Yield (14 page)

Only, one problem. I swallowed and put my hand to my neck, found the leather collar there I’d suspected, and peeked sideways. That cold metal dribbling off my arm a moment before? A leash.

“I’m not a dog,” I whispered, harshly, scared at how my throat hurt. What had he done to me while I was unconscious? My clothes were still on. Nothing seemed sore or wrong, apart from some bruised spots on my arms.

I rallied.
Be brave. Tell this fucker how it is
. “Are you aware of who I am? Release me and –”

“I know who you are, Wren Gavoche, to the last million, to the number of times you’ve flown overseas, and to how many years you’ve been at university.”

Oh shit.

“I know you.”

My hopes sank. Not random then. But perhaps, despite my surroundings, it was all about money?

“If you’re looking to ransom me, I can tell you who to contact?” My eyebrows rose jerkily, more willing to show my hope and desperation than my head was. Embarrassing body reaction. He shook his head. “No?” My voice cracked and petered out. “Millions, I have...”

“No. Drink this.” He held out a white cup.

My mouth was so dry my tongue was having trouble moving against my lips. If that was water? I craned my head to see inside it, my elbow collapsing under me, a little, from weakness. Clear fluid.

“It’s only water.”

“Uh-huh.” I didn’t have a lot of choice here. I took the cup with a shaking hand and gulped down the contents, feeling strength ebb back into me. “More?”

My toes curled as I heard myself begging. Thirst was too basic a need to resist.

“Soon. I need to ask you a question.”

His tone was so measured, so normal, it skittered through me, and my nipples tightened. I wasn’t tiny, but he was the equal of Glass in height and that said he’d hit six feet. A little less muscled, though. Maybe I could do him some damage if I used all my training?

Maybe I’d get hurt, and where was I going to go when I was tied here? Some metal device locked my collar. My fingertips found the keyhole.

“You won’t get that off. Complex lock and the keys are not on me.”

Where, before, everything had tumbled in and piled up in my head so fast I could barely process it, now the certainty of the trouble I was in hit me hard.

My forehead ached from the effort of not crying.

I dabbed my nose with the back of my hand and sniffed back those tears.

The black leather mask and the stark confidence in his brown eyes said,
I can do anything to you
. This room, the collar on my neck – they spoke of organization and planning, of a man prepared to spend time and money to abduct me. Yet he didn’t want money in return? The accumulated facts reduced me to a wreck.

Would I get out of here alive?

“Now, my question. How does Glass plan to find this man you seek?”

He knew about Glass?

Of course he did.
He knows about my past. This man’s been following me for ages.

I blinked at him, stunned, trying to run down the logic while not revealing my confusion to him.

Disaster though. Knowing he knew so much about me, while he was a blank, put me on even rockier ground.

Wait. This was
him
? Surely it was? This must be Vetrov. The man who sold women like cattle. I gasped and backed up, shuffling my legs and belly along the smooth leather, feeling it stick to my stomach where my T-shirt rode up.

“No,” he spat, and he reached for my hair, halting my retreat with the pain of a wrenching grip that seemed likely to tear out some hair by the roots.

I grabbed at his hand, compelled to tear loose by any means – nails, strength, and god, that was so not working. His hold didn’t budge.

“Stop clawing me, Wren.” He lowered his head to stare level into my eyes. “Or I’ll give you your first punishment.”

Fear. Pure fear. So many unknowns here that my imagination made everything screech to a halt. What punishment? My throat seized. I stopped tearing at his hands and lowered mine. My breaths were shaky and my hands too.

Where my hair was near to twisting from its roots, the hurt throbbed outward.

“Good girl.”

Glass had said that. Not this monster. I coughed to bury a sob. I wasn’t some weak bitch.
Woman up.

I glared.
Fuck you.

“Look at me like that and I punish you. Calm yourself.”

I shut my eyes to escape him. Think. Doing what he said didn’t mean surrender. It was sensible. I needed to survive to escape. I needed to be healthy. I sucked in a breath and forced my anger deep. Even this he took from me.

Didn’t
matter.

I looked at him and measured my breaths to distract myself. In. Out.

“Well done.” He nodded. “Now answer my question.”

