by E. S. Carter
My legs threaten to wobble, but not because of nerves, because of a bubbling excitement that rumbles through my chest and leaks out into my limbs. Not only will I walk into The Kingdom willingly as a free woman, but I’ll also be the key to tearing this empire apart. Grim’s hand releases mine, and he wraps his strong arm around my shoulders, my body instinctively seeking the shelter, warmth and comfort of his.
“Do not leave my side,” he whispers, his tone laced with an edge of controlled anger. “No matter what happens you stay right where I can see you. Got it?”
How many times have I heard a similar command? When he says it, though, it’s more than a demand of my obedience. He’s not saying it because of ownership or control, he’s ensuring my safety.
“I’m not going anywhere. Where you go, I go.”
Satisfied with my response, he guides me towards the entrance. We have only taken a few steps when the loud click of a lock echoes into the night sky, followed by the heaving grind of the solid wood doors as they are pulled open.
“The nightclubs are that way,” a deep, heavily accented Russian voice states.
Grim pulls me forward another two steps then releases me, likely to show the Russian his signet ring embossed with the crown of The Kingdom.
“Sovereignty,” he states the code word coolly, his attempt at masking the anger I can feel rolling off him in waves convincing enough to make it seem like he’s inconvenienced and not two seconds away from spilling this guy’s blood.
“State your name. I haven’t seen you before and trust me, Mudak, I would remember an ugly fucker like you.”
Grim grips my arm tightly and drags me to his side, the act a show of ownership and aggression and to flaunt me as his property. The tattoo on my breast clearly visible to the Russian’s eyes.
“Listen up, Sputnik, I’ve been invited here by James Cooper.” When the Russian remains silent Grim continues, “Yeah, that’s right, you know who I’m talking about, don’t you, Commie. So, I’ll give you my name this once, but if you question me again, I’ll carve out your tongue and eat it right in front of you while you choke on your blood. You got me?”
The Russian stays mute, and I wish I could read his face and consider his eyes to better judge whether Grim’s threat has worked or if it will get us both killed.
“I’m Henry Renshaw, and now you know my name it’s only fair that I know yours. Or do you prefer to be called, Drago?”
I hear the scrape of the door as it opens wide, seconds later the Russian grits out, “Your entry has been accepted. Please, step this way, Mr Renshaw.”
Grim tugs me forward, and we are barely over the threshold when he states, “Thank whoever is in your ear for having the sense not to fucking annoy me further. I’ll see you later, Drago.”
The door shuts behind us, and the lock engages. The loud click of multiple metal cylinders engaging, closing out the safety of the Paris streets, strikes me hard in the chest. For all my personal assurances that I could do this, for every word I swore to Faye that night in my bedroom, I am woefully unprepared for the enormity of my actions.
I’m willingly returning to The Kingdom. Offering myself up on a platter, risking the freedom I could only once dream about ever having.
Grim’s arm covers my shoulders once more, his lips coming close to my temple, his warm breath skittering over my face.
“No turning back now, Cal. Good job you’ve got the biggest, baddest, most fucked-up man on this planet at your side. I tried to protect you from this. Remember that.”
Then we enter the lion’s den.
It feels like I never left.
The sounds and smells are just the same. Money, power, sex, and depravity intermingled with fear, horror and immutable submission.
I am the sacrificial lamb awaiting slaughter.
I have never felt so much power in my weakness.
Grim
There is fucking gold leaf everywhere. It’s on the cavern-like walls, the tables, even the staff members. Although, judging by the brands clearly visible on their naked chests, even through the thick coating of gold paint, they aren’t here willingly or to earn money.
Property, that’s what The Kingdom called them. No names, just numbers.
This place makes me fucking sick, but I’ve been warned by Cole and Luke to avoid killing tonight unless it’s necessary. It’s a good thing they didn’t mention anything about maiming because I can do that without taking a life and the way my hackles are rising, bloodshed in some shape or form is most definitely on the agenda. The Devil on my back bares his fangs, thirsting for the taste of flesh, demanding a sacrifice or else he’ll tear this whole gold-plated, filthy fucking hole apart.
“Buying or selling?”
The voice comes directly from my right, and I cease scoping out the gilded cave that surrounds us and level my stare on a man who is standing too fucking close to Cal for his health.
“Neither, so stop eye-fucking my property or else I’ll find another use for your peepers.”
His eyes fix on my scarred face, the colour draining quickly from his tanned complexion.
“Then, w-what are you doing at the market? We are all b-buyers or sellers here.”
His soft French accent grates on my nerves, the weaselly stutter calling on my beast to put him out of his misery.
“I’m assessing my options, not that it’s any fucking concern of yours.” I lean forward, the move making him tilt back to get as much space between us as possible without running.
“A friendly word of advice,” I snarl into his pale, sweaty face and he stares up at me his eyes impossibly wide. “Leave.”
I don’t wait for him to scuttle off. He’s a fucking cockroach, and we have bigger wolves to skin. This pathetic, snobby twat is a nobody, and, on an average day, I wouldn’t waste more than a second of my time on his kill. With a sharp tug, I drag Cal towards the gold-leaf bar, her legs stumbling under the force I use, while my brain is short-circuiting with the necessary need to act like she means nothing to me.
