Page 3 of Villain

Moving up the first two tiers was simple. To go from Pawn to Knight, a person simply needed to invite twenty people using their own personal QR code. Nix had tricked it into believing he’d done this. Then from Knight to Bishop, ten official Favors needed to be completed.

Favors were given by the top three highest tiers, and Knights were allowed into a specific forum where they could click on suggested favors from higher members and decide whether or not to do them. Nix had simply left a program running that sorted through all of the favors and selected the ones that were the easiest. A photograph of his ass in a public setting. A picture of his dick fully erect. Ridiculous, but ultimately harmless.

He'd checked off ten Favors within three days that way, and had risen the ranks to Bishop. But that was where things got tricky.

There was no forum for Bishops to shop around in. Rooks and Kings, the two tiers above, did the shopping. They had open access to all of the Bishops’ profiles, including the material used for their first ten favors which were stored on their accounts.

It had taken almost four days for someone to finally contact Nix with an offer, and by that point, he probably would have been willing to do anything. When he’d first read the message, he’d even been relieved that it was nothing too extreme.

Now that he was in the midst of it however…

This was only one of five. He’d need to complete five in order to reach the second highest tier, and even then he’d still be one below the one he needed to be in.

The one Branwen had fought so hard to enter.

King.

People in the King tier didn’t interact with those beneath the Rooks or Bishops. For the latter, it was only to offer Favors. Nix was hopeful there’d be more between them and the Rooks. He needed to get closer so he could actually learn who these people were. Learn what they did and what the real purpose of this damn app was.

He couldn’t do that if he didn’t gather his courage and stop fucking around.

It was an orgasm, damn it.

It wasn’t like he’d been asked to saw his own arm off or anything.

Nix rocked his hips back and forth and tried to focus on the slick sounds of his own precome mixing with the lube. He just needed to come. He just needed—

The multi-slate and his computer dinged at the same time, alerting him that a comment had been left in the chat, and he froze. Nix had decided to film with his computer and keep his body-borne device on him so he could shut the camera off as soon as he was finished. But knowing he was already going to be struggling with this, he’d been sure to mute the chat beforehand…

Hadn’t he?

There was a second ding and he jerked, realizing with a start how absolutely stupid and pathetic he probably looked to whoever was watching. Lifting his head, he forced himself to peer down at the small rectangular screen attached to the top of his wrist and read the messages.

Maestro: You’re empty, Songbird.

Songbird? Nix’s brow furrowed. Was it a dig? He’d made his username Nightingale, but it was impossible to tell if this messenger was teasing him or not. At least there was still only the two of them present in the chat. No one else was watching this awkward exchange but him and the user who’d offered the Favor. He read the second comment.

Maestro: Are you skittish, or is this part of the act? This says you’re a Bishop. Aren’t you trying to become a Rook?

Nix swallowed the sudden lump in his throat and told himself there was no way whoever this was had figured out he’d cheated and skipped the first two tiers. He was fooled, he had to be. There were no hidden meanings in that statement. He thought Nix was in the Bishop tier because that was as high up as he could go on his own.

The chat dinged a third time.

Maestro: I don’t like being ignored, Songbird. Want my Favor? You better fill that tight ass in the next sixty seconds or I’ll ban your account.

He sucked in a sharp breath. That couldn’t happen. If he was banned he’d lose all progress! There was no telling if he’d even be able to hack his way back in a second time without getting caught.

Nix couldn’t risk that. He needed to make it into the King chatlog.

For Branwen.

No other messages came, but Nix knew the messenger hadn’t abandoned him just yet. There was no explaining how, but he could practically feel the fiery lick of the gaze of whoever was commenting to him.

A commenter who’d also just offered him a coveted Favor…

How much time had passed since he’d sent that message?

Shit.

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