“It was nice catching up! Get home safe!”

Dawn waved her friend goodbye as she turned to leave the dingy little café they had chosen for nostalgia. Her smile faded as she turned and began walking home. Some six years and a thousand miles had weathered yet another friendship she once thought unshakeable. Tiffany hadn’t really changed all that much, but Dawn felt every little difference keenly. She couldn’t pin down any singular detail to blame, yet her old confidant was now colored with a hazy veil of unfamiliarity, and everything that had once flowed effortlessly was now studded with rusty friction. Their old spark was gone. More meet-ups would be arranged, more conversations would be had, but they would drift apart sooner or later to live their own lives. Their messages to each other would grow sparse, until they only greeted each other for the holidays, and then perhaps not even that. The end had already begun. Dawn silently bid her old friend a final adieu.

She sighed.

As the warm breeze blew her home, her smile returned a little. Her heart fluttered slightly with a stray butterfly from her stomach. Today’s outing may have been a disappointment, but she was looking forward to tonight. Dawn hadn’t made nearly enough friends in college to make up for the social network she had shed in the process, but meeting Cal had certainly soothed the sting, if not outright making it worth it. She bit her tongue in nervous excitement as she recalled working up the courage to mention perhaps, possibly, maybe, trying a little something spicier in bed, if he was interested of course. In hindsight, she shouldn’t have been so surprised that he would be open to experimenting, but Cal had accepted so easily that her mind had short-circuited and she ended up rambling out her prepared counterarguments anyway. What followed was easily the most embarrassing half-hour of her life, as they discussed kinks to experiment with and planned out details. Well, it had mostly been Dawn sharing her embarrassing fantasies, since Cal had insisted he wasn’t into anything in particular and would be more than happy to make her happy.

And now, Dawn was almost certain it was worth it. Tonight, they would be trying the first few fantasies on her list. She was giddy with excitement as she prepared, double- and triple-checking the bag of toys and restraints they had gathered over the week. On impulse, she also stuffed two comfortable outfits into her bag. Cal’s place almost certainly had a few stashes of clothing that she had squirrelled away, but it felt nice to have spares on hand.

With everything in place, she paced through her apartment with a nervous excitement and let her imagination run wild. Then she decided she hadn’t packed enough spare underwear to let her imagination run too wild, and instead distracted herself with some unpleasant thoughts to cool down. Taxes. Gimbal lock. Cleaning the stovetop. Updating her resume. There, perfect.

She heard Cal’s van pulling into the miniscule lot and hurried to the door. As always, he was somehow already standing there when she threw it open. Dawn stretched up on her toes for a quick kiss as he leaned down to embrace her.

“Ready?”

Cal’s voice sent shivers down her spine. She quickly handed him her bags and turned to lock the door. His chuckle suggested that she had utterly failed to hide how flustered she was. He leaned over and checked the lock with a free hand while nipping at her ear with a playful growl. Dawn’s face was red all the way to the car. She hadn’t been this easy to tease since her first awkward relationship in the early days of high school, but this new step in their relationship was uncharted territory for her.

The ride home with Cal was quiet, as Johnny Cash filled the silence with his longing for the sun. Cal, for once, also seemed a little nervous, and Dawn was secretly glad she wasn’t the only one. As they crawled along the winding path with the sun hanging low behind them, Dawn’s thoughts drifted to Cal’s secluded little house. Coming out here for the first time had certainly unnerved her a bit, but after more than a year of dating, she still hadn’t been butchered for kidneys yet. So far at least.

“I know you’re invested in this place, but I still can’t imagine being this far from all the conveniences of modern life,” she grumbled. Cal just chuckled.

She knew this conversation by heart now. “I know it’s peaceful, but I can have both peace and convenience thanks to headphones,” she continued.

Cal would now retort that it was simply not the same, she would question what was different, and he would insist that it was just different.

