Eliana (16 page)

“There was no reason to—”

“No reason?” Dane untangled himself, forced Kon backward onto the bed. He pinned Kon’s arms and legs down, emanating a flood of hurt and grief. “Damn it, Kon. I’ve waited years for you to talk, and all that time I’ve been going over it again and again, wondering what happened and how I could have stopped her. I wanted you to have a good time, so I let her take you, but I’ve never regretted anything so much in my life.”

Kon couldn’t look away from those searching blue eyes. He’d known at the time Dane had taken it personally, but he hadn’t been able to cope with that pain added to his own and shoved it aside, hoping it would all go away. Obviously, it hadn’t.

“Tell me. Please. No more secrets.” He leaned down and kissed Kon, tongue probing Kon’s mouth as if to coax him to speak.

Kon closed his eyes, recalling Valerie’s lean, catlike figure, and shuddered.

Dane lay down against Kon, one hand resting on Kon’s chest. “Tell me,” he whispered in Kon’s ear.

* * * *

Valerie entered Kon’s clinic in mid-May on a day sunny yet cool. She was a Warden visiting Denver from back East. Boston, Kon thought but couldn’t remember. She wasn’t the first woman Kon had been attracted to, but she was the most striking. Her hair was cropped short and slicked back in a boy’s cut. Fitted black pants outlined her thighs and butt, and the red blouse was cut low enough to show off her cleavage. Yet it wasn’t her looks that caught Kon’s attention—it was her self-confidence and the way she emanated such control over her body that made him want to strip naked and grovel at her feet.

Having her pacing in the waiting room made it damnably hard to concentrate on his last patient for the day. Without needing it said aloud, he
knew
she’d come for him, and it wasn’t to be healed.

“You’re Konstantin?” she asked after Kon sent his patient on his way. When he could only nod, she smiled. “You’re even more beautiful in person. I’ve come a long way to meet you. Are you free this weekend?” She trailed one bloodred fingernail down his cheek just hard enough to imply she could cut him if she wished.

His cock hardened, and he shivered.
Yes. Oh yes
, Kon wanted to say. “I…I have to ask permission.”

“Do. I’ve rented the Red Room.”

Kon fought back another surge of arousal. The Red Room wasn’t named so much for the color of the furnishings as for the color of a submissive’s skin after a session. Kon and Dane had gone there on special occasions but usually preferred the comfort of their suite. Going there with a new partner was always exciting.

Dane, upon hearing Kon’s eagerness and meeting Valerie himself, had consented with the provision he attend the first session to make sure she didn’t mistreat Kon. “By all means,” Valerie said.

She was good,
very
good, utterly professional and able to explore and exploit his limits but go no further. By the end of the session, Kon floated high on endorphins, and Dane admitted it had been a long time since his demon had fed so well simply by watching.

But the next night when Kon and Valerie were alone, it became clear she wanted him for reasons besides having a good time. Just as she’d finished stripping him and cuffing him to a bench, her demeanor turned cool and calculating. “Is it true you’re a cambion?”

The question filled him with dread. The fact that he’d had his demon removed was no secret, but it was never a good sign when a partner fixated on it. “Not anymore.”

“What a pity. I’ve always enjoyed the way they have far greater sexual endurance than normal men.” She ran her fingers along his bare belly, making goose bumps rise on his flesh. “I thought you might have a similar endurance.”

Her cold, scientific interest, all too evident to his Sensitivity, caused unease to gather in his belly. She wasn’t someone who’d learned to mask her thoughts from him, and he didn’t care for the side she’d hidden from him the night before. “I don’t think—”

She placed a finger over his lips. “Trust me. I know what I’m doing. I’m going to take you to a place you’ve never been.”

Before Kon could protest, she worked a ball gag into his mouth and wrapped a blindfold around his eyes. Worse, she added a pair of earplugs to deprive him of yet another sense. All he was left with was touch, his Sensitivity, and her twisted obsession in seeing how much his scientifically manipulated body could take.

