Page 49 of Beloved Sacrifice

“I’m familiar with the general idea,” he said.

“Really? You don’t seem like the type.”

He cleared his throat, a bit of heat in his cheeks. “I’m not a eunuch.”

He’d thought that would make her smile, but her expression didn’t change.

“When I was sixteen, Elroy started training me to be a submissive.”

Marek frowned. He couldn’t have heard that right. “What do you mean?”

Rose sighed, then winced—the sigh probably hurt her ribs. “I mean exactly what you think I mean. I was home for Christmas, but I was the only one there with them.”

“Where were their children?”

“One was away at college, one was…I don’t remember where he was, and the third was in the hospital, but I’ll get to that.

“The second night I was home, as I was about to go up to bed, Elroy—one of the dads—took me to this spare room I’d never been in before—the house was huge.”

Marek’s chest was getting tight with dread. He started rubbing her upper arm with his hand, offering her comfort long after it would have been helpful.

“He gave me the birds and the bees talk, but not the same one everyone else got. He told me about Dominants and submissives. Explained his theory about how every trinity needs a Dom, a submissive, and a switch. He told me that since we already knew who my trinity would be, I would be trained to be a submissive.”

“You were sixteen?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not even legal… Wait a moment, how did you know who your trinity would be? You were barely more than a child.”

“I was betrothed.”

“Betrothed?” She was probably joking. He wasn’t one for witty banter, and that sometimes led to him playing the straight man for other people’s jokes.

“Trust me, I know how stupid it sounds, but it’s true. I was betrothed. My trinity was decided when I was three or four. It was going to be an internal consolidation of power—three powerful families united by a trinity. The way it was always meant to be.” She waved one hand dramatically, then winced and tucked her arm in against her side. “And, though the Grand Master who arranged the marriage didn’t know this, I was going to be a double agent for the purists.”

“The people you were, er, betrothed to, weren’t purists?”

“I was betrothed to Devon Asher and Juliette Adams.”

It didn’t take him more than a few heartbeats to put it together. “I met Devon, I believe, and Juliette of course. You were going to be married to the Grand Master.”

“Actually, just to the Grand Master’s sister. Juliette’s brother was meant to be Grand Master—but still, being that close to the seat of power would mean the purists could keep getting away with all their bullshit.”

There was a beat of silence, then Rose turned her head and glared. “If you tell me to watch my language I’m going to punch you in the face.”

“Violence isn’t necessary.”

Rose chuckled, and then leaned her head against his shoulder. Marek’s heart flipped over in his chest and his palms started to sweat. Uh-oh.

He cleared his throat once, then again, before saying, “How could these people, who’d essentially raised you, do that to you?”

“Expect me to be a double agent for their terrible cause? That doesn’t even make my top three in the list of terrible things they’ve done.” She was rotating her hands on her wrists, an odd, unsettling gesture, though her head still rested on his shoulder. “Elroy was sure Devon showed all the traits of being a Dom, and Juliette was so stubborn, he decided she’d be a switch. If I was going to be the perfect member of that trinity, I had to be prepared, and he had to start when I was young, because I wasn’t naturally submissive. I wasn’t what anyone would call shy or unsure. I’d been essentially taking care of myself for years.”

That didn’t surprise Marek. Even with what little he’d seen of her, she’d demonstrated herself to be poised and confident.

“When Elroy finished his little speech about how things were going to be, I had no problem telling him he was sick. Tried to storm out of the room.” Her hands stopped moving. She lifted her head from his shoulder and leaned away, speaking in a flat, grave voice, the kind newscasters used when reporting the death toll after a terrorist attack. “He grabbed a paddle, turned me over his knee, yanked down my pants and underwear, and paddled me. There was nothing sexual about it. It was about control. About pain.

“That night, we slept in that spare room—the room where he kept a little stash of toys and equipment. I slept at the foot of the bed, tied up and gagged, wearing all my clothes. I cried. I promised myself that when morning came, I’d go to the police.”

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