by Quil Carter
“Who’s fucking hungry?” Reaver called into the megaphone. This got the expected reaction. “Go home and grab some booze and whatever you want to throw into the fire pit, we’re celebrating taking our block back.”
Matt put the shovel down and walked up to Reaver. He took the megaphone from him and turned to the crowd.
“Reaver! Reaver! Reaver!” he started to chant.
I heard Asher chuckle beside me. I gave him a sideways glance and saw he was watching everything with a look of amazement. What a first impression for him to have in Aras, but he didn’t seem freaked out by it. I swallowed nervously; I was getting an uneasy feeling about this new guy. He seemed to be enjoying this show a little too much.
My attention was stolen when I heard the first broken wave of chanting. It became audible with each repetition until it was as clear as day.
“REAVER!” they shouted. “REAVER!”
My black-caped boyfriend raised his hands again and they cheered, the dead behind him cooking, burning, and being hauled off for processing. The fire, now resurrected back to life in large flames, shot up behind him; licking the grey overcast sky with embers as red as blood and as numerous as the stars.
The coals exploded behind Reaver as the assistant threw even more wood onto the fire.
Reaver’s eyes shot up to the window and quickly found mine. He looked up at me and smiled, the flames flickering in the black depthless eyes. Dancing like dragons in the pits of hell.
My dark chimera.
I realized now why they called him the Teufel, the Scourge of the Greywastes. I realized, more than ever, why people feared him. Not only could he murder seven men without a trial or so much as a testimony, he could get the entire block to light the torches to do it.
This is what Leo and Greyson had been afraid of.
His smile widened as I smiled back. Around him there was a flurry of activity with the cooks, the warden, the councillor, the residents, all talking, all planning. Everyone was moving but him. Reaver was still, stoic with a half-smile on his rose-coloured lips. The only thing on his body that moved were the flames flickering in his eyes.
I was dating the devil himself.
I brought out a quil and lit it, taking a huge inhale and holding it for as long as I could. I blew the smoke out of the side of my mouth and watched the people below. I was surprised to see Reno hopping up on stage; he looked a bit shocked. He pulled Reaver aside and started talking to him. Soon his shock turned to a smile and then a laugh. I assumed my boyfriend was filling him in on the last week. Reno had been in his house on full-time sentry since Leo and Greyson had left. I guess the smoke must’ve pulled him down to Aras.
“You choose very interesting company, Killian,” Asher said, still leaning against the window frame looking out onto the square. He looked at me with a smirking grin and cocked an eyebrow. “First Dr. Perish and now him? You like them unstable don’t you?”
I liked them chimera apparently.
“He, Perish, he wasn’t my boyfriend, he wanted to be but he wasn’t. I had to say he was so he wouldn’t kill Reaver or me.”
Asher’s green eyes didn’t leave the stage or the square. “Perish was very twisted… Greyson says you killed him.”
I nodded, trying to hide the jolt of sadness I got from being reminded of that.
I took another inhale, then offered him the quil. It wasn’t to be polite, my mind was in overdrive with what Reaver was doing. I couldn’t listen to him right now, I didn’t want to make conversation. “Do you smoke?”
Asher took the quil from me and smelled it. His nose twitched and he looked at it with approval. “I’ve never had it before, will it kill the pain any? I feel like cutting my leg off.”
I nodded, before forcing myself to turn away from the scene below. “Marley would have given you morphine or Vicodin if you hadn’t sneaked out so quickly,” I said, forcing the corners of my mouth to rise.
Asher’s lips pursed as if acknowledging his own mistake and he looked back towards the square.
“I guess I just wanted to see what was going on. If I am staying here, I should have some idea where I am.”
What an interesting first impression. Greyson and Leo had to hurry up and come home.
“You’re planning on staying in Aras?” I asked. “You don’t have any other family you would want to return to?”
