I knew that if I stopped before he got off, Thom would snap my neck like a twig.
5
James
I glanced over at Ayden. He was plucking juicy purple grapes from the vines outside of our underground bunker.
“Dude,” I chuckled. “I think that’s enough, don’t you?”
Ayden gave me a begrudging look. He looked like a real life fucking Ken doll.
He had short golden hair and eyes the same color as the blue sky. He was a complete contrast to my jet-black hair and dark skin, but we had the same color eyes. It was unusual for a shifter with mocha colored skin to have blue eyes, but I was some kind of anomaly.
In some ways, it bonded our brotherhood even more, aside from the fact that we had escaped the same master in the same village.
Ayden flickered his gaze at me briefly and casually.
“What?”
He shrugged. I watched as the edges of his lips curled into a mischievous grin. “I like making wine. It calms me down.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “You also love to drink the wine.”
Ayden looked pained for a second as if my words had internally wounded him. “Everyone has a vice.”
“I’m just messing with you, man,” I said and gave him a fond slap on the back. “Don’t be so intense.”
“I’m not intense,” Ayden fired back defensively.
“Well, come on,” I beckoned him with a little wave. I lifted my own case of grapes. It was getting heavier by the second. “Let’s put these cases back on the side of the bunker stairs and then we can move on to more exciting things.”
That’s when I noticed the twinkle in Ayden’s eyes. Of course, he wanted to hunt. It was his favorite part when it was our turn to go looking for food.
“You’re on.” He gave me a fist bump.
“One with the most game wins?” I asked and pitched my eyebrow.
“You know it, buddy.” Ayden let out a lighthearted chuckle as he lifted his own case of grapes and walked with me over to the bunker door that led to our underground refuge.
We had lived in the bunker for a couple of years now. Life was good down there, but we still had to be on guard all of the time.
We couldn’t afford to not sleep with one eye open or constantly look over our shoulders. There was always someone on the lookout, always at least two people who stood guard while the others slept in shifts.
We had to constantly look out for each other too and watch each other’s backs. There wasn’t going to be anyone else to do it for us. We felt like we were always under the watchful eye of the Masters’ and their guards.
I had already managed to escape twice. I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again to get recaptured. We rarely left the woods. It was our safe haven, our habitat. We were used to being out in the wild. Of course, with me being a jaguar shifter and Ayden a lion shifter, we felt the most alive when we were out in the wild anyway. We weren’t made to spend our lives in the captivity of a Master’s dungeon cell.
We also knew how to hunt, and we were damn good at it.
I glanced up at the canopy of trees. A gentle breeze shuffled through the leaves and branches swayed as if coaxing us along and waving hello as we passed, going deeper into the thickness of the woods.
A few birds cawed overhead, singing their songs of joy as they gleefully bounced from limb to limb.
“It seems so quiet and calm out here today,” Ayden said.
I glanced at him and nodded. “Yeah.” It was almost as if he had the ability to read my thoughts. I had just been thinking about how tranquil it was out here today as if it was the calm before a storm.
I glanced up at the sky. It was radiantly blue. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen, but all that could change in an instant. The weather up in these mountains was unpredictable, to say the least.
In a flash, we could be hit with cold rain, the kind that pelts your skin and soaks you to the bone in an instant.
In the fall and winter months, the snow gently fell and cloaked the forest in a blanket of white that made hunting exceedingly difficult, which was why we normally preferred to stock up when we could.
We stored the meat in the freezers to extend the supply once the deep freeze crawled across the forest floor.
“Let’s not stray too far from the bunker or each other,” I suggested.
Ayden scoffed and puffed out his chest. “Pussy.”
“Are you going to call me that when you get captured?” I growled.
Ayden’s eyes enlarged but I noticed him set his jaw. “That’s not going to happen.” His voice was intensely low.
“We can never be too careful,” I reminded him.
That was the problem with Ayden. His weakness was being too cocky, too self-assured about his own strength and capabilities. But when we were at the hands of a village Master, none of us were immune or too powerful to torture.
The argument could be made that yes, we were in fact safer way up here in the mountains and far away from society in the village, but there was not much of a society left down there. It looked charming and cultured from the point of view of an outsider, but the arteries of the town were clogged with danger and darkness that lurked around every corner, sunny or not.
Ayden laughed as he shifted into his lion body. His straw-colored fur gleamed gallantly under the rays of sun that beamed down from the cracks between the trees.
I shifted too. I growled at him as he roared. Our male alter egos clashed on occasion, especially when we were in our animal forms. I was faster than Ayden, and he knew it, but he used his arrogance to try and dominate me because he was bigger than me in his lion body.
We paced in a circular formation around each other for a few seconds before I noticed the charismatic mischief begin to gleam once again in Ayden’s eyes. He took off running on his padded, giant paws.
I smirked and shook my snout. I could give the poor sap a head’s start. Why not? I was feeling generous this afternoon. I began to gallop on four legs, trotting along at a leisurely pace at first.
