Page 124 of Xerxes Ascendant
“Your daughter or your slut, Akira. It’s that simple.”
“Simple?” Kyle echoed, incredulous.
“Shut up, Randall,” snapped Theta. “It’s you who caused this whole mess in the first place. You took him from me.”
Stars, he’d really lost it. Theta had always been slimily creeping on Epsilon, but he was delusional if he thought Akira had ever wanted him back.
And Kyle didn’t think it was unrequited love that held the gun to Robby’s head. Theta wasn’t capable oflove.
It was possession. Entitlement. Obsession. Theta had scooped a desperate boy up off the streets and exploited him for credits...and somehow believed Akira owed him devotion for it. He wanted the younger Master entirely indebted to him, in heart, life, and body.
Kyle stood in the way of that, and so did Akira’s family.
So Theta wanted to rip it all away from him.
“It’s time,” he snarled at Akira now. “You have ten seconds to decide which one will die, or I’ll shoot them both.”
Akira lifted his head and Kyle saw wetness glistening in the corner of his eyes. “Don’t. Just...don’t. Kill me instead,” he begged, his daughter’s terrified, tear-streaked face reflected on his own. “Please, Theta, let her go.”
“I’ll let her go,” the bastard agreed. “As soon as Randall’s heart stops beating.”
Akira dragged his agonised gaze down to where Kyle knelt helplessly on the floor.
“That’s it,” cooed Theta. “What’s the life of a used-up whore compared to your precious Roberta? You told me how you held her as a baby and promised to protect her no matter what, did you not? Keep that promise, darling.”
Akira’s socked feet took stuttering steps towards Kyle.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “It’s just...it’s Robby. It’s my little girl.”
Kyle wanted to tell him he understood. That it was okay, and that he’d slit his own throat if it meant saving her, for that happy, vivacious fourteen-year-old was worth a hundred of Kyle.
But he couldn’t. There was only fear and panic in his gut as his boyfriend closed in on him with a brandished knife, tears now flowing freely.
Fuck. It would hurt, wouldn’t it? Even with Akira’s skill with a blade, a knife wouldhurtas it took his life, and Kyle’s throat burned and tightened in anticipation of that fatal slash.
“He’s lying!” Kyle blurted out frantically as the space between them shrank to nothing. “He’ll make you kill me and then he’ll kill your family too! Akira, please!”
His boyfriend didn’t stop. Didn’t evenslow, and Kyle was not ready to die.
He scrambled wildly backwards, hunting for freedom and survival, but he was on his hands and ass and nothing but helpless prey for Master Epsilon. Expression resigned, the man stalked closer.
Kyle kicked with both feet, catching Akira in the arm as he reached for him, and used the milliseconds it bought to furiously scrabble his way to the far wall with the large viewscreen.
His fingers brushed glass. Yet there was nowhere to run, and before he could even pull himself to his feet, Akira’s hand fisted painfully in his hair and threw him back down to the floor.
“Stop!” Kyle begged, but nothing stopped a determined Akira. They fought desperately, nothing like that night of play in the training room...for now a life was at stake for each of them.
And that meant Akira wasn’t holding back.
Kyle cried out as he was yanked backwards against the other man’s chest and spun to face Robby and Theta, the kitchen knife held to his bare throat.
Akira didn’t need two hands to keep him still after that. Just the sharpness of that knife, unseen beneath his chin but certainly felt, while his other hand came to rest at Kyle’s lower back.
Theta was openly grinning at the pair of them.
“You cold fucking bitch,” he said to Akira with something like admiration in his voice. “I knew you’d do it with the right incentive. Now finish him.”
Kyle wasn’t good at lies. And he had lied to Theta before, on the night of the Fall when he’d told him he already knew about Akira’s family. He suspected it hadn’t been entirely believable.
