by Jayla Kane
ENSLAVE ME
ENSLAVE ME
By
Jayla Kane
Book Three of the Legends of the Ashwood Institute Series
Enslave Me by Jayla Kane Published by Amazon Digital Services, LLC
© 2019 Jayla Kane
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact the author.
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Note from the author: the following work is a product of fantasy. It is not meant to mimic real-life situations or people and should not be regarded as anything more than entertainment. All acts depicted in this work feature consenting adults and are fictional and should be treated as such; the viewer is responsible for the legal ramifications of engaging with the text in the place where they live. No laws were broken in the country of its origin (US).
Author’s Note
TRIGGER WARNING: This book contains particularly graphic violence, some of it of a sexual nature. PLEASE DO NOT READ IT IF THIS WILL UPSET YOU. Sexual violence is not used to titillate in my books—in fact, consent with kink is one of the primary issues explored. So let me reiterate: please do not read this book if it will trigger you. I am not describing a scene like any you have read in any of the other books in this series.
I would like to include a warning in the beginning of this book: it is a dark erotic paranormal romance with mature sexual scenarios that include challenging power dynamics and behavior that only belong in the pages of a romance novel of its kind. It is a dark romance that operates as a vehicle of fantasy; this book, in particular, is not only dark romance but dark thematically, and contains violence and mature themes. Please do not read it if you find the idea of these things immediately unromantic—you will not enjoy it. There are many fantastic books available to you, and I sincerely hope you put this one down and find another.
Furthermore, this book is part of a series. It is not a stand-alone; the first book in this series is called DARE ME, and I highly recommend you begin reading there. And to once again reiterate: this series is meant for adults, not younger audiences.
Take care, reader—
JK
Prelude
Zelle
I can’t find her.
I’ve looked everywhere—called all her friends from school, swore out loud at Raven, cursed the goddamn world…
I remembered the way they looked at the train station, Raven’s dark hair blowing in the rough wind as the train pulled out and away again, as all three of them stared at his back. I couldn’t miss Jake; he’s so tall now, it was easy to pick him out on the platform, and with Raven’s hair… Well, I sat back against the wall and watched their happy little reunion.
And there he was. The boy I once loved more than my own damn dignity… Tristan Warfield, all grown up. He looked like life had been about as kind to him as it has to me.
Karma. In a word.
But now, now she’s missing—is it a coincidence? It can’t be.
There are no coincidences. Not for us, none of us; we were marked by evil. And it will take what we love the most, bit by bit, until there is nothing left.
Chapter One
Hunter
I thought the whole thing was a joke.
If I hadn’t been there when Jake opened his, I would’ve put mine in the trash and never looked back. Never known or understood what I was walking away from; never had to live with this.
But I was there; he shouldn’t have let me see, but Jake and I didn’t really have any secrets. And besides, it was just an envelope. It seemed harmless enough. Strange, but harmless. “What the hell is this?” I was leaning against the wall, waiting for him to help me finish registering for classes—I didn’t have a laptop, and refused his offers to buy me one at least three times—and watched as he plucked it out of the backpack on the floor. He was talking to himself. I don’t talk much, which suits us both fine. Jake tugged it apart at the seams, then stared at the contents like they were written in Chinese, his brow low on his forehead. Jake is a smart guy—really fucking smart, although you’d never know it unless you hung out with him as much as I did, watched him as much as I did. Most people think he’s calculating, sure, but they don’t understand how quickly he grasps the potential of a situation—any situation. Particularly when it might be to his advantage.
At any rate, when he realized the project he’d been working on for two years had finally come to fruition, he whooped out loud and stalked over to me so we could do a proper bro-sized chest bump. He got into the Society. Stupid fuckers. And now that he would be signed up as the Master of Games—so goddamn pretentious, we laughed our asses off about that name when he came up with the idea Junior year—he just needed to make sure Raven became the Sineater.
I wasn’t keen on this plan.
I didn’t think it would end well. Raven is more like Jake than either of them realize; she’s clever and quick on her feet and ruthless when it counts. She’s got nothing on her little sister, though, and I prayed Baby Keller didn’t find out about the whole goddamn mess until Molly was well away from their high school. It was too late to convince people I’d raped her and have it matter much; the world is fucked up that way. I’d been careful not to even look at Raven our senior year of high school, but I knew, every day, that Baby could decide to punish me for Jake’s vendetta at any time. I didn’t tell him. It would just escalate things.
And that whole thing with Baby… I didn’t blame her for hating me; we were at war, and I was on the other side of the firing line. But I was confused by… By her. By the way I felt about her. And the way I knew her body felt about me.
Anyfuckingway.
Molly went to high school with her now. It was Baby’s senior year, Molly’s first. Plenty of time for my secret arch-nemesis to ruin my little sister’s life in a fit of pique.
