“I will consider it,” Alexei continued,
turning to watch Orèlan, who was being forced naked from her cell
between the guards. “But my revenge first! I will have my
revenge!”
“No!” Wyndham shouted, even as the guards
lifted Orèlan, who struggled against their strength, up onto a
wooden circular slab raised in the center of the room. She never
cried out as she fought them, but she did fight them, with
terrified whimpers when the guards began to tie her spread eagle
onto her back.
“I will come to you willingly!” Wyndham
shouted with desperation. “If you do this to her, I will
fight
you to my last breath!” Wyndham watched Alexei turn
his fevered gaze to him as Orèlan screamed a muffled sound of
denial through the gag that the guards had put over her mouth.
“We will see what you might do when I am
finished,” Alexei said, eerily calm. “The final game has just
begun,” he finished.
Alexei was not making any sense,
Wyndham thought, trying to quell his rising panic as he watched the
small Asian man move to stand at Orèlan’s feet.
“Shave the slut, Quay,” Alexei ordered in a
sickeningly soft voice as Orèlan whimpered. Wyndham sucked in a
tight breath as Alexei turned his gaze to him, and he hissed, “One
half a marker for this, Khrisinan.”
Wyndham could not help the hatred unmasked
from his gaze as he glared at Alexei, and he spat. “I will
never
forgive you for this!”
“We will see,” Alexei whispered, then in a
sharper voice he said, “You have lied to me about this slut,
Khrisinan, yet I am still being fair. Two and one half markers, you
still owe me.”
Wyndham clenched the bars as he watched the
Asian, named Quay, unrolling a leather pouch of instruments between
Orèlan’s feet. Wyndham squinted his eyes to see, as Quay chose a
straight razor, lifting it from the pouch. It was then, Wyndham
realized that the rest of the instruments he saw were for skin
tattooing.
Christ,
he nearly fell to his knees in relief,
but he clutched the bars holding himself upright. Alexei was going
to brand Orèlan . . . but he was
not
going to kill her.
Orèlan looked fearfully at the small Asian
man, Alexei had called Quay, as Quay brought forward a bowl of
water, a sponge, and a cake of soap to set beside her hip. Quay,
lathered the sponge with the soap as he looked down at her exposed
sex, and it was then, she finally realized what he meant to do, at
Alexei’s command. She struggled then, against the ropes holding her
ankles and wrists splayed wide across the wooden slab, as Quay
lifted the wetly lathered sponge toward her pubic curls.
“Lay still,” Wyndham ordered her from his
cell, and she heard Alexei laugh harshly as Wyndham continued to
say, “He will cut you, if you do not lay still.”
Orèlan sucked in a terrified breath as Quay
touched her sex with the wet sponge. The position she was tied in
was debased and she squirmed in humiliation as Quay scrubbed her
sex with the soapy sponge.
“Look her nipples are hard,” Alexei quipped,
and the guards laughed.
Orèlan moaned in shame, and then she heard
Wyndham shout, “I love you, Orèlan! Do you hear me? I love
you!”
“Silence!” Alexei shouted as Orèlan closed
her eyes to the sound of Wyndham’s words. Love was their strength
and power, she realized. She must be brave for Wyndham. She had to
be brave for their love, and she was able to stop her struggling
then as she opened her eyes and saw Quay bringing the straight
razor forward. Quay, touched her as only one man had ever done as
he began to shave her pubic hair away, while tears she could not
stop leaked from her eyes. But she did not struggle again, she only
trembled and prayed for it to be over.
“Bravo!” Alexei exclaimed when the shaving
was finished, and then, Orèlan saw Alexei clamping his hand onto
Quay’s shoulder as he said, “Now tattoo her the way I told
you.”
The word tattoo raced through Orèlan’s mind
like a fiery blaze.
No, madre dios, no!
She tried
desperately to turn her head to see Wyndham, but she could not from
where she was tied.
“You are a sick bastard!” Wyndham
shouted.
“Oh, Khrisinan, you do not approve of my
method of revenge for your slut?” Alexei asked snidely. “I thought
it was inspirational. Just wait to see what Quay is going to brand
on your bitch, Lord Hawkenge.”
Orèlan felt Quay’s fingers touching the slit
of her sex and she gasped, jerking her body. Then she screamed
silently at herself to lay still. She had to lay still! Quay’s
finger lifted one lip as she quivered, trying to lie still, but
then a sharp striking pain came in the tenderest place on her body.