Then, as the oxygen poured in my lungs and the crisp air began to sting my throat, I felt liberated. Free and alive. The blood pumped through my veins and my heart pounded with the thrill of being on the hunt in the wild.
It was almost as if the damage of my past was undone when I was a jaguar, running and darting through the pines and firs. It was therapeutic to be out here where I belonged, and I never wanted to take a single second of my freedom for granted.
I watched Ayden running along on the prowl and I knew that by his mannerisms, we were both on the same page. He too relished in the luxury of being out here untamed. That’s when I noticed that he had slowed to a crawl and begun stepping carefully around a clearing we had come across.
I eyed him. Our only form of communication now was our expressions. Ayden nudged his furry neck in the southern direction. I glanced the way he was pointing with his bushy head. I noticed the animal at once.
My jowls immediately began salivating. The hunger in my gut began to swirl and pang with longing. I edged closer to the deer drinking water from a translucent brook that was running down the edge of the mountain.
I heard the sound of the water splashing up against pebbles and rocks as it flowed down with natural gravity. It was a serene setting. If I weren’t in my jaguar form, I might have thought twice about pouncing on the deer, but we were hungry, and we had a lot of mouths to feed.
We knew that the deer couldn’t be another shifter. We tried our best to only hunt smaller game like deer, rabbits, and chipmunks. That way we were certain we wouldn’t be killing a fellow man on accident.
Ayden glanced over at me as if he were waiting for me to give the green light. I nodded. Ayden pounced, but he missed, letting out a roar of frustration. I bolted from my position at the edge of the brook and jumped across the water. I was dangerously fast.
The deer was no match for me. I closed my eyes as my teeth sank into its neck. I felt its body go limp. The job wa
s finished.
The taste of metal gushed into my mouth as I inadvertently swallowed down some of the deer’s blood. I was panting hard. The lifeless deer was laying on a bed of leaves as if it were almost a ceremonial death. At least it was quick, and it didn’t suffer.
Ayden was behind me, watching. It took all my reserved energy to keep myself from sinking my teeth into the juicy meat of the deer and tearing it apart right then and there. That was the primal, animalistic side of me coming through. I had to resist the temptation because I couldn’t think only of myself.
There were other shifters in hiding back at the bunker who needed to eat too. We would do this the right way, cooking the meat in the kitchen, and freezing whatever we didn’t use right then.
I was proud of both of us on this hunting spree. We needed each other, it was true. Ayden had scoped the animal, and I had finished the job. But it wasn’t over yet. Now we had to bring the deer back to our bunker.
I lifted the deer in my jaws and placed it gently on Ayden’s back, making sure it was sturdy enough for the trek home. Once I was certain that it wasn’t going to fall off during the walk home, I nodded to Ayden, who set off in front of me.
The mood of the forest had become somber, almost as if the drooping branches of certain trees — and nature in general — were weeping for the loss of life. It just came with the territory, the food chain. We couldn’t starve out here, and we couldn’t go into the village and buy food either. We had no choice. I tried not to let the guilt overcome me because our options were limited.
After about fifteen minutes of walking, we came to the door of the bunker. Our bushels of grapes were still sitting on the ground outside of the bunker door, untouched. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Everyone in the bunker had a job to do. We each had to contribute to our own little private mini-society. If we didn’t, then shit would hit the fan. Keeping order was a priority, even though we didn’t necessarily have a hierarchy. We had endured enough of that shit back in the villages.
We got shit done as a team. That was the way it had to be.
I shifted into my human form first and then lifted the deer off of Ayden’s back so he could shift too.
When he was back to normal, he was beaming and grinning from ear to ear.
“We did it, man,” he exclaimed in a proud voice. He gave me a boastful high five.
“Yes, it’s true.” I nodded with a chuckle. “The camp will eat well tonight.”
“Thanks to us,” Ayden said.
“Thanks to you for spotting the game.” I nudged my chin in the direction of the deceased deer.
“Teamwork makes the dream work, am I right, buddy?” Ayden was all but jumping up and down with excitement.
“I suppose you are,” I affirmed.
I glanced over my shoulder. It was hard to believe that only a few seconds ago, I was whipping through the trees, knowing that I had the ability to run for sport and that we would get praise for our catch. I loved running for fun and not because guards were chasing me.
I wanted to soak up every drop of freedom for all it was worth. After all, I had sacrificed so much over the years, and I had been through hell and back to get to where I was today.
“Come on,” I said to Ayden. “Let’s take the deer down first.”
“I can’t wait to see everyone’s faces when we walk through the door with it,” Ayden said.
“Me too,” I said and grabbed the deer by its hind legs.
It would be a glorifying moment, and we needed as many of those as we could get these days.
Morale would be boosted, at least for a little while.
6
Sophia
The next morning, I cracked one eye open and then the other.
Sometimes I told myself that the unforgivable acts Thom made me do with him were just a dream. It was a way that I could make myself feel better, to brighten the early moments of my initial wakeup.
If I tricked myself into believing a lie to benefit my mental stability, then so be it.
