Chapter Seventeen
Hadrian
Everything hurts.
Muscles I didn’t know I have scream at me as I roll onto my side. My head aches worse than the time Juliet and I drank the bottle of cooking brandy her mother used for making cakes. I didn’t drink much last night. Did I? I can’t…
Memories roll in fast. The cramps. The agony. Collapsing.
I try to open my eyes, but what feels like the surface of the sun greets me when I do. I squeeze them shut again. Even breathing hurts. What happened? How long was I out?
Oh no. Juliet.
I force my eyes open again, this time pushing through the pain.
Gradually, my eyes adjust, and I’m greeted with a white ceiling and bright lights.
The air smells of disinfectant. I’m in Medical.
The door opens, and Doctor Richard rushes in.
I spent a lot of time with him while designing my Saldar costume.
“Hadrian! I’m glad to see you’re awake. Nasty business, strychnine poisoning. Not enough to be fatal but—”
“Strychnine?” My voice croaks, and speaking is like a razor on the inside of my throat. I’ve heard of it, but I associate it with old-fashioned murder mysteries, not something that actually happens to people.
“I’m afraid so. In one of your drinks. Your friend Jacob is interviewing everyone who was at the bar.”
“Someone tried to kill me?”
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
I wasn’t crazy.
Doctor Richard teeters his hand from side to side.
“I don’t believe so, but it’s a close-run thing.
You consumed enough to make you very sick but not enough for it to be lethal.
Information on the poison is readily available, so I’d assume the smaller dose was deliberate.
If they’d wanted to kill you, they could have just added a much larger dose. ”
If they wanted me dead, I would be.
I run a hand through my hair, fear wrapping spidery webs around me. I can’t linger, though. Processing this will need to wait. “I need to go. My Ward, she’s all alone.”
“Absolutely not. You’re badly dehydrated and need—”
“I can’t leave her—”
“Hadrian, let me finish. Sebastian and Gabriel checked on her. She’s fine. The kitchen staff are delivering her food. She can wait another couple of hours.”
“What time is it?” I struggle to sit as I ask the question, despite the doctor’s disapproving glare. Before he answers, the wall clock confirms my greatest fears.
Almost five hours past the time I was meant to see her. I imagine her staring at the timer, feeling abandoned, and swing my legs off the table. “I need to go.”
“Hadrian, for God’s sake. If you’re going to be stubborn, give me thirty minutes. Do you really want to see her when you can barely walk?”
I grit my teeth. He’s right. In this state, I wouldn’t even be able to get my costume on.
Someone poisoned me.
Don’t think about it. Focus on Juliet. She’s what matters.
Ophelia soon joins Doctor Richard, and he talks her through placing an IV drip in my arm to replenish everything I lost when they pumped my stomach. She works with calm efficiency, following instructions like any med student on placement. It’s so easy to forget she’s Sebastian’s slave.
Will Juliet be like this one day? Just living her life? It’s impossible to imagine, but I hope so. I watch the liquid drain from the IV bag, and my strength returns as it replenishes me, but my limbs still feel heavy. Worse, a thick fog hangs over my brain.
How will I become Saldar in this state? Thinking of Juliet alone and forgotten, all I want to do is comfort her. Before, when she’d had a bad day, we used to eat ice cream and watch the first Lord of the Rings movie under a blanket.
She must have seen it twenty times, but she called it comfort food for the mind. After a while, it became our thing. Right now, all I feel like doing is bringing her up to my apartment, putting the movie on, and pretending Saldar and everything else never existed.
I can’t, though. Of course I can’t.
“Some painkillers, and you should be able to cope for a couple of hours,” Doctor Richard says, sternly. “No longer, though. You need lots of liquids, some real food, and rest. And no strenuous activity.”
He says it pointedly, with a raised brow, and I cringe at the implication.
In the Compound, everyone wears their sexuality right out in the open.
Many parade their Wards around half naked.
I’ve seen smart, dignified Ophelia, who is currently removing my IV, in a collar and leash enough times that I hardly register it anymore. I’ll never be like that, though.
Juliet is for my eyes only. I appreciate Gabriel and Sebastian checking on her, but I hate that they’ve seen her naked, even though I’m sure neither of them took any enjoyment from it. The last thing I need is Doctor Richard making jokes at my expense.
Or maybe I’m just in a bad mood. Either way, I’ve had enough. “I’m good to go now, thanks.”
My icy voice is almost worthy of Saldar, and the doctor steps back, hands raised. “No problem here. Just be careful. Come back for a checkup tomorrow morning, sooner if you start to feel unwell.”
