Wilt

by Rae, Nikki

  I could only shake my head. He couldn’t really do this. Someone would walk in and put an end to this or Gregor would laugh that obnoxious laugh that grated my nerves and tell him it had all been a joke. There had to be a different outcome than this.

  My skin screamed about my bonds and I could feel my veins popping up to the surface of my skin. “You don’t have to,” I whispered frantically; I no longer cared who heard us.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he said into my hair, hand gently rubbing my arm as if he could make the muscles there relax. “Pretend we’re alone,” he whispered. “Just you and me.”

  That didn’t make anything better, and I couldn’t imagine this scenario in any other way than it was. I shook my head again and the drugs made it difficult to focus, amplifying my fear. I was completely helpless now. No Master Lyon. No Marius. Only the Wolf and his pack.

  “We’re waiting,” Gregor said, and I could hear something click behind us. Something metallic and final. A gun. I’d heard one being cocked a few times, but at the Compound they were filled with tranquillizers. That wouldn’t be the case here. So that was how they would make him do it. Threaten his life and maybe mine.

  Marius’ breathing had become ragged, like he couldn’t get enough air. Tears sprang to my eyes as I felt him behind me, struggling with what was forced on us. I shut my eyes and shut out everything else with it, letting the drugs take over and even hoping more would be thrown at me and finally carry me into the dark where this wasn’t happening. The more I slipped into the comfort they provided, the less I cared about what would happen to my physical body.

  I felt a warm breath and then a slow, tentative kiss on my shoulder. One that was meant to be comforting, telling me he didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to hurt me. “Try to relax. I’m sorry,” he whispered, and I could hear tears in his voice as mine began to fall.

  His hand slipped between my legs and I let out a breath. He rubbed that tight bundle of nerves Master Lyon had shown me but I felt nothing but the pressure. No pleasure or promise of peace. When he finally entered me, I cried out from the immediate sharp pain, but other than that I was no longer in the same room.

  The laughter and applause from the other men sounded far away, and even Marius’ single finger slowly moving in and out of me didn’t ground me in the moment. There would be many more like this in my future, so I was grateful they planned to trap me in a web of drugs so I could at least detach from them.

  When one sense is taken away, you must use what you have left.

  The words echoed in my mind and I hated that they belonged to him, that the same voice had given me hope when he had never planned on coming back for me.

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Jäger interrupted. “That’s enough. You can’t even stay hard enough, boy.”

  Marius stilled, one hand on my hip that said he was sorry while the one between my legs withdrew, somehow causing more pain than when he’d started.

  “Get out of my sight,” Jäger barked. “Gregor, take her down and lay her on the bed. You may have the honor Marius so graciously declined.”

  When I looked past my shoulder this time, I could see nothing but a smattering of indistinct shapes. The only thing I could rely on was the sound of Marius moving away and Gregor unstrapping my arms and legs. He hoisted me over his back and I felt each and every lash in my skin stretch and scream. This time when I tried to fight, my arms and legs wouldn’t listen and my vision became darker around the edges. With any luck, I would be unconscious for the next phase of Jäger’s game.

  “On her back,” Jäger instructed, but it sounded like I’d heard him from under water. “I want to watch her face.

  Gregor threw me onto the mattress, unconcerned about the white blankets soaking up my blood or the force jamming the darts further into me. Only a whimper scraped past my lips, and I could do little more than roll my head from side to side.

  “That’s a good little slut,” Gregor cooed, but I couldn’t see him, I could only hear him unfastening is belt again as he groped my breasts, pinching and pulling as if he could tear me open.

  Vaguely, I wondered if Marius was still in the room, but the thought flew from my mind the second I felt Gregor’s hands on me.

  My pulse filled my ears, blocking out everything else. I thought I was the only one who could hear it as I willed myself into the dark.

  These drugs would probably kill me—if not now, then sometime during my time as Jäger’s slave. He wouldn’t simply keep a dog that had bitten him; he would make sure it wore a muzzle until he finally put it down. At the very least, my suffering would be short, punctuated by the drug-induced slumber that took me away from whatever they decided to do to me next.

