The Story of Greed parts 7–10

This story is on hold as of January 2020

SEVEN

She could feel eyes on her from all directions, and no amount of pacing could help her escape them.

"You can either learn your place here or how many bones I can break until you're a sack of dust." 

How dare he!

She was a force to be reckoned with, one that ought to be respected. One day, she'd shine beside the sun. She'd win her crown as a Goddess, and all of the fools that crossed her path will feel blessed to have known her.

Luna was named a Goddes– if the pitiful bitch that was killed by a meager mortal made it, then so could Farrah.

"Fuck!" she screamed, pulling at her sweaty hair.

She couldn't ascend to the skies if she was trapped in a tomb!

Tiny giggled from his cell. "Step, step, step, step."

"Shut up, you dimwitted waste of air," she growled.

"X said you have to be nice or he'll make you dust," Tiny reminded her.

Her teeth grit, producing a snarl so fierce that her breath nearly came out as fire. Her claws extended, seeking the blood that would sate her internal inferno.

"He'll make me dust? Really?" she snapped, her mind reeling with thoughts. She had already gathered that Tiny had some mental abnormality. Another woman would tread waters carefully to avoid upsetting him, but she wasn't a normal woman. Neither her beauty and wit owned mercy.

"Will he turn me to dust the same way that you made your family ashes?"

A wail burst from Tiny's throat, followed by the sound of him slamming his head against the bars.

She laughed cruelly, enjoying the drop of control she was able to exercise on the man. She flicked her hair over a shoulder, allowing her smile to falter when she felt warm air touch nape of her neck.

She turned and made eye contact with her enemy.

"I warned you," X beamed.

A squeal of fear and anger pierced her lungs as she took a step back.

Impossible. How did he get in here?

X's hands took flight and latched onto her shoulders, hauling her toward his naked chest, which was sturdier than the walls themselves.

His lips pressed into the shell of her ear, rasping, "You should have listened."

Her chest rose and fell with animosity, sending her breasts to him as if they were an offering. Then, they'd remember who their true owner was and fall back.

Compose yourself, Greed. Queens don't tremble even when their palace is shaken.

She rose to her toes, bringing her lips closer to his own ear, and whispering, "that's the difference between you and I. You issue warnings, I issue death."

With a smile, she closed her eyes and welcomed her lycan. She waited, and then she worried once her lycan didn't come. 

She couldn't shift.

She heard a commotion in the background as guards began barreling their way.

A hot, wet, thick line was drawn up her face, and it took her a second to realize that the artist was X's tongue. The man had licked her cheek.

"Get off me!" she fought.

His fingers dug deeper into her shoulders, rendering her useless against his tank of a body.

"Delicious. I wonder if you'll taste as good once you're reduced to dust?" he chuckled.

"Damn you!"

The cell to her door was hauled open, and a small army entered her cell. Guards separated them, but X didn't raise a single finger. He simply smiled her way, his teeth serving as a flashlight that was pointing out all of her weaknesses.

"I will end you!" she promised, feeling too exposed and mortal for her liking.

X had somehow taken her ability to shift, and the prison had taken away the jewelry and gowns she would need to seduce. They had taken her power, knocked her down from her cloud.

Another booming chuckle left X.

"I've cracked you without lifting a single finger. Don't worry, Greed. I'll be back to put you out of your misery."

She screamed and thrashed around rabidly. "I don't belong here!"

The guards guided her out, but not until she got a view of the maulted bars that separated her cell and X's.

A shaky breath knocked her chest when she realized that the deranged alpha had pried them open to get to her.

It took four guards to handcuff her and drag her to a different cell. X had been taken away in a different direction, and the relief she felt made her all the angrier.

– • –

"Why did you fail to mention that you had the strength to destroy the bars and potentially escape, Xerxes?"

X leaned back on the chair, the sound of chains rattling following the motion.

"Isn't it your job to find that out?"

