Chapter 5 Puppy Training
FIVE
PUPPY TRAINING
When I wake the next morning, I find myself in a similar position as before; I’m still clinging to Roman’s hard chest, and he’s still holding me like I’m the only thing in the world keeping him together.
His breathing is no longer frantic like it was then.
His heartbeat is a mellow sound that’s soothing to feel so near to my own.
I don’t know when I curled up on the edge of the enormous black clad bed, but at some point, the three men joined me.
I peek over Roman’s scarred shoulder and find Zilo spread out in the middle, his biceps carved hard as he lies with his hand behind his messy black locks.
His braids are scattered across the onyx silk pillow, and I can’t help but recall how much they emphasized the importance of those braids…
Avian lies far against the other edge of the bed, his back to me, and the middle part of his chestnut hair is still pulled back into a single braid that ends in a short knot at the back of his head.
My fingers twitch as they graze the smooth feel of Roman’s short shaved hair.
No braids.
That’s all I think about while my fingers trail up and down, my arms wrapped loosely around this strong but beaten man. His body is beautifully tan but nicked all over with lines of wounds long past.
“You’re startin’ to be real sweet to me, beautiful,” he whispers suddenly, startling me with his eyes closed and his body still completely at rest against my own. “I think I like you better when you hate me. Much less confusing,” he whispers sleepily.
A smile plays at my lips, and it’s only then that his dark lashes lift, his gaze piercing to study me in the dimness of the light.
“I can call you a fur fucker and stroke your hair like a lover. It’s called multitasking, Romey.” My head cocks to the side, but I can’t explain why I’m still holding him.
Or why my heart’s fluttering in place right now.
Or why he’s still holding me. His big palm slides lower down to the small of my back as he pulls me in closer against his warm chest.
“Mmm, I’m so fucked up, I’d probably like that even more though,” he says in a low sensual tone that washes across my neck and all through my body.
My heart is now a gooey mess that I can’t control. It beats too hard, and I know he hears it. I know he knows what he’s doing, and I hate it.
I hate that someone I hate can make my heart so stupid.
Like a bratty child, I pull his short hair between my finger and thumb, and he doesn’t even flinch.
“What’s with the braids?” I ask in a serious and not at all distracted tone.
The mischief shining in his gaze dulls like I’ve struck a chord. I get the feeling there are a lot of pained chords in Roman’s miserable life though.
“High Hell keep track of their battles. They wear their braids like badges to honor the lives they’ve taken.”
The dozens of tiny braids in Zilo’s hair flash through my mind. Avian has one.
Roman’s hair is short and cropped close to his skull: no braids.
“You’re a High Hell, but you’ve never been to battle?” I’m back to running my fingers over the spikey feel of his hair. His eyes close softly in response.
“I have,” he admits in a shallow tone. It’s more of a crippling exhale than a voice.
“Why don’t you honor the lives you’ve taken then?” The moment I ask it, he releases me, pulls away and rolls over flat on his back. His lips tense with a stifled wince, and I know his wounds from last night are still fresh there.
“Why do you know how to take down a grown man in a fight when you look like a pretty pixie who wouldn’t hurt a hoe fly?” he asks instead of giving me an answer.
“That’s not what we’re talking about right now,” I taunt with a smirk. “What’s a hoe fly?” I add, getting terribly distracted despite my best efforts.
“It’s—a spicy pixie who gets around a lot. Not exactly politically correct phrasing. Let’s just let it go.” He continues to keep the space between us.
“Just tell me,” I ask again with a new cautiousness in my tone.
“Just let it go, beautiful,” he says as he closes his eyes like he’s decided to now go back to sleep.
He’s avoiding the answer. He doesn’t want to tell me.
As a mature woman, I leave him in silence. It’s the adult thing to do. It’s what any reasonable human would understand.
And that just doesn’t sit right with me.
“Just fucking tell me. Stop being a little Hell-hole and tell me!” I pout so hard I can feel the line crease between my eyebrows.
He turns his head ever so slowly and glares a look of pure demonic wrath my way. “Drop. It.”
My lips part while my eyebrows lift slightly higher. “Nnnnooo,” I reply in the clearest, most pronounced tone so I know his little puppy brain can understand.
