Spiked Roses: The Complete Top Shelf Series

by Alta Hensley

  We waited. For what, I wasn’t sure.

  My knees ached and my palms throbbed, but I refused to break position, as did the rest of the lined up women. We remained in position for ten minutes, twenty, thirty… I couldn’t be sure. But with each passing minute, my body screamed in agony, desperate to move and relieve at least some of the pain.

  Finally, the heavy sound of shoes walking across the marble floor, then several others following, announced others were joining us in the room.

  “You all may sit back and rest on your feet. Place your palms on your thighs and spread your legs wide,” came a deep and powerful voice as he walked in front of us, standing with his arms crossed.

  I almost moaned in relief when I was able to relieve the pressure on my battered hands and knees. Fighting back dizziness, I did as the man commanded, trying not to focus on the cool air of the room making contact with my exposed sex. The dampness from the shower still remained on my pubic hairs, only causing my vulnerability to heighten even more.

  The man before us had dark hair that hung in waves to his shoulders. His face had a faint shading of stubble, and his eyes bored into each of us with an intensity that sent a shiver down my body. His nose was long and narrow, standing out as his most prominent feature. He reminded me of what I imagined a goblin king to look like in a classic fairytale.

  The rest of the men who marched in behind this man lined up behind him with their arms clasped behind their backs, legs shoulder-width apart, and they stared at each of us. They all wore some type of business suit just like the others I had crawled past—and just like with the others, my father was not one of them, but I also didn’t have time to take in each person before my attention was directed at the man speaking.

  “We are the Iron Colt Brotherhood,” the man began. “I am sure you have all heard of our society in one way or another.” He gave a wicked smile. “And let me assure you. All the rumors you have heard are true. And even worse.” He snickered at his own joke, but no one in the room showed any emotion at all. Unless you counted the women, who softly whimpered or gasped at his words. “I will be the master of ceremonies for the ritual tomorrow.”

  I swallowed hard, struggling with the overwhelming urge to close my legs when his eyes peered upon me. Luckily, his gaze eventually moved on and looked at the next woman, and then the next.

  “You are all now part of our ritual process. You belong to the brotherhood and no one else. The only way you can break free from that collar around your neck is when someone purchases you as their slave for the ritual. At which time, you will be handed over to your new Master.” He paused, but didn’t move his stance at all. “I have high expectations for this year’s ritual.” He paused long enough to look at every square inch of each woman kneeling on the ground. “For now, you wait while the bidding process happens with the members.”

  He motioned to the men on the back wall who had dragged us into the ballroom to come and escort us out of the room which they each did by taking hold of our leashes and tugging us like before. Fortunately, we didn’t have to crawl long because the room we were escorted to was right off the ballroom.

  Entering the room on my hands and knees, I looked up and observed that we’d been brought into another empty room. All except carpet. There was finally carpet to help ease the pain in my knees.

  “Keep quiet,” one of the men ordered as we were all pulled to the center of the room. “It will soon be time for your Master who purchases you to come get you. Stay here, and keep your mouths shut.”

  Again, I was left with nothing but the soft sobs from frightened women and my own dark thoughts of what terrors were still to come.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Makayla

  I must have dozed off. The light from the door opening woke me as heavy shoes entered the room.

  “Come on, Makayla. You are first. Time we take you to meet your highest bidder. You better be a good little girl and fuck him real good so he doesn’t trade you in for someone else. Otherwise, there will be other bidders just itching to get their cocks wet with your juices,” the same man who’d brought me into the ballroom by chain said. He glanced down in disgust at the other women cowering in the corner of the room. He then reached down, unclasped my chain from the floor, and yanked me up to a standing position. “Walk!”

  I followed his command, looking down at the women who all looked up at me with fear in their eyes. Were they scared for me or for themselves? My bare feet padded across the cool marble floors once we left the room, and my captor didn’t slow down in the slightest so that I could keep up. If anything, he seemed to walk faster every time I fell back. I glanced down at the chain he held as he led me like an animal and wondered if I could grab it and wrap it around his neck and strangle him with it. Sure, he had several feet on me and about a hundred more pounds of mostly muscle, but maybe if I caught him off guard…

  “Come on,” he said with a tug of the chain, bringing me back to reality. My superhero days came crashing down, and I swallowed back the fear as I was led up the stairs to a room much smaller than the one I’d come from. It was a bedroom.

  Walking over the threshold, my escort pushed me down to my knees with much more force than was absolutely needed. I looked up with vengeance coursing through me as I stared at a roomful of men, many I recognized as being the same faces from when I first arrived.

  It was the man who chained me who spoke first. “This is who you bid on. You were the highest bidder so she is yours to sample first. If you decide to keep her for the ritual, then so be it.” His comment was directed at a man who stood in the back of the room near the window with his arms across his chest. The shadows made it so I couldn’t make out his appearance. He too wore a business suit and appeared as wealthy as the others, but he actually did appear more soldier-like than the rest of the men—stronger somehow. More dominance and presence even without me being able to see his face.

