by Lia Black
He was stunned by a sharp slap to the face that raised the stinging burn of blood just below the surface of his skin. He stepped back in alarm, but Mercury’s legs tightened around him, pulling him in tight. Mercury placed a hand on each of his shoulders. “I know you’re sorry now for misbehaving, Pretty.” He offered that condescending smile again. “But we’ll get through this together.”
Sean only managed a grunt, his cheek still throbbing from the smack and his pulse racing. It had been unexpected, not a hint of malice or anger to precede it, which made it all the more startling.
Mercury pulled him into a full-body embrace, which left Sean’s hands—tied up in front—pressing against the armored cup between Mercury’s legs. If Sean moved them it might give the appearance of deliberate stimulation, something that Sean absolutely did not want to offer this psychopath. He thought briefly about officer Craig, and wondered how he’d managed to complete his assignment. He’d had to dance across a very narrow ledge for months with Mercury’s crazy bubbling hot just below. After only about a day, Sean was getting twitchy and still flinching whenever Mercury came at him too fast.
“Who are those people who are after you?” Sean asked him again, keeping his voice level and hoping he wouldn’t get another convoluted story about fairy butterflies or whatever the hell Mercury had been babbling about the last time he’d asked.
Mercury pushed him back enough so that he could look into his face, then he leaned back on the counter, extending his arm and tracing his finger over the strange symbol on the left breast of Sean’s armor. He stopped and met Sean’s gaze, then turned his head to the side, lifting up his hair to reveal the place where it had been shaved off. As Sean had thought before, it was a tattoo, some kind of code from the looks of it. All of the marks were tiny horizontal and vertical lines, except for the last character. It was the same mark that was on the armor, and Sean suddenly realized why it looked so familiar. The reason that he’d been having such a difficult time placing the emblem was because of context. It wasn’t the mark of a military or mercenary unit, it was the logo for a private laboratory.
“Sol Laboratories.” Mercury filled in the missing name.
Sean felt like the world had just lurched underneath him. Sol Laboratories had once been the biggest pharmaceutical manufacturer in the human galaxy. They’d cured cancer, developed medications that wiped out nearly every human disease. Then quietly, they sold off the patents and began working in genetics. Had that large space station been Sol Labs’ new location? There was only one reason that Sean could imagine a laboratory would situate itself outside of galactic jurisdiction and take up full military gear to come after some crazy mixed-blood alien.
“Wait…You’re a...project?” If Mercury was telling the truth, the implications were both astounding and illegal. It was one thing to create genetic-based products that healed people; it was another thing entirely to create a person.
Mercury twisted his mouth into a pronounced pout. “I prefer progeny.” He shrugged and sat forward once more, sliding his hands up Sean’s chest and over his shoulders. “Tell me about him.”
Sean frowned, blindsided again by Mercury switching topics. “Him?”
Mercury reached into the neck of his armored suit and pulled out the photo he’d taken from Sean’s things earlier, turning it towards him so he could see it. “Him.” He tapped Evan’s smiling face.
Sean straightened his spine, the muscles pulling rigid enough to ache, and he looked away. “No. If you want to play twenty questions, you’ll have to do it avoiding him. I’ve told you all I will.”
Mercury frowned and picked up Sean’s pistol, holding the barrel centimeters from his face.
Sean tsked and rolled his eyes. “So that’s your solution? Look, if you’re going to shoot me then just do it, all right? I’m not in the mood to play power games with a spoiled brat.” His temper had hit a breaking point. He’d probably be better off with a hole through his skull than having to deal with this unpredictable nut-job.
Mercury’s eyes widened, and he blinked a few times, appearing bewildered. But then his face morphed into a scowl and he raised one knee, shoving his foot hard into Sean’s stomach.
He’d seen it coming, but only just. Sean bent over and ducked back before taking the full power of the blow. The kick was enough to send him down onto his ass on the floor, but it wasn’t bad enough that he’d be spitting up blood for the next several days. Well, that was something. He hit his tailbone when he landed, his teeth clacking together and a dull pain radiating up his spine, despite the armor. Having no means to catch himself with his hands still tied, he ended up flat on his back.
