Page 22 of Buzz Kill (Smoke & Mirrors Tavern #7)

Chapter twenty-two

DECLAN

Fuck, yes. I’d been dying for a moment alone since we were interrupted in the woods. Based on the demanding way Alwin touched me, he’d been in a similar state. His hands slid inside my sweatpants and squeezed my ass, kneading closer and closer to the place I wanted him buried.

His tongue stroked against mine as he pressed me back into the door like he couldn’t get close enough, no matter how tightly we were pressed together. He was still wearing his training uniform of an army green t-shirt and cargo pants and I quickly stripped the shirt over his head, taking a moment to trail my fingers down his chest and abs before I worked the belt open. One hand cupped and stroked him through his pants while the other tugged at the button. Alwin pressed into my hand and kissed me deeper, one hand hooking behind my neck to ensure I couldn’t escape. As if there was a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening. There was nothing I wanted more in that moment than his mouth on mine, his hands on my skin, those intense eyes focused on me like we were the only two left in the world.

I wrapped one leg around his hip, opening myself up to him and silently urging his fingers closer to where I wanted them. Alwin took the hint and brushed his fingers over my hole again and again, adding just enough pressure each time to drive me crazy.

Unable to take the teasing any longer, I pulled his zipper down and shoved my hand inside his underwear. But before I managed one stroke of his impossibly hard cock, the door handle next to us jiggled.

Al and I broke apart in an instant and I rushed to my bed while he tugged his clothes back into place. I sat on my bed to hide my painfully hard erection while Billy used his key to let himself in the room.

“Oh, you guys are here,” he said as he came inside to rifle through his things before taking a seat on his bed. “Didn’t see you in the dining hall. Better get over there if you’re gonna eat...”

His words trailed off awkwardly as he took in the strange tension in the room and then caught sight of the dangerous look on Alwin’s face. Maybe it was the glamour, but his feelings seemed to come through on his face more than usual lately.

“Uh, did I interrupt something? Kinda looks like you two were fightin’ or something, but that can’t be right. You two are close as brothers or whatever, right? Though I suppose fighting among brothers ain’t all that unusual.”

My nose wrinkled at that comment and Alwin seemed unable to take another minute of keeping up the act. He snatched up his shower kit and left without a word.

Billy raised his eyebrows at me. “What’s got his panties in a bunch? Woulda thought he’d be in a good mood sitting at the top of every class like that.”

I shrugged and pulled the pillow into my lap. “He’s the best at everything he does, but this place is more restrictive than we’re used to. Losing your freedom is tough for anyone to deal with.”

Billy smirked at me. “That why you brought all that stuff? To make it easier on the guys? Give ’em a taste of freedom?”

I blinked innocently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But if I did, I would say that some men thrive under strict pressure, but plenty others will wilt. If blowing off steam now and then with a few drinks or junk food is what keeps them going, then what’s the harm?”

Billy tapped his fingers on his knee while he took my measure once more.

“What?” I asked warily.

In truth, I was just trying to become someone the recruits came to. Someone they trusted and spoke freely to. My reputation among the instructors was terrible, but among the men, it was flawless. No matter how many times they’d pulled me into the offices, no matter what they’d threatened me with, never had I admitted to anything or given a single name.

They knew it was me sneaking things in, which meant someone had turned me in after getting caught during inspections, but not a single secret had ever spilled past my lips. No matter how many times they lectured me, made me run laps, or forced me to clean the bathrooms. As far as punishments went, they were laughable. These people had nothing on the Prescotts.

But that reputation was carefully built, and it only worked if none of them looked too closely. Billy wasn’t dumb. He was young and friendly, but he paid attention to things. And I really didn’t want to be one of those things.

“Nothin’” he finally said. “The instructors say you’re a troublemaker, but I’m startin’ to think there’s more to it than that.”

I laughed. “They got to you too, huh? Well, they’re not wrong. Maybe I’m causing some trouble for them, but I like to think I’m doing more good than harm.”

Billy smirked. “You’re a good guy, Henry.”

I snorted. “I think Benning would beg to differ. He just caught dorm three playing poker for candy bars and porn magazines. Poor guys, he got their whole stash.”

“Ah, he’s just worried ’bout keeping everyone alive out there. Long as we do what we’re supposed to, it’ll all work out.”

“As long as we do what we’re supposed to, huh?”

Billy’s head tipped curiously at my comment. “You havin’ second thoughts about what we’re doing here?”

I tried to force a smile, but for some reason, I felt the corners of my lips curve downward instead. “Nah, I just… hope you’re right.”

The truth was, I’d planned to get close to these guys from the start to get what we needed on this mission. What I hadn’t expected was that not all of them were the monsters we knew hunters to be. A lot of these recruits were barely more than kids, pulled into this mess by their fathers or uncles when they should be off at college, getting shot down by girls and nursing hangovers, not learning to kill. But if anyone knew what it was like to have your family rope you into their bullshit, it was me.

