Rowan, only ten herself, hadn’t thought, she’d just acted, throwing herself on her father’s arm, trying to pry Erin free. “Rowan Pamela,” he’d snapped, “you know very well that disrespect and disobedience will not be tolerated in this house.” She knew what that meant. Her father was a firm believer in not sparing the rod, and had “spanked” both Rowan and Jenna black and blue for the most minor infractions. But Erin was so small, so tender. Rowan knew she could stand the punishment much better than her innocent baby sister. Little had she known.
In a trembling voice she’d begged her father to let Erin go, had lied and sworn she’d set Erin up to be rude, had dared her to be sassy. Stone had looked at her for a long time, speculation in his cold blue eyes. In retrospect, Rowan knew he’d seen through her lie. He’d seen a way, even then, to use the three girls against each other.
He’d spanked Erin, but lightly, with his hand. He’d looked into her glowing sapphire eyes and explained very seriously that she must never allow someone else, even her sister, to cause her to be bad. Bad girls had to be punished. And to make sure she understood he’d had her watch as he punished Rowan.
That had been the first time he’d had someone else hold the strap. The first time he’d drawn blood.
Afterwards as she’d lain on her stomach on her bed, Erin had come to sit beside her and pet her hair.
“Why’d you do that?” her baby sister had asked, and Rowan thought she meant why Rowan had taken her punishment.
“I didn’t want him to hurt you,” she’d answered, her voice a little raw from screaming.
“Then you shouldn’t have told me to sass Daddy,” Erin had replied, stunning Rowan into silence.
“I shouldn’t have what?” Rowan had turned her head to stare at her sister in disbelief. “I didn’t! You know that. I lied to him. I didn’t want him to hurt you.”
Erin had just shaken her head with the solemn seriousness that only a six-year-old can possess.
“Now you’re lying, Rowey. Daddy said you would. He said you’re a bad girl, and bad girls lie.” Erin had leaned in closer, whispering. “I still love you, Rowey. Even if you’re bad. But don’t try to get me in trouble again, ‘kay?”
Yeah, Rowan remembered it as if it were yesterday.
“Well, Rowan Pamela, what do you have to say for yourself?” Rowan shuddered at the sound of her father’s voice, so soft and benevolent, at the touch of his hand, so gentle on her cheek.
“I can’t say anything until I know what I’m supposed to have done, Father,” she rasped out with more defiance than she felt.
“So disrespectful,” he tsked, patting her cheek briskly, just short of a slap. “Is it any wonder I have to keep reminding you of where your duty and your loyalty lie?” He turned to the guard who stood just out of her line of sight. “Karl, will you please demonstrate to my daughter what happens to bad little girls?”
Rowan closed her eyes and breathed deeply as the guard’s malevolent chuckle drifted over her bare skin, followed by the fiery lick of the whip.
He was still laughing when the blood began to flow. Still laughing when the darkness took her.
* * * *
Erin sat on the cot next to Rowan, stroking her damp hair back from her face. Jordan--Dr. Jordan Baker--had been in earlier to tend her injuries. Her poor back. It was criss-crossed with lash marks, crusted over with blood and purple with bruising.
Rowan blinked hesitantly, her eyes slowly coming into focus, and Erin dropped to her knees on the floor by the cot.
“Oh, Ro, why do you insist on pushing him?” It was what she always said while she cared for Rowan after one of her beatings. She kept her voice soft even as she watched Rowan’s expression clear and harden.
“I didn’t do anything Erin. I never do. You know this.” And that was what Rowan always said. As usual, Erin felt a little twinge at the words--a flicker of a headache, a twist in her guts, a faint idea that there was something she should remember. As usual, Erin focused on the discomfort to push the confusion back down, down, down, so far in her subconscious that it might not even exist.
Shaking her head, Erin ran a soft, wet cloth down Rowan’s back, wincing as her sister hissed in pain. The cloth was soaked in an antiseptic and had enough topical painkillers to numb her for hours.
