Page 16 of Ashes to New

“Forgive me, Master John.”

Everything with him was,Forgive me,Excuse me,I’m sorry.

She hated him with a burning passion. Lowering to her knees, she prepared to offer her mouth.

He held her in place. “No, my pet, not like that.”

“To the basement?”

She’d spent the morning with him—being trained, as he called it. The bulk of the day, she’d been free to roam, which meant she’d shut the door to her rooms and read one of her books. In those few hours, she’d lived a different life and dreamed of another future.

He shook his head and drew her away from the closed door. “No, my pet. I have something special in mind.”

The room spun. His surprises never boded well for her.

“Ye-yes, sir.”

With a hardening of his tone, he made her blood chill. “Never sir. I’m your master.”

The words landed on her sluggish mind without the impact he seemed to want. Her silence had him pulling her through the house, down the long hall, and into the foyer. When he approached the steps leading upstairs, she dug in her heels. Five years in this house, and she’d never ventured up there.

“Please, Master John, can we not go to the basement?”

“I’m offering my bed to you, and you want to go there? Do you know the privilege in sharing my bed?”

Oh,dear God, no.

For whatever reason, Clark Preston had left the sanctity of their rooms inviolate. No matter what happened during the day or in the evenings when he came home, she always had the security of her bed, and now, Master John wanted her, up there, and in his bed.

A strangled cry erupted from her throat, and she did the unthinkable. She refused.

Elsbeth tugged out of his grip, staggering, while the room spun, and a buzzing filled her head.

Master John slapped her cheek, his shout nothing but unfiltered noise.

She wouldn’t go. Not up there. Never there.

Movement blurred in the periphery of her vision. Forest advancing at a run. She fell, crying out as she landed on unforgiving marble.

Fury boiled in Forest’s expression. He swung at Master John, his fist moving too slowly. Gangly. Awkward. Forest missed. Master John grabbed Forest’s wrist, using momentum to pull him forward and down. Forest landed in a heap, his head cracking on the marble, and his body going still.

“No!” She scrambled to Forest, hugging his limp form, as tears poured down her cheeks.

“What the hell is all the racket about?” Clark Preston’s stern voice silenced her cries.

Master John yanked her off Forest. “Don’t you ever disobey again.” He turned to Clark Preston. “That one is a liability. Put him down.”

He lifted her off her feet. Kicking and screaming, she was carried downstairs.

“You’ll discover what happens when you displease your master.”

Rage filled her, burning from the inside out, and she erupted with seething anger. “You’re not my master. You’ll never be my master.”

He held her chin in the hardness of his embrace. His searing gaze stole her breath. “Since the day you stepped foot in this house, I have been your master. I will always be. And I’ll do whatever I want with you.”

Chapter Nine

FOR MOST PEOPLE,basements were dark places where order grew into disorganized chaos with the storing and sorting of unwanted things.