For Her Favor, Pt 9
For Her Favor, Pt. 9
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Cara/Kahlan/Dahlia
Warnings: Extreme non-con, torture, Agiel violence, hurt/comfort, bdsm, gore, angst, Mord’Sith temper, domestic violence, evil!cara, language
Author’s Note: AU. And I’m sorry for that, Kahlan. I really love you.
Summary: Mistress Cara wants to own a Confessor. Dahlia wants to give her one.
Disclaimer: I only own my sickness. Not for profit, only for demented fun. Legend of the Seeker characters and depictions belong to Terry Goodkind, Disney and ABC Studios.
For Gizmo :D
Cara was unsure what would happen if she just laid Dahlia down on the ground and walked away.
The idea that she may crawl away out into that darkness led to her gripping Dahlia’s dirty hair tighter, pushing her face harder into her neckpiece. It was enough to leave imprints of laces which stalked and temporarily branded Dahlia’s pale jaw as hers.
Cara repeated it in her head. "I don't believe you."
Dahlia's words, both and fragile and cutting, echoed within Cara's ears, boiling them. She could've bashed her head in for them. She could've hated her for them and held onto that hate for the rest of her life.
But instead, she smirked endearingly. The longer she held Dahlia, the more she convinced herself that the worst was over. Dahlia felt so warm, hot even, teeming with the menagerie of life and possibility that had come so close to ending only moments before. It was hard to believe that it was only the beginning. The predictable sun would be rising soon and she had an idea that this was the beginning of their happiness again.
Dahlia sniffled, twisting herself awkwardly in Cara’s arms, unable to relax against the vulnerability of her grip. Cara refused to loosen the fortitude and thickness of it and paid little attention to the fire that began to snuff itself out.
Loving Dahlia had been the most creative force she had ever known. The reality that it came close to only surviving in memory was now the most destructive one.
"Stay awake with me, Dahlia," Cara whispered, tilting her head back so she could better see the unbalanced blueness of her eyes.
Dahlia obeyed, gulping sorely, fighting the daunting pull of her fever.
"You've grown such a need within me..." Cara said, rocking her, "one you will always have to fill alone." Dahlia exhaled somberly as she continued even softer, "That is our truth. Kahlan will never be you."
Having Cara close again provided almost the same sensation as dying, though in reverse. Even with the added physical pain of Cara's muscles crushing her, it was everything to Dahlia to be held like this. It was all she had ever wanted. In this one moment, to her, Cara was everything she had ever dreamed she could be.
There was such biting and frugal agony in knowing that it was a just moment and like all moments, it could not last. She had to end it.
"Kahlan. Is she alive?"
Cara nodded slowly and Dahlia's voice barely went anywhere at all. "Thank you, Mistress."
The sound of her appreciation crept into Cara, forming strange, affectionate tears that turned the rest of her cold. For a brief moment, she was unsure if she deserved to be called Mistress.
"Cara?"
"Yes?"
"I can't breathe."
"Of course you can," Cara slid her palm up Dahlia's chest, "I'm here now and... I own your every heartbeat," she said, moving to her lips, "every breath," stopping to pinch at her shoulder, "and every bone."
Dahlia blinked over the piercing layers of water that began to blur her ability to see Cara. "You once owned my love too."
Cara yanked all of Dahlia’s short hair up in one hardened action and tugged her head back, seething down into her. "When you cry…" she whispered, "you look just like your mother. One more lie and you'll be just as dead as she is, Dahlia." She kissed her head, released it.
As Kahlan heard Mistress Cara's muffled voice, she jumped and carefully tiptoed down the hallway, slowing until she was creeping forward. She peeked around the corner, frightened by the silence and the lighting.
It fascinated Kahlan to see Mistress Cara being so tender with something and she couldn't help but stare the entire time Cara's fingers were brushing upon Dahlia's soft white face. The way Dahlia's eyes followed tore at her and enlivened her simultaneously.
The longer she watched their movements, the more she learned, and the more inescapable Cara became.
The soft patter of approaching footsteps distracted Dahlia's heart but not her gaze.
