Chapter 15 #2
“Only you would suggest an enchanted replica dildo of yourself as an anchor,” she says, still laughing. “Why do you have this?”
Ugh. More questions.
“I like DP, and I don’t like to share. Will it work?”
“Hmm.” Her voice hums in my ear as the tingle turns to a prickling pain.
Fuck, that’s good.
“It’ll work,” she says, the sensation already burning through my chest.
It feels a little different than usual. Without her in my hands, there’s no heady mixture of pleasure to distract from the pain, but that’s an easy fix.
Leaning up against the bureau, I wedge the phone between my ear and my shoulder and fist my dick in my hand. But the silence coming from the other end of the line makes me pause.
“You alright, Ashbourne?”
“I’m fine. I just—shit.” She hisses and sucks in a breath. “I forget how big you are.”
Gods, I groan, what I wouldn’t give to see her right now.
I’ve never had Iris. Not entirely.
She made it clear early on that it was not an option. I’ve respected that boundary over the years, but I’ve imagined it a million times. Pictured every position I’d take her in. Every hole I’d fill.
Just from the way she endures my fingers, I know she’d take me well.
She likes a challenge.
She’ll take every inch, without complaint.
“Take it slow, baby. Don’t hurt yourself.”
In confirmation of my theory, she moans, loud.
“Oh fates, Elliot…”
“You got it, baby. Just breathe.”
She’s quiet for a moment as her body stretches to accommodate the size, but I know she’s managed to settle when she lets out a shuddering breath.
“You okay?”
My only answer is a muffled moan.
“How does it feel, Iris?”
“Tight,” she whispers.
Fuck, I should be with her, not some poor replica of me.
“Do you like it?” I ask, stroking myself slowly, then a little faster as she mews in pain.
“Yes…”
She starts to pull from me, and I hiss as the burning sting spreads from my head to my toes. But I know it’s not enough.
“Come on, princess. I know you need more than that.”
The draw intensifies, moving through me like wildfire before pulsing between my legs, and I grip the edge of the desk as my own pace grows brutal.
“Fuck,” I grind out, unable to say much else.
“Are you?” she asks breathlessly.
I only manage to grunt in response.
If she could see me now, she would know.
Bent over the bureau, fisting my dick in my hand, practically rabid.
Only Iris can do that.
“More,” I mutter. “Take more.”
She does as she’s told, but I can still sense she’s holding back, and I have to bite down on my lip to keep from telling her to take it all.
“Oh my gods!” she shouts. “Can you slow it down?”
“It’s all you, baby.”
It would slow if she wanted it to. But we both know she prefers a rough rhythm. Hard enough to bruise.
“Elliot!” She squeals, a tone of panic in her voice. “Make it stop! It’s too much! I think I’m about to—”
Her power grows fervent, and I growl as I realize what’s happening.
“Iris, don’t you dare.”
But she’s no longer listening.
“I’m-I’m…” Her words tangle, then altogether cease as her voice pitches higher, and she sucks in a breath. “Ah!”
“Iris Olivia Ashbourne, if you squirt in my bed while I’m not there, I will kill myself.”
She cries out, the sound muffled as she pleads for me.
But there’s nothing I can do.
Every sound she makes is strangling me little by little. And I’m left choking as I stroke myself to the sound of her orgasm.
I come in my hand, teeth clenched, body shaking so hard I think I black out for a moment.
If I die here, that’d be fine with me. I just hope Vanessa isn’t the one to find me lying on the floor with my dick in my hands.
When I recover, Iris is breathing hard, but she manages to squeak out three quiet words.
“I hate you,” she says between sharp inhales.
Her words bring a smile to my face.
“I know, baby.”
I find a spare piece of parchment, using it to clean myself off as I wait for her to catch her breath. It takes her a few minutes before she can utter anything other than quiet grunts, and I drop down in the desk chair, too tired to keep myself standing.
“I-I made a mess,” she says, voice quiet in my ear.
“Good. Leave it.”
“You’re so nasty,” she giggles.
I shrug.
“You like it.”
She hums but doesn’t deny it.
“There’s no way you move like that,” she says, sounding a little more like herself.
“Let me fuck you and find out.”
She laughs, a sweet, innocent sound as if she hadn’t just siphoned every drop out of me from miles away.
“In your dreams, Cross.”
“Every night, Ashbourne.”
She’s silent for a moment, but I can still hear the smile through the phone when she speaks again.
