Struck Down
Page 11
This felt the same. I had come back because of my injury. Because, despite everything, I had missed Grif. But here in the car my chest began to squeeze, my breath short, and I sank into my seat. I was in trouble. The difference is, unlike the principal, Grif wouldn’t give me just a slap on the wrist.
“I don’t understand why you came back.”
“I… I had injured myself. I didn’t know where to go.”
“Was there no one to help you? Someone on the trail?”
“I didn’t know when or if I’d see another hiker and I couldn’t carry my food.”
“There are so many other options. You shouldn’t have come back.”
“Why not?”
He laughed maniacally. “Why not? Jesus, are you kidding me? I’ve hurt you. I kept you captive. I wanted to make you my slave. You should be running from me.”
I waited, watching him as he struggled with what he was feeling. “Let’s go inside and finish this conversation.”
“You aren’t coming into my house. Never again.” His hands trembling.
“Yes, I am. You’ve calmed down, but you’re still on edge. We can’t talk if you’re having a panic attack.”
“Damn it, I said no!”
When I didn’t answer him, his shoulders crumpled. “You don’t understand, Renee. If you come in, I might not be able to let you leave again.”
“Okay.”
His hand cracked across my face, my head whipping into the seat. “Is this what you fucking want?”
My cheek stung and tears sprang to my eyes, but I didn’t budge. “Let’s go inside, Grif.”
His fingers knotted into my hair, wrenching my head, pain seared into my scalp. “Fuck you, Renee.”
I didn’t flinch. Instead I reached up and wrapped my fingers around his, holding him, not letting him release me. “You won’t scare me away,” I whispered. Already my body was beginning to yearn for him, as if he hadn’t just used the hell out of it already.
“Your friends. Your family. Your life back home--” He struggled with his words.
“I want you.”
“You can’t,” he spat.
“I do.”
“You don’t know me. You don’t know how barbaric I can be.”
“I want to find out.”
“Get out of my car.”
“Are we going inside?”
“Not we.” He threw his door open, releasing me and thrusting himself out of the car. He practically ran to his front door, but paused, his hand on the knob.
Calmly, I exited the car. I walked toward him. He watched me, eyes wide, disbelieving.
“Grif,” I sighed as I neared him. “Don’t you get it? I came back for you.”
“You can’t want me.”
“I do.”
“Then I’ve ruined you.”
A small smile teased the corners of my mouth. “I don’t feel ruined. I feel stronger than I ever have. More than I would have felt had I hiked all of the world.”
He punched the door, the thunk echoing in the woods and mountains surrounding his home. “Then you’ve ruined me.”
“Then be ruined with me. Lose yourself in me.”
“I don’t know if I can hold back.”
My body ignited. I thought of the room, with all its instruments of pain. My backside ached but was already anticipating the next rough treatment regardless of the rawness of my skin. Reaching out I grabbed his hand and placed it on my pussy. My wetness coated his fingers.
“Then don’t hold back.”
It was insane, what I was asking him. What I was giving up. But it didn’t feel like giving up anything. We’d talk about my parents later. When he wasn’t so upset. But I was so lost in him I’d give everything up, regardless.
When I had left Wilmington it had been with an empty, hurt heart and a need for adventure. Grif had filled my heart, completely. And adventure? We could never leave his house again and I would eagerly anticipate each new day, each new way he would push me and my body’s limits.
“So you truly want this?” He was looking at me now, really looking. His green eyes swam with something I dared to label hope.
I didn’t answer with words. Tucking my body into his, I kissed him, softly, yielding to him, my curves lining with his hard edges.
His hand turned the knob and he swept me inside.
Epilogue
Renee had been with me for months. I moved her out of her small room and into my bedroom. She was my companion at night, her body curled around mine, her soft breath lulling me to sleep.
I had never slept with a woman in my bed before. I would never sleep without her again.
She was my slave by day.
She held to her word. There was nothing I did that she didn’t respond to, her body opening to me. Degradation, pain… I brought it, day after day, losing myself in her screams. Then I would lose myself in her body.
Was this what it was like for the other women I had sold? Did their masters feel as I did? Did their bodies grow stiff just at the smell of their slaves? Their companions?
Renee didn’t know, but I had always vetted my clients. Tried to find people who could see the sacredness in their slave. The beauty in subservience.
I could only hope they felt the same as I.
I marked her skin with whips. Canes. Hot wax. It was atonement for me. Worship.
And she, a goddess of pain, relished it.
Our lives were near perfection. Sometimes, with her help, I even went on small walks outside. Her hand in mine, her smile guiding me. Of course, I punished her for forcing me to face my fear. But I loved her for it, too.
Near perfection… but not there yet.
My mother haunted me.
The image of her, kneeling at my father’s feet. It made me sick.
