by Flynn Eire
“Good, good.”
And on a high note like that, I got the fuck out of there before anything could be ruined. Hell, I just about skipped out of there.
6
The next few days I worked incessantly and not just because I wanted to do a really good job getting the range, cage, and vault up and running. I’d be lying if I said it was just that, though I wanted to say it was simply that, so I wasn’t admitting something affected me more than I liked that it did.
Complicated, I know. It happened from time to time no matter how simple we tried to keep things.
And I wasn’t avoiding Drake, I didn’t know what to say to him. How did I act? Was there a way just to move past what was said and pretend we were all good? I didn’t think so and until I knew how, I just wasn’t going to seek him out.
Which I had a feeling made all my worrying for naught since I’d lose my only friend anyways.
When I was done with yet another early morning prep shift Saturday, I decided that I might really need to learn to cook something without risking the entire camp’s lives or I was seriously going to burn all my reserves up getting so much done as fast as possible while picking up four early morning shifts a week of prep.
Because what I hadn’t told Alexander was they were actually neglectful. If they were to be attacked now with their stock so low, they wouldn’t have much to fight with. I was sure it would be awesome to go back to fighting with rocks against Zakasacs, but personally, I preferred the guns, swords if all that was available. And given how old some of the people there were, I was sure they thought swords were fine and guns were the addition.
I. Did. Not.
“It’s eight in the morning and I need a nap,” I bitched quietly as I let the cold shower try to wake me up so I could get back to the range. It wasn’t doing its job as the water cascaded down my back, my face leaning on my arms folded against the tiles, practically holding me up.
“Maybe you need to not shower alone and you wouldn’t find the practice boring enough to put you asleep,” a deep voice purred from behind me and then gave a hiss. “Jesus, London, this water is freezing.”
“Trying to stay awake so I can get back to work.”
“So you’re really not just trying to avoid me?” Drake mumbled cautiously as he adjusted the water temp.
I was too tired to be coy or think of anything but the truth. “No. Don’t know what to say to you after acting like a tool, a completely devoid-of-normal-feelings tool, or how to come talk to you, but I haven’t had time to avoid anyone. The vault and cage are a wreck and I’m trying to fix it before anyone realizes that it’s way worse than slightly disorganized and then I have a lot of cooks in my kitchen.”
“I’m not sure what to say to you after the bomb you dropped that you think mating kills souls, but I wasn’t exactly asking you to mate anyways, so yeah.” He surrounded me with his bigger body from behind and instantly I felt better. Not like I really had a plethora of energy I hadn’t known about, but just not so alone and freaked about everything.
I felt better in a whole new way when his soaped up fingers went to my hole.
“Miss me?” I teased.
“Yes, and not just why you think,” he grumbled and a thrill went through me that I didn’t understand. “Did you miss me more than just fucking?”
“Yes,” I heard myself admit, shocked it was so easy to say. I moaned when it earned me one of his big fingers in my hole. God, I really, really needed that after all the work stress and finally getting the job of my dreams just to realize an entire camp’s survival rested on my shoulders because no one knew they were completely unprepared.
“Did you like that I didn’t want to share you? All the years of everyone treating you as if you were just a hole, a dirty closet secret, and not worth talking about—your words—and you walked up on me being jealous. What did it make you feel, London?”
I have no clue why I answered. Maybe because I wanted to be honest with someone, try to open up and not feel so alone always, maybe have someone care. And he really seemed to.
Then again I’d had people pretend to before. But Drake seemed so different, and I swear it had to be the way he was with the damn dogs, but I did tell him. “Special.”
He pushed another finger in roughly and I shoved my ass onto it, just about throwing myself at him. Drake chuckled deeply, wrapping his arm around my chest. “Oh, you’re learning all kinds of new things about yourself, aren’t you, London?”
“Like what?” I whimpered, not knowing what he meant.
“That you like to play,” Drake hissed in my ear before lifting me up. I yelped and wrapped my legs and arms back around him as he plunged his fingers harder and faster in me. “No labels, okay?”
“What?” I gasped, unable to think right then.
“We’re adults, and I don’t like labels. We care about each other. We don’t want to hurt each other. We like each other. We like getting naked with each other. And you don’t want me to share you and I don’t want to share you. That’s what we are. No labels. It doesn’t matter. Okay?”
I bit back a smile. So he was saying we were in a relationship but we just weren’t going to call it that. What kind of fool did he think I was? “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Yeah, depends on if you keep talking or if you ever fuck me,” I taunted.
“Bitch,” he growled, pulled his fingers out of my ass, and slammed into my barely prepared hole.
Apparently I liked that, because I screamed in pleasure and so many lights flashed behind my eyes I almost blacked out. I leaned forward and braced my hands against the tiles as I kept my legs wrapped back around him, while he held my hips and pounded into me like a man who hadn’t had water in years and I was gallons of hydration. My bones shook from the force of it and I adored every second.
“You drive me insane, London!” Drake bit my shoulder as if showing me how on edge he was, and as much as I didn’t mean to confuse, didn’t want to be the source of his agitation… I most certainly wanted more sex like this and totally could deal with being desired so much I could push someone to this level.
