Page 51 of Torment Me Knot
Not this. Not here. I'm not here.
My knees ache. The collar cuts. I’m naked and freezing cold. The auctioneer's voice climbs over the hum of the bidders and the girl on the block sobs.
Red hair. Freckles across her nose. The auctioneer points out she’s a virgin and the bids increase.
They don't see her.
We're not people to them. We're inventory.
She’s sold.
A man steps forward. Copper-rot scent, something dead underneath. He takes her by the arm. Her eyes find mine and there's a question in them, a plea,help me please help me,and I can't move, can't speak, can't do anything but kneel here with Axel's hand heavy on my shoulder and watch her disappear through a door I will never see behind.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
My mind warps, or maybe I blacked out. One moment I was witnessing someone else’s horror and now I’m back in my own.
Restraints. Leather around my wrists, buckled too tight, the metal of the buckle bruising into the bone. Leather around my ankles, my knees forced open, no give in any of it no matter howhard I pulled. I pulled until my wrists bled. They left them on anyway.
Liquid forced down my throat, sweet and chemical, something they mixed with gin to make it easier to push past my teeth. Mick's hand on my jaw. His fingers pinching my nose shut so I had to swallow or drown. The chemical hit my stomach like an anvil and started cooking my insides from the center out, and I was already calling for an alpha I would have given anything not to want.
No no no not again not again not again.
Mick grips me so tight he leaves bruises on my thighs. He laughs at me when I try to close my legs because I can’t. Not with the bar between my knees holding me open. I can’t stop any of it because the cocktail is working and I’m screaming inside my skull and on the outside I’m making the sounds they want to hear.
Axel’s hand clamps against the side of my throat. He likes holding me still while he assaults me. He grinds his rings into my skin, liking the marks they leave. He murmursgood boy, because going limp is the only option I have.
Slick pours from me, betraying me, and that is the worst part. Worse than the leather. Worse than the cocktail. The way my body keeps doing what they want no matter how much I beg no.
My chest locks. Air won't come. My hands are shaking. My vision grays at the edges. I can't stop it. I can't stop any of it. My body is about to do it again. What they used to drag out of me. What they opened me up for.
“Aubrey.”
Far away. A voice I know from another world. Hands on my face, solid, and her voice is the rope I'm climbing.
“Aubrey. Please come back.”
I gasp. The air tastes like sun and grass and gardenia. Not champagne. Not cologne. Not cruelty.Espie.Her hair is in myeyes and her hands are on my face and her scent has thinned out, scared for me.
I grab her wrists and hold on like she might disappear if I let go. Her pulse jumps hard beneath my fingertips, alive and steady, and that’s what tells me I’m not back there.
“There you are,” she whispers. “There you are.”
My hands shake in hers. I feel her heartbeat in my fingers where I'm gripping too hard when the cramp hits. Vicious, sudden, folding me around her. The air punches out of me. Espie's hands are on me before I understand what's happening.
“Aubrey?”
I get the word out and the next cramp takes the rest. “Spike. Heat spiking.”
Another wave rolls in. Lower. Slower. It doesn't stay in my belly. It climbs. Crawls up my spine, pushes out through my pores. My skin goes too tight. Slick gathers between my thighs, wet and involuntary, and the shame of it hits hotter than the heat itself. My cock swells against my belly. Sweat breaks at my temples and the small of my back.
“Okay.” Espie's arms flex. “Okay. I've got you.”
“I can't stop it.” My voice is rising again. A whine I can't push down. “I can't stop it, Espie, it's just happening.”