“Ro, I don’t know what you did this time, but I do know that Daddy wouldn’t punish you for nothing. He’s not a monster.” He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. He was all Erin had. She needed him to be strong and infallible.
“Jenna came for me,” Rowan finally sighed. Erin went tense, every muscle on high alert.
“She’s okay?” She’d never been as close to Jenna as she was to Rowan, but Erin loved her dreamy oldest sister, and had worried herself sick when she’d run away. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Rowan answered. Erin could all but hear the second part of her answer. Rowan wouldn’t tell her even if she did know. She didn’t trust Erin not to tell their father. Well, of course she’d tell their father. The man was even more upset by Jenna’s disappearance than Erin was.
“I do know she’s mated,” Rowan continued, and Erin thought, mated? Not married? “To a Vampire,” Rowan added.
“She’s what?” Erin didn’t even try to hide her horror. The image of their mother, body battered, throat ripped out, was never far from her mind. Their sweet, loving mother had been savaged by night creatures, raped and tortured before one of them, a Vampire, had finished her off.
“She’s taken a Vampire mate,” Rowan repeated calmly. “He’ll take care of her,” she added softly. “Father captured a Dragon who came with her to get me.” Erin knew she meant they’d come to rescue them both. “I took him some water and cleaned him up a bit. I suppose that was my big crime this time.”
“I don’t understand you,” Erin snapped. Her temper was rising, and with it a nagging headache. “Either of you. How can you just forget what they did to Mom?” The pain in her head spiked, and she took a deep, breath before she continued. “How can you calmly say Jenna’s mated to a monster, and you’ve been nursing another one? God, Ro. No wonder Daddy keeps after you.”
Rowan held her gaze for a long moment, something so sad and filled with pity in her eyes that Erin wanted to scream, to claw something. Then her sister dropped her head back to the bed and closed her eyes.
“Go away, Erin.” Her voice was infinitely tired, infinitely sad. “You’re not helping.”
Erin’s eyes stung, her throat closed on the words she didn’t want to say, didn’t even want to think. Instead she leaned in and whispered, “Try not to piss him off again, Ro. You may be strong, but even you couldn’t handle another whipping right now.” Before Rowan could reply, Erin rose and slipped from the room, her heart a lead weight in her chest.
* * * *
In his office William Stone watched the closed-circuit screen with satisfaction. Erin had worried him for a moment, looking almost willing to believe her scheming sister. But as always, the memory of her mother’s mutilated body snapped his youngest daughter--his oldest experiment--back into line.
Doreen’s murder had been one of his more brilliant moves, he had to admit. And allowing Erin to discover the body had been the cherry on top.
William leaned back in his chair and studied the live video of Erin as she stood in the corridor outside Rowan’s cell. She’d raised a hand to the back of her neck and was massaging it. Eyes closed, brows furrowed, she was clearly in pain. This was a new development. One that could produce some interesting results. He could hardly wait to see what happened next.
* * * *
Aidan was still chained when he woke again, but at least this time he could see. He spent a few minutes flexing, from his toes on up, taking inventory of what seemed to be in working order and what felt a bit worse for the wear. All in all, nothing much hurt, save a tender spot below his balls. Almost as if...
The rage was sudden and all consuming. That bloody fuckin’ bastard had done some sort
of cutting down there, and Aidan could make a good guess as to why. With the rage came the pain, the excruciating knife through the brain that stole his focus and made the room go foggy and gray.
Lost in the pain, he almost didn’t hear the door open. Almost. Then a tendril of scent, a whisper of sound, and Aidan knew she was back. Rowan.
“Relax, Dragon.” Her voice had lost some of its huskiness, but none of its sensual appeal. “The more upset you get, the worse your head is going to hurt.”
“What do you mean?” He couldn’t keep the growl out of his voice. Didn’t really want to. William Stone had been messing with his fuckin’ balls, and he wanted some answers.
“It’s just...” she sounded uncertain, almost afraid to continue. There was something in her voice that made his blood run cold, and something off in her scent that called out to the Dragon. Fuck. His head was splitting.
