The thought of my twin warmed my heart even as it crumbled at the edges, rotting through the core with neglect.
I didn’t have a lot growing up, but I’d always had the love of my mother and siblings.
Now, I didn’t even have that.
“Let me help you, bairn,” the woman slid beside me, wrapping a warm arm around my waist as we walked toward the bathtub. “You’ll catch your death as you are. I have a mind to take Master Alexander over my knee as I did when he was a wee one.”
The idea of this short, soft older woman spanking a grown man let alone a sheer predator like Alexander was nearly outrageous enough to make me laugh. Instead, I allowed her to hold my hand while I placed one foot into the stinging heat of the bath water.
An aroma of hot ginger, vanilla, and musk surrounded me as I sank with a deep sigh into the hot, silky water. The oil-scented water went right up to my protruding clavicles, but it wasn’t enough. Before my caretaker could protest, I dunked my head and floated near the bottom, my hair curling like ink in the liquid. Even the chain linked to my ankle felt diaphanous in the velvet depths. Submerged, I could squeeze my eyes tight and imagine I was being reborn, saved in the womb until the moment it was safe for me to begin life anew.
A life without greedy men who were all too willing to use women as pawns in their selfish games.
Two hands plunged into the water by my shoulders and pulled me into the air, a midwife wrenching me out of the womb too soon.
I burst through the water with a sob.
“Gentle yourself, sweet bairn,” the older woman cooed in her thick accent as she stroked her hands down my hair and then settled it over the lip of the tub so it dripped to the floor. “There is nothing to worry yourself about now. Let Mrs. White take care of you.”
It was good to have a name to put to her face, even if it was a little creepy that she referred to herself in the third person.
Everything about this place was creepy, though, so I resolved myself to get used to it.
Mrs. White lathered her hands in spicy scented shampoo that almost perfectly matched the aroma of the bath water. Something nudged at the back of my mind, telling me that I should recognize the distinctive smell, but the pleasure of her hands sinking suddenly into my locks and rubbing firmly at my skull erased my unease.
“We haven’t had a girl here in absolute ages,” Mrs. White was saying when I clued in enough to understand the thick lilt in her speech. “It will be good to have some young blood in the house again to invigorate us.”
“Us?” I asked innocently.
“The staff have been idle too long,” she tutted as her strong thumbs rubbed the shampoo into wide circles over my scalp. “We used to be a great hub of society here at Pearl Hall, you know? Why, we’ve hosted every generation of the Royal Family since the days of Queen Elizabeth I. Of course, I don’t blame Master Alexander for being away from home doing his duty to this family and their various enterprises. I’m grateful they’ve the means to run a full household when most great families these days have to turn their grand estates in gaudy hotels and wedding venues,” she finished, aghast.
“How horrible,” I sympathized, eager to develop a rapport with the loquacious woman.
“We are one of the few remaining private estates in the country,” she told me proudly as she pushed me forward gently in the rub and used a pitcher of warm water to rinse out my hair. “Pearl Hall has been a jewel in the architectural crown of the United Kingdom since it’s construction in the 1500s.”
“And Lord Thornton?” I asked.
It shouldn’t have made much of a difference, but I preferred to address him as Lord Thornton, a title that others were also forced to address him by, than as Master Alexander.
Mrs. White might have called him that too, but I had no doubt it was for an entirely different reason than my own.
“Oh, well, he went to Eton with Prince Arthur, though he was a few years above the boy. It’s the king, really, who has a soft spot for our Master Alexander. They hunt together every fall at the Royal estate in Scotland.”
I stared at my bony knees, trying to understand how a man so close to the king of bloody England could be in a position to buy a woman for sex.
Why do it?
“You don’t seem surprised that a man like Lord Thornton would keep a woman shackled to the floor of his ballroom like some beast he snared and dragged back from safari,” I said demurely, my tone such a direct contrast to my accusation that it took a moment for the lovely Mrs. White to understand.
When she did, her round face froze and her right eye twitched.
“Yes, well…” She cleared her throat and pulled me back against the lip of the tub so she could run conditioner through my hair. “Sometimes it is better not to know the details, but to trust in the result. I’ve known Master Alexander since he was a wee one, and if he has you here, it is for reasons known only to him, but reasons still that I have trust in.”
I twisted like an eel through her hands and snatched one of her wrists. “Listen to me, Mrs. White. You seem like a good woman. Whatever reasons Lord Thornton has me here for are not noble or good. He has already pushed me to near starvation, kept me senseless in a dark room, and used me for his sexual gratification. Those are not the actions of a man with a noble quest, but the crimes of a monster no longer masquerading as a man. Please,” I begged, my eyes so wide with beseeching sincerity that I felt they would fall out of my head. “Please, help me.”
“Help you how?” she asked, her voice suddenly sharp against my skin as she wrenched my hand off her arm. “You made an agreement with Master Alexander. It is your choice to be here, and it is up to you how you decide to endure this servitude. If you want to go on being ungrateful, living in a dark and drafty ballroom when you could have access to a home most would call a palace, so be it. But do not pretend for one moment that your destiny is not still firmly planted in your own hands.”
