Tender Mercies

Six

Asher stood in the kitchen, having downed his third cup of coffee because it felt too early for alcohol. Perhaps he should amend that rule. After her orgasm, he’d felt the light trembling, as if she was afraid she’d done something wrong. But she was quiet, retreating back into her head.

Which was when he felt like an evil bastard.

The unfortunate reality was that there was no real way to know the best course to take with her. He couldn’t simultaneously try two different methods, and he was still convinced his way was right in the long run. She was his, damn it. And he wasn’t harming her.

He hadn’t f*cked her, and wouldn’t have even if she hadn’t fallen asleep on top of him. It was too soon. But it didn’t mean he wouldn’t touch what belonged to him. He’d waited until she’d drifted deeper into sleep and her breathing had evened before slipping from the bed. He’d covered her with the blanket and shut off the light on his way out the door.

His erection was still raging. She thought she was wrong? He was the one who got a hard-on every time she looked up at him with those desperate, brown eyes. Everything in his brain screamed: Prey. Take. Use. He wasn’t exactly proud of it, but there it was. He hadn’t even felt this way with Darcy. And he’d loved Darcy.

Lucas wasn’t the only one who told pretty lies. Asher had been lying to himself since the moment he’d decided he was going to take Grace to atone. He’d been kidding himself thinking he wasn’t ready to move on. He was ready. He hadn’t just wanted a slave who he may or may not bed. He’d wanted a lover, and he’d perhaps selfishly taken one who was too damaged to want that as much as he did. At the same time, he couldn’t deny the fact that selfish intentions or no, he had rescued her from a much worse fate.

“You f*cker.”

William stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. He’d dropped the polite and civilized butler routine. Asher sighed. Of course William would be lurking nearby. That was his way. The only reason it hadn’t gotten him fired and deported was that he wasn’t just a butler, he was a friend.

William didn’t wait for a verbal acknowledgment. Clearly he felt his moral outrage trumped the propriety of his station in the house. “Why not just throw her down and rape her? You think molesting her is a solution to the trauma she’s already suffered?”

“She didn’t seem to be that upset about it while I was doing it.”

“She had no choice!”

“She’s a slave. Slaves don’t get choices! Darcy was a slave,” Asher said.

“But Darcy still had a personality. She wasn’t terrified. It was her kink.”

“And it’s Grace’s kink, too.”

William shook his head. “No. This is wrong.”

Asher rounded on him, growing weary of the insubordination. “Is it? If I’d treated Darcy more like property, she’d still be alive. But no, I was weak with her. She pushed too far. People talked. I had to get control of her, and instead of doing it myself, I gave the responsibility to someone else.”

Sure, he’d just been berating himself, but now that his butler was doing it, he found it easier to come up with endless rationalizations to prove he was the good guy. “I’m not going to buy someone and keep them like a cloistered nun. You honestly expect me to keep a beautiful woman in my home––a woman I own, I might add––and never touch her?”

“I . . . sir . . . but you knew the state she was in. If you’d wanted that, you could have bought someone else.”

“And then what would happen to Grace? I’m the best option she has, and you know it. You can be as self-righteous as you want to be. She’s safe with me. If I treat her like she’s broken, she may never recover, but if I treat her like any other slave, then maybe there’s a chance.”

William still had a disapproving look on his face, and Asher wanted to knock it right off. But he refrained.

“I still think you should give her time to––”

“She’s got to come to me emotionally in her own time, but I will have her body and her obedience on my time. That’s what makes me the master and her the slave.”

William would have continued his argument if not for the crash out in the hallway.

“Grace––?” By the time Asher got through the door, she’d already flown up the stairs. “F*ck. This vase was my grandmother’s. Clean that up, will you, William? It’s too far gone to glue together, but save me one of the larger pieces.”

William looked white as a sheet. “Sir . . .”

“Oh for God’s sake. I’m not going to beat her. Just because I’m learning my lessons from Darcy doesn’t mean I’ve had a personality transplant.” He shook his head, disgusted, and left William to take care of the shattered vase.

At the top of the stairs, he stood in a moment of indecision looking between his door and Grace’s. He started toward his bedroom, then stopped and rethought it. Why should he have to turn the house upside down looking for her?

He took a few steps back and raised his voice. “Grace, you’ve got exactly thirty seconds to come out.”

