by Dani Stowe
“You d-don’t ha-have to,” she stutters, ogling me—my body. Though, I wonder if she’s got a clear view. She’s not wearing her spectacles, so I step closer.
Not surprisingly, I come to no longer exist. Once Athena’s eyes have scanned over every ripple of my mass, she quickly forgets about her inspection. Except, of course, for the piece of me that dangles between my legs, the piece that has completely captivated her.
My hook.
The closer I step, the farther she moves away while keeping her sights transfixed on my stiff but curved sword. When I step back, she leans in, unconsciously trying to get a better look. I step towards her once more only to watch her bare feet stumble backwards again.
We do this dance until her back lands against the boat’s side rails where she has nowhere left to go unless she wants to go overboard again, which I doubt. I’m sure she’s more interested in getting eaten by me for a second time than by those sharks still swarming. What’s interesting is how Athena has never feared me. Not after her fingers were burnt after touching me when I was a block of ice. Not when I first presented myself to her as a tidal wave. But me, in this form with my arousal fully thick and swollen, it makes her fingers tremble, her toes fidget, and her lips quiver.
Closing in on her, I take her hand, her tremoring hand, to wrap it around my hard shaft. She wraps her palm gently.
I take a breath.
Breathe. Just breathe.
The sensation of Athena’s delicate fingers around my arousal sends a jolt of energy through my body. I fold my hand over hers. She can’t clasp around the shaft fully, my hook is too thick, so I help her to fist up and down the full length of my erection.
I swallow. This feeling of intimacy—I’ve missed it. I’ve missed it worse than not being able to eat or drink. Worse than missing guzzling down a fine ale. I had been made of water, but I’d felt parched—unable to ingest just one drop of liquid and let alone taste anything.
I grab Athena by the face, pulling her in by the cheeks to kiss her as she continues to stroke me on her own. I lap up every bit of salt and spit that lingers over her lips and I swallow her essence again and again until I’m filled to the brim with ecstasy and I come, leaking and then exploding, splashing all over her front.
She says she doesn’t like being sprayed, but she doesn’t seem to mind this—my cum.
Athena’s head tilts down to examine the creamy fluid splashed over her soft belly. She smears and rubs the fluid between her fingers as if she needs to study, know, every little bit about me.
Always the scholar this one. I love her. I clutch and kiss her again.
Grabbing a rag from a pile the boat’s owner had left, I wipe Athena clean of the splash I’ve made. We are both giggling as I do this and the next thing I know we are tickling one another.
By the gods, it feels so good to be human! But it feels even better to be a man in love!
“Ah, fuck!” shouts an angry voice from behind. It’s a familiar voice that is perhaps too angry and has the worst timing. It’s a voice I know can only come from...
A demon.
I need to put Levi down. I know he’s after my most perfect treasure, my Athena. I’ll kill him if I have to, but the second I spin around, I get knocked in my chest.
I land hard and flat against the deck floor. I cannot breathe. I realize I wasn’t knocked but hammered by something powerful, as if Poseidon had struck me by his own hand, knocking the wind right out of me.
Athena screams and I make an attempt to get up only to get knocked in the chest again, feeling a rib... or maybe two, crack within me.
What the hell is that he’s beat me with?
Shielding my eyes from the glare of the midday sun, I see the demon, Levi, holding a bat similar to those held by children of my time playing cricket in the streets of my mother country, except Levi’s bat is not flat or made of wood but fully rounded and made of metal.
“Watch him,” shouts Levi to another man climbing aboard. Levi tosses the bat to the other, much larger man, who takes the bat and sizes me up.
I give him a wicked glare. That’s right, I’m much bigger than you and broken ribs or not, the second I take that weapon from you, I’ll kill you.
As if the man can read my mind—one killer to another—he hits the bat over my shoulder. I don’t let the pain get to me. I reach for the weapon, ready to take it away, when Athena screams my name.
“Willis, don’t!”
