Dark Journey [Ariel's Desire 2] (2 page)

The shade from the trees ahead reached out to them like an oasis of water in a desert.
 
Mike studied his cuffs again and slowed as he realized it was over for him.
 
They were too close to the Clan’s settlement and too far from civilization for him to ever get away.
 
Ethan slapped his sunburned back with his reigns to get him moving again.
 
Mike’s weary mind worked frantically to figure out a way to repair the damage he’d done on the way up here.
 
He never got the chance.

When they finally reached the safety of the trees, the Vampires collapsed and lay back in the shade against the saddles and bedrolls Paul and Zippo spread out for them.
 
Their newly acquired women ate quickly, rinsed the trail dirt off, and headed to care for them.
 
Mike looked up from his stew just as Lucien’s fangs pierced Ariel’s throat and his appetite dissolved as the bile rose from his stomach.

She calmly ran her fingers through Lucien’s black hair, murmuring to him with her eyes closed while he drank from her neck and stroked slowly between her thighs.
 
The peaceful expression on her face contrasted with the scene and Mike had to turn away from them.

Part of him still refused to accept this was anything other than a sordid nightmare.
 
He expected to wake up in his apartment off campus with a coed tangled in his sheets.
 
A small smile lifted the corner of his mouth as he realized it wouldn’t have been Ariel.
 
No, she’d be home studying the crap about plants she was so interested in.

Mike had promised to take her to meet his family on Thanksgiving.
 
Of course, he would have broken it off with her by then.
 
No way could he introduce such a nobody from a broken home with a drunkard mother to his father.

But her roommate Paula, spoiled brat that she was, came from a good family, a rich family.
 
The fact she’d yet to settle on a major in college would be overlooked.
 
When Mike joined his father’s law firm, she wouldn’t have to do anything but shop and join a couple of charities his mother would introduce her to.
 
Mike had already made plans to take her away from Dave, the idiot football player she was dating.
 
Plying her with a few potent drinks, he’d even managed to have sex with her while Ariel went home for a couple of weeks this summer.

With a beautiful, sophisticated wife and a law degree, obtained partially by shrewd threats to cut off the hefty donations his father made to his alma mater, Mike would finally have the respect from his old man he deserved.
 
He glanced over at his dream wife.
 
Her blonde hair swept across her back as her naked thighs straddled Damon in a slow grind while the man sucked at her throat.

Dave lumbered over to collect Mike’s dinner bowl.
 
Mike tried to put a hopeful smile on his face when he looked up at his former friend.
 
The blonde giant frowned at the uneaten stew, ignoring the friendly gesture.
 
Mike watched him move away, still bewildered that the moron had managed to get into the Vampires’ inner circle.

What little stew he’d managed to eat, roiled in his stomach as he watched Dave finish washing the bowls in the stream and hurry back to Ed, Christal’s former fiancé.
 
The little man didn’t even squirm anymore when Dave’s big hand rested on his naked thigh and began stroking.
 
They were speaking quietly to Doug and Allen, excluding Mike who sat several feet away.
 
Ed’s eyes had closed as he leaned against Dave and his little penis danced jerky movements, trying to rise.
 
No, there was no way he would have fit in.

None of his friends had tried to escape and they all watched passively as their girlfriends spread their thighs for the mountain men.
 
They were feeding off their women, and the young men sat by, unaffected.
 
Mike was disgusted by them.

Mike had been the unofficial leader of his college buddies for three years, making the decisions on weekend excursions and entertainment.
 
Now, they were paired off with each other and Mike was revolted by the things he’d watched them do.
 
The roll in his stomach turned to a cramp as he thought about Ed lying in the cave with Dave’s muscled thighs wrapped around his head and his big cock bloating the little man’s cheeks while it pumped down his throat.
 
The look of desire in Ed’s eyes as he checked for Nicholas’ approval … no, no way.

Mike watched his friends as they continued to speak softly, brushing small intimacies across their partner’s bodies.
 
Why had he been omitted from forming a forced tryst?
 
The only solution he could think of, was that Lucien planned something even worse for him.
 
He glanced again at the cuffs, then over to the Indian who was helping Ethan gently pull Teri away from Nathan. Her eyes were closed with a dreamy expression and Nathan’s anxious red stare followed the men as they laid her down next to him.
 
Ethan spoke softly with the Vampire until his fangs retreated.

Lucien pulled away from Ariel and laid her head on his chest, wrapping a protective arm around her while she worried her bottom lip in sleep.
 
It was such a childish, annoying habit.
 
Mike made excuses to leave her bed quickly after she’d satisfied him so he wouldn’t have to watch her.
 
Lucien ran a long tapered finger across her lip, adoration clear in the revived Vampire’s eyes.
 
His red rimmed gaze met Mike’s and he smiled his accomplishment at stealing the little slut from him.

Ethan walked by and Mike asked, “What’s the deal with the Indian?”
 
He received no response.
 
No one had spoken to him since he’d been brought back last night.
 
He carefully lay on his side, hands still tied in front of him and lashed to the ring pierced through the sensitive skin at the base of his testicle sack.
 
His fingers brushed comforting strokes on the underside of his shaft as his pride slipped and silent tears of pain and fear leaked onto the grass.

