Merrie's body throbbed from the inside from the icy discomfort that had sunk into her bones. No matter how much she squirmed or rubbed herself, she couldn't warm up. It was cold, a cold that she could never escape. It pulsed from her joints and traced the insides of her ribs and hips. She felt the icy touch from the insides of her lungs and the taste of shadow refused to leave the back of her throat.
The only thing that made it worse was knowledge. She knew beyond a doubt that it would take months before she got used to the darkness inside her. Merrie had lived through the initial days once before. She knew about the long nights ahead of her: the constant twisting and turning, the inability to get comfortable, and the pain from bright sunlight. It was years ago, back when she was an orphan and her bed was made of boxes, old straw, and a stolen comforter.
She frowned. She didn't live through that. She did.
The frown deepened. She did. No, she did. She was trying to tell herself that the master lived through the shadows, but every time she thought of “I” or his name, she thought of herself and him at the same time. The boundaries between her master and herself had blurred and she wasn't sure which memory was his and which one was hers.
She pressed her face against the thick blankets in the center of the porch. The smell of shadows was deep in the padding, but she could barely feel the hard floor underneath her. She took a deep breath and tried to find herself.
Her mind refused to separate the two. She couldn't call her master by his name any more than she could think of herself directly. They were now one and the same. She remembered how Sable and Dixie both called their bounded “my master” and “my mistress” and she wondered if it was for the same reason. She could use his title without difficulty.
(My master,) she thought, tasting the sensations and emotions that came with it. His thoughts were close to hers, so close that she could feel him dozing in a sea of pain killers. The poison had ravaged his system, but Merrie kept him alive long enough for Rimmy to find them and then find a healer.
Rimmy. Her master knew Rimmy's real name—Simithin—but he was afraid of using it or think of her by it. Names had power to those who walked across the Shadows. She could feel it now, how the label was an anchor that pinned the shadows. The Shadow Walkers, people like Rimmy and her master, called it “naming their shadow.”
There was only one defense against it: to shift like the shadows. To find a label, use it, and cast it aside in the wind before it became part of them. Her master was known by a thousand names, as shifting as his thoughts. Only one did he keep close to his heart: Kine.
Merrie smiled. Her master's thoughts were no longer a cloud of darkness to penetrate. She was inside him. She could feel every naked insecurity, fleeting perversion, and the thrill of excitement as it ran through his mind. Even in his drug-fueled haze, she could feel him trying to find some abstract thought to occupy his mind.
She felt his focus settling on her. There was wonderment and confusion, surprise and frustration. He didn't know what happened a few hours ago and he was trying to figure out if the drugs were somehow crafting memories he never experience. Merrie smiled when they remembered that it wasn't the first time he hallucinated from pain killers.
Her bones throbbed again. She rolled on her side, the gauze around her leg dragging on the rough fabric. Runes glowed from the bandage, sealing it in place and letting the golden-green healing energy seep into the broken bone.
The healer who came wasn't nearly as powerful as Tabitha or even Borias. Merrie had watched in silence as she struggled with a spell that taxed her limits. If she was the mill, Merrie's broken leg would be healed already… or she would have been cropped. A flash of excitement ran through her and she squirmed uncomfortably. Somehow, she got excited at the idea of being cropped but she couldn't imagine why. She hated it, it was the worse day of her life. But, why did her sex start to drip and she felt her heart pounding faster every time she looked down at the smooth end of her legs?
She smiled when she remembered the healer trying to discretely heal her cropping. If she couldn't see magic, she would have never known he tried. But, Tabitha's curse was far more powerful. The cropping was part of Merrie know, she couldn't imagine a life with hands or feet again.
(I wonder if Merrie is okay.) It was her master. His thoughts were addled and hazy, but clear as if he was whispering right in her ear. There was fear for her, but also the dread of crawling out of bed and humiliating himself to check on her.
Merrie smiled and let her mind drift down the connection they shared. There was worry as it bobbed in his chaotic mind. Hesitating, she projected a questing thought. (Master?)
Shock blossomed inside her, ripping from their connection. It filled her with doubt as she was startled by her own mental voice.