I stared as she stood and moved to a small vanity that had appeared sometime while I was asleep to retrieve a plush towel the colour of crushed poppies.
Her words rang in my ears.
Hadn’t I resolved to make the most of this situation last night when I’d allowed the man to defile my mouth without knowing much more than his name and station?
Clearly, Mrs. White was a devout servant. There would be no luring her to my side of this story, so I needed to adjust my point of view.
I didn’t have to be the victim.
I could endure, survive the way I’d been forced to for the past eighteen years by using my looks and my body to get by.
And each act against me I would add carefully to the heap of kindling growing in my soul until the inevitable day that Lord Thornton, Alexander Davenport, made a mistake, and after however long of learning his ways, of being his perfect little mouse and slave, I could exploit that to my own advantage and set his world on fire.
Then he would be the victim, and I the victor.
Mrs. White returned holding up the towel and I stepped out of the tub so she could dry me carefully with the soft fabric. She led me to the intricate vanity, sitting me in the chair so she could brush out my hair with a silver comb.
“Master Alexander expects you to be presentable when you attend him at dinners. Bathed, made up, and wearing the outfit of his choosing,” Mrs. White lectured me.
I stared at my reflection, taking in the strange golden ocher of my irises and their thick fringe, the way my full mouth tipped down uncharacteristically at the corners and how my skin was more pallid than I’d ever seen it.
I gritted my teeth, straightened my shoulders, and resolved that it would be Master Alexander falling to his feet at the sight of me that night in the dining room.
I hadn’t seen Alexander all day. It was the tattooed bodyguard I remembered from the incident in Milan—Riddick—who appeared behind Mrs. White and me as she was putting the finishing touches on my hair and bent to unshackle me from my chains when it was time to
descend to the dining room. A blindfold made of folded over black silk was secured over my eyes so that I couldn’t see my surroundings as he led me firmly by the hand out of my cage and into the greater house beyond.
He clearly didn’t realize what being in the dark had done to me the past few weeks. My ears ached with sensitivity, keen to the swish of my long dress on marble flooring, the faint whistle of wind beyond the glass of a hallway filled with windows, and the soft, staccato voices of other servants gossiping behind closed doors.
I could smell the citrus polish they used to wax the marble tiles, the particular kind of musk that came from antiques and centuries-old tapestries. There was the odor of Riddick himself, artificial and manly, a cologne with no familiar notes. Mrs. White was hyacinth and myrtle, clean linens, and unscented hand lotion. The complexities of my own fragrance, that spice heavy smell with its own heat, was both strange in my nose and familiar.
It wasn’t much in terms of freedom, but every new assault on my usable senses felt like a boon, and every step I took unburdened by the awful weight of those medieval chains was pure glory.
I could have kept walking blindfold for the rest of the night relishing the liberty of simple movement, but although it was a colossal home, we eventually reached the dining room.
I knew this not only because I could detect the mouth-watering scent of garlic, tomatoes, and rich meat, but because the instant we stepped through the door, I felt his eyes on me.
They were as electric as a cattle prod against my flesh, burning his regard into every exposed inch of my skin as he evaluated me.
And there was a lot of skin bared by the evening dress he’d chosen for me to wear.
It was the same black silk as the blindfold wrapped around my head, the material spilling down my steep curves and skinny limbs like an oil slick. The two panels covering my breasts were narrow, exposing either side of their swells, and connected in a deep V just above my navel.
My nipples pebbled in the cool air of the drafty home and the contrasting searing gaze of my Master.
“Bring her closer.” His voice carried across what sounded like an enormous room.
Riddick pushed me forward between the shoulder blades so hard that I tripped over the edge of a carpet and had to catch myself on the back of what felt like a chair.
“Careful with the merchandise, Riddick,” Alexander ordered lazily, as if he didn’t particularly care if I was hurt or not, but the idea of someone misusing his things was egregious.
“Yes, sir,” Riddick grunted.
His hand found the exposed small of my back again, but this time, he urged me forward gently until we both stopped at what I assumed was the head of an enormous dining room table.
I sucked in a sharp breath when cold fingers touched the pulse thrumming violently in the right side of my neck. Slowly, I released it with a soft hiss as those fingers skated down my throat and over the slope of my chest to rest over the swell of my breast.
“I’ve been groomed for this since I was a boy,” Alexander said softly as he pressed his palm flat over my heart. “But I never imagined how heady it would feel, owning something of such exquisite beauty.”
“Groomed for this?” I questioned, trying to pull the shroud off the mysterious man before me to reveal the true lines and form of him.
His chuckle was merely a gentle exclamation. “Such a curious mind, topolina. Haven’t we spoken about how much trouble that will get you into?”
“I don’t think we’ve really spoken at all,” I countered. “I don’t know anything of value, at least. Why you’ve repaid me for saving your life by ruining mine? Why you’ve kept me locked in the dark with my demons like a mental patient?”
“Careful,” he warned on a low growl that Riddick nor Mrs. White would hear. “I enjoy your spirit, but this game we are playing is about more than enjoyment. It is about survival for the both of us.”
I gasped softly at both his words and his fingers as they tweaked my sensitive nipple, and sensation radiated like a targeted blast through my nerve endings.
