18. Kiera
KIERA
Was I ready to trust Dom?
I wasn’t sure, even after I looked to Spencer and Leo for reassurance. Standing at the edge of the light, they both gave me a reassuring nod. According to them, Dom was more than trustworthy. They’d been trying to convince me of that for weeks.
Despite how she treated me.
Sucking my teeth, I reluctantly held my hands forward.
Dom pulled the pin in a new pair of cuffs. They matched the restraints around my ankles, except these were double barrelled. My hands would be restrained together. Only then did I look above my head, where a gold chain, matching the pristine one in the cuff, dangled over me.
As Dom’s surprisingly warm hands wrapped around my wrists, pinning the shackle into place, my eyes darted from each chain. Each a different color, all of them used but cleaned.
Once the pin was in place, Dom’s gentleness disappeared. She grabbed the clip at the end of the cuffs and yanked my wrists over my head.
A whimper escaped my lips as I felt my joints pull. I’d felt a pain in them my entire life, trying to avoid overextending myself without ever knowing why. Checking with Doctor Leo, I knew that whatever was happening was something she’d given medical clearance for.
She wouldn’t let Dom hurt me, not in a real way.
It was a good pull, like a stretch I’d been trying to reach for decades.
Dom clicked the chain and the cuffs together, a gold clip welded to the bike chain overhead.
In my ear, Dom growled her line. “With this chain, I bind you to vengeance.” Her words dripped with meaning, something I’d yet to understand. But Dom always spoke in secrets and whispers. Always a piece of information missing.
Stepping back, Dom reached her arm to a bright red button on the control box, right at the middle of the post. A mechanical whir began as I felt the chain tighten on my hands, the lift slowly dragging my hands farther and farther above my head.
At the top of my reach, Dom lifted her hand from the button and stopped the lift.
I groaned as I felt the pull in my body, a little embarrassed by how good it felt to be strung up in front of them. So long as I pretended Dom wasn’t here.
From the look on my three captors faces, I’d given away too much. It was clear I liked it, being restrained like this. It was something I’d never asked a man for, not sure I could trust them with unrestricted access to me.
But these three… these two , really, could have any part of me they wanted.
Dom was lucky I hadn’t punched her in the throat yet. Although, I was realizing by the second that my ability to do that was diminishing rapidly.
Testing the limits of my chains, I felt my joints adjusting to the pull. It was just enough to be uncomfortable and restrict my ability to stop whatever was about to happen to me, but not so much that I was worried about dislocating anything.
My eyes flashed to Leo. Her forehead was ever so slightly wrinkled, a concerned and curious expression as she watched my arms and legs in the chains.
“Higher.” I mumbled to Dom, the words falling from my lips before I could stop them.
Without turning her head, Dom waited for something. After a moment, Leo nodded to her as my bully reached for the lift button. The machine whurred again, lifting me a few more inches.
I felt my joints stretching, my muscles trying desperately to hold them in place. Rising to my tippy toes allowed me to relieve some of the tension.
A smirk took over Dom’s face as she growled. “Better.”
From the look on Leo’s face, I knew that she’d advised Dom on what would be medically safe for me. And I knew she was worried about me pushing it too far. But I’d lived my whole life in this body, and Leo knew that.
If I was going to suffer through whatever cultish ritual this was, I wanted to really experience it.
No holding back. Not after what I’d done the night before.
Then Dom joined Spencer and Leo in front of me, all of them forming a wall of muscle. My gaze moved between them. Spencer looked hungry, her eyes burning to take me; Leo was a mix of concern and desperation to have me; and Dom… Dom looked like she wanted to hate every second of this.
But somewhere behind those ice pick eyes, I could feel her heavy breathing. How she liked to watch my wrists in the cuffs. She wanted this. And so did I.
Spencer stepped forward first, winking at me as she began. “It was said that the gods brought each other to the river Styx, made them take oaths to the river goddess herself.”
Way more culty than I could have even imagined.
A part of me wanted to laugh as Leo moved closer. “It was believed that an oath became a part of your destiny, that defying an oath would be defying your own nature.”
And then came Dom’s growl. “But if you found a way to defy nature, you’d be punished with isolation and rejection from the council of gods who resided at the summit of Mount Olympus.”
Spencer moved to my side, each of my captors moving in a slow circle around me like I was their cornered prey. Like they’d been hunting me for years.
From the look on Dom’s face, I was starting to wonder if that was true.
Spencer reappeared before me just as Dom disappeared into the darkness of the shop. My sweet Spencer’s face was serious now, the smirk vanished. “You swore yourself to The Oracle in blood last night, in obedience to the whole.”
And then she was gone, behind me again.
Leo came next, licking her teeth. “But you swear your oath to us by the Goddess Styx.”
