Kairos (22 page)

“What are you talking about? I’m not fighting anything. Listen, lady, I just want to go home. I don’t want to be a part of this, but I don’t have a choice. Can you help me?” She shakes her head, and I feel what little hope I had left slither away and die.

“I will not help you escape your duties, but I will help you fulfill your destiny.” She stands up and makes for the door.

“Wait! What are you talking about? Please, tell me what you mean.” She looks back over her shoulder and smiles a gentle smile at me.

“In time. But you’re not quite ready just yet.” She stops for a moment and then looks at me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen. “I know you’re confused and scared, but you must not allow them to break you. They’ll try…oh my, deary, will they ever try. Hold strong, Sulwen.”

I watch her walk out the door, where I notice a silhouette of a large man waiting on her. She pulls the door closed behind her with a resounding thud and confirming click as the locks are triggered.

My mind is like a hamster running in a ball but getting nowhere.

What seems like forever passes before a tall man in black comes in and releases me from my bonds. With a rough jerk, I’m hoisted off the mattress. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a blindfold, which he secures quickly around my face and ties in a knot at the back of my head.

My legs shake with fear as I’m pushed hard from behind, which causes me to stumble and stub my toe. “Ouch.” I start to bend over and grab my foot but halt when I realize I can feel his heat close to my ass. My body stiffens and my posture goes rigid in a second. Stubbed toe forgotten.

“Move it!” he yells and shoves me again. We walk a short distance, and then he begins pulling up the bottom of my gown.

“No, stop. Please don’t.” I reach for his hands, and I’m instantly rewarded with a hard smack to the side of my face. I raise my hand to clutch my cheek and take a few steps back. Hard hands grip my waist, and my gown is tugged up.

The cold air hits my bottom as I’m shoved down onto what feels like a toilet seat.

“Do your business. Quick.”

My bladder is about to burst, so I waste no time opening the floodgates to relieve myself. When I’m finished he places tissue in the palm of my hand, and I clean myself up.

With a tug I’m up, and we’re moving back down the hall. I take about two steps when I hear a loud pain-filled scream coming from somewhere to my left. The voices are muffled when the woman cries out again in agony.

My knees start to shake with fear, and I start counting to one hundred to occupy my mind. Her screams follow me all the way down the hall and back into my room. I hear the click of the door shut behind me and whirl around to wait for my blindfold to be removed.

I hear a
whoosh
right before a fist connects with my stomach, and I’m brought to my knees, gasping for breath. I cough and wheeze, trying to collect myself. Pain streaks across my abdomen, but I’m not given any time to dwell.

My hands are clutched in a protective gesture around my stomach, so I don’t have time to react when I feel his boot connect with my jaw. I fall from my knees, and my face hits the wooden floor with a heavy thump. Blood pools in my mouth as my teeth bite down on my tongue.

“Aah!” I scream out in pain. I curl into a ball as his boot rains down on my back, stomach, and head. Each kick sends my vision spiraling. My body aches in ways I could have never imagined.

He finally relents. Boots stomp across the floor, and the door shuts quietly behind him. I reach for my blindfold and tear it off.

My knuckles are bleeding from rolling on the floor, and they sting when I try to dab them with the blindfold cloth. I think I have a cracked rib because every time I try to take a deep breath, it is excruciatingly painful.

I stand up on unsteady legs and limp over to the mattress, where I lie down and curl up in the fetal position. My head is pounding to the beat of my heart. My ribs are killing me, and my mouth will not quit bleeding. I feel a sob rise up, but I fight to hold it back. I don’t want them to see me break.

I rise at the sound of heavy boots approaching my door. When the door opens, it’s the same man who came before. I cringe with fear and curl into a protective ball as he draws near.

I try not to look at his face. His gray eyes are cold and calculating, and that scares me even more.

“Bring it in,” he yells, and moments later a black-eyed and bruised Ailis walks through the door carrying a pitcher of water and a plate with a sandwich.

Her eyes dart everywhere but to mine. I know I must look as bad as she does, but it’s still hard to see her beautiful face marred with deep purple bruises and a slash across her right eye that extends into her hairline. Her clothes have been traded for a plain white gown like mine, and she’s barefoot just like me. She places the tray on the table and exits the room with a pronounced limp.

“Eat.” His voice is dry and to the point.

I crawl to the edge of the bed and stand. When I reach for the plate, his hand wraps around my forearm painfully. His grip is so tight it feels like the bone is going to snap.

“Stop. Why are you doing this?” I cry out as I try to pull away from his grip.

He draws his other hand back and smacks me across the left side of my face and then shoves me toward the table.

I scramble to get my footing as my hip collides with the blunt corner of the side table. I cry out in pain but don’t turn around. Tears build in my eyes, but I bite my jaw to quell them.

“
Eat!
” he yells. I involuntarily flinch at his tone, but he doesn’t strike me this time.

I grab the sandwich and eat with as much speed as possible. After taking my last bite, I drink a glass of water and turn to go back to my bed, but he wraps the blindfold around my eyes before I can make it there.

Blinded by the darkness that comes with the black fold of cotton, I follow mindlessly as he leads me out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom. This time I don’t fight him when he lifts my gown and turns me around to sit down on the toilet.

