Four Mercenaries - The Complete Collection

by K. A. Merikan

  Apollo kept talking over the music. “Didn’t take my people long to figure out who you are. To think that I imagined some intricate plot when all this attack had been was petty revenge. Too bad for you that you got wrapped up with the albino, because I will not forgive my sister’s murder. You’re too old for Mr. Arnie, but maybe he’d do me a favor. I can imagine he’d enjoy reconnecting with you on some level, regardless.”

  The music came to an abrupt stop, leaving Drake’s frantic breathing to echo loudly on the empty walls. “That’s right. I was the one to do it. It was my fault. Clover happened to cross my path. If you leave him be, I’ll stay,” he said, and his warm hand brushed against Clover’s thigh.

  Clover sobbed, hating every second of Drake’s pain.

  Apollo took a breath so loud the speaker crackled. “I wouldn’t honor my sister’s memory if I let her last specimen go. And it was him who brought you to her, so it’s only fair both of you stay with me. I will keep you for a long time, but don’t worry, it won’t last forever. Everyone has an end.”

  Drake squeezed Clover’s thigh, but nothing was left to be said. They were trapped and had no leverage. This horrible night was only a prelude to something so much worse, and neither of them knew how to stop the tide Apollo would unleash on them.

  Clover wished he could hold Drake’s hand, but he was too afraid to make any suggestions in case they were used against them.

  “How about a performance, Little Vampire? If you do well, I might even consider not throwing him to my men,” Apollo said, and Clover stared at the masked faces, at the anonymous people watching the prolonged torture from behind expressionless white features. He would have sworn he even heard an excited murmur.

  Drake was panting when he rose and approached the glass with shaky steps. The mark on his shoulder blade, the A in the middle of a double circle looked like it was still burning, still hurting him even so long after it had been permanently etched into his skin.

  “Fine,” he said in a dull voice and rested his hands against the window. “I want him patched up.”

  Clover sobbed again, somehow still finding it hard to believe that he was in this position. That he’d left regular society behind and entered an underworld most people never even thought of.

  He was strapped to a bench in a locked room, bleeding all over from caning, and his boyfriend was negotiating sexual abuse, just to get him medical attention. Even the two dead bodies didn’t bother him anymore. Those men hadn’t deserved to live anyway.

  Apollo hummed with contentment. “Good. Fuck him then.”

  Drake’s breath caught, and he glanced over his shoulder, his forlorn black eyes meting Clover’s. It felt like falling into a well filled with spiders. No matter how many they killed, they’d still be swarmed.

  Clover gasped for air and stretched his fingers, reaching for Drake as much as he could. This would be masturbation fodder for sadistic freaks. His body wasn’t his anymore, but he still preferred Drake to do it than some nameless man who relished in Clover’s pain. The sole thought of being penetrated by a stranger for such hateful reasons made Clover want to curl up into a ball. But he couldn’t even do that, bound to the bench.

  “With what? L-lube?” Drake asked but Apollo laughed into the mic he held up to his lips.

  “You’ll work something out. Now give us a show.”

  Drake turned around and leaned his back against the window, meeting Clover’s gaze. He was so very pale his skin looked gray, but there was no need for words. They both knew what had to be done.

  Clover relaxed now that he knew what was to happen. Drake wouldn’t hurt him. He would never, not if he could help it. Clover was in pain because of the open wounds on his body, but Drake would do his best not to agitate those.

  Clover still felt shame at the way his legs were spread for an audience, but maybe with time, pain could dull unnecessary feelings. After long enough in Apollo’s hands, he’d soon forget what shame was.

  He let his head drop, and his wet hair covered his face. For the people watching, he was just a novelty, a body. All they cared about was the torment he was being put through, and they reveled in seeing Drake so reluctant.

  Drake stopped next to him, and the way his fingers slid into Clover’s hair was immediately recognizable. He leaned in, and Clover couldn’t even begin to describe the comfort of feeling his warm breath on his cheek.

