Seize me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts Book 4) (16 page)

“Yes!”
I blinked at the sheet before me and shivered.
Meisie.
The Afrikaans for girl did something to my head. The accent maybe? Who knew?

W
hen he laid his hand on my back and pushed me deeper into the mattress, I bit the sheet to stifle my groan. When he laughed at my noise, I dampened between my legs.

I was beginning to look forward to him making me do things.
I was sick. No matter what he said. I loved it. I hated it. I shut my eyes and waited.

F
or ages he seemed to stand behind me, then I heard him step closer and he pulled aside my ass cheeks. The grip hurt. Knowing he stared at my pussy was indescribably hot.

“Put your hands at your back and hold your wrist.”

I did so, drawing in an exultant breath when he growled approval. I was getting so wet he had to be seeing that too. As if to reinforce my thought, his finger drew a wavering line down my soaking wet seam then he thumbed apart my lips.

I
shoved my mouth into the mattress and moaned quietly.

“
Fok
. Your hot
klein poesie
...”

Nothing more,
but I could
feel
his stare and I trembled. What those words meant, I could guess. Arousal and submitting to him, they tumbled into one messy bewildering haze. I bit the sheet in frustration. I wanted, I needed, more of this. More of him making me. Just...making me.

When he’d had enough of looking and stroking,
pinching and exposing me, like I was some pet project, he stripped off my dress and sat me on his lap. I curled up, my mind a little fuzzy. I sniffled and licked his chest. He said nothing, only touching me in a reassuring way, and I looked out at the twilight filtering through my window, wishing I could stay here with him surrounding me, forever.

He was so tender when like this
, as if he needed the other before he could bring out his good side.

My question arrived and swirled around. Should I? With his chin resting on my head and his arms around me, I broke.
My throat worked. Nothing came out then my question arrived almost before I knew I’d said it.

“What if I get pregnant?”

He stilled. “What?”

I guess he’d been off in his own thoughts.

“I’m afraid
.
”
Say it.
“Why are they letting you have sex with me without condoms or anything?”

“I thought
you must have told them you were on one of those long-acting drugs. You’re not are you?”

“No,” I whispered
, ever more afraid. “No. Besides, there’s STDs. This, to me, means they don’t care. And to not care about your slave getting pregnant means you don’t intend to sell her.”

“The pregnancy thing...”

“They mean to kill me, don’t they?”

“
Shh. Don’t go there. Besides, I’ve been tested for diseases and Gregor will know that.”

That was good, I guessed.
“But I can still get pregnant. Do you know how we can escape?” I lifted my head and looked into his troubled eyes.

“I said
shh.” He put his finger to my lips then he rocked back onto the bed, taking me with him. After holding me tight, he put his mouth to my ear. “I’m sure they at least have audio bugs in here.”

My heart leapt into a terrified rhythm. Why hadn’t he said? We’d done so many things. “What if they have video?” I whispered back.

His shrug said maybe he didn’t know.

“Pieter?”

Did it matter? Apart from not letting them hear of our non-existent escape plans, we’d done nothing dirtier than what they’d seen before. Despair crept in. What was there about me that my captors hadn’t seen? I was an open book to them. A slut to be catalogued, poked, and sneered at while wanking.

“
Stop crying.” He kissed my neck. “You know I’m not ever giving up. You need to enjoy what we have.”

I trembled some more but his big friendly hug
, the scent of him, and the heavy movement of his body next to mine slowly calmed me. My eyelids drifted down.

When the guard
stepped in through the door, it startled me. Pieter stood and dumped me off his lap to stand between me and the guard. I grabbed my dress and tugged it on.

The man was young
, with dark wavy hair and he looked like he’d be a local. A raskol, as Pieter said the gang members here were called. His eyes were wild but he shut the door behind him in a measured way. On a belt at his waist were a revolver and a knife. Neither was drawn.

God.
I stared at his weapons, eager to act, to get out of here if this was our chance. Shit-scared but ready. Pieter, my big strong ex-cop and merc, could surely have those off him in seconds, if he decided to do it. But was this some sort of trap?

Pieter waited
, hands at his sides, but balanced on his feet, ready to pounce.

The man held out his palms, waving them at us, as if that could stop Pieter.
“Don’t attack. I’m friend. I will help you. Yes?” He raised his brows, nodding. With his fresh face, I wondered if he was over eighteen. “I have key. This is end of my shift. You come out after five minutes. Okay?”

“
Shh. You must be quiet.” Pieter put his finger across his mouth then he pointed at the walls.

The guard stopped talking and looked puzzled.
Then alarm hit him and his gaze flitted about the room.

“
Why are you doing this?” Suspicion leaked from Pieter’s whispered words. “Say it quiet. Say the truth.”

Though his face had gone red, the
man-boy subsided, took a breath and continued. “I tell you.”

If anyone else was
listening...

No video. Please not.
I glanced around, as if I could suddenly see something that I hadn’t found after all these days.

