Broken Contracts, page 24
For a moment he was on a different floor, blood on his hands, gasping for air and watching a piece of his heart walk away from him.
Another drop of blood, this one black as coal, and Slate grit his teeth.
He didn’t have time for this. He had work to do.
April 2016
In the end, Slate told Megan to get rid of him.
He’d thought of doing it himself.
Hell, he’d thought of doing it himself a number of ways.
Drowning was the one that kept coming back to him. Holding Micah under the water, watching the panic overtake his features, feeling his body writhe as he finally lost his composure and began to fight.
Since banishing Micah back to his cell, Slate had resolved to kill him on four different occasions, and on four different occasions, Slate had changed his mind. He told himself it was because Micah still might be useful. The mark on his body might still be a clue in all of this. That was why Slate was hesitant to kill him, not because of any attachment he’d formed over their time together.
Slate sighed, leaning forward to run his fingers through the gate again. The ether was cold and soothing and indifferent to the lies he told himself.
He couldn’t keep Micah.
He told himself it was because Micah had disobeyed, because Micah was dangerous to keep, and that might even have been the truth. Another truth was, if he kept Micah, sooner or later, he’d kill him. He wanted to. He looked forward to it, sometimes.
Another truth was, Slate didn’t think he’d get over that.
And so he’d sent Micah away. He’d signed the paperwork to transfer Micah to a work site, the sort of place that chewed through indents and slaves alike, leaving nothing but neat, bureaucratically accurate death certificates.
In six months, maybe a year, Micah would be dead. He would be dead because he had tried to leave, and as much as Slate couldn’t keep him, he couldn’t let him walk away, either.
Not him.
Slate knew that, just as he knew he couldn’t kill Micah himself.
It was another door he couldn’t bring himself to step through.
And then word came back that Micah had never made it to his destination, that he and Megan had simply vanished into the ether, and Slate realized his fate wasn’t that easy to avoid.
May 2016
Slate kept his composure long enough to make it back to the car. It was parked on the broken blacktop of the Selina police department, where he’d come to collect the errant little slut who’d thought he could walk away.
It answered one question. Slate had never seen a connection between the two runaways because there had never been one. They hadn’t run away together at all. Megan had seen an opportunity and taken it.
Megan was still nowhere to be found, but Micah.
Micah.
Micah had been unrecognizable.
His face had been the same—hair curling over his collarbones, hazel eyes bright, and wide full lips that begged to be parted—but the man behind them was different.
The driver got the door, and Slate slid casually into the back seat before pounding his fists into the upholstery, over and over until blood rushed in his ears and he saw red at the corners of his vision.
Micah had been ruined. That was all there was to it. Micah, the perfect reflection of his owner’s needs, had found someone rotten. Someone who told him to stand proud and stare his betters in the eyes. That beautiful empty connection was obscured by a new one, turgid and thick, drawing poison like an umbilical.
“Ohhh,” Slate growled, diving for his computer.
He couldn’t remember who he owned at this department—he’d mistakenly thought the answer was everyone, but he hadn’t managed this situation personally in years—but whoever it was, they were about to get a fucking earful.
He found the officer’s name five seconds before the phone rang. Caller ID showed the house number.
Slate stared at it in horror, large and dangerous puzzle pieces sliding into place. That son-of-a-bitch detective had called him all the way down here knowing full fucking well he wasn’t going to release Micah.
Why?
To get him out of the house, of course. So it could be searched without his interference.
Slate didn’t answer, just chose a different number. A burner whose ring would set off alarm bells in estates and businesses all over the world.
When those alarms began to ring, the hiding would begin. People would vanish. People who had already been vanished would die. Favors would be called in, bribes paid. Influences shifted.
Taking a deep breath, Slate pressed Call.
It didn’t save them.
The party at the inn was over. People no longer wanted to be where People were—not when the backstabbing began. And it began fast.
