Smiling so hard his cheeks ached and wanting nothing more than to fling himself on Darius and celebrate, Rhys followed her. A moment later, even down the lakeshore near the fire, they heard Zach voice rise in slurred protest.
“We lost ten years to this?”
With nothing to do but keep Nico entertained between Zach’s brief spurts of semiconsciousness, Darius decided to use the downtime for an excursion with Rhys. In a week or two, they would meet up with Nico, Xolani, and Zach at a nearby lodge, since Nico announced he wanted a proper bed for Zach to rest in while he was ill, and a roof overhead in case the weather turned wet. Xolani and Nico carried Zach one way along the lake, while Darius and Rhys departed to hike the old Tahoe Rim Trail in the other direction.
Darius was still adjusting to the new Rhys who had emerged from that research facility in Nevada. It was difficult to put his finger on exactly what the difference was. Rhys was both quieter and more talkative at times, and the sort of things he spoke of when he did talk kept tripping up Darius.
“The new Clean Zone, er, settlement,” he said as they hiked, “do you think they’ll be as strict about keeping people out? I mean, the whole area’s been patrolled for revs already and the survivors we bring are all quarantined for up to six months before we take them, so maybe they can have different policies, right?”
“Maybe.” Darius glanced over his shoulder at Rhys’s thoughtful face. “Why, you think it matters?”
Rhys swallowed audibly. “Just, maybe if they’re not so—what was that word Xolani used?—xenophobic, maybe they won’t mind Jugs settling near them. Maybe there won’t be an exile.”
“We still got a lot of work ahead of us before we can think about where we’re gonna settle.” He had to force himself to acknowledge that point, because Rhys’s chatter was so hopeful.
“I know, but—” Rhys stopped hiking, peering out through an opening in the trees. They were quite a ways above the lake and not far from the edge of the rock cliffs overlooking it. Beyond and below the trees was an enormous stretch of sapphire water. “If it turns out that some of the Jugs can start families, Xolani says they’re going to need wet nurses. Maybe if the Jugs have a better relationship with the new Clean Zone, it might work.”
Darius smiled, giving in to the urge to pin Rhys against a tree and kiss him stupid. “That’s a good thought,” he said when they were done and Rhys was slumped against the tree trunk, looking dazed. “We can hope.”
That was the difference, he decided as they started hiking again. The things Rhys talked about now were forward-looking and optimistic, anticipating what might happen months or even years down the line. Imagining ways life could be better for people—Jugs and civvies both. He’d never spoken that way before.
The quality of his silence was different, as well. Darius had always assumed his quietness was defensive, an ingrained habit from trying to stay off Houtman’s radar. Now it was thoughtful, as if he was lost in building the future scenarios he eventually gave voice to. And there was something deliberate about it. Like Rhys was making himself take the time to consider all these things. Some sort of exercise, like toning a long-disused muscle.
They made camp that night when the trail took them back down near the water’s edge, along a sandy strip of beach where they might as well have been the only two people in the world. Darius watched Rhys as he stared out over the water, wondering what was going through the boy’s head.
Sex was different now, too. If Rhys hadn’t assured him that Littlewood had never laid a finger on him, Darius might have thought he was processing something that had happened back there. Rhys was both more forward and more inclined toward gentleness, as if he didn’t feel the same need for violent and painful sex he had before. Which, honestly, suited Darius just fine. He couldn’t quite say it, but he wanted to coddle Rhys awhile longer. There was no question that sooner or later, their penchant for roughness would reassert itself, but this tender interlude was nice.
As if attuned to Darius’s thoughts, Rhys began talking as they prepared the day’s catch for dinner.
“I’m having a hard time getting Littlewood out of my head,” he confessed, laying another trout filet skin-side down on a flat rock near the edge of the fire. “He was—” Rhys shook himself sharply. “He was warped.”
“How so?” It was the first time Rhys had opened up about what had happened while he was inside that facility. Darius sort of wished Xolani was around. Of any of them, she knew best how to play counselor. But he wasn’t about to shut Rhys down if he was finally talking.
