Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (67 page)

Though much of the family, Elish included, didn’t know Valen was supposed to be the most advanced chimera out of all of them, an empath chimera. A chimera with King Silas’s mental abilities plus something called aura reading. But like his hearing, endurance, and jaw strength it had never developed. Once Silas had realized his pipedream of creating an empath chimera had failed, he had forbidden Valen from mentioning it to anyone. The only ones who knew just how much of a failure Valen really was, was Silas, Perish, and Garrett. Jack had only found out on the day Silas had rejected Valen. He had confided in Jack through tears – the last time the pink chimera had ever opened up to anyone.

Elish didn’t know, but because he was a man of many emotionally crushing words, he continued, his voice plunging into dark frigid waters. “For one of the biggest failures in our family you certainly have been making up for it by acting like an insufferable bitch. Unfortunately the family is tiring of turning a cheek to you constantly terrorizing the successful ones like Jack and Sa—
the others
. Acting like a shit doesn’t equal gaining respect Valentine. Perhaps if you spent more time on your personality and less time thinking bullying equals respect, Silas would’ve kept you as his cicaro.”

Jack’s facial expression might’ve been blank but inside he was screaming from happiness. It felt like his body was going to explode over the joy he could feel rapidly expand inside of him. And the joy wasn’t only derived from someone in the family finally coming to his defence, a large part of it was seeing the gob smacked and crushed look on Valen’s face.

“Silent now are we?” Elish said lowly, icicles hanging off of every deadly word. “Don’t you have anything to say? You’re rarely silent, why so quiet now?” Then Elish shook his head dismissively. “You’ve been getting away with your arrogance for far too long. Though I’m in charge now and no longer bound by Silas’s foolish rules. Tell me, Valentine, do you know why Silas doesn’t stop you?”

Of course Valen didn’t answer back; he only stood frozen where Elish’s words had left him, standing stunned like a virgin after a brutal raping.

“It’s because he doesn’t care about you,” Elish said. “Silas is hard on Jack, on all of us, because he loves us and we are worthy of his attention and critique, but you? He doesn’t give a fuck about you; he doesn’t care enough about you to discipline you. And you do nothing to gain his favour acting like a bitch and a bully.”

Then to further twist the knife practically embedded in Valen’s chest, Elish turned his back on him. “Get out of here, and if I hear of any more bullying – your deepest nightmares will not come close to what I will personally do to you.”

Jack thought that Valen would leave, turn around and run with his tail tucked in between his legs. But even the most abused and injured of dogs will still growl and snap moments before their death, and Valentine Dekker was no different. Holding onto the scraps of pride he never really had in the first place, the pink chimera gave an angry cry, before picking up a letter opener resting on the side table, and charging at Elish.

Without thinking Jack’s mind snapped into action. He grabbed onto Valen’s collar and yanked him back. The pink chimera stumbled backwards, before whirling around and raising the knife in the air to stab Jack in the neck.

Then Elish was there, towering behind Valen he grabbed the boy’s hand and crushed it in his grip, the letter opener falling to the ground. Valen struggled, and swung his free hand, grazing Elish’s jaw and leaving a thin streak of red in its trail.

The blond chimera’s eyes blazed. He violently shoved Valen into the wall before grabbing the young chimera’s neck and clenching it in between his large, vice-like hands.

Jack took a step back, his mouth open and gasping, trying to fill his anxious lungs with air as he saw the scene in front of him. Valen struggling and choking, his feet dangling off of the ground, and Elish, an inferno of white fire, staring down the boy with a distain in his eyes that told Jack he wanted nothing more than to crush the boy’s windpipe until the life faded from his eyes.

“You are doomed to live among gods, and die as a mortal with them looking on,” Elish said, his voice so full of darkness it made Jack’s blood turn to ice. “You are nothing but a scientific failure who is only alive by the mercy of your king and creator. It is time you learn your place, Valentine, and your place is licking the boots of your greaters.”