Godfrey’s aliases weren’t as bulletproof as he thought. He rolled instantly to save his own skin. Arabelle’s phone numbers began deactivating.
Coffey liquidated his collections. The Gestalt slipped through Slate’s fingers twice, first when Coffey killed him and again when his surprisingly animate corpse was taken into the custody of—of all the fucking people—the Selina police department.
Slate was only slightly surprised when Coffey’s attempt to retrieve the angel was, in a word, unsuccessful.
When Locke and his lover were found dead in their bedroom, Slate began making plans.
Slate sat in the ballroom of the inn, cross-legged as he stared into the gateway. The shadows within twisted enticingly, beckoning like cheap whores.
He could see the cracks now, the ones Christopher had spoken of. The ones that existed in the middle grounds of reality, glimpses around the proscenium to where the props and rigging waited to be used.
Upstairs, Micah was creeping down the hallway, looking for the way into the basement. He was using some kind of talisman to evade the visible light spectrum, but the thermal cameras showed his progress as clear as day.
Slate sat patiently, listening to the shadows, until the security team reported they’d caught him. He’d come right down the stairwell on his own, just as Slate had predicted. He knew what Micah was here for. The Gestalt wouldn’t be far away, back again to wreak the havoc that had been his purpose all along.
Slate rose slowly, slapping life back into his tingling limbs. He’d been here longer than he’d thought. Justin waited, watching from his post near the door, paying no attention to the muffled sounds of pain coming down the hallway.
“You want me to go get Jasmine?” Justin asked, and Slate nodded, waving him off before following him down the hall.
Micah lay on the floor, barely five steps from the stairs, twitching under the ministrations of a stun gun jammed into his side. A small crowd had already formed, watching hungrily.
The clicking stopped and Micah collapsed, meeting Slate’s eyes as he tried to catch his breath. Slate could see the fear there, and he gave Micah a little smile.
“Here to do the angel’s dirty work, hmm? We thought he might show up himself.”
“Just me, you son of a bitch,” Micah lied. There was defiance in his eyes, and Slate’s heart broke a little. Micah had been so promising, rising so perfectly to the occasion when utilized by those who knew how to use him properly. He was wasted on this.
Slate gestured for the guards to search him, watching as they retrieved and discarded various weapons and tools. Micah kept up the bratty glare the whole time. When they hauled him to his feet, Slate noticed, maybe for the first time, that Micah was taller than him.
“I’m free. You can’t hold me and you know it,” he snapped, vitriol on his tongue like acid.
“Someone gave you your voice back,” Slate said, frowning. He lifted Micah’s hand, pushing his sleeve down, and Micah at least knew better than to resist. His barcode was gone, tattooed over with the image of a forest. “I’ll have to have that fixed.”
He took hold of Micah’s shirt and yanked, tearing it down the front. He kept his focus on the real world, not wanting to see that grotesque new connection that Micah had formed. Instead, he let his fingers play over the unbroken skin of Micah’s chest. Before Megan had taken him away, Slate had scrawled a message there—damaged goods. He hadn’t realized how far Micah could fall. It gave him an idea of where to start.
“I remember putting my mark here, last time I saw you. Apparently I should’ve used something more permanent.”
The gathering crowd shifted, trying to get a good look as Micah’s hands were shackled together and he was bustled over to a restraint post. Slate didn’t know when it had been installed. He’d lost track of the crowds that milled through here. This wasn’t the first time the space had been used for a show like this. Around here, this was just another weeknight.
Looking around, Slate counted a couple of dozen people, mostly dregs, hangers-on who had been left behind when those they’d hung on to had gone into hiding. He didn’t recognize most of them, and didn’t particularly care. They weren’t important.
Micah’s bound hands were hauled above his head, immobilizing him on his toes. A little further, and he’d quickly lose the ability to breathe—but it wasn’t time for that yet. Slate let him bear his weight on his feet, for now.
