Kinzer brushed his teeth in the bathroom sink, his biceps shaking before his tense, dome-shaped pec. Black locks fell across his forehead, covering his bushy eyebrows. They were drenched from the shower he’d taken just a few minutes earlier.

The deep ridges of his v-lines descended into a white towel around his waist.

As he contemplated what he would be doing in a few minutes, he brushed harder, drawing blood. He spit the reddened toothpaste into the faucet’s running water. He’d never bled like that when he’d had his wings… when immortal strength imbued his flesh.

He retrieved a bottle of mouthwash from a bag at his feet and rinsed his mouth out before emptying the bright blue fluid into the sink.

He imagined this was what Maggie’s life had been like before—preparing for tricks, exchanging her body for services.

He hadn’t planned this route. Initially, he figured some quick cash to a detective would get the job done, but after a few offers and no leads, one of the detectives recommended someone he was sure could do the job. Kinzer approached the guy, Lyle, but he was only willing to assist Kinzer if he exchanged something he said was a little more worth his while.

He opened a black plastic case he’d set on the counter and retrieved a syringe, which contained a special serum. Before he’d had access to the substance, his location had been easily discovered by a Tracker—immortal equivalents to detection dogs. Their gift allowed them to sniff out immortals by their scent. After Kinzer had escaped the clutches of the Raze, a gang in league with the Almighty to destroy the world, he’d found it necessary to stay on the move until his friend Treycore encountered a fallen who had access to the substance. Though Treycore was on his own quest, he’d provided Kinzer with the contact’s information, and Kinzer purchased it in bulk so he could remain hidden and continue his mission.

After he injected the serum into his arm, his cell vibrated on the counter, behind the syringe’s case. He set the syringe back in the case, picked up his phone, and read the text: ‘I’m here.’

He texted his room number to Lyle, the guy who he’d have to show a good time. But what did it matter what he did with his body? He didn’t care about it anymore. He just did what he had to do. He performed his duty as an immortal, and in the name of the love he’d lost to the cause.

A knock at the door assured Kinzer it was time.

He stepped barefoot across the motel carpet and opened the door.

Lyle stood outside, glancing around uncomfortably, as if he was too embarrassed to look at Kinzer’s naked torso.

Kinzer smirked, amused that a man who’d been so forward about what he wanted would act so coy when the moment had finally arrived.

Lyle’s short blond hair was spiked. He wore a pair of glasses that glistened in the lamplight coming from the nightstand beside the queen-sized bed, which Kinzer had requested specifically.

Without a word, Kinzer turned and headed toward the bed.

Lyle stepped in and shut the door behind him.

“Wish you knew how hard I had to work to get this,” Lyle said.

Kinzer assumed he was stressing how hard he was going to have to work to get this intel from Lyle. But he wasn’t concerned. He knew his immortal girth would be perfectly satisfactory for any mortal.

Just pretend he’s someone you like.

Maggie had suggested this when she’d found out about his rendezvous. She hadn’t supported what he was doing. She’d warned him against it repeatedly, but this was the only way. Or at least, the best way he could come up with quickly.

Someone I like?

That wouldn’t work. The images that came to mind would have only haunted him, made it impossible for him to complete his responsibility.

Lyle removed a backpack from his shoulders and set it on the floor. He rubbed his hands together, as if trying to find something to do with them. “So…” he said.

Kids.

Kinzer dropped his towel to the floor. He turned to Lyle, whose gaze went right to Kinzer’s dick, his mouth dropping open.

Kinzer didn’t have anything to be ashamed of. Few immortals did.

His cock swayed slightly at his thighs.

He approached Lyle, wrapped his arms around him, and kissed him firmly.

Lyle returned wet, sloppy kisses.

Just like mortals, he thought, considering their brief lifetimes that allowed so little time to practice their kissing technique.

“Oh,” Lyle moaned.

Kinzer gripped onto his arms, more muscular than he’d imagined they’d be, and threw him back onto the bed. He pressed his knees into the mattress, crawled on top of Lyle, and kissed him again, helping him remove his button-up while Lyle kicked off his shoes and pulled down his jeans.

After some uneasy trembling while removing his shirt, Kinzer tossed it beside the bed.

