Chapter 10: 1.3.1 x
The air in the catacomb-like locker room was thick with the smell of mildew, cheap tobacco, and old blood. Koen leaned against the chipped tile wall, a stained towel around his neck, watching the steam rise from his knuckles. They were already knitting back together, the split skin sealing itself as if drawn by invisible threads. The roar of the crowd upstairs was a dull, dying rumble.
“Hell of a left hook, Ash-Eyes.” The voice came from a hulking figure blocking the doorway—Mack, a brawler from the northern circuit whose nose had been broken so many times it was just a lump of cartilage.
Koen shrugged, water from his damp hair trickling down his temple. “He was leavin’ his jaw open. Wasn’t hard.”
Mack chuckled, elbowing his companion, a wiry fighter named Silas who always smelled of aniseed. “Modest. We’re headin’ to a thing. Private party. You should come.”
Koen frowned, wiping at a smear of someone else’s blood on his forearm. “Gabriel’s got me on a tight leash. Paperwork shit. Debriefs.”
“Saw your angel,” Silas said, his voice a sly whisper. “Leavin’ in a hurry about twenty minutes ago. Looked like business. You’re a free man, Delano.”
A free man. The concept was foreign, and oddly tempting. Gabriel had been… intense lately. More scowling, more pacing, more clipped orders. A night without those cold blue eyes tracking his every move sounded like a blessing. “What kind of party?”
“The fun kind,” Mack said, spreading his hands. “Music. Booze. Pretty people. No cameras, no promoters suckin’ your blood. Real casual.”
Koen’s instincts, usually sluggish in social waters, twinged faintly. But the fight adrenaline was fading, leaving a hollow, restless ache. Gabriel was busy. He’d just won. Why not? “Yeah. Alright. Lead the way.”
The party was in a warehouse district, a place where the cobblestones gave way to dirt and the gaslights were few and far between. The building was nondescript, but the low thump of jazz bleeding through its walls was not. Mack rapped a rhythm on the steel door and it swung inward, releasing a wave of heat, sweat, and a sweet, cloying smell Koen couldn’t place.
Inside was not a party.
It was a writhing, gasping mass of bodies.
Koen stopped dead on the threshold. The vast, open space was dimly lit by paper lanterns casting a feverish red glow. Couches and piles of cushions were arranged around the room, and on every surface, people were… connected. Naked limbs tangled, mouths fused, the air vibrating with moans and the slick, wet sounds of flesh on flesh. A man was bent over a divan, another moving behind him with rough, driving strokes. A woman arched her back, crying out as two sets of hands worked on her.
“What the fuck,” Koen breathed, his voice lost in the music.
Mack clapped him on the back, laughing. “Told you. Pretty people!” He was already stripping off his shirt, weaving into the chaos.
Silas grinned, showing gold teeth. “Get a drink, loosen up. Or don’t.” He was swallowed by the crowd.
Koen felt his face burn, a hot flush climbing from his chest to the roots of his ashen hair. His orange eyes darted around, unable to settle on any one shocking tableau. This was a fucking orgy. They’d brought him to an orgy. He wasn’t a prude—hell, he’d seen things in border towns that would curdle milk—but this was… organized. Social. His mind short-circuited.
Okay. Okay. One drink. Be polite. Then you fucking leave.
He shouldered his way to a long table laden with bottles and a large, glass punch bowl filled with luminous red liquid. He grabbed a chipped ceramic mug and dipped it in, not noticing the faint, pearlescent sheen on the surface. He drank it down in three long gulps. It was sweet, with a bitter aftertaste he chalked up to cheap gin. He poured another, his throat dry.
A hand, soft and pale, slid over his bicep. He jumped, nearly spilling the drink.
“You’re Koen,” a voice purred. A woman, maybe, with kohl-rimmed eyes and lips painted dark. She wore only a beaded skirt. “I saw your fight last week. You move like lightning.” Her hand trailed down to his wrist. “All that power. It must be… pent up.”
