13. Infect Me
13
INFECT ME
REMIEL
Cain won’t tell me what happened to him on Initiation Night, but by the marks all over his body and the blush that rises to his cheeks, he had an alright time. He doesn’t know who the person behind the blue mask is, and according to him, that made the night even better. He doesn’t want to know. He’s not even mad at me for putting him in that situation. He thinks me losing my house is punishment enough.
I lock the door of The Ambient Raven behind him, done for the day. But my cello stares at me from where it’s displayed. It’s been so long since I played it, and Soren’s sorrowful song is still tainting my mind from this morning.
I sit down, bringing it between my legs, holding the bow, letting my body remember what it feels like to play. Pain and suffering, that’s how it feels to hold my beloved instrument again. Agony because nothing will ever be the same since my dad and brothers passed away. Regret because being good at music did nothing beneficial for my life, for them, for my mother, who is fading away from the woman she was.
It hurts to hold the bow, but it hurts even more to drag it across the strings. The shop fills with a wretched sound. Something ripped straight from my heart to darken my space. My eyes close and the tips of my fingers hit the strings, sliding into position on the fingerboard. When I play the first deep note, a tear falls down my cheek, and when I play the second, I let it all out.
The loss of my family members. The lies from Soren. The assaults and the meaning of belonging to Krypt. The ashes of my house and the husk of my car. The girl in the golden dress whose lungs rattled and calves twitched while I failed her. The Krampus who died on Initiation Night.
But mostly, I play for myself. For the days behind me and the clock ticking down the rest of my time on Earth. I play for the life I’ve lived and the one I still have yet to endure. I cry, mourning my prime and accepting the fate bestowed upon me. All of it and more leaks from my eyes and dances from my fingertips, letting loose into the strings of my cello to haunt the only place I have left that feels like home.
My eyes remain closed, and my fingers hurt from lack of playing, but when I transition into a new song, something dark and anguished, I cry harder when the piano joins me. I give myself a whole minute to pretend it’s my dad, and then I look to my left, finding Krypt behind his purple mask, fingers moving slowly over the keys to add harmony to my sadness. Like my dad used to do. I play with him for long moments, releasing the rest of my sadness. And then I turn it into something louder. Faster. Deeper.
Because I’m fucking angry, and I need to let go of that, too.
My eyes find him, glaring at him while I play. Watching him match my tempo and create music that fits with mine, following my mood because he seems to read me like no one else can. Krypt doesn’t fear my anger. He wants to build onto it, add fuel to my already burning fire. I’m a lit match, and Krypt will throw me onto any accelerant, encouraging me to burn the world around me like he burned my home.
It feels so good to play that it pisses me off. I throw my bow to the floor and tip my cello over, eyes on his mask. I don’t know what I’m about to do, but I’m so fucking mad! I’m mad about everything and everyone, and it’s all rushing at me here and now. I’m at the fulcrum point of my life, the one that either tips me over into insanity or keeps me here as a prisoner of my morbid future. I don’t know which way I want to swing, but for now, I’ll swing at him.
I pull my fist back to hit him, but he blocks my punch and shoves me back. Going at him again, I shove him so hard the piano bench tips over, and Krypt pulls me down with him, rolling me onto my back and straddling me like he did the other night. But this time, I can see him. He’s not forcing my face into the mattress. He’s pinning me down and daring me to keep going. To get up. To fight him off and succumb to the demons eating away at my soul.
“Take it off,” I snarl at him, fully aware that I’m enticing a madman. I’m too broken to care about the consequences. “Look at me. Let me see you. If you’re going to watch me break, I want to see your face while you witness my downfall.”
He pins my wrists to the floor above my head, wrapping his fingers around them to keep them secure. With his other hand, he pulls his hood down and takes off his mask, and when his eyes meet mine, I smile wickedly. For the first time, I think my internal monsters rival his, and I’m no longer afraid. I want him to let them out. I want to witness the destruction they cause, and I want to be the one who suffers from their madness.
Krypt sees everything about me. He sees my sanity slipping and my edges fraying. He leans over me, a chilling smile painting his face into something terrifyingly handsome. “You break so beautifully, hero,” he says, voice not as jittery as usual. “Does it hurt to shatter?”
