Ten

TEN

Veronica carried a load of laundry up the stairs late one afternoon. She usually folded it in the playroom because there was so much space on the floor to stack everything. It would have been better to take the laundry up in two trips, but she’d piled it all in the basket to make less work. She’d almost reached the top when her foot slipped, and she fell.

She let out a howl of pain as she struggled to stand. The laundry had gone everywhere, but she didn’t care about that. Tears stung her eyes. She couldn’t put any weight on her foot without screaming. It’s broken. The panicky thought rose inside of her. It could be twisted or sprained or just bruised, but deep inside she knew.

What would happen when Luke found out? He obviously didn’t trust her enough to give her shoes. He hadn’t taken her out of the house since that one day with the ice cream and the lake—the day she’d tried to blot out of her memory because it had scared her so badly. If she could just erase that day, she could make peace with being here. Ironically, the one thing Luke had done to try to force her trust had eroded it.

He couldn’t take her to the hospital. It was too big of a risk. They would separate them in the emergency room and she’d have a way out. He couldn’t threaten her with the cuff because if they found it on her, he was done. And the brand on her hip was all the evidence anybody would need. Even if he just dropped her off at the hospital and left, and she didn’t know how to get to his house... even if she hadn’t known his full name, that brand was registered with the state. It would lead the police back to him.

Would he kill her? She hadn’t been afraid for her life in months, but now... What did you do with a lame horse? Wasn’t that the kind of attitude Luke had been raised with? Didn’t he see her as just another one of his animals now? They’d had a good run, and now he’d have to take her out back and shoot her?

The rational side of her said that was ridiculous. Luke would never do that. But would she have believed before she came here that he would have done any of the rest? When she’d sat in the diner with her coworker, watching him put away that giant breakfast?

The day leaving the lake, he hadn’t answered about what if the cop had found him. If she’d been under the water, there was a good chance Luke would have kept her there to save his hide. He’d been adamant about not going to prison, which seemed funny for a man so comfortable with doing crime.

Maybe it wasn’t broken. Or maybe it would heal okay on its own. She didn’t have to do outdoor chores right now, just stuff inside. Nobody saw her except at meal times and Luke in the evenings. Maybe she could cover it long enough to heal a little. Then she could plead her case. If it was broken it could heal wrong and always hurt, or make her walk wrong or look strange, but at least she’d be alive. Assuming Luke didn’t find her repulsive after that.

Veronica scrubbed the tears off her face. Ice. Whatever it was, ice might help. She crawled to the kitchen, unable to put even the smallest amount of weight on it without agony and pulled herself up on one foot next to the freezer to make an ice pack. Her foot was swelling fast. There was no way she’d be able to keep it a secret for long.

He’d know tonight. Even so, she couldn’t stop herself from trying to hide all evidence that anything was wrong. After she’d iced it, she crawled back to the laundry to get it out of sight. Thankfully she didn’t have to worry about dinner tonight. Chili had been going in the crock pot since after breakfast.

She made it to the couch and covered her legs with a blanket and read the five-year-old magazine Luke wouldn’t toss.

The kitchen door clanged shut an hour later.

“Why isn’t the table set?”

“I-I’m sorry, Master.”

“Well, get in here.” He stood in the doorway watching her, an irritated look on his face that she’d keep him waiting when he’d been out working so hard all day.

He watched her as she struggled to stand. She tried to mask it, thinking she could force herself to step on the foot just a little, and he wouldn’t notice. But when she tried, the pain shot through her sending her to the floor.

“What the hell happened?”

She cringed at his tone, and scooted away. “I hurt my foot. It’s nothing, really. I’m fine. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

“Let me see it,” he demanded.

Veronica cried harder as she showed him. It was silly to think he wouldn’t have noticed—even if she’d tried to walk normally and succeeded. It was too swollen.

He let out a low whistle when he saw the damage. “I’m going to get you changed and take you out to the truck.”

“Please don’t kill me,” she blurted out, the panic edging out her pain. “I’m yours. Please. It’ll heal. I’ll get better.” She’d started shaking and couldn’t get the tremors to stop.

“For God’s sake. Why would I kill you?”

“Well... I k-know you can’t take me to the hospital...”

“Like hell I can’t. Where else did you think I’d take you?”

