Chapter 6
six
EVEREST
“You sick?” Zane asks, his body leaning against the doorframe of my bedroom, his gaze quizzical.
My ears get hot at the tips from the memory of what happened. I could lie, but what’s the point? This is Zane. He’s seen me at my best and my worst.
“Nope. Just worn out from the longest blow job of my life.”
He stands up a little straighter, his eyes slightly wide. “Wait, are you serious? One of the monsters did this to you?”
I must look bad from the way he’s staring at me in horror. “Yeah. It was…an experience.”
He rears back. “How long was it?”
“Thirty minutes of straight orgasm, dude.” I groan and roll over onto my side. My dick is still soft and kind of aches. Like it’s got a fever.
A dick-fever.
“How is that possible?”
I attempt a shrug, but all my muscles are uncooperative. “Some kind of herb he gave me.”
Zane frowns, folding his arms across his chest. “You took an unknown herb a monster gave you? Are you serious?”
“Yeah. He said it would help.”
“I don’t even want to know your reasoning. You’re a jackass sometimes, Ev, but that really fucking takes the cake. It could have killed you!”
“Dude, they don’t want us dead. Dead humans don’t make cum,” I tell him, parroting my monster.
Oh god, did I just call him my monster?
I swallow heavily and feel grateful Zane can’t read my mind because he’d kill me just for that.
“Ev, I don’t think you should go back again. This seems weird and dangerous.”
I groan and flop a hand toward him. “I’ve signed up, man. I don’t have a choice. I’m theirs for half an hour once a week.” Or longer. Or more, depending on my Vyastil and how much he can bribe me.
Zane scoffs. “Fuck that and fuck them.” He frowns, staring at me. “I’m assuming you don’t want to go work out?”
I would laugh if I had the strength. “Can’t move my legs, dude. I think he sucked the life out of me.”
He huffs, less irritated now that he knows I’m not actively dying. “Fine. I wasn’t in the mood, anyway. Are you going to work?”
“I think I have to, but I may die if I do. Can you call Sai and ask him to cover for me?”
Zane purses his lips and rolls his eyes. “If you need me to, fine. But you have to promise me not to go back until your scheduled time, and no more fucking herbs.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I moan as I turn over onto my stomach and close my eyes. I’d already decided they’d have to pay me a lot more than fifty bucks to go through that again.
As for the herb, well…it wasn’t all that bad. It was kind of nice, actually. But not in some room with a cum-hungry Vyastil commander trying to milk me dry.
“Sai says he’s got you,” Zane tells me. “Anything else?”
“Order Chinese for dinner and pick it up. I’ll cover it. I’m rich now.”
“Shut up.”
I snort into my pillow. “Extra pork bao just for you,” I wheedle.
Zane huffs a sigh. “Fine.”
I try to pump my fist and fail. I can always win him over with barbecue pork bao. “Extra soy sauce for me. I need to replace all the salt in my body I just lost.”
“Gross. I’m leaving,” he says, then disappears, and I thank fuck I have such a good friend.
My eyes drift closed as I listen to Zane moving around the apartment, and I conjure up visions of the Vyastil, the shine of his rainbow-colored eyes, the way his pierced tongue wraps around my dick. The way he hums around it.
My limp dick tries to rally, but my body needs a little more time. That was so fucking intense. I’m going to need more than a day to recover.
Just as I start to drift, my phone rings, and I fumble for it, cursing when it drops onto the floor. For a moment, I think about leaving it there, but it could be important, so I swipe it up off the carpet and answer before the call can go to voicemail.
“Hello?” I grunt into the receiver.
“Hello, can I speak with Everest Hale, please?”
I know that voice, heard it earlier this morning, actually. I bite back a groan.
“Is this the clinic?” I ask, and the woman on the other end of the line laughs.
“It sure is. This Everest?”
“Yes. And you can tell him I’m not coming in tomorrow. I still can’t feel my legs.”
She’s quiet for a moment and then whispers, “Oh dear. Have you had a bad reaction to the ruenox?”
“What? Can that happen?” I panic for a second before I lose energy. “It’s nothing like that. Just…you know. It was intense. I need a recovery week.”
She sounds relieved. A long breath is exhaled from her lungs. “Well, that’s good to hear. But just so you know, it does get easier. Or so they say.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s true, but that dude is gonna have to wait.”
She pauses a moment. “Even for another stipend?”
“You couldn’t afford me right now,” I tell her, though she must know that’s a lie. I can definitely be bought.
“He’s very insistent, Mr. Hale.”
“Yeah, well, he can wait. I have a job and a life. I can’t just sit there and let him suck my dick all day.”
