The cold of the concrete floor had seeped deep into Jaerius's bones, a physical echo of the icy fury crystallizing in his soul. He lay curled in the absolute blackness, each ragged breath a painful reminder of Marcus's fists and boots. The muffled sounds of the party above had long since faded, replaced by the heavy silence of the house at rest. He didn't sleep. He simply existed in a state of simmering, focused hatred, replaying every insult, every sneer, every blow from the last seventeen years. The image of Tara's smug, satisfied face as he was beaten burned behind his eyelids.
Then, the old grandfather clock in the hall above began to chime midnight.
BONG…
The first toll resonated through the floorboards, a deep, sonorous vibration that seemed to shake the very dust motes in the air.
BONG…
On the second chime, a faint, crimson light began to emanate from Jaerius's own skin. It started as a mere shimmer, like heat haze off summer asphalt, outlining his gaunt, bruised form.
BONG…
By the third chime, the light intensified, pulsing with a slow, powerful rhythm that matched the frantic beating of his own heart. A strange warmth flooded his veins, not the heat of fever, but a liquid, golden fire that spread from his core to the very tips of his fingers and toes. The sharp, stabbing pain in his ribs dissolved into a dull, background ache, then vanished entirely.
BONG…
He gasped as a force he couldn't comprehend lifted him from the filthy floor. He was floating, suspended in the center of the dark basement, bathed in a blinding, blood-red aura. His body was no longer his own. He could feel it changing, reshaping itself. A deep, tearing sensation rippled through his musculature as sinew and fiber expanded, knitting together into dense, powerful cords. The scrawny arms that had struggled to carry trays of drinks now swelled with defined biceps and triceps. His sunken chest broadened, pectorals carving themselves over a ribcage that was no longer fragile. His abdomen tightened into a ridged six-pack, and his legs thickened with quadriceps and calves that promised explosive power. It was a violent, glorious metamorphosis, a cocoon of raw magic forging a new body from the wreckage of the old.
He felt a strange, pulling sensation at the base of his spine and a corresponding heaviness between his legs. Even in its flaccid state, his cock lengthened and thickened, becoming a weighty, impressive piece of anatomy that hung against his newly muscular thigh. His hair, lank and poorly cut, grew in an instant, spilling over his shoulders in a cascade of thick, jet-black waves.
The transformation lasted for the full twelve chimes of the clock, an hour compressed into a single, earth-shattering minute. When the final BONG faded, the red glow died away, and he was lowered gently back to his feet.
He stood naked in the profound darkness, but he could see. Not with his eyes, but with a new sense that pulsed from his core, painting the world in shades of thermal heat and magical resonance. He looked down at himself, his hands—now strong, capable hands with prominent knuckles and tendons—running over the hard planes of his stomach and the powerful curve of his shoulders. He was a stranger in his own skin, a god where a gnat had been. Confusion warred with a dawning, terrifying ecstasy.
CONGRATULATIONS, JAERIUS, SON OF ALEXANDRIA!
YOU HAVE AWAKENED YOUR BLOODLINE!
The voice boomed in the vault of his skull, not a sound, but a pure concept of immense power and ancient age. It was feminine, regal, and utterly devoid of warmth.
The presence vanished as suddenly as it had arrived, leaving behind only the staggering truth.
A slow, predatory smile stretched across his face, a stark contrast to the tears of an hour before.
It was in that moment, as he stood reveling in the intoxicating rush of absolute power, that the lock on the basement door rattled and clicked.
The door creaked open, spilling a sliver of dim yellow light from the hallway down the steps. The silhouette of his aunt, Tara, stood at the top, swaying unsteadily. The cloying scent of gin and tonic wafted down, preceding her.
"Jaerius?" she slurred, her voice thick with alcohol. "You still down here, you little shit? Crying, I suppose." She began a careful, clumsy descent, gripping the railing tightly. "You should be... you should be grateful, you know. We took you in. Gave you a roof. You'd be nothing without us. A street rat."
She reached the bottom step, her eyes struggling to adjust to the near-total darkness. She could only make out his general shape, assuming it was the same pathetic, skinny boy she'd had thrown down here. She couldn't see the corded muscle, the powerful new stature, or the predatory stillness with which he now watched her.
