Master of the Opera, Act 5: A Haunting Duet Read online

  The Master of the Opera series

  by Jeffe Kennedy

  Act 1: Passionate Overture

  (January 2, 2014)

  Act 2: Ghost Aria

  (January 16, 2014)

  Act 3: Phantom Serenade

  (February 6, 2014)

  Act 4: Dark Interlude

  (February 20, 2014)

  Act 5: A Haunting Duet

  (March 6, 2014)

  Act 6: Crescendo

  (March 20, 2014)

  ACT 5

  A Haunting Duet

  MASTER OF THE OPERA

  jeffe Kennedy

  eKensington

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  1

  Christy didn’t question it.

  When the Master said “welcome home,” she felt the truth of it. However impossible the reality might be. She belonged here, to him. That was all that mattered anymore.

  It helped that she’d moved beyond thought into pure sensation. Now that she’d given herself over to him, she felt consumed by the need to be taken. With her hands bound, she couldn’t seize him and urge him into her aching core.

  But she would have.

  He untied her hands, as if answering the thought, but held her wrists in a tight grip, ice-blue eyes sparkling in the candlelight.

  “I would have stripped you naked at this moment, except for my promise to you. But the rules remain the same—you must submit to me, understand?”

  She nodded mutely. She did understand, in a way she hadn’t before. To free the bear was to make him the master. He inclined his head toward one of the dock pilings. They weren’t wood but seemingly carved from polished rock. Obsidian, perhaps. Draped over one was a sheer white gown.

  “I shall turn my back while you undress and put that on. It will cover your scars, but little else.”

  “Thank you, Master.”

  “As you respect my scars, so I respect yours.” His lips feathered a kiss over her forehead, a kind of benediction. Of absolution.

  True to his word, he turned his back, staring off over the mirrored black lake. She toed off her sneakers and wriggled out of her clothes. The ridged scars across her abdomen caught the light, silver lines that, strangely, were not that ugly. In a way, they were her own battle scars.

  She pulled the gown over her head, the sheer silk falling over her in a cloud. A wide belt of gold fabric gathered it at her waist, holding tight against her midsection. Above it, the bodice parted, falling open in loose sweeps that ran over her shoulders but left her breasts bare. The skirt was really two slim triangles of cloth, gliding along the outsides of her thighs, completely revealing her front and back.

  A concession only to her scars. Otherwise, she might as well have been naked. Nervous, she stared at the black-cloaked figure waiting for her to finish. It would have been easier, she realized with dawning perception, if he’d stripped her with her hands bound. She could have relinquished this uncertainty. It seemed unthinkable to tell him to turn, to see her. On impulse she knelt on the glassy black surface and waited, hands clasped in her lap.

  His gloved hand drifted over her hair, smoothing it with tenderness. “I feel that I’ve waited forever for this,” he mused in a soft voice.

  She looked up at his forbidding figure. “Have you?”

  “Pain, I think, has no time. Its impact is infinite, but we also have no memory for it. Once it ceases, we forget the intensity. Over time, we lose it entirely.”

  “That’s physical pain—not emotional.”

  “True. Grief lessens, but never disappears entirely. Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  He offered his hand and she rose to her feet. The ice-blue eyes glimmered in the light of the thousands of candles as they traveled over her, his gaze palpable as a touch. Her nipples peaked and her sex dampened. His lips curved in a smile.

  Telling her to turn, he once again bound her wrists behind her back and then roped her ankles tightly together. As if the binding of the ropes on her body somehow set her inner self free, her mind drifted once more into that dream state. The world where no thoughts mattered, only feeling.

  He swept her up, one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees, carrying her like a bouquet of roses up the walkway. She let her head fall back, pliant and relaxed, her breasts upthrust, the transparent silk scarves trailing around them. The candlelight felt warm on her eyelids, the air cool on her naked skin. Supported only by the Master’s strong grip, she floated through the air to her fate, yielding to it—and to him—without reservation.

  She opened her eyes when he laid her on a polished slab, warm, as if heated from within. They were inside the stone circle she’d seen from below. Around her, obelisks carved of the same rock towered. The Master untied her hands, then bound them again above her head. He also anchored her roped feet to the bottom of the slab, so she was stretched between the two poles, like a sacrifice.

  And yet she felt no fear. She felt more centered in herself, more truly certain than perhaps ever before in her life.

  The Master ran his gloved hand up her thighs, letting the translucent fabric frame her body. Cupping her breasts, he kissed her taut nipples until she moaned, scissoring her thighs, needing so much more.

  Shadows appeared behind him and surprise rippled through her. “Who—?”

  “They are the voices. Those who cannot be silenced. Like me, they live on, half in one world and half in another. You know them also. They are here to witness and to celebrate. Yes?”

  She nodded, her heart swelling, unnamable emotion dampening her eyes. He drew back and people surrounded her. Her people. She couldn’t see them well, despite the blazing candles all around. They were silhouettes, glimpses of flowing dark hair and soft black eyes. Hands traveled over her skin, touching and caressing with reverence. They fondled her breasts and dipped between her slick thighs, increasing her pleasure. Lips kissed her and tongues lapped, stimulating and teasing her so she squirmed against the ropes that bound her so tightly, that made of her an offering to them.

