29

Dove

Enko's nostrils flared when he got back from practice, eyes dilating and fixating on the bed. The three of us sat on the couch, both pressed tightly on either side of me. I scampered up from between Seven and Kairos and threw my arms around Enko. His fresh soap scent lingered from his shower, his hair still damp, but he stiffened under my touch. His arms slowly reached around and pulled me to his chest. A slight tremor ran through his body, his breathing coming in loud steady huffs.

"You three do some intense training?" Enko asked dubiously, tightening his hold around me.

Is he upset? I squeaked instead of forming an intelligible response, eyes darting over to Kairos for help.

"Yes," Kairos answered simply.

"Is your feral side okay? Does the smell bother you?" I asked, spawning dejection into the room.

"You talked about me," Enko commented blandly at Kairos and Seven.

"Barely," Kairos said.

Seven cleared his throat awkwardly, standing and stretching, about to slip off into the Shadow Vale, "Well, that's my cue—"

"Sit down, Seven." Kairos strode up to Enko, his hand ruffling my hair on the top of my head.

The physical touch amplified his anger, and Enko growled. "Not while I'm holding her."

"You won't go feral," Kairos said with confidence.

"You don't know that," my giant mate responded.

"Enko?"

His cocoa eyes flicked down to me, taking a sharp inhale from the top of my head. "Did you have fun, little fox? Did they please you?"

My face flushed strawberry red.

"Well, Fated?" Seven probed before I could answer, prowling closer to me to decipher the truth, examining me like a rabbit he wanted to eat. He flashed his teeth, leaning forward and scraping along my neck—

"Not while I'm holding her," Enko repeated with a snarl. Seven backed away.

"Why? Would your feral side hurt me?"

" Never ."

"Then…why?" I asked and Seven laughed as my face brimmed with a mysterious fever.

Kairos responded casually, "Because you're not ready for him to fuck you into oblivion."

"Oh." I exhaled breathlessly, pressing my thighs hard together to stop the newest burst of throbbing.

"And he's big. Will you be able to take all of him?" Seven chided, earning a disapproving frown from Kairos and an abrupt wheeze from me.

Kairos shook his head, turning to Enko to hide his smile. "We have a contract in the city. Unknown breed in the sewers—killed a human last night. We'll take your truck. Bring your knives, Dove."

I squirmed out of Enko's grasp—much to his dismay—throwing my arms around Kairos. "Really? I get to go?"

Finally, a chance to kill some demons.

The four of us ended up in Enko's truck, with me on Kairos' lap and Seven in the passenger seat. The truck certainly wasn't meant to fit the three large men, let alone me with them. Kairos' arms wrapped around me like a seatbelt.

The truck's shocks squeaked as we turned onto the main street toward Lethe. Enko pulled onto a dirt road to the waste disposal yard. My knee repeatedly bumped into Seven as the ride jostled us around. I grabbed hold of Seven as I flew onto him and the truck rumbled to a stop.

"Well, that was fun," Kairos said from behind me, and I could hear his grin.

Seven launched out of the truck, brushing himself off as though I'd given him cooties. "Next time, we'll take my car."

Next time , I celebrated very privately.

Kairos released me and I jumped down.

"Are you sure she can handle this? Lethe is flooded with filth." Seven glanced at me skeptically.

"The report said it ran into there." Kairos pointed to the large cement tunnel ahead of us. With my dagger in hand, I watched the shadows, only to find my Fated men watching me. "Put that away, Dove. The three of us will handle this."

"What? Why even bring me along?"

"You are here strictly to observe."

None of them moved until the dagger was safely returned to its sheath.

"I'll lure it out, you two kill it," Seven said, then a shadow formed around him and his size condensed. As the shadow cleared, a huge black fox with seven tails and red eyes remained, standing on the pile of Seven's clothes.

His fur looked so soft, I reached down to get a touch, but he snapped at my hand before sprinting into the tunnel.

"Get back, Dove," Kairos said.

The invisible form of Seven leapt out from the shadows, transforming back into a human and drawing his sword. He stood naked beside me, but I kept my eyes ahead despite every inclination to look. The crunch of gravel and rocks hitting the walls sounded from the narrow opening.

The shadows shifted in the flood tunnel. On all fours, an ogre-like demon came rushing out. Its skin was bright blue, his mouth stretching too wide. Four yellowed canines protruded out from his dark blue lips. Due to the early evening, the demon squinted, throwing out a hand to block the twilight. Three fingers with long claws, two horns like a bull were on either side of its head, wrapped with dirty string to match its teeth and claws.

Tier IV, oni.

Seven had caught it off-guard, not giving it time to shapeshift in its woken confusion. When it looked around, its eyes landed on me. It growled, retracting back as it prepared to pounce on me. Standard battle procedure, find the weak point.

Kairos tucked me further behind them as Enko's sword sliced through the air. The oni barely dodged the blade. Kairos slammed his mace onto the demon's chest. Thunder cracked, sparks shooting upward, the lightning electrocuting the demon.

The demon enraged, roaring at the sky before vehemently swiping in all directions, its muscles expanding and rippling as it began to shapeshift.

A black blade pierced through the center of the demon's chest. The oni gagged for air as it gripped the metal, slicing its hands as it attempted to remove it. The creature crashed to the ground, on its knees, then face-first. Its blood gurgled as Seven withdrew his sword from the demon's hellfire.

