Saved by His Submissive (26 page)

Why…why…why…

Anywhere but here…anywhere, please.

During the drive, she fixed her gaze on the black glass of the limo’s tinted window, trying to conjure where Garrett and Zeke were by now. They would have called Franzen, and likely been able to convince the CO that King was involved with this shit. Maybe after that, the guy had approved a team and they were loaded into a Chinook, halfway to Bangkok by now.

The black pane made it so easy to conjure the contrast of Garrett’s rugged, golden handsomeness as the team flew through the night. The wind lifting his tawny hair off his strong forehead. The smoky determination in his long-lashed blues. His long nose, leading the eye down to the angles of his mouth, which was undoubtedly tilted up at one end as he contemplated slitting open King’s throat this time around.

The image went fuzzy after that. Tears had a way of doing that, even to fantasies.

Sage tilted back her head and forced back the sting, sniffing determinedly. These assholes weren’t going to get the extra brass ring of her sorrow. Like always, it stayed inside.
Deep
inside. Pushed to a place where they couldn’t touch it or her. They could pound their bodies as deep into hers as they wanted, but from the moment she stepped out of this limousine, they’d never claim her as a person. Sage Weston would cease to exist—and now it was by her choice, not theirs.

All too soon, that moment arrived.

Sage’s instincts, along with the feel of the road, told her they’d gone over the 520 Bridge and into Medina: the land of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Charles Simonyi, and other people who sucked different air than what the rest of humanity breathed.  Sure enough, the driver slowed the car up to a pair of massive, stylized steel gates that glistened in the misty night. When they slid back, they rolled up a driveway that likely doubled as the landing strip for the owner’s private jet. A diamond-shaped reflecting pool in front of the house had a lighted fountain that looked like a giant steel cheese curl.

When the limo stopped, the henchmen got out first. During the two seconds they were alone inside the car, Rayna let out a harsh, heavy sob. “Fuck! Sage, I don’t know if I can do this!”

“Of course you can.” Josie ripped the words into her. They weren’t a surprise. From the moment King had gone battering ram on her face with the SIG, the woman had changed from nurturing mama hen into savage mama tiger. “You’ll do this, Rayna, and anything else it takes to stay alive. Look, I know you’ve both had it with having to tow this line, but you don’t have a choice. I won’t give you one. If we have any chance of finding a way out of this, we need to work together. We have to keep our senses keen and our eyes open. Agreed?”

Sage joined her friend in returning the woman’s tough love with a fast nod. Senses keen. Eyes open. She could do this. She could—

Shit.

“Eyes open” was deleted from the options list pretty fast. .

One moment, she was tottering on the stone driveway in her mile-high heels. The next, Junior the Henchman was leaning over her, fitting a soft leather blindfold over her eyes and the bridge of her nose.

Sage’s equilibrium swam. She felt herself falling over but had no idea if she was about to crack open the front or back end of her skull. Lanky arms caught her, and she picked up on Junior’s distinct scent of chicken wings and sweaty T-shirt. She had no choice about having to inhale the stuff for a few minutes more. Not if she intended to keep at least half her promise to Josie now.

Senses keen. Senses keen. Senses keen.

With the mantra embedded in her instinct, she tried to stay upright in the damn heelss while listening, smelling, or hearing any element of their surroundings that could help their chances at breaking for an escape. As she suspected, the mansion was on the water. Lake Washington was more placid than the depths of Elliott Bay, but she still heard boats rubbing against a dock and ducks honking at each other. Before they got to the front door of the big house, Junior pulled her off to the left, around a corner, down a slight incline. The wind hit her with more force, filled with more mist. They were being led closer to the water, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on where the boat keys were kept.

Junior finally pulled her to a stop. Heavier footsteps approached behind them. The spicy smell of a clove cigarette swirled with the mist. Cologne joined that combination. It was smooth,
not
an in-your-face American scent.

The new arrivals to the party were definitely foreign. And definitely staring at her. The weight of their rearview inspection pressed on her bare shoulders and upper back, but Sage straightened her spine and forced her head to stay high. She wouldn’t bend for these animals. Not unless they made her, damn it.

