Irregulars: Stories by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale and Astrid Amara (59 page)

Falk looked uncertain and Jason decided to press his point.

“You already showed me how to close a wound.”

“That’s not even remotely the same as engaging in a battle using magic.”

“I’m not going to engage in a battle,” Jason snapped. “I’d just like to know enough to defend myself or have a chance of understanding what people around me are trying to do to me…I want to have some control of my own life.”  

Jason waved a hand at the sparsely decorated room around them in frustration. “You know, it took me nearly a decade to achieve this much freedom from the doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists who were all trying to keep me safe and thought they knew what was best for me. The last thing I need is to have a new bunch of well-intentioned people making all my choices—”

“I’m not—”

“Maybe you don’t think you’re taking my choices away, but you are. And maybe you’re right about what would be best for me. But this is my life and I have the right to live it for myself. If I make a mistake, that’s my right!”

 Jason glared at Falk only to catch the other man contemplating him with an unnerving gentleness. Jason suddenly felt his face warming with embarrassment at his outburst.

“You spent a lot of time locked up?” Falk asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Jason admitted, though it was the last thing he wanted to discuss. Falk nodded but didn’t inquire further. Instead he yawned and stretched his long arms.

“All right, I’ll show you what I can,” Falk said at last.

“Really?” Jason wondered what had changed Falk’s mind. He hadn’t expected Falk to relent, at least not so easily, and for a moment he just stood there, feeling a little stunned and grateful.

“Yes, really,” Falk replied. “But not right now. I’m bushed and you look like you just got cut down from a noose. First thing tomorrow I’ll show you a couple moves. In the meantime I’m thinking that we ought to put this bed of yours to use.”

Falk dropped down onto the futon and then looked up to Jason. “Come here. Sit down and let me see what I can do about your neck. Just looking at those bruises is making my throat sore.”

Jason sat beside Falk, feeling overly aware of the easy sprawl of Falk’s long limbs. If he moved just a little closer his thigh would brush against Falk’s. The room seemed too quiet.

“How do you want me?” Jason asked.

“Now there’s a leading question.” Falk grinned and Jason suddenly flushed.

How had Falk known? How had he given himself away?

“I didn’t mean—” Jason began, but Falk’s low laugh cut him off.

“I know, I know. I’m just having fun with you,” Falk assured him. “This would work best if you faced me straight on.”

Falk laid one hand on Jason’s shoulder, leading him just slightly. Jason moved to sit cross-legged on the futon across from Falk.

“What are you going to do?” Jason almost flinched at how much excitement rang through the nervous question.

“Just heal up those bruises. I won’t hurt you,” Falk promised.

He reached out and gingerly traced two of his thick, callused fingers across the delicate skin of Jason’s throat. An electric tremor shivered through Jason and his heartbeat quickened.

“That’s all right, isn’t it?” Falk continued to stroke him. Waves of heat seemed to radiate from his hands. It had been so long since anyone had touched him so carefully or so tenderly.

“It’s nice,” Jason admitted. Though, it was more than that. His whole body hummed with the pleasure of this simple human contact.

Falk drew him a little closer, and for an instant Jason thought he might kiss him. His gaze was so intense—his expression so searching. Jason knew he ought to stop him. He hardly knew Falk. And his life was already too complicated right now. But at the same time he couldn’t bring himself to resist. He craved the comfort of another body desperately, even if only for a few hours.

But then Falk bowed his head to Jason’s neck. His blond hair tickled Jason’s cheek. He smelled of earth and juniper.

Falk whispered a low, soft word against Jason’s skin. The sensation of his warm breath sent another thrill through Jason’s body. One of Falk’s big hands cradled the nape of his neck; the other rested against his back.

“This next part might seem weird, but trust me, okay,” Falk whispered. “I won’t hurt you.”

“Okay.”

Jason felt as though he might be in the hold of some greater spell. He closed his eyes and relaxed in Falk’s grip.

