by Quil Carter
“You always liked Leo,” I said, confused.
“Lycos threatened him. He threatened him because he found out who he was,” Perish spoke up. He reached over and started petting Biff on the ears.
“Perish!” Killian hissed.
Perish cowered. He picked up the cat and put him on his lap, almost as if the animal was a protective barrier.
But it wasn’t Perish I was interested in. “What have you been keeping from me?”
Killian picked up some of the green leaves and started placing the shreds into the rolling papers. Then he put them down with a sigh.
“Remember when I told you about those townspeople I massacred with our king? I didn’t want to tell you but I did,” I said flatly.
“You’re going to tell him?” Perish said nervously to Killian. “Lycos will kill you.”
Killian stared at him. “What do you know?”
Perish looked at the floor. He petted Biff on the head, scratching the white-spotted cat behind the ears. “What… what do you know?” His blue eyes glanced up for a brief moment before they nervously went back to the cat’s head.
I noticed Killian was fumbling with the brick of heroin again. “Lycos stole Reaver when he was newborn…”
“What?” I said it so loudly the cat sprung off Perish. The scientist swore and held his stomach. “How do you know?”
Killian’s hands were a wreck as he tried to steady the lighter. When he spoke he sounded like he was choking on something. “The day I walked him out of West Aras, he threatened me, he told me to keep quiet. I had been snooping. Reaver, you remember when I found that ball, the clothes and all that?”
I nodded stiffly. I started to feel that pit of nausea in my stomach as he continued.
“I kept snooping and I found a picture of young Leo with baby you. I confronted him and he put a gun to my head.” Killian looked over at me. “Leo is Lycos Dekker, Reaver. Leo’s a chimera.”
I looked at Perish for confirmation, and with his body language I knew the answer already.
“Perish? Is he?” My voice was hollow.
“I can’t say.”
“Why did he steal Reaver?” Killian asked.
“What?” I said loudly. Inside, I was telling myself that the louder I talked the less I would have to hear my own racing, confused thoughts. “What are you two fucks talking about? I… I came here when I was two. My parents died.”
Perish wrung his hands. He looked ahead, fidgeting.
“Don’t make me say, don’t make me say.” He looked pleadingly at Killian. “Killian, don’t make me, please. He’ll kill you to punish me. He already said he would if I told Reaver.”
I got up, and grabbed my M16.
“Reaver?” Killian’s voice was calm; he didn’t even try and stop me. “Greyson has to tell you everything he knows… you need to talk to him now.”
“I’m planning on it.” I rooted through the bag, grabbed another grenade since I had used my last one, and some explosives. “All of their secrets are going to get us killed.”
Chapter 51
Jade
Jade stifled the moan on his lips, tracing a finger through the boy’s curly blond hair. He put his hands over his head, and slammed a boot on top of the desk in front of them.
Drake jerked up, surprised. Well, at least he didn’t bite down.
Jade put his hand on the back of Drake’s head and pushed him back down onto his dick. The sucking sounds resumed. Jade shifted himself lower onto the chair and closed his eyes.
A moment later he felt the familiar tingling in his spine, the subtle feeling of every hair standing on end.
I wish he would knock first. But pets never were allowed much privacy. Even when they were being rewarded.
Jade opened an eye and saw the towering silhouette in the doorway.
“Yes?” He once again pushed down on Drake’s head as the boy lifted it to see who Jade was talking to.
“We will be leaving momentarily with Nero and the twins to meet with Greyson Merrik,” the shadow said in a cold voice that left little room for question.
Jade leaned back on the chair, making Drake have to partially rise from his kneeling position to keep on servicing him. He gave a casual glance at the statuesque man in the doorway.
“I’ll have your tea ready, when you get back.”
Jade would say the look that Elish was giving him was icy and authoritative, but it was rare for him to look any different. He had a fluidity to his overbearing presence that told everyone he was used to putting people in their place with just one glare. Jade was no different.
“You will be accompanying me.”
“Meh.” Jade waved him off. He leaned back and closed his eyes.
“Drake, remove yourself from my pet’s body.”
“Aw, come on!” Jade felt the cold air hit his wet dick as Drake obeyed Elish. Jade slammed the chair back down onto four legs.
Elish’s flawless face didn’t change. The cold callousness, the whispers of cruelty, still framed it, like his flowing golden hair. The only indication that he was displeased with his pet was the slight narrowing of his eyes.
“Put it away, and follow me.”
“I was close!”
Elish’s placid tone did not waver. “Drake, hit him.”
Before he could open his mouth to protest he felt the powerful blow in his stomach. The force of it knocked him off of his chair and onto the cold floor.
Jade groaned; he hadn’t even had time to brace himself this time. Well, it was back to pissing blood. Always in the stomach, or the chest, or a sex organ of Elish’s choosing. Never the face anymore; his master wanted to keep him beautiful.
He heard a rattling jingle as Elish clicked the chain back onto his collar, then a moment later it became taut. As he got to his feet, he put his now flaccid dick back into his leather pants and obediently followed his master. No more protests left his lips. Elish Dekker was not in the mood for his attitude, and Jade knew better than to push him.
