Tender Mercies (21 page)

He laughed. “Oh, it’s going to be fun breaking you back down. I thought if Asher killed his last slave, then surely he was a bigger bastard than me. But when I saw you with him in town that day, and you looked . . . happy . . . Well, it seems he had different intentions for you than I did. As to your collar, I’ll call a locksmith in the morning. We’ll have the offending object off your throat by lunchtime. I expect I’ll only have to withhold meals for a couple of days and you’ll be back to where you were before. Don’t think you’ve suddenly gotten strong. You’ve just gotten spoiled. It’s a very different thing.”

Grace didn’t comment. There was no sense baiting him more. If she pissed him off enough, he might lose control and kill her. It was obvious the little bit of sanity he had was becoming dangerously frayed. She was the one project he seemed determined to finish.

She closed her eyes, trying not to see the look that would be on Asher’s face when he discovered her dead in Lucas’s dungeon. To come this far, only to end like that seemed stupid at best. Whatever her captor managed to deal out to her in the next few hours, it would happen, and then it would be done. All she had to do was survive it.

She cringed when he stroked her collarbone. “Pity you’ll lose this tan. I prefer you pale and vulnerable. I think I’ll take great pleasure in watching the golden color drain from your skin day by day until you’ve paled out. You’ll never see the sun again. I hope you enjoyed it while you were over at the Collins’ Vacation Spa.”

“Why do you even keep a slave if you can’t take care of one? You know the value drops when you do that shit.”

He shrugged. “You fetched a high-enough price. There is always someone willing to pay. Always someone with similar tastes and ideas of what a slave should be, but I won’t sell you again. We are forever, Grace. I should have known the moment I laid eyes on you that you would be the one.”

Having grown bored with the pleasantries, he pulled a knife from his pocket and cut the clothes off her. Tears sprang to her eyes when he yanked her hair back, turning her this way and that, inspecting his returned property.

He cursed when he turned her around, and she knew he’d seen the brand. At the time Asher had done it, it had felt like safety, a guarantee of some sort. But there were no guarantees on this island, and now all it did was anger the man she was currently with.

“You little cunt.” He spun her back to face him, obviously unable to bear looking at Asher’s estate symbol a second longer. Enraged, he grabbed her by the throat and pressed her against the wall. “You have the nerve to talk about devaluing property? Whatever made you think you had the right to wear his estate symbol? Did you really think you’d be free of me forever?”

What the fuck did he mean did she really think she’d be free of him? He’d
sold
her. He’d seemed thrilled to get rid of her because of that last piece he couldn’t break or have, or whatever insane babbling he’d been doing the day of her sale. Back when he’d been so smug and convinced Asher would break her beyond recognition and finish a job he was either too lazy or incompetent to finish himself. Now he seemed motivated to try again.

“Answer me, slave.”

“You sold me. So, yes, I thought we were done.” She hadn’t uttered the word
master
yet, and hoped somehow she would get out of here without ever having to refer to him in that way again, but somehow she doubted it. Rescue was still a long way off.
If it’s even coming at all.

Although she had some idea of how things were
supposed
to play out, it actually happening that way was still in the air. The boat could run out of fuel, and James could be stranded. He could change his mind, leaving Asher to pay for his crime. He could confess, and they might not believe him, or they might keep them both in custody, anyway. There was no guarantee her master would be released at all.

She shivered as that realization fully sank in. What if he never came for her? She’d torture herself forever wondering what had happened, each day her hope of rescue shrinking smaller and smaller. She pictured herself back where Lucas had her before, maybe worse. Because he was right. She
had
been at the
Collins’ Vacation Spa
. She’d been living a life of luxury and pampering and love.

His hand squeezed tighter around her throat, cutting off her oxygen. “My, have we got our work cut out for us. After I get that ridiculous collar off your neck, I’m going to cut that branding mark off. Since you’ve already depreciated, I’m going to brand your other hip with
my
estate symbol.”

“P . . . please . . .” She felt herself turning blue, the words barely having enough room and air supply to escape.

