by Dark, Raven
She knew; I could feel it. My heart hurt for her, wishing I could explain, wishing I could tell her she was safe.
Once everyone had served themselves full plates and dug in, conversations floated around the table over the clatter of silverware. Just as at Falnar’s, I caught snatches of them.
“How in the hell do you get produce out here?” Hawk asked Eagle Eye, who sat at Mayhem’s left. He twisted a large grape off a platter and inspected it before popping it into his mouth. “It would have cost an arm and a leg at any station around here. We grow it ourselves where we are, but I doubt you guys have the ability to do that in a place like this.”
“We do, actually.” Eagle Eye said. “Remind me to show you, Hawk. We have a huge greenhouse on the main…”
“No one uses that anymore, do they, Stitch?” Doc asked the Angel’s doctor across from him, biting into a drumstick. “I thought torizine was banned a few years ago…”
Over this, I heard talk of the price of water in this zone, and a captain in another one charging his people four times the worth, capitalizing on the ever-present shortage of such a commodity in the desert. Others talked about a raid one gang close to here had pulled on another club, one in which the whole club was destroyed.
“They sound like the Iron Wolves,” Sinister said. “Every few weeks, they come at us again.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.” Mayhem cut into his bird. “It seems every time we leave here, we run into another gang. The world is changing, mark my words. There is something happening out there.”
“Something like what?” Sheriff asked. He’d evidently picked up on the same ominous tone I had.
“I don’t know.” Mayhem sat back in his seat. “It’s like something is drawing people together who would never normally be able to sit in the same room without killing each other. Inciting them to violence that goes well beyond what they’d normally allow. Everyone’s at each other’s throats. And half a dozen gangs have been seen riding days or even weeks out of territory they wouldn’t normally set foot away from.”
“Even the Dregs are acting odd,” Eagle Eye agreed. “They would never normally come this far south.”
Sheriff scowled and put his fork down. “Mayhem, you and your men have to tell us. How the hell did the Hellhounds manage to take over this place so fast with so many of you here?”
“And how did they drug you all?” Doc asked. “What did they use?”
“Well.” Mayhem sighed and looked up in thought. “You fellas remember I told you one of my guards let them in?”
Sheriff and the others nodded.
“We have pipes running through most of this place for heat. The heat is powered by a generator under the fortress. Knife—the guard—helped them inject Acrin into the system. Filled the whole room with enough acronite gas to knock most of my men out. They rounded up the rest. When we woke up, we were all in those damn cages.”
“Fucking scum,” Doc hissed. “Awful stuff, that acrin.”
Steel nodded silently, and I knew he was thinking about the days he’d spent fighting for his life after the Dreg attack.
“Shortly after we came around, Saketh had a couple of men pump us all full of something that knocked us out while he waited for you guys to show up. They gave us enough that even when we started to come around, none of us had the wherewithal to put two sentences together. And Saketh warned us that if we said a word to alert you, they’d kill half of us.”
“I hope you gave that guard a hell of a beat down and then left him in the desert to die,” Sheriff said.
“We did leave him in the desert to rot. But he was alive when we buried him neck deep in sand and let the fire ants eat him.”
Hawk’s mouth pulled into a wince, but he nodded in approval.
“But how did you get time to put D and the other women in your panic room?” Sheriff sipped his wine.
“Pure luck,” Mayhem said, stroking my mother’s hand with his thumb. “I happened to be in my rooms with D at the time. My room has a separate heating system. A couple of my guards came running to us when the Dregs infiltrated the Hold. They managed to warn me before they keeled over. I had enough time to get D and the other two women into the panic room before Saketh’s men found me. The panic room is sealed off and hidden, or else they might have taken D and the others. I don’t like to think what would have happened to D if Knife had known about the room.”
My mother kissed Mayhem’s hand, visibly shuddering at the thought of Saketh finding her and the other women.
