AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Yet that didn’t stop her from wondering—imagining—what he was doing at that very moment. Probably at the Den of Diablo, going through accounting sheets. Or maybe walking his streets,talking with people, helping the innocent ones where he could. Or possibly chatting and laughing with that gorgeous woman that had greeted her when she had gone to Den of Diablo after arriving back in London. Madame Juliet. That woman was the epitome of grace and kindness, even if it shrouded an iron spine that was fiercely protective of Strider.
A cold spike of jealousy sank through her belly, but she had to ignore it for how grateful she was. Grateful Strider had someone like that. A woman that would protect him. Love him. Wouldn’t betray him like she had done.
Thoughts of Strider ate away at her mind—as was too often when she wasn’t at the markets or helping Daphne organize the wares and wardrobes for the latest gathering—and Pen looked up, realizing that she had missed her turn three streets back.
With a sigh, she turned around, her steps quickening. Daphne would be expecting her in a few minutes. They still had to go through the delicate gold and ruby entwined bracelets that Pen had acquired from the goldsmith, deciding on pricing for each.
In her haste, she didn’t realize a fishmonger’s cart had been set in her way and she nearly tumbled over it, catching herself halfway to the ground by gripping onto the edge of the cart. At least she hadn’t fallen directly into the muck of the street.
In the next instant, a thick hand set onto her back and shoved her, her head hitting the corner of the cart.
Blackness.
~~~
A grunt, low and in her chest, sparked Pen awake.
Awake, even though the blackness still surrounded her. She was moving through the air. Hands on her body.
Thick hands.
Just like the one that had shoved her square in the middle of her back, sending her flying into the cart. A fishmonger’s cart.
Fish, she smelled it all around her.
Her body lifted and her belly slammed onto something hard, immobile. A shoulder. She’d just been tossed over someone’s shoulder. A fishmonger, if the stench was any indication.
Her senses started to come back to her.
The blackness came from a dark sheet over her head. She wiggled. The sheet wrapped her whole body, binding her in place. Her wrists were tied together in front of her. She twisted. She couldn’t kick—her feet were tied as well. And a rag—a dry rag sucked all the moisture out of her mouth. Her tongue moved against it, trying to dislodge it.
Every step the brute took sent a shock into her stomach, the bones of his shoulder jabbing into the soft flesh just inside her hip bone.
Stairs. His steps slowed, his breath panting as he carried her up stairs, the jarring into her belly more brutal than it had been.
His feet thudded across floorboards until she was flipped off his shoulder and set into a chair that she sank back onto, so deep into the soft cushions that she couldn’t move between the sheet wrapped around her body and the fluff of the feather filling.
His footsteps moved away and a door closed.
Quiet.
Hell.
This was it.
She’d been set into a brothel. Not even by her own free will.
She’d finally had a future, and now this.
This.
Her tongue curled against the rancid rag. She would fight this. Fight each and every time a man touched her. Fight until her body gave out. Fight to get back to her future—the one she was just starting to see.
Bile ran up her throat. Fighting was perfect for men like Percival. Fighting would do nothing but excite them. Fighting would just send macabre pleasure running across their faces. The pleasure of giving her pain. Watching her body contort in agony.
She tried to swallow back the bile.
Hell, if she’d come here on her own, she could have at least been choosy, found a whorehouse with kind women in it. There had to be some houses like that. Like the ones Strider owned. There had to have been a better choice.
