Breathing heavy, we separate, cum dripping from his hole. The sight’s a powerful one. To have claimed that piece of him with unspoken permission, with trust. I swallow an emotional lump in my throat and pull up my pants, but don’t close them. Switch turns around, and I crowd him. Hands on either side of his bruised face, I draw my man in for a soft kiss. The unique connection we share flows between our lips. No words are spoken. They’re not important.
Together we clean up with paper towels and water from the sink. I’m careful as I wash myself from his hole, our eyes locking through the mirror above the sink as I do. He smiles. I do the same.
This is the person meant for me. Man, woman, makes no fucking difference. That heart is mine. That face, body, and dick, also mine. I would not only kill for it. I’d die to protect it.
A final look passes between us as we prepare to do what needs done. I draw a single finger down his arm. Switch does the same to mine, on the burned side. “I’m gonna keep you forever,” I vow.
Switch’s faint smile and flushed cheeks says all I need.
He knows.
12
SWITCH
It’s impossible. I can’t quit watching Burn. His butterscotch gaze focuses on his brothers as they talk. Finding something funny, he smiles the lopsided way he always does. His black goatee needs a trim as random stray hairs hang over his top lip. Smile broadening, he scratches his chin, eyes crinkling at the edges.
Now dressed in gym clothes, I sit on the bench beside Burn in the locker room, his hand on my thigh. Raff and Nose chill across from us, flanking either side of a conscious Andre. We had sex. I had… sex. Apart from moving here, it was the best moment of my life. I clench my hole and feel him linger in the ache.
I had sex.
Damn.
I still can’t believe it happened.
Wearing jeans, boots, his cut, and black shirt, Burn squeezes my knee first before he pushes for more information. “How long ago did Remy initiate you into his world?”
Hunched forward, Andre rests both elbows on the top of his thighs. “I got my brand… Four years ago, I think.” Deep in thought, he shrugs the shoulder I didn’t fuck up. “Only lived one as a sex slave. The rest as a fighter.”
Lucky. Wish I could say the same.
The Royal Bastards VP furthers the interrogation. “So, they don’t use you as a toy anymore?”
“They do. Just not the same way.” Andre inclines his head in my direction. “When’d you get branded? You fight your way out?” He sounds hopeful as if looking forward to the freedom I now have.
If only it were that easy. Fighting, yes. I did a lot of that. Out, not even close.
Not liking the attention directed at me, Burn stiffens. The heel of his boot scrapes across the floor as he adjusts on the bench. Widening his legs, he leans forward to get closer to Andre. “Switch doesn’t talk to anyone ‘cept me,” he hisses in a way that threatens violence if Andre doesn’t toe the line. I don’t need him to speak for me. We know I can handle my own. But Burn’s a possessive man, protective, too. Can’t say it’s a problem when he steps in to handle business where I’m concerned. It makes me feel loved… cared for. Coming from somebody who’s never been valued, I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Nor am I fond of communicating with anyone besides him. Most of the brothers still don’t know how to handle my muteness. Half of them talk loudly as if I’m deaf or dumb.
Accepting his place, Andre nods in submission. “Oh. Right. Sure.”
Raff pats the man on the back in a silent, damn-good-response praise. We all know what’ll happen if Burn doesn’t want the guy here. They’ll take him out back and finish what I started in the ring. There won’t be negotiations. What the VP says, goes.
“And… No. Switch didn’t fight his way out,” Burn answers belatedly.
“Hmm.” Andre strokes his bruised chin. “Remy doesn’t just let people go. Said if I gave him five good years in the ring, he’d bump me to upper management.”
They’d what?
Burn scoffs. “You wanna be upper management?”
My thoughts exactly. I’d rather die in the basement I lived in for years, then turn into one of Remy’s cronies.
I frown, disgusted.
Andre reads my expression and claims it as his own. “No. I don’t want any part of this shit. I fight ‘cause if I don’t, they’ll send me to the hardcore clubs.”
Makes sense… Still, I’d rather die.