The lamp on the nightstand cast hard shadows across Lyle’s six-pack. Specks of dirty-blond hairs trailed from his navel to his pubes.

He was a good-looking guy. Kinzer figured he wouldn’t have had trouble picking up tricks at a bar, so he wondered why he’d wanted this sort of exchange with Kinzer.

It didn’t really matter.

Kinzer gripped under Lyle’s knees, leaned back, and flipped him on his stomach.

Lyle’s back was just as muscular as the front, with sharp, defined edges stretching down his shoulder blades.

Kinzer grasped on to Lyle’s hip with one hand and navigated his cock with the other.

“Whoa, whoa!” Lyle exclaimed. He tucked his knees close to his chest and flipped over quickly. He raised a hand. “I think I’m gonna need some lube.”

Kinzer spit in his hand and rubbed it across his thick shaft.

“No, seriously, dude.”

He started to get up, but Kinzer snatched his shoulder and threw him back onto the mattress. If they were going to do this, they were going to do it his way.

Kinzer smiled a wicked smile. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll like it.”

He grabbed his trick’s arms, pulled them up over his head, and rested on top of him, so their abs rubbed together. He kissed him, working to improve Lyle’s abilities by guiding him, slowly, carefully. Lyle started to follow his lead, but slipped up occasionally, opening his mouth too wide or not enough. As Kinzer leaned back, he gazed into Lyle’s eyes. Lyle didn’t appear as apprehensive as he had moments earlier. He looked to Kinzer’s dick, staring, as if hypnotized by it.

Kinzer lifted Lyle’s legs and pressed the head of his cock against his hole. He spit on his dick. The fluid slid down his veiny flesh. He offered another spit and wiped it across the surface, which even Kinzer had to admit was particularly dry. But a part of that made him happy. He wanted it to hurt Lyle. He would have been pissed to know Lyle had walked away without a few wounds.

Lyle’s chest rose and fell as he breathed heavily, surely preparing for the intense intrusion. He held on to his legs, seemingly for support.

Kinzer thrust his pelvis forward, his fingers massaging his dick as he guided the head inside Lyle’s hole.

Kinzer rubbed Lyle’s abs to assure him that he would take care of him, but it was a ruse—a lie to give him a false sense of security.

Lyle pursed his lips and breathed in and out, grinding his teeth as Kinzer pressed deeper into him.

“Ah, ah!” he whimpered.

Kinzer slid out slightly, to give the impression that he was being courteous.

“You okay?” he asked, his fingers outlining the top muscles in Lyle’s six-pack.

Lyle grimaced, but nodded.

Kinzer took that as his invitation to proceed and slid further in.

Lyle’s face reddened as he squirmed beneath him.

When Kinzer had forced his entry halfway inside, he began pulling out and pushing back in, offering Lyle a taste of what would become a far more painful encounter.

When Lyle settled into the rhythm, relaxing as his hole seemed to have adjusted to his sadistic top, Kinzer thrust much farther in.

Lyle opened his mouth to scream. Kinzer leaned down and covered his mouth with his hand.

He donned a concerned look. “Sorry… sorry, sorry, sorry,” he said, though he wasn’t. This was what a guy like Lyle deserved.

He released Lyle’s mouth and rubbed his thumb across his cheek. He slid his hand around his head and grasped the back of his neck. “You okay?”

Lyle wasn’t, as indicated by his uncomfortable looks and twitching torso, but he ground his teeth and nodded again.

Kinzer pushed in and pulled out. With each attack, he evoked a more pained reaction from his victim. It delighted him, excited him. And as much as Lyle writhed about, it was clear by his rock-hard erection he was enjoying the encounter just as much.

Kinzer squeezed the back of Lyle’s neck and used the leverage to permit him to drive into Lyle as deeply as possible.

Kinzer pulled his hand back, permitting Lyle’s cries: “Oh, oh! Ah!”

They made Kinzer even harder, which in turn evoked another groan from Lyle.

Kinzer liked making him pay. It made him feel like he had power over something, which at this time, felt so distant. He’d lost his own power so long ago.

Lyle looked into his eyes.

It was unsettling. It reminded him too much of the loving looks he’d once received from Dedrus and Janka, two higherlings he didn’t want to think of right then.

