Prison of Smoke (PRISON OF TIDES SEQUEL)

Surivivor

Jasmine’s Point of View

The late spring air filled my lungs as I walked out of the car and towards the Belden s****l Assault center, named after my parents. Henrietta, my driver, let me know she would be back at the end of the day to pick me up. Her dark brown hair was pulled into a loose ponytail, and her blue eyes smiled as she drove away. Despite her friendliness, I missed Louis dearly. I knew that the man responsible had paid for his crimes with his life, but nothing could bring my beloved driver back. He lived on in my memories, and I lived every day trying to make him proud, as well as my parents.

The lobby of the converted hotel had been repurposed as an intake area, and I waved hello to Stella, my blonde assistant, as I walked by on the way toward the elevators. The main offices were located in what once was the penthouse, providing ample space for us to work. The warm hues of the center helped provide at least a small level of comfort to those who came to us, and I smiled, thinking of all the good this place had done for our community in recent years.

In my office, I sat on my white chair and opened my laptop that was perched on the matching desk. A file waited beside the computer, and I hesitantly placed my hand over it. I’d asked Stella to keep her eye out for any intriguing cases when we first opened. Raymond’s escape from prison had left us all with an abundance of questions, but the investigation had stalled out. There was only so much the police had been able to track on the dark web, and we had been unable to locate any of his associates to prosecute and potentially help bring others involved in the s****l trafficking ring to justice.

  So far, none of the cases had linked back to anything of relevance with my own history, but these files left on my desk reminded me of why I was doing this, of why we needed this so badly. Still, every time I picked up one of these, my heart pounded, in both hope and fear that this would be the key to my own justice, and however many other victims had been tormented by the ruthless men associated with Raymond.

Picking the folder up, I took a breath and opened it. The photo of a young woman with perfectly smooth skin the color of creamed coffee started back at me, her dark eyes haunted. Anna Lenard was her name, and something about the look in her eyes seemed so familiar. I felt that this woman was different, just by looking at her.

Flipping past her information, I arrived at the second page, where her intake information was written down. She had been taken at age twenty, and trafficked for years before managing to escape last week. She had several captors during that time. The description of the first one shocked me. A cave in the middle of the ocean, renovated into a functioning home…

Could it be? There was no way this was a coincidence. With a renewed vigor, I read the rest of her heartbreaking story, so much of it resonating with my own. He tied her up, used her, whipped her. Collared her the same way he had Cherry, cut his name into her. My stomach churned as memories bubbled to the surface of my mind, but I pushed them away, focusing on the task at hand.

She had been passed from abuser to abuser. This was before Raymond had posted his exploits online, but several others had done so with her.

I opened a blank document on my laptop, typing up my own notes and questions as I assessed every word of her story, every heartbreaking memory she had shared. Although I had lived some of it myself, there was another level of brutality in being transferred from person to person, not just sold for the night or the hour or even the minute. My heart broke for Anna.

Ignoring the urge to call Chief Bennett immediately, I looked up the suite she was staying in and took the stairs to her floor. Normally, I would have taken the elevator, but I needed the quiet echo of my flats on the steps, the sensation of moving my body freely to remind myself that I was here, this was happening, Raymond was dead.

My knuckles were white from being clenched as I rapped on her door, and a woman peeked her head out towards me, hesitant as she looked around. Her cheekbones stuck out, and her dark skin was nearly translucent. She’d been gone for so long, she didn’t recognize me as the princess, and I was more than okay with that. She’d been through enough. Nerves about meeting someone from the royal family was not something I planned on piling on top of her today.

“Anna?” I asked, giving her a warm smile.

“Yes?” Her eyes darted around, as though scared someone would jump out at her. I couldn’t say that I blamed her. She’d been in captivity for years.

“My name is Jasmine. I run the center here, and I wanted to stop by and see how you were adjusting, and if there’s anything we can do to help you that isn’t already being done.”

I was able to see her chest fall as she let out the breath she’d been holding. Nodding, she opened the door further and invited me in. I sat across from her in the little sitting area of the suite, appreciating the touches Elenor and I had chosen to make it feel more homey to our guests.

“So, Jasmine. The doctors at the hospital, they gave me a lot of medicine to take before they brought me here. Hard to tell if I’m actually adjusting, or if I’m just too doped up to tell otherwise.”

