Savage Chains: Scarred (#2) (16 page)

The closer Angelica drew to the light, however, the faster the chains vibrated at her neck, once more indicating Reyes’s distress. He tightened his hold on her hand, and once they arrived on the threshold she was in pain.
Reyes, you’re hurting me. You’re crushing my fingers.

She pulled, trying to disengage, but he stared at the room the way he had looked during Eve’s theater performance, like he wasn’t all there. Something about this room had gotten to him.

Angelica turned toward him. His eyes looked glazed. “Reyes,” she called sharply.

“I don’t understand,” Sweet Dove said softly, a curve to her bow lips. “He looked just like this while watching that woman during the performance at Engles’s home. I wonder if he’s thinking about me again?”

She met Angelica’s gaze and showed her fangs in a satisfied grin.

Part of Angelica wanted to rip Sweet Dove’s face off, but there were more important things to do. Angelica ignored the woman and began wrestling with Reyes’s hand. If he didn’t let go he’d break her bones. She sent some of the power she siphoned to her fingers and gradually built up enough strength to disengage.

Once disconnected she held her hand but kept up the healing flow. This would not be the way to start an encounter with Sweet Dove, to show any kind of weakness.

“He hurt you then? I take that as a good sign.”

Angelica didn’t rise to the bait; instead she rubbed Reyes’s arm, up and down. She kept her head bowed, trying to maintain her slave cover.
Come back to me. You’ve got to come back.

He moved slowly forward, however, as if in a trance, but ignored her completely. She stayed with him, though, until they both stood in the center of the space.

The room had a peculiar odor, something she couldn’t place at first, except that it smelled very old, almost ancient. The room held a throne-like chair and a barred grate over what was an arched cavern opening the size of an average window. Beyond she could hear water rushing at what must have been a great depth. Yet the resulting fresh air still didn’t soften the odor.

She supposed many of the cavern systems around the world would have lots of older parts and even bad smells like this one. But why had this room shut Reyes down so completely?

He turned slowly in Sweet Dove’s direction.

Glancing past his shoulder, Angelica saw that a second archway led to another space, also lit by candlelight.

Within were a series of old rusted chains and hooks, like something from an ancient fishing trawler. Below, on a three-foot-high platform, was a wood table stained very dark.

She reached for Reyes’s hand once more, because a terrible chill went through her. She almost connected, touching his fingers, but suddenly he levitated toward the doorway and moved swiftly into the room. She hurried to retain the necessary proximity.

He moved to stare down at the table, gripping two of the nearest chains in tight fists. The muscles of his arms flexed and released. His breathing grew rough.

What was he seeing?

Angelica stepped away from him. All she felt from him now, through their shared chains, was a rage that went beyond anything she could possibly comprehend.

She moved off to the side and pressed herself against the wall. She saw him in profile and that his face had broken out in a sweat as he stared at the table.

Then she understood and horror descended on her.

This was where it had all happened, repeatedly, over a century. Maybe this had even been the first room.

She watched Sweet Dove move to join them near the platform, easing off to the opposite side. She moved slowly, slithering like a snake, taking deep breaths, watching Reyes. She didn’t fear him, not even a little. But Angelica could tell that Sweet Dove’s drive to possess Reyes again, to once more make him her slave, exceeded every other purpose the woman had. She’d lied about a partnership.

“Are you remembering now?” Sweet Dove asked. “Can you feel how I’m peeling away the disguises deep inside your mind, allowing you to recall the times you’d been here before?”

Reyes nodded slowly.

The woman’s lips were parted and her nipples peaked within her bra, tight, hard buds. She was getting off on this, on seeing Reyes here, the youth she’d abused, tortured, raped, and on watching him relive his past.

“You used to like the things I did to you.”

A grimace swept over his face, but he didn’t shift his gaze.

“I know how badly you’ve wanted to join the Starlin Group, to partake of all the delights of my world. I’m offering you so much, Reyes, and all I need from you is to do this one little thing for me.

“You see, Engles disrupted the performance earlier and I wanted to watch you explode with passion, to really feel your pleasure as you dominated your slave.”

She took a few steps closer to the table. “But that moment has passed and maybe it was for the best, because now what I desire tonight will be so much better, for you and for me.”

At that, he slowly pivoted in her direction.

Angelica moved at the same time, closer to the table but adjacent to Reyes so that she could see him and watch his expressions. How Reyes responded in this situation had just become a matter of life and death to Angelica. If rage took him over and he attempted to kill Sweet Dove, something he’d fail at because he couldn’t prevail over an Ancestral, Angelica knew she’d die. They both would.

She had to do the thinking for both of them right now, since Sweet Dove had taken away Reyes’s rational mind by bringing him here. Angelica had the impression that the woman hadn’t used this room since Reyes left, which was maybe part of the smell. The scent reminded Angelica of the back rooms of a house that hadn’t been cleaned or aired in a long time.

