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Chapter Four
Reyes stared into Angelica’s hard brown eyes. He’d just introduced her to a new world of sensation that would have taken any other human female to her knees. Instead she glared at him.
He knew from his own experience that every man or woman could be broken, given enough time, and he knew that eventually he could make her submit. However, given her spirit, the process would require days, maybe even weeks to accomplish, and he didn’t have that kind of time.
He knew something else as well. He couldn’t do it. What he’d done tonight had been something he’d promised himself he’d never do: force either a human or a vampire to do anything against his or her will.
Yet that’s exactly what he’d done.
Worse still, when he’d sent a light preternatural charge through her breast, giving a hint of the kind of pain he was capable of inflicting, she’d told him something that had sent him reeling.
If he was right, the woman who had hurt her might very well have been Sweet Dove herself. The physical description matched and the terrible truth was that he’d learned from her how to focus his power into a debilitating stream in order to cause pain. How many times had she hurt him in just that way, sometimes to create sexual pleasure, other times to torture him just for her gratification?
Guilt and shame washed through him, and slowly he set about unlocking Angelica’s shackles. When she was free, she rubbed her wrists, then tied up her robe. She moved slowly to sit on the nearby padded table.
Her shoulders were slumped with fatigue, but her eyes still sparked defiantly.
Despite his guilt over trying to break her, he knew by the look in her eye that he’d done the right thing in buying her. If Engles had won the bid, he would have battered her senseless by now, savoring how hard she fought him. But she would have died within a few days because he would have beaten her, broken her bones, cut her to ribbons.
One of only two things was going to happen from this point forward. He would tell her about his mission and either she would agree to help him or the game was over. There was simply no way he could take Angelica in her present state to Engles’s mansion and have anyone believe that he’d brought her under his command, that she was truly his slave.
But would she ever agree to help him after what he’d just put her through?
He removed a soft linen handkerchief from the pocket of his pants and wiped any remaining blood from his lips. He’d almost come at least three times while taking down her life force. She’d tasted as sweet as her blood had smelled and he was satisfied—another reality that filled him with guilt.
He paced slowly, trying to find the right way to tell her the truth and to ask for her help. At this point, however, he’d be stunned if she ever believed another word that came out of his mouth.
Finally, he moved to stand in front of her, then swept an arm to encompass the room. “So none of this really frightens you?”
She glanced around. “Actually, I’m frightened out of my mind, I’m just too worn out to show it. Any chance you can leave me in peace for a while? Let me get some sleep?”
“I wish I could, but there’s something I need to explain to you. I’m not a slaver and you’re not really my slave.”
She held up both hands. “You’re driving me crazy. What does that mean, I’m not your slave? From the time you brought me here, you’ve messed with my mind. You hurt me badly, then did all that shit to me while I was chained against the wall, and now you’re telling me you’re not a slaver?”
“I need you to listen to me. For a long time now, I’ve been working to infiltrate the Starlin Group, the same outfit that abducted you and forced you to walk down that runway. This organization is one of the most powerful sex-slavery rings in our world.
“When I told you to leave the Ocean Club that night, I was trying to warn you that you were being scoped by a Starlin acquisition team, a group trained to hunt all over the world for beautiful but vulnerable women who could be removed from their lives without significant repercussions.”
She blinked. She looked exhausted, which of course she would be. She’d already been through hell before he’d brought her into his home, then he’d added to her misery.
Her shoulders fell a little more. “But you told me you joined this group, that I was your first buy.”
“Both of those things are true, but I didn’t buy you to keep you as a slave.”
“Then what did you buy me for?”
“For one essential reason, to uphold my reputation as a slaver.”
“But you just said you’re not a slaver.”
“No, I’m not.”
She glanced at the chains on the wall, the whips, the knives. “So what is all this? Are you saying you don’t use this room?”
“Never, not until tonight.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “You’re lying. You’re a f**king, lying bastard and you’re messing with me again. How can I believe you? You hurt me just now, or at least you showed me how much you could hurt me if I didn’t do as you said. Then you used your fangs on me. I’m just surprised you didn’t shove your c**k between my legs and take the whole thing the rest of the way.”
“I wanted to. Believe me, I wanted nothing more.”
She released a heavy sigh. “So you drew the line at raping me.”
“Yes. I did.”
“You’re disgusting.”
He saw the level of her revulsion and knew he wasn’t explaining things well enough yet. “I bought you to support the role I’m playing as a slaver.”
“What role?”
“I have only one goal here, Angelica, to bring Starlin down. And I still want to. When I succeed in destroying this slavery ring, I’ll be saving tens of thousands of lives, maybe more. These auctions will end forever. That’s how I’ve justified, until this moment, doing to you what I just did. I don’t know how else to say this to you, except that I’m deep undercover and I have a plan. A damn good one.”
“And that’s what you meant when you said I f**ked up your plans?”
He nodded. “That’s what I meant. What I did in buying you has put me an inch away from blowing my cover.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?”
“Yes, because it’s the truth, the only one that matters right now.”
“And it’s Starlin who abducted me and all those other women there tonight, parading our bodies and selling us at auction.”