“Hardcore clubs?” the former white supremacist asks, looking to Andre, then to Burn as if he’d never heard of such a thing before. Must be nice living as a Royal Bastard for as long as he has. The outside world kinda falls away in the mountains. The life you led before becomes a figment of your imagination. Here you reshape your existence without the pressure to be something you’re not. You fight. You fuck. You live free. It doesn’t get any simpler.
“Yeah.” Andre rotates to focus on Nose. Their legs touch, but neither pull away. “Only been in one once, as a guest of Remy’s. Scare tactic, to make me fall in line. They got basements in all the major cities for men like me.”
Jaw set tight, Nose looks as if he’s about to commit murder. “Men like you?” he growls as Burn chuckles low. I rest my hand on his knee, careful not to move much. My ribs are killing me. The rest of the pain, no sweat. Trying to inhale with fractured ribs, not fun. Every breath is fucking agony.
Andre continues to fill in the truths. Better him than me. “Adults. Mostly felons and those livin’ on the streets. His officers talk a good game. Makin’ promises that if you do what they want, they’ll take care of you.”
“But they don’t,” Burn explains, only Nose and Andre are too engrossed in their exchange to hear the VP.
“For some, it’s better than bein’ on the streets. You get food and shelter if you give up your ass for them… Switch looks like he spent time in one of Remy’s clubs,” Andre says.
“Why’d you say that?” Comes from a too curious Raff.
“The scars.”
Lips mashed together, I shake my head as everyone’s eyes turn to me for clarification. Not from a club. Not up for discussion, either. My past. My business. Those clubs, I’ve heard of them. Places to tie men up, fuck them, and beat them into submission. Not much different than the way I lived. Only they work specific hours and are of age. Not forced into the life as a child. When you peddle sex like Master, there’s not a pot you won’t dip your hand inside. Money is money. Power is power. Sex is sex. How it’s consumed means little to men in that world. To those with a conscience, having sex with a ten-year-old is vile. To his cronies, ten, or sixteen, or even twenty, all work the same. They don’t see age. They see pleasure, dollar signs, and power.
As Nose and Andre carry on, I tune them out. I don’t need to relive the suffering of others when I got away from that world. The memory of his fingers digging into my hips from behind makes my skin crawl. His filthy promises whispered in my ear… No. Not going there.
Fuck him.
Somehow reading me as he always does, Burn yanks me from the depths of my past and into the present with a kiss to the side of my head.
“You ready for vengeance, babe?”
Yes, please.
I nod.
Primed for action, Burn winks. “I gotta shoot off a text to Bonez first. Let him know what’s doin’. Then we’re gonna have some fun.”
Vengeance.
Fun.
Men in suits.
Andre.
Blood.
Checking the cuts across my knuckles, I flex them as Burn does the phone thing.
I dunno why the world works the way it does. Why I lived as I did. Why things happened as they do. They say when one door closes, another door opens. They say karma can be a nasty bitch.
Until today, I didn’t even think karma existed.
Then I fought.
Won.
And fucked.
Now, I’m gonna kill with pleasure.
The demon will get
fed.
Bloodthirst slaked.
The door to my past will be closed forever.
I look up and catch Andre looking at me. I look right back.
“Kill?” He hooks a menacing smile.
I nod.
Yes.
Kill.
13
BURN
Leading the charge through the side door of the barn, a spotlight on the upper corner illuminates two armed Royal Bastards flanking the entrance. They tip their heads in respect as I place a hand in the middle of Switch’s back and guide him into the pit of fun. This is where we take our captives. The floor inside is concrete, the walls metal. It’s empty, save for a couple random chairs and rollaway toolbox. Easy cleanup, easy disposal.
In the middle of the room, it looks like my brothers did as they were told. Get them drunk is code for prep ‘em. Beast doesn’t half-ass shit. Seven pedophiles rest on their knees in fancy dress pants, chests bare. Their arms are rope tied behind their backs. Their ankles zip-tied together in a human chain to prevent anyone from getting free.
