Free Martyrs (Forced by Consent Book 3) by Amanda Close Page A

deeper by the level of abuse. Though on the surface the black shirts were sexually objectifying the bed sisters, and treated them like little more than pieces of beautiful meat to be abused and fucked then cast aside, their bonds were much deeper.
     
    Everyone who resided in the House of Red and Black was there by consent, they were paid nothing, and yet most remained. There were always those who lost their courage and left, mostly bed sisters and pack sisters too traumatized by the punishment to continue, though even some black shirts left, those who lost their will to dominate or grew jealously attached to one of the sisters. If Tae allowed himself to grow any fonder of Natasha he might begin to feel jealous of the other black shirts as they took her. If he allowed himself to care on such a superficial level as worldly love, then his time at the House would soon be over.
     
    As the Sovereign Lady had told him when he’d first been initiated, he must love each of these women equally, and must hold them so dear that their bond transcended love. They were not here to be in love, from the sisters to the black shirts, they were here to wage a war of flesh. It was a more obvious battle for the pack sisters, who voluntarily lived in pens beneath the main House and brawled each other in bloody cage matches, yet all who resided here fought the fight on one end of the punishment or the other.
     
    To be a black shirt meant that Tae carried a terrible responsibility in exchange for the opportunity to live out his abusive fantasy. To the outside observer the House of Red and Black must seem like a temple of misogyny more than sacred space, thought Tae, but nothing could be further from the truth. He only knew his small part in the grand performance of the House, thought he assumed the bed sisters and the pack sisters had theirs as well. No woman would consent to the kinds of sexual humiliation and bodily punishment that the black shirts abused them with if they were not also servants of the powers behind the House.
     
    Tae could not fathom the true nature of the powers, only that he knew they existed, and being so close to that kind of tangible divinity was enough for him. He did not need to unravel the mystery, simply being in its presence and participating in the dance was enough for him. Tae had come up the hard way as a gang member in New Orleans, and not once in his teen years would he have ever though something like the House could ever exist, much less that he would be a servant within its hallowed halls.
     
    Tae had always been a brawler, a barbarian of a man even at a young age. To support his mother and his five siblings a sixteen year old Tae had begun bare-knuckle fighting in illegal matches. For nearly six years he spent his nights in abandoned warehouses, sweaty basements, and down miles of bayou backcountry beating other men senseless for cash. Eventually he got into the MMA fighting scene, inspired by the likes of fighters such as Kimbo Slice, and made a decent regional career for himself. It was his success that brought his career to a grinding halt, even if that is what led him to the House.
     
    Tae had no moral qualms about engaging the services of prostitutes, though their pimps did have a problem with the kind of violent abusive sexual acts he put them through. Tae paid extra to do what he liked, but eventually the working girls started refusing to take the gig. After his second brush with the law over being caught in hotels with prostitutes Tae had been banned from the UFC, and soon he was back to bare-knuckle boxing to keep his bills paid.
     
    The House recruiter had propositioned him after a particularly brutal match against a fighter who proved to be just as vicious as Tae himself. Tae looked out of the foggy window at the season’s first snow, and smiled as he crushed the missive in his hand and recalled his experience with the recruiter. She was, after all, the reason he was here. She too had used the