and bring back the man who owns his heart.
Will his love be enough to draw Trevor back from the darkness?
* * *
Lying in bed, Moses Abram—better known as Daddy Drake to his friends in the kink community—stared at Trevor Hammond, his sleeping lover and submissive. After having rescued his sub from yet another chronic and panic-inducing nightmare, Drake rubbed his tired eyes, searching for a thread of comfort in Trevor’s soft snores. Yet no relief was in sight. The clinical diagnosis of PTSD—by friend, psychologist, and fellow Dominant Tony Delvaggio—plagued Drake. He worried that Trevor would be held captive to those inner demons forever.
Lord knew it wasn’t for a lack of trying. He’d attempted to coax Trevor out of the darkness in every conceivable way. But so far, nothing had worked. Still, Drake refused to give up, even as the claws of impotence and frustration ripped his control and shredded his heart.
Swallowing the lump of anguish lodged in his throat, Drake blinked back the tears blurring his vision. Dammit, what would it take to bring his lover back? He didn’t know, and it made him want to pound his fist into something hard and unforgiving.
Trevor jerked and thrashed, then whimpered softly. With an inward curse, Drake sat up and gently stroked his lover’s soft blond hair.
“Shhh, it’s all right, precious boy,” he murmured. “Daddy’s here. You’re safe.”
As Trevor settled once again, Drake issued a soft sigh of relief. While his lover’s night terrors had lessened, they hadn’t disappeared completely. He remembered the times he’d find Trevor huddled in a ball in the shower, crying uncontrollably. Thankfully those times had also tapered off. The young man only allowed a handful of trusted friends to know the depths of his traumatization. The other members of Club Genesis, the local BDSM club owned by longtime friend Mika LaBrache, hadn’t a clue what Trevor and Drake were actually going through. And of course, the few times he and his sub had made an appearance at the club, Trevor painted on a happy smile, pretending all was perfectly fine.
But it wasn’t. Dammit.
Spying the bottle of sleeping pills on the nightstand, Drake bit back a curse. Once he had been the one responsible for exhausting Trevor’s mind and body with his Dominant demands and sexual needs, not some fucking pharmaceuticals. And in the wee hours of the night, like this, the yearning to claim Trevor again in achingly tender or brutally rough ways all but drove Drake to the point of madness.
He missed the compelling, mystical connection they shared exploring and fulfilling each other’s dark desires. Yes, he mourned the loss of his slave, but most of all, Drake grieved for the potent love they’d once shared.
He couldn’t fault Trevor for the destruction of their relationship. The poor boy had been an innocent victim. Drake owned all the blame and carried that weight on his shoulders as if it were the entire universe. From the minute he opened his eyes in the morning until blessed sleep stole his thoughts, Drake lived in the same mire of guilt day in and day out…for the past six fucking months.
If only he’d gone to the convenience store with Trevor that night instead of staying with Mika and Julianna, those prick-assed fucking homophobic frat boys wouldn’t have savagely attacked and beaten his precious lover half to death.
Ice. All this fucking aftermath over a worthless bag of ice, Drake inwardly railed.
He’d exacted his revenge, in a sense. Yet, arranging for Frank—a longtime friend, sadist, and skilled tattoo artist—to befriend the frat boys, roofie their beers, then tattoo gay slurs over their faces paled in comparison to the retaliation still smoldering inside Drake’s soul. One day, he planned to hunt the five down. He wanted to savor their tortured screams and pitiful pleas while he unleashed a sanity-breaking brutality and a level of pain they couldn’t imagine. The agony they’d inflicted on his boy had awakened a pulsing, living demon inside Drake.
Sucking in a ragged breath, he gently lifted Trevor into his beefy, tattooed arms. There would be time later for Drake to quench his bloodthirsty vengeance. First he needed to find a way to heal his lover. Feathering a soft kiss over Trevor’s cheek, Drake tasted the subtle saltiness of his skin and breathed in his familiar scent.
“Tell me how to fix this for you, love. I can’t stand this distance between us. Come back to me, precious boy. Please. Daddy needs you,” Drake whispered, allowing several tears to leak from his eyes.
#
Floating in the peaceful darkness, Trevor finally found the respite he’d sought. All too soon, he heard the screen door slam and the loud, slurred voices of monsters behind him. Fear seized him. Somehow they’d found him again. Frantically looking around for an escape, Trevor saw tall brick towers surrounding him. No doors. No windows. Not even a light to lead him out of the black, foreboding alley.
“Look at all that pretty blond hair,” one of the monsters stated.
Trevor knew what was coming next and wanted to yank the long tresses from his scalp. Prove he wasn’t a girl before the monsters discovered that for themselves.
