Enthralled (The Enslaved Duet 1)

I swallowed thickly, unable to find my voice at all, let alone the proper words to refute her enigmatic guess.

When I didn’t answer fast enough, she smiled sweetly and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “That’s what I thought, love. That’s what I thought.”

Finally, my voice surged through my throat, and I stood, spinning around to face her with my mouth open to say, “Mrs. White—”

“Bloody hell,” Alexander said from the doorway, where he stood resplendent in an entirely black tuxedo. “You look a vision, bella.”

I placed a shaky hand on my lower abdomen and watched as Mrs. White winked at me, then scuttled out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

My eyes swung back to Alexander, and my heart stuttered as he crossed the small space to stand in front of me. His hands went to my shoulders so that he could twist me back to face the mirror. One hand lingered over the column of my neck, his thumb brushing over my pulse as he studied me.

“I’m a wealthy man and a titled lord, so I own many things of incredible worth and beauty, items both inherited and bought. One of my most precious possession is this,” he explained as the other hand came out of his pocket to raise a glinting gold necklace constructed of stylized gold thorny stems and riddled with clusters of seed peals. There was a perfectly blood red ruby the size of a toddler’s fists nestled at the heart of the necklace like a rose protected by its thorns.

It was one of the most awe-inspiring things of beauty I had ever seen.

Alexander raised it higher over my chest and then clutched the other end in his hand on my neck so that he could clasp it around me.

“I wanted to see what my most expensive heirloom would look like on my most treasured possession,” he murmured as he clicked the necklace closed and smoothed it flat with his fingers.

I watched in the mirror as his hands settled over my collarbones, framing the gorgeous collar necklace that hung from my throat, and his ownership of me seemed complete.

“This is your collar tonight,” he explained in a voice like drug smoke, the sound of it heady enough to make me high. “Everyone who sees it will know you are mine, and they will know how much you mean to me.”

“Dangerous,” I whispered through my dry mouth.

It was so dangerous for so many reasons. We couldn’t afford to fall in love. Not the Master with his slave, not the avenger with the tool of his trade, and certainly not the man whose mother had been murdered by the girl’s father.

There was no hope for us, and that was without outside forces interfering.

The Order and the Camorra.

Noel and Salvatore.

My baby.

I stared at the picture we made in the mirror, how well it lied to make it seem as if we were the perfect couple. We looked absolutely breathtaking together, regal and opposite but synergetic as if our differences fit together like puzzle pieces to complete the picture just right.

I sucked in a shuddering breath to control myself because Alexander’s stare had turned sharp.

“When a Master collars a slave, Cosima, it is a very powerful thing. It means I believe you are worthy of praise, worthy to wear the weight of my powerful name around your throat. What do you say to that?”

“I say thank you, Master,” I whispered thickly as I brought my hands to his, my fingertips over the cool necklace. “I hope I prove worthy of the gift.”

The opulence was staggering. Light dripped from glittering chandeliers and thickly branched candelabras, reflecting off the multifaceted jewels adorning the ears, throats, and wrists of London’s most elite persons all gathered in the ballroom at Mayfair’s grand Grammar House. Gorgeous women floated across the glossy floor in lavish gowns while the men stood in groups drinking liquor and talking about politics and sport. The room itself was like the inside of a music box, so ornate in golds and reds and murals that it made me slightly dizzy even though I wasn’t dancing with the multitudes of beautiful couples gracing the dance floor.

Instead, I stood by Alexander’s side as he hobnobbed with some of the city’s wealthiest and most prestigious men and women. I’d even heard someone say that the most scandalous second prince, Alasdair, was at the ball, though, I wouldn’t have known him if I saw him.

No one talked to me very much, and there wasn’t much to be said when they did. I had nothing in common with such people, and it showed the moment I opened my accented mouth.

Alexander kept me close, though, his hands eloquent on my hip or stroking across my back, platitudes for my boredom.

It was no wonder he enjoyed our celebration in London that day if this was how he usually spent his birthdays.