Chapter Thirteen
Merrick
Tamsyn was a nervous wreck.
After a quiet lunch in the restaurant—a treat for doing so well with Jasper—where she pushed her food around on the plate, looking withdrawn and haunted, Merrick took her home for an easy afternoon of TV and cuddling.
She fell asleep curled on his lap, her cheek on his heart, and still she wore that haunted expression.
Whatever that fucker, Elder Dinan, had done to her once he’d knocked her out, the trauma ran deep. She might not remember it consciously, but her body had a memory of its own.
It was a niggling worry. Why go to all the trouble of strapping down innocent virgins once a month, sedating them, if raping them wasn’t on the agenda? Evidently, defiling the products was an offense resulting in death; Merrick had no doubts Tamsyn had been a virgin before he got his hands on her.
So the question was, why?
Sodomy? Did the community jackoffs care if their unwilling brides were anal virgins?
Probably. They all sounded like narcissistic, misogynistic pedophiles. Raping young girls and women likely extended to all available orifices. They weren’t going to be too happy if their trusted doctor was plucking cherries that didn’t belong to him, and Merrick assumed the asshole valued his life too much to play roulette with community stock.
One mistake and he’d be dead.
What other reason would make a man sedate his prey if he wasn’t doing anything untoward? From the bits and pieces Tamsyn volunteered, the community weren’t squeamish about removing body parts or causing grievous injury to the women before they were married off, so a blood kink wouldn’t require secrecy.
Maybe he just liked jacking off over them—would that count as tainting them?
Tamsyn stirred, whimpering in her sleep.
Merrick knew the signs all too well now. This was how the nightmares started during the night—a little kick of her legs, a twist of her body, and those godforsaken whimpers that came straight from the mouth of a child. If he didn’t disturb her, the kicks and twists would evolve into harsh jerks, then full-body thrashing.
Those heartbreaking whimpers would become screams.
Sliding his hand down her side, he tickled her ribs until she squirmed. The whimpers turned into a cute chortle before she pressed her face into his chest and snuffled softly. The rising tension in her muscles faded, letting her relax into sleep again.
He really didn’t want to take her to the medplay room tonight. In all likelihood, he was going to have to force her through those doors, which didn’t sit well with him. For all the trust she had in him, exam rooms were her kryptonite, her ultimate fear.
Unfortunately, at some point in her life, she would need medical care. In an emergency, no one would be able to take the time to talk her through the panic. Hell, even a trip to the dentist was out of the question until she got a handle on this phobia.
That meant stepping up to be the Dom and doing what his submissive needed, not what she wanted. It meant pushing her, even when she was scared. Driving her into taking those first terrifying steps toward healing an unbearable pain.
Unbeknownst to Tamsyn, he’d booked the room once a week for the foreseeable future. Different times, different days, so she couldn’t get herself stressed out in the run up to each one. Short and sweet would be the key—simple scenes, no pain, with a reward at the end for positive reinforcement.
That reminded him to get the ball rolling on other matters.
On paper, marrying Tamsyn within weeks of meeting her might seem impulsive, reckless… even slightly like a midlife crisis. In reality, it was far easier to explain.
He loved her—that was all there was to it.
Stroking her back to keep her connected to him instead of spiraling back into nightmares, he reached out and snagged his cell phone from the arm of the couch. Scrolling through for the number he needed, he pressed it and waited for Evander to pick up.
“Daddy Vander’s phone.”
“Hey, sweetheart, it’s Merrick. Is your Daddy there?”
“ May -be…”
God love Littles, he thought, and fervently thanked the higher powers for not gifting him with one. As much as he loved Callie and Sierra, relishing the energy they brought into the club, he could admit he’d never have the patience to deal with them on a full-time basis—and he had a great deal of patience.
“Is it a ‘mergency?”
He supposed it was, if he wanted to marry his little owl anytime in the next six months. “A minor one.”
She gave a pensive hum; he could almost see her shrug her shoulders. “M’kay.”
He heard her singing to herself as she went to find her Daddy. When he called her name, she didn’t answer, which told him she was likely just hauling the phone along as an afterthought.
Concern raised its ugly head as he heard the faint but unmistakable sounds of two bodies colliding intimately. It was no secret that while Evander found and fell in love with Callie first, Elias had loved his boss before she came into the picture, then fallen for her too. They both adored her as their wife and Little, but when it came to sexual and relationship hierarchy, Elias dominated both his husband and wife.
The sound of flesh on flesh grew louder; Evander groaned.
