AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Thanks for reading! You're lovely!

Special thanks for the reviews to Airamamba, TcEm, KenTomoInuKik, jwren, Enchanter, Mormeril Dark Lady of Insanity, JuliaGlyn99, ThatTheaterFan, s4tine, pinkglitter2901, clarapocket, OnlyOnMyOwn, Inferno4, annadreama, EmMarie96, and xXx A Little Fall of Rain xXx!

WARNINGS: dubious sexual consent/non-consent, explicit sexual situations, kink, D/s (dominant men), violence, & profanity. In other words, there will be a lot of explicit, vulgar acts of sex. If any of this bothers you, please do not read this story.

RATING: MA / NC-17

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Les Miserables. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is being made from this.


THE WAKER'S LIGHT


Chapter 4

She found Cosette sitting by a mirror brushing her golden locks, a small chamberstick illuminating a soft glow on her bright face. As ritual demanded, Eponine climbed over the low fence and stalked in the shadows to ensure Cosette's father wouldn't detect her. She didn't know who he was, but she was warned by Marius not to allow the elder man to find her or the note.

By the time Eponine reached the window and peered inside, Cosette was rearranging her needlework. A beautiful soft quilt lay over her bed that was neatly tucked on all four corners. Cosette's linen nightgown draped past her knees in a creamy white radiance, and she scratched at the gauged cuff fastened by one small button.

Eponine half-thought to flee from the jealousy brewing in the pit of her stomach, but she looked at the small note in her hand that Marius specifically asked her to deliver and she decided to stay.

Her bony knuckle gently tapped against the barred window. She refused to check if Cosette saw her, but she heard the girl's soft footsteps quickly exit the bedroom. Eponine pulled her cap lower over her face and crossed through the garden to meet her halfway.

"Thank you," Cosette whispered.

Eponine peeked from under the visor of her cap as she slipped her the note. With every visit, Cosette seemed to grow disgustingly more beautiful. Her pursed, pink lips curved into gracious appreciation as she accepted the small letter. Where Eponine saw blemishes and sun stains on her own face, Cosette's skin was milky and soft.

She tugged at her cap once again and huffed to herself.

Cosette slipped a sou into the other's hand. "It's not much, but for your services."

Eponine's throat constricted as she was tempted to grab her and scream, "Do you even know who I am?" But she ducked her head lower and gave a tiny nod. When she peeked up again, Cosette had already run back inside the house.

The starless sky set the streets dark. Gray wisps of clouds textured the night, and as a child, Eponine once thought those wisps and swirls were evidence that fairies existed on some otherworldly plane, painting the sky. As she trudged into the heart of Paris, she couldn't stop dwelling on how Cosette's hands were so delicate when they touched Eponine's.

She looked at her own hands. Her fingers were calloused and rigid. All those nights climbing fences had left her palms rough and dirty, and all those nights she practiced picking locks had hardened the tips of her fingers. She wondered if Cosette was horrified to touch her coarse hands, but she edged the thought away and kicked a rock on the ground.

Instead, she started to think about what Marius could have written in that letter. Did he declare his undying love? Did he write poetry? Did he muse over a future he envisioned for the two of them?

She stopped walking when she realized where her legs had taken her. She looked up at Enjolas's window. It looked dark inside, but she knew it was still too early for him to sleep. But then again, she had heard that he had recently taken up the habit of staying awake for several consecutive days before his body binged on sleep. Maybe she would just check…


When Eponine used his red handkerchief to tie her hair back, he should have known she wanted trouble.

Enjolras hadn't seen her in nearly three weeks. The first two weeks he had spent in bed healing and using the time to reread such documents by Montesquieu, Rousseau, even Condorcet. As he busied himself with law and politics, he rarely thought about Eponine.

