Two days. I’d woken up in a stone-walled cell two days ago and hadn’t seen a single living soul. I knew it had been two days—at least since I’d woken up—because there was a window in this cell. It was too high up to reach and it wasn’t a normal window. There was no glass in it—evident by the wind and rain that had blown through it the night before. It was striped with thick bars though, and it reminded me of a window in an old dungeon. It was the only source of light. When the sun went down, the prison, or dungeon, or whatever it was, plunged into darkness.

Two days, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified that I hadn’t seen anyone the whole time. I could clearly remember the early days of my last captivity. I was cold now, and hungry, and sore from the stone floor, but no one had touched me or hurt me.

There had been three bottles of water in a row in front of the prison bars that sealed me in. I’d avoided them, but eventually, my parched throat compelled me to give in and open one. It was just water. I had tried to pace myself, not knowing how long they would have to last, but a river of tears quickly leads to dehydration it seemed, and too fast, the bottles were empty. There was no water left, but I was no longer crying.

This was it. Naked and alone, I was going to die in this cell. I had no idea how I’d gotten here. The last I remembered, I had awoken shortly after falling asleep in Derek’s arms. The clothes he’d had me put on had been uncomfortable, and I’d decided to test the freedom to make my own decisions by stripping off the pants and shirt. I’d fallen back to sleep pressed against his naked chest, knowing it was right where I wanted to fall asleep every night for the rest of my life.

And then I’d woken up here. It wasn’t a punishment for disobeying him. Derek would never be this cruel, but the alternative brought no comfort. They’d found us. Whoever had been hunting us had caught up. They’d taken me—probably keeping me in an unconscious oblivion with the same kind of sedatives the men who’d first taken me had used.

What had they done with Derek? The question had plagued me, tormented me, every second of the past two days. Was he trapped somewhere in this dungeon, too? Or…had they killed him? The thought had made me sick over and over again, but with an empty stomach, I’d done little more than dry heave in the corner before curling back up and crying on the cold floor on the other side of the cell.

“Derek…” I whispered into the silent, musky air. I just wanted to know he was OK. That’s all. I wasn’t asking for much. But no matter how many times I whispered or screamed his name, there’d been no response. I was going to die never knowing if he was even alive.

Another round of sobs ripped across my parched throat. Apparently, I wasn’t done crying altogether. I curled up tighter, innately trying to escape the cool breeze that wafted in from the window. I don’t know if I closed my eyes or not. It was so dark it was hard to tell the difference.

Open, I realized, as sometime later dawn’s light slowly began to transform my surroundings from pitch black to dingy grey. I blinked back the tears blurring my vision and glanced around.

My scream lodged behind my heart in my throat when I caught sight of the figure on the other side of the bars. I scurried back further into the corner and wrapped my arms tight around my knees as if I could curl myself up into nothingness.

He just stood there, watching me with eyes as cold as another pair I’d seen not long ago. The similarities ended there, though. This man was taller than Marcos, his hair was dark but longer, and his cold eyes were a stormy grey. It looked like storm clouds were brewing in their depths.

He didn’t move. He just kept staring. He was so still I couldn’t tell if he was even breathing.

“What do you want?” I asked when I could find my voice.

He raised one hand and covered his lips with one finger, motioning for me to be quiet. His eyes never left mine.

“Tell me now,” I persisted.

He cocked an eyebrow over one, evil eye, and I couldn’t help but question the intelligence of pushing this man.

Too late. He reached for the handle and slid open the door. It offered no resistance, even though it refused to budge for me all the times I’d tried to force it open. An electronic lock—it must be—but that seemed terribly out of place in this medieval dungeon.

He stepped into my cell and suddenly I wished for the lock, for anything that would have kept him on the other side of the bars.

He strode right to me and yanked me up onto my feet. I tried to struggle out of his grip, but he bent my arm behind my back. The burn in my shoulder forced me to stop struggling before he snapped it out of its socket.

“Please let me go,” I pleaded, though I knew he had no intention of it.

He shoved me forward, keeping my arm twisted back to ensure my obedience, and pressed me against the rough stone wall. I couldn’t move, not without dislocating my own shoulder.

