Scowling, Cato gritted his teeth, the muscles along his strong jawline announcing irritation like staticky neon. He then hooked an arm around her waist and hauled her away from the door. Beautiful as I found her cries for help, her pleas to let her go, I hurried after and slammed a hand over her begging mouth, culling the sweetest music I’d ever heard—for her sake, if anything.
She squirmed and wiggled, a feisty magpie indeed, but there was no escaping her gilded cage of flesh and bone, of power and ferocity beyond anything she could ever imagine. As Cato jerked her back into his chest, I squeezed her cheeks, muffling her whimpers with my palm and marking her flesh with my nails.
“Hush, little magpie,” Cato urged, breathing in her hair, his words whispered at her temple, “or they’ll hear you.”
Nostrils flared, her gold-streaked emeralds watered, wide eyes searching for comfort in this round room of stone and muscle. They eventually landed on me, and I just cocked my head with a grin that told her she’d find no safety here. Slowly, her gaze lifted to the obsidian antlers twisting and twining from my skull, polished and classy as fuck in this realm, not a snarl of dead flesh to be found. No, just shiny, deadly weapons these cuffs couldn’t cage.
Her whimper vibrated against my palm, and I pinched her face, almost as a warning, because, fuck’s sake, my erection could only get so hard.
A faint possessive tug rippled from Cato and Geralt, our feelings shared, our emotions entwined. Blood oaths centuries ago bound us together until the end of days, but so too did our ancient leviathan lineages. Considered impure by some leviathans, we had each other, birthed from aristocratic demonesses with a penchant for wilder, fiercer, more violent mates. In the eyes of the demonic masses, we were destined to be generals in the future apocalypse, yet our noble demon peers despised us for all we had—for all we could do courtesy of our absent fathers.
We leviathans were prophesized to end this world, but making a mess of it was a hell of a lot more fun.
Usually.
Thislittle venture with the hellmouth splitting, all of us shitfaced and high off our faces, had turned into a tedious miscalculation that I was desperate to escape.
Until now.
Until her.
A shadow loomed over me, Geralt back and using that massive smoky-black mountain of a body, pure muscle and fucking huge, to block her from the one-way windows near the door.
“If you refuse,” Cato started again as he swept her hair from her face, gathering it and swooping it to one side, exposing her throat and her fluttering pale pulse point, “and we refuse—they’ll punish you.”
Not a trick to knock her to her knees, mind you. Stories spread through the dark legion during free time that some demons had rejected their magpie for whatever reason in the last week—fickle bastards, our lot—and then the magpie was beaten to a bloody pulp right in front of them by the prison guards. Maybe to entice them, blood in the air and screams aplenty. Maybe they did it to punish her for not being alluring enough. Maybe they just needed the flimsiest excuse to get their rocks off.
I didn’t understand it, nor did I give a shit about the logic: all I knew was that magpies were brutalized if they couldn’t perform.
“But say the word,” Cato hissed, the shift of his tone from playful tormentor to earnest lover making me straighten up and take notice. I swiftly set aside the cocksure sadist in my soul, focused on him and her, on what this meant for all of us. “Tell me, little magpie, here and now, that you truly wish to escape this place…”
Cato’s bright blues were accented with black lightning bolts, and they cut from me to Geralt. Without hesitation, we rumbled our support, always up for anything he offered—especially if it was about to get violent, bloody, and awful. Besides, we had a little bird to protect now, one who needed to stretch her wings and soar before she was crowned in the apocalypse.
“Speak your truth, magpie,” Cato murmured as he dragged his lips seductively down her temple to her cheek, the openmouthed kiss a possessive brand on her soul. “Tell me you want out and we’ll leave nothing but ashes.” Fuck yes. “One word, magpie, for you, for the way you sing to us…”
Her black brows furrowed, lips trembling against my palm, her eyes wide and glossy like she couldn’t dare blink and allow the tears to fall. Delicious. Do it—let me lick you. Let me sample your fear.
With a snarl, Geralt paced behind us again, his mood stormy and his bloodlust electric, the air rank with both. He was ready, our brother, to both crack skulls and kiss the ground she walked on.
“Or stay and play.” Cato swept a gentle thumb beneath her lower lashes, right eye and then the left, gathering the damp there with a sigh. “Give them what they want, keep the peace, and we will find you when it’s over. But if you try to flee now without us by your side, they will hurt you, magpie.”
“Whip you down to the bone,” I added, just to really paint a broad picture in her mind’s eye. I loved a good whipping, both as the flogger and the floggee, but this wasn’t the time, place, or divine female meant for my usual games.
“And your flesh,” Geralt growled, his accent so much more fucking regal than ours, even in this realm, “is far too lovely to be split by anything but our teeth.”
I rolled my eyes. Poetic twat.
Chest heaving and shuddering with every panicked gasp, our magpie’s emerald eyes shot around what could very well become her tomb if she wasn’t careful—then sealed shut, tight and clenched, milking out a few stubborn tears that hung on her lashes. When she opened them again, a watery resolve blazed bright, plucking at my heartstrings more than I cared to admit.
So, with an arched eyebrow, a little warning not to say anything fucking stupid that would force our hand, I eased off the pressure on her cheeks, then pulled away completely. A pale pink tongue swept her lips, and she nodded, staring at the ceiling like it was just so fascinating.
“I-I can do it,” she said thickly, her insistence all shaky and breathy—absolutely delicious. “I can take it. I’m okay.”
I snorted, flashing a sharp smile when she looked to me again. “We’ll see.”
Our magpie blanched, and maybe if Cato hadn’t wrapped both arms around her from behind, caressing her curves, mapping her figure, those wobbly knees might have finally given way. Instead, she found herself trapped in a monster’s embrace, a king with no throne, his hands sweeping over her like we already owned her, mind, body, and soul. I inhaled sharply when he gripped her hips and bucked into what I imagined to be a delectably perky ass, grinding his desire, spelling it out so there was no mistaking what exactly Stay and play meant.
“Give me your name, magpie,” I urged, injecting a bit of velvet into my tone. Usually that alone turned a lover weak and useless, putty in my cruel hand, but she lifted her chin and shook her head.