Equilibrium: MM Gay Shifter Romance (Kingdom of Night Book 3)

by L. C. Davis

  Encouraged by his response, I undid his jeans and made quick work of tugging them off. Normally, I would have gone for a bit more foreplay, but he seemed desperate and so was I. I slipped his boxers off and took him in my hand, tracing my fingers over his smooth length appreciatively.

  Maybe there was time for a bit of foreplay, after all. I knelt between his legs and took him in my mouth. It wasn't just his lips that tasted sweet. He gasped sharply and his fingers tangled in my hair with such enthusiasm that I questioned whether cutting it was really such a good idea. I realized that I was just mirroring what Prentice had done to me too little too late, but it admittedly felt amazing to be able to make the pretty boy writhe and whimper in pleasure.

  When I could tell he was about to come, I resisted the temptation to taste even more of the honey-sweet precum that was leaking out of his tip and sat up. He whimpered pathetically but I gave him a reassuring smile and rolled him onto his stomach. "It'll be worth the wait," I promised, leaning over to whisper in his ear as I used his own slickness to lubricate the finger I slipped inside of him.

  Foster was surprisingly tight for a sub who had probably been used by the entire pack at one point or another. He squeaked in surprise at the sudden invasion, but my desire to be gentle had gone out the window when he started being so damn fuckable. The puppy sounds weren't helping, either. He was triggering some latent predatory instinct in me and, considering the fact that he could rip me apart if he wanted to, I didn't feel the need to suppress it.

  "That's a good boy," I purred in his ear, shoving another finger inside of him. I knew I had found his spot when his pulse quickened against my fingertips and a delicious shiver ran down his entire body. He grasped the pillows his face was buried in and I decided those elegant hands would look a lot better bound behind his back.

  I pulled my fingers out of him and searched the room for something to tie him up with, finally settling on my belt. He gasped softly as I bound his wrists with the black strap of leather.

  "You're good at that."

  "Brendan taught me," I said, taking a moment to survey my work.

  He nodded as if that explained everything. I gave him a moment to recover while I unzipped my jeans and pulled down my boxers. I didn't even bother taking them off all the way.

  "Come on," I said, wrapping an arm around his waist to pull him up onto his knees so his ass was in the air. His long hair spilled out around him like strands of spun gold and he glanced back at me over his shoulder, his face flushed with desire. The color in his full lips temporarily made me second guess just how I wanted to fuck him, but the way his perfect ass was offered up before me, prone and ready to be taken made the decision an easy one.

  The way he clenched around me when I finally pushed inside of him was confirmation of my previously theoretical identity as a switch. As amazing as it felt to get fucked, there was something to be said for being the top. I doubted I would ever be able to share any real emotional connection with a sub like Foster, but if my experience with Prentice had taught me anything it was that feelings were overrated anyway.

  Foster groaned and his legs wobbled a bit as if he was having trouble staying upright. I put my arm around him again to steady him and pushed in a little deeper. "That's it," I muttered breathlessly, pushing in a little deeper. "Just relax."

  He whimpered, but he obeyed me. As good as his tightly clenched ass felt, I wasn't going to be able to get more than halfway in him if he didn't relax some. As soon as he did, I took my chance and pushed in all the way. He let out a sharp cry of pain and I felt a twinge of guilt, not to mention concern that someone in the hall might hear us.

  When his hips bucked and his fingers groped blindly at the restraints, I realized that pain wasn't a problem for him. I rested on top of him and started thrusting in a slow, steady rhythm. He made a pathetic whimpering sound with each thrust and it was bringing out a side of me I didn't even know existed.

  Unfortunately, I was too twisted to just enjoy the experience for what it was. I couldn't just appreciate the fact that I was fucking a cute sub who was way out of my league and that, for some unfathomable reason, he seemed at least as into me as I was into him. No. My messed up libido couldn't even let me get turned on without finding a way to make the experience about Prentice. Even as I was fucking Foster, I was thinking about the way it had felt to have Prentice buried to the hilt inside of me.

