Mercy
Waking up in someone else’s home felt strange to me. But, overall it was what I’d gotten used to. I slept at my office on a cot, or with friends, more often than home. A least my provided bed wasn’t half bad.
I reached out to the night stand and remembered my phone wasn’t there. He’d taken it off my desk, and I had no computer with me. I needed to figure out how to contact my people, or else what was the point of sacrificing myself?
I rolled over in the bedding and fluffed up a pillow to readjust. If I didn’t have anything to do I might as well stay in bed.
Someone knocked on my door. I locked it the second I came to bed the night before. Part of me expected to hear the rattle of keys. But no, simply another knock.
I lumbered out of my makeshift cocoon and opened the door. “If it’s not coffee I don’t want it.”
He dropped his eyes from my messy bun to my thin cami and down to my panties and bare feet. Then he blinked once and looked me straight in the eye a little to determinately.
As I thought, he wasn’t a man capable of rape. I’d met men who were, I’d had men killed who were. He’d do a great many terrible things but rape wasn’t one of them.
He handed me a white bag, from a high-end department store. “I brought the stuff I mentioned for the event tonight.”
I waited. “Anything else?”
“There’s breakfast in the kitchen and coffee if you want it.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. I followed him out and straight through to the kitchen. I poured the coffee and turned to leave. He started to speak but I didn’t stop, simply walked back to my room. My door hit some part of him as he followed me. Once I settled on the edge of my bed, I took a sip of that sweet nectar of the gods and sighed.
“Was there something else?” I asked as he stood near me, seething.
He mastered his emotions and stared me down. “As I mentioned we have event tonight. You’ll dress, and I expect you to be on you best behavior.”
“And what exactly constitutes best behavior? Do you expect me to suck you off in front of the assembly, or will smiling sweetly suffice?” I smiled a smile most men cringed away from.
He growled. An actual low rumble from his chest. “If you want to get on your knees for me I won’t object. But standing close and not conspiring to put a knife in my back will be fine.”
Why did the idea fill me with equal parts desire and dread? I had no right to feel anything but loathing for this monster. Or rather this fucking monster had no right to any of my feelings apart from hate.
I took another sip to hide the confusion in my head. “Anything else I should know?”
“As far as the world knows you belong to me. I won’t tolerate you speaking or acting contrary.”
“Or else?” I mocked.
“There is no ‘or else’ I’ll simply demand the ownership I’ve bought. In every way.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I never heard you were a rapist as well as a monster.”
It was his turn to narrow his eyes, “and what makes the two separate? Are there other actions you will tolerate in a villain? But you draw the line at rape? Isn’t murder worse?”
“Are you a murderer too?”
He waited for me to answer his question. I drew it out. “Only a someone who has never been raped would think murder is worse.”
A chill crawled up my spine and settled into my shoulders as he closed the distance between us. His tone was low, dark, deadly. “Have you been raped?”
I sipped my coffee and squeezed from between him and the bed. “Not yet, but something to look forward to if I don’t behave in the way you like.”
Glass shattering made me turn back to face him. Patches of glittering crystals were now imbedded in the wall on the other side of the room. More on the floor scattered in rough and tumble shards.
“Did I touch a nerve?” I asked, surveying him for another looming outburst of violence.
He glared. A look meant to spear, flay, and bring me to heel.
