Touched by the Morningstar (Rise of the Fallen 1) SE Ebook

He kicked their asses like some super-powered being in a video game.

Yuri stood in the doorway, open-mouthed, shocked. The small, pretty man, with a teal streak through his dark hair, moved like water, beating the shit out of the four guys who’d lured him outside.

The group of drunk frat boys had started this mess, bothering pretty boy at the counter of the bar where Yuri worked the closing shift as a bartender to pay for chef school. When the pretty boy sat at the counter, Yuri had instantly asked for his ID, though he didn’t really think the man was underage. Yes, he looked young, but something in Yuri’s gut said he was older than he looked. World-weary eyes, perhaps? He flashed a sardonic smile and pulled out a wallet to flash an ID for another state, but the date put him closer to thirty than twenty.

Yuri threw him a nod, not more than glancing at the card. “What’ll you have?”

Tuesdays were never busy nights, usually the same crowd in those who wanted to drown in the alcohol. Yuri expected, from the fit of his clothes, and the high end look of him, that he’d order something fluffy or fruity, but he said, “Vodka. Top shelf. No ice.”

“I don’t have Grey Goose,” Yuri said, knowing a lot of the younger crowd wanted names rather than the best. “But I’ve got Van Gogh or Tito’s.”

“Van Gogh Oranje?” he asked.

A drinker then. Yuri nodded and set a tumbler before him, a fresh bottle of Van Gogh at the ready. The man waved a hand at the glass and Yuri poured. More than a shot, this type was best on the rocks, mixed in a drink, or smoothly sipped. He wasn’t the chatty type either, focusing instead on the overhead TV playing the news on mute with subtitles talking about the latest disasters.

The world was plunged into a nightmare with a growing ripple of natural disasters. Everything from tornados, hurricanes and floods to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The past year had been chaos, and seemed to get worse, every day something else on the news, another natural disaster, thousands dead, or feared dead, and there seemed to be no end in sight.

Chicago, the city in which Yuri worked and went to school, a supernatural level of wind storms brought a new meaning to the windy city. On the outskirts of the city, he hadn’t noticed a difference, but the wind had brought down a handful of the downtown towers, crashing in chunks over the city. The rumbling made everything rock and roll, and the plume of debris and dust had choked the city for days, leaving the sky a strange orange haze.

“Never seen before,” “record-breaking,” and “biblical level” were words often on the news. The world was coming apart at the seams, and Yuri tended bar and attended school to feed the grind of the capitalist machine. He thought often it was better than the cult life he’d escaped, but also wondered what the point to any of it was. Surviving disaster after disaster alone, working for pennies, barely surviving. Why?

With the world dying and him stuck working like a zombie, his depression and loneliness grew. What was the point?

The pretty boy at the counter gave him something to look at. He tended a handful of others before returning to the pretty boy and motioning to his glass.

“Please,” the young man agreed, and Yuri refilled.

“You want to order any food?” Yuri asked.

“Are you cooking tonight?” The man threw back, a touch of an accent in his tone.

Yuri smiled. He did from time to time, testing his culinary skills when the bar was slow to offer delights that the type who frequented this space rarely got to try. “Too busy for me to play chef tonight,” Yuri said. Had the man been in before? He thought he’d remember that, since the pretty boy was the type to make anyone look, even if they weren’t into guys like Yuri was. There was something about him, an edge of charisma or an aura of something that dazzled. The hair was an unusual distraction, the color blending as if it were natural rather than some rebellion of brightness among the inky darkness that fell around his high cheekbones in waves.

He was lean, barely six feet, not lanky, but narrow. Face prettier than most men, lips full, eyes with a slight uptilt, but marginally wider with a button nose that made him look almost fae-like, or as if he’d stepped off some movie set.

Yuri had never met a celebrity in real life, but he suspected the pretty man was something like that. “You’ve tried my cooking? I would have thought I’d remember seeing you in here before,” Yuri said.

The man smiled, a light reaching his eyes as he brought the glass to his lips again, sipping his vodka. “That’s kind of you.”

Did people not notice him? Were they blind?

“I’ll cook for you anytime you’d like, as long as it’s not a night that I’m the only tender on duty. Let me know if you need another drink or food, or anything,” Yuri said. He could imagine wrapping his arms around the pretty man and holding him for a time. “It’s a crazy world out there, and we could all use a few minutes, right?”

