by Dark, Raven
I conjured up the image of Setora. Imagining her warm body wrapped around me, her lips bringing me back to life, my cock sheathed in the heat of her pussy.
“I’m gonna kill Hawk,” I slurred. “Stupid fucking plan.”
“Kill him after, when we get the hell out of here,” Steel said.
My eyes tried to close, sleep trying to pull me under.
“General, come on. Stay with us.” Doc shook me, rubbing my arms with medical urgency. His teeth chattered. When my head dropped back, he grabbed it and his face was in mine. “Sheriff. Sheriff.”
Everything sounded like it was drifting away. Why the hell couldn’t I move?
I grappled with the sleep that clawed at me. I was supposed to be saying something to them now. “Steel?”
“Right here, General.” His voice drifted from above me. Someone’s hand took mine in a brotherly grasp so hard it almost hurt.
I’d meant to say something to him, something important, but the thought kept slipping out of reach.
“Shit. General.” Steel slapped my face. “Fuck, Sheriff, come on. Wake up!”
His voice sounded strange, high and cracked, like someone had kicked him in the balls.
“Sheriff, you can’t sleep.” Doc shook me hard, his voice suddenly angry. “We’ll get the hell out of here. If you die, Setora will spend her days under Damien’s thumb with him doing who knows what to her. You want that?”
I knew what he was doing, trying to make me so mad that I’d fight a little longer. I managed to shake my head. My fists tightened. I’d hang myself first before I let that sick fuck have her.
“Then open your eyes, damn it.”
I cracked them open. “Doc…” They slid closed. “Steel. Steel… Tell Set…Setora...”
“General, don’t even finish that sentence.” Steel shook my shoulders. “We are the Four. We’ve been through too much to lose now. If you start talking about dying, I’ll knock your teeth in.”
Steel was threatening me. For some reason, that made me love him.
“Is that any… way… to talk to your… General, Steel?”
“Then wake up so you can kick my ass.”
I couldn’t stop shaking. My head was so heavy that I let it drop back. Blissful sleep, warm, perfect nothingness started to close around me like a black curtain.
“Sheriff,” Doc snapped.
“It’s all right. It’s not…cold anymore,” I whispered. “Setora, it’s all right. The others will… take care of you…”
“Sheriff, no!” Doc screamed. Something hit my chest hard.
Steel gave a broken roar that made my heart hurt. There was a horrendous bang—him throwing himself at the door. “Damien, you fuck, let us out!” he bellowed.
Maker’s fucking tits, sleep. I drifted toward the darkness that called for me to finally rest in its arms. Arms like Setora’s, warm and forever.
Someone slapped me hard and then slapped me again. “Sheriff, damn it, open your fucking eyes! Fight, damn you! Fight!” Doc, screaming at me. “Sheriff!”
I swore I heard something so absurd I had to have been imagining it—Steel crying. Then there was the strange feel of a man’s mouth covering mine, breathing hot air in. Someone was pushing on the center of my chest repeatedly and swearing.
“Setora…” I thought—or said?—thickly. “Save her…”
Then nothingness took me into its eternal embrace, toward that great, never-ending clubhouse in the sky.
Chapter 21
For the Good of the Club
“Wake up, slave.”
Herma’s voice.
I shook myself awake. When had I fallen asleep?
Sitting up in bed, I wiped my eyes and blinked at her.
I couldn’t have been sleeping for more than an hour, but I’d been having the most wonderful dream. I’d cried myself to sleep in my bed, my heart shattering for Sheriff, Steel, and Doc trapped in that room with the freezing water. Then the dream. My mother, holding me in her arms, rocking me, telling me it was all right. Then I was with my Four. They were all alive, safe. We’d been in the Grotto. My mother was with us, so was Maja. Damien was nothing but a memory.
I’d sworn the dream was real until Herma had shaken me awake, her terrible, aged voice pulling me back into the dark present that was my world.
Damien’s world.
“Mistress.” I barely remembered to offer the proper respect as I swung my legs over the side of the bed.
