Chapter 1 #2
I’m terrified he’ll actually go check. What if my kick wasn’t hard enough? What if there’s no bruise on the maniac? Rory, what are you thinking about?! What difference does it make! He can’t kill you over something so stupid …, or can he?
“Did my parents send you?” I breathe out, hope flickering in my voice.
“I don’t know your parents,” he tosses back, and my heart plummets into the abyss. So, he isn’t here for me.
He takes a sharp, lightning-fast step toward me—like a panther lunging at its prey.
I fall back onto the bed, kicking my legs.
He stops. The glint of his eyes through the slits of the mask seems almost mocking.
He looks at my legs, at the skirt of my dress riding up …
, and he must see the faded bruises and needle marks on my thighs.
“Maybe you did fight after all,” he muses.
Who is this man? Why did he kill my captor? And why does he terrify me a hundred times more than the one who kept me in chains?
The man turns away and, casually tucking the pistol into the back of his belt, walks toward the body in the center of the room.
I’m frozen with icy dread—what if he pulls up the dead man’s shirt to check my words about the bruise?
But no, thank God. He simply snatches the heavy ring of keys from the maniac’s belt.
The clinking of metal hits my ears sweeter than any music.
My heart leaps into my throat, cutting off my breath, while a hot, desperate hope burns in my gut. It’s almost over now. Right?
I sit frozen, not even daring to blink. When he gets close, my body reacts faster than my mind: I reach toward him, lifting my chin and offering up the lock on my collar, silently begging to be freed.
His scent washes over me—thick, heavy, an animal musk mixed with acrid smoke.
Gunpowder. The smell of the shot that rang out within these walls.
It doesn’t smell like death to me. It smells like rescue.
From behind the white-and-gold mask comes a low, distorted hum. Casual and mocking.
The hand holding the key doesn’t extend to my neck, not for the collar. He looks me straight in the eyes and inserts it into the padlock on the bedpost.
Click.
My world flips. He unhooks the long chain from the bedpost but doesn’t take it off me.
Instead, he wraps the links around his fist, shortening the leash—like taking hold of a dog’s lead.
In the next instant, his other hand seizes my waist with a possessive grip—his heat coming through the fabric.
He yanks me off the mattress, crushing me against his stonelike hip.
There’s no escape in his hold, only ownership, but instead of shrinking in terror, my heart kicks into a wild, almost sinful gallop, responding to that strength.
“Let’s go.”
I’ve been awaiting this command for an eternity. My body, starved for freedom, trembles violently. I step forward on shaky, unsteady legs—they don’t feel like my own. He shoves me in the back, steering me toward the exit, and the icy floor burns my bare feet.
We pass the body. A dark pool has spread from beneath it. I try not to look, but the snow-white hem of my dress dragging along the floor brushes the edge of the crimson lake. The fabric drinks in the blood.
When we step out of the room, an explosion of pure adrenaline bursts in my chest. The dungeon is behind me!
My terrifying savior steers me toward the stairs, and here, in the strip of light spilling from a lamp above, I notice a tiny wet droplet on the cheek of his white-and-gold mask. My tormentor’s blood. That crimson smear against the flawless gold makes the mask seem even more beautiful to me.
The rectangle of light at the top of the stairs draws me like a magnet. Quickening my pace, I rush up the steps, skipping every other one, gulping down the air of freedom, then suddenly …
A jerk.
The chain goes taut, and the steel bites into my throat, yanking me back into the basement’s darkness. A strangled cry catches in my throat as I claw at the metal, desperate not to choke. I spin in panic.
My savior stands a few steps below me, lazily swinging the end of the chain wrapped around his black-gloved fist.
A wave of cold realization crashes over me—I’m still on a leash.
I have no choice but to slow down and match his rhythm.
We climb the rest of the stairs and enter the living room.
It’s a typical hunting lodge: an armchair in front of a massive fireplace, bearskins spread across polished wooden floors.
Through the panoramic window, the evening sun blazes and the treetops sway in the wind.
The world didn’t disappear while I was gone.
“What should I do with you?” my savior muses. He glances at my dress, at my curled golden ringlets, and, with a hint of mockery, adds, “Princess.”