  But it was the man who chained me who approached me first. A slap across the face, a grip of my hair, he had me. He paused, waiting for a response. Possibly waiting for my tears, my pleas for mercy, but I would not give him the pleasure. I would not fuel his evil by feeding his strength with my weakness. I would give him nothing. Over his shoulder, I focused on the man in the shadows. I couldn’t quite explain it, but I didn’t fear the man. I suppose I should have, but I didn’t.

  “Stop. She’s mine to handle. Not yours,” Alec declared in a booming voice, as he turned to face us.

  Alec!

  I recognized the voice before he even stepped into the light to reveal he was here.

  Here for me.

  He was here to save me!

  The man released my hair, took a few steps back, and laughed. “But of course. Sample away. Claim her right now and see if she is indeed the one for you for the ritual.”

  Alec walked toward me, a spell of slow motion being cast. One step. Two.

  His dark eyes turned a darker shade of brown with every step forward. His jaw clenched as if my very presence angered him. Yes, he appeared angry with me… not that I blamed him. I was chained, naked, and my life was in danger. He had warned me, and I had chosen not to listen. So yes, Alec had every right to be mad at me. Furious. His face, that although had rigid lines before, now looked so chiseled, he reminded me of stone. He postured himself like a cougar. A cougar stalking for the kill. Dark, forbidding, shadowed in lustful strength. His hunt would end in the claiming of my body whether I agreed or not.

  He never said a word. Never once said my name. It was all in his eyes. The command. I knew I was not to reveal that I knew him. Somehow, someway, he was making me understand that fact. I was to play along. Do whatever he asked and not question a thing. I saw it in his eyes. I saw the silent command to obey. My life depended on it. Our lives depended on it. Feeling guilty for putting him into this position in the first place, I dropped my gaze toward the ground in shame.

  Alec squatted down before me and reached for my chin. Holding it fir
mly, he forced my face up so I had no choice but to stare into his eyes. “I paid a lot of money to have you, Makayla. I remember you as a little girl. I know who you are. We all know who you are. You can act brave. You may talk a big game, but I don’t play with scared little girls trying to hide what they really fear. You are afraid—I can smell it on you.” He took a deep breath to accentuate his point. And with an evil smile, he added, “I can smell your terror.” He reached for my collar with a key he had in his pocket and released me from my constraint, tossing the metal to the ground. The weight leaving my body felt like a hundred pounds, and I couldn’t help but feel grateful for the simple gesture of kindness. Alec was trying to act like he didn’t care, and that he hadn’t seen me since I was a child, but I could also sense how badly he wanted to free me from this place. Removing the collar was just the first step.

  Alec moved his face even closer. So close that his lips almost touched mine. “I will tell you this one time, and one time only. You will obey me. You will submit to me. You will fear me every fucking moment you are alive. And you will fuck me. You have no choice in this matter.” His glare broke from mine for a split second as he glanced at the men around us, silently telling me to be aware of what he said. “You have no voice. It is I who decides your fate. Do you understand?” He glanced back at the men watching our every move, and then back at me. “But I also know that you won’t make this easy. I’m sure I will get some resistance as all the women in your situation do when first presented with their fates. But I am prepared for you to act out as again, it is quite normal.”

  I gave a small smile—hoping it was enough to let Alec know that I knew I had to play along that I didn’t know him. He was right. Any female in my situation would put up a fight. So drumming up the courage to be as realistic as I could be if I were indeed just bought by a complete stranger or even by someone whom I knew as a young girl, I gathered the saliva in my mouth into a nice little ball of spit and spat it directly onto his face. “Fuck off!”

  Alec recoiled and wiped the bubbling white fluid off his face as fury blanketed his entire expression. The demon emerged right before my eyes. Lucifer himself was being born in front of me. Alec had become the devil. The man was good at putting on an act… or at least I hoped it was an act.

  His hand reached out and grabbed me by the neck, instantly restricting all air. The men in the room all yelled out:

  “Kill the bitch!”

  “Beat the shit out of her!”

  “Teach the cunt a lesson she won’t soon forget!”

  Call after call from all the men in the room. I truly sat in hell. Naked, vulnerable, and strangled by a man’s single hand to the throat.

  Alec’s hand.

  A hand I never thought would ever hurt me.

  Alec threw my body back and straddled me with his hand still firmly gripping my neck. “Oh, little girl, that was not a wise choice. Looks like I am going to have to teach what is mine a lesson.” He began unbuttoning his pants with his free hand, never taking his eyes off mine. His hand loosened around my neck just as darkness threatened to take over.

  He flipped me over and slapped my ass hard. The sound echoed in the room, followed by hoots and hollers of the spectators all around. He then straddled my body, grabbed a chunk of my hair, and lowered his face to my ear. “I have no choice. Understand this,” he growled. “I plan to get us both out of this mess alive.”

  He continued the act with another hard spank to my ass and then another. He leaned down and whispered in my ear so only I could hear again, “We have to put on the show. I’m sorry.”

  I bucked my torso up as much as I could, hopeful that it appeared I was using all my might to somehow get his large frame off my body. The effort was almost comical on my part, since I couldn’t even budge his weight in the slightest.

