Tender Mercies (17 page)

No, it couldn’t stay in any space that was meant for him and Grace. The possibility of throwing it out or burning it crossed his mind, but he didn’t feel ready for that step. Instead, he stuffed it in the back of a hall closet––out of sight, out of mind.

Determined to not think about it anymore, he stopped by the kitchen, then went outside to meet Grace in the garden. She was so adorable he could eat her, and probably would a bit later. She was on her hands and knees on a quilt, digging in the garden. He was surprised by how good at it she was.

She’d taken the garden design books William brought her and created something that was nothing short of a work of art, with colorful patterns and designs more intricate than the patchwork quilt spread beneath her. She’d even taken into consideration how the garden would look at different times of the year. Though they didn’t have full seasons, a few of the plants went through various changes. She’d managed to make the garden flourish even though there hadn’t been as much rain and the crops weren’t doing as well as most years.

She wore a fitted, cotton top with thin straps that were falling off her delicate shoulders. Her denim shorts had been specially made with a small hole in the back through which a butt plug with a tail could be, and had been, inserted.

A headband with kitty ears held her hair back away from her face. He didn’t make her dress like a kitty anime girl all the time, but seeing her mildly humiliated did something to him. Asher kicked his sandals off and came to stand beside her. She leaned against his leg like she always did, and he stroked the back of her neck. Her limbs were so glowing and tanned it was hard to believe this was the same thin, pale woman he’d bought months before.

“Kitten, you need to drink something. You’ve been out in this heat too long.” He handed her a glass of lemonade he’d brought from the kitchen.

“Thank you, Master.”

He sat next to her while she drank, stroking her hair. “Lie down on your stomach,” he said when she handed the empty glass back to him. Her eyes didn’t even question anymore. Whatever he asked her to do, she just did it. And he never got tired of that lack of resistance. Her fear of him had largely disappeared, but her manner more than made up for the shift. Though she didn’t live in an active state of terror, there was an air of fragility around her that he wanted to protect.

When she was stretched across the quilt, he opened a jar of shea butter she’d brought with her but had failed to put on. “Are we falling behind on moisturizing?”

“I’m sorry, Master.” And she sounded it. The tiniest mistake, and he could practically hear the self-recrimination bumping around in her head. “I meant to, but I got distracted by the garden.”

His eyes shifted to the cell phone lying on the blanket. “And maybe talking on the phone?”

Asher hadn’t physically punished her with the cane yet. So far her minor infractions had resulted in writing lines or standing in the corner. Once he’d put a gag in her mouth with something foul tasting, but harmless, when she’d slipped and spoken a little too casually with him. It had been an effective punishment.

But he hadn’t used the cane, which kept her on edge any time she did something wrong, wondering if this would be the infraction that brought the full reality of punishment on her.

“I’m not upset with you. I didn’t give you a specific time to do it by,” he said. “Still, I like your skin soft for me. You know the sun dries you out, and I don’t like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

He started rubbing the shea butter over her legs and feet, and smiled when she let out a moan and squirmed. She’d be wet, of course. Any time he touched her, in even the most innocent way, her body responded, eager and ready to be fucked.

“Grace, I have something important to talk to you about.”

She got very still, the combination of his tone and the use of her first name causing her to grow wary. There was no sense dragging it out. He might as well just say it.

“I’d like to brand you.”

Her head snapped around as she twisted to face him, that scared, pleading look in her eyes. God, it was so wrong, but he missed that look. It might be time to move them into edge play. His cock hardened, and if he didn’t want to actually talk the issue out, he would have fucked her right here.

“Please . . . Master, why? What did I do wrong to deserve . . .?”

He gently but firmly pressed her head back down so that she was lying on the blanket again and started rubbing the cream on her other leg. “It’s not a punishment. I know I said I’d never leave permanent scars. This isn’t something I’ll make you do. I’ll let you choose. But it would really please me if you did it.”

She twisted so she could see him and bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know if I can take it.”

