Reign of Ash (Black Harbour Dragons)

by Jadyn Chase

  8

  Ashton

  I wish I could read her mind. She seemed so quiet, even as she sipped the glass of water I’d given her. I couldn’t believe that Whisper was here in my chambers. They laughed at me when I said I wanted walls. Not the ones that separated my space from out there, but actual ones in my apartment. I, well my father, had a separate chamber made for me when he gifted me this space. He understood that I was uncomfortable with the idea of having a pet and truly believed that the way to get over it, was to have one of my own. To even get me to think about the idea, he offered me the space, and I agreed. Compromise, right?

  Speak of the devil …

  When Preston walked into the room, Whisper began to tremble and rightfully so. While he didn’t intimidate me, I couldn’t say that about those who couldn’t scale. Even in his Anthros state, he was massive. I’d gotten my size and good looks from him, among many other things … like my temper.

  “So this is the woman?” he asked cocking his head to the side, squinting his eyes at her as if trying to read her like a newspaper. “This tiny little thing is what has you all wound up? Fighting Finch, and Bart now? Are we going to have a problem with the Scarlet Wings now as well?”

  “No, we’re not. Bart and I have an understanding,” I assured him.

  “As do we,” he said stoically, “So let’s see it then.”

  “We just got here,” I told him stalling for more time, “Give us a moment. I want to do this right.”

  That seemed to anger him as he slammed his fist on the counter. The cups rattled right alongside Whisper, who’d found her way behind me. I could feel her fingernails trying to dig deeper into the skin on my back. She was truly terrified.

  “We have an agreement, Ashton! I truly don’t care what you do with her, to her, or anything else of the sort but if you don’t mark her then so be it I will!” He shouted. “I cannot have you disputing the agreed upon laws of the land. We have a hard-enough time as it is maintaining control, but if you’re exposing us as weak because of your insipid feelings for this bag of flesh then you will be dealt with accordingly!”

  “Relax, mark or no mark,” I turned holding my hand out to her. She grabbed it right on cue, “She belongs to me. Watch.”

  Pulling Whisper close to me, I tilted her head back, ran my fingers up the back of her scalp until I reached the middle of her head, pulled her hair gently and slipped my mouth over hers. She melted into me, into the kiss, which either pleased or disgusted my father enough for him to leave.

  The door slammed shut behind him, but we didn’t stop kissing. As a matter of fact, she pulled me down deeper into it. For the first time in forever, I felt the passion I’d been yearning for. I didn’t want a pet. I wanted a mate. I had to touch her.

  We moved around my place, completely engulfed in our pleasurable embrace until we fell back onto the couch. It took me less than a minute to move down her body and over her jeans. Undoing them and slipping them down, she pulled on leg out and that was enough for me. I salivated at the sheer thought of tasting her, and I refused to hold back. Spreading her legs apart, I moved my mouth from her inner thigh to the center of her sweet and tender flesh. I kissed her gently over the sheer fabric of her panties. Using one hand, I moved the panties over to the side and out of my way. I used the other to assist my mouth as I tasted her for the first time. She was sweet. Her decadent juices of sexual bliss dripped down my lips while I pushed a finger inside of her walls. My tongue flicked over the succulent nub until she creamed all over me. Her moans and groans spurred me on. I could go all night, but I wanted to be inside of her. I wanted to feel the motion of our bodies together, but there was still a lot of uncertainty. She let me go this far, but all the way? Even if she did want me to, I had a plan. The next woman I had sex with would be my mate.

  I backed away from her, wiping my mouth on my shirt and heading into the bathroom to get her a warm washcloth. She sat there quietly for a moment while I cleaned her up. My wet kisses and her orgasmic fluids mixed and mingled around her pleasure.

  “Is this how all pets are treated?” she finally asked breaking the silence between us.

  “No,” I told her honestly, “Absolutely not. The stories I’ve heard and the shit I’ve seen are enough to make your stomach churn.”

