King of Liars

by Devon McCormack

  I tucked into the corner, lost in shadow, hoping he wouldn’t see how fucking red my face was getting from watching him chat with this other guy. Ryan glanced around the room, looking uneasy.

  Was he wondering if I was going to catch him talking to this guy? Was he hiding something from me?

  Stop!

  What was wrong with me? We didn’t have any agreements. Still, I was fucking selfish about that ass…and his cock.

  “Hey, man, what’s up?” I turned, surprised by the voice. One slid up beside me.

  “Oh, hey.”

  “We were all going to head over to the house in a bit.”

  “Oh, that’ll be—”

  “Just back off, motherfucker!”

  It was Ryan.

  My body tensed up at his tone as my gaze darted back to him. Shoulders was several feet from him, his arms wide as he looked shocked. Ryan must have pushed him away.

  Had he done something? Touched Ryan in a way he didn’t want to be touched?

  Fuck, I was so relieved he was freaking out about this guy. Maybe I was wrong about who he was.

  But why had they seemed so friendly at first? And what had happened?

  Shoulders made a dash for Ryan, and before I knew it, the guys were in a fucking brawl, Ryan dragging the guy to the ground before winding up on top, nailing him with one punch and then another.

  I hurried to them. “Hey, hey, come on! Enough!”

  As much as I’d wanted to deck that guy when I saw him talking to Ryan, he sure as hell hadn’t seemed to deserve Ryan’s wrath.

  Ryan’s jaw was tense, his chest puffed out like he was ready to offer another punch as I grabbed his shoulder and tugged.

  He turned, his expression full of rage before his gaze shifted about my face, and then he took a breath.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m here.”

  As Shoulders pushed to his feet, King, Hole, and One found their way to the front of the crowd that had gathered around us.

  “Everything’s good,” I added. “Come on. Let’s just go.”

  “No. This asshole needs to leave,” Ryan said, looking to Shoulders, who glared at him.

  Shoulders looked like he was moments away from going back for more, but then he scoffed. He sneered at King and the knights before pushing his way between One and Hole.

  King glanced between his knights. I couldn’t read his damn expression, but I could tell he wasn’t happy.

  As the crowd dispersed, King approached Ryan. “What did Corey want?” The way he said it, this was starting to make a lot more sense.

  Was Corey an ex-knight?

  “He was trying to start shit,” Ryan said. “Trying to ask about us…you.”

  King seemed to relax. “I think it’s time for us to head out anyway.”

  Thank fucking Christ.

  I could tell Ryan was too rattled to stick around.

  Ryan and I had driven together to the party, so we took his car while the other guys rode with Hole.

  Ryan was tense, rigid. Clearly, there was more to the story than this guy asking about the knights and King. There had to be.

  “You cool?” I asked once he seemed to have settled down.

  “Yeah, just…Corey. Used to be a knight.”

  “No shit. I’m not Stupid Three, remember?”

  “Yeah, but if I’m Stupid Two, doesn’t that mean Three would be like a genius?”

  I laughed, happy to release some of the tension I’d worked up during that fight. “So what happened with Corey?”

  “His name was Assface when he was in the group, and he broke the rules.”

  “How?”

  “Rule Four. He hired a private investigator to look into King, so he got exiled.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “You know that feeling we’ve talked about? Wanting to understand King. Wanting to maybe…I don’t know, fucking help him with whatever makes him want what we give him.”

  I had to admit my curiosity had intensified the longer I’d been with the guys. How could it not?

  I could see how, like my lust for King had expanded with time, so would my curiosity the longer I participated in satisfying his particular need.

  “I wonder what he found out,” I muttered.

  “We can wonder all we want, but we’re not allowed to know,” Ryan stated, as if annoyed by the fact himself.

  However, there was something else bothering me about the exchange. “But if you hate this guy because he wanted to know the truth about King, why did it take you guys so long before you started fighting?”

  “What do you mean?” Ryan asked, sounding particularly defensive, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “You just… You guys were chatting for a bit, and then One came to talk to me, and…”

  “At first I figured I could be cordial, but then he was on about wanting to get me to violate the rule myself. Wanted to tell me shit, so he was putting me at risk, you know?”

  “That’s not what you said to King.”

  His gaze shifted to me briefly, as though he was surprised by my remark.

  “You know, it’s none of my business,” I said, throwing my hands up in surrender. “I was trying to make sense of it. I didn’t know the guy. Don’t even care about him. I’m just glad you’re okay, Ryan.”

  He dragged out a breath, reaching his hand out to me and resting it on my thigh. “Sorry, Aiden.” He ran his thumb back and forth against my jeans, in a way that assured me we were still all right. “Just a lot on my mind with that…a lot of shit we went through that I’d rather not get into right now.”

  “I’m fine with that. Like I said, it’s none of my business. Really, I was mostly just jealous when I saw you chatting with him.”

  His forehead scrunched up. “Jealous?”

  “I don’t know why, but outside the stuff we do with King, I like having you to myself.”

  He looked at me, in a way that reminded me of Sy in those early days, before he was my King. Like he had this power over me.

