Strain Page 18

  Darius looked at her a long moment and sighed. “Noted.”

  “Guess that leaves the question of what we’re going to do about Rhys tonight. You know, we did a pretty good scan before we set up camp. There’s nothing around this hotel. If we wanted to take separate rooms . . .”

  “No.” Darius stared her down. He tried to think like their leader, to consider the greater implications for future recruiting efforts, the slippery slope of changing the rules at the whims of their recruits. “We don’t break safety protocol. Not to baby a shy recruit. When we camp in an area that hasn’t been thoroughly swept, we bunk together in a secured location where we can’t be cut off from one another.”

  “I know the protocol,” she snapped. “But that doesn’t leave us very many options for getting Rhys to bend over for someone tonight.”

  “I made it pretty fucking clear what would be expected of him that first time.” Darius glared at her. He didn’t even know why he was irritated, except that the thought of what would happen if Rhys chose death over allowing himself to be infected was way more upsetting than it should be. “Unless you’re willing to tell me there’s no point in continuing trying to infect him, then none of us have a damn bit of choice, short of killing him or letting him die.”

  “I don’t know.” She met his glower with one of her own. “It might be pointless by now, but I’m not willing to gamble his life on a maybe.”

  “Then we do what we have to do.” Darius felt a bitter satisfaction at throwing her words from that night in the chapel back at her. He rose and stalked away before she could manage a retort.

  Rhys stood against the far wall with his arms folded across his chest, staring at the partition as though he could see past it to his friend. Darius grabbed his thin arm in a bruising grip, wrenching a soft cry from him. Heads came up, gazes falling upon them. He knew Xolani was watching, possibly itching to interfere, and his irritation became anger. Anger at her for talking him into this scheme in the beginning, anger at himself for agreeing to it, anger at Rhys for being a recalcitrant little shit with such a misplaced sense of modesty.

  “You got ten seconds to get your ass to your blanket, boy, or I throw you over my shoulder and carry you there.”

  Those dark-fringed hazel eyes widened, darting around the room to the other Jugs.

  “You think they’re gonna help you? Five.”

  Scowling with far more defiance than he usually mustered, Rhys jerked his arm out of Darius’s grasp and stalked over to his bedroll. Darius followed, grabbing the back of his shirt and yanking it up.

  “Strip, or I cut it off you.”

  Rhys’s eyes flashed furiously. His body quivered, and Darius could see the snarl of rebellion twisting his lips. Darius seized his bony arms, snatching Rhys against him.

  “I told you from the start how this would go, boy.” He fought to check the frustration that wanted to tighten his hands on Rhys’s arms until he cried out in pain, until he wore bruises for a week. He made himself pull it back, trying to remember how easily he could injure Rhys. “We’re all in, remember? Both of us. No backing out. That was our agreement. You only got one other choice here, and I ain’t letting you choose that. Not now. Not after all this. So you strip and lay your skinny ass down.”

  If Rhys’s glare could burn, it would have incinerated Darius on the spot. The boy wasn’t afraid; he was livid. His hands shook as he pushed his jeans down with rough, jerky movements, and frustrated tears gleamed in his eyes.

  Sweet Jesus help him, even the boy’s anger was a turn-on. That was the worst part. Darius would do this, and he would like it.

  “Shirt, too.” He didn’t even know why he needed Rhys totally nude, except that he had to break down any bit of resistance Rhys mustered, to strip him bare in every possible way. He had never wanted to break Rhys, and yet now nothing less than the boy’s total capitulation would do. Darius could tell himself he was trying to prevent this happening again, but it was more than that.

  Now he understood, Darius thought in some deep, sickened part of himself, what they meant about it being an act of power.

  This was the path they had put themselves upon, he and Rhys, that night in the chapel. He couldn’t flinch. Not if it meant letting Rhys die. Too late to back out now.

  Too damn late.

  One of those angry tears spilled from the corner of Rhys’s eye, but he obeyed. He didn’t resist physically until Darius refused to let him roll to his hands and knees. Then he began to fight, and Jesus have mercy, that was good, too. The boy was hard, and that wood knocked against Darius each time Rhys tried to thrash and writhe. He pushed at Darius’s shoulders as Darius loomed over him, trying to clamp his legs shut when Darius shoved them apart to work lube into his ass. Finally, Darius pinned both of his wrists to the floor above his head with one hand, stretching out that thin torso as he guided himself to Rhys’s struggling, bucking ass and thrust.

