Purge

By Raven Hush

Killian du Pont is a regular Dom and manager at Fray, Melbourne’s premiere BDSM shifter club, but he only wants to play with one girl. A girl who craves pain over pleasure, soothing his beast, a gray buck kangaroo.

Problem: she isn’t his.

Emu shifter Lux belongs to no one. Her uniform consists of a collar she bought for herself, signature dark denim and a fluff of her own shifted feathers. Her loyalty belongs to her boss but her attention is drawn to Killian who irritates her with his overprotective streak but attracts her with his personal brand of dominance.

When Killian breaks through Lux’s edgy exterior, he discovers trauma and courage, but inner strength isn’t her weakness. Lux’s past haunts her to the club’s doorstep. Killian doesn’t know where Lux stands when Fray is threatened or if he’ll lose her just as he’s found her.

Other Club Fray titles:
Darkest Desires (A Club Fray Halloween)
Fray (Alpha Male anthology)
​​​​​​​Purge

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evernight
• Release date: Nov 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9780369507181

Book preview

Published by EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ® at Smashwords

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2022 Raven Hush

ISBN: 978-0-3695-0718-1

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Editor: Jessica Ruth

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

for every submissive who never thought you'd find your Dom

PURGE

Club Fray, 3

Raven Hush

Copyright © 2022

Chapter One

Killian

If you don’t back the fuck up, I’ll have no damn floor manager tonight, Rafe seethed in my ear, pushing his beast out to rake his semi-formed beak against my neck.

I ignored the wedge-tailed eagle’s trash talk, opting to slip my leg beneath my boss’s in a broad sweep that took his lean form to the mat. Apples, mate. Apples. I pointed a thumb backward at my own chest, then laid out a middle finger upright in his direction. Oranges.

I’m not here to make a fucking fruit salad, my best friend and owner of Fray, our local shifter BDSM club, muttered.

Nope. But I’ll put you out with the rotten ones later. I traded barbs, maintaining a cheerful smile just to fuck with him.

Your enthusiasm is noted. Now fucking hit me, fur-face.

Granted. I slapped him upside the ear for fun, then slipped past his decent block to aim a direct jab at his nose.

Breath hissed between Rafe’s teeth as blood issued from both nostrils.

All right. Fight’s done, Josiah called. The owner of the local shifter gym and boxing ring Reserve folded his arms over his barrel chest. If you stain my shit with blood, I bill you. Twice. He threw both thumbs over his shoulders. Get the fuck out. I have to clean my equipment.

I made the mistake of looking at him. Or more precisely, looking past him. A swank of pink and pale gray feathers flitted past the glassed windows that lined the street front and disappeared around the corner that led to the office. The one thing that could steal my attention.

Long enough for Rafe to clock me in the chin and give me a matching bruise.

Who’s going to be the bitch on frou-frou night now, Killian? he gloated, hovering over my prone form.

I stared at the swaying fluorescent lights behind his head that bobbed in a mesmerizing rhythm. If you say so. I pressed back and used my weight to handspring back into position. Frou-frou night, you say?

Fray hosted themed nights for significant birthdays and other events. This year would be Lux’s twenty-fifth. The emu shifter was averse to pirates, drunks, and assholes, a talent for a bartender. In true fashion Rafe made sure the entire club knew it by theming a night in honor of her favorite color, pink.

Not up to the task? Rafe jabbed in my direction as I ducked and weaved.

Still trying to catch a glance of the lithe emu I was certain I’d seen a moment earlier, my distraction gave Rafe the opportunity to lay me out a second time.

His broad form leaned over me, hand extended.

I knocked it away. "Think we’re finished, boss man?" I leered at him, bringing out my inner asshole because he was my club manager, best friend, and because I could. Rafe wasn’t the only one who could trash talk, and I made sure he knew it.

"Enough!" Josiah shouted from the edge of the mat.

Fine. Get your ass to work on time tomorrow. Rafe tossed sweat-riddled hair out of his eyes with his glove. And I need more information on a certain drug ring.

I dropped my hands and stopped dancing. Are they in the club?

Before Rafe had gotten himself all distracted with a certain fluffy ass quokka, we’d looked at drug runners rampant within the shifter community. He worried about the effects on our shifters.

Plus, it was a little hard to explain why a local wallaby had X in its system to a paramedic who didn’t know shifters existed.