He searched the crowd, trying to find Jasmine—that was her name, not Lavender, Jasmine—and beckoned her forward. She had the kit from Godfrey’s makeshift office, and looked eager to use it. Slate held out his hand, not bothering to verbalize, and she reluctantly handed it over. She’d get her chance.
Slate sterilized one of Godfrey’s scalpels, enjoying the way Micah’s eyes widened when he saw it.
“Normally I’d get a doctor to do this,” Slate said, “but we seem to have a shortage of those lately. As I’m sure you know.”
Micah remembered his training, keeping his jaw clenched as the scalpel bit into his skin. Only the quietest whimpers escaped his lips as Slate worked. No one else could see the rot that had filled this lovely vessel to its brim, so Slate made sure it was obvious.
DAMAGED GOODS. The block letters dripped blood down the planes of Micah’s belly, mixing with the perspiration beading there.
If he were still Slate’s, it wouldn’t be so bad. They’d ache for a few days and then Slate would pay to have the scars removed. Worst-case scenario, he’d carry them until his next sale.
Slate was absolutely certain that Micah’s new friend, the controller who lived in a tarpaper shack, didn’t have the kind of money it would take to treat these. If Slate let him live—and that was a big if—he’d carry these scars the rest of his life. And he knew it.
Someone picked up the bottle of alcohol Slate had used to sterilize the knife, and doused Micah’s chest in the clear liquid. Slate almost winced in sympathy as the slave screamed. He’d been silent through worse.
“Shouldn’t have let Godfrey talk me out of taking his tongue.”
Jasmine stepped forward, tired of waiting for her turn. She unzipped the case, lifting it so Micah could see the shining needles within. Slate had had the jewelry made special for this.
“A free man, hmm?” she said, tilting her head at him. “I think you just need a bit more training.”
Slate watched, relishing the tiny motions of Micah’s body as Jasmine pierced him. He thought of the last time he’d had this done to Micah, all those months ago, when he’d been sure that everything he wanted was in his grasp. It was all falling down around them now—but to be sure, it was falling down around Micah faster.
She did his septum and his nipples, his hands balling into fists and his jaw clenching, but not much more than that. There was a purpling bruise forming over his ribs, courtesy of the security team no doubt. Compared to their tender ministrations, a needle through a nipple was nothing.
But Jasmine wasn’t to be denied her due. She clipped a gold chain to the nipple rings, grinning into Micah’s face as she tugged it ever so gently forward. Micah struggled to rise higher, but the manacles already left him with little slack. He hissed as the chain went tight, pulling against the tender wounds.
She laughed and leaned into him, her tongue slipping past his lips in a deep kiss he couldn’t pull away from. The crowd jeered and she turned toward them, grinning. “Ready for the fun part?”
Slate crossed his arms, watching as volunteers stepped forward to strip Micah out of his jeans. The material was ruined with blood and isopropyl, and Slate felt a petty sort of satisfaction knowing that he’d cost Micah that.
Jasmine crouched down, then looked up at Slate, frowning. She’d been prepared to pierce the head of his cock, replacing the barbell that any free man would surely have removed by now.
“The other one’s still here. What do you want me to do?”
The satisfaction vanished as Micah smirked, his eyes meeting Slate’s like a dare. He quickly wiped the expression away, his face regaining that same blankness that Slate knew so well.
Had that smirk been there all along?
Slate strode forward, one hand fisting in Micah’s hair, the other yanking at the gold chain. He forced Micah to look at him.
Those hazel eyes stared up, blank as glass.
“You think that’s funny,” Slate realized. “You think this is your choice.”
How long had that been there, beneath the surface, hidden behind the masks that Micah wore so well? Months? Years?
Micah’s empty eyes gave him no answers.
“You still want to tell me I can’t?” Slate snapped, giving the chain another tug. Micah shook his head once, and Slate released him. He leaned in.
