by Win Hollows
Fennimore stroked his other hand down her arm to where her hand was pressed in the vice. Reaching underneath, his fingertips fluttered on her sticky palm, sending shivers up the limb. “Are you ready?” he murmured against her lips.
She didn’t get a chance to respond as he tightened the screw again, forcing it further up into her flesh. He caught her scream in his mouth, forcing her lips to stay open as she rode the waves of pain out.
When her shrieks turned to pants, Grayson broke contact and moved back a few inches to whisper, “That’s a good girl. Sshhh, you’re alright. I’ve got you.” Streaks of dark red were left as he stroked her forearm gently.
His touches were so gentle, she almost thanked him, and that thought alone scared her as nothing else had.
A tear escaped to make its way down her bloodless cheek. It wasn’t the pain; the perversion this man was making of passion made her soul twist in objection. He was truly enjoying every moment of her agony, thinking it somehow bonded her to him. In a way, it did. It made her dependent on his every whim, on pleasing him. She could understand how, in a twisted way, two people might derive meaning or purpose from such a relationship. The dynamic might not be wrong in itself, but this man had carried it to a depraved place of true cruelty. She cried for the pain Madeline must have endured at the hands of Fennimore, but more for the disarray she was sure he had made of her emotions in such a perverse union.
Grayson pulled a piece of damp hair away from her forehead. “You’re doing wonderfully, Laura. Now you just need to tell me what happened to the print you took that night.” He searched her eyes for acquiescence.
Ironically, she had been trying to get ahold of the stupid thing too, and hadn’t been able to. He certainly wasn’t going to get it. “No,” she rasped.
His eyes turned hard. “I see we’re going to have to continue your training. You will learn respect, Laura. You’ve been given far too long a leash by well-meaning imbeciles, but I won’t tolerate that nonsense here.” He rose and walked over to the box on the nightstand. “I think it’s time to introduce you to another tool, since the vice is not enough incentive for one as stubborn as you.”
He removed a long, plain letter opener with a wooden handle encasing the metal on one end. Laura supposed he meant to prod her with it like cattle. She had never felt more sympathy for the beasts. He walked towards her, but didn’t stop, instead going to the fireplace with it. Angling it down into the crackling orange flames, he held it there, as if roasting something on the end of it.
Except he wasn’t going to roast a sausage or piece of cheese. He was going to roast her flesh with it. Laura closed her eyes and tried to stop herself from trembling as the tears came. It was no use. Her teeth chattered, and she accepted the she had no control of her body’s response any longer. She prayed in earnest, begging to be taken from this place before he could use the object in his hand.
“One should never underestimate the versatility of every-day objects,” Fennimore commented, turning the letter opener over to even the application of heat. His voice cut through her haze of terror from far away. “I discovered this particular use for letter openers on a delightful evening with Madeline the winter before last. It was a chilly evening, and the fire in my study was blazing away. I had called Madeline in without any real forethought, so when things became…heated, you might say, inspiration struck. There it was, just lying on the desk, and she was being so cheeky that night. It was beautiful, all the myriad ways we discovered for its use, but my favorite was the addition of heat. It can nip, singe, sear, melt right through your body altogether. I don’t think she’d mind if I let myself use it for nostalgic value on you.”
As he held it up from the flames for examination, the tip of the blade glowed a deep red in the darkness that had been deepening in the room. Laura grew nauseous looking at it. Though she knew it was futile, she began to struggle as he came closer with the implement, straining at her bonds for all she was worth. Her breath came in harsh gasps by the time he reached her.
“Please. Please don’t do this,” she whispered.
He pulled her chair towards the fire, scraping it noisily across the floorboards. Laura gritted her teeth as her hand was jostled. “That’s better. I can see your face now. It’s only fair to understand how you’re feeling throughout the process. Disengaging from your emotions would be robbing myself of half the experience, wouldn’t you agree?”
Squinting at the sudden brightness of the fire, she shook her head, struggling to draw air into her lungs. Her throat was closing in on itself.
