The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (22 page)

Garrett kissed my neck before lifting himself partially off of me. He opened the night table drawer and flicked open a bottle of lube. My chest gave an anxious and nervous quiver, all of a sudden I felt like a teenager again about to lose my virginity.

“If I hurt you, just tell –” I kissed him to shut him up and took some of the lube from his open palm. I prepared myself and fell back onto the bed, pulling him with me.

I took in a deep breath and clenched my teeth as I felt the pressure between my legs. With a push he eased the head in, and before I could even get used to the intense feeling he slid his entire length inside of me.

Garrett’s forehead, clammy and hot, rested on the pillow beside me. His quickened, rapid breathing only inches away from my ear. I heard him groan and say something in his chimera language before I felt his hips start to move.

It had been a long time since this had happened to me in a consensual way. All the way back to King Silas in the greywastes, and if you didn’t count him… fuck. Well, at least my non-consensual times had left me able to take it even during the first few painful minutes. So with that in mind and my body relaxed and under my fiancé’s protection, I let him slowly thrust his hips.

They never got this close to me. As Garrett moved himself in me, kissing me on the lips, chin, neck, anywhere he could reach, I realized this. Jesse had been a full bottom, Silas liked it rough, quick and multiple times, and Bridley, well…

Garrett though, he was right on me, his body pressed against mine, one hand gripping the pillow and the other holding back my left knee. He was gentle, attentive, and emotional, all without saying a word to me. Everything he was trying to say was in his movements, and the invisible energies of our bodies mixing together.

I think I realized in that moment I was making love for the first time.

I drew him in for a kiss and slid both my hands down and grabbed his backside. I pushed him into me and started encouraging him to go faster. He knew what I wanted, we were perfectly in sync. Garrett sped up his thrusts taking his hand from the pillow to hold my other knee back.

The pleasure built and my hand found itself between my legs. Garrett watched me; his eyes focused and his mouth open as the moans fell from his lips with every thrust. A part of me wanted to try a new position just to see what it was like, but I didn’t think any position could be more intimate than this one. I could see him and he could see me, with our bodies intertwined together.

Every time I sped up my hand, still stroking myself off, he sped himself up too, taking every one of my movements as a cue. It was so different than what I was used to. He wasn’t fucking me, he wasn’t trying to get himself off… he cared about my experience. He wanted this to be special.

I tried to hold myself off as long as possible, but soon I had my knees back as far as they could go and my hand rapidly jerking myself off. Garrett seemed with me on our mutual agreement, he tightened his grip on my knees and started to quickly thrust himself inside of me. His moans now being drawn through clenched teeth; his chest and body glistening with sweat.

My body filled with a rush of heat as I heard him reach his climax. An intake of breath before he shut his eyes tight, then with a sharp thrust he opened his mouth and let out a loud, strangled moan.

I grabbed onto his back as he fell into my arms, his hips still thrusting through his orgasm. That was all I needed to reach my peak, with his stomach almost pressed against my hand still working myself over, I gave it a couple good strokes before I came as well. I could hear him swearing beside me as I gasped through it, feeling his hand reach down to rub and pull on the head.

We laid there breathing heavily as our orgasms subsided, leaving fatigue and exhaustion in its place. After several minutes Garrett separated our bodies and laid down beside me.

He kissed my shoulder. “You have fifteen minutes to recover before I take you again.”

I blushed and moved myself onto my side. Garrett gazed back at me, his eyes full of love to the point of worship. He brushed my still half-silver hair from my eyes. “You’re so beautiful. You’ll spend eternity with me, Reno?”

It wasn’t often he called me by my real name. It made me blush even harder, feeling like a love-sick teen. It was a unique talent that this chimera could make me feel so vulnerable but cherished at the same time.

“Why wouldn’t I?” I smiled.

His face turned serious for a moment, which made me frown.

“Some people think immortality is unnatural and they don’t want it. I was worried you might be one of those types.”

I scoffed at this. “You know when Reaver was all emo about being an immortal demigod I told him he was being a retard. I always hated when the super heroes get all angsty about having super powers. I would fucking love the shit out of being immortal… think of all the adventures we could have, Gare. We could like… explore the outlands and the Dead Islands. We could go to the plaguelands! We have forever to… explore the world, watch the radiation disappear!”

Garrett laughed as he saw how excited I was getting. I couldn’t help it though, I was kind of getting worked up about it. “We could become greywaster super heroes! Like the opposite of Reaver and Jade, or we can even have super battles with them! Like in the comics!”

Still laughing, Garrett stroked my cheek. “This is why I love you… this is what I missed about you. You’re just… everything makes you happy, everything excites you. Never change, love.”

I jittered with excitement. “Do it tomorrow!”

Garrett rolled his eyes, his face holding his classic smile. “No, not tomorrow, goof. We need to wait until Elish becomes king, then we can. It must be a born immortal to do it. So unless we can snip a bit of Silas before Elish outlaws him, we –”

“Outlaws him?” I stopped Garrett. “Reaver is going to kill him… remember?”

Garrett’s face changed again, but just a brief moment after seeing his apprehension it shifted back to his smile. He kissed me to try and hide it further. “Not now, love.”

I pulled back, and at that gesture his lips disappeared into his mouth. “Gare… he raped Killian. He killed Leo and Greyson. He… he wants Reaver for himself. You said you were loyal.”

Garrett looked pained. “Yes, but loyal does not mean I want Silas to die. Everyone who Elish has turned, besides the greywasters, have an agreement with Elish that we will just… send him away to recover.” At my expression my fiancé smiled sadly at me. “Lovely, do not judge Silas so openly. You don’t know him like us…”

“He’s crazy and insane… he’s killed so many chimera lovers and –”

“And he’s my master, Reno. You love your crazy and insane boy, would someone on the outside looking in not see Reaver as just as bad of a person? But you see his heart, no?”

