Serum – Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Smiling at the shopkeeper’s horrified look, Riki repeated the address he wanted the packaged delivered to as he scribbled a note on a stiff piece of paper.

Lilly looked over his shoulder and laughed at his message. “Love from Ceres. Wear it and I’ll be your slave for a day?”

Grinning, Riki folded the note and taped it to the brown wrapping. “Nice, right?” he said.

“Do you think Sir Iason would wear it?” Jade asked.

Riki snickered at Jade’s innocent question. “He’ll wear it,” he said. Iason would never back down from a challenge issued from him, and not with the promise of him doing anything the Blondie wanted without bitching. Riki flushed hotly thinking about all that tight black leather stretching across Iason’s muscular body. He was getting horny just thinking about it.

“Do you think they would make one for Mikhale?” Lilly asked, blushing when Riki gave the pet a knowing look.

Riki rapped his knuckles on the counter, snapping the shopkeeper from his shocked stupor and told the skinny mongrel he wanted another outfit. Stepping to the side, Riki pushed Lilly forward and told the pet to give the man Mikhale’s dimensions.

He wondered how Iason would feel getting such cheap threads from him. Everything Iason wore could feed an entire population for a months. God, he couldn’t wait to see the Blondie wear it—to wear something from the Slums.

When Lilly stepped back, Riki reminded the shopkeeper to deliver it immediately to Eos, then scanned his card, paying the mongrel triple that of what he paid for Iason’s leathers. A small price considering where he wanted his stuff to go. The mongrel’s eyes all but popped out of his head when he saw all those zeroes.

“I want it delivered the moment his order—“Riki’s pointed his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at Lilly—“is done.” And reminded the shopkeeper he knew exactly how long it would take for them to whip Mikhale’s outfit up. He wished he could see Iason’s face when he opened it. The damn package wouldn’t get to Eos for another hour, two if the mongrels smuggling it over ran into any problems. He doubted he’d be back in Eos before then. Riki wondered if Iason would have it on when he got home.

“You don’t want me coming back if you fail to deliver,” he threatened and the shopkeeper, and the tailor hiding behind him, shook their heads fearfully before he exited the shop.

“We were in there for half an hour,” Jade said scoldingly.

Riki cursed. “Fuckers are going to get an earful from me when I find them,” he said. Almost six hours and they still had failed to contact him. Granted he had been busy the first three hours of their hunt talking to Katze, and another two talking to gang leaders.

“What if they are in trouble?” Jade worryingly asked.

It was a possibility. Riki grimly looked at Lilly. “We still getting a signal from Niko’s tracker?” he asked.

Lilly pulled his tracking device from his back pocket. “Yes,” he said. “It’s bleeping strong, coming from the north.”

The only thing north of here was the underground water tunnels past the abandoned section of the city. The place was a fucking death trap, but there were enough hidden rooms in that maze for someone to hide. Walking, Riki headed in there. Pulling out his cellphone, he quickly texted the location he was heading to Iason before pocketing the cell. The last thing he needed was to fall into some psycho’s trap. He’d never hear the last of it from Iason if he did.

“Riki.”

Riki stopped and stared at the figure that appeared. “What the hell are you doing here, Katze?”

The redhead exhaled a cloud of smoke before dropping his cigarette and grounding the butt with his heel. “I received a file at the office and tracked the terminal’s signal in the location you are headed.”

“What was it?” Jade asked after Riki began walking again.

Katze matched Riki’s pace. “It was corrupted. There was nothing on it when we recovered the file.”

“Do you think it was a call for help from Niko,” Lilly asked. “Do you think he was trying to pass along information?”

Riki looked at Katze, and wasn’t happy with the look on the redhead’s face. Katze’s amber eyes glowed and narrowed to slits. “I don’t know,” he said. “However, if it was he that sent it…”

Then he was in more trouble than he already was. Riki quickened his strides as he whipped out his cell again. And swore savagely when he saw his text hadn’t gone through and got a busy signal when he dialed Iason up. Who the fuck was Iason talking to?! Riki tried again, and nearly crushed his phone when the call didn’t go through.

“I left Raoul a message before I set out,” Katze said as they began to jog down the street.

“I can’t get ahold of Mikhale,” Lilly panted.

“I can’t get Gideon,” Jade cried.

Riki began to run.