“Please? Please what? Who are you appealing to? I control everything. I control your right to food, water, sleep, oxygen. Who am I that I control so much?”

She shook her head, knowing the stubbornness was stupid. She was buying herself all of what? Five seconds? Because in the next few moments she’d either say what he wanted to hear, or pass out. And she was far too afraid of what he’d do to her while she was unconscious.

Her fingernails clawed at his hand. Lucas loosened his grip a little, and she took in all the oxygen she could get.

“The things I did to you while you were with me were mild compared to what I feel like doing right now. You will die in this room. It can be right now, or it can be twenty or thirty years from now, if you’re lucky.”

If there was no hope of Asher’s return, Grace would dispute which option was the
lucky
one. She could envision herself driving him to such a rage he’d kill her and all this would be over. But the hope of being rescued and being happy again held her in check.

He hadn’t removed his hand from her throat, subtly reminding her he held the power of her life in only one of his hands. “Trust me, pet, you don’t want to piss me off anymore than I already am. The sooner you get over this bizarre pride or loyalty or whatever it is and submit to me, the better for you. Who am I?”

She looked into his cold, obsidian gaze. “You may get me to say the word, but know this, you will never truly own me. That right belongs to my real master. You might take his symbol off my hip, but there will always be a scar that reminds us both what was there. And you might take his collar off my throat, but you’ll never erase his name from my soul.”

A moment later his fist came back, and then she sank into blissful unconsciousness.

Twelve

It was nearly sunrise when the official unlocked Asher’s cell. He’d been having a nightmare of Grace crying out for him from Lucas’s dungeon. In the dream, he’d been locked up, unable to do anything for her. Though awake, the dream clung to him like a memory of something real.

“You’re free to go.”

“What?” Maybe he was still dreaming. He couldn’t have heard the man right. They’d questioned him for hours, saying they had the body so he may as well confess. The only thing he’d told them was that he hadn’t killed Darcy. In his mind he apologized to her. Of course he knew he was still responsible for it. Darcy had been his responsibility, and she’d had no true power to fight his wishes.

Even if it had been James that landed the fatal blow, it was still his fault for not whipping her himself and for leaving her alone in the aftermath. But disclosing the full truth wasn’t wise right now. Grace was out there, and he couldn’t consign himself to a prison sentence, knowing what that might mean for her. There was no guarantee she’d made it to James.

He stood there, the cell door flung wide, while the guard raised an eyebrow.

“Well? Are you institutionalized after only a few hours? Get the fuck out. This isn’t a hotel.”

“I don’t understand.”
You idiot, don’t ask questions, just leave.
And yet, he couldn’t make himself move. It was too surreal. He’d thought it would be months before he got out and then it would only be if he was incredibly lucky and could somehow convince them he wasn’t a killer. To be released before the sun rose was hard to process.

“It seems someone has materialized to take the rap for you. James LaFont. Name ring a bell?”

Asher just stared, unsure if admitting to a friendship with James would land him right back in the cell or if denying any knowledge of the man would just look more suspicious. James had confessed? So who was with Grace?

When Asher didn’t say anything, the guard continued. “LaFont claims he took your slave off the property without your knowledge to borrow her and that in the course of the time at his home, there was an accident. He confirmed where the body was buried. According to his story, he couldn’t bring himself to face you afterward and fled to the other side of the island to live with the natives.”

At least the story meshed with him not saying anything one way or the other about knowing James. He finally made his feet move out of the cell and out of the station. He called his driver to bring the car. He wanted to talk to James, but he knew they wouldn’t allow that right now, and he needed to get to his pet.

When he got home, William said James had been by and confirmed Grace was at the camp. In all likelihood, she was safe and sound with the natives. But what if she wasn’t? He couldn’t shake the dream of her crying for him in Lucas’s dungeon.

Many crops were doing poorly this season. Hunting was probably a little rough, too. Which meant even those who lived off the land weren’t immune to the promise of money and the comfort it could buy. If she was with the natives, safe and sound, she’d still be with them if he checked the Stone estate first. But if she was with Lucas, any second he wasted could end her life.