Setting the letter opener on the mantel, he ran his hand over the top of her head and began to take the pins from her hair. Thick sections fell down until it all lay in heavy waves against her back. “I’d like to tell you that you can make it stop at any point by simply answering my questions, but I don’t think that would be in the spirit of honesty right now,” he told her. The roots of her hair were damp and stuck from sweat, and so he arranged the tresses around her shoulders himself.
Her scalp tingled in response to his ministrations, and it was tempting to take comfort in the careful movements while everywhere else, her body was taut as a tightrope. His fingertips carefully kneaded her hair into place and ran through the strands to smooth it. The contrast between his intentions and the care he took now was overwhelming to her frayed nerves.
He continued, “So I’ll ask you again in a few minutes, but, for now, I just want to enjoy this with you.” He gave her hair a final caress and then leaned against the fireplace mantel, grabbing the letter opener as he did so. “We’ll start slowly and then work our way up.”
Laura trembled. “Grayson, we could talk. Just talk about anything, anything you want to,” she pleaded.
His smile indicated no sympathy, and he didn’t reply. He placed the tip of the metal to her forearm briefly, causing her to yelp. He moved it away and then patiently watched as the spot developed a pink, shiny welt. Grayson touched it with a fingertip, causing her to wince. He placed the letter opener next to the first mark, but held it longer, causing a sizzling sound on her skin.
Laura didn’t try to hold in her reactions any longer. Nothing mattered but that it stop. She screamed until he lifted the metal up from her skin and saw that the metal had not left anything, but taken the top layer of her skin with it, leaving a small, arrow-shaped, oozing sore. “Stop! Please stop,” she sobbed.
Fennimore leaned down and cupped her face, examining her features. He let go to take a handkerchief out of his vest pocket and gently wipe her cheeks and nose from the results of her cries. “Ask me to stop again, the way I told you.”
Her thoughts were fogged, but she remembered what he’d said earlier. She hesitated, some part of her still unwilling to give him any amount of respect, knowing how he would take pleasure in her capitulation.
Grayson sighed and rose, sticking the blade into the flames again. Turned away from her, she still heard him clearly. “You’re so close, Laura. So close to a greater appreciation of what it means to truly acknowledge your place. It will make you happy to please me. You don’t yet realize how freeing it will be, submitting your will to mine.”
Laura’s teeth chattered, and she blinked to stop a drop of sweat from running into her eye. “Pleasing someone out of fear isn’t real,” she said shakily.
“I would disagree. I’ve had women beg to do anything I wanted, without any threats at all,” he told her, lifting the tool from the fire to examine it.
She looked up at the back of his head with derision. “After you’ve tortured them, perhaps. Doing whatever necessary to avoid pain is still fear. And if it’s done from fear, without a choice, it doesn’t count,” she said firmly. She was tired of his delusional logic. She wanted to upset his entire world and take away any happiness he derived from this. Her voice grew. “I’ll bet your precious Madeline never cared for your stupid games at all. She was just a terrified woman who ran away from you the first change she got.”
F
ennimore turned towards her with an expression of such rage, she instinctively shrunk back into the chair. He struck her with the back of his hand, causing lights to dance in front of her eyes.
She shook her head to clear it, but was still unapologetic. He deserved a dose of reality.
His features were twisted with anger as he ground out, “Never speak of my Madeline again.”
She could feel blood start to well in her mouth from his blow. “Or what?” she snarled. Laura imagined she probably looked rather gruesome at the moment. Why not add bloody teeth to the spectacle?
“I think we should find out,” he said. “Did you know that, if heated properly, this blade will melt right through your skin as if it were the softest leather?”
“Leather is skin, you idiot,” she told him. She wasn’t going to play at submission if he was going to hurt her anyways. The satisfaction in making him squirm was worth it if she was going to die anyways.
She would never see Remington Rothstone again.
