Page 27
Story: Ignited In The Present (The Ties That Bind Us Book 2)
Kayden’s words echo in my ears playing on repeat, warring with the static ringing that has my stomach lurching and bile searing up my throat. A weighted silence fills the room suffocating us both in its intensity as it steals my breath from my lungs. I expect to see my hands covered in blood as it pours down my chest where my heart’s been ripped out but they’re not and somehow my heart is still beating. I want to claw myself open and lay it at K’s feet. I’m not worthy to even be in his presence. I don’t deserve to breathe the same air as him.
I thought I was prepared. I thought I knew what to expect. I thought I could handle anything he threw my way. But I was wrong. So. Fucking. Wrong. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again. I have died a thousand times listening to my angel recount what he has endured at the hands of my father—our father. Fuck! I thought I knew what pain was, I had naively believed I’d experienced the worst of it but again. I. Was. So. FUCKING. Wrong.
I cried when I woke up to find mum’s lifeless body next to mine, thinking the pain I was experiencing would be unmatched but I realise now that was the tip of the iceberg when it comes to grief. Because grief is exactly what I’m drowning in—it’s filling my lungs at an alarming rate. I grieve for the boy who has had his childhood wrenched from his fingers, while he cried all alone on cold floors and hid in dark corners. I’ve cried for the small boy who was left bleeding and broken—discarded like rubbish—while the man who was meant to care for him broke him methodically so he was trapped in a cage that couldn’t be seen. Neil didn’t need to collar Kayden. He didn’t need a physical cage because Kayden knew who held all the power.
There is a special place in hell for monsters like my father. I don’t even know how Kayden can look at me and not be disgusted. How he isn’t triggered by the sight of my face considering I’m just a younger version of Neil.
I don’t know how K is even alive considering what he’s been through. How the fuck is he still breathing? Still functioning and not rocking in a corner after what my fucking father—our fucking father—subjected him to. How could he do that to a child, let alone his own flesh and blood?
What K has survived it’s beyond anything I could withstand. I am in awe of my angel’s strength and perseverance. He might think he’s broken beyond repair. Tainted. Unwanted. Unloveable but he’s wrong, at least in my eyes. He might be all of those things, even my fucking brother but that changes nothing for me. I don’t sit here repulsed, or disgusted.
No. I’m filled with a rage so consuming that the world is fading away behind the red haze that’s engulfing me. I’m furious at myself for not seeing what was happening right under my nose. I’m disgusted with the staff who stood ideally by and let Neil repeatedly rape Kayden any time, any place he wanted.
They did nothing! And I can’t understand why?
Fuck! I need to be sick. My whole body flushes hot and cold, wave after wave building until bile is searing a path up my throat coating its walls with acid then filling my mouth with the thick toxic liquid. I’m not strong enough to swallow it down again, I need to purge it from my body before I end up choking on it. I deserve it though, don’t I? I choke on it and suffer. I deserve the pain. My body starts to shake uncontrollably as I force myself to keep my mouth closed, force myself to keep it contained—I don’t want to taint K with my weakness. My disgust. I’m losing control of my body as my mind is spiralling out of control. The fabric of my psyche is shredding, like a disease is eating away at it. Every memory he told me is bombarding my brain in a relentless attack and my defences are shattering. It hurts, fuck it hurts so much. But because of my ignorance I deserve the pain. I deserve to suffer.
I can’t look too closely at the images my mind is painting but I also can’t look away. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion knowing what’s going to happen but not having the wherewithal to help or the ability to stop it so you just stand there and gorp at the spectacle. Even with my hands braced over my mouth I’ve only got seconds before the contents of my stomach are spraying through them like a geyser. My muscles lock up as a barrage of pain crashes over me sending fire through my veins leaving nothing but ash behind.
