Chapter Thirty Seven - The Creeps 2

“What’d he mean by that?” Asked Albert. “Train 'er fer what?”

“You’re a wee bit slow or something? Teach her to always do as the man in charge tells her. Strip. Stick her ass in the air. Suck a man off. Beg him to break her nose. Bring him a whip to crack over her pussy. Whatever he says.”

“Jesus,” cursed Albert. There was a chorus of laughter.

“You’ll like it when he gives you a go with her.”

“He...he does that?”

“Sure, you just can’t stick nothing in her pussy, that hole belongs to the buyer, but anything else you want to do to her is fine. Sometimes there’s a specific thing he wants us to do, but mostly we can do whatever we want. He says it’s easier to train them when they’re little, but really I think he enjoys breaking the older ones in more.”

“How’d you mean?”

“Well, this past summer there was this little dark-haired girl we picked up in Mexico, maybe twelve or thirteen years old. Just getting her tits. Anyways, she was fighting tooth and nail when we go her on board. He brought out his claws and stripped her clothing off, which usually makes ‘em cringe and try to hide but not this one. She just got angrier. She had her wolf already so she shifted and went after us. Even when he collared her to make her stay human she would shift just her teeth and bite anyone of us, even him! Well, it took four of us, but we pinned her to the ground and got her collar chained tight to the floor. Her food was just mush on a plate for her to lick off and there was barely room for that without getting her nose in it. She still managed to bite the cook’s hand when he put her food in front of her, so Bane said she’d get no food for two weeks. If she asked for anything, even a drink of water, he unhooked her chain from the floor and she had to beg him to punish her for biting before he would consider her request. Sometimes when he was done beating her he gave her what she wanted, other times he said, ‘Nah, don’t feel like it' and chained her back up! By the end of the two weeks she never bit nothing that wasn’t food again. When we got her to the island she was good as gold. She didn’t even question it when the dude said he’d have to burn her retinas and blind her for whatever it was he had in mind to do with her. She just looked at the ground and said “as you wish, sir.”

“Remember that one winter we picked up the chubby girl in Florida? She was ‘bout sixteen I think. Prudish little one when she got here. Baggy clothes, collars tight to her chin. But Bane fixed her right up to a good little whore. As we hit international waters he stripped her naked and tied her down. He plucked every hair off her body and had her beg him to get us all to do her. The North Atlantic was all ice and wind that winter, he never gave her a stitch of clothing for the whole three months we were at sea. Wouldn’t let her grow any hair on her body either. Every time she complained about being cold he’d toss her in a fishing net and dump her in the water for a while. He’d get us to haul her out and tie her in the wind ‘till she was covered in ice. If she wanted to eat she had to suck one of us off first, and if she gagged he spanked her. All her food was cold too. We’d get hot soup, and she had to watch us eat it, but he wouldn’t let her touch hers until it had ice on the edge of the bowl. He seemed to be able to heal that one without even touching her. If she got hypothermia or looked frost bit he’d just look at her for a while and she’d go back to normal. But every time he healed her, her hair grew back some and he’d whip her for not having herself groomed properly. The only way she could get any warmth at all without getting in trouble was by rubbing her naked, human self all over us and snuggling up with us to sleep at night. If a hair grew, other than the ones on her head, she had to pluck it before he saw or he’d yell that she wasn’t tidy, and either beat her or dunk in the ocean. She soon learned to check herself regularly. If one of us wasn’t in her, she was looking for hairs or licking up any mess we’d made. Like a cat grooming itself all the time. She'd lost weight by the end too, Bane said the guy wanted skinny, so that’s what she was by the time we arrived.

