Braze saw that the beak-mouth at its end had plucked the pink cone-hat from the trainer’s head and now held it aloft, waving it gently before tossing it aside with a contemptuous flick.
The audience gasped in unison, then broke into delighted applause at the Kriver’s terrifying precision.
“You see?” the trainer cried, bowing as if he had done the trick himself. “Control! Now, witness her balance and grace—traits previously unseen in a creature of such raw power!”
He gestured to an attendant, who rolled a large, polished crystal sphere into the light.
“She will walk the sphere—a dance of perfect equilibrium!” he cried.
With a series of sharp clicks of his tongue and flicks of his whip, he directed the Kriver and then stared at it for a long moment.
The beast seemed to understand. It hunkered down, its great muscles bunching. Then, with a fluidity that belied its size, it placed both massive front paws onto the rolling sphere.
A collective inhale swept the room as the Kriver pushed forward, walking the sphere in a slow, deliberate circle around the trainer. Its tentacles waved in the air like the legs of a grotesque, upside-down insect, maintaining a perfect, impossible balance.
“Fucking hell,” Braze growled under his breath.
The sight of such destructive potential harnessed to such a frivolous trick was somehow deeply unsettling. The applause this time was more hesitant—tinged with awe.
“And for my final display…” The trainer spread his arms wide, his red cape hanging like a curtain. “I will place myself at her mercy. I shall stand within the Cage of Flesh, surrounded by her hunting limbs, trusting completely in our bond!”
He gave a sharp, guttural shout. The Kriver’s tentacles, all eight of them, shot outwards and downwards with a sound like cracking whips.
The beak-mouths snapped shut a hair’s breadth from the stone floor, forming a perfect, impenetrable prison of pulsating muscle around the trainer. He stood in the center, a smile frozen on his blue lips, as the tentacles began to rotate around him—a living, swirling vortex of muscle and snapping teeth that could reduce him to pulp in a heartbeat.
The hall fell into a dead, breathless silence and it seemed to Braze that the entire audience was mesmerized by the trainer’s reckless flirting with a bloody, horrible death.
Throughout it all, he remained on a knife’s edge of alertness—his senses cataloging every twitch of the beast, every shift in the crowd’s energy. His body was a live wire, ready to explode into motion if he needed to because he did not trust this situation at all.
And yet, beneath the primal thrum of danger, a part of him was still achingly, maddeningly aware of the soft, steady, oblivious stroking of Kaitlyn’s hand on his cock—a persistent and exquisite counterpoint to the threat happening in the center of the room.
The two sensations—mortal peril and desperate, restrained pleasure—were twisted together into a single unbearable tension, and Braze was trapped, utterly, between them.
Fuck, he thought. When is this going to end?
16
KAITLYN
Kaitlyn felt mesmerized by the show playing out in the U-shaped center stage between the tables. She hadn’t been to the circus since she was a little girl, but that was what it reminded her of. The trainer had all the flashy showmanship of a ringleader and the Kriver was an absolute nightmare—she couldn’t look away from the spectacle of it all. Also, the warmth of the cinnamon wine still singing in her veins made everything pleasantly fuzzy.
She still had a loose grip on her Protector’s cock, but she was barely aware of what she was doing with it. Her head felt light, and she hardly noticed that Braze’s entire body had grown tense and hard beneath her.
She was leaning forward, watching the whirling vortex of snapping tentacles spinning around and around the Kriver trainer when the lights suddenly started to flash and strobe again. The sudden, blinding flashes made her blink and gasp—they actually hurt her eyes.
Kaitlyn wasn’t sure if whoever was working the lights thought they were adding to the drama of the scene, but for her, at least, they weren’t adding a thing—in fact, it was making the entertainment much less entertaining. She winced and shaded her eyes, annoyed by the lighting change.
But the blinding, flashing lights seemed to have a whole different effect on the Kriver. It let out a shrieking roar that made Kaitlyn let go of Braze and clap her hands over her ears instinctively.
The angry creature turned its many tentacled beaks—which were still spilling around the trainer—inward. Suddenly Kaitlyn heard another shriek—one of terror and pain.
“No!” the trainer screamed. “No, don’t—behave! Stop! Stop! Stahhhh…”
The last word died away into a horrifying gurgle and when Kaitlyn dared to look, she saw why.
The Kriver had shredded her trainer—literally shredded him. He was nothing but a bloody pile of blue flesh and hair and a jumble of long, thin bones.
Oh my God, Kaitlyn thought, staring numbly at the gory sight. It looks like he was put through a cheese grater!
