“You can’t do that!” the old man says, his cheeks growing red. “I haven’t had my chance to check her out yet!”
The minder hesitates, then takes my hand. I shake his in a bruising grip, reminding myself that I should not hurt him before he unlocks her.
He raises his free hand and bellows. “Sold!”
The expressions of the men hovering around Rue are a mixture of unsurprised and suspicious. One extremely young man even looks crestfallen; I think he thought that Rue was going to be his first lover.
The old man mutters to me for a minute, until I swing my angry gaze toward him. Then he is quick to move away, presumably off to some other young girl.
The minder steps onto the platform and says something to Rue as he uncuffs her. Damen notes a couple of men who are looking on with too much interest. He fakes a loud sneeze without covering his mouth, which repulses them as intended. Noses wrinkled, they move on to the next girl.
Rue’s minder jerks her off the platform, unheeding of the fact that her eyes are still covered. He turns her in the direction of the double doors that I came in. She stumbles forward and I step closer, ready to catch her.
The minder smirks and yanks her back by the chains, making her cry out. “We’ll take payment first if you don’t mind.”
Carefully blanking my face while wanting to kill him a thousand time over, I nod stiffly. Rue and her minder go first, heading toward the doors.
Turning to follow them, I gaze up ahead. Then I stop short. Standing just a few paces away with a smirk on his face is Father Derrik in his black pants and black shirt. He has a handgun pointed straight at me.
“Well, well,” he drawls. “I was wondering if you had died. Now I will know.”
Before I can respond, he fires a shot, and all hell breaks loose.
6
Rue
One second, I’m being towed around insistently by Beck’s soft hands. At the same time, I’m trying to recover from stumbling. My thoughts are a whirling mess.
Was that Dryas’s voice?
It was, wasn’t it?
Where are we going now?
Then there’s a loud crack, amplified enough to make my ears ache. Several loud voices nearby shouted, “Gun!”
I’m knocked to the floor a second later, with Beck shouting instructions in my ear.
“Stay down!” he hisses. “Wait until I tell you to move…”
While Beck is presumably distracted, I manage to get my hands up to my face and yank at the blindfold. It comes loose on the second tug. Just that quickly, my world is flooded with light and movement once more.
Men are ducking and running away. One man actually hides behind a slave, using her as a human shield. My stomach turns bitterly.
Another shot rings out. I lift my head up and see Father Derrik running away with a crowd of creepy men right on his tail. Looking over to see what he is running from, I catch a heart-stopping glimpse of Dryas standing with his arm locked into a firing stance. Silver gleams from his clutched weapon.
He looks over and his eyes catch mine, but then a shot rings out from the direction that Father Derrik just ran in. The bullet flies into the wall. One of the slaves starts to scream, loud and long and piercing.
Then Father Derrik fires another bullet, this one hitting and wounding one of the slaves right by me in the leg. There is no one there to help her as she begins to tremble. I can actually feel her pain as her screams rise into the air.
Glancing at Beck, I see he’s facing the other way. Trying to move as stealthily as possible, I start to crawl toward the girl who is bleeding. Beck grabs my chains and holds me back.
“Are you crazy?” he whispers.
“Someone has to help her,” I grit out.
“Not you, though.” He pushes my head back down.
I see another man who looks a lot like Dryas suddenly appear standing over me and Beck. Damen? What the heck is he doing here?
My questions will have to wait though. Dryas advances twenty feet from where I lay, firing his weapon. I wince. How can he be sure that he won’t kill anyone?
Then I realize with a flush of the cheeks that Dryas can’t be sure of anything. He just cares more about getting me free than he cares about accidentally taking a life.
Damen clears his throat. I realize that he is basically seeing me naked, which makes my cheeks burn. It’s not like there is anything I can do about it now though. So, I suppose I should pretend that I am fully dressed.
Damen has his own shiny weapon, which he points at Beck. His whole attitude now screams that he will shoot Beck as soon as Beck does something Damen doesn’t like. He pushes the gun at Beck.