“You’re the same as you’ve ever been.” His voice was too low for the rest of the crowd to hear. This was just for Micah. They wouldn’t understand. “You say you’re free and strong because those are the desires of the man who fucked you last.” Micah stiffened beneath him, and Slate knew he’d struck pay dirt. “He takes you to bed and you pretend to love it. Maybe even pretend to love him, because that’s what he needs from you. I bet sometimes you even believe it. That’s how good you are.” Micah tried to shake his head, but Slate tightened his grip. “How convenient for him, to fall in love with exactly the man who could do this job for him?” He dropped his voice one more time, letting the words carry on his breath. “I bet coming here was your idea, and everything. No. You’re not free. And you never will be. You don’t know how.”
Slate released the chain, backing up and raising his voice so the crowd could hear. “I’m gonna pass you around like a fucking party favor.” He looked to Micah. “By the time I kill you, you’ll forget you were ever free.”
The laughter of the crowd buried Micah’s groan as Jasmine buried one of her needles in his cock. Someone produced a blindfold, dropping it over Micah’s eyes as the rope holding his wrists was released. Slate stepped back, letting the crowd have their fun.
He’d let other people fuck Micah before, obviously, but never so many at once. They descended over him like locusts, spreading and pulling and shoving as Micah did his best to remain pliant beneath them. The bruising was spreading, and Slate suspected Micah had at least one cracked rib. He couldn’t help but dwell on that, how much it would be hurting the slave to draw in those deep gasps on the occasion that someone took their dick out of his mouth. They’d put a ring gag on him, leaving him helpless as they took him deep and hard.
The sight didn’t arouse him the way it once might have.
He had something more interesting planned for this evening. Something he’d bought the day Godfrey was arrested.
Leaving the party behind him, Slate returned to Godfrey’s office, retrieving the two electric brands. They were custom orders, the A and S stylized just so. They made a lovely pair.
By the time he returned, Micah was unconscious. It seemed like a waste to Slate.
He plugged the irons in, setting them on a low table so he could watch them heat.
By the time his guests bored of their new fuckdoll, the irons were hot and Micah was conscious again. He was laid out on a table, his arms and legs held down by various people. Slate gestured for them to turn him onto his stomach. Micah tried to do it gingerly, but no one here was taking it easy on him. Slate didn’t envy him the feeling of his full weight on those new piercings.
Someone produced a length of rope, using it to tightly bind Micah’s leg to the leg of the table. It wouldn’t do to have him moving at all during this process. Micah could hold still if ordered to do so—usually. This, though . . . this was something else.
Slate turned the brand slowly in his hands, knowing that Micah could see it. He remembered a time when he’d planned a different way to put his initials on Micah. He suspected Micah remembered too.
“I got it for the angel, of course,” Slate lied, looking up at Micah. “Figured if I was going to have to mark him up again, might as well do it in style.” He twisted the brand around in his fingers, watching it turn. He cut his eyes back to Micah. “There’s an S too.”
Micah tried to vanish, tried to turn on that blankness, but there was too much fear now.
“Two strikes,” Slate instructed, handing the brand over to Justin. He sauntered slowly out of Micah’s field of vision, taking in the sight of his trembling body. It reminded him of the good old days. Considering a moment, Slate slapped him hard just above the line where his ass met his thigh, the handprint instantly turning red.
“Right there,” he directed Justin. “Right on that red mark.”
Justin complied, pressing the burning metal against Micah’s flesh in a single, sure stroke. His face didn’t change as Micah screamed.
The crowd moved in, hands holding Micah still as he thrashed despite himself. Slate regretfully admitted it was the right move. Usually he loved this part, the moment where Micah’s training failed, where his body struggled and fought without his permission—but the brand would have smeared, and Slate really wanted the mark to be legible.
If Micah lived, everyone he ever fucked would know Slate’s name.
Micah let out a low keen as the first brand was removed, and Justin lined up the second. His eyes were shut tight, his breath coming ragged through his clenched teeth. His hair fell across his face, damp with sweat, and Slate resolved to fuck him at least once more before he died. Not here, but later, somewhere where it was just the two of them and Micah could focus a little better.
