When Demons Are Redeemed: The Dominant's Muse

One Hundred and Ten - Shadows and Monsters/Flexing, Without Boundaries

ONE HUNDRED AND TEN

Shadows and Monsters/Flexing, Without Boundaries

 After a deep breath, Tristan finally re-enters the playroom, and Donovan and Logan immediately follow him in, this time.

As soon as Logan’s eyes find his charge, he immediately processes that something is very wrong with Catherine, and, since his firm orders and top priority as established by Tristan are to always fiercely protect her, to always insure her safety, he does not hesitate to advance towards her, even though protection from Tristan himself seems to be at play here.

“She’s unconscious,” he soon points out, when it seems to him that his boss is not registering that fact. Tristan’s eyes are on Catherine’s face, but he is otherwise perfectly immobile.

“She shouldn’t be unconscious. She has enough air. She’s just being dramatic. Female. Pretending. Manipulating,” he replies, before sending a hand towards her to prove that she is feigning her current state. When she does not respond to his sudden, hard pinch, however, Tristan shrugs a shoulder. “She has enough air,” he then repeats. “I’m a master at this. The collar’s in perfect position,” he insists.

Donovan and Logan exchange another look, as the collar does not look to be in “perfect” position to them, and cannot be, since there is no doubt that Catherine is unconscious.

Their boss, however, is not doubting himself at this moment and is in fact much more like himself: so very certain of his assessment, basing himself on files that he considers complete, that he sticks to it.

“Tristan, her colour’s not good,” Logan counters

“You must’ve pushed the flex just enough to change the collar’s position as you left the room, before it slipped back to this one, while you were in the hallway,” Donovan carefully adds.

“The flex barely moved. The collar always was and is in perfect position, or close enough to it. She shouldn’t be unconscious.”

While Logan wonders if he should dare remove the collar, dare to just take it off without Tristan’s command, Donovan weighs whether or not their boss’ unusual behaviour could justify the decision to put an end to Catherine’s end. However, since the men do not belong to a business governed by law, and since loyalty matters most of all, above all else, in their line of work, they impatiently wait for Tristan’s next move. 

Moments ago, although the flex had indeed not moved much before Tristan’s hands had stopped it and he had exited the room, Catherine, due to the state that she was in, had nevertheless felt its motion as unbridled, as she had been manipulated in one direction, before a second path had pressed its will upon her, prior to more lunacy being offered up through a third, until, at last, the flex’s fourth configuration had loaded up the collar with enough momentum to strike powerfully against her and thus remove consciousness from her, erase her.

From within, she had then felt herself torn and broken on her way away, before her heart had leapt into her throat as she had fallen over the edge. Her plummeting descent had quickly revealed to her that no rule of body, perhaps nor of logic and sense, applied anymore, following the flex’s complete control and insufferable, unachievable demand of flexibility of inconceivable proportions.

How foolish I was to hold on until the very end to an ounce of hope in Tristan, of all people, Catherine had dejectedly reproached herself with. Where are my bodyguards now? Unable to protect me against him, of course. But without the beast, then there’s no need for protection anymore, right? She had nevertheless dared to hope.