He should have looked ridiculous—his big body folded like that, his forearms resting on his strong thighs, fingers of one hand dangling so that they could feather over the coil of my chain—but he didn’t. Instead, he was formidable, compacted into a position that called to mind a predator settled in to observe his prey. He had all the time in the world to pounce, and he was confident in his ability to capture so he’d decided to play with his lunch.
To play with me.
“I thought to welcome you to your new home,” he began. “For now, it consists of these four walls. This ballroom is all you will know until you earn the right to more. And do you know, my beauty, how to earn the right?”
I clenched my teeth, felt the grind of enamel and let the pain settle my anger so I could actually breathe. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to tell me.”
His smile was more a ghost of an expression haunting his face than an actual movement of his lips, but it was all the more sinister for it.
“Yes, I am happy to tell you. You earn privileges such as freedom from the room, water to drink, and food to eat by obeying me, your Master.”
“My Master?” I croaked. “You have to be kidding me.”
He cocked his head, his expression genuinely perplexed. “Tell me, Cosima, why else would a man buy a beautiful woman if not to use her for his own pleasure?”
“You mean to use me against my will?” I snapped.
“Ah.” He nodded slowly, running a hand along the steepled edge of his jaw as he considered me. “I see. You don’t seem to grasp the nature of the deal I made with the Camorra and, through them, your father. I bought you to own you, yes, but you agreed to the conditions of this agreement the moment you entered my house in Rome willingly. When you saw your father brutalized at the hands of the mafia, when they threatened to string your beloved siblings up from the tree across the street with bells tied to their ankles and you could practically hear the chime in your ears.” He paused, taking in my horror and shock with the quiet satisfaction of a man used to knowing more than others. “If you want to put your family at risk with the mafia, Cosima, you must know that you are free to leave at any time.”
“How did you know that about the bells?” I asked, my brain stuck like a broken record on the idea. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Knowledge is power. Can you ask me that, knowing who I am?”
“I don’t know who you are,” I told him honestly. “Only that you seem to be all four horsemen of my apocalypse.”
One golden brow rose, cutting lines into his forehead that had me wondering how old he was. Much older than my eighteen years, it was obvious.
“At least you are well educated, as a professor’s daughter should be. It’ll make this easier for you.”
“Rebelling against you?” I retorted, hyper aware of my vulnerability as I sat before him, chained and stark naked.
Something dark passed over his placid features, the clouds mere shadows on the ground, alerting me to an impending storm.
“I am Alexander Davenport, Earl of Thornton, and you are playing my game now, Cosima. Be happy that I’m taking the time to teach you the rules instead of making you learn by taking punishments when you unwittingly break them.”
I spat on the glossy marble floors at his feet, but I was too dehydrated to make much of a statement. “Go to hell, you beast!”
“This is how things will proceed from here on out, my beauty,” Alexander informed me coolly. “Everything you need to survive is mine to give you. Water, food, the very air you breathe. I own it all. So I suggest you shelf the rebellious spirit and discover a more servile side.”
I glared at him. No matter that I was tethered to a bolt in the floor by heavy, medieval chains in a gorgeous room made of marble and gold leaf without clothes or possessions, I was not his to own, to set aside when it pleased him or to train like a dog.
I was Cosima Lombardi and that had to mean something to someone, even if it was only to myself.
“I won’t be kept shackled to a bolt in the floor in the middle of your ballroom like some wild exotic beast caged for your entertainment.”
He stood slowly, unravelling the breadth of his torso and the long length of his muscular legs. There was thread and calculation in the exactment of his movements, in the way he kept his eyes locked on me as he loomed above my chained self.
I watched warily as his hand reached out and stroked softly over my hair.