Chapter 3
West
Laughter echoed around me, leaving my eyes scanning around the darkness panicked. No matter how hard I tried to force myself to move, it felt as though I was wading in quicksand. I had to run. I had to get away from that tempting voice swimming around in my head.
“Husband? Husband, where are you? Come to me. I want you. Don’t you want me, too?”
My ragged breaths were growing louder while I spun in a circle, jerking against the invisible force that tried to pull me in.
“Oh yes,” her voice whispered in my ear. “Yes, I feel your cock so hard for me. You want me, too. Let me love you. Love you. Love you to pieces. Love you.”
My eyes flew open and I panted through the nightmare that lurked even though I was awake. The immediate jerk as I became aware left my entire body seizing from pain. The guard’s words repeated in my mind. Everleigh’s message for me. She’d love me to pieces. Probably skin me alive if I made her angry again.
“Main Master, are you okay?”
The unfamiliar male voice had me looking over. I nodded, rubbing my hand over my face. The bandage had me growling and reality only brought back her words.
“Where’s Abbot?”
“The White Room. He told me to stand guard until he returned. It shouldn’t be long.”
My head lifted and I blinked through the slight blurriness. My voice was groggy as fuck and I still felt out of it. How long had I been out? Was it the same day? Nothing was making sense at the moment. Nothing but the fucking laugh and the threat that kept coming.
“The red light. Has it happened?”
“Not yet, Main Master.”
So I hadn’t been out as long as I thought. I hit the button to sit, letting out a hiss as pain jolted me, again. “Water.”
“Of course.”
The man scattered to the bedside, handing me the cup. I barely got to sip the cold liquid before the door opened and Abbot appeared.
“Main Master, you’re awake.”
My hand was shaking as I handed the plastic cup back to the guard. “What happened? What did she say?”
One look to the guard and he swiftly swept by the High Leader, disappearing from the room.
“She wants you sent to the White Room for her rape. She holds to her status as a Mistress and says what you did was a crime.”
I laughed under breath. “Did you tell her to shove her status up her bloody ass?”
He paused and I immediately ground my teeth at how she’d probably laugh at that now. Hers wasn’t the only one bloody anymore.
“I wasn’t as clever as that, Master.”
“What else?”
“She’s not … well. I did research into Master Whitlock’s book. The thing is a mess with writing throughout—scribbles, pictures, and other poems. I did pay extra close attention to the one he supposedly wrote. Although close to his handwriting, it appears more of a match to her own.”
I blinked through his words. “Wait. Are you saying Everleigh wrote that poem, herself?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Impossible, she didn’t have access to the book. I kept my library locked when I wasn’t with her. Besides, she was genuinely shocked by what she read. I remember that. Her face was glowing with hope.” I squinted through my hazy memory. “You said it was a mess throughout?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t before. I glanced through the damn thing when I placed it on the shelf. I even read a few of those stupid poems.” My head kept shaking through what my mind was trying to comprehend. “Something’s not right.”
“I’m only telling you how it was when I retrieved it from the floor a few hours ago.”
“Someone else had to have done it. She didn’t. She couldn’t have. What would be the point of her wanting to see the book if she had already been through it doodling, as you make it seem? No. The poem she read me had to have come from Bram. One of the guards must have written through the pages as a joke or to make her look even crazier.”
Cautiously, he disagreed. “No, I think you’re wrong. I’m almost certain that poem never came from Master Whitlock. It was her. She even began talking to him before I left the room. Talking to someone who wasn’t even there. I believe she’s worse off than we could have imagined. Maybe she doesn’t even remember breaking in and writing throughout, but I’m telling you, it had to be her.”
Flashes of the attack came. I’d chased her to the library … and it wasn’t locked. Had she done it before I arrived? Had I even locked it? I could have sworn I did. But if not and Abbot was right about everything, even the talking to herself…
“I broke her?” I whispered through the gut-wrenching thought. “I fucking broke her? No,” I quickly snapped. “Her mind is stronger than all of this. She didn’t write that and she’s pretending to be crazy so I’ll take it easy on her. I know Everleigh. She’s fucking smart and conniving as hell. She’s scared of what’s happening. She’s remorseful for what she’s done. That has to be what it is. She’s tough. I always knew that. She was just angry at me for what I did and she snapped in the heat of the moment. She did what any of us Masters would have if we were in her situation. Everleigh was never a slave at heart. She’s a sadist, like me. I brought out her need to hurt people by forcing her to hurt others. By hurting her, myself. That’s what it is. It has to be. This is all just … a fucked-up misunderstanding.”