In a flash, Mercury was standing over him, one leg on either side of his hips as he pointed the gun straight down at his face. “Why aren’t you afraid?” His expression was more frustration than outright anger. He looked like a kid who’d been told “no” for the first time in his life.
Sean shook his head. This was like arguing with a rebellious teenager, although admittedly, he’d never done so at gunpoint. “Afraid of what? Of you? Of dying? Go ahead, do it. Do us both a favor!”
There was a bright flash and a crack that Sean felt through to his bones. The heat of the bullet grazed his ear as it struck the floor near his head, with a sensation like an icepick piercing his eardrum. Blood filled his ear canal, deafening him on the left side. Sean jerked his head to the right as the composite flooring shattered, pieces cutting his cheek like glass. He closed his eyes, his head swimming with nausea, as he waited for Mercury to empty a round into his skull. It would either be poetic irony or shit luck to be killed by his father’s gun.
But Mercury didn’t kill him. While Sean was still trying to recover from the close-range shot, he felt Mercury drop down across his thighs, straddling his lap. Mercury began to tug and pull at the fastenings of Sean’s lower body armor.
“Wait—what the fuck?” It took Sean a moment to realize what was happening. He bucked his hips to dislodge Mercury, but powerful thighs clamped around Sean's legs, keeping him still until Mercury had gotten the seals open.
What the hell was he doing? Sean prayed to every fictional god that Mercury was not planning on cutting off his dick. He continued to struggle, his feet kicking at the floor as he tried to get enough leverage to make Mercury fall forward or otherwise lose his hold, but Mercury’s legs drew in tighter and he rode Sean until his muscles burned. He held out his bound hands, trying to shove Mercury back but all of his fighting made him dizzy, and he was worried that he might black out.
Mercury hissed and got up, disappearing outside of the range of his vision. Sean tried to raise his chin to see what he was up to but the movement sloshed the liquid in his ear, making the room tilt and spin. The seams in the ceiling panels above him were beginning to blur and Sean blinked, trying to clear his vision and keep from throwing up. He could do nothing now but wait.
He didn’t have to wait long.
“Ow! Shit!” The wire leash was jerked up, forcing his arms up over his head. Sean pushed against the floor with his feet, trying to move to keep his shoulders from being jerked out of their sockets. He was unable to bring his arms down and realized that Mercury had tied the end of the wires to something. A moment later, Mercury returned and finished pulling off the lower portion of Sean’s armor. Sean tried to kick at him, but his legs were rubbery, and Mercury moved too fast.
Mercury plunked down on Sean’s thighs again as he worked to undo his pants. His expression was that of callous determination. Once he’d gotten them open, he pulled Sean’s pants and underwear down to his knees, leaving him exposed and vulnerable.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuck...” The word became like breathing, moving through him in an unrelenting stream as Mercury again disappeared from view. He was probably rifling around the modular looking for some torture implements…something to cut him with. Sean’s guts pulled up tight and a swarm of black static moved across his vision. He’d gone too far, pissed off the madman or crossed
the line that kept him valuable to Mercury, and Mercury was going to kill him, but find a way to make him suffer every moment he remained alive.
Deaf on that side, Sean couldn’t hear Mercury but could feel vibrations as something dropped onto the floor a few feet away. He tried to turn his head but any movement made the room start rocking again. Sean knew that the mental aspect of torture was meant to enhance the experience of pain. It gave a person time to consider all of the horrible things that could be done to a body, so that when the time came, any small pain would feel excruciating.
Mercury was standing over him again, and Sean knew what the vibrations against the floor had been.
Mercury stood naked above him, his body bathed in shadow as he stepped in front of the dim light coming from the glow stick on the counter. No. This was too surreal. Sean’s mind screeched to a halt as the picture of his intentions began to take a new and very disturbing direction. Rape? Was Mercury planning on raping him?
