by Esme Devlin
The crowd gasps. My mouth drops open.
Dark pulls his head up by the hair and wraps one thick forearm around his neck.
Timber claws against him, but the man is immovable, barely breaking a sweat while he holds him there.
He chokes and tries to splutter.
His eyes bulge and it’s horrific.
I glance at Dark and find him staring straight at me, a smile growing on his lips as the seconds tick by.
Only when Timber stops moving does Dark drag his eyes away from me. He stands up and turns around to face the roaring crowd.
Maxim approaches the cage, a sadistic grin on his face, and when he throws the keys to Dark, my stomach drops to my feet.
It feels like being thrown into that glass tank of water.
It’s really happening.
They weren’t joking or putting on a show.
They really are throwing me to the wolves. Again.
This wolf, the wolf that’s crossing the small cage toward me.
He leans down, reaching around to get to the padlock, and I smell blood and sweat and something else.
Baron?
My arms drop to my sides, and I gaze up at him.
I should know him. I should be able to recognize him. And I should be able to smell him.
It smells like him.
Something flashes across his face.
Frustration?
Anger?
I’m not sure, but I don’t get the time to process because he grabs me by the neck and forces me down onto my knees before I can blink.
I try to scramble up when I realize I’m kneeling across Timber’s dead body.
Dark Eyes shakes his head as he moves, a smirk tugging at his lips. I realize he’d be handsome if he weren’t so terrifying. There’s something about his eyes, like pools of spilled ink, that renders me immobile.
I know I should be struggling. Scrambling. Kicking and screaming. But I’m frozen.
For a second, I forget I’m naked in the middle of a cage, in the middle of a ring, hundreds of pairs of eyes on me.
I forget about it all.
I’m supposed to be building the castle inside my head where bad men can’t do bad things to you, but I can’t get it to form. It doesn’t work anymore.
But I don’t know if I need it. I think this man—this man who I’ve never seen in my life before—I think he’s Baron.
He takes me by the hair and turns my body so he’s the one facing the crowd, and so the only part of my body they’ll see is my back.
He puts his hands down his shorts, and I notice, for the first time, the dark hair that trails down from his abdomen.
That’s one part of his body I have seen.
I’m not scared.
It’s him.
And then he pulls his cock out of his shorts, and I see something that has the blood in my veins turn to ice.
It’s not him.
And I didn’t even put up a fight.
39
Baron
My cock is still fucking raw, but I don’t let it stop me as I slide all three of the horizontal bars into her mouth.
I feel her body tense up as the realization dawns across her face.
That is when the struggling truly begins.
For a moment, I was convinced she knew it was me. There was a tiny bit of light in her mismatched eyes, and even though that might have pleased me, I knew I had to extinguish it quickly.
Is there a part of me that enjoys seeing her in distress? Well, maybe. Probably. But I am not doing this purely for the pleasure of it. I’m doing it because it must be realistic.
If Maxim suspects—even for a moment—that something is amiss, the whole thing would fall to pieces. I am locked in a cage and completely unarmed.
One shot and I’d be dead.
The thought of it makes my cock even harder.
My sweet girl’s hands don’t know what to do with themselves. She switches from trying to claw at my wrists—to free my fist from her hair—to attempting to push back against my thighs when I hit the back of her mouth.
But her strength is no match for me.
She feels exquisite. Divine.
I have missed her.
I have missed this.
I pull out and force her chin up so I can look into her eyes. She squeezes them closed while her bottom lip trembles, and it’s the most beautiful thing I ever set eyes on.
But I cannot dally long. I cannot revel in her reluctance.
We have a job to do. I must get her away from this cave, somewhere safe, someplace where she cannot be used against me when Maxim realizes what’s happening.
I once killed a man just to prove to her that I’d never take her by force. And now that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
But I must get this over with quickly.
With my free hand, I trace her bottom lip. My thumb slips inside her mouth, and I yank her jaw down before slipping myself inside her.
I take every inch of her throat and watch her body stiffen as she realizes she can’t breathe. Both hands hold her head in a vice.
Her stiff body begins to shake uncontrollably.
She was pushing before, but now her hands are thumping against me.
She bites down, hard, and I wince in pain.
“Trust me,” I mouth the words with my head down, hoping nobody will be able to see them—except her.
Something flashes in her eyes. She knows it’s me. She stops fighting for a second, but it doesn’t matter because her body will fight all by itself soon enough.
She won’t be able to stop it.
I look up at the roof of the tent. Better than looking down at her.
Panic mode sets in, and I grit my teeth as she tries to bite down again. As she tries to get her knees out from under her, tries to stand up, tries to run away.
I start to crouch down, taking her head with me, cock feeling like it’s about to fall off as the strength leaves her body and she shakes and convulses.
Only when my head is at such an angle that nobody could see my lips moving, seconds before the fight goes out of her completely, do I speak.
“I’m sorry, my sweet little girl. It’ll all be over soon.”
Her eyes flick up to meet mine, and a moment later, the lights behind them go out.