Dawn was therefore very surprised when his hand descended on her thigh and gave it a firm squeeze. A tingle of excitement spread up her leg and throughout her abdomen, and she gave up on this pair of panties right then and there. Cal was smirking at the squeak she had let out, and Dawn crossed her legs with an indignant huff in an effort to get even, trapping his hand between her legs. Only then did she consider the consequences of doing so, but Cal had already taken full advantage and wormed his hand further up her skirt, squeezing out another undignified whimper. With every teasing grope, Dawn’s legs only squeezed together harder, and in no time she was trying her best to grind against his hand without being too obvious about it. He totally knew, judging by the smug expression he couldn’t entirely keep off his face, but she wasn’t going to let him have the satisfaction of knowing that she knew he knew.

Distracted as she was, Dawn didn’t notice that the car had stopped until Cal turned and looked at her expectantly while she was busy trying to get a good angle.

“If I could have my han—”

“Oh, shut up,” she groaned, uncrossing her legs and hastily exiting the car. Cal really had her on the back foot today. He was intent on pressing the advantage, it seemed, because he was already pulling out her bags and closing the trunk. She half considered trying to get even again, but was curious to see more of Cal’s newfound playfulness. So far, she couldn’t say she disliked any of it. Surely enough, he turned to shepherd her towards the house with a cheeky swat to the rear and a grin that promised more.

In Dawn’s experience, the sparse few neighbors around were all pleasant enough, if rather reclusive. Cal had never spoken ill of them, so she trusted them to mind their own business. With the sun sinking and skies darkening, they had their privacy for tonight. She took a deep breath—and ran.

She heard Cal’s surprised cursing behind her and the muffled thump of bags being tossed unceremoniously through the door. Dawn dashed through the low grass as fast as she could, beelining towards the old sycamore. There was no way she could outpace Cal’s lanky strides; pressing the advantage of surprise to put the tree between them would buy her some time to drag this out. She risked a backwards glance and her heart started pounding in double time. He was so much closer than she had hoped. Worse, he was keeping pace with insulting ease, and pointedly glanced at her skirt when she looked back. No doubt he was getting quite the eyeful. Dawn stuck out her tongue and made a face at Cal, who responded by closing the distance a bit and grinning back. With a few more rapid strides, she rounded the sycamore tree and whirled around, ready to bolt in either direction to keep the massive trunk between them.

“Are you sure you’re not going to do this the easy way?” asked Cal, teasing mockery dripping from his every word. She could practically see him standing there, hands on hips, head cocked nonchalantly.

Dawn bit back a giggle at the charade. “Hmmm… Should I?” she asked, feigning consideration.

“Just come back inside with me, alright?” implored Cal.

God, she loved him for these little moments. She basked in the feral excitement that thrummed through her entire body, and savored the words as they left her mouth.

“Make me.”

There. She said it, and it felt as good as she had imagined. She could almost see the wild grin on Cal’s face as he started stalking around the right of the tree, crunching through the leaves. Dawn matched his movement as best she could, trying to step where the foliage looked the thinnest to stay as quiet as possible, and kept her eyes on where he would appear.

It was halfway through a step that she realized she no longer heard Cal’s crunching footsteps, and she immediately froze mid-stride, straining her ears to listen.

Nothing.

She glanced up briefly—he wouldn’t be crazy enough to try and climb over the tree right?

Nothing.

She stood there for another two beats, taking quiet breaths to settle her pounding heart and clear her senses.

Nothing.

At risk of falling for an incredibly obvious trap, she slowly leaned forward to peek around the tree at where he should have been.

Nothing.

Just as some small part of her started to consider panicking, a sensation bloomed in the back of her mind, a brief awareness of something behind her. Dawn squealed as Cal’s arms wrapped around her, trapping her halfway through spinning around.

“Gotcha,” he grinned.

