Savage Chains: Scarred (#2) Read online

  Should I put it on?

  Reyes nodded. If we’re going to move forward with this you’ll have to. Just remember, you can stop at any time.

  Angelica took the costume in hand. I might need your help with this.

  In other circumstances, the process of helping Angelica get into any kind of fantasy wear would probably have landed him in bed with her. As it was, despite the fact that he pulled the bustier tight and zipped her up and that her firm breasts mounded so beautifully in the snug, too-small cups, his nerves kept him from enjoying the moment.

  He had a bad feeling about this situation. Why was the flogger like the one that Sweet Dove had used on him and why was Angelica supposed to wear the dominant outfit?

  The leather pants were an intricate combination of strips of leather, so that it took more than one try to get each leg through. Once the job was done and she wore the six-inch black stilettos he stood back. I won’t forget this image very soon.

  “She’s like a wet dream, isn’t she?”

  Reyes turned, the sound of the woman’s voice like broken glass slicing into his skin. She had frizzy red hair and deep cornflower-blue eyes, a small bow of a mouth, and cruelty emanating from every cell of her body.

  Sweet Dove.

  She turned in a slow circle. “How do I look, lover?”

  She wore a cream silk skirt to midcalf, a sheer blouse with sleeves that ran to the wrists, ending in three-inch ruffles, and a gold metallic bra visible beneath.

  Her hair was in a cloud around her head, gathered once behind with a gold clip, then flaring in more clouds and streamers down her back.

  He hadn’t seen her in decades, and now here she was somehow intimately connected to Starlin and even to Scorpion, the alliteration sinking deep suddenly, like a snake hissing. He wanted to say something to her, to rail at her for all the pain she’d caused him, but nothing would come.

  He’d dreamed of this moment, of finally confronting his abuser, yet he stood immobile as though, even after all this time, she could still control him.

  But it was Angelica who spoke first. “You’re the bitch who hurt me.”

  She pivoted toward Angelica. Though Sweet Dove continued to stare at her, she addressed Reyes. “Your slave needs a lesson in manners. Would you like to teach her, or shall I?”

  She extended her hand toward Angelica, but the threat against her moved Reyes out of his stupor. He caught his captor’s wrist and turned her toward him. “What the fuck is this all about, Sweet Dove? I was told I’d be meeting Scorpion.”

  Sweet Dove smiled. “And you will. As for Scorpion, he and I are old friends, much older than even Engles and I, or did you not know that?”

  Reyes made a decision not to tip his hand. There was no reason why Sweet Dove needed to know that Angelica had a revisiting vision capability. “I didn’t know.”

  “I’m a little surprised. Somehow I thought you did. But before we get any further, I really must know how you got free of me all those years ago.”

  Reyes recalled the process and how it had taken two decades of slow, determined effort. He gave her the short version. “It was simple. Though it required time and patience, I seduced two of the men you brought in on a regular basis to join in our fun, that’s how.”

  She held his gaze. “Actually, I’d already figured it out. But what distresses me to this day is that I never suspected. I thought you liked being with me. I made sure you had pleasure.”

  Reyes stared at her for a long, hard moment. Something that had never quite made sense to him now came into sharp focus. He’d always known Sweet Dove to be a pure narcissist, but until now he hadn’t truly understood that she was actually surprised that he’d ever wanted to leave her. She believed what she said, that she’d thought he’d been fulfilled and content serving as her slave.

  The woman bought her own propaganda.

  But he refused to get distracted by her sense of ill-usage. “I looked for each of those men later, but they seemed to have disappeared.”

  She checked her manicure. She had long, sharp nails. “I had to know the truth, so I tortured them. I was never so disappointed in all my life, because as much as they enjoyed inflicting pain on you in my presence, neither lasted very long when put under the cat’s claw.”

  Reyes let these words slide off him. He didn’t really care very much about the past, not anymore, especially with Angelica in the room and extremely vulnerable as a human. No matter what Sweet Dove’s game was, he had to protect Angelica and because of Sweet Dove’s Ancestral status she had complete power in the situation.

