Read Online Hidden Currents by Christine Feehan - Free Book Online Page A

and her eyes burned with tears. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably, but her brain was beginning to kick in again. This couldn’t go on. She was going to be lost, or maybe she already was. There was no way out. Stavros was too powerful, his private island too isolated. No one knew where she was. She was tied or chained most of the time, locked in a room, and she couldn’t use even the smallest psychic talent. Her body hurt every minute of the day. She was exhausted and worn from fighting him.
    He turned her over and rubbed the ointment into her breasts and belly, lower still, following the thin stripes inside her thighs and across her painful bare mound. Unbidden came the humiliating memory of him shaving her clean, right before he took her virginity. She bit at her lip to keep from crying out, but tears squeezed between her lashes. He leaned down to lick them away.
    “You look so beautiful, sweetness.” His tongue traced a path to the edge of her mouth, down to one stripe across the swell of her breasts. “Your body will know only mine, and you’ll always crave my touch.”
    She opened her eyes then to look at him. He seemed invincible. All powerful. She tried to make a sound, but her mouth was too dry and he immediately held a glass of water to her lips, helping her drink. He looked so caring she could almost believe him, but he had been the one to inflict the damage on her.
    “Why do you keep hurting me?” She could barely form the words.
    “You must learn obedience, Sheena. You are to serve me, at my pleasure. When I tell you to do something, you must never argue. You must obey without question.” He lowered her back to the bed and stroked his fingers over her shivering body. “Sometimes it may please me to hurt you and you will learn to be happy to do this.” He bent his head to her breast, his tongue flicking her nipple.
    She hurt so much she couldn’t stop the little shudder that went through her, but still, he had been training her body to accept pain and find pleasure there as well. Already his fingers were probing between her legs, and, ignoring her wince and small cry, he pushed his head between her thighs, letting the dark shadowed jaw slide across the whip marks.
    Oh God, she couldn’t do this anymore. She didn’t have the strength to fight him. Her fingers clutched at the silken sheet, bunching it into her fists while tears poured down her face. There had to be a way out. She just had to think. To find it. To stop feeling helpless like the victim he’d made her.
    Elle. Baby. Stay alive for me. Any way you have to, stay alive for me. I’m coming for you.
    Her breath caught in her throat. Was Stavros playing a trick on her? The voice was so familiar, so warm and caring—so achingly familiar. She went very still, trying not to respond, to open her mind. She knew if she did, pain would crash into her brain and she’d lose the tentative control she had going for her.
    As if sensing her withdrawal from him, Stavros bit down on her so that she arched her body, a small cry of pain escaping.
    You know I’ll never stop until I find you. Stay strong, baby. For me. For your sisters. For Jonas and Ilya and the entire damn village. Stay alive, Elle.
    She gasped. Jackson. It was Jackson. He was coming for her. She could hold out as long as it took, take whatever punishment Stavros wanted to deliver. Feebly she tried to move away from Stavros. He clamped his hand across her hips, deliberately pressing into the raw wounds, all the while his tongue and teeth ravaging her. Her body spilled out a helpless response, already trained to obey even when her mind screamed a denial.
    “Stavros, no. I hurt.” Maybe she could buy a reprieve with pleading.
    “You live only to serve me,” he hissed. “Have I not taught you that?”
    He bit the inside of her thigh, leaving behind teeth marks and adding bruises to her already striped flesh and Elle arched away from him, screaming.
    “Your pain pleases me, Sheena. Now I