Yield (33 page)

Wren

I was in the back of a van when they told me they weren’t allowed to drug me – within a few minutes of being dragged from the car and thrown there. My wrists had been ziptied, my mouth gagged, and I was jammed up against the back of the front seats. Three men were in here with me, all well dressed and normal. If big, well-armed, and menacing when they deigned to look at me, could be thought of as normal.

The worst of them had leaned down and smiled. I knew evil smiles well. He had them down pat.

“No drugs for you, but no one told us not to nail your hands to your pretty thighs if you annoy me.”

I shuddered and leaned away.

“Are you going to be good for me, Wren?”

I nodded. Did he think I’d say no?

No drugs. They were probably his then.
Good.
I shuddered. Or maybe bad.

I guessed that
he
knew I was pregnant. The man wanted his child alive and healthy. Did he have a heart, after all?

Nails in my legs? These men were putrid thugs. I didn’t know if the threat was real. If they did that I’d end up with an infection where the nails went in, and how cheerful and clinical was I to be following that idea to the logical end?

Damn idiot-fucking assholes. I’d behave, because these men were vicious. They’d find a way to make me be good, no matter what Vetrov had told them.

And my poor, poor Glass, he’d be blaming himself again.

Hugh is dead.

I tried to calm myself. No use exhausting myself worrying over the past – he’d have insisted I mourn him when I had a better opportunity.

Woman up. Grow some lady balls.
I could hear him say that. He’d say it just like that in his stiff accent just to shock me. I smiled sadly.

Everyone around me was dying, and all because of
him
.

The men took me places and I tried to stay alert and to think because that was the smart, Hugh-logical thing to do. Not that it helped much, but it did make me feel proactive.

Positive thinking.

I lay blindfolded and gagged in a plane, in the trunk of a car, and the back of a van, and said nothing. But my mind, my mind was on fire. This time, he’d really pissed me off.

They delivered me on time, apparently. Or so
he
said when he opened the trunk and found me.

It was nighttime.

“Hello, Wren. I hope they treated you well?” The familiar roughness of his voice had my full attention in an instant. I felt his hand on my hair, saw torchlight through the blindfold. He lifted my head as if examining me then the light seemed to travel down my body.

I growled when he pulled my legs apart.

“Quiet. I’m not doing anything to you.” Then he gathered the skirt of my dress upward, exposing me all the way to my lower back.

He was silent and I guessed he was looking at his brand.

“That looks good. You seem unharmed. Treating you badly is my prerogative. As is treating you well, from now on. Welcome back, my girl.”

Arrogance. I seethed.

I was fed up with being his pretty girl to play with.

Then he pushed up the blindfold. I could see him. The real him. No mask.

Remember this.

He laid down the torch and the light bounced off the roof of the trunk – and he kissed me, with his hands cradling my face. Mine were still tied at my back. He kissed me as if I were something delicate that might break. I considered biting him but no, I had to play it cool, act as if I was cowed.

He’d killed Hugh. That was enough to keep my fires burning, tamped down, but burning.

“Welcome back. My name, Wren, is Moghul.”

Then he slammed shut the trunk and drove me to his house. All the way there, being bounced around against the carpeted trunk, I ran his face through my memory. He didn’t look a monster without the mask. Brown, artfully scruffy hair that on another man would make me itch to set right, and his eyes, such warm eyes. I’d seen hardness in them before and I’d felt fear. Not now. Not this time.

I’d nearly cut his throat and he’d only let me go. What would he do if I castrated him? He had limits, this man. That didn’t make this right, but it gave him a weakness, which had to be good.

I smiled grimly.

Moghul. An odd name.

He’d looked...contemplative, as well as quietly triumphant.

I wanted to wipe that smile off his face. Just because he knew how to play my body like an instrument, didn’t mean he could make me his. Shit was going to happen. I was going to make sure of that. The man had killed Hugh by proxy. He deserved to have a truck fall on him, and then some. Every time I’d tried, I had gotten closer to killing him. This time it would happen.

Think fucking positive.

Bambi time, for a while. I had to pretend, but this time I wouldn’t miss.

Moghul

When I let her out of the trunk, the garage doors were wound down, trapping us in the huge space with the expanse of concrete and the BMW, the corvette, and my vintage motorbikes.

I studied her, stepping away to take in all of her. She swayed a little but seemed able to stand. All that time in the dark and tied up would’ve played havoc with her muscles and balance, plus her hands were trapped behind her back.

I tsked, smiling sadly, thinking of all the perverted things I could do to her...if I could get her in the right mindset. I knew more about who she was now.

She was barefoot on the cold hardness of the concrete. The black dress was pretty and swerved in at all the right places, curved out at all the right ones – her breasts and hips. I’d burn it. She needed no reminders of her past and it must be filthy. Her hair had been squashed by the blindfold and I wanted see it hang free and clean and beautiful.

I stepped in and untied the blindfold, then dropped the cloth to the floor. I removed the gag then locked a steel chain-link collar on her neck and clicked the leash to it.

“I’m putting my cuffs back on you also, but you’re going to walk with me up to the viewing room without me binding you apart from the collar. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sir.” Her reply was soft, meek even.

“Thank you for calling me Sir.”

One eyebrow rose, as if she were surprised, but holding in her reaction. Holding back was not good. I wanted to see her emotions raw. She’d regressed since I’d let her go.

