Chapter Sixteen
Juliet
The worst torture isn’t the drug Saldar gave me or the toys he’s trying to tempt me with. It isn’t the threat of punishment if I fail.
It’s the fucking timer.
I’ve almost smashed it so many times. I wonder if he made it plastic and easily smashable to tempt me to do just that. It doesn’t fit with the dungeon aesthetic, and even that annoys me about it. Why not a big wrought-iron hourglass?
I’m not going to damage it, though. As bad as it is watching the seconds tick away, not having it might be even worse. The sixteen hours left on the timer feel like forever, but at least I know this will end. Eventually.
Another wave of burning need washes over me, and I groan, pressing my body into the freezing cold trickle for the millionth time.
It doesn’t help. The water feels like it should sizzle on my burning skin.
I thought Saldar was cruel before, but this?
This is unbearable. What sort of sick mind comes up with something like this?
Your mind. How many times have you fantasized about just this sort of scenario? If he’s sick, so are you.
Shut up, shut up, shut up. That’s different.
Fantasizing about being deprived, vibrator in hand, isn’t the same as forcing someone to actually go through it. Is Saldar watching me now? I stick my middle finger up, aimed nowhere in particular, just in case. But another pulse hits me, and I grit my teeth, willing my hands to stay still.
It would be so easy. I wouldn’t need the sex toys at all. All I have to do is rub my finger…
No. Stop.
I force myself to stare at the dildo stick—where I’ll end up if I fail this task. The problem is, even that is starting to look tempting. If I shifted on it just the right way, I could probably…
No. No. No.
My pussy throbs as I imagine working the stick inside myself, and I shove my head back into the freezing water. It’s too much. Too much. Any pride left to me melts away, scorched to nothing, and I beg, hoping he might be listening.
“Please! I can’t do it. I’m going to fail. Please, Master. Can you come here?”
I didn’t mean to say that last part, and it shocks me enough to push back the need a little.
I just asked for my captor. I just begged him to come back, and I feel a sudden, rough nausea at how easily he’s molding me into what he wants.
I know how this works, for fuck’s sake. He shouldn’t be breaking me so easily.
Movement. I can’t just sit here. I need to do something to occupy my body. So what if people are watching and I look ridiculous? I don’t care anymore.
I get to my feet, wobbly as my legs still are, and force myself into a workout. I’d kill for a sports bra, but I make do as I run through a series of bootcamp-style exercises. Burpees, leg raises, push-ups. Anything to give me something else to think about.
It’s wonderful while it lasts, but my body is drained.
I haven’t eaten in hours, and my burst of energy soon fizzles.
Fuck. I’ll have to open the box again soon.
Why hasn’t dinner arrived yet? At least, I think it should be dinner?
The ceiling lights have faded a bit, which I think indicates the day ending.
Probably. Unless he’s twisting that around, too.
At least that took some time up, an hour or…
I stare at the timer. Fifteen hours and twenty-eight minutes to go.
Are you kidding me?
Are you fucking kidding me?
“Hey! Hey, asshole! I know you’re messing with the timer. I’m not stupid.”
I’m on my feet now, waving my fist at nothing like a lunatic. But I don’t care.
“I know you—”
“He can’t hear you. He’s not watching right now.”
I freeze, fist raised, like some statue of a revolutionary and stare around the room like an idiot. Of course there’s no one there. It’s the voice again. The one I’d almost convinced myself I’d imagined, along with the weird Morse code.
Is it the same person, though? I’ve got a good ear for voices, and she sounds different. It’s subtle, but…
“I’ll erase that last bit, where you called him an asshole. I don’t think he’ll like that. You don’t want to get in trouble. And he’s not messing with the timer. It’s accurate.”
“Uh. Thanks.” It feels like the right thing to say, though I’m not sure I like the idea of her messing with my video feed.
Saldar is a known quantity. I might be wrong, but I don’t think he’ll kill or seriously hurt me.
This woman might be helping me now, but I don’t know who the hell she is.
Why does she have control over anything?
I consider wrapping the blanket around myself, but I’m way too hot and sticky, and this mysterious person has obviously seen me in much worse positions than just naked.
I grew up in a family of almost-nudists anyway.
Hadrian panicking when he walked out on Mum sunbathing topless was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
He turned beet red, stammered, “Sorry, Mrs. Stewart,” and ran back into the house. Mum always begged him to call her Sandy, but he just couldn’t do it. So many old-school values drilled into him by his conservative father.
It didn’t stop him being a genius with his tongue, though. He might have been vanilla in the bedroom, but he could eat pussy like no one else. God, now I’m imagining him spreading my legs apart, and it’s unbearable.
Stop. Focus on the now. I need to have a productive conversation with whoever the fuck this voice is.
“Can you tell me where I am?”
There’s a long pause before the voice answers. “No. I don’t want to break the rules too much. But it’s not a bad place.”
I wait, hoping for more, but nothing comes. Not a bad place. Not exactly encouraging, but it could be worse.
