by Heidi Belleau;Ally Blue;Kari Gregg;Peter Hansen;Laylah Hunter;Brien Michaels;Sam Schooler
“I . . .” Tobias twisted in his seat, trying to duck away from that gaze but finding himself pinned. If he left the church now, would he still feel those eyes on him, measuring him, assessing him, weighing him and finding him wanting? “I thought it would be fairer. To give him a choice.”
“It’s a funny thing, choice.” Mr. Ashmedai’s low voice was as blank as his face. “Sometimes it’s just an illusion. Yes. No. There are forces beyond our control compelling us to one or the other, aren’t there? The same way your illicit affair could never let you watch David die. Isn’t that right?”
Tobias fought the instinct to deny it, but then remembered his pact to himself to make amends to David. Starting with not rejecting him anymore. He would not be the apostle Paul, rejecting Jesus three times before the cock crowed.
“That’s right,” he bit out. Tobias’s choice not to save David, Tobias’s choice not to want David, to love David: all an illusion.
Mr. Ashmedai inclined his head. “What do you think would have happened, had you forced him to make the choice himself?”
What had he planned on telling David, anyway? Give up your life of sin and repent, and I’ll pay the price for your life. Refuse, and I’ll let you die according to God’s design.
“He’d have felt indebted to me.” Just as I wanted him to feel, so that he’d be malleable to my desires for him. I’d have gloried in telling him the price I’d paid on his behalf.
“Hmm. And of course, you’d have never used that indebtedness as leverage to control his habits, would you, Tobias?” Now Mr. Ashmedai was smirking, and Tobias knew then that he was asking questions to which he already had the answers. He knew Tobias’s mind. Every nook and cranny. Those black eyes paged through his psyche as one would flip through a penny dreadful. “You would never extract your own price from David, as I am about to extract my price from you.”
Tobias was silent. How else was he to respond to someone pulling his strings? Mr. Ashmedai had been hunting and cornering Tobias since their first meeting here, even through the three days that Tobias hadn’t been in his company.
Mr. Ashmedai leaned closer to him. It didn’t seem to diminish his height at all. “What were you going to ask him, Tobias? You can tell me.”
Tobias tugged at his collar. “Does it matter? I made my own decision, and I came to pay your price.”
“Does it matter?” Mr. Ashmedai repeated. “Perhaps I should rescind my offer, if David means so little to you.”
“That’s not what I meant!” He hated this—hated being toyed with, batted around like a plaything, all because Mr. Ashmedai had something he wanted and was dangling it in front of Tobias’s nose, ensuring his cooperation, his submission.
Mr. Ashmedai owned him.
And he knew it.
“Isn’t it?” Mr. Ashmedai unfolded his hands and traced the back of Tobias’s pew with one fingertip. “Tell me, does it only matter to you what you’ll get from this? Will you go back to David and take credit for his miracle recovery?” Tobias opened his mouth to argue, but Mr. Ashmedai’s eyes flashed to his, forestalling him. “Will you use our deal to manipulate him? Will you let him know that by saving his life, you believe you should have a say in its future direction?”
Repent or die. Follow my rules or die.
“I was going give him the choice of obeying me or dying! There, that’s the truth!” Tobias hunched in on himself, glaring at Mr. Ashmedai, body trembling with his admission. It was only by the mercy of God he wasn’t crying. “Does that satisfy you?”
“I am never satisfied, Tobias. I can never be satisfied. That’s the nature of the beast.”
Mr. Ashmedai’s hand came to rest on the side of Tobias’s throat. Tobias’s pulse pounded up against his palm. It was contained so easily in the cup of Mr. Ashmedai’s fingers.
“. . . What do you want from me?” Tobias asked, barely louder than a whisper. “Tell me your price.”
Mr. Ashmedai’s lips thinned as he pressed them together. It was a terribly empty smile. The smile of a man who didn’t yet plan on answering the question asked of him. “You wished to own his life, did you? Wished to bend his will to yours? What a petty, cruel man you are.”
Tobias didn’t fight it. It was true. How was he any better than the thugs that roamed Whitechapel’s streets, extracting pennies from fallen women in exchange for their safety? An extortionist. That was all Tobias was.