The weary travelers arrived at the settlement the next afternoon.
 
There was a busty blonde hanging over the fence and Mike forced himself to smile at her. His striking blue eyes, set off by his wavy black hair, always earned him ladies’ attentions and his choice of weekend sex partners when Ariel buried herself in her botany studies.
 
The woman merely glanced at him, then at the cuffs, and went back to joking with the Vampires.

 
Everyone in their group received a warm, excited welcome except him.
 
He understood he was to be an outcast here as well, and tried to convince himself it didn‘t matter.
 
Grayed, weathered wooden buildings lined the street on either side, with corrals and a few outbuildings set further back.
 
So, this is my new home
.
 
He looked at the depressing village, already working on a plan to escape.
 
His gaze traveled to the corral and the docile animals standing inside by the fence.
 
It should be easy enough to steal a horse.

His eyes wandered while his feet moved him forward with the group.
 
It took a moment to realize they’d stopped in front a big building halfway down the street.
 
The Clansmen dismounted and helped their women off the horses. Lucien greeted a smiling older man who still managed a formidable presence. The man walked off the porch, embraced Ethan, and the busty blonde from the fence joined them.
 
Mike turned his attention back to the hall when the doorway was filled with three more Indians.
 
He looked again at his cuffs and compared them to the leather breeches the Indians wore.
 
A hollow feeling began to gnaw at his gut.

The Indians on either end were of average size and tightly muscled like Black Horse, the Indian who met them on the grasslands.
 
Mike had no trouble discerning the man in the middle was the leader.
 
He stood at least four inches taller than Mike’s six feet and muscular arms crossed over a massive bronze chest.
 
His thick straight black hair hung loose to his waist, and although he was laughing with Lucien, his strength and proud bearing were frightening. Mike’s nerves began to vibrate in warning and the instinct to flee was only squelched by the knowledge he’d have to rip the piercing in his sack to run. There was no doubt he’d be subdued quickly.
 
The imposing Indian had glanced at his cuffs several times.
 
Mike had a real bad feeling about this.

Lucien finished the light banter with the Indian about how things had gone at the settlement in his absence.
 
The discussion turned to Mike and the fear gnawing in his belly became an empty hole of terror.
 
Lucien made some kind of back handed comment about Mike’s independence and continued to inform the Indian about his disruptive manner and attempts at escape.

“Wind Seeker,” Black Horse chuckled, “Lucien has given us a real winner, this time.
 
The coward’s bright idea to distract the Clansmen was to drown Ariel.”

Given to them? Lucien gave me to Indians?
 
Mike felt his balls shrivel inside the confines of the pouch as the piercing black eyes looked down at him in outrage.
 
An irrational thought to explain to the man he knew Lucien would get her to safety, stuck in his paralyzed throat.
 
He didn’t hear the clipped statement the Indian made to Lucien as he strode off the porch.

Mike panicked and took a useless step backward.
 
Wind Seeker reached down and grabbed the ring under his sack and viciously twisted.
 
The unexpected pain was immense and Mike screamed.
 
The big man grabbed the back of Mike‘s hair and tilted his head back, glaring at him.
 
“I’m not as nice as the Clansmen,” the Indian seethed.

Mike was terrified as the Indians laughed at him.
 
Wind Seeker pulled a chain collar out of a leather bag tied to his side.
 
Mike tried to draw back, but with the Indian’s strong grip through his hair, it was easily slipped over his head.
 
“Dave?
 
Allen?
 
Do something.
 
Please.
 
Help me,” he screamed. Frightened tears spilled down his cheeks as his friends looked at the ground and Wind Seeker retrieved another collar, this one made out of thick leather with the same symbols that were on his cuffs, and wrapped it over the chain, slipping the lead ring from the choker through a hole in the front.

Mike silently trembled as Wind Seeker walked behind him and tied long leather strips to a back loop in the collar.
 
They brushed across the clenched cheeks of his ass for a moment, before another Indian knelt behind him and grabbed the ends.
 
He felt strong arms push his thighs apart to tie the traces to his sack ring, causing him to groan as he straightened to ease the pain.

Wind Seeker untied Mike’s cuffs from their resting place on his groin and forced his hands behind his back where the other Indian lashed them together and tied them to the traces running down his back.

“Ariel, please.
 
Don’t let him do this to me,” he begged.

Lucien put his arm around her shoulders and held her against his chest as they entered the hall.
 
The travelers and settlers passed by him ignoring his frightened pleas.
 
When the Indian’s were alone on the porch, Wind Seeker grabbed the link of the choker and pulled Mike to his toes, forcing him to look into his intense black stare.
 
“You are dog.
 
You will not speak.”

Mike had no idea what the man meant, but he stood still, numbed into terrified silence.
 
The Indian clipped a leash onto the ring in the collar and Mike’s stiff legs moved as he was led inside the dining hall.
 
There were two long tables facing each other and he glanced at Doug and Allen, already conversing with the men beside them.
 
The Vampires sat at a shorter table at the end with the women in their laps and facing the settlers.
 
Wind Seeker tugged the leash and Mike silently followed him.
 
They stopped at the end by the Vampires, and Nicholas’ eyes flashed a red haze of excitement when he stared down at him, already anticipating the Indians’ torturous training for the little prick.