Indulgence (22 page)

Weiss’s body stiffened as he went to pull the trigger and I
chose her.

My right hand flew up and smashed into the silencer,
knocking it from Weiss’ hand. It went flying into the darkness, but I didn’t
need a gun to take the son of a bitch down. Rising to my feet, I jammed a
shoulder into his stomach, pressing up into his ribs and driving the air from
his nasty nicotine soaked lungs.

Weiss doubled over, gasping for air and I brought my fist
up, punching underneath his jaw. His teeth clacked together with the force of
the blow and he grunted, falling to his knees.

It never occurred to me to stop as I worked the secondary
blade out of the toe of my boot, kicking with all the strength I could muster.
The steel sunk into Weiss’ flesh, right between his ribs and a roar tore from
his lips, echoing off into the night. Falling to his side, his hands
instinctively clamped down on the wound.

I could kill him right now. I could end his miserable life
once and for all. Before today, I never wanted to cause him real harm. He was
my best friend after all. We were nasty fuckers, did terrible things in the
name of Royal Blood, but that was the code. That was the life. He was my
handler, but now I knew I was the pet. Pets were never equals to men like
Weiss.

My life was a lie.

Weiss’ friendship was a lie.

Royal Blood was a lie.

I fisted my hand into the front of his shirt and yanked him
off the ground. He stared up at me with panic in his eyes as my fist came down
hard on his temple. The force of the blow sent him back onto the ground,
cracking his skull on the hard earth.

He blinked hard, trying to hold on to reality, but that
wasn’t good enough for me. Not by a long shot.

Straddling him, I punched and punched until he didn’t move.

Weiss didn’t deserve a bullet in his head. He deserved
something a lot more special. His fate would be personalized right down to the
last detail.

I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face.

*****

I found Weiss’ car a few hundred meters through the forest,
parked on a back road.

Inside I found everything I needed and then some. On the way
back, I found the gun in amongst the leaf litter and shoved it into the
waistband of my jeans.

I worked swiftly, ignoring the pain in my hands and stood
back to survey my handiwork. I had this thing about standards. Meticulous,
sordid, particular. Efficient death. Waste not, want not.

I’d bound Weiss’ hands behind his back, fixing him and the
length of nylon rope to a fallen tree at the side of the clearing. One arm was
up over his shoulder, the other below and underneath, fixed together in the
middle. His head lolled to the front, knees folded below him like he was
praying to some fucked up god.

It was a reminder, and an omen of sorts, that I remembered
the most horrific things they’d made me go through. The human mind was
beautiful in a way, the things that scarred it and the things it brought to the
surface in your time of need.

I remembered the hours of waiting on my knees, trying to
gather the courage to let the bone pop from its socket. If I stretched one more
inch, I could claim my freedom and my reward.

I knelt in the dirt, the gun hanging in my torn hands,
watching as Weiss began to surface into consciousness, waiting for the moment
when he’d realize the predicament he was in.

His eyes opened slowly, obviously glassy even in the silvery
nighttime glow. I sneered in satisfaction as he slowly realized what had
happened to him. The tables had turned a total one-eighty and it felt more
satisfying than it should.

How easy it was for me to sever the ties of friendship. The
mark of a true monster. Selfish, depraved...

Weiss jerked against the rope, his eyes flashing with
understanding.
Yeah, that’s right asshole.

“Did you really think it was going to be that easy?” I asked
as Weiss struggled against the rope. “Did you think you could just put a gun to
my head and pull the trigger? I’m ashamed that you were ever my handler, Weiss.
Pathetic
.”

He spat blood onto the ground next to him and glared up at
me. “They’ll come for you once they realize what you’ve done, X.”

I picked up a hunting knife I’d found in his car and stabbed
it into the earth just out of reaching distance of Weiss’ grubby fingers. The
only way he was getting free was if someone found him, or he dislocated his own
shoulder to get out of his restraints. Knowing how much of a pussy he was, the
latter would take a very long time.