Koen flinched away, sloshing punch on the floor. “I—I gotta—”
“Have another drink,” she insisted, pressing closer. Her bare breasts brushed his arm. He felt dizzy. “Relax. Everyone here is just chasing feeling.”
The noise was too loud. The smells—sex, perfume, that sweet punch—were overwhelming. His skin felt too tight. He drank the second mug, then a third, just to have something to do with his hands, to give his mouth a purpose other than stammering. The initial panic began to blur, softened at the edges. The room seemed brighter, the music richer, a pulse that matched the one beginning to beat low in his own belly.
He didn’t notice the drug taking hold, not as a separate thing. He just noticed the change.
The warmth spreading through his limbs was profound, liquid. The anxious coil in his gut unwound, replaced by a buzzing, pleasant hum. The bodies around him weren’t shocking anymore; they were fascinating. Beautiful, even. The play of red light on sweat-slicked skin, the curve of a spine, the open mouth of a man lost in pleasure. Koen’s own breath hitched. He felt hot. He loosened the laces of his fighting leathers.
“See?” the beaded woman whispered, appearing again. She took his hand, placed it on the smooth dip of her waist. Her skin was so soft. “Better.”
He nodded, dumbly. His thoughts were syrup. The touch felt incredible. Every point of contact was electric, singing through his nerves. He let her guide his hand lower, over the swell of her hip.
“Want more?” she breathed.
Yes. The answer was a raw, primal thing that surged up from the part of him that was all demon. The part Gabriel always warned him about. The civilized world, Gabriel’s rules, his own clumsy morals—it all melted under this chemical heat. He was panting now, his vision sharp yet dreamlike. He could smell her arousal, a tangy, addictive scent that made his fangs ache and his cock stiffen painfully against his pants.
“Yeah,” Koen slurred, his voice rough. “Fuck. Yeah, I want more.”
She smiled, leading him away from the table, deeper into the red-lit gloom, towards a piled nest of cushions where shadows moved together. He followed, the last threads of his resistance dissolving in the fire flooding his veins. There was only the heat, the pulse, and the overwhelming, devouring need to touch and be touched, to fuck and be fucked, to drown in the feeling.
The woman with the beaded skirt didn’t lead him to the cushions. She pushed him onto them, her mouth already on his, tasting of the bitter punch and cheap lip paint. His hands found her hips, his blunt claws scraping her skin as he pulled her astride him. She yanked open his leathers, freeing his cock, and sank down onto him with a wet, ragged cry that was lost in the room’s symphony.
“Fuck, you’re thick,” she groaned, rolling her hips, taking him deeper.
Koen’s head slammed back against a cushion. Sensation obliterated thought. Her cunt was a hot, tight vise around him, milking him with each frantic rise and fall. He bucked up to meet her, driving her down harder, his hands moving to her tits, squeezing roughly. He could hear himself grunting, animal sounds he didn’t recognize. Her nails scored his chest, drawing thin lines of blood that beaded and vanished as his skin stitched itself closed a second later.
Someone else was there then—a man with calloused hands and the smell of machine oil. He pressed a fresh, cool mug into Koen’s grip. “Drink. You’re sweating.”
Koen drank without looking, the liquid spilling down his chin. The man’s hand replaced the mug, fingers tangling in Koen’s ashen hair, pulling his head to the side. The man’s mouth was on his neck, biting, sucking a bruise into the tan skin as the woman above Koen rode him faster. The dual assault was too much. Koen came with a shattered groan, his body bowing, spurting deep inside her.
He was still pulsing when she climbed off, laughing breathlessly. “Not bad for a first course.”
Koen lay spent for only a moment before the chemical fire in his blood reignited, fierce and urgent. The regeneration that fixed his wounds seemed to stoke the need, leaving him hard again in an impossibly short time. He pushed himself up on trembling arms.
A different woman, older with silver in her hair, guided the head of his cock to her mouth. Her tongue swirled around the tip, licking his own spend mixed with her predecessor’s juices. Koen gasped, his hips jerking. She took him deeper, her throat working, and he watched, mesmerized, as his length disappeared between her painted lips.
