The Alchemist's Son - Ch. 5 - Ezra (Patreon)

(This is only loosely edited. Fully edited hopefully error free version will be available shortly in the newsletter) 

Poll wins: Ezra stays. He does show off his skills. One of the leads pans out and you wanted both plot and smut.

Ch. 5

Ezra

Ezra became aware of his surroundings in stages. It was dark. No light anywhere. He couldn’t stop the lightning bolt of panic arching within him anymore than he could stop the gasp that escaped him when he realized there was a hand curled possessively around the curve of his hip and teeth dragging against his shoulder. His heart slammed against his rib cage until he was sure it might explode from his chest.

“You okay?” a voice rasped against his shoulder.

Relief rushed through him. “Declan?” Ezra managed, hysteria creeping into his voice as he fought his vision to right itself enough to make out anything in the room at all.

“Shit, the light.”

Declan’s hand disappeared. Ezra’s eyes protested as the bulb flared to life, painting everything a jarring white before objects bled into view. As they did, so did Ezra’s memories.

Right.

Declan had kidnapped him. A sudden warmth rushed over his whole body, memories flooding back. Declan’s hand around his cock, his fingers playing with his hole, Ezra confessing his virginity, that he’d waited for Declan. He flushed to the roots of his hair.

Declan’s hands were back on him. “You okay?”

Ezra gave a jerky nod. “Yeah,” he managed, humiliation washing over him. “That shit is just so embarrassing.”

Whenever Ezra had imagined being in bed with Declan, there hadn’t been a crippling fear of the dark or a kidnapping between them. There had been restraints, pain, just a little bit of force. The danger of being Abel’s son had somehow morphed the hero and the villain in his head into one twisted fantasy. But Declan was somehow both and neither of those things.

“Turn over and look at me.” It wasn’t a request. Ezra sighed, then did as he was told, forcing his gaze upward, unable to stop from sulking, his surprise evident when Declan said, “I’m sorry.”

Ezra’s brow furrowed. “For what?”

“For forgetting about the light. I must have turned it off in the middle of the night.”

Ezra scoffed. “In your defense, how many twenty-three year olds need a nightlight?”

“The same number of twenty-three year olds I know who’ve been kidnapped numerous times. Do you want to talk about it?”

Another bolt of panic jolted through him. “No. No, I really don’t.”

“Okay,” Declan said. “I am not gonna force you,” he gave him a thorough once over that sent warmth pooling in his belly. “Are you good now?”

Ezra nodded. “Yeah, I’m…fine.”

“Good,” he murmured, catching his mouth in a kiss even as he put him on his back, crawling over him and settling between his open legs.

Ezra couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped as Declan’s cock pressed against his, a shiver rolled along his skin as Declan’s scruff dragged sandpaper rough over his cheek and chin. Holy fuck. “This is so much better than my fantasies.”

“Glad to hear it,” Declan said, sweeping his tongue inside once more.

Ezra flushed as he realized he’d said that out loud, but he pushed his embarrassment down, his hand roaming. He couldn’t stop himself from tracing the well defined muscles of Declan’s back, down to the swell of his ass, before gripping it and trying to drag him against him.

Declan surged against him even as he growled. “Hands on the pillow.”

The need that flared in Ezra was incomprehensible, still there was this itch, he couldn’t control, this need to just push Declan…just a little. “Or what?” he challenged.

Declan’s lips left his, brushing against his cheek in a there and gone caress, “Ezra?”

“Yes, Daddy?”

Declan’s hand clamped down on his jaw, gripping hard enough to send a shock of pain through him as he forced Ezra to meet his gaze. “I’m being very patient with you, because you have a head injury,” he said, tone not unkind. But there was a palpable underlying threat to his words that made Ezra’s cock throb. “I want to make something very clear. Are you listening?”

Ezra was hanging on every fucking word. “Yes,” he whispered.

Declan’s mouth hovered just over his, each word puffing against his skin. “I want to hurt you. I like forcing you to submit, making you obey. Your pain turns me on. Do you understand?”

Ezra had to keep reminding himself to breathe. “Yes.”

Declan bit his lip hard. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Ezra whimpered, the taste of iron flooding his mouth.

Declan’s next kiss was soft, tongue teasing into his mouth. “I care about you. It makes no logical sense. But I do. You belong to me. I think you’ve always known that. And I protect what’s mine. But I also don’t share what’s mine. And I want you to survive this.”

I want you to survive this. There it was. A direct threat. Betray me and I’ll kill you. Declan Murphy was a bad guy by any stretch of the imagination. He was a killer. A criminal. He’d robbed banks and tortured people. But to Ezra he was just Declan. Just the man he’d wanted for longer than he’d ever admit out loud.

