Salvation: Saving Setora Book Seven

by Dark, Raven

  In a frozen, purely logical part of my brain, the part that shut itself down and saw the whole thing with numb practicality, it baffled me to realize that I, a slave, had just been summarily subjected to one such “breakup.”

  Well, in reality, I’d just been set free, a notion that was equally unheard of. Slaves were never set free, except in death. They were sold to another master, given as a prize or, in the case of some MCs, reduced to club whores. When a woman lost one of her masters, whether by his choice or by death, she simply had one less master. But this felt as if Sheriff had just done what partners so often did to each other in the Old World.

  The concept was a thing of the best romances, an emotional dark moment that made the women who read them cry before the couple somehow ended up back together, bringing adulation and joy to said reader. But right now, I could see nothing wonderful about what had just happened. It was powerful, but it was far from pleasant, and I found myself illogically feeling tearful for every woman in history whose heart had been broken.

  The moment Sheriff spoke those words, my heart shattered inside my chest. It broke apart into tiny pieces, cutting me to ribbons before it was crushed in Sheriff’s unforgiving fist.

  I’m not your master anymore.

  For a full minute, I stood staring at the closed door of the hut as if I could will Sheriff to open it, as if I could turn back the clock and undo what he’d just done.

  Except he didn’t open the door. Not a sound came from within, the unforgiving silence deafening. Numbness fell over my mind like a shroud, a shell-shocked void.

  Until I turned slowly on shaky legs and saw Hawk still standing behind me. He’d crossed his arms, his expression flat. And angry.

  Not yet willing to deal with whatever he’d do to me for coming here, I took off past him at a run for the village, my eyes blurred with tears. I didn’t care if anyone saw me, a slave bolting through the streets. I just wanted to be away from here.

  Hawk’s arms caught me around the middle, pinning me against him.

  “Master, let me—”

  Hawk’s arm tightened, unrelenting. “Be still.” His voice radiated with cold, controlled anger. When his hand rested on my shoulder, his grip felt huge and inescapable. “You’ve dug yourself into enough trouble coming here. Do not make it worse.”

  Maker help me, the threat in his tone was painful enough. With that single warning, I could feel it—in an instant, I’d been smacked from whatever undefinable status I’d obtained over the last few weeks, right back down to that of a slave. One who’d gone against her master and who would be punished for it.

  Not daring to defy him again, I deflated. Once more waiting for him to make the next move.

  Hawk led the way down the path toward the main part of the village without another word. The silence between us quickly turned cloying, gnawing at me with an intensity that made my stomach coil with dread, all the more intense when piled on top of the knowledge that Sheriff had just cut me out of his life.

  Hot tears stung my eyes, as much because of Sheriff as out of shame for what I’d done to Hawk. My eyes blurred, my knees weakened.

  A root sticking up from the path snagged my foot and I stumbled. Hawk gripped my arm, steadying me, but even the way he helped me along the path felt painfully distant. His grip was too tight, his stalking gate too fast, not the least bit sensitive to my much smaller steps.

  Much as I dreaded seeing what I might read on his face now, I made myself look up at his profile. Hawk’s mouth was a tight scowl, his strong jaw hard as granite. Anger pounded off him.

  Weakness flooded me until my knees felt on verge of folding. Shame twisted in my gut.

  Usually my men insisted on carrying me at the slightest opportunity, and while that often irritated me, here and now, the fact that Hawk didn’t sweep me up into his arms leaped out at me. Perhaps he didn’t realize how wobbly I felt, but right then, it seemed like yet another indication of his anger.

  Everything in me screamed to justify my actions. To plead my way out of the retribution I knew would come the moment we were alone in his hut. Didn’t he understand that Sheriff’s health and the bonds between the men of the Legion were more important than any danger Sheriff posed or anything he could have done to me? Didn’t he understand that the club was falling apart, that I’d been trying to bring it back together again? I wanted to tell him all of this, but the words choked in my throat.

