Valerian Read online

  The trick was to do so and still leave Vicktor feeling as though he was the one in command. That he was the one in control.

  No easy feat.

  Melena would not be given that kind of power over him. No. His would be a true mastery of her. He would train her and manipulate her and bend her to his will. And he would give her pleasure beyond her imaginings as her reward for giving him everything.

  The thought excited him. Made him grow hard. As he imagined her soft, beautiful body in hundreds of scenarios and situations he had to rein himself in. He needed to go slowly with her. If he wanted the type of relationship he was seeking, he had to build her trust and her capacity for the rigors of his pleasure gradually.

  “So, tell me, what will you do to earn the safety and comfort of your sisters today?”

  She stiffened. “You already said you would find them.”

  “And I will. I will bring them here to the safety of this household. However, it will be expensive to put up two females who will do nothing to earn their keep in return. If you wish to keep them in comfort, you will continue to submit to me and please me. Otherwise I might turn them out and leave them to their own devices. They would be free, but they would have to figure out how to survive on their own.”

  “You are evil,” she hissed at him, struggling against her bonds for a minute.

  “I am mercenary. There is a difference. I expect payment for my services. And so should you. You have it in you to be quite the little mercenary. Learn to demand recompense for your services. You would be surprised at what you can earn.”

  Chapter Two

  He watched the expressions struggle across her face, and he wished suddenly that she wasn’t blindfolded. He longed to see the expressiveness of her dark brown eyes. He could read her better then.

  He walked up to the head of the bed and reached for the blindfold. He had enjoyed her vulnerability enough for one evening. There would be other nights, nights where he would test her trust in that way. But for now…

  He removed the blindfold, and she blinked in the glow of the candlelight. They were nearing the heart of winter, so the room was cool. But he could not bear the thought of covering her. And besides, watching her shiver was just another pleasing vulnerability.

  She trained a steady look on him, her eyes shooting daggers at him. He had no doubt that she wished to do him some bodily harm. Repayment for all he had given to her. But she would never get that opportunity.

  “What have I earned so far?” she asked.

  He smiled. “You have earned their retrieval. If you wish to see them once they are retrieved… well, you will have to earn that privilege.”

  “I despise you!”

  “Perhaps. For now. But you will learn I am easy to deal with. You give me what I want… I give you what you want.”

  “And what is it that you want that will allow me to see my sisters when they arrive?”

  “Ah. There. See? You are learning. What do I want? I want your loyalty. But you cannot give that to me in a barter system. That would mean your loyalty could be bought… and that it could change if someone offered you a better price. No. I must earn your loyalty the hard way. For now, let us deal in smaller matters. I want to see you writhe with pleasure and pain. I want you to walk the border between the two.”

  “You are perverse,” she hissed at him.

  “If I am, then so are you. For I know you have taken pleasure in what has gone on before this. No. You shouldn’t feel ashamed,” he said quickly. “And you shouldn’t feel perverted. What you feel is natural, and good. It will lead to a bond you’ve never known before. A bond you yearn for, even though you do not yet realize what it is you want.”

  “I want no bond with you.”

  “Oh, but you do. You want me to trust and love you. Only then can you get everything you want.”

  “So you’re saying I can use emotions to manipulate you?” she said baldly.

  “No. You cannot manipulate me. I am far too expert at such things to allow it to be done to me.”

  “Ha! I bet your brother manipulates you all the time!”

  “Quite the opposite, I assure you. Vicktor does not have the finesse required for a true manipulation… the act of getting what you want without letting the other person know they have even been coerced into your way of thinking or into fulfilling your desires.”

  “So you’re saying you manipulate your brother? That all his actions are actually your desires? That would make you the monster, not him.”

  “I do not have total control over Vicktor. My manipulations must be more subtle. They are on a smaller scale. Vicktor wants to invade and brutalize a country, but I convince him to be more gentle about it, to protect the rich resources that country may provide. Perhaps there is an office that needs filling, and I might make strong suggestions as to who might fill that office. These things help me to have a measure of control over a tempest that is almost impossible to control. Yes, in the end Vicktor’s word is final… and yes, I cannot always predict or influence a situation, but I do what I can when I can.”

  “If your brother ever heard you speak like this, he would kill you.”

  “So imagine the trust I am extending to you. You could potentially use this knowledge against me. But I don’t think you will. For in order for you to do that you would have to get into bed with a far worse monster than me.”

  She was silent for a moment, and he could see the thoughts working in her head. He wondered what she would do. He felt fairly confident she wanted nothing to do with his brother, that she would rather die than help him in any way, but nothing was guaranteed. She could be far more cutthroat than he was giving her credit for.

  “If you were emperor, you wouldn’t have to bother with all these complex manipulations. You would be the one with the power to do anything you liked.”

  “Is that what you think would appeal to me? Ultimate power?”

  “Wouldn’t it? Isn’t that what you are seeking with me?”

  “There is a difference between having power over one’s pleasures and having the power to command the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in a nation.”

