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“Now, you’ll stay like that until I tell you to move,” Dmitri said, settling back in the bed with one arm tucked behind his head on the pillow. “And if I wake and find that you’ve come, I’ll smash that ass of yours with whatever I can find and leave permanent scars. You wouldn’t like to have permanent scars on those smooth, soft ass cheeks of yours, would you, pup?”

“No,” I said, letting out a heavy breath and trying to accept the misery I’d made for myself.

Dmitri chuckled and closed his eyes. “We’ll see. You might change your mind about wearing my scars on your ass, once you see how nice it is to get them.”

I doubted it. If this was what the sort of dominant and submissive relationship that some people seemed to crave so much was all about, then they could have it. I didn’t want to feel like the used rag that Dmitri made me feel like. I wanted to come, to be brought to orgasm as part of an act of love with someone I really cared about.

I doubted it would ever happen to me, though. The sort of love that Peter, Neil, and Magnus had, or Jace and Gennadi, or even Lefric and his man, or Sebald and his new pup, had was rare and precious. I had nothing to offer a man that would make him love me like that. My father certainly hadn’t thought so. Ludvig never really thought so either. Dmitri definitely didn’t. So why would anyone else be different?

ChapterFour

It took another two days to reach Good Port. On the surface, everything went to plan. For everyone, Dmitri included.

After that first day, he was allowed to walk around the decks, me trailing him. Olympus played his part brilliantly by pretending to be invested in getting to know him and his history. He was so good at it that Dmitri expressed to me that he actually liked the man on our second night together, as he had his cock down my throat, choking me to the point where I couldn’t breathe.

True to his word, Dmitri used me as much as he could, letting me think he was going to change his mind and allow me to come time after time, then leaving me hanging, shaking, frustrated, and so ashamed of myself. He always got to come, sometimes down my throat, sometimes on my face while he laughed at me. I hated it, but I forced myself to remember that it was all for a purpose.

At least he didn’t try to fuck my ass and claim me as his pup in the forest way while we were on the boat. He said it was because he like playing with me the way we were, but I suspected it was because the cabin and the bed were too small, and he didn’t want to offend Olympus in particular by making too much noise or leaving me too sore to walk comfortably when everyone could see it.

Whatever his reasons, I knew my short time of reprieve would be up soon as we reached the vast and beautiful city of Good Port.

And it was beautiful.

I forgot every other, miserable thing about my life the moment the glittering, colorful buildings came into view as the river widened, opening the vista to us. We were arriving in mid-afternoon, with the autumn sun already starting its journey to the horizon. The angle caused the rippling ocean tide where it met the bay at the end of the river to glisten like diamonds.

I’d never seen anything like it. I rushed to the front of the boat to watch as the magnificent city spread itself out for our pleasure, like a lover welcoming us home after a long absence.

“This is where I live now,” Lefric said, gloating more than a little, as he took up a spot near the ship’s railing on my right. “I’m still a Son of the Cities and a citizen of the Wolf River Kingdom, mind you, but this is home.”

I laughed, not so much for Lefric’s giddy delight in the place he called home, but because it was such a contrast to the dreariness and hardship of the eastern forest that I had a hard time believing they were on the same frontier. Everything in front of me screamed wealth and comfort. Even the small fishing and transport skiffs that traveled the river delta with us were in good condition and painted brightly.

There was a great deal of traffic on the river at that. I knew that Good Port was a major trading city and that they were the hub that connected the frontier with the kingdoms over the sea in the west. I’d had no idea what that meant in real terms, though. There were boats everywhere once the river spilled into the bay. Hundreds of buildings had been constructed along the waterfront and stretching up the hills on the northern and eastern side of the bay. Even the less impressive land to the south was crowded with well-kept buildings.

“Would you look at that,” Dmitri said, staking a claim to the spot on my left. He shoved one of Magnus’s men out of the way in the process. “All this time, I thought people were lying or exaggerating when they talked about Good Port.”

I dragged my eyes away from the fascinating city and frowned at Dmitri. “Why would people lie about something like this?”

Dmitri stared right back at me, as if I were an idiot. “People lie about everything, pup. They lie about themselves and they lie about the world. Always to gain some advantage or to make themselves seem better than they are.” He glanced forward again and said, “This isn’t a lie, though. This place reeks of money.”

His expression changed again, and his smile turned sharp. “A man could make a fortune off of a city like this.”

I gripped the boat’s railing until my knuckles were white, wondering what Dmitri was planning. He’d been so fierce and determined to make a name for himself with the wild wolves by being the toughest and meanest among them. I saw something different in him now, calculation and thought.

From what I knew of Dmitri, it made sense that he would try a different tactic to get what he wanted when the situation he found himself in changed. That’s what he’d done when he’d been pushed out of Sascha’s pack.

At the same time, as soon as our boat floated from the river on toward the part of the bay that was dotted with long jetties and docks sticking into the water, I couldn’t help but notice that the people we saw along the shore were of an entirely different sort than Dmitri.

Where Dmitri preferred to wear his hair a little longer and to keep his beard untrimmed, most of the citizens of Good Port that we could see from the boat were clean-shaven with short-cropped hair. The women wore their hair in braids that were piled on their heads. Where Dmitri liked to dress in leather clothing trimmed with fur, as if he’d killed the animal who the skins had belonged to himself, the people of Good Port were dressed in light, brightly-colored fabrics, both men and women dressing in layers against the cool, autumn air.

“The colors all correspond to the families those people belong to,” Lefric explained. He must have seen me staring at the people on the shore with a frown. “Each of the primary families have their colors, and both servants belonging to those families and employees in their businesses have the right to wear those colors.”

“The right to wear them?” Sebald asked from Lefric’s other side.

Lefric hummed and nodded. “Everything in Good Port is about money and what it can buy. The primary families are the ones who have their estates on the tops of the hills. They have special rights of way that only those attached to the families are allowed to use to get directly from the estates to the waterfront. Certain shops and restaurants are only allowed to be patronized by certain families and their retainers as well.”

“People pay for the right to eat or shop in Good Port?” Dmitri asked.

Already, I could see the light of calculation in his eyes.

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