I nodded, remembering the heavy anxiety medications the doctors had put me on when I’d first been liberated from the grip of Raymond’s madness. “Everything here is lovely, though. Really. I don’t know what I would have done. I’ve been on my own most of my life. That’s how he targeted me, the man who took me. He told me he’d watched me go home to an empty house one night, leave an empty house in the morning. When he realized no one else lived there as he watched that day, he was all too happy to take me to be his pet, as he called me.”

“Raymond?” I asked, lifting a knowing brow.

Her eyes widened for a moment. “How did you know?” She chuckled nervously after she spoke, running her hand through her dreadlocks. “Of course, you read my file.”

I paused for a moment before speaking. “I did. It was actually brought to me because of some similarities in our experiences.”

Mouth parted, she looked at me without the mask of nonchalance. “You were.. You were taken, too?”

Nodding, I reached across the table and took her hand. “Yes. I was taken by Raymond Mitchell.” I pulled the v-neck of my dress to the side, letting her see the tattoo. “I covered his name. He’s dead now.”

She was speechless. I gave her a moment to process before speaking again.

“Raymond was a twisted man. But he is gone now. I watched as he took his last breath. But there’s a lot that’s still unaccounted for, and if it’s okay with you, I would like to go over some information that may help bring the people who did this to both of us to justice.”

I watched as her lower lip curled between her teeth, a small drop of blood appearing when she finally released it. “I want to, but I’m scared.”

Patting her hand, I gave her a small smile. “I understand. What if I told you that we have resources in place to protect you, and enough resources to bring them down as long as we know who they are?”

“But how can you guarantee that?” Her anxiety showed through her voice as she fiddled with her fingers.

“Because,” I said, offering her a solemn smile. “I’ve got the backing of the royal family. We can protect you, we can hide you. You can even come stay at the palace, if that’s what it takes to make you feel safe, although I can assure you that we have the highest measures of security here.”

Taking another visible breath, she nodded. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll do it. Just promise me you’ll be there with me?”

Squeezing her hand, I nodded back at her. “Of course. Every step of the way, Anna.”

Caspian’s Point of View

I lifted Lilliana in the air, spinning around while we waited for Jasmine to come home. She had called to let me know things may run late that evening, but that she had news to discuss with myself, Cherry and Jacob. The tone of her words seemed excited and heavy at the same time, and try as I might, I couldn’t figure out just what my wife was planning.

Lilliana giggled as I put her down and grabbed her little hands, swinging her and letting her legs fly freely around us. She loved twirling, never getting dizzy, even when I was ready to fall over myself. Her dark hair with sandy blonde hues to it flew around her face, long and curly like Jasmine’s. I couldn’t stop smiling at our little one. Her sweet laugh always warmed my heart. She was a well behaved child, even for a two year old, and was always making myself and her mother gifts, trying to moderate the tantrums the twins would throw and convince them to play fair.

On the other side of the room, Jacob and Cherry sat on the floor with Ruby and JJ, playing with building blocks. JJ knocked his sister’s creation to the ground, leaving Ruby in tears, and Lilliana looked up at me and shook her head.

“Daddy,” She whispered, her words mushed together.

“Yes, little one?”

“They’re always so bad!”

I did my best to contain my snort of laughter as I looked over at my best friends trying to corral their children into behaving. “Shh,” I put my fingers to my lips. “Let’s go build our own tower of blocks.”

  Nodding eagerly, we crossed the room and sat with the others. Instead of working on her own creation, however, Lilliana helped Ruby rebuild her destroyed tower. I smiled proudly, seeing the helping hand she always wanted to lend others. Just like her mother, trying to help people rebuild what others had broken.

My thoughts were interrupted by the front door opening.

“Hello, my love.” I rose and kissed Jasmine, taking her bag and hanging it up for her. “How was your day?”

Her green eyes looked torn, a mixture of elation and worry, but she smiled, taking my hand in hers. “It was eventful. I’ll tell you all about it after we get these little ones in bed. Have you guys already eaten dinner?”

The kids all nodded at her, and she smiled at their happy faces. She was great with kids, just like she was great with everything and everyone else.

“Alright, then. Cherry, can I talk to you in the kitchen while I eat?”

Cherry nodded, her red hair falling over her shoulder, and our wives left us with three rugrats who were starting to get tired. I wondered what they could be talking about, but I let them be, knowing that they would fill us in after the kids were in bed.

