Page 115 of The Fake Divination Offense
Do weneedto come back down?
Black makeup runs in jagged stripes down his cheeks, sweat sheening his skin mirror-bright. “Say it again. Say it, please. Tell me you love me.”
“I love you,” I say instantly. My fingers snag in his hair as I gripthe back of his head and keep him looking at me. “I loveyou. I love you. You’re mine, and I love you.”
Bel lets out a sob, and he’s coming, his untouched dick pulsing from beneath the lace of his panties, shooting his release up my shirt, hitting my chin. It yanks the orgasm out of me,demandsI come, the sight of him falling apart over top of me, my body and the wordsI love youenough to get him there.
I grab his hip and thrust up into him, howling as I come inside him. Marking him.Owninghim.
Bel’s body gives out, his face burying against mysweat- andcum-slicked shirt. He’s gasping, and when I curl my arm around him and try to adjust him, he whines in protest.
“No! No, don’t wanna—” He grabs behind him, at where my softening cock is still in his hole.
“I got you, sweetheart. It’s all right.” I ease myself out, and he whines again, but I’m quick to glide two fingers inside, plugging him, relieving the emptiness, the comedown.
The added warmth and slickness in his channel—that’s me. In him. A part of him.
A growl resonates in my chest, tangling with Bel’s satisfied croon. I pull him higher to put a kiss on his hair. I didn’t kiss him enough—I nudge his head until he looks up at me, tear-stained and disheveled and flawlessly ruined, and I kiss all over his face. His nose, his lips, his eyelids. Kissing and sealing and claiming.
He rests his cheek on my collarbone, rigidity draining out of him with each quivering breath. The feel of him breathing, his heart beating on mine, his body warm on top of me—it drains my own tension.
He’s safe.
And, with him, I know I’m safe, too.
They took him.
I didn’t evendoanything this time. Did I?
Urzoth, please. I don’t know what else to do. I obey all your commandments,I do everything I’m supposed to. Why haven’t you helped me? Why won’t you save me? What did I do wrong? Just tell me what I did. Tell me what I need to do to get you to help me.
I had to have donesomething. They didn’t take him for no reason.
But it isn’t Seb they took.
It’s Bel.
They have him in the same place they always take Seb, and he’ll come back with his face swollen and bones broken and—
Urzoth, please, please, save him; hate me all you want, but please, give me the strength to save him.
I see Bel, his rose-gold skin covered in garish purple-and-blue bruising, blood crusted on his nose and mouth. I see him curled around himself, whimpering. They smashed his ribs because I didn’t—didn’t do something.
Please, Urzoth. Tell me what to do, tell me what I did wrong, why, why, HELP ME.
Why aren’t you helping me?
They’re punishing Bel, punishingme, and hescreams.
“Orok?”
My eyes open.
I think… I think they might’ve been open already; each blink feels like sandpaper, dragging across my vision, blurring the barracks.
Not the barracks.
“You’re in Philadelphia,” Bel whispers. Seb told him what to do when I have a night terror; he’s talking a little fast, his tone quivering, but he’s calm. “You’re in your apartment, in bed with me. I’m here, Orok. It’s Bel. You’re okay—we’re in your apartment. See?”
