Page 2 of Xerxes Ascendant
Akira rubbed the tattoo on his right wrist with an angry, urgent gesture, as if hoping to erase the marks from his skin.
Remember.
As if he could forget.
He rolled off the bed, landing lightly on the balls of his feet, and began to dress in silence. It took the client nearly a minute to recover and clamber upright himself, his cock hanging flaccid between his legs.
“My deepest apologies for the misunderstanding,” Akira said stiffly.
The man blew out a breath, trying for a brave smile and a sneer at the same time. The combination fell abysmally flat. “You can make it up to me by letting me fist that pretty asshole of yours. What do you think?”
Akira’s fingers slid deftly over silk as he reknotted his tie and shrugged on his suit jacket. “I think it is better that I leave.”
He pulled open the apartment’s front door, not willing to wait for the stunned man to dress himself. He needed air, and being inside felt stifling.Everywherefelt stifling. Because everywhere was still inside, damn it, the air stale and recirculated and the sky formed of Xerxian concrete.
Maybe he could join the crowds up on Level B in trying to feel the wind in his hair and the sun on his face. Or he could seek out his own personal ray of sunshine, who was still lying unconscious in a hospital bed.
Yet when he made to step through the door, his client’s hand shot out and slapped against the frame to stop him from leaving.
Akira had neither the patience nor the tolerance to play dominance games. He dragged his cold-eyed gaze slowly over the other man’s, his lip curling, and let the full force of his disdain drip into his expression.
The client swallowed and dropped his arm.
Akira didn’t offer a further apology before leaving the man’s apartment, despite having watched other people enough to know it was expected of him. He despised having to do what wasexpected, to be what someone else decided he should.
And he felt foolish for how he’d reacted...but not guilty. His guilt was reserved for only one man, and it was not the naked Lower slumped in the apartment doorway who got off on threatening to kill whores.
Not that Akira was kink-shaming. He understood the need to let loose the dark shadows in oneself before they clawed their way out of their own accord, and sex could be a potent release.He’d helped hundreds of men – and a handful of women and genderfluid clients – act, play, discover and imagine, becoming whatever they wanted in exchange for the credits they sent his way afterwards. Needy slut. Ice-cold bastard. Wide-eyed virgin, cuckolded husband, ruthless sadist.
And for this client, Henri Lyons, who spent his days in Xerxes’ Level H penitentiary guarding the depraved, the forsaken, and the unlucky, Akira’s job was to offer an outlet for his rage and tastes that wouldn’t result in dead prisoners. Henri could threaten, fuck, and choke his whore all he wanted, so that he turned up to work the next morning with a warm smile and gracious patience. Akira was doing the city a fucking public service.
But as often as he’d made himself shut up and get on with it over the years, his work was feeling more distasteful than usual. To have to submit to this man while he was so on edge...
Kyle was still in hospital, having not yet awoken since that fateful night. Master Theta had fled. Benedict Mackenroth remained untouchable, both in power and where he resided on the now-separated Upper Xerxes, while his brother had gone suspiciously quiet. And in blatant disregard for their status as non-paying tenants, Kyle’s three cats had inexplicably decided that Akira’s office at House Epsilon was theirs to enjoy, such that he returned each night to a dusting of ginger fur and dead rodents on his chair.
No, Akira did not feel much like going to his knees. He’d rather cut a swathe of destruction across Xerxes to rival that of the explosion ten days ago, hurting and stabbing and shattering until the pain within him matched the pain without.
His expensive shoes met cheap, worn carpet as he stepped out into the corridor, the noises of families settling down for the evening booming through the other thin apartment doors. Platesand cutlery clattering together, raised voices and a baby’s cry, the background hum of an action vid.
It was all so...normal.
And it was that normalcy that lulled Akira into a state of unconcerned ease, such that he didn’t immediately clock the danger posed by the three men lurking near the stairwell. They were wearing the blue caps and jumpsuits of Xerxian maintenance workers, stained with grease and dirt. But when one turned and the shape of a gun was momentarily outlined under his jacket, the fabric stretched tight across its unmistakeable form, Akira jerked to a halt.
The man caught Akira’s gaze, his evident annoyance at being made quickly giving way to cold purpose as his hand slid inside his coat.
Stars.
His client hadn’t been sent to kill him, but these menhad, and Akira had been so busy berating himself for his paranoia that he’d forgotten why he’d developed it in the first place.
The group of men didn’t demand his surrender, nor waste their breath doling out threats. It seemed Master Epsilon had lost all value to Benedict Mackenroth as a living captive, for the three guns were raised to head height and fired without hesitation.
If he’d been standing still, Akira would have been shot thrice through the skull. But standing still was a good way to end up dead, and he hadn’t survived twenty-nine years of life on the cut-throat streets of Xerxes by waiting for death to find him.
And so as the gunshots rang out through the corridor, Akira was already rolling out of the way, diving back into the apartment and tackling Henri to the floor. His weight – or the surprise of it all – knocked the breath from the other man, but Akira shoved him aside without remorse so he could kick the door closed. Pain scoured his side in reminder of the injuriesthat had been inflicted on him during the beating over a week ago.
“What the-”
“Move!” Akira barked at him, tugging on a thick wrist to heave the client to his feet.
