Page 71 of The Devil's Mercy

“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.

Chapter 21:

“Stop fucking him, he’s passed the hell out.” Aodhan drawled from the window seat where he was packing up the medical supplies. He clicked his tongue when his words went unheeded but knew better than to physically intervene.

It’d been harder on Mercy these past few months in some ways. Allowing the perfect candidate for joining their pod slip through their fingers…He’d taken it pretty hard.

Even if it had all been a part of the plan.

Aodhan had only been better with it because he’d known there was no way Calix’s little vanishing act would last. The tracker they’d secretly implanted behind Cal’s right arm, up close to the armpit, was state-of-the-art and could keep tabs on him across the entire universe.

“You’re going to irritate his wounds,” Aodhan sighed, leaving the tube of cream he’d used on the seat next to him before closing the medical box and joining them once more. He opted to sit on the floor at the side of the bed instead of climbing on it, reaching out to rest his palm over the back of Cal’s hand.

“Branding him relieved your anger,” Mercy growled, wild thrusts never faltering, “it did nothing to relieve mine.”

“If you were going to be like this, why did you wait so long to come get him?” Aodhan huffed. They’d known all along whereCal was, but the director had insisted they wait him out. He kept saying Calix needed time to work through some things, and they needed to give him the space to do so. That everything would work out in the end.

“He almost took another man’s cock.” Mercy clearly hadn’t counted on that possibility, even though they’d realized Cal was on Alter.

“It’s not like you don’t know what a stimulus does for a living,” Aodhan drawled. “I wanted to stop him the moment we found out, but no. Now two more people are dead.”

“I know,” he said. “I shot one in the ass, remember?”

Aodhan rested his cheek on the mattress and peered up at the flushed face of his First. “That was so hot, by the way. Watching you take a life. Seeing that spark in your eyes. If we weren’t already bound, I’d ask you to mate me again.”

Titus snorted. “You want me to marry you.”

He stiffened, but the director wasn’t finished.

“Please. I know you, little killer. The second your brother got married, you’ve wanted it. You hate the idea of him having something you don’t. He’s the only person in the universe with whom you’re competitive.”

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