Page 68 of The Enslaved Duet

I kept my gaze down because Alexander had stressed the importance of my submissiveness until the cows came home on the way to this highland retreat.

I saw the edge of Sherwood’s shiny leather riding boots stop just inside my scope of sight, and then I felt the heaviness of his hand on my head. Instantly, I folded elegantly into a kneel, a human origami shaped just to his liking.

“My brothers, I give you the Golden Fox,” he announced boldly as he placed a cornet on my head I knew was made of golden thorns and ruby flowers.

It was ludicrously expensive, far more valuable to the Order than the woman wearing it. There was deliberate irony in the gesture that set my teeth on edge.

Women were nothing to these men.

They had been practicing The Hunt since they stole the idea from the Spanish Civil War practice during the White Terror, when wealthy landowners would hunt down and murder peasantry.

They wouldn’t spill our blood today, unless it was between our thighs, but it was still unspeakably horrible.

I could only hope Alexander would be the one to find and capture me.

He would hurt me, but only to tame my wild spirit and bring me a calm I’d never before been free to experience.

I didn’t want to think about what the others would do to me.

After the trauma of my previous experience with the Order, I didn’t hold much hope that my mind would emerge unscathed if another Master claimed me.

A shiver rippled through me like a ghost as I thought of Landon and his cruel black snake whip. My back was barely healed from the ordeal, thin pink ribbons of sadism still bifurcated my flesh and twanged with pain when I moved the wrong way.

It had been two weeks since the Order of Dionysus swept into Pearl Hall and fundamentally changed the way of my world there.

Two weeks since Alexander had taken a beating for me.

Two weeks since he’d last touched me.

In fact, after the events of that horrible night, I’d barely seen him to speak to him, let alone continue my valet duties of dressing and bathing him, or my sexual duties of taking his cock whenever it suited him.

He gave me nothing but a cruel amount of space and time.

It was Mrs. White who tended to my split and scabbing back, Douglas who delivered my food, and surprise of all surprises, Riddick, who was also trained as a doctor, who sat by my bedside to check me for infection and rewrap my wounds.

Christmas had come and gone, and with it, New Year’s Eve. Douglas invited me to the servant’s dinner, but I didn’t want them to feel strained, so I only had a dinner of turkey on a plate in my room. I’d been given licence to call my family, and I’d cried when I spoke to Sebastian, who had successfully moved to London, and Giselle, who seemed meek as ever but artistically thriving in Paris. Mama had made me laugh as she recounted neighborhood gossip and Elena had listened quietly, attentively as I told her my made-up stories of modelling gigs in Milano and London.

I was homesick and lonely without any true company.

No Alexander.

No Noel either, though I wasn’t so sure that was a bad thing after his behaviour the night of the flogging. I hadn’t looked too closely at his motivation for being kind to me previously because I’d been so starved for affection, so used to my prior life where a person was kind without needing a reason to be.

I was different now.

I knew the truth of the world.

No one did anything for anyone unless it benefited their agenda.

I didn’t know what motivated Noel besides his obvious hatred of all things Amedeo Salvatore, but I knew he was playing me across a board I couldn’t see, ready to sacrifice me like one of the pawns he had taught me so much about.

I lifted my chin as Sherwood bade me to rise and rejoin the other girls. My eyes snared on Alexander’s broad frame, seated on a huge white horse that suited his rider’s size and ferocity. My Master’s eyes were on me and inside me, his jaw clenched as he tried to pry my thoughts out of my head across the space between us.

He’d been giving me that look a lot since the ordeal, whenever I caught him leaving early or returning late to the house.

I think he expected me to hate him.

I didn’t.