Sedition (16 page)

“We’ll talk more about it in the morning, Sascha,” he says, frowning at me. “My god, how did you even get here?”

“I took the train,” I spill my plan to him, the words tumbling out in no particular order. “I snuck out and walked to the train station in Vermuse from my brother’s house and I hacked Abriel’s data and I knew they’d be gone for a long time so they wouldn’t miss me, and I took the train and I walked from the train station here and it’s raining out and I didn’t realize it would be so late and—”

He puts a finger to my lips, silencing me.

“That explains how disheveled and scared you are,” he says softly. “You must be exhausted.”

“I just wanted to come home,” I whimper.

Cash shakes his head. “I thought you
had
gone home.”

I don’t say anything, I just look at him, and he looks back at me with the most compassion I’ve ever seen from him, which is saying a lot.

“Go take a shower,” he says, his voice carrying an order. “You should probably get some sleep after that. I’ll take care of what I can, just relax. It’ll be all right.”

“Thank you, master,” I mumble before tearing myself away and following his orders. For once, having orders to follow is comforting. I don’t want to make any more decisions.

I’m numb and drained by the time I reach the shower, crying in relief as the familiar smell of his soap washes over me, chasing away the awful smell of train and sweat and rainwater. I finally start to feel warm as the hot water drains out, and I collapse in his bed without a thought, wrapping myself up in his blankets and his smell.

Chapter 14
Belonging

By the time I go to check on Sascha he’s fast asleep, curled up in my blankets like he hasn’t slept in weeks. I watch him for a moment. I’m glad he’s back for purely selfish reasons. I missed him, and I want him back in my house, in my life. It was just the other day that I was glad he was gone, but that was when I thought he was safer with his brother than with me. I’m not entirely sure what happened while he was gone, but he hasn’t looked so terrified in months. I fight the urge to check him for injuries. That can wait. He can sleep now.

I spend the morning investigating Abriel and his wife. They are boring, mediocre, just like everyone else in their tiny town. They shouldn’t be a problem for anyone, but just in case, I see what I can find. Unpaid bills, illegal information downloads. I find out what I can, and I store it away in my head for later.

I’m not surprised when my doorbell rings in the middle of the day. I’m harboring a runaway slave, but it’s not police. I have systems in place that would alert me if this address was reported to anyone official. I don’t hear them, but I do hear Sascha moving around, most probably woken by the doorbell. I pretend like I don’t hear him creeping around the house.

I take my time opening the door, and when I do, I find an angry-looking woman standing there. “May I help you?” I ask, keeping my face blank.

“Are you Cashiel Michaud?”

I glare at her. This must be Sascha’s sister-in-law. Lisa. A young mother who dared to terrify my slave. “You’re at my home; you should know who you’re talking to.” I inform her coldly. “Who are you?”

She puts her hand on her hip, shooting me a glare that might be intimidating if she was in any way relevant. “Look, if you have my slave, you’d better give him back, and you’d better give him back right now before I have the authorities called.”

If Sascha can hear, he must be terrified. I have never wanted to harm another free person so much in my life. “That’s funny, because last I checked, this was private property, which means you are trespassing, and you’ve still neglected to give me your name.”

“My name is Lisa Dover-Gabbamonte, and you have my slave!”

I stare at her for a full minute, silent, until she starts to fidget. Sascha is mine. “Miss Dover-Gabbamonte,” I start, my tone icy. “Why on
earth
would I have a slave of yours? I don’t even know you.”

Lisa makes an exasperated sound. “There was a boy purchased about a week ago. I’m sure he’d come here! Where is he? Are you hiding him?”

“Miss Dover-Gabbamonte, I have never seen you before in my life. I have
never
done business with you, so if you please, I’d appreciate it if you took yourself off my property.”

“My
husband
, Abriel, he bought the boy from you! Surely, you must remember?”

“What business I conduct with others is of no concern at the moment,” I answer, my voice cold and dangerous. If this woman was a slave, she’d be groveling. I wouldn’t appreciate it from a slave, but I would love to see her break. “If your husband has lost his slave and wishes to speak with that slave’s previous master, I suggest he do so in person instead of sending a representative.”