“Indeed,” the man agreed. He held the glass in steady long fingers, the length of them disappearing beneath long sleeves of a fitted navy sweater, and ink colored each digit.

“You’re a tattoo fan?” Yuri asked. “I have a few myself.”

The man glanced at his hand and nodded, pulling back the sleeve to show more color. It looked like snakes, or a multiple headed serpent, like something out of a fantasy novel, the colors shifting with iridescent purple, teal, and aqua which Yuri hadn’t known was possible in ink.

“Cool,” Yuri said. “My art is a bit fantasy inspired, dreams.” He kept his art hidden by clothing; the fear ingrained in his youth rising at the mere thought.

“Perhaps sometime we can share stories,” the man said as he continued to sip his vodka. “When you have more time.” 

Yuri nodded, smiling. Another patron waved to him. He headed their way to refill a glass and attended a handful of other customers.

The group of frat boys arrived a few minutes later and Yuri knew they’d be trouble right off, but their normal bouncer had lost a family member to the downtown collapse and had quit, so that meant Yuri against more brawn than brains, and he wasn’t the biggest guy in the room, more average—average height, average weight, average everything. It made blending in a crowd easy, but turning away bullies a touch harder, and after midnight a group like that wasn’t looking for quiet drinks. They wanted a fight.

They seemed to zero in on pretty boy as a target, commenting on everything from his hair to the fit of his clothes, which were more European trending than American, fitted to him, not off the rack.

The man, despite all the surrounding noise, didn’t acknowledge them at all.

“Enough,” Yuri snapped. “Find another bar. Taps are closed for you.”

“We’re paying customers. You can’t shut us down,” one of them said.

“Since I’m in charge of the bar, I can,” Yuri said. “You want trouble? Take it outside. Plenty of bullshit to find out there. Careful a building doesn’t fall on you.”

One of them reached across the bar and grabbed Yuri by the collar. “How about we take you outside? Show you the way back to your country?”

Yuri narrowed his gaze, knowing they were zeroing in on the slant of his eyes and cut of his cheekbones that made him obviously mixed race. “American born and raised, asshole. Now get the fuck out.”

The man balled up his fist, and Yuri braced for a hit, thankful he could divert their attention from the pretty man, even if that meant he’d go home bruised, but the hit never came. Pretty man put his hand on the jock’s wrist and twisted, breaking his hold on Yuri. He shoved the man away from the bar and toward the far door.

“Let’s,” he said, giving the brute a toothy smile. He motioned for the door that led to the side, out to the alley and the trash.

“That’s not a good idea,” Yuri said to the pretty man. But the man threw a few big bills down on the counter to cover his booze and disappeared beyond the side door. The jocks laughed. The one who had grabbed Yuri gave him a shove before they followed the pretty boy out.

Should he call the cops? There hadn’t been a unit available since the towers came down. Lots of search and recovery, digging through rubble to find thousands of bodies. The military had shown up to help with the aftermath, although something new and awful was happening every day somewhere in the world and plenty of it right here in the US of A.

Yuri glanced around the bar. But it was him, two servers, and the cook, who was a man in his sixties. The servers were slips of girls who did well at running the room, delivering food and drinks. No one else seemed to need much in that moment, so Yuri darted to the door, expecting to wade in and get his ass kicked too, but found the pretty boy moving like only people in movies ever did.

It was a sort of dance of martial arts and magic, height for a jump that didn’t seem physically possible, speed, precision, and the strength to smash a jock halfway down the alleyway with a single kick. Was Yuri being punked? Was his whole life a movie set somehow?

In seconds the group of jocks were on the ground groaning, all unable to get up, but no one looked injured enough to actually need medical care, which was good because Yuri didn’t know of any EMTs or hospital space available. They were breathing, that much he could tell.

“Holy fuck,” Yuri said as the pretty man stepped away from the group. His expression changed to one of sadness and worry for a few seconds before a mask of blank indifference went up. “You okay?” Yuri asked him, reaching for a drop of blood that trickled from the edge of the man’s lip. Had one of them got a good hit in?

The pretty man stepped out of reach; his smile strained. “Fine. I apologize for the trouble.” He dabbed away the blood, his tongue darting out to lick the drop away. Yuri felt something in his stomach tighten with need. A rising desire he couldn’t recall ever feeling before. To take care of him? Or something more? Like that drop of blood should have been his to claim. He swallowed hard at the crazy thought. Must be the insanity of the world finally getting to him.