40
Sapphire
I wake up in a vehicle, blankets wrapped around me and a seatbelt holding me into the passenger seat.
The first thing I do is check who is driving.
“You… you saved me?”
The masked face looks down at me, and I hear the sound of his hollow laugh through the thick layer of metal. He rests his elbow on the window ledge and trains his eyes back on the road. “Saved you? No, my sweet naive girl. I merely found out you have something which belongs to me and decided that I would very much like to have it back in my possession.”
“I know you don’t mean that,” I tell him.
Another laugh. “Perhaps. Perhaps you know too much for your own good.”
I try to sit up and the seat belt locks. Baron lets out a sigh before reaching over and pulling on it slowly. “Do you ever take notice of anything I teach you?”
“Excuse me for not thinking clearly. I appear to have been unconscious for quite some time.” I use the same passive tone he uses with me.
He chuckles. “A necessary evil, I assure you.”
“What happened?” I ask him as I look around into the back seats and find them empty.
“Oh, you don’t remember? I held you down and fucked your throat rather violently,” he says as casually as if he were describing the scenery of the roadside.
I remember all of that. And I remember the way he looked while he did it. I turn around to face him. Why is he still wearing the mask?
I’m about to ask him, but it’s as if he sensed the question on my lips because he cuts me off. “After that, I took you to the room assigned to the winner. I imagine I would have been shot in the
head there—no thanks to you and your wagging tongue for telling them about my games—and that is when Andrei and my men stormed the entrance, killing and maiming as they saw fit.”
“What? What about Ruby? And where is Scout?” I hold my hand against my mouth. “Denim?”
Regardless of any part Denim has had to play in all this, he’s always been like a father to me.
“Those three, specifically, are fine,” Baron replies. “Ruby is with the other girls. They will work for me now. Scout, the little shit, wanted to ride home on his scrambler. I offered Denim a job with me, and he accepted. I thought you might want to keep him.”
“Thank you.”
He waves his hand away.
“What about Maxim?”
I watch him as his fingers grip tighter on the steering wheel. “Maxim escaped.”
“He has tunnels,” I tell him. “I could have shown you, if I wasn’t…”
Baron tuts. “Hindsight is such a pointless thing. You were exactly how I needed you to be.”
“Unconscious?”
“Yes,” he replies flatly. “I feel your presence like a magnet, Sapphire. I had no time for distractions or explanations. You weren’t scared. You weren’t in pain. You were lost in a peaceful sleep. I’d do it all again.”
There’s a long silence while I think of something to say to him. I could tell him I’m glad he came for me. I could tell him I missed him. I could tell him how I feel about him.
But I think somehow he knows all of that better than I do myself.
So instead, I ask him, “What happens next?”
“We go home,” he replies. “And I don’t intend to leave again.”
“Home.” My hand curves around my still-flat stomach, layers of blankets separating it from the tiny piece of us that grows inside. “Will things be different?”
I hope he knows what I mean by that. Things have changed between us. Now I know the monster under the mask. I know that there isn’t a monster there at all.
I’m still not sure exactly what he is. But I know he’s nothing like I imagined the first time I was wrapped in blankets, sitting in this very spot.
“That depends entirely on what you mean by different,” he says. “Will I allow you to return to my bed? Yes. But will I stop tormenting you? Will I cease my games? My fascination with making you scared of me? Will I show my face and pretend I am just a man who isn’t wicked, and you are just a girl who loves me? No. No, I don’t think I will.”
I let out a laugh and shake my head. “I never expected you to.”
He reaches over and takes my hand in his before bringing it up to the smooth metal that covers the place where his lips should be. “Clever girl.”
41
Sapphire
I get the feeling that I’ve lived this before as we pull up in front of the house and the guards standing at the entrance dutifully turn their backs.
Baron circles around the car before unclipping my seatbelt and lifting me into his arms. I lean my head into his chest, feeling a damp patch from where his wounds are seeping into his clothing.
“You’re hurt.” I lift my cheek so as not to irritate the wounds anymore as we walk inside.
“And your face is uncovered. Keep your head down, sweet girl, else I’ll smear it with my own bloody shirt.”
I have nothing to say to that so I simply do as he tells me. No small part of me is pleased that I can return to being the little doll again. Safe in his arms.
Well, safe from everyone but him, at least.
We make our way through the large building, up the stairs and along the narrow corridor where the sounds are carnal, and up again until we get to his room.
This place is different. Same bed, same strange artwork, but before where it used to taper off into darkness there is now a wall with a door there.
Do I even want to know what’s behind it?
He puts me down in the middle of the carpet and shrugs off his jacket. When his fingers slip under the hem of his shirt, he hesitates, watching me with eyes that I can’t see but can feel.
I swallow, wondering if I should say it or not. I decide I should. “I’ve seen it before,” I tell him. “All of it.”
He tilts his head to the side and surveys me for a moment. “Indeed, you have.”
“You don’t want me to see it again?”
