Chapter 18

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

The entire point of sex demon magic is to release a sense of sexual euphoria in order for the incubus or succubus to absorb the energy required for them to stay healthy. That beautiful bliss is different for everyone. Some people feel such a deep state of relaxation and confidence that they are free to explore the deepest, most private sexual desires to have the time of their life while the sex demon feeds on them. For others it's a surge of energy, like getting a shot of adrenaline in the ass.

Normally, I was in camp relaxation. Sias's magic would wrap me in silk, helping my toxic thoughts of shame or self-consciousness to fall away so I could be my most authentic self with him. I didn't have a lot of scruples when it came to exploring the expanse of my desires, so I was along for all the things a rich, powerful incubus could drum up for an evening dinner.

What had been a familiar touch of amber and tobacco silk draped over my skin as his magic touched me had changed to something terribly exciting and dangerous.

Sias's magic wasn't a warm blanket or a kick of unbridled debauchery. It was now a snake bite that punctured so deep into the marrow of your bones that you forgot the limitations of your fleshy prison.

Pain was irrelevant, it was like my body had forgotten how to produce the chemical associated with the sensation. My brain expelled any ideas of discomfort, ache, stiffness or hurt the moment his new void touched charm sank into my bones.

I bent in ways I couldn't before, held my breath longer than I should have been able to, felt a sharp blast of ecstasy when a thick leather strap cracked across my ass. The times when we would tread a little too far beyond what the charm magic could sedate in me, Sias looked to Zane to read my emotions when I wasn't able to speak and change course.

I usually had my mouth full. Or, I guess I should say my throat full.

There was something blooming in the heat of the seduction venom and bending the barriers of pleasure and pain, something coiling itself around my fragile heart and sealing the cracks within it.

Passing the reins over so completely hadn't ever been something I was willing to do in the past. But there, with them, the two people I trusted with my life, I gave myself over to adoration, worship, and work.

And Gods did they worship me. My skin felt electric with traces of their touch, their taste lingered like honey on my tongue. I was lost in the ecstasy of feeling Zane's grip on my hips, Sias's nails on my scalp, and their praising whispers floating in my mind.

Pet.

Hunter.

Their names for me had become a drug more powerful than anything I'd ever tried, and I craved to hear them growled into my ear over and over.

I felt adored, wanted, coveted like a treasure and desired like my body was the only pleasure they had ever known.

I lost count of how many times my body crackled with a bone melting orgasms, how many times I heard one of them whisper pet names while I felt my heart thundering in my chest. My sobs of pleasure were lost in the roar of the storm overhead, the crash of heavy rain drowning the rhythm of bodies enjoying each other.

Veins of white and silver flashed in the clouds, painting the room in snapshots of a dream I would never forget. Zane was more alive than I had ever seen him, his long hair stuck to his neck, red eyes fluttering as he pushed his hips into me. Sweat trailed down his jaw and fell across my chest, matching the smell of rain that clung to his skin.

Around him, tan arms crossed over his shoulders, nails leaving trails of lovely red lines as Sias ran his mark across him. His horns sent the lightning back into the sky, all of his eyes watching me like sharp daggers dipped in gemstone hues. When he slithered around to me, I was drowned in the bliss of tobacco and amber, shivering at the taste of grave roses on his tongue.

Zane slowed to watch us, lips pressed to my jaw, hands clutching my hips to keep me from trying to escape. His heart was pounding when I placed my hand across it, my phantom fingers tingling.

Through Sias's threads, he could feel my want, a string vibrating with a specific instruction. His eyes flared, sliding to me to make sure the order was correct. The vampire breathed in deep and met my gaze, and I nodded to him that I was sure.

"Do it," I confirmed. "I want it."

"It won't hurt," Sias whispered to me. "But you will be sore tomorrow."

"It'll be worth it," I said over my shoulder as he moved behind me, his fingers trailing down my sides to roam over the grip Zane had on my hips. "I have a bet to win, remember?"

The enchanted lube bottle was plucked from nearby, and my lips found sanctuary with Zane's as Sias made sure to get himself ready for what I had in mind.

"Breathe, pet," Sias ordered me, gathering my earlobe into his lips before giving it a love bite. "Zane, hold him open for me."

Zane's grip shifted, his eyes locked on Sias as I exhaled through the initial pinch of pressure. Sias steadied me with a hand on my lower back as he joined Zane inside of me, the burn muted by a new wave of snake bite charm magic. The discomfort or pain that I knew I should have been experiencing vanished like a breath into a winter night, lost in the bliss of his magic and my desire to feel them both at the same time.

My body hummed like an electric wire when they moved, the pressure within me a chokehold of intense pleