CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Rosen is sicker than I am,” Yosef said to Urho, his tired voice somewhat sibilant with congestion over the phone. “So far neither of us are too bad off, though. And even though his fever is higher, I don’t think he’ll get much worse.”
“Has a doctor been in to see him?” Urho asked, rubbing at his eyes and trying to figure out if there was a way for him to take a day trip down to the city to check on Rosen for himself.
“Yes, but only on the first day to confirm the flu diagnosis. He left us with some medication—not the elderberry you mentioned, but some yarrow syrup and a few other tablets.”
“If he’s fighting off the infection on his own, that should be good enough. Do you have plenty of fruit?”
“I haven’t been able to make it out to the market.”
“I’ll send you something from here on the train. Fresh vegetables and some citrus fruit.”
Yosef sounded exhausted as he allowed that he could use the provisions and listed the items he and Rosen could benefit from the most.
Urho didn’t like the idea of not being able to do more, or of leaving his friends to fend for themselves, but he knew he couldn’t break away. “I wish I could come check on Rosen myself, but we have one very sick with it here at the house. We have him in isolation and the village doctor comes up once a day, but I don’t feel comfortable leaving Caleb alone right now with Xan gone into the city. He’s in a vulnerable position at the moment. And then there’s Vale. He could go into labor any day now.”
“It’s not a problem. I promise we are both going to get better. Keep Vale safe and let us know when he’s delivered.”
“Absolutely.”
They wound up their phone conversation with good wishes for each other, and Urho muttered wolf-god’s blessing for the sick before disconnecting. He leaned back at Xan’s desk in the office he’d made for himself in Virona and took a long, slow breath. The air of the room was already losing the scent of Xan, and he wondered how many more days his lover would be gone.
The clock above the mantel gave an hour suitable for bed, but he was restless. He grabbed his coat and headed out to the ocean instead, finding the nighttime stroll along the beach less enjoyable without Xan there to sneak kisses and hold close as the cold water lapped at their feet.
The moon shone bright and uncaring. The winter in Virona was milder than the city, but chilly all the same. Urho wrapped his coat around tighter and stared up at the moon, the eye of wolf, and considered the wisdom of having let Xan go into the city with the contagion raging so strongly. He missed him viscerally, like a fist in his gut where ease should be.
He hadn’t heard from Xan since he’d given the instructions for the medication, and he didn’t know if that was good news or bad. He wasn’t even sure how to get in touch with him, or if he’d be staying with his parents or in his own home. Their conversation had been short and to the point.
Urho strode down the beach, feeling hemmed in by the ocean in front of him and the house at his back. He resented feeling so hamstringed by his commitments. He wanted to follow the man who was, inch by steady inch, making an impossibly deep claim on his heart.
By the time he’d walked back up to the house, he’d resolved to call Xan’s place if he hadn’t heard from him by midnight and his parents’ house if he hadn’t heard from him by morning.
Just to be sure he was safe.
Because something in Urho’s bones didn’t feel right.
He didn’t know how or why, but he was certain that Xan needed him. And that made him nervous. He’d come to know Xan better over the last few weeks, but there were still many things about the man that were a mystery.
Like what might prompt him to hurt himself with a visit to his monster.
And that thought alone made Urho sick to his stomach with worry and pain. Instead of heading up to bed, he went to Xan’s office in the back of the library and sat by the phone, listlessly turning the pages of a book in in his hand, waiting for a reason to believe his worry was unfounded.
Xan kept his eye out for a taxi, but the roads of the Calitan District were virtually empty. His hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat, he shivered in the darkness. It was a long walk home, but he didn’t mind. It gave him time to think about all that had happened since he’d arrived from Virona.
Prostitutes lingered up and down the street outside the Lincoln Deli. He thought about branching off, but the other roads looked dim and seedy, and altogether vacant of human life. It seemed safer to stroll with the “’tutes”, as Vince had called them, than to walk entirely alone.
Ray’s lover hadn’t been like any omega Xan had ever met. Big and beefy with a thick beard, he’d looked far more like a beta. He’d wept with joy when Xan had told him Ray lived, and had shared a bottle of brandy with Xan, refusing to take any money from him.
Xan’s head swam now with too much alcohol as he walked. He had so many questions about his brother’s relationship with Vince, but he supposed it was Ray’s mess to figure out. Still, perhaps he’d let Xan help once he recovered from the flu. Because he would recover—there was no question.
Xan was near the shipping district now, and the prostitutes who’d been his companions thus far were thinning out. He glanced at the road that led toward more roads that eventually wound home. It was dark and eerily silent. He pulled up his coat collar and contemplated asking one of the streetwalkers where he could find a place to sleep for the night. Alone.
A new, top-of-the-line Sabel car pulled up alongside him, its engine purring in the quiet. He frowned, tightening his coat around him as the driver rolled the window down.
“Selling yourself now? That’s a new low.”
Xan stopped in his tracks, turning to stare at the handsome, sneering face framed by the darkness of the car’s interior. The man inside wore an expensive but wrinkled suit, and an air of desperate cruelty. “Buying prostitutes now, Monhundy? What would your omega think of that?”
