I was prepared to deal with Ashcroft. I had plans for him just as he had ones for me, and I knew I didn’t need Alexander there with me to hold my hand while I plotted.
But I would have preferred it.
Though, knowing Alexander, I wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t storm into Ashcroft’s Upper East Side home, slit his throat, and then raze it all to the ground.
I was a woman; therefore, my plan was slightly more understated, but hopefully just as deadly.
Ashcroft was waiting for me in the foyer of his townhome, hands held behind his back and feet braced like a general expecting his orders to be obeyed.
Before I had even crossed the threshold, he demanded, “On your knees, slave.”
I gritted my teeth as I folded myself to the ground.
“Good little thing,” he praised, petting my head the way one would a dog.
A deep breath helped to quell my more imminent rage. I was there because he was blackmailing me, but I was also there to learn from him all there was to know about the Order.
I didn’t know what was going on with Alexander or why he was suddenly back in my life with a tenacious vengeance, but I did know that even if we weren’t together in any way ever again, I still wanted to end the Order.
They had made him into a monster, so I was going to become theirs.
“I didn’t give you permission to leave the country,” Ashcroft said mildly as his hand jerked a hank of my hair back brutally. “You’ll have to be punished for that.”
Honestly, that was fine with me. Ashcroft was a true sadist; he didn’t need to fuck me to take his pleasure from me. He only needed my sweat, my tears, and a little blood. Then again, his reluctance to fuck me might have stemmed from the damage he’d garnered from his stint in the Iron Chair at Pearl Hall. I’d seen the mangled bend of his cock and his horribly scarred scrotum. Riddick and Alexander had not been kind to him after he’d forcibly taken my throat.
“I had to work,” I demurred as I blinked tears from my smarting eyes.
“Maybe I should move you in with me. Get myself a permanent little slut and maid to do all the dirty work around here.” He stepped close so that the hard length of his dick pressed to my cheek through his slacks. “Would you like that?”
I looked at his feet in answer, unable to bend and contort myself into the origami folds of submission I usually fell gracefully into at Alexander’s feet.
The memory of his cold voice like a collar around my throat, his will a chain-link leash ruthlessly guiding me through the obstacle course of his desire made my throat go dry.
“That’s more like it,” Ashcroft said, flicking my hardened nipples. “I would beat you so fucking soundly bent over my desk, but The Trials are tonight, and they need each slave unmarked before the start.”
The Trials.
I’d heard of them before, in my past life as slave Davenport, but I didn’t know what they entailed. Alexander hadn’t participated in The Trials at Club Dionysus the year he owned me in England because I’d only just been broken.
I didn’t know how Ashcroft could delude himself into thinking he could put me on display, and I would happily obey his demands like some trained bitch at a Best in Show.
“I know you’ll obey beautifully for me,” he said, reading the expression on my face and sneering at it. “Or I’ll not only release the tawdry photos of Davenport fucking you into the ground, but I’ll also give you over to his father.”
His sinister laughter rang through the foyer like the track to a bad b-list movie.
My skin broke open in gooseflesh, and I fought the urge to wrap my arms around myself as a protective shield.
As much as I had missed Alexander over the last few years, I had been that much more relieved to be away from Noel.
You could still see the faint silvery trace of scars on my back if you caught me in the wrong light, and when I dreamt, it was often of the vicious beating he and his third son had bestowed upon me as a wedding present.
The very mention of Noel’s name was akin to invoking the devil.
“I see you understand the gravity of your situation now.” Ashcroft tipped my chin and leaned down so that his smug, fleshy smile was all I could see. “Noel wants you. He’s mentioned offhand enough times at the Club that he would pay handsomely if someone turned you over to his possession. It seems he didn’t get enough of you when you were Alexander’s pet. Apparently, the Thornton is not very good at sharing.”
No, Alexander wasn’t, which was only one of the reasons he had warned his father to never lay a hand on me.