CHAPTER EIGHT
ANTHONY
Sleeping was a futile pursuit after leaving Seraphina in her cold, dark room. I closed my eyes and chased the glorious state of deep slumber, but like a dancer that wouldn't stop spinning, sleep broke from my grasp every time I thought I'd finally pinned it down.
Achieving an hour or two, perhaps three hours that weren't truly restful, I woke to the birth of a new morning. The sun wasn't yet above the horizon, its ribbons of red, orange and gold streaming out to touch the vast sky outside my window, its fingers of color scrabbling to climb into the sky.
Unable to lie down, I sat on the edge of my bed, my body weary and hunched over, my palms scrubbing over my face as if that would dispel the nightmares that I'd seen behind a broken woman's eyes, the horrors and sharp memories her eyes had conjured in me.
Reading what Aiden found about her was only a small piece of the perplexing puzzle that had been her life.
Her father was well known within the sordid circles that littered the shadows of polite society, her mother a mystery to me still. I had to wonder if the psychosis that shone so clearly within her wild eyes was something she was born suffering, or simply a result of bad decisions, poor judgment and the hopeless situations in which she'd been raised.
According to what I read, drugs had been her only escape.
Drugs were never something I found particularly useful, not unless they were intended for subduing prey. But as a method for chasing one’s dreams, or expelling their demons, drugs were a weak avenue to travel, a bandage over a gaping wound, a patch, but not a solution, for whatever drove a person to them in the first place.
From what I could tell - and from the little experience I had with those people held in the clutches of their particular poison - drugs only multiplied their problems, leaving the user as crushed and broken as the woman I carried home last night.
Like her past, like the family that raised and warped her, drugs were only a small piece of Seraphina's complex puzzle.
Before I could approach her again, it was critical I speak with the only man in this house who had any real knowledge about her, the cruel yet charming bastard I considered one of my closest friends. Why had he not mentioned knowing her before leaving me alone to discover his note about her? Why had he given me the time to blindly stumble upon the truth of who she'd once been?
Within the Society, the group of wealthy, powerful men that traded women like they were commodities, Aiden was one of the most capable Masters, his expertise only matched by mine.
We stole women, broke them down and rebuilt them into the perfect whores. Once those women were the perfect courtesans, they were sold off to another Master or Owner within the circle. The Owners could possess the women, but the Masters were the ones who trained them.
Unlike other sexual slaves - those poor souls dragged from their lives and shoved into seedy shadowed corners - our courtesans were pampered and cared for, rewarded with luxury for meeting our every fantasy and desire. That's not to say there weren't Owners, or even Masters, within the Society with unusual and deeply disturbing, depraved tastes, but they had been few and far between.
Had that been what happened to mold the broken women who saw only darkness? And if so, how had she escaped their grasp?
What had been Aiden's purpose in offering me that information, but then making himself unavailable to explain what it all meant?
My eyes peered through the window from behind my fingers, my hands scrubbing over my face and jaw one last time before I forced myself to my feet. After a quick shower I went in search of answers that I suspected would only be another hurtle for me to climb when it came to saving Seraphina from herself.
The walk from my room to the kitchen wasn't far, and as I knew I would, I found Aiden sitting in his favorite chair at the table, a newspaper grasped in his hand, and a smirk stretching his lips.
"What do you know about her?" I asked. No polite conversation, no small talk and no pretenses, I wanted answers, and Aiden would give them to me.
Placing the paper on the table, he picked up his mug of coffee, took a sip and swallowed, the entire time locking his gaze with mine.
"Does Sera remember me?" he asked, his voice measured and controlled. "I thought I recognized her when you first brought her in, but I couldn't recall when I'd last been around common street trash. It didn't make sense that I'd known her."
"She is a courtesan, Aiden. We can't leave her like she is."
"No," he answered sharply, "we can't. But, we can do the humane thing and dispose of her."
Anger trickled through my veins, my hands clenching the back of the chair in front of me. "Dispose of her? How? It's not like we can drop her off at the local hospital. She could expose the existence of the Society."
"I wasn't suggesting a hospital, Anthony." He tipped his chin towards the chair and his voice softened. "Take a seat."
The sympathy behind his eyes bothered me. Aiden wasn't the type of man to be soft. He was professional and polite, but highly driven and focused in any task he took on. His skills as a Master were top notch, but in his execution of the practice, he differed from me. I used a soft hand, but stern authority. Aiden was stern in all areas, even when it came to the courtesan I knew he loved.
Rebecca was Aiden's only weak point, and although they'd been together for several years, he still didn't acknowledge the feelings that were obvious between them.
The wall built around his heart was forged of pure steel, damn near impossible to run through or climb over, and always cold to the touch.
Once seated, I leaned forward with my forearms braced against the surface of the table. My shoulders ached from my failed attempt at sleep, my head pounding with the certainty that I was on my own when it came to Sera.
"She's not Elise, Anthony. You owe this woman nothing." He paused, allowing the statement to sink in. "Not that you owe Elise anything either. She took her own life, and you were powerless to stop her. Considering what else you lost from her decision, if a debt is owed, it's from Elise to you."
