Page 43

CHAPTER 43

S ven

The jet way stretched before us like the gullet of some great beast, disgorging passengers into the terminal beyond. Erik walked at my side, his posture relaxed, but his eyes constantly scanning, a hunter’s awareness beneath his businessman’s veneer. We had spent the flight reviewing what little we knew of the Pretorian Guard’s New York Mithraeum—its probable location beneath a Fifth Avenue skyscraper, its security protocols, the hierarchical structure that seemed to mirror ancient Roman military organization, as mixed with some vestige of the cult of Mithras.

“We need to get to the safehouse,” I murmured to Erik as we approached the end of the jet way. “Once we have access to the surveillance network?—”

The words died in my throat. Four men stood waiting at the terminal entrance, their bodies arranged in the unmistakable formation of professionals securing a perimeter. Three wore the sleek, dark uniforms of Selecta’s corporate police—charcoal tactical pants and fitted jackets emblazoned with the company’s stylized red ‘S’ emblem, the subtle bulges beneath their clothing betraying concealed weapons. But it was the fourth man who made my blood run cold.

I recognized him instantly from the surveillance footage I’d watched in Paris—the man with classical features and calculating dark eyes who had interrogated Mary, who had forced responses from her body that made my fists clench at the memory. Leo Marmareus, as the Guard seemed to call him. He stood slightly apart from the others, dressed in an impeccably tailored charcoal suit rather than a uniform, his posture relaxed yet alert, a predator at rest.

“Fuck,” Erik breathed beside me, so softly only I could hear. His right hand twitched slightly toward his jacket pocket, where I knew he carried a device that could incapacitate everyone within a twenty-foot radius—one of the Sons of Odin’s more useful technological advances. “Orders, Sven?”

I shook my head minutely, my mind racing through scenarios, calculating risks and probabilities. The device would work, certainly—would give us perhaps ninety seconds to disappear into the crowded terminal. And we had our supersonic nano-drones already in the vicinity, ready to ensure a good deal of destruction if necessary.

But at what cost? The disruption would alert every security system in the airport. Innocent bystanders would probably be injured. And most crucially, what would happen to Mary and Camille once the Guard realized their trap had failed?

“Gentlemen,” the dark-haired man said as we approached, his voice cultured, with just a hint of a Mediterranean accent. “Welcome to New York. My name is Matthew Apollis, though I believe you know me better as Leo Marmareus.”

His small smile didn’t reach his eyes, which remained cool and assessing as they moved from me to Erik and back. The casual admission of his dual identity was deliberate—a message that he knew exactly who we were, that secrecy was already compromised.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied evenly, keeping my expression neutral, the rage building inside me notwithstanding.

Matthew’s smile widened fractionally, but his eyes remained cold and calculating, like those of a chess master who had already mapped out every possible move I might make.

“Professor Hallstrom,” he said, his voice pitched low enough that only our small group could hear, “let’s not waste time with these tiresome denials. We know who you are, though we may not know precisely why you’re here, or who sent you. On the other hand…” he paused, meeting my gaze directly, then continued with slightly narrowed eyes, “we know exactly why you’ve come.”

The rage that had been simmering within me threatened to boil over. On an intellectual level, the idea of sharing Mary with the men who would use her on her mission made sense—above all because Mary needed that sort of submission. But the primal instincts of the alpha male couldn’t be put away so easily. This man had touched Mary, had forced pleasure from her body against her will. I pictured his hands on her pale skin, heard again her gasps and moans from the surveillance footage. My fingers twitched at my sides, the ancient berserker blood of my ancestors urging me to violence, to tear this man apart with my bare hands.

But the cold, rational part of my mind—the strategist, the scholar, the leader of men—knew better. I forced myself to breathe evenly, to maintain the outward appearance of calm even as my heart hammered against my ribs.

“My new Columbae are quite remarkable,” Matthew continued, his use of the Latin term—doves, apparently the Guard’s name for their female agents—obviously deliberate and provocative. “Especially the redhead. Such… responsiveness. Such depth of submission. You’ve trained her well.”

