by Raven Dark
“So you’re the General of the infamous Dark Legion.” Grizzle’s mouth stretched into a too-wide smile full of too many teeth. “Finally, I get to see the fabled Grotto for myself.” He glanced around at the gems that winked at him from every wall. “Wow. There really is money in them there mountains.”
Sheriff smiled, with pride I thought, but the emotion didn’t touch his eyes. “There is.”
“My Second tells me you have a thievery problem. With your gems going missing.”
He nodded. “We do, but let’s discuss that somewhere more comfortable, with food in our bellies and women on our laps.”
Grizzle chuckled and clapped him on the back. “Agreed. I have brought a toy for just such an occasion.” He pushed the woman at his side forward. Somehow, she managed to carry an air of superiority while looking completely submissive to him. She moved forward, graceful like a swan, and bowed her head to Sheriff. His expression for her was pleased, but ice cold.
Sheriff didn’t do anything as obvious as shove me at the man, only giving me the faintest flick of a look, a twitch of his arm bringing me forward, though he stopped me before I took more than half a step.
“Ah,” Grizzle said, noticing me. He gave me an appraising look, one that swept over me from head to toe. The look lasted no more than an instant, but it still made me feel like livestock being looked over by a man with a prettier horse. “You have good taste. Only the best for the head of the Legion.”
Sheriff nodded and gestured for Grizzle and his company to follow him back up toward the main part of the Grotto.
The men talked in low voices as we made our way back through the tunnels and up to the outdoor walkways that traversed the Grotto’s cliff sides. The woman walked a pace behind her master, allowing him to keep pace with Sheriff, leaving me to fall in step with her.
Hawk walked beside myself and the other woman, but he neither looked at me nor spoke. I wished he’d have walked elsewhere and tried to get my mind off him, but that only pushed my thoughts toward the woman at my other side.
I wanted to focus on the odd, icy interplay between the two road warriors, but the woman’s presence was wreaking havoc on my brain. Her emotions, finely controlled and hard to read, nonetheless scraped across mine, a too bright light always in my eyes so that I couldn’t focus.
She said nothing to me, made no attempt at conversation and indeed seemed to avoid looking at me, her face still too pale. I bothered her, deeply.
She was beautiful, in that unsettlingly trained way that reminded me of Damien, and I instinctively looked at her ankles as her gossamer dress swished with her strides, expecting to glimpse a brand like the one I wore on my ankle, marking me for Damien’s stock.
I didn’t see a brand of any kind. Did she have a star like me? And if she did, did she know what it meant? Did her master?
An intense desire to talk with her, to ask a million questions, filled my thoughts and I tamped them down. The woman looked like she’d rather spend a day out in a Critian snowstorm than talk to me.
The thought made me absurdly sad. Other than the one at the market, I’d only ever seen one Violet before—my mother. Here, I had the chance to learn about what I was, and yet I couldn’t use it. I felt like a woman dying of thirst, led to a cold stream and forbidden to taste a drop.
At Sheriff’s office, he unlocked the door and ushered Grizzle inside. His guards moved to follow, but Hawk drew one of his swords and put it out in front of them, barring the door. Silent, cold.
“You’re only allowed one guard in here, Grizzle. The others can wait outside.” Sheriff’s tone was matter of fact, but I thought I heard a faint note of satisfaction in it.
Grizzle raised a brow, then shrugged like it mattered not a whit to him, but I saw his back tense, causing the emblem on the back of his cut, a long sword entwined with bleeding roses, to ripple momentarily.
I caught the name of his road warrior club for the first time, stenciled in below the sword.
Blood Warriors.
The name wasn’t familiar to me, and I felt some of the tension leave me. He probably wasn’t linked to anyone that would draw Damien to me.
“Dex, you come in, the rest of you wait outside.” All but one of his men left, and he looked at Hawk with an impressed nod. “Wouldn’t want to give his pet Yantu a reason to cut off my head.”
