Dollars (Dollar #2)

by Pepper Winters

  Elder didn’t value me at all.

  Was it so wrong of me to use the only skills I had to barter for my safety? Did I deserve to be called a whore?

  The moon hung heavy in the sky as I stood on my balcony and pondered just how much I was willing to let this man destroy my soul. I’d already let one destroy my body. I didn’t think I could do it again even if the scars weren’t visible this time.

  The black ocean slipped silently beneath my feet as the Phantom sailed to whatever destination Elder had in mind. We’d been at sea for ten days, and the longer we were away from land and cities, the more he seemed to relax.

  But only when I spied on him from the shadows.

  When he was aware of my presence, he spiralled tighter and tenser than a fighter ready to battle to the death.

  Did I repulse him that much? Where was the man who’d found me intriguing enough, pretty enough, to threaten my owner for one night with me? Why now, that he had me to himself, couldn’t he even look at me, let alone talk to me?

  Ugh!

  I grabbed my hair, rippling in the wind. I didn’t want to think anymore.

  “Just jump.” The two words fell from my lips like a caress. The thought of ending it was no longer powerful but borderline weak. But the sewage inside my mind would never leave. My bones might be healing but would my soul?

  My hands clenched the handrail, pulling my body forward. It would be so easy to switch my centre of gravity—push up, teeter, and let the ocean have me.

  You survived. Don’t give up now.

  Sniffing back angry tears, I turned my back on the sea whispering its death-locker sanctuary and closed the door. Quiet descended in the suite, reminding me just how tired I was.

  The night we’d set sail from Morocco after Dafford Carlton tried to buy me, the nightmares had begun.

  Every time I closed my eyes, Alrik was waiting. He tormented me harder, faster, more brutal than ever before. I’d wake up in sweat-drenched sheets, my heart a chainsaw, and a silent scream lodged in my throat.

  Seemed even in unconscious terror, I’d trained my voice not to speak.

  Padding to the bathroom, I wrenched on the hot water and climbed into the shower. I did my best to distract my weary thoughts, but washing myself was foreign. My body didn’t feel like my own: ridgelines of scars and bumps of broken bones. If I stood too long, heat built in my spine and unwanted aches throbbed in my knees.

  I wasn’t stupid to think those pains would cease. What I’d lived through had wrecked my young form. But then again, I’d been at war. Whoever returned from war in one piece? Body or mind?

  Once I was clean, I dried myself with a fluffy towel and hung it up neatly. Despite the chill of being damp and tired, I didn’t dress and climbed into bed naked.

  I exhaled heavily and closed my eyes.

  * * * * *

  “You little bitch. You thought you could run away from me? You can never run away.” Master A struck with the chain, slapping it hard with a metal bite against my ass. I bit my lip to staunch my scream as I always did. But it only made him rage harder.

  “Speak to me, sweet Pim. Yell. I want to hear you beg.”

  I tried to curl into a ball, but the ropes on my wrists and ankles prevented me. Tied face down on the bed, I couldn’t protect any part of me.

  “I know what will make you scream.” His chuckle was pure evil. “I know how to break you, pet.” His feet thudded on the white carpet as he headed to a remote control on his bedside table.

  No.

  No. Please.

  I squirmed. It only made him laugh.

  “Ready for it?” He dramatically punched the play button.

  Instantly, classical music rained from the overhead speakers, drenching me in violins and pianos and god-awful melodies.

  Master A danced in a morbid sway. “Ah, don’t you just love Chopin at two a.m.?”

  I bit my lip hard as he came closer, the chain in his hands clinking with every waltz step. “Now are you ready to talk?”

  I pressed my face into the bedding, hating that I inhaled his scent but begging the mattress to suffocate me and let me go.

  I could die like this. I could be free.

  But Master A pre-empted me. Dropping the heavy chain across my naked back, he wrapped a thin piece of rope around my throat. “Can’t have you trying to run from me now, can we?” Hoisting my neck up a little, my spine bellowed at the wrongness. The rope throttled me but not enough to kill me. Just enough to prevent my nose from pressing into the sheets.

