by Caris Roane
But he didn’t say anything. He just scowled as he placed the tool against the bolt holding together the manacle on her left hand. He tapped and at the same time, some kind of energy flowed.
And so did the pain. She screamed.
“Mathilde,” Reyes shouted. “Get me a goddamn healer here. Now.”
“I already called. She’s on her way.” The housekeeper moved back into the room to stand beside Reyes. She was very short and wore thick blond braids wrapped around the crown of her head. She sported an equally serious expression.
He pulled apart the first shackle. Though the weight was no longer there, the pain pulsing up Angelica’s arm remained, and the skin at her wrist bled even more than before.
She wanted to tell him how much it hurt, but she didn’t see the point. He was no longer someone she could ever think of as a friend. He’d bought her at auction and now no doubt thought of her exclusively as his property.
He glanced at her. “Preternaturally charged shackles cause a lot of pain, even when they’re gone. That’s why I called for the healer.”
She didn’t want a healer, which sounded very new age and probably wouldn’t be of much use. She wanted a medical doctor, an emergency room, painkillers. And what did he mean, preternaturally charged?
She nodded, but she didn’t know what else to say. She’d entered an extremely sadistic world, an experience that had begun with her abduction, moved on to a strange woman with curly red hair sending shards of pain through her breasts, and ended at an auction with Reyes controlling her through the shackles he was now removing.
He repeated the process with the other manacle, and she screamed again. And just as Reyes had said, the removal of the shackles still left her arms feeling as though fire burned up to her shoulders.
He turned and went to work on her ankles. When she heard the punch of the tool against the shackle, the same electrical charge ripped through her leg so that she screamed all over again, then started sobbing.
The last tap of the tool sent pain flowing through the rest of her body. She writhed and screamed. “I hurt. Oh, God, I hurt.”
“Master?” Another woman’s voice this time.
“About time you got here. Dammit, help her.”
“Yes, master.”
Reyes drew back to allow the new arrival to take his place. She had light-brown hair and pinched gray eyes. She knelt beside the bed the way Reyes had done. The moment she put her hand on Angelica’s head, however, sudden warm waves started passing through her; like magic, the fire in her arms and legs drifted away as though it had never existed.
The relief was so great that Angelica sobbed all over again.
But the woman continued to work on her, releasing some kind of healing touch with her hand so that in slow stages, even the terrible pain in her head eased up.
Angelica finally started to breathe again, deep draws into her aching lungs. She lay on her back so relieved that for a long time she couldn’t even speak. Finally, she managed a weak “Thank you.”
The woman nodded. “How do you feel?”
“I’m very tired, but my arms and legs no longer hurt and my headache is completely gone.”
“Good. I’m happy to have been of service.”
She rose to leave, but Angelica grabbed her arm and pleaded with her. “You have to help me. I’m a prisoner here.”
The woman met her gaze, removing Angelica’s hand gently at the same time. “I’m sorry, mistress, but I treat a lot of slaves. I can’t do anything for you other than to tend your wounds. Have the master call me again if you have any other difficulties.”
“Please, I can’t stay here. I’ll die if I have to live under this roof.”
At that, the woman bowed to her, a strange, formal movement, but averted her gaze. “I have to go now. I wish you well.” She then turned and hurried out.
“Please don’t go.”
Reyes appeared in the doorway, thunder on his brow as he slammed the door shut. “Don’t ever do that again. Don’t ever try to enlist either my servants or anyone else who comes into this house to help you to escape.”
“I won’t stay here. I promise you I’ll never stop trying to get away from you.” Her whole body shook as she spoke, but he ought to know the truth: that she wouldn’t remain a victim, that she’d never give up trying to leave.
“You intend to just walk out the door?”
“That would make the most sense.” She’d walk out, then she’d make her way to the nearest police station.
“And where exactly do you think you are that you can just open a door and leave?”
She looked around, then up at the ceiling. She blinked several times at an intricately carved flow of rock, beautiful in its way, but like nothing she’d ever seen before. She kept having her thinking knocked sideways at unexpected moments, and this was one of them. Other parts of the room looked quite normal: flat walls made of drywall, painted up, trimmed with baseboards and molding around the doorways.
Though the door was closed, she remembered seeing the hallway when Reyes had brought her into this room—she’d had a glimpse of another intricately carved rock wall. She’d seen similar walls while moving from her prison cell to the backstage of the theater.
She knew then she wouldn’t find a door to the outside anywhere in this house. Reyes had built a very large mansion in the middle of a cave.
Finally, her gaze returned to him. “Where am I? What is this place? And how did we get here?”
He only shook his head, still very grim as he stared down at her.
A terrible sensation descended on her that she was in a place even worse than the prison cell she’d inhabited for the past week and the large room where she’d been auctioned.
She met and held his gaze as she leaned up on her elbows. “Tell me…please.”
“The Como cavern system, in Italy, deep underground. Miles underground.”