I twist my wrists in his grip and buck my hips upward. “I’m not sane enough to hurt.” Because playing the cello again has unlocked my first suicidal thoughts. Because the shift in my life has rendered me dangerous. Because I feel so out of control that I don’t even care about what life and death mean anymore.
“Hmm,” he muses, looking me up and down, pressing his dick against mine and putting all his weight on my hips. “No pain?”
“None,” I lie, spit slicking my lips. “Gonna make it hurt, Krypt? Going to make me cry for you? Is that what you want? You wanna take everything from me and then give it all back so hard it fucking kills me?”
His tongue runs over his front teeth and his pale eyes dip to the pulse point in my neck. He tugs my shirt collar down, checking on the tattoo he gave me, grounding himself with the ink scabbing my skin. “I’ll take it all away until you have nothing, Remiel. And when you’re sad and broken and ready to give up, I’ll fucking force you to live and you’ll hate me for it.”
“Why?” I shout at him, hips bucking. “Fucking why?!”
“Because I fucking want to,” he snaps back. “Because you’re useless like this. You’re pathetic. Wasting away to nothing, trying to be a goddamn martyr, but failing miserably. You can’t save him, Remiel. You can’t save Soren, just like you couldn’t save your other brothers. Just like you couldn’t save your dad.”
I break my hands free and shove his chest, but he pins me down with his body. “Fuck. You!” I snap my head up, cracking my forehead against the bridge of his nose. Blood trickles down over his lips and drips onto my chin, but I’m too far gone to give a shit. My head spins and my vision sparkles. When Krypt wraps both hands around my throat and slams my head against the floor, I latch onto his wrists in encouragement. “Do it. Fucking choke the life out of me, Krypt. Kill me. Imagine how much easier your life will be once I’m gone. Fucking do it!”
He growls at me, blood leaking.
“Fucking do it!” I scream.
His lips crash to mine, and his hands tighten around my neck. Rust and copper fill my mouth, and I’m overwhelmed by a rush so strong my entire body surges with something deadly. I let go of his wrists and tangle my fingers in his shaggy, dark hair. Tugging at the wavy strands, but not to push him away. To bring him closer. Because when I die, I want to leave this world with the feel of him all over me. In my mouth and on my tastebuds, over every inch of my skin, and in my goddamn soul. I want him to infect me before he snuffs me out forever, and if these are my final six minutes, I’m going to have him for every one of them.
Because I’m fucking sick. Wicked.
My ragged breaths mix with his, creating a vortex neither of us can escape. Blood turns my face sticky, but I like it so much that I pull his hair and bring him even closer. He bites on my lip, drawing my blood to mingle with his. The combination is heady and dark and turns me feral.
I yank on his hair so hard his fingers loosen around my neck. I push against them, latching my lips onto the underside of his jaw and marking him as my own. If he gets to brand me, I want to brand him right back. Because I’m not leaving this world alone, and when I go, I’ll take every fucked-up part of him I can rip free from his body.
Krypt groans. The sound is strained and crazed, and all it does is make me suicidal. Because if I’m finally going to succumb to the family curse, I’m going to enjoy myself while I do it. Letting go of his hair, I force my hands between our torsos, ripping his pants open. His zipper breaks and the button pisses me off, but when they’re open enough, I force my hand down and grab his cock in a tight fist.
When he tilts his head to look at me, I see every one of his barely caged monsters watching me, rattling the bars of their enclosure, trying to escape the confines of his eyes. Yes, I’m crazy enough to want the man who sexually assaulted me. Yes, I’m a fucking hypocrite because I told him I wasn’t gay. I don’t know what I am. Insane, probably. Because Krypt is the only one who sees everything within me and doesn’t balk at the challenge of me. He doesn’t fear me or my curse. He’s stupid enough to think he can change it, and simply because he wants to try, even if it’s out of some dysfunctional need to own me, I want to let him.
I’m done being cautious of everything. I’m done being afraid of myself.
“Oh, you’re fucking broken,” he tells me, that jittery edge back in his voice. “Mind finally snapped, did it, hero?”
“I’m no hero,” I rasp at him, pulling him free from his pants. I roughly drag my palm up his shaft and squeeze the head hard enough to make him hold his breath. “So don’t fucking treat me like one.”
Krypt pulls away from me, but he grabs the front of my shirt and hauls me to my feet. I’m an inch shorter than him, so when he glares at me with blood under his nostrils and down over his lips and chin, I look up at him with eyes unafraid.
