Survival

by J Marie

  “My previous threat still stands. I will not tell you again.”

  My heart was pounding in my chest as I tried to keep my breathing level calm. With easy movements, I gently dropped my hands to the side and clenched my fists until I felt my nails bite into my palm.

  “There’s a good girl,” he drawled, his fingers reaching down to clutch my chin in a gentle, yet possessive grip. I turned away from his touch, shivering in disgust, but his hand refused to release me. “So beautiful … and so mine.”

  Don’t fucking touch me.

  “Now, would you rather leave here naked, or would you prefer clothes?” he asked.

  I exhaled a heavy annoyed breath as I stared off to the side. “Clothes.” I sighed.

  He then slowly leaned down and tapped the side of his right cheek with his forefinger, a smart-ass smirk on his lips as he looked down at me. Anger seethed through me as it became clear he was enjoying this little game as his mood improved every time he put my resourceful king in check. I felt like just Mike Tyson’ing it and biting his whole damn ear off, but I didn’t think that would end well.

  So I swallowed my pride and raised up on my stupid fucking tiptoes toward his stupid smug face, but just as I was about to drop the quickest, tiniest peck in the world, he suddenly grabbed my chin, holding it in place and kissed me on the lips hard. Shock sparked through my body, causing me to immediately withdraw from his advance, but his tight grip on my chin refused to allow any such movement. He held me there for only a second before releasing me and standing back to his full height.

  “Sorry.” He smiled with a shrug. “Couldn’t resist.”

  I scowled at him as he held up the little red nightie in front of me.

  “Arms up,” he ordered.

  I felt extra vulnerable doing so, but I did it anyway and let him slip the pretty red fabric over my head. The feeling of the material felt strange but in a good way. It was soft and silky, the fabric loose yet tight over my body, and I quickly wrapped my arms around my torso, hoping to permanently mend the cloth to my skin. The owner just gave me another one of his twisted little grins.

  Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his phone and clicked something on it. There was a slight beep that came from the collar and I had a feeling he had activated something in it, signaling the beginning of my prison sentence.

  “These cuffs, the ones on your wrists and ankles,” he said, still holding out his phone, “contain extremely strong magnets, that when activated, cannot be pulled apart unless they are deactivated. Let me show you.”

  He pushed another button on his phone and instantly, my wrists and ankles were pulled together by an invisible force so strong and fast, I didn’t even have time to fight against it. My balance was almost lost when my ankles came together, nearly falling over, but the owner’s arm reached out to catch me before I could hit the floor. Panic then ensued me.

  I pulled and twisted my limbs, trying to free them from the force that bound them together, but they would not budge. He chuckled at my obvious annoyance and struggle. He pushed the button again and freed my wrists and ankles.

  “The collar around your neck contains a very high-tech GPS signal that pinpoints your exact location at all times. It also transmits a signal to the server at my estate to alert me should you ever try to pass the perimeter I have set for you. I can enlarge the perimeter or shorten it any time, but that will depend on you. If you do ever manage to come too close to the perimeter boundary, you will receive a slight warning shock. Should you ignore the warning and continue past the range, you will have five seconds to return to the designated perimeter before you receive the full voltage. From what I understand, it’s not a pleasant feeling, so I would avoid it if I were you.”

  I suddenly felt dizzy, the walls around me beginning to shift as I realized I had just allowed myself to become microchipped with a fucking shock collar. So long as I wore this fucking thing, he would always know where I was. How the fuck could I escape from him like that? I felt nauseated as I tried to get a grip on the spinning room around me, my arm reaching out for the wall while my breathing become erratic as the promise of escape began to dwindle.

  And then I felt the warmth of the owner’s hands on either side of my face, holding me in place and keeping me steady.

  “Shhhh,” he said. “Calm down and breathe, Jaden. Everything is going to be fine. I’m going to take care of you.”

  I looked up at him in confusion. Take care of me how?

  “But not before you take care of me first.” He winked at me.

  Gross.

  “Now, whatever questions you probably have can wait until later," he said as he grabbed my arm and dragged me along with him out the doors of the office.

  We took the elevator down, and before I knew it, we were standing in front of a large metal door with a key code next to it.

  “Come here, Jaden,” he said, as he pulled me to his side. His arm slinked around my rib cage as he brought his phone out of his pocket. Seconds later, the cuffs around my wrists and ankles linked together and I felt myself lose my balance from the sudden shift, but the arm around my torso kept me from falling.

  “Look at me,” he said, putting his phone back in his pocket. Still secured in his right arm, I turned my head and looked up at him in intense bitch mode. “When we exit this door, there will be no screaming or fighting. No one will hear you for miles, and if anyone did happen to hear you, the snipers around this building would shoot them on sight. Do you understand me?”

  Snipers? There were snipers surrounding the building? Shit, I hadn’t a chance in hell of escaping this place alive. The realization suddenly made me shrink inside all over again.

  “Jaden?” he warned, unhappy with my lack of response.

  “Yes, I understand.” I sighed.

