I knelt there on the shower floor with so many emotions coursing through me that I didn’t know what to feel. Or whether to feel at all. I’d liked it. God damn it, I’d liked the feel of him in my mouth. And the sounds he’d made…knowing I was the one responsible for them…it had made me heady.

But now, I was hovering on the brink of insanity, and it was so tempting to let myself tumble over, to let it swallow me up. Whatever else it did to me, I didn’t care so long as it took my mind with it. This was too much—too much even to process how I should feel.

It wasn’t what the devil had done, or even how my traitorous body had responded to it. I would gladly go back to that now, to the depraved way my body had responded to him watching me, to him touching me. I’d happily relive him forcing me to my knees and shoving his cock in my mouth and the wicked thrill that had shot through me.

Yes, I wanted those things back. I didn’t want to remember what had happened after when he’d looked down at me with his vivid, blue eyes and they fell into place in my mind. I knew now why they’d seemed like a comfort when I’d first seen him, why he so easily fit into my depraved dreams.

The devil who had handcrafted my own personal hell wasn’t a nameless, faceless devil at all.

He was the place I had once run to in my mind, always, the last person who’d genuinely seemed to care about me. And now, he was pure evil. He was humiliation, and pain, and hopelessness.

He was Derek…though I wished with every fiber of my being that he was anyone else.

He was talking to me. I could hear his voice through a haze, but I couldn’t make out the words. I didn’t want to make them out. I didn’t want to understand what he was saying.

His voice grew louder, but still no words, and I closed my eyes, trying to block it all out. For the first time, I longed for the nothingness, but I knew it wouldn’t come. The devil wouldn’t let it.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Its grip was firm, but not unbreakable. He wasn’t trying to haul me up. I had no idea what he was doing. I didn’t want to know.

And then his hand began to shake me, and it jarred me out of whatever stunned state had gripped my mind. But all at once, everything collided.

I didn’t curl up on the floor in abject misery. I didn’t cry. I didn’t sob. I didn’t even lash out.

A scream rose up from deep inside me. I had no idea where it came from. Some conglomeration of every bit of anger, fear, bitterness, and betrayal, it knit together and rocketed outward, and I covered my own ears in some feeble attempt to block out my own sound.

He yanked me off the ground and dragged me out into the other room.

“Don’t you touch me you son of a bitch. I hate you. I hate you,” I screamed over and over again.

He handcuffed me to the post, but I didn’t care. Finally, I opened my eyes and looked at him. It was so obvious now. How could I have missed it?

He was confused, but he was angry too. I kept screaming. I couldn’t stop. I watched him stride back into the bathroom, no doubt in search of the belt on his soaking wet pants. I didn’t care. His belt could never hurt me as much as I was hurting now.

I was still screaming when he came back into the room, but he wasn’t holding his belt. He had a plastic cup in his hand.

Acid—it was the first thought that came to my mind, but even in my crazed state, I dismissed it. He wouldn’t do that to me—though how the hell I could be so sure of that when he would do all the other things he’d done to me, I didn’t know. Again, I didn’t care.

The noise continued, my own ear-piercing scream that hadn’t lost an ounce of momentum since it had risen up and burst forth from my lips.

He stopped in front of me, his brilliant, blue eyes full of concern. Concern?—Ha! Like a monster was capable of that emotion.

He stood there, looking indecisive for a brief moment. I didn’t care. It just didn’t matter to me what he did to me. If he killed me, it would be better. To put an end to this misery—yes, it sounded like a reasonable plan to me.

But he didn’t raise a hand to me. Not exactly. He lifted the cup and splashed its contents on my face. No burn. It wasn’t acid. Icy cold water. It was just water. But it stunned me into silence.

The scream I thought would never end died abruptly on my lips and fizzled out in my throat. “I hate you,” I whispered, finding it suddenly too painful to force anything louder past my throat.

“What am I supposed to do with you, Pet?” he asked. It almost sounded like a genuine question. Almost. But I knew he didn’t give a damn what I thought.

“I don’t care what you do with me…” I answered anyways. “…Derek.” I could barely choke out his name. It was as if by forcing it out, speaking it out loud, it made it impossible to take it back, to pretend it wasn’t true.

