Chapter 49

Mae stumbled into the Conclave. The elegant barn was deserted, the board bearing the alphabet letters the overseers had used to explain this horrible game still in the middle of the open space.

She didn’t know how to turn on the lights, so she left the door open. There was enough moonlight from that and the windows to guide her as she pushed open the heavy doors of what had been horse stalls and were now either elegant “cells” for naughty subs, or pens for horse and pony play. She found one that had a twin bed in it. With a sob she threw herself down on the mattress, grateful for whatever person had left soft cotton sheets in place.

She jerked her ruined stockings off, then removed the corset, dropping both carelessly onto the floor.

Rolling onto her side she laid her palm over the hot place on her ass. The skin was sensitive to the touch, the residual pain equal to the deepest marks on her breast.

“Mae.”

She rolled, looking at the open stall door where a man stood silhouetted in the faint moonlight. She wasn’t surprised, but she wasn’t happy either. “Go away.”

He disappeared, and Mae blinked back tears. It was totally unfair of her to be disappointed that he’d left when she told him to, but right now she couldn’t manage fair. Her feelings were too jumbled.

Xavier returned, toting two heavy floor candelabras. The massive iron things went with the elegant Spanish style of the mansion, but when he placed them on either side of the room and flicked a lighter, all she cared about was that he’d made it light when she wanted dark.

“Leave me alone, Xavier.” She didn’t call him Master, using it to push him away.

“I won’t.”

“What more could you want from me?”

He dropped to sit on the floor, back against the wall. “I have no right to ask for anything more.”

“That’s right, you don’t.”

“But I want to know why you ran.”

“You almost branded me. Me.” Mae spread her arms. “I don’t even have a tattoo, because I couldn’t commit to a design. I was going to let you brand me, burn me, with whatever you wanted.”

“Is that why you’re upset?”

Mae clenched her fists, longing to lash out at him, to break that calm until he felt what she did. “Yes.

And no.” She ground out the last word.

“Then why?” His eyes bored into her, and despite the walls of anger she’d erected, she felt herself responding to the command in his gaze.

“I ran because…because I was disappointed that you didn’t do it.” Mae leapt to her feet. “I don’t even know you. I’ve never seen your face. But I wanted you to do it. I wanted to have you brand me so that it would always be there. I’d always feel you touching me.”

Xavier rose slowly to his feet. She held out her hands. “No. Don’t touch me. I can’t stand it. Can’t stand that you’re so calm when I feel like I’m breaking apart inside.”

She knelt on the bed, inching back until she hit the wall, now as far away from him as she could be.

“You make me feel things that I can’t even understand, and it didn’t mean anything to you.”

“You think that I don’t feel.” Xavier’s voice was thick with pain. “There are days the rage inside me is enough to make me want to rip my own skin off. I hate myself for wanting this.” He cast his hand out, seeming to include all of Las Palmas in the gesture. “But it’s the only thing that gives me any fucking peace. You think I don’t feel what you do? When I touched you for a minute everything was quiet.

Everything was okay. No one’s given me that before.”

Mae let out a breath, her shaking subsiding as she listened to him.

“You have no idea how much I wanted to brand you. To mark you. But I can’t have you.”

“Why not?” Mae whispered. Couldn’t he see that she wanted him, needed him, for more than just the game?

“Is that really what you’d want, Mae? You’re ready to always be the obedient submissive, to spend your time bound and gagged instead of petted and fucked?”

She opened her mouth to say yes, but then looked away.

“I didn’t think so.” There was defeat in his voice.

That irritated her. “You need to understand, my whole life is built around being a submissive.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not right, at least not totally. How I’ve played, before—the bratty sub, the girl who gets spanking and cuddles and wears cute lingerie… that defines me. And has since I was sixteen.”

Xavier’s gaze sharpened. “Sixteen?”

Mae leaned back against the wall. “I grew up in this nowhere town. My mom wasn’t around, and my grandma raised me, but her health was bad, and she didn’t really know what to do with me. When I was in high school, I started playing around online. I found these men who were willing to send me things in exchange for watching me play with myself on webcam.”

“I’m sorry, Mae.”

“It’s not like that. I mean looking back I’m horrified, but I was lucky. Nothing really bad happened to me.

Eventually there was this one guy. He told me that I was his baby girl, his sweet little girl, and that meant I had to do what he said. I got stuffed animals and cute toys in the mail.”

“A Daddy Dom?”

“Exactly, though it took me a long time to learn the terms. He introduced me to D/s.”

“You weren’t even legal.”

She shrugged one shoulder, not wanting to defend her past right now. “Without him and that relationship I wouldn’t be who I am now. When we started you called me ‘little girl.’ For a long time that’s who I was. That was my kind of submission.”

Xavier shook his head. “A Daddy/little relationship is not the same as a Master sub relationship.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. After a while it wasn’t enough. I got older and the man who’d introduced me to all this wasn’t as interested, especially because I wasn’t happy playing with stuffed animals while I had a plug in my ass. I wanted something more. But that kind of submission is part of who I am.”

“There’s more to you.”

“You’ve proved that.” Her words were wry.

Xavier reached for her, but stopped just short of touching her. “Just because you’re masochistic doesn’t mean you have to have pain play. How you submit is your choice.” He retreated to the far wall.

“Because who you submit to is your choice. There are plenty of excellent Doms here who’d be careful with you.”

“But not you?”

“I will not collar or be bound to a sub. That’s a personal rule I’ve had for a long time.”

It wasn’t unexpected, but still hurt.