His Black Pearl
His Black Pearl
A Thrall Series Novel
Jenna Cryer
Copyright 2013 by Jena Cryer
Smashwords Edition
Cover art copyright Alenavlad
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
I’m hot.
Not a single light burns in our hotel room, but this darkness is more scorching than any blaze. I keep waiting for the air conditioner to kick in, but even though its clanking rumble echoes through the background, nothing but stale, muggy air surrounds me.
God, it’s sweltering.
I know I’m going to have to get up, but a part of me just wants to stay in bed as long as I can. I’m exhausted. These long days of sight-seeing are almost too much for a stay-at-home girl like me, but hey, I’m not complaining. This is Italy. Florence. The very cradle of the Renaissance. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been dreaming of coming here, and I’m not about to let any number of baggy eyes or blistered heels keep me from seeing every last bit of it I can.
I just wish the nights weren’t always so humid.
A bead of sweat tickles its way down my back, and I reach up to swat it away.
Only I can’t.
My arms are pinned behind me, and no matter how hard I wiggle, I can’t get them free. Oh, Lord, how tangled up am I? I’ve always been a restless sleeper, but to become this wrapped up in the sheets is almost comical.
I squirm for several seconds more before I finally give up. The room is pitch black, and I’m trapped. I really, really don’t want to ask my cousin for help—Lord knows Erica will be teasing me for days over this—but the longer I writhe, the more I know I don’t have a choice.
I suck in a deep breath, ready to call out Erica’s name.
Only then do I notice the gag.
Gag?
My eyes go wide.
Is that…Is that a ball in my mouth? Oh, God, it’s crushing my tongue. I try to spit it out, but my jaws are stretched open so far already and my lips ache from the constant strain. Several minutes pass before I even notice the thick leather strap securing it in place, but by then a simple gag is the least of my worries.
I can’t move.
Oh, dear God, I can’t move at all.
I struggle as hard as I can, but I’m not wrapped up in sheets. No, only leather could have the sharp bite I feel now, and the more I fight, the more chafed my bare skin becomes.
Wait a minute. Bare skin?
I’m shaking hard now. I never go to bed naked. Never. Someone must have undressed me, and that means…that means…
Oh, sweet Lord, I don’t even want to think about what that means.
I suck in a deep breath.
I’m on my knees. My hands are bound behind my back, and my chest is lashed to a hardened mattress. My breasts spill over my thighs. The left side of my face is pressed tight against a satiny pillow, and when I try to move, I can’t. I just can’t.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God!
I sob into my gag.
My eyes are wet, but the moisture just pools between my lashes. I wonder why at first, but then I notice the pressure.
A blindfold.
Sweet Lord, how stupid must I be not to realize I’m wearing a blindfold.
How stupid…or how drugged?
I shiver harder.
I can’t imagine a stranger ever slipping something into my water bottle, but what other explanation is there? Erica and I only visit the places recommended in our guidebooks, and even then, we don’t go if there aren’t at least a few other tourists present.
I always watch my drink. I never leave my food unattended. I haven’t even gone anywhere alone except for the one time Erica refused to leave that old perfumery behind Santa Maria Novella, and even then I only went to that one leather shop and—
The leather shop…
Images of scratched wooden counters and a creaky leather chair fill my mind. I remember the shopkeeper. He was in his fifties, Italian. A light graze of stubble covered his chin and a hint of gray touched the hair at his temples, but he still had the body of a much younger man. His hands were strong and callused, and his lips…
How do I know anything about his lips?
The floor jerks beneath me, and when I bounce into the air, my back hits rough wood.
A box.
I’m in a box.
I think I’m about to hyperventilate.
I breathe in one musty breath after the next, and still the ground quakes. What’s going on? This can’t be an earthquake, can it? It feels too tame, too familiar, almost like when I used to ride in the back of my grandpa’s pickup truck. But surely…
We hit another bump, and I can’t deny it anymore. I’m moving. What I thought was the rumble of an air conditioner is actually the growl of an engine. For a second, I wonder if I’m in the back of a van, truck, or car, but I don’t really guess that matters. No, I’d say the fact that I’m naked, gagged, and blindfolded inside a crate takes precedence over pondering the make and model of my chariot to Hell.
I giggle once before I start sobbing again.
This can’t be happening.
Oh, Lord, this can’t be happening.
I’m on vacation. I just graduated college. For God’s sake, I’m supposed to go to medical school in the fall. I can’t become some psycho’s fuck toy now. Mom and Dad would be so disappointed.
I snort and almost choke on my gag.Leave it to me to worry about letting down my parents at a time like this.
