Page 25

“Are monsters born, or made?” Aodhan asked, trailing a hand up the center of Calix’s bare chest.

“What?” the word came out breathy and weak, and Cal struggled to get a hold of himself. Fighting against the pheromones being pumped into the air was impossible and, truth be told, he was only partially interested in fighting it.

He’d known what was going to be expected of him the second he’d begged Titus to buy the sylar.

They’d relocated to a side room with a two-way mirror that took up an entire wall. The mirror faced the large room they’d been in earlier, where most of the other guests had either wandered off or started in on the second half of the night’s festivities.

Before they’d gone, Titus had done that thing of his, altering the feeling in the air until everyone around them had been a writhing, moaning mess.

It’d be hilarious watching what had to be the richest people in the galaxy lose their minds and their composure, if Cal didn’t happen to also be right there with them.

Now, he squirmed in the plush yellow chair Aodhan had pushed him into, helpless to stop the doctor’s wandering hands as they teasingly stripped him of all his clothing.

“Maybe a little bit of both,” Titus answered Aodhan, coming up behind the chair so he could stare down at Cal. “Ours was probably made. He’s too normal otherwise.”

“Thank Light he isn’t normal,” Aodhan disagreed. “He’d be so boring then.”

“I’m right here,” Cal pointed out, but the other two acted as though they didn’t hear.

Pretty soon, he was completely naked, lying back in the chair with his hands resting on the armrests. He was torn between wanting to resist and just…giving in.

“Do you feel like you owe us, Azi?” Titus figured him out easily enough. “For buying you the sylar?”

He refused to answer, but he pressed his lips together stubbornly, causing the other man to laugh.

“Once we’re bonded, I’ll buy you anything you want,” the director promised. “And I won’t expect anything in return. What’s yours will be mine, and what’s mine will be yours. Take,” his sharp green eyes lifted toward the doctor, “my little killer, for example.”

Aodhan licked the side of Calix’s right knee and grinned at him as he parted Cal’s thighs. When Calix made a sound of protest, he shushed him. “It’s okay, Be’urn. You’ve been feeling empty, haven’t you? Let me fill you up.”

“Just go back to calling me baby,” Cal growled, hissing when the doctor pressed a finger to his entrance. “And you,” he glared up at Titus, “what’s with the ‘little’? There’s nothing little about either of us, and we’re only, like, two inches shorter than you, if even.”

“Oh he’s getting snappy,” Aodhan chuckled.

“That means we’re making him nervous.” Titus ran his fingers through Cal’s hair. “Trying to distract us so we don’t notice how turned on you are right now, little monster?”

“I confessed to crippling a man,” Calix stated. “That’s not the type of behavior that’s meant to go un—”

“You want us to punish you?” His fingers twisted in a lock of his hair and he yanked Cal’s head up. “We can do that. We can do both.”

“I can punish you with my teeth,” Aodhan nipped at the tender flesh of Cal’s inner thigh and pressed his middle finger deep inside of him. “And reward you with my cock.”

“Spread him wider,” Titus ordered. I don’t have a good view from this vantage point.”

“I have questions.” Cal yelped when he was partially dragged down the chair so Aodhan could resituate him with his legs spread wide around him. They were lifted, his knees pressed back.

“Hold him,” the doctor said, and Titus reached forward and wrapped warm hands around the backs of Cal’s knees, keeping him in place.

“Go ahead,” Titus smirked over him. “Ask your questions.”

Aodhan drove two fingers into him and Calix gasped.

“That didn’t sound like a question. Have you already forgotten what you wanted to say?”

Calix’s eyes narrowed at the obvious challenge. “What happened to the no-touching-me game? Did you give up?”

“Does this look like giving up to you?” Titus’s arrogant expression had a flash of indignation curling its way through the lust being forced on him.

“So it’s fine if Aodhan touches me, so long as you don’t?” Cal countered. “Not to mention the fact you have to pump me full of pheromones just to get me to this state.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Should we test that theory, monstrous one? I don’t think you’ll like the results. But if you insist…”

“Wait.” Too late, he realized his mistake, but he should have learned by now that once Titus decided on something, there was no turning back.