  “Same here,” she sighed with a look of sadness on her face. “I know the Scarlet Wing made a comment about it, and I’ve heard plenty of rumors as I’ve ventured station to station, but do you guys really throw your pets out of the window if they don’t satisfy you?”

  “There have been incidents where that’s taken place. But out of all the Sapphires that stay in these towers, there’s only been a few situations like that. No more than five,” I assured her, “And believe me, I would never do anything like that to you.”

  “So tell me what’s the life like for an actual pet?” she wondered.

  I didn’t want to scare her, but I believed that she’d know if I were lying. So I was honest, “For one, the pleasure doesn’t belong to you as the pet. It belongs to the owner.”

  “I don’t get it,” she replied with sincerity.

  “It means that as a pet, it’s your duty to ensure that your owner is pleased and pleasured by you. They can make you do things for hours on end and honestly? It’s more about the control aspect of it all. There are very few arrangements like ours.”

  “Oh, you mean like consensual?” she said with disgust.

  “Well yeah there’s that, but there’s also a human touch to it. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable with me. I don’t want you to want to stab me in the eye while I’m sleeping. That’s happened before. If you see a guy walking around here with an eye patch, that’s Silver. He had a flame play…”

  “Flame play?” she asked.

  “Yeah, fire while fucking. It was a huge problem with one of his pets. He didn’t realize all Anthros don’t have the same threshold of pain. So one night, his pet that he forgot to lock up came out of her room and stabbed him in the eye. She’d been burned over most of her body and most were even surprised she had the energy to do it.”

  “Yikes,” she shuddered, “Do pets get their own rooms?”

  “Well most of us consider them play areas, but you do have a room. Would you like to see it?” I asked her.

  She simply shrugged, “I guess.”

  The other bedroom, setup for pets was far more peculiar than the one I slept in. I unlocked the door and the first thing to be seen were the silver shackles attached to the black accent wall in the back of the room. The other walls were a deep red with a built in bench that ran the entire length around the room. At any given point, I could press down on the lip of the bench to have it pop open giving me access to whatever I’d hidden inside. It also served as a great spot to prop my leg up for our more exciting sexual escapades.

  She stepped inside the room, turning around and blushing about the same shade of red as the walls themselves.

  “Are you okay, Whisper?”

  “Um, do you do this with other Anthros? Do they enjoy this? Where’s the bed?”

  I think she was more intrigued than disgusted, but I walked toward the back wall where the shackles hung. A small lever blended into the panel as I pushed it in to turn it into a handle that pulled down, revealing the bed.

  “Is that supposed to impress me?” she laughed.

  “Absolutely not,” I told her with a glimmer of mischief. “I have a multitude of things around this room that are meant for that. We don’t have to use anything in here if you don’t want to. As a matter of fact, you can sleep in my room if you’d like. I know we said you have to play my pet until we figure a way out of Black Harbor for you safely, but that doesn’t mean I was going to treat you like I owned you, Whisper. You’re free to tell me no without threat of being tossed out of the window and falling some twenty something stories beneath us.”

  “Okay, let’s head to your room then,” she stated firmly.

  I nodded and led the wa
y.

  Opening the door to my room, it wasn’t as dark as the other room. There were two white walls and where the windows were supposed to be, there was nothing. The wind whipped around my corner view and through my entire space effortlessly. I loved it. It always felt like I was flying while I slept. But looking to Whisper, she held herself tight rubbing her arms up and down. The sound of her teeth chattering let me know she wasn’t as in love with the space as I was. I wanted her to be comfortable. I needed her to be comfortable. I desperately wanted to convince her to stay. So I picked up the remote from my nightstand and pressed a single button. Windows came down like a convertible top closing and sealed us inside my apartment. They were dark so that no one could look in on us either.

  “Are you comfortable? Does that feel better?” I asked her.