My club brothers line the walls in well-practiced intervals. Even Tank’s present in the corner, a Bowie knife in hand—his usual station.
Raff and Nose flank us, with Andre sandwiched between limping on his bad leg. Head held high, Switch doesn’t hesitate to approach the same bastards who used him. No fear lingers in his step. No weakness shows as his muscular form stops inches from the sickos. Giving him space to let loose as he sees fit, I stay within a yard or two of my man for moral support. He’s got this. I’m not worried.
Pushing Andre forward, Raff and Nose urge the fighter to join my man in the face-off. This isn’t our beef. It’s theirs. All of us here know what it’s like to be fucked with. Our physical damage spins a tale of our pasts, some of which never got righted. I’d hoped I’d get a chance like this, to give Switch a moment in the sun and rain hell upon those who robbed him of a normal-ish life. Seems fate had the same idea.
Supported by his good foot, Andre spits on the first man in line. Drops of saliva mat his eyelashes as he tries to blink it away. Not satisfied, the fighter snarls and does it again before he blasts a string of expletives at the fucker.
I curb a smile at the show, saving it for later when the real fun begins.
Arms down at his sides, tension radiates through Switch as he stares at them all. It doesn’t take a genius to know his thoughts are churning. To kill or not to kill. Who to hurt first and how to do it. A bullet to the temple is a swift death. Far too good for men wimpy enough to beg for mercy through cotton gags. Not all of them, but more than half. Pussies. Undeserving fucking pussies.
Their gaze upon Switch for even a second dials my internal rage up to the max. They’re not allowed to look at him. They don’t deserve to see what’s mine. They don’t deserve to breathe the same air. They had his body. They did their damage. I have his heart.
Motherfucking pieces of shit.
To prove a point, I pull the small knife from my boot and approach the fat, bald pedophile begging Switch to let him go. Not with words. With his shit-brown eyes. He’s trying to guilt-trip him. Make him feel bad. And for what? Surviving? For being the amazing man he is?
No.
He doesn’t get to beg. He doesn’t get to see anything anymore.
Gripping the back of the man’s head, I slam my knife into his eyeball.
Baldy shrieks like a bitch and yanks on his restraints, unable to go anywhere. “You don’t get to look at him,” I hiss as I jerk the knife from his socket and do the same to the next. “He’s mine. Do you hear me, motherfuckers?” Not even close to done, I point to the douche next to baldy with the tip of my bloodied weapon. He whimpers, piss saturating the front of his pants. “You look at him, I will do the same to you.”
Knowing not to test me, his eyes squeeze shut, a tear leaking from the corner.
Smart man.
The rest fall in line as they too don’t wanna lose more than their dignity.
Standing behind Andre for backup, Raff chuckles quietly to himself, holding his stomach as if this is somehow funny. I fail to understand why as I wipe the ick onto my pant leg and flip the fucker off. His laughter grows, and before I know it, Nose and the rest of the brothers join in.
Hardy har har har. Real funny, assholes.
Unamused, I turn to Switch. He too is smiling my way, puffy cartoon hearts shooting from his green beauts.
Whatever.
They can smile or laugh or… who cares.
To make it clear to the brotherhood, in case they haven’t gotten the memo, I point my blade at Switch. “Mine,” I declare.
‘Yours,’ he mouths, trying to tame his smile and failing.
Goddamn love. See what it does to us? Makes me go soft and shit.
Needing him not feet, but inches from me, I wave him closer. Switch saunters, all sexy and big and turning me on. ‘Cause I can’t help myself, I gesture to my lips with the knife and Switch pecks me right there, without me havin’ to say a damn thing.
“Again,” I rasp.
He complies, eliciting a small, amused chuckle of his own.
“You’re fuckin’ pathetic. Go fuck him again, why don’t ya? We’ll handle the rest,” Raff chimes in, setting off the second chorus of laughter.
“Fuck you, asshole,” I snarl.
Checking to see if Switch is as turned on by this as I am, I grip his dick over the gray joggers he’s wearing.
Semi. Not too shabby.
