Page 35 of Xerxes Ascendant
“Finishedhim, more like,” the other man muttered.
“-then you can take a shift on the cameras while I show Miles how to do...er,everything.”
“I’ll watch the cameras,” he agreed. Then he turned to their silent companion, who hadn’t moved an inch. Maybe if they’d set Misha on Miles that first night, rather than Epsilon, the man would have been too terrified to have gone running to his brother. “And I’ll be especially watchingyou, No. 2.”
Miles finally found his voice. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”
Mish snorted. “I’ll hold you to that. Because if you do, the men and I willendyou, Mackenroth.” Then he flashed a smile that held teeth. “Or better yet, we’ll gift you to Master Epsilon and enjoy watching him take you apart, slowly. Have you ever seen what that man can do with a blade?”
Miles swallowed, his knuckles turning white where they gripped the mop handle.
“Or with anything, really,” Misha mused. “Epsilon has a special talent for making men scream-”
“Enough,” Kyle said firmly, shoving at the twink’s bare shoulder to direct him back out into the corridor. “We all have jobs to get back to. And yours does not involve terrorising our new staff members, Misha.”
His friend thought about that for a moment. “What about non-new staff members?” Mish asked. “Like, the really old and decrepit ones who work as managers to hide the fact that none of their clients want their wrinkly dicks anymore?”
“Misha?”
“Yeah, boss?”
Kyle gave him a predatory smile filled with promised retribution, and then loudly cracked his knuckles.
“You’re going to want to start running.”
Attention Lower Residents:
Due to the recent devastating events, we are currently experiencing shortages of glass, steel, plastic, and aluminium. Although the Level F refineries were only minimally affected by the Fall, distribution has been delayed by the outage of the service elevators. We are prioritising material allocation to critical areas and are working to restore full supply chain operations as soon as possible. Thank you for your understanding and patience.
-Notice from the Coterie
CHAPTER 11
Kyle
“Kyyyyyyle!” Adam wailed, scampering over to him and burying his face in his chest as he sobbed out the rest of the complaint. “Sir is being mean!”
Kyle immediately wrapped a protective arm around him. “Which Sir?” he asked, eyeing the three Dominants lazing around the staffroom with open suspicion. “It better not be Mish, because he’s already on a warning.”
Misha cackled out a defiant laugh from where he was curled up on the corner sofa with a mug of tea and his runepad, Chaos nestled on his lap. His backtalk two nights ago had earned him a playful spanking that he’d somehow turned into a spectacle in his usual attention-attracting way, having evaded Kyle’s pursuit for a surprisingly long time considering the combination of stairs and stiletto heels...only to dramatically surrender to him as soon as their antics had collected enough staff spectators.
The spanking was mere play. Kyle’s subsequent threat to find a pair of scissors to take to Mish’s favourite lingerie had been the real warning, and he was now satisfied that House Epsilon’s newest cleaner would be given a chance to prove himself, unburdened by Misha’s particular brand of attention.
Kyle didn’t believe Miles needed to be humiliated further. He’d already turned bright red after fumbling every basic domestic chore he’d been assigned, from operating the rune-powered industrial washing machine to stripping pillowcases from the beds. The Upper had lived in privilege for too long. But there had been no complaints, from either his mouth or those of the other employees, and he’d even showed initiative earlier that evening by reorganising the stockroom. Now reassured he wasn’t going to be on the receiving end of such things, Miles seemed unperturbed in handling the items that were...morespecialisedto their industry, delighting Sanjay in arranging the spare bottles of lubricant by flavour.
And it was Sanjay who appeared to be the perpetrator of Adam’s woes now, the wicked smirk vanishing seamlessly into blinking innocence when Kyle looked at him.
“I have absolutely no idea what Adam is talking about,” the Dom said smoothly. “I was only threatening the brat with a good time-”
A scream echoed through the building, chilling Kyle with the memory of the night he and Akira had been attacked. But it hadn’t been Akira’s scream then – only one of his assailants as he took the man down – and it couldn’t be now, either. Master Epsilon was once again absent from his own House.
Yet there were still plenty of other people Kyle felt responsible for, and any of them could be hurt. He raced down the stairs with reckless regard, the other staff members and Chaos on his heels.
Upon reaching the ground floor they found the front door had been thrown open to the night air, and through it Kyle spied the head of the stone cat silently watching the street beyond. There was a cardboard box discarded on the foyer floor between the feet of two men: a distraught Tyler with his face in his handsand Miles standing opposite, fists clenched and shoulders raised in the stance of someone getting ready to fight.
“Of course it’syou, No. 2,” Misha accused from Kyle’s left. He sounded seriously pissed off, the fate of his lacy lingerie be damned. “What the fuck did you do to Tyler?”
Miles rounded on them with a harsh exhale, his pale grey eyes flashing in the dim mood-light. “I told him not to touch it!”