She didn’t bother responding and instead squirmed in his grasp. Dawn figured she was struggling pretty hard, and even briefly worried about throwing them off balance, before he put her concerns to rest. Evidently her brother hadn’t been joking when he said Cal had a “sleeper build” after they arm-wrestled, because Cal’s arms effortlessly coiled ever tighter around her. Before she knew it, she was pulled flush against his chest, arms trapped between them. Now her heart was racing again. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to look up at him pleadingly or petulantly refuse to meet his gaze, so she split the difference and buried her face into his chest.

“Now, what should I do with you, slut? What do you think the ‘hard way’ should entail?” Cal drawled out, unhurried.

Dawn shivered and mentally raised dirty talk on the list of things to explore. Whatever it took to achieve this feeling. Just as she lifted her head and opened her mouth to speak, Cal roughly smothered her protests with a rough kiss that buckled her knees and stoked the fire in her core. Whatever little bit of resistance she had crumbled rapidly. When he finally pulled away, Dawn was left a horny, dazed mess.

In a single swift motion, before she could protest, Cal hoisted her up over his left shoulder and used his left hand to pin her hands behind her back. She struggled a bit more half-heartedly and was rewarded with a slap on her ass. Her legs kicked up as she squealed, but Cal’s other hand wrapped around them and held them tightly together. As the cool air soothed her heated cheeks, Dawn was thankful once more for their secluded location and the dim twilight that hid their little tryst. She would probably die of embarrassment if one of the neighbors saw her being carried into the house in such a humiliating position, writhing with obvious arousal.

As soon as he let go of her legs to pick up the bag of toys, she started squirming and kicking again. With both hands busy, he’d have no way to hold her steady. Her plan was clearly perfect.

Cal, unfortunately, was clearly perfect-er. He planted a playful bite on her ass, and out the window went her plan. By the time he locked the door and carried her up the stairs into his bedroom, she had given up on struggling and settled for occasionally squirming for the fun of it. Cal dumped her onto the bed and she stretched languidly across the soft surface, enjoying the myriad sensations while he drew the curtains and dimmed the lights. She was positively quivering with anticipation when he finally turned around and regarded her.

“So, since you never did answer my question, I take it that you’ll let me decide what the ‘hard way’ means.”

Cal stalked over to the bag and began pulling things out. Seeing that, Dawn decided to whimper piteously in response.

“Nothing to say? In that case, why don’t you be a good girl and strip for me?”

She whimpered again, this time in need. Under his expectant gaze, she began to disrobe, setting an agonizingly slow pace in a final effort to tease him. For once, it worked. He practically leapt onto her with an impatient growl and began to vigorously “help” her out of her clothes. Once she was naked and firmly pinned under his weight, Dawn grinned smugly up at him.

“Well, it seems to me that you can’t quite behave. You ran once already, so we can’t have that again, now can we?” Cal teased.

She stuck her tongue out at him again, then happily wiggled under his grip, revelling in the helpless sensation of being completely overpowered. Cal gave her a moment to enjoy herself before pulling her upward and cuffing each hand to the headboard. Dawn gave the soft leather restraints a few gentle tugs, and, satisfied, began struggling anew. She watched as Cal straddled one flailing leg and firmly caught the other, holding it still as he tied her ankle to her thigh, then repeating with the other leg. With a few more ropes, her frog-tied legs were secured to the headboard and split wide. While he sat back to admire his handiwork, Dawn flexed her legs to test the ropes. She found them surprisingly snug and comfortable; splurging for the soft jute rope was definitely the right choice, and Cal had clearly been practicing. Satisfied, she nestled into the pillows and wiggled invitingly at Cal.

Unfortunately, he had regained his composure and returned to teasing her. As his fingers trailed lightly over her bound leg, she couldn’t help but squirm and moan. Every touch felt electric. By now, she was so very wet, and so very ready. Her channel was clenching against itself and angrily demanding to know why it wasn’t filled yet. Cal’s antics during the drive earlier and the impromptu chase that followed had worked her up already, and Dawn didn’t think she could take another moment of this maddening teasing. She looked up at Cal with her best puppy-eyes and played her final card.

