Page 37 of Xerxes Ascendant
One rule for the rest of them, and another for Akira fucking Miyasaki. Oh, Kyle was going tomurderhim once he’d rescued him from Mackenroth’s torturous attentions.
That is, if Akira wasn’t already...
“Close up early,” Kyle told the room tersely. “Cancel all remaining appointments and get yourselves home...and make sure none of you travel alone. Miles, you’re welcome to stay the night here. The building is rune-protected.”
Room thirteen was still made up for Kyle himself, he knew, and would suit Miles well enough if he didn’t mind the mess. Akira hadn’t pressed Kyle to return, but neither had he done anything to tidy the room out nor reconnect the cameras. The assuming bastard probably figured he’d get his way sooner rather than later, and stars, why had Kyle been so pointlessly stubborn?
He’d spent all that effort on trying to keep an appropriate amount of distance between them, and now Akira was being quite literally torn apart and Kyle hadn’t…Kyle hadn’t been there for him.
The others tried to accompany him, of course. Chaos was first in line, but no sooner had Kyle scooped her up and pushed her protesting, fluffy mass into Ben’s arms, than Misha was trying to squeeze through the front door with him, too. Kyle responded with something exceptionally compelling that he couldn’t recall by the time he’d finished speaking, his mouth on autopilot as his mind played out worst-case scenarios for him with images more vivid than that of his new runepad. It was enough to disperse the men and stop any of them following.
He didn’t need their suffering on his conscience too.
Club Luxe was on Level E, the same as House Epsilon but five sectors over. Kyle headed there with thunder in his ears and tears drying on his cheeks, dodging pickpockets, early-morning shiftworkers, and even a police patrol. Nothing stopped him until he reached the doors of the club and ran into a thick, breathing wall.
“Hold up,” the bouncer said. Kyle wasn’t small, but this man’s arms were the size of his torso, and the hand splayed onKyle’s chest to block his way looked like it could comfortably wrap around his face. “There’s an entrance fee.”
“It’s important I get inside,” Kyle pleaded. “A man’s life is at stake!”
The bouncer’s expression didn’t change. “There’s an entrance fee,” he repeated.
By the stars, had he really given his last credit to Miles? Kyle had been living on his cousin’s hospitality and his lifelong experience of going without to survive to his next payday, but now it meant he didn’t have a single micro-credit with which to pay the fee. Shit.
“I work for one of the Houses,” he said meaningfully, dropping his voice into a sultry whisper and lightly tracing the back of the bouncer’s hand with the tips of his fingers. “If you let me in, I could make it worth your while.”
That brought a flicker of interest to the man’s face. Kyle wasn’t conceited enough to think he could turn any straight man gay, but sexuality was a spectrum...and with the Coterie holding a cartel chokehold on paid sex work, the only way someone without the credits could get some was by finding a consensual partner. Or sans consent, but not everyone on Xerxes would sink so low.
“My shift finishes in half an hour,” the bouncer told him by way of agreement. “Meet me in the alley behind the club.” His gaze lingered on Kyle’s mouth.
“I look forward to it.”
Despite the wide doorway beyond, Kyle ensured he brushed his hip against the other man’s as he passed by. He wasn’t above using the only skill he’d ever learned in his twenty-three years, and if it got him closer to discovering where Akira may be held, he’d do worse than blow this guy for free.
Much worse, for it wasAkira.
Pushing open the next door turned the dull thumping bass into a deafening roar. Inside, the club remained busy even at this late – or early – hour. The air was humid as the result of several hundred breaths dancing and drinking, and held the distinctive, smoky scent of cheap cigarettes overlaid with illicit narcotics. Strobe lights flashed overhead in an overwhelming array of colour, briefly lighting up bodies in mid-motion only to dismiss them back to darkness within the same moment. When the light returned, the scene had shifted: a hand now rested on a stranger’s hip, a head was thrown back, a couple ground against each other. It was all fleeting; captured in single, separated moments.
Kyle’s eyes frantically scanned the bar, the dance floor, and the booths beyond. He didn’t know what he was looking for. There was no obvious disturbance in the partying crowd, no incriminating blood stain smeared on the sticky floor, none of Mackenroth’s thugs waiting for him.
He shoved his way through the mass of people, having no destination other than the need to be moving. To be doing something,anythingat all. Perhaps the bartenders had seen what had happened to Akira, but whether they’d have remembered anything of use, or would be willing to share that information when he had no credits to offer...
Kyle’s heartbeat ratcheted. He’d spied, in the brief illumination of the split-second freeze frame of the strobe lights, the familiar shape and sharp angle of Akira’s face. Even in this busy, over-stimulating room, Kyle was certain of it. He pushed his way through the crowd with greater urgency, dodging two inebriated women reaching for his waist and an even drunker man swinging a fist at his gut, and emerged from the heaving dance floor to the relatively quieter space of the booths beyond. Dragging his eyes over each one, Kyle saw nothing but richassholes tucked into every booth and feasting on either liquor, drugs, or the poor victims they’d convinced into imbibing them.
He raised his head. In the last of the private spaces, slightly raised over the others for pure arrogance value, washisrich asshole.
Akira was seated at the centre of the lavish circular booth, his expression locked in that feigned politeness everyone else seemed unable to see past. His head was tilted slightly to the right, docilely baring his neck to the man seated next to him. Two more men stood behind the pair, their burly figures and stiff poses suggesting bodyguards, but Kyle’s attention was solely fixed on his boss.
…who gave no indication of being in the kind of pain or distress that being skinned would cause – in Kyle’s uneducated assumption of the experience – other than being forced to endure the blatant pawing of the man beside him. Tyrone Court, owner of the club in which they stood, had one hand curled audaciously around Akira’s inner thigh and the other snaking across his chest and disappearing beneath his shirt. The Master was without his jacket, dressed in a smart charcoal grey waistcoat and neatly pressed trousers, and the top three buttons of his shirt had been undone to permit Tyrone’s wandering fingers unfettered access.
Allowing himself to be fondled and debauched in public as a trophy for his client to show off both wealth and status, he looked exactly like what he was: a high-end whore. What he’d been for the whole five years Kyle had known him.
So why did that make him feel so sickeningly uncomfortable?
The two men spoke to each other. From his position at the edge of the crowd, music blaring, Kyle couldn’t hear the words, but he saw each of their mouths move.
And then Tyrone’s hand slid deeper between Akira’s thighs, his mouth latched shamelessly onto his bared neck, and Akira’sneutral gaze turned even more reserved as he stared unseeingly into the distance.
Kyle’s growl was consumed by the noise of the club, but he felt it in his bones.