A door opened, and King’s distinct laughter danced out into the night. “Gentlemen! Welcome! I trust you had no trouble with the directions?”

“They were flawless.” A refined baritone voice gave the words, though its slight European accent brought out every note of wickedness in the follow-up. “Everything so far is impeccable.”

Sage barely resisted the urge to jab him in the leg, or worse, with one of her stilt heels. At the moment, her balance was more important to keep intact.

“I am so glad you think so,” King replied. “Please come in. I think you will be pleased with these facilities. We have made certain they provide all the equipment for you to exercise your special tastes.”

A few feet to her right, a choked gasp cut the air. Rayna was letting the fear get to her. Her outburst was followed by a sharp smack. Rayna cried out louder. “Knock it off, bitch!” her henchman commanded.

This exchange took place as the Europeans filed inside the building. King apparently traded places with them, because his was the next voice to slice the air. The bastard wasn’t happy.

“You twit! What did I say about hitting them?”

Rayna’s guard fumed aloud. If Sage was a mind reader, she’d likely find the guy debating about how to point out that King had personally violated that rule already, and the evidence was plastered across the left side of Josie’s face.

The henchman finally protested, “She was about to scream.”

“Then let’s handle the challenge, shall we?” King shifted as if taking something from each of the guards. No. Wrong perception. Sage found out just how wrong in the next second. The asshole had been giving them all something. “Fasten the bits well. If any of them slip, I’ll have your balls for it.”

Before Sage had a second to process what he’d said, her lips were being shoved apart by a long leather tube, fitted horizontally between her teeth like a horse’s bit. Though the contraption was much cleaner than a wad of dirty rags, the fuck-you on her fear threshold was the same. The black void of her vision rushed the nightmare along. In an instant, she was back in that sweltering jungle. Back in that Quonset hut. Back in that moment where accepting the defeat was easier than fighting it.

Senses keen?
Why? There was no way out of this. Nowhere to run, nowhere to be, nobody to become except the pawn into which King had transformed her. Garrett was going to touch down soon in a land where he’d spend weeks searching for her, when she would actually be in some Bavarian dungeon, helpless to escape, concentrating on nothing but taking her next breath.

“Move.” Junior jabbed his gun into her back. The feel of the barrel was different. They’d likely let the henchmen play with bigger toys for this part of their little adventure. She guessed he now had a semiautomatic of some sort.

They were led inside, where it was blessedly warmer. That didn’t soften the cold impact of the wood floor when Sage was pushed down to her knees. She smelled savory hot food and rich red wine, making her empty stomach growl, until the other essences in the room snuck into her awareness. More leather. The tang of heavy chains. The musk of recent sex.

Oh, God.

She wasn’t hungry any more.

One breath after the other. One breath after the other.

Leather couches crunched as people sat. Glassware clinked on tables. King chatted with the men as if they were at a casual cocktail party. Comments were traded about the wine and the weather, all as if they didn’t stand there with three bound, bit-gagged, half-naked women kneeling on the floor nearby. Their insouciance started to piss her off. She tried to contain the feeling, logically tracing it back to her terror, which turned the confusion of her mind into sheer chaos.

By the time the men approached them again, she literally thought she’d burst from her skin.

King let out a long, anticipatory sigh. “So, my friends…you have had some time to look at our fresh flowers. As you know, the first two are young, healthy, and very strong. The third is older, but in magnificent condition…and might bring an experienced flair to certain services.”

One of the men reacted to that with a heavy cough, before he said on a chuckle, “Indeed.”

Another man echoed the mirth. “Gustav is a bit…errmm…anal about some things.”

King laughed heartily. “Well, then! Perhaps she is the perfect fit. Or can be stretched to be!” After the men rewarded him with jokes that sounded like verbal slabs of grease, he offered, “Would you like to have a try at her, my friend? We can fasten her down on any of the benches for you.”

A deep grunt came from Gustav’s direction. “Perhaps later. Klaus has bigger wood to saw than me tonight, and less time to get to it. There is that saying, yah? Age before beauty?”

