Page 8

There were two other men standing within the glass case, one dressed all in white, another dressed all in black, aside from his deep red mask. Their masks were decorated differently as well, the white one decorated in painted golden leaves, while the other had been left blank.

Somehow, Calix found himself drawn to the less flashy one, taking in the tall man and his inky black hair, the only personal feature that could be seen. Hell, he even had on leather gloves to hide his hands.

The man in white wasn’t wearing any. He didn’t have any shoes on either, and he seemed to be speaking to the merman, his facial expression hidden behind the full mask. Whatever he was saying though, it was clear the creature tied to the table did not agree.

The merman’s thrashing became wilder, his muscles pulling taut against his bonds. The glass must be soundproof, maybe even mirrored one way, since no one inside had so much as glanced at the audience.

The audience who were watching silently with bated breath.

The tension and excitement in the room expanded until Cal could practically taste it every time he inhaled. Even Aodhan seemed riveted to the scene, leaving just him feeling like the outsider, clueless and left in the dark.

A door leading into the box from the other side opened, and someone handed the guy in white a cruz saw. The saw blade had a diameter of around two feet and was controlled by a wireless remote in the form of a fingerless glove. The tool had been created years ago to help builders get to higher and harder to reach places. It also allowed a single carpenter to cut two objects at once by wearing a glove on each hand, doubling his productivity.

Maybe Calix was dumb, because it took him much longer than it should have to figure out what was going on, and it took the blade positioned to hover over the merman’s tail for it to click.

Aodhan’s hand slapped over his thigh and held him down when he would have leapt to his feet.

“Wow, I can’t believe how lucky we are,” the woman whispered next to him, having missed his reaction. “We’re actually going to get to see firsthand if the legends are true or not.”

“What legends?” Cal really didn’t want to ask, but the words poured out of him anyway.

At the front of the room, the saw blade was being repositioned, as though the man in white had a specific place he wanted to…

Bile rose up the back of Cal’s throat and he swallowed.

“Rumors are, if you cut a merfolk tail down the center, those two pieces will heal into legs,” Aodhan filled in, keeping his voice down as well. “Since they’d been impossible to find in the wild, no scientist has been able to confirm or deny these claims.”

“Until tonight.” The woman was practically vibrating in her seat.

Calix blinked and turned on Aodhan. “You can’t actually intend to just sit here while—”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Aodhan interrupted, giving him a warning look that sent a shiver straight down his spine to his toes. “It’s what we’re both going to do.”

He shouldn’t be giving into that tone or the authority ringing in it. He was the one in charge here. He was the lead detective on this case, and Aodhan was merely a doctor liaison. There was literally no reason Cal should be listening to him, and yet he found himself doing exactly that.

It wasn’t like there was anything he could do anyway, he told himself as they waited. Even if he called for backup, by the time the police got here, it would be too late, and considering the number of masked men who’d occupied the front of the mansion...Bodyguards, he now realized. Meant to protect the guests from any unwanted scrutiny.

Unless Calix wanted to be responsible for getting Aodhan killed in the merman’s place by outing them, the only thing he could do was sit there and shut up.

The main event started almost instantly, in a blink and you’ll miss it type of display that Cal’s brain struggled to process.

The man in white brought the controls over close to the saw blade, not touching it, but near enough the devices synced together. At first, there was no sound as the blade was quite literally dropped, slicing straight through the merman’s tail. From their angle, the audience in the back could only see a few inches of the blade sticking out the top as it was dragged down the merman’s body, slicing through flesh and scales with ease.

There was blood, a lot of it, though it was purple in color, gushing and spraying as the merman’s bottom half was cut in two.

Calix thought he might be sick, his stomach clenching painfully, his eyes wide as he stared in abstract horror at the scene before him, trying to convince himself it wasn’t real. That he wasn’t here, sitting in the audience like some accomplice to what was potentially a murder.

Even if it didn’t lead to murder, this was torture. This was—

Something dragged his gaze up the merman’s body, past the blood-soaked man in white. The breath caught in his throat when his eyes locked onto the red mask. Even from this distance, he was certain the man behind it was staring directly at him.

And he seemed angry.