"Mistress," Kahlan whispered, in awe, kneeling down before her. She bowed her head faithfully, all her hair falling forward, stunned by the touching combination of their varying strengths.
Dahlia bit her lip, she couldn't move her eyes away from Cara, even as she spoke Kahlan's name in relief.
In one of the most excruciating movements of her life, Cara shifted Dahlia around, towards Kahlan. The Confessor suddenly outstretched both arms as far as they would go and tried not to look at Cara, afraid that any contact would somehow void this generous action or that Dahlia would vanish down into the floor and be lost again forever.
"Be careful with her," Cara warned, glaring untrustingly.
Dahlia was overwhelmed, confused by the softness of the pairing, and ultimately wary of it. The second that Cara's touch left her, she felt both abandoned and reassured, victimized and valued.
"We'll take care of you, Mistress," Kahlan blurted out. Refraining from leaning down and kissing her took such effort that it thoroughly rattled underneath her skin, shaking her.
"You're hurt?" Dahlia asked faintly, cringing at the sight of her damaged face, searching for the fear she was certain would be there too, keeping all the bruises at bay. She felt a surge of sickened panic when it wasn't.
Kahlan finally looked across, remembering the watery abyss she had been returned from anew. "Mistress Cara saved my life." There was pride in both her voice and wild smile.
Cara crossed her arms and watched them suspiciously, analyzing the painstaking interaction more than she would've believed herself possible of enduring. Of course, Dahlia took pets and slaves like any other respectable Mord'Sith, but always as a substitute for her Mistress or as ordered by her. In all their years, Cara had never seen any true feeling behind a single action that she ever had to pause to question or consider.
Even in a bed with every pet in the Temple, Dahlia only desired her Mistress. It was always suppose to be that way.
The Confessor's time had apparently expired and Cara moved over hastily. "Lay her down."
As Kahlan moved to comply, Dahlia put her hand over Kahlan's, lingering it, savoring the contact more than Cara ever wished to see.
As Dahlia's mind diluted itself with hot pulses of confusion, she felt her leather being scraped off her, making the most insulting sound as it left it her skin. Kahlan had been ordered down at her feet, removing her boots. Dahlia knew it was Kahlan solely by the way she grabbed at her ankles so tightly and beautifully.
As she laid on her back and they worked on removing her pants, Dahlia reached down and touched Kahlan's head, looping some hair around her finger. "Hold me," she said to her.
With an eyebrow raised, Cara knocked Dahlia's hand away and shoved Kahlan back by her forehead. She finished the task herself and Kahlan could only watch with widened, listless eyes as Cara climbed on top of Dahlia and her lips started around Dahlia's cheek, then moved slowly to her neck, tasting it roughly before inhaling it and nibbling it, both craving it and missing it with equal eloquence.
Dahlia shifted into it all, gasping from the pain of consciousness as it began to war with the absent rings of pleasure that circled her. Cara went lower, sucking at each breast, biting the places that often teased Dahlia into squealing. But now, she just laid there. For a few parallel moments, it took each of them back to Snake's floor, the quick and frenzied glistening world of comfort that Cara would create and maintain in the uncertain lulls that was born in Snake's absence. It wasn't enough to just survive.
"Cara, stop," Dahlia was saying, halfway between resisting her and encouraging her.
"I can’t," she replied, moving her around anxiously, returning to the place it missed the most, Dahlia's mouth and every promise it ever held. She wasn't suppose to want Kahlan to hold her.
Bitterly, Cara stopped and motioned for the Confessor to come closer. Using the tried and true combination of Kahlan's teeth and mouth to quickly remove her glove, she forced her fingers inside, scratching and kneading against Kahlan's tongue. As she removed them, dripping, they didn't care about anything other than the immediate need to be inside Dahlia, filling her, taking her in, reminding her.
Cara entered her with an unapologetic grunt, moving her hand back and forth dotingly at first, sliding with the delicate precision that only Dahlia had ever been worthy of. She wanted her to feel the enormity of her power and relief and love in ways she had fallen short of expressing any other way. Dahlia was hers, no matter how much she was being tested or slighted, and the Dahlia that she knew would always want this from her Mistress, even as she lay dying.
