Sold To The Dragon Princes: The Novel

by Daniella Wright

  I hear the dragon shifter moan as he slides in me, faster and faster, and I feel the strength of his body, and the control he exhibits. Makita closes enough now for me to see the two moles on his thigh, and the nervous way his erection twitches, and the little pool of liquid that has seeped out the tip.

  “Suck him,” Balthier orders, even as he pounds harder in me. “But make sure he doesn’t come.”

  I let out a whimper as Makita stares at Balthier pushes harder into me, rocking my body forward. When Makita closes in, I take the tip of him with my tongue, and then, trying not to lose the movement, or to make it jerky and weird, I take as much of his cock in as possible, realizing just how vulnerable he is right now. This is where my teeth are, after all. If I didn’t enjoy it, if I didn’t want it, I’m well placed to inflict extreme pain on him – but I don’t want that. Because whatever I think of Makita right now, we are allies in this. We are seeking our own control in a situation where we have no control, a way to feel pleasure, instead of crippling pain.

  He's both hard and soft, and it’s a peculiar sensation. I try hard not to hurt him, even as Balthier continues his thrusts. Balthier stops suddenly, leaving me strangely bereft, my core dripping but not full, as he then orders for Makita to kneel between my legs and lick me out.

  I let go of Makita’s erection, and Balthier flips me over, my back pressing against the wooden floor, hard and cold. Makita, trembling from the near orgasm, still not there yet, shuffles between my legs, stares at me with an apologetic, yet lust-filled gaze, then takes up the task of eating me out.

  Now this sends zings of electricity hurtling through me, as his tongue laps up the juices there, as his hands brace themselves against my tense thighs. He locks me in place so that I don’t wriggle out of his grasp. The pleasure as he dips over my bundle of nerves is intense, so much that I want nothing more than to squirm out. The shocks continue to ripple through me, and I let out a litany of groans and whimpers, echoed by Makita as his voice vibrates into my cord, and from Balthier, who is now positioning himself to take Makita from behind.

  I can’t believe I’m allowing this to happen. And I can’t believe I’m enjoying it.

  I know that Balthier will keep me here, to stop me spilling what I know. He hints at some other purpose, one I can’t possibly understand, but I’m also not given a chance to understand it.

  I think I would have willingly fucked Balthier, even if he didn’t drug my drink. I would have happily clambered into a taxi, sped off to a hotel, tumbled through the doors onto silken sheets and rolled about with him on the bed, feeling his hot, strong body beat into mine. But I was not there to get over a break-up. I was there to investigate. To spy. And Makita also got on his bad side.

  If this is meant to be torture, it doesn’t feel anything like that at all. Unless intense pleasure is considered a torture. Unless the shame of liking it and giving into it is a punishment in itself. The experience is more powerful than any time I’ve had sex in my life. And it’s been four years. There’s a lot I’m bottling up in there.

  And I take it all, and I’m here, drowning in many different ways. In shame. In delight. In the slight tint of fear and a big wash of excitement. All these different emotions are flooding through me at once, even as I squeeze my eyes shut, and sink into the moment. My body’s trembling hard. I feel the tension creeping through my stomach and grasping my legs, pulling my knees up higher, even as Makita continues to lick, suck, and flick my bundle of nerves. Every now and then he jerks forward, as Balthier pushes his way inside the wolf shifter, taking him from behind, stabbing into his g-spot. Makita groans against my core, sometimes whimpers, sometimes cries out, and when I open my eyes, I see that Balthier’s clutching Makita’s ass, brow scrunched in concentration, sweat dripping down his face as he pounds into the wolf shifter.

  “Keep licking her,” he snarls at Makita, who lets out a whimper, before continuing to pleasure me. My heart’s a hammer in my chest, and my body’s soaring towards the sky, already escalating to that peak, as the orgasm begins to tease at my consciousness.

