That time there was no doubt it was the front door, so it was only a matter of reminding myself that it could be anyone—anyone other than Aiden. I swung by the bathroom briefly, checked my face, which was red from bawling like a fucking baby.
I despised myself, thought of how much my dad would have hated me for being so fucking weak. But I sucked it up and headed through the dark to the door when the knock came yet again.
Was it my imagination, or did it sound like Aiden’s knock?
Stop—stop it!
I opened the door, and Aiden stood on the other side, in only his jeans and shoes, glancing around uneasily.
My jaw trembled.
He’d come.
He’d really fucking come. But I couldn’t accept it fully. No. It was some mistake. He was being stupid.
“Took me a sec. Had to walk since my ride bailed on me.” He sounded slightly annoyed, even though I knew he couldn’t really have been since he’d shown up at my door.
“You can’t be here. King will exile you if he finds out.”
“King’s already thrown me out.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t going to stay with that prick after what he did to you.”
“You left?” I asked, still stuck on the thing that would have been so hard—no, impossible—for either of us to have done at one point.
Aiden rushed past the threshold and stole a kiss.
In typical Aiden fashion, he took charge, guiding me back against a nearby wall, sealing his lips on mine, his tongue pushing into my mouth.
“Of course…I fucking…left,” he said between kisses. “After what he did to you…how he hurt you…”
“Shut up and keep kissing me.”
I wanted to talk to him about everything that had gone down, but considering just moments before I figured I might never have another chance to feel him against me, I needed this experience. We scrambled into the bedroom, where we took care of our brief deprivation of each other, claiming each other the way we had been doing for the past few months. We let it drag on that night, neither of us wanting the experience to come to an end.
No, it couldn’t end.
I wanted to fuck until I forgot entirely about King and the knights, until there was only Aiden…and in one moment at the height of my climax, it was there and real, but as soon as it ripped through me, the cruel reality of what had transpired in King’s basement came racing back.
I lay beside Aiden, little space between us as he rolled onto his side, mirroring my position. I could tell by the apprehension on his expression that he was trying to gauge where I was at with everything that had happened.
“I wish I were as strong as you were,” I said. “To walk away.”
“I can’t say I’m much stronger, since I wouldn’t have been able to do it if you hadn’t been ‘exiled’ by King.”
The way he’d said exiled, it was clear he was mocking King’s use of the word. Aiden was still early enough in all this that he found the dynamic of the knights comical, whereas for me, it felt as though it were a part of my being…my very soul.
King knew it, and it was why he knew he could hurt me by kicking me out.
“The other night, when I cut loose on Sy,” Aiden said, “that was nearly too much for me. I know I mentioned it with you some, but it did something to me.” He bit his bottom lip, seeming to struggle with some darkness within himself. “Ryan, there’s this thing that happened to me. It’s always there, in the back of my mind, but when we play with Sy—the terrible stuff he needs us to do—it stirs up all the pain and hurt…”
Whatever he was referring to weighed on him. Tore at his fucking soul.
“What is it?” I asked as his eyes filled with tears.
He quieted, then opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it just as quickly.
I reached out and ran the back of my hand against his cheek. “Talk to me, Aiden. Unload your pain on me. I’m not in the best place myself, but if it’s strength you need, take what’s left of mine.”
A chuckle pushed past his lips, but his chin quivered as the tears fell free from his eyes, leaving me wondering what tortured my Aiden.
“Th-there was this kid named Stevie,” he finally managed to force out, clearly under great strain. “Me and my buddy used to hang out with him, and one day, he wanted us to tag-team him in a bedroom at this party we were at with some of the kids from school. We were horny kids, and we had fun with him. Problem was, I didn’t realize it at the time, but someone else saw us…and told some guys at school. They followed me home one day a few weeks later, through the woods…and…”
“Did they hurt you?” I pressed.
He nodded, and I imagined those assholes chasing him through the woods, kicking the shit out of him the way my dad might have done with me.
I waited for Aiden to tell me, but he didn’t, so I decided to help him. “They beat you up?”
He nodded again. “There were some punches and hits, but that wasn’t the worst of it. They held me down…took turns on me. Like the way I’d done with Stevie, but it wasn’t fun, and I kept screaming and fighting until I was crying too hard to do much else. And they kept calling me names…calling me their pretty little faggot.”
The moment I heard the name he’d requested I call him, I was mortified. “Oh my God, Aiden.” I hooked an arm around him and pulled him close. A tear landed on my shoulder.
I wanted to insert myself into the dark memory haunting him and kick those kids’ asses. Fuck them for hurting my Aiden. Fuck them to hell.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you,” I told him, wishing I’d never caved to his request. “I’m so sorry if I said something that stirred such a disturbing memory.”
