Uncharacteristically, Snowden sat on the couch across from Paul. Instead of getting to his feet, he seemed to be in no hurry to begin the daily violation of my body.
One thing to be thankful for was his lack of stamina. In the few hours he spent with me each day, he barely got it up more than once or twice. Most of our time was spent with me lashed in some godawful position while he rained devastation down on my body with his whips, floggers, paddles, and other things.
I was an impulse away from biting off his disgusting dick and snapping his neck. Give me a knife, and I’d cut out his cold, black heart and chop it into a million pieces until nothing remained.
But my revenge would have to wait. I waited for a damn signal from Xavier that the cavalry had arrived.
Days had turned to weeks, and we were now to the point of counting months. I couldn’t last much longer, and Sara’s safety remained tenuous at best. I hated giving him a second more of my time, but there was nothing I could do. I’d already set events in motion.
Snowden took me in, his appraisal oily and thorough, until I felt covered in filth from his look alone. The man was getting under my skin, making me squirm without needing to touch me at all.
He licked his lips. “We’ve had some great fun, haven’t we?”
The muscles of my jaw bunched. Answering him only led to pain, and not answering led to more pain. Dread balled up in the back of my throat.
Snowden very rarely went off-script. Our mornings together were entirely too predictable, like his eagerness to string me up and start inflicting pain.
What was he waiting for?
“Tell me, boy.” His caustic tone sent a shiver down my spine. “Do you like it when he has his dick in you?”
Paul shifted on the couch. “I don’t know about like, but I—”
“No one was asking you.” Snowden’s retort snapped through the air, biting off the rest of whatever Paul had been going to say. “I was asking him.”
I shifted back on my heels as Snowden leaned forward. “Do you like it when Paul fucks you?” He shifted his attention to Paul. “Does he get off?”
“Wouldn’t be any fun if he didn’t.”
“At least we agree on that. He’s always been a greedy boy, coming at the drop of a hat. I could blow on his cock, and he’d get hard, give it a little squeeze, and he shoots his load all over my hand. I think he likes it. Being forced is your thing, isn’t it?” His attention shifted back to me.
Truthfully, he’d hit that right on the head.
I didn’t know what he was getting at, but my entire body was on high alert. I could take him if Paul didn’t interfere, but I didn’t know which direction Paul would jump when it came down to a choice between his father and me.
More time was needed to drive a wedge between them. I’d only just brought up Piper. That betrayal required more time to mature, and I still didn’t understand their relationship. Why did Paul work for his father?
“Did you stick your dick in the girl?” His gaze flicked to the bedroom and the disarray of the bed.
“If you’re asking if I’ve fucked her, then yes.” I ground out the words. There was no use in denying it. The entire reason Sara was here was to keep me in line.
“Have you?” Snowden turned his soulless gaze on Paul.
“Gross.” Paul flinched. “Most definitely not.”
“I find that hard to believe. I figured the three of you were forming some kind of love nest in here.”
“Hardly,” Paul scoffed. “You know how I feel about females.”
Snowden snapped his fingers, and I responded like a trained dog coming to sit at his feet. I kept my head down, my gaze lowered in submission. Bile rose in my throat, and I swallowed the acidic burn.
He grabbed at the collar around my neck. “I am your only lover, my boy. Never forget that. All the rest of this is nothing. I give you to him because it pleases me to watch you bend to another’s will. I let you fuck the girl because it makes you obedient. And that is what we’re going to do today.”
My entire body stilled.
Paul drew in a breath.
Silence hung in the air between us as Snowden’s heavy breathing pulsed in and out.
“What do you think, Paul? Want some time with him in the dungeon?”
“I wouldn’t want to intrude; besides, I have work to do,” Paul deflected.
“It’ll wait.” Snowden gripped my shoulder. “I want to watch the two of you together.”
“Someone has to watch the girl, and I have a project I’m working on.”
“I’m not aware of any project?” Snowden dug his fingers into my shoulder.
“Just something I’ve been looking into.”
Snowden’s eyes narrowed. “I think I’ve been entirely too soft on you, boy, thinking you were bending to my will, but I smell it on you. It’s strong today. Your fury is boiling to the surface. I wonder what it will take for you to explode?”
I made a tactical decision and looked him straight in the eye. “Our agreement stands. Whatever you want, I won’t resist. I am yours.”
“Right, our agreement regarding the girl. It’s an interesting puzzle, isn’t it? You do as I say, and she stays safe, unmolested being the operative word. It’s a shame because she’s a beautiful woman, a bit more mature than what my clients typically demand, but still a beauty. She’d be worth a fortune on the open market.”
“Touch her, and I’ll kill you.”
Snowden’s lips slid into a grin. “Ah, now there is the boy I know, the little fighter. I bet you stay up late at night dreaming about killing me, but that’s the problem. I don’t trust you.”
I didn’t trust him either, and everything he was saying made me trust him less and less. The prick had something up his sleeve.