Falk drew him closer and ever so lightly pressed his lips to Jason’s neck. Arousal fluttered through Jason’s loins at the contact and he started to draw back, if only to save himself the humiliation of popping a boner like a twelve-year-old. But then warmth flared through the muscles of his neck, eclipsing all other sensations. A molten heat coursed from his throat down to the scabbed bruises of his forearm.

As Falk opened his mouth and touched Jason’s bare skin with the tip of his tongue, the heat intensified to the edge of pain. Jason felt like his arm and throat were burning up. In a moment flames would erupt from his mouth; dark smoke would rise from the gash in his arm.

It took all of Jason’s willpower to remain passive in Falk’s grasp.

And then Falk lifted his head and the waves of heat dulled to a lingering warmth. Falk released him and flopped back onto the futon. He looked exhausted.

“Are you—” Jason began.

“Fine. Fine,” Falk replied. “Just drained. How’s the arm?”

Jason peeled back the dirty bandage from his forearm. Not a trace remained of his injury.

“Better?” Falk asked.

“Much,” Jason replied.

“Good.” Falk closed his eyes. “Don’t go anywhere, okay.”

“Ever?”

“Until I wake up,” Falk replied with a smirk, but he didn’t open his eyes. “Get some sleep. You’ve had a hell of a day.”

Jason was about to ask if Falk minded him sharing the futon, but then he realized that Falk had already fallen asleep.

Jason slid off his own shoes and after a moment of consideration, stripped off his stained clothes, and then lay down alongside Falk. He stretched a blanket over them both. He felt certain that he wouldn’t sleep long or deeply, but in an instant he slipped free from any further thought.

Chapter Six

Henry felt the living heat of a man’s body pressed against his own. He didn’t open his eyes—didn’t really wake—just caught the scent of masculine sweat and traces of ancient blood magic. He registered the rattle of water pipes and the hiss of a radiator, and old memories stirred.

It should have alarmed him, but somehow he still found comfort in the sensation of a lean body pressed against him, wanting so much in silence. For just an instant, Henry was certain that it was Frank lying next to him again, just as he’d come to him their very first night together.

If only time could have stopped right there, in that perfect moment of knowing they’d found each other.

If only Henry could have kept from remembering how it all fell apart three years later. He didn’t want the memory of Frank’s engagement to Director Walton’s daughter. And he would have gladly forgotten all those terse arguments in dank hotel rooms that followed Frank’s many relapses into desperate sex with him. More than anything he wanted to forget that sick knowledge that he had become a liability to Frank’s ambitions.

But not even death stopped time. Events flowed from cause to effect like a fuse burning to a bomb.

And in an instant Henry had gone from knowing that Frank had given him the short straw to fighting the leather restraints on the steel table and biting back a howl of agony as Frank’s assistants severed his finger and used the gory digit to dedicate his flesh to life within death, to the eternal that lay beyond mortality.

On the edge of shock, Henry had looked to Frank. Maybe it had just been reflex or perhaps he’d harbored some desperate hope that Frank would call it all off. It had been so long ago Henry didn’t remember anymore. What had been burned into his mind at that moment had been Frank’s countenance.

Henry could see him even now.

His face was pale as candle wax, his eyes wide with terror, and yet his expression was pure determination. The smell of vomit clung to him and sweat had soaked through his clothes and lab coat. Still, he took Henry’s severed finger in one hand and lifted the long bronze knife in the other.

In that moment Henry knew there would be no reprieve. Not even an angel of Abraham could still Frank’s hand. He’d convinced himself—and too many of his superiors—that this was the right choice, the only choice. A single human life and, in return, mastery over the shade lands: a key to death and immortality. This war and every one after would be theirs to win. And what was one life lost when thousands were dying pointlessly in filthy trenches?

