Nick Vandran - Lord of Monsters

“Don’t stop. Oh gods, don’t stop!”

Those words were the sweetest Keaton had ever heard. Said in a gasp, the woman beneath him made breathless by his fierce, desperate pounding, it only spurred him on. He was so close, but he wanted to make sure she got there first. He’d always been a considerate lover, and he didn’t plan to stop being one now.

Especially not when the woman whose nails were currently biting into his back was her . Elena. The woman he loved. The woman he’d fought so hard for, considering she barely even noticed he was alive at first.

He had her now, though, and he was about to make her come for the third time tonight.

Keaton pounded harder, angling his thrusts so his cock rubbed against her clit even as her needy pussy fluttered around him, gripping his shaft and practically demanding he spill into her.

Not yet…

He gritted his teeth, his eyes squeezing shut despite how badly he wanted to see her face as she came. Her breath hitched, a sweet, keening moan following soon after, and Keaton finally opened his eyes. Her beautiful face was flushed, her long eyelashes sweeping down over her cheeks, lips parted in the perfect “o.” She arched upward, her full, round breasts pressing against his sweat-slick chest. And all throughout, her tight pussy contracted around him, begging for his cum.

Maybe they could have a child. He’d never thought about being a father before, but Elena would make an excellent mother. Sure, there were things they needed to figure out, yet the idea of it brought him closer and closer to that edge. He rocked into her, his thighs burning, balls aching with the need for release.

He was so, so close…

“Wh-what are you doing?” Elena huffed. “Hurry up and pull out, we can’t—”

The crack of splintering wood shattered their private moment, the heavy door flung so hard against the stone wall that its hinges loosened in protest. Keaton froze, ice running through his veins as he looked up and into the dark, murderous eyes of Lord Belmont.

Elena’s husband.

“Oh, fuck,” he hissed out, his urgent need to come now replaced by a need to preserve his own life.

Elena was quicker to act than Keaton himself. For such a small and proper thing, she had a surprising amount of strength in her as she shoved him off.

“Nathaniel, darling, I can explain!” She grabbed for the sheet, pulling it about herself. “This wastrel stole into my bedchamber, pinned me down, and told me that if I dared to scream, he would kill the children!”

Keaton’s head spun. Wastrel? Pinned down? She’d invited him up; told him her husband was away and would be gone for several days. She’d said, and he could confidently quote her on it, “Come here and put that thick cock of yours to work.”

The most distressing thing — aside from the large, muscle-bound man rushing toward him — was that she’d said children . Elena didn’t have children. Children required actually sleeping with her husband, which she’d said she hadn’t done since their wedding night, when it’d been required of her. She told him her husband was a cruel man who preferred the company of whores. That she feared bringing children into the world because he might hurt them the way he hurt her.

She’d told him a lot of things, and Keaton was beginning to realize that most of those things weren’t true. Especially since she hadn’t even looked at him since her husband stormed in.

“Do what you must, my love. I will endure the sight of violence if it needs to be done.”

And that . Gods a-fucking-bove.

His heart hurt terribly, his veins still running with ice water, the shards of it digging into him without mercy. But Keaton didn’t have time to think about how he’d been played or just what kind of pathetic idiot he was this week. Lord Belmont had retrieved a flail and seemed intent on smashing his skull into tiny, brain-spattered pieces.

As Keaton rushed the window — the only possible escape route — Lord Belmont let out an inhuman sound of rage and swung the flail hard. The mace’s spikes slammed into the stone and stuck, buying him a few precious seconds. Keaton threw open the shutters and leapt for the roof, knowing from experience that it wasn’t a very deep slant. He’d scaled it enough times to be intimately familiar.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t considered just how cold it was outside. Elena’s bedchamber bordered on hot, between the crackling fire and the exertion. It was a shock to his system as Keaton, bare-assed, scrambled out onto the roof.

He should have grabbed his pants. Should have remembered that it was freezing out. Should have been smart enough to recognize Elena was just bored and lonely and leading him on this whole time.

Above all else, he should have realized the roof was slick with ice. One wrong move was all it took, and suddenly Keaton’s legs were cut out from under him. His ass hit the edge of the roof, hard enough for him to cry out. Then he slid, and no amount of twisting and scrabbling was enough to save him.

Time seemed to slow, making him all too aware of his fall. It took an eternity to reach the ground, but when he did, every inch of his body felt the impact of hard-packed ice and snow. The wind was knocked from him, his back, ass, and legs numb as he stared up at the gray sky.

You fucking idiot. Why would you think this time could be different?

Just a few moments. He’d allow himself a few moments to grieve, then he’d pick up the shattered pieces of his pride and disappear for a while. Maybe skip town to avoid Lord Belmont’s wrath altogether.

Keaton closed his eyes and let out a ragged sigh.

When he opened them again, he was staring into the faces of several city guards.

Everything hurt.

It probably didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. He was sitting on straw that was scattered across the cold stone floor, the stench of piss and vomit thick in the air. He’d been given clothing, even if the incredibly loose tunic felt like wearing a burlap sack. His feet were still bare and in danger of being nibbled by the bolder rats that scurried about, and, as was made clear by the throb of agony that lanced through him, every muscle in his body fucking hurt. He was also pretty sure he’d broken a bone in his ass.

Not that any of that held a candle to the fact that he was probably going to rot in this cell for the rest of his life. His mother — cruel, bitter hag that she was — had been right: He was a worthless shit stain on society.

His head thunked back against the wall, the pain of that action barely reaching him. He needed to figure out how he was going to get himself out of here. He was, by some accounts, a certified scoundrel. He’d spent so much of his life on the streets, scavenging and stealing to get by. This was just another puzzle to solve.

One he’d solve after he was done feeling sorry for himself. Sorry and angry. He’d thought Elena was it. The one , whatever that meant. The person he’d spend the rest of his life with. Sure, her husband had always been an issue, but they’d made plans to run away together once she was able to hide enough funds.

He’d been such an idiot. She’d just said whatever he wanted to hear so he’d keep fucking her. All while she just laid there. That was the worst part of this. He’d convinced himself the sex had been amazing, but it was just her body that was amazing. He might as well have been fucking a straw-filled dummy for all the passion she had.

“Hey. Bud. You awake.”