The man with the machine-oil scent moved behind Koen, hands on his shoulders, his own cock, hard and leaking, pressing against Koen’s lower back. “Easy,” the man murmured, but his voice was ragged with want.
Koen was past words. He rocked back against the pressure, fucking the woman’s mouth in a clumsy rhythm. The man’s hand, slick with something from a jar, trailed down the crack of Koen’s ass. A thick finger, then two, pressed inside him. Koen froze for a second, a shock of unexpected sensation spearing through the haze. It burned, then bloomed into a deep, full ache that made his balls draw up tight.
“That’s it,” the man grunted, working his fingers. “Just relax.”
But Koen wasn't built to relax. He pushed back onto the intruding fingers, craving more, his own need a frantic drumbeat. The woman pulled off his cock with a wet pop. “He’s ready for you, Tomas.”
The man, Tomas, positioned himself. Koen braced his hands on the woman’s bare shoulders. The blunt, hot press of a cockhead against his asshole made him suck in a sharp breath. Then Tomas shoved forward, sheathing himself in one brutal, claiming thrust.
“Christ,” Koen choked out. The stretch was immense, a tearing fullness that his body instantly began to mend and accommodate. It hurt. It felt fucking incredible. Tomas set a punishing pace immediately, his hips slamming into Koen’s ass, each drive forcing a ragged gasp from Koen’s lungs.
The woman beneath him lifted her legs, guiding Koen’s cock into her soaked cunt. He was enveloped in heat front and back, a slick, tight sandwich of flesh. He was a piston between them, fucking into her as he was fucked from behind. The sounds were obscene: skin slapping, grunts, the squelch of wet, overused holes.
A mug appeared at his lips again. He drank, the liquor dribbling into the woman’s hair. His vision tunneled. He was just a body, a thing of nerve endings and hunger.
Tomas came first, a hot flood inside him, before pulling out and disappearing into the gloom. Koen kept pounding into the woman until she shuddered and clenched around him. He spilled again, his orgasm a weaker, drawn-out tremor.
He collapsed off her, rolling onto his back, chest heaving. The red light swam above him. A man he didn’t know, young with a shaved head, straddled his chest, pressing his cock to Koen’s lips. Koen opened his mouth, too wrecked to refuse, letting the stranger fuck his throat. He gagged, tears leaking from his orange eyes, but he didn’t push him away. The bitter salt of the man’s pre-come, the ache in his jaw, it was just another sensation to get lost in.
Someone else lifted his hips, entering him from behind again. This one was slower, almost cruel in their deliberation, drawing out each thrust until Koen whimpered. A hand wrapped around his spent cock, jerking him with rough strokes.
Time lost meaning. He was a vessel. A mouth, an ass, a cock to be used. Faces and bodies blurred into a continuum of hands and mouths and groans. A woman with a scar across her belly fed him from a bottle. A man with brass knuckle-dusters traced the demon’s freckles on his face before biting his lower lip until it bled.
He was floating, tethered only by the next touch, the next drink, the next raw, physical demand on his flesh. The regeneration kept him functioning, healing the small abrasions, the bite marks, the strain, but it did nothing for the hollow, devouring need at his core. Each orgasm, each violation, only seemed to deepen it.
The red haze of the lanterns bled into a grey, pre-dawn murk seeping through high, grimy windows. The music had slowed to a drugged, discordant whine of a single saxophone. The bodies were still now, heaps of sleeping, sweating flesh strewn across the floor like casualties.
Koen blinked, his tongue a thick piece of felt in his mouth. He was on his back, staring at a water-stained ceiling, a stranger’s leg flung over his thighs. A deep, hollow ache radiated from his core. He moved his arm, the action requiring monumental effort, and pushed the limb off him. The movement stirred the nausea. He rolled onto his side and vomited a thin, bitter stream of luminous red onto the floorboards.
“Easy, champ.” Mack’s voice was nearby, accompanied by the strike of a match. The scent of tobacco cut through the stench of sex and sick. “You really went for it.”