He released my head and rose to his full height.

After a second, I sat up on my knees and felt instantly vulnerable. When I went to put my legs over the edge to sit properly, he caught me with a headshake.

“No. Stay there. I like you kneeling.”

“It hurts my legs –”

His smile was a knowing one. “Nice try. No. Behave as I tell you to. Answer.”

He seriously wanted me to reveal the plans of Glass when they might be my salvation? What if what Glass was doing wasn’t pretend? I shook my head.

“You’ll never get me to tell you. And if I did say something, how will you know if it’s the truth?”

“I will know. Last chance. Tell me.”

Smart ass. He was bluffing.

But, last chance? What did that mean? I flicked my gaze to where all those kinky medieval-looking things waited, hanging from the wall, where the black benches stood on four legs with silvery chains and leather cuffs dangling...lurking like creatures ready to pounce.

He’d have plans with those. I swallowed, steeled myself.

“He said his next step was to interrogate Mickey Mouse and Barbie. How the fuck will you know? If you torture me with...” I gestured dismissively at the equipment. “With that, I’ll only tell you more lies, you stupid prick.”

His smile broadened, though I was pretty damn sure his eyes had narrowed. Evil gleamed there. He slapped me, rocking my head to the side. It was more a shock than anything. “Your mouth just got you in serious trouble.”

I dwindled inside, wishing I could make my last words vanish. My cheek stung. I shouldn’t have called him that. Why did I say that? I intertwined my fingers on my thighs for reassurance and tried not to shiver.

“Let me be clear. I won’t harm you irrevocably and I don’t plan to kill you or chop you up. I want you alive, here, as my little fucktoy and pleasure slave. Understand? And even if you tell me lies, Wren, I’ll enjoy torturing you. Why else do you think I wanted you? I’m a sadist, a hardcore sadist, and making women scream and squirm brightens my day.”

He reached down and with finger and thumb pinched my lower lip and stretched it outward. The small pain combined with his intense stare froze me in place.

I was appalled, but not just by fear. Warmth had flooded me, my sex, my face. His words had both scared and excited me. My pussy had squeezed in. I knew the signs from how I’d reacted to Glass. I’d become sensitized – my dumbass body linking dominant men to sex.

This was so very, very wrong, yet I had to consciously resist squirming on my knees.

He put his finger to the center of my forehead and ran it lazily down my face, bumping over my eyebrow, my nose, to my hurt lip before he bent down to murmur, “You’ll be such a good girl once I’m done with you.”

Me? Me?

The crazy arrogance of this bastard.

He had no clue. Scare me. Do bad things. I would spring up and put a knife in his heart when he least expected it. I’d base-jumped off a mountain, once.

This was child’s play...

Then he stalked over to all that black leather and steel, and began to gather various implements that clinked.

Shit. Okay. Rewind, please.

That raggedly cut black mask rendered him into a thing from Hell, from the neck up. The cargo pants, not so much. The last horrible porno torture movie I’d glimpsed,
Hostel
...he’d fit right in. The woman in that had been hung upside down and gutted, blood pouring from the slashes on her body and flooding onto the floor.

I should close my mouth, slow down my betraying heartbeat.

I trusted him not to harm me as much as I’d trust a wolf pack not to hunt me down.

He returned, arms loaded down with a rolled cloth, like some shepherd from the desert, visiting the savior, bearing awful gifts.

This time, my retreat was impossible to halt. I ended up on my knees on the bed with my back and the soles of my feet pressed to the cold wall.

Scared had overwhelmed that initial tinge of blasphemous excitement.

His mask... I focused in. It was enough of a disguise that I might never recognize him with it gone. If I escaped, I might pass him on the street and not realize I had. That would be a crime.

My courage revived because I bitch slapped it.

I needed to get the mask off him. Dangerous. But I
was
going to get out of here and whatever this man did to me I would repay him in spades.

He laid everything in a neat row on a white towel he’d stretched across the floor. The first instrument he picked up, I recognized as a crop. He swished it to and fro, smiling.

“I wasn’t going to use anything on you. It’s your first day and you’re possibly affected by the drug.” One brow crept above the mask’s edge. “But swearing at me needs correcting. This is a small punishment. Say ‘thank you Sir for my punishment’ before I begin.”