“Come on, boy, take it all.” Elias’s British accent was tighter, darker, than Merrick had ever heard it. “The next time you snap my head off for no reason, you’re going to remember this, aren’t you? You’ll ask for a hard fuck instead of forcing my hand.” A particularly harsh smack of flesh made Merrick grimace, followed by a pained grunt. “That’s it, take my cock. That’s what you wanted all along. A word of advice, Van—”
Smack .
“Don’t.” Smack. “Piss.” Smack. “Off.” Smack. “A.” Smack. “Fucking.” Smack. “Sadist.”
Merrick punched the disconnect button with his thumb, eyeing the screen until it returned to the call log. Warily, he set the phone aside, unable to get the image of the dark-haired Brit riding the gigantic blond Dom out of his head.
That was an intimate moment he shouldn’t have been privy to, one he was going to have to scrub out of his brain.
Damn Littles.
This was one of many reasons why he preferred non-Little subs; Callie probably didn’t even realize what she’d just done.
A chuckle started deep in his chest, rising until it hummed in his throat, escalating into a laugh. Tamping it down so he didn’t wake Tamsyn, Merrick let it rumble through him as his head fell back against the couch.
He was still thoroughly amused ten minutes later when his cell bleated to life. Checking the screen, he didn’t know whether the scene between Elias and Evander had been close to ending, or if Callie had interrupted them on his behalf.
Warily, he answered the call. “Hello?”
“Merrick.” Evander was still slightly breathless. “Callie said you had an emergency?”
“Um… not life-threatening. If this is a bad time…”
“Not at all. Just… wrapping up a meeting.”
He couldn’t help it. A small snort of laughter escaped as he muttered, “Some meeting.”
There was a brief period of silence, then Evander’s voice bellowed away from the phone. “Callie! Did you remember to put Merrick’s call on mute before you came in?”
“Was I s’posed to, Daddy?”
“Christ on a crutch,” Evander muttered exasperatedly. “Yes, sweetness, we’ve told you this before. If you answer either of our phones and we’re busy, always mute the damn call before you come to find us.”
“’Kay, Daddy. Sorry.”
It was the most unrepentant apology Merrick ever heard; it cracked him up again.
Evander returned to the conversation. “So, how much did you hear?”
“Far too much, and none of it my business. Next time, I’ll text first.”
“She is such a brat at the moment.” The slight growl in Evander’s tone warned of dire consequences for his wife. “Sorry about that, Merrick. What’s the emergency, and how can I help?”
Professionalism for the win, Merrick thought in approval. Better for all of them in the long run, though it wasn’t like none of them had ever seen the others in a scene. There was a distinct mental disparity between what happened in a public scene, to his mind, and what occurred in the privacy of the home.
Some things were simply that—private.
“It’s not an emergency as such, more a need to get things moving. Tamsyn and I want to get married.”
“Eli mentioned something about that. To be honest, I thought you were joking, trying to lighten the situation with Linnie.” Evander made a quiet, pleased noise in his throat. “That’s wonderful news, Merrick. I’m happy for you, both of you. Are you going for a long engagement?”
“Short, very short.” Merrick sighed. “Unfortunately, it might be longer than we want. Tamsyn’s circumstances… she’s undocumented, Van. There’s no record of her birth, her medical history, her severe lack of education. For all intents and purposes, she doesn’t exist.”
“Well, fuck. I never even gave that a thought.”
“Me either, until it came up last night. I hate to ask… you have connections, Van.”
“Hmm, I do indeed. Elias has a few strings he can pull if needed. Let me call in a few favors and see what I can do.” After a small hesitation, he cleared his throat. “Are you sure she’s the one for you, Merrick?”
He could have taken the question as an insult, but he knew Evander wasn’t that way inclined. It came from concern, not the desire to stir up doubts—not that Merrick had any doubts about his woman and how he felt about her. “How long did it take you to realize Callie was the one woman in this world meant for you, Van?”
“One game of roulette.”
“So you know how quickly we can fall.” Merrick rubbed his chin over Tamsyn’s hair when she stirred. “Don’t worry about me. I have everything I need in my arms, everything I’ve ever wanted right here. Even if she wasn’t my all, she’d still deserve the chance at a future. Without documents, she’s destined to lead the kind of life her father intended for her—stuck in the shadows, never allowed into the light, chained to assholes who’d use and abuse her simply to keep a roof over her head and food in her belly. If she got that much.”
“I wonder if she knows how lucky she is to have found you.”