Jaerius didn't speak. The cold, subterranean river of hate erupted. All those years of her venom, her disdain, her theft, and her role in the lie that had defined his life—it all coalesced into a single, white-hot point of intent.
He moved.
It wasn't the clumsy lunge of a bullied teenager. It was the fluid, powerful strike of an apex predator. He crossed the space between them in a blink, his hand clamping over her mouth to stifle her startled yelp. He spun her around, his new strength absolute and terrifying. He marched her backwards, past stacks of old junk, toward an ancient, dusty king-sized mattress that had been stored against the far wall for years.
"Wha—? Mmmph!" Her drunken confusion turned to panic as he threw her down onto the bare, musty mattress. The impact drove the air from her lungs.
"Shut up," he growled, his voice several octaves deeper, vibrating with a power that made her blood run cold even through the alcoholic haze. He didn't need his hands to restrain her; a mere thought, a flicker of will, pinned her wrists above her head against the mattress as if held by invisible steel manacles. Her eyes widened in genuine terror, finally beginning to perceive that the shape in the darkness was wrong, was more.
He tore at her clothes. The expensive silk blouse ripped like tissue paper under his powerful fingers. Her tailored slacks were yanked down her thighs, along with her lace underwear. She struggled weakly, a drunken, feeble resistance.
"No... Jaerius, stop... this is... you can't..." she whimpered, the authority gone from her voice, replaced by a sliver of sobering fear.
He ignored her, his own naked, powerfully built body covering hers. He could smell the gin on her breath, the expensive perfume on her skin, the faint, acrid scent of her fear. It was all a fuel to the inferno.
Then, something shifted. Perhaps it was the raw, dominant masculinity radiating from him, so different from the soft, paunchy presence of her husband, Borin. Perhaps it was the alcohol short-circuiting her higher reasoning and unleashing a deeply buried, twisted desire. Her struggles ceased. Her head tilted back, and instead of a protest, a low, hungry moan escaped her lips. Her body, which had been rigid with fear, arched against his, her hips pressing upwards.
"God..." she breathed, her eyes glazed, her hands, now freed from his psychic grip, tangling in his long, dark hair. She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him fiercely, her tongue plunging into his mouth with a desperate, greedy passion.
That was all the invitation he needed. Any last shred of hesitation evaporated. He positioned himself, the sheer size of his newly endowed cock making her gasp into his mouth. Then he drove into her with a single, brutal thrust, burying himself to the hilt in her tight, unresisting cunt.
"Aaah! Fuck!" Tara cried out, a scream of shock and sudden, overwhelming pleasure.
And Jaerius began to move. This wasn't lovemaking. It wasn't even fucking. It was retribution. It was conquest. Each powerful, piston-like thrust was a repayment for a year of servitude, a decade of scorn. He pounded into her with a savage, relentless rhythm, the slap of their sweat-slicked flesh echoing in the dusty cavern of the basement. The old mattress springs screamed in protest, a metallic chorus to her escalating moans.
He fucked her with his hands gripping her hips hard enough to bruise, his new muscles bunching and flexing. He fucked her on her hands and knees, driving her face into the musty fabric. He fucked her with her legs hooked over his shoulders, plundering her depth with an animalistic intensity.
Tara was lost to it. Her initial fear and drunkenness had been consumed by a raw, primal lust she hadn't known she was capable of. Her carefully constructed world of petty dominance and social pretension was being shattered by the very boy she had sought to break. She clawed at his back, her nails leaving red trails on his skin. She met his thrusts with a frantic, bucking urgency, her moans becoming loud, shameless, guttural cries.
"Oh, gods! Yes! Harder! Don't stop! Fuck me, you beast! Fuck your auntie!" She screamed, her words slurred and filthy, a complete surrender to the degrading, exhilarating act.
Above them, in the silent, dark house, Borin and Marcus lay in a drunken stupor on the living room couches, dead to the world. They heard nothing. They were oblivious to the symphony of grunts, slaps, and wanton female cries rising from the basement beneath their feet—the sound of their world turning upside down, of a slave becoming a master, of vengeance being taken in the most intimate and devastating way possible. Jaerius rode her, his rage and power finding their ultimate, cathartic release inside the very woman who had tried to destroy him.