Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Dahlia
I’m not sure at what point I turned into an animal. The desert has transformed me, unravelled me. I understand the appeal of being a House Girl now. The endorphins of lust and love. It is addictive—the excitement of maybe he likes me, the angst of maybe he doesn’t, the visceral memory of him thrusting into me, flooding me with emotions. I can feel the absence of him… inside.
Before I left the Half-tower, I was sensible and preoccupied with sewing and singing, but now I find myself gazing at Lagos as he pulls apart the old vehicle in the barn.
Only occupied by him right now. By his shoulders as they expand with each breath. By the sweat that follows the thick curve of his bicep and the way he uses his forearm to wipe at his brow.
My temperature rises.
My eyes are lost in the virile vision ahead of me as I sit on a bench in the barn with my legs crossed. His huge black shirt is pulled over my knees. Underneath, I only have knickers on. My mask is beside me on the ledge, but I don’t need it in here. I chew absently on a protein bar Tomar found. It’s chocolate, sweet and bitter, but my mouth waters to know what Lagos’ skin tastes like right now. While beads of salty perspiration collect along his muscles. I have never seen a man working outside of their Purpose. My Ward was an old Fisher with small muscles and simple, plain features.
I shuffle, my swollen core and lower belly clenching. “How long will this take?” I ask, embarrassingly breathless.
Concentration draws his brows in when he glances over his shoulder at me as he works on removing a tyre. “Lot to get through, little flower. Another car. Rooms full of boxes. We left The Bite early; we have time. We should stay a few extra days. Things might be raided by the time we pass through again.”
We.
Tomar and him.
Not me.
Not you, Dahlia.
That truth makes my stomach roll. He has needs , and I understand them better today, despite my entire Trade being about servicing said needs. Physical needs… The kind I didn’t really understand because I wasn’t supposed to. Lagos—my Lagos—has needs. When I’m safe, he is going to find someone else, like Beauty and Sweets, and the girls from the roadhouse that clearly knew him…
“Were you with any of those girls the other night?” The question cascades through my lips like spitting lemon. “I mean… at the roadhouse?”
He pivots on his haunches to face me, signature frown in place, but tighter with disapproval. “You kissed me that night,” he states, voice roughening.
I clear my throat, blushing at the memory. “Yeah. That one.”
“You kissed me,” he repeats, “but you still ask that question.”
Yes? I’m confused. I shrug, then roll one shoulder, hiding my scarlet-hued cheeks. “I wanted to kiss you.”
“Don’t do that.”
My shoulders flatten. “Do what?”
“Kiss a man who has been with other women the same night. You’re not a House Girl. You’re not an afterthought or a first choice. You’re the only choice.”
I beam, and the knot in my stomach tightens because the love and affection in my heart blooms further, spreading out and weaving through my insides. I look down at the barn floor and gather my emotions before quickly returning my gaze to him. “Is that a no?”
He pivots back to the car, back to work. “They are not my type.”
Right. I scoff, raising a brow at his back, dubious. “They knew you, Lagos.”
He pulls the tyre off and lays it on the floor beside him. “I didn’t know I had a type until recently. Until I was nose deep inside your pussy. That’ll change any man.”
His words make me hot all over, my nipples hardening, poking through my dress. I glance hesitantly at the barn door—closed. And listen to the howling wind outside, both things offering a sense of privacy.
“Lagos…” I say his name in a breathy way that causes him to stiffen with his back to me. I press my hand over my racing heart, feeling the frantic, nervous thudding. Looking at Lagos—all man—I am inundated with an urge… to move lower. First, to my nipple. Even beneath the fabric, it buzzes with sensitivity, so I rub the point in circles. Hairs on my arms lift, and wet heat gathers between my legs.
Lagos slowly edges around to face me, rising to his feet. “Careful, little flower.” He drinks me in. “That look will get you in all kinds of depraved trouble.”
