Chapter 1

Chapter One

What the hell is happening to me?

Rough hands pull me from my pallet on the floor, and before my eyes can adjust to the dark room, a hood is drawn over my head.

Fuck.

I take a breath to calm my hammering heart as two people grab me by my upper arms and pull me completely off the floor, carrying me unceremoniously through The Training House, where I am currently in service while my beloved Mistress Clara is traveling.

It’s okay. You know where you are.

With the hood over my head and my feet unable to touch the floor, I’m a bit disoriented—which I know is the point of these abduction scenes. It’s the mindfuck they love, our Masters and Mistresses and their well-trained Handlers. And frankly, it’s something many of the slaves adore, too. But the anxiety I’ve dealt with most of my life does not allow me to revel in this twisted little ritual, even though I’ve been through it before.

Mindfuck extraordinaire with a side of pure panic.

I focus on the sound of their boot heels clicking on the polished wood floors, and I know that sound. I draw in as deep a breath as I can through the heavy fabric of the hood, taking in the expensive scents of beautifully polished wood—I’ve polished these floors myself on hands and knees—and a hint of the fine scotch the Masters of the House prefer.

Familiar.

I know this drill. Probably Jasper and Curtis, the two Handlers Master Christopher often refers to as “the goons”, taking me back to the Primal Ranch. I’ve been there before, know what to expect.

But then the sound of their boots changes, and I realize they’re taking me through the marble foyer.

Their hands grip my arms so hard I may be left with bruises—although I don’t bruise easily anymore. I’ve been a contracted slave for far too long. None of us who have been in these elite circles mark easily. Rough handling is something I’m used to. Something I crave.

But something feels off about this.

They carry me down the front stairs, and the cool San Francisco fog whispers against my naked skin. But don’t they normally take us down the back stairs inside the House? The ones that lead to the garage? Why risk the front stairs, even if it is the middle of the night?

My heart begins to pound once more. And again, I ask myself the question.

What the hell is happening to me?

There’s barely time to think about it as I am dumped into the back of the van—at least, I assume it’s the van, the one I know. The metal floor beneath me is cold and hard. Familiar.

“Get her chained up,” a deep, unfamiliar voice says.

Unfamiliar .

I’m really in a panic now.

Do they simply have a new Handler? Or are these people not part of the exotic and profoundly extreme realm of kink I know? And if not, who are they?

Another man makes a low grunt, then the steel shackle is clamped around my ankle. The clanking of the chain is almost soothing.

Almost.

Doors slam and the engine starts, and I am too alone in the van, naked, in chains, being driven away from the relative safety of The Training House, where my Mistress left me to be beaten and fucked and ruined again and again. Everything was just as it should be.

I rely on that—the known expectation. Even the exorbitantly creative punishments. The Masters are always thinking of something new to torture us with, but even then, it’s a known quantity. And the constant unknown is what I escaped into this life from. It’s why I’m here.

Where am I now, though?

I’ve been driven the route to the Primal Ranch from The Training House before, but I’m too much in a state of alarm to know if we’ve gone the right way.

I go back to my breathing, a long, slow inhale, a long slow exhale, exactly as I’ve been taught.

Calm down .

They must simply be new Handlers.

Right?

Inhale, exhale.

The breathing isn’t really helping me, and soon the panic and my hammering heart become exhausting, and a slow tear slips down my cheek.

Oh, they’ve done it this time, haven’t they? Fucked with my head until I’m crying. It doesn’t happen often anymore. I’ve been a slave for too long. So they’ve found a way to mess with my head. They’re doing a fucking fantastic job of it.

Inhale, exhale.

Finally my body begins to relax into the rhythm of the tires, but very quickly a series of bumps in the road is accompanied by a hollow sound I can’t quite figure out. A bridge, perhaps? A minute or two later we’re on a smooth highway of some sort again. Maybe a different route down to the Carmel Valley where the Primal Ranch sits in a small basin between rolling hills?

I’m not going to figure it out; I must accept that. Just as I accept any of the punishments my Masters and Mistresses choose to inflict on me. This is, after all, what I signed up for all those years ago. Literally. To have my free will taken out of my hands. To give myself over to the Masters and Mistresses and Handlers who make those choices for me. It’s what I wanted, and still want. It’s the only way I know how to live anymore. But am I being given all of it on some newly perverted level? Or am I about to have it all taken away from me?

Inhale, exhale.

I may as well try to sleep. Once we reach the Primal Ranch, everything and anything could start right away. And if I’m to fight in the Primal Games, which is what I often do there, I’ll need to be in good shape. I close my eyes under the hood and will myself to relax, one muscle at a time, in the safety of the hard metal encircling my ankle.

I am bound.

I am in my Masters’ hands.

I am safe.

