Kisses trailed around Kinzer's belly button as Janka worshiped his torso, massaging his thumbs against the sides of his abs, trailing them down his perfectly arched hips.

“Oh yeah!” Kinzer cried, throwing his head back.

Janka slid his nose down the rift in Kinzer's abs, breathed softly across his flesh, down to the head of his cock. He flicked it with the tip of his tongue. His hand glided across Kinzer's abs, stroking, groping. He combed the very tip of his teeth down the bulging vein in Kinzer's cock, the tip of his tongue slipping out infrequently, surprising Kinzer each time.

Kinzer just wanted Janka to take his cock, to bury his face against his pubes. He wanted to feel the embrace of Janka's lips, the warmth of his saliva lubricating his flesh.

“Suck me!” Kinzer begged.

Janka's lips arched into a smile against Kinzer's shaft, as if he was enjoying torturing his lover.

He wrapped his hands around Kinzer's ass, kneading just for a moment before gripping onto them and flipping him onto his stomach.

He sprang to his knees, separated Kinzer's cheeks, and pressed the head of his cock against Kinzer's hole.

Kinzer's hole dilated.

“Fuck me, please! Fuck me hard!”

Janka offered some spit before he pressed the tip of his cock into Kinzer.

A little spit wasn’t going to do much more than get it in. It wasn't going to go in easy on his body.

A thrust of Janka's pelvis sent Kinzer crawling. Janka grabbed him by his wrists, forcing him to remain still. Another thrust of his cock pushed the walls of Kinzer's ass open.

“AH!” Kinzer cried.

Another thrust and Kinzer felt like he'd sat on a flagpole. He gritted his teeth and groaned, squinting as he tried to take in the massive, swelling pain.

Janka's pelvis was wild with excitement, slapping against Kinzer's cheeks over and over.

Kinzer gripped onto the boards in the floor, doing his best to absorb the pain that throbbed through him.

Janka wrapped his arm around Kinzer's neck and pulled him back.

Kinzer's back arched, the rifts in his abs stretching, his belly button flattening against his tense muscles.

Janka wrapped his other hand around Kinzer's head, forcing him to turn back, and planted a kiss on his lips.

His tongue invaded Kinzer's mouth, sliding about, tasting everything in its path.

Kinzer's tongue eagerly met his. Sweat drenched his hair and rushed down his forehead. His fully erect shaft sprayed pre-come onto the floor.

Janka continued shamelessly forcing himself into Kinzer's tense, resistant hole.

As Janka broke from their kiss, he slid his lips across Kinzer's face until they were beside his ear.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I…love…” Kinzer cried out, struggling against the nearly unbearable pain, “…you!”

BANG!

Kinzer, not even fully conscious, rolled off the couch, grabbed his sword, and sprang to his feet.

As he came to, he scanned the room.

It was pitch black. The fire that Dedrus had started had gone out.

“Dedrus? That you?”

He felt a jab at the back of his neck.

“Move,” a voice whispered, “and I'll slice your fucking head off.”

Kinzer recognized the voice. It was Craetis. The Raze had found them.

But how?

***

Treycore pushed a door open and peered into a bedroom. The blue morning glow showered through a window, cascading across a mattress set against the wall. Next to it, a table that appeared to be substituting for a nightstand had magazines scattered across it.

“Dedrus? Kinzer?”

Lero had teleported he and Kid to a cabin with the coordinates he’d given him, but where was everybody? Surely, they wouldn’t have just up and left without them.

Treycore walked back into the main living area, where Lero was waiting. Kid stepped out of the kitchen, looking puzzled.

“Is this the right place?” Treycore asked.

“It’s the right place alright,” Lero said. “You can’t smell that? I would’ve thought as long as the two of you were together, you would’ve been able to pick up on it a bit. She’s been here. Very recently.”

“So you should know where she is.”

“Oh no,” Lero insisted. “It’s not that recent.”