  His mouth covered Rhys’s, not to kiss but to swallow his scream. He wondered if it sounded as loud to the rest of them as it did right there above the boy.

  Despite it all, being inside Rhys was as close to being in paradise as Darius thought he’d ever get. Rhys didn’t give up the fight right away. He kept resisting, even pinned as he was, and he was so hot and tight and amazing, seizing Darius’s cock with each effort to writhe away. And then the contact of Darius’s mouth upon Rhys’s did become a kiss, his lips crushing, grinding against that soft, pink mouth, his tongue invading. He took possession of Rhys’s unwilling mouth as surely as he had the rest of Rhys, until the struggles stopped, tapering away to sobbing gasps.

  Only then did Darius begin to move, driving into Rhys, releasing his bony wrists to grab his thighs and shove them up to his chest. He half expected Rhys to begin fighting again. But when those hands gripped Darius’s biceps and moved up to his shoulders, it was to pull him closer.

  “Say you want it, boy.” Darius panted, plunging into the incredible heat of his ass.

  Rhys shook his head violently, his lips clamped shut. Now, even now, as he reached down Darius’s back to grab the flexing muscles of his ass, he still tried to resist letting anyone hear that he enjoyed this. That he wanted it.

  That wouldn’t do. He’d make Rhys yield everything to him.

  Another brutal, bruising kiss. A hand in Rhys’s hair, yanking his head back. Teeth at Rhys’s neck, so hard and gripping he might have broken the skin with a little more pressure.

  “Say you want it, boy!” Another rough, driving thrust punctuated by the slap of Darius’s hips against Rhys’s ass.

  Rhys cried out before he could stop the sound, his face contorted with the struggle. His lean cock was a furious shade of red, shining with trails of pre-cum and jabbing against Darius’s belly. Rhys bit his lips again, trying to stifle any more sounds. When Darius forced his tongue between them, he tasted blood.

  “Say it.”

  A near scream on the next thrust, and the one after. A torrent of sound like the first furious surge of water from a breaking dam.

  “Say it!” Hard. He was fucking Rhys so hard they’d both be sore in the morning. But he couldn’t yield. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t let Rhys die because someone, somewhere, had taught him shame.

  “Please!” Rhys wailed. The fingers of one of Rhys’s hands tightened into claws on Darius’s ass, and the other moved between them, gripping his own cock. Rhys cried out as though the contact hurt, and it very well might have, as stiff and swollen as he was.

  “Oh no, you don’t.” Darius jerked the hand away. “You say it or you don’t come.”

  “Please. Pleasepleasepleaseplease . . .” A breathless, desperate litany as Darius drilled him over and over. “Oh God, please! Please! Darius!”

  “Say it. Say it!” Darius’s breaths were explosive pants against Rhys’s collarbone. Sweat dripped down his shoulders, and his muscles began to vibrate with the effort of holding back.

  He wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t. Not until Rhys had given him eve
rything.

  Rhys howled again. Yearning. Full of agonized pleasure. And when the cry had faded, a whisper followed.

  “Please. I want it. I want it. I want it. God, please . . . Please . . .”

  Darius groaned and devoured Rhys’s yells, biting at those bruised and bloodied lips, roaring his own release into that captive mouth as blinding white light strobed behind his eyelids. He pumped and pumped into Rhys until he was certain he’d spent everything he had. Not just cum, but every ounce of fluid within him—blood and tears and sweat and bile—leaving Darius wrung out and bone-dry. But before he collapsed, he jacked Rhys off, fast and hard, until the boy spurted over both of them.

  He wanted to be tender as his weight crushed Rhys, but he couldn’t. Not after what he’d done. He’d lost the right to ever be tender again.

  Sickened with himself, he pushed his body off Rhys and pulled up his fatigues with jerky movements. He looked down at the pale belly streaked with jizz, at the dingy carpet, at anything but those wide eyes, where he was certain a hundred accusations must be written.