(No, I couldn't have heard that. I must be hallucinating. No, she has a geas. She can't talk. She's on the other side of the mansion. Am I dying?) His thoughts came rapidly, spinning around as he tried to understand her voice in his head.
Merrie struggled for a moment, swamped by the fear that filled her. She brought up her shields, but the mental pressure couldn't protect her against the master who was already in her soul. She fought through the fear and doubts and panic to clutch her own emotions. The endless array spread out before her, from anger to love, but it was an easy choice. There was only one that would calm him down.
She smiled and pushed it back through the connection. It flowed to him like honey along a wire and sank into him.
Her master's fear dissolved into a confused laughter. (I'm going insane, that's it.) She could picture him on the bed, laughing into the pillow as he struggled with her unfamiliar presence.
She kept the pressure of humor through the connection. It buffeted his fear and doubts, eroding them until he began to laugh in earnest.
Joy came back down the connection, her own amusement magnified by her master. It slammed into her and she drowned in it. It was exquisite, the finest honey with a hint of smokey humor. It filled her mind and body. She sent a pulse of love back down, watching with her mental eye as it coursed through the leash—her leash—and into her master.
It came back stronger, a reflexive doubling of her own emotions. She briefly let it flow through her, breaking up her own fears, and then fed it back to him. Back and forth the emotions flowed between them until there was nothing but joy.
He was on his massive bed, staring at the ceiling. He smiled, though he didn't know why, and thought about her. He felt happier than he had in a very long time.
Merrie smiled and flipped on her own back. She felt every shift of his body through the connection. (Hello, my master.)
This time, the surprise was only a flicker. “Is it…” She knew he was talking and could hear the echo of his thoughts. (Is that really you? Merrie?)
Reflexive pleasure filled her. It pulsed through the connection and she felt when he stiffened in pleasure.
(Damn, you weren't) “kidding when you said” (you liked your name.) “Merrie.”
The heat rose even higher and it suffused her body. It continued to spread out to include him, filling him with her own pleasure at her name. He grew hard as her named echoed in his thoughts.
They both moaned. She was slick with need.
(What…) “How is this” (happening?) He didn't understand why she was in his thoughts. He wondered if it was something to do with her being called an “alpha” but he wasn't sure.
Merrie was surprised. When they bonded, she lost part of her past to gain his. But, her life wasn't in his memories. She had submitted to him and he dominated her. She opened her mouth with a long moan, the taste of shadow tickling her throat.
When she was amputated, there was a sense of finality in her submission. She would never be human again, never walk on her feet or pick up a mug. But, the bond was something else. She could feel it connecting their souls together. If he asked, she would do. Not only because she needed to obey him, but because she had no other choice.
A heat flared inside her, a volcano burning inside her.
(Touch yourself.) He was listening to her, his thoughts tinged with lust. (Go on.)
He didn't need to repeat the command. Unwilling to resist, she reached down with her arms and pressed her wrists to the slick seam of her sex. She was dripping already and the heat rolled off her pussy. Her master wanted her to stroke and she arched her back so she could rub against her slit, tiny movements that brought a quickening to his own breath from across the mansion.
She shifted her one good leg far apart until she felt her nether lips spread apart. She was presenting for him, not only physically but the memory of every other time she presented.
Her master's cock was aching, replacing the discomfort of his poisoning with something Merrie could take care. He wanted her but there was a hesitation.
(Too bad your leg is broken, I could use the company. But if I leave the room, Rimmy will kill me.)
Merrie chuckled and crawled on her good knee. Her body swayed with her efforts, the unfamiliarity of being on one knee and two legs.
He didn't know she could walk through the Shadow. She could imagine his surprise.
Tamin looked up. She felt his mind reached for her, like a bark. (Alpha?) It was a deep, rumbling voice. It was exactly as if he was trying to bark and growl and come up with words.
She looked at him and smiled. (My name is Merrie.)
His tail wagged. (Alpha!)
Merrie grinned. Tamin only said one thing in his thought, he only had one concept that crystallized in his coherent thoughts. She was his alpha, now and forever.
