Her Troika (48 page)

Quinton’s enraged squalling rose as he strode toward his father, his arms raised wildly, arguing with George almost nose to nose.

Kurt pulled Derek aside amid the noise. “Take Breanna back to the stall, and take Lino with you. Have him bring Elaina with him too. I don’t trust this little fuck. We need to get her un-tacked and on the road.”

“I’ll file a grievance against you too,
George.”
Quinton jabbed a finger toward the kneeling Brayden, the man working Genna’s injured thigh. Genna quailed, ducking her head, eyes closed as Quinton yelled. “Pack her up and get her in the trailer, Brayden. We’re out of here!”

Then Quinton stalked off the track, pushing his way through the throng gathering around the arguing pair. “I don’t care if you are a Prime,” he snarled over his shoulder. “You can’t do this, Father!”

“Let him go,” George said, raising a hand to quiet the crowd. “No Laws have been violated here today. This matter will be referred to The Council for discussion. Go about your business.”

With that George walked away, toward the spectacle at the center of the track, giving Kurt and Derek a grim incline of his head as he went.

Kurt nodded to Derek. “Go now, Derek. I’m going to talk to George.”

“I’ll take her back to the stall. Make sure she’s safe. Then that’ll be all.” Derek sighed, extending his hand. “I can’t tell you … thanks, Kurt. For everything.”

Kurt frowned, looking at Derek’s hand. “I’d hoped I’d convinced you by now.”

“You have — over and over. And it doesn’t make this any easier.”

Kurt shook Derek’s hand. “Don’t tell her then. Let me explain it to her. Okay?”

“Tell her … tell her I’ll never forget this. I’ll never forget her. Not ever.”

Derek turned away at the surge of emotion, the lump in his throat painful. It was time, and yet he’d hoped this moment would never come.

For the thousandth time, he wondered why doing the right thing had to hurt so goddamned much.

* * *

T
hey were still fucking Simona as Derek unchained Breanna from her frame. They paused to watch a moment, Derek’s cock hard as steel at the sight. Only a handful of spectators were left. Johan’s back was turned to her ordeal, the South African grinning gleefully as he talked with one of the men. Simona’s shoulders rammed against the wooden stocks, shaking it, as the man crouching behind her pounded her, his hands clasped hard to her naked hips. Another man stood in front of her, making her crane her head up as much as the stocks allowed, his hard cock over her, his hand stroking it languidly. Strands of white semen already streaked her dark hair, her face wet with a mixture of come and tears.

When he finally pulled Breanna away from the sight, he noted the dilation of her eyes, her labored breathing. He wasn’t the only one affected by the dark eroticism of Simona’s debasement.

The sun was nearly setting, the sky suffused with brilliant magenta and deep blue. The few spectators still left were gathered in scattered small groups. Several young women Derek had never seen before, wearing very brief black dresses, passed among them, offering glasses of champagne. Lino and Elaina had already left the track, and Derek had watched Brayden’s tall frame guiding a heavily limping — and very reluctant — Genna back toward the parking lot. Kurt and George were deep in animated conversation a few paces away from the stocks, separated from all the other spectators, both men occasionally pausing to watch Simona as her rough use continued.

Derek didn’t know why he did it, but he put the bit back in Breanna’s mouth before leading her from the track, her beautiful eyes wide in surprise. But she sweetly obeyed when he’d shaken his head, bading her to stay quiet as he pressed it between her teeth. Once more harnessed, and bitted, he led her away, several pairs of admiring eyes watching her go.

His steps slowed as he went, knowing that this was finally the end. He tried to remember all of this, to savor it in every way. The feel of the leash in his hand. The enticing mix of the smell of the leather harness, and the scent of her arousal. The way she looked down, careful with her steps, the boots making her gait unsteady, stiff. The movement of her gorgeous breasts as she obeyed the dictates of her leash.

Could he really do it? Should he really do it? Now, as he drew near to the barn, to the stalls, he doubted himself even more. Every part of him wanted to turn to her, to embrace her, kiss those welling, gorgeous eyes, and whisper to her that he’d never let her go, that she’d always be his.

