One I’d ignored in my haste to rescue women from abuse.
Women who stood with all the impressive height and stature of a full-blooded Caledonian warrior.
Gut clenching, I scrambled to my feet. Trying to ignore the crippling pain in my ribs, I made a mad dash for the tree line.
Two huge hairy arms wrapped around me before I’d made it ten feet, snaring me in a circle of crushing muscle.
With a yelp, I sank my modified teeth into the wiry forearm closest to my chin and didn’t let go until I tasted blood.
A colorful curse spattered against my cheek, but his grip loosened enough for me to pull free.
I hadn’t taken more than twenty steps before I heard a whistle and crack of screaming, splitting air.
It took longer to feel it.
Blinding pain snapped across my back from shoulder to hip. I couldn’t remember hitting the ground, but I recalled the agony of my arm being wrenched behind my back.
“Don’t you fucking move!” a male shouted in my ear, as if I could go anywhere with his weight pinning me to the forest floor.
“Little bitch bit me,” the other man snarled from somewhere off to my left. “Look at these teeth marks! Fuck!” A moment later, there was a hand in my filthy hair, yanking my head up. My stunned gaze met the eyes of the furious man I’d bitten. Without warning, his fingers were pushing past my lips, running over my gums. Dirty fingernails scored the inside of my lip.
I snapped my teeth closed on his thumb.
“Nice try,” he hissed, then jammed half his fist in my mouth, putting so much pressure on my jaw that it was impossible to retaliate. “Look at these teeth!”
“You’d better get a shot when we get back. No telling what she’s got,” the contemptuous voice of one of the women muttered as the fist was removed from my mouth.
“Did you guys drink the coffee? She poisoned it,” the other woman said, kicking me.
“Nah,” said the man whose knee was working to turn my bones into pulp. Who backed off only when his knee slipped in the blood oozing from my whip lash, wrenching my arm high between my shoulder blades.
“Pl—” I gasped, trying to force a breath through the pain, and failed. Head spinning as blood ran freely down my sides and pooled at my front.
“Here, little kitty,” she purred, bringing the pot of coffee to my lips.
“Eww, Tasha. Don’t. She’s going to be puking for hours. And if we believe the stories, it’ll come from both ends. I’mnotcleaning that up,” the other woman said as she wound her whip. How I could feel grateful to the beast who had just laid open my back, I couldn’t understand.
“Pack up. There’s an auction tonight,” the man restraining me said after he’d bound my wrists and ankles and dragged me to my feet. My legs wouldn’t support my weight, which didn’t seem to be a problem as he slung me over his shoulder. Ignoring the wet wheeze he forced from my lips as my ribs protested.
The wetness seeping through my shirt.
The man I had bitten appeared in my line of sight, then stuffed a filthy rag in my mouth. “I’ll let your new owner decide what to do with those teeth,” he said, smiling with a cruel glint in his eyes. As brave as I was trying to be, I couldn’t help the frightened whimper—and the grunts of pain—as we started the hike through the woods.
4
It took the better part of the day to reach a road. I was sure I lost consciousness several times, though I couldn’t keep count—the pain in my ribs and back was nearly all-consuming. Thoughts of my uncertain future kept creeping into my head, the terror of the unknown threatening to drown me.
I was jolted out of my pain-laced stupor when my captors stopped for a break. They produced wine, cheese, meats, and bread, then left me bound and gagged at the edge of the clearing like a forgotten piece of luggage. It had been more than twelve hours since my last meal, and I keenly felt the lack of nourishment.
“Are you hungry?” asked the man with my teeth marks tattooed on his arm.
Sensing another trap, I stared back with no expression—there was no amount of deal-making I was willing to do for table scraps. At least not yet.
“It’s your turn to carry her,” the man who had, until now, been my human mule said.
“Fuck that. She bit me. Make her walk,” my tormentor replied, turning back to his meal.
Thinking I would relish the chance to walk some of the stiffness out of my injuries, I waited with bated breath as my ankle cuffs were unlocked.