Without needing to be told, Aodhan pulled his fingers free and stood.

He moved away just as Titus let go of Cal’s legs, stepping off to the side to lean back against the window with his arms crossed.

He didn’t seem the least bit interested in the orgy taking place outside, the corner of his mouth tipping up in a mocking smile when Calix met his gaze.

“Should have kept your mouth shut,” the doctor drawled. “He was going to give you more time to adjust.”

Cal sent Titus an accusatory glare as the older man settled in the empty spot between his thighs. When he tried to close his legs, the director clicked his tongue, the sound somehow enough to get him to freeze up as though a blaster was being held to his head.

“How long have you been doing that?” the question was whispered low, but the realization felt like a bomb going off inside of him. He’d noticed every other time the Connect had used his abilities on him— “Mother fucker.”

He shot to his feet, but a hand shot out, wrapping around his throat, shoving him back down into the chair.

Calix grabbed onto Titus’s arm, but he couldn’t push the older man away, no matter how much he struggled.

The director only allowed it for a moment anyway, that same instinct to be docile in his presence rushing at him, forcing Calix to drop his gaze and loosen his hold without consciously meaning to.

“Have you figured it out?” Titus asked. “How much control over you I truly have?”

All those times he’d used his power on Cal to make him feel scared or angry or horny had been a veiled trick. The director had wanted him to know what he was doing, that way he could get away with his real endgame.

“You made sure I couldn’t feel it was your influence making me—”

“Recognize I was your master?”

He’d always felt like the director was somehow above the rest of them. Had gotten the sense he was the one Cal needed to convince if he ever stood a chance of getting out of this or gaining higher ground.

“The problem with knowing you’re smart is you forget you may not be the smartest in the room,” Titus said.

“We spoke in circles, and I allowed you to occasionally feel like you had the upper hand because that’s what was needed to get your guard down.

Make no mistake though, little monster, I’m the one in control here, and I don’t just mean of Aodhan Solace. ”

Calix’s eyes flicked over toward the doctor, but he didn’t seem offended by that comment. On the contrary, there was something almost like reverence written in Aodhan’s expression as he watched Titus’s back, barely even noticing Cal’s attention.

“How?” Cal needed to know. It was too late to fight against it now, so all thoughts of resistance went out the window, but still.

That explained why Titus always skirted questions about his abilities. He’d answered the ones about his snake tattoo without hesitation. It should have been a clue, but like an idiot, Cal had fallen for the distraction tactic.

“It was simply a matter of altering my pheromones around you. Changing the feeling you get from me when in my presence, as opposed to messing with the ones in the air. Everything emits pheromones, you know. I have plenty to work with, meaning there are many ways I can affect those around me. Even those,” he pointed over his shoulder toward the window, “not around me.”

The orgy was still going strong despite the fact Titus was in here and not out there. At the first party, Calix had also witnessed him cross the room without being touched or hit on, despite everyone else being barely able to keep their hands off anything that moved. Only Aodhan had reacted to him.

Then there had also been the director’s office the day Rhett had held him at gunpoint.

Rhett’s emotions had been all over the place, but Calix hadn’t been affected even once he was in the small room alone with the two of them.

He’d had suspicions the ability could be directed at a single person, but he really should have spent more energy thinking about this, instead of feeling sorry for himself, wasting time wondering if his two captors would really keep him if he told them what they wanted to hear.

“You like animals so much,” Titus continued, “you should know a bit about how predators and prey work. Prey have instincts that alert them when a predator is near. Senses like smell, hearing, and sight all come into play, but sense in general can also be considered something all on its own. That intuition you get when something doesn’t feel right, even though you can’t quite put your finger on why.

Dominant alphas release pheromones naturally that warn everyone they’re top of the hierarchy. ”

There were certain species in the universe that had a second gender known as alpha, omega, and beta.

Calix had only taken one case on a planet where that was the norm, and he’d spent a night in bed with a man who’d claimed to be an alpha.

