The Alpha Dating Game: An Extremely Sensual BBW Shifter Romance (13 page)

But she had classes! She couldn’t afford to miss too many of them. She was on a scholarship and they didn’t take kindly to that.

She got up. Her mouth felt grimy. She padded to the attached bathroom to wash it out. There was a toothbrush and toothpaste there. Jessica brushed her teeth and made herself presentable. She wondered where Kyle was.

Once she was ready to go out into the world, she went to the door. To her surprise, the knob would not budge.

She tried it again, thinking something had jammed. But the door still wouldn’t open. No amount of pushing and shoving would move it.

Where was her purse with her cellphone? She could call Kyle and tell him she had been locked in by mistake. But her purse was nowhere to be seen. She searched for it – on the bed, in the drawers, under the bed, in the closets. Her unease was mounting.

It was in one of the closets that she found something which struck terror in her heart.

THE VIRGIN

The specifications were for the virgin to be around eighteen to twenty, according to the Elders. Who made up those stupid rules anyway? Kyle wondered.

He remembered the passage in the old language, like a canto out of
The Divine Comedy
.

A virgin ripe and plump,

A tender morsel thus,

Past eighteen years of age and not exceeding a score,

Warm of flesh and big of bone,

And step must she must across the Portal

Of the Mighty Enclave,

Of her own will, unfettered,

And fed alive to the Slumbering Beast,

Or dire tidings will befall.

As a child, Kyle had only heard stories about the Slumbering Beast.

“It has horns like a stag and it carries the weight of the world on its shoulders,” his grandmother would say to scare them into behaving. “It has teeth like a shark’s and it crunches upon the bones of children.”

“The Beast is very real,” Jericho would intone solemnly. “And we, the Atreides, have a very important task to contain him. You will understand how when you are older.”

“Is the Beast the devil?” Kyle whispered, truly frightened. At that time, he had been a lot closer to Caleb.

“No one really knows, son. Perhaps it is older than the devil himself, and what is the devil after all but a creation of religion and myth? All we know is that he must be appeased, and appease him we shall.”

No one had ever seen the Beast either, to Kyle’s knowledge. Except for, as the rumors went, his mother. And she had gone stark, raving mad before she killed herself.

He eyed the grate desperately. Surely there must be a way out of here.

THE NECKLACE

Jessica reached inside the closet, which was divided into three shelves. The closet was empty but for an assortment of clothes and a lapis lazuli necklace in green, bronze and purple.

She remembered this necklace. It was on the neck of Emily Watson, the plus-sized teenager who disappeared and was never found again.

Her premonition told her that she was in serious trouble.

But what did that mean? What about Kyle? Was he a party to all this?

With a sinking dread, she realized that none of it had been real. Who was she trying to kid? Why else would a phenomenally handsome young man with a billionaire father be interested in her otherwise?

Lyla had a right to be suspicious. After all, billionaires and their sons could have their kinks like everyone else.

But oh, Kyle . . . Kyle!

She loved him. No, she corrected herself,
had
loved him. Why did he do this to her? Was everything he said to her all a lie then?

Within her chest, a visceral pain spasmed. She almost gasped out loud at its intensity. The pain expanded, and she sank to her knees. Her eyes blurred with tears. She didn’t know which was worse – Kyle’s betrayal or the fact that her short life might be terminated prematurely.

She ran to the window. The iron grill prevented her from throwing herself out of it.

She was trapped.

ALISON KORIN

Kyle clung to the grate, testing it for deficiencies.

There were none.

They had not given him any clothes. The keeper of the north tower was a kinsman named Claude. He was known to be unusually cruel to his prisoners, who were usually other werefolk or humans unfortunate enough to be caught in the web of the wearbears.

But Kyle was an Atreides, and Claude would do well to tread carefully where he was concerned. The tide of favor could swing at any moment.

“Claude?” Kyle called. When there was no answer, he banged the grate. “Claude? I know you’re out there! I need to talk to you.”

He listened. There were no sounds in the entire north tower. He was alone. Maybe Claude had gone on a cigarette break. Or maybe everyone was preparing for the Gathering.

Oh yes, the last Gathering. The memories came tumbling into his head, as vivid as they had happened yesterday.

*

Alison Korin had entered the Enclave out of her own free will, invited to dinner by Jericho. Kyle sat there at the dining table with his brother in the exact same positions – to his father’s right and left. The triumvirate had been formed, the ceremony begun.

Alison Korin had been loquacious. She wasn’t as pretty as Jessica, or as humble and sweet. Kyle played the part of the elder son, making polite dinner conversation and asking questions to show how interested he was in their guest. Caleb had been his usual self – charming, boyish, sometimes sarcastic. Sarcasm was bred in his bones.

Alison did not suspect a thing. She drank out of the goblet like a good little girl.

Tick tock tick tock.

They retreated to the family room for coffee, and Alison fell asleep on the couch, as expected.

“Bring her to the sanctum,” Jericho intoned.

Kyle had not felt any connection to Alison. He didn’t know her, didn’t find her that interesting or beguiling as a person. He didn’t feel anything for her. In his mind, he had compartmentalized her as

THE SACRIFICE

and it wasn’t good to get too involved with sacrifices.

He hadn’t realized then he would be breaking the rule exactly one year later.

Caleb carried Alison to the map table in the sanctum.

“Spread her legs,” Jericho said, gloving up.

