Chapter 1
West
Screams. Laughter. Mine. Hers.
The nightmare I was in surely wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. My blood wasn’t draining from me in places I didn’t want to imagine and the crazy woman slicing the knife at the guards was not my wife. Everleigh wouldn’t have done this. She wouldn’t have tortured me or tried to skin my face because I’d raped her again. She loved me. But hadn’t she said that after she had stabbed the scissors into my ass as payback for what I had done?
“Mmm-mmmph.”
Again, I tried to call out to my guards to get her away from me. Again, she managed to push them back.
And Bram … it wasn’t true. He hadn’t survived. There was no way I’d be alive if he did. It had been weeks since his death. Since I’d had him stabbed in the chest three times. It wasn’t true. Maybe he had originally lived, but I saw him get put in the ground. He had been dead.
“Mmmmm!”
“Do you love your Main Master so much? Get back! I’ll kill him. He deserves to die!” Everleigh dropped to a crouch, fisting my hair as she jerked my head back. Tears I wasn’t even aware I could cry spilled free while I blinked through the haze of my mind. I was lightheaded from the blood loss. Worse, I was afraid. I wasn’t ready to die. Not at the hands of my own creation. Fuck, I loved the crazy cunt. Even now as she threatened to end my life, I couldn’t stop the pain piercing my heart. She’d hurt me. The bitch actually fucking lost it and did something I never saw coming.
Was it a lessoned learned? No, I didn’t think so. Even if I did forgive her and she magically became normal again, I’d still rape her. Still beat the ever-living shit out of her when I couldn’t control the urge anymore. But where would that get me, now? I was afraid to find out. And I didn’t do fear. I wanted her away from me. To feel safe so I could breathe again.
Fingers dug at the material tied around my face and she pulled the gag free of my mouth. Terror reigned as I fought the urge to be sick. She leaned forward and for seconds she stared at me. I could see her mind working, but of what, I wasn’t sure.
“What do you suppose Bram thinks of this disaster between us?”
“Bram’s dead,” I forced out. “We saw him. He’s dead.”
Her head shook and Everleigh peered around the top of the room. “He’s not. I told you, I see him. I see him everywhere. He’s here. He’s watching us. Do you think he’s laughing right now? God, I almost hear him laughing. Can you hear it, husband?”
A sharp cry escaped her lips and the hand holding the knife tightened around the hilt as she pressed her knuckles into her temple.
“Get her the fuck away from me!”
My yell brought the guards’ heads down. The dumb fucks were looking up, too. Believing her.
“Bram is dead! Get her to the fucking White Room and help me, goddammit!”
Pain pushed into my neck and my body tensed as the tip of the blade broke through my skin.
“He’s alive, husband. Alive! The day of the funeral, Lyle urged me to read the poem when I was alone. He wanted me to know. Your days are numbered, probably just as mine.”
A growl left me as I tried to ease back from the weapon. I was getting weak. “Why should he kill you? He loved you. The poem says as much.”
“That was before. I saw him,” she yelled. “He’s mad at me because of you. He knows. He knows everything.” Sobs left her body shaking, making mine vibrate from her movements. “How can you hate someone so much that a part of you actually loves them? Oh, husband, I want nothing more than to take your face with me to the White Room. Such a handsome face. Can I have it? Can I take you with me?”
“Get her! Fuck!”
Laughter broke through the cries and the mixture of the two were forever going to haunt me. I knew that. Even now, I could feel them burning themselves into my memory. Or maybe I was just on fire from all the pain.
Screams exploded and nails clawed into me as one of the guards managed to grab Everleigh’s ankle. Her hands released me for the smallest moment and she kicked out, reaching back to hold to me like an anchor as she tried to still slash at them. With one hard tug from my High Leader, she tore down my jacket, leaving me completely. The relief wasn’t enough as I watched two of them try to wrestle her down. Even disarmed, they could barely get a good grip on her.
“Hold on, Main Master. We’re going to get you some help.”
A groan left me and my weight seemed to sink even more into the floor.
“White Room … until I can decide what I want done with her. Death is too good … for what she’s done. I swear …” The room faded in and out, blanketing me in darkness, and I let it as I tried not to fight the shock that was etching in. This wouldn’t kill me, but my wife would hope it did by the time I got finished with her.
“West! Husband!”
I blinked rapidly through the fog of my mind, watching as Everleigh came into focus. She was thrashing and twisting in the two guards’ arms as they headed for the door. Tugs against the rope made a rocking sensation to my arms. I was angry that I’d awoken still here and in excruciating pain.
“I’ll tell Bram to go easy on you. Will you tell him for me if you see him first? Husband! Will you tell him?”
Panic was making her words fast, but I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t hear her anymore. The sound of her voice left me wanting to cover my ears. To rip out my own heart so that it wouldn’t continue to beat for her. What she had done was soaking in. But what had I done?