But it wouldn’t be true.

No matter what the heart wanted, no matter how deeply he’d fallen in love with her — and she with him — the cold voice of logic knew the fatal flaw in that plan, the brutal truth of conscience whispering to him what it would really mean. It just wouldn’t work. He knew he could share Breanna — that wasn’t the issue. It was the fact that he’d always feel like an interloper, an addition, something grafted on to the love that had always existed between her and Kurt. Derek simply didn’t believe that she could ever divide her loyalties evenly. And it wasn’t fair for him to expect her to. Kurt was her
husband
, her rock, her Master. He would always come first — and that’s how it should be. Derek knew he’d want more, he’d want
both
he and Kurt to be equal in her eyes … and sometimes a man just can’t get what he wants.

They turned the corner of the building, the door to the barn now pitch black in the gathering twilight. Breanna made a startled noise over her bit, planting her feet in the ground, the leash pulling taut. Derek turned, and saw movement from all directions, converging on them. Big, dark suits, the faces immediately familiar.

Oh fuck.

He yanked Breanna to him and unclasped the leash. “Run, Breanna. Get to Kurt!”

The whites of her eyes shone as she looked over his shoulder.

Derek wheeled, his elbow bent at head height, striking the onrushing man in the side of the face, knocking him to one knee with a surprised sound. Derek grabbed him by a greasy hank of hair, and crashed a knee into his jaw, dropping him to the ground. Breanna’s attenuated scream sounded behind him just as a huge man tackled him, bowling him to the ground, Derek’s face grinding against bits of gravel in the dirt. The man’s arm snaked around Derek’s throat and pulled hard, threatening to cut off his air, Derek managed to scramble up to his knees, pulling on the arm, buying precious seconds, knowing the man’s immense strength was going to win out. Then he heard Breanna’s scream again, boiling rage in the sound, and the man’s arm loosened suddenly, a sharp impact sending him falling over Derek’s shoulder. Breanna stood over the man, despite her arms being tied, screaming bit-garbled obscenities. The man quickly moved to get up, but Breanna kicked him with a speed and power that both surprised Derek and filled him with pride. The heavy boot connected with the man’s midsection, and he fell to the dirt with a gasping groan.

“Breanna, RUN!”

Just as Derek gained his feet again, something very, very hard came down on the back of his head with an explosion of agony, stars bursting in his eyes, and his legs collapsed under him. One of the suited goons loomed over him, arm pulled back, the sap high in the air. Derek got a look at the man, recognition flashing even as his image swum crazily. It was the meat head he’d gone toe to toe with on the track.

Quinton’s men.

“Came … back for more, dipshit?” Derek held an unsteady hand up, his field of vision collapsing to a tunnel, sound warbling in his ears, consciousness slipping away.

Breanna barreled into the man just as he swung, dropping her shoulder right under his raised arm, sending him stumbling to the side. She screeched and her eyes rolled back as another man brutally hauled on her ponytail, pulling her off balance. She stumbled backward out of the tiny field of vision Derek still had.

“Finish him,” a voice said through the fog gathering in Derek’s consciousness.

Then with another tooth jarring blow to the back of his head, Derek knew no more.

Chapter Thirty Five

“Y
ou stay quiet in there,” the big man’s frame filled the doorway to the horse trailer, the lights from the parking lot just beginning to flicker on as the evening darkened outside. “We’ve got a long trip ahead of us. If we have to stop and come back there, you’ll regret it.”

The man’s face was in shadow, but she could hear the grin in his voice. He stepped out, ran the ramp back up under the trailer’s floor and slammed the door shut, with a jarring finality. Breanna had a companion, laying next to her. Genna had been in the trailer when they’d brought Breanna in. Brayden, the tall trainer who’d ran Genna on the track was nowhere to be seen though. The young girl’s eyes had been wide with terror, her form curled up protectively in the hay strewn over the floor of the dusty enclosure. The earthy smell of the hay was strong, the scent tickling Breanna’s nostrils and throat. Her bit had been replaced with a cloth gag, pulled back into her mouth so far, it completely immobilized her tongue. She tried to relax, the urge to gag constantly just under the surface.