  “Good girl,” he said and then bent down and lifted me over his shoulder before exiting the building. I groaned in irritation. I hated being carried. I was a grown-ass woman with two working legs; I could fucking walk.

  Warm air hit my skin, and I shielded my eyes with my arms from the intense brightness of the sun even though it seemed low in the sky. The owner kept a secure arm around my legs as he walked us down a cement path. I turned my head back to see a long sleek black limo waiting for us.

  I didn’t linger on it long as I quickly looked around to take in my surroundings. We had exited a huge building that resembled a warehouse. A shit ton of trees surrounded the area, but my stomach instantly dropped a thousand feet when I suddenly realized what stood among them.

  “Palm trees?” I said aloud to myself.

  There were no palm trees in Michigan, not even close. So how the fuck had I ended up in a place with palm trees?

  “Where are we?” I said a little stronger than I should have.

  “Be quiet, Jaden,” the owner replied sternly.

  I turned back around, irritated with my lack of answers, and then suddenly noticed something black move about the roof.

  That was when I noticed the guard with the rifle in his hand.

  Goddamn, I had no hope in this situation, but somehow, I doubted the owner would let them shoot his new piece of property if I tried to run now.

  Being bent over his shoulder like this, I wanted nothing more than to rise up and gouge out both his eyes with my thumbs, but I knew that was a sure way to get shot by the guard. And even then, what was I going to do afterward? Somersault my ass home? Not likely.

  Once we got to the limo, he hurled me inside and I landed on the far end of the seat. Following quickly behind me, I tried to scramble away from him, but he grabbed my hair roughly and yanked me down to the floor, placing me on my ass between his legs. With my back against the bottom of the seat and my ass firmly planted on the floor, I looked up and noticed his knees were above my head by an inch or two. Fuck, that made me feel small.

  His hand wrapped firmly around my hair and twisted it around his thick wrist, tightening his hold on me. “Relax, Jaden,” he said from
behind me as the limo began to pull forward. I tucked my knees to my chest and tried to calm my heartbeat as his grip loosened a little to play with the strands and comb through them with his fingers.

  “Were are we going?” I asked, trying not to sound too irritated.

  “I told you. Home.”

  “And where is home?” I continued.

  “Wherever I say it is,” he replied with a warning in his voice.

  I blew out an annoyed sigh through my nose and tried to relax. He wasn’t going to divulge any information. I would have to figure it out on my own.

  “You were quite impressive back there, by the way,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I replied, not giving a fuck.

  “You should have seen the faces of all my clients. I’ve never seen so many jaws drop from a single woman in all my life.”

  I made a small noise of approval. “I’m glad they enjoyed the show.”

  “But that’s when the price for you really spiked, you know. They desperately wanted a piece of your fury,” he said, smiling. “Would you like to know how much you cost me?”

  “Sure,” I said. I really was curious.

  “Three million,” he replied.

  Damn.

  “Why bother paying for me at all? It’s your business. You can obviously do whatever you want with your merchandise,” I said bitterly.

  “Yes, you’re right, I can. And I chose to legitimately pay for you because you don’t fully own something without purchasing it first, now do you? Plus, I didn’t want my loyal clients to think I was abusing my power.”

  I scoffed at his response. “But you abuse your power every day.”

  “There’s a difference between abusing one’s power and simply taking advantage of a profitable situation,” he dejected.

  “Oh, is that what you do? Take advantage of the vast and growing market for sex slaves? Make a killing for yourself by preying on the vulnerability of the less fortunate?”

  I felt a sharp tug on my hair as he roughly twisted my head to the side. “You’d do well to keep your little misconceptions to yourself from now on. I couldn’t give a fuck less about what you think of me or my business dealings, so don’t waste your breath. Just do as you’re told and you might turn out to be the best investment I’ve ever made.”

  “And just what kind of investment am I supposed to be?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Ya know, I don’t see the point of taking on such a risky investment. You realize I’m just going to kill you one day, right? And I won’t stop until I do.” That was bold threatening him like that and giving away my intentions, but I needed to know what else was going on in his thick skull.

  I felt the grip on my hair tighten even more as he slowly leaned down, his warm breath tickling my ear and sending goosebumps down my spine.

  “You must have me confused with someone who sees you as a threat,” he said smoothly. “Don’t make that mistake because you’ll just end up getting hurt.”

  “And I wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking I’m not. All I need is a pen and I’ll have you bleeding out all over the goddamn floor,” I spat menacingly.

  He quickly jerked my head awkwardly to the side, sending sharp little pains down my neck. I felt his lips on my ear as his nose inhaled against my skin.

  “And all I need to kill you is one fucking hand,” he seethed as his other hand quickly shot to my throat and squeezed. Both my hands instantly went for his forearm, attempting to pull him away to no avail with my wrists still locked. My oxygen wasn’t cut off completely, but it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable feeling. “You see? Even now, with your struggling, it makes no difference. I can do whatever I want to you simply because I’m bigger and stronger than you are. And whatever training you think you’ve had won’t mean shit against me. I’ll always win, Jaden, always.”

