Page 163 of The Enslaved Duet

I gritted my teeth as I folded myself to the ground.

“Good little thing,” he praised, petting my head the way one would a dog.

A deep breath helped to quell my more imminent rage. I was there because he was blackmailing me, but I was also there to learn from him all there was to know about the Order.

I didn’t know what was going on with Alexander or why he was suddenly back in my life with a tenacious vengeance, but I did know that even if we weren’t together in any way ever again, I still wanted to end the Order.

They had made him into a monster, so I was going to become theirs.

“I didn’t give you permission to leave the country,” Ashcroft said mildly as his hand jerked a hank of my hair back brutally. “You’ll have to be punished for that.”

Honestly, that was fine with me. Ashcroft was a true sadist; he didn’t need to fuck me to take his pleasure from me. He only needed my sweat, my tears, and a little blood. Then again, his reluctance to fuck me might have stemmed from the damage he’d garnered from his stint in the Iron Chair at Pearl Hall. I’d seen the mangled bend of his cock and his horribly scarred scrotum. Riddick and Alexander had not been kind to him after he’d forcibly taken my throat.

“I had to work,” I demurred as I blinked tears from my smarting eyes.

“Maybe I should move you in with me. Get myself a permanent little slut and maid to do all the dirty work around here.” He stepped close so that the hard length of his dick pressed to my cheek through his slacks. “Would you like that?”

I looked at his feet in answer, unable to bend and contort myself into the origami folds of submission I usually fell gracefully into at Alexander’s feet.

The memory of his cold voice like a collar around my throat, his will a chain-link leash ruthlessly guiding me through the obstacle course of his desire made my throat go dry.

“That’s more like it,” Ashcroft said, flicking my hardened nipples. “I would beat you so fucking soundly bent over my desk, but The Trials are tonight, and they need each slave unmarked before the start.”

The Trials.

I’d heard of them before, in my past life as slave Davenport, but I didn’t know what they entailed. Alexander hadn’t participated in The Trials at Club Dionysus the year he owned me in England because I’d only just been broken.

I didn’t know how Ashcroft could delude himself into thinking he could put me on display, and I would happily obey his demands like some trained bitch at a Best in Show.

“I know you’ll obey beautifully for me,” he said, reading the expression on my face and sneering at it. “Or I’ll not only release the tawdry photos of Davenport fucking you into the ground, but I’ll also give you over to his father.”

His sinister laughter rang through the foyer like the track to a bad B-list movie.

My skin broke open in gooseflesh, and I fought the urge to wrap my arms around myself as a protective shield.

As much as I had missed Alexander over the last few years, I had been that much more relieved to be away from Noel.

You could still see the faint silvery trace of scars on my back if you caught me in the wrong light, and when I dreamt, it was often of the vicious beating he and his third son had bestowed upon me as a wedding present.

The very mention of Noel’s name was akin to invoking the devil.

“I see you understand the gravity of your situation now.” Ashcroft tipped my chin and leaned down so that his smug, fleshy smile was all I could see. “Noel wants you. He’s mentioned offhand enough times at the Club that he would pay handsomely if someone turned you over to his possession. It seems he didn’t get enough of you when you were Alexander’s pet. Apparently, the Thornton is not very good at sharing.”

No, Alexander wasn’t, which was only one of the reasons he had warned his father to never lay a hand on me.

Of course, Noel hadn’t heeded that threat, and to this day, I doubted Alexander knew just how much physical damage, not to mention emotional trauma, his dad had wreaked upon me.

“Such a shame Noel can’t be there tonight to watch you perform for me.” He dragged his fingers down the side of my face and sifted them through my hair. I held my breath as I prayed he wouldn’t catch sight of the poppy Alexander had planted under the skin of my neck.

“Though, he would take you away, and quite honestly, I’m not done with you yet. You have all this golden skin I’ve yet to mark.” He hummed contemplatively as if cataloguing all the future ways he would hurt me.

His dispassionate malevolence reminded me of all the other truly vile men I’d met before. It was surprising how intrinsically boredom and evil were linked together. I wondered if the men of the Order were not so wealthy as to be idle and not so emotionally vacant as to need cruelty to fill them up if there would even be an Order to begin with?

“You will stay here until tonight. I have a girl who does hair and makeup coming for you, and before then, you’ll don your sweet little maid’s uniform and see to my house, won’t you, slave?”

“Yes, sir.”

He petted my head again, then twisted his fingers in the locks and yanked me into a standing position again. His sneering face was hot against my own as he plastered our cheeks together and spoke into the corner of my mouth. “Please me tonight and when I bring you back here for a night cap, I might not have to reintroduce you to the bullwhip. Do you remember that, sweet slave? When Landon Knox peeled the pretty skin off your back in long, golden ribbons?”