“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, they 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 in. 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.
“I know you think me a villain,” he says, and my lips tighten at the statement. I don’t know where he intends to go, and I’d rather keep him silent and have him fuck me, along with Makita, instead of having to brood about the immorality of it all. “And perhaps cruel. And you wouldn’t be wrong, I suppose. I’m in the process of finishing what I intend to do. And then once you’ve signed the non-disclosure agreement, you may be released.”
I narrow my eyes in suspicion, even as Makita strolls in, stops dead at the sight of Balthier, and then quietly sits on the sofa in front of the television.
“Admittedly,” he says, “I wanted to punish Makita for his ignorance, and you for your interference. But it turns out I ended up enjoying this little arrangement between us more than expected. After all, you are both quite… delightful.” His tongue probes out of his lip, slow and seductive, and I exhale sharply. “I’m fairly sure it’s against most rulebooks to grow attracted to your prisoners, but… it happens.” For the first time, he appears a little anxious. Something cracks in his otherwise smooth mask.
“Great,” Makita says. “So you like us now?”
Balthier shrugs. “I don’t know. I look forward to… imagining what I’m going to do with you two. Thinking what sounds you’ll make. How you’ll react. How you’ll feel. But I also know that it’s not right. I’m working harder to secure things. Once I’m safe, you’ll go.”
“Why, Balthier?” I walk towards him after putting the kidney beans onto the kitchen surface, feet pressing into the carpeted floor. “Why do you do this? Do you care about the people you’re shipping at all?”
Balthier gestures for me to seat down, next to Makita. I do so, though I’m obviously a little puzzled. “There’s two major problems in the world. Two that won’t go away, no matter how much I like to pretend they don’t exist. Problem one,” and he puts up one slender finger, his gray eyes furrowed in concentration, “shifter society is geared towards needing human women. Most will not come to them willingly, and if they don’t obtain women, they will die out. So it’s become sunk in tradition that they must obtain such women at all c
osts. Either by extensive grooming, or by dipping their paws into the slave trade, with the help of other humans. It’s not right, but it’s what happens.”
He pauses, as we process the words, and I see the heavy guilt in Makita’s eyes again. He knows about this. Perhaps all shifters do. They just never would admit it to humans. Because it’s confirming the dark rumors that saturate human society. That these people do want our women. They need them. So they hunt them, or scoop them up by any means necessary.
Surely I have a moral obligation to report this. Just as I’m soon done with the animal part of the people who trap me, the magnetic lure they seem to ooze within their bodies – and figuring a way out, of course.
“Problem number two, is that there are more women than should be, stuck in gaps of society without any hope for them. They’re forgotten by the system, and it’s these ones in particular that are exploited. The tales you hear of respectable people being taken from the streets? That’s one percent of what’s really happening. My aim,” he says, waiting to make sure we’re both listening intently, “is to seize the women who are already taken. And I pair them up with shifters that I know will not mistreat them. I tap into the clients, friend or foe, who will find drug ravaged, wasted individuals. I send them to rehab centers I’ve built, and I have contact with shifter communities all over the world. They will be forgotten by the human world, but they will be welcomed into the shifter one. That’s my aim. And I’m sorry, Alyse, but I can’t let you interfere with it. If you blow the lid, it will drag this operation through the mud.”
I stare at him, utterly astonished at his confession. It’s taken him some time to say this, some time to get it off his chest, and I’m baffled. I instantly want to yell at him that he’s still feeding into the sick cycle. I even want to call him out for lying. Instead, I say, “You’re no better than them. You’re still take advantage of vulnerable individuals.”
Bad, Very Bad Shifters- The Complete Mega Bundle Page 59