The Silver Cage Read online

  ‘Well, you’re not leaving until I’m holding the crowns.’

  ‘I told you, I don’t trust you. But I do trust my ex-soldier, Pepper. I’ll take Pepper to them. Do we have a deal? The Silver Collar’s with them too. That’s your bonus prize.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Erin tightly.

  42

  ‘AND THAT WORKED?’ said Iris, full of wonderment.

  ‘Yep. Took Peppy down to the car park. She was in radio contact. They were happy. And it’s not like Pepper can’t handle herself. I showed her where I’d hidden the crowns and collar under one of their bloody black Mercs. Then I took the truck and got away. Nothing more than a few gross burns on my chest.’

  ‘But Cobalt have the crowns and the collar. Fuck.’

  ‘Yep. And it seems they haven’t even figured out what use they are. How to trace with them. Stupid bastards. When I saw they were sending you all over the place for Alfie, I thought maybe it had fucked up, that Alfie didn’t have his crown any more. But then when you said he was in the Silver Cage. Oh, man, how incompetent are Cobalt? No wonder I got clean away.’ Blake paused and held Iris’s gaze with something very familiar. ‘But isn’t that enough shop talk, Iris? Can’t we discuss your love life? I mean, damnit, Iris. A vampire! You necro-bitch!’

  ‘What? Oh, God, you fought him in the woods, didn’t you? Well, I don’t know what he told you, but fuck off, Blake. It’s none of your business. Anyway, this is hardly the time to get jealous – we need to get back to Cobalt and get those crowns. Also, though, if we’re talking love lives, isn’t it time you told me what’s going on with you and Lilith?’

  ‘Lilith?’

  ‘She was sitting on your lap. I know you two were together once before. The source of all your bleats of “it isn’t cheating if it’s with a witch” –’

  ‘It isn’t!’ Blake interrupted.

  Iris kept talking. ‘And then, suddenly, divorce papers. So is it a love thing? With a witch? Really? You?’

  ‘Well, it’s nice to feel we’ve both moved on from lycs,’ Blake snapped.

  Iris looked down a second. It seemed like the wrong thing to say – the wrong time and the wrong place – but she had to say it. Without looking up, she said, ‘I haven’t moved on from lycs, Blake. You know that. And nor have you. You haven’t moved on from me.’ She couldn’t keep her feelings inside, not here, not in this room. The room where they had first kissed, first fucked.

  ‘Oh damn, look at me, Iris. Isn’t it obvious I’m not hung up on you any more? Haven’t you figured it out for yourself? I’m . . .’ He stopped and swallowed. ‘OK, I’m magically bound to a witch. Lilith offered me her binding and I took it. That magic is – oh, God, there are no words for how powerful. If I put my dick inside you now, it’ll most likely go black and drop off. So, looks like I’m over you whether I want to be or not, doesn’t it?’

  Iris shook her head. ‘I don’t know why you’re doing this, Blake, why you let Lilith . . . God!’

  ‘No,’ said Blake sharply. ‘Nor do I.’ He shifted, cocking his head and wriggling his hips. ‘Tell you what, though, now I can’t fuck whomever I please – and I want you to understand that by “whomever I please” I pretty much mean you – I kind of understand how it must have been for Alfie all those years. If all it took was a set of magical manacles to get out from this curse I’d probably go halfway around the world to find them too.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Iris gasped. ‘The chains. The chains that are part of the Sacred Silvers – they’re his chains, aren’t they? The ones Alfie uses. Surely we can find the chains. Last time I saw them they were attached to Alfie’s bed in the pack house in Marston.’

  ‘That’s right, baby. Smart thinking.’ Blake grinned.

  ‘You knew that. Oh, fuck. You knew that all along. You’re kind of getting into this thing where you know it all already and drop me cryptic hints, aren’t you? Is that what fucking witches does? Make you act like one?’

  ‘Iris,’ Blake said slowly, tilting his head down and looking up at her, ‘are you trying to rile me?’

  Iris shrugged. ‘Maybe I am. I’ve missed you, Blake. You can’t fuck me. I get that. But we can still fight can’t we?’

  ‘And you really think this is a good time for a fight. Aren’t we in a race against time?’