She huffs a nervous laugh, and part of me feels bad that I’ve put her in this position, but this Vyastil can wait like all the other monsters do.
Just because he seems important and obviously thinks he is, doesn’t mean I need to rearrange my life for him.
“I’ll be there next week for my normal scheduled time,” I tell her firmly.
She sighs in defeat. “Sounds good. Thank you for your time, Everest, and your service.”
“You’re welcome.”
We hang up just as Zane moves into my line of sight. He’s tossing my car keys up and down, and I follow the motion with my eyes until I get dizzy.
“You keeping your end of the deal?” he asks.
I nod, stuffing my face into my pillow and inhaling. “Yep. Just like I said. Won’t go in until next week.”
He sounds pleased as he finally leaves to bring me food.
He doesn’t really need me to pay for it. He doesn’t even really need to work. His parents set aside enough for him to live off of for a while after college, but he does some crypto stuff online when he’s bored, and three days a week, he does accounting at an office for fun.
Like a nerd.
And he gets me Chinese takeout when I can’t move after having my cock sucked so good that my legs, balls, and dick still tingle hours later.
My eyes close, and the Vyastil appears right behind my eyes, staring at me, cum dripping down his lips. My body arches forward, my hips dragging against the mattress.
Is this another side-effect of the herb leaving my system? Waking dreams?
“Why don’t you come to me?” he asks, his tongue peeking out, swiping that cum up. His voice is like a song, harmonic and—“Why do you refuse?” The words aren’t in English, but I understand them all the same.
I roll my eyes and shift my hips against the mattress again. I’m not hard, but it feels good.
“Leave me alone, asshole,” I tell him, using only my mind and not my actual mouth. “Don’t want to dream about you right now. I need to sleep. I’m fucking tired.”
The Vyastil reaches between my legs and tugs. Or at least my brain tells me that’s what he’s doing. I must still be horny or something because sensation blooms inside of me.
“You can hear me?”
“Of course I fucking can.”
“Mm. I want you again,” the voice says.
“Well, I don’t want you,” I shout in my mind.
I blink my eyes open and closed, almost like a reset, but when I shut them again, he appears again, refusing to leave.
“What the fuck? Why won’t you leave me alone?”
Then my eyes open again, and I lurch upright.
Wait, what if this isn’t my mind playing tricks on me? What if he’s actually in my fucking head? What if he was actually communicating with me, and I was communicating back?
I reach for my phone again and do a quick search on their server about it. But nothing comes up.
I hate that we exist in a state of not knowing. So much information is being withheld, and that seems even more dangerous than the Vyastil commander.
If they really are telepaths or have some way to link to us mentally, we should fucking know that. This is important information.
I look around my room, almost frantic, scared to shut my eyes because what if he appears again?
But then I hear it.
“I can still speak to you, even without your eyes closed.”
I clench the sheets between my fingers and feel my heart beat faster. Fuck, so he really can get into my mind and speak to me that way.
What an asshole. Barging in without my permission.
“Fuck off then. I told you, I’m busy. Find someone else,” I say out loud.
“I don’t want someone else. I want you, little human. You are…different.”
I plug my ears, but that only makes his voice amplified.
“I want you. Now, come.”
My body stiffens, those words making my cock perk up between my legs. For fuck’s sake. I don’t have time for this, and I’m still recovering.
“Go away.”
“I will see you tomorrow.”
It’s not just a promise. It’s a threat.
Sai eyes me, concern in his gaze. “You okay, dude?”
I rub at my temples and nod. I have a dull, obnoxious headache, something that started once I woke this morning and hasn’t let up. It’s wearing on me.
“Yeah, my head fucking hurts. No big deal.”
I don’t tell him that I hear a whisper in the back of my mind, something that keeps calling out to me as well.
No, not something.
Someone.
The Vyastil. He won’t leave me the fuck alone, and it’s messing with my mind.
My eyes ache, and there’s a piercing thrum right at the base of my skull. I wish he’d leave me alone, but I’m pretty sure he won’t. Not after last time. He’s been very clear about what he wants from me.
“Why don’t you go home?”
I frown and shake my head. “No, it’s almost lunch. You won’t be able to keep up.”
“Man, I’ve got this. I’m not hungover today,” Sai says and then flips a hot dog up with his hand, as if to show me he has skills. Only problem is, it lands on a passerby who cusses at us.
Sai ducks down behind the stand, his eyes wide with panic, and I wave in apology. I don’t really have much more to give than that.
“You aren’t as talented as you think you are,” I say, kicking him lightly with my shoe.
“I fucking am. Did you see that breakfast dog I served up? The way those hash browns sat on those eggs…it was glorious.”