Father Mine Read Free Page B

there were no visual clues to decipher and only the sound of his pounding heart in his ears.
    Solution? He’d try to move his arms and legs. If they were unchained, if they were not shackled, it was just a case of being caught in his mind’s choke hold once again, the past reaching out through the graveyard dirt of his memories and grabbing him with bony hands. As long as he could shift his arms and legs through clean sheets, he was okay.
    Right. Move his arms and legs.
    His arms. His legs. Needed to move.
    Move.
    Oh, God . . . damn you, move .
    His limbs didn’t budge, and in the paralysis of his body the clawed truth ripped through him. He was in the damp darkness of the Mistress’s cell, chained on his back, thick iron cuffs keeping him on the bedding platform. She and her lovers would be coming for him again, and they would do to him whatever they wanted, staining his skin, soiling the inside of him.
    He moaned, the pathetic sound vibrating up from his chest and breaching his mouth like it was relieved to be free of him. Bella was the dream. He lived in the nightmare.
    Bella was the dream. . . .
    The footsteps approached from the hidden stairwell that ran down from the Mistress’s bedroom, the sound echoing, getting louder. And there were more than one set on the stone steps.
    With an animal’s horror, his muscles grabbed and pulled against his skeleton, fighting desperately to get loose from the dirty binding of flesh that was about to be fondled and invaded and used. Sweat broke out on his face, and his stomach seized, bile marshaling an assault up his esophagus to the base of his tongue—
    Someone was crying.
    No . . . wailing.
    A young’s cry sounded out from the far corner of the cell.
    His fight stalled while he wondered what an infant was doing in this place. The Mistress had no offspring, nor had she been pregnant during the years he had been owned by her—
    No . . . wait . . . he had brought the young here. It was his young who cried—and the Mistress was going to find the infant. She was going to find the infant and . . . Oh, God.
    This was his fault. He had brought the young here.
    Get the young out. Get the young—
    Z curled his fists and punched his elbows into the bedding platform, heaving with every ounce of strength he had. The power came from more than his body; it was born of his will. With a massive surge, he . . .
    . . . got absolutely nowhere. The shackles cut through his wrists and his ankles down to his bones, slicing through his skin so that blood mixed with his cold sweat.
    As the door opened, the young was crying and he couldn’t save her. The Mistress was going to—
    Light poured over him, rocketing him into true consciousness.
    He was off his mated bed like he’d been bootlicked by a Chevy, landing in a fighting stance with fists up at his chest, shoulders drawn in steel knots, thighs ready to spring.
    Bella slowly eased back from the lamp she’d turned on, as if she didn’t want to spook him.
    He looked around the bedroom. There was, as usual, no one to fight, but he’d woken everyone up. In the corner, Nalla was in her crib crying, and he’d scared the ever-loving shit out of his shellan. Again.
    There was no Mistress. None of her consorts. No cell or chains stretching him out on a bedding platform.
    No young in his cell with him.
    Bella slipped out of bed and went over to the crib, scooping up a red-faced and screaming Nalla. The daughter, however, would have nothing of the comfort offered. The young held its little chubby arms straight out for Zsadist, wailing for its father, tears streaming.
    Bella waited for a moment, as if she were hoping this time would be different and he would go over and take the child into his arms and comfort the infant who so clearly wanted him.
    Z backed away until his shoulder blades hit the far wall, tucking his arms around his chest.
    Bella turned and whispered to her darling one as she