This single sacrifice would promote Frank to the highest ranks and open the gates of the most profound power for him. And perhaps there had even been a part of him that had felt relieved to be free of the exposure that Henry had come to represent. Henry thought he saw as much in Frank’s face as he leaned over him, his clammy skin glistening with sweat.

The surgical lamp flared like a halo.

Frank’s hands trembled as he lifted the knife over Henry’s heart, but he still brought the blade down fast and hard. It struck deep to the very core of Henry and agony bloomed through him.

Henry knew he was dying and almost welcomed it, if only to stop seeing that sick, broken expression spreading across Frank’s face…if only not to witness Frank cry out in horror and crumple over his body sobbing—now that was all far too late.

Henry just wanted it to end.

But the pain only intensified as Frank tried hysterically to jerk the bronze blade out of Henry’s body. Henry felt every motion as Frank’s sweating hands slipped on the blood-slick hilt.

At the edges of Henry’s vision the Lost Mist rose and then the dark depths of the shade lands opened. He’d thought it had been all over then. But he’d been wrong.

They’d all been so wrong.

Back then, they hadn’t understood the real nature of sacrifice nor the price of true power. It had all seemed so simple when depicted in neat little rows of pretty runes. They’d blindly reenacted rituals pilfered from ancient tombs and then expected easy glory. They’d been stupid as kids playing tag in a minefield.

Their incantation had opened the shade lands before them all, but the dead within that vast darkness did not suffer the living. And suddenly only Henry, with a blade in his jerking heart, no longer qualified as a living sacrifice. But every other man and animal in the military laboratory had been.

With each of their torn bodies, the ritual had bound Falk to life in death: fed him their deaths, armored him with their shattered bones, and burned away his promise of mortal respite.

Eighteen hours later, in the gore-spattered ruins of the lab, Henry’s heart had started beating despite the bronze blade impaling it. Henry had taken a breath and choked on pain and blood. And then he’d realized that it would never be over, not for him.

***

Henry came fully awake, but the warm body in his arms hadn’t fled along with his dreams.

Jason lay pressed against him, his long hands curled against Henry’s belly and his breath tickling through the blond hair of Henry’s chest. His morning erection thrust up against Henry’s thigh with the excited optimism of a teacher’s pet waiting to be called upon.

Henry’s own arousal intensified from a dim flicker to something much harder and hungry. As gold pools of morning light spread across the bed, Henry shifted, slipping his big hands down Jason’s body, stroking the length of him.

Jason’s eyes opened and he smiled, groggy and shy. But he didn’t pull away. He nuzzled his face into Henry’s chest and murmured a soft encouragement. Henry almost laughed at this sleepy lust, but somehow he found the honesty of it too moving to deny. As he stroked and teased Jason’s flawless, young body fully awake, Jason shyly returned his attentions.

Jason’s hands drifted to the waistband of Henry’s sweatpants and slipped past the elastic. Anticipation thrilled through Henry. Just the first brush of his fingers felt electric. His sure caress and knowing grip assured Henry that Jason might be young and sweet but he was no virgin.

With that knowledge, Henry abandoned his restraint. He nudged Jason’s legs wider, feeling an almost predatory pleasure at the trusting access Jason offered him to his body. Henry slicked his fingers with saliva and incantations. Then he applied himself to discovering just what touch where would bring the young man off. Henry’s hands were large and rough, but Jason soon responded to his motions with wanton thrusts and urgent, eager gasps.

All the while, Jason’s encouraging caresses rocked through Henry’s body, like the rush of life returning to his flesh. Whether by instinct or experience, he knew almost too well what he was doing. Sweat beaded both their bodies and their breaths came in fast gasps. Jason gazed through his lashes, his face flushing. Henry watched him with hungry fascination.

They worked each other almost as if it were a contest of pleasure. Henry drove Jason’s taut body to crests of ecstasy with calculated control, while Jason gasped and quivered, using both his sweat-slick hands to pump and please Henry’s thick erection.