He stared boldly at the old female agent that was sitting across from him, counting the pace of her breaths, estimating how far she was from the door, the length of the table between them, and her height and weight.

Six seconds.

It's what it would take him to snap the woman's spine.

"One second for every letter in my name."

"Excuse me?"

"I want to go back to my cell. Are we done here?" he asked, leaning closer and placing his elbows on the table. His chains moved, skipping along across his thick erection. The bitter cold of the metal soothed, but failed to tame his arrogant cock.

"No. You cannot be excused until we figure this out. You have been calm for months. What is it about that lycan that enraged you?" the elder pushed.

"Enraged?" he shook his head. "I am not enraged."

Well, except for my cock.

"Greed stirred my interest. She's haughty, entitled, and needs to be taught her place."

"It isn't your job to teach her what place she is in!"

He opened his mouth which had just tasted Greed, and then dragged his tongue over his bottom lip. "I suggest that you lower your voice, agent. Remember that you are below both my wolf and I."

A clunk went off once he bent his wrists and eradicated his chains. They clattered on his lap, giving him a small bolt of pleasure.

It wasn't enough.

He folded his hands neatly atop the table and enjoyed the sight of color draining from the agent's face.

"Put me back in my cell, or I will continue to stir hell in your prison."

"Bu- but."

"As long as you don't take away my entertainment, I'll be good... for the most part."

Three guards walked in, pausing when the agent raised her palm.

"Give me some time to talk to the board about this."

"You have six minutes. One minute for every letter in my name."

He then started to count.

EIGHT

She could still feel the heat of X's tongue, could still hear the sound of his saliva slobbering up her cheek. His spit had dried against a long time ago, but it was still there, reminding her of the alpha's transgression.

She hoped that the guards that took him away were leading him straight to an execution chamber to spare her the trouble of breaking a nail as she decapitated him.

A metal scream went off once she punched the bars of her new cell. The only upside of the situation was that she had gotten relocated far enough that she no longer heard Tiny's manic ramblings.

Heavy footsteps approached her cell, making der direct her glare from the floor to the cells.

Agent Lloyd, the man responsible for her predicament, appeared.

"Are you alright?"

His face was as stone, as usual, not offering a hint of worry.

"If you came to mock me, I suggest that you return to wherever you came from."

"I am being genuine. I know that inmate one must have shaken you. He has a reputation for that," Lloyd replied. His hands entered his pockets, and his legs stayed spread. The tie that hung from his neck looked like the perfect rope she could use to strangle him.

"I'm not alright. I'm a fucking prisoner, thanks to you!"

She kicked the bars, sending a flash of pain up her leg.

"You have the right to be incarcerated in a safe and comfortable setting. If you wish, we can permanently relocate you away from the cell of inmate one."

"I don't run from battles, Lloyd. Especially if a man is standing at the opposite forefront."

He nodded. "Have it your way."

"I wasn't done!" she barked when he began to walk away. "When will I get a shower? I demand one now!"

The agent didn't come back, leaving her more flustered than before.

– • –

"The board has denied your request, Xerxes. Breaking out of your cell ,as unacceptable. It has been decided to move you to a more secure location."

Xerxes shook his head. "That won't do."

"You are not a guest in a hotel. You're a prisoner."

He had to give it to the agent credit. Even with sweat in her brow and wariness in her eyes, she gathered the courage to speak up to him.

His heavy hand ran through his dark hair, roughing it. A part of him wished he was caressing Greed instead, pulling her locks as he tugged her down to her knees. Unlike what the lycan believed, that was her place. 

He couldn't wait to break her, to have her melting before his feet like a puddle of gold.

"If you don't comply, I'll remind you why I'm locked in here."

The coldness of the metal table bit his elbows, but it couldn't compare to the ice in his eyes. His teeth produced a smile, making the agent lean away with perturbation.

"You should go back to living quietly. The board refuses to bend to your whims."