I curl in on myself as my stomach cramps bracing an arm across it like a shield, the pain blinds me and the world goes black, stealing the breath from my lungs as my mouth fills to breaking point. I shudder with revulsion as I feel a trickle of acidic vomit drip through my fingers and down my chin. I try to get off the bed but end up tangled in the sheets as K sits there motionless, and wide eyed with horror etched on his face as I fall backwards and crash to the floor. White hot pain lances through my hip and shoulder but it’s nothing to the maelstrom of devastation I’m wreaking on myself inside. Pushing up off the floor is harder than I expected as black dots dance in front of my eyes, taunting me. It takes me three goes to latch on to the handle, because of the tremors controlling my arms. Gritting my teeth they crunch down on something floating in my mouth. I manage to wrench the door open, nearly pulling it off its hinges. The resounding thud as it crashes into the wall has me springing ten feet in the air.
With a steely resolve I don’t really feel I close the door softly catching a glimpse of K as his shoulders deflate. He thinks I’m leaving him. He thinks I’m running because I’m disgusted with him. At what he’s been through—that we’re related. I’ve always wondered what it looks like when the light leaves someone’s eyes, well now I know. That haunting image is seared into my retinas ready and waiting every time I close my eyes. Fuck! I want to tell him I’ll love him no matter what. That this doesn’t change anything but I’m frozen, lost in a desolate waste ground of broken dreams and nightmares made real.
His head falls in his hands, shoulders rising violently before caving in on himself; it’s like the last of his fighting spirit just left him. Ripping his hands away from his face they sink into his hair with a death grip before he yanks out a handful and screams. How much pain does someone have to have experienced to scream without making a sound and cry silently?
It takes seconds to stumble through the door of the nearest toilet and empty the meagre contents of my stomach into the toilet bowl. My legs collapse from under me, my head cracks against the porcelain, the pain is blinding but I welcome it with open arms. Black dots cover my vision as everything wavers around me. Another wave of vomit spews from between my lips decorating the wall and floor as I slump in a heap not caring if I’m sitting in a puddle of my own sick. It’s nothing less than I deserve. I should have known. I should’ve helped.
Now I know why he hated me so much when I left and didn’t go home for two years. I abandoned him to my father’s care. Fucking Neil! Sick, twisted, pervert. Who the fuck does that? Who is that depraved? Clearly I know the answer but what scares me most is if he is like that does that mean the same sickness lives in me? Will I end up consumed with the need to fuck and break kids just like he does? It’s a violent sucker punch to the gut that I’m even considering that thought green bile pours from my mouth like something out of the exorcist.
The cramps grow stronger even though there’s nothing left inside me except hate and revulsion. Shivers roll through me on a constant cycle, chased by waves of goosebumps that prickle my skin like blunt needles. Sweat trickles down my temples and into my eyes, the salty liquid stings like a motherfucker. I brush it away with the back of my hand but within seconds another drop has taken its place. My hoodie is soaked through, and clings to my back like a plastic bag all scrunchy and tight.
I don’t know how to get up off this floor. I don’t know how to go back to him. What can I say that will make it all better? Nothing! I can’t take away the past. I can’t stop what Neil’s done to him. I’ve never felt so weak. So useless. Fuck. Make it stop. Make it stop. I scream inside my head the words dying on my tongue. Just like everything else I’ve ever loved, that I’ve ever touched has died. Kayden might be breathing but he’s not living. I’m not sure he’s ever truly lived a day in his life. He won’t be able to while monsters like Neil still roam the earth.
How do I help you, angel?
My eyes fall closed as exhaustion both mentally and physically overwhelms me. Instantly I’m tapped, tied to a chair inside my mind with metal clamps around my wrists and ankles. My eyes are held open against my will with an ophthalmic speculum and a contaminated rag shoved in my mouth, the taste of copper and cum heavy on my tongue. I’m forced to watch Kayden’s memories in high definition as they play out in front of me. The sound of Neil’s voice is like a rusty blade dragging over my skull. But it’s got nothing on Kayden’s screams, his fear so palpable. How many nights was I sleeping drugged in my bed while our father raped him?
I can’t.
I can’t do this. How do I even cope with the guilt overwhelming me?