  “We all make sacrifices to live in this shithole of a world, boy.” Even through his remorse, Darius’s body hummed with satisfaction. If not for the circumstances, he would have called that the best fuck of his life. “Told you from the start I didn’t have time to be a good man. Now I’ve gone and done the one thing I swore to myself I’d never do. At least you’ll live. Sure as hell hope that’s worth something.”

  He walked away to the other half of the room, beyond the partition, before Rhys could answer.

  “You okay?” Gabe asked as Rhys propped his rake in the rotting shed.

  “Yeah.” He shook his head in disgust. “I just don’t get why he hates us so much. We’ve never done anything to him.”

  “He doesn’t need a reason. He’s just an asshole.” Gabe shrugged. “You’re younger and smaller, which makes you an easy target. And I’m competition.”

  “Huh?”

  “Come on. Cady’s growing up. Few more years down the line, he’s going to get tired of dating Rosy Palm, and I’m the only other eligible guy in the way of the obvious target. Unless he wants to make a play for Mrs. Merkle.”

  “Ew. Gross.” Rhys shuddered. “Why would he even think you’d be interested?”

  Gabe gave Rhys a look that said he was being stupid. “Because I’m eighteen, and someday I’m going to get tired of dating Rosy Palm, too, and there aren’t any other options around here.”

  “But what about—” Rhys broke off, profoundly grateful for the dark shed that hid the heat in his face. Did Gabe really not consider him an option?

  After three years, how could Gabe still not understand the infatuation Rhys had developed almost the moment they’d met on the journey from Montana? Did he not realize that Rhys lay in his small room each night replaying every little kindness, every time Gabe leaped to his defense against Jacob’s bullying? Did he not know that when Rhys’s hand stole under the blanket to ease the tight ache in his nuts, he imagined Gabe? Brave, courteous, playful, older, wiser, knowledgeable Gabe?

  “What?” Gabe watched him patiently.

  “What about me?” Rhys whispered, trembling at his own daring.

  Gabe stared for a confused moment as Rhys’s heart pounded, his palms sweating. He didn’t know which of them moved, but they were only a breath apart when Father Maurice came thundering out of the monastery.

  “So, who’s your type, Rhys?” Xolani asked, pulling Rhys from his reverie as they loaded their packs into the inflatable boats Darius’s people had stored in one of the empty luxury condos on the riverfront in downtown Portland. The boat carrying Gabe and half the Jugs in the squad had already left the dock, and the motorcycles had been stashed in one of the waterfront buildings for the next patrol to grab when they came down this side of the river.

  “Sorry?” He was aching again. The two-day walk from Salem to Portland had been exhausting, and each night it had ended the same way it had the day they found Gabe. Each night he fought not to give in to Darius, not to debase himself where Gabe would hear and know. Each night, Darius inevitably overpowered him. He was covered in bruises from the struggle, and God help him, despite his misery, every sight of them, every flash of memory about how they’d been acquired, sent a surge of arousal pulsing through him.

  He was a pervert. Just like Jacob and Father Maurice had always said.

  “What you see here is only a small part of Delta Company.” She idly flipped one of her knives in her hand, waiting to pass him the next pack. “Some of the other squads have been scouting east toward the Cascades, some are going west toward the coast, but at any given time at the fort, we have around seventy troops stationed, working in teams to scavenge supplies, repair infrastructure, even tend the crops we plant when we settle in one place for long enough to need them. Only about twenty percent of the company is female, which means most of the rest either like men or have learned to be fluid enough about such things to consider it. Whether or not they’re spoken for is another matter. Darius told me to figure out who to introduce you to. See if there’s someone you’ll like better than him.”

  Rhys stumbled, quickly turning away to keep her from seeing the shock that had punched him in the gut. Darius was just going to get rid of him, hand him off to someone else?

  “You’ll be the belle of the ball, cutie.” Kaleo wandered by in time to overhear and earned himself a glower. “Not often we get fresh meat.”

  The look Jacob shot Rhys from behind Xolani’s back could have incinerated him. Somehow, Jacob hated him even more now that he was fighting it than he had when Rhys had been reluctantly willing.