Knowing we were more robust than the regular homo sapien, I let it go. Our metabolisms worked fast enough to combat most drugs and besides, the choice came down to the person, not the organizer.

Rafe liked to stick his head into the community, the great protector. And while I envied the support and awe he generated, I also knew when to back off and leave well enough alone.

Sort of.

My gaze flicked back to the glass, straining to see the flock of pink feathers that would herald Lux’s arrival, though she shouldn’t be here in the first place.

Rafe muttered something that sounded like bullshit behind his fist.

I shot him a glare and ducked out of the ring, thanking Josiah with a half bow.

She’s waiting in the foyer, my friend, Josiah murmured, completing his customary bow from the waist after we had thrashed the shit out of each other in his ring.

Grateful for it. I slapped his shoulder and grinned when he stiffened. J hated physical contact of any sort. That didn’t mean I refused to give it to him.

All rounder asshole. That’s me.

Above me, Rafe snorted. Classy, Killian.

Every day, brother. I tossed his snark back at him and ducked beneath the ropes. Shoving my feet into my shoes, the laces still tied, and bundling my shirt against my sweaty chest, I grabbed my gym bag, gave both men a backward wave, and headed for the door.

Bare-knuckle fighting achieved little in the long run, but it gave both Rafe and I a damn fine reason to nut our stresses out on each other rather than irritating the regulars who walked through our doors.

Fray’s patrons did the right thing in general terms. They came, they laughed, they played, and came again—but a few broke the rules by intention, most notably the man who had abused Rafe’s sub and wife-to-be. Of course, we always had the odd one or two who made a name for themselves.

Those were banned faster than they could claim unfairness. The groups were harder to pin down on account of their irregular pairings. Smart offenders alternated who they traveled with and what sort of activity they took up inside the club.

Challenging enough to appear fair when I knew they deserved the street grazing their collective asses and damaging enough to be a royal pain in my ass. If Fray got a reputation for backing the wrong kind of patron, it fucked with the safe place Rafe worked so hard to achieve.

Hence the bare-knuckle fights. We couldn’t beat the shit out of the offenders every time, so we took our angst out on each other. I hoped there was some sense of logic in that, because I had no better way to drown out woes than to duke it out in an even match.

I turned into the empty foyer. Staring around the small, bare space with its eighties-esque green pile carpet, sterile white walls, and metal desk that could have doubled as a gurney, I paused. I could have sworn she’d been here a moment ago—there. A shimmer of pink-and-gray feathers drew my eye.

Pivoting on my heel, I grabbed the gym’s front door before it closed on my hand and took the two street front steps at a run.

And nearly toppled over the emu shifter I’d chased in the first place.

Big fellas don’t stop well, do they? Lux mused, leaning against the wall beside the gym.

I suppressed a grin that threatened to ruin the game we played. The little minx had been waiting for me.

Two can play on your terms, Little Bird.

A sheath of long blonde hair tinted the palest pink hung in a sheet down her back, and stiletto boots gave the already tall shifter extra height. Still dressed in the skintight dark denim jeans she favored, her feathers partially transformed into a row of fluff that bared her stomach and most of her cleavage, she managed to steal every wisp of oxygen in the vicinity.

A gray’s strength finds its stride in the ring. I held up a pair of matching split knuckles. Seems it holds true for wedge-tailed eagle shifters, too. We had managed to keep Rafe’s beast out of common knowledge, but I had no doubt Lux knew every detail that wandered in and out of Fray, including the staff's secrets.

And here I thought you were all bounce and puff. She wrinkled her nose as she pushed off the wall and fell into step beside me.

You know a kangaroo is more than the stereotype. I faked horror at the thought, but couldn’t help casting her a sideways glance.

Lux always had her shit together. Even when her not-favorite drunks arced up at last call, she managed to extricate herself without raising her voice to offer the smallest but cutest fuck you smile. The few times I’d seen her play in the club’s lower rooms for harder connoisseurs gave me an insight into the sassy-as-fuck bartender I drooled over in my spare time.

One: she never had sex with anyone.

Two: she never bared up for anyone.

Three, and my utmost favorite of my short but sexy list: by all that was unholy, she loved pain.

And what does a sadist like me want more than a little pain slut to satisfy his every need? Mind, if I met her anywhere else, I’d throw it all aside to worship the sassy bartender—she had dug her way that far beneath my skin. But she was staff, and that put her off limits.

My rules, not Rafe’s.

Nor