"Before you present yourself, fetch the cane. Crawling, like the worthless worm you are."
"Yes, mistress," came the strained reply, and Jeremy slithered like a snake toward my hearth.
I had no idea how that slender switch came to be among my fireplace tools, but my insides clenched as I watched the blond cross the floor on his belly again, bearing his instrument of discipline. Perfidia's smile curved like the cusp of an ill-begotten moon as she took it from him, and then glanced over at Billy.
"You might recall the night we met, Mr. Tripplehorn, and my references to the discipline I maintain in this household," she said, casually smacking the curve of the cane against her hand. "What you are about to witness shall be a lesson to you about who shall rule and who shall serve, now that you've decided my Andrea interests you. She, too, will expect nothing less than perfection and absolute submission from her mate."
Billy's glance told me he wasn't believing a word of this, yet the darker pink of his cheeks belied some doubts-and his eyes widened with the sudden smack of wood against flesh. Jeremy had doubled over with his forehead on the floor and his slender ass in the air, to receive Perfidia's first stroke. Another followed it, leaving a stripe that ripened into a slash of pink crisscrossing the first one.
I stepped forward with the next raising of that cane, but Perfidia's glare froze me in place. "Your intervention will only earn him more stripes, Andrea. Better get control of your emotions, so you can handle it when it's Billy's balls that jiggle beneath my whip."
As though I would fall for that one! Tripplehorn would no more submit to any woman's domination than… Well, he was still pinioned against the wall, naked, wasn't he? Something told me to keep my mouth shut as Perfidia calmly resumed her disciplinary display.
Whack!…whack! As the slender rod bit into Jeremy's flesh, I sensed he was trembling as much from excitement as from the burning of his backside.
"Have you learned your lesson, Jeremy?" Perfidia quizzed.
The blond quivered. "Perhaps a couple more, mistress. It was very presumptuous of me to touch you without asking permission," he rasped.
The vampire raised her cane…remained poised to strike for countless agitating seconds…and then finished with three rapid cracks that resounded in the small room, along with her slave's single whimper.
"Now-return the cane to its place, and resume my licking without anything but your tongue touching me," Perfidia said in a low voice. "I know how you love to caress me, Jeremy, but we must serve as an example to our new boy, mustn't we? You may walk upright this time."
The blond nodded, and as he replaced the cane he stole a glance at his backside. Those welts had to sting like nothing I had ever experienced-and wasn't the humiliation surely worse? Yet Jeremy appeared…relieved. As uplifted as a sinner newly absolved from all stains upon his soul.
From there, the display only grew more difficult to watch: Perfidia snapped her fingers and pointed to the floor, demanding that the chastised Jeremy become her foot rest while his brother got the honor of pleasuring her. Justin masked his puppylike eagerness by clasping his arms around his own waist, so as not to succumb to temptation as his twin had. Beneath her, in a most worshipful manner, he extended his tongue so that only its tip touched her skin.
My own legs trembled at the sight. Much as I detested Perfidia's tactics, I envied her slender beauty and the way her slaves adored her. Justin's expression was downright beatific as he ran a damp path up her skin, ever so slowly…following his brother's arch above her curly thatch to titillate the other leg, which bent at a right angle. Her slit was open and fully exposed, a mere inch in front of his lips. Was it my imagination, or did the entire room smell of sex?
Billy, too, seemed unable to ignore the sight before him. His cock-so much larger and more urgent than either of the twins'-pumped the air in front of him, ready to shoot. My God, here I stood in my own bedroom, where three randy men gritted their teeth against imminent climax, at the mercy of a woman who sipped serenely at her cigarette holder. The fluttering inside me became more than I could stand, and I furtively slipped my hand toward my inner thigh. Since Perfidia was busy holding court, and her subjects could only gaze at her with their extreme need, no one would notice if I- "Don't you dare touch yourself, you disgusting girl!"
The words snared me like a lariat, and all eyes went to my incriminating hand. All breathing was suspended-my own included-as Perfidia glared at my extended fingers.
"Come here, Andrea," she continued in that insidious whisper. "You're going to touch me instead. You're going to finger my slit…caress my flesh until it burns with need…and then you're going to flick my clit with your fingertips, and hold me open so Justin can drive his tongue deep inside me. Now do it!"
My body lurched forward but my mind called a halt. "I'm not your-I don't owe you any-"
"You owe me your very life, Andrea, and don't you ever forget it!" Her face tightened with the insistence of being obeyed, and I saw a flash of fangs. "If you expect to attain that fairy tale life with Mr. Throbbing Cock over there, you've got to earn it. Now come over here and bring me off. Justin likes the feel of my juice all over his face."
The blond's obsequious grin sickened me, yet I was no stranger to the whims and ways of the serving staff-or the women who controlled them. It was another matter altogether to pleasure Perfidia, however: all my life, the three Sisters had made no secret of their sexuality, but I'd never been required to participate in their games. It waslike growing up with three wayward mothers, and the very thought of touching this bitch in such an intimate way made me recoil.
"Squeamish, are we? Feigning modesty, or perhaps even morality?" An evil chuckle escaped her, which sent the smoke billowing from her nose. "Out here beyond Redemption, we are all defined by our depravity-as well you know, Alexandrea. So if you expect to escape to any sort of normal life-whatever the hell that is-you'll do as I say. I could reveal a few of your secrets just by showing Billy your clothes, couldn't I? Then we'd see how long he stayed around."
My heart slammed against my breast bone. Bad enough that she'd used my full name again instead of just the feminine half of it. She'd also planted a seed of doubt that had Billy glancing toward my armoire.
"Billy, don't you believe a word-"
"He can't hear you," Perfidia said with a snicker. And indeed, a bewildered look overtook Tripplehorn's face as he awaited my explanation. "Now, get over here and show him what an eager, versatile lover you are…let him watch you fondling me until he's writhing against the wall and shooting cum all over us."
The witch! Now she'd rendered him deaf as well as defenseless, helplessly hanging on that wall to watch us…anticipating his own humiliation, no doubt. Still grinning maliciously, Perfidia closed her eyes and exuded a tension that again stilled everything in the room.
From a distance came an indistinct tinkling, like delicate pipe chimes in the wind. Recognition dawned on the identical faces of Justin and Jeremy, but I stood as though spellbound, listening while the sound came closer…closer…and was then at my own door. Transported by yet another invisible force, slender sections of tubular metal entered the room, gleaming as black as the magic that moved them. As we all watched, the pieces of pipe did an intricate dance in the air. They clicked and pinged in an alluring rhythm that held me in thrall-until I sucked air.
As mysteriously as they'd appeared, the black bars suddenly came together in the shape of a cage. The four sides shrank to the size of a dry pint box, and then expanded to fit the four walls of my room before becoming a crate that would kennel a large dog. It landed on my floor with an ominous thump.