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Cal kicked out, landing a blow to Aodhan’s powerful thighs, but it did nothing to deter the other man. He found himself sprawled out on his back in the dirt again in no time at all, his clothing torn from his body in a flurry of motion that nearly gave him whiplash.

It seemed like the doctor had no intention of taking his time anymore, not even bothering with an explanation or further greeting, despite their lengthy time apart.

“No!” A burst of adrenaline shot through Calix the second he felt the cold air against his naked skin and his struggles increased.

After years of working for the I.P.F., it wasn’t like he couldn’t hold his own in a fight.

Reminded of that, Calix swung a fist, scrambling to his feet the second his knuckles connected with Aodhan’s jaw.

Only to make it less than two steps before the pants bunched at his feet tripped him and sent him toppling face-first to the ground for the third time in only a handful of minutes.

“Come here,” Aodhan growled, latching onto Cal’s right ankle to tug him back toward him.

Calix hissed as he was dragged over debris, tiny pebbles and twigs cutting into his bare flesh as he was carelessly yanked down toward the embankment. He clawed at the dirt, but no matter how hard he struggled, his strength was nothing compared to the doctors.

An image of one of the severed heads that had been a part of his case chose that moment to flash through his mind. The cut had been clean, clearly made by someone skilled. And strong.

Was that going to be his fate as well?

Had the serial killer doctor come all this way to make Cal his next victim? It would suck, but it was a possibility. Of course if the thought he’d been rejected, he’d want to keep Calix quiet.

“It’s time you cool off, Be’urn.” Aodhan grabbed a fistful of Cal’s hair and twisted him around, holding him until he was kneeling in the mud. He flashed his teeth, grinning viciously in a way that was both enthralling and terrifying all at once. “Did I ever tell you about my little brother?”

The sudden curveball had Calix blinking in confusion, unable to respond, not that it seemed like Aodhan really expected him to.

“I tried drowning him as a kid,” he said, sounding far too pleased with himself after confessing something as heinous as that. “Watching him sputter and flail about didn’t really do anything for me. I wonder if this will be any different.”

“What—” Cal didn’t get to finish that sentence. In the next instance, he was shoved face-first into the lake. They were still on the edge, so there was only an inch or two of water there, but his face was submerged and held under, mud and dirty water gushing into Calix’s mouth, coating his tongue.

He gagged and tried to straighten, but his hands kept slipping, the ground too soft in the water for him to use as leverage.

Had he miscalculated?

Maybe the doctor really was here to kill him.

Aodhan pulled him back out with the same level of ferocity, holding him steady as Cal gasped and sucked in oxygen.

Brackish water dripped down his forehead, stinging his eyes, and he desperately brushed the droplets and strands of his hair away, blinking against the burning sensation. “Aodhan, stop. Please.”

The man at his side let out a bark of laughter that was a little too manic around the edges for Cal’s comfort.

“Do you hear yourself? Not even you believed that was going to work. Three months, that’s how long it’s taken to hunt you down.

There’s no chance in hell my fury will be that easily satiated. ”

“I haven’t told anyone about you.” It was a desperate attempt, but Calix wasn’t above pulling out all the stops now.

Only, that seemed to piss Aodhan off even more.

“Oh, so now you want to live? Spent a few weeks sucking someone else’s dick and suddenly you’ve regained your sense of survival?”

So he knew all about how far Cal had gone during his training. “It was only a couple of times. It didn’t mean anything.”

“You’re mine, Be’urn,” Aodhan sneered, and when someone scoffed at their backs, instantly corrected in the exact same possessive tone, “ Ours .”

Calix had forgotten all about the other figure chasing him through the forest, but at the sound, he stiffened, doubt returning tenfold.

He tried to turn his head to look over his shoulder, but Aodhan wouldn’t allow that.

Not that he really needed visual confirmation to know who the person who’d joined them was. “…Mercy?”

“Did you think we were alone?” Aodhan said. “There are four of us here.”

“Four?” He hated it, but his stomach dropped, and for a moment the whole world seemed to spin.

He couldn’t possibly have been holding onto a shred of hope all this time that they’d been serious about making him their Third, and yet…

Hearing that there were four made him want to cry more than choking on filthy lake water had.

“Yeah. There’s us,” he forced Cal’s eyes forward, pointing toward a spot ahead, “and him.”

At first, Calix didn’t know what he was talking about, but eventually his eyes began to make out the floating lump ten or so feet out. He leaned forward a bit, not noticing how Aodhan allowed him to, and then gasped when he realized what he was looking at. “That’s…”

A dead body.

“Mr. Smith,” Aodhan supplied, though Cal barely heard him.

There was a dead body in the lake.

The lake he’d basically just drunk from.

Calix vomited, released from Aodhan’s hold the second he started. He emptied the contents of his stomach into that very lake, watching as chunks of his lunch drifted off toward the corpse.

A strong arm wrapped around him and pulled him away from the water.

He was shoved down onto his back all over again, this time next to a pile of wood that had been carefully stacked.

He frowned at it, only processing what it was when the man on the other side of the pile lit a match and set the whole thing slowly ablaze.

The flicker of firelight danced across Mercy’s face, highlighting the cut of his cheekbones and the disapproving glint in his eye.

Cal wasn’t given long to look, letting out a yelp when his pants were completely removed and his shoes and socks were torn off and tossed over Aodhan’s shoulder.