  Iris thought of everything that had happened in the run-up to this moment. How het up and twisted she felt inside since Blake ran his rough tongue over her lips in the woods the night before. She needed something. She wouldn’t be able to do her job without it. And if this was all she could get from Blake now . . .

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, I do.’

  It was immediate. Blake exploded out of the doorway. But it was too pat a move, obvious. Iris dived and he skidded on the rug by the bed.

  Iris was sitting on the floor looking at him. She sprang to her feet, but Blake recovered quicker than she would have thought and yanked one of her legs, pulling her back down. He managed to get up and straddle her lap, pinning her arms to her sides. With Iris and Blake it always came down to his advantage of strength over her advantages of technique and speed. He moved his face into hers. ‘You know,’ he said softly, ‘I have no idea what this witch-binding thing will let me get away with. I don’t even know if I can kiss you. But I know I can do this.’ His tongue darted out and flicked over hers.

  Iris sighed as her pussy flooded with slick wet heat. Oh, Blake could still light her fire.

  But she didn’t let his clever suggestive tongue distract her for long. The grip of his left hand on her right wrist was his weakest point. She yanked up sudden and hard, forcing her hand free with a head rush of taut friction. She used her elbow fast against the side of his head, knocking him sideways and down on to the rug. Iris scrambled over him on to the bed and he grabbed her foot as she moved, trying to pull her back down. She kicked out and heard him yelp as her foot made contact with some part of him.

  But where to go? She climbed up on the bed.

  This bed, the bed where Blake had once overwhelmed her so easily. She let herself drop into a prone position on her back, coughing as the dust from the long-abandoned linen billowed up all around her.

  When it cleared, Blake was kneeling up on the floor and looking at her. ‘What sort of move is that?’

  Iris flashed her eyebrows. ‘It’s a “what you going to do”, Blake? Fuck me? You know you can’t. Lilith owns your dick now.’

  ‘Yeah. OK. I’d rather you didn’t go on about it.’

  ‘Not go on about it? Oh but it’s too funny not to go on about.’ Iris lifted her hips and started to shuck down her combats. Blake – the man who had once fucked her while holding a gun to her head in case she had been bitten by a werewolf – powerless without his cock. She kicked her way free of her clothing and slipped both hands between her legs. ‘God, you know, Blake, your not being able to fuck me makes me kind of hot.’

  Blake climbed up on the bed and lay down next to her. ‘Just when I thought you couldn’t get more perverted.’

  Iris laughed as she brought one hand up to her mouth and moistened her fingers. She moaned aloud as she reached back down and drew her slippery fingertips over her clit.

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ Blake said, ‘that you could see your way clear to signing the divorce papers before you bring yourself off thinking about my misfortune.’

  Iris opened her eyes. ‘I have,’ Iris said, ‘they’re in my bag.’

  ‘Right,’ said Blake. ‘And now you really are going to make me watch you masturbate, are you?’

  ‘I’m not making you do anything.’

  ‘This is my house, Iris.’

  ‘Well, you could help me out. If you like.’

  ‘I don’t think I can.’

  ‘Not even with your tongue. I thought it was your cock she owned.’

  Blake made a face. ‘That’s just a metaphor. She’s a witch. I can’t be unfaithful. She never got over the way I fucked her that time. No matter what they say about turning them down, I real
ly should never have screwed a witch.’

  ‘You didn’t just screw a witch, you screwed the witch. Lilith. God, Blake, have you any idea how powerful she is?’

  ‘Of course I fucking have. I’m not some clueless civilian.’

  ‘But why, why did you?’

  ‘She wanted me to. And she’s a witch.’

  ‘Why you?’

  ‘She wanted someone who could be a man for her. She wanted someone who would hold her down, force his dick into her mouth, play the bad man. You know I’ve always been good for that, Iris.’

  ‘I know. God.’ Iris sighed and twisted her fingers over her clit again. The thought of Blake and Lilith together like that was weirdly hot.

  ‘Oh, you like that, do you, baby?’ Blake whispered.

  ‘Maybe. Kind of. God, and she let you do that? A witch.’

  ‘It was all her idea.’

