The essence of her love still hasn’t dried on my cock and she’s already wanting to rush away. I wish she didn’t have that urge, but as long as she does, it’s better to let her go.
“I’m sorry,” she says with a little sob.
I could get up and stop her. I could tell her I am taking her home. She would come with me if I framed it as an order. But I won’t.
Her eyes are welling with tears as she leaves the little cabin where we made love. I know that she has been changed in a deep, but quiet way. I’ve shown her several things. One, that I can find her. Two, that I will still love her when she has done what she thinks is the worst. Three, that I am confident enough to let her go. She will miss my collar and my cage. She will come back for it, sooner or later, and this time she will not complain about the bars. She will welcome them, and her own submission.
As Leo predicted, this is a game that is actually quite enjoyable. We will likely only get to play it once. I extended it for another round, and in doing so I have prolonged all our pleasure.
I said I would give her a three-day head start, and I am nothing if not a man of my word. I decide I may as well go on a small cruise in the harbor to spot a whale or similar. I haven’t seen a whale in some time.
My phone rings.
It’s Luke.
“Hm?” I answer with a hint of a question.
“Aiden. You need to come home. Now.”
“Why?”
“Leo’s been shot. He’s alive, but he’s in a bad way.”
“This is a ruse to get me off her tail, I presume, and a pretty transparent one.” He has no idea that I’ve already found her, and I do not intend to tell him. I am certain I will be the one to find her a second time as well. My brothers seem to be facing quite the challenge in this hunt.
Luke’s voice deepens. “Seriously, Aiden. Leo’s been shot.”
“Then make a video call and show me.”
“You’re an asshole, you know that?”
He sounds stressed. If this is a prank, it’s a terrible and convincing one.
Luke video-calls me, and turns the phone to a hospital bed where Leo is lying with a tube in his mouth and a dozen wires all connected in arcane medical ways.
“I’m coming,” I say.
It takes twelve hours to reach home. Not even the fastest private charters can make the journey shorter than that. Luke has made the hospital details available to me, and I charter a helicopter from the airport in order to reach it as quickly as possible.
I walk into the room and find Leo there in the hospital bed. There is something furry by his side, something that starts snarling at me as I enter.
They’ve snuck the dog in.
Of course they have. Why would any of us follow rules, or protocol, or stay relatively un-shot for more than ten minutes. Perhaps it is the effect of seeing Ella and having her walk away, or maybe it is simply the stress of having another brother seriously injured, but my mood is very dark.
He doesn’t have a tube down his throat anymore. He looks a lot brighter. That is good, I tell myself. Actually, given that it is Leo, he looks like an orderly businessman in bed.
“Who did this?”
“Technically, me.”
Luke answers. He was sitting in an armchair conveniently located away from the door. He stands up as I enter, looking far too pleased with himself for someone who has severely injured his brother.
“You did this?”
“Yes,” Luke says. “But to be fair, I did tell you. Leo got shot. That was the relevant information.”
“I did get shot,” Leo agrees. I can’t be angry at him, because he’s probably on an absolute cocktail of painkillers.
