Faithless (The Red Order Book 3)

by E. S. Carter

  With the last dregs of my energy, enough to drag myself into one of the cramped bedrooms, I strip, and fall flat on my back with exhaustion consuming me as soon as my head hits the scratchy pillow.

  I sleep like the dead. My body comes down from almost forty-eight hours of non-stop, adrenaline-fuelled mayhem, and crashes without thought, and without the energy to worry.

  But I dreamed.

  God, did I dream.

  My mind skipped through long-buried memories of first kisses, stolen moments, and nights filled with exploring new love. It dived into first breaths, and tiny toes, and downy baby hair. Onwards it plunged into joyous laughter, first Christmases, and wobbly baby-steps. A foggy film reel of family, of life, of love. But as I begin to trust these dreams, to revel in them and sink into the warmth of recollection, the fog lifts. What hides behind the thick smoke is blood, and death, and destruction. I see slit throats, wide green eyes caught in pain, and chubby toddler legs bathed in gore. I see a small girl sobbing in a puddle of her baby brother’s lifeblood. I see my love, my life, slaughtered in violence. I see my father’s smile as he shows me the blade with which he gutted my wife. I recoil from the malice in my mother’s eyes as she tells me he raped her still warm body and how that same fate would befall my daughter Alice, if I didn’t tow the family line. Carnage reigned. My family’s massacre is a nightmare that seeps from slumber into waking moments and drives an iron fist into my chest to grab me from sleep by tearing out my heart.

  I awake with a start.

  My body shoots bolt upright as my chest tightens beyond pain. I can’t breathe. I can’t see. I pant and choke as cold sweat coats my bare skin and my legs twist and turn in a feeble attempt to untangle themselves from the cotton sheets that have wrapped around me like a boa constrictor.

  “Bad dream?” a voice asks in the darkness. Not any voice, though. Even in this state where the pounding of my heart steals my breath and my sanity, I know it is his voice.

  My eyes lock on his silhouetted frame. He’s sat in the corner of the room on a tatty, old armchair. Even though the piece of furniture is more suited for the dump, he still makes it look like his throne. Gone was his torn and bloody clothing from yesterday. Today, he is freshly shaven, showered and clad all in black. In the dim light of predawn, I can see the shadows of his profile, and not much else. He’s sat like a royal spectre—a dark apparition of foreboding.

  “What are you doing in here? Haven’t you slept?”

  I look down at my body, my heartbeat erratic, and check that the most important parts of me are covered.

  Luke doesn’t answer. Instead, he stands and covers the space between us in measured strides.

  “What did you see in your sleep?”

  His voice is soft, and in the dark with his features hidden from view, I can even pretend his question holds concern.

  “Why? Do you wish to soothe me?”

  He doesn’t sit. He remains tall. His powerful frame looming over me and seemingly growing larger and darker as if his very presence drains all vestiges of light from the room.

  “No. I wish to know what dark things you have inside of you,” he says after a long moment of silence.

  Shifting on the bed, I stare up at the man that has slithered into my head like a poisonous snake. For months, my thoughts have buzzed with him, infecting my every day, sometimes, my every hour.

  I push my body up and turn until my legs find the floor. In this position, my head is just above his waist, and I could easily reach out, unbuckle his black leather belt, unzip his trousers and slide them down to the floor.

  A brief flash of guilt rushes through me. How can I go from untold horror and grief to looking up at this man, this killer and wanting him more than my next breath?

  “Dark things?” I whisper, my voice betraying me.

  His hand comes out, and I freeze waiting, always waiting, to see what his next move will be. I expect him to be brutal in some way, but instead, he is gentle as his hand finds my face and his thumb brushes over my lower lip.

  “Yes,” he murmurs, his tone dusky and inviting as his fingers find the slope of my jaw before his hand wraps possessively around my throat. “You have them inside of you. They writhe and hiss and seduce and lure.” His hand tightens and my cock throbs. “They bring out the monster in me.”

