by J. A. Rock
“What?”
“So many of our good friends, gathered around to have a fucking blast.”
The fact that he’d known how much I needed to hear that made me love him so deeply, so far beyond what I’d ever thought that word could mean.
I gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I don’t know.” It was still hard, sometimes, to imagine that even our friends completely forgave us. Trusted us.
“And I saw a woman who’s done so many incredible things for the community. The woman who woke me up one night at 3 a.m. to say she wanted to open a dungeon. And then she made it happen.”
The warmth drained from me slowly. “It didn’t exactly go—”
“No.” His voice was quiet and certain. “Whatever bad decisions we made, we made good ones too. What we built was worth building. And that’s what I wanted to tell you. Here in the woods.”
I took a deep breath. Sighed it out. “Thank you for telling me that. Here in the woods.”
He brushed my hair back. “And even if we can’t have sex in the woods, we are definitely having sex in our bedroom later.”
“Definitely,” I agreed.
“May I kiss you again?”
I gazed through his protective eye gear and into his dark eyes. For a second, I saw it: two twentysomethings, giggling as they tried to unwrap a condom in the woods, slapping mosquitos off each other as they fucked. So in love, and so sure they had the best of everything right then. Not even knowing how much more was yet to come. How love could deepen with time—in meaning, in strength, in maturity. I’d thought, growing up, that love was something that happened, that you fell into, that was constant and beautifully unfathomable. I hadn’t realized how hard you had to work at it. I hadn’t realized that it was a type O sort of feeling, compatible with any other emotion: hate, grief, anger, joy. That if you stuck with it through the moments that were boring and ugly and infuriating, then you got something knowable. Something that was as much your creation as nature’s.
“You’d better.”
He stepped forward and kissed me. A much gentler kiss. I pulled my goggles up on top of my head.
He smiled. “Rebel.”
He pulled his goggles up too, and for a while, we were both rebels.
I was starting to get winded when Max called, “Hey! Slow down.”
I slowed, secretly grateful. Turned, clutching at a stitch in my side. “What are you gonna do? Drag me back in your jaws?”
“No. I just . . . can I get closer?”
I realized I was backing up with each step she took toward me. Puppy, you can get as close as you want.
“I don’t know where we are.” She glanced anxiously behind us. “Aren’t we supposed to stay in the hunting area?”
“Yeah, probably. But it’s kind of fun to be off the grid, right? Plus I have a gun.” Which was out of pellets. But she didn’t need to know that.
“Let’s turn around. Please? I want to get back to Kent.”
Who could say no to an adorable talking puppy who missed her owner? It was très Beverly Hills Chihuahua. We turned around and headed back. I didn’t comment on how uncertain I felt about our location.
“Do you know where we are?” she asked, after we’d walked for several minutes without seeing the hill or the caution tape.
I shook my head. “Afraid not.”
She sneezed into her arm.
“Bless you.”
She smiled at me. “Thank you.”
We gazed at each other for a moment. Was I imagining it, or was this love?
“Any ideas on what to do?” she asked.
“Uhh. Can you use your puppy power to sniff us back or something?”
“I’m terrible with directions.”
“Well.” I picked a new direction and walked. “At least you’re pretty.”
She trailed me. “Katniss?”
I halted. “Yeah?”
“You were badass in that gunfight.”
I faced her again. Her eyes were huge and beautiful and her boobs were small and beautiful, and her admiration gave me warm, fuzzy feelings I didn’t know how to deal with. If I’d been wet five seconds ago from getting called Katniss, I was even wetter now. “Thanks.”
“I don’t even know your name. Scene name. Whatever.”
“I’m Maya.”
“Oh. That’s pretty.”
We did some more gazing. Then I kind of leaned forward and almost kissed her, except she turned away. “Oh God,” she said. “Sorry. I wasn’t—”
“No, Jesus, I’m sorry.” My face burned. “I thought . . .” I sighed, dropping my gun. “I’m an idiot.”
“No! You’re beautiful, but I’m straight. And old.”
I glanced at her. “How old?”
“Thirty-five.”
“No way.”
She smiled. “Way.”
“That’s not old.”
“Too old for you, though, probably.”
I sighed again. “It’s just . . . I’m going through this really horny stage lately. Where I want to fuck everyone. Because I mostly haven’t been able to get into formal kink events before—at least, not ones where I was there to play. But now I’m twenty-one, and it’s like there’s a world at my feet and a fire in my twat.”
She laughed.
I shook my head. “I should not be telling you this.”
“It’s okay. You have so many years ahead of you to fuck everyone. Trust me on this.”
“Okay.” I sucked in a breath. “Okay. I’ll try to remember that. And I’ll try to stop kissing random puppies.”
She laughed again. “So . . . what do we do about being lost? Should we use our whistles?”
“I think we listen to the wind.”
“The wind?” She cocked her head, and her ears flopped.
“Shh.” I held up a finger. “Listen.”
In the distance, we could hear Kent’s voice calling, “Max? Maaaax?”
And then Kamen’s voice: “Maya? Maya, it’s okay. He won’t shoot us.”
I nodded in the direction of the voices. “I think we go that way.”
