Chapter 26
Viper
Long red strands float in the air like streamers. The sun overhead glistens on each strand until each one looks wet, coated in scarlet.
The wind stops, and the hair now hangs loose.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Red pools below the strands. But instead of damp earth, it’s a stone floor.
My eyes travel up the long hair but stop halfway because I know what I’ll see if I let my eyes drift higher.
And I don’t want to see her face.
There’s a distant snap of fingers.
A bird chirps.
I rip my eyes from the red hair and look around.
I’m there.
I spin in the center of the clearing, my heart hammering. I’m surrounded yet again by buildings that seem out of place in the middle of the dark, dense woods. Like this massive opening was cut right into the center, forcing itself to exist here.
This evil place, soaked in blood.
“Come,” a voice behind me says.
Confusion makes my heart pound and my hands fist, because it’s her voice, but she’s dead. Then I see I’m no longer in the woods.
I’m in that incense-laden room with candles and too much sin.
“You’ve lived with this sin inside of you for far too long, boy.”
“It’s not a sin to love,” I tell her, but I don’t look at her face. I’m not allowed. I keep my gaze on her feet. On the plain black flats as she removes them.
“Kneel and repent.”
My knees hit the cold stone floor. She’s naked now.
Bared to me, but I keep my eyes down as I’ve been taught.
When she hooks a finger under my chin, forcing my head back, her touch burns like acid.
My eyes land on the hair on her mound. She shifts, and her long brown hair sways around her hips, falling well past her ass.
I reach into my pants to free myself, prayers slipping past my lips in whispers, until they become pained pants.
“Look at me.”
When I do, her features twist, bones contorting and melting under her skin until it’s too agonizing to witness, but when I close my eyes, she demands I open them again.
“Look at what you did to me,” she screams, but it’s inside my head. My eyes open and her lips part in a silent scream. Black liquid oozes out. It spills down her chin, between her breasts, and falls to the floor.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
She bends forward, looming over me like the monster she hides beneath her sweet, soft smile. I open for her, drinking it in, choking on the smoky black as it sticks in my throat.
I can’t swallow it all. I can’t breathe.
I sit up with a gasp, my hand clawing at the clog in my throat. My bedroom door flings open, and Breaker rushes in.
“What the fuck?” Breaker says, hand dropping from the doorknob.
He enters the large room I claimed as mine, stopping at the end of the bed.
It’s dark in my room, so I can only see his silhouette in the doorway, the pale blue lights from outside the windows washing over his large body. “You were screaming.”
“I’m fine,” I say, tossing back the blanket and sitting up on the side of the bed, my feet planted on the smooth wood floor. “Just a dream.”
“Nightmare?” he asks, the bed dipping as he sits next to me. “It’s been a long time.”
It has. I haven’t had a nightmare in years, especially not one about that evil place.
Or about her.
“Just a weird dream,” I tell him.
He makes a sound in his throat like he doesn’t believe me.
He shouldn’t.
“Do you want me to stay?” he asks after a minute.
I glance over at him, and for a second my breath ceases. In this room, framed by pale moonlight and the white gauzy material draped over the four-poster bed, he’s angelic. So like the boy I sold my soul to protect.
It’s been years since Breaker has come to me in the middle of the night. It’s usually me, feeling disconnected, uncomfortable in my skin, that has me seeking him out after dark. When no one knows, and no one can see I’m not myself.
When no one knows that it’s him I want. His touch. His demands and praises. Everything he’s made of that’s clean and worthy, so I can bask in all that makes him so sweet and good. And for a few moments, I’m those things too.
Just a few moments, though. Because you can’t scrub some stains away.
Ripping my eyes off him, I pinch the bridge of my nose, exasperated with myself and him.
I’ve been here seven full days, and we’ve barely talked about anything that really matters.
We could blame it on nerves, the inability to chance talking in this massive home where the staff can’t be trusted, even though we sweep for bugs daily, or that we’ve been so busy slipping into our roles, it’s just easier to forget who we were.
I’m not sure if it’s me or him who’s been more silent. That’s not true. It’s me. It always is. I’m the one who puts distance between us. I’m the one who can’t hold anyone close for too long.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Just hate sitting around, waiting. It’s making me antsy. And I don’t like not being able to see Cora.”