He’d taken me to sleep in his bed a few times, long nights where his sickening snores kept me on edge. He thought to make me his lover, convince me of some twisted bond we shared, but at some point, he stopped. I believed he decided it wasn’t worth the risk. When he slept, he was vulnerable.
“We’re going to have fun today.” Snowden glanced around the room.
“If you touch her…”
“Someday, you’re going to defend me with all the spitfire you waste on her. You. Are. Mine. You always have been. That I give you to another—” His gaze shifted to Paul. “Or let you fuck the girl, is only because I have the power to do so, and with power comes the ability to take it all away. Your time with her is at an end.”
The urge to rip out Snowden’s throat rolled through me. The only thing which stopped me was the creaking of hinges as the bathroom door slowly opened.
“Ah, there she is.” Snowden gripped the hair at my nape and gave a sharp yank until my head bent back. “It’s time to play a game.” He wrapped his other hand around my throat, pinching off my windpipe. “I wonder what she would sacrifice for you?”
I could reach up, yank his hand off my throat. I could push him back on the couch and beat him to a bloody pulp but doing any of those assured Sara’s death. It wouldn’t come easy. Snowden would make sure she suffered. He’d make me watch as his men raped and tortured her until death took her to an untimely grave.
With black spots dancing in my vision, I knelt before Snowden and took his abuse. Starved for oxygen, I battled my need to breathe. Antagonizing him would only make this worse. Whatever this was.
I closed my eyes and allowed my body to go limp. Snowden wasn’t strong enough to hold me up. As I anticipated, he released his chokehold and let me go.
“Get dressed,” he snapped the command at Sara. “You’re coming with us today.”
“I have better things to do.” Paul tried to sound put off, but Snowden wasn’t biting.
“Whatever it is, you can do it later. We’re going to have fun downstairs…together.”
“Fine, but she takes forever to get dressed,” Paul said. “Go ahead, and I’ll bring her down in a moment?”
Snowden got to his feet. “Don’t keep me wai
ting.”
Gasping to recover my breath, the only thought going through my head was how I would kill Snowden.
Xavier had a day at most to come through. If he waited any longer, there would be no stopping the fury I would unleash, and I didn’t care how many innocent lives would be lost as a result.
Chapter Forty-Five
Sara
A shiver rippled down my spine as Snowden led Forest off. Something stirred in the air, an odd vibration that signaled danger. The moment the door shut, I turned to Paul.
“What the hell is happening?”
“I’m not sure.” He gestured toward the bedroom. “We don’t want to keep him waiting.”
“Why?” I rushed to the bedroom, calling out over my shoulder. “Why now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is Forest in danger?”
“I think so.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to the dungeon.”
“And do what?”
I couldn’t believe Paul would do nothing, not with Forest’s safety at stake. While I didn’t understand the whole Dom/sub thing they had going on between them, the growing affection between them couldn’t be denied. I’d hazard to guess things had progressed beyond simple sex.
“You have to do something,” I said.
“Like what?” His tone sounded defeated, but I wouldn’t accept that.
“What would make him change things like this? Is he angry? Jealous?” Snowden had a lot to be jealous of, but it had nothing to do with me.
“I don’t know.” Paul snapped at me.
The only reason I hurried was out of fear for Forest. I raced through getting dressed, pulling on a light cotton blouse and one of the tight skirts Snowden provided. I didn’t care if any of it matched.
I returned to the living room to see Paul on the couch. He rubbed at his neck, a gesture I was getting to know all too well. It was one of the few things which signaled his unease.
“Well?” I stood in front of him, ready for whatever. Although what I could do against a madman remained to be seen.
“Tell me about Piper?”
Talk about a shift in conversation.
“I thought we had to leave.”
“We’ve got a minute or two.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Is she happy?”
“I think so. She’s a sought-after physical therapist and married a really great guy.”
“She’s married?”
“Yeah.”
“Kids?”
“I don’t think so.”
He rubbed at his face, sweeping his hand down from his eyes to his jaw.
“I’ve missed so much. He lied to me.”
I sat beside him, not precisely touching, but close. “What are you doing here, Paul?”
“What do you mean?”
“With Snowden. You know what kind of man he is. Why are you with him?”
“Where else would I go?”
“Anywhere but here. You’re nothing like him.”
“Are you so sure?”
“I don’t know. You don’t seem cruel.”
“You don’t know me. You don’t know what I had to do to survive, and you’ve seen me with Forest. I’ve killed. Kids, boys like myself, I killed them. It was them or me, and I didn’t think twice about making sure I made it out alive. I like hurting people. I get off on it. That makes me a monster as much as him.”
I’d forgotten what Forest had said, that Paul had been taken and put into the fight rings. It was what Snowden had planned for Forest.
“You were a kid faced with an impossible choice. What happened to you is unforgivable, but you can be forgiven. As for Forest, that’s different. It’s not cruelty. That’s kink. The same thing that pulls at Forest pulls at you. There’s nothing wrong with it if it’s something you both want.”
I’d been traumatized the first time I watched them together, but I’d also seen the give and take.
The beauty of it.
“If you say so,” he said with a mumble.
“You don’t seem convinced.”
