“Fight me, and I will make this so much worse for you,” he growls. “I’m done playing, Mercedes.”

I swallow as he yanks the sheet off my body, and it falls to the floor. Then he spins me in his arms and secures the collar around my neck, followed by a padlock that he loops through the ring and one of the spare holes, making it impossible to remove. When he’s finished with that, he leads me to the center of the stables, where a large metal arm hangs from the ceiling with a chain dangling from the end all the way to the floor. On the bottom of the chain, there are four more individual attachments, one of which he secures to my collar with the addition of another lock.

When he’s satisfied that he has me shackled like a dog, he returns to the entrance and retrieves a wheelbarrow, a shovel, and a thick broom.

“Start on that side.” He points at one row of stalls. “I’ll take the horses out of the other, and you can clean those while I ride. I want them all done by the time I return in an hour. Is that clear?”

“You must be delusional.” I snort.

“Test me,” he threatens. “Either you’ll do this or I’ll lock you up naked in the cellar where I kept Ivy, and I won’t come back for you for a week.”

This time, his warning sends a real frisson of terror through me. That place was so fucking creepy. There’s no way in hell I’m going in there with all the skeletal remains of god knows what creatures. I actually felt pity for the woman when she was in there, and that’s saying a lot.

“Do we have an understanding?” he demands.

“Yes.” I glare at him. “I understand perfectly well.” He turns on his heel, and I mutter under my breath. “Fucking asshole.”

Judge didn’t leave me with a lot of instructions, but he did add a few more while he was preparing the horses. I’ll admit, it felt strange watching him in his natural environment. He was at ease, the tension leaving his body as he climbed astride one of the horse’s backs and led the others along beside him out of the stables.