A familiar whizz through the air and I was screaming before I felt the lash of a whip across the backs of my thighs. Then it came down again across the same spot, and then higher, and higher still, setting my back on fire where Marcos’ lashes had only recently begun to fade.

“Stop, please,” I cried.

The next lash contained twice the fire of the last one. I could feel the sticky, wet heat there, and knew it had dug in deep. The next was gentler, controlled.

“Please, stop this.”

The whip blazed a wet, hot trail across my lower back, making my knees give out. He held me there, suspended between his grasp on my arm and the stone wall that was biting into my flesh.

He was training me. Every time I begged, the whip came down harder than when I didn’t. I squeezed my lips shut. Another controlled lash and I did my damnedest to keep my mouth closed. Three more, each administered with a rigid control.

He released my arm, and I crumpled to the ground. I didn’t dare try to get up, so I laid there as tears streamed down and puddled on the floor. I could feel the warm trickle of drops of blood as my wounds cried, too.

“Rule number one: A slave will not speak unless spoken to,” he spoke for the first time, in a deep, gravelly voice. “There will be consequences every time a rule is broken. Rule number two: A slave will address her superiors appropriately. You will address me as ‘sir’. Do you understand?”

This couldn’t be happening. I was safe. I was free. Derek had taken me away from this life.

He yanked me up onto my knees but then backhanded me across the cheek and sent me sprawling back to the floor a second later.

“Do you understand me?” he growled, reaching for his whip.

“Y-yes, sir,” I stuttered around sobs.

“Good. Follow me, slave,” he instructed and then stepped out of my cell.

I got my hands and knees beneath me and pushed up. I didn’t bother standing up. I knew that wasn’t what he wanted. No doubt it would only result in another whipping. I crawled to the door, choking on tears, feeling weaker than I’d ever been. A bit of pain, and I was already jumping to be his obedient slave? This man wasn’t like Derek though. His eyes were as cold and lifeless as Marcos’ had been. No compassion. Only ruthlessness. There would be no softening him.

Oh god, Derek, where was he? If he was here, he’d never let this monster hurt me. He wasn’t here though, so I had no choice but to crawl across the jagged stone floor, following behind a man who would like to break me—physically or emotionally, I don’t think it mattered to him which one.

It must have been fifteen yards, maybe twenty, before he came to a stop at the end of the long hall. If I looked behind me, I’d no doubt find a trail of blood left by my battered knees.

I didn’t look behind me.

“Stand up.”

I did, covering my body as best as I could with my arms.

He pointed to an alcove on the right and motioned for me to enter.

A gas chamber?—it’s the first thought that popped into my head. Maybe he was going to put an end to my misery. My heart ached thinking I’d never see Derek again. I would never know if he was even alive, but I had to believe he was. So, with wobbly legs, I stepped into the alcove. Did this make me brave or a coward?

But there was no door to seal me in. Just more stone walls in a room the size of the cell I’d just left, with a pair of shackles high up on the wall. I back-stepped when I saw them, but he was already behind me and I crashed into the hard wall of his chest. Before I could push away he grabbed my wrists and slammed me back against the wall. The fresh lashes on my back screamed in reawakened agony.

I struggled, but it was futile. My wrists were shackled high above my head within seconds, pulling me up so that my heels hovered just above the floor. His hard body pressed against me, but it evoked none of the things Derek’s had.

I opened my mouth to beg and plead, but slammed it shut, jarring my teeth. He would only punish me for speaking. My heart thudded a rapid, staccato beat in my chest and I couldn’t seem to gulp enough air into my lungs. If I didn’t calm down, I was going to pass out.

Oh god, yes. Yes, I would pass out. I let my lungs work faster as the edges of my vision grew fuzzy and dark.

“If you pass out, slave, you won’t like what I do to revive you.”

I could hear his voice, but by the time his words made sense, it was too late. The room spun wildly and the darkness had taken over most of my vision. His eerie smile was the last thing I saw, right before I slipped into blissful oblivion.