  As soon as we reached his hut, Hawk nodded over to Ali’san, waiting outside Bear’s door and talking to Doc.

  “Go.” He nodded toward Ali’san, and then took my chin in his fingers. “When your exercises with her are finished, return straight here to me. Understand?”

  My shoulders sagged. “Yes, Master.”

  I left him, my mind whirling in a haze of sadness and fear. Fear for what was coming, and of just how much I was losing.

  The last thing I wanted to do was sit and meditate and think calming thoughts, but we still had to find Julian. I had to prioritize.

  While Ali’san and I meditated and I tried to read her thoughts, I attempted to shut down my emotions, not to think about the world that was crumbling around me. The world whose crumbling I’d brought upon myself. It didn’t work.

  After several hours, my head started to pound from trying to focus, to the point where Ali’san dragged me to the village’s saloon for a late lunch. She’d asked what was wrong several times, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. I was still too raw. Somehow, she understood. While I ate, she filled in the silence by chatting away with the customers next to us, giving me much needed time to be alone with my thoughts.

  The sky was just beginning to grow dark by the time I headed back to Hawk’s. Nervousness of what I’d be facing bit into me. I’d never seen him the way he’d been before I’d gone to Sheriff. What would he do when I walked in?

  I stepped into the hut and shut the door quietly.

  “Master?”

  “In here,” I heard him call out.

  His tone was tight and cool, but at least he sounded sober.

  I crossed the hut to the bedroom, trying to control my breathing. “Master, I know you’re angry. I…”

  Blinking, I looked into the room. Hawk was sitting cross-legged on the bed mat, his palms upturned on his knees. He wore his biker leathers, but his cut was off, leaving him stripped to the waist. The candles he used for meditation were set up in rows, their light filling the room with a warm, familiar glow and playing across his smooth, tanned skin. He opened his eyes. Their amber depths looked focused and sharp, his face its usual stoic calm. Relief swept over me. He was himself again.

  He stood smoothly and closed the space between us in one graceful, panther-like tread.

  “Master, I—”

  He lifted one hand, putting his fingers in front of my mouth without touching them. The gesture was oddly slow, almost careful. As if he was struggling to maintain his control.

  I silenced, my eyes welling anew. The weight of my guilt pressed down on my shoulders until I dropped them, helplessness and desperation pressing down on me.

  Still saying nothing, he stalked past me toward the living room. I followed him, but my movements felt mechanical.

  Hawk stopped a few paces from me, his back stiff. When he spoke, his voice was soft and low, radiating trained calm. “What did I tell you last night after we made love?”

  Made love. Maker, no. Why did have to say it like that now? Hawk had never used that phrase to describe sex between us. The description felt right; I’d felt more connected to him than I ever had, more than I’d even realized until this moment. The realization made me feel so much worse, as if our relationship had just reached a new, unprecedented level, and now I’d damaged what we had.

  I swallowed the huge lump in my throat. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  His back rippled, but he didn’t turn or look at me, giving me nothing. “Answer me,” he commanded, just as calmly as before.

  “Master, I
really am sorry. But…can we please do this—?”

  “No!” he roared. “Answer!”

  I wanted to think he was being horribly insensitive, but I had defied him. I’d promised him I wouldn’t go to Sheriff’s, but then had done it anyway. I needed to suck it up.

  “You told me not to go near Sheriff without permission, Master.” My voice came out small and helpless and broken.

  “What did I tell you would happen if you did go near him?”

  Trying to get a handle on my breathing, I closed my eyes for a beat. “You said you’d…tan my hide, Master.”

  “And what did you say to me?” His voice lowered, as if to place emphasis on my response last night.

  Tears splashed my cheeks, his words slashing like a knife.

  “I promised I wouldn’t.”

  “Now do you see why I didn’t want you near him?” Hawk snapped.

  “You knew he was going to do that?” I squeaked. “Then why did you let me go near him at all? Why didn’t you stop me?”