I was starting to lose my mind. It was 10:33. I hadn’t seen another human in recent memory, and I’d gone numb from my waist down due to pants-related loss of circulation. What the fuck kind of tracker was D if he hadn’t found me by now? Had I really done that good a job evading?
The thing was . . .
Maybe I had.
Twenty-seven minutes left. I could easily win this thing. A gift card and glory.
I was just so bored and lonely.
And horny.
I’d been sitting behind a fallen tree for the past half an hour. Thinking about D and whipping posts and getting my ass beat in front of everyone . . .
I wasn’t sure I’d still have a functional dick after surgeons cut these pants off. But if I did, I was gonna put it to good use as soon as I was out of these damn woods.
The minutes ticked by.
I could go ahead and start walking toward camp, right? I mean, the hunt was winding down . . .
No. That’s what he’s counting on. He knows you’ll get impatient. And he’ll be waiting somewhere near camp to ambush you.
I sort of didn’t care. I stood up to head that direction.
And suddenly, she was right in front of me: red hair, wide lips. Fury in her protectively-geared eyes.
Cinnamon.
She was clearly as shocked to see me as I was to see her. There was a moment of perfect stillness, and then we both moved. She raised her rifle, and I dove over the fallen tree, landing hard on my shoulder. I started to crawl. I heard her climbing over the trunk, and I scrambled to my feet and bolted into the thickest tree cover I could find, not caring about the branches that scratched my face and snagged my clothes. I ran until my lungs burned, and finally took shelter behind a tree, panting so hard I thought I might puke.
“Dave? Oh Da-aaaave.”
I pressed against the tree, trying to slow my breathing.
I am a corvid. I am Richard Kimball. You will never find me.
“I’ve shot four slaves already today. You might as well surrender.”
I don’t believe you, you socially stunted equine terrorist.
Her voice was getting closer, but she was moving to the right of where I was. I inched around the tree counterclockwise to stay hidden.
“Poor Dave. This is gonna be so humiliating for you.”
My heart pounded. My best option was probably to try to outrun her. But I had no idea where I was anymore, or which way to go.
She’d stopped talking. That was always a bad sign, right? In horror movies, if the stalker fell silent, it meant they were about to pop up right next to you.
A twig snapped to my left, and I whipped my head around, nearly shrieking when I saw a figure standing several yards away.
But it wasn’t Cinnamon.
“Gould!” I whispered.
“You’re in a pickle now, aren’t you?” He spoke in a regular voice. Like, a voice people could hear.
“Could you keep it down?” I whispered. “It’s her. It’s Cinnamon! She’s after me.”
He grinned. “I know. Too bad you don’t have an ally to help you out of this, right?”
My stomach sank. “Gould, I love you. I’d do anything for you—”
“Except team up with me for the hunt?”
“Yes. I mean, no!” Rats. Who’d told him? Kamen, I swear to God . . .
“Kamen’s just better at evasion, huh?”
“No. No, I . . .”
He watched me press myself flat against the tree as Cinnamon tromped through the bushes nearby.
“Yoo-hoo,” she called. “Davey?”
I looked at Gould pleadingly. “The alliance with Kamen just sort of . . . happened.”
“Really? Because it seems like you two planned it. It’s okay,” he added. “I’m doing fine on my own. Better than you, at least.”
I tried not to wheeze. “If she finds me, she’ll find you too.”
“Somehow, I don’t think she’s as interested in me as she is in you.”
I tipped my head back, hissing through my teeth. “Please, you can’t let her take me. I’m so close to winning.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Please?”
“If I were you,” he said. “I’d run. Now.” He disappeared behind a tree.
Cinnamon was approaching quickly. I glanced to my left and spotted a thicker tree.
Don’t think. Just do it.
I leaped out from behind my tree. A barrage of yellow paint bullets splattered all around me, but I made it to the other tree.
Gould was still watching me.
“Please,” I begged. “Please.”
He shrugged.
“Gould, I—”
“Surrender, David!”
I jerked around. Cinnamon was a few feet away, rifle pointed right at my chest.
Don’t think.
I moved closer to her.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Can’t shoot me if I’m less than twenty feet away. And if I don’t surrender . . .”
She backed up rapidly, but I kept coming. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up, but for the time being, it was working.
“You know what?” She stopped suddenly. “I don’t think I care.”
She fired, and I dropped to the ground just in time.
I crawled away from her, lurching to my feet and then falling again, right at the base of the tree I’d used for cover.
“Oh, Dave.” She stepped forward. “This is just kind of sad. Fish in a barrel.”
This was it. This was how I went down. Fifteen minutes to go, and I was going to get captured by my least favorite person in the BDSM world. She was gonna take me to the whipping post, and it would be humiliating, because if I safeworded out of letting her torture me, she’d call me a coward. But if I let her torture me . . .
I’d never be able to live with myself. Not if I let her touch me with her hooves of darkness.
“One last chance to surrender,” she mock-cooed.
I gritted my teeth. “Never.”
She aimed the rifle, and fired. Several times.
Except none of the bullets hit me.
