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In my lowest moments, if he’d shown up, I was pretty sure I might have agreed to anything he wanted.
Sometime around the fifth day, though, it was like my body had started to accept the hunger, and I was able to find the strength to sit up, to think, to be objective.
He wouldn’t starve me. Not to death. I was only useful to him alive.
That seemed to get me through that last awful day.
Until the door opened, and there Cain Roth was again. One of his men stood in the doorway with a tray, and I pretended to ignore how my stomach growled as the smell of food—something spicy—wafted over to me.
“Have you given our arrangement some thought?” Cain asked, so cocky, so sure of himself.
“I have,” I agreed, my voice sounding scratchy from the lack of hydration.
“And?”
“And I think I’m only useful to you alive,” I told him, angling my chin up at him. “So you aren’t going to starve me to death.”
Was that the barest hint of a smile toying with his lips? I thought it was.
“Smart girl,” he said, nodding to the man to give me my tray.
He tossed it on the floor near me, making some of the contents spill onto the floor.
I waited until they left, then I flew at it, shoving it in my mouth without even tasting it. Yes, including the bits that had fallen on the floor.
I licked it clean.
Then sat rocking in pain as my stomach tried to adjust to the fullness.
I never did get to enjoy the feeling of fullness after the emptiness, either.
Because then the door was opening, and one of his men was rolling some torture device inward, all leather straps and a table that curved slightly upward in the middle.
If I thought of fleeing, I had no time.
Hands reached out, grabbing me.
“Take off her shirt,” Cain demanded, and my stomach twisted.
I fought then.
Uselessly.
My shirt was yanked off, tossed carelessly to the side of the room. Leaving me bare from the waist up.
I couldn’t hide my breasts from their view, from his view, and I could feel it all over me, taking me in, making revulsion roil in my stomach.
“Get her on the table,” he demanded.
There was no fighting it.
Arms grabbed me from both sides, yanking, slamming me down onto the table.
Then I felt the straps at my wrists and ankles, one over my ass, keeping me tightly against the freezing cold table.
I think I expected rape right then. From a man like him.
But I forgot that wasn’t the only thing he specialized in.
No.
There was a lot of torture in his videos.
I watched as he moved just into the spot I could see, like he wanted me to watch as he reached down, unfastening his belt, pulling it free, then snapping it between his hands.
Then I knew.
I knew what to expect.
But no one had ever struck me before.
There had been no way to anticipate that kind of pain as the belt started to swing at my back. As it landed time and time again, making the skin give way.
But even then, he didn’t stop, and the belt whipped raw wounds.
Until I screamed so loud and hard that my body brought back up my dinner. Until there was no more sound left in me.
It went on forever.
Then it was over.
But I was left on that table.
“We will talk again in the morning.”
I cried then. Soundlessly, because I had no voice left, the tears streaming endlessly from me, a surprising amount of moisture considering my dehydration.
The pain seared through me, the wounds untreated, the pain raw and unimaginable, bad enough that I passed out from it over and over again.
Until I stopped even fighting the unconsciousness.
If this was the end, I wanted it over quickly.
I gave in to it.
Only to wake up on a quiet scream as I felt a different kind of pain.
Different from the belt, but just as intense, if not worse.
The burn.
Fuck, the burn.
A million fires all down my back.
It took me a moment to recognize it the smell in the air.
Peroxide.
He’d poured peroxide all over my back.
“There there,” he said, patting my cheek. “No worries, my dear. I won’t let you die of infection,” he told me as he reached to undo my bindings.
He was alone as far as I could tell.
He probably sensed I was not much of a threat then, in too much pain to move on my own.
I didn’t even try to fight as his hands reached out once again, slathering something over my back, then pushing my shirt over my head.
He pulled me upward, forcing me to lean into him because I had no strength.
He put my arms in my shirt, then drew it down over me.
“There,” he said, pulling me off the table, and setting me down on the floor. “I will give you another night or two to think about our deal.”
