Page 136 of Tempest

Ardyn

Three men are boundto three chairs, struggling in a neat row as they moan and plea through gagged mouths.

“Oh my God,” I whisper after collecting myself.

Tempest strolls to the middle of the room. “You recognize them?”

“Yes. They’re my captors.”

“Out on parole, the lucky buggers. Amazing how scared they are now, right? Considering they bound, gagged, and tortured a little girl in much the same way. How does it feel to have a grown man tower over you with a knife in his hand, hmm? Would you like me to scar you in the same way you did her?” Tempest turns and lifts up a wooden paddle. “Or should we go straight into sodomy? I never believed in an eye for an eye. More like a head for an eye.”

The man closest to him moans. He’s so frightened that his eyes roll into the back of his head.

As his head tips back, I notice the knife marks.

“You’ve been torturing them.” Carefully, I make my way to Tempest to get a closer look.

“I tried to wait for you, but they’re such fucking assholes, I had to make my position known.” He clucks his tongue as one kicks out at him. “Aw, you’re just angry I interrupted your Powerpoint presentation to each other.” Tempest looks at me. “They were planning another kidnapping, princess. Another child. A girl.”

I suck in a breath. My face goes numb.

“And this time, they weren’t going to let her go since it went so wrong the last time, and you identified them. They just don’t learn, do they?”

Tempest thumps the paddle on one of their heads. The man shrieks behind his gag.

My throat burns. “Nicholas Brewster. Terrance Smith. Micheal Krakowski.”

“My girl always remembers the names of those who hurt her.” Tempest straightens.

His use of my girl rings in my head … not as an alarm. As a ring of truth. Without considering what I’m becoming or who I should be. Instead, I nod.

I’m his.

“Tell me, baby, which one do you want to suffer the most? I can make it happen for you.” Tempest gifts them each with a saccharine smile.

I go to Tempest’s side. Stroke down his arm. And consider each man. Each assaulter. “I could ask you to start with Nick first. He held me down and pulled up my shirt. Squeezed my barely-there breasts. Spit on them.”

Tempest’s arm hardens in my grip. To prevent him from springing, I continue, “or Terrance, who pretended to be my friend. He’d get information from me, like my favorite kind of ice cream, the best hamburger I’ve ever had, and my beloved stuffed animal, and then he’d torture me with them. Setting them down just out of reach from where they chained me.”

Tempest sucks on one of his canines. “Psychological warfare. I could work with that.”

“And then there’s Micheal. Never Mike. Every time I shortened his name when I pled for my life, he’d slap me across the face until either my lip or the skin under my eye split open. Then he’d lick my blood off his fingers.”

“I think I’d like to start with Nicky by cutting off his nipples.”

“Still sore about that, are you?” I ask.

Tempest awards me with a sidelong glare. “I meant when I said don’t ever mention his name to me again.”

I purse my lips, properly chastised.

“Then perhaps I’ll move on to Mike and make a necklace out of his teeth and his tongue as my pendant. And Terrance? I could easily leave him for Hunter.” Tempest’s bicep pulses under my hand. With whitened lips of fury, he turns to me and adds, “Believe me, you’d witness just desserts if I let him loose.”

The three men moan and struggle as they process Tempest’s words. With his stone-hewn expression, there’s no doubt Tempest lives up to his promises. I take in each man, noting the tears coursing down Nick’s face, the splotchiness of Terrance’s, and the sweat-soaked Michael.

I consider each one of them, taking my time. Tempest waits beside me, if not patiently, then out of respect for me in facing my captors for the first time in almost a decade.

Stepping forward, I pull down the gag of the one closest—Micheal.

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