  Foster's gasps grew closer together as I dug my nails into his hips and thrust, furious at myself. The more aggressive I was, the greater pleasure he experienced. At least he didn't seem to notice that my mind was a thousand miles away. He collapsed with one last shudder and came without me even touching him. I could have lasted longer, but I didn't want to. All I wanted was for this shameful encounter to be over with so I could go back to hating myself. At least Foster never had to know my awful secret.

  I closed my eyes and imagined the one thing that was sure to get me off every damn time. The best and worst night of my life.

  Moments later, I spent myself inside of Foster and collapsed on top of him. He snuggled against my chest with a blissful sigh. He was smooth and warm and perfect, my opposite in every way.

  "That was amazing."

  "Yeah," I muttered, even though I was sure he was just saying that to flatter me.

  He didn't seem to notice my distance. He nuzzled my chest and he kept stroking the scar appreciatively. "We should do that again sometime."

  I gave a noncommittal, "Hm."

  "I should go take a shower," he said, reluctantly sitting up. He grabbed a towel out of one of his drawers. "Wanna join me?" he asked with a playful lilt.

  I forced a smile, reminding myself that it wasn't his fault I was a sick creep who couldn't get off without thinking about a psychopath. "Nah, I'll just grab one after you."

  "Be here when I get back," he pleaded, shutting the door before I could argue. Not that it was possible to argue with a face like that.

  I stretched out on the bed and stared up at the light on the ceiling as I contemplated how I could love someone who was so unlovable to the point where I was incapable of enjoying even the most casual sexual encounter without feeling...

  Truth be told, I didn't know what I was feeling. Guilt was a likely suspect, but Prentice certainly didn't feel any guilt for being with Emily. If anything, I should have felt guilty for sleeping with a married man, not fucking a single guy who wanted it just as badly as I did.

  It was then that I realized I was never going to be able to have a normal relationship or even a normal one-night stand. Not when my heart was claimed so irrevocably by someone who didn't even want it in the first place.

  Chapter 21

  ARTHUR

  My free reign of the Lodge was nice while it lasted, but after my encounter with Foster, I returned to my self-imposed isolation. It was at least as much to avoid Foster as it was to stay under Jason's radar. Never mind the fact that Foster would have been way out of my league even if we were both human, I still couldn't figure out why a devout wannabe moon priest would want to have anything to do with a child of the sun. He of all people should have been repelled by me.

  I grabbed a bouncy ball the last patient-slash-inmate had left in the corner of the room and threw it against the floor. It bounced off the door and returned to my palm with excess force. Remus had brought me some reading materials and seemed committed to the idea of becoming book buddies now that he knew my ditzy bibliophobe routine had been just an attempt to get closer to him by pretending that I needed tutoring. I wasn't in a reading mood, though. I especially wasn't in the mood for Austen or Shakespeare.

  Some Proust or Machiavelli wouldn't have been entirely unwelcome. I was in a Machiavellian mood, for some reason. Maybe I just wanted to be reminded of home.

  Strange how I had grown to miss the place that had been my prison for twenty-one years once I realized that the only thing waiting outside of those bars was an even bigger prison. It wasn't just the Lodge walls that were closi
ng in, either.

  The door opened and the ball went flying, interrupting my depressing inner monolog. To my surprise, it was Ulric rather than Remus or one of the twins. I had heard the Alpha was going to make a decision on whether to go through with Victor's plan to kill me and bring me back as a hunter or not. I could only assume that my second violent possession had helped him come to a decision.

  "It's your lucky day, boy. I came to spring you," Ulric said, leaning in the doorway.

  I stood up and watched him warily. "Why?"

  "Thought you could use a little fresh air," he said, holding the door open. "I also figured it was about time you and I had another chat."

  With no small amount of apprehension, I followed Ulric upstairs and out onto the balcony that overlooked the beautiful garden out back. Since coming to the Lodge I had learned that Clara was solely responsible for its maintenance. My mother would have been jealous. Ulric leaned on the railing and gazed out at the acres of lush forest that surrounded the Lodge on all sides.

