In a flash, past and present mixed, the alchemy ignited by the adrenaline pumping through every vein he had; he was instantly ripped back through the many years to the night when his father’s males had held him down in the dirt at the Bloodletter’s command. The tattoos had not been the worst of it.
And here it was, happening again. Just not with the pliers.
Vishous screamed around the ball gag . . . and kept at it.
He screamed for all he had lost . . . screamed for the half male he was . . . screamed for Jane . . . screamed for who his parents were and what he wished for his sister . . . screamed for what he had forced his best friend to do. . . . He screamed and screamed until there was no breath, no consciousness, no nothing.
No past or present.
Not even himself anymore.
And in the midst of the chaos, in the strangest way, he became free.
Butch knew the moment his best friend fainted. It wasn’t just that those dangling feet went still; it was the sudden relaxation of all that musculature. No more straining in those huge arms and massive thighs. No more pumping of that big chest. No more ripped cords in the shoulders or down the back.
Butch immediately took the spoon he’d gotten from the kitchen off V’s leg, and likewise stopped pouring the lukewarm water out of the glass he’d grabbed f
rom the bar.
The tears in his eyes didn’t help him loosen the hood and pull it free. Nor did they make removing the immobilizer setup simple. And he struggled with the ball gag especially.
The corset was a bitch and a half to get loose, but however desperate he was to get V down, it was vastly easier to take everything off when he had a three-sixty to work with. And soon enough, the brother was bloody, but unencumbered.
Over at the wall, Butch released the winch and slowly lowered Vishous’s tremendous, inanimate body down. There were no signs that the change in altitude registered, and the floor made an impact only so far as it collapsed V’s loose legs, those knees bending up as the marble rose to greet his butt and torso.
There was more blood when Butch released the cuffs.
God, his friend was a mess: The gag’s straps had left red welts on his cheeks; the corset’s damage was even more pervasive; and then there were the wrists that were torn ragged.
And that was in addition to the condition the guy’s face was in, courtesy of whatever he’d slammed the thing into.
For a moment, all he could do was brush V’s jet-black hair back with hands that shook like he had palsy. Then he looked down his friend’s body, to the ink below the waist, and the flaccid sex . . . and the scars.
The Bloodletter was a shit beyond measure for torturing his son as he’d done. And the Scribe Virgin was a useless planker to have let it happen.
And it had killed Butch to use that horrible past to crack his friend wide.
Except he hadn’t wanted to beat V physically—he wasn’t a pussy, but he did not have the stomach for that. Besides, the mind was the most powerful weapon anyone had against themselves.
Still, tears had been rolling as he’d taken the spoon and put it against the inside of that leg—because he’d known instantly the extrapolation that would be made. And he’d been well aware that the lukewarm water would really cement the dislocation from the present.
The screaming had been muffled by the gag and the hood . . . and yet the no-sound had pierced Butch’s ears as nothing else could.
It was going to be a long, long while before he got over this: Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was his best friend’s body jerking and spasming.
Scrubbing his face, Butch got up and went to the bathroom. From off the shelf in the closet, he grabbed a stack of black towels. Some he left dry; others he wet with warm water at the sink.
Back beside Vishous on the floor, he wiped off the blood and fear-sweat from his best friend’s body, rolling him from side to side so there was nothing missed.
The cleanup took a good half an hour. And several trips back and forth to the sink.
The session had lasted a fraction of that.
When he was finished, he gathered V’s tremendous weight in his arms and carried the guy to the bed, laying him out with his head against the black satin pillows. The sponge bath, such as it had been, had left V’s skin with a rash of goose bumps, so Butch taco’d the brother, untucking the sheets and rolling them up and over him.
The healing was already happening, the flesh that had been scraped or cut reknitting and erasing the marks that had been made.
This was good.