Two well-thought-out blinks are his only response.
And then he’s on top of me.
He pounces so fast I never see it coming until he’s straddled over me, his fingers clenching my wrists above my head as he looks down on me with blazing fiery eyes.
Hell is in his gaze. I feel it burning off his skin in hot waves that seep into my very bones.
This kingdom’s magic is alive and well in his strength now.
“Someday, you’ll listen when someone speaks, beautiful,” he whispers, getting in close as his nose runs the length of my jaw line.
His hands shift, and suddenly he’s holding my arms higher with both wrists clenched in one big fist of his. With his free hand, he pushes my hair back and hovers his hot mouth just against the shell of my ear. I feel his breath there, and it races a shiver across every inch of my flesh.
“There are cruel, cruel men in this kingdom, beautiful. They’ll break you.
” His voice dips, catching lightly before finding the gruffness of his tone.
“I found out the hard way. I don’t want you to be like me.
When someone says to fucking drop it”—his words fans along my throat, and the way he holds me and the light graze of his fingers is suddenly more erotic than aggressive—“you fucking drop it.” It’s a warning.
Not because he hates me. But because he’s worried. He’s worried I’ll end up like him.
And I can see that in the pain of his fire-kissed eyes.
His grip on me loosens, and I feel him shift against my hips, the hardness beneath his pants suggesting the very heated thoughts that are flickering through my mind as well.
Big dilated eyes catch mine. Our heavy breaths mingle.
Our lips are so close I can taste the plea still lingering on his tongue.
A rough hand snatches my chin and tips my head up, our lips coming even more dangerously close. “Say you understand, beautiful,” he whispers in a desperate tone.
I search his gaze—those beautiful light emerald eyes I remember falling into the moment he first looked at me.
He cares.
Even if he doesn’t want to. Even if he doesn’t know how.
And that’s why I submit. I nod to him.
There’s a long moment when his attention slips down, lingering along my lips. An ache glides through me with every passing second as he realizes just how close he and I are.
It hurts to feel the tension. It hurts so good. It hurts even more when he shoves off the mattress. He strides as far away from me as his long legs will carry him.
The door clicks closed.
He leaves.
And it’s only then that I catch my breath.
Possibly for the first time since I arrived in the kingdom of hell.
“The Prince’s dinner is tonight. The dinner,” Zilo explains.
As if the dinner and regular dinner are somehow different to someone who’s never left this man’s bedroom before.
Whatever. I’ve learned in our short twenty-four hours together that it makes those lines around his pretty eyes deepen if you interrupt him when he’s plotting.
Which wouldn’t be a big deal, but the motherfucker is always plotting.
Like right now for example:
“I have training with the lowers of hell this morning. Avian is going to train you for tonight. He’s good. He’ll make sure you’re ready.”
Training… Right.
I nod. Avian’s soft smile is reassuring, and I feel like an idiot when I return the gesture to the blind man.
Should I be telling him when I smile? When I nod? What is the protocol here? Why am I like this?
Zilo’s confidence in me wanes when he spots me shaking my head at myself and mumbling quietly about the blonde leading the blind.
“You can do this, right?” Zilo dips his head into my line of sight. “We picked you for a reason.”
“Because I’m pretty. I get it.” My mouth slams together hard.
“Yes but no. Your unique beauty will get his attention. Your mouth will intrigue him—”
Avian smiles harder, and it’s then that I know they have inside jokes about me and possibly my mouth.
The fur-holes.
“But it’s your fighter background that will keep you alive in all this.
Your inability to shift is a hazard to yourself, but you’ve more than made up for it in your life.
You’re a survivor. It isn’t just your beauty, Cersia.
” His big hand lands on my shoulder, and I feel a tingle of pride from his words.
It’s short-lived.
“So don’t fuck up,” he adds with total seriousness. And then he too slams the door in my face.
Nice pep talk. Thanks.
“Right,” I whisper to myself.
“You’ll be great,” Avian says smoothly.
“Great,” I echo, still staring at the glossy black door.
It’s a tranquil daze that skips beyond time, and I just can’t snap out of it. I know I’d be more capable if I had my beast to rely on. I almost shifted once…but my father stopped me. I don’t remember why, but I remember the feeling of fear.
