Lice, it turns out, are absolute democracy in action.
Two weeks in this cart and every single one of us is crawling with the little bastards. Doesn’t matter if you’re scaled, horned, feathered, or just regular human skin like me. The lice don’t discriminate. They’re equal opportunity parasites, which would almost be inspiring if I wasn’t constantly fighting the urge to claw my own scalp off.
My ass hurts. That’s the other constant. The cart has no suspension to speak of, just wooden planks over wooden wheels, and every rock in the road translates directly into my tailbone. I’ve got bruises on top of bruises at this point, and sitting down has become its own special circle of hell.
We all smell awful, too. When you’re chained up and only bathing every few days when we’re lucky enough to find a river, personal hygiene becomes a fond memory. The wolf girls running this operation don’t particularly care if their merchandise stinks, as long as we’re alive enough to sell.
But honestly? Outside of all that.
Life isn’t terrible.
I’ve got zero responsibilities. No job to worry about, no rent, no decisions to make about what to eat or where to go or whether I should finally text my mom back. The wolf girls handle everything. They feed us, they water us, they decide when we move and when we stop. It’s weirdly freeing in a fucked-up way.
And Silvy makes sure nobody bothers me.
After that first day, the other slaves got the message pretty quick. She sleeps next to me every night, her weirdly cold scaled body pressed against mine, and if anyone so much as looks at me wrong she bares her teeth and hisses. It’s possessive as hell, which should probably bother me more than it does.
I’m pretty sure Silvy’s a bad person. At least morally…
“Vincent.” Her voice cuts through my thoughts, low and careful. “May I?”
I glance over at her. We’re lying side by side on the ground. The sky above us is full of stars I don’t recognize, constellations that prove I’m not in Boston anymore.
“I told you,” I say, keeping my voice low. “You don’t have to ask.”
She shifts, her scaled skin catching moonlight. “I know, but…”
“What did I just say?” The irritation bleeds into my tone before I can stop it.
Silvy goes still. Her reptilian eyes widen slightly and I watch her swallow. She nods once, nervous energy radiating off her in waves.
Then something changes in her expression. The nervousness slides away, replaced by something harder, more confident.
Despite the chains around her wrists and ankles, she moves. The metal rattles as she shifts her weight, climbing on top of me with surprising grace given how restricted she is. Her chained wrists come up and over my head, the short length of chain between them settling against the back of my neck.
She looks down at me, that confident facade firmly in place now.
“To think,” she says, her voice dropping to something almost amused, “you only respond so well when I just take what I want, huh?”
My jaw tightens. “You’ll make me soft if you don’t play along.”
She doesn’t waste time. Her hips shift and she comes down on my cock hard, taking all of me in one smooth motion before anything can change. Before I can go soft like I threatened.
Her eyes roll back immediately, her whole body shuddering.
“Fuck,” she breathes. Then, quieter, almost vulnerable: “I wish I could make you mine, Vincent.”
“Nah,” I say flatly. “I deserve much better than a slave as an owner.”
She freezes. For a heartbeat I think she’s going to pull away, to get angry, but instead she just... deflates slightly. The mask cracks.
She starts moving, slow rolls of her hips that make the chains between us clink softly. “This is our last night together,” she says quietly.
“Oh?”
“We’ll get to Loln early morning, probably.”
I grunt, the sound half acknowledgment, half reaction to the way she’s grinding down on me.
“Vincent.” Her voice goes softer. She looks down at me and there’s something genuinely melancholic in those reptilian eyes. “This time we’ve spent together...”
She trails off, her movements slowing but not stopping. Never stopping.
“I’ll never forget you,” she finally says.
The words hang in the air between us.
I don’t hate Silvy. She’s a rapist, plain and simple, but she’s also the only thing standing between me and a cart full of strangers who’d probably do worse. She kept me safe in her own twisted way.
“I’ll miss asking you questions about this world,” I say, and I mean it. She’s been the closest thing to wikipedia I’ve had since getting here.
She laughs, the sound half bitter. Her hips roll forward, taking me deeper. “You truly are so ignorant, aren’t you? About everything.”
I chuckle, keeping my mouth shut about the whole interdimensional truck thing. Something tells me that particular revelation would make my situation exponentially worse.
She moans, her movements growing more urgent.
“What’s going to happen to me?” I ask.
She shrugs, her scaled shoulders catching moonlight as she rides me. “You could get lucky. Some rich human woman traveling through might take a fancy to you.” She pauses, grinding down harder. “Or maybe you’ll end up in a whorehouse.”
“Wait… So realistically,” I say slowly, “the rest of my life is just going to be... having sex?”
“Yes.” Her voice is filled with pity. “That’s what studs are for.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
She smiles at that, genuine warmth breaking through. “Ever the optimist, huh?”
Before I can respond, she leans down and kisses me. Her mouth finds mine, and I whimper into it without meaning to. Her breathing gets heavier, her movements more desperate.
“What’s going to happen to you?” I manage when she pulls back.
“Who knows. I might end up as a dungeoneering slave. Or maybe they’ll stick me in the ore mines.” She sighs, the sound resigned and tired. “I’m screwed either way.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Her eyes meet mine in the darkness. “I was sentenced into slavery. This isn’t bad luck. I earned this.”
“What did you do?”
Her movements slow for just a moment. “Something very, very bad.”
We fuck in silence after that, just the sound of chains and breathing and the occasional creak of the cart settling. Her eyes close and her rhythm changes, becoming erratic, and then she’s cumming on top of me, quiet and controlled, her whole body tensing as she bites down on her own lip to keep from making noise.
Something in the way she moves, the way her breathing hitches, triggers something in me. My brain lights up white-hot and suddenly I’m cumming inside her, hard enough that stars burst behind my eyelids.
Her eyes catch mine. They’re wrecked, pupils blown wide, and before I can make a sound her mouth crashes down on mine. I groan into the kiss, my hips jerking up as I empty myself into her.
Finally, when I’m completely spent, she pulls back.
“You’d be so loud if I didn’t catch your mouth, you know,” she whispers, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. “They’d hate us if you woke them.”
I nod, still trying to catch my breath. “Yeah.”
She shifts her weight but doesn’t climb off me yet. The chains between us clink softly as she settles down, her scaled chest pressing against mine.
“Gods, I’m going to miss you,” she sighs, and there’s genuine grief in her voice.
I swallow hard. “Maybe we’ll see each other again someday.”
She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. Just sadness.
“I wouldn’t count on it.”