Another drop of blood, this one black as coal, and Slate grit his teeth.
He didn’t have time for this. He had work to do.
April 2016
In the end, Slate told Megan to get rid of him.
He’d thought of doing it himself.
Hell, he’d thought of doing it himself a number of ways.
Drowning was the one that kept coming back to him. Holding Micah under the water, watching the panic overtake his features, feeling his body writhe as he finally lost his composure and began to fight.
Since banishing Micah back to his cell, Slate had resolved to kill him on four different occasions, and on four different occasions, Slate had changed his mind. He told himself it was because Micah still might be useful. The mark on his body might still be a clue in all of this. That was why Slate was hesitant to kill him, not because of any attachment he’d formed over their time together.
Slate sighed, leaning forward to run his fingers through the gate again. The ether was cold and soothing and indifferent to the lies he told himself.
He couldn’t keep Micah.
He told himself it was because Micah had disobeyed, because Micah was dangerous to keep, and that might even have been the truth. Another truth was, if he kept Micah, sooner or later, he’d kill him. He wanted to. He looked forward to it, sometimes.
Another truth was, Slate didn’t think he’d get over that.
And so he’d sent Micah away. He’d signed the paperwork to transfer Micah to a work site, the sort of place that chewed through indents and slaves alike, leaving nothing but neat, bureaucratically accurate death certificates.
In six months, maybe a year, Micah would be dead. He would be dead because he had tried to leave, and as much as Slate couldn’t keep him, he couldn’t let him walk away, either.
Not him.
Slate knew that, just as he knew he couldn’t kill Micah himself.
It was another door he couldn’t bring himself to step through.
And then word came back that Micah had never made it to his destination, that he and Megan had simply vanished into the ether, and Slate realized his fate wasn’t that easy to avoid.
May 2016
Slate kept his composure long enough to make it back to the car. It was parked on the broken blacktop of the Selina police department, where he’d come to collect the errant little slut who’d thought he could walk away.
It answered one question. Slate had never seen a connection between the two runaways because there had never been one. They hadn’t run away together at all. Megan had seen an opportunity and taken it.
Megan was still nowhere to be found, but Micah.
Micah.
Micah had been unrecognizable.
His face had been the same—hair curling over his collarbones, hazel eyes bright, and wide full lips that begged to be parted—but the man behind them was different.
The driver got the door, and Slate slid casually into the back seat before pounding his fists into the upholstery, over and over until blood rushed in his ears and he saw red at the corners of his vision.
Micah had been ruined. That was all there was to it. Micah, the perfect reflection of his owner’s needs, had found someone rotten. Someone who told him to stand proud and stare his betters in the eyes. That beautiful empty connection was obscured by a new one, turgid and thick, drawing poison like an umbilical.
“Ohhh,” Slate growled, diving for his computer.
He couldn’t remember who he owned at this department—he’d mistakenly thought the answer was everyone, but he hadn’t managed this situation personally in years—but whoever it was, they were about to get a fucking earful.
He found the officer’s name five seconds before the phone rang. Caller ID showed the house number.
Slate stared at it in horror, large and dangerous puzzle pieces sliding into place. That son-of-a-bitch detective had called him all the way down here knowing full fucking well he wasn’t going to release Micah.
Why?
To get him out of the house, of course. So it could be searched without his interference.
Slate didn’t answer, just chose a different number. A burner whose ring would set off alarm bells in estates and businesses all over the world.
When those alarms began to ring, the hiding would begin. People would vanish. People who had already been vanished would die. Favors would be called in, bribes paid. Influences shifted.
Taking a deep breath, Slate pressed Call.
It didn’t save them.
The party at the inn was over. People no longer wanted to be where People were—not when the backstabbing began. And it began fast.
Godfrey’s aliases weren’t as bulletproof as he thought. He rolled instantly to save his own skin. Arabelle’s phone numbers began deactivating.
