The Gunslinger's Man

by Helena Maeve

  Asher was no stranger to the concept. He’d been born a generation after the war, late enough not to have seen the horror of the battlefields but not so late that he didn’t grow up around its veterans.

  “You’ve retained your limbs, Mr. Franklin,” said the doctor, a touch exasperated. “What you lost is mostly muscle and connective tissue. Fortunately, thanks to your uncle’s work, you should be able to go on just as before… Perhaps a take a little more care when it rains, but otherwise…” Doc flung his hands up in a gesture that exemplified his interest in the topic.

  “Get this shit off me,” Asher panted.

  Halloran took a step toward the bed. “Asher—”

  “Get them off!” He’d been too scared to move before, but with a clean bill of health and a doctor talking crazy at him, Asher’s dread couldn’t compete with his horror. What good works? What had Uncle Howard done for Ambrose?

  Two of the belts stretched tautly across his chest snapped loose, freeing his arms from the elbow down. It was all the wiggle room Asher needed to tear free of the rest.

  Doc stood away from the bed as if pricked with a needle. Even Romero took a step back. Maybe later, Asher would regret frightening them both. In that moment all he cared about was stripping the covers from his body.

  Halloran made to grab his arm and still the attempt, but Asher kicked and the blanket slipped off, revealing—metal plates shifting and rearranging themselves like scales welded into the gaps between his ribs, jutting out of his shoulder and wrapping around his body like living armor. Four of the fingers on his left hand were made of that same alloy. When Asher tightened them into a fist, he glimpsed the faint inner workings of gears beneath the plate.

  “How…” How is any of this possible?

  “Your uncle has an incredible mind,” Doc said with undisguised admiration. Then he paused, as if appearing only then to notice what he’d said. “Had.” The doctor cleared his throat. “I am sorry for your loss.” Having pronounced Asher fixed—or at the very least in no immediate danger—he made his escape, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

  No one spoke for a protracted moment. Asher’s questions bottlenecked in his throat. He almost missed his room at Willowbranch. The mirror above the bed would have come in handy right about now.

  Romero shifted her weight. “You hungry, boy?”

  Asher shook his head.

  “I’ll bring you supper,” she ruled all the same, and swiftly let herself out.

  Left alone with Halloran, Asher made an effort to keep his voice from quaking. “Are you going to bring me something, too?”

  “Like what?”

  Asher shrugged. A pretext wasn’t much of one if it made sense. He swallowed hard, tried again. “Does…is it just my chest and arm or—”

  The waistband of his khaki pants blocked the view over his lower body. He felt no different when he ran his hands over his thighs, but then his hands didn’t feel altered when they so obviously were, so perhaps tactile sensation wasn’t the best indicator that he’d been altered.

  “Should be able to father little Asher Franklins someday,” Halloran said. He remained unsmiling, though he must have found Asher’s concern preposterous. “Do you remember anything?”

  “About this?” Asher flexed a half-human, half-metal hand.

  “About any of it—Redemption, Moreau. Your dreams.”

  Ah. “You tried to warn us.” Asher dropped his gaze to the bed. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me. I was too late.” Emotion wasn’t rare in Halloran, but whenever he’d had reason to show any, it was usually because something Asher had done provoked him to anger.

  The floorboards creaked beneath Halloran’s heavy tread. He seemed to want to pace the length of the room, but in the end he wound up stopping by the window, his back to Asher.

  “We could’ve broken through the barricade much faster than we did. Ambrose was gun-shy about chancing any of us with the flames.” Halloran snorted. “As if we need to be protected…”

  “Did you lose anyone?”

  He nodded, the outline of his profile limned in the hazy sodium light spilling through the glass. “Enoch and Gregson weren’t fast enough through gate. Got sloppy.”

  “I thought they were your friends…”

  Halloran swiveled around. “They were murderers, robbers and fornicators. Just like me. We don’t have friends.”