I knew my father was somehow involved, but I never fathomed he was the embodiment of pure evil. Our family’s history dripped with blood, and sacrifice all in the pursuit of power and money. No matter how much Neil has, it’s never enough and it makes me sick. The very foundation of Barton Grange is steeped in its crimson stain. I never imagined it still flowed within those walls while I grew up. The sense of betrayal I feel at finding out I was drugged is something I can’t even begin to decipher.
As Kayden recounted each memory, he withdrew further into himself, his once vibrant spirit overshadowed by a haunting detachment. He transformed into a hollow shell, mechanically reliving the horrors inflicted upon him. It’s as if he’s barricaded himself behind impenetrable walls, and I’m left standing on the outside, helpless to reach him. Each word he uttered pierced me with a searing agony, threatening to rend me apart.
A gentle rap on the door pulls me from the cyclone battering my mind wrenching me back into the toilet, the stench of my sick permeating the air. “Rhys, are you okay?” Roan’s voice muted through the door.
“Yeah.” My shoulders slump, the weight of everything crushing against my chest.
“Eighteen was asking if you were still here?” The question in his voice is like ice through my veins. I left him, what must he think of me? If he doesn’t hate me for running, I’ll hate myself enough for the both of us.
“I-I just needed a piss,” I rasp, my voice nothing but gravel. I push onto my feet and douse my face in cold water, washing away the remnants of sick off my face.
“You owe him everything. Now pull yourself together you pathetic piece of shit,” I mutter and shove my hands in the front pocket of my hoodie my fingers brush against the phone and butterfly knife he had stashed in his boots.
Roan’s concerned face greets me as I slip out of the toilet closing the door behind me. “We gonna need a clean up in there?” A flush works its way up my neck, staining my cheeks with my tongue too thick to form words I nod mutely. “Alright, go and see him, yeah? He looks like he’s about to drop dead again.”
I suck in a sharp breath, pain lancing my chest as the memory of him laying on the floor with a needle sticking out of his arm assaults me. “Okay.”
“Good.” Roan claps me on the shoulder before turning me to face him. “He needs you. You both need each other.” I swallow down the emotion in my throat, questions on the tip of my tongue that will never see the light of day as he turns and walks away.
My hand shakes as it wraps around the handle to Kayden’s room, nerves zinging up and down my arms. My eyes shutter closed as I take a deep inhale, and push the door open. Ice coats my skin as I step into the room, my eyes automatically finding Kayden’s form on the bed curled into the fetal position with the blankets wrapped around his head. Silent sobs wrack through his body making the bed frame shake with their force.
Moving on silent feet I pull the cover away from his head, the utter devastation on his face makes me want to take a gun to my head and let him pull the trigger. I don’t deserve his love, his obsession—I never have. But right now I don’t deserve to be breathing the same air as him.
I run the back of my knuckles down his cheek, capturing his streaming tears, and bring them to my lips for a reverent kiss. Hollow azure-blue eyes blink up at me, confusion contorting his features as he awaits the impending blow of my words. Trepidation saturates the air, wrapping around me in a vice-like grip. I rub my hand on the back of my neck as the silence stretches between us, a million words left unspoken, an ocean of emotion widening the chasm between us.
I wet my dry lips, “I love you, angel.” My words shatter the strained silence between us, my heart thunders in my ears as I wait for K to react. To say something but he just freezes like a deer caught in the headlights, eyes wide and unblinking as he stares at me.
I want to go to him, wrap him in my arms and bury my face in his neck inhaling his addictive dark scent but I’m terrified he’ll reject me. I thought telling him nothing had changed would be enough but he’s looking at me like I’m a ghost.
“Kayden… please… say something?” The words are wrenched right from my soul, my fingertips itch to feel his skin beneath them. I close my eyes trying to hold back the surge of tears I feel swelling in them as all my emotions slam into me.
A hollow laugh tears its way out of his lungs as he shifts on the bed so he’s sitting up , knees to his chest, arms around them like steel bars, to keep me out or keep him in? “That’s all you have to say?”
His words are like a knife to my throat, slicing through the skin. “What else is there to say?” This was not the reaction I was expecting. I hoped he’d see how genuine, that nothing has changed in the way I feel about him. I never expected this cold wall to be between us.
