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  “Leash or no leash?” She meant for me to choose even though I thought she was the one in charge.

  “Uh, I think we can do the leash. That way you won’t lose me in the crowd.”

  “Good thinking.” Tokyo plucked a black leash off Krystal’s wall of accessories.

  “She won’t mind?”

  “Nah. Krystal and I are buds. And she picked out your outfit.”

  “Oh.” I held still as she hooked the leash to the ring on the collar.

  “Perfect. Let’s go have some fun.”

  Clearly, the exterior of Krystal’s home was misleading and every room in the interior was soundproof. We doubled back down the hallway toward the garage, but made a left instead of a right. We passed several closed doors and then Tokyo opened a huge metal door that opened onto a big open room that was filled with people engaged in various…activities.

  I have to say, being a member of ABO prepared for me some of what I saw. There was a Halloween party going on. Music playing, decorations hung from the ceiling. Costumes altered in interesting ways to allow access to different body parts. There were a few people in furry costumes—two foxes and a white cat. The most eye-catching thing I saw was going on, literally, in the middle of the floor.

  A naked woman who looked a lot like Sophia Fillamorrow, Baltimore’s current mayor, was kneeling beside two young guys who were splayed out on their backs. They both had fake pig noses and ears on, and pink leather strapped around their chests and hips. That was all they were wearing. The woman who really looked an awful lot like the mayor, had their penises between her hands, and she was rubbing them together. They were both laughing and moaning. A few people yelled for them to squeal, which they both tried to do before breaking into fits of more laughter.

  On a nearby couch, a man dressed as a commercial airline pilot, who I quickly realized was a vampire, was getting a blowjob from an older man dressed as a female flight attendant. They had my attention for only a few seconds though. The squealing on the floor brought me back to center stage. Tokyo seemed fine with letting me watch. She just stood there beside me, not saying anything. Maybe she was letting me absorb the shock.

  “You are most certainly hell-bent on having me drawn and quartered.” I looked up as a very slim, very tall woman in a pornified Marie Antoinette costume came sidling up to us in her gold heels. Thick white powder covered her face, but I saw her fangs when she smiled. She bent and kissed Tokyo on the mouth. Then she looked down at me. “Welcome to my home, Jill. I’m Moreland. Can my Krystal get you anything? A snack? A beverage? A mostly naked boy?” Her Southern accent was so thick.

  I was thirsty, but I didn’t want to send Krystal to wait on me. Also, I was a little afraid to speak.

  “I think she’d love some water,” Tokyo said with a little squeeze to my hand. “It’s been a weird night already.”

  “Water coming right up.” I watched as Krystal hopped off her spot on the floor, where she’d been watching the action. She disappeared into the crowd.

  Tokyo and Moreland continued to talk, but I was watching the floor. One of the boys arched his back sharply off the floor. I thought he was going to come, but he seemed to be fighting that urge. His body sagged again and he regained a bit of his composure. It looked like the other boy was about to come, but it looked like he was pinching his own leg to stop that from happening.

  “It’s a game we play sometimes.” Krystal seemed to appear next to me with a red cup full of water. “Whoever comes first gets a punishment and the winner gets a prize.”

  I took a long sip. I had to thank Tokyo. I was dying of thirst. “What’s the prize?” I asked.

  “You’ll see. Tokyo, can Jill come watch with me?”

  “Why don’t we both join you?”

  “Yes, yes. Please. I’ll be right with you,” Moreland said.

  We followed Krystal and found a good spot on the floor, right near the woman and the two boys. Tokyo sat first then gestured for me to come sit between her legs. She wrapped her arms around my waist as Krystal plopped down beside us. The woman we were watching was definitely the mayor.

  “Give in, Luke!” Krystal yelled at one of the guys.

  “No,” the taller one with brown hair groaned. “And fuck you.”

  A bunch of people laughed, including Tokyo, but I was still too caught up in what was going on to come up with any sort of reaction.