Veronica wisely shut her mouth. If the thought hadn’t occurred to him how close her freedom and his imprisonment were, she wasn’t going to remind him of the risks.

“I told you I’d never kill anything that looks like her. Never hurt anything that looks like her. Did you not hear me when I said that? God dammit, do you think I’m a liar?” His voice rose as he spoke.

“N-no, Master. I’m sorry.”

He carried her upstairs and changed her out of the corset and into a sweater, then he carried her to the truck.

The drive was quiet, and a part of her wondered if he was telling the truth about the hospital. Surely he had to know this could end badly for him. Why would he put himself at risk?

As if he’d read her mind, he said, “You’re not going to tell them anything. I know what you need, Veronica. I may not have done it in a legal or moral way, but I gave you work to do and a safe place to live and food and clothes. You’re happy with me. You know you are. I took you away from that shitty life you had. And I know how much you want me, how much you crave what we do. Your body tells me, and sometimes your eyes do, too. Think about all that when they take you back. Think about the fact that I haven’t damaged you, or done anything you haven’t ultimately gotten off on. Think about the life you’d have to go back to if you turned me in. I know you aren’t going to do it. What reason besides silly pride would you have to throw your life away?”

There was no fear in his voice when he said it. He wasn’t trying to convince himself, he was already convinced. He truly believed she had a better life as his slave than she’d had in New York, where she’d only been a slave of a different type. In the city she’d been a slave of the impersonal debt hanging over her head and her job with the lack of people to reach out to for help. But despite his conviction, there were still things that didn’t match the words he spoke.

“If you believe that, why don’t I have shoes? It’s winter.”

He shrugged. “I like you that way. Vulnerable. Sexy. It’s just because I like it. I didn’t think you’d run. I haven’t thought that for a while.”

“But you haven’t taken me out, not since that day...”

“God dammit, Veronica, do you WANT me to kill you?”

“N-no, Master.”

“Then stop arguing against yourself and be grateful I’m taking you to a doctor instead of putting a bullet in your head. Fuck.”

His knuckles were white against the steering wheel as he drove. When they passed the road that led to the lake, his gaze went that way, as if for one fleeting moment he considered taking her back and drowning her. Veronica held her breath, silently praying he wouldn’t make that choice. Then he turned and went the other direction into town, and she released the air.

When they reached the hospital, Luke carried her to an empty corner and sat her down on a padded bench where she could keep her foot up. When he went to the front to sign in, the receptionist shoved a bunch of papers in his face attached to a clipboard.

Veronica sat quietly next to him while he filled out the paperwork. Under name, he wrote: Patricia Walker.

Once again she wondered at his sanity and how firm his grasp on reality was. How safe could she be with a man who didn’t really know who she was? Or couldn’t stop forgetting?

“Luke?” she whispered, afraid she’d get in trouble for calling him by his first name, but knowing realistically she was safe here with so many witnesses around.

He looked up. “Hmmm?”

She pointed at the name on the forms, unsure how to phrase her question in a safe way. Thankfully, she didn’t have to.

His voice was low when he spoke. “Part of the benefit to you in being kidnapped is that you no longer have to worry about your debt. You want to change that now with a paper trail?”

He was protecting her.

“But... it’s insurance fraud.” Like such a thought should matter to him in the face of kidnapping.

“I’m paying cash.”

“Oh.”

She looked down at her hands while he finished filling out the forms, occasionally asking her questions such as allergies that could put her in harm’s way if incorrect. Wouldn’t they know Trish was dead? Even if she looked enough like her and even if most of the people here weren’t on a first name basis with Luke and Trish, wouldn’t it come out that he was giving a dead woman’s information?

They had to wait an hour before someone took her back. He held her and stroked her hair the whole time.

Alone in the hospital room, Veronica thought again about escape. She could leave now, easily. Anyone would believe her if she showed them the brand on her hip. Even if the cattle brand had been consensual, it would have been hard, if not impossible, to convince a normal person of that. She was home free if she wanted it.

But Luke was right, where would she go? She couldn’t go back to the city where she could barely see the sky for all the buildings and crowds of people. It was too stifling. There was no space there. Everyone was shoehorned in too tight. Human beings needed space. It was hard to breathe there for all the people, all the noise and stress. She needed to see the sky to feel right.

