Leashed (Dark Underbelly Book 3) Read online

  She drank it down in four gulps, and I rubbed her back as I marveled he’d aimed the power of his voice to her without it doing more than making me shiver. I hadn’t felt the need to take a drink. Master Abbott wasn’t just scary-powerful, he wielded his power with tight control.

  “You must feel awful,” I told Holly as she set the glass back on the table. “Some food on your stomach and calories for energy will help. We’ll have watermelon for you soon, but I’m sure we have grapes and bananas in the kitchen if you’d like some more fruit?”

  She turned to slap me and I caught her wrist. Her eyes shot open wider than I’d thought possible, and I kissed the fingertips of the hand she’d meant to slap me with.

  “You never said if the red is good or if you wanted another color.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Who undressed me and cleaned me?”

  “I believe I’m to be your caretaker, so the job fell to me.”

  Abbott sighed and I picked up a hint of sorrow from his scent.

  “Spencer was sold into slavery at eleven, as he was finishing the sixth grade. He was in the foster care system and was assumed to be a runaway, so no one ever looked for him.” Abbott looked to me a brief second before returning his gaze to Holly.

  He spoke to me telepathically while he looked at her.

  I hope you don’t mind, but I believe knowing your story will let her know you’ve had it worse than her and could help the two of you bond. Also, it will remind her she had every opportunity and squandered it, while you had none and you’re solid — a good head on your shoulders and in complete control of your words and temper.

  I trust your judgment in all things, My Master.

  I sensed a micro-second of frustration before he continued talking to Holly. “He was trained to be a sex slave without anyone actually taking his virginity, and his Master took it on Spencer’s twelfth birthday.”

  My former master had lived in a time when children could marry at twelve. In his mind, waiting until I was ‘of age’ had meant he wasn’t a pedophile. I was fairly certain my new Master wasn’t ready to tell Holly about vampires just yet though.

  I could still hear Holly’s thoughts, and though they were jumbled, she was horrified.

  “Master Abbott saved me from my previous owner,” I told her. “He saved all of us.” I looked to Abbott, knowing he knew what I wanted to say next. I was unsure if it was okay and wanted permission. He gave a tiny nod, so I told her, “He freed a couple of us, those strong enough to survive after a life of slavery. I’m not sure I’d be okay as a free man, and I believe my new Master knows this.”

  Her mind was still a jumble of thoughts. Mostly trying to figure out if this meant safety or danger to her, personally, but also shock that I was an actual slave.

  “I’m learning lessons online, at my own pace,” I continued, “and the Master has tutors I can contact if I need more help. My old master made sure I could speak correct grammar, but I had no need of any other knowledge just to be a sex slave.”

  Sex and blood, but she didn’t need to know the blood part yet.

  “You’ll be in your room a few hours while Spencer and I handle some things,” Abbott told her. “I can offer a pen and notepad if you’d like to write your thoughts, or a novel. We have some ebook readers, and I can download whatever you wish to read. When the runner comes back with your watermelon, it’ll be cubed and placed in your refrigerator. Is there anything else you have a taste for?”

  “Brownies and ice cream. Or maybe apple pie and ice cream? Or a Coke float. Can I watch TV?”

  He shook his head. “Television time will be earned, and even then, the programs restricted. You’ll begin an exercise program soon and will have lessons to learn, but for today your choices are a book or the opportunity to journal your thoughts. We have ice cream and Coke, I’ll have someone bring it to you shortly. I’ll request the apple pie and ice cream for later, and you’ll get another smoothie in an hour. Let the person who brings it know what you’d like for dinner. You won’t get to dictate meals indefinitely, but we’ll do our best to accommodate you in the coming days.”

  I wondered if giving her a pen was a good idea because I worried she’d hurt herself. Abbott sent me an image of a felt tipped pen, specially designed so there were no edges strong enough to break human skin. Too much pressure would make the entire thing crumble to dust around the spongy ink center.