“Where are you?” she asks.
“The Manor.”
“Home?”
No. Not home. Not even close.
“When will you be back?”
“Tonight.”
I have no plans on staying here any longer than I need to.
“Okay,” she mutters. “Be—”
Her words are cut off by Mother’s voice shouting my name, and I sigh.
“I have to go,” I say. “Are you going to be okay until I get back?”
“Yeah, I’m—”
“Don’t. Say that.”
She giggles again.
“Yes.” She says, more sure. “That was more than enough.”
“Keep it. Just in case.”
She pretends to hesitate for a moment, but I know how much she likes her new toy when all she says is, “Okay.”
“Goodnight, princess.”
“Goodnight, Elliot.”
There’s a shuffling of fabric as she prepares to hang up, but I’m not ready yet.
“Wait, Iris?”
Her voice comes back low and soft. The way it is when it’s just the two of us.
“Yeah?”
My mouth opens, and a million words come to my mind.
I want to tell her to be safe.
I want to tell her that I didn’t mean to scare her.
I want to tell her thank you for being the distraction I always need.
But it all gets stuck, and the only words that creep out are, “I’m sorry.”
Even though that doesn’t really begin to cover it, it seems like the right thing to say.
The line is quiet as she considers my words. And the pressure around my throat eases when she answers, “I know.”
I retreat to the relative privacy of my room as I wait for the midnight hour to draw near. And when I feel my wolf begin to claw his way to the surface, I know it is time.
Jeffery waits for me at the top of the basement stairs, head bowed and a solemn expression on his face, knowing what comes next.
Hours of bone-breaking, jaw-cracking pain, as a shift is forced upon me by the light of the moon.
Mother is already in position when I enter the dark and damp little room. She doesn’t ask me where I’ve been when I return. She doesn’t care. Just as long as I’m in my cage by midnight.
Her chains have been latched around her wrists and ankles, and beside her, Vanessa is preparing her own.
They are anchored into the concrete walls and floor. Four points of contact for each limb. Mother’s only have two, but Vanessa has grown more resistant over the years. Soon she might be just like me.
I do not have any chains.
Not anymore. They stopped working when I was about fourteen. Instead, a corner has been carved out just for me. Bars embedded from floor to ceiling, and I go slowly to my fate.
The cage swings shut behind me with a loud clang, the iron bars shaking the floor as the vibration moves through the room.
Jeffery follows, keys in hand, and I wait until the mechanism clicks into place before removing my dampener and setting it aside.
He may act like he isn’t afraid of me, but on nights like tonight, I know he is. They all are.
He tests the door once before scurrying back up the steps and leaving us in the dark.
We do not talk as we wait. The dreadful thump of our hearts is too loud to hear over anyway.
The next sound I hear is Vanessa’s screams as she goes first.
I watch, wincing as her body slowly rearranges itself, bones shifting beneath new skin.
I bear witness because someone has to, but even after seeing it a million times, it never gets easier.
The shift is not usually so violent. On an ordinary day, it takes mere moments. A single breath. Quick, but not painless. But a full moon shift is different for our clan.
With our power at its height and so much to contend with, it takes the wolf hours to emerge.
Mother goes second, but she doesn’t scream.
When my time comes, I try not to cry out as every bone breaks and reforms, but the pain is more than even I can stomach, and eventually, I can’t help but let it out.
I scream until my vision goes black, and the wolf saves me from the memory of a few tortured hours, and when I wake, Vanessa and Mother are already gone.
I wait patiently until Jeffery emerges with his keys. And when the cage finally opens, I collect myself in silence and head straight upstairs and out the front door.
I try not to stumble up the Crescent House steps, but the splitting headache makes it impossible to see straight, and I have to grip the porch railing to avoid slumping to the ground mid-stride.
Every part of me aches. From the tip of my ears to the bottom of my tail. My skin feels raw as if it might slough off at the slightest touch, and I think my brain is pulsing inside my skull.
I manage to keep upright just long enough to crash into the front door. Using it to prop myself up as my head begins to spin.
There’s music coming from the other side. Faint to the human ear, but absolutely mind-numbing to my sensitive eardrums.
“Ugh,” I groan, pushing through the entryway.
Why are there always so many people in here? Doesn’t anyone ever just want to be alone for five minutes?
From what I can make out, it’s a small gathering. Pack only. Which technically means about one hundred people, plus mates, and claims, so really it’s far from small when you actually think about it.
