“You’re crude when you’re tipsy,” Bell said, coughing against his laughter.
“I am. I am that,” Maya agreed. “I think being flush with success doesn’t help.”
“I will never stop touching you,” Bell murmured. He fluttered his fingertips over the soft curve of her breasts where they were exposed above the satin and lace corset.
“I hope you don’t mind if I change out of this for the convention thing,” Maya said. “It’s…sexy, but the bustle wasn’t really made for sitting down.”
“Who said anything about my allowing you to sit?” Bell asked.
When Maya did a double take, Bell chuckled. “Joking, Maya. Just make sure to change into something appropriate for the venue.”
Maya already had an idea of what ‘appropriate for the venue’ looked like.
Considering her selection of Ren Faire costumes and the new burlesque additions, plus a few kink-inspired numbers, Maya thought ‘appropriate for the venue’ wouldn’t be much of an issue.
The problem, she mused as she headed back to the RV after the show’s conclusion, was finding clothes appropriate for things like lounging on a couch or walking around the circus during the week or just plain practicing. It would be nice to have some cotton leggings and a supportive sports bra at least. Unlike Valorie, Maya didn’t have a selection of normal clothing, just the T-shirt she sometimes wore at night.
By the time Maya had finished changing, she was officially buzzed from the scotch. Because of Bell’s magic, she was far more aware of her center than she’d ever been—that strong, firm place somewhere between the flaring wings of her pelvis—so she didn’t weave much as she stepped out of her RV in the red leather dress, with its plunging neckline and corset ties. Maya wasn’t sure what to do with the black fetishwear yet, and she at least knew which end was up in the red leather.
It was the little victories. And sometimes it was the big, honking victories. Like doing a backflip on a freaking tightrope. Maya supposed she’d get over that one day, but today was not that day.
As Maya made her way back to the convention tent—which had been set up next to the big top during the show by quiet, dutiful golems—she heard something on the other side of the caravan. At first, she was just going to ignore it. From the quality of the cry, it could have been any of the female cast who happened to be in a trailer with an open window.
Then she heard it again, coupled with the air-stealing sound of a kicker punting a football and followed by a masculine groan…and not in a good way.
Maya whipped her head around, looking for other people, maybe one of the demons—they of the sharp teeth and preternatural strength.
She couldn’t find anyone.
The shouting took on a sense of urgency. Maya ran toward it, keeping herself on path by careening against trailers and RVs like a ball in a pinball machine. It was harder to keep balance while buzzed at such a speed.
What she saw almost literally made her blood run cold. Her forehead and neck broke out in cold sweat that would have been refreshing in the heat if not for the fear.
Four strangers. Three guys, one girl. All four were in shorts and tees, so they probably weren’t with the kink group. Besides, the kink group was supposed to be congregating in the dinner tent right now.
To the side, Troy gasped for breath, doubled over on his hands and knees and gulping at air that wasn’t going in. One of the guys, maybe a college football player by the breadth of his shoulders, stood near him in a wide stance with one foot back. The other two guys held Christina up between them, one of them covering her mouth.
“Come on, guys. This isn’t funny. This isn’t okay,” the girl said.
“Cool it, Melanie,” said one of the guys holding Christina. He had strawberry blond hair that fringed over his ears. “It’s just some fun.”
“It’s not fun. It’s sick. Can we just go?” Melanie said. She swayed where she stood as though keeping her balance on a merry-go-round, which told Maya she’d probably imbibed one ale too many this evening.
“Hell no. I mean, look at her. What’s she going to do?” the other guy holding Christina replied. He was a slender but athletic-looking African-American. “Her freak prince certainly isn’t going to stop us. Looks scary, but he’s just a pansy ass faggot, isn’t he? All those types are.”
“Stop this, Shawn,” Melanie shouted at the football player by Troy.
“Not after the way he looked at me,” Shawn said, pulling back his foot to kick Troy again before the Tattooed Man could catch his breath.
