Carnal Slave (22 page)

“I didn’t have to come,” Mitch said. “The only reason I did—hell, I guess I thought you deserved to know a few things.” He lifted his hand as if to touch her only to let it drop. “Now I’m sorry I did.”

Were those really tears? How would he react if he knew everything she’d been through?

Maybe he did.

“Don’t stare at me like that,” he snapped. “You were like this monkey clinging to my back. I couldn’t take a breath without you wanting to know about it. And the way you wanted me to make all your decisions—I felt sorry for you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He looked shocked, as did Raymont. She didn’t take her attention off the men long enough to see how her trainer was reacting.

“If I meant anything to you, you wouldn’t have done this to me.” She turned so he could see her bound hands.

“Wait a minute,” Raymont broke in. “Your ex isn’t why you’re here. All he did was—“

“I can speak for myself, damn it.”

Tension arched between the two men, but she’d been on edge for so long it barely mattered. Her fate was sealed. At least she’d walk into it knowing as much as she could about what had brought her to this.

“Then speak,” she told the man she’d once thought she loved. “How did you go from sucking on my breasts to having a hand in my—“

“Hey!” Raymont stared at Master Damek. “Are you going to let her talk like this?”

“Yeah, I am.”

Maybe he’d said that because this might be the last time she’d be allowed to speak.

Even as finality beat at her, she stood her ground. Would her parents be proud of her now?

Too late—for them
.

“What did you do?” she asked Mitch. “You saw a sex slave recruitment ad somewhere and asked them to send you an application? What were the questions? Can her will be broken?”

“No, damn it.” Mitch jerked his head at Raymont. “He contacted me, asked my opinion of you.”

Which her former lover had freely given.

“You’re a doormat, bitch,” Raymont said. “Perfect sex slave material because you’re gutless.”

“Not anymore,” she whispered, “even though it’s too late.”

Master Damek reached behind her and unfastened her arms. “You got what you wanted.” He aimed his comment at Raymont. “Besides, you already knew what a Carnal slave looks like.”

Raymont looked less than pleased which, despite her inner turmoil, delighted her. It was bad enough that she was forced to stand naked in front of men who’d once been part of her life. The unnecessary cuffs had been even more demeaning.

“Yeah.” Raymont drew out the word, staring at her all the while. “I sure as hell know what a sex slut looks and acts like. Shit, Willow, you don’t belong in the free world. You can’t hold your weight in it. It’s too much for you.”

You aren’t my father, you bastard!
“So you decided to take me away from all that?”

Raymont’s attention went to Master Damek. Obviously he expected the slave trainer to shut her up, but until he did, she’d say what she needed to.

“You played God,” she ground out. “Shoved me into hell.”

“Depends on your point of view.” Raymont’s gaze raked from her collared throat to her shorn crotch. “Your boyfriend said you love fucking. Now you get to do it twenty-four seven.”

“
Get?
My body’s been invaded by—I’ve been hobbled, strung up, beaten.” Fury flowed through her, prompting her to cup her breasts and lift them toward Raymont. “Whoever buys me might have these pierced. There won’t be a thing I can do about it. You’re insane if you think I want—“

Raymont’s blow to her cheek spun her around. Blindly reaching out, she steadied herself against Master Damek. Just like that, fire arched between them—or maybe only she felt it. As soon as she dared, she stepped away from him, refused to touch her cheek. Her fingers curled inward, and she crouched like some animal ready to attack.

Animal. Yes, she’d become that.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” she told Raymont. She glared at Mitch. “You either. It really doesn’t matter how I got here.” She raked her fingers over the healing slices on her thighs. “This might be nothing. Maybe whoever buys me will want more than rings hanging from my body. Maybe he’ll scar me, cripple me.”

Mitch looked appalled. She couldn’t tell what Raymont was thinking. “What?” she demanded. “It doesn’t matter to you?”

“You asked for it,” Raymont snapped. “If you’d had some backbone—“

I’m no longer that person! She died.
“That’s your excuse? I deserve hell because I didn’t turn you in?”

