Page 17 of Master Botosoni

Botosoni

My chest is tight with the reality that try as I might to keep Catina sheltered and out of danger, between the two of us, we have managed to throw her right into the line of fire. When we reach the other side of the club, I walk her down a discreet foyer area and down a flight of steps to the lower-level. The red glow casts a little light into the otherwise dim area where full-length couches, loveseats, and single chairs are scattered around the room with wrought iron partitions, marble floors, and a fountain in the likeness of our ancestors stands in the middle of the floor.

High rollers and lords from around the regions who can afford the steep prices sit with their playmates as we pass through the club. A few try to catch my eye as I weave among the patrons, but I have no time for the routine business stuff tonight.

My jaw shifts as I guide her to the door of my private playroom. No, tonight I have only two things on my mind. Making damn sure that Catina knows that she is mine and that she is safe. That I will protect her, no matter what the witches say about her fighting the fucking wolves. They have been known to be wrong.

I’ve barely closed the door to the room behind me when I spin her around, gathering her to me, needing to hear the blood pulsing through her veins, feel her heartbeat and the softness of her body as it melts into me as I walk her to the wall. I push the hair from her face so that she has no choice but to look into my eyes. “You are mine. Your family can come, but they will not take you away.”

Her eyes widen, and the pulse on the side of her neck begins to beat erratically. She lowers her head and averts her gaze, causing me to bring one hand from the wall and tilt her chin with a finger but yet, still, she keeps her eyes closed. “What aren’t you telling me, love?”

It takes longer than I like, so long that my chest tightens. “Tell me what it is, Catina.”

She finally opens her eyes, although it seems to take effort. “My parents and brothers will come, and you won’t be able to stop them from taking me away. They have been away looking for someone to sell me to. They are never going to accept my having a relationship with you.”

The growl that roars from deep inside my chest scares Catina. She cowers as far away as she can from me, plastering herself against the wall while her heart beats so erratically that I think she might faint. I instantly regret letting the beast roar in front of her like that. Something that most humans have never heard about, much less experienced this close up and personal. I stroke her cheek with a finger. “I’m sorry if I scared you, love. I would never hurt you. You have to know that, yes?”

She swallows hard, still overcome with emotion. I track the movement all the way down her soft and lengthy neck, trailing the path with a finger, before running it under her hair and cradling her nape, trying to remain calm when what I want to do is hunt every single one of them down. “Sell you?”

Catina closes her eyes for a moment, and when she reopens them, they glisten with unshed tears, pooled as she struggles not to let them fall. “I’m too old to marry off in the conventional traveler ways. All of the young men have already been taken, passed me over for this reason or that. I’m twenty-one-years-old. My father and family need the money. Arrangements have been made like that for years; it’s just not what I want. At the end of the day, though, it won’t really matter.”

She says it as though she were at the end of her human life and not just barely in the beginning. Twenty-one is barely of age. So young that I should have never even touched her, but yet I wouldn’t change it if I could. I plan to touch her every chance I get.

Catina looks at me and shrugs. “I haven’t been the most cooperative with prospects who came around to meet with me. It felt like I was a piece of meat. Ironic that I just volunteered to be auctioned,” she says, swiping at an errant tear that falls despite her best efforts to keep it at bay.

My heart beats with unprecedented rage just thinking about the mother, father, and brothers that my love calls family. I kiss her lips gently. “Your life with them is over. You have a new life, one with me.” You will never have to worry about having again, understand?”

She swallows, and the tears that have been pooled spill down her face far too fast for her to wipe. I use the sleeve of my sweater and brush them away, crushing her to me as she sobs. I run my hands over her hair, stroking her until she’s all cried out and her tears have stopped. I kiss her forehead, her salty cheek, and then her lips. “You are mine, now. Don’t ever forget that.”

My phone buzzes, and I slide it from my pocket with irritation as I read the message. “I want you to stay here for a few moments. It’s my private space, and you’ll find it quite comfortable. Look around for a bit, while I go talk to a few people about the auction. I’ll be back shortly.”

The minute I’m out the door, I call Lord Braeden. “Catina, the woman I brought home with me. Her family is probably on their way to my estate. They’ll eventually make their way to the club if they ask around town at all. I want you to keep them at bay for a little bit. I need to deal with plans for the rogues before I deal with her family, but when I do, they’ll wish they had never tried to sell their daughter.

“They’re trying to sell their daughter to you?”

I scowl. “No, not to me. The family are travelers and have been gone trying to find someone to buy her. She was so weak from hunger when I found her that she passed right out. I took her to my house and cared for her. I just found out what her family has been up to, though.”

He lets out a long sigh. “Shit, Master Botosoni. I hate like hell to be the one to tell you this or to do it over the phone, but the travelers, they’re known for this con. It’s the most profitable one they have. The girl pretends to be weak and malnourished, sometimes even claims she’s been beaten or worse, and finds some nice rich guy who takes her in and helps her back onto her feet.”

My jaw tightens, and my heart beats fast. If my right hand were standing next to me right now, he may be holding a broken jaw for his troubles. “The story about her being sold, you don’t think it’s true?”

The girl is usually trying to get the guy she’s conning to feel sorry for her, maybe have feelings for her even, and then she springs the family’s trying to buy her story on him. The poor schlub usually offers to pay off the family so he can rescue the girl, and the next thing you know she disappears, goes back to the family and they move onto to a different location with enough money to see them over the winter. She’s trying to get you to buy her, Botosoni.”

My head spins with his words. Every rule I have about trusting women, I broke, every alarm bell in the back of my head, I dismissed. My head spins and chest tightens. “Find her family, escort them to the club, and keep eyes on them until I get done dealing with preparations for the rogues and can get upstairs. Do it now!”

Chapter 15

Catina

My mind swirls with the weight of all that has happened. There’s no way I can let Botosoni near my family. He will kill them. They may not be the most attentive or loving parents, but they have put food on the table, well most of the time, a roof over my head, and made sure that me and my brothers had clean and adequate clothes to wear.

But they wanted to marry me off to the first person in exchange for a paltry sum of money just because that’s the custom. Shouldn’t love be the reason to marry? Shouldn’t I have the final say in who I spend the rest of my life with? They may not think so, but I do. But that doesn’t mean I want Botosoni to hurt them because that growl told me everything that I need to know. If he has his way, he will tear them to shreds. Somehow, I need to find a way to get away from them and keep them away from him at the very same time.

I walk along the expanse of the playroom, taking in the entire wall covered with implements of all sizes, shapes, and variety. I may not have used a single one, but I can imagine exactly what Botosoni could do to me with some of them. I stroke a pair of handcuffs, imaging him locking them in place as I stand naked against the St. Andrew’s cross in the corner, or draped over one of the spanking benches as he uses the paddle to spank me. Everywhere I look causes a vivid image of us in compromising and passionate positions until my center is wet and pulsing with embers that only he can extinguish.

All of a sudden, my heart begins to pound. A vision of my parents and brothers walking into the club fills my mind. They found me. Somehow word spread about me going home with the vampire, to his bed. They will never be able to live the shame of it down if it gets out to their friends in the traveling community, no matter what they tell them. And, if they find out that I’ve lost my virginity, the golden ticket that they plan to sell to whoever will take me, who knows what will happen. I may be forced to have Botosoni step in for fear that my brothers will kill me themselves.

The image of my father arguing with someone outside the club rushes through my mind. There is no time. I have to go upstairs and keep them from Botosoni. My heart races faster and faster. I have to think of some story, any story that they will believe to keep them all apart, no matter what, for all of our sake.

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