All eyes were on him, and instead of blending in with the Grail members, he had their attention. Pat was going to strangle him.
“I have no idea how fast, Mr. Andrews. I only have my orders, and you will have yours as the weeks go by.”
Covering quickly, Ian plastered on the haughty smile he reserved for his parents’ most insufferable friends and said, “Oh, wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Reynolds. Itching to get started, aren’t we? You know youth, so impatient.”
Seeming appeased, Reynolds smiled back and agreed, “Yes, but don’t let that cloud your duties. Take your time and do not fail. With your youth, you will be able to get into places we older in the Grail will never penetrate.”
Ian’s head spun, wondering what he could possible mean. Then it came to him, like a bolt of lightening was splitting his skull in two. Colleges, clubs, businesses targeting youth.
Again, Fred spoke. “We’re deciding who to kill,” he whispered, and Ian watched his face light, like it was an honor and privilege instead of the horror it was.
“No, Fred,” Reynolds scolded. “We’re deciding who lives. We want only the best and brightest, and the poorest and least intelligent. We will bring in the best IT specialists, doctors, strategists, economists on one hand, and the other we will decide those who have no initiative to do a thing but serve. We are on a precipice, gentlemen! The world doesn’t need all the people that are on it. Companies can run without them, factories. The poor will serve, and the rest of us will thrive. That is truly the way the world should be.” He started walking around the table, continuing his pontification, “I know, I’m putting it in simplistic terms for you, but once you advance levels, you’ll know the ins and outs much better. We’ll take a shadow lead, like always, never wanting to be in the spotlight. But we can again choose all the world’s leaders, those that will help our goals. The world will be a better place, without crime, without hunger.”
Ian couldn’t believe his ears as Reynolds spoke of this utopia he imagined. One of the others asked, “No hunger? What of the poor?”
“They’ll all work! They will buy the food we allow them to eat, and they will never see another hungry day.”
With his temples starting to throb, Ian wanted nothing more than to be out of there. “What you’re saying is we go back to the times of kings and peasants?”
Instead of getting offended from the question, Reynolds turned and pointed to him, smiling. “Exactly. The way the world was meant to be.”
The millions of people in the middle of rich and poor, those who were rich and poor that the Grail would deem unworthy, they would be the ones who would be culled. It was too much to think about.
Fred Netermeyer, who was salivating to start, asked, “How will we do it?”
Reynolds gave him a wink and confided, “You’ll see soon enough, my boy.” He then went back to the head of the table and flipped open a thin binder there. “Enough blathering about the future, our concerns are for today. We will be teaming up on certain jobs we’ll be giving you all. The first assignment for you is to get your team together. For these purposes, we feel two as a team is enough, so we can better work.”
He started going down the list, teaming up the members, and when he came to Ian’s name, the name with his make Ian sick. “Andrews, you’ll be with Netermeyer.”
Fred didn’t look any happier than Ian was, but he didn’t say anything.
“Now that you have your team, in the next two weeks, you’ll get your assignments. Also, your fathers or sponsors will give you your next course. In an upcoming meeting, you will be given the opportunity to rise in degree. Are there any questions?”
There were a few, but Ian didn’t pay much attention to them, as they were mostly about how quickly they could rise in the ranks and such. His mind was on stopping them and keeping his face from showing what was happening in his mind. His partner in the Grail was watching him closely. Whenever his eyes would land on Fred, Fred was looking right back at him.
At home, he went into Pat’s arms, and he hated that he was shaking. “It’s happening soon. Maybe months, maybe less. We’re supposed to choose people that we want to save from the culling.”
“How?”
“Going into places like colleges and such, finding the best computer minds, doctors. Jesus, Pat, it’s horrible.”
“Did they say how they’d kill people?”
“No, but I’ll bet every dime in my bank account that my father knows.”
“I’m sure he does,” Pat whispered to him, holding him tighter. “Don’t push it, Ian. At least we have more of a timeline. I’ll go see Javi today and give him all the information we have so far.”
