“You should see the bitch they pulled for these three.” Having passed the last of the windows in this sandstone corridor, I stared straight ahead, mapping the routes, the landmarks, the security measures.
“I hear she’s a volunteer,” one of Geralt’s guards at the back added, the declaration followed by waves of low, cruel laughter.
“Man, you know some of these magpies gotta be fucking crazy—like those dumb cunts who come here to marry their prison pen pal.”
My rightmost guard scoffed. “Bitch, he killed his last wife… What makes you so special?”
“For real, though. The delusions these females have.”
I gritted my teeth when the pair jostled me to a halt in front of an enormous metal door loaded with demonic containment sigils, tinted one-way windows on either side. As the fucker with the cattle prod and Napoleon complex sauntered forward to punch in the key code on the digital lock, I swept our newest cell, which, from this vantage point, looked like nothing more than a round empty stone room, perhaps at the base of a sentry tower.
Hardly a fitting place for a creature treated with the same reverence as the old Vestal Virgins.
Unfortunately, from what I’d gleaned over the centuries, information confirmed on this recent trip, Magpies rarely had the respect of ancient Rome’s virginal cult.
Proven now by the fact that they shoved me, Aedan, and Geralt into this pathetic, dusty round room with windows only they could look through, laughing and chatting once more about the failings of the female species. Bitch. Slut. Cunt. Whore. Hardly what a member of the sacred Magpie Order deserved, but here we were.
As soon as the door sealed shut behind us with a symphony of beeps and clicks, the first sign of modern tech this prison had to offer, we launched into inspection mode. I searched for physical weaknesses in the walls, the crevices. Geralt pounded his enormous black-clawed fists against the door, testing its strength. Aedan tapped along the faux stonework that hid the windows, staring, unblinking, so done with operating on the prison’s schedule. All this in silence punctuated only by muffled laughter and muted conversation, the windows also in need of a good soundproofing.
Something about putting caged monsters in a small room for them to fuck their aggression out on a magpie—hilarious, apparently. The only bit of fun these guards had, maybe, their lives just as regimented as that of their prisoners.
Jaw clenched, frustration mounting once again that an easy escape eluded me, I crouched and swept my fingers along the divot where the floor met the wall. Solid—and quite grating, actually. Sandstone swapped for coarse grey stone, the texture was likely to skin knees if you hit it just right. I sat back on my haunches, scowling. Not great for whoever was on the bottom.
My cock twitched at the thought of blood in the air.
How many Magpies had bled on this exact floor before today? How many had screamed and begged and bled before it was our turn?
A scowl darkened my features, Aedan and Geralt going quiet, the pair no doubt sensing the shift in my mood, the way the darkness danced around my horned shadow crown. While most demons had no qualms about raping anyone, either for pleasure or power, punishment and gain, we preferred a female who squealed and mewled and cried because we’d made her come so hard she couldn’t stand on her own for a week.
Anything else was just… dull. Disrespectful of the divine feminine. Expected.
Easy, especially when the prey was so very breakable. So human.
Island legend said magpies were game for anything, ready and eager at the drop of a hat. One look and they’d crash to their knees, mouths open and breasts bared—
Most legends were bullshit, frankly, and all the lore around this Magpie Order smelled especially foul. The organization dated back centuries, present during our past visits to the realm time and time again. Ether Island had a reputation in our world, which meant they had a place in the games we all played.
Women, supernatural and human, trafficked in. Stolen from their childhood homes and raised in the order. Inmates from the local female prison hoping for a reduced sentence. Volunteers, apparently, the thought laughable. All with a single purpose. All anointed and ritualized. All trained to service men.
Here to soothe the foulest beasts of the dark legion with their beauty.
Braced on the stone wall, I pushed back and stood, rolling my shoulders, gnashing my teeth. Ten days in here and I was desperate to fuck something, but not like this. Geralt preferred to woo and spoil. Aedan liked to tease and goad. I craved the hunt, stalking and running my lover down in the dead of night where no one could hear her squeal my name—
Beeps and clicks thundered behind me, and I turned, slow and cautious, as the door unbolted. Aedan and Geralt eased back, falling in line beside me, their arms crossed, the air electrified with our shared displeasure, thickened with skepticism—
Well then.
The door swung open.
And there she was.
Ourmagpie.
My brothers and I—we stiffened, still as panthers in the night, locked on target and waiting to pounce with big murderous claws. I breathed deep, the air suddenly tainted with elderflowers and innocence.
They sent their sacrifices in blindfolded.
Geralt snarled to my right, breaking rank first, stalking away and slamming his clawed fists to the walls, reeling around and snapping his teeth at her. Aedan frowned in the corner of my eye, tracking him, that violent response uncharacteristic of our strongest, steadfast, and usually most even-keeled brother.