“I can’t imagine doing depraved things with anyone else but you, Lagos,” I whisper, needier than intended.
He doesn’t move a muscle, but heated dark energy rolls from him. “You better not imagine doing anything with anyone but me, little flower.”
With even the slightest shift of his gaze up and down, my entire body shudders. “Keep going,” he demands, his tone raspy and depthless. “ Lower .”
Slowly, I trace between my breasts down my trembling belly to between my thighs. I lean back, becoming limp, as I press my palm over my knickers to cradle that hot, wet place.
A dark, determined gaze tracks my movements.
Feeling every inch of his attention like tangible pulses through the air, I moan and begin to grind on my palm.
His eyes meet mine.
“I feel hot.” I pant. “Help me.” When he pauses, a wave of nerves flush through me, but he is striding toward me now.
I gasp when he scoops his hands between the bench and my backside, lifting me. I can feel the volatile strength he possesses in the effortless way he carries me, but he is so careful. Gentle.
He sets me on the car’s bonnet, his hands on either side of my body. As he drags his lips down my chin, travelling to my chest, belly, ending between my legs, I moan and arch at the sudden excitement. A small ache flares through my side from my own eager movements, and I wince but don’t want to stop.
Lagos’ gaze snaps up to meet mine when he hears my discomfort. “Flower?”
“I’m okay.” I pant, lifting my hips again, careful this time. “Please, please don’t stop. Please, Lagos.”
“No.” He grips my hips and slides me down from the car, but before I can protest, he turns me around and bends me over the bonnet. “Relax.”
Huge, warm hands journey up my naked thighs, drawing the long shirt to my hips, then dragging my knickers down to weave my ankles together.
Exposing me.
My cheek meets the cool metal machine. A large, muscular arm tucks under me, supporting my torso, as he lays over me on the bonnet.
“Don’t fight me. Let me take this body. I’ll be careful with it,” he whispers in my ear. I can smell his sweat and oils and a musk that is all male. And the heat… so much heat blankets me.
I hear the shuffling of his pants, feel the warmth of his dick between my thighs. The crown presses inside me from behind, reminding me how swollen and used I already am.
“ Oh .” I moan long and hard, and he holds me still, safe, as he slowly moves in and out. His dick is thick, so thick and so long, soon it rubs me to a hot, wet, shuddering mess.
I squeeze my eyes shut as pleasure becomes a bundle of sensation in my belly, circling and circling.
“You like that?” He stays deep, rocking his hips, my arousal making wet sounds to the slow, rolling motion. “ So wet for me. I thought a sweet thing like you would be too afraid of the monster to drip for him. I was wrong, wasn’t I? You want me to mount you, fuck you, feed on your innocence.”
I moan at his dark words.
Lagos starts to groan as my clenching channel works around his thrusts, seemingly urging him to speed up and paw at my thighs.
“ Oh , Lagos.”
“Fuck, yes , little flower. My sweet untouched girl with her lovely wet pussy that holds my cock so perfectly.”
His words, his filthy words…
That hot bundle of pleasure gathers and grows, spreading to my inner thighs and lifting to my belly and everywhere in between.
“This is mine. You know that.” His lips touch my ear, heat rushing me like rivers of molten lava. “So I need you to learn how to come. Do you understand what I mean by come?”
I am barely breathing as he pulses softly inside me. “Yes. Climax.”
“ Yes. I need you to learn how to make yourself climax . Because when I leave, the only hands allowed on this sweet, young cunt will be your own.”
I open my eyes to the barn wall and his hand beside my head on the bonnet, bracing his body over mine.
“ Okay ,” I breathe.
He rolls against my backside, stroking the muscles inside me, gentle but thorough, never drawing out completely. “Before we get to the Common Community, you will play with your body until you understand it the way I do.” He stills, and I moan—sulk—needing more friction, more stimulation, more… Just more.
“Please, Lagos. Move.”
He hums, throbbing against my clinging insides but not offering the friction I am desperate for. Need.
