Salt in the Wound (Lyonesse)

by Sierra Simone

“People trust us because we take care of their money, Isolde. There are certain necessary evils that come with that responsibility. Necessary evils that we must allow as a family.” “But why should we? We’re called to be upright, to be salt of the world⁠—” “Save me your moralistic bullshit, Isolde. You are a child, and you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

No one had ever looked at me like Mark Trevena had the night of the party, like he was right now. Like he wanted to cut me open and taste the blood that came out, and then make me taste it too.

“You aren’t a typical person, Isolde,” Mark said as we reached the landing. “But it’s hard not to look at other people living their normal, messy lives and wonder what it would be like. To be one of them.”

I learned a long time ago to put some reasonable limits on what I ask of people, because otherwise I will ask the world of them.”

“My child. If God didn’t want us to be fickle, he would have never created the ages of seventeen through twenty-seven.

Like Esther, I would scrawl out God’s will onto the world not in the light, not in the shadows, but in the faint glow of a king’s bedroom.

But I loved it. It felt perfect in my hand, the size, the weight. Even the bone felt right, slightly warmer than the gold and rubies against my palm. There was a note inside the box too, inked in a neat, precise hand. Remember, reverse grip is for when you mean it. - m

Some people had men woo them with jewelry, with roses and orchids and champagne. I had a man who sent me knives and parasitic flowers. I was smiling the rest of the day.

Mark bribes and blackmails half the district’s officials to look the other way.” “Oh.” “It’s only half, because the other half are already members here,” Dinah added with a wicked grin. My belly flipped to see her smile. Did I have a secret weakness for wicked grins? Or just for beautiful Dominants in general?

composed enough that I’m already wondering what it would take to fracture all that gorgeous control of yours. Just be you out there on the stage, and I know you’ll give us all a hell of a show.”

“Give me what you’d give any submissive, Mark.” I met his eyes again. “Sir, I mean.” “But you’re not any submissive,” he said, leaning close to murmur in my ear. “You’re going to be my wife.” The way he said wife sent a hot, electric thrill racing down my spine. He said it like it was a personal fantasy of his—the filthiest pleasure he could imagine.

“I presume you told him that he had no right to ask such a thing?” “I told him that I would do with my future wife whatever I damn well wished,” Mark said flatly. The words were just as medieval as my father’s demands, but I didn’t feel a renewed rush of anger at hearing them.

Had my mother’s death truly changed him that much? Or had it been my mother keeping him good all those years, and then after her funeral, he’d reverted to whatever reptilian being he’d been before he met her?

That muscle in his jaw jumped again, and then he lifted the scotch to his lips and took a long drink. He took his time before replying. “And what are you asking, sweetheart?”

But you do not want to test me on this, darling. Stay on the other side where it’s safe.”

“I am all want with you, Isolde. You think that I don’t think about you all the time? That I don’t want your scent all over my bed? You think that I don’t wish I had you under my desk with that serious little mouth available for my relief every morning? That I don’t want your snug cunt whenever I goddamn feel like it? Yes, I want you, and I want you collared, and I want you mine. That should be enough to terrify you, because I would hold nothing back until I’d eaten your very soul. I would hold nothing back until it was written on your skin and scratched into your bones how much I crave you.”

“What happens next?” I mumbled, sleep already pulling me under. “Sir?” He let out a long exhale. He liked it when I said sir. “I figure out what to do with you, sweetheart. That’s what happens next.”

“You are terrified that your soul will be damned to hell. And I no longer have one left at all.”