  It’s not long before I feel the roar of pleasure rush through my limbs, tingle every nerve, and sink my brain as if slipping into a hot tub, making me dreamy, even as I gasp out and my body stiffens so tight, it’s painful, and I know I’ll be sore later. My legs slide down as the tension leeches out of them.

  When I open my eyes, I see Makita’s braced his hands on either side of my thighs, his lips contorted, his teeth bared as Balthier thrusts hard and fast into him, until I see Makita come, his erection twitching as whiteness spurts out of him onto the floor. Balthier lets out a moan and a few more rapid thrusts, before coming as well. He holds Makita’s black hair tight in his fist, before releasing the shifter.

  Still kneeling, Balthier regards us both for a moment, slightly dazed from his climax, before he nods. “Good. You two performed… marvellously.” A smile touches his lips, maybe cruel, maybe genuine. “It makes me want… to keep pushing your limits. See where I can take you.”

  He gets up, goes to the bathroom to wipe himself down, then dresses casually into his clothes. Then, without another word, he kneels by me and gives me a long, lingering stare, his gray eyes still dilated fully, before nodding to me again, and leaving the room. I don’t hear the click of a lock. I simply lie there on the floor, completely dazed, struggling to process what has just happened, and how I let it happen, and how my body still craves more. I want Balthier back in this room. I want him ordering us around. I want to hear Makita’s groans again.

  Makita stumbles upright, and helps pull me up as well. He seems just as disorientated as I am.

  Both of us have done something that we wanted, yet didn’t.

  That off-kilter feeling persists, even as I walk to the bathroom to clean off.

  Chapter Three

  I don’t know why he keeps me here. I expect to be tortured. I expect to be hit and abused until the fake information I have is taken out of me. What I don’t expect is to be stuck in this situation and to actually enjoy it. My body is betraying me. My mind doesn’t know what to do. And I get the impression that Balthier doesn’t intend to release me, even if I promise to not sell the story. He tells me I don’t understand what he does, and because of that misunderstanding, it could ruin a lot of things.

  “Yeah, I don’t get it either,” Makita says, as we’re allowed to explore more of our new home. Outside the small room, there’s a corridor that leads into a kind of winter cabin design, where everything is relatively small but perfectly there, so we can cook for ourselves with the ingredients he’s left scattered about the place, we can watch television, or we can go outside if we want to explore the snow-crusted area. There’s even fishing rods, but I don’t think we’re going to be doing that sort of thing in such a snow blazed environment.

  If we go too far, there’s other dragon shifters in the vicinity. People who would kill Makita on sight, regardless of the fact of his wolf form or not, since dragon shifters harbour little respect for anyone else. I watch now as he transforms into his white wolf form, rolling about in the snow. I try to figure out where we could be, because I’m clearly not in Arizona anymore. I’m not sure, but I suppose I’m either in the cold part of North America, like Montana or Minnesota, or maybe I’ve even crept up to somewhere in Canada or Alaska. It brings to mind the question of just how long I was unconscious for, and if I travelled by plane or even in the grip of a dragon’s talons. I must have been out for a long time.

  About the only people who would be wondering where I got to now are the press staff at my work, or my friend Hannah who I usually have coffee with on Wednesdays. Not that I know what day it is. I don’t really speak to my mom and dad or grandparents and aunt and uncles, because we have that non-conversation void to cross over. Mom and dad wanted me out by eighteen, because both of them sincerely believed I was hindering their life and stopping them from doing all the things they wanted to do. I was an accident child, see. Don’t get me wrong, th
ey did the best they could, despite that underlying conviction tainting their thoughts, and they’d take me back (reluctantly) if I needed it, but they’d much rather not have me around so that they can finally get around to the twilight years of their lost lives. They’d only be mildly concerned if I didn’t contact them in over a year, or wish a happy birthday or merry Christmas.

  Just a shame I can’t contact anyone. And I don’t know what to make of Balthier and Makita. Makita is supposed to be a pimp, but I actually believe on a level that he was just more of an asshole trying to make ends meet, rather than deliberately selling off people to the sex industry.

