by Jaden Wilkes
He walked over to me, his stride deliberate and powerful. His haughty arrogance was so strong it was almost an entity of its own. He truly was a man of contradiction, at times seemingly unstable and on the edge of madness, at others perfectly composed and dangerously alluring.
He stood too close to me and I could smell him, a scent of masculine musk and again some soap he must share with Cairo. They were indistinguishable by scent alone, and that bothered me somehow, as if Orion deliberately inserted himself into my thoughts of Cairo.
Orion moved with deliberate and careful actions, slow and almost abrupt. He undid the straps on my wrists, stood looking slightly down at me and kept me pinned to the wheel with his gaze.
I was breathing short, shallow gasps, but did my best to hide them from Orion. I had the sense that if he knew I was frightened, he would take advantage of it somehow.
He moved to my ankles, placed one hand on my shin and undid the strap with the other, then moved to the other side and repeated the motion.
I hopped away to the side and stretched as an excuse to avoid eye contact.
He turned and started to walk away, looked over his shoulder and said, “Follow me.”
I did, half skipping to keep up with his long strides, hating that he was forcing me to tag behind with such an undignified gait.
“Where are you going?” I asked and he didn’t turn around.
“I want to show you something,” he said and kept walking through the Cirque’s grounds. It was mid-day and it seemed everyone was at lunch or in rehearsal, it was deserted.
We passed nearby his RV and I glanced longingly at it, thinking of Cairo in there now, trapped like a caged animal.
Finally we reached the edge of the encampment and stood in front of a mid-sized dark red and black striped tent.
“What is this?” I asked. I didn’t think I’d ever seen it before, or noticed its presence on the fringe of the Cirque.
“This, my dear,” Orion said, sweeping the entrance open with a flourish, “is After Dark.”
I followed him inside and was relieved it wasn’t pitch black. There were dim lights flanking the seating, and lights all around the stage. It wasn’t bright, but I could see.
It looked like a small version of the Cirque’s main stage, but with some modifications.
There was no tight rope, but there were what appeared to be swings hanging from above.
There was no spinning wheel, but there did appear to be an elaborate table with straps and hinges all over it.
And there didn’t seem to be much of a backstage, as though everything happened out in the open, in full view of the audience. As though illusion was not allowed here in After Dark.
“What is After Dark?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to know.
“After Dark is an erotic version of the Cirque. Twice a week we put on shows at midnight, the tickets are much more expensive and the crowd is much more discerning. I’ve been thinking about our act, I just don’t believe it’s working as well as I’d imagined.”
“Okay,” I said warily, sensing something devious was about to fall from his lips.
“I will have to let you go, send you back to Canada and pay you for, say a week’s work. I’d be able to get the rest to you once HR worked it out, but that could take weeks.”
“Or?”
“Or you could work here. Twice a week, ten times the pay, no more rehearsals, lots of free time to snoop around and try to find a way to free my son and steal him away from me.”
“What would I have to do?”
“I would dominate you. Nothing sexual, simply thread your body with hooks, suspend you, lash you. You won’t feel it, so just let your brain relax and earn your money.”
“It sounds fucking sick,” I said, alarmed at the imagery he was painting. I was doubly alarmed at how casually he spoke of it.
“It’s taboo, yes, but not sick. People pay very good money to watch performances such as these.”
“Is there sex in the other ones?” I asked.
“There may or may not be, I don’t elaborate on the limits of my performers. With you, however, I will respect my son’s desire to keep you safe from such things.”
“You’ve spoken to Cairo about this?” I asked.
“Yes, and he agrees it is the perfect way to keep you here.”
“Why would you want to keep me here?” I asked, “I thought you wanted me gone.”
“If I’d wanted you gone, my dear, I would have turned you into the police back in Seattle. As it stands, having you around keeps my son in check so you have proven invaluable. If he believes you to be cared for and nearby, he will be lulled into the false sense that everything will be okay. That he’ll get what he wants.”
“So you’re using me to deceive him?”
“That’s such a crass way to look at it,” he said, “I’m using you to remind him that things could always be worse. No matter how bad his life gets, it could get even worse.”
I bit my lip and tried to slow the racing thoughts galloping through my head. Orion was onto my visits to Cairo, he could send me back to Canada any time he wanted, and he wanted me to stay.
But he wanted me to stay in order to keep Cai in line.
It felt wrong somehow to do this, to participate in something that was being used against the man I cared for so deeply.
But it could buy us time until Cai was free to leave and Orion was distracted by something else.
It might just give us enough time to escape and start our lives together.
Even though Orion was so dangerous and possibly behind the attack on me the other night, I was willing to stick by him to stay near Cairo.
It was almost alarming though, how in spite of Cara’s disappearance, the other girls who were missing, and my own life being in danger, I felt nothing about it. When I was around Cai, it was if all my senses were dulled while my emotions for him were heightened.
Even the fact that he’d admitted he was a shifter, that the Cirque was full of them, seemed to pale when compared with the height of my feelings for him. It was like an afterthought to the love and intense bond that was developing between us.