He shook his head. I felt his eyes on me but I didn’t look at him right away. “My family is all dead now, and what distant cousins I may have are irrelevant. I was thinking that I could capture ravers for Reaver. Make some money that way.”
“I think Reaver would be okay with that.” I returned his gaze. I wasn’t going to bother telling him it would be Greyson he would have to consult with. I didn’t want to get into that discussion with so much happening below us, and in my own mind.
We were silent together after that, watching the crowd below us continuing their party. Bottles of Tulley booze started to get passed around, and I even saw Reno bringing out a CD player. I could see Reaver hovering around, keeping his distance from the crowd. He talked to Redmond a lot, and Hollis. From the looks of their facial expressions they seemed to be pleased with themselves. The town looked really happy… united. I hadn’t seen the residents unite like this ever. Greyson had never had a town party like this.
Soon the bullcook and his helpers were scraping the skin and coals away from the three cooked arians. Their corpses were barely recognizable but for their charred hands and feet. Their bodies were grey and ashy until the skin scraping revealed brown cooked flesh. Well-done enough to kill the disease but still tender and bursting with grease. When Tom put his knife into a thigh it came off in delicious chunks. He nodded to Reaver, and a moment later he was on the megaphone calling everyone to line up into three lines.
And everyone did… orderly, without fights, without complaint over who got to go first. The people lined up in double file, some with plates ready, others with only boards. Ready to take their ration of meat, potatoes, and onions.
Fuck, Reaver was amazing… they were obeying his every order. Was it his chimera engineering that made him able to do this? Or that made these people want to obey him? I wish I had paid more attention to this ruling family, I could’ve never guessed he was one of them.
I kept shaking my head in disbelief. What I was seeing was both scary, but in a strange way fascinating. My boyfriend was one of them… that was his origins. He was engineered to be something amazing. In all respects there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.
There were things he shouldn’t do, but there was nothing he couldn’t do.
Everyone below us ate. I was a bit hungry but I still didn’t want to venture down there. It was getting a bit too rowdy for my liking.
“Who are you?” Reaver’s voice demanded from the hallway. I looked behind me and saw my cape-draped boyfriend carrying a plate of shredded meat, potatoes, and onions.
My chimera… I was dating a chimera…
And he was beautiful. I had always seen him as perfect in every way, but in that moment I realized just how strikingly handsome he was. It seemed so obvious now that he was engineered to be that way. Everything from his perfectly-shaped eyebrows, to his small nose and ears, was sculpted and flawless to the last detail.
I wanted to run into his arms and tell him everything to protect him from himself, but I couldn’t. He didn’t know and I couldn’t tell him. I would cause more damage trying to explain what he was, and it wasn’t my role. That was something Leo and Greyson should’ve told him years ago.
I stuffed down my fears and doubts and put on my normal face.
“This is Asher. Owen brought him back from Donnely. He survived the whipwolf,” I explained.
“I heard from Owen…” Reaver walked up to Asher and looked at him from top to bottom. Asher did the same, not losing the smirk on his face. They both took each other in and stared at each other for a good ten seconds. It kind of reminded me of when cats met and glared
at each other deciding if the other was friendly or not. Reaver would know by just looking at him if he was a good person to have around, I always trusted his opinions on people.
“I imagined you to look a bit more… raticater-like,” Reaver said finally, breaking the silence. He then turned to me. “I’m to assume you got a hold of him?”
I scowled but Asher laughed, already in on the joke. “Yes, I did.”
Well, I guess this meant Asher passed the Reaver test.
“Go and grab some food and take a room at the hotel. Today isn’t a good day for a guided tour,” Reaver said. “If Greyson isn’t home by tomorrow, I’ll go through the new residents crap with you, alright?”
Asher nodded and helped himself to a chunk of meat. I wondered what prisoner we were eating. “I’m tired anyway. It’ll be nice to sleep without fearing it will be your last.” Asher headed towards the door. Even though he was leaning on his cane, he still had an almost sauntering self-assured walk.