  I relaxed. He knew what he was doing. It was going to be okay.

  Holly’s muscles flexed as she fought the mental hold Abbott had on her legs. The scent of her fear permeated the room again.

  “What have you done to me!? Why can’t I move?”

  Fear turned to terror, but I couldn’t help her.

  “Help! Help! Someone help me!”

  “That’s enough.” Abbott’s voice was mild and no louder than normal conversation, but he put a little of his power into the words. She quieted immediately and looked at her empty glass.

  Abbott lifted her water goblet and moved it a few inches closer. A subtle hint he’d like her to drink more.

  “If you follow the rules and do as you’re told, you won’t be hurt. Should we need to provide consequences for misbehavior, you’ll feel a great deal of pain but you won’t be injured.” He nodded to the wolf-guard in the doorway — a large, imposing man who looked like a bodybuilder. “If you don’t want your toast or eggs, the guards will return you to your room. Again, you can request an e-reader with popular books on it, or a specific book. Read, don’t read, I care not today. However, if you purposefully break the electronic reader then you’ll be spanked like a child.”

  When she was gone, Master Abbott motioned to my plate. “Do you wish for more food?”

  I only had a few pieces of bacon left, and I shook my head as I reached for a piece. “Just what’s left on my plate, but thank you for offering, Master.”

  “You don’t need to call me Master with every sentence. You’ll figure out when it should be used, and I’ll be understanding while you work through it. However, for the time being, you’ll feel a magical shock when you use it and I don’t wish to hear it.”

  “I’m sorry, Mas…” I stopped, squeezed my hands into fists, and started again. “I apologize for annoying you with it. I hope to learn your ways quickly so I can please you.”

  “Tell me your rules.”

  I was at a loss. Slaves have so many rules, there’s no way to number them.

  He tried again. “The three things I’ve imposed on your will.”

  Ah. “Not to harm anyone you claim or care about, including myself. Not to try to escape. Not to share supernatural secrets.”

  “Correct. Those are your rules. Pleasing me isn’t a rule or an order. I appreciate that you’ve chosen to follow my orders and are trying to please me, but you won’t be whipped if you explain to me why you aren’t comfortable following an order. You have permission to speak at will. I hope you’ll use decorum around others, but I also hope you’ll relax and be informal when it’s just the two of us.”

  “You own me. You control my will.”

  “I own you, yes. This means I could set you free if you hadn’t been turned into a wolf and blood-bonded all at once. It’s my intention to give you as much freedom as you can handle, but only as you’re ready for it. I could order you to exercise your free will, but I want you to work through it and figure it out on your own. You have three rules and your wolf has one. That’s it. You choose whether to follow other orders.”

  “Master, I—”

  The magical jolt was fast, and over with before it even registered, but it hit every cell in my body and took my breath.

  “I apologize, Mas…” I stopped myself before I said it again. I settled my palms on the table and looked at my nearly-empty plate. “It’s a deeply ingrained habit. I’m not disobeying on purpose.” Even then, I had to cut my words off before I called him Master again.

  “I know you aren’t. The magical shock is a training tool and not puni
shment. You understand? I’m not angry, merely helping you learn.”

  “I do. Thank you for helping me learn to please you.” I still couldn’t look at him. It felt so wrong to speak without using his title. He owned me. This wasn’t right.

  He sighed. “I need to teach you to learn to please yourself, Spencer.”

  I caught a hint of hunger and looked up, hopeful. “Can I feed you, my Mmm…” Damn, I almost said it again.

  “I would like nothing more than to feed from you, but not as my slave.”

  I shook my head. “But, I am your slave. You own me.”

  “Tell me how new slaves were detoxed in your former home, and the part you played in helping.”

  A change of subject, then.

  “Master knocked them out and put them in the sweathouse for an hour. He woke them, and we brought them out and gave them enemas to clean them out and then another with a Bardex so it would stay in and hydrate them. The ones with long hair worth salvaging, we oiled their hair before putting them back in the sweathouse. An hour in, and then out to add to their enema and check them over. I don’t know what was in the solution, but I was told it was calories plus whatever was needed so the water would absorb into their bloodstream. We used a half-cup per quart of water — most men got four quarts to start, most women got three quarts.”