Instead of pissing people off that they wanted me even though they were straight and being jerks to me.
Or my other favorite that they were so horny for women and I was the closest thing around with my bright sapphire eyes, long lashes, shaggy auburn hair, pert booty, and anything else they would say about me that made me sound feminine. Short of having breasts of course.
The fifth bite set me off, shooting all over the tiles as I screamed myself hoarse. Then the exhaustion, confusion, and energy used for that level of sex washed over me and I passed out, the last thing I was really there mentally for was Drake grunting my name as I felt him come inside me.
* * * *
I woke surrounded.
Hot surrounded.
With a cock poking my ass.
What the fuck? My eyes flew open and I realized I wasn’t in my room.
“Jesus, you’ve got issues if waking with someone freaks you out so bad to make your heart race like this,” Drake grumbled from behind me. It was only then I realized we were spooning, his leg in between mine, pushing my right one up, and we were completely naked under his sheets. “Not my fault you passed out after sex, and I was trying to be nice and tuck you in.”
“No. Sorry. Just never woke up with someone before. Didn’t know—scared me,” I stumbled, trying to calm down and take slow breaths.
Drake gave a slight nod and started to relax into the mattress but then flinched. “London, are you going to have a panic attack?”
“I think I might,” I admitted, my breathing doing the opposite of slowing.
Drake carefully pulled away from me, not making any sudden movements, but it was too late. The damage was done. And it wasn’t even him or us being in bed together like that. It was me. Me admitting it. Me feeling stupid. Him having to ask. Him calling me out on my issues like that. Him having to deal with me.
Basically me realizing how fucked up I was in a way I’d never seen myself before.
I leapt out of bed and found my clothes right there on the chair. I threw on pants, not caring for the rest.
“Yeah, see you when I see you. Guess this is our pattern,” Drake mumbled as I fled to the door. I froze with my hand on the knob, watching and hearing it jiggle I was shaking so bad. “You did warn me you didn’t do relationships or serious. So there’s that. You did warn me. Guess I didn’t think it was so complicated if we got close to that line of normal.”
I flinched as if he’d slapped me, tears burning in my eyes. I felt bad until that. I felt horrible until that. I turned so he could see the condition I was in, what I was hiding from him and in an instant he went pale, his mouth dropping open. “Fuck you, Drake. Don’t come near me again.”
And then I yanked open the door and fled.
Fine, I was a freak apparently. I had issues coming out of my ears I didn’t know about on top of the ones I did know I had. Either way I had worked myself into quite a tizzy and I was more tired and too mentally distracted—not to mention distraught—to be touching firearms. Basically saying to hell with all of it, I went to my room and crashed for the rest of the day and night, not waking until Sunday morning.
Starting a new camp was stressful enough.
Starting it the way I did could just about drive someone batshit crazy. And then I had a mess on my hands. Needing some extra sleep made sense after all.
But it also seemed reasonable that given what followed I wanted quiet alone time. Drake seemed so understanding, I was shocked he wasn’t more in tune with stuff like that.
“Can we talk?” he asked from behind me mid-morning while I was cleaning and organizing the rest of the handguns.
“Don’t think we should around loaded weapons,” I grumbled.
“Are we really in that bad a place?” Drake whispered and I shrugged. He let out a long, shaky breath, and I didn’t like hearing him upset, my heart twisting at the sound. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been such an insensitive jerk to what you were going through.”
“Don’t be. You can’t help the way you feel. Just glad we figured it out now and we know we’re not a good match to be friends.”
“Don’t say that. Please don’t say that,” he begged, and I heard him step closer.
Something inside me snapped, and for once I didn’t care about being reserved, hiding feelings so I wasn’t the fool later or worrying how things would look to others. I jumped to my feet, spinning on him as I tossed down the unloaded gun to the table.
“Friends don’t hurt each other. Family does that. People you get involved with do that. People who’ve screwed me do that. Everyone else does that, but friends aren’t supposed to do that. We said we were going to be friends. That was the important part to me. I was clear on that above all else.”
“You were,” he agreed, rubbing his chest with the heel of his hand. “London, I don’t know how to talk to you when you’re like this. I’m still stuck on the first part of what you said.”
“Well I didn’t want to talk anyways. I said stay away from me and—what?” I blinked at him when the rest of what he said sank in. “What are you talking about?”
His green eyes filled with pity, I hated pity, as he blinked rapidly. “Family isn’t supposed to hurt you, London.” I snorted and he shook his head. “What did they do to you to make you like this? Family is supposed to be there for you, love you, support you.”
“This isn’t a TV show, Drake. This is real life. Ninety-nine percent of families are fucked up. If you had the one percent that’s the damn Brady Bunch or whatever 1950s bullshit no one believes in anymore, then fine. You’re awesome, but stop making me feel like a head case because I’m in the majority.”