The man in black stepped to the head of the table, all without breaking eye contact with Cal, and removed the gag from the creature’s mouth. Then he set his gloved hands at either side of the screaming merman. The second his fingers connected with the metal table, audio switched on, the screams and shrieks of pain echoing throughout the room, causing everyone to jump in their seats.

But that was all.

They jerked as though startled, some laughing at their own reactions before settling back down to continue enjoying the show.

The show where another living, sentient creature was tortured and maimed, all for their entertainment. To appease some sick curiosity.

Cal met Red Mask’s gaze again and a wave of nausea hit him hard enough to send him reeling. He scrambled out of his seat, practically knocking it over in his haste to vacate the room, racing toward the only open doorway he could find, which happened to be directly across from the scene of horror.

He just barely made it beneath the threshold, turning to vomit inside the wide basin of a potted plant. Tears burned at the corners of his eyes as he upchucked everything he’d consumed that day and then some, one hand clawing at the wall as he shook and almost toppled forward.

An arm banded around his waist, keeping him upright as he puked his guts out, a soothing voice comforting him quietly all the while.

By the time he was done, the screams had stopped, and he squeezed his eyes shut and focused on trying to calm his breathing.

“Look, Detective,” Aodhan whispered, running a hand down his back.

Calix vehemently shook his head.

“Trust me, Cal.”

There was even less reason for Calix to trust him than there was for him to be following his orders, and yet the softness in the doctor’s tone had him straightening and turning to glance back into the room.

The faint hum of the saw could still be heard, letting Calix know the soundproofing hadn’t been reactivated. That wasn’t the cause for the sudden end to the screams. It was the merman, and not because he’d died or passed out either. His entire demeanor had shifted. He was no longer screaming or fighting, instead, he was staring up at Red Mask as though elated to see him there.

What the fuck?

“Baccus brought Antitheus in to help soothe the merman,” Aodhan told him, an arm still around his waist. He spoke the words directly against the curve of Cal’s ear.

Those must be the names of the men in white and black. Since the leaves on the white mask matched the one he’d seen on the wax seal, it wasn’t a stretch to assume he was Baccus. That meant Red Mask was known to these people as Antitheus.

He sounded important.

He looked important.

“How?” Calix asked.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It does to…me.” he frowned, watching as the mood of the whole room seemed to pivot suddenly. “What are they doing?”

People finally started looking away from the box, hands wandering, mouths seeking. Moans and soft gasps began filling the room, drowning out the saw so that Cal didn’t even notice when the device was shut off and a man dressed as a doctor stepped into the glass case and began working on the merman’s wounds.

Something prickled at his skin, something hot and uncomfortable, making him feel tight. He shifted, trying to work out a kink in a muscle he couldn’t identify. A familiar burn raced down his body, settling in his lower region. With another gasp of dread, he realized he’d gotten hard, his dick straining against the silky material of the pink pants.

The feeling was familiar, instantly bringing back memories of the woods when he’d been cornered by a man he’d thought was Heathe.

Thought then, anyway. The more he replayed those events in his ind, the more certain he became that it wasn’t Heathe that day fucking him with his own gun.

The arousal was swift and all consuming, just like in the forest, and it wasn’t just him and the rest of the party that were experiencing it.

Aodhan pulled him back suddenly, shoving him against the wall in the hallway they’d ended up in when he’d gone to vomit. His body pressed against Cal’s, one hand diving through Cal’s hair, the other grabbing onto his hip as he ground himself against him.

The doctor was aroused, too.

“What’s—” Calix pulled back long enough to force the words out, struggling to turn away from Aodhan’s insistent mouth. “What’s going on?”

“Want you,” Aodhan growled. “So badly.”

“What…” Cal’s lips were captured in a scorching kiss that had his hips rocking forward to meet Aodhan’s.

Wait.

It took all his willpower to shove the other man away, but he somehow managed, clinging to the wall to remain upright. He flung out a hand when Aodhan went to step closer, shaking his head wildly. “We’ve been drugged!”

The purple beverage they’d passed out to the guests. It had to be that. Both he and Aodhan had finished a glass.

“It must be a date rape drug,” he explained, struggling with the need to touch himself and find friction for his weeping dick. Already, there was a dark stain at the front of his pants. He cursed. “I can’t believe this is happening again! This fucking planet, I swear to the gods everyone here is fucked up!”