My dream flashes through my mind. Rune’s been the cause of so much of her heartbreak. More than the idea of her being anywhere near him, I hate to think about the fact she’s being forced to endure him. Having to face your tormentor every single fucking day wrecks a person.
I would know.
Breaker shifts closer until our thighs touch. The feel of his flesh against mine makes my cock thicken, and considering the dream I had, I know I’m depraved.
Just like I’ve been told.
I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees, rubbing my face like I can scrub away not only the dream but all the sudden dark thoughts flooding my system.
“What time is it?” I ask, glancing at my phone but not bothering to pick it up.
I’ve checked it so many times this week, waiting for a message from Reap or Striker, even though I know we’re supposed to have no contact with them.
Every time there are no new messages, I feel it physically.
Not knowing how Delilah is doing just makes everything worse.
“Almost 4 am,” he says, sliding backward over my bed until he’s sprawled out. “Come here.”
My cock hardens fully at his husky tone. My body screams to fall back into bed and lie next to him, but that unsettled feeling lingering from the dream sticks to my bones like tar. Heavy and thick and gross.
Breaker pats the bed, each thump vibrating into me like a quiet invitation.
I hesitate. It’s not like we haven’t done this dozens of times over the last five years.
After that night where we let ourselves go, we have spent plenty of time in bed together.
Sometimes touching, but more often than not, just keeping each other company like we used to.
When Breaker was scared and I was his protector.
Before I let that carnal hunger take over.
Now it feels like he’s the one who’s constantly trying to reassure me.
“Viper,” he whispers, and I hear it in his voice. That slightly desperate way he tries to get me to be with him. When he’s not edging every word in a command. When he’s trying to just exist with me and not use my body for his pleasure.
Too bad that’s all I’ve ever been good for.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispers.
The confession is so fucking loud even though it was a quiet release of words. We don’t talk to each other like this. Breaker and I don’t delve into our emotions. It’s always just laughter or chatting, or a quick, hot release.
A handful of times over the years, after we’ve shared a woman, we let Reaper and Striker watch us together. But most of the time it’s in secret, and more often than either of us would ever admit.
He shifts, making the bed jostle. “Talk to me.”
I flash on Striker. How vulnerable he let himself be. How easy it was to let myself be with him. Maybe it’s because he’s just as broken as I am and all our shattered edges fit together. Breaker, I always fear, I’m going to cut him open from all the jagged pieces inside me.
“Tell me,” he says. “What is going on in your head?”
Too much. Always too much.
Breaker sighs and pats the bed again. “Then tell me about your weird dream.”
His neediness cuts like a sharp claw in my lungs. I suck in a breath, filling them, trying to slow down the panic settling in my gut.
“If you wanted your cock sucked, you just have to ask,” I say, sliding toward him. “No need to beg.”
I hear him sigh as I reach for him, my hand skimming over his bare stomach as I move closer. His abs ripple under my touch, but then his hand encloses around my wrist, stopping me before I reach his dick.
“If I wanted your mouth on me, I would have ordered you to your knees.” Breaker releases me, shoving my hand away. “Now lie down and tell me about the dream.”
Panic burns like acid, turning into a slick unease. Breaker rarely rejects me. I can’t even remember the last time he did.
“The wilderness,” I tell him to appease him, lying down next to him with my hands behind my head.
He makes another sound in his throat. He had so many nightmares after we returned, and he didn’t even see the worst of it. But I know he understands. Our time out there, the things we saw, altered us in a way that we’ll never recover from.
“What else?” he asks.
When I don’t answer right away, I hear him shift, feel the bed dip, and suddenly the lamp flicks on and a pale yellow glow floods the room.
He looms over me from the side of the bed.
I blink at the brightness, looking away from his half-naked body.
My already too-aware cock hardens painfully, and being I’m only in boxers, he can see the effect he has on me.
It’s all those fucking tattoos. Black lines snaking over his flawless skin, flowing over every muscle like the ink was poured over him, contorting and accentuating his physique.
Adonis. Pure male perfection in my room, wanting me to talk. Divulge my secrets and let him closer.
Fuck that.
“Was it about that school?” he asks, and my eyes dart from the outline of his thick cock hidden by his boxers to his eyes. “The one that burned down?”