Episode Eight World of Shit

S hanna

It's heartbreaking watching Ro discover his changed circumstances. In some ways, he's taking it better than Alex. Then I realize he's handling it so well because he thinks it's a dream. Maybe that's better. It will dawn on him slowly rather than hit him over the head like a hammer.

Everything in this dystopian nightmare has been playing out like it's almost normal. Not one of us has lost our shit, although that would be a perfectly acceptable response to the world's most bizarre circumstances.

My mind is casting about as to next steps, what to do, and how to keep us safe from the destruction unfolding outside in the street. What I don't expect is for Alex—my Alex, my husband of the expensive suits and the respectable job and the seven years of college to obtain his Juris Doctor degree—to leap across the room and open his jaw wide enough to get Roman's neck in his jagged, toothy grip.

"ALEX! NO!"

Chass and I lean over Ro, somehow managing to grip Alex's upper and lower jaws and pry him off his mate.

"Alex! That's Roman. You love him." I try to put my thoughts into monosyllables. "You love Ro. He's your mate. You fucked him before you left the house this morning. Then you kissed his sweet face."

Alex is panting and whipping his head back and forth to escape our grip. He's impossibly more muscular than he was when he left for work this morning. If he really wanted to yank away from us, or to bite down on Ro, he could do it in a heartbeat.

"Back off, bro," Chass encourages in that man-to-man way my guys have of communicating with each other when they think I'm asleep.

Alex nods slowly. His wide eyes hint that the wheels are turning in the human part of his brain, as opposed to the animalistic way they were slitted when he leapt for Ro's throat.

"That's right," I croon. "We love each other in this house. We don't eat each other."

This. That sentence right there, hits me like a ton of bricks. It affects me more deeply than Alex's fangs or Ro's whiskers. Nope. Having to tell my attorney husband that we don't eat each other makes it stunningly clear how our circumstances have drastically, irrevocably changed from one moment to the next.

My face heats. Not from whatever awful side effects I'm having from my shot, but from the tears accumulating behind my eyes.

"You good, my man?" Chass asks.

Man? Does Alex even qualify for that designation now?

"Can we trust you to back away from Ro?"

Alex nods.

"I need to hear you say it, Alex," Chass says. "Tell me you will not try to eat or kill Roman."

"Give me the rest of my steak-sicle and I'll back off," Alex says, his eyes still on Ro's neck where the brown fur is now flecked with blood.

I tend to Ro's scratches, thanking the powers that be he wasn't hurt worse. Chass waits for Alex to back off the bed before he retrieves the remnants of the steak.

"Chass, get the cuffs," I say.

Ro snagged us a couple extra police-grade cuffs from the force. We keep them in our sex toy box.

"Alex, until things settle down, I'd like you to let us cuff you to the antique hot water radiator in the corner. Don't you think that's a good idea? Just until we figure all this out?" My voice is so reasonable you'd never know my world had recently rotated off its axis.

I said all that while I was tending to Ro. Now I look at Alex, my gaze spearing him in his too-round eyes as I completely avoid looking at his mouth. Even though I'm trying not to look, it's impossible not to see the fur around his lips is pink from the meat he's been consuming.

That some of that pink is likely from Ro's blood is so distressing I quickly push that thought to the back of my mind.

"Okay."

Thank God.

I gather extra blankets from the top of the closet and make a little pallet for him near the old metal radiator the renovators didn't bother to remove. I don't know how it's connected to the floor, but it's in there pretty tight.

Chass cuffs one of Alex's hands to it and steps away.

"Ro? How are you doing?" I ask. One of his lovers just tried to kill him. I imagine his belief that this is a delusion has been dashed to bits.

"This is real?" he asks.

When I take my gaze off Alex, now convinced he's no longer a threat to any of us, I take a good look at Ro. He's shivering. My big, strong Ro who has survived gunshot wounds, is shaking in fear.

I'm a geneticist. It's clear to me these guys' DNA has been tampered with. Ro hasn't just taken on the physical characteristics of a rabbit, it's affected his personality. That also explains Alex having few qualms about killing his lover.

We are in a world of shit.