I swallow hard. There’s no threat in his tone, which somehow makes it even more terrifying. I want to bolt for the door, but he draws me closer, working the chain link by link. Trying to peer into the deep slits of his flawless mask, all I see is impenetrable darkness.
“My parents will reward you for saving me.”
“Your parents?” He tilts his head. “Can’t you reward me?”
His voice is distorted by interference, but through the digital crackle, I clearly hear amusement. Cruel amusement.
“You want me to pay you?” I frown.
“With your parents’ money?” He laughs shortly. “Your captor offered to buy his life from me five minutes ago. Need a reminder how that ended?”
I freeze. That quiet pop of the gunshot echoes in my ears again. Back then, it had sounded like a symphony of life to me, but now, in the silence of this living room, it sounds like a death sentence.
“If you truly want to be saved, you can start thanking me right now.”
The chain clinks as he raises his free hand and tucks a stray curled lock of my hair behind my ear.
The gesture is so intimate, almost gentle, that my breath catches in my throat.
My heart is pounding hard enough to crack my ribs.
No one has ever touched me with such terrifying, undeniable authority.
As if he’s marking his claim. The casual ease with which he does it says one thing: I’m nothing more than an amusing trinket to him.
I stand perfectly still, hoping that if it weren’t for the taut chain between us, I would have recoiled.
“Tell me straight what you want!” I demand, scraping together what’s left of my Vance pride.
“Certainly not money or some fucking thank-you letter.”
He tugs the chain, forcing me to follow him, and settles into the armchair. Slowly winding the steel links around his fist, he tugs the chain, bringing me right up against him. My heart hammers somewhere in my throat, choking me.
“Your parents clearly buy you everything.” His voice is eerily smooth. “So, what are you ready to pay for your life?”
He raises his hand. I watch, mesmerized, as the key glints dully between his fingers. When he puts it on the seat between his thighs, something in my stomach twists into a tight knot.
“Take it. But no hands.”
I swallow hard, my skin prickling with the heat radiating off him.
Under his heavy gaze, my will goes numb.
Disobedience doesn’t even cross my mind—I don’t reach out.
I bend down, but my mouth doesn’t quite reach.
He catches my eye and, with a barely perceptible smirk, gives the chain the faintest tug downward.
I let out a shaky breath, understanding the unspoken command, and sink to my knees.
I lean toward his crotch, parting my lips to try and grab the key, but he brings his hand up. The chain goes taut, forcing my head back. My face stops just inches from his thighs, but reaching the key is impossible with him keeping me on this short torturous leash.
Shame burns my cheeks, my vision swimming. I squeeze my eyes shut and, fighting through the trembling, lean toward the precious key again, feeling his hot breath on the crown of my head.
“Why are you doing this?” I breathe out.
“After a kill, I always feel like playing.” His voice drops lower, vibrating with static and maybe dark desire. He strokes his cock through his pants. “How about becoming my toy?”
An icy wave rolls down my spine, shaking me to the core.
I thought I’d learned every shade of fear in that basement.
I was wrong. I’ve never felt terror like this—paralyzing.
I tilt my head back, looking up at that flawless mask.
Prince Charming with the rotten soul of a killer.
His eye slits show the same black emptiness.
Maybe he doesn’t even have eyes? Just darkness?
“Will you kill me if I say no?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer, just grunts, winding the chain even tighter around his fist, as if the possibility of refusal doesn’t even exist for him.
“I’ve saved you from one bastard. But if you disappoint me, who’s going to save you from the rest?”
I throw a frightened glance at the panoramic window.
Dusk is deepening, so I start to imagine that behind every tree, in every shadow, other monsters lurk with knives and guns.
The forest is swarming with them. My shoulders tremble.
I look at the chain in his hand. A minute ago, it felt like a mark of enslavement, but now it seems like my only protection.
A metal leash that tells the world: I belong to him. He’d kill for me.
Something in my gaze satisfies him.
“Good princess. You understand.”
My savior, appreciating each movement, slowly wraps the chain around my neck.
The heavy, icy links settle against my heated skin, pressing the collar tighter against my throat—almost to the point of suffocation.
By any logic, this gesture should paralyze me with terror, but instead of panic, I’m overcome by a strange, syrupy, almost narcotic calm.