Tender Mercies (4 page)

Even her name felt like some disincarnate thing that had long been separated from her being.
Grace. Grace. Grace. Grace.
Just a sound. An odd sound. She could barely remember what it meant. Or maybe she just didn’t want to.
Grace
was like
pet.
And she could only handle being slapped with one of those words right now.

The whip came down over and over. He’d stopped speaking, more interested in hearing her screams and begging. She always begged; she couldn’t help it. And it only made her more ashamed that she would give this monster anything he wanted, that she would continue to play into his hands so predictably.

She could feel the trails of blood flowing down her back when he stopped. Then he was inside her, fucking her. She couldn’t bring herself to think the word
rape
, even though she knew. To heap that ugly word on top of everything else was the last little straw that would make her mind come undone.

“So wet,” he growled in her ear. “You like this shit, don’t you, pet?”

She shuddered as the tears fell harder. No matter what a sick fuck he was, her body still responded. Her kink had never been something she’d seen as an aberration or something that was
wrong
with her before Lucas. But now, in light of how he’d broken her, how could she see herself as anything but disgusting? Because no, she didn’t
like this shit
, and yet, her body answered his as if together they were a symphony of something beautiful, the kind of something she’d hoped they could be but weren’t.

Lucas gripped her throat hard enough she knew there would be a bruise. “Answer me, slave.”

“Yes, Master,” she gasped out.
Only because it’s what he wants to hear.

“Tell me you’re mine, you worthless slut.”

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “This slut is yours, Master.”
Only because it’s what he wants to hear
. She had to hold onto that thought and repeat it in her mind so she wouldn’t forget. Her body may have submitted to him, but she hadn’t yet lost her mind. She prayed she could hold onto that one secret space within her. The thoughts Lucas could never know about. The thoughts of him dead and broken before her. And somehow being free of him. He always kept her locked in the dungeon when he couldn’t watch her because deep down he had to know she wasn’t really his.

When he was finished with her, he unlocked the chains and let her fall. “Clean yourself up. We’re going out.”

The sound of his boots receded, and the door slammed behind him. Normally those were the sounds that made her body unclench and allowed her to relax, but not tonight. He wasn’t done with her yet.

She lay on the stone floor, catching her breath. There was a crude shower and toilet on one end of the room, as well as a sink and a cabinet that contained first aid supplies. Over the sink hung an old mirror, the one thing in the room that allowed her to witness the life slipping from her day by day. The only evidence she had that she wasn’t already dead.

Showering would hurt too much. She’d have to run water in the sink and clean off the best she could. The bandage supply was running low. She’d have to ask for more soon, something she dreaded. Asking for anything only meant more suffering for whatever it was that she needed. He always made her hurt before he gave her anything. He wanted her to remember he was God. But how the fuck could she forget?

The one reprieve was that he wouldn’t beat her again, at least not across her back until it healed. He’d find other punishments to torture her with instead. Things that wouldn’t leave marks. Or he’d leave marks elsewhere. He didn’t seem to want to kill her or physically damage her beyond repair. It was a bad sign that she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

***

Lately Lucas had been taking her out a lot more to clubs and parties. She wasn’t sure what that meant. Each time, she was afraid he’d share her with another, but so far that hadn’t happened. Tonight it was a large brick building with a circular driveway. Cars were parked all the way out to the road. All black luxury sedans. It looked like the secret service was having a dinner party.

She huddled beside her master outside, nothing but a black velvet cloak and slippers to separate her from the chill in the night air. The palm trees towering overhead rustled in the breeze. Whispering about her.

The door opened and a butler took Lucas’s coat and Grace’s cloak and slippers. She looked down at the ground, wrapping her arms around herself. She’d never get used to being like this without clothing to shield her from strange, prying eyes. They went down a flight of stairs until they were in a large, dungeon-like room. There were many men down there––too many to count––and about five other slaves.

