Laurent exhaled, ignoring his gigantic partner who was now rushing up the stairs while making ungodly noise with his boots.
Elliot swallowed, happy that Knight was holding on to a strap of his straitjacket in case Fane chose to lunge at Laurent with Elliot’s body after all. “It wasn’t your fault. I guess. You had good intentions.”
Laurent ran his fingers through the long waves of his hair, staring into Elliot’s eye. “I did not. I was only thinking about getting rid of Fane, when I should have been more considerate of your wellbeing. It wasn’t right of me, and for that I need to extend my most sincere apologies. I promise you, I will make amends for the pain you’ve been caused.”
Elliot was left speechless despite Fane’s constant mutters almost drowning out Laurent’s words. “It’s… okay. I mean, you’ve done your best,” he said in the end.
“Laurent!” Beast grabbed Laurent and spun around, placing his fiancé behind his back.
Knight cleared his throat, hugging Elliot while Fane walked through Beast to reach Laurent. Fortunately, without a body he couldn’t cause him any harm.
“How about you two come in, and we can have a nice cold beer together?” Knight proposed, hauling Elliot up.
Elliot stumbled, but Knight was there to hold him. Laurent followed behind Beast, and they were having a whispered argument Elliot couldn’t catch. Even in these circumstances, it was a bit funny to see a pretty boy who couldn’t be more than five-foot-seven be so defiant to the tattooed giant of a man that was Beast. But maybe that was what true love was about - absolute trust that the other person would never hurt you, no matter how much taller and stronger they were.
Beast followed Knight into the living room, careful to always stand between Laurent and Elliot. “How are things?” he asked grimly, and Elliot wasn’t sure who the question was meant for, but when the inquisitive gaze settled on him like physical weight, he felt compelled to answer.
“I… I’m healing well.”
Laurent’s eyes were so full of compassion when he peeked out from behind Beast. Elliot wasn’t sure what to do with all the care coming his way.
Before he could continue, he was spirited away to the sofa, and Knight pointedly pushed him down so that he’d sit. “Beer? Food?” he asked, leaning so low over Elliot the ends of his hair tickled Elliot’s cheek.
“May I have one of those blue bottled cocktails Nao always has?” Laurent asked, and Knight nodded at him. “Sure, there should be some on the lowest shelf.”
Beast sat down in an armchair opposite Elliot, unnerving him with his sheer size. Elliot wasn’t as short as Laurent, but it still felt as if Beast were twice his weight. Beast dwarfed Knight, so he was pretty much the local answer to The Rock.
Laurent came back with two blue bottles and wanted to pass one to Elliot, but then he must have remembered the straitjacket and awkwardly put the drink on the coffee table. “So, I wanted to speak with you privately if that’s possible.”
Elliot’s one eye instantly settled on Beast, who shook his head and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “Out of the question. I know it’s not his fault, but I can’t risk Fane taking over and hurting you as well.”
“Why can’t you just talk while we’re here? What can be so intimate?” Knight asked and fed Elliot some of the girly alcoholic cocktail.
Laurent sat in Beast’s lap and wrapped his arm over his man’s nape, looking like a lion tamer showing off his skills. “I wanted to talk to Elliot about Fane, and it’s not something I wish to discuss with others, or for it to be distracted. I promise to be cautious. I am not one to invite danger, but I will not shy from it either.”
Knight rubbed his fingertips through Elliot’s hair. “What do you think?”
“It doesn’t matter what he thinks, because he’s not the one to attack Laurent!”
“Say yes,” whispered Fane, whose hand briefly moved across Elliot’s thigh.
Elliot licked his lips, under pressure from every side. “I would very much wish to hear your side of the story, Laurent,” he said in the end, but then frowned to himself at the archaic way he sounded. As if Laurent was a prince and could be addressed in no other way. “I mean, yeah, I’d like to talk about it in private.”
Laurent stroked Beast’s shoulder. “He is contained, my Beast.”
Beast’s nostrils flared, as if he were a bull about to charge. “We could attach him to the sex hook so that he can’t move around.”
“What’s a sex hook?” Fane asked.