  “You three,” Jäger was ordering, but the order was muffled by my pounding heart. “Go find out what that was.”

  It was a long time before I realized this sound wasn’t coming from inside of me alone. There as a vibration under the bed, as if some large beast lay in wait beneath the floorboards to swallow me whole. That made Gregor stand, abandoning my prone body.

  It took all of my energy to open my eyes and confirm this was real. I caught a glimpse of Jäger as his hand hovered above a device that controlled his wheelchair. It was the tiniest of moments, but I clearly saw the fear on his disfigured face.

  Then the rumbling took on a more definite shape, growing louder before a high-pitched alarm went off.

  “Something’s wrong,” a voice I didn’t recognize said—most likely one of the others he’d sent into the hall. “Security has been breached and we are evacuating the Manor, sir.”

  My vision had failed again, but I held that glimpse of fear I’d seen in the forefront of my mind. I envisioned it on his face now, growing grimmer the closer the sound became.

  The beast was knocking on his door, and no one was leaving this room. The fact that the rumbling had morphed into blasts that shook the whole building only confirmed this.

  Another blast, this time deafening, caused the door and whoever was standing in front of it to cave inward—I could only make out a cloud of dust where it had been.

  My ears rang, blocking out all other sounds. Once I looked past the black smoke, I could see the room was no longer a room at all: furniture destroyed or on fire, table overturned, alcohol bottles broken. It was more of an abandoned toy box now.

  A groan brought my attention to where the door had been. The wood lay in splintered fragments over a limp body—the stranger’s lifeless form, I assumed. Then I spotted another, too bloody to make out, but I could have sworn it was Gregor. I counted two more bodies—the other men. That meant the only other survivors were me and the man who thought he Owned me.

  As if possessed, my legs found the strength to lift me off the bed and carry me forward; I barely felt the glass and debris biting into my bare feet. I watched as this man from my nightmares writhed on the floor of his ruined palace, one ankle clearly broken but the rest of him otherwise fine. If he got help now, he would survive such an injury. His chair looked like it had been crumpled in a fist and thrown against the far wall.

  “F-Fawn,” I heard him whimper as I scanned the floor, finally finding my abandoned corset beside the toppled over dart board I’d been strapped to. As I reached for it, I saw a large amount f blood on my hand, but it didn’t register. Neither did the rest of my body covered in the crimson substance. In the distance, I could feel the floor vibrating again.

  “More are about to go off,” Jäger choked out as he tried to sit up, using his feeble arms to drag himself no more than a few inches.

  I could have ripped the gun from Gregor’s dead hand. I could have found a large shard of glass or part of a fallen beam. But this weapon had meaning to me.

  I had escaped Master Lyon once with a letter opener, and now I would escape both of them with one. Ignoring his pleas, I ripped the seam of the corset where the weapon was concealed and carefully came towards him.

  With his one good eye, he gaped up at m
e, hands shaking as he held them in front of him like they could offer any protection. “If you help me out of here, I’ll release you,” he said through what I thought were meant to be tears, but they weren’t convincing. “Please, Fawn,” he begged, using my real name again.

  In a matter of minutes, this monster had been reduced to everything he had wanted in me: pleasing, looking at me like I was his god and I alone determined he was worthy of life.

  It was an easy decision.

  “What are you doing?” he croaked as I pushed an overturned, broken painting out of my path. I watched at the faintest trace of hope appeared in his eyes—he thought I was rescuing him before I sank to my knees.

  “There isn’t time. You—”

  I held one finger to his lips as his face faded in and out of sight and he had the intelligence to stop talking.

  I took in his face, the marred skin, the twisted grimace of pain. “I will never be free,” I whispered.

