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The Brawl King by Kashel Char

New Beginnings, Book 2

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Chapter Eleven

“Good morning, Men of Phoenix.

Lasitor bids you a good morning.

It’s now six a.m.

Did you know there are science-based ways to reduce hunger and appetite?

Here are some examples:

Eat enough protein,

Opt for fiber-rich foods,

Drink plenty of water,

Choose solid foods to tame your hunger,

When you eat, eat mindfully,

When you do find food, eat it slowly,

Changing the size of your dinnerware to a smaller plate may help,

Exercise regularly,

Try to get a sufficient amount of sleep,

Manage your stress levels,

Eat some ginger or peppermint,

Lastly, tell yourself hunger is normal and keep busy; you could be a boredom eater.

Breakfast is served until eight a.m.”

Cian Romanov

“Hey, you piece of frog shit, let us out!” Cian’s voice was hoarse from screaming, so it sounded like a whisper. Being a say-it-like-it-is kind of guy made him the world’s worst cellmate, and their current predicament wasn’t highlighting his usual sunny disposition. No, instead, he gave word to his irritation. He was sick of being hungry, and he wanted damn clothes. At this level of darkness, he could see three different shades of darkness. Light gray dark, darker gray dark, and fucking dark.

“I’m sick of this. What are we waiting for?” he asked for the umpteenth time, and still, no one answered.

“Fucking locked up and tucked away for safekeeping. That’s what we are.” He ranted because his brother and the McCormick twins just sat there, letting him have his turn at freaking out. They rotated that honor a few times a day. The unspoken rules of prisoners stuck in a gold cage in a king’s cavern.

“We sit here and wait for our fucking fate!” He waved his arms around in circles, looking like a windmill in hurricane season, pointing to the thick golden bars that testified about their captor’s goldsmithing skills. Cian tried bending it again. Falling on his arse, he planted his feet on either side of a bar, pulling the one in the middle.

“Get off your arses and help me, for fuck’s sake,” he pleaded, but no one was in the mood. “Ugh, it just won’t budge.” He groaned and pulled. “One of these days, ugh, I’m gonna pop a vein,” he said, trying a few more times.

“At least it keeps you busy and us entertained,” Ivan remarked.

“A beautiful cage for his beautiful human boys,” Cian muttered. Disgusted and defeated, he fell backward, staring up into the dark.

“I’m sick of the darkness. I want to see the light. Fuck, fuck fuuuuuck!”

After a few minutes of quiet, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Probably Ivan’s.

“Brother, don’t worry. Eryn said he’ll get us out. Just give him more time.”

“I’m giving him one fucking day. I can’t live like this one day longer. It fucking stinks. I can’t breathe.” Cian heaved, breathing harder and faster.

“Stop that. You’re hyperventilating. You’ll pass out and lose consciousness again,” Ivan said, trying to coax his twin while Cian grabbed his hand, squeezing it.

Ivan looked right at Cian and said, “We have endured this captivity as best we can, given the circumstances. We’re all going to get out of here. I’m sure Eryn doesn’t know, and as soon as he finds out, he will kill his brother.” Ivan reasoned calmly.

Always the calm and reasonable twin, the opposite of myself, who’s impulsive and emotional.

“Come closer, so we can huddle and bunch up for heat,” Ivan said, pulling his brother closer.

“The stench of our excrement is suffocating. I can’t believe we haven’t caught a sinus or lung infection yet. It’s a fucking miracle in itself. We’ve passed the level of let’s get out of here on the scale of fucked-upness!” Cian moaned, trying to say something positive, but it came out the opposite.

“Maybe, if we’re lucky, we can convince Eryn to take us out of the cage to his father’s lab? That’s a positive move in the right direction.” Ivan seemed to manage to look on the bright side by highlighting their new freedom to use the facilities for daily bathroom breaks.

“Of course, that’s a big positive, I agree. It’s heaven to wash up out of the old bathroom sinks,” Donali added scornfully from out of the dark.

“Yes, but nauseating doesn’t begin to describe how I feel when I see that ugly motherfucker psychopath brother of Eryn’s,” Cian added, finding it impossible to walk on the bright side of life.

“I’m just thankful Eryn sits with us, and I enjoy how he laughs at our stories. I can tell he’s hungry for love and goodness.” Ivan continued his quest for goodness.

“I don’t feel cold and scared when he laughs or sings for us,” Donali added while holding Kawa.

“Yes, but where was he today? We needed him, and he goes on a freaking walkabout! I’ll give him a piece of my mind if I see him,” Cian said, pissed off again.