It wasn't until news of General Lamarque's illness that Enjolras ignored Joly's recommendations and left his bed to take to the streets. He would rally outside of General Lamarque's house and invigorate the angry crowds shouting "vivre Lamarque!" until authorities would appear and break them up. While at the café, the friends began to materialize plans of a rebellion and strategize when and how to start the revolt. With these plans being discussed, women were not allowed to enter the backroom, and so, Eponine had resorted to waiting in the front of the café for Marius.

There was only one woman that constantly ran through Enjolras's mind and to whom he gave unconditional love, and she was his dear Patria. He had been in love with her for years and dedicated his life to the freedom she had to offer.

But when Eponine came creeping into his room, he awoke curiously.

She placed her lantern on the desk and tossed a cap to the floor that released a wave of brown hair. Enjolras didn't get up, just laid there half asleep in a haze, in that strange stage of hypnagogia that left him wondering if she was simply a phantom created by his inner voice.

No words were exchanged when she crawled into his bed and came within an inch of his face. He leaned forward, ready to take her lips, but she pulled away and slithered down his body instead. When he felt her slide underneath his thin blanket, he dropped his head back into the pillow and closed his eyes with quiet satisfaction.

He felt her warm mouth gently kiss his hardening member, her lips slowly sucking his testicles that made him groan into the muddled night. Holding him in one hand, she licked up the length of his manhood and took the head into her mouth and sucked hard. Her lips slowly danced around the tip as if she were savoring the taste and feel. She would swallow him whole, then pull away, using her tongue to roam the sensitive head. Then, do it again.

He pulled the covers off and saw her with a mouth full of him, staring with her large brown eyes.

He reached forward to push the mass of hair from her face, and she sat up momentarily. She smoothed her hair back, pulled it into a tail, and took his red handkerchief from the nearby desk to tie it into place.

A low growl involuntarily escaped him, but he didn't protest the second her mouth was back on him.

Never one to awaken quickly, he still fought to keep the drowsiness at bay even as he stared at her pretty face eagerly plunging over him. Her deeps moans traveled his entire length, and by reflex, he nudged upward further into her mouth, blocking her airway.

He was in delirium watching her head bob over his lap. The smoothness of her tongue spreading her saliva around him made his toes curl, and he released another low groan. He didn't question why her skills had improved since last time; he just watched her tap the head against her lips and cheeks before shoving as much as she could back inside of her, sucking hard in steady rhythm.

Finally, she took him in her throat, every centimeter had disappeared in her reaching mouth. Her lips brushed the soft hairs of his groin, and he groaned in amazement, now fully awake and attentive.

He perched himself on his elbows and watched how her chin pressed against his testicles. It took him a second to realize she was gagging, but instead of pulling away, she held him there for several seconds, then dug her head even further into his lap.

"God…" He felt her tighten as she choked on him. "I'm going to come," he groaned as he twitched rapidly against the walls of her throat.

When she slightly pulled back, he reached forward and held her head in place. He cursed again when a wave of ecstasy shook him and his warm ejaculate flooded her mouth, pumping a heavy load. He could feel it dripping around his cock that was still shoved in her.

She pulled her mouth away with deliberate care to suck every drop of him and hold it in her mouth. Still crouched at his lap, she swished his cum around, savoring the taste, and opened up to expose his white load pooled on her tongue.

"Fuck…" he whispered in awe. Then wondered, "Where did she learn to do that?"

She swallowed slowly.

Enjolras pulled her body forward until she sprawled over him, removing the handkerchief from her hair in the process. Taking her face in two full hands, he planted a lazy kiss over her mouth. When he let go, his head fell back into the pillow in tired defeat.

Eponine slid to his side, a little bewildered by the kiss. She wondered if that was supposed to be his way of saying "thank you" or just another unexpected gesture that she should have learned to expect by now.

With the exception of the flickering lantern casting shadows on the wall, the room was still.

"I haven't seen you in a while," she said. "I was just coming back from delivering a letter to Cosette. From Marius."

He huffed as if he was internally laughing at something. "Of course you are."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Eponine Thenardier, so completely taken with Marius that she even volunteers to deliver the love notes between him and his fair lady." He paused, then added wryly, "Sorry to disappoint you."

