Savage Chains: Captured (#1) (3 page)

He needed to get the hell out of the club, take a hot shower using plenty of soap, but he remained where he was just in case there were others tracking his movements and reporting, spies he didn’t know about.

After another hour, and another whiskey, he was about to leave when a slave brought him an embossed envelope. He recognized the Starlin insignia, an
S
with a chain in a circle around it.

He strove to calm the surge of adrenaline that rocketed through him. This was it, what he’d been working toward all these years.

Breaking the gold seal, he pulled out the card and read.
The Starlin Group extends the warm hand of fellowship and requests your presence at all future events. Congratulations and warmest wishes to our newest member. Your fellow slaver, Master Engles.

He glanced up at the male slave, whom he knew to be one of Engles’s many assistants. Engles was the man to impress and Reyes had apparently gotten the job done, but it had taken years. “You may tell your master I am most grateful.”

The slave, his face also a familiar mask of impassivity, nodded once, then left.

Reyes remained another half an hour, a powerful euphoria flowing through his veins. His forearm rested over the invitation, the physical reminder of what he’d accomplished.

His gaze sought out the slave he’d used earlier. As she dropped to her knees in front of yet another slaver, a woman this time, he promised himself he’d get her out along with all the others who had served him while he built his heinous reputation.

His plans were finally falling into place. The next auction would take place on Friday, followed by several gala parties. On the block would be beauties gathered from every corner of the world, and to cement his reputation he’d buy his first slave, or even a group of slaves.

When the woman on stage finally passed out, the dom tossed her over his shoulder and hauled her away. A round of applause rippled through the audience, along with calls for more drinks. Another group of slaves entered the stage to clean up.

Reyes finally rose to leave.

Pulling a well-packed money clip from the pocket of his pants, he dropped several thousand on the white linen, then headed home.

#

Angelica lay on a hard mattress that smelled of blood and urine, her hands bound behind her. She couldn’t keep her eyes open and her head felt as if spikes had been jammed through the top of her skull. Mostly her arms were killing her in this position.

She sensed that considerable time had passed since she’d last seen Reyes at Briggs’s Ocean Club, but she had no idea how much. Days, at least.

She also had vague recollections of being awakened, forced to drink things she didn’t want to, then shoved back down on the same mattress to sleep for long periods of time.

Her arms hadn’t always been bound like this—only after she’d tried to claw one of her captors’ eyes out.

She still didn’t understand where she was, what was happening to her, or how long she’d been in what she could only describe as some kind of jail cell set in a cave, a very large cave.

“How’s Sleeping Beauty?” A woman’s voice reached her, sweet and melodious. A spurt of hope swept through her.

“Coming ‘round, mistress.”

“Well, get in there, strip her down, and let me have a look. The Starlin acquisition team said she’s worth at least two million.”

“Yes, mistress.”

Hope crashed.

Angelica tried to sit up. She wanted to fight whoever it was that intended to follow the woman’s orders, but she’d only made it to her elbow when a hand grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet.

“Hey.” Her protest came out slurred.

For this one word, she received a hard slap across her mouth.

“How many times have I told you not to hit the face? Humans don’t heal fast.”

Angelica processed this statement, but couldn’t make sense of it. What did the woman mean by
humans
not healing fast?

“Sorry, mistress.”

“Bring her closer.”

Angelica’s face throbbed as her captor dragged her to the front of the cell, then pulled her upright for inspection. Between the pain in her head from whatever drugs she’d been given and the new blow to her face, she could barely open her eyes.

“Closer.”

Blinking, she had a blurred view of the bars of her cell and a figure beyond.

“Aw, why are you crying, sweetheart?” The woman clucked her tongue. “He didn’t hit you that hard.”

“Not crying,” Angelica managed through thickened lips. She might have been, she wasn’t sure, but like hell she’d give this she-devil a reason to think small of her.

“Well, at least you’ve got some spirit.” The woman tilted her head—that much Angelica could determine, but her vision still wasn’t working right.