The last text had underlined how little time I had. Glass had tracked down Chris. If Chris was at risk, I was at risk, and Glass had arrived a half a day ago. The man had turbo charged his way here, taking risks of detection to fly farther down the Queensland coast than he normally would. According to my intel, the rest of his men would arrive later today.

My man had done the trip the safe way, and so, this came down to mere hours.

I had the equivalent of a special forces team ready to raid my house, once they had my address, but right now, Glass was vulnerable.

I’d told Chris and offered him alternatives, offered help. I could’ve told him to eliminate Glass but I’d lost my taste for ordering or performing homicide. Guess I’d never had one. With business...I’d just disconnected from what I’d told someone to do. It had been like firing an employee, necessary, nasty, but someone had to make the decision. My first and only personal kill a couple of months ago had convinced me of the wrongness. I was done with this dirty business.

Whatever Chris decided, it was his affair; I was done.

If he dealt with Glass, he could have my business, do what he liked with it. I’d extracted what money I could and I had other reserves in banks and real estate in half a dozen countries.

Yet the ground was cracking beneath my feet. With only Wren to take care of, for the first time in my life, I was unsure. She carried our child and I’d come to realize I loved her as much as I could love anyone. Would that be enough for her?

I led her away and into the hallway, only to see the devastation in her bearing – red-rimmed eyes, the sway in her gait, the lowness of her head.

“Come here.” I scooped her up and carried her to the bathroom.

Her lack of aggression encouraged me.

After making her drink some water, I stripped her naked and urged her under the warm jets. I helped her wash, smoothing the soap and shampoo over her body, becoming reacquainted with her curves, her secret places. I stood naked under the water with her and held her to me but it was impossible not to do more than feel. I sneaked kisses and curled her hair around my hand, made her stand still while I used my mouth on her neck, her shoulders, and her plump nipples.

Was it half an hour? More? I took my time.

Though at first expressionless, she began to shiver at my touch and at my bites on her nape and breasts...she succumbed, even opening her legs when I slid my hand there and cupped my palm over her mons, slipped my finger partway inside her.

The collar on her neck drew my eye. With my chin on her shoulder and my hand between her legs, I studied how the gleaming metal links rested on her skin. I’d bought that and placed it on her.

“Mine,” I murmured, kissing her below her ear.

She shook, but kept her head down.

Hiding? Later, I would make her look me in the eye.

After drying her, and being sure she was stronger, I led her to the viewing room. Both of us were naked and a little damp, but that was fine. The aircon would dry us.

Knowing what was in there, I picked her up before the entrance and carried her in, then I sat down on one of the sofas with her cuddled into me and half on my lap. The equipment was behind her and I’d made sure she couldn’t see it. The block and tackle, the ropes and hooks. I surveyed my preparations, feeling the distilled excitement that S and m gave me, and wondered if I was about to do the right thing.

I breathed in, out, closed my eyes and simply absorbed the need I had to cradle Wren.

I had to care for her. I’d always done that as a Dom to my submissives but this was new to me. When I had her like this, with her head tucked into me, my arms around her, I had to suppress my strength, torn between cuddling her gently and an insane yearning to hold her so tight we’d merge, and I’d become a part of her – flesh, bone, blood, mind.

“Talk to me, please. Tell me everything. I need to know. I want to take some of your pain, if I can.”

She stiffened and I braced myself for the storm.

Wren

How dare he? Take some of my pain? Hah. So ridiculous.

There was pain, and there was what he’d made me endure, which needed a whole new word.

I was supposed to be pretending to be soft and overcome, like a baby fawn. Fuck that.

“Your men...” How could he be so
fucking
patronizing? “Killed my friend, Hugh. How could you do that to us and then dare to say what you have?”

I bristled, feeling ill, wanting to tear myself away from him but sure he wouldn’t allow it. There was
nothing
he could say that would delete the past.

“I’m sorry.”

Even that, even though by saying it, he admitted guilt. He must know how vicious those men could be? I could imagine him telling them to
get the girl, do whatever you have to
. Palming off blame wasn’t going to work when Hugh had been murdered.

My anger petered out and sadness arrived, an unwelcome guest, but I had no real say this time. It overcame me.

I sobbed. I sobbed into his chest, the man who was to blame for kidnapping me and killing my friends because I had nowhere else to go. He was an evil fucker. I hated him, but I had, once, liked, pitied, and respected other parts of him in the most appalling mish mash of fucked-up emotions ever. Now, hate had become the marauding monster.

Revenge was for the weak or something? Best served cold? I needed revenge and I’d take it hot, cold, or flambéed with cognac and blood.

“It’s not your fault, Wren. I don’t know what they did but I didn’t tell them to do it specifically. I’m very sorry. I’m not a good man but I’m sorry that happened. I don’t want to hurt you. Not like that.”

The truth? No. Excuses. I shot into incandescent anger.

“They shot him! Then they demanded I give myself up or they’d kill him! And when I did, they shot him anyway!” I couldn’t help seeing it again in my head. The gun. The blood. The abrupt
bang
. The way Hugh’s head shook at the impact yet nothing else of him changed. The blood still meandered down the glass, as he slid off the car. “They shot him.” I gasped a few times, my throat having trouble figuring out whether to breathe or choke on my tears, before I found my voice again. “Your men...Moghul.
They
did it.”