When Kartane had flung Gail back into the cell, the woman couldn’t do more than curl up into a ball and shudder.
She sat listlessly now. It frightened Charlotte as much as anything else. Gail wasn’t the listless type. “Talk to me. Are you okay? Can you walk? Can you run?”
“I want to hurt him. Brand him on the forehead with a big G so everyone knows he’s a Gorean pig. I want to hear him scream.”
“Gail, you have to snap out of it.”
“He kidnapped Elizabeth. She’s just a kid.”
“Gail, please.”
“I want to hurt him.” Shadows moved as she turned her head. Charlotte could feel the weight of her gaze. “I believe I will get a sperm donation. I’d rather do that than have anything to do with men. Not ever again. And if I’m pregnant with a boy instead of a girl, I’ll abort it.”
Charlotte felt tears gather in her eyes. “Gail,” she began helplessly.
The lock rattled.
Both women scrambled backward, as far from the door as they could get. They huddled together.
The door swung open, admitting enough light to make them squint. “Hello, slaves.”
He waited.
Charlotte remained silent as long as she could, but fear rose quickly in her. Whatever he’d used on Gail, it had left her incapacitated for hours.
It was only their words he wanted. For now.
Gail moaned her rage and defeat.
Both of them finally replied with reluctance, “Hello, Master.”
“Very good, slaves.” His tone carried triumph.
Charlotte tasted bitterness in her mouth.
“Charlotte. I placed you here with Gail so you could learn your place relatively painlessly, by proxy. But it occurs to me I’ve been neglecting you. Do you feel neglected?”
“Yes.” She ignored Gail’s gasp of surprise. “Why don’t we go grab a cup of coffee and talk this over like civilized people?”
Kartane laughed. “Oh, certainly. In time. First, however, I have a question for you.”
Charlotte heard the familiar jingle of her keys, the ones he’d taken from her the first night.
“Your apartment contains something of mine. I can’t seem to find it.”
“You went into my apartment?”
“It’s much easier with keys,” he agreed.
Realization hit her. “That was you last week! Picking my lock, trying to break in. What on earth were you looking for? We split everything in the divorce.”
“A piece of property is missing. A very important piece. I’ve looked everywhere. I’ve asked you about it before. I’ll describe it again. It’s a small, flat stone, very plain-looking, with the initial G formed on its underside.” He looked at her. “You’ve seen it.”
“I remember your asking about it. You said it was a paperweight that had sentimental value.”
“You know where it is.” He approached her.
“Don’t tell him where it is!” Elizabeth shouted.
She’d been so quiet after being punished for the escape attempt, Charlotte had all but forgotten the girl in the cell next door.
Kartane was on Charlotte, hauling her up and forcing her against the metal. “You’ll tell. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell.”
“It’s his Home Stone! The Ubar’s Home Stone! Without it he has no power!”
“Shut up!” he snarled.
“The Ubar has lost his Home Stone!” Elizabeth called out, her voice echoing through the darkness. Shocked murmurs came from all directions. “The Ubar of Gorr is outcast! We’re free!”
“You’re free when I say you’re free!” But Charlotte felt the tremble in Kartane’s grasp. She could smell his fear-fouled breath. He muttered, “God damn it.”
Suddenly Gail attacked, more viciously than Charlotte would’ve expected. It loosened his grip on her, then broke it. Charlotte slipped away easily, gaining just enough distance. Then turned and, with one still-booted foot, kicked him in the stomach. It drove him back, off-balance and gagging. The two women edged past him and rushed to make their escape. They shoved the cell door shut. Metal clanged as they threw the latch. They looked at each other over it, then shrieked when Kartane threw his body against the door. “Talia!”
They backed away. “Talia will let him out. We have to go. Now. But . . .”
“But nothing!” Charlotte pulled the naked Gail back toward the tunnels.
Gail grabbed her arm to stop her, completely unself-conscious about her nudity. “Not that way. And we have to let Elizabeth out.”
