If only the wall could swallow Vars and keep his neck away from Damon’s hands. But no matter how hard he pressed on, he was still facing the predator who’d come back to finish what he started. “Go away, Damon. I’m no longer interested in you. Go find a sadist, because you clearly are not a submissive. You want pain, and I’m not going to give you what you really want. We’re not compatible.”
Damon made a pouty face that went with his nature like oil did with water. It floated on the surface, but a pretty face could not make up for the ugly bubbling up inside of the monster in front of Vars. “I can be submissive. Of course I can. A good, obedient boy, just as you like.”
Vars didn’t even want revenge. He just wanted Damon gone. He wanted no more fake smiles, passive-aggressive attempts at undermining Vars’s confidence, or barely-veiled threats that had all eventually come true. He would no longer be a slave to someone else’s desire. Before Damon, he used to believe it was the subs whose health and life was at risk if they chose the wrong partner. He’d always felt safe, confident his role as a dominant would keep him out of harm’s way. After Damon, he knew that was not the case. All his instincts were screaming for him to run, but there was no way Vars could simply walk past Damon, so instead he stood still.
“You are not a ‘good boy’. You never were. I can’t even look at you anymore!”
The artificial smile was gone within a second, replaced by a mask of ice. “You're beginning to piss me off. I have needs, Vars, and it was you who always refused me. All you care about is yourself. You can’t even take risks when it’s someone else’s life at stake, you coward!”
Breathless, Vars pulled his hands closer to his body and squeezed them into fists. The edges of his vision were growing dark, with Damon becoming his sole focus. “I am not your Dom. Fuck off.”
Damon squinted, and his features became a bit of a blur, as if Vars were once again under water, watching Damon through the lens of the surface. “Who’s the ‘kid’, Vars? Because this is clearly what this is really about, isn’t it? Some new infatuation.”
Despite his best intentions, Vars took half a step along the wall and away from Damon, feeling as if the floor were burning under his feet. “I don’t want you anymore. Just move on!” In just weeks, Jake had offered Vars more submission than Damon ever had. Even though he was still weary of impact play and restraints, he was sweet, kind, and eager to obey, and Vars wished Jake were here instead of this ghost from the past.
“We’ll be done when I say we’re done!” Damon pounced closer, growling like a lion about to fight over turf, and the powerful, cat-like movement had Vars’s entire body rigid
His fists and street smarts had no chance against the skill of a professional killer.
“Damon... just leave,” Vars said, barely hearing anything but the frantic thudding in his ears.
Damon smiled. Nasty, vicious, anything but pleasant. “Oh, I will. And you’re coming with me.”
Vars didn’t even get to protest before Damon leaped forward. But when Vars tried to punch Damon’s face using the only advantage he had—his size, the predator ducked, and Vars’s fist hit air. Stumbling forward, Vars pushed himself away from the wall to face Damon again, but a tug on his neck sent his heart into overdrive.
Vars’s sudden inhale was cut short by a wire tightening around his throat, and the void it created in Vars’s chest had him clutching at his neck. The garotte dug in deep, leaving no place to slip in his fingers, but before Vars could do anything to hit back, a brutal tug sent him to his knees. He choked, dizzy from the lack of oxygen and the abrupt meeting of his head with the floor. Pain was a physical being, clawed hands digging their nails into his flesh and squeezing hard.
He tried to scream, but with no air in his lungs he had no way of powering the movement of his lips and tongue, so he remained mute, descending into the liquidizing floor that was about to shut him in his grave forever.
“Me? You reject me?” Damon roared, and the cold steel of a gun poking at Vars’s head made unconsciousness impossible when death was knocking at the door once more.
“Put the gun down!” Jake yelled from the door, his voice jerking Vars back into a reality in which relief was short-lived. Jake too held a firearm, but by interfering he’d made himself a target.
And with Vars taken hostage, Damon had the upper hand. He always had the upper hand.