“What else is there to say?” He snarls, throwing the covers off and swinging his leg around like he’s about to jump off the bed. It finally registers that all the cables and drips have been removed from his arms whilst I was gone. Fuck, how long was I gone.
“Over an hour.” He grinds his teeth as he slips off the bed and starts stalking towards me, Instinctively I step back every time he advances. “I thought you left me. Abandoned me here with a monster who planned to drug and rape you.” My breath catches in my throat as he slams my back against the wall. “Did you ever work out where Thom got the drugs from… that night?” He tilts his head to the side observing the myriad of emotions that flickers across my face.
I shake my head, coming up blank. “No.”
“Did you ever think to ask before you let your friend beat the shit out of him?”
“N-no…” I whisper the threat of the implications of what K knows hanging over our heads.
“You really are stupid but I guess that is what comes from feeling safe.” He scoffs. “Well until you realise you’re not and the rug gets ripped out right from under your feet. Fucking hurts when you fall off the self made pedestal doesn’t it, brother.” His lips curl back baring his teeth as rage unlike anything I’ve ever seen coils in the depths of his eyes. “Who wasn’t there when I saved you?”
“Dustan didn’t go to the party.” I swallow down razor blades with my next words. “He doesn’t like them.”
Kayden raises a brow, mocking me as he brings his forearm across my throat. His scent invades my senses. Lips almost brushing mine. Heat unfurls in my stomach at his close proximity. My dick twitches as blood floods through it. He’s a fucking drug and I’m an addict desperate for my next hit. I need it more than air. More than the blood in my veins. Give it to me and slit my throat it would be fucking poetic.
“Think. Rhys. Think.” Cold finger taps against my temple, his touch reverberates through me. His heaving chest rubs against mine making my nipples pebble and stand on end. My hands latch onto his lithe hips pulling his groin flush with mine and I fucking gasp as his steely length brushes against mine. “Think, little devil.” He punctuates his words by nipping at my lip before sucking it into his mouth and slowly pulling it through his teeth. “Think.” His nose rubs against mine as his eyes lock on mine and the world fades away, every thought leaves my mind as I’m consumed by an insatiable hunger.
The pressure increases against my neck making my lungs burn but the pain is enough to snap my mind back. “He walked to the woods with us to start with but I never saw him after that.” I lick my lips tasting his at the same time. “I assumed he left.”
“No, big brother.” Kayden breathes against my ear, his hot breath making all the hairs stand on end and my hips punch forward as I thrust against him. Need consuming me like fire in a wind tunnel making it almost impossible to keep my mind focused on anything bar the need to feel his skin against mine. To feel his hard slick length in my hand, on my tongue and down my throat. I want him to invade every part of me and never—fucking—leave. I want his cum branded inside of me, dripping from my wrecked hole every day for the rest of our lives. I want to feel where he’s been inside me, how he stretches me. How he owns me eviscerating everyone that came before.
He licks a path from the base of my throat up to my ear and makes shivers roll across my skin. His nose traces a path along my stubbled jaw inhaling like I’m the oxygen he needs to breathe. Cool lips ghost over mine, a tease, a taunt, a dark promise. “I watched him give Thom the drugs that he put in your drink.” I swallow hard the lust filled haze that was drugging me dying instantly. “Dustan was the one that gave me the concoction I took that day. I ran because I found out you were my brother. He was the one who told me he’d been drugging my food and drink?—”
“No… he…”
Kayden shakes his head and places his butterfly knife to my lips. A wicked smirk lifts his as my eyes widen but it’s how his pupils dilate as he stares at me that gets my pulse racing again. “It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch.” He muses, peppering my face with biting kisses. “I have a theory about him and I’ll tell you as soon as I know the truth. But…” He pulls back, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth. “If I’m right this whole thing is even more fucked up than you can even imagine. Just know this,” Kayden pushes the blade against my lip, it slices through my skin like butter. Blood pools around it and drips down my face. Kayden flashes me a smirk before licking it off my face and feeding it to me when his tongue demands entry into my mouth.