It had been three years into my slavery with him, I knew when I could push his buttons and I knew when to obey. Our power struggle was for the bedroom and for our private quarters in Skyfall. If I shamed him in front of his brothers he would take my head.
Jade’s dick throbbed in protest as Elish led him down the blue halls to the council room. He had been so close to cumming every part of him felt cheated. He had been looking forward to that blow job. Though his master kept his pet to himself, he allowed him Drake’s visits when he was busy with other matters.
Now was one of those times. Elish had barely touched him since they had arrived outside the blacksands. Too busy and stressed from all the news to take Jade, even if he was in dire need of some release. Jade knew his master inside and out by now, and during all of this he had been chomping at the bit to release some of Elish’s tension.
It was his job after all.
They entered a large room, with walls half dark blue and half black. The greywastes stretched out in front of them through three large windows.
Jade immediately went to the windows, but stopped when his chain tightened. He got as close as he could, and felt the breath catch in his throat.
Trees, so black they looked charred, littered the canvas of painted grey. They spread out in every direction, most dead, but some still clutching to life in the form of spindled branches stretching out to the sun in silent desperation.
He could see the white dusts of ash rimming the trunks like snow drifts, coating the bark like fingers dipped in cocaine; even the darkest black was touched with grey.
How different from Skyfall. Who would ever live here instead?
People who were free.
Jade felt his chain pull him back. He looked behind him and saw the burrowing eyes of Elish. He knew what his master was thinking. There were times when Jade had fantasized about being free in the greywastes, but flirting with that old notion filled him with a different feeling now. He wouldn’t have lasted a second
beyond the island; he had been here with Elish more than a few times and he knew the ferocity of the wasteland.
The Moros slums would cut your throat without regard, just the same as in the greywastes, but that was a different game entirely. Where street savvy and a slum-taught arrogance won you respect amongst your fellow Morosians, in the wild greywastes those skills offered little in the ways of survival.
Jade moved a few steps backwards and stood several inches behind Elish, the distance between them saying more in that second than his own lofty comebacks ever could. He was a pet behind his master, though the inner agony that had once caused him had been crippled for some time now. He accepted his place, and in the throes of the passions they shared at night, he even thanked Elish for it.
Though compared to the wasters, they were more like each other now than they had ever been.
Jade had never seen such sorry excuses for people. A people who were one Geigerchip away from being ravers. Thin, tallow-faced arians with dirty brown clothes stained with oil and sweat. The best of them smelt of ash and wood fire, the worst like body odour and rotting blood.
Jade knew in his heart that he would never survive in that wasteland. Perhaps when he was a young, arrogant boy, more green than a blade of grass he could’ve seen himself going forth, but now he was older. He knew his limits and he picked his battles.
“Elish.”
Jade turned around towards the familiar voice and dropped to one knee in submission. He lowered his head to the ground, but kept his eyes raised towards him, as he was taught. There were rules he broke readily, to most of which Elish turned the other cheek, but this was one he had learned early on.
Don’t piss off Silas.
His flashing green eyes were smiling; he was in a rare good mood it seemed. In one hand he was holding a snifter of red wine and in the second, a piece of folded paper.
Silas walked across the council chamber, a sway of pure grace and confidence following every gentle step. Ghost King they called him under their breaths in the slums, out of ear shot of the thiens, not only because of his immortality, but also because of his stealth and his silence.
Jade had been disturbed the first time he had met Silas, years ago at Stadium, an event that took place every week in Skyfall. Though there had been barely an exchange of words, the king’s aura had been blinding. Being around Silas alone was like having live wires only inches from your skin. Elish had been the same, but it had been an intoxicating experience. With his master, each reaction he got from those sub-zero eyes had sent shivers up Jade’s spine; every touch of Elish’s soft hands made him jelly in his palm.
Silas’s aura had been one of darkness; not black, it had no colour. You didn’t want to see his expressions, you didn’t want his touch, you wanted to leave the room and escape the void that surrounded him.
Jade watched as Silas nodded for him to rise. He stood up and took a step back from Elish; as he did his master gave his head a nod, dismissing Jade. Gladly, he moved away from Silas and looked out the window at the tree-littered greywastes, though he spared an ear for their conversation as always.
“This is the layout. Reaver is there,” Silas said. Jade heard the paper unfold.
There was a moment of silence; dark, haunting silence. Though silence was an improper term. It was never silent with the Ghost. Even if all sounds ceased, there was still the hint of the inner instinct of a prey animal that screamed at you to run. Something that told you to flee from this super predator.
Jade rubbed the fleshy goose bumps from his bare skin. He wished Silas would leave them, he felt dark inside and tainted under Silas’s presence. The king’s darkness eclipsed everyone’s aura, even Elish’s.
There had only been one other person to do that, but even if there were a hundred it wouldn’t matter. Elish was Jade’s own king, his own walking personification of perfection.
… but even his white fire was extinguished by the void.
“Where was he last seen?” Elish asked, his resounding voice was tense. That caught Jade’s attention. It wasn’t often that Elish was anything other than impassive. He was more angry than he was showing, Jade had been with him long enough to see the signs.
