Planet Athion: The Complete Series by Angel Lawson

65

Mercy

The worst thingabout not being dead is the pain that follows. It’s sharp and deep, aching far beyond the actual wound. I blink at the soft glow coming from the lights. The bed is soft, the walls paneled in dark, rich wood. The room itself is unfamiliar but there’s something I recognize all the same.

I shift, wincing at the pain in my side, and fall back quickly.

“You’re awake,” a smooth female voice says. I turn my head and see a woman standing next to me. Her hair is short, dark, graying a little and tucked behind her ears. She wears a white coat.

“Are you a doctor?” I ask, my voice raw.

“I am. My name is Monica Valdez.” She looks me over. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I stabbed myself with a shard of glass after getting in a fight with a sociopath.”

She smiles. “Sounds accurate.” She reaches for my side and I flinch. “I’m just going to check your wound, okay?”

I don’t agree. “Who are you and why are you here? Where’s the Master? Did he assign you to work with me?”

A line crosses her forehead. “You don’t remember?”

“I remember a lot of things,” I say, wishing I didn’t. “But what are you talking about, specifically?”

“You did quite the number on the Master, the Custo finished it. He’s contained.”

“The who?” I ask. A flash of Damon’s face flits through my mind. “Did you say the Custo?”

I try to sit up again but she holds me down. “Your stitches will burst if you move too quickly. But yes, I said the Custo. The birthing ring has been occupied by the Resistance. The Master is no longer in charge.”

What she says makes no sense. Is it even possible? Tears well in my eyes…if this woman is giving me false hope, she’ll be the one with a wound in her side.

The door opens and two people walk in. I glance over and the tears spill over. “You’re here,” I sob, feeling so overwhelmed. Is this real?

Damon and Dimka both walk over, standing at my sides. “We’re here.”

“You came for me.”

“Of course, we came,” Damon says, brushing a tear aside with his thumb. A shiver runs down my spine just from his touch.

“Cassidy and Amias…”

His jaw clenches. “I know. And they’ll pay, but right now you need to heal.”

“Kai? Alex?”

“Both fine. Healing. They’re down the hall.”

I frown and look around. “Where is this? I know the medical ward and this isn’t it.”

Damon sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “We’re in the Master’s quarters.”

A flood of bad memories washes over me. “What? Why?”

“Because it’s the most secure place in the facility,” Dimka replies. He strokes my hand gently. “We can keep an eye on you here and run operations out of his office.”

“He’s really contained?”

“Barely alive,” Damon says, voice tight. “I would have killed him myself if I hadn’t promised Dimka the right to do it.”

I don’t say it, but I wish he were dead.

“What’s next? What now?” I ask, my brain running in a million directions. “When can I see the others?”

Damon’s eyes cut to Dr. Valdez. “When the doc says you can, Mercy. It’s important to heal. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

A thought pops in my head. Panic hits me. “What about my patients?”

“Taken care of,” Dr. Valdez says. “When Damon and Dimka called for an army, all available women at the transition center volunteered. There’s a full staff down in the ward. Everything’s under control.”

I want to believe her. Believe my men. I trust them to the end and back, but the Master? He’s escaped more than once and the things he wants to do to me? There won’t be time for game play if he gets to me again. He’ll destroy me. He made that clear.

Damon’s warm lips press against my forehead and Dimka holds my eye. I know he understands—his hatred toward the Master is as strong as mine. He waits a beat after Dr. Valdez and Damon walk to the door and I squeeze his hand. “Kill him,” I say in a low whisper, “before he takes us all.”

* * *

Days passbefore Dr. Valdez allows me to fully get out of bed and move around. The stab wound is surprisingly deep for being self-inflicted—shows my level of desperation. Dimka and Damon visit each day, bringing me food and treats. What I want is information but they both pretend not to hear me when I ask. Dr. Valdez does understand my concern for my patients. It’s all being handled. She does inform me that Lynn had her baby two days after the occupation began. Everyone is healthy. When I ask about Lynn’s discharge and what will happen next, she grows quiet. I know, I know, I want to say. When I’m better we can discuss it. I highly doubt she even knows.

Damon stops me in the hallway. “Where are you going?”

“To visit Kai and Alex.” He gives me a look. I give one back. “You can’t stop me.”

“I wouldn’t dare, but, you may want to go to Kai first. Doc put Alex on some pain killers for those broken ribs. He’s out like a light.” He’s dressed the same every day, a slight variation of the Custo uniform, which seems typical of Damon. Part of the team but not. I wonder how much he struggles being back with them. Back in the system. He fought hard to stay on the outskirts.

I stare at him for a moment, assessing his handsome face that I worried I would never see again, the lips I was sure I’d never kiss. I hesitate, wanting him to press his mouth to mine, something he hasn’t done yet. For a moment I think he may break down and do it, but he steps back and says, “Kai’s in the first room on your right.”

“Right.” I wander off, tugging up my loose pants that hang below the wound, and make my way down the hall. Dimka told me they gave Alex and Kai separate rooms, each needing a little time and space to heal.

I stop at the first door, bracing myself for the man inside. I knock and push it open quickly, like tearing a bandage off raw skin.

Kai lies on the bed, eyes closed.

The room is smaller than my own—one of the guest rooms. I haven’t asked but I suspect mine is the Master’s actual bedroom. It’s large with all the amenities.

