Filed to story: The LORDS Series Free PDF by Shantel Tessier
“Open wide,” he orders, and before I can even comply, he shoves something into my mouth, pushing my head back in the process. It’s hard to fucking breathe since my nose is broken, but I make do. “You’ll feel a pinch,” he states as he places a hand on my bare chest. I scream into the cloth as the most excruciating pain shoots through my body, taking what little breath I had away.
It’s over in a flash, and I feel a rush. Like a dead car getting jump-started. He yanks the cloth from my mouth. “I’d say you have about twenty minutes.” He smiles at me, and I have no fucking clue what he’s talking about.
He leaves the platform and pushes his cart across the arena. Once I no longer see him, my wrists are freed, and I fall to my knees. I don’t even feel the blow. I take a deep breath through my nose, and it feels healed. My sinus cavity is wide open.
I stand to my feet, jumping down off the platform. The lights are all of a sudden brighter. My heart pounds in my chest like a drum, and my pulse races. I could run for days. I no longer feel any pain. Just pure fucking power. I’m energized.
He injected me with adrenaline.
The question is why? What am I supposed to do with it?
My muscles tense and flex on their own. I fist my hands and can feel the blood rushing in my veins. Fuck, I feel invincible.
I hear a sound behind me and spin around just in time to see a man rushing me. He knocks us both down, and I roll a few times before I jump to my feet. But then I’m hit from behind, knocking me to my knees.
Fuck, there are two of them.
I get up and turn in time to see his fist flying to my face, and I manage to block it as I shove mine into his. He doesn’t even budge.
They’re on adrenaline too. Not surprising. The guy said I should have about twenty minutes. Before what? I crash? Get killed?
I’m hit from behind, knocking me into the guy I just punched in the face. He grabs me, spins me around, and shoves me into the other one.
I grind my teeth, getting angry. My patience is on a shorter fuse than usual. I take a step to the side, putting some distance between us, needing a second to think. I reach down and undo my belt. They let me keep it on. I grasp it with each fist and jump on the guy closest to me, wrapping it around his neck from behind and pulling on it.
He loses his footing from me choking him and dropping my body backward. We stumble back, and he falls on top of me. I wrap my legs around his stomach and squeeze as hard as I can, locking my ankles together while I hold the belt tightly around his neck.
I hold on with everything I have as he tries to fight me, rolling side to side and grabbing at my hands. His nails dig into me, breaking the skin, but I ignore it.
The second guy leans down and tries to pry the man in my grasp away, but it doesn’t work. The man on top of me grows heavier and softer. His body loses the battle with strangulation as he begins to asphyxiate. He taps my arm instead of digging his nails in, and I snort. This isn’t a tap-out scenario. This is a kill-or-be-killed situation, and today isn’t the day that I die.
The guy who stands over us grabs my boots and yanks me and the dying man across the floor. But I refuse to let go. I’m too close now.
When the man on top of me finally goes limp, I wait another second before I release him. Then I push his corpse off me.
I get to my feet and sway a little. I’m losing the adrenaline. The rush is falling away.
The man across from me notices and smirks. He didn’t use all of his while fighting us. I’m going to have to run on backup. To further my point, the guy runs away from me, making me frown. But he rushes up the stairs to the platform, jumps up onto the bar that my arms were tied to and swings his large body up and over it, doing a flip around it.
What the fuck? Is he some kind of gymnast? Acrobat? Where did they find him, the goddamn circus?
He lands on the platform and turns to face me, smirking. He lifts his hands and motions for me to come to him. Any other time, I’d make him come to me, but I don’t have an extra second to spare. All he has to do is keep me running in circles until I crash, then hit me a few times to win.
I won’t make it that easy for him.
Instead, I take a deep breath and run for him. I jump the three stairs onto the platform. He stands to his full height in surprise. And I take the opportunity to jump as well, gripping the metal bar he just spun around. I lift my knees, kicking him right in the chest, knocking him clear off the back end of the platform.
Letting go, I fall to my feet and pick up the chain and cuffs that lie where I was released. I then jump off as well as he rolls to get up on his hands and knees. I position myself over him, one leg on either side of his back, then wrap the chain around his neck from behind and yank him to his feet. I drag him back onto the stage and thread the end of the chain through both cuffs, pulling tight and securing it around his neck.