Lucas surveyed the room, and then picked a couch to sit on. He snapped and pointed at the floor. She knelt on the ground beside him, her breathing coming fast. Her master seemed to have a new sense of purpose lately. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but each time he brought her to one of these mysterious functions, he seemed more focused.

At previous gatherings they’d stayed on the fringes, observing. Now he seemed in the thick of things, and several men came up and spoke to him. Grace couldn’t follow the conversation because they were speaking in the language native to the island. Lucas had been careful to only speak English to her, obviously not wanting her to understand when he spoke to others.

She flinched and cringed away when several of them touched her. Some took her chin and forced her eyes to theirs, turning her face this way and that, running their fingers through her hair. Others stroked her breasts and between her legs. The latter action brought a chuckle. Though Grace didn’t understand the language, she knew they were remarking on how aroused she was.

Each time a different male approached and started touching her, she was afraid Lucas would allow the man to borrow her. But they simply conversed with her master for awhile and then nodded and walked away.

Hours drifted by. There was dinner and drinks in a dining room, followed by more talking. No food was brought to her. She knew something important was being discussed. Was she being sold? It was the only thing that made sense in light of the business-like way the men all behaved.

She tried to think what that would mean for her. To be sold. She’d given up her silly fantasies. The reality was that she was chattel and whether it was Lucas or someone else, it was going to be bad. It was never going to be okay. The best she could hope for was to survive, though she wasn’t sure survival was the best outcome anymore.

Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a figure standing in the doorway, a man who’d decided not to dine. Something compelled her to look up, and when she did she was met with the most brilliant blue eyes she’d ever seen, eyes that stared at her so hard she had to turn away. But it wasn’t fast enough.

Lucas had seen.

He rose from his chair and jerked her to her feet. The back of his hand came across her face so hard and fast she lost her breath. Voices that had been speaking ceased as he gripped her throat and pulled her close, his mouth pressed against her ear.

“Have you taken a liking to Asher Collins?” he whispered. “He’s the one I told you about last year. The one who killed his slave. Be thankful I’ve let you live, pet. You seem to have particularly dangerous taste in men.”

He shoved her back to the floor, and conversation resumed as if this were all no big deal. Just business as usual. Just how one treated a slave. She didn’t make another sound as the tears rolled down her face, so as not to call his attention again. Though she tried very hard not to, she couldn’t help looking to the doorway one more time. But the man was gone.

Three

Asher sat quietly in his study, a glass of scotch in one hand. He’d been staring at the fireplace flames for a solid hour since he’d gotten back from the showing. There had been several slaves on offer this season, and although he hadn’t spoken with any of the owners, he’d hung back on the edges, observing.

It had been almost a year since he lost Darcy.
Since I killed her
, he corrected himself. It may not have been his hand that landed the fatal blow, but it was still his fault. His fault for not taking her complaints seriously and getting her help. Nothing would ever change that.

He hadn’t spoken to James since they’d buried the body together. As the dirt had covered her, his friend had made some offhand remark about going to live with the natives. Asher thought he’d been kidding, but then he didn’t return to his home.

Though they’d been best friends since college, doing everything together––including getting rich and coming to Eleu––after Darcy was in the ground, the cord was severed. Asher hadn’t been able to bring himself to turn his friend in, but he couldn’t look in his eyes or hear his voice again, either. It seemed James felt the same way.

For months Asher had stayed in, not receiving visitors. Gradually his need to possess a woman, the same need that had brought both he and James to the island, started to reassert itself. Now he was bargaining, making a list of rules and safeties so he could trust himself with another life.

He could own another woman. No, she wouldn’t be his Darcy. She’d be whoever she was. Maybe he’d love her and maybe he wouldn’t, but he still had needs, and right now the most powerful need he had was to move on. Perhaps atone.

One side of his mouth quirked wryly at the idea of atonement. As if anything could pay for what he’d done. The only thing that moved him forward was knowing that what happened with Darcy would never happen again because he wouldn’t leave his slave unmonitored after punishment, and he would mete out all punishments himself. He would take the responsibility, as he should have to begin with.