Elish dropped Valen onto the ground. The young man fell onto a heap, clutching his throat and massaging it to try and ease air back into his lungs.

“Kiss Jack’s feet.”

Jack’s eyes shot to Elish’s, though he couldn’t keep his gaze. Elish’s eyes were on fire, his flawless face as bright as a harvest moon and just as radiant. He was beautiful, a demigod in this greyworld, but in that beauty came danger, and no other times than now did Jack understand that.

"F-fuck off…” Valen said, though his snapping, arrogant tones were lost. His voice had dropped to a whimper, a meek shadow of its former self.

“Don’t make me ask you twice,” Elish growled. “You can either kiss the feet of your greater, or I will command him to dominate you in a more appropriate way. A way that you seem to enjoy.”

Rape him?
Jack looked down at the whimpering mass, Valen’s pink hair unkempt and stuck to his sweaty face, his lip-gloss smeared and his black eyeliner dripping down his cheeks from tears Jack hadn’t seen before. The man who had been bullying Jack for years was falling from his pedestal in full view of his victim and his king.

Could I do it?
Jack’s eyes travelled from Valen to the incandescent spectre that was Elish, and as he gazed upon the man with shining blond hair he felt a warm tension start to constrict inside of him. And with that not only did Jack know that he could; he knew that he wanted to.

The prospect of doing that to Valen, and to further tempt his fantasy, the prospect of doing it in front of Elish, was filling him with a desire he didn’t know if he would be able to shake. Immediately his mind started injecting image after image into him. Of Elish holding the screaming Valen down as Jack penetrated him, and holding his arms back as he viciously fucked him harder and harder.

Oh, fuck, to hear him scream… would Elish fuck me after if I begged him?

Though as Valen gave one last sniff and started crawling towards Jack, those dreams were dashed. Though it was bittersweet, because Jack was now witnessing Valen on his knees, leaning down to kiss Jack’s socked feet.

Jack swallowed hard, resisting the urge to kick Valen right in the face. After the abuse he had had to endure for the last several years he knew it was within his right to do so. But instead he stood still and watched with smug satisfaction as his bully submitted right in front of him.

“Good, you’re learning your place,” Elish said behind them. “You may stop, and you may stand up.”

Valen quickly got to his feet, refusing to look at either of them. He only wiped his eyes, smearing his black eyeliner across his face, and stared at the floor.

“Just let me go,” Valen mumbled, his arms slowly wrapping around his body, the letter opener lying forgotten beside his feet. “I got school tomorrow.”

To the surprise of both Jack and Valen, Elish let out an amused chuckle. This time Valen did raise his head and look at Elish, though his eyes quickly shifted away.

“You will find an amusing surprise when you get to class,” Elish said with a cruel smile. He leaned down and picked up the letter opener and casually twisted the point into his palm. Jack’s entire body gave a small shudder under Elish’s bemused tone. He knew what was coming, and he knew what it was going to do to Valen.

“Do you know that Sami killed three men at Popkin’s?” Elish smirked.

Valen paused, for a moment it seemed that he wouldn’t answer back, but after gathering himself once again he nodded. “Yeah, a lot of the family has been looking for him.”

Elish twisted the letter opener into his hand, before taking a step towards Valen and slipping it back into Valen’s. He closed Valen’s hand over it and gave it a pat.

“He was in that bar looking for
you
, Valentine. The filthy greywaster you hate so much killed three of your little gang. Tyler, Randall, and Yuri. He lit their faces on fire and made it well-known that anyone who knew where you were, needed to tell him.” Elish’s smirk turned into a smile as Valen’s face went pale. Jack could see his pupils retract.

“Sami killed them. Why don’t you prove to the entire family that you really are a chimera… and do something about it?”

“What!” Jack suddenly cried, but with a glaring look from Elish he held his hand up over his mouth.

Valen looked down at the pen knife; he sniffed but that was his only reaction. No screams of rage, no shouts of despair, he only looked at the knife and nodded. “That’s how I’m going to prove myself? You want me to kill Sami?”