“Please?”

Cal, it seemed, was a lot closer to fraying than he had let on. With a growl, he tossed away the vibrator that was no doubt part of some devious plan he had for her. In the blink of an eye, he had stripped off his clothes and was now leaning over her. Dawn hadn’t even noticed when he had slipped the condom on. Cal leaned so close that their foreheads were nearly touching, never breaking eye contact, and she could feel herself getting lost in his eyes. Whatever control he had was long gone now; Dawn could feel the waves of lust radiating off of him and echoing throughout herself.

The sensation of him sliding into her was indescribable. The stretch. The burn. The fullness. The relief. A small spasm rippled through her core, and Dawn’s head rolled back onto the pillows as a moan escaped her. Lying here, bound and helpless, held down and filled; it all felt so good, so right. Cal’s hands began to wander, and she closed her eyes. Fingers gently pinching her nipple. A hand softly cupping her breast and squeezing. Another caressing down her flank. His loving touches all blended together in a euphoric haze that left Dawn panting for more.

Then he slowly drew his hips back and, with a forceful thrust, drove the breath from her body and the thoughts from her mind. Thrust after thrust hollowed her out and filled her with mounting pleasure. Cal began to move with an increasingly frantic rhythm, and his fingers trailed a fiery path down to her clit, where they sparked another blaze. His mouth found her neck and suckled softly while Dawn strained and writhed in her bindings. She watched through closed eyes as he pounded relentlessly into her, admiring her helplessly bound form and his lithe physique. The way his ass flexed with every thrust, the way her legs parted powerlessly for him, the way her toes curled whenever he pinched a nipple or bit at her neck. As her orgasm drew near, every detail grew sharper, every sensation more real, and when she finally crested the wave, days of tension unwound in a long, explosive surge that once again emptied her of all thought.

A sensation bloomed in the back of her mind, an awareness of something around her. Something wrong. Something deeply wrong. The shock jolted her back to the present as her eyes flew open in terror.

“Sunstone!”

Cal froze in place, eyes searching her with concern while he carefully held himself steady. A small part of her sang out in desperate gratitude.

“Cal, something’s not right. I think there’s something out there, I don’t understand, please, I’m scared,” Dawn frantically whispered.

He looked down at her with mounting worry and opened his mouth, no doubt to reassure her, but stopped. Dawn could see the moment his attention left her, and he prickled with alertness. As he rolled off the bed, a single hand absently tore a leather cuff free from the headboard, freeing her hand to grab the scissors on the nightstand and start cutting at her bindings. Cal was a stony-faced statue as he stood in absolute silence, listening. Dawn could hear nothing over the sound of her urgent efforts to cut through the ropes without maiming herself, and with every passing second, the racing rhythm of her own heartbeat muffled more of her own thoughts. She desperately hoped it was nothing.

“Show yourself!” Cal shouted.

A slow clap sounded down the dim hallway, startling her into almost dropping the scissors. She fumbled with the blades before redoubling her efforts to free her legs. The dark silhouette sauntered in slowly and stopped with a final clap right in front of Cal. Dawn could have sworn she saw more movement outside.

“Not bad, not bad at all,” drawled the figure. “Lone kin, hiding amongst them, and daring to brave the sun? We shouldn’t be surprised you heard us coming. You’re no pushover, are you?” He leaned towards Cal with predatory interest. “You certainly don’t smell like one of those Vagrant mutts. But I see no heraldry. How interesting.”

Cal’s eyes never left the strange dark figure as the man began to circle him. “Please leave my home,” he ground out tonelessly. Dawn tried to make herself as small and insignificant as she could while this tense exchange occurred mere feet away.