“Let her go,” Damen says coolly.
Beck draws back and raises his hands, making it clear that he doesn’t want to mess with anyone with a gun. I scoot away from him, rising as I move toward Damen.
“Come on,” Damen says gruffly, taking my arm. His gaze lands on me, on my exposed curves, but it flits away just as quickly. He looks around, ducking briefly when Father Derrik shoots in our direction again. “Now.”
“Wait!” I beg, gesturing to the slave who was shot. She’s bleeding in silence now, hanging from her suspended chain in a way that makes my shoulder joints ache in sympathy. “We have to set her free.”
Damen looks like he is going to argue with me for a second, then he rolls his eyes. He motions to Beck with his gun. “Go uncuff her right fucking now. Do not make me wait.”
Beck glares at me as he gets up. He scuttles over to the slave, uncuffing her. Dryas fires a couple of shots. I look over my shoulder and find him advancing on the double doors pretty steadily, his expression full of tension and anger. I don’t pity Father Derrik, but neither do I wish I were at the end of Dryas’s sights.
Beck releases the slave girl, who stumbles away from all of us and heads straight for an exit door in the back. Damen tosses his head toward the door she just left through.
“She had a good idea. We should go out that door too. Come on.”
I hesitate. “But the other slaves—”
Damen’s expression hardens. When he speaks, his Greek accent is thick. “I am not Dryas. I do not care what you want to do. My priority is to make you safe. Now come, right this second.”
I stare at Damen for a second before I nod. Moving as quickly as I can despite the chains, I allow him to hustle me out of the room. The exit door leads to a darkened hallway, deserted and dingy.
Damen looks both ways then nods left. “We have to try to get out. Actually…”
He stops short, grabbing the chains that connect my hands. He breaks them with relatively little effort, leaving me to wonder whether the chains were weaker than I thought or whether Damen is ridiculously strong. Then he hurries me down the hallway, past empty rooms. I struggle to keep up with him, though my chains are now more ornamental than anything.
He pauses to peer around a corner before waving me on. We do eventually run into two suited men, who shrink back from Damen and his gun. They huddle, maybe hoping that we don’t see them. I glare at the men, knowing that if Dryas and Damen hadn’t appeared, I would very well go home with a man just like them.
If I had time, I would be angrier about that fact. But I have too much going on inside my head. I’m worried for myself and Damen, but even more worried for Dryas.
Where did he go, exactly? Is he waiting for us somewhere?
Then with a pang, I wonder if Father Derrik managed to shoot him. All the what ifs build up in my throat, filling my lungs and chest until I want to scream.
But Damen is already pulling at my elbow, steering me into the lobby of the hotel. I repress my thoughts, shoving them off to the side until later. Damen stops in the middle of the lobby, indicating silently that I should hide behind the long-abandoned white marble check-in desk.
I do, but I also stick my head out and scan the lobby. He moves away toward what I would guess to be the front door. My eye is drawn to a stack of fliers that have b
een abandoned on the white marble floor. They are crudely made, but I can see pictures of women who are dressed in chains just like me splashed across the front.
I realize then that this auction isn’t the only one of its kind. Given the size of the crowd and how smoothly everything went up until Dryas appeared, I wouldn’t be surprised if the auctions weren’t a regular thing. Thinking about the whole thing, all those helpless women and girls, it makes me feel sick.
Damen prowls over to the front door. Looking out, he frowns. He motions for me to join him, so I scurry over to where he waits. My heart seizes up then because I look out the front door the find Dryas hiding behind the abandoned valet stand, reloading his weapon. There are four bodies on the ground near him, and a dozen more spread out through the wide gravel circle before us.
I look around for Father Derrik but only see a couple of bodyguards from the auction holed up together behind a sleek black limo with several bullet holes in the side. No one seems to be shooting anymore, making me wonder what is going on.
