by Parker Foye
Rez was quiet, crouched before Benjamin. He leaned in, grasping Benjamin’s upper arm.
Rez was close. Close enough that their breaths mingled. “I’m so damn sorry. It sounds trite, but it’s all my fault, and if I could trade places with you, I would. You deserve much better.”
Benjamin didn’t think the world cared much about what people deserved, but the thought didn’t linger. The bitterness drifted away because Rez was so close, so there. Benjamin’s brain couldn’t process—it was like he wanted and didn’t want to find out what kissing his best friend felt like. He raised his arm to Rez’s shoulder and instead of smooth skin found a raw wound—the bite from Kjell?
Rez hissed.
“Sorry,” Benjamin whispered, about to pull his hand away.
“Don’t. It’s fine. The pain is sharp, heady, but I wish it wasn’t a memory of someone else. You want to bite me too?”
The unexpected laugh almost choked Benjamin. “I could never, before today, have imagined those words from you, not in this context.”
“I’m not going to kid you, Benjamin. I’m as extreme about sex as I was about sports, and everything else. You know how that went. The absolute rush of jumping off a cliff, jumping out of a plane, racing motorcycles. The faster you go, the more danger you were in, the better.”
That struck something bruised inside Benjamin. It made him pull away because he knew about the adrenaline junkie in Rez, and in himself. But he wouldn’t be able to indulge that side of himself anymore.
Rez seemed to realize that as well, as he grasped Benjamin’s hand firmly. “Sorry,” Rez said. “It’s going to take some getting used to, and I’ll eventually stop saying stupid shit. You look good, perfect, really, so it’s easy to forget the enormous struggle you have ahead of you to learn how to live with your blindness. There’s nothing they can do? Your eyes won’t heal; your vision won’t come back?”
“No, it’s permanent.”
* * *
Right there, on the front porch of the beach condo, Rez was going to introduce his best friend to the idea of sex with another man. It was off-season at the beach, probably nobody around, but he didn’t care. “For you, I’ll try to go slow. Not all the time, not often, but for now.”
Benjamin smelled of kelpie shampoo, and the cloves revved Rez up. The scent, coupled with the scent of man, was heady. Rez closed his eyes as he tested what blindness felt like, tasted like, on Benjamin’s lips.
Rez didn’t like being unable to see. It stole some of the magic of the strong, smart, sexy man on the porch. He tipped Benjamin’s chin to the angle that worked best to kiss him, and Benjamin let Rez manipulate him.
So far, Rez took that as consent.
Benjamin’s skin was chilled to the touch, but at the intimacy, the hair rose on his arms and neck and his skin reddened. He sucked in a deep breath, and his nostrils flared. Before Benjamin could have second thoughts, Rez claimed his mouth.
Benjamin had been expecting it, but still, Rez found him so sweet and surprised somehow.
Benjamin pressed his hot mouth to Rez’s, reaching around to pull him down into the chair.
Rez nipped at his lower lip until Benjamin gasped and opened his mouth enough for Rez’s tongue to sweep inside. So fucking perfect. The kiss was nothing like the blood-and-teeth-clashing violence with Kjell earlier, but that didn’t make it less than. The intimacy was treasured because of the way they’d known each other as best friends and brothers in war. Because of the alchemical heat between them.
Benjamin’s eyes were squeezed closed, which Rez didn’t like.
“Look at me,” Rez growled.
“I can’t.”
“Then open your eyes.”
“You’re really fucking insensitive.” Benjamin pulled away. He opened his light green eyes, and they were unfocused, beautiful.
Rez was insensitive. He wanted to fight again but didn’t understand why.
“Just stay with me.” Rez straddled Benjamin in the Adirondack chair, awkward as it was for two large men, and pressed their chests together. “I don’t want you imagining I’m a woman.”
Benjamin, still looking uneasy, laughed. “There’s nothing about you that reminds me of a woman. Even when I can’t see.”
Rez rolled his hips—a sophomoric effort, given their positions in the chair, but it was enough for Benjamin to feel that Rez was hard—for him, and that Rez was as far from female as you could get.