“Fuck,” I groan. “That shouldn’t be as hot as it is.” My lips part for him as he licks into my mouth feeding me my own blood as it coats our lips.
“You taste so fucking good, little devil.” His tongue laves against mine, consuming me, igniting a lust in me that has me yanking his joggers down his hips and releasing his weeping cock. “Fuck,” he bites out as I wrap my hand around him and squeeze him tightly. I work my hand up and down his shaft with a corkscrew motion and feel him grow harder and harder with each pass. Precum pools from his slit as I swipe the palm of my hand over his crown and use it to slicken his length. He shudders against me, thrusting up into my hand with each movement of his hips. “Fuck, baby thats it… so fucking good.”
His head falls back on his shoulder as his eyes roll back in his head. With his bruised lips parted, pure ecstasy alights his face. With nimble fingers moving too fast for my brain to process, Kayden undoes my jeans and pulls my pulsing cock out of my boxers. He slaps my hand away and wraps his palm around our shafts. “Oh, god,” I moan, burying my head in his neck nibbling and sucking at his skin with my teeth. The overwhelming need to mark him and claim him as my own flows like liquid fire through my veins setting every nerve in my body alight. “Fuck, I’m so close, angel.” I latch onto his throat taking drugging pulls of his skin as I feel his blood pulled towards the surface. A smile flickers at the corners of my lips as I continue to suck and claim him as my own.
“Fuck my fist, Rhys. I want you to coat my hand with your cum.” His words rip through me like lightning making my balls draw up tight to the base of my dick. “Then I’ll cover my cock with it and make you lick it clean. Before I claim your throat and cum in your stomach and you’ll do it all with the taste of yourself on your tongue like the greedy little cum slut you are.” A deep groan builds in my chest at the filthy images his words paint. I can feel my length thicken and pulse in his hand. Slick fingers roll my sack building an aching need inside me before slipping between my legs and pushing against my taint and slowly working towards my entrance.
“Fuck. Yes.” I throw my head back and it crashes against the wall making fireworks explode behind my closed eyes. The burst of pain heightening the sensations flowing through me igniting the orgasm building at the base of my spine as waves of pleasure roll through me. I spread my legs as an offering, silently begging him to tease my aching hole. To fill me up the only way he can. “Need you… need…”
“Need me where, little devil?” His hot breath ghosts over my skin and it’s like a match to kerosene flames engulfing me as his slick finger circles my entrance. I fuck my pulsing length into his tight grip and push my entrance against the tip of his finger until I feel it breach that tight ring of muscle. “Such a needy little slut,” he groans. “I can feel your walls rippling around me as they suck me in deeper.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes,” I chant, feeling myself drawing closer to the edge. Kayden steps into me, his weight pushing me into the wall caging me in, it settles a frayed part of me making me feel safe, wanted. Needed.
His lips brush the shell of my ear as he traces it with the tip of his tongue. “I’m going to milk your prostate. I’m going to make you beg me to come. Your tight fucking pussy will be strangling my fingers but you won’t let go.”
I shake my head and whimper. “I-I can’t… I need…”
“You don’t get to come until I allow it, little devil.” He punctuates his words by biting down on my lobe drawing it between his teeth making me his as another finger breaches me stretching me wider. “I own you, brother. Your orgasms are mine.” His fingers circle that magic spot inside me and I clench around him trying to keep him buried inside me.
“Please. St-stay,” I whine just as his fingers start to draw back. I feel him smirk against my cheek as he nibbles the straining tendons in my neck. I turn my head bearing my throat to him as his teeth graze along my pulse and over my Adam’s apple. “Fuck my fingers, Rhys. Fuck them like I’m buried balls deep inside you.”
“Oh fuck.” I rut against him, impaling myself on his fingers like a wild animal in heat. As I chant “I need you. I need you. I need you.”
“Such a good boy,” he purrs into my neck, lapping at the beads of perspiration trailing down my throat.
Kayden changes the angle of his fingers, and it’s like the gates of heaven appear before my eyes. Electricity dances over my skin, fire burns through my veins as waves of pleasure course through me. My body locks up tight as I fight my release pulsing in my balls. “Not yet, little devil.”
