Authors: Jan Springer
“Okay. But keep her safe.”
* * * * *
Uneasiness slithered up Ashley’s spine as she waited for Colter’s return. He’d been gone only a few minutes, but without him she suddenly felt vulnerable, insecure, needy. Just like she felt when she was overdue for her medication. But that wasn’t possible, she’d taken the damn pill. It must be her insecurities kicking in. He had a Claimed wife, another life. A baby on the way. Although he’d said the baby wasn’t his, she knew he must feel a certain responsibility to his wife and brothers and the child. Besides he’d left her once before…
Crud! Why did he have to make her feel like this? Wasn’t love supposed to be based on trust and happiness? Not distrust and uneasiness and…
The twisting of the doorknob at the front door of the cabin made Ashley breathe a sigh of relief.
Thank God! Now they could pick up where they’d left off and he could tell her exactly what the heck she’d done to piss off Blade and why he thought she’d been the one who’d hurt him.
“Good evening, Ashley.”
Her happiness froze solid as Cheri’s crisp voice snapped through the open doorway of her bedroom.
“What are you doing here?” Ashley gasped as she grabbed her robe.
“Keep the robe off, Ashley.”
My God! To her shock and horror she found Cheri’s command smooth over her, felt her resistance melt away, felt her hands drop the robe, felt the familiar eagerness of wanting another command.
What the hell was happening to her?
“Your medication was switched when you first arrived, Ashley. While you were registering at the front desk. Actually during the mandatory luggage check all of Pleasure Palace’s clients go through during the check in. The employee simply switched the drugs he found in the side pocket as per my instructions. The new medication does a very good job in masking symptoms as well as slightly delaying the onset of brain damage. Surely you must have noticed the gentle swings between confidence and submissiveness since you’ve arrived here? You’ve been taking another type of 111
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medication that masked your symptoms so you wouldn’t become alarmed or suspicious. And I wanted you to be…shall we say…submissive when I came for you.”
No, please this can’t be happening! She must have fallen asleep while waiting for Colter. She must be dreaming. Please let her be dreaming! Cheri reached out and ran a cold finger along Ashley’s arm.
Oh, God! This really was happening.
“What…what do you want from me?”
“First of all I want you to write Dr. Van Dusen a note. Tell him you got a call from me. Tell him there’s a meeting. A demonstration about the cure. Down in dungeon room 3.”
Cheri handed her a pen and a piece of paper and Ashley found herself writing the words, watching her hand write the note as if she were looking from outside her body. When she finished, Cheri picked up the note and placed it on one of the pillows on the bed.
“There. Now let’s get you prepared for the meeting, shall we?”
Cheri nodded to a couple of men who were now crowding around Ashley. Two of Cheri’s husbands who watched her with lust in their eyes. Oh, God! No!
When their cold hands smoothed over each of her wrists, part of her mind allowed them to lead her from the bedroom while another part screamed out for Colter’s help. To her frustration, the men quickly ushered her out of the cabin and into the coolness of the night.
* * * * *
“You son of a bitch! You drew me away so you could take her!” Rage slammed into Colter when he discovered Ashley was nowhere in her cabin. He saw red and turned on his friend. His fist slammed into Blade’s face before he knew what was happening. Pain sliced through his knuckles and he heard bone crack, heard his friend curse.
“Where the hell is she?” Colter demanded as he grabbed him by his shirt lapels and slammed him up against the nearest wall ignoring the red splash of blood flowing from Blade’s damaged nose.
“Dammit! I think you broke my freaking nose!”
“What the fuck did you do to her? You said I could at least explain it to her.”
“I don’t know. Shit! Take it easy, man. I was with you. How the hell could I take her?”
“You told S.K.U.L.L. They took her.”
“No, man, I didn’t. Come on. Maybe she just took off on her own again.”
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“Fuck!” He let go of Blade and ignored him when he slumped to the floor, cursing heavily as he cradled his broken face in his hands.
Heading toward the nearest window, Colter lifted the blind and peeked out into the moonlit yard. Maybe she’d gone out for a simple walk? No, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that. Pleasure Palace was a secure area, but that wouldn’t stop a group of male guests from taking her if they wanted her bad enough. Nothing moved, and he found himself begging to see her silhouette standing out there watching the stars. Nothing transpired.