King laughed again, punching the sound full of even more fake hilarity than before. “All right, then! Klaus leads the fun tonight!”

“As I do
every
night.”

The voice behind those words had been the quietest one of the trio—which made its owner the one Sage feared the most. The measured control of it was roughened in certain places by vocal gravel that tugged weirdly at her gut. She didn’t want him to touch her, yet every time he spoke, that was all she could think about.

“Well then, Klaus my friend, which one of our young flowers would you like to smell deeper?”

Sage didn’t want to hear the bastard’s answer. If he picked Rayna, she’d be in agony. If he picked her, she’d be in Purgatory.

A leg pressed against her back. Another slid in front of her, and pressed a hard boot to her kneecaps. A large hand, full of steel-fingered command, descended on her head.

“The blond has a certain sass about her, yes?”

Sage tried to swallow. Only trouble was, her mouth had gone bone dry.

“Ah!” King exclaimed. “Very good choice! Where would you like her to be placed? The stockade? The fucking swing? The whipping bench?”

“I place my own sluts.”

The man’s voice took on an edge of anger with the statement. Sage’s chest vibrated in reaction, struggling to get air into her freezing, shaking  body. Klaus hoisted her up, but her legs weren’t into cooperating with his control
or
hers, dangling beneath her like numb rags. Klaus supported her with one hand twisted in her corset strings and the other now wound into her hair.

“Somebody take off those silly shoes,” the man barked. “And you, boy—hand me your knife.” Sage trembled harder at that, and whimpered against the gag. “Be still.” Klaus gave her the order on a growl. His hand left her hair, shifting to her bound wrists instead. With a single swipe, he cut loose the zip tie.

Adrenaline shot into Sage. She didn’t stop to ponder why he’d done something so stupid, choosing instead to just capitalize on it. Though her hands barely worked, she formed them into claws and aimed straight for his face. Just a moment of distraction was all she needed. Once she could see again, she could run. And once she could run—

Her wrists were instantly bound again. Klaus slammed one of his hands around both of them. He twisted his grip with the force of an iron winch, trapping her so tight, she yearned for the zip ties again. Before she could stop it, an enraged yowl tore past the gag. Gustav and King chuckled, but from Klaus, there was nothing but a deep and hard growl.

“Try that again and I’ll break them, little sassy.” He jerked her arms down, rearranging her hands behind her back. “And if I must buy broken merchandise, that makes me want to smash it up more.”

With her wrists throbbing and her spirit reeling, Sage gave the asshole a reluctant nod. She wouldn’t be any use to Rayna and Josie if this bastard decided to start breaking bones.

Without another word, Klaus hooked a finger into the front of her corset and hauled her across the room. She gulped, shoving aside a mental comparison to a state fair cow being led to the auction block.

He stopped and made her do the same. She felt the man shift to stand right in front of her. With two more fast
thwicks,
he cut away the tiny panties that matched her corset. Sage corkscrewed her hands together to keep from covering her sex, now exposed to the man’s long, silent gaze.

“Beautiful,” he murmured.

She kept reminding herself to breathe. From the blackness behind her mask and the void into which her voice had been banished, every passing minute felt more surreal, less like it was her body doing this. Her heart and soul? They were nowhere to be found any more. She moved like an automaton, taking orders like a robot no matter how her body reacted biologically to this hell.

Klaus turned her a little. He slid up behind her, his very large body pressed to her back. “Up onto the cross now, my sassy,” he commanded into her ear, just before pushing her a few steps forward.

Sage struggled to swallow again. To feel anything other than pure fear. To gain back even a shred of composure to the arms and legs that shivered as if Klaus helped her step onto a bondage cross made of ice instead of steel. Nothing worked. He was stripping her, pulling off the corset and tossing it aside. He was spreading her, closing leather bonds around her wrists and ankles so her body aligned with the big X now. He was turning her into a mass of dread, of grief…and most horridly, of shame.

Because her heart wasn’t the only thing weeping through this ordeal.