This concerned me somewhat, I felt like I should care more, react more to everything going on around me, but I put it out of my head and looked at Orion. “Will you give me time to think about it?” I asked, hoping to have a talk with Cairo first.
“Make your decision by tomorrow,” he said, turned and left me there in front of the stage.
I looked at the odd contraptions, the table and racks of whips and other instruments, the purpose of which remained unknown to me.
I sighed, turned and looked into the stands, where people would be seated, watching Orion perform acts of brutality upon my flesh.
It repelled me, to think of performing anything kinky with even the hint of sexual undertone in front of a crowd.
But on another level I had grown used to being exposed on stage, and had come to thrive on the attention of the fans.
I needed to see Cai, that was all there was to it. He could help me untangle the complicated mess I’d found myself in.
He was the one safe harbour I had in this sea of madness.
And he was the one thing that seemed to be keeping me from pursuing the mysterious disappearances, but it felt right somehow.
Being in my own little world with Cairo was exactly where I wanted to be.
Chapter Twenty Two
“I won’t allow it,” Cairo growled the moment I’d outlined his father’s proposal. “It’s a ridiculous fucking idea Liv, and one that puts you directly in the line of fire. There’s no way.”
“I need to stay with the Cirque,” I argued, “I would have free time to see you and we could possibly get somewhere with the disappearances going on around here. Your father said he’d ship me back to Canada otherwise. Besides, he told me it was something you were totally okay with.”
He pulled back, looked me up and down and said, “Are you fu
cking kidding me? How would I ever be okay with that? I shut After Dark down the moment I came back from school. It’s disgusting to pander to rich, bored assholes and abuse our Cirque family just to make money.”
“So it wasn’t something you were fine with?” I was sitting on his bed next to him. Orion, seemingly allowing us time to speak about it, had gone into the city for a few hours. Of course he had lied about Cairo’s support for After Dark, what else could I expect from a man such as him?
“It most certainly isn’t,” he replied, cupping my face in his hands. “I can’t stand the thought of my father’s hands on you. I can’t stand the thought of you being in danger. I feel like he’s leading us towards a trap, and we’re wandering straight into it. Can’t you see that?”
“I see that I need to be near you, Cai,” I whispered, “I can’t be sent back to Canada. He kept my passport, so I’m here illegally. I have no money, he keeps giving me the run around on that too. I know he’s using me to keep you in line, and I know he sees me as a threat, but I don’t see any other way for us to deal with this. I know he’s dangerous, but you’ll be there with me, okay?”
Cairo’s eyes seemed to roll in his head as he struggled with the emotions that were playing out all over his face. He squeezed his eyes shut, calmed his trembling hands, and took a deep breath.
“I don’t know how you do it,” he said slowly, “But every time you explain something to me it makes so much sense. I know this is the wrong move, Liv, but I can’t seem to tell you no.”
“It’s my witchy ways,” I said and leaned forward to sneak a kiss before he opened his eyes.
His lids snapped open and he looked surprised, but only for a moment. The one place he didn’t seem conflicted was with me, in this way. Sex, and love, it was all so glaringly obvious to us both that there was no problem when we were together.
Even his pending marriage, I had a strange feeling that it wasn’t going to happen. I wouldn’t let it happen. I had no idea how I would stand in the face of hundreds of years of Cirque tradition, combined with his mother’s last wishes and his father’s desperate need for money, but I knew I would.
Cairo’s fingers traced paths along my arms, making my flesh prickle with goosebumps. I still felt no pain, you could stab me or slice my skin and I would see the blood as an abstract concept, but when Cai touched me, my body felt it.
My blood felt it. My skin prickled and every hair on my head felt lighter, as though he infused his own brand of magic into every cell of my defective body.
With him, I felt complete and normal, and that was more of a turn on than anything else I could have found.
And by normal, it was my own brand of normal. I was perfect with Cai, perfect as I was, and I would never feel pressured to change a damn thing around him.
He sunk back onto his bed and pulled me with him, so I was straddling his broad body, leaning over him and kissing him.
He pulled me further and I felt like I was falling into him, the ocean of Cai, like a great body of water that could barely contain our love.
“I love you,” he breathed against my lips, his hands cupping my ass and pulling me against his hardness. We were fully clothed, and yet somehow it felt more sensual, more connectedness than if we were bare naked.
“I love you too,” I replied, tears wetting my eyes.
I fell further, past the ocean and into the vastness of space, where Cairo was the moon and stars and everything in between and beyond. My heart ached as it strained to contain him, my ribs cracked as my lungs expanded and he filled my body with his essence.
We kissed like that, our bodies moving against one another, our waves crashing on each other’s shores, and our empty distances filling up with one another until it was as though he began where I ended and he ended where I began. We were flowing into each other.
“Cairo,” I moaned against him, “Please.”
We were all hands and seeking mouths at that. Our clothes melted away as we tore at each other, our need lending lightness and agility to our fingers.