I take a deep breath.
Right now, all I need to do is remember. That old shopkeeper is at the center of this. He has to be. He’s the one who tempted me into his shop. He’s the one who smiled and flirted and gave me that black pearl.
The black pearl…
I can’t believe I forgot about it, but yes, that’s what started it all. A single black pearl. I might still have my freedom if not for that tiny little treasure, and just thinking about it brings back a wave of terror I almost wish I never had to remember.
Chapter One
“Adair Bartlett. Such beautiful name for such beautiful woman.”
I blushed at the old shopkeeper’s flattery, and shook my head quickly. No, I wasn’t beautiful. I had frizzy brown hair and skin far paler than any native-born Texan
should ever condone. My clothes were wrinkled. My jeans were too baggy. And my short-sleeved T-shirt was purposefully one size too big.
If not for the rather prominent swell of my chest, I doubt the old man would have known I was a woman at all.
But still, the flattery was nice.
I was standing inside a leather shop just a few blocks south of the Florence train station. Alone. I should have known better, but the old shopkeeper was so nice, and besides, my cousin was still shopping at the seventeenth century farmacia just a few streets over. She’d made four trips to the monastic shop already, and though I still thought the frescoes were gorgeous, there was only so much time I could waste looking at scented oils.
And anyway, I still hadn’t found my leather souvenir.
Since beginning our grand tour of Italy, Erica and I had sworn to pick up one cheesy, Italian-made trinket from every city we visited. I already had a feathered mask from Venice as well some Murano glass beads, and since coming to Florence, Erica had snagged a leather purse and jacket. She’d tried to coax me into haggling with the street merchant for a pair of my own, but I hadn’t. Blowing through a few hundred euros might mean nothing to my cousin, but as the daughter of a police officer and a pharmacy technician, I’d learned to be much more frugal. No way would I ever blow through my spending money, especially not after the fortune my parents had already spent on the plane tickets.
“Don’t worry about it,” my dad said after enduring nearly an hour of my guilt-ridden protests. “I’ll foot the bill. You just go have fun. You know you deserve it.”
I’d almost argued, but well, it was Italy, and he really did want to give me a good graduation present. I was the first Bartlett to graduate college, and I’d gotten my bachelor’s in chemistry—a choice neither one of my parents ever could understand—as well as a letter of acceptance from Vanderbilt Medical School. Of course my parents had been thrilled. Everyone in the family was excited.
Everyone but me.
“Bella?” The shopkeeper stepped out from behind his counter. “What wrong? Sad eyes not belong in such beautiful face.”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just…I’m fine.”
And I was.
My life was wonderful. I was smart and successful. My future was the envy of most of my class, and as for my present, well, I was on the trip of a lifetime, so enough said. I had absolutely nothing to complain about. I should have been the happiest woman in the world.
Only I wasn’t.
I was alone. My whole life I’d been adrift in a sea of people who knew exactly who they were and what they wanted while I never had managed to make a single decision on my own. My twelfth grade counselor was the one who recommended I major in chemistry, while my mom was the sole reason I’d chosen to apply to medical school. She’d always dreamed of having a doctor in the family, and how could I let her down? I was her good girl. I was the one she could always depend on. I couldn’t just turn my back on my family’s expectations, especially when I had no idea of what I actually wanted to do with my life.
The shopkeeper clucked his lips before taking my chin in his hand. “Don’t worry, mia bella. Old Pietro here now. He know just what to do.”
He opened a cabinet door behind me before I could even speak, and the clank and rattle of heavy ceramic overpowered all of my objections. This man was a stranger. It wasn’t his place to fix me. For God’s sake, I’d been trying to do that on my own for years now, and nothing ever worked. I was just destined to be sad, that’s all. I’d come to accept my fate long ago, and nothing this old shopkeeper could do would ever change that.
“Ah, look here, bella.” He withdrew a dusty mortar and pestle from the depths of his cupboard and held it out before me. “Is truth in here. Truth and happiness. Just watch old Pietro show you. Then we see sad eyes go bright.”
I forced a smile even though a small part of me wondered if I was about to become the victim of some Italian scam. Just what did he intend to do? His hands grabbed tiny vials of herbs and oils from the shelf above him, and he dumped them into the mortar seemingly at random. Only after the bowl was half-filled with a heavy amber tar did he pull a jagged black stone from his pocket and press it into my hand.
“Here, bella. All need is one kiss, then wishing stone know what make you happy. Now go on. Kiss. Kiss.”