His looks had often caused others to underestimate his masculinity, but she didn’t see him as either male or female. He was a
thing
, a creature to play with for her own amusement. Accessories that were delicious when Dane used them—ropes, clamps, floggers—turned brutal under Valerie’s hands. She whipped him with no care as to his comfort, only to see how many blows she could deliver before he either fainted or lost his erection. On the times she removed the earplugs her cooing praise filled him with shame and made him a victim rather than a willing participant. Dane had never humiliated him, but Valerie had no compunction in doing so.

The physical pain he could cope with. He’d had a lot of practice. Being so aware of
her
pleasure,
her
satisfaction when she straddled him and rode his exhausted, immobilized body sickened and revolted him.

She
did
take him to a place he’d never been—past his breaking point. He floated in a netherworld of pain and madness, barely aware of the tears streaming down his cheeks.

By the time she released him, his throat was raw and burning from bile. The lightest touch burned as if she held a lit match to his skin. For hours afterward, he hadn’t been able to move. He’d lain curled on the bench, trembling, hating himself for being such a fool.

* * * *

Fresh tears slid down Kon’s cheeks as he buried his head in Dane’s shoulder. He didn’t remember much of the immediate aftermath, only Dane’s arms wrapped around him and the horrible fear of anyone else touching him.

“I was terrified when you didn’t come back. I went to her room, and she was gone, bags packed and everything. And when I saw how she’d just left you… I was so angry, I could have killed her.” He tangled his fingers in Kon’s hair and rubbed his head as if he were a small child. “Doc couldn’t even touch you. I had to sedate you so she could take care of you. And afterward, you wouldn’t talk. I didn’t push because I didn’t want to hurt you more, but, damn, it was all I could do not to order you to tell me.”

Kon didn’t think he could have talked. Not then, anyway. Not even when Doc had told him that on her recommendation Valerie had been thrown out of the Wardens and forbidden from taking any clients.

“It’s not your fault,” Dane said.

He knew that. Every Warden went through training on sexual ethics and the psychological implications of sessions gone bad. Kon, like so many others, had figured he’d be able to handle it, and he was wrong. “It’s not yours either.”

Maybe Dane was right. Eliana might have turned out the same: a woman with her own bad memories to flay by using a proxy. She had issues, but she was young and had a depth and self-awareness Valerie had lacked. Kon still had hope for Eliana. Since she couldn’t share his life the way he craved, then he hoped she’d be happy and find someone to love her as much as he did.

He stretched out, sending several papers sliding to the floor. As soon as he recalled the file, the guilt returned. He was a freak. Spawn of a devil and a demon. Small wonder the woman he loved didn’t want him and the first woman he’d desired treated him like the lab animal he was.

“I have to pee.” He extracted himself from Dane’s embrace and headed toward the bathroom, but relieving himself wasn’t the primary reason for going there.

Kon dug out the last three vials he’d secreted among his toiletries. Broken and unhappy as he was, he had nothing left to lose.

Before he could change his mind, he filled the syringe and plunged it into his arm once. Twice. Three times.

The syringe and empty vials fell to the floor. Fire raced along his veins and
burned
. Kon doubled over, hissing as the agony traveled throughout his body. Teeth clenched, he couldn’t hold back his moan of pain.

AS SOON AS Kon cried out, Dane rushed to the bathroom. Kon leaned against the sink, trembling and pallid. Dane’s stomach tightened. “Are you sick? What—”

His toe hit something that clinked against the base of the cabinet. Dane bent down and picked up a glass vial—one with a label reading
Träume
. Two more lay on the floor, along with a syringe. “What does träume mean?” He pronounced the word as best he could.

Kon didn’t look at him. “Dreams.”

Dreams
. The word jarred something uncomfortable within Dane, but right now he was too worried to focus. Kon had been an idiot; more than that, he’d kept a secret that might have killed him. “You fucking fool.” The hard slap against Kon’s cheek didn’t even fractionally express his fury. Dane would have done anything to help, but Kon hadn’t given him the chance. “How could you?”

Kon pushed him away and swayed slightly. “I had to know…”

“Know what? That your father was a fucking madman?” Dane grabbed Kon’s face and forced Kon to look at him. “He’s messing with your head, just as he has been your whole life.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m a freak.” The words came out in a drunken slur.

Shit
. Kon was going downhill. Fast. “It matters. And if you’re a freak, what the hell am I? A freak’s catamite?” Dane waited, hoping Kon would clarify, but he didn’t. “Come on, Kon. Talk to me.”