So I had some stakes in Jake’s plan, sure, but part of me also thought that’s fucking karma for you; I’d been there, the whole time, when he thought it up. When it solidified as a possibility in his mind, when he got Greta, this chick who had a crush on him in the front office, to go through Raven’s file and find out where she’d applied to college. I was standing there when he called the Institute and dedicated ten thousand dollars to their library renovation fund, practically guaranteeing himself entry before he even applied. I was there when he grinned up at me, slapped the envelope on his open palm, and made the same noise we did when we kicked somebody’s ass at championships.
Jake didn’t let me read it—that might not be the right way to phrase it, actually, because if I’d asked he would’ve. But I was already uncomfortable with the fact that he’d basically bought me a spot at the Institute too, and I didn’t want to take the chance of seeming too interested in the Society in case that made him feel like he had to get me in. I was still a little fucked up about the fact that all my scholarships fell through somehow—I had a free ride to Duke for football, another offer with Texas, a third with Alabama. And now, when it actually mattered: nothing. Nothing but Jake making another phone call so my stupid, delinquent, dyslexic ass could get into the Institute. I wanted out so bad—so bad I’d made peace with leaving Molly behind, made plans so we would be in touch every day, multiple times a day… But here I was. Stuck in Ashwood, wearing this face like a fucking advertisement for redneck dead-ends.
I got my envelope later the same day.
That was how I realized something about the situation—the
Society, really--was wrong. Other people leave their shit around, take their eyes off of stuff, move through the world casually because they know it’s just things. Things can be replaced. And humans are basically good, right? What are the odds someone is going to fuck with your backpack if you put it down for three minutes so you can hug an old friend on the first day of classes?
People are shit. I don’t have a lot of things; I know where all of them are, every minute of every day; I don’t trust a single goddamn human being alive.
And I don’t have old friends, and I don’t hug.
If someone had touched me that day, I would’ve known it. Immediately. And probably told them to fuck off. If I’d left my bag alone for half a second, I would’ve known. But I didn’t.
And still, at the end of the day, when I’d picked up Molly from her last week at Science Camp and bought us both some McDonald’s and tucked her into her trailer, locking her up tight inside… Somehow, at the end of the day, I found that goddamn cursed envelope in my bag.
I should’ve burned it.
Instead I read it, and I felt excited.
I hadn’t been excited since the day I kissed Baby Keller.
That thump in my chest, that twist in my gut—this was a bad idea. I knew it was. I was one hundred fucking percent certain this would end in shit. But Raven and I actually had a couple things in common, like the need to escape poverty and a town that hated us and the desire to maybe have an actual life one day. I didn’t believe she was hell-bent on going to the Institute because she really believed her mom’s witch bullshit; Jake thought that was the ticket, but I thought I knew the truth. Raven wanted to gather connections, to belong, to matter to the world that was just out of reach for people like us. Jake was just a rich kid. He didn’t get it. But I did. Or I thought I did.
The Society meant you were accepted. You would have unlisted phone numbers for people that mattered, internships in the summer at places that mattered, places that would lead to more places that were a long goddamn way from Ashwood, and the whole road leading out was probably paved with money.
I could get Molly out.
Hell, I could get Molly into the Institute, probably, the same way Jake got me in: with a phone call and a promise.
I ripped open the envelope and never thought twice.
Chapter Two
Hunter
I was told to go to an office on the top floor of Thorn, so I did; some of the things written in that note confused me, but I wasn’t afraid. I figured it was just some rich-kid bullshit, even with that nagging doubt in the back of my mind. I decided I would ask how they got the letter in my bag when I spoke with whoever was in this office, and shoved my doubts down deep. People never had the guts to dodge a question I asked them directly. They could tell that if I was bothering to speak I wasn’t interested in wading through any bullshit.
But when I got to the room, it was empty. The door was open; there was nothing in it but a dusty desk and a potted plant in the corner. I stood next to the little chair across from the desk and waited.
I was confused by the whole thing; Jake got a phone, a day after the envelopes or so, and we started working on setting up cameras and finding out dirt. I’d forgotten how much it mattered, I guess. If I’d had the chance, I would’ve told him I was in the Society too, but we hadn’t had a minute to talk, not really. Not that I was much on talking to begin with. I was planning on pledging one of the fraternities—he was probably a shoo-in for Delta, but I doubted even he could make that happen for me--and we planned to hit a couple parties that night. A conversation about the Society seemed inevitable, but not necessary. Not desperately important, the way it would have been if I understood. When I was sitting in that empty room, I started to shrug off the whole Society thing; it suddenly seemed just as likely someone had put that envelope in my bag to fuck with me.
Who would’ve had the balls? Besides Jake, I thought, and he would never do that. Jake was extremely loyal. It’s one of his defining qualities, and it will damn you and save you in equal measure. If you break his trust, he will do everything in his considerable power to destroy any chance at happiness you might ever have, but if you’re on his side you’ve got an ally that would die for you, no questions asked. So Jake was out. Who else?