  The minute he had my head in position, he tied the rope and picked up the chain again.

  And this time, I knew he would break me.

  Two long years but tonight was the night he would end me.

  The music swelled louder, poignant and sad with cellos and drums. Master A’s determination became an instrument in the chorus pounding me.

  He struck.

  I tensed as best I could in my bindings.

  “Speak, sweet little Pim.”

  Another strike, this one so cold and hard my skin split over my kidney, tickling me with blood. “Speak!”

  As the music grew louder and louder and Master A’s strikes hit faster and faster, I made a decision. He wouldn’t let me walk away tonight without hearing my voice. And I wouldn’t remain living the moment he heard it.

  We were both at the end of our patience.

  Tonight, I would scream.

  And then, I would die.

  “Speak!”

  The chain lacerated me. I became ribbons of flesh. Each strike pushed me closer to the blackness I so craved.

  Yes, let me die. Please…

  “You don’t want to speak? Then scream.” Master A hit faster until the blur of connection on my back and the sting of air in the moment’s reprieve melded into one.

  I was dying.

  I’ll be free soon.

  Knowing he could no longer hurt me, that another few more strikes would be the death I needed, I opened my mouth.

  The music crescendoed with cymbals and flutes, and I threw myself into nothing.

  I screamed.

  My throat burned.

  My eyes shot wide.

  The scream was otherworldly and wrong.

  My jaw ached from opening so wide. My ears rang from the noise.

  Just a nightmare. Only a nightmare.

  Instantly, I began to sob. My scream cut short, and somewhere deep inside me, I realised this was the first time I’d broken my silence unwillingly.

  My sadness crested, doing its best to mute the outside world. But something tickled my ears, something harsh and hated and harrowing.

  No.

  Music.

  Classical music.

  The notes threw me headfirst back into my nightmare.

  He’s here.

  He’s not dead.

  He’s come back for me.

  My back bellowed. My skin sticky from dream-blood and sweat. I couldn’t stop my body or the instinct to run.

  My legs bolted from the bed before my mind even knew I was standing. I flew across the suite, charged into the corridor, and galloped.

  I ran and ran, down plush carpet and past expensive artwork.

  I careened into walls and clamped hands over my ears for silence.

  Yet the music chased me. Threatened me. Warned me that it would catch me, and when it did, I would die.

  Sobs interfered with my breathing. I bounced into another wall, shredding my shoulder on an intricate gilded sconce. My blood smeared the neutral paint as I stumbled forward.

  I didn’t know where I was going. My brain wasn’t cohesive. All I could think about was the music.

  Music.

  Music.

  I came to a door. The door opened beneath my fumbling fingers. My bare feet flew up the stairs. Up, up, up. Away from hell. Fly to heaven. Where there was no more music or the devil.

  Hitting a deck above, the rhythm and classical notes reached a level higher than ever befo
re. The instrument weaving and ducking, playing with me in its sinister way.

  I couldn’t think.

  My hands remained clamped over my ears. My breath sticky in my sob-coughing lungs.

  Stop!

  I ran down another corridor.

  But instead of the music growing quieter, it grew louder, louder. It ricocheted in my ears; it reverberated in my skull.

  I want it out.

  I want it to stop

  Please, make it stop.

  My arm bled faster as my heart pumped to keep me running.

  And then the corridor ended. A dead end. I was trapped.

  Alrik's chuckle danced on a cello’s string.

  I lost it.

  Ramming my bleeding shoulder into the door at the end of the corridor, I exploded into a room.

  A room where the music lived and breathed.

  And in the centre of the music sat the maestro and creator of my worst enemy.

  Elder.

  The world went black.

  SOMETHING PALE AND bleeding soared across my threshold.

  Part of me noticed and twitched to stop, but the rest of me was captive to my cello. I couldn’t stop until the final beat. I couldn’t end so suddenly.