“We can’t fight this. I know we can’t, Pat, and if we don’t stay here, with them, we’ll be killed. I know we will. They are going to have their perfect world! They’ll do it! I know they will!”
He realized he was becoming hysterical, but he couldn’t help it, and Pat knew what to do. He slammed Ian to the wall and kissed him breathless, unfastening his pants and shoving a hand down his underwear to squeeze the hell out of his balls until Ian saw colors flashing behind his closed eyelids.
“Fuck! Pat!”
“Stop freaking out, Ian! I’m not fucking kidding, you have to have your wits about you right now, dammit!”
He squeezed again and Ian started to scream from the pain, but Pat slapped a hand over his mouth and kept at him, squeezing, releasing, squeezing, releasing until that was all Ian’s mind was filled with, the pain and relief from it.
He started to focus again. It amazed him how easily Pat brought him to focus. Well, easy may not be the right word. “I’m okay now.”
“Are you sure?” Pat purred in his ear, “I’m enjoying the fuck out of this.”
Ian smiled on Pat’s shoulder. “I’m sure.”
He tensed for it, but Pat didn’t squeeze again. Ian did get his breath taken once more with a kiss that scrambled his brain completely. The man was a wizard, playing with his magic to see what would have the desired outcomes.
“I’m going to fuck you so hard right now that your teeth will rattle, and by the time I’m finished, you’re going to be dehydrated, bone tired and ready to rest so that you can better prepare for the coming days.”
He was nodding erratically, and repeating, “Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, okay.”
Pat’s hand was on the back of his neck and he was led unceremoniously to his bedroom, thrown down and Pat was on him, stripping away his clothing, not being gentle in the least.
Pat was still fully clothed when he started on Ian, Ian’s leg’s hanging limply over the side of the bed, and Pat barreled into him, holding him easily to the duvet with one big hand. Ian was flown away from the room, from the estate of his parents, from the state, the country and the world. He thought of nothing except being ravaged on that bed, the thick cock spreading his tight hole incredibly wide, the head smashing into his insides as the man took him over and used him accordingly.
This was the power of their love. Ian had known from the start it was why Pat couldn’t tell him how much he cared, because when Pat loved, he loved forcefully. He loved violently, with all of himself. There was no halfway to Pat’s love, and that was what Ian needed. He needed someone to give him the world, and not the things in it.
Ian was driven higher on the bed and dragged back each time. His back was one long line on the bed, but the small of his back was arched, his ass high for Pat to easily fuck. Each time he tried to raise up on his hands or elbows, Pat pushed him flat again, growling in warning to behave.
There were hard slaps to his ass and a yanking of his hair, but mostly it was Ian’s ass that Pat concentrated on, and when Pat came, he let out a roar that shook the room.
And then, amazingly, he was sucking Ian off. He’d flipped Ian around and was bent over him, sucking him as hard as he’d fucked him. Ian came in a flash of bright light and he didn’t roar as Pat had, he whimpered pitifully, unable to conjure more sound than that. Wr
ung out, he couldn’t move for at least ten minutes.
When he did, he saw that Pat was staring at him. “What?”
“You’re incredible.”
“How? I lay there and you go all medieval on me. I can’t do a damn thing except lay there!”
“You don’t know it, do you? How you work your ass? The rest of you is held down on the bed, so you do all your moving with your ass. It’s fucking amazing.”
Ian watched him to see if he was kidding and he saw right away that he was serious. “I do?”
“Yeah, baby. You do.”
Ian was lit with happiness at the revelation. “I kept thinking, damn, he’s going to think I’m a pillow queen.”
“I would be stupid to think that, being I’m the one holding you down like that.”
“True. Hey, are you starving?”
“After that? I could eat a horse, moose and elephant.”