“Say my name. I want you to acknowledge this. I want to mount you.”
Benjamin groaned. “Fuck, Rez.” And his hips canted upward, and he held on as he deepened the kiss.
Something in the movement, in the change in the kiss, allowed Rez to taste bitterness. A drug. “You took painkillers?”
“Yes. I slept while you were gone. I took some of the pills they gave me in the hospital. The drugs make me tired. Or, maybe being blind makes me tired.”
“Shit.” Rez backed away and crouched on the floor beside him.
“What does that matter?” Benjamin asked. “I hurt, in places where there are no injuries, but I hurt anyway. I don’t take as many pills as the prescription says. I don’t want to be a blind, unemployed drug addict...but I hurt. So don’t fucking judge me.”
Rez took Benjamin’s hand, which had curled into a fist. He unclenched the fingers one by one, then laced their fingers together. “I’m not judging you. I know you’ve never been with a man before, and I don’t want you to regret this later, or use it as another reason to go into the dark waters. You need clear thoughts and emotions for this.”
“You’re going to wait a long goddamn time for that. I haven’t had clear thoughts or emotions since we all got blown up. So, fine. Am I confused? Oh yeah, about everything. My future, my vision, my bigoted father forgotten in the nursing home, the phantom pain, the disability pay, my involuntary retirement. Why do you think I was on the beach anyway? Practicing fucking yoga at sunrise?”
“No. I saw the despair all over you, which is what got us into this mess in the first place. Come inside. Get warm. We can talk.”
Benjamin didn’t respond, so Rez helped him up with their linked hands, put an arm around his waist and guided him back into the condo.
Rez closed and locked the door behind them and paused to turn up the heater. The broken glass from the lamp defined a wide arc in the living room, and Rez deftly maneuvered them around it to a recliner. Benjamin resisted the offer of help settling into the chair. He managed by touch and lowered himself into the seat.
Rez got a broom, dustpan and trashcan to pick up the shattered lamp.
“I went to our band to see the woman who is our healer and seer. She’s unofficially the tribe’s leader, and I don’t know how much of her sight is just plain common sense, but she knows her stuff. She knows our history. She knows our laws, and she knows the pact we made.”
“She’s a kelpie too?”
“Yes, I said woman because it’s easier. Female is more accurate. I told her about your mark. To remove the sacrifice mark, I need to do two things. Neither of which are easy and the results are not guaranteed.”
“I’ve dealt with hard truths before, just spit it out.”
“She said that I must consider mating you. We could change the sacrifice mark to a mating mark. That would solve one of the problems. The other problem is that there must be an appropriate sacrifice to avoid the return of the bloodlust that made kelpies hunt humans. So I must find another suitable person to take your place before the solstice. Someone either evil enough to deserve the fate, or desperate enough to die that they will venture into the water. Often we stalk a sacrifice for weeks, months. Finding you at almost the perfect time was fortuitous. I should’ve stopped to wonder about it.”
“Okay, what it boils down to is that I’m supposed to become gay and an assass
in? I need to choose someone to die instead of me?”
Chapter Seven
Rez dropped clinking glass into a bin of some kind. “I know. I hoped to convince you that we weren’t monsters, but basically, we are. We kill. And why would you want to be tied to a killer?”
Benjamin wanted desperately to see Rez’s face. He was sweeping up the lamp bits, but Benjamin couldn’t get any read on his body language. His tone was flat, but what did Rez want from him?
Benjamin loved Rez as a friend, and while they’d kissed and touched, he didn’t know if he was seeking comfort in his blindness. It’d been a while since he’d been intimate, not since the accident. Benjamin didn’t know if he’d be able to accept a male lover, and moreover, if he could tie himself to Rez forever. There was no woman in his life, and he hadn’t missed sex since his injury. Until Rez.