Seconds or minutes, I don’t know how long I managed to escape. But when I came to, a scream tore from my lips. Pain. Burning pain. He was beside me, but his hand was wedged behind me and his fingers were pounding into my virgin rectum. I screamed louder and tried to jerk away.

He slammed my hip into the stone with his free hand and I could feel him stretching me further, adding another finger inside me. God, no. It hurt. It burned.

He withdrew suddenly, and my screams turned to racking sobs.

“Welcome back,” he said nonchalantly as he knelt down and grabbed my ankle.

I hadn’t noticed the shackles at the base of the wall, but I saw them now as he restrained one ankle and then the other, spreading my legs obscenely. My efforts to kick and jerk my limbs out of his grasp were useless.

He stood up and moved in front of me. His eyes grazed over me, taking in every exposed inch. I squeezed my eyes shut, but there was no blocking him out. My body wore the proof of his existence and I could still feel his eyes on me.

He was still for so long, I couldn’t resist the wretched urge to open my eyes, not that it would do me any good to see what was coming next. I met his cold eyes but that was what he was waiting for. His open hand crashed into my cheek, which jerked my head and bounced it off the wall.

“Rule number three: A slave will keep her eyes down unless instructed to do otherwise.”

I glared at his toes through the stream of tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. I knew these rules. Had Derek been as brutal in his teaching of them? No. He’d never been like this man. There had always been something in his eyes—life, pain, need. There was nothing in this man’s eyes.

He crossed to the other side of the cell and returned with a long hose. He pressed down on the nozzle and my whole body was showered in a lukewarm spray. When he turned it off, he stood there. I wanted to look up to find out what was going on, but I knew better. I hung there shivering instead, part in cold, part in fear of what was to come.

“Good girl. I’m impressed,” he said, though the inflection in his tone was no different. “Let’s see if you can keep it up.”

Then his hands were on me. They were slippery, covered in soap that smelled like roses. Nothing like the soap Derek had gotten for me that was the same one I’d used at home. This man’s hands groped and rubbed everywhere while I stared miserably at his feet and watched the tears that dripped off my chin land on my breasts and mingle with the soap he’d lathered there. I would never forget the smell of that soap. Roses. A once pleasant scent turned repugnant beneath his hands.

When he grazed over the wounds on my back, I sucked in my breath and cried out at the same time, and when he slipped lower and ran his fingers over my abused rectum, I had no doubt he’d ripped me open there, too, by the sting of the soap he rubbed into me. Then the sprayer returned and he washed all the soap away. If only he could wash away my memory with it.

“Very good, slave. Perhaps you won’t be as difficult as I’d suspected. In fact, I think you’re ready for the next rule.”

No, I didn’t want any more rules. I wanted to go back to my cell and curl up in the corner until dehydration, starvation or hypothermia brought the sweet succor of death. I didn’t want to die, but this man was going to make life hell. There was no escape. No hope. His eyes held none of the promise of the humanity Derek’s had held.

Derek. I’d gladly go back to my first prison to be there with him now. Was he out there somewhere? If he was, he’d be searching for me. He wouldn’t stop until he found me. I wasn’t sure whether to grasp onto the hope or thrust it far away. Hope was a dangerous thing. It could keep a person clinging to life when the only relief to be found was in death.

If I believed he was alive though, I had to believe he was coming for me. I could endure this man—his vicious whip and vile hands. I would survive because Derek could charge in at any moment. And Derek had given me the tools I would need to survive. Submission, obedience—that’s what this man wanted. It made my skin crawl to think of submitting to him willingly, but it wasn’t for him that I would obey. It was for Derek so that his efforts to save me would not be wasted. I wouldn’t make him go through whatever he was going through to rescue a corpse.

So, I kept my eyes on the floor when he came close, and I resisted the urge to jerk away from him when he reached out and brushed his fingers over my nipples. They were already hard from the cold and friction, but his touch did nothing to stir arousal inside me.

“Yes, I like you like this, slave,” he said. “Now, look at me.”

I raised my head and forced eye contact. The coldness in his gaze sent a shiver down my spine.

“That’s it. I want you to keep looking at me with those pretty, green eyes. Do not look away, or my fingers in your ass will seem like a mere tickle in comparison to what I’ll shove in there next. Do you understand me?”

