FrankenDom

by Rotham, Robin L.

  My gurgling stomach reminded me of the meal awaiting me on the cart, and I gazed at it longingly for a moment before steeling myself to go hungry a little longer. Lili might be back to lock the door any minute—I had to seize this chance while it was available.

  Taking a deep breath, I slipped into the dim corridor, leaving my door slightly ajar in case I needed to beat a hasty retreat. Adrenaline made my hands shake and my heart pound in my throat. Where in the hell was I going? To my right, seemingly an eternity away, was the tower with the elevator I’d come up in. Across from my room was a closed door. To my left, two more closed doors on the same side as mine before the corridor made an abrupt right turn I couldn’t see around. What was down there?

  Decision made, I alternately crept and made panicked leaps down the corridor, flattening myself inside door frames when I heard any sort of noise—as if my protruding boobs wouldn’t give me away.

  Or my noisy stomach. I gave it a reproving pat and whispered, “Hush, you.”

  From my vantage point in the final door frame on the left, I craned my neck to peer down the adjoining corridor but saw nothing. I heard something, though—several somethings that sent ice water trickling down my spine.

  I listened as if my life depended on it.

  Which it very well might, if what I heard was any indication—guttural male cries, low-pitched chuckles, and the murmur of male voices. They were all muted by an electronic hum that made the door under my right hand vibrate slightly. And there was a persistent crackling and snapping that sounded like radio static.

  Or something more sinister.

  Every muscle in my body tensed for flight. It took a several deep breaths and a searing lecture on the evils of cowardice from my inner bad girl before I was calm enough to forge ahead.

  Another glance back the way I’d come and then I darted onto uncharted carpet. It was a relatively short corridor with only two doors, one on my left, which I flattened myself into right away, and one in the terminal wall.

  Terminal. I swallowed hard at the irony. Unlike all the other doors, which were traditional six-panel models painted pristine white, this one was round on top, made of lightly stained wood planks and held together by heavy black hardware—two flat metal pieces that formed a reinforcing X were riveted to the door just below the curve, and two more pieces anchored it across the top and bottom. The handle was nothing more than a thick leather strap doubled over and bolted to the wood.

  The primitive door was open. Not much, only enough to see a sliver of darkness and almost continuous flashes of watery light—but it was open.

  I bit my knuckle. Nothing said Go away! like a big black X on the door.

  But it was open. An open door was an invitation…right?

  The temptation to creep closer and try to see something clashed fiercely with the desire to scurry back to my room and reassess my priorities.

  The sounds were more distinct now, and I swallowed hard when I recognized the distinctive buzz and snap of some kind of powerful electrical device discharging. It was a relief to realize the human sounds seemed unrelated to the snaps and flashes of light. During one of my ER rotations, I’d seen an electrical burn from electro-stimulation gone wrong and I never wanted to see it again, much less experience it for myself.

  But those throaty masculine chuckles and amused murmurs were definitely a reaction to pained grunts and groans. Someone was being tortured in there. And someone else was enjoying it.

  A sharp yelp made me gasp, and I slapped one trembling hand over my mouth while the other flattened on my stomach. That could be me in there, being tortured for someone else’s amusement.

  Okay, maybe I should have taken this a little slower. My heart was about to batter its way right out of my ribcage, and I couldn’t tell if it was from excitement or terror.

  Time to get my ass back to my room. I didn’t have to travel the entire road to self-discovery in a single day.

  Before I could flee, a loud, stuttering groan rang out, followed by, “Jesus, please, Sir! Ah! Motherfucker…fuckfuckFUUUUCK!”

  My eyes widened. That was Colin.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered against my bloodless fingers. They were torturing Colin? He was a bottom?

  I took a shaky step toward the door, and then another. What was happening to him?

  Was it something that would happen to me if I stuck around?

  Did I want to find out?

  A heartbeat later, the choice was no longer mine. My wrists were seized from behind and I was hauled against a hard masculine body with my arms crossed over my chest. I was too breathless with terror to even squeak when he put his mouth against my ear.