The thought hit her like a ton of bricks, knocking the air out from her lungs. She was never going to hear his droll, teasing tone or harsh breath in her ear as he kissed his way down her neck. She would never see his dark eyes soften as he drew her close. And she would never feel his body straining against hers again, aching to be part of her and forcing her to choose him.
She would choose him if she could now. When it came down to it- to this, to the end- nothing else really mattered but being with the one person who made everything else worthwhile. Her life was a colorless landscape without him, and she had wasted what little time she’d had left being concerned with what other people thought. What was life without the kind of happiness Rem gave her? She watched Fennimore’s throat work with fury as he raised the glowing letter opener towards her midsection, and she vowed to herself that if she survived this, she would marry Remington with her dying breath.
Fennimore’s eyes blazed with wrath, and spittle escaped the corner of his mouth. “You still think you can speak without consequences. You’re nothing. You’re already dead, and you don’t even know it. Let’s see how brave you are after this,” he jeered, pressing the shining blade into her ribs.
Her flimsy day dress gave way beneath the heat and allowed the metal to slide its way into her skin. She discovered he had been right- it glided through her skin and in between her ribs like an oar into water, the scorching metal sealing her tissues around itself as it went.
The sound she made was inhuman- a noise she couldn’t fathom was coming from her own mouth. The pitch pierced the air and drowned out everything for a brief second. There was a blessed nothingness in the echoing void, as if the sound might be able to hold back the maelstrom of pain that threatened to swallow her.
And then every sensation possible came crashing down, overwhelming her mind with a flood of incomprehensible agony. White-hot pain shredded through her torso, scattering every thought but one:
Anything he wants.
Chapter 17
Froth grew around Gygsy’s mouth as he continued to fly down the road leading away from London. Rem patted the horse on the neck, calling out words of encouragement to the poor animal who had been running for far longer than was advisable.
But he couldn’t afford to let him rest now.
Laura’s life depended on it, and the thought caused his heart to quicken again. Ever since leaving Arberley with the direction of the Fennimore estate, his mind had been a roaring tempest of too much and not enough noise to drown out the panic of not reaching her in time. Gypsy’s hooves ate up the distance as fast as any thoroughbred could, yet he dreaded the time it was taking to reach his destination. Who knew what plans the man had for her, if he was desperate to leave no trace of his crime. Thoughts of her in pain, of Fennimore having her alone and doing something rash to ensure her silence tortured him relentlessly, his eyes barely registering the meadows and trees as they flashed by.
It was his fault.
All of this could have been avoided if he had been more diligent in protecting her, more ardent in securing her for himself. She would never have been alone with Fennimore if they were engaged or even married by now. She would have been safely ensconced at one of his estates or somewhere on the continent basking in luxury on their honeymoon voyage.
If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself.
It had begun to rain as the coal dusted haze of London fell behind him, not drizzling, but an abrupt downpour, as summer storms were wont to do. Within minutes, his greatcoat was soaked through, and he made the decision to shed the heavy thing in deference to Gypsy’s efforts, flinging it to the side of the muddy road. His own thighs ached from the punishing ride, so he could imagine his loyal horse’s fatigue as the miles went by. The rain added a new hell to this journey, each drop pelting him with sensations of drowning that he pushed down one by one.
Directing Gypsy to take the right-hand lane of the fork in the road ahead, he realized he wasn’t far from the Fennimore estate now, if Arberley’s directions were to be trusted. He urged his mount faster, promising the faithful beast rewards beyond his imagining if he kept his pace. Gypsy heaved with exhaustion, but did not slow.
Within ten minutes, the road branch off again to a narrow lane lined with beeches. They were very close. Eventually, a large, wrought-iron gate set into twin stone pillars appeared after a bend in the road. As they approached the gate to the Fennimore estate grounds, he pulled Gypsy to a halt and swung down to examine the unmanned entrance. His boots splashed into the mud, spattering his soaked breeches with further filth, but he took no notice. The gate was barred, but the fence on either side of the gateposts was no higher than Gypsy’s flanks, giving evidence to the conclusion that the gate was merely for appearance sake.