“Not your fault these assholes pulled shit,” Yuri said. “Come back in, and I’ll refill your glass.”

The man hesitated, a half-lidded gaze landing on Yuri that made Yuri’s cock harden, his jeans tightening, the zipper biting into him. Bedroom eyes? Was that what all the books meant? A gaze of longing, interest? Was he misreading? Or imagining things?

He’d learned in his cult days how to lock those feelings down and stepped back to open the door. He held it and motioned for the man to head back in and waved at the frat boys. “They look fine. I’ll lock this side door when we head back in and let everyone know to let them wander off on their own.”

The man tilted his head, studying Yuri, but then nodded, carefully stepping by to enter the bar without touching Yuri at all. Was it strange that Yuri burned for a touch? He followed the man inside and went back to the counter, finding a fresh glass and filling it, taking the money the man had left and sliding it back across to him.

“Why?” the man asked.

“Seems shitty to make you pay when some assholes tried to pull shit,” Yuri said. It meant he’d go home without tips tonight to cover the cost of the drink, but that was okay. With the world ending, money seemed to matter very little. Maybe tomorrow would end with a meteor falling on his little studio and blasting him to bits. Fast seemed better than this brutally slow demise the planet was taking.

“You are too kind for this world,” the man said, sliding the money back. “Take it, and I will keep drinking, refuse, and I shall go.”

Well, that was an ultimatum if Yuri ever heard one. It didn’t normally matter if someone came or went. Yuri got good at ignoring everyone at the bar. People flirted with him, all genders and races, but he’d never taken that path. His youth of cult brainwashing, hard to overcome. But his heart flipped over at the thought of the man walking away.

Yuri took the money, counting out bills that were higher than his rent and a lot more than the entire bottle of booze. He frowned. The pretty man smiled. Yuri refilled his glass.

The man’s gaze went back to the TV and endless news of disasters. One server passed Yuri. “Thanks, Yuri,” she said. “Those guys are always handsy when they’re in.”

Yuri had done nothing, but she didn’t acknowledge the man at the bar as she passed to grab up a tray from the kitchen delivery counter.

“Yuri?” the man said, his accented voice seeming to dance on the name.

“Yeah,” Yuri agreed. “My mom saw it in an anime and liked it.” She’d been barely fourteen when forced to have him. He shoved those thoughts away, going back to focusing on the bar, cleaning the counters, and filling any dwindling glasses. His depression was drowning on the best of days. He worked to keep it from overwhelming him, distraction his vice. 

“What can I call you?” Yuri asked after a few minutes of background noise. The bar was too quiet, the madness of the end of the world on the news playing, but everyone else still, watching in horror.

The man turned his gaze back to Yuri’s. “Star.”

Yuri grinned. “Yeah?”

The man, Star, shrugged.

“It suits you,” Yuri said.

Star frowned, a few expressions crossing his face, and Yuri felt bad. Maybe he hated his name?

“I mean, you sort of shine like a star, right?” Yuri tried. “That action in the alley was crazy, but you’re the guy everyone notices?”

None of that seemed to help Star’s troubled expression.

“Sorry,” Yuri finally said. “Bad way of saying ‘You’re pretty’, I guess?” Fuck. He shouldn’t have said that either. Men didn’t like to be called pretty, right? Toxic world they were in and all that. “Handsome, whatever. Sorry.”

“You think I’m pretty? A lovely gentleman like you?” Star asked. Yuri tried to place his accent. A touch of British, perhaps? European at the least. Yuri leaned in a little, hoping to hear more.

“Uh, yeah? Is that okay? I’m not lovely. Or a gentleman, really. Just Yuri.”

Star’s gaze returned to that half-lidded thing he’d done in the alley that made Yuri’s gut clench with longing. A need to touch. He touched no one. Had learned in his cult days that touch was bad. Well, he knew that was wrong, part of his brainwashing, but he was still working to decode all that crap. He’d been out two years.

Star studied him, and Yuri tried to shove his anxiety down.

“Sorry. I’m not trying to come on to you,” Yuri said quickly. “I know that’s rude. You’re here to drink. I try not to be one of those guys. I just…” He didn’t know how to explain his war of emotions. Attraction and desire he’d never felt before, rising in conflict to his childhood trauma.

“I’m not offended,” Star said. “Surprised.”

