Chapter 1 #2
It takes the one who was busy with me a few seconds to really clock what’s happening, and a few more to stop staring in shock at his buddy who’s still Pollocking the wall with arterial spray. But once he does, he makes a play for the intruder.
He’s taller and looks stronger. He has a gun on him somewhere, but between the fact that there’s barely two feet between them and he already had the knife in his hand, he seems to forget that. Instead, he charges the man, swinging wildly into the air between them.
The man looks more bemused than anything else.
He lets go of his own knife, while the guy it’s lodged in acts like a stand for it.
His attacker swings a few more times, but he’s able to lean back and dodge each one, looking as casual as someone avoiding a bumblebee the entire time.
Then the Aryan grabs the front of his shirt, fisting it in one hand while he swings the knife again with the other.
The intruder’s expression changes like a switch has been flipped. His entire body tenses and fury sweeps over his face.
Just as quickly as when he first entered, he stops toying with the Aryan and attacks. The heel of his hand meets the man’s nose in a swift, sharp jab that knocks his head back, then he sweeps his legs out from under him, sending him to the floor in a limp pile.
He turns just long enough to grab his knife and rip it out of the henchman’s jaw, earning an agonizing, ear-splitting shriek before the man collapses on the floor like his buddy.
Knife in hand, the intruder moves like a flash toward the Aryan who’s still struggling to see straight after getting his nose busted.
He crouches over his victim, all of his movements smooth and leonine, every single thing about him predatory.
He doesn’t touch him though, only crouches, dangling his blood-slick blade over his victim’s face.
I’m kind of enjoying this, I’m not gonna lie. If plays were more like this, I might have some culture in my life.
The intruder is something truly incredible to behold. His confidence, his control, his economy of movement. Even the way he so obviously enjoys every minute of his work. It’s sadistic, sure, but at least he gives a shit.
Not like these losers who are practically too high to function and get off on the power of violence but don’t care about the prowess.
Well, now they’ve learned their lesson. And I get to watch this mysterious new master at work. He still hasn’t spoken, but he seems content to take in his prey from where he’s crouched overhead.
The Aryan makes an attempt to throw a fist, but the intruder bats him away easily. He cocks his head, obviously considering something, and I can’t decide if I want to watch him torture this asshole to death, or get it over with so I can—hopefully—get my ass rescued and out of these ropes.
I think the intruder is making the same decision, and it’s clear when his mind is made up.
His victim must sense it too, because I can see his eyes go wide as true fear hits him for the first time.
He makes a brief, pathetic attempt to scramble backward, but he’s cut off by the tip of the stranger’s blade plunging through his eye and into his brain.
This one takes a while to die. I’m never really surprised by what kills a person quickly and what kills them slowly. It’s always a dice roll.
For instance, the guy who got a knife through the bottom of the jaw sounds like he’s already dead, even though you’d think that might be a recoverable injury. I’ve also seen people get clocked once and just… never recover. But you can get a piece of rebar through the chest and somehow bounce back.
Who the fuck knows? I just want to go home at this point. I don’t care if these fucks are dead or alive.
As the last Aryan seems to gurgle out his final breath, the intruder stands up, breathing heavily.
Not just out of breath from the exertion—which he wasn’t the whole time he was actually murdering—but legitimately panting.
I feel a little ashamed of myself given the circumstances, but those breathy little noises are unfortunately taking a direct shot to my dick.
I can’t stop it. He’s beautiful, like some kind of ferocious angel.
The Old Testament ones sent to massacre humans who enjoyed every minute of it, except this one’s been trapped on Earth for millennia and he’s turned into this stubbly, grungy version of a formerly ethereal being.
I noticed how beautiful he was before I even watched him settle into his murder spree, and now that I’ve had time to really take him in, my body is starting to react.
I don’t normally struggle with my self-control like this.
I’ve never been ashamed of my attraction to men as well as women.
It didn’t seem logical to be ashamed of something when the people telling you it was bad were always the most pathetic scumbags you’d ever met.
Or people with raging internalized homophobia and hypocrisy, like Eamon.