When he grabbed her shoulders and shoved her backward so she slammed into the wall behind her, she admitted she’d asked for it. But what was her alternative? To go blindly and submissively into a lifetime of slavery?

“Knock it the hell off. No, I mean it, get away from her.”

Master Damek’s voice distracted her from trying to determine whether she’d been injured. Raymont weighed more and Mitch was taller, but Master Damek was a force. Her new world.

After searing her with an uncomprehend able look, her master pulled her off the wall.

“This damn meeting is over,” he said. “You two get the hell out of here. I have a slave to deal with.”

Slave.

Damek was back in the barn with the trainee before his temples stopped pounding. No one had better ask what he was thinking because he couldn’t answer. His intention had been to lock her up and return to the house for some damage control. Earlier Raymont had indicated he might bid on her. If he wound up purchasing her, hell—“What happens now?” she asked after they entered her stall.

“Isn’t that obvious?” He kept his words clipped. “Tomorrow you get an owner.”

He thought she’d cower, maybe beg him to help her somehow. Instead, she nodded and fingered her collar. Her wrists and ankles bore the usual proof of her slavery of course, but the leather around her slim throat looked more like a necklace.

“Am I going to be punished?”

Trainees had asked him that question over the years, their voices filled with trepidation.

In contrast, she sounded matter-of-fact.

“Not now.”

“Why not?”

“Because at the moment your former boss has no claim on you. He can’t dictate what happens to you in here.”

Her breath exploded in a whoosh. “He already did, by reporting me to Carnal.”

He’d had her shampoo her hair in preparation for today’s meeting and had watched as she applied skin cream to her newly-tanned flesh. Even though she stood naked in a locked stable with two fading whip cuts on her thighs, she looked more like a woman than a slave.

Maybe the way she returned his gaze was responsible.

“I don’t let anyone push me around,” he told her. Funny, he could say the same about her behavior today. “Carnal’s directors would like everyone to believe they call the shots, but the organization wouldn’t exist without trainers, and they know it. I’m one of the best. They don’t want to piss me off.”

“What are you saying? That you’ve decided I don’t need punishing? You don’t care whether someone says different?”

She’d hit the nail on the head. What maybe neither of them understood was why and how he’d come to the conclusion he had. Watching her finger the necklace/collar, he mentally replayed the disaster of a meeting. She hadn’t stood a chance of winning the battle, and yet she’d stood up to Raymont and Mitch. Not long ago she would have caved at the first harsh word.

The heavy barn door creaked open then closed. If those two bastards thought they could come in here—“Damek? You there?”

Reno.
“Yeah. What do you want?”

His co-worker and friend stepped into the stall and gave him a slow once-over.

“Interesting.”

“What is?”

Reno ran his hand over his short-cropped hair. “You’re calm.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“I didn’t take time to get the whole story. As soon as I heard about the confrontation, I figured I needed to see how you were handling it.”

Damn it, he knew where Reno was coming from. His friend had been concerned the slave’s life was in danger—at his hands.

“Raymont’s a bastard.” He leaned against the wall. The stall wasn’t large enough for three people to comfortably move about in it. More to the point, in the confined space emotions and moods might be easy to pick up on.

“Not according to him,” Reno said as the slave divided her attention between the two of them. “He says you’ve done a piss poor job of training her. That you should have shut her up.”

“He’s the one who needed shutting up.”

“I wouldn’t know.” He turned his attention to the slave. “Did you call those guys bastards?”

“No.”

“But you said something to piss them off.”

“I wouldn’t be here—“ She indicated the closed-in space. “if it wasn’t for them. I told them.”

“That’s all?” Reno directed his question at Damek. “She didn’t attack or curse?”

“Depends on what constitutes
attack.
She stood up for herself.”

Reno went from looking like a fact-gatherer to something Damek couldn’t wrap his mind around. “And you’re good with that?”

“With her not letting Raymont and Mitch demean her to feed their egos, yeah, I am.”

“Then you have a problem.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Raymont’s trying to get ahold of none other than Tom Smith. To hear him tell it, they’re close friends.”

