Nightfallen

Dance By Firelight

Back in Nathan's presence, I wasn't myself anymore. I was simply his.

He sat on his throne, and I kneeled naked before him. Cynthia and Gina were on either side of me. My sisters had given me some deer blood so that I'd heal enough not to be disgusting to our master.

I could hear my predator mind weighing whether taking my punishment like a good girl would ensure I'd come through this alive or I'd be killed faster. For my own part, I didn't care if I lived or died, so long as I made him happy.

Nathan was dressed in his usual fashion jeans, no shirt, holding the bayonet Gina had gutted me with like it was a scepter. "Ginny, you disappoint me," he said.

The words hurt more than my still-healing wounds.

"I'm sorry."

"I know you are, dear. I regret having to hurt you. There is a lot of regret to go around tonight. Perhaps, however, we may begin regaining one another's trust. Doesn't that sound nice?"

"Yes," I said.

"The beginning of trust is honesty. I need you to be honest with me. Who is this male you've been seeing?"

There was push-pull inside of myself: my will wanting to tell him everything, down to Jackson's attack tonight, and my primal mind desperate to hold back what he really was. Their compromise came from me in a languid voice: "His name is Jackson Wheel. He's a former soldier, Nightfallen new."

"An officer?"

"A sergeant," I said.

"I was a major, but here you are slumming with an enlisted man. I thought women generally tried to find better mates. I suppose I should be insulted. Wait! I am." Then he cracked the back of his hand across my face. "Tell me more about this Sergeant Wheel. Do you find him attractive?"

"Yes."

"Have you slept with him?"

I heard my sisters behind me tittering. "No."

"You wanted to, though?"

"I did," I said, then rushed to add that I was a fool. I pled with Nathan, telling him that I only wanted to be with him, that anyone else was stomach turning, begging him to use me now.

I was silenced with another crack across the face, hard enough that had I been alive, it would have shattered my jaw.

"Where may I find Sergeant Wheel?"

"I don't know."

"You haven't any idea where he sleeps?"

"No. He did say something about a bunker, though."

"A bunker? In what context did he say this?"

"Talking about his guns."

"Armament? What kind?" Nathan asked.

"An AR-15."

Nathan sneered. "A mass-produced piece of aluminum to turn a single plebeian into a platoon. Why would the newly undead need such a weapon?"

I was about to answer, but my response caught in my throat.

"Answer me," Nathan said, the words echoing through me like a gunshot in a cathedral. "Answer me, or I'll pull that pretty head of yours from the stump of your neck."

I couldn't hold back anymore. "To break up your body enough so he can behead or stake you."

For the first time in three years we had been together, his regal detachment gave way. "You told him where we nest."