by Raven Dark
Steel tossed the glass down and stood, fists tight. “Where’s Pretty Boy? Did he report this to Sheriff yet?”
“I’m right here, brother, and not yet.” I turned at the same time Steel did. Pretty Boy stalked over to us, looking as ready to cut someone down as he had the night he’d stolen me from Damien. His blond hair fell over one shoulder of his cut, golden in the sunlight. He looked as beautiful as ever. His eyes found me.
“Princess.” But that mocking, master’s tone he always used the name with filled the word again. He looked as relaxed and playful as ever, but the menace was back, and I’d be a fool to tell myself it was just because someone had stolen millions worth in gems from his operation. His eyes trapped mine, amused. I stiffened and looked away.
“There was nowhere else to put her,” Steel said. “She would have seen what we do eventually.”
Pretty Boy nodded. “I’m not looking forward to reporting this to Sheriff.”
“I know. Numbers make my head hurt, but whoever’s doing this must have gotten two times Petal’s worth out of us by now.”
“Try five or six,” Pretty Boy said.
My eyes widened.
“There’s only three answers as to who could have done this.” Pretty Boy looked at Hawk. His expression wasn’t accusing, but I could feel the warning in it. “Either my middle man is nicking the gems before he gets to our buyers, or our guardsmen—your men—are in on this. Otherwise—”
Hawk stalked toward him, a slow, dangerous walk. “My men wouldn’t have stolen from us. I—”
“Hey.” Pretty Boy put his hand on his shoulder. “I can’t see Alron doing this, and I know it wasn’t your men, but I have to say it. You know that. The stones didn’t walk off by themselves. It’s gotta be someone else, but who the fuck is it?.”
Hawk’s shoulders dropped, but his face remained impassive. “My men aren’t responsible.”
“Then they have nothing to worry about, but Sheriff will want to talk to them for himself.”
“I will bring them myself,” Hawk said evenly.
“Good. Steel. Hawk. Let’s get this over with.” Pretty Boy clapped Bear on the shoulder, then he and Hawk followed Steel toward the ladder. I brought up the rear, but at the edge of the cement walk, where the gravel began, I stopped. Bear had carried me from the ladder; I wasn’t about to ask for help now.
“What’s the hold up?” Pretty Boy had stopped, looking back at me. When he saw me, he smirked.
“What’s wrong, Princess, afraid to scuff those perfect feet?”
Steel grunted a laugh.
It took everything in me not to forget my role completely in front of the whole mine of men and glare at him. At them both.
I took a breath, preparing for the walk across the hard, sharp stones. Pretty Boy sighed and stalked over to me, but I walked toward the ladder before he could do anything. He followed me.
Hawk and Steel were already at the top of the ladder on the walkway, and Pretty Boy nodded for me to go ahead of him. “Up you go.” He swatted my backside.
My teeth clenched, but I obeyed, clambering up the ladder. Behind me, Pretty Boy made an appreciative sound. Climbing up after me left him with a perfect view of my ass and mound, and without underwear to cover them. My cheeks burned, half embarrassment, half anger. I wanted to reach around and slap him, just like I’d wanted to do with Steel.
At the top of the ladder, Hawk pulled me up onto the walk and moved us aside, waiting with me for Pretty Boy to join us.
Once everyone was on the walk, I started forward, but Pretty Boy’s arm came around my shoulders from behind, pinning me to him like a band of steel.
I stiffened in his hold without thinking.
“Is my princess getting an attitude?”
Was he really this conceited? “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Master.”
“Oh, don’t be like that. I can see it in the way you look at me. What’s wrong?”
“The others are getting impatient, Master.” It was true, Hawk and Steel had started down the walk and looked back at us, expectant.
“I don’t give a fuck about them. What’s got your panties in a twist?”
I seriously entertained the notion of telling him I wasn’t wearing panties. Thanks, in no small part to him and Steel.
Pretty Boy whirled me around. “Look at me.” The uncharacteristic coldness of his voice startled me, but I forced my eyes to remain averted. He grabbed my chin. His eyes once more trapped mine, his perfect mouth a thin line. My gaze snagged on the cut above his eye, the stitches I’d made there. Unwilling to think about the night before, I focused on the rest of his face.