"What?" She asked harshly, because her annoyance with him could rarely be contained.

He finally looked at her. "You want me to hurt you."

This was the first time that either of them said aloud the reason for why she did this. To Enjolras, it was no coincidence she wanted to see him on the same night she was wallowing in self-hatred for doing Marius's bidding.

Shocked at his declaration, she jumped out of the bed, but his eyes didn't follow her. She folded her arms, rubbing her hands down the sides of each as if she were trying to rub something invisible off of her body.

She looked out the window, not staring at anything in particular—the fluttering moths burning against the street lanterns, the sleeping bodies scattered on various corners of the street, a brown dog barking at a darkened space.

Enjolras wasn't wrong though. They both knew it. If he were, she would have already stormed out the door.

Eponine turned her head to him, checking if he was evaluating her with his eyes, thinking any differently of her now that he said it aloud.

He simply stared at the ceiling. "Give me ten minutes."

Eponine remained by the window. Although she had nothing in this world, no ties that kept her here, she still believed that her Heavenly Savior might not have completely forsaken her. She found herself often praying that if Marius would just love her, she would do anything in her power to lead a straight life. Stop all criminal activity, end this abominable nonsense with Enjolras, start a home and become a wife and raise their children to be good Christian citizens. But perhaps she can't bargain with God, she thought. Maybe there wasn't even a God and all her nightly conversations with Him were wasted breath and time, false hope that she could actually be someone. Anyone.

Please, just let me be anyone but me, she prayed.

She heard a rustle behind her and turned around to find Enjolras lighting a candle. The bruises on his body had nearly all faded except for a few yellow strikes along his legs. The bandage that once wrapped around his entire torso had now been reduced to a small patch at his right side. She admired the lines of his body, the angled cuts of muscle that shifted as he moved his back. The hardened, defined lines of his stomach and chest were terrifying, especially when he would hold her down as she clawed on his skin and fought against him. It was by observing Enjolras that she learned how the body can bend and be sculpted by light.

She then noticed the leather cross belt in his right hand.

The sight of his lean muscled body with a belt in his hand was a foreboding sign. When he fixed his fierce eyes on her, she anxiously wondered if she was in over her head. Had not seeing him for the past few weeks made her forget just how strong he was? Did the sight of him helpless and injured in bed make her forget how he has made her feel pain that she never felt before? Did she not remember this was a man with so much anger and frustration with the world, a man who has been preparing himself for death that he reveled in it?

He took a gulp from a cup of stale water on the desk.

Eponine asked, "Why are you—"

The cup flung towards her head and shattered behind her, and she ducked, screaming.

"Come here," he commanded.

What did she get herself into? She cautiously stood to her feet, but he added severely, "Crawl."

Eponine searched his face, wondering if he was actually serious. But then again, this was Enjolras. Of course he was serious.

She brought herself to her hands and knees and slowly crawled across the cold, hard floor. She felt humiliated and small with every tiny scrape her knee made against the ground. She stopped when she reached his feet and lifted her eyes to his.

Seizing a handful of hair, he pulled her to her feet and slapped her across the face with enough force to throw her on the bed. She held her cheek in shock, not expecting the rage so suddenly, but his face was livid.

"Do you think I forgot what you said to me?" He growled. "Asking about Marius's whereabouts in my bed?"

"I wonder if Marius is home yet"—that statement rushed back to Eponine's mind. She had forgotten about those words and she thought he would have by now, too. She then also remembered the threat he gave afterward: "Get off of me before I strangle you, you fucking cunt."

"Is that what the belt was for?" she fearfully asked herself.

"I'm sorry," she rasped. "You're right. I'm sorry."

A sincere rage in Enjolras was building. The more he looked at her, the more he saw the physical manifestation of his cause—she was a pathetic, impoverished girl who needed and wanted to be controlled with terror. He hated her for her weakness, but loved her for her malleability.

"Take off your ridiculous clothes."