  “I believe you would be up to the task.”

  “Perhaps,” he said with a frown. “But I said we would not talk about this anymore, and you have pushed me to do so. For that you must be taught a lesson.”

  She tensed from head to toe, her wrists and ankles drawing in to the very ends of the reach of her ties. Had they allowed her to, she would have curled into a protective ball. But it wasn’t that she was afraid. Not in the sense that he terrified her. No. He knew what she feared was herself. She feared finding pleasure with him. Part of her still considered it a betrayal for her to find pleasure in anything he did to her.

  Valerian walked over to the bedside table where a thick beeswax candle stood in a heavy candle holder. The candle was sitting in its own drippings, where the wax had dripped down its length and then hardened again at its base until it was sitting in a craggy wall of wax.

  He pried the candle free of its stand, breaking off the fragile wax drippings and letting them fall onto the table. He held the candle perfectly balanced, keeping the pool of wax at the base of the flame from dribbling down. He kept an eye on her expressions as he moved his hand and the candle over the bed and then over her body.

  Her eyes went wide. “Are you going to set me on fire?” she asked hoarsely.

  He frowned at her. “Do you think I would take such poor care of you? You are precious to me, Melena. When are you going to realize that?”

  “We don’t hurt things that are precious to us!” she argued, panting for her breath a little.

  “Sometimes we do when it is for their benefit. Now wait… watch.”

  He raised his hand high, lifting the candle so that the wax would have time to cool a little before hitting her body. Then he tipped the candle for a brief second, allowing small drips to splash down against her stomach. Her body tensed, and she hissed
with the pain. But it was only a minor pain, and she recovered almost instantly.

  Valerian reached out with his free hand and swiped at the cooling wax on her belly. It peeled up and away. Beneath where the wax had been her skin shone, lightly reddened. There was no describing what the sight did to him.

  He moved his hand away and tipped the candle again. This time he moved it as he went, dotting a line up the center of her body from belly to breastbone. She clenched her teeth, her body curving as she strained against what she was feeling.

  “Tell me what it feels like,” he demanded of her.

  “It burns! What do you think it feels like?”

  “There is more to it than the burn. There’s more than just mindless pain. The burn is over quickly. What is left behind?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “I think you do,” he persisted. He ran a dribbling streak of wax back down the center of her body, avoiding her breasts and stopping just shy of her pussy.

  “Stop! Please stop!” she gasped.

  He did, but only to let her catch her breath. He reached out to peel bits of cooled wax from her skin, taking pleasure in the way she breathed hard. He leaned over her and kissed her reddened skin, letting the moistness of his tongue soothe the burned place. Her breath caught, and he knew she was feeling the surprising surge of pleasure in the wake of the pain.

  He leaned in to kiss her mouth. He drew her in deep, his tongue delving into the sweet recesses of her mouth. After a moment she responded, meeting him kiss for kiss. Then he drew back and made way so he could dump a larger pool of melted wax at the point of her solar plexus. She cried out, her back bowing, her wrists reddening where they strained against her bonds. They weren’t tied too tightly, he had made sure of that, but the way she was pulling them was chaffing her wrists, no matter that the bonds themselves were made of silk.

  He gave the newly poured wax a moment to cool, then he peeled it off. He discarded it without thought over the side of the bed. Let the servants clean it up. It was not his concern. She was his only concern.

  He kissed the reddened spot lightly, then turned his head and rubbed the whiskers of his face against her, breathing deep. She smelled of beeswax and sirocco flowers. And more. She smelled of arousal. He slid his hand down her body, making her gasp as he ran his fingertips lightly over the red marks. He sank his fingers between her legs and found her to be as wet as ever. She could protest all she liked, but her body was telling a different tale. That was the tale he listened to. It was the only one that mattered.

  He sat down beside her, fondling her clit a moment until she was squirming on the bed. Just when she began to pant from rising pleasure, he poured a dollop of wax over her left nipple. She exploded with a savage sound, and he smiled to himself. He did not immediately want her to know just how much she pleased him. Not to any great degree.

  “Good,” he said as he breathed a cooling breath over the spot of soft wax. He withdrew his fingers from between her legs, dragging the wet tips up the center of her body until he was at her breast and peeling off the layer of cooled wax. Then he bent and took her abused nipple into his mouth, first soothing it with his tongue, then biting it lightly with his teeth. He gave her very little reprieve between the doses of pain and always followed those doses up with something designed to give her pleasure. She did not realize it, but he was conditioning her to feel a burst of pleasure after every burst of pain.

  He brought the candle a little closer to her body. The wax would be hotter now, with less time to cool before hitting her skin. He chose a less sensitive spot to start, the top crease of her thigh. He drew a line of wax up along the crease, watching it drip onto and then roll off her skin a little before dripping over the side of her body and onto the silken sheets beneath her. He echoed the act on the other side of her body, bringing his face down close to her sex to take in the smell of arousal and wax. It was heady and delicious. So much so he couldn’t help but take a taste of her.