”Alright, who’s ready for bathtime?” Jacob asked, smiling down at the twins. His eyes lit up whenever he looked at them. I never thought he would turn into a family man. I was glad that I had been proven wrong. Fatherhood looked good on him, and I’d never seen him as happy as he was when he was with Cherry.

The children begrudgingly got up and followed him to their bathroom. Lilliana stood up as well, knowing it was her bathtime and not needing coaxing the way JJ and Ruby did. She really was a little angel. Of course she was.

Once clean and in bed, I read her a story and tucked her in for the night, planting a small kiss on her tiny head. Instead of a stuffed animal, she cuddled with Royal, who seemed to enjoy all of the attention that Lilliana bestowed on her. I smiled and turned out the light, cracking the door behind me.

Downstairs, Jacob was sitting on the couch, playing on his phone. He’d recently become addicted to some game where you match similar looking items together in order to gain points. Games like that frustrated me, but he seemed to enjoy them, frequently getting entranced with one before deleting the app and moving onto the next source of his amusement. I could see in how he scratched his head that he was reaching the point of annoyance with the match three game, and would soon have another addiction downloading on his cell phone.

I plopped down on the couch across from him, sprawling out and stretching. After giving Lilliana a bath, my back hurt, a reminder of my fleeting youth. I didn’t mind; the past few years had been the best of my life, and if aging was a side effect, then I would happily accept a sore body.

“So what do you think this is all about?” Jacob asked, clearly bored with his game as he removed it from his home screen.

Shrugging my shoulders, I looked into the kitchen, only to see a wide eyed Cherry as Jasmine spoke eagerly, her hair swishing against her back as she talked. “No clue. I’m just as curious as you are.”

As though sensing our conversation, our wives looked towards us and headed into the living room. The skirt of Jasmine’s cute dress ruffled around her thighs as she moved, and I couldn’t help but think of what all I was going to do to her in that little outfit later that night. As she sat beside me, my arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer to me. I stopped myself from pulling her into my lap the way I wanted to. That could wait until we were in bed for the night. Now, I knew she needed to tell me whatever it was that was on her mind.

“What’s going on, love?” I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it, loving the feel of her soft skin against my lips.

“Well, you know how we’ve been hoping that we may get a case at the center that ties into the trafficking and the dark net scheme Raymond was involved in?”

My heart pounded at the mention of his name. “Yes.”

“We found someone who was trafficked by the same people. She was actually taken by Raymond. She’s willing to help further the investigation, as long as we can make sure she’s protected.”

I felt my jaw tense up for a moment. In a way, I’d wanted things to stay dead, to spare us all those awful memories that were already being brought up. Of course, I was happy at the possibility of other abusers receiving their justice, but that selfish part of me wanted to drag Jasmine away from that room - and from the pain - forever.

Jacob broke the silence. “So wait. Go back to the beginning, explain this?” His arm tightened around Cherry’s shoulders. Conflicting emotions ran across all of our faces, and I realized I was not the only one being torn apart by this new information.

Taking a breath, Jasmine leaned into my embrace, and I knew she needed the comfort. “We had a woman come in last night. Her name is Anna. Stella flagged her file as one that I should review, believing it could potentially help reopen the investigation into the other men involved, as well as the trafficking that was implied in some of the videos that the police found.”

We nodded along, my thumb rubbing small circles where her dress hugged her waist.

“Anna was taken when she was nineteen, and was in captivity for four years. She was initially taken by Raymond, but after a few months was sold. She’s been passed around a lot, and has quite a bit of information she could share with the police.”

Pulling Cherry a little closer to him, I saw Jacob run his fingers through her hair and kiss her temple. It wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone who didn’t know her, but she had a haunted look in her eye. She didn’t pull away from her husband; rather, she rested her head on his shoulder, sighing as he stroked her red locks.

“So what you’re saying is, this blows the case wide open? We may be able to catch some of the people who hurt you two after all?”

Jasmine nodded at my words. “Yes. It’s overwhelming. I mean, we’ve been waiting for this day, but it started to feel like it would never happen.”

A quick glance at Jacob revealed that he held the same concern that I did - that this would bring our wives back to dark places, places they’d worked so hard to overcome the past three years. Still, we knew we had no right to stop them from seeking justice, that we had to do everything in our power to stop this ring of s*x offenders from continuing preying on our kingdom.