The strange man ignored him and rambled on. “We could use one like you, you know? I don’t even know what generation most of the trash we have are, and I doubt they know either. But you seem to be of good breeding. Exiled, I’d wager. Let me guess, House Malachai? No? Tirin, then, you have the looks for it.” When Cal gave no response, the figure leaned back and sighed. “Look, I understand. Banished from your House, forced to hide amongst this squalor and filth, nothing to sate yourself with but…” He glanced over at Dawn, who froze in fear. “…trash.”

Cal’s entire demeanor coiled tighter with rage, yet even then the strange figure ranted on, seemingly oblivious. “I understand exactly how you feel, brother. We all do. But being a victim is nothing to be ashamed of. Come with us, and this can all change. House Tirin? A house of cards. All of this squabbling between the Houses? Nothing a firm hand can’t crush. No more hiding away, no more surviving off of the dregs. So what do you say?” He offered a hand to Cal, as though his rehearsed speech of utter nonsense had been thoroughly convincing.

“Leave.”

A crowd of more dark-clad figures swarmed through the entryway into the bedroom, flanking the one who spoke. His hand remained outstretched, but he seemed to understand that he hadn’t been quite as persuasive as he had hoped. “It’s not too late to accept, you know? So let’s try that again. What do you say?”

Cal turned and looked over at Dawn’s half-bound form. The strange feeling when she came had scared her. The strange men had frightened her. But now, meeting his eyes, seeing the remorse and guilt filling his expression, filled her with true terror.

“I’m sorry it had to be like this,” Cal sighed.

Dawn’s mind filled with terrible thoughts. He was going to join a cult. He was going to leave her here for them. They would rape and kill and eat her. No, they would torture her first, then rape and kill and eat her. Heaven wasn’t real. God wasn’t real. She would go to hell. Or maybe God was real and wanted her to suffer. Maybe that stupid bitch May was right and she should have just killed herself in seventh grade. Oh God. Oh fuck. This was the end.

A million thoughts crossed her mind, and a million thoughts didn’t prepare her to see Cal reach forward, grasp the strange man’s outstretched hand as if to shake, and then crush it with a sickening crack. Before any of the intruders could react, Cal grabbed the man’s head in both hands, and with another sickening crunch, splattered it all over the room like an overripe melon.

Everything erupted into chaos. In the darkness, Dawn could just barely make out the silvery blur of Cal’s pale form amidst the melee. Violence she could scarcely conceive of unfolded before her eyes. One intruder was folded in half over Cal’s knee and had his head stomped flat when his upper half tried to crawl away. Another one charged towards Cal and swiftly lost his head, far faster than Dawn’s eyes could follow. The decapitated body continued several faltering steps, before collapsing in a heap. Several more followed his example. Dawn closed her eyes and willed the nightmare to end.

Her eyes snapped open when she heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being racked, and she closed them again after she turned and looked down the barrel. Whatever was going on, this part she could understand. They would be shot, and they would die. Nobody would find them until these strange men were long gone. Dawn was almost grateful for this small island of sanity in all this madness. At least this part made sense.

But of course, it didn’t.

No shot rang out. No pellets riddled her body. Dawn lay there with her eyes shut, feeling almost impatient. If they were going to shoot her, the least they could do was hurry up. When she finally opened her eyes again with no small amount of irritation, Cal was furiously shoving the shotgun down the last assailant’s throat. With a brutal strike, he smashed the man’s head apart, and the gun with it.

Dawn watched as he systematically picked his way through every body, crushing their heads underfoot. None of it made any sense. She shrugged to herself, flopped back, closed her eyes, and decided to go back to sleep. She’d process this dream when she woke up. Or better yet, she’d forget it entirely.

Sleep never came, however. Cal did. He climbed onto the bed and began unbinding Dawn while gently inspecting her from head to toe for any sign of injury. The ropes that he had so painstakingly tied now snapped apart in his hands like cheap rubber bands. Satisfied that she was uninjured, he stood and retrieved a small flip-phone that she had never seen him use before.

