“Oh God.” Was there still time to opt for death? Better that than the wet stain spreading across the front of his new jeans.
Darius’s mouth twitched. “Plenty more where that came from, boy,” he murmured, not unkindly. “Now come here.”
Rhys looked over his shoulder at the door the revenants had splintered earlier. “Someone might—”
“Who cares? You think they won’t know that I fucked you?” Darius crossed his arms over his chest. “I could take you back to the kitchen and do you in front of everyone if you think they won’t.”
“No!” Rhys shook his head violently. His eyes burned again, this time with the agony of humiliation. He wanted to call the whole thing off, but he didn’t want to die and—dear Jesus, please—even after that embarrassingly easy and unfulfilling orgasm, he still felt the pull of arousal tugging at his balls. “No, please.” He lowered his voice lest anyone, particularly Jacob, overhear his unmanly whimper. His hands and knees shook as he approached the altar.
Darius reached down and opened the belt of his fatigues, then the fly, and pushed them and his boxers down his hips. Holy Lord, what was Rhys supposed to do with that thing? The sight of Darius’s thick penis ratcheted up his terror, and suddenly this wasn’t about his fear of God’s wrath or Jacob’s petty torments or the humiliation of having his first time under duress with someone who didn’t really want him. There was no possible way he could ever do anything with . . . that.
Not that he knew exactly what he was supposed to do with it to begin with, beyond some vague ideas. Going into seclusion to escape the plague as a kid meant he’d missed out on a lot of schoolyard talk. His mother’s homeschooling—even the birds and bees for gay boys part—hadn’t quite covered this sort of situation.
“Look at me, boy.” Rhys tore his eyes away from the heavy cock Darius was slowly stroking to full erection and met his severe gaze. “This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. You like men; I’m a pretty damn good-looking man. You could do a lot worse. I won’t be unkind unless you start giving me shit, and I won’t hurt you any more than necessary to get the job done. When it’s all said and done, if this works, you’ll be one of us. You’ll be strong and fast and less easily tired. You’ll be able to kill revs like the ones who murdered your sister in job lots.” Rhys tried to keep his focus on Darius’s eyes, but he couldn’t quite manage to break the half-appalled spell of that rhythmic stroking. “The people I lead, they’re good people, for the most part. Decent. They’ll welcome you as family. You’ll never have some creepy old fucker preaching to you about right or wrong again, trying to make you deny your God-given urges. Now, you can be reluctant, if you want, or you can find the good in it. One way or the other, we’re doing this.”
None of that sounded bad, and Rhys’s horrified soul seized upon it for hope. “What do I need to do?”
“You’ll just suck me off tonight. Chances of passing the virus through giving head aren’t great, but there’s no way I’m doing a virgin who just blew his load up the ass. Problem is, time’s not really on our side here, so we have to get creative. Strip.”
Trembling, agonizingly aware of the wrongness of doing this in the chapel, Rhys peeled the T-shirt over his head. He felt Darius’s eyes upon him, taking in his thin chest. Rhys had worked long hours trying to keep the monastery repaired and growing food in the small courtyard garden inside the gates, and there had never been enough to eat. Compared to Darius’s muscular build—or at least what he assumed was muscle from the firm bulk he’d felt pressed against him when Darius had pinned him to the door earlier—he felt scrawny and ugly.
Darius smiled kindly, as though he understood the root of Rhys’s self-consciousness. His hand had slowed on his cock as though half-forgotten, and he began stroking again when the lack of stimulation—or maybe it was just the sight of Rhys’s skinny body—had the predictable effect. “You’ll have more to eat with us, too. Now the pants.”
Stripping off the cold, wet denim and sticky underwear was humiliating. Even more so was the fact that he was already half-erect again. Darius seemed pleased to see it.
“Well now, you’re a sweet thing, aren’t you?” Rhys didn’t think Darius was asking him. “Cute little ass on you. Bend over the altar.”
“I thought you weren’t going to—”
“No questions.” Darius’s gentle expression quickly became severe. “You do what I tell you when I tell you to do it. I’m helping you here, remember?”