“From the reports he’d read, he’d gotten this idea that—” Rhys drew in a deep breath and blew it out with a shudder “—that you all had treated me the way he would have if he’d been a Jug. That was what he imagined: having your strength and using it that way.” Rhys smiled slightly and turned his eyes toward Darius. “But it wasn’t true.”
Darius shrugged, knowing the tension in his gut came from uncomfortable memories he’d never quite reconciled with. “I remember some moments I’m not quite proud of,” he muttered.
“I know.” Rhys’s voice was understanding. It wasn’t that Darius hadn’t forgiven himself, as such, for the things he’d done back when he’d thought they were necessary to help Rhys survive. But the memories would never sit well with him. Whatever the circumstances had dictated at the time, he’d crossed lines he’d always sworn he would never cross. “But I said I wanted to live, and you did what you had to do to make sure that happened. It’s not the same.”
“Turns out it wasn’t necessary.” Fuck. There was the part that kept grating on him. In the end, crossing those lines had been futile because of Rhys’s immunity. His life had never been in danger to begin with.
“That doesn’t change what we believed at the time.” Rhys used a stick to push the hot rock with its steaming trout filets away from the fire. “For Littlewood, imagining what happened back then was all about imagining you doing things to degrade me. It was never like that, no matter what we did.”
He crawled across the sand to Darius, pushing him onto his back and kissing him slowly. “I’m not ashamed. I never will be again. Not of any of it.”
The trout was cold by the time they broke apart.
They’d been hiking for the better part of a week when Rhys asked out of nowhere, “Do you remember what we talked about when we were at the Garden of the Gods? About you marking me?”
Darius froze in the act of throwing another stick on the campfire. The sun hadn’t set, but Rhys had wanted to make camp early, while it was still warm enough to enjoy lounging on the sand.
“I remember,” he answered slowly. “Why?”
“You said if I ever wanted your marks on me for my own sake, that I should ask.” Rhys pushed himself up, drawing his legs to his chest so that he was no longer stretched out in full, nude glory on the beach. There was something shy and maybe a little nervous about that posture. “I’m asking.”
Darius’s heart began to pound a little faster. He wiped bits of bark and lichen off his hands and stood, crossing the strand to crouch next to Rhys. “Tell me why.”
Those mossy-brown green-gold eyes were soft and calm, and Darius stared into them, trying to get a feel for how deep this went for Rhys. “Because I’m proud of who I am and who we are and what we do together. I told Littlewood I belonged to you, and he thought I meant it in a terrible way, but for me, it was a good thing. I have a life and a home, with someone who will always love me and won’t ever make me feel ashamed or wrong. And I don’t care who knows it or what they think about it.”
Darius groaned softly and kissed him. No wonder this boy had thrown him off his stride from the beginning. He reached into all the soft, vulnerable places Darius had always tried to keep protected, and planted himself there, like roots burrowing deep into sheltered, shaded soil. Darius’d been a hard-assed bastard toward Rhys in those early weeks because he’d sensed, even then, that Rhys was dangerous to him.
He could
never regret letting him inside, though.
“We’ll do it after the sun goes down,” he promised.
He wasn’t sure why he needed darkness, but he did. There was something primal in the thought of making his mark on Rhys in the glow of the fire and the moon. Almost ritualistic. It just felt right.
He didn’t fuck Rhys, though Rhys’s naked body on the warm sand was more than willing. That would wait until after, until he could do it seeing his mark on that fair skin. Instead, he went hunting and fed them a solid dinner, then told Rhys to wash off in the lake as the sun set.
They didn’t speak after that. Again, it felt like a ritual, something reverent and prayerful in their silent preparations. Not cluttering up the space between them with words. When it was fully dark, Darius pulled his hunting knife out of its sheath on his belt and laid it with its blade in the coals at the edge of the fire.
Rhys’s eyes widened, his face going a little whiter. But his gaze was steady as he watched Darius strip, then took off his own pants. They would both be nude in the heat of the fire and the sweltering summer night for this, their skin shining with sweat.