  "Don't you want to handcuff me or something?"

  "I think I'll be alright," he said with a twinkle in his eyes. They were the only part of him that betrayed his true age. Those eyes had seen more living than the forty-something years his face and sturdy build suggested.

  I leaned on the balcony and followed his gaze. "You have a beautiful home," I remarked, breathing in the fresh air and soaking in the rays of sunlight that danced across my skin. We had been separated for far too long.

  "Thank you," he said, watching me. "The homestead is quite beautiful, too. Or at least, it was when I visited years ago."

  "You were there?" I asked, unable to hide my shock.

  "Where do you think we signed the treaty?" He chuckled. "The hunters weren't about to let their dear leader walk onto wolf property."

  "No, I guess not," I said with a small laugh. "Things were a lot more laid-back then, weren't they?"

  "Oh, yes. I'd say they've been different ever since your cousin's ascension."

  "Prentice has caused a lot of problems," I said with a heavy sigh.

  "He's a true hunter, that one," Ulric said in a strangely admiring tone. "I'd imagine that from a normal hunter's perspective, your grandfather was the one causing problems and Prentice is the one providing the solutions."

  "I guess so."

  "You know, you're a lot like your grandfather, Arthur."

  "Why, because I cause problems?"

  He chuckled. "Well, yes. But I meant because you have a strong will. It takes one to resist transition for so long. I know they must have pressured you."

  "They did," I admitted. "It never made sense to me how they could make me do everything else by force, but not that. Now I know it was just because the Patriarch wouldn't send me back with his blessing. More like a curse, if you ask me."

  "Perhaps," he agreed in a way that didn't feel like agreement at all.

  "You want me to go through with Victor's plan, don't you?" I asked. "You want me to become one of them."

  "I'm sure you've heard of the Trojan horse, Arthur."

  "Yeah, which is exactly what I'll become if I ascend--an empty shell of myself filled with your greatest enemy."

  "I don't believe that's true," he said carefully. Ulric looking up at the sky again, squinting into the sunlight. He closed his eyes and the ghost of a smile that passed over his lips made me wonder for a moment if hunters weren't the only ones who worshiped the sun. "Neither did your grandfather."

  I looked back at him, confused. "I don't follow you."

  "Your grandfather believed you were blessed directly by the sun himself upon your birth," he said matter-of-factly. "Seeing you now, I'm inclined to believe he was right."

  "We're all blessed by the sun," I said carefully. "That's what hunters are. We're solar-powered zombies. Hell, the government probably owes us a tax credit."

  "Maybe so, but there's something different about you. You breathe in the sunlight like most people breathe air. You delight in it and it's easy to see that it delights in you, even for an old moon worshiper like me."

  "The Patriarch doesn't care about me," I muttered. "I'm just his vessel's property."

  "I never said anything about the Patriarch," said Ulric. "That's one thing your people and ours have in common. We've both forgotten that the Patriarch and the moon goddess are the essences, the personification of our deities, but they're not all that is of them."

  I didn't have the first clue what that meant. It was the same cryptic old man speak my grandfather always used. I'd learned long ago to pretend to understand and nod thoughtfully out of respect whenever Grandpa Hugh started talking like that. No wonder they had gotten along so well.

  "Your friendship with my grandfather went beyond just the treaty, didn't it?"

  "That it did."

  I hesitated for a long moment, deciding whether I wanted to make the confession on the tip of my tongue. "I was going to break into your study."

  He blinked at me. "I'm not quite sure whether I should ask why, or why you bothered to tell me."

  "I'm telling you because coming out and asking you is probably a safer bet," I admitted. "I was going to break in to look for a picture I saw on a print in Foster's room. He said you painted the original."

  He sighed. "If it's the wolf and the moon overlooking the cliffs, yes. That was one of mine."

  "And if I had managed to get into your study?" I asked. "What would the title of that piece have been?"

