The Alpha Dating Game(37)

Kyle supposed that if he were human, he would be feeling out of his depth. But his werebear hormones gave him and the others a falsely invincible notion. Down, down and down they went, until the stone walls were moss-covered and trickling with water. Here, the light bulbs had started faltering.

“Jericho,” Alison whimpered. “I’m scared.”

She was clinging to him as if her very life depended on him. And maybe it did.

Finally, they reached the bottom of the stairwell. Here, a large crack in the Earth signified the abyss. The pit was pitch black and Kyle had never ventured to look into it. He was afraid of what he might see, or that a gust of ill-fated wind would catch hold of him and pull him downwards.

He strained his ears as well, but there were no sounds issuing from the abyss. No eerie howling of the wind. No bubbling magma. No keens of tortured souls spiraling from the depths of hell.

Caleb had no such qualms. He stood right at the edge and peered down.

“Caleb,” Kyle said uncomfortably. “Come away.”

Caleb backed off. He usually had a wisecrack for everything, but the atmosphere here was enough to unnerve anyone.

“It is time,” the Elder with the mask of a hawk said.

The three of them joined hands and began the incantation. Kyle and Caleb stood back and watched their father bring the sacrifice to the edge. Alison was very incoherent by now. Although there was no sound other than the low voices of the Elders, Kyle could feel his hackles rising.

Then Jericho let Alison go.

Kyle’s heart stopped, as it always did at this ghastly moment.

At the last moment, Alison recovered and screamed. But her scream was lost in her plunge into the abyss. The Elders did not stop their chanting. Kyle stared and stared into the blackness of the void. Each time he did, he expected to hear something, see something – an eruption maybe, an acknowledgement of a sacrifice received – but as always, there was nothing.

Suffice to say, Alison was never coming back.

The Elders finished their prayers or whatever it was they were doing to appease the Beast, if indeed it was down there. Then they turned from the abyss.

“Let’s go,” Jericho said to his sons.

Caleb was unusually subdued as well.

“You OK?” Kyle said in a low voice.

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be OK? Are you OK?” Caleb snarked.

“Forget I ask.”

They returned the way they came from. But Kyle would never forget the ceremony of the sacrifice. Each year he returned to the pit as an observer, knowing that one day he would be the one to throw the live sacrifice into the abyss.

It was a terrible, terrible feeling.





*





And now, Kyle knew that he had to get out of his north tower cell at all costs because the same fate that had befallen Alison Korin and all the other virgins would befall Jessica.

He would throw himself into the abyss before he would let that happen.





THE CELL





Claude Atreides was pissed off.

The Gathering was tonight and he wanted sex. Plenty of sex. There was a particularly luscious female werebear who had caught his eye in the last Mayday Gathering, and she had lasciviously suggested that they should fuck the next time they met. She was from New Orleans and she had a very delicious Cajun accent.

Oh yeah. His sap was rising just to think of her ripe breasts and tight ass. She was likely to have a tight pussy too. The thought of her tight pussy squeezing his hot tool was enough to make it engorged.

But thanks to the antics of the eldest Atreides heir, he was forced to play watchdog. Seriously, Kyle Atreides wasn’t going anywhere. The cell was made to withstand an earthquake. So what was the point of playing gaoler in the north tower?

Still, Jericho would be furious if he left his perch. Unless, of course . . . Jericho didn’t know he had left his perch. He could nip downstairs to the hall for a quickie with the Cajun babe and return with no one the wiser.

It was time for the evening meal and he needed to feed his sole prisoner. After that . . . hell, anything could happen.

He didn’t even like Kyle Atreides much anyway. He didn’t know Kyle, granted. Kyle was Alpha in training. He was from the first family. Royal blood, or as close to it as he could possibly be. Claude was from one of the lesser families – the sixth son of a sixth son, or something in that lineage. First families and sixth families didn’t mix. They didn’t even sit at the same table or live in the same section of the house.

Moreover, Kyle was one of those handsome, Ivy League boys who could walk on water and make the sun shine out of his arse. Claude hated guys like that. There were enough of them in college to make his life a living misery.

Now the tables had turned. Kyle Atreides was on the other side of the lockup, put in there by his own father.