Shocked, and strangely worried, Richard watched as she slowly put the Agiel between her teeth. He could tell by the way her pupils suddenly expanded that it was hurting her. Her skin paled. She inhaled sharply, trembling the slightest bit. Denna put her fingers into the back of his hair and held his head. Slowly she brought her lips to his. She kissed him deeply, passionately, sharing the shattering pain of the Agiel with him. With her tongue, she held it between their tips. Her kiss was savage, bestial, as she twisted against him.

Every fiber of his being burned with the torture. His gasp sucked the air from her lungs, hers did the same to him. He could get no breath but hers, she none but his. The pain made him forget everything but her. It marauded through his mind. He knew by the sounds she was making that she was feeling the same agony as he. Her fingers in his hair tightened into fists from the pain. She moaned in suffering. Her muscles tightened with it. It raged through the both of them.

Without comprehending why, he found himself kissing her back just as passionately, just as savagely. The pain was altering his perception of everything. He had never kissed anyone with this kind of lust. Desperately, he wanted her to stop. Desperately, he didn’t.

The strange power awakened again. He tried to reach for it, grasp for it, hold on to it. But it slipped from him and was gone.

The pain was overwhelming him as Denna crushed her lips to his, the Agiel between them, their teeth grating together. She pressed her body to his, hooked a leg around his, clung to him. Her cries of anguish were growing more desperate. He ached to hold her.

As he was about to lose consciousness, she pulled away from him, still gripping his hair in her fists. Tears ran from her eyes as she looked into his, not two inches away. She rolled the Agiel into her mouth with her tongue and held it there with her teeth as she shook with the pain, as if to show him she was stronger than he. Her hand came slowly and took away the Agiel as her eyes rolled back in her head. She gasped for air.

Her brow wrinkled together. Tears from the pain, and from something else, flooded from her eyes. She gave him a kiss. The tenderness, the gentleness, of it, shocked him.

“We are bonded,” she whispered intimately. “Bonded in the pain of the Agiel. I am sorry, Richard.” She brushed his cheek with trembling fingers, the glaze of pain still in her eyes. “Sorry for what I will do to you. You are my mate for life.”

Richard was stunned by the compassion in her voice. “Please, Mistress Denna. Please let me go. Or at least help me stop Darken Rahl. I promise you, I will willingly be your mate for life, if you help me stop him. I swear on my life, if you help me, I will stay without the magic holding me. Forever.”

She put a hand to his chest, to steady herself as she recovered. “Do you think I do not understand what I am doing to you?” Her eyes had an empty gloss to them. “Your training and service will last for mere weeks, before you die. The training of a Mord-Sith lasts for years. Everything I do to you, and more, has been done to me, a thousand times over. A Mord-Sith must know her Agiel better than she knows herself. My first trainer took me for his mate when I was fifteen, after he had trained me since I was twelve. There is no way I could ever live up to his cruelty, or his ability to keep a person on the cusp between life and death. He trained me until I was eighteen, when I killed him. For that, I was punished with the Agiel every day for the next two years. This Agiel. The very same one I use on you was the one used to train me. It was presented to me when I was proclaimed Mord-Sith. I live for nothing else but to use it.”

“Mistress Denna,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

The steel returned to her eyes. She nodded. “You will be. There is no one who will help you. That includes me. You will find that being the mate to a Mord-Sith brings you no added privileges, only a great deal of added pain.”

Richard hung helpless in the shackles, overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. Understanding her a little only increased his hopelessness. There was no escape for him. He was the mate of a madwoman.

The frown and the smile returned. “Why would you be so foolish as to do what you did? Surely, you must know I will hurt you for doing it.”

He looked at her puzzlement for a moment. “Mistress Denna, what difference does it make? You are going to hurt me anyway. I can’t imagine what more you could do to me.”

Her lip curled in a sneer. “Oh, my love, you have a very limited imagination.”

He felt her grab the tongue of his belt and yank the buckle open.

She gritted her teeth. “It is time we found some new places on you to hurt. It is time to see what you are really made of.” The look in her eyes made him go cold. “Thank you, my love, for giving me the excuse to do this to you. I have never before done it to another, but it has been done to me enough times. It is what broke me when I was fourteen. Tonight,” she whispered, “neither of us is going to get any sleep.”

Chapter 42

The bucketful of cold water on his naked flesh barely revived him. He only dimly saw the little rivers of water that were stained bright red as they ran away from him in the cracks of the stone floor his face lay against. Each shallow breath he took was a mighty effort. He wondered idly how many of his ribs she had broken.

“Put your clothes on. We’re leaving,” she called down to him.

“Yes, Mistress Denna,” he whispered, his voice so hoarse from screaming he knew she couldn’t hear him, and knew she would hurt him for not answering, and yet he could do no more.

When the Agiel didn’t come, he moved a little, saw his boot and reached out to it, pulling it to him. He sat up, but couldn’t raise his head above his shoulders. It hung limply. With great difficulty, he started putting on his boot. Gashes on his feet brought tears to his eyes when he pulled.

Her knee to his jaw knocked him flat on his back. She fell on him, sitting on his chest, hitting his face with her fists.

“What’s the matter with you! Are you stupid? Your pants go on before your boots! Do I have to tell you everything!”

“Yes Mistress Denna, no Mistress Denna, forgive me Mistress Denna, thank you Mistress Denna for hurting me, thank you Mistress Denna for teaching me,” he mumbled.

She sat on his chest, panting in rage. Her breathing slowed after a time.

“Come on, I will help you.” She leaned over and kissed him. “Come on, my love. You’ll be able to rest while we travel.”

“Yes, Mistress Denna.” The sound of his voice was hardly more than a breath.

She kissed him again. “Come on, my love. It will be better, now that I have broken you. You will see.”

A closed carriage stood waiting for them in the dark. Clouds from the horses’ breath rose and drifted slowly in the cold, still air. Richard stumbled a few times as he walked behind her, trying to keep the proper slack to the chain. He had absolutely no idea how long it had been since she had decided he was to be her mate, nor did it matter to him. A guard opened the carriage door.

Denna tossed the end of his chain on the floor. “Get in.”

Richard grabbed the sides of the door. He dimly heard someone approach in a huff. Denna gave a little tug to the chain, indicating she wanted him to wait where he was.

“Denna!” It was the Queen, at the head of her advisors.

“Mistress Denna,” she corrected.

The Queen looked to be in a foul mood. “Where do you think you are going with him?”

“That is none of your concern. It is time we were on our way. How is the Princess?”

The Queen glowered. “We don’t know if she will live. I will be taking the Seeker. He is to pay.”

“The Seeker is the property of myself and of Master Rahl. He is being punished, and will continue to be punished until either Master Rahl, or myself, kills him. There is nothing you could do to him that could equal what is already being done.”