I still feel that consuming fear every time I try to shift.
I’m lost in those thoughts. Until something very similar to a snap clicks twice next to my ear. My head twitches as a shudder skims through me, and I slowly turn to the boyish man standing behind me with that same reassuring smile tilting his lips.
He stands shirtless, his broad chest seeming even wider in the dim candlelit lighting of the room.
He’s dressed in just black pants once again.
Boots that lace up above his ankles give him a militia look.
The men gave me similar pants and boots, but lucky me, I got an old tattered black shirt to go along with it.
In Avian’s right hand, he holds a little white gadget.
His thumb presses down, and once more it clicks at me in a harsh aggravating way.
I hate it.
“What the fuck is that annoying little box?” My lips curl hard as I speak.
“It’s a clicker trainer.” He holds it out for me to observe, as if by seeing it closer I might not want to slam it to the ground and stomp on it until it no longer resembles a box at all.
“I don’t get it.” I eye him skeptically.
I thought when Zilo said training, I’d be drop-kicking Avian’s sweet little attitude to the floor by now, not discussing hardware.
“Hell’s kingdom is made up of many races, but hellhounds and wolves like yourself are the majority.
Demons and hell fae coexist with us, but the Prince will not take disrespect.
And so you need to learn his few common clicks.
” Avian takes a few steps closer to me, and the more he explains, the more annoyed I’m becoming.
“He clicks at hellhounds?” My left eyebrow is so high it’s ready to jump ship at any moment.
“Yes.” Avian nods, and a strand of his dark hair falls over his bright silver eyes.
My teeth grind, and I try so damn hard to just listen. If I just hold my tongue, surely this won’t really be as demeaning as I’m imagining it.
Avian smiles.
I force a smile.
Then he ruins it all when he speaks: “The first click we learn will be sit.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
“What? What’s wrong?” Avian’s hand skims my elbow lightly, and it’s hard for me to not take my frustration out on him.
Roman was right: I need to listen more. I need to just listen.
I focus as I exhale ever so slowly. “Nothing.” I calm myself with another breath. “I’m fine. Please continue.”
Somehow, I stop myself from flinging my body to the floor and kicking and screaming about the patriarchy and bigots.
I smile.
Avian smiles.
“Today we’ll practice sit and silence.”
My wide eyes widen impossibly more as I literally bite my cheek and smile even harder like a lunatic.
“We’ll do kneel and fetch tonight after the dinner.”
Kneel. Fetch. Kneel. And fetch.
My eye twitches.
“Nope,” I blurt. “Can’t do it.” I’m striding to the door within half a second, and I nearly fall face first when he flashes in front of me with a spark of dark embers.
They’re faster here as well as stronger. Do they even realize it?
“What are you doing?” His hands are around my shoulders, and I can’t even process how powerful this man is. He could snap my bones to dust if he really wanted to. And I don’t give a single damn.
I’m too irate.
“Fetch? Are you fucking serious, Avian?!”
“You’re mad,” says the one man who I thought had some intelligence out of the three.
“Yes! I’m fucking mad!”
He nods like he’s absorbing that info as I spew it.
“Because…” His wide eyes are empty and searching as he tries to piece together this mysterious puzzle. “Because this training is…hard?” He phrases that uncertainty in such a confused way my mouth drops wide open.
“Seriously? I’m mad because it’s belittling, Av! Why the fuck would I fetch something for anyone! I’ve been blessed by the Goddess Moon herself!” Pain shoots through my jaw as I snap my mouth closed with force and determination. “I kneel and fetch for no one.”
His palms slide down my arms so slowly it shivers across my flesh with that single touch. His dark eyebrows pull together with a look of sadness.
When he speaks, it’s a heartbreaking sound.
“Your Goddess means nothing in the kingdom of hell. Your ruler and master is one in the same. And if you wish to live, you’ll kneel when you’re told.
And you’ll definitely fetch whatever he wants,” he whispers like it’s painful to say, and I notice how slowly he takes another little step closer to me.
We’re so close I have to peer up at him from beneath thick lashes. And it hurts to realize how right he is.
It hurts me. And it’s easy to see that it hurts him just as much.
This powerful man before me is a slave.
And now … I am too.