“Captain Vale wishes to see you.” She snapped her fingers for me to hurry and went to the door.
Maker, my jaw was throbbing again. Damien. Damien had hit me. I couldn’t help feeling shock at that fact, though I wasn’t sure why. He’d killed Crash and was now letting three men freeze to death. At least my jaw wasn’t broken this time.
Damien wanted to see me. Herma’s words sunk in and a bolt of fear drove away any lingering fatigue. Fear for my men.
I joined Herma at the door. Were Sheriff, Steel, and Doc still alive? Had he found Hawk and Pretty Boy? Did he want me to watch them thrown into that chamber with the others?
My heart battered my ribs as I followed Herma down the hall to the doors of the slaves’ quarters where two of the usual guards escorted me the rest of the way to what I thought was the Throne Room.
Instead, they took me down a set of stone steps that led beneath the mansion’s main floor. We walked into an area I’d never seen before, all cold stone, low lighting, and permeated with a musty smell that made my nose twitch.
The guards stopped at a metal grille that served as a gate. A J’nai on the other side unlocked it and I was marched down a narrow hall to a pair of steel doors.
One of my escorts rapped on the door.
“Enter,” Damien called from within.
The doors opened, and Damien greeted me with his sickeningly pleasant smile. “Setora. How is your jaw?”
Oh, I wished I could have struck him. “Where are they?” I gritted out.
Damien gave a false thoughtful look. “Oh, you mean the pirates.”
“Release them.”
“Or…” Damien walked backward toward another set of doors, gesturing for me to follow him. “Or do you mean the Yantu?”
Two things occurred to me at once, hearing this. One, it didn’t sound like he knew about Pretty Boy. And two, however he’d found Hawk, if Damian had him, he was probably already freezing to death with the others.
“I don’t know what it is you want from me, but you won’t get it if you kill them,” I said.
For a long time until I’d fallen asleep, I’d thought about what Damien had said while in the dining hall. I was a weapon. And I would save the world from Julian, somehow allowing him to have power he couldn’t have as long as Julian was around. The only bright side of that was, Damien wouldn’t kill me. Not as long as Julian was alive.
Damien ignored my outbursts. “Let me worry about them, Little Dove. Come with me.” He took my hand gently and walked toward the closed steel doors in front of him. “There’s something I want you to see. By the time I am done with your pirate in there, he’ll be ready to sell his soul.”
I jerked. “Who?”
“Well, I can tell you, it isn’t Hawk. If he really is a Yantu, as my men think, I could spend days with him in that room and he’d never give me what I want.”
My heart plummeted. Pretty Boy. It had to be him. If Sheriff, Steel, and Doc were still in that water chamber, they couldn’t be alive.
Frantic, I tried to push past Damien, but the two guards behind me seized my shoulders. “Let me see him! What are you doing to him?”
Damien said nothing. He nodded for the guards to follow him into the room beyond with me.
As soon as I stepped inside, my knees almost gave out.
Strange looking contraptions and devices with tubes and levers sticking out of them filled the room, but I hardly noticed them. All my focus was on the table that stood in the middle of the living-room-sized space.
; A naked man lay across the table, strapped to it by his arms and legs, but it wasn’t Pretty Boy. It was Sheriff. I stared at what had been done to him. His skin was as pale as bleached bone, the black tattoos that decorated his body standing out in stark contrast. His lips were blue. He looked like he was at Death’s door. At Death’s door and knocking to get in. There was a strap across his forehead, holding his head to the table, and a metal tube snaked from his mouth. The tube pointed upward, ending about a foot above him and held in place with an attachment that hung from the ceiling. The other end of the tube had a funnel attached to it.
A funnel, down which water was meant to be poured.
As the guards walked me closer to the table, my stomach did a horrible flip. Maker, if that thing was what I thought…
Terror for him turned my blood to ice.
The guards brought me to stand right beside the table.
“Oh, no… my Master.” I thrashed in the guard’s grips.
“He’s not your master, Setora, I am.” Damien crossed the room almost joyfully to where his doctor, Griesha, stood at Sheriff’s shoulder. “And if you don’t watch yourself, I can make this worse for him.”
