AEDAN
Why did I need her like she was my last breath?
It couldn’t just be because I was desperate for a fuck.
I liked fucking, sure. Males, females, and everything in between—fucking here, there, and everywhere was life-giving.
But this felt like… more.
I wasn’t desperate, per se. We’d faced longer stints in captivity before, down on our luck and due for a glorious comeback, in way shittier places with way shittier company.
This was different.
She was perfect, our magpie, and I hadn’t even seen her face yet.
Lust pumped through me, my cock a monster, just a throbbing ivory shaft jutting toward her like a sniffer hound caught on the scent. Cato pounced first, and I followed right at his heels, eyes only for her, the idiots on the other side of the one-way mirror a thing of the past. Close enough to grab her arm and wrench her to me, to plant my violent flag on her full lips and make her squeal, our fearless leader got first dibs—always. Skin the color of fallen ash, Cato owned her by birthright, by the royalty in his damned soul, evidenced forever by the shadowy crown that circled his head like a thorny halo, a big fuck you to those white-winged bastards upstairs.
Strange, to be stuck between two forms.
As demons, we preened like bloody peacocks on Earth, easily transitioning from monster to man, beast to god, lovely and alluring for mortals far and wide. Even some supernatural folks fell for our tricks, smitten with chiseled pecs and cut abs and broad shoulders that rippled while we pounded them into a headboard.
In the pit, we let the leviathan in our blood shine through, monsters of the apocalypse standing heads and shoulders above the rabble. Geralt hooded and cloaked in darkness, a masked assassin even demons feared, his claws haunting, his voice deep as Tartarus and twice as deadly. Cato with a literal skull for a face, empty eye sockets and a round white dome, his crown even more pronounced in that form, the spikes lethal and the message clear. He lacked a mouth as a monster—a visible one, anyway, the lower half of his face pure shadow in the cowl of his regal cloak, leaving his prey to imagine what might eventually devour them alive.
I was the beastliest, with a protruding canine-esque skull, my antlers gnarled and twisted, laced with the dead flayed flesh of my victims. Body like a centaur, brute strength and raw animal instinct, I was our trio’s mad dog—one look at me usually had the lesser demons running and the weaker hellions begging.
Stupid fucking gold cuffs with their enchantments and sigils, trapping us between two forms, monsters and men, the shapeshifting demon in our marrow caged. When had humans gotten so crafty? When did the topside supernatural community care if we fucked shit up on our visits? Seriously—just absurd, the way this world was turning.
Shedeserved to see us for the first time in all our brutal glory—
Cato held out his arm, blocking me from her, and while I snarled and gnashed my teeth, I obeyed, holding back from the shrinking violet at the locked door. Geralt, meanwhile, paced back and forth, his rhythm consistent but growing faster, the air hot with his desperation.
Kind of hilarious, actually, for our most even-tempered brother to lose his shit thirty seconds after scenting her.
Never gonna let you live this down.
But then suddenly he was right up my ass, growling, his breath dusting my antlers and his massive erection stabbing into my hip. Scowling, I twisted back with a flash of hellfire in my red eyes, wordlessly demanding he give me some fucking space, but he was too focused on her to give a damn about my personal bubble.
So, I slapped his cock.
Made it bounce.
Geralt reeled back and snapped his teeth.
I blew him a kiss, because, seriously—respect. Like I needed to be jabbed with that massive thing so early in the game.
The gentle movement of ash grey in the corner of my eye forced me back around, watching, enthralled, as Cato peeled the cotton bindings away, first from her eyes, then up to the top of her head, unwinding fast. Hair thick and black as a midnight storm flopped unceremoniously down her back, straight and coarse, and eyes like emeralds flecked with gold bright as some pretentious god’s ichor darted around the room. Pair all that with her heart-shaped face, her full mouth painted with blood, the slash of red down her chin, the womanly curves still hidden beneath the rest of her wrapping—
Sublime.
Perfection.
And if anyone but us ever touched her again, I’d rip out their fucking spine and wear it as a necktie.
After blinking little wisps out of her eyes with thick, full lashes, she looked from Cato to me, then Geralt. Cato, me, Geralt, her eyes widening with every loop, until finally she dropped the ball of red yarn clutched in both hands and staggered back into the door, a whimper snagging in her throat, the elegant column just begging for my bite.
“I-I made a mistake!” the magpie shrieked, wheeling around and pounding her fists on the door. “Let me out! I don’t want— Please, I made a mistake!”
Voice luxurious and rich, she possessed the gravitas worthy of a leviathan’s mate—that voice would radiate across the apocalypse, darling—but her fear sang to the demon in me.