  I ask him about this as he’s rolling in the snow, and he lets out a little snuffling noise, before stopping his activities, and shifting back into his human form. He appears bashful, obviously a little upset that I’m asking him to delve again into the past he’s trying his utmost best to forget. But if he thinks he can run away from it by pretending it didn’t happen, he’s in the worse place for it. Because I hunger for truth. And Balthier hungers for his humiliation.

  The blue eyes flicker to and fro, processing what he should say, even as I stand there in the snow with my arms folded, trying not to shiver.

  “Surely,” I say, “you must have felt guilty at times. Doing what you did. I mean, you approached people on the street and offered them jobs that promised to pay well, right?”

  His face droops. Ah. There’s the shame. Burning bright across his cheeks, flushing down his neck. “Look. I didn’t think about that. I just. It was easy. Going to people and promising them money, and they always acted happy to hear it.”

  “You knew though. You knew what they’d need to do,” I persist, storing the tale. Balthier might not want me to publish, but that’s not going to stop the story from forming in my head. Not only do I need the stories, but I need to understand. I keep at bay the recent memories of what we’ve done together in the dark, under Balthier’s watchful eyes, under his touch that prickles the skin, and the way he stabs into my soul. He’s dangerous and burning, but it’s… tantalizing at the same time. It’s a promise of a thrill, a crumbling sensation where somehow, I’m letting all my morals degrade into nothing, and although I should feel shame and disgust, instead I feel an odd camaraderie with a pimp, and a salacious thrill in my body to experience something so intense. It’s way out of my comfort zone, and that stirs the excitement deep within. It’s the same excitement that puts me on rollarcoasters, has me clinging to cliffs, and dreaming one day that I’m going to leap out of a plane with just a parachute.

  There must be something wrong with me. Or maybe it’s a kind of survival skill. Learning to take something positive out of something negative. Otherwise, maybe we would be too fragile as human beings. Maybe we’d break too fast and too hard, leaving nothing but shards upon the floor.

  That’s how I’m trying to look at it at the moment.

  Makita seems to be at war with something, reluctant to stumble onto something, and I wonder if the truth hurts him so much, he’d rather not face it.

  Eventually, he says, as he rubs his hands nervously together, “Maybe I did know. I just… I didn’t want to think about it. Like, I had to keep reminding myself that I needed the money. Or I’d tell myself that they deserved it for being so stupid. Everyone knows money doesn’t fall into your lap that easily. I don’t know.”

  “So… you wanted reasons to not feel bad about what you were doing – by blaming other people. Is that it?”

  He lets out a snarl of frustration. “I don’t know.”

  I think he does, but he still doesn’t want to reflect upon it, because the guilt is now dissolving into anger. “Would you do the same thing again if you were allowed out?”

  At this, Makita vigorously shakes his head. “No. No I wouldn’t. Fuck it, I’m out of that business. It was too damn stressful to handle.”

  “And maybe a little less guilt for you, too, if you know you’re no longer part of what happens to those girls. What did Balthier say the other day? You’d grab girls as young as fourteen, fifteen? You’d give them your card and send them to your boss? Imagine their parents. Imagine what it must be like for them to have their children disappear off the face of the earth.”

  I know that my type of relentless, emotional bludgeoning only works on neuropaths. If you’re not a neuropath, this kind of reason merely falls on deaf ears. Because some people don’t care, and some people exploit, because all that matters to them is that they turn out on top of the world. Nothing else. And, unfortunately, it’s a natural human trait. Self-preservation also extends to self-service.

  “I don’t want to imagine this. Alright?” Makita’s face purples. His hands clench and unclench, and he trembles in guilty rage. “I know what I did was bad. I can’t take that away, can I? I know what I did was bad, but I still don’t care enough about those people to do something about it. But what does that matter, anyway? I’m stuck here. You’re stuck here. We’re little obedient slaves in some Godforsaken shithole in the middle of nowhere. So what exactly do you expect to solve? Huh?”