And her body had needs now that even with fantasies she couldn’t have foreseen. Sure, if she was free, her milk would dry up eventually, but did she want it to? The feeling of Luke drinking from her was exquisite. Beyond just basic survival, how would she go back to how she’d been? The answer was obvious. That door was closed. She couldn’t go back. She’d changed too much. He’d softened all her edges so much that the real world would just snag and cut her.

Before she’d always seen herself as strong and independent. But how independent could someone who couldn’t control their spending be? Had she spent out of loneliness? Unhappiness? She didn’t know, but since coming to the ranch she’d been free of it all. There had been no creditors calling, no bills or shopping urges. She’d been too busy with her list of chores to think about the mall.

Serving him and his men domestically and sexually should have broken her beyond repair, but in a weird way it had fixed what had already been broken a long time ago. Yet, sitting in the hospital room, surrounded by the normal people in the normal world, she was reminded of how wrong this all was. She’d been living in a haze, but in the hospital, the fog felt like it had lifted for a moment. Shouldn’t Luke pay for this?

On the balance sheet, he came out ahead with all he’d given her, but something inside her screamed that he must pay.

A nurse came in, then. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Walker. The man who brought you in, is that your husband? Boyfriend?”

Master. Owner. World.

“Boyfriend,” she lied. After all, she wore no ring. It was the most believable of the options presented. It was telling that brother or friend hadn’t been among the assumptions made.

The nurse wrote something down on a clipboard. “I’m sorry to have to ask this, but when a woman comes in with a man, injured like this, we have to. Has he hurt you?”

“No!” The word flew forcefully out of her mouth before she could stop to consider her answer. Luke was tall and strong. With the work he did he was so strong. Once the immediate fears had died, he was a place of safety she could hide in. Giving him up suddenly felt like opening the door for the tiger to eat her.

Thoughts of ending up starving, giving blow jobs in alleys to barely scrape by, perhaps finding fetishists to sell her milk to, had her quickly defending her captor.

“Are you sure? Because, if he’s hurt you in any way, we can protect you. We can get you to a safe house, and you can press charges. I know it might feel like life is over, but it’s not. You can start again. People can help you.”

She’d already started again. Luke was her do-over. Anything else was just moving backward.

Did her face show her inner conflict? It must if the nurse was pushing on what was supposedly a routine question. Had someone observed them in the waiting room? Had they seen timidity or fear on Veronica’s face? Had they seen her pull back from him when she was afraid he might become unhinged over the question about the name he’d written down? What other clues might they have seen? How much had her face given away? How much was it giving away now?

“I’m sorry, but this seems more than routine.”

“I apologize ma’am. I usually have an instinct for these things. I could, of course, be wrong.”

Veronica became angry. “Hell yes, you’re wrong. Luke hasn’t hurt me. You don’t know what he saved me from. He takes care of me. We’re paying good money at this hospital to be insulted this way.”

The nurse looked flustered and ducked her head. “I-I apologize. The doctor will be in to have a look at you in a few minutes.”

“Thank you.”

The nurse excused herself, and Veronica tried to calm down, to stop the trembling that had started in her hands again. All the adrenaline and fear of the day was catching up to her.

Within a few hours she’d been X-rayed and poked and prodded. Her initial gut reaction had been right. She’d broken a couple of bones in her foot. Thankfully, the breaks were clean and they were able to put her in a boot and gave her some crutches with instructions to come back in six weeks so they could check how she was healing.

When Veronica returned to Luke, he didn’t appear relieved or uncertain. He hadn’t doubted her for a moment. He knew she was his. If anything, the look on his face was smug and a touch arrogant. She wished that look didn’t make her so wet.

He wrote a check at the billing desk and helped her back into the truck. She hadn’t taken the out she’d been given, but in six weeks she’d have another opportunity. Deep down she knew she wouldn’t take that opportunity, either.

They’d been in the truck for about ten minutes when she finally worked up the nerve to ask the question that had been on her mind since he’d first filled out the forms in the waiting room. “Why would you fill out those forms with the name of a dead woman? Why didn’t anyone notice?”

She’d expected somebody to at least say something.

Luke let out a long sigh. “Because nobody knows she’s dead.”