Yuri squinted at him, confused. “Why? You’re gorgeous. You probably have people throwing themselves at you all the time?”

Star seemed to consider his words, sipping the vodka in quiet reflection for a minute or two. “And you? Do you have people throwing themselves at you, sweet Yuri?”

“People flirt sometimes.” Yuri shrugged. “I think they are drunk.” He wasn’t pretty like Star. Not overly tall at five nine, his long brown hair touched with red, giving it a slight mahogany sheen, but he kept it pulled up in the ever-scorned ‘man bun’ when he worked. He’d grown it out the second he escaped the cult. The severe military style cut had always irritated him, but the newfound curls that barely brushed his shoulders when loose reminded him he was free. He never thought his face was much to look at, a mix of his Texas father, with pale blue eyes, and the sculpted cheekbones and skin tone of his Asian mother. His body was lean and muscled from the years of hard labor, but not what graced movie screens or magazine covers. He wore a medium in everything, felt average in most everything. And in the big city of Chicago, even his mixed genes weren’t all that unusual.

“You are lovely,” Star said. “Doesn’t take drowning in cups to see that.”

Yuri flushed, his face feeling on fire. “Thank you.”

A shuddering thud shook the entire building. Like an earthquake, the ground wobbled and rolled, a roaring rumble of grinding stone shattered the quiet. Yuri threw his hands over his ears trying to ease the assault of the sound, metal on glass scraping, the noise near deafening.

Everyone froze, some screamed, terror on faces as the ground continued to move and the sound slowly faded. The lights flickered; the TV turned to static. Had something else fallen much closer this time?

“What the fuck?” Yuri asked when the sound and movement ended. The lights flickered again and died completely, leaving them in complete darkness. The servers shrieked, and Yuri heard movement, but didn’t know where to go.

“Everyone, stay calm!” Yuri called. He dug in his pocket for his phone and turned on the flashlight, which was blinding, but the actual phone itself said no service. He tried to illuminate the space to see the movement. The door opened, people rushing out. Something outside glowed in the distance. Fire?

Yuri’s stomach flipped over in fear. The flashlight touched on Star’s face, still having remained at the bar. The light cast shadows over him, and he blinked, looking a little ghastly, the planes of his face seemingly stretched with shadows in the low light.

“You okay?” Yuri asked again, reaching for him.

Star rose from his seat and slid easily out of range. “The end is never pleasant,” he said.

Yuri rounded the bar and headed for the door, holding it open to direct everyone out. Even the cook passed him by as all the power had died, leaving them in darkness. He held the door and Star was the last to leave, Yuri behind him. The image in the distance was one of wonder. A giant arch pierced the landscape, eclipsing everything. The city beyond, which had once been central Chicago, completely gone, vanished beneath the rainbow light of the arch and the dancing shadows beneath.

Things poured from the base of the arch, like legions of spiders or something, tiny but fast racing movement in the distance. Yuri’s heart flipped over in fear. What was it? All of it? Had something fallen from the sky? Had there been a satellite as big as the city? Perhaps an alien attack?

There were screams and shrieks around them. People running in every direction. Fires burned from partially collapsed buildings, smoke stinging the air. The surrounding landscape, any building over three stories, had fallen from the movement. Rubble filling the streets, bodies too, lying unmoving. Some appeared untouched by anything, others crushed in falling debris. Yuri trembled. It looked like a war-zone, the stuff from movies or those novels he’d always been told were evil growing up.

The employees and the patrons of the bar vanished into the night, leaving Yuri standing there gaping at everything, his chest tightening in pain. Star lingered a few feet away, his gaze cast at the arch, expression filled with sadness.

“You okay?” Yuri asked again, looking him over for sign of injury. “Can I walk you home or anything?” Did either of them have a home to return to? He looked toward the distance and thought it was going to be a long walk to find out if he still had a studio apartment. His car had vanished beneath a wall of rubble.

“You are anxious about me,” Star said. “Are you well?”

“I think the world is ending,” Yuri said, pain tightening his chest, the sign of a panic attack, first since leaving the cult. He put a hand to his chest and tried to breathe. “Fuck, sorry. Panic attack.”

He struggled to sit, finding a clear spot in the road to tuck his head between his knees. End of the world and some big bad he was, panicking and almost passing out. Star crouched nearby, hand hovering inches from him as if to help, but hesitant.