One of the uniformed men shifted his weight slightly, his hand moving subtly toward what I assumed was a concealed weapon. Erik tensed beside me, ready to act the moment I gave the signal. The tension in the air thickened, the mundane bustle of the airport terminal seeming to recede as our small group stood locked in this moment of dangerous possibility.

I studied Matthew’s face, searching for any hint of weakness, any opening I could exploit. There was none. His expression remained impassive, confident, the look of a man who held all the cards and knew it. Behind that mask of calm professionalism, I sensed something else—a quality I recognized because I possessed it myself. This man had accustomed himself to dominance, to control, to the wielding of power over others. He understood the complex dance of authority and submission that had shaped human civilization since its earliest days.

In another life, under different circumstances, we might have recognized each other as kindred spirits. Now, we were adversaries playing a game with the highest possible stakes.

“The way I see it, Professor Hallstrom,” Matthew said, his voice pitched for my ears alone, “you have two options. You and your associate can come with us quietly, without incident. Or you can resist, perhaps even escape—my men are good, but I don’t underestimate your capabilities—and in doing so, sign the death warrants of both Mary O’Toole and Camille Dubois.”

My jaw clenched involuntarily at the sound of their names. I took a calming breath, glancing at Erik to see him nod slightly.

“We’ll come, Leo Marmareus,” I told him. “But as I’m sure you can imagine, we have resources deployed to make certain that if we’re harmed, we can take you down as well.”

“Of course,” Matthew said. “I expected no less. Now let’s reunite you with my new Columbae , so that you can be assured of their safety, before we discuss where our, shall we say, mutual interests lie.”

* * *

Mary

My legs trembled as I followed the girl, naked except for a collar, who had introduced herself as Nupta Cassandra. The stone floor felt surprisingly warm beneath my bare feet, like an echo of the shameful heat that lingered in my pussy. After what had seemed like hours on that diabolical saddle, my body felt both utterly depleted and hypersensitive, every nerve ending raw and exposed. I had lost count of the orgasms that had been wrenched from me—six? Seven? Each one had brought me to the edge of a vision, the branches of Yggdrasil tantalizingly close, only to have the saddle’s changing rhythms yank me back before I could fully connect.

When Cassandra, blonde, blue-eyed and big busted, had finally entered my cell, her nakedness—but for a collar like mine—was somehow less shameful than the leathers in which Marmareus had bound me, I’d been sobbing, my body slick with sweat, my thighs trembling uncontrollably. She hadn’t spoken as she deactivated the saddle and unclipped my restraints from the posts. I’d collapsed to the floor, muscles screaming in protest after being held in one position for so long. Cassandra had simply waited, her expression impassive, until I regained enough strength to stand.

Then she had said simply, “I am Nupta Cassandra. You will be silent, and you will obey, or you will be whipped until you cannot walk.” She had gotten a leash from the cabinet and clipped it to my collar.

I felt the light tug of it at my neck as Cassandra led me down the corridor. I kept my eyes downcast, acutely aware of my nakedness, of the leather restraints that adorned my body—the collar around my throat, the belt cinching my waist, the cuffs at my wrists, ankles, and thighs. These symbols of my captivity, my supposed submission to the Pretorian Guard, suddenly felt somehow both alien and disturbingly familiar.

The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly, its stone walls occasionally interrupted by closed doors that I couldn’t help but wonder about. What other horrors lay behind them? What other devices of pleasure and pain awaited unwilling initiates into the Guard’s mysteries?

A soft gasp drew my attention. I glanced up to see another girl, also naked but for her collar, emerging from another door, leading Camille on a leash identical to mine. My heart lurched painfully in my chest at the sight of my friend. Like me, Camille had on only the leather restraints that had made her, as I had watched, into what Marmareus had called a Columba . Her dark hair hung in tangled waves around her face, her eyes wide and haunted. Her bottom bore the bruises left by the Leo ’s huge, punishing hand.

“I am Nupta Cassandra,” the girl who held my leash said to Camille.

“I am Nupta Viola,” Camille’s captor said to me.