“Right. Sorry.” Rhys felt heat spread upward from his chest as he flushed crimson, and his dick rose a little more. His limbs quaked as he made himself obey, kneeling and bracing his elbows on the altar and trying not to think of God’s—or Father Maurice’s—opinion on his position. The tang of antique pine and waxy varnish filled his nostrils, and the sticky surface of the altar dragged at his fingertips.
“That’s it, boy.” Darius trailed his hand down Rhys’s spine. The contact was electric, tightening everything along its path all the way to Rhys’s belly. “Just give in. Relax and enjoy it. Trust me.”
Despite the instructions, he tensed at the feel of Darius’s hands on his butt, squeezing and kneading. He made a dismayed sound, shrinking from the touch, but Darius didn’t let go. He pushed Rhys’s cheeks apart and teased the tight knot between them with a finger. Rhys groaned in confused longing, getting louder when his erection bumped the altar. He yelped when something warm and wet replaced that careful finger. It wasn’t until he felt the steamy heat of Darius’s breath along his crack that he realized what was happening.
Oh God. With his tongue?
Rhys’s knuckles turned white as they tightened around the ornately carved edge of the altar. He wriggled, trying to escape the stroking—or possibly to greet it. Revulsion mingled with perverse pleasure.
This shouldn’t feel good. It shouldn’t feel— Oh, Jesus, save me.
Darius’s sweeping, slurping tongue began to probe, trying to squirm into Rhys’s opening.
Somewhere along the way, Rhys forgot to be disgusted. As Darius’s firm hands spread his cheeks and his tongue tried to insinuate itself inside him, Rhys began to relax. He moaned softly, getting louder the more energetically Darius licked and prodded. Darius grunted and grumbled against Rhys’s butt, making noises that didn’t sound at all like he wasn’t enjoying himself.
Then his finger replaced his tongue, pushing inside Rhys’s wet, semi-relaxed hole. Rhys cried out, more from surprise than any actual distress. The finger didn’t feel bad, just weird. And getting less weird all the time. It began to stroke in and out, and that definitely didn’t feel bad.
How could he be hard again this soon?
“Just take it, boy.” Darius’s breath brushed Rhys’s back. “Not gonna do any more than this tonight. Just get used to it. In a minute here, I want you to suck me off, just like I said you would. But don’t spit and don’t swallow. Now.”
Darius drew his finger out of Rhys’s twitching hole, and Rhys had to take a moment to shake off the pleasured daze before he could obey. In the time it took him to collect himself and begin to turn, Darius stepped up beside him and that intimidating cock touched his face. He opened his eyes and stared at it, mesmerized by the way the loose sheath of skin rolled under the strokes of Darius’s fist.
“Open your mouth,” Darius demanded. “Suck me.”
Could he even get his mouth around all that?
Salt and sweat and musk touched his tongue an instant after it hit his nostrils. Silky skin over rigid flesh slid between his lips and invaded his mouth. However bizarre the whole situation was, he knew he’d never forget that sensation. Sensory gratification conflicted with his rational mind, which told him this shouldn’t be happening. It was the wrong person, the wrong circumstance, the wrong cock, just plain wrong. But he’d dreamed about it, long ago, with Gabe, wondering how it would taste and feel. Now he knew.
Darius’s groans sounded good. The salty droplet of fluid that touched Rhys’s tongue tasted good. He even smelled good. Warm and rich. He filled Rhys’s senses, quieting all the reasons Rhys shouldn’t be doing this. His jaw began to ache before long, but he managed it with less difficulty than he’d anticipated when he’d seen the cock in question. Darius’s hand pumped up and down the lower portion of his shaft, bumping against Rhys’s lips as they stretched around his dick.
“That’s it, boy. Good. Go ahead, and suck on it. Use that sweet little mouth.”
Rhys flinched and tried to draw away, the words crude and vulgar in his ears, making him ashamed. Darius pulled him back, but he also fell silent for a moment, and Rhys wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.