“We are too far into Ceres for your cells to work,” Katze shouted as Riki picked up his speed.

That or that fucking cunt was blocking their calls, Riki furiously thought. He knew he should stop. He knew he should tell one of his crew to circle back and call for help, but the only one that knew the streets as well as he was Katze. And Katze wasn’t going to stop. Niko was a pain in the redhead’s ass, but Katze loved the troublemaker. He’d fight him until they were both bloody if Riki tried to force him to go back.

Riki snarled at the mongrels that got in his way, racing at neck breaking speeds as fear took hold of him. Fear for his friends. Angry at himself for stupidly not setting off sooner to find them. Riki could hear Lilly shouting for him to slowdown, to wait for them. He ignored them. He couldn’t wait. He couldn’t wait for any of them.

He had fucked up. Images of Amelia, the girl that had died in his arms off-world, filled his head. The way she had struggled to live until she had gasped her last breath. Her dead blank gaze staring up at him. With a blink the images changed and it was his boys lying dead around him.

“Fuck.” Riki forced his legs to move faster. He had been arrogant. He had foolishly thought he was in control and nothing could hurt them—that the enemy he needed to watch out for was a computer. He just hoped he wasn’t too late.

oOoOoOo

With one last thrust, Landon spilled himself into his new pet. Rocking his hips he moaned deeply at the pleasure he felt being in the violet-haired mongrel’s body. He had long ago moved them to his bedroom. His pet had been very spirited after their first time together, so much so that he had had to chain Violet’s arms above his head and even collar his neck with a leash, both tethered to the headboard.

Licking his lips, Landon thrust his semi hard cock into Violet’s tight ass one last time before slipping out of the mongrel’s heat. Kissing Violet on the shoulder, Landon slapped the mongrel’s cane welted ass affectionately. It would take a while, but he would have Violet trained until he no longer fought him every time he took him. He would learn to welcome him with open arms. And he’d take great pleasure beating him into submission.

Turning the mongrel onto his back, Landon ran his hands down Violet’s deliciously muscular body. His skin excitingly bore his marks. Bruises from where his hands hand gripped the mongrel’s arms, legs, and thighs. He bled from Landon scratching him with his nails as he’d been overcome with passion. Love bites from his mouth sucking shone brightly against Violet’s tanned skin, branding the mongrel as his.

“You pleased me greatly, Violet,” he whispered.

The mongrel glanced at him before silently looking away, staring at the ceiling. Landon chuckled at his pouting pet. His hand moved to caress Violet’s inner thigh, then slapped the mongrel across his bruised face when Violet tried to kick him away. The blood dripping onto his silk pillow from the mongrel’s gagged lips threatened to spoil his mood, but when he looked back at the perfect body that had taken his pleasure so well, Landon calmed.

Landon spread Violet’s thighs. The mongrel closed his eyes, no doubt waiting in anticipation for the service he was about to gift him with. Taking Violet’s limp member into his other hand, Landon dipped his head down and took the mongrel’s soft cock into his mouth. The muscles in Violet’s thighs tensed under his hand as he trailed it between the mongrel’s cheeks. Penetrating him with two fingers, Landon massaged Violet’s prostate. His mongrel gasped prettily, lifting his body away in a lovely attempt to get away from his pleasure giving administrations. Landon growled in satisfaction as Violet’s cock hardened in his mouth. His pet was difficult to arouse, but he knew exactly what button to push to start the fire within him.

Thrusting his fingers into Violet’s semen slicked hole, Landon pumped the mongrel’s shaft with his mouth and fist until Violet’s hot essence shot down his throat. Landon drank it up. Hot and heavy, he roughly spread Violet’s legs apart even wider, positioning himself he slammed himself into his pet again. His eyes rolling behind his head as Violet’s tight glove wrapped around him once more. Covering Violet’s body with his, Landon rained kisses on the mongrel’s face, neck, and shoulder as he slid in and out of Violet’s molten heat. It didn’t take long before he cried out and shuddered.

“Oh, how you please me, Violet,” he panted, kissing the mongrel on his gagged mouth. He wanted to taste him. He wanted to fuck Violet’s pretty mouth with his tongue as he fucked his tight ass, but the mongrel’s biting had proven to be too annoying.

But why should that stop him?