Tom Smith—no one associated with Carnal knew if that was his real name—had been instrumental in forming the organization. Every aspect of the operation carried his imprint.

“What does he want to talk to Smith about?”

“Buying her outright.”

#

Exhaustion pulled at Willow, but she was a long way from being able to fall asleep.

Raymont was going to buy her. She’d thought her life had become a nightmare, but that was nothing compared to what it would be like once her former boss had her in his clutches.

She fleetingly wondered how Mitch had reacted when he’d learned that, but her ex-boyfriend’s opinion no longer mattered.

Neither did Master Damek’s.

Frowning, she studied her short, unadorned nails. Master Damek had stood over her while she trimmed them shortly after being brought here. He hadn’t said why he wanted them kept short, but she understood. This way she couldn’t use them as weapons.

Maybe Raymont—oh God could she force herself to call him Master?—wouldn’t think about that. In a month or so her nails would be long enough to use to help defend herself.

If she was still alive.

Within a week of going to work for Raymont’s company, she’d felt trapped. Just because she’d always done well in math and bookkeeping didn’t mean that’s what she wanted to spend her life doing. The sameness of filling out forms and checking figures while stuck in a room without a window hadn’t helped. Also, as one of only three women, she’d felt isolated. The other two were much older and close friends. In addition, she hadn’t cared about road construction or repairs. Granted, the company provided a necessary service, but it didn’t feed her need to do something creative—not that she’d had much experience in creativity.

Too late. She’d never be an artist or sculptor. Her days of wandering through plant nurseries and mentally designing landscapes were in the past. All those wasted dreams—if only she’d made them reality!

Her eyes burned, warning her that her thoughts were taking her into dangerous territory. She’d been trained to function as a sex slave. Raymont might be satisfied with her behavior, but maybe he’d exact his own cruel brand of vengeance on her. She could be dead before the month was over.

No! Raymont wouldn’t spend a lot of money on her only to bury his investment. He’d keep her alive—and in hell.

Shuddering, she crawled off the bed, wrapped her arms around herself, and plodded over to the locked door. She looked between the bars at the ill-lit corridor. Maybe other slaves were in their stalls. Maybe she had the barn to herself. Was alone.

Helpless.

Her nails dug into her sides until discomfort pulled her from the edge of despair. Damn it, she’d face her life. Endure it. Stand up to the nightmare. Never again let fear and defeat undermine her.

That was all she had left, the weapon she’d face her new master with.

Filled with equal amounts of resolve and resignation, she climbed back onto the bed and curled up on her side facing the door. After finding a semi-comfortable position, she concentrated on her breathing. In and out, in and out, not thinking. Simply being.

The cage was so small she had to crouch with her thighs against her belly and her arms around her legs. She’d been leaning forward for so long that her neck burned. She occasionally traced the metal bands around her ankles, but each time she did the depth of her captivity struck her anew. Not only were the bands wide and tight, they’d been welded to each other so she couldn’t walk. More metal circled her wrists, connected via several links of chain. Her thick, heavy collar was made of the same harsh material. At the moment nothing was connected to the rings imbedded to it because there was no reason to further restrain her.

A dog waiting in its cage.

Anticipating pain or pleasure—or both.

“There’s the animal waiting to be let out. I bet it’s tired of being alone.”

Her master’s voice. At the sound, dread and excitement warred in her. Instead of immediately removing her from her pen, he busied himself doing something in the dungeon. At the clank of chains and snap of a whip, she broke out in a cold sweat.

Finally he fit a key in the large lock and pulled back the heavy barred door. Well-trained in what he expected of her, she crawled out. Her muscles screamed as she stretched out, and she hauled her nearly useless legs behind her until she reached him.

“Show me how glad you are to see me.”

She always waited until he gave her permission to touch him. Otherwise, he’d punish her. Sometimes he exacted his brand of justice even when she did everything right. Wishing she could look into his eyes and gage his mood, she rubbed her head against his calves like the pet he expected her to be. At length he patted her head which was his signal for her to lick his shoes.