Surprise flashed through his blue eyes—eyes I wished desperately I could claw out at that moment, to erase the proof of who he was.

“No matter whether it pleases you or not, I am master to you. Do. Not. Ever. Forget. It.”

“Fuck you. I wish it had been anyone but you. Anyone!” I croaked.

“Is that so?” he seethed as anger flashed in his eyes. A possessive anger, it seemed, though it was probably just my imagination.

Then again, it wouldn’t be terribly surprising. I was a thing to him. A possession to use and to break.

“Do you realize if I had been anyone else—like you so much wish—and you had dared use my name, you would have been whipped until your back was an irreparable, bloody mess. So, maybe you should think twice before wishing for a new master, Pet. But don’t worry, you’ll have one soon enough.”

His hands were clenched into fists so tight his knuckles had turned white. I waited for the blow, to feel him letting loose his anger on me like a human punching bag. But he just stood there, silent. Ominous. Maybe he was trying to figure out how much he could hurt me without killing me so he could keep it up until he’d vented every ounce of the anger that brewed and churned inside him.

But then he turned and strode right out of the room, leaving me shackled to the post but unharmed. Why? And then his words hit me, “But don’t worry, you’ll have one soon enough,” he’d said. A new master? He was getting rid of me. He didn’t want me anymore—the result of my crazed rant?

I should be relieved, but I wasn’t. Relief was nowhere in the mix of emotions that coursed through me. Bitter anger over what he’d done. Betrayal over who he was. And heartbreaking sadness that he didn’t want me. He was done with me. He was going to hand me over to someone else, and in no time at all, he was going to forget about me.

His face, and all the sides of it—my childhood hero, my captor—would haunt me for the rest of my life while mine faded in his mind until I was nothing more than a fuzzy memory of the pathetic girl he’d humiliated and hurt…and discarded.

Why did that even matter to me? After all, I’d been through—after all he’d done to me—why was that what stayed at the forefront of my mind?

I hated him, even more than before when he hadn’t been the boy I’d looked up to and adored. Why wasn’t I glad that he no longer wanted me?

Because he was still Derek, damn it.

Whatever else he was, whatever he’d become, he was still the face of every fantasy I’d ever had. And he was still in there, somewhere, wasn’t he? There had been something so tender about him all the times he’d caressed my face and ran his fingers through my hair. So many times, I’d actually let myself think he cared about me, that there must have been something that made him this way and it was the only way he could experience affection. I’d wondered what it was that had happened to him, what horrors he’d been exposed to, or suffered himself, to need this.

And then an image of the boy he’d been flashed through my mind—the handsome kid who had no idea what went on in his house when everyone else had gone to bed. He was an ordinary—albeit kind— the kid who’d tolerated me following him around like a lost puppy. My father had come to get me one night, and I’d never seen him again, not in person anyway. I ran to him in my mind often in my solitary life with my father. I remembered thinking a multitude of times that I wanted to go back there, that I’d gladly endure the bad things his father did to me if it meant I could have Derek back too.

But he wasn’t that boy anymore. Something had done this to him, had turned him into the devil who needed to hurt and humiliate. As pathetic as it was, a fresh batch of tears welled up and I cried. Not for me—there would be time enough for that—but for him, for the boy, I’d loved in my little girl way, and whatever atrocities he’d suffered to turn him into something else.

He returned to the room faster than I’d thought he would. Too soon. I was still too caught up, still too confused about how I should be feeling. I couldn’t handle this now. Not yet—not that what I could or could not handle mattered.

He was dressed now, his hair nearly dry, but my mind called up an image of him from not long before, naked, his cock in my mouth, his face contorted with pleasure, so much that it almost looked like pain. I hated the thrill that shot through my body, and I hated, even more, the urge to be there now, on my knees, taking in as much of him as I could, feeling the tension mounting in his body and seeing it in the expression on his face.

What the hell was wrong with me? How could I even be thinking that never mind responding to it, feeling my body revving up in anticipation—I was just as sick as he was.

He walked toward me without a word and I watched him, trying to read his expression, to figure out what he was going to do next. But when he stood in front of me, I looked away, down at the floor. Because I couldn’t look any longer? Or because he’d told me that was what was expected of me? Was I actually trying to behave? Submit to him like a good, little slave? Why the hell was I doing that?