He sniffs audibly. “In truth, I haven’t yet decided.”
“Why?” I ask him. Then I remember to always say what I mean. I don’t care why he doesn’t want to show me. I want to know why he can’t show the world. “Why do you always cover your face?”
“That is a—”
“Complicated question with an even more complicated answer,” I finish for him.
He chuckles and then shrugs. “Laborious was the word I had in mind. It’s beyond your bedtime.”
I shake my head. “I’m not tired.”
He takes a step toward me, and I already know what he’s going to say before the words leave his lips. “Would you like for me to tire you out?”
“With conversation? Absolutely.”
He chuckles, taking another step closer. “Celeste told you everything, yes?”
“She did.”
“And?”
“And what?”
He stands next to me, taller by a mile, bigger by a field, and so utterly still he could be carved in stone. “And I won’t have you thinking I’m good.”
I tilt my head and try to gaze up at him. “Good?”
“Good.”
“I don’t think you’re good,” I tell him, head shaking slowly. “I think you are slightly better than you pretend to be, and that is all.”
“See, I’m not entirely convinced I like that,” he tells me, running a finger along my shoulder. “In fact, I think I preferred it before. The world only sees what I want them to see, and I wanted you to be included in that world. But then I let you in. I took you to a place where it could be only the two of us. I told you things that I’ve never told anyone. And what did you do?”
“I didn’t leave,” I argue, shaking my head.
“Really?” He begins circling around and I try not to let it intimidate me. “So why then, am I covered in pricks with a shaved head and bars in my cock? Why are you naked under that blanket, why is your face not painted, why are there thirty new girls beneath us right now?”
“I tried to fight him—the man who took me away,” I tell him. “When Celeste told me, I didn’t want to leave.”
“Precisely.” He stops dead in front of me. “So it wasn’t your fear or my boy growing inside you that kept you here. It was Celeste and her words.”
“You’re saying it like it’s a bad thing. Why is it so hard for you to accept that I wanted to stay for you?”
“Because, sweet girl, that is not the version of me I’m offering you. Our children? Negligible. Our grandchildren? Possibly. That person—the person you stayed for—exists fifty years from now. But we will always live in this world right here, which means I will always be the monster in a mask, and you will always have to suffer through that.”
The man is impossible. Utterly and completely impossible. Why can’t he just accept it?
“Fine. You win. But I’m not leaving you.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
“Wrong answer.”
“Because I know it’s pointless.”
His hand clasps causally around my neck and my heartbeat picks up. “Better.”
“Because I—” He squeezes for a second, making me choke on the words. He releases his grip slightly, as if allowing me a moment to think. “Because I’m scared of you.”
The hand slips into my hair and yanks my head up. His free hand rips the mask off, and before I can blink, he leans down and claims my lips with a force that rips the air from my lungs.
His tongue takes control of my mouth, and I open my eyes because I can’t believe this is real. It’s not dark. The fire is lit—I can feel it
against the back of my bare calves. I can see him.
He pulls back, taking me by surprise and catching me with my eyes open. His jaw clenches and my heart skips a beat. He growls low in his throat and yanks the blanket off, ripping it away from me and throwing it down on the floor.
“So utterly terrified that you would dare to look at me, hmm?”
He wears his expression so plainly on his face. And it is a beautiful face. His skin is clear, the type of complexion that would be tanned if he sat in the sun for thirty minutes. Strong eyebrows sit over the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen, and the slight stubble does nothing to hide his prominent jawline.
“Is this really so bad?” I ask him.
His jaw ticks as he eyes me carefully. I see his eyes moving as he thinks, and it’s the strangest feeling. Like opening up one of those old electro-mechanical machines and seeing how all the moving parts work.
“I’m not going to make love to you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says, tone laced with arrogance.
I’m about to lift my eyebrow and tell him I never expected him to, in the same haughty tone he used with me.
But I stop myself.
Instead, I take a cautious step back and pretend there’s a lump in my throat the size of a strawberry that needs to be swallowed. “What…” I let my words trail off as I glance around the room. “What are you going to do me?”
Maybe if I can act scared enough, he won’t feel the need to hide himself all the time.
I watch his face carefully, pleased with myself when his eyes light up. A smirk plays on his lips as he matches my step. “Oh, you are a clever little girl tonight, aren’t you?”
There’s a tone to his voice that really does make a lump form in my throat. “What do you mean?”
“Pretending that I scare you as I am so I won’t keep the mask on. Clever indeed. You prefer me with this face?” he snaps.
“I have no preference.” I say the words too quickly for them to sound wholly truthful.
“Lies. Don’t lie to me. And don’t lie to yourself, either. We’re beyond that now.”
Do I prefer him without the mask? Honestly, I don’t care if he wears it for the rest of the world. I don’t care if he wears it ninety-nine hours in every one-hundred. But I don’t want for him to feel like he has to. Not with me. “I would prefer it if you took it off sometimes.” I try to keep my voice steady as I tell him the truth.