My eyes met Camille’s, and I saw in her gaze a reflection of my own confusion, fear, and helpless anticipation. The knowledge that we shared this humiliation, this violation, seemed to re-forge the bond between us—hammering it into something deeper, darker, and more complex than before.

I wanted desperately to speak to her, to ask if she was alright, to offer some comfort however meager. But Cassandra’s warning echoed in my mind: absolute silence, or a terrible whipping. I couldn’t bear even the thought of it, atop the cuts of the mastix that still throbbed on my backside.

We entered a narrow side passage, its walls lined with the same smooth stone as the corridors we had just traversed. Sconces mounted at regular intervals cast a warm, flickering light that made the shadows dance across the ancient masonry. The air felt different here—heavier somehow, laden with the scent of incense and something darker, more primal… smokier, perhaps, not just with the incense, but with something more? It made the fine hairs on my arms stand on end.

I glanced at Camille, walking beside me with her leash held by the girl who had called herself Nupta Viola. My sister’s face was pale, but her jaw was set in that determined line I’d come to recognize during our training together. Even in her humiliation, wearing nothing but the leather restraints that marked her as a captive, she maintained a dignity that made my heart swell with admiration and solidarity.

The passage opened suddenly into a vast chamber that took my breath away. This, then, must be the Hall of Fire that Marmareus had mentioned—it couldn’t be anything else. The ceiling soared overhead, supported by massive stone columns that seemed to stretch upward into infinity. Between them, intricate mosaics covered the walls and the floor, gleaming with gold and silver tiles that caught the light from dozens of braziers placed throughout the space.

“Kneel,” Cassandra commanded, giving a sharp tug on my leash.

My knees hit the cold stone floor before I could even think to resist. Beside me, Camille was similarly forced to her knees by Viola. The two Nuptae knelt beside us, their posture perfect, backs straight, knees spread slightly, hands resting palms up on their thighs. I found myself unconsciously mimicking their pose, my volva ’s training in ritual and ceremony somehow surfacing even in this alien context.

“Look at the mosaics,” Cassandra instructed, her voice low, but clear. “Try to understand what you see.”

I raised my eyes to the wall before us, and a gasp escaped my lips before I could stop it. The mosaic depicted a naked man with a magnificent, muscular physique, his limbs powerful and graceful as he grappled with an enormous bull. The man’s face was serene despite the violence of the scene, his eyes focused on his task with an almost transcendent intensity. Most striking of all was his manhood—erect, massive, rendered in exquisite detail with tiles of deepest lapis lazuli veined with gold.

“That is Mithras,” Cassandra said, her voice taking on a reverent quality I hadn’t heard from her before. “The god who slays the cosmic bull, whose sacrifice brings order from chaos, civilization from barbarism.”

I stared at the image, transfixed. There was something familiar about it, something that resonated deep within me even as I recognized its alien-ness. The man—Mithras—reminded me both of Sven and of Leo Marmareus, of that same controlled power, that same certainty of purpose. The thought made my breath catch painfully in my throat.

My gaze followed the mosaic as it continued around the chamber, moving from the scene of Mithras and the bull to other images that made my breath catch in my throat. Men in red robes, their faces stern and purposeful, stood in various poses of dominance over naked women bound in leather restraints identical to those I now wore. Some of the women knelt before the men, their mouths opened to receive enormous phalluses. Others were bent over stone altars, their bodies positioned for penetration from behind. Still others were bound to posts, their flesh marked with the evidence of recent discipline.

“The sacred mysteries,” Cassandra whispered, following my gaze. “The act of civilization.”

I tore my eyes away from the disturbing images, only to find myself staring at something even more terrifying. At the center of the chamber, where the two halves of the Hall of Fire met, yawned an abyssal pit. From its depths rose fingers of flame, dancing and twisting in hypnotic patterns. The heat from it washed over us in waves, making sweat bead on my skin.

“The eternal flame,” Viola murmured, her voice carrying the same reverence as Cassandra’s. “It has burned in the Mithraea since the founding of the Pretorian Guard, millennia ago.”