4. 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.

Volunteer.

A volunteer magpie was a fucking oxymoron if I’d ever heard one.

Volunteers were trafficked and kidnapped, the label slapped on them to make their buyers feel good about themselves. None but me actually wanted to be here tonight. Female inmates from the sister prison received reduced sentences if they joined the Magpie Order, hauled over here for itchy males to rape in the dead of night—perhaps even painted pretty and bussed uptown to the elite at the north end of the island for a little forced debauchery.

“What the fuck are you looking at?”

I stared harder, the blemished divinity in my marrow leeching into the fake green I’d adopted for my performance.

The Magpie Order crafted such a pretty, noble picture for their girls. They provided a service. They were to be respected and worshipped, praised and mollified. Having been through the whole process the last two months, I knew the game better than my sisters tonight. I knew the bullshit they fed their newest victims, the lies they whispered in our ears to make this world seem less terrifying.

Like pampered piglets led to slaughter, these Ether Island magpies.

The illusion shattered the second our sad little bus pulled up to the prison’s main entrance. Guards just like these ones hissed venom from the start, leering and laughing. They might not get to fuck magpies—though I imagined some did before they tossed them back on the bus at sunrise—but they got their own twisted kicks from this, from the vitriol sprinkled on these women before they faced actual monsters.

Yet after my fall, I became an acolyte of Lilith.

Friend to Hera and Frigg and Artemis and the Morrigan.

I flew with Furies and Valkyries.

I raged with Eris and Shiva.

And now, to add to the list, I happily bedded sons of the apocalypse.

These petty humans would have to try much, much harder if they wanted to illicit real fear in me.

“Okay, well, back on the bus you go, bitch.”

I tossed the damp torn cotton aside, feet planted as this child in a guard’s uniform tried to urge me onward. “No.”

His partner slowed a few paces away, while this one gawked like I’d just insulted his mother. We were all told when it was over, we would be escorted back to the bus to wait for the rest of the magpies, then shuttled over to headquarters in the forests of central Ether Island. Some of the girls fretted that from the looks of these guards, the stories they had heard, there might be a pit stop along the way—another breach of conduct, another storm of abuse.

No.

“What did you just say?”

I flashed a toothy smile worthy of Lilith herself, then fluttered my black lashes. “Not until I get what’s mine.”

Earlier in the hour, I had screamed for these ten men. Begged for mercy. Insisted I had made a mistake.

An act.

A test—to see if the lies fed to magpies by the mouthful were true, that if we sacred women rejected a suitor, our handlers would spirit us away to safety. In that instance, it was a failing of the men, not the magpie.

No such luck.

How many magpies before me had rammed their fist on that very door, begging for sanctuary, only to crumble and wail as these men laughed on the other side?

One was too many.

I had offered these ten souls redemption—they sealed their own fate.

“No, seriously, what the fuck just came out of your mouth? No?”

I rolled my shoulders a few times and then cracked my neck in either direction. Strange that the hellions had been the ones to rescue their magpie. They knew the truth, what these amoebas would do should I refuse them. Not only had they spared some poor magpie a severe whipping, but they had offered to… free her. Me. In my name, they offered a choice: stay and play as I had done for two months without any of my three monsters realizing—or put my foot down. Had I done that, they would have lashed out. Fought for me.

Since my fall, I’d suffered the bitterness of many a broken promise—but their declaration to liberate me wasn’t one of them.

Thatwas quite unexpected—but I so loved a monster, a butcher, a lord, a warrior who would set his dark desires aside for the sake of his lover.

Apparently it was one of my many kinks.

A sin before my fall.

Preferences I had no say in.

Kinks. Fetishes. Wants. Needs. Desires.

I had a few more in my arsenal after tonight.

Grin sharpening, I cut the last strings of this mask free and unveiled my wings. Scorched black burst from my back, eyes that could barely restrain the divine bleeding gold. Where once a thoroughly fucked, disheveled, and bruised human magpie stood—a fallen angel took her place.

A soldier of an ancient choir who chose to fall because she was sick of submission.

Who realized after she had the power to give her practiced surrender only to those worthy of it.

In the last five years, lovers came and went.

