to close her eyes again and choke back a
sudden rush of bile at the back of her throat. There were splashing sounds
with each footstep her bearer took.
If she’d
been clobbered in the head, she wouldn’t have been surprised. A headache from
whatever had drugged her into unconsciousness made her feel sick and dizzy.
She
attempted to open her eyes again, bracing herself this time and dragging in air
through her nose. Her nostrils flared as she became aware of an awful stench of
sewage permeating the space, making her gag again. By the smell in the air,
she was being taken somewhere through the sewer system.
Ebony
steeled her stomach, striving for calm. She’d need it if she was going to get
out of this--whatever this was.
A big
hand secured her legs tight against a hard chest, leaving the upper half of her
body to dangle on the backside of the man who carried her.
He was a
big son of a bitch, whoever he was. Even though she hung upside down with her
head partway down her captor’s back, she could see and feel that his shoulders
were massive and tapered down to a narrow waist and hips. He had the muscular
buttocks of someone who played heavy sports, and his thick legs looked like
they belonged on a bull--or maybe just Mr. Universe.
Shadows
flickered across the walls of the tunnel. Their movement only increased her
dizziness. She raised her head and tried to discern her whereabouts, for the
ache in her head made her skull feel like it was going to explode from the
pressure of hanging upside down.
It didn’t
take much imagination to realize something was wrong. She sure as hell wasn’t
where she was supposed to be. Unless the king and his men had some kind of
sick fantasy or fetish going on, it was pretty obvious to her that she had
first stumbled across the abduction of Cassie and was now being kidnapped
herself.
She could
not imagine why anyone would kidnap her, or kidnap Cassie. They were just two
more concubines in a castle that was filled with them. And the unspeakable
torture that any man would get if he ever touched a woman of the king’s harem
should have been enough to stop anyone from trying to take one.
But it
was obvious that someone had found it worth the risk to try.
Much as
she hated the idea of going back to the harem, Ebony realized that if her
captor took her too far into the sewer system she’d never be able to find her
way back--even if she could somehow escape in the first place. The
heart-stopping thought of never seeing her sister again, or anything else that
was familiar, made panic surge to the surface.
Ebony
used the adrenaline rush to claw at the back of the stranger, kicking her legs
and trying to scream through the gag muzzling her mouth. “ I want to
get down! Now!”
A hard
smack landed on her ass, stinging her cheek and stunning her into immobility. “Settle
down!” the man commanded, in a deep, booming voice. She could feel it rumble
from his chest into her thighs.
His
response only provoked Ebony to greater anger. She wasn’t a fucking kid! Being
spanked like a child only pissed her off more.
But Ebony
knew she had to calm down and think if she wanted to survive this. She felt
pretty confident that if he’d meant to hurt her, she’d already be dead or
injured by now...and so she could only hope that she was therefore needed alive
for something, even though she couldn’t imagine what that could possibly be.
She
gritted her teeth. Putting every ounce of energy into her legs, Ebony kicked
out and then kneed her abductor in the solar plexus, trying to throw herself
out from under the arm that bound her. She was gratified to hear him grunt as
the air was expelled from his lungs.
His
immediate response was to bend forward and drop her, feet first, onto the cold,
wet stone floor of the sewer. The moment her bare feet found the surface, she
stumbled, righted