  Unable to resist, she forfeited trying to. She gave herself over to it. It was like being worshipped—overwhelming, humbling, and relentlessly exciting.

  With stone blades and loving caresses, the shadowy figures cut away the draping scarves of silk, leaving only the belt of tight cloth at her midriff. The many hands then rubbed oil into her, coating her skin so it gleamed golden. They turned her over, spinning her inside the bonds, and oiled her back, delving even into the cleft of her bottom. She writhed on the glassy surface, wishing the Master would return soon. The thought dissolved in the endlessness of the moment, and it seemed she would be this always, forever anointed and aroused.

  She became aware of a drumbeat in the background, a low thrumming that echoed the pulse in her groin, the pounding of her heart in the cage of her ribs.

  At last, the hands shifted, freeing her of the slab and carrying her to a pair of standing stones on a raised area capped by a horizontal piece. Lifting her, they hung her by her bound hands to a hook in the top, so she dangled like a decoration beneath.

  Or like a priestess presiding over a ritual.

  From her vantage, it became clear that many more eyes watched. The hillside thronged thick with dark-haired people, holding
candles and observing with hushed reverence. The thick scent of flowers twined with that of hot wax, and more shadowy people brought red roses, in full bloom, piling them at her feet and around the slab before her.

  The Master emerged from the crowd below, making his way up the slope, his pained limp showing as they parted for him. Unlike them, he was fully fleshed, crisply real. In his black formal wear, cloak, and mask, hair and shirt like slashes of white burning through the surreal gloom, he seemed ever more some creature out of place and time. She imagined the icy glitter of his eyes showed even from that distance, always locked upon her nearly naked form. Her blood churned in her ears and she swung on her hook with an involuntary convulsion of longing for him.

  He seemed more pained than usual, moving more slowly. When he came close enough, she saw why: a silver knife protruded from his midsection, blood seeping out to soak his white shirt with the dark, rusty red of an old injury.

  With difficulty, he climbed onto the slab and stretched himself out where she had been. The shadow people swarmed around him, binding him spread-eagled to it. With the stone blades cupped in their hands, they cut away his clothing. He rolled his head to the side, watching her, waiting for her reaction, she knew.

  It had been this way for her, before, back when she carelessly let someone see her scars. The instinctive revulsion on their faces, the horrified curiosity and the sympathy that nearly broke you. Sympathy worked like an acid, corroding the locks you kept over the festering, secret wounds.

  So she didn’t wince when they cut away the gloves and the ruin of his hands became apparent. The one leg, muscular to the knee, then withered, as if it had been gnawed to the bone by wild dogs. They stripped him naked and vulnerable, carefully cutting around the blade buried in his lean abdomen, revealing the shining white hair and quiescent cock at his groin. They took everything from him. All except for the knife and the mask, leaving that as a stark black reminder, his blue eyes shards of glacier, burning through the holes.

  A shadowy figure approached her, covered more in hair than skin. Armbands, thigh bands, and a chest plate of worked gold shone brightly, the glow obscuring its features. It stood before her and held up a length of leather, just under her chin. She frowned, uncertain, and the creature lashed her on the thigh with it, a sting that turned her suspended body in a slight circle. It held up the strap again. The Master watched, his body tense with the strain of his position.

  A question then.

  Eyes on his, she bent her head and kissed the strap. Agreeing to what he asked of her. The creature smiled, a glitter of fang in the hairy countenance, unfolding the leather strap to a long length. With a whistle through the air, it landed again on her thigh. The drumbeats quickened at her cry of pain, and an echo of it ran through the assembly. She found the Master’s burning gaze, full of love and desire.

  The lash fell again on her tender skin, sending her spinning. Again and again, the leather found her sensitive flesh, landing now on her bottom, there on her calf, then across her breasts. The last made her scream and fight the bonds, the crowd yelling with her—in encouragement or anger, she couldn’t tell. But it became a symphony, a concert of agony. The whoosh and slap of the whipping, her cries and the reverberations of her pain from those watching. Sweat ran down her body and melded with the tears pouring from her eyes.

  Whenever she could, she locked her gaze with the Master’s, like a ballerina finding her steady point as she pirouettes. Gradually, it seemed his body transformed. Sometimes she saw the great white bear, pinned to the altar of the black slab. Other times he seemed radiantly masculine, his limbs perfect and untwisted. His cock grew, unfurling with lust until it thrust high and hard against his belly.

  Transported by the pain and egged on by the crowd, her own desire exploded, each sting of the lash a spur to drive her up higher and harder. The strap of leather crashed against the closed triangle of her mound and she nearly came from it, panting and pleading with inarticulate noises.

  The Master, too, longed for her with his body, straining against the ropes. He pumped his hips with the throbbing of the drums, going faster and faster now, along with the speed of the lash and the ululating wail of her cries for relief.

