Enthralled (The Enslaved Duet 1)

My life had been pawned my father, martyred in order to save the more important people in my life, the ones who could attain a better future than I ever would.

I just hoped, with every ounce of broken optimism in my heart, that my sacrifice would allow them to reach the other side of the board, to transform into any type of person they wanted despite the painful realities of their geneses.

I wondered idly, fruitlessly, what I may become at the end of this ordeal.

As I played with Noel, it was easy to imagine a different life, one with a father who would teach me chess as a young girl, who bought me lavish presents from his exotic travels just to spoil me, and one who would kiss me before bed each night with nothing but mint on his breath.

I wondered how different I would be; if the composition of my personality would have been arranged otherwise, and I’d be an altered woman.

Maybe one suited for the moniker ‘Ruthie.’

“Checkmate,” Noel said, placing his rook in line with my king. “If you want to get out of it, you must sacrifice that last pawn.”

I was attached to my last standing little solider, but I did as he taught.

He took my pawn with brisk, efficient fingers, glee so evident in the movement it seemed like they leapt across the board.

“Checkmate,” he said again, this time using his bishop to hedge me into a corner. “You might take him with your knight, though I’ll take that with my pawn.”

I followed his logic bitterly, tasting the defeat on my tongue. My heart beat too fast, flooding my body with adrenaline that had nowhere to go.

I vibrated in my seat as he said, “Checkmate, again.”

He was stalking me, hunting me across the board like a great cat playing with its food. It was a cruel and unusual trickery, especially when he had been so kind to me that afternoon.

Before I could question him, the half open door to the room slammed against the wall, and a tall, dark, and extraordinarily angry man appeared backlit in the doorway.

I had seen dangerous, scary men on countless occasions but never this close up and never with the considerable weight of their wrath focused so wholly on me.

It was clear Alexander was furious with me. His anger swelled in the air like static before the storm. Goosebumps raised on my flesh, and my already erratic heart began to canter through my chest.

“Alexander, good of you to join us,” Noel said pleasantly.

My head turned on a swivel to gawk at his composure. Was I the only creature in the house with the instinct to run before the storm?

Alexander didn’t speak. Instead, he took a few prowling steps forward, his gait a tight roll of tensed muscles. It was only when he stopped a few feet from the table that the light from the fire cast upon his face, and I could see the stark wrath in his features.

There was no fire in his fury, no geyser of shouted curses and passionate exclamations as there would have been with any one of my family members or limited friends.

Only coldness so absolute that it radiated from him like dry ice.

My panicked brain tried to search for a reason for his madness, if only so I could arm myself with a flimsy excuse, but I came up empty.

I was with the man’s father playing chess.

Was it that I was having fun for the first time since I arrived? Was his kink thriving on my abject misery?

Or maybe it was that I wasn’t where he thought I should be, chained up in the ballroom like a rabid beast.

I held my breath as his eyes tracked over every inch of my body in his line of sight before they cut to his father.

“We had an agreement.” Each word was cut meticulously out of granite and shaped with deadly precision and control. I had the feeling if Noel or I made one wrong move, Alexander would unleash the violence I’d always sensed was coiled in his soul.

“Did we?” Noel asked, his bow crinkled in genuine confusion. “That I couldn’t play chess in my own salon with a guest?”

“She is no guest of yours.” He moved forward to stand beside the table, looming over his father. “She has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

Noel leaned back in his chair casually, his fingertips dangling over the arm, his diamond cufflinks winking in the light. He was the picture of an indolent lord.

“That is where you are wrong. She has everything to do with you, and you are my son, my heir, and my protégé. Everything you do is a reflection on this house and my own ability to rule. Therefore, Miss Cosima has absolutely everything to do with me.”