  “Because I wanted you to understand what I—we—have been trying to protect you from. He didn’t mean it. His words were from a place of pain. He’s scared and he’s lashing out. You’re lucky he didn’t do a lot worse.”

  I heaved a sigh. “Master, please try to understand, I was trying to help the club. I did it out of love—”

  “Oh, I do understand.” The empathy in his tone sounded caustic. He finally turned to me, and his eyes blazed. “I understand why you went to him. You did it because you were scared.”

  I blinked at him, confusion piercing the sadness that threatened to crush me. “Scared? Of what? I wasn’t scared, I was trying to help—”

  “Yes, you were. You were scared, and you didn’t—you don’t—trust me.”

  I scoffed, anger rising up. “Hawk, that doesn’t make sense. I trust you with my life. This has nothing to do with trust—”

  “It has everything to do with trust. Everything.” His chest rose and fell hard. “You didn’t just disobey me. That, I could live with. I could even live with you breaking your promise and lying to me if it was to protect this club from a legitimate threat.”

  The word “lie” struck like a dagger, but he went on without giving me a chance to speak.

  “But you didn’t only do that. You weren’t trying to help this club. You were playing hero. You were trying to save it. You were trying to rescue it…from me.”

  My mouth hung open with horror. It slowly sunk in what he was getting at. My knees weakened again with the weight of my mistake, the violation I’d committed against him. I’d done something so much worse than betray him.

  Hawk gave a nod, letting me know he saw the devastation I felt written all over my face. “You went to Sheriff because you don’t like the punishment I’m choosing to dole out on Pretty Boy and Steel.” He shrugged. “You said it yourself. I’m going too far.”

  “Master—”

  “You do not trust my leadership,” he went on mercilessly. “You went to him because you have no trust or respect for my role as General.”

  “Master, no! Please, I—”

  “You are scared I’m going to make what’s wrong with this club worse,” Hawk hissed, and then his voice rose almost to a shout. “That I will damage it in a way that won’t be repaired unless my slave steps in and fixes it!”

  What in Maker’s name was wrong with him?

  He crossed the space between us and put a finger in my face. “I may not be Sheriff. I may do things differently than him, and you may not like it, but Sheriff is not in charge right now. Like it or not, I am the General now.”

  There was no smugness, no bragging in his tone, only matter-of-fact pragmatism.

  “I know,” I rasped, my throat strangling the words.

  He looked at me, his eyes hard. “I want you to understand. When I punish you now, I want it to be clear, you have done much more than violate my trust. You went over my head, went to Sheriff for the same reason Pretty Boy and Steel took that bottle from Master Leif. Because you think you know better than I do what this club needs.”

  “Master, no. I…I don’t.” It was the truth. The implications in his words horrified me.

  “Stop. You have said enough, slave.”

  “Master, please don’t do this,” I choked.

  “Listen to me. When I tell you to do something, you do it. No questions, no excuses. And you will not, ever, ever undermine me either in private or in front of the men or anyone else again. Is that clear?”

  I wanted to fight him on this. The sadness I felt over what was happening between us felt as deep and unforgiving as Sheriff’s actions earlier. First, I’d lost Sheriff, and now it felt like I was losing Hawk, too, if in a different way. I wanted to yell at him to stop, but I knew I’d hurt him. I knew he was right. About everything. The fight went out of me and I lowered my eyes, nodding.

  Hawk jerked my chin up. “I said, is that clear?”

  “Yes...Master.” That word hadn’t stung as much as it did now in what felt like a thousand years. We’d come so far, and after all this time, I’d sabotaged it all. Maker, I wanted to die.

  He dropped his hand, then nodded toward the bedroom. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. When I return, I want you naked and lying on my bed on your stomach, waiting for me.”

  I swallowed hard. Naked. My sex clenched with the thoughts of all the things he might do to me. The one and only time Hawk had ever initiated a punishment on me, he’d fucked my ass for hours in his meditation cave. Would he do that again now?

  Knees wobbling, I started toward the bedroom, but stopped, looking back at him. “What…what are you going to do to me?”

