She turned her hand around and threaded her fingers through his so she was holding his hand, but when he tried to touch her mind on that connection between them, her mind was closed to his. She had already figured out a way to shut him out. He knew he could find another pathway, but that would be intrusive and also, in a way, another form of betrayal. He wouldn’t do that unless he had no choice. He wanted a relationship with her, a real one. If they were going to survive, she had to know the real Absinthe and accept him, just as she accepted his need of a pet kitten in his bedroom. He couldn’t imagine anyone, let alone a woman as strong as Scarlet, accepting him and the things he’d done, but he had to try. He’d already lost her. He refused to be a coward, and that was what it would amount to if he didn’t just come clean. In a way, it would be a relief that someone knew the real truth.
They walked together down the hall and back to the main part of the house, to the living room. When he went to the fireplace to warm the room for her, she took the remote from his hand.
“I don’t need that on right now. I’d rather sit with just the light coming in from the moon and the sea. I like the way it appears silver.”
Absinthe liked that effect as well. The moonlight reflected off the surface of the water and poured through the wall of floor-to-ceiling glass. Scarlet curled up in the wide armchair Lana had chosen for him. There was always a feeling of comfort in Lana’s furniture the moment one settled into it, and he could see that once Scarlet tucked her bare feet under her, she was much more relaxed in spite of herself and the seriousness of the situation.
He went to the bar and pulled out two icy glass bottles of water, trying not to notice how the shape and feel of those bottles reminded him of how sexy it felt when he pressed one into his little kitten’s heat. He opened a bottle for her first and set it on the table between the chairs before opening his and taking a long drink. He hadn’t donned a shirt and he pressed the icy bottle first to his forehead and then to his chest, trying to relieve the feeling of feverish heat sweeping through him.
It took a few minutes before he could force himself to sink into the chair beside Scarlet, and immediately there was a lightening of his heart, an easing of his burden, and he recognized Lana’s gift. She had said she had no gift, but there it was, and no one, including him, had ever managed to put their finger on it, when it was right there in plain sight. She eased that heavy load they all carried. She put herself into the furniture she chose, into the clothes she mended for them, the patches she stitched on their vests or jackets. He would have to tell her so she knew what a miracle she was. When he needed her the most, she’d come through for him.
“Start with Savage,” Scarlet said. “He scared me to death even when I asked him to help and I knew what he was going to do.”
“Did he touch you?” Absinthe countered. “Actually put his hands on you? You were naked, completely naked and vulnerable. He could have done anything to you. Did he?”
Scarlet thought about it. “He grabbed my hair and pulled it, that was scary, and it hurt a little bit. He threatened me mostly, just pacing behind me where I couldn’t see him and then when you didn’t respond, he took off his belt and cracked it. That was terrifying. He wrapped it around my neck, but after, I realized he put it over my collar.”
She raised her hand to her throat and rubbed her fingers along her skin. “I was having a difficult time really being afraid until that moment. I connected with his past somehow, when he was a teen. He had his shirt off and I saw the burn on his chest. Whip Master. I saw him whipping a girl. And then he fucked her. She seemed to want him to, but his eyes … He was so remote, as if he wasn’t really there.”
“Reaper was being tortured and assaulted to keep Savage in line,” Absinthe offered. “I’ll tell you more but I want to know what happened. Did he hurt you?”
“Not like you think.” She touched her hand to her throat again. “After he put the belt around my throat and threatened me, I was scared. I went back to being seventeen, that place where I was half-drugged and Robert and his friends attacked me. I felt helpless and so afraid.” She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.
He tried to touch her and she jerked away from him, shaking her head. “I swore I would never feel that way again. No one would ever do that to me. I knew how Priscilla felt. How so many other young girls feel. I was so angry with him. With you. But mostly at myself. I can’t be that person you need, Absinthe. I can’t save you when you refuse to save yourself. When you won’t even try. I can’t. I’m not sacrificing myself. I can’t do that. Not even for you.”