“For fuck’s sakes, Cian, you give pieces of your mind freely every day, the whole bloody day. Eryn went to build a beacon for us. He’ll come for us…just trust that for now,” Ivan begged, sounding tired.

“I can’t believe what just happened to Kawa. Donali, is he okay?” Cian asked, feeling guilty about his antics while Kawa was in pain.

“Hmm, for now, our nightmare is quickly becoming a reality,” Donali said.

“As if being abducted by frogmen only in our swim trunks wasn’t bad enough. Surviving not being eaten isn’t something one expected to be celebrating,” Cian added sarcastically.

“Being thankful for only a chomped-off arm instead of another limb is not something I thought to experience.” Kawa moaned, and lying in his brother’s arms, he started wailing again. “My arm had been chopped off and then munched on in front of my fucking eyes.” He cried.

“This nightmare is genuine. That frogman crushed your radius and ulna like a bloody potato chip. And then he said, naughty and saucy nick-nacks.” Cian vividly described their ordeal, mimicking Ernest’s raspy groggy voice. Kawa cried louder.

“And when he bit the tip of your thumb off, and the blood sprayed all over us, that was gross! I’ll never, ever suck my fingers clean after I have eaten,” Cian added.

“Thank you, Cian. We all needed to hear that. You can be so blatantly insensitive sometimes,” Ivan reprimanded him.

“The frogging fucker almost came back for seconds but thought better of it when the king called for him,” Cian said, not backing down.

“What will happen when they return?” Donali rocked Kawa in his arms. “The thing winked at us and licked its lips, promising he’d be back.”

“Fuck, the words that was delicious are playing on replay in my mind.” Kawa sniffled.

The four boys were reaching their limits. They’ve been sitting in the cage waiting to be rescued. Barely fed, they looked like skeletons. It reeked in the cave, and using a bucket for toileting didn’t help.

“Luckily, since we befriended Eryn and explained what humans needed, he was happy to take us to his father’s office to use the facilities some days. Remember, he disagrees with the abduction, but for him, he has many players to move to get us out safely. So I guess if they return and Eryn sees Kawa’s arm, he won’t let his brother hurt any of us,” Ivan said.

“Still, I agree with Cian, the stench is suffocating, and I can barely understand them. It’s a weird mix of South African English, Russian, and frog,” Donali whispered.

“They croak a lot. There are croaks for yes, croaks for no, then croaks for anger, and a string of croaks for laughter,” Cian said, and Kawa whimpered, sounding like he was in excruciating pain.

“Sorry, I just can’t stop crying,” he said, covering his mouth to hide the sounds.

“Lie down, turn on your left side, and let’s elevate the stump.” Cian helped him. “That’s it!” he coaxed while ripping up a swimming towel. He applied another tourniquet higher up and bandaged the stump over the already soaked one.

“Somehow, the frogman’s bite had numbed the pain and slowed the bleeding, but now, it’s burning and hurts like a motherfucker,” Kawa said with a wheezy breath.

Cian noticed he was bleeding at an alarming rate, worse than a slaughtered pig, and decided not to verbalize that thought. He scooted in next to Donali to keep the stump elevated. He was rocking back and forth.

“Cian,” Kawa whispered.

“Yeah, buddy,” he whispered back.

“I see black spots. It feels like I want to pass out,” Kawa said, closing his eyes.

“It’s okay. We’ll watch over you. Sleep a little.” Donali cried softly.

“When our fathers come to rescue us, and they will come, I’ll kill that bastard first,” Donali promised, sniffing worriedly.

The four looked and smelled like they lived inside a sewage plant. Their hair was matted, and their faces were almost black and contrasted with the white of their eyeballs.

“This is ludicrous! We need to think of an escape plan. I’m not sitting around, waiting to be rescued one more fucking day,” Ivan whispered. They listened to the frogmen getting off the elevator.

“I bet we can tease the small one enough to unlock the gate so we can overpower him,” Ivan said. “We need a plan if Eryn doesn’t come through for us today.

“Uhum, I agree with you, brother.” Cian hummed while rocking Kawa.

It seems that it was Ivan’s turn to try and bend the golden bars. Making grunting noises like a weightlifter at the Olympics, he pulled and pushed on them, seemingly entertaining the idea that they might budge this time.

“Their eyes are adapted to see in the dark, so we must be smart. Maybe when the smaller one’s alone,” Cian schemed out loud.

“Eryn has beautiful eyes, green-golden irises, with elongated pupils,” Ivan added almost dreamily.

“I admit, the big one does have attractive humanoid features,” Cian said.

“Ha, you noticed his other big humanoid features, too!” Ivan teased. Then he added, “He’s much kinder, and I like it when he sings for us. Maybe we should continue to play on that. We were making progress. He’s almost my best friend ever!”