Had she taken off on him as Blade said? Had the general returned? Found out they’d been together?
“I found this note on the pillow,” Blade hissed as he came up behind Colter. “You see? It’s a simple explanation. Cheri’s called the meeting. Now’s your chance to get the cure and to free your brother. Don’t blow it.”
* * * * *
He didn’t like the feel of this. Why hadn’t he been contacted about the meeting?
How had Ashley dressed and left so quickly? Why leave him a note? Why not just come next door and tell him if she wanted him to know? He’d been gone fifteen minutes, tops. Not to mention the handwriting on this note was all wrong. Over the past years he’d memorized her handwriting on her kiss-off note in Iraq. The handwriting on this note didn’t even look like hers.
Tension clawed up his back as he walked down the narrow stairs that the clerk had indicated would take him to the sex dungeons.
He’d had to leave his gun and his knife with Blade because he knew they’d be frisking everyone entering the meeting room with a metal detector wand just as they’d done during the last one. Cheri Blakely left nothing to chance. His footsteps echoed eerily as he walked down the hallway. It was quiet. Too quiet.
“Don’t like the looks of it,” he whispered so low he wasn’t sure Blade could hear every word through the mike on the cufflink to his monkey suit.
“We’re at your back. Just holler if there’s trouble. We’ll swarm the place,” Blade’s calm voice replied in the earphone he’d been outfitted with. The item was so tiny no one would see it unless he flipped his hair over his ears and they stuck their face right up against it.
His heart was beating a mile a minute as he spotted dungeon room 3. Instinctively he knew he’d calm down when he saw Ashley. That’s all he cared about at the moment. Just seeing her and knowing she was all right.
Blade had been right when he’d lit into Colter about Ashley. She was his weak spot. He’d been enjoying himself with her while his assignment was going down the tube and his brother was rotting away somewhere waiting for a rescue. But it wasn’t his fault Cheri hadn’t put on the bidding war yet.
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Now, however, was not the time to start thinking about Ty. He had to find Ashley and the cure. Once he had both then things would hopefully work out. In front of him the thick wooden door redundant of the old dungeon doors in medieval England prisons and torture chambers swung inward. One of Cheri’s husbands stepped outside, a metal detector in his hand.
“I’m clean,” Colter replied as he lifted his hands so the man could run the wand up and down his body.
Cheri’s husband said nothing and a moment later he nodded for Colter to go inside. The instant he stepped through the doorway he realized three things. A quick scan of the room revealed the other three bidding doctors were already seated. He didn’t see Ashley.
The second thing he noticed were the excited glances they were throwing to an area behind Cheri and her husbands who partially hid from his view what appeared to be a metal table with a white sheet draped over someone.
The third thing he noticed was the smug smile on Cheri’s face. Shit! He didn’t like the feel of this at all.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Dr. Van Dusen.” Cheri purred. He didn’t like the way she smiled. All cocksure and syrupy.
“Please have a seat with the others and we’ll start the demo.”
Where the hell was Ashley?
There was nothing he could do about it right now. He’d have to sit through the demonstration, make the bid and hopefully be able to get out and look for Ashley as soon as he could without arousing suspicion.
On rather unsteady legs he headed toward an empty chair then stopped cold as he cleared the doctor and her entourage.
Now he had the perfect view of the metal table and he didn’t like what he saw, not at all.
Shock zipped along his spine as he recognized the woman lying beneath the white sheet.
Ashley.
Her long lashes framed her closed eyes. Her generous breasts moved up and down in a steady rhythm beneath the sheet.
She seemed to be sleeping. Totally at peace.
Drugged?
Sickness crawled into his belly at the same time anger soared through him. He fought it down. Hard to do when all he wanted was to start swinging his fists at these people as they looked upon Ashley’s defenseless body.
“Doctors, I promised you an infected woman. Here she is. She graciously offered herself up for the demo. It was her way of being sure that the cure was the real thing. 114
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Her medication has been withheld for the appropriate time. Now let us get a good look at our guinea pig.”
