Addicted to the Duke (Imperfect Lords #1)(78)

They had poured more opium down his throat at regular intervals, and he welcomed it. Now all he saw and heard was Hestia. Her lovely smile and joyous laugh. He would hold on to her memory until he could escape or die trying.

Suddenly the door to the brig opened and one of the men entered. Alex’s wrists, still tightly bound, were untied from the metal loop and he was dragged through the ship. The metal ball bounced and smashed into his ankle as they went, but thanks to the laudanum he felt no pain. His body was numb to everything surrounding him, and he welcomed the oblivion.

He could hear men talking, making fun of him in Turkish, but he didn’t care. They all knew as well as he did where he was being taken and what Murad would do to him. His men didn’t seem to mind that their leader enjoyed both men and women.

Finally he was shoved into a cabin that smelled of jasmine, and for a moment the light blinded him. He lay on the floor not caring where he was or what was about to happen until a small cry, someone calling his name, made his heart almost stop—Hestia.

No, he was dreaming. He’d been dreaming about her so he thought she was here. But when a small, soft hand stroked his face and tears fell onto his heated skin, his worst nightmare surfaced through the euphoria of the opium.

She was here, which meant she was a captive of Murad.

“Alex, oh, my love, what have they done to you?”

“Has he hurt you?” A surge of adrenaline coursed through his veins as he tried to focus. “Can you untie my hands?”

Hestia immediately went to his bindings.

“I’m trying, but the knots are too tight. I need something sharp to cut them with.” She started crying harder as she fumbled more with his bindings.

“Hestia, stop. It’s all right. Don’t cry.”

Hestia flopped back on her bottom beside him sobbing. He wished he could enfold her in his arms and tell her it would all be fine, but he couldn’t do either.

“Listen, sweetheart. Murad is going to return soon. I don’t want to scare you, but he will,” he said, struggling to say the words. “He will hurt you, or hurt me. He will do things to us. You have to promise me you’ll stay strong. We will survive this and I will save you.”

She wiped her tears with her hands and nodded. “I have an idea too. I feel stronger with you here.”

“No. Don’t try to beat Murad. He’s stronger than you. Please…”

But Hestia had already moved back to the bed and she lay upon it as if in a drunken—no not drunken, drugged state. He didn’t have time to analyze her behavior because the door opened and the devil himself entered, closing the door behind him with a soft nick.

Murad walked to stand over Alex as he lay naked and helpless on the floor. “My favorite boy.” He pointed to where Hestia lay on the bed. “I think you are acquainted with my new toy. Isn’t she beautiful?”

Hestia had rolled onto her back and arched her back. Her breasts were visible through the silk and she was almost purring.

God, Alex hoped she knew what she was doing, but he doubted it. She had no idea what sort of monster Murad was.

How could she? She was an innocent in a world full of evil.

Murad used his foot to push Alex onto his back. The Turkish pirate who called himself a sultan. Only a member of the house of Osman could take the title of sultan. Murad was no more of Turkish royal birth than the guard standing outside this door.

“I’m going to have fun with the woman behind me. The woman you stole from me four years ago. Am I not a patient man to have waited so long?”

Alex tried to clear the fog in his brain. “Not patient, merely stupid. You touch her and you are dead.”

The pirate tipped his head back and roared with laughter. “If anyone is going to be killed it’s you. However, I thought you might like to see how your woman screams my name before I kill you.”

He bent down and cupped Alex’s manhood. “Or perhaps I’ll merely geld you like a stallion past his prime and keep you around for my amusement.”

Rage caused Alex’s fists to clench and he lashed out with his foot, the heavy ball striking Murad’s thigh, and he fell back writhing in agony.

He saw a flash of red silk and Hestia was upon Murad. The drugs made Alex too slow to try and protect her. To his horror a spray of warm red blood, this time, covered the leg that had the chain attached. He tried to sit up, fear making it hard to breathe.

He would never forget for the rest of his life the sight he saw when he finally got to his knees.

Hestia stood beside Murad, who was slumped sideways on the floor, a pool of blood forming under his head. Her hands were by her side, a jeweled dagger gripped in one hand dripping blood, her chest heaving, her eyes hard like a soulless corpse.

“No one threatens the man I love, the man I want to be the father of my children.”

She’d slit Murad’s throat with a dagger from his turban. How ironic that a man pretending to be something he wasn’t should be killed because he wanted to play the part.

He should feel something. The man who’d enslaved and used him for almost two years was dead. But all he could think of was that he’d brought this monster into Hestia’s life, and they still weren’t out of danger.

Murad’s men were controllable when they knew their leader lived, but with him dead the spoils were up for grabs, and Hestia was a prime treasure. Every man on this ship would want her—to rape and then to sell.