The agent's voice was less confident; its strength  absorbed by Xerxes's grin.

He opened his smile to reply, stopping when the door opened.

"Rubi, give us a moment, please," Agent Lloyd requested.

Rubi looked between the two men. One was dressed and the other naked, one sane and the other at the brink of insanity, one free and the other imprisoned.

"I don't believe..." Rubi hesitated.

"It will be quick."

After a few more moments of uncertainty, Rubi turned around and made her way outside. The sound of locks clicking in place increased Xerxes' amusement.

"Inmate one," Lloyd greeted as he took Rubi's abandoned seat.

"Skip the condensing bullshit, Lloyd. There's a lycan that I'm very interested in fucking. The faster you shut your mouth, the faster I get to fill her cunt."

"What part of your situation do you not understand?" Lloyd asked, unaffected by Xerxes' crude words. They had known each other for too long, bickered with words and fists too many times to be surprised by the other.

"You're dripping with chains, surrounded by locks and metal. You are a prisoner," Lloyd pressed.

"You think that a few men and chains will lock away my dominance over you? Look at your dick, then look at mine. I'm the alpha here. No amount of walls will change my footing on the food pyramid."

"The alpha of what pack? The nine other inmates? That's quite the accomplishment."

Lloyd's speech had begun to speed up, his brow beginning to furrow.

I've almost got you, Xerxes thought.

"The true accomplishment here is that although you're a decorated agent, I'm who your inmates fear. It takes quite some talent to have so much power and still be a worthless bitch."

Lloyd slammed his hands on the table, rising to his feet.

"It really brings me joy to know that you will never feel the moonlight again," he bit out.

Xerxes offered a wide smile, truly meaning it. "How do you feel about the fact that she won't be feeling moonlight ever again, either? It's probably very dark in the coffin she's in right now."

Lloyd turned three shades of red. His wolf was trying to dig itself out, ready to fight for his pride. Only Xerxes' blood could put out the fire that had gotten started.

"Go on, try to strike me. Give me a reason to wipe the table with you," Xerxes baited.

Lloyd knew better than to attack. Doing so would result in the board directing him to a different project.

"You know that I'm smarter than that. I have no interest in getting transferred. No. I'm going to stay right by your side and make sure that your life remains hell."

"If only you were smart enough to keep your wife alive."

The slam of a door was heard, followed by the maddened laughter of inmate number one.

NINE

Rubi jolted at the sound of a door slamming. "How did it go?" she asked as she took a step toward Lloyd. "Has he come to his senses?" 

Lloyd bit out a laugh. "The man is lost to madness. No words will reach him."

Rubi watched him pace left and right. She knew that bad blood ran between the two men, but didn't know the source of the spill. She had been working in the facility for as far as she could remember, while Lloyd only joined seven years ago. He showed up soon after Xerxes got incarcerated. While he didn't have the credentials needed to join the organization, his wealth helped him pull the right strings.

"Maybe it's time that you transfer to a different project. You've been on Xerxes' case for seven years."

"No!"

She took a step back, surprised by his outburst.

Lloyd rarely released the leash on his temper. He was a collected, respected agent. When it came to Xerxes, however, his darkness roared past his clenched teeth.

"Look, I'm sorry," Lloyd sighed with exasperation. "He just gets in my head sometimes. His crimes were horrible, and he doesn't seem to care."

His expression seemed to be begging her to understand.

She nodded.

"I know that what he did was horrid, but we have a responsibility to uphold ethics. He's behind bars, serving his sentence. If your emotions are getting in the way of properly doing your job, then you should pick up another task. Get it together, or I'll be no other option but to report my worries to a superior."

He looked away from the older agent, unworried by her threat. He had plenty of money to buy out his superiors.

No one, even the Moon Goddess, would get between him and Xerxes.