He goes frantic, trying to get it off. I jump up, toss the end of the chain over the bar, reach up and grab it, and let my legs go limp and yank on it, hanging him by it.
My vision goes in and out like before. My body is starting to give up on me. That headache returns tenfold. I feel a sharp pain in my side, and I’m not sure if I’ve broken a rib or if my nose is the reason I can’t breathe.
The man continues to dangle from the bar. He thrashes around, fighting the chain around his neck, and I tell myself I can’t let go. Not yet.
“Just…a little more,” I grind out. I’m pretty sure I have lockjaw because I can’t open my mouth, and it’s getting harder to breathe. Or maybe I’m grinding my teeth. I can’t tell the difference.
I watch his arms drop to his sides, and his body sways back and forth. My sweaty hands slip from the chain, unable to hold myself up anymore, and I drop to the stage. My legs are like Jell-O, so I lie there as the man slumps next to me as well. His open and vacant eyes on mine.
I can’t move as mine grow heavy. Hands grab me, pulling me from the man and off the stage. If there’s more of them, I just won’t survive because I have nothing left.
I’m placed on a soft cushion and wheeled out of the arena. The last thing I see is my father running up next to me. He’s smiling, and I blink, vision blurry. “Good job, Son.” He slaps my chest, making me flinch.
My head falls to the side, and I get a glance at Lords pulling the dead guys from the arena before everything fades away and I’m covered in darkness.
TWO
SAINT
INITIATION
DEVOTION
Sophomore year at Barrington University
I’m leaning up against a concrete wall in the basement under the courtyard at Carnage. I was instructed to be here, and when I arrived, they immediately ushered me down here. I think that was yesterday, though I’m not 100 percent sure. There is no window in here. Just concrete walls and a door with a slot where I was fed water and a piece of bread hours ago.
I have no clue what my initiation consists of-we never do. We just show up and do what must be done.
I was left fully dressed and allowed to keep my combat boots on, which threw up more red flags than anything else. I’ve seen my father and the others strip men naked, brand them, and throw them in a cell. If they expect me to go crazy and kill myself with the use of my clothes or shoestrings, they’ll be disappointed. I’m not suicidal.
The door opens, and my father enters with another Lord, whose identity is disguised. Nothing new. The Lords love their masks and cloaks. It makes them feel superior. As if running the world isn’t enough.
“Give me a second with my son,” my father tells him.
The man in the mask nods and steps out, closing the door.
I cross my arms over my chest as he runs his hand through his dark hair. Lords are intended to breed after graduation, so the fact that they have kids at a young age is common.
“Do I get conjugal visits?” I ask, my mind going to a specific woman who is brunette with blue eyes. She’s the twin sister of Adam-another Spade brother-and everything I want. And one day, I’ll get her.
His eyes narrow on me. “This is serious, Saint.” He huffs. “This test…” He pauses, rethinking what he was about to say. “I’ll see you afterward.” With that, he turns, knocking on the door, and it opens, allowing him to exit.
I stay where I’m at, and this time, three Lords enter the confined space, making my heart race as I look over their cloaks and masks. One holds out what looks like a cap to a two liter of some sort. It’s full of clear liquid.
Taking in a deep breath, I take the offered cap and hold it up. “Bottoms up,” I say and toss it into my mouth, knowing it’s going to fuck me up. But it’s not like I can say no.
It drops to the floor before I even have the chance to blink and stumble back. My legs no longer hold me up, and I fall into the back concrete wall. My eyes grow heavy, and I watch the three blurry figures walk toward me as my eyes fall closed and blackness takes over.
* * *
I groan, a throbbing in the back of my head hitting like a drum. I go to roll over onto my side but can’t. “Fuuucckk,” I slur, trying to get my bearings straight. Where the fuck am I? How long have I been out?
Opening my heavy eyes, I see blurry figures right in front of my face. Lines run down the length of my body, and I realize I’m lying on my back. I fist my hands, trying to get feeling into them. They’re cold and numb. Lifting my head, I hit it on something and curse myself.
Fuck, Saint! Now the front hurts as much as the back. I lie still and close my eyes, taking in a few deep breaths to let myself adjust to wherever the fuck I am before I hurt myself.