He pulled out.

“Get up,” he snapped.

He grabbed Lyle’s shoulders and escorted him off the bed. He spun him around and pinned him against the wall, forcing himself back inside.

“Ah!” Lyle screamed. “Oh, yeah. Fuck me, fuck me!”

So Kinzer did. Hard. He shoved himself inside. Lyle’s hole tightened and occasionally forced Kinzer’s flesh back out slightly, but Kinzer effortlessly shoved it back in with deep, thoughtless thrusts.

Lyle tossed his head back, and Kinzer grabbed his face, massaging his fingers across his cheeks, his thumb into his mouth. He wanted complete control over him. He wanted to possess him. To be totally in charge. Despite the efforts of Lyle’s body to resist, it was clear by the way he pushed his own ass back to accept Kinzer, that he wanted this pain as much as Kinzer wanted to give it to him. It reminded him of how eager Dedrus had been to take his abuse, a thought that saddened him. He shook his head as he continued fucking Lyle, trying to shake the mental images from his thoughts. But he couldn’t. He was only reminded that he’d never have the chance to show Dedrus how much he’d cared for him, because he was gone forever.

The rage that consumed him made him want to hurt Lyle even more. He seized locks of his hair and yanked them back forcefully as he shoved himself in violently, recklessly.

Lyle cried out, not like a man who was aroused, but like an animal that was being attacked.

Kinzer wrapped his arm around Lyle’s neck and clung tight enough to stifle the scream.

“Come in me,” Lyle forced through the chokehold.

“You want it? Huh?”

“Please…”

Kinzer pulled out, grabbed Lyle’s arm, and tossed him back on the bed.

Lyle raised his legs, inviting Kinzer back in.

But Kinzer didn’t enter. He wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. He jerked his cock before Lyle’s hole and squirted his load across the rim.

White fluid rushed from the head of his dick, spilling across the pink flesh around Lyle’s hole.

“Oh, shit,” Lyle said, his eyes wide, suggesting he was impressed with how much cum oozed from Kinzer.

Kinzer wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t gotten off in a while.

Kinzer smiled and pressed the head of his dick against his milky fluid, collecting it under the rim of his cock’s head before sliding it back into Lyle’s hole.

Lyle rolled his head back, grabbed his own cock, and stroked it.

He reeled in delight.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Kinzer said, snatched his wrist and then seized the other, pressing them against the mattress.

Lyle looked at him in shock.

“You’re gonna come like this.” Spit trailed behind Kinzer’s words and collected on Lyle’s cheek.

Kinzer rocked his pelvis back and forth. Powerfully. Intensely. As if attempting to reach so deep inside his victim he would be able to cause a serious injury.

His lips met Lyle’s nipple. He tickled it with his tongue, ran it in circles, working to tease him. His expertise with mortals and immortals was too powerful for Lyle to fight. Soon, cum streaked across his dirty-blond happy trail, a wad settling in dips of his abs just above his navel.

He breathed hard, his body shivering as it surely struggled to enjoy the ecstasy while surviving the pain of Kinzer being so deep within him.

“You more than earned this,” Lyle said. He rose from a crouching position on the floor, holding a sheet of paper he’d retrieved from his bag. He crawled onto the bed to Kinzer, who sat on the edge of the mattress, staring off.

He felt disgusting. Dirty.

Lyle wrapped his arms around him, handed him the sheet, and kissed his shoulder softly.

The kiss gave Kinzer goose bumps. It made him feel like Lyle was going to ask if they could be boyfriends. Kinzer glanced at the paper.

“You sure it’s him?”

“Positive. He worked under several different names. Real one’s Carl. He’s at a hospital in Houston. Been there for the past few weeks. I told you I could find anyone.”

Kinzer turned to him and smiled, a large, phony smile. He kissed him and pulled back quickly.

“Thanks,” he said curtly.

Lyle stroked Kinzer’s arms, his gaze begging for another sexual encounter. He kissed the back of his neck softly.

It was too much for Kinzer. He hopped up, retrieved his jeans off the floor, and slid them on. His dick shook about, flapping against his legs until he tucked it in his jeans and pulled them the rest of the way up.