  “And how are you connected to Scorpion and Starlin?”

  She moved in his direction, reaching out with her right hand to touch his bare arm. But suddenly Angelica was right there, standing between them. In her stilettos she was taller than Sweet Dove. “Keep your hands off him. He’s my master.”

  Sweet Dove’s lips curled, her fangs showing. Then she laughed, a long trill of laughter. “What a stupid human you are, or do you not understand that I could rip you away from Reyes right now? I could have your blood-chains removed and throw you to the dogs or give you to Engles, though I suspect you would prefer the former.”

  Reyes felt Angelica ready to respond, but he took her quickly by the arm and pulled her behind him. Aloud he said, “Stand down, slave. You’re out of line.” Privately he added, She can kill you with a single blow. Let me handle this.

  “How endearing that your slave has become protective of you, but we will get rid of her once you return to me.”

  He wanted Sweet Dove’s focus off Angelica. “I belong to no one, Sweet Dove, or are you called something else now?”

  “I am, as it happens. But I can see that you haven’t guessed, which surprises me. You never lacked for intelligence and you were always studying, which I thought endearing in its way.”

  He refused to get sidetracked. He had to get a clear picture of what he was dealing with. “What’s your new name?”

  She laughed once more. “I swear you’ve grown positively obtuse since you left me. How can you not know who I am?”

  Reyes stared at her and then the pieces of the puzzle fell suddenly into place. It couldn’t be, yet in his gut he knew it was true. He felt dizzy as he stated, “You’re Scorpion.”

  She nodded. “I am. Do you like the empire I’ve built all around my favorite pastime? I think it sublime. I’m very proud of what I’ve created. The betting pools have been good fun and a real moneymaker, more than the auctions themselves. I won a small fortune on the little Russian. Of course, it helped to know the owner and to encourage him to increase or decrease his beatings. Power is a wonderful thing.”

  Reyes stared at his former captor, the woman who had beaten, raped, and tortured him for a century and whom he’d been unable to locate all this time. But there was one thing he had to know, whether or not she suspected his current ruse.

  “After Starlin, you’re my second most favorite achievement, you know.” She drew close. “I’ve watched you especially over the past year, when Engles told me you’d applied for membership. I’m good at disguises, you see, and I watched that little Asian beauty suck you off. You bit her ear. Very nice. But what the hell happened at the theater performance?”

  Again, Sweet Dove had taught him so much. Without missing a beat he responded, “I was thinking of you, of course, so I got lost in the memories.” Would she buy it? Or would she suspect he’d almost lost his mind in that moment and blown his cover?

  She smiled. “Of course you would have. I take it you telepathically commanded your slave to service you?”

  He held Sweet Dove’s gaze firmly. “Yes, that’s exactly what I did. I had complete control of her and she performed for me just as I wanted her to.”

  Sweet Dove smoothed a hand over his breastplate. “So you were lost in thoughts of me.”

  “I was.” How he hated her. He wanted nothing more than to snap her perverse neck. But she still had physical and preternatural power ov
er him and she wouldn’t hesitate to kill Angelica if it served her purpose.

  “Oh, and I did so enjoy that even while in a fully aroused state you attacked Engles. I hadn’t had that much fun in ages. You’re both fit, beautiful men. It was like watching the Greeks of old wrestle.”

  He worked hard to process the truth that the woman who had enslaved him now led the organization he intended to bring down. It would never be enough to kill her outright. He had to get hold of the entire structure of her organization, all the players, everyone who got paid off, the names of the clubs, the betting organization, every damn thing.

  Right now he felt stuck between a rock and a hard place. If he’d been alone, without Angelica, he could have maneuvered through easily, even setting out to seduce his former captor and gain the information he sought.

  But Sweet Dove had been a fiercely jealous master and wouldn’t tolerate Angelica’s presence for longer than she had use for her. He needed to understand Sweet Dove’s purpose right now and to somehow figure out a way to save Angelica.