Rez sat down, but he was fidgeting. His leg shook, the vibrations echoed through the sofa across the floor. He deserved some answer, but Benjamin wished he knew the right one. “Rez, you’re not a killer—not in the way you mean. We were in the Navy. We killed people when it was necessary, but it was to protect others. It wasn’t because we wanted to kill them. It was to serve a purpose, a greater good. You’ve exchanged the wholesale slaughter of humans for a few select kills, and the rest of the time, it sounds like you make up for it by protecting people on the sea.”
“In the Navy, we didn’t eat the people we killed.”
“Oh hell, Rez, you don’t know that for sure. Those guys in the mess could put whatever meat they wanted in our soup. It was pretty bad.”
Rez snorted. “Fair point, but I’d know if human meat were there. I know what it tastes like, and it’s something I can never get out of my mind. Even right now, the smell of you is appetizing because I want to fuck you, but also because I want to bite you, taste you. I’m a monster, and I never meant to drag you into my world. I planned to visit you, help with your rehab, and maybe share a beer or two from time to time. Of course, that depended on whether you remembered me dying. But I figured I’d find some way around that.
“I needed to choose a mate—a female mate—to produce foals to keep the species alive, but I never found one that I felt anything for beyond friendship. You... I could enjoy a mating with you, though we could produce no young. The bonds of friendship, at least on my side, had stretched into a strong affection and what, with a little encouragement, could turn into love. But it isn’t fair to you since you aren’t attracted to males.”
“You don’t have any other options, though? The word you got is final?”
“There is an oracle, but she’s not even lucid most of the time. Her advice would be bullshit. So, yes. The conditions are clear.”
“And you won’t allow me to be the sacrifice?”
“No.”
“What about the fact that I’m not ‘attracted to males,’ as you say.”
The room went quiet, then Benjamin heard Rez moving across the room. Was he leaving? No, he was close, closer, and he spoke into Benjamin’s ear. “Lay with me in bed this night.”
Benjamin shivered. God. Rez’s voice tripped and tingled down every nerve ending from his scalp to his toes. “Lay with you?”
“I won’t ask anything more of you at this point. Just share the bed with me tonight. We’ll see if you can bear the touch of my body and can work up to more if you are willing. You are tired, and I will not coerce you.”
“Even though we have no choice.”
“Don’t worry about that now. Let’s get ready for sleep, and we’ll worry about tomorrow when it arrives.”
Benjamin prepared for bed slowly. He was still clean and showered from earlier. Rez brought him a new toothbrush and toothpaste, which he used. He was beyond exhausted.
Rez helped guide Benjamin to the bed and he went to shower.
The covers were soft and smelled clean and springlike. Benjamin rolled onto his side and tried to will himself to sleep, but he worried. What would it be like to share a bed with someone like Rez? He was always so vibrant, so vital, so big—even though Benjamin was taller, Rez was more broadly built and somehow seemed bigger.
Benjamin wondered about Rez’s cock. It would probably be like the rest of him—broad, strong, powerful. The thought wasn’t repulsive, not even remotely, Benjamin admitted as his hand strayed down to find his own cock. Would he be able to handle the idea of sex with Rez? His body, tired as he was, seemed to be voting yes. His mind wasn’t sure, but still, the heat built in his blood and thrummed through his veins.
Benjamin was confident that his skin would be red, and his heart pounded, the pulse evident in his very interested cock. Oh god. He hadn’t been this hot since he was a teenager. What was he going to do when Rez came back? Pretend to sleep?
After a few more minutes of restlessness and failed attempts to calm his blood, the door opened, and Rez came in, locking the door behind him. For some strange reason, this made Benjamin even hotter.
The bed dipped as Rez lay down beside him. “You’re not asleep. Your skin is reddened with lust and you smell of arousal.” He spooned in closer and placed a confident hand at Benjamin’s waist. “What’ve you been thinking about?” Rez nipped at his ear as he pressed his hips against Benjamin’s ass.
“I’m trying to determine if I’d be able to have sex with you.”
“Oh, yes.” Rez stroked Benjamin’s stomach and slipped his hand beneath the waistband of his sweats. “I wasn’t sure before, but by the heat and the smell of your body. Yes.”
