Seize me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts Book 4) (3 page)

Fu
ck, no, I don’t, you asshole.
I curled my toes in, feeling the hardness of the concrete.

He poked my breast with his stick. “Nod, girl.”

I nodded.

“Most of
the clients love the sex with the girls, along with the power games. They like having a slave who will do whatever they ask. The ones who like to watch shows can be a little different. In this one, I sense, maybe anger? You must give them screams and crying. Give them a
big
show. Yes?”

A show? Was he crazy? Tiredness
sifted into my flesh, weighed down my limbs.

“Are you wondering why, Miss Jazmine?
It’s because I think, at the end of this, you will not be happy.” He clicked his fingers. “You must make it last.”

Was he saying they meant to kill me...after?
At the end? Fuck this. My heart knocked hard and fast. But, he’d clicked his fingers. His harsh sigh and the
whoosh
of a stick being drawn back made me drop to my knees.

M
ake it last?
If I made myself not scream, would that get it over with quicker? Or slower? Which did I want? That was the question. Such an evil, evil question. Was that why he’d told me? To make me agonize over impossible decisions? I was sure he didn’t do it out of goodness.

D
id I have the courage to not scream if I was hurt badly?

Images
slipped into my head of me bleeding, writhing, of my hands cut off.
God.
I shuddered and swallowed acrid bile.

“Stay kneeling. Put your palms on the floor.”

I did so.

What were they going to do?

Last time, I’d been in here, I’d shaken. I was wondering why I wasn’t shaking, feeling separated from myself, eerily unemotional, when it began. My arms shook, then my legs until, like a cartoon character, even my teeth chattered.

After fiddling wi
th my wrist cuffs, he picked me up with his arm slid between my legs and supporting my weight. My palms stayed on the floor while he turned me like I was the dial of a clock, set on the wrong time.

The pressure of his
forearm there, on my most intimate place, was casually invasive. I’d been demoted to the level of a piece of furniture.

He put me down.
With his palms, he pushed my thighs a little farther apart.

“There. Now we can see you properly.”
His stick he laid across the back of my neck, pressing me down. “Stay there unless someone tells you to get up. If you’re wondering why the concrete, it’s so we can hose it off afterward. Sometimes the girls get a little...messy. Your friend will be here soon. You might want to relax. He’s a big man.”

I heard his footsteps then the close of the door. Subtle tugs confirmed he’d locked my cuffs to some anchor point on the floor.

Kneeling there on the hard floor made my knees ache. I shifted my weight from one knee to the other, afraid to budge more than a few inches from where he’d left me.

The door creaked open
, clicked shut, and there were more footsteps – shuffling ones and firm ones, then the mutter of low voices.

I wa
s all too aware of my vulnerability and of how the dress had ridden up my back when Gregor had moved me. Whoever was at the door behind me could see everything. I shuffled my legs together and concentrated on sucking air through the mouth holes. It was dark in here, but not as dark or terrible as whoever was out there, or what might be about to happen to me.

I don’t want to hurt
. Please, let it be fast.

A speaker squealed as someone turned it on. “Testing, testing. Okay, you can hear me?”

Someone in the room answered yes.

“Good.”
This time, despite the overriding buzz of the speaker, I recognized the voice. That was Him again. Who was in the room with me? “Pieter. Our client says one rule only today. Make it last. You can do what you want to this woman, as long as you fuck her, but no permanent damage. This is our little trial run to see if you are...suitable. Make it entertaining.”

The words spun through, like dry leaves tossed by a silent wind. I could hear them
repeating, the vowels, the consonants, the assembled sounds, but not understand. Those words couldn’t be about me. They just couldn’t.

Couldn’t. Couldn’t. Uh-uh
.

Pieter though? Him?
He was the only man who’d shown any kindness toward me since my abduction. The last time I’d seen him had been after my recapture and he was being beaten. He was alive and they were going to make him...fuck me.

Why? Was he in on this? Had he always been? Had it been a lie? Not that I hadn’t lied to him.
But I’d needed to. Maybe he’d found out.

The pressure in me built. In my a
ttempt to not make a noise, one sound escaped my throat. I bit back the terrified half-swallow, half-squeak. I wanted to be little, to be so small they wouldn’t see me. I wanted to hide in this bag and never, ever, be seen by
them
.

Behind me, metal clinked.

“No. No, no,” I whispered, clawing into the floor with my nails. “Go away.”

They didn’t. Of course.

The speaker fell silent.

They’d fed me and let me shower under guard, given me pants and a shirt. I stood there, still dog-tired from the combo of beatings and drugs, but also furious and blind. The sack idea was a sound one. Unless you were some superhero who could sense the drop of a hair from ten yards away with your eyes closed, being blind made the strongest man into a victim.

Now, t
hey were setting me free for the worst of reasons. The fuckers. I flexed my muscles covertly, clenched and unclenched my fists, getting ready for when the last restraint fell away. Kicking somebody’s head in was always on the menu, if they gave me an opening. If they made a mistake. If you waited long enough, everyone made mistakes.

