TAKEN

CHAPTER 9

“The island isn’t very big, so you won’t get lost if you go for a walk, but you need to let someone know where you are at all times. The only part you’re not allowed to go to is the east side.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“Which way is East? I have no sense of direction here.”

He takes my hand, surprising me, and walks me to the opposite edge of the house and points. It’s strange, but it’s almost as though it’s darker on that side of the island. Although I’m sure that’s not true. And from above the trees, I see the gray stone roof of a building.

“What’s there?” I ask.

“The family mausoleum.”

“Oh.” That’s all he needed to say.

It’s awkward for a moment, and I clear my throat.

“You said Lucinda Scafoni is your stepmother?”

“My mother died when I was two. Lucinda lived with us. She’s my aunt, actually. My mother’s sister. She married my father soon after my mother’s death.”

“Oh.” That seems to be the only word I can speak today. “That’s…weird.”

“I guess.” He actually smiles. Like a genuine smile.

“So your brothers are half-brothers?”

“Yes.”

He’s tight-lipped about his family, and I want more of the story, but there are more important things than his family history right now.

“Can I have contact with my family?” He studies me.

“Just my Aunt Helena, maybe. She’s very old. I’d like to call her.”

“Tell her about our brutal ways?”

“She knows your ways. She was the Willow Girl seventy years ago.”

He grows serious.

“I don’t know how much longer she has.” I don’t say more because I already feel the backs of my eyes warming, as if the tear ducts are preparing to do their work.

“I’ll think about it.”

I almost want to argue, to push, but something tells me it’ll be wiser to just give him some time. After all, he didn’t say no.

I walk toward the pool, slip off a sandal, and dip my toe in the water. He follows me and takes a seat on one of the lounge chairs, legs wide like men tend to sit.

After slipping off both sandals, I walk to the edge of the tiled area and onto the grass. It’s soft and cool beneath my feet as I make my way to what I think I saw from my room, a vegetable garden. It’s much bigger than I realized. I pass two fig trees bursting with the fat, ripe fruit. I pick one, break off the stem, and watch creamy milk run down my palm. I eat it and pick another as I continue walking to where I hear the animals.

I see they have chickens and some lambs. One comes right up to the fence when he sees me, and I pet his curious head. I had a pet lamb when I was little. Well, it’s not like she was given to me as a pet, I just made her that. Named her Honey. She was slaughtered soon after.

I still remember being made to sit at the table until I ate hours after my sisters had gone to bed. After that, I refused any meat.

When I head back toward the pool, I notice something up on a slight hill at the opposite end of the vegetable patch. It’s the only ugly thing in sight, and it takes all I have to drag my eyes away. I only do when I hear him come up the path to meet me, and I know he’s seen that I’ve seen it.

What had I thought, that he was joking? That it was a figure of speech?

I clear my throat. “Thanks for the tour. I’m going to go inside.”

“But we’re not finished.”

I glance over his shoulder at the whipping post again and take a step away, but he steps in my path and takes my arms.

His eyes grow dark, intense. I concentrate my attention on his neck. I can’t hold his gaze.

“You didn’t ask what that was,” he says.

“Let me go.”

“Ask.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Ask anyway, Willow Girl.”

I look up at him; I’d been avoiding his eyes. “Is this like Simon Says? You call me Willow Girl, and I have to do what you say?”

One side of his mouth curves upward. “You always have to do what I say.” “I’d almost forgotten.”

“Ask me what it is, Willow Girl.”

“I don’t need to ask. I know.”

He remains studying me so intimately, I can’t look away.

“Say it.”

“No.”

“Say it, Helena.”

“It’s the post where you whip us Willow Girls.”

His eyes have gone almost black, and I see his throat work when he swallows.

I shake my head, drop my gaze.

“This is archaic. This…reaping, the blocks, the whipping post,” I say, and again, heat burns the backs of my eyes.

“It’s tradition. It’s the tradition of our families. You’ll do it too, with your daughters, if you’re the one to birth the quadruplets.”

I shake my head. “The Willow Girl is never the one.” The ring on my finger burns, and it’s like it gives me strength. Like it’s Aunt Helena giving me courage. “And if I were, I wouldn’t give my daughters up, not without a fight.”

“Your parents didn’t fight.”

“You think I don’t know that.”

“Would you have run? Is that why they bound you, shackled you? Would you have bit me? Is that why they gagged you?”

“I would have killed you if I could have.”

He smiles, his eyes glow. “I like you, Willow Girl.”

“I don’t like you.”

“You don’t have to like me. You just have to obey me.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

He laughs. “Yes, you are.”

“No, you know what? You’re right. Half right. I am afraid of what you can do to me. I mean, I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours, and I already wear the marks to show me exactly how the next three years will go.”

“Do as I say, and you’ll survive.”

“By survive, you mean walk away after my time is up? What about after? Do you know the suicide rate of Willow Girls these days?” I feel my voice rising, wavering with emotion. “Do you?”