  I wanted to strangle him, but he was kind of beating me to the punch. I was shaking with so much rage, I thought I might actually combust from it.

  “But let’s just entertain the idea that by some incredible miracle you do manage to kill me. If my entire empire doesn’t find you first, my brothers certainly will. And after they’re done executing your entire family in front of you, they’ll make sure you spend the rest of your days as a drug addicted whore with a dependency for cock before they finally grant you some mercy in the form of a bullet to your head.”

  I suddenly felt cold, like someone had just bathed me in liquid nitrogen and I was about to shatter all over the floor of the limo. I didn’t even realize the tears that fell down my face after visualizing that threat, my absolute worst nightmare. “Now, is that what you want?” he asked me with a jerk.

  I wasn’t even sure I could make myself speak after that, but I somehow found the one word I needed.

  “No.”

  It barely came out as a whisper.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  He then released me with a jerk and sat back against his seat. I immediately sucked in air all the while coughing it back up as the tears continued to roll down my face. When I finally regained my composure, I sat back against the bottom of the seat and attempted to calm myself between my new owner’s legs once more.

  “Get it through your head, Jaden,” he said noticing my calm. “You’re mine now, and there’s no escaping it.”

  Not if I can help it.

  Chapter Two

  Welcome Home

  ~*~

  Goddamn, this woman knew how to piss me off and turn me on at the same time. Her strength was beyond sexy and her willingness to stand up to me made the thought of pounding her into the ground that much more desirable.

  With Jaden now sitting between my knees, I had never felt more at ease knowing she was mine. I couldn’t stop the grin that snaked across my face as I had watched this crazy bitch kick the shit out of my guards right in front of my clients and me. The rage on her face was crystal clear as she carefully analyzed her opponents before striking.

  I wasn’t kidding when I told her she was impressive. Her motions were fluid and strong, never wavering and not a single sign of hesitation. And damn, I had to give it to her—she was fast. She knew exactly what she was doing, and it was hot as hell. I had never encountered a woman with her kind of strength or skill before, and it further fueled my growing primal desires. It was one thing to fight a person; it was another to actually watch them. Even my dick was fascinated.

  I recalled looking around at all the drooling faces of the men, who were almost as twisted as I was, staring her down with a fierce hunger in their eyes. The thought of one of them touching her brought on a carnal rage from within me that demanded blood and pain. I could not let that happen. I would bury them all before they laid a finger on her.

  As Jaden had fought with all her might for her ridiculous idea of freedom, all I could think about was one word that blared in the back of my mind … mine. I wanted her fury. I wanted her strength. I wanted every goddamn inch of her screaming underneath me while I drove into her perfect body, claiming everything she had. And then, when I was done, I'd have her begging for more.

  I could see her face now, flushed with desire and need, my hand wrapped around her throat as I forced her to admit she belonged to me. She'd fight me at first, probably every step of the way, but she would soon come to realize who was in control. She would learn to fear me, respect me, and eventually … love me. I would twist and turn her mind until pleasing me was the only thing she craved. It was inevitable. It wouldn't be easy, but I loved the challenge in that. I finally found exactly what I had been looking for, and I wasn't going to wait one second longer to take it.

  I had honestly made up my mind last night.

  She was so unbelievably mine.

  I just wanted to see how much money she was worth to my clients.

  I had placed my bid for the auction during the last five seconds of the bidding and smiled when the alarm sounded, alerting the end of the bids. Pride and excitement had f
illed my chest as I watched the rest of the guards surround my new prize and escort her out of the showroom. I couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when she realized who she finally belonged to. It was priceless. The shock and sheer terror in her eyes as I had walked through the door would remain forever cherished in the back of my mind.

  I sat back and relaxed in my seat as I watched Jaden silently and covertly attempt to pull at her restraints. Her hands were hidden from me as they were tucked to her chest, but I knew what she was doing. The muscles in her arms and shoulders flexed every so often while her breathing pattern, though subtle, grew weary with agitation. She could fight with those cuffs all she wanted, but she was never getting out of them no matter how hard she tried.

  As I ran my fingers through the softness of Jaden’s hair, a small smile crept across my face as the wheels in my head began to turn, my desire for her surging to an all-time high. I had big plans for Miss Jaden Wilder, and my dick couldn't wait to get started.

  ~*~

  The car ride lasted about a half an hour, and for the entire ride, I paid close attention to the turns and the amount of time it took to reach them. I couldn’t see the roads from where I was sitting, but I could see trees. Many trees. Many palm trees.

  The piece of shit behind me was silent for most of the ride. He paid a lot of attention to his phone, but I knew he was watching me. I had stared down at the beautiful diamond cuffs, hating everything they represented, and had attempted to pull them apart every now and then, but their strength never ceased.

  The anxiety was getting to me now as I wondered how things were going to be as soon as we got “home.” What would “home” be like? Would it be nothing but dark dungeons for me? Or would my owner treat me to a gilded cage of luxury? Somehow, I didn’t think a man like him would live a life in the slums.