Page 53 of Master Wolf
Wanted to believe that when the bond was severed, those emotions would disappear.
“You don’t know what you’re playing with,” Lindsay warned in a low voice.
“Just do it,” Drew insisted. “Show me what it was like when you were compelled by Duncan.”
Lindsay was shaking now, but he gave a sharp nod. “Fine,” he said. Then he took a deep breath and said in an entirely different tone of voice, “Kneel.”
Drew didn’t have time to parse the meaning of the order before he was falling. His knees hit the floor so suddenly and so hard he gasped in surprise and pain. It was as though someone had swept his legs out from under him, his body reacting before his mind had even absorbed the command.
“Now, crawl.”Lindsay added in that same flat, commanding tone. “To me.” Drew wanted to protest the order, but he was too busy grappling with the fact that he was already falling forward, his open hands slapping against the wooden floorboards as he assumed an all-fours position. And then he was shuffling forward, abject and low, without having consciously decided to move.
It was a truly horrible sensation, his body moving without his own mind directing it. He could not, simply couldnotdisobey.
“Lindsay—” he croaked, a note of protest in his voice.
Before he could say anything else, Lindsay gave him another order. “Do not speak. Not another word.”
Immediately, the words he was about to utter seemed to dry up in his throat, and he was mute.
Drew tried to talk, but only a gargle came out of his mouth, an awful, panicked animalistic sound. And still his obedient body inched forward in satisfaction of the order that he crawl to Lindsay.
Moments later, he was at Lindsay’s feet.
“Stop.”
Drew stopped crawling. His heart was crashing in his chest and an awful clamouring fear filled him. This abject slavery was nothing like the subtle press of Lindsay’s true desires making themselves known to him, persuasive and influential. Drew lifted his head to gaze at his tormentor, trying to plead with his eyes for release.
Lindsay stared down at him, his expression bleak. “At this point, Duncan might have done any one of ten thousand things to me,” he said softly. “He may have commanded me to suck his cock. Or he may have given me a knife and ordered me to cut myself for his entertainment, or perhaps stick my hand in the burning embers of the fire for the same reason. He may have fucked me or had one of his men fuck me—or all of them. Or he may have just beaten me or tormented me for a while with thoughts of what he might do next—he always liked to build the anticipation.”
Drew watched him miserably, still on his hands and knees. He felt sick but could not respond. Not with Lindsay’s command to be quiet still between them
“It went on for hour upon hour. Sometimes day upon day,” Lindsay said, almost dreamily. “When he grew bored, he would throw me in the dungeon again to rot, until the next time he wanted to be entertained. Sometimes he left the silver collar on me so I couldn’t shift to heal.” He gave a harsh laugh. “I can’t tell you how many times I had to set my own broken bones in the dark.”
Drew felt physically sick. Not that he hadn’t already known that Lindsay had suffered terribly, but experiencing what compulsion really felt like gave him a new and horribly vivid perspective.
Suddenly Lindsay seemed exhausted. Waving a hand in Drew’s direction, he said faintly, “I release you.”
The sudden absence of that clamouring feeling was an intense relief. Drew felt as though he’d broken the surface of a pool after being underwater. Gasping, he took some stuttering breaths, before climbing slowly to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” Lindsay said then, and he sounded genuinely regretful. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Drew didn’t know what to say. He’d just been given a glimpse into a part of the universe he hadn’t truly understood until this moment, and he wasn’t sure whether to thank Lindsay or curse him.
Even as weak as he was, with the merest trace of the bond’s power in his grasp, Lindsay had been able to compel Drew with a terrifying ease.
Now, finally, Drew knew that Lindsay had been speaking the truth when he said he’d never compelled Drew before. The old familiar sense of a strong will nudging against his own desires was something entirely different, and very much less frightening, than what he’d just experienced.
Perhaps those subtle nudges were something Lindsay had no conscious control over.
Lindsay rubbed his hands wearily over his face, then met Drew’s gaze.
“You should go,” he said. “If I can compel you like that after just two nights without the poultice, I need to dress my arm without delay. I can’t leave the Wolfsbane off any longer. If I am to be able to defy Duncan when he comes, the bond must be destroyed.”
“Lindsay,pleasedon’t—”
“I have to,” Lindsay interrupted harshly. He turned away and crossed to the dressing table, pulling out the chair and sitting down. “I should never have allowed you to persuade me to leave it off in the first place. I was so very close to severing the bond. Once it is done, it will be done for good but these last two nights have set me back. I should probably increase the dose…”
Drew’s wolf was howling inside him, inconsolable. But there was nothing—nothing—he could say to contradict Lindsay. After all, had he not spent the last few decades saying that this was what he wanted?