The Carnival's Daughter: A Dark Dystopian Romance (Kingdom Duet Book 1) Read online

  “Tell me their names,” Mask-man orders.

  “Tourmaline, Citrine, Emerald, Pearl,” Maxim begins, making his way down the row of girls with their faces painted and costumes designed to match their names. Finally, he gets to me. “And this one is Sapphire.”

  “Sapphire? She looks like an Obsidian to me,” he says, eyeing me up and down.

  Maxim clears his throat. “Sapphire has one green eye and one blue. I thought the name suited her well.”

  The man tilts his head to the side and then takes a few confident steps towards me.

  His outfit, though plain looking with the black on black, fits him perfectly and accentuates the muscles in what is clearly a powerful body. The clothes were made for him, which is about as rare as those working watches behind him.

  “She’s tiny,” he says. “Put her on a box or something so I can see for myself.”

  There’s movement around me but I don’t notice it. I can’t peel my eyes away from the man in front of me.

  He is truly a thing from nightmares.

  Someone puts an overturned bucket down by side, and Mask holds out a big hand, gesturing with a flick of his head what he wants me to do.

  I take it, and he guides me up onto the bucket.

  I freeze, momentarily stunned as he grabs a hold of my chin and then jerks my head up to inspect me. Even with the bucket he’s still taller. I try to meet his gaze, but I’m not able to. The holes for his eyes are filled with only dark shadows.

  I wonder if that is intentional. Probably. Everything about him seems designed to intimidate, and the fact he’s now leaning against me with his hand mere inches from my throat isn’t helping.

  It’s like he’s set out specifically to embody a nightmare.

  But why?

  The heat from the fire behind me added to his intense appraisal makes me feel hot, and again I’m glad for the painted face to mask my colouring.

  I’m not supposed to be looking at him.

  That’s not what good submissive girls do.

  I look straight ahead now, my eyes slightly lowered.

  Just look like a doll. It’s simple.

  I concentrate on feeling dead inside.

  His amused chuckle pulls me out of my thoughts, the sound carrying easily from his mask around the silent tent. “How curious.”

  He drops my chin and turns away from me, walking towards the exit. “Maxim, I would speak with you. Now.”

  The others all clamour to follow him, and I wonder if he is actually the hired help at all?

  But then maybe the four suited men are just nervous to be without him in a place like this. Perhaps they do not speak our language, and he is their translator as well as their muscle. A fucked up tour guide.

  That would make sense. And explain the costume.

  Maxim glances back once in our direction as he follows, only to order us all back to our dwellings.

  I locate Ruby in the line of girls, who tries her best to give me a weak smile.

  There will be no closing performance tonight.

  I curl up with my pillows under my blankets and try everything possible to stop my stomach from clenching up, but nothing I think about seems to be helping. Denial, the thing I’ve been trying to do since I got back here, has only made it worse.

  I think one of those four suited men are to be my monster.

  The thing that has hung over me since I was old enough to understand how it worked. The thing that was always so inevitable, and yet I tried so hard not to think about it. One of them is probably going to buy me tonight.

  Perhaps if I just accept that, it will make it easier.

  One of them had dark hair, two of them grey, though one was salt and pepper and the other silver, and one of them was completely bald. All of them were much older than me, maybe in their fifties or sixties. Two overweight, two average build.

  If I had to choose… I probably couldn’t.

  None of them were a man you would choose.

  I’ve often pitied Ruby, but tonight I really wish I could be more like her. None of it ever seems to phase her.

  I wish I could say the same.

  She has tried to teach me over the years, both how I should act and what I should do. She’s told me what to expect. What men generally like. How to be more pleasing.

  Some of them want you to want them like you want your next breath.

  Some of them want you to run and kick and scream.

  I shudder at the thought of it, feeling the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  Why can’t I just accept what everyone else has no problem with?

  That is the way of the world.

  I’m not better than any of the girls. I don’t deserve special treatment, so why have I come to expect it?

  The curtains that cover the opening of the cave move and my head darts up from between the pillows, only to let out a sigh of relief when I see it’s only Denim.

  Denim.

  Denim with his mop of dark hair looking even more dishevelled than usual and a fraught expression on his face.

  I already suspect my relief was premature.

  “Which one is it?” I ask. Better to get it out of the way before he can start stumbling over his words.

  “It is… Hum.”

  “Hum?”

  He nods.

  I still don’t believe him.

  Hum is not one of them. Hum is the one who guards the entrance to the cave and turns the wheel to let people in and out. He is a giant. Hum is harmless, but he’s so harmless it’s almost criminal to think Denim could mean what he says. He has the mental capability of a six-year-old, and that is being quite generous.

  “You can’t be serious,” I say, shaking my head in disbelief.

  Regardless of the other reasons, I’m convinced Hum would break every bone in my body. His weight alone would be enough to crush me. I’m only slightly over five foot tall — he is probably seven!

  The thought of it makes me feel sick.

  “I’m afraid so. They want to see you get fucked by a giant.”