  With a final, sonic boom of a beat, the drums and the crowd and the lash all ceased.

  Only her panting sobs broke the silence. Her tenders rushed forward, supporting her and cutting the ropes on her ankles and wrists. They carried her to the slab and set her on it, so she knelt between the Master’s spread legs. His scrotum hung heavy and she, at last free to touch him, cupped it, rolling his heavy balls in her hand. He groaned, almost more of an ursine growl, his glittering gaze fixed on her.

  Tears drying on her face, her flesh alive and singing with the extreme stimulation, she leaned over and licked the length of his cock, careful not to bump the knife still piercing his abdomen. The blood welling from the wound ran bright red now, fresh and full of vitality. She took him into her mouth, sucking the broad head, the long length too much for her to take fully. Her vulva cramped with the thought of being stretched by it and she could wait no longer.

  Powerful, confident in her sensual hunger, she straddled him, holding his cock and guiding it into her. His gaze remained fixed on hers, filled with a fierce need that took her breath away. She sank down on his shaft, letting it stretch her, enjoying the sensation of opening wide while he filled her. The wild, feral pleasure of their sweat-slicked skin meeting nearly sent her over the edge. She held on, though, knowing there was more.

  With him inside her, it seemed they merged. Skin to skin, the physical blended with the metaphysical. The sense of the bear’s fur on her naked breasts as his jaws sank into her throat became the fine white hairs tickling her pussy when his cock thrust into her with a bolt of pleasure so keen she shuddered with it, crying out as she had under the lash.

  The tension between them built, each stoking the other higher. His muscular thighs bunched under her raw bottom, spearing his cock into her deepest core.

  She rode him, her nails digging into his taut abdomen on either side of the offending blade, blood slicked, sweat wet. Their gazes meshed, held.

  On the precipice, they poised together.

  And she grasped the knife in her bloodied hands.

  With a roar, he flexed his powerful hips and thighs, lifting her into the air. As she had in the vision, she pulled on her own deep wells of courage and pulled the blade from his flesh, thrusting it point first to the infinite black sky and screamed, wild and free, while she climaxed, riding his bucking body, a feral steed carrying her to another world.

  2

  Mind reeling, wrenched nearly out of her body by the shattering orgasm that had rocked her on every level, she clenched the knife over her head, the drying blood welding her fingers to the hilt.

  Her thighs protested the strain of straddling the Master’s muscular hips. He lay beneath her, peaceful, a beatific smile on his lips beneath the black mask that remained the only thing he wore. The terrible wound in his midsection no longer bled. The flesh was torn, blackened near the center, where it had touched the silver blade, but spreading out it showed the healthy pink of healing tissue.

  Her own cuts—so much more shallow, not nearly so crippling, at least not physically—had been that way. They’d knitted themselves together of their own accord. Over time, angry red turned to healing pink to the crystal white of the scars that never fully disappeared.

  Peeling one hand off the sticky hilt, she braced herself and lifted off him. She missed the sense of him inside her immediately, and his seed followed, sliding down her inner thighs.

  She’d never had condomless sex before. A funny thought, given all that had occurred. Abruptly she became aware that they were alone again. No drums, no hairy creature with a leather lash, no shadowy figures. The prosaic concerns of disease and unplanned pregnancy hadn’t mattered in that realm.

  Moving around the immense slab, she used the broad-bladed knife to sever the ropes binding
him to the altar. Which of them had been the sacrifice?

  Or had they sacrificed themselves to each other, somehow?

  He lay still, though his chest rose and fell with his breathing. Once she’d freed him, she climbed over him again, knife still in one hand, and straddled that massive chest. The even thump of his heart resounded against the sensitive, open tissues of her spread sex. He seemed larger now than he had back in that strange carousel living room of his. An anteroom to this world. His skin glowed alabaster against the obsidian slab, his white-blond hair piled beneath his head. Leaning over him, she kissed him, soft and sweet.

  Wake, my prince.

  The icy-blue eyes opened, warming at the sight of her, and his big hands slid up her back, one cupping the nape of her neck, urging her down to kiss him again. They savored one another for a while, mouths interweaving like melody and harmony, desire rising again between them, growing out of every spot their skin touched, candlelight dancing over them in a warm blessing.

  She sat up. Gathered herself. It was time to show all of herself to him.

  Working the knife blade under the fabric wrapping her waist, she sliced it away. The Master watched, his hands on her thighs. She shrugged the gold belt away, along with the shard of silk that had been trapped beneath it. Without judgment he took in the chain of scars across her belly, where she’d carved out her pain.

  The Master’s hands slid up her thighs and feathered over her belly, caressing her, touching the soft skin between the evil lines. Accepting them as both part of her and unimportant. Holding her like this, his large hands nearly spanned her waist, holding her safe and loved.

  Gravely, the Master wrapped his hand around hers, holding the blade through her agency. He brought it up to the side of his head, turning his face away and sliding the point under the ribbon that bound the mask to his face.