I stared at him, he might be making sense but… “Does Elish know this? And he has agreed to this? Because right now he’s in the greywastes trying to find out how to kill King Silas.”

“Perish will never tell him, it’s physically impossible for him,” Garrett said simply, and when I opened my mouth he put his hand up. “Please, Reno, not tonight. I have lived with Silas for ninety-one years and I understand him and his struggle. Silas will pay for what he did to Killian, Lycos, and Greyson. But… Perish loves Silas and is devoted to him even if he could somehow manage it, which is impossible, he wouldn’t.”

“He might now that he has his brain piece back,” I muttered.

Garrett suddenly recoiled from me, his eyes widened. “What?”

Oh shit. Good one, Reno. Bravo.

“Nothing,” I said quickly before slapping my hand over my face. “Don’t look into that… jeez. Elish didn’t tell you?”

Garrett put his hand on mine and pulled it away from my face. “How did he do it?”

“Lycos did it… we have no idea how he got a hold of it,” I said, hoping I didn’t just fuck Elish over in some way. “Do you… do you even know why Elish was in the greywastes?”

Garrett blinked at me. “He’s in or was in Kreig to… get files… and, ah…” He scowled at the wall. “Is he there trying to get… to get Perish’s O.L.S?”

I leaned in and slowly kissed him. “Fifteen minutes is up.”

But Garrett pulled away. “You must tell me everything.”

“No, that’s Elish’s job. You know you can’t ask me that shit…” I kissed him again and this time he let me. “Don’t get me more involved in this than I have to be. You ask Elish. Now come here.”

Garrett let out a long and haughty breath from his nose and kissed me back. “Very well, it’s probably for the best anyways. You win – for now.”

Chapter 44

Jade

The moon was almost full tonight, shining its silver light down onto the grey ash around me. It trimmed rocks, trees and bushes with its brilliant hue. Moonlight always did seem to give objects its own texture.

My vision only enhanced it; my entire world tonight was black, silver, and blue. Even the lights in the distance were small orbs of illumination, seemingly floating around like omnipotent specters, but I knew what they were… the twinkling lights of a town called Velstoke.

A town with no walls, a town new and ready for conquest.

My town.

I glanced behind me, and though I heard almost nothing I could see dozens and dozens of eyes. Eyes that drank in the moonlight and reflected back opal spheres. Eyes of my people. A sea of creatures following me obediently, their heads lowered and their usual screaming muted. Each one carrying guns on their backs or knives in their hands. All walking with a stealth normal ravers didn’t wield.

Because they were not normal ravers… no. These were
my
ravers, these were Jade’s ravers.

Big Shot was beside me with a leather strap across his chest, an assault rifle on his back, and a belt of bullets on his waist. On his collarbone was a bloodied gouge, which held the Geigerchip I had implanted in him. I had harvested fifteen of them from the townspeople we had killed and corpses they had already partially consumed.

I had chipped fifteen of the smartest ones and those were the ones that I kept right behind me. All of them carrying on their irradiated, scabbed bodies, guns, knives, and ammo.

They improved at the hands of their king. I had armed them, chipped them, and befriended them. And now I, the King of the Ravers, was leading them to their first victory, their first conquest. My thanks for saving my life, when I was only days from death.

Tonight we would become the stuff of legends. Tonight a raver colony would not only destroy a town, we would take it over and make it our first in what I knew would be a revolution.

Big Shot pointed to the town and I nodded to him, confirming we were in the right area. I made him watch as I pointed to a thatch of thick trees off to the north area, and told him that that was where I wanted half of them to go. The stupid ones, because I knew their chances of survival would be lower. They would be our distraction, a normal raver attack to draw all the fire power as me and the smart faction branched off to silently infiltrate the town.

Scout, or that was the name I had called him, had shown me where the town was yesterday. From the looks of this place there were about one hundred residents living in it and at any point in time five officers with firepower scouting the outskirts. My ravers would silently pick off those officers after the distraction.

I had said this over and over to Big Shot, Scout, and the black-skinned raver I had nicknamed the Beast because he was huge and powerful. I had made them draw out the plan on the grey ash dirt several times to make sure they understood.

So far so good. The Geigerchips had been slowly doing their work, and Big Shot was getting smarter by the day. I wasn’t sure how much of an improvement the Geigerchips would make because, well, I don’t know if anyone had ever done this before.

My chest was full of adrenaline, fueled by the cold night air. The town was right in front of us. It was so close I could see each individual board on the houses.

I climbed up a gnarled black tree and turned to my warriors.

The sea of eyes gazed up at me. So many of them, all obediently following my every word or as much as they could understand. I must have had thirty of them. Each one holding a different level of intelligence.

I raised my right hand and pointed to the center of the trees feeling a small thrill as the ravers I had hand-picked obediently split from the group to await the massacre.

They didn’t know how to count but they knew signals, and beside me, with his hot breath breaking up the last weeks of winter, I knew I had the perfect signal.

Deek was quiet but his tongue was out. He would be eating well tonight too. A dog as big as he was would make for a terrifying enemy. I was glad he was on my side and smart enough to know ravers were our friends.

“Let’s go,” I whispered to Big Shot. I nodded to him, Scout, and the Beast, and the four of us branched off. The remaining would take the east and west. We would have the city surrounded and on Deek’s signal the ravers in the trees would attack, and on Deek’s second signal – we would attack.