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.”