Empire of Light by Alex Harrow

Author:Alex Harrow [Harrow, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: NineStar Press, LGBT, gay, pansexual, demisexual, sci-fi
Publisher: NineStar Press
Published: 2019-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Fifteen: Second Son

RAEYN MADE GOOD on his promise and kept breathing.

By the time I got him to the Temple, I was covered in sweat and blood, my black T-shirt sticking to me in wet patches. Raeyn was out cold, a dead weight across my shoulders. La Maison’s back door wasn’t much more than a slab of spray-painted steel, blending in with the rest of the Temple’s warehouse front. Last time, I’d been too busy getting the fuck out of this place to pay much attention to any guards posted out back. Now I ran into the same sourly scowl that’d given me the hairy eyeball back at L’Oubliette.

“You.” Ferris swerved toward me, the glare of her flashlight making my eyes water. “What d’you—” Her eyes widened recognizing Raeyn. “What did you do to him?”

I took a deep breath. It didn’t do anything for the stiffness or the burning in my shoulders. “Look. Ferris, was it? I didn’t do anything to him, but I swear to all the Gods, if you don’t move your ass away from that door and get me Aris and Initiate Pascal right this fucking instant, I’m going to take him in from the front. Wonder what all those Reds will do when they see him.”

Ferris’s scowl deepened. “Wait here.”

She must’ve broken some record, she got back so fast. Pascal was a dark shape against the bright doorway, their lips pressed together in a thin line.

“Get him inside.” I gave them credit for not asking what happened. Behind Pascal, Aris melted out of the shadows. Seeing him brought back everything that’d happened the last time I’d seen him, reminded me of the way my knuckles stung after I’d hit him and worse. He didn’t say anything. Just gave me a hand, and together we carried Raeyn down a flight of stairs and put him on a cot in a tiny room lit by two gas lanterns. The bare, whitewashed walls gave me a flashback of L’Oubliette. A shudder skittered down my spine.

Didn’t help that Raeyn looked like death warmed over. His skin was almost translucent where it wasn’t covered in a patchwork of bruises, a ring of black and purple digging into his swollen throat like the collar of a choke chain. He opened his eyes when Pascal unwrapped the makeshift bandage I’d tied around his chest. The shirt was soaked red, but they held it in place to staunch the bleeding while Aris got the Temple’s med kit. Pascal said something to Raeyn, their voice low and smooth, but his eyes stayed glassy and unfocused.

Pascal worried their lower lip between their teeth and wrestled their coils into a messy bun to keep them out of their face. They nodded at a tall cabinet across from me.

“IV bags are in the top right. He needs fluids to make up for all that blood loss.”

By the time I got the bag of fluids, Pascal had tied off Raeyn’s arm. They started an IV and motioned me to hold the bag up while they dragged a stand to hook it from.

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