by Dagny Aldan
“I don’t think that’s it,” said Luke, “Being king wouldn’t make Ahmed happy, and I don’t think he would go about it this way if that was the goal.”
“So… he’s after Isabel herself? That would tie into his behaviour, his obsession does seem entirely personal. That’s probably why he told me to hurry her in, he was hoping she would struggle, so that he could isolate her and train her to submit to him. It might even be that he wants to own her completely.”
Luke went white.
“Fuck. Fuck! If that’s what he’s after… he’s already there. Isabel thinks she’s in love with him.”
Lena did not answer, she had scrolled down to mission details and was reading the last report.
“Luke, you need to read this,” she said, feeling cold all over as she handed the tablet over. Luke read quickly, and as his eyes got bigger, his face turned blotchy and he sat down with a thump.
“How has this never come up?” he rasped.
“The medical report suggests that Isabel was blocking it out, suppressing it. It advises therapy and medication, and we both know she got neither.”
Luke looked up at Lena, looking sick,
“You don’t think Ahmed arranged this to happen?”
“The mission going wrong? I doubt it,” said Lena reasonably, “No I think he just hid it from us to keep Isabel from being given treatment. Isabel doesn’t like admitting what she sees as weakness or flaws. She’d never go looking for help –but it explains her behaviour. If she was trying to forget this, then it makes sense that she would keep seeking more and more intense domination. She wants to stop remembering, and when she’s not in a session, she’s remembering, or at least, it starts to bubble up.”
“That seems circumspect,” said Luke cautiously.
“Are you telling me that you don’t think Isabel would go this far?” asked Lena rapping her nails on the tablet, “Because I can. This is exactly the kind of thing she would do.”
“We need to get her away from Ahmed. Hell, we need to get her out of the Dukedom.”
“And how exactly do you plan to do that?” demanded Lena. “Ahmed’s changed military records and had me frame an innocent man to get Isabel where she is. Do you really think he’ll just hand her over? Do you really think Isabel will go quietly if she’s convinced herself she’s in love with him?”
Luke dragged a hand over his face, then sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“We need to extract Isabel from Ahmed before he knows we’ve figured this out. I don’t like thinking about it, but she’s probably not safe if Ahmed thinks we’re stealing her away.”
“How are we going to do that?” asked Lena. Luke started to pace, his expression settling into a pensive one. Finally, after seven passes, he turned to Lena again,
“You’re good with this sort of thing, come up with a reason for Ahmed to be called away, something that will give me time to get to Isabel and talk to her.”
“You’re not just going to tell her the truth are you? Either she won’t believe you and tells Ahmed everything, or she’ll break down, and we might not be able to fix that.”
“All right, all right!” Luke dragged a hand through his hair then said, “We won’t tell Isabel straight away. We’ll just get her out of Ahmed’s rooms, hide her somewhere in the Dukedom and then… go from there.”
“I hope you plan your scenes with slaves more thoroughly than you did this,” said Lena snippily.
“Don’t you dare start on me Lena,” Luke retorted, “Now start coming up with something that will get Ahmed’s attention.”
Lena sniffed indignantly, but picked up the tablet again, saying,
“I think the easiest thing for us to do would be to falsify information that Hans has been discovered to be innocent and released from prison. That ought to get Ahmed’s attention.” She tapped and swiped her way into the prison records, when her eyebrows shot up. “Or, it could just have already happened… truth is better than lies, don’t you think?”
Luke read over her shoulder, then said,
“Get Justin, now!”
Chapter Twenty-Five –Hans
Hans barely had time to inhale the air outside the palace before he and the others were hurried into the basement, where security intelligence was hard at work trying to locate Isabel. Wolff and James had managed to convince the king and queen to request furlough for him, under the guise of a sickening parent. In reality they wanted his help tracking Isabel down.
The security room had no natural light, and even the artificial light was low, with the glare of screens all around them. It gave the room an ominous look.
Wolff led Hans straight over to Queen Chloe and King Felix, bowing at the waist to them.
“Your majesties, Hans Mikkaelsson, as requested.”
Hans bowed stiffly, not breaking eye contact with Queen Chloe who was regarding him with open distaste. King Felix coughed awkwardly and said,
“We understand that you have evidence that proves your innocence, Major.”
“Yes sir,” said Hans, his hands curling into fists at his sides.
“Even if that proves to be true,” said Queen Chloe, her tone dripping with venom, “It doesn’t change the fact that you’re a perverted degenerate.”
The room went a little quiet as people turned to look at the small group. Hans tried to suppress his angry flush.
“So you think, your majesty. I respectfully disagree.”
Chloe glared at him, and Hans lifted his chin a little. Knowing that she had seen what he considered private moments between him and Isabel did nothing to help the dislike he felt for the two of them. They had failed their daughter utterly as far as he was concerned.
James stepped forward,
“Hans had a suggestion of how we might be able to find Isabel. Why don’t we all sit down and he can explain it.”