Koen tried to speak. A dry croak emerged. He pushed himself up, his muscles protesting, his head swimming. The room tilted. He saw the wreckage of the night: discarded clothes, empty bottles, the punch bowl now containing a single, floating cigarette butt. People were stirring, dressing in silence, avoiding each other’s eyes. The frenzy was gone, replaced by a shameful, collective hangover.
“Where… my stuff?” Koen managed.
Silas nudged a boot toward him with his foot. Koen’s leathers, his shirt, his gun belt were in a crumpled pile against the wall. He crawled toward them, each movement jarring his skull. Dressing was a clumsy, humiliating puzzle. His fingers fumbled with buckles. He could smell strangers on his skin, a cocktail of perfume, sweat, and come that no amount of wiping could erase. His regeneration had healed the marks, but the memory of the pressure, the bites, the stretching, was etched into his nerves.
“Good party,” Mack said, blowing smoke. It wasn’t a question.
Koen just nodded. He didn’t look at anyone as he stumbled toward the steel door, shoving it open onto the blessedly cold and silent street. The dawn air was like a slap.
He walked. One foot in front of the other. The city was asleep, the cobblestones gleaming with dew. His thoughts were broken glass, cutting him no matter how he tried to hold them. The image of Tomas’s intense gaze, the feel of the woman’s beaded skirt under his palms, the taste of that bitter punch—they flashed behind his eyes without order. He touched his lip, remembering the split from a punch that hadn’t come from a fight. It was smooth. Healed.
His apartment building loomed, a narrow wedge of soot-stained brick. The stairwell seemed to lengthen before him, each step a mountain. He gripped the banister, hauling himself upward, his breath ragged. He couldn’t feel his feet. The world kept melting at the edges, colors smearing together. He finally reached his door, the numbers swimming.
He fumbled the key, dropping it twice before it scraped into the lock. The click was deafening. He shouldered the door open and stumbled into the dark front room.
A lamp flared to life.
Koen flinched, throwing a hand up against the sudden glare. He blinked, his orange eyes struggling to adjust.
Gabriel sat in the worn armchair by the dead fireplace, one long leg crossed over the other. He was still in his tailored day-clothes, not a wrinkle out of place. His blonde hair was perfect. His blue eyes were chips of glacial ice. He held a glass of amber liquor in one hand, staring at Koen over the rim. The air in the room was so cold it felt brittle.
Koen froze in the doorway, the night’s filth clinging to him like a second skin. He could only imagine what he looked like, what he smelled like.
Gabriel took a slow, deliberate sip. He set the glass down on the side table with a quiet, final clink. The sound echoed in the terrible silence.
“So,” Gabriel said, his voice a low, even wire of sound. “How was the party?”
Koen stood swaying in the lamplight, the chemical fire in his veins still muting the sharper edges of his panic. Gabriel’s question hung in the air, crisp and lethal.
“It was loud,” Koen said, the words thick and slow in his mouth. He blinked, trying to bring Gabriel’s face into a single, steady image. “Real loud. And red. The lanterns were red.”
Gabriel didn’t move. “I gathered it was loud. Who was there?”
“Mack. And Silas. The guy with the gold teeth.” Koen listed them off on his fingers, leaning against the doorframe for balance. “A lady with beads. A guy named Tomas. He had… machine oil. On his hands. I could smell it.”
“Tomas.” Gabriel repeated the name as if tasting something foul. “And what did you do with Mack, Silas, the beaded lady, and Tomas who smells of machine oil?”
“They had punch.” Koen’s stomach rolled at the memory of the luminous liquid. “I had some. A lot. It made my skin feel… buzzy. Like sparks under it.” He scratched at his arm, nails digging into unmarked tan skin. “Then the lady, she kissed me. And I kissed her back. I think I bit her lip a little. My teeth are sharp.”
Koen offered a weak, hazy smile, his sharp canines glinting in the lamplight. “She didn’t seem to mind.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. The ice in his glass crackled. “And after the kissing?”