I turn to see my poor girl with a gun to her neck.
“Stay where you are,” demands Levi. “Move and I’ll kill her.”
My anger burns with an unfathomable heat. Like a wild fire, my fury ignites. Athena, I fear was wrong and the witch, I hate to say, was right. This man is a demon. Only a demon could put Hell’s fire in another’s heart.
I’m desperate to climb out of this inferno, take that gun, shoot that demon, and then throw his evil arse overboard to become shark fodder. The bat and the gun—these things each seem hardly worthy of hesitation. I’m having difficulty containing myself from standing up and strangling both of these bootlicker’s to death with my bare hands.
But I think of Henry and I remember what great pain and destruction can result from something so small as a bullet. Looking at the gun pressed firmly against Athena’s skull, I resign to roll over like a dog and stay flat on my back.
“That’s more like it,” says Levi, adjusting his glasses up his nose. He points his gun at me and yanks back on Athena’s hair, speaking in her ear. “Did you fuck him?”
She’s crying, trying to crisscross her arms over her naked body to conceal herself. “Wha-what?”
“Did you have sex with him?” Levi’s tone is much louder and more intense.
“I absolutely fucked her,” I lie.
“No, you didn’t,” Athena squeals, shaking her head. “Levi, I swear I didn’t. We didn’t have sex.”
“Yes, we did.” I raise my voice, trying to sound more convincing. “I fucked her long and hard and if you two had not shown up I would’ve fucked her in the arse as well.”
“Willis!” she cries. “Why are you lying? Stop!”
Levi grunts. “Fuck, I have to check.” The demon tips his chin up to his accomplice. “Help me. Hold her so I can open her legs.”
I turn my head away as Levi does his inspection. Athena is screaming at the top of her lungs but I use the opportunity to lean up and search beyond the ship’s edge for any sign of help. All I see is another boat, smaller and docked behind ours, which must belong to the two invaders. As if I had not learned my lesson from Athena’s parents when she was younger, in the time I’d spent getting intimate with Athena, I’d put her in danger.
“She’s still intact,” says Levi. “Let’s take her.”
With those words, Athena has finally come to an understanding of what’s happening. She’s about to become one of the missing and she fights. But the fighting is useless. With one pour of a solution from a little bottle and into a handkerchief then placed over her face, Athena falls faint.
“You can’t do this,” I say. “She’s innocent, a very sweet and innocent woman.”
“Yes, I know,” Levi says bending down to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder. “Which is why she is going to fetch a good price. Most buyers like ‘em young, but a woman like this, this old, so soft and beautiful, but still preserved and untouched…” He taps her arse which makes my blood boil. “Athena is a true gem. Extremely rare. She’ll go to a very high paying collector.”
“You’re not taking her,” I warn, coming up on my knees and readying to attack.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Levi points the gun at me and fires.
A flaming burn shreds right through my neck. My hands are instantly at my own throat in reaction. Between my fingers I feel something and pull, tugging out whatever Levi shot me with. I prop it up, in front of my eyes, to look at it.
My vision is blurring and my speech is slurring. “Wha-what did you sh-shoot me with?�
�� I ask because I know it’s no bullet.
“A tranquilizing dart,” Levi chortles and looks to his friend. “Bring him.”
I try to resist, but I find I am useless as Levi’s accomplice kicks on my shoulder, pushing me over to watch me land heavy and he laughs.
Levi laughs with him. “You’re coming with us. Someone is desperate to meet you and the rest of your kind. I’m not just here for her. I’m also here for you, Captain.”
For me? My kind? What does he mean? I know no one in this time. Why in the world would anyone want me?
As I watch Levi pick up Athena’s glasses and become a blob as he strolls away with my girl over his shoulder, I feel a hand wrap around my wrist before I’m yanked and pulled across the deck.
My body is completely useless. A tranquilizing dart is what Levi said. He’s drugged me.