I dream of the one time I’ve ever seen my father. I’m seven or eight. A knock at the door of our small, dirty apartment in Hollywood, and my mother answers. When I hear arguing, I get up from my narrow bed and peek around the wall. He has my same dark hair and gray eyes. She yells at him about abandoning her when she was pregnant with me. He makes excuses, neither of them saying I was wanted, which is something that has always been very clear to me. She sees me and orders me back to bed, and I go, afraid of her rages. And still arguing, she takes him to her bed for the night, leaving me in my too-small pajamas and the vinegar-sweet scent of heroin drifting in the air.

I hear them fucking. I know what it is. I’ve seen it over and over, when my mother brings strange men home. This man is no less a stranger. I hide under the covers with my pillow over my head, but I can’t block it out.

Get out, get out, get out!

I wake up with my heart hammering in my chest. It’s so damn dark, and I forget where I am until I fall into the cadence of the tires rolling on pavement.

I am in the van. Going to the Primal Ranch. I am okay.

My hands are free and I wish I could wipe the tears from my face, but the hood is buckled too tightly around my neck, so I have to suffer the degradation of my own emotions—emotions I’ve done my best to pack away in the darkest recesses of my fucked-up mind.

God damn it .

I try the breathing again.

Inhale, exhale.

Eventually it begins to work. But how long was I asleep? This trip feels endless, when the Primal Ranch is only maybe two and a half hours south of The Training House, and I am aware once more that something is off.

The van slows and I hear the crunch of gravel, then we stop.

A moment later the sound of someone getting out, then the back doors open and a cold draft makes me shiver.

“Get her out of there.”

Hands on me again, just as rough this time as they unfasten the shackle around my ankle, then I’m lifted and set on the ground, sharp gravel rough under my bare feet. The hood is yanked from my head and I blink in the dim sunlight coming through the towering sequoia trees.

Sequoias?

Where the fuck am I?

I keep my gaze on the ground, on two pairs of boots attached to whoever took me in the night. I try desperately to remember if these are the same boots Jasper and Curtis wear, but everything is fuzzy as my eyes try to adjust.

“Here, drink this,” one male voice commands as he shoves a water bottle in my face.

As I take it and lean my head back to drink, I catch a glimpse of his face. Brown hair, nondescript features. Not Jasper or Curtis. I try to swallow my panic along with the water.

Another voice commands, “Come on, Girl. You need to pee.”

He takes my arm and drags me faster than my feet can manage into the trees, and once more I am freaking the fuck out as I do my best not to trip and fall. Who are they? Where are they taking me?

And if this is one of my current Master’s fucked-up and twisted little plans, what do I dare to do? Look at their faces? Question them? Run?

No.

Slave that I am, I cannot break the rules, even if something diabolical is going on here.

Well, whatever it is, it is diabolical. But diabolical mindfuck presented to me by Master Christopher and Master Damon? Or have I actually been kidnapped from their House?

The man I don’t know shoves me to the ground and my knees hit a pile of fallen leaves.

“Pee,” he orders.

Good slave that I am, I do it, squatting with my knees apart so I won’t get any on my ankles.

“Back in the van,” he commands, his voice gruff as he pulls me to my feet.

I go stumbling after him, my surroundings a blur that is more scent than visuals: the smell of dark earth, of growing things. And for a single moment I contemplate running as fast as I can through the trees, deep into the forest where no one will ever find me again.

Except I don’t want to be lost. I don’t want that more than I want to save myself from what could possibly be a disaster. I spent the first years of my life lost. I was lost until I signed my first slave contract. Until I signed up for…possibly this.

Can’t go back .

I stand still as the other man—the nondescript man—pulls the black hood over my head once more and fastens the buckle. I am lifted into the van, the shackle is back in place, and we’re off once more.

I have no idea if I will come out of this alive.

But I am more frightened of disappointing my Masters. And so I lie on the cold metal floor, curled on my side, waiting to arrive somewhere. And fall into my dreams once more.

I dream of the club where I got a job as a go-go dancer at seventeen. Flashing lights and pounding music, and a certain pride that I’d lied my way in. I writhe for the crowd in my cage up on a pedestal. I feel that sensation, like a glimmer of heat over my skin: the love I feel for the cage, although I don’t know yet what it means. But in the dream I am both seventeen again and myself now, with that thorough understanding that I was born to be a slave. With the knowledge of the safety the cage provides.

Yes .

The dream shifts, as dreams often do, and I am fifteen, hiding in my closet as the EMTs take my mother’s body away. The apartment still smells of the black tar she was smoking.

Can’t let them find me .

I wait for the sound of the front door closing before I step out of the closet and into my uncertain future.

Another shift, and I am with my darling Mistress Clara for the first time. She is so exquisite, with her luxurious mink-brown hair like a dark waterfall around her slender shoulders.

Her dark red lips part, and she smiles wickedly, and I am reliving that falling, falling, into those amber eyes filled with sadistic glee before she even touches me. They see everything—every single thing, down to my bones, down to my soul. I love her. Worship her. And every time she hands me over to the Primal Ranch or to another Master or Mistress, I am so honored that she thinks enough of me to share me, and yet, I miss her so.

I come awake with a start. Will I ever see my Mistress again?

More helpless tears, and it does no good to struggle against them. I am so lost. Will she ever find me?