“He left his dwelling half an hour ago; he’s engaging Greyson as we speak.”
“Does he know?”
“Not as of this moment. But I do not trust Greyson not to crack under his interrogation.”
“He’s just a boy. If Greyson Merrik wavers because of a mere child’s tantrum…”
The room went cold. Jade chanced a glance behind his shoulder to see Silas looking at his master with a flickering flame in his eyes.
“Reaver is no child,” Silas whispered. “He isn’t even twenty and he has surpassed everything I could have hoped for him.”
“Perhaps Lycos’s traitorous behaviour has worked to your advantage?” Elish replied.
“Only time will tell. From what I have seen their rearing of him has produced favourable results, but in turn it has thrown in a litter of complications.”
The acid in his tone brought a chill to the room, like winter through the spine. Jade knew Elish had been Silas’s counsel since he had reached maturity, and he knew how to handle his king in all ways, but that tone – it made Jade want to hide behind Elish’s leg like a child.
“We will work through him, like we have done all the others.”
Jade watched as an almost smug smile slipped onto Silas’s face. For a moment their eyes matched one another. Purple and green, two opposite on the colour spectrum. Jade watched curiously, but what unspoken volumes they exchanged was not for him to understand. It was a way of communication that only two immortals could interpret. Two men who had watched boys like Jade be born and die of old age.
“Master… let me leave him here.”
Jade’s eyes widened. His heart started to hammer anxiously in his chest. Silas must have heard it because a moment later his eyes fell onto his.
“No way. You said we’re only meeting with Greyson,” Jade blurted. He took a step back, shifting his gaze away as both Elish and Silas’s eyes shot to him. “What use will I be? He’s trying to kill me again!”
Silas’s rosy lips separated in a smile. Every sense in Jade jammed. He looked at his master but Elish’s cold look did nothing to assure him of his own safety. Even if Elish was screaming on the inside his expression would remain authoritative and calm.
“Come here, Jade.” Silas’s voice was as smooth as melting ice, though inside that ice there were a thousand knives just waiting to slice you.
When the lion calls over the deer, you run. The one who stays to ask his purpose becomes dinner.
But still, Jade obeyed, not from bravery but because he was a cicaro and a slave and he could do nothing else. If he disobeyed it would only look bad for Elish, and Jade had embarrassed him with his actions too many times in the past. Elish’s punishment would be brutal.
Jade walked over and stood in front of Silas, Elish’s cold presence behind him. He looked forward and put himself into robot mode. Elish’s eyes always hardened whenever he saw Jade slip into that state of mind, but he rarely ever did it with him now.
Silas’s eyes ran up and down Jade’s body, his eyes like green knives ready to cut him at the slightest displeasure.
Jade stood rigid as he felt himself stripped bare by the king’s austere gaze.
When he had drunk his fill, Silas approached him. The void pressed against Jade’s own aura, tyrian purple in his mind, with waves of silver that rippled down like borealis.
His heart gave an apprehensive jolt as Silas touched him. His eyes remained fixed forward, but from the corners of his vision he was watching the king’s every move.
The king ran his hands down Jade’s stomach, until they traced the rim of his pants, a light feathery touch, like a breeze during the warmer months. Jade caught his breath as he felt the familiar cold burning, the electricity as his body brushed one of the many live wires dangling over him.
>
Then, like a cobra, he struck.
Silas slipped a hand down Jade’s pants and grabbed his dick.
Jade gasped and shuddered as the electric orgasmic pleasure flowed through him. In a moment he was hard in Silas’s hands, and only a few seconds later the pleasure peaked and he was thrown into full orgasm.
Jade felt around for the table to balance himself as his knees shook under the explosion. He tried to stifle the groan dancing on his lips, but as the first intense wave dissipated he found himself unable to suppress it. Jade moaned and tensed his body, trying to catch the moment for as long as possible. When it had passed, he relaxed and Silas withdraw his hand.
Jade sank to the floor gasping, though what relief the release had brought him was overshadowed by the humiliation that followed.
“He still cums too fast,” Silas said in such a dismissive way it made Jade’s blood boil. Deep down inside no matter what the fear, he still had the heart of a Morosian; a district where even the slightest show of weakness could kill you.
He kept his eyes closed as the embarrassment filled him. If he had been humiliated by Ares, Siris, or even Nero, Elish would have defended him. Silas was a whole different matter. No one talked back to the king. He took what he wanted, who he wanted, and he did what he wanted to them.
“Clean yourself and meet the party in the Falconer.” When Jade opened his eyes again he saw Elish cleaning his king’s semen-covered hand with his own kerchief. Another pang of anger.
“Yes, My King.” Jade forced his brain to be obedient. If he showed defiance while his master was cleaning his king’s hand of his own cum, he would be in for it.
When the king had left though his expression changed. He looked accusingly at Elish. “Why did he do that now? I wasn’t being disobedient. I was fucking being good.”
“It was not for you.” Elish turned from him. He put his hands behind his back and looked out in to the greywastes.
“It was for you?” Jade raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What did you do? Is this why he’s setting me up to get killed? What if Reaver recognizes me?”