“Are you saying you’d kill me?” Ezra asked, trying to convince his brain to release whatever chemical it needed for him to find this talk terrifying and not sexy as hell.

Declan pressed against the sore he’d left on Ezra’s lip. “I’m just telling you how it is. Could I kill you?” he asked, like he wasn’t sure. “I really don’t know. But I know there’s things worse than death. Just don’t push me, and we won’t find out.”

Ezra wanted to push him. Jesus. What the fuck was wrong with him? Was Ezra suicidal? Or did he just know, deep down, that Declan was playing a role of some kind. Or was he one of those crazy people who made excuses for lunatics?

“So I’m some kind of…slave?” Ezra asked.

Declan kissed him slowly, then said, “Out there, you can be your sarcastic, bratty self, but in here, in my bed, you do as your fucking told or the consequences will be painful. Do you understand?”

Ezra wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to faint. He’d never been so confused and turned on in his entire life. “Yes, Daddy.”

Declan released his jaw, then kissed it gently. “Now put your hands on the fucking pillow and don’t move them until I say you can.”

Ezra’s hands floated to the pillow, feeling a little like his brain was wrapped in cotton, his higher thought processes shutting down as Declan began to roll their hips together. Each press of his cock against Ezra’s, sent pleasure exploding within him, forcing a moan from his lips.

“I’m gonna fuck you,” Declan said against his ear. “You know that right? Not now. But soon. Maybe even tonight. I haven’t decided yet. But I don’t think I can wait much longer to be inside you.”

“Fuck,” Ezra whispered, imagining Declan surging against him just like now, but with his cock buried inside him.

“You want me inside you?”

“Yes,” Ezra said with a sigh.

“You want to be mine in every way?”

Ezra couldn’t contain the frustrated sob that escaped his lips. “You know I do.”

Declan chuckled. “I do know. Because you wrote it down. How many other filthy fantasies in that book star me?”

“All of them,” Ezra admitted. “It’s only just you.”

Declan gave a satisfied rumble. “That’s right. Just me. Only I get to touch you, fuck you, make you cum, make you cry. Just me.”

Ezra’s brain was short-circuiting, Declan’s words as overwhelming as his actions. When he snagged Ezra’s wrists, gripping them tight, his eyes fluttered closed, unable to process anything more. With his lids closed, he could focus on the way Declan worked against him until they were both panting and sweaty.

“Are you close?” Declan growled against his ear.

Ezra gave a jerky nod, moaning, “So close. I’m so close.”

“Don’t come until I say.”

Ezra whined but didn’t protest, could barely form a cohesive thought with the pleasure slamming into him as Declan surged against him again and again. Then he groaned, his hands gripping Ezra tight enough to shatter his bones, the hot warmth of his release spilling onto Ezra’s hip.

Then Declan released one wrist, taking him in hand, looking down to watch as he jerked him using his own cum as lube. Ezra’s hips bowed off the bed, his heels digging into the mattress, eyes rolling as pleasure pulsed over him, sending him hurtling towards his own orgasm.

“Please, I am so close. You have to stop or I’m gonna come. Please. I’m trying.”

“I didn’t give you permission yet,” Declan purred, unbothered by Ezra’s distress.

Ezra groaned. “Daddy…”

“Not. Yet,” Declan warned, increasing his tempo until Ezra’s toes were curling, his hands clawing at the pillow case, every muscle tensed, doing his best to think of anything but coming. He even tried sucking at the sore on his lip, hoping the pain would be enough to distract him, but that only reminded him of Declan’s earlier filthy promises.

There was no way Ezra would make it. Declan was going to punish him. And he’d promised to make it hurt.

The thought was all it took to push him off the cliff, his breath punching from him as he came with a full body shudder that had his vision going dark at the edges. When he could, he opened his eyes to find Declan staring down at him with a look that sent an icy chill along his spine.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Ezra whispered, doing his best to sound contrite.

“Oh, I don’t think you are,” Declan said, giving Ezra a soft kiss, before patting his face. “But you will be.”

Ezra wasn’t sure if this was supposed to scare him, turn him on or both. This whole thing was one giant mind fuck.

Declan crawled off the bed, reaching down and grabbing his underwear from the night before, using it to wipe himself off, before tossing it once more. When he reached for Ezra’s hand, he offered it without thought, letting Declan pull him to his feet.

“Go get in the shower, I’m gonna see about breakfast. Do not go anywhere, just get dressed and wait for me. Got it?”

Ezra blinked at the all business tone. “Yeah, got it,” he said faintly, feeling like someone had flipped a switch.

Disappointment flooded him. It was like he couldn’t figure out which end was up.

“Hey,” Declan said.

Ezra’s gaze crawled upwards until he was looking into Declan’s eyes. “What?”

