Page 104 of The Enslaved Duet

That was how he looked at me as I moved steps closer to becoming his wife, as if I was his every prayer for goodness and hope for happiness on this earth.

As if I was everything good and pure he had ever laid eyes on.

When I reached the front by his side, he immediately took my bouquet from me and handed it off to Riddick who stood beside him, so that he could take both my hands in his.

“I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful as you,” he whispered to me before the priest could even begin, and when he spoke his voice was rough with excess emotion like a white capped sea. “I’ve never felt so unworthy of a gift, but I promise to cherish you every day.”

“May I begin?” the priest asked with dry British humour that had the whole room laughing.

Alexander tipped his chin imperviously, and said, “You may.”

For the whole ceremony, he didn’t take his eyes off me, not even when he was told to the kiss the bride and his lips closed over mine in a seal that felt more unbreakable than any legal paper or binding words could ever be.

The afterparty was in full swing, and I was finally enjoying myself. The champagne Alexander kept handing me made my blood feel as light as my heart as I tripped down the hall to the bathroom on the main floor. I was tipsy from wine, drunk on Alexander’s salacious kisses, and more hopeful than I had ever dared to be before.

He might not have loved me yet, and he might not ever be capable of saying the words aloud, but there was no doubt in my mind after watching his awe during the ceremony that hecherishedme.

For a poor girl from Naples with a broken, far-flung family, that was more than good enough for now.

I had just finished in the bathroom and was opening the door to the hall when a vicious hand shoved through the gap in the door and tangled in my hair. With a grunt, I tried to squeeze the offending limb out of the room, but whoever was behind it was too strong.

They burst through the door and were on me in a flash, one hand over my mouth to muffle my screams and the other in my hair so he could begin to drag me from the room.

“Daughter of mine,” Noel said with a serene smile as he hauled me down the hall and then bumping down the steps to the servant’s level. He abandoned his hand around my mouth because my struggles made it impossible for him to subdue me without the use of both. “I think it’s about time we got to know each other a little better.”

I screamed so loudly my eardrums quaked ominously and my throat felt on fire with agony, but still I screamed.

Alexander was nowhere in the house, but that didn’t excuse the nearly fifty odd servants that the Davenport’s kept on staff.

None of them came for me.

Noel wrenched open the small, warped wooden door beside the kitchen entry that went to the dungeon and wrenched me by the hair so hard my screaming gave way to a whimper of pure hurt.

He didn’t care about my pain, and he never had. The stolen moments where he’d tended to me had only been manipulation, a tool the Davenport men weaponised all too well.

Two hands pushed in the imprints already left on my back as I was pushed down the steep, narrow steps to the basement. I went tumbling down, this time bracing my arms over my neck so that I wouldn’t hit my head.

I lay groaning in a pile at the base of the stairs as Noel closed and bolted the door before following me down.

“I’m so glad we can finally have some private time without anyone else watching,” he told me in his gentile way. “I’ve been waiting so long to have his talk with you.”

He gently lifted me by the hand so that I was half standing and then brutally punched down into my left side so that agony exploded in my kidney. I crumpled to the ground.

He repeated the maneuver twice more so that I was weak as a kitten when he finally pulled me by the armpits further into the room. I tried to knee him in the balls, and he backhanded me viciously across the face. I tried to scream again, and he kicked me in the calf so hard, I went down to one knee.

While I was down, he used the time to pull a pair of cuffs down from a length of chain attached to the ceiling. He secured them around my squirming wrists and then hit a lever so that I went catapulting onto my tiptoes trying to ease the strain on my shoulders.

“Let’s take you out of that pretty dress,” Noel murmured almost to himself, moving around me to the buttons along my spine.

I kicked out with my legs but cried out when the movement nearly wrenched my shoulders out of their sockets.

“Still,” Noel ordered as he unclipped the last button, and my gorgeous wedding dress fell to the ground at my toes, leaving me only in lace white bra and panties.

He hummed a merry tune as he walked away to a wall covered with impact implements. After careful consideration, he chose one that was achingly familiar.

A black snake whip.

I whimpered as he moved back to stand in front of me.