(...rie! Merrie!) Her master's thoughts drifted through her mind, but they were hazy as if he was a long distance. She focused on them and they grew clear in her mind. (Merrie! Where are you? I can't hear… think…)
(I'm here.)
There was far in his mind. (Where did you go?)
(Go?) Confusion blossomed inside her. (I haven't moved.)
(You went silent. I, I missed you.)
Merrie glanced at Tamin. As she concentrated on him, she felt a distance growing between her and her master. It felt like a gulf, the empty feeling after he pulled his cock out of her. She concentrated on him, but then Tamin's mind grew distant.
(What is happening?) Her master's curiosity filled her.
She glance at Tamin. (Tamin, could you hear that?)
Tamin opened his mouth and panted. (Alpha.)
(Master?) She changed her focus, (could you hear Tamin?)
Her master shook his head. Even across the mansion, she could feel it. (No, is he barking?)
(No, he isn't.) She alternated her concentration on her master and Tamin. As she focused on one, the other drifted away. When she moved back, she lost the other one. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get her master and Tamin in her thoughts at the same time.
(Merrie,) said her master, his mind filled with amusement and need. (Could you stop? I don't like when I can't hear you. I want to hear you.)
She let Tamin go. (Sorry, master.)
(No, it's okay. I like your voice.) He was remembering her whispering in Eolis' wagon, the intimacy and darkness. (I didn't realize I missed it.)
She smiled, wishing she could talk.
(Not one of my greatest ideas, I know. But it sometimes gets lonely, you know. In the darkness, in the shadows.)
He needed her. Not just to feel her in his mind but he was craving physical contact. The pain in his body, the aftereffects of the poison and his own brush with death needed more than just a familiar void.
She looked toward him, feeling him with all her heart. Around her, the shadows grew darker, turning into black voids that were gateways into the Shadow. The power throbbed in her bones, the icy chill of her master's magic.
Tamin and the other hounds lifted their head, feeling the power inside them. Tamin wanted to follow her, but she pushed him back. He resisted for a moment, then bowed his head. (Alpha.)
Merrie aimed for the nearest shadow and crawled into it. It was like walking through an icy wall and then she was in the Shadows. The inverse world of darkness and light. It swirled around her, the walls no longer as solid as they used to be. She felt a thrill, the same joy when her master first took him from his bed into the darkness and the first time she stepped through her own. The memories blurred together and she couldn't extricate herself from her master, but it didn't matter.
Feeling him darkly in her mind, a pit of darkness instead of the stars of submission, she let herself be drawn to him. She reached out with her wrists and crawled forward. The mansion blurred around her and she was next to the blackness of his domination, the gravity of the man who owned her soul.
She stepped through and landed on his bed. As the shadows peeled back, she gave him a bright smile.
Her master was propped up on the bed, his mouth open in surprise and shock. But underneath, there was a growing joy. “S-Shadows? You can cross over?”
(Yes,) she said and crawled forward. Her naked breast ran along his thigh and she settled down. He didn't want to fuck, despite his hard cock. He needed to feel her.
With a trembling hand, he reached down and stroked her neck. “Hi there.”
Merrie wagged her tail, her entire body swaying with the movement. She inched forward, then rolled against him, pressing her back against his shoulder and her back against his ribs. She eased her broken leg and rested it against his thigh.
“Good,” he groaned, “as sexy as you are, I'm not up to fucking. But, I think I…”
She knew what he wanted to do. Spreading her legs, she watched as she slid his arm around her waist and long her hip. His fingertips danced along her pubic mound before he delved into the slick line of her sex.
“… need to reward you for saving me.”
(I'd do anything for you.)
“No, not anything. Right now, I want you to just,” he tapped his finger against her clitoris, “enjoy being with me.”
She smiled and closed her eyes. (Always, master.)
He added a second finger and then a third, tapping with the complicated rhythm she lusted after. She knew where it came from now. It was the beat her master's master used on his drum when he was teaching her master and Rimmy about the shadow. It was the pulse of chaos and shadows.
Merrie moaned. (I love you.)
“You do, don't you.” His fingers were wet and dripping as he tapped against her, teasing her. Tiny courses of pleasure ran along her veins and she felt the smoldering heat growing inside her.