“Get her clothes off. I need to see the goods.”

At that Angelica’s instincts took over. She thrashed in the man’s hold, kicking at him and screaming. Of course she couldn’t do much with her arms bound. Still, she fought him hard.

Something struck the back of her head and all went black.

She woke up with a pungent smell wafting beneath her nose. Again she came up fighting, but she didn’t get far since restraints held her down, flat on her back.

And she was naked.

She breathed hard, trying to twist, but her ankles were pinned as well.

“You need to relax, princess.”

The woman of the melodious voice had returned, only now she was inside the cell.

She drew close to the bed and sat down on a stool beside the putrid mattress. She put a hand on Angelica’s throat, stroking down the side of her neck. “Your blood has a wonderful smell, very rich. I’m tempted to sample you myself. Unfortunately, we always promise pristine, never-before-bitten goods to our clientele.”

Angelica rocked her head back and forth. “Get the hell away from me.”

She could finally see, despite how badly her head ached.

The woman smiled at her, but her dark-blue eyes held a cruel glint, truly malevolent, despite her otherwise angel-like appearance. She looked like something out of an old painting, with light-red hair in a mass of curls, pale skin, small pink lips, and large cornflower-blue eyes.

Angelica couldn’t battle the woman, but maybe she could reason with her. “Listen, I don’t belong here. There’s been some kind of mistake.”

The woman’s small lips curved into a bow. “Of course you belong here. You’re built exactly right for our needs.”

A chill ran through her. “What do you mean
needs
?”

“You’re a woman. Figure it out.”

The statement confirmed her worst fears. “Sex.”

“Of course, and all sorts of variations so you’ll never be bored.”

Angelica shuddered. “Can’t you let me out of these restraints?”

“No, I can’t. You almost blinded one of my workers. You must be obedient while you’re in our care, do you understand?”

The woman slid her hand down Angelica’s chest and began caressing her bare breasts, moving in slow circles. “You have very full, exquisite breasts, by the way. Does that feel good?”

Angelica squirmed, trying to get away from the unwelcome touch. “I’m not into women.”

“They all say that at first, but pretty soon you’ll be doing a lot of things you never thought you’d do. And given your spirit, I feel compelled to offer a taste of the kind of pain you’ll experience if you don’t do as you’re told.”

The woman took hold of Angelica’s left nipple between her thumb and forefinger and pinched harder and harder. Angelica twisted, trying to get relief, but the pressure increased.

She looked at the woman’s face and saw a kind of euphoria in her features. She was enjoying hurting her.

“Sorry, precious, but this is gonna get worse before it gets better. Try to relax.”

“It’s bad enough already.” She spoke the words between gasps.

Something that felt like fire began to burn through Angelica’s nipple, a burn that kept coming, kept increasing. She heard screams, then realized they belonged to her.

“Beautiful,” the woman said softly. “I really am tempted to keep you for myself. Let’s see how much you can take. I hadn’t meant to go this far, but you’ve got some chops, my dear.”

The fiery pain broadened, expanding through her breast. She shook, cried out, and wept. The pain was beyond bearing. She was sure it couldn’t get worse, then it did.

“What stamina. I swear I haven’t seen someone of your potential in more than a century. You’ll do extremely well on the block, just wait and see. But you’ll need to rein in your spirit if you want to survive, and don’t ever say I didn’t warn you.”

Her vision began to blacken. As Angelica slipped into unconsciousness once more, she saw the woman smile, a final image she’d never forget.

On Friday night Reyes straightened immaculate cuffs, held together by black onyx links. His Brioni tux, ordered months ago, fit like a glove and looked like the fortune it had cost. Shoes, Italian leather. Watch, limited-edition Cartier.

He’d left nothing to chance. What he accomplished at the auction tonight would be the final door he’d use to enter the Starlin world for good. He’d worked toward this moment for a long time, building his bad-boy, player reputation and finally gaining membership.