As Dom reappeared, I looked deep into her eyes. They held the same look she’d given me the night before as she’d handed me the scythe.
Swallowing hard, I tried to figure out how I’d ended up here. They weren’t just three sexy roommates in a biker gang. This shit was a straight up cult. And I’d stumbled right into their lair.
As I dangled, my feet suddenly starting to slip and my stability waning, Dom kept moving.
Spencer’s brow furrowed as she came into view. “The oath is, as are all things, voluntary.”
Then Leo. “An exchange of assurances. We can promise your protection.”
Only once the doctor was out of sight did Dom reappear. But this time, she came close to my ear, her lips millimeters from my skin. “What is your safety worth?”
I turned my head to face her, trying to stop the goosebumps rising along the notches of my spine.
But Dom held fast. “What are you willing to pledge?”
Her eyes were full of expectation, as if I should be spluttering out options.
My first born child.
Every cent I’ll ever earn.
My freedom.
Just as my lips parted to answer, Spencer stepped closer to the lift as Dom moved in her circle. Her hand ran up my bare legs as she licked her lips, still just as hungry. “How about we help you brainstorm, Bunny?”
With a wink, Spencer stood back and rolled her shoulders back. “Kiera Tierney, do you swear yourself to us as we will give ourselves to you?”
Stopping me from answering yet again, Leo moved into my line of sight. “To put your mind, body, and soul in front of the sword.” Leo brought her hand to her neck, her thumb rubbing the pommel and hilt of her tattoo.
Too distracted but how good her neck and hands looked, I hardly noticed Dom circling back. It was the hiss of her words that drew my gaze from Leo. “To let truth and honesty guide all that you do.”
Rolling my eyes, I couldn’t stop myself from scoffing. All I’d ever done was be honest with them. Not that they’d extended the same courtesy to me. I still wasn’t buying Dom’s excuse, she knew Gabe. She must have.
“Only if you do.” I quipped back. As soon as I said it, I knew there would be a punishment. They already had me tied up in their kinky sex workshop and there was no way that Dom would let me get away with talking back, not that she ever did.
A sinister smirk took over her face as a stinging pain and a loud thwack radiated off my ass.
“Fuck!” I screamed out as my body jerked to stop whoever had spanked me. But the chains kept me in place.
Dom let out a deep breath. “These oaths are not conditional. Neither is what we’ve promised you.”
Protection. A lifetime of it. So long as I do my part.
Spencer appeared before me, my eyes darting to her hands looking for any sort of paddle. I knew it wasn’t a hand I’d felt on my skin. But hers were empty.
“Do you pledge your loyalty, to protect those before you as if you bleed the same blood?” Stopping in front of me, Spencer watched me closely. She was gentle with me, not one to use whips and chains to take me.
Nodding, I watched her move on.
Until my head swiveled to Leo’s hands, eyes catching on the black, leather paddle in her hand. Jolting up, I met her burning brown eyes. The gold flecks in them shined under the bright overhead lights, a light smile playing on her cheeks.
Leo held my gaze. “Do you pledge your body to us? To be ours ?”
The second half was easy. To be Spencer and Leo’s felt more like a privilege than a punishment. To be Dom’s… well I had no idea what it would look like. But I doubted she would suddenly be baking me cakes and snuggling.
A part of me was scared to give them my body. I knew, especially now, that Leo and Dom weren’t going to be as gentle. That they’d take me the way they wanted me even if Leo was playing nice for now.
But there was no denying the throbbing excitement between my legs, despite how fucking terrified I was.
Dom’s growl snapped me from my imagination. “Do you pledge to share our pains, our pleasures, as your own?”
I hadn’t noticed the three of them stopping in front of me, the oath having come to an end.
And now they awaited my reply.
Blowing out air, I adjusted my stance to lift my body as high as I could. “I swear myself to you — Spencer, Leona… and Dom. To put my mind, body, and soul in front of the sword.” I caught on the words, not entirely sure what they would mean.
“To let truth and honesty guide me.” My eyes flicked to Dom, reluctantly ceding to her. “I pledge my loyalty and my body. To bleed the same blood. To be yours .” Those words I gave to Leo and Spencer.
Swallowing, I let the final pledge slip from my lips. “I pledge to share in your pains and your pleasures.”
Gritting my teeth, I met Dom’s gaze. “I swear it to the Goddess Styx.”
My destiny was changed now, forever bound to them. Not just because I’d said the words. But because of the blood we’d spilled the night before. The strange tether kept me from running for the Valemont hills.
“Are you willing to prove it?” Leo’s voice was a low, husky rumble as her jaw tensed.
Adjusting in my restraints, the clatter of the chains reminded me there was no escape now. I couldn’t know how I’d prove it to them, how I could show them that I needed their help more than I needed my freedom.
“Yes.”