Confined Love (5 page)

“Kain!” I screamed as I rushed into another orgasm. My head
slammed back against the wall and I swear I saw lights.

I could tell when he joined me. His cock seemed to swell
inside me and his muscles all clenched as he came with a roar. I shuddered
against him, tiny tremors running through me.

“You’re right,” Kain panted.

“What?”

“This is how we should wake you up every morning.”

Masculine chuckles filled the room as I groaned. I wasn’t
sure my body could take this much attention every day but I was sure willing to
try.

We ended up taking lunch into the conference room with us.
There was a lot of stuff we needed to go over. Things that were important for
me to know before we reached our first post. Our shuttle was like all of those
for Enforcers, automatically piloted from headquarters. We would only be
alerted if there was interference that obstructed our flight path.

In a few days we would reach our destination and I would get
my first real look at the fifth quadrant. I’d heard the same stories as
everyone else but now I was going to see the truth of it. I was excited,
nervous and scared as hell. I didn’t doubt that my squad mates would keep me
safe. I only hoped I would be able to keep them safe as well.

“Get comfy, Soph,” Radek said as he dropped into a chair
behind me. “We’ve got a lot of stuff to brief you on.”

“First off, let’s go over roles. I’m lead in the field. You
will check with me before doing anything. No option. I will nail your ass to
the ground if you do not follow orders. Are we clear?” Xanthus asked.

He was all Alpha Enforcer now. There was no doubt he was in
command. I’d just had sex with all three of them, but looking at him right then
made me horny as hell again.

“Kain is our tech specialist. He can operate any system
known and figure out any that we haven’t come across yet.”

Kain smiled and nodded, giving me a wink.

“Radek is logistics. He knows every inch of the fifth. If we
need anything, he knows where and how to procure it. He has the entire zone
mapped in his head. If we ever get split apart, you go with him. He’ll know
where the safest place is.”

Radek patted my hand. “I’m your guy, Soph.”

I smiled.

“You are going to be intelligence. I’ve read your file.
You’re good at memorization and organization. I’m going to bombard you with
information. I need you to remember all of it that you can. You never know when
we might need it. Names, numbers, places. It will all come into play.”

Xanthus held up an electronic device that I was more than
familiar with. It was a storage unit. I’d used it several times when
transferring files from one system to another. Just one of the many duties of a
desk lackey.

“I can see you’re familiar with these. This one’s a little
different. Kain will go over it with you in more detail later.”

I nodded.

“Kain, queue up the first images for us.”

The lights in the room dimmed and images projected on the
wall. Vivid pictures that showed a life I wasn’t familiar with. Xanthus’ voice
filled the darkness, explaining what I was seeing.

“Sex is a big business here. The women who are found here
are generally not there by choice. Most have been kidnapped. At least one is a
female Enforcer who was captured three years ago.”

“What?” I hadn’t heard anything about that.

“She was captured during a patrol ambush. She was with two
men who were not happy to have a woman on their team. Both were killed when she
was taken.”

“Do we know where she is? What happened to her?”

“This man.” An image appeared of an ordinary-looking man,
except for his eyes, which seemed cold as ice. “He is known as The Auctioneer.
Anything you want, he can find and get it for you. He runs most of the crime
syndicates in the fifth. Drugs were his mainstay for years until he discovered
something that the men of that quadrant wanted more. Women.”

“Why are there no women there?”

“The fifth was once used as a prison center. The worst
element of society was shipped there and held away from the rest of society.
Enforcers guarded it for years until a new technology was created,” Radek
answered.

Kain took over the story. “The technology was robotic in
nature. Allowing the prison to be run from a shuttle that circled above. Doors
were locked and unlocked by remote. All prisoners were implanted with anodes in
the backs of their necks. Once inserted below the skin, the anodes grafted to
the top of the spine, becoming part of them. This enabled control. Any issues
or problems and an electric current could be sent through the anode.”

“So what went wrong?” Obviously something had or we wouldn’t
be heading there.

“The shuttle operators began to give certain prisoners the
ability to control certain processes from the ground.” Xanthus heaved a sigh.
“And one of them managed to bring it all down.”