“Okay. Crap. Okay, yes.” They rushed around the metal walls to Elizabeth’s cube, opened the latch. “Oh, baby.” Elizabeth lay on her side, her legs and arms tied behind, drawing her body into a bow so tight her red silk poncho bunched underneath. Gail hurriedly untied her, her hands swift and compassionate on the thin young girl. Charlotte helped them both to stand.
Kartane threw his body against the door again. They all heard the cracking sound. “Come on!” Gail cried. She led them away from the tunnels, but before Charlotte could object, Gail explained, “Talia and Kartane’s other favored slaves are that way. The rooms are more comfortable, with lounge chairs and tapestries and large beds. Elizabeth described it. The asshole’s got himself tiered slave pens. We’re in the ghetto section. We don’t want to go uptown. I know there’s an exit in this direction—a tunnel to Subspace—I’m just not sure where.” Gail stumbled.
Charlotte supported her and Elizabeth both. “You guys are in bad shape,” she despaired as they limped forward too slowly.
Gail shoved at Charlotte weakly, anger without strength. “You two go ahead by yourself then. Maybe you’ll find the exit without me.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” Elizabeth promised.
Charlotte tightened her grip on Gail, hauling her forward more quickly. Did Gail get some kind of perverse energy from being obstinate? “Stubborn bitch, aren’t you?”
“It works for me,” Gail replied, gasping for breath. “Bitch,” she added.
Elizabeth’s arms draped around both Gail and Charlotte. The young woman pointed with her chin. “Is that it?”
An enormous tapestry of a warrior slaying a dragon dominated the wall.
“Behind it,” Gail said.
They wasted no time shoving the tapestry aside. They saw the door made of plank wood so old it was rotted in places.
“They’re coming.” Elizabeth said it calmly, but her face blanched of color. “A lot of them. I really thought the loss of Kartane’s Home Stone would make them rebel against him. Please hurry.”
“Okay. The door’s sticking. I’ll have to kick it. Let go for a sec.” When their arms dropped from her, Charlotte raised her leg and kicked the wood. Dust puffed into the air. She kicked it again, but it only rattled in its jamb. “They don’t build them like they used to,” she muttered.
A strong grip pinched her shoulder painfully. “Got you.”
Her heart skittered into panic as Kartane’s fingers dug in cruelly. A wild fear sealed her throat and made her limbs heavy and stupid. She moaned, inarticulate, her mouth instantly drying out, her tongue clumsy.
He had her again, and she wouldn’t get another chance at freedom. This was what she’d tried so hard not to think about. His cruel possession brought her back to the unspeakable time when she’d been the focus of his sadistic attention for two days. Being tied and tortured and branded, being betrayed, all the while with him convinced it was what she wanted.
He still believed it.
She’d wondered, during the worst of the pain and humiliation, if she’d brought it all on herself. If she deserved it.
If she’d created the monster he’d become by being one herself.
Knowing the depravity he’d sunk to, and with a repeat of the same or worse fate facing all three of them, and the same questions plaguing her now more than ever, Charlotte finally found her voice. She shrieked her horror.
25
Martin an
d Amethyst followed Ratty down into the old dungeon room.
It seethed with bodies. At any other time, Martin would’ve been delighted by the thick crowd.
“This room rocks!” Ratty waved his sword at a Renaissancegarbed beer wench in front of the tall iron maiden. The blond woman grinned at him, licked her lips, and thrust out her cleavage. Even with her costume, she looked impossibly modern and soft next to the metal coffin door hiding its dangerous spikes within. “You should let people play here every night, not just on Halloween.”
“The liability’s too high and the extra manpower’s too steep,” Martin replied, scanning the old dungeon pieces and peering behind piles of ancient bedsprings. He waved off the dungeon monitors who looked at him inquiringly. “It’s a madhouse tonight,” he muttered.
A half-naked man wearing only antlers, a loincloth, and moccasins stumbled past, laughing. Another man painted as a zombie paddled a woman costumed in a strange, gelatinous blob of see-through gray Martin couldn’t place until the man explained. “I’m tenderizing some brainzzz for dinner!”
