Faith of the Fallen

"You will come out into the hall and wait, or. ."

Nicci made a snipping gesture with two fingers.

By the look in his eyes, he knew that she was not bluffing. Kahlan's life now hung by a thread, and if he didn't do as she ordered, she would not hesitate to cut that thread.

With his gray eyes on her the whole time, Richard stepped out into the hall. She put a finger to the center of his chest and pushed until his back was against the wall beside their door.

"You are to wait right there, on that spot, until I tell you that you may move from it." She gritted her teeth. "Or Kahlan will die. Do you understand?"

"Nicci, you're better than this. Think about what you're-"

"Or Kahlan will die. Do you understand?"

He let out a breath. "Yes."

Nicci marched to the stairwell. Gadi stood halfway up the stairs, his dark eyes watching. He arrogantly descended toward her, until he was at the bottom with her. He had a fine form, she supposed, displayed as it was without a shirt. He was close enough to feel the heat of him.

Nicci looked him in the eye. He was the same height as she.

"I want you to have sex with me."

"What?"

"My husband does not adequately take care of my needs. I wish you to."

A smirk spread on his face as his gaze slid to Richard. He looked back at her bosom, at what was within his power to possess.

Gadi was young and bold and stupid enough to believe himself irresistible to her, to believe his puerile primping had swept away her inhibitions to the point of helpless lust for what he had to offer.

One arm pulled her to him. With his other hand, he swept her hair out of the way. His thin lips kissed her neck. When his teeth raked her flesh, she moaned to encourage him to be rough. The last thing in the world she wanted was tenderness. There could be no retribution in tenderness.

Tenderness would not cleave Richard's soul with anguish. Tenderness would not hurt him.

Gadi's hands squeezed her bottom, pulling her hard against his groin.

He moved against her in a lewd fashion. She panted in his ear to encourage his confidence in his dominion over her body.

"Tell me why."

"I'm sick of his gentle nature, his kind touch, his caring ways. That's not what a real woman needs. I want him to know what a real man can do-I want what he can't give me."

She nearly cried out in pain when he twisted her nipple.

"Yeah?"

"Yes. I want what a real man like you can do for a woman."

His rough hands squeezed her breast. She performed another moan. He smiled.

"My pleasure."

His smirk sickened her. "No, mine," she whispered in breathy submission.

He cast one more hateful glare at Richard, then bent to slip a hand up the front of her dress to see if she really meant it, if she would really let him have his way with her. His hand slid up the inside of her bare thigh, commanding surrender. She obediently parted her legs for him.

Nicci held on to his shoulders as he groped her. His upper lip curled in a haughty grin. His fingers worked without mercy. Her eyes watered. She trembled and bit the inside of her cheek to hold back her cry. Mistaking agony for lust, he was inflamed by her whimpers.

Jagang and his friend Kadar Kardeef, to name but a few, took her without her consent. None of it had ever approached the sense of violation she felt at that moment as she stood there in the hall letting that smirking little thug do to her as he would.

She forced her hand down between them and seized him.

"Gadi, are you afraid of Richard? Are are you man enough to take me while he is outside the room, listening to us, knowing you are his better with me?"

"Afraid? Of him?" His voice came in a husky growl. "Just tell me when."

"Right now. I need it from you now, Gadi."

"I thought so."

Nicci smiled inwardly at his solemn look of lust.

"Say `please, first, you little whore."

"Please." She ached only to crush his worthless skull. "Please, Gadi."

With his arm around her waist, Gadi gave Richard a taunting sneer as he swaggered past. Nicci's fingers on Gadi's back urged him to go on into their room and wait. He smiled over his shoulder and did as she wanted. Nicci paused to glare into Richard's eyes.

"We are linked. What happens to me, happens to her. I hope you are not foolish enough to think I wouldn't make you sorry for the rest of your days if you don't stay right there. I swear to you, she will die this night if you don't stay there."

"Nicci, please don't do this. You're only hurting yourself."

His voice was so tender, so compassionate. She almost threw her arms around him to beg him to stop her. . but the flame of his refusal still burned shamefully in her heart.

Nicci turned back from the doorway and gave Richard a vicious grin. "I hope your Kahlan enjoys this as much as I'm going to enjoy it. After tonight, she will never believe in you again."

-]--

Kahlan gasped. Her eyes opened. She could only make out obscure shapes in the swirling darkness. She gasped again.

A feeling she couldn't define, couldn't interpret, couldn't put a nature to, welled up in her. It was something totally foreign, yet at the same time bewitchingly familiar. Something inappropriate, yet longed for. It filled her with a kind of passionate terror that undulated seductively to indecent pleasure, pushing before it a sense of shapeless dread.

She felt the weight of a shadow over her.

Feelings and sensations she could not grasp or control inundated her even as she fought them. Nothing seemed real. She gasped again at the crude sensation. It confused her. It hurt, and at the same time she felt a kind of wild hunger awakening.

It was as if Richard were there, in bed with her. It felt so good again. She was panting. Her mouth was dry as dust.

In Richard's intimate embrace she had always felt a kind of expectant delight that their shameless lust could never be completely sated-that there was always a spark of something left to explore, to reach toward, to define.

She had always exalted in the idea of that endless quest for the unattainable.

She drew a sharp breath. She felt herself in that headlong rush, now.

But this was something she had never imagined. Her fists clutched at the sheets, her mouth opened in a silent scream against the ripping thrust of pain.

This was not human. It made no sense. She gasped again in panic as the most awful feelings burgeoned through her. She moaned at the horror of it, at the hint of pleasure in it, and at the confusion of nearly enjoying the sensation.

The realization came to her. She knew what this meant.

Tears stung her eyes. She rolled onto her side, torn between the joy of feeling Richard, and the pain of knowing that Nicci was feeling him in this way, too. She was slammed onto her back.

She gasped again, her eyes going wide, her whole body rigid.

She cried out at the pain. She twisted and struggled, covering her breasts with her arms. Her eyes watered at agony she couldn't explain or completely identify.

She missed Richard so much. She wanted him so badly it hurt.

She gave in to him, even in this, she surrendered herself to him. A low wail escaped her throat.

Her muscles knotted as tight as oak roots. She was racked with wave after wave of startling pain mixed with an unsatisfied longing that had turned to revulsion. She couldn't get her breath.

She burst into tears as it ceased, her body finally able to move again, but too exhausted to do so. She had hated every violent appalling brutal second of it, and grieved that it had ended because she had at least felt him.

She felt joy that she had so unexpectedly sensed him, and blind rage at what it meant. She clutched the sheets in her fists as she wept inconsolably.