by Kyra Alessy
Alarmed, she said nothing.
‘It’s alright. You don’t have to answer.’
‘Please don’t tell anyone,’ she pleaded in a whisper.
‘If you have family, I can help you get word to them. They can buy you free.’
Tears came to her eyes at Davas’s kindness, but she shook her head. ‘There’s no one that would help me. Not really.’ She had no doubt her father would come, but like as not he’d beat her himself and then throw her to Blackhale to wed anyway. Would that be worse than here? The more she thought about it, the less sure she was. At least here there was some hope. After hearing the servants talking in hushed whispers for months about the rumours that followed Blackhale, as his wife there would be none. She’d overheard details of awful punishments he visited on his slaves, on the female ones in particular. She wanted nothing to do with him.
She took Davas’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Thank you. Your kindness means everything to me.’
He patted hers in return and, finishing with her feet, stood abruptly as if embarrassed. He went back to his work and she ate quickly, wondering what her punishment was going to be.
She didn’t have to wait long. As soon as she’d finished, Davas gave her a brush and a pail of water.
‘Today, you clean the floors.’
‘In here?’
‘Everywhere, girl. All the floors in the keep are to be scrubbed.’
Her eyes widened in spite of herself. ‘All of them? By myself?’
Davas’s eyes locked with hers meaningfully. ‘Aye, and whatever you don’t finish today, you’ll do tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.’
She closed her mouth and got to work, beginning in the kitchen, scrubbing away what must have been many years’ worth of dirt and grime, her chains clanking at every movement. Just that room took until mid-afternoon, and then she made her way out into the corridor. By the time the bell rang for the evening meal, her hands and knees were red and raw, her legs hurt and she wasn’t sure how her arms were still moving.
Davas found her, gave her some bread and cheese and left her to continue. By the time she finished the downstairs level, it was deep into the night. She was so tired, she couldn’t walk straight; her chains echoed through the halls as she stumbled back to the dark kitchen.
Davas had left her some blankets on the floor and she fell upon them, closing her eyes and sinking into oblivion.
‘Up you get, girl!’
Kora jerked up with a gasp, trying to remember where she was.
‘It’s past time you were getting to work.’ Davas thrust a bowl of porridge and the pail at her.
She ate and began her task anew, this time cleaning the wooden planks of the next floor up. She tried to ignore her cracked, bleeding hands and her sore wrists and ankles as she scoured the rough wood. Back and forth, over and over. She saw no one. She lost track of the hours, and suddenly it was dark again. She made her way back to the kitchen. Davas had left food out, but she ignored it, falling into the blankets again.
The next days were the same, time blending into itself until she wasn’t sure how long had passed. Two days? Three? She couldn’t remember and, in her constant exhaustion, she didn’t care.
And then it was done. There were no more rooms or corridors to do. Tired but elated, she plodded slowly down to the kitchen and announced to Davas that she was finished.
He nodded and gave her a plate of food. She ate slowly. Everything she wanted her body to do seemed to take extra effort and concentration. Even putting her hand to her mouth was difficult somehow. Davas asked her something about her wrists and she squinted at him. She couldn’t understand him. She felt like she was flying and heard him shout.
When she opened her eyes, she was on the floor, Davas tapping her face lightly. She sat up.
‘What happened?’
‘You fainted, lass.’ He looked concerned. ‘I should tell one of the – ’
‘No!’ she interrupted quickly, scrambling to her feet. ‘I’m alright, just not used to it is all.’ She smiled brightly. ‘No need to tell anyone.’
He sighed heavily. ‘Your arms are bleeding.’
She looked down. Her wrists and hands were a mess, but at least the days on her knees had given her feet a rest. She laughed quietly at that thought. Davas looked at her strangely but didn’t say anything as he brought out the magic salve and wrapped everything up.
‘What now?’ she asked him.
His lips thinned. ‘You’re to drink some water and sit there until I tell you otherwise.’
She did as he bade her, thinking that she must look awful if he thought the slave being punished needed a sit down.
