The vice lord Allende owned them all—buildings and outcast Weres alike. He’d taken control, killing the previous vice lord, a Wolf, the year before she approached Dorrit about working as a healer in the brothels.
Rebekka couldn’t suppress a shiver at the thought of being bound by contract to Allende. Some said his animal form was Hyena. Others Jackal. Levi said Allende smelled like Leopard. She’d met the vice lord only once, but she’d heard tales of what he did to those who tried to flee without fulfilling the terms of their agreements—even when those terms were dictated by someone else, a debt-holder or a family member or a court of human law.
For room and board and safety she healed those who worked in the brothels owned by him. She was free to come and go as she pleased, yet she couldn’t escape this world of prostitutes or the red zone where they plied their trade. She felt bound by her gift, by her upbringing, by the tattoo marking her as a prostitute though she’d never given herself to a man.
Rebekka reached the end of the walkway and once again entered codes allowing her to pass. Unlike the building she’d just left, serving only Weres, this one held rooms for hosting parties of sexual excess.
The walkway continued, a bridge built on top of the hallway separating the three front rooms from the three back rooms. Weres patrolled it, walking back and forth, a leap away from preventing trouble or delivering punishment, a menacing presence there to ensure patrons got what they paid for, no more and no less.
All of those supervising the activities were pure, able to shift between human and animal forms. Their presence in the red zone made Rebekka assume they were outcasts forced from Were lands by their deeds.
She barely glanced at scenes playing out in the six rooms. The only difference between these and the ones that had taken place in the brothels she’d grown up in was that here men—and sometimes women—played out their fantasies with prostitutes they considered little more than animals.
Oakland was a port town and the red zone thrived as a result of it. The Were brothels provided something humans who lived elsewhere couldn’t easily experience.
She passed into the next building, going down to the first floor. Plush carpet and walls painted in erotic murals created a feeling of luxury and entitlement. A higher class of client was served here but not an exclusive one like the three brothels on the other side of the street.
It was too early in the night for her services to be needed in this building, but they would be. Just as they would be needed in the one she entered next, a place dedicated to those who thrived on giving and receiving pain.
The sounds of screams and growls, of whips and paddles, dominated. There were few private rooms, as those who found sexual satisfaction in the dungeonlike setting enjoyed an audience.
Rebekka hurried through, the flash of wedding bands glinting as hands rose and fell, delivering blows. Once again she climbed stairs and entered a walkway. Relief came at reaching the last building, and then the small room that was hers.
She sat on the bed, legs suddenly wobbly, and wished she could stay. She couldn’t.
She’d already been away too long. There’d be those who needed her, and she had a message to pass on for Levi. This was the worst of the brothels Allende owned. It served the dregs, the humans who were that in name only.
Rebekka forced herself to stand. She allowed herself the luxury of a hot shower and a change of clothes before going downstairs.
In the alcove just beyond the parlor where Dorrit negotiated with clients, Feliss waited. She was delicate and beautiful, doe-eyed with a timidness attracting both the best and the worst of the men who visited the brothel.
Like the other prostitutes, she wore little in the way of clothing. From the front she could pass for human, hiding the black, horn-tough finger- and toenails underneath polish. But when she turned around, her shoulders, back, and buttocks revealed her Deer heritage.
Because they were friends, Rebekka knew Feliss’s story. Her mother was a Deer trapped by a hunter who rarely left the woods. Rather than accept death, she shifted into human form, erroneously thinking it would be easy to escape.
The trapper never dropped his guard. He kept her chained or caged, used her as whore and wife and ultimately the mother of his child.
When the opportunity arose, and Feliss managed to free her mother, her mother changed and returned to the forest. If Feliss had been able to shift between forms, instead of being born in a mixed one, then her mother wouldn’t have abandoned her.
But because Feliss wasn’t pure, she was left behind. And when she hit puberty, she was forced to take her mother’s place as whore and wife until the hunter who’d fathered her came to Oakland to sell the pelts he’d taken years to gather, and sold Feliss as well to the vice lord before Allende.
Rebekka’s stomach turned thinking about it. She raged at the horror, the injustice.
It shouldn’t be possible to hold a woman against her will, human or Were. It shouldn’t be possible to sell someone into prostitution.
But if the history books were to be believed, even in the United States, before The Last War, sexual slavery existed, with the masses turning a blind eye, not wanting to know about the plight of girls lured to this country and forced to sell themselves, or about the millions who had no choice in other places around the world.
Rebekka crossed her arms over her chest, rubbed her palms against the material of her blouse. This was the first time she’d been to the brothel since escaping from the Iberá estate after being held there in the hopes she would lead the patriarch to Tir.
For the Iberá patriarch, the hunt was now over. She had no fear of being made a prisoner at the estate again, though a tightness swelled in her chest at a remembered conversation. He wanted the red zone eliminated. But as horrible as the brothels were, if he succeeded, the prostitutes would find their contracts sold.
Some would be sent to other cities. Some would be placed on ships like the Pleasure Venture, or sold to brothel caravans like the one she lived in until her mother’s contract was bought by a vice lord in Oakland. And some would simply disappear, sold to places like the maze, or to hunters like Feliss’s father.
If only she could heal them completely, free them from being trapped between forms and make them whole, able to shift. If only—
“Are you okay?” Feliss asked, drawing Rebekka from the turmoil of her thoughts.
“I’m fine. Levi found his brother. He wanted me to tell you he’ll be back after he sees Cyrin home.”
Feliss looked down but not before Rebekka saw the doubt, the hopelessness, in her friend’s eyes. She took Feliss’s hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze.
“He’ll be back.” If they’d been alone, Rebekka would have added, He won’t forget his promise to buy out your contract so you never have to let another man touch you if it’s not your choice. But they weren’t. And she couldn’t. Like the human brothels of her childhood, there was jealousy and plays for power here, too.
Feliss pulled free when the sharp clap of hands summoned her into the parlor. Rebekka retreated to the small room that served as her workplace unless someone came to get her. Most of the time she healed using her touch and her will, but she also kept supplies on hand, salves and bandages, formulas meant to reduce pain or cleanse.
Word of her return spread. Within minutes a male Lynx arrived, shuffling in painfully, his human testicles swollen and bruised and his buttocks smeared with blood. He was followed by another prostitute, and another, a steady stream testifying to the brutality of those who visited the brothels.