Because I didn’t want him to get rid of me—the answer came to me out of the blue, stealing my breath with the shock of it. Before I had time to contemplate this new and completely insane discovery though, he reached up and unshackled me.

I dropped to my knees, not really because I was supposed to, but because it was the only way I’d be allowed to put distance between us. And I needed distance, now more than ever.

He chuckled as if he found my obedience humorous after my recent tirade. But he still reached down and stroked my cheek.

No part of me wanted to pull away. The sensations, the comfort—as much as I needed distance, I needed this too, after he’d ripped the only stability I’d ever known out from under my feet. I didn’t want him to move, or talk—I just wanted to feel his hand on my face. Nothing else.

But he withdrew after a moment. “You are a slave. I don’t owe you an explanation,” he said, his voice harsh, which contrasted sharply with how gentle his hand had been. “I had no choice. I still don’t,” he said, offering what sounded an awful lot like an explanation after telling me he didn’t owe me one. “Your father needs to pay for what he did. He will pay,” he said succinctly as if that somehow explained everything.

My father? What the hell did my father have to do with anything? Pay?—for what? And how the hell did that have anything to do with what Derek had done to me?

“I-I don’t understand,” I whispered, still finding my throat too sore to do much more.

He scoffed. “You don’t know that your father murdered my parents in cold blood?”

My eyes shot up to his. This had to be some sort of sick joke.

“You didn’t know?” he said, not quite disbelievingly. “You don’t remember the gunshots the night he took you?”

No. No, I really didn’t. I’d woken up to a man’s arms around me, yanking me out of bed. And I remembered what he’d said, “I promised your mother I’d take care of you, so here I am. And now, he won’t have any chance to get his hands on you,” he’d sneered, though I’d had no idea what he’d meant. I’d kicked and fought, but it had made no difference. And then we were in a car, driving away.

I shook my head. “What happened…Master?” I croaked, wanting to think it impossible of the man who’d taken me, but knowing it wasn’t.

I could feel his eyes on me for a long time, so long I’d given up on him answering me, but then he retrieved the chair, pulled it in front of me and sat down.

“Your father would never have been allowed to leave with you,” he said as he brushed his finger across my cheek. “He was a criminal. No court would have granted him custody. So, he took you and eliminated the obstacles in his way.”

My heart ached, imagining the boy he’d been, suddenly orphaned. Alone. But as horrible as that was, it didn’t explain what Derek had become. “What happened then,” I whispered, rubbing my cheek against his hand, hoping my complacency would keep him here and keep him talking.

He shrugged. “All the kids there—including me—were sent to new foster homes.” He spoke so easily it was clear he was covering something.

My fingers were trembling as I lifted them to cover his on my cheek. He could just as easily punish me for the move as accept it. But I wanted to know. I needed to understand. “And then what?” I asked when he didn’t bat my hand away.

“You are suddenly full of questions, aren’t you, Pet?” he said, obviously trying to brush it off.

“Yes, Master,” I said, hoping to keep this side of him here.

“My foster parents were…less than ideal parents,” he replied.

That’s what had happened. I remembered the scars I’d seen on his back. I’d been in the midst of my screaming fit and had thought nothing of it. They did nothing to mar the physical beauty of his body, but thinking about them now…there must have been hundreds of them—thin scars, long-healed, that crisscrossed the entire expanse of his back.

I thought of the boy he’d been, and what violence must have been done to him to leave so many scars…

I choked back a sob. It didn’t excuse what he’d become, but it did help to explain it. He’d become cold, unfeeling—at least, most of the time—but what other choice had there been for him? I knew from my own brief experience with him how much a person could be affected by circumstance.

I still hated him for what he’d done to me, but I also didn’t. It was the most conflicted I’d ever felt. But I couldn’t deny how natural it felt when I moved closer to his thighs and I stretched up higher. On my knees, I couldn’t quite reach, so I wrapped my arms around his neck and drew him down to my mouth.

And then I kissed him. My lips touched his, and I waited for him to pull away, to chastise me for my behavior.

He didn’t.