“Now, kneel,” he commanded, loud enough for his voice to echo through the hall and into the ears of anyone watching.
I shivered as it occurred to me that truly anyone might be viewing our exchange. My ears strained to pick up any ambient noise that might give away the presence of other diners.
“Kneel,” Alexander ordered again.
I fell to my knees.
There was something I didn’t understand about this dynamic between us. He’d been sinisterly mysterious when I had saved his life in the Milanese alleyway, but he hadn’t seemed cruel or sadistic. That, combined with his enigmatic words about our mutual survival, threw into question his entire motivation for degrading me.
So I kneeled.
And I prayed, though God had never been particularly good to me or mine, for answers that would absolve me of my servitude.
“Leave,” he ordered whomever else remained in the room.
I let out a soft sight of relief.
No matter how much I wanted to provide relief for my family by keeping the Camorra at a safe distance and giving them Alexander’s extra allowance, I knew I didn’t have it in me to be ridiculed in front of a dining room filled with people.
When the soft click of a door closing heralded their removal from the room, Alexander removed my blindfold.
I blinked up into the constellation of bright crystal chandeliers casting light throughout the room and tried to regain my sense.
Surprisingly, he let me.
The dining room was long and narrow with high vaulted ceilings, domed archways over the oversized doors, and so much gilt detailing that the entire space seemed to glow with captured sunlight even though the sky outside the windows was pitch dark.
“Welcome to the hall,” Alexander murmured, reaching out to pinch my chin gently between his fingers and tilt it until my eyes met his. “This is where you will eat with me when I am in residence.”
He must have read the surprise in my eyes because his lips twitched with humour. “Did you expect to be kept forever in the darkness of my ballroom, eating only ham and stale bread? I told you, topolina, what I take from your body will be rewarded with privileges. A good slave eats with her Master. Last night, you proved with this beautiful mouth that you can be a very good slave indeed.”
My olive skin was too dusky to show the way my skin heated with a furious blush, and I’d never been so grateful for it. I was at once pleased and repulsed. The memory of taking him in my throat was one of invasion, a warrior’s remembering of war, yet I felt triumph despite the horror because it was a battle I had won.
“Yes,” Alexander said, answering my thoughts as if he owned those too. “You can hate me and still delight in pleasing me, my beauty.”
My lips twisted to the left, capping the emotions that bubbled in my gut. I was so conflicted that I felt sick with it.
“Do you know what buyers look for in a future slave?” Alexander asked me as he reached for his glass of red wine and swirled it in the bowl.
My eyes caught on the colour, the light through the red shining like blood, and I watched hypnotized as he swirled and swirled the contents in his big hand.
“It isn’t necessarily a docile nature. The best Masters enjoy a challenge. It’s the duality of a strong mind and a submissive spirit, a fierce heart. Only with all three can a slave be truly remarkable. The strong mind tests a Master’s nettle, the submissive spirit is his reward, but without the fierce heart, no slave would trust their Master enough to enjoy their play.”
He leaned down over the arm of his throne-like chair, the glass of wine dangling precariously between his fingers just above my lips.
“Open,” he commanded softly.
I parted my lips, my eyes on his even as I tipped my head back so that I could catch the full-bodied wine in my mouth.
His breathing was deeper, his face tight with arousal as he watched me drink from his glass.
&
nbsp; “I want you to enjoy our play, topolina,” he told me as I licked my lips, and he straightened in his seat. “I want to give you joy in your servitude.”
“But you want to hurt me,” I said, my voice breathier than I wanted because I’d never seen such beautiful eyes in all my life.
A grey so deep and clear they shone like the polished pewter dining set on the table.
He sipped the wine, his strong throat working, his lips slicked with red liquor before he swiped it away with a sweep of his tongue.
I squirmed as my gut heated and arousal flooded between my legs.
Such a simple gesture, sharing wine from the same glass and then watching him lick his firm mouth, but it had such a profound effect on me.
I wondered if I was conditioned already, weaker than I’d previously thought…or if he was just that gorgeous, I was only woman enough to respond.
“It doesn’t matter if I wish to or not,” he finally admitted. “I will hurt you because I must just as you must endure it because you have no choice.”
“You don’t like it?” I asked, shocked enough to scoff.
His eye flashed at my attitude. “Would you like to see just how much I like it, my beauty?” Before I could protest, my hand was in his and he was pressing it to the steel length of his cock beneath his suit pants. “The thought of your body painted in my bruises and your pretty face lacquered with tears makes me unspeakably hard.”
We both gasped as I inexplicably squeezed his dick at his words.
“I like it, but that is the very last reason I am going to do it,” he reminded me cryptically.
“What does that mean?”
He leaned down, pushed his hand into the hair at the nape of my neck and pulled me further between his spread legs. I gasped, and he took advantage by dipping his thumb between my lips.
“Trust me when I tell you, I may be the one wielding the whip, but I’ve got just as much riding on this as you do. If you want to survive this with your life, you’ll do as I say without hesitation.”
I stared up into his deadly serious face and felt the threat sink into my skin, writing itself in goosebumps across my flesh.
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