“Hey, sweet thang. Wait up. We jus’ wanna talk,” another demon slurred. “Come on, baby.”
Panic thundered through Trevor’s veins.
“We’re talking to you, you stupid bitch. Don’t ignore us like we’re not here,” snarled the one with the black eyes. The one Trevor knew was going to hurt him the worst. “Come here, you stuck-up slut. You’re not deaf as well as stupid, are you?”
Then, like he remembered, a hand reached out and snatched his arm, holding him in place with a vice-like grip, and spun him around.
Face-to-face with Satan’s spawn, Trevor watched as the look of disbelief widened all five men’s eyes.
“Oh, that’s fucking priceless.” A beefy, linebacker-looking guy with short-cropped hair and crooked teeth laughed. “Way to go, Everetts. You’re hitting on a fucking fairy.”
“I was not. I thought this faggot was a girl,” the shorter man with bloodshot eyes spat with a hateful snarl. “Where do you get off making us think you’re a girl, you little sperm-burper?”
“I-I was just walking to the store. I wasn’t doing anything,” Trevor stammered.
“Pull out your cock, Everetts. Shove it down the faggot’s throat until he gags,” Black Eyes urged before inching in close to Trevor’s face. “You like sucking dick. So do it.”
“N-No. I was…was just getting ice,” Trevor tried to explain. Panic inched up his body like leeches sucking life from his veins.
“On your knees. You know the drill,” Black Eyes ordered. Gripping Trevor’s hair, he kicked the back of his legs and dropped him to the pavement.
Trevor jolted against the concrete, and pain screamed through his joints as a howl tore from his lips.
“Fuck you, Robinson. I ain’t letting no queer’s lips near my dick,” the man named Everetts argued.
“Then how about we just beat the fuck out of him instead,” Robinson, the black-eyed man, suggested with glee.
Trevor didn’t even have time to try and cover himself or fend off the brutal blows rocking his face, ribs, and kidneys. A kaleidoscope of agony tore through him. In the distance, he heard Drake calling out to him. Trevor tried to yell for help, but one of the monsters pressed their lips to his. Wildly swinging his fists, Trevor screamed with revulsion. Viciously biting down on the lips pressed to his, he sank his teeth in deep. The taste of copper filled his mouth as he continued to punch the oppressive weight pinning him to the soft ground.
Soft ground? What the… It’s the dream again. It’s only the dream, his subconscious assured. Clawing his way out of the darkness, he surfaced, blinking at the light from the nightstand that filled the room. Drake lay on top of him, blood dripping from his lip.
“Son of a bitch,” Drake roared.
While Trevor was relieved that he was free from the recurring and debilitating nightmare, knowing that he’d inflicted such savage damage to his Master’s lip filled him with an overwhelming blast of guilt.
Sucking in a gas
p of shame, he grabbed the sheet and gently dabbed the fabric against Drake’s mouth. “Oh, god. No. No. I’m sorry, Master. I didn’t mean to… I was having another—”
“Another bad dream,” Drake sighed grimly as he pushed Trevor’s hands away. “I know.”
A rolling wave of remorse drowned him in misery. Why couldn’t he stop reliving the events of that horrible night and put the past behind him? He yearned to have the relationship with Drake they used to. When would these fucking night terrors ever end? Would Drake finally lose every ounce of patience and simply throw in the towel over Trevor’s unpredictable mood swings and his sullen, isolated behavior?
He needed to find a way to fix things between them, but most of all, Trevor needed to fix himself. All the coping tools Tony Delvaggio gave him during their weekly sessions weren’t working, leaving Trevor at a loss.
“Let me up, Daddy, and I’ll get an ice pack for you,” Trevor murmured, contritely.
“It’s all right, boy,” Drake exhaled on a heavy sigh.
With a soft caress, he pushed the hair from Trevor’s face. “I tried to wake you gently, like Tony suggested. I guess I wasn’t quite tender enough. It’s my own fault, baby.”
Trevor felt the tension and fury slowly bleed from the big man’s body. As Drake stared at him with a weary gaze, he noticed the dark circles under Daddy’s eyes. The sight increased Trevor’s guilt even more. He swallowed the tightness in his throat.
“You haven’t slept yet, have you?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
Drake shook his head as a wan smile tugged his lips.
Tears welled in Trevor’s eyes. He tried to blink them back, but they spilled over his lashes. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I’ll go sleep in the guest room for the rest of the night.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Drake commanded before dipping his head to scrape his teeth over Trevor’s flat brown nipple.
A ripple of delight danced through his system as he sniffed softly and gripped his fingers into Drake’s rock-hard shoulders.
“Please…Daddy,” Trevor whispered. “Please…” Don’t give up on me.
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