.

“What will it be?” he asks.

“I won’t remove my clothes, not tonight,” Delle says.

The sound of her voice seems muffled, far away, too quiet to compete with the roar of my soul as Arlo’s fingers slip down the side of my neck.

“Brother,” Theo snaps, and his voice is loud enough to break us. “Mind your hand.”

I blink from the enchantment of Arlo’s touch and look over at Theo. His eyes are narrowed where Arlo’s palm touches my skin before he tugs his hand away sharply.

“I know you didn’t purge,” Theo says to him with righteous anger in his tone, “but there is no full moon tonight. You know better than to touch a woman like that outside of service...even a sinner.”

Arlo clears his throat and takes a step back. “You’re right. Forgive me.”

I look up at him again, but the moment is lost. He bends to grab the rope, and he doesn’t meet my eyes again.

Theo’s warning reminds me that Arlo has already stepped across the thin line to abuse his power with me. I should have turned him in before…I should turn him in now, though we both know the Control would deny me and believe I was lying if I did. They would side with Arlo, and not just because he’s one of them—it would be because they hate me, too.

It doesn’t matter because I know I wouldn’t tell them, anyway. It wouldn’t change my fate. And if I wasn’t aware of it consciously before, I am now—the sins of the flesh we committed together gave me the only moments of true peace and pleasure I’ve ever known.

And I want more of it.

Wrong as it is, if I’m sentenced to die, I’ll keep his secret if it means I can share a forbidden passion with him until the very end, because I want more of this overwhelming need.

I’ll take this secret to my grave just so I can revel in these sinful cravings a little longer.

chapter twenty-five

Mercy

A LITTLE MOREthan two weeks of preparation in bondage have passed. I’ve spent every third night with Arlo, Theo, and Delle in the caves, and they have been nights of abject misery with Arlo’s grazing touches and secret glances.

Otherwise, he’s stayed away from me, avoiding me as much as he could. I’ve felt the distance he puts between us. He avoids me in the hallways, and he certainly doesn’t come to my room. When I go to his, he speaks from the doorway and sends me away discourteously. He ignores me at meals, his words cold and curt.

But then we go to the caves where he binds me, and Ifeelhim. His essence is braided into the ropes he coils around my body. I’ve come to feel freer when I’m bound by him than I’ve ever felt running through the forest or walking among the wildflowers in the meadow.

The anticipation of it is thrilling.

Of course, the thrill is always subdued, limited by the presence of Delle and Theo.

Tonight is different. I don’t know where Delle and Theo are, and Arlo leads me through the secret door in the courtroom. The two of us descend the stone steps alone and traverse the winding tunnels through the caves.

He leads me along a different path than we usually follow, taking us through corridors that require us to dip our heads from low-hanging rock, and side-step through narrow openings. Some paths we travel are frightening in the dark, but I keep my eyes on the flame of his glowing torchlight, letting the flickering orange guide me through dark shadows that threaten to close in all around me.

We duck beneath a naturally formed stone archway, then step forward. He stops, and when I try to take another step to move beside him, he sharply throws out his arm, effectively stopping me from taking another step forward.

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