  “You okay?” Tokyo whispered in my ear.

  “Yes.” But I couldn’t help but shiver when she kissed my neck.

  “You wanted to know more.”

  “You’re right. I did.”

  “Are you wet right now?” she asked bluntly. Her lips and tongue were still teasing my skin. Just then, the boy who wasn’t Luke came all over the mayor’s hand, Luke’s penis, and his own stomach.

  “I am now,” I said bluntly.

  Tokyo’s breath rushed out against my skin as she laughed. Her hand slipped between my legs, and she cupped me roughly. I squeezed my eyes shut. I loved her gentle touch, but this felt so much better. The coarse fabric pressing against my clit was exactly what I wanted.

  The chaos went on in front of us. The boy who lost, Davey, apparently from the taunts and instructions he was following, crawled to his knees and cleaned off Mayor Fillamorrow’s hand and Luke’s penis and hips with his tongue. When he was done, the mayor shoved a pig tail plug into his ass.

  The whole time, Tokyo was rubbing and grabbing me. I knew there was a chance that she would make me a part of the spectacle, though I saw that I already was. Another couple, two women who both appeared to be human, had started fooling around on another couch. One of them was watching us. She seemed to be grinding to the same rhythm as Tokyo’s hand between my legs.

  “You can come when I say so. Do you understand that?” Tokyo said in my ear.

  “Yes, but why?”

  “Because I’m not ready for you to come yet. That’s how this works, you submitting to me. Do you understand?”

  Luke stood up and finally claimed his prize. Mayor Fillamorrow’s mouth. She gripped his hips and took his painfully red erection into her mouth. Davey handed her the other pigtail plug and that went right up Luke’s ass.

  She started sucking him off. Krystal called out first, but soon half the room was chanting, “Come! Come! Come!”

  A smile flashed across Luke’s face, but it was gone just as quickly, replaced with a look of pure determination. He gently grabbed the back of the mayor’s head and started thrusting his hips. I could tell the mayor was smiling around his penis. She was having a great time. I was really close to coming.

  “And if I don’t want to submit to you?” I shuffled, trying to shift her hand closer to my hole. The fabric of the bloomers was still in the way, but that didn’t matter. I wanted the pressure.

  “Then I stop and we just enjoy the party. What do you want?”

  “I want to submit.”

  “Good.”

  Tokyo’s hand stopped moving.

  Luke came in the mayor’s mouth as the crowd around us cheered him on. Tokyo’s other hand slid up my neck, and she tipped my head back. Her tongue was in my mouth, moving around, searching, exploring, making me wish she’d keep touching my clit. Making me wish her fingers were inside me making me come.

  When she let me come up for air, she started stroking me again, reminding me that an orgasm was nowhere in my near future. I wondered what my prize would be if I could last, what my punishment would be if I just gave in to the urge to come in my borrowed bloomers right then and there.

  I watched the mayor stand up and kiss Luke on mouth. Cum dribbled down both their chins.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tokyo

  I got Jill back to the house way before sunrise. The girls usually rolled in between one and two on Saturday nights, so I figured if we split by one, I could squeeze her back into her grapes and back to the house before Ginger had reason to scream at me for keeping Jill out all night. We did cut it close though. I�
�d planned to try to make her go a few days without coming. She’d been desperate for it throughout the night, and I thought it might be fun to tease her for a few days until I surprise fucked her in the stacks at the library during one of her study sessions with Brayley. But I couldn’t make it back to the car.

  I thought it would make sense for Jill to shower in Krystal’s room, wash off the crazy amount of eye shadow I’d smeared on her. Somewhere between taking off the collar and the wrist cuffs, something in my blood told me it was time to fuck. I pulled her on top of me on the bed and had her ride my fingers until she came all over my hand and lap. Again, I came when she came and decided to ignore that frightening fact, again. And then I followed her into the shower and had her eat my pussy. Watching the water wash the dark makeup off her face was such a turn on, I came on her tongue, then pulled her off the floor so I could taste myself on her lips.