I give him a curt nod and leave Medical. Two Gilda soldiers stationed outside the door snap to attention when I exit and fall into step with me as I head off. I stop, and they pause with me.
The older man, solidly built with gray peppering his hair, speaks at my questioning look. “Kendrick’s orders, sir. We’re to escort you around the Compound until they find the perpetrator.”
Because I’m in danger. That very vital fact hasn’t really sunk in yet, because my first instinct is to tell them to leave me alone. But they wouldn’t listen if the directive has come straight from Kendrick.
I stamp down my irritation. “Fine. But you can’t enter my Ward’s prison.”
“Understood, sir. We’ll wait outside.”
Awkward, imagining the two of them standing at attention while I’m busy with Juliet. Really, really awkward. I’ll deal with it, though. It’s not like I have a choice.
I reach Juliet’s prison, take a few extra minutes to shower and brush my teeth in the dressing room’s bathroom, then set my mind to becoming Saldar. How would Saldar react in a situation like this? I thought I’d planned for every eventuality. Getting poisoned never made the list.
As I dress myself in the suit, my mind calms. Something about wrapping the fabric over my body and placing the mask on my face detaches me from everything that just happened. I might have been poisoned, but Saldar wasn’t. External concerns fade away as I activate the monitors and focus on Juliet.
She’s sitting on the floor, blanket tight around her shoulders, curled into a ball.
Her eyes are red and puffy, but she’s not crying any more, just vacantly staring.
A bowl of oatmeal sits next to her, untouched, and I curse my own pettiness with the meals I’m letting her have.
She needed comfort, and she got lumpy oatmeal. I’m an asshole.
You’re what she needs. Don’t forget it.
I steel myself and try to become Saldar. I can do it. I only need to focus. The door feels heavy, but I push it open anyway.
Juliet jumps like a firecracker went off when I enter, leaping to her feet with the blanket still clutched in her hands. She stares at me as wide-eyed as she was the first time I entered. Her bottom lip wobbles; then her fists clench harder on the blanket and she straightens her spine. So brave.
Her voice cracks, though, and she says, “You’re late. Master.”
I take a seat on the altar as she watches me, lip quivering as she struggles to hold herself together. The last five hours must have felt like days. Like an eternity. I can’t show weakness, but a master doesn’t have to be cruel all the time. “Come here. Give me the blanket.”
Her jaw tightens, and she hesitates but eventually does as she’s told, shoving the blanket toward me with an angry flourish. My marks stand out all over her body, darkening to every shade of purple on her pale skin. It stirs something primal inside me.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
Except for the scars on her thigh. I still need to ask about them.
My uncertainty fades as I spread the blanket out on the altar. “Lie down.”
She does, keeping her gaze averted from mine. Her jerky, angry movements are a bright red flag of her mood. She’s calling me an asshole in visual form. She lies on the altar, stiff and sullen, and I take a seat on the edge.
“You were a good doll while I was away. Something came up that unexpectedly delayed me, and you still behaved yourself. That earns you a reward. Close your eyes.”
She frowns, still tense, but complies. I make quick work of fastening her stiff limbs into restraints, legs spread to the corners, then fetch the custom blindfold I had made.
It blocks out everything, not the tiniest shred of light getting through, and wraps securely around her head so no amount of thrashing will remove it.
For what I’ve got in mind, it can’t slip.
Juliet’s breathing picks up, and I smile as I observe the changes in her body. For all that she’s been scared and angry, she still just endured a long night of deprivation. Her mind might hate me, but her body knows only I can deliver what it’s been craving.
I don’t touch her yet, though. Instead, I pull my phone from its hidden pocket and place an order from the kitchen. I don’t speak as we wait, but I rest my hand between her legs, unmoving, finger pressed directly on her clit.
It doesn’t take long for her to start to wriggle.
The pressure there, after such a long period of desperation, has to be almost unbearable.
She shifts, tiny movements, and I let her get a little bit of friction.
Not enough, of course, but her body is wound so tight she starts to soak my hand almost immediately.
Poor Juliet. I never realized how much I love seeing her all needy and desperate like this. Before, I used to make sure she came every time we made love. Sometimes twice or more. If only I’d known how much fun denying her is.
My phone lets out a quiet buzz, and I leave Juliet long enough to collect what I ordered. She shifts in her restraints, turning toward my footsteps, until I sit on the altar again. I give her cheek a light tap. “Open up.”
She hesitates, as I thought she might, given the circumstances. She swallows, and her throat bobs. “Please. Not the drug again. I can’t stand any more. Master.”
Her voice holds true desperation, and it tugs at me. “Not the drug again. Now do as you’re told.”