“I’m his wife and—”

“I do not do business with representatives.
If
your husband has had business with me in the past and would like to speak further about it, he will need to come in person. Do I make myself clear, Miss Dover-Gabbamonte?” I start to close the door, just a little, because if she barges in my house, I will be going to jail on assault charges tonight.

“I’ll report you for harboring a runaway!” Lisa threatens, whining like a spoiled child. It makes me no more likely to help her.

“I’ll report you for trespassing, stalking, and being a general pain in my ass,” I retort, keeping the emotion out of my voice. “Trust me, your petty little complaints are nowhere near as influential as my connections. You are nothing. Get off my property.”

She makes a move to walk through the doorway, and I slam it before she gets the chance. She stands there, cursing loudly, revealing her low breeding. A few seconds later, she finally gives up, stomping away and revving the engine of her hov-car as she speeds off.

I breathe a sigh of relief. “You can come out, Sascha.”

He steps out from behind the wall where he was hiding, looking scared, still trying to hide in plain view. He looks uncertain, and I hate that someone has done this to him. How could I have sent him there? He stops a few feet away from me, freezing in the middle of the room, looking at me warily.

“So that’s what you were running away from.” I take a step toward him, reaching out to pull him close to me, and he flinches. I’ll kill whoever did this to him.

I shake my head as I come closer, grabbing him firmly but still gently by the shoulder. He cowers, but I ignore it, pulling him close and wrapping my arms around him.

“Did you think I chased her off so I could smack you around?” I ask rhetorically. “Come on. We’ll order food and you can tell me what the hell happened that’s got you so upset.”

Sascha offers to make something, but he didn’t come back here to cook for me, and I don’t want to wait for him to finish cooking to figure out what we’re up against. I roll my eyes at him and place an order with our favorite Indian restaurant. We sit at the table, and I even get him a drink, something I rarely bother to do. He sits there, scared and silent, waiting for me to make the next move

“So, enough suspense, tell me what happened.” I keep it calm and low-key; if I ask him something more emotional, he’ll just shatter. I need him logical for now.

He tells me, and he includes the emotional parts as well. He talks about how scared he was, how lonely, how his brother has changed. He tells me that he felt like he had left home instead of going there, and I regret pushing him. He starts crying when he talks about his niece, who thinks of him as “slave Sascha,” instead of “uncle.” It’s heartbreaking. He spent so long miserable as a slave, only to have his family hurt him far more.

When he tells me about the ways that Lisa hurt him, slapping him, starving him, locking him away and denying him the most basic things like the bathroom, I become tense, angry. I try to hide it, because I don’t want to scare him, but I’m furious. She had no right. When our food comes, he devours it like he’s starving. From what he’s told me, he might be starving. It puts me off my food, which is fine, because he finishes his and is still looking hungry. I push it to him without a word.

Finally, he gets to the end of his story, telling me the details of the escape plan, forging his brother’s permission, taking the train, the walk through the rain in the middle of the night. And then, he stops. He sits there, drained, still looking uncertain. I don’t even know how to fix this.

I start with the simplest solution I can think of. “Do you need to see a doctor?” I ask, quiet.

He looks offended, but he mumbles his answer. “I’m fine. She didn’t hit me that hard. She just slapped me. I’ve had worse. Hell,
you
have done worse.”

I nod. I have, but Sascha is mine. That woman had no right to put a hand on him.

“What are you planning to do?” I ask.

He starts shaking. “I don’t know, sir. Would… would you take me back?”

What a ridiculous question. I’ve kept him throughout so many other things, how on earth does he think I wouldn’t take him back, now? I got rid of Lisa this morning; that should be proof enough. “What do you think, Sascha?”

All of a sudden, it’s like he disintegrates. He crumples to the floor and crawls to my feet, clutching at my legs and sobbing like I just delivered the worst news in the world to him. I’m shocked; my question was meant to be rhetorical.