The door opened suddenly and Mace strolled in. Her eyes widened when she saw him. She hadn’t seen any of the Brothers since Lucian had brought her back. He was bared to the waist, his broad shoulders and chest and handsome face making her foolish heart seem to stammer. When he saw her sitting, his eyes narrowed.
She glanced at Davas and got to her feet, still a bit unsteadily but not noticeably, she hoped.
‘Why is the slave not working?’
‘She’s resting but a moment,’ Davas began, but Mace cut him off with a snort.
‘A runaway does not get a rest,’ he barked. ‘She works, she eats what you give her and she sleeps when her tasks are finished for the day. That is all.’
Davas’s shoulders slumped. ‘Aye.’
Mace turned on his heel and disappeared out of the kitchen. Davas rubbed his face and sighed. ‘The floors were the easiest thing on the fucking list,’ he muttered darkly. ‘Come.’
She followed him out into the yard, wondering how many tasks were on this list he spoke of. Did they mean to work her to death? She looked at her bandaged wrists as she felt every pain in her body. If the past few days were anything to go by, it wouldn’t take long. Perhaps if she’d known hard work before … but she hadn’t, of course. The hardest tasks she’d performed in her novice’s duties were sitting in prayer for hours on end, which, while difficult in some ways, wasn’t quite the same as hard labour.
Davas brought her to a veritable mountain of stones. ‘These were brought in to fix the parapets. They need to be sorted into piles by size.’ He looked up into the bright midmorning sky, the unseasonable heat already making his brow perspire. ‘If you feel dizzy, duck into the shade between the outbuildings there,’ he said more quietly, pointing to a spot between the smith and the stable that couldn’t easily be seen by the men working in the yard. He scanned the vicinity. ‘The men might say things to you. Ignore them or tell them to speak to me, and don’t let any of them catch you alone, especially Ren.’
‘Who’s – ’
‘The guard you tricked to escape.’
Davas shook his head and muttered something else as he turned and walked away. She heard the men talking and glanced over at them quickly. Some of them were staring at her. She ignored them as Davas had advised and began organising the stones into piles as she’d been instructed. It wasn’t too bad at first, but as the hours wore on, it became harder and harder. Some of the rocks were huge; much too big for her to lift. She decided to leave them until last. She’d think of something. Hopefully. The sun beat down on her, seeming to pulse into her body, making her want to fall to her knees, but she continued, slowly and methodically, until finally she didn’t have the strength to lift even one more.
She peeked around to make sure no one was looking and darted into the shade between the two outbuildings. She sank down in the cooler air, closing her eyes and trying to rest her body as much as she could. She wouldn’t be able to stay here for very long before someone noticed she was gone.
She gave herself a few moments and then rose to her feet once more, her body screaming so loudly in protest it was all she could do not to simply lower herself back to the ground and take the chance that someone would catch her resting.
She peeked around the edge of the smithy and eased out of the shade while no one was look
ing in her direction, but someone pulled her back sharply, cutting off her cry with a large, dirty hand over her mouth.
‘I was flogged for letting you escape, you fucking bitch.’
Her blood ran cold. Ren!
The guard threw her up against the side of the stable, his hand leaving her mouth.
‘Please, I didn’t mean to get you into trouble. I just needed to get away from here,’ she pleaded.
His lip curled. ‘Lot of good running did you. They caught you in little more than a day, but the Brothers took their anger out on my flesh anyway.’ He took hold of her and flung her into the wall again, her head striking the stone hard and making her vision swim. ‘And now I’m going to take my punishment out of yours,’ he promised ominously.
She opened her mouth to scream, but he pushed his hand against her lips so hard she tasted blood.
She began to struggle and brought her hand up to crush and twist his manhood as hard as she could, silently thanking her uncle for that particular lesson one afternoon. When he yelled and cupped himself in pain, she didn’t hesitate, though she was astonished that it had worked. She pushed off the wall and made to flee, but she’d forgotten about the chains.