He let me kiss him, and when I glided my tongue across the seam of his lips, he parted for me, letting me in while he took possession of my mouth at the same time. It was like a first kiss—the kind that dreams and fantasies were made of—and I closed my mind to everything but the man in front of me.

But he pulled away and pressed down on my shoulders, pushing me back down. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, Pet, but it won’t change anything. It’s out of my control now.”

I froze. What did he mean? What was out of his control?

“You’ve been sold. The transaction will take place soon. Your father will be there to see it happen. And then I will kill him.”

And then I understood why he’d taken me, why he’d humiliated and hurt me. I was his revenge.

I almost laughed out loud, thinking how poorly he’d plotted his vengeance. I should let him go through with it and watch in satisfaction as his plan failed before his eyes—what disappointment he’d feel when my father barely flinched.

But then I’d belong to someone else, some new, cruel master who thought I was nothing more than a piece of meat. And Derek would be gone—that part should have bothered me the least, but it seemed to be squeezing my heart like a vice.

“It won’t work,” I blurted out. Self-preservation, yes—of course, I wanted to convince him not to hand me over to a new master. But something else, too. I could only imagine how much he longed for the moment when he destroyed my father, and though I should want it with every fiber of my being, I didn’t want to see the hurt in him when his plan failed. I really was insane.

“There’s no point in you trying to talk me out of it, Pet. It can’t be undone,” he said, though it sounded an awful lot like regret in the undertone of his voice.

“And it won’t work,” I said with certainty, though with my croaky voice, it probably sounded less than convincing.

He sighed as if dismissing the topic and went back to caressing my face.

“Your plan won’t hurt my father, Derek,” I said, and then immediately realized my mistake. “I’m sorry,” I cried, waiting for his anger, but he let it out in a long breath and seemed to allow it to pass.

“And why not?” he said indulgently, no doubt expecting some lame excuse that he could see right through.

“He’s…he’s, not my father,” I said, and that seemed to shock him.

He eyed me as if he could assess the truth of what I’d just said in my eyes.

“He’s cared for you for a long time. It will affect him the same,” he said dismissively.

It was my turn to scoff, though I reined it in quickly. “I was an obligation, and nothing more. He’d promised my mother he would look after me, and so, when he’d learned she had died, he came for me. And he has spent every day since making sure I knew what a burden I was. I don’t even know why he did it—why he didn’t just leave me there…” It was a question I’d asked myself and my father more times than I could count, but there was never an answer. He seemed to hate my mother, so what obligation he had to her daughter was beyond my comprehension.

“God damn it, Scar,” he cursed and shot to his feet.

I scurried back, but only half-expecting his anger, and I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t lash out. It was the first time he’d used my name—the nickname that only he had ever used. Was I getting through to him?

But then he stormed out of the room, leaving me with no clear answer. And he left me there alone for hours. I paced my prison, my head too full to think clearly. He’d said it can’t be undone…but why? Because he didn’t want to undo it? He was happy to be getting rid of me, whether it served his vengeful purpose or not? If that was true, then there was absolutely nothing I could do. He would pass me onto someone else, and I’d be just as trapped, subjected to god only knew what new evils.

But maybe there was another option. Not so long ago, I would have said anyone who chose it was weak, but I wasn’t weak. At least, I wasn’t being weak now. I could plainly see the future that awaited me, and I was simply choosing not to accept it. I would not spend the rest of my life as some evil man’s lapdog.

It was different when I thought about Derek, about forever remaining his slave, his possession. I didn’t want to be just a possession to him, but I could accept it if there was no other choice. I would not die to escape it.

I shouldn’t feel that way. I shouldn’t so easily be able to differentiate between a life as his slave and a life as someone else’s. I should hate him just as much as I’d hate any other man who did what he’d done to me. But I didn’t, at least it wasn’t the only thing I felt for him. It was too complicated to put into words all that I felt, but it was suffice to say I would rather live as his slave, hoping it would one day grow to something more, than not live at all. But another man…no. No, I didn’t want that.

The scrape of the lock jarred me out of the dark place my mind had wandered. I dropped back down to my knees, noticing it wasn’t as difficult to do as it had once been. When had that happened?