I couldn’t
see the room with the canvas sack on my head but I could smell it. Beneath the scent of cleaning fluids was a thick aroma of sex, blood, sweat and, yes, fear. Whatever had been done in here, the consequences had leached into the walls.

You could smell fear.
In my days in South Africa, I’d had my fill of being scared shitless while enforcing the law, while shooting soldiers in the bush when I could barely see a few yards ahead of me and they were shooting back. I’d smelled the stench of fear and adrenalin from a crowd as they hacked to death a man in front of me. Fear and me were drinking buddies from way back.

As they unstrapped
and uncuffed my arms, leaving only the chain-linked manacles on my ankles, I ran through what Gregor, the manager of this house had said.

“
Remember. Your job is to make love. To make her suffer, a little. If she makes no interesting noises,
hmm
, we will take you off the job. For her sake, do it right.”

Damn
, that creep deserved to die. For calling it love, for starters. What they wanted from me made me want to vomit.

T
he strap around my neck was unbuckled and the sack removed. I squinted, adjusting to the bright fluorescent lights ten feet above.

“
I am watching you from behind bulletproof glass. Do not make us shoot you, Pieter. Do not harm the young man who has freed you.”

I did a circle on the spot and I watched the man back away toward the door
then lean against it. He wasn’t armed and he was the only person in here – apart from me and the woman kneeling, facedown, in the middle of the room. If I attacked him, I was certain I wouldn’t get out of this room alive. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to give me someone they weren’t willing to sacrifice. Poor bastard.

I grinned at him wickedly, to let him know that on a bad day, I might use him to decorate the walls with red.

The woman.

I inhaled, let it out.
Kak.
They hadn’t said her name, at least, I didn’t think they had...but I knew who this was, even with her head covered – Jazmine. The waves of ebony hair cascading over her shoulders were unmistakable.
She
was unmistakable.

The blatant display of her cunt shocked me. I should have expect
ed such things, here. To my dismay, my cock stirred though I knew it was pure physical reaction. It didn’t make me a bad man, just human.

In Australia,
I’d helped her escape because she’d impressed me in many small ways – her courage, her selflessness toward the other women. She’d said she had a baby waiting for her and that had tugged at my better self too. But I couldn’t hide from myself that her looks had influenced me also. If she’d been on a beach, or asleep in my bed, I’d have happily watched her for hours.

I hesitated
.

“Go to her. Do your job.” The
chuckle that followed came through clearly on the speaker.

I
took that first step to her. What the hell was I going to do?

I’d done so many
horrific things in my life that the Devil would have a hard time listing them all. But this
act
was on a whole new sordid scale of its own.

The manacles clinked as I wal
ked. I could hear my breathing then hers and a faint tapping that I belatedly recognized as I stood over her. Her teeth were chattering.

Maybe all those men I’d seen die, who knew it was coming, had also had chattering teeth.
Maybe the one with the burning tire around his neck and with the mob using their machetes and bricks on his body had shaken this much? Even if I’d been close enough, I’d never have heard him over the screaming.

I looked down at her.

The men I’d killed close-up were the worst. I couldn’t forget them...their faces exploding, the teeth, blood, and bits of bone flying.

At least a man could fight back.

How could a man do this to a woman?

“Pieter
! You’re boring us. Fail and I have five men who will be happy to play with her.”

“
Jou fokken holnaaier poes
,” I cursed Gregor in Afrikaans, under my breath. The man gave swear words a bad name.

She was terrified.

Why had they chosen me? I’d been going to be killed but tortured first. Someone had arrived and chosen me to do this for some reason I couldn’t recall, though I think I’d heard them explain. It would be worse for her if I said no. They’d kill me outright. I’d go to my death with a clear conscience with respect to this at least. Even if I couldn’t wash away the rest of my dirty past.

That was my easy path, the cowardly one.

But I looked at her and shrank. I couldn’t do this.

Never give up
. Never give in.

I
f I died, I’d leave her alone, at the mercy of Gregor and his client. To be gang raped by however many men he decided would do the
job
. To be hurt also – he’d wanted me to do that too.

The speaker buzzed
as if they were about to say more. Decide. I dropped to one knee beside her and roughly undid the neck strap of her bag to show them I meant business, that I was doing as they’d asked.

“
What are you doing, Pieter?” said Gregor.

“I’
m taking off the fucking bag! You want me to get it up when she looks like a rag doll?” I looked over at the dark-tinted window. With the lights on high, I couldn’t see who was behind it. “I need my women to look like they’re human. Besides, blow jobs from sacks aren’t my kink.”

His laug
hter echoed a little. “You are brave if you wish a blow job from her, today. Keep going.”

I was a
n evil man, but I wasn’t this evil. I couldn’t rape her without trying to comfort her. I slipped the bag off and watched the rest of her hair spill over her back. If I was quiet, maybe they’d not pick up my words.