  “Yeah, it does,” she smiled, “Thank you again Ash … for everything. I don’t know how I’m going to repay you.”

  Licking my lips, I dropped to my knees in front of her as she sat on the bed, “You could start by letting me taste you again.”

  9

  Whisper

  The amount of pleasure wrapped in Ashton's tongue left me wondering about what he could do if our entire bodies were... No … We can't … I won't … But he's so ... Just breathe … It was far more surprising than I ever thought. I wasn't disgusted. He held me, touched me carefully, sensually, and I actually felt safe in his arms.

  When he had his fill of me, he brought me something to eat. I imagine the Scalers in here would be incensed at this kind of treatment, but I wouldn't complain. Ashton had been honest with me so far. While I had concerns it was a front of sorts to deceive me, I couldn't ignore how good it felt to be treated like a woman.

  Relationships never lasted between most Anthros. There were too many dangers. One day you'd be in love and then the next day your spouse would be scorched, eaten, or taken captive to be held as a pet. The few of us who still looked healthy were in such high demand, coveted by both Scalers and certain Stations, we kept to ourselves. Learning to trust people had its difficulties.

  Now as I sat in the intimate space of the Ashton Cane, I found myself wanting to trust him. That was until he brought me a plate of food. There was some charred kind of meat with vegetables. It smelled delicious.

  "What is this?" I asked him.

  He stifled a laugh, "What do you think it is?"

  I picked the plate up, bringing it closer to my nose. Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply, only to open them still perplexed, "Honestly, I don't know. I just don't want it to have been human at some point."

  He let out a boisterous laugh. The vein in his neck bulged as he laughed so hard. It actually brought a smile to my face to see him so, so, so joyous.

  "Oh wow! I needed that. Thank you. I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard. I don't eat Anthros, and even if I did, I would never serve it to you. That's disgusting. That's the same as me eating scales," he said.

  I nodded tasting a piece of the food. It was the most tender piece of meat I'd ever had, "This is so good."

  "It should be," he smiled, "You see how hard it is to get meat that runs, imagine what I had to do to get beef."

  "Beef? This is a cow? An actual cow? Something that took years to grow to maturity and survived to be this tender. I'd only been told about them, never got the opportunity to eat one. Aya wants three feathers off a Golden Imperial just for a cheek. The cheek! I was scared to ask what she wanted for any other parts," I told him. I practically devoured the rest of the food without another word and when I was done he took the plate from me and washed it. They had running water.

  The Gears had running water, but it wasn't ready as soon as it came from the pipe. Jasper fashioned some mechanical filter system that it had to pass through simply for us to touch it and even then we were all limited to a few gallons a day. Ashton let his water run as he moved around the kitchen. Not a single thought was given to how much he was using, wasting. I couldn't stand it as I rushed over and shut it off.

  "What's wrong?" he asked me.

  I shook my head looking at the sink, "You were wasting so much of it. I couldn't take it."

  "This building, The Towers, they both run on an isolated tanked system. It was put in place before we took over. No water gets wasted, it's all recycled," he assured me.

  "That's something I'd love to see. Seeing an enormous tank of cleaned water? I bet you it's almost as cool as the Glasslands," I smiled.

  "The Glasslands?" his eyebrows raised with curiosity.

  "Yeah, there's this place Jasper took me to years ago. As a matter of fact, it was right after you decided not to take me the first time. Once I ran off and you didn't follow me, I went back to my Station. We were staying at The Rogue back then. It's on the far outskirts of the city, right where the roads meet the trees. You know where that is right?"

  "Of course I do," he said. But there was something different in his voice. The laughter was gone and a mood had settled over him.

  I paid it no mind as I continued to tell him about it, "Yeah so I was spotted by one of those Scarlet Wings while scoping out a location for a new station. I'd found The Gears but was nabbed before I could get back and then we met. Anyway, I told Jasper about what happened and he told me I was lucky to be alive. I was lucky to have made it back unbothered too. Now that I think about it, I probably have you to thank for that huh?"