Pretty Boy’s grip on my chin loosened a little and some of the warmth returned to his eyes. “You didn’t give your master a kiss this morning.”
Heat infused my veins, and I wished it was all anger. I pushed it aside. After the way Steel had changed, becoming so cold with me, I’d learned my lesson; these men couldn’t be allowed to affect me. I raised up on my toes and gave his cheek a kiss.
His brow rose. “That’ll do…for now.”
“You two, enough dicking around, let’s go,” Hawk called.
We both headed in their direction.
“We’re coming Hawk, hold your wad.”
I saw amusement flash in Steel’s eyes.
After several minutes of walking, we entered a cave whose small front cavern looked like a waiting room. Couches, chairs and tables were situated throughout the room. A door had been affixed to the entrance of another room within. Pretty Boy knocked on it.
“Enter.” Sheriff, and he sounded ticked.
Steel turned to me and nodded to one of the chairs. “Have a seat.” When I did, he added, “Don’t move. We’ll be watching you the whole time.”
Without waiting for me to reply, he followed Hawk and Pretty Boy into the room beyond. With the door open, I caught a glimpse of a wide, heavy desk, thick carpets on the floor. Sheriff stood behind the desk, leaning on it with his palms, some kind of flag hanging on the wall behind his head.
The two men weren’t in the office more than a minute before I saw Sheriff’s fist slam the top of his desk so hard I was surprised the wood didn’t crack. “Four crates this time? One of you tell me you know who’s doing this.”
I heard Pretty Boy reply, but I couldn’t make out what he’d said from out here.
Sheriff swept his hand across the desk, sending something flying off it. Something that shattered like glass. For some reason, he looked at Hawk, with an expression I didn’t understand, then swept his hands through his hair.
I shivered. Damien had never laid a hand on me, but whenever he became angry, one of his slaves always disappeared for a day or two into his rooms. The slave always emerged crying, whip-marked and bruised. Pretty Boy had said I was Sheriff’s if he chose. Would I be the one to take the brunt of his frustration with whomever was stealing from him?
“All right,” Sheriff said after a long moment, but he sounded almost calm. “Steel, Pretty Boy, you two find Alron. I don’t care how long it takes. Rattle his cage and see what falls out.”
“And if he did this?” Pretty Boy said, his voice coming closer. “Want us to take care of him?”
The tone alone told me what “take care of him” meant. I’d heard Damien say it like that right before one of his enemies ended up showing up somewhere, headless.
“No. Bring him here. If he’s been robbing us, I’ll deal with it personally.”
“Done, sir.” Pretty Boy said.
“Hawk, stay here.”
Steel and Pretty Boy came back out into the waiting room. Excitement filled their eyes. They looked like two men headed on an adventure. I stood up, for some reason feeling a familiar tightness in my chest. They were leaving me, but why should that bother me after the way they behaved, as if nothing had happened last night?
When they saw me, almost as one, the excited light went out of their eyes.
“Shit,” Steel mutte
red under his breath.
Pretty Boy gathered his long golden hair and tied into a knot at the back of his head. His movements reminded me of a man suiting up. Putting the mask of the conqueror on. He gave me that playful, sinful smile. It hurt my heart; No, no, no, I would not get weepy in front of these men.
“Princess, we’re riding out. We’ll probably be gone a week, maybe more. Come on, come with us.”
“Where?” I blurted without thinking as he took my arm and led me out of the cave with Steel at my other side.
“Can’t leave without giving you a goodbye kiss.”
Steel whooped, and out on the walkway, he picked me up like a sack of laundry, throwing me over his shoulder. He and Pretty Boy ran down the walk. At an alcove cut into the cave wall, Steel put me down and Pretty Boy backed into the shadowy alcove, pulling me with him. With only a bit of light to see by between the high cave walls, Steel and Pretty Boy looked utterly mischievous and almost evil. I swallowed.
