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We’ve been here before , my Tirian said, which was a really weird thing to say, but I didn’t spend too long thinking about that.

My body felt heavy, my mind full of a muzzy sense of wellbeing.

They’d primed me, teasing me in the car as I teased them, making my steps feel long and loose as I walked towards the club.

With my men. Yeah, they were mine, for now, at least. They flanked me, a solid presence at my back, by my sides, and that was when the déjà vu kicked in.

Very, very occasionally, I’d have these little brain glitches, seeing a world that wasn’t mine, a culture just as alien, see people overlaying those I was serving at work or talking to at a party, particularly when at home in Melville.

It was disconcerting, especially at my job, leaving me open-mouthed and searching for words before the real world would reassert itself, but as my doctor had said when I went to get checked out, it didn’t cause me any issues.

I had no delusions, didn’t spend endless hours ruminating on it, so he just said to ignore it.

So when I started to get flickers of things on the edge of my perception, that was what I did.

“You’re gonna bring her in here?”

We’d walked in the entrance to the club, been greeted by a few of the men who ran the place, their bodies instinctively trying to block my view of what was going on inside.

I saw red bulbs in the ceiling, casting everything in a hellish light, small stages where participants performed, and I only caught snatches of jerking hips and hands.

But the sounds… It was only eight PM, but it felt like this place had been in full swing for some time, maybe since the viewing earlier.

The place was an aural carpet of pleasure—moans and groans and the rhythmic slap of flesh.

My heat flared brighter than ever before, the reddish haze in my mind a perfect match for the club décor.

“She wants to watch, wants to see us perform, wants to stalk through this club naked as a queen,” Shaun insisted.

Yes, that , a voice in my mind said, but was it mine, or my Tirian’s? As he spoke, I saw a mosaic road filled with people, felt myself stepping up to a podium, men at my side. Their fingers went to the richly embroidered robe I wore, undoing the clasps.

“Fuck, Shaun, you didn’t say anything about that,” one of the blokes, a burly dude with a shaved head, said. “We’ll have a fucking riot on our hands.”

“No, we won’t,” Shaun replied, his voice tight.

“They want to see her, please her, catch her eye, and hope she brings one of them home with us when the night is done. They won’t achieve that if they attack her.

She’s beautiful.” He pressed himself against my back, sweeping his hands across my body, and the men’s eyes followed every place the fabric of my clothes was dislodged.

“Her scent is declaring how receptive she is right now.” Lips on my neck, teasing my skin there until I squirmed.

“Her pussy is fucking dripping.” A hand shoved down my pants, no fucking around, his fingers finding my clit and strumming it expertly until I was damn near screaming.

But he pulled it free, the men’s eyes following his glistening fingers all the way to his mouth.

“If she does this, everyone in the fucking club will come harder than they have for ages and keep on coming.” His thumbs hooked into the waistband of my shorts, teasing them down, and their eyes followed every tiny move. “That’s what you want, don’t you, Bec?”

My nod was coy at first, something that caught the other men’s attention immediately. Reticence, fear, it could be just as much of a turn-on as enthusiastic consent to a predator, but these were civilised beasts.

“I’m gonna need more than that, love,” the man at the door said, folding his arms across his chest. “Consent is king in Sanctuary. If you turn around and say we coerced you into this shit, we’re gone, all of us are. We lose our jobs, our home, access to our family. Everything.”

Well, that cooled my blood a little.

“But yeah…” He got off his stool, moved a step closer, still at least an arm’s length away, but still, it felt like he loomed over me, his eyes trained to where Shaun’s hands gripped my waistband.

“You want to walk in there without a stitch on? You’ll get a whole lotta attention.

” My Tirian preened at that idea. “The blokes who saw your little performance at Shaun’s place haven’t shut the fuck up, but one thing they all said… ”

He reached out slowly, my men growling, but I allowed him to tip my chin up so I could meet his steely blue eyes.