“If you and your men hadn’t shown up when you did, Sheriff, all us would be dead,” Horse added, a few seats down from Eagle Eye. “We came to, and he and his men were raving about someone they called ‘The Liberator’. Speaking of which.” He nodded to me. “I’m guessing that’d be you.”
I cleared my throat, wishing I could disappear into the floor. Especially when everyone seemed to have stopped talking and now stared at me. It didn’t help when Sheriff winked at me and my mother was looking at me with wide eyes.
“Maker, I didn’t even put it together,” she said. “I’d been hearing stories coming in from visitors for weeks, but I didn’t realize it was you, even after Mayhem told me what Saketh said and I saw you.” Her eyes glowed with pride.
Thankfully, the conversations quickly moved onto other things. Desserts were brought out, more platters loaded with cakes and pastries.
After a while, my mother and I got up to relieve ourselves while the men talked. When we returned to the dining hall, she put her arm around me on our way back to the table.
“I wish you could stay here for a while after that doctor leaves,” she said warmly. “After all this time, we’ll have just started to get to know each other again, and you’ll be gone.”
“I know, Mother. I wish that, too.” I pressed her hand to my cheek. “We’ll have to squeeze in all the time we can over the next few days.”
“It’s much too short a time.” She sighed and nodded to the table. “You’d better get over there before your men start a riot.” She grinned.
Indeed, my masters all had one eye on us, even while they talked. Sheriff was watching us closely, possession turning his indigo eyes to obsidian. There was something else in his gaze, something dark that made my throat go dry.
I squeezed my mother’s hand, and she returned to her place at Mayhem’s side while I made my way toward my own seat beside Sheriff.
Sheriff downed the rest of his wine and sat back from his empty plate. “If I eat any more, someone’s going to have to roll me out of this hall, Mayhem.” He rubbed his belly. “Get over here, Liberator,” he added, snagging my wrist as soon as I was within reach. “You’re too far away from me.”
My cheeks flamed, realizing what he wanted by the smoky light in his eyes, even before he pulled me onto his lap. Laughter rippled around the room. Several of the men whooped at us and banged the table with their goblets.
Intense awareness of my mother’s presence a few feet away made my blush deepen. The amused smile she wore only made it worse.
“Master, my mother is here,” I said out of the corner of my mouth, squirming on his lap.
“So?” His lips brushed my ear. He pulled me closer and positioned me so that I sat with my back against his chest, his arm like a band of steel around my waist.
“So, can’t this wait?” I hated the pleading in my voice.
“Nope.” He squeezed my hip hard. “She’s a pirate’s slave, too, sweetheart. She knows how men are at dinners like this.”
And yet the dangerous timbre in his deep voice, and the grip he had on my hip, warned me there was more to his actions than just a pirate staking his claim. There was…I didn’t know what it was I felt or heard in him, but it unsettled me.
Across the table, thankfully, my mother was deep in conversation with Mayhem. I wondered if she was deliberately absorbing herself with him for my sake.
Did Sheriff have no shame? He must not have, because while he talked with the r
est of the Four, he shifted in his seat, pressing his cock squarely between my legs. When I tensed, he pressed harder into me.
To anyone else, it probably looked like he was just getting more comfortable; only I knew different.
“What was that you were saying, Steel?” Sheriff said too casually.
“Oh, I was just saying that it’s got to be hard with so many men living so close like this. Mayhem said there’s a thousand men here, same as us, but this place is a lot smaller than the Grotto. That many men stuffed in here, it would drive me crazy.”
“Well, they seem to be comfortable enough. This place is a lot bigger than it looked on the outside.”
As he talked, Sheriff ran his fingers slowly up and down my thigh, trailing them between my legs under the tablecloth—every slow, tormenting stroke just close enough to my sex to tease and make my heart beat faster. Meanwhile, his cock pressed between my legs, hard as a rod of iron.
I bit back a groan and tried to shift away from his hardness, but his other hand held my hip still.
“Sheriff, don’t be shy with the drink,” Mayhem called across the table. “There’s plenty to go around.”