  Time stills. His confession is a living, breathing creature that slithers and slides and crawls between us. His hold on my throat never lessens, and I have to work hard to keep my breathing shallow and even.

  “I’m not scared of it.”

  “You should be.”

  “I’m not scared of you.”

  His hand tightens further, and air becomes a luxury.

  “Yes,” he taunts. His body bending at the waist, his face inching closer to mine. “You are. I can taste it. My monster craves it.”

  “Then fucking take it,” I heave out, my sight blurring at the edges as lights dance across my vision, and my head becomes heavy on my neck.

  His face is so close I can feel the heat of his exhales across my lips.

  This is it.

  This is the moment.

  I close my eyes in eager acceptance, my hands scrabbling for purchase in the sheets at my sides.

  And then he’s gone.

  With one powerful thrust, I’m tossed back on the bed, my body bouncing against the solid mattress. My lungs scream for air, and my throat works hard to suck in oxygen around the pain left by his hand. When my senses come back online, I know I’m alone.

  He’s discarded me.

  Tossed me aside like I’m weak and worthless.

  My cock is still painfully erect—apparently, the lack of oxygen didn’t affect that part of my anatomy. But my mind reels in confusion.

  I felt this thing between us.

  He felt it, too.

  Who was the weaker one?

  The one that submitted to it?

  Or the one that ran away?

  Ten

  Luke

  I paced the edge of the property, like a lion frustrated with his cage.

  James had offered himself to me.

  He’d been there to take and do with as I’d wished.

  And I’d bolted.

  The darkness was my playground, and even then, with its cover wrapped around me, and my monster contained under the cloak of shadows, I’d walked away.

  James’ heart beat against my palm and I held his breath at my command, but I’d granted him freedom and light instead of darkness and captivity. I should’ve choked his last breath out of him, before bringing him back and doing it again and again and again. James Cooper should’ve found out that a lack of oxygen was about to be the least of his concerns.

  I wanted to be his ruin.

  If I was damned to Hell, I wanted to drag him there with me.

  I hear him coming but continue to pace. Let him think his presence doesn’t affect me.

  “You’re weak.”

  My hands that are currently clasped behind my back tighten with his taunt. But I still ignore him.

  “I know you heard me.”

  My fingers itch to do damage.

  Then his hand is on me, grasping my shoulder. He’s a fool to touch me.

  Two swift movements are all it takes to have his neck once more in my hand. But this time, I don’t ease up—I squeeze.

  I wait for his eyes to widen or for his hands to counterattack.

  But he does nothing.

  He doesn’t blink. He keeps staring at me, like he fully expected this—my wrath wrapped around his jugular. My power over him is seconds away from ending his life.

  His throat convulses under my grip, and I trail my gaze from the willing acceptance in his eyes, down over his slack mouth, to his stubbled chin, over my hand at his throat, down, down, down, until it lands on the prominent bulge in his trousers.

  “Get on your knees.”

  He blinks.

  “I said—” I put pressure on his neck and push him toward
s the ground. “—on. Your. Knees.”

  I expect him to stumble or at least fight. He does neither. With graceful movements, he kneels. He kneels, and his eyes beg.

  “Does this look weak?” I ask, my free hand undoing my belt to pull out my raging cock. It’s hard and angry, and pulses in my grip. “Open your mouth.”

  My hand loosens its grasp around his neck and moves to squeeze his jaw. He takes a ragged breath before his mouth stretches wide and his eyes flare with heat.

  “Take it,” I demand with one cruel and brutal thrust as I ram my rock hard length straight to the back of his throat. “Take it and fucking love it.” I choke him with my cock. Pushing violently past his gag reflex as he splutters and drools. Fucking and pumping into the tight hole as he strangles and sucks and his eyes roll into the back of his head.

  “Oh, no. That won’t do at all,” I chastise, pulling out enough for him to drag in oxygen, before plunging back in. “Don’t you pass out on me before the grand finale.”

