Onyx #3
“Got them,” Onyx said, aiming for head shots. Not as effective as grenades, but they had more ammo for guns. “Dominic…” he began as soon as they got that wave under control, “is… everything okay?”
Why was he in there?
“Hmm? Yes, everything is fine. I had some time before my next meeting, and I thought to see how you were doing,” Dominic said.
Onyx didn’t know for sure, but he was relatively certain that Dominic had ways to see into the room. Magic, electronics, whatever; he didn’t need to come in there and make both Onyx and Shane uncomfortable.
“I’m fine. Which you already knew,” Onyx grumbled. “What do you really want?”
Dominic chuckled. “There is knowing, and there is seeing.” He ran his fingers through Onyx’s hair before turning back toward the door. “I have a couple more hours of work before I’m done for the day. Think about what you would like for dinner.”
Uh-huh. That was what he’d thought.
Onyx endured the touch with minimal scowling. “Not sushi. But fish maybe, I don’t know?”
It was so weirdly domestic.
He stole a glance at Shane, wondering what he thought of all of it. He had to have opinions.
Whatever he was thinking, though, Shane didn’t share it.
Probably for the best. No, definitely for the best.
“Bye,” Onyx said. After Dominic had left, he turned his attention back to Shane. “See?” He didn’t specify exactly what he was talking about, but it would be clear enough. Probably. He sighed, then continued, “Only a few hours, then. Guess we need to rack up a kill count fast.”
Shane nodded almost reluctantly. “Yeah… let's kill some zombies.”
Onyx nodded as well, turning back to the game. After a while, he asked, “There are cameras and stuff in here now, right?”
Shane nodded. “Yeah. Cameras, microphones. Full 3D technicolor surround sound.” He paused, then added, “With recording and playback.”
Onyx’s eyes darkened. “Oh.”
So he had nothing private. Even when Dominic wasn’t physically suffocating him, he was doing it in another way. He tried to think about all they’d said, but… Well, it was what it was now, he guessed.
“Thanks for telling me,” he said. He went back to killing zombies, for all that it had stopped being fun. Everything he did was under Dominic’s control. The psychopath wanted him under full surveillance if he couldn’t be almost literally up his ass.
Great.
Shane slanted a sidelong look at Onyx. “You can’t expect someone like Dominic Bancroft to not flip his shit when you tried to… you know. He’s not going to let something like that happen again.”
“He shouldn’t have cared that much,” Onyx muttered. Dominic was powerful enough, rich enough, to get any slave he wanted. He could even get someone who wasn’t already a slave. Why had Onyx been the one for him to fixate on so excessively? “Anyway, it’s fine. I get it.”
He hated it.
“Yeah,” Shane replied, which was so much of a non-answer that it irritated Onyx. “But he does.”
“Lucky me,” Onyx said sarcastically. He let the conversation lapse, instead focusing solely on the game. There was no sense in dwelling on something he couldn’t change.
And with Dominic Bancroft… that was everything.
Shane sighed, continuing after several minutes, “You are, you know. Lucky.”
Onyx paused, blinking at Shane. “What?” he asked, disbelief — and a touch of betrayal — in his voice. “I’m lucky? Me?”
“Mhm. Think about it,” Shane replied. “You’re taken captive at the end of the attack, and you go up for auction at Tartarus, right?
Dominic isn’t there to buy you; who does?
There was a lot of bidding on you, and those amounts went up high.
Someone powerful — and rich — was taking you home that day. Then what happens?”
Onyx’s eyes remained dark as he stared at Shane. “I’m sorry, what?” he demanded. “You think I’m lucky?” After everything he’d been through?
But then… Dominic had made a comment once about how much worse it could’ve been. He could’ve been missing limbs.
He could’ve been genuinely broken by then.
More broken than you already are?
He gritted his teeth. “Okay, maybe it could’ve been worse,” he allowed, like with the blond witch who’d pierced him. “But that doesn’t…”
That witch slave had had his magic. What was the cost? Being broken?
“Did Dominic put you up to this?” Onyx demanded.
“No.” Shane shook his head. “Dominic hasn’t put me up to anything, or said anything to me about it at all. I’m just asking you to think about what happens in any other scenario. You’re powerful, you’re useful… as long as you couldn’t possibly do anything other than what you’re told to do.”
Shane made a frustrated noise, his eyes on the screen.
“Lucian Moreno is a werewolf. About this time last year, he was caught stealing supplies from his pack for the rebellion, and they decided to make an example out of him. He wasn’t killed; he was sold to a real sadistic fucker.
The only way a werewolf scars is with silver, if it's intentional.
Lucian is covered in scars. On his back.
Elsewhere. One of his feet looks like it was flayed open.
“He’s— I don’t know if he’s ever not showing signs of being whipped, or worse.
And he’s utterly devoted to his master. They were at Tartarus during the attack, and Lucian fought for him.
As a wolf! When he could’ve easily turned on him, he killed for him instead.
” Shane shook his head. “You don’t get that kind of devotion from someone who’s not completely broken, broken to where there’s nothing left of who he originally was. ”
Onyx glared at Shane. “The only reason I’m not scarred from head to toe is vampire blood,” he snarled.
“You don’t know what it was like at the beginning.
Oh wait, yes you do, because you fucked me, knotted me, hurt me, and what did I do?
” He let out a bitter laugh. “I called out for Dominic. Do you remember that? Because I do.”
He got up, beginning to pace.
“Do you think I tried to kill myself because I’m a spoiled little brat who didn’t get his way?” Onyx stalked across the room, agitation driving him step after step. “You might think I’m lucky, and maybe I’m lucky now, but I didn’t start out that way, Shane!”
Shane sighed and shook his head. “No, I don’t think you’re a spoiled little brat, but you were able to fight back because he let you.
Because he wanted you to. No one else would’ve done that; you’re too dangerous for them to have dared to.
So yes, you had months of rape and torture, and I’m not saying that that was lucky, but at the end of it you’re you, which is something you wouldn’t be anywhere else.
At the end of it, Dominic still wants you to be you, or you wouldn’t be here, playing games.
Having the freedom to do that, even yes, under surveillance.
Do you think others get such freedoms? Ever? ”
The words hit him like blows, and Onyx turned away, hugging his arms against his chest. “I’m not me.
You don’t know who I was before all of this.
You think I’d have ever let a man kiss me or touch me or think about letting him fuck me?
” He laughed, the sound wild. “It’s really fucking funny, you know that?
That either of you seem to think I’m the same person I was when I was caught!
That either of you thinks I’m not different! ”
Fuck them. Fuck both of them.
They didn’t know the first thing about him at all.
The door slammed open as Dominic strode into the room. “That is enough,” he said, voice ice cold and far too calm. “Shane, out. Now.”
He didn’t spare Shane a glance as he entered the rec room, attention focused on Onyx.
Shane closed his eyes with a tight expression but nodded, putting the controller down without a word.
Onyx hadn’t planned on Dominic coming in, but he guessed he should have.
He hated both of them.
“Leave me alone,” he snapped.
But no. He wasn’t going to be given any sort of freedom at all. He wouldn’t get to be left alone. Not then.
Not ever.