The guard
pulled a few faces, staring at the floor, then at Pieter. “I see polisman hurt bad by Gregor. Women too. I’m no pussy but that is bad. Today I leave this work and not come back. I have a key, in my pocket.”

Ohmigod
.
This was real. I wanted to leap up and dash through that door. I wanted to hug this boy for his goodness. I wanted to scream with joy. We wouldn’t get another chance like this. Fast. We had to be fast. I jittered on the bed, toes bouncing off the floor.

For a moment, Pieter looked
over at me, frowning like he wanted to slap me calm. I scowled. I could handle this. I stuck a finger in my mouth and bit it.

This is happening!

It’d be nightfall soon and if we could reach the jungle around this place, that Pieter had seen over the wall, we might be able to lose ourselves in it.

“Okay
.” Pieter stepped in and spoke an inch from this guy’s ear so I could barely hear. “We’re going to trust you. If you...”

Running footsteps had him raising his head.
My heart lurched. The boots clattered to a halt at our door.

If the door had turned into a snake, it wouldn’t have drawn us all to star
e at it so. I bit my finger harder, tears starting.
This can’t be right. Rewind.

“
Hey! We know you’ve got Ben in there. We know he’s trying to help you.”

No.
Fuck no.

Ben. That was his name. His dark skin shone with sweat.
His eyes looked ready to pop. While Pieter...he ran a hand over his head, like he was out on a job and someone had left the correct wrench in the wrong place. A little red and black tattoo of an octopus-like Cthulhu, that I’d never noticed before, rippled on the back of his shoulder.

“Hello in there.”

That new voice was like a spear to my heart.

Gregor.

“We also know, my little performers, that he has weapons. Do not think we will let you use them without punishing you. If anyone shoots or tries to hurt my men, I promise you that everyone in there, Jazmine first, then Pieter, then Benoni, will be skinned slowly.”

Cold prickled
down my back. Gregor would do this.

“Fuck.” The boy guard jiggled from foot to foot and played with the butt of his gun.

After a single hissed remark from Pieter, he released the butt.

“If you do not
hand the weapons out through the hatch, when I say to, and then open this door, I will skin you all.”

Pieter muttered
and shot a ragged glance at me.

My finger was
squashed so deep by my teeth, the dent bled at one corner.

“If, this is my last if, Pieter. This is just for you.”

Why only Pieter? A ringing sound sang in my mind.

“If you don’t want to be skinned,
Mister Pieter, or your precious lady to be skinned while you watch, and trust me, I would enjoy this greatly...”

I shuddered.

“You must do this now. Kill Benoni.”

I think my heart beat three times. We were a f
rozen room of human sculptures.

Pieter punched the boy guard in the throat,
stepped in when the boy retched, ripped his knife from the sheath, and plunged it into his stomach in an upward direction. I saw the twist he put to the knife stab, heard the wet thud as the knife entered the body and the sigh from the boy.

I don’t think he even managed to raise his hands. The knife must have punctured his heart.

If this was death, it was terrifying in its starkness. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, Benoni was on the floor. He gasped twice, his body trembling. Blood leaked onto his pale blue shirt, staining it an almost innocent dark blue, before pooling on the floor where it miraculously turned red.

While I sat with my mouth open
, gripping the bed to either side, as if that would stop me flying away, Pieter removed the gun from the belt holster. He went to the hatch, tapped to get them to open it, and pushed the knife and gun through.

The
boy had stopped moving, not even his chest rose.

A thought wandered in
to my shattered mind. They had the room bugged for sound.

Jesus.
What and who was this man I’d let kiss me?

I’d never
had children, but he was young and his blood stained my hands. I could still feel the drumming of his heart in my fingers. When I’d reached his heart, the beat had transmitted through the knife blade. This killing was a terrible thing, but it was done. Over. The past. I swallowed and dismissed my sorrow.

Looking at his body would do nothing.
I tried to catch Jazmine’s eye but she stared at the floor, or at the boy, her hands caught between her knees. So quiet and lost.

Not good.
Though I wished I could comfort her, it wasn’t possible.

“Step over here, Pieter, so we may restrain you. Then we can remove the young man’s body and make your room clean again.”

So many years of killing people and witnessing in-your-face violence had left me immune to wallowing in the emotion this sort of thing caused in others. I could wall it off. I backed up to the hatch. Once they’d manacled me, I followed orders and retreated to the shower area opposite. They hauled out his body then came in with a mop. Gregor did the last clean-up and wiped a towel over the wet area using his foot.

“There. Done.”
He beamed at me and at Jazmine on the bed. She’d sat there the whole time, stiff and pale of face.

When they all left and I was freed via the hatch, I went and sat beside her.

This was going to be bad. I waited.

“
Why?” She shook her head, tears in her voice. “
Why?
He was alive! I mean, I know Gregor said...all that.” She waved her hand vaguely, while choking up so that I could barely understand what she said. “But why? It was too quick. You could’ve talked! You could. How could you kill a boy like that?” She glanced at me then away. Afraid I’d see how blotchy red her face was? If she didn’t burst into tears soon she’d crack.