Sophie Oak: Bound

For my girls. Every time I write a heroine, I think of you, my daughters. You girls are everything I could want in a heroine – smart and honest, loyal and brave. May you both find your happy ever afters, my loves.

Now put the book down. Until you’re at least thirty. Forty. Just put the book down…

Once upon a time, in a land closer than you would think…

The light made her eyes burn, so she was happy for the enormous shadow that suddenly blocked the sun. As her vision adjusted, she realized that the shadow had the most piercing eyes she’d ever seen. Meg Starke shrank back in fear. Well, she shrank back as far as the chains binding her would allow.

A deep voice said something in a lilting language she didn’t understand, and suddenly, the curtain to the tent dropped. She could see again. The shadow was a man, a beautiful, terrifying man.

“She does not speak Gaelic, Your Highness,” the small man who served as her jailer said softly.

The dark man grimaced and immediately switched to English. “I have no title here, Rhys. Speak to me as you would any other customer.” He looked at her straight in the eyes for the first time. She felt a thrill of excitement. Not excitement. Fear. The racing of her heart had to be fear, right? Meg couldn’t figure it out, but she knew the huge man in front of her made her do the one thing she was worried she might never do again—feel.

“What’s your name then, love?” His voice rolled over her skin, even from across the tent.

“My name is Twenty to Life because that’s the time you’ll do for kidnapping me, you son of a bitch.” Meg was sick of being terrified. The last couple of days washed over her. Her kidnapping couldn’t be erased because the man in front of her had a lovely voice. She had been hauled straight off the streets of Fort Worth and taken god knew where. She’d been stripped naked, bathed, and chained into some form of medieval torture device. She pulled again at the chains that bound her hands over her head, but they would not move.

Meg waited for the broad man to strike her, wanting to get it over with. She had been unconscious for quite a while, but she didn’t think it could have been more than a full day since her kidnapping. She still remembered that moment when the tall, thin man had laid his cold hands on her. She’d looked up into his bloodred eyes and then recalled nothing until she woke up in this place.

After the initial assault, she had been shocked to find herself treated with something akin to reverence. The small men and women who acted as her jailers had been nothing but tender when it came to her person. Her small cell, one of several in the large tent, had been lined with pillows and sumptuous blankets. The chains she was bound in now had a lining to protect her skin, and though she stood naked, the little jailers had been discrete.

Even the food had been tempting, but Meg had seen enough crazy serial killer movies to know that eventually someone was going to smack her, rape her, and then potentially gut her. It looked like that was the big, hot guy’s job. She waited to feel the terrible blow that would likely signal the end of her life, but the man with the pitch black hair simply smiled. His sensual lips spread to show even, white teeth. Meg had to catch her breath. When he smiled, he was devastating.

“All right then, Twenty,” the man allowed in his lilting accent. “My name is Beckett, but you can call me Beck. And my mother was actually quite nice. I would prefer you didn’t curse her. Yell at me all you like, but let’s leave my mother out of it. Tell me, love, why should I purchase you instead of these other lovely women?”

Meg let her eyes grow round as saucers. “I’m being sold? Someone is selling me like a piece of fucking meat?”

Beck shook his head. “Language there, darlin’. You’re in a market, trussed up like a pretty, plump pigeon. Did you think you were just hanging on the chains for show?”

“Your…I apologize, sir. The girl is rather ignorant,” said the small man named Rhys. He barely came to Beck’s waist. Compared to Beck, he looked like a boy. A boy with a bushy beard and a pointy red cap. All the jailers wore them.

“I am not ignorant, asshole.” Meg wasn’t sure why the other women weren’t screaming at the violation of their persons, but there was no way she was going out without a fight. “I have two, count them, two degrees. I have a bachelor’s in both History and English Literature.” Combined, they had only been enough to get her a job managing a software store, but, by god, she had them. Of course, now she wished she’d chucked her college education in favor of some self-defense training. She was pretty sure her knowledge of Chaucer and the War of 1812 wouldn’t help her out of her current dilemma.

“I did not mean it that way.” Rhys’s fists clenched in obvious frustration. Meg noticed that he always tried to maintain a soft tone when speaking to her. He was polite, even when she cursed him. “The girl is obviously intelligent, though lacking in any kind of manners. She is from the Earth plane.”

Beck turned from the smaller man and back to her, his mouth hanging slightly open. He stared at her, as though he couldn’t quite process the words. It gave Meg a chance to study him.

He was tall. He had to be at least six foot four. He would tower over her. Meg herself was only five foot five, and a rather rounded one at that. The god in front of her didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. He was broad-shouldered. His arms were thick with muscle, though he didn’t look like some steroid-crazy gym guy. He’d earned his muscles. Meg would bet he hadn’t earned them pumping iron. He worked, and at hard, most likely physical, labor. His skin was bronzed from the sun.

If his body was heavenly, then Meg didn’t know how to describe his face. It was all sharp planes and harsh angles that came together to form something truly beautiful. His jaw looked like it was carved out of granite. But his eyes were like soft, gray stones in his face. He was, without a doubt, the loveliest man she had ever seen.

It was too bad he was obviously insane. Beck looked like an escapee from a Renaissance fair, with his open-necked, linen shirt under a leather vest. His trousers were made from some sort of animal skin, as were the boots that came to his knees. Meg could see a sword peeking from behind his shoulder, held by a scabbard across his back.

“Is she really from the Earth plane?” Beck asked.

“Yes, sir. You can see why I called you.” They both stared at her like she was some rare exotic creature at a zoo.

Suspicion tickled at Meg’s consciousness. Why exactly was she here? She’d read articles about human trafficking. She bit her lower lip and looked at the five other girls in the tent with her. They were trussed up in the same fashion, though these women kept their heads lowered and complied with their jailers’ requests. Earlier this morning, they had been taken out of their cages and chained up for what seemed like some sort of presentation. Beck had been the first man to come through the tent. “You shouldn’t buy me. I’m not very pretty. The other girls are prettier. They’re thinner, too.”

They were, Meg acknowledged. The other women were all blondes. They looked like something out of a Swedish high fashion magazine. Meg knew she was a little overweight. She carried around an extra five or ten pounds that never seemed to go away. She was an overblown hourglass in a world where svelte was worshipped.