  “But they followed you. They thought you had their back. You’re telling me it doesn’t make a dent that they’re gone?” Asher pushed up from the bed. His legs kept him vertical, though there was a faint clicking noise from his kneecaps. “You got me out of Redemption alive when all I am is human and you just left them to burn?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bullshit.” Having turned the corner on self-preservation the minute he raised a gun to a vampire’s face, Asher took a step forward. Then another. He got close enough for Halloran to backhand him straight into the wall if he pleased. That tiny part of Asher that thrived on getting pushed around almost looked forward to it. “You warned me. Why would you do that if all you are is rotten?”

  Eyes frosty with contempt, Halloran tipped his head to one shoulder. “You don’t survive out there if you ain’t.”

  “No, not since you people fucked up the world.”

  There had been a time before vampire fiefdoms pocked the lawless stretches between one coast and the other. If Washington hadn’t bought their neutrality in the war with promises of land and power, they might all have been bandits and cattle rustlers.

  Asher’s fantasies of a world without bloodsuckers seemed about as feasible now as walking on the moon.

  “You gonna tell me I’m forgetting who I’m talkin’ to?” He sniggered, his voice drained of mirth. “Threaten to whip me? Go on, then. Take your best shot!” Arms spread open in invitation, Asher rooted his feet firmly to the floor. So this is what it’s like to live like one of you.

  No fear. No fetters holding him in line.

  Nothing to stop him grabbing a gun and putting a bullet through Halloran’s skull.

  He thought he was ready for anything. He didn’t see Halloran’s kiss coming.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Asher slammed his palms into Halloran’s chest. “Get—fuck—get this off.” His fingers wouldn’t cooperate, suddenly too big, too clumsy around the fine buttons fastening Halloran’s shirt. He’d barely managed to tug it out of his pants and wrench off his waistcoat. His holster was gone, too, leaving Asher with no doubt that the bulge he felt against his hip was Halloran’s cock.

  Much to his surprise, Halloran gave up trying to undress him to tackle his own shirt. His big hands proved deft in doing so. Skin Asher had only glimpsed through the unbuttoned collar of a shirt was revealed in an ever lengthening chevron. Then the shirt was off, discarded to the floor, and Halloran surged back in to claim his mouth.

  He didn’t kiss like he did in dreams. He seemed to lack the patience. Greedy for the taste of him, Asher eagerly parted his lips and let Halloran plunder him as he damn well pleased. His back ached from the sharp edge of the dresser digging into it. His erection strained in the confines of his trousers, untouched. Everywhere Halloran touched him hurt in the most delicious ways.

  It was almost enough to detract from the wrongness of his suddenly alien body.

  Asher pushed the thought away as he hooked both fists in Halloran’s pants and pushed them down his hips. He couldn’t fail to notice that Halloran was colder to the touch than the average human man, but when Asher thought of heat now, he recalled the inferno that had consumed Redemption. The memory was etched onto his retinas.

  When he opened his eyes, Halloran was watching him hungrily. “On the bed,” was all he said, but the fact that he said it at all distracted Asher from the horrific reel playing inside his skull.

  He tipped his head back with a sneer. “Make me.”

  Halloran growled low and brushed his mouth to Asher’s throat, grazing his skin with f
lat, human teeth. “You don’t want to play games with me, boy.”

  Maybe he didn’t. Maybe Halloran was right.

  Asher made himself insensible to the maddening scrape of Halloran’s scruff against his collarbone and knotted a hand in his short, ginger hair. Halloran must not have expected that. He raised his head at the slightest tug.

  He flinched when Asher’s palm connected with his cheek.

  “I said make me.”

  The metal plate in the center of Asher’s palm left a red imprint on Halloran’s skin. It faded much too quickly to be satisfying.

  Mercifully, wounded pride wasn’t as easily mended.

  Halloran yanked him by the shoulders and slammed him into the bed before Asher could as much as gasp. His breaths were arrested a beat later, Halloran’s mouth hard and vicious upon his. Now, his fangs came out. Now he understood what Asher needed.

  There might have been a time when whispered direction and timid caresses could distract from the war being waged inside him. But Halloran hadn’t known him then and for all his unnatural gifts and herculean strength, not even he could turn back the clock.