Although, technically, the drug he’d been given at the reunion had knocked him out, not turned him on. It hadn’t made him desperate for it. Desperate to drop to his hands and knees and beg the sexy doctor with the impossibly pretty eyes to—

No.

No.

“We have to get out of here.” Calix reached for Aodhan’s wrist, but the second he made contact, they both moaned. He found himself back against the wall in a heartbeat, one of the doctor’s knees pressing between his thighs, making him croon.

“This is wrong.” His hands roamed up Aodhan’s back, feeling the muscles flex beneath his touch. “You don’t really want me.”

The doctor’s mouth covered his frantically, his tongue diving through his lips to stroke against his in a domineering display of false affection. He bit and licked at Cal, as though trying to consume him, only pulling back when he ended up biting too hard.

“Ow.” Cal felt a sting at his bottom lip and when he touched it, his finger came away red.

“You’re bleeding,” Aodhan said, voice impossibly deep. He went still as a statue, eyes staring at the blood for a moment before he planted his palms on either side of Calix’s head and used the wall to push himself away. He stumbled back, gaze sweeping out the doorway, and whatever he saw in the room had his breath quickening. “You have to get out of here.”

“What?” Calix wasn’t following.

“Go,” he insisted. “You have to leave.”

Oh, right. Because they’d been drugged.

“We both have to.” He patted himself down before recalling that Aodhan had been the one to drive.

The doctor pulled a set of keys from his jacket pocket and tossed them at Cal. “The first door on the left at the end of the hall. That leads to the parking garage. They would have put the car there.”

Calix went to move, but instead of following, Aodhan simply stepped out of his path, as though afraid they would touch and set each other off again. “What are you doing? Come on.”

“No, we can’t both leave. It doesn’t work like that.”

“What are you talking about? Aod—” He caught himself just in time, catching sight of movement over the doctor’s shoulder.

Red Mask—Antitheus—was headed toward them, not seeming any less angry than he had when he’d first caught Calix’s attention.

“Go,” Aodhan insisted, taking a single step closer to the door.

“But—”

“Good Light, Cal, if you don’t leave while you still can, I’m going to have you on your knees with my cock shoved so far—”

Calix spun on his heels and sprinted down the hall, but not because those words scared him. Because they didn’t . Things between them were already awkward enough, the last thing he needed was to completely botch this investigation by sleeping with the doctor while under the influence. Clearly the other man understood that, since he was being a good guy here and sending Cal away before anything serious could happen between him or anyone else.

And he most likely would fuck other people in this state too. The drug was potent, he could tell. Now those words spoken by that woman earlier made more sense. She’d been asking if she could have a threesome with them once the real party began.

After the torture and mutilation part of the evening had concluded.

His stomach recoiled at the reminder just as he reached the door Aodhan claimed would lead to safety. It cut through some of the haze of lust and he turned back, about to call out and insist the doctor leave with him.

But it was already too late.

Antithesis had Aodhan against a closed door to a side room, a finger hooked through the golden loop of the collar around the doctor’s neck. He was pulling on it, choking the man, but at the same time, it didn’t appear as though the doctor was struggling.

Aodhan made a needy sound in the back of his throat and practically rubbed himself against the other man’s leg, shamelessly pleasuring himself on his thigh.

Antithesis let him, one hand dropping to undo the top button on the doctor’s light pink pants. He freed his engorged cock and started stroking, still wearing those leather gloves. He paid extra close attention to Aodhan’s flushed crown, rolling his thumb over the sensitive area until he had the other man writhing between him and the door.

It was as though Antithesis had the doctor completely enthralled, entirely under his command. His very presence demanded obedience, all that coiled control waiting and ready to strike at any given moment.

Calix felt heat course through him all over again, didn’t realize he’d taken a single step closer until Antithesis’ head whipped in his direction. The second their eyes locked, he felt the air whoosh straight out of his lungs.

Before he could make a complete and total fool of himself, Cal shoved on the door and practically fell into the adjoining room. As promised, it was the garage, and it didn’t take him long to locate Aodhan’s vehicle with the key's location function.

It wasn’t until he was already halfway back to the city, his dick still swollen and achy in his pants, that the guilt started to trickle in.

The doctor had only gone there tonight as a favor to Bruce and Cal.

And Cal had left him there to save himself.