When I’m finished he leads me back to my room and removes the blindfold.

“Lie down.”

I look up at him and feel a flicker of heat swirl around my feet, up my legs, and through my chest. The feeling emboldens me.

“Fuck you. You’re going to regre—”
Smack
. His hand connects with my face so hard that I’m knocked off my feet and fall back onto the mattress. My ears start to ring, and my vision goes spotty.

My entire face feels as if it’s being poked with a thousand needles at once. Before I can right myself, he’s straddling my waist and securing my wrists and ankles back into their leather bindings. I try to fight, but I can’t move at all, and I quickly realize that my struggling only serves to further heighten his enjoyment.

My body goes slack, and my back rests against the cool cotton sheets as I surrender to the knowledge that I am at the mercy of another being. It’s in this moment that I feel my hope begin to slither away.

Oh God, will Logan ever find me here? The more time I pass in this place the more I have convinced myself that my vision was the direct result of my unconscious state. It wasn’t real. I tell myself this every time those images of Logan lying on the ground enter my thoughts…
it wasn’t real
.

I clench my eyes shut when I hear him start to move around, but he only moves to collect the plate from the table and then he leaves.

I turn my face into the mattress and choke back the sobs that grip my throat like a fist. I don’t know why I’m here, or what it is they want from me, but I’m pretty sure they don’t intend to let me leave here alive.

Days pass, and I start to notice a routine developing. Ailis comes once a day with food and water, and then Captain Douchebag allows me to use the bathroom, always blindfolded though.

He always secures me back in my restraints on the bed before he leaves. Oddly enough though, he hasn’t spoken another word, and the silence is starting to get to me. I’ve tried speaking to Ailis, and sometimes she’ll make eye contact, but she won’t respond to my whispered questions.

I haven’t heard anyone else walk by the door, and the house is so eerily quiet you could hear a pin drop. I start to doze off out of sheer boredom when I hear heavy steps coming toward the door. I watch the handle twist with both dread and excitement thrumming through my veins: excitement over seeing Ailis again and dread that it’s the master the man who took me spoke of.

I don’t have to wait long to know that dread is the winner in this equation. A tall, muscular man walks into the room. He’s dressed all in black, from the skintight black t-shirt and military-style pants to the military-style boots that adorn his huge feet. His black hair is buzzed short, which only serves to highlight his strong, angular face. Thick black brows frame his deep-set brown eyes. A masculine nose and full lips polish off his chiseled features. He has a shadow of a beard that I think is probably there even after he shaves. His skin is a dark caramel color.

He walks purposefully toward me before grabbing the only chair in the room and spinning it around to straddle it and then take a seat. He folds his arms over the back of the chair, and stares at me with a menacing expression.

I am fully aware of how vulnerable I am strapped down to this bed. His dark eyes scan my body, and I internally cringe at the thought of him finding me appealing. Seemingly satisfied with his perusal, he smirks.

“Sulwen Macgregor.” He spits my name out as if it’s distasteful to him. “Tsk, tsk…Miss Macgregor, you are quite troublesome to be such a little thing.”

I tug at the restraints around my wrists. I can’t stand being bound and knowing he could have his way with me.

“Hah…” he barks out in false amusement. “You think I would sully my dick by thrusting it inside your nasty cunt?” He laughs harshly as he sees that I have put the pieces together. “Yes, I read minds. It’s not that difficult really. And a mind as simple as yours is no feat at all.”

I clench my fists and close my eyes, my instincts taking over as my heart pumps wildly in my chest. I can’t let him use me as a means to find the others. I start building a wall. I picture one block and then another, and before I know it, I can see it standing within my mind. Tall and impenetrable. Glowing with magic.

I open my eyes and stare into his. “I’m not afraid of you.” When I say the words out loud, a sense of power strums through my core. Saying it out loud has somehow made the words seem truer than thinking them in my mind.

He leans over the back of the chair, his face closer to mine than I am comfortable with. “You should be afraid. You should be very afraid. You know where something very precious to me is and you’re going to tell me. I don’t care how important you think you are, because I don’t give a fuck if the barrier comes down. Hell, I want it down.” He stands abruptly and shoves the chair against the wall.

In a blur he’s leaning over me with his hands around my throat. His grip is firm but not tight enough that I can’t breathe. He leans down, and his nose touches mine. I try to pull back, but when he tightens his grip on my throat I freeze.

“I. Will. Break. You.” He licks the side of my face and runs his tongue down over my closed mouth, then stands back and crudely adjusts himself.

“Vanos!” he yells. A man walks into the room carrying a black duffle bag. I don’t want to know what’s in his bag of goodies. His eyes tell me it’s nothing I want any part of. He has scraggly brown hair, and his features are plain and nondescript. He wears all black like his leader but has knives strapped in various places on his body.

I physically flinch when he drops the bag on the floor next to the bed and leans down toward me. His cold and calloused hands wrap around my thighs and part my legs. I try to fight him, but the restraints are tied in such a way that I can’t close my legs all the way. He grins at me lecherously and then swoops down to sniff between my legs. I can feel the cotton panties bunching in between my ass cheeks as I try to clench my legs closed. His hot breath passes through my thin gown, and I cringe.

“
Stop!
” I yell and twist, trying to shove a knee in his face.