Aiden didn't sugarcoat or dance around what he felt was necessary to say to me. I could always rely on him to be blunt and to the point. It's what made him a good Master. A person never had to guess what he wanted. His instructions, praise and criticisms were always perfectly clear.
"Tell me about her."
Shrugging a shoulder, he leaned back in his seat and casually draped his arm over the backrest. "She was one of my first courtesans. I was young, not as experienced as I am now, and I made a mistake by choosing an easy target."
"A mistake?" I asked, gently prodding him in the right direction.
He nodded, an expression of true regret written across his features. That alone surprised me. Aiden had never been regretful of anything he'd done in his life.
"I found her in a park. If you read what I left you last night, you know she came from a wealthy family, even if they weren't exactly operating within legal means."
Her father was a drug lord and murderer. I couldn't fault him for his chosen profession, but it made me wonder what horrors Sera had witnessed or experienced in her youth.
"After researching her and learning how she was in and out of rehab facilities, jail, and even stayed a stint in a psych ward, I decided she wouldn't be missed if she was suddenly absent. People would assume she'd run off, or that she'd died in some gutter somewhere with a needle sticking out of her arm."
Lifting his mug to his lips, he sipped slowly, something dark brewing behind his observant eyes. "I won't lie and say that was the only reason I sought her out. Sera was a boon to my ego, as well. If I could turn her, a woman hardened by the life she'd lived before me, I could transform anyone into the perfect and willing whore."
"Yet, that didn't happen, I assume."
Speaking slowly, I was the type to dance around the obvious, if for nothing more than to lull a person into a false sense of security. Where Aiden demanded obedience and truth out of those around him, I seduced it.
"She was already broken by the time I found her. Hell, I often wonder if I hadn't carried her out of the park that night, would she have woken to see the next sunrise? Sera did, in fact, die with a needle in her arm, but it was the individuality that died, and not the body. I prevented that much, at least."
While his gaze darkened and floated away into the past, I towed a line to drag him back to the present conversation. "You said you were inexperienced. What did you do to her? What steps did you take in your effort to make her a courtesan?"
"I fought her," he admitted, the touch of a smile on his lips. "And how that woman could fight. She wasn't like Rebecca in the way she challenged me. Her mind wasn't strong enough to hide parts of herself, to keep them safe from my meddling. Sera's refusal to submit was physically violent. Exquisitely violent." His voice was wistful on those last words, but then a bark of laughter heralded his next statement. "She even gave me a black eye at one point, a mistake she learned quickly not to repeat."
My heart lurched beneath my ribs. I could only assume how bad the punishment had been for striking out at Aiden.
Still caught in some distant time and place, Aiden glanced up at me and explained, "Think about all your firsts, Anthony. The first time you attempted anything, be it riding a bike, cooking for yourself, or drawing a simple image. You never got it right the first time. Any skill requires practice, and whatever you create prior to mastering that skill would always be monstrous or inferior at best. Sera was my inferior product. Breaking her was never the problem, but then that doesn't require much finesse, does it?"
No. Breaking a woman down was the simple part of a Master’s job. Well timed abuse, seclusion, refusal to deliver even the barest of liberties or personal needs, those acts could be committed by any type of monster. Building the woman back into the image you wanted for her - that was where the true art of a Master was born.
"Building her into the lifestyle of a true courtesan is where I failed," he admitted. "Realizing she would never be accepted into the Society as she was, I sought out an Owner on the fringes, one who was known to operate with a far darker and depraved appetite."
My eyes closed as this piece of the puzzle slid into place. "Who?"
"James Marsh."
His eyes met mine and the look behind them caused me to shudder. We were both well aware of James’ proclivities. It had been his appetite that left a string of dead women that almost led the authorities directly to the Society's door. And it had been my hand that pulled the trigger that ended his life several years ago.
"How did she survive?" I asked, my voice soft because I'd been asking the question of myself more than Aiden.
"She shouldn't have, and that was the point. I assumed he'd be satisfied with a woman who fought him. He'd appreciate it. And then he'd kill her and settle the issue of my first mistake. I’d intended to wipe my hands clean of the botched experience and start again. However, as you proved to me last night by bringing her to my home, it didn't quite work out as well as I assumed it had. That may be the reason why I refused to believe I recognized her at first. For years, I felt assured that she was dead."
A sigh escaped my lips, pregnant with the understanding that the woman sitting chained in the dark was most probably a lost cause. I doubted even a Master of my skill could repair the damage she'd endured.
"There's something else you need to know about her," he offered, his tone once again controlled, unemotional, untouched.
Casting my gaze in his direction, I sat in silence waiting for him to dole out whatever detail he hadn't yet made apparent.
"She had already given birth to a child when I stole her. A son. He wasn't in her care at the time I found her, the state had already seen to that. But he still exists, and I support him in ways that keep my identity a secret."
"Do you know where he is?"
A single nod of his head was his response.
"My support of her child, in a way, is the restitution I pay for what happened to his mother."
Before I could ask more questions, a scream tore through the quiet halls of the house. Sera wasn't a woman who was terrified out of her mind, not with that sound, at least.
Sera was a woman who was inviting me back to the battle.