“You will show me how well you’re learning, perform for me, and you will do it over and over again until you’re so attuned with your fat, little clit and your perfect, tight cunt that I know you can look after yourself.”
“Okay, brute.” I roll forward, trying to use the bonnet to cool the hot agony screaming at my wet centre. “Please, please move. I need you to move.”
He chuckles, a deep timbre that rumbles against my backside and through me. “Easy, little flower.” He lifts up and pets a huge hand down the length of my spine. “You’re fragile.” He draws out excruciatingly slow and pushes in, inch by inch, driving me insane. “So pretty.” I rock back and forth against the car, my backside hounding his pelvis for more. More.
Two hands circle my hips, fingers pressing over my pubis and thumbs digging into the dips at the base of my spine. With a grunt, he starts to pound into me, holding me with steady authority.
I barely move as he slides in and out of my slick core, rhythmic, relentless, determined.
“Oh…” My eyes roll, and I gasp for air, stamping the shiny surface with my heavy breath.
This man has a way of making me feel taken, even as I beg for it. He makes me feel utterly defenceless, completely vulnerable—at the mercy of his powerful hands and hot, deep drives.
“That’s my good girl. Defiled and fucked, and so mine.” He hums, the sound deep and delicious.
My core clings to his length, wanting to keep him deep, and locks on as he draws out, leaving me in a frenzy.
I mewl and moan, my pulse fluttering inside my neck. “Lagos…”
“I’ve been so gentle with you, little flower,” he says, groaning as he pounds into me. “I’ve been soft. Usually, I’d need my mouth full of pussy and my cock stuffed in one to feel satisfied, but there is something about your trembling body that feeds me in ways nothing else ever has.”
I like that. That I’m enough. That he desires me as I desire him. From the moment I saw him, I knew. I’d never seen anything so... male. And I wanted it, to my core, to my most primitive cell—I wanted him.
Mouth gasping, I begin to come undone as his dick thickens, so long, so hot, so wide—inside me.
Stretching.
Rubbing.
Stroking.
How does he do t-that— Oh… Stars burst behind my eyes, and my mouth twists in sweet agony.
“Mine.” He grunts. Thrusts. “All mine. Fuck. Yes .”
Deeper.
Harder.
Thrust.
Then he brackets my legs, restlessly pawing at my hips, and pumps and pulses into me, shuddering and growling, the sound rivalling the dominant Redwind outside the barn.
* * *
Lagos works outside throughout the next two days while Tomar ransacks the kitchen cupboards and storerooms. They keep their distance from each other, even eating separately.
Guilt coils in my stomach.
I did this. Maybe that is why The Trade offers a man a Lace Girl? To stop the conflict between men?
I want to help Lagos or Tomar gather items, but Lagos grunts and says, “No,” and Tomar declines, telling me to focus my efforts on Spero.
So, I try to breastfeed the tiny Xin De assassin several times, cry when nothing happens, and then offer the bottle with powdered milk.
I don’t know if I am doing this correctly, but I am helpless and inexperienced, and it is hard not to blame myself.
When I get a chance, Lagos and I talk… Well, I talk, and he listens. Even having been around The Cradle and seen things I can’t even imagine or dream of, he doesn’t share. And I wonder whether he has been going through the motions, even being free, his existence, to his core, is still geared for Meaningful Purpose.
It starts in the womb.
Whereas affection is attached to my words and stories… I tell him about Maple and my Ward, but Lagos has no one to speak of. Only Tomar, I suppose.
At last-light on our second day, I watch Lagos shower in the barn. He holds a hose over his head, the water lapping along his muscles. Between his thick thighs, his balls seem heavy, and his dick sways as he washes himself, the water rushing the long length of it and licking from the tip.
His body is unnaturally—unfairly—virile. Every muscle is long, lean, and formed around a heavy frame.
I don’t wash outside.