He shut his eyes against the memory of Darcy dying in his arms. The tight feeling he got in his chest when that memory came forward had dulled only slightly in the intervening time.

Asher set the scotch on the table beside his chair and got up to pace. Sitting still was impossible when he was on the cusp of bringing a pet into the house. He’d seen the one he wanted: Lucas Stone’s slave.

He’d watched from a distance, growing increasingly agitated at the way Lucas treated her and all the men who walked by to paw at her. Of course, nothing they were doing was illegal. Many had argued for anti-cruelty laws, but the policy changes always got shot down. After all, one slave’s cruelty was another’s happy existence. They
had
chosen this life after all. They’d known the risks. They were all questioned and psychologically assessed before being allowed to stay in Eleu, as were the men.

Lawmakers had argued that with cruelty laws, a slave would be able suddenly to appeal to someone to rescue her from this or that. Many would work the system to their advantage and end up the ones with all the control and power. Masters would fear punishing a slave as he saw fit because she might tell the authorities that she’d been cruelly tortured. And wasn’t that the world in which they’d already lived? A world of choices and freedoms submissives had wanted to hand over and dominants had wanted to take? Wasn’t this the utopia they’d always dreamed of, where they could each follow their own perversions without anybody else’s nose in them?

He didn’t entirely disagree with the current policies, but even so, there were slaves who had fallen through cracks, who were being brutalized in ways they’d never genuinely signed on for, who’d been victimized by monsters who had slipped through the psychological screenings at the gate. Lucas Stone’s slave was one of those victims. Asher had seen it in her eyes.

And the fact that her back had been bandaged on the night of a showing––by her from the looks of it––was bad form. Any master who would show his property with the intent to sell right after he’d left marks wasn’t fit to own another person.

He remembered when he’d lived in the States, how he’d witnessed animal cruelty, people who left dogs chained up for weeks with barely enough food or water, cats who had been left flea-bitten in crates. Why would one own a pet if they only intended to mistreat it? To Asher, slaves were the same as pets. Why acquire one if you were just going to abuse it? You could never truly own something that hated you. But some masters, like Lucas, were too fucked up to get that.

Asher moved to the wall of books and pulled a green leather volume out halfway. The bookcase slid to the side to reveal a secret passage. It wasn’t
that
secret, of course. William was aware of it. He’d been quite amused by it, in fact. The island was a place where fantasies became reality: dreams of owning a slave, having a mansion, having a secret passage. Whatever he’d wanted so far in his life, once money became no object he’d been prepared to do anything to get everything on that list.

Some wealthy men bought jets, some liked to hide extra rooms in their house. He flipped a switch to turn on lights and descended the stone staircase. As nice as the idea of torches lining the walls had seemed, he’d opted for more practical dome lights that created a similar ambiance.

He remembered when Darcy had come over and how she’d squealed in delight at the secret dungeon room. She’d been fresh from a life of freedom living in Europe. Like many of the masters on the island, he hadn’t wanted to buy a pre-owned slave. He’d wanted someone fresh. Someone he could mold completely as he liked from the ground up. Perhaps he’d feared he wasn’t a brutal enough master, that his kindness would be seen as weakness by someone with more experience. And sometimes, perhaps it had been.

He’d allowed her to wrap herself around his little finger, showing her leniency when he should have shown her discipline. In the end, he’d lost control of her so much it had taken James and a bullwhip to right the balance. But then there had been nothing left to balance.

He crossed to one of many boxes of toys and implements of pain and dug around until he found it: the whip that had killed Darcy. The bullwhip still had a bit of her blood dried on the tip. He could no longer leave the weapon hidden away in a chest. He had to see it, every day. If he was to own another slave he had to be reminded of what his mistakes could cost him so he wouldn’t make them again. He hung the coiled whip on a hook at eye level.