“Come,” the Beast said, jumping out of his chair. “I will show you.”
Chapter Four
Despite his belief that he was safe for the moment, Tobias tensed as the Beast approached the bed. The chains clinked, the manacles bit into his skin, and he felt his stomach clench. And then there was that scent again. It surrounded Tobias as the male leaned over him, tickling his nostrils and making him want to breathe deeper. He didn’t understand where the impulse came from, or why, as the Beast reached out a long-fingered hand, he felt like his skin was prickling.
“Don’t worry,” the Beast said, and his breath feathered across Tobias’ cheek. “I am only going to undo the manacles.”
“And then?”
“You’ll get to see where we are.”
He took Tobias’s hand in his, twisted something, and the next thing Tobias knew the manacle fell on to the bed. Tobias flexed his fingers, though they felt no different, the manacle had not been so tight that it had stopped the normal flow of blood to his hand.
The Beast flashed him a quick smile—Tobias couldn’t help but shudder—before moving down the bed and undoing the manacle around his ankle. Again, Tobias wiggled his digits, but they felt fine.
“I’m sorry for this.”
The Beast had his fingers around Tobias’ other hand now. His thumb was stroking along the bottom of Tobias’ wrist. It was then that Tobias noticed a small scratch on the skin.
“It’s just a scratch,” he said.
The Beast sighed. “A mark on your skin.”
“Yes…”
“You have beautiful skin, Tobias.”
Tobias froze. His wrist was still cradled in the Beast’s hand, though the manacle was on the bed now. And the tone to his voice…the way his lips moved around the words…suddenly Tobias understood why his skin was prickling, and he let out a gasp. He looked up and locked eyes with the beast.
“I…”
“And beautiful eyes.” His eyes narrowed. “They’re a strange color. Not one we see down here very often.”
“They’re blue,” Tobias said, but he was aware, and knew the Beast was aware, that his voice came out all sort of low and hoarse, because like the revelation about just how attractive the Beast was, another came now.
The Beast was attracted to him.
A year ago Tobias would never have picked up on it, because he never got noticed, was not used to seeing the shadow of desire darken someone’s eyes. But that had all changed the moment his body had started to, and Tobias had become uncomfortably aware of what that look in a man’s eyes meant.
The reason for his continued presence in this room began to tumble and turn. The prospect of what might happen soon shaped itself in a way that Tobias had not expected. He swallowed uncomfortably and moved his wrist. The Beast held on to it, his thumb continuing to stroke up and down the small scratch.
“Blue eyes…” he said. “They’re different.”
“Lots of people have blue eyes,” Tobias whispered.
“Not down here,” the Beast said. “Down here we have this color.”
At those words Tobias couldn’t help but glance up and lock eyes with the Beast again. If there had been any doubt in his mind before now it was gone in an instant. The Beast wanted him…and Tobias had no idea how to react to that.
“You’re wearing contact lenses,” he said inanely.
The Beast laughed. “No. They’re all mine. You’ll learn that soon enough.”
He placed Tobias’ hand on the bed and bent down to unlock the manacle around his other ankle. A moment later and Tobias was completely free. Tentatively he moved towards the edge of the bed, the other side to where the Beast stood. Once there he shot up and took a step back. It occurred to him then that he could run now if he wanted to, the door was right there, apparently unlocked. Only, Tobias had no idea what was behind it, and if the Beast was telling the truth, if they really were below ground, which he doubted, then he might not be able to find a way out.
The Beast smirked, as if reading Tobias’ thoughts. He gestured towards the door. “Come,” he said. “You’ll see what’s out there.”
He strode across to the door and pulled it open. Tobias followed carefully, his mind racing in a million different directions because the door opened up into a long, wide, well-lit corridor. The walls, from what Tobias could see, were the same as in the room, stone—and dry stone at that—and the floor was made up of flagstones that suggested many years of wear.
Underground.
Suddenly Tobias began to wonder if that really was true. It would explain the stone walls, and, now that he thought about it, the lack of visible windows.
“Tobias.” The Beast leaned against the doorframe, his gaze sharpening. “Before we leave this room I must warn you. Do not try to run. Do not try to move away from me. You need to stay close, and you need to do as I say.”
“Or what?” Tobias asked but he didn’t ask in an aggressive way, and clearly the Beast got that and answered in the same serious tone.
“The fact that you have been brought here…” He paused. “It has caused complications.”
“He brought me here, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because.” He shrugged one muscled shoulder. “You interfered. Because you saw something you should not have. Karl, rightly or wrongly, assumed that there was no choice but to bring you here.”
“And now?”
“And now, as I said, there are complications.”
“Am I in danger?” Tobias asked.
The Beast straightened. He was at least a foot taller than Tobias, and Tobias was almost six foot himself. “I already said that you are not,” he said. “So long as you are with me you are safe. I rule here. None will challenge me.”