Sheriff lay alarmingly still and silent, his body slack.
My eyes stung. I struggled, but it was futile.
“It’s amazing he’s still alive,” Damien said to me after looking Sheriff over. “He was in that water cell for almost half an hour. I should have given your pirates more credit. There were three men in there with him when we pulled him out, and they didn’t kill each other for those rocks.”
Three men. Was it Hawk or Pretty Boy in there with him along with Steel and Doc? Or had one of the others come with them to save me?
Fear for Sheriff had me ready to do whatever Damien wanted. “You don’t have to do this, Master. I’ll give you what you want. Just don’t do this to him.”
As if I hadn’t spoken, Damien nodded to Griesha. “Wake him.”
Griesha, the man who had been my doctor while I’d lived here for twelve years, shook Sheriff’s head violently until he twitched and made an angry, muffled sound through that tube in his mouth.
Only now did I notice that there were a few small cuts on Sheriff’s chest, arms, and legs, as though whoever had taken the J’nai uniform off of him had cut it away and not cared if they nicked his skin. For some reason, his knees were also scraped.
Damien moved up to Sheriff’s head, and Griesha stepped aside to give him room. “Well, General. I see no need to do anything drastic before I give you a chance to cooperate, now that your audience is here.”
Sheriff’s eyes turned toward me. The determination and protectiveness in his gaze ripped at my soul. He then stared at the ceiling, waiting. Fists tight.
Damien leaned down toward him. “Just tell me what I need to know. It’s simple, Sheriff. How many men came with you, and where are they?”
Sheriff remained still and silent, his fists still clenched.
Damien looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then returned his gaze to Sheriff. “Imagine my surprise when my soldiers went to the jail cell I put your three men in and found them gone. After all that time spent in the water cell, they never should have been able to escape. Someone must be helping them.”
Sheriff made no sound, and his eyes remained on the ceiling, but I noticed the slightest widening of his eyes at the mention of the men’s escape.
Damien gave a fake sigh. “What’s it going to take for you to cooperate? I can’t kill Setora, and I know you know that, so I won’t insult your intelligence by pretending I can. I need her. How many more of your men are here?”
Sheriff gave him nothing.
Damien clasped his hands behind his back. “It appears your men left you here to rot, General.” His eyes gleamed with pleasure.
Still nothing from Sheriff, but I felt myself tense. Hawk and Pretty Boy would never have left him or me behind.
Damien’s expression turned thoughtful. “Or… Or do they have a base somewhere? With more men waiting perhaps?”
When Sheriff still didn’t give any indication he would cooperate, Damien nodded to Griesha and stepped back to give the doctor room.
Griesha went over to a pitcher of water on a table nearby. “This is a fascinating device,” he said to no one in particular as he picked up the pitcher and returned to Sheriff’s shoulder. He glanced at Sheriff, then at me, setting the pitcher down and patting it affectionately. “When the water is slowly poured into the tube, it cuts off the person’s air. They can feel it; they know they’re going to drown if it doesn’t stop. Terror is a most effective tool.”
“Griesha, please don’t do this.” I twisted in the guards’ grips. “You’re supposed to be a doctor. This is torture.”
He shrugged. “A doctor’s job is not so clear cut when he works for men who require the loyalty and obedience the J’nai do.” He inclined his head to Sheriff. “He will not receive any more than it takes for him to talk.”
The whole time Griesha was speaking, Sheriff’s arms twisted under the straps. Not in an attempt to escape, I knew, but in preparation for what was coming.
I bucked in the guards’ holds, but the men held me in place. My breathing came out in short, broken gasps.
Griesha picked up the pitcher.
My breathing came faster, half sobs. I closed my eyes, looking away, but it didn’t hide what was happening.
Water slowly poured. Sheriff made a terrible gurgling noise, choking. I heard him thrashing so hard the table rattled.
“Stop,” I rasped. “Please stop.”