  I nod, not really being able to process what he’s saying. They can afford my fee, clearly. But instead of buying me for themselves, they would rather watch me suffer.

  “Can you give me a minute?” I ask. Denim hesitates. Clearly his order was to collect me straight away. “Just a minute. Please.”

  He gives me a weak smile and a single nod. “Alright. One minute.”

  The moment he is out of the room, I don’t waste any time.

  I throw the pillows off the platform and pull the mat back, not caring about the carnage.

  The thing I’m looking for, I put it here years ago.

  I know I did.

  I’ve never had any intention of using it. Until now.

  Where the fuck is it?

  I hear Denim return just as my eye catches the glint of something metal. A knife. A small, thin, sharp knife.

  This won’t save my life against Hum — and truthfully, I couldn’t kill him even if my life depended on it. But it might just save me from my fate.

  Or at the very least, buy me some more time.

  I spin around and catch Denims wide eyes at the mess I’ve made of the bed.

  Before he has the chance to react, I push the knife up flush against my throat, so close that one swallow would probably nick the skin. “Tell Maxim I will slit my own throat if he makes me do that. Tell them all I will slit my own throat.”

  Denim takes a step back, looking at me as if I’m quite mad.

  Women can’t kill themselves. We’re too rare. Too special. We can be played with, hurt, even tortured… and if we die, then it’s an unfortunate accident. But we are never to take the easy way out. To do so is shameful, and a sin against all those who never had the choice to live.

  He stares at me and I do everything I can to show him I’m quite serious.

  My fingers are trembling around the knife.

&nb
sp; I am scared — of course I’m scared. It’s not the pain I fear, for I am quite used to that. It’s not the thought of no longer existing, for surely that would be a blessing, not to suffer anymore.

  What scares me is that the place I’m going in death might be worse than here.

  “Alright,” Denim says, two hands held out in front of him. “Alright. I’ll tell him.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BARON

  Maxim has set up a table for us in his personal club room.

  Like him, everything is red. The lighting, the seating, the curtains that cover the hewed stone walls.

  It makes him blend in with the scenery, which I very much doubt was his intention when he designed the place.

  Fool.

  If I was a man who wanted to stand out — as he so clearly is with the childish devil costume — I’d have everything else green.

  But he is clearly not that clever.

  I sit with Andrei and our four guests. My other men stand around in the shadows, watching and listening, as they’re paid well to do.

  Maxim drifts from table to table, checking his guests are being looked after while the bids are being sealed. There is a bottle of whisky doing the rounds, and the four men I brought here guzzle it down like it’s water on a hot day, giddy with anticipation for my fucked up plan.

  The truth is, it was the only thing I could think of.

  Since the second she walked out into the ring, they wanted her. I felt the atmosphere around me shift just as surely as I’d feel a change in the weather. She was pure and innocent, and yet she looked like a fucking nightmare.

  The star of the show.

  The one they all come to see.

  The price so high that no one could ever afford to pay it, and so instead they wank like little gremlins over the thought of her pain.

  What man could resist a temptation like that?

  I thought I was that man.

  There is no woman on earth who could make an already insane man lose himself further. Right?

  At first I was just curious. What makes her so special? Why is she priced so ridiculously high?

  She was merely a puzzle that needed to be solved.

  And then she looked at me while she danced and nearly lost an eye for the pleasure of it.

  That was when everything changed.

  She stopped just performing a routine, and she started fighting for her life. And it was glorious.

  The panic in her movements.

  The fear in her eyes.

  The way I could almost hear her heart racing from across the room. A man could become addicted to that.

  So I did what seemed most sensible. I acted like I wasn’t that interested, because letting on that I was would ensure her price skyrocketed.

  The others were beautiful, many of them more breathtaking than her. Not once was I tempted, but I could only hope my four guests would be. The minute I looked into those mismatched eyes I wanted that girl for myself.

  She is already mine.

  It wasn’t even the rarity of her colouring. One blue and one green. Rare, yes, but who gives an honest fuck? It was what I saw inside those eyes that had my mind racing.

  It was the sweetest mix of fear and curiosity I had ever seen.

  But whatever was pulling me towards her was pulling the others too. And I wasn’t about to let that happen.

  Have her fuck the giant outside.

  I had laughed as I suggested it, finding myself highly amusing.

  The others did, too.

  Although they are the fools, because I’ve seen with my own eyes what those four men do to women. The little thing would be better off taking her chances with the giant, but I knew they wouldn’t see it like that. They’d just see it as something new and interesting. An inch they’d never even contemplated scratching before.

  I’m the master of that.

  So she’d fuck the big ogre in front of us. The thought of it made me uncharacteristically annoyed, but I had no intention of letting it get that far. I’d put him out of his misery — or delight, who knows — right at the last minute. Right before he could actually take what is now mine. I’d have my four associates pay her full fee, and then I’d pay for what was left of her.

