Chapter 6
Julian
When Julian finally made it home after his meeting with Sloan, night had fallen. He was ready to sob with relief when he reached his block and his little house finally came into view—but he quickly realized something was off.
The front door stood wide open.
“No, no, no,” he groaned as he strode up the concrete path and through the open door. He flicked on the living room light, and a noise of despair spilled from his throat.
Everything was ruined. His television was smashed.
The upholstery on his furniture had been ripped open, and most of it had been overturned.
The bookshelf was toppled over, and loose pages littered the floor.
Someone had plugged his kitchen sink and left the water running.
It sloshed over the edge and into the floor, trickling across the linoleum and onto the living room’s wood floor.
His fridge and freezer were both open, packages of food ripped open and dumped on the floor, table, and counters.
The only things actually missing were his stashes of holy water and oil, his guild laptop, and his spare car key. The front door’s frame was broken, and the door would no longer latch. Without it, his wards were useless.
Repossessed, Sloan had said. He’d made Julian wait all day so he could send paladins here to take back everything they’d given him and make him regret leaving.
They’d made his home unsafe because he chose to walk away.
Blinking back tears, Julian pushed the broken front door shut and got to work, turning off the kitchen faucet and bringing towels from the bathroom closet to soak up the water.
He did what he could to protect his home from demonic invaders by drawing salt lines across the doorways and windows. That wouldn’t stop a human intruder, though, so he maneuvered a chair under the front door handle to hold it closed.
He threw the soaked towels into the washing machine, wiped up the food messes in the kitchen, cleaned up the ripped papers and broken covers from his bookshelf, put all his furniture to rights, flipped the slashed cushions upside-down, and then went upstairs to check for damage there.
In his bedroom, he found that someone had slashed his mattress and bedsheets, and this time he blew out a sigh and let the tears fall. That was just needlessly cruel. He couldn’t just flip the pillow-top mattress over. Where was he supposed to sleep?
He’d once considered the guild his family. How could they be so evil?
He was more determined than ever to prove that he could make it on his own.
Back downstairs, he sat on the couch and came up with a plan.
He could make more holy water and oil. He could paint his windows and doors with holy water to keep out the supernatural.
Tomorrow, he would go to the hardware store to get what he needed to fix his front door.
He would also need a phone—something cheap, like a prepaid one—so that he had a phone number to give potential employers.
And then he would go by the library and start applying for jobs.
He’d apply for anything and everything until someone hired him.
Most of all, he clung to the feeling of rightness that had filled him after he’d given his resignation. It had felt too right to ignore. Things would be hard now, but he could do this. This was what he wanted. It seemed daunting, but there was more potential in his future now than ever before.
He could do this. He would do this.
With nowhere better to sleep, he piled a couple of blankets on the couch, laid his head on a throw pillow, and closed his eyes. Tomorrow would be better. He had a plan, and everything would be better in the morning.
He dreamed of glowing, violet eyes and undulating black lines on pale skin. There was no anxiety or worry here, safe in the darkness with Valac.
These strange dreams had been increasing in frequency lately. He didn’t know why he kept seeing the strange behemoth when he closed his eyes, but more and more lately, he woke up with an aching hard-on and strangely bereft.
What the hell was that about?
It had to be stress, that was all. He’d been under a lot of stress, and Valac was an unusually comforting memory.
He’d saved them from the halflings and protected Julian from Shadrach.
His voice was deep and smooth, his eyes kind.
And Julian could admit that he was… lonely.
All of it culminated in his subconsciousness projecting those feelings onto the demon. It didn’t mean anything, not really.
Still, he stared up at the living room ceiling in bewilderment as his hand slipped under the waistband of his pajama pants. He knew his body well enough to know that this wasn’t the kind of erection he could ignore. No matter what caused it, it would be better to just get it out of the way.
He tried not to think about Valac as he began to stroke his hand up and down, but it was almost impossible.
The dreams of Valac were so lifelike; it was like the demon was really with him.
His big hands, his strong shoulders. Julian panted, working his cock faster.
He spread his knees, imagining what it might be like to have that huge body between them.
God. He’d been with a couple of guys in the past, but never one as big as Valac.
He completely dwarfed Julian when they were standing side by side.
What would it feel like to have Valac’s big, strong body blanketing him?
Holding him down? Thrusting against him?
His orgasm hit him with surprising swiftness. Spine arching, heels digging into the cushion, his cry broke the lazy stillness of the morning air. His eyes rolled back in his head as the aftershocks coursed through him, coating his stomach with cum.
He couldn’t remember the last time he came that hard.
As soon as it was over, regret set in. That was stupid. He shouldn’t have done it. His dreams of the behemoth were confusing enough without adding an orgasm on top of it. He couldn’t let that happen again.
It wouldn’t, he decided firmly as he stood and made his way to the bathroom under the stairs, because he wasn’t attracted to a demon. Stress had caused an exaggerated reaction to the demon’s appearance in his dream, and it meant nothing.
He cleaned himself up and started some coffee brewing. It was going to be a long day, and he needed to put the demon from his mind.
When he was ready to face the day, he walked to the bus stop and ventured into the city.
First on the agenda was a prepaid cell phone.
Luckily, he’d been saving up for a few bigger home additions, but those things would have to wait while he got his life in order.
At least he had a nest egg to fall back on while he looked for a job.
Next, he went to the hardware store to get the parts to fix the front door and headed back home.
The door itself looked mostly undamaged.
Parts of the door frame and the strike plate both had to be replaced.
Getting the sections of the door frame home via the bus was a fun experience, and reminded him that he also needed to get a car.
It didn’t have to be a nice car, as long as it got him from place to place.
Tomorrow. He needed a job if he was going to add a car payment on top of all his other responsibilities.
Once the door was fixed and the wards were back in place, he went to the nearest library, where he used an ancient desktop computer and applied for every job he remotely qualified for.
His paychecks from the guild would stop at once, he was certain, whether he was owed money or not.
The sooner he found a job, any job, the better.
When he’d exhausted the job listings for the day, he went to the bank and moved all his money into a new account, just to be on the safe side.
It didn’t sit well with him that the guild had his old account information for direct deposits, so he closed that one down completely.
He didn’t think they could access it, but it reassured him to know his money was now somewhere they had no knowledge of.
The guild was unpredictable now, and that made them dangerous.
By the time he finally got home, the day was waning and so was his energy. He flopped down on the sofa and stared at the blank wall where his television used to be mounted.
He wondered who had been tasked with breaking into his home.
Was it his own squad? Had Nicolas been forced to give the order to break down Julian’s front door and vandalize all of his things?
Things those same people had once helped him pick out and carry through the same door they’d broken through?
God, he hoped not. He hoped Nicolas and Daniel weren’t so stubbornly loyal to the guild as to carry out that kind of order.
He didn’t think they were, but he was beginning to realize he’d given the guild even more benefit of the doubt than they deserved.
He’d thought they would be willing to let him go if he promised to stay away from the traitors.
But as it turned out, any desire to leave was seen as an act of rebellion.
But he was out now. He was free. All he needed was a job, and then he could start rebuilding.
He laid down on his lumpy couch with a sigh and stared up at the ceiling. One step at a time. That was all it took to build something worthwhile.