In less than ten, she shot out of his room and was on her knees in front of him. Seeing her in that position, so quick to obey, reminded him sharply of the fact that his needs hadn’t been taken care of. Asher took a slow breath, trying to steady himself. He could feel himself becoming drunk on the power. Darcy had never been this quick to obey.

Darcy hadn’t been terrorized by a monster for months either, you twit.

He and Grace were some pair. Both of them completely and utterly wrong. He was surprised she didn’t beg, though she was crying as quietly as she could.

“You shouldn’t listen in on conversations that aren’t your business, kitten.”

“This slave is sorry, she woke up and heard yelling and was scared––”

“What did we say about third person?”

“I . . . I’m sorry. Please . . .”

“Tell me what you’re afraid of right now.”

There was a pause. He watched her, waiting for her to comply or try to bullshit him, but it was obvious from her tense posture that she’d tell him whatever he wanted to know.

“I’m scared you’re going to beat me or take the room away from her . . . me and make me stay in the dungeon, or that I won’t eat for a few days, or––”

“Stop.”

She closed her mouth. He knelt beside her and pulled her into his arms. At first she resisted, but then she allowed herself to be held.

“I will never punish you by taking away food. In the first place, you’re so malnourished, it’s amazing you made it down the stairs and back up again unassisted. In the second place, it’s just plain f*cked up. The dungeon is too dark and cold. I’m not tossing you in there, either. Someday I will physically punish you, but not today. It would do more damage than good right now. But I am going to punish you.”

He could feel her flinch and pull in on herself, wondering what awful thing he’d do that she hadn’t immediately thought of. Asher stood and pulled her up with him, then took her back into her room and settled her on a couch. He rifled through a drawer and came out with a notebook with lined paper and a couple of pens.

She looked quizzically at him, the bizarreness of being handed a notebook overwhelming her fear.

“You are going to write the following sentences three hundred times.” He arched a brow waiting for her to open the notebook. In another situation, he might have laughed at the expression on her face: a strange mixture of relief, gratitude, and shock. But it wasn’t funny for many reasons.

When her pen was poised over the first line, he said: “I will never again eavesdrop on my master, nor will I run from him when he calls my name. I am very sorry I displeased him in this way, and I will try very hard not to do it again.”

The punishment served two purposes. It was fairly unpleasant to do the same monotonous activity that many times, so it was a deterrent. Most importantly, it might help her with her pronoun issue. “I want you to number them, and I want it legible. It’ll take several hours, so you may take a break for lunch. William will bring you something.”

“Yes, Master. Thank you.”

“I’m sure you won’t still be thanking me when you’re done.” The one time he’d introduced a similar punishment to Darcy, she’d whined so much about it that he’d had to paddle her anyway. And it still hadn’t stopped the behavior. As much as he’d loved her, he’d found it endlessly irritating how much she whined about any punishment that wasn’t sexy. She’d never really internalized the idea of herself as his real property. Even with laws surrounding them that said so. And to be honest, he hadn’t either.

Grace hadn’t let out even the mildest protest at writing lines. He thought she might actually still thank him when it was over––and mean it. Even as much as her hand would hurt by then.

He watched her for a moment, sitting there in the pajamas she’d been wearing earlier in the morning, carefully copying over the sentences into the notebook. His cock twitched in his pants. He left before he did something stupid and rash.

His intentions to hold off from consummating things with her were weakening by the moment. Asher crossed the hall to the bathroom and shut and locked the door. He shucked his clothes and got underneath the spray. He’d had a shower before going to pick her up, of course. Right now he just wanted to wank, and the bathroom was the only place to do it in complete privacy.

He knew Grace would stay in her room and do as he’d ordered, but William was a whole different matter. The last thing he wanted was for his butler to walk in on a mid-morning wank in the bedroom.

Closing his eyes, he replayed the morning from the moment he’d walked into Lucas’s dungeon. Those frightened eyes, the absolute desperation she had to please him. So unlike Darcy. He should be repulsed by making such comparisons. He should feel guilty for being so turned on by his entire exposure to Grace. She was so broken. That shouldn’t get him off. Although he was angry with the way Lucas had treated the girl and the horrible conditions she’d been kept in, the resulting desperation to please and obey aroused him to a degree he hadn’t been prepared for.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong pounded in his head in a staccato beat, matching the rhythm of the shower spray and his hand jerking on his cock.