  "Partially," he forced a half smile.

  "Well thank you for that. So Jasper was so happy to have me back with him, safe and sound, that he wanted to take me on an adventure. We left just before dawn and hiked into the trees. The torched earth smelled different from the city. The deeper we went into the woods, the greener it became. I wanted to live out there, but Jasper assured me that the wilderness Scalers weren't any nicer than the ones in Black Harbor. He preferred we stay in the city since we knew what we were up against. Anyways, we hike, and hike, and hike. Finally, we reached this clearing right there in the middle of the forest. It looked like a lake had frozen over, but it wasn't cold. It was glass-"

  "And in the center of the massive crater of glass were a set of wings, amber with hews of green," he paused with sadness in his eyes. "I know the place you're talking about."

  "Yeah, it's beautiful, isn't it? I've always wondered how a lake full of glass just ended up in the middle of the forest like that."

  "It's not a lake, Whisper," he mumbled to me, "It's a grave."

  "What? How do you know that?" I turned to him and the sadness now looked mixed with anguish, sorrow.

  "I know because I'm the one who put it there and those wings? They belonged to my mother."

  I couldn't stop myself as I went to him and hugged him. I held him tight even though he stood there like he'd never been hugged before. Running my fingers up the back of his neck, I moved his head down onto my shoulder. He had to bend slightly, but he finally gave in. The strength of his arms around me was something I never expected to make me feel so needed. As strong as he was, he still needed this. He needed someone to be soft around.

  When I released him from my embrace, he took a deep breath, gazing at me with those big blue eyes of his, "There was a time when my mother lived here. She didn't exactly like the way things were done, especially with how your kind was being treated, so she left. She tried her best to make it in the wilderness. There's supposed to be some city out there, but I don't know, it's a myth to me. Anyways, when she left things were hard for me. I was furious, and anger manifested itself in my dragon. I was ruthless, brutal and could be so easily provoked. My father went to look for her, and I followed him of course. He ended up in a battle with some other Scalers, when she came from nowhere and tried to jump in and save him, but those bastards killed her. They wanted to take my father out and take control of Black Harbor, but the only thing they managed to do was make us both angry. I went crazy when I saw her lifeless body on the ground. It felt like flames came out of every inch of me, not just the pit in the back of my throat. My fa
ther killed two of them while the rest remained on the ground, injured and teetering on the brink of death. I torched them all. I let all of my anger out in a blaze of black and blue flames. The flames were so hot that it turned that entire pit into a lake of glass, as you call it. My mother was the only dragon whose body didn't burn. After that, I only got out of control a few more times, and then when I stopped mourning over her, the anger went away. I think it was the next time I saw you actually. It had been at least a few years, but it was you. Your scent, your run, I could just tell. You helped me not be so angry, so sad, so destructive."

  "I had no idea."

  "Of course not," he sighed, "Why would you know that? I am glad that you think it's a beautiful place. I'm glad my mother can rest in peace somewhere to be awed."

  "At least you know your parents," I mumbled shaking my head.

  "What about that Jasper guy? Isn't he like your Dad?"

  "I guess he is in a way," I smiled, but it sucked. I was here eating beef while a Scaler fed me, and he must be worried sick. "I want him to know I'm safe."

  "I'm sure he knows," Ashton said. "Because you're here as Ashton Cane's pet. I'm sure all of Black Harbor knows by now."

  10

  Ashton

  Last night with Whisper was amazing. We simply slept together. There were a few curious noises during the night, some pets getting out of control, but overall she slept peacefully in my arms. I couldn't imagine it getting any better than this.

  The sun had just risen, my windows were still down and Whisper was moving around. She hadn't gotten out of bed yet, but I knew she was awake.

  "What are you doing?" I asked her.

  All I heard in return was a soft giggle before her soft voice found me from under the sheet, "Returning the gesture and thanking you properly."