What did hit me was a very solid, warm body, which slammed me against the tree’s roots and made me shout in agony.
The body rolled off me. Gould lay on his back across a giant root. His chest was covered in blue paint.
“Gould!” I clambered up and knelt by him. “Gould, no!”
He looked up and gave me a very I would have followed you, my brother. My captain. My king sort of look.
“Run,” he whispered.
Cinnamon was reloading. “Well, Gould, you might do just as well,” she muttered, fumbling with the ammo in her pod belt.
I looked down at Gould again. “I can’t believe you—”
“Don’t let it have been in vain.” He reached up and grabbed at my face, his fingers mushing my lips and poking my nostrils. I moved my head slightly to get his hand more on my cheek.
“But she’ll—”
“Run!”
I leaped to my feet and ran until I couldn’t run anymore, not stopping to look back until I was far from them. Gould was on his feet. Cinnamon had taken his arm and was leading him away.
Shit.
I couldn’t let her take him. Gould had sacrificed himself for me. If I ran now, I was the worst kind of coward.
I spun and hurried after them, ready to fight.
But before I could catch up, a very tall figure emerged from the trees a few feet behind them, holding a rifle. I stopped abruptly.
“Excuse me,” Drix called.
Cinnamon halted. Turned slowly.
Drix walked toward her. “I believe you have something of mine.”
“What are you talking about?” Cinnamon demanded.
“That’s my prey. You’ll see that he’s been hit by a blue bullet. I believe your yellow bullets . . . hit that tree.” He motioned to the tree I’d been standing in front of when Gould had dived in to save me. It had a giant yellow splat of paint on it.
I watched, unable to believe what I was seeing.
“Why would you fire?” Cinnamon demanded. “You could see that I had him cornered—”
“Well, I saw that you had Dave cornered. But I shot at Gould. So I would like my captive, please.”
And damn if Cinnamon didn’t look up at that tall-ass, super polite vampyre and grudgingly shove Gould toward him. “Take him, then. I’m through with this hunt.” She strode away, red hair bouncing.
Drix turned briefly and met my gaze. Nodded slightly, then led Gould toward the meadow.
Dude was my favorite deus ex motherfucking machina ever.
“Well,” I said to Gould after Cinnamon had stalked off. “Let’s go to camp, shall we?”
He groaned, laughing. “I can’t believe I got caught by you.”
“Believe it.”
“You really don’t have to . . . do anything with me if you don’t want.”
“Oh, I want.”
He was covered in dirt and paint and bits of dried leaves, and his face was flushed, but he seemed more exhilarated than embarrassed. “Won’t it be awkward?”
“I’m not worried.” I really wasn’t. Yes, he was Miles’s friend, and mine. But I was confident I could do a scene with him that wouldn’t cross any lines.
We walked in silence toward the meadow.
“I’m glad you saved me from her,” he said finally.
“Hey, anytime.”
He seemed at ease, which made me glad. Sometimes when I was around him, his energy was so . . . I wasn’t sure of the word, but I could sense the stress that was woven all through him. It wasn’t a keyed-up anxiety, like Miles’s, but a sort of desolate, low-level fear, like he didn’t have much hope the world would be good to him. But that had improved over the past
year, and I knew he and Kel and Greg had picked their way through some rocky territory in order to get where they were now.
We reached the meadow. Almost everyone was back at camp now. People were attacking the snack table. The paddock was full, and only two posts weren’t in use. I led him toward the one farthest from the crowd, smiling at the people who called their congratulations to me, or welcomed Gould to slavedom.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked, as we reached the post.
“If you don’t want to—”
“No, it’s not that. I just don’t want you to feel weird.”
“Do you trust me?”
He nodded.
“Then I’d like to try something.”
I’d done some guided bodywork with Kamen before, and with Dave. And with Miles, obviously. But I hadn’t worked on Gould yet—even though he was probably the one who could benefit most from it.
“Clothes off,” I said.
He shot me a pained look but removed his shirt, undid his fly. Hesitated at his boxers. “Everything?”
“You can leave those on, if that’ll make you more comfortable.”
He left them on. I took his wrists and used the soft cuffs to bind his hands above his head. His armpit hair was damp with sweat, his skin twitched whenever my clothed body brushed him. He stood facing the post, muscles rigid. I met a lot of people through my coven who didn’t even realize how uncomfortable they were with touch until we started working together. I decided not to call attention to Gould’s unease. I could say more with my hands anyway.
Bella brought me his cards, and I read them over. There were some detailed notes from Kel—mostly concerning humiliation, which I wasn’t interested in. I pinned the cards up to the post. “Any specific limits with me?”
“No, s—” he seemed to catch himself and think for a moment about whether I was a sir. Then he said, firmly, “No, sir.”
“‘Sir’ feels very military. How about ‘Drix’?”
“Sure,” he said awkwardly.
“If it’s all right with you, I just want to work with your body a little.”
“Uh, okay.” He braced himself like I’d told him I was gonna flay several layers of skin from his back.
“You all right?”
He snorted. “It’s just . . . you’re a sadist. So I don’t know, uh . . . Just remember I’m not Miles, okay? I’m a total wuss.”