  “Just… don’t look at them. Pretend we’re alone. Okay?” Drake whispered in the smallest voice. As if Apollo had beaten him down already.

  The tenderness agitated something in Clover, and he broke into a violent sob that wouldn’t stop assaulting his whole body. He could pretend all he wanted, but life would never be the same. He’d fucked up so bad. Didn’t even know where Boar was, and now he’d be subjugated by the only use those people could have for him. Even when he’d been homeless, or lived with Jerry, he’d managed to hold on to his sexuality and use it how he wanted to.

  That would be taken away from him tonight.

  Worse yet, Drake’s love for him was being used against them both, their intimacy taken away and turned into a spectacle.

  Drake took a deep breath and slid his arms around Clover, pulling him into a brief hug. “I’m sorry. It’ll be over soon,” he whispered before pulling away.

  Clover had never felt so alone before, and the sound of Drake’s zipper opening behind him didn’t send shivers of excitement to his balls for once. He was scared. And revolted. He wanted to turn back time.

  But that wouldn’t happen, so he shut his eyes, hidden behind the curtain of hair as Drake’s saliva-covered finger dove between his buttocks. He would have thrown up if he’d eaten anything, but with the nausea came something else. He already mourned the ease with which he’d jumped into sex with not one but four men.

  He’d been their ball of easy-going happiness, always up for it, eager to have sex and enjoy their bodies as well as their company. Who would he become if he didn’t look forward to Drake’s touch anymore?

  The preparation with saliva was all Drake could do for him, yet a part of Clover wanted to get on with it and have Drake fuck him already so that it could all be over. They were just two bodies. They would get through it.

  Their love could survive anything, even something that struck so close to the core of what they were to one another. Drake took too long, but while Clover did physically relax around his three fingers, the sound of masturbation coming from behind him added edges to every single sensation. Of course Drake couldn’t get it up as easily as always, which only prolonged this torture. When the damp cockhead met Clover’s hole, he was both relieved and disgusted. He wanted to get this over with. And then? He didn’t want to ever see another person again, and just sink into the hole of his own misery.

  Because of the gaping, bleeding wounds on his back, ass, and thighs, Drake couldn’t even hug him, instead settling on touch here and there as he bowed over him. The cock didn’t even feel like Drake’s, but like an alien thing existing only to humiliate Clover.

  “I can’t lose you to Arnie,” Drake whispered, leaning forward enough for his hair to tickle Clover’s back. “The man is a monster. I can’t have you anywhere near him.” Drake choked up. “I just can’t.”

  Clover tried to tune into the gentle way Drake ran his fingers over healthy skin while detaching from the thrusts into his body. Closing his eyes helped ever so slightly, as did Drake’s soothing voice and the saliva he kept adding for lubrication. They didn’t change what was happening, though. This was now the hell Clover lived in, and with each thrust, the box his real self hid inside became smaller, buried deeper in his head, away from Apollo, away from Mr. Arnie, away even from Drake.

  Hands squeezed his forearms, his ass burned when the jabs became harder, but Drake came at last. This time, Clover wasn’t ready to beg for his man’s mouth though, didn’t relish in the heat inside him, nor did he long for intimacy. In fact, the moment Drake pulled away was the moment he felt true relief.r />
  And he hated it, hated himself, hated Apollo, and hated that he didn’t even know where Boar was.

  “Happy?” Drake rasped between one gasp and another.

  Clover didn’t want to open his eyes, because one of the goons lay dead all too close, and he’d have to meet his gaze.

  “Indeed, a fine performance. Glad to see you so compliant, Drake. Maybe you will manage to restrain yourself from killing any more of my men. Go stand in the corner,” Apollo ordered.

  “No,” Drake snapped, but Apollo removed his mask and looked straight at them, his eyes hard.

  “Don’t try my patience.”

  Clover could sense Drake’s hesitation, but whatever happened next, he could take it. He just didn’t want Drake to participate in any of it. “Please, Drake, do it.”