An engine sounded outside, and the trailer lurched, then began to roll, gravel pinging against the wheel wells as the trailer made a long turn in the parking lot of the farm.

Where are they? They’ve got to know by now!

More than that though, she was terrified for Derek. The last thing she’d seen before they pulled the hood over her head was that horrible oaf cracking the leather sap over the the back of Derek’s head, his body going limp in the dirt.

“Don’t worry, honey,” the man dragging her away from Derek had whispered. “He’ll just have a little headache in the morning. He’s not the prize here. You are.”

There’d been at least five of them, Quinton’s goons. One of them was easily as tall as the towering Brayden, but was even larger across the shoulders and chest. He’d been the one she’d dropped though with a shoulder in the ribcage as he’d tried to choke Derek. The entire time she could only think one thing:

Quinton.

Just the thought of him made her sick.

The trailer bounced hard, twice, Breanna slamming her head against the metal wall of the trailer, then the ride smoothed significantly, the tires whining louder and louder as they picked up speed. It was so dark inside the trailer that Breanna could make almost nothing out, able only to see Genna’s frightened eyes over the white cloth of her own gag.

Breanna tried to think. She needed to calm herself first, her heart banging away in her chest so hard she thought it might explode. Her senses were still on a heightened level, every sound, every touch registering its presence, the whole a giant cacophony of overwhelming input.

Just survive, Breanna. That’s all that matters.

Quinton would rape her. She knew that now. Maybe they wouldn’t even wait until they reached her destination. She pictured them pulling her stumbling from the trailer, using her on the side of the pitch black highway, reduced to nothing more than a receptacle for their lusts.

The thought terrified her, but she knew she’d find a way to survive it. He wasn’t going to break her without a fucking fight — and if she let his guard down for even one
second
, she’d kick his little balls into the next galaxy. The sonofabitch. In the back of her mind, she’d feared this, of course, somehow suspecting that he might be capable of something this brash, this stupid. But she’d hoped that for once, her intuition was wrong, that she was just being paranoid. But it wasn’t to be.

The wind from the road soon became the worst, whipping through the slats cut into the side of the walls, the openings above her — made for horses, or course — allowing howling buffeting wind into the interior. She and Genna both of them half naked, huddled together to conserve heat. Genna was weeping the tears Breanna knew she wouldn’t cry. She’d never give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing her weep. He’d have to kill her first.

That grim thought gave her strength though, gave her something to focus her rage upon. But then she thought of her beloved husband, her Kurt, how she might never see him again. She thought of Derek and his terrible pain and how she wanted him to give it all to her, to let her relieve him of it, and to show him what love really could be. She smiled, thinking of how this incredible world of possibilities, of fantasies had come to life — and she knew there were more dark fantasies that were just waiting to be explored. And yet, now, cowering in the miserable, freezing trailer, that was all being stolen from her, that future that filled her with such exhilaration, and hope, and joy. Now, it was being stolen from her.

But she wouldn’t cry. Never would she let Quinton see what he was doing to her. Not
ever
.

She wasn’t sure how long they’d been driving, the combination of the buffeting wind, the deafening tire noise, and the sound of the engine almost numbing her to senselessness. Had it been thirty minutes? Or three hours? Her joints where stiffening, the cold and the uncomfortable seating making things worse.

The trailer started to slow, and Genna stirred against her, looking up to meet Breanna’s gaze. She tried to smile with her eyes, to reassure the girl as much as she could. She knew Genna wasn’t the one in deep shit here. They’d probably make Genna watch though as they raped Breanna. A “lesson” to her to be obedient to her masters. Nausea roiled through Breanna at that thought. No matter how tough she thought she was, she knew this was going to be hell.