“Push them out of the cage,” the man said, withdrawing the rod from before my chest. Bending down, I gathered my clothes and pushed them out of the cage as ordered. Backing away, I took my place again in the center of the cage.

I waited.

And I waited.

It felt like at least an hour passed as I stood in the middle of the cage, my captor standing before me, glaring. The whole time glaring. I did not need to look up to see this.

Suddenly, when I feared I would fall to the floor through exhaustion and cold, my captor turned and walked away down the narrow hallway, leaving me alone.

I remained standing for a long time afterward in case this was some test I was meant to pass. But when my knees finally buckled I had no choice but to lie on the floor.

The black tiles were so cold beneath my skin that I felt like I was lying upon a block of ice. But I stayed strong. I didn’t let the fear take control. I didn’t let my despair make me cry. And even when the temperature in the room abruptly switched from Arctic cold to tropical heat, I didn’t scream out in pain. My too-cold muscles throbbed and my skin felt like it was being sliced apart with razors. I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose.

And I pictured Zaal. I memorized his face, because as I lay on this floor, now too hot, sweating on account of the burning air, I became sure we would never be reunited after all.

5

194

I woke, slumped in the corner of a small room. I blinked and blinked as I drank in the dark space. There was nothing in here but a screen on a desk and the picana resting against it.

My eyes narrowed as I stared at the picana; then I glanced at the screen. Distant images began playing like a reel in my head as I stared at the dark-haired female, lying unconscious in the center of the cage. I struggled to know who she was. I struggled to remember how we got here.

The serum had taken hold and brought severe memory loss. Mistress must have loaded my collar with double-dose serum pellets—she did that from time to time when the hit was of great importance. The serum didn’t work on me like they thought it did under the usual dose. I was meant to be completely under Mistress’s control, all day, every day—but I wasn’t. Instead, with this bastard collar, with this double dose the guard had put in, I had blacked out when it injected me. I didn’t even know how long I’d been out.

My lip curled. Truth was, Mistress didn’t need to drug me at all. They had all the control they needed. I would do anything they said to keep 152 alive.

Anything. Pain and killing meant nothing to me. I’d done it for so long, the screams of my victims had faded to vapor in my head. The men who had died under my hands were nothing to me but one step closer to 152’s freedom.

I squeezed my eyes shut and, as though watching from a distance, I recalled everything I’d done under the drug’s influence. I saw myself carrying a dark-haired female in the cage to this chamber. I’d turned the temperature of the room to a freezing degree. I’d made her strip. I saw myself hitting the bars of the cage, the electrical currents arcing to shock her flesh. And I saw myself returning to this room and turning the heat up to the highest point. Yet the female seemed untouched by the sudden change in temperature.

Pushing myself to my feet, I staggered across the room, my neck burning and raw under the collar. Reaching the desk, I stared at the screen, the single camera in the room focused on the female.

I swallowed as I watched her. She was slight in build with long black hair that ran to her lower back. Her skin was tanned, and disgust fused in my veins when I recognized her features: Georgian. I hated Georgians. Mistress’s face flashed in my mind and I snarled aloud. I especially hated Georgian females. Suka. They were all suka whores.

Then my skin pricked when the female in the cage moved. A pool of sweat lay below her and her dark hair was slick to her damp naked skin. Moaning in her sleep, she rolled onto her back, her arms stretched out at her sides. My breathing paused when her full tits came into view, her pussy only slightly showing because of a bent leg. Her stomach was flat and dripping with droplets of sweat. Her arms and legs were slight but toned. My head dropped to the side as I studied her.

Mistress didn’t look like this. Mistress was harder, more muscled. There was nothing about Mistress that I liked, but this Georgian female …

As she lay on that floor, my breathing paused. Images of 152 unconscious and broken—used and abused—on her bed flashed through my head. I shook my head trying to push them away, but a sick feeling burned in my chest seeing this dark-haired female like this. Broken. Helpless.

A sudden rage consumed me. I wouldn’t let myself do this. Couldn’t. You hate all Georgians, I reminded myself. No matter how broken and helpless they look.

The female’s face was turned away from the camera; then on another groan she turned and her face came fully into view. I stilled again. I stilled and I stared. She had smooth skin on her face. A small nose that was slightly upturned at the end. Her lips were big and pursed. Her black eyebrows were pulled down, and I knew she was in pain.

I smirked.

I smirked seeing how easily she was breaking.

“Suffer, suka,” I whispered to myself, my voice raspy from the needles in my collar. But that smirk faded when a small whimper left her lips.

Her pretty face screwed up in pain, and I felt a foreign ache in my chest. 152’s screaming face came to mind. Her screaming out in pain when she was being abused by the guards under Mistress’s orders. Ordered to keep me under her control.

This female in the cage sounded just like 152.

Chasing the ache away, I let the ice fill my veins. I had to cause her pain. I had no choice.

The beast would bring her pain like nothing before. She’d be terrified of me like they all were. I would torture her until she told me who she was to my hit, the Kostava male. Until she told me how to get past his army of protectors. Until she told me a way I could capture my prey and bring him to this chamber, to unleash on him hell in her place.

Only then Mistress would keep 152 from being sent to Master. Only then Mistress would keep 152 from being sent away from me.

Once more my eyes drifted to the Georgian female. I closed my eyes and pictured the bruises on 152’s skin. On her legs and hips. Any empathy for this dark-haired female was gone.

There was no choice. No room for weakness.

Snapping my eyes open, I walked to the thermostat and dropped the temperature back to a minus degree setting. The vents sounded beyond the door that led to the chamber. I watched as the cold air began circulating around her. My eyes flared when another moan ripped from between her full lips, and her body curled in. White puffs of mist shot out of her mouth, as her breathing increased to short pained pants.

Reaching for the picana, I had gone to leave when I heard a muffled scream. I looked back to the screen. The Georgian was on her back. Her eyes were screwed shut. Then, mouth silently dropping open, her eyes sprang open, staring straight down the lens of the camera.

A rush of breath escaped my lips. Her eyes were as dark as the paint on the chamber’s walls. They were huge. I urged my feet to move, my grip tightened on the prod in my hand, but I couldn’t fucking move.

The female rolled onto her stomach and tried to push herself up off the floor of the cage. My teeth scraped across my bottom lip as her ass slowly lifted. Like everything else about this female, it was nothing like Mistress. The little Georgian’s ass was firm and round. It was smooth and soft. It stirred life in my dick.

A growl built in my chest as my cock ached with its growing hardness. Forcing my eyes from the screen, I allowed myself one last lingering glance. The female had managed to sit, arms wrapped around her legs. Her huge eyes were darting around the chamber. Something warm built in my chest as I watched her. She looked a little older than 152, but not by much.

And with the thought of 152, any warmth building inside morphed into ice. This suka is Georgian, I told myself. It was the Georgians who took us away. And it was a Georgian bitch who had ruined my life. Fucked with my head. Hurt 152.

Georgian, I thought. I make Georgians pay. I bring them pain. I collect their screams. I bring them nothing but death.

Surging with the focus of causing pain, I opened the door to the chamber, not even flinching at the blast of freezing air smacking against my skin. Gripping the picana tighter, I walked slowly down the hallway, my feet heavy on the tiled floor. Every few steps I stopped and waited, knowing the female would hear my approach. I wanted to mess with her mind. Have her so scared of me that she’d give up anything I asked.