My heart hammered for the beatings she must’ve received. The horror she must’ve endured. “How-how are you still alive? How did you escape?”
“I didn’t.”
Were all conversations with this woman going to be a riddle? “Who saved you then?”
She must’ve had a man like Elder. Someone who loved her so much they tracked her down and gave her a new life.
“He did.”
“Who?”
“My husband.”
“Ah.” I nodded as if I understood completely when I had no clue at all. But then I remembered who her husband was and what he’d dedicated his life to: hunting slaves and saving them. A vigilante with no moral compass. “Q saved you from your old master?”
So she does understand.
Our tales copied each other.
“Not in so many ways.”
My brain hurt. “In what ways, then?”
“He saved me from himself. He saved me from myself.” She sighed, finally revealing her sordid secret. “Q was the man I was sold to. He literally is my master first and husband second.”
My thoughts screeched to a halt. “What?”
She had the nerve to school me on my incorrect love choices, yet she’d fallen for the man she was sold to! At least, I’d fallen for the man who’d saved me from such a fate. She looked at me as if I was tangled and twisted when the only person who needed help was her!
“So you see, I totally get it when you say you’ve fallen for your master.” Tess rushed, noticing my gobsmacked look. “I did the same thing. Only, after those first few months, Q never laid a hand on me that I didn’t want.”
Her gaze dropped to my chest where fading bruises might always remain and to my arms where bumps from broken bones ruined slim line limbs. “I see how badly you were hurt, and I honestly want to slaughter the man who did that to you. To hear you say you love him? To have you sit here, safe and far away from him, and still do everything you can to return to his abuse? It’s more than I can stand. I can condone falling in love because I committed the same sin, but what I can’t condone is allowing you to believe the way he treated you is normal. It’s not. No matter what he tells you.”
The house switched from welcoming to mausoleum.
Scenarios and theories span out of control. Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe I wasn’t the recovering slave with issues but she was. Perhaps, she was held here against her will and conditioned so completely, she not only bowed to her master’s wishes but went along with his crazy ideas about saving women, only to secretly condemn them instead?
What if this was an elaborate sham to lull women into thinking they were saved only to start the same cycle of mental and physical abuse all over again?
All of this was some disgusting mind game.
A trap.
I have to leave.
Right now.
I shot upright, fear twining through my limbs. “Let me go. I want to go. Please, please let me go.”
Tess stood too, eyeing my gown. “Where would you go dressed like that?”
“Back to him. Back to the man who saved me.”
“I just told you. What you feel for him isn’t love, no matter how he spun it.” Her eyes flashed. “Q saved you. My husband saved you. You’re safe here. With us.”
“No, I’m not. You’re sick. You tell me I’m wrong for falling in love with my rescuer, yet you fell in love with your owner. Which one of us is wrong in this scenario?”
I’d been wrong when I thought she could be a friend—someone who traded the same existence I had. The woman before me had become corrupted by whatever her owner had done long ago. And she still believed in his lies.
Dragging hands through my hair, I threw my own tale in the face of the strange one she’d told me. “I’ve listened to you. Now, you listen to me. You have it all wrong. Like you, I was kidnapped and sold. Like you, I fought against my master and managed to keep a part of myself from his evil. I lived with him for two years, and they were the worst two years of my life. I have mementoes from that time. I have scars and nightmares. But that was over. Your husband didn’t save me. He didn’t infiltrate that white devil mansion or take on the bastard who raped me. He didn’t help me shoot Alrik or carry me from that place with my tongue almost cut in two. He didn’t spend months making me come alive again, teaching me kindness instead of cruelty and love instead of hate. Your husband didn’t kill for me. He didn’t sail away with me. He didn’t fall in love with me.”
My dress whispered on the carpet, cascading over the rattle on the sheepskin rug as I stalked toward her. “Your husband did none of those things, but I’ll tell you who did. Elder Prest. The man I keep telling you about. The man you believe is my owner. Pay attention when I tell you Elder was not my owner. He was my saviour, and you stole him from me!”