What He Sacrifices (What He Wants, Book Fourteen) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (5 page)

Then his eyes turned cold, and I was almost
sure I could see the blackness of his soul reflected in his irises.

This is evil,
I thought in wonder.
 
Right now I am looking at pure evil.
 
I’d
always been logical about things like God and the devil, and I’d grown up in a
household that was not particularly religious, although sometimes my mother
would dress me up and haul me off to church for some cousin’s christening.
 
But in that moment, I was sure God existed.
 
Because without God there could be no devil,
and I was sure the devil was in this room, in this very moment.

Professor Worthington pulled his knife out, as
a reminder that he had it and would use it if he had to.

Then he tipped himself back on his heels,
almost like he was rocking.
 
“This,”
he said giddily, “is going to be fun.”

***

He made me change in front of him.

He made me pull off every article of clothing.

One.

By.

One.

I tried to put the costume on over my bra and
panties, but he wouldn’t allow it.

He made me take my bra off, made me step out of
my panties.

“Nice,” he said, grinning so wide I could see a
filling in the back of his mouth. Then he turned to Mikayla.
 
She was also getting dressed in a
loincloth and tiny bra, but the Professor’s eyes had been carefully trained on
me the whole time.
 
“Look at her,”
he demanded of Mikayla now.
 
“Would
it pleasure you to please her?”

“Only if it pleased you, Sir.”

He looked back and forth between us, like he was
considering whether or not to make the two of us engage in something.
 

But then he shook his head.
 
“No time,” he said with a sigh, like he
was talking about leaving a party early and not forcing to women to engage in
perverted sexual acts.

When I was dressed, the professor made me put
on high black stiletto shoes with a heel so narrow I was afraid it would snap
under me.

Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out
a red lipstick, reached over and lined my lips with it, pushing the makeup hard
into my skin.

“You’re my doll,” he said.
 
“My doll, my doll, my doll.”
 
His eyes were glassy as he chanted, and
I wondered briefly if he was dropping in and out of a trance-like state.
 
I’d heard of things like that happening
when killers got close to their kill.
 
They would get so worked up and stimulated that they almost couldn’t
take it.

Stay cognizant of it, Charlotte,
I heard Noah’s voice in my ear.
 
It’s
something you could use if you need to.
 
Wait until his guard is down and see if you have a chance to make a move.

Professor Worthington slipped his hand into his
pocket and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

“Girl,” he called to Mikayla.

She came running over, and he handcuffed us
together.

“I wish you didn’t have to be cuffed to this
piece of trash,” he said to me.
 
“She’s property of the club.
 
But I need to make sure you don’t try to run.
 
If you ran from me, it would break my
heart.”

We followed him out the door of the mock
schoolroom, and began walking with him down the dark hallway.
 
The plain cement walls soon gave way to
the swirling abstract pattern of blood red and black that made Force so
confusing and sinister.
 
And yet the
pattern somehow calmed me – it was something familiar, something that
reminded me of Noah.

I was also surprised to find that with every
step toward the reverberating music, I was beginning to feel stronger.
 
My thoughts were clearer, my legs
sturdier.
 
I took quick stock of
myself.

My cheek was swollen and sore from where I’d
been hit, my face scratched from where Professor Worthington had sliced it with
his fingernail.
 
But my arms and
legs were losing the heaviness they’d felt, and my head was losing that cloudy
feeling it had had.

I was more aware, and felt less like I was
moving in a dream state.

Be careful,
Noah’s voice warned in my ear.
 
Don’t
let him know you’re feeling better.
 
He will drug you again if he thinks you’re getting too strong.

I suddenly felt panicked at the thought of
being drugged again, even though I’d thought just a little while ago it would
have been a welcome relief.

Do you think he’ll drug me again because I spit
on him?

No,
Noah
answered.
 
That excited him.
 
He’s already forgotten about it.
 

I closed my eyes tight.
 
I love
you, Noah,
I thought.
 
I love
you so much.

This time, there was no reply, and I wondered
if he’d really been with me like I thought, or if perhaps it had been the drugs
that had made me think I was hearing his voice.
 
Was I ever going to see him again? I
wondered.
 
Would he know how much I
loved him, how much I cared about him, how I would have stood by him no matter
what?

We were getting closer to the main room of
Force now, and I could hear the familiar cacophony of the music and the men
screaming.

Was there someone there who could help me? I wondered.
 
If I asked for help, would it be given
to me?

No,
Noah
told me.
 
No, Charlotte.
 
It will be all up to you.

A few seconds later, Professor Worthington made
a sharp turn and began leading Mikayla and I down a narrow passageway that was
cut into the stone walls.

It was so narrow I was afraid for a moment that
I wasn’t going to be able to fit through it.
 
My shoulders brushed against the sides
of the walls, and the air was thick and heavy, the kind of air that felt like
it hadn’t been circulated in months.
 
I tried to take deeper breaths, but that made it feel worse.
 
Gritty particles floated through the air
and slid into my lungs, coating my tongue.

