Of Heroes And Villains: The Ties That Bind By Minikisa An assassin. A fallen hero. An unlikely meeting. The road to redemption is long and hard and filled with explosives.

Caroline lunged for Stephen when he doubled over, screaming in pain, but he dissolved, splintering into a thousand golden tendrils that slipped through her fingers.

Crack.

A deep fissure appeared in the base of the spire, the pristine marble breaking apart before her eyes. The cracks spread from there, higher and higher, until the entire tower was covered in a fine spider web. An earthquake rocked the mindscape and Caroline stumbled to her knees, doing her best to hold on.

She didn’t understand what was happening.

The thing hidden inside the tower had struck her as benign. More than benign; good and strong and wonderful, yet now it seemed to be tearing Stephen apart at the seams.

Oh god, she’d broken him with her careless actions, broken him completely somehow, and this, this was why she could never reach for anything better, everything she touched just got dragged down and ruined.

And then the tower broke apart, the white marble raining down and dissolving into fine golden mist before it hit the ground. In its place stood a dizzyingly high spire with no edges, writhing with golden vapor and it looked almost like a person but without actually having the shape of a human.

It pulsed with a bright glow, a shockwave expanding outward. The earth was still trembling but now Caroline realized it was moving.

The first canyon closed with a deafening rumble.


***


PsyKick clutched his head, writhing in agony at the pain that felt like it was cleaving his mind in two when it was actually doing quite the opposite but knowing that didn’t make it hurt any less and oh god his head was so full it was going to burst.

Then it was over.

It must have taken a long time, because soft morning light was beginning to spill through the drapes.

And for the first time in three years, Stephen felt whole.

He rolled on his belly with a soft unf.

And then he started laughing, pure giddy joy bubbling up inside of him. His voice was Caroline’s, high-pitched and breathy, and he found he quite liked the sound of her laughter.

He was struck anew by the fact that his body was wrong, but somehow that didn’t sting so much when his mind was so wonderfully, wonderfully right.

Psy was seeing double, in his head. Between Tex and Diane, yesterday had held some of the most humiliating moments of his life, except yesterday had also been the day he met Constance in the library for what was meant to be a study session, but it had escalated into her dragging him behind the shelves. She’d kissed him deeply, and he’d enthusiastically fondled her back. It had been a good day.

Constance.

A confused wave of emotion crashed over him.

He loved her.

But he had also spent the last three years of his life hating her. Every time she had tried to visit him, he had lunged at her, trying to choke the life from her because she had betrayed him and she was the reason he was in that hospital and she had killed his Mistress.

She’d stopped visiting.

And as his Purpose kept eroding him more and more, he’d stopped thinking of her at all.

He stared at the ceiling, the euphoria of having a healed mind slowly morphing into something else entirely as he kept thinking about yesterday. About her. The way she had stroked him through the denim of his jeans as he tried to bite back his groans so he wouldn’t disturb the silence in the library.

Then Caroline had frozen time just for the two of them.

And he’d taken her right there, bent her over a table and buried himself inside of her, in full view of their fellow students who, motionless, had seen nothing.

No, that had been with Constance.

He’d never slept with Caroline…

Had never even kissed her.

Only in his dreams.

Stephen realized his hand was in his jeans – when had he opened the zipper anyway? – straining to find a cock that was not there. He angled his head down and gazed at Caroline, breaths shallow.

He’d promised himself he wouldn’t touch this body he had stolen, but now she wanted him to, didn’t she?

She wanted him like he wanted her. He’d seen it, felt it. Before she had healed him.

God, he wished he had his powers so he could enter his mindscape right now at will. He’d take her in his arms and kiss her again and thank her for what she had done. He would worship her form, her mind, shape the dream around them and pluck her nerve endings like a harp to make her feel ecstasy like she had never known.

But he couldn’t.

Psy would have to fall asleep to see her, and he knew he was too highly strung for that.

So he’d do the next best thing.

His fingers hesitantly trailed down from his belly button, tracing the gentle slope. He moaned when he felt the slick heat awaiting him, and god, he loved her voice, so he made no efforts to muffle the sounds spilling from his lips as he finally gave in to the desire that had been plaguing him for days.

He swirled a finger around his sensitive little clit, and he could almost tell himself it was just like stroking his cock, but of course it felt nothing like that. His skin, his entire body was on fire, prickling with the ache that was normally confined just to his groin. He pawed at himself, cupping and squeezing a breast and deciding he just didn’t have enough hands for everything this body was urging him to do.

Psy desperately thrust his clit against his hand, wanting, needing release, but he couldn’t find it. And even though the idea of penetration would have made him instinctively recoil in any other moment, now his fingers were pressing against his entrance because he was so, so close, he could feel it, but it was slipping away and he needed it so, so badly. He bucked his hips and a finger was inside of him and oh, god, that felt really fucking weird but he was kind of loving it so he added a second and moaned with abandon.

But he still couldn’t find that elusive release. It just built and built and built but then it just dwindled back down, and he had to start all over again.

Frustration built, too.