“Whisky, straight,” I bark at the young man behind the bar. Like all other Kingdom property in attendance, he’s naked except for his coating of gold paint.
He’s dark haired, and no older than sixteen or seventeen, but he doesn’t flinch at my harsh command. He’s used to that and more.
“The paint covers all bruises and scars,” Cal whispers to her feet just loud enough for me to hear her. I squeeze the flesh of her upper arm lightly, enough for her to know that I’ve caught her words. She knows better than to speak openly with me in this place. In fact, since we walked down the darkened hallway into this gilded shell, she’s acted perfectly, slipping into her role with a practice born from years of training.
She’s meek, submissive, and almost invisible. Well, she would be, if she didn’t look so fucking delicious in that whorish scrap of fabric classed as a dress. And practically every man in this place thinks so too. My Devil whispers in my head that there will be more eyes than just Frenchy’s getting removed from their sockets before the night ends. I glance at the back counter of the bar, the ornate chandeliers highlighting the curve of a metal melon baller and catching my attention. Why the fuck a bar has a melon baller, I’ll never know. Pretentious fucking pricks.
“Hey, kid,” I address the boy behind the bar as he places my whisky on a gold coaster in front of me.
“Give me that,” I demand, pointing to the stainless steel, fruit scoop. He doesn’t bat an eyelid at my request, quickly turning to retrieve the melon baller before setting it next to my glass. He then turns without making eye contact and walks to the other end of the bar to serve someone else. I feel Cal tense at my side as I pick up the whisky and down it in one. Before the empty glass hits the counter, I smile to myself as I feel the metal scoop digging into the waistband of my tailored trousers. What can I say; I’m a killer and a thief.
“Let’s mingle,” I say with a smile on my face, the simple act of stealing from The Kingdom giving me
a childish high.
We make our way around the large gold chamber, ignoring the stares of those in attendance, yet I’m aware of every person in this place. I watch as masters and their property move through an arch covered with dark gold, velvet drapes. Steering Cal in that direction, I warn her, “This looks like where all the action is, so stay by my fucking side.” Then, with more force than necessary, I pull back the curtain for her to walk through with me close behind.
This side of the curtain is completely different to the bar. Everything in here is blood red, including the candle sconces on the wall that drip with hardened wax. The effect is gory, and a fitting backdrop to the many scenes taking place around us.
This room is for public displays of any and every lewd act you can think of, including sex, beatings and blood play. Unwilling blood play.
Here owners use their property for demonstration or allow others to test out potential acquisitions. Sex and the coppery tang of blood thicken the air, the stench vile, but my Devil loves it, wanting more than anything to come out and play. His eyes feast on the debauchery, his tongue licking over his teeth in anticipation and my skin feels raw with the burden of trying to contain him.
I’m not here to kill.
Not tonight.
Cal senses a change in me and steps closer to my side, that or she seeks my comfort. Is she searching for protection from the horrors taking place in this room? Horrors that were once forced on her.
“No fucker will lay a finger on you, got it?” I vow, my lips running across the side of her brow into her hair, my words bursting with latent anger, and with the need to tear out throats and carve out hearts.
She relaxes into my side, and I continue scanning the room. There are around fifteen or so Kingdom members here, each with at least one acquisition, some with two. That’s almost forty people engaging in sex and torture in a blood red room that’s part of a secret trafficking market in the centre of Paris. The world is carrying on outside of this place, unaware of the ugly horrors that happen right underneath their noses in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Everyone here is revelling in their pathetic fallacy of power. Their wealth and membership allow them to decide whether a person lives or dies, whether they experience unbridled pain or pleasure. It’s a heady drug, especially for all the sick fucks in this room.
Except him.
One man stands alone in the shadows at the edge of the room. His eyes are flicking over the scenes around him but never landing too long. His posture is relaxed, yet aware until his gaze lands on two men using two young girls across the far end of the room. I watch him rise to his full six-foot-something height, his muscles bunching underneath his expensive suit. I turn my gaze from the man to the act that has got him so riled and attempt to remain relaxed as I watch it unfold.
One man is in his early fifties with a receding hairline that he tries to cover up with a comb-over, and a paunch that hangs over his waistband. His accomplice is slightly younger and far leaner than his counterpart, his harsh features pinched into a leering grin as he backhands one of the girls for not performing adequately. With a hand in her long auburn hair, he pulls her up to her knees, wrenching her slim neck back before he growls something at her and then spits in her face.
Satisfied with himself, he releases her forcefully, and the redhead girl drops heavily down onto her hands and knees. Righting herself quickly, she proceeds to lift the spread thighs of the girl tied up at her feet. Strapped around the redhead’s pelvis is an appendage that is shaped like a cock but is grotesquely large and twice the size of an average penis with a broad, bulbous head. Nobody would choose to use this for pleasure, the size alone indicating its only purpose is for pain.
