“He loves me,” she said. “Love is the last thing I need from you.”

“Tell me what I can give you that he can’t.” Kingsley pushed in deeper until she enveloped his hand.

“It doesn’t matter. You won’t give it to me.”

“How do you know until you tell me what it is?”

“I know. I promise you, I know already,” she said, and Kingsley heard despair in her voice. “Fuck me. That’s all that matters.”

He did as he was told. He pushed her onto her stomach and dragged a pillow under her hips. She tensed at first when he pushed his tongue into her tightest hole but relaxed after a minute and opened up for him. He rolled on a condom and entered her again. The tightness was ecstasy around him. He lasted only a few thrusts before he came.

But he didn’t pull out. He wasn’t ready to pull out. He would never be ready to leave her body. Kingsley lay on top of her, his naked chest to her naked back, his cock still buried in her, and their breaths intermingling.

“Anything,” he whispered. “I’ll do anything you ask of me.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Ask it.”

He slid out of her and turned her onto her back.

“Tell me what it is I can give you that he can’t.”

“You won’t give it to me.”

“Tell me,” he ordered again. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. Any price, any prize, anything you want—I will find a way to give it to you.”

He cupped her face, caressed her hair.

She looked up at him with tired, hooded eyes.

“Death,” she said.

Kingsley sat up and looked down at her in utter horror.

“You’re right,” Kingsley said. “That is the one thing I can’t give you.”

She only smiled.

“I told you so.”

15

Upstate New York

AFTER ALL THE sisters went to bed at the ungodly hour of eight o’clock, Elle crept down the stairs to the library. Every night she made this little pilgrimage. She’d go stir-crazy if she had to lie in her tiny bed in her tiny cell and stare at the ceiling while she waited for sleep. Only in the library did she feel a little like her old self. She threw wood in the fireplace, switched on a lamp or two and sat and read anything she could find that wasn’t the Bible.

Surrounded by books, Elle could pretend she was at her old job at Wordsworth’s where she’d worked part-time during college and full-time until she was twenty-five. She’d hated to quit her job, but things were so busy at Kingsley’s that working by day and helping him manage a stable of submissives, Dominatrixes and various Fetishists who worked on and off his clock became too much for her. She didn’t need her minuscule paycheck anyway. Kingsley let her live in luxury at his town house for free. He’d even given her a credit card that he’d ordered her to use for everything she wanted or needed. But she was no kept woman, no pampered princess. She trained the submissives for Kingsley, kept his house in order and did anything he asked her to do, in and out of the bedroom. And not a week passed that she didn’t go to bed with Kingsley and Søren and give her body up to them both, all night long. Oh yes, she earned her keep.

The physical memories of all those nights threatened to flood her senses. Elle pushed them out of her mind as she pulled a book off the shelf—a decaying copy of Bulfinch’s Mythology. Elle carefully turned the dry and yellowed pages as she hunted for an entry. She and Kyrie had talked mythology a few days ago—Sisyphus specifically. She knew in the legend Sisyphus had been given his meaningless task as a punishment, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what he’d done wrong. It hadn’t been the act of giving the secret of fire to humanity. That had been Prometheus, not Sisyphus. And the gods had punished Prometheus by chaining him to a rock and having an eagle peck out his liver for all eternity.

Which was worse? Pushing the rock up the hill or being attacked by a bird? If she had to choose, she probably would pick the eagle. At least she wouldn’t be alone then. Even if the bird was hurting her, at least there would be another living creature there. All Sisyphus had was the rock.

“Can I share your fire?”

Elle looked up from her book. Kyrie stood in the doorway in her long white bathrobe. Her white veil covered her hair but Elle could see wisps of blond and brown at her temples.

“You’re not supposed to be talking,” Elle whispered. “Great Silence, remember?”

“Mother Prioress said the sisters aren’t supposed to talk to each other during the Great Silence.” Kyrie stepped into the library uninvited. Elle noticed she wore nothing on her feet. Bare feet. Bare ankles. When was the last time she’d seen anyone’s bare feet but her own? “You aren’t a sister.”

“Someone else who looks for the loopholes in the rules,” Elle said, holding the large dusty hardback book to her chest. “A girl after my own heart.”

“I am an expert in Loophole Theology,” Kyrie said, dragging a chair over to Elle’s and sitting down. She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees. She looked unbearably young right now and tiny. Elle was only five-three but she had curves. In shoes, Kyrie might have been five-three and she had stick-thin ankles. If she had curves, her bathrobe did a good job hiding them. “Test me. Give me a rule or a commandment or something, and I’ll find a loophole.”