  “Yeah! Spank her naughty ass, Alec. Spank her and then fuck her hard. Make her call out your name, begging for forgiveness,” a man shouted from the crowd of excited men. Each of them found pleasure in this display of dominance by Alec.

  Fuck them all to hell!

  “Yes, that is exactly what this little bitch of mine needs,” Alec agreed as he got off me and looped his finger around a chunk of my hair. As if I were a rag doll, he yanked me to a standing position and led me to a small couch that sat on full display in the corner of the room. He pushed my body so I was bent over the edge, facedown on the rough material of the cushions. The smell of dust and years of exposure filled my nostrils. “Let’s teach this ass of yours what your fucking Master expects from you if you want to be picked for the ritual and not discarded like yesterday’s trash,” Alec said right before he began raining down spank after spank onto my upturned bottom.

  It didn’t take long for my flesh to explode into an inferno of pain. With each crack of his palm, shouts of celebration came from the men viewing my punishment:

  “Harder!”

  “Don’t go easy on that bitch!”

  “Make her scream!”

  “Break her good, Alec. Break her fucking good!”

  Whistles, cheers, screams of pure hate and sick vileness suffocated the room.

  The mortification that all eyes were on my ass as Alec spanked me like a goddamn schoolgirl was by far worse than the actual sting of his hand. Although his slaps eventually increased in severity, and I could no longer hold back the cries. They betrayed me by escaping my tightly closed lips. It fucking hurt! It fucking hurt bad!

  Alec was doing too good of a job at this act.

  “Stop! Stop!” I screamed between each searing blow. “Stop and just fuck me already.” Anything was better than this awful show of power.

  Alec continued to spank as he spoke. “Oh, I will fuck you. But not by your command, but by my own. I am the dictator. I am your God. And trust me, little girl, when I do fuck you, you will be begging for it again and again. You won’t be able to get enough. Your body will scream for me.” He continued bringing blow after blow to my bottom. The shouts from the onlookers formed a wave of deafening music to my tortured soundtrack. “You will be shaking in need for my touch.”

  As if the Gods of mercy gave me one last blessing, Alec finally stopped his assault. The fire lashes from his palm were replaced with a deep throbbing, now that my ass had time to process the pain. Fire and brimstone were replaced with a deep surge from my bottom all the way to the lips of my pussy. As much as I tried to fight the sensation of animalistic pleasure, the tsunami wave of lust washed over every inch of my sex, leaving me wet and wanting.

  Alec leaned forward and whispered in my ear again. “It’s important that you listen and do exactly what I say from this moment on. Your life depends on it.” His voice seemed… softer, the sharp edge of before erased. I looked over my shoulder and stared into his eyes that were a warm brown once again. Odd. It was as if he truly had released all his pent up aggression on my ass.

  He shoved his index finger into my mouth, almost gagging me with how far he forced it in. “Suck it,” he said loud enough that every man in the room could hear. “Make it nice and wet, because I’m about to put it up your ass. Make it slick, baby, unless you like pain.”

  Hoots and hollers once again followed his crass command.

  I had to keep telling myself over and over that this wasn’t Alec.

  My Alec.

  My Uncle Alec.

  He was doing what he had to do. What I forced him to have to do to save our lives.

  Any sign of softness vanished as he moved his finger around the inside of my mouth, collecting every ounce of moisture I had in it. Jesus, why did my pussy pulsate at the thought of what he was about to do?

  “You should have listened to me,” he said under his breath, again just loud enough for me to hear with all the noise around us. “Now I have to fuck you for all to see. Claim you. We have no other option.”

  His spit-covered finger penetrated my ass without any warning.

  I cried out as the biting pain sent a jolt of electricity straight to
my core. His finger claimed me in the darkest of ways. He thrust it in even deeper, stabbing at whatever shield I had put up. With each pump in and out of his invasive digit, my wall of resistance crumbled.

  “Fuck her in the ass,” someone called out.

  “Fuck her like an animal,” another screamed.

  “Yes, she’s mine. I claim Makayla as mine,” Alec declared as he pumped his finger in and out of my ass, causing me to involuntarily moan. I hated myself for doing so, but couldn’t hold back my mewls as I gyrated against the edge of the couch. My clit demanded attention, and I tried my best to meet the need without being so bold and reaching down with my hand—although the thought definitely crossed my mind. What would these bastards care, anyway? But then again, I didn’t want them all jacking off to my sexual act, though I’m sure some were on the verge of coming right there, turned on by this act of taking an innocent woman.

  Alec thrust his finger as deep as he possibly could and leaned toward my ear once more. “I’m going to fuck you. Allow me. Don’t fight me. Trust me when I tell you this. Let go of your pride, pretend all these men aren’t watching—that it is just you and me at the lake house—and just open your legs and allow this. It’s just you and me at the lake house. Just you and me at the lake house.”

  He pulled his finger out, and I could hear him pulling his pants down. I knew. I could hear him, sense him, feel his sexual presence without even having to look over my shoulder. Alec would fuck me… and God help me—I would allow him to. I would allow it to happen with all these men watching.