“Bane takes the confident, headstrong, willful little things and makes them completely compliant. That’s what the men who buy these girls want. Calm and quiet with all holes willingly available. Most seem to want them craving sex too, begging for it over and over without stopping. Some want the girls asking to be hurt or punished too. Whatever they ask for, Bane delivers. The girls he visits all their lives walk willingly on board and do whatever they’re told. They’re already too scared of men to even look sideways at us. The other little ones are easy enough too. He backhands them a couple of times or the tiniest ones he sometimes just pinches real hard or nips at them. One little girl he just turned his face to wolf and growled at her until she did what he wanted. Within a day or two they do anything they're told wihtout question. Even beg him to hit them harder if that’s what he needs them willing to do. The older ones take more effort, but he’s in a better mood for the trip, so I think that’s the fun of it for him.”

Someone kicked her cage hard enough that it moved a couple of feet across the deck.

“’ Come on. Dark comes early this time of year. We’d better get things ready. These two won’t be waking up any time soon.”

Lia tried to push aside the nausea that had started while she listened to the men talking. As if what they had to say wasn’t enough to make her sick, the waves had picked up and were really rocking the boat. She’d never handled sailing very well.

Jake rubbed his hand over his stomach and wondered if the nausea were from nerves or something he’d eaten. Nobody else seemed to feel it, so it probably wasn’t his lunch. He hadn’t eaten much anyways. It was bad enough that he couldn’t even concentrate on making search plans. Fortunately, everyone was putting that down to it being his mate who was missing. Mark and Dylan had offered to take over, and he had gladly let them. They’d headed straight for the hidden cove where Zinnia had lived, but the tide was going out so the ship would have had to move to deeper water. The bay was beautiful, but the problem with a place with the highest tides in the world is that when the tide went out, the water was a long way from the shoreline. They couldn’t see any boats at all now, but he somehow knew it was out there. He could feel her. Or at least he could in the brief moments where he didn’t feel like vomiting.

“I think you’re feeling Lia’s seasickness,” David said. “She can’t even handle a tube ride down our slow little river, so I imagine being on a boat in the ocean has her turning as green as you look.”

“I don’t feel her link though.”

“I never really feel her link. That’s why I couldn’t shut it down myself yesterday. Her wolf is just there, in the background. Hiding I guess, the way it has been hidden from Lia for so long. Selene somehow taught it to be invisible. It knows how to call me when Lia needs help, and often shares strong emotions and occasionally images are attached, but it isn’t a regular link.”

“I wish it could listen while it’s hiding. Answer questions.”

“That would be handy. Or if Selene’s wolf would open up again the way she did last night. I hope she’s just sleeping again and not…”

They stood in silence for a moment looking out over the sea at the sinking sun.

“I don’t think they would have gone out with the tide. There would have been too many other ships on the bay, someone would have noticed them. The bay has lots of fishing vessels, but not many cargo ships.”

“You’re probably right,” said David, “it would make sense for them to try to stay out of sight. Especially here, where there aren’t any docks that can accommodate it.”

“Unfortunately, for those same reasons, I doubt it will stay until morning. The tide doesn’t turn until a couple of hours after dark. They’re probably planning to slip out into the open ocean just after sunset. If we don’t locate them soon, we might not be able to.”

“Ocean Moon pack has lots of big fishing boats. You could ask for help.” David suggested.

“No,” Jake said, “not from them. Not after what happened when they came for Zinnia. They’ll demand her as payment. Their Alpha isn’t the neighborly sort.”

“Some of the lone wolves have boats but they can’t head out until the tide is in, they’re all above the water line at the moment.”

The sun was so low in the sky that its light seemed to draw a line between the daytime sky, which faded until it blended into the ocean and the dark of night that was trying to creep in. A different image filled Jake’s mind. A cargo ship as seen from the air.

“Killian and Jasper think they’ve found it,” Dylan said as he ran over. “It’s the only cargo ship in the bay so it must be the right one. Jasper says he sees six men on deck and lots of boxes. Three that look like they could be cages, but he isn’t sure the women are there. He’s asking if we want him to jump out and find a way to get on board or if we have another way of getting there with a few more people. He says the waves are getting higher, their might be a storm coming. Did anyone check the weather?”