Bought

Bought: Chapter one/?

"That one?" Rafe asked pointing to a lightly draped figure on a nearby platform. Next to him Jim Ellison turned, looked for less than thirty seconds and sniffed dismissively, his pale blue eyes disinterested. For the two hundredth time that day, if Rafe was any judge. The sniff barely audible, Jim's opinion of the effort the particular item deserved.

Brian Rafe gritted his teeth, doing his best to keep the activity as quiet as possible. His face showed none of his frustration. It remained handsome and placid. No need to irritate his dominant partner. That would only mean there would be two irritated Sentinels on the hunt rather than one. And as much as he hated to be annoyed alone...it was far, far better than Ellison being moody, with or without him.

Rafe shuddered just thinking about that. He had to get a grip on himself, now. Or he'd be out here tomorrow, in the sun and the humidity, hunting for Guides again. And the next day...and the next...

"No, huh?" Rafe sighed when he could relax his jaw, make his tone neutral enough to pass by Jim's radar-like senses. The big man was damnably easy to offend. And once offended hard to appease. Ellison was, Rafe admitted, both the best thing and the worst thing that had ever happened to him.

Being selected, out of the blue, as the big man's Companion from the ranks of the police recruits was a huge shock. Sure those kinds of tings happened from time to time but not so often it didn't' have a fairytale quality to it when it did. And it never happened to poor men from poor families like Brian Rafe. Usually pairings between Sentinels were arranged by their families. If the families were wealthy. Impoverished Sentinels never had the time or money to worry about such things.

Rafe had not even been aware of the Senior Sentinels touring the floor while the recruits trained. He been half zoned on his hand to hand combat drill, determined to knock his much larger opponent to the ground this time...instead of being picked up and slammed to the mat again, like the last half dozen bouts.

Dimly he became aware of the silence dropping like a curtain all around them as they circled each other. Looking for his opening. Looking....looking....and suddenly his opponent Brown stood upright, then dropped like a stone. Brian almost leapt at him, before some sixth sense told him all was not as it should be. He blinked out of his near zone. To find a tall, hard jawed man standing in front of him.

Jim Ellison. He's almost fainted when he realized who it was, the familiar handsome face. Then he dropped to his knees and pushed his face into the floor, like literally everyone around him had already done. He was the last to kneel. Oh, shit.

Brian Rafe had been petrified. He'd been standing in the Sentinel's way, the only recruit standing. He shivered. He would be thrown out of the academy. Ostracized. Fined. He could be flogged if the Senior Sentinel wanted to demand it. Wanted to be a hard case. And he was, Rafe had heard the stories....

His family had very little to go around. They had saved for years to buy him a spot in the academy class. Now through his own inattention he might have lost his chance to rise up out of the ghettos. He shuddered. Oh, ghod. Please...

The unique sound of muscles flexing hit his awareness. Then the feel of fingers brushing over his hair. Exploring his hair, his face, his ears. The touch ~seeing~ as much as the sharpest gaze. He heard a sniff. Another. Felt the breath feather across his neck as the larger man bent over him. Licked the back of his neck, tasted him, his sweat. A growl as the taster rolled the flavor around in his mouth. A big hand fitted itself around his skull, pushing, turning him, spinning him like a top, so Ellison was behind him. Rafe still hunched as low as he could go over the matting. Panting with fear.

He felt it happen, not understanding at first. Felt the hard body, the honed muscles move close, closer, closer, until Ellison was plastered across his back. Brian whimpered, barely a sound. He felt his sweats tugged down, his ass exposed, his genitals freed, touched, rolled by an assessing hand, tugged, and yet he didn't dare move. He froze, absolutely rigid as the man behind him mounted him.

He felt the harsh rub of cloth against his bare buttocks. The distinct ridge of a hard column pressed to the crevice between his buttocks. Not fucking, mounting. His relief was huge. Then his mind rebelled. Mounted? But that would mean.... Confusion filled his head, disbelief. He hunched low, hardly daring to breath, feeling that long, hard flesh pressing harder, harder against him.

The man behind him rose to standing and Brian remained where he was, his ass hanging out for ten pulse deafening seconds before it hit him. He'd been Claimed. He had to go with the Sentinel, he had to get up. Then he leaped to his feet, grabbed at his sweats, dragging them up his thighs, and hurried after the tall man and the men trailing behind him.

That was how Jim Ellison Claimed Brian Rafe as his Companion. Suddenly Brian and his family had no more money worries. His parent's house was not constantly on the verge of being repossessed. Both his grandmother's could stop taking in their neighbor's washing to make ends meet. He could buy new clothes before he wore holes right through them. New shoes before he had to line them with cardboard to protect his socks and his feet. No one belittled him anymore. He was not among the lowest ranks of citizens. He belonged to James Joseph Ellison, heir to the Family Ellison who ruled Cascade.