He begs desperately, still clinging to me. “Please, master, please take me back. I promise, I’ll be good, I won’t mess up anymore, I’ll do anything you want, please—”

“Sascha, get up!” I order, grabbing him roughly by the hair and dragging him to his feet. Once he’s standing, I grip him firmly by the shoulders. “Do you really think I let you in here and stayed up all night making arrangements and let you sleep here and sent that awful woman away because I
don’t
want you back?”

It takes a moment, but he finally seems to understand that I’m not going to abandon him.

“I want to stay with you,” he says, calmer now, but still so vulnerable. “It’s all I wanted ever since I first saw you.”

I try to play cool, but I smile. It’s so rare for him to make a confession like that, no matter how much I’ve always known it.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he mumbles, hesitating and shifting a little closer to me, his hands coming up to feel my forearms. “I should never have left.”

I pull him close, needing to feel him near me. “You had to,” I reassure him. “You had to find out, and you never thought it would be this way. Hell, I practically forced you out, and I never thought it would be this way, or I would never have let you go. You’re mine, Sascha, and nobody messes with what’s mine.”

Suddenly, he buries his head in my neck and starts kissing me, like he’s desperate for skin contact. I hold him tighter, feeling his tears on the collar of my shirt.

“Why didn’t you com me?” I ask. “Or email me, even. You had your tablet. You did all sorts of other shit with it, why didn’t you just get in touch with me?”

He tenses, and he keeps his face pressed into my neck as he speaks. “Because… you might have said no. What if you didn’t want me back?”

“So you thought you’d just show up at my doorstep and I couldn’t turn you down?”

“I had to leave,” he whispers, kissing my neck again. He’s practically glued himself to me.

“Will he come for you?” I ask, gently prying his lips from my neck. “Your brother, will he come?”

He thinks about it for a while before answering. “Yes,” he answers. “Before, he would have come because he was worried. Now, I think he’ll feel obligated to.”

“I’ll be prepared,” I promise him. I hold him back for a few more seconds, proving to myself that he’s really here, and then I pull him close and kiss him hard, reclaiming his mouth as my own.

He tries to kiss back, to have some semblance of control, but I won’t hear of it. The moment he starts to squirm, I immobilize him with a firm hand on the back of his neck, squeezing lightly, threatening playfully. He melts into my touch, and my tongue invades his mouth immediately. He moans when I slip my hand between us, gripping his cock and pulling him closer. His face is still wet with tears, but he’s responding to me, rubbing his body against mine. Without another word, I move my hand from his cock to the pants he’s wearing, shoving them down roughly so I can feel his skin on mine. I palm his cock and he arches into my touch, moaning.

I laugh, low and evil. “Don’t think you’re coming just yet,” I warn. “I’m planning to fuck you good and hard, and don’t you dare come before I tell you to.”

He can do nothing more than whimper.

I barely let go of his neck as I finish undressing him, and myself. He helps me, his eyes never leaving mine, my hand never moving from the back of his neck. I never want to stop touching him.

We’re naked, and the feeling of my skin touching his is getting me worked up. I touch him everywhere, his chest, his legs, his stomach, his cock. I want his entire body to yearn for me.

I pull him close again, kissing him just as roughly as I did the first time, until I feel his body threaten to collapse underneath of him. Finally, I break off the kiss, turning him around and pressing him face-first against the dining room wall. Immediately, his body aligns with mine, pinning him close, making him writhe in excitement. My fingers graze his ass, rough and purposeful, and within seconds I prod at him, demanding entrance. I don’t want to hurt him, not like this, but I bite at his neck and shoulders. I smile as I bring my hand up, placing my fingers on his lips.

“Suck,” I order, and he takes my fingers into his mouth immediately. He ruts against me as he does, tempting me with his cock, enticing me with the warmth of his flesh against mine. He works my fingers as carefully as he would work my cock, desperate, like he can’t get enough of me. He stays close, struggling every time I come close to breaking contact with his body.

Suddenly, I withdraw my fingers from his mouth and work them into his ass instead, quickly and firmly, giving him no chance to argue or resist. I doubt he would, anyway, if the sounds of pleasure he makes are any indication. He thrusts himself down on me, hard and fast, and I realize that I’m going to hurt him if I fuck him like this. He seems willing, but I’m not going to fuck him dry after missing him for a week.