  The look on her face when I pulled away, the look that told me she was more than okay with this shower being the start of our night, was the punch in the face reminder I needed. It was time to get home.

  Somehow, I knew Ginger was going to find out that I’d taken her to Moreland’s, but I had two things working in my defense. One, Moreland barely talked to Jill ’cause she was too busy hosting and fucking. Two, Jill had a great time. When I wasn’t teasing her, she and Krystal were talking or teasing Luke. They danced a little, took some selfies, and Krystal herself explained her deal with the puppy play. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure Jill got it, but on the way home she told me that living full-time with Moreland and not having to work probably relieved a lot of stress for Krystal, and allowed her to tap into and indulge more dedicated fantasies. I wanted to tell her that Krystal had been into puppy play before Moreland scooped her up, but I didn’t.

  Jill had a way of thinking about things. She was literal like me, but her chain of logic was different. I saw Krystal’s submission as a part of who she was, and so did Jill, but she tackled her comprehension of the whole situation from a practical standpoint.

  In her mind, Krystal was a full-time submissive who was comfortable expressing her interest in pet play because she was free of responsibilities. And then it occurred to me that maybe Jill was living her life that way, defining her every move, expressing her every desire (or not) based on what she thought she had to do. Jill had spent her two years of college practically avoiding the kind of fun she wanted to have. And I had to wonder what she was and was not doing with her life due to her own sense of responsibility. I had to wonder what the girls in the house and how they withheld their friendships and kindness was doing to Jill. Why was she double majoring? Why hadn’t she tried dating outside of the house before?

  Did she even give a shit about this elaborate sex ed project or was it just another responsibility to fill her time, to fill some void?

  I felt like I knew the answer to all of those questions, but there was only so much I could do. I couldn’t derail her academic plans, and I still couldn’t order the girls to be nice to her, but I could be nice to her. I could keep spending time with her the way she wanted me to. The way I wanted to.

  I think I was falling for Jill.

  ❖

  I didn’t hear a peep from Ginger until that night. Around eight, she was in my head with a 911-get-over-here-right-now message that was mostly yelling. Five seconds later, she sent a text. When I saw that it had gone out to the group, I knew something was up. When I showed up at their apartment and our brother-kings from across the street were there too, I knew something was really up. I hugged Rodrick and Pax before Ginger told me to sit down.

  “I’m sorry to meet with you all like this, but it’s urgent. I’ve just heard from Francois down with the Beta chapter at Carolina, and one of their boys has been killed. One of Rudy’s. A junior named Javier.”

  The shock in the room was palpable. We all knew we could lose a feeder at any moment. We did what we could to hold off disease, but accidents happened, crimes were committed. If Ginger and Cleo weren’t undead proof of that. But the pain was still overwhelming. Losing a feeder, losing a feeder young, was the worst feeling in the world.

  “We think the same thing or something like what went after Jessi, went after him as well,” Ginger said.

  “What do we know for sure?” I asked.

  “We have this video.” Our brother-king Franklin turned around the laptop he was holding. He’d cued up a security video. A young guy ran down a brick path to the street just as a blue, late model SUV pulled up. “This was right outside the house. And those are his parents in the van. Ten minutes later, he tweeted, ‘Parents surprised me with a visit. Ditching my two o’clock for some Waffle House.’”

  “Twenty minutes after that, Rudy said he started feeling Javier’s distress,” Rodrick said. “But he could not pinpoint the cause of it, the nature of the feeling. He said it felt chaotic, exact, and muted all at once.” Which was strange. We felt our feeders’ every emotion, but to keep from going completely insane, we learned how to sort those emotions and sensations into categories of urgency. A paper cut didn’t even catch my radar. One being murdered on the other hand…

  “Approximately an hour after things started to feel shaky, Rudy lost him,” Rodrick said. The thought of it was like a killer punch to the gut.

  “Where did they find him?” Omi asked.