Ian laughed and kissed him, forcing his sore and tired body to get off the bed. He slipped on some lounge pants, a silk robe and his slippers, padding quietly from the room, calling back in a whisper, “Don’t leave, I’ll bring it back here.”
“I couldn’t move if I tried.”
Ian laughed a little then got out of his suite, and saw the house was mostly dark, save for the muted lighting along the stairs and in some of the wall sconces. He tried to hurry while still being as quiet as he could, heading down the back stairs to easily get to the kitchen.
As soon as he got inside the kitchen, he started to reach for the light switch when movement outside caught his eye. He hurried to the window for a better look and saw a man walking swiftly to the area where the garages lay, a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, dressed all in black.
His first impulse was to reach for the phone, which was close to the window, but he let his hand drop as he better studied the movements of the black-clad man. He moved like Ian’s father.
Wrapping his red robe tighter around him, Ian moved to the kitchen door, punched in the security code and hurried to get outside to follow the man.
Just as he was getting to the path, Pat called to him, and he turned to shush him, waved for him to join him. “What the fuck are you doing out here, Ian?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I think my father just went to the garage, and the way he was dressed…”
“Like?”
“Like a burglar.”
Pat threw an arm around his waist and moved him behind a tall bush, and they both watched one of the golf carts the landscape staff used to get around the estate grounds driving down the hill. “Where’s he going?”
“Remember that place I told you I wanted to take you?”
“Yeah. That part of the basement? Your cave or whatever.”
“It looks like that may be where.”
He led Pat to the back of the garages and they too got on one of the carts. Pat asked if he could drive it without the lights and he assured him he could. “I used to drive down there all the time with a…friend.”
Pat glared at him. “A boyfriend?”
“Well, yeah! I wasn’t a virgin when we got together, Pat and I deal with your ex all the time,” he pointed out. “He still calls you Papi, and do I hiss and fuss every damn time he does?”
He growled some but didn’t say anything and Ian started off to follow the other cart.
The cart was near silent, so he drove it quickly as he could to follow, and sure enough, when he got twenty feet from the other cart, then empty, he stopped his and told Pat in a whisper, “He’s either there or in the trees ahead, but I don’t see why he’d be in the trees.”
“Let’s get to that basement but be stealth and quiet as you can.”
“Duh,” Ian said, then got another growl for that.
He led the way through the narrow trail that had overgrown greatly from the last time he’d used it. Pat was right on his heels and he was shocked that he was making more noise than the huge man.
He stopped Pat a few feet from the entrance, which was a metal door on half a wall, the roof of it rounded and thatched with living grass.
“What was this place?”
“Father said possibly a bootlegger’s den, or maybe the former owners were paranoid and wanted a secret exit to escape from…whatever.”
“Fascinating. Do we…go in?”
Ian nodded but took the lead, knowing that the door only squeaked when it was pulled fast. He grabbed the long handle and gave the lightest pull, letting it come slowly, glad the moon was a sliver and wouldn’t shed light inside the entrance.
Once inside, they traveled a short corridor that was lined floor to rounded ceiling with brick, old fashioned sconces on the wall giving dim lighting. Once the end of the hall came, Ian took the only turn, that led back to the house, and that’s where he stopped.
Pat as following so close he bumped right into Ian, but Ian barely noticed. Up ahead were two men in an embrace, one crying in the other’s arms. It was his father, the baseball cap shed on the floor. The man crying was James Kent.
At least he thought it was James at first. When he gasped loud enough for the men to hear, once the man in his father’s arms turned to him, he saw it wasn’t James Kent at all.
“Cameron?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Javi turned over to grab his phone, but the guy he’d picked up for the night grabbed his hand and pulled him back over, begging, “Don’t stop now. It was just getting good.”
The hand job Javi had been giving him was slow and torturous, something he’d learned from Pat. Teasing, making a man wait for release, that was Pat’s specialty. Well, right after giving in and pounding an ass until the recipient couldn’t walk for a week.