Elliot rolled his eye. Of course William Fane liked the sound of that.
“See?” Laurent smiled widely and kissed Beast’s cheek. “You can always find a way out of every dilemma.”
Beast groaned. “Knight, are you sure it’s safe?”
Knight shrugged and stood up, pulling Elliot with him. “Yeah. I’ve tried it out many times. Won’t budge.”
“And you two could stay outside, just in case,” Laurent said and slipped off Beast’s thigh.
Elliot looked up at Knight. “You never said you had a ‘sex hook’,” he whispered, flushing at the visions his brain provided. Was it one of those anal hooks with a ball at the end? But… they wouldn’t attach him to that, would they?
Knight’s eyes went warmer as he led the way, sliding his hand to Elliot’s ass even though Laurent and Beast were right behind them. “Didn’t know you’d be into that. But maybe we should try it out later?”
Elliot’s brain went a bit fuzzy, and he smiled, but Fane was there poke at the back of his head. “Focus on the task, Elliot. Stop thinking with your prick.”
Knight pulled Elliot toward an area behind yet another parting, which served as a home gym. There wasn’t much equipment there, since there was a real weights room on the premises anyway, but when Knight approached a large punching bag that hung off the ceiling, and lifted it to vacate the ceiling hook it became clear what its other use could have been.
Beast watched Elliot like a hawk, but Elliot’s focus was on the deliciously kinky things he could to with Knight if the hook came into play in different circumstances. Uncomfortably though, it was also a reminder that Elliot wasn’t all that special, and Knight had done these things with many other people.
It didn’t take long for Knight to attach the back of Elliot’s straitjacket to the hook, and when he made sure the thing wouldn’t budge, he stepped away, mouth in a thin line. “You fine with me leaving?”
Elliot licked his lips and pulled on the hook with his weight once more. He didn’t want to seem like a big baby. He’d cried in front of Knight too many times already. “It’s okay.”
Beast let out an unintelligible grunt, but Laurent pushed at him with a smile. “You can go. It won’t take long.”
Knight shifted his weight, his gaze still lingering on Elliot. “How ‘bout we stay in the bathroom? That way we could be here right away if something happened,” he said, indicating the door nearby.
“That’s a great idea,” Beast was quick to say and immediately charged toward the en-suite.
Laurent rolled his eyes but nodded. “You’re making this unnecessarily complicated, but fine.”
Knight gave Elliot one more peck on the mouth before following Beast.
Fane made a sound as if he were exhaling deeply, even though he didn’t breathe. “Finally. We’re alone with him. We don’t know when the next opportunity will come, so we need to find a way to draw blood. Just look at those lips. Wouldn’t you enjoy them on you once his body is mine?”
Elliot shifted uncomfortably, looking into Laurent’s pretty face. No wonder Fane was so obsessed with him. His skin was like milk, dotted with a few beauty spots, and he moved with such grace, his back always straight and his chin high. Elliot had no idea how they were related, because his own angular features were nothing like Laurent’s soft charm.
Laurent pulled back his wavy hair, which looked as if he’d just stepped out of a commercial for some luxurious product. “I wish we’d met under differe
nt circumstances. I wouldn’t have been so deaf to your torment.”
“All those fine words. All lies,” Fane hissed, and his body trembled like a faulty hologram.
Elliot swallowed, faced with the man who killed his idol of many years. Since finding out who Laurent was, things had been such a whirlwind that the two of them never got to talk, and now was finally the time. “Will you tell me how it all happened back then?”
“For me, ‘back then’ was only last April. But in all honesty, it does indeed feel like forever ago.” Laurent entwined his fingers and never took his eyes off Elliot. “I was not even twenty years of age when I met William Fane, and he was the perfect gentleman. His charm made my heart pound faster, and he seemed to hold the answers to all the questions I was too anxious to voice. In that time, you couldn’t freely enjoy another man’s touch, Elliot, so the things he implicitly offered were a forbidden fruit I couldn’t wait to bite into.”
Fane smirked, and his fingers squeezed around Elliot’s shoulders, sending bitter cold to the depths of his bones. “And I would have given him everything. I offered so much, but he wanted everything to happen on his terms. He wouldn’t give in to what I wanted.”