  Xolani scoffed. “You’re full of shit, Kaleo. I know Schuyler. You might be able to do who you want out in the field, but back on base?” She smirked. “She’ll have your balls if you even think about doing someone else without her permission.”

  “Who says I won’t have permission?” Kaleo wandered off with a grin and a cheeky wink, leaving Rhys’s face burning with humiliation.

  Xolani’s look was almost pitying, and that was even worse.

  “Don’t worry about it.” She sighed. “Kaleo gets inappropriate with everyone who hasn’t kicked his ass at least once, no matter how much he actually likes them. Sooner or later, someone breaks his nose and he behaves himself for a while. We’ll toughen you up, you’ll beat him down, and he’ll be your friend for life.”

  Rhys grimaced, unconvinced, as he accepted the next bag Xolani tossed to him. “So, what, am I supposed to date?”

  She snickered. “Well, I doubt anyone expects you to buy them dinner.”

  “I think—” Rhys swallowed, looking away across the river where it ran between high concrete banks. The docks of the marina had long since begun to rot into the river. The boards of the short stretch remaining creaked alarmingly any time they put weight on them, which was why Rhys and Jacob, the lightest of the party, had been nominated to load the inflatables. Rhys stepped cautiously around Jacob and onto the dock to tuck the rucksack in the boat.

  “What?” Xolani watched him carefully when Rhys hesitated to continue.

  “I don’t want to do that. Meet anyone, I mean. Not for . . . that.”

  “Pay attention to where you’re stepping,” Xolani snapped at Jacob. The rotting boards gave a particularly loud creak as he pushed past Rhys with a bag of his own, exercising much less caution. Rhys saw Darius turn his head to watch them from beyond Xolani, his dark eyes squinted against the morning sun and his mouth pulled down as he listened to Titus and Jamie report. “I already told you why this is important, Rhys.”

  “Why isn’t Darius enough?”

  “I’ve already explained that, too. Exposure from multiple partners could make all the difference.”

  “Isn’t that my risk to take?” Rhys demanded, tucking the last bag into the inflatable and straightening to face her as Jacob preceded him toward land. He dropped his voice to a near whisper, choking on the humiliating surge of des
peration at the idea of doing what he’d done with Darius and these other Jugs with more strangers. He couldn’t bear the things Jacob would say to him every time he caught Rhys at an unguarded moment. He couldn’t bear the thought that word would somehow reach Gabe of the deviant he’d become. “Please. It has to be enough. I can’t do it.”

  Xolani’s eyes softened with sympathy, but before she could speak, a loud crack split the eerie silence of the downtown waterfront, and the dock beneath him disappeared. Rhys tried to lunge forward to safety, colliding with Jacob, who was already leaping for the ramp leading up the concrete retaining wall. Jacob’s foot caught Rhys square in the chest as he kicked back to push off against something solid, and with a startled yell, Rhys flew backward and plunged into the Willamette. Even in high summer, the mountain-fed waters were cold. He seized in shock and sucked in a lungful of liquid before he began flailing.

  The splintery wooden piling that had supported the dock caught Rhys’s jeans, stalling his climb for the crystalline surface overhead. His lungs burned, and his efforts to tear himself free became frantic.

  In the midst of his panicked struggles, a thread of peace tried to pierce his fear.

  Maybe this was for the best. Maybe this was the way to save himself from the choice between horrific death and becoming something he couldn’t stand to be.

  Better than facing Jacob’s hostility and the degradation Xolani and Darius were determined to press him into. Better than shaming himself in front of Gabe. All he had to do was stop struggling and he could join his mom and Cady and baby Caleb. No Rot. No perversion. No warped fight to survive and endure.

  Hands plunged through the water and found him, pulling at his forearms. Already aching from three consecutive nights of trying to fight off Darius, Rhys felt as though his arms were being wrenched from their sockets. When he didn’t budge, another body sliced through the water past him. The thick piling broke with a snap that was audible even in the water, and whoever had dove in ripped his jeans away from the snag. Another mighty heave jerked at his arms, and he broke the surface, gasping a desperate breath before spewing water from his lungs.