If need be, he would spend his entire fortune to glue himself to the other man. He wouldn't leave Xerxes' side until he watched his spirit split in two. It's what he deserved. He had taken everything from Lloyd, and the odds would only be even once lost it all as well. The end was close. Xerxes no longer had a pack or a title. His sentence had taken everything but his spirit from him. It took Lloyd seven years to realize that no cells would keep Xerxes from his arrogance. The alpha considered the entire world to be his throne. 

Remember your promise. Remember what he did. You need to stay by his side until his body begins to rot and his soul melts in hell. 

He didn't care whether he had to wait for Xerxes to die from natural causes. His time, money and energy were fully devoted to the mission.

"Damn it," he hissed, raising a hand to loosen the tie that seemed to be strangling his neck.

The picture of a dull-eyed Xerxes attaching a rope to a ceiling and wrapping it around his neck inspired a joy in him that knew no boundaries.

Leading that broken monster to suicide would be a gift from the gods. It was an unlikely ending, but he didn't mind dreaming; after all, he had no others left.

Xerxes had destroyed his dreams the day he killed his mate.

Elsa... 

He moaned with pain and staggered, his strength drying under the memory of her smile. She had been so beautiful and wholesome, the mother of his hopes and dreams. 

They were supposed to have a future together. Write a story so lovely that it would have become a tale.

He had lost her too early. Her beauty had decayed to a slab of meat infested by maggots too soon. Their story had only reached a few chapters before Xerxes ripped the book in half.

He fell to his knees.

The source of his life pumped blood and pain, making him lust death. While his chest was stuffed with ache, his memory was starved. He couldn't remember what it was like for his heart to speed up whenever his mate neared, or the butterflies that used to swarmed his stomach.

He couldn't remember what it was like to love. The short word was so easy to describe, but so hard to manifest.

"Agent Lloyd?"

He looked up and found a worred intern.

He staggered to his feet, muttering, "tell Rubi that something came up. I'll return in a few hours."

He walked out of the facility and to the parking garage. He entered his  and let his muscle memory take over. Somehow, he drove to the cemetery without crashing.

It took him an hour, but his dragging feet eventually led him to the resting place of his other half. A pile of dirt, a tombstone, and a box of bones six feet under were what remained of her. She was still alive and warm in his memories, but every day the gap between their dimensions pulled her a centimeter away. 

"I'm sorry that I didn't bring you flowers today."

I'm sorry I didn't show you the world.

I'm sorry I didn't protect you. 

I'm sorry that I can't remember the butterflies.

He reached for her tombstone and skimmed a hand over it. It was so terribly cold, unable to depict the warmth of the woman whose name was printed on it.

His tears fell, raining on the soil and seeping down to her coffin, reaching for her the way that his hands couldn't.

"Elsa," he called out.

A loud ringing answered him.

He reached for his cellphone and glared at the screen.

Rubi was calling.

"I'm busy. I told you that something–"

"We need you back now. Xerxes has started another mess with the new inmate– Farrah."

Farrah.

The woman was almost the complete opposite of his sweet Elsa. The only thing they shared was beauty. 

With the malicious lycan in mind, he turned around and made way to his car.

TEN

"What happened?" Lloyd demanded the second he stepped out of the elevator.

Rubi appeared beside him, her age-wrinkled face looking more stressed than usual.

"They began bickering, and their loud voices disturbed other inmates. I thought the building was going to collapse from how much they were yelling."

He used his key to swipe past all of the security doors, eager to get to the problematic inmates. He was going to put an end Farah and Xerxes' petty arguments and bring Xerxes back to his miserable state of boredom.

He walked to the isolation chambers where he knew the lycan and former alpha would be scowling. Finding Greed's room, he peered into the bars.

The lycan of deception was beautiful even while soaking in filth. Her hair was rowdy, and her clothes had begun to smell as foully as her soul.

He opened his mouth to call her name, but his mouth remained dry.

He was struck by a strange affliction.