  I sighed, remembering. “They were in the sweathouse for six hours, on their sides or stomachs, and someone came in to add to their enema every hour so they’d have plenty of fluid in them to sweat out. At the end of their six hours we let them relieve themselves, and they were given three hours outside the sweathouse to nap before they were given another enema with a Bardex and put back into the sweathouse another six hours. The process continued for days. They weren’t fed because they got calories from the enemas.”

  “I’ve done the fast detox thing with an IV method — giving calories and fluids, but we allowed food too, if they asked for it.” Abbott sighed. “Doing it with enemas broke them faster, I suppose.”

  I nodded. “It did. A private function they’d always controlled was taken from them. First steps to understanding what it means to be owned.” My mind went to my own intake experience and the ways I’d been broken.

  “I’m told you still ask for them. They aren’t required here.”

  “I can’t go without them.” I cut myself off just before I called him Master. “I haven’t since I was taken into his household. I’m miserable if I don’t get cleaned out.”

  “Werewolves can heal from anything. I’ve ordered someone to help you with them every other day so you won’t be uncomfortable, but eventually we’ll work past it.”

  “I don’t understand what service I’m to perform for you.” Master. I knew he could hear my thoughts and I knew I was probably skating on thin ice, but it wasn’t right to speak without acknowledging who he was to me. Who we were to each other. Master and slave. Owner and owned.

  “Tell me about your daily schedule under the former Master of the City.”

  “I was sex and food at night. Either a gift to one of his friends, a reward to an employee for a job well done, or I was on the schedule to be paid for by a customer. Someone turned me into my wolf and right back to human before dawn, to heal me from whatever I had to endure during the night. I was fed, I helped clean up, and was sent to bed. Upon awakening, I was expected to help the slave trainers with the newest recruits. Thankfully, they never made me rape them. I did my best to give advice so they’d understand their new life and how best to survive.” I sighed. “I was given enemas in the evening, fed, lubed, and then sent to whoever would fuck me and bleed me. Or, sent to the fuckboy stables so I could be fucked and bled all night by dozens and dozens of men.” I didn’t mention the nights of torture I endured from the men who paid extra for a wolf who could take a great deal of damage without dying. Master Abbott had been in my head. He knew.

  “And here’s what I want you to learn from me. Are you listening?”

  “I am.” Master.

  “I want you to figure out how to live your life and not merely survive it.”

  3

  Holly

  I had no knowledge of time. No way to know if it was day or night. I pitched a temper tantrum once and refused to do what Spencer told me. Not even a minute later, someone entered the room, picked me up, sat in a chair and put me over their lap, lifted my dress, gave me twelve hard smacks with a paddle to my bare bottom, lifted me as they stood, sat me in the chair, and left.

  No one mentioned the paddling or my tears. Spencer merely asked me, again, to put my shoes on. I couldn’t be mad at him for the spanking. I wanted to be, but he was a slave, too. He was following orders to keep from being spanked. Or worse.

  I leaned forward and strapped the horrid shoes on.

  I wore pretty dresses and high-heeled shoes during the day, and a soft nighty to sleep in. No underwear. Ever. I worked out while still in my nighty in the mornings. At first, it was ten minutes on the treadmill, but after a week it was twenty minutes on the treadmill, crunches, squats, attempted push-ups, and assisted pull-ups. How pathetic was it that I couldn’t do a single pull-up without help?

  Someone kept my fridge stocked with fruit and I ate constantly. Meals were now a choice between two meals the cook prepared, and I wasn’t given dessert other than the unlimited supply of fruit. Spencer promised me an entire apple pie with vanilla ice cream when I could do three pull-ups by myself.

