Chapter 10 #2
Finally, Mirel pushed away the plate. He’d finished nearly everything.
“Good boy.” Pressing two fingers under Mirel’s jaw, he lifted his face. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”
“T-thank you,” Mirel breathed. He looked as affected as Kylix did from being so close.
“Next time you’re hungry, you ask me for food, understand?”
“Y-yes.”
Kylix hummed in satisfaction. He reached out a hand and traced the lines of Mirel’s opened shirt. He lowered, shoulders braced between Mirel’s knees, steadying him against the chair before running his hand down over exposed, pale skin to his clothed cock.
“You’re hard for me, Mirel. Want me to make you feel good like I did before when you were in the bath?”
The sound that broke from Mirel was half gasp, half word, too ruined to choose a side.
“I still want to know more about you. And you’re going to tell me more.” The words warmed the air as he climbed onto the mattress on his knees. “You’re going to beg me while you do it.”
A flinch, anger or need. Maybe both.
“Don’t move. I decide how this goes.” He bent close enough that his exhale touched Mirel’s lips. “If you speak, you speak truth. If you lie, I’ll know it.” His tone softened to mockery. “You don’t want to disappoint me, do you?”
Mirel’s answer was a silent shake of the head.
Kylix leaned in and took the mouth he’d come to love so much.
Their lips brushed, slow first, then with a growl he dove deep enough to swallow Mirel’s surprised gasp.
His tongue traced the seam of Mirel’s lips, demanding entrance before sliding in.
He licked at the taste of him and nipped the lower lip until a low moan escaped.
The sound made him press closer, his teeth catching again, tongue chasing the tremor he caused.
When he finally pulled back, a slick thread connected their mouths, and Mirel’s lashes were wet, breath ragged, mouth parted in shock.
“We go at my pace,” Kylix said. “And I ask while I take. Speak if you can. Show me if you can’t.”
He dragged his palm down the line of Mirel’s ribs, felt the tension jump beneath flesh like a trapped bird, then lower, brushing knuckles along his stomach, over the fine muscle that quivered under touch.
Mirel made a broken sound, half gasp, half stammer, like words caught behind teeth, and his exhale hitched.
“Y-you,” he started. No other words came.
“You don’t even know how good you look like this, do you?” Kylix let his fingers dip below the waistband of Mirel’s underwear, just enough to make Mirel gasp. “Patience.”
Mirel’s breath obeyed.
Kylix’s mouth curved. “Good. I take orders all day. Now it’s your turn.” His hand lingered low, thumb tracing the quiver at the edge of flesh. “Why the graveyard? Why that forsaken place?”
“Mama.” A pause. “C-close. Can’t go in, but close enough.”
“You lived there on purpose? Among the stones? Of course you did.” Realization hit him. Celia Fandi, Cyprian and Mirel’s mother, lived inside the Hospital of the Living Dead.
Mirel hesitated, eyes flicking to the floor. “Yes,” he said finally. “And Geron. Protection.”
“The old man?”
“Y-yes.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“In the c-city. I was a-alone.” Mirel coughed. “S-safe with him.”
“The illusion of safety, that is. So you met Geron in Zephyr, and he took you back to the graveyard.”
“Yes.”
“Did you live with him?”
“N-no. Alone.”
Something trembled in Kylix’s chest. The thought of Mirel being all by himself made him want to unleash and kill his frustration. Literally.
“So you stayed at the hospital, hoping that one day you’d be let inside. How did you know your mother was there?”
“Frost.” Mirel looked at his hands. At those slim fingers. “It speaks the t-truth.”
Kylix’s hand stilled. He realized this was the most Mirel had spoken since he’d taken him, words unfolding like cracks in ice, small but dangerous. He pulled back and reached for his multi-slate.
He sent the message to Moargan through the multi-slate. The answer came soon enough.
“We go in the morning.”
Mirel’s lip wobbled. “Go...where?”
Kylix brushed over it with his knuckles. “To the hospital. To meet your mother. Cyprian will come too.”
“And...you? You come?”
“I come,” Kylix said. “With you.” He told himself he should say no, bury himself in orders, in the hunt, in the work that kept him from feeling too much.
