Page 4 of The Devil’s Bargain (A Devil to Die for #3)

“Tell me what you found out.”

Aodhan clicked his tongue and dropped down into the luxury seat directly across from their Third. “Straight to business? Already?”

They’d boarded the spaceship less than an hour ago, had only just barely exited Alter’s atmosphere, and without skipping a beat, Calix already wanted to discuss Bruce.

Another man.

“Ew.” Cal’s mouth twisted in displeasure and he rested a glare Aodhan’s way. “Are you jealous of an old man?”

“Mercy is old,” he pointed out, though they both knew there was at least twenty years between their First and the deceased chief of police.

“He was like a father figure to me.” Calix crumpled a napkin and tossed it at his face.

Mercy abandoned his seat closer to the cockpit and joined them, opting to settle in at the empty space at Cal’s right side. His hand cupped Cal’s nape, and a soothing sensation trickled through the bond tying the three of them together.

“Cut it out.” Calix batted him away, but when the director merely gave him a pointed look, heaved a sigh and gave in. “Whatever. You’re going to do what you please anyway.”

“I’m glad you’re learning, Azi.” Mercy smiled teasingly.

“Hello?” Aodhan crossed his arms and leaned back. “I’m still here.”

“Don’t pout.”

“Kind of hard not to when you’re both ignoring me.” In his own way, he was trying to help settle Calix’s nerves, and they must have known it, because their Third chuckled at his bratty behavior.

“Bruce, Aodhan,” Cal said. “Tell me about Bruce. Did Amory really have something to do with it?”

“We found her nearby,” he divulged, realizing there was no way around this conversation, despite how early in the day it was and how exhausted he still felt.

Even with Calix locked in through the connection, he felt antsy being so far from home, where he knew they could keep a closer eye on him and ensure he didn’t try anything stupid.

Cal claimed he didn’t want to run anymore, but Aodhan knew the truth of what they were. The truth about how overbearing and smothering those first few weeks of being bonded to a Connect could be. Even he’d wanted an out more than once after he’d linked himself to Mercy.

“Bruce was murdered while I was with you,” he continued. “That night you came all over your food?”

“Could we not?” Calix’s cheeks turned a pretty shade of crimson.

“I was watching through the cameras,” Mercy added.

“Through the illegally planted spy cameras, without my knowledge.” Their Third turned his irritation onto him.

“Yes,” Mercy agreed. “Those.”

“He called me and ordered me to leave you alone,” Aodhan said. At the time, he’d lied and told Calix it was the hospital, but really, Mercy had been worried he would get too turned on by Cal’s actions and take things too far.

“You weren’t even supposed to be there,” Mercy scolded him. “You’re lucky all you got was a night of edging as punishment. It should have been worse.”

“Edging?” Calix questioned, glancing between the two of them.

“He cuffed my ankles and wrists and left me in the bathtub, blindfolded and with headphones on that kept blasting the same classical bullshit song on a never-ending loop.” Aodhan hated beiska music with a passion.

Too sad and mopey for his tastes. “I had nipple clamps, a cock cage, and a vibrating, thrusting dildo big enough to rival our First’s dick shoved so far up my ass I struggled to breathe. ”

“You’re making it sound so horrible,” Mercy drawled. “As I recall, you kept me awake all night with your moans. Are you asking for a refresher?”

“Nope.” Why would Aodhan want to be locked in a room alone when they now had a Third to play with? “I’ve been good, haven’t I?”

He’d let Mercy kill that other suitor, after all, even though he’d wanted to slice the man’s throat and yank out his esophagus.

He’d drowned the other one in a rush of uncontrollable fury, the kill done and over with too soon.

If they’d been anywhere else, he would have played around a bit with the man’s insides, so he could at least get something out of it, but they’d been on a schedule.

Calix shuddered, catching Aodhan’s attention.

“Oh.” He’d been fantasizing about his favorite pastime—after sex, of course. Disembowelment. “Sorry.”

“His bloodlust is insatiable,” Mercy sighed. “You’ll have to forgive him. He doesn’t have a lot of control in that department.”

“Excuse you,” he disagreed. “If that were the case, I would have gotten caught ages ago.”

“Fair.”

“How often do you have to…” Calix cleared his throat and twirled a finger in the air, “You know?”

