At His Throat, a Promise (46 page)

Ellis swallowed. His felt so very tight.

“Will you
talk
to me? What"s going on? You look… ” He didn"t finish, but he didn"t need to. Ellis knew he didn"t look like himself anymore. He avoided mirrors for just that reason. He was gaunt and hollow, completely scarred inside.

Ellis cleared his throat. “Everything"s fine.” Harte"s teeth snapped together with an audible click. He glared at Ellis, obviously hoping to break down the walls between them.

What Harte didn"t know was that there was so much more than walls, and it would take so much more than a glare to get things back to the way they were.

Nothing, really, could get things back there. Things were just…

different now.

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“Does he call you a good boy? Does you make love to you instead of fucking you? Does he make you feel safe and happy?

Does he teach you things about yourself that scare and excite you?

Does he
care
about you?”

“Does it matter?” Ellis snapped, flushing. “We can"t all fall in love with our masters and have them fall back just as hard. We can"t all have the perfect relationship like you, where you"re not really a slave and he"s not really a master. Sometimes we just have to make do. Sometimes we just have to make it through without giving up, giving in… giving everything.” He was panting by the time he"d finished. He was grossly unaccustomed to speaking so much at once. He felt ashamed, like he had given himself away.

“But what if you
could
… would you take it?” Ellis glanced over at the bar. William"s head was down and he wasn"t moving much. Master was turned and facing Ellis and Harte, his drink sitting on the bar, half empty. He raised an eyebrow in question, and Ellis felt very hot.

“Would I take what?”

“He beats you, doesn"t he? Look around, Ellis. No other slave is wearing half the marks you are. Yet Master always said you were one of the best slaves he"d ever seen, and certainly the best he"d ever owned.”

He never owned me
, Ellis wanted to say, but it was semantics at that point. “He punishes me because he believes I can be better. At least he cares enough to do that.”

It was a low blow and Ellis didn"t even mean it anyway—he"d seen Harte get punished, and he knew it didn"t happen more because William just wasn"t as strict. It had nothing to do with whether William really cared about Harte, because anyone with half a mind could see he did. He just wanted to lash out; he hurt so 397

AT HIS THROAT, A PROMISE

much—why didn"t anyone else?

“What did you do to get this latest beating?” Harte pressed. His hands were flat on the table"s surface, twitching every so often as if they wanted to reach out and take Ellis"s hands, which were similarly situated but not moving at all.

“Crawled into bed with another slave,” Ellis said reluctantly.

Maybe now Harte would see how bad Ellis was and realise it was better that he was with Master.

Harte frowned. “Did you have sex with him? Or did the other slave not want you to?”

Ellis shook his head. Was Harte being deliberately obtuse? “It was just against the rules.”

“So he beat so badly you can barely walk? Master said it looked like he might have done real, internal damage.”

“Master would never have done that to me.” Harte froze. His blue eyes, so familiar but somehow changed, stared into Ellis"s.

“You call him Master?”

Ellis looked away, nodding.

“If you could… ” Harte said slowly, seeming to gather courage.

“If you could be with a master who loved you—really loved you and thought you were perfect just the way you were—would you want to?”

“There"s no point in—”

“No!” Harte interrupted. “Just shut up and listen.

Hypothetically. Nothing to do with what you"re going through now. Would you rather have a master who loved you or one who thought you weren"t good enough?”

“I… I"d rather
be
good enough.” Ellis saw that his hands were trembling. He held them tensely to stop it.

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“What if you already were good enough? What then?” Unconsciously, Ellis"s hand touched the scar on his cheek. It was the only older one on his face that hadn"t started fading. It was just a slice on the high point of his cheekbone from Master"s ring, and it reminded him that there was work to be done. That being good enough only came after years of hard training. If he was already perfect, right now?

“I"d want to be loved.”

Harte beamed, and Ellis allowed himself to bask under the warmth of his smile for a few minutes before looking away.

“Well, I"d better get back,” Harte said, jerking his head in the direction of William, who was beckoning for his slave. “It was really, really good seeing you, Ellis. And… if it gets hard—

harder—don"t let him take you away, you know? Stay Ellis.

Because you"re perfect, you know.”

Ellis sat in the booth after Harte left. He felt ill. He wanted nothing more than to go home. To sink under his red duvet and stare at the white walls…

That wasn"t right. Blue covers, beige walls. That was what was waiting for him at Master"s house.

Master wasn"t done talking to William, though. A few moments later, they sat in two armchairs, their slaves at their feet, and discussed the appointment of a new defence attorney on a case they were both familiar with.

Ellis could sense Harte trying to catch his eye, get his attention, but he stared steadfastly at the ground between his knees.

It wasn"t long before Master wanted to use him.

He arranged Ellis over the arm of the chair, instructing him to hold on to the far armrest.

Ellis looked up only long enough to see Harte crawl into 399

AT HIS THROAT, A PROMISE

William"s lap and bury his face in his master"s neck. To anyone else it might look as though Harte was seducing William, but Ellis was close enough to see the fine trembling of his shoulders.

William refused to look away from Ellis—Ellis couldn"t meet his eyes. He lowered his head and breathed through his mouth as Master forced his way inside with a minute amount of lubricant and no preparation.

The fucking was brutal and lasted longer than was usual for Master—which wasn"t really a surprise, seeing as he"d come inside Ellis and possibly Caleb as part of their punishments, and then again in the car on the drive over.

By the time it was over and Ellis slipped, boneless, to the floor, the chair that had held William and Harte was empty.

“Seems they were not interested in the show, hmm?”
Not the show,
Ellis thought, eyes falling closed.
Me.

* * *

Muted snores came from the other bed. Ellis was glad that Caleb was sleeping completely hidden beneath the covers, or his familiarity might have sent Ellis over the edge.