“I can feel your pleasure,” he whispered in her ear.
She rocked her hips to meet with his fingers. Every impact of his tips against her clitoris sent a burst of pleasure across her senses. She cried out in lust, needing to come for the both of them.
“When I touch you, I know you'd do anything for me.”
(I will.)
“You'd hurt for me.”
She shuddered as the orgasm almost crested inside her. (Yes.)
“You'd come for me.”
(Yes, please yes.)
He tapped harder and faster, stroking with every impact. Her sex slicked his fingers and the wet smack of his body pushed her closer to the edge.
She clutched his arm as she arched into him. (Please, master, make me come.)
The door to his room slammed open. They both jumped when it banged against the wall.
Rimmy stepped inside. The dark-skinned woman took one look at Merrie's spread legs and her master's fingers in her pussy. The scowl grew into a fury. “What is wrong with you, bastard? You know damn well you shouldn't be stepping in shadows!”
“Rimmy—”
“Don't Rimmy me! She has a broken leg and you were poisoned. This isn't time to make out like teenagers!”
(Well,) her master said with amusement, (I think Rimmy's a bit pissed.)
Merrie had to fight the smile from her lips. (Yes, master.)
(She's in one of those moods. Why don't you go back to your cage and let her bitch me out.)
(Are you sure? Will you be okay with her?)
Amusement. (Yes, I've been through her screaming fits before. But, sleep in the cage tonight because tomorrow, I'm taking it back to Rice to get it enchanted.)
Merrie tensed, feeling the playful and lustful thoughts filling her. Her master was going to have the blacksmith ward the cage to prevent her from escaping, even through the Shadow. He wanted her to be trapped and helpless inside it and her master wasn't going to let her new ability stop that hunger.
(I wouldn't leave, master.)
(No, but you would know. I would know.) He pulled his fingers from her sex. Tendrils of her juices clung to his fingertips. (When I lock you in there, I want to know you are the helpless.. bitch—)
She shuddered as an orgasm threatened to burst inside her.
(—that stole my heart.)
Merrie smiled. She reached back to kiss him, but stopped at Rimmy's glare. (I love you.)
(I love you too. But, go on. Let Rimmy scream.)
Merrie glanced at Rimmy and pulled on the shadows. The darkness in the room hardened into knife-edge gates to the other world. With a rush, the shadows stretched out and poured over her body. She fell back, stepping through the worlds and into the shifting plane of her master.
A rush coursed through her as she crawled the step to the porch and stepped back across. She landed in the entrance of her cage, her knee striking the metal plate. The tiny spark of pain was nothing compared to the boiling heat in her sex.
Rimmy froze at the foot of her master's bed, staring in shock. "W-What did she just do?"
Her master smiled and shrugged. "Stepped through the Shadows. You've seen it a thousand times."
Rimmy glanced back at the door and then to master. “No, I haven't.” She shook her head in disbelief. "Could she always do that?"
"No. Since last night."
“How?” Rimmy's confusion dropped and the anger was back. “Damn that bitch!” She spun her heels and stormed out of the room. He listened to her footsteps go down the hall.
(Well, that was the shortest—)
Rimmy came back. “Fuck you!” She grabbed the door and slammed it hard into place. It bounced off the frame and swung back, but the hall was nothing but shadows as Rimmy stormed off.
Merrie settled into the cage, finding some place where her broken leg only hurt a little and the discomfort of her icy bones didn't distract her from her master's thoughts.
(Oh, and one last thing. Merrie?)
Merrie shivered and bit back a moan.
(Come.)
Behind the words came an unvoiced command, an order to orgasm. She felt it grab her mind and shove her over the edge. The hard edge of pleasure tore through her and she let herself surrender to his demand.
Her head slammed against the edge of the cage as she cried out, her body pulsing hotly. It was an orgasm that she had never felt before, one not driven by physical pleasure. Nothing but desire, her master's command.
She arched her back and jammed her arms between her legs. Stroking furiously, she strained to maximize her master's pleasure. The ecstasy filled their connection and he began to cum himself.
Merrie was a good bitch and she couldn't wait to serve her master.