“W-wait—” Sean’s protest died as a gasp in his throat when Mercury dropped down and leaned forward, taking Sean’s limp dick into his mouth.
Sean bit his lip, trying to fight his body’s response to the stimulus as the wet heat enveloped him. It worked for a few moments, but the more Sean tried to deny the sensations, the more undeniable they became. Heat pooled in his groin, his cock filling with blood, and his stomach knotted in a mix of pleasure and panic. Mercury’s notched tongue swiped over the ridge below his crown on both sides at once. He moved forward, his face mashed against Sean’s pelvis as he took Sean’s cock deep into his throat.
Sean’s chest tightened, the muscles forming a band across it as pleasure and anger knotted, pulling through his core. He felt betrayed and humiliated by his own body. Did Mercury think that he’d enjoy being fucked against his will if he made him come first?
Mercury lifted his head, his long hair tickling against Sean’s thighs. “Tell me you love me.” His voice was raspy, more pleading than demanding.
Sean growled, curling his upper lip. “No.” He refused to appease a demented monster. He couldn’t stop what Mercury was doing to his body, but he was still in control of his mind.
Mercury rose up and Sean squeezed his eyes shut. The muscles of his thighs were shaking as he kept them locked. If Mercury was really planning to rape him, Sean wasn’t going to make it easy. He knew he couldn’t fight him off for long in his condition, but he refused to just lie back and take it. The shock of what followed, however, tore a sound from Sean’s throat that even he hadn’t been expecting. Tight, hot friction enveloped him as Mercury impaled himself on Sean’s cock.
“Fuck!” He was dizzy as the muscles of his ass tensed, pushing him further into Mercury’s grip. The wrongness of it—the mortification and pleasure playing tug-of-war between body and mind made every nerve fiber spark with an intensity he’d never known before.
“Tell...me...” Mercury sobbed as he began to piston Sean inside of his body. He’d gone in dry—no lubrication except saliva—but Mercury was rising and slamming himself down, taking all of him in at once and grinding. The slight sting across the sensitive skin of Sean’s cock had to be nothing compared to the pain Mercury must be experiencing. Sean struggled through the battle between conscience and carnal pleasure. He didn’t want this to feel good; he didn’t want his body to give in to the orgasm that was even now forcing his balls to draw up tight and his entire body to pull taut.
“Tell...me...say it...say you love me!” Mercury was struggling to speak, his eyes closed and head thrown back in what appeared to be pleasure even as the tightness through his jaw and lines on his forehead revealed pain.
Fuck. Sean was going to come. He couldn’t stop the tingle that centered on his lower spine, moving through his pelvis; it became a bolt of lightning zinging through him, centering on his cock.
“No!” Sean’s body bowed, thrusting him deep into an exquisite release. White sparks burst behind his eyes with his climax and his brain went dark, unable to focus on anything but the most powerful and emotionally painful orgasm he’d ever experienced in his life.
A moment later, Mercury cried out, his body clenching around Sean when he came as well, painting a wet stripe across the chest plate of the armor. Then he went limp, dropping across Sean’s chest and panting as his body shuddered, squeezing Sean with aftershocks.
Slowly Sean began to drift back into sickening reality. This creature had stolen control of his body, forcing nature without consent and demanding that Sean not only be okay with it, but actually show him some tenderness—a fucking mockery of intimacy. He lay there quietly devastated as the evidence of his orgasm began to drip out around his softening cock.
Mercury was shaking, still sobbing as he lay trembling on the mess between them.
“Get off of me,” Sean growled. Every word was a threat.
“I hate you,” Mercury whispered in a thin but biting tone, and began to struggle off.
“That makes us even then.” Sean turned his burning face to the wall; his hands made tight fists in the cuffs as rage won out over shame.