It’s inside for me. As I am scrubbing my clothes and knickers in the sink, the bar of soap gliding over the fabric, lathering it with frothy cool water, Lagos hunts around the house.
And he finds something.
Behind a cupboard is a large door. And down the seven steps is an underground shelter. The walls are lined with rough-hewn stone. There are two more rooms and a second kitchen and bathroom, both neat, clean, and stocked with more supplies.
And, best of all, the bathroom. It is beautiful, far more elegant than my bathroom at the Half-tower, with a ceramic tub that curves gracefully, its surface smooth and inviting.
These people had a plan, a future. I wonder what happened to them. This home could have been empty for decades, maybe even longer.
Maybe they just died.
I am gazing dreamily at the bathroom, considering all the possibilities, and without being asked, Lagos uses the car engine to boil water for a bath.
He pours the water in, bringing the temperature to a comfortable level for Spero and me.
I beam, strip off, and dip my toe in. The water is tepid, in a soothing way.
Right, get in, Dahlia.
When I climb into it, I feel a bit like my old self. A Trade Princess. I suppose, in comparison to this life, being in The Trade does seem like the royal treatment.
Leaning back in the bath water, my body half-submerged, breasts and knees above the surface, I place snoozing Spero on my bare chest.
Lagos doesn’t fit at all; he sits on a stool behind my head with his long, thick legs open and his rough fingers massaging my scalp. Small aches have been moving across my temples for the past few hours, which I hope is a symptom of the hormones.
My chest squeezes when he is kind and gentle like this, with his fingers in my red hair, massaging my scalp. I never imagined this man, this entirely rough man, to be this… attentive.
Though, this side of him only emerges when we are alone. When Tomar is around or near, Lagos’ entire presence hardens.
“You once said you wouldn’t pamper me,” I giggle softly, humming as his firm, consuming touch rubs down the nape of my neck and back up my scalp.
“I said a lot of things I now regret.”
He did say a lot of mean things… Picking up the soap, I dot Spero with it, and then do my best to wash myself without disturbing him too much. I enjoy this moment, musing to myself.
The only thing missing is a story.
Maple used to tell me stories while we bathed or groomed each other. Lagos must have more to share. He must have experiences filled with awe, tasted things that explode with flavour, done things, anything that might be considered wonderful and tell-worthy.
I try to get more from him, posing a leading question. “Maple told me once that food, soap, friendship, and sex are life’s great experiences.” My voice is hopeful. “I added my own. Nature. Do you have any to add?”
He hums. “No.”
My chest tightens, wisps of air leaving with a sad sigh. I want more, so much more from him, but getting anything from Lagos the Rogue is like pulling teeth from a skull. I would know. My Ward needed his tooth pulled out by a Trade Doctor once because it was aching so badly, he couldn’t eat.
It isn’t easy to pull teeth…
“It isn’t easy to pull teeth,” I say, the thought bumping through my lips clumsily with an awkward chuckle.
“Yeah. It is.”
I roll my eyes. “You are impossible to get to know, Brute. Please, try. Do you have anything? Anything you can share with me?”
“The world doesn’t look the same through my eyes, little flower.”
Something about that sends knife-like stabs to my heart. “I've been so scared to like you,” I admit, especially because I don’t know you! “I was scared of how attracted I am to you, because I'm truly, truly terrified of the sick feeling in my stoma?—”
“I make you feel sick?”
I laugh once. “Yes… We are so different,” I breathe. The truth of that statement is in every inch of us, physically and emotionally.
I recall the sound of his inhumane growls, the strength no man should possess, the sight of his third eyelid sliding across, and the vision of his naked body. Too profoundly sculptured— I saw a picture of a stallion once. The long, lean muscles and the way the skin seemed to display each, seemed to mould to the figure, and… Lagos and his kind are not human.
And I let him inside me.
My thighs squeeze together, already wanting the space there touched and filled, insatiable for him—terrified of him, too. Intimidated each time he looms over me, but a willing victim to his lust and desires.
