The Scholomance (72 page)

“My dog is just
what thou art at my command!” he bellowed back at her. “To stand when I will
it, and heel when I will it, and lie upon thy bitch’s back
when I will it
!”

Her temper was
right on the edge of flying out in killing chaos, and his was nearly a mirror
of it, once again lit up and showing every vulnerability with burning clarity. Seeing
that, knowing hers must be doing the same, Mara wrestled her emotions under
control once more.

“I came here to
fuck you just now,” she said, only said. “But you’ll never touch me again. I’ll
make you kill me first.”

He recoiled.

She moved past
him and out of his theater.

He didn’t
follow, but not even the sealing of his doors behind her could muffle his roars
or the red light of his rage in the Mindstorm.

*
         
*
         
*

She did not go
to her cell, knowing that he would only look for her there, or send Horuseps to
talk reason with her again. Rage was empowering. She wasn’t ready to embrace
common sense just yet. So she did not go home, but deliberately lost herself in
the lyceum, drilling herself deeper into the twisting tunnels without paying
any conscious attention to which turns she took, until she was well and truly
lost.

There she stood,
her back against the rough wall, carefully stoking her anger to keep her at a
high blaze.

She wasn’t
jealous. She believed that. She really didn’t care if he was fucking someone
else, and she knew perfectly well he hadn’t been living the life of an ascetic
before she’d come along, but his arrogance, his proprietary arrogance,
infuriated her well beyond the power of reason. Oh no, he’d make no more
demands of her, there was an easy promise for him to make with Letha coming to
him every day that she went out. And no, she wasn’t jealous. She refused to
give him the satisfaction of that.

A lamp came on
in the distance, filling the farthest hook of the tunnel with sickly yellow
light. Mara raised her head and watched coldly, drawing back her mind like a
bowstring. She honestly didn’t think it was possible to kill him…but she meant
like hell to try.

But it was not
Kazuul who lit the next lamp ahead of him and stepped nonchalantly into its
glow. Neither was it Horuseps, hands raised in conciliatory peace and the light
of weary exasperation swimming through his eyes. It was not a demon at all, and
not a student.

It was a hound. Skulking
low and copiously drooling, it came several steps toward her before it stopped.
It growled once, panted, then pushed itself up on its hind legs, forepaws
dangling, to howl at her.

“
Ska. Ska
shu’nodan
. Thou pest,” Suti’ok grumbled fondly, unseen. “Thou biting flea. Always
thee—”

And then he came
around the corner and saw her as well. His broad smile slipped away. He glanced
around sharply, then back at her, now frowning. “—to vex me,” he finished in a
thoughtful tone. He put his hand on the hound’s neck and it dropped onto all
fours, tongue lolling, to grin at her. “Mara. Thou art wandered to dangerous
depths indeed. Come. Let me lead thee out.”

“It’s all the
same,” said Mara.

“Truth, and yet,
shouldst thou encounter some hungering thing, he that would mourn thee may seek
someone at fault. It shall not be me. Fool of Suti that I am, low-bred and
scorned by my brothers, still I know better than to walk on and leave thee here
behind me.”

“I doubt he’ll
mourn me long,” Mara said with a hard smile. She looked at him, ignoring the
hand he stretched out to her. “What are you doing here, if it’s so dangerous?”

“I? I live here.
Just beyond thee and to thy left hand, the first door past the third lamp is
mine own.” His muzzle split in a wolfish grin. “I am among those hungering
things of mention. Therefore, swiftly go, lest thou attract my ravening eye.”

“I’m not afraid
of you.”

“Then thou art a
fool.”

“Am I? When
you’re so much less than I am? You admit it every time I see you.” And she
thought bitterly of Kazuul in the dining hall with his foot on her neck, Kazuul
throwing Devlin down before the Black Door, Kazuul in his theater calling her
his dog…Kazuul smiling into his cup while Letha slid sensuously down his body. No,
she wasn’t jealous, but—

“Bow to me,”
said Mara.

