Page 10 of Dragon Flames
Touch means pain, and I’m not sure if I can stop the instinctual need to draw blood to escape the threat.
And it isn’t just men.
Any touch sets me off.
In prison, the inmates and guards know better and keep their distance.
Here, it’s a different matter.
I can only imagine the amount of drama and attention I would draw for accidentally maiming one of their precious sons and heirs.
Or worse, harming a breeding female.
Hours pass while the shifter society goes through the farce of presenting the females of breeding age to those in attendance. They dance and flirt and share a kiss. Some even go so far as to touch a female intimately, paying for the privilege of bringing the girl to orgasm so he can taste her essence.
Just to be sure.
Mates are so rare these days that people now find forced intimacy acceptable.
And the girls have been taught that the invasion is okay. Some are so desperate for a mate that they will agree to almost anything. Others have been trained to crave the orgasms a male can provide.
As impossible as it sounds, the families hire male eunuchs or other females to coach a girl in ways to please a man and how to take pleasure.
It boggles my mind.
Then, there are the unfortunate few who go into heat before they’re mated and need the touch of a male to ease the pain.
I shake off the memory of rough hands pawing at me, holding me down while my attacker shoved his hand down my pants. I grab the shackles in my grip, the pain helping steady my breathing.
Rupert is cold and dead, his body long ago consumed by worms and insects and reclaimed by the earth.
I killed him before he could finish.
But no one believes it was self-defense. I was fifteen, just at the edge of womanhood. He wanted to break me in, show me how to please a man, because that’s a woman’s ultimate goal and duty…to catch—and please—a man.
Rupert thought it was funny.
Said that if I was good enough, he might consider helping me through my heat.
He didn’t appreciate it when I vomited all over him at the thought.
I had to be taught a lesson.
Taught my place.
Before he could complete the deed, my beast took over, and I blacked out. When I woke up, he was dead at my feet, and I was being arrested for murder.
No trial.
No jury.
No escape.
It didn’t matter that I should’ve been protected, that he never should have touched me. It didn’t matter that he’d done the same to countless other women.
It was my word against Lord Gresky’s.
I was a nobody.