“They had misplaced his file. Didn’t realize what he had
been sent there for. He was a model prisoner and was rewarded for it.” Kain
shook his head with disgust. “Someone dropped the ball. He was a bio-scientist
who managed to figure out how to counter the spine grafts. Once those were
destroyed they took over.”

“And the fifth quadrant became a haven for the criminal
minded.” Radek seethed with anger beside me.

“What about the shuttle that was patrolling? Wasn’t this
reported to them?”

“Not soon enough,” Xanthus responded. “By the time the
command post realized what was happening, they had overrun the place. Weapons
had been stored there from when we had Enforcers on site. They found them, took
them and used them very expertly against us.”

“And a war zone was created.” Kain sighed as he spoke.

More pictures flashed up. These showed exactly what the
women were used for. Half naked, chained to the beds. Some were obviously drugged
out of their minds. It made me sick, the lunch I’d been eating pushed aside.
Sex was no longer on my mind. Bruised skin. Blood and semen. These women didn’t
enjoy the sex they were forced to participate in. It disgusted me.

“How many?”

“What?” Xanthus glanced over at me. I interrupted something
he’d been saying but I hadn’t been listening anyway.

“How many women are believed to be there? Held like this?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Kain answered. “We discover new
places all the time. Close one down and another pops up.”

“Drugs are the other main trade. Don’t eat or drink anything
we come across there. If it’s not on this shuttle, we don’t consume it. No
exceptions. Ever. In the field it can be difficult to determine friend from
foe. Remember that.” Radek delivered this warning with a squeeze of my arm.

“Trust no one who isn’t a part of this team.” Xanthus’ gaze
was intense.

“Understood.” I nodded.

This was far more than I’d heard rumored. A former prison
zone. No one at home knew about this or even hinted of it. I had my ear to the
ground and I would have heard about it. Barring that, Emma or Mandy would have.
And I was headed right into the center of it. “So what are we doing there?”

“We’ll be heading into zone 4.”

A map came up and Xanthus pointed to the zone as he shared
where we were going.

“We’ll start with a perimeter check and work our way in. We
have several hot spots we’ll be checking on.”

Kain did a zoom-in on zone 4.

“Those are located here, here and here.” Radek pointed them
out. “These are known slave houses. We shut ’em down and they open right back
up in a few weeks.”

“We are recon. We do a visual scan and map it. That’s it,”
Xanthus emphasized. “If we find something, Kain will tag the spot and relay it
to command. They will send a bigger force in and do a shut-down and rescue.”

“They’re better equipped to deal with the female hostages,”
Kain said, stalling the question on my lips. “They’ve been through major
trauma. Some for longer than you’d believe.”

I held back my shudder. I’d never known the darker side of
sex. Everything I’d experienced had been consensual and welcomed. Those
pictures. Those women. They would haunt me for a long time.

“It’s a rough place, Soph. Shit can go bad in a split
second. And down there, we’ve got only each other. Enforcers die. They
disappear and are assumed dead.”

 “I signed on for this, just like the rest of you.” I felt
the need to remind them of that little fact.

“Doesn’t matter. We all knew exactly what we were signing up
for. You were kept in the dark about a lot of things.” Kain didn’t sound happy
about that fact. To be honest neither was I.

Had Lt. Certze known about all this? I had my doubts. He’d
sent Emma into this. I was as good as another daughter to him. I couldn’t
believe that he would willingly send us into such a place. Then again, we’d
both wanted this. Begged for it. So there was no backing down now.

“Good thing I have three of the best Alpha Enforcers at my
side.”

Xanthus nodded.

“We’ll keep each other safe, Soph.” Radek made the promise
but I knew it went for Kain and Xanthus as well.

“I’m not worried about us.” I glanced back to the map and
the marked hot spots. “I’m worried about those women and what they endure. I
couldn’t walk away now, not knowing what happened there. “What happens to
them?” I voiced the question quietly, almost afraid of the answer.

