Jonas (Darkness #7)(5)

“What is your name?”

That exotic voice hypnotized him. It sounded American, but there was a lilt to it. Almost as if she had a slight accent she didn’t always use.

“What is your name? Tell me your name and this will all stop. Just your name. That won’t betray anyone.”

The silence rang in his ears. Crying welled up from deep in his memories. His sobs from his childhood. The kids taunting him. Picking on the weakest. The lowest in magic. The scrawny nobody whose own mother didn’t want him.

You’re no better than a human!

Look at the freak!

His arms are the size of a human’s!

Was your real father a human? Is that why you can’t do magic?

What are they going to do with you? You can’t even work a sword.

Jonas welcomed the next flash of pain. And the next. He gritted his teeth, squinted his eyes shut, and owned it. Owned the pain. Owned his past.

He had gotten a growth spurt. He’d packed on forty pounds of muscle in one year. When he was in his last year at school, he got a heaping of strength, power and magic. All at once. And because he’d never given up, and had worked hard every day in his father’s memory, to show he was worthy of being adopted by such a great male, he was suddenly the best in the class. And because of his classmates’ constant taunts, he was also the meanest.

The meanest, most vicious fighter in that whole damn school.

Until he’d met Stefan. And Jameson. They were a year ahead, had recently graduated, and just as mean. Just as tough. And just as wild. Jonas didn’t know what battles they’d had, but within the three of them, each found a kindred spirit. And they’d fought their way to the top. They’d shut everyone up and then kept them silenced.

Jonas ate up the pain in his aching body. He conquered it. And then internalized it once more. He wasn’t a weak little bitch, anymore. He didn’t take shit. He wasn’t afraid of pain.

Jonas opened his blazing eyes and found the female staring down at him with wide eyes and an open mouth. He knew what she saw. A male kneeling on the floor with his hands tied behind his back looking as patient as if he were waiting at a bus stop. Even though blood ran down his chest, he showed no visible signs of pain. In fact, he bet he looked as tranquil as Sasha’s beautiful babies after they’d been fed.

Her gaze slipped down to his crotch.

Oh yeah, and he was mightily turned on. This wasn’t the feigned arousal like he’d worked up before to test her. This was a rock-hard erection that needed a beautiful female to sit in his lap. To take this triumph over his past and turn it into shared pleasure.

He locked eyes with her and begged her to touch him. To share this moment with him. To show him an act of love to further erase the pain.

Her eyebrows dipped low in confusion. She didn’t look away, but uncertainty had snuck into her gaze. Wariness mixed with curiosity. That shadow was back in her blue eyes. “That’ll be all for today. I’ll send someone in to clean you up.”

Jonas followed her with his gaze as she hurried to the back wall and hastily hung up her tool. She ripped the door open and was out a moment later.

The torturee had unsettled the torturer. It probably wasn’t her best day.

Jonas rolled his shoulders. He felt good. Really good. When she got going, she was dynamite with her tools. When she really let loose, so did he. He liked it.

He’d finally found what he’d always been looking for—just his luck she was the enemy.

Chapter Three

Emmy paused with a splayed hand against the heavy wooden door. Her body trembled from top to bottom. That wasn’t normal. What she’d just witnessed wasn’t something that graced her inner chambers. Men with that much raw courage and confidence usually died in battle. They were rarely taken. And when they were, they just dealt with it in silence. They buckled down, clenched their teeth, and waited to die.

This man didn’t wait to die. He welcomed the pain. He welcomed torture, almost as if it was a cure for something even worse that held him prisoner.

What sort of people did he come from that the level and precision of pain she could inflict aroused him?

The sort within these walls. The sort I report to.

Emmy straightened up and lifted her chin. She adjusted the too-tight corset and tried to suck in a steadying breath. The clothing was terribly uncomfortable and the tights belonged with a Halloween costume. She could fathom nothing sexy about her outfit.

Yet it usually did the trick. Turned men on right before she rained down the blows. Rage, arousal, powerlessness, loss of control—it was usually a recipe for near-immediate submission among males. Their egos couldn’t handle the whiplash and they usually broke down in a matter of days.

Emmy smoothed out her corset and walked straight ahead. She had to mix it up. She had to analyze her subject and find his weaknesses. He wasn’t like most, fine. But he was still a living creature. And all living creatures had self-destruct buttons. She would not let her perfect record be overturned by this man. That was not acceptable.

She walked through the lower tunnels with a whirling mind. At the steps leading to the ground floor, she nodded to a guard and ignored the sneer she got back. She waited for the door to be completely opened before walking through, paying no attention to his roaming eyes.

She really did hate this outfit.

Walking through the busy ground floor, she kept her eyes straight ahead and her body to the side. Even still, she saw passers-by swerve minutely so their larger bodies could bump and jostle her. She scraped the wall on more than one occasion, but didn’t slow. To show weakness meant to get treated as weak. And though she didn’t have a whip on her at the moment, if anyone challenged, she’d get one, and then beat them back. Whips were longer than swords. And she was damn good with them.