  My body shook as my fingers held the sweetest note, my bow singing over the strings, the music building louder and stronger and so damn alive it killed me to murder it all in the name of a song.

  But I’d reached the end.

  It was over.

  I tore my callused fingers from the strings; my bow hovered, barely kissing the instrument.

  Silence shattered over me.

  I looked up just as the midnight interloper collapsed in a jumbled pile, unconscious.

  My cello twanged as I caught a string with my bow, launching from my chair.

  Pim.

  It took three seconds to gently deposit my cello on the floor, two to cross the suite, one to slam to my knees, and zero to gather her naked, clammy body into my arms.

  What the fuck is she doing here?

  How did she find my quarters? What the hell happened? Violence painted my thoughts. If any of my staff had hurt her, they’d be meeting Moby Dick tonight.

  “Pimlico. Open your eyes.”

  She didn’t.

  Her lips were slack, her face gaunt and haunted with shadows. Her blood streaked my arm where a small graze on her bicep wept. She was as frigid as ice and as lifeless as a corpse.

  “Wake up.” Keeping her in my embrace, I climbed to my feet. For a girl with long legs and such fire, she weighed next to nothing.

  What was she doing here?

  Did she hurt herself deliberately or was it an accident?

  My heart raced as questions piled on top of questions.

  Was she trying to kill herself?

  I’d been an asshole to her for days but only because she’d undone me. I couldn’t look at her without feeling her warm, wet mouth or her lips on my cock. I’d told her I wouldn’t touch her, but it was for my sake, not hers. I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t have her. Because if I did, that would be the end. My issues wouldn’t let me have anything less.

  But now guilt lacerated me. I’d stolen her to give her a better life. And I’d turned my back on her, telling her she was a whore and not something I wanted.

  Shit.

  Laying her gently on my bed, I tugged the covers from beneath her and laid them over her nakedness. Her nipples were almost the colour of her pale flesh, the shadows between her legs reminding me she was a woman but still so young. She’d been through so much already. What fucking right did I have to make her feel so belittled?

  Tucking her in, I turned on the bedside light and called the kitchen. Melinda, the head chef, answered even this late. “Kitchen.”

  Fuck, I wasn’t thinking. I should’ve just called Selix. I didn’t need food. Merely someone to gather things to help.

  Oh, well. She’ll do.

  “Please arrange some tea, a hot water bottle, and painkillers to be brought to my room. Better bring a robe from the spa deck, too.”

  “No problem. Did you want food?”

  No, yes, I don’t fucking know.

  “Bring something that would be suitable for someone who’s fainted.”

  There was no pause or questions. “Sure. On its way.”

  Hanging up, I sucked in a breath and rubbed my face. What the hell was I thinking stealing this girl? She needed help. More than what I was qualified or able to deliver. I’d been a selfish bastard once again, thinking only of himself.

  Leaning forward, I cupped her cheek, ignoring the cool sweat and fear still coating her skin. “You have my word; nothing and no one will hurt you. You’re safe here.”

  She didn’t stir.

  Not able to sit still, I stood and paced at the bottom of the bed. My room was at the front of the ship with glass on every wall. Effectively, it was a gold fish bowl welcoming sea and sky rather than walls and ceiling. Each pane was quadruple thick and strong enough to withstand pounding squalls. And with one flick of a button, the see-through crystal became shaded with a chemical reaction, blocking the sun but negating the need for curtains.

  I looked at my cello.

  Up until the night we left Morocco, I hadn’t played since Pim came on board. The itch had been there, the drive in my fingers and need in my heart hounded me to become a prisoner to the notes. But Pim had been a fascination worthy of distracting me from my passion. Until I’d shut her out, of course.

  The first night we left port, I’d played softly for only a few minutes. The next slightly louder and longer. The next longer and louder again.

  Tonight was the first time I let myself go and poured myself into a song; mixing heavy metal with classical, I blended genres and lullabies to create my own.