But Kon’s eyes glazed over. His legs gave way. Dane caught him, hoisted him up, and carried him out to the bed. “How many did you use?” When Kon didn’t answer, Dane shook him hard. “There were twelve vials.
How many did you use
?”

He had to lean down to hear Kon’s voice. “All of them.”

Dread pooled in Dane’s stomach. “I’m calling Doc Jensen.”

“Don’t bother. It’s too late.”

Dane didn’t dare ask
too late for what?
If it meant Kon was dying, he didn’t want to know, and he wasn’t going to give up without a fight. He made a frantic call to the hospital wing, then returned to Kon’s side. “Doc’s on her way.”

With effort, Kon said, “He lied.”

“Of course he lied. He lied your whole life. Don’t tell me you used that drug because you believed him.”

“I thought…” Kon’s breathing grew raspy. His eyes drifted shut. “I thought he’d left me something that could change me for the better. He didn’t.”

Dane’s heart broke at hearing the depth of Kon’s grief.
How the hell did he pass the psych tests if he carried this within him?
Not that he was really protesting; if Kon hadn’t become a Warden, Dane would never have met him, and he might still be wandering around San Diego looking for his next partner and not knowing why he always felt so hungry.

“Kon?” But there was no answer. Kon had drifted off to sleep. “Come on. Don’t do this.” A rough shake had no effect, but beneath his grip, Kon’s skin tingled. Dane’s demon stirred as it picked up energy laced with sex.

Kon was dreaming again. The label on the vial—dreams—made sudden, frightening sense knowing the drug caused Kon to project his fantasies to others. “Can’t keep your mind to yourself, can you?”

Chapter Seventeen

The rest of the morning was the worst of Dane’s life. Doc Jensen arrived within minutes of his call, accompanied by two of her techs. In short order, Kon was undressed and hooked up to an IV and several monitors while Doc gave him a thorough exam.

Dane paced, hating the way Kon looked so helpless and vulnerable. His demon gave him no peace, taunting him with arousal no matter how hard he tried to tamp it down. He avoided telling Evan about Kon as long as he dared, guessing the response he’d receive—and getting it.

Evan hurried into the room, exchanged a few terse words with Doc, then pounced on Dane. He gave Dane a violent shake, fingers digging into Dane’s arms. “How could you let Kon do something so stupid? Why didn’t you tell us his father had sent a package?”

As soon as his teeth stopped rattling, Dane said, “Kon asked me not to.”

Evan’s face grew livid. “The well-being of my Wardens is my top concern. I need to know anything that affects them.
Anything
. Even a cambion like you should be able to understand that.”

Fury boiled over at Evan’s arrogance. “So why did you give him the damn file? Do you think it helped to see a picture of his father’s corpse?”

“You two either shut up or take it outside,” Doc said. She was busy drawing a few vials of blood from Kon’s arm. “He’s a Sensitive, remember?”

Evan clamped his mouth closed. So did Dane, who was ashamed at behaving so badly when Kon needed their support.

Kon lay writhing and sweating, highly aroused and utterly incoherent. Doc Jensen collected the vials and syringe and sent them off with one of her techs for testing in the lab.

“Any chance on finding another Sensitive to help?” Dane asked.

“I was going to call when I had a chance.” Evan went into the next room. Twenty minutes later, he returned with an even darker expression. “The one in Colorado Springs went to Santa Fe for an emergency. The one in Cheyenne is down with pneumonia. Las Vegas and Salt Lake can’t leave. My aide is on the line looking for someone willing to fly in.”

“If they can’t come, maybe I could take Kon to—”

“I’m not letting you move him in this condition,” Evan said as Doc’s techs brought in yet another machine and hooked electrodes to Kon’s head. “Besides, how long has it been since your demon fed?”

The question was highly inappropriate with his lover lying there suffering. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters. I’m going to have to find you a surrogate until Kon’s well. It would help to know how much time I have.”

The longest Dane had gone without sex was five days, all of them during the terrible aftermath of Valerie’s session. By the time Kon had been able to face the idea of sex, Dane had been shaking and ill from withdrawal. “It’s not necessary. Kon will be fine by the time I need him.”