“How many people are here?” It’s a question that’s been really bothering me.
To create this prison must have taken a lot of resources.
I don’t think a single man working alone could have constructed it.
So who the hell did? Some shadowy “Dungeons R Us” contractor paid not to question why the door locks from the outside?
“I can’t tell you.”
Fuck. If this person isn’t going to answer any questions, why is she talking to me at all? “Are you a captive too?”
“No!” No hesitation this time, and a lot more emotion. Well then. I’ve touched a nerve. Maybe I can get something out of this conversation after all.
“So, if you’re not a captive, what the fuck are you doing here? Do you help capture women? Prepare us for trafficking?”
“No! No, I would never. No one is trafficked from here. We—”
She cuts off, and my stomach lurches. No one is trafficked. Implying we are kept. We, not just me. Captives. Plural.
I’m not the only prisoner.
It hits me like a ton of bricks, and I thump to the floor, wincing as my bruised ass hits stone. How many captives are there? Are they all in rooms like mine? Surely not. It’s far too personal to me. But there could be other rooms. Other fantasies.
One question burns above all the others, though. “Saldar. Does he have other captives? Or only me.”
I swear time slows as I wait to see if she’ll answer.
I shouldn’t care. I should be one-hundred percent laser focused on getting the hell out of here.
But the thought of him leaving my prison and heading to another room, to some other girl trapped in a nightmare of her own making, is just too much. It makes me sick.
I hold my breath, willing the voice not to abandon me.
After a long, long while she says. “No. It’s just you. I think he’d want you to know that, though I shouldn’t have said anything.”
My body relaxes, and I curse my own stupidity for feeling relief. It shouldn’t matter, but it does, and I can’t kid myself otherwise. I drag my mind back to more useful topics. “So, is this place somewhere people can fulfil their fucked-up fantasies? Do people pay to have girls kidnapped, or—”
“I have to go. I shouldn’t have spoken to you. Goodbye, Juliet.”
“No. Wait, please. Don’t go.”
No answer.
I wait and wait, but the voice doesn’t return.
***
Twenty minutes.
It’s embarrassing how desperately I watch the seconds tick down.
I’ve never been so exhausted, and even though the aphrodisiac is wearing off now, I’m still aching.
Desperate to be touched. Who am I kidding?
Desperate to be fucked. If Saldar allows it, I’ll lie on the altar, spread my legs, and welcome him in.
Another pulse of desire racks me, and it’s painful. It’s happened so many times, and my muscles are sore.
He has to fuck me, doesn’t he? Surely that’s what all this has been building up to. I’ll beg him if he wants. I won’t even try to fight the urge.
God, I’m pathetic. He knew what he was doing when he picked me for this.
The puzzle of where I might be being held is the only thing that’s kept me sane. I’m imagining some desert facility deep underground, where billionaire assholes can pay to have their fantasies brought to life. Maybe there are dozens of cells here, some probably much more depraved than mine.
And something else is bothering me, too. Saldar knows me, and it’s not just in a casual way. He knows what makes me tick more than anyone on the planet has the right to. I don’t know how. It feels like he’s been reading my goddamn mind.
Ten minutes.
I stare at the spot where I threw the bowl of stew across the room. Fucking stew. I can’t believe I tortured myself taking all the sex toys out of the box for stew. I cleaned it up as best I could, but I’m not going to dirty my blanket. Not my finest hour.
I got to spend the night starving, as well as unbearably horny, until the morning meal of bread and cheese arrived. I ate it in thirty seconds flat. Will Saldar be pissed I threw the bowl? Hopefully not.
Five minutes.
I’m nervous all of a sudden. Stupid flutters in my stomach. What the hell? My captor is returning. I’m not waiting for a boy to take me to the fucking movies. Still. I drag my fingers through my ratty hair.
One minute.
How should I wait for him? On the altar?
On my knees? No, of course not on my knees.
Why did I even think that? I’m not that pathetic.
The altar, then. I perch on the edge and try to look nonchalant, like I’ve not just passed the most miserable night of my life in a sleepless haze of desperation. Yes. Like that.
Seconds to go now.
Three.
Two.
One.
Zero.
I stare at the door.
Any second now. If Saldar is one thing, it’s punctual. I push my hair behind my shoulder and count. The timer sits locked to zero, and I stare at it, counting in my head. Thirty seconds. One minute. Two.
This isn’t right.
I shiver, deep dread shuddering up my spine and into my limbs. Something is wrong here. Very, very wrong. Saldar didn’t set this game up just to miss the chance to make his grand entrance. It makes no sense.
He should be here.
Panic hits, scrabbly and raw. Until right this moment, I felt a weird kind of safe. Not safe safe, but safe as far as the rules of Saldar’s game went. I understood them. I knew how things should go.
Now I’m just trapped in some cave, all alone.
“Saldar! Someone!” My voice is raw and scratchy. “Is anyone there? Please. Someone answer!”