Clipped (The Clipped Saga, 1) by Devon McCormack (23 page)

misunderstanding.”

“Trey, if I pissed you off—”

“My bad. I just thought...I don’t know what I thought.”

I thought I might actual y matter to this asshole
, Treycore actual y thought.

“Wel , let’s get you guys back to the States.”

CLIPPED 216

Kisses trailed around Kinzer's bel y-button as Janka worshiped his torso,
massaging his thumbs against the sides of his abs, trailing them down
his perfectly arched love-handles.

“Oh yeah!” Kinzer cried, throwing his head back.

Janka slid his nose down the rift in Kinzer's abs, breathed softly
across his flesh, down to the head of his cock. He flicked it with the tip
of his tongue. His hand glided across Kinzer's abs, stroking, groping. He
combed the very tip of his teeth down the bulging vein in Kinzer's cock,
the tip of his tongue slipping out infrequently, surprising Kinzer each
time.

Kinzer just wanted Janka to take his cock, to bury his face

against his pubes. He wanted to feel the embrace of Janka's lips, the
warmth of his saliva lubricating his flesh.

“Suck me!” Kinzer begged.

Janka's lips arched into a smile against Kinzer's shaft, as if he

217 Devon McCormack
was enjoying torturing his lover.

He wrapped his hands around Kinzer's ass, kneading just for a
moment before gripping onto them and flipping him onto his stomach.

He sprang to his knees, separated Kinzer's cheeks, and pressed
the head of his cock against Kinzer's hole.

Kinzer's hole dilated.

“Fuck me, please! Fuck me hard!”

Janka pressed the tip of his head into Kinzer.

Kinzer was dry. It wasn't going to go in easy.

A thrust of Janka's pelvis sent Kinzer crawling. Janka grabbed
him by his wrists, forcing him to remain stil . Another thrust of his cock
pushed the wal s of Kinzer's ass open.

“AH!” Kinzer cried.

Another thrust, and Kinzer felt like he'd sat on a flagpole. He
gritted his teeth and groaned, squinting his eyes as he tried to take in
the massive, swel ing pain.

Janka's pelvis was wild with excitement, slapping against

Kinzer's cheeks over and over.

Kinzer gripped onto the boards in the floor, doing his best to
absorb the pain that throbbed through him.

Janka wrapped his arm around Kinzer's neck and pul ed him

back. Kinzer's back arched, the rifts in his abs stretching, his bely-button flattening against his tense muscles.

Janka wrapped his other hand around Kinzer's head, forced

him to turn back, and planted a kiss on his lips.

CLIPPED 218

His tongue invaded Kinzer's mouth, sliding about, tasting

everything in its path.

Kinzer's tongue eagerly met his. Sweat drenched his hair, rushed
down his forehead. His ful y erect shaft sprayed pre-cum onto the floor.

Janka continued shamelessly forcing himself into Kinzer's tense,
resistant hole.

As Janka broke from their kiss, he slid his lips across Kinzer's
face, til his lips were beside his ear.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I...love...” Kinzer cried out, struggling against the nearly
unbearable pain, “...you!”

BANG!

Kinzer, not even ful y conscious, rol ed off the couch,

grabbed his sword, and sprang to his feet.

As he came to, he scanned the room.

It was pitch black. The fire that Dedrus had started had

gone out.

“Dedrus? That you?”

He felt a jab at the back of his neck.

“Move,” a voice whispered, “and I'l slice your fucking head

off.”

Kinzer recognized the voice. It was Craetis. The Raze had

found them.

But how?

~

219 Devon McCormack
Treycore pushed a door open and peered into a bedroom. The blue

morning glow showered through a window, cascading across a

mattress set against the wal . Next to it, a table that appeared to be substituting for a nightstand had magazines scattered across it.

“Dedrus? Kinzer?”

Lero had teleported he and Kid to a cabin with the

coordinates he’d given him, but where was everybody? Surely, they wouldn’t have just up and left without them.

Treycore walked back into the main living area, where Lero

was waiting. Kid stepped out of the kitchen, looking puzzled.

“Is this the right place?” Treycore asked.

“It’s the right place alright,” Lero said. “You can’t smel that?

I would’ve thought as long as the two of you were together, you

would’ve been able to pick up on it a bit. She’s been here. Very recently.”“So you should know where she is.”

“Oh no,” Lero insisted. “It’s not that recent.”

In the same way Teleporters were able to differentiate each

other’s scents, they were able to fol ow one another’s paths,

especial y if they’d teleported recently. It was a bit of information Treycore’d gleaned in his relationship with Vera.

“Are you bul shitting me, Lero?”

As Lero made eye contact, Treycore knew that he was.

“Seriously, Treycore?! You know that bitch would be so eager

to pass along intel to The Almighty about where I am. I don’t need

CLIPPED 220

that. I’m doing good for myself. I’m happy.”

“You have to take us there. Please. I can’t tel you why. You

just have to trust me on this.”

Lero’s head shifted in spasms, clearly struggling to make a

decision.“Please,” Kid begged.

Lero’s attention shifted between them. “I’l take you as close

as I can without her being able to detect me, but that’s it.”

221 Devon McCormack

~

Kinzer's face hit a concrete floor.

Craetis stood over him, laughing.

Support beams lined the chipped, concrete wal s. White

stripes scattered across the raked floor. They were in an empty

parking garage, surely abandoned.

Dedrus had snuck back into the cabin while he’d been

sleeping and had been captured with he and Maggie. After Vera had teleported them to this location, she’d teleported again, presumably to retrieve Veylo.

“Ow!” Maggie shrieked. She stood behind Kinzer, her hand

on her bel y.

