Page 49 of Xerxes Ascendant
“Hey, pet,” the blonde purred, reaching out to stroke a hand between his legs. Akira moaned at the sensation, knowing he wouldn’t be permitted relief and revelling in the deliberate torture. His cock ached beyond the point of discomfort, but his suffering pleased Sir, and so it pleased Akira in turn. “In case it’s of any interest to you, the Carrion are here.”
Strangulation really was too good for him.
“Pest,” Akira hissed in a pissed off breath, grabbing Kyle’s shirt collar and yanking him down the corridor to the building’s back entrance. Unable to spot any hulking gang members in the morning-lit street that was beginning to fill with regular people,they raced for the next block and took refuge in the first set of shadows they saw.
They cleared that alley, and then the next, but in the third…
“Here you fucking are,finally,” the lead Carrion snarled as Kyle and Akira turned a corner to come face to face with him and five of his companions. Akira shoved Kyle back the way they’d come, only that entrance was now filled with another half dozen Carrions too, all looking significantly more exhausted than they had a couple of hours ago and seemingly not in the mood for further chase.
They were already too close for him to use the gun at his hip. Maybe he should have insisted on taking a stand back in the building, where he could have shot at least one or two as they approached. But he’d been caught short, and now he might pay – with the cost beingKyle –for not being as ruthless as he should have. For thinking they could still escape together.
“Get ready to run,” Akira murmured to the man at his side. Kyle dipped his chin, looking uncharacteristically grim.
The lead Carrion hacked out a cough. “You’re both getting on our nerves, you know that? The pair of you, up against that wall. Now.”
Akira mentally catalogued how one of their pursuers favoured his right side, and how another was standing close enough to a drain for it to be a trip hazard that could lead to a broken ankle.
Did the fact that these thoughts came so easily to Akira make him a monster? That he looked at a person and saw their flaws, their weaknesses, the easiest way to hurt them?
Everyone except Kyle.
Akira wasdonehurting Kyle.
“Master Epsilon.” Another of the Carrions acknowledged his assessing glance with a sneer, twisting his wrist to display thebrutal set of steel knuckledusters wrapped around his fingers. “I expect you know how this goes?”
He did. They would repeat the demand for their surrender, Kyle would say something conciliatory and sweetly coaxing that might work to talk down a simple street thief but not hardened gang members, while Akira wouldn’t bother wasting his breath on pointless words.
And that was how it happened.
It was clear the thugs had expected resistance over peaceful submission, or else they had grown to love the violence of the city too much, for they threw themselves into the fray without hesitation. Men surged towards them with bared teeth and unimaginative threats, forced to go through him to reach Kyle no matter which direction they lunged from.
Instinct kicked in. Akira twisted, blocked, and struck, using the narrow space they were in to limit his assailants to one or two at a time and manipulating their larger weight against them. Another one bit the dust, and then another one and another one. Steel repeatedly clanged against brick as they swung various weapons at him, only to miss when they found him no longer where he’d been.
All of those weapons were oddly dull: sawn off pipes and clubs and more of those crude knuckledusters, and it occurred to Akira to wonder why there were no blades or firearms in play…until he saw one abort a blow that had been ratcheting towards his head.
So, they didn’t wish to inflict permanent damage? Under orders, no doubt, which meant their erstwhile leader wanted him alive and hale. He didn’t think was a good sign, knowing Sinead Gallagher’s ruthless reputation as he did.
Akira snarled, throwing less caution and more violence into the fight. He took advantage of their reticence to permanently maim him to get in a further round of good hits, shoved Kyletowards the first gap he saw in their ranks, and yelled at him to run as fast as he could. Then Akira took another of the assailants down, revelling in the savage glee of hurting those who would have hurt his man.
Yet he was denied further satisfaction when the Carrions finally gained enough sense to swarm him all at once, and their remaining numbers – fewer than they’d begun with but still far, far too many – inevitably overwhelmed. Knowing he couldn’t have ever won against so many opponents hadn’t made Akira any less determined to try, for succeeding against impossible odds had become somewhat of a habit of his.
But sometimes, the odds prevailed.
Thrown violently to the ground and kicked hard in the ribs, Akira couldn’t even release the winded cough it invoked before a boot was brought down on his face and brutally ground his cheek into the asphalt.
His vision darkened. His eyes stung. His fingernails scrabbled at anything he could reach with feral but futile determination…before he remembered the gun tucked under his shirt.
Before, the close quarters of the fight would have made it impossible to use. But on the ground, Akira might have the necessary stability and space to take one or two more men out. He manoeuvred a hand behind his back to retrieve his stolen gun, flicking off the safety and pulling the trigger in a single smooth movement. Its recoil thudded through his arm, the noise deafening in the enclosed space, but the weight that had been holding him down instantly eased from his face and neck.
The echoes of the gunshot lasted for a long time, oddly gaining volume again with the echoes of the alley before fading to screams. Ignoring the thug now shrieking and reeling with a bullet lodged in his shoulder, Akira glanced past him...and froze.
Kyle’s arms were interlocked with those of the lead Carrion, who had seemingly dropped the bat he’d been wielding before. Both men had their hands wrapped around a second gun, one that was pointed to the ceiling of Level B above, and were each letting out faint noises of exertion as they wrestled for control.
Kyle seemed to be the one keeping the muzzle up and safely away from everyone else, and Akira belatedly understood what had happened.
Oh, he despaired at it, but heunderstood.
Kyle had said something similar to him only hours before, when they’d felt like the only two beings in existence. When the biggest thing at stake was Akira’s unworthy heart, and now it was Kyle’slife, because the stupid, stubborn idiot hadn’t even tried to follow his order to run.