Javi kissing him slowly, letting him know the call wouldn’t take his mind off his work. “Give me one minute, lover.”
“One. That’s all. I’m timing you.”
The guy was big and muscled, but nothing like Papi. Javi didn’t know if he’d ever get over the guy, but Pat was lost to him, lost in a love Javi wouldn’t even try to mess with.
Speaking of the man, that was who was calling. “Papi? What’s up?”
“Javi, you need to get to Ian’s estate. Now. But you can’t come the front way. I’ll send you directions in a text.”
“What the fuck, Papi? I’m shacked up, man!”
“Javi, I’m not asking. Shit just got real, you know, man? Please, Javi.”
The pleading in Pat’s voice struck him and he got serious instantly. “I’ll be right there.”
He climbed out of the bed and stopped the whining of his bed partner by promising to meet him another night and make all his dirtiest dreams come true. That seemed good enough, and soon Javi was driving, heading west out of Denver on Highway 36.
As he drove, he wondered what the hell could have happened. The call was cryptic, but he was used to cryptic. Ian was already home, and Pat had said nothing, so whatever it had been could not have been about the meeting.
He had to drive the long way around the hills where the estates were located in the area where Ian’s parents lived. There were a couple of maintenance roads, and that was what he took, heading in the direction in the text. Once he hit the fence, he got out and got the bolt cutters from the trunk, careful that no security vehicles or camera would catch him.
After making a man-sized hole in their perfect fence, he got through and headed toward the huge home of the Andrews family. When he’d made it less than half a mile, Pat came out of the bushes, and nearly got shot for it.
Pat saw the gun Javi had pulled, and he growled, “It’s me, asshole!”
“How the fuck was I supposed to know?”
Javi stuck the gun back under his jean jacket in the shoulder holster. “What the hell is going on?”
“A lot. Come on, let’s get inside.”
Javi followed Pat to what looked like a damn Hobbit house, a rounded mound of dirt with a door and part of a wall. Through that door, they went down a corridor, and t
hen turned to a small room that had shelves lined with jars. Whoever had canned the things in the jars must have been in the grave a hundred years by the looks of the blackened contents and dust covering the jars.
And there, in the middle of the room was Ian, his father and a man that couldn’t be real. Javi had watched his death on a recording. “What the fuck…?”
Ian started to explain, “It’s true, Javi. This is Cameron Kent. We’ve been waiting for you so my father could give most of the explanation, but we know this much. My father isn’t the bad guy I once thought.”
Skeptical, Javi jeered, “Sure, he’s not. You believe it because he said that?”
Ian’s father’s head dropped, and he admitted, “I don’t blame you for thinking that. I’ve been guilty of going along with too much they’ve wanted. I’m not innocent by any means.”
Javi watched Ian, his eyes shining in the darkened room. “Father, please, tell us. Tell us all of it. I mean, I think we know some, but not all. Tell me.”
Ian’s father raised his head and looked at each of them. Cameron was crying, but he added his bit. “If it wasn’t for this man, I’d be dead. Please, don’t be hard on him.”
Javi’s shoulders fell and he leaned on the dusty, rough stone wall. “Well, fuck. Tell us your story, and let’s see how much more trouble we can get ourselves into.”
Pat elbowed him playfully. “Softy.”
“I’d say I’ve got your softy hanging, but that doesn’t make me sound so good.”
“No, not really.”
Ian shushed them and threw Javi a pained look. “Please? Listen?”
“That’s what I’m here for, mijo. Someone, start talking.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Pat held Ian’s hand, and Ian was tightening his grip with each and every word as his father started to speak. The rest were silent, watching how Ian’s father struggled, the guilt he felt evident. Pat was reserving judgement as best he could until the end.
“I, uh, was raised by a staunch member of the Grail. My father, the first Ian Andrews, he took such pride in it. I heard stories about it from the first I could remember. In fact, other than lecturing me to get good grades and apply myself to my studies, I heard little else from the man.
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