The links between the manacles around her ankles pulled taut and she fell face first into the dirt. She tried to scramble up, but it was too late. Ren grabbed her by her dress and dragged her towards him as hard as he could, back to where no one could see her. Her fingers scrambled to gain purchase, clawing at the ground, but it was futile. When she was close enough, he pulled her to her feet and threw her against the wall, striking her face so hard that her whole body fell sideways. She cried out, tears blurring her sight as he used the chain to secure her arms over her head and pulled his fist back to hit her again. Effectively held in place by her shackles, she could only shut her eyes and brace herself for the blow.
But it never came. She peeked through her closed eyes like a child, and what she saw terrified her anew. Behind Ren stood Kade. He was a mountain of a man, tall and broad, with the huge muscles of a man who pounded metal all day. This was just the second time she’d seen him, she realised, and only the first in the daylight. So why was it that she felt as if she knew him? Her gaze flickered up to his eyes and she almost gasped.
The skin of half Kade’s face from forehead to jaw was a mass of melted flesh. How the eye had been saved, she didn’t know. Uncle Royce had a similar scar on his cheek from a fire, and Kora had been fascinated by it as a child. The disfigurement on Kade’s face, while terrible, was an afterthought, however. It wasn’t what captivated her. In that brief moment of observation, she memorised every single thing she could see of him. His eyes were a piercing blue. His sable hair was dishevelled and long. He had gold rings in his ears and one through the bottom of his nose between his nostrils like a bull. She’d never seen such a thing, and it made him look like the most fearsome of barbarians. She couldn’t look away.
Kade had hold of Ren’s arm, keeping it from her, and then, quick as a striking snake, he grabbed Ren by the hair, pulled his head back and dragged a knife across his throat. Blood sprayed over her unmoving body, still trapped by Ren’s other hand. But even when it fell away, she didn’t move, her arms staying fixed above her head. She was frozen in shock, her breath coming in little, short gasps that she couldn’t slow. Kade stepped closer, pressing his body into hers, her eyes level with his chest. One finger under her chin raised her face to look at him. She couldn’t speak. He’d killed a man; slit his throat right in front of her. Ren was dead. Because of her. Her eyes searched Kade’s, looking for any shred of emotion, but there was none. His eyes might as well be as dead as Ren’s. She trembled as Kade bent his head down as if he was going to kiss her lips, except his tongue darted out to taste the blood at the corner of her mouth instead. Kora’s legs buckled.
KADE
Kade caught her as she fell. Perhaps licking her had been a step too far, he thought in hindsight, but bloodlust had overtaken him when he’d seen what Ren was doing. He swung her up into his arms lightly and carried her into the keep, taking her to his chamber – the one he hadn’t occupied since they’d come to this place, as he spent all of his time in the dark of the smithy. Still, it looked like someone was tending to it in his absence. There was no dust or dirt, and fresh water waited in the ewer for washing.
He laid her on his bed, his eyes taking in the bandages around her wrists and hands. He frowned when he noticed the chains again. They’d stopped her from running away and Ren had used them to hold her in place while he beat her. She couldn’t defend herself properly as it was. What were his Brothers thinking, he thought as he let out a long breath. He’d made these shackles and could remove them easily. At least then if she was attacked again she’d stand a chance. She was a resourceful little thing, but when her luck turned, he might not be there to help. As it was, though, he promised himself that he would protect her.
He wondered again why Mace and Lucian were being so brutal with her. Even he could see that the slave wasn’t strong enough for the punishment they were doling out. He touched her face lightly. She was such a small thing. He watched her for a time, as he had for days from the shadows. It was quickly becoming his favoured pastime. Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing more slowly now. Her face, chest and arms were splattered with drying blood. She looked like a battle maiden from his home realm, he thought nostalgically. It was beautiful. She was beautiful.
He grinned as he thought about what her reaction would be when she woke if she was still decorated with it. He’d been observing her since she’d entered his domain. He’d seen her escape, though he’d decided not to intervene. Then he’d watched Lucian bring her back once more and lurked unseen in the keep while she scrubbed the floors, her ample body moving back and forth with each stroke. How he longed for her to be moving thus with his cock inside her.
