52. Kyle

CHAPTER 52

Kyle

K yle was dragged downstairs to find a shirtless Akira subdued, gagged, and held tightly between two of the men. His skin was red across his ribs and jaw where he'd been repeatedly hit, and he was bleeding freely from both his mouth and a vicious cut above his left eyebrow.

Horror ran icy fingers down Kyle's spine at the sight.

He tried to jerk himself free from the arms of the giant who had him pinned, but the muzzle of the gun jabbed painfully under his chin and Kyle reluctantly fell still. Akira frowned around his gag and met his eyes with an expression filled with concern.

"You pricks," Kyle hissed. "Get the fuck away from him!"

"Was that necessary, Bear?" demanded Theta at his side, also staring at Akira and his array of injuries. The smallest of the three men looming around Akira glanced over. His face was narrow and angular, his nose thin, and he had a sallow, pale complexion that made him look almost sickly.

He was bleeding from his cheek, looking as satisfyingly bruised and battered as his companions.

"Sure fucking was," he griped in a high, nasally voice that set Kyle's teeth on edge. Waving at the man still laid out on the floor – unconscious or dead, Kyle didn't know – he then slammed his fist savagely into Akira's ribs to extract a pained exhale from him. "Your man managed to take out Tiger an' get hits on the rest of us lot, despite you promising to deliver him quietly."

Kyle gritted his teeth. Quietly . Plied full of liquor, dropped into subspace, and cuffed to the desk upstairs? Even then, Master Epsilon would not have made easy prey.

"The plan changed," Theta said shortly.

Akira didn't look surprised at the revelation of his old Master's role in all of this, not pulling his attention from Kyle to bother sending any dirty looks Theta's way. Despite the pain he must have been in, Akira's gaze was clear and darkly intent. He was one tough fucker.

And the smartest man Kyle knew. He'd probably figured out the extent of Theta's betrayal before Kyle had, not needing a star-damned gun in his face to work out that the other Master had been the one to let these men into the House when he'd abandoned Akira in the office. All the runes in the city wouldn't stop a locked and warded door from being opened from the inside.

"When's the boss get here?" the huge man holding Kyle asked. Kyle's skin shrivelled in disgust where they touched: this monster had taken multiple shots at his babies when Theta had returned his gun to him. Thank the brightest of stars that Kyle's cats were light on their feet and had the sense to flee, even the usual bag of lazy rocks that was Havoc.

"‘nother twenty minutes, Mouse," Bear said in a mildly exasperated tone, that of someone well used to having to repeat themselves and no happier about it now.

"Got anywhere I can put this one? He don't stand still," Mouse complained, his grip on Kyle tightening to painful.

All eyes turned to Theta, who sighed and tipped his head.

Bear toed open the door to the indicated training room and let out a long, appreciative whistle. "Oh yeah. Bring ‘em in here, boys."

He wandered over to help haul Kyle into the room, and although the man was slight enough for Kyle to knock down with one hand, the gun under his chin and the two brutes dragging Akira in ahead of him were enough of a threat to keep him from trying it.

A few chuckles and lewd comments were offered when the men caught sight of the equipment in the room, from the sex swing in one corner to the spanking bench in the other. After a brief argument between the ironically named Bear and Mouse that saw the smaller man cut the larger to verbal shreds, Kyle was secured to restraints hanging from the ceiling that stretched his arms above his head. The feeling of the leather buckles being cinched tightly around his wrists – something meant to bring pleasure and anticipation to the surrendering submissive, not used to hold a genuine captive in place – made his head pound with fear and his heartbeat rachet uncontrollably, and Kyle was made to watch with agonising helplessness as Akira was chained by his own wrists to a sturdy ring set in the floor.

Not lowering himself to provide manual assistance in the completion of his treachery, Theta had chosen a section of blank wall to lean against and fold his arms. He looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. While his pose was elegant and unconcerned, the uncertain tension in his expression reminded Kyle of how Akira had presented when Theta had coerced him upstairs, and he felt no sympathy for the man at all.

"You."

Bear wandered over to Akira and reached out to wrap his fist around his exposed dog tags, twisting his hand so the chain pulled taut across Akira's slender neck.

Muscles flexed in his throat as he fought to breathe.

"You've been fucking up the boss' plans for weeks now," Bear commented idly, looking down at him with cruel anticipation. "So he told us to fuck you up in turn."

And then they did just that.

Kyle threw himself uselessly against his bonds, howling out curses and pleas that fell on deaf ears as the four strangers took out their spite and boredom on his boyfriend. They stripped the rest of his clothes from him, taunted him, hit him, hurt him. A straightening iron was found on the sideboard – the one Mish had been looking for? – and its heated plates were applied to Akira's bare skin over and over, until his arms and chest were a mess of vicious burns and Kyle's voice was scratched hoarse from screaming.

Yet Akira endured it all with a quiet poise that gave the impression he was merely putting up with the acts of annoying children. Kyle hadn't known that anyone could look disdainful while kneeling, naked, and beaten, but that had been before he'd met Master Epsilon.

It was the defiance that emanated from his expression and pose. Not of physical resistance: they'd taken that out of him by cuffing his hands to a chain so short he couldn't move from his knees, but a kind of you're not worthy of my time conveyance that rendered him untouchable despite what they did to his body.

Akira, bound and gagged while submissive, was scorching hot.

Akira, bound and gagged while refusing to bend an inch, was terrifying. Chained wrists and this ceaseless, brutal violence wouldn't stop him if he decided he wasn't going to put up with their nonsense for another minute.

Or so it felt.

But as often as he presented as larger than life, Akira was only human. As the torture persisted, his shoulders began to drop, his chest heaved, and his eyelashes started to flutter. Shallow, stilted breaths wheezed past his gag.

Kyle's man was in terrible pain, and there was nothing he could do to help him.