It did something to my body.
I stare into Owen's eyes. I see the bitterness, the resignation, the simmering hatred, and I know that he is telling the truth.
We are both—damaged.
No one enters the Palace and leaves with his body and mind intact. You are broken, partly or wholly it doesn't matter. You are no longer the same.
I turn my head to the side as Owen continues thrusting forcefully into me, pushing himself to the brink and then yanking himself back with an anguished bellow. He is forcing himself to go on endlessly. He is intent on fucking me raw, wanting our bodies to be joined forever. He sucks and bites me hard, tasting my blood and tears, and demanding that I cleave to him. But I don't. I can't. He can use my body for his own pleasure and vengeance, but I will never be his.
He goes on and on and on, pounding himself to exhaustion between my legs. But I don't feel anything anymore. I stare up at him with dry eyes, and watch his straining muscles throb and contract, his tanned skin glistening with sweat as he finally finishes with a hoarse yell. His body heaves and spasms violently and I feel his cock pulsing and jerking inside me, but nothing shoots into me. He continues moving, dragging out his orgasm, trying to last inside me.
Sweating and shaking, he collapses on top of me, his cock still embedded deep within me.
Breathing against my neck, he runs his tongue up and down the side of my neck. My face is turned away from him, and I don't respond to his caresses and kisses.
He holds my face in both his large hand, and kisses me hard on the mouth. His eyes are open and angry, glaring at me as he forces his tongue past my lips. He bites down on my lower lip, and sucks noisily. I taste my own blood, but I don't even blink as I stare up at him vacantly.
He begins to bite his way down my throat, shoulder, chest and finally clamps his teeth violently around my sore nipple. His eyes are on my face, as he licks, suckles and bites my breasts and nipples viciously, leaving teeth marks and bruises on my skin.
Grabbing my breasts, he pushes himself up, panting and swallowing. I meet his eyes unflinchingly, and I see his gaze harden as he looks down my stiff, bruised body. He has grabbed me, scratched me, pinched me, bitten me, taken me with so much force and violence that there are marks all over my body. His marks.
He must be very pleased with himself.
But there is no joy on his face.
“You didn't...come. You didn't feel any pleasure...with me,” he says at last in a hollow voice.
I swallow, but I don't confirm or deny his statement.
“You are mine now, Zoey,” he breathes angrily. “You are mine now. And you will be mine tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow! Mine forever!” With that, he grabs my neck and crushes his mouth against mine, kissing me and demanding that I kiss him back. “Love me, Zoey! Love...me!” Squeezing my wrists in his fists, he kisses me desperately, painfully. I part my lips, but my eyes remain open and staring.
With a sudden, sharp movement, he pushes himself off me and snatches a pair of handcuffs off the floor. He snaps one cuff round my right wrist and looks me defiantly in the eye as he cuffs me to him. Raising both our bound wrists in triumph, he smirks, “See this? We belong together. We will be together, forever! I am never letting you go. Never! You are mine, Zoey. Say it! Tell me that you are mine!”
I open my mouth but the words are lodged in my throat. I try again, but still the words refuse to come.
All I manage is a small, choking sound.
This seems to infuriate Owen. He takes my unwillingness or inability to articulate those three words as a sign of my defiance or evidence of my betrayal. He smashes his fist into the mattress inches from my head. His point has been made. He could easily, without breaking into a sweat, have smashed my face in.
“I. Will. Kill. Him,” he vows.
He turns to me with a savage glint in his eye. “You will never be mine as long as he is alive. Isn't that true, Zoey?”
I shake my head mutely. No. I will never be yours. Dead or alive. Even without Jaxon, I will never be yours!
“You are not leaving me. You will not leave me ever again, Zoey,” he swears. “If anyone touches you...” His scars ripple into a dark, murderous mask. I will kill him! And I will kill you!
I shudder under that cold, hard gaze and the deadly promise it holds. I have seen Owen slit a fellow Slave's throat with a shard of glass, in the middle of the Great Hall in the Palace. He has killed others with his bare hands, for the enjoyment and entertainment of the Emperor and Empress. I know what he can, and will do. I have no doubt.