“You gotta look at the good we’re doin’ here,” Billy finally said. “These things are dangerous. They kill humans without mercy and we’re the only thing protecting our loved ones from bein’ their next victims.”

“Have you ever met one?” I asked.

“One of the monsters?” He shook his head. “Nah, I’m from a pretty small town where everyone knows everyone. Be pretty hard for anything but humans to pull anything around there.”

I was positive he was wrong. Shifters preferred small rural areas like that. Even if he didn’t have a wolf pack in his area, there were likely smaller groups of shifters. Deer, groundhogs, coyotes. But he would never know because he was looking for monsters, not neighbors.

“If your hometown is so safe, why are you here?”

Billy shrugged. “This fight is bigger than me. It’s about all of humanity. Just look at what happened to the Commander.”

“The Commander?” I asked. “Do you mean Benning?”

He snorted. “You really did sleep through half our lessons, didn’t you? They tell everyone the story in the seminar on the first day of training.”

Ah, that made sense. I didn’t actually sleep through all the classes. I’d just figured doing too well in class would make me competition, so I flaunted the lazy attitude I was quite good at playing by now and pretended to sleep my way through the lectures. In most cases, I was actually listening in case they said something we needed to know, but that first day Alwin had been at my side as diligent as ever, so I hadn’t worried about missing anything. And since I’d been up late the night before stocking up on everything I could think of for our time with the hunters, especially after Billy told us how restrictive they were, there was definitely a period of droning I’d dozed off for.

“Not Benning,” Billy finally clarified. “The Commander is Beau Sherman. He’s the one who made the Origin Order a force that actually has a chance in this fight. Used to be a small group, but he joined a few years back and eventually took over, started recruiting, and made it what it is today. See, you don’t have to join the organization as a recruit. Most folks come in as beneficiaries who pledge donations or contribute part of their monthly income in exchange for protection and whatnot. This place has some powerful folks among the ranks, but it’s only like that because of what Sherman built.

“Back in the day, all this land was just a farm run by an ex-priest who’d been pushed out of his church after a disagreement on some of his views. He and some friends would get together and talk about religion and the world, until one day someone came to them convinced that a traveler staying in an old hunting cabin was cursed by the devil. The church ain’t exactly performing exorcisms these days, so they promised to look into it and finally after weeks of trailing the thing, they watched an animal take over its body and break through its skin. The beast ran off never to be seen again, but they believed animals stealing human bodies truly was the work of the devil, so the Origin Order was born.

“Fast forward several years and Mr. Sherman was a successful lawyer in Tennessee, had a big house and a wife and a great life. Until one of those things stole it from him. He came home one day to find his wife had been killed by a monster. He just found her there, covered in blood, convinced that no human could have done that to her. Poor guy’s whole life crashed overnight. The police couldn’t find any leads, actually ended up questioning him like he coulda been responsible, but he didn’t give up. He kept looking until he found the truth about what kind of monster took his wife. His search led him to that old retired priest and his group who told him about the beasts walking among them. They’d tried telling people the truth in the past, but no one believed him until Sherman.

“Once the elders taught him everything they’d learned over the years, he was able to use that information to find his wife’s killer. Tracked the monster all the way back to Willowgrove, Tennessee, some tiny town not far from where he and his wife had been living with no idea what else lurked nearby. Can you even imagine?”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “So then what happened? He found the killer and cleared his name?”

“Nah, the police had already proven they weren’t up to the task and they ain’t trained to handle monsters anyway. It’s why so many of us recruits are encouraged to join local police forces around here. So people have someone who can actually help when they run into trouble with these things. Sherman was all on his own back then. Wasn’t like he could pull in a buncha old men to help him. So he armed himself to the teeth and waited. Eventually one of the monsters wandered off the land they lived on, and he managed to capture her.”

“How? Why didn’t she shift into an animal and run away?”

“He shot her every time she tried to change. Doesn’t work on all of ’em, but this one was young and once they bleed enough, they’re too weak to shift. One wounded monster was enough bait to draw out the others and he used her blood to leave her scent everywhere. They split up to look for her and Sherman was finally able to separate his wife’s killer from the rest of the monsters and pay him back for what he did to his wife.

“He knew he couldn’t take on the rest of the monsters alone as just one man, so he returned here and turned the old priest’s tiny group into what you see here today. An army that can actually protect families from what he went through. Everyone here does their part, they fight, or they contribute money to keep us going, and then we go out into the world and put ourselves in positions to protect humanity.”

“What happened to the others in Willowgrove?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“It was one of the first missions once he’d recruited enough men to do the job. They went in and wiped them out overnight. That town is now safer because of the work we’re doing here. And imagine how many more towns we can save, how many people we can protect from those things. What we’re doin’ here is important, don’t forget that.”

