Page 1 of Chained
Chapter One
Los Angeles, 1989
Edge’s brothers were fighting again. Right now there were raised hackles and low growls, but soon enough blood would flow. Edge snarled at them both and stalked out the door and onto the lawn, where the grass felt cool under his feet and the stars overhead tried to shine through the LA smog. He walked the length of the guest house to his favorite spot, a sort of cave between the building and some bougainvillea. His brothers could find him there easily enough, but they probably wouldn’t bother—too busy scrapping over which of them was in charge. As if it mattered. The boss was in charge, not them, and he always would be.
The dirt in Edge’s little hideaway was soft and smelled of mice and lizards. He circled a few times before lying down, sighing when the chain around his neck jingled.
He’d been so tired lately. He was still fairly young, still in good condition, and the boss made sure all of them were well fed. His duties weren’t usually onerous either: Keep an eye on the estate and anyone who entered. Report to the boss if anything was out of order or if anyone did something they shouldn’t. Neither of those things happened often; the boss ran a tight household. Edge supposed people were paid well if they pleased him, and if they didn’t, well, they were gone in a flash. Since maintaining security took so little effort, Duke and Holt had time to squabble over dominance and Edge often felt restless and at loose ends.
But his boring responsibilities didn’t explain why he was exhausted. Not physically exhausted—he could run as fast as ever and hadn’t lost any of his strength. But… mentally. Emotionally. And that was stupid, because his kind wasn’t supposed to be susceptible to that. Such fatigue was for complicated people like the boss and for the movie stars and directors and producers and other famous and wealthy people who flocked around him. Not for simple beings like Edge, who didn’t understand why he felt this way and had no clue what to do about it.
Endure. That was his choice: endure or die. And he wasn’t ready to die yet.
He’d almost dozed off when a familiar whistle cut across the grounds. Three sharp notes that compelled him to his feet immediately and set him tearing across the lawn at full speed. Holt and Duke ran ahead of him, their dispute temporarily forgotten.
The boss waited for them in a pool of light just outside the main house. He had a cigarette in one hand and a lowball glass in the other. Edge tried to judge his mood, but the boss was a hard man to read. Unless he was truly furious—an event that was blessedly rare—he usually appeared either mildly interested or mildly annoyed, depending on the circumstances. Right now he was tending more toward annoyed as he looked down at Edge and his brothers.
“Change,” the boss ordered. “I wanna have a discussion.”
Edge and his brothers exchanged a quick glance of mutual empathy. Changing fuckinghurt, and they all preferred to do it in private. But the boss had given an order, and he was waiting for them to obey.
At first it felt like being skinned alive, with every one of Edge’s nerve endings screaming in shock. But the worst part came next, when bones reshaped and sinews and organs repositioned themselves. When Edge was young, he’d howled in agony during the process. But he’d since been trained not to do that, and now he suffered almost silently, although a few moans still escaped.
The change felt as if it lasted for hours, but in reality it took only a few minutes. When it was complete, Edge and his brothers stood panting and naked—except for their collars—in front of the boss, who had finished his cigarette but not his whiskey. Although Edge was used to nudity in both of his forms, he had to force himself not to fidget under the boss’s cool scrutiny; Duke and Holt stood more confidently. While the boss owned all three of them, he didn’t use their bodies the way he used Edge’s.
“Got a new one coming in tomorrow. You know the drill. If he passes my initial inspection, I’m gonna stash him in the guest house.”
Edge and his brothers nodded their understanding; this was the usual procedure with fresh prospects. Having them nearby allowed the boss to keep a close eye on them and to more easily draw them into his web. It also meant that the three brothers would be busier, security-wise, which they generally considered a good thing. It made their jobs more interesting. Duke and Holt looked eager to begin. But Edge had been losing his taste for this kind of excitement. He tried to tell himself that the boss’s fresh meat deserved what happened to them—they came almost begging for it, really—and if they didn’t fuck up, they reaped all the benefits they’d hoped for. None of them gave serious thought to the costs until it was too late, however, and the knowledge of what would happen to them turned Edge’s stomach. He didn’t know why he gave a shit.
The boss focused intently on Edge, as if he’d read Edge’s thoughts. His eyes were black and shiny, and one corner of his mouth twitched into something resembling a smile. “This one’s going to be your responsibility, Edge. Sleep in the room next to his instead of the kennel. Let him fuck you if he wants. In fact, encourage him to fuck you.” He nodded to himself. “That always helps.”
Edge gave the only acceptable answer: “Yes, sir.”
After a brief pause, the boss nodded again. Now his smile spread into something frightening, like a death’s-head grin. He pointed at Edge with his free hand. “Come with me, pup.”
Ignoring his brothers’ worried looks and the roiling in his own gut, Edge trotted after the boss into the main house.
By the time Edge limped out onto the grand lawn, dawn was only a couple of hours away. Despite the burning and aching of his body, he changed back to his canine form. It always felt a little easier to deal with discomfort and unease in that body, and he healed quicker too. Besides, the boss would want him looking like a dog when the new prospect arrived in the morning.
He walked slowly over the grass, his tongue out and tail hanging low. He briefly considered sleeping in his spot behind the bougainvillea, but rejected the idea quickly. Duke or Holt—whoever was on duty tonight—would come looking for him and would be pissed off if they found him there. He went to the kennel instead.
It encompassed a large space on the ground floor of the guest house. Edge didn’t know what its original purpose had been or whether the boss had ordered it custom-built for the three of them.Four of them. There had originally been four.In any case, the big room had tile floors and four large steel cages, each with a dog bed inside. The cages almost always stood open, but there had been occasions when they were closed and fastened with padlocks. One set of doors led out into the center of the estate grounds, where the lawn and pool were located, and another set opened to the back of the building. They were motion-activated, which meant Edge and his brothers could come and go regardless of whether they had hands or paws. The rest of the room was sparsely furnished. A low-set sink could be turned on and off with a foot pedal, and a TV sat along one wall. Another door—this one with a regular knob—led to a toilet and shower they used when in human form. A closet and dresser held their meager allotment of clothing.
That was it. A space not suited for humans, yet not exactly a real kennel either.
Holt lay inside his cage. He opened his eyes when Edge came in but didn’t otherwise react, and Edge was thankful for that. He paused to drink some water from the sink, gave himself a quick shake, and settled into his own bed. He still hurt, but the familiarity of the worn fabric carrying his own scent comforted him.
Dogs didn’t worry much about the future; Edge had been around enough real dogs to know that. But humans did, and sometimes he thought there was too much humanity inside him. Instead of falling asleep, he fretted over what would happen the next day. The boss’s new prospect. What would he be like, and how long would it take the boss to destroy him?
Chapter Two
You weren’t supposed to make noise in the hallways of the Bureau’s West Coast HQ. That was the unwritten rule. Agents and admin staff crept, scuttled, or stalked, depending on their mood and inclination, but they kept their shoes quiet on the hard floors, and they didn’t talk. They certainly didn’t whistle or hum.
Except for Terry Brandt. His footsteps echoed, and whatever song he’d been listening to on the car radio tumbled out of his throat and rolled down the corridors. But today he’d been given a good assignment—agreatassignment—so he sang at the top of his lungs.
A secretary stuck her head out of a doorway to scowl at him.
“Hey, Nadine! It’sLove Shack, by some group called the B-52s. Number three on the Billboard charts today, according to the DJ.”