A tiny voice within her protested as if it were shocked by his crudeness, but after a few months of this routine, she knew she couldn't keep feigning surprise. Eponine stood up and removed the men's clothing she wore when delivering messages to Cosette. Her shirt tugged at her ear when she pulled it over her head, and she slid her trousers past her hips. When she clumsily stepped out of the fabric that was pooled at her feet, she looked at him to check if he watched with approving eyes.

"Put your hands on the desk."

She turned to the table, her back to him, and leaned her hands on the edges of the desk. It slightly trembled beneath her grip that was shaking in panicked excitement.

"Enjolras, I'm—"

The leather belt spanked against her, silencing her words as she let out a cry. He struck her again and again, four times on the same spot with the belt. She stifled her tears when the burning ache set in and she wiggled her body to get sensation other than stinging pain to the area. Her entire body felt cool, but that one area was warm to the touch.

"I believe you're in no position to speak unless I ask you to," he said with an eerie calm. "You seem to forget how insolent you were by saying Marius's name in my bed, the bed in which I lay after I was beaten because of your idiocy."

Despite the pain Eponine felt on her skin, everything he said made her sink her shoulders in guilt.

"I'm going to whip you with this belt. You are going to stay exactly how you are, hands on the desk, feet planted on the floor. Every time you feel the leather strike your body, you're going to moan in pleasure. You are not going to run, beg for me to stop, or fight back. Every time this belt strikes you, you will moan and sigh in appreciation. In appreciation of me. With everything that I have worked for, I deserve some appreciation. And you're going to show me exactly how gracious you are."

The cold certainty in his voice aroused her. Even when he would rally the people with his speeches, she had to admit that his sure tone was seductive and persuasive and powerful.

The belt smacked against the flesh of her buttocks, and she instantly moaned and gasped, pressing her fingers into the hard wooden desk. When the belt came down hard a second time, its sharp leather slashing her soft skin, she found she didn't have to force any reaction. With every spank of the belt, a tightness in her womb coiled and begged for gratifying release. She wondered if that pleased him.

But her moans suddenly turned into agonizing cries as the pain became more than she had expected to bear. Her knuckles whitened from the hard grip on the table in a pleading desire for it to be over, but the excruciating belt continued beating against her.

She felt like a child being punished for stealing sweets. The embarrassment of being naked, leaning over the desk as Enjolras delivered the punishment made her cry in shame. The more she tried to suppress her tears, the harder the sobs came out.

He walked over to the desk and stood at her side. In a serious, low voice, he said, "You came to me. You came knowing exactly what I do. I'm going to give you pain and pleasure and everything in between, and you're going to thank me for it all. Do you understand?"

Eponine nodded her head and whispered "yes," not daring to look at him. She reduced the sobbing to silent tears.

"Now, thank me."

"Thank you," Eponine said dryly.

He lifted the belt to her lips. "Try again."

She leaned forward and kissed the belt as if her existence depended on the power wielded by Enjolras's hand. "Thank you, Enjolras."

Moving behind her and out of sight once again, Enjolras said, "Eponine, answer me this. Do you think progress can be achieved through natural development or does it require terror that will ignite change?"

She did not expect that question. She didn't even understand that question.

"I…don't understand."

"Put your nose to the desk," he directed.

She bent at the waist and pressed her face to the surface. She felt the cool air hitting between her legs as her backside was displayed for Enjolras with perfect view.

"If you were to walk in here, engage in sexual intercourse with me, and then go on your merry way, what do you think you would have learned? What inside of you would change?" He asked rhetorically. "But if I awaken in you terror and if I break you into pieces, you might actually learn something about yourself."

He slapped the belt against the side of her back. Her body shuddered under its force. She buried her head into the desk, imagining his cold smile and narrowed stare.

"It takes a little bit of torture to discover facets of yourself that have not yet been fully realized."

WHACK. WHACK. WHACK. The belt came down on her back like judgment, and she grunted against the biting leather. The heat of the crude sting burned into her skin before she felt the raised marks form on her body. They wouldn't leave scars, just a sore redness that would slowly fade.