I still couldn’t figure out why the owner of a leather store would have a miniature pharmacy housed in the back of his shop, but I went along with the game anyway. After all, what harm could there be? The shopkeeper looked like he was having fun, and I couldn’t deny my own excitement. I wanted to know what he was going to do next. I had to know. So I pressed the stone to my lips and prayed for all the happiness I never could find on my own.
“Bene, bella, bene. Now drop in potion and watch. This magic. Real magic. And it going to fix you like nothing have before.”
Despite myself, I half-believed what the old man was telling me. I dropped the rock, and it thunked against the ceramic mortar with a splash. We both laughed. He dusted a light sprinkle of silver powder over top before dousing the whole concoction with a heavy stream of red wine. I prayed he wouldn’t ask me to take a sip. God only knows what all he put in there. But no, after a few turns of his pestle, he sank his fingers into the mixture and pulled out something dark and glistening.
A pearl.
It was a giant black pearl.
Neither of us spoke. I wasn’t sure if I should applaud or pull out my wallet. The pearl was nearly the size of a golf ball, and it was just so beautiful. I’d never been very interested in jewelry, but for some reason this prize sparked a need I’d never felt before. I wanted it to be mine. No, it had to be mine.
I grabbed my debit card. “Look, I know it’s probably expensive, but—”
“No, no price.” The shopkeeper shook his head over and over again before he looked up at me with wide eyes. “Wishing stone always right. It know what make you happy. And this…this make you happy, si?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “I mean si. Si, it makes me very happy.”
He chuckled once before his lips curled into a soft smile. “Then that all that matter.”
He cleaned the pearl with a wet handkerchief before he pulled open a drawer in the bottom of his counter and removed a thick leather strap. The tiny belt was beautifully crafted. Elaborate scrollwork was etched into every inch of its tanned hide. I just couldn’t understand why he’d need such a thing until I saw him affixing my pearl to the large silver hoop hanging from its center.
“Here.” He held the belt—no, the choker—up to me, and I lifted my hair as he strapped it around my neck.
It felt perfect.
“Take look, bella.” He led me to a mirror in the corner of the room. “You like?”
The black pearl filled the space between my collar bones divinely, and the darkly stained leather hugged my throat just as naturally as my own skin. It was perfect. Oh, God, it was absolutely perfect. I never wanted to take it off. Just thinking about loosing it sent a chill through my heart, and once more I pressed my wallet into the old shopkeeper’s hands.
“Please,” I said. “I know it has to cost a fortune, but I really want—”
“No.” He pushed my money away. “No cost. Just wait, bella. Pietro still have more surprise.”
He patted my cheek before he disappeared through a door in the back of the room. Was this for real? Was this man, this stranger, actually going to give me such a gorgeous necklace just because he wanted me to be happy?
I couldn’t understand it.
I heard the shopkeeper tinkering around in the back of the store, but I hardly noticed anything besides the flawless beauty hanging from my neck. How could anyone ever part with something so magnificent? The thought of him giving it up still baffled me, but I wasn’t about to question my luck any longer. This necklace was mine. It became mine at 5:42 pm, and it would stay mine until—
Wait a minute. 5:42 pm?
My heart hammered.
I couldn’t wait to thank the old shopkeeper for his gift. I had to go. Now.
With my purse thrown over one shoulder and my necklace clasped tightly around my neck, I shouted out a single goodbye before racing through the door. I thought I heard him call after me, but I didn’t have time to turn back. I was in trouble, more trouble than I’d ever been in before, and I couldn’t waste time with even a single arrivederci.
Chapter Two
Erica wasn’t at the restaurant when I arrived, and from what I could tell, she never had been, so I ordered a plate of pesto lasagna, settled down in a booth by the window, and waited for her to show up.
By 7:30, I finally figured out she wasn’t coming.
In all my life, I don’t think I’d ever wished for a cell phone more than I did right then, but of course my little pay-as-you-go plan didn’t have international coverage. No, Erica had the phone with all the options. If I could have just remembered her number, I might have been able to call her from the restaurant’s pay phone, but as always, I hadn’t thought ahead. I’d just programmed her digits into my own phone—the one I’d left on my bedside table back in Texas—and now my only option was to make the long trek back to our hotel alone.
It was after 8:00 by the time I made it up to the second floor lobby, and the lady at the front desk just waved me through before I could ask for our key. Erica must have beaten me home after all.
God only knew how much she must be freaking out.
I paused at the door to our room and sent up a quick prayer. Dear Lord, please don’t let my over-protective cousin be on the phone with my parents. I really, really don’t want to deal with a lecture right now, so please, just take a little pity on me, okay?
With my final request made and my heart still fluttering, I took one last deep breath and knocked. The door opened almost instantly.