“Y-yes, sir.” My whole body was shaking so hard the shackles on my wrists and ankles clattered loudly.

“Don’t be afraid. What I’m going to do isn’t going to hurt one bit.”

Somehow his words weren’t reassuring.

One hand slipped between my thighs and he cupped my sex with the palm of his hand. My pleas hovered on my tongue, but I held them there. I wanted to look away or close my eyes, but I kept them locked on him while silent tears slipped down my cheeks.

He knelt down in front of me, forcing me to look down to maintain eye contact. And that meant I could see his hand on me, too. The tears fell faster. I didn’t want him touching me. I wasn’t his. He wasn’t my master. He wasn’t allowed to be touching me.

When his fingers fastened on my clit, I tried to jerk away, but I was stuck there. I couldn’t stop him as he started to rub. He moved in slow, languid circles at first. I wanted to scream at him to get his hands off me, but I had to keep it in. Obey and stay alive for Derek. That was all that mattered.

His fingers moved faster, and his other hand slipped between my thighs. A finger ran along my sex. Then he was inside me. God, no, I didn’t want him inside me. He stroked my inner walls as his fingers on my clit picked up their pace.

Then I felt it.

No. No. No. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to respond to him. It was just a flicker, my traitorous body’s innate response to physical stimulation, but it was sick. Wrong. Disgusting.

His pace increased and he leaned in to graze his teeth along my inner thigh. No matter how much I didn’t want it to, it sent a ripple of heat through my sex. Please no. This couldn’t be happening.

“Yes, that’s it, slave. You’re just a little slut, aren’t you?” He eyed me, expecting an answer.

“No, sir,” I whispered miserably. I wanted to disappear. It would have been better if I’d never existed than to be humiliated like this.

“We’ll see,” he said and then leaned up and nipped at my nipple.

More heat. I gritted my teeth, fighting it, trying to extinguish the flames. It was no use. He moved expertly. I cried harder the hotter the fire got. I couldn’t take this. His whip I could survive, not this. Not this.

“Stop!” I screamed. “Please stop.”

He moved faster, ignoring my pleas. His finger drove into me, slamming against my sex with every stroke, and making wet, smacking sounds. Oh god, it was me. It was my own wetness. My breath was coming faster by the second as heat coiled low in my abdomen. I wasn’t going to be able to stop it. I was crying frantically. I couldn’t see him through the blur of steady tears, but my body wouldn’t stop. It was too damn close.

“Come, slave.”

All of a sudden, the coil sprung free and my release rippled out from my treacherous sex. I’d never been more humiliated or felt more betrayed. My own body had betrayed me. And despite how hard I’d tried to hide it, his smile made it clear I’d failed. He knew exactly what he’d coerced from my body.

“Yes, you are most definitely my little slut.”

He stood up and shoved his fingers in front of my face—fingers that glistened with the proof that he was right.

“Rule number four: A slave will come when she’s told,” he said as he shoved his wet fingers into my mouth.

I’d tasted myself before—on Derek’s fingers and on his tongue—but the salty sweetness was vile now, it made my stomach roil with nausea.

“Unfortunately, you forgot about the other rules, didn’t you?”

What? No. What was he talking about?

I realized what he was talking about the moment he bent down and reached for the shackles that imprisoned my ankles. I’d cried out, I’d begged him to stop when he’d turned my body against me. My whole body tensed now against the lashes that were about to set a fresh fire blazing across my back.

He stood up and unfastened my wrists. I pressed back hard against the wall, stalling his access to my wounded back. When he made no move to reach for me, my gaze darted up before I could catch myself. I looked away, back down to the ground fast, but not fast enough.

“I don’t think you understand your place here, slave. You are a thing, to use as I see fit, and you’re going to learn that right now. Get down on your knees, face against the floor.”

No, I couldn’t do it. By the way, his erection was pressed against his pants and the way he made no move for the whip he’d tossed on the floor at some point, it was clear what he intended. He was going to use me. He was going to force himself into my body—a place where Derek had been the only one to enter. And he’d never taken me by force that way. He’d given in when I’d been the one to push for it. I’d felt complete with him inside me. Only him. Not this monster.