I rode him, sitting up straight and proud, tilting my hips against him until I felt his cock slide deep inside of me, his piercings roll along my inner flesh, and his huge hands encircle my waist.
I rocked my hips and splayed my fingers across his massive, tattooed chest, giving myself balance and drawing from his body as I would draw from the earth.
I realized it then, what was different with Cairo over all other men.
I could draw from him, I could extend beyond my physical touch and seed my energy deep inside of him, I could almost see it when I closed my eyes, our bodies flowing and undulating as one single organism.
I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut. My hair tumbled down my back and Cairo reached up to grasp a handful of it, pinning me tight against him and rocking me faster until he was gasping as much as myself.
“Come for me, Liv,” he rasped, “Come with me.”
I did, I obeyed his order and we came together because there was no other way. We were so deeply rooted inside of each other that it was if we were sharing the same pleasure.
I shuddered my orgasm around him, clenching tightly and listening to him growl his release. He exhaled and said, “Liv, there’s your magic. That’s the power, love.”
I opened my eyes and saw the familiar glow, the faint blue light that would cover my body any time I connected with the earth, the healing light that was my family secret and my secret shame. It was like an aura, almost neon in its aspect, and always showed up at the times I was in stress, needing to heal.
Or, apparently, when I was in love.
It had always filled me with confusion and made me wonder if this was the source of my disorder, if somehow I was the only one in our family who received the gift and the curse in one neat and tidy package.
But now I didn’t care, it glowed and I had my orgasm, and I loved Cairo and he loved me.
He was apparently a wolf, I was a freak, and we were completely, perfectly content to be with each other just the way we were.
“Oh,” I breathed out, “That.”
“That?” he laughed, “You’re so casual about it.”
I felt my orgasm recede and the aftershocks settle. I dropped into his arms and pressed my face against his chest. “Just like you’re casual about being a wolf, right?”
“Touché,” he smiled, “you got me there. We need to find out about your particular power though, I feel like if we can unravel exactly what you are, we can use it to free me from my father’s grasp.”
“But right now, I just want to come again,” I smiled and nipped his flesh, making him shiver with my touch.
“I can certainly accommodate that, my little blue witch,” he laughed and rolled me onto my back, covering me with his body and his kisses.
*****
“The audience expects something dramatic,” Orion told me a day later on the stage of After Dark, after I’d told him I would perform.
His smug smile had almost made me turn and run, but I needed to know what was happening to the girls...and I needed Cai.
“So what is your version of dramatic in this context?” I asked, looking around at the equipment displayed on the stage. I felt like he’d made it more prominent in order to frighten me.
It wasn’t working. I felt stronger than ever around him, considering my newfound connection with Cai. He’d seen my strange abilities first hand and had only found me even more appealing.
I hadn’t seen his wolf form since that night I was attacked, but I was starting to find it unbelievably sexy to think of my love as a beast, a fierce feral creature that could step in between myself and danger.
We could be a force to be reckoned with, but first we had to figure out how it would work.
“I want you to writhe in pain and pleasure,” Orion said stepping towards me with a curious look on his face. “You are able to understand pleasure, are you not? It seems as if not enduring pain would make the opposite unavailable to you as we
ll.”
“I can feel pleasure,” I said, screwing my face up in defiance.
He stopped directly in front of me and scanned my face as if looking for a deeper meaning behind my words. “You mean with my son?”
I blushed a furious red, I could feel my face grow tight which always meant I was red with embarrassment. “Yes,” I said, thrusting my chin out and looking up at him through narrowed eyes.
“Is he the only one?” Orion demanded.
“Yes,” I spat.
“Interesting,” he said in a distracted tone, “Not unexpected though, considering what you are to each other.”
“And what is that?” I asked quietly, hoping to draw information out, as one draws an infection from a wound.
He glared at me with hooded eyes. “That, my dear,” he said in an even, sharp tone, “is something you need to figure out for yourself.”
He grabbed my right arm and yanked me hard, making me draw my breath in sharply and eliciting a laugh from him, from somewhere deep in his throat.
He dragged me to a wooden table, like a rough-hewn dining table, but affixed with all manner of restraints and metal loops.
“What is this?” I gasped.
“This is where we will perform. We are going to keep it simple, I will restrain you, much like on the wheel, but with you facing downwards. I will pierce your skin with hooks, and we will suspend you from the rack up above,” he said casually, as if listing off his grocery list.
I glanced up to where he was pointing and saw a heavy industrial rack with all sizes and lengths of chain hanging from it. I shuddered at the sight, the impersonal feel of the stage was getting to me.
“Will I be naked?” I asked, still looking at the chains.
“Of course,” he said sharply and I dropped my gaze to him. “I’m not attracted to you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No,” I replied, “But it will be rather disconcerting, hanging naked in front of a crowd of people.”
“The crowds are small and extremely discerning. They will want to see your pale flesh, your scars, your blood streaming along your body. They are here for the art as much as the eroticism.”