* * *
“Yes,” Benjamin repeated, but he sounded tired despite the evidence of his arousal.
“But not just now.” Rez remained pressed against his body. Benjamin seemed to need the contact, the comfort, as he snuggled back into Rez. Benjamin kept his hip from being pressed into Rez’s crotch, but it put him in an awkward position, so Rez pulled him back. “Stay here, or I’ll have to pin you in place.”
Benjamin groaned deep in his throat.
Rez traced idle designs over Benjamin’s skin in an attempt to soothe rather than arouse. After a while, he realized the aimless doodling had turned into tracing runes of protection and fealty. Without using a blade or tattoo gun, they were just wishes, but how very odd.
Benjamin softened into the touches and sank into sleep. He snored lightly, and it was trusting, almost cute in some twisted way.
It’d been a long day for Rez too, so once Benjamin was fully asleep, he allowed himself to rest. He didn’t need to be vigilant. Benjamin was under no threat from anyone but Rez, and he planned to remove the sacrifice mark. So he drifted on the dark water of dreams.
Sometime later, the darkness in the condo was complete, and Benjamin began to struggle in his arms, murmuring in his sleep.
A nightmare, Rez realized as he loosened his hold on Benjamin. He didn’t want Benjamin to feel trapped, but he grew more violent in his thrashing.
“No. Why? Rez!” Benjamin shouted something else that Rez couldn’t make out, but which chilled him. There was so much fear and suffering in his voice, and Rez wanted to protect him. Make sure he never had nightmares again.
“Wake up, Benjamin. You’re dreaming. Wake up.”
* * *
The Gulf water was warm, calm. Their mission was so secret that they’d deployed on a small boat with the fewest sailors possible. Two expert technical divers—he and Rez—their interpreter, a navigator, a munitions expert and a couple of new men with duties so top secret the crew didn’t know why they were there.
They’d anchored near a vast underwater cave just outside of international waters so that they would be trespassing, but hopefully not long enough for anyone to notice.
We’d made a bargain, their commanders had said. Take out a weapons cache on behalf of the militia group working with our government—this week. The cave
held explosives, and if rumors were true, chemical and biological weapons that the enemies had been using against the locals, our allies. All on a need-to-know basis, naturally.
The entrance to the cave from the Gulf side was deemed impenetrable because of the depth of the aperture and deeply submerged tunnels leading to where they’d warehoused their implements of war.
Rez had developed a revolutionary way to swim with minimal gear and oxygen, but Benjamin was the only other diver who had ever fully mastered the technique. They went in on a mission that previously would have been impossible.
The dive to the cave aperture went perfectly, and they were undetected. Rez set some explosives around the cave, but Benjamin looked at the crates that were not what they’d been told. There was no stockpile of weapons, nothing but containers of rugs, mohair, and some other goods for export that were benign. Something was wrong. Either the cave had been cleared out from the side where it opened onto land, or they’d been set up.
“Let’s get back to the boat,” Rez said. They were in the tunnels, headed back to the surface when one of Rez’s oxygen tanks exploded. They were too far from the cave to be affected by the charges there, and it didn’t seem, in the split-second vision, that the tank failed due to pressure issues. Then the charges in the cave blew. Much earlier than they should have. It sealed them in the tunnel with no way out.
Suddenly Benjamin’s light was the only thing between them and the total blackness of the caves. Rez had lost his mask and regulator. He was also missing an arm, and a huge section of his wetsuit was sheared open. Blood turned the dark water red, then hot.
It was incredible that Rez hadn’t been killed outright, but he wouldn’t last. He had no air and no way to get out. Benjamin still had a little supply of air remaining.
Rather than panic, training took over, and even as terribly wounded as he was, Rez began moving aside debris and rocks with his remaining arm. Benjamin thought it must have required superhuman strength and determination in the face of the injury that would have killed most men outright. The explosion had collapsed the tunnel, and they would both die if they couldn’t escape. Blood was everywhere in the water. Benjamin helped Rez clear a path just big enough for a man to escape through.