  “Go.” He jerked his chin at the bedroom, his expression giving me nothing. Nothing but the burning anger in his eyes that seared my soul.

  Darkness hammered off him. With nothing else to do, I made myself walk toward the bedroom, my thoughts spinning in a vortex of fear.

  Behind me, the door opened, and a moment later, softly clicked shut as Hawk left.

  Feeling childish and petulant, I wanted to throw myself on the bed mat and sob. Sob for what I’d lost with Hawk, what I’d lost with Sheriff. In a single act, I’d shattered not one relationship, but two. I’d hurt the man I loved.

  I wanted to sob until my eyes hurt, wanted to run from the room, from whatever he’d do to me, but I didn’t dare. I needed to trust Hawk, to show him, without a doubt, that I respected and trusted him with my body and mind just as much as I trusted him with his MC.

  Instead, I lit the lantern beside Hawk’s bed mat. The light cast the room in a soft, dim glow that chased away the shadows. I lit a few of the candles Hawk had set near the walls. Then I stripped, feeling as if I were trapped in a sorrow-soaked daze. Once naked, I pulled back the perfectly spread blankets and lay on the mat on my stomach, just as Hawk had ordered.

  A few minutes later, the door to the hut opened and closed. Silently, he appeared in the bedroom doorway. He was every bit as soundless as Ali’san, a well-trained, lethal warrior, through and through.

  Maker, what would he do to me?

  Then my eyes caught sight of what was in his hand, a long, thin switch. Panic sliced at me. He didn’t need to say a word; I knew what he meant to do with that thing.

  Clearly, he’d broken the switch off a tree, then cut off the extra leaves and stripped the bark, but without the fanfare Sheriff had used after the fight with the Dregs. Hawk was a pragmatist to his bones; there’d be no showmanship here, no flourishes; he’d only do what he felt he had to in order to get the message across, nothing more.

  My warrior master crossed the room to the mat and went to his knees beside me.

  “On your stomach.” There was no anger in his voice, only closed off coolness. In the few minutes he’d been gone cutting the switch, he had reigned in his emotions; I could practically see the walls of his fortress around him, and though I knew he shut himself off to maintain the discipline he needed while using a switch, I
couldn’t help thinking he was shutting himself off from me.

  Breath catching in my throat, I pushed down the urge to bolt across the room from him and rolled onto my stomach. Presenting my ass to him.

  Light, I wanted to feel indignant, hurt, angry, but the pain I’d caused him wouldn’t allow that. The litany of things he’d said I’d done rang in my head, dark and cruel. I’d disobeyed him. I’d tried to save the club from him, implying that he was either an inexperienced leader that had to be reined in, or a tyrant who had to be dealt with. I’d mistrusted him. I’d hurt him.

  Betrayal filled his eyes, banked behind the discipline of his fortress-enforced calm.

  My eyes fixated on the switch in his hand. Once again, I tried to control my breathing.

  “You know what will happen now, but do you know why?” Hawk’s voice was hollow.

  “Mm,” I said, facing the wall in front of me and pressing my lips together to hold in a sob. What I’d done cut deeper than anything he could do with that switch.

  “Speak. I want to hear you say it.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Tell me. Tell me why.”

  It didn’t go unnoticed that he hadn’t called me Kitten since we’d come back from Sheriff’s. It felt as if he’d stripped the pet name from me, further affirmation of my station. The loss of it tore at my heart, sending me freefalling.

  “Because I betrayed your trust. I lied to you. And I…” I gulped. “I didn’t trust your authority.”

  Hawk ran his palm over my bare ass, first one cheek, then the other. Fingers hardly brushing the skin, there was no warmth, no love in that touch. I slid deeper into the bottomless pit.

  “Who is the Legion’s General, slave?”

  There was no force, no malice there, yet the word slave struck like a dagger. Loss and anger that felt incredibly petty welled up as the message was driven home. I didn’t deserve to be called Kitten, and certainly not by name.