Page 1 of Xerxes Ascendant
CHAPTER 1
Akira
Akira was dying.
"I’m gonna strangle the life right out of you," the man choking him snarled, fingers locked tight around Akira’s throat. "I’m gonna watch the light leave those big brown eyes as I empty my balls into your corpse."
Akira bucked and struggled against the pressure wrapped around his neck, but the other man’s weight pinned him firmly to the bed. The client’s large body smothered Akira’s smaller form, his cock buried deep, and he let out a pleased groan as he continued to thrust into the man he was killing.
How long had it been since Akira had been able to take a breath? One minute? Two?
He was going to die.
By the stars, he thought he’d been socareful. When he’d arrived at the appointment the man had asked to tie him up – as his clients so often did – but Akira had refused, unwilling to be made helpless by restraints.
Not when Mayor Benedict Mackenroth was trying to kill him.
Akira had survived two attempts on his life in the past ten days since Xerxes had been split in two: a knife that had been surreptitiously jabbed at his ribs in a busy street, and a garrottefrom behind as he closed up House Epsilon for the night. He’d lost the first man in the crowd after turning away just in time, alerted to danger by some primal instinct, but he’d had chance to interrogate the second before finishing him off with his own fucking razor wire.
The fact that Mackenroth still had enough influence in Lower Xerxes to send thugs after Akira wasn’t surprising...but that he was bothering to do so, was. Didn’t their esteemed mayor have enough problems to deal with, what with the city being in pieces and tens of thousands of its inhabitants dead?
Damn, but the bastard could hold a grudge.
As evidenced by the moans above him as his client rocked his hips, enjoying the way Akira writhed and panicked beneath his bulk.
Would he boast to Mackenroth about how easily the Master of House Epsilon had been bested?I just flashed a few credits,he’d say smugly,and the slut spread his legs and let me steal his life with my bare hands.
No.
Akira wasn’t going to go out like this. Not on his back, not getting railed in the ass, not without...
Not without getting to see Kyle one last time.
Determination washed over him, lending itself to a sudden clarity, and Akira stopped struggling.
He reached up to where the client’s flabby thighs pinned his own, not to push him away but to find the femoral nerve and carefullypinch.
The man howled and bucked, immediately pulling out and throwing himself sideways off the bed to get away. A heavy thud announced his impact with the floor.
With his throat freed from the uncompromising pressure, Akira gasped for air.
“Ow, fuck!” screeched the client, out of his sight. “What the fuck did you do to me?”
Akira, his chest heaving and his hands clenched into fists, peered over the edge of the bed. The client was rolling around on the thin carpet, clutching his leg and wailing.
“I’ll sue you for this!”
“You were trying to kill me,” Akira countered.
The man gaped. “What?”
“You were...” He trailed off. It didn’t seem as plausible as it had a moment ago when he’d been deprived of both oxygen and sense. “Weren’t you?”
The client blinked up at him. “If you wanted me to stop, you knew you could tap out, Epsilon,” he accused. “Not cause me a star-damned aneurysm. Are you fucking crazy?”
Akira cursed under his breath. Had he really confused dirty talk and consensually rough sex with an assassination attempt?
The paranoia was getting to him. He was seeing death in every corner, in every shadow...in every long-term client who liked to choke him out. They’d discussed the scene before starting, despite having done it a hundred times before, and there was nothing in the client’s pained and pissed-off expression to indicate it had been anything but play.
