Prey (The Training House #7)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

What the hell is happening to me?

Rough hands pull me from my pallet on the floor, and before my eyes can adjust to the dark room a hood is drawn over my head.

Fuck.

I take a breath to calm my hammering heart as two people grab me by my upper arms and pull me completely off the floor, carrying me unceremoniously through The Training House, where I am currently in service while my beloved Mistress Clara is traveling.

It’s okay. You know where you are.

With the hood over my head and my feet unable to touch the floor, I’m a bit disoriented—which I know is the point of these abduction scenes.

It’s the mindfuck they love, our Masters and Mistresses and their well-trained Handlers.

And frankly, it’s something many of the slaves adore, too.

But the anxiety I’ve dealt with most of my life does not allow me to revel in this twisted little ritual, even though I’ve been through it before.

Mindfuck extraordinaire with a side of pure panic.

I focus on the sound of their boot heels clicking on the polished wood floors, and I know that sound.

I draw in as deep a breath as I can through the heavy fabric of the hood, taking in the expensive scents of beautifully polished wood—I’ve polished these floors myself on hands and knees—and a hint of the fine scotch the Masters of the House prefer.

Familiar.

I know this drill. Probably Jasper and Curtis, the two Handlers Master Christopher often refers to as “the goons”, taking me back to the Primal Ranch. I’ve been there before, know what to expect.

But then the sound of their boots changes, and I realize they’re taking me through the marble foyer.

Their hands grip my arms so hard I may be left with bruises, although I don’t bruise easily anymore. I’ve been a contracted slave for far too long. None of us who have been in these elite circles marks easily. Rough handling is something I’m used to. Something I crave.

But something feels off about this.

They carry me down the front stairs, and the cool San Francisco fog whispers against my naked skin. But don’t they normally take us down the back stairs inside the House? The ones that lead to the garage? Why risk the front stairs, even if it is the middle of the night?

My heart begins to pound once more. And again, I ask myself the question.

What the hell is happening to me?

There’s barely time to think about it as I am dumped into the back of the van—at least, I assume it’s the van, the one I know. The metal floor beneath me is cold and hard. Familiar.

“Get her chained up,” a deep, unfamiliar voice says.

Unfamiliar.

I’m really in a panic now.

Do they simply have a new Handler? Or are these people not part of the exotic and profoundly extreme realm of kink I know? And if not, who are they?

Another man makes a low grunt, then the steel shackle is clamped around my ankle. The clanking of the chain is almost soothing.

Almost.

Doors slam and the engine starts, and I am too alone in the van, naked, in chains, being driven away from the relative safety of The Training House, where my Mistress left me to be beaten and fucked and ruined again and again. Everything was just as it should be.

I rely on that—the known expectation. Even the exorbitantly creative punishments. The Masters are always thinking of something new to torture us with, but even then, it’s a known, if vast, quantity. And the constant unknown is what I escaped into this life from. It’s why I’m here.

Where am I now, though?

I’ve been driven the route to the Primal Ranch from The Training House before, but I’m too much in a state of alarm to know if we’ve gone the right way.

I go back to my breathing: a long, slow inhale, a brief hold, then a long, slow exhale, exactly as I’ve been taught.

Calm down.

They must simply be new Handlers.

Right?

Inhale, exhale.

The breathing isn’t really helping me, and soon the panic and my hammering heart become exhausting, and a slow tear slips down my cheek.

Oh, they’ve done it this time, haven’t they? Fucked with my head until I’m crying. It doesn’t happen often anymore. I’ve been a slave for too long. But it appears they’ve found a way to mess with my head. They’re doing a fucking fantastic job of it.

Inhale, exhale.

Finally my body begins to relax into the rhythm of the tires, but very quickly a series of bumps in the road is accompanied by a hollow sound I can’t quite figure out.

A bridge, perhaps? A minute or two later we’re on a smooth highway of some sort again.

Maybe a different route down to the Carmel Valley where the Primal Ranch sits in a small basin between rolling hills?

But I know that route. My body has the muscle memory of it.

And there are no bridges, if that’s what I felt.

I’m not going to figure it out; I must accept that.

Just as I accept any of the punishments my Masters and Mistresses choose to inflict on me.

