by Shannon West
“Are they coming here then? Since they knew Kowalski told them about Atlanta?”
“They don’t need to. Dread’s here instead.”
The silence that followed that bombshell was broken when Logan stood up loomed over Jackson.
“Are you saying Dread is part of the Institute?”
“No. It’s not about the Institute. I’m sorry. This is so hard to explain. But Dread is taking over where King left off.”
“You better try to do better than that,” Logan ground out, stopping his pacing to hover over Jackson menacingly again.
“I know what happened to Kowalski,” Jackson said, staring up at Logan. “I know all of it. So, you don’t get to threaten me or lecture me about losing control, Logan.”
Before Logan could answer and start another argument going again, Luke put a hand on his arm and spoke first.
“Tell us what this is about then Jackson. Who’s behind all this? What’s happening to us?”
“Dread and King—they serve the same master, so to speak. It’s one and the same. They’re one and the same.”
“What the hell are you talking about? And what ‘master?’” Logan growled at him. “Who the fuck is behind all this?”
“Like I said, it’s too hard to explain unless it speaks to you.” He turned to Jake and tilted his head as he looked at him. “But you felt it, didn’t you? Last night? Since you can read thoughts like I can. And Perry, you know things too.”
“Not like you do, but yeah, some stuff. Jake is better than me. Though I did feel something at that fight last night. Something…odd. I think Logan did too.”
“How the fuck did you know that?” Logan asked, startled.
Perry shrugged. “I brushed against your hand downstairs. The gloves don’t work so good anymore.”
“I knew it too, Logan. We all can feel it, but I think it’s spoken to you and you’re resisting,” Jackson said, turning his head to look at Logan. “Be careful. You have to give it what it wants or it will come after you again like it did in Alabama.”
“It? What are you talking about? Do you even hear yourself? What do you mean by it, ‘cause you lost me. I thought we were talking about Dread.”
“We are. I knew you felt it,” Jackson said, looking around at each of them. “You all must have felt it. It’s so strong now.”
“What is, damn it? What’s this mysterious force you’re talking about?”
“It’s what’s inside Dread. It used to be inside King, but King is dead now. As for what it is, I don’t think it has a name. Or maybe it does…I don’t know.”
“Wait just a fucking minute! Slow the hell down. King is dead? How did that happen?”
“I think he is, yes, but I don’t know what happened. It’s a feeling I have and I only feel Dread now. And what’s inside him. I’m almost sure King is gone.”
A silence fell over all of them after that remarkable statement, and Luke and Logan glanced at each other. Logan recovered first.
“Are you saying King and now Dread have been—what is the right word here? Possessed? Taken over by some kind of…what? Demon?”
“Possessed is not exactly right, but it’s close. And not a demon.”
Logan rolled his eyes. “Possessed,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “By some nameless demon…”
“Not nameless, and not a demon I told you! I don’t know exactly what its name is though or even what it is. It still hasn’t told me. I’ve been calling it Animus in my head. That seems kind of right. All I know for sure is that it’s growing in power. I help to feed it.”
Logan held up his hand as a chill went down Luke’s spine. “Shit. Just hold on here a damn minute.” Logan said. “You’re not making any sense. Animus? What the fuck? And what do you mean, you feed it?”
“Animus is a word, actually,” Luke said softly. “It means hostility or ill feelings.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Logan said. “We just made a sharp turn into crazy town here.”
Jackson got to his feet again in a hurry. “I shouldn’t have said anything—it’s too hard to believe if you don’t feel it. If it hasn’t spoken to you.” He looked straight down at Luke. “But you know, don’t you? It spoke to you last night, didn’t it? It took you over for a while. I think it has plans for you.”
Logan looked at Luke in surprise and maybe a little bit of fear. He put a possessive hand on his leg. “Leave him the fuck out of this. Maybe you really should go now, Jackson. This is all getting too damned weird.”