She was crying and that turned him inside out. “Scarlet. I wouldn’t want you to sacrifice yourself for me. You’re exactly who I need.”
She shook her head. “I’ll never let him do that to me again. Never. I thought he might really kill me. Even knowing ahead of time, I still thought that of him. He’s that dangerous and you know it, Absinthe.”
Scarlet took a sip of water, her eyes on his face. Steady. Expectant. When he didn’t respond and his gaze shifted from hers, she was the one who sighed. “You’re going to have to tell me why you so adamantly defend him. You touch people and you see what’s inside them. I don’t have one quarter of your talent and I’m in the room with him and I know he’s not a man you ever want to piss off. He could cut you into little pieces and not bat an eye. Tell me I’m wrong. What I saw of his past was very real, wasn’t it?”
Absinthe pressed the icy bottle to his pounding forehead, his gut churning. “Yes,” he admitted, his voice a whisper. “It’s true. For a long time, when he was just little, they used him. They’d take him from us and whip him, laying his flesh open, raping him repeatedly. He’d come back so bloody and nearly dead that we didn’t think he would make it an hour let alone through the night.”
He felt those green eyes of hers jump to his face, but he couldn’t look at her. He forced himself to look at the ocean, that beautiful sea with the sprays breaking against the rocks and bluffs. He felt like the rocks; slowing being worn down by the ever-present waves crashing against him.
“I wasn’t much older. None of us were. Demyan was alive at the time. Reaper, Savage’s older brother, would hold him and rock him, but Savage would try to push him away because it hurt so bad to be touched. Steele would try to heal him. We were all little kids with no real food, no medical aid, the conditions were unsanitary, it was freezing.”
He shook his head and shoved one hand through his hair. “I don’t know, Scarlet. We tried everything we could to make things better. Demyan and I would get on either side of Savage and just talk to him. We did it to all the kids that were beat the hell up. Girls and boys. We were beat up and raped and we’d do it for each other. We told one another that we were strong, stronger than the instructors were. We could be so much better at what they did than they could because we were so much stronger and more disciplined. They couldn’t defeat us. We would always be the best.”
She didn’t make a sound, just watched him with that same intensity she got sometimes, never blinking, never taking her eyes from his face. She looked as if she could see right into his soul. Maybe she could, and if it was possible, she’d see only darkness. There was nothing left in him.
He shook his head again and pressed his fingertips hard into his pounding temples. “We were just trying to get each other through the next minute. The next hour. We had no idea we had any real talents or gifts. We just tried to encourage one another. We continued doing it day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year.”
Scarlet nodded and shifted a little closer to him. That settled his churning stomach just a little. Her presence always seemed to help.
“From the time we were little, Czar began training us. At first, most of us didn’t realize what we were doing. He had us throwing pebbles through holes. Acorns, tiny objects through very small holes. We did push-ups and he wanted us to become stronger and stronger. He was a little kid too, but he started us working on how
to hold various weapons even when we didn’t have them. Master, Maestro, Player and Keys were so good with wood and they could make these incredible darts. He taught us to use them like blow darts. It wasn’t a game anymore, but we couldn’t be careless and ever leave them where anyone could find them.”
Absinthe knew he was putting off the inevitable. He had to circle back to his sins and get it over with. “We were all growing and with our age and bulk and training as assassins, the instructors in the schools were far more brutal. Sorbacov had really given them a buffet and they embraced it, becoming more and more depraved and vile in what they chose to do to kids. So many had died, and they got away with it. The more that happened, the more children became disposable to them, the more brutal they became toward us. Czar insisted we work on developing our psychic skills and we all did, whether we thought it would work or not.”
He pressed his fingers into his temples, wishing he was lying on the bed with her and she was massaging his neck and shoulders. His Scarlet. He couldn’t lose her now that he’d found her. He could hear the blood roaring in his ears as loud as the pounding waves outside breaking against the rocks.
