SORRY FOR THE PREVIOUS DOUBLE-UPLOAD... this is the new one
NOTE: This chapter is less just-plain-nasty than the first two parts, but it's still non-con, so don't get your panties in a bunch when no one gets doe-eyed. And, as usual, I write long stories (this is the 3rd of 4 parts). Feel free to skip ahead to the juicy bits, but they're even juicier if you know how they're related!
.
IV: No Saints Here
Becoming a slave certainly sped up the process of personal growth.
Cassia nearly snorted when the thought occurred, though it was surprisingly accurate: she'd whizzed through a dozen versions of her personality this week, none of which she'd seen before. Were they true, deep-seated changes or transient reactions to stress? No idea, but whatever they were, they'd all been important in bringing her to this moment. And in this moment, she was very, very angry.
Cassia had always believed hopelessness was the very end of the road, a random genetic detour from the five stages of grief where depression became apathy instead of acceptance. From there it was a short step to suicide or a slower death via one's drug of choice. She'd been wrong, though. After being abducted from the
Vixen Vacation Queen
and repeatedly raped in the hold of the slave ship
Sultana
, Cassia had taken a left turn from anger into a short-lived burst of hopelessness, and there, she'd found the road diverged once more. And at the end of that road was fury.
Cassia was mad as hell. Mad at her parents, mad at Kenneth and herself, and mad, most of all, at Marcus Rasim Sinter, whose full name she'd learned that very same morning. And this development didn't feel at all transient. It felt like something that had been a long time coming, something that would leave behind a brand-new Cassia. She wasn't at all sorry about it, either.
She'd always tried to be a good person. Since her father's money meant she didn't have to work for her tuition, she volunteered at a shelter for battered women, and she studied when she might have played, habits that would have gotten her out of college a year early without denting her 4.0. Even before college, she'd always tried to do the right thing, taking care of her family when she was young enough that other people should still have been caring for her. When she should have been failing Lipstick 101 with a horde of giggling girlfriends, she'd been sitting at her mother's bedside, spoon-feeding her broth which usually came right back up. Cassia's first trip with her brand-new driver's license should have been going to a mall or movie in a sporty little coupe. Instead, her father had given her a boring blue sedan so to safely chauffeur her mom's chemotherapy sessions. She'd never complained, never said a word about it, but where had all that goodness gotten her?
Nowhere.
When he should have been sharing the burden of her mother's illness, her father had over-worked his way through grief, stopping only to attend the funeral his daughter had arranged. She was angry with him for remarrying before she'd even had a chance to forgive him for abandoning her. She was angry at her step-brother for years of sniping insults and snooping in her room. She was altogether done with his shit several years ago, but she'd been a "good girl" through all of it, biting her tongue so as not to make any trouble for her father or her step-mother, a nice woman who didn't deserve the loathsome progeny fate had given her.
None of her former "niceness" had mattered, however, and Cassia felt no need to continue. What Snake had done to her in the dark, dirty cell had freed her from all societal inhibitions. Her mother's advice—
if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all
—certainly didn't apply here, and Cassia wasn't sorry for any of the changes taking place in her head and or in her soul. She felt as though her "Fuck you" to Ghan in the hold had also been a giant "fuck you" to her father for his desertion, to her mother for dying, to her step-brother for being his asshole self, and to everyone on board this floating hell-hole.
She was even mad at the three inexpert lovers of her past: if she'd experienced good sex before she got here, maybe she wouldn't react the way she did to Captain Fucking Sinter.
Despite sloughing off the bindings of her formerly sweet, obliging self, Cassia tried to remember that she should be wooing the captain instead of provoking his temper. She should be manipulating the situation to her advantage, trying to coerce him into keeping her with him, then waiting for an opportunity to escape. She firmly agreed with all those "should"s in her head, but her blossoming temper kept getting away from her, and Cassia's past didn't lend itself to nurturing illusions.
Still, she was no longer as hopeless as she'd been before.
Maybe it was seeing the light of day again. Maybe it was sleeping soundly, without worrying about Snake attacking her. Maybe it was being fed, or being clean. Whatever it was, suicide-by-Ghan no longer seemed to be an option. She still didn't think she'd be rescued―she doubted this ship was headed anyplace with an extradition treaty―and no amount of hope could change what would happen to her on shore, but maybe, just maybe, she could survive it. If she stayed alive for long enough to become old news, maybe someone would let their guard down. Maybe she would some day be able to escape. That was the only thing she hoped for now. She wouldn't waste her time making up knight-in-armor scenarios that would never come to pass, but she'd try to hang on to the distant possibility of freedom for as long as she was able. And she'd try, try, try, to keep her temper in check with Marcus Rasim Sinter.
—o—
How the hell had he let this happen?
Marcus repeated his five mantras over and over and fucking over. Then he saw her, or heard her, and nothing else mattered but getting close to her, getting his hands and his mouth on her, and getting his cock inside Cassia Pendergast's sweet little pussy, where it belonged. Hell, he even liked lying in bed simply talking to the girl. She was quick-witted and she got his sense of humor. He thought she'd even understand the real Marcus Sinter.