“Please, tell him! Tell Bram I’m sorry!”
Even down the hall, she wouldn’t stop. She kept screaming. She was so concerned over a dead man’s mercy when she should have been worried about mine.
More boots pounded against the floor. Each thump sent pain shooting through my body. I could barely stay conscious as I was rolled over and my pants were pulled up. I knew I was being lifted. Carried. White flashed, merging with the horror of my wife’s future. White. White. Every blink, all I could see, white. And then a bright white. A light. It was there only a moment before I felt myself rolled over. Poked, prodded, happy nothingness.
****
“Main Master?”
“Hmm?”
Grogginess had me responding, but I was far from awake. Again the voice called out, and again, I threw my attitude toward it, trying to make the person go away.
“Main Master? Master Harper?” Can I take your face with me?
My eyes shot open and I gasped, trying to fight. Pressure gripped to my arm and the hold pushing my chest down wasn’t registering right away.
“Main Master, you’re okay. You’re at Medical. We’ve just gotten done with the scoping and stitches.”
Blurry dark hair left me shaking my head and it took a few moments to realize the face to my right wasn’t Everleigh’s. Nothing was making sense or registering right. My arms were moving now, but I wasn’t sure how. The one she’d stabbed was numb, as was half of my body.
“W-where?” I tried to clear my throat, feeling the lull of sleep begin to beckon me, again. There was another face to my left and I seemed to know to turn toward it for answers. Where … is she?”
“In processing for the White Room. It’s been a few hours.”
The deep voice had me nodding. My head rolled to the side and I felt myself sink back into the mattress as my High Leader’s presence put me at ease.
Heavily, my lids blinked. I wasn’t sure how long I had tried to process the question to ask Abbot. “How’s …? My hand shakily rose to my face and only then did I realized I couldn’t see out of one of my eyes. Fear had me clumsily pulling at the tape. I tried to roll, to move, but it was impossible with how weighed down I felt. Drugs. Yes, they had me pumped full of them.
“Please don’t,” the nurse rushed out.
“Get … the fuck away from me.” My hand tried to swing toward her, but I was delayed. I didn’t trust her so close. Trembling left my movements unsteady and the agony was almost unbearable as I tried to push my feet against the mattress to sit. “Mirror.”
“Master …”
Abbot’s brow creased, but he ultimately nodded at my look. Cool air brushed against my heated skin under the gauze and I could barely breathe as my wife’s words wildly wormed through my mind. “How does that feel?” she asked, lifting the skin of my eyebrow. “Can you feel the cool air seeping through? Does it hurt? Burn?”
“Fuck … Fuck.” The creaking of the bed was barely heard through my pants as I lifted the top into a semi-upright position. I kept swaying through the fog I was in. This was a nightmare. This wasn’t real.
Abbot stopped next to the bed, his features turning hard as he looked down. “I really think you should wait.”
“He might not even remember this in a few hours,” the nurse said, quietly. “He’s still heavily medicated.”
Abbot held up the mirror and I grabbed the handle, hesitating before I let it come up to reflect me. I peeled the bandage back and the person I saw staring back at me had my lips separating in shock. Dark bruising littered my swollen face from where Everleigh had kicked me. There was a massive lump, split in the middle on one side of my forehead from the paperweight. But none of that mattered.
“Oh my God.”
“Sir, it’s going to be ok—”
“Shut up!” I swallowed through the dryness. “It is not … going to be okay.”
Vomit pushed to my throat. Black stitches lined above my entire eyebrow, all the way around my eye, and down to just below my cheekbone. That skin—my flesh. It had been free of my face. Dangling, as she had the time of her life pulling it back so I could get a tease of what it felt to be faceless.
A gag had me pushing the mirror away. There was no stopping the heaving that came. I could still feel it. I could feel my skin lifted as the cool air swept over the bone and meat beneath.
“Here. Shh. It’s okay, Main Master.”
The nurse held something under my mouth as I threw up. But I didn’t see it, or barely even know it was there. All that was before me was the pleasure on Everleigh’s face. She had said I ruined her, but she was wrong. She decimated me. Even now the scissors might as well have still been buried in my ass. The clenching of my nearly numb muscles had the phantom feeling becoming all too real.
“You shouldn’t be up like this. You need to lie back and rest.”
Yes. Maybe the nurse did have a point. Medicated or not, the pain was unbearable. And that reminded me of her and what she had done.
The bed lowered at the nurse’s push and I let her put the bandage back over my eye.
“Red light … in the dead of night.”
“Sir?” Abbot hesitated. “That’s only allowed once a week. We had the red light the day before yesterday.”
My breath was ragged as I turned to glare at him. “Do it. Then I want it every few hours randomly after that. I don’t care what happens to her or any of the other slaves … but make sure she’s kept alive. She’s mine.”