Claustrophobia clawed at my throat, and my
vision swam in front of me.

Relax,
Noah
said.
 
You’re fine.
 
You can breathe.
 
It’s not
real,
it’s just a panic attack.

His voice grounded me, and the rubber band that
was around my chest loosened just a tiny bit.

We walked a little further, and Professor
Worthington led us up a flight of stairs that was just as narrow as the
corridor we’d just come through.

When we reached the top of the steps, Mikayla
stumbled and fell, her hand yanking me and pulling me down with her.

 
I
hit the concrete on my hip, but the steps had been covered with strips of black
rubber padding, and they broke my fall.

But Mikayla wasn’t as lucky.
 
She’d smacked her chin against the edge
of the top step. She cried out in pain and raised her hand to her mouth.

“What the
fuck?”
Professor Worthington demanded, turning around to see what was going on.

“She fell,” I said irritably, turning to
Mikayla.
 
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
 
“Let me see.”

Her deep blue eyes were wide with fear.
 

I reached out and took her hand, pulling it
gently away from her face.
 
I almost
gasped out loud.
 
Her whole bottom
lip had been split, and thick sticky blood dripped in a crooked line down her
chin.

“It’s okay,” I said.
  
“You’re okay.”
 
I reached down and ripped a piece of
cloth from the loincloth I was wearing and pressed it to her face.
 
It wasn’t the most sanitary thing to do,
but there was nothing else around and I needed to stop her bleeding.

“Come on,” Professor Worthington said.
 
“Let’s go.”

I turned to look at him.
 
“She’s hurt.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“She can’t go into the auction like this.”

“She’ll go into the auction however I’ll say
she’ll go into the auction.
 
Now get
up!”
 
He was getting crazed, and he
reached back into his boot and pulled out his knife.
 
He slashed it through the air, inches
from my back.

I looked at Mikayla.
 
“Come on,” I said, taking her hand and
pulling her back up.
 
“You’re
okay.
 
You’re going to be okay.
 
We’re going to get you some help.”

It was all a lie.

I had no idea if we were going to be okay, and
honestly, if I had to put my money on it, I would guess that we
weren’t.

I clung to the hope that perhaps whoever won me
in the auction would be a kind man, a man who would listen to me if I told him
that I was in trouble, that there was another girl here who was in trouble too,
that he needed to help get both of us out of here.

I knew it wasn’t likely, especially since Mikayla
had been put into the auction numerous times and hadn’t found anyone to help
her yet.
 
But she’d been so
conditioned to be submissive, I wondered if perhaps she hadn’t done enough to
try to tell people she was in trouble.

Yes, she’d told me - - but the other night when
she’d served Noah and I our drinks, why hadn’t she tried to alert us to the
fact that she was being held here against her will? Was she that scared of
getting in trouble with the club?
 
Surely
every person who came to Force wasn’t as much of a psychopath as Audi James or
Professor Worthington.

“Move,” Professor Worthington growled.

He pulled us onto the landing at the top of the
flight of stairs, which opened into a dark backstage area.
 
As soon as we were out of that narrow
space, relief flowed through me, and I gulped in the fresh air.

But my relief was short-lived as I took in the
scene in front of me.

Girls stood around, all of them dressed in the
same skimpy outfit Mikayla and I
were
wearing.
 
They were gorgeous, all of them with
perfect bodies and long hair, their wrists cuffed together.
 
Some of them were draped against the
wall,
some of them were drugged and sprawled around the
perimeter of the room, their eyes flat and glassy.

I watched in horror as one of them writhed on
the floor and foamed at the mouth, her long red hair stuck to the side of her
face with her own saliva.
 
She’d
obviously been overdosed.

Three shirtless men dressed in tight black leather
pants and black leather masks walked around with long whips, making sure none
of the slaves got out of line.
 
Every so often the sound of the whip snaking through the air would echo
through the room, ending with a smack as the Dungeon Masters whipped the girls
for seemingly no other reason than their own sick sport.

“Ty,” Professor Worthington called to one of
the men.

The tallest of the three came over, his chest
hard and muscular, his skin smooth and tan, his six-pack narrowing into the
perfect V of his hips.

“Keep these two apart,” the professor said,
gesturing to
me and Mikayla
.

Ty nodded, and without a word, reached down and
uncuffed me from Mikayla.
 
Then, as
if from out of nowhere, another Dungeon Master came over and whisked Mikayla
away, leading her behind a dark red curtain.
 
Drops of blood fell from her mouth,
leaving a trail of crimson in her wake.

“Wait!”
 
I yelled.
 
“You can’t take
her back there, she’s hurt!”

The Dungeon Master ignored me, instead taking
my handcuffs and hooking me to a shackle that hung from the wall.

Professor Worthington pushed up against me
again,
then
kissed me hard on the lips.

Bile rose in my throat, and I swallowed as hard
as I could, willing myself not to throw up.
 
If I threw up, they would leave me like
that, covered in my own vomit.
 
And
it would make things that much worse.