Drake took a few deep breaths, staring at his feet so I didn’t see what he was feeling as if that helped because I was learning the moment I didn’t want to know, especially in high stress situations, my gift told me everything… And right then it was telling me how wrong I was. That my family was in the one percent of seriously screwed up, maybe five percent, because someone like Theo Ashton took the cake and was the one percent or .01 percent really.
“How old are you?” I whispered, not sure how else to determine which one of us was right in this.
His head snapped up and the shock in shift of conversation was apparent all over his face. “Four hundred and sixty-three in a few weeks.”
“Oh,” I breathed, all the air whooshing out of my lungs. It couldn’t be him then. I mean, it wasn’t like he wasn’t up-to-date on the times. Family wasn’t a new thing. He knew family and families for centuries. He would really know more than me.
“I am sorry about before. It felt more like you were jerking me around, playing me,” he rambled when he realized I wasn’t going to say anything and maybe he should take the chance. “It was a dick move made so apparent when I saw how upset you were. I was stupid. It’s not like you would fake a panic attack.”
“No, no I wouldn’t,” I mumbled. “I wouldn’t ever do that to my friend.” Then I cut him off when he opened his mouth, needing to know more about the wound he’d opened. “How bad is my family?”
Again he looked more like a deer in headlights than the collected Drake I was more used to. “I don’t know, London. I really don’t know much about them.” I waved him on, not willing to take the brush-off answer right then. He blew out a harsh breath and pushed back his hair. “They banished you to another camp because you were gay. I didn’t know that kind of thing was still done. And as an adult no less. I mean, I could see it several decades ago maybe if you were a pre-trans they were trying to hide as the dirty secret.”
“I tried to go to another camp so I wasn’t always under scrutiny,” I admitted, leaning on the partition of the shooting alleys. “Mother said she didn’t want me goofing off and risking another camp being too lenient on me, allowing me to transition into a sissy-boy warrior on top of everything else. She demanded I stay close so she could keep a watchful eye on my progress and make sure at least I was handled as needed.”
Drake narrowed his eyes at me and moved closer. “What does handled mean? What did they do to you, London?”
I frowned, feeling how upset and angry he was, just as Alexander had been when he grilled me in his office. Why did they get so upset talking about my training at the Seattle camp? I understood they had a guy go through hell there, but for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t that bad for everyone or the place would have been shut down by now.
Right?
7 ~ Drake
“Why does everyone keep making such a big deal about this?” London grumbled, blowing out a big breath. “Nothing happened. Training happened. Hazing like all the camps happened. I’m sorry that warrior you guys know went through major shit but that was a long time ago.”
I took a few deep breaths before stepping even closer and boxing him against the partition. “London, if you believe nothing else we talk about today, know that Alexander doesn’t overreact. He tends to think most others are blowing shit out of proportion or are getting too touchy-feely because he’s so old school. So if he was upset or worried about what you told him—and my guess is you didn’t tell him everything—then something wasn’t typical, okay? If you don’t want to talk about it now, fine, but please believe me.”
I held my breath as he studied me, hoping whatever his gift was it helped him understand like I guessed it had about his family. I got that he was young, sheltered, secluded from the truth of life even, but he was so far off the mark on certain things that I wanted to ask him sometimes what planet he came from or what world he lived on… Because it wasn’t the same Earth I did or even the US at all.
He worried his lip and then his bright eyes met mine, some of the luster I loved in them gone. “Did you train here at the camp with so many gays?”
“No. I think there were a few gay guys who hid it where I was but it was a long, long time ago
so no one dared speak it,” I hedged, hoping maybe he was opening up to me about whatever was really going on with him.
“What did they do to the pre-trans that were gay?”
Now it was my turn to have a panic attack just about. “London, listen to me. I don’t care what anyone has done to any gay pre-trans over time. Nothing different should happen. There’s no protocol for a gay pre-trans. There’s no hazing rite, or whatever. So if you were treated differently in any way from the other pre-trans at the Seattle camp, that’s part of what upset Alexander. I’m sure of it. We don’t differentiate our pre-trans between straight and gay here.”
“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, huh?”
“No, people can ask or tell, it doesn’t matter. It’s not way back when and I’m saying there’s no tradition for gay pre-trans.” He bobbed his head, and by then I was dying, so I cupped his cheek. “You can’t leave me hanging now. Please, London. You have to tell me.”
Again he started on that lip and knots formed in my stomach. “Okay, but I didn’t tell Alexander this part, and I don’t want anyone to know until I’ve had time to sit with it now that I understand it’s not normal.” He waited until I slowly nodded my promise to be quiet. “I was the warriors’ girl at camp.”
“What does that mean?” I whispered, a sinking suspicion already forming.
He shrugged. “They knew I was gay when I arrived, my mother speaking to someone and warning them so I could be handled and watched to make sure I didn’t turn into a sissy. I had my physical, all my paperwork got done, and the next thing I knew, I was brought into the cafeteria and it was announced over lunch to all the warriors I was the new girl at camp—it was confirmed I liked cock.”
“They raped you?” I hissed, my fangs coming out even as I gripped the top of the partition hard enough that it buckled under my hands.