“Helena—”

“Why do you do it? Why take the girl? Now, I mean, in this day and age.”

“I told you, tradition.”

I shake my head, because that’s not it. He’s too modern for this. “There’s something else. There has to be.”

He c***s his head to the side. “Does it matter? I did take you. You’re mine now. That’s all you need to worry about.”

We stand quietly, me watching him, him watching me.

He’s right. It doesn’t matter, not for me. Not anymore.

“Come with me.”

He almost has to drag me up the path to the post, my legs growing heavier and heavier as we get nearer. When we finally stop in the clearing, I stare at my feet in the grass.

“Look up.”

“I don’t want to.” He moves behind me, holds me to him, and forces my head up by my chin. “Look up.”

I do. And it looms over me, this stone post buried in the ground with shackles hanging from the top. I don’t want to look too close because I see marks on it, areas that are worn smooth, and dark, human stains.

He walks me closer to it, and I’m powerless when he trails his fingers softly, like feathers, down my arms and captures my wrists. My heart races as he drags them upward, and the metal of the cuffs is cold when he closes them around my wrists.

“I didn’t do anything,” I say weakly.

“I have a question for you,” he says, ignoring my comment, sliding the tips of his fingers back down my arms, to my sides, into the opening at the sides of the dress to cup my breasts. He kneads my n*****s into points, and I swear I can feel his touch at my core.

I try to protest but my head drops back into the crook of his neck as he slips his right hand out and slides it lower, down to the front of the skirt of my dress, underneath it to my thigh, and up to my s*x.

“Does it turn you on as much as it does me?” he asks, grinding his erection against my back while his fingers work my p***y.

I turn my face a little, so I can see him.

“It turns you on to have a woman bound to a whipping post?” I suck in a breath when he pinches my c**t.

“Not any woman. You.”

“Me. A Willow Girl. A Willow Whipping girl.”

He grips my hair and brings his mouth to my ear. “My Willow Whipping Girl.”

I shudder.

“Now don’t bite.” He kisses me, and I don’t bite, not this time. He slips his tongue inside my mouth. I’m so wet when he turns me, and the chains easily accommodate him.

Sebastian draws back and reaches behind my neck to untie the halter top.

I wonder if he planned this. If this is what he intended all along, giving me this particular dress. And I think the answer is yes when it falls to my feet and I’m naked and bound.

He pulls back to look at me, His fingers are working my p***y, and I’m so wet, I can hear myself.

“Come, Helena.”

“No.”

“Come.”

“I don’t want to.”

I close my eyes, and he cups my ass with his other hand and squeezes. The pain makes me flinch, but then he kneads my c**t, rubs it, smearing my own moisture all over it, and I suck in a loud breath and I know it’s useless to fight him. I’m close, I’m so close. I open my eyes and see his smile and draw back or try to.

“I hate you,” I say, the words forced as my knees buckle and I come. I come so hard it’s running down my legs and I can hardly breathe because it feels so f*****g good.

He leans in close to my ear, still working my c**t, still squeezing my ass. “Come on the post where your ancestors have been whipped raw. Where I’ll whip you when your time comes.”

I’m listening to him, my body shuddering with this forced pleasure. He doesn’t let go of my p***y when it’s finished, when the orgasm passes. Not yet. Instead, fingers smeared with his juices, he slides them backward, to my ass, and rubs and watches my face as he does.

“It’s not all bad, is it, the whipping post. I’ll teach you to come even when it hurts.”

And as if to prove his point, he crouches down and cups my ass and squeezes hard, hurting the bruised flesh as he closes his mouth over my too sensitive c**t and sucks. I come again, come on his tongue until I’m almost limp, my legs no longer able to hold me up.

He rises to his feet and grips my hair and kisses me hard. All I can taste is myself. Me on his tongue, his face. My scent clinging to him.

And then, a moment later, he stops, draws back. “What happened to you fighting me?” he asks, c*****g his head to the side. “Where’s the fight you promised?” His voice is low, deep, mocking.

“Let me down from here.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out my pocket knife, opens it. He holds out his arm, and I watch him slice his skin, just below the crease of his elbow.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“My notch.”

He doesn’t even flinch. Just closes the knife and looks at me. Any humor is gone from his eyes. He doesn’t say a word as he pockets it and turns to walk away.

“Where are you going?” I yell after him, tugging at the restraints which seem to tighten as I struggle. “Sebastian!”

He stops, turns.

“I have a meeting,” he says, making a point of checking his watch. “And as for what I’m doing, I’m being gentle with you, considering the caning you endured. Think of this as what you’re owed for all the back talk, the bad behavior. I forget nothing, and I forgive nothing, not without punishment, Helena. Think about that as you spend a few hours here and thank your lucky stars this is all I’m doing.”

“Come back! You can’t leave me here like this. Come back, damn it!”

But he doesn’t even look back. He just walks on, crosses the pool and disappears into the house.