Behind them Rafe felt the air currents shift as someone walked close by. He tilted his head, seeing two huge Sentinels watching for trouble as they carried a docile Guide between them, swathed in filmy cloth, barely discernible as female even to Rafe's sharp eye.

As well they should watch for trouble around me, Rafe thought grimly, I'm going to be the one in serious trouble if I don't get a handle on my temper and fast. And pay attention to where we are going. He drew in a long slow breath. Peace. Tranquility. Acceptance. Surrender. He trailed along after Ellison.

They'd been at it all day, wandering through the Guide and Slave markets of downtown Cascade. The legal-slave markets, where debtors were sold off to make reparations, were bad enough, being able to sense all that despair, to smell it in the air, despair did have an odor all it's own...but, the Guide market...

The Guides projected their empathic terror of the unknown, their anxiety, their desperate hope for a kind Sentinel. A loving Sentinel. All the while knowing they were governed by the ancient and rigid rules of Guide-Law, which would deny them nearly every right not bestowed by a Sentinel who owned them. Most raised in Houses where it had been the only thing they ever knew. A thing they didn't question. A reality that just...was.

Human rights activism had not come close to touching on or changing Guide's lives. The restless men and women here were slaves even if the were called Guides. They were on edge, needy, aching for a bond, some driven almost to the edge of sanity, so long without a bond. Unable to control their reactions to the Sentinels walking by. Unable not to reach out with slender arms from beneath their concealing robes. The flickering flashes of Guide skin made Brian gasp, but James Ellison walked past as if he didn't even see.

Being Ellison's Companion was not an easy job. Finding himself and Ellison a compatible Guide was even harder. The first one they'd had, Megan, was the best, but even she had been sold away after a time. The last one, Caro had been adequate, Jim had insisted on her purchase, even when Rafe had viscerally known she wouldn't be right. Then a week ago Jim sold her to a female Sentinel in Italy, Lady Alexandra Barnes, an acquaintance of his father's.

So here they were, on the hunt for a new Guide. On the prowl for some hidden quality only Ellison knew of. Could sense. Again. Ellison wasn't interested in any Guide they'd seen in the last few days. Not even the ones that were specially vetted by the Guide Brokers who charged a literal fortune for the task.

Ellison rejected them all, some after trying them out, some just after looking at them. And Rafe learned all over again it wasn't beauty or good looks that his Sentinel favored. It was something else the Senior Sentinel of Cascade wanted. Rafe appreciated beauty, he really did, good grooming, too. And a Guide that smelled good. Had the right kind of rearing, in the right kind of House. Ellison didn't care for those things as much.

The two recent Guides he'd taken to his couch, to their couch (Rafe shuddered in recall), hadn't been attractive at all as far as Brian could see. One had been old enough to be his own mother. A second was covered in sweat, having been pulled in from whatever work or exercise his owner had put him to. Jim didn't even tell him to wash. Rafe had really wished he had. There was something else that attracted Jim. Brian was damned if he could figure out what it was. Jim had rejected each of the candidates after bedding them.

Brian knew he had high standards, no mistaking it. He recognized quality, and he hadn't pointed out a single Guide who wasn't of the finest quality, trained to perfection. But Ellison, the Senior Sentinel in their partnership, as well as Cascade's Senior Sentinel, and thus the one who had the final word...had not thought even one worth examining more closely today.

Now they were pretty close to the edge of the main district, where the more marginal sellers lurked. Where the air stank with the rancid, sharp stench of fear rolling off terrified, stressed men and women. Not a place where they would find any Guide worth having. Brian felt a curl of unease. Oh, no. This was not going to be pretty.

Rafe shook his head. Every month it was the same thing. Close down the sellers who were breaking the law, who were mistreating and abusing the Guides, and by the time the next market day rolled around, most were back open, fines paid. It was an on going scandal. One he and Jim were concerned with. One they fought to crush into non-existence.

Rafe took Jim's elbow and tried to steer the more powerful man back to the next row of stalls on the good side of the lots. Not wise to go in there without more back up than they had.

Ellison though, refused to be moved. He was gazing out into the ramshackle stalls beyond the last row, into the area that lacked even a simple sidewalk, boasting only planks over the muddy ground. An invitation to criminal activity if Brian ever saw one. You could put the picture on a brochure and label it.

"Crime Zone". Get your felonies here, cheap.

Rafe wrinkled his nose. They weren't even clean, those creatures, his twitching nose was telling him. The stalls over there reeked of human suffering, fear, and worse things. Blood, sex and sweat. Even excrement. There were the brothels, illegal everywhere else but in the slave mart, peopled by slaves or by down and out Guides, so desperate for the touch of a Sentinel, they were willing to do anything, driven to prostitute themselves. There were higher class businesses on the far side of the bazaar if that was what his Senior wanted. Where the Guides were clean. Properly draped. Where their cages were clean and of the mandated sizes. Where they were fed and watered at set intervals for their health. Where they had veterinarians on call day and night. Blessed by the Sentinel Authority. Rafe tried to re-direct Jim again.