He tried to suck. He tried to lick and move. He even stopped thinking about Darius’s words and just obeyed. Darius took his hands away, and Rhys began to use his own, stroking where his mouth couldn’t go without making himself gag.
“Give me your hand, boy.” Obeying, Rhys felt his hand drawn inexorably between Darius’s thighs as they shifted apart, and Darius’s fingers closed his own around the fragile, wrinkled lumps of Darius’s balls. They were large and heavy, and felt similar to his own but different, the hair springier and less wiry. Wonder shot through the surreal sense of disbelief that this was honestly happening, that Darius was making Rhys pleasure him.
“Good. Go ahead, and squeeze. Not too hard. Make it feel good.” Darius’s moans grew louder, and his cock grew harder, the head swelling until Rhys’s jaw began to cramp.
“Remember, don’t swallow.” Darius’s hand took over for Rhys again, pumping hard and fast as Rhys sucked. Against his tongue, along the underside of Darius’s cock, something moved, rushing up the length of it. A salty, bitter torrent of Darius’s semen hit his palate a moment later.
Rhys struggled for a moment not to spit it out. It wasn’t just that he had another man’s cum in his mouth—he’d imagined doing that, once upon a time, with Gabriel—but the idea that it was infected. A virus lived in that thick mass sitting on his tongue, the same virus that killed people with the Rot or made them into mindless cannibals.
He tried not to gag, but then Darius bent down, muttering, “Put it in my mouth,” before closing his lips over Rhys’s.
It wasn’t a kiss, and Rhys tried not to think of it as one, though Darius’s hand cupped the back of his head, refusing to let him pull away. Rhys spat the mess into Darius’s mouth and bent over the altar when Darius pushed him forward. Rough hands spread his cheeks again, and Darius’s tongue thrust into him.
Rhys groaned, lost between dismay and arousal, as he realized what Darius was doing. As he forced his semen into Rhys’s rear, his hand wrapped around Rhys’s dick.
Oh God.
It was nothing like the reluctant arousal that had ended in an unsatisfactory rush in his new underwear just minutes earlier. Jesus, no. This was better. The strokes of Darius’s hand made the tension in his balls reach deep into Rhys’s gut, pulling and straining and good, so very, very good. He hadn’t touched himself in years, not since Father Maurice had screamed at him about self-abuse and damnation when he saw stains on the sheets of Rhys’s bed. Not when he and Jacob had frequently barged in on Rhys in the showers, expecting to find him engaged in something sinful. With the pressure of Darius’s hand, though, the impending orgasm became not something to dread, but something to chase, to yearn and strive for.
With just a few strokes, Rhys’s second climax spent itself against the altar. His strangled yell echoed off the stone walls of the chapel.
Trembling and panting, Rhys whimpered and rolled off his knees beside the altar to give them a break from the hard floor. He didn’t dare sit, for fear that what Darius had spat into him would seep back out, so he curled up on his side instead, his eyes closing as he tried to make sense of the world again.
Darius’s breath was only a little labored, and he seemed otherwise calm as he hitched up his fatigues and looked down at Rhys.
“Take your time, boy.”
Rhys couldn’t open his eyes to confront any of the images of the Lord or the apostles around the chapel looking down at him in his blasphemy and shame. He wanted to weep, or he wanted Darius to just touch him, to pet him or hug him or something so that he didn’t feel so horribly alone and confused in the aftermath.
But Darius kept his distance, because this wasn’t like that. They were only here because they had to be. Which made something that should have been intimate and amazing into something completely perverse and demeaning.
“You all right?”
At length, Rhys gathered his dignity and pushed himself up from the floor. He reached for his clothing, grimacing at the state of his jeans and underwear. He didn’t let himself look at the mess dripping down the side of the altar as he pulled his shirt on, feeling the bottom hem of it brush his bare thighs and spent cock. “Yeah.”
Darius leaned casually on the altar again, apparently unaware of Rhys’s struggles to make sense of his own clothing. “Keep that in as long as you can. Soon I’m gonna get you a butt plug that you’ll wear at night. It’ll keep the jizz inside your ass and help you get used to relaxing and letting something in there. We’re gonna work on that in the morning. Maybe sooner if I wake up with a hard-on. A Jug’s got stamina all the time, not just in combat. That’s good news for keeping you alive, but you can expect to get a workout.”
