Release: Davlova: Book One (11 page)

“Please,” he whispered. “Master, please.”

“‘Please’ what, slave?”

A tear wound down the boy’s cheek, and he reached to touch his cock. He stopped short though, looking up at Donato through thick, soft lashes. “Anything,” the boy said. “Don’t stop now.”

“I don’t intend to.”

The boy ducked his head. A shudder shook his body. I couldn’t tell if it was relief because he really did want more, or desperation because he didn’t.

I wished more than anything that I did know, because at least then I’d be able to decide if it was acceptable to be turned on or not.

Donato prodded the boy with his toe. “Get up.” Then to me, “Get undressed.” I did, although I used the moment when I turned away to put my clothes on the chair to dry-swallow another il. When that was done, Donato said to us both, “Now undress me. And don’t rush it.”

I knew what that meant. Pretend to enjoy it.

The slave and I began to do our job, standing naked side-by-side, never looking at each other. His erection had gone down. Mine hadn’t. The fact that it was drug-induced didn’t make me any less ashamed.

Donato pulled me to him and kissed me. His tongue pushed into my mouth, demanding entrance. Demanding obedience. I gave it. I opened up and let him establish his dominance over me. I pushed my erection against his leg, feigning arousal. That made him happy. I put my arms around his neck and kissed him harder, begging him with my body to focus on me. To leave the boy alone. But he didn’t. He let me go, and turned to the slave. He didn’t kiss him, but instead reached out and pinched the boy’s nipple. The slave’s reaction was instant. His legs seemed to give out. He held onto Donato to keep from falling, and he writhed as Donato mercilessly twisted and pulled that tender bud of flesh. The boy cried out over and over again, but it wasn’t from pain. Or if it was, it was only because the pain gave him pleasure. When Donato let him go, the boy stood panting with a hard cock.

“Get on the bed,” Donato said to him. “You know what I want.”

The boy didn’t look at either of us. He went to lay obediently on top of the fur cover.

Donato paid no attention to me. He was focused on his slave. He went to the cabinet by the bed and pulled out a large jar of salve. He knelt on the ground between the slave’s knees.

“Open up for me, little slave.”

The boy put his heels on the side of the bed, spread wide apart, his knees in the air. I watched as Donato spread a generous layer of grease over his hand. He put the tips of his fingers against the boy’s rim. “Make me proud, slave.”

With that, he pushed in. First his fingers, all four held together, then his thumb, cupped in his palm. He slowed when he got to his knuckles, but not much. He twisted his hand slowly back and forth as he pushed past the boy’s resistance, until he was in up to his wrist.

The boy screamed, but not from pain. He bucked against Donato’s hand. He squirmed on the bed, and Donato froze there, his entire hand buried in the boy’s ass.

“Do you like that, slave?”

But the boy was beyond any kind of rehearsed answer. He panted, his eyes glassy with desire. “More,” he said. “More, more, more.”

Donato turned his hand, and the boy threw his head back and cried, “Yes! Master, please! Master, yes! More, Master, please, Master, more, more, more!”

And Donato gave him more. Another inch of his wrist disappeared. He twisted his arm the other way, and the boy began to sob. He shook and shuddered, but still he bucked against Donato’s hand. He panted out his pleas for more.

More pleasure.

More pain.

Donato was sweating, his hair wild and disheveled. His cock was hard. A string of pre-come hung from its tip. “Fucking disgusting little slave,” he hissed as he turned his hand again. “Nasty little slave. Pathetic slave. Begging me to hurt you.”

And beg the boy did.

I watched them, at turns fascinated and disgusted, aroused and nauseated. Could I call this rape when the boy was begging with every breath for more? Could I call it wrong if he was bought and paid for?

Yet how could I call it right?

Suddenly, Donato turned his gaze upon me. I’d never seen him so violently, horribly aroused, his lust making him base and obscene and depraved. “Fucking stupid, lazy whore!” he yelled. “Get over here and make me come!”