Maya caught the sneaker and yanked Shawn’s foot back. The guy pinwheeled and flipped forward onto his face. Maya had seen Murphy do a similar faceplant, but she was pretty sure Murphy was skilled enough that it only looked like it hurt.
If there was any justice in the world, Shawn’s face now hurt a lot.
“What the fuck, bitch?” the African-American guy said.
“I could say the same,” Maya said. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“The chick was into it,” the reddish-blond guy said. “The guy attacked us, trying to hurt her. I think he’s crazy.”
Christina shook her head behind the African-American guy’s hand, whining her scream as well as she could. Melanie rubbed her forehead, looking ill.
“Put her down right now,” Maya said.
“Why? You want a piece, too, sweetheart? Yeah, I bet you’re into that. In that get-up, you’re going to that group, aren’t you?” the reddish-blond guy asked.
“What’s a little girl like you going to do about it?” the African-American guy added, laughing.
The bigger jock, Shawn, recovered from his fall and grabbed her ankle. She smashed her other heel into his scraped cheek, narrowly missing his nose. He let go and rolled over.
“Assault! That’s assault!” Melanie screamed. She stumbled down to hold her boyfriend’s head.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Maya asked. She put an arm around Troy’s waist to help him straighten up.
Troy eased back to his feet, shaky and panting and holding his stomach.
“As far as what I’m going to do about it…to start with, I don’t have anything to lose,” Maya said. She led Troy over to a trailer tire, where he could lean and half-sit to get his strength back.
“I can think of a few things,” Strawberry Blond said. He tilted his head to check out Maya’s ass. Then he shoved Christina over to the African-American guy.
Christina wriggled like a live eel, but she didn’t have the benefit of being as slippery as one, and while she could pack some punch behind the narrow stumps where her arms and legs used to be, it wasn’t nearly enough to deter the guy holding her.
“As soon as you can go, go,” Maya muttered to Troy. “Get others.”
“Hey, you look kind of familiar,” Strawberry Blond said. “Do I know you?”
“Well, she’s the tightrope chick, isn’t she?” the African-American guy replied.
“No shit, fuckface. I’m not fucking blind. Hey, you’re… I can’t remember your name, but you’re Derrick’s ex, right?”
Maya blinked. In the split second of the blink, she recalled a family reunion picture. “You’re Derrick’s cousin. Cameron. Canton.”
“Cameron,” he said. “You hear what happened to Derrick?”
“No,” Maya said, keeping her expression neutral. “What happened?”
“Boy had an accident. Been holed up in the hospital hopped up on morphine. His parents are freaked, but he can’t tell them what happened. Course, his mouth’s wired shut ’cause he broke his jaw too. Weirdest thing in the world.”
“Sounds awful,” Maya said. She had to force the words out through the tightening hole of her throat. Behind her, rapid footsteps faded. She prayed Troy would come back quickly.
“What a pussy,” Cameron said.
The African-American guy laughed, his hand working between Christina’s upper thighs. Maya tensed.
“He’s more man than t
he three here put together,” Maya said.
“Yeah, I remember Derrick telling me you were a real nag,” Cameron said, slowly advancing. He was a head and a half taller than her. Maybe in the past, that would have been more frightening. “He’d text all the time and tell me and the guys what a stupid bitch you were, how much he wanted to break it off. Best day of his life when he did. Said he was finally free. We all thought it was a hoot when he actually got you fired. I guess you had to join the circus after that.”
He reached out to touch her breasts, but Maya knocked his wrists to the sides and took a step back. Her spine trembled like humming electrical wire.
“Oh, yeah, feisty. I remember that too,” Cameron said with a juvenile grin on his boy-child face.
He sidled closer, and Maya took another step back. She didn’t plan to take another one.
“Derrick used to tell us everything the two of you did. Said the only reason he stayed so long was because even though you were a bitch and a buzzkill almost all the time, you were a beast in the sack. I’m looking forward to finding out for myself if that’s true.”