She screamed. She could not lay still! The pain struck again, and
she gasped another involuntary scream beneath the gag. But the gag
was cloying and she could not get enough air into her lungs as the
pain of the tattooing relentlessly continued.
“It is done!” Alexei exclaimed and Orèlan
jerked.
She must have passed out?
“Another half a marker,”
Alexei continued, “And that makes one marker, Khrisinan. So now you
only owe me two!”
Orèlan moaned as she felt her ankles being
untied. Her sex throbbed unbearably, then the gag was pulled from
her mouth and more hands were at her wrists untying those also.
Wyndham watched Alexei turn toward him,
Alexei’s light blue eyes had a feverish quality, but there was an
unexpected sadness in them. “I will give her to the guards for the
last two markers,” Alexei said.
“No!” Wyndham shouted. “No, Alexei, my God, I
am begging you!”
Alexei hissed, a sharp intake of breath. “You
see, Khrisinan, I knew you would come to me willingly in the
end!”
“Yes!” Wyndham exclaimed tightly, at the same
moment Orèlan cried out her denial
“No, Wyndham! No, you must not do this! No, I
will not let you!”
“Take her away from here!” Alexei shouted
angrily. “Take her-,” Alexei turned to Wyndham.
“To the Royal Hotel,” Wyndham expelled. “To
Lord Sutherlin.”
“No! No!” Orèlan cried as the guards dragged
her from the room.
“You see, Khrisinan,” Alexei whispered. “I
always knew that you had an escape plan. Ever the consummate spy,
my handsome man.”
Chapter Thirteen
It was a macabre position,
Wyndham
thought, he could not be absolutely certain that Alexei had freed
Orèlan. Yet, in some twisted fashion Alexei was honorable in his
own way. For that, and the gut feeling he had that Alexei was done
with Orèlan, he believed him. Now, he wondered, how noble he should
remain? The two guards still held him as a prisoner with their
rifles, forcing him to follow Alexei, in the direction of Alexei’s
suite.
At least Alexei had ordered the guards to
give him a pair of pants. It was so unexpectedly chivalrous of
Alexei, Wyndham thought, with his head bowed and his jaw clenched
into square hardness. He was seething as he walked between the
guards and it was taking every once of his willpower not to grapple
with the guards, in an attempt to gain an opening to fall upon
Alexei with his bare hands. He might never have realized how wholly
possessive he was, he thought, if not for what had been perpetrated
on Orèlan.
Suddenly, half a dozen sharp explosions
sounded in the distance. Wyndham’s head lifted as he recognized the
sound of gunfire, while his gaze found Alexei’s back, just as
Alexei was opening the door to his suite. Alexei never turned at
the sound of the gunfire, his head cocked to the side, but he
continued into the suite. “Bring him inside!” Alexei ordered.
“What is happening?” Wyndham asked, as the
guards roughly shoved him into the suite.
More gunfire sounded, this time closer, as
Alexei ignored his question and ordered, “Guards, leave him here,
and take up your posts outside the doors!”
Wyndham was surprised to be released alone
into Alexei’s company, as both guards, appearing suddenly nervous
and furtive, fairly bolted to the doors. The doors slammed shut and
the distinct sound of booted feet running away could be heard.
“It is impossible to bribe truly loyal help
these days,” Alexei snapped, as he continued to walk further into
the suite.
Wyndham looked at the door hearing more
gunfire, closer still, perhaps only one floor down from where he
stood, then he turned his gaze to Alexei’s retreating back. His
mind was working quickly as he gauged all the possibilities of what
could be happening . . . of whether he should just walk out, away
from Alexei without the guards' presence, when Alexei spoke.
“Two markers, Khrisinan. You begged me,
Wyndham, remember this? How noble are you?”
Wyndham’s tightly held anger exploded then,
and all constructive thought about his situation dissolved. “Do you
want me to fuck you in the ass, Tropov, you sick bastard?” he
challenged senselessly.
“
Yes,”
Alexei hissed, turning toward
him. “You owe me two markers and your woman’s life!”
Alexei appeared nearly wild-eyed as Wyndham
clenched his fists at his side and he spat. “Fuck your markers,
Tropov!” He turned toward the door. “And fuck you!” he finished
crassly.
