Tender Mercies

by Kitty Thomas

  She was sure if she wasn’t dreaming, the game was over and he’d fast-forward his plan to whatever the end goal was. She jumped again when he gently took her by the arm and led her to the sink.

  “Hold it under the water until I get back.”

  Minutes passed and he returned with an antiseptic spray and bandages. He shut off the water, towel-dried her finger, calmly sprayed the cut, and bandaged it. She watched him, staying quiet. He wasn’t yelling yet or punishing her, but that had to be next. Or soon. Maybe after he had his breakfast. She still didn’t understand why he’d dismissed William from breakfast prep if he wasn’t going to have her do it all.

  He inspected the bandaging job, tossed the packaging away, and said, “You’ll live. Go sit at the table while I finish cooking.”

  Then he went back to preparing the food as if nothing had happened. He took cheese and little ham cubes from the refrigerator to mix in the bowl with the eggs.

  She was shaking now, waiting for that shoe to drop. The pleasant behavior wouldn’t fool her. She’d seen it before. She’d never gotten away with a mistake before. He was waiting until after breakfast. Which meant there were all these minutes where the anticipation was just going to build higher, where she’d be in the panic place instead of the normal-level fear.

  He started humming when he poured the eggs into the heated pans on the stove, and she couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Please, this slave is sorry.”

  He stopped and looked up. “Sorry for what?”

  “Pulling away. This slave was only startled. It wasn’t on purpose. Will you punish her?”

  He made a face, and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut and waited it out. But she couldn’t stand not knowing what was coming.

  “You’re not in trouble, kitten. But we do have to do something about your speech.”

  Was she not allowed to speak ever? Or only when spoken to? She had spoken first. So maybe that was the bad thing. Would she be punished for that instead? She couldn’t ask now because if the answer was yes, that just added more punishment. Plus, maybe she was in trouble for not helping with breakfast now that she’d cut herself.

  He continued, seemingly oblivious to her inner struggle. “But you understand you are mine, and I can touch you any time I want. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Good girl.”

  She stopped breathing for a second. Those words she hadn’t heard in so long. He couldn’t know what they meant to her. How important they were to hear. Or maybe he did and it was all part of the plan . . . like what Lucas had done.

  “Is your hand all right to set the table?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  He pointed to the cabinets and the drawer with silverware. “Two plates, two glasses, and two forks and butter knives. Orange juice is in the fridge. You can go ahead and pour it.”

  She moved instantly to follow the orders, wondering who the other plate was for. Perhaps he had a lover? But were there free women on this island? Maybe he had a brother. Or maybe William ate breakfast with him. They seemed to have a conversational rapport. Hell, who knew how any other household on this island ran? She’d barely seen how Lucas ran his.

  A part of her thought, obviously, that he was feeding her, too. She erased that thought immediately because she didn’t want to start expecting good things here. It would just make it worse later.

  When he put everything on the plates, she was still standing there, not sure what to do. Starving, but not wanting to do something both stupid and embarrassing. Embarrassing she’d survive, but stupid would just get her hurt. She was his slave. Of course she wasn’t going to sit and eat at a table with him like a regular person. She couldn’t even remember how to be a regular person.

  He stared at her for a moment, then looked back to his plate. “Sit and eat. Eggs aren’t good cold.”

  Five

  Asher watched her from across the table as she ate. She was like a little mouse, so afraid and uncertain, as if he would take the food away at any second and scream at her for eating like he’d told her to. She’d been in his care only a couple of hours and already he wanted to kill Lucas.

  He’d known the situation was bad from the coarse way her previous master allowed the other men at the showing to talk about his slave without the merest hint of anger, as well as the way he’d handled her and the state she’d been in. Especially those bandages peeking out from under her hair. That had been a dead giveaway.

  And yet, having her here in his home, even for such a short period, he was suddenly overwhelmed with the reality and impossible state of the situation. She may never recover. Could he handle owning someone so damaged for the rest of her life or his?

  Now that he truly understood how serious the damage was, and he suspected he still didn’t grasp the half of it, he was even more convinced of his responsibility to her. But could either of them be happy that way?

  He felt bad for the way he’d had to treat her down in Lucas’s dungeon, but to show even a moment’s weakness would have been disastrous.

  Either party had forty-eight hours after the sale to change his mind. If Asher had given the impression he intended to be kind to her, the bastard would have stopped the sale. Lucas’s end game was Grace dead or so broken she couldn’t form a thought she hadn’t been given express permission to think.

  Whipping her right before the showing had been done deliberately to attract the type of brutal master he wanted to give her to, someone who would see her small remaining rebellion as an interesting challenge. Lucas could have just killed her, sure. But he liked money too much. If she could end up completely destroyed while his bank account got fatter it was win-win.

  It was impossible to imagine how she would survive out in the world and equally impossible to imagine how a slave this broken had a future with any of the other men on the island. Eleu was a hedonist’s paradise, and your average hedonist wasn’t known for his self-sacrifice.

