Chapter 22 Grace
I’m dumped unceremoniously onto a soft mattress. I spring up immediately and then freeze.
I’m not in a cell, but a round room. There’s nothing in here but the raised bed and an array of what can only be described as instruments hanging off the wall opposite, and on a table.
Above is some sort of viewing platform that circles the entire space and I can see the bodies, the figures, filling up.
They’re jostling, shoving, obviously trying to get a good view of whatever is about to occur.
My stomach twists and bile threatens to make me puke, but I swallow it back down. I don’t want them to realise how truly petrified I am. My performance hasn’t even begun, and I already feel like I’ve been flayed open.
The man who brought me has his back to me like he’s clearly occupied with something and, as I stare, I realise with absolute certainty who this is. It wasn’t just my head playing tricks, it wasn’t merely wishful thinking.
It is him. It is Antonio. Only he’s not here to save me, is he?
I don’t think, I don’t consider my actions, I just fling myself at him. He turns, catches me by the throat and immediately overpowers me. Those dark brown eyes seem to sparkle as he forces me back one step at a time.
“You bastard.” I hiss.
“Grace…”
“You absolute bastard.”
He lets out what could be a sigh of regret, only I know better. He pushes me down, back onto the bed, and a whimper escapes me before I can keep it in.
“How could you? How…”
“This is going to go one of two ways, Grace.” He says, talking over me, effectively dismissing my words entirely. He plants a knee right between my legs, making some declaration of ownership that I already despise. “I can be gentle, I can be considerate, seeing as this is your first time, or…”
I gasp out in shock as I realise where his other hand is, what he’s now pinching. The gold ring that pierces my clit only makes this more painful as he applies a tiny bit more pressure.
“…you can be difficult, you can fight, and I will have to make an example of you in front of all these witnesses. I will have to force you.”
A tear streaks down my cheek. I shut my eyes, and all I can see is those people far above me. There must be at least a hundred. A hundred people have all come to see my ruin, come to witness Titus Ratcliffe’s precious daughter being turned into a whore.
“Please…” I whisper.
Antonio is not a monster, I know that, I know…
but everything I know is a lie, isn’t it?
The Antonio I know is a facade. To have been so close to my father he had to be just as ruthless, just as monstrous.
I may only have seen the parts he wanted me to; the nice parts, the polite parts, but all that changed the moment Magnus Blake usurped my father’s position.
Everything since that day until now has been a ruse.
His hand skims up my body. His touch is light enough that I erupt into goosebumps.
“Let me break you in gently.”
I gulp, telling myself that I’m simply imagining that hint of a plea. That he’s not asking for my sake, no. None of this is about me, about my protection. He simply wants to show the world how easily he beat me, how easily I became what they all want me to be.
I shake my head. “No.”
He frowns, clearly thinking I’m still trying to reason with him, but there is no reasoning with madness.
“I won’t do it.” I say quietly, “I can’t do it.”
“Grace…”
I throw my head back, glaring at all those men. All those faces who once smiled at me, who promised an oath to my father, who swore loyalty to my family. Every single one of them turned their back on him, on me, on my mother too.
“I won’t submit.” I state. “I refuse to submit.”
The warmth of his breath hits me as he exhales. “Fine.” He murmurs, just loud enough for me to hear. “We’ll do this your way. But if you change your mind, say the word ‘Ruby’, and it will all stop.”
I narrow my eyes, hearing the temptation in his words. He’s giving me an out, some semblance of control in all this, at least that’s what he wants me to believe.
He releases his grip, leaves me sprawled onto the bed and steps back, grabbing the piece of paper he’s been so fascinated by.
“Sign it.” He orders, shoving it in my face.
I throw my hand up to try to snatch it away, and he’s quick enough to ensure that doesn’t happen.
“Sign.” He repeats.
“What is it?” I ask, though it doesn’t really matter what it is. My life is over now. My life was over the moment this man here decided to switch sides, to back Magnus over my father.
“It marks you as my property for life.”
Property. That’s what I am, what all the Brethren Ladies are. Whether we’re married off or simply sold to Oblivion, none of us are truly free. They give us the illusion of it. They speak of honour, and marriage, and duty, as if those few things can sustain a person.
I shake my head again.
