Page 14 of State of Ruin

He releases my hand. “Would you like a glass of water before we go through?”

Go through. Shit. I shake my head. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Tell me your safe word.”

“It’s, uh, raven?” Totally random, but Katrin told me to choose a word that spoke to me, and ravens are, like, harbingers of doom, right? It feels appropriate.

“Raven. Got it. You say it, I stop. Do you have any questions?” He says it impatiently, as if it’s a formality he’s hoping to move on from quickly. I guess the clock is ticking. I calculated the other day that every single minute of this evening is costing him almost one hundred and sixty-seven dollars.

Is it too late to run? “No, sir.”

Oh, goodness, he likes that. He can’t hide the pleased gleam that flashes in his eye as I call him sir. So he likes his women deferential. Total shocker.

“Good.” He strides around me and opens the door that leads through to the room where we will get down to business, standing back so I can pass.

I snuck a peek at one of these private rooms on Sunday, just so I could see what I was getting myself into. Katrin gave me an access card. They’re sparsely furnished but still lavish, with midnight-blue walls and beautiful wall sconces. The room I saw contained a huge bed covered with silken black sheets and pillows and a large, lacquered cabinet off to one side containing “props.” Let’s just say I had a look inside and wished I hadn’t.

Every room is fitted with a two-way mirror that functions as a voyeur window from the balcony, as well as a microphone linking through to an old-school telephone receiver outside the room for watchers who want sound effects, too. But, given that I specifically said no to anyone observing us at all, I’m confident that the velvet curtains will be drawn over the mirror-slash-window and the mic will be off.

I step into the room, my heart hammering—it seems my nervous system believes I’m facing an execution squad—and stop short.

It’s a lot bigger than the room I saw, but identically furnished. Bed, cabinet, curtains.

Except for one thing: the large item sitting in the middle of the floor space, terrifying in its brutal simplicity.

Is that… for me?

CHAPTER 9

Elyse

Sinclair brushes past me and shuts the connecting door behind us. It closes with an ominous thud, and suddenly I’m a bird trapped in a cage, my chest tight with panic. I tear my gaze away from the contraption and up to Sinclair.

“You okay?” he asks. I guess the cool-girl game face I was hoping to portray isn’t so strong.

“Yeah.”

“Have you seen one of these before?”

“Um—at a ren faire, maybe?”

He gives a low chuckle. “Figures. It’s called a pillory.”

“I thought they were called stocks,” I say faintly, surveying the contraption. It’s one of those waist-high wooden frames that medieval villagers used to get locked up in for bad behavior: a horizontal plank, split in two for access, with holes for the wrists and the neck. This being Alchemy, it’s made from beautifully polished wood, and the circular holes are lined with what looks like padded red satin.

Nope. Doesn’t make it any less terrifying.

“Stocks are similar, but they just restrain the ankles,” Sinclair says.

Somebody knows their medieval kink. That’s probably a gigantic red flag right there. I don’t say anything, just stare at this ancient punishment—and humiliation—device. I sense him turning toward me.

“You didn’t check restraints as a hard limit.”

“No,” I agree, though this feels like a bait-and-switch situation. I was expecting to be on a freaking bed with maybe some handcuffs, but I’m quickly realizing that there’s no place for naivety with a guy this slippery.

“Do we have a problem?”

“No,” I repeat, braving a glance at him. His expression is stern.