Lyle looked disappointed. Like he was hoping for so much more.

Kinzer grabbed his shirt and headed into the bathroom.

“Hey,” Lyle said, jumping off the mattress and racing after him. “When will I see you again?”

Kinzer picked up his bag and gave Lyle a disapproving glare. “Really?” he asked. “Grow up, kid.”

He regretted calling him kid. The name evoked the memory of someone he respected. Someone he cared about. Someone whose life he’d destroyed.

He shook it off and abandoned the motel. As he walked through the parking lot, he pulled his cell from his pocket and dialed.

“Maggie,” he said. “Meet me on Cheshire and Piedmont.”

***

Maggie crossed under a bridge.

She’d been down the street at a small bookshop, having some coffee and relaxing into a fashion magazine, trying to forget what Kinzer was doing. Then she’d received his call. The deed was done, and she hoped the information he’d received had been worth it.

She spotted Kinzer, his head hung low, his hands in his pockets, his duffle bag hanging from his shoulder. She turned on her blinker, pulled alongside the road, and rolled down the car window.

“Need a lift?” she joked.

Kinzer’s gaze met hers, and the sadness in his eyes dissipated. His lips curled up, though she imagined he’d forced the smile to ease her concern about him. As he got in the car, he brushed his fingers through the front wave in his jet-black hair. His shoulders and pecs were tense against the tee he wore.

“All good?” she asked.

He nodded.

As indifferent as Kinzer had seemed about using his body in exchange for information, Maggie could tell it bothered him. It bothered her, too. These sorts of transactions were the perfect representations of that part of humanity that was so heinous Maggie wondered how he was able to have faith in mankind.

“And you’re sure this guy can help us get to Veylo?”

“It’s the closest thing I’ve got to a lead, so I sure fucking hope so.”

She pulled onto the road.

***

“Home sweet home,” Kinzer said.

Maggie could sense the sarcasm, but with it came a bitter reminder of how much time they’d spent in this shitty loft.

Kinzer flipped on the fluorescent lights, approached an island in the kitchen, and set a sheet of paper from his pocket on it.

He glanced around the bare room that had been their living area since he and Maggie had started their journey—started searching for answers as to where the Christ was.

He walked to the wall-length window on the opposite side of the loft and gazed out at the city lights.

He looked so lonely. She couldn’t say it was very different from when she’d first met him, but it saddened her. He was a compassionate, kind man—well, a fallen. She knew he’d cared deeply for Dedrus, the higherling that had initially held her captive. In nights when they would go to the local bar for drinks, he would tell her of their times together–the times he’d had with Janka, the cruel ex-lover who he’d believed had died, but who had been secretly conspiring with God to destroy the world.

Sharing their drama-filled lives with one another had birthed a deeper connection between them.

“You gonna head to bed?” she asked.

He stared out the dust-covered window and shook his head.

“Nah. Think I’m gonna look this hospital up, figure out how we’re gonna get there, and then maybe workout.”

Work out. That’s all he seemed to do these days. He’d informed Maggie that, since he no longer had his wings, one of his myriad disadvantages was that his body didn’t keep itself up as it once had, as it did for most immortals. He had to work extra hard to maintain his muscular physique. She gave him credit, because he did a very good job, though he never seemed to be satisfied with it.

“Well… ’night then,” she said.

Kinzer nodded, lost in his daze. She wondered what he was thinking about—his loss of Dedrus, the betrayal of Janka, the horrible predicament they were in. So many things he could have been contemplating. Maybe it was all too much to think about, as it was for Maggie on occasion. Maybe, like her, he just stared off, trying to drown out the noise that crowded his thoughts.

She headed into her room and flipped on a lamp, gazing down at a mattress with cotton pushing from tears in the fabric. It had been her bed since they’d arrived there. It wasn’t easy to sleep on. But it was just as good as any of the places she’d slept before she’d met Kinzer. She imagined some women wouldn’t have been caught dead in such a place. After all the backs of cars she’d slept in, rough as this was, it was fine. Although, it was strange falling asleep without having passed out from a trip or drunken spell.

Nice, but strange.

She hadn’t touched crystal since she’d been kidnapped months earlier. She’d been dry, something she’d never thought she’d say. It hadn’t been a deliberate choice as much as part of the natural sobriety that had followed the events of a few months prior.

