by Faith Gibson
“You want some company?” Kyllian didn’t have a job other than being a mercenary.
“Don’t you have some willing little kitten to tie up and whip, Master?” Hayden whispered his question. He was giving his brother grief about his chosen proclivities, but it wasn’t anyone else’s business what he did in the bedroom. Or dungeon. Hayden had visited a club with his brother once, but it was enough for him to know that wasn’t his kink. Hayden didn’t really have a kink. The women he’d gone out with lately had expected him to be a hardass just because he was a biker. They expected rough treatment and bad language. That wasn’t him. He wasn’t Jax Teller from the old biker show Sons of Anarchy.
“Kitten?” Kyllian’s grin was feral. “I have all the kittens lined up. But they can wait until I get back. It’s all about the anticipation.”
“Won’t they just ask someone else to…?” Hayden paused, not wanting to offend his brother. “You know.”
Kyllian’s face softened. “Some will. Those who don’t have a contract are allowed to seek out whomever they choose. Those who do have a contract aren’t allowed to play with another Dom without permission. With my schedule as it is, I never have a sub sign up for exclusivity. It isn’t fair to them. The one I have now will wait until I’m available.”
“Is it rude to ask how you got into that lifestyle?” Hayden had been curious since that night he had gone with Kyllian.
“Not as long as you aren’t judging, and I know you aren’t. I get it; you’re curious. The honest answer is I was flipping through some porn, and it caught my attention, if you get my drift. A Dom had his sub tied to a cross and was flogging her. I know a lot of porn is fake, but you can tell the difference between real emotions if you look and listen hard enough. I wanted to be sure it wasn’t a fluke, so I searched out more videos of the same nature. I did some online research into the lifestyle, but I knew there was only one way to be certain, and that was to visit a club. I knew, within ten minutes of walking inside, I wanted that connection. There are different types of Doms.” Kyllian stopped talking when two females walked over to where he and Hayden were standing.
“My friend and I were wondering if we could buy you two a drink.” Both women were pretty, and Hayden had no problem allowing them to buy a drink. But it had been too long since he and Kyllian had spent quality time together.
“Thank you, but we’re good here,” he responded before Kyllian could.
“Maybe some other time,” Kyllian added. When the females walked off, he turned back to Hayden. “As I was saying, there are different types of Doms. What they do and what they want out of a scene varies. I went back several times to get a feel for what called to me the most, and then I approached the Dom I felt was closest to who and what I wanted for myself.” Kyllian paused to take a sip of his drink.
“How did you know what to do, though? I mean, as Gryphons, we’re pretty intuitive, but I can’t imagine striking someone with a whip without a shit-ton of practice.” Hayden couldn’t imagine striking someone even after practicing. It just wasn’t in his nature.
“I first became a sub. To know what it was like to be on the receiving end, I gave myself over to a female Domme. Before she taught me about the various tools she used, she taught me about what it meant to take care of someone. That’s what being a Dom is all about. It might look like nothing more than whipping or demanding someone to obey, but it’s about taking care of someone else’s needs.” After ordering another round of drinks, Kyllian explained more about the lifestyle, like Sadism, Daddies and littles, and aftercare. Things Hayden would never have believed to be real outside of porn.
“What happens when you find a mate? Are they going to be okay with you having sex with other women?”
Kyllian leaned his back against the rail and crossed his ankles. “Who says I want a mate? My life is perfect. I have the club and our family. I have a job I love, and I have a sub I see every week unless I’m out of town. She recently got out of a long-term relationship where her partner was more of an asshole than Dom. She is busy with her own profession, so the arrangement we have works well for both of us. So, back to my original question. Do you feel like comp—?” Kyllian’s phone beeped with an incoming message. After he read it, he clapped Hayden on the shoulder. “Looks like that doesn’t matter. Ryker has a job for me.” Kyllian downed his drink. “Sorry to cut our night short.”
“No problem. I’m planning on getting up early to finish the bike.” Hayden knocked back the rest of his whiskey, and the two brothers headed downstairs. When they reached their Harleys, Hayden grabbed Kyllian’s arm. “Be safe out there.”