  “What do you want, Sweet Dove?”

  “I want you back of course. I realize you’d never be my slave again, but we could become so much more as a couple. I’ve missed you. I’ve never had a man like you since you left.

  “So for starters, I thought I would offer you what I know your ambitions crave: a seat on the Starlin board. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  Her eyes glittered and in that moment he realized she didn’t suspect him of any kind of treachery and a small part of him began to breathe, began to believe he and Angelica might just survive this night. “Yes, more than anything, I want on the board. I want what all of the governors have. I’ve made a small fortune on my own. But now I want what you and Engles possess.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “I knew it. You are my greatest accomplishment. I see it in your eyes. You match me in ambition now as well as in depravity.” She smiled, a familiar penetrating smile that caused fear to run through Reyes. He knew that nothing good would follow.

  “So, you may have a seat on the board of Starlin governors if you’ll do one thing for me, one very simple thing.”

  His heart rate kicked up several notches.

  Angelica’s voice was suddenly in his head. Reyes, I don’t trust her. She smells evil.

  I don’t trust her, either, but we’ve got to play her game.

  Aloud he said, “What do you need me to do?”

  “Actually, it’s not what I need just you to do, but rather you and your slave. But you’ll understand a lot better if I show you what I require.” Her smile broadened. “I’ve prepared a surprise for you.”

  ###

  Angelica gripped Reyes’s hand as she moved with him down the hall. The chains hummed low and hard, indicating a combination of sensations coming from him that she couldn’t quite separate out. Beneath everything, however, rage boiled, the old kind that swam in deep currents of hatred and shame.

  Sweet Dove led the way, walking with a confident stride in her cream skirt and gold bra, with her mounds of fiery hair.

  The cavern hallway, sculpted with unique carvings in the stone walls and high curved ceiling, was at least thirty feet long. It sloped downward to a room that appeared to be lit with candlelight.

  The closer Angelica drew to the light, however, the faster the chains vibrated at her neck, once more indicating Reyes’s distress. He tightened his hold on her hand, and once they arrived on the threshold she was in pain. Reyes, you’re hurting me. You’re crushing my fingers.

  She pulled, trying to disengage, but he stared at the room the way he had looked during Eve’s theater performance, like he wasn’t all there. Something about this room had gotten to him.

  Angelica turned toward him. His eyes looked glazed. “Reyes,” she called sharply.

  “I don’t understand,” Sweet Dove said softly, a curve to her bow lips. “He looked just like this while watching that woman during the performance at Engles’s home. I wonder if he’s thinking about me again?”

  She met Angelica’s gaze and showed her fangs in a satisfied grin.

  Part of Angelica wanted to rip Sweet Dove’s face off, but there were more important things to do. Angelica ignored the woman and began wrestling with Reyes’s hand. If he didn’t let go he’d break her bones. She sent some of the power she siphoned to her fingers and gradually built up enough strength to disengage.

  Once disconnected she held her hand but kept up the healing flow. This would not be the way to start an encounter with Sweet Dove, to show any kind of weakness.

  “He hurt you then? I take that as a good sign.”

  Angelica didn’t rise to the bait; instead she rubbed Reyes’s arm, up and down. She kept her head bowed, trying to maintain her slave cover. Come back to me. You’ve got to come back.

  He moved slowly forward, however, as if in a trance, but ignored her completely. She stayed with him, though, until they both stood in the center of the space.

  The room had a peculiar odor, something she couldn’t place at first, except that it smelled very old, almost ancient. The room held a throne-like chair and a barred grate over what was an arched cavern opening the size of an average window. Beyond she could hear water rushing at what must have been a great depth. Yet the resulting fresh air still didn’t soften the odor.

  She supposed many of the cavern systems around the world would have lots of older parts and even bad smells like this one. But why had this room shut Reyes down so completely?

  He turned slowly in Sweet Dove’s direction.