She was panting hard, and her legs were tired and aching from the awkward position in which he forced her. She wanted to reposition her feet, but feared the consequence. Yet what hurt the most was the truth behind his words. It wasn't until Enjolras that she realized she needed this. He made it feel so good and he strangely wanted her. A hidden part of her longed to be brutalized, and Enjolras had been providing that affliction without making her admit it aloud.

But tonight, he was collecting. If she wouldn't say it, then he would for her.

He stepped close, sliding his fingers into her hot slit and feeling his fingers drenched in her wetness. She closed her eyes, silently begging for him to penetrate deeper. With his other hand, he slapped her sore buttocks, making her cry out in pain.

Having one hand massaging in circles within the deep recesses of her vagina, while the other hand burned her skin with his blows, Eponine groaned with mixed emotions. The definitions between pain and pleasure were quickly blurred, and the sensations were overwhelming.

"I wonder how close to death I have to bring you before you realize just how sick you are."

Eponine crushed her head into the desk, her eyes squeezed shut. Dimmed and desperate, she whispered, "Enjolras, please…please just stop talking."

He didn't. "It took Andre beating me unconscious to realize you must be so sick to be addicted to this pain. No wonder Marius could never love you. I don't think anyone can."

He didn't believe that. But to watch her expression sink further and further into torment was an extraordinary sight. It made him want to comfort her until she crashed into an oblivion of sexual release, screaming his name. If he broke her, he could save her, and he loved witnessing it happen night after night.

She tensed around his fingers, and he spread her juices around her clit. With his fingers covered in her, he brought them to her mouth.

"Tell me what it tastes like."

Enjolras slid his fingers into her mouth and watched her suck the sticky wetness from him. He wanted to take a handful of her juices and smear it across her face, debase her with her own pleasure.

"It tastes…" Eponine began. "It takes like shame."

Enjolras pushed her hair to the side, ready to whip the belt along her upper back, but then he noticed something peculiar that he didn't catch earlier. There was a red mark on her neck, just below her ear, that was not from him.

He stared at it for several quiet seconds. He released his hold on her and swallowed hard. "Who gave that to you?"

Feeling his body no longer on her, she still felt trapped. Her mind raced with different answers, wondering which she should say. She was an excellent liar, so why was this suddenly difficult to answer?

"I must have slept on—"

"Don't lie to me."

She touched her hair, smoothing her brown mane over the spot. His fingers clenched around the belt at his side, perhaps from anger, perhaps from the anticipation of her answer.

Finally, she moved to grab her clothes. "I'm done, Enjolras. I don't have to answer to you."

He stepped on her clothing before she could lift it from the ground. "Answer me."

A fierceness suddenly overcame Eponine and she yelled, "If I hadn't returned the money to Monsieur Durand, I wouldn't have to sell myself!"

The realization had set in, and it felt like they were drowning. No wonder she hadn't been coming around for weeks—she had been whoring herself to strangers.

Under normal circumstances, the young revolutionary would have been understanding. After all, her actions are only a product of her state. When the nation does nothing to help the people, the people will do what they must. Her behavior served as an example for why there should be more basic rights to the people, so they wouldn't have to degrade themselves, and so on and so on. But these were not normal circumstances...

With the belt still in his hand, Enjolras shoved her onto the bed, throwing himself on top of her. He wrapped the belt around her neck with a fury.

"You're spreading yourself around Paris and have the audacity to expect me to fuck you?" He shouted in her face.

"I need the money!" She yelled, fighting to get back up. "I've left my parents!"

"And you had to come here to show me all the new tricks you learned!"

The sight of his face reddened and veined with savagery horrified her. She pushed his face away with her hand and turned her head, wanting to block out the sensation that she had done something horrible. He grabbed her wrists and pinned them to her sides, squeezing so tight that she screamed with the fear that her wrists might snap.

"I bet you loved spreading your legs open for any stranger that gave you a little attention!"