He will kill me.
Sooner or later.
But he will kill Jaxon first. Brutally, recklessly, in a blind, jealous rage.
Careful to keep the horror from my face, I blink up at him and say, “I...I am yours, Owen.”
He blinks and jerks at my words, like he is just waking from a nightmare. Staring down at me in disbelief, he swallows repeatedly before asking, “What did you say?”
“I...am...yours.”
He smiles tightly. His words chill me to the bone. “Yes, Zoey,” he says in a voice which sounds too calm, too distant, too menacing.
“You will be mine—soon.”
His green eyes glitter with savage purpose as he takes me again, forcefully and roughly.
I can't help my whimpers of pain as he bruises and tears me violently. He seems intent on making me hurt, deepening my wounds, ensuring that the marks and bruises on my body will stay for a long, long time.
He comes again and again, dry heaving his way through his countless orgasms. And even though he cannot ejaculate into my body, I can feel the warm, sticky moisture between my legs.
He is made me bleed.
I see my blood staining the covers under me. Owen's crotch is smeared with my blood, but he seems to relish the sight. The sight of my blood coating his cock drives him even wilder.
He is relentless, remorseless in his lust.
He takes me like an animal, in his bed, on the floor, in the dark, in the dirt. He pounds me over and over, forcing my body to accept him, to take him, to want him.
Hauling me up from the floor, he throws me onto his bed. With one hand under my knee, he pushes my leg up against my chest, forcing me to open wider for him. He licks the blood from the inside of my thighs and then presses his blood-smeared mouth to mine.
The wild, crazed look in his eyes becomes even more intense as he tastes and swallows my blood. His eyes remain stark and open even as he kisses me and fucks me furiously. Never once does he close his eyes. His features don't soften with tenderness and love and pleasure. In fact, they grow increasingly harder and angrier with each grating orgasm that he forces upon himself.
He is punishing, not pleasuring, himself.
His harrowing experience as a Slave in the Palace as taught him that pain and pleasure are inextricably linked. There is no escape. He may be out of the Palace, but he can never escape its horrors.
Owen can never be free from his hell.
And he will do everything he can to keep me in hell with him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I open my eyes slowly, feeling the aches and pains seep back to my consciousness. For a few hours, I had managed to slip into oblivion, sinking into a cold, numbing darkness. Sleep had been all too brief. Few hours feel like just a few minutes. Blinking up at the dark, shadowy ceiling, it takes me a full minute to remember where I am. I am in the Commander's tent, lying beside Commander Owen Vesparr.
I try to raise my hand to my head, and feel the cut of cold steel into the bruised skin around my wrist. My head turns to the side, knowing and dreading what I will see. Owen is lying naked beside me. His presence, the sight of his naked, scarred body brings the memory of what he has just done to me crashing into my mind like a wrecking ball, shattering my tentative, tenuous numbness. For a while, I had be able to simply float in a vacuum of forgetfulness, where I can forget my own wretched existence and just disappear.
But I have
not disappeared. I am here, in Owen's bed, my right wrist in a handcuff, inescapably cuffed to him.
I sit up quietly, and look around the large tent. There is a long desk and a few stools at the other end. There are some papers and daggers lying on the desk. A stack of crates and sand bags sit in a corner, and his uniforms lie haphazardly on the ground, on the stools, at the edge of the bed.
I look at the crumpled bunch of thin blankets at our feet. Owen didn't bother pulling the blankets up over me or over himself, even though the temperature has plummeted during the night. I suppress a shiver, clenching my teeth to stop them from chattering too noisily and glance over at him. Owen is lying on his back, his naked body uncovered, yet he doesn't seem to feel the cold. One arm is thrown over his eyes, while the one with the handcuff is straight at his side.
Carefully, I lean down and pick my clothes off the floor. Clutching my dirty, torn clothes in my fist, I try to order my thoughts. How am I going to escape? It is impossible to hide any weapons under this thin, tattered tank top and shorts. How far and how fast can I run without shoes?