Suti’ok leaned
back, his light eyes narrowed. He did not speak, but after several long breaths
in perfect stillness, put his hands together at the level of his heart and
coldly bent low.

“Not like that. The
way you did before. On your knees.”

The hound sat,
panting as it watched its unmoving master, and when Suti’ok at last swept back
his long skirts and lowered himself to kneel, the hound rose up to dance. It
laughed insanely while Mara and the demon ignored it, then dropped onto its
belly and crawled up to rub its head on Suti’ok’s thigh. The demon placed both
fists upon the damp stone floor and bowed low.

My dog…to
stand when I will it, heel when I will it
…

There was a
powerful sense of vindictive pleasure in watching Suti’ok submit, but somehow,
she could only think of Letha going slowly to her knees, the ribbon of her
tongue trailing down his hard stomach while he smiled.

He made her
promise to be faithful. He made her swear it with his foot on her neck and the
whole time, he was fucking around. She wasn’t jealous, but she would not be
humiliated, not by him, not by anyone. She was Mara, she was always in control…and
she’d gone to him for a reason tonight, hadn’t she?

Mara walked
toward him, stopping only when the hem of her gown brushed at his knuckles. The
gown he’d given her. For all she knew, the gown he’d
made
for her. Dressing his loyal little
dog
.

She raised the
heavy fabric, stretched out her bare foot, and Suti’ok wordlessly bent still
further and touched his brow to her ankle. She could feel his breath against
her toes, steady and deep and slow.

He was difficult
to read, but one thing was certain: He wasn’t doing this because of Kazuul.

Mara pulled her skirts
up around her waist. She didn’t think about what she was doing. Her heart still
felt too hot and her mind sunk in some internal mire. She decided it must feel
like being drunk, and she could understand for the first time the appeal if
that was so. It was astonishingly liberating to be so freed from all sense of
responsibility or consequence. Her body acted; she merely watched.

Suti’ok could
hear what she was doing, but he did not move. The pale burn of his eyes bored
over the floor, making the damp rock shimmer with reflected light. He did not
say a word, although he knew that she was bare above him, bare to her belly and
filled with rage.

“Kiss me,” said
Mara.

She saw his
eyeshine flicker, his glance darting left and right, a trapped animal seeking
escape. Then he raised his head.

Mara’s neck
beneath Kazuul’s foot and Letha pouting on his lap. Morality did in fact begin
to pale.

The hound
watched incuriously as its master rose onto his knees. Suti’ok touched one hand
very lightly to her hip, the other encircled her thigh. He closed his eyes and
pressed his lips firmly to the crown of her sex.

That was all. She
could feel him breathing, and through his steady hands and unswerving touches,
felt his mind leaping without thought, knowing they might at any moment be
discovered. Then his mouth parted. His tongue slipped between the folds of her
labia, snaking down to penetrate her, and then up again to tease at her clit. He
sucked it between his lips with a ragged groan, and Mara shut her own eyes,
breathing just a little faster as he serviced her.

Several minutes
must have passed, uncounted by either of them. The hound dozed at Suti’ok’s
side, whining now and then to protest this delay, but the demon was lost inside
his own skin. Every thought that escaped his strange mind was devoted to
her—her bittersweet taste, the silken feel of her petals against his tongue, the
firmness of the thigh beneath his hand. He moved his mouth on her with great
passion, but without urgency, drinking from her as from a cup and savoring
every drop.

“Lie down,” said
Mara, breaking the trance she held him in.

He dropped back
upon his aching knees, passing a hand before his glazed eyes in something very
like horror. Now he thought of Kazuul.

“Get on your
back,” Mara ordered, and put her foot on his shoulder to start him moving.

He went, not
quietly but trying to be, and the hound came up at once to lick his face and
shiver adoringly. “Away with thee!
Ska
!” Suti’ok cried, and slapped his
hand across his face, raging, “Would that thee had come at me with daggers!”