Yes, my body responded to them, but these two were treating me like a swinging door, opening up and closing themselves off so fast it was giving me whiplash. I knew without asking that what they were about to do would cut me deep, leaving me alone and wanting them.
The last thing I wanted to do was feel for them, but I couldn’t help it. “Wait, what happens if you get hurt? Or killed? Can’t you take Hawk and some others with you?”
At my words, Steel threw his head back, laughing. I was not amused.
Pretty Boy brushed my cheek with his thumb. “Fuck, I’m gonna miss you Princess.”
Steel spun me around so that I faced the wall. His massive palm pinned my shoulder there until he had me wedged between the rock wall and his equally hard frame.
Pretty Boy leaned against the wall beside his club brother, arms crossed. Watching. I heard Steel’s belt clink. My core tightened at the sound. Steel took my earlobe between his teeth, making me shutter with goosebumps as he bit down and sucked the sensitive skin. As I panted, he slid his hand around my waist and down my front. He slid his fingers into me with a groan. By the Light, I was wet.
“Oh, Petal, I’m gonna miss you.” Steel wedged my feet apart with his and jerked the back of my frock up, baring my backside to him.
Neither of them seemed to care that people walked passed the alcove, less then ten feet away.
He fisted the back of my frock and tore it open. The tearing sound hit my ears with a frightening, perilous intensity. Then I felt him free his cock and rub it up and down my crack.
“Masters, please…” I hated how my voice choked. I hated being at their mercy, hated the idea of being rutted against the wall in public, but the fire in my blood begged for what they could give me.
“Fuck that tight cunt, brother.” Pretty Boy said, and I heard him fiddle with his belt.
Steel laughed darkly in my ear. He thrust himself into my soaking core. Pain and pleasure tore me in two. I screamed in both, and Steel clapped his hand over my mouth and started pounding himself into me.
Hot, hard brutal. Unloving, just primal.
I half-sobbed, half-screamed into his hot palm, but he didn’t stop. I clawed at the wall, and then suddenly I was mewling and rocking into him as if my body had a mind of its own.
Steel sped up. “Damn. You’ll have me jacking off ten times a day while we’re gone, Petal.” He pulled out and warmth coated my back as he sighed his release.
Shaking, I tried to turn toward them.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Steel had moved away, and now Pretty Boy was there, turning me so that my back was against the wall. His hands cupped my backside, lifting me up onto his hips. I gasped and threw my arms around his neck. He repositioned his arms so that my legs draped over them, spreading me wide for him.
“We went through a lot of trouble to steal you, Princess. Now you’re ours. Get used to it, ‘cause you’re never getting away.”
He entered me in one dark thrust. “So tight. Love it.” His eyes trapped mine. “Look at me while I fuck you, Princess.”
The command was too much. I couldn’t look into that perfect, burning gaze no matter how I tried to obey. The blue intensity there seared me to my soul. I tried to pull away and failed.
“No, no, Princess, eyes on mine.” His mouth seared mine and he crashed into me, pounding out his need in three hard thrusts.
I whimpered, clawing at his back.
Pretty Boy lifted his head, and his eyes were fire and ice. “You opened a vein in us last night, woman. You went too deep. We aren’t flowers and hearts kind of guys. This is how real men say goodbye. None of this mamby pamby heartfelt shit. That’s not who we are.”
Helplessness and hopelessness burned through me as I came apart, my cry echoing off the cliffs. Pretty Boy cursed and spilled into me with a shudder, hot and hard.
Before I knew what was happening, he released me, setting me on my feet, and backed up. Knees weak, mind spinning too fast to keep up, I slid down the wall and collapsed on the ground. I tried to catch my breath, chest tight.
“Come on, get your sweet little ass up and give us a goodbye kiss.” Pretty Boy pulled me to my feet.
A shadow filled the entrance to the alcove and someone coughed. I turned my head. Hawk’s frame silhouetted the entrance.
“Ah, perfect timing, man.” Pretty Boy pulled me out of the shadows onto the walkway. He kissed my forehead and tipped my chin up. “Be a good girl for your new master, Princess.”
I stared at both of them, dread filling me. Steel’s eyes were all amusement as he stroked my hair once.