  Drake said nothing and retreated somewhere Clover couldn’t see him. The door opened with a low clang as soon as he stilled, and Clover found himself flinching despite his earlier thoughts. Would Apollo be the one to abuse him next? Break his promise to Drake and offer Clover to someone else while making Drake watch? He held all the cards and had no reason to keep his word.

  Clover dared look up to at least see the approaching danger. Drake stood in the corner with his fists clenched, his face like a mask drained of any feeling. A man in black stood several footsteps away from him, an assault rifle pointed straight at Drake’s chest, pinning him to the wall with the wordless threat.

  Was Clover sensing smoke or was his brain fucking with him?

  Two of the guards pointed guns at them, but a third entered holding an elongated tool with a black handle. A taser?

  No. The tip glowed.

  Drake’s facade cracked the moment he noticed it too, and he uttered a broken sound. “Come on, please, don’t…”

  Clover didn’t miss the way his eyes darted to all corners of the room, assessing, planning, but the fire burning in Drake’s black gaze died when Clover felt steel against his head.

  There was no escape.

  He realized what was happening when it was far too late. Someone pressed the electric branding iron to his shoulder blade, and the world went aflame with both pain and his screams.

  When he sank his face into the leather of the bench, talk of this location not being secure came as if from behind a wall.

  Merciless hands pulled Clover off the bench, and when he was forced to walk out, no one cared when he tripped and fell over several times.

  So he wouldn’t die here. His agony would last for an eternity.

  Chapter 13 – Drake

  Blood dripped from the wounds on Clover’s back, its rivulets gravitating to the laminate floor as the boy struggled to keep up with the two men dragging him along the corridor. He tried to walk on his own but kept stumbling over his feet, battered flesh constantly tense when movement aggravated the harm already caused.

  It was all Drake’s fault.

  It was his hands that had broken Clover’s skin with a cane, his cock that had raped him, his need for revenge that had put them in this position in the first place. Clover didn’t deserve any of this. It should have been him.

  With his hands cuffed back and a chain between his legs allowing only so much freedom, he didn’t stand a chance against the five men escorting them from the torture arena. Were he on his own, maybe he’d have risked it, since choice would then have been between the freedom of a quick death and days of torture, but if he as much as tried to struggle, one of the men would have gotten to Clover first.

  Though maybe a broken neck or a quick bullet to the head would be preferable to what awaited them both in the future. A future he knew painfully well and had promised to protect Clover from. But now that his will had been castrated, his lover brutalized, and his close friend captured, the truth penetrated Drake’s brain like acid.

  This had never been about Clover’s safety. If it was, he’d have listened to Tank. Waited. Made a solid plan. No, the powerful drive that infected Drake’s mind and compelled him to confront a pack of hyenas with his bare hands was the pure need for revenge. A drug, he’d craved all those years without even knowing, yet finding out it was close, almost within his grasp, crumbled all inhibitions a rational mind should have had.

  It was as if the knowledge of Apollo’s whereabouts had eaten through not only his sense of self-preservation but also the plain old ability to think. Clover had trusted Drake’s judgment, and now he was suffering for it.

  All his senses were on high alert, so he did hear scraps of conversation. Something about their location being compromised. About the need to move. He didn’t even want to dream about this being an opportunity to run. Not with Clover barely walking on his own. Drake had done enough damage. There was no need to plant false hopes in Clover’s battered heart.

  “Take them to B1,” Apollo said before turning into one of the corridors in the endless maze of dark, windowless walls.

  One of the guards answered, but Drake was too focused on the broken skin before him, the hunched shoulders and matted hair.

  Clover would have been better off if Drake hadn’t fallen in love with him.

  His mind jarred when one of their captors opened a nearby door before tossing Clover inside. The flickering light in the room was yet another stab into Drake’s brain. He’d spent too much of his life in windowless rooms with fluorescent lamps that came on just like this. He could already hear Julie Andrews’ voice whispering into his ear.

