life is over,” he said gruffly. When the tears flowed freely down her cheeks he said, “I told you I’d be a hard master. You should have listened to me and taken it seriously. Strip.”
Grace felt numb. Her first instinct was to run, but even if she got out of the house, this wasn’t her homeland. There was no one who would save or protect her here. She’d be a runaway slave, punished in whatever way their law dictated. There was nowhere to go.
As if a switch had flipped, she went into survival mode. The idea of happiness and contentment leeched out of her like so much petty frivolity, replaced by a need to appease him, to do whatever it took to stay alive. She hurriedly took off her clothes.
“Jewelry, too,” he said.
She took out her earrings and handed them over, then looked down at the garnet ring on her hand.
“Please, not this one. It was my mother’s.”
He’d already tossed her clothing and earrings in the fire, and now his hand was out, waiting for the ring. “Now!” he barked. “You don’t want punishment on your first day.”
She struggled to get the ring off and gave it to him, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see it tossed in to be destroyed with everything else that held meaning to her.
“I don’t understand . . . why . . . why are you being this way? You weren’t like this before.” She knew she sounded naïve and stupid, but she’d thought she’d been so careful, so smart about everything. But how smart was it to fly thousands of miles to give yourself over to a practical stranger to do with as he wished? Of course he would be decent online, where he had no power.
Her eyes focused on the ground, unable to look at him after she’d walked right into his trap. She jumped when he laughed.
“Sweet, little Grace. I like slaves who are careful, who agonize over the decision. You’re the one I had to fight hardest to acquire. I found several potentials to replace my last slave, but they were all too stupid. After a week they were ready to come here. But you . . . you were different. You were a prize worth owning.”
“What happened to the last slave?”
“Oh no, pet. You won’t have an easy slip into peaceful death with me. I sold her last week. I won’t be at all surprised if he kills her, though.”
The tears fell silently, and she had to take slow, deep breaths to stay quiet. She didn’t resist when he put her in a cold, dark cell and left her for the night.
***
He’d left her there three days, feeding her bland food through a slot in the door. It was as if he were sending her the message that she wasn’t all that important; he wasn’t so taken with her that he had to play with her right away. She was expendable and easily forgotten.
When he’d finally stepped into the room, she’d been so desperate to please him, to gain any level of favor at all to improve her situation, that she’d obeyed him without question. But nothing was ever good enough. Nothing had stopped his cruel words or his brutality. The words “good girl” hadn’t passed through his lips again.
The door to the dungeon creaked open, snapping her back to the here and now. She knew it would hurt worse if she tensed, but she couldn’t stop herself from holding her body rigid. If only she could just relax and let the pain wash over and pass through her.
“Have you had time to think about your mistake, pet?” Pet. The word was such a mockery. An endearment from before, a word that indicated some level of care and affection. And yet there was no care or affection between them. There was only sadism on his part and desperation and fear on hers.
“This slave begs forgiveness. She won’t be bad again.” She couldn’t stop trembling in the chains. No matter how many times this happened, the terror didn’t stop. She kept hoping she’d become desensitized to it, that by some miracle she could learn to hover outside her own body so that whatever damage was done couldn’t touch her but would only touch the body of that girl, the one that wasn’t really her. It would be bad enough to just watch. But if she could watch and not be, that would be better.
“Are you sure? I feel