They were nothing compared to the beasts howling on the other side of that door.

Hellions who smelled innocence on my flesh, Heaven’s hold faint but there, fading by the year. In the grand scheme of immortality, I was still new. Freshly reborn. They thought I was a virgin, and perhaps in a metaphorical sense, I was until tonight. Until them.

But I was no virgin to violence and blood, to battle and pain.

Eyes widened around me.

“Oh, shit—”

I tore the head of the nearest guard clean off, wrenching it from his shoulders as one might twist an apple stem from its crown. Before his partner could level that handgun at me, I’d ripped his arm from its socket and shoved it through his chest.

Bullets bounced off my wings, the corridors an echoey symphony of gunfire.

This world thought the fallen weak.

Yes, our wings burned in the crash, gobbled up by Heaven’s fire—fire that burned thrice as hot as hellfire.

But they grew back eventually. Tainted. Harder. Angrier. Almost as strong as my brethren’s feathers in the holy choirs but far surpassing the gifts of mortal and immortal alike in this petri dish of a world.

Silver pierced my thigh. Iron cut through my calf.

Simple wounds that healed in seconds.

I whirled around and flew, each beat of these black wings unleashing a hurricane, upturning guards and dust and cobwebs and rat droppings alike. Screams serenaded me. Blood streaked the walls, the floors, the ceiling, sandstone stained red. One by one, the gunfire quieted, until it was just me, the flutter of my wings, and ten dead men.

Body parts scattered, eyes burned out by my touch, tongues ripped from their filthy mouths…

A tableau to be repeated across Ether Island tonight, what with Hera and Frigg infiltrating those luxe parties, wrathful goddesses there to slaughter real monsters. The three Furies at the Order’s main facility, dismantling it brick by brick, skull by skull, and whisking frightened magpies to Artemis, Freya, and Aphrodite for healing.

Lilith crushing the leaders of the organization under her red-soled heels. Eris ensuring her influence—strife and madness—was felt throughout the island.

Tonight had been a year in the making, a union of the divine feminine to abolish the Magpie Order at its very heart. Tomorrow, the next day, the day after that—we would hunt high rollers across the globe, freeing every last magpie, human and supernatural, until its legacy was but dust.

I had volunteered for this particular position.

The rest of those ladies, love them as I did, could not play a clueless wide-eyed human for long, nor could they suffer the abuse and the lies. Having spent a millennium under an angelic commander, I knew best how to keep my mouth shut and do what I was told. No matter the rage in my heart, I alone could play the part for the duration needed.

A little divine influence here, a few carefully planted questions there, and I found myself at this prison tonight, at the right time and the exact place to watch it all burn.

I faced the door with a frown, a weighted silence now hanging on both sides.

While I could act a blind fool for weeks on end, I hadn’t expected anything tonight to touch me. Yes, the plight of the magpies plucked at my heartstrings and stoked my rage. This errand had a deeply personal quality to it for all of us, but I didn’t think…

I hadn’t expected to feel.

Head cocked, I listened to the soft drag of claws over stone, the muted rumbles of monsters stirring on the other side of the door. Useless carved and painted sigils stared back at me, gibberish to the fallen and our ethereal ilk but damning to my beasts inside.

Ownership had been a sin before the fall.

Possession, want, jealousy—vices worthy of losing a few white feathers over.

Mine were all gone now, reborn black and damned, but I still rebelled against the want in my heart. Just leave them in there. Someone would find them eventually, right? Grimacing, I turned—but the first step away broke my heart.

Shit.

Love that was more than familial, more than brotherly, more than a bond between warriors—it was all so new to the fallen. Others had warned me about it, the battle set to erupt in my own mind, the resistance and the guilt and the shame. They beat it into you in the Silver City that love entwined with lust was a distraction, a sin against our celestial father.

It felt wrong.

But my fallen companions had said it would—and they were so bloody happy with the creatures they loved.

Why not me?

Why did I not deserve that same bond with another?

Sighing, I went for the door, even if my feet dragged the whole way back. After quickly swiping the fresh blood from my cheeks, my lips, my chin, I smoothed my fingers along the seams, then took two steps back and booted the infernal thing off its hinges. One swift kick and the door barreled into that circular stone room, buckling in the middle and crashing hard into the wall on the other side.