It was foolish. It might have been the most witless thing I’d ever done because I knew from my first step away from him, I would fail. He’d catch me and he’d punish me. But I did it anyway. I ran.

Back down the hall, he’d made me crawl along. I passed my cell and still, he hadn’t caught up. He was walking toward me with a slow, easy gait. I ran into the only door I could find and yanked on the handle. It wouldn’t budge. Like a complete idiot, I kept tugging. Eventually, I gave up and darted back to my cell, slamming the bars shut and praying the lock would miraculously engage.

It didn’t.

I backed up into the corner and slid down to the floor as he pushed it open. When he closed it behind him, there was a tiny click. I almost didn’t hear it over the sound of my heartbeat thudding in my ears. Someone was watching. It was the only explanation. Someone was watching and controlling the locks on the door. The eyes watching me on a camera somewhere though seemed inconsequential in comparison to the stormy clouds looming over me now.

I wanted to feel the sting of his hand or the cut of his whip. Something predictable. Something I knew I could handle. But he used neither. Instead, he held out his hand to me and nodded at it encouragingly.

It was a trap. Of course, it was a trap, but what choice did I have? So, I took it, my ice cold hand latching onto his much warmer one. I waited for him to yank me to my feet, but he didn’t. He pulled me gently, slipping a hand beneath my other arm to balance my weight.

He didn’t let go when I was all the way up. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me gently against his chest. His free hand moved to stroke my hair while the one that still clasped mine drew tiny circles across my wrist. It wasn’t like when Derek had shown me kindness though. There was no confusion in my head, no softening toward this man. My senses were on high alert and they were telling me this was just another ploy. I was the mouse, and the cat was toying with me.

This was the calm before the storm let loose its fury.

As if on cue, he spun me around and grasped both my wrists in one big hand, pressing hard against my lower back. I cried out as he reawakened the lashes once again. He pressed harder, and my knees wobbled precariously.

With a twist of his wrist, he bent my elbows and pinned my hands between my shoulder blades. Burning pressure on my shoulder joints. My elbows. One wrong move and every joint was poised to snap. Even my trembling tugged at them. He had me trapped. He leaned in. I could feel the whisper of his lips against my ear.

“You’re going to pay for that, slave. I was going to fuck your pretty cunt, but now…”

He tugged on my wrists and my knees buckled. I fell hard on them with a thud that resounded all the way up my spine. I cried. I was so fucking sick of crying, but I couldn’t stop.

More pressure. He bent me over until my cheek scraped against the stone floor—just like he’d wanted me. The whip. He was going to whip me, and probably ten times worse than he had before. But the sound wasn’t right. There wasn’t a whiz, it was a zip and…

“No!” I screamed. It wasn’t his whip. God, it wasn’t his whip. His penis pressed against my rectum for a split second before he rammed forward. Pain. He was inside me. Burning. Too big. Too much. Agony.

His hips slammed against my cheeks. He didn’t stop. He drove in over and over again. The pain didn’t relent. It grew, like an oxygen-rich fire, it blazed. And my world shrunk. Nothing existed but his invading erection and the pain that shot out and engulfed every fiber of my being. I couldn’t think beyond it. I reached for what I needed—an image of Derek to grab onto with all my might—but there was only pain.

Time passed, or it didn’t. I really couldn’t tell. The pain began to ebb, just a little as if the edges of it had grown fuzzy. The excruciating dry rub gave way to the liquid fire. Blood. My own blood was lubricating his thrusts.

I wanted to die. I couldn’t hold on, waiting for Derek. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t strong. I was torn and used, bloody and broken. And it hadn’t even been hours since the monster inside me had appeared outside my cell. A few more hours…a few days…how much would there be left for Derek to save?

I became aware of a new pain. Beneath his merciless thrusts, my cheek had been thumped and grated against the stone floor. It rivaled but didn’t top, the pain of his thrusts. It was just more fuel for the unbearable fire consuming me.