I always tried to keep my thoughts at a plateau. I never wanted to stir up animosity and hurt. It was infectious, and it would spread through me like a sickness if I allowed it to conquer and trap me. I also never wanted to get my hopes up about anything. That way, I would never have to feel as if the world was a glass bottom that was shattering under my feet.
Besides, if I lived with the mindset that I was a victim, then that was all I would ever be. I had to remain a fighter and stay stable against the odds.
I sat up and stretched. My arms and legs felt stiff and my muscles protested when I went from a sitting to standing position. I cringed at the memory of my wings appearing last night with Thom in my cell.
He had been livid. His cheeks were burning hot at the time. The visual was etched into my brain. He had been practically breathing smoke out of his nostrils, but he hadn’t killed me, so at least I had that going for me.
It was another day in the castle, but the routine would be different. Last night, Thom had told me to wait in my cell once I woke up the next morning. He had told me that one of the guards would be along to fetch me from my chambers to bring me upstairs to the master quarters to get a full clean up revival. I was going to perform in the Master Ceremonies tonight.
I didn’t know what to expect, or when the guards would come for me. I just knew that it would be a nightmare when it happened. Don’t get me wrong, I loved to get cleaned up. I felt refreshed every time I was allowed a shower, regardless of whether Thom was there with me or not.
I sat on the edge of my bed and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
It seemed like I had been there for an eternity. When the afternoon sun began to make its descent in the sky, to once again tuck itself behind the mountains to sleep, I began to get worried. My heart drummed anxiously in my chest. I hated living with a constant fear of the unknown.
No one had come down to my cell to retrieve me at all today, which was highly unusual. No one had even come to get me to bring me to meals. I was starving. Hunger panged at my gut and stabbed me in the stomach.
I was also parched. My lips were cracked and dry and my throat felt gritty. I wished I had something to drink. I debated a couple of times whether to stick my tongue out and lap up some of the water from the dirty puddles on the ground, but I hadn’t resorted to that level of desperation just yet.
I knew in my heart that Thom would send a guard for me soon. After all, I had a monumental role to fulfill tonight. Thom wouldn’t go without me to the Master Ceremonies. He never did. I always went with him, no exceptions.
It was probably due more to the fact that I could elegantly dance than the fact that he yearned for my company. No, I was more of a token for him to boast about in public. I hated being in the spotlight of his arrogance, but I didn’t mind it so much when he allowed me to dance, something that I loved to do.
I was sitting on the edge of my bed. My shoulders were drooped, and my head was hanging in between my knees. I heard my cell door click open. I instantly sat up at attention and glanced at the door.
A couple of stern-looking guards were giving me a glare.
“Come on,” one of them grumbled and beckoned with an indifferent wave of his hand. “The master is ready for you to get your clean up.”
I stood up and followed them upstairs to the master quarters. Most of the time, the slaves weren’t allowed to enter this part of the castle, but there were exceptions to the rule. I was one of those exceptions, but it still didn’t happen frequently.
The first noticeable difference I always felt when going into Thom’s part of the castle was how exceptionally warmer and cozier it was than the dungeons and the cells. There were hardwood floors under my bare feet instead of cold, stained concrete.
“Through here,” the guard said and quickly turned around a corner.
I followed him into Thom’s private living quarters. He was sitting there on the edge of the bed with a
n eager grin on his face.
“Welcome,” he said.
There were several other female slaves standing around. They had their arms folded defensively over their chests and they wore cross expressions on their faces as they glowered at me.
I already knew that all the other female slaves were extremely jealous of me. I didn’t understand why, aside from the fact that I seemed to be Thom’s favorite above all the rest. It wasn’t like I actually made any attempt whatsoever to please him, other than staying under the radar.
However, there were still some girls who seemed to hold me in contempt for capturing Thom’s attention. It was morbid really. Why did they want his attention? He would just spend more time beating them and making them perform vile sexual acts. I just couldn’t understand it.
“I can’t wait to see how they doll you up like a princess,” Thom said with an enthusiastic beam.
Some of the other girls rolled their eyes and sighed. Thom backhanded a blonde girl who was sat beside him when she showed too much animosity for her role in this process.
“If you aren’t happy with your job here, there are plenty of chores I can give you in the dungeon involving my cock,” Thom said with a sneer.
The girl’s face quickly drained of color. She stared at her feet and rapidly shook her head.
“Good.” Thom seemed pleased by her reaction. “Now then, shall we get on with the process of making this girl look presentable once again?”
I walked into the bathroom that was attached to the master bedroom. It was elegant and filled with gold fixtures and a crystal chandelier overhead. I couldn’t help but think that it was Thom’s fault I looked so crestfallen and rough around the edges all the time. If he took the time to actually take care of us, then maybe he wouldn’t be so disgusted by our presence when we were at our filthiest.
I almost gasped when I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. My cheekbones were gaunt. I looked like a skeleton. Of course, I hadn’t eaten all day. My eyes had dark circles under them and my hair was stringy and greasy, hanging off the sides of my face like limp and lifeless feathers that had been soaked in tar.
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