“Savage was forced to be with sadists all the time. The ones who loved to flay the skin off the boys or girls or carve their names into them. Some liked to brand them. Or pierce them. He was a favorite because he was so strong and he never made a sound. No one could break him. He caught the whip one day, pulled it out of the wielder’s hand and he took over. No one stopped him. He became the whip master and the top trainer.”
Again Absinthe paused. He forced himself to meet those green eyes, needing to see how deep the condemnation would go. “I had been talking to him for months, years really. Repeating the same things to him. You’re a better trainer. You like what you do. You like seeing the red lines on their bodies. It makes you so hard. You want them. You can make them enjoy it. You have to be the best, better than any of them, better than all of them so they admire you and want you to train theirs for them.”
He saw the comprehension dawning on her face. His voice. That velvet tone, the one that persuaded others, influenced them. Years and years of influence, from a child to an adult. He had created that sadist, that insatiable need for pain in others. That craving and addiction that would never go away.
“It wasn’t just Savage. I persuaded all of them to like what they did. To need it. I didn’t realize what I was doing at first. I don’t think I really ever did until it was too late. We were all such a mess, bloody and broken all the time. Hating ourselves and what was happening to us. Feeling out of control. Czar set rules for us to remain human. He was our moral compass in a way. I mean, we were learning to kill and having sex in every way possible from the time we were little kids, but he made it clear that what they were doing to us was wrong, even if they made us feel good, and we were never to do that to children. Never. That was abhorrent to us and we had to repeat that daily, hundreds of times a day. We should always have one another’s backs and watch over one another to make certain we never became the predators they were. We also had to grow strong enough to strike back at them and to watch out for one another and protect one another.”
Scarlet set the bottle of water on the table between them and continued to regard him steadily. He couldn’t see judgment in her eyes, only that comprehension of what he was telling her. He had to keep going. Why did his life have to be so damn fucked up?
“You’d think it would have gotten better when we were older, but it didn’t. It got steadily worse. Maybe we just knew more. Or the newer instructors were more brutal. Sorbacov reveled in finding really fucked-up men and women to come in to teach us how to perform under any circumstances. We had to be in control of our bodies no matter what was happening to us. I went overboard with the others, trying to help them stay in control so they weren’t brutalized. God, it was so ugly. Those days. The nights. They were so vicious, Scarlet. Not human. There was no real way to fight back.”
He was sweating again, and he rolled the cold bottle over his forehead, grateful for the ice chips he always made certain he had floating in the glass. Sometimes, at night especially, he couldn’t get those days and nights out of his mind.
“No matter how much I talked to them, planting suggestions, or Demyan did, or sometimes the both of us working together, it never seemed enough, it was never strong enough. They came back broken and bloody. Sometimes so shattered it took everyone to put them back together. Sometimes I was in bad shape, or Demyan, and we couldn’t help them. It was a bad time, so I practiced harder, studied longer, was more determined than ever to be able to use my voice to help them.”
Absinthe dropped his forehead into his palm. “I had no idea what harm I was doing to them, Scarlet. None of us really thought we were going to make it out of there. So many were dying all around us. Demyan and I wanted to make what they had to do easier on them. They had no choice. None of them did. I’m not making excuses for what I did. I really didn’t realize in the beginning. But there did come a time when I was aware of it.”
He made that admission hastily so he couldn’t take it back or leave it out. He would have to tell her no matter what. Her long lashes fluttered. There was so much pressure in his chest. His heart hurt and he rubbed over it, hoping to ease the ache.
“I tried using my voice to influence one of the girls being trained as a pony girl for a very harsh master. He had put painful shoes on her, a plug too big, and scared her so bad she could barely function. She responded to my voice and tried very hard to please him. He saw that after I spoke to her she really did whatever he asked of her and he liked that, mostly so he could humiliate her more, but still, both won a little. She didn’t seem to realize it was as awful as it was or as harsh, and he got to do so much more.”