My fists rain down on her. There was no reason to hit her--she hadn’t earned it. But the rage welling up in my adolescent body needed an outlet. This was what father said she was for.
There was a level of curiosity, too. This was my mother, cowering beneath the reign of blows falling on her. The same voice that had sang to me as a child and soothed me was the one whimpering, begging now. How far would she let me go? What if I didn’t just hit her with my fists?
I grabbed the first thing close by, a small frying pan. Wielding it above my head, I brought it down on my mother’s back. Her whimpers became a loud cry and I knew I had cracked or broken a rib.
Her cry stilled my hand.
My anger disappeared, instantly. Instead, I found myself filling with disgust. Disgust at her, for letting me do this and not fighting back. At myself, for thinking this was okay.
This was the first time I doubted my father’s lessons. The first time I had gone so far in her punishment that it wouldn’t heal the next day.
The first time I felt like a monster.
“What’s happening, here?” My father entered the kitchen. I was standing over my mother, pan hovering in my hand. At my feet she was crying, each wracking sob eliciting a grunt of pain. My stomach threatened to empty itself.
My father’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m done punishing her, father.” I put the frying pan down again and shoved my hands in my pockets.
He glared at her.
And then he kicked her.
His smile at her whimpers was the first time I saw him. Saw what we were doing.
This was a woman that had carried me in her. Had birthed me. We should be worshipping her.
We were destroying her, and finding glory in it.
“Good job, son.” The pride in his voice…
I wondered what he would do if I hit him, instead. Probably throttle me within an inch of my life. Or an inch past it.
“You’ve done God’s work. Let’s go.”
My feet stumbled as I followed him. Turning, my eyes caught hers as she struggled up from the floor.
There was nothing in those eyes. No fear. No hate.
No love.
What had
I done?
The memory haunted me. The sheer emptiness in her eyes as I had followed my father, leaving her when I should have rushed to her.
I had left her again. I knew, in my mind, that I had given her a choice. That night, I had come for Renee. The anxiety I had felt leaving the house had been nothing compared to the rage and fear I had felt knowing she was at my father’s mercy.
As if he had mercy.
When I had seen him above her, poker about to mutilate her perfect body, the rage I had felt had almost consumed me. I had wanted to kill him. Kill my brother, who delighted in raping and beating girls, not training them. My finger had itched to shoot them both. To watch their bodies bleed out while I burned the home and masquerade of a church.
But I didn’t. Some last, lingering vestibule of family duty stilled my finger.
And Mara. My mother.
Her concern for Isaac clawed at me. I had taken the hand that had harmed so many women. Had harmed Renee. Had harmed her, time and time again. And she had been fucking concerned for him.
So I had given her a choice, and my mind told me she had made it. She had chosen to stay with them.
But my heart said leaving her was the cruelest think I could have done. Worse than beating her. Worse than breaking her ribs and watching her cower.
I had left my mother.
“Hey,” Renee’s soft voice cut through my thoughts. We were in bed. Here, in this space, she was my companion. My shelter. “Where are you?”
Her finger trailed down my chest and it left burning heat in its wake. Would I ever tire of her?
The urge to devour her rose in me and I didn’t it possible.
“My mother.”
“Hmm.” She kissed my jaw, her lips like feathers against the stubble. “You’re thinking about that night?”
I didn’t reply. I just squeezed her closer to me, the need to lose myself in her rising.
“We could always go back, you know. Go get her.”
“She made her choice.”
“It was the wrong choice, Grif.”
Pain clenched at my heart.
It was the wrong choice.
She was right. I knew, deep down, that my mother no longer understood choices. My father had ripped that from her time and time again until just a husk had remained.
It was the wrong choice.
My father’s malicious grin. The promise in it. He would use her to take out his anger at me. To take her from him… it would start a war that would leave one, if not both of us dead. I was one against he and his whole congregation, brainwashed sheep that they were. And my father didn’t fight fair.
“Grif?”
“Yeah.”
“We need to go save her.”
“I know.”
Some things are worth fighting for.
She had taught me that.
The End
About the Author
Penelope L'Amoreaux grew up in North Carolina but never fully mastered the accent. She skipped a lot of high school and went to more colleges than Sarah Palin. She lives with her husband and baby girl and hopes they’ll forgive her the obsessive amount of time spent at the computer. When she isn't writing, she dreams of urban homesteading, attempts to do yoga, and drinks a lot of red wine.
You can find her on twitter: @p_lamoreaux
On facebook at: https//www.facebook.com/Penelope.lamoreaux
And at her website: www.penelopelamoreaux.com
Feel free to sign up for her newsletter here. She only sends out e-mails for new releases and promotions, as well as occasional giveaways.
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. It may not be copied, with the exception of a sentence or paragraph to be used in a review. If you would like to share this book, please purchase additional copies for each person. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.