For a few beats, there was nothing—and then three monsters ambled into view, each ogling me like I’d sprouted six heads.

Guilt tightened in my core, made me sick and nauseous and unsteady on my own two feet.

But one deep breath and it lessened.

Because there they were, three males in golden cuffs who had made me feel.

Cato in his shadowy horned crown, the piece hovering around his head like a halo that needed correcting. Kingly, stately, he had the loveliest dark grey skin and brilliant blue eyes slashed with demonic black. All three had the muscular definition human women drooled over, yet Cato’s wasn’t braggy or showy, just raw strength and muscle made for war. Rugged facial features and a confidence in the way he held himself, in the way he felt like a lord and made me feel like his lady, his queen. We fell into each other’s eyes more than once tonight. No matter how he fucked me, ruthless or kind, his unflinching gaze said more than words ever could.

Obsidian antlers soared behind him, Aedan edging into view, assessing me with a curious grin. Unlike his brother, his strength was subtle, his body lean, his tongue barbed. The orgy mastermind, as it were, with ivory skin and silky black waves gently dusting the tops of his strong shoulders—I still longed to run my fingers through them, desire spiking the longer we all stared. This one inspired the bratty minx in me, made me playful and defiant.

No one had ever encouraged defiance before.

No one had ever tolerated my challenge without making me suffer.

And he had, in a way, made me suffer, but there was something so delicious about the freefall into sin that had me starving for more.

Geralt stood across from his fellow hellions, tallest and broadest and sweetest of the lot. Skin like the vast depths of space, black-black where not even the bravest stars glowed, he was a wash of contradictions. White hair down to his taut buttocks, thighs like tree trunks, perfectly sculpted and so powerful.

Yet in his arms, I felt safe.

Secure enough to consider for the first time in my existence… falling asleep in the arms of another.

Which was ridiculous.

Who would call a leviathan-demon hybrid safe?

But Geralt harkened my mind back to a simpler time, before I was assigned a fighting choir, before war made my heart so brutally hard. With him, I pictured myself in a field of wildflowers, running, laughing, relishing the sweet florals and dancing beneath the sun—and he’d be there with me, without judgment, without criticism.

Each male called to a want in me, a sin I had repressed until I finally threw down my sword, my shield, and rebelled.

With a heavy heart, my commander had shoved me from the gates of the divine, tears in his eyes, our whole choir morose as they watched me fall. No one said a thing. No one expressed concern for me, but I knew in their heart of hearts, we all ached when separated.

Because I had been on the other side, once, watching a rebellious angel plummet, their wings on fire, their screams unleashing cataclysmic storms on mankind below.

We all chose our fate. Like Lucifer, we chose not to serve.

And my choices led me here, to them.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, emotion stinging the backs of my eyes, I braced on the doorframe and blocked them inside. Naked, human disguise gone, I stood before them now with golden eyes and black, unbreakable wings, with flesh only faintly marked by their passions and healing by the second.

“Sons of leviathans,” I started, tapping into the warrior who had bellowed across legions and kept back the hordes from worlds far beyond ours—far beyond theirs, too. “Sons of demons.” All three straightened, their cocks rising with them. Need twisted in my core, delving between my thighs like their tongues and fingers had so very recently. Enticing, the look of them, their arousal so plain, so obvious, so very much for me… But there was still much to do, and I needed to be sure before I turned my back on three powerful monsters. “Who do you serve?”

I tensed in the quiet that followed, almost too aware of the way their gazes raked my figure, taking in the golden undertone of my skin, the stronger limbs and brighter eyes.

Had I misjudged them?

A demon’s lie?

A trick?

Would I need to put them down just as I had—

“You,” Geralt rasped. Cato and Aedan snarled, the sound vicious, a wolf pack quarreling over a fresh kill—but their nods, their clenched fists, the way Geralt paced and Aedan rolled his shoulders and Cato bounced on the balls of his feet like he was gearing up for a full-on assault…

They meant it.

Me.