“Always. Have fun in Texas, and give the girls my love.” Kyllian hugged Hayden tightly before slapping him on the back. They mounted their bikes and rode back to New Troy side-by-side. Kyllian gave Hayden a two-fingered salute when he turned toward his home. Hayden rode the rest of the way deep in thought. His brother’s life was perfect, according to him. Kyllian didn’t want a mate, and Hayden wanted nothing more.
His three oldest brothers had found their mates. Not once, but twice. Well, Jenna hadn’t been Maveryck’s true mate, but she did give him the twins. Now, Mav had Natalia and the boys filling his days with love and laughter. So much laughter. Hayden wanted that. He wanted kids to make him laugh at their silly antics. Wanted to watch them find themselves and grow into teens then adults. Whether they be human or Gryphon, he didn’t care. He wanted to be surrounded in his own home by those who meant the most to him.
In the next couple weeks, he would be completely surrounded by his sisters, their kids, and grandkids. It would be chaotic, and it would be fun. The perfect environment Hayden needed to keep his mind off things he didn’t have.
Chapter Two
Mercedes
Mercedes pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head when her son ran over to her chaise, dripping cold water on her heated legs. The droplets were as welcome as his bright smile.
“Mamá, mirame!”
Mercedes did watch as her five-year-old performed a lopsided cannonball into the swimming pool. When Mateo bobbed to the surface, he was grinning.
“Salte del agua.”
Mercedes jumped at the stern voice ordering Mateo out of the pool. Antonia blocked the sun as she stepped closer. Mateo did as commanded and rushed to stand beside Mercedes’s chair, putting Mercedes between his little body and his aunt. The woman lived to make Mercedes’s life miserable, but only when Juan wasn’t home.
“Juan Carlos has guests coming, so you need to go back to your room and keep the brat away from his father’s office.” Antonia’s English was harsh in her Mexican accent. Antonia never referred to Mateo by his name unless Juan was around.
“No problem there.” Mercedes preferred to remain in her end of the villa. She and her son were happiest when it was just the two of them. When the other woman didn’t make a move to leave, Mercedes asked, “Was there something else you needed?”
Antonia was leering at Mateo, but he was cowered behind Mercedes’s back. She didn’t know what happened between her son and the woman when they spent the day with Juan while Mercedes was relegated to her suite, but she figured it wasn’t good if the boy hid his face whenever Antonia was around.
“Mocoso lloron,” Antonia muttered before turning on her heal and returning inside. Mercedes had also been called a sniveling twit when she first arrived at Juan’s estate. She’d been a fifteen-year-old girl taken from a decent home where she had a big brother who thought she’d hung the moon, a mother who loved her. A mother who did her best to keep the peace with a father who was absent most days. When her father, Ricardo, was home, he all but ignored Mercedes, remarking how she’d never be more than her looks, just like her mother. Mercedes spent years wondering why her father wasn’t like her friends’ dads. Wondering why he didn’t have a nine-to-five job.
Mercedes had never truly feared her dad until the day she heard him on the phone making a bargain. Trading Mercedes for a debt. It didn’t m
ake sense at first, but soon after he hung up, he grabbed Mercedes and told her to get in the car. Her mother had gone to the grocery store, and her brother, Dominic, had been gone from home a while, only coming home every other Sunday for dinner with the family. Mercedes fought her dad, knowing deep in her heart if she got in the car, she’d never see her mom again. In the end, she was no match for a man who was larger and on a mission. Within an hour, her life as she knew it was changed forever. Her father handed her over to Juan Carlos Alvarez, and the man said Ricardo’s debt was wiped clean.
Juan Carlos took Mercedes by the arm and dragged her to a waiting vehicle where a large man held open the door. They were barely seated when the SUV began moving, and Mercedes didn’t see her father or the other men left behind. That had been eight years ago.
Mercedes helped her son dry off and wrapped the towel around his body. She pulled on her swimsuit cover and slid her feet into a pair of expensive sandals. Even in the privacy of her secluded oasis, Mercedes was expected to look like a million dollars.