  “Oh God. Now you’re gonna be an arrogant bastard.”

  “A little bit,” he said, all smiles. “But I have to admit, I’m kind of greedy for you too. If you told me right now that you were fucking around with some guy at school who wasn’t King or the knights, I’d want to know where he was staying so I could kick his fucking ass.”

  “That’s weird, right?”

  He shrugged. “Does any of this shit make sense? What we do with King is for…reasons, but it’s not what we have with each other. And I sure as hell am not worried about you running off with Hole or One.”

  We shared a laugh, one that helped ease some of the tension Corey had created by confronting Ryan at that party.

  “How about I make you a deal?” Ryan added. “I won’t fuck around with anyone outside the knights and King if you don’t.”

  “I haven’t been fucking around with anyone else. Not that it’s wrong if you have been. I just—”

  “Aiden, I haven’t needed any other ass and cock since you stormed into our lives.”

  That shouldn’t have made me feel as good as it did, but damn, Ryan had fucking made my night…my fucking week…my year.

  I inhaled a breath of relief, resting my hand on his. He flipped his over and interlocked his fingers with mine. “Come on. Let’s get over to King’s and have a fun night, okay? And then maybe our regular routine? Chinese and a movie?”

  “As long as there’s some other stuff in between.”

  “In between your cheeks?” he teased, turning a sexy gaze on me, filled with the playfulness I’d become accustomed to, not that rage he’d unleashed on Corey.

  “Maybe I want to be the one getting between your cheeks tonight,” I almost pleaded.

  “Well, you definitely owe me after that fuck I gave you in the restroom today.”

  “Cocky much?”

  “Cocky always.”

  I rolled my eyes but couldn’t fight the grin he’d pulled across my face
.

  God, the situation we found ourselves in was fucked up.

  But as we held hands on the ride to King’s, I felt like a fucking champion.

  As much as I’d felt like I’d lost in submitting to King’s desires, Ryan made me feel like a fucking winner.

  Part III

  13

  Nick

  “I don’t want to, Katherine, please!” I beg.

  She stands before me, belt in hand. “I don’t want to do it either, my Little Prince. But it’s the only way I can get the monsters out.”

  I stand before her, naked, trembling.

  She smells bad and doesn’t look like herself—not anymore. She doesn’t fix her hair or put on makeup. She yells at everyone during the meetings and has violent fits, like I once did with Mom when I didn’t get my way. She’s so angry all the time, not smiling like she used to.

  Mom and her friends whisper about Katherine now, say bad things about her. They don’t trust her anymore, but I do. She’s trying to help me. She’s been trying to help me for so long.

  “The knights can’t protect us unless we do as they order us to. Please. We have to chase the evil out of you.”

  She’s right. I know she is. But I’m so tired of the pain…and the horrible things the knights make me do with her. She doesn’t want to do it either, I know, but it makes me sick having her lips on my body, the way she makes me feel when I have to release the white stuff.

  “Do you trust your Queen? Your Queen who loves and adores you? Or are you failing me like the others? Are you a liar like all the rest?”

  Katherine hates liars.

  “No, I’m not a liar!” I insist. “I haven’t told anyone! I haven’t broken the rules! I promise!”

  “But you must trust me too. Trust me to help you, please. Let me do this for you.”

  I tear up, my body feverish.

  “Do you want this evil inside you forever?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t want the thing inside me again.”

  She squats before me, as she did several years ago when I first came to her.

  But the nightmares have only gotten worse, and I fear the demons inside me. They make me think bad things, and they make me fear the dark. They summon even worse things into my life, and if I don’t get rid of them, I will be hounded until I die, Katherine says.

  Katherine isn’t wearing her dress. I don’t like looking at her without her clothes on. It doesn’t feel right.

  “Come on, Little Prince. We’re in this together, aren’t we? I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to so we can heal you. You know it takes time.”

  Time. So much time.

  “Go by the bed and get in the position,” she says. “We must obey the knights.”

  She kisses me on the mouth. Slowly. “Come on, my special prince.”

  She’s helping. She wants to heal me.

  I head to the bed and ready myself so she can begin the treatment.

  She hits so hard, until I scream.

  Why is this evil inside me? Why won’t it go away?

  “Pray to the knights, Little Prince.”

  I obey, whispering, “Please, Knights, come and save me. Heal me from the evil. Make the monsters go away.”

  She hits again, and I scream, tears rolling down my cheeks.

  “Somebody please help me!” I cry out to the knights, who never seem to come, before feeling another powerful slap against my ass, one that leaves my legs quivering.

  14

  Boss

  King had his arms raised over his head, bound in restraints that hung from a rope Ryan had secured to the exposed wooden beams across the basement ceiling.

  I slid my cock steadily within him. Ryan, Hole, and One had taken their turns already, but it was still somewhat challenging because he’d wanted us to go in dry. Even just from the red marks across King’s ass from all the spankings, some of which I had offered, it was clear he was in so much pain as I fucked him.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” he moaned, but I’d learned in the times when things turned rough that he wasn’t asking me to stop, but to press on, even harder. I did just that, slapping an ass cheek to give it that extra sting he so desired.