I head for the stairs, wholly uninterested in whatever they have planned for the night. I can hear Kitty in one of the common rooms singing at the top of her lungs, and even on a good night, that is not a show I want to watch.
As I pass through the dormitory floor, the chatter grows quieter until it is altogether silent as I drag myself toward my destination.
If I can just make it to my bed.
All I need is my bed.
But perhaps I am asking too much. Or maybe I have upset the fates. It is the only answer I can possibly see as a hand reaches out from the dark and yanks me through an open door.
It shuts quickly behind me, and the fog of my shift clings to me, making me slow to react. But as my eyes adjust, my energy rises, and the exhaustion is suddenly forgotten as I look at the wolf in front of me.
Tara.
Just the wolf I wanted to see.
“You…” I growl, hand clamping around her throat. “I told you what would happen, didn’t I?”
I press my boot down on the tip of her tail as I lift her from the floor, and Tara yelps in pain as her tail is pulled taut.
With a single jerk of my hand, it will dislocate. Another, and it will be torn entirely free from her body. It is a simple and effective torment, guaranteed to bleed for days.
“Who else knows?” I growl, keeping my voice low.
Her eyes blink rapidly, and her fingers pry at my hand as her feet kick uselessly through the air.
“I don’t—”
I squeeze tighter.
“Don’t lie to me. Who took the picture?”
“I-I…” Tara chokes, and I loosen my grip.
“I don’t know,” she gasps, sputtering. “I don’t, I swear.”
“Bullshit.”
My grip grows merderous, and I yank her up another inch, taking her tail to its limit.
“Do you want to keep it?” I ask.
She nods, frantic.
“Then tell me who.”
Her head shakes, and her eyes begin to water as she mouths “Phone. My phone.”
Her hands scramble toward her pockets, but she’s too busy trying to catch her breath, so I fish it out for her. She opens it quickly as I loosen my hold, and when I turn the screen around, bile rises in my throat.
A familiar sequence is playing out on the screen.
An anonymous number, an explicit picture, in this case a nude photo of an oblivious Tara—Gods, that’s sick—and a string of messages with very clear instructions.
They detail a time and a place (Valorath Rd), attire, and a simple mission statement—“Convince him to leave her.”
“Oh my gods…” I mutter.
My fingers unfurl, and I lower Tara to her feet as I bow my head in recognition of my wrong.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Please forgive me.”
She bows in acceptance, still coughing as she straightens.
“I’m…fine…”
Why do they all keep saying that?
It wouldn’t be so irritating if it were true, but I’m starting to think it’s just a phrase they’ve learned to parrot like the pack mutts who learn to survive by keeping their heads low.
“You have no idea who this is?” I ask, knowing what her answer will be.
“No,” she says, rubbing at her throat.
I can already see the bruise blossoming beneath her peachy skin, and my anger for our mysterious friend mounts.
“That picture was taken in here,” she rasps. “But I thought I was alone. I didn’t even smell him.”
“Him?”
My brow peaks at the surety with which she says it, and she shakes her head.
“You really think a woman would do that?”
Maybe. Although the odds seem low.
“If he contacts you again. You come straight to me, do you understand? Don’t tell anyone else.”
She nods, and I back away, stumbling toward the door.
The adrenaline of this encounter is beginning to wear off, and I’m afraid that if I don’t go now, I may end up sleeping in the hall with my shoes on.
I all but crash through my door, barely managing to keep my legs from slipping out from under me before I make it to the bed, where I collapse, face down.
But there is a fragrance buried here, rich and smoky.
She wasn’t joking when she said she made a mess. A part of the sheets is still damp from her feed this afternoon. But I wasn’t joking either when I told her to leave it.
“Enghhh,” I groan, fisting the fabric.
The scent is divine. Sweet and salty.
I never thought I’d be jealous of my own dick.
I reach for sleep, prepared to let her fragrance swallow me whole, but before it finds me, I realize there is a treasure here in my bed.
Stuffed beneath my pillow is a wad of pink lace, steeped in Iris’s sweet scent, and stained with the traces of her arousal.
My heart almost stops as I bring the fabric to my nose.
“Fuck, princess…”
I reach for my phone, snap a quick picture of the evidence, and send it to her.
Are these for me, baby?
Her response is immediate.
Princess
Good dogs get treats.
My dick stiffens, and I laugh as I type.
Fuck you.
Princess
Later.
Thank fate, a reason to live.