Mara pulled her
robe off and dropped it. She rested her foot on his chest briefly, feeling each
ragged rise and fall of his breath, and then stood astride his arching neck and
knelt. He caught her hips, brought her back to his hungry mouth, and ravished
her while she undid his belt and brought his rigid cock free. He groaned into
her when she took him in her fists and that was the end of his restraint. With
every breath that came to him after that, he groaned louder and louder as she
sucked and squeezed at him, until he could do nothing but toss on his back and
buck up at her, filling even the sound-swallowing tunnels of the lyceum with
his haunted, deafening roars. It was not entirely wordless; twice, she heard
him bellow in that other unknown tongue, and once, she heard the meaty smack of
his fist as he drove his obsequious hound back, shouting, “Away, I say! Away,
thou cur!
Always
thee to
vex
me!” but the rest was tortured
wolfsong.

Finally, she
rose up, ready to take him and ride him to the completion she had denied
Kazuul, not because she was jealous, but because it was what she wanted and no
one controlled her.

“Nay! Pray God,
nay!” Suti’ok snatched at her, dragged her back and thrust his mouth against
her in something like desperation. His arm cinched tight around her waist. With
the other, he plunged two long fingers into her and pumped them fast.

She came, and,
“Nay,” murmured Suti’ok, suckling and savaging at her as she slowly relaxed
into his grip. “Hold thy killing will, I beg thee…hold…show some mercy.” He
worked her to a second climax, a third, and finally, falling back with an
anguished grimace, released her to take himself in his fist and join her in the
last. Her ears rang with his hoarse howls. The hound, sulking a short distance
away, added his madhouse baying to his master’s cries, then came sidling over
for praise.

The demon,
sweat-slick and thoughtless, reached out to catch the beast before it could
insinuate himself between them, but rubbed the thing’s head with despondent
affection. He did not open his eyes, even when Mara stood up and stepped away
from him to dress, but he did mutter, “He’ll kill me,” in a low and emotionless
tone.

Mara adjusted
her gown, thinking of Kazuul and Letha. “You all promised not to kill each
other.”

“So we swore,
not he. And thou art his beloved prize.”

“His property!”
Mara spat, and the hound shied back with a nervous snarl. “And never again!”

Suti’ok opened
his eyes and looked at her. Slowly, he sat up. He stared for a long time
without expression, and then gathered his loincloth around himself and began to
fasten his belt. He did it all without speaking to her.

“I don’t intend
to tell him,” she said, her cheeks burning.

He still did not
reply. He stood up, summoned his hound with a low word, and finally faced her. “I
have seen ages enough that the rivers of my youth hath worn great chasms in to
the Earth,” he said, “and never have I been used so well…or so cruelly. Thou
hast proved thy bloodline beyond all doubt and at last exceeded mine every
expectation of thee.”

He bowed to her
again, his back stiff and eyes snapping, then called his hound and left her to
find her way out alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

S
he went back to her cell. It was someplace to
go, someplace to sit and stare and try to feel nothing. She was there when
third-bell rang, sitting on the side of the bed she’d made, and she was there
when the bells rang again, warning all the students to return to their cells. The
blister-lamp in the hall faded now and then, as irregular in its habits as the
shadows that moved across its face. She tapped at it without moving and the
light came back, allowing her to clearly see all the nothing surrounding her. Her
red robe and all the extras Devlin had brought were gone, and the comb
Desdemona had given her that day in the bath, Devlin’s cup, the chamberpot, all
gone. Even the Transmuted sand had been scooped out and carried away by some
scavenging student or another.

She could Transmute
more. She could Malleate herself a new cup, a new comb, and for that matter, a
table, a chair, and a statue of Atlas shrugging off the world, but who cared? This
wasn’t really her room. She wasn’t staying. Not here, not with Kazuul, not at
all.

Kazuul. She’d
thought enough about Kazuul. Mara closed her eyes and turned her mind inward
before the anger could come back and ignite the embers that always seemed to be
burning in her these days. She didn’t want to think about Kazuul, she wanted to
find Connie. But one was as frustrating as the other, wasn’t it?