“But I didn’t. I didn’t ask him, I didn’t. I saw the error of my ways. I changed my mind! I swear to you, I changed my mind.” Now Tobias began to cry. Big fat tears. Weeping, because for the first time in his life he realised how much of a monster he truly was behind the civilised façade. Petty and cruel, just as Mr. Ashmedai had said. Relishing his Christian morality while he carelessly cast Christian humbleness aside.
“Your mind has been changed, perhaps.” Mr. Ashmedai’s fingertips pressed into Tobias’s flesh, which gave to his touch. Yielded to him. “Have you?” He squeezed again. His eyes met Tobias’s and held, the same hypnotic glare from before, when Mr. Ashmedai had kept him frozen by the church doors. “It seems to me you need to learn that it is not the domain of mortals to own one another. The way I own you now, Tobias, is a power too old for a mere boy like you to grasp, let alone wield. Do you understand?”
He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand at all. All he knew was the terror rising in him, the desperate urge to flee at war with the compulsion to stay right where he was. It was a primal urge swelling deep in his gut.
Mr. Ashmedai inclined his head, the quirk of a predator, and leaned in slightly, until Tobias could feel his cool breath, hear the faint rasp in his throat when he said, “I would have your body, Tobias. That is my price. Sell me your body to save David.”
Do the very thing you hated him for. The thing you were willing to condemn him to death for.
Well, Tobias had wanted to repent, hadn’t he? What better repentance was there?
A fitting price. A fitting punishment.
So he wiped his tears, swallowed the thickness in his throat, and nodded. “I submit,” he said.
“Of course you do, my boy. Of course you do.” Mr. Ashmedai’s fingers loosed from Tobias’s throat and curled, coming up to rub him once, patronisingly, under the chin, the way he would a kitten. His eyes glinted. “Come,” he said as he stood. He leaned lightly on his cane and stepped out into the main aisle.
Tobias followed, expecting to be led out through a side door, but Mr. Ashmedai ascended the three steps to the raised platform of the altar setting and approached the altar. Tobias’s chest seized at realising; despite it, he came to Mr. Ashmedai’s side. He was as committed to this now as he had once been to damning David.
“Here?” he asked, watching Mr. Ashmedai fold the red altar draping and set it aside.
“Is this not the best place for a sacrifice, Tobias? My little lamb?”
Tobias’s heart thrashed like a panicked bird trapped in his ribcage. But he nodded again.
“Good lad.” Mr. Ashmedai approached him, standing so close that their bodies nearly touched. Tobias had to tilt his head back to look him in the face—had he somehow gained several inches in the last few minutes? No, it must just be Tobias’s nerves. An illusion. A distortion. A trick of the eye, born of fear. Yes. “Take off your clothes, Tobias. Time to let me see what I’ve bought.”
Tobias shrugged out of his cloak, trying to ignore how hungry Mr. Ashmedai’s expression was as he watched. He was still smiling, but where the smile had been closed-lipped before, now his lips had pulled back like a snarling dog’s, and Mr. Ashmedai’s teeth seemed just as sharp.
His cloak he set aside with the altar draping, and his cravat he loosened and set with it. As each stripped piece left him further bared to Mr. Ashmedai’s eyes, heat rose in him. It wasn’t the pleasant heat he’d felt with David, but a biting warmth, one that made him feel stalked, like there was fire at his heels.
When he was utterly naked, Mr. Ashmedai—still c
lothed—reached out and touched his upper arm. “Turn,” he said, pushing, and Tobias did, forcing down the embarrassment that came from obediently displaying himself.
Was this how David felt? Examined, prodded, gauged like chattel?
Mr. Ashmedai’s hands fingered their way down his body, measuring, assessing. Tracing the lines of his muscles under his skin. Searching for something, Tobias thought. Weak points. Soft spots.
Vulnerability.
Tobias shuddered but didn’t try to draw away.
“That will do,” Mr. Ashmedai hummed. “You’re young and lean. I like that. Envy it, really. If I’m honest. Want to devour it.” That . . . that didn’t make sense. Mr. Ashmedai looked hardly older than Tobias, and certainly leaner. And that word, devour. Why did Tobias feel like Mr. Ashmedai meant it literally?
Tobias felt like he wasn’t fully in control of his body as Mr. Ashmedai guided him to the altar and tapped one of his thighs, sighing out his impatience. “Up.”
Tobias glanced behind him, his stomach clenching. Sex on an altar. It was blasphemy—blasphemy of the highest form, which Mr. Ashmedai seemed so proficient at coaxing Tobias into committing.