She also knew that Dahlia would try and turn away from this if given the chance now, so she held her chin tightly and determined that it face her.
"You’re so wet, Dahlia, look how your body misses me." She had to convince her. She wouldn't stand for it to be any other way.
For the first time in a long time, Dahlia recoiled from her intimacy, unable to keep still, imprisoned in her frame and thrashing against the floorboards, creaking them violently underneath her. Kahlan looked down helplessly, tortured by the sound mixing with the absence of Dahlia's pleas to stop.
Cara didn't even pretend to exert any meaningful control over herself. Dahlia whimpered at the force of it, the undaunted hatred that seemed to propel it and the aching honesty that sustained it.
Dahlia panted through the incoming sensations, processing them only partially. She was so tired, so worn down, a shell that had forgotten it was once more. But she continued to struggle in the deeply understated way her limbs would allow. Although, with every pump into her, she grew more devastated that Cara was behind them at such a complicated and weakened moment but even through her dulled consciousness, she was not entirely shocked by it.
The minute Kahlan's eyes finally locked with Dahlia's, she could take no more. "Mistress Cara," she pleaded forcefully, "she's weak, she's hurt."
"Get over here," Cara ordered under her breath, pulling Kahlan over by a large chunk of her hanging, messy hair. "Undress me, then hold her down."
"What?!" she cried, panicked, "I can't!"
"Now, Kahlan, or you'll never touch her again."
Kahlan shook her head wearily. "Take me. I won't fight you like before. I'm so sorry." And she was.
Using only the defeat in her heavy eyes, Dahlia urged Kahlan to give it up and relent. Cara knew all these tricks, these games, these sacrifices.
Before she stood for Kahlan, she looked down at Dahlia with superiority and reverence and touched her eyelids, kissed them even as they filled again with numbed tears, and each of them, for a second and for different reasons, were enslaved to the pain of anticipation.
Dahlia resented her own brazen goosebumps and her body's overly toned understanding that it needed to always fulfill Cara, even before herself, even if it killed her.
As Cara's leather came off and she came back down, Dahlia tried to look away but again, Cara roughly corrected it. There was nothing else to see.
"Give me your fingers, I need this."
With her head hung, Kahlan moved in behind Dahlia, clutching her possessively as Dahlia had once done to her back when they had to pay Mistress Denna. This was different. Dahlia was a Mistress, she was above this. Cara was above this.
"You've become just like her, Cara," Dahlia managed, lifting her hand and placing it loosely on her thigh but refusing to go any lower.
Cara forced Dahlia's best fingers inside her all at once, moaning quietly, relishing it more than for what it was and could've come instantly had she not been looking directly at Kahlan's horrified face. She tensed, riding the cool air and coming down harder into her, more evil than she knew, but feeling complete once again.
Kahlan felt each jolt of Dahlia's body push into her, and it was angry to be dragged to these edges, fearful of so much below.
"I've become like who?" Cara asked as an afterthought, repeating her motions eagerly and smashing down more evenly, taking Dahlia by her hips. These hands were made for her.
"Snake."
"Of course," Cara snapped coldly, reactively barreling down an open fist into Dahlia's lip. "My Mistress did her job."
A gurgling pocket of blood dizzily trapped itself all inside Cara's mouth before she even knew she'd been struck. Kahlan had punched her back in the same location immediately, knocking her backwards. She hadn't been punched in the face in a long time, and it showed.
Savagely lunging back at Kahlan was more instinct and reflex than anything else, and Cara didn't consider how Kahlan would be dropping Dahlia's head as she was pulled back, dragged across the room and mounted insidiously.
Though Cara was used to being challenged by her jealous Sisters and disobedient pets, defending Dahlia had solely been her lifelong responsibility and, one that in a heartbeat, was undeniably no longer hers alone. And she hated it. She wanted to strangle it, kill it, banish all remnants of it's existence to a place where it could never return from.
It was something her Agiel could not tame and she didn't even reach for it.
Kahlan covered herself the best she could, shielding her head from Cara's rage as it blasted itself through throughout the Mord'Sith's skilled arms, guiding her hands to where they knew to destroy. As each blow knocked more of Kahlan's face against the floor, Cara thought of something she had strictly forbidden herself to recall. The night she'd pressed herself against the wall and delicate shadows in their room and saw Kahlan fucking Dahlia in the bed they shared.
