Healer's Touch (Deadly Touch #1) [Complete]

Chapter 20: I'm Sorry

CW: rape

Braph gave Llew a couple of days to recover before he and Nilv entered her room to take her to the blood-letting chamber again. With the two of them to escort her, they didn't bother tying her limbs.

"I just realized." Llew smiled when they reached the bottom of the stairs. "You wear gloves so you can touch me. What protects your face?"

"How fast do you think you can move?"

Without warning Llew swung an arm up and Braph had her wrist in a fierce grip by the time she reached his shoulder. She'd been aiming for his jaw. The briefest hint of surprise flickered across Braph's face before he smiled as if he thought it a game. Llew glared at him and his smile broadened as he pushed her through the door.

Llew squirmed and tugged against his grip.

"How can you possibly need more? Have you used the one from the other day already?" How had he managed to keep the one from her mother so long? Just what did he need all that power for, anyway? She had yet to see him use any since they'd arrived at the house.

"No. And ones." Braph maintained his grip and Nilv helped direct her to the chair. "I got two out of you, and I'd like two more."

The men strapped her arms to the chair. On reflex, Llew lifted a wrist against its restraint. The leather strained under little effort. She pulled harder, and the band snapped so that she nearly punched herself with her suddenly free fist. Surprised, she looked up at Braph. His eyes grew wide and shifted between her free wrist and the broken strap, finally locking his gaze with hers.

Even as Llew had the thought to test the other, Braph lunged to hold her in place.

"Chains! Get the chains!" he called, and Nilv dashed from the room as fast as his old, stiff body could move.

Braph slapped Llew's free wrist back onto the chair and got a hold of the other as the leather stretched before it broke. He pressed down on both arms with all his strength, his face barely more than an inch from Llew's. They glared at one another.

Somehow Llew was succeeding against Braph too; she had lifted her arms about an inch. But Braph had the advantage as he leaned over her, pressing down while she was seated pressing up, and eventually her muscles failed, and her arms slapped down on the wooden chair arms.

Nilv returned, a length of heavy chain clinking in his grasp. He brought it to Braph, caught one end on a hook secured to the floor, and started wrapping it around Llew. Braph took over once her first arm was secure. He didn't break eye contact while he worked. Now and then, his eyes narrowed. He connected the end of the chain to another hook, then he and Nilv conducted the spider devices in their dance again.

This time, Llew wore a dress from the selection Braph had provided for her. She pressed her thighs together against the probing of one device, but it clung to the top of her leg and plunged its long needle into a blood vessel. Llew's efforts to prevent it were completely ineffective. She didn't want to satisfy Braph by crying out, thinking he might be just twisted enough to find pleasure in it, but she couldn't help herself.

Nilv left the room again and returned minutes later, dragging a skinny lad behind him. He led the boy to the other chair on the raised platform and secured him with leather straps. The boy tugged listlessly at the restraints, but soon gave up the futile efforts.

Braph had been right, the thigh veins were good; the spiders filled quickly, scuttled off and were replaced by new, empty devices; within minutes Llew felt faint.

Turning a large, cogged wheel, Nilv drove the boy's hand out toward Llew, flipping levers and spinning wheels so that the chair's arm itself extended and turned, bringing the boy's hand to rest under Llew's fingers.