  He stiffened, surprised to feel the cuffs coming off his hands, but before he could have done anything, a blunt object collided with his kidney, sending him to the floor. Pain was like lightning, reaching all over his body, so the kick meant to shove him past the doorway hardly mattered in comparison.

  “Patch ‘em up. We don’t have time for it,” the guard barked and threw a first aid kit and some rags to the floor next to Drake before slamming the door shut.

  The quick steps that followed were yet another confirmation that their captors were in a hurry.

  Drake squashed hope before it could have set any roots.

  What mattered was reality, not daydreams. And in his reality Clover curled up on the floor next to a tall industrial shelf. His back was marred with bleeding wounds that would become scars if they got to survive in captivity long enough.

  And the brand. He’d been marked like cattle, and Drake knew exactly how much that hurt because his shoulder bore the same symbol.

  This should have never happened. Drake had been meant to protect Clover, but he hand-delivered him to the predator instead.

  The air smelled of bleach, and as Drake dragged himself to his knees, taking in the small space, he instinctively searched for red spots the cleaner might have missed.

  But this wasn’t a cell. The door looked strong, but in an average kind of way, and while he couldn’t see any boxes, crates, or bottles in the empty space, the vacant block of shelves suggested the room was meant for storage, not keeping prisoners. There was no food or water, and nothing that could be used as a toilet, not even a bucket.

  He shuddered when the light above blinked, but forced down the growing sense of panic. He couldn’t save Clover, but he could make things more bearable for him, even if the perspective of meeting his gaze made Drake choke on air.

  So he touched him.

  The boy had followed Drake to the edge of a cliff and jumped blindly when told to do so. Not even Tank trusted Drake that much, and now here Clover was. Broken and punished for his pure intentions.

  Clover flinched, but he didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. The wounds in his flesh did the talking, still open and screaming at Drake.

  Drake should take it like a man, since he’d already acknowledged the role he played in this mess, but the physical rejection stung so much worse than any beating could have. He swallowed around the rock in his throat and glanced at the white bag marked with a red cross. “I… you need those wounds cleaned.”

  Just earlier tonight, in what now felt like someone else's l
ife, Clover had kissed him, loved him, given Drake his body. Now the pale back and thighs were a mess of cuts and bruises, like a physical reminder that the boy wasn’t the same anymore. He would never love Drake after this.

  The sob tearing out of Clover’s throat broke Drake’s heart and threatened to provoke a chain reaction in his own body, but Drake needed to be Clover’s rock now, not break down like a child who’d never seen torture. Drake had been in this hell before, and he could stomach it for Clover’s sake.

  “I’m sorry,” was the only thing that came to his mind as he shifted closer, wishing he could carry Clover’s wounds for him, but what did those thoughts matter when that wasn’t humanly possible?

  “It’s okay,” Clover whispered, his voice raspy from the earlier screaming.

  It wasn’t okay at all. Not in the slightest. The angry red brand on Clover’s skin didn’t belong there. It was like a parasite Drake couldn’t rip off Clover, no matter how much he wanted to.

  Drake swallowed a howl itching to tear out of his chest and pulled on Clover’s arm in an attempt to hug him. He didn’t know if it was for his own sake or Clover’s anymore, but this might be the last time they could experience the touch of someone who didn’t want to chew through them and spit them out.

  But when Clover turned in Drake’s arms like a rag doll, he whimpered in the most broken way. Whenever he got beat down and tired in training, he’d always put on a brave face. That mask was nowhere to be found as their gazes met, and even now, Clover’s eyes betrayed a glimpse of encroaching panic.

  “It hurts,” he uttered.

  It took all of Drake’s inner strength to not break down then and there. He was responsible for all this, and he would help Clover for as long as he could. “I’m sorry. I had to,” he whispered, pushing Clover’s messy hair back to reveal his tear-streaked face.

  He looked like a different person. Drake had seen him crying before, but not like this. Back then, his will had remained solid, but what he saw now was a broken person who didn’t have the strength to hope.

  “I know. I just…” he broke into a sob again. “Are you fine?”