  Pump.

  “I’m going to paint your gullet with my cum.”

  Thrust.

  “You’re going to drown in it.”

  He moans like a fucking whore as I abuse him violently. Loving how my cock stretches his lips wide and bruises his throat with every jab of my hips.

  “Don’t spill a drop,” I warn.

  Slurp. Fuck. Pump. Thrust.

  “You wanted it. You take. It. All.”

  With one last deep thrust, I ram myself in to the hilt. His nose smashes against my pubic bone, and my balls rest against his chin as I flood his channel with my release. One of my hands prises his jaw open further, and the other rips his head back by the roots of his hair. And through it all, I don’t grunt or heave or break a sweat.

  I’m in control. Always in control.

  My spine relaxes, my toes uncurl, and I’m about to praise him for his compliance as I withdraw my semi-hard dick from his mouth, but before I can grant him my appreciation, I find myself face down in the dirt with around one hundred and ninety pounds of male on my back.

  The fucker had got the drop on me while I marvelled at how perfectly he’d gagged on my cock. He’d sideswiped my legs from under me and forced me down onto my belly before he’d even swallowed the entirety of my spunk. His knee presses painfully into my kidneys, and a small bladed knife appears to kiss the skin under my jawline.

  “Turn over,” his hoarse voice demands, and I can’t help but smile at the raw rasp of every word. Even a thick coating of my cum didn’t soothe his abused vocal chords. I’ve stained him—I’ve left my mark. Let him beg for more now.

  The knife at my throat presses a touch harder, and I feel a faint sting as it lightly pierces my skin.

  “Is the fantasy not what you imagined?” I taunt, the dry dust under my face tickling my nose as I inhale the earth below me, a slight pain across my gut telling me that the wound I recently glued shut has torn open.

  “I said—” he leans his weight harder onto the knee in my lower back and I bite back a wince. “Turn the fuck over.”

  My cock twitches and begins to plump to full mast at the deliciousness of his perceived power. I still hold all the dominance here. It wouldn’t take much to throw him off, and I know he won’t use his weapon other than to threaten. He wants this too much.

  He wants me too much.

  I move slowly but surely until his weight lifts, and as soon as I’m on my back, he straddles me with a knee on either side of my ribs. One hand keeps the blade just above my Adam’s apple, the other frantically frees his dick from his unzipped pants.

  Then he’s above me, pumping his tight fist over his wide, slick length, his face contorting into madness as a mixture of lust and aggression morphs his handsome features into something raw and animalistic. And despite being at the edge of his control, he never once breaks eye contact, not even when he roars out his release, chest panting harshly, and paints my face with ropes of his semen.

  His fist slows, his eyes calm, and he looks down at me with a combination of satisfaction and horror.

  “Feel better now?” I ask, my tone calm, controlled, almost bored, betraying none of the chaos I feel inside. But my cock has a mind of its own as it throbs against the crack of his arse.

  His eyes flare, darkness, madness and damnation churning in their brown depths, and then he’s on me. His mouth attacks mine in a violent kiss. Teeth, tongue, lips all battling for supremacy until blood and cum mix and swirl over my taste buds in a heady cocktail of depravity.

  This isn’t a kiss, it’s combat.

  It’s a war of the monster and the prey—only now he’s become the predator, and it only serves to make me want him more.

  When he tears his mouth free, my monster purrs with satisfaction at the cut on his lip inflicted by its teeth.

  “Now, I feel better,” he states. His gaze harsh and unforgiving. And it is only then I see the knife discarded on the floor at my side. I’d let him take. I’d let him instigate the battle, and I’d let him draw first blood.

  But not next time. Next time he would beg for salvation.

  Next time I would ruin him.

  Eleven

  James

  I’ve lost my damned mind.

  That’s what’s happened.