  I was tempted to put the large instrument back in its case. But as I stepped toward it, a rustle sounded from the bed.

  Pim thrashed, her lips wide with silent screams.

  Forgetting the cello, I dashed back to her and sat on the mattress. Tucking wild hair behind her ear, I murmured, “You’re safe. I’m here.”

  Her thrashing turned worse.

  I grunted as her leg connected with my side, but I never moved. My fingers wrapped around her cheek, holding her steady. “It’s me. He’s not here. Trust me.”

  Her eyes flew open. In a microsecond, she tore herself away from my touch, ripped off the sheet, and shot to the head of the bed. Wedging herself against the flocked grey headboard, she hoisted her knees up and wrapped her arms around herself, rocking.

  She didn’t look at me, though. Her fear wasn’t directed at me.

  I followed her line of sight.

  Her terror was toward my cello.

  I stood, placing myself between them as if they were two lovers meeting for the first time. “It’s just an instrument. It won’t bite.”

  She bared her teeth like a wild cat, a silent hiss on her tongue. Walking backward, I had an odd feeling she would like nothing more than to attack my prized possession and throw it overboard.

  I wouldn’t let that happen. Under any circumstance.

  Widening my stance, I blocked the cello with my body as best I could. “It’s just an object. It can’t hurt you.”

  Her eyes flickered from me and back to the thing I prized most in the world. Her chest rose and fell with ragged breaths, a thread of insanity clouded her gaze only for her to shake her head and snap back into the poised and incredibly strong woman I recognised.

  Her arms slowly unwound, letting her legs fall to the side. Her breasts danced with shadow from the night sky above, but she made no move to cover up.

  A quiet knock on the door wrenched her head to the side.

  I held up my hands as if she’d sprout wings and smash through my glass ceiling. “It’s only the staff. You’ve dealt with them before.”

  Her nostrils flared, her attention distracted between me and the cello as I crossed the room and opened the door. It fucking hu
rt to leave my instrument unguarded. I didn’t trust her.

  Melinda stood with a white robe with the Phantom logo of a grey storm cloud, and a barely disguisable figure slung over her arm with a small tray, teapot, two cups, and a hot water bottle.

  “Here you go, sir. I didn’t bring food; the tea should suffice for a fainting episode.”

  “Thank you.” I took the items.

  She reached into her pocket for a packet of painkillers. “Almost forgot.”

  I took those too. “Appreciate it.”

  “Not at all.” Her lined but pretty face smiled before she turned and headed back the way she’d come.

  Closing the door, I faced Pimlico.

  She wasn’t there.

  My gut clenched as I spun to find her.

  She’d climbed from the bed so silently I hadn’t heard.

  My heart leapt into my throat as she stood over my cello, the horsehair bow tight in her hands.

  Ever so slowly, so as not to spook her, I placed the tray on my work table before padding softly toward her. “Pim, put it down.”

  She didn’t move.

  If she broke it, I’d have to break her.

  I wouldn’t even think about it.

  Her gaze locked with all the hate in the world on the innocent second-hand instrument. The same instrument my parents had borrowed money to buy me. Her hand turned white around the bow. If she attacked it, I’d have to attack her. There was reason in this world and then there was irrationality. My cello was my one irrationality. It had too many things attached to it. Too many bad and good memories, too many scars and stories to allow a twisted woman to touch it.

  She would fucking bleed if she hurt it.

  “Pim!” My voice boomed as she pulled her arm back, ready to strike. To snap my bow. To shit on my entire past because she didn’t understand me.

  She didn’t listen.

  Her arm came down.

  She gave me no choice.

  I charged.

  Grabbing her around the waist, I stopped the arching whistle of the bow before it could strike. Shaking with anger, I wrenched the priceless bow from her hand and placed it gently on the chair where I’d sat to play.

  Dragging her away from the precious instrument, I clamped livid hands onto her shoulders and shook. Hard. “Don’t you ever do that again. You hear me?”