Page 22 of Avenger of Sins

It seems to work. “Well done,” Gray says, then licks John’s neck, making him whimper. “Let us taste you.”

“Please.”

He pricks John’s skin with a claw, right at the join of neck and shoulder. Then he fastens his mouth on the small wound and sucks.

It isn’t more than a few drops, but the taste inflames their senses. He stiffens inside John again, drawing a groan from him.

“I’m yours,” John whispers.

“Yes,” Gray agrees. His and Caleb’s, to fuck and love and safeguard.

He pushes John forward, onto the bed, grips his hips, and resumes thrusting. Long and slower at first, then faster, attentive to John’s soft cries, the way his back arches. When the time seems right, he slides one hand around to stroke John, closes his eyes, and lets another orgasm crash through him as John clenches tight.

“Fuck,” John says after Gray has pulled free. He has gone limp, face-down on the pillow, boneless in the aftermath of pleasure.

“You cannot breathe like that,” Gray informs him.

“Wow, that’s super romantic,”Caleb says.

John laughs tiredly and rolls on his side. “Come here.”

Gray does so, fitting John’s back against his chest, wrapping him up in his arms. Within seconds, John’s breath evens out, and he sleeps.

Did we help?he asks Caleb.

“We made him happy, for a little while at least. That counts for something. Plus his exorcist ability should be all charged up now, with two loads of etheric energy in him. And, uh, other things.”

This is good. Content that he has done well, Gray slips beneath their skin.

John woke from dream to memory, so abruptly he lay staring at the hotel ceiling in confusion for a long moment.

What had shaken the memory from his subconscious, he couldn’t say. Only that it returned clear and whole. He sat beside his mom in the front seat of her old car. Trash bags stuffed with all the belongings they could carry were crammed into the backseat and trunk. Mom drove down a trash-littered street, away from their apartment, where even now a sheriff kept watch while the lock was changed.

“Where are we going?” he’d asked.

Somehow, despite the circumstances, she’d managed a smile for him. “We’re just going to stay in a motel for a few nights. There’s a pool and an ice machine—it’ll be just like a vacation!”

It wasn’t, of course. They’d been evicted, unable to pay the rent after Mom lost her job. Dad had taken off years ago.

What was his father’s name? John searched his mind, but there was nothing. Mom was Darlene, he knew that from the SPECTR paperwork they’d uncovered at the Center. Another name nudged his mind—Dolly. She’d gone by Dolly with herfriends. But his father was nothing but the vaguest of memories, just a suggestion of features and a feeling of bitterness.

Fuck him, anyway. He’d owed thousands in child support and never paid a dime, that much John did recall.

Now, looking back with the eyes of an adult, he realized how hard his mother had worked to shield him. Getting laid off from her job became “We get to spend extra time together for the next couple of weeks!” Eviction to a motel turned into a vacation.

The motel hadn’t lasted long. Soon they slept in their car and begged for change at stoplights.

Was Dolly, his real mother, even alive? Could he find her again if she was? And if so, would she even want to see him?

He’d been stolen from her, not given away. Not like the other poor souls at the Center. But she had no power to find him, let alone charge SPECTR with kidnapping, if she even suspected they were behind it. Likely she thought he’d run into trouble while out asking for change. Been picked up by a man with bad intentions. Did she think he was dead, his dismembered body in a landfill somewhere?

A certainty crystallized in his heart. Once this was over, he was going to find her, or find her grave if she hadn’t survived the streets. If she still lived, he could finally answer the questions that had surely haunted her all these years.

He’d tell her the truth—the whole truth, no matter if it was classified. SPECTR owed her that much.

What had Jo said? That she was finally going to act for herself, after being lied to and manipulated for so long, both by SPECTR and Ryan. She meant to use her day in court to try and enact actual change.

So what was he going to do?

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