Only when the other men were clear of the door, and obviously not going to put up a fight, did Hawk return his sword to the scabbard on his back with the other. For all the emotion he showed the insult, he might not have heard it.
Sheriff went around his desk and sat in his chair, once more making the seat look like a throne. I had the sudden urge to go to him but stayed where I was until summoned.
“Shall we get down to business then?” Sheriff said. “What have you heard about our missing gems?”
“Ever the professional,” Grizzle said. “My people were right, you are all business. You promised me food before shop talk, General.” He took a seat on the couch, lounging on it, and pulled his Violet down with him so that she sat on his lap. She strung her arms around him, pressed close, all her attention on him, but there was no warmth in it.
Maker, was that what I was supposed to be like?
Just them, someone knocked on the door. When Sheriff called them in, Crash wheeled a large cart of food into the room. Plates of strange, fleshy seafood with red, black, or pink shells on platters covered the table, dipping sauces accompanying each. I’d never seen such odd looking food. All of it smelled strongly of fish.
“Thanks, Crash, leave it here for now.”
Crash nodded and departed, shutting the door behind him. Sheriff got up from his chair, went to the tray, and plucked a long, plump shrimp from a bowl. “Tell me what you heard, Grizzle.”
Still not answering, he looked to the side of the room where Hawk had backed up to a wall, somehow seeming to become so much a part of it that I could have forgotten he was there.
“You have your own Yantu. Where did you find him, General?” He looked at ease, in no hurry to get to the business at hand. His fingers made circles on the curve of his Violet’s backside. She squirmed into him.
“I saved his life once. He is sworn to me.” He picked up a whole binacca. “I hate when these things aren’t cut.” He put it back on the bowl.
Hawk stepped forward, grabbed the binacca, tossed it up into the air, then drew his sword and sliced through the fruit, all in one move. It fell into Sheriff’s hand in two halves. Then before he returned his sword to his back and took his place at the wall again, his head turned, and he gave me the briefest look, one in which I saw the corners of his mouth turn up.
A memory played across my thoughts, and my stomach flip-flopped, registering the meaning in that look, reminding me of the way in which he’d chosen to use a knife and a binacca on me in a rather sexy game.
In an instant, he was back to standing at the wall, face stoic, as if nothing had happened.
Sheriff put a slice of the orange-like fruit in his mouth and looked at Grizzle, waiting.
“I never talk business with sober women present. Send them out and let’s get down to it.”
Sheriff nodded to me, to the door. Grizzle pushed the Violet off his own lap.
“Hawk, why don’t you show Grizzle’s guest around. I’m sure she’d like to see how we handle our slaves here.”
Hawk headed for the door, gesturing for her to follow.
“No one is ever alone with Madi’san,” he said, getting to his feet and reaching for her.
“Your Violet will be fine, Grizzle.”
“But—”
“If you know what Hawk is, then you know he cannot hurt her without just cause. She won’t be as safe with anyone else, I promise you that.”
Grizzle sat back down and nodded for them to leave, but he didn’t look pleased.
I wanted to stay in the room with them, to learn about this Grizzle and why he was there, why Sheriff thought he was dangerous,
and what he knew about the jewels missing, but I couldn’t. Sheriff had dismissed me, so I had no choice but to leave.
Stepping out into the waiting room, I looked around for Hawk, anxious to catch his eye if only for a second. My heart fell. For the second time, he’d vanished as though into thin air.
Along with him, the Violet was nowhere to be seen. As I followed Gore out and to the slave quarters, two things became clear in my mind. One, I couldn’t feel her mind anymore, thank the Maker, but I knew it hadn’t been my imagination before.
And two, without a doubt, if she was a model of what I was supposed to be as a Violet, I understood why Cherry and the other women hated me.
Chapter 15
Marked
What exactly had been the point of my being in that meeting?
I was still trying to come up with an answer to that when I returned to Pretty Boy’s cave later that day. Steel and Pretty Boy were coming out of the cave just as I arrived.