He pushed himself up to sit, and then, at Mr. Ashmedai’s expectant look, he lay back, spreading himself out over the altar. The ceiling of the church came into view, looming above him. Seemed to stretch forever upward, growing right in front of his eyes. He looked away. Couldn’t face the crucifix, so squeezed his eyes shut instead. The altar’s wood was cold and hard and Tobias couldn’t quite catch his breath. He pushed his arms out and folded his fingers around the edges of the altar, holding onto it. Grounding himself in the darkness.
This was for David. He could do this for David.
David was worth this.
Tobias jumped, his eyes opening, when Mr. Ashmedai stroked the inside of one thigh. Mr. Ashmedai clicked his tongue sharply against his teeth and hushed him, his eyes on Tobias’s cock. It lay flaccid, devoid of the heat and thickness that David inspired in him. It looked pathetic. As pathetic as Tobias felt.
“Oh, pet,” Mr. Ashmedai said. The dim light from the tabernacle glazed his face in red. He touched the inside of Tobias’s thigh again, his fingers sliding, and then put his palm fully over Tobias’s cock, making him jump again. “No need to be so wary of me.” Mr. Ashmedai smiled, baring those teeth. Tobias hadn’t been exaggerating—his eyeteeth were as thick and pointed as a dog’s.
Mr. Ashmedai closed his fingers on Tobias’s cock the way he’d closed them on Tobias’s throat: with certainty of control. Tobias clenched his teeth, struggling not to make noise. He would protest if he could, but he had come this far, and he wouldn’t risk David’s safety by balking now.
“Aren’t you going to do it?” he asked, staring up into the church’s rafters. “Just—just do it.”
“Quiet.” Mr. Ashmedai’s hand tightened to the point of pain. “Or are you having second thoughts? Shall I call the deal off?”
“No!” Tobias flattened himself on the altar and spread his legs a little. “No, I’m not. I—”
I want this.
Except he didn’t—not in the way Mr. Ashmedai would take that. Tobias was doing this because he had to. Because he would never have another opportunity to save David. He wanted to save David. He wanted to give David his life back, restore the days that would have been stolen from him.
Mr. Ashmedai squeezed his cock again, then twisted his wrist, stroking Tobias roughly. “You what?”
Tobias swallowed and shook his head. “I agreed to our deal.” That was the one thing he knew in a situation that was spiraling out of his control. That he’d agreed to do this for David.
“Yes. Yes you did. But you don’t want my cock inside you, do you, Tobias? I can see it in your eyes.” Mr. Ashmedai grinned, and for the first time his cool veneer of control fell away, revealing something callous and eager. “That’s quite all right. I’ll savour your resistance, even if you’re fighting to hide it. You’re a virgin, aren’t you? You’ve let no one touch you here.” His hand dipped from Tobias’s cock, one nail scraping as he ran his finger over the swell of Tobias’s flesh and down to his hole.
Tobias held himself still, his knuckles going white from his grip on the altar. Mr. Ashmedai’s silence was enough to indicate that he was waiting for an answer, so Tobias gritted out, “No. I haven’t.”
The air filled with a thick thrum. It reverberated, raising and lowering in pitch, making Tobias dizzy, and then broke off as Mr. Ashmedai said, “But you will now.” The humming resumed.
It was coming from him? Fear rose once more in Tobias, his stomach growing cold. He’d never heard anything like that. It was . . . It was unearthly. Unholy. It was a sound no natural thing should make.
Mr. Ashmedai withdrew, vanishing from Tobias’s line of sight for a moment. When he returned, he was naked, though Tobias hadn’t heard him undress.
He took Tobias’s thighs in his hands and spread them, fitting himself between them. Tobias thought the altar was too high for Mr. Ashmedai to stand and have them slot together comfortably, but Mr. Ashmedai was easily tall enough, and Tobias felt the wet slide of his hard prick’s head against his hole. He shuddered violently.
“Should I do it, my little lamb? Should I split you open with this?”
No. Please don’t. I can’t.
“If that’s what you like.” Tobias’s voice was shaking.
“That is,” Mr. Ashmedai said, “what I like. But hmm, you know what else I would like? Your sweet, supposedly saintly mouth wrapped around my cock. You think you could stomach that?”