The trust she'd built around Dahlia and the love that kept it from falling were being seduced and fucked by Kahlan. She secured both hands around the Confessor's neck, and squeezed it tight.
"Cara, please," Dahlia cried, turning over onto her stomach, coughing into the ground. She crawled the few feet that divided them and placed her hand on Cara's sweaty lower back and clawed into it. "Let me do it."
Cara released her handle and Kahlan convulsed all at once, gasping rigidly, and whining out in gratitude. She touched Dahlia's busted lip, leaned down and licked it, thinking of how Snake used to cheaply Agiel the same spot.
"You trained her to love you too much," Cara scoffed. "It's going to get her killed."
She was willing to spare Kahlan. Death would've been far too good for her she pathetically reasoned as she rose to her bare feet, finding the floor had grown inhumanly cold, and gave Kahlan a single kick in her side. "See how much Mistress Dahlia hates you? She'd finish you off right now if I asked it of her."
Cara bent down and carefully helped Dahlia to her feet as Kahlan tried to even out her terrified breaths, confused as to why she was still alive, watching Dahlia's gorgeous legs as they lifted and she tried to find her footing.
Cara swallowed. "You're Mord'Sith. Even if you were dead, you would walk."
Dahlia fumbled with her steps, falling blindly into Cara, but together, they kept upright and moved forward.
Finally, she laid Dahlia on the left side of the bed and pulled the blankets over her, sitting beside her, enamored with her face. She pressed her finger to the tip of Dahlia's red nose, melting in her eyes, pretending she didn't see her flinch. "I don't know what I would've been without you."
Nothing, Kahlan thought as she crept closer, timidly watching for any instruction to turn away.
"It's going to be better in the morning, Dahlia. Close your eyes now." As she did so, Kahlan moved in to undo Cara's braid with tingling fingers. She wiped the blood from her lips, kissing the back of her neck until the freed hair fell all around it.
"Forgive me, Mistress," she begged, drawing closer to Cara's ear. "I would've done the same for you."
"Look at her."
"She's so beautiful."
"You found the chain wrapped in velvet in my bag?" Cara asked dolefully.
"Yes, but...?"
"Bring it to me."
She hurried to the dresser where she had placed the bounty of Cara's things. Cara's brush, her knives, soaps, her strap on.
"I know what you have to do," Kahlan said, handing the chain over. "But if you bind her hands behind her back, it'll hurt her."
"I know what it feels like," Cara snapped, incensed at the idea that Kahlan could know anything about pain.
It was a simple though heavy chain, usually meant for securing two wrists or two ankles together. They both knew she could chain Dahlia to this bed with infinite ease but Cara wouldn't trust anything or anyone but herself.
She locked the first cuff painfully tight around her own wrist and moved purposefully up Dahlia's resting body. Though Cara's mouth remained firmly closed and silent, her eyes asked for nothing as she bent down and closed the other one around Dahlia's tiny wrist.
Dahlia wasn't conscious enough to react, though even if she were, Cara doubted she would've made any type of noise.
They both knew that Kahlan deserved to sleep on the ground, below them, but after she frantically undressed herself, she somehow knew to take her place on the right side next to Mistress Cara. There was just enough room for her. She wanted to kiss where she had punched at her Mistress but instead she closed her eyes and listened to them each breathing so distinctly and dependently.
Their imperfections only brought Kahlan closer to them, reminding her that they were people, more than guarded weapons of D'Hara, and that they had been in love with one another against all odds and all reason.
Cara snuggled against Dahlia's back, wrapping her arms around her, clanging their chains. It would all be better. She had Dahlia now and with her, it always was. Though she didn't know it, Dahlia was the bridge to a life she had long evolved past and one that still yearned for her, expecting her to somehow return home to it. Cara had protected Dahlia, cherished her beyond all the other girls, women and Mistresses.
There was, like everything in Mord'Sith and human existence, a price to pay for that security and survival. Once Dahlia grew stronger, she would need to be reminded of this. But, for tonight, this was happiness.