“Yes, we noticed,” Cian said sarcastically.

“What do you mean? Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that he’s different and that there’s something about him.”

“Yes, I can’t put my finger on it now that you mentioned it. I know what you mean, brother. It feels like I’ve seen him somewhere. Like a deja vu feeling.”

A pained keening from Kawa forced them to turn their attention elsewhere. Ivan crept in closer to the group. “I need heat,” he said, and Cian moved up and threw his other arm around his twin brother.

“I don’t know how much longer I can hang on,” Kawa cried. “Why don’t they just kill us?” Kawa stuttered between the chattering of his teeth, “I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home.” He repeated the words, mindlessly rocking himself. The three huddled over his shivering body, containing as much heat as possible. Still dressed in their swim trunks, the damp and musty subterranean mining tunnels were wet and stifling. Compounded by their malnourishment and exhaustion, they were experiencing hypothermia. When they’d arrived, they were having trouble breathing. The pressure on their eardrums was excruciating, miles deep into the earth. Now that they’d acclimated, no more popping their eardrums or sweating profusely. One positive thing about the constant dripping of water from the rock surface above their cage was that they at least had water to drink. But still, the smell from their bucket of excrement reeked.

“Anyways, my only worry is the others they’re talking about. Somewhere down here is a nest. The father must be the mad scientist who made them,” Ivan said softly, leaning into them. He threw his arms around the McCormick boys.

“They hatched from eggs, like little tadpoles,” Cian said, and the three giggled. “We got to know our enemy’s routine fairly well. We need to ask more questions about the nest and which tunnels to use to escape,” Donali whispered.

“Ernest is the lunatic. I bet they stole eggs from Ph…” Cian abruptly stopped talking and listened. It sounded like someone was walking outside.

Maybe it’s water dripping.

“Shhh, they’re coming…” They all looked up. Listening again—more listening.

“False alarm,” Ivan said, so Donali giggled.

“Born with little tails.”

“Yes, that’s funny.” Ivan laughed. They fell silent, and Ivan cleared his throat. “My biggest worry is what Ernest said that one brother would eat the other. I think there are more hatchlings, maybe smaller ones.”

“Maybe bigger ones.”

“Shhh, here they come,” Ivan warned them.

“The nest is restless. They’re hungry.” Cian could hear Eryn warn his brother.

“See, there’s a nest,” Ivan whispered. “He told me when he closed his eyes and concentrated on them that he’s connected to them.” He held his finger in front of his lips. They listened—water drip-dripped behind them. They could hear the two frogmen arguing a few feet down the tunnel.

********

To celebrate the release of The Brawl King, Kashel is giving you the chance to win an e-copy of their new release!

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Book 1: Phoenix Code

Get to know the men who lay the foundation for the rebirth of a new civilization on earth. This book can be read or listened to as a standalone.

A sexy all-male dystopian science fiction. Stunningly beautiful scientists and soldiers are thrown together to face Doomsday. The start of an unpredictable series about the survival of humankind, unbeknownst to external forces that drive their discoveries of new technologies and DNA manipulations. New laws are written, and an infrastructure devoid of ethnic, religious, or any other components that have steered the human race thus far, is now history.

All the while, Colonel Dr. McCormick is not only set on a course to lead the men of Phoenix through world annihilation but also come to terms with his sexuality and how to manage a bunch of horny brilliant men who are not necessarily gay or bi-sexual but who have to have some kind of sexual intimacy and gratification. How will he create a new code of conduct to appease two thousand men to live in harmony without the restrictive pointless rules of the old world?

The plot is dripping buckets full of humor, sexy man love, romance, a wedding, and a “Quik-Fix Hall” only geniuses can design and make it sound like you are taking a trip to the mall. Antarctica turned out to be the best place on earth. After all, hell has finally frozen over.

Written with a multi-POV approach to get to know the big cast of characters, their struggles, triumphs, and sexuality are only the tip of the iceberg. Fans of science and medical procedures will love the medical jargon and lingo. Get to know the couples who are about to spend millennia together. Phoenix Code is the foundation of the birth of Atlantis and the superhuman race. Earth has reached full circle. Time to face the Truth; we are on our own!

WARNING: This book contains graphic male/male hardcore sex between consenting adults, all eighteen years of age or older. Chapter nineteen is explicitly bondage roleplay with dubious consent. Sensitive readers triggered by this kind of role-play language may skip this chapter. This book is not intended for people under eighteen years of age or for anyone offended by gay male sex.
© January 2022 Stefan Pride and Kashel Char. All rights reserved

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