Rhys nodded, trying and failing to envision what exactly a butt plug was. His knees were weak, and he still felt wrung out by the force of his orgasm and wretchedly intrigued by the whole perverted scheme.
God help him, he wanted to do it again, and for reasons that had nothing to do with survival.
“Which room’s yours?”
Rhys braced himself to pull on his sticky briefs. “Upstairs.”
Darius snatched them from his hands with a grimace of distaste. “Don’t be nasty, boy. You ain’t got nothing I’m not gonna see again. Might as well get used to it. You can wash these and hang them up in the bathroom to dry overnight, and you’ve got a change of clothes if they’re still damp when you wake up.”
“But what about . . .?” He looked at the door, unsure where the rest of Darius’s team was now.
“They’re probably all hitting their bunks by now. If they’re not, well, you don’t have anything they ain’t seen, either. No questions. Just go.”
As they made it through most of the monastery without encountering anyone, Rhys relaxed, but just before he reached his room, Jacob stepped out of a bedroom that wasn’t his. He opened his mouth to say something—no doubt scathing—but then he saw Darius come up behind Rhys.
His eyes traveled up and down Rhys’s half-nude body and hardened, his expression twisting.
“There a problem?” Darius’s hand landed on Rhys’s shoulder. The gesture felt almost . . . protective.
“No.” Jacob forced a smile. “I just wanted to thank you for giving me—giving us both, of course—a chance to live.”
“Well, don’t make sense to waste lives if we can save ’em.” Darius shrugged as if he hadn’t argued against the idea. “If you want to help us fight revs, you’re welcome on the team.”
Rhys stared at Jacob in disbelief. “You—you took the offer? You?”
Jacob, who had echoed all Father Maurice’s condemnations of Rhys. Jacob, who had helped Father Maurice torment and punish Rhys for infractions real and trumped-up. Jacob, who had assured Rhys that he was going to hell for being a faggot and that Jacob would be happy to help him on his way there.
Why had he accepted? Who had attempted to infect him?
“Well, maybe you’ll have better luck murdering me next time.” Jacob managed a tragic look and let them pass. Rhys glanced over his shoulder, at least a little satisfied to see Jacob walking with an uncomfortable-looking gait.
Darius followed Rhys to his room, and by the time Rhys returned from washing his clothing in the bathroom, he’d moved a mattress from one of the narrow beds in another of the monks’ empty chambers into Rhys’s room. There was barely enough space for both of them.
Rhys gave the suddenly even more cramped quarters a dubious look, prompting Darius to explain. “You’re staying where I can keep an eye on you and where you’re available when I want you. The next few weeks, that’s your first job. Be ready anytime, and don’t give any lip.”
Dear Lord, was his cock actually twitching to life again? Rhys ducked his head and dug into his backpack, hoping Darius wouldn’t notice.
He hesitated, though, once he had the fresh pair of underwear in hand, looking at Darius for permission.
Darius shook his head. “You’ll just be taking ’em off in the morning. Go to bed.”
Blushing miserably, Rhys climbed into his bed, rolling to face the wall. The crack of his butt felt strangely slippery, and he tried not to think about it. He lay there listening to Darius settle in, wishing the man would say something encouraging.
Finally, the murmur came in the dark, awkward and sounding a bit forced. “You did good tonight, Rhys. You’ll be okay.”
As comfort went it was lacking, but at least it was something. At least it gave him an indication that Darius hadn’t dismissed him entirely from his thoughts.
A reddish glow flickered against the wall, and Rhys realized it was the still-glowing embers from the fires they’d built to burn the bodies. That inevitably led to thoughts of his sister and nephew, which really weren’t any better.
Grief and confusion, humiliation, torment, and fear of the future all joined forces to overwhelm him.
Hoping desperately that Darius was asleep, he finally let himself cry.