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“I give you my word, I won’t do that.” I hated the panic glazing his eyes. The out-of-control helplessness. The tragic inability to make a difference. My voice shook with conviction. “I promise.”
He nodded without looking at me.
I dropped my eyes, hating that I’d made another vow.
I didn’t seem very good at keeping them.
Opening my fingers, I studied my pendant.
The weighted agony of grief swelled all over again.
Homesickness and horror. Panic and pain.
I wanted so, so badly to leave.
To run out of this claustrophobic, sadistic place and never look back.
But…a heavy sense of calm forced back the avalanche of terror.
I’d spent my entire life caring for Krish. I hadn’t been his parent in the terms of physical things. Our mother and father did a fantastic job of keeping him fed, clothed, and content. But I was the parent of his soul. I was the only one lucky enough to connect with him on the level where he was most comfortable. Sometimes that was a silent level. Sometimes almost mystical. When others couldn’t get through to him, I could, and…that was a gift, never an obligation.
I closed my eyes and sank into a split-second meditation.
I tumbled so deep, so true, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was meant to be here.
Not to endure.
But to survive.
To help all these forgotten slaves survive.
To help Peter survive.
Sucking in a deep breath, I did my best to gather up the remnants of the girl left over from last night. I refused to let my broken heart jump to conclusions. Henri had been drunk. I’d been drugged. We both did things we shouldn’t.
Today is a new beginning.
Today is the day help will come…you’ll see.
Fisting my pendant, I went to thread it around my neck.
Peter curled his fingers around my wrist. “You can’t. No jewelry apart from our collar and cuffs.” Flicking a look toward the bedroom, he forced a smile. “Seeing as you’ll be the only one not storing drugs in your pillow, keep it there. Touch it. Sleep with it. Don’t use it to remember a life you can never go back to but to stay alive in this one, no matter the cost.”
Exhaling heavily, I studied him.
What changed for him to encourage me to stay breathing when last night, before the orgy-dinner, he’d said I’d be better off running into electrocution to avoid whatever a Diamond Kiss was?
No answers appeared in his guarded stare.
He was right that his advice was contradicting and confusing.
But for now, I just nodded. I refused to remember him blowing Victor in that animal carcass-filled room. I refused to accept that I’d have to watch him pleasure other Masters before I managed to get him free. If he needed me to promise that I’d stay fighting, then I’d keep fighting. For him. For all of them. “I’ll put it under my pillow.”
“Achchha.” (Good.) He never looked away. The moment stretched far too long before he ducked his head and pressed a fleeting kiss right on my mouth.
I froze.
Kirk sucked in a breath.
Rebecca went to say something, but two tall shadows appeared in the door frame. “What the fuck are you all doing in here?”
Slaves scattered.
Some bolted past the two guards. Others backed away into the corners of the room.
Peter gulped and slowly turned to face them. He kept his head bowed and body as meek as he could make it. “Nothing. Forgive us.”
The taller, broader of the guards with a shiny bald head spat, “Get up to breakfast. You’re late. All of you.”
Peter shot a look at the clock where my delusion-dragon had sulked last night.
8:19 a.m.
“Fuck.” Peter went deathly still before he shot into action. Spinning to me, he snatched my pendant from my hand and threw it back on the baskets of gemstones. Raking his eyes over the crowded room, he hissed, “Run.”
The guards stepped aside as jewels charged down the corridor and vanished.
“Come on.” Grabbing my wrist, Peter dragged me into a gallop.
Past the bathroom.
Through our quarters.
Right through the citadel and into the glaringly bright, horribly new morning.
Chapter Six
………………………….
Henri
MY TEETH TORE INTO A wonderfully warm baguette with lashings of ice-cold butter.
I’d never tasted anything so delicious.
I couldn’t remember ever having such a voracious appetite.
I’d only slept a couple of hours before my stomach woke me for another meal, and I’d stepped into the most sublime morning, walking around in hyperawareness.
My deliberate cold shower felt like pristine snow against my skin.
My toothbrush like minty bubbles in my mouth.
Even my clothes felt better than usual, and they weren’t even mine.
The grey t-shirt and jeans I’d chosen from the wardrobe were far more like my usual style back home before I had to pretend to be a rich son of a bitch who lived in tailored suits and rubbed shoulders with sadists.
But…I didn’t have to pretend anymore.