“Murder?” Aodhan hummed and thought it over. “Not often, really. Not since Mercy. He’s able to steady those urges within me.”

“He does it because he likes it,” their First tsked. “I can’t get him to stop. You won’t be able to either, Azi, don’t even try.”

Aodhan bristled. “If you’re hoping you can change me—”

“I’m not,” Calix cut him off. “Why would I?”

“…Because killing is wrong?”

“Well, sure.” He shrugged a single shoulder like it really wasn’t a big deal to him. “But when has the universe ever treated people kindly?”

“He gave us you, didn’t he?” Mercy pointed out.

“Gross.” Cal reached for one of the bottles of water on the table between them and sipped lightly.

“I’m just saying, clearly I’m not a great judge of character.

Why should I lose sleep over someone else’s actions?

I can’t control my own monstrous self, what gives me the right to preach to either of you about good and evil? ”

“You think I’m evil?” Aodhan grinned. “Thanks, babe.”

“Shut up.”

“Calix just wants to use you for his own gains,” Mercy stated. “He’s after revenge, but he’s not capable of killing someone in cold blood on his own.”

“Whenever I had to take a life during a case, it was surprisingly easy,” Cal told them plainly. “But you’re correct. That’s never something I’ve actively wanted to do, and there’s always been a level of separation between me and whoever I was shooting. This is different.”

“That’s why you wanted me to take care of Sister Grace for you,” Aodhan said. “You knew you didn’t have the stomach to kill her yourself.”

Calix met his gaze, his expression turning solemn.

“Even if I had done it, I knew it would haunt me. She deserved it, don’t get me wrong, but…

I guess there’s a level of hypocrisy involved I’m not willing to shake.

I’m still clinging to this notion that so long as you’re the one pulling the trigger, it doesn’t really matter if I help aim the gun. ”

“But,” he felt through the connection, shifting through Cal’s true emotions, “you don’t actually believe that.”

“I like the lie.” He smiled wistfully. “It’s prettier than the harsh reality.”

“Which is?”

“That there’s something wrong with me?”

“You’re perfect.”

“I’m not,” Calix disagreed. “I’m not like the two of you, for starters. I don’t have an inability to feel. I understand and experience empathy, guilt, compassion…That last one especially. You don’t have that, Aodhan.” He tipped his head in Mercy’s direction. “You…might. It’s hard to tell.”

“You don’t have to figure everything out in one day,” their First reassured him. “Take your time. The bond doesn’t allow us to read each other's minds, only gives us access to current feelings and states of being.”

“Compassion.” Aodhan didn’t like the taste of the word in his mouth. “Sounds pointless. Bad things are going to happen to people no matter what we do.”

“Doesn’t mean we have to make it worse for everyone,” Calix insisted. “Like randomly murdering their loved ones because they were there?”

“And they were weak?” He snorted. “Only the strong survive. So what?”

“You say that because you’re one of the strong.”

“Bruce wasn’t weak.” Mercy stared him down pointedly.

Aodhan cursed. “Bruce trusted the wrong person. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just got unlucky. I don’t know.”

“Find out,” Calix demanded. “Because I need to. I need to know what happened to him and why.”

“Why?” Aodhan frowned. “So you can blame yourself for it? No. We’re not doing that. No more spiraling into self-deprivation. No matter the reason behind Bruce’s death, the person who killed him is the one responsible for it. Got that, Be’urn?”

He was sick of Calix’s victim mentality. Of how often their Third placed the blame on himself instead of viewing the world for what it truly was.

“You promised no more running. That means having to face your part in things, and accept when shit is out of your hands. I’ve killed for you? So what. Sister Grace had a family too, does that make a difference?”

Calix considered it. “No.”

“Good, it shouldn’t.”

“What our little killer is trying, and somewhat failing to say,” Mercy took over, “is you already spent most of your life excusing the horrible things Sister Grace did to you, even when all of that was her fault. We don’t want that for your future.

Are revenge and murder generally frowned upon?

Sure. Does that mean there are people out there who don’t deserve it? ”

“Do you really think there are people who deserve to die?” Calix asked, and even with the bond, it was hard to tell what he was feeling.

Probably because Cal didn’t have a grasp of that either.

He struggled to understand his own heart.

That explained why it was so easy for him to plan on leaving Aodhan the way that he had.