Jackson got up to go and Perry grabbed his arm, trying to stop him. “No, don’t go. I wish you’d forget all about this and just leave with us. We’ll go somewhere north, maybe. Maybe we can cross into Canada. Get far away from all this.”
“No, we can’t get away. It’s not that easy. Look, I have to go back to Dread. I’ve already stayed too long and he’s waiting for me. Don’t worry about me. I’m doing what I have to do, what I want to do.” He got up quickly and strode toward the door, stopping with his hand on the knob. “Listen…you need to go back to the club…to serve it. I mean it. To anyone willing to give it what it wants, it rewards you beyond all imagining and that’s hard to resist. For me it was, anyway. Only the best of his followers are ever granted the rewards I’ve been given, and I can’t turn my back on that. You shouldn’t either. This is the source, don’t you see?”
“The source of what, damn it?” Logan asked harshly.
Keeping his eyes on Logan, he smiled. “The source of everything, Logan. Our power. Can’t you feel it? You’ll understand if you decide to stay. If you come back to the club... You have to be careful though, because it’s childlike, in a way. Fickle, prone to reneging or altering a deal on a whim, so you can’t ever let your guard down. And if you come, you’ll not only be facing me in the ring. We’d all be facing each other.”
With that, Jackson opened the door and slipped out into the hall, leaving the room in stark silence for a moment. Luke stood up and went to the window, where he looked out at the road outside, watching for Jackson to come out. When Jackson finally emerged, he got into a dark sedan waiting for him at the curb, and Luke turned around to face Logan. “What. The. Hell?”
Logan shook his head. “I think he’s gone batshit crazy. That’s what. There’s no other explanation.”
“But what if there is another explanation?” Luke said, hating what he was about to say, but knowing it had to be spoken out loud. “What if that explosion—what if the changes we’ve all experienced are doing something to his brain? Affecting his sanity and making him imagine all this. And what if he’s only the first one to succumb to it? Maybe we’re all going to slowly lose our minds, just like Jackson has.”
****
Later that afternoon, as he lay in tangled sheets, Logan grabbed Luke’s thighs, yanking him over to straddle his hips. “I don’t think I’m through with you just yet. In fact, give me a minute to rest and I’ll show you just how not through I am.”
Luke laughed, Logan’s words sending sizzling heat over his skin. Logan was a bossy, possessive lover who ticked every one of his boxes, though if anyone had told him a few years ago that he’d enjoy having such a demanding boyfriend, he’d have told them they were crazy.
“Lean over here and kiss me,” Logan was saying. “I want to taste you again.”
“Oh no, you don’t,” Luke protested, pushing away to sit up. “My ass is still sore from that pounding you gave me a few minutes ago.”
Logan sobered immediately and put a hand up to cup his jaw. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Why didn’t you say something?”
Luke looked down at him quizzically. “What’s up with you, Logan? I was only teasing. You’ve been acting like I’m made of glass all morning.”
Logan dropped his gaze. “Luke…look, after the things you said last night…I-I just want to make sure… you know, that everything is okay between us.”
“What things I said? What are you even talking about?”
“When you said…you know, that you didn’t love me…that all we had between us was sex.”
“What? I never said that!”
Logan nodded his head stubbornly. “Yeah, you did. When we were arguing after we got back to the hotel. You said I didn’t own you, and then I said I was pretty sure I did, and you said no, you hadn’t made any promises to me, and that any talk like that between us was just sex talk and not to be taken seriously. Don’t act like you don’t remember.”
“I don’t! I never said any of that,” he said, slipping off beside him in the bed. He leaned forward and took Logan’s face between his hands. “I’ve told you I love you. Surely you remember that!” In one of the mercurial mood changes that had been plaguing him lately, Luke pulled back his fist and punched Logan’s arm. “You know I love you, damn it!
“Ow! That fucking hurt!” he said, rubbing his arm. “I thought I knew. But when I brought that up, you said the sex talk thing again, and how I should have known it wasn’t real.”