  One thing was certain. Asher was going to have to get her on friendly speaking terms with personal pronouns. It made him cringe to hear her speak of herself in the third person as if she were some thing. The entire point of owning a slave, as opposed to a piece of furniture, was that they were a human being with thoughts and feelings and wants and needs. At least to his way of thinking.

  He finally put his fork down, having made it through the omelet. The muffin still sat on his plate. “Grace.” Her startled eyes rose to his. She did that every time he said her name, like she just couldn’t believe the word still existed in the English language.

  He sighed. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to be completely honest with me. I can tell when people are lying.” That was bullshit. He didn’t always know when someone was lying, but it was imperative that she believe it so he could get enough information to know how to proceed with her. He had a feeling some of her fear and uncertainty were partly his fault, however inadvertent that might have been.

  She just watched, waiting for the question.

  “I haven’t explained much to you yet or given you a lot of rules, and it occurs to me that this free-form way of dealing with you may be causing you added distress because you don’t know what to expect from me. Would it be easier if I laid things out and gave you some ground rules to work with for now?”

  Grace looked down at her plate, a tear trickling from the corner of her eye. She wiped it away quickly. If he could just get inside her head, it would be so much easier. He could guess some of it. Perhaps she was asking herself if this was a trick, if she was giving him ammunition to harm her. And he knew after the hell she’d just walked out of that no amount of soothing words would put her mind at ease. It would just take time. Watching her like this broke his heart, and he’d just brought her home. How many days, weeks, months could he go on living with someone with this level of fear toward him? Some fear turned him on, but they were quickly moving past the erotic zone.

  No one said atonement, howev
er weak the gesture, would be easy.

  “Kitten, answer me. Would you like some structure and rules?”

  Her hand was shaking as she put her fork down. “Please, don’t make this slave answer . . .”

  He got up and paced, unable to sit still. She flinched, and he hated that, but he needed to think and try to work out what was going on in her head. If he yelled and demanded, sure, she might comply, but she’d be more afraid. Maybe that was okay in the short term. Maybe she needed that firmness. Or maybe she’d lose the last little thread of her mind that was hanging on.

  He turned toward her, then. “All right. Clearly this isn’t working.”

  An almost manic look came over her. “Please don’t take this slave back, she’s very sorry. She . . .”

  He stopped pacing and stared at her. No matter what he did or said she was obviously going to anticipate the worst possible result. Asher crossed the floor and pulled her out of the chair. He gripped her arms, careful not to hurt her, but unable to stop himself from making sure she absolutely understood his meaning.

  “I will NEVER give you back to that monster. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Master. This slave . . .”

  “Stop.”

  She shut her mouth, her eyes filled with a terror he was sorry he had to put there.

  “No more third person talk. You are a person, not a car or a desk or a piece of paper. Yes, you’re my property, but you have an identity in there somewhere. I never want to hear you use the phrase: This slave or the word she when referring to yourself. You will use the words I, me, my. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, Master.” She was looking away from him now, looking so fragile and breakable that he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her trembling body against him and wrapping his arms around her.

  She held herself rigid for what felt like eons. Finally, something inside her seemed to uncurl and her body relaxed against him.

  “Are you finished with your breakfast?”

  She nodded, and he suspected she didn’t trust her voice to speak. That was okay. The main concern on his mind was taking a look at what was under those bandages to see exactly how bad Lucas’s last whipping had been. Asher took her hand and led her back up to her room.

  The closer they got, the more tension seemed to crawl back inside her. He took a deep breath and looked her over when they arrived in the brightly lit room. It was a testament to how bad off she was that he was only now noticing how her erect nipples pushed against the fabric of the strappy, cotton top she’d chosen to wear.

  The only reason she wouldn’t wear a bra would be if the straps against her back hurt too much. Perhaps another type of slave, who hadn’t been so utterly broken, would have gone bra-less with a different intention. But Grace didn’t seem to have the presence of mind or even the desire to seduce.

  Looking at her now, he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist her. And why should he? He’d paid good money for her. She had no rights except those he chose to give her. If circumstances had been different and he’d been the one to meet her online instead of Lucas, she’d be horny and willing. He knew he wasn’t an unattractive man. But Grace was too scared to want him, and he didn’t know how to move her out of that frightened place and into one where he wouldn’t feel like a monster for taking what was his to take.

  He hadn’t thought he’d have a mental war between law and ethics on his hands. It had seemed like a simple enough transaction at the time. He didn’t regret the choice, yet it wasn’t as simple as the fantasy of rescue.

  Asher stood back, assessing, trying to figure out how to do this without freaking her out more. Her arms were crossed defensively over her chest, and she was looking at the floor. So quiet. What had she been like before coming to Eleu? How much of her identity had Lucas destroyed forever, and how much could Asher bring back?

  “How long did you talk to Lucas online before he convinced you to come here?” he asked. As he’d watched her, he’d become aware of the fact that while he knew how long Lucas had her, he wasn’t aware of the time frame leading up to it.