***

Grace’s teeth clattered as the bucket of icy water splashed across her face, rousing her from unconsciousness. The water dripped down her body as she tossed her head back to get the hair out of her eyes. It took her a moment to figure out where she was, and she cringed when the Australian shepherd started licking water off her thigh.

“Not now, boy. I get first dibs, then you can play.” He swatted the dog’s haunches, sending him to the corner to sulk. “Morning, pet. Did you dream about me?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

He raised a hand as if to strike her but quickly pulled it back. “Oh no you don’t. I know your game. You want me to either kill you or keep knocking you out. But if I do that, where’s my fun?”

Grace pulled experimentally on the chains. Her arms ached. They were raised over her head, the shackles looped around a large, metal ceiling hook in the center of the dungeon, the kind of hook a pirate might use for a hand. Lucas had used a spreader bar to keep her legs extended so she couldn’t kick out at him. The temptation to do so was powerful.

Now that she’d awakened, the idea of rescue seemed almost stupid. Even if James had good intentions, as soon as he’d gotten back to civilization, he would have rethought things. He would have realized some random slave he didn’t know wasn’t worth it. He would have justified leaving Asher in prison so he could have his own life. They obviously hadn’t spoken for a long time, why should he give up everything now? He wouldn’t. And he hadn’t.

Either way, Asher probably said something incriminating during questioning. If that had happened, it was unlikely they’d let her master out.

The idea that she’d end up giving in to Lucas turned her now empty stomach. Asher had kept her so well fed that missing a single meal felt like cause for panic. The tears started to move down her cheeks.

“There she is,” Lucas said, approvingly. “I knew you were in there somewhere. My frightened little mouse.”

While she’d been unconscious, he’d set a table up with various whips he liked to use on her. He preferred things that marked well, broke the skin, left scars. It was as if he chose to mark her because he couldn’t truly have her. It was the only way he could be assured his name would remain in her memory for any reason at all.

A wicked-looking knife gleamed from the table, the kind meant for skinning animals. It could take off thin layers so as not to waste lots of meat. Grace shuddered. He really intended to just cut Asher’s mark right off her. The tears came harder.

Even if her master was coming for her, Lucas was ready to get started now. His sadism likely hadn’t been fed in months. She knew she wasn’t going to be rescued before he flayed the brand off her hip. He had a metal disk on the table with his estate symbol, as well as the tools needed to heat it.

She flinched when he brushed the hair out of her eyes, a false kindness that would evaporate as quickly as it had visited. The walls were closing in. She felt like the inmate about to be put to death, watching the red phone in the last few seconds, hoping for a reprieve.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Goddammit, Ring.

But there was no phone and no reprieve coming. Instead, she cried out as the whip came down on her, tearing at her skin like a child ripping the wrapping off a gift. She felt the little drops going down her back that weren’t water. Then she was suddenly numb, and she couldn’t feel anything anymore.

***

Grace couldn’t be sure of the amount of time that had passed since he’d started, but Lucas finally grew bored with whipping her. If the hook hadn’t been holding her up, she would have fallen to the ground long ago.

Ring. Ring. Ring. Please ring.
That bright red phone, still in her head, still standing there silent, mocking her. Refusing to give her freedom.

“Why couldn’t you give me what you gave him? You little bitch. I brought you here. I’m your true master. How could you be such an ungrateful cunt that you wouldn’t give me everything?”

She was crying too hard to answer him, and he seemed to be speaking more to himself than to her anyway, so she remained silent, hoping somehow to disappear and evaporate into a mist that could slide underneath the gap in the door and up the stairs to safety.

“You will give me everything. Do you understand me? Every fucking part of your soul will be mine. You’ll belong to me so deeply you won’t even remember his name.” The whip came down across the center of her back, flaying another piece of her skin open as he unleashed his anger. The pain snapped back into sharper focus.