AllFreeNovel
Share Us
11
ISABELLA
When I wake up, slowly and still half insensible, my head is pounding so hard that I wish I could just pass out again. The pain is brutal and beating, ricocheting inside of my skull, but my mouth feels too dry and tight to scream.
It takes a moment for the blackness to recede and the room to swim into view. I’m in a bed, sheets scratchy and cold beneath me, my hands no longer bound. They feel prickling and heavy, as if the blood is just coming back into them, and I raise them limply to my mouth. My lips feel sore and bruised, my tongue worse, but the gag is gone too.
There’s nothing else in the room. No other furniture besides the bed and a stone floor. I turn my head, moaning in pain, and see the other occupant standing—no, leaning—against the door.
He’s a stranger. Brutally handsome, with a darkly tanned complexion, his face chiseled and hard, dark stubble lining his cheeks and upper lip, precisely carved. It’s clear that he means for it to be that length, to cover his cheeks and jaw in just that way, not carelessly. His hair is thick and dark, short and wavy, and his lips are full as they turn up in a cold smile, realizing I’m awake. When I get a look at his hazel eyes, more gold than green, I see nothing there. No mercy, no empathy, no soul.
That frightens me more than anything.
He walks towards me, his gait loose and confident, a man who knows he owns this room, the bed I’m in, even me. “Allow me to introduce myself, Isabella, now that you’re awake,” he says smoothly, his voice sinuous as a coiled snake. “It seems unfair that I know your name, who you are, and yet you don’t know me.”
“I know who you are,” I whisper, trembling. “Let me go—”
He continues as if I hadn’t even spoken. “My name is Javier Aguilar. And your husband has sent you to me for a very specific purpose.”
“He’s not my husband,” I hiss, my lips struggling to form the words. They feel heavy too, thick and dry, as if whatever they gave me hasn’t fully worn off. “You’re the bride-tamer. Well, I don’t want to be his bride.”
Javiertsks, a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, curling the corners of his lips. “That’s quite a nickname,” he purrs. “I suppose I do tame the women sent to me. But I prefer to call it what it really is.” He reaches out as he comes to stand at my bedside, stroking long fingers down my cheek and smiling wider when I shudder. “I break women, Isabella. Stubborn women like you. And Ienjoyit.” His fingers cup my chin, holding my face so that I can’t move—even if I were able to, which I’m still unsure of. “Diego might as well be your husband already. He owns you, little one, in every way that matters. And what you want doesn’t. Matter, that is.”
His hand tightens on my jaw and then lets go, stroking down the thin cotton of my dress. I stiffen, trying to twist away, but the palm of his hand pushes down between my breasts, holding me there.
“There are rules about what I can do to you, of course. All men who send their brides to me have different rules. Some don’t care what I do, so long as the woman comes back biddable. Those are my favorites—the women I can fuck until they learn to beg for my cock instead of screaming, who learn to kneel when I enter, open their lips for me, every hole they possess. Their husbands don’t care if they can’t fill them as well as I can, so long as their wives stop fighting.”
His hand moves, caressing the curve of my breast, and I flinch away. I try to squirm, but before I can slip from under his grasp, Javier grabs the neckline of my dress, ripping it.
“Be still, little one, or I’ll see those pretty breasts already. Do you want to know what rules your husband has given me?”
“He’s not—”
“First ofmyrules.” Javier’s hand shoots out, grasping my jaw again as his fingers press into my cheeks. “You don’t speak unless I ask you a question. If I ask, as I just did, youanswerthe question. No protests, no words other than the ones I’ve asked for. Do you understand?”
There’s no spit in my mouth to fling at him, so I lurch clumsily upwards instead, trying to headbutt him. All I can think of is escape, and if I can stun him for even a moment—
A hard slap leaves me flat on my back again, gasping, my cheek burning. Before Diego, I’d never been slapped in my life, and now—
“Ow!” I scream as Javier grabs one of my nipples in a pincer-like grip, twisting it painfully. “Stop—stop!”
“No.” He looks down at me, his face a mask of cruelty. “One.” He holds up a finger on his other hand, still pinching my nipple to the point of bringing tears to my eyes. “I’m not allowed to fuck you. Not yet. Diego wants your pussy and ass for himself, but if I can’t break you by other means, I might be allowed to force my cock down your throat, in time. Would you like that, little one? My cock choking you until you nearly suffocate, drowning you in my cum until you’re sure that’s how you’re going to die? Leaving you there covered in it, bound until I return and do it again?” He grins viciously. “I can think of so many pleasant ways to enjoy you without ever fucking your worthless pussy, Isabella. And itisworthless, until you let the man who owns you use it as he pleases, without complaint.”
“You’re a monster,” I hiss, tears leaking down my face. The pain in my nipple is turning to numbness, and he seems to realize it because he lets go just in time for the blood to rush back in with a searing pain that’s worse than before.
“I am.” He rocks back on his heels, looking pleased with himself. “Two.” Javier raises another finger. “I’m not allowed to mark your face, ever. I cannot brand you or leave permanent scars, although Diego has suggested that if whippings hard enough to make you bleed are necessary, I might leave those scars where they can’t be seen.”
I can feel the blood drain from my face. I look up at him, frozen with terror, and Javier looks pleased.
“Good. You come to understand your situation better. Three—” He starts to raise another finger, and then laughs. “There is no three. I can’t fuck you, and I can’t scar you. The rest is fair game. Do you understand, little one? I can break you to my will and your husband’s in whatever other ways I choose. I operate on a system of escalation—if you’re a good girl for me, if you realize that fighting is useless and will only hurt you more in time, I won’t do so many terrible things to you. But if you do fight, if you’re difficult—I can punish you in so very many inventive ways.”
His hand caresses my breast again, and I can tell he enjoys the way I flinch back, the fear in my eyes. I can see him getting hard, his cock an iron bar in the strained fabric of his pants. “You’re thinking you can fight this. I see it in your eyes. But you can’t, little one. No woman has ever left here unbroken. You will be the same.”
“Someone is coming for me,” I hiss between clenched teeth. “My father, my lover—someone.” For all I know, Niall is dead exactly as Diego said he was, and the thought of that makes my heart feel as if it’s cracking in two—but I can’t think about that now. “Someone will save me.”
Javier laughs, a deep rich sound that fills the room. I’m struck by how handsome he is—gorgeous in a way that looks as if he’s carved from stone, but the darkness within him is impossible to ignore.No one could love a man like this,I think wildly.No one would go to him willingly. So all he can do is take.
“No one is coming for you, little one,” Javier tells me. “You’re alone now. The only future you have—the only hope you have of leaving here with your mind and body intact—is Diego. Your husband in every way that matters.” He reaches forward, cupping my face almost gently. “They all say someone is coming. But no one ever does—and if they do? My guards kill them. There is no way into thefortaleza de cobre, little one. No one can save you now. And if you love anyone who is left to care, you should hope they give up on you, or their blood will be on your hands.”