Landon wrapped his hand around the mongrel’s throat and squeezed until Violet opened his eyes. “If I feel your teeth, you will lose them,” he warned. When the mongrel continued to stare at him blankly, Landon removed Violet’s gag. Forcing his mouth open by applying pressure to his jaw, Landon licked the roof of Violet’s mouth, and moaned at how sweet he tasted.

His mouth slanted over Violet’s, then he stopped to softly laugh against his swollen lips when the mongrel jerked in his arms when he flexed his cock in him. “I could stay in you all day,” Landon whispered.

“You’re a fucking pathetic two pump chump,” Violet weakly muttered.

Landon glared at his pet. Angered to be denied the pleasure of Violet’s arms because of the mongrel’s insulting mouth, Landon shoved himself away from Violet and left the bed. Replacing Violet’s gag he flipped the mongrel onto his stomach and grabbed the young man’s ankle, and chained it to the bedpost. Violet kicked at his hands when he tried to capture his other his other leg, but Landon was too quick. When he was finished, Landon looked at the mongrel body on his bed. Hands bound, neck collared, and chained to his headboard. Legs spread and restrained to the bedposts. Landon never saw a more attractive sight.

It was a pity he would have to mar the view with blood.

“You mongrels are a stubborn lot,” he said picking up the whip resting on his dresser. “How many lessons do you need to be instructed on before you learn?” Landon brought up the whip and snapped it across Violet’s back. The mongrel cries were muffled by his gag. Landon cracked the whip over Violet until the mongrel was evenly covered by bleeding slashes crisscrossing across his upper and lower back.

Leaning down, Landon lovingly smoothed Violet’s damp locks from his flushed face. “You brought this upon yourself,” he whispered. “But I will help you learn your place.”

“Sir Landon?”

Landon growled in displeasure as two of Jupiter’s servants appeared. “I do not wish to be interrupted.”

“Sir Riki is five minutes away, Sir Landon,” Jupiter’s servants coldly informed him, both looking disapprovingly at the whip in his hand. “You are needed.”

Glaring at the plain faced humanoids, Landon walked to his dresser and smoothed his whip over the polished top. Opening the top drawer he removed a pearl-jeweled box and withdrew a vail and syringe. Piercing the rubber top of the vail filled with clear liquid with the needle, Landon filled the glass tube with the correct dosage as he turned back toward his pet.

“It’s not that I do not trust you, precious,” he told his pet. “However, considering your other talents it would…upset me greatly if you somehow were able to get yourself free.” Landon injected Violet with a sedative, one that would render the mongrel unconscious for hours. Not that Violet could hear him. The mongrel had the audacity to blackout on him while he had been instructing him.

Returning the syringe back into the box, Landon dressed. “Clean him. I want my pet presentable when I return.” Giving Violet a swift kiss on the forehead, Landon smiled as he departed.

oOoOoOo

Jupiter’s servants looked down at the mongrel with pity.

The smaller of the two stepped forward. “I will—“

“You will do nothing,” the slightly taller servant informed him firmly. “We are to leave him exactly as he is per Jupiter’s orders.”

The smaller servant hesitated a moment before taking the edge of the silk sheet and covered the lovely mongrel’s naked backside, careful not to let it touch the wounds on his back. “Jupiter once commented that these mongrels were important to us. How could she allow this to happen?” he asked.

The taller servant eyes narrowed at the smaller servant’s disobedience, but approved of his actions. While it wasn’t much, it gave the mongrel a bit of his dignity back.

“Her ‘reason’ is her own,” he replied. “I will continue here and instruct the others of their next step. You will have one last duty to perform before returning to Jupiter Tower.” He withdrew a small box from his coat and handed it to the smaller servant.

The servant lifted the box. The gold wrapper sparkled as it hit the light, and highlighted the brilliance of the scarlet bow on top. “What is it?” he asked.

“Jupiter’s use for Landon has come to an end,” the taller servant said. “You are to deliver it to Iason Mink. He will understand the message she had me place in the box.”

The smaller servant nodded and left. The other servant moved to follow but stopped. Looking at the mongrel on the bed he frowned. He was saddened by the trauma the mongrel had suffered through and angry that he had been a part of it. But he, out of all of Jupiter’s servants, knew that it had had to be done.