He alighted on his horse once more and took him back up the lane a few hundred feet. Then he turned and spurred Gypsy to a thundering pace, heading straight for the fence to the left of the gatepost. His heart sped along with the horse’s hooves as Gypsy prepared to jump, an exhilaration only to be found when riding the great black stallion. The fence approached, and Gypsy launched over the barrier, flying the both of them smoothly over the stone blockade. Rem felt Gypsy’s muscles bunch, extend, and then tighten again as he navigated the jump with the ease of a bird to flight instead of an exhausted equine who deserved a rest in a dry, warm barn.
Fennimore would have many things to answer for, but if he laid a hand on Laura….
Rem urged Gypsy over the manicured lawn and towards the manor house that sat near the top of the shallow slope. When his horse finally reared to a stop near the entrance to the manor, huffing steam in the downpour, Rem wasted no time. He gave Gypsy a quick pat on the neck and promised to be back soon to take him home. Bounding up the slick stone steps, Rem did not do the proper aristocratic knock, but grabbed the handle and wrenched the large door open, forcing himself past a stammering butler who didn’t seem nearly as upset as he should have been at such an entrance.
Rem grabbed the man by the cravat. “Where is she?” he growled.
The man gulped and didn’t bother with pretense. “Up-upstairs, to the l-l-left.”
Rem let the man go and drew the jack-knife he always carried in his custom-fitted boot. He looked up at the wide staircase interrupted by the landing on the second level. He raced up the stairs, taking them three at a time, and peeled off towards the left wing.
That’s when he heard it- a fierce, desperate scream coming from one of the rooms in the hallway ahead. His heart stopped. Laura.
Rem sprinted down the hallway to the door from which the cries were emanating. Unsteady light bloomed from under the door, suggesting a lit fireplace. Rem knew it was unwise to burst into a room with no plan or knowledge of what lay inside, but there was no time to think it through. He carefully twisted the knob as quietly as possible, and then shoved the door wide, hoping to surprise the occupants.
The scene which he entered into almost caused his knees to buckle. Ther
e was only one person in the small, sparse room, but the woman looked almost nothing like Laura. His lungs froze at the sight of her slumped in a wing chair next to the fireplace, her arms and legs tied tightly to it. The amount of red everywhere, from her body to the surrounding floor, was alarming. Her hand dripped blood in a steady patter to the boards and angry welts covered her other arm. There was a tear in the fabric of her gown in her stomach area, but he couldn’t see if there was any damage in his quick sweep of her person.
What concerned him the most was, however, was her face. Tears tracked down her cheeks, and he saw something that made his blood run cold: she had given up. Her eyes were flat and unfocused, not registering his appearance, and she panted in little, controlled gasps that were barely audible. Her features were slack, as were her limbs. The fight had left her God knew how long ago at the hands of the madman that resided here.
“Laura,” he whispered, stepping towards the chair. Suddenly, a sharp blow to his left temple sent lights flashing before his eyes as he stumbled to the floor. He tried to get up off his knees, but the room was dissolving into blackness. Laura’s slippered feet, the left spattered with blood, blurred into hazy colors. Rem knew he couldn’t let himself slip into unconsciousness, so he forced his eyes to focus on Laura’s visage, knowing he was her only hope now. Her eyes remained blank slates of clear emerald green surrounded by red rims.
After clearing the cobwebs from the corners of his vision, he did not rise up, as his attacker no doubt expected, but swept his leg out behind him in a lighting quick arc. His shin connected with the ankles of someone, who swore as they went down, crashing heavily to the floor. Rem rose up and turned to see Grayson Fennimore sprawled on the floor at the end of a four-poster bed with lilac coverings, grimacing up at him. Fennimore’s eyes were too bright, and Rem realized he was past rationality.
There would be no reasoning with this man- only subduing a killer.