When her head tilted under his, Merrick peered down into sleepy eyes and felt his heart beat harder when faced with all that adoration. “Safe to say she knows.”
“All right then, leave it with me and I’ll start knocking on some doors. Merrick… have you considered the ramifications of those doors opening? Last I heard, Archie was finding some concerning links between that place and local law enforcement, the city council, all the way up into the state office. There’s a trail of bribery and corruption stemming back years, decades even, with hundreds of thousands of dollars involved in covering their asses.”
Mindful of the ears listening in, Merrick phrased his response cautiously. “You think pursuing the paperwork will alert them.”
“I think there’s a definite possibility we’ll have visitors before the end of the week once I kick this process into motion. My contacts will want to know where she came from, why she’s undocumented, where she is now. I can ask for confidentiality, but if those assholes are desperate to find her, they’ll be pushing their own connections hard.”
“It’s going to happen, Van. We’re better off being prepared than getting complacent.”
“I agree. Mack and Grit have upgraded security on the blind spots in the system, particularly around the perimeter where Tamsyn originally slipped through. Grit’s negotiating with Atticus to hire the new dog handler team he’s added to his rota—apparently they rescue pound dogs and train them in various aspects of security work, which is something we support. With any luck, they should be here in the next few days.”
“Jasper and Tabitha need briefing.”
“They’re already in the loop, but I’ll update the entire team. Beta team sent up a drone which met no interference, but the community compound remains abandoned for now. They’re reluctant to move in on the rock formation Tamsyn told us about, fearing a mass hostage situation involving the women and children. Right now, their focus is on Jedidiah and whatever crew he’s running around with; finding them is the priority.”
Merrick nodded, pressing a kiss to Tamsyn’s forehead. Her eyes were fluttering shut again, already halfway back to dreamland. “Does Serenity have a protocol for this?”
Evander laughed but he wasn’t amused. “After the shit went down with Tabitha before we opened, we outlined one. It’s been tweaked constantly the last couple weeks, but I’ll speak to Grit about implementing it immediately. The threat is aimed at Tamsyn; it doesn’t mean her father won’t drag everyone else here into conflict if it gets him what he wants.”
Merrick refused to feel guilt over it. It was not his fault, and it sure as fuck wasn’t Tamsyn’s, that this was happening. He’d stand on the front line to defend her and the club, but he wouldn’t take the blame.
That fell squarely on Jedidiah and his cronies.
“Put it in motion, Evander,” he decided gravely. “The paperwork, the protocols, all of it. The sooner this nightmare is over, the sooner we can all get back to fucking normal.”
“We can,” he agreed. “I do feel sorry for Atticus. He’s the one taking the countless women and children under his wing until the authorities step in. That’s a monumental task.”
In all honesty, Merrick couldn’t imagine tackling it. He’d been run ragged by just one survivor of Jedidiah’s regime, tending to her injuries and battling through the mental damage those fuckers caused. Handling twenty, forty, sixty of them, if not more?
Fuck.
Not his problem. As sorry as he was for their circumstances, he wasn’t a hero. Taking care of Tamsyn was a choice he’d made because of who she was—falling in love with her was just an added bonus. He’d help with the rest of her community if it was needed, but his emotional and physical reserves were for her and her alone.
“Don’t envy him, that’s for sure.”
“No, me either.” Evander cleared his throat. “I’ve assigned Fordham as the medplay DM tonight, and closed the bookings for the other room. He can wait outside or monitor from an inside corner, but I think you need backup if you’re tackling Tamsyn’s phobias. Fear is a powerful motivator, Merrick. She’s comfortable with Fordham’s presence?”
“She’s not uncomfortable.” And he wasn’t averse to the idea.
“Excellent. Keep him close in case you need him; I don’t want to hear about any incidents that could’ve been avoided simply by using a second pair of hands. And on that note,” he continued, “I’m going to go and prepare the team for war before I pull in those favors. Enjoy your afternoon, Merrick.”
“Thanks, Van.”
When the call ended, he gave thought to carrying Tamsyn to bed, letting her sleep a while longer so he could sneak out to the medplay room to set up the equipment exactly how he wanted it. He had a scene in mind, one that would touch upon the areas of her phobia he most wanted to address.
Tonight, he was going to ask her for the biggest leap of faith, the highest level of trust she could give and, if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t convinced she’d be able to do it. She would if he gave her no other option, but he wanted her to offer it rather than take it from her.
So he stayed where he was, eyes blindly staring at the screen as he stroked her back, and listened to her snoring lightly, her face smushed against his chest.
The calm before the storm.
*