Dawn sat in a daze, struggling to comprehend the scene before her while Cal’s voice mingled with the tinny echo of the other speaker. Why wouldn’t this nightmare release her? A strange calmness suffused her mind; if her reality refused to be understood, then she simply wouldn’t try to understand it. How simple!

A wild laugh bubbled free from her throat, and she doubled over hysterically. Once she started, she couldn’t stop herself. She hadn’t laughed this hard in years, and it felt so good to just let it out. At the unexpected sound, a concerned looking Cal rushed back into the bedroom, phone in one hand and a half-packed bag in another. The sight was absolutely riotous: Cal, perennially calm and composed, bursting into the room completely naked, looking like a harried parent about to send her off to preschool, while trying not to trip over the bodies strewn about the floor. Dawn laughed even harder.

He stared at her, alarmed, before putting everything down and picking his way over to the bed cautiously. Cal kneeled in front of her on the mattress and, after an uncertain pause, gently embraced her.

This feeling. This feeling she understood. It was Cal. Cal was here. Cal was safe. She was safe. She let out a trembling, choked laugh.

She gradually rediscovered how her hands worked, and tentatively wrapped them around him. Her laughter slowly subsided, and her ragged breathing gave way to hiccupping sobs as she buried her face into his shoulder and unravelled. Cal softly stroked her hair and whispered gentle comforts to her as she fell apart in his arms.

Dawn didn’t know how long she cried for. Once she started, she couldn’t stop herself. Great heaving sobs spilled forth and she babbled incoherently between gasping breaths. Everything surged forth all at once, every emotional shock reverberating back at the same time. She cursed Cal. She cursed the strange men. She begged him to stay with her. She screamed at him to leave her alone. She cursed herself. All throughout Cal sat there stoically with his arms cradling her, holding her together as she shattered over and over and over again.

The world gradually came back to Dawn as the torrent of emotions slowly abated. When she finally ran out of tears, she felt utterly wrung out. She stiffly wiped her face and blew her nose with the corner of a bedsheet. Cal’s hand was still softly rubbing up and down her back in soothing circles when she finally collected herself enough to turn and face him again.

“Do you feel better now?” Cal asked in a low, gentle voice, as though trying not to spook a frightened animal.

Dawn stared at him blankly for several long moments. She slowly nodded.

“We need to get out of here, ok?” Cal said as he stood from the bed. “Let’s get dressed and pack up. We need to leave.”

Dawn tried to rise, but her legs failed her and she instead just wobbled forward unsteadily. Seeing the sorry state she was in, Cal turned and slung her over his back. With another burst of his unnatural swiftness, he carried her down to the living room and set her down on the couch. He disappeared in another pale blur, the breeze chilling Dawn and raising goosebumps on her arms. Then, just as quickly, he was back with a bundle of clothes. Mostly his, by the look of the grey and baggy bundle. She slowly wrangled her limbs into the warm layers while Cal rushed around packing God-knows-what, and within a few minutes, they were standing at the door. In the time it had taken her to dress, Cal had donned his own clothes and packed a large rucksack that was bursting at the seams.

Cal looked down at her with as reassuring of a smile as he could muster. “Ready?”

She gave him a bleary-eyed look, glanced at the car, then looked at him again. Cal sighed and shook his head. After tightening the straps on his pack, he reached under her arms and picked her up. Out of reflex, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and clung on. One of his hands supported her from below and another held her to his chest securely. Dawn looked up at him, utterly mystified by this arrangement yet too tired to question it. In response, he lifted up the hood of the sweater and gave her a small smile.

Her questions were answered as his slow walk gradually accelerated into an inhumanly fast sprint, and soon the world around them was passing by in a shadowy blur, the house merely a speck on the horizon. Now she was grateful he held her facing away from the wind, with thick, warm clothes to ward off the chill. As the events of the day caught up to her, Dawn leaned forward into Cal’s embrace and passed out.