Page 85 of His Pet

He seems satisfied by my lack of response. “Good dog,” he says, then snaps his fingers. “Come.”

He doesn’t make me crawl, so he’s not a complete dick.

I follow him through a service corridor. Soft whispers of music and an occasional scream can be heard from behind a door we pass, and I shudder. If he takes me there and leaves me at the mercy of the club patrons, I’m dead. Ugly dead. I remember the sobbing girl and Small’s words echo in my mind. I could have stopped this. I could have saved the person who’s screaming for help on the other side of this door even now. Yet I chose Cameron, and now I have to live with the consequences of that decision.

The bouncer pushes me through another door.

This office is leagues away from the first one. Where the one behind reception looked like the most cliché mid-level corporate booth imaginable, this place is sleek and modern, more in tune with the club’s opulent theme.

There are no windows, naturally, but in their place hang large paintings of fantastic landscapes. A magical forest at night, where tiny fairies dance around the pond and a huge, red-eyed monster lurks between the trees. A ship braving a stormy sea, about to be torn asunder by a gargantuan octopus-like creature. A garden in bloom. At first glance, it looks peaceful and inviting. There’s something wrong with the image, though. I can’t tell what it is, but it makes my skin crawl. The longer I stare at it, the more uneasy I feel, until my eyes snap back to the monster in the woods. At least that’s a wrongness I can identify.

The bouncer doesn’t order me to kneel, but I do it anyway. From what I know of Sin, she’s big on discipline, and I definitely don’t want to get punished by her.

I’m grateful for my foresight when she saunters in a few minutes later, takes me in, and nods. “Cameron has trained you well.”

Drawing on everything Cameron taught me, I keep my eyes respectfully lowered. “Thank you, Mistress.”

She lowers herself into a comfortable chair. She’s wearing a long dress with bold cutouts that show off her full figure while still looking glamorous instead of trashy. One would expect an owner of a fetish club to be decked out in leather or latex, but Sin seems to prefer evening gowns. The riding crop she carries belies her elegant style a little, as does the leash dangling from her other hand. The leash goes to a wide leather collar tightly wrapped around the neck of a man crawling in Sin’s wake on all fours. My traitorous cock twitches with interest.

The man is wearing floppy dog ears and an honest-to-god muzzle. A long, bushy tail hangs from the plug in his ass and brushes against the backs of his thighs as he crawls. On his hands, he’s wearing ridiculous mittens in the shape of dog paws, and his cock is encased in a mean-looking cage. I mean, seriously, are those spikes on the inside of the cage? That must hurt like hell, not to mention a small metal device clamping his balls so tightly they’re nearly purple.

I wince in sympathy when he kneels by Sin’s side and squirms to find a comfortable position. Poor guy. I wonder if he’s the one from the box.

I don’t ask.

“I usually go by Madame,” Sin says, “but Mistress is acceptable too. So, little pet. What brings you by? Are you bored of Cameron already? Want to find yourself a different Master? Someone with a firmer hand?” The riding crop lands on the slave’s chest with a loud smack. He doesn’t make a sound other than a sharper intake of breath. He’s probably used to worse from her.

“No, Madame,” I say carefully. “I want to stay with Cameron. But he’s in trouble. The police came into his house and arrested him.”

Sin shrugs. “They have no evidence against him. Unless you talked. Did you talk, little pet?”

My heart slams against my ribs at the dangerous flash in her eyes. “No, no. I didn’t say anything. I mean, I did say something. Consensual. I said it was all consensual,” I stutter out.

When it looks like Sin isn’t going to pounce on me immediately and the bouncer remains standing quietly by the door, I take a deep breath. Everything’s fine. This was the plan. “I told the detective everything between Cameron and me was consensual, but he got really mad. He threatened me. I think he’s going to hurt Cameron.”

Sin leans forward. “Is that so? How about you start from the beginning? Tell me what trouble Cameron has gotten himself into this time.”

Chapter 53

Cameron

I spend the night in a holding cell with a bruiser who tries to take me down the moment the door closes behind the deputy. He fails. I don’t work out every day just to look good. Within minutes, he’s squirming on the floor, holding his stomach. A guard yells a warning at us and bangs on the bars, but doesn’t come inside. After that, the bruiser stays on the other side of the cell.

I don’t dare close my eyes, just in case he tries something again.

Not that I could sleep anyway. There’s also a junkie in the cell with us. He doesn’t attack anyone, but he spends the night moaning and throwing up. He doesn’t always make it to the toilet in time.

No one comes to clean up the mess.

The lights don’t dim. They stay blindingly white the entire night, searing so deep into my retinas that I’ll probably see them for the rest of my life. Fucking Small.

He can’t do worse, though. Gone are the times when he could just turn off the cameras and rough me up. No freezing showers or blaring alarms. Just a useless street fighter with the intelligence of a boiled potato, and a vomiting junkie. It’s annoying, but I’ll live. I’ll live and I’ll take Small down for this.

Where the fuck is my lawyer?

No one mentioned him, and when I asked, I got vague answers that he hadn’t arrived yet. What the fuck? Did they even call him? They have to do that, right?

The door to the cell opens. “Matthews!” a deputy calls out.