As much as I try to fight against this feeling, a sensation I’ve never felt before, I fear I’m losing more than control over my appendages. I’m about to lose control of my mind, which goes blank.
I feel a kick to my foot.
“Hey, get up,” says Levi.
I’d rather not. This throbbing in my head is pulsing with a most tortuous rhythm and my body feels so heavy that I don’t care how cold this damp floor is...
What is that smell?
I gag with the scent of something so atrocious, it must be dead.
My eyes flip open to see the man who’s abducted Athena. I’m in a dark room—underground, I suspect. The only light coming in beams brightly through a door atop a staircase.
Levi throws clothing at me. “Put these on,” he says, still holding a gun, although this one he has pointed at me looks different than the one from earlier.
I squint to get a good look. Levi’s not standing that far away. My legs are still weak, but I bet I could still take him.
Levi taps his temple with the tip and points the gun back in my direction. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he warns. “This gun is not filled with darts. This gun will kill you. And believe me, I’d love to fucking kill you but I’ve been asked not to. Someone wants to meet you first. Now, get up and put those clothes on. I’m fucking sick and tired of looking at you.”
I sit up with a chuckle. “I’d be sick too if I was you having to look at me. A little jealous, are we?”
My muscles constrict as a BAM sounds off. The sound is followed by a chorus of unharmonious wails.
“Don’t piss me off, freak!” shouts Levi, who’s just fired his gun, shooting the wall behind me.
As dust settles over my naked skin, I look around. I hadn’t realized I was not the only one here. I make out a few feminine faces, most of them crying, most I don’t know but...
My heart caves in when I see two women’s faces that are familiar and then another two, my brothers’ faces, in a father corner.
Orphelius, Henry, Kumiko, and Shelley—they are all gagged and chained. The women look as though they are not injured, but the seamen, my brothers, I see have been beaten.
Fuck. I regret that I’m excited—I don’t see Athena down here. Hopefully, she’s in better condition as I do believe Levi did have some affection for her.
“Put the clothes on!” shouts Levi as he points the gun in Henry’s and Orphelius’s direction.
I stand up doing as he says, pulling up trousers too short and a shirt too tight.
Don’t they make clothes of my size in this time?
“Now turn around and clamp those chains around your wrists.”
I turn around to see chains on the wall.
Levi growls. “Do it or I’ll shoot both your friends in the legs.”
Legs. As I clamp myself in chains, I recall that’s all my brothers and I wanted. We thought about, cared about, talked about nothing else when we were first transformed.
Legs, I realize should’ve been the least important thing on our minds.
Freedom. Love. These are the things we had forsaken. These are the things it seems takes centuries for men to learn not to take for granted.
“Show me,” demands Levi.
I turn around to show him I am bound.
“Great.” He cocks a grin while keeping the gun pointed at the other seamen and pulls out a set of keys from his pocket. He tosses the keys at Kumiko. “Unlock your wrists.”
She hesitates, so Levi aims the gun right at Orphelius’s head.
“Do it, or I’ll shoot the stupid octopus. It’s time to go.”
Orphelius is in protest, shouting with a muffle through his gag as he pulls at the chains on the wall. My friend is hurting himself, watching his lover do exactly as the demon demands. A vein on my friend’s forehead looks as though it’s about to pop as Kumiko gets up to leave to who knows where.
Henry cannot speak but the look on his face says everything as Shelley follows. Within moments, Levi has left with the girls, closing the door behind him and leaving a few other women to remain chained with me and my brothers in the dark.
13
Athena
My body shifts. To the right, I tip like a log, rolling just slightly and then onto my back and then to my left.
Creaking and knocking infiltrates my ears along with a swashing of some sort.
Where am I?
As I arouse, I realize I cannot open my eyes. I’ve been blindfolded. When I go to remove the blindfold, I notice my wrists are bound as well over my head. Quickly, I become alert—tugging—when I realize I’m on a bed...
A bed that sways.
A bed that must be on a ship.
