Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 96271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
When he finally broke the kiss and drew back his own face, I saw a light in his eyes that brought helpless warmth to my chest even as my stomach lurched in fear of what it meant about me and my future.
“I’ll see you soon, lille en,” he told me. “Be a good girl for your mistress.”
CHAPTER 26
Henrik
I returned to the leo’s quarters Bruno had placed at my disposal and headed into the lavish bathroom, stripping off my robe as I entered. I felt some reluctance to admit it to myself, but I wanted to get to the refectory as soon as I could. I told myself it had more to do with my curiosity—and the need to build our knowledge of the Pretorian Guard’s customs—than with my growing interest in Ilsa. I knew the truth, though: I wanted to watch over my bed thrall, and I wanted to see how her mistress fed and watered her.
The chamber, like everything in the Palermo mithraeum, had been arranged to communicate both luxury and command: volcanic stone, severe lines, excellent fixtures, linen with a thread count that would have pleased any guest in a Mayfair hotel. I stood under the shower and let the hot water run over my shoulders and chest, washing away the last residues of sleep and the subtler residues of what I had done with Ilsa in the night.
I found myself thinking, as the water struck the back of my neck, about the way she had looked up at Sven’s image on the screen. The tears drying on her face. The stubborn, intelligent set of her mouth. The little flicker of pride she had not managed to conceal when she understood that the men in the room considered her unusual.
That pride would be useful in training her as a vǫlva and a bed thrall, and in the end, whatever the destiny of this affection for her that it seemed I couldn’t push down, it would help me bring her to her full potential.
A girl like Ilsa could not simply be overpowered. Of course she could be overpowered physically, but the more important issue lay at the conceptual level. I would have to persuade her mind to accept the hierarchy, and her submission to it, not as an interruption to her intellect, but as the proper frame for it.
The Guard understood the need to subjugate gifted young women in their Roman way. They sought to impose civilization upon feminine wildness. We understood it differently, but perhaps not so as to create real conflict. Giovanna’s methods had a rigor I respected, and the idea of Ilsa wearing her columba’s leathers in her heart intrigued me greatly.
Above all, my new kneppetøj’s Order of Ostia mistress had not a whit of sentimentality about her. In my judgment, honed by my service to the spirit of the North as a son of Odin, sentimentality was where many handlers of submissive young women failed.
I shut off the water, dried myself, and dressed with care. Dark trousers, soft enough to read as informal but tailored close. A pale shirt, open at the throat. A charcoal jacket with structure enough in the shoulders to flatter the body beneath it. Loafers. Watch. No tie. The effect, in the mirror, was exactly what I intended: a man at ease in expensive surroundings, who did not need formality to establish rank.
A knock came just as I finished buttoning my cuffs.
When I opened the door, a lovely dark-haired young woman waited in the corridor, naked but for leathers almost identical to the ones in which Giovanna had bound Ilsa. I thought I could tell that her collar was slightly narrower than Ilsa’s, though, and I wondered what it meant, even as I took in the beauty of the girl’s shapely breasts and the moving bareness of her pussy’s cleft with my customary Nordic frankness.
“Ave, domine,” she murmured in an Italian-accented voice, her eyes downcast to my feet. “I am Nupta Julia. May I guide you to the refectory?”
* * *
Ilsa
After she had released me from the bench in the control room, Giovanna helped me to my feet. My knees nearly buckled. The events of the last hour had left my limbs feeling boneless, and I experienced the constriction of the cuffs, collar, and belt acutely.
The soreness between my thighs announced itself the moment I bore my own weight again. Giovanna’s hand came to my elbow, firm and economical rather than kind, and with the other she clipped my leash back onto the ring in the front of my collar.
“Stand properly,” she said with quiet severity. “It does not befit a columba to slouch after serving her masters with her body so well.”
The compliment—if it even was a compliment—sent a humiliating warmth through my chest. I straightened. My wrists still wore the cuffs. My collar still pressed at my throat. I could feel Leo Aetnaeus’s seed still cooling on my skin in places I had apparently not rubbed quite dry enough. The awareness of the now-dark monitor, of Sven somewhere far away, of Herra Henrik having watched all of it, clung to me like a layer of imaginary clothing that only made me more conscious of my nudity.