Nobody moved for a moment, then slowly they all moved to sit around the table in the middle of the space. Hans sat as far away from the monarchs as he could.
“So Major, why don’t you tell us your suggestion,” said Wolff.
Hans leaned on his forearms, looking around at the table.
“As I’m sure you’re all aware its standard issue for active soldiers to receive a contraceptive device when they enlist. Isabel was no exception to this rule.”
“Naturally,” said Chloe, “But if you’re thinking that the device can be tracked, we’ve already tried that, and we found nothing.”
“No, you wouldn’t, because I know something you probably don’t,” said Hans, enjoying himself a little too much.
“Then please enlighten us Major.”
“The last time I talked with James, before you let me out, I told him to try and find out from Isabel’s Commanding Officer what her last mission would be. Certain things she said, certain tells she gave away suggested to me that she wasn’t just serving on the standard missions. Wolff and James were able to get Isabel’s real military record.”
“What real record?” demanded Chloe, folding her arms. “We already read her record.”
“You read a half record,” said Wolff, pushing his tablet across the table to them. “This is the real record, classified and hidden so heavily it took me a week to get a hold of it.”
Chloe picked up the tablet, drawing it to her as Wolff went on,
“Just before you recalled her home, Isabel was sent on a covert mission to find the hidden base of the most aggressive of the rebels, deep in the Caliphate territory. The goal was to find it, and take out all the fighters they could.”
“That is impossible,” said Chloe, “No one in their right minds would let Isabel-”
“Isabel is a very talented soldier, as shown by this information,” said Hans sharply, “With a talent for sniping and reconnaissance, so yes, she would have been perfectly capable of going on this mission.”
“But who in their right minds would send the heir to the throne on such a dangerous mission?” demanded Chloe. “
She could have been killed!”
“She nearly was,” said Wolff, “The team found the base and set about laying down bombs. With the rebels’ ability to track incoming drones, the only way to do it was to rig the whole area. Unfortunately, something happened and the mission was exposed before they could set the bombs off. The rebels managed to capture every soldier, including Isabel. They tortured the soldiers for information, starting with the leader.”
Felix’s hand grabbed Chloe’s in fright.
“Isabel never said-”
“When did you ever listen?” demanded Hans. He was struggling to come to terms with the news himself.
“Isabel herself wasn’t tortured,” said Wolff quickly, “She was injured, the shot to the arm, and it wasn’t treated, but as far as we know, the rebels didn’t get further with her than that.”
“So what happened?”
“Isabel’s report states that the rebels killed two of the team the first night –her descriptions don’t bear repeating, but it was a drawn out affair. The next night Isabel and the other two soldiers were able to make a run for it. The other two marines were gunned down as they ran, in fact Isabel states that they made sure she was safe ahead of their own safety. As a result Isabel was able to make her way from the base back to the camp, where she was treated for dehydration, blood loss and delirium.”
Chloe covered her mouth with her hand. It was the first motherly reaction Hans had ever seen in her.
“They treated Isabel for her immediate needs, but wanted to send her home for further treatment and recovery. So when you recalled her, they assumed that was that taken care of.”
“But we never heard about any of this!” Felix burst out. “We called her home because of the letters, not because we knew about –about all of this.”
“We think that someone in the group of PROs we’ve uncovered edited the report on its way to you, and since Isabel was recalled, but you didn’t know about the mission, everyone was oblivious to the fact that we had a traumatised solider with no adequate support system,” said Wolff.
Felix looked at each of them, ashen faced and damp eyed,
“We didn’t know. We didn’t know!” he mumbled, gripping Chloe’s hand tighter.
“You never asked,” said Hans sullenly.
“And I suppose you did when you were indulging yourself with our daughter,” snapped Chloe.
“No, I didn’t, and I’m going to regret that fact for the rest of my life,” Hans snapped.
“What do this have to do with finding Isabel?” Felix cut in. James spoke up, looking relieved,
“Your majesties, all military contraceptives double as a way of finding missing soldiers, since they all have GPS in them.”
“But we already said we can’t find it,” said Chloe impatiently.
“Yes, but that was before we discovered the last mission Isabel was on. The GPS trackers can’t be transmitted on the usual channels when the soldiers are on covert missions as they’d easily be noticed. But that doesn’t mean the GPS trackers are turned off. They’re switched to a different channel, only for the duration of a mission, and then it’s switched back again.”
“So…” Felix said, looking around again.
“So the reason you can’t find her is you’re looking for the GPS’ usual channel, but because she was so mishandled after the mission, it was never switched back to standard.”
Chloe’s eyes widened and she jumped to her feet,
“What’s the code?” she demanded, and there was such an untypical mother bear about her that Hans struggled to feel snide.
“We have it here,” said James, handing over a small chip. Chloe took it, shoved it into another person’s hand and barked at them to move. As the person scurried away, Chloe turned back to the table, her eyes fixed on Hans.
“Major, we will arrange for your record to be purged and your rank to be reinstated. Henceforth you are cleared of all charges.”
