The Demon General Is My Ex's Little Sister novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Bath Rail

The surprise was a bath house.

The valley had built it in six days out of the Chancellor's confiscated tent poles.

It had a cedar tub the size of a wagon and a stone floor.

A long oak rail ran along one wall for old knees to hold.

A hundred people stood outside it when Rin and Kaede arrived.

Ume cut a ribbon of red cord with her kitchen shears.

"For the general,"

she said, "who never once had a hot bath in two years.

For the inkpot, who has been sleeping on her."

The crowd cheered.

Kaede went the color of a boiled beet.

Rin took her by the sleeve.

"Thank you, everyone," she said, very politely. "We'll test it for safety now."

She pulled Kaede inside, dropped the bar across the door, and turned.

Steam already rose from the tub.

Lamps glowed in the cedar walls, and the whole room smelled of wet wood and smoke.

Kaede stood in the middle of the stone floor in her plain tunic, looking around.

"They built this for me," she said.

"They built it for you."

"I don't deserve..."

"Take your clothes off."

Kaede stopped talking.

Rin set her satchel on the bench and took out the fine brush, the inkwell.

A long strip of grey silk.

She put the inkwell back.

"General, stand at the rail."

Kaede walked to the oak rail on the far wall, bare-footed on the warm stone, and stripped as she went.

The tunic dropped.

The linen binding came off her chest and fell in a loose white coil.

She stood naked by the rail, tall and rangy and flushed, with her hands at her sides.

Rin took her time looking.

"Hands up. Hold the rail above your head."

Kaede lifted her arms and wrapped her hands around the oak.

Rin stepped close, took the red cord from her discarded collar.

Rin wound it twice around Kaede's wrists, binding them to the rail.

Not tight.

Just enough to feel.

"Pull," Rin said.

Kaede pulled.

The cord held.

Her breath went ragged.

"Now the blindfold."

Rin tied the grey silk over her eyes and knotted it behind her cropped head.

Kaede's lips parted.

"I can't see you."

"You don't need to see me."

"Rin."

"Ma'am."

"Ma'am," Kaede breathed.

Rin stood back and looked at her once more.

The steam beaded on her shoulders and ran in little lines down her ribs.

Her breasts rose and fell.

Her thighs trembled already.

Rin dipped the brush in the hot water of the tub.

She touched it, wet and warm, to the hollow of Kaede's throat.

Kaede jumped.

"I'm writing on you," Rin said. "There's no ink. It's just water. You tell me what I wrote."

"What?"

"Read it. With your skin. If you get it wrong, I stop."

The brush drew a slow line down her breastbone.

Kaede's whole chest lifted.

"That's... a long stroke. That's a line."

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