Antonio grabs my hand, rams a pen into it and though I’m kicking out, fighting, doing everything to ensure this moment here doesn’t happen, he manages to force a scrawl that’s damning enough to make me feel like I’ve just sold my soul.
As he lets me go like discarded trash he holds it up high, showing it to all the men above us. “Grace Ratcliffe is henceforth mine.” He says in a voice that echoes.
I crumple more at those words, at the tone of them, at the way he’s laid claim to every piece of me now.
“We know.” Someone shouts back. “Get on with the fucking.”
I dare to raise my eyes and instantly regret it as they latch onto our dear new Chapter Lord who’s standing, watching with his stony-faced wife beside him.
If this had played out a different way, if my father had been the victor, then it would be her here. She’d be the one sold off, only no one would be paying for her virginity. They’d be paying to ruin her, to break her more than her brute of a husband already has.
A part of me should feel sorry for her given the rumours, given what I know she endured at his hands, and yet I don’t. Every night she sleeps beside him, every day she witnesses that same brutality metered out on others. Yet she doesn’t help, she doesn’t intervene, she does nothing but watch.
Antonio lays the paper safely on that cluttered table.
I’m still sprawled on the floor, half shrinking into the side of the bed.
He grabs a few items then puts them down on the mattress, close enough that I can see before he picks me up and dumps me down beside them.
I know enough from my mother to know what they are, what their purpose is.
Should I be grateful that he’s at least going to prep me properly before he fucks me?
I can’t help the scornful laugh that escapes me.
No, he’ll get no gratitude from me. He’ll get nothing of the sort.
He’s the reason I’m here, he’s the reason my mother is also here, in this place of horror.
Is she being tormented in this moment, too?
Is she also being watched as someone other than my father fucks her?
My hands find that robe I was wrapped in and I cover myself with it, shield myself with it.
Antonio slides his jacket off, starts undoing his shirt, then his belt. I don’t know when he kicked his immaculate oxfords off but I can see them, neatly lined up beside one of the table legs.
As he undoes his belt and removes his trousers, my body seems to tremble even harder. I’ve never seen a naked man before, and though I don’t want to look, I don’t want to see, my eyes drag over him anyway.
He’s big, muscular. Clearly he works out enough to ensure his body is in peak physical condition.
I can see the way his biceps bulge, the way his six pack is emphasised more as he draws in one deep breath after another.
It’s strange to look at a man I know is my father’s age and yet he doesn’t have that portly belly, or that double chin.
No, Antonio is gorgeous, devastatingly so, and I think I hate that even more about him.
His cock is semi-hard. I look away quickly as I realise that fact, but my cheeks heat all the same.
I can’t tell if he’s big or not - to me, he looks ginormous.
How the fuck is he even going to get that inside me without doing serious damage?
Above, someone makes a crude comment and our dear audience starts jeering more about how battered my pussy is about to be.
My hands grip the sheets so tightly my knuckles turn white, and the temptation to scream the word ‘ruby’ almost has me doing it.
Antonio takes one slow step towards me, then another, approaching me the way one does a beast now cornered but not totally defeated. I don’t know why but that gives me hope, that gives me something. He sees me as a threat, as something that could hurt him.
“Ditch the robe.” He orders.
I shake my head. It may not be covering me, it may not be doing anything at all really, but this flimsy piece of fabric is the last shred of modesty I have left.
A flicker of annoyance is all the warning I get before he pounces on me, flips me over, grabs me from behind with one hand twisting in my hair and the other wrapped around my throat so tightly I can’t get any oxygen in.
“Stop playing games, Grace.” He growls in my ear.
I buck back, trying to smash my skull into whatever part of his body I can find, and that clearly pisses him off more.
The hand half strangling me moves to grab a fistful of the robe. I hear the tear before I feel it. The pathetic fabric is ripped from my body and I try to curl up, to hide myself as best I can.
Only Antonio is pulling me up, pulling me off the bed, spinning me around and showing every inch of me off for all those leering eyes above.
One of his hands gropes my right breast, and the tiny bell there jingles in response.
“Whore.” Someone yells down.
“Fuck her already.” Someone else cries.
“All in good time.” Antonio replies, before shoving me hard enough that I tumble back to the floor at his feet. “We have the entire evening, after all.” He says, staring down at me.