He bit back the groan as he came so it wouldn’t carry across the hallway, then pressed his palms against the tiles, leaning forward. He let his breath settle back into the normal pattern as the evidence of his orgasm swirled down the drain. Why did it matter if Grace heard him? Did he not have the right to come in his own house? He should be using her for that purpose anyway. It’s what he’d bought her for.

The same thing that he’d claimed had drawn the lowest common denominator to want to buy her, was what drove him as well. But with less sinister intentions. Grace was a slave who truly was a slave. She wasn’t an online fantasy girlfriend who’d come over for kinks and thrills that he couldn’t bring himself to punish in any meaningful way. She was someone he’d never have to punish that way. Someone who would give her absolute loyalty and obedience out of gratitude. Perhaps it was the gratitude that stirred his blood the most. And that wasn’t so wrong, was it?

He let the shower run for ten more minutes, not washing off, just standing there, letting the water slide down his skin. It was more subterfuge. If he was in and out too fast, both William and Grace would know what he’d been up to. And again, he didn’t know why he cared so much. He’d masturbated the previous day. And the day before that. And the day before that. It wasn’t necessarily all about the abused woman in the room across the hall, obediently writing out her punishment sentences.

Oh hell, it had been about her from the moment he’d seen her at the showing. She’d triggered both his cock and his protective urges in such a dramatic way he would have paid two million for her. More. And he was terrified that, rather than atone, he would somehow become a greater monster because of his lack of self-control with this one. He just wanted her too much.

***

Grace was on number 120 when the knock sounded on the door. Her hand had just started cramping, and she was relieved to put the pen down for a break. It felt too odd to say “come in,” as if she had any rights to deny anyone entrance into a room that wasn’t really hers. So she just stayed silent and waited. She hadn’t heard much of the argument, but she’d heard enough to know William was against slavery, which made him seem safer. The door bumped open and the butler smiled kindly at her.

“I brought you some homemade potato and corn chowder and grilled cheese.”

Her mouth watered at the sight of the tray. Fresh, warm food. Not cold scraps. It was still a hard thing to get used to. A wonderful thing to get used to, but hard. William’s extreme reaction against Asher caused her to hold out hope that she had an ally in this house and that maybe she wouldn’t have everything good stripped away, that it wasn’t some game.

She couldn’t believe that after only a few hours out of Lucas’s dungeon, she was hoping for something better, allowing herself to believe in it for even a moment.

William set the tray on the elegant table in front of the couch. “If you need anything else, you can use the call box.” He pointed to a little rectangle set into the wall beside the flat screen. She hadn’t noticed the intercom, but then she hadn’t spent much time in the room to explore every inch of it. She’d spent most of her time inside her head since she’d gotten here.

When she didn’t say anything, the butler turned to leave.

“He didn’t hurt her . . . I . . . I mean me. Earlier. He didn’t hurt me.”

He stopped in the doorway and gave her that look people give abused puppies and trauma victims, as if they’re so damaged they can’t possibly know their own minds. It made a little part of her way down deep inside––angry. Angry that someone thought she didn’t know her mental state and couldn’t express her own feelings correctly. But the thought quickly receded because defiant thoughts hadn’t been safe for a long time. And Lucas had trained her well.

“It’s none of my business, of course,” the butler said.

But it was suddenly very important to Grace. “He didn’t hurt me,” she repeated. “If you knew the things she endured in that dungeon with her other master . . . you wouldn’t . . .” She’d lapsed back into the third person speech without realizing. Even though she’d written two hundred and forty sentences in which she’d written I and my so much they should have stuck. But she was running on emotion right now, not careful thought.

“I apologize if my words upset you,” William said.

It took a moment for her to process that someone had actually issued an apology to her. She could have spent the whole day in awe over that one thing, but she had to get the rest out. “If he could . . . if he could be like this, like he is now, most of the time . . . this sl . . . I mean I . . . could maybe be okay.” Then she asked the question she had to know the answer to because it was the one thing that made her fear Asher might be worse than Lucas. “Did my master kill his last slave? There were rumors he did.”

The butler’s eyes widened a little. “How did you hear about that?”

“Lucas. Is it true?” She had to work to keep her voice from shaking and the tears from falling again. “Did he kill her?”

William shook his head. “She died, but it was an accident. Not by his hand. He was a wreck for months. Barely left his room. Barely ate. He’s just now gotten his weight back to normal.”