I jumped to do his bidding, relieved that I only had to touch him, that I wasn’t expected to hurt the boy. I got down on the floor and took Donato’s cock in my hand, ready to suck him to his climax, but I didn’t have the chance. As soon as my fist was around him, he thrust into it, screaming out in rage as he came. I took his end into my mouth and pumped his length hard and fast with my fist, and he screamed again as he filled my mouth with his seed. I swallowed, because I knew it was expected, stroking him, thinking to finish him, but he pushed me away. “Fucking whore!” he yelled. He spasmed again, and another shot dribbled from his penis, splattering my cheek.

I glanced up at him in surprise, and instinctively flinched back from the expression on his face. He was livid. I’d never seen him so angry. His skin was red and splotchy, his hair wildly askew, his tattoos a lurid mark against his flesh.

“Fucking filthy slave!” he screamed as he pulled his hand out of the boy. “A begging, pathetic slave and a disgusting little whore!” He stood up and kicked me in the stomach, driving the air from my lungs. He spit on the slave before storming out of the room.

I curled into a ball and tried to force my lungs to breathe. I shook and gasped, and finally, I found my breath. When I could breathe normally again, I stretched out on my back, massaging the sore muscles of my stomach. I hated the fact that my cock was still hard.

Then I heard a sound that nearly broke me. It was the boy. He was sobbing now, this time not from pleasure, but in earnest. “More,” he whispered. “Why do I still want more?”

***

“A Dollhouse whore?” Anzhéla asked in astonishment. “Are you sure?”

Not a whore.
But I resisted the urge to correct her. “I’m sure. Donato was quite proud of it.”

She shook her head, looking over at Frey, who sat at his table. I couldn’t read anything in his dark expression.

“I wasn’t even sure the Dollhouse existed,” Anzhéla said.

“Neither was I, but apparently it does.”

“Genetic manipulation and neural implants.” She winced. “It’s horrifying.”

“I don’t think those are even the worst parts.” Because much of the slave’s behavior, I was sure, was a product of the other thing Donato had mentioned: response conditioning. I shuddered to think what they must have done to him to make him react to pain the way he did.

“I knew Donato was rich, but this is unbelievable. I can’t imagine what it would cost to buy a whore like that.”

“Not a whore!” I snapped. “He’s a
slave
, Anzhéla! He doesn’t get paid, and he doesn’t have the option of walking away!”

She sat back, her eyes wide in surprise at my anger, but she chose not to react. “I stand corrected. Another thing: you can’t come here anymore.”

“
What?
But I live here!”

“Not anymore you don’t. You live at Talia’s.”

“But, Anzhéla, I don’t belong there. I belong here. This is only a job. It doesn’t mean I’m becoming a permanent resident!”

“Talia has reason to believe one of her girls is spying on you.”

My anger quickly gave way to alarm. “Which one?”

“If we knew that, it wouldn’t be a problem. But we don’t.”

“Do you think Donato’s having me followed?”

She shrugged. “We don’t think so, but we don’t know for sure, and it’s not worth the risk. He knows you come from Talia’s, but he knows nothing about me. He knows nothing about my association with you, or with Talia’s establishment. And it has to stay that way, Misha. We can’t risk him finding out about the clan, or about just how many things I’m involved in. And we especially can’t have him finding out that you’re being paid to do more than fuck him. So from now on, I’ll come to you, and if that’s not possible, then you report to Talia.”

I sighed. I didn’t like it, but as much as I hated to admit it, it made sense. “Fine.”

“Now, back to this Dollhouse whor— slave. Did he tell you anything? How long he’d been there? Where he came from before the Dollhouse? Anything at all?”

“No. He barely spoke. The only thing he told me was his age, and even that, he doesn’t remember for sure.”

“He doesn’t remember his own age?”

“Apparently not.”

“Interesting,” she said, leaning back in her chair to look up at the ceiling.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“Well, I’ll report this information to my client, but for now, it’s business as usual.”

“And what about the boy?”