Shivering deliciously at the thought, he wrung out the sponge and began to wash the evidence of Ren’s death from her skin, starting with her face and chest and ending with her arms. He couldn’t do anything about her stained dress and bandages, but it would do.
At dusk, he took her back to the kitchen, frowning as he lay her on the dirty, threadbare blankets that his Brothers had gleefully decided should serve as her bed and another facet of her punishment. Davas came rushing in as he was leaving.
‘Gods!’ he said in a harsh whisper. ‘I’ve been looking for her everywhere. I was about to go to Mace to tell him she’d escaped again.’ He looked down at her sleeping form and scowled. ‘What’s wrong with her?’ He knelt down. ‘Lass?’
Kade turned to leave.
‘What did you do to her, Kade?’
The vehemence in Davas’s tone surprised him, and by the look on Davas’s face, it had him as well.
Kade turned on him with a growl and was pleased to see the other man flinch. ‘Ren’s body is next to the stable. Get rid of it before it starts to stink.’
He left, trudging back to the smithy, but at the door he hesitated. For the first time, he didn’t want to be here in the heat and the darkness that reminded him so much of home. He could never go home. It was time to stop hiding from the truth. He turned back and made his way to his room in the keep instead, flinging himself on the sturdy bed and finding the counterpane smelling of her.
Chapter 6
Kora sat up and groaned, finding herself in the blankets by the hearth. She couldn’t remember getting under them last night. She groaned, her shoulders and back sore from the heavy lifting of the day before. She rose and stretched, trying to ease the stiffness. Then she fed the fire, glad that there were still enough glowing embers, as she still couldn’t make the flint spark most of the time, however much she practised. There was a bowl on the side which she took, and she began to eat – porridge as usual. It wasn’t until she noticed the rust-coloured spots on her bandages that events of the previous day came rushing back. She gasped, dropping the bowl, which clattered loudly to the floor. Ren. Kade. The blood a
ll over her. She felt her face, expecting it to be as dirty as the rest of her. But it was clean.
Kade had killed Ren. Bile rose in her stomach and she ran for the door, casting the entire contents of her stomach up in the long grass beside the steps. She sat down hard and put her face in her hands, belatedly realising that the chains that had shackled her were gone. Who had taken them off? Why?
‘Get on with your work, slave.’
She started, finding Lucian standing over her. He was so quiet, she hadn’t heard his approach.
‘You know what happens if you don’t do as you’re told,’ he sneered as if nothing would give him greater pleasure than giving her to his men.
She frowned. His words were very slightly slurred, she noticed. He couldn’t be in his cups at this time in the morning, could he? Why do you care? She didn’t, of course, but it was curious.
Kora didn’t know if she should tell him about what had happened yesterday. What if it got Kade into trouble somehow? He had murdered a man for her, after all. So she stood up and walked over to the stone piles without a word, her legs wobbly. She continued with her task, ignoring him. After a while, she turned and found he was gone. But in his place stood Kade, silently watching her.
She swallowed hard and tried to ignore him, but she couldn’t help giving him sideways glances when his eyes were elsewhere. Something about him – everything about him – made her want to look twice.
It was the same with the other two as well, she realised suddenly with a sinking feeling. That first time she’d seen Mace in the market with his short blond hair and penetrating eyes, she hadn’t been able to look away, nor from Lucian in the yard the first afternoon she’d been brought here. He was the biggest arse out of all of them, of course, but he was just as intriguing somehow.
She picked up a stone and hefted it into the pile she’d designated ‘medium stones’. What was wrong with her? The three of them could hurt and punish and even kill her if they wanted. No one would stop them. The best-case scenario was that one of them would take her to his bed, divest her of her maidenhead and just as quickly cast her out of it. Surely she wasn’t so foolish as to still harbour childish dreams of love after all that had happened. Surely not.