Freedom's Fall by DJ Michaels Page B

the dark. “I know you’re awake—I can hear you thinking from
here.”
    Rye snorted. “What you’re hearing, my friend, is me driving
myself insane.”
    “I’m worried about her too.” Dev rolled to the edge of the
bed and placed a crystal into a bowl of moss that sat on the bedside table. As
soon as the two items connected, they gave off a soft glow that bathed the bed
in a mellow light. Dev rolled back, wriggling closer until his chest pressed
against Rye’s arm. “How did you know what to do today? How to calm her?”
    Rye stared at the ceiling and wondered how best to answer
that question. “Do you remember when I used to go to Gloriahna’s?”
    “How could I forget?” Dev mooched in and tried to hog the
pillow. “That bower house was all I heard about for over a year. You couldn’t
tell anyone else because it was off-limits for Enforcers, so you talked my ear
bloody about the girls and the decor and the close calls on the back stairs.”
    A smile swept over Rye’s face. That had been a great period
in his life. Newly bonded to Zenbaylan, establishing a partnership with Dev,
finding a place for himself in the den. Battle practice, war games, drinking
games, loud parties and total freedom. They’d been wild times.
    “I also remember,” Dev continued, “how you bent over
backward to ingratiate yourself with the proprietress. And I recall some
questionable favors you delivered just so you and your cock could get a
discount.”
    Rye snickered, rolling his head so he could look at his
denmate. “Those girls were expensive. I was young, strong and horny, and I didn’t
make enough money to satisfy all my needs. Especially in a place so upmarket
only councilors and landholders could afford the rates.”
    “What’s this got to do with Tansy?” Dev asked.
    “I met a man who worked at Gloriahna’s.” Rye edged over a
bit, giving up half his pillow. “One night I was heading down the back stairs
when I had to make an unplanned detour. I ended up in an unfamiliar section of
the house, and as I crept along a hallway, I heard the sound of a whip and a
woman crying out.”
    Dev immediately understood a situation that Rye’s younger
self had failed to grasp. Dev’s eyes twinkled. “Oh no. You didn’t.”
    Rye chuckled. “I did. In my defense, I have to say that
despite the amount of women I’d managed to fuck, I was shockingly naive when it
came to sex on the fringe. I heard a woman crying out in pain, and being a
newly stamped, eager Enforcer, I rushed to her rescue.”
    Dev smothered a laugh and his whole body shook. “Bet you got
an education in a hurry.”
    “Yep. I burst in on a naked woman chained to the ceiling and
a man half my size whipping the skin off her back.”
    “What happened?”
    Rye could almost feel himself back there, heart pounding,
blood roaring through his veins, so full of righteous indignation. “The Master
turned to me and told me to wait. He said she wanted to be whipped, needed it.
He told me that if I could hold myself back I would see her come harder than
any woman I’d known.”
    “So of course you waited.”
    Yes, he had. Rye was a pleasure-seeker at heart, and he
loved making a woman come. If there was a way to make them come harder, longer
or more often, he wanted to know about it.
    “He whipped her until she orgasmed. It was the strangest
thing. She was screaming and crying, then she eased out of that and into a
state of bliss. She hung from the chains, arching out to meet each stroke, and
when he finally dropped the whip he shoved his fingers inside her and it was
like he flipped a switch. And he was right. I had never seen a woman orgasm
like it.”
    Dev heaved a sigh, stirring Rye’s hair. “That’s a great
story, my brother, but I’m still not seeing the Tansy connection.”
    “Oh yeah. Sorry.” Rye had been so caught up in the memory he’d
gone way off track. “When he let the girl out of the chains, he wrapped her in
a blanket and sat with her in