Irin had told us during the trainings that should we be captured by the enemy, there is pretty little the resistance can do to get us out. Mounting a rescue attempt would take too much effort and time. The logistics and manpower needed to retrieve just one resistance fighter could be much better employed elsewhere. They couldn't afford to risk so much and sacrifice so many for just one fighter. They had to choose their battles wisely and carefully.
In other words, no one would be coming for me.
They would go for Jaxon, because he is a resistance leader, an ex-Commander of the Imperial Army. He has valuable inside information, and he is a brilliant strategist and a fearless fighter. The resistance needs him. Not me.
In the quiet, listening to Owen's steady breathing, I realize that this may be the end for me. Stay with Owen, be his whore, his woman.
And forget Jaxon.
No, I can't. I may be forced to stay with Owen and have him fuck me night after night, but I can never, ever forget Jaxon.
I turn and regard Owen's body with an eerie detachment. I should hate him, but I don't. I have seen what he has gone through, what he has been forced to do in the Great Hall of the Palace as the Emperor and his guests jeered and taunted, and laughed while he slit a fellow Slave's throat. I was made to watch him service the Empress in her chambers in that endless night. And thereafter, we were both callously injected with the serum. He is right. We are both damaged. My eyes flick to the knives on the table and back to Owen's chest. Maybe plunging a blade into his heart would be a kind of release for him. But—I can't bring myself to do it. I am not immune to him. I do feel something for Owen—pity.
Sadness. And pity.
Despite what he did to me, I reach down and drag the blanket up over the both of us, tucking him in gently. I stretch over his broad shoulders and pull the blanket softly up his chest. He grimaces and murmurs in his sleep and drop his arm from his face with a grunt. And that's when I see it. His watch.
His arm is across his chest, the flashing screen of his watch staring up at me.
My heart thudding, I stare at the image being relayed over from the holding cell. I recognize the cell instantly. I recognize that small barred window above the iron shackles and the number twenty-one painted in black just below the window. I recognize those rusty, blood stained shackles and manacles. They were used to pull Jaxon's arms and legs wide apart, locking him against that dirty stone wall. But these shackles are now empty!
Jaxon is gone.
Owen must have wanted to keep constant surveillance on Jaxon, tuning his watch to the security camera in Jaxon's cell. I don't know how long the cell has been empty. Has Jaxon been moved to another location, or has he been rescued? Did he escape? When did it happen? It must have been some time during the night, when Owen and I were...
I press my hand to my mouth, staring hard at the screen.
There is a sudden blur of movement across the screen, and I see soldiers rushing into the cell, checking the empty shackles and then speaking rapidly into their watches. I can see their lips moving as they shout to one another but Owen has muted the sound so I can't hear anything. The screen of his watch goes black, and a message flashes across in bold red letters.
“RED ALERT: MANHUNT UNDERWAY. ESCAPED PRISONER: JAXON RYLETH.”
The message continues flashing silently. Owen's watch buzzes as it starts to vibrate on his wrist. I jerk away and wriggle under the blanket in a hurry. Squeezing my eyes shut, I turn awkwardly to my side and pretend to be asleep.
Owen sits up abruptly, and my hand is wrenched upwards. I issue a loud cry and scramble up. “Ouch! That...hurt!”
Owen is already stabbing his legs into his pants. “I have to go,” he mutters, not looking at me.
I am forced to stumble after him, with my hand still cuffed to his as he lurches madly around for his belt and weapons. His eyes settle on the handcuff around our wrists, and there is a brief moment of indecision.
Drag a naked woman around with him the whole day, or uncuff me? Hmm, decision, decisions. I wait in silence, careful not to get my hopes up. Whatever it is, he is not letting me go. That is for sure.
With a growl, he unlocks the cuff, and I bow my head quickly, trying to hide my relief. Rubbing my wrist, I tell him in a meek, submissive voice, “I'll wait here for you, until you return.”
