Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Dahlia
One week later
Nights are hard and sleepless with Spero, but The House is always alive. Soft beats come from the ruby-hued room on the lower level, footsteps echo, doors open and shut, and giggles ensue.
And then, as the Missing Moon descends, the night closing, groans and moans take over until first-light.
That is most nights.
I’ve never stepped into the den, or the ruby-hued room, as I call it. It’s empty during the day, so I don’t know what goes on there, and I’m too tired to explore The Bite now that I’ve been caring for a newborn for nearly a week.
Raising the babes of The Cradle is an entire Trade—a coveted one. Being a Sired Mother and working in the nurseries is meant to be the supreme Trade for older women.
I do like to sleep… I mean, I’m a Lace Girl, but babies are like living magic. A new life. A blank slate. So precious.
I want sleep… My eyes feel deeper somehow, wanting to disappear into my head, close and not open again for a long, long time.
Each day is the same. First-light comes and goes. A bag of supplies is dropped outside my room, varying each day—cans of food, often fabric for nappies, soap or toothpaste. Once, a small wedge of coconut and a real baby bottle with a removable nipple—that was an exciting delivery.
At crown-light, despite exhaustion dripping heavily down my spine, I force myself to go outside. I usually head downstairs and avoid the line of men around the front desk. Sometimes, there are two girls on display, other times three. I have been trying to memorise their faces, and I believe at least four young girls live in The House with me. A black-haired girl I heard someone refer to as Beauty, a blonde with grey eyes, a tall brunette who always stares down her lashes at me, and the main girl, who Tide said is named Sweets.
Which she is not.
I would usually dash out to see Tide, and he’d reluctantly allow me to work and keep him company. I won’t say we are friends… But we are friendly, and I’ll take it. I don’t work on goodwill; I leave with something small for my efforts, using the trinkets to decorate my room.
But today is different.
I leave Spero secured in a nest I made for him and lock the door from the outside so I can go to the cove for a quick bath; hopefully, the water will revitalise me.
As I walk down the carpeted corridor, I encounter a blockade of House Girls ahead of me before the stairs. I hear a groan leave me, too exhausted to smile against their disdain-filled stares.
Sweets and the blonde lean on the right wall opposite an open door, robes hang loosely over their shoulders, revealing slim womanly figures and flushing skin.
Down that slither of material, I can see… everything.
My instinct is to close my eyes, but I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep right where I stand. I want to offer them modesty, yet they don’t appear concerned at all that I have an eyeball full of their... female parts.
They draw in deep breaths, and sigh heavy, a kind of longing breezing from them as they stare into the room.
Arousal is thick in the air.
I can’t see inside, but I can hear fierce grunts punching through long, unrestrained female sounds.
The hairs on my arms rise.
I prepare to stare straight ahead and ignore whatever is happening in the room, as I have a pretty good idea of what I will see. Maple has told me all about it—sex—so it most definitely is none of my business what they are doing to each other.
The blonde turns her head, her gaze taking me in as I approach. “Oh, it’s the Lace Girl. Best close your eyes, Lace Girl. Don’t want to tarnish your purity and infect your mind.”
There is mockery in her tone, but something else as well. Something vulnerable, which is why I don’t take offence.
“Or she can get in line.” Sweets trails her fingers across her décolletage, humming to her own attention. “I think she should watch with us.”
“No, thank you,” I say, darting between them and the open door just as Sweets steps into my path. I stiffen.
In my peripherals, I can see movement that matches the erotic sounds beating from the room. My spine straightens to not allow my head to turn.
I stare up at Sweets, anchoring my gaze in her pretty eyes, refusing to give in to the pull from the room at my shoulder.
“ Oh . Yes. Yes ,” someone moans.
A provocative grin spreads across Sweets’ mouth when I clench my teeth to the desperate calls from inside the room.
My body hums just being beside the door, energy so tangible it vibrates around me.
“Look,” Sweets teases.
I swallow. “I don’t want to.”
“Yes.” She nods. "You do.”
No, I don’t.
Too exhausted to fight, my eyes snap to the bedroom before I can stop them, the image flooding my vision and filling my veins with warmth, discomfort, and fear.
He is so much bigger than them. It’s even more obvious in their position. Lagos pounds into a girl he has pinned on a slight angle beneath his chest with his face between Beauty’s thighs. All I can see of the girl on the bed are her hands reaching from beneath, gripping his muscular flanks, holding on, and slender legs gyrating to keep a lock around his backside. Sat on the pillow, back to the rest, Beauty squeezes the strands of his sandy blonde hair, mewling with her eyes closed.
He is obscenely muscular.
Inhumanly powerful.
And all those tattoos… They reach from ankle to neck, wrapping around and cloaking his skin in ink.
I shuffle, instantly dizzy.
I couldn’t visualise this huge man with a woman before, because I always thought sex would be gentle caresses, sweet words, and tender kisses. I never fantasised about this kind of brutal intimacy between a man and woman.