“You have any whiskey, Mayhem?” Sheriff’s hand slid between my legs, stroking my sex over my pants. “I’m not much of a wine drinker.”
I jerked in response to his touch and hoped no one noticed.
Mayhem snapped his fingers and a prospect disappeared beyond a set of doors off to the side of the room I hadn’t noticed before, ones I assumed led to a kitchen.
Slowly, Sheriff pulled the string loose on my pants. My heart battered my ribs. No, he wasn’t doing this now. He wouldn’t dare.
Whatever he and Mayhem said, I didn’t hear a word. I was too busy focusing on what his hands were doing, gradually slipping inside the waist of my pants. Without thinking, I grabbed at his hand, trying to push it away. Surely someone would notice if he went any further.
Sheriff buried his face in the back of my hair and flicked my hand away, then glided his fingers inside my pants again. “Is there a problem, sweetheart?” His hushed voice dripped with mocking.
“Why are you doing this, Master?” I muttered. “Someone will see!”
He rumbled softly into my hair. “I know.” His fingers slid deeper, down toward my core. “And you know what?”
I tensed, waiting, dreading his words.
When he spoke, his voice was so low I barely heard him, yet he spoke the words so that there was no way I could misunderstand him.
“I. Don’t. Care.”
The darkness in his voice, the sheer ownership, left no room for misinterpretation. I was his, and he would do whatever he wanted with me, whenever he wanted.
As if to make his point, his fingers slid deliberately over my sex. Wetness coated them, sending a mixture of humiliation and excitement through me.
Suddenly, all the unresolved issues between us returned in full force. He wasn’t the warm and protective General who’d comforted me after Julian’s infiltration. Here and now, he was the pirate general who took from his woman when he pleased, without a care for her feelings on the matter.
That chasm that so often stretched between us now seemed to yawn endlessly. I tried to grasp the reason for the sudden shift in his manner, but I came up empty. He was a man I couldn’t understand, a man I had no hope of getting close to.
Was it the mention of my being the Liberator that had set him off? He hated heroes, I knew this, and he always became grouchy when that came up. No. It wasn’t. He never got this intense from that.
Then all thoughts of what had gotten into him fled, because he increased the pressure of his fingers, speeding up his strokes. Just a little, but it was enough.
I clenched my teeth, tried to keep still and look casual, as though my master wasn’t sitting at a packed table stroking my pussy with my mother and her master only feet away.
“What’s the matter with you?” Sheriff scolded when I squirmed. “Is sitting with me so bad? Stay still.” He’d said it just loud enough to sound like he was reprimanding me without implying there was anything interesting going on under the table.
Oh, Maker, I hated him. I pulled at his wrist. He rumbled an evil chuckle. His other hand pushed mine away, and his fingers strummed my now throbbing clit.
It took so much effort to keep still that my thighs ached. I gripped the end of the tablecloth in my fist.
Someone snorted, and I looked up in time to see Pretty Boy watching us with dancing eyes. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand, his gaze dropping to his plate, his shoulders shaking.
He knew. He knew, and he was enjoying the whole show.
“What?” Steel growled at him. Obviously, whatever Steel had said, he thought Pretty Boy was laughing at him. “Something funny, PB?”
Pretty Boy’s shoulders shook harder.
“Now the secret’s out, Master,” I hissed miserably.
Sheriff had stopped touching me, but now started up again. Need threatened to explode through me, and my thighs shook with the effort to hold back the flood.
Again, Sheriff hid his face in my hair. “If you don’t want everyone to see you come, you’d better stay still,” he warned.
My breathing sounded so loud in my ears I was sure everyone must have heard it. Everyone in the room was deep in their own conversations so that only Pretty Boy seemed to have caught on, but still. I just knew, any moment they’d realize.
But Sheriff’s fingers sped up every now and again, then slowed, then sped up, so that there was nothing to do but ride the waves of his torment. Half of me wanted to claw his eyes out, while the other half wanted him to throw me to my knees, whip out his cock and shove it in my mouth, making me suck him until he exploded. I didn’t need to feel it to know he would be hard to the point of pain.
