Chapter 8
EIGHT
Crymson
The stranger from last night isn’t playful anymore. He isn’t gentle with his touch. With a jerk of my chains, I’m pulled from the bed and stumble into his lean frame. His height towers over me but I lift my chin and push the rising anxiety down.
He’s strong. So strong, he faked his own death without any trouble at all. I heard him though! He wasn’t breathing!
He—
The confusion of how easily he tricked me is pushed aside, and I just try to think through everything.
Last night I was dancing with him. We smoked. I kissed him. And then—did he drug me? Was Van there? What the hell happened last night?
A reckless tremor shakes through me, but I dig my nails into my palms to stop it. I hate locks. I hate locked doors and this … this is far worse than any locked room I’ve ever been thrown into.
I don’t crumble under pressure. I won’t. I can’t afford to.
I have to be smart. I’ll use what I have even if all I have are my looks.
It’s all I ever fucking have in life.
And I need that now more than ever.
“What will you do with me?” I ask with as much composure as I can force into my tone.
A rattling of chains is heard before the weight of them are taken from the bedframe to just my wrists and neck. I’m not free, but I’m not bound to the bed anymore either...
That’s . . . progress.
Faint golden light pours into the room as a solid stone door is opened without a sound. A long hallway is alit just in front of him. Every part of the house is white brick and warm candlelight. The arching curve of the door and the white stone make this place feel more like a castle than a house.
A mansion, maybe? Rich people do love to be over the top: double staircases that lead to the same damn place.
Fireplaces in every room that never get used because of the smell natural firewood gives off.
Front doors that are excessively large, imported from the fucking Kingdom of Narnia with an insurance policy on them to match.
Except... this doesn’t feel like that. It’s not a mansion. It’s not a house.
Where the hell are we?
The flickering color of the candles ahead casts my captor in watercolor shadows and gentle golden hues.
The sharpness of his features is even more alluring in this setting.
Even more so than when he approached me last night.
Smoky lines of tattoos swirl up the corded muscle of his arms, licking along the edge of his jaw and disappearing into pale blonde hair at the nape of his neck.
The press of his black slacks and his dark shoes are still a pristine appearance.
Like he’s dipped in ink and forged from shadows.
His black button-down is long gone though.
Hard lines veer down his pale chest while sexy tattoos crawl up the side of his ribs and along his broad shoulders, crawling down toward strong hands and long fingers.
Three words swoop down the back of his forearm.
The phrase is so cynical and cold, it drops a heaviness through my stomach: Loyalty. Not Love.
“ I won’t be doing anything with you. At all.” He jerks my chains forward after that kind sentiment, but based on the smooth bindings around my neck and wrist, I’d say that’s a fucking lie.
When I step into the cold, drafty hallway, he pauses at the bedroom door. His head leans in there, and I can’t see him as he looks behind the bedroom door.
But I hear him clear as day.
“Were you two hoping to see something?” His tone is stonier now. It isn’t warm and captivating. It’s harsh and accusing.
“Were you hopin’ to show us somethin’?” Another voice asks with slipping laughter peeking through his words.
...there was someone else in the room? A knot tangles in my stomach at how out of control every single aspect of my life is. I was alone in a room with men I don’t know…
What do they want with me?
“No. We thought you might need us,” a second man says.
There were two other people in the room!
What do they want? Why are they doing this? Did Van send these men after me?
My heartbeat drills harder, but it calms instantly when I reassure myself that Van isn’t smart enough to arrange a pizza delivery, much less a kidnapping.
A dark hum of a reply is all my captor gives them, but the other men follow us out into the hall.
I don’t look at them. I don’t give reason to be treated any worse than I already am.
I tuck my chin down and look at the floor, all the while counting the steps as we trail through the elusively dim hall.
The trail becomes long and twisting though. He leads me through a maze of halls, and my counting fumbles far too soon. I’ll never have an escape route in a place like this.
My chest deflates, and I close my eyes hard to hold all the emotions inside.
We make a right turn then, and my bare feet brush over thin shoes.
I stumble right into someone, causing them to stagger into the man leashing me.
A pale, beautiful woman kneels to the ground instantly.
She throws herself down so dramatically, the white towels she was carrying messily flip from her small hands.