For a little while.
He is mine.
For always, I am his.
“I’m going to miss you,” I whisper, instantly hoping my words disappear into the cool bath water, never to reach his ears and display more vulnerability. I’ve shown him my body but not my entire heart—not yet.
A heavy, rough sigh rumbles from behind me.
I stroke Spero’s back while he dozes on my chest, half submerged in the water.
“I’ll be sad,” I say. “Never seeing you again will— It’ll… hurt, I think.” My throat tightens, just envisioning the moment he turns his back, and I am forced to watch his powerful body stride away for the very last time.
“Hurting you would be more pain than I could endure,” he states, voice a serious bass tone. “And I have endured a great deal of pain.”
At his words, at a glimpse of his past, I quickly swallow the lump expanding in my throat. Is this an opening to ask him more questions? I don’t want to ruin the peaceful energy; not like I did last time at the waterfall. But we don’t have years to share stories, don’t have the luxury of bonding over months, growing together—growing older… We only have now.
“I want to know you, Lagos… before you leave me.” Oh, my. My voice breaks. “When I think of you, remember you, I want to know who you are.”
“I don’t want you to know.”
“What about what I want?”
His hand slides around my neck and down to my collarbones before caressing up my throat again. “You might find it easier if I tell you.”
I don’t believe that, but I offer, “If that is true, then tell me, tell me so it doesn’t hurt so much when you leave.”
“What do you want to know?”
I hear the tense shift in his voice, but soon, our time will be up. I need to know now. Everything. I want to know everything. “Tomar said The Trade controls Shadows with magnetic fields… Or something? Can you explain that?”
“Hm.”
I blink ahead, absently stroking the baby at my chest and listening to his breathing deepen. I wait.
Lagos finally says, “I’m not a Trade Scientist, little flower. I don’t understand the complexities of what they did to engineer my kind, but I do know that I’m my own magnetic field. All Shadows are, including the infant. When I’m at full strength, it’s basic attraction and repulsion, like any magnetic field. The Trade uses this to steer us, or at least, guide us if we are willing to follow. That is, if we have an assignment.”
I exhale hard.
That is heavy.
I’ve heard of many things in my short life. Of a streaky, colourful arch in the sky called a rainbow and an animal called an elephant with a nose like a hose—wild concepts that are hard to imagine. But this is still a lot to absorb and accept.
And I’m not highly educated. It wasn’t necessary for my Trade to be so. But I know what a magnet is, and I have heard of birds using The Cradle’s magnetic fields to navigate, but to think we changed Common humans so much…
To suit a Purpose.
The Trade’s Purpose.
“That is…” I try so hard to absorb this information. I turn my face, peering up at him. “You’re incredible.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “No, little flower. You are incredible. I’m an abomination.”
My heart drops, so I return my gaze to the tiled wall. I peer down at Spero. In his light slumber, he is making shapes with his mouth. Spero is incredible.
They are remarkable. Lagos is literally a force, pulsing energy, rippling muscles, powerful, stunning, but I can feel his self-hate, so I don’t say that aloud. I will tell Spero what I think, though. I will tell him every day about how miraculous he is. And when he has questions about his kind, I will have the answers. So, for him, I have to keep pressing Lagos for information.
I need to know more.
“Willing?” I say, pushing on. “You said, if you’re willing? So you have a choice… in a way?”
“You don’t need to know?—”
“I do!” I cut him off, desperate to keep the conversation going. I think it has to be now. If I stand, leave the tub… I might not get another opportunity. “If not to know you, then to understand Spero,” I add. “I need to know. You are the only one who can tell me. If you care about me at all, about Spero, then you will tell me everything. Please … Do you have a choice?”
As a weighty pause circles me, I lean back into his big hands, seeking the soft, gentle version of Lagos the Rogue.