He stares at me, his frown deepening as his angry eyes tear down my bruised, naked body. “Soldiers will be coming and going,” he says at last. “I can't leave you where they can...access you. No one will touch you. No one,” he repeats, his eyes hardening.
I gulp as he goes over to the stack of crates and kicks them over. He bends down and pulls something out from behind the stack. Grunting with the effort, he drags the item out and stands over it, panting.
It is a metal cage. It looks like it can house a large dog, just barely.
“Get in.”
I gawk at him.
“I said get in!”
“But...” I sputter and back away. “This is...”
“I won't let anyone touch you!” he growls, and marches over. Pulling me up, he drags me across the floor and bundles me roughly me into the cage. I struggle hard, kicking and screaming hysterically, but I am no match for him. Shoving me in, he slams the cage door and padlocks it.
I am forced to crouch uncomfortably within the confined space. I can't even stretch my legs out. Rattling the bars of the cage, I shriek, “Let me out! Don't do this! I won't...I won't leave. Owen! Please, let me out!”
He steps back, looking tormented. “I can't risk it, Zoey. Now that I have you, I can't let anyone touch you. I...I'll go mad, Zoey. I can't...bear it! And now...he...” He slams his fist suddenly into the thin pillar at the side, shaking the whole tent. “I will kill him myself!”
Ignoring my cries, he finishes dressing and arming himself with deadly purpose.
I continue screaming and shouting at him throughout. After fucking me like an animal last night, he is putting me in a cage—like an animal. I can't let him do this to me. Last night, I didn't fight him. But now, now that Jaxon has escaped, I will fight him! He can't hurt Jaxon now. And I won't let him hurt me anymore.
“Let me out, Owen! Don't do this! Let me go!”
Stooping down, he reaches through the bars of the cage and touches my face. I flinch and jerk away from him.
“You know I can't let you go, Zoey.”
I scrabble back as he tries to touch me again.
He grabs my wrist and yanks me to him.
With our faces inches apart, separated by the black iron bars, I tell him through gritted teeth, “Then kill me.”
He releases me suddenly, his face frighteningly blank.
We stare at each other wordlessly for a long time, but only my breaths can be heard.
Without blinking, without moving, he asks at last, “Why can't you love me?”
I can only stare at him, unable to
formulate a coherent response. What? What!
“I love you, Zoey.”
At this, I explode. Lunging against the bars, I scream, “Shut up! Love? You love me? You dare to say those words to me? You...have no right! Don't you dare defile those words!”
Those precious words that Jaxon said to me. I want to see him again, feel him again. Which I can never do because of you! Because of you.
My words are choked off as I start sobbing uncontrollably.
“I love you, Zoey,” Owen repeats.
I glare up at him, my vision clouded with tears. “Let me go,” I whisper. “Please.”
“No.”
He stands and starts to walk away.
Stopping abruptly, he turns and looks over his shoulder at me. His expression is unexpectedly soft and sad.
“I will never let you go.”
I swipe away my tears and answer, “I can never be yours.”
He closes his eyes an instant, and when he opens them again, the fleeting look of pain and regret that I had glimpsed in those piercing green eyes a moment ago has disappeared.
In a cold, clear voice, he says, “If I can't have you, then—” He grips the hilt of the dagger at his side.
He turns sharply and steps out of the tent.
The words that he has left unsaid hangs in the air long after he is gone.
If I can't have you, then—I will kill him. And you.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I have been gripping the bars of my cage for so long and so hard that my fingers seem to have melded to the metal. I press my forehead against my fists, and just close my eyes. I am sure the soldiers outside can hear me, but no one comes to my aid. No one dares to disobey the brutal orders of Commander Owen Vesparr.
No one is to touch me. Or help me. No matter what.
Owen has locked me in the cage like an animal. No, not even like an animal. Even animals are given food and water in their cage. But Owen has left me with nothing. Not a shred of clothing to cover myself. Not a bottle of water. Not my dignity. Nothing.
Release In The Dark (DARK erotic romance series) Page 10
