It's a very good thing there's nothing in my stomach. The trip through the portal has me mentally cowering on the floor the second my bare feet hit solid ground again. I do manage to stay on my feet, however, which I consider a minor win. Still, if I thought the first time using the portal sucked, this time I feel fifty times worse. My head's on fire, bones and skin and cells zinging like they're getting ready to combust. The wounds on my legs aren't helping, the sting and heat from the inflammation is amplified as my body adjusts.
A warm hand splays over the middle of my back, steadying me enough that I don't stumble to my knees this time. Gentle tingles roll from the contact, spreading out along my spine and soothing the edge off of the disorientation and nausea. I suck in deep breaths, blinking rapidly to clear my vision as the overbearing brightness slowly dims to normal lighting. We're back in the infirmary where I first woke up.
"I told you not to get scratched." Asher's words are right in my ear, the raspy sound of his oddly rough voice is amplified by whatever fresh hell this is. The pleasurable warmth becomes so intense I'm afraid to move, even my eyelids stay frozen as I stare straight ahead. The dammed emotional-whiplash flutters through me like a delayed reaction, sparking defiantly against the slowly building pleasure in my core.
"You should have trained me better." I shoot back once I can manage to speak a delayed second later. "Or, you know, at all." I turn my head to glare at my so called mentor, the anger in my voice almost immediately dying when I see the ember-like glow in his reddish-brown eyes. The hand at my back begins moving in slow, seductive circles along my spine, making the conciousness I'd regained sputter out in my head. A reflexive shudder flutters over my muscles and I find myself leaning towards him without thinking.
"You want me to train you?" Asher asks, but the way he says it and the way he's looking at me has my gutter-brain and imagination stirring with endless other possibilities. My lips part on an intake of breath, the lusty shiver cloaking my mind in too many very, very dirty mental images of my mentor 'teaching' me. Asher's eyebrows quirk up, a sinful smirk twisting his mouth into that horrible yet delicious expression that promises sex and sin. The red in his eyes flares, skin paling under his olive-tan.
"Yes," I whisper in a too-breathy, slightly-less-raspy tone that has Asher leaning a little closer. I suck in a breath as the brush of skin on mine sends fresh charges of electricity through me. Our breaths mingle, and the moist heat of his mouth hovers over mine for the briefest second before remember what the fuck I'm doing. Who this asshole is. And why this should be a big no-no. "That is what you're here for isn't it? To," I regain some semblance of control, leaning back ever-so-slightly to see my instructor's eyes widening incrementally in what I can only decipher as shock. "Train me?" The word, even to me, sounds like some sort of innuendo.
Asher blinks, the red-glow dying slightly as the pale undertone recedes and his expression warps from Sex God to Pissed War God.
"Sit down." He orders, voice still as phone-sex-operator-like as always, but with a slight clipped edge. I feel a grin of pure, unfettered satisfaction rise to my face as I plop onto the closest bed and smugly watch as my mentor moves to the metal cart nestled between the far wall and bed. He rolls the thing over to me. My eyes skate over the familiar sight of what looks to be a crash cart, the kind I'm used to seeing in ERs.
"I'm only going to tell you this once," Asher warns darkly as he pulls open various draws and plucks medical equipment from them, too fast for me to mentally catalog and identify as he drops them onto the empty space beside me.
Instead of futilely watching him take stuff from the metal cart, I scan the items he's put beside me. I identify a few dozen alcohol pads, some sort of tube of antiseptic cream, a couple rolls of gauze, scissors, medical tape, and a something that looks suspiciously like a scalpel but with runes done in tiny, neat engravings on the delicate-looking blade. Well...fuck...this is going to be painful. Some part of me thinks distantly as my mentor speaks.
"Do not get scratched by the biḍālaḥ. They excrete poison through their claws. Their corpses are also caustic." Asher pulls a round, rolling stool over to the foot of the bed I'm sitting on. Without a word, he grabs my ankles and hauls them into his lap roughly, making me jerk forward to the very edge. My hands automatically reach to the sheets under me, trying to grip onto them so I won't fall off the bed, but my control over them is still weak. Luckily, Asher doesn't pull on my ankles any more than he has to, so I stay in place - precariously balancing on the corner of the bed. "So don't breath that shit in unless you want to end up dead." He starts ripping open a few alcohol pads, roughened fingers scraping over my still-tender and inflamed skin as he drags the wet squares over the scratches.
"I did breathe it in. But-"
"I gave you an antidote." Asher cuts me off with a growl, lip curling slightly at my legs. I frown at his expression of dismay while he studies the now bright red lines of my skin. "The problem with using that is your body will eventually get used to the antivenom and it won't work against it down the line." He adds, almost distractedly, as he prods the irritated edges of my flesh. I wince at the tingles, this time not at all unpleasant feeling, that tears up my legs. It doesn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would, though...and that worries me. "Fuck." Asher hisses, the sound of his teeth gritting audible in the otherwise dead-silent room.
"What?" I'm almost afraid to ask at this point, my stomach's nauseating roll rising back up and becoming an almost unbearable cramping.
"Bite down on this." Asher doesn't answer my question, but grabs one of the rolls of gauze and shoves it at me, reaching for the scalpel thing with his other hand.
"The fuck're you gonna do with that?" I hiss at him, trying to beat him to the knife-thing that glints maliciously as he scoops it up. Fear makes me recoil as he pops of the clear, plastic cap with a flick of his thumb, and I try to pull my legs from his lap - but he's got his other arm resting heavily on them. His arm's like a steel bar, not even allowing me to move an inch as I try yet again to tear free of his grasp.
"Pipe the fuck down," He growls at me, reddish-brown eyes flaring bright red as he glares up at me. They're chilling this time, not hot. "The scratches are infected. Unless you want to loose your legs, I'm going to have to drain them and...put some runes in."
"What does that mean?" I ask slowly, my voice as bitter and cold as his. He looks at me for a long moment, something like respect fluttering in and out of his eyes before I can be sure I didn't just imagine seeing it.
"These aren't tattoos," He jerks his neck so the back of his black shirt is on display and I catch the black ink of what I'd originally thought were tattoos along the base of his skull. "Some of us require runes. Either to help boots our abilities, or to control them. And in other cases, to help drive out, or keep out, corruption. Some runes are strong enough to keep a soul anchored to their body." He tips his chin up at my forehead. I reach up on reflex, my lips parting as I process what he's saying. "Hold still or I'm going to have to do them twice." He warns after a beat, turning his attention back down to my legs in his lap. "And bite down on that," He jerks his head at the roll of gauze in my lap. "It's gonna hurt like a sonofabitch and I don't need you bitting off your own tongue if you go into shock."
Without another word of warning, he presses the sharp edge of the scalpel into my irritated skin as fire seizes up my leg. I manage to strangle the first yelp that bursts out of my mouth and scramble to shove the gauze roll into my mouth as my mentor continues to carve into my flesh. This time when I grip onto the sheets, my fingers clench around wads of the fabric without issue. The brief feeling of triumph is overshadowed by the next few agonizing minutes while Asher meticulously cuts patterns and symbols into me.
YOU ARE READING
Reaper Society
FantasyYou've probably heard of Grim Reapers before, but even I never thought there was more to the typical 'harvesters of souls' until a week ago...