  “A year and six days.” Her voice came out so soft, like a whisper carried by wind. At first he wasn’t sure he’d heard her. It was only after the phrase was fully uttered that his mind was able to process it and feed it back to him as something coherent.

  “Fuck,” he said under his breath.

  Of course she jumped again. Everything he did made her jump. He wondered if he shouldn’t just give her a few days in the house free from his presence, let William bring her meals and see how that went. But somehow he knew such an action would only heighten her uncertainty. The sooner he could get her into a routine, the better.

  “Turn around.”

  Her eyes flew to his, questioning if she’d done or said something wrong.

  “It’s okay.”

  She still hesitated for a moment, but it was a quick moment. He couldn’t calculate how fast she must have flipped through the emotions of fear over what he would do to her when she complied and fear of what he would do to her if she didn’t. And there was no way to soften this or make it easier.

  Her golden hair fell in thick curls that ended right above the curve of her hips. He moved behind her and swept it over her shoulder.

  “Did he tell you pretty lies online for that year about how your life would be?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  He could hear the tears in her voice as she forced the words out of her mouth. Of course she must think he was toying with her, but he had to know how bad this was.

  “He made you believe you’d have lovely things and live kinkily ever after, didn’t he?”

  She hesitated a moment and then said, “Yes, Master.”

  Why the hesitation there? At that particular question? “But . . . ?” he said, leading her, hoping she’d reveal the impulse that had made her pause in her answer.

  “He said he wouldn’t be an easy master.”

  There it was.

  “So you believe all this is your fault? Everything he’s done to you? Because he warned you, and you still got on the plane?”

  She nodded.

  He wanted to tell her it wasn’t her fault but it seemed wasted verbiage at this point. She wasn’t going to believe anything he said right now.

  He sighed. Before he could talk himself out of it, he did what he’d made her turn around for. He took the edges of the top and lifted and pulled it over her head, tossing the fabric to the floor.

  Asher cursed under his breath. Her back was a mess. So many scars that would never go away to erase the memory of Lucas from her. And the new marks. They’d closed but they were still very red, probably quite tender. He winced, thinking of how he’d held her in the kitchen and how part of the reason she’d tensed might have been pain, not just fear.

  He was so morbidly transfixed by the awful sight in front of him that he didn’t notice the change in her breathing, the signals that her anxiety had peaked and they were moments away from a scene of epic proportions.

  “Please, Master, this slave is sorry . . .”

  There had been more she seemed prepared to say in her bid for mercy, but he cut her off. “Grace––what did we say about third person?”

  “I . . . I’m sorry,” she corrected.

  “Sorry for what?” He had his suspicions over what her litany of apologies was about, but he needed to hear it from her. The more he could get her to tell him directly, the less he had to play mind reader.

  “The . . . the scars. You paid money for . . . this sl . . . for me, and I’m marked.” It was a real struggle for her to shed the speech patterns Lucas had no doubt beaten into her. Asher wondered which scars had taught her the lesson he most wanted to undo.

  “Then isn’t that my fault? If I wanted you perfect and unmarked, should I not have inspected my potential property before acquiring it?”

  She was quiet for a long moment.

  “Answer.”

  “No, Master.”

  “
I shouldn’t have?”

  “Yes! This sl . . . I don’t know what you want from me. Please don’t hurt her . . . me.” Clearly unable to take the close proximity of the threat, she moved away from him until she was cowering in a corner.

  Oh no. He wasn’t having that. “Come here.”

  The tick of the wall clock seemed to be the only sound left in the world as she slowly moved back to him. With her top on the floor and no bra underneath, she was bare to his gaze, her hair having slipped behind her during her retreat. If she weren’t so broken, there were a million other things he could think to do with her right now, but he resisted, knowing how important it was to lay this groundwork now.

  When she reached him, he stroked the side of her face, trying to calm her and hoping Lucas hadn’t used a similar gesture when playing fake trust-building games with her. “I expect honesty from you. Never a lie. I will never harm you for telling me the truth, no matter how awful you think it is. Do you understand, kitten?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Good girl.” He helped her back into the top and could see the confusion on her face because he wasn’t touching her. He was pretty confused about it, too. And maybe he should touch her. He certainly was within his rights to. And he’d have to very soon, but not right now.

  “I’m going to ease you slowly in, but I am going to train you. And I will be firm. What I won’t be is abusive. Lucas sold you because he couldn’t really own you. He could break you, yes. But you never gave every piece of yourself to him. There are parts of you he could never touch. He said as much when I came for you and was standing out in the hallway. But you will give me everything. You won’t give it because you’re afraid of me. You’ll give it because you’re grateful and because you trust me. I don’t care how long it takes us to get to that point. But we will get there.”

  ***

  Grace was still processing everything he’d said. Part of her wanted to trust every word, but every time one part of her mind tried to let her, another part chastised her for being so stupid and falling into what must be a trap. What would happen to her when she couldn’t give him everything like he’d just said she would?