“Thanks,” said Hans coolly. Chloe rested her hands on the table and leaned forward,
“But make no mistake Major. You are never going to be left alone with my daughter again.”
Hans rose to his feet, matching her stance,
“Your daughter is a grown woman, and if she wants to see me, I will damn well go to her.”
Chloe smirked bitterly,
“And what makes you think she will want to see you?”
“What makes you think she won’t?” asked Hans, knowing full well that it was likely that Isabel would not want to see him. He still had to try, if only to apologise for his own hand in this mess. He could not forget the way Isabel had bawled like a child after he had spanked her the first night. He had already felt terrible before he had learned about the botched mission. Now he felt the guilt of his actions like a weight on his chest.
“Your majesties!”
They all looked around at the call,
“We’ve been able to find the signal,” said the woman at the computer.
“Where is she?” Felix prompted, hurrying over to the woman.
“I’m afraid there’s some interference, I can only get a general location,” said the woman, bringing the map up onto the wall. First they saw the whole world, with a red dot blinking in the east.
“How close can you get?” asked Chloe.
“I can pinpoint to about… 90 kilometres,” said the woman apologetically. “I’ll try to narrow it down further.”
“Good, find out what else is in that area, we’re looking for a big enough space,” said Chloe, looking to Hans and the others for confirmation.
“Yes, it’s probably a large building, it has to hold almost every heir and probably double that again,” said Wolff.
“Could it be underground?” asked Felix.
“I don’t think so,” said Hans, “Lena’s place is all luxury and elegance, so I’d expect that this place is the same. So look for mansions, old castles, that sort of thing.”
As the people around him started to bustle with activity, Hans found himself transfixed by the blinking red dot that was Isabel. Was she safe? Was she happy? Were they about to barge in and steal her away from something she did not want to leave?
They couldn’t leave her of course, these people were too dangerous for her to stay with. But Hans was doubtful that Isabel would consider it a rescue.
Chapter Twenty-Six –Isabel
Awareness was a vague, nebulous thing for Isabel now. She was living in a world of pure sensation, and all that mattered to her was Master. She did not tend to move until he called her now, without an order, she was happy to simply be. The constant pain from her marks kept her from thinking, letting her forget who and what she was.
Master told her when to sleep, when to eat, when to speak, when to freeze, when to come… it was all up to him and she did not have to be afraid of making the wrong decision.
Right now Master had put her in the bath and told her to stay. So she did, her eyes closed as the warm water soothed her aches just enough to take the edge off. This was wonderful, she was making Master happy right now, because he had told her to stay here and here she would stay.
A few minutes might have passed, or a few hours, Isabel neither knew, nor cared. When she heard footsteps, she opened her eyes and smiled to see Master back. He had stripped himself and without a word he was climbing into the bath with her, pulling her back against him and wrapping his arms around her. Isabel snuggled closer with a happy noise, closing her eyes again and inhaling Ahmed’s scent mixed with the relaxing lavender of the bath.
“My lovely conquest,” Master sighed, pressing gentle kisses to her hair. “Do you know how happy I am to have you in my arms? Belonging to me and only me?”
Isabel did not answer, but she purred with contentment, squirming back against him and turning to look at his perfect face. Master placed gentle kisses from her brow to the tip of her nose, then one on her lips which he deepened quickly, slipping his tongue between them. When they broke apart, Master spoke,
“Say it again.”
Isabel beamed,
“I love you Master.”
“Again!” he groaned, his fingers in her hair, his other hand on her breast.
“I love you Master,” Isabel repeated, the words feeling warm in her chest. She would say them as many times as Master wanted.
“Mmm, my Isabel, mine,” said Master, turning her slightly towards him, taking her hand and putting it between his legs. Isabel took hold of his rising cock and started stroking, smiling at him as his chest rose and fell with her motions. Master enjoyed her work, Master enjoyed her love. It was all she had ever wanted.
Master had made her good.
Just when Isabel was about to take a deep breath and sink under the water to use her mouth, a loud knocking broke through their contented bubble.
“Grand Duke Ahmed! We need to talk!” It was a woman’s voice. Lena’s Isabel thought, though she hardly cared. Her only attention needed to be on Master’s cock. Yet Master was pulling her hand away, looking angry.
“What the fuck does she want now?” he growled. He stood up, dislodging Isabel from her place and leaving her cold. Isabel straightened up, watching as Master climbed out of the water, wrapped a towel around his waist and left the bathroom. Isabel shivered a little in the cooler air filtering in through the door, and sank back down into the water. Master would not want her to be cold unless he commanded it.
Resting her head on her arm against the heated tiles, Isabel listened to the door being opened and Lena’s voice,
“I’m sorry to bother you Grand Duke but we have a problem!”
“Lena, I am busy!”
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t urgent,” said Lena loudly, “Hans Mikaelsson has been released from prison.”
…What?
Isabel blinked, feeling like she had been shaken from a half dream, and lifted her head.