“Mamá, tengo hambre.” Mateo dropped the towel as soon as they entered their suite and stood in front of Mercedes with his big, brown eyes. His father’s eyes. Mateo was a mixture of both Mercedes and his father, but it was the eyes she loved and hated in equal measure. Where Mateo’s were expressive and innocent, Juan’s were cold and calculating unless he was looking at her or Mateo.
“You’re always hungry, Mijo.” Juan insisted his son learn to speak Spanish, and Mercedes had learned the language along with him. In the privacy of their suite, she made sure her son knew the English equivalent of the Spanish he was taught. Growing up in south Texas, she had known some Spanish words and phrases but not enough to keep up with the rapid-fire conversations between Juan and whomever he was speaking with. It wasn’t until she had been with Juan three years that she understood exactly who he was other than her captor-turned-husband – a big-time drug lord. It was then she realized who her father had been. Ricardo had worked for Juan, and when he couldn’t pay the money he owed for the drugs he’d been in charge of, he’d offered Mercedes in exchange. Mercedes had been worth four hundred thousand dollars.
Juan had taken Mercedes to his home and kept her hidden for three years. For thirty-six long months, Mercedes had been transformed into someone Juan paraded around in front of his men. She had been schooled in dinner etiquette so she didn’t embarrass him. Her clothes went from jeans and T-shirts to tight dresses showing the curves she developed early on. She learned to walk in five-inch heels and how to apply makeup that transformed her from pretty to sultry. Now, eight years later, she could apply her makeup flawlessly in under ten minutes. Mercedes had always had good hair. Long and thick. Nobody had to teach her how to make it look good except when Juan wanted her to wear it up. A messy bun was not what he thought of as a proper updo. Mercedes became a trophy wife – a term she learned in a fashion magazine.
“Mamá,” Mateo whined.
“I know, Papi; you’re hungry.” Mercedes picked up her son’s towel on her way to the desk, then called to the kitchen and asked for their supper to be brought to their room. Mercedes missed cooking. It was something she had shared with her mom. Every night, Gloria would show Mercedes how to fix elaborate dinners, even if it was only the two of them eating. Gloria had taught her how to wash clothes. How to sew on buttons. How to ice a cake with fondant and make flowers to dress it up. Mercedes’s heart hurt whenever she allowed herself to remember her mom, which wasn’t often. She’d long ago resigned herself to this life of hers. Hers and her son’s. If it wasn’t for Mateo, she’d have tried to run. Tried to find a way out of her Mexican hell. If Juan caught her, he’d probably kill her, and she refused to leave Mateo without a mother. Without someone to shield him from Juan and Antonia. Without someone to teach him how to be good when everyone else around them was bad.
To anyone on the outside looking in, Mercedes had a charmed life. She had a handsome husband, a beautiful child, and lived in a sprawling villa, which came equipped with a swimming pool and tennis courts. Mercedes loved to swim, but she hated tennis. She had servants taking care of everything. Juan showered her with fine jewelry. Expensive clothes. He pretended to care for her deeply, and Mercedes was pretty sure that was why Antonia hated her. Because she no longer came first in his life. He might bestow lavish gifts on Mercedes, but he didn’t allow her to have the one thing she wanted most in the world – to go home. Juan might have received Mercedes in trade, but the man seemed to genuinely care for her as much as a monster was capable of such feelings. At least he pretended to. Maybe he secretly hated her as much as she did him.
Mercedes got Mateo changed into dry clothes before swapping her bikini for one of the hundreds of dresses in her enormous closet. A closet that was larger than her bedroom back home. Home. Mercedes couldn’t think of the two-story house back in New El Paso without tearing up, so she pushed it out of her mind. Her home was a sprawling estate across the Mexican border in Nuevo Laredo, where her husband kept her hidden from the world. The door opened, and the devil himself strolled in carrying their supper tray.
“Papa!” Mateo ran to his father and hugged him around his legs. Mercedes stood, as she’d been taught, waiting for Juan to acknowledge her. Juan might care for her, but he was gone over his son. Her role as the wife of a drug lord was to be seen, not heard. To bear his child. To be available whenever he wanted sex. To always look perfect. It was not her role to raise their child. That fell to Juan and the tutor. To Antonia. Mercedes hated her husband and his sister, but she never let them see it. She never let on how badly she loathed her life. Had since the day she’d been traded.