She was lost in thought, barely listening to me at all. “So much money...” she said.

It was all too much—Donato’s violence, and the possibility that he was spying on me, and being kicked out of the den, and the boy...

The boy.

Mostly, it was him. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. Every time I closed my eyes, he was there, staring back with his strange, empty expression. I was haunted by the way he’d begged, and then sobbed. At his shame. After Donato had left, I’d reached up to touch him, wanting to comfort him, but he’d fled the room, leaving me feeling dirtier than ever.

“You say he’s proud of his slave,” Anzhéla said, sitting up to look at me again, “but nobody knows about him. I’m sure it would have come up if any of my people knew. Which means Donato’s keeping him a secret. Why?”

It seemed obvious to me. “Because it’s sick and cruel?”

Again, her eyes narrowed, as if she couldn’t quite see me. As if she were assessing me. “I doubt that’s it.”

“I’d like to know exactly how much a Dollhouse slave costs,” Frey said.

“Oh?” Anzhéla raised her eyebrows playfully at him. “Thinking of buying one?”

If he found any humor in her joke, he didn’t react to it. “Maybe it didn’t cost him as much as we think, in which case, this is a dead end. Or maybe he simply has that much money.”

“True,” Anzhéla conceded. “But if this slave costs as much as I think, it means either Donato’s making money some other way, or he’s indebted himself to someone much richer than him.”

“He said, ‘a small fortune,’” I said. “But he didn’t say he’d bought him. He didn’t say, ‘he cost a small fortune.’ He said, ‘he’s
worth
a small fortune.’”

“That’s a good point,” Anzhéla said. “It implies he didn’t buy him himself.” She sat thinking for a moment. “Either way, we’ll finally have a place to start. Good job, kid. This may end up being our meal ticket.”

I didn’t feel proud though. I felt dirty and powerless. “He’s been used enough.”

“Who? Donato?”

Of course she was thinking about the mark. Of course I wasn’t.

“You’re not getting cold feet again, are you?” Anzhéla asked with obvious exasperation.

I looked down at my hands, clenched in my lap. “No.” If anything, I wanted to go back now, not for Donato, but for the boy.

“I hope you put on a better act for him than you’re doing for me.”

“I’m fine.”

“This is a job, Misha. Stop worrying about some slave from across the sea. I can’t have you going soft—”

“Anzhéla,” Frey snapped. “Lay off.”

A strained silence claimed the room. Me, still looking at my hands, wondering why Frey was defending me, and what was going on between them, but I was unable to look up. I felt if I did, I’d be intruding on something I had no part of.

No words passed between them, but Anzhéla suddenly stood. Her steel-toed boots echoed across the wood floor. I jumped in my seat as the door slammed behind her. My shoulders slumped more. Not only could I not help the boy, but now Anzhéla was pissed at me as well.

Frey went to the bar at the side of the room. He wore thick, heavy work boots, but his steps were cautious and measured. The only sound that betrayed him was the creak of the floorboards under his feet.

He poured a drink, and I looked up at him as he came over and set it on the desk in front of me.

“Drink.”

I’d learned to recognize an order when I heard it. I picked up the glass and drained it in one swallow, then sighed as it burned its way down my gullet. Somehow, the harsh reality of that cheap grain alcohol searing my throat was good. It grounded me.

Frey sat on the edge of the desk, crossing his ankles. “I know she’s callous at times like this,” he said. “But you don’t have to be.”

I nodded, not because I agreed, but because I wasn’t sure what else to do.

“You want to tell me what happened last night?”

“No!”

“You’re spooked, Misha. I can tell he did a number on you.”

I looked down at my hands again. I was trembling. “It was awful,” I managed to choke out. “Sadistic.”

“Do you mean it literally? It was about pain?”

My cheeks began to burn. I’d never discussed anything as intimate as sex with Frey. I wasn’t sure I wanted to start now, but he was watching me with his quiet, dark eyes, waiting for an answer. “Yes. Not so much with me, but with the boy.”