Clutching My Cure

Chapter Twenty-Two


His chair facing the large window looking out over the beach, Xanatos stared moodily at the crashing waves. Anyone observing him at this moment would see a cold, unfeeling, power hungry man who was driven by greed and an unquenchable thirst for power. Sapphire eyes were like still pools, reflecting nothing of his thoughts and seemingly devoid of any normal human emotion. His appearance was that of someone unfazed by any outside influences.

Hard. Cold. Driven.

They were words he was all too familiar with, having heard them non-stop since he was a teenager. Even amongst the Jedi he’d been viewed as someone to be leery of, his ambition frightening even the most battle weary Knights. That drive was one of many aspects to his personality that had labeled him an outcast and eventually driven him from the Temple’s suffocating walls. He was not cut out for the sterile and frugal lifestyle the Jedi were forced to endure; abstinence a word that had been removed from his vocabulary when he was a mere child. Xanatos deCrion watched out for no one but himself and simply took what he wanted.

Until recently.

Long sable lashes fluttered shut as he formed a picture of Obi-Wan behind closed lids. He’d become besotted with the younger man the instant he’d laid eyes on him, and happily so. At first desire, and soon after love, had made him shed his normal reserve and lowered normally impenetrable shields. He’d allowed Obi-Wan to worm his way into his heart and soul, and now he was paying the price for the uncharacteristic weakness. It was galling to find that at his age he’d allowed himself to become a love sick fool, doing tricks in order to keep his lover happy. What kind of fool resorted to kidnapping and murder simply to show their love and devotion?

His morose thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a throat being cleared from behind him. Eyes snapping open, he swung the leather chair around in order to pin the preening fool with a dark glower. The bloated man’s red face was beaded with sweat as shifty eyes darted around the room, avarice lighting their oily depths as he soaked in his hosts obvious wealth. They rested on Xanatos’ face, widening slightly at being caught before a faux expression of jovial friendliness was pasted on.

“I’m honored that you agreed to see me so swiftly,” a beaming smile that fell well short of being convincing. “The sooner we settle this matter, the better for us both.”

Xanatos rocked back and forth in the chair as he surveyed his unwanted visitor. “If you came here thinking I planned on caving into your threat, you’re sadly mistaken.”

The smile slowly faded, beady eyes narrowing to mere slits. “I don’t understand. Your man assured me that I wouldn’t be disappointed in this meeting.”

“Actually I believe his words were that you’d get what you had coming to you.” A chilling smile curved Xanatos lips as he noted the first betraying signs of fear. “I don’t know who you think you are, but no one steals from my business, tries to blackmail me, and lives to tell about it.”

“I slaved away in one of your labs for years,” the man spat, hands clenching at his sides. “Only to have you dismiss me without any form of compensation. You owe me.”

The rocking stopped as Xanatos sat forward, his words dripping with thinly leashed rage. “You stole secret plans and sold them to my competitor. If that wasn’t bad enough, you then had the balls to try and blackmail me when you were caught in a vain attempt to avoid being prosecuted. You’re lucky to still be alive.”

False bravado fooled the man into believing he held the upper hand. He smirked in the face of the fallen Jedi’s threat, rocking back on his heels as he casually crossed his arms over his chest. “You can’t kill me. You have no way of knowing who I told about your unwilling guests. For all you know if I go missing my contact will run straight to the Jedi and tell them all about what’s going on here. You and your pretty new fuck toy will spend the remainder of your days servicing fellow criminals on some prison barge.”

Xanatos was slow to conceal the livid anger the taunt incited. His guest’s thick lips twisted into a nasty leer as he reached down and rubbed his own cock.

“I know my share of people also, and look forward to sampling your boyfriend. I wonder if he sounds as delicious when he cums as he does just talking.”

Bile threatened to rise as Xanatos was forced to listen to the abomination spew his filth. A red haze of anger descended, the Darkside flowing to his call with ease, wrapping itself around him with its dark embrace. He couldn’t make the pilot who’d raped a lost Jedi child pay, his agents reporting only yesterday that the man had died only a few years after the event. Reports from back then had hinted at the strangeness of the killing wound the man had sustained. It had been a perfect circular stab, the edges cauterized.

Obi-Wan had found his own brand of justice.

Xanatos could however remove an equally disgusting piece of filth from the galaxy. His agents had done a thorough job of investigating the man before him, ferreting out every sick and depraved aspect of his private life. His pale skin crawled just looking at the man and imagining the obese, sweaty body rutting away at some defenseless child as they cried and struggled to get free.

The red haze intensified to the point that he saw the sneering man through an amber mist, the Dark whispering words of seductive encouragement. Lifting a long fingered hand, Xanatos studied his well manicured nails with feigned disinterest as he addressed his guest.

“You have no idea who you’re messing with, do you?”

Puffed up and overly confident, the man didn’t even hesitate before sealing his fate. “Oh I know all about your past life with the Jedi. Forgive me for not trembling in fear in the presence of worthless outcast.”

Icy sapphire orbs shifted to meet the man’s, something in them enough to finally give him reason to pause and reconsider his tactics.

“Did you ever once stop to consider what could be so bad about an individual that the Jedi wouldn’t want them?”

Before the now stammering goon had a chance to respond, the hand Xanatos had been studying so intently was thrust in his direction. Jagged bolts of electric blue lightning flew from the tips of his finger tips, slamming into the man and sending him into jerking convulsions. His handsome features illuminated by the blue currents, Xanatos watched with mild interest as his tormentor’s body began to smoke and blacken. The instant he felt the weak life force drain away, he withdraw his hand, allowing the now lifeless body to drop to the floor where it continued to smolder.

Xanatos casually pressed a button on his desk that signaled for the men outside to enter. He waved a careless hand in the direction of the unrecognizable corpse.

“Take this garbage and deliver it to his partner as a warning.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

Without even blinking an eye at the carnage, the men carefully rolled the lump up in the rug before carrying it from the room. Once alone and free of the unwanted interruption, Xanatos again turned his chair toward the window and thoughts of his young lover and the Jedi currently under his roof.

The man and his jeers were forgotten as if they’d never happened.