***
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Cara/Kahlan/Dahlia
Warnings: Extreme non-con, torture, Agiel violence, hurt/comfort, bdsm, gore, angst, Mord’Sith temper, domestic violence, evil!cara, language
Author’s Note: AU. And I’m sorry for that, Kahlan. I really love you.
Summary: Mistress Cara wants to own a Confessor. Dahlia wants to give her one.
Disclaimer: I only own my sickness. Not for profit, only for demented fun. Legend of the Seeker characters and depictions belong to Terry Goodkind, Disney and ABC Studios.
For Gizmo :D
Cara was unsure what would happen if she just laid Dahlia down on the ground and walked away.
The idea that she may crawl away out into that darkness led to her gripping Dahlia’s dirty hair tighter, pushing her face harder into her neckpiece. It was enough to leave imprints of laces which stalked and temporarily branded Dahlia’s pale jaw as hers.
Cara repeated it in her head. "I don't believe you."
Dahlia's words, both and fragile and cutting, echoed within Cara's ears, boiling them. She could've bashed her head in for them. She could've hated her for them and held onto that hate for the rest of her life.
But instead, she smirked endearingly. The longer she held Dahlia, the more she convinced herself that the worst was over. Dahlia felt so warm, hot even, teeming with the menagerie of life and possibility that had come so close to ending only moments before. It was hard to believe that it was only the beginning. The predictable sun would be rising soon and she had an idea that this was the beginning of their happiness again.
Dahlia sniffled, twisting herself awkwardly in Cara’s arms, unable to relax against the vulnerability of her grip. Cara refused to loosen the fortitude and thickness of it and paid little attention to the fire that began to snuff itself out.
Loving Dahlia had been the most creative force she had ever known. The reality that it came close to only surviving in memory was now the most destructive one.
"Stay awake with me, Dahlia," Cara whispered, tilting her head back so she could better see the unbalanced blueness of her eyes.
Dahlia obeyed, gulping sorely, fighting the daunting pull of her fever.
"You've grown such a need within me..." Cara said, rocking her, "one you will always have to fill alone." Dahlia exhaled somberly as she continued even softer, "That is our truth. Kahlan will never be you."
Having Cara close again provided almost the same sensation as dying, though in reverse. Even with the added physical pain of Cara's muscles crushing her, it was everything to Dahlia to be held like this. It was all she had ever wanted. In this one moment, to her, Cara was everything she had ever dreamed she could be.
There was such biting and frugal agony in knowing that it was a just moment and like all moments, it could not last. She had to end it.
"Kahlan. Is she alive?"
Cara nodded slowly and Dahlia's voice barely went anywhere at all. "Thank you, Mistress."
The sound of her appreciation crept into Cara, forming strange, affectionate tears that turned the rest of her cold. For a brief moment, she was unsure if she deserved to be called Mistress.
"Cara?"
"Yes?"
"I can't breathe."
"Of course you can," Cara slid her palm up Dahlia's chest, "I'm here now and... I own your every heartbeat," she said, moving to her lips, "every breath," stopping to pinch at her shoulder, "and every bone."
Dahlia blinked over the piercing layers of water that began to blur her ability to see Cara. "You once owned my love too."
Cara yanked all of Dahlia’s short hair up in one hardened action and tugged her head back, seething down into her. "When you cry…" she whispered, "you look just like your mother. One more lie and you'll be just as dead as she is, Dahlia." She kissed her head, released it.
As Kahlan heard Mistress Cara's muffled voice, she jumped and carefully tiptoed down the hallway, slowing until she was creeping forward. She peeked around the corner, frightened by the silence and the lighting.
It fascinated Kahlan to see Mistress Cara being so tender with something and she couldn't help but stare the entire time Cara's fingers were brushing upon Dahlia's soft white face. The way Dahlia's eyes followed tore at her and enlivened her simultaneously.
The longer she watched their movements, the more she learned, and the more inescapable Cara became.
The soft patter of approaching footsteps distracted Dahlia's heart but not her gaze.
"Mistress," Kahlan whispered, in awe, kneeling down before her. She bowed her head faithfully, all her hair falling forward, stunned by the touching combination of their varying strengths.