The butler could be lying. She knew that. It wasn’t as if she was a stranger to convincing lies. But something in his eyes, coupled with the argument she’d overheard, made her want to trust him. If it were true, she might be safe, and not as part of some ruse to make breaking her again more fun. Really, truly safe. For the first time in Eleu.

The sobs that wracked her body then were sobs of relief, gratitude, and hope. Asher may have just saved her, for what reason she didn’t know, but she couldn’t stop the emotion as it bubbled out. The butler was still standing in the doorway, watching her crack up. He had a confused look on his face, as if trying to flip through everything that had been said to see what set her off.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, Grace.”

And more tears, because her name was becoming a normal utterance around here. She shook her head. “I’m not upset. It’s too hard to explain.” She looked helplessly up at him, hoping somehow she could just transfer what she was feeling into his brain without the complication of words that would only make her cry harder.

He nodded and quickly excused himself.

She stared at the food on the tray and the glass of iced water with a bowl of lemons on the side. So much trouble gone to for her so she could eat. She wondered if Asher had the same lunch and if he’d eaten it alone in the kitchen, or in his office, or in the bedroom with the big TV, watching sports.

She glanced at the television in her own room and clicked it on, flipping the channels until she got to the cartoon channel. Here she was, eating a real meal in comfortable pajamas, curled up on a soft sofa, watching cartoons while the sunlight streamed in her window. Could any of this be real? She found the anxiety and dread creeping in again that it was all a dream and that she’d wake up any minute back where she’d been a few hours ago. Because she couldn’t possibly be this lucky.

Later, she was back to writing her sentences, the cartoons still humming on low in the background. She didn’t notice when the door opened. Grace looked up to find Asher watching her.

Her anxiety returned. Had she gotten too comfortable? Was she doing something wrong?

“William is working in the garden, and I thought I’d grab the tray and check on you.”

She remained silent, still unsure how to behave.

He glanced back at the television and then at her again, and she tensed. “Are you able to concentrate on what you’re writing with the television on?”

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Do you want . . . me to turn it off?” She’d had to think, to carefully form her words and make sure she was speaking correctly and not lapsing back into that awful third person speech.

“If you can concentrate, you can leave it on in the background.” Then he was gone.

A few hours later he returned again. By this time her hand hurt so much she could barely move it across the page.

“What number are you on?”

“Two fifty-two.” She’d promised herself she was going to stop all the stupid blubbering and crying about everything, but it really hurt, and she couldn’t stop the stray tears that escaped and ran down her cheek. She quickly wiped them away with the back of her hand before they could wet the paper she was writing on.

“Stop,” he said.

“But . . . I can finish.” Was he upset she wasn’t done yet? Was she in trouble? Her muscles tensed, poised. For what she didn’t know. The next words to come out of his mouth caused the tension to flow back out of her again.

“I know you can, but I’m asking you to stop. You will finish, but not today. You’re in too much pain. It’s time to take care of you.”

She wanted to finish the lines. She’d been so close to completing the task, that it felt like she’d somehow failed him to stop so close to the end. But she didn’t protest, partly because she wasn’t really sure if she physically could complete it right now, and partly because he’d just told her to stop, and she wasn’t about to argue with a direct order. Since the conversation with William all she wanted was to please her master. Not because she was trying to appease to delay punishment but because if this was real, the only thing important to her was obeying the man who had made it real.

“Thank you, Master.” She put the pen down on the table, and he smiled. The smile warmed and lit her up inside.

He clicked the television off. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

A minute passed, then two, then three. He finally returned with a cold wrap used for sports injuries and a jar of something she didn’t recognize. She flinched when he sat beside her on the couch, but quickly recovered.

“Give me the hand you were writing with.”

Grace extended the hand to him with only a little hesitation, and he opened the jar. The room filled with the sweetest fragrance, and if she closed her eyes she could almost believe she was in a lush garden.

“The native people make this salve from a rare flower known for its healing qualities. We use it for muscle and joint pain, and also sometimes for wounds.”

Asher took some of the cream and spread it onto her hand, massaging each finger individually. She let out an involuntary sigh as he used the salve and the massage to soothe the pain. It seemed to go on forever, and she didn’t want him to stop.

There was a part of her brain that knew she’d only been in his care a day and that it was still far from safe to believe he was good, but another part––the part that existed only on primal feelings and urges, not logic––hoped he’d soon touch other places like that.