Raff keeps his bullshit up. “And here we all thought you were a monk, VP.”
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Monk, my ass.
Rolling my eyes, I stroke my man for half a beat before getting back to business. Anger makes me horny. Hell, Switch makes me wanna lock him in the bedroom for days just to watch him come over and over again.
This is some sick, obsessive crap. I know it. You know it. Ask me if I can stop? I can’t. Nor do I want to.
The now blind douchebag sobs obnoxiously as I give Switch space to have fun once more. Keeping my hands to myself may be an issue, but one I’ll tame for his sake.
SWITCH
The demon pounds his scaly chest, roaring inside his iron cage. Blood-red eyes glow in the darkness surrounding him as I fight to remain in control.
“Kill. Kill. Kill,” his demonic voice chants in my skull to the thud of my heartbeat.
Thousands of invisible fingers brush over my skin. The crack of whips ring in my ears as I watch the eyeless man writhe in pain, his screams growing in intensity, every inflection grating on my nerves. I try to tune him out as I’ve done a million times before when others were raped. Their screams echoing through the house far higher than his.
I shake my head to clear such thoughts.
This isn’t real.
Burn’s presence comforts me from his station close by. The scent of his skin lingers beneath the tang of blood, piss, and fear perfuming the air. I crack my neck from side-to-side, shoulders rolling to relieve the tension.
“Kill. Kill. Kill.” The demon grows impatient.
I glance over at Burn.
His good brow hikes in question. “What do you wanna do with ‘em? This is your show. Whatever you want, I’ll see you get.”
Love beyond words floods my chest with heat, making it difficult to draw breath.
‘Whatever you want, I’ll see you get.’
Pleased with our man’s declaration, the demon chuffs in pleasure.
“He takes care of us. He believes in us.”
God, I think I’m going insane.
I grip the sides of my head, needing the voice to stop talking. The scales are there; scratching, scratching, fucking scratching. The flame of his breath sears my insides. He’s close. Too close.
Fog clouds my vision as I fight the darkness.
No.
I will kill on my own terms.
I will claim my own vengeance.
Hating me, hating rational thought and the world, the demon charges the
locked gate with its enormous form—iron creaks in protest. My abs tighten, ready for the next blow. He doesn’t make me wait long. On a bloodcurdling roar, he barrels through all in his path. Like the eye of a hurricane, he drags me along for the ride.
Wetness splashes my face.
The taste of blood on my lips.
Screams erupt.
Resistance caves under soft flesh.
Someone cries.
Cheers unite.
A torrent of sweat pours down my cheeks.
Something hard and round slaps into my palm. I close my fist around it, unseeing, as the demon cackles in delight.
BURN
Kneeling over the body of what used to be a man, it accepts my knife as his own. Shaking, high on pure adrenaline, Switch’s knuckles weep blood. Pleased with the carnage, his inner darkness sinks my blade into the pedo’s gut and sends him straight to hell.
Five down, two to go.
The ground’s bathed in gore as the entire brotherhood watches a once broken man reclaim his freedom. It’s goddamn beautiful is what it is. To see him let go and handle business. Proud doesn’t begin to cover how I feel.
Too exhausted to stand, Andre sits on a chair nearby as Raff aids Switch. Dragging another corpse to the side, he gives my man room to feed. And boy does he feed.
Now freed from shackles to give Switch something to play with, the youngest of the group tries to scurry away on his hands and knees. Slipping in the blood of his comrades the pussy doesn’t get far, when Switch lumbers over, looking bigger than I’ve ever seen him before, and dropkicks the cunt right in the face. Teeth go flying, dropping like white pebbles on the floor. Cheekbones crack on impact.
I grow harder. If that’s even possible at this point.
My phone rings amidst the show. I’m reluctant to answer but do anyhow, in case it’s important.
“Burn, this had better be good.”
The asshole on the line chuckles. “Yeah, this is Big Dick, the national president of the Sacred Sinners. I’m sure you’ve heard of us before.”
Switch & Burn (Royal Bastards MC : Idaho Springs Chapter) Page 11