Free The Flesh Cartel #1: Capture by Heidi Belleau, Rachel Haimowitz Page A

was something of him left after all, and yet that fact scared him more than it encouraged him. Because it was a weakness left to be exploited. One more thing for them to take away. He just didn’t know how yet.
    “You’ll ask to be allowed. Which you’d be doing anyway.”
    He supposed that shouldn’t have surprised him, not after all they’d taken from him today, but it did. No control, nothing, not even over the most basic functions of his own body. Just the thought of it nearly made the tears come again, but he was too worn out to cry now, too ashamed, too exhausted.
    “There’s a good boy,” the doctor said, patting his welted left buttock. The kind of affection he’d give a dog, and never mind how much that touch—gentle as it was—hurt after the beating he’d endured. “You’ll do just fine. Off you go, now.”
    Before he could ask where— Will people leave me alone now? Will Mat be there? —a guard helped him off the table, guided him to his feet, held him steady when he wobbled. The plug, slim as it was, shifted inside him and made him hiss. He didn’t think he could walk.
    “No faltering now, boy. You need to be strong. You won’t like it if they have to carry you.”
    No kidding. The first time someone had hauled him up today, he’d been slammed to the floor and raped. The second time, he’d been pulled away from Mat. It didn’t seem like things could get any worse, but then, he’d thought that in his bathroom, and on the floor of his living room, and in the back of the van, too, hadn’t he? And he’d been so, so wrong each time.
    He had a sinking feeling he’d be wrong a lot more before this ordeal was finally over.

www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/flesh-cartel-2-auction

Bookended
    With Violetta Vane:
    Mark of the Gladiator
    Galway Bound
    The Druid Stone
    The War at the End of the World
    Hawaiian Gothic
    “Salting the Earth,” a short story in the anthology Like It or Not
    Cruce de Caminos
    Harm Reduction
    The Saturnalia Effect

    Power Play: Resistance, with Cat Grant
    Power Play: Awakening, with Cat Grant
    Master Class (Master Class, #1)
    Sublime: Collected Shorts (Master Class, #2)
    Counterpoint (Song of the Fallen, #1)
    Crescendo (Song of the Fallen, #2)
    Anchored (Belonging, #1)
    Where He Belongs (Belonging, #2)
    Break and Enter, with Aleksandr Voinov