Luke felt his mouth drop open, and he shook his head. “Why would you make up such a thing?”
“I didn’t make it up, and you did say it. It’s okay, though. I forgive you. I know you were just mad and saying whatever popped in your head and that you didn’t really mean it.” He caught his bottom lip in his teeth and chewed on it for a moment. “You didn’t, did you? Mean it, that is?”
Luke punched his arm again. “Idiot!”
“Ow! Hey, you don’t know your own strength. That hurts, I’m telling you!”
“I meant it to! How could you lie about this?”
“I swear to God I’m not lying. You said that to me.”
“When?”
“Last night, damn it. You really don’t remember?”
“No! I would never say something like that. I love you, damn it.”
“Okay. I believe you, if you say so.”
“I do say so!”
“Okay then. Well, I feel the same about you, you know. Though I don’t know why we have to talk about it all the time.”
“All the time? Are you kidding me right now? First of all, you brought this up! And you’ve only ever said you love me once. Maybe twice, but one of them doesn’t count because you thought we were dying.”
Logan tilted his head, considering. “Fair point. Okay. But why are we arguing about it?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s our default setting.”
Luke got up suddenly and began pulling on his jeans as Logan leaned up to look at him. “What are you doing?”
“I need to take Rio out.”
“It’s still raining outside.”
“Oh, then let me tell Rio, because I’m sure he can put off using the bathroom till it stops. He hasn’t been out since early this morning, Logan.”
“I can take him then. Or go with you.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, grabbing his jacket. “But you need to hurry, cause I’m ready to go.”
Logan jumped up, pulled on his clothes and was ready to go outside in just a few minutes, as Luke waited impatiently by the door. They were both silent in the elevator going downstairs, and it wasn’t until they’d walked an entire city block and Rio had found himself an empty lot to sniff around on that Logan stuck his hands in his pockets and frowned at Luke.
“Remind me exactly why you’re mad at me?”
“Because you doubted me when I said I loved you.”
“I didn’t doubt you. Not really. But you were pretty adamant last night about not being serious when you said stuff to me about your feelings. And this…this thing between us is still kind of new. I guess I was feeling insecure about us.”
“Well, don’t.”
“Okay.”
“And stop being weird around me. I don’t like it.”
“Sorry.”
Luke stepped closer and sagged against him. “I don’t like feeling at odds with you. I’m sorry about last night—if I hurt your feelings. I would never want to do that.”
“I know.”
“I can’t imagine saying that to you. Maybe I was possessed by Jackson’s demon for a little while.”
Logan shuddered and pulled him close. “God, don’t even tease about something like that.”
“But what if there was such a thing?”
“What? Some kind of demon spirit that possesses people?” Logan looked outraged. “I don’t believe in that shit.”
“I don’t either, most of the time. And then something happens like Sandy Hook Elementary School or the shooting in Orlando or Las Vegas or in those churches and synagogues. All of them—so many of them. It almost seems like something must be behind it. Something driving all that hate.”
“Hm. My mom would have said it was the devil.”
Luke smiled. “My mom too. People have always tried to explain evil away by blaming it on something else. First, they did it by making up ancient gods to blame it on, like the gods of war and chaos. Names like Set and Ares and Mars and Loki. Then over time, people stopped believing in all of them and they blamed their troubles on the Christian devil and his demons. What if, in reality, there’s only ever been one dark force in the universe.”
“Like what?”
Luke shrugged. “I don’t know. Is there such a thing as a god of evil?”
“Come on, you don’t believe that.”
“Not really. But what if it wasn’t any kind of fully formed entity or god at all? What if it was more like some psychic reflection of us. Of human beings and our own darkest impulses. The worst parts of us, you know? The Genghis Khans and Hitlers and Mussolini’s of the world, the KKK and the Taliban and then there’s all the murderers and serial killers and thieves and rapists. All that ugliness and hatred just gathering together over time like little streams of water running down a cliff face. And over the centuries, these streams of negative energy could have all flowed together and created a kind of consciousness.”