This is, after all, what I signed up for all those years ago.

Literally. To have my free will taken out of my hands.

To give myself over to the Masters and Mistresses and Handlers who make those choices for me.

It’s very specifically worded in our contracts.

It’s what I wanted, and still want. It’s the only way I know how to live anymore.

But am I being given all of it on some newly perverted level?

Or am I about to have it all taken away from me?

Inhale, exhale.

I may as well try to sleep. Once we reach the Primal Ranch, everything and anything could start right away.

And if I’m to fight in the Primal Games, which is what I often do there, I’ll need to be in good shape.

I close my eyes under the hood and will myself to relax, one muscle at a time, in the safety of the hard metal encircling my ankle.

I am bound.

I am in my Masters’ hands.

I am safe.

I dream of the one time I’ve ever seen my father.

I’m seven or eight. A knock at the door of our small, dirty apartment in Hollywood, and my mother answers.

When I hear arguing, I get up from my narrow bed and peek around the wall.

He has my same dark hair and gray eyes. She yells at him about abandoning her when she was pregnant with me.

He makes excuses, neither of them saying I was wanted, which is something that has always been very clear to me.

She sees me and orders me back to bed, and I go, afraid of her rages.

And still arguing, she takes him to her bed for the night, leaving me in my too-small pajamas and the vinegar-sweet scent of heroin drifting in the air.

I hear them fucking. I know what it is. I’ve seen it over and over, when my mother has brought strange men home. This man is no less a stranger. I hide under the covers with my pillow over my head, but I can’t block it out.

Get out, get out, get out!

I wake up with my heart hammering in my chest. It’s so damn dark, and I forget where I am until I fall into the cadence of the tires rolling on pavement.

I am in the van. Going to the Primal Ranch. I am okay.

My hands are free and I wish I could wipe the tears from my face, but the hood is buckled too tightly around my neck, so I have to suffer the degradation of my own emotions—emotions I’ve done my best to pack away in the darkest recesses of my fucked-up mind.

God damn it.

I try the breathing again.

Inhale, exhale.

Eventually it begins to work. But how long was I asleep? This trip feels endless, when the Primal Ranch is only maybe a little over two hours south of The Training House, and I am aware once more that something is off.

The van slows and I hear the crunch of gravel, then we stop.

A moment later the sound of someone getting out, then the back doors open and a cold draft makes me shiver.

“Get her out of there.”

Hands on me again, just as rough this time as they unfasten the shackle around my ankle, then I’m lifted and set on the ground, sharp gravel rough under my bare feet. The hood is yanked from my head and I blink in the dim sunlight coming through the towering sequoia trees.

Sequoias?

There are redwoods in the Carmel Valley, but sequoias? No.

Where the fuck am I?

I keep my gaze on the ground, good slave that I am, on the two pairs of boots attached to whoever took me in the night. I try desperately to remember if these are the same boots Jasper and Curtis wear, but everything is fuzzy as my eyes try to adjust.

“Here, drink this,” one male voice commands as he shoves a water bottle in my face.

As I take it and lean my head back to drink, I catch a glimpse of his face. Brown hair, nondescript features. Not Jasper, not Curtis. I try to swallow my panic along with the water.

Another voice commands, “Come on, Girl. You need to pee.”

He takes my arm and drags me faster than my bare feet can manage into the trees, and once more I am freaking the fuck out as I do my best not to trip and fall. Who are they? Where are they taking me?

And if this is one of my current Master’s fucked-up and twisted little plans, what do I dare to do? Look at their faces? Question them? Run?

No.

Slave that I am, I cannot break the rules, even if something diabolical is going on here.

Well, whatever it is, it is diabolical. But diabolical mindfuck presented to me by Master Christopher and Master Damon? Or have I actually been kidnapped from their House?

The man I don’t know shoves me to the ground and my knees hit a pile of fallen leaves.

“Pee,” he orders.

Good Girl that I am, I do it, squatting with my knees apart so I won’t get any on my ankles.

“Back in the van,” he commands, his voice gruff as he pulls me to my feet.

I go stumbling after him, my surroundings a blur that is more scent than visuals: the smell of dark earth, of growing things. And for a single moment I contemplate running as fast as I can through the trees, deep into the forest where no one will ever find me again.