“Eat me,” the woman begged. She wriggled artfully, but the manacles enclosing her wrists kept her pinned close to the old post.
“A really fun madhouse.” Ratty looked around with more purpose. “All right. Let’s try . . . over there.” He led them to the brick archway and the cabinet placed under it. He opened the cabinet. “That’s what I suspected.”
“What?” Martin itched to shove him aside. “What is it?”
“The cabinet is backless. You clear away these old hanging clothes, and, see? That’s a door.”
“How did you know that?” Martin gently pushed him aside.
Amethyst looked at the slender man with approval. “Good job. How did you know?”
Ratty preened. “I took one of those Riverport undertunnels tours once. The doorways were always under the brick arches.”
Suddenly a heavy blow landed on the wooden door. Then another.
They all looked at each other.
A piercing shriek of terror cut through the door as if it were made of silk rather than wood. The music played on, the bass continued thumping its beat into their bodies, and none of the club-goers paused in their play.
But Martin, Amethyst, and Ratty stood in a frozen tableau for a long moment. Had they really heard the bloodcurdling sound?
“Jesus,” Ratty finally said with reverence.
Breaking the paralysis, Martin shoved dresses aside to fling himself at the door, hitting it with his shoulder. It cracked under the blow, but held. He tore pieces off, splinters stabbing his fingers and lacerating his palms.
How had he not noticed this going on in his own club? Recriminations lacerated his spirit far more deeply than the pieces of wood did his flesh. How could he have been so blind? What was Charlotte enduring to sound like that? She had to be terrified out of her wits or in an extremity of pain or in mortal danger to scream that way.
Whatever was happening to her was his fault.
Panic and fury gave him near-superhuman strength.
He threw himself at the door again, helpless rage fighting through healthy and rotted wood alike to reach her.
26
Kartane saw the door buckling. The bright, colored lights from the Subspace dungeon spilled through the ever-widening cracks, cutting through the tunnel’s darkness as they tore through his dreams. The door was coming apart.
So were his plans.
He bared his teeth, desperate. His gaze dropped to the hands reaching through the door.
He had to do something.
“Talia.”
No answer.
“Talia!” He turned.
The slaves were standing loosely, comfortably, without the usual deference of crossed wrists before them. Rather than downcast eyes, theirs pinned him accusingly. Talia was the only one who approached him. “Master? Is it true your Home Stone was stolen?”
Deep unease skittered through him. They weren’t letting it go. “It wasn’t stolen. It’s been misplaced. I’m going to reclaim it.”
The women looked at each other.
Talia nodded her acceptance, crossing her wrists.
The others didn’t.
“Go. Back to your slave cribs, all of you.”
They didn’t. “I want to go home,” one of them whined.
Kartane lifted his hand from Charlotte to slap the other slave for insolence.
At that moment the door crumbled under the onslaught. Martin burst through it, his eyes blazing with wrath.
“Martin!” The tearful relief in Charlotte’s voice grated Kartane’s nerves.
Martin ran straight to Charlotte and Gail. Kartane’s muscles bunched in preparation for battle. If he could subdue Martin, he might salvage the situation.
“I think your game’s about played out, big fella.” Amethyst smiled sweetly at Kartane.
Amethyst! The one he’d hoped to make a favored slave. The one who made him feel anything but masterful. How dare she insult him before his slaves! Kartane snarled, his anger diverted from Martin. He lunged at her. How sweet it would be to break her slender neck.
He had her in a headlock, where she struggled, helpless in his grip. He grinned, a baring of teeth. Let the others take the warning that Kartane of Gor wasn’t to be trifled with. Let them realize a Gorean warrior feared nothing, least of all a woman.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw more people pushing through the destroyed door. A strange, tall man wearing a Halloween mask. And most oddly, another Gorean warrior. A slender man, but properly dressed. He shouted something, but the red haze of fury sealed Kartane’s ears to all but the sweet music of Amethyst’s strangled breaths.