Instead he was dragged along behind Ellison, as the muscular man plowed into the derelict stalls, down the dark, despairing streets, thronged by just about any kind of low life you'd care to name. Jim's blue eyes intent on something. His nose lifted, his ear cocked. Oblivious to the dangers around him. Which left Rafe to protect him, while he searched. Crap.

Rafe prayed that Ellison didn't have his eye on some Guide down here. Let it be a robbery, a mugging, a crime in progress, anything but a Guide.

Then they were no longer so alone. Sellers and stall owners crept out of the shadows, peering at the fine clothing, the blemish free skin, the healthy glow of their faces....and whispered impossible promises about their wares. Rafe hissed at them, baring fangs. Anxious, but taking care to show none of his nervousness. The vendor crept closer, more and more of them as the oblivious Jim plunged ever further into the squalid market.

Rafe strained to see or hear what had captured the big Sentinel's attention. All the while keeping a hand on his gun butt, and his teeth bared. His extended claws clicked on the metal. Rafe let his eyes glow, let the followers see the feral light. Some backed off, others...still came after them, a bit further back, but not giving up. Silently Rafe cursed his partner. This might end badly indeed.

A wisp of sound...a man moaning. Rafe lifted his chin, turned his head away and tried to see....

"Oh, ghod, no. No." A rich toned voice, a young man, but broken. Sobbing. Shit. He stole a look up at Jim. That was Jim's implacable face. There would be no turning him aside. Rafe did the only thing he could, he sent out a piercing whistle, pitched to be above common human hearing. He hated doing it. Calling for help. But...what choice did he have?

Jim was about to do something foolish. Brian could sense it. And he, they, needed back up. There wasn't a Sentinel in hearing distance who wouldn't answer his call. He was the reigning Senior Sentinel's mate. He just hated looking like a pussy. He would probably be teased for weeks, months....

They came from all directions. Men, tall and strong. Like ghosts, quick footed, limber, lithe, no matter their ages. None fat. Though they were of all ethnicities's they shared the same bone structure, strong men. They said nothing, only came close, stood shoulder to shoulder, intimidating, ruthless, prepared to defend their Senior Sentinel and his Companion.

Rafe looked neither right nor left, keeping behind his Senior, close in case one of these denizens were crazy enough to assault Jim. Jim, who no doubt many recognized, his family being the long time rulers of Cascade. Jim who without the surrounding Sentinels, would be a juicy target worth much to any of the lowlifes here.

Jim came to a halt outside a particularly unhealthy looking place of business. Rafe cringed at the odor. Jim never faltered, stepping inside, thrusting aside a filthy, threadbare curtain. He disappeared, and Rafe had no choice but to follow him in.

His eyes adjusted in mere fractions of a second. He unholstered his weapon, pointing it at the men standing around two who were on top of a disgusting, malodorous mattress. The man, or boy perhaps, underneath was a Guide, He glowed with the gift, waves of terror rolling off of him, his terror sickening every Sentinel who was near.

The man on top was not a Guide nor was he a Sentinel. The man on top was a mundane, touching a Guide. A naked Guide. Dirty hands scrabbling down the sensitive, double row of extra-mammary nipples that only Guides had. Rafe felt rage fill him. Instant, hot, scorching rage.

The man on top of the Guide was not a Sentinel. Jim grabbed him by the greasy mop of hair on top of his head, and jerked him back, off of the weeping Guide on the floor. The naked boy.

Rafe looked around for anything, a blanket, a sheet, anything to cover the Guide. There was nothing, the youth curled in on himself, trying to hide behind his hands and bent up knees. Guides were naturally modest, being exposed like this...intolerable. The nearest of the surrounding Sentinels swooped in, shielding him from the mundane men with their bodies. The mundanes, now cowering, no longer the predators in the room, but the prey.

Rafe didn't blink as Jim snapped the first man's neck with a twist of his wrists. A mundane man sexually assaulting a Guide deserved no less than execution. The Sentinels who had pushed into the building behind them growled approval. Reaching with clawed hands for the men who had been watching the assault on the defenseless Guide.

Rafe ripped the dusty curtains down, their ivory color the result of aging, not design. Jim wrapped the Guide in the folds. Wrapping them around and around the struggling, weeping figure covering him head to foot.

Jim carried him out into the street and away. Cradled in the strong arms of the Senior Sentinel of Cascade as he wept. Rafe followed, not bothering to put away his gun. He only hoped one of the criminals around them would try something. His grip tightened, his fangs flashed.