  Thanks to him, I would always be trapped—if not with him, then some other Owner, then within myself. I was the one who would live with everything, carrying it all with me no matter where I went or how hard I tried to hide. For an instant, death felt too quick of an end for him, but rabid Wolves couldn’t be set loose. He would come looking for me the moment I was gone, same as before.

  After I’d done nothing but watch him gasp and cough for several seconds, realization dawned on his face and I felt a smile stretch mine.

  “No,” he mouthed, then louder, “listen to me.”

  I shook my head, grinning fully now. He was in no position to give me orders. He would never do so again.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he cried through another cough, inhaling too much smoke.

  That made me pause, if only to toy with him the way I’d been played with countless times by men like him.

  “I don’t?”

  He shook his head emphatically, unable to hear my sarcasm and too desperate to believe I wouldn’t help him. “You’re…you’re a good girl. You can’t kill me.”

  Another series of rumbles; time was running out. My knuckles turned white around the letter opener. Then slowly, so he would see every inch as it slid into him, I shoved the weapon into his sternum.

  Though he thrashed, I was stronger than him and it went in so smoothly. It seemed like it should be harder to take the life of someone who had so thoroughly controlled mine. The next succession of blasts going off muffled his screams, renewing the ringing in my ears.

  It meant little as I focused on his warm blood coating my hands, his feeble attempts to block me as the fire in his eyes finally went out.

  Shortly after, the floor collapsed, taking me and the Wolf down into the belly of his den to be buried in the ruins of his castle.

  Sixteen

  Before the Wolf, I had no reason to entertain the idea of death; my Suitor would become my Owner and I would be safe with him away from the Mainworld. But once I was back in the Compound, returned like an ill-fitting garment, refused pain killers as just the beginning of the punishment I would receive, I couldn’t direct my thoughts anywhere else.

  I imagined it would be a peaceful, fluid thing. Floating along a dark river; no fear, no thoughts at all. No body or mind to abuse. Just a vast ocean of nothing upon nothing upon nothing.

  In reality, it couldn’t have been more different.

  The pain was unreal, but it paled in comparison to how it sounded. There were the same sirens wailing, the same rumbling and vibrations that I now felt in my teeth. Bones breaking, wounds bleeding, hands grabbing at me and my own screams echoing in my ears. I wouldn’t let them take me from my release. I wouldn’t let them take this choice from me too.

  Then voices pierced through. A glimpse of a light, then a red rose in a jacket pocket. They meant nothing to me.

  “She won’t let us near her.” I couldn’t pick out which language it was said in, only that I understood.

  Another hand, gripping my arm. I bit into it, tasting blood that was at least partially mine. I wanted to hear the scream on the other end of this action, but there was a loud whooshing in my skull that allowed nothing else.

  “Doe.” More hands on me this time; familiar. I couldn’t name the person they belonged to, only what they meant. Someone carried me, and the fire it sent through my lungs slammed me back into my body.

  In an instant, I was no longer dying.

  “It’s all right.” Another voice, this time so familiar it made my muscles go limp and the pain subsided. “You’re safe. We’re going home.”

  A small, pathetic laugh trickled out of my lungs. There was no safe. There was no home.

  “Fawn.” This voice was right above me. The person carrying me. Through the fog, his name became clear: Marius. Marius had come back for me just like he’d promised, but he was too late. I wasn’t sure there was much left of me to save.

  Still, tears choked me and I tasted blood on my tongue. We were moving, but it became difficult to hear again, my own pulse and then the ringing in my ears muffling everything else. Something warm and smooth covered my naked body, and I felt cold air on my face, indicating we were outside. The next time I could open my eyes, Marius was sitting me down in the same car we’d taken here. Or was I just reliving that time?

  The leather seat shifted beneath me as the floor threatened to meet my face. My vision was wrapped in gauze as a strong hand held my shoulder to make sure I wouldn’t fall. It was easier to keep my eyes closed as the car moved, and I couldn’t find it in me to question where we were going.