The door opened, but it wasn’t Derek who walked in. The man wasn’t the least bit familiar. Older than Derek, dark eyes. Dark, sinister eyes that sent a chill down my spine. I thought of what Derek had said about handing me over to a new master—was this him? Had I already lost the chance to end this before it began? Oh god, without him saying a word, I already knew I’d rather be dead than be this man’s slave.

He walked toward me, and I wrapped my hands around my body, trying to cover myself. I’d gotten used to being this way with Derek, naked, with his eyes free to peruse every part of me. As wrong as it was, I’d come to like it, to feel my body revving up when his eyes grazed over me.

But this man…I didn’t want him looking at me.

He stopped in front of me, looking down disapprovingly at where my hands covered me. I skittered back on my knees, but he reached out and grabbed a fistful of my hair before I could get more than a few inches. He yanked me back and my hands flew out automatically to stop from falling forward.

When I moved to re-cover myself, he yanked on my hair again, so hard I was surprised it didn’t rip it out at the roots. Tears stung my eyes, but I held them there stubbornly.

“If you cover yourself again, I will break your arms to keep you from making that mistake again.”

He wasn’t joking. I didn’t think this man was capable of it. I dropped my arms to my sides while anger and fear warred inside me. Fear won out, and I knelt there unmoving. I’d thought Derek was the devil, but I was beginning to suspect I’d been wrong.

If I’d behaved better if I’d tried to please Derek, would he still have sold me to this monster? Would he still have delighted in handing the supposed-daughter of James Donovan over to the vilest creature he could find?—certainly that’s what this man was.

Or would I have mattered to him then? If I hadn’t fought him constantly, would he have felt too much guilt to do something so horrible to an innocent girl? Was he even capable of that emotion, or had the years in his own hell numbed him to it? I had no answers. And why the hell was I thinking about Derek when I should have been thinking of the fastest method to check out?

“You are very appealing, slave, but you are far from adequately trained,” he said and I started to shake with fear. Pure terror, unlike anything Derek had ever evoked.

But then, maybe Derek was worse. He’d never hurt me the way I now knew this man was going to, but he’d handed me over to him. Wasn’t that worse?

“Stand up. I want to inspect you, slave,” he demanded.

I wanted to run, and the stupid thing about it was I wanted to run to Derek. I wanted him to wrap his arms around me and protect me, to refuse to let this monster hurt me. Tears spilled over, knowing there was nowhere to run. And even if Derek was here right now, he wouldn’t save me.

I stood up, willing my knees to hold me there while the man made a tight circle around me, touching my breasts, my hips, my backside. I wanted to scream at him to get his hands off me. I was Derek’s, and he wasn’t allowed to touch me. But it wasn’t true. And screaming at this man was sure to incite him. Derek hadn’t punished me for it—when I’d screamed like a banshee and couldn’t stop—but this man would.

He stopped behind me, his hands still on my cheeks, and I could feel his eyes grazing over my back.

“No wonder you’re unruly. There isn’t a single lash mark on you. You have not been disciplined nearly enough.”

I cried harder, knowing without a doubt he was going to rectify that.

“Bend over and grab onto the backs of your calves,” he said, already pressing down on my back.

Oh god, no. No, there had to be a way out. But he kept pressing and when I didn’t comply, I felt a hot, vicious sting across my backside. It wasn’t his hand that had struck me. No hand could hurt that much. I jerked my head back as I cried out. Bile rose in my throat—the sick monster had brought his own whip.

I started to run—it was innate. I couldn’t have stopped it any more than I’d been able to stop my body’s response to Derek. Derek…I begged him silently to save me, knowing he wouldn’t.

The man grabbed my arm and yanked back so hard it nearly pulled my shoulder right out of its socket. I landed hard on his chest and he bent my arm back painfully, forcing me back down on my knees.

And then he leaned down until his lips were next to my ear. “You’ve defied me, slave, for the last time. I am going to whip you now, and I won’t stop until you’re unconscious. And then I’ll revive you by shoving my cock up your ass, and then I’ll whip you again. You will bleed, slave. And you will never defy me again.”

No. Oh god, no. Please, no. Just let me die, I begged the universe. But when I opened my mouth, it wasn’t death I cried for.

“Derek!”