Asher laid her other leg down and started massaging the cream into one of her arms. “The type of branding we would use on you is called strike branding. It will hurt, but probably not as much as you think. We’ll heat hot enough to kill the surface nerves but not enough to reach the deeper tissue. It’s not a pain that will linger like a minor burn does. It’ll be sore during the healing process, but it won’t feel like a burn afterward. I’d hold you while the brander did it.”

He finished with her other arm and shoulders, then closed up the cream and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket onto which he’d drawn his estate symbol. “This is the symbol on the front door. Each estate on the island has a different one. The symbol is sometimes branded into slaves so others know which house she belongs to.” He wasn’t sure if she’d been exposed to enough other slaves to have seen a brand before. They weren’t all that common on the island. “A master only brands a slave if he intends never to sell her, because you get very little out of a girl that’s been branded by another man’s symbol. Do you understand what this means, Grace?”

“It’s like a promise? That I’m always yours no matter what?”

He smiled. She understood. “I won’t ever break a promise to you, kitten. Ordinarily I’d just do it, but I already told you I wouldn’t leave permanent scars. So think about it. I can get you some reading material so you understand more about what will happen and what the healing process will be like––”

“I want to do what pleases you.”

Asher pulled her up off the blanket and held her. “You’re such a good girl.”

***

Grace fidgeted in the back of the limo. Asher sat beside her in a crisp, white shirt with the first couple of buttons unbuttoned, jeans, and casual shoes that the islanders were fond of wearing. He seemed at ease; meanwhile, she was falling apart on the inside.

Why did I agree to do this?

From the moment he’d first mentioned branding, she’d loved the idea of it, but feared the reality. In theory, it felt like the strongest bit of protection he’d ever given her, the most firm oath that she would always be his, and she’d always be safe and cared for. But the reality of the pain involved had caused her to wake in cold sweats thinking of it.

Asher had believed it was nightmares of Lucas again, and Grace hadn’t corrected his assumption. She was afraid if she did, he wouldn’t make her go through with it. And she needed to. She needed to see his brand on her forever, as if that one carefully placed mark could erase all of Lucas’s careless marks.

Each time she woke in terror over the branding, he took her to the dungeon. She let the flogger fall over her, cried out her fears, and allowed herself to be taken where her master wanted her to go. She felt guilty he didn’t know the real reason for her upset, that he thought he was spanking her for a different reason, but she kept the truth inside.

In the weeks following his request, he’d stayed true to his word, giving her all the information she could need about the procedure and how it would all go down. But even so, she knew a few pamphlets could never prepare her for the burn of the branding iron.

She remembered times when she’d had minor burns and how the pain lingered on and on, feeling like it would never let up. And though Asher had promised the burning sensation would only last a few seconds and then be over, she couldn’t quite believe it. Logically, she knew what he said sounded right. Minor burns didn’t kill the nerve and that’s why it hurt so much. But a brand, done right, killed the nerve. Even with that knowledge, in her mind and dreams, the pain dragged on and on and there was no balm or soft words or flogger that could soothe it away.

“You can’t be comfortable like that. Lie down on my lap.”

She hadn’t been especially comfortable, no. He had her in full kitty mode. She wore a black leather miniskirt that had been sewn with the special hole for the tail. The plug was lubed and seated firmly inside her ass, the black fluffy kitty tail flowing out from the skirt. Her breasts nearly spilled out of a leather bustier. Her legs were covered with fishnets, and dainty black ankle boots were on her feet. She’d never say it, but she liked dressing this way for him.

The skirt rode low on her hips, leaving an expanse of flesh exposed for the branding. Gooseflesh popped over her hip, as if that part of her skin was taking the opportunity to get its last taste of something as simple as a cool summer breeze.

Her hair flowed loose down her back, held off her face with her kitty ears. She wore black fingerless gloves and her long nails had been painted white to resemble claws.

