Denna's Remorse (SPOILERS)

A Story by Lemunculus2

Based on a chapter of Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. This was a school project.

Denna looked intently at the man hanging in shackles, at the blood dripping from his naked chest as she pondered what he had just done.
She was Mord Sith. People cowered under the malicious scrutiny of her cold blue eyes, trembled at the sight of her twisted smile; eyes widened in terror at a twitch from her armored knuckles, the squeak of her boots as she descended upon them. Her appearance heralded death. She was a devious cackle followed by a tortured scream, the kind of wolf who would go for the shepherd instead of the flock.
She was the devil in red leather.
And this man…he should not have been able to do what he had just done. A Mord Sith’s power is never questioned in the bond between her and a man wearing her collar. She held him by his magic, and he should not have been able to do this. She watched as he dangled there, as he held her glare, and began to speak.
“I warned her before,” he said, the intensity of his commitment rampaging through his expression. “Promise made. Promise kept.” A winning smile spread across his cracked lips. “Thank you, Mistress Denna, for saving my life. I owe you.”
Denna glowered, turning on her heel as she left the room. She thought she had seen something in his eyes just before he had taken control again, something like…quiet sorrow. She remembered because it was the strangest thing to have seen on his face as the princess screamed in unbridled fury of what she was going to do to the woman he loved, the woman whose name he screamed deliriously whenever Denna gave him explicit pain. The little brat of a royal had thrown quite a tantrum after Denna had taken the Agiel from her. It was no wonder he had taken such an opportunity to shut her up.
Denna reminded herself that the question was not why he had done it, but how.
She called the guards, leading them back into the room with her. They rushed around the bloodied princess"now lying on her stomach as she added to the scarlet pool spreading under her"and lifted her gently, moving her out of the room. Their urgent voices faded away as they disappeared off into the castle.
Denna reached over with one finger and pushed the door shut, the hinges moaning loudly. She had trained him for weeks, using the Agiel to bring out his pain in every physically possible way, made him choke in terror when she gave him a particular smile and cry with unbridled shame whenever he thought he had displeased her. Not once had he done to her what he had just inflicted upon Princess Violet. Denna remembered the calm, sad look in his eyes, the tense muscles in his arms as he hung from the shackles, his feet barely holding him up.
Without warning his boot had come up under Violet’s chin, breaking through bone, tongue, and teeth and sending her a good distance across the room.
If Denna was ever to be killed by a man on her leash, it would be this man.
If he survived what she was about to do to him.
Denna crossed her arms as she stood from leaning against the wall, watching him. Her voice came out gentle as her breath began to quicken with anticipation. “You are a very rare person, Richard Cypher. Lord Rahl warned me about you. Warned me to take care; that the prophecies speak of you.” Her boots were the only sound in the room besides his labored breathing as she stepped up close to him, looking up into his soft grey eyes. “That was quite extraordinary. Thoroughly exciting.” She searched his face as she committed herself to what she was about to do to him. She almost wished it didn’t have to be this way.
But she lived to hurt this man.
She lived to use her Agiel on him, the very same Agiel that had been used with her in her training time and time again. The pain it still gave her made her arm feel numb as she took it out of its strap, rolling its handle between her fingers. The excitement of the moment and the pain of her weapon held her in their coupled grip as she spoke the very words that had led to the breaking of her own spirit, years ago.
“I have decided,” she breathed, “to have you as my mate.”