For the first time since she’d awakened in her cell, she felt truly and completely trapped. She stared for a long moment at her captor, a man she’d thought she’d known well enough to want to take him home with her, yet he lived underground. She’d never heard of such a thing. Other things that didn’t make sense returned to her. “You said the chains had a preternatural charge.”
He nodded slowly, holding her gaze, his expression solemn.
“One of my jailers spoke of wanting to take a draw from my throat. What did she mean?” The word hovered just at the edge of her consciousness, but she couldn’t bring herself to think it.
He seemed almost angry as his jaw worked. But a moment later he parted his lips. She didn’t at first recognize what she was looking at until his nostrils flared and his upper lip curled back.
Fangs. Like the ones he’d shown while making his bid and yelling at the other man. Fangs. They were real.
“Vampires,” she said barely above a whisper. “Oh, God, this is a vampire world.”
“A very secret one.”
The room seemed to grow warm and even spin a little. She leaned her head back against the pillows once more and closed her eyes. This couldn’t be true, couldn’t be happening.
For the past week she’d tried to assimilate the horror she’d landed in, but her mind had refused to catch up. Instead she’d operated on some kind of raw instinct that had kept her from knowing the truth, from understanding where she was and what exactly had happened to her.
“Angelica.”
When she opened her eyes, Reyes stood right next to the bed, his blue eyes dark in the dimly lit room. At least his fangs had disappeared.
She held a hand up as though to ward him off, but as she thought back on everything that had happened, one thing really didn’t make sense to her. “I need to know something. Will you at least answer a question?”
He nodded.
“At the auction, when I said what I said, calling all those people perverts, why did that jump-start the bidding? Why did that make me such a hot commodity? I thought it would
have the opposite effect, make me less attractive.”
“You really must be naive—or were you just not paying attention? Think for a moment. What do you remember about the audience, those who had come to bid and to observe the bidding. What was going on?”
“I saw a lot of naked flesh. Women, and even a few men, walking around with barely anything on, like those of us on the stage.” Her stomach roiled. “And there was sex as well, in at least three different places. So that was some kind sick sex club.”
“Keep thinking back. Did you hear screaming as well?”
She nodded, turning everything over in her mind. “So we’re talking sadism.”
“Exactly.”
“And you belong to this club?”
He lifted his chin. “Just joined, and you were my first buy.”
She stared at him, once more feeling like she’d been body-slammed. A week ago, she’d wanted to sleep with Reyes, and now he owned her. He’d hurt her as well, pinching her shoulder to force her to the runway floor, then putting on the painful shackles. She just couldn’t believe this was who he really was.
He scowled heavily now, his nostrils flaring.
She realized suddenly that Reyes was angry, but she didn’t know why. In fact, he seemed downright hostile toward her, which made no sense at all. He was the one with all the power in this situation. He could hurt her, use her, even torture her if he wanted to. She should be the only angry person here.
“Why are you so pissed off?” She sat up and swung her knees over the side of the bed. “I’m the victim in this situation, the slave.”
“You want to know why?” He took a menacing step toward her, bumping against her knees, a hard light in his eye.
She nodded, but he scared her like this. She pulled her robe tight across her chest.
“Because you’ve just fucked up my plans.”
“What are you talking about? What plans?”
#
Reyes stared at her for a long moment, wishing Angelica had a little less spirit. He had no intention of sharing his mission with her, but she presented a serious dilemma for him. He needed to take a very submissive slave to Engle’s after-auction party, not a willful human female full of questions and outrage.
In order to sustain his cover, she’d have to be obedient to him, even frightened of him, throughout the entire event. He’d all but made an enemy of the one man who could lead him to the power behind the Starlin Group. But if he took Angelica to the party in her present condition, Engles would know the truth, that all this time Reyes had been fronting, and his cover would be blown.
Right now he had to get away from her, to think, to figure out just how to get her to submit to him. “You’re to stay in this room until I summon you.”
He turned on his heel and walked swiftly out of the guest suite, heading in the direction of the foyer and the broad, curved staircase. More than anything, he loathed that she thought him a slaver, but he saw no other way around the issue. He needed her to play a role, and the only way that made sense was if he brought her into submission so that no matter what, she’d do as she was told.
When he reached the foyer, he pulled his phone from the pocket of his tux and called his head of security, ordering guards to be placed at each door of his mansion. To keep Angelica safe, he had to make certain she didn’t try to leave his house. This exclusive section of the Como system housed a lot of Starlin members, and if she was caught on the run, Angelica could disappear into another slaver’s house and never be seen again.
Runaways were fair game.
He wished to hell he could tell her the truth, but he’d be risking too much, which meant he had to make her believe that she truly was his slave and her survival depended on doing his bidding.
Which meant he had to break her will and do it fast. Most of the time, it took very little to make a human submit—a threat of pain coupled with the taste of great pleasure beneath his fangs if she obeyed. Angelica wasn’t the typical human female, however, and he worried that if he started down this road he’d be forced to do things to her that would make him as bad as Engles.
A cold shudder went through him, but he really didn’t have a choice.