“We can move from it, but it is... unpleasant.” His hands move around my neck and crown again, through my wet hair. “If it’s too powerful, it’s like pushing through a physical wall.”
“Is that the pain Tomar spoke of?”
“There is more pain in making the Shadow,” he says, voice detached.
A tear slides from my eye. “How do I protect Spero from the magnetic pull?”
“Tomar has told me that there is a doctor at the Common Community.” His tone becomes flat, factual. “He knows you’re coming. He knows about the infant. If the Shadow baby wants to leave the community one day, when he is a man, he risks coming into contact with a field or beacon, and if he’s at full strength that will tear him in two.”
“Oh.” My breath hitches.
“The doctor will drain his blood if he wants to leave. The iron regenerates after several weeks, but it will help.”
“Wh- what?” My eyes widen, but I don’t dare turn around and display my horror.
“It’s been a practice since the old-world, little flower. It will lower his sensitivities, but not eliminate them.”
“How do you…” I falter. “How do you drain blood?”
“Through the vein,” he says. “When needed. It’ll help him later in life. We move around a lot. Doing this lowers my sensitivities to The Trade’s tech.”
“Will it…” I close my eyes. “Hurt? Wait—” My eyes snap open again. “ You drain your blood, too?” I twist slightly, gaze hitting him over my shoulder.
“I just sit back and pump my fist. Tomar does the actual procedure,” he states. “It’s only necessary when we are on the move. He drains about a quarter of my blood and gives me some of his, which leaves him feeling shit, but I recover faster. I’m his burden.”
“And then you protect him. You’re co-dependent.” I look at the ceramic lip beaded with water. Exhausted by concepts I cannot grip. They are co-dependent. Just another reason why he will leave me. Leave with Tomar. “Is that how he… How Tomar saved you?”
“And this.”
I look up to find Lagos has his finger on the metal plate above his ear, shiny silver peeking out from between his sandy-brown hair.
“What’s that?” I ask.
His eyes drop to the sleeping infant at my chest. “What we are trying to save the baby from. They implanted a coil in my brain to interfere with my thoughts, infiltrate them. If they get their hands on the infant, this is the first thing they will do to him.”
The first thing…
“Lagos…” Tears stream down my face, and the sight of them causes his jaw to clench and unclench.
He wipes a salty bead from my lip with his thumb. “Don’t feel sorry for me, little flower. I’ve done unimaginable things to sweet, innocent girls like you. I’ve crushed Trade flowers with my hands.”
As he says that, nausea rolls in my stomach. I gaze into the steel-coloured eyes I have come to adore, seeing darkness and trauma. It wasn’t his fault. Can’t he see that? He didn’t choose to be a Shadow.
I stupidly let the thought free. “You didn’t have a choice, Lagos. No more than Spero does.”
“I did.” His eyes dilate, sending icy fear slithering down my spine. More predator than man in an instant. “I escaped when I was sixteen. I killed more men and women than I can even remember while I was in the training compound, preparing. I remember what they called them—Desensitisation Drills. But I could have stopped killing after I escaped. Couldn’t I?” I lower my gaze. He grabs my jaw and forces me to look up at him. “But I didn’t. I killed more.” His pitch-black glare bores into me, warning me. His voice drops, but his whispers only seem more visceral. “I killed pretty things like you while my cock was still inside them—” His hand falls from my jaw. “Think of that when you miss me, little flower.”
Oh , Lagos. My lower lip wobbles and more tears roll down my cheeks.
Shallow breaths leave me as I try to fill my lungs again. I only seem to care about how these deaths affected him. What does that say about me? I used to think straight—he is a murderer with no respect for life. I remember thinking that, but now… I only feel the suffocating shroud of compassion and love for him.
I only want to hold him closer, to shake his self-loathing away. “You can’t make me hate you.”
His frown deepens. “The water is getting cold,” he states, his voice equally as chilly as the bath.
In heavy silence, he pats me down gently, and I dry Spero, and we get ready to lie down for the night.