Scarlet rested her chin in her palm, her green eyes never leaving his face. Again, he couldn’t see condemnation, only interest.
“After that, I was asked to help train the girls in various roles for those wanting ‘pets.’ I tried to influence the ‘masters’ to be a little kinder. Some were more susceptible to my voice than others. I had to be cautious in how I worded the suggestions. The girls and boys were easier. They were younger and desperate for kindness and guidance. I found that the more I was around the kittens, the more it felt like I had a pet, someone to take care of, to cuddle and play with. I needed that. I needed that control and in return for my help, they gave me my own kitten. I knew I was saving her from a horrid master. Some of them were brutal.”
He took a deep breath. “At least, that was how I justified it. In the meantime, I was still persuading the others that they liked what they did, and they were the best, stronger than any other pitted against them. I made Steele believe he could be the best surgeon no matter what they were doing to him. That Alena could cook a seven-course meal and assassinate Sorbacov’s enemies right under the noses of their guards while her dessert was served to them. She wouldn’t get caught; her meals were so good no one would notice if anyone was dead because they were too busy enjoying the food. It goes on and on. The worst that I am responsible for is Savage. What I did to him, what I shaped him into, is unconscionable.”
He didn’t wait for her to respond. “There is more. Far more. Just let me get it out before you say anything, or I won’t be able to. In that world, if you loved anyone, Sorbacov had the perfect hostage to hold over your head. You had to endure every kind of brutality or the one you loved was raped, beaten and tortured in front of you. My brother, Demyan, was taken with Steele to entertain some of Sorbacov’s ‘special’ friends while I was held there with Sorbacov and some others. Sorbacov wanted his ‘special’ friends compromised, so he gave them the word that they could do whatever they wanted. He was videotaping everything. He told Demyan that as long as he cooperated, I wouldn’t be hurt. He lied, of course.”
Scarlet sat up straight. He saw her swallow. She shook her head, but her gaze didn’t waver from his.
“I had a deal with Demyan.
I had practiced holding a bridge with him—a connection between us over a distance. We were both very strong. He was older and much stronger than I was, so he usually could hold longer, but I was growing in strength. That way, we knew what was happening, even if it was ugly and brutal. At least we knew the other was alive. They didn’t take him very far, just to another building a distance away on the same property, which was often the case. Sorbacov didn’t want to take the chance that any of his more disturbing proclivities could leak out into the world. Suffice it to say, it got very ugly for Steele and Demyan. I was being used pretty brutally, but nothing like the two of them.”
He paused, unable to breathe for a moment. His hands shook and he had to place the water bottle carefully on the table. Scarlet was very observant. She noticed, but she didn’t interrupt him.
“There were whips, chains, branding irons. They carved their initials into their bodies and wrapped barbed wire around them. The worst was, they separated them. They weren’t supposed to do that. No matter what was being done to me, I kept that path to Demyan. We’d been taught such control; I was able to separate myself from what was happening to me. Then, all of sudden, I don’t know what happened, one of the men beating me hit me so hard I think I blacked out for a second and couldn’t hold the bridge. It was gone and I couldn’t get it back.”
There was no holding back the despair. He wiped at his face, shocked at the feeling of the wetness on the end of his lashes and the bristles along his jaw. He forced himself to continue doggedly on. “Steele believes it was his fault that Demyan died. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. I let my brother down that day, not Steele. It was my responsibility to keep him alive. We had a pact. I didn’t hold him to me. I didn’t keep him safe. All these years, Steele has believed he was at fault and I let him. I tried to tell him, but the words just wouldn’t come. I can’t man up enough to tell him because I’m so fuckin’ pissed at him. At him. At Savage. At Demyan. At Alena for forcing me to stay alive and eat when I wanted to die.” He shoved both hands through his hair. “Hell. Maybe at all of them. I just can’t let it go.”
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