Laurent leaned against the wall and watched Elliot, somewhat pale when his eyes wandered. Perhaps he could sense the ghostly presence in the air somehow? “I was ecstatic when he asked my employer to send me to this place overnight. I felt that we had a connection, that something would happen, and that elegant man, who was the embodiment of all my dreams, would give me the things I’d seen in forbidden books. But he changed the moment he took me to the cellar. His words became cruel, and so did his hands.”
Fane reached out for Laurent’s neck even though his touch couldn’t affect anyone but Elliot. “He knew exactly why he was there. He was playing coy, but I suspect he’d already known a man’s prick by then.”
Elliot wasn’t so sure about Fane’s words though. Laurent had no reason to lie about the past. No one would prosecute him for the murder, and he didn’t have to tell Elliot any of this in the first place. Fane on the other hand had proven himself to be volatile, ready to change his mood and attitude to Elliot at the flip of a switch. The skeleton Elliot had found with Knight in a cage was only one of many pieces of evidence that showed the truth of Fane’s nature. The willingness to imprison helpless men.
Laurent stepped closer. “I’m saying this, Elliot, because he will try to charm you. He is so very good at doing that yet will hold back no cruelty when he gets what he wants, and I’m sure you know that already.” He ran his fingertips over the dressing on Elliot’s eye and lowered his voice. “Once I was trapped in his basement, he promised me unspeakable torture. He threatened to remove my teeth, and said that he would keep me collared like a dog, so that he could use my body as if it didn’t belong to me anymore. You cannot trust him, no matter what he offers.
“That fateful night, I set out to his mansion full of hope and excitement. I didn’t intend to kill anyone, but was left with no choice. Even though I still sometimes dream about the horrors of his blood all over me, I justify what I did with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone again. Until you.”
Elliot choked up, completely paralyzed when Fane’s hands trailed down his body, seductively resting on his hips. “Don’t listen to him. It’s in his best interest to turn us against each other. He will use you, just like Knight will use and discard you as soon as he gets bored of your body. Only I can give you the things you need.”
But Fane’s words were hollow, and deep down Elliot had known it for a while now. Fane would leave or kill him as soon as they didn’t have to share a body. What Elliot could relate to on the other hand, was Laurent’s desperate need to find love. He could imagine how the young man in front of him went to visit Fane only to have his dreams shattered.
“I just didn’t want to be so alone anymore,” Elliot whispered, annoyed at how choked up he was getting.
“You’re not!” Fane grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Stop making this so difficult.”
Laurent touched Elliot’s tightly-bound arm and stepped that bit closer, his face sincere in its concern. “You don’t have to be. You are not a monster. You’d just been dealt a bad hand in life, that’s all. I could help you out, and Beast surely would too once he stops worrying so much.” He put a hand on Elliot’s chest. “I know you didn’t have family, but you do now. You don’t need that ghost for company.”
Fane turned to Laurent and uselessly tried to grab his head. “He’s one to speak about murder! An orphan, needed by no one and missed by not a soul. My death impacted hundreds of lives! I was a man of importance.”
Whenever Fane lost his cool, he showed his true colors. Just like Laurent, Elliot was a man of no importance, and Fane would get rid of him on a whim.
“No one but Knight likes me here,” Elliot mumbled, embarrassed to admit that yet finding surprising amounts of compassion in the eyes of a man he’d slandered and resented for years.
Laurent grabbed Elliot’s arms. “Oh, but they will. I have been helped a great deal to get accustomed to these new times, and I promise you I am more than happy to pass on the favor. Even if—and I’m not saying he will—but even if Knight fails to meet your expectations, there will be a place for you here, I will make sure of that. You needn’t worry about his eyes wandering, because you will not have to depend on him only.”
Elliot looked down into the brown eyes that held so much sincere promise, as if Laurent didn’t understand his gentle way of saying Elliot and Knight wouldn’t work out was twisting a knife in Elliot’s guts. And yet his offer was so unexpected in its kindness Elliot could only nod.