“Master Harper, I’m sorry. I don’t believe that’s what it is. I think she’s truly sick.”
At Abbot’s sympathetic look, I closed my lids through the need to strike him. If she was sick, it was my fault. I would not believe I ruined the only person I had every really cared about.
“You think I’m making excuses because I love her? I do love her, dammit! But I didn’t break my wife! I fucking didn’t. She’s just …”
I trailed off, too choked up by emotions to go on. I was so conflicted. I wanted her to pay for what she’d done. I wanted her to suffer as I was, but I had hurt her, too. My love wouldn’t let me overlook that.
“Do you want me to cancel the red light? There’s still time. You don’t have to do this, Main Master. We can put her under lockdown in your wing until you’re better and then you can decide what you want to do with her.”
“Are you stupid?” I asked, glaring. “Put her in our wing so she can kill the guards and try to finish me off? I may love her, but I’m no fool. The red light will continue as planned. The simple fact that I’m letting her continue to breathe after what she did to me is testament enough of my feelings for her.”
“As you wish.”
“What of Bram’s book? I want to see it.”
Abbot’s mouth opened, only to close. “She asked to keep it. I let her. I didn’t see a reason not to.”
“You left her the book? Abbot! It’s the principle of the matter. She’s a prisoner. Prisoners don’t get rewarded for cutting up their Main Master. Their fucking husbands,” I said, lowering my voice.
“I’ll get it back.” He took a step while I shook my head.
“No. Let her have the stupid book. She can form a bigger dependency on it and it’ll be that much more pleasurable to burn it in front of her. And tell them to stop doping me up so much. I don’t want to sleep. I can’t sleep.”
I pushed the button to lie back down, already feeling the heaviness of unconsciousness beckoning again. I didn’t want to close my eyes or drift back to the nightmares that tortured me, but staying awake for long was impossible.
****
“Main Master.”
My groan sounded far away as I battled through the dreams that begged me to return. Everleigh was so loving in our moment, cupping my face and kissing me. Her hips rotated while she took my cock even deeper. She was becoming clearer as I focused on the dream instead of the man who was in the distance.
“I’ve missed you.” Heavy breathing brushed over my lips and I wasn’t sure if it was coming from her or me. The dream was warping while she rode me faster. Her fingers were gripping into my face almost with enough force that her nails were going to draw blood. “I knew you’d come to me. Now, I want you to come for me.”
“Stop talking, wife. Kiss me.”
My arm wrapped around her waist, controlling her speed. Just thinking about her wanting my cum inside of her left me right on the edge. Her pussy was gripping each inch like a vice and I could feel her channel pulsing around me.
Teeth tugged at my bottom lip and I blinked, looking at her cautiously. Instinct was triggered and fear had me pulling from our moment to look at her more clearly. Something wasn’t right. What was I forgetting?
“I want to feel you come. Don’t you love me?”
“Of course.”
She moved back in, running her tongue across my mouth before she glided to my cheek. When her face turned and she nuzzled against me, I went back to focusing on the way she was moving up and down my cock. She had always put everything into her rhythm. She fucked me like I was the only one she’d ever want. Even when her passion was hate-based, Everleigh’s love for me never failed to shine through.
“Yes. Mmm. Yes.”
Her back arched and I blinked through the blood smearing her entire face. She was moaning and laughing and it didn’t quite make sense to me. Why was she bleeding? Or maybe it was me? Me …?
Vivid scenes burst into my mind and I was screaming … trying to push her off while her hands shot out and she attempted to claw out my eyes.
“No! No!”
“Main Master, wake up. Main Master.”
The voice was louder. I swallowed convulsively as my eyes shot open. My entire body was covered in sweat and my cock was throbbing through the spell she’d always cast on me.
“Are you okay? I think you were having a bad dream.”
My eyes shot over to Abbot. “No fucking shit. What?”
He grabbed the water, handing it to me. “It’s almost time. You wanted to be woken up.”
“Hmm?” I gulped it down, jerking through the pain that made itself know. “What are you talking about?”
“The red light. You asked me to wake you when it started. Estevan is going to stream it to my phone, remember?”