Juan placed the tray on the table before picking Mateo up. He carried on a low conversation in Spanish with his child. Mateo giggled, and even though her son’s laughter was the best sound in the world, it cut that this monster was the cause of it. Mercedes might open her legs to him willingly because what other choice did she have? But she didn’t suffer illusions of the type of man he was. A drug runner. A gun trafficker. A man who had hundreds in his employ who only cared about money. One who didn’t care about the teen girl he married and got pregnant on their wedding night, nor the families they destroyed in recruiting young men and women to haul their product. He did care about the small child who had no clue who and what his father was, but it wasn’t enough. Mercedes was no longer that scared, sniveling girl, but neither was she someone who could figure out how to escape the man everyone else thought of as a god. A king. Someone to be admired.
Juan placed Mateo in his chair at the dining table, then turned his attention to Mercedes. He cupped her cheek and pressed a kiss to her red lips. “Tonight, my love. We celebrate.”
Mercedes knew what that meant. The meeting was a big one, and once it concluded, she would be naked in her husband’s bed. He would be celebrating, and she would be pretending. She spent the next three hours enjoying time with her son. She was his mother, but she didn’t have access to him twenty-four seven. That had taken time to get used to. It had also taken time and lots of bargaining with Juan to be the one who bathed Mateo. Who read him a book before bed. Who sang him to sleep. It was her favorite time of day.
Mercedes had just finished singing Mateo’s favorite song when Ana Maria came into the suite. The older woman watched over Mateo whenever Mercedes was required in Juan’s presence.
“El esta listo para ti,” the older woman said softly.
But I’m not ready for him. Mercedes would never admit that aloud, not even to the woman who’d become a surrogate mother. Ana Maria had been there when Mercedes arrived as a scared teen, providing a modicum of warmth. She was with Mercedes when she gave birth to Mateo, and she was there for the boy when it was Mercedes’s time to perform her wifely duties. As much as she doted on Mercedes, Ana Maria was loyal to Juan Carlos for some reason.
Mercedes checked her hair in the bathroom mirror and applied a fresh coat of lipstick to her already stained lips. She slipped into her stilet
tos before making her way to the other end of the large house. Mercedes ignored the armed men patrolling the halls as her heels clicked on the marble floors with each step she took toward Juan’s suite. Although she went to his bed almost every night, she didn’t think of his room as theirs. Her clothes were back in the suite she shared with her son.
When she reached the door, she knocked three times and waited for him to answer.
“Pasa, mi pajarito.” Juan began calling her “little bird” after hearing her sing to Mateo. Mercedes pushed open the door, then closed it behind her. She didn’t bother locking it because no one would dare enter under any circumstance. She strode across the plush carpet as though she were on a catwalk. Prowling was more like it. Mercedes knew what Juan liked. Knew what made him happy. She’d come to the man a virgin, but as soon as he took her to his bed the first time, Juan instructed her on how to please him. Surprisingly, he’d been gentle with her. He’d been patient as she learned to suck his dick without gagging too much. He’d taken his time in pleasing her as well. Mercedes was under no illusion she was the only one he sought for sex, but she never gave him a reason to be displeased with her performance.
Her fake smile came easier these days. Mercedes had plenty of practice, and if Juan didn’t believe she was happy, he never let on.
“Come here.” He held out his hand, and she went to him. Juan pulled her to him when she was close enough to touch. Threading one hand through her long hair, he pulled. Not hard enough to be painful but enough to let her know his mood. Things were going to be gentle, and for that, she was grateful. “I had a very good meeting. I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s say I’m moving up in the world.” Juan never talked specifics about his drugs or guns. From previous conversations she’d overheard when he didn’t know she was listening, Mercedes had figured out her husband wasn’t one of the major players in his world. He didn’t have one of the largest cartels. Did moving up mean he had taken over one of them? The man was already rich beyond anything she could imagine.