“That’s it,” he rasped into the back of my hair. “Come for me. Sit there and come in front of this whole room.”
I could feel my entire body quaking under the effort not to buck and ride his fingers. My jaw clenched so hard I heard my teeth grinding. I gripped the tablecloth so tightly I was surprised it didn’t tear or I didn’t pull it off the table.
Maker, I was going to come, right there, white lights and all.
The instant before I hurtled over the edge, Sheriff slid his hand out of my pants and wiped his sopping fingers on my thigh. Somehow I reined in my fragile composure. I schooled my face into a look of casualness, throwing in a nod for whatever Cherry said to me and praying to the Maker my smile didn’t look like it was painted on.
“If you’ll excuse me, Master, I need to use the powder room again.” I hoped my voice sounded more level to the rest of the room than it did to me.
Sheriff did up my pants covertly and then let me up. I almost jumped out of his lap. Pretty Boy was laughing again, into his drink.
“Hurry back, sweetheart.” Sheriff’s voice mocked me as I walked across the room.
That wasn’t going to happen.
Relief, a bite of anger, and—of all things—gratitude that he hadn’t let me go over the edge for all to see, rushed over me in a wave as I slipped weak-kneed into the nearest water closet.
A hundred years could pass, and I would never understand that man!
Chapter 4
Tease
By the time dinner was done, I’d managed to collect myself so that no one except Pretty Boy would have known anything had happened with Sheriff. Before, it had seemed as if Sheriff was trying to stake some kind of claim on me, but now, it was as if I wasn’t there at all.
While everyone was getting up to leave, he laughed and joked with Steel and Pretty Boy, walking over to speak with some of the Angels without even looking at me, even though I was right beside him.
Absurdly, my heart squeezed, feeling suddenly lost and rejected, thoroughly reminded of my slave status in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. I tamped it down and focused on other matters.
I looked around for Cherry, but she’d already go
ne, perhaps leaving with the other two women who’d been sitting with the rest of the Angels at other tables. I was about to go and find Mayhem and my mother, intending to ask them about Cherry, but Mayhem invited his guests for smokes and drinks and then left with Eagle Eye and Stitch, my mother on his arm.
“Come on, Petal.” Steel pulled me to him and headed for the doors. “We’ll get some drinks into us and shoot the shit with Mayhem and his boys.”
I nodded and rubbed his back lovingly.
Not unlike we had at Lord Falnar’s, we gathered in a much smaller room than the dining hall, cozy, low lit, and scattered with comfortable chairs. Tables were set up for drinks and cigars. Mayhem entered last, and I managed to catch him at the doors.
“Master, may I have a word with Mayhem?” I looked up at Steel.
“Sure. I’ll be over there.” Steel went over to join the rest of the Legion who were already sitting and talking with Sinister, Savage, and Reaper.
Nervousness plucked at me as I approached Mayhem, but I shoved it down and made myself go to him. My unease wasn’t just because I was worried about his answer regarding Cherry. He was likable enough, seemed easy going and not difficult to talk to, but I felt out of place asking him anything, as if he might think I saw myself as his equal. Slaves did not normally ask questions, much less of men they didn’t know well; the openness my masters showed me wasn’t treatment most slaves ever saw.
“General Mayhem, sir? Do you have a moment?”
He smiled and shut the doors to the room. “Liberator,” he said pleasantly, and chuckled when I shifted my feet. “Sure. Come over here.”
I followed him to a large chaise that faced the room and sat beside him while he lit a cigar.
“What’s on your mind?”
I licked my lips. “General, you mentioned that you and your men took days to find those traitors in your club,” I started carefully.
My mother appeared and sat beside Mayhem, handing him a glass of brandy. He took the drink and set her hand on his knee. “Thank you, sweetness. Yes, we did,” he added to me. “Why?”