  Asher’s cock slapped against his belly once his pants came off, leaving him bare and wanton, and utterly deprived of friction. He groaned in protest, but Halloran’s kiss put an end to that soon enough. They were a mess—Halloran with burns and scars from a lifetime ago, Asher with the gears grinding in his joints and the metal warming fast between his flesh and Halloran’s—but there was no one to see. If the squeaking of bed springs traveled through the cracks in the door, then it went unacknowledged.

  Before Asher could brace himself against it, Halloran turned him to his stomach and pinned him there with a heavy arm across his shoulder blades. The message was clear. Stay still. Behave.

  Asher dug his palms into the sheets and bucked like a wild horse.

  In the heat of the moment, Halloran must not have been ready for that show of defiance. He nearly lost his grip, dropping onto Asher. Control was such a precious thing for vampires. It fueled something greedy and not altogether nice in Asher to know that he could shake Halloran’s.

  “That the best you got?” he choked, the taunt partly muffled by the sheets.

  “You insolent little tramp,” Halloran growled. Tension thrummed in his voice and translated into a harsh roll of hips against Asher’s backside, nestling his stiff cock into the cleft. “Is this what you want? You want me to treat you like a whore?”

  Air fled Asher’s lungs on a startled gasp.

  But Halloran was on a roll. “Ain’t so tough now, are you? Bet you’re wishing you never started down this path. You’d deserve it, running your mouth like you’re a big man.” Curling a hand into Asher’s hair, Halloran yanked his head back hard. “You belong to me. Say it.”

  Asher wheezed. He was flying dangerously close to the edge of sanity, no longer able to discern punishment from reward. He blamed his muddled psyche when he rocked back into the insistent curve of Halloran’s cock and gritted out, “Fuck you.”

  It wasn’t what Halloran wanted to hear. The hand in his hair turned vicious. Halloran slammed his face into the bedding hard enough that breathing briefly became a challenge. Asher’s lungs burned, blood pounding in his eardrums with a mixture of adrenaline and anticipation. He could feel consciousness beginning to ebb from his grasp before he was allowed to turn his head and inhale. Relief flooded his chest, albeit curtailed by the none-too-gentle press of fingers into his mouth.

  He sucked them instinctively, every cell in his body rousing to the taste of blood and whiskey, and almost regretted it when Halloran wrenched free. It wasn’t a long separation. Asher clenched up, heat racing his face. His own touch had only ever been gentle, exploratory. He’d never been breached by anyone else’s hand before. He’d certainly never been with a man like this.

  The few times he’d conjured the experience during his furtive strokes under the covers at night, he had imagined someone gentle, coaxing him to relax with tender words and soft hands.

  Halloran was nothing of the sort. He groaned into Asher’s ear as he entered him, first with one finger, then with both, heedless of any resistance.

  Tears sprang to Asher’s eyes. “Fuck. Fuck.” The bed sheets would surely rip if he clutched them any tighter.

  “Tell me to stop,” Halloran rasped, his breath stirring the hairs on Asher’s nape.

  Asher’s mind was well and truly gone if he still thought Halloran sounded lucid in that moment.

  “Too much,” he bit out, “too much of a milksop to see it through, are ya? Fucking figures…”

  By way of answer, Halloran simply curled his fingers inside him with a brutal twist.

  The burn of penetration morphed sharply into the kind of pleasure that would’ve made Asher’s knees buckle if he were standing. Prone on the bed, it only dragged a mortifying sound out of his throat, every muscle tightening.

  “Say that again,” Halloran challenged.

  Asher could barely recall his own name, never mind what nonsense left his lips. What was that? It felt as if Halloran had reached deep into him and screwed some broken part back into alignment, as if Asher was maybe always supposed to know this sensation but born too defective to discover it on his own. He recalled the spirit of the taunt before he could recall the words.

  “Coward. You’re a fucking—ah!”

  Halloran’s voice caressed his ear. “Again.”

  “God-goddamn weasel,” Asher forced out through chattering teeth.

  Sweat beaded on his upper lip and slicked down the arch of his back, stinging the barely healed sutures. His cock was hard enough to burst, but attempts to rut against the bed were arrested when Halloran shifted his weight, kicking his knees apart. Asher splayed them wide. He would’ve done anything in that moment—anything except beg. He was still present enough to swear to that.