  Iris sighed heavily. She was close to orgasm and Blake would know that as well as she did. ‘Well, you must have been good.’

  ‘I was too good. She wanted me back. Permanently. And now she’s got me.’

  ‘Perhaps . . . And she’s just going to force you? To what? To be her sex slave?’

  ‘I think she’s going to force me to force her to be my sex slave. Possibly. It all gets rather muddy.’

  ‘And you don’t have any choice?’ Iris gasped.

  ‘Oh yes. Well. I had to consent. It’s all very romantic – witch’s binding. I consented.’

  Iris stilled her hand, holding herself on the edge of orgasm. ‘You . . .? You did?’

  ‘Yes. It’s that kind of a deal.’

  Iris felt her throat prickle. Blake was what? Blake was leaving her? Giving up? She shook herself, reminding herself again that it was over, that she and Blake were history. But, somehow, with Alfie in the thrall of the Divine and now Blake betrothed to a witch, she just felt like everyone, everything was leaving her. She had never felt so alone, so powerless.

  Blake turned and pulled her bag up on to the bed. He yanked out the divorce papers and smoothed them out on the ancient bedspread. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this all seems to be in order.’

  ‘So now you marry her? Is that what it’s called? Marriage. You’d be married to a witch? Does it matter that she’s unconscious?’

  ‘Nah. And it is kind of a marriage, I think. You could call it that. You signing the papers was actually the final stage. The other rituals are done. That’s why I couldn’t kiss you in the wood. I’m already bound to her. This is just a formality, makes it permanent. The part where you have to relinquish your claim to me.’

  ‘So once I signed you were . . .’

  ‘Permanently. Yes.’

  Iris started to stroke her clit again. She was still on the edge. ‘And you can’t ever, uh, be with anyone else. Oh, God.’

  ‘Yeah. Even beyond death, apparently. Which is nice. Can’t even fall on my sword.’

  ‘Blake, oh. I wish you could touch me. How can you fight me and not touch me now?’

  ‘Witch rules, Iris. Stop thinking with logic.’

  ‘But no one. Not just me. No one else. Ever again?’

  ‘Why not? It’s not actually that much of a problem for me, Iris. I actually quite like monogamy. Simple and clear. I find it rather relaxing. You’re the one who has trouble making decisions.’

  ‘I made my decision, Blake. I chose Alfie.’

  Blake spoke through his teeth. ‘Really? Look at yourself. You should be out rescuing him right now and you’re trying to get me to push my tongue into you.’

  Iris moaned. ‘Yeah,’ she panted. ‘And it’s killing you that you can’t.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Blake shrugged and Iris had no idea what he was thinking.

  ‘I just still don’t see why.’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘You said you had to consent to it. I mean, I understand that she’s a witch and everything, but the whole consent thing would be meaningless if she could just threaten you into it, so why? Why did you agree?’

  ‘Why did I agree to marry Lilith and give up my joyous life pining after you? The woman who enjoys stroking her cunt right in my face and taunting me about how I can’t have it. You see what you’ve done to me?’ Blake knelt up on the bed, his erection suddenly unmistakeable.

  Iris shifted. She was so turned on she was incoherent. ‘Um, yeah. Well, no, I mean, God, Blake, so what’s in it for you?’

  Blake moved closer. He lifted one leg and swung it over Iris’s body so he was straddling her. But he was careful that not one inch of his body touched hers. For one spare second he glanced down at Iris’s hands, still buried in her pussy. ‘You think I didn’t get something in return?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What does one usually get from witches?’

  ‘Well, magic.’

  Blake smiled. His face was so close to hers. Breaths and kisses. ‘So, had any use for any magic lately? Big expensive magic? Out of the reach of mere mortals kind of magic?’

  Iris gasped. Her body flipped. She felt like she was made of goose bumps. ‘The morphial connector. Alfie. The whole witch intervention. That was you? That was what she gave you in return?’

  Blake moved closer. His face was very close to Iris’s. Their lips were almost touching. He nodded.

  ‘Blake . . . No. Even so. You can’t do this. Not for me.’

  ‘Already done.’

  ‘But how can I . . .? How . . .’

  ‘How can you ever repay me?’

  Iris nodded.