  We were learning the multiplication tables together. A tutor came in every other day and worked with us, but we were expected to learn one series of them every week. The twos weren’t hard but the threes were impossible. Spencer knew them on Friday though, and I struggled with them.

  Abbott stepped into the conference room we’d been using as a classroom, and everyone else left — even Spencer. My heart beat double-time. I’d tried so hard to keep from doing anything to be spanked again. Would I be punished for not learning the stupid multiplication table?

  “Did you try as hard as you could to learn them?”

  Abbott’s voice was calm, but I sensed danger.

  “Of course I did! It isn’t my fault I’m stupid!”

  “You once got upset with me for noting you’d made stupid decisions, and very firmly believed yourself not to be stupid at the time.”

  I crossed my arms and looked at the floor.

  “This is going to hurt,” he warned.

  I gasped and every muscle in my body went stiff. My head was suddenly on fire as he branded every equation into my memory, one at a time. Three times zero equals zero. Three times one equals three. Three times two equals six. When he finally hit three times twelve equals thirty-six I thought it’d be over, but he kept going. The pain was so bad I wet myself, and the warm liquid soaked into my dress and dripped off the chair. The seat-fabric must’ve been waterproof.

  Tears ran down my cheeks, snot fell from my nose, and my feet kicked with every new brand, but I couldn’t make it stop, couldn’t rise, couldn’t escape.

  When he at last branded three times twenty equals sixty into my memory, he stepped to the door. It opened a few inches and someone handed a dress in, still on the hanger.

  He ordered me to stand as he neared, and I forced my shaky legs under me to hold my weight. Plastic crinkled as he placed an empty bag on the table. He draped the dress over the back of another chair and gave me a grim look. “If you choose to leave when given the option to stay or go in six months, you’ll have basic mathematics and grammar skills sufficient for a customer service job. You’ll also learn how to operate a computer and the most widely used software and cloud services. It’s my hope you’ll decide to stay, but I won’t send you out into the world helpless and without skills.”

  Abbott was regal, almost like a king. He spoke with an authority I didn’t understand, but his next words were softer. Kinder. “Put your soiled dress in the bag. You’ll find baby wipes inside to clean your legs and bottom. I’ll gather cleaning supplies while you c
hange.”

  He walked to a cabinet and kept his back to me, and I quickly put the new dress on before cleaning myself under it.

  He returned with several cloths and a spray bottle. “This room was designed so bodily fluids can be easily cleaned. Sop up the moisture with the rags, and keep at least one clean so you can spray the area down and wipe the solution when you finish. The bottle goes back in the cabinet, everything else goes into the bag, which you can store in the cabinet also. I’ll send your tutor back in about ten minutes. You’ll take the test again and pass. I expect we won’t have this problem next week?”

  “No, Sir.”

  I have no idea what made me call him Sir. A combination of fear over what he’d done, and more so, what he could do. And yet, he was doing his best to keep my embarrassment to a minimum about peeing myself.

  His face softened and he smiled. “I’m pleased with most of the rest of your progress. Is there anything you’d like to request, while you have my attention?”

  I knew he could hear my thoughts, so I thought at him. My freedom. I want to leave.

  “You’ve proven not to be responsible enough to care for yourself wisely.” He sighed. “A compromise. If you’ve completed the lessons I wish you to learn within three months, I’ll give you the option to leave then. This means you’ll need to learn your multiplication tables twice as fast, and will need to read two hours a day instead of one if you’re to gain the reading comprehension and vocabulary we wish you to have. Also, your grammar lessons will need to pick up.”

  He turned and left without waiting for a response. Learning twice as fast wasn’t an option. I was struggling to learn everything at this pace.

  Abbott

  Spencer settled into my household with minimal instruction. I’d known the boy was bright, but he exceeded my expectations. When I awakened in the evenings, I’d dip into his mind to see what he was doing, and what he’d been up to since the sun took me. No matter how busy my evening and night promised to be, I spent time with him before I rose. He didn’t know it, but that couldn’t be helped.