“It was her, wasn’t it?” Weiss asked as I curled my fingers
around the muzzle of the gun. “It was Mercy who tried to kill Sykes.” I didn’t
blink as I weighed the gun in my hand. “That’s why you’ve gone fuckin’ crazy.
You want her, but you have to kill her. It fucked with your head, didn’t it?”

“You’ll never get to stick your dick in her now, Weiss,” I
snarled. “Mercy is
mine
.”

I raised the gun and smashed the butt down on his temple and
he was out like a light. Blood welled to the surface of an impressive cut as
Weiss’ head lolled to the side.
Asshole
.

Shoving the gun into the waistband of my jeans, I knelt down
and went through Weiss’ pockets. Pulling out his phone, I checked him for other
weapons. Satisfied he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, I switched on his
phone and scrolled through the messages. He’d sent one half an hour ago to
Greggor that got my blood boiling.

X is compromised
.

My out was gone a long time ago. My out never existed. It
was too late to do anything about toeing the line now anyway. I was in this up
to my motherfucking eyeballs.

Taking out the SIM card, I snapped it in two, tossing the
useless bits of plastic into the dirt. Then I dropped his phone and smashed the
heel of my boot into it, shattering the screen. Then I turned my back on the
life I’d known and strode off into the forest, making for the road out of
there.

When Royal Blood inevitably found Weiss, they’d come after
me and Mercy. Her secret was out now too, which meant there was only one thing
left going for us. We had to become ghosts.

Sliding into Weiss’ car, I gunned the engine. I had to get
to Mercy and figure this thing out before it was too late.

Mercy

I’m going to end this.

Those were his last words as he left the apartment and it’d
been hours. What was he ending? Was he going after Weiss? Was he going to get
Sykes to come and take me? I lay on the sofa in X’s apartment, listening to the
silence, listening for any clue that he was coming back.

I had to have faith in our connection. I had to believe that
he felt the same way about me as I did him. I had to believe X was capable of
loving.

I curled my knees up into my chest, wrapping my hands around
my ankles. What a fucking joke. Teaching a monster how to love.

God, fuck, Mercy! Have a little faith in yourself.

There were footsteps outside in the hall and I straightened
up, my heart skipping several beats. I didn’t like feeling helpless, locked in
here alone as X faced fuck knew what out there. I knew he could handle it, he’d
been doing just that for years before I turned up, but I still didn’t like it.
I wanted to be there with him to the bitter end. Was that such a bad thing?

The door opened as I placed my feet on the floor and X
strode in, slamming it closed behind him. Cold air billowed in with him and I
knew something big had gone down. Somehow I thought big wasn’t the right word.
Huge, ginormous, fucking massive.

X fell heavily against the door, his back pressed against
the wood. He was covered in dirt and blood was caked on his face, hands and collar.
Short story, he looked like he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards and
fought it on the way through.

“What happened to you?” I asked, rising to my feet. “Is
Weiss…?”

He glanced up at me and shucked his leather jacket off. It
fell to the floor with a dull thud.

He didn’t answer me and I began to panic. “X? What did you
do?”

“What needed to be done,” he said, pushing off the door.

He strode past me down the hall and into the bathroom. I
followed, watching him discard items of clothing along the way. I lingered at
the bathroom door as he undid the button on his jeans and shoved them off his
hips.

Things were obviously dire, but my body still sparked with
desire at the sight of him in his boxers. He’d been out fighting, torturing and
possibly murdering his best friend and handler…all because of me.

Stepping out of his boxers, X leaned into the shower and
turned the taps on. He lingered just outside with his hand underneath the
water, testing the temperature as it warmed through the old pipes of the apartment
building. He knew I was there, but he didn’t make a move or glanced at me, even
when I stepped into the room behind him and stripped out of his T-shirt.

Sometimes you just knew, on some unconscious level, when
someone needed you. We had this connection that seemed to transcend mere
talking. I knew what he needed, he knew what I wanted and that’s all that
mattered. Right now, he’d been out doing his dark thing and he needed comfort.
He could deny it all he wanted, but I knew better.