Veronica felt the cab of the truck getting smaller, the oxygen seeping out, leaving her in a vacuum. She felt like that first night when he’d kidnapped her, riding in the truck, feeling like death or torture was only hours away.

She cringed when he reached across the seat and touched her knee. “I didn’t kill her, Ronnie. She’d wanted to do a home birth. She hadn’t even wanted a midwife. She had a fear of doctors and hospitals, wanted nothing to do with them. She said women had been giving birth for thousands of years without hospitals or specialized doctors. She read all about it and thought she could do it herself. I should have insisted. I was out herding cattle when she went into labor. It came on quick. The baby didn’t make it, and she bled to death.”

“If you didn’t do anything wrong, why does nobody know?” Veronica knew the question could cost her life. If he’d really killed Trish and had some kind of meltdown confession, surely it wouldn’t end well for her.

“I panicked. We didn’t go into town a lot, anyway. There were no medical records for her with the pregnancy. It just didn’t look right. The guys thought I’d be implicated because I didn’t get her to the hospital and hadn’t made her go for the checkups, like I’d been negligent. And I was, but she begged me not to make her go. She was distraught. On top of that, someone might just think I killed her. Ronnie, there was so much blood. She’d tried to make it out of the house... and there was just so much blood. There would have been a lot of questions. The guys helped me bury her and the baby.”

He’d gotten choked up, and his hands shook on the steering wheel.

Veronica’s heart beat so hard in her chest she could barely hear his words. Should she believe him? She couldn’t decide if his story was credible. He sounded sincere, but if he was some kind of girlfriend-killing sociopath, he’d sound sincere and make her believe it. Had Trish ever had an accident that the hospital staff was concerned about? Had people in town thought she was being abused? Had she been?

In the months he’d had Veronica, he’d never been violent. Yeah, he’d punished her in the playroom a few times and spanked her a few times, but it had always been controlled. Not like a killer or abusive boyfriend. Not like you saw on TV or in the movies. He’d never shown a particularly sadistic streak. He was more interested in sharing her and humiliating her than physically hurting her.

“I didn’t kill her,” he insisted. “How could you even think that? I loved her.”

Veronica stared out the window, not sure if she could look at him at the moment. “Did you make her fuck your ranch hands? Is that love to you? Do you even know what the word means?”

“That was her idea. The brand, the ranch hands. We had our rough patches trying to make it work, but nearly every kinky thing we did had been her idea.”

But it hadn’t been Veronica’s. He’d been so single-minded in trying to bring back his former lover that he’d taken a darker turn where her consent had meant nothing, because somewhere in his head, she was Trish, and Trish had given consent.

“I can’t be her.” Not only was it a physical impossibility, it hurt too much to be nothing more than a replacement. Like a Trish-shaped blow-up doll.

“I know.”

When they got back to the house, he carried her upstairs to bed. She’d expected to be in her room, but he set her up in his, instead, and brought a TV up to keep her entertained. They didn’t talk anymore about Trish that day. He made Veronica dinner and drank from her without her having to beg for it.

* * *

Weeks passedand she slowly began to hobble around. Luke had hired the services of a housekeeper to take over Veronica’s work and cook the meals while she recovered. During those weeks, he kept the playroom door locked.

She didn’t know what the housekeeper knew about her—probably nothing if the playroom door was locked. The woman could be an ally if she wanted out, but each day she bypassed each opportunity for rescue. Who would take care of her while she recovered? Where would she go? How would she live?

By the time the six-week checkup rolled around, Veronica had given up the fake excuses. She didn’t believe Luke had hurt Trish, and though she still felt confused about all the things that had happened between them, she wanted to stay. The break in their dynamic from her injury gave her a chance to see her master as just a person. A person who brought her evening meal to her and helped her bathe, and helped her when she made her first few trips down the stairs. A person who seemed concerned for her well-being.

At the checkup, she didn’t turn him in. She didn’t show them the brand on her hip. She didn’t do anything but discuss her foot and go back to the ranch. Soon, as she was able to take on her chores again, the housekeeper was released from her duties, Veronica’s last chance to escape drifting out the door with the matronly woman.