A bed that I suspect belongs to a man Willis calls a demon.
My stomach twists. I’m in the demon’s bed.
Thank heavens, I’ve been dressed. It’s short and loose, feeling silky with spaghetti straps. What I’m wearing feels like a negligee, but at least I’m wearing something. I recall I was last naked with Willis before I was abducted from the sailboat.
Cries pierce through my ears along with heavy stomping aboard. The stomping and cries are coming closer. It sounds as if crying women are about to be led to where I am but they pass. They are led away, taken to another room it seems where their cries become muffled.
A latch clamors and I sense the door to the chamber I am in swing open.
Someone shuffles in and closes the door behind him. My ankle is grabbed by callused hands that I’m sure belong to man and I kick in a panic!
“Whoa, girl, calm down,” an unfamiliar voice tries to soothe as my blindfold is removed. A finger is waved in front of me, too close to my eyes. “No damaging the goods,” he chortles.
I blink, trying to gain focus on the face behind the taunting finger. I don’t have my glasses and I’m not sure who he is until...
I think I recognize him.
And the patch over his eye confirms everything.
“How are you, Athena?” he smiles, bending to squat on the floor next to the bed to become eye level with me. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” He taps on my nose and I wince. Instead, he puts out his hand as if he means to shake hands with me. “I’m not sure if you know me or not as we’ve never formally met.”
Clearly, he can see that I’m tied up, so I can’t shake hands and I grit my teeth when he laughs. He’s fucking with me.
“I know who you are,” I growl. “You’re Bradley. Bradley Richmond. The poacher who took the baby dolphin from its mother and nearly killed the poor thing.”
“Mmm,” he smooths some of my hair out of my face and pulls out my glasses, putting them on for me. Once I realize I can see well, I go to kick him!
“Girl, I said whoa!” he steps back with a smirk as my legs fall off the bed and I roll over, hanging halfway off because my wrists are bound to the bed post.
I tug... tug, tug, tug, trying to get loose.
Whack! I’m smacked on the ass!
“Stop this now.” Bradley grunts. “Stop it or I’ll get upset and have to take it out on your girlfriends, maybe all the girls, in the next room.”
�
�All the girls?” I question as I quickly pull myself back to the bed into the opposite corner.
“Kumiko and Shelley, they’re both next door with two others. They’re all being sold today.” He smiles with a rub on his greasy chin. “Except for Kumiko, of course. She’s mine.” He winks. “Mine to torture. Along with her freak boyfriend.”
Torture? My eyes get hot and watery, so I close them. I don’t want this jerk to see me weak or crying, but I can’t stop the wetness from springing.
“Oh, come now,” coos Bradley in a gravelly tone. “What’s happening to you and your girlfriends is hardly anything to fret over. There are worse things that could happen to you than being sold. Did you see what that fucking freak, Orphelius, did to me?” Bradley props his leg on the bed and pulls up the hem to show me his prosthetic leg. “That freak crushed my leg into millions of tiny pieces, pieces so small that even after I managed to swim ashore on the night we fought, doctors had to amputate up to my knee.”
Bradley lifts his leg off the bed with the help of one hand and plants his leg on the floor. He grabs his hips, jutting his groin forward.
I should be laughing. He looks like a pirate. The patch, the stance, the crow’s feet in the crook of his one good eye. Oh, if only that leg were wooden! Plus he’s wearing faded slim black jeans adorned by a silver buckled black leather belt and a partially open, button-up tucked white collared shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Bradley looks exactly as though he were meant to play the part of a pirate. He even smells the part, putting off a rancid stench, like pig slop, making me believe he has not bathed or gone for a swim in days. His villainous appearance is quite comical really. But I’m not laughing. He just said I’m being sold.
“What about Willis?” I ask.
“You know, if you weren’t worth so much, I’d beat you right now,” he responds.
Beat me? I choke. Acid has risen to the top of my throat and I gag while trying hard to keep the bile back.