“Have fun with her brother,” Steel said. Then he and Pretty Boy started down the walk, leaving without another word.
I turned to find Hawk standing there, arms crossed, looking like he’d rather anyone was there but me.
This day was never going to end, was it?
Chapter 9
Conversations and Binacca
From the moment Pretty Boy and Steel left, it felt like my brain was trying to play catch-up with everything that was happening. I could still smell them on me, feel the warm, wetness of their release on my butt cheeks, my back, where my frock was torn open. Both served as a reminder of what they’d done. And now, here I was, they’d just left, and I was Hawk’s slave.
Hawk’s, to do with as he wished.
Easier if I could have held onto that thought like a lifeline, giving me, if nothing else, a sense of direction. I could have given myself something to focus on instead of the anger that burned in my blood like a toxin. Only I couldn’t do that. Because Hawk didn’t want me.
“Well, this isn’t the day I planned for now, is it?” He sighed. “Come on, then. Let’s get this over with.” He started down the walk, waving at me to follow without a backward glance to see if I was even following.
Then again, where would I have gone, if not with him?
Of my three masters—or did I have four when Sheriff hadn’t acknowledged me as his?—Hawk was the hardest to figure out. The man ran so hot and cold, I didn’t know what to make of him.
Head in a daze, I followed him, but the stickiness drying on my skin wouldn’t allow me to stay silent. “Master, may I speak freely?”
Hawk stopped and looked at me. I thought I saw something flicker in those beautiful, hazel eyes as he took in the disheveled look of me, but if I did, it was gone the next instant. “Go ahead.”
Wow, he sounded tired, like someone had run him over with one of Damien’s carriages. Fitting, with the dark circles I could see under his eyes.
“Master, I need a bath. Can we go to the bathing hole, please?”
He rubbed the front of his forehead. “Kitten, I don’t have time for that right now. There’s too much work to do.” His husky, even voice was so quiet that the creak of the walkways as people made their ways from cave to cave, the din of people talking as they went about their days, should have drowned him out. “Follow me.”
Once more, he turned and made his way down the walk, leaving me n
o choice but to follow.
A depressive cloud of misery settled over me, impossible to shake off. How in Maker’s name could I have been so foolish as to think there was more to life for me than this? Than the life of a slave?
Ugh. I shook off the self-pity. Would I rather have been with Talak Barabas?
I shuddered.
The walkway clattered in front of Hawk and I looked up. Cherry made her way toward us. Great. She was the last person I needed to see right now.
“Hawk,” she said, nodding to him as she made to slip past him.
“Ah. Just the person I’m looking for.” He stopped her and moved aside with a nod to me. “I need you to take her off my hands, Cherry.”
Cherry looked at me and her soft pink lips went into that flat, unwelcoming line. “Violet. Lovely.” But she waved for me to turn around and go back the way Hawk and I had come.
“Thank you, Cherry,” Hawk said.
“Yeah, whatever. Come on.” But when I turned around, Cherry stopped me, plucking at the torn back of my frock. “What the hell happened here?” She shot a look at Hawk.
“Hey, don’t look at me.” He put up his tanned hands, but crinkles appeared at the sides of his mouth where they turned up. “Behave yourself, kitten,” he added to me. “I’ll be by the slave’s quarters to get you around dinner.”
“Yes, Master.”
As soon as Hawk was gone, Cherry shook her head in disgust, dark red curls fanning her shoulders. She looked me over, taking in my face—the tears on my cheeks, I realized—my rumbled hair, and my torn frock.
“Someone’s been at you, haven’t they?”
The empathy in her scowl took me aback. Unsure what to say, I just dropped my hands to my sides, willing myself not to look away from her. I could either let life tear me down or deal with it.
“All right, come with me. I’ll get you some clothes and take you to the bath. This way.” She gestured down a walkway that led to the laundering hole and the caves where’d I’d spent the day working before the barbecue.
I followed her, surprised at how much more relaxed I felt, now that Hawk was gone. Cherry wasn’t easy to be around, but things were less confusing when he wasn’t there.
