Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 130048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
His hands balled; a blackness fell over his face. “Corine and I are tonight’s entertainment.”
“Entertainment?”
“You’ll see.” Unfurling one of his hands, he placed it on the small of my back and pushed me forward. “We have to go. I know you think we’re all brainless sheep who go where our shepherds command, but like I told you before, we obey for a reason. We’ve had enough punishments to know there’s wisdom in behaving.”
I studied him for a moment before whispering under my breath, “If you could run…would you?”
He caught my stare before leading me out of the jewels’ quarters. The dark, stone corridors swallowed us like hungry snakes. “The day I run it’ll be because I’ve reached my limit. I won’t be running toward escape. I’ll be running toward death. Because this—” He tapped his bowtie-wrapped golden collar. “This has come close to killing me a few times. It’s excruciating, but…at some point, your body starts to shut down, and then it’s just a matter of letting your heart stop with it.”
I had nothing to say to that.
I merely reached out, took his hand, and squeezed.
He gave me a gut-wrenching shrug.
Henri’s team better hurry up because the longer I remained here and the more I got to know these poor forgotten, badly beaten slaves, the more fury kindled within me.
If Henri didn’t save them, I would.
Punishment or no punishment.
Pain or no pain.
I would trade my life for theirs because I couldn’t let them keep hurting, keep surviving.
I’d been brought here to help.
In any way possible.
And I’ll do whatever it takes…
Chapter Nineteen
………………………….
Henri
I FELT HER BEFORE I saw her.
Twisting in my chair, my eyes flew to the lantern-strewn garden, searching the flock of slaves currently moving toward us.
Where is she?
I skimmed the stunning beauties and ignored the handsome men, seeking the one jewel who—
Ah, there she is.
My body relaxed and tensed as I set eyes on her. My heart sped up and slowed as I drank in the short, sexy nightgown she wore. My blood heated and iced as my gaze dropped between her legs where the shadow of her sex was barely covered by white lace.
The murmur of male appreciation percolated around me.
Whispers of what they’d like to do to Ily. Chuckles of how hard they’d fuck her when my weekend exclusivity was up.
I was a sick and twisted man, but hearing what some of the others would do to her given half the chance…Jesus Christ.
My hands balled on the table.
Tonight would be utter hell.
Not only was I running on dregs, but I had to perform like a man who’d just been let out of a prison cell of his own making. After my unfortunate vomiting episode in the shower, I’d crashed on my bed and dreamed horror-filled fantasies of tying Ily up and taking her all over again.
As much as I still had power over my thoughts and actions while I was awake, it seemed my subconscious was well and truly ignoring me.
The villain within me grew bolder, colder, hungrier.
The guffaws of men elbowing each other at the mention of tag-teaming Ily in the dungeons kept me clinging to the rapidly fraying hero inside me, but the idea of me being the one to chain her, bruise her, fuck her—
Christ, stop it.
Balling my hands, I went over my plan for after this twisted dinner party.
Step one, wait until everyone is drunk and passed out.
Step two, head up to Victor’s office and break in.
Step three, find the signal scrambler and turn it off just long enough for my birdcage cufflinks to send out their godforsaken GPS coordinates.
Step four, turn the scrambler back on.
Step five, go to bed.
Step six, wake to the sounds of helicopters and machine gun fire as my brother rains bullets on every bastard here.
Excluding me…hopefully.
As long as I didn’t hurt Ily and she remained complicit in my deception, I wasn’t a bastard. Sure, I dabbled with the edge of that definition, but if I never straight-up raped her, then…I wouldn’t have to die.
Merde, can you hear yourself?
You painted her with your cum.
You spurted inside her like a schoolboy because for the first time in your miserable life, sex actually felt good.
You’re suffering a goddamn crush, for fuck’s sake!
That was the worst part.
I wished Victor had never used that word.
I wished my mind hadn’t twisted it into an obsession.
I was twenty-fucking-nine years old, and I’d never had a crush. I’d lusted after the thought of lust but never felt the real deal because no girl had given me the time of day.
They’d sensed something off about me.
Avoided the beast within.
The fact that Ily had poked my monster awake the moment our eyes met was the epitome of inconvenient, but then again, perhaps my wretched heart had done me a favour. The more I saw her as fragile and breakable, the longer I could withstand my tendencies and convince myself that I’d been wrong about everything.