Or Lucky, I swear to God that boy is dying for his own self-hatred-fueled sexual awakening.
But I do live this life, and my safety is vastly improved by keeping it on the DL.
It’s fine. I don’t like the people I work with knowing anything about me, anyway, so that part specifically shouldn’t be any different.
It’s not stressful for me, so I don’t find it difficult to keep my shit buttoned up when I’m at work.
Until now. Until this fierce avenging angel just knife-fucked my captors in four minutes right in front of me, and now is taking in the scene and breathing so hard it sounds like he’s getting deep-throated.
It’s impossible for me to ignore all that.
Hopefully he doesn’t notice the growing bulge in my pants at least. The Aryans took my shirt when they started fucking around with their pathetic attempt at ‘torture’—I’ve had worse injuries from the fucking foxes that live back at headquarters—but they left me the dignity of my pants.
As soon as the thought crosses my mind, my gaze unconsciously flits to his body one more time. Which is when I notice that I’m not the only one who seems to be enjoying this situation an unnatural amount.
That’s an erection. That’s definitely a motherfucking erection, trapped behind his jeans, only a few feet in front of me.
I have a reputation for composure among the Banna. I’m known for being the only one who never flies off the handle. I’m always calm. But as soon as I see that thick sign of his arousal as he takes in the result of his vicious handiwork, I inhale.
It’s embarrassing, like I’m some church lady clutching my pearls, and what’s worse is that it’s audible.
His head snaps to look at me. Light hazel eyes—also very fucking catlike—take me in, almost like he’s noticing me for the first time. He traces my form from top to bottom, and the way his gaze pauses on my own pants situation makes it clear he clocks it.
Which should be humiliating enough that my hard on withers under the light, but no dice.
If anything, it gets worse. I can see the outline of his pecs under his thin t-shirt, defined and firm, rising and falling with each panting breath.
I can see how the tanned skin of his neck flushes as he studies me, and the atmosphere in the room quickly shifts from death and destruction to pure fucking arousal.
I am irretrievably hard, and it’s not going away as long as he keeps looking at me with that kind of naked hunger.
It’s an unconscious action when I tighten my stomach muscles under his gaze, but he notices anyway and smirks. His movements are just as lithe and controlled walking toward me as they were when he was turning my kidnappers into hog feed a few minutes ago.
“You’re interesting,” he says.
They’re the first words he’s spoken since he came in. The first sounds he’s made, really. And they come out of his mouth as a fucking purr, just as feline as everything else about him, and even more seductive than I would have imagined.
I’m normally laconic but not completely dumbfounded. In this case, he may have sucked my brain right out of the room when he filled it with this horny fucking energy.
“You’re one to talk.”
I get the sentence out, but it’s so breathless and wanting, I sound like I’m doing my best Marilyn Monroe impression. I didn’t know that I contained that kind of neediness, but apparently if you’re a violent murderer, it really brings something out of me.
Huh. Maybe that’s why I was lowkey horny for Sav for so long. But that was a passive feeling I could always shove down and ignore, combined with a brotherly sort of affection.
This. This is undeniable, and I’ve known this man for ten minutes.
He considers what I said, moving closer and then stopping when he’s barely an inch from my legs. My arms are going numb because they’ve been suspended over my head for so long, but I’m too distracted to give it the attention it deserves.
More blood for my dick, I suppose.
“I am interesting, you’re not wrong,” he says as he meticulously cleans off his knife.
“And horny. Normally, after such a pleasant little kill, I’d consider jerking off.
I don’t usually have to deal with an audience, though.
But based on the lead pipe in your pants, the bloody torture victim might enjoy watching me come all over a crime scene right now. ”
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to answer that. Saying yes feels like admitting I’m a fucking pervert, but denying it is so clearly a lie.
Also, now that he’s said more than two words, I can hear his accent. It’s weird; mostly Irish, but soft. Like he’s been in America a long time. In and out depending on the word, just something gentle and lilting on the ear.
“Or have I stumbled on someone who’s such a freak, you want a little more than that?”