But having access to all the Starlin events was only the beginning and he knew that. There could be no easing off. If anything, he needed to work just a little harder to make sure that the front man for the operation, Damien Engles, totally bought his cover, the reason he intended to purchase a slave tonight.

Once he had Engles’s support, he could begin pushing the boundaries of the corporation to find out once and for all exactly who was behind the Starlin Group. Only then would he know what steps he’d need to take to destroy an organization that had enslaved, tortured, and murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people, human and vampire.

His heart thrummed with excitement and with a familiar deep need to pay-it-back-in-fucking-full. The slavery he’d endured himself for a full century had created his profound wish to change the status quo. Slavery had gone on for millennia and maybe that was part of the problem: Time had given it a certain acceptability and tolerance.

Not that he cared. He had one purpose in his life, and he meant to see it through even if he died in the attempt.

His reasons were personal since he’d never found his captor. She’d eluded him all this time, staying one step ahead of him, living her life in secrecy, perhaps knowing that once he found her, he’d kill her. However, she had a lot of powers in her arsenal, and one of them was the ability to create intricate disguises.

She’d bought him at auction, or so he’d been told. He hadn’t been conscious by the time he’d been taken to the actual bidding block. He’d fought his captors hard, something that had appealed to her sadistic nature. The only way they’d been able to manage him was by binding him with a dozen chains, all enhanced with preternatural power.

Sweet Dove, the only name he’d ever known her by, had offered the highest bid in sex-slave history. Then she’d torn him down, one drop of blood at a time, one inflicted wound after another, depriving him of sleep and of sustenance, until he’d become a mass of incoherent thoughts.

She’d rebuilt him with sex, chaining him up and making him come repeatedly with every part of her body, until his soul shut off and he became the animal she’d craved.

He’d engaged with her then, fully and completely, holding nothing back.

Yet some part of him had remained intact, and began a painfully slow resurgence, a process that took over a century. By the time he escaped Sweet Dove’s cavern lair, he’d had only one thought: to get rid of her kind forever, the sex slavers that used humans and fellow vampires like animals.

Maybe he hadn’t found her yet, but in the meantime he’d undermine the world she’d helped create and no doubt continued to sustain with her wealth and patronage. As far as he knew she had no association with Starlin, but this arm of the sex-slave trade functioned in a way that felt very familiar to him, with layers of secrecy he hadn’t seen since his time with her. Though he believed that a man headed up this organization, somehow he wouldn’t have been surprised to find she was a major contributor, at least on some level.

Half an hour later he arrived at the auction site, deep inside the underground cavern system. The large ballroom-sized space was beautifully decorated with carved slabs of polished black granite embedded in the rock walls and surrounded by intricate carvings. The floor was made of the same granite. The house displayed large photos of each of the slaves on easels spread around the room, so that buyers could look over the twenty women who would be auctioned that night.

Servers came up to him, offering drinks and anything else he wanted, bare-breasted beautiful women and men who always revealed what they had to offer. Some even looked him over and made overtures.

He refused them all, politely, but carried a whiskey as he moved around the large cavern.

Given that he’d been gradually making himself known in the darker sex-slave clubs, the presence of so many owners at the auction with their slaves in tow seemed par for the course. Most of the captives wore painful collars with leashes attached and very little or no clothing; they bore plenty of bruises, cuts, and bite marks. Public sexual exchange was a given, part of the allure of the lifestyle, so that couches in different configurations were scattered around the room, as well as wingback chairs.

Like the club he’d been at earlier in the week, moans sounded through the room.

The truth was, when he’d first witnessed the overt nature of the lifestyle, he’d questioned his ability to go through with his plans. As sadistic as Sweet Dove had been, she hadn’t taken him to public events like these and put him on display. Of course, she’d held brutal private parties and he’d endured much worse than anything he was witnessing tonight. But what he’d learned later was that because Sweet Dove had feared losing him to an aggressive competitor, who might have done anything to get his hands on Reyes, she’d kept him hidden.