I force myself to watch as the redhead jabs her hips against the other girl’s bare sex. The size of the thing strapped to her hindering her entrance, and the shaking of her legs signifying her fear. My eyes flick to the prone girl’s face. Her eyes closed, her face blank, her mind turned off from everything that is happening to her young body. Her small breasts are gold covered like all other property here, but that doesn’t hide the blood trailing down from her nipples where it looks like she has been bitten. With each thrust of the other girl’s hips her small body jolts, but her features never flinch once. I’m so absorbed with her face that I almost miss the moment the thin man grabs the redheaded girl once more. His hand tears at her scalp, the small girl crying out in pain. With his other hand, he grips her by the throat and shakes her, the fat man at his side smiling with enjoyment. Then with brutal force, he punches her in the stomach, buckling her body in two and tossing her away. The gruesome cock strapped to her body rigidly bounces against her torso when her small frame hits the floor.
The fat man laughs at the crack of her bare spine hitting the ground.
He laughs because he’s just watched a girl of no more than thirteen or fourteen try and fail to fuck another girl not much older than her with a device meant to harm. He laughs because she is tossed away like trash, and a sick gleam fills his eyes when the thin man approaches the redhead with a knife.
Even though Cal is at my side with her eyes downcast, she can still feel my body prepare to attack.
“Don’t.”
One word spoken through soft lips and a plea for me to remain calm.
An appeal I’m about to ignore as I watch the thin man pull back the hand that holds the knife, ready to strike.
I know my actions will put Cal in jeopardy, but I am unable to hold back. I will not stand here and watch a small girl get gutted before me.
As my muscles bunch, ready to attack, a blur of movement blindsides the thin man and the stranger from the shadows appears at his side. He doesn’t speak to the thin man, doesn’t tell him to stop, instead, with lightening quick reflexes he disarms him by breaking his wrist.
The thin man’s scream echoes out across the blood red room, yet nobody comes to his aid. The fat man takes a few covert steps away from his accomplice, backing himself against the wall to avoid the stranger’s attention. The thin man scuttles back, almost tripping over the tied girl at his feet, his injured arm held tightly to his chest. His snarl as he yells threats at the stranger is nothing more than posturing, trying to save face, knowing he’s out of his league. He may be able to bring a small girl to her knees, but this stranger outmatches him.
I edge closer to the men, trying to catch the words traded, wanting to know who this stranger is, and why he stopped this event when there are equally corrupt acts happening all around this room.
“Stop,” Cal whispers as she tugs on my arm, halting my movements. “He is one of the Kings,” she adds so quietly I think I’ve misheard her.
As if he’s aware we are talking about him, the stranger turns his head and stares directly at me. His steely eyes lock with mine, his familiar jaw tightening with recognition.
He knows who I am.
And I know him.
The man in the park with his daughter.
The second son born of the late Lady Renshaw.
James Renshaw.
A brother to the long-dead Henry.
Before I can make a move towards him, my instincts screaming at me to claim him as a trophy, he turns, nods to the Russian who appears from nowhere to stand at his side, and then leaves.
Gone.
“Follow him. Kill him. End this,” my devil demands. But once more, the angel at my side stops me.
“It’s time to leave,” Cal whispers.
I look back to the thin man, his neck now clasped in the Russian’s meaty grip as he all but drags him from the room and out of a side door. The fat man almost pisses himself with the relief of having escaped any fury, and my eyes catch on the two young girls who have been joined by two more. They unbind them both, the redhead from the contraption around her waist, the other girl from the ropes around her arms and torso, and lead them from the room.
“We must leave while we can,” Cal insists once more, and this time I listen.
I listen because for the first time in what feels like forever, I’m confused by my need to slaughter.
James Renshaw or James Cooper, whatever-the-fuck he calls himself now, deserves to meet Missy. He’s top of the list of five who will die before The Kingdom falls, but another voice inside me wants answers, not only blood.
Who the fuck am I if I seek words before blood?
Henry.
No. I am Grim.
I reap.
I rejoice in the death of others.
I serve an irrevocable justice.
And I enjoy it.
I am Grim.
Henry is long dead.
Calliah
That man, one of the Kings, means something to Grim.
I felt it in his conflicted emotions.
He wanted to kill him.
He wanted to know him.
He battled with himself and the tumultuous feelings churning through his mind. It was evident in his jerky movements, and his almost stumble as we left the display room. Grim is always graceful, even when his control seems to slip. He’s like a panther, sleek, stalking and deadly.
But, right now, he’s fragmented and choppy, caught adrift in stormy waters, barely clinging to who he is and what he wants. The way he holds onto me has changed from ownership to anchor. He’s using me to ground him, and I accept the role willingly.
Everything changes when we enter the exit hallway.
“I’ll give you one million Euros for her,” an accented voice calls out to our backs as we approach the external door, the hallway in front us empty, the Russian from before not around to see our departure.
Grim stops and stiffens, and I feel it. I feel his control return, his body tightening at the voice, his hand on my arm squeezing once before releasing me to turn back and face the man who approached us earlier at the bar.
“And I’ll be fucking generous and give you one last chance to leave,” Grim threatens in return, but I can hear the smile on his face when he issues the warning. He doesn’t want the other man to leave.