  “Gotcha, Dr. McBride!”

  Chapter Four

  I stomped hard on his instep, but it was a useless tactic when he wore boots and I didn’t—my heel hurt and he probably didn’t even feel it.

  Filing away that bit of wisdom for future use, I twisted in his arms. “Let go of me!”

  “That wasn’t very nice, slave.”

  I knew that voice, and I gasped as a burst of adrenaline-fueled arousal streaked down between my legs. Vincent Price had just called me slave.

  Oh shit, I was really doing this.

  “Vince, please—”

  “Quiet, slave!” he barked, lifting me up and carrying me toward the terminal chamber of torture. “And that’s Master Vincent to you right now.”

  I struggled against his hold, trying to make him drop me, but it was useless. His arms were like iron.

  Jesus, this was the single hottest thing that had ever happened to me with my clothes on.

  Everything inside me went weak with lust when he kicked the door open with his big black combat boot and marched into the shadows.

  “Dr. Kilmartin!” he called as his grip loosened and I slid to the cold floor.

  The room was completely dark, but in the corner I could see another open door illuminated by the flashing light. It was clearly the source of the electrical discharges.

  Fight-or-flight kicked in suddenly and I dove for the exit, only to be yanked back against him.

  “Oh no you don’t.” He kicked the door shut. “You’re a naughty little slave girl, aren’t you?”

  I giggled hysterically. Giggled.

  “You think this is funny, slave?”

  Julian’s stern voice pierced the darkness around me like a velvet-coated blade and it happened instantly—I began collapsing in on myself like the dying star of my imagination.

  “No, Sir.”

  It was scary how readily that word sprang to my lips. I hadn’t even thought of the agreement when it slipped out.

  “You always did call me that, didn’t you, Rachel?” he said in a contemplative tone as he strolled into the dark room. “When all the other nervous new residents called me Doctor and bluffed their way through our interactions, you called me Sir and didn’t meet my eyes unless you absolutely had to. It made me want to chase you through the hospital, drag you down screaming, and fuck you like a goddam feral animal while they all looked on in horrified fascination.”

  My eyes slid to half-mast as I sagged boneless in Vince’s—Master Vincent’s—arms. My clit tingled like it had been stroked. “God, Sir, I wish you had.”

  “Believe me, little slave, I’ve wished the same too often for my own sanity.”

  Fluorescent ceiling lights flickered on, illuminating a scene nowhere near as terrifying as I’d envisioned. In fact, the large rectangular room looked like a medical exam room—in a dungeon. The walls and floor were the same gray limestone as the castle’s exterior, only a lot cleaner, and the room smelled as though someone had used an ozone air purifier in it recently.

  I relaxed a little. The castle infirmary, I could deal with.

  But where was Colin?

  Julian was dressed as I always remembered him, as if he’d just been pulled away from the lab—blue scrubs, sneakers and a lab coat. And he carried a clipboard.

  Now I was totally lost.r />
  When he stopped in front of me, Vince released me.

  “Why aren’t you in your room, Dr. McBride?” Julian demanded.

  I met his penetrating stare with a challenge of my own. “Where’s Colin?”

  “I would be more concerned about your own circumstances at the moment, my dear.” His dire tone gave everything south of my navel hot, wet clenches of dread. “Did you read your personal conduct agreement?”

  Swallowing, I nodded. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Do you accept the terms of the agreements you’ve already signed?”

  Sanity reared its ugly head and I hesitated for a moment before asking, “Would you mind if I had a word with Colin before I answer that?”

  He stared at me for a long moment. “You’re sure you want to see him?”

  Disconcerted by the implication that I might not like what I saw and afraid to imagine what that might be, I hesitated again. Suddenly the presence of an infirmary seemed overtly threatening.

  I licked my dry lips. “Of course.”

  “You don’t sound too sure,” he observed, running a finger along my jaw and making me shiver with awareness.

