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By Root 3971 0

and Caleb brought up the rear. The door opened before we could knock. Ulysses ushered us into the darkened club. He was still wearing his leather and metal harness. The smell of it made me wonder if it was the exact same outfit he’d been wearing, was it five or six days ago? The tall, dark, and handsome man that I’d met looked hollow-eyed. His strong hands gripped his elbows, hugging his body. When he moved a hand to motion us inside, it shook. What the hell had been going on?

Half a dozen other muscular men of varying races and heights stood in the shadows waiting for Ulysses to tell them what to do. The tension in the room was so thick you could have choked on it.

Cris made a hissing sound at my back, and I couldn’t blame him. I decided then and there that unless we got some really good explanations, we were keeping the guns. There was an air of desperation about all the werehyenas, as if something really bad had happened.

The door was shut behind us, but we were close to it, and no one was between us and it. I wanted to save the lion Joseph, but not enough to risk myself and my people. If it was a choice, I knew who I’d choose. Cold, maybe, but I’d never met Joseph the werelion. He wasn’t real to me yet, and everyone with me was.

Ulysses must have seen, or smelled, something on us, because he explained. “Our master has seen fit to punish us.”

“What for?” I asked.

He shook his head. “That is personal.”

“Fine, let’s talk to Narcissus, and you guys can get back to punishing yourselves.”

“We are not punishing ourselves,” Ulysses said.

I shrugged. “Look, I don’t believe in letting anyone push me around to this degree, but it’s not my deal, it’s yours. So let’s share information and let us get out of here.”

Something crossed Ulysses’s face, some emotion that I couldn’t read. “No guns in the club, that’s the rule.”

“I think we’ll keep our guns,” Bobby Lee said.

I glanced at him, and the look was enough. He shut up but smiled at me. “Actually, I agree with him. We’re not giving up our guns today.”

Ulysses shook his head. “I can’t fail my master in this, Anita. You have no idea what he’ll do to us if we let you inside with guns.”

I glanced at the men standing around in the shadowed room. Fear rolled off of them in waves; their bodies were tight with tension. I’d never seen so many men so thoroughly whipped before. They would do exactly what they were told to do, because they were terrified to do anything else. I’d been told that a good dominant was a caring partner. Maybe Narcissus wasn’t a good dom, maybe he was a bad one.

“I’m sorry, Ulysses, really, I don’t want to cause you pain, but if Narcissus has gone crazy enough to make all of you this scared, then we keep the guns.”

“Please, Anita, please.” He must have seen something on my face that let him know I wasn’t going to give in, because he dropped to his knees in front of me. The sound of his knees hitting the floor was sharp, made me wince. He’d kept his hands wrapped on his arms, so that he just dropped without catching himself at all. “Please, Anita.”

I shook my head, staring into those haunted eyes.

Tears glimmered down his cheeks. “Please, Anita, please, you don’t know what he’ll do to our lovers if we fail him.”

“Lovers?” I made it a question.

It took him two tries to say, “Ajax is my . . . lover. We’ve been together four years. Please, Anita. I don’t have any right to ask this, but please give up your guns.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Ulysses, really I am, but the more you talk the more I want to keep my guns.”

He moved so suddenly that I didn’t have time to react, and Cris and Bobby Lee both cleared their guns, but Ulysses wasn’t trying to hurt me. He wrapped his arms around me, buried his face in my chest, and wept and begged. He stank of fear and blood and worse things.

“Put up the guns, boys, he’s not trying to hurt me.”

They put their guns up, but they didn’t look happy. But then, neither, I suppose, did I. I touched Ulysses’s head, but he just kept saying, “Please, please, please.”

“You guys can all come with us, just walk out with