“Let’s just say, I know no other life but this.”
“Why do you think he didn’t tell you about Piper?”
“You mean, why did he lie to me my entire life?”
“I suppose.”
“I guess he didn’t want me to leave him and try to find her.” He shrugged. “Who the hell knows?”
“Is that why you stayed?”
“I stayed because I had nowhere else to go and if I did…”
“If you did?”
“You don’t want to know how I got here.”
He’d been stolen, like so many other young boys, and forced to make an impossible choice.
Fight or die.
I could see how Snowden had turned an impressionable young boy, especially when that boy had nothing to live for. If he thought his sister was dead, why would he ever leave? But how did Snowden find out the boy who was victorious and lived was his son?
“I don’t know what to expect when we get there, except he’ll probably want me to join in.” His lips twisted as if he tasted something sour. “It won’t be like what you’ve seen. To maintain appearances, I’ll have to—”
I placed a hand on his arm. “I understand.”
“He wants you to watch, which means he intends to hurt Forest. He’ll be looking for some kind of reaction from you. Give him nothing and let him focus on Forest. Forest is strong enough to survive.”
“I understand.”
“Good.”
With that, he activated the door lock and led me outside. I knew the path to his and Snowden’s offices by heart. I’d counted every step.
Foolishly, I thought I’d somehow memorize the maze of corridors that made up this godforsaken place and use that to escape. After all this time, I still had no idea where an exit might be.
I followed half a step behind Paul as he took me down hallways, stairs, and through twists and turns until we wound up at the door I remembered from our very first day.
The dungeon.
Two men stood guard outside. I didn’t remember that from before, but this was only my second time down here.
Paul glanced at me, his expression devoid of emotion. He turned his attention to the two men, and his lips firmed into a thin line. His eyes pinched as he activated the lock. The door swung inward.
Nerves twisted at my stomach, making me feel like I was going to puke.
Tied to a massive X in the middle of the room, Forest huffed in pain. His back was littered in red welts, and a sheen of sweat covered his body. The crack of a whip sounded.
Forest grunted.
Snowden looked up. “Ah, you’ve arrived.”
Paul led me down a short flight of stairs and held out his hand to help me down the last two steps. The door behind us swung shut, but not before the two guards from outside joined us. Paul’s attention cut to the guards then turned back to his father.
“I have.” Paul’s use of pronoun was not lost on me.
I didn’t exist.
My role was to remain invisible, something I’d perfected over the past few weeks. Although it was nearly impossible to disappear when I was the only woman in a dungeon surrounded by four men. I placed a hand over my belly to quiet the sudden unease which came over me.
“Bring her over here.”
Paul kept his hand in mine and led me around the perimeter of the room. My heels clicked against a non-forgiving concrete floor. We passed several cages. One was tall enough for a man to stand inside, but little else. Another was low to the ground. Rings and straps dangled from the bars leaving little left to the imagination. I pictured Forest forced into that cage, his neck secured to one end while his…
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Madness lived in this room.
The far wall was lined with implements, things to strike, and hit, and inflict pain. Snowden had several items removed
from the wall. They had been placed on a table that sat beside him. From the marks on Forest’s body, most had already been put to use.
This was what Forest endured every day?
There were other contraptions littered around the room, benches, chairs, and things I couldn’t make sense of, but they all screamed pain.
Paul pushed me to the back of the room, placing himself between Snowden and me. It was unclear if Forest knew we had arrived. His eyes were shut tight with pain. He huffed through that last strike and sagged in his bonds.
“Forest and I were just having a conversation.” Snowden lifted his hand over his head. The crack of the whip shot through the air, making me jump. Forest’s body jerked beneath the blow, and his breath rushed out of him.
The door to the dungeon opened, and two more men walked inside. The original two headed toward us while the other two fanned out.
“Miss Sara…” Snowden turned his hard eyes toward me. His lips curled into a sneer. “Do you remember the deal I have with your boyfriend?”
My stomach fluttered with the fear coursing through me. I twisted my fingers together and looked at Paul.
“Do not look to him.” Snowden spat. “He is not going to save you.”
Paul held up a hand. His eyes were on the men moving around the room. The door opened, and another four men entered.
“What’s going on?”
“As I said, Forest and I were having a chat. It seems he’s been a naughty boy.” His arm drew back. The whip shot forward faster than I could blink. Forest’s body shuddered. A low grunt spilled from him. “Now, answer the question, Miss Sara.”
My gaze darted from Forest to Snowden. I didn’t dare look at Paul. The men were closing in, moving toward Paul and me.
There were eight of them, and the room suddenly felt ten times smaller.
“He said he’d do whatever you wanted, and I…and I wouldn’t be touched.”
“Not exactly.” Snowden’s grin turned feral. “He agreed to obey.”
I wasn’t going to argue semantics with a madman.
“And he’s done exactly that.” Paul asserted. “What’s going on?”
“Interesting that you should ask.” Snowden gave a jerk of his head. The men closest to Paul jumped him while the others rushed forward.
Forest's Fall (Captive Hearts Book 3) Page 36