  As he called out again, I grew that much harder.

  Fuck yeah.

  I’d let go of those early inhibitions, allowed myself to free the monster within me that craved this primal interaction with King. Tugging back on his hair, I plowed him, his whimpers and cries granting me a moment of freedom.

  “Stop, stop! It hurts!” he cried out. “Stop, please!”

  I slowed my pace at his words, fully prepared to back out if he used the safe word.

  His eyes flitted open. “That’s not the safe word,” he reminded me, urging me on, making me fuck him that much harder, that much more intensely, anything to please him…and this darkness within myself.

  Again, I was a powerless sixteen-year-old kid, taking one of my classmates after another, enduring their brutal assault. But somehow reclaiming my power at the same time.

  “Ah, ah! No, I can’t!” he went on.

  There was no more being discouraged. No more succumbing to my fears of hurting him. There was just the pain he needed.

  I let go, really let go, in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to the past few times we’d played like this. I grabbed his left thigh and raised it for leverage as I thrust in harder, pushing his body and face against the concrete wall. I wasn’t myself anymore—just this thing inside me, flashes of images from my past invading my mind as King cried out, writhing in a way I’d never felt before.

  Pretty little faggot. Who’s the pretty faggot now?

  “Stop, stop!” he screamed.

  No one would help him, though. He would just have to bear my fucking cock the way I’d had to take the others back then.

  There was a pleasure in knowing he was letting me go longer, that he wasn’t moving on to the next knight already. I slid my hand down to his ass and pinched it in the red spot, hard, never ceasing my thrusts. I saw Mike Kruger, Jeremy Brenner, and Finley Montrose in my mind, laughing at me as they took me.

  “Hole, give him the belt again!” King called, which took me by surprise. “You can keep fucking me soon. Just take this pain out on me. Take all your anger out on my body. Give me everything.”

  I pulled out as Hole handed me the belt. In his expression, I saw worry, fear even. Like as confident as King was that he was safe, Hole wasn’t so sure.

  I picked up right where I’d left off, slapping the belt against King’s already sore ass before taking it to his back in a violent tirade as King continued calling out, howling as I pummeled the belt against him, hitting my enemies, not him. Hating them. Wishing I could unleash all the pain into King’s flesh.

  “Ah! Why? Why?” King cried.

  I threw the belt aside and shoved back inside him, fucking him as hard as I could.

  “No, stop! Stop! Someone please help me!”

  Still no safe word, so I persisted.

  “King!” Two called out.

  King shook his head. “Spade! Spade!”

  I froze in place, then felt arms pulling me away. Two and One had me, drawing me away from King as Hole unfastened the restraints around King’s wrists.

  King collapsed onto the floor. “King?” Hole asked, helping him back to his feet.

  “I’m fine,” he said, his voice shaky.

  I looked to my hands, the edges of the belt indented in my palms. What had I done? What had I fucking done?

  “That was good,” King assured me.

  But even hearing the words, the looks on the other knights’ faces made clear what I’d already known: they could see the monster inside me, the one King had fought for me to unleash upon him. The darkness I hated within myself.

  “Aid—Boss, are you okay?” Ryan had nearly said my name, but King didn’t seem to notice.

  I turned to Ryan, the fear in his expression telling me everything I needed to know.

  “You did go
od, knights,” King said. “You are dismissed.”

  I was glad he’d said that, because I couldn’t stick around. I hurried out of the basement, up to the bedroom for my clothes, scurrying into them.

  Ryan stayed at my side until we got into his car. He drove for some time before pulling off to the side of the road.

  “Aiden…”

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “I was just scared, for the first time since I started doing this, that King might have forgotten the safe word.”

  “Do you think…”

  “And I didn’t realize you even had all that in you, all that anger and hate.”

  “Neither did I,” I confessed. Although, I knew better.

  “Come here,” Ryan said, and I leaned across the console as he offered a hug. “You scared me back there. So much rage and pain. Oh God, Aiden, who the hell fucked you up?”

  Tears rushed to my eyes and slid down my face. I trembled in his hold. It reminded me of the way King’s body was shaking when I was finished assaulting him.

  “Someone please help me” repeated over and over in my brain. Not because King said it, but because I had screamed something so similar at a time when there was no one to rescue me, until I fucking gave up and let them have their way, knowing I was all alone.

  “It’s okay, Aiden. I’m here now. I’m here.”

  I curled up against him. “Can we go back to your place now?” I begged.

  I needed him that night. Needed to hold him close. Needed his touch to take away all the pain King’s games had conjured up.

  Even a few days after the session, I found I wasn’t quite the same.

  I knew King wouldn’t need me to satisfy that impulse right away again, but the more I thought about how much I’d enjoyed hurting him, in such a brutal way, the more disturbed I was by my actions. My lack of control.

  The following Wednesday, I received a text message from King: I’m coming by tonight to pick you up. Wanna talk in private.

  It was over for me and the knights. I’d gone too far, and he must’ve finally come to his senses and realized I didn’t need to be a knight anymore.