But he didn’t. He’d already made that choice the moment he’d chased Mirel down.
He turned the puffer down until the coil sighed only once every few breaths.
Reaching inside the bedside drawer, he took out a v-neck sleeveless tank vest and a pair of sleeping pants. “Remove your suit.”
Mirel gawked at the material, then gingerly lifted his hips to slide the suit down his legs.
Kylix’s gaze went down to Mirel’s erection. “This is what you’ll wear from now on. Or not, if I decide you go naked.” He leaned in and blew against Mirel’s earlobe. “Say stop.”
Silence.
“Good.”
He licked all the way from Mirel’s ear to the dip in that elegant throat, leaving a trail of nips and bites that had to sting, judging by the way Mirel flinched.
“You’ll learn to offer before I ask,” he murmured.
“And I’ll still take.” Mirel shook his head.
His teeth were clenched, eyes fluttering.
And his clothed cock twitched in Kylix’s hand.
“Hmm, I see. You like a little bit of pain? Good. Me too.” He let out a growl, and finally broke the tender flesh of Mirel’s throat with his jeweled incisors. Blood poured into his mouth, the salty taste making his own dick throb inside its confines.
“I-I…” Mirel stammered, but his hips rocked against Kylix’s hand, in search of more friction.
Kylix licked the final drop of blood away, then pulled back. “You, what? You want to give me more answers to questions I haven’t asked yet? Please do. I’m very curious about Cyprian’s brother. How you create ice, for instance. Or how you managed to stay off the radar for so long.”
“S-stop.” Mirel pressed weakly against his chest, and Kylix enjoyed how he watched his bloody lips with horror.
“Stop? I believe it’s a little late for that, little one.
You see, you live in my house now. Officially.
You have been given to me by the Imperial Heir.
That means that this...” He leaned in and claimed Mirel’s mouth in a bruising kiss.
“Is mine. And this...” He wrapped his hand once more around Mirel’s cock, breathing in the smell of fear and arousal.
“Is mine too. And this...” He tapped his hand against Mirel’s temple.
“Is also mine. That mysterious mind of yours. Soon enough, it will know how to answer my questions, don’t you think? ”
Mirel bristled and looked away, cock pulsing in Kylix’s hand.
He squeezed it one more time, and felt how a wet patch formed. Then he let go. “But you’re right. It’s late, and it’s been a long day. Put on your new pajamas, little one.”
“K-Kylix.” Mirel’s eyes widened when Kylix got up. “You don’t...”
“Finish you? Bring you the pleasure you seek? No, little one, not yet.” Kylix smirked when Mirel flushed, before sliding an arm around his back to lift him up and place him onto the open bed.
“You’ll stay like this, caught between wanting and restraint, until I decide you’ve earned more.
” His mouth brushed Mirel’s ear, the words close enough to sting.
“Soon, you’ll beg for it. Properly. Not because I command it, but because your body will learn who it answers to.
You’ll fight it, you’ll hate that you do, and you’ll still come apart for me. ”
Mirel panted as he put on the silk pants and the soft top. His erection pressed obscenely against the material.
“And remember, I can relieve you from your desperation. You only have to ask.” He pressed Mirel onto the mattress and left a kiss in the exposed underside of his throat.
Mirel shivered.
Good, Kylix thought. He wanted that surrender. Not for conquest, but for proof. Proof that what trembled beneath him could still trust, still yield without shattering. That something in this ruined world could bend to him and survive it.
“Sleep now. And dream of me.”
Kylix eased the blankets over Mirel, his gaze tracing the bruises he’d left, purple, tender marks that seemed to bloom under the light. Beautiful, he thought, this proof of what he’d claimed. He left him aching, untouched, exactly where he wanted him.
Mirel’s lashes trembled once before stilling. Kylix watched the pattern of his breathing, slow, uneven, finding its rhythm again.
He opened a glass door and lit up a red-cinder cigarette. He stood there a long while, looking down at Mirel’s half-sleeping form, tucked and still, then turned away before that thought could root deeper.
He reached for his multi-slate again.
Kylix: Still awake? Need a drink.
The chime of the sent message cut through the hush like a pulse. Then the night swallowed it whole.