Without being told, Rhys spread out one of the blankets from their bedroll beside the fire and lay facedown on it. Darius knelt beside him, resting a palm in the middle of Rhys’s long, pale back. He quivered beneath Darius’s touch, but he didn’t flinch.
“You’re sure?” Darius asked. Just that one question. Nothing more.
“Yes.” Rhys’s response was quiet but emphatic. Darius didn’t ask again.
Rhys’s skin was smooth and freckled, peeling at the tops of the shoulders from a sunburn that never seemed to settle into a tan, despite weeks on the lake. It was a lean, strong back. Lines of beautiful muscle undulated beneath Darius’s caress in the flickering firelight.
Darius pressed his lips to the knob of Rhys’s spine, just below the long hair Rhys’d refused to trim in defiance of ghosts from his past. He kissed his way from one bony ridge to the next, stroking Rhys’s ribs and hips with his hands. Rhys moaned and ground his pelvis against the blanket, prompting Darius to reach around and grasp the swollen dick trapped underneath Rhys.
“Fuck. Darius, yes,” Rhys panted, pushing his ass up to give Darius’s hand more room to stroke. It offered another opportunity too delicious to pass up, and he licked his way down Rhys’s shamelessly proffered crack. With his free hand, he spread Rhys’s buttocks. He circled that sensitive, puckered ring with his tongue, drilling and twisting and wriggling to get inside.
“Taste so good,” he muttered, his moist breath rebounding against his face off Rhys’s sweat- and spit-slick skin. “Love eatin’ your ass. Love you movin’ like that, makin’ those sounds . . .”
He nibbled and licked and devoured Rhys’s asshole until Rhys’s dick was rigid in Darius’s hand, until he was crying out on the verge of release. That was when Darius eased off. He wanted Rhys feeling good, flying high on pleasure. He drew his hand away and kissed along the line of Rhys’s spine, sucking up a dark mark on the side of his neck.
“Lay down, boy,” he whispered, and kissed Rhys’s ear.
Rhys settled back onto the blanket with a shudder, growing very still and quiet except for the short, sharp pants of breath Darius could make out under the crackling of the fire.
The blade of his knife glowed red when he pulled it out of the coals, and he knew he’d have to work quickly. Rhys twitched when Darius brought it near his skin, going tense. Biting his lip and narrowing his eyes, he made sure his hand was steady and laid the sharp edge against the flat plane of Rhys’s shoulder.
Rhys’s shriek rang out through the trees on the first stroke, a diagonal slash inward. The scream erased the sizzling sound the knife made as it passed along Rhys’s skin. The scent of cauterized flesh filled the air, and Darius tightened his lips and made a second slash, starting at the bottom end of the first and moving horizontally outward. Rhys’s cry was softer for the second cut, as if it didn’t register quite so badly in the wake of the first one.
One more. Darius rotated the blade so that the flat of it would sear a broader line. Rhys screamed anew, a longer, broken, wailing sound, because this stroke was slower. Again, the line was on the diagonal, connecting the first and second lines on the right side and closing the symbol he’d drawn.
He tossed the knife aside as Rhys whimpered and sobbed. His entire body quaked in shock and pain. Darius caressed his hair and arms soothingly, placing reverent kisses on his unmarked shoulder.
“You’re okay, boy. I got you. I’ll always have you,” he vowed, and the words made Rhys weep harder, his tears even more unrestrained than after a whipping. They were cathartic tears, Darius knew, cleansing and liberating for a man who’d shut down all feeling for years to protect himself. But they still made his heart ache—in understanding that Rhys needed this, in grief that Rhys found it necessary, and in pride, both at Rhys’s strength and resilience and at the fact that he, of all people, was the one Rhys trusted.
He whispered all that and more against Rhys’s skin, pledging his adoration and devotion. Letting Rhys fill his heart and soul, a beacon of joy and hope in a cruel, hard world.
It took longer for Rhys’s tears to subside and for him to transform all that emotion to passion. Darius hadn’t been sure it would happen tonight, but it did. Rhys craned his neck to try to kiss Darius without rolling onto his back. It was sloppy and awkward, and filled with heedless, unrestrained need.