Dahlia bit her lip, she couldn't move her eyes away from Cara, even as she spoke Kahlan's name in relief.
In one of the most excruciating movements of her life, Cara shifted Dahlia around, towards Kahlan. The Confessor suddenly outstretched both arms as far as they would go and tried not to look at Cara, afraid that any contact would somehow void this generous action or that Dahlia would vanish down into the floor and be lost again forever.
"Be careful with her," Cara warned, glaring untrustingly.
Dahlia was overwhelmed, confused by the softness of the pairing, and ultimately wary of it. The second that Cara's touch left her, she felt both abandoned and reassured, victimized and valued.
"We'll take care of you, Mistress," Kahlan blurted out. Refraining from leaning down and kissing her took such effort that it thoroughly rattled underneath her skin, shaking her.
"You're hurt?" Dahlia asked faintly, cringing at the sight of her damaged face, searching for the fear she was certain would be there too, keeping all the bruises at bay. She felt a surge of sickened panic when it wasn't.
Kahlan finally looked across, remembering the watery abyss she had been returned from anew. "Mistress Cara saved my life." There was pride in both her voice and wild smile.
Cara crossed her arms and watched them suspiciously, analyzing the painstaking interaction more than she would've believed herself possible of enduring. Of course, Dahlia took pets and slaves like any other respectable Mord'Sith, but always as a substitute for her Mistress or as ordered by her. In all their years, Cara had never seen any true feeling behind a single action that she ever had to pause to question or consider.
Even in a bed with every pet in the Temple, Dahlia only desired her Mistress. It was always suppose to be that way.
The Confessor's time had apparently expired and Cara moved over hastily. "Lay her down."
As Kahlan moved to comply, Dahlia put her hand over Kahlan's, lingering it, savoring the contact more than Cara ever wished to see.
As Dahlia's mind diluted itself with hot pulses of confusion, she felt her leather being scraped off her, making the most insulting sound as it left it her skin. Kahlan had been ordered down at her feet, removing her boots. Dahlia knew it was Kahlan solely by the way she grabbed at her ankles so tightly and beautifully.
As she laid on her back and they worked on removing her pants, Dahlia reached down and touched Kahlan's head, looping some hair around her finger. "Hold me," she said to her.
With an eyebrow raised, Cara knocked Dahlia's hand away and shoved Kahlan back by her forehead. She finished the task herself and Kahlan could only watch with widened, listless eyes as Cara climbed on top of Dahlia and her lips started around Dahlia's cheek, then moved slowly to her neck, tasting it roughly before inhaling it and nibbling it, both craving it and missing it with equal eloquence.
Dahlia shifted into it all, gasping from the pain of consciousness as it began to war with the absent rings of pleasure that circled her. Cara went lower, sucking at each breast, biting the places that often teased Dahlia into squealing. But now, she just laid there. For a few parallel moments, it took each of them back to Snake's floor, the quick and frenzied glistening world of comfort that Cara would create and maintain in the uncertain lulls that was born in Snake's absence. It wasn't enough to just survive.
"Cara, stop," Dahlia was saying, halfway between resisting her and encouraging her.
"I can’t," she replied, moving her around anxiously, returning to the place it missed the most, Dahlia's mouth and every promise it ever held. She wasn't suppose to want Kahlan to hold her.
Bitterly, Cara stopped and motioned for the Confessor to come closer. Using the tried and true combination of Kahlan's teeth and mouth to quickly remove her glove, she forced her fingers inside, scratching and kneading against Kahlan's tongue. As she removed them, dripping, they didn't care about anything other than the immediate need to be inside Dahlia, filling her, taking her in, reminding her.
Cara entered her with an unapologetic grunt, moving her hand back and forth dotingly at first, sliding with the delicate precision that only Dahlia had ever been worthy of. She wanted her to feel the enormity of her power and relief and love in ways she had fallen short of expressing any other way. Dahlia was hers, no matter how much she was being tested or slighted, and the Dahlia that she knew would always want this from her Mistress, even as she lay dying.
She also knew that Dahlia would try and turn away from this if given the chance now, so she held her chin tightly and determined that it face her.