  He looked away with a sad, almost wistful smile. "'The Hunter at Rest.'"

  I swallowed hard. "You painted it for my grandfather?"

  "Yes. He commissioned the sculpture from me many years ago, to serve as his monument in your Walk of Souls. I thought it was a bit macabre at the time, but I became so captivated with the piece that I decided to make a painting for myself."

  "Why?"

  "To this day I couldn't tell you. Maybe it was my way of keeping him close."

  "My grandfather wanted to be a wolf, didn't he?" I asked. The words felt blasphemous even leaving my mouth.

  "It's not that simple, Arthur," he said gently. "Your grandfather loved his family, but he did not enjoy seeing them hollowed out one by one. He didn't believe vengeance for the fallen king was justification for creating the hunters or wiping out the Kingdom of Night. Until you came along, he was very much alone in his thinking. He was a tortured soul who longed for the peace and tranquility the moon provided, at least in his eyes. He felt that it was her light that helped keep his sanity intact and gave him the strength to resist the Patriarch’s will, allowing him to reign over an era of peace."

  "She didn't do much for him when Prentice came to kill him," I muttered.

  "Maybe not," he agreed. "But that's hardly the point. I may not believe in the goddess like he did, but when your grandfather and I looked up at the night sky, we both saw serenity and peace. We were filled with the hope of something better just beyond the veil. When you look up at the sun, what is it that you see?"

  "I don't know. A ball of flames?"

  He gave me a look. "No, Arthur. Your grandfather told me you used to go sit on a hill and just gaze up at the sun for hours when you were little. What did you see then that held you captive for so long? What did it make you feel?"

  I sighed. "I don't know. I guess it was just the warmth. My family was so cold, everyone other than Prentice, and I could never understand why they hated me so much. When I was out in the sun, it was like I was being held, like the rays were really touching me. As long as the sun was shining down on me I felt loved, like someone out there saw me for exactly who I was and loved me anyway. Not just what I had the potential to become, but me."

  Saying the words out loud made me feel pathetic, but when I looked over, Ulric was listening intently. There was no judgment in his gaze, only patient curiosity. He listened the same way Grandpa Hugh always had, in a way that made me feel like whatever I was saying was important and valid no matter how poorly I worded it. "I
don't know, I guess that's what made me start thinking I didn't want to transition. It sounds stupid, I know, but it's not really losing myself that I'm afraid of. It's losing him."

  "Prentice?" asked Ulric.

  I shook my head. "No, not him. Whoever and whatever it is that I feel when I look at the sun. Someone I probably just made up in my own mind to cope with my shitty life."

  "Maybe," he said thoughtfully. "Or maybe you've tapped into the truth of what the sun is supposed to be. You think your grandfather and I took solace in the idea of spending eternity hunting with that harpy they worship in the temples?"

  I blinked in shock at his irreverence. "You don't?"

  "No. She's a poor representative of a much larger truth, as far as I can tell. And she's no more the total embodiment of the moon than the Patriarch is of the sun. The legends are a guide, boy. Nothing more. Even scripture can be wrong, and with three distinct versions that we know of between the vampires, the wolves and the hunters, at least two of us have to be."

  I sighed. "Victor thinks if I go down sacrificing myself for the pack instead of the hunters, I won't come back under the Patriarch's control. He thinks that the 'closure' process is really just a ritual that lets the Patriarch slip inside our minds, and that I'll still come back as a hunter if I die without going through it."

  "It's a clever theory," he said.

  "Do you think it's correct?"

  "I don't believe that there is any way out of this situation that doesn't end with you becoming a hunter," he said, choosing his words carefully. "I can't tell you what to do and out of respect for your grandfather, I won't pressure you to make the decision I would make."

  "What decision would you make, then?"

  Ulric sighed. "I would want to go out on my terms, not theirs."

  His words set my resolve even more. I had come to a decision days ago. It was just a matter of getting up the courage to admit it to myself. "Thank you, Sir."