Bowing low at the waist, he gave the mongrel the respect he deserved before straightening and leaving the room.

oOoOoOo

Skidding to a halt, Riki stared at the yawning darkness of the tunnels levy opening. As much as he wanted to go charging in he forced himself to stop. The wildness in him threatened his decision, but he shoved it down. He couldn’t afford to fuck up, not when his friends’ lives could potentially be at stake. And losing himself to his rage would fuck things up.

“Riki!”

Riki looked over his shoulder and watched Jade, Lilly, and Katze jog to his side. “He in there?” he asked Lilly.

The pet looked at the device in his hand. “Yes, and it’s coming this way. It’s coming fast.”

They heard running feet. Riki watched in anticipation as the sound grew louder and his eyes widened at who appeared.

“Niko!” Katze cried rushing into the tunnel.

“Norris!” Riki reached the two men before Katze. Norris collapsed in his arms the moment Katze removed Niko’s weight.

“We gotta get out of here quick,” Norris panted.

Niko frantically pulled at Katze’s arm to the opening of the tunnel. “Their behind—”

A gasp cut off Niko’s warning. Riki looked up in time to watch Katze pull a red-puffed dart from his chest before falling to the ground. Yanking Norris to his feet, Riki shouted for everyone to run as he heaved Katze over his shoulder. Jade yelped and Riki watched as his kid fell, a dart protruding from back. Lilly rushed over to Jade’s side only to fall over Jade unconscious as he was hit.

“Fuck!” Riki shouted, enraged. Yelling at Norris and Niko to keep running, Riki grit his teeth as he seized Lilly and Jade by the wrist while trying not to drop Katze, and dragged the two to safety. He made it outside when they attacked. A dozen of masked men grabbed Katze and, like a battering ram, sent him rolling down the paved levy.

Snarling, he fought to keep in control of his animal side, but nearly lost it completely as those masked men picked Jade, Lilly, and Katze up and carried them into the tunnel. When they rushed forward, Riki was there to knock them back. They raised their weapons, and Riki tensed, expecting to feel the sting of a dozen darts, but when they raised their guns Riki realized they weren’t aiming for him. Whipping his head around, Riki watched as Norris—at the top of the levy’s rim— jerk upward as he was shot and rolled to the bottom.

Roaring, Riki charged. They were strong—inhumanly strong, but he didn’t care. He used his feet, legs, fists, and teeth to beat the masked men down. Through the fray, Riki saw Niko try his best to escape. The mongrel crawled more than he ran, but, to Riki’s relief, Niko made it up and over the metal fence and disappeared.

Determined to making sure Niko would make it back to Eos, Riki turned his full attention back to the fight and getting his gang back. What he hadn’t expected was those masked men all running away, backing up into the pitch black tunnel. Riki stumbled, and nearly fell on his face, they released him so fast.

Riki cautiously followed. His head told him to find Niko and get the help needed to fight, but it was as drowned out by the hiss telling him to find the fucks that took his kid and friends and kill them. He pushed on, going deeper into the tunnels, getting angrier by the second as no one rushed up to attack him with every corner he turned. He needed them to come. Wanted to feel them break under his hands—

“I must thank you. Because of you, my collection is now complete.”

A light flickered on.

Riki snarled as the light haloed around a Platinum Elite. “A fuckin’ Elite,” he growled.

“Yes,” the Platinum mockingly agreed. “A fucking Elite.”

Riki moved to charge the Elite where he stood. Less than a breath away from grabbing the Platinum, Riki’s eyes widened as the world dropped from under him, taking him down with it.

oOoOoOo

Landon laughed as he watched his most treasured prize fall into the pit. With Riki under his roof, he would have an endless supply of the mongrel’s blood. And in time maybe find a way around the madness that infected so many of his test subjects that had rejected the serum. It was disappointing he had had to put the black-haired beauty down with all the crazed and rejected mongrels he had disposed of over the course of his project, but normal means of restricting the mongrel would prove too dangerous. He had seen death in that black gaze, and was not about to take the chance of granting the mongrel’s deadly wish he had seen shining in those midnight eyes.

He wasn’t concerned for Riki’s safety. The majestic mongrel would do as his kind were meant to do down there. Riki was a survivor, and when it was all over, after Riki’s spent days neck deep in blood, he would be too tired to resist him.

Jupiter’s servants crowed around the large opening of the pit, three of them carrying his new dolls and another with a mongrel that had somehow escaped. Landon frowned at the white masks they all garmented, but did not comment on them. He had new toys to play with. “Close it,” he ordered pointing to the pit and watched as they carried large lid and carefully placed the inch thick metal cover over the hole until it seamlessly blended in with the floor.