“I touched her. Here.” Koen gestured vaguely at his own hip. “And here. She was… soft. Then Tomas was there.” Koen’s brow furrowed, his gaze drifting past Gabriel to the dark window as he mentally reassembled the night. “He gave me a drink. Then his fingers were in my mouth. Tasted like metal. Then they were… somewhere else.”
“Where else, Koen?”
“In my ass.” The answer was flat, factual, devoid of any shame or subterfuge. He stated it like reporting a change in the weather. “It burned. Then it didn’t. Then he fucked me. While the lady was on my cock. Felt like I was being split in two.” He paused, his orange eyes widening slightly at the memory. “I came. Twice, I think. Maybe three times? It’s blurry.”
The calm, brutal cataloging was worse than any lie could have been. Gabriel’s knuckles were white around his glass. “And the others?”
“Lots of others.” Koen nodded, sagging further against the doorframe. A tremor ran through his legs. “A man with a shaved head. An older woman. Someone with brass knuckles—just held ‘em, didn’t hit me. They all… had a turn. I just kept drinking the punch. It made it easier. To just be… used.” He finally blinked, focusing on Gabriel’s frozen expression. “Was that wrong?”
The question, so genuinely perplexed, seemed to finally snap something in the room. Gabriel set his glass down with infinite precision and stood. He seemed to tower, his lean frame casting a long, oppressive shadow that swallowed the lamplight. “Wrong? You left a sanctioned venue, went to an uncharted den, consumed an unknown substance, and let an unspecified number of people use your body for hours.” His voice was a low, dangerous whip-crack. “Tell me, in what particular universe would that not be considered a catastrophic lapse in judgment?”
Koen processed this, his thoughts slogging through tar. “But… you were gone. And it was just a party. Just people and the punch and fucking. That’s all it was. Nobody talked about fights or money or anything. Just feeling good.” He emphasized the last point, as if this clarified everything. “Everyone was doing it. Everyone was drinking it. It was just… what you do there.”
“What you do there,” Gabriel repeated, the words hollow. He took a step closer. The clean, cold scent of his cologne cut through the miasma of sweat and sex clinging to Koen. “And did it occur to you that the punch might have been engineered? That your compliance was the entire point? That you, a recognizable fighter with unique physiology, were a prime target for anyone looking to experiment, or compromise, or simply degrade a powerful thing?”
Koen stared, his confusion deepening. The concept of ulterior motives skidded off the slick, hazy surface of his mind. “But… they were just having fun. I was having fun. Until I wasn’t.” A wave of nausea shuddered through him, and he pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. “It’s not… it wasn’t a plot. It was just a messed-up sex party. No mysteries.”
He swayed. The room performed a slow, nauseating tilt. The adrenaline of the fight, the relentless metabolic burn of the drug and the regeneration, the sheer physical depletion of hours of violent intercourse—it all crashed down at once. The buzzing sparks under his skin guttered out, leaving a cavernous, icy void.
“Koen.”
Gabriel’s voice came from far away. Koen’s legs dissolved. The floor rushed up to meet him, but it never connected. A strong arm hooked under his shoulders, arresting his fall. The touch was firm, impersonal, yet it was the only solid anchor in a liquid world.
“I’m… drained,” Koen slurred, his head lolling against Gabriel’s chest. The wool of Gabriel’s suit scratched his cheek. “Batteries’re dead.”
“Idiot,” Gabriel hissed, the word devoid of its usual heat. It was almost soft. He maneuvered Koen’s dead weight, half-dragging, half-carrying him across the room toward the threadbare couch. Koen’s boots scraped lines in the dust on the floorboards. “You have the survival instincts of a moth.”
“Moths are nice,” Koen mumbled into the wool. His eyes closed. The world narrowed to the strain in Gabriel’s muscles, the surprising strength in the archangel’s lean frame, the focused, efficient movements as he guided Koen’s collapsing form down onto the worn cushions. The last of Koen’s energy bled out through his fingertips, a silent leak. Just before the dark swallowed him whole, he felt a hand—brief, tentative—brush the tangled ashen hair from his clammy forehead.