“No!” Alexei wailed behind him. “You owe me,
Wyndham! You owe me!”
Wyndham’s hand closed around the doorknob,
but before he could open it, the door was shoved open forcefully,
toppling him backward. His bad knee could not hold to this and it
collapsed, taking him bodily to the floor onto his side.
“Alexei Tropov!” a voice heavily accented in
Russian, shouted above Wyndham’s head. “You are under arrest for
treasonous acts! To be beheaded by the Czar’s court! Take him!”
Beheaded?
Wyndham lifted his gaze to
Alexei’s, who was being circled by the Russian soldiers. “Who is
this man?” the leader asked sharply, pointing to Wyndham.
“He is just my lover!” Alexei exclaimed.
The leader of the Russian soldiers looked
down on Wyndham with disgust, then abruptly spit on his leg,
pronouncing, “Cunt!” Then he ordered, “Leave this one and bring the
prisoner, Tropov!”
Chapter Fourteen
Orèlan cried out as one of Alexei’s burly
guards shoved her out of the carriage. She landed on the brick
street on her hands and knees, because the carriage had not
completely stopped, and was even now racing away from the scene.
Yet, she did not care about the rough treatment. She was more
relieved to have at least a cloak to hide her complete nakedness.
The blood on her palms from scraping the rough bricks was nothing
compared to the last thirty minutes she had spent traveling inside
the carriage, while she wondered if the guards would rape her. The
entire time, she agonized over whether the guards would follow
Alexei’s orders or perhaps ease their burden by just killing
her.
But much more than that, in each harrowing
half second of time, she suffered agony about what Wyndham had
done. What he must be doing at the moment for her release. On one
barely coherent level of her mind, she realized that insanity
rested in those thoughts. It was nearly too much to bear, yet she
kept hearing Wyndham’s voice whispering to her. “Be brave,
Spitfire. Be as brave as I know you can be.”
“Yes,” she gasped, lifting her head from
where she knelt on the dirty bricks of the street, to see the Royal
Hotel across the street. Wyndham’s friend was there. She knew him,
Lord Sutherlin. He was also a spy. Orèlan wobbled to stand upright
on her bare feet, and then she grasped the cloak tightly around her
body, leaving blood on the woolen material. The footmen outside the
grand hotel would never let her inside appearing as she did. She
lifted her chin. But they would take a message inside for her.
The footman was reluctant, yet he relented
when he realized that she would only leave her stance by force,
thereby creating a scene. She realized how horrible she must appear
with her long hair matted in tangles and her face ravaged by too
many tears. Her embarrassment was acute, as finely dressed patrons
of the hotel whisked up the entryway’s red carpet, trying not to
let their dignified gazes settle on her. She stood bravely,
shivering on her bare feet, yet it was too much when one gentleman
arriving alone did not avert his gaze distastefully, but made a
point to leer at her. That blatant lecherous speculation sent her
fleeing to the side of the ponderous building, to hold her breath
against the possibility of the gentleman following her. He did not,
and she collapsed against the side of the building, shaking. Her
bare feet were so cold and she was still so afraid.
“Mademoiselle Becou!” Orèlan gasped at the
sound of her name, while she cowered against the wall. “Orèlan, it
is Radford. Lord Sutherlin.”
Radford caught Mademoiselle Orèlan Becou,
before she slumped to the ground. He realized immediately the lady
had fallen into a faint as he lifted her up into his arms. A light
from the street caught the features of her face as he looked
downward. He grimaced. Orèlan was beautiful, but there were obvious
signs of trauma on her face. Red swollen eyes, nose, bruised lips,
and dirt smudges. It had not escaped his notice that Mademoiselle
Orèlan could not be wearing anything beneath the woolen cloak
around her. The situation was grave, and he debated whether to take
her inside the hotel to see to her health and comfort more
quickly.
“I am truly sorry, Mademoiselle,” he murmured
in a gruff voice. Orèlan’s comfort would have to wait for the more
important issue of safety, and that meant that he must immediately
take her to the ship. It was one of his sailing ships called
Trident. As a Duke, few people realized his common pursuits, such
as the shipping company that he owned, and also the distillery,
three woolen factories, and the one pub. There was a certain thrill
to making one’s own money, verses the fortune of old money he had
inherited since becoming a Duke.