Ordering the servants carrying his new guests to follow him, and the one with the mongrel to return him to his pin, Landon walked deeper into his lair. Finally, after all these years everything was going his way. Soon he’d have Iason on his knees, and it would be he that everyone bowed to.

Entering a room he had created specifically for two of his guests, Landon personally snapped the restraints on their wrists and lifted them and so that they hung on the hook hanging from the ceiling, suspended them in the air. Taking Katze into his arms he ordered Jupiter’s servants out. Gently laying the redhead on the operating table he strapped him tightly down on the table. Katze was an unexpected prize, but he would enjoy studying every inch of him. His species was a mystery to him, one he would take great pleasure discovering more about.

Landon drank in the sight before him.

“Mikhale is such a greedy Blondie,” Landon whispered stepping forward to caress Lilly’s cheek. Even though he had given himself to Violet, and the mongrel was more than he needed to satisfy him, Landon couldn’t stop himself from unbuttoning Lilly’s shirt and caressing the smooth skin underneath. He had fantasized being in this man on more than one occasion. Pulling Lilly’s unconscious body closer, he inhaled deeply and moaned. Shuddering at the pet’s wonderful scent, Landon tugged at Lilly’s pants until it ripped and slipped his hand into the back of his waistband and squeezed his ass.

Pleasurable tingles ran down his heated body as Lilly whimpered in his drug induced slumber, and Landon couldn’t help picturing the pet in his bed right along Violet. The sight nearly brought him to his knees with lust. Grinding his body against the pet, Landon sank his teeth in Lilly’s shoulder before releasing him. He would have to wait to taste the sweetness of Lilly’s body. His lovely creation had a deadly weapon, and if he was not careful the pet would use it on him. He would have to train him extensively before he got the chance of sampling his charms.

If not for Riki, if he had not tested the serum on himself that night so long ago, he would have never gone against Jupiter and set out on his own. He would have never tainted his body by laying with another. Not until he watched Lilly preforming on stage in a private pet show with his the female pet he had killed after watching her mate with Lilly, did he entertain thoughts of exchanging bodily fluids with another. But it had taken Violet for him to cross that line, not Lilly. However, it did not mean he could not have both.

Jupiter had labeled him infected. Someone who had been rejected by the serum he had created and maddened from the process, like the mongrels he had killed or disposed of. But he wasn’t mad. He never felt freer.

Landon gagged Lilly and forced himself away before he disgraced himself by fucking the pet while he was unaware. Stepping in front of Jade, he gagged the boy before studying him. Curious, he undressed him. He had spent very little time with Riki’s offspring for fear that he’d be recognized if seen in Eos. Riki was too important to sate his lust upon, not that he wanted to. The desire he felt was for the power that was in Riki’s genes.

Running a finger down Jade’s chest, Landon smirked. Maybe one day. But he did not think Violet could ever bore him. And when Lilly entered their bedroom, he would have no time to think of anyone else.

The hunger in his loins kept him from lingering, his need to be with Violet overriding his need to begin exam his new subjects. Landon’s eyes lingered on Lilly’s slightly exposed cock peeking from his ripped pants. Shaking his head he exited the room and firmly closed and locked the door. He would have more than enough time later.

Walking down numerous corridors, Landon all but moaned at what he would do to Violet the moment he saw him. He would have thought he had had enough today, but he hadn’t taken into account of how invigorating the act of copulation was. To think he had never acted upon his impulses until Violet had fallen into his arms.
When he returned to his quarters, he was going to—Landon stumbled. Looking down he gasped at the dead bodies littering the hall, more than a dozen fresh kills, some piled on top of one another. Mongrels he had locked up that he had been studying—studying to try and understand why they had rejected the serum that had worked so successfully on Riki’s gang. The floor was a lake of blood.

A whistle sang from the dark. Landon got a glimpse of a bloody face, blond hair, and kaleidoscope eyes before pain exploded on the side of his head.

oOoOoOo

“I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign.”

Landon groaned.

“Life is demanding without understanding.”

He opened his eyes and blinked at the lights swinging above him. He tried to move and hissed with displeasure when bindings bit into his wrists.

“I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign.”

Landon growled when he saw the blond prince twirling dizzily around in a swivel chair.

