LITMIR.BIZ

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and lush flowers. The path cut through like a maze, and he felt the sticky silk of spider webs touch his skin as he pushed through the green thicket. No one had come through there in some time, or it was made to look that way. He suspected the latter.

      The second gate had another camera and intercom. By now, Tib’s temper flared. A consistent burning sensation stung both his lungs and his heart, warning him of the danger. Something was very wrong with this mock, garden-like Utopia. He contained it for Sophie’s sake, who had said nothing during their jaunt through the underbrush.

      “Welcome to our Hillside, Lady of the Pure. Greetings, Lieutenant Blackfield.” The same woman’s voice came from this intercom, as well. “You will follow your guide into our home. Lieutenant, please attend to your weapons and keep them from view during your visit.”

      The intercom shut off with a click. The music reached a crescendo and like a trumpeting call, swelled as the gate opened.

      A woman came out of the forest that lined the gate’s perimeter. She wore a long, flowing skirt that touched her ankles and her hair was long, down past her shoulders. Her breasts were exposed. On her nipples, clamps denoted her sexual servitude and the intimate bondage she was under. They were linked and chained together with jeweled cord, bound to the slave’s collar at her neck. She was smiling. She pressed her palms together and bowed.

      “Greetings, Lady of the Pure. Greetings, Lieutenant Blackfield. Welcome to our Hillside. Won’t you join me?”

      She started walking, a sway of her hips giving indication of how the woman was used when she wasn’t a guide. She was a pawn, just as they were intended to be. Tiberius refused it. He’d be no one’s pawn, and he wouldn’t let Sophie be either. As for her children…

      He hid a growl. There was nothing he could do to change what might have been done to them in the interim. He only had to find them and take them back.

      He and Sophie walked through a tunnel of trees. The music played all around them, eerie with its hidden seductiveness. Sophie walked stiff and straight beside him. Her fingers clutched his, her palm moist and trembling. Her eyes widened when the trees opened into a clearing, and she almost dropped his hand out of surprise.

      “Tiberius…”

      He motioned for her to keep silent until he could ensure their privacy. She gave a quick nod, then continued her frantic staring, as if expecting to find her children within the hubris that thrived around them.

      Everything had the appearance of perfect chaos, a small hive of civility in the deep of the forested wood. Again he pondered what those in the commune supposedly hid, beyond the outlying debasement of their lifestyles. He feared it wasn’t just the nefarious act of sexual conquest and trafficking, but that the whole organization had ties with the underground movements and the Resistance of the west. He only had to prove it.

      Small lanes of cobbled road twined along the rich lawns. People zoomed around in elaborate mini-cars, so small he wondered if they had once been utilized as caddy-carts at another time. Interspersed were small homes, and in the middle was a large religious facility. He didn’t doubt the old church housed where the Most Pure led her unholy worship. He wanted to storm it, to tear it down, stone by large stone. But it would have to wait. And as yet, he hadn’t proved anything but a theory in his mind—this whole township was dangerous.

      Some women were topless, chained and collared. The men who were of the same inclination also wore collars and leather manacles on their wrists. Despite that, it was clear their slavery wasn’t just ownership. Their inclinations were on bondage and denial, submission and compliance.

      Tiberius looked over to his supposed wife, whose eyes remained wide-eyed. Damnably, he wondered how she’d look wearing his collar. His trousers grew instantly tight, but he felt like a bastard for thinking such a thing while in a place like Hillside. His dirty cravings would have to be curtailed, as he’d always kept them hidden, for outwardly having fetishes or kinks was a thing considered shameful to those in his own nation. The Ruins suppressed sexuality even as it applauded fertility, a feat that began years before the Colonel came into power and likely would continue long after.

      Around them, on the immaculately kept lawns, were those tiny houses. They were expensively built, lushly extravagant. From Victorian-type structures to Italianate villas, the homes were architecturally diverse. These citizens could afford it. They weren’t just the ordinary laborers or deprived people of the Ruin’s eastern half. These were the handpicked, uber-rich of both nations. The elite-selected with tastes which ran to the heinous and terrible.

      Sophie hid a gasp and her fingers, tangled in his, tightened. He looked to her, and then to what made her react. His eyes stayed neutral, but his belly quickened with disgust. He had already spied what caught her attention.

      Some collared ones were children. Nearly naked and kept like pets, fawned over and cosseted, but slaves just the same. Most of the children’s eyes held a wary mistrust. Others, the ones who were older, held canny observation and acceptance. One young boy looked up with adoration at the woman who held his leash. That child was the most difficult to turn away from without doing anything to stop the woman’s haughty prancing with him on her arm.

      Their masters held onto them proudly, parading them through the town, going about their daily excursions without a care. Those goddamn, disgusting fuckers would have to be taken down, Tiberius decided. No questions asked and no pardons given.

      Tib held Sophie’s hand, knowing she swallowed her rage, and curtailed her motherly instincts to protect. He wanted to take out his hidden weapons, and without qualm go to each of the slave owners, cut their bellies open with his dullest knife, and then put a messy hole in each of those perverted bastards’ heads with one of his pistols.

      He contained his anger, his eyes fiercely sharp, monitoring their surroundings. He kept firm hold of Sophie’s fingers with a rationality and ease he didn’t feel as he kept to her side while they weaved together through the crowd, following their half-naked guide. For her, he’d stay calm. For her he’d keep to his plan and slowly infiltrate the commune until the whole system was down. And he’d bring Isaiah and Sarah back home to her in the process.

      It wouldn’t be easy. It was a town full of the detestable ones, the outcasts of society, those whose inclinations ran towards perversions that others in the territory frowned upon. Maybe Tiberius, with his dominating ways and lust for control would have been slated as one of those outcast members had he ever acted upon his wants instead of hiding behind numbing self-denial and military aloofness. But the difference was, he didn’t sexually crave children or want to sell them off to others, which was the sticking point in his craw—not the rampant nudity or the obvious kinks and fetishes which abounded. Nothing prepared him for seeing these children in captivity. Nothing at all. He usually didn’t care what people did for pleasure as long as it didn’t bother or affect him. But perversions that involved the bondage, control and rape of minors made him want to burn the whole commune down, having no remorse.

      His justice for this, when it came, would be swift and sure and mighty. These powerful untouchable ones wouldn’t know what hit them.

      Their guide stopped in front of a home set apart from the others. The yard was filled with gardens and there was a small porch that wrapped around the outside of the house. It was quaint and private, but he didn’t trust anything about it. Of course, Tiberius wasn’t a man who trusted much in life.

      “This will be yours during your stay.” The woman bowed again. “I hope you are pleased, Lady of the Pure?”

      She asked Sophie, but ignored Tiberius. Sophie looked to him, and he grunted, answering for her.

      “It’s fine. When can we see your leader?”

      The guide gave him a beatific smile. “When you are rested and purged from your long journey, the Most Pure will grant you an audience. Now please, enter and enjoy yourselves with the amenities given as our special guests.”

      The woman left. They were alone.

      The house they were provided was one of the larger ones, denoting status. Tib couldn’t

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