The Dancer and the Masks by Bea Paige

Chapter 11

LEON

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

Who is this woman and what the hell has she done to my self-control?

She said she’ll be my mirror… That she’ll make me see. What she doesn’t understand is, unlike my brothers, I’m not afraid of my reflection. I don’t pretend. I know what I am and I happen to fucking like it.

Except for the brief moment when you remembered that kid you were. You didn’t like it then.

“Fuck!” I curse under my breath.

This isn’t how it was supposed to play out. I was supposed to scare her and instead she has me confessing our history and falling to my knees before her, touching her like she’s made of fragile glass, rather than breaking her and cutting myself on the shards.

I don’t get on my damn knees for anyone. Ever. Not since…

Fuck, don’t think about that. Don’t.

Konrad’s deep laughter pulls me up sharp, and I shoot to my feet. “Looks like someone started the fun without us,” he says, eying me as he enters.

“Just making sure she’s still got the fight within her. Can’t have her wanting our touch, now can we? At least not yet, anyway,” I reply quickly, sliding my hand in my trouser pocket so they can’t see how my fingers glisten with her juices. I grip hold of my cock, telling it to calm the fuck down because getting hard at her soft whimpers and gentle moans is a sign of fucking weakness. Her screams are what I crave.

“She just kneed me in the chin for tying up my shoelaces. She thought I was going to touch her.” My gaze flicks to Nought. She frowns but she doesn’t try to out me. Why doesn’t she tell them I’m lying? I grit my jaw, the feel of her fingers in my hair and the gentle way she’d held me lingering.

“I’m surprised you’re not punishing her for her insolence,” Konrad remarks, striding over to the bottle of cognac that I left on the side table and pouring himself a shot. He side-eyes Nought as he passes, but she keeps her gaze fixed on me. Waiting for my next move.

“You walked in before I could. Want to help me, Brother?” I ask, grinning at Konrad. He swallows the shot, the amber liquid matching the colour of his mask.

“Fuck yes.”

“Pigs,” Nought hisses, her shoulders tensing and her hands curling into fists. She’s like a feral cat, her claws unsheathed, ready to protect herself. But feral cats are just domesticated cats in disguise. She’ll come to obey sooner or later. I’ll have her purring beneath my touch soon enough, and when she trusts me completely, that’s when I’ll take what I really want. There’ll be no gentleness then, only need.

“We’ve been called worse,” Konrad says.

“Touch me and I’ll rip your goddamn eyes out.”

My lip twitches at her fight. I’m beginning to really enjoy that mouth, and I can’t wait to find out what she tastes like, but more than that, how fucking loud she screams. “You really are a tease,” I say, smirking as I stalk towards her. “But that’s okay, they’re the most fun.”

“Wait,” Jakub says, stepping between Nought and me. He lifts her chin with his finger. “Want to tell me what happened, Nothing?” he questions evenly. To anyone who doesn’t know him they’d see a controlled man, someone who isn’t affected by anyone or anything. Kon and I know differently. Jakub is affected by everything. Always has been. He just handles it differently now.

“What he said,” she snaps, anger boiling in her eyes. She’s trembling with it, and fuck if I don’t love the affect I’ve had on her. She could’ve dropped me in the shit, but her shame at enjoying what happened keeps her mouth shut. I smile internally. She’s not as immune to our attention as she thinks.

“You’re certain?”

There's a warning in his voice, despite his even tone. Nought appears to understand its meaning as much as Konrad and I do, despite not knowing him well enough yet. That in and of itself is intriguing. If you lie to Jakub then you have to pay the consequences. I can take the punishment he’d dish out for lying to him. I’d even enjoy it. But Nought? She wouldn’t last a minute.

“What can I say, he’s an arsehole. I kneed him in the chin.”

Konrad roars with laughter, but Jakub just nods his head. I’m not so certain he believes her, but for now he drops the subject. Grasping her elbow, Jakub walks Nought into the centre of the library. It’s a large space, the only furniture are the bookcases lining the walls and the four chairs placed by the fireplace, two on either side. Konrad and I sit to the left, Jakub to the right. The empty chair remains out of respect for our father.

“You’re here to dance. So dance.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Jakub twists on his feet to face me. My little brother, the true Brov heir, meets my gaze with his steely one. “I told you to wait for us to join you before requesting Renard bring Nothing here.”

He’s angry, he has every right to be. I disobeyed his direct orders. It’s punishable, he knows it as well as I do. “You did.”

“And yet you decided to do the exact opposite of that?”

“I did.” There’s no point in denying it. We both know I overstepped.

Jakub nods sharply. “You know what to do.”

Without hesitation, I pull off my t-shirt, dropping the material to the floor. Konrad passes Jakub the leash, the very same one Nought was so determined to run from. Out of the corner of my eye I see Nought watching us. Horror rushes across her face as she realises what’s about to happen.

“Make sure you really mean it, Brother,” I say as I step further into the room and give him my back.

“Don’t I always? We learnt from the best, after all,” Jakub replies, and I hear the tightness in his voice. Even after all these years he still battles with his love for his father, the man who stripped him back to nothing so that Konrad and I could help rebuild him into the man he is today.

Locking eyes with a trembling Nought, I hear the familiar whoosh as the leash cuts through the air. She flinches, her hand rising to cover her mouth as the first lash stings my skin.

“Ahhh,” I moan, the rush like nothing else. I fucking crave it.