“Well, that’s fucked up. A hate monster, huh? Where do you come up with these things?”
Luke smiled. “I don’t know. Just thinking.”
“Well, stop it. It’s way too complicated and philosophical for me. Besides if there’s all the hate, then surely there’s good too. Why wouldn’t it accumulate into those streams you’re talking about too? All the saints and the martyrs and Jesus and Buddha and Allah and all those nuns in the Catholic school I used to go to. And Mother Teresa! They would have had some effect, surely.”
“So you’re saying the good balances out the bad?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. Maybe. There’s always been bad stuff in the world. Plagues and wars. Nothing’s changed.”
“I don’t know. I saw this thing on the History Channel once about the year 536. The worst year in history, supposedly.”
“Why was that?”
“That was the year a mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia and maybe even some of North America into darkness, day and night—for eighteen months. The fog or clouds were probably from volcanoes in Iceland, the scientists think now. Temperatures fell and crops failed. People started starving. Snow fell in the middle of the summer that year, so a lot of people probably froze to death too. And then around the same time, the bubonic plague struck. Wiped out about half the world’s population and may have been the cause for the Roman Empire to collapse. The Mayans too, I think. It took a couple hundred years for the world to recover from that year.”
“Okay. So, like I said…shit happens. You can’t blame it on some mysterious force in the universe.”
Luke shrugged and smiled at him, “Maybe not.” He made a clicking sound with his mouth for Rio to come running toward him, bending over and snapping his leash to his collar. “Come on. We’re not going to solve all the mysteries of the world out here. And I’m cold. Let’s get back to the hotel.”
“Need me to warm you up?” Logan asked, pulling Luke into his arms and nuzzling his neck. Luke lifted his lips up for a kiss that made both their pulses rac
e. When Luke’s erection became uncomfortable, he pulled away and leaned over to ruffle Rio’s fur. “When your daddy gets back to the room, he’s going to take me back to bed and show me how sorry he really is for doubting me. Isn’t that right, Daddy?”
Logan nodded solemnly. “I can definitely do that.”
Luke smiled and stood up, hooking his arm in Logan’s. “I knew you could.”
Chapter Eight
The next morning, Luke paced restlessly around the room as Logan finished packing their belongings into the duffle bags they’d bought at a second-hand store down the street. Rio lay on the bed and watched him, whining a little deep in his throat.
Logan had awakened Luke early that morning by rolling over next to him and taking his warm cock in his hand to fondle it. Luke sighed and shifted closer to him, his shaft hardening in Logan’s grip, but not opening his eyes.
“Morning, Navy,” Logan crooned in his ear. Luke mumbled something unintelligible.
“Sleepy, this morning?” Logan rolled over, found the lube on the bedside table and coated his fingers with it. He pulled back the covers and parted Luke’s thighs. “I bet I can wake you up,” he said, nuzzling his nose on Luke’s neck.
Luke slowly opened his eyes and locked on Logan’s as he tried to wake up. “What? What did you say?”
Logan was barely listening to him, too consumed with the warm flesh in his hand and the feelings it evoked racing through his body. He lubed both hands and tossed the bottle back in the drawer and returned his attention to Luke. His hand slid easily now over Luke’s leaking cock and he bent down to kiss the head, enjoying Luke’s quick intake of breath, followed by his moan. Logan deep-throated his erection, making the suction strong as the head of Luke’s cock bumped against the back of his throat. At the same time, Logan slid two lubed fingers from his other hand deep inside him, past the inner ring of muscle and gave his prostate a hard rub, which made Luke writhe on the bed and look up at Logan with wide eyes before he screamed “Logan!” and came so hard his entire body shuddered for a minute afterward.