“Pick it up,” he demands, nodding at the piano bench.
I bend to put it back to its rightful position, and then Krypt sits on it, hand still fisted in my shirt.
“Take your pants off. Now, Remiel.”
I don’t know why I want this so badly, but I do. I want the escape—the wrongness. I undo my pants and keep my eyes on his. “Going to fuck me?” I taunt.
His nostrils flare. “Show me what’s mine,” he says in the same tone he said it the night of initiation—dark, deranged, authoritative.
This time, I’m not covering my crotch. I grab my hard cock in my fist and stroke it slowly for him to watch. I kick my pants off with my shoes and don’t feel ashamed of the bead of precum that drips from my tip. I’m crazy enough to be beyond aroused right now. Sick with it.
“Come here.”
I step between his legs, my cock level with his upper chest. He looks up at me as he leans forward, tongue swiping the tip to get a hit of me. My breath shudders out of me and my abs all coil in need. Krypt swallows, the roll of his throat even sexier now that I’ve left a mark on his skin there.
Wordlessly, he grabs the back of my legs and lifts me onto his lap. My knees rest on the bench beside his thighs, and my ass sits on the material of his black pants. Something sinister comes alive within me, straddling the devil like I have any right to be here. His cock juts against mine, warm and heavy and wet. I’ve never had anything in my ass before, and I’ve never craved it, but right now, I want him to hurt me. I want him to fuck me dry and make me bleed. I want to die on his dick and start my trip to damnation while he soars into euphoria.
I want to be afraid.
“Fuck me,” I beg.
His eyes widen and his monsters thrash. He wraps his fingers around the side of my neck and uses his thumb to tilt my chin, keeping my face right in front of his. I’m grinding on his lap, trying to entice him into splitting me open, but he’s not taking the bait. He looks dangerous… but unsure.
“Wrap your hand around us,” he demands, calm but on edge, never looking away from my eyes.
I bring us both into my hand, rolling our cocks together and spreading slick precum all around us. I’ve never felt so empowered, and it’s a strange sensation because I’ve never been so weak. I pump my fist, rubbing us together with spit until his breathing picks up and his eyes intensify even more.
Keegan has always been hard to hold eye contact with, but right now, as Krypt, I can’t look away. I’m a prisoner to his gaze and a slave to his demands, and I’ve never wanted to be anywhere more than I want to be right here. Because I don’t have to think when he does the thinking for me.
“When I fuck you,” he starts, voice abrasive and raspy, “there will be no timeframe. No limits. No fucking windows where the world can see what’s mine. Your body is meant for me and only me , Remiel.”
“Fuck,” I moan, not even sure why I suddenly love his unwarranted possession.
“And next time, when you beg me to fuck you, you better do it without the suicidal thoughts. Because I will fuck you within an inch of your life, but I’ll always drag you back. You can’t escape me. Not even death’s cold clutches will rip you from my hold.” He tightens his grip around my throat and my hips rock with the motion of my hand, rutting against his cock as ferociously as I can, crazed because of his words and insane because of his body. “You made a deal with a devil, hero, and now you live in my hell.”
“Oh, fuck,” I groan. My eyes don’t flutter and my gaze never wavers. I watch him and his monsters as pressure fills my head and pleasure fills my body. My cock hardens, throbbing cum to coat his dick in sick relief bred by fear, shame, and new desires. The orgasm is intense and slow, a buildup of pressure and the downfall of my restraint. I come all over him, staining his shirt, slicking his abs, and wetting his hard cock. “Krypt,” I moan.
When he violated my throat over that dead girl’s body, his heart didn’t even speed up when he came. This time, at the sound of his name in my pleasure-soaked voice, his breath hitches and his heart pounds hard beneath my hand. Those monsters in his eyes all surge at once, and I’m so terrified they’re going to break loose that another spurt of cum shoots from my dick to join his. His cock throbs in my fist, the head butted right up against mine. I want to look down, to watch him come, but he tips my head back and licks me from throat to lips before kissing me so hard I see stars and almost fall off his lap.
When the worst of it has faded and all that’s left are aftershocks of tainted bliss and swelling shame, he rips his lips from mine and grazes his teeth over my jaw. “You’ve done it now, Remiel.”
“Done what?” I’m breathless and boneless.
“Woken me up.”
I should be more scared of that than I am.