I nodded absently, but my mind was running a mile a minute. It wasn’t that I hadn’t noticed the brainwashy vibes running through every class they held here, it was just that it was so eye-rollingly obvious that I didn’t realize how effective it was on the people who didn’t know the truth. The people running this show were shady as fuck, but these recruits? They weren’t all bad people. Not yet anyway.

The way they isolated these men in this echo chamber that would never tell them the truth and guided them to hate an entire group of people they didn’t know or interact with was chilling. But it was clearly working.

I quickly stood and changed. “I’m gonna take a walk before curfew.”

Billy checked his watch. “Better hurry, Benning’s got it out for you.”

I grinned and waved him off. “I’ll be back before he even knows I was gone.”

The smile fell from my face the moment the door closed behind me and instead of sneaking outside, I ran for the showers. Alwin was about to turn the water off when I slipped into the stall next to him and rested my arms on the chest height divide. His hand paused on the faucet and eyes met mine in question, but with the few other men in the room, I wasn’t able to speak freely.

I rummaged through his clothes on the shelf in his shower stall as I talked. “Hey, I forgot to ask you what Benning wanted to talk to you about. Are you in trouble or something?”

Alwin easily played along. “Of course not.” When he realized what I was after, he pulled the cell phone out of his elven pouch and passed it over. “He merely asked if you were a distraction.”

My fingers flew over the keypad as we talked. “Me? I’m insulted! I’ve passed every test they’ve thrown my way. What more could they possibly want?

“They don’t seem to think you’re taking this seriously.”

“Well, that’s just rude,” I grumbled. “I take it seriously, I just think the guys should be able to let loose a little with their down time. What’s so wrong with that?”

“You were sleeping in class.”

“Lies, I was meditating.”

Alwin continued nagging me like a pro until I finally slipped the phone back over the shower wall. He cut the water and the phone disappeared into the pouch before he wrapped a towel around a naked body that was not quite as beautiful as his real one, but still quite nice. I eyed the charm around his neck in annoyance, but didn’t dare keep my eyes on the man for too long. Humans were known for having issues with that sort of thing and we didn’t need to be kicked out before we got to Sherman because I couldn’t keep my eyes to myself.

“So it’s all good now? You told him I’m awesome and would never be a distraction, right?” I continued the conversation for the benefit of the other men as he dressed.

“I told him that your behavior has never affected my performance.”

“Glen! That implies that my behavior could affect your behavior if you let it!”

“It could not.”

We left the showers still bickering and returned to the room where Billy was pacing between the beds.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

He was clearly nervous about something, but he hesitated when I asked him directly. I dropped down on my bed and made myself unassuming while Alwin all but disappeared into the background.

“Something happen while we were gone?” I tried again.

“My brother came by,” Billy finally admitted as he sat on the edge of his bed. “Don’t tell the other guys, but Benning got special permission to take the recruits into the field for an assessment test of our skills so far. Some of the other instructors thought it was too soon, but Benning seemed pretty insistent. Said he wanted to see for himself what we were made of. They’re going to mix up the recruit rankings so some of us more experienced recruits can help the newer ones, but that also means we’ll be working with guys we don’t know as well.”

“But you were already sent into the field once before, weren’t you? So this should be nothing compared to that.”

Billy frowned. “A handful of the top recruits were basically sent on a field trip to attend a meeting and see the graduates in action protecting the town they were assigned to. We weren’t supposed to encounter anything, and look at how that turned out. They still ain’t heard from the others who were taken and the Infinite Earth sect is denying everything. And this time we ain’t just watching a bunch of the higher ups have a meeting, they’re takin’ us out there to actually find one of these things. I mean, I’m sure I can handle it, but some of y’all have only been here a few weeks. I just don’t get what they’re thinking.”

Alwin and I exchanged a look and I wondered how much of this change in tactics was a result of our presence here.

“Well, don’t worry about us,” I assured Billy. “Glen and I have plenty of experience in the field. Maybe we haven’t fought too many monsters or whatever, but we did get you guys out of the hands of Infinite Earth, right? And we escaped those dogs or whatever they sent after us. You guys pulled through that just fine, right? And hopefully you’ll be paired up with either me or Glen. We can keep each other safe, cool?”

My laid back attitude went a long way in soothing Billy’s concerns and he finally nodded and laid back on his bed. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s not like we’re all a bunch of newbs.”

“Lights out!” someone in the hall shouted.

Alwin and I exchanged one more look before he hit the lights and we dutifully climbed into our beds.

In the dark, Billy’s bed creaked as he shifted. “Just in case we aren’t partnered for this one,” he whispered. “Be careful out there, will ya?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “You too.”