In the same way Teleporters were able to differentiate each other’s scents, they were able to follow one another’s paths, especially if they’d teleported recently. It was a bit of information Treycore’d gleaned in his relationship with Vera.

“Are you bullshitting me, Lero?”

As Lero made eye contact, Treycore knew that he was.

“Seriously, Treycore?! You know that bitch would be so eager to pass along intel to the Almighty about where I am. I don’t need that. I’m doing good for myself. I’m happy.”

“You have to take us there. Please. I can’t tell you why. You just have to trust me on this.”

Lero’s head shifted in spasms, clearly struggling to make a decision.

“Please,” Kid begged.

Lero’s attention shifted between them. “I’ll take you as close as I can without her being able to detect me, but that’s it.”

***

Kinzer's face hit a concrete floor.

Craetis stood over him, laughing.

Support beams lined the chipped, concrete walls. White stripes scattered across the raked floor. They were in an empty parking garage, surely abandoned.

Dedrus had snuck back into the cabin while Kinzer was sleeping and had been captured with Maggie and him. After Vera had teleported them to this location, she’d teleported again, presumably to retrieve Veylo.

“Ow!” Maggie shrieked. She stood behind Kinzer, her hand on her belly.

Deter had shot her up with a syringe that Kinzer assumed was to force her into labor.

Mika and Deter restrained Dedrus.

CHEW! Went a stairwell door as it opened a few yards from them.

“Kinzer!” a voice exclaimed.

Kinzer didn't look up. He couldn't look into his enemy’s eyes. All his rage. All his hate. And yet, what could he do with it now that he was powerless?

Footsteps crept up to him.

“What's the matter? You aren't still mad about that whole me killing your boyfriend thing, are you?”

That day ravaged Kinzer’s thoughts.

Janka had crawled across the concrete, his limp legs dragging behind, leaving a trail of blood in their wake.

He leaned in to Kinzer, blood shimmering in the whites of his blue eyes.

Kinzer's vision blurred as tears rushed down his face.

Janka coughed. Blood flooded out of his mouth and slid down his chin.

“I…” he said, struggling to speak, “love…you.”

“I love…” Kinzer fought to say through tears.

A sword, Kinzer's sword, wrapped around Janka's neck and slipped across his flesh.

A river of blood pooled onto the floor.

“No!” Kinzer wailed.

Janka collapsed into a puddle of his own blood.

Veylo stood over him, wiping his finger across Kinzer's blade, across Janka's blood.

Kinzer drowned in a fit of tears. He tried to reach down and hold his lover, but the chains held him back.

“I'm so sorry,” Veylo said. “But this is the price you pay when you mess with the Raze.”

He stepped around Kinzer, alongside Deter, and raised the sword.

SLASH!

Kinzer tried to scream, but it caught in his throat.

Mika released the bone of his wing. It dropped to the floor just as quickly as Janka.

Another quick slash and what remained of his wings, his gifts, joined the other.

Deter unlocked his cuffs, freeing Kinzer's wrists. He collapsed on top of his now-deceased lover, his tears collecting in Janka's immortal blood.

Veylo traipsed around him.

“Oh, Kinzer,” he had said as he‘d stood over him, still wielding Kinzer's sword. “You think you’re suffering now?”

Kinzer used the pain and horror as he leapt to his feet, ready to tear Veylo in two. But just as quickly, Craetis had his arms.

Veylo was dressed in a tailored navy blue suit with a matching bow tie. The bangs that usually dropped below his nose were combed to the side. His shoulder-length hair curled sharply around his neck. The garage lighting reached back into his deep sockets and sparkled across his pupils.

“I suppose I should thank you for bringing the child right to me.”

“Fuck you,” Kinzer said, struggling against Craetis's grip. Craetis squeezed Kinzer’s biceps. The grip burned against his muscles. Kinzer took it as a warning not to try it again.