Deter had shot her up with a syringe that Kinzer assumed

was to force her into labor.

Mika and Deter restrained Dedrus.

CHEW!

A stairwel door opened a few yards from them.

CLIPPED 222

“Kinzer!” a voice exclaimed.

Kinzer didn't look up. He couldn't look into his enemy’s

eyes. Al his rage. Al his hate. And yet, what could he do with it now that he was powerless?

Footsteps crept up to him.

“What's the matter? You aren't still mad about that whole

me killing your boyfriend thing, are you?”

That day ravaged Kinzer’s thoughts.

Janka had crawled across the concrete, his limp legs dragging
behind, leaving a trail of blood in their path.

He leaned in to Kinzer, blood shimmering in the whites of his
blue eyes.

Kinzer's vision blurred as tears rushed down his face.

Janka coughed. Blood flooded out of his mouth, slid down his
chin. “I...” he said, struggling to speak, “love...you.”

“I love...” Kinzer fought to say through tears.

A sword, Kinzer's sword, wrapped around Janka's neck and

slipped across his flesh.

A river of blood pooled onto the floor.

“No! !” Kinzer wailed.

Janka col apsed into his bloody puddle.

Veylo stood over him, wiping his finger across Kinzer's blade,
across Janka's blood.

Kinzer drowned in a fit of tears. He tried to reach down and
hold his lover, but the chains held him back.

223 Devon McCormack

“I'm so sorry,” Veylo said. “But this is the price you pay when
you mess with The Raze.”

He stepped around Kinzer, alongside Deter, and raised the

sword. SLASH!

Kinzer tried to scream, but it caught in his throat.

Mika released the bone of his wing. It dropped to the floor just
as quickly as Janka.

Another quick slash and what remained of his wings, his gifts,
joined the other.

Deter unlocked his cuffs, freeing Kinzer's wrists. He col apsed
on top of his now-deceased lover, his tears col ecting in Janka's immortal
blood.

Veylo traipsed around him.

“Oh, Kinzer,” he had said, as he‘d stood over him, stil wielding
Kinzer's sword. “You think you’re suffering now?”

Kinzer used the pain and horror as he leapt to his feet, ready

to tear Veylo in two. But just as quickly, Craetis had his arms.

Veylo was dressed in a tailored navy-blue suit with a

matching bow-tie. The bangs that usual y dropped below his nose

were combed to the side. His shoulder-length hair curled sharply around his neck. The garage lighting reached back into his deep

sockets and sparkled across his pupils.

“I suppose I should thank you for bringing the child right to

me.”

“Fuck you,” Kinzer said, struggling against Craetis's grip.

CLIPPED 224

Craetis squeezed Kinzer’s biceps. The grip burned against his

muscles. Kinzer took it as a warning not to try it again.

“Don't be upset,” Veylo said. “We were bound to find you

sooner or later.” He turned to Deter. “Did you bring their swords with you, like I asked?”

Deter motioned to two swords, laying on the ground behind

him. “What are you up to?” Kinzer asked. “Why don't you just

kill us?”“Oh, I will,” Veylo assured him. “But you know me. I'm al about theatrics. Which is why I'd rather not blow my wad. You see, I've been working on a little project that I'd like you to test out for me. It's a very special project that I'm hoping you and Dedrus will be able to appreciate.”

He reached into his pocket and pul ed out a long, aluminum

cylinder. He pressed his lips against the end of it and blew.

A high-pitch stung at Kinzer’s ears. Dedrus groaned.

What is Veylo up to?
Kinzer thought.

That sadistic gleam in Veylo’s eyes beamed.

STOMP! STOMP!

Tremors ravaged the concrete floor, shaking the support

beams.

A ripping sound came from the side of the garage.

A green tentacle punctured through the wal . Another

punctured just a few feet from it. And then another.

“No fucking way,” Dedrus said.

225 Devon McCormack
Kinzer gasped.

The tentacles flailed about, tearing through the wal ,

creating a dust-filled cloud.

A chunk of the wal pushed forward, breaking open like a

baby chick pushing its way through its shel .

SMASH!

Chunks of wal col apsed onto the floor, and an orb slid

through the fresh hole.

It was a Morarke. There was nothing else it could have been.

As its tentacles squirmed across the garage floor, as if feeling before it, a giant, rhinoceros-sized foot slipped through the hole.

Another foot was right behind it.

Its flesh was green, laced with gray from the wal debris. Its

dome-shaped head had two holes. Its mouth was a gaping crater

filled with swirling, razor-wire teeth. Just a few feet above that was a slit-of-an-eye. Halfway down its bulky body, eight tentacles swung every way, feeling before it, as if trying to make sense of its

surroundings.

“Fucking douche!” Dedrus exclaimed.

The floor cracked into webs as the Morarke’s mammoth feet

stepped toward Veylo’s assembled meeting.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Veylo asked.

“If The Almighty or The Leader find out that you have that

—” Dedrus began.

“And how wil they find out when you’re both dead? Besides,

I have this one perfectly under control. Trained him myself. I cal

CLIPPED 226

him Hoddy. Quite spectacular, isn’t he?”

The Morarke growled. It stopped til it was a few feet before

them, its tentacles relaxing, caressing rather than flailing.

Craetis’s fingers shook against Kinzer’s arms. Kinzer knew it

was because he was scared as shit. As he should have been.

“You see how good it’s being by not attacking you without

my instruction? Just because we were too lazy to understand how

truly remarkable these weapons real y are, doesn’t mean that we can’t find a way to utilize them.”

“Oh, ah!” Maggie squealed. She hobbled over. “Fucking