“In some way, it felt good. When you called me that, it was like I was reclaiming something that’d been taken from me. To face it, but on my own terms. The moments with Sy are the same way. Like I’m getting those assholes back somehow. It’s fucked up. I know that now…always known it. There’s a part of it that feels like it’s healing me, but then it feels like it’s hurting me so much more. It was hard to see that in myself, but tonight I saw you going through it too. And really, if it hadn’t been for you, I’m not sure I could have stuck around after what I’d done to him.”
As I pulled away, Aiden batted at his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I’m so sorry for everything you went through,” I told him. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t have been there that day. You deserved someone to help you. To be saved from those monsters.”
“I still see them and hear them. They’re always in my mind. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to make them go away.”
“Hey.” I took his chin between my thumb and forefinger. “I appreciate you sharing that with me, and now that you did, you don’t have to do this on your own. And if anything, it helps me realize that even if I would have had a hard time quitting Sy for myself, I won’t now that I know what it was doing to you.”
Tears continued slipping down his cheeks. “We need help. What we have for Sy isn’t healthy or right. It’s some kind of addiction. Like he fucking hijacked our brains, turned our minds against ourselves.”
“In a way, we both knew it, and we fell right for it. And if he called me right now, I know I’d struggle with it all over again.”
“It’s not any of my business…but is that true?” Aiden asked.
“That I’d go back to him?”
“No, sorry. Not what I meant. That you love him?”
It was a valid question, given what Aiden had heard King accusing me of. But he didn’t know the truth. Not yet.
“I…thought I did at one time. I wrote that in my journal before you even joined us. That’s not why I was exiled tonight. No. If King were trying to find that on me, he would have gotten me a long time ago. But that’s not the rule I breached.”
It was my turn for a confession.
“Wait, what? What rule did you break, then?”
“I d
idn’t respect his privacy.”
Aiden’s eyes narrowed as I took a breath.
“Just keep in mind, whatever comes next, if you ever had a chance of getting back in with the knights—”
“Ryan, I may have let King get into my head, but I just let you into my soul.” He set his hand on my face. “I’ve made my decision.”
He couldn’t have known what that meant to me.
Although, it didn’t magically make this any better.
Easier, perhaps, but still hard as hell.
18
Boss
As soon as Ryan had opened the door to his place, I knew I’d made the right decision.
He’d been crying, I could fucking tell. He was hurt. That goddamn bastard hurt him, and after sharing a fuck and the darkness in my heart with him, I had hope that maybe we could heal together.
“…if it’s strength you need, take what’s left of mine.”
It was the only way I could find the will to tell him—the only person I’d ever shared that story with. And there was freedom even in what little I’d managed to get out.
Not the kind I’d felt when I released it during King’s game. No, there was relief—sincere relief.
“You spend that much time with a guy…in the way we do…you can’t help but care about them,” Ryan said. “Corey knew that. And I knew when King exiled him that it wasn’t fair. Corey just wanted to get to know him, same as we all did. It’s like you and I’ve talked about before—you can’t see what King needs, and what we clearly need with it, without thinking there must be so much pain behind it.”
There was no doubt about that. And seeing Ryan’s concern as he talked about it, how much he cared about King, reminded me how wrong it was for King to have toyed with his emotions before tossing him out like he had. Ryan wasn’t a bad guy.
Even more now, I was eager to hear his side of what had transpired before I’d come over.
He bit his bottom lip, remaining quiet for a moment before continuing. “That night we ran into Corey at that party, he approached me, told me I’d want to know the truth about Sy. I didn’t realize you could see us chatting. Thought I’d done a good job of checking around to make sure there weren’t any knights around. See, Corey and I were friendly back when he was with the gang. He told me to text him if I wanted to know more, that he knew I’d want to know more. Then he noticed One come in and told me to start shit so King wouldn’t get suspicious.”
“So that whole scene was an act?”
“A lie,” Ryan clarified, sounding disappointed in himself for failing King. “I wound up messaging him, and he met me, showed me a file on Sy…well, Nick Hoffman. That was his name when he was a kid. The file had some…very illuminating reading material. I’m guessing One or Hole or King had been suspicious and checked my phone or something, gotten on to me after that night at the party. And as you can probably guess, King has some fucked-up shit in his past that’s the reason Rule Four exists. I figure he got Hole to get friendly with me so he could search my place to see how much I knew, and that’s when he found that journal entry.”
That made a hell of a lot more sense than King finding some random journal entry against Ryan.
“Apparently, Nick was raised in some religious cult in South Georgia. Weird shit. Modern Spiritualism. Sort of New Age crap, where the leader, Katherine Monroe, claimed she was channeling spiritual beings. She took an interest in Nick and some other boys and made them tend to her needs, if you get what I mean.”
“How did a background check get to that?”
“The PI pieced together articles and old records in the small town where it all took place, narrowed it down to his mom’s involvement in the cult at the time. She was old money and married this asshole who dragged her and Nick into the cult. They got in over their heads before she found a way to leave, and her family took her back. Nick’s mom legally changed their names, and they moved to North Carolina, where he started working with a therapist about the experience. From the court documents, it sounds like this Katherine person psychologically terrorized her victims. Made them feel like she was protecting them from spiritual beings, and that they had to do these sexual acts on her to protect them.”