  The man who is Maxim’s second comes back into the room, pausing for a minute while he tries to locate his camouflaged boss. A red blob inside a red background. Fucking imbecile. Maxim that is — not the second.

  I watch him like a hawk as he crosses the room and whispers something to Maxim. The pair of them are conspiring like old wives and it’s fucking with my head.

  Scraping my chair back against the hard wood, I walk over to them. “Is there a problem?”

  They both take a step back from me as if I’m some deadly infection, and I watch Maxim’s expression falter. “She is…”

  Spit it the fuck out.

  I’m about to tell him exactly that when he manages to pull himself together.

  “She is threatening to kill herself. She’s in her bed with a knife at her throat.”

  I turn away from them, pretending to be frustrated. It is times such as these I’m thankful for the god-forsaken lump of metal that covers my entire face. I was never good at hiding my expression, and right now I can’t fight my smile.

  She is sharp as well as pretty.

  And curious, too. I saw her fear of losing her life just an hour ago with my own eyes.

  Yet now, she threatens me with it. She uses it against me as if her life is no big deal?

  She is playing with me, and she doesn’t even know it.

  I don’t buy it for a second. I could call her bluff so easily. But I won’t do that, because the others will eat this story up like the mindless dogs they are.

  Turning back to Maxim, I clear my throat. “Very well. Let me tend to my guests, and then we will talk.”

  The man looks worried, but he nods his head enthusiastically enough. I return to the table where my guests are sitting. “Change of plan,” I announce. “We will return to my home tonight.”

  “But what about the girl?” Leonardo snaps.

  “Forget the girl. She’s in her room, suicidal. Believe me, dealing with a woman hell bent on ending it is little fun. I have something better planned for tonight. Andrei will see to it.”

  Though they grumble, each of them stands, patting themselves down to make sure their cigarettes are present and their wallets haven’t been swiped.

  I gesture to Andrei to follow me with a flick of my head. “Leave one of the bikes for me. Take them home in the cars and keep them amused.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  I shrug. “You can think of something. Something more fucked up than watching a girl get crushed by a giant.”

  He smirks and nods his head before returning to the group.

  Now, for the real business.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SAPPHIRE

  There are voices behind the curtain and I tighten my grip around the blade, pressing it close to my throat again. It is the only weapon I have, and it’s not even one I could use to defend myself.

  Not really.

  No, the blade’s only use comes in the ability to end my life, and the gamble that my life is worth more to Maxim than the money they are offering to have me thrown to Hum.

  My eyes go wide when the man who emerges from the curtain is not Denim, or even Maxim.

  It’s the man with the mask.

  The walking nightmare.

  “Put that down, silly girl. That shit doesn’t work with me.”

  I can’t shake my head since I’d likely slice my own throat open in the process, so instead I just stare at him. “Who are you?”

  He shrugs. “Who I am is of no significance to you. You just need to come with me.”

  I swallow and move the knife away a fraction when the pressure reminds me just how sharp it is. The nick on my thigh has only just stopped bleeding, and I’m not in a rush to spill any more of my own blood — unle
ss the worst comes to the worst.

  “No,” I tell him, as firmly as I’m able.

  He sighs through his mask. “If you want to live, you will come with me.”

  Is the man for real? I’d almost laugh, if the sight of him wasn’t so chilling. “You expect me to believe that? You and your friends wanted to see me crushed to death an hour ago.”

  The masked man lets out an amused laugh as he walks towards my dresser. He glances behind him, towards me, and says, “Lets not get theatrical now, your performance finished some time ago. You would have survived the ordeal, of that I’m quite sure.”

  He quickly goes back to inspecting my belongings, picking up my encrusted cup and twisting it around in front of his face.

  I stare at him, momentarily dumbfounded. “You offered money to watch a giant fuck me, and now you want me to come with you?”

  “Correction,” he says, slamming the cup back down on my dresser. “I offered a lot of money to watch a giant fuck you. And you were stupid enough to refuse my offer,” he scoffs.

  “You are mad.”

  “Completely, yes,” he says with a shrug. “Your assumption is quite correct. But I was actually trying to do you a kindness. ”

  I drop the knife an inch further, feeling positive this is a trap he’s laying but unable to stop myself from taking the bait. “What do you mean?”

  The man turns to face me, resting his hands against the table. “What I mean is, I have some extremely fucked up associates who took quite an interest in you. Four men, three holes. I wonder what a little thing like you would have done with the fourth one?” He laughs at his own joke and it makes me feel sick.

  “I’m not for sale. Maxim doesn’t want to see me dead.”

  “Really? How adorable.” He tilts his head to the side. “ Your ignorance is almost childlike. Everyone in this world is for sale.”

  The man may speak the truth, I have no idea. Maybe it’s true.

  The more I think about it, the more it seems likely.

  In one night, Maxim has gambled with me more than he has my entire life.

  Suddenly my world feels even bleaker than it did this morning. This morning everything was normal. Chaotic and fucked up, sure, but that is normal. Now there are three choices. Go with those four men, go with him, or go to sleep forever.