Cheri’s hand reached out to grab the sheet covering Ashley.
“I was under the impression she was supposed to be in on the bidding?”
Easy does
it, don’t show her how freaked-out you are.
Cheri whipped the sheet off Ashley, revealing her naked body. Colter forced himself not to move. Forced himself not to react at the way the doctor and Cheri’s husbands gazed longingly upon Ashley’s lush nakedness. This was not the time to lose it.
“Not to worry, Dr. Van Dusen. She’s still in,” Cheri said as she ran a finger over Ashley’s slightly rounded tummy.
Ashley whimpered, her eyes flickered open and she blinked. All evidence of the flashing, blue sparkling eyes was gone. Instead there was a blank stare to her face, a blankness he’d never seen before.
“She’s in a fully submissive state now. She has reached the point where medication can never bring her back to her prior state.”
Jesus, have mercy!
More than anything he wanted to scoop Ashley into his arms and carry her away from there, but he knew Cheri was right. Once a woman with Ashley’s type of X-virus was withheld her medication for too long she fell into the phase of no return. Jesus Christ! There was no way in hell Ashley wouldn’t have taken her drugs. Cheri must have done something. Maybe switched her drugs somehow.
“I shall demonstrate,” Cheri said.
“This isn’t really necessary to have her naked in front of us like this.” Colter took a step forward, fully prepared to cover her with the sheet when two of Cheri’s biggest husbands grabbed his arms, preventing him from doing anything.
“What’s happening in there, Colter?” Blade’s slightly worried voice whispered in his earpiece.
“Please, Doctor, have a seat,” Cheri Blakely instructed. “It won’t be painful at all for her. I think her participating in this demonstration is a small price for her to pay to get herself cured, wouldn’t you say?”
“You’ve brought the cure?” Colter held his breath awaiting her answer. She slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out a vial with pinkish fluid. “There’s enough in here for two doses. One for my demonstration and one for the highest bidder.”
An excited murmur rippled from the doctors.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Colter asked, resisting the urge to grab her by the throat and shake the truth out of her.
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She looked honestly shocked at his question and he kicked himself for asking it. He was acting like a fool. Cheri wouldn’t put on a demonstration that would ruin her chances at getting high bids.
“Since you appear to be so concerned for her wellbeing, you can stand at the foot of the table and watch.”
The husbands let him go and he found himself moving to the end of the table where she’d directed him to stand. His heart beat a mile a minute as he looked down at Ashley. Her eyes were closed again.
“What did you do to her? Drug her?”
“Actually no. Her X-virus medication was merely withheld and replaced by another drug that would help mask some of her passive symptoms, but as all drugs react differently with different people she could have experienced bouts of submissiveness and-or bouts of defiance. She is, however, now in the natural submissive state that follows the withdrawal of the drugs. It happens when a woman with this particular strain of Virus doesn’t take her medication within a certain timeframe. Surely you know all this, Dr. Van Dusen?”
Pull yourself together, man. “My apologies. I only wish for no one to get hurt.”
Ashley looked pale. Too pale under the sickening light of the hot, bright white lights. Like some sort of helpless specimen about to be dissected by a sadistic scientist.
“Ashley, can you hear me?” Cheri said softly.
Ashley’s eyes immediately popped open. She looked at Cheri and nodded.
“I want you to touch your breasts,” Cheri cooed.
Jesus!
Without hesitation, Ashley did as she was told. Her fingers began to massage her luscious globes while everyone watched her.
Nausea clutched at his gut. This was sick!
“Pull on your lovely nipple rings. Arouse yourself.”
Again Ashley complied, plucking and pulling until she was whimpering in pleasure.
He could only hope she wouldn’t remember this abuse when they got out of there. And the only way out was to play Cheri’s game.
“Keep one hand on your breast and use the other to play with your clit, Ashley,”
Cheri instructed.
Frustration crawled through Colter as he watched Ashley spread her legs. Her pale arm reached down, her fingers parted her pink nether lips, and she began to play with her plump clitoris. The doctors were now out of their seats moving in closer to watch. Colter dug his nails into the palms until he felt pain and the warmth of blood. He needed to keep cool. Detached.