Page 98 of Fuse

And I suddenly remember. All of it. Where I really am. How I got here.

Welcome to the freak show.

The table is a leather-lined slab in a makeshift lab, outfitted with lips of electrodes at either end to fully absorb the brunt of my power should I even dare to try to exercise it. As if I have the strength to. Those nodes are damn good at draining my strength as well as restricting it. This circus’s ringmaster has thought of everything. Could I have expected anything less, considering what she did to get me here?

Speak of the devil in neoprene.

Faline struts back into her center ring, having traded out her skintight red number for one of her favorite catsuits. Her pace is neither hurried nor languid, and she clacks her high heels against the concrete floor with a steady mix of the two. Not that it matters. Relaxed or rushed, the woman’s bringing the exact same agony.

The agony…like this.

“Unnnhhh!”

I bite hard into the bit, vowing she won’t get a full scream out of me, as my bloodstream is shot up with a thousand silver bullets of electricity. A thousand points of pain. Liquid energy jolts me, searing and sizzling, burning and brutal, virulent and vile. As my system fights the invasion, I jerk against every lock on my body, and their sickening clanks are swiftly absorbed by the soundproofed walls. Though I weave straining groans between the metallic bursts, it’s the only sound she’ll fucking get from me.

I breathe through my nose like an overheated bull. Puff out furious air, coating the bit with more of my saliva, while ordering myself past terror and back into full alertness. Passing out right now wouldn’t be pretty. Faline won’t go for something as urbane as Picasso as her alarm clock. She’s more fond of methods that decimate a man’s mind on their way to gouging out his soul. Too bad, so sad, bitch. No matter how strongly I’m compelled to gaze at the edge of the abyss that could be my perfect, numb surrender, she’s not getting anything but my body for the show this time. The rest of me is spoken for now. For always.

The witch leans over, injecting an intent stare into me, already seeming to extract that declaration out of my brain—and answering it with a slow extension of her crimson smile. Not that her fresh epiphany is going to change any of her tactics about all this.

The procedures, along with the equipment, that have definitely changed since the last time I was locked to a table for her.

That I’m sure I’m about to be reacquainted with. In extreme detail.

“Comfy, cariño?” She leans over even more, pressing her neoprene-clad curves against my prone and shuddering body. I form new teeth prints into the bit as she kisses my neck—and wraps her hand around my exposed cock.

And all the power she’s just pumped into my body becomes a massive power surge to my core.

At once, because I can’t help it, precome jets from my tip. I can’t see it, but I can feel it, hot and scalding, especially as Faline mewls in approval.

“Ohhh, you magnificent man. That is perfect. Perfect.” She spreads the shit down the length of my shaft, working my erection with expert technique. While she strokes, she goes on in a conversational tone. “You know, Alpha Two, there were so many times when I thought what heaven it would be to simply be your lover. To offer you freedom from the hive for the chance to be the glamour girl on Reece Richards’s arm. We would have been beautiful together, you know. One of the world’s most stunning couples. And every night, you could bury this big, beautiful, electric cock in my tight, juicy cunt, and…”

She stops for a second, frowning hard. Well, if she thinks talking about fucking her is going to keep me stiff, she’s more delusional than I thought.

“Well, I am sorry it has to be this way, papi—but now that I am nearly a goddess in my own right”—she flicks out a pinky, giving me another jolt without touching the control board—“and you’ve openly admitted your insipid attachment to that blond peasant, the idea of getting messy with emotions over you has gotten—how do you say?—pedestrian.”

She rewards herself for that with a little bark of a laugh, like a kid comprehending “hot dog” as an expression as well as a food. She tilts her head, suddenly inspecting me like a Pink’s nacho chili special. I pray the woman doesn’t have a thing for nacho chili. If she puts her mouth on me to do this, I’ll lose the contents of my stomach like I’ve binged on those fuckers.

Luckily, she doesn’t stretch out the torture of her scrutiny for long. Or the wait for her next thorough stroke up my shaft, making it clear she’s not here to “service” me beyond what’s brutally necessary.

“Shall we get on with things, then?” A ruthless rub of my balls and another pump up my prick. “Because the sooner you give me your liquid gold, the sooner they will be able to put it inside me,” she rasps, once more licking up the column of my neck. “And the sooner I will be the mother of a god.”

A seething grunt stands in for my roar of protest, but it fades as fast as it erupted. While knowing I’ve figured out what she and the Consortium want the most from me, I’ve held back on theorizing why. Is their purpose for my jizz truly that obvious? Does their army of so-called geniuses clearly not know the truth yet? That I’ll never be a viable father for anyone’s child? If my stuff hasn’t taken hold inside a normal, fertile female like Emmalina, then—

Emmalina.

She comes to me now, her light my perfect beacon in this hell. Keeping me sane as Faline starts milking me like a stud horse. Keeps me remembering that, even if this is my life from now on, be it hours or days or months that the Almighty chooses to keep my sorry ass alive, there was a time when my existence meant something. That there was one chance I didn’t throw away. The one massive good I really got right.

The whisper that won’t stop in my heart.

Emmalina.

The presence that seems to fill the room—yes, this room—and yes, even now.

Emmalina.

The light of her, so blinding and beautiful, that it makes the air hum and pulse and shiver. Yes, even louder than Faline’s anticipating hiss. Even louder than my thundering blood. The brilliance that shines brighter with every step she seems to stride closer…like there’s a full halo around the top of her hair, and feathers of gold light flaring from her fingertips, and damn beams from the dawn itself shining out of her eyes…

So bright.