Slowly things went back to normal. He had her measured for new clothing, dresses that supported her breasts but left them exposed for his access. The dresses made her look like a serving wench or like what she imagined a Milk Maid would look like—according to Will’s definition. And he’d gotten her more corsets and jeans.

One Sunday afternoon after her foot had healed and she was walking normally again, Freida came over and took her to the playroom. Veronica thought something illicit was about to happen, but she had a box of hair dye and a comb and scissors and a smock. Nothing kinky.

“It’s okay, hun. I do this for a living,” the woman said, gently pushing her into a chair.

Veronica could only assume Luke had ordered this. But why? The woman worked quietly. Veronica couldn’t think of anything to say to her, and for her part, the hairdresser didn’t seem compelled to engage in small talk either, so they didn’t. When Freida was finished, Veronica’s long brown hair was chin length with bangs... and golden blonde.

Luke stepped into the room then.

“What do you think?” Freida asked.

“Perfect. Thank you.”

She packed up her things without further acknowledging Veronica, and left.

Luke sat on the leather sofa and watched her for a long time. He’d dressed her today in a corset and jeans. Trish’s clothes had been packed away as the new things Luke kept buying slowly replaced them.

“You don’t look like her anymore,” he said. He handed her a mirror, and it was true. With the bangs and new color, the resemblance had all but disappeared.

He went out into the hallway and came back with a large, wrapped box. “I got you something.”

Veronica tugged at the red ribbon, and then tore through the gold wrapping paper. Inside the box, wrapped in tissue, were a pair of cowboy boots in her size.”

“I prefer you without shoes, but when you need them, you can wear them. Will you run from me?”

“Where would I go?”

“Good answer, princess.”

She put the boots on and went outside. The temperature had started to turn warm again, the first hint of spring easing its way into the air. She lay in the grass, looking up at the sky and the clouds that had turned fluffy again. She stared up at it for a long time, her mind going back to that first night on the road when she’d stopped and stared up in awe at the stars, and then the day of the branding, where she’d fallen asleep watching the clouds blend and merge through the euphoria of the endorphin rush. She’d felt open and free.

Luke joined her a few minutes later and lay beside her. “What are you thinking about?”

“You were right, I love this sky. I love this ranch.”

“Thank me for bringing you here,” he said. The day he’d told her she’d politely thank him by the time he was finished with her flashed through her mind.

“Thank you, Master.”

A tear slid down her cheek, but Luke didn’t see it. He seemed preoccupied with pretending he wasn’t crazy—as if he could allow her to be a separate person from his tragic love. But the gestures: the hair, the boots... they meant nothing. When he’d looked at her, after Freida was finished... it hadn’t been with the same intensity as before. There had been a note of disappointment that had registered in his eyes for a moment before quickly flitting away.

No, Veronica saw clearly. Soon her roots would grow out, and Luke would let them. She’d be back to the way she’d looked before, as if today had never happened. She’d traded one slavery for another, one lie for another, no more in control of her destiny than before—no matter how much hedonistic pleasure this version brought her. The irony of it all was that she could have been the gold standard, but now she’d stand in the shadow of a ghost, forever clawing for the love and approval that had so easily been given to the other woman.

She blinked back the tears before they could overwhelm her. If he couldn’t love her, this had to be enough. The pleasure. The clean air and peace. The freedom from her debt. As she looked up, bright blue with dots of cotton candy clouds filled her vision. In the end, the sky was the only thing that was real.

* * *

I hopeyou enjoyed THE DARKEST ONES! Please don’t hate me for that Big Sky ending! I was going through a “phase” at the time. I know it’s not a “happy ending” but they ARE together pretty much forever.

Also Veronica is an “unreliable narrator”.i.e. her personal opinions of what everything is or means isn’t necessarily correct. I’m planning to write a bonus epilogue to let people finally get Luke’s POV on this which I’ll share with my newsletter when it’s ready! (You can subscribe at kittythomas.com)

If you’d likeanother dark romance from me, I highly recommend TENDER MERCIES. It’s dark but has a happy ending!

One-Click Tender Mercies Here

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Or,if you’d like to read another Box Set, give THE PLEASURE HOUSE a try! It’s my 5-book completed dark romance series!

One-Click The Pleasure House Here

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Thankyou so much for reading and supporting my work!

Kitty ^.^