We came to Ether Island to free magpies and make their masters suffer. In theory, I also ought to punish the males who used them, not just the puppeteers. Yet these three brought me to such sublime highs, my orgasms tonight sharper and more vibrant than any I’d experienced since my fall, either by my own hands or at those of a subpar lover. Feeling wove around my rib cage, crafting my heart a cozy nest for the first time in my very long life. Kinship sparked between us, their eyes alight with chaos and darkness and possession.

For me.

A fallen angel of no real importance.

Me.

Before the fall, brute force and cold logic would have been my play. After all, these three were strong, their leviathan ancestry still warring with the demonic binding charms on their cuffs. Intelligent. Capable. An unbreakable team. Obsession. All that had merit.

But at the end of the day, I wanted them for myself.

Never in my life had I believed I could find love—nor did I deserve it.

But the lure between us was undeniable.

So, I took a risk.

I stepped into the cell, just over the threshold, and held out my hand to Cato. While they were bonded, there was still a hierarchy among them that deserved recognition. My crowned beast strode forth without hesitation, offering me his right hand.

And I snapped the golden cuff free, the break paired with a whoosh of red mist, the spell broken.

Next came the left cuff.

Then we waited.

Only when he eased back did I motion for Aedan to take his place. Off came the next two cuffs, followed by two more as Geralt loomed over me. Without their chains, life sparked in their eyes, the hues in their flesh richer, the spring in their step obvious. Such little, petty things, those ridiculous golden cuffs, but the spellwork and the runes had really fucked up my monsters, hadn’t they?

Well then.

Here we were, all our masks and chains dropped, and—

I flinched, inhaling sharply when Cato marched right up to me, then dropped to his knees. There were those eyes again, so vibrant, so authoritative, boring deep into mine as I gently cupped his strong jawline and stroked against the grain of his scruffy cheeks. A smirk tugged at his gorgeous mouth, the shadows swelling within his crown, hiding the cropped silvery hair. Faster and faster they whirled, creating a miniature storm in there, lightning and all, his eyes suddenly pure black.

Beautiful.

“Cato—” I snapped my lips shut as he sank lower, skimming my thighs, the backs of my knees, my toned calves. Down, down, down he went, all the way to my feet.

Where he kissed the tops of both.

Still silent, the gesture bringing a tear to my eye at last, he stood and backed off, leaving room for Aedan to follow in his place, those antlers forcing him to lift my feet to him one at a time, his kisses paired with a snap of much sharper teeth around my ankles. Geralt came last again, but the other two never treated him as lesser. No, they watched on, almost in approval, as this mountain of a man kissed my feet, then my knees, then my thighs, then the crest of my womanhood.

When he rose to his full height, somehow he had grown taller. The others closed in, at least a foot gained each, my monsters snarling, heaving, changing in subtle shifts and slips right before my eyes. Power crackled around us, the air lit like live wire, the ends frayed, the current deadly.

“Burn this place to the ground,” I whispered hoarsely, gaze jumping from one male to the next, forced to tilt my head back just to match them. I then pressed a hand to Cato’s chest, Aedan’s, and then Geralt, really letting them feel my pulse over their hearts, allowing for a whiff of vulnerability on a night that was supposed to be all mischief and deception and blood.

They embraced my simple touch, huge hands sliding over mine, reaching for me as I retreated for the doorway again. Cato followed first, stiffening with a low growl when I grabbed his much-too-solid bicep.

“Fetch my magpies,” I urged, our eyes locked, our hearts whumping in perfect sync. “Not a feather out of place for my girls.” He acquiesced with a curt nod and a flash of teeth, the storm brewing within his horned black crown spiraling out of control. Then, just as he stalked forth, I gripped harder, our bodies brushing each other in the doorway, the heat palpable. “Free any prisoners you deem worthy of your mercy.”

“As you wish, goddess,” he rumbled, the declaration followed by a kiss that made my wings flutter and my heart soar. A steely arm snaked around my waist, and he crushed me to him, Cato’s kiss deep and passionate and so deliciously different from before. Domineering, yes, but dominance felt like his love language, not cruelty. He kissed me now like he recognized my strength, physical and otherwise, his teeth sharp and his tongue bold—like he knew I could take it.