  I pause, the sadness sinking into me. Makita sees my face fall, and he wrestles with his pride for a moment. Choosing whether to comfort me, or to stand by his outburst. Eventually, he mutters. “I’m sorry. You didn’t… deserve that.”

  No, I didn’t. But maybe he didn’t deserve my brand of needling, either. “I’m sorry as well.” I lick my lips, considering what next to say. Eventually, I settle on, “I’m pretty sure I’d automatically hate you if I met you out of this place.”

  “To be fair,” Makita says, “I’d hate me, too.” He lets out a sigh and sits next to me, his body a beacon of warmth in an otherwise cold landscape. “But I promise you. If I get back out there, I’m not going to make the same mistake again.”

  I appreciate him saying this, though that dark part of me still wonders what reason he’s really making the choice. Because Balthier threatened him? Or because he’s allowed the guilt to crust over enough to force him to do something different?

  That might make it worthwhile, then.

  We make some small talk after this, not covering much ground, just trying to figure out the secrets in each other’s head. What makes us who we are. Whether shifters really think differently from humans, or whether it’s just a culture clash we experience. I think Makita’s an okay kind of person, in the end. He knows how to smile, he can plaster on a charming grin when he wants it, though he’s less incited to action, I think. He prefers as a person to stay on the sidelines, not getting involved in any major disputes, or simply not thinking about them. He picked up the job as a recruiter through a reference from another shifter, and basically spent the entire tenure of his job trying not to think about the moral implications of what he did, because it landed him extra dough in his pockets.

  It doesn’t shake away the initial prejudice I have for him, but it does help me to understand him better as a person. He’s neither a good or bad individual. He just takes whatever opportunity slides his way, and he dreams of making enough money to get himself a nice house, not living in fear of when he’s not going to make the next rent check and get booted out of whatever apartment he’s staying in.

  I understand that.

  We spend time getting to know each other a little better. He hates reading but likes movies. He hates sitting around for long periods of time to play board games or card games, and he’s happiest when he’s out and about in nature, walking along coastlines, mountains, deserts and hills. The little money he does manage to scrape aside, he puts towards sightseeing tours.

  Since we’re together almost all the time, it’s hard to not get to know some of his secrets. I learn as well that there really is a sex trafficking ring happening under our noses – several of them – and Balthier’s one of the kingpins, who is gradually trying to usurp the others conducting their business.

  “I’m actually not part of the shifter ring, like Balthier is. It’s a purely human trafficking area I worked i
n. I just happen to be a shifter. And well… for some reason, humans find us charming. We smell different to them. More alluring. The traffickers like having us frontline for them.”

  He tells me all this on maybe after a month when we’ve been together, when Balthier has come in here multiple times, each session ending up with the three of us rather sore, but satisfied at the same time. If Balthier’s hoping to sexually humiliate me, it’s not working, because I’m enjoying it. If he’s hoping to fuck me into forgetting, that’s obviously not going to work, either. So I’m not sure what he’s doing. I wonder if he knows, because I think I’ve see him lose himself in us more than once.

  I rub my face as I digest Makita’s information. He doesn’t know the name of even his own kingpin. Just the guy he reported to – a Bob Tellser. Which I’m willing to bet is a fake moniker.

  I’m in the kitchen, rifling through the cupboards, a little nervous because I saw a few dragons flapping in the skies today, when Balthier drops in. he oozes through the door with sublime confidence, folds his arms and smirks as I turn around, see him, and nearly drop the tin of kidney beans I’m holding.

  A shiver of anticipation goes through my body. Again, the memories of our past sessions stir. His hot lips upon my cold neck. His light hands leaving acidic trails along my skin, stoking the furnace in my stomach. Sometimes, the coruscant essence of his eyes as they reflect the starlight manage to dig a pleasant hole in my subconscious. The heat, the strong, pungent lemon scent of him triggers my senses, the breaths of his aroused lungs lingers, and the powerful, serpentine lines of his body stay with me, long after he’s departed.

  I should be guilty, but I’m not. I should feel shame, but I don’t.