“It’s frightening.” A voice slides into my ear like a whispering ghost.
Sweets take a step closer. I can feel the warmth from the slip of naked skin between her robe curtains, but I don’t look away. From his rippling back muscles. The tensing and untensing of his arse.
Look away.
Look away.
Look away.
“He can fuck for a full day.” I hear the passion in her voice, the awe in it.
His grunts seem to circle me, coming from everywhere at once. “We close The House when he’s in a mood like this. I’ve already come twice, but he gets bored so easily. There is no human left in him, Lace Girl, and it’s never more obvious than when he decides to fuck you.”
My stomach clenches.
I don’t care that she’s probably trying to upset me. Why else is she so insistent at this moment? To make a point—I am not one of them. I understand.
Sweat mists my forehead.
“Does it hurt?” I ask, wiping the beads before they run and draw attention to my heat.
“Oh, yes ,” she hisses. “It hurts. Being fucked by Lagos the Rogue is the scariest, most unsettling feeling in the world.”
The rogue. I haven’t heard that before. Suits him. I want to look away. My pulse races and I’m breathless without moving an inch.
“Then why?” I tear my eyes from the scene and meet her gaze. “Because he trades with you?”
She scoffs, an amused sound that I don’t understand. “You should go back to The Trade, Lace Girl. Let a man pet you and feed you. Take your tea and lie on your back for a nice belly rub.”
“I am not a pet.” In a second, hundreds of thoughts rap on my tongue. Arguments for the importance of my Trade, for the mental health of Trade men across The Cradle, but before any can be spoken, I notice the silence around us. The quiet slithers down my back like icy water.
Oh, no.
Slowly, I turn my chin toward the open room, and his suffocating presence wraps around me again. I was too busy staring at Sweets, her too focused on mocking me, for either of us to notice.
Lagos is stepping from the bed, leaving the two girls mewling helplessly on the mattress. His long, hard dick sways above full, swollen balls between his chiselled, thick thighs.
I’ve never seen anything so male.
I back up as he approaches, the heat and heaviness from his attention pressing on me. He is the one naked, yet I feel unbearably vulnerable.
I lick my parched lips, tasting something metallic on them. For a flash of a moment, I imagine Lagos dragging me into the room and forcing my legs apart, thrusting into me, hurting me, but then?—
He closes the door on my face.
Time seems slow, so I shake my head. Try to feel present.
“Interesting,” Sweets mutters, a pleased tone dripping through each syllable. “I guess I was wrong.” She steps out of my way. “He clearly doesn’t like you at all, Lace Girl.”
That sentence shouldn’t burn.
It doesn’t affect me at all…
“Excuse me.” I swallow as my throat thickens. I don’t wait for any more harsh truths, heading down the corridor, taking the steps as sweat slides between my brows.
I have to be quick.
Spero might need me.
Usually, I have a few hours at this time while he sleeps, but I don’t want to take any chances.
Something strange courses through my body, leaving me vibrating as I stride to the cove.
My fingers tremble as I undress and paddle into the water, soon finding its cool bite soothing. The water laps my flushing skin, and the ocean’s body holds me.
What just happened?
Why did I watch that?
I wasn’t disgusted. In truth, I wanted to be Beauty. I was born to soothe and relieve a Trade man but never know anything impure myself. Never feel a man’s touch, remember it, and even know it is for my enjoyment. What Lagos was doing with his mouth was for Beauty’s relief. What could he get from that himself? Kissing her there?
If his gaze can make my stomach clench and his proximity hums across my skin, I am terrified to know what that indecent kiss would do to me.
I am more than intrigued by that brute. So obscenely virile… I… I— I dunk myself into the water, wanting to wash the thoughts away. Drown them.
My hair mimics floating wings of red around my body as I blink underwater. The salt burns my eyes. I close them and see Lagos thrusting into that girl, his back muscles alive with power and energy.
It's too much. I want him. I don’t know why or what this is; perhaps I’m self-sabotaging. Trying to prove I am like Maple, clinging to something dangerous. It’s confusing, and I wish it away.
Lungs suddenly squeezing, I push back up and gasp the clear salt-pinched air. Breathing hard, I walk from the water, beads sliding down my skin.
Then I notice I am not alone. A strange man stands in the cove, watching me while he slowly removes his dark shirt. I can’t distinguish his features from this distance, but his physique, height, and girth lead me to believe he is a strong Xin De male.
Nerves rush down each leg. I’m not used to being alone, this sense of wariness, a perpetual shuttering pulse.
Stepping from the water, I gather my clothes and dress quickly, breathing a sigh of relief when, in the corner of my eye, the man wades out into the water to bathe.
I shake my head at myself, clearly overthinking everything. He wasn’t looking at me like that— I’ve been ignored my entire life. I’m not sure why I feel like everyone is watching me all of a sudden. ‘Pretty but plain,’ is what my Ward said, and it was a compliment.
‘Easily forgotten.’