"You’re so wet, Dahlia, look how your body misses me." She had to convince her. She wouldn't stand for it to be any other way.
For the first time in a long time, Dahlia recoiled from her intimacy, unable to keep still, imprisoned in her frame and thrashing against the floorboards, creaking them violently underneath her. Kahlan looked down helplessly, tortured by the sound mixing with the absence of Dahlia's pleas to stop.
Cara didn't even pretend to exert any meaningful control over herself. Dahlia whimpered at the force of it, the undaunted hatred that seemed to propel it and the aching honesty that sustained it.
Dahlia panted through the incoming sensations, processing them only partially. She was so tired, so worn down, a shell that had forgotten it was once more. But she continued to struggle in the deeply understated way her limbs would allow. Although, with every pump into her, she grew more devastated that Cara was behind them at such a complicated and weakened moment but even through her dulled consciousness, she was not entirely shocked by it.
The minute Kahlan's eyes finally locked with Dahlia's, she could take no more. "Mistress Cara," she pleaded forcefully, "she's weak, she's hurt."
"Get over here," Cara ordered under her breath, pulling Kahlan over by a large chunk of her hanging, messy hair. "Undress me, then hold her down."
"What?!" she cried, panicked, "I can't!"
"Now, Kahlan, or you'll never touch her again."
Kahlan shook her head wearily. "Take me. I won't fight you like before. I'm so sorry." And she was.
Using only the defeat in her heavy eyes, Dahlia urged Kahlan to give it up and relent. Cara knew all these tricks, these games, these sacrifices.
Before she stood for Kahlan, she looked down at Dahlia with superiority and reverence and touched her eyelids, kissed them even as they filled again with numbed tears, and each of them, for a second and for different reasons, were enslaved to the pain of anticipation.
Dahlia resented her own brazen goosebumps and her body's overly toned understanding that it needed to always fulfill Cara, even before herself, even if it killed her.
As Cara's leather came off and she came back down, Dahlia tried to look away but again, Cara roughly corrected it. There was nothing else to see.
"Give me your fingers, I need this."
With her head hung, Kahlan moved in behind Dahlia, clutching her possessively as Dahlia had once done to her back when they had to pay Mistress Denna. This was different. Dahlia was a Mistress, she was above this. Cara was above this.
"You've become just like her, Cara," Dahlia managed, lifting her hand and placing it loosely on her thigh but refusing to go any lower.
Cara forced Dahlia's best fingers inside her all at once, moaning quietly, relishing it more than for what it was and could've come instantly had she not been looking directly at Kahlan's horrified face. She tensed, riding the cool air and coming down harder into her, more evil than she knew, but feeling complete once again.
Kahlan felt each jolt of Dahlia's body push into her, and it was angry to be dragged to these edges, fearful of so much below.
"I've become like who?" Cara asked as an afterthought, repeating her motions eagerly and smashing down more evenly, taking Dahlia by her hips. These hands were made for her.
"Snake."
"Of course," Cara snapped coldly, reactively barreling down an open fist into Dahlia's lip. "My Mistress did her job."
A gurgling pocket of blood dizzily trapped itself all inside Cara's mouth before she even knew she'd been struck. Kahlan had punched her back in the same location immediately, knocking her backwards. She hadn't been punched in the face in a long time, and it showed.
Savagely lunging back at Kahlan was more instinct and reflex than anything else, and Cara didn't consider how Kahlan would be dropping Dahlia's head as she was pulled back, dragged across the room and mounted insidiously.
Though Cara was used to being challenged by her jealous Sisters and disobedient pets, defending Dahlia had solely been her lifelong responsibility and, one that in a heartbeat, was undeniably no longer hers alone. And she hated it. She wanted to strangle it, kill it, banish all remnants of it's existence to a place where it could never return from.
It was something her Agiel could not tame and she didn't even reach for it.
Kahlan covered herself the best she could, shielding her head from Cara's rage as it blasted itself through throughout the Mord'Sith's skilled arms, guiding her hands to where they knew to destroy. As each blow knocked more of Kahlan's face against the floor, Cara thought of something she had strictly forbidden herself to recall. The night she'd pressed herself against the wall and delicate shadows in their room and saw Kahlan fucking Dahlia in the bed they shared.