“My omega can rot is what I think,” Monhundy barked, eyes catching fire with that old hate that Xan knew so well.
“Trouble in paradise?”
Monhundy laughed. “You’d know about that, wouldn’t you? Unmanned alpha with his frigid omega.”
Xan gritted his teeth.
“Get in,” Monhundy said. “You’re a long way from home.”
Xan swallowed hard and fisted his hands in his pockets. “Why should I?”
“Because I told you to, and you’re a good boy who does what I say, aren’t you?”
“Not anymore.”
“Get in the car, Xan,” Monhundy said, rolling his eyes and gunning the engine. “Hurry up. I don’t have all night.”
At that moment, it began to rain. Xan stared up at the clouds in the sky, the wet, cold water pelting his face, and he laughed. Maybe it was Vince’s brandy rushing in his blood, but the humor gripped him hard, rocking him with how incredibly terrible—how perfect it was—that in this dark place, on this fucked up night, after everything he’d said to his father, and what he’d learned about Ray’s sad love affair, that Wilbet Mon-fucking-hundy would pull up next to him on a dark, abandoned street and demand he get in his car.
“I won’t tell you again,” Monhundy spit out.
In the rain, Xan’s curls plastered against the side of his head. His chest ached. His feet hurt. He was still drunk enough that as he walked around the front of the car, opened the passenger side door, and climbed in that his tongue felt a little numb.
“You planning to fuck me, Monhundy?” Xan asked, slamming the car door behind him. He was soaked through, and still the rain came down. The windshield wipers waved desperately across the glass—like a warning, like they were begging Xan to get out of the car.
Monhundy looked at Xan, up and down, and then grinned an ugly, violent smile. “The betas complain when I hurt them. But you don’t.”
Xan’s heart galloped hard. “You like how I take it, don’t you?”
“I like when you cry.”
“Take me home then. Make me cry.”
Monhundy stared at him. “My omega’s home.”
Xan shrugged. “My place. Mine’s not.”
“You’re sick, aren’t you, Xan? And you need my cock.”
Xan choked, but whispered, “Just make it hurt.”
“Oh, I’ll hurt you,” Monhundy growled. “I’ll hurt you so good.” He put his hand on Xan’s thigh, squeezing hard enough to bruise.
The car pulled away from the curb. The rain came down even harder.
By the time they reached Xan’s dark and silent house, Monhundy was breathing heavily and his pants were distorted by his large erection.
Xan sat very still in the passenger seat, his blood pumping wildly and a kind of giddy terror flooding him. Was he really going to do this? Was he out of his mind?
It was the middle of the night. The rain hadn’t eased, still the torrent that had burst over Xan’s head in the Calitan District. The tapping of it on the roof and hood of the car rattled Xan’s nerves, and he clenched his fists, trying to calm himself.
“Surprised to admit it, but I missed your tight ass,” Monhundy bit out, like he loathed the words and himself for saying it. “Saw you that night in Virona. Shot right to my dick. I got hard as a rock.”
“That was awkward for your opponent during your match, I’m sure,” Xan said tightly, holding onto his sanity by a thread. He shook all over from the wet, cold rain and his adrenaline rush.
“Fuck you.” Monhundy lifted his hand from where he still gripped Xan’s thigh when he didn’t need it to change gears. “Fuck. You.” He pounded Xan’s chest with his fist, knocking a gasp out of him and leaving a new, aching place on his body to match the ones he’d gathered from his father.
Nothing to lose. Not a damned thing to lose.
Except his life. And he had to admit he didn’t want to lose that. Not anymore.
The car idled by the curb. Monhundy huffed and ripped open his pants. “Suck me.”
Xan stared down at Monhundy’s giant cock, the head wet with pre-come and his foreskin drawn back tightly beneath the exposed head. There was a time when he wouldn’t have needed to be told twice. A time when he’d have sucked Monhundy down and been grateful for it.
“Inside,” Xan said, shaking his head. “The neighbors will see.”
Monhundy grimaced. “Let them.” He cuffed Xan’s cheek. “Mouth open, slut.”
Xan shook his head. “Inside.”
Monhundy snarled, grabbed Xan’s curls, and pulled him toward his lap.
“Do you want me to bite it off?” Xan growled.
Monhundy let go of him, eyes going narrow and cruel. “Inside, you say? Fine. We’ll go inside. Where you’ll pay for that threat.”
Xan nodded, and the two of them exited the car. Monhundy didn’t bother zipping up his pants. His cock swung in the open air, and he stroked it at Xan menacingly on the empty, nighttime street in front of Xan’s house.
Xan’s knees shook so hard he was afraid he’d collapse, but he walked up the steps and tried to get his quivering hand to bring his keys from his pocket.
Monhundy was right behind him, shoving his cock against the back of Xan’s pants. The neighborhood was asleep. The rain still came down, slipping down the side of Xan’s face as he fumbled in his pocket, the key somehow evasive while his heart thundered and sweat broke over his wet skin.