“Get over here,” he barked. He was sick and tired of being chained, being blinded, being out of control. She moved his way, but slowly. The grace he’d noted during her previous visit was a memory. She approached him now with the careful movements of someone recovering from a grievous injury. All at once he realized what was wrong with her scent. “You’re bleedin’. Where?”
She flinched a little at his throttled roar, and he had a split second vision of Karl, the guard who’d removed her from his cell. He didn’t like to see her flinch, not at all, and certainly not away from him. Which made no sense at all since he was still about fifty percent convinced she was the enemy.
“It’s not a big deal,” she murmured, coming to stand by his bed. He reached out to grab her and was brought up fast by the chain attached to the cuff on his wrist. He gestured impatiently, and she perched on the edge of the bed.
“It’s bad enough I can smell the blood, woman.” For some reason having her close helped quell the rage, and finally his head began to clear. “Now tell me what’s happened to you, and then tell me why I’ve an incision behind my balls and an axe in my skull.”
* * * *
Oh, dear God. What had her father done?
“An,” she hesitated, clearing her throat, “incision?”
“Feels like it. Someone definitely was jabbin’ something around down there.” Rowan’s mind raced with the different motives her father might have to mess with the Dragon’s... parts. None of them were good. “Hey,” his rough tone jerked her attention back. “Don’t go changin’ the subject.” Those electric blue eyes caught hers and held. “What’s happened to you?”
There was probably no reason not to tell him. His knowledge, or lack thereof, in this particular area wouldn’t change anything. Still, she hated to tell him, hated the idea of his disbelief, or worse, his pity.
“Suffice it to say, my father doesn’t approve of my being so accommodating of his guests.”
Lightning flashed in his eyes and he abruptly ground his head back into the pillow with a low moan of pain.
“Shit,” she squeaked, automatically leaning over him, bracing one hand on the far side of his hip and laying the other on his forehead, trying to smooth away the deep grooves dug into his brow by the pain. “Calm down, Dragon. You need to calm down.”
“You mean to say,” he finally gritted out, “that your sick freak of a father hurt you for giving me fuckin’ water?” His voice dropped with each word until, by the end, it was a rumbling growl she felt vibrate clear to her core. Rowan blinked a couple of times in surprise. She’d seen the ugly side of sex more times than she wanted to count. Never had anyone or anything caused that little tingle deep in her womb.
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, tethering it to the bed by his hip. Not that she was trying to get away. She was too weary, in too much pain, and too fricking confused by her body’s response to him.
“Answer me,” he growled, giving her wrist a little squeeze that should have made her feel threatened, but instead made her feel oddly protected.
“Fine,” she growled back. “Yes. My father set me up to discover you in here. He knew I’d do whatever I could to help you, and that would give him an excuse to have me punished.” Anger, embarrassment, and something she thought might be lust roiled in her gut, and Rowan jerked her hand free of his hold. She knew the only reason she managed to get away was because she caught him by surprise, and the knowledge fanned that little spark in her core, pissing her off even more. This was so not the time to discover her libido. And this was so not the male to discover it with.
“Show me.” The violence hadn’t left his voice, but it softened, as if he didn’t want to scare her.
“Why?” She didn’t know what disturbed her worse, the idea of baring herself to him, or the revulsion he was sure to feel at the sight of her mutilated back.
“Because you were hurt for helping me. Because if you could stand to take it, I can damn well honor you by witnessing it. Because I want to have the image of it in my head when I kill your fuckin’ father.”
His voice was low and intense and utterly sincere. No one had ever tried to fight for her. No one but Jenna, and Rowan always hid the absolute worst of the abuse from her sister because she knew Jenna couldn’t stand the punishment she’d take if she confronted their father.
“Dragon, what possible good could come from that?” But she knew that if he asked just once more, she would show him. His rage on her behalf was like a balm to her battered heart.