As he started up the stairs, he heard her bare feet slapping against the slate floor. She called out, “This isn’t right and you need to let me go. I don’t care that you bought me at some kind of freak-ass auction. I’m not a slave and you can’t make me one.”
Pausing on the third step and gripping the handrail, he turned to stare down at her as he considered his next move. He’d intended only to retrieve the outfit she’d need for the party and bring it to her, and afterward make her a couple of serious threats that he hoped might bring her in line. But she’d just proved yet again that breaking her will would be no simple thing.
Two of his guards arrived and took up positions on either side of the massive wood front door.
She watched them, her brows raised. He thought their arrival could work in his favor because the men were one more signal her brain clearly needed to help clarify her present reality.
He held a hand out to her. “Come with me. I think it’s time we had a heart-to-heart.”
She looked wary and didn’t move for a long moment. But after glancing once more at the guards, she finally put her feet in motion.
He led her up the stairs, then to the east wing that housed his private quarters, recently renovated to enhance his slaver identity.
He threw the doors wide, then passed by his bedroom, taking his time so she could see the level of his wealth. Money was power, another piece of information she clearly needed to figure out.
He had a sitting room on the right, then his exercise and massage rooms, and finally an expansive bathroom with a deep soaking tub in addition to a walk-in shower.
She didn’t say anything, but she’d slowed her movements to look around, which he took as a good sign.
The last room had cost him over a million, having required the dredging out of tons of rock. But the investment had speeded up his Starlin membership since the room had met the approval of several Starlin men who’d come to make an inspection.
As he grasped the door handle, he looked back at her. Most of her makeup was long gone, and her hair had come down to hang about her shoulders. She was in a state of disarray and looked ridiculously vulnerable as she held her head high. Even like this, with reddened eyes, she was damn beautiful. How he hated that fate had somehow put her in this heinous position.
She met his gaze. “So what’s beyond the door? What is it you need to show me? I’m guessing it’s some kind of oversized closet for your billionaire wardrobe.”
“See for yourself.”
He pushed the door wide, flipped on the lights that dotted the wood ceiling, then stepped aside to make way for her. “This is the game room, a place you and I will be spending a lot of time, starting now, actually.”
She moved in slowly, then gasped. “Oh, God. What is this?”
He’d designed the space based on one of the rooms Sweet Dove had kept in her sprawling home. She’d taken him there on an almost nightly basis. The result was essentially a padded torture chamber full of masks, whips, a variety of implements for cutting, two different kinds of tables with straps and stirrups, and a wall of chains and manacles.
Taking hold of Angelica’s arm, he pulled her into the room, then turned to lock the door. He’d positioned the dead bolt high so that no slave could reach it.
She turned to him, wide-eyed, a frown between her brows. “You can’t be serious.”
He could explain everything to her, or he could show her. He knew she’d been through a lot, but she needed to get with the program now. If he wanted to sustain his reputation in this lifestyle, he needed Angelica on a leash and her demeanor properly subdued by the time he took her to Engles’s home.
“You’re going to learn to obey me, Angelica. I won’t have you fighting me, not here in my home or in public. I own you now, you’re my slav
e, get used to it and do it fast. I’ve been working for years to gain admittance into the Starlin Group and I’m not about to let you fuck it up.
“Now, we’ll be going to a party in a couple of hours, and while we’re there I need you on your knees the moment I tell you to get on your knees.”
A look of horror passed over her features. “To do what?”
“I think you know exactly what that means.”
She shook her head. “This can’t be happening and like hell I’m going down on you in public. I’d rather die.”
He’d hoped the mere sight of the room would start softening her belligerence. Instead she was more obstinate than ever.
Time for phase two.
He shifted to altered flight, scooped her up, and slapped her against the wall that dangled with chains. He bound her up vampire-fast so that she was once more shackled, and spread-eagled within seconds, her robe gaping wide, her body on display, her feet on the floor. The only difference was that these shackles weren’t preternaturally charged and except for their weight wouldn’t hurt her.
“What are you doing?”
He got up close. “I’ve already told you. I’m helping you get a good picture of your new life so that you can adjust your attitude accordingly. I want you submissive and meek, and it looks like you need a lesson or two to get you started.
“But feel free to shout. Scream your head off. This room is soundproof and if one of the servants happens by, well, let’s just say that everyone in this house is loyal to me and serves only me. You can’t turn a single person in the immediate twenty square miles against me. You can’t escape, you can’t run, you can’t hide. I’m here. I’m your master. And you’ll do as I say. Do we have an understanding yet?”
“I understand that you can go straight to hell.”
He let out a roar of frustration, but her gaze never wavered from his. Shit, this was going to get ugly if he had the smallest hope of breaking her will.
“Let me go home.”
“Not gonna happen.”
#
Angelica stared at Reyes, her captor, a self-proclaimed slaver.
Her mind was still working to make sense of all that had happened to her. She knew she was still in shock, yet she had to pull herself together enough to withstand his attempts to break her.