4. Fallon, DemonX Pack
FALLON, DEMONX PACK
{Four months ago}
Carefully. Curated. Chaos.
The dancer moved effortlessly, her body catching the private room's blue lights in sweeping arcs as she spun around the pole.
It gave her skin a stunning glow. Technically flawless.
Aesthetically perfect. Her eyes met mine with practiced seduction as she completed another revolution. Her gaze spoke volumes.
Don’t stop watching me.
Don’t stop wanting me.
Don’t forget to pay me.
She was good at her job; there was no denying that.
A year ago, she’d have been more than enough to get me going.
Now, I sat feeling empty. Oh, I still observed and analyzed and planned what I would do to her when she left the platform, but it was clinical.
No desire. No real need for her. Just… apathy flooding my marrow.
I tried to awaken something inside. My gaze roved over her large breasts, barely contained by black leather bands, then the roundness of her ass, and then the muscles in her thick, glorious thighs as they clamped around the pole.
Nothing stirred. Not the slightest hint of arousal.
These days, even basic interest remained stubbornly absent. No matter what I tried, I felt nothing but the same hollow echo that had taken residence beneath my ribs.
The emptiness wasn’t new, just more intense. Had I ever felt it so keenly before?
Yes, I realized. After cancer took my grandmother, and no one in the whole damn extended family wanted to take me, I’d felt this carved-out. A shell of a boy, dumped into the Alpha Protection System. That emptiness shifted to anger quickly, losing me a lot of decent foster parents.
Now, I couldn’t let rage take over. My Alpha nature was too damn volatile. I had to stay in control, even if it meant seeking a way to release the pressure every damn night of the week.
My mind wandered. It tried to dip into other memories, but I forced it down another path.
A new stunt for our next show. It was getting harder and harder to up the ante and surprise the crowds.
I wanted to modify the Kiss of Death for Xander.
It needed to be fresh, nothing that would seem like copying Carey Slick Rider Hart’s back in the late nineties.
Imagining the trick, visualizing ramps set on either side of burning cars because that would please Asher, I started mentally calculating the angles, speed, and safety measures needed. The goal was always to get as close to death as possible without actually dying.
"Is something wrong?" the dancer’s voice pulled me out of my calculations.
Without meaning to, I scowled at her. She seemed unfazed, managing a particularly fluid descent.
“Did I bother you, baby?” she asked next, twisting around the pole and lowering her legs.
She bent her knees and rocked out her ass as she stood.
Then she leaned against the pole and crossed her arms to make her tits bulge.
Realizing I was glaring, I fixed my face. “I’m fine.”
She sauntered off the dais, hips swaying as she moved in my direction. “Then your eyes should be on me, handsome.”
Closer.
Nearer.
Beautiful body directly in front of me.
Still, I felt exactly fucking nada.
She lifted a hand, index finger coming to rest under my chin, and she gently nudged my face higher.
Our gazes locked. I raised my eyebrows and forced a half smile I hoped was inviting.
She licked her lips and trailed the index finger down…
down… down each button of my dress shirt until she pushed beneath my belt, teasing like she’d go further if I let her.
Then she pulled her hand away, turned, and began gyrating against my lap.
The music shifted to something with a deeper bass, and she adjusted her rhythm accordingly. The lights pulsed in synchronization, giving the dark walls of the private room a hypnotic effect.
A stunning, half naked woman was dancing against me. And I felt bored.
I reached for my glass of cognac sitting on the nearby table.
I turned my head, bringing the tumbler to my lips and tipping it back.
It tasted like nothing on my tongue. Expensive nothing.
It didn’t even warm my belly when it hit.
I sat the glass back down. I tried to enjoy the dancer as she once again pushed her ass down and against my cock.
She rubbed back and forth. My dick didn’t even twinge.
Five more minutes passed in this manner—her dancing with increasing determination, me watching with increasing detachment, my body remaining cold to her efforts. The disconnect between what should be happening and what was occurring instead grew from uncomfortable to unbearable.
“That’s enough,” I said firmly, pushing her away.
She turned around, frowning dramatically, lower lip jutting out. “You got another half hour at least, handsome.”
“You’ve been lovely, but I have a prior engagement.” The lie fell easily from my lips.
Reaching into my jacket pocket, I withdrew my wallet, extracting several hundred-dollar bills. With deliberate movements, I placed them on the small table next to the unfinished liquor.
Her expression flickered with surprise before settling back into the pout. "You're really leaving?”
Without responding, I stood up and walked out. The door swung automatically closed behind me.
I tuned out the sounds as I moved through the labyrinth of corridors.
Thumping base. Laughter. The occasional moan of pleasure.