  “It’s just the drugs, Doe.” Master Lyon. He was here as well. When he tried to touch my shoulder the same way as Marius, I jerked away, pressing my cheek into Marius’ chest. I didn’t yet know why I did this, only that I needed to put space between us.

  My fingers gripped Marius’ shirt and I felt the needles of the darts still in my back. “We’re almost there,” he said, and I couldn’t tell who he was talking to.

  When I next opened my eyes, it had only felt like minutes had passed but I knew it must have been longer. Instead of arms holding me up, a soft, cushioned surface met my side; I couldn’t lie on my back.

  Someone covered me with a blanket and I unconsciously reached out. A hand held mine, and my vision cleared long enough to take in my surroundings. We were in the room that had been mine on Master Lyon’s plane. Marius wore a torn black dress shirt, scrapes on his face and dirt on his skin. Before I realized what I was doing I cupped his cheek to make sure he was real. Everything was wobbly and unsteady; I couldn’t tell what was authentic and what the drugs made me hallucinate.

  He took the gesture as concern and gently smiled. “I’m okay, Fawn.”

  I blinked a few times but couldn’t keep my vision clear for more than a few seconds at a time.

  “Everyone is safe.” Just as my hand slipped from his cheek, he held it in place. “We just gave you something called Orpheus. You’ll still feel a bit off, but you’ll be more lucid in a little while. It’s a new serum, so you might have some side effects like nausea. Tell me if you do, okay?”

  I blinked slowly, nodding as I blacked out for the third time.

  The ceiling gave way to the wall across from me as someone sat me up, aggravating the injuries on my back and lower. I was barely aware of my whimper in response.

  “Wrap your arms around me.” The scent of vanilla filled my nostrils and I didn’t know how to feel. My limbs were too heavy to move and the woman who’d spoken did it for me, sending waved of shattered glass through my entire body. I cried out louder this time.

  “Shhh,” someone soothed from behind me and then I felt them shifting on the mattress. I froze, every muscle tense and on the verge of going numb. Odette and Master Lyon were with me.

  “Tu es en sécurité.” You’re safe. Her voice was liquid honey.

  Unable to control the impulse, I laughed. “Nowhere’s safe,” I slurred, still drugged yet aware now of where I was and with whom.

  “
There were a total of twenty darts, though I doubt she felt more than a few of them,” Marius said from somewhere farther away. “There’s only four left in her skin. One snapped off at the base.”

  Latex fingers probed the areas, reawakening the pain I’d forgotten about due to the drugs. “Do you think we counteracted it in time?” Master Lyon was clinical, merely asking. At least Marius sounded concerned.

  I didn’t know where he was, but if I had to guess based on where his voice came from, he was somewhere against the wall or in front of the door.

  “Marius,” I mumbled into Odette’s shoulder, but I knew everyone had heard me in the silence.

  Three steps forward and I felt his fingers weave through mine. “I’m here.” Another span of silence stretched between the four of us before he spoke again. “She still has the Cerberus in her system. We don’t know how long it will last.”

  The first dart was pulled out of my shoulder and I felt the blood trail down my back before it was dabbed away. Master Lyon had thought he could leave a mark on me without my new Owner retaliating. It had been one more selfish move he’d made for himself. In reality, he hadn’t cared about me, only his need to leave pieces of House Chimera on someone else’s property.

  “Is it gone, Master Lyon?” I croaked, yet I could still hear the cruelty in my voice. I liked how it sounded; how it felt. It was a lot like stabbing Jäger repeatedly in the chest, his blood coating my hands. This was why men like him hunted—the aftermath was blissful, knowing you’d had the ultimate control over someone’s life. Only my prey was worthy of falling victim. It made me powerful, and even as I leaned on the shoulder of the woman who’d replaced me with the man who’d bought and sold me stitching me back together, I felt that power heating my blood, threatening to bring forth flames from my fingertips.

  “Yes, Doe,” he answered, sounding slightly agitated.

  “Good.”

  It was almost inaudible, but a breath left his lings as he finished up his work and no one spoke again until he was finally done touching me.