It’d been intense, but the man had still been too delicate, afraid of hurting Cal even though he’d told him over and over again that was what he wanted.

His own personal experience aside, he’d heard stories about how aggressive alphas could be when they entered their heat cycles. If he’d had the chance to stick around longer on that planet, he would have out of pure curiosity.

“Are you saying you learned how to mimic those pheromones?” Calix sucked in a breath when Titus’s hand drifted from his neck down the center of his chest leisurely.

“Don’t you feel like you should submit?” his voice turned sultry. “Doesn’t it feel like that would be in your best interest?”

It did, and in a way that Calix had never experienced before.

Only that wasn’t entirely true, because now that he was aware of it, he could pinpoint that he’d felt this way around Titus before, on multiple occasions.

Hadn’t he instantly pegged Titus as the one in charge, despite how forward Aodhan always was?

Before he’d been kidnapped, the director and him had spoken infrequently, and yet even then, Cal had gotten the odd sense that something wasn’t right. That he should avoid the older man for his own well-being.

And now that avoiding was impossible?

He did want to submit.

Which seriously pissed him off.

Even if it made things easier for him in the long run.

“Frightening you outright wouldn’t work,” Titus said, touching him lower.

“Your penchant for rushing toward danger instead of away from it wouldn’t have allowed it to.

But this? This is a different sort of unease, tinged in fear, yes, but not sourced from it.

Your subconscious simply knows which of us has the most power. It isn’t you.”

“Are you saying you’ll hurt me if I don’t comply?” Calix grunted. “Not seeing how that’ll work in your favor either, Wa’rid.”

They all tensed, and Cal inwardly cursed himself for the slip.

His comment would have been a lot more impactful if he hadn’t accidentally tacked on the respectful title.

They’d been calling him things like Be’urn and Azi for weeks though, and it must have gotten to him.

Wa’rid was the title given to an older male one was close with in his language, and since they were currently on Emergence…

“I take that back,” he said when it became apparent Titus was waiting for him to say something else. “We are not close. I shouldn’t have—”

“Get up.” Titus took three deliberate steps away, giving Calix room to follow the command.

“What?” Taken aback, he sat there instead of listening, though the sensation that he should get moving screamed in his head.

“Should I drag him out?” Aodhan suggested.

“No. He’ll do it himself. Up. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but Titus beat him to it.

“You might like pain, little monster, but you don’t like suffering. And you especially don’t like,” Titus tipped his head, “humiliation.”

Calix glanced around him at the orgy in the back, sucking in a sharp breath. Bodies were writhing and slapping together chaotically, almost to the point he wasn’t entirely sure any of them would even notice if he was brought out there and forced to join them.

But it wasn’t something he was willing to find out, and Titus knew that.

“I can fuck you here,” the director reiterated, “in front of our Second, or I can put you on display out there and make you come on my cock in front of a live audience. The choice is entirely yours.”

“What will it be?” Aodhan crossed his arms, scowling now. “Hurry up. Don’t keep us in suspense.”

Calix frowned at him.

“He doesn’t like the idea of sharing you,” Titus answered the question he was thinking before he could ask it, and when his breath hitched, reassured him.

“I mean in any capacity. No one else is allowed to touch you, Calix. Ever. Even if you decide to continue pushing me, and I end up having to carry you out there and breed you on the floor like one of the animals you care for. They can watch, but no one can lay a hand on you.”

“Mercy,” Aodhan growled, proving he really wasn’t a fan of the watching idea either.

“It’s not up to you, little killer,” Titus insisted, holding Cal’s gaze hostage. “It’s up to him.”

Calix already knew what it was like being gossiped about, and even though no one in the other room would have a right to judge him even if he was fucked in front of them, he couldn’t bring himself to be unaffected by the notion.

They might be wearing masks, but that didn’t make a difference either.

Anyone who really wanted to discover his identity could easily do so.

Not to mention, after weeks of leaving him hanging, both literally and figuratively, it sounded like the director was finally going to let him experience what his cock was like…Should he want that? No.

Had he been thinking about it for days and days?

Hell yes.

He stood up.

And waited for the next instruction.