  As we drive towards, what some new intelligence has indicated is a holding facility for The Dominion, with my throat raw and the taste of Luke Hunter still on my tongue, I come to the realisation that I am completely insane.

  Only a sick and crazy man would’ve gotten off on what Luke did to me and then I to him; and out in broad daylight, in the open, under the early morning sun for God and everyone to see.

  We didn’t do it under cover of night.

  We didn’t hide our depravity in the shadows. We let darkness obliterate the sunlight and did it where birds sang, and nature bloomed. We covered the new day in a cloak of wickedness and snuffed out all pretence of this—of us—being nothing more than two men fighting against the bad guys.

  That act made us no better than the bad guys—perverted, wicked and immoral—and by God, if I didn’t want to do it again.

  And again.

  “I’d offer a penny for your thoughts, but that would be trite,” Luke begins, breaking the silence between us. “Besides—” a devilish grin tips the corner of his lips. “—I already know every one of your thoughts.”

  I ignore his baiting words and reply with, “We need to focus on Federov. If this is a holding facility, we could encounter an army.”

  “We are merely observers for today. Reconnaissance, if you will. I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept? No need to blow our loads.”

  The fucker smirks.

  “I have no issue with controlling myself,” I state flatly.

  Again, a smug smile draws my eyes to his lips. Those brutal fucking lips.

  I blink, and turn my head away from him, watching the fields go by as farmers harvest crops and livestock roam meadows.

  “We’ll ditch the car about a mile out,” he says a few moments later. His tone all business now. “Come up behind the farmstead from the left-hand side where the satellite imagery shows a small woodland.”

  “Great,” I offer sarcastically. “More trees.”

  Luke’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, but he says nothing further, not until we arrive at the marker point a mile away from our destination and he begins issuing me orders like I’m one of his men and not his equal. Like he didn’t brutalise me with his cock only an hour or so ago.

  “I understand,” I clip out once he’s finished, taking an extra magazine for my gun and strapping an additional knife to my ankle. “I’ve been on countless reconnaissance missions.”

  He laughs mockingly before pressing up against me as he leans into the boot of the car to grab a sniper rifle. The move ensures I feel every inch of the erection filling his trousers.

  “Careful, James,” he whispers in my ear. “You’re not ready for everything I could unleash u
pon you.”

  My breath hitches, my balls fill, and every hair on my body stands on end as if he’s filled with electricity and I’m a conductor.

  “You have no idea what I’m ready for,” I warn, thrusting my hips back hard enough to make him audibly expel air from his lungs before I slide my body out from in front of him and slam the boot shut without warning. “Let’s head out.”

  I don’t wait to see if he follows. We’re going in the same direction even if he wants to believe he’s the one leading the way.

  I may let him think I follow, but power is always in the subtle art of perception. And Luke only sees what I let him.

  Less than twenty minutes later we’re once again hiding in the trees, our scopes on the seemingly deserted farmstead.

  “You’d think they’d have guards somewhere,” I mutter to myself. My passive aggressive attitude is more towards the situation with Luke rather than this recon mission.

  “It would only draw more attention. Why highlight the fact they store merchandise here? Better to hide in plain sight,” Luke replies matter-of-factly. “Besides, they have most of the surrounding villages in their pocket. Nobody local would be stupid enough to go against them, and anyone with enough power isn’t even aware they exist. It’s clever really,” he continues. “I have to give the young pup his dues. He has learnt from his father’s mistakes.”

  “Is that admiration I hear?”

  Luke lowers his scope and turns his head to look at me, his gaze penetrating.

  “Are you jealous?”

  His hidden leer is back, contained but evident under the surface of his smile.

  “I’m over Sasha Federov, is what I am. All this should’ve been handled days ago, and we are still none the wiser to how he infiltrated my men. Which reminds me,” I return his stare minus the smirk. “I haven’t heard from Plummer. Your men took him back to the vineyard as agreed?”

  “Are you asking if I had him put down?”

  “Yes,” I reply bluntly.