“You’re a good mayor. I like how you handled things.” Underneath the door frame, he paused as if considering something. Sure enough, he turned around and gave Reaver a sly smile. “You should have wet the cloth and wrapped it over their mouths, not gagged them. The wet would have filtered the smoke and kept them alive longer. The gag only gave them one less air supply; didn’t you notice how quickly they passed out?”
With a wink he turned and walked out of the room.
There was a curious silence between the two of us. I looked over and saw Reaver’s brow was furrowed. I couldn’t pin down the expression but it wasn’t confusion or annoyance. It might have been intrigue.
Hmm…
“What an interesting character,” Reaver said finally. “I’ll be keeping an eye on that one.”
I stared at the closed doorway, slight unease started to creep into me. It was taking over my beat-in politeness, and appealing to what I had learned from Reaver in the past couple of months. I realized that I was more suspicious of him than I had been of Perish. I must just be being silly, my emotions were everywhere since my realization about Reaver.
Reaver leaned against the window frame and turned his attention back to the crowd below us. I was happy to have that raticater out of his mind and mine. At least for now.
“Look at them, fucking little parasites.” I looked at him, surprised at the harshness in his voice. “They were easier to manipulate than I thought. People are stupid.”
“How did you get Redmond and Hollis to go along with it?” I asked. I hadn’t seen him very much in the past couple days, compared to how much I usually saw him. I realized I must have missed a lot.
“They wanted to do it; I just told them they could.” Reaver licked his fingers after devouring a greasy piece of meat. “Look at everyone. Aras has never been happier and all it took was some public execution. I bet we don’t see any crime for a long while. Thanks to me.”
“You really helped the town.” I picked up a part of Reaver’s black cape. “Why are you dressed so –” I wanted to say chimera, but I bit my tongue, “– Nero-like.”
“You picked up on that, huh?” Reaver looked down at my hands. “I liked his authority. I thought it would make the idiots look at me more as an authority figure and less like Greyson’s stand-in. I think it worked too.”
But you don’t want to be the kind of leaders they are. I didn’t say that though, he was so proud with his work I couldn’t ruin it for him. He wouldn’t understand my fears either way. I pushed my suspicions away and instead we finished our food together and rinsed it down with a shared bottle of water.
Music started playing on the loudspeakers around town. Reno must’ve snuck into Greyson’s office. He was playing Metallica, which, of course, made everyone below us even more rowdy.
Reaver put the plate down and looked out the window. When he saw me looking too, we made eye contact.
He motioned me over with a pat on his lap. I beamed and got up and sat down. He put an arm around me.
“Is there anyone in Aras you want me to kill?” Reaver’s voice sounded like a gravely purr. I felt his lips press against the side of my head.
I did actually think about it for a moment. “No, no one messes with the mayor’s boyfriend.”
Reaver’s face nuzzled into the crook of my neck and he continued to kiss me. Each kiss started a small fire in my chest, and other places too. Why did violence and torture have to turn him on so much? Oh and the biting… he seemed to love being nipped and bit when we were having rough sex.
The first unhinged moan left my lips when I felt him start to suck on my earlobe, and by the time he was nipping my neck, my groin was burning with anticipation – but there was something I wasn’t going to bend on.
“Not here!” I whispered. I shifted so I was straddling him. I felt the bulge underneath his cargo pants. I pressed my own against it. “Let’s go back home.”
“Too far.” Reaver’s deep voice was a sensual growl; he reached around and grabbed my backside and started kissing me harder.
“Then Leo and Greyson’s. What if someone comes up here?”
Reaver rolled his eyes and I got off him. He turned around and stood by the window. “Get on my back.”
I stared, but I did what he asked.
To my shock Reaver stepped onto the windowsill and jumped off. I let out a surprised holler and grabbed onto him for dear life. He jumped onto a shed right below us, took two more steps and jumped onto the ground, his knees barely even buckling.