Grace settled her head on his lap and he petted her long, golden tresses, trailing down her back and over her ass. He ran his fingers through the fur of the tail, tugging it a little. She moaned.

“Such a horny little kitty,” he teased, dipping fingers between her legs.

She wanted to meow.

At first she’d been afraid he was going to have her do all sorts of weird stuff that wouldn’t be sexy at all. This kitten thing of his was definitely a fetish. Something he liked a bit more than just average. He seemed to get off on making her a little more animal-like, having her drink milk out of a bowl on the floor and making her beg for his cream.

He still hadn’t used physical punishment, and she was beginning to wonder if he ever would. He’d once put her in a pet crate like what one might take a large dog to the vet in. It was small and cramped for a human, and it freaked her out possibly as much as pain would have. But he hadn’t kept her in there long.

Her fears over the branding were compounded by anxiety over being out. They didn’t come to town often. Asher wasn’t punishing her by keeping her at home; he’d noticed her discomfort. He noticed everything.

After the way Lucas had treated her, going out seemed like an ordeal fraught with peril. She never knew how to behave and was constantly afraid she’d do something wrong that could somehow get her removed from his care. Asher had assured her such things didn’t happen on Eleu, but she still couldn’t make the fears go away.

The limo rolled to a stop in front of a tall, granite-colored building. The building was fancy and rich, and even though Grace knew this was where the brander’s office was, it was still impossible to believe. There really were no poor people on the island.

There was only the rich, and their help. But the help lived with the rich. There were restaurants with wait staff and stores and such, but these places were run by some of the families who were indigenous to the island. The same people who made the special salve. It was impossible to think of them as the poor of the island because they lived in the most intricately designed huts, such works of art that one could perhaps refer to them as bohemian, but never poor.

When you passed a native islander on the street, you never felt a sense of envy from them. These people spoke the language of the island’s volcanoes and ridges and plants. They knew the island’s weather and moods. If they thought the things the rich did were odd or immoral, they didn’t say anything. They seemed to take it all in stride, sharing the island, but maintaining a separate culture that outsiders weren’t welcome to participate in. So which group was the haves and which was the have-nots? It was impossible to say.

Grace looked back at the building and winced, imagining the brander as some hardcore sadist that got turned on by causing women high levels of pain, or maybe got turned on by leaving such permanent marks with full permission from their masters. She shook the thought away. Asher had promised he’d stay with her. He stepped out of the car and extended a hand to help her out.

She smoothed the miniskirt down. At least he’d brought her out during the day. It felt less scary to be in town in the bright sunlight, so unlike the dark basements and buildings Lucas had taken her to after dark. The skirt barely covered her ass, and she knew if she bent over at all, her bare, wet pussy would be on display for anyone who cared to take notice of it.

Her fingers trailed over the platinum collar, as if checking to see that it was still there. Asher attached a long, platinum chain to the collar and led her into the building.

There were a few other slaves in the lobby, most of them naked or wearing less than she was. Despite sticking out, Grace was comforted by more clothing. Still, it didn’t stop the men from leering, whistling, and making cat noises at her. She kept her eyes down, so she didn’t see what Asher was doing, but she suspected he glared at the men, because after a couple of seconds everyone fell silent and went back to what they were doing.

She let out a little breath when they were alone on the elevator. Asher pressed the button for the appropriate floor, then backed Grace into the corner behind him and slid his hand between her legs. She let out a mewl and rubbed her crotch against his hand. He chuckled at her wanton behavior and pointed to a camera overhead. She blushed but didn’t stop rubbing on him.

The brander was on the fifteenth floor, but they stopped on three. The doors opened, and a man got on. Grace watched his shoes as he shuffled onto the elevator.

“Asher,” the familiar voice said in that way men do when they recognize one another and nod.

That voice.

It slithered over her, leaving a dirty trail that no soap in the world could wash off. She felt her heart start to pound, the throbbing noise pulsing in her ears so loud it dwarfed the sound of Lucas.