Declan stepped into his space, running his knuckles along his cheek. “Stop overthinking this. In here, you’re mine. Out there, we have a job to do. Your father still owes me forty million dollars. And I intend to get it back. And you’re going to help me do that.”

Ezra nodded. “Yes.”

Declan ran his nose along Ezra’s cheek. “Good boy. Now go take a shower before I change my mind and do something we both regret.”

Which was what exactly?

Before he could ask, Declan was gone, leaving Ezra alone with his thoughts. Which was never a good thing.

###

Declan didn’t come to him, Salem did. He brought Ezra to the room they’d been in the other day, the one that had once been a hotel room like the others but had been gutted as some kind of meeting space. There were two couches, a couple of chairs, a table with papers on it, a map of the world stuck to the wall, and a laptop sitting on the desk.

Coven sat on the couch, eyeing him with an interest he found unnerving. He looked eerily similar to Coven. So much so he wondered if they were related. There was also a girl who looked like she moonlighted as a drummer in a grunge band and his new arch-nemesis, Olivander. Ezra gave him a little wave, earning a middle finger for his trouble.

He clutched his heart like he’d blown him a kiss, giving him a sweet smile that only further irritated the older man, but seemed to amuse the others. Salem pointed to the wooden chair beside the desk. “Sit.”

Ezra thought about arguing but there was a sandwich and a bottled water on the desk that was clearly for him and he was too fucking hungry to protest. He dropped into the seat and attacked the food, downing the breakfast sandwich in three bites and chugging the water, before slamming the empty bottle down on the desk.

When he glanced up, he realized they all stared at him. “What? You try being kidnapped for a couple of days and see what it does to your appetite.”

Salem shrugged, then opened the desk drawer revealing his journal. Ezra’s heart plummeted until the other man slammed it against his chest. “Here. I need the other aliases for Abel and Declan said nobody’s allowed to open this book but him and you and he’s…busy.”

Busy doing what? Or who? Declan had made it very clear that Ezra belonged only to him, but he hadn’t stated the latter was true. Was Declan off doing with someone else, what he hadn’t been able to do with Ezra? The thought made him want to puke up the sandwich he’d just slammed.

Who even was Declan anyway?

Ezra forced his attention back to Salem when he said, “There’s no movement on his Damon douchebag alias. I need the others.”

Ezra didn’t need his journal for that. He had them memorized. He’d just wanted to see if he could get Declan to take him home, hoping he’d just ask him to stay, not as his hostage but as…something else. Anything else, really.

But that hadn’t happened. He wasn’t telling them any of that. He cracked open the book, pretending to look for names. “Hollis Talbert.”

“Spell it?”

Ezra did as he asked, then added, “Norton Greenwich. Holden Greevey.” Salem’s fingers fell hard and fast on the keyboard as Ezra spoke. “Nicholas Barnes. Michael Brady.”

“Those are the only ones I’ve found. But I do have these,” Ezra said, volunteering scraps of paper. One was another checking account number. One was a credit card slip. And one was a ticket for a parking garage. “I don’t know if any of them will help. My father could be a whole different person by now. Or he could be in the building next door. You just never know with him.”

Salem nodded grimly. Ezra supposed they knew that better than he did. They knew everything about Abel better than him. Abel had chosen them over him his whole life. Salem slipped headphones on and began to type once more. Ezra considered himself dismissed. He stood, floating deeper into the room. Skimming the blueprints on the table.

“Are you guys planning another job?” Ezra asked, running his hand along what looked like a bank vault.

“Don’t be nosey,” Olivander snapped. “That’s none of your business.” He looked at the girl. “I told you not to leave those around, Rune.”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “Didn’t my dad crack your safes? How do you plan on managing that one?”

“Don’t need a safecracker when you have explosives,” Rune said with an eye roll.

Ezra shrugged. Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn’t. Locks were getting more and more sophisticated every day, which Ezra knew from experience. It wasn’t enough to simply have the touch, the ability to feel the microscopic vibrations when each pin hit just right. No, nowadays most safes had combination locks, biometric locks, keypads, any number of those things all at once.

But the irony is that most of Abel’s most notorious heists were those that had required little effort on his part. Stealing from insanely powerful men required more patience than anything else. Abel was a thief through and through, but more than that, he was a performer. A master of disguise.

He would often make himself at home within his target's inner circle, use his time there gathering whatever information he could then feeding it to those on the outside.

At least that’s what the papers often claimed. Whenever Ezra had asked his mother about Abel she would just shake her head and say Abel didn’t exist. That Abel Caulfield was a shadow. A ghost. That the man was whoever he needed to be to get what he wanted and once he got it, he would simply cease to exist.

Did the others see Abel that way? Was he as ephemeral to them as he was to the rest of the world, or had they gotten to see him as a person? Declan had spent twenty years with his father, learning from him, yet Declan wasn’t an inside man. Declan was a demolitions expert. So why had he stayed with Abel? The money? Had he been fond of Abel before he’d stolen from him?

