Tender Mercies - By Kitty Thomas Page 0,2

online who actually lived there and wanted her to come to him.

Pictures had been exchanged. Naughty webcam sessions had taken place. And now he wanted her to make the choice to hand him her freedom. And the fucked-up part? She wanted to. He was rich. He was gorgeous. And he had a voice that reached inside and flipped some switch that made her want to kneel at his feet.

She wasn’t uninformed about the laws of Eleu. She knew the risks. She couldn’t appeal based on her rights as a citizen of any other country, because former citizenship was renounced at the gate. There wasn’t even a single embassy. Tourism wasn’t permitted.

No one would come rescue her, so she had to be sure. The only law pertaining to the safety of slaves in Eleu was that you couldn’t kill them. If her master broke that law, that was it. Game over. Whether he was imprisoned for the offense or not, her life would still be forfeit.

She wiggled her toes––nails still wet from a fresh coat of petal pink––and looked at the clock again. Ten more minutes.

Her cell rang, and she jumped. Lucas rarely called on the phone, preferring the visual stimulation of webcam. He’d said they’d talk in instant messenger tonight; he had some work to do. She’d been disappointed but hadn’t made waves about it, afraid he was getting bored with her. Tired of waiting and all her caution.

The number that lit across the screen was Lainey’s.

“Hello,” she said, bracing herself for more of her friend’s attempts at deprogramming.

Lainey sighed over the phone.

“You just called to breathe at me?” Grace said, her eyes trained on the clock. Eight minutes.

“What do you know about this guy?” It was the question that had been asked and answered at least a hundred different times and ways, but no answer satisfied her.

“Lucas Stone. Owns an Internet company. The main focus is his social networking site. He’s 38. Non-smoker. Pisces. He’s got a dog, Australian shepherd. His sister is a flight attendant living in Greece. He’s a Buddhist––”

Lainey interrupted the Lucas Stone resume. “No. What do you really know about this guy?”

“I know we’ve been talking online for a year, I can’t find any criminal dirt on him, and he’s getting bored waiting. I think if I don’t go to him, he’ll find someone else.”

“So?”

Grace sighed. “You just don’t understand.”

Lainey was kinky, no doubt. But she didn’t have the kind of needs Grace did. She was more about kink in the bedroom and nothing more. Her mention of Eleu had been in more of an offended feminist can-you-believe-those-psychos way than real interest. She hadn’t counted on the idea lighting something inside of Grace and not fading.

“It’s too dangerous. I don’t care how long you’ve been talking or how kinky you are. You can live in a consensual 24/7 relationship here, where you’ll have legal recourse if the bastard tries to really hurt you.”

“Just like battered wives and abused girlfriends do? If you’re with a dangerous man, laws won’t protect your rights. You know that, and I know that. You either end up with a useless restraining order and a psycho that kills you anyway, or the battered wives’ version of Stockholm Syndrome.”

“Grace . . .”

“Safewords don’t make you safe. If you’re with the wrong guy playing kinky, you’re fucked anyway. I’ve taken every precaution I know to take. I’ve checked out everything there is on this guy. He’s squeaky clean.”

“Maybe too clean,” Lainey said, as if a man were evil by virtue of not having a criminal record.

Five minutes.

“I have to go. He’s logging on in a few.”

Lainey seemed as if she were going to argue, but instead disconnected the call without even a goodbye. Lainey was the only one who would fight her on this. Grace’s parents had died in a car crash, and her brother was too coked out of his mind half the time to understand what was going on in his immediate reality, let alone a thousand miles away at her house.

Another minute passed and she saw Lucas’s Internet handle, Stoneman, flash across her screen.

Stoneman: Hey, pet. Been waiting long?

Gracie343: Only about fifteen minutes.

Stoneman: *chuckles* If only you were as eager to hop on a plane as you are to message me.

Gracie343: You know why I have to be careful.

Stoneman: I know. And you aren’t wrong. A woman disappeared here. Several of us think her master killed her, but they haven’t found a body.

Grace’s hand trembled a little as she stared