He hesitated when she didn’t retreat from him again.
“Cameron, John, let’s just go,” Melanie said.
“Shut up, you stupid cunt. I want to see that bitch pay,” Shawn said, muffled by the hand covering his mouth. “Rip her tits right off.”
“Oh God,” Melanie murmured, stumbling away as she realized what was going to happen. She staggered behind some of the trailers. Maya heard her fall.
Wonderful. What a bunch of charming people.
“You touch me or Christina, you’ll wish you were dead,” Maya said quietly.
“Scary, coming from a girl like you and a half chick like this one,” John said. He dropped Christina and put a foot on her back to hold her down as he undid his shorts.
“You should be scared. Like I said, I’ve got nothing to lose,” Maya said. “After your dear cousin left me stranded miles from home in lieu of dumping me like a man, I was abducted, held prisoner. You can’t imagine the pain. I’ve been hit with a bullwhip over a hundred times, been made a slave, and you think a pencil dick like you is going to do anything to me that’s worse than that?”
Maya neglected to mention that most of those things had been voluntary. The principle still applied. Men weren’t going to scare her after she’d consorted with demons—especially not insecure asshole kiddie-sociopaths like Cameron, John or Shawn.
Like Derrick—the man she’d tortured herself over after he’d gotten exactly what he’d deserved, not that he’d ever learn the lesson that Maya had.
Which was that, like these men here now, he was a shriveled radish of a prick barely worth a bite, and Maya had wasted more than enough time on that loser. Almost three-and-a-half years. More, if she counted the Derrick Juniors and Derrick Lites and Derrick Classics she’d dated before him. Derrick had just been the peak of a bad mountain she’d been climbing all her life.
It was time she rappelled her ass down that cliff and found herself a better view.
Maya didn’t wait for Cameron to come after her. She leveled a solid kick up between his legs to smash her toes into his family treasure chest—jewels, scepter and all. She hoped she kicked so hard, Derrick could feel it hundreds of miles away.
Cameron collapsed like a bag of dismembered parts, his teeth bared and the cords of his neck distended. She started to kick him in the nose, but John grabbed Christina by her hair in his left hand and dragged her shrieking with him as he ran over and punched Maya in the face.
The Ringmaster’s lash had hurt more than a punch to her cheekbone, but she’d never been punched before, and this guy clearly worked out. The blow was like the blinding burst of a nuclear bomb behind her skull. Nothing in her body worked. Next thing she knew, she was on her side next to Cameron.
“Maya!” Christina screamed.
Cameron got himself together before Maya did, in spite of the way pain twisted his face. Now he really looked a lot like Derrick, if Derrick had highlights. Maya wondered how she hadn’t seen it earlier.
He grabbed Maya and rolled over her, pinning her down with her legs on either side of him so she couldn’t attack his sore balls again.
“You’re going to spend the next two hours apologizing to my bits for that,” Cameron wheezed. “I swear to God.”
He punched her in the same place as John. She felt like that eyeball was going to explode any moment and ooze blood and vitreous humor from beneath the puffed eyelid like strawberry jelly.
Maya’s mouth dropped open in pain. Cameron took the opportunity to shove his crotch against hers, riding her skirt up farther, as he stuck three fingers into her mouth to gag her and fuck it at the same time.
Maya was afraid, her panic rising like water in a closed room. But she’d been more afraid before, and this time she was also very, very angry.
Just as he yanked at the ties holding her dress together, Maya bit down as hard as she could. Her teeth jarred against bone, her tongue stung where she hadn’t been able to avoid biting herself, and her jaw ached. The important thing was the metallic, bitter, meaty liquid that filled her mouth. She sputtered and coughed Cameron’s blood out as he shouted, holding his bloody hand, his mouth a cartoonish gash.