“They’re sent to different places, depending on their
conditions. Those on drugs are sent to detox first. Some are so sexually abused
that they are broken.” Xanthus tapped his head. “Here. They get sent to special
hospitals where they are watched over and protected, even from themselves.”

“Some have families. They get contacted. Sometimes just
seeing a loved one can trigger healing,” Kain added softly.

“What became of the scientist?”

“We haven’t been able to ascertain if he’s still alive,”
Radek confirmed.

“Why haven’t we been able to take control?” I didn’t
understand the fact that we hadn’t just gone in and taken it all back.

“I don’t know.” Xanthus shrugged.

“There are things we still don’t know. We are given the
intel we need to carry out our mission and nothing more.”

“How many units are in the fifth?”

“There are twenty-two zones, one unit per zone,” Kain
answered.

“Do you know what zone my friend and her triad unit are in?”

“Zone 13. They sent them in to a smaller zone. Less chance
of her being discovered. With her hair up, I understand her height can make her
appear as tall as a male Enforcer from a distance. It was one of the safer
zones for testing this program. We usually patrol zone 1. With you coming
onboard, we’ve moved to 4. You can see it’s smaller. Just a few hot spots to
contend with. It will be a great place for you to get your feet wet.”

“I don’t have her height.” I was only five feet four inches
as opposed to Emma’s six-foot height. And although I could wear boots with
hidden lifts to make me appear taller, I wouldn’t be as effective if I were
walking on stilts or trying to run in them.

“We won’t be able to hide the fact that you are female.”
Xanthus sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “We’ll just have to stay
on our toes.”

This was real. The fun and excitement of becoming an
Enforcer was dwarfed by the reality of where I was going. My worry was not if I
was capable of doing the job but what amount of danger I would bring with me
just by being a woman.

“You’re doing it again.”

“What?” I asked Xanthus.

He did that tap on his forehead again. “Overthinking it.”

I blew out a deep breath. “We need to go over the drills
again. I want to make sure we’re prepared for anything. For everything. So much
could go wrong if anyone sees me.”

“Soph, you know the drills. You can fight. You know the
formation we’ll take on our recon.” Radek shook his head at me as he spoke.

“Everyone gets a little case of nerves before their first
time as active.” Kain’s words had me glancing back and forth between him and
Radek. They had heard my conversation with Xanthus earlier. They knew that I
hadn’t earned my tiger until I’d signed on for this unit.

“We don’t keep secrets,” Xanthus murmured. “Secrets get
people killed out here.”

“Besides,” Radek added, “it doesn’t make a difference to us.
At least your first taste will be with us. We’ll make sure it’s a good one.”

“You guys are amazing. So much more than I expected.”

“What were you thinking? That we’d be egotistical assholes
only looking to get laid while on duty?” Xanthus’ eyebrow rose high as my face
flamed red at just how close to the truth that comment hit.

“Think we’d judge you because you agreed to this?” Kain
asked the question softly. I could do nothing but nod. “You’re right. We did.
We judged you to be brave. Who else would take on something they were uncertain
of?”

“I’ve always dreamed of being an active-duty Enforcer,” I
admitted. “From the time I was little. There’s never been anything I’ve wanted
more.”

“We understand that better than anyone.” Xanthus spoke softly.
“This has always been our dream as well.”

“Though now that dream is better, sweeter,” Kain added.

“Why is that?”

“Because you’re in it,” Radek answered.

Was it possible that I wouldn’t fall in love with these
three men? I didn’t think so. The more I discovered of their personalities, the
more I admired them, the more I fell for them.

“What’s next on the agenda?” I asked, thinking back to our
conversation the night before. The morning was about training. We’d done that.
The afternoon was for briefing. Check that off the list. Now what was the last
thing on the list?

“Stripping you naked and exploring every inch of you.” Kain
all but purred the words to me.

Yeah, that was exactly what they’d promised last night.

“I’ve always loved exploring.”

Xanthus laughed. “Then let’s get started.”

Radek stood beside me and held out his hand. I took it and
let him help me up from the chair I’d been sitting in for what felt like hours.
Let the exploration begin!