Griesha did stop, setting the pitcher down with a soft thump. Sheriff quieted, except for his harsh, ragged breaths. I made myself look at him, saw his chest rising and falling fast.
The doctor backed up and Damien moved in. The General’s arms and legs tensed, his head straining against the strap holding it still.
Damien clasped his own hands together. “Well, now. Let’s see how well you remember where your men are.”
Griesha took the tube out of his mouth. Sheriff spat water and coughed.
Damien waited for his reply.
Sheriff twitched his head in a gesture for Damien to come closer.
Damien bent his ear and worry spiked through me for Hawk and Pretty Boy, and anyone else who might have been there.
I heard Sheriff’s reply, clear as a bell, each word enunciated carefully.
“Fuck. You.”
Straightening, Damien pressed his lips together, seeming to consider his adversary’s words. “Fascinating.” He shook his head and stepped away for Griesha.
Maker, my heart broke for Sheriff. He wouldn’t give up his men. My chest tightened with overwhelming emotion for him.
Griesha stepped up and picked up the pitcher. This time, when I tried to look away, one of the guards behind me grabbed my head and forced it to remain still so that I had to keep my gaze on Sheriff.
Water poured again in a long stream down the tube.
Sheriff thrashed. His back bowed off the table and he gurgled. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Damien, stop!”
Again, Griesha set the pitcher down, but I knew he hadn’t stopped for my sake. He didn’t want Sheriff dead. Not yet.
As soon as Griesha took the tube out of Sheriff’s mouth, the General’s body went slack. His chest heaved, his breathing hard.
Once more, Damien stepped up.
“I’ll be honest with you,” he said simply. “Before I discovered that your men had escaped, my guardsmen found Hawk, but he disappeared into a duct. They haven’t found him since, but I know he wouldn’t leave his General.” He leaned on the table toward Sheriff. “So I’ll ask you again. Where are they hiding?”
“You’ll never find them,” Sheriff spat. “Especially not Hawk. Not unless he wants you to, and by then, you’ll already be dead.”
Damien nodded at the ceiling. “Yes, I know, I know. The whole Yantu thing. But if he knows you are being harmed, he will show
himself to save you, will he not?”
Yes, he would, my mind chimed mercilessly.
Sheriff said nothing, his eyes once more on the ceiling.
Damien looked at Griesha. “Let’s see how much more he can handle.”
“No!” I screamed. “Let him go. Please.” When Damien cocked his head, and Sheriff’s gaze turned toward me, I lowered my eyes, forcing myself to say the word it hurt so much to say. “Master. Let him go.”
He looked at the doctor again. “Griesha.”
Griesha replaced the tube. Water poured again. Sheriff thrashed and choked.
I sobbed.
This time, when Griesha stopped, he swore. “He’s passed out, Captain.”
“Then wake him, Doctor.”
Someone knocked on the doors behind me while Griesha shook Sheriff violently awake.
“Enter,” Damien said.
The door squeaked open and boots scraped the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, a guard, the lieutenant I recognized from dinner earlier, saluted the captain. “May I have a word with you, sir?”
“Whatever it is you have to say, you can say it here, Gromm.”
“There’s still no sign of the pirates, but five J’nai are dead in the east wing, sir.”
The east wing. Where the kitchens were.
Hope sprang to life in me. Hope and fear. Maker’s Light, keep them safe.
At Gromm’s words, a muscle in Damien’s jaw twitched. “Then find them,” he snapped. “Find them and throw them in one of the jail cells. I’ll deal with them when I’m done here.”
When Gromm left, Griesha spoke, nodding to Sheriff. “Captain, he’s awake, but I don’t know for how long.”
On the table, Sheriff groaned, his eyes rolling.
Damien scoffed. “Then move onto something else. I want those other men.”
Griesha went to the table where the pitcher had first been and fiddled with something there. When he’d returned to the General’s shoulder, there was a tiny glass bottle between his long fingers. He set the bottle down beside Sheriff’s head, then tightened the strap that held Sheriff’s head in place. That done, he picked up the bottle and opened it, filling the dropper with the clear-colored liquid.