  “I am!”

  He chuckled darkly. “Dear Rachel, that vivid imagination is going to be your one-way ticket into more delightfully frightening and nasty scenarios than you can conceive.”

  Fizzing with excitement and nerves, I stared after him as he turned back to the door.

  “Come along, if you’re brave enough. Colin’s in here.”

  As I followed him into the mostly dark room, I couldn’t help gasping at the first, most obvious thing—two Tesla coils, probably three feet tall, occupied a huge stone shelf built high into the far wall, sending out frantic purplish arcs of electricity in every direction. Well that explained the ozone smell. When I realized the arcs didn’t reach past the edge of the shelf, I relaxed just a little bit again.

  Until I got a look at the rest of the scene revealed by the flickering light.

  “Oh boy, you really go all out for Halloween, don’t you?” I said loudly, staring around me with wide eyes.

  His reply was typical Julian Kilmartin. “Why do anything halfway? Atmosphere is everything, after all.”

  Much larger than the infirmary, the room was like a set from an old-time horror movie, filled with all the stuff you’d expect to see in a mad scientist’s laboratory. Below the Tesla shelf, a long lab table was covered with an intricate maze of copper pipe, rubber tubing, Bunsen burners, racks of test tubes and half-filled beakers bubbling neon-green, as if the mad scientist had been called away mid-experiment. Shelves of books and brown chemical bottles filled the wall to the left of me, and similar shelves on the right were packed with jars of preserved animals, human hands, brains and other organs—even a few heads—all subtly lit from below.

  In the middle of it all was a very naked Colin, his elegant body stretched out almost upright on an inclined table, his head lolling off to one side as though he were asleep. Black cuffs secured his spread ankles to the footrest, and similar cuffs on his wrists were attached to the upper corners by red ropes.

  At his side was a rolling cart with an open laptop facing away from me. The shelf below held some sort of e-stim unit, and I covered my mouth with both hands when I realized it was attached to Colin’s genitals.

  “Good evening, slave.”

  I twitched nervously. I hadn’t even noticed the man standing on the other side of Colin with his arms crossed over his chest, dressed exactly the same as Julian. My eyes widened again when I recognized him.

  “Dirk?” I said in a strangled voice that he probably couldn’t hear over the coils.

  Apparently reading my lips, he corrected, “That’s Master Dirk in here, slave.”

  “What are you doing to him?” I demanded.

  Ignoring me, Julian said, “Say hello to Rachel, Colin.”

  Colin opened his eyes and smiled at me like he was drunk. “Hello, Rachel.”

  “Are you all right?” I asked anxiously, only half-acting.

  “Never better now that you’re here.”

  Well he didn’t seem to be in any real pain, and he was definitely sweeter than I remembered.

  “Why aren’t you naked, slave girl?” he added. “I’m going to tie you to your bed and fuck your gorgeous ass again.”

  Okay, not sweeter after all.

  Breathless and blushing fiercely, I told Julian, “I want to talk to him alone.”

  His brows notched up superciliously but he nodded and gestured for Dirk to follow him—which he did but not before giving me an equally supercilious look.

  Once they’d left the room, I scurried over to the table and touched Colin’s bare shoulder hesitantly.

  He groaned at the contact. “Oh fuck, please don’t touch me.”

  Simultaneously hurt and concerned, I snatched my hand away, trying not to stare at his booby-trapped penis. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine, I just…need you to not touch me right now. Nothing personal,” he added.

  Right. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Is it about me fucking your ass?”

  “No!” I hissed. “It’s about Julian and this...this whole thing. Is there really a fellowship? Really a surgery at the end of the month?”

  “Of course there is,” he said immediately. “I wouldn’t ask you to give up the EVI fellowship if there weren’t, and neither would Julian.”

  I sagged with relief. “Thank God.”

  “You’re so beautiful, Rachel.”