Coffey liquidated his collections. The Gestalt slipped through Slate’s fingers twice, first when Coffey killed him and again when his surprisingly animate corpse was taken into the custody of—of all the fucking people—the Selina police department.
Slate was only slightly surprised when Coffey’s attempt to retrieve the angel was, in a word, unsuccessful.
When Locke and his lover were found dead in their bedroom, Slate began making plans.
Slate sat in the ballroom of the inn, cross-legged as he stared into the gateway. The shadows within twisted enticingly, beckoning like cheap whores.
He could see the cracks now, the ones Christopher had spoken of. The ones that existed in the middle grounds of reality, glimpses around the proscenium to where the props and rigging waited to be used.
Upstairs, Micah was creeping down the hallway, looking for the way into the basement. He was using some kind of talisman to evade the visible light spectrum, but the thermal cameras showed his progress as clear as day.
Slate sat patiently, listening to the shadows, until the security team reported they’d caught him. He’d come right down the stairwell on his own, just as Slate had predicted. He knew what Micah was here for. The Gestalt wouldn’t be far away, back again to wreak the havoc that had been his purpose all along.
Slate rose slowly, slapping life back into his tingling limbs. He’d been here longer than he’d thought. Justin waited, watching from his post near the door, paying no attention to the muffled sounds of pain coming down the hallway.
“You want me to go get Jasmine?” Justin asked, and Slate nodded, waving him off before following him down the hall.
Micah lay on the floor, barely five steps from the stairs, twitching under the ministrations of a stun gun jammed into his side. A small crowd had already formed, watching hungrily.
The clicking stopped and Micah collapsed, meeting Slate’s eyes as he tried to catch his breath. Slate could see the fear there, and he gave Micah a little smile.
“Here to do the angel’s dirty work, hmm? We thought he might show up himself.”
“Just me, you son of a bitch,” Micah lied. There was defiance in his eyes, and Slate’s heart broke a little. Micah had been so promising, rising so perfectly to the occasion when utilized by those who knew how to use him properly. He was wasted on this.
Slate gestured for the guards to search him, watching as they retrieved and discarded various weapons and tools. Micah kept up the bratty glare the whole time. When they hauled him to his feet, Slate noticed, maybe for the first time, that Micah was taller than him.
“I’m free. You can’t hold me and you know it,” he snapped, vitriol on his tongue like acid.
“Someone gave you your voice back,” Slate said, frowning. He lifted Micah’s hand, pushing his sleeve down, and Micah at least knew better than to resist. His barcode was gone, tattooed over with the image of a forest. “I’ll have to have that fixed.”
He took hold of Micah’s shirt and yanked, tearing it down the front. He kept his focus on the real world, not wanting to see that grotesque new connection that Micah had formed. Instead, he let his fingers play over the unbroken skin of Micah’s chest. Before Megan had taken him away, Slate had scrawled a message there—damaged goods. He hadn’t realized how far Micah could fall. It gave him an idea of where to start.
“I remember putting my mark here, last time I saw you. Apparently I should’ve used something more permanent.”
The gathering crowd shifted, trying to get a good look as Micah’s hands were shackled together and he was bustled over to a restraint post. Slate didn’t know when it had been installed. He’d lost track of the crowds that milled through here. This wasn’t the first time the space had been used for a show like this. Around here, this was just another weeknight.
Looking around, Slate counted a couple of dozen people, mostly dregs, hangers-on who had been left behind when those they’d hung on to had gone into hiding. He didn’t recognize most of them, and didn’t particularly care. They weren’t important.
Micah’s bound hands were hauled above his head, immobilizing him on his toes. A little further, and he’d quickly lose the ability to breathe—but it wasn’t time for that yet. Slate let him bear his weight on his feet, for now.
He searched the crowd, trying to find Jasmine—that was her name, not Lavender, Jasmine—and beckoned her forward. She had the kit from Godfrey’s makeshift office, and looked eager to use it. Slate held out his hand, not bothering to verbalize, and she reluctantly handed it over. She’d get her chance.