Mercury left the modular, swallowing back his tears. He didn’t understand why he was crying instead of angry, and why Pretty wasn’t behaving the way he should. Everyone told him that he was special, that they loved him—especially when they were fucking him. Even Princess, that lying sack of shit, told Mercury he loved him just a few short hours before he’d pulled a gun, breaking his heart and ruining this life. But Pretty had told him “no.” No one had ever told Mercury that he couldn’t have whatever he wanted—be it information, objects, or people. He didn’t understand anything about this man, or about his own inability to break him beyond repair. He should have just left him to die.
But then he’d be alone. And alone was terrifying.
He skulked around the perimeter of the settlement, listening for sounds that he couldn’t attribute to the regular noises of the forest around them. Although he could neither hear nor see the monolithic floating Sol Laboratory, Mercury sensed it was up there, waiting in the darkness of space with the patience of a spider, until its prey succumbed to exhaustion. But he would not give up. He would be the wasp that defeated his captor and destroyed the lethal web.
A sharp pain in his stomach made him wince, and he noticed he had been digging at the gunshot wound he’d sustained during his arrest. They had extracted the bullet and sealed the hole, but Mercury’s sense of touch had located the tiny pucker of imperfection and he’d begun to scratch at it without thinking. A flash of dizziness washed over him and he closed his eyes, pressing his hand over the freshly bleeding wound. Visions began to spark through his mind: the teddy bear again. The white fluff had become covered with the pink frosting oozing from the cut to its head. A clown doctor was trying to shove a castle inside and Mercury knew it wouldn’t fit. It was too big and sharp. Something that pointy should not be inside something so soft. It would hurt whoever was hugging it...
Mercury didn’t register that he’d dropped to his hands and knees until the dry-heaves started. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. He was special...he should be dressed in sparkling things, wrapped up in fluffy blankets, given a kiss goodnight and a pure white teddy bear with no castle in its fucking head!
He whimpered, clutching at his skull as the pain blossomed behind his eyes. Curling up, he lay on his side atop the forest compost, trying to think of things that didn’t hurt as he blinked away tears blurring his vision. The trees swayed overhead as they moved under the silver-white light of Terra Huygen’s twin moons. They seemed...peaceful, and he could hear the humming as their leaves vibrated. “I never realized that trees could sing,” Mercury whispered, and reached out, imagining for just one moment that he was one with them.
10
It was a few minutes after Mercury had stormed outside—naked—that Sean began to wrestle with his bonds in earnest. His ear was howling now, the pressure behind it still making him dizzy as he moved out of the puddle of cooling come o
n the floor. He pushed himself back with his legs, puttingenough slack in the wires so he had some control of his arms. His over-stretched triceps burned all the way to his armpits, making the muscles feel bruised. Sean took a few moments to catch his breath once he reached the conduit where Mercury had tied the other end of the wire. His stomach flipped as he managed to get himself to his knees and, swearing all the while, he struggled to pull up his pants.
The knot Mercury had tied was intricate, and Sean was beginning to wonder if it would just be easier to chew off his thumbs in order to slip the bonds. The knots on the other end were no less complicated. Either Mercury was a knot-tying genius or he’d made something so tangled that even he wouldn’t be able to get it undone.
“Freaking sociopath.” He frowned down at the purple-hued streaks on his chest plate. Purple come. Of course, why the hell not? While part of Sean wanted the genetic anomaly to get caught by Sol Laboratory’s militia, he realized that meant that they would come here and kill him.Or, maybe worse, they wouldn’t come at all; he’d die with his ass hanging out, tied to a wall, and covered in alien jizz. He noticed his gun, lying on the floor where Mercury had left it and extended one leg carefully so he could pull it towards him with his foot.
There was a pop from outside, and the lights in the modular flickered, then came on. Sean looked around, trying to see every corner of the room at once.
He fumbled with the gun, holding it between his bound hands as the outer door opened and Mercury walked in. He had mud on his knees and elbows and he was bleeding from a small open wound on his stomach. His long silver hair was full of grit, leaves and slime. When he saw Sean crouching with his pistol pointed at him, he cocked his head.