“My name’s not Dragon.” The non sequitur surprised her. She’d expected, wanted, him to insist. “It’s Aidan. Call me by my name.”
“Aidan.” She didn’t recognize her own voice. Hell, she didn’t recognize her own mind.
“Now show me, Rowan. Let me see your sacrifice on my behalf.”
She stood as if in a trance and turned her back to him. Her t-shirt was baggy and old, soft from hundreds of washings. She cringed a little at the feel of the soft cotton brushing over the welts on her back, and quivered when he hissed at the sight of them. She found herself clutching the shirt to her chest, a kind of defense mechanism, too little too late.
“Come here,” his voice was soft and full of gravel. Once again, she couldn’t resist. Slowly, grasping her shirt like armor, she moved back to sit on the edge of his cot. “Turn around.” She did, automatically scooting back, closer to his side.
He shifted with a jangle of chains, and something brushed gently over her back. Something soft and warm and damp. She whipped her head around in shock. Aidan had propped himself up on his elbows and was straining to reach her. He was kissing her wounds. Feathering his lips and tongue over them in a gentle benediction that stole away the pain better than any drug she’d ever had pumped into her veins.
Shock held her immobile for long seconds before reality set in and she jerked out of his reach, and lurched off the cot. Her ripped flesh protested the sudden movement, and she crushed a groan of pain.
“You can’t do that,” she gasped, turning quickly to pull her shirt back over her head.
“Why not?” He sounded totally reasonable, but when she turned to face him, his eyes were raging.
“Oh, for so many reasons.” She was backing toward the door, suddenly desperate to escape. He saw too much. He made her feel too much.
“Don’t go,” he demanded, clearly well and truly pissed by her retreat.
“I can’t stay,” she countered. It was true. Not only would staying be disastrous to her peace of mind, but Erin had been right when she said Rowan couldn’t tolerate another beating so soon, and staying with Aidan was an engraved invitation for William to break out the floggers. “I’ll come back,” she promised, somehow compelled to reassure him. “As soon as I can.”
He held her eyes for a long, tense moment, then finally nodded reluctantly.
“See that you do, Luv.” He ordered. His tone was barely above a whisper compelling her to return as soon as she could manage it.
* * * *
That bloody fuckin’ son of a bitch had whipped her. His own daughter. And for what? F
or bringing Aidan a cup of fuckin’ water!
He’d thought he’d known the scope of Stone’s evil. Jenna had tried to show him the error of his ways, but he’d really thought he understood the man. Now Aidan realized he could never understand. He might be a bloody bastard most of the time, but Aidan lacked that fundamental core of corruption that allowed a man to whip his own fuckin’ daughter.
Maybe if he’d come from a different culture Aidan would have been less horrified. Dragons weren’t particularly prolific, and they treasured their children above all else. Then again, maybe any culture would view Stone’s actions with horror.
And then, there was Aidan’s own reaction to the sight of Rowan’s scars. He’d been filled, not with pity, but with admiration and respect. The woman had balls, and strength, the likes of which he’d never witnessed in a human. He was also flooded with the unfamiliar and uncomfortable need to comfort her. It had been completely natural and instinctive to kiss her wounds, and the instinct stunned him as much as it obviously stunned her.
Ah, but I am well and truly fucked.
Chapter Three
Rowan woke slowly, in fits and starts.
“You need to eat something.” Erin had looked determined when she cornered Rowan in the mansion’s small library.
“That’s not something I hear much,” Rowan had responded with a dry smile. It was true. While Erin was always tactful, William and his flunkies felt no need to hide their disdain for her extra pounds.
“Oh, don’t start.” Erin had given her a ferocious, melodramatic scowl and presented her with a steaming cup of hot and sour soup. Rowan’s favorite. Rowan looked at her sister with brows raised in amusement.
She couldn’t move. Not an entirely unfamiliar sensation, really. When her mind was a little clearer Rowan knew she’d be able to list every single time over the last twenty-eight years that she’d awakened tethered to a hospital bed either by physical restraints or by chemical ones.