⚠️⚠️⚠️CONTENT WARNING. SOME INSTANCES IN THIS NOVEL MAY DEPICT TRIGGERING EVENTS SUCH AS MURDER, SUICIDE, RAPE AND VIOLENCE. THIS IS AN ADULT THEMED GRAPHIC NOVEL. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO HANDLE SUCH EXTREME VIOLENCE.⚠️⚠️⚠️

Kirian stared out of the window. The city lights glowed far below him, luminescent and rich in color. It looked glorious from his cage in the Bastille. When he had walked among the shadows he had admired it from below, then, for years, he admired it from above.

Kirian had been born a mongrel in the slums. The city that now lay far below his view seemed a distant dream for a better life then. He had been poor, but he had a good life. Something he didn't realize until he gambled it away on a one-night stand with a mafia boss's wife.

After that, punching a cop was a one way ticket to the Bastille where their Elite cyborg rulers live. A place for punishment but not a technical jail. Kirian had made many mistakes in life. He wasn't sure if that was the worst one, but it may very well have been.

A hover car flew past the broken window he stood in. The headlights illuminated his sillouette and blinded him briefly before heading on into the night sky.

Kirian kept his gaze on the florecent lights beneath him that he had never gotten near. Kirian was going to finally see those lights up close. He wasn't going to be staring at the neon lights filled with the normal denizens of city A from a distance any longer. It was a tempting view, the neon colors all but calling out to him to jump.

Alarms were ringing around him and the wind was pushing his teal blue locks around. Broken glass lacerated his palm where he gripped the window frame.

Somewhere below his vantage point he watched the spot where the chair he'd relentlessly bashed into the window to break it had disappeared. That spot was where he would be next. Though he could not see where the chair landed he knew it was close to the tower so it probably didn't hit anyone. The irony of killing an innocent bystandard during his attempt of ending his own life would be too much for him. He was already branded an angel of death, he didn't need to make it worse.

The title had left him with no friends the last few weeks. Too many people were terrified of losing their life if they got close to him. Too many people had lost their lives getting close to him. Kirian was a curse. In a way, he felt what he was about to do was a meager compensation for all the pain and suffering had caused. He could not see any reason to continue struggling on. Not when it was clear he was the problem. 

Kirian's lip quirked up in the semblance of the first genuine smile he had had in years. Who would have thought that his own death would be the thing to bring him peace and serenity.

Kirian's fingers flexed on the windowsill. He was hesitating. Was he hoping someone would call out to him, to stop him or even care that he was going to do it? The alarms were going off. There was a chance SOMEONE would care... but it was not likely.

The breaking of the window had probably put the entire tower on lock down. Breaking the window had taken a lot of effort and time. It was bullet proof glass that was hell to break. He had to rip the wall panel control box out of his room to disable his door before he even attempted it. He did not want to be caught halfway through. That alone had taken days to do without being caught.

He knew any pet who may have lingering worries for him would already be locked away, forced to stay where they were while the Elites handled the security breach. That meant any minute someone would break down that door. The person doing it would not care about him. They would only care about what he had done. He knew better.

Kirian's friends were all long gone. His owner had made sure that none who touched what belonged to him was alloted to live. The only contact Kirian was allowed was that of a soulless robot who oversaw the world. A soulless monster who's only reason for collaring and subjecting him to such a lonely life was sure spite.

Kirian still remembered the day he was collared. The day his world finally fell fully out of his control. He'd spent that day on his knees, groveling, trying to avoid the attention.

His ex boyfriend lay on the ground not far from him, Nikolai. His knee caps were busted and his cries were loud... but he never once forgot to throw Kirian under the bus for abandoning him due to Kirians commitment issues.

Seth, a white haired, purple eyed elite, had caught them on camera making out. Touching was forbidden in the Bastille unless permitted by an elite. It was to prevent issues and provide one more measure of control over the humans.

As expected, Seth had flown into a rage. The elites were not known to be good tempered and he was feared as one of the worst. He was sadistic and extreme. This time had been no different.

They had been drug to the back room, forced to kneel and threatened. Kirian, a man who preferred to go under the radar and be left to drink and sleep around, had admitted guilt immediately and begged forgiveness. He was more willing to grovel than deal with pain.

Nikolai... had been plotting. Kirian didn't realize till his ex started begging for Kirian to be forgiven just how devious the other was. He knew Kirian craved the freedom of not being tied to another. He knew that was why Kirian had ran away from him when they had been mongrels in the slums. He used that as his final revenge.

Nikolai had made a production of trying to protect Kirian. He made Seth truly believe that harming Kirian was worse than harming him. So, Kirian took the fall. Seth also knew of Kirian's disinterest in being collared. He knew the other wanted to sleep with the elites but not be bound to any one of them. It was his way of maintaining his freedom.