Then there was the orgasm from earlier that morning. How f*cked up was it that she wanted him to do that again, and she wanted to return the favor? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The chant started up in her head again.

“Grace, are you all right?”

She looked up to see those intense, concerned blue eyes drinking her in. Asher wasn’t empty. His eyes didn’t pretend. Did they? She couldn’t be sure. How stupid was she going to be, trusting a fantasy again? She hadn’t been careful enough with Lucas. Everything had looked so good on the outside, then reality had come crashing down. No, it was too soon to be so stupid again. It would always be too soon.

But the word in her brain changed. Now it was Asher’s voice in her head. Grace. Grace. Grace. Grace. That word that finally meant something again: Mercy. Favor. Goodwill. Could those things actually be coming from this man? If they were, she wanted to kneel at his feet and never get up.

“Grace?”

“I’m sorry, Master. I was thinking.”

“Tell me.” He’d finally stopped rubbing her hand and wrapped it in the cold pack, taking the fabric strap with the Velcro tab and firmly attaching it in place.

She hesitated. Stupid. Stupid. Don’t tell him anything. Don’t tell him the truth. Don’t be stupid again. Never trust another man. Never. But she couldn’t listen to the voice in her head, not with him so close, his very presence and touch and look compelling her to obey. She no longer knew how not to obey when an order was delivered. She’d stupidly do whatever he wanted.

“Same things,” she whispered. “Afraid it’s not real. This is all . . . a lot.”

“I understand. I’d wanted to let you be outside some this afternoon to get used to the sunlight again. You’re so pale.”

She looked down at her hands, wondering if he found the pallor of her skin repulsive. She wanted to know if he wanted her outside so she could be healthy and glow, or for his own personal aesthetic. In the end, it didn’t really matter. She should be grateful to go outside. Her gaze traveled behind the sofa and through the glass doors. The sun was setting.

“Have you been on the balcony yet?”

She shook her head.

“Come. I want to show you.” He took her unwrapped hand and led her through the double doors. The balcony was much larger than it appeared from inside her room. There was only one lounger and a table, but there was room for much more. It was as if he was sending her a message that this was a private spot for her.

The railing came up just over her waist, and she gripped it as the island breeze ruffled her hair. They were right on the ocean. She could both hear and see the waves lapping the shore as the sun seemed to slowly sink beneath the water.

“It’s lovely.” She still held back, reserving her excitement for weeks or months from now, if things stayed this way.

“It’s real,” he whispered in her ear, the rich baritone of his voice like a song. Asher ran his fingertips through her hair, and she leaned into him without thinking. “I love this hair,” he murmured.

She flushed at the compliment, glad there was something he found appealing. It was hard to see herself as more than a piece of broken trash that had been thrown out. What could she give him in return for all of this?

He unwrapped her hand. “How does it feel?”

“A little better. Thank you, Master. You didn’t have to . . .”

“I take care of what’s mine.” He was so fierce about it that it stole any reply she might have had.

If it was real, he was going to so much trouble for her, that to show any trace of doubt in him seemed like the highest betrayal. So she kept it inside.

“Go put some shoes on. I want to show you something while there’s still enough light to see it.”

He let go of her hand and she went to the closet and slipped sandals on, then he took her down to the garden. It was tucked away next to the house, where the grass still grew before sloping into sandy beach.

“I thought you could take over some of the gardening. William can teach you. It’ll get you outside in the sun more. I want to start you off gradually. Just a few minutes a day until your skin gets used to it.”

She’d expected a lavish and well-manicured garden as lush and perfect as the rest of the house, but there were piles of perfectly good uprooted flowers and lots of dirt. Had he not liked the flowers William planted?

“It’s time to move on,” he said.

Looking from the pained expression on his face to the uprooted garden, she guessed it was about the other slave. Had it been a garden for her? Too many memories, maybe?

“Have you ever done any gardening?”

“No, Master.”

“William still has to clear all this away and add some nutrients to the soil, but in a few days it should be ready. We can get you some books so you can decide what types of flowers you want. I’ll mark everything we can get and grow here.”

She searched his eyes for hints of dishonesty, but it still seemed real. It still felt like he meant all of this. The idea of working outside with a gentle breeze and the salt air and sound of the waves was so much freedom, so much more than she thought she’d ever get to taste again.