  A sudden shift left him bereft. It took every last shred of dignity Asher had left to keep from crying out. The emotional uppercut flared with fresh agony when Halloran aligned them and, without warning, pressed inside. He wasn’t cruel about it, but wasn’t kind, either. His spit-slicked length stretched Asher to the point where all other sensation faded.

  Asher must have been slightly delirious for thinking he began and ended with the ballast of Halloran’s weight bearing him into the bed, his hands around Asher’s not-entirely-human wrists. His slow thrusts, when he started to move.

  “You’re mine,” Halloran breathed in his ear. “You’ve always been mine. Took me a while to find you, but you were waitin’, weren’t you? Good boy. That’s it. Let it happen now. Let it come…”

  It was like being ripped apart and simultaneously put back together, a heady mix of pain and pleasure Asher was too far gone to spurn. He wriggled his hands in Halloran’s grip, but his meaning must’ve gotten lost because Halloran only held on tighter, the joints aching in his grasp. Asher extended a trembling thumb over the few inches of space between his immobilized hands to caress Halloran’s knuckle. He’d given up on trying to resist. The fight had left him, subsumed by Halloran’s depravity.

  He was helpless against his climax. Halloran had made sure of that. As it began cresting and ebbing through his body, Asher had to squeeze his eyes shut. He wasn’t responsible for the moans yanked out of his throat.

  He couldn’t have kept his pleas to himself if he’d tried.

  With another handful of thrusts, Halloran shuddered against him and followed suit, almost silent in his release.

  “Can you…?” Asher murmured, turning his head. His hands were still immobilized in the unyielding clutch of Halloran’s grip.

  “Hmm? Ah, of course.” Halloran went as far as to curl a hand around Asher’s hip and separate them. He was gentle about it, a stark contrast to the past few minutes. He stilled at Asher’s wince as he rolled over. “I hurt you.” His tone was subdued but not surprised.

  “Yeah.” No use denying it. Vampire senses could pick up on Asher’s pulse beats, his sli
ghtest twitch of discomfort. A lie would leave him exposed before Halloran’s keen gaze as both dumb and deceitful. Asher cracked an eye open. “Thanks.”

  Fighting the lure of exhaustion would have been worth it just for a glimpse at Halloran’s bemusement.

  “I can do something about the pain,” Halloran said and dropped his fangs.

  The inside of his wrist was no more fragile than the rest of him. Asher seized his forearm before Halloran could sink his teeth into it. “Don’t.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t take this from me. I earned it.”

  They locked gazes, neither of them moving to press the other. Then Halloran let him tug his arm down. His canines disappeared behind his lips. As seconds passed, he began to settle. The tension in his shoulders waned.

  Worn out, Asher put his back to the vampire in his bed and closed his eyes. He was halfway to sleep when he heard Halloran’s whisper.

  “Why won’t you say it?”

  Asher sighed languidly. “You haven’t earned it… Not yet.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Over the ticking of clocks and the faint jangle of the wind-powered mechanisms that had caught the draft, Nyle’s voice trickled into the shop like smoke.

  “I’ll be damned if it wasn’t mighty kind of the big bug, letting you come back…”

  Asher looked up from the pocket watch he’d been striving to reassemble for the past four hours. The gaslight reflecting off the metal on his hands had begun to sting his eyes anyway. “You need something?”

  The shop had never been this quiet when Uncle Howard had manned it. Even the poorest of the poor liked to drop in to gawp at the strange devices that crammed the shelves, blossoming day after day and night after night from the mind of a single, brilliant man. Many of Uncle Howard’s gadgets remained, forever unfinished, though a good number had been trampled underfoot in the raid that had seen Asher’s life turned upside down.

  It was strange to be back here. Harrowing too. Asher dismissed Nyle’s conclusion. Kindness had nothing to do with it. Ambrose had offered Uncle Howard empty promises in exchange for a lifetime of service. If Asher walked the streets of Sargasso free, it was because the mayor still thought there was a vein worth tapping in the Franklin family.