Enthralled (The Enslaved Duet 1)

The eighteenth, a thin wire cutting through warm clay, dissecting my flesh so painfully, so swiftly, it took away my breath.

I held it through the brutal bite of the next strike and the one after that, expelling a tiny swell of air punctuated by a, “Thank you, Mr. Knox,” after each one.

By the twentieth, it was obvious that my tormentor’s arm was growing weary. The whip hit my back strangely, the angle wrong so that the thin tip wrapped around the cross I was bound to and flicked over the tender underside of my breast. I felt the skin split open into red beads of moisture.

The next five had Landon’s entire body weight behind them and lacked his original finesse. They were heavy, brutish blows that pounded me against the wooden beams like hammer strikes and blunt fists.

He finished, and my last thank you was only a wet breath of relief as my body sagged boneless in the cuffs. My wrists and ankles were wet where the cruel metal had abraded through layers of my skin, and I could feel the sticky blood from my back dripping down my bum and thighs.

Just as I became when I was with Master Alexander, I was only sensation.

It was my coping method and my salvation.

I was every ache, pain, and horrible cramp in the body of Cosima Lombardi. I had thoughts, however fractured, and a tall spine, however abused.

There was heavy silence as the men absorbed my resilience. Even in my painful oblivion, I could feel their surprise that I had preserved.

“You should have hit her harder, Knox,” someone sneered.

“I’d like to have seen you do better, Wentworth,” he snapped back.

“She passed,” another voice said wearily. “Let the poor thing down. She looks less appetizing than a skinned rabbit, and she’s spoiling my dinner.”

The sound of shoes drew close, and I shuddered as a finger traced over a raw, opened wound. It felt as if someone had stuck a fork into my socket.

“I think,” Sherwood mused from behind me. “It’s time for Lord Edward to take his turn at her. What will it be, Edward? The quirt or the bull whip for another twenty-five.”

I knew I wouldn’t survive another five lashes, let alone twenty-five.

There was a moment of absolute silence and then an explosion of shouting and movement.

There was a quick, heavy tread of shoes bursting toward me and then a growl as someone fell to the ground close to me.

“Don’t be a bloody fool,” someone whispered harshly over grunts of effort.

“Get the fuck off me before I rip your head off your body,” Alexander growled. “I’ll deal you with later after I take care of these twats.”

“You take this punishment for her, you’re dead, and you fucking know it.” I gasped softly as I recognized the other voice. The voice of Alexander’s brother and rival, Edward. “They’ve been looking for reasons to end you since you beat out Stockbridge for the Olympic bid in 2012. You’re unruly, selfish, and too fucking hard headed for these fucks to rule. Don’t you see what’s going on? Don’t you ever fucking see?”

There was the sound of a tussle and then more men clustering around the two on the ground.

With all my remaining energy, I turned my head against the wood to view the spectacle.

It was Edward on top of Alexander, holding his hands over his head while some of the other brothers of the Order tried to pry him off.

“Please, Lord Thornton, explain your behaviour?” Sherwood asked silkily from where he loomed over Alexander.

“I want to take slave Davenport’s punishment.”

Alexander’s steady words struck me with the force of the snake whip.

“You do?” Sherwood questioned with barely concealed glee. “Because you can’t bear to see her hurt?”

“I submit to the Order’s punishment. Though I haven’t been soft on the slave, I did take my hands to another brother without first going through the Order. I believe a flagellation is the normal punishment for such a misdemeanor.”

“You are correct,” Sherwood mused. “Though it would have to be Lord Edward who wields the whip.”

No, I wanted to scream. There was no way Alexander would take a beating from his own slanderous brother for me. I couldn’t believe it, and more, I didn’t want to.

It said too many things that shouldn’t have been true for us.

“I submit to the Order’s punishment,” Alexander repeated regally, as if he was not being sentenced to a flogging.

“Very well. Prepare him.”

I closed my eyes in sorrow and relief, tears searing through my lids and sliding down my cheeks.

Alexander was taking this punishment so I didn’t have to.

He was going to be beaten by his traitorous brother for me.

My heart set to aching even more than my back.

I gasped as something warm and heavy was draped over my me.

“Hush, bella,” Alexander whispered in my ear as they pressed him to me and shackled him to the contraption with thick, secure leather cuffs. “I’m here, my beauty.”