Maya grabbed her thigh and pulled it back against her chest. She didn’t have Valorie’s flexibility, but she had some, and she was able to get her foot back in front of Cameron. Then she let herself go like a slingshot, shoving her heel against Cameron’s chin and snapping his head back.
“Fugging bish,” Cameron snarled. His teeth were stained where he had bitten the tip of his tongue off. “I’m gonna gill you.”
A haze of red blazed at the edge of her vision, heat hotter than the summer evening burning from the inside like black flame.
She launched herself at Cameron, digging her nails into his face so deeply that one of them broke to the quick. The more she saw of him and the blurrier her vision got in her bad eye, the more he looked exactly like Derrick and the more she wanted to destroy him.
“Crazy—” Cameron managed to get out as he tried to shield himself with his arms. Maya bit into his forearm. Again, a bitter draft of his blood burst in her mouth. She spat it in his face.
“You have no idea,” Maya said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
At that moment, something moved out of the corner of her eye, dark in the fiery glare of sunset. And behind her, a bellow.
Bear arms engulfed her from behind, yanking her to her feet and ripping at her dress until her breasts spilled out. Shawn squeezed her so hard air was forced out of her lungs, and though she scrabbled at his arms, he didn’t let go. John had left Christina on the ground—still covered with her leotard, thank goodness—to come after Maya and grab her flailing legs. Christina quickly got her wits about her and hurried like an insect under one of the trailers, her belly trailing the ground. Her pale face was moonlike, her eyes glittering in terror as she watched the three men overpower Maya.
Maya was ready to unleash holy hell. Whatever they did to her, whatever nightmare they put her through, whatever they had been planning to do to Christina and Troy, she would pay it back to them tenfold, especially the half-ginger twerp with blood on his shirt getting to his feet and fumbling with the button on his pants.
Suddenly, John reeled back, clutching his neck where braided black leather had wrapped around him with a merciless snap, a whip that led directly to a wickedly gleeful Ringmaster.
Cameron’s eyes went wide, and he jerked around.
Then Shawn let her go too. Maya dropped to the ground, teetering on the balls of her feet before regaining her balance.
She was greeted by the attractive sight of Shawn being throttled by an unmasked Ciarán, his lips pulled away from his prehistoric teeth. Misha had two swords pointed directly at Cameron’s throat and stomach.
Lennon furiously shoved Melanie, her makeup smeared down her cheeks with tears, into the surrounding circle next
to Cameron. And there were more circus folk emerging from the shadows and from behind trailers, almost the full cast, all of them grim.
“You have made a grave error, gentlemen,” the Ringmaster said.
“Monumental. On so many levels,” Valorie said, leaning nonchalantly on the trailer next to Christina, who crawled out from underneath.
Troy lifted Christina from the ground and held her against him with ropy arms that appeared reluctant to ever let her go again.
“You didn’t just threaten the cast of his circus,” Misha said, “which would have earned you bad enough punishment. I should know. But you attacked the boss’s woman. That’s got to be worth three additional decades of hell in his book.”
“At least,” Bell said, stepping into the dying light, stony as a harbinger of apocalypse. And behind him, like the other three horsemen, came the clowns. For their new audience, a pattern of black greasepaint followed the seam of their actual mouths up to near their ears, creating the illusion that their mouths had been sewn shut. Creepy enough as makeup. Even creepier because Maya knew it wasn’t just makeup. She wondered if the four trapped outsiders would find that out first-hand.
She thought she wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it. In fact, Maya believed she was going to sleep very well tonight indeed.
Bell held out his hand, beckoning her to him. Maya stepped between Cameron and Melanie to take it.
“Which stain did this to you?” he asked evenly, feather gentle as he touched the swelling over her cheekbone.
“John and Cameron,” Maya said, nodding to both of them.
“And the one choking you?” Bell asked.
“Shawn.”
“The blood?” he asked. He wiped some of it off her lip.
“Most of it isn’t mine,” Maya replied.
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