Slate sterilized one of Godfrey’s scalpels, enjoying the way Micah’s eyes widened when he saw it.
“Normally I’d get a doctor to do this,” Slate said, “but we seem to have a shortage of those lately. As I’m sure you know.”
Micah remembered his training, keeping his jaw clenched as the scalpel bit into his skin. Only the quietest whimpers escaped his lips as Slate worked. No one else could see the rot that had filled this lovely vessel to its brim, so Slate made sure it was obvious.
DAMAGED GOODS. The block letters dripped blood down the planes of Micah’s belly, mixing with the perspiration beading there.
If he were still Slate’s, it wouldn’t be so bad. They’d ache for a few days and then Slate would pay to have the scars removed. Worst-case scenario, he’d carry them until his next sale.
Slate was absolutely certain that Micah’s new friend, the controller who lived in a tarpaper shack, didn’t have the kind of money it would take to treat these. If Slate let him live—and that was a big if—he’d carry these scars the rest of his life. And he knew it.
Someone picked up the bottle of alcohol Slate had used to sterilize the knife, and doused Micah’s chest in the clear liquid. Slate almost winced in sympathy as the slave screamed. He’d been silent through worse.
“Shouldn’t have let Godfrey talk me out of taking his tongue.”
Jasmine stepped forward, tired of waiting for her turn. She unzipped the case, lifting it so Micah could see the shining needles within. Slate had had the jewelry made special for this.
“A free man, hmm?” she said, tilting her head at him. “I think you just need a bit more training.”
Slate watched, relishing the tiny motions of Micah’s body as Jasmine pierced him. He thought of the last time he’d had this done to Micah, all those months ago, when he’d been sure that everything he wanted was in his grasp. It was all falling down around them now—but to be sure, it was falling down around Micah faster.
She did his septum and his nipples, his hands balling into fists and his jaw clenching, but not much more than that. There was a purpling bruise forming over his ribs, courtesy of the security team no doubt. Compared to their tender ministrations, a needle through a nipple was nothing.
But Jasmine wasn’t to be denied her due. She clipped a gold chain to the nipple rings, grinning into Micah’s face as she tugged it ever so gently forward. Micah struggled to rise higher, but the manacles already left him with little slack. He hissed as the chain went tight, pulling against the tender wounds.
She laughed and leaned into him, her tongue slipping past his lips in a deep kiss he couldn’t pull away from. The crowd jeered and she turned toward them, grinning. “Ready for the fun part?”
Slate crossed his arms, watching as volunteers stepped forward to strip Micah out of his jeans. The material was ruined with blood and isopropyl, and Slate felt a petty sort of satisfaction knowing that he’d cost Micah that.
Jasmine crouched down, then looked up at Slate, frowning. She’d been prepared to pierce the head of his cock, replacing the barbell that any free man would surely have removed by now.
“The other one’s still here. What do you want me to do?”
The satisfaction vanished as Micah smirked, his eyes meeting Slate’s like a dare. He quickly wiped the expression away, his face regaining that same blankness that Slate knew so well.
Had that smirk been there all along?
Slate strode forward, one hand fisting in Micah’s hair, the other yanking at the gold chain. He forced Micah to look at him.
Those hazel eyes stared up, blank as glass.
“You think that’s funny,” Slate realized. “You think this is your choice.”
How long had that been there, beneath the surface, hidden behind the masks that Micah wore so well? Months? Years?
Micah’s empty eyes gave him no answers.
“You still want to tell me I can’t?” Slate snapped, giving the chain another tug. Micah shook his head once, and Slate released him. He leaned in.