“There you are. Nope, this way, Princess.” Pretty Boy turned me around and led me down the path the way I’d come. We turned left, though, instead of going straight, to Sheriff’s office.
“Where are you taking me, Masters?”
“Questions, questions,” Steel teased. His fingers grazed the slope of my lower back. “We’re getting this gorgeous skin of yours marked.”
They’d stopped at the entrance to a small cave that looked like it had only one room, and as soon as I heard what Steel had said, dread shot through me, a cold blade. I froze.
“No, none of that.” Hand on my shoulder as if to keep me from bolting, Pretty Boy pushed me firmly into the cavern. “You can do this. We’ll be with you the whole time, in you go.”
Tattooing reminded me too much of branding, something I’d not only seen done to Patch, but which Damien’s maids had done to me before I was led out to that auction. And while tattooing wouldn’t hurt nearly as much, it would also take a lot longer.
I gave a shaky sigh and turned to look at the room.
Across the cavern, standing by a strange looking leather bench that looked a little like a rectangular ottoman, Doc, the same man who’d tended my wound from the fire a little more than a week ago, was busy setting out things on a tray. A cloth, containers, cotton swabs. He gave me a reassuring nod when he saw me, obviously picking up on my anxiety.
“Come on in, Setora. Don’t be afraid.”
His use of my name helped calm me a little. I twisted my hands and walked over to the bench. There was a chair beside it with a high backrest, and tools laid out on a tray beside the arm of the chair.
“I’ve been doing tattoos for years, and I do most of the Legion’s tatts. You’re in good hands.”
I nodded but looked back at Pretty Boy and Steel who were now lounging on couches nearby.
Sheriff stood up from a seat in a corner, and I startled, not having noticed him when I came in. “The boys were just going to have the usual mark put on your back. ‘Property of’ and all that.” He leaned on the backrest of the chair, folding his arms across the top of it. “But I suggested something a little more.”
I swallowed hard. “More? What are you going to do?” I looked pleadingly at Doc.
Doc smiled kindly. “Come here. Let me show you.” He waved me over to a counter against the wall near him. He leafed through the papers there, all with elaborate tattoos drawn on them, many of the images complex designs. “This is what we want to do.”
I stared at the large sheet of paper he held up. Nearly all of the paper, which was easily the size of a human back, was covered in the tattoo’s design. At the bottom, which would be just above the crack of my backside, the words they’d planned to mark me with were stenciled. Above that, the Dark Legion’s symbol, with the reaper skull and crossbones, only there were elements added to it.
The whole tattoo was incredibly detailed, with rich colors, gloriously designed. Underneath my fear, I wondered who drew it.
“Maker, it’s gorgeous, but it’ll take forever. Masters, I don’t know if I can—”
“Oh, we’re not going to do it all at once,” Doc soothed. “Ordinarily, we’d break something this large up into four sections, with several weeks of healing between each. With your accelerated healing, we figure we can split it up doing another section each day.”
“Four days?” I nodded to the tattooing needle by the chair. “Of that?”
“You can do it, sweetheart.” Sheriff showed me his impressively muscled arms, both sleeved with tattoos. “Look at all mine.”
This from a man who had a ring permanently stuck through the head of his cock? I swayed, and Doc put his hand on my shoulder.
“Princess, look.” Pretty Boy stood up and nodded someone into the cave. A happy bubble swelled in me as Cherry walked in, an awkward smile on her pretty face.
“Violet. How you doing?”
“We thought you’d like her here,” Pretty Boy added.
“Cherry.” I took her hands when she stopped beside me. “You’re staying?” Light, how desperate did I sound?
“Of course. Wouldn’t want you passing out the first time that needle touches that delicate flesh.” But she squeezed my hand, anything but mocking.
I noticed she had a small tattoo on her ankle, and one on her shoulder, both butterflies, but with jagged edges that made them look menacing instead of gentle.
“Here, have a seat,” Doc instructed, gesturing to the bench. “I’ll tell you how we’re gonna get this done.”