  He had not given her this taste of pleasure yet, but he gave it to her now. Holding the candle steady above her, he put his mouth over her clitoris and sucked her in sharply between his lips and teeth. Her hips came up off the bed; he simply followed the wave of motion. He flicked his tongue over the sensitive nub that was giving her so much pleasure, then tipped the candle over, dripping wax across her pubis. Some of it splashed onto his face, but it was a minor pain and it didn’t deter him. He barely even noticed it. He was far too busy tonguing her into a frenzy. Her cries were like ambrosia, building up at an almost frenetic pace. He pushed her along by inserting the fingers of his free hand into her pussy in time to the swirling of his tongue.

  She broke apart then, her orgasm flinging through her and out into the open air. As it broke he dripped wax over both of her breasts, in a line from nipple to nipple. Her shouts in the air were music to his ears. She was beautiful. Beyond anything he could have imagined. Anything he could have hoped for. She was fire and passion and light. He was hard from listening to her. From feeling her. From tasting her. He wanted her so badly, but he forced himself to maintain control. He would not let her dissolve his control so easily.

  He moved up her body, placing the candle back into its holder as he came within reach of it. He looked down into her eyes and saw the haze of passion and pain within them. It tested his control all over again. She was so open. So vulnerable. He could take her and she wouldn’t complain. Quite the opposite. He could see the way she tried to reach for him. He was glad of her bonds. If she had touched him right then, he would have given in to her. He was still wearing his breeches, and a long robe that gaped open across his chest. He felt far too dressed for the occasion, and yet knew he needed the barrier of his clothes to help keep him in check. Still, he would much rather have been naked, his incredible erection hanging free in the open air between them. He could then rub his cock against her, painting her with the wetness that dripped from its tip the way he had painted her with wax.

  Oh, how she tempted him. In ways no other woman ever had. With all the others he had remained completely focused and in control. As always. But there was something about Melena… something he couldn’t define at the moment. Perhaps it was her fire… or perhaps it was because she inspired him to think about things he should have been thinking of long ago. For many years it had been only his father’s voice and teachings in his head… now hers were there as well. It disturbed him… delighted him. Such a contradiction of feeling, thought, and emotion that it was hard to keep focused.

  “Come,” she said softly, her voice like a breath that was barely there. “Let me please you.”

  Valerian’s heart jumped in his chest, and then began to race eagerly. He had to take a breath and remind himself that she was doing these things as a quid pro quo. His pleasure in trade for what she wanted for her sisters. He didn’t know why that should disturb him. After all, he was the one who had told her to be mercenary with him. So why was he now irritated that she was doing just that?

  Because he longed for her desires to come from an honest place, he realized. He wanted to know she felt as strongly as he did. Perhaps then he wouldn’t feel so off-balance… as if she had an advantage over him.

  He frowned as he took her in. She was so bare… he was breaking her down. Showing her there was a point of pleasure to be found if only she give herself to him. Perhaps this was what she wanted. He didn’t know. He couldn’t tell. But he would see to it that he could. He would work on her until she was truly his.

  He stood and stepped up to the side table and looked into the flame of the candle. He reached out and held his callused fingers over the flame just long enough for him to feel the burn. Then he grabbed the wick, dousing the flame with his fingers.

  “No,” he said aloud. “I will not be coming to you, and you should not try to change my mind by seduction. You can tempt me with your obedience only. That will please me far more than false claims of desire.”

  In the moonlig
ht she looked surprised, then hurt. He felt something in his chest tighten in response. “You think what I’m feeling is false? That I’m a liar?”

  He hesitated. “I think you don’t know how to manage your feelings. I think you are trying to manage me.”

  “I swear to you that I am not,” she said with feeling. “I am an honest person. I say whatever and only whatever is on my mind and in my heart. Perhaps you are too used to people who barter with you for your affections. As much as you would have me be mercenary, I am not. I am and will be completely honest with you. Do I want my sisters to be well and taken care of? Yes. But you will have to do it because you want to do it. I won’t play your games of barter and reward.”

  He didn’t know what to make of that. It had to be some sort of trick. A game. A ploy. She couldn’t possibly feel anything for him. Not yet. Not so quickly and not without him having to work hard at arresting her passions. She simply could not trust him that much already. She could not be willing to give him so much already.

  He turned away from her and paced to the end of the bed. He stopped there and looked at her, drinking in the sight of her.

  He then reached for the binding at her ankle and freed it with a few quick, jerking movements. He reached for the opposite ankle and did the same. Before she could withdraw it, however, he grabbed it and held it tight, his fingers binding her the way the ties would have done.

  He bent and brought her instep to his lips, kissing her gently a couple of times, then bit at the plumpness of her heel. He pulled at her leg, until she was straining at the bindings of her wrists, her entire body stretched out and welcoming. From his perspective he could see every hill and valley of her body. He could see the juicy pink lips of her pussy. He could see the place where she was inviting him in. But she had more than one delightful orifice, and it was time she learned how to use them.