Ripped away from my life? Honestly? What life?
Embry will be President, Greer and her unborn child are safe, and Ash is resting and waiting for the time when he can welcome his lovers back into his arms. My work—the sole aim and focus of my fifty years—is finished. There’s nothing waiting to be done, no more battles left to fight on Ash’s behalf.
The one place on this planet where I suffered more than any other? It’s also the one place where I felt more joy than any other. The place where I grew up, where I found the presence some call God, where I found my sight and my purpose, and where I fell in love.
And as for being restrained? Masturbated like I’m a teenage boy who can’t be trusted to appropriately control his own body?
Well, I think the last twenty-four hours prove how not bitter I am about that.
So, I had to ask myself as I looked at the presented cuffs, what’s the use in fighting this? My life’s work is finished, no one is waiting for me back home, no one needs me. And perhaps this is fate anyway, and I of anyone know that fate can’t be avoided. One can trick it, coax it, fight it, maybe even defeat it, but one can’t run from it—and I’ve seen too many people try.
And anyway, why would I run from the woman I love?
So when Nimue approached me with those cuffs, I offered my wrists like a prisoner turning himself in. If these are to be my last days on earth, I might as well enjoy them.
Though the room she’s led me to is dark, it’s not some kind of dungeon. The white plaster walls reflect the light of two warm lamps and the few flickering candles set in unfussy candlesticks around the room. Thick, richly colored rugs cover the wide flagstones, and bookshelves line two of the walls. There’s a long, upholstered lounge with a large basket filled with blankets nearby.
If it weren’t for the leather paddling horse and racks of BDSM implements, this room could be any room in any cottage anywhere.
Nimue chains me to another eyebolt in the floor, like I’m a horse that needs tethering, and I flush at the casual ownership it conveys.
“This place belongs to you,” I say, to cover my discomfort at how strong the feeling is. At how much I like being led and shackled by her. “You’ve had it for a while. Why?”
This could be any expensive, sympathetically renovated holiday cottage, but those don’t come with eyebolts in the floor and mounted racks of canes and whips. Those don’t come with bookshelves full of the books I know Nimue loves—old books on folklore and magic and herbs.
She straightens and looks around the room with the soft, smiling pride of a homeowner. “It’s mine. I’ve always felt drawn to this island, and so I bought this place last year, had it done up the way I like.”
“With canes and clamps, obviously.”
Many other people would bristle at the words, at my tone, which is shockingly jealous, but Nimue is too sanguine to let my pettiness infect her. “We’ve been apart for some time, Merlin,” she says, amused. “You might imagine that my tastes have ripened in the last quarter century.”
“Was it Morgan?”
Morgan is Nimue’s niece, and the same woman who introduced Ash to kink all those years ago.
“I suppose you would know, wouldn’t you? Having your gifts and all. Yes, it was Morgan. She took me to Lyonesse many years ago and Mark mentored me.”
Mark. The king of kink in this life, the king of the lost land of Lyonesse in our last one.
“But you are the first person I’ve done kink with here in this house, if that consoles your fragile male ego.”
It does, strangely, even though I’ve accepted a long time ago that any fidelity between us would be one-sided.
Have I mentioned fate is cruel?
Nimue unfastens my kilt and lets it drop to my feet. “I’d love to keep it on you, flip up your skirt like a naughty schoolgirl to spank you, but I want to see your body too badly.”
I’m ashamed at how much her words arouse me, and there’s no hiding my body’s response from her. She smiles as she traces a warm fingertip up the underside of my swelling organ. “Have you ever done this, Merlin?” she asks, in a voice like she’s asking me if I’ve ever had ice cream. “Have you ever played with power?”
Only with you and only in another life.
And even then, it wasn’t kinky—it was literally life and death.
“No,” I say. “I never have.”
“Hmm, a real shame.” Her hands move to the lean lines of my hips, up to the broad swell of my shoulders. I’ve honestly never given thought to my body—it’s merely a vessel for me to perform my destined duties in—but right now, right here, I feel every inch of my body like it’s brand new to me. I feel the flat planes of my stomach and the swells of my biceps. I feel the taut curves of my backside and the hard lines of my thighs. I feel the fullness of my balls and the heavy weight of my penis.
I feel pride and exhilaration when I realize Nimue’s hands are not as steady as she’d like me to believe as she caresses me.
