Page 44 of Natural-Born Cullers

“It doesn’t work like that. If I don’t go, it’s anotherfuck youto them on my part, and they don’t deserve that. They didn’t deserve why I joined their ranks in the first place. And this is Jack’s world as much as mine. I owe him for fucking it up too.”

“So tell them that. That you don’t want a blacklisting from them.”

“It won’t make a difference at this stage. Maybe rightly so.” Gray got to his feet and leaned over to kiss at Jan’s cheek. “They deserve the best for a Master Dom. I’m never more far from that.”

“Bullshit,” Jan said quietly. Then he gave a sigh. “Give me a call when they’re done with you, and we’ll all catch up for a coffee at the MC, okay?” Jan meant that. This really wasn’t all of Gray’s fault, but Jan was forced to sit at the MC and make him walk in there as if it were.

Gray nodded, then headed for the hall, slipping his phone back into his jacket.

Giving a sigh, Jan eventually took another sip of coffee, the kitchen so quiet around him now.

He was glad Jack would get the call to be with him. There was no way Gray was walking in there on his own, not with where his head had been since Tuesday. The MC knew exactly who and what he was. Surely they wouldn’t risk a punishment that took another whip near his back like they had with Jack?

Not Gray. Not a psychopath?

Chapter 14

Blacklisting

Southside of the Thames, Gray pulled his Mercedes-Benz to a stop in the private car park outside Regent Manor. Security had seen him through, and Brennan would have gotten the call he was here, but for a moment Gray let the car idle, rubbing at the ache in his head.

“MC, huh? Secret chambers, men in long cowls with drooping hoods… goblets in hand… chanting some weird Latin shit, all at the same time fucking someone in rhythm to the chants? I’ll… I’ll just get my coat and we’ll head out….”

Gray choked a smile, the echo of Jack’s first look at Regent Manor haunting the car park as he’d sat here with him, looking out. “Bloody asshole,” he mumbled to himself, shaking his head. He’d worn a suit that day, but Jack, he’d gone all ripped jeans, an attempt at an ironed shirt, which Gray had sighed at and taken as a bonus he hadn’t turned up in garage overalls and started a fight outside of the gates. But then mention sex and thoughts of the MC back then to Jack, all misconceptions of youth still playing around in his head, Jack would have walked in all too comfortably stark raving naked, giving security the V.

Gray frowned, a part of him not wanting to acknowledge exactly what had gone down a few days ago with all of that fight from Jack underneath him. Jack and all his disorders were hauntingly beautiful, and not being able to take them from Jack, knowing he was lost to no fault of his own, it drove that same… protectiveness, but to darker levels he couldn’t bury… that he didn’t want to, not if those… routines off Jack opened him up to other psychopaths. It had with Vince.

He victim blamed, so badly, he knew that. But that was his world, part of his own fucked-up flaws. And he dealt with them his own way.

Gray gave a hard sigh. He was damn lucky Jack knew him, body and soul, because what he’d done a few days ago to him, it should have him arrested and kept as far away from Jack as possible. It worried him that, for a moment back in the Japanese room, Jack had been so genuine with his fear over never walking out of one of those rooms alive.

Maybe he had every right to be scared.

But where Gray took care of Jack through his… worse moments, Jack always slipped up quietly to his side to do the same for him.

And that was them.

Gray looked at the manor, the heavy Gothic presence it made against a darkening sky that threatened rain. The car park played home to only a few cars today, but then most of that would be for security with coming to the end of the winter. Most training sessions away from the MC would have been decided after the Christmas break, and with ten obs rooms, each with enough employees to observe as many as fifteen different trainee scenes at a time, including those in their homes, the hours here belonged to those behind the scenes who kept the trainees safe. But the size of the manor itself cried out that was only a small portion of what they did here. The MC was government funded, and mostly provided employment in all areas back into civvie life for ex-MOD, MI5/6, and the police, and offered a first-class psychiatric unit to help cope with the likes of PTSD if needed, and yes, there was the BDSM training side too. Gray had had other private MI5 uses for the manor when it came to interrogation training, but most times?

Most memories played with his and Jack’s time here, testing Jack’s body out in a few tentative scenes to start with, then his head and just how far his kink levels could go, then ultimately, just how much of a bastard as a Dom trainer himself he could be in later years.

Jack wasn’t a natural sub, not in the context of the MC. He always distanced mind from body, aware of the trainee Dom’s every potential screw-up, to the point he never really fully relaxed in a scene.

But get him alone like Gray had a few days ago, no cameras….

Gray smiled down at the steering wheel.

Fucking stunning, Jack.

Gray looked back out of the window, a little disappointed he couldn’t see Jack’s Merc.

There were good memories here. So bloody many. He regretted how he’d fucked all that up. He’d grown into these halls with Jack, the walls… the people… offering safe BDSM playing grounds for both of them, the guidelines they both needed to steer clear of walking those darker paths they’d stepped into a few days ago. But this place? It had been the start of it all, and so much good played around here, including knowing Jan walked their halls now. Gray had been banned from the MC, but Jack was considered a sleeper. Jack could walk back through these doors if he chose, and to have him walk back without Gray…?

Only Jack wouldn’t, would he?

And that was the whole problem.

He wouldn’t walk back through these doors without Gray. Gray hadn’t only cut his own throat with the MC, he’d taken Jack’s by default, no Heretic’s Fork needed this time. So he’d not only cut away part of his own life, but Jack’s as well, no matter how loving Jack had been over it.

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