Golden Binds

Sawyer paced up and down the room, which was the security center of the whole castle. From here he could see every area of the castle, including the dungeon room he’d stuck the female inside. He’d set up this whole system, the alarms, the cameras, and the booby-traps outside.

How had one tiny, clueless female circumnavigated them all?

Well, he knew the reason she’d gotten past the alarm. He glared over at Garret who lay on the couch Sawyer often ended up sleeping on rather than going back to his bed.

“You shouldn’t have turned off the alarms.”

Garret held a bag of ice to the back of his head. Joe was sitting in the only other chair, a bag of ice clasped to his balls. Sawyer grimaced. She might be small, but she’d put a lot of power into that kick.

“I wanted to go out for a while,” Garret commented, looking over at the monitors. “And I

didn’t want you hassling me about it. I only switched them off for a few hours, how was I to know someone would get through all those traps you’d laid in the forest? Do you think she had help?”

“That’s what I’m going to figure out,” Sawyer said in a low voice. This was a challenge, and he never backed down from a challenge.

“I still don’t think you should have stripped her naked,” Joe grumbled.

“She’s not naked,” Sawyer pointed out.

“More’s the pity,” Garret added in a sad voice.

Sawyer whacked him on the head.

“Ow! Fuck! What was that for?” Garret made a grab for the ice pack as he sat up with a wince. “My head hurts, man.”

“Just trying to smack some sense back into you. Everything is about sex with you.”

“Well, the two of you might be happy living celibate lives, but I have needs.”

Sawyer looked over at Joe, who grimaced. Truth was, Sawyer was pretty sick of having only his hand to keep him company at night. The more years that passed, the closer the beast that lived inside him drew to the surface.

And the beast wanted its mate. It wanted to be free. There were times when he wondered if that was a good idea. He didn’t know about his brothers, but his beast only had three things on its mind—sex, food, and the hunt.

Sawyer wondered just how much control he’d have if the beast ever emerged. The older he grew, the more the beast made itself known. Garret was several years younger than he was, and he seemed to feel the same surge from the animal. Joe did. In fact, Joe had to be in a worse state than Sawyer, but he didn’t show it.

But, then, Sawyer often wondered if Joe’s OCD was a way of controlling not just everything around him, but the havoc being wrecked inside of him as well.

“And your needs include ogling our half-naked prisoner?” Joe asked in a low voice.

Garret grimaced at the reprimand. “All right, that’s a step too far. She’s damn hot, though.”

“What she looks like has nothing to do with this,” Sawyer told them both. “I stripped her to make sure she wasn’t wearing a wire or had a weapon hidden anywhere.”

“I think if she had a weapon hidden somewhere, she’d have used it earlier when Garret had his face between her breasts,” Joe pointed out.

Garret shrugged, unrepentant. “She was into it. She couldn’t have fake that. And I was hungry. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“So, because you were hungry you thought it was okay to get it on with a strange, uninvited female you found in our pantry?” Joe asked incredulously.

“She said she was the new cook.”

They both stared at him.

“Yeah, okay, I didn’t actually believe that. But there’s just something about her.”

Joe shook his head in disgust. “All right, I get that you needed to check her for a wire, Sawyer, but don’t you think you should have given her clothes back?”

“I figured this was a good way of intimidating her. I need to get her to talk.” And torturing females wasn’t high on his list of fun things to do.