Damen makes a low sound that carries to Dryas. Dryas looks over, locking eyes with me. I don’t ever think I have seen his chartreuse eyes so vivid before. But I don’t have time to sort through what emotions I see there, because in the next second one of the bodyguards pops up and fires off a round at the doorway where I stand.
Damen instinctively moves to put his body in front of mine, pushing me up against the mold-stained wall. He fires back, the explosive sound of the shot reverberating through the broad doorway. The bodyguard ducks and the whole outside falls silent once more.
We all wait, tension growing with each moment that passes. I look longingly toward Dryas. I squint my eyes. Is that blood on his suit jacket? I wonder if it is his or one of the unfortunate bodies I see scattered on the ground nearby.
Then several things happen all at once. Damen moves away from me, releasing me from being gripped between him and the wall. One of the bodyguards stands up, drawing Dryas and Damen’s attention across the yard.
I am grabbed from behind, and hand slithering across my mouth. I know that hand all too well; Father Derrik has silenced me a hundred times just like that, holding me close while he does perverted things to me.
He starts dragging me backward, which I can’t just go with. Not under any circumstances will I allow myself to be Father Derrik’s puppet, not ever again. I’m not sure where my courage comes from, but I sink my teeth into the flesh of his palm, biting down until I taste blood.
He lets out a high-pitched noise. Damen realizes that Father Derrik has pulled me a few steps away.
“Get down!” he yells to me.
Father Derrik brings his wounded hand up, banding his arm around my neck. I see Dryas turning towards us, a hail of bullets being fired as he moves toward me. His expression is one of grim determination.
I bring up my elbows, driving the one closest to the Father into his torso. He sputters and his grip on me loosens.
That is all I need to wriggle free, sprawling out on the floor. There is a volley of bullets between Father Derrik and Dryas and Damen, leaving me to make myself as small as possible on the floor.
I see Father Derrik fall, wounded and bleeding from his right hip and left shoulder. I am so shocked by the Father going down, his expression inscrutable. In my head, he was always rather untouchable, God-like, and infallible to boot.
But a second later, Dryas is touching me. While Damen sweeps his gun the to right, Dryas grabs my arms and hauls me up against his hard body. Then he kisses me, flattening his hand on the small of my back and taking my mouth by force. I lean into him, pulling at his head, my body crying out for more.
More of his kiss. More of his hands on my body. More of him.
It’s only then that I realize I am crying again, though these are happy, I-never-thought-I-would-touch-you-again tears.
Father Derrik starts laughing, the sound gurgling and vile all at once. I pull back breathlessly, not ready to look at anyone but Dryas just yet. Dryas kisses me once more, firm and quick, then he looks up at Damen.
“Call the driver,” he barks, aiming his gun at Father Derrik. “Then you can help me get this piece of fucking shit into the trunk of the car. We had better get the fuck out of here before reinforcements come.”
Damen nods. I release Dryas, who rips off his coat and hands it over to me. Covering my curves gratefully, I stand back and let the two brothers work.
7
Rue
I’m not sure how long we’re in the car for. Hours at the very least, though I do admit to sleeping most of the way. Once I make sure that Dryas has called the police and Interpol on the auction house, I can hardly stay awake.
It is so simple to burrow myself down into Dryas’s side, to take comfort in his warm presence, and to let my eyes grow heavy. I listen as he talks to his brother, feeling the vibration of his baritone voice, but I am barely aware of the words he says.
It’s the first sleep I’ve had without being knocked out in days. My dreams are full of strange not-quite-nightmares about being back in Sister Marguerite’s office, Father Derrik at my shoulder, about to whisper in my ear.
I startle myself awake, upset. But Dryas just drops his big hand on my leg once more, tethering me to the real world.
It was just a dream. I am okay. I snuggle down in his suit jacket, allowing myself to feel taken care of and protected. Letting my eyes close once more, I drift off into twilight sleep.
When I wake again, the temperature is much more tropical. My chains are also gone, taken off and cast aside in a pile. I rub my wrists where the chains started to chafe me, sighing.
