48. Akira

CHAPTER 48

Akira

" M ore," said Theta.

Akira obeyed, tilting his head back so Theta could pour more of the brandy onto his tongue. He coughed on the burn: this was rough, cheap shit, nothing like Master Theta's usual refined preferences. But he wasn't drinking any himself tonight, instead finding his amusement in tipping the neck of the liquor bottle into Akira's upturned mouth and splashing in far more than he could neatly swallow.

"Greedy slut," Theta admonished when he tired of watching him choke and splutter, setting the bottle aside and nudging him with his foot. Akira had been made to kneel between Theta's parted legs, palms pressed obediently to his thighs, while the other man sat splayed in the desk chair like it was a throne. "You'll take anything down your throat, won't you?"

"Yes, sir," Akira replied dutifully, letting himself fall into familiar lethargy. The words came automatically that way, compliant and agreeable, and if the sir wasn't a Sir when he spoke it, who would ever know?

"Speaking of," Theta said in a casual tone. "You want a credit injection for your debt, talk to Omicron. He said he'd pay decently to get his dick in that tight hole of yours."

Akira recoiled, earning himself a hard slap across the face.

"Did I tell you to move?"

Swallowing down the iron tang of blood, Akira shook his head.

Master Theta sighed. "You dislike that idea. I thought you were whoring again?"

"I am, it's just..."

"I was only trying to help, Akira," Theta said irritably. "It's not like you could keep it from the other Masters when word has already spread. Not from me," he added, frowning. "But you have some influential and excited clients."

So the whole Coterie knew not just that Akira had been arrested, but that he was back to spreading his legs for anyone who would pay. He tried to stop the hot flush that spread across his face: of humiliation, yes, but also anger. He was meant to be a House Master on an equal footing with the others, but they'd quickly overlook that for the rest of it.

It was no wonder Omicron had offered to rent him. Even if he felt no attraction to Akira, the man wouldn't pass up the opportunity to put his least favourite Master back in his place. He'd probably use his full title as part of the degradation, in reminder of what he was against what Omicron would use his purchased time with him to turn him into. Master Epsilon, he'd drawl, only yesterday you were sitting at the Coterie table with us, contemptuous and dismissive, and now look at you. With your ass full and still begging for more.

Akira dropped his chin to his chest, so damn tired. He'd spent years trying to prove his worth to the Coterie so he could be accepted into its ranks, pretending and faking and struggling to be something he wasn't, just so he could meet their expectations of what a Master should be. Concealing his acts of submission in the brief periods of his staff's training so no one knew how much he liked going to his knees – except Kyle, of course, because no matter how well he hid it, that man always seemed to know what Akira truly wanted – and feigning dominance even on the days when it was the furthest thing from how he felt and what he craved.

Master Theta stood abruptly from the chair, and stretched. Akira didn't allow himself to move even though it meant his face was now pressed against Theta's groin from how close the man was standing, his familiar musk detectable through the layers of clothing.

But as though Akira's compliance annoyed him, or he was looking to punish him regardless of whether he deserved it, Theta snarled and grabbed a fistful of his hair. Akira's back arched, his nails scrabbling uselessly at the floor as Theta dragged him by the hair back towards the desk. He felt himself falling towards docility; not at a pleasant drifting pace but through an alcohol-induced sluggishness that tugged insistently at his limbs and mind.

"Hands, slut."

Akira's wrists were cuffed behind his back. He didn't realise he'd been tethered to one of the legs of his heavy desk until he felt the hard line of it against his spine. Panic surged in him: he was used to being restrained, but it seemed his body was now having difficulty distinguishing between this and what had happened in this same room with the Xerxian police. Handcuffs circling his wrists. Fear of the unknown. Feeling trapped and at the capricious whims of a man who held too much power over him, and now reality and play were blurring, and-

"I'm going to go take a piss," Theta told him sharply, looking him up and down where he was knelt on the floor at the base of the desk. "Unless you're offering?"

Akira didn't need to offer. His old Master would take whatever he wanted, and until the debt was repaid, Akira couldn't stop him. The so-called Master Epsilon was bought and owned as thoroughly as he had been as an employee of House Theta all those years ago.

What had been the point of anything, when he was right back where he started?

But the threat to use him as a urinal must have been hollow. For Master Theta was suddenly gone from the room, leaving it as cold and empty as Akira himself.