He was stiff and swollen and couldn"t find a comfortable way to lie. His hips and shoulders screamed in protest when he tried his sides, and his back was out of the question. He moved onto his front, but he couldn"t breathe. Master hadn"t let him remove the 400

AT HIS THROAT, A PROMISE

collar, and that combined with his face in the pillow made him feel panicked.

Sleep finally took him when he was desperately trying to get just a moment of relief—light was already streaking through the seams of the curtain by then. They had stayed at the Lounge for hours after William and Harte had left.

So he hadn"t been asleep very long at all when the door burst open and two broad men in Facility Guard gear tore away the sheets.

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Ellis gasped as two men in dark grey uniforms grabbed him and Caleb and yanked them to their feet. The uniforms, accented in telltale burgundy, were worn by Facility guards. Ellis remembered the outfits vividly from the only other time he"d seen them—after the death of his previous master. The men were burly and implacable, and they spoke not at all.

The grip one had on Ellis"s upper arm was enough to make him stumble as he and Caleb were dragged from the room.

Ellis could barely adjust his shift to cover his ass when he was pushed face-first into a wall and his hands were brought behind his back. Something hard and plastic was wrapped around his wrists, and a clicking noise made the bonds so tight that his fingers 402

AT HIS THROAT, A PROMISE

throbbed.

He looked over at Caleb, who was getting the same treatment.

“What"s going on?” Ellis asked, not struggling but not really helping his captor, either.

“None of your business.”

The irony of that statement struck Ellis. It was none of his business what was happening to
him?

“Aren"t you pretty?” the taller guard said to Caleb, his hand moving beneath the shaking slave"s garment.

“Don"t touch him!” Ellis shouted. “Master will be furious!” The guards shared a laugh, but the taller one took his hands off of Caleb except to manoeuvre him forward. They were quickly brought outside, and Ellis"s chest tightened as he struggled to decipher what was happening.

Maya and Michaela were kneeling on the gravel, both in tears.

They were trying to squirm closer together, but their guards wouldn"t allow it.

Jin and the male servants were also outside, though they weren"t guarded in any way. Ellis met Jin"s eyes and tried to ask without speaking, but she only shook her head, lips in a tight line.

A dark grey van was parked ominously in the driveway, its windows tinted and its driver wearing Facility gear.

“Someone tell us what"s happening!” Ellis demanded. Where was Master?

There was silence save for a jeering chuckle from Ellis"s guard.

The passenger"s side door of the van opened and a stiff, formal looking man in a black business suit came out. Ellis and Caleb were pushed to their knees, and the blond slave cried out at the impact with the gravel.

“My name is Veerson. I work for the Facility, as you might 403

AT HIS THROAT, A PROMISE

have guessed. There has been an incident. Your master is no longer in the position to care for any of you. As such, you will be brought to the Facility to be processed. Maya Donalds?” Maya didn"t say anything for a long moment, but then she seemed to understand that she was being spoken to. “Yes, sir?”

“Your family has opted to reclaim you until another master or mistress can be found. Michaela Stewart?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yours, as well. Consider yourselves lucky.” The man gave a reedy sigh and pinned Ellis with tight black eyes. “You two have no next of kin who cared to claim you and so you will be interned at the Facility until further notice.”

Caleb let out a strangled wail, and Ellis closed his eyes.

“Where is Master?” he choked out. He felt abandoned, again. It was just like what had happened before, except last time, he"d been given the option of finding his own master. Would that happen again? When his old master had died, he"d been taken to an office, spoken to at length, and then released with one week to find a new situation.

“Jude Mitchell"s body was discovered in his bed an hour ago.

His cause of death is as yet unknown.”

The silence that followed this news was telling. It was obvious that no one would mourn the passing of Jude Mitchell. Maya sniffed a little and Caleb gasped, but there was no further reaction.

For his part, Ellis felt like his body was being taken apart a piece at a time. He couldn"t understand what this meant. Master"s
body
? When did a person become a body and not a man? Had Master provided for them, or was Ellis doomed to search desperately for someone to take pity on him yet again?

Why couldn"t Master have just finished making Ellis better 404

AT HIS THROAT, A PROMISE

before he had to go and leave him alone again?

“Get them in the back,” Veerson directed. He watched with a discerning eye as the girls and then Caleb were hauled up into the van through the door at the back.

“Ellis!” Jin called as Ellis"s guard pulled him to his feet.

Ellis looked back. Jin was biting her lip, looking like she wanted to say something.

“It"ll be all right, son,” she said finally. She looked down at her feet.

Ellis didn"t answer. Inside the van, he was placed on a bench and a belt strapped him in, forcing his arms against the wall of the van as they were bound behind his back.

No one spoke the entire way, but Maya hooked a foot around Michaela"s ankle, and Caleb kept shifting on his seat, probably still sore from the brutal fucking Master had given him the day before.

Ellis could sense him trying to catch his eye, but he focused on the opposite side of the van and tried not to notice when the guard put his meaty hand on Ellis"s thigh and squeezed.

They finally arrived at the Facility. There were two buildings: a large, prison-like structure, all hard, grey cement and chain link fences, and a smaller building outside of the prison, which looked more like a professional building. On either side of the prison building, which was where the slaves were kept, was a tall watchtower. Ellis could see men within; they looked to have weapons. Ellis shuddered.

Caleb stumbled as he was pulled from the van, landing hard on a knee. Ellis absently noted that it was bleeding, and he had the mental image of sharks circling at the scent of blood.

Each slave was attended by one of the guards as Veerson led the way into the smaller building and down a narrow, clinical 405

AT HIS THROAT, A PROMISE

hallway. The lights overheard were bright enough to set off a headache, if Ellis hadn"t already had a horrible one from the minute his sheets had been torn off him that morning.