Eventually, it was over. He rammed in deeper, so deep I felt him in every part of me, but then he stilled. His disgusting grunts reached me above my own hoarse screams and then he withdrew. He was done.

With a shove, he knocked me to the floor. I didn’t curl up. I didn’t try to get up. I laid there. Ruined. Used. I didn’t even bother to try to cover myself when another figure appeared outside the cell. It wasn’t Derek, though I wasn’t sure it would matter if it was. Was there anything left to save?

It was another unfamiliar face, but it looked no more capable of human emotion than the other one. He shoved two towels at my tormentor—a wet one and a dry one—while he leered at my abused body with a sickening heat in his eyes.

Two towels landed on the floor in front of me. Three more things plunked down next to the towels—a tube of something, a bottle of water and a foil-wrapped package that looked like a protein or energy bar.

“Clean yourself up and eat, slave. You have one hour.”

The two men left together, and I recognized the click of the lock when they’d shut the prison bars. I laid there watching their feet until they stepped out of sight. Then I listened. Ten more steps to the door, which sounded like it opened without difficulty for them. The door closed with another quiet click. And then there was silence.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t muster the strength to pick myself up off the floor. I’d once thought the room Derek had held me captive in had been hell…I’d been wrong. So pathetically naïve to think his brand of torture had been brutal, sadistic.

I looked at the things the man had left, searching for something that could help me. Not to heal, not to defend myself, and not to scale the wall and slip through the window. There was only one escape from this hell, and I needed to do it now before they returned. But there was clearly no way to turn the things on the floor into merciful bringers of death.

One hour and he’d be back. One hour to do what he’d said, or else god only knew what punishments he would heap onto whatever he had planned.

With shaking limbs, I forced myself to hands and feet. I slipped the dry towel beneath my bloody knees and knelt, but I couldn’t sit back on my heels and had to hold onto the wall to stay upright. I decided to work from the top down, my face first, unsuccessfully stifling a cry as I pressed the lukewarm towel to my shredded cheek.

Inspecting the tube of cream, it turned out to be a healing serum, and I patted it on liberally. Five percent lidocaine. It wasn’t nearly as good as the cream Derek had rubbed into my flesh with tender hands after Marcos had marred it, but it did take some of the stings out, so I rubbed a small bit into the other side of my face where the monster had no doubt left his handprint.

My arms and chest were easier—nothing but red marks from his rough handling. I tried to reach my back with the towel, but was only partially successful, though my stomach turned seeing the lines of blood soaking into the cloth from the lash wounds.

Then lower. I dabbed at the place where he’d been, and when I pulled the towel away and found it saturated with blood and semen, I doubled over, my stomach once again trying to bring up food that wasn’t there.

The serum helped. I rubbed in a liberal amount, trying to ignore the way the opening he’d abused felt stretched and swollen.

That was it. There was no more relief to be had. Except…the serum contained lidocaine—a numbing agent. Thinking about the despicable way my body had responded to his fingers made me choke on another sob. But the cream could help make sure my body couldn’t betray me like that again. Without any more thought, I squeezed the serum onto my fingers and rubbed it into my clit.

I turned my attention to the water and energy bar, eyeing them like mortal enemies. My throat was raw from screaming and my lips were parched from thirst, but eating and drinking would only prolong this. It might be a slow escape, but it would come eventually if I could just resist the urge to give into the burning thirst that scorched my throat.

He’d told me to eat. Fine, I’d eat, but he hadn’t said a word about drinking. And just to make sure I didn’t change my mind, I opened the bottle and dumped the contents on the bloody towels. Then I reached for the energy bar. Still shaking, it took me four attempts to open it.

Each swallow felt like broken glass but I got it down. Then I laid down and rested the less-injured side of my face against the ground. And I waited. I could mark the day and night by the light from the window, but not the passing of a single hour.

Sixty minutes. How many minutes did I have left? I counted the seconds, counting slowly as if that could slow time’s passage. When my eyes drifted closed at five-hundred and thirty-two seconds, I lost count. Sleep. A temporary escape. I welcomed it as it reached for me. And finally, as it pulled me under, Derek’s face was there. His too handsome face and vivid, blue eyes. Yes, this was my heaven.