The Bastille was prison, but if one could maintain a substandard existence under the radar of the Elite's gaze they could exist peacefully. Those that garnered the Elites true interest were collared and forced to be "pets". Thus Kirian enjoyed a shambled balance of making himself physically available while also appearing boring and useless, so none would collar him. Being that way got him alcohol on occasion which was another substance strictly controlled. 

Seth had enjoyed that in Kirian, because it meant the man wouldn't get attached after he used him. Kirian and Seth had a very simple relationship based on sex before Nikolai came to the bastille and shattered it.

Nikolai's cries for mercy had given Seth the idea to punish them both in what he believed to be the simple solution. He had collared Kirian as punishment. Seth was also in a spot where it was beneficial to collar him. The other Elites were harassing him for not having a pet and the humans were harassing him to be his pet. In his mind, Kirian was the least annoying candidate. He didn't realize how stressful the man would be at the time.

The years following that were bitter and lonely. Kirian watched his friends die to his elite's possessive nature. Nikolai had died that same day, a smile on his face due to his exacting of revenge on Kirian.

Kirian spent years being called the angel of death by other inhabitants of the tower. Towards the end none would even talk to him anymore, too terrified of what Seth would do if they did. Kirian was tired of waiting for some sort of interaction from Seth.

The door sliding open and the elite holding its frame, crushing it under the force of his grip, pulled Kirian from his memories. He knew they would come. The sure fire way to get Seth to appear was to do something that displeased him. The broken sliding door had all but crumpled under the elite's strength. Seth was thin, tall and lanky. He didn't look like he should be that strong, but he was a cyborg.

As always Seth was clad in black leather. His mid rift was exposed, but chains and belts decorated his crop top, matching jacket and matching leather pants. Zippers affixed the crop top in place and his boots had wicked spikes on them that glowed in the light of Kirians room. The white hair was pulled up atop his head and fell in a wave of white down his back. Some stray strands fell along his forehead to frame his face, perfectly accenting the glowing with rage violet eyes that lay beneath heavily drawn together white brows.

Kirian could not see the lower half of Seth's face, as it was always covered by an ornately designed mask, but he knew that his sculpted lips were drawn into a tight line of annoyance.

They stared at eachother from across the space. Kirian was a stark contrast to his ivory toned robot owner. He was dark skinned. His hair was mottled blue and cyan colors and his eyes were a piercing green. Seth was a tall, thin elite with a feline grace and appearance. Kirian was tall, but had a wider build with more muscle mass.

"What do you think you are doing?" Seth's voice held a hint of curiosity, as if he were asking about the weather. His expression had eased, but that just showed he was more angry. It was a white rage. Kirian knew the tone. It was the calm before the storm. It was the silent rage that was going to rip him apart without killing him.

"Admiring the view." Kirian didn't back down for once. His voice was steady. He released the window and turned to face Seth. Kirian was usually fast to back down. He hated pain and he hated fighting with Seth. Yet, it was all they ever did. Fight and fuck. Not this time.

Neither moved from their spot. Kirian's shoulder length hair was tousled and blown by the wind from the opening. Seth stood straight in the doorway. The crushed metal frame held firmly in his grasp. The sirens were blaring because of the security breech. The entire Bastille was on lock down because of Kirian.

Though the lights were working fine the gloom seemed to be intense in the room. Seth was amazed that the spineless human was daring to talk back. He had kept it alive only because killing him would meant his siblings would have something else to lord over him. He had kept it to avoid others demanding his collar, and yet it was nothing but trouble. Here the human stood again, causing trouble. The smile on his face only added fuel to Seth's fury. 

"You could have done that without breaking the glass. Did you miss me? Did I not satisfy my *pet* well enough the last time?" Seth's words were twisted with sarcasm and now held the venom that showed he was losing patience. The word pet was not so much spoke as chewed up and spit out. The last time had been brutal and Kirian had not left his room the three days following it. It had been a month since then.

"No. I wanted a closer look." Kirian said. His smile grew as he took the final step back. That was all he wanted. He watched as Seth's eyes widened when his foot went backwards and was met with empty air. He felt gravity begin to suck him down even before he had fully lept from the window. The elite had spent years threatening to end his life without doing so. Kirian had come to realize the last bit of control he could take would be in taking the privilege of killing him away.

Seth took action. He used his super speed to lung at Kirian, trying to grab the useless human who gave him nothing but a headache. He was a second too late. His hand met air and soon he too felt gravity. His speed had launched him from the window after Kirian and there was nothing but air now. He was going to die as well, and it was all thanks to the human who was plummeting towards the ground below him. Seth's hand was out stretched, reaching for Kirian's throat.

Kirian met Seth's gaze. His eyes widened a fraction before he laughed. The sound was ripped from his throat and lost in the wind as they plummeted towards the earth. They had long enough to realize they were going to die together before it all went black.