“But what does that mean?” Tobias asked. “That you rule here? What is this place?”
“Come,” the Beast said. “And you will understand.”
He turned and strode out of the room. Tobias followed behind him, his mind racing, his heart pumping hard, his stomach clenching. They moved along the corridor, the sconces on the wall lighting their way, and as they did so, Tobias couldn’t help but feel a small moment of disbelief.
This time yesterday he had been sat in his apartment eating his dinner, wondering what to do with himself, how to fill the evening.
Just a few hours ago—because Tobias didn’t think it could have been much longer, he wasn’t even hungry—he had been planning much of the same.
And now this?
Taken by some crazy guy called Karl.
Chained up until the Beast released him.
Being taken on a tour of wherever they were.
His whole life turned on his head.
None of it made sense.
Tobias had no idea what was going to happen.
He could only hope that it was going to work out better than he’d first thought.
Chapter Five
The corridor came to an end after about five minutes of walking. As they had moved along it, Tobias had become more and more aware that the ‘corridor’ probably wasn’t a corridor after all, but a tunnel of some kind. He picked up on this due to the fact that its height and width were not regular. When he’d left the room he had been held in, the corridor had looked fairly uniform. But before long it began to follow a slight incline, and the height of the ceiling decreased. At the same time the width of the space almost doubled. The more he walked the more the Beast’s underground story began to make sense, and that was when Tobias started to feel a new emotion.
Curiosity.
It startled him at first, because to some extent Tobias was beginning to feel ever so slightly emotionally drained. He’d been confused, scared, worried, horrified, intrigued…and then there were the weird feelings that had filled him when he’d looked into the Beast’s yellow eyes. Did he want to be curious about where he was being held? Could he afford to start wondering about where he was, how he had be
en bought here?
Tobias thought the answer was surely no, but as they stepped out of the corridor tunnel, and into the space beyond, he couldn’t help the gasp that left his lips. He knew how big the valley he lived in was, he completely understood the way the cliffs ringed around it, but he had never truly wondered what the space below would look like. He got it now, understood it completely.
It was immense.
From his position Tobias stood on what looked to be a metal walkway. That walkway ran the length of the cavern they stood in, and was replicated on the other side. At various points along both walkways bridges connected them. Each bridge seemed to connect at the point where a tunnel branched off. That in itself was fascinating, but what caught, and held, Tobias’ attention was the space below the walkways.
His first thought was that it looked like some kind of bazaar. There was a riot of vibrant colors. Pinks, reds, blues, greens, and many of them came from the awnings covering a number of stalls. The rest came from the hundreds of people in the space, sat around tables, running stalls, chatting amongst themselves.
Tobias stepped forward, gripped the edge of the railing, and looked down, down, down. How many people were there, he wondered. Where had they all come from? What were they doing?
The questions tumbled through him, one after the other, and in that moment Tobias was no longer frantic, or horrified, or even scared. He was burning with curiosity and the questions began to leave his lips almost of their own accord.
“We’re really underground.”
He felt, rather than saw, the Beast come up next to him. “This is a natural cave system,” he said. “It runs around the entire valley. My understanding is that it has been here for a very long time, many thousands of years at least. Of course erosion has an effect. In the last few hundred years we’ve lost a portion of the Eastern system, and in due time we’ll lose from the West as well.” He shrugged. “Such is the nature of the planet.”
“But…” Tobias shook his head. “How can the ground above be stable if this is all down here?”
“It’s stable. This is the largest of all the caverns. Most are smaller and snake their way around. Look there.” He pointed to the body of water that rushed through the cavern on the far side of the bazaar. Tobias noticed a number of children were on the water’s edge with what looked like water guns. A group of women stood off to the side with guns of their own. A water fight in the making? Tobias gaped at the normalcy of it all. “That is a spring,” the Beast said. “It feeds straight into the sea.”
“But…we’re below sea level.”
“No,” the Beast said. “Think about it. These tunnel systems run from the cliffs and all the way around. We’re slightly above sea level. That’s our main water source. It comes from high in the hills and is the cleanest drinking water you’ll ever have.”
“Drinking water?” Tobias asked, and then he realized exactly what was looking him smack, bang in the face, and the enormity of it made him gape. He turned and locked eyes with the Beast. “You all live down here?”
The Beast nodded, a slight smile playing around his lips.
“But why?” Tobias asked. “Why would you do that?”
“We have always done so.”
“Always? I don’t understand.”
The Beast waved a hand to the right. “Come.”
He set off and Tobias followed behind him, eyes darting everywhere, but mostly, if he was honest with himself, down below. All those people…hundreds of them…hidden away in the space around the township proper.
It made no sense!
It was like something out of a book.
Like something out of a fairy tale.