He let up for a moment, catching his breath, and then raised a shaking hand to his lips, sucking on the fingers coated in his – in Caroline’s – juices. He moaned, closing his eyes, and this was the closest he’d gotten to enjoying her divine body from an outsider’s perspective. He licked his hand eagerly, imagining himself on his knees in front of her, kissing his way up her thighs before lapping up every single drop he could squeeze from her.

On his knees…

He shuddered, realizing he still wanted that, but he was whole now, so maybe it wasn’t Cinder Snow who gave him these desires. Amplified them, yes, but maybe there all along, and if that was the case, then maybe he could make his peace with them.

Stephen shook his head and pushed the thoughts of that monster away; he couldn’t deal with that right now, he had things to do, namely himself. Or rather, Caroline.

Thinking of it like that gave him an idea.

He rolled out of bed, his knees buckling slightly when he stood.

He kicked away the jeans still around his ankles, stumbling toward the desk in the corner. Then he grabbed the adjacent chair and dragged it in front of the mirror.

Psy half-fell, half-sat down, and looked at Caroline in the mirror.

He could see her breasts rise and fall with each labored breath. Her skin was flushed, her cheeks rosy, and she was looking at him through heavy-lidded eyes. He licked his lips and so did she, her tongue darting out to sensually trace her full red lips.

Then she spread her legs, revealing her glistening pussy and just the sight of that made his insides seethe with heat.

And as he watched himself fuck his fingers in the mirror, release was easy to find after all.


***


Psy descended down the stairs with a spring in his step and was greeted with the sight of Shade glaring daggers at him, whilst clutching the aforementioned dagger in her hand.

For a moment, he saw double again.


“Psychopath,” Tex murmured under his breath as they watched Shade throw a henchman to the floor and brutally shatter his ribs.

Psy nodded in agreement.

This was why teaming up with Shade was just plain unpleasant, even when they were going after the same villain.


Stephen blinked, pushing the memory of last week away. No, last week Shade had been sitting by his side, quietly reading a book while he inspected his pet project for all the parts he’d need to replace. Last week Psy could barely stand being around the man. Last week Shade had been the woman patiently biting her tongue whenever he called her girlfriend his Mistress.

Psy smiled at his new friend.

Kara glared.

“Sleep well?” she growled, and Psy wasn’t exactly surprised that she had heard him. He’d rather enjoyed the sound of Caroline’s yells, and had made no effort to keep them down.

“You have no idea.” He beamed at her.

Kara’s eye twitched.

Diane, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in her hand, chuckled.

Shade’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly as she seemed to be struggling with words. “That… body. Is not yours.”

“I know.” Stephen nodded, falling back on his habit of telling the truth he could not say in a way that lead to entirely wrong conclusions. “Which is why I waited until I had permission.”

Kara stood frozen for a long moment, mouthing the word permission. Then she whirled to face his old Mistress, yelling accusingly, “Diane!”

Diane fluttered her eerie red eyes, a mischievous sparkle within. If she was bothered by being falsely accused, she didn’t show it. “Oh, please, Kara. Caroline is probably doing the exact same thing.”

“No, no, she isn’t, my sister is not…”

“Playing with her cock? Yes, yes, she is, Kara. If I suddenly got a body with a dick, it’s exactly what I would do.”

Kara’s eyes twitched again, probably because she was seeing mental images of her sister she’d rather not see.

Then she threw her hands up. The dagger missed Stephen’s cheek by mere inches, and she stormed out of the kitchen.

Psy slid on the chair next to Diane. She was gazing at him with a curious tilt to her head and for the first time he could look at her, and not hear the echo of his Purpose.

He smiled.

“That’s for putting me in a miniskirt.”

“Fair enough,” Diane said, amused.

“I have something to ask of you…”

She curiously arched an eyebrow, and he raised his hand to his neck, his thumb brushing the tattoo on his skin. Caroline hated it, this he knew. In her dreams, her neck was pale and slender and unmarred.

His previously vague desire to reunite the siblings and hopefully set Caroline on the path to redemption was now ironclad conviction.

She had given him his freedom.

So he would give her hers.

And he would start by removing the thing that branded her as property of the Order.

“Can you heal this?”

Diane took a sip from her tea, watching him like a hawk. “Why?”

“Because I am asking you,” he said slowly. “As a friend.”

“A friend,” she repeated. It was a question.

And he smiled at her.

“Yes. As a friend.”


***


Diane had tried healing the tattoo, but had grown increasingly frustrated when she couldn’t. Eventually, she’d given up and complained that there was something magical blocking her.

Psy really shouldn’t have been surprised that the brand was mystically reinforced in some way.

He absently adjusted the straps of his bra, still not quite used to just how itchy those things were, brushing his fingers along the bare, unmarked skin of his neck. Knowing that it was magical, he’d found that he could make it fade at will, which made sense – assassins really wouldn’t give themselves away so easily.

But it was still there.

Diane, having had her magic for less than a year and using it only on instinct, would be of no help.

What he needed was someone well-versed in the arcane arts. Someone he could trust to keep the matter confidential. Someone smart.

Psy raised his head and gazed at the university campus he hadn’t seen in three years.

It was time to pay his ex-girlfriend a visit.