There is an art to bringing pain, and Denna is a mistress of it. She coaxes red flowers to bloom, bright and brilliant, on flesh that is pale and trembling; when the blood drips to the floor it falls gently, like spring rain, splattering softly against her leathers, which are the dark red of heart's blood.
The sighs and the moans her pets let out are for her ears only, and the whispered pleas for mercy fall from their lips like the sweetest of music. She lets her fingers drift, swirling patterns on her palette, and the flinches and gasps that result are a dance of which she never tires.
She is a mistress of this, as all things, and once she has weaved her magic, the men in her care will gaze at her longingly, as though she is the centre of their entire world, the only thing that matters.
She is. And, at the last, when their heartbeats slow against her palm, when their skin starts to cool against her touch, her fingers curl as though she can feel each last, slow beat of each one against her skin.
This is the closest to love she's ever been.