And then he was gone, striding off and leaving my head in a tizzy, swiftly replaced by a snarling Aedan. He claimed me with a biting kiss and a sharp hair tug, his free hand grazing my wings unchecked, ruffling through the feathers, stroking the joint—taking the chance to meet me again. All the while, I gave as good as I got. He wanted a brat, a challenger, a lover who would hold his feet to the fire? So be it. I had craved that open acceptance for centuries.

From one end of the spectrum to another, Geralt took Aedan’s place in a heartbeat. My mountain monster scooped me off my feet, my wings twitching like they thought we needed to hover to keep up with him—but I sensed Geralt would never let me fall. Never. And if I did, he’d be right there with me, the fires devouring us, our screams pure laughter, hearts entwined and spirits so fucking alive.

For now, he offered a reprieve. Same as before, Geralt was a fleeting moment of tenderness. Even with the metallic tint in the air, blood streaked across my naked body, he kissed me in a way that was so achingly sweet it made my toes curl. In his arms, I could let go—just a little.

He set me back on my own two feet with such lovely care, smoothing my hair after Aedan’s abuse and swiping his thumb across my swollen lips with a smirk. Then, after pinching my chin and falling deep into my eyes, he marched after his brothers, shadows gathering, darkness clinging to his sculpted form. Flustered, I pressed a hand to my racing heart. How simple it would be to hurry after them—stop them in their tracks and demand they fuck me within an inch of my immortal life again.

Properly.

Like we had all the time in the world.

But the night wasn’t over, and my sisters in arms were no doubt accomplishing their tasks with flying colors.

So, I jogged after the trio, ending up in the middle, my wings tucked but ready to go on the defensive.

Ready to stretch in front of my monsters so those bullets back there—those would be the last painful bits to pierce their flesh tonight.

Down the corridor with all its windows facing the dark coastline, a door flew open. Guards charged out, weapons drawn, the shriek of a distant alarm yawning as the door opened and silenced when it slammed shut. Familiar faces glared at me as we slowed; most of this lot had processed a busload of frightened magpies earlier in the evening—and they’d hissed the foulest things in our ears. I cocked my head, daring them to make the first move.

They did.

They fired first, a hailstorm of bullets whizzing down the hallway. Without hesitation, I leapt in front of my monsters and gave the humans my back, black wings flared wide enough to cover the full width of the space, bullets ricocheting and thunking into the sandstone. I scowled at them over my shoulder, daring them to do their worst against a child of the divine.

Snarls and roars and terrifying howls surged, violent and sudden, and when I faced my monsters again, they flourished in their truest forms. Their leviathan ancestry clawed to the surface, shirking the glamored masks of breathtaking men with cut jawlines and sculpted pecs and sturdy shoulders made for raking with my nails.

Hellions from the deepest pits squared off with me. Cato’s crown circled a bare skull now, his eyes haunting and hollow, black and lifeless. A mist-shrouded cloak clung to his eight-foot frame, the darkness swallowing him right up to the open nasal cavity. To his left, Aedan proved himself the most beastly of his brothers, looming so tall he had to duck to accommodate his flesh-strewn antlers. With the skeletal head of a wolf and the body of an old-world centaur, he’d give any unlikely survivors of his wrath nightmares for the rest of their short, miserable lives.

Geralt had lost every ounce of tenderness. Blades a little over a foot long, sharpened to deadly points, made up his fingers. Red eyes glowered from beneath his shadowy cowl, his exquisite nudity swapped for an assassin’s black armor and hood, those boots made for crushing skulls. He too needed to duck to fit in the corridor, crouched low, his hands deadlier weapons than before, his aura pure predator.

“My, my,” I whispered as another round of bullets bounced off my wings. “You three clean up well.”

They answered with a primal chorus of savage snarls and gravelly growls, eyeing me like I was a prize gifted by the gods—like they wanted to eat me, fuck me, love me until the end of time.

And after tonight, I was rather inclined to let them.

With a manic grin, I turned on our attackers and charged, the monstrous symphony at my heels accented by Aedan’s hooves thundering over the stone, Geralt’s daggers dragging along the wall, Cato’s well-deserved crown a beacon of strength in the night…

And a delicious dose of love, laughter, screams, blood, and gunfire in the air.

THE END