She leaned closer and realized the smell came from the table itself. She wondered if pain and violation developed a redolence over time.

But as she stared at the stained wood she realized what had caused the uneven stain.

Blood.

And lots of it.

She stepped back, horror piercing her once more.

For a time, she couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think. But she had to pull herself together.

Reyes had worked hard to build a life for himself after his subjugation in this dungeon, honest work with an honest wage on which he’d built his wealth. Only then had he set his sights on Starlin, when he could afford to buy into the expensive lifestyle. And he had only one purpose, to bring this diseased, perverse organization down.

But he could lose it all right now.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“It’s simple. I want you on your back, naked, the way you used to be for me. And I want your slave to dominate you, to give the performance I’ve been denied all these decades since you left. If you do that, I’ll make you a board member this very night and in the coming days and weeks, if you once more become the lover I’ve craved all this time, I’ll make you my partner over the entire organization. You’ll be wealthy beyond what even you can imagine, and the power, Reyes, trust me, the power is intoxicating.”

He shook his head slowly from side to side. “I can never be bound again. Don’t you understand that? I can never return to you.”

She pouted. “But why, when I brought you to ecstasy every time we were together? I made sure you knew pleasure. I was a good master to you.”

Angelica’s chain trembled at her throat, vibrating with Reyes’s emotion. “While you chained me, cut me, and beat me? While you had others pulling and sucking on me or shoving their dicks into every orifice I possess? You can’t imagine why I wouldn’t want to return to that?”

“You’re kidding yourself, Reyes. Don’t you see? You’ve found your way back to me. This is what you’ve wanted since you left my home. You need to be here.”

Angelica made a quick decision. She joined Reyes and slid her hand up his arm. “I want to do this, master.”

He whipped his head in her direction. “What?”

She caressed his muscles, hoping to give an appearance of arousal. She swept a hand the length of the wood. “I want you here, master. I want you laid out. I want to ride you while you’re chained. You’ve already given me so much pleasure and taught me the joys of pain, but now I want more.” She shifted her gaze to Sweet Dove. “And I want your mistress to watch, because mostly I want to survive, and what better way than to please the Starlin leadership?”

Sweet Dove narrowed her gaze at Angelica. “You’re smarter than I suspected. And I admire anyone who chooses to live.”

###

Reyes stared at Angelica. He didn’t fully understand what was going on, which meant his brain wasn’t quite functioning yet. But he did know that Angelica’s professed desire to do what Sweet Dove wanted made no sense at all. He’d never caused Angelica that kind of pain, so why was she talking like this?

He shifted his gaze back to the table, where he’d been raped times beyond counting, and knew he couldn’t go through with Sweet Dove’s demands. Here was the one thing he’d promised himself: Never to allow again anyone to chain him down. Ever.

“I won’t do it.”

Angelica turned toward him and pressed herself up against his body. “Please, master.” She sounded desperate, but her telepathic words carried profound resolve.
Reyes, together we can do this. You and I. Forget Sweet Dove right now. Focus on me. Just me. We have to do this.

He turned and held her gaze and his mind began to clear a little more.
I can’t. Try to understand. She took everything from me, here in this room. Everything.

I know that. But she’s also Scorpion and she just earned a fortune on the death of the Russian slave. We owe it to that woman to keep going. Reyes, you have to do this, but it will be very different because I’ll be with you every step of the way. I’ll be the one commanding you and riding you. Not her. I’ll be making love to you, and that’s not the same thing as what happened before.

Aloud she said, “I want to live, master. Do this for the head of Starlin. Please.”

He shook his head.
I can’t do this. I won’t.

Angelica kept her head bowed, still playing her role.
Reyes, you must. Don’t you see? If you do this one thing you’ll be on the Starlin board. You’ll finally have access to all the information you’ve been seeking. The game can be won or lost here.

His mind finally ordered itself, and he shifted his gaze to the table. But one final element came into view, something he was sure Angelica hadn’t considered: Once he was bound in chains, if Sweet Dove decided to kill Angelica or to give her to Engles there’d be nothing he could do to save her.

Reyes, tell me I’m wrong, but if you refuse isn’t it possible, even likely, that Sweet Dove will never make the offer again? Isn’t this your only hope, our only hope?

As if to confirm Angelica’s take on the situation, Sweet Dove drew close. “I’ll only offer this once, Reyes. Accept the chains here and now or I’ll rescind your membership immediately. And you’ll be out for good.”

To be continued …

SAVAGE CHAINS
Surrender to your darkest desires.

Don’t Miss Any of the Installments in This Sexy Serial from St. Martin’s Press!

Savage Chains #1: Captured

Savage Chains #2: Scarred