The Pleasures of Sin by Jessica Trapp

who could punish her at his whim. Furthermore, he was The Enforcer, a powerful man, legally empowered to torture and execute her as he saw fit.
    More tears fell down her cheeks as her helplessness sank in. She furiously wiped them away, angry at her defeat.
    Slowly he eased his grip. “Do not try to escape.”
    She tried to rally her strength, to give one last nod at getting free even though she knew it was futile. Weakness filled her limbs; her legs felt like lead weights. Her shoulders slumped and she nodded. “Yes, my lord.”
    Her own voice startled her. So this is how it would be—a world filled with “yes, my lord” and “of course, my lord” and “as you wish, my lord” until he finally tired of torturing her and finished the beheading.
    “Stay here.” He stood and the straw mattress jiggled.
    Numbly, Brenna stared at him as he bent to retrieve the loops and chains from the floor. There may as well have been devil horns poking from his dark hair. She curled into a fetal position, hugging a pillow. Her stomach churned.
    Straightening, Montgomery held the device up, his face as merciless and cold as a Roman warlord. Five iron manacles linked by a lightweight chain slid across his palms. Two for her wrists, two for her ankles, and one for her neck.
    Her breath clogged in her throat. The cold, hard iron would wind around her neck and link to her limbs in a way that every step would be hobbled. She would not be free to run, or stretch or even climb stairs without trouble.
    Worse, she would never be able to paint again. Even if she could break into the locked trunk, the chains would slop in the colors and drag across the canvas, inhibiting her from freely moving the brush.
    She would be a slave in every sense of the word.
    “There is truly no nee—”
    “I won’t have you jumping out of windows or trying to stab me at every turn.” The links of chain slid across his long, blunt fingers. Clink. Clink. Clink.
    She shivered.
    The mattress ropes creaked as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Come, captive wife”—he patted his lap—“stretch your neck o’er my knees so I may fasten on your new necklace.”
    Every bit of pride she possessed crashed to the surface. Lay her head over his knees and allow him to snap a collar around her neck like one of Adele’s pack?
    Demeaning!
    “Unless you would prefer to stretch it over the axeman’s block again.” The words were spoken as mild and politely as if he were offering her a choice between a slice of bread and a sweetmeat.
    “I have no fear of death,” she said shakily. Had she not just thought to kill herself moments before?
    “Then perhaps we could stretch you o’er the spokes of the wheel.”
    She swallowed, a touch of ice shooting inside her veins. She’d once seen a man executed by that means. The victim had every joint broken in his arms and legs. Then his limbs were braided through the spokes of a large wheel, which was hoisted atop a tall pole. Around and around he spun as ravens plucked bits of bloody flesh from the man’s body.
    Her hand went instinctively to her throat as she scrutinized Montgomery’s face for any sign that he was bluffing.
    His jaw was hard as flint. No flicker of compassion shone in his eyes, and he gazed back at her as if he knew the battle was already won and merely waited for her to acknowledge it.
    His long fingers skimmed over the links of the chain, one by one, as if counting them.
    She shuddered. No doubt The Enforcer had sentenced many to death on the wheel and felt no measure of guilt over the pain they would suffer. “Is that how your last wife was murdered?”
    His fingers stilled on the chain. “Nay.”
    “But you did murder her, didn’t you?”
    The mote in his eye reddened. “Some say that. Not the wise ones.”
    A deathly silence hung in the room. And she knew the battle was won.
    Angrily wiping the tears from her cheeks, she moved to a kneeling position. Her face heated at what she was about to do.