“You looked like a fucking goddess come to earth to take your pleasure. If that’s what you want…”

Yes, that. I should have felt fear at what Ethan had suggested, but as he came closer, rubbing a hand along my arm, the déjà vu only deepened. The clasps of my dress fell away, revealing me to all who’d gathered, a ripple of cries from the crowd telling me how much they enjoyed the sight of me.

The man running the place pulled back, the mood cooling noticeably, a series of plastic wristbands produced.

“Then you will wear all the bands that are applicable to you, on each wrist. Fuck, on each ankle too.” He held them out to me so I could see the words inscribed upon them.

No contact, no oral, don’t approach, seek consent…

These were instructions to those who’d try to hit on me, declaring what I was up for.

“I’m thinking these,” Shaun said, picking out a few.

Ask first, seek consent, no pain, no D/s.

I looked up at him, then perused the rest of the options—I’d done that before, been offered an array of self-pleasure devices from a box lined with velvet, the crowd waiting and watching to see what I chose—and then nodded.

“Well, all right then.” The man settled back on his stool, looking the four of us over with a keen eye, making note of the fact the men each took wristbands and forced them over each hand and one of my feet.

And they’ll be all you wear tonight , I told myself. In my mind, I stepped out into the crowd, my scent, my presence having its effect. Eyes slipped away from me, transferring to the objects of their love, their lust. Everywhere I walked, people’s blood turned to fire.

My heart had begun to pound the moment we walked in here, my body not sure if it was frightened, incredibly turned on, or both, but as Shaun’s mouth brushed my ear, I shivered, deciding to be turned on.

Every single one of them stared with complete fascination.

I’d always craved more…well, now I was going to get it.

More attention, more need, more desire. Just more.

Finally, finally, I would have more than I could take, and a few tiny bands of silicone were all that stood between them and me. I turned my head back towards Shaun.

“Do you want to be the one to strip me?”

The other men let out low growls at that, Axel and Ethan starting to pace. I needed that, their impatience. The other men, the strangers, their fingers twitched, their casual poses shifting to one of vigilance.

“I want to be the one to do everything,” Shaun rasped out in a ragged tone. “Always.”

And right then, I felt it, felt him. We’d been here before, done this before.

He’d been the one, his hair gleaming gold in the sun, wearing only the barest of loincloths, as he unclipped my dress, revealing me to the crowd, the moment somehow echoing now, as he pulled my tank top up, the sounds from the men almost pained as my breasts were bared.

My shorts followed soon after, and everything Ethan said came to pass.

They studied my body, my face, everything, raking their eyes over what their hands itched to touch, seeing how tight my nipples were, the hint of slick on my thighs.

I turned slowly, glorying in their attention, before turning to him.

My mate.

My Tirian was riding me hard, making me see all the times we’d done this before. On the podium in front of the crowd. In a house filled with beautiful, alien things. Out on a hilltop, under the moon. In Sanctuary… I frowned for a second, but Shaun couldn’t let me dwell on that.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said, the words feeling like they were torn from him rather than said.

I needed to wipe away the pain on his face, wrapping my arms around his neck and tilting my lips up, and he moved in to take them moments later.

There was something so fucking decadent about kissing a man with everything I had in front of several others, completely naked, but the sounds they made assured me they enjoyed it.

“Fucking hell,” one of the men at the door said, standing up and wavering slightly. “I’ll escort you in. You’re going to bring every fucking bloke in the place to his knees.”

Somehow, I knew, as we moved inside, that that was my due.

The concrete floor and lurid lights were replaced in my mind by beautifully intricate mosaics and a huge open plaza, an alien sun shining down on us.

Now, as then, people were entwined in the throes of passion, a passion we helped inspire, but most?

They stopped whatever they were doing, even the pulse of their cum nothing compared to the sight of me.

This is it , my Tirian said. This is where we are supposed to be.