  Struck dumb, I stared at him. “Really?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Intensely so.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  His stomach muscles jumped in a silent chuckle. “No.”

  “Okay, then I just want to make sure I’m…” I swallowed. “Colin, am I safe here? With Julian?”

  His grin disappeared and his eyes went sharp. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know him, Colin,” I said desperately. “It’s been five years since I saw him last, and even then, I only knew him enough to be afraid of him.”

  “And to want him,” Colin pointed out. “And to be aware on some level that he was what you needed.”

  I bit my lip. “Was he? Is he?”

  “He definitely is.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Trust me, Rachel, I spent enough time in your bed to know you need more than vanilla sex. That’s why you were so drawn to Julian—he was probably born with a keychain flogger in one hand and a teeny-tiny violet wand in the other.”

  Smiling reluctantly, I said, “That would have been a shock for his mother.”

  “Literally,” he said, grinning too. “But probably not. His parents were kinky too.”

  My eyes bugged. “Really?”

  Colin nodded. “A lot of brilliant people are kinky. Look at me. And you,” he added.

  “I’m not kinky,” I said quickly. “I’m just...”

  “A subbie little surgeon-girl who desperately needs to get her freak on with big, scary Dr. Kilmartin. And me. And whoever else Julian feels like subjecting you to.” When I opened my mouth, he said, “Don’t deny it, Rachel. I could see right through you five years ago and I can see through you now. You’re here—not just in Julian’s castle but in his dungeon. That makes you at least as kinky as the rest of us, and I’m going to enjoy the hell out of watching you finally give in to it.”

  The bottom fell out of my stomach. “Colin…”

  “What, slave girl?”

  I hesitated and then laid my hand on his bare chest, right over his heart. “You accused me once of being with you because of Julian.”

  “Christ, you’re touching me,” he groaned.

  “Sorry, but I need to say this and I can’t do it and not touch you,”

  “Then hurry up and spit it out.”

  “I wasn’t with you because of Julian,” I said quickly. “You were fascinating in your own right. I just wanted you to know th
at.”

  Colin’s lips crooked. “Same goes. But can you take your hand off me now, before I come on your skirt?”

  I jumped back and then scowled when he laughed. “You’re not even hard.”

  “I don’t have to be, little innocent. Sir!”

  His shout made me jump again.

  “Yes, Colin?” Julian appeared in the doorway, with Dirk and Vince right behind him.

  “I think your new slave should be punished for thinking she wasn’t safe with you, Sir.”

  Outraged, I slapped his ribs. “I didn’t say that, you ass!”

  Julian’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What did you say then, slave?”

  “I just wanted to make sure that I was safe. I think you’d have done the same in my position.”

  “You do, eh?”

  “I certainly do.”

  “So you accept Colin’s word that I’m not some axe-wielding maniac?”

  “Of course!”

  “And you accept the terms of all the agreements you signed, including the personal conduct agreement.”

  I swallowed hard. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Then you should be properly attired.”

  I glanced down at the outfit I’d arrived in. “Obviously I didn’t get the memo about lab costumes. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t see one in my new wardrobe,” I added with a cross look.

  “That’s because you’re a slave,” he growled. “If you’ve read your personal conduct agreement, you’ll know slaves go naked in the dungeon unless I specify something for you something to wear.”

  Oh hell. I’d conveniently forgotten that little detail.

  “You may fold your clothing and give it to Master Vincent for safekeeping. Once you’re properly attired, Master Dirk will restrain so you may observe Colin’s forfeit until it’s time to address yours.”

  Staring into his uncompromising eyes, I pressed my cold, damp palms against my skirt, completely at war with myself.

  “Forfeit for what?” I asked, stalling for time.

  “He lost a bet with me,” Julian replied with finality. “Now, if you’re having trouble following directions, slave, I’m sure Master Vincent and Master Dirk will be happy to assist you out of your clothes—although bear in mind that there may not be much left to fold when they’re done. I’d do it myself, but then the fun would be over entirely too soon.”