“Up,” Darius murmured, lifting Rhys and turning him without making any contact between his back and the blanket, so that he was upright and facing Darius. He grabbed the lube and knelt on the blanket, pulling Rhys astride him.
Rhys didn’t need to be told what to do. His eyes were feverish and intent as he coated Darius’s dick and rose up, holding it still while he sank down and impaled himself. He was tight, the pain of what he’d endured still riding him and making him tense, but the expression on his tear-stained face was sublime.
Rhys was high, euphoric, glowing with it as he started to ride Darius. There wasn’t much strength in his trembling thighs, though, so Darius gripped his hips and worked Rhys up and down his cock like a glove. Sweat poured off them both, making their skin slide as their hands tried to find purchase. Their kisses were messy and wet. Rhys’s cries were as much pain as pleasure, but he never asked to stop and Darius knew better than to doubt that his boy knew exactly what he wanted.
It didn’t take long. With his senses overloaded, Rhys came quickly and quietly. Not a huge explosion of rapture, but a shudder and a pulse, rippling around Darius’s dick and spurting onto his belly. No, the explosion was Darius’s, only a moment later, as he slammed Rhys down onto his cock and ground up into him, shooting into his guts, breeding him, marking him as thoroughly inside as he was now marked outside. Rhys’s tight smile when he felt Darius come was fierce and triumphant.
“Okay?” Darius asked when he could breathe again. By then, Rhys had melted against him, all the strength draining out of his body. He was so slack Darius feared he might have passed out, but he nodded slowly.
“Mm’kay,” he mumbled. He was boneless as Darius maneuvered him back onto the blanket on his stomach. They were really too close to the fire to rest comfortably, so Darius pushed himself to his feet. He took another blanket from their bedrolls and spread it out farther away, then carefully lifted a semiconscious Rhys and carried him to it.
He expected Rhys to be asleep before he finished tending the fire and cleaning up anything they might have left lying around that could attract unwanted wildlife. But Rhys’s eyes were slit open as Darius checked his guns and laid them out within easy reach, then began oiling and whetting the carbon-blackened blade of his knife.
“What is it?” Rhys asked, his voice a rusty croak after all the screaming he’d done. Darius didn’t need him to clarify what he was asking. Instead, Darius leaned over and drew the same figure on the ground that he’d seared into Rhys’s shoulder. Rhys would recognize it and unders
tand what it meant. Some of their people etched or drew it on their equipment, especially in recent years as the Jugs started to feel their identity as being separate from the rest of humanity.
Rhys’s lips curved when he saw it. Then his eyes fluttered shut and he was gone.
Darius smiled and admired his handiwork, now indelibly carved into Rhys’s flesh. Three lines, each touching the other, the one on the right thicker than the other two.
Not a triangle.
The letter delta.
“Xolani?” Zach called softly. Nico was out hunting, as now that Zach was starting to get more energy to eat, Nico was determined to stuff him silly and help him regain the weight he’d lost in the last couple of months. Rhys and Darius were down at the beach. Their honeymoon or whatever had clearly done them a world of good, and since they’d returned, they’d been absolutely soppy over each other.
Even walking the ten or so yards between the room he and Nico had claimed at the ritzy old lodge they’d ensconced themselves in and the door to Xolani’s room had Zach’s legs trembling. Which was progress. A week or two ago he’d needed help just sitting up to use a bedpan. He could easily see why the people who had developed the Bane virus had been confident of Beta-Prime’s ability to bring a nation to its knees. The virus had been designed to spread through the population like wildfire before anyone even suspected it was there. Infrastructure would have collapsed once it manifested in the general populace; the economy would have tanked for lack of productivity and consumption. In the weeks or months until the virus had run its course, even a country as large as Russia would have been ripe for the picking, but only for a nation with troops who were immune to it, like the Jugs.
Xolani sat cross-legged on her bed, absorbed in writing in a notebook. She looked up when Zach approached, scowling. “What the fuck are you doing out of bed? Why didn’t you just call for me?”
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