Baby, I thought, then frowned at myself. She’d become my own personal boogeyman, in a way; she was absolutely ruthless. The kind of viper that would bite itself if it meant the venom would kill you too. But there was no way in hell a high school senior could’ve pulled this off. It wasn’t possible.
Molly was the only one with the means, but she wouldn’t. Wouldn’t have a reason to, or an interest; Molly was kind. That was her defining characteristic, much as it worried me. She wouldn’t do this to someone she disliked, let alone her older brother.
Half-brother. Not that she cared. But I liked the distinction; I liked to put that little bit of distance between us. It gave me hope for her.
I was about to throw my bag over my shoulder and leave when I heard something and turned around. And then my entire world crumbled, a sudden and sharp divide cutting through everything: there was a before, and an after.
Before Magic, I was a normal guy with a long life of nothing but ordinary failures and the vague hope that I could help my sister have a better one.
After Magic… After Magic I realized nothing was as it seemed. Nothing.
Not even me.
I watched the room around me shift and waver, as if I’d suddenly been hit by some bad acid. It only lasted a second, just long enough for me to shake my head and think I was imagining things. And then… My head cleared, and I was staring at a figure in a long black cloak, face covered by a blank white mask, and the room had changed. Everything about it. Before, it looked like the typical waiting room in a dentist’s office or something, but now… The walls were covered in an elaborate wallpaper that glittered in the sunlight, some kind of fabric that reminded me of trips to old plantation houses with my school as a child. The desk was now enormous, entirely made of wood; carved faces, contorted in masks of pain, stacked on top of one another to form the four sturdy legs; the light that sat on the corner of the room burned from within like a candle, and there was electrical cord I could see. That could’ve meant batteries, but the way it flickered… And the window was different, too, arched and curved, the wooden frame made of more carved faces caught forever in expressions of agony. The figure watched me take it all in, then snapped her fingers—I saw the flash of long fingernails, manicured—and her cloak changed as well. She looked… It’s difficult to describe. Like shadows. A twist of skin here, a flash of the cloak there; she was completely obscured, but I didn’t understand what I was looking at. My brain couldn’t process it. She seemed almost disjointed, the way a surrealist might have portrayed someone if they worked in living flesh. It made my stomach turn.
“Sit down,” she said, and the sound was the same as her appearance—disjointed, broken apart and reformed into a dozen different noises, so that none were identifiable as a single person’s voice. “I don’t have the patience to wear the mask, Mr. Black. And we work in secrecy within the Society. Do you understand?”
I didn’t answer her. My mind was going a million miles a minute. Was this real? Was I crazy? Had someone slipped me a drug without my realizing it?
I learned a long time ago to trust my own instincts. Always. I had no one else to trust, after all, although Jake came closest. I gripped the back of the chair, squeezing it with my hand: real. No one could possibly drug me without my noticing, for the same reason no one could’ve slipped that envelope in my backpack.
Now… As for going crazy….
Crazy is a relative thing. That’s all. Dad is crazy—he can’t tell what’s real from what’s not, particularly when it comes to women or himself. He knows when the sun is shining and that he needs to eat sometimes, but my dad doesn’t see things that are obvious to sane people; he can’t tell when a woman has had enough. He doesn’t think
of himself as cruel and delusional, but he is both of those things.
So I could be going crazy.
I glanced up at the woman behind the desk—the swirling mess of shapes that I knew to be a woman—and hurled my backpack at her before she could guess what was happening. I spun on my heel and ran for the door, but when I reached it the goddamn thing was locked. Heavy, dark wood, needed a fucking key—not one of those little push-button knobs stuck in the middle of particleboard like most doors. No. This shit looked like it had walked right out of the Victorian age. I froze when I heard footsteps behind me, then whirled to face her, not interested in letting her get close while my back was turned.
She halted on the other side of the desk—that shape, the spinning, moving parts of it, seemed to freeze just the way I had a minute ago. “I wasn’t expecting that,” she said, and there was something in her tone… A reluctant approval, I gathered. “Most people cry, or piss themselves. Sometimes they think they’re asleep. One person denied what was happening so thoroughly that we retracted our invitation to join.”
“Join what?” This wasn’t some stupid rich-kid prank factory. This was something else entirely.
“The Ashwood Society,” she said slowly, still not moving. The edges of her form were blurred, as if they were constantly in motion, every part of her vibrating too quickly for me to register the outline as a single, smooth shape. “I’m the Rose,” she said, watching me watch her. “My power is shape-shifting. I’m quite good at it. This is me between forms,” she said, and then her body snapped into place, the lines clarifying immediately into straight, even connections, into flesh and bone. I stared back at my own face, the mask she hadn’t wanted to wear pushed back over my forehead, the black cloak far too small to hide my forearms, my hands.