“No one’s gonna drag you up to get into the light where you belong. But where do you belong? Uh oh, oh, ah, oh,” the blond sang as he stopped his madding spins and shot across the room to the table he was strapped to with multiple thick chains.

“Good morning, sunshine,” the blond said cheekily. “You know, you are one heavy bastard. I nearly strained my back dragging you in here and up onto that table.”

Landon glared at the blond. “Release me this instant!” To think he had been taken down by this person. Landon didn’t care if the blond had royal blood flowing though his veins, and if he was a precious experiment that had successfully gone through the transformation. “You will let me go now!”

The blond ignored him and continued talking. “I gotta tell ya, I hold no ill will towards you for the slap and torture routine you put me through.”

Landon laughed with dark satisfaction when the blond stood and crashed sideways into the wall. The prince was bleeding profusely, mostly from the deep jagged slash on his stomach.

The blond, Rio, hissed as he righted himself and pressed his hand against his wound. “Concerned for me?” Rio said. “Don’t be, baby. It’s nothing but a little love bite from a shiv one of your little crazy pets I had the misfortune of stumbling upon. Did you know you had a group of them locked up in a room? It was sad that I had to kill them all, but they had to be put down.” Rio circled his finger around his ear. “Dem peeps be plain loco, son.”

“They did you considerable damage,” Landon said. The blond was pale and swayed on his feet from blood loss.

“Nah,” Rio said waving his bloody hand. “Don’t worry, baby, I got more than enough energy for you.”

Landon’s twisted smile faded as the blonde’s cheery and playful expression faded for an instant, and the cold blooded killer he had read about the prince appeared.

“You see,” Rio said. “I understand what you’re trying to do. I may not know the specifics, but I got no beef with the fact that you’re stepping all over the little guys to get what you want. Hell, I can even forgive the torture you put my friends through.”

Landon watched as the blond limped over to one of his surgical tables and picked up several long silver needles. “What I can’t forgive, however, is what you did to V,” Rio said walking over to him.

Landon’s breath slammed out of him as the blond inserted the needle in his ulnar nerve on the outside of his arm and hand. He grit his teeth at the throbbing pain.

“Now, I don’t know if you did anything to him or not. Hell, I don’t even know where to look for him,” Rio winked at him. “I got lost the second I stepped out of the room you stupidly forgot to lock.”

Landon whimpered as the blond inserted another needle, this time in his sciatic nerve. Numbing agony vibrated down his lower back, hips, and buttock.

Rio tilted his from side to side as he waggled the needle in his nerve, sending his pain neurons screaming. “But from the way you were drooling all over V, I know you didn’t take him back to your place for a cup of tea.”

The blond held another needle, wiggling his brows and grinning before stabbing it into his hip, then frowned. “Did I not hit it correctly?” The blond tsked. “If my mommy saw this, she’d be sorely disappointed in me, as well as, my teachers.” Rio yanked the needle free. “But I’m a firm believer in “if you first don’t succeed, try, try again”,” he said before slowly inserting the needle in his obturator nerve. Landon’s groin and pelvic area erupted in agony unlike anything he ever felt before. He choked on his cries as the blond flicked the needles over and over again while humming.

“And before I forget.” Rio danced a syringe up his chest. Jabbing it into his inner elbow, Landon jerked up on the table as liquid fire raced through his veins.

“Don’t worry, poppet. It’s just a little bit of adrenaline. Don’t want you passing out on me,” the blond informed him, patting his chest.

He panted, his body covered in sweat as the blond held up another needle. His breath hitched as the thin sliver spike hovered an inch above his eye.

“Mm.” Rio tapped his chin. “Nah, I think I want you to keep your pretty eyes. Don’t want you missing out in watching all the fun we’re going to have together.”

“If you don’t get stitched up, you’ll bleed to death,” Landon desperately said. “I can help you.”

To his relief, the blond leaned heavily against the table and slid to the floor sending the needle spinning out of the prince’s hand and across the floor.

“I’m okay!”

Landon screamed as a scalpel sliced into his thigh, and the blond used it to pull himself up.

“Oh, my bad.” The blond blinked rapidly, shaking his head. “Got a little tired. Did I hurt you?”

Rio looked at him with concern. Slapping his bleeding thigh and giving him a gentle tap on his cheek, smearing his blood on his face, Rio shushed him. “Sorry, baby, I’ll fix that.”

