“You haven’t changed yet, darling?” Lucian frowned at him. “You’re supposed to be in your slave outfit the moment the event starts—in two minutes.”
Lucian had been looking forward to that part. He’d ordered tight little black briefs with a custom label on the waistband telling the world Cam was Master Lucian’s property. A new leather collar too.
“I, uh…” Cam cleared his throat and grinned sheepishly. He kept glancing around too. A nervous laugh followed, and then— “Oh, thank fuck.”
I snapped my gaze toward the forest, or wherever the hell the heavy sound of drums was coming from. It sounded live, didn’t it? Was it part of the event? No, it couldn’t be. Everyone turned their heads to the bottom of the hill, where the music grew louder and louder.
“What the fuck…?” Reese was clearly out of the loop.
The black tarp covering the fighting cages—someone was removing it. Foot by foot, the canvas was pulled away, and what I saw didn’t make a lick of sense. I didn’t have to squint anymore; several spotlights flashed to life and directed bright blue light at the two cages.
I swallowed my shock. My feet carried me forward of their own volition, which didn’t fucking work for me. I almost stumbled, but Lucian steadied me.
Noa was sitting behind a drum set in one of the cages, and two people were climbing up on the roof of the other cage.
“Jesus Christ.” Lucian gripped my hand.
I was speechless. My brain was frustratingly slow to catch up, too, yet I instantly realized this had everything to do with the playlist. It was the first song. My boy was pounding furiously and faster than my eyes could follow to the first song on the list.
Not all the music was live. Parts came from a recording. I heard it now; someone had put up speakers around us. The ones we’d used in the woods for the first event.
“Wooo, fuck yeah!” someone yelled from the audience.
It was Tate and Gretchen who’d climbed up on the roof of the cage—with instruments and amplifiers. Tate with his electric guitar, Gretchen…evidently played the bass. I’d had no idea.
Everyone walked closer.
“Holy shit, look at them!” another guy exclaimed.
Noa looked otherworldly under the blue lights. Trapped in a cage, pounding away, my little beast. My freakishly talented beast.
Tate filled in with an impressive guitar riff, dressed only in a pair of jeans and a whole lot of tattoos. Where was Kingsley? This had to kill him.
Noa was shirtless too. Even Gretchen wore only a sports bra with her jeans.
With a few explosive beats, the song morphed into something else entirely. A whole other genre. Noa launched into a new beat, a funkier one, and it set others in motion.
“I’ll change soon, Master.” Cameron grinned slyly, took off his tee, and started a backward jog to the cages, before he turned around and did a complete flip in the air. At the same time, two subs were rolling out a wide carpet on the grass in front of the cages. Another two joined Cam on the carpet. I’d heard he was an excellent break-dancer. He definitely was.
“I have no words,” Lucian said dumbly.
Neither did I.
None of us did.
Shay ran on to the scene with Ivy while Cam performed moves that shouldn’t be physically possible. He spun on his head, he bent his body in bizarre ways, all to the beat, and I couldn’t look away from them.
They were all shirtless for a reason, I was certain.
“Oh, fuck me sideways,” Colt said nearby. He pointed to someone for Lucas.
Kit. Kit and Ella had made it up onto the roofs of the cages, and they crawled forward and lowered a… It was a banner.
I cocked a brow.
They fastened the banner along the front of the cages, and it read “Light their shit right up.”
Someone handed Shay a megaphone, and River and Reese straightened and squared their shoulders, a comical sight.
“Welcome to the Funhouse takeover,” Shay said into the megaphone, the sound distorted. “Since I joined this community, all I’ve heard from our Sadists is that nothing gets by them.”
Oh hell.
Ivy took the megaphone, shimmying her hips to the beat. “Who hasn’t heard a Top say they have more eyes and ears than Las Vegas?”
Lucian folded his arms across his chest. In fact, many of us did.
Shay met up with Cam, who slid between his legs, only to jump up, and they performed a coordinated dance of dodging, backflips, and high kicks.
Ivy danced over to another sub with his own message.
“My Master is a poophead sometimes!”
“Mine too!” came from the crowd.
Uh-huh. I cleared my throat and let my cane fall to the grass, because pulling out my phone was much more important. Then I faced my friends who were standing nearby. “We might wanna record this shit for future use.”
Several others hauled out their phones.