The trust she'd built around Dahlia and the love that kept it from falling were being seduced and fucked by Kahlan. She secured both hands around the Confessor's neck, and squeezed it tight.
"Cara, please," Dahlia cried, turning over onto her stomach, coughing into the ground. She crawled the few feet that divided them and placed her hand on Cara's sweaty lower back and clawed into it. "Let me do it."
Cara released her handle and Kahlan convulsed all at once, gasping rigidly, and whining out in gratitude. She touched Dahlia's busted lip, leaned down and licked it, thinking of how Snake used to cheaply Agiel the same spot.
"You trained her to love you too much," Cara scoffed. "It's going to get her killed."
She was willing to spare Kahlan. Death would've been far too good for her she pathetically reasoned as she rose to her bare feet, finding the floor had grown inhumanly cold, and gave Kahlan a single kick in her side. "See how much Mistress Dahlia hates you? She'd finish you off right now if I asked it of her."
Cara bent down and carefully helped Dahlia to her feet as Kahlan tried to even out her terrified breaths, confused as to why she was still alive, watching Dahlia's gorgeous legs as they lifted and she tried to find her footing.
Cara swallowed. "You're Mord'Sith. Even if you were dead, you would walk."
Dahlia fumbled with her steps, falling blindly into Cara, but together, they kept upright and moved forward.
Finally, she laid Dahlia on the left side of the bed and pulled the blankets over her, sitting beside her, enamored with her face. She pressed her finger to the tip of Dahlia's red nose, melting in her eyes, pretending she didn't see her flinch. "I don't know what I would've been without you."
Nothing, Kahlan thought as she crept closer, timidly watching for any instruction to turn away.
"It's going to be better in the morning, Dahlia. Close your eyes now." As she did so, Kahlan moved in to undo Cara's braid with tingling fingers. She wiped the blood from her lips, kissing the back of her neck until the freed hair fell all around it.
"Forgive me, Mistress," she begged, drawing closer to Cara's ear. "I would've done the same for you."
"Look at her."
"She's so beautiful."
"You found the chain wrapped in velvet in my bag?" Cara asked dolefully.
"Yes, but...?"
"Bring it to me."
She hurried to the dresser where she had placed the bounty of Cara's things. Cara's brush, her knives, soaps, her strap on.
"I know what you have to do," Kahlan said, handing the chain over. "But if you bind her hands behind her back, it'll hurt her."
"I know what it feels like," Cara snapped, incensed at the idea that Kahlan could know anything about pain.
It was a simple though heavy chain, usually meant for securing two wrists or two ankles together. They both knew she could chain Dahlia to this bed with infinite ease but Cara wouldn't trust anything or anyone but herself.
She locked the first cuff painfully tight around her own wrist and moved purposefully up Dahlia's resting body. Though Cara's mouth remained firmly closed and silent, her eyes asked for nothing as she bent down and closed the other one around Dahlia's tiny wrist.
Dahlia wasn't conscious enough to react, though even if she were, Cara doubted she would've made any type of noise.
They both knew that Kahlan deserved to sleep on the ground, below them, but after she frantically undressed herself, she somehow knew to take her place on the right side next to Mistress Cara. There was just enough room for her. She wanted to kiss where she had punched at her Mistress but instead she closed her eyes and listened to them each breathing so distinctly and dependently.
Their imperfections only brought Kahlan closer to them, reminding her that they were people, more than guarded weapons of D'Hara, and that they had been in love with one another against all odds and all reason.
Cara snuggled against Dahlia's back, wrapping her arms around her, clanging their chains. It would all be better. She had Dahlia now and with her, it always was. Though she didn't know it, Dahlia was the bridge to a life she had long evolved past and one that still yearned for her, expecting her to somehow return home to it. Cara had protected Dahlia, cherished her beyond all the other girls, women and Mistresses.
There was, like everything in Mord'Sith and human existence, a price to pay for that security and survival. Once Dahlia grew stronger, she would need to be reminded of this. But, for tonight, this was happiness.
***