“It’s okay,” Yuri said, wheezing as he tried to count his breaths, forcing his mind to focus even while his lizard brain told him to run. Running wouldn’t save him, nothing would anymore. The world was ending. “This will pass in a minute. You can touch me if you want.” He wanted Star’s touch, even while chaos reigned around them.

“No one wants my touch,” Star said.

“That’s stupid,” Yuri grumbled, sucking in gulps of air. Yuri had spent most of his life avoiding touch. Now, if it was the last thing he ever experienced, he longed to be touched, especially by this pretty man who set his soul on fire with his presence. “I would love your touch,” he confessed, not caring about the consequences because it was the end of the world. “End of the world, right? Fuck it. What’s the worst you could do? Beat me up like you did those guys in the alley?” Yuri asked.

Star smiled and leaned in close enough that Yuri could smell him over the scent of ash and fire coating everything. It was a warm smell, not unlike the fire, but a touch of sugar too, sweetness, toasted, like marshmallows. Yuri reached out to touch Star’s face, wondering at the strange play of shadows across his features. Did Yuri look as ghastly to Star in this rippling light of fire? Not that it mattered, because when Yuri’s fingers touched Star’s cheeks, the pretty man re-solidified before him. The shadows vanished and the light beneath his skin drew Yuri close. He was so incredibly beautiful it brought a clarity and focus to Yuri’s mind, helping him breathe, and fading the panic. Star hesitated to close the distance, expression guarded, but Yuri tugged him down, and pressed his lips to Star’s, wanting one taste if this was the end, the feel of another’s lips on his, one brief encounter with a star…

Yuri didn’t know how to kiss. He never had before, only seen it in movies after he’d escaped into the real world. He didn’t know how to start it or if Star even wanted it, but the man took control, wrapping his hand around Yuri’s neck and pulling them close. Star’s lips danced over Yuri’s, his tongue gently prodding for entrance, and Yuri let him in. Star tasted of toasted marshmallows and heat, with a metallic bite almost like blood. Yuri didn’t pull away, instead sank into Star’s touch, wanting things he’d never allowed himself to long for in his entire life.

The end of the world made it all okay, right? Star wasn’t pulling away, beating him or berating him for daring to touch. It was okay to want, right?

Yuri sucked in a deep breath as Star pulled back, tugging Yuri to his feet. They were almost the same height, and the dancing of the fire and distant rainbows made Star’s eyes go from pale blue to rippling oil-spill black. Fascinating. Wondrous.

“You’re so beautiful,” Yuri said.

“Oh, Yuri,” Star said, his voice soft and pained. “I would never wish my curse on you.”

“Curse?” Yuri asked absently, lost in the beauty of Star’s face. He trembled, pulling Star closer. Wanting everything and not understanding what he wanted. Touch? Sex? Love? Need? Long denied the chance to explore any of that. He didn’t know where to start. “We’re going to die, right? End of the world and all that? I want…” He leaned in for another kiss.

Star let him, guiding, coaxing, and teaching, his hips pressing to Yuri’s and building a need like Yuri had never let himself indulge before. He knew men liked other men, had swallowed the desire himself a million times, but this was so much better. Not evil or painful, as the cult had made him fear. His body sang at the touch of Star’s erection grinding into his.

Star sighed. “You’re so pure, you should not be mine. I should not have touched you, spoiled you…” He tried to pull away, but Yuri clung to him.

“Please,” Yuri begged. He didn’t know what he wanted. Not really. And yet his mind, filled with a thousand thoughts they had taught him, were wicked. “It’s the end of the world. Can’t I be me for five minutes?” Without all the sadness, pain, and guilt.

“And who are you, Yuri? Who do you want to be?” Star asked. 

“Yours?” Yuri said dumbly. Even if it was only five minutes. He wanted that touch. “Please? Is it okay? To not feel like I’m evil for the last minutes of the end of the world?”

“Evil?” Star asked, his hands cupping Yuri’s face. “Why would anyone think you’re evil?”

“Because I want this.” Yuri gripped Star tight. “If this is the end, I want to feel everything. I want to feel adored, loved for a few minutes, even if it’s nothing but a lie.” Tears blurred his vision, the loneliness and fear of rejection rising. “I’m so tired of being alone.”

Star gave him a sad smile but kissed him again. “Then let that be my gift to you. In exchange for the ill that will come from my curse, let me show you how beautiful feeling can be.”