The sound of them plopping into the water had Calix scrambling to get up, but suddenly Mercy was behind him, pinning his shoulders to the dirt, a knee at either side of Cal’s head.

He stared at the director, trying to find any clues as to what they intended to do to him written on the man’s face, but it was impossible.

Aside from a hint of disappointment, Mercy gave nothing away.

Aodhan forced Cal’s legs apart and settled between his spread thighs, his presence there ensuring Calix couldn’t close them. Wordlessly, he reached for something by the fire, but Cal could only partially make out the end of a long stick from his vantage point.

Panic bubbled, but before he could try and fight them off, Mercy tsked down at him.

“I was against this in the beginning, but that was before I found out about your intentions for the night,” Mercy said.

“Hold on.” Calix still didn’t know what was about to happen, but the fact the director was so calm and stony about it meant it couldn’t be anything good.

“I don’t know why you’re still coddling him,” Aodhan growled, stabbing the stick into the fire roughly. “He wanted to be fucked so badly? He’s going to get his wish. This? This is just a precursor. Hell, he’ll probably enjoy it.”

Cal vehemently shook his head, pleadingly holding Mercy’s gaze. “No, please. Whatever this is, I don’t want it.”

“Should have thought of that before you agreed to give your hole to someone else.” Aodhan lifted the stick from the fire and brought the end up so he could take a closer look at it, and by doing so, allowed Calix his first real glimpse as well.

It wasn’t a stick at all. It was a rod.

With a hot iron that was glowing bright red orange.

“Good Light!” Cal dug his heels in, but the second he went to move, a wave of pleasure tore through him. It was so sudden and intense that his eyes actually rolled to the back of his head, and his entire body tensed up.

It was like what had happened to him that time in the woods when Mercy had screwed him with his own blaster, only dialed up to one hundred. There was no easing him into things, no warning. His dick was semi-hard between his thighs one moment, and full and dripping the next.

He panted, peering up at the man responsible for this sudden onslaught of lust, and tried to fight against it.

“It’s pointless, little monster,” Mercy told him. “You can’t fight what you can’t see.”

Pheromones. Right.

“Why bother? He’ll end up enjoying this all on his own,” Aodhan stated, only for Mercy to send him a quick, dark look, before locking eyes with Cal again. As though he was trying to make Calix feel like he wasn’t alone.

Why bother was an accurate sentiment.

“He enjoys pain,” Mercy scolded. “Not torture.”

That had some of the lust dissipating, but seeming to sense that, Mercy moved his hands to cup the sides of Cal’s jaw.

As soon as the director did, another wave of pleasure flooded through him. He moaned and flicked his hips, dick bobbing in the cool breeze, splattering tiny droplets of precome across his abdomen.

“It’s ready,” Aodhan announced.

“Please!” Calix grabbed onto Mercy’s wrist. “Please!”

“Hush,” he shushed him. “We’re not cutting anything off. I told you before, I want you whole, remember? That’s more true than ever.”

Aodhan planted a palm against the side of Cal’s left knee and shoved his leg wider. “This is going to hurt.”

That was all the warning he gave before he pressed the heated iron against Cal’s tender flesh. He’d positioned it on the inner thigh, so close to Calix’s dick, he could feel the heat wafting off the metal.

Even with the pheromones, the pain was intense, the feel of his flesh melting and searing causing him to scream.

His voice echoed around them, but the noise didn’t seem to worry them.

Right along with the pain was something else, potent pleasure that sent tingling sensations racing across his skin.

His balls twitched, and he came so close to coming it was unreal.

It couldn’t have lasted long, and yet felt like an eternity all the same. And after, they continued to hold him down for a moment, even once Aodhan was satisfied and removed the iron.

Eventually, he tossed it onto the ground far away enough that it was out of reach, and then crooked two fingers at Mercy. “Your turn.”

“No,” Cal moaned, but couldn’t move as he was momentarily released, just long enough for the two of them to switch positions.

“Relax, Be’urn,” Aodhan said once he was situated at Cal’s head. “Concentrate on your dick instead. Want me to help? If you beg nicely, I might oblige, though I am still cross with you. The branding helped take the edge off, helped me feel a bit more confident, but still.”

Mercy adjusted Cal’s body in a similar fashion to how Aodhan had before, only this time, his focus was on Cal’s right side.

“I got rid of those ugly marks,” Aodhan continued to talk to him, almost casually, as Mercy slipped another rod into the flames and waited. “Replaced them with something better.”

“Better?” he hated that he was asking but…Calix sniffled. “What?”

“From now on, you aren’t allowed to hurt yourself,” Aodhan chided. “If you want pain, Be’urn, you come to one of us, understood?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“To which part?”

He should say the first part. Any sane person would. “I don’t understand.”

“I just seared my name into your flesh.” The doctor's hands roamed across Cal’s chest, tweaking his nipples before dipping lower to swirl around his navel.

“Just branded you as mine for the entire universe to see. Try spreading for someone else now, Calix. Try denying what’s right in front of you one more time. ”

“What?”

“You're ours.” Aodhan’s hand wrapped around Cal’s dick the same moment Titus pulled the second brand from the fire and shoved it against a fresh patch of skin.

The mark was left in the same place, just on his inner right thigh, and though the level of pain was the same, Calix didn’t scream again. Instead he cried out for a different reason, relishing the mixture of intense agony blended with the rough feel of Aodhan’s hand jerking him off.

And the confidence that they hadn’t come here to kill him.

They’d come to claim him.