“Holy fucking shit.”
“I always wondered how Sy was so goddamn good at manipulating and controlling,” Ryan went on, “but it seems he learned the art from his tormentor. And I don’t think it takes any stretch of the imagination to know he uses us—his knights—and these fucked-up moments as some kind of messed-up therapy for everything he went through.”
Same as I had used it.
Same as we all had.
“To my knowledge, he doesn’t see anyone else for help right now,” Ryan went on, “which once you know that, you know he should be.”
“And you were going to keep on being a knight, knowing this?”
His brow twitched, and his lips quivered. “I just found out about it, Aiden. I was trying to figure out how the fuck to deal with it. A part of me rationalized, since I was a knight and knew about this, maybe I could find a way to get him help. I mean, hell, the whole idea of being a knight was that I wanted to protect him. Be with him. It’s like I’ve always seen through his mask, watching this child screaming in the night, begging for me to help him. I just wanted to help him.”
I could relate to the sentiment all too well. And even after what a total bastard King had been that night, part of me wanted to help that kid who was clearly so wounded, he felt he had to act out his pain in this way.
“Corey and I were talking about it,” he went on. “Corey’s gotten into therapy and is now looking into potentially getting into a healthy BDSM relationship with a guy who wants to sub for him. But they’re taking things slow. King wasn’t kidding around when he said that what we do is nothing like BDSM. What Corey wants is something that sounds safe and fulfilling. What we do is just about helping King hurt himself, punish himself, and avoid the help he needs.”
“And punishing ourselves,” I noted.
It all made so much sense, the missing pieces of the puzzle falling into place. The way he’d sought us out, guys who would help him act out this dark desire within himself. The way he kept us at a distance so we wouldn’t know enough to back down from what he needed us to do. His desperate need to control us.
“We all want to help him,” I said, “but especially knowing this—now that I know this was his version of what I’ve been grappling with—I know it was the right thing to walk away. This isn’t helping any of us.”
“It doesn’t keep me from feeling this…fucking withdrawal. God, it’s only been a few hours, and it feels too hard to live through.”
“I’m here,” I reminded him.
He took the hand I had against his face and gripped on, leaning close to me and offering a kiss. Then another. “And this reminds me that I can be fine. Not that I am, but that I will be…one day.”
“So the King of Liars lied about the journal thing?”
“Misdirected, at least. There’s nothing in the rules about him violating our privacy. Doubt he gives a shit about getting Hole to go through my journal.”
Our discussion had been illuminating, but there was one more thing burning on my mind. “This feels so stupid to bring up now, but when you said you loved him… I get it, or I’m trying to. I don’t know what exactly we are even, but I don’t need you to magically feel some way about me right now.”
Ryan’s eyes widened, as though he was surprised by my comment.
Maybe I’d revealed too much. Maybe I’d fucking scared him off on the same night I’d walked out of King’s fucked-up kingdom.
He rested his hand on my shoulder, massaging gently. “I care about King, yes, but I’ve figured out that what I feel for him…have felt for him for some time…that’s not love. I couldn’t have known that until I met you.”
My cheeks caught fire.
“Oh fuck,” he said. “I’m not meaning to say— Shit. I just meant that I know w
hat something healthy feels like, and it’s not whatever I shared with King. I wasn’t meaning to jump the gun and…”
I laughed uncomfortably. “Of course not. It’s not like we’ve even known each other long enough to feel anything like that.”
He studied me for a moment, as though my thoughts were written across my face.
“But I do feel something…very strong for you,” Ryan added. “I’m falling hard.”
“I worry I’m falling a little harder.”
“I don’t think you have much to worry about, then.” He moved in and kissed me again, the sensation stirring a sort of confidence—mixed with the strength he had been willing to grant me as I’d shared my story. Nothing I’d done with King could have ever given me what Ryan’s kiss gave me in that moment.
I only hoped it did the same for Ryan.
19
King
He left me.
No one leaves me.
I sat at my bedroom vanity, studying my expression in the mirror, but looking far beyond my reflection.
“I decide when it ends,” I said to myself, imagining Boss when he’d dashed out of the basement earlier in the night.
Fuck Boss. Fuck him!
He was supposed to choose me over Two.
I glanced around at the mess I’d made as I’d tossed all my things around, like some prepubescent brat. Clothes were scattered across the floor. My lamp crushed the shade beneath it as it lay beside the nightstand. Open books, their pages bent, were strewn on the floor, beside the walls.
“Nick, what a mess you’ve made.” Katherine’s words sounded like they weren’t just in my mind, but as if she were standing in the fucking bathroom doorway, judging me, wanting me.
I turned to the door to make sure she wasn’t there…
No, just in my head, like so many times before.
“Why did he leave?” I asked her phantom image because she was still imprinted in my mind, eternally haunting me.
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