“Oh God,” Nought cries, unable to comprehend how I could enjoy being whipped. Konrad chuckles, Jakub doesn’t make a sound.

Five lashes, that’s what I’ll receive. Five lashes for disobeying his orders. Jakub doesn’t hold back, he never has because he knows as well as I do that I need this. Pain is my medicine. It gives me strength. A focus. It reminds me of who I am.

With every lash a calmness settles over me, the glorious pain ebbing away to reveal that special place I’ve searched for my whole life. Fucking nirvana. After the fourth lash, Jakub steps out from behind me and walks towards Nothing. He holds out the leash to her. What’s he doing? My fucking breath catches in my throat. Even Konrad seems to have trouble breathing.

“Take it,” he says.

“W—what?” she stutters, shaking her head and backing away.

“You heard me. Take it.”

“N—no. I can’t do that. No!”

Within two strides, Jakub grasps the back of Nought’s head and marches her over to me. She stumbles from the force, her hands flying out to prevent herself from crashing straight into me. Nought’s palms are like fire on my sweat-slicked chest. Her nostrils flare at the touch, her hands lingering a fraction of a second too long before she yanks them away.

“I won’t do it!” she says as he grips her wrist and forcefully shoves the leash into her hand.

Jakub leans in and presses his lips against her ear. “You will do it, or you will receive it. Your choice.”

“Where?” she asks, surprising us all with her question, her gaze fixed on me.

A muscle feathers in Jakub’s jaw, just beneath the curve of his jet-black mask. “Where what?”

“Where will I receive it?”

“Your back, same as Leon.”

“Then I’ll receive it,” she says, surprising us all.

“Interesting,” Konrad remarks. I can hear the excitement in his voice without needing to look at him. I’m betting he’s gagging to be the one to lash her back, then heal her with his false words of affection. Everyone thinks I’m the worst, the most dangerous of the three of us, but at least I don’t pretend I’m something I’m not. What you see is what you get. Konrad’s still a twisted fuck, he just likes to pretty it up with falsities a little more than I do.

“As much as I appreciate you stepping in, Nought, I can take the pain,” I say, smiling like the devil. This is too fucking perfect.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not doing this for you,” she snaps.

“Then who, if not me?” I bite back. This fucking woman.

She swallows hard but she doesn’t respond. Instead she shoves the leash back at Jakub, turns on her heel and steps a few paces away from us, giving Jakub her back just like I had a moment before. When she reaches for the hem of her dress, and begins to slide it upwards, Jakub stiffens.

“STOP!” he shouts.

She jumps, her hands falling away and her skirt dropping back down around her knees. When she looks at him over her shoulder, her long flaming hair forming gentle waves down her back, even I have a hard time stopping my cock from twitching. She’s fucking growing on me. “What?”

“Czy mówiłem ci, żebyś zdjął sukienkę?” he says, his voice thick with annoyance.

“What? I don’t understand?” Nought replies.

“Did I tell you to take your dress off?” he repeats in English.

She shakes her head. “I assumed—”

“Well, you assumed wrong,” Jakub grunts. He doesn’t want her naked yet, we have a special something planned for that moment. So for now, the dress stays on, though it will do little to protect her from what’s about to happen. The material is thin, so she’ll still feel the pain, and boy am I ready to hear her fucking scream.

“Oh fuck,” Konrad mutters under his breath, handing me my t-shirt as he moves his mouth to my ear. “Ten grand she pukes.”

“Twenty she faints before that happens,” I retort, pulling on the t-shirt and rolling my shoulders.

“Deal.” My brother holds out his hand and I shake it. I don’t much care about the money, between us we’ve got enough to last ten lifetimes. Money doesn’t motivate us. It never has.

Jakub doesn’t hesitate. He raises the leash then brings it down on her back. The sound of it cracking against her skin makes my blood erupt and my cock stiffen, but the silence afterwards, the absence of sound...

Fuck. I’ve never been more turned on in my life.

She doesn’t make a murmur. Not a whimper.

Instead, she turns around to face us with nothing but hate in her eyes. If she’d softened a little when I’d touched her earlier, testing her boundaries, then she’s hardened right back up now. There’s no denying that at this moment she is fierce. Out of the corner of my eye I see Konrad’s jaw drop.

Jakub stares at her for a long moment, waiting for another reaction. I can tell by the tense way he holds himself and the grip on the leash that he’s surprised too. That doesn’t happen very often. Having lived the life we have, doing what we do, we’re all clued up about the intricacies of the human psyche. The Numbers remain here because we’ve manipulated them into believing what we want them to believe. This prison is successful only because the Numbers no longer see it as one. Take a lion in a zoo for example. It’s fed the primest cuts of meat, taken care of and given a certain amount of freedom. The Lion can still be what it is, but has been conditioned to live in a cage. Still beautiful, still full of life, but not free. The same applies to the Numbers. We’ve given them the illusion of freedom, a life they think they want. We’ve allowed them to be exactly who they are deep down inside, with their artistry and their sexual proclivities. There are no boundaries with regards to those two things. The only boundary, the one that’s most important, is the cage they don’t see, the one that keeps them in this castle. So far, only one of them has tested their freedom, or at least the illusion of it, and in the end it wasn’t us who caged him but one of the other Numbers.

“Are you done?” she asks, flicking her gaze between us all, before finally resting her eyes on Jakub.

He nods. “Yes.”

With a deep intake of breath she shifts her feet, extends her left foot, then rises up onto her point and begins to dance, astounding us all once again.