Dryas is dozing this time, his head leaning away from me. Across the limo seat, Damen is out and out snoring, which I find more amusing than anything.
Maybe we got off on the wrong foot, Damen and me. After all, he did save my life back there at the auction. Maybe he’s not as bad as he seems.
I push up from my cozy spot nestled under one of Dryas’s arms and stretch. The day is wearing on, going from the brightness of the daylight to hints of the coming gloom. That doesn’t really draw my attention, though. The ocean does, highlighted by the perfect amount of light, just before sunset.
I can’t stop staring at it. The sea is visible out the right window, slowly growing larger and larger as we get closer.
It suddenly gets stormy out there, the landscape growing grey as the ocean showcases its full glory. Full of white-capped waves, churning and roiling, it seems like a familiar old friend to me.
In the distance, I see lightning strike the ocean. That makes my heart lift; while I was gone, I don’t think I witnessed a proper storm. But we are driving right into the middle of one now, it seems.
Dryas stirs from his doze. He moves my long hair back, dropping a sleepy kiss on my exposed neck. I shiver at the sensation, my mouth turning up at the corners.
I look up into his eyes. His gaze burns into me, those jungle cat’s eyes of his piercing me straight to the heart. He smirks, which makes my heart start pounding. His hand slides up my thigh, making me desperately wish that we were alone.
I have so much to tell him. My fingers ache with the desire to curl around his neck and pull him close. I want to confess to him; I want him to hear it all, to explore my whole body with his tongue and his fingers.
“I’m so sorry, Dryas,” I suddenly blurt out, my eyes filling with tears. Glancing at Damen, I pray that I didn’t wake him with my confession.
A rumble of displeasure comes from somewhere low in Dryas’s body. “Do not say that you are sorry, Rue.” He cups my cheek, shifting against the seat of the car. “You are a willful girl, but I should have known better. I left you alone, made you a target…”
“That’s not… I’m sorry about…” I glance at Damen again, then take a deep breath. A tear breaks free and rolls down my face. I continue in a hushed whisper. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Father Derrik. I understand how you must feel—”
“Bul
lshit.” Dryas glowers down at me. “I refuse to let you apologize for that… I do not know the word. Paiderastía?”
He says the word like a curse, his expression disgusted. “A grown man who forces himself on children. You… you were just a girl. He...”
A muscle in Dryas’s jaw clenches and he closes his mouth, shaking his head. After a moment, he locks gazes with me again. “We will talk about it more when we get to Biccarose. We should be nearly there.”
My mouth twists a little. “I was hoping that we would head back to the castle in Èze. It’s… well, it’s the closest thing I have to a home, in a messed-up way.”
His eyebrows rise. “Oh? Is that so?”
I turn pink, mumbling. “Yes. I’m guessing that it’s far away?”
He smiles, squeezing my thigh gently. “Yes. At least another six hours by car. It’s on the southeastern coast, we are on the southwestern one. It is good to know that you cherish it, though.”
The driver begins to roll down the partition, which startles me. Dryas doesn’t seem affected by it, but I nearly jump out of my skin. He settles me with a hand as the driver’s face comes into view.
“Monsieur? We are coming into Biccarose now. We should arrive at the house in less than five minutes.”
“Good. Merci.” Dryas nudges Damen with a foot, eventually managing to wake him. “We’ll need to be ready to jump out and take care of Derrik. No doubt he has some plan to escape the trunk the second we stop.”
Damen just nods, stretching and yawning. I look out the window, growing anxious to get out of the car. We take a left turn into a wooded area, the trees here growing denser as we drive. Ferns appear from nowhere, packing the area with flora. Everything here is a deep, dark green, unusual for France.
The house appears almost magically. White walls and a red clay tile roof loom overhead, seemingly out of place in this little jungle. Something about the dying light plus the greenery surrounding the house makes the whole place just seem to glow.
Protect: Protect Book 4 Page 4
