Page 11 of Fervent

“Well that’s a shame,” Muscle Guy said as he pulled me toward the door by the chain. “I like blondes.”

“You like ‘em all, as long as they scream for you.”

A shudder tore through me, and I vowed that I would never scream or cry for him again.

“On your hands and knees.”

“What?” I blinked at him.

“Don’t make me tell you twice,” he said with a hard shove until I dropped to my knees. “Crawl like the slut you are.” He herded me back into the tunnel, naked, wet, and shaking from the chilly air.

The door to Lucas’ office was closed, and silence blasted from the other side. He yanked me in the opposite direction and paraded me down the passage like a dog, my knees scraping the dirt ground. After passing several doors, he stopped and pulled a ring of keys from his pocket before jamming one into a lock. “Be a good girl and wait on the bed.”

He pointed toward the claustrophobic darkness, and my hesitation cost me a kick in the ass. Pain scorched my backside, eliciting a wounded cry as I crawled inside. He latched the other end of the chain to an anchor in the ground before slamming the door shut. My breath came in panicked gasps as I pushed to my feet and searched for the handle. There wasn’t one. My trembling hands smoothed over a panel where a doorknob should have been.

Hysteria flooded me, vibrating through my legs until they buckled. I fell to the ground and slinked across the dark space, chain clanking through the rocky dirt. My head hit the metal frame of the bed, and I planted a fist on the thin mattress to hoist myself onto it. Finding a blanket bunched in the corner near the wall, I wrapped myself in the scratchy material, curling in a tight ball on the cot, and wished I could wither away to nothing. If I could only erase the last hour as easily as the blood had vanished from my skin, then maybe I could fucking breathe. But that blood lingered, if not physically, then mentally.

So did the image of Rafe. He’d cried, actually shed drops of horror from his beautiful eyes. The man who’d at one time left me naked and cold in a cage, who’d fucked me after paddling my ass, had cried at witnessing my pain.

Palpitations seized my heart. Were they beating him? Killing him?

I couldn’t cry. Iwouldn’t. If I started, I wouldn’t stop. I bit into my lip, hard enough to puncture, and licked away the metallic taste. I should have done what Lucas demanded. If Rafe died because I’d refused to suck a dick…I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

I wouldn’t be able to live at all.

Why had I chosen that moment to take a stand? For years, Zach had made me cower and submit, yet the one time Rafe needed me to do it for his life, I hadn’t been able to.

Why was this happening to us? We should have run away together when we had the chance, gotten far away from this place and this madness and this cruel fate that kept unleashing its sadism.

I clutched the blanket to my chest and squeezed my eyes shut. And I prayed. To whom, I wasn’t sure. To anyone listening.

Please get us out of here alive.

Whereas I’d wanted to end the pain not long ago by taking my own life, now I ached for the opposite. I wanted to live in peace with Rafe, hungered to submit my body and soul. I wanted to grow old with him, wanted to heal him…and maybe find a way to heal myself.

I’d gladly exist as a vagrant beside him, belonging nowhere or to anyone except each other.

My lids grew heavy, and as images of a life I’d never have flickered in my mind’s eye, I allowed a fitful sleep to claim me. I was back in the cabin with Zach, body trapped under his punishing knife and held prisoner by his thrusting cock.

Except it wasn’t Zach. Rafe took his place, one hand around my throat while the other drew the sharp blade into my skin.

“Mine,” he said. “You’ll never escape the pain of being mine.” He rammed into me with one last grunt and spilled his seed, head thrown back, green eyes hooded while he watched me watch him. A breath hissed between his teeth.

“I’m going to destroy you, sweetheart.”

The sound of my screams startled me awake. I shot up, hands rising in front of my face to protect me. Overwhelming darkness closed in, and my breathing escalated. The screaming continued, but I wasn’t the one screaming.

“Please! Stop! I wanna go home,” a shrill voice sobbed. A spine-tingling crack sounded on the other side of the wall and another shriek rattled my bones.

I tumbled to the ground and crawled toward the sound with quaking knees. She let out another horrific scream. I jerked to my side, hands covering my ears, body folding into the fetal position. But it wasn’t enough.

I couldn’t breathe. Dust from the ground clogged my nose and throat. I removed my palms, and her screams ripped through my eardrums. Unbidden, I dug my fingernails into my forearm, scratching down the scar from my desperate attempt to break free of Zach. My fingers glided over the ridges circling my wrist from when the men had restrained me.

From when they’d beat me…just like they were doing to that girl.

They were stripping her of who she was, shattering everything she’d known to be true until this point, this irrevocable moment when her life would change forever. Each strike, each cry that left her lips was another step toward submitting to a fate she couldn’t fight. To a fate that would make her wish for death.

I was glad Zach had destroyed me, and not some faceless stranger. At least he loved me in his own sick way.

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