The strange Gorean threw aside his sword, fumbled at his waist pouch. The slender man raised his hand to him and attacked!
The blow that crashed against his skull knocked Kartane to the ground. He tried to move, but the warrior kneed him in the chest, threatening him with another blow using the stone held in his hand.
“I lay my sword at your feet.” Kartane offered the symbolic words of surrender.
Instead of accepting his surrender, the man shrugged. “I don’t see a sword. I do see some abused women and an overgrown gamer who takes his Gorean shit way too seriously.” He hefted the flat gray rock over his head.
But before he could use it, the women shouted. “The master has a Home Stone!”
Amethyst looked, and started laughing. “Ratty! Where’d you get that?” She pointed to the stone.
He shrugged, then spoke for her ears only. “It came with the outfit.”
Kartane had to watch, with amazement and humiliation, as Talia and his slaves abased themselves before their new master, Ratty of Gor.
Ratty looked down at all their crossed wrists and bowed heads. “I could get used to this.”
“Don’t even think about it.” Amethyst folded her arms across her chest. Then, as Kartane watched, she uncrossed them . . . and crossed her wrists before her. “I prefer not to share.”
Kartane felt a sickening sense of loss, hearing that soft voice come out of Amethyst. Ratty had eyes for only Amethyst. After placing the stone back in its pouch, he claimed her, right in front of Kartane, with a long, firm kiss.
27
Martin cradled Charlotte. She was stunned by the power of the relief and regret shining in his eyes. His large fingers touched her with fast, investigatory touches that would have set her aflame if she weren’t so distracted.
Her thoughts whirled and swirled, stirred by more emotions than she could name. She clung to him. “I’m so sorry I ran from you. Sorry for believing the worst of you. Thank you.” She lifted one hand his face, tracing his features, reverent. “Thank you for finding me. I’m fine. Gail, though. She needs a doctor. And clothes. And, Elizabeth . . .”
“Elizabeth!” the tall man called out, his voice muffled by his mask.
“Who’s that?” Charlotte asked Martin.
Martin gently nudged her asi
de, rose to his feet. “I intend to find out.”
“Elizabeth, where are you?” The man ripped off his mask. His tufted hair and wild gaze made him look different, but Charlotte recognized him. So did Martin.
So did Elizabeth. “Daddy!”
She struggled to her feet. By the time she’d managed it, Peter swept her off them. “Elizabeth! I knew it, I knew you were alive, I knew you were here, Elizabeth. Oh, thank God.”
“Daddy.” She snuggled into him, crying. He locked his arms around her, cradling her as gently as if she were made of porcelain. The weight of years seemed to come off him. Charlotte realized with surprise he wasn’t old at all. The lines on his dirty face were etched in a pattern of tiredness and grief, but they didn’t show the same elderly scarecrow who’d assaulted her outside of Subspace that night.
Peter murmured to his daughter, “Who did this to you? Was it Martin? Is he a white slaver?” Peter’s look when he turned to Martin could’ve drilled holes through steel.
“No, Daddy. It was him.” She indicated Kartane. “He kept me in a cell and hurt me. He hurt the others, too.”
Peter turned to Kartane. “Did he?”
Gail answered with a venomous look of her own aimed at Kartane. “Yes. He did.”
Amethyst explained. “He’s an extremist, for a Gorean. They’re all sexist and irrational, but he’s way beyond the pale. He likes breaking women’s spirits. Don’t you, sweetie?”
“I see.” Peter kissed Elizabeth on the top of her head. “Maybe you should leave. Go with this nice lady outside, and wait for me there.” He caught Amethyst’s eye, nodded to the broken door he came in.
Amethyst took the hint. “Let’s go, luv. Your daddy will be along shortly.”
“Okay.” Then Elizabeth surprised everyone by walking up to Kartane and spitting on his face. She cocked her head at him. “You didn’t break me. You never could, asshole.”
“Language,” Peter chided.
“Sorry, Daddy.”
Rough Play Page 23