Enthralled (The Enslaved Duet 1)

The urge to cry grew like a thorny thicket in my throat.

“Oh, Xan,” I whimpered as the men jerked loudly on Alexander’s bounds to test their strength and then stepped away. “Why are you doing this?”

“No one hurts you but me,” he claimed fiercely as he used the tip of his nose to wipe a tear from my cheek. “Knox nearly flayed you alive, and he will die for it, I swear to it, but for now, let me save you from this.”

“Begin, Lord Edward,” Sherwood snapped.

“This is the world I was brought up in,” Alexander whispered quickly. “It’s not an excuse, but context, Cosima. If I am a monster, these are my creators.”

A slice and whistle then the sharp crack as the whip ripped across Alexander’s back. His entire body tensed against mine, trying to keep himself off my tender back.

He didn’t make a noise.

Edward beat him soundly, the thwack of the leather harsher to my ears than it was when Knox went at me, and I realized that because Alexander was a man, he was getting an even more thorough punishment.

After a while, he gave up trying to keep a small gap of separation between us and his sweat-slicked torso stuck to my back, stinging the open sores.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered almost drunkenly.

Another apology from my Master, this one so much more potent than the last. It could have been in tribute to so many of his dastardly acts against me, but my brain was stripped of its ability to nuance and so those two small words seemed to encompass everything.

This Lord and Master, who submitted to no one for nothing, was taking a thrashing from a man he reviled for me.

I could feel his great warrior’s body jerk and tremble against my own with each whipping, the jumpstart of his breath after each strike and the sweetness of his lips against my hair, and all I wanted to do was hug him.

I wanted to wrap my aching limbs around the aching limbs of my Master and hold him close enough to feel my heart beat from my chest to his. I wanted to pepper his beautiful face in kisses and cry for the tragedies of our lives.

Instead, I pushed my cheek back slightly against his, and I breathed, “I forgive you.”

The twenty-fifth blow landed and then Alexander’s gusty sigh cooled the sweat to my skin.

“Get them down,” Sherwood ordered, his voice rife with dissatisfaction. “Ready the cars.”

There was sharp strike of expensive shoes on wood, and then the muffled sound of the crossing the mats we stood on.

Then Sherwood was there, his face over both of ours as he hissed, “Prove you are repentant, Thornton. Bring the girl to The Hunt.”

It was deep winter in Scotland, the air so crisp it seemed to shatter against my skin as I jumped up and down on my toes to keep warm. I should have been wearing a thick overcoat, scarf, and gloves, or at the very least pants and shoes, but I was not. Instead, I was dressed as the other twenty-six women surrounding me in the corral were in a simple, old fashioned white shift dress. I wasn’t even wearing underwear. One of the girls had questioned a lord in the hall when we first congregated about how we were to keep warm. After he’d slapped her across the face for her impudence, he’d informed her running for her life should keep her warm enough.

I shifted my weight from foot to foot and cupped my hands together in a feeble attempt to warm them with my breath while I looked over the assembly of men, all finely dressed on horseback. It was easy to spot Alexander in the mix with his crown of golden hair glinting even in the twilight fog. He was also the only one wearing thick, elbow length gloves. I looked at the sky and saw his falcon, Astor, circling overhead. As if summoned by my thoughts, Alexander raised his forearm over his head and the bird went plummeting from the sky, pulling up to slow his flight just before he landed gracefully on his Master’s limb.

It seemed Alexander was good at training all kinds of creatures.

All the men wore tweed coats and tight riding breeches in fawn and earthen colours but for the Master, the Earl of Sherwood, his huntsman servant, and the whippers-in who would do reconnaissance and control the hounds for the group. They wore traditional red coats and black hats to distinguish themselves from the lot.

They were the leaders of the annual hunt, but it wouldn’t be the traditional fox they raced to capture.

No, it would be the women corralled together in a wooden pen.

This was the Order of Dionysus’s greatest event, the highlight of their year.

Every man participating must have paid the cost of admission.