With wide eyes Landon watched as Rio slipped on his blood trying to walk back to the table that housed all his tools, but straightened up and grabbed the miniature blowtorch on the tray before he fell.

“So tell me, Landon,” Rio said sounding tired and weak as he laid on the floor. “Did you touch my friend with your dirty hands?”

Landon grit his teeth.

“Didya? Come on, tell me. Didya? Huh, huh? Didya, didya, didya?”

“Yes,” he hissed. “And he loved it.”

Rio slowly stood and stared at him in a way that sent a shiver down Landon’s damaged nerve endings. “That’s too bad,” Rio said, clicking the trigger on the torch. Landon’s heart thundered in his chest as the blonde’s pale-green eyes bled red until Landon could see his reflection in Rio’s crimson glare. “That really is too bad for you.”

Landon struggled against his bindings as the prince came closer and screamed as the blond ran the fire over his thigh. The vile stench of burning flesh filled his nostrils.

The blonde’s chilling smile filled his gaze as he screamed. He screamed for a long time.

oOoOoOo

Niko scrambled to the top of the levy. He glanced over his shoulder and in horror watched as Norris went down, rolling until he came to a crushing stop at the bottom. His frightened gaze searched for Riki and with disbelief saw the mongrel hold off Landon’s men. He wanted to turn back and help, but his body refused to move anywhere but forward. Riki told him to run. He stayed behind to make sure he got out, and so had Rio and Cid.

Tears ran down Niko’s face as he scaled the chain linked fence and heaved his body over, falling and crying out as his injured body slammed into the cracked pavement. He lay there stunned staring at the weeds until he remembered how to breathe through the agony. Grabbing the fence, he pulled himself up and sobbed when he caught glimpse of Riki in the thong of fighting bodies.

“I’m sorry,” Niko sobbed before tearing himself away. He would get help. That was the only thing he could do for them. Landon wasn’t an opponent they could fight against. He stumbled and fell, but forced himself up and pushed his wounded body to keep moving until he made it to the safety of the Slums. His lungs burned. Niko had to constantly blink his eyes as his snail’s pace sent jarring pain up his body with every step that pounded against the pavement, and the black dots threatened to steal his sight. He was scared. He was lost! Niko turned down an abandoned alley and slipped, falling on his ass as he came to a halt. Not a three feet away was one of Landon’s goons.

Niko sobbed and half crawled sideways to escape the white-masked man. His palms and knees bled as he repeatedly fell. Fear gave him the strength he needed not to give up and curl up in a corner and let them take him back. He would see them as he ran, forcing him to move in the direction they wanted to go by blocking his path.

He saw mongrels staring at him—telling him he made it to the livable area of the Slums—but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. They wouldn’t be able to help him and he would be putting them in danger if he involved them. Niko shoved through a group of mongrels in his way. They cursed and Niko heard them chase after him. His long hair constructed his view as he looked back as he ran. Landon’s men stood over the unconscious bodies of the mongrels that had been pursuing him. But they did nothing but watch him run away. He didn’t understand why they weren’t trying to catch him. They were moving him farther away from Landon’s lair, but why?

Turning the corner at top sleep, Niko slammed into the side of the building and crashed into the trash cans when he bounced off the brick siding. Rotten food clung to his hands, clothes, and hair as he dug his nails into the foul mess to propel himself forward. Frantically looking over his shoulder for signs of Landon’s men, Niko screamed and thrashed wildly when strong arms closed around him and picked him off his feet.

“Niko!”

His panicked gaze jumped up, and he stared in shock and disbelief at the beautiful face looking down at his before he began to sob uncontrollably. “G-Gabriel!” Wrapping his arms around his Blondie’s neck, Niko buried his face into Gabriel’s chest and wept.

Through his loud sniffling and whimpers, Niko heard a voice say, “Raoul.” There was a pinch on his arm and Niko felt his body begin to relax. Niko panicked as the world around him began to fade.

“No,” he rasped. The faces of Blondies looking at him were beginning to blur. “Riki…They took…Riki…”

Niko’s last vision was of Iason Mink staring at him before walking down the streets of the Slums.

Serum – Chapter 19 ★ ～☆ Serum – Chapter 21
✿Bookshelf ✿  ♥ Book 6 – Chapter Index