What The. Fuck.
“Seriously?” I squeaked out, eyeing his fist where it tensed on the handle. “You’ve got to be joki –”

Shut up. Shut up. He’s already planning to hurt me.

That look in his eye had intensified.

“Get off and kneel on the floor. Put your head and your forearms on the bed.” He shoved the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt, higher up his arms.

I couldn’t. I’d been prepared to grit my teeth and bear whatever pain he doled out with his stick, but say those dumb words? It went too far for me to simply acquiesce.

Fight or flight, and flight was a bit difficult.

I knew trying out my Muay Thai would be a mistake. I just knew it. Even if I kicked a few teeth in, he had more weight on me, double maybe. More muscles. His biceps were twice as thick, but I was going to try. Saying those words would make me vomit.

I pushed off with all the power in my curled legs, prepared to get in one jump kick to that ugly face...and my legs failed me. I half crumpled, half launched onto the floor, tripping on my tangled legs, and hit my head on the tiles.

The thump reverberated.

The benefits of being drugged. Head butting floors. I was rolling about groaning, clutching my head, when he scooped me up and sat down on the bed, still holding me.

Through the splitting pain, I peered up at him.

“Well. That was interesting. If stupid. You might’ve hung yourself if the leash had been shorter.” His scowl wrinkled his forehead. “I’ll delay your punishment.”

“Uh.” Scintillating reply but perhaps it was best to act dumb and hurt. Act? That was a thought that seemed a good one, even as the pain stomped through my brain like a football player with studded boots.

Act...I needed to do more of that. I could pretend, mislead him, if only I could control my need to spit back when he angered me.

The crease in the middle of his forehead said he was worried.

Why was he worried?

“You’re going to have a bump. I’ll get you an ice pack.”

“Uhhh.” Surreal.

“Stupid girl. I told you I wasn’t going to chop you up. I need you intact. When you feel pain, I’d rather it be my pain.”

How...nice.

True to his word, he got up to find an ice pack. The temporary respite left me pondering.

I needed a plan to get out of here. Maybe two or three plans, to be on the safe side. A knife would be good too. They always were.

Fuck, my head hurt.

Moghul

What was I trying to be? Her goddamned daddy Dom?

I fed her lunch and dinner, let her think herself safe, and took her by leash to the bathroom. Let her recover. The lump on her head was small and she had no signs of concussion. Had she been planning to run or to attack me earlier? She couldn’t have run with the leash at her neck. Fight then? Her history sheet said she’d trained in martial arts, joined a Muay Thai group at university. Interesting, considering I’d had Chris teach me his MMA moves. One day, perhaps, I’d let that man in on who I was, apart from Mr. Nice-as-Pie Moghul.

Whatever, I could overpower the little bitch easily.

At ten that night, while she was half asleep, I walked in, dragged her from the bed by her hair, and forced her to her knees. Her screams gave my balls ideas, demonic ones involving fucking her until she was a limp mess. Wren screamed well.

I guess twisting her hair into a knot tight enough to make my fist go red and white was the cause. Or it could be the grip on her throat. Or maybe the fright at being woken so harshly. Poor girl. Not.

My smile quirked. Fun.

With my teeth beside her ear, I grated out, “Quiet. I have far, far worse I can do.”

She fell silent, apart from a few whimpers, and I hoisted her upper body onto the bed. When she stayed there, I released her hair, hauled her wrists to the small of her back, and locked the cuffs together.

I stood. I stared.

Familiar territory. A tied-up woman. A whimpering, quivering, tied-up woman.

I’d figured out my shit. The lack of consent had thrown me. Strange but true. No longer. Once I got her into orgasming while I gave her pain, I’d be happier still. Nothing beat that. Fucking
nothing
.

And obeying me, though there was an addictive spice in dominating brats. I turned that over in my head. If I let Wren think she could defy me on occasion, wouldn’t that make this impossible? Maybe not. I liked having a good excuse for my punishments.

Now though, I needed to set a baseline.

“You behaving for me now, Wren?”

“Mmm.” She nodded rapidly, her face turned sideways against the bed. There were tears on her cheeks.