Her head lowers until it appears she’s kissing the floor.
“I—” Do I scream for help? Rattle my chains at her and hope she’ll call 9-1-1?
But she’s bowing. Not to me. But to him.
“Prince Christian, please forgive me. I didn’t mean to touch my prince’s arm. My deepest apologies.” The woman’s strange words are quiet. Fearful.
Prince Christian?
Another stony hum of a reply is all he gives her before hauling me away. His arm, the one she stumbled into, he shifts tensely with that shoulder, as if he’s trying to shake off something that no one else can see.
“Get us a Promise’s gown ready in my bedchambers,” he tells her absently and she nods.
His pace quickens as her words spin through my mind. My feet scatter over the cold flooring and through my fumbling steps, I realize this is far worse than I originally thought.
I’m not in New York. I’m not even in the U.S. anymore!
The handsome stranger from last night is a prince.
I’m being trafficked by a foreign prince! This is the shit my crazy, paranoid foster parents warned me about. Yes, they were fucking insane and refused to have basic internet service because, ya know, “ the CIA,” but this is real! They were right about this one!
“You’re bringing her to him this early in the evening?” one of the men asks. “He’s more rational after he’s fed.”
His concern is concerning. If my kidnappers are worried about what this ringleader psycho is doing to me, then I’m having second thoughts about our complicated arrangement as well.
“Wait.” I stop abruptly, and surprisingly, so do the three men.
Wow, they’re very considerate captors. Gentlemen, really.
“Um... I have to pee.” It’s the very first pathetic thing that sputters through my mind, but it’s also something that has been repeated over and over and over again to girls.
They don’t like us dirty. They aren’t worried about our comfort but theirs. And they don’t want us pissing all over ourselves in case they’d like to... use us.
“It can wait,” Christian says flatly.
“I’m scared I’ll make a mess if I keep going. I haven’t peed since last night.”
Was it last night? How much time has passed?
Silence drops in as these three men hold the impending fate of my bladder in their hands.
“Fine.” That cold voice he used with the others is now pointed toward me. It’s a single word that’s cut out through clenched teeth and sharp annoyance.
But I’m buying more time, and that’s all that matters.
On quick steps that I can’t keep track of, he leads me— drags me —through the shadowy halls. My vision blurs as I stumble, and in the next hazy second, we’re in front of a stone door. I blink and try to get my bearings... This wasn’t here before. This door wasn’t here.
That’s ridiculous. It didn’t just appear .
How did we get here?
I shake my head at how quickly everything around us has changed. The candles are now torches that burn brightly. The shine off of Christian’s sleek black shoes can be seen now. The memory of how his black suit jacket hugged his hard chest last night burns painfully through my thoughts.
He was so sexy. Alluring.
Dangerous .
I don’t look back at the three of them as I turn the handle and quickly scurry inside.
The heavy door closes with a thud, and I fall against it the moment something solid is put between me and them.
My breaths become heavier, and I let the anxiety I’ve been holding back fully shake through me.
The rattling of my chains between my quaking hands has me clenching my fingers into my palms instantly.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I hiss to myself like a warm-up chant.
The room is small, and not a single window offers me hope. Just four cold stone walls. I bet stone walls quiet screams. I bet you can’t hear a plea for help even if you are standing right outside this room.
The toilet along the other wall is strange.
It, too, is made of stone. A large crystal basin of water sits on a marble table next to it.
Red roses are arranged elegantly behind the fancy bowl of water.
Strangely, there’s no mirror over the makeshift sink.
Just an empty stone wall. Gentle candlelight sets a mood that’s somewhere between a fairy-tale and a dungeon vibe.
Rich people are so fucking weird.
Sweat clings to my hands, and I push my palms harshly down my thighs over and over again. Once more, I think through my shitty options.
I don’t know where I am. I can’t run. The people here don’t care that I’m a prisoner.
A single solid thud hits the door, and I can’t help the gasp that slips from my lips.
“Hurry up!” Christian commands.
The harshness of his tone is like words crawling over broken glass. He was gentle with me in the bedroom.
That’s the only option I have: to play on these men’s kindness.
And hope they fucking have any left to show me.