He stumbled a little at that thought, because finally he understood what he was feeling. This whole episode had an air of complete unreality to it. The abduction, the Beast, this hidden town… If Tobias didn’t know better, he’d swear that he was in the grips of a fevered dream.
“Careful,” the Beast said, and he reached out to steady Tobias.
Tobias felt a shiver snake down his side as the Beast touched him. His long fingers wrapped all the way around Tobias’ upper-arm, which was no mean feat, as Tobias’ muscles were substantial.
A moment later the Beast released him, but the shivery feeling remained. Tobias was not so inexperienced that he didn’t know what it meant, and he cursed himself inwardly. Stockholm syndrome, his mind screamed again. Only, Tobias feared it was actually something else entirely.
The walkway went on for what seemed like a very long time, but they didn’t follow it. After just a few more steps the Beast turned into one of the tunnels that branched off from it. It was maybe a few meters wide, and at least as high. More lights decorated the walls, and when he looked closely, Tobias could see electrical wires feeding them.
“You really live down here,” he whispered.
The Beast nodded and continued on. “We always have,” he said. “Our community keeps itself separate from those above. It has been this way for many hundreds of years. We live together, share resources, take mates from within our own circle.”
“Mates?”
“Partners,” the Beast said, and then he halted, fixing his yellow eyes on Tobias. The next words he spoke came out slowly, almost as if he wanted to test Tobias’ reaction. “Those whom we wish to either fuck or breed with.”
Tobias gulped. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that the Beast wanted to fuck him. He could practically feel the interest rolling off his big frame…and it made Tobias feel shivery all over again. In an effort to block those feelings out he spoke quickly, “Is that why you all have yellow eyes? Is it some sort of genetic defect caused by interbreeding?”
The Beast smiled. “We do not interbreed.”
“But you said…”
“I said we pick our partners from our own circle. This here,” he waved a hand around, “the place you see before you, is only a very small part of the circle.”
Understanding dawned on Tobias then and his mouth fell open. “There are more?”
“Several hundred in this country alone.”
“You’re like…a cult or something?”
The Beast shook his head, as if amused by Tobias’ question. He started walking, leaving Tobias no choice but to follow alongside. “Religion plays no part here,” he said. “At least not your religions. We are a family for want of a better description. Different, separate, and secret from the humans.”
Like a fairy tale.
That idea prodded Tobias again and he clenched his fists in an effort to ignore it. The more and more the Beast spoke the more Tobias felt like he was missing something specific, something that would explain everything that was happening down here.
A group of people that lived separate to everyone else.
A group of people living in a cave system…one of many across the country.
And then…their appearance, their odd yellow eyes…
It all added up to something only Tobias had no idea what, more than that, he had no idea how he fit into it.
“If you keep yourself hidden, if you’re so secretive,” he asked slowly, “then why am I here?”
“As I said, Tobias, you are a complication.” The Beast paused, because they were at the end of the tunnel now, and it opened into another cavern. “Ah,” he breathed. “So it begins.”
“What—”
“Look.”
Tobias shifted to the left and did just that. A moment later and he saw what had made the Beast pause. It was another male, and he was walking towards them. He was tall, broad shouldered, tawny haired…and yellow eyed.
He smiled as he approached, but it was a smile that made Tobias nervous.
“Introduce me to the outsider?” he said.
The Beast crossed his arms and flashed the other male a grin. “Careful, Petrov.”
The man named Petrov laughed. “You know I am teasing.”
“Tease carefully.”
“I’ve never bee
n very good at careful teasing,” he said. “Perhaps you can let me take him to my room and give him a proper welcome from our people. Look at those eyes…” He shook his head and stepped towards Tobias. Tobias had no idea what to do so simply held his ground. “I would like to see those eyes looking up at me as he takes my cock into the back of his throat.”
Tobias let out something that may have been a shocked squeak. He looked from the Beast to Petrov, wondering if he had misheard. But the Beast was still grinning, shaking his head as he did so, meaning Tobias had not heard wrong…this man wanted to fuck him!
“He is not for you.”
“Who is he for?”
The Beast said something in a language that Tobias did not recognize. Whatever it was it made the male sigh.
“Ah. I see,” he said before stepping aside and waving them past. “Enjoy, outsider,” he added. “I can guarantee you will.”
The Beast said something else in that strange language before carrying on. This time Tobias followed immediately. Petrov watched him with those odd yellow eyes as he passed, Tobias could actually feel them.
“That man…” Tobias said the moment they were out of earshot. “He wanted…”
“He wanted you in his bed,” the Beast said. “Many are going to want you in their bed. You are exquisite, Tobias. More than that, you are different. Difference is something we rarely see here. We embrace it.”
“You’re not going to—”
The Beast flashed him a look. “Let him? Let them? Of course not. You’re safe. No one will take anything from you. Unless, of course, you are willing.” He pointed in the direction they had come. “Then by all means.”
Bargain With the Beast Page 3