“Did you really dislocate your thumb to get out of Declan’s restraints?” Coven asked.

Ezra nodded. “Restraints are easy.”

Rune snorted. “Restraints, plural? How often are you getting tied up, kid?”

Ezra gave her a baleful look. “Often enough to know that it pays to know how to escape them.”

“If you can escape from any type or restraint, why didn’t you escape before Declan snagged you from the boiler room yesterday?” Olivander asked.

Because I was waiting for Declan to rescue me. He didn’t say that, but it was true. “Because you knocked me out and by the time I came to, my arms were bound so tightly behind my back, that my hands were completely numb. I couldn’t feel anything enough to manipulate the bindings.”

“Yeah, right,” Olivander sneered.

“Try me,” Ezra said with a shrug.

Olivander looked at Rune and Coven who just shrugged. Olivander stood and stalked his way over to some kind of bag in the corner. He returned with zip ties. Ezra snickered. “Really?”

Olivander placed them, then synched them until they dug into his skin. Ezra rolled his eyes, waited until he backed up, then brought his wrists down hard on his hip, popping the zip ties. “Next?”

“Fifty bucks says you can’t do it with your hands tied behind your back,” Coven said.

“I got a hundred that says he can,” Salem said, before turning back to his computer to continue working.

Olivander zip-tied his hands behind him, forcing Ezra to sit and wiggle his arms beneath him, then forward where he stood, popping the bindings again. Earning another irritated grunt from Olivander.

“Now try duct tape,” Rune said, arching one perfect brow in Ezra’s direction.

“I’m down.”

Duct tape and zip-ties were essentially the same thing. They required almost exactly the same skills to remove. It took less than three minutes, which only further pissed off his wannabe captor.

“Oh, shit. Try those police issue handcuffs. Those things are a bitch,” Coven crowed.

Ezra grimaced. Coven was right. They sucked. He could still remove them, but it often required a little extra. Once the cuffs were in place, Ezra looked around the room, honing in on a paperclip, using his teeth to fashion it into a key of sorts and then popping the lock.

“That’s cheating.”

“How? If this is the room I’ve been stuck in, it's not my fault my captors are morons,” Ezra countered.

“No key,” Olivander said, snapping the restraints back in place.

“Ugh, fine you big baby,” Ezra muttered, steeling himself for what came next. Then he turned and slammed his thumb into the wall with a sharp yelp, once more folding the limp digit against his palm to slide the cuff free. “Happy now?” he asked, feeling a little woozy.

“Whatever.”

“Anybody want to help me with this?” Ezra asked, letting his thumb go.

Rune grinned, her eyes lighting up. “I’ll do it.”

Ezra’s stomach lurched. “Okay, yeah. Go ahead.”

The girl stood, crossing the room, gripping Ezra’s palm, her fingers surprisingly gently as she probed the joint where his thumb should have been. “You ready?”

“Nope.”

“On three, okay?” she asked. He gave a timid nod. “Three,” she said, slamming his thumb into place. His knees gave out, sending him to the floor until the lightning bolt of pain became a dull throbbing ache.

Olivander smirked at him

Ezra pushed his hair from his face. “What’s next? Rope?”

Olivander’s smile slipped from his face. “Yeah. Let’s do it. Double or nothing.”

That’s where he was when Declan found him. On the floor, bound with rope, using his shoe laces to saw through the thick length. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“Hang on, I’ve almost got it,” Ezra said, sweat coating his brow. “There!” he shouted as the ropes fell. “See?”

Coven and Rune cheered, but Olivander just rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever.”

“Hey, where’s my money?” Ezra asked.

Declan leaned into his space. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Proving to that big man-baby that there’s no restraint I can’t get out of,” Ezra said loud enough for everyone to hear.

Declan chuckled, murmuring, “We’ll see about that.”

Just like that Ezra’s knees went weak once more. “You can’t say that shit out here,” he whispered, his face red.

“I can do whatever the fuck I want, remember?” Declan said against his ear. “I make the rules.”

“Holy shit,” Salem shouted, spinning around in his chair. “I think I got something.”

“What? What have you got?” Declan shot back.

“Hollis Talbert used this account to wire fifty thousand dollars to Myers and Satar Company.”

“Who’s Hollis Talbert?” Declan asked, just as Ezra said, “Myers and what?”

Coven beamed at them. “Hollis Talbert is one of Abel’s aliases and Myers and Satar is a small business in the Bahamas specializing in the building of custom panic rooms. Seems Abel’s a little nervous.”

Ezra looked at Declan, giving him a little eyebrow wiggle. “Told you so.”

Declan chuckled. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.”