I walk across the floor to the bed, both wanting to let him sleep and desperate to wake him. At his side, I study him. He looks a million times better than the last time I saw him, trapped in the Master’s dining room. His color is back and his cheeks a little fuller, but he’s still too thin and his lips are chapped. The purple bruises are healing and fading.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and take his hand in mine, running my thumb over his dark blue, bruised, healing knuckles. The blanket is pulled to his waist, his torso bare, revealing his chest and still-defined abs. I run my hand over his warm skin, feeling his heartbeat. His eyes flutter open and he blinks, his gaze acclimating, before a small, slow grin ghosts over his lips.

“Hi,” I say, fighting back tears. I’m so sick of crying.

“Mercy,” he says, lifting his hand and touching my face as though he’s making sure I’m real. His fingers brush against my chin, his thumb tugs at my bottom lip. I bend over and kiss him, the way I’d wanted Damon to reach for me. He responds eagerly, wincing at invisible pain. My heart pounds at his touch—at his reaction—and I realize that maybe he understands what Damon can’t. Because they weren’t held prisoner by someone so evil; body, mind, and soul. He doesn’t understand that I need to feel the hands of the men I love. To know they still want me, they need me, they forgive me for any part I had in this.

“Damon says he didn’t…”

I shake my head. “No, he tried to rape me, but didn’t.”

He exhales. “It wouldn’t have changed how I feel about you, you know that, right?”

“It would have changed me,” I say. “And in the end, it did change me.” I stroke his cheek. “I don’t want to waste time playing games.”

“No, no more games,” he agrees, taking my hand, kissing my palm. He’s different. I’m different. Before there was a formality. A hesitation due to his lack of experience with women and my desire to play it safe, but those standards no longer apply. The Master tore down those walls and made us realize life is short. Be with the ones you love. Show them exactly how much.

“Will it hurt if we…”

He shakes his head. “Not if we take our time.”

I stand, reaching for my shirt and lifting it over my head. His eyes move down my body, lighting my skin on fire. His gaze settles on the bandage at my side, but I ignore him, tugging at the string holding my pants up, loosening the waist and dropping them to the floor.

I stand bare before him and when he reaches for me, I carefully climb into the bed. My fingers ache to touch him, landing on his stomach, exploring the bruises and healing wounds. I want to make him feel better and I lean over to kiss his dark blue nipples, flicking my tongue against the pebbled surface. His hand ghosts over my side, slipping beneath my arm and touching my breasts. Our bodies are warm against one another. Heat rises between my legs. I’m completely aware that he’s naked under the blanket and while I kiss his neck, his shoulders, and chest, I run my hands down his abdomen, over his smooth belly, down to the hard bulge between his legs.

Our movements are slow—our bodies too battered to go any faster, but it’s good. It gives us a chance to explore one another in a way we didn’t have time for before.

“I dreamed about you,” he says suddenly, “every day and night. You were the first and last thing on my mind. There’s no doubt you are the one that kept me going through the beatings and starvation. I knew if we made it out of here alive, a day like today would come and I’d bask in the glory of your body.” He kisses my neck and tweaks the tip of my nipple, igniting a surge of desire that travels straight between my legs.

My skin grows hot and his breathing ragged. I stroke the length of his cock, feeling the slick seed spilling from the tip. These men are different. Virile, their bodies poised for creation, and their single biggest desire is to please their mate. There’s a moment of awkward motion where we work around one another’s injuries, but it ends when I straddle is hips and lean over, kissing him on the mouth. My hair trails down my shoulders, where he smiles when it tickles his chest. I rise up and I feel him at my entrance, wet meeting wet, heat touching heat, want finding want.

Slowly, I lower myself on his hard, throbbing cock, breath held until he’s all the way inside. He watches me closely, carefully, and I exhale, full and filled with every inch.

“Easy,” he reminds me, as though I’m not the one with the gash in my side. His hands stay on my hips as we develop a rhythm, long and slow, in and out. It’s excruciating and debilitating, my body quaking with every move. I hold myself upright, rocking back, and I grab his hand and push it between my legs, moving his thumb to the bundle of nerves at the top. He strokes me like a kitten and asks, “There?”

I nod my head furiously, shivers rolling down my spine. “Yes, there.”

How he knows how to do this, how to meet my needs, I’m unsure. He’s a fast learner, quick to take notice. My emotions are raw as much as his and I know it won’t take much more to push me over the edge.

His handsome face watches me and I meet his gaze, his jaw locked in concentration. I move up and down, down and up, our pace gaining with every beat. I feel the increase in sensitivity as everything builds; my heartbeat, his thrusts, the goosebumps on my skin, the throbbing of my clit as it gets closer, closer, closer…

He plunges into me, both hands gripping my hips. His eyes wide, focused on mine. I cry out, my body lost in waves of electricity, my heart hammering like a pounding drum.

His groan sounds like an animal, deep and guttural, like the caged man he’d been only days before. I feel him pour into me. His warmth. His seed. Finally finding its way to a woman after years of solitude and celibacy.

He falls back on the bed and I don’t linger over his body, rolling carefully to the side of my body without the wound. He wraps his arms around me and whispers in my ear.

“I’ll never let you go again. Never.”

He kisses me and I feel another tear travel down my cheek. He’s not the only one with a declaration. All of this. The four of us? Things are going to change.

One Custo at a time.