Captive in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #1)

by C.J. Roberts

People often believed they were safer in the light, thinking monsters only came out at night.

It all happened so quickly, unexpectedly. Before he had the chance to execute a simple strategy to remove the external threat, she suddenly flung herself into his arms, the backpack making a loud thud on the concrete. He looked at the car, the shadow and incongruent shape of a man. Another predator. “Oh my god,” she whispered into the cotton of his t-shirt. “Just play along okay?” Her arms were steel around his ribcage, her voice a frantic plea. Caleb was stunned for a moment. What an interesting turn of events. Was he the hero of this scenario? He nearly smiled.

Like a falcon, she needed the dark to understand who her master was. She would learn to trust him, to rely upon him, to anticipate what he wanted from her. And like any master worth his salt, he would reward her for her obedience. He would be exceedingly firm, but he would also be as fair as he could be. He had not chosen the instrument of his revenge at random. He had chosen a beautiful submissive. And what was a submissive if not adaptable—if not a survivor?

“Address me as Master. Every time you forget, I will be forced to remind you. So you can choose to obey or choose punishment. It’s entirely up to you.” My head snapped up and my shocked, horrified, pissed off eyes met his. I wasn’t going to call him Master. No. Fucking. Way. I was sure he could see the determination in my eyes. The unspoken challenge behind them that screamed, Just try and make me asshole. Just try. He lifted a brow, and his eyes responded, With pleasure, Pet. Just give me a reason.

earlobe, down the column of my throat, the back of his fingers brushing across my collarbone. My breathing became broken, heavy. This was wrong, yet it didn’t feel so bad. My fear sat heavily and low in my belly, but farther down a different kind of weight was taking shape. I made a sound of protest, begging him in my wordless way to stop. He paused long enough to breathe me in before he continued. I shook my head slowly, trying to pull back but he held my head firmly in his other hand.

Only women were capable of being so fucking sexy you wanted to lick them clean when they considered themselves dirty.

There were a lot of things Caleb couldn’t remember: his birthday, his age, what his name used to be. It didn’t bother him to not remember, though he sometimes wished he knew where he’d grown up so he could avoid it. This small detail had the ability to put him on edge whenever he was forced to visit America for one reason or another. What if he had a mother who thought he was dead? It was his secret horror to fathom a mother elated at the sight of him. Because whoever her stolen boy had been, he was most certainly dead, and Caleb wanted him to stay that way.

“I do hate you,”

“But your pussy doesn’t…and that’s the important thing.”

away. “As a matter of fact, that’s what I’ll call you…Kitten.”

He was my tormentor and my solace; the creator of the dark and the light within.

If the first lesson every slave had to learn was to accept that their wishes did not matter, then the first lesson every master had to learn was not to be a slave to their own desires. The logic was simple, to command a slave, you must command yourself.

When it was all over, he took the blindfold off and released her bonds so he could sit her up on her knees on the table. To Caleb’s astonishment, she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder, refusing to let go. Warmth spread through his limbs wherever her trembling body met his, a feeling as pleasant as letting the sun touch his face.

Being around Caleb was feeling that all the time. I kept seeing his face, eyes closed, head tilted into my hands, soft masculine flesh beneath my fingers. The whole thing replayed in my mind as a series of flashes, flashes that kept me awake in the dark.

“If it’s anywhere near as bad as what those assholes did to me.... I’m tired of living through this shit just to step into deeper fucking shit. So if all you have planned for me is more torture, I think I’d rather die. Just do me one favor and don’t…I don’t want to die slow.”

“What do you want me to think, Caleb?” I said harshly. My face was hot and my nose hurt and felt stuffy. Breathing hurt. “You kidnap me, you beat me, you do...unspeakable things to me.” The burning in my chest felt like it was spreading, and it was all the anger and my despair that had been coiling within me, now oozing to the surface. “What am I to expect from you?” I did a lackluster imitation of his abnormal accent “‘Don’t let me find you.’ Isn’t that what you said?”

I was always seeking shelter in the people who hurt me the most. My mother. My father. Caleb. Like a battered dog begging for love from a malicious master. It was all I knew. And still his arms felt safe, warm, meant for me to seek sanctuary within. The cycle of damage would never end because I couldn’t tell the difference until it was too late.

“You’re right. I don’t know your real name. But I don’t know mine either and it’s never stopped me from knowing who I am or taking what I want.”

“For what it’s worth, Livvie, I never thought of you as a whore. And you are…the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Caleb could and would hurt me. Not today, but maybe tomorrow or the next day. Still, for the first time I knew he could not destroy me. It would matter to him if I didn’t exist. And no matter what happened, I’d land on my feet because Caleb had shown me I had it in me. It was a strange gift, from an unexpected source.

“That you could fix me? What’s more, that I could fix you? Well, sorry, Pet, I don’t want to be fixed. Whatever your little school-girl brain told you about men is absurdly wrong. This isn’t a romance. You’re not a damsel in distress, and I’m not the handsome prince come to save you. You ran. I went to collect my property. End of story.

“You’re not a damsel in distress and I’m not the handsome prince come to save you.” No. He wasn’t. In real life you had to save yourself.

She was…stalking him. She was like a panther or a lioness and it was odd to think in that moment that he had given her such an appropriate moniker. Though, she was not truly a kitten at the moment. Kittens didn’t approach you with their eyes fixed and their heads lowered in such a manner to evoke images of a huntress eyeing a meal.