But he’s wrong. He didn’t have a mentor like Ryker. He may be a jackass that deals in pain and humiliation, but I was trained at the feet of someone that didn’t give a damn about anything. Micha doesn’t scare me because there’s nothing he can do to me that hasn’t already been done.
I haven’t had things cut off or broken, so Micha could try to get to me that way, but it still won’t matter. I’m dead inside. I have very little to live for. Most everyone that knows me hates me, and that’s just fine.
Granted, a part of me wants to think that my half-sisters Shelby and Maggie would miss me if something happened. But I’m sure lovers Lana and Parker would be just fine. A good bout of sex doesn’t automatically equal kinship, and I’m not naive enough to think otherwise.
God knows my mother, Cheyenne, would miss me. She was one of the few that actually visited me in jail. Deep down, I know she cares about me, but it’s still hard to accept her love. It’s far too little too late.
I don’t blame her for my fate, not exactly. It’s true that she gave me up, but I’d like to think if she knew how my life would have turned out, that she would have either aborted me or figured something else out. But how can I be mad at her for wanting to not kill me in her womb? I mean, if she had, all this pain would have never happened, but it’s not like I can yell at her for that.
And honestly, that’s probably what guts me the most. I don’t have a clear channel for my anger. Just like, I can’t blame my father, Louis, for not finding me earlier. If what he says is true, he never even knew about me. I need someone to hate, someone to blame. In the absence of that, I’ll just lash out at anyone that gets in my way.
I don’t need friends; I don’t need a mother; I don’t need a father. I don’t need anything but my wits, fists, and knife. Honestly, as long as I can teach track and plot my revenge, I’ll be just fine.
Sliding my hand off of my cock, I wedge it deep inside my pocket and pull out my knife, holding it up in front of my face for a moment before sighing and dropping it back on the bed.
The quack was right through. I hold so much anger. The problem is, he doesn’t even know the half of it. What he saw in that pristine office was a blip, a mere shadow of the rage that consumes me. If only he left well enough alone. All he managed to do was bring things to the surface that I tried so desperately to forget.
He’s the one that’s making me a risk, a liability. If he just allowed me to do my thing, go through the initiation, then live on the track field, I wouldn’t be an issue for anyone. Even though Ryker controlled that too, it was where I was most free. I ran because I felt like I could leave everything behind for just those few precious moments. Dust in the wind.
Plus, there was always the added bonus of getting extra rewards when I did well. When I didn’t get first place, he took my ass - “Getting the lead out,” as he put it. But when I won, when I brought home those ribbons and trophies, he hugged me, patted me on the back, and allowed me to sleep unmolested.
Granted, even without his praise and accolades, I still would have run. It was my out, my escape. Whenever I needed to breathe, I lied to Ryker, convincing him that I needed to practice. I didn’t, at least not every time, but it was a few hours where nothing and no one would touch me. I was unbreakable, unstoppable.
That stupid shrink wouldn’t understand it. There is no way his pompous ass ever had to deal with anything like what I went through. All he does is sit there and pass judgment, acting as if he cares. But he doesn’t. All he did was kick over the hornets’ nest and then backed away, hoping he wouldn't get stung.
Shaking my head, I take in a deep breath and hold it. I can’t get to Micha, not anytime soon. I need to get myself back under control. I need to fit in long enough to take advantage of this haven while I plot my next move. Though it’s begrudgingly, I do have to acknowledge the safety of this plan. The truce between the societies will keep me safe until I’m ready to leave.
It will give me time to brush myself off, lick my wounds, fuck a few freshmen, then be on my way. At least that’s something better than Ashen Springs. Lana and Parker were a good fuck, but even they can’t take the edge off right now.
Everything in me is amped up, running so hot that not even the both of them can quench my need to conquer and command. The few girls I managed to see on my way to my new place were soft, supple, and more than able to satisfy the urges thrumming through me.
The fact that this society grants me access to submissives that are trained and willing to take me is a step up from anything that Louis’s club, Malum, can offer. Sometimes they’d take in women off the street and pass them as trained, but they weren’t. They were scared little children that cried out, begging for things to stop.
Stop is not a word in my vocabulary. Never has been and never will be. It still rankles me that the submissives here are allowed to have things like safewords and limits. At least in Malum, I had free reign to do whatever I wanted, and no one would bat an eye.
I trained myself there. I taught myself how to make both women and men cry out in pleasure. When they took the pain I gave them without a fuss, I rewarded them with pleasure beyond their comprehension. But when they didn’t…. I knew exactly how to hurt them. That knowledge was like a second skin, coating me, consuming me, turning me into Ryker.
It was such a rush. Until then, I never truly understood what it was like to have such power and wield it over a person. At times, I wanted them to fight back. I wanted them to say no, to deny me. It allowed the freedom to unleash the same hell that was poured into my body. I wanted to consume the submissives there, to leave them broken and raw, their sanity bleeding out, staining the interiors until even their deaths wouldn’t make them free of the place.