The sound of a harsh slap made my steps falter, but I kept going.
There were clients who paid for that sort of thing.
I’d even indulged a time or two, if I controlled when and where and how hard.
Control.
Slipping.
Through my damn fingertips.
We were going to make fucking fools out of ourselves with Cirque du Sang next week. They’d take one look at us—obviously unstable, barely keeping our shit together to pass inspection—and they’d send us packing.
Performing with the Cirque had been a dream since we're teens, huddled together in yet another APOS facility, wishing we could change our fates.
Technically, the group that raised me and my pack brothers was called APS—Alpha Protection System—but Nitro coined it APOS, for ‘A Piece of Shit’, when we were around fifteen and the name stuck.
I lost count of how many APOS facilities we got tossed in and out of, but eventually even the government gave up.
Which was the best thing that could have happened for us.
Emancipated together, set up in transitional housing together, blazing a trail into a bloody future… together.
I nodded to the doorman as I exited into the night air; the temperature had dropped dramatically.
My motorcycle waited in the lot, a sleek black machine that always did what it was supposed to—unlike my own malfunctioning body.
I ran my fingers along its contours, feeling the cool metal against my skin.
It was slim comfort that I could still feel things.
Sensation remained. The physical world still existed, even if my connection to it was fraying.
I swung my leg over the seat and started the engine, its growl vibrating through my body in a way that tried to break through the numbness inside.
I didn't reach for my helmet, though it hung secured to the side of the bike. It was illegal to ride without it, but I needed that rebellion right now. Needed to break the rules. I shouldn’t be the only thing broken.
The streets of Las Vegas spread before me, a neon-lit grid of possibilities.
I accelerated harder than necessary, the bike responding with eager power beneath me.
The wind whipped against my face, stinging my eyes, forcing me to narrow them against its force.
Better. This was better than the nothing… preferable to the void.
I weaved through traffic with calculated recklessness, pushing the limits of safety while maintaining just enough control to avoid disaster.
At a red light, I paused momentarily, watching the cross-traffic flow, then I twisted the throttle and shot through the intersection without waiting for a green light.
Horns blared. Brakes squealed. I was already gone.
The next light received the same treatment.
And the next. Each transgression building upon the previous, each risk slightly greater than the last. I turned down a one-way street, heading directly into oncoming traffic, forcing cars to swerve around me.
The drivers' shocked and angry faces blurred as I passed them, their reactions registering dimly through my detachment.
I wasn't seeking death. That would be too straightforward, too final. What I sought was more elusive—a crack in the wall of apathy, a flash of genuine emotion, anything to prove I was still capable of feeling something beyond this suffocating void.
What was the answer? Not fucking therapy—not that any of us went to those asinine sessions. Not drugs—not that any of us took them on time or stuck with them long enough to make a difference. Not beating shit up—not that beating shit up was a change from the norm for us.
And not that fucking Institute that had promised some sort of miracle Omega yet delivered fuck all.
The city streaked past in smears of light and color.
I had no destination, no purpose beyond the movement itself.
My mind, normally ordered and precise, drifted aimlessly through fragmented thoughts.
The control I prided myself on was slipping, had been slipping for a long time now.
Sometimes, I found myself thinking maybe I should just let it all go.
Just completely lose my fucking mind. I’d channel it into something, the way Asher played with fire.
When I finally slowed enough to register my surroundings, I found myself on a familiar street. The pleasure club's discreet facade loomed before me. I’d circled back, unconsciously returning to the place I'd fled.
The realization struck like a physical blow. All that reckless riding, all those risks taken, and I'd accomplished nothing. Gone nowhere. The futility of it constricted my chest, squeezing until breathing took conscious effort.
I pulled to the curb, cutting the engine with a savage twist. In a moment of pure, uncharacteristic rage, I slammed my fist against the gas tank of my bike.
The impact reverberated up my arm, pain blooming across my knuckles.
I welcomed it; it was something else I could still feel. Pain. Pain never abandoned me.
"Fuck," I hissed.
I struck the tank again, then pressed my forehead against the cool metal, closing my eyes against the persistent, smokey glow of Vegas. My breathing was ragged, my heartbeat erratic. Signs of life.
This was why Alphas had an expiration date if we weren’t properly bonded.
Loss of control.
Dangerous impulses.
Mind deteriorating.
The darker nature emerges and never recedes again.
Asher’s pyromania reaching a fever pitch.
Nitro’s temper gaining a hair-trigger.
Kane’s obsessive tinkering all he could think about.
Xander’s growing isolation, setting himself apart as if that could save us.
Were we even DemonX still? And, if not, what the fuck were we?
I started up the bike again and roared back into the directionless night.