The cup nearly fell from my fingers as I held it back out to him. I drew my legs up and pressed the button for the bed to rise. It was almost impossible to move without great amounts of pain. My head and arm were throbbing and sharp sensations shot through my ass. Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped the heavier medication so soon. It hadn’t been enough time, but damn if I was going to be trapped in those dreams more than I had to be. What if I wouldn’t be able to wake up on my own? Fuck that. I’d take the pain over having her carve me up in my dreams, too.
“What are you doing?” I ground out. “Come closer, I want to watch.”
“Just a moment.” Abbot pulled the chair next to the bed, angling the phone so that I could see the screen. The guards were in the main room just outside the White Room hall. I could feel my pulse increasing in rhythm as the low volume of their talking buzzed in the background. They were joking. About what, I wasn’t sure. The hospital door opened and I yelled at the nurse to get out as I went back to the screen.
“You’ve given them strict orders not to kill her?”
“Yes, Main Master. They know.”
“Good.”
The camera seemed to be strapped to the guard’s chest. His movement had me leaning in closer. Fear began to slip in as I thought of Everleigh—my wife. She had loved me when she wasn’t hating me for what I did to her. She tried so hard to make me happy. Her hugs. Her kisses. The way she’d caress my face as we’d lay in bed and stare at each other after the best sex of my life …
Fuck, what did I do to her? What had I turned her into?
The guards laughed and my eyes burned through the realization of what I could have had. I used to live such a grand life on the outside world. I was respected and sought after by women. But I never wanted them. I couldn’t hurt them like I dreamed. It was all an act up there. I used to hate having to hide who I was really was, but having Everleigh, I almost wished I could erase the last few weeks and go back and be that man for her. The lawyer, the polished gentlemen I portrayed. He could have made her the happiest woman on earth. Her love would have lasted a lifetime if I would have stayed in that other mindset. Instead, she got the worst part of me.
“Crazy bitch is going to wish she was never born by the time we get done with her.”
My fists clenched at the guard’s remark and I fought the poisonous pleas of my softer side. Of the picket fence and the nights of romancing a woman who knew better. That life would never be. Especially after what I did … what she did.
I had to stop this. It was like I was the one with battered wife’s syndrome.
“The others are preparing the halls. It won’t be much longer now.”
My annoyance built as love and hate dueled. “Can you tell them to hurry?”
Abbot reached over, speaking into the radio at his shoulder, but it didn’t help me. My stomach twisted and the evil in me shot to the front because of it. I should put an end to this and have them kill her. I should have her put in the stocks in City Center to teach her the ultimate lesson. Let the Masters use her body until she was dead. Let them rape and beat her until her face was mush like Master Max’s slave’s had been.
I wiped the sweat from my brow that came at the visual thought. No, I wouldn’t go that far. The beatings and doses of fear she could undergo, but that was it. “Do they have a plan?”
Abbot glanced over but went back to gazing at his phone. “If they do, they didn’t tell me. I just gave them your order—she was free game, but wasn’t to be killed.”
City Center came back and with what I saw, so did red-hot jealousy. “Well, they know better than to rape her. She’s my wife.”
Again, he came to look at me. “You didn’t say that. You said you didn’t care what happened to her, as long as she was kept alive. You even stressed that part.”
“They can’t rape the Main Master’s wife, Abbot. She’s still my fucking wife. Like, real wife. Wife. We said vows. Wife!”
God, why couldn’t I stop repeating it! The damn word kept looping in my head, over and over. And I could see Everleigh in that white dress, holding my hands. Staring up at me. All she had ever wanted was a good Master. She wanted to be happy. I had promised her that. I promised her kids. Her eyes had lit up so full of surprise and hope. I had been happy in that moment. Even if it had been a lie.
Now, look at her. She was a fucking basket case because of what I did. And me. My face was fucked, more so than my ass. Hadn’t the doctor told me in my drugged state that I’d only been given a few stitches along the outside of my entrance? But my face … Fuck, who was I kidding. My face was her prize. Even as twisted and fucked up as it was, we held each other’s scars. Proof of our ownership over one another. I may have feared her, but there was beauty there. Dark, Whitlock-type beauty. In truth, we were living our own violent, little fairytale. Two monsters, loving each other the only way they knew how in such an environment.
“Estevan, can you hear me? Estevan!”
Abbot yelled again, just as a loud alarm blasted through the speaker of the phone. Red flashed, illuminating the room. Abbot thrust the phone in my hand, yelling even louder into the radio at his shoulder. When an answer didn’t come, he was sprinting for the door. And me … I was seething as the barred metal door swung open.