As he stepped into the shower, the water soaking his hair, I
slid in beside him, reaching for the soap. He raised a hand to grab my wrist,
but I pulled away. I stared at the grazes along his hands and my gaze met his.
He was torn up.

“Let me,” I murmured.

Washing the grit from his hands, I massaged his skin,
working the soap against each tiny cut, treating him like he was sacred. Once
his hands were taken care of, I tracked the soap across his chest, tracing the
outline of his tattoo and his eyes drooped closed. If it stung, he never let on
and didn’t try and pull away.

Lathering the soap against his skin, I slid my hand over his
neck, washing the blood away. As I reached his face, my movements became softer
as I cleaned the dirt and grime out of a new cut on his temple. It’d been a
bleeder and I wondered if Weiss had tried to knock him out with something.
Maybe he hadn’t tried…

“What happened?” I asked, probing the cut with my fingers.

X hissed, pulling away from my touch. “It’s just a cut.”

“It’s not-”

I choked on my protest as his lips met mine. Sucking on my
bottom lip, he pulled my body against his in an attempt to silence me. Tearing
my lips away, I dug my fingers into his shoulders, the soap dropping to the
bottom of the shower.

“What happened to you tonight, X?” I murmured as he began
biting and sucking at my neck.

He ignored my question and continued teasing my skin with
his tongue, tracking his hands from my waist to my ass.

“
X
.”

“I haven’t decided what to do with you,” he murmured from
someplace far away, licking at the water that had beaded on my shoulder.

Digging my fingers harder into his skin in an attempt to
bring him back, I said, “You’ve already made your decision, X.”

His gaze met mine and it was hesitant, like he was thinking
over a million and one things to come to one simple conclusion.

Stepping out of the shower, I pulled a towel from the rack
and held it up. “Come on,” I coaxed. “You can’t stay in there all night.”

He turned off the taps and the room fell into silence as he
stepped from the shower and into the waiting towel.

“Keep her or kill her,” he murmured and I cocked my head to
the side.

“Keep her,” I whispered and his gaze rose to meet mine and
it was full of emotion. Pain, exhaustion, longing… I was right to have faith.

I rubbed his crotch through the towel and pressed my breasts
into his chest. He flexed into my hand once before letting his lips drop to the
crook of my neck. He began sucking and biting at my skin, his cock growing
harder as my pussy began to flare.

“Take me to bed,” I whispered, letting the towel drop to the
floor.

“You want to go to bed?” he whispered, nipping his teeth at
my bottom lip.

I nodded, rolling my hips forward, my clit rubbing against
his cock. “Let me care for you.”

X took a deep breath before fisting his hands into my damp
hair. He walked me backwards out of the bathroom with deliberate steps, his
chest heaving with a sudden spike of desire. I knew that look in his eyes, that
dark look that warned me to hold on for dear life. I was about to be thoroughly
fucked
.

As we entered the bedroom, his mouth came down on mine, his
tongue swiping through my mouth greedily. I opened up to him, allowing him to
take what he needed and I had a wicked thought.

He gave me control once before, perhaps he would do it
again.

I placed my palm against his chest and pushed him hard. He
fell back onto the bed, an annoyed gleam in his eyes, but his breath caught as
I crawled over the edge of the mattress and straddled his waist. Covering his
body with mine, his hands clamped down on my ass, spreading me open. Then his
cock was sliding between my ass cheeks, his fingertips playing with my puckered
opening.

“Do that again,” I murmured against his lips.

“Do what?” he asked, pressing a finger into my ass.

I gasped, my body tensing, but unlike the first time he went
for that forbidden place, I didn’t jerk away.

“You like that?” he murmured, a piece of X the alpha male
that had taken me over Weiss’ desk coming back to the surface.

I nodded, biting on my bottom lip. “Soon,” I panted as he
increased the friction against my clit from underneath, “I will let you claim
it with your cock.”

X let out a moan, pumping his dick between my ass cheeks
harder. “Soon?”