Elish took a step back, leaving Valen standing alone with the knife in his hand, the dim lighting of the apartment making the small blade sparkle and shine as he turned it.

“I want you to prove to me that you’re not the waste of resources I am convinced that you are,” Elish said coldly. “A greywaster has killed three of your friends. What are you going to do about it? You’ve already disappointed the family enough by just being born a failure, I suggest not disappointing us further. We have embryos waiting to be implanted that hold five times your abilities, don’t give us a reason to create a replacement sooner than necessary.”

Valen’s face fell; a despair flooded his eyes that made even Jack’s hatred towards him weaken. He disliked being reminded just how bad Valen had it when compared to him. Valen was a bully and an asshole, but he was also a genetic failure. And I bet his older brothers had never missed a chance to point that out to him.

“It’s not my fault, you know?” Valen said weakly. “I didn’t ask to be… to be born like this.”

But though Jack’s heart was showing signs of wear, Elish’s was not. If anything the blond chimera’s facial expressions hardened further.

“None of us asked to be born like this,” Elish responded, before turning his back once again on Valen. “Now get out of my sight and don’t blemish my vision until you’ve proven you’re worthy of my gaze.”

The door of Elish’s bedroom shut, leaving both Valen and Jack to stare at the closed door as if expecting it both to give them more answers, but there was only silence.

Valen sniffed; Jack turned to see him staring down at the pen knife. He felt tongue tied as his brother slipped it into his pocket, and without a word… left the apartment.

For a solid minute Jack just stood there stunned, not knowing if he should race after Valen to beg him not to hurt Sami, or race in front of him to find Sami to beg him not to kill Valen. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do, or if there was anything in his power he could do.

Instead he opened up Elish’s door, and found his blond brother lying on his back, his eyes closed.

“You can’t let him hurt Sami…” Jack whispered, wondering if he was making his own deadly mistakes.

“You’re a fool if you think Valen will be able to hurt that man,” Elish said, his eyes still closed. “Sami is from the greywastes, he was burning boys like Valen alive since he was seven.”

Jack swallowed; his throat feeling like it was compacting tighter and tighter by the second. “So you’re sending Valen to die?” he said, his voice cracking.

“I couldn’t care less what happens to Valen,” Elish replied coolly. “If he dies, so be it. If King Silas wakes up to him dead it will relieve him of the guilt of having to dispose of him himself. Valen has no purpose in this family, Jack. Silas doesn’t want him as a cicaro and neither do I. Every chimera has their own purpose, even the female found her place as commissioner of the thiens. Valen, and several others, have no place within this family.”

Jack’s feelings towards Valen continued to soften, not enough for him to feel sorry for his brother, but enough to feel that Elish was being unreasonably harsh with Valen’s potential fate. “But he’s still… our family.”

“He’s replaceable,” Elish said back. He opened one eye and, oddly, motioned Jack over to his bedside. Jack was hesitant but he obeyed, as he walked to the far side of the bed Elish continued. “If he was a nice person to have around, if he showed other skills and potential, we would’ve kept him. But as of right now he and the others are a blemish on our family and reputation.”

“Others?”

“Ludo, Felix, and Rio have been testing the family’s patience. We have made vast leaps during the last five years when it comes to chimera engineering – I would like nothing more than to see all four of them disposed of to make room for more improved versions.”

Jack’s eyebrows raised in surprise. He laid down beside Elish and turned onto his side. “It just seems kind of… cruel.”

The corner of Elish’s mouth rose “And through cruelty and careful selection Silas will weed out the chimeras unworthy of immortality and status, and in the end… our family will be a force to be reckoned with. The second generation is full of defects, of chimeras not worthy to walk amongst their better brothers. Time will take care of some of them, but others… I want gone sooner rather than later.”

And Valen is one of them… I wonder who else he means.
Jack frowned at this.