“Don't be upset,” Veylo said. “We were bound to find you sooner or later.” He turned to Deter. “Did you bring their swords with you, like I asked?”

Deter motioned to two swords, laying on the ground behind him.

“What are you up to?” Kinzer asked. “Why don't you just kill us?”

“Oh, I will,” Veylo assured him. “But you know me. I'm all about theatrics. Which is why I'd rather not blow my wad. You see, I've been working on a little project that I'd like you to test out for me. It's a very special project that I'm hoping you and Dedrus will be able to appreciate.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a long, aluminum cylinder. He pressed his lips against the end of it and blew.

A high-pitched sound stung at Kinzer’s ears. Dedrus groaned.

What is Veylo up to? Kinzer thought.

There was a sadistic gleam in Veylo’s eyes.

STOMP! STOMP!

Tremors ravaged the concrete floor, shaking the support beams.

A ripping sound came from the side of the garage.

A green tentacle punctured through the wall. Another punctured just a few feet from it. And then another.

“No fucking way,” Dedrus said.

Kinzer gasped.

The tentacles flailed about, tearing through the wall, creating a dust-filled cloud.

A chunk of the wall pushed forward, breaking open like a baby chick pushing its way through its shell.

SMASH!

Chunks of wall collapsed onto the floor, and an orb slid through the fresh hole.

It was a Morarke. There was nothing else it could have been.

As its tentacles squirmed across the garage floor, as if feeling before it, a giant, rhinoceros-sized foot slipped through the hole. Another foot was right behind it.

Its flesh was green, laced with gray from the wall debris. Its dome-shaped head had two holes. Its mouth was a gaping crater filled with swirling, razor wire teeth. Just a few feet above that was a slit of an eye. Halfway down its bulky body, eight tentacles swung every which way, feeling before it, as if trying to make sense of its surroundings.

“Fuck!” Dedrus exclaimed.

The floor cracked into webs as the Morarke’s mammoth feet stepped toward Veylo’s assembled meeting.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Veylo asked.

“If the Almighty or the Leader find out that you have that—” Dedrus began.

“And how will they find out when you’re both dead? Besides, I have this one perfectly under control. Trained him myself. I call him Hoddy. Quite spectacular, isn’t he?”

The Morarke growled. It stopped until it was a few feet before them, its tentacles relaxing, caressing rather than flailing.

Craetis’s fingers shook against Kinzer’s arms. Kinzer knew it was because he was scared as shit. As he should have been.

“You see how good it’s being by not attacking you without my instruction? Just because we were too lazy to understand how truly remarkable these weapons really are, doesn’t mean that we can’t find a way to utilize them.”

“Oh, ah!” Maggie squealed. She hobbled over. “Fucking Jesus! I’m having a baby. Will someone just get me to a doctor?!”

“She’s right,” Veylo said. “We really should be off now.”

“If you think,” Dedrus said, “we’re just gonna let you prance out of here with the Antichrist, you’re dead wrong.”

Veylo looked up to the Morarke. “Hoddy, kill these disgusting creatures.”

Deter and Mika tossed Dedrus on top of the swords. Craetis pushed Kinzer on top of him and joined his fallen allies as they ushered Maggie to the stairwell door. Veylo followed behind.

Kinzer and Dedrus slipped their swords off the floor, leapt to their feet, and hurried to the stairwell.

One of Hoddy’s tentacles rushed in front of them, slamming against their bodies, projecting them across the parking garage. Dedrus slammed into a fire extinguisher box mounted to a support beam. Kinzer hit the concrete wall, his sword rattling as it hit the floor.

“Fuck!” he cried. He dropped, his arms smashing against the concrete.

Hoddy paced toward them.

“Shit,” Dedrus said. In a moment, he was back on his feet, holding his sword out before him.

Kinzer spotted another stairwell on the other side of the garage.

“Follow me,” he ordered. He limped alongside the wall. Dedrus hurried behind.