  ‘You don’t need to. I owe you, Iris. I knew about Tobias all that time and I never told you. I married you and I kept the biggest secret from you. I understand that. This is me repaying my debt. But, if you want to give me something in return . . . damn, Iris, right now I would really like to watch you come.’

  Iris looked down. Her fingers were still frozen on her clit. Blake was still far too close to her. He’d given his soul for her. Was this his redemption? He was holding the divorce papers. She’d signed her name Iris Instasi-Fox Tabernacle. It had felt odd because her usual signature didn’t include Blake’s last name, but, somehow, she thought he’d like it.

  At one point – way back in the day – she and Blake had got business cards. Dr Tobias had them made up when they had ‘got professional’ as she liked to think of it. When they’d moved to the new building, taken on some new staff and even stopped nearly killing themselves trying to make their own magical cover spells. The cards had been something of a point of bemusement for Blake and Iris. They weren’t exactly sure who they were ever supposed to give them to, what with the whole covert operation thing, and they were hardly going to hand them out to lycs before they silvered them.

  The only useful purpose Iris’s business cards had managed to serve was to finally destroy her marriage to Blake, when he realised that she actually wasn’t going to have his name put on them. She had argued that Iris Instasi-Fox-Tabernacle was more than a mouthful and a typesetter’s nightmare, which was when he had suggested that she drop a few of the more unwieldy syllables. And she had. She packed up most of his belongings from her flat that day.

  But it had taken until now – ten months later – for her to actually sign him out of her life.

  Iris swallowed hard and drew her fingers over her clit. Spelling out her name again. IRIS – INSTASI – FOX – TABERNACLE. She stared into Blake’s eyes, barely finishing the last letter of his last name as she started to come.

  Blake, still with his face close to hers, made a soft grunting noise, somewhere between pain and arousal.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Iris said a moment later when she had recovered. She could feel his breath on her face. She was still buzzing.

  ‘Yes. Fine. It’s probably psychosomatic, but just looking at these papers and watching you – oh, God, you looked beautiful doing that, Iris – it’s like I can feel the magic settling. You know, binding me to Lilith. You know where it’s going to be housed.’

  Iris looked down Blake’s body. Under
his dark-red army fatigues, he looked as if he had an erection. The fabric was loose there, but Iris knew Blake’s body so well.

  Blake caught her chin and lifted her face back to his. ‘Oh, that’s not the magic, Iris. That’s still you.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Iris flashed her eyebrows. ‘Don’t give me a line, Blake. You’ve just taken a witch’s binding. What’s the point?’

  Blake was still holding her chin. He rolled his eyes. ‘I just watched you come, Iris. I know that was hardly a new experience for me, but you still had an effect. And now I just wonder what it really means. If I’m completely bound to Lilith now, what would happen if I . . .’ He leant forwards and kissed Iris on the lips. It seemed to last quite a long time – maybe a couple of seconds – before there was a loud sound somewhere between cymbals and thunder and Blake was flung very hard across the room. He hit an old bookcase with a crash and paperwork and books began to rain down on him as he sat there, dazed.

  Iris watched him struggle to regain his composure.

  ‘Ah, right, so that’s what happens. Completely worth it.’

  43

  IT HAD BECOME a reflex. When she approached the cage, Alfie rolled his body up into a foetal position as best he could with his left hand chained to the bars and his right hand smashed.

  But she wasn’t coming for him. Not for his sore soft cock or his aching empty balls, balls that felt like they had been turned inside out. She had Sabrina with her. Sabrina hadn’t been there since that first time when she fitted the device.

  Ever since then, Sabrina hadn’t been present for the times when the Divine forced Alfie’s cock to some version of hardness with her tongue and throat and hands and then brought him to ever more painful, screaming tearing orgasms, while he begged her over and over not to make him come again. ‘Please, no. Please, no.’

  So, if Sabrina was here, this was going to be something else.

  ‘You are the wolf,’ Divinia was saying, although Alfie only realised a moment later that she was talking to him. ‘You are also the man. And you are unstable. You are a creature beyond, now. You can change outside the moon and you are man-conscious, rational in your wolf form. You are like nothing the world has ever seen, werewolf.’