As we bid Jacob and Cherry goodnight, I stayed on the couch with Jasmine, admiring her thick thighs as the hem of her skirt rode up them. I found myself running my nails over them only to see her twitch, spreading them a little, and I smiled to myself, knowing she wanted me to take her to bed and take charge of her.

“Come, my love,” I said, extending a hand. She took it and followed me upstairs, where I promptly locked the door and moved towards her. She looked up at me with her wide green eyes, lips slightly parted. Unable to resist them, I bent down and felt my tongue glide into her mouth, her sighs the sweetest music in my ears. Her arms reached around my neck, and as much as she needed me to restrain her at times, I knew she needed me to love her freely now, not to withhold her pleasure from her.

My hands found their way to her waist, her skin sending heat through my fingertips as I took her dress off, admiring the smoothness of her body, every little stretch mark that lined her soft stomach.

“I love you, Jasmine,” I told her, carrying her to bed and stroking her cheek once I laid her down. “You’ve never been more beautiful than right now, my love.”

A light blush appeared, darkening her perfectly rosy cheeks. I took her hand in mine, lacing our fingers together and climbing into bed beside her. I wondered if she knew how breathtaking she was. “I love you, too, Caspian.”

My lips found hers again, only to move down towards her neck, planting the softest of kisses along it. Underneath my mouth, I could feel her heartbeat quickening, could practically taste her desire as I unclasped her bra and moved down to worship the swell of her breast. Every little sigh that came from her mouth made me want her more, but I knew I needed to take my time, that she couldn’t be rushed tonight.

“My love,” I whispered, taking one of her breasts into my mouth as I slid a hand downwards to caress her stomach. Her chest lifted up to meet me, and my hands grasped her waist as I moved lower, kissing her belly until I reached the bow on the top of her sweet pink underwear.

“Yes?” Her voice was breathy, and I could already see a damp spot forming on her panties between her thick thighs.

“I want to see you,” I told her, guiding her legs open and slipping the simple cotton fabric off of her body. I kissed each of her thighs until my face was between her legs, my hands resting on her hips as I licked her.

Pulling back, I watched her shiver and twitch before remembering not to tease her tonight. I took my time, drawing her orgasm out of her with patience and care, listening to every noise that escaped her perfectly parted lips.

“Caspian… oh… please, Caspian…” Her breath fell heavily as one of my fingers found its way inside of her, followed by another when I felt how desperately her body was trying to clamp down on something. As soon as the second finger went in, her hands were in my hair, tugging as her hips lifted upwards to meet my mouth, and I doubted in my ability to wait any longer. Still, I rode her orgasm out from start to finish, loving the way she flooded my mouth, the way her moans became incoherent as she finished on my fingers.

After she was through, I kissed up her stomach to her neck, finally finding her lips eagerly awaiting mine. Our tongues merged in an erotic dance as I nudged her thighs apart again with my knees, pressing into her, feeling how soaked she was around me. She was still pulsing from her earlier orgasm, and I ached to feel her tighten entirely around me.

“Oh gods, Jasmine,” I sighed into her ear, kissing it.

“Caspian…” I slid home, with her taking me to the hilt, one of my hands guiding her thigh so that her leg rested against my waist. “Oh, Caspian..”

“Jasmine…” Sliding in and out of her, I watched as her green eyes started to flutter towards the back of her head.

“Oh… Caspian…” Her hair fell in messy, sweaty curls over her forehead, and I brushed it out of her face before kissing her again.

As she took all of my length over and over again, her walls stretching to accommodate my width, I wrapped my arms around her and leaned back, bringing her with me so that she was sitting on my lap. I rolled my hips slowly, savoring every moment with her, and when her arms tightened around my neck, I groaned, holding her as close to me as possible. Hands in her hair, we shared a final kiss as she spasmed around me, clamping down on my aching c**k that finally achieved its release inside of her as her body milked every last drop from me.

Her head began to drop, spent from our time together, and I laid back down on the bed, gingerly taking her with me and holding her from behind.

“I love you, my princess,” I whispered into her ear, knowing she was already asleep. It had been a long day for her, after all.

As she began to snore quietly, practically little purrs, I wondered how much longer her peaceful sleep would last now that the door to her past had been reopened, and I resolved to do whatever needed to be done to ensure that she would sleep soundly through the nights ahead.