Why hadn't he admired her beauty when he first saw her? Why hadn't he felt the urge to notice her curves when they were wrestling in the dirt of Cienfuegos?

"Farrah."

She turned around, her limp and dirty hair swinging. She then crossed her arms under her chest, unknowingly lifting her breasts higher. He would've never thought that he would see the master of seduction show a slip of innocence.

"Are you alright?"

It was the second time he asked her that question, and it unnerved Farrah every time he did. Choosing to ignore it, she changed the topic.

"What happened to X? Please tell me he's getting waterboarded. The crazy son of a bitch won't–"

"Forget about him for now," Lloyd interjected. "Tell me if you're injured. You're my responsibility."

She pursed her lips, absorbing his demands. The only time a man showed interest in her well-being and comfort was when they were trying to get into her skirt. This was different. Lloyd was more interested in what laid past her skin.

"Fine. Just in need of a shower. Isn't it illegal to reject my request for sanitation? What happened to me having rights?" she retorted.

He stared, finding it unfortunate how her character didn't match her outer beauty.

"Well?"

With a clearing of his throat, he took a step closer to the bars. "You'll get your shower. We'll have to relocate you. It's not safe to keep you near Xerxes. Something about you makes him rowdy."

"You're telling me that he wasn't always like this? That's hard to believe."

He nodded. "He was calm for months but has been stirring up trouble since he became obsessed with you. If you avoid trouble for a few weeks, I can try to talk to the board and get your sentence reduced. Just keep in mind that I can't promise anything."

She jumped to the cells, and he wisely stepped away. Pure excitement was clear in her expression– another unexpected dose of innocence that he would've never expected from her.

"You're serious? You're not trying to fuck with me?"

Her smile was so beautiful that he would've changed his mind if he had been lying to her.

He shook his head, realizing that his thoughts were going someplace they didn't belong.

You were just at your wive's grave, and you're already eyeballing another woman. What is wrong with you?

He took comfort in the fact that he wasn't usually like this. His arms had been cold for seven years, neglected of a woman's warmth. There was just something about Farrah that stole the interest of every man. He was wrong in believing that he was immune to her.

"Of course, I'm serious. I don't play games."

"Thank you."

Farrah wasn't sure if it was the lack of open-air that was circulating through her lungs, but something made her blurt the two words she hadn't used and meant in a long time.

Even Lloyd seemed dumbfounded by her gratitude.

"This will be for the best. He'll return to his bored vegetable state once you're out of the way."

"I get the impression that you've known him for a long time," she said, shamelessly digging for information.

"Yes," Lloyd replied. "For as long as I can remember."

"Since before he got sentenced?"

Lloyd straightened himself. "I need to get going."

So much for digging in. 

Lloyd disappeared behind a corner, his footsteps falling louder than usual. He read the tags on every door, trying to find Xerxes' name.

Inmate one. 

The name was much more fitting than 'Xerxes'.

Entering the hall, he peered into the cells and found Xerxes lying on his back on the floor. Lloyd was used to the absurdity. Nothing from Xerxes' obsession with counting numbers to his preference for nudity phased him anymore.

"You went to see Greed. I can smell her on you," Xerxes greeted.

"You got that right. And now I'm here to deliver some news."

He leaned forward and grasped two handfuls of bars. He noticed that they were thicker than normal calls, specially designed to keep Xerxes inside.

"And what's that?" Xerxes asked, throwing his arm over his face.

"We're moving her away from your reach."

"Oh yeah?" Xerxes taunted, crossing his ankles. "Go ahead and do that, agent."

Unable to resist, Lloyd asked, "Just why are you so obsessed with her?"

"You're the obsessed one here."

Lloyd's teeth nearly shattered from the pressure his anger was raining on them. Sometimes, Xerxes would passionately talk a mile a minute, throwing retorts like breaths. Other days, the man seemed disinterested and kept his replies short. It seemed like today was one of those days.

Lloyd wasn't sure which days he liked better.