“I…I… need.”
“I know you do, baby, just hold on. I want you to see all the galaxies in the sky when you come. I want you to know what I’m fighting for to be with you.” his fingers pulse on my prostate pushing me higher and higher. I’m suspended by a wire that only he can cut. “Everything, little devil. I’m fighting for everything because you are worth everything in this lifetime and everyone that will follow.”
“Oh fuck. Oh god.”
“Come, Rhys. Come all over my fingers.” Kayden orders as he presses down on my prostate and I fucking detonate, my body is incandescent as pleasure engulfs me. Hot jets of cum spill from my slit coating his hand and my top in my release. My eyes roll back in my head, as my vision is engulfed by stars. I feel like my soul has been transported to another plane and my body is floating adrift and free.
“F-fuck,” I gasp as I try and regulate my breathing as I slowly feel myself come back into my body.
“That was fucking hot.” Kayden groans, his slick hand languidly working my softening length. “You look beautiful when you come, little devil.” Heat bursts across my cheeks as I look into his eyes, fires dancing in their depth, he sucks in a sharp breath as he pulls his finger from my entrance and slowly slips it inside his mouth. He groans as he sucks my taste off his skin before sinking his hand in my hair guiding me to the floor.
“Open up for me, baby. Tongue out.” I follow instantly, saliva pooling in my mouth as I watch him coat his length in my release. Thick cum smeared all over his pink shaft. My eyes are hypnotised as he toys with his glistening cockhead feeding my cum into his weeping slit. “Fuck yes, this is going to be sooo good.” I groan watching his hand slowly work up his length. “I going to fuck your throat hard and fast. I want to feel you choking around me. I want to own the air in your lungs.” He releases his shaft and wipes his fingers clean on my tongue before winding them in my hair in a tight grip. “Swallow.”
I moan as I taste myself, the salty tang not as sweet as Kayden but not bad either. Once I’ve swallowed everything down I stick my tongue out and wait. He slaps his glans against my tongue allowing me to feel the heavy weight of his shaft and leans over spitting onto my tongue. He smirks down at me, “To help with the glide.” His finger pulls on my hair, positioning my head exactly where he wants me, “Ready?”
“Yes,” I groan around his thick girth as it slides along my tongue and down to the back of my throat. Kayden repositions his hands until they’re either side of my head, his hold tight but firm.
“Take a breath, little devil, because this is going to be your last,” he growls and punches his hips forwards. His cock surging to the back of my throat until I’m choking on it, tears prick at my eyes as he continues to work himself deeper. He holds my head still as he buries himself so deep my nose brushes up against the skin of his groin and my lungs are crying out for oxygen. But he doesn’t let me breathe as he sets a brutal pace that has the world blurring around me as it arrows to a pinprick. Just me and him. Kayden and Rhys, two halves of a whole. Light and dark. The beginning and the end.
“Such a good cum slut,” he groans as a hand comes to collar my throat. “Fuck that feels amazing, I can feel myself in your throat. That’s it suck my soul right out of my cock.”
I hollow my cheeks and curve my tongue giving him everything I’ve got as I feel him thicken with every stroke into my mouth I tease his slit with the tip of my tongue spearing into before laving at the sensitive bundle of nerves at the base of his crown.
“Fuck yes! I’m going to fill you with my cum until your stomach is swollen.” Kayden’s voice is deeper gravelier than I’ve ever heard it as it caresses my skin making me shudder. “Drink every fucking drop, little devil.” He thrusts once, twice more before his shaft becomes impossibly wide and his hips stutter as thick ropes of cum lash against the walls of my throat. I swallow him down a deep groan building in my chest as his taste explodes on my taste buds.
His soft cock slips from my swollen lips and Kayden falls to his knees and he melds his mouth with mine. A wave of lust sparks through me as I taste our combined arousal as he feast on my mouth like a starving man. “I’ll never get enough of this. Of you.” He says on a gasping breath before he slams his lips back on mine.