ILEANA
Contrary to popular belief in this dismal stone cell, I was not, in fact, a virgin.
Though there was this twisted sense of shock, flattery, and sincerity in the way these beautiful monsters treated me when they thought I was one—something new and intriguing, a pull in my gut I had learned not to ignore since my fall.
As Cato tenderly retreated from my bruised bottom, the door that was once locked and barred came crashing open, the last of the dead bolts clattering free, the metal pounding off stone. A storm of boots followed, guards charging in, and a fist locked around my forearm—steely, powerful, terrifying…
Had I been human.
This felt like the beat of a butterfly’s wing, yet I moved as if he had authority over me, flailing back with a squeal, naked and dripping. The scene unfolded like a flash-bang: quiet in the aftermath of a glorious group fuck, then guards and boots and shouts. Peace one moment, war the next. My monsters charged, Geralt lunging off the floor, Cato stampeding from the right, Aedan charging from the left with his antlers set to gore—
Then a hail of gunfire.
Warfare barely affected me anymore, but the sight of my lovely darklings peppered with bullet holes, all ten guards firing like their lives depended on it…
Well, if they hadn’t sealed their fate earlier when they failed my test, they certainly did so now.
Knocked down by the sheer unrelenting force of it all, my monsters crawled after me despite being absolutely riddled with holes. Thick black blood oozed from the wounds, the liquid akin to squid’s ink but far more viscous—and tinged with gold. I cocked my head as two guards dragged me out, taken with the way that whiff of divinity sparkled beneath the dull overhead lighting.
Just as I thought.
They espoused the softer side of leviathan culture, a race of monsters waiting for the Great War, the war to end all wars between Heaven and Hell—shadows of the apocalypse. For all their terror, they valued their female mates far more than their own lives, hailing them future queens, leaders of their bloody charge that would one day drown this realm in a storm of blood and fire.
But they were part demon, too.
No mistaking the black ooze, the savagery in their twisted souls courtesy of my brother’s cruelest followers.
Curious. Demons were easy. Leviathans—far more complex.
I’d never met a creature from both worlds before, never mind three.
No wonder they so intrigued me—
I gritted my teeth as I was dragged none too kindly over the threshold. Before the rest of the guards backed out, guns up and formation laughable, I spied my monsters rising from the ashes, their wounds stitching shut, murder in their eyes and war in their snarls.
But then the last guard ducked out, swiping a slash of cotton along the way and tossing it at me. The door slammed shut, bolted up tight and etched with sigils designed to contain the darkest of this world.
They meant nothing to me.
Just a silly bit of filigree on a depressing door in a depressing building on depressing, pathetic Ether Island.
Fists and knees and shoulders pounded that door, their roars shuddering underfoot, and as eight of the ten ill-trained guards rearmed their equipment, two hung back with me. Frowning, I dragged what was left of my sacrificial gown across my chest and between my thighs, smearing most of the sticky white away, their collective scent and seed full of ownership and pride. For the sake of this charade, I had coveted my modesty before, shying away from guards, from the prying male gaze that hounded every magpie delivered here tonight.
Now, I stood before them naked and pleasantly sore, my mask breaking apart a piece at a time with the fewer fucks I gave.
Something caught my eye.
Red.
Yarn.
The ball given to each magpie before she stepped into her own private hell for the night. A joke, something no doubt suggested by a higher-up who had some surface-level knowledge of why Hecate and Lilith’s witches used red string to guide them into Purgatory in the first place.
I kicked it aside with a sneer.
“So, was it everything you hoped for and more, volunteer?”
I slowly lifted my gaze to the guard who dared address me—who had no idea the land mine he’d just stepped on. So young, this one, barely a legal adult by human law yet so brimming with bravado and false confidence. Disgust flared in my belly, and I cocked my head, eyes boring directly into his until he blinked first.