“Thank you. And thank you for telling me what happened with Fane.” Elliot shuddered when cold breath danced over his nape but tried to compose himself when Laurent leaned forward, encasing Elliot in a warm hug.
Elliot closed his eye, accepting the hug, but then cold hands were on him, forcefully opening his jaw and sending his head against Laurent’s. Elliot wanted to scream in warning, but it was no use against the strength of Fane’s grip.
Elliot’s teeth closed over air so hard they ached, but Laurent managed to leap back in time.
“You didn’t deserve my prick, you pretty snake!” Fane yelled through Elliot’s lips before letting go.
Elliot’s body went limp as a puppet with no strings, and the only reason he didn’t collapse to the floor was the hook that held him up by the fastening at the back of the straitjacket. “I’m sorry, Laurent. I’m so sorry,” he whined helplessly.
“Don’t tell Beast about the bite,” Laurent whispered. “We will find a way to help you. I promise.”
The bathroom door opened as soon as he finished speaking, and the two towering men spilled out, tense and ready to fight.
“What was that?” Knight asked, rushing to Elliot’s side. “Was that him?”
“I feel he has more control over me each time,” Elliot said.
Fane sneered. “Because you’re weak.”
Elliot was set on not arguing with Fane, but he had no doubt that Laurent was the one telling the truth about what had happened all those years ago. It was Fane who was the snake. Cold-hearted and set on achieving whatever he wanted, at anyone’s expense. No matter how many sweet promises of undying love Fane had whispered, they were as empty as Fane’s heart. It had been Elliot who filled them with his own craving for true feeling and devotion.
It was time to let go of something that would have never happened anyway.
Knight’s arm felt secure around him, and yet its presence left a bitter aftertaste in Elliot’s mouth. Regardless of how much Elliot enjoyed his care, Laurent’s words didn’t lie. Knight was friendly toward most people, and he would surely continue to enjoy Elliot’s company for a long time, but Elliot implicitly knew from the start that he couldn’t have him.
Elliot rested his head on Knight’s shoulder.
It was fine. At least Knight didn’t make pro
mises he couldn’t keep.
Chapter 29
Knight exhaled with relief once he walked Laurent and Beast to the landing outside his apartment. Regardless of what Elliot might say, the strain Fane was putting him through each time Laurent was around was unmissable. Tension had been back in the set of Elliot’s shoulders and around his eyes the moment they entered club-owned grounds, and the helplessness of Elliot’s situation had Knight on edge.
“We need to get that motherfucker out of him,” he said, leaning back against the closed door.
Beast nodded, absentmindedly stroking Laurent’s hair. “I don’t think there’s another way we can come up with on our own. We need to talk to the demon. Is that something you want though, Knight? Do not take it lightly.”
Laurent looked to his feet and pushed under Beast’s thick arm, clearly still disturbed by what happened inside. And Elliot, poor Elliot was living the nightmare of Fane’s presence day and night.
“We could see what he says. I mean... maybe he won’t ask for God-knows-what,” Knight said, but Beast cut off any other words Knight might have had.
“I’m dead serious, Knight. You like that guy, I get it, but one can only make a pact with the devil once. This would be life-changing for you on so many levels. You can’t be rash and play the white knight just because it feels right in the moment.”
Knight frowned and squeezed his fist with his other hand until it crackled. “It makes me fucking crazy that I can’t get my hands on that son of a bitch!”
Beast’s frown told Knight he really did get it. “Okay, we’ll talk to… it... him. But remember that talking things over doesn’t mean you have to decide yet. Take a few hours to think if through and cool off.”
Laurent stepped closer and put his hand on Knight’s forearm. “If you decide against it, we will find another way.”
Only what other way was there?
Knight nodded and sent them off with a few more cocky words, but he was worried, and nothing could change that. He couldn’t just watch Elliot’s personality gradually crumble under Fane’s influence. It wasn’t like he could be kept in a straitjacket forever, and even if he moved out of the property, the danger of Fane somehow managing to take over even beyond the demon’s domain was too much of a risk. Knight wasn’t willing to take it.
My Dark Knight (gay biker romance) (Kings of Hell MC Book 2) Page 36