  Glancing past his shoulder, Angelica saw that a second archway led to another space, also lit by candlelight.

  Within were a series of old rusted chains and hooks, like something from an ancient fishing trawler. Below, on a three-foot-high platform, was a wood table stained very dark.

  She reached for Reyes’s hand once more, because a terrible chill went through her. She almost connected, touching his fingers, but suddenly he levitated toward the doorway and moved swiftly into the room. She hurried to retain the necessary proximity.

  He moved to stare down at the table, gripping two of the nearest chains in tight fists. The muscles of his arms flexed and released. His breathing grew rough.

  What was he seeing?

  Angelica stepped away from him. All she felt from him now, through their shared chains, was a rage that went beyond anything she could possibly comprehend.

  She moved off to the side and pressed herself against the wall. She saw him in profile and that his face had broken out in a sweat as he stared at the table.

  Then she understood and horror descended on her.

  This was where it had all happened, repeatedly, over a century. Maybe this had even been the first room.

  She watched Sweet Dove move to join them near the platform, easing off to the opposite side. She moved slowly, slithering like a snake, taking deep breaths, watching Reyes. She didn’t fear him, not even a little. But Angelica could tell that Sweet Dove’s drive to possess Reyes again, to once more make him her slave, exceeded every other purpose the woman had. She’d lied about a partnership.

  “Are you remembering now?” Sweet Dove asked. “Can you feel how I’m peeling away the disguises deep inside your mind, allowing you to recall the times you’d been here before?”

  Reyes nodded slowly.

  The woman’s lips were parted and her nipples peaked within her bra, tight, hard buds. She was getting off on this, on seeing Reyes here, the youth she’d abused, tortured, raped, and on watching him relive his past.

  “You used to like the things I did to you.”

  A grimace swept over his face, but he didn’t shift his gaze.

  “I know how badly you’ve wanted to join the Starlin Group, to partake of all the delights of my world. I’m offering you so much, Reyes, and all I need from you is to do this one little thing for me.

  “You see, Engles disrupted the performance earlier and I wanted to watch you explode wit
h passion, to really feel your pleasure as you dominated your slave.”

  She took a few steps closer to the table. “But that moment has passed and maybe it was for the best, because now what I desire tonight will be so much better, for you and for me.”

  At that, he slowly pivoted in her direction.

  Angelica moved at the same time, closer to the table but adjacent to Reyes so that she could see him and watch his expressions. How Reyes responded in this situation had just become a matter of life and death to Angelica. If rage took him over and he attempted to kill Sweet Dove, something he’d fail at because he couldn’t prevail over an Ancestral, Angelica knew she’d die. They both would.

  She had to do the thinking for both of them right now, since Sweet Dove had taken away Reyes’s rational mind by bringing him here. Angelica had the impression that the woman hadn’t used this room since Reyes left, which was maybe part of the smell. The scent reminded Angelica of the back rooms of a house that hadn’t been cleaned or aired in a long time.

  She leaned closer and realized the smell came from the table itself. She wondered if pain and violation developed a redolence over time.

  But as she stared at the stained wood she realized what had caused the uneven stain.

  Blood.

  And lots of it.

  She stepped back, horror piercing her once more.

  For a time, she couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think. But she had to pull herself together.

  Reyes had worked hard to build a life for himself after his subjugation in this dungeon, honest work with an honest wage on which he’d built his wealth. Only then had he set his sights on Starlin, when he could afford to buy into the expensive lifestyle. And he had only one purpose, to bring this diseased, perverse organization down.

  But he could lose it all right now.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “It’s simple. I want you on your back, naked, the way you used to be for me. And I want your slave to dominate you, to give the performance I’ve been denied all these decades since you left. If you do that, I’ll make you a board member this very night and in the coming days and weeks, if you once more become the lover I’ve craved all this time, I’ll make you my partner over the entire organization. You’ll be wealthy beyond what even you can imagine, and the power, Reyes, trust me, the power is intoxicating.”