But I refrained, held back. I didn’t want to do anything that put my membership at risk. Ryker paid good money for me to be a spy, and if I destroyed the submissives like I longed to do, then they probably would have shoved me out. Dead bodies are rarely good for business.
Outside of the club, however, I could do whatever the hell I wanted. Any woman I fucked didn’t have a say in what I did to them. They just took it, just like I took it. I unleashed onto them a fraction of what Ryker did to me. They should have been grateful. I allowed him to fuck my ass raw while I fucked them, saving them from the torment of Ryker’s dick.
But did they ever thank me? No. They ran off screaming, only to be yet another casualty of Ryker. The number of bodies buried would rival a cemetery, and it was needless. All they had to do was submit, keep their mouths shut, act like they enjoyed it, and all would have been fine.
So many women are dead because of hysterics. It was stupid. I was content to let them just leave, but Ryker was right. Any one of them could have gone to the police and identified us, making it harder to work. They had to be dealt with.
I sampled almost every “submissive” in and around Ashen Springs and found each of them lacking. Only one managed to flee before I had a chance to take her, to break her. Even now, her blue eyes haunt my dreams. I saw her for a brief moment at Malum and craved her. She had just that right mix of fear and resolve. There was something in those crystalline depths that called to me, and I cursed whatever God put me in this hellhole that I never managed to find out what it was.
When I went to claim her, she was gone. No one said anything, but I know a fuck up when I see it. Somehow, this wraith managed to escape, fleeing into the night where no one could find her.
Perhaps she’s dead. Perhaps all of this was a pipe dream. Maybe she never even existed at all. Countless women danced in front of me and shook their asses in my face, hoping that I’d take them back to their room and help them forget why they were there.
I’m just psychotic enough to have made her up. Even now, the image of her face trips about my skull like a phantom, a ghost. I never got her name, but any name she would have given me would have been made up. Her body was made for me. Her pristine skin just begged for my knife. I craved her more than I craved anything since being with Ryker. I even craved her more than my freedom.
To have her, to possess her, I would have offered up my ass willingly, taken whatever beatings he wanted to give me. She was my grail, my salvation. I didn’t know how I knew this, but it danced along my skin as she moved back and forth in an untrained manner. It was in every shaky smile she forced my way. She was supposed to be mine.
But then she was gone. As if she never existed.
It had to be my brain going crazy. There was no other explanation. Even the other girls seemed to have no clue who I was talking about. It was maddening, infuriating. The fact that she dared to be a figment in my imagination, a girl that never existed. It was all too much.
Normally, I could shove her out, keep her back in the deep recesses where she belonged, but as with all the other shit the shrink stirred up, she came roaring back to life, taunting me with her perfection.
Shaking my head, I sit up on the bed and force the thoughts back into their box. To survive here, I have to play by their rules. I fucking hate it, but I have no choice. If I want to face Micha, I have to lay low for now.
A sharp rap on my door sparks my attention, and I reach down for my knife and curl my fingers around it. Perhaps it’s finally time. I just want to get this over with, so I can get on with my new life. Crossing one foot in front of the other, I ease my way toward the door, just like I was taught.
I listen out for anything that might give away who is on the other side. Though there’s a peephole, I don’t dare use it. Ryker made it clear that anything I could see out of was something the other person could see into. Resting my back on the door, I listen for sounds outside, but it’s deathly quiet.
“Luke. It’s me. Open up.”
Fucking hell. Why is Louis here? Throwing the door open wide, I let him in, grimacing when he ducks through the frame and looks around. He’s too close to my stuff, too close to the few things I hold dear to me.
“Decided to make up for lost time, Dad? You always were a bit late to the party.”
The look he gives me, that stupid mixture of sadness and pity, rankles my nerves. He was never there. He never saved me from the clutches of Ryker. He never allowed me the childhood I could have had. I never dreamed of the typical stuff like throwing a baseball back and forth in the front yard, but having him for a dad would have been far better than having Ryker.
Fuck. A dog would have made a better dad than Ryker, but that’s beside the point. Louis still thinks he has the right to waltz in and make everything “better,” which is infuriating.
Where was he when I was bouncing around foster homes? Where was he when I was forced to cater to the whims of strangers that claimed to love me and want to be my parents, only to lock me up in a closet when they didn’t want to deal with me?
Where was he when Ryker picked me up from yet another boy's home, promising me love and affection, everything I ever wanted and needed, craved even? I guess I should have clarified and asked him what love really meant to him because we shared far different opinions.
Ryker must have seen me there, languishing in that boy’s home, just wishing someone would take a chance on me, to love me. Hell, if I was being honest with myself, I kept thinking maybe my dad would find me and take me home. But it wasn’t my dad that eventually adopted me. It was Ryker. He saw the worn, broken boy and decided to take him home to mold him into his perfect monster.
Where was he when Ryker had me in his clutches, training me to take his fat cock up my ass when I should have been outside tossing a football with my classmates? Where the fuck was Louis when I cried out in pain as he beat me? The fact that Louis had far more love and concern for Mason, a kid that wasn’t even fucking his, was far too much to bear.
Why now? Why, when I absolutely do not need him, is he here?