“With pleasure,” Caleb said.

Kyle watched, emotionless, as his brother pushed Alison’s skirt up and pulled down her panties. Caleb arranged her legs so that they were bent at the knees and her pussy was well displayed. It was a very demeaning position, akin to a gynecological examination without stirrups.

Jericho’s hands were covered with surgical gloves. He opened a vaginal examination kit wrapped in green cloth. Kyle knew that he had to learn to do this one day. Jericho smeared a small duck-billed speculum with gel. Carefully, he inserted the tip into Alison’s pussy hole. This was the most difficult part because he could not afford to tear her hymen.

Once the speculum was in, he opened it up. He then took up a torch and shone it into the opening.

“Observe,” he instructed his sons.

They dutifully crowded around him like medical students.

“Her hymen is still intact. She is a virgin.”

Kyle noted the slit-like opening called the ‘os’ in the hymen, which was unimpeded. Non-virgins would have a much larger ‘torn’ opening.

“She’s a candidate then,” Caleb said eagerly. He was too bloodthirsty, Kyle thought.

“Yes.” Jericho withdrew the speculum and snapped off his gloves.

They let Alison sleep off the effects of the drug. When she awoke in the morning, she had no recollection of what happened.

“You were so peaceful that I didn’t have the heart to wake you,” Jericho said to her.

He drove her home. Kyle knew the rote. Jericho would invite her to ‘a party’ this weekend. A very exciting party at his house with his relatives. And because she had already been to his house and met his sons, there would be a certain level of trust built in. She would say ‘yes’, and think nothing of it. She would even plan excitedly for it and mull over what to wear to impress him further.

If she went missing, the police would do nothing more than to conduct the most cursory of investigations and close it as a missing person’s case. Jericho’s pockets were very deep.

The Enclave was bedecked with lanterns for the Gathering. The Gathering of werebears only happened once a year for the Atreides clan and their kin came from far and wide. The members were scattered across the world, coming in from as far as Australia for this occasion, which rivaled Christmas.

The walls were swathed with silk and damask. A champagne fountain was placed in the center of the hall, and guests could fill their glasses directly from it. Close-faced waiters walked around with trays of canapés and hor douvres. Unlike a Mayday Gathering, this one was dedicated to the
Monhain
, or appeasing the Beast.

The Atreides clan were the keepers of the age-old Balance. It was a very important task, one that cannot be underscored. Legend has it that if a virgin was not fed to the Beast once a year on the
Monhain
, the very foundations of the Earth itself would be splintered apart.

Kyle wasn’t sure if he could believe that, or that it was a metaphor for something else. After all, as far as he was concerned, the world was already tearing itself apart. The population was on the increase, crowding out diminishing resources and burning up precious fuel. Mother Nature was on her path of wrath. Species were becoming extinct by the second. The Earth was on ferocious burnout, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Still, understandably, the Elders were determined not to risk the Beast’s wrath. The Elders had kept the Beast under wraps with the
Monhain
for centuries. Who was Kyle to argue with the knowledge and tradition of centuries?

And why wake a hibernating Beast if you didn’t have to, even if you didn’t truly believe it existed?

*

Alison arrived in a very pretty yellow dress. She was all decked up with artificial fairy wings for the masquerade themed party, and her cheeks were flushed with a billionaire’s attention. Perhaps she truly believed that she had caught a handsome billionaire’s fancy and was on her way to being Mrs. Jericho Number Two.

Kyle knew that his father had already composed and printed out the computer-typed letter. It had been tacked onto Alison’s monitor on her desk for anyone, especially Alison’s roommate, to read.

‘Something major happened. Something big. Don’t know when I’ll be coming back. Don’t miss me. Bye.

Alison.’

It was even signed with her signature, which Jericho had procured earlier.

“Hello, Alison,” Kyle said affably.

Alison sized him up. He could tell that she found him very attractive.

“Hello, Kyle. Big party tonight?” she said eagerly.

“Yes.”

“Do you have big parties like these often?”

“Sometimes. Would you like some wine?”

A waiter passed by on cue and Kyle stopped him. He appropriated a seemingly random wine glass from the tray and gave it to Alison. But the glass was anything but random. It was the one perched on the left edge of the tray.

“Thank you.” Alison took it from him and sipped from it. “Who are all these people?”

The Atreides kin were in full deck tonight. They streamed in, dressed in all their finery, men and women alike. This was a fancy dress ball and so they came in their Halloween gear, donning anything from Catwoman outfits to Thor headgear. But they all had one theme in common – the costumes were all sexy. Cleavages were exposed. Buttocks were revealed in naughty ways. Bodies were displayed in the most salacious of ways possible.

Alison’s eyes popped out of her head.

“Mostly relatives and friends of relatives,” Kyle said affably. He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She was glazing over. The drugs were strong. But unlike what she had been given earlier, this one was not designed to knock her out entirely.

As the evening wore on, Alison got higher and higher. She laughed loudly. She made crass jokes. She danced and spun on her heels. Everyone knew she was the designated sacrifice, of course, and everyone indulged her. Kyle was feeling extremely high himself, having drunk the champagne which was spiked with Ecstasy.

The guests began to shed their clothes. The party took on the spirit of a rave. Brassieres were thrown onto floors, along with underwear. Boobs flashed everywhere, as did penises. The music was thudding a primal beat and something from Nine Inch Nails was on.