  “About fifty miles from Durham. Small, rundown town in the middle of nowhere. In an abandoned house, same as Jessi. Marks all over his body, but it was his own skin and blood under his fingernails, like he’d been trying to claw himself out of his own body,” Franklin said. “Francois had the presence of mind enough to at least photograph the scene and his body.”

  “When we caught up to his parents, they were already back home with no recollection of ever leaving town to surprise Javier,” Pax explained. “Dalhem’s with them right now, trying to re-create their mental day.”

  He’d wipe their memories immediately after. Clear every trace of himself and give them the memory of a new day. A day when they didn’t accidentally lure their son to his death.

  The usual routine would kick in after that, everything that typically happened when one of our humans died of a mysterious cause. An alternate crime scene would be staged, if it was needed. Fires worked well a lot of the time. Then one of our people with the local police would be contacted. They’d handle the paperwork and reach out to the parents. The family would take it from there, and us immortals and the few humans that knew the truth would mourn. Wonder why with all our powers, the sheer strength of our blood and the magic it allows us, we couldn’t be there to protect them. I felt terrible for Rudy.

  “We stay pretty focused on our collegiate nests. Has there been any word of any feeder outside of our network being kidnapped or attacked?” Kina asked.

  “We have to tell the girls,” I said. Kina’s question was valid, but protecting the girls under our roof was all I could think of.

  “I don’t know—” Ginger started.

  “Look, I know we don’t want to scare them or give them overwhelming information that they just don’t need to know, but if something is out there targeting them, they need to know. How can they protect themselves, how can they look out for each other if they have no clue what they are looking out for?”

  “I have to agree with my sister, Tokyo,” Franklin said as he nodded to Rodrick. “I want to tell my boys.”

  “It’ll give us more protection and time to get a read on what the fuck this thing is and what it wants,” Faeth added.

  There was a bit of silent communication between Ginger and Rodrick. I’m sure Camila was involved too because she was always invited to the party. Finally, Ginger caved.

  “Ugh, I hate this. We’re supposed to protect them. I feel like it’s going to cause a panic.”

  “Hey, that’s the point of us talking now,” Natasha said. “So we can come up with a plan to avoid a panic.”

  “I know. Kina and Pax, contact all the collegiate nests an
d let them know,” Ginger said. “I’ll speak to Dalhem about telling every vampire. I know he’s had his eye on the whole region, but so far it looked like whatever it is just started targeting our feeders.”

  Rodrick walked over to Ginger, taking her by the shoulders. “We will protect them. We’ll find a way.”

  Ginger smiled weakly and squeezed his hand. Then Rodrick and our other brothers vanished.

  Ginger turned to Camila. “Let’s text the girls. Emergency chapter meeting at nine fifteen.”

  We all took that as our cue to hit our assigned task. I wanted to reach out to our feeders with the Feds right away, see if any suspicious deaths or missing persons cases had popped up in our area. But Ginger had other ideas.

  “You. Stay.”

  I eased back into my chair, ignoring the looks Faeth and Omi gave me before they vanished. Yeah, yeah. I was in trouble with the moms again. What was new? I kept my mouth shut, though, and waited for Ginger’s groundless yet inevitable temper tantrum.

  “I’d think very carefully before you answer.”

  “Okay. I’m still waiting on the question.”

  “Where did you take Jill last night?”

  I looked at Ginger and Camila by default because they were practically sitting on top of each other. What the hell was Ginger playing at? Did she not feel Jill walking down the hall right that second? Or had she planned this so she could interrogate us both?

  I watched the corners of her eyes shift when the knock came at the door and then her nostrils flared. What the fuck was going on?

  “Come on in, Jill!”

  Jill opened the door then stopped when she saw me. “I…I just got the text about the emergency meeting, but it’s my turn to feed you. I thought I’d come down first. What’s going on?”

  “We’re just talking about what we did last night,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. This was not a good place for me to be, between feeder and demon, but it was too late.