“Open the door, or I’ll fuck you right here,” Monhundy whispered in Xan’s ear, his voice sick with hatred and his big, hard cock rutting against Xan’s backside, scrunching up the back of Xan’s coat. “Want the neighbors to hear you squealing like a stuck pig? Want them to hear how you come for me, you unmanned piece of shit?”
Xan found the key. He stuck it in the lock. He turned it.
“Come on,” Monhundy urged. “I’ll make you cry. Hurt you good. You’re gonna love it. Get the wolf-damned door open.”
Xan trembled all over. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and balled up his fists. He let his mind remember it all: every moment in Monhundy’s grip, all the times he’d thought he was going to die, the horrible orgasms, and the bitter self-loathing that filled him each time. He thought of the knowing, nasty gleam in Monhundy’s eyes when they met his across the meeting room tables in his father’s office.
The threats. The pain. The humiliation.
Dredging up all of Urho’s lessons, he rounded on Monhundy and punched him in the mouth, sending him reeling backwards. Pride swelled in his heart at the expression of shock on Monhundy’s face as he touched his fingers to his bleeding lip. And then his heart caught as Monhundy’s brows drew down, his bloody lip curled, and his fists came up.
Xan didn’t back down. He lunged at him, shouting, “Rape! Rape!”
Monhundy tried to grab Xan’s mouth to cover it, but Xan bit his hand and kicked his shins, fighting with every ounce of loathing he’d ever directed at himself. He spit, he punched, he bit, and he screamed.
Monhundy came at him, but each time he tried to grab Xan, he’d leap back to avoid teeth, or nails, or the sharp edges of Xan’s elbows. This wasn’t what Urho had taught him. There was nothing gentlemanly about the way Xan fought now. It was pure rage and pain, and he channeled it on Monhundy in the loudest, most shocking way he could.
“Never again!” he screamed. “You won’t touch me again!”
Monhundy gasped as Xan bit his hand. Blood gushed into Xan’s mouth and he spit the metallic wetness of it out onto the rain-wet ground.
Monhundy gripped his bitten hand with the other, his face a mask of terror in the scant moonlight showing through the clouds. His hair was plastered on his head as the rain fell even harder, and Xan laughed. The slick, wet, wonder of rain washed away his last bit of fear.
“I’m unmanned, but I’m not your fuck toy to beat and abuse.”
Monhundy backed away, his cock still flopping around, his eyes wide and dark.
Xan stepped toward him. “You’re a coward. Fight me!”
Shivering, Monhundy shook his head. “You’re a lunatic. Crazy.”
“Crazy? No. I just have something to lose, Wilbet,” Xan hissed, drawing even closer. “Something. Big. To. Lose.” He had his life, and his love, and he wasn’t going to give that up no matter what. Not for Wilbet Monhundy. Not for his father. Not for money. He wasn’t a whore. He grinned, a mad sense of invincibility slashing through him like pain. “Try loving someone besides yourself sometime. It’s freeing.” He drew back his fist and took aim.
Monhundy ducked and shielded his face with his hands. “Stop,” he whimpered.
“And you know what people do when they have something to lose?” Xan sneered. “They get fucking honest, Wilbet. Really fucking honest.”
Monhundy blinked wildly. “Are you threatening me?”
“I don’t know, am I threatening you?” Xan yelled, a crackling madness zipping up his spine. “Do your parents know you’ve been out in Calitan looking for a prostitute? Does Kerry? Does he know about how you’ve fucked me and beaten me? Does he know how brutal you are?”
The whites of Monhundy’s eyes glowed in the moonlight, as the rain slapped the sidewalk around them. Lights flicked on in the houses across the street and next door. Windows opened. There came the sound of a door opening and shutting, and a neighbor yelling, “Hey, what’s going on over there?”
Monhundy retreated further, his cock shriveled but still exposed. Rain spitting down on him like even wolf-god despised the monster of a man. No, not a monster. A scared, ugly bully. A disgusting, but human, piece of waste.
“Leave Kerry out of this,” Monhundy snarled. “Or I’ll kick your ass.”
“Right, right,” Xan said. “Because who would believe me, right? Somehow I think Kerry would. There’s that birthmark. Right at the base of your dick.”
Monhundy licked his lips, the rain wet on his face. It looked like sweat.
Xan laughed, his mouth still tangy with the taste of Monhundy’s blood, his body singing with pain and power. “Thought you were going to hurt me?” he shouted. “Make me cry?” He laughed again and raised his face to the rain.
Monhundy yelled, “You’re crazy!”
“Come near me again and I’ll make you cry. I’ll make you pay.”
Monhundy didn’t wait any longer, looking around nervously, his body shaking. He ran to his car and started it. Xan laughed, raising his hands in the air, letting the rain fall over him. He walked into the middle of the street, ignoring the inquiries from his neighbors and the pain in his body from the punches he’d taken that night. He laughed and laughed. The water stung his face and exposed skin.
He laughed until he cried, and he cried until the rain washed him clean.