He slapped her between her legs, hearing the wet sound splash against his fingers. She gasped at the force, then writhed and bucked against his body, needing to feel any friction while she was so close to release. Sensing her arousal, Enjolras was repulsed with the thought of her orgasming against any stranger that touched her. He found her clitoris and pinched hard until she bit her lip in pain and tried to push him away.

"Enjolras, stop!"

"Whose is this?" He demanded, now massaging her clit in titillation.

"It's yours!"

"Then ask me to do it again."

She looked at him as if he were sick. Then, she quietly reprimanded herself for thinking he was anything but sick when he got like this. But then why was she so aroused?

Eponine breathed uneasily. "Please, Enjolras. Please do it again."

She winced when she felt the sharp pinch of her clit once more. When he didn't let go, she twisted beneath him and desperately pleaded with her eyes for him to stop.

"Did you beg them like you're begging me now?"

"No!"

He grabbed her face and squeezed her cheeks, opening her mouth. He hovered above her and spat inside of it. She swallowed his thick wad of saliva, knowing that this was his way of saying that he was officially disgusted with her for whoring herself.

"Enjolras," she said softly. "Why can't you have mercy? Why are you able look at the streetwalkers and tip your hat to them, but you can't do the same for me?"

Tightening the belt around her neck, he answered, "Because you don't want me to."

With that, he jerked on the belt, twisting it around his knuckles as it tightened. He spread her legs and shoved himself into her and roughly humped against her squirming body. He was careful to watch her expression, knowing when to loosen the tautness. But before she was pushed to her limit, he salivated over her struggle to breathe.

He licked the rim of her open mouth before possessively kissing her hard. She loved when he kissed her this way, as if she truly did belong to him. He loosened the belt around her neck and bucked wildly against her, reveling in the thought that he could kill her if he wanted to.

He pushed her knees to her chest and smashed into her with powerful, violent thrusts. He could feel her body tightening around him, her hands clawing into the mattress. She begged him to go harder until she practically felt his reach slamming into her cervix.

"Sometimes, I just want to break you with my hands," Enjolras growled, his voice cracking under the weight of his confession.

And that was what did it. That admittance sent her into a series of spasms beneath his form, and she felt him spurt his load of ejaculate into her. They both cried out in animalistic passion, wishing this euphoria would never end. They milked each other of their orgasm: Eponine, from the thrall of his violence. And Enjolras, from her desire to receive it.

Coming for the second time, he fell into a sloppy mess above her. His mouth was swollen and his face was flushed. He was sleep-deprived and exhausted. But when he felt her body begin to shake with sobs beneath him, he slickly pulled out of her and turned away to sit at the foot of his bed. Eyes closed, he rubbed his temple as she cried in jagged breaths, trying to force herself to stop but failing.

Not saying a word, he grabbed a rag and roughly wiped his penis before searching for his clothes. He didn't acknowledge her lament. He didn't want to think about any of what just happened. He hurriedly put on his clothes with a blank face.

"Enjolras…" Her voice was husk in her sighs.

Hesitating at first, he finally looked at her.

"What's wrong with me?" She seemed crazed. "Why was I made so wrong?"

It almost appeared like he was going to respond. There was a hint of sympathy in his expression, as if he might attempt to give her a comforting word or two. But he turned away again and threw a white shirt over his head. He grabbed any waistcoat he could find and buttoned quickly. He threw on his trousers without care, his shirt untucked in the back and looking disheveled.

"I'm going for a walk," he muttered as he grabbed his coat on the way out the door.

The next time she would see Enjolras would be on the stairwell leading to the café. He would be entering as she was exiting, and they would both pass each other without an acknowledging glance.


Additional Notes: Yes, yes, I know, there's so much sex in this story—sorry! *cringe*

But in my mind, if this was how their relationship started, it would take some time before it can transform into something more (if it even does).

Thanks so much for reading! Chapter 5 should be uploaded in the next few days, hopefully. Reviews are appreciated.