I try once more to calm down.

Inhale, exhale.

It’s not working.

For fuck’s sake, it’s not working.

Someone help me .

The tears have turned into sobs; long, drawn-out sobs as the tears slide down my cheeks, gathering at my neck where the cloth bag is fastened, and I feel like I can barely breathe. And suddenly, we stop.

Very quickly the doors of the van are opened, and those hard hands are on me once more, releasing my ankle from the shackle and pulling me from the van. My feet hit dirt this time. There is talking in the distance, a murmur of voices I can’t quite make out.

They pull me along without a word, one of them on either side holding me by my arms, and I stumble once and begin to fall, but they catch me. I am too frightened now to even cry, the tears clogging my throat like a lead weight, choking me. I draw in a desperate breath.

Then suddenly the bag is yanked off my head and I blink and blink in the bright sunlight, trying to clear my eyes.

“Oh, fuck. She’s a god damn mess. Hold still, Girl,” the nondescript one demands as he runs a small towel over my face.

I can hardly believe what’s in front of me; I’ve been so convinced of my fate, with too much time in my own head in the damn van.

They’re walking me toward a line of slaves—probably twenty of them—all of them gloriously naked except for some piercings and tattoos here and there, and the steel collars around their necks. Each one of them is more beautiful than the last. Boys and Girls and Zes, but none decorated with the ribbons or the strap-ons we’re dressed in at the Primal Ranch. There are a few people behind them that I imagine are Handlers.

But this is definitely not the Primal Ranch.

No. This is no place I’ve seen before.

And yet, as I take a few calming breaths, I look at the line of slaves, and I recognize a few faces. Madame Gemma’s dark-haired Jordan, who has been with her for several years. And further down the line I see Lilli, a redhead with glorious curly hair, who Master Anthony and Mistress Alina have recently bought to serve at the Primal Ranch.

Oh yes, we slaves know each other’s names, even though we are addressed only as Boy or Girl or Ze. We whisper to one another in the dark when we are certain not to be caught, even the most obedient of us.

Seeing them is reassuring; I am in the right place, where I am supposed to be. This game has really fucked with my head, which is the Masters’ intention, I know. And as much as I hate it, fear play is often what I need the most. Because this fear they create is reassuring in knowing that ultimately, I am always fine. Cared for. Beaten, yes, made to sleep on the floor, fucked mercilessly in every possible orifice. Made to bleed. But always after are the hot baths, often with attendants to rub me down with a thick towel, to massage my aching body. I am well fed and attended to and kept safe from the world.

It makes me realize that fear is nothing but the fear itself. It’s really nothing at all now, since becoming a slave, because it never manifests into anything I truly have to be frightened of. And in my fucked-up head this calms my anxiety in a way nothing else ever has.

They know me too well. Which is, of course, their job.

Oh, but we are not anywhere near the reassurance part, are we?

All of this rushes through my head as I am put in line with the others, right next to Jordan, and someone slips a steel collar around my neck from behind me and quickly locks it at the back before the two strange men disappear. But I understand what my role is now, and that understanding and the safety of the collar are like a warm blanket around my shoulders. I know what is expected of me. My fate hasn’t changed. Not too much, anyway. Someone will surely tell me what to do shortly, and it comforts me.

Inhale, exhale .

My world rights itself as I take another deep breath, centering myself in that surety. The air is clean and pure, and just a little chilly with the early summer sun high in the brilliant blue sky, lighting the mountain tops in the distance.

The Handlers are talking among themselves behind us, but I do my best not to listen. They will tell us when there’s something I need to know.

There is a shuffling, and a figure pushes between Jordan and me and walks out in front of the lined-up slaves. With my eyes downcast, as is proper, I see only delicate feet clad in fitted, knee-high black leather boots and snug leather pants on a petite frame. Then I hear a familiar voice.

“Slaves! Look up. Look sharp.”

I know the voice, and when I raise my eyes as I am told to, I see Dahlia from the Primal Ranch, who announces the Primal Games and sometimes drives the human pony carriages. My heart beats in anticipation, my body filling with adrenaline, ready for whatever we are meant to do in this place.

“Welcome to the Bambi Hunt!” Dahlia announces.

There’s a shuffling of feet among the slaves; none of us knows what this means.

“There is only one thing you should know, dear Boys, Girls, and Zes,” she continues. “When you hear the starting gun fire, run for the woods!” she announces, gesturing to the heavy stand of trees and brush across the meadow behind her. “And whatever you do, don’t get caught.”

My adrenaline spikes, my blood rushing hot through my veins. The energy emanating from the other slaves—that hot pump of blood, and the need to please—is a nearly palpable thing in the air.

It occurs to me for a brief second that I have no idea what will happen to us, but it doesn’t matter. I have been told what to do, and I will obey.

Let the games begin. Games I am certain will be as sick and twisted as our Masters and Mistresses can make them.

Familiar .

I am ready.

Dahlia holds her arm high in the air, then shoots the blank gun and yells, “ Run !”