He claimed he felt a full range of emotions, yet he didn’t possess the ability to decipher said emotions properly.

Even Aodhan understood half of what he felt at any given time were trained reactions.

“Sister Grace programmed you,” he stated tersely. “She made you believe you were gross and vile for wanting the things you want. For feeling the things you feel. It was all about control. None of it was real.”

“Wasn’t it?” Calix disagreed. “We’re trained about morality at the Academy, Aodhan. I know right from wrong.”

“You know laws,” he argued. “Laws that were set in place by people. There’s no Light in the universe that can judge me for the things I’ve done. If anyone wants me to be punished for the lives I’ve taken or destroyed, they’re going to have to find me and get retribution on their own.”

“You don’t believe in Light?”

“Do you?”

Calix pursed his lips. “I used to.”

The orphanage he’d grown up in was a religious one, but Sister Grace was so far from what a holy leader should be. Aodhan didn’t have a problem with believers—hell, the religion practiced by Connects was deeply rooted in their culture, and Mercy still practiced certain aspects to this day.

He had a problem with how easy it was for someone to do awful things in Light’s name.

That was why he never bothered with excuses for himself.

If he did something, he did it. That’s what choice was all about.

And if he took away someone else’s choice and forced them? That was still on him.

Accountability.

“Everyone I’ve ever killed was a hypocrite, just like Sister Grace,” Aodhan confessed quietly. “Despite what I’ve led you to believe, I’ve never stumbled on a random victim. I always know, always learn, always plan. I wouldn’t have gotten away with it all these years if I hadn’t.”

“Amory insisted she had nothing to do with Bruce’s death,” Mercy said then.

“But she was close to the scene, and there was something she was withholding. After Rhett, she must have gotten wind that her name had been tied to the case. She went on the run. We’d only just found her that day you came to visit. ”

Aodhan could tell Calix was surprised by this revelation. “What? You thought we kidnapped her so we could help frame Rhett?”

“Didn’t you?” Cal’s brow quirked. “Frame her, I mean?”

“We did,” Mercy agreed. “For the serial murders, in any case.”

“Why Amory? Rhett, I sort of understand,” he waved at Aodhan, “he fits your M.O. as a medical staff member who mistreated patients.”

“Technically, he mistreated the family members of patients,” Aodhan corrected, “but yeah.”

“Why Amory?”

“I didn’t like her?”

“You tried to frame her early on, too,” Calix recalled. “You lied when you told me you recognized her voice from the party.”

Okay, so he’d fibbed a little . Pot calling the kettle black. Damn.

“She’s close to Mitri,” Aodhan said.

“Mitri?” Calix frowned and then looked at Mercy. “It’s because of you, isn’t it? Aodhan didn’t frame her, you did. This is your jealousy acting up again, like it did in the woods.”

“I never claimed to follow a personal set of rules like he did,” Mercy admitted unapologetically.

“So you’ll kill just for the hell of it?”

“No, I’ll kill whoever gets in my way. So long as they don’t, they’re free to go about their lives. Plain and simple.”

“Simple.” Calix didn’t seem pleased. “Right.”

“What? Upset because if you were still a detective, you’d have to arrest me?”

“Can’t I just be upset in general? Do I need a reason to dislike the fact that the guy I’ve tied my lifeforce to is self-serving above all else?”

“Wrong,” Mercy said. “Everything I do, I do for my pod. You and Aodhan matter most, even before my own well-being. That’s what is required of a worthy First. I’d sooner cut off my whole hand than allow you to suffer losing a single finger.”

Aodhan made a needy sound the same moment Calix reached for Mercy’s collar.

Their First chuckled knowingly at them. “Really? We’re in the middle of a conversation.”

“It can wait.” Aodhan stood and started to remove his jacket.

“He’s right.” Calix undid the top button of Mercy’s dress shirt. “It’s a long trip back to Emergence from here.”

“Think you can make us each come enough times to count using all of our protected fingers?” Aodhan yanked his belt free from his pants as he delivered the obvious challenge.

“Oh,” Mercy purred, “I’ll make sure you regret that, little killer.”

“Bring it on.”

Aodhan could take responsibility for his own actions.

Even if he wound up back in a bathtub, screaming for relief.

At least this time, he was confident Calix would be right there with him.