No.
“Yes.” Tobias raised his head off the altar. As if Mr. Ashmedai had called it, his stomach rebelled, and nausea rolled through him at the sight of Mr. Ashmedai’s cock, long and thick and dripping. “Should I . . .”
“No, no, just lie back.” He walked around the table, tracing idly along Tobias’s body as he went, the way a man might run his hand along a wall as he walked. His palm was hot, feverishly hot, nearly burning on Tobias’s skin. But Tobias didn’t struggle away from him. Didn’t squirm, either. He lay, pliant, his heart pounding, until Mr. Ashmedai was standing behind him. There was silence and stillness, and just as Tobias opened his mouth to ask what he should do now, trying to get it over with as soon as he could, Mr. Ashmedai growled, “Now come here.”
He grabbed Tobias by either side of his head and yanked him back, sliding him over the altar until his head was hanging upside down off the edge. In the flipped world, Mr. Ashmedai’s cock loomed. Dark with blood. So thick. Bigger now that it was hanging over Tobias’s nose. Distantly, Tobias knew what he was supposed to do, but he couldn’t move, not yet.
Not until Mr. Ashmedai put a thumb into the corner of his lips and pressed, silently commanding Tobias to let him into his mouth. “Suck,” Mr. Ashmedai ordered. Tobias obeyed, clenching his hands now that he couldn’t grind his teeth. Mr. Ashmedai’s skin tasted of the same smoke that Tobias always smelled on him and like finely ground metal. “Good boy. That’s it.” Mr. Ashmedai moved his hand away, leaving saliva spread on Tobias’s lips. “Keep your mouth open,” he added. “You’re not the prettiest boy I’ve had, but you certainly are the sweetest to take.”
Tobias swallowed again as Mr. Ashmedai touched Tobias’s throat, then stroked his fingertips up to Tobias’s chin and tipped it up, angling Tobias so—
So Mr. Ashmedai could use his throat. Tobias steeled himself for it, now that he knew it was a certainty. He licked his lips without meaning to, which made Mr. Ashmedai let out a low, throaty chuckle.
“I have an idea,” he said. He pushed the hot head of his cock into Tobias’s mouth without warning. Tobias gagged, and Mr. Ashmedai’s hand came back to his throat, stroking the length of it. Petting it. Was this the way sculptors stroked their uncarved blocks of marble, judging their potential? Trying to envision them once they’d been altered?
Mr. Ashmedai drummed a pattern on his throat and pushed deeper into his mout
h, deep enough to strain Tobias’s jaw. Thick, thick, thick. “Raise your right hand, Tobias,” Mr. Ashmedai said. His tone was lazy, his voice dipping into baritone. He didn’t seem to be affected by what he was doing. Tobias obeyed, focusing on the command rather than the prick that was steadily forcing its way towards his throat.
“Good,” Mr. Ashmedai said. “Now stroke your cock with it.”
Tobias’s heart sank. He had accepted being used for Mr. Ashmedai’s pleasure, but being forced to eke it from his own body was unexpected and unthinkable.
And vile. Absolutely vile.
Mr. Ashmedai dug his fingers into the side of Tobias’s throat. They pricked his skin, sinking in and pulling. Tobias gasped, then gagged, choking on Mr. Ashmedai’s cock.
“Do what I told you,” Mr. Ashmedai said. “Now, Tobias.” His fingers flexed, threatening.
Tobias put his hand on his prick, wrapping his fingers around it and stroking it, as Mr. Ashmedai had commanded him to. “Good.” Mr. Ashmedai pulled his hips back, withdrawing his cock, and then thrust smoothly forward before Tobias had a chance at a single sip of air. Tobias gagged again, unused to the abuse. He struggled to focus on his hands—on his left hand, holding him down to the altar, and on his right, which was coaxing his prick to hardness despite the revulsion he was drowning in.
Mr. Ashmedai’s palm patted his distended throat as he squirmed, chest burning, eyes leaking. Another moment of this and he’d vomit, he would; his body kept heaving, his throat contracting, trying to expel the cock wedged down it. He made terrible noises as he struggled, but nothing more happened, nothing but Mr. Ashmedai murmuring words that no longer sounded like words.
He withdrew. A ball of thick mucus came with him, filling Tobias’s mouth with slime that dripped from his numb lips and down into his nose and eyes.