“You’re the same as you’ve ever been.” His voice was too low for the rest of the crowd to hear. This was just for Micah. They wouldn’t understand. “You say you’re free and strong because those are the desires of the man who fucked you last.” Micah stiffened beneath him, and Slate knew he’d struck pay dirt. “He takes you to bed and you pretend to love it. Maybe even pretend to love him, because that’s what he needs from you. I bet sometimes you even believe it. That’s how good you are.” Micah tried to shake his head, but Slate tightened his grip. “How convenient for him, to fall in love with exactly the man who could do this job for him?” He dropped his voice one more time, letting the words carry on his breath. “I bet coming here was your idea, and everything. No. You’re not free. And you never will be. You don’t know how.”
Slate released the chain, backing up and raising his voice so the crowd could hear. “I’m gonna pass you around like a fucking party favor.” He looked to Micah. “By the time I kill you, you’ll forget you were ever free.”
The laughter of the crowd buried Micah’s groan as Jasmine buried one of her needles in his cock. Someone produced a blindfold, dropping it over Micah’s eyes as the rope holding his wrists was released. Slate stepped back, letting the crowd have their fun.
He’d let other people fuck Micah before, obviously, but never so many at once. They descended over him like locusts, spreading and pulling and shoving as Micah did his best to remain pliant beneath them. The bruising was spreading, and Slate suspected Micah had at least one cracked rib. He couldn’t help but dwell on that, how much it would be hurting the slave to draw in those deep gasps on the occasion that someone took their dick out of his mouth. They’d put a ring gag on him, leaving him helpless as they took him deep and hard.
The sight didn’t arouse him the way it once might have.
He had something more interesting planned for this evening. Something he’d bought the day Godfrey was arrested.
Leaving the party behind him, Slate returned to Godfrey’s office, retrieving the two electric brands. They were custom orders, the A and S stylized just so. They made a lovely pair.
By the time he returned, Micah was unconscious. It seemed like a waste to Slate.
He plugged the irons in, setting them on a low table so he could watch them heat.
By the time his guests bored of their new fuckdoll, the irons were hot and Micah was conscious again. He was laid out on a table, his arms and legs held down by various people. Slate gestured for them to turn him onto his stomach. Micah tried to do it gingerly, but no one here was taking it easy on him. Slate didn’t envy him the feeling of his full weight on those new piercings.
Someone produced a length of rope, using it to tightly bind Micah’s leg to the leg of the table. It wouldn’t do to have him moving at all during this process. Micah could hold still if ordered to do so—usually. This, though . . . this was something else.
Slate turned the brand slowly in his hands, knowing that Micah could see it. He remembered a time when he’d planned a different way to put his initials on Micah. He suspected Micah remembered too.
“I got it for the angel, of course,” Slate lied, looking up at Micah. “Figured if I was going to have to mark him up again, might as well do it in style.” He twisted the brand around in his fingers, watching it turn. He cut his eyes back to Micah. “There’s an S too.”
Micah tried to vanish, tried to turn on that blankness, but there was too much fear now.
“Two strikes,” Slate instructed, handing the brand over to Justin. He sauntered slowly out of Micah’s field of vision, taking in the sight of his trembling body. It reminded him of the good old days. Considering a moment, Slate slapped him hard just above the line where his ass met his thigh, the handprint instantly turning red.
“Right there,” he directed Justin. “Right on that red mark.”
Justin complied, pressing the burning metal against Micah’s flesh in a single, sure stroke. His face didn’t change as Micah screamed.
The crowd moved in, hands holding Micah still as he thrashed despite himself. Slate regretfully admitted it was the right move. Usually he loved this part, the moment where Micah’s training failed, where his body struggled and fought without his permission—but the brand would have smeared, and Slate really wanted the mark to be legible.
If Micah lived, everyone he ever fucked would know Slate’s name.
Micah let out a low keen as the first brand was removed, and Justin lined up the second. His eyes were shut tight, his breath coming ragged through his clenched teeth. His hair fell across his face, damp with sweat, and Slate resolved to fuck him at least once more before he died. Not here, but later, somewhere where it was just the two of them and Micah could focus a little better.