But when I seated myself on the bench, I could hardly register what he said. My stomach wouldn’t stop rolling. I hated how weak I must have looked, shaking, trying to control my breathing. Sheriff watched me carefully, but I couldn’t make out what his expression meant.
“Did you hear what I said, Setora?” Doc asked when he was finished.
I shook my head, then I managed an apologetic smile for everyone. “I’m sorry I’m such a…” There was no word that fit.
“A shrinking Violet?” Cherry said.
“Haha, very funny.” But I laughed shakily and so did everyone else.
Doc looked at the others for help.
“Move,” Sheriff told him, and when Doc stood up, Sheriff crouched in front of me. His eyes softened so much that I almost thought a different man was looking out of them. He rested his hands on my knees, a leader’s firm grip. “Listen to me, sweetheart.”
The usual mocking was missing from the name.
“I won’t lie. It hurts like a motherfucker at first. But you get used to it. And when it’s done, it’s gonna make this gorgeousness…" he said, cradling my face. “…this gorgeous body of yours, look even hotter. The pain will pass and all that’ll be left is our mark on you. A mark that, when you look at it, you’ll never forget that you’re ours.”
Wow. I blinked, my eyes stinging, his words moving me deep. Theirs. Maybe it was just me, but the way he said it made their ownership feel special. It made me feel protected, like I had somewhere to belong.
I nodded, pushing down my fear.
In minutes, Doc had me stripped to the waist and lying across the leather bench on my stomach. The semi-hard surface went from my chest to my thighs until Doc adjusted the bench so that the bottom dropped, and my head and legs hung off the ends. Doc raised an extension on each end so that my cheek rested on warm leather, and my knees rested comfortably on their own leather-covered platform. The position left my back splayed out and taunt, every inch of it exposed to the needle.
I was like a living table.
After securing my hair on top of my head with a clip, Doc hooked a leather strap over my upper back and under the bench, keeping my shoulders flat and rendering me motionless. I knew the strap was meant to keep me still while Doc worked, but I couldn’t help feeling suddenly trapped.
A couple of the other men walked in; I heard T-Man and Bear’s voices at the door, and my self-consciousness doubled.
“Um, Masters…” I tried to sit up.
“Relax,
Petal. I’m right here.” Steel knelt at my head, holding my shoulders with his warm palms.
“Ohh, tatts. I love watching these.” T-Man crossed the room, stopping near Doc’s chair. This also happened to put him right behind Cherry. She took one look at him and her face changed color.
“Er, I have to go check on Gramps,” she muttered. “Sorry, Violet.”
“Cherry, wait.”
But she’d already gone. T-Man watched her leave with an irritated scowl, then shook his head when she was gone.
I raised my brows at him, but he said nothing.
Maybe it was stupid, but with Cherry gone, new tension coiled in my limbs. I squirmed anxiously.
“Petal.” Steel’s hard cheek pressed to mine, his warm breath in my ear while Doc seated himself in the tattooing chair and went over his tools, checking to make sure everything was in order and in reach. “It’ll be ok. Over before you know it.”
“Don’t let go, Master.” I winced at how shaky I sounded.
“I won’t.” He stroked my hair. “I won’t. Look at me.”
I met his eyes.
“Do you remember the poem you read to me?”
I nodded.
“Say it. Say it slowly.”
But there was a buzzing sound, loud and scary in my ears, and my brain turned to a mess of panic.
Steel locked my eyes with his, hands cupping my face. “Petal.”
I licked my lips and started to recite the poem from Selindra.
“My love, my stars, my moon and sun—”
Doc leaned over me, the buzzing started again, and I cut off.
“Hey, don’t get so close,” Steel said, sitting up suddenly and glaring at him.
“Excuse me?” I thought I heard Doc smile.
“Your face is almost on her ass.” Pretty Boy said, coming over.
Doc laughed. “I’m a doctor, Pretty Boy, I think I can look at a woman’s ass without losing my shit.”
“All right, everyone, out.” Sheriff’s voice rang out, impatient.
Everyone argued, but he wasn’t having it.