She removed her shirt and pants and gazed in the mirror.

Her dirty-blonde hair, once naturally straight, waved from her chin to her chest. It was dry and rife with split ends.

Her worn, cream panties and bra clung to odd patches of fat that had remained on her since the pregnancy. She figured some of it would never leave, but it wasn’t vanity that bothered her. It was the recognition that she would always be reminded of the beast she’d carried inside her—the monster that was to end mankind.

Initially, Kinzer and his crew of immortals had believed she was carrying the Antichrist, which would prevent God’s Christ from destroying the world. But they’d been deceived. She’d really been carrying the Christ all along. Veylo, the leader of a gang of fallens known as the Raze had taken the baby, and since that night, she and Kinzer had embarked on a quest to prepare to hunt the Christ—her child.

She’d never wanted a child before, but since she’d had her child so cruelly ripped from her grasp, she couldn’t help but feel that she had been denied something she’d deserved. Though she didn’t deserve it. Maybe she had in another life, but nothing that she’d done in this one could have possibly permitted her to say she deserved anything.

She would never know what it was like to be a mother. And though she kept telling herself that was for the best, she wasn’t sure that she believed it.

She removed her bra and panties, turned off the light, and situated herself in her bed.

An orange glow from a streetlamp outside spilled into the room, as it always did. The only sound she could hear was the occasional revving of a motor as cars passed on the street outside.

She and Kinzer lived a lonely life, but she couldn’t say it was any lonelier than the one she’d lived before she’d met him. Back then, it was her and her pimp, Kirk, who tricked her out. They’d eagerly accept the rewards of her labor and then spend the rest of the night enjoying crank. It’d been less than a year since she’d lived that life, but it seemed so far away now. So much had happened, so much had been revealed to her. And now she was stuck in this new sort of loneliness, without anything to relieve her pain.

***

Maggie woke with a start.

She heard something in the darkness, rolled off the mattress, and retrieved the broadsword tucked between the wall and her mattress. It was the sword Kinzer had given her.

A blade glistened in the light pouring in from the street. She struck before her and blocked it.

“Quick thinking,” Kinzer said.

She was pissed and relieved. It was just another of Kinzer’s tests.

Following that dark day when Kinzer had rescued Maggie after she’d given birth, they’d returned to Dedrus and Treycore’s house, where Kinzer opened a secret compartment in the wall and looted supplies: swords, daggers, vials—an extensive assortment of weapons Dedrus had collected over the years. Kinzer had given her one of the swords, which he informed her had been Dedrus’s. He taught her how to use it, hoping that in the event of an emergency, she could take on an immortal in a fight. In their time together, he’d helped her become physically fit and prepare to battle immortals to get to the Christ. She knew she wouldn’t easily win against such superior creatures, but she was willing to do whatever was necessary to set things right—to stop the monster she’d birthed from destroying the world.

Initially, Kinzer hadn’t come at her with swords in her sleep, but as she became more and more skilled, his attacks became abrupt, surprising. He’d told her this was the only way to train for a war. While he was right, it was hardly the way she was used to living.

Her heart raced and sweat beaded across her forehead. In an instant, she was wide-awake, alert.

Kinzer’s movements were quick and powerful. In the dark, all she could see was his silhouette and the luminous sword, which she had to keep up with. Fortunately, she could feel his movements and catch shifts in his position by the change in his silhouette, tricks he’d taught her early on.

As Kinzer pulled his sword back for another attack, Maggie jabbed at him.

He ducked and swung his sword, hitting the side of her legs.

The blow was powerful and knocked her back onto her mattress.

Dammit.

Kinzer had hit her with the side of the sword, as he usually did to make a point that he could have easily severed off a leg or an arm.

He flipped on the overhead fluorescent lights.

“I’d say that was pretty good,” Maggie said, “considering I haven’t been doing this since before humanity existed.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. It was good. Not good enough, but good.”

He smirked. Maggie sighed.

“’Night, Maggie.”

He flicked the light back off and headed out.

Maggie wiped the sweat that had collected on her palms, against her sheets.

’Night? Like I’m gonna be able to get back to sleep now. Fuck you.