"One away from a thousand."

As the fire dwindled, Seven stood naked before me. I dropped my eyes onto the lines of his muscles. Tattoos sprawled over his chest, snaking onto his arms, up his neck. I followed the dark lines, wondering what each of the symbols meant to him. The chiseled V leading directly to an engorged—

"Put some fucking clothes on, man," Kairos demanded, throwing Seven's clothes at him and blocking my view.

I snapped my gaze up to the sky in embarrassment as Seven's lingered on me. I spun around, unable to hide.

"Why, are you intimidated that she got a good look at me?" Seven laughed. "Not like she'll get to look at you any time soon, with all your rules ."

"If she goes feral, we all will."

"He's dressed now," Enko reported and I turned, hoping my cheeks had returned to a semi-normal shade. Kairos and Seven stood a distance away while my back faced the tunnel.

"We all agreed on those rules. If you have a problem with something, we can discuss it. But not here."

Not in front of Dove. The words were unspoken, but I could hear the underlying meaning of their conversation.

The thought made my ears hum as I backed away silently, letting them have their privacy as their voices grew louder and Enko stepped between them, holding them at an arm's length to keep them from attacking each other.

Thump.

A creature landed at the top of a pile of garbage near the front of the tunnel. Her wings folded behind her back, the sharp points above her head, aligned with her black horns. Her skin was lavender, exposed in the black brasserie and daisy dukes.

Succubus, Tier III.

She was beautiful, recently refreshed by taking advantage of someone. The longer Succubi or Incubi went without sexual activity, the angrier and uglier they became.

The Succubus stretched her wings, looking up at the silver of the moon through the clouds overhead as they fluttered and refolded. In that moment, she almost looked peaceful, the opposite of her true nature.

I held my breath and lifted my first knife, aiming for the demon's heart. With a flick of my wrist, the metal shot through the air, right on target.

Her gaze snapped to me.

She launched herself sideways at the last second, the knife clanking against the cement tunnel. She must have heard the whistle of metal through the air. Tier III demons weren't stupid.

I drew another knife.

Her black nails were sharpened like claws. She ran them over her chest seductively until she lifted out her hand and curled one toward me. "Come closer, my dear—"

My second knife shot through the air and hit the side of her neck, clipping her wing.

She screeched, a banshee of the night. Kairos, Enko, and Seven—now aware of the situation—ran toward me at super-speed.

Her wings pulsed together and she rose into the air, shading me from the moonlight. Talons stretched out from her toes. She swooped down to me, and I slashed at her with my rusty shard of a dagger. Ducking and weaving at her supernatural speedy swipes. The ends of her wings stabbed at me. A fury of strikes met with a flurry of misses.

Her sharp nails inflicted painful slices. Her wing bled heavily where my knife had hit, black blood dripping down the pale lavender bat wing. She heaved for air, cupping her hand around her neck as she launched upward and dive-bombed me.

I held my third and final knife at the descending demon. The succubus flew through the air at me, landing on me and knocking me onto my back. I screamed out as warmth oozed on my chest.

She fidgeted, snarling and snapping as I used all my strength to hold back her teeth and claws coming from every direction. I lost my dagger somewhere between us, metal digging into me from the weight of the demon. Was it my blood?

My muscles strained to hold on for just a second longer when her movement stilled. With the last of my strength, I pushed the purple demon off me and she flopped onto her back.

My dagger rested in her chest, and her black blood soaked my body, disintegrating my clothes. The hellfire blazed as she inhaled her last raspy breath. She hissed as her body burned, returning to her prison in Hell.

All that remained was my melted blade in a pile of ash.

"Dove!" Kairos called. The fight with the succubus had only taken seconds. If it had gone another way, I'd be the one dead right now.

My hands touched my body, as though to make sure I wasn't. The demon blood covered my shirt, and its acidic properties sizzled away the fabric. Now my arms frantically tried to hide my scarred skin.

"Are you hurt?" Enko stepped toward me, but I backed away, holding my palm out to stop him from coming closer.

"Don't look!" Would my scars sicken them? Make me less beautiful?

Enko sported a face of confusion, while Kairos grabbed his arm and forced him around.

Seven pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it at me before averting his eyes. "I've had my face between your legs, Fated."

"Seven," came Kairos' warning.

I used what remained of my shirt to wipe away as much of the demon blood as possible, finding a few shallow cuts leaking my own red blood. The white shirt fell past my butt, its sleeves almost to my elbows. It was impossibly soft and smelled of pine and sweet mint.

"Okay," I said when I was covered.

Enko rushed toward me, his hands going over my body, checking the lengths of my arms and pulling me into his chest. "You're bleeding. We need to get you to the medical wing."

"What are they going to do? Give me some ointment and bandages? It's a few scrapes. I'm fine."

Seven and Kairos were watching me curiously, giving Enko a moment to settle his feral side.

Kairos jerked his head toward Enko's truck. "Let's go before something else happens. It's getting darker."

I reached down and retrieved the clump of metal that had once been my dagger. It was useless now.

Seven let out a low whistle as he looked at it. "Ask Kairos for a new one. You know he's loaded right? That was badass, though. I thought you were dead for sure."

Enko stepped in front of him and clasped my hand possessively as we walked. When we reached the academy, I took them on a detour.

Seven: 999

Enko: 674

Kairos: 630

And there, at the top of the first-years, was mine.

Dove: 6