Reaver put me down but only to pick me up once again as he carried me to Leo and Greyson’s.
“Oh! Oh! Reaver’s gettin’ laaaaid!” Reno hollered over the music. Reaver flipped him off and I heard Reno, Matt, and Mickey all laugh. I saw that all three of them were drinking and playing pool. They must’ve dragged the table out of one of the sheds.
I waved at Reno, but Reaver batted my hand down.
“Don’t encourage him.”
“Wait up! I want some of that!” Reno continued his cat-calls but soon we were out of sight.
Reaver kicked in Greyson and Leo’s door. I giggled as he walked through the hallway and started up the stairs, but when he took me into Leo and Greyson’s room I looked at him in shock.
“We can’t… no! Not on their bed! That’s –” I yelped with surprise as he threw me on the bed and started ripping my clothing off. He yanked my pants down and then my underwear. The black fire was back in his eyes, and I knew I was going to be walking funny for the next couple of days.
Reaver had his mouth on my dick before my underwear even hit the floor. I could see his own cock hard and ready in his black cargo pants. I groaned and let my head fall back onto the pillow. It smelled like Leo and Greyson! Oh gosh, it was so weird.
But it also felt very good. I moaned and let him suck and lick me. He moved to my balls and started on them too… then he went lower.
I thought he was going to finger me but I felt his tongue down there. I sucked in a breath and let him push my legs apart, his tongue licking and flicking my opening, lapping and teasing it. I couldn’t believe how good it felt. I didn’t even know he knew to do that; I had seen it in a magazine once but… gosh, this was something else.
After a few minutes he pulled his tongue away and in its place I felt his finger. Soon we were kissing deeply again, two of his fingers pushing inside of me. I decided to play a bit dirty, knowing right now he would love it. I started to bite and nip at his neck; I even tucked my hands up under his shirt to claw his back.
Reaver had worked hard to pull off what had happened in the square. He deserved a special session between us, something out of our ordinary. I was going to give it to him exactly how I knew he would like it.
I sunk my teeth into his neck and roughly ground my hips into is.
This might’ve been a mistake as it got him really riled. I had to pull my own leg almost all the way back as he pushed three of his fingers inside of me. At the same time he moved his neck from my mouth befo
re finding my lips with his.
My free hand moved down to his pants. I unbuttoned them, before nibbling on his lower lip.
I pushed him off of me and I took his pants all the way off. In between his legs, surrounded by a trimmed thatch of black hair he stood fully erect. A thick rod, hard, and begging for release. I reached out and touched it, I felt it tense in my grasp.
“What do you want to do to me, Mr. Mayor?” I giggled at my rather lame attempt to talk dirty.
“I want to fuck you.” His voice was a low growl that matched the growing thirst in his eyes.
A shiver went up my spine and inside I felt hot and full of lust. I tugged on his dick and bit my lip as sensually as I could. “I want to taste it first.”
I put my mouth over it, and heard him groan under the caress of my tongue. I started to suck and play with it as he rested his hand on the back of my head, his hips starting to push into my mouth. I stopped sucking and let him thrust into my mouth, keeping my head as still as I could.
His thrusting became more forceful and I ended up almost gagging. I pulled away and he started rummaging through Greyson and Leo’s night table looking for lube.
He found some and made a very inappropriate comment about the other things they had in their bedroom night table. I pulled him back to me and we started kissing deeply again.
Reaver started to take his combat armour off, but when his chest was bare, only the cape hanging over his back, I stopped him.
I grinned a bit mischievously. I had no idea what came over me, but I said something that surprised even my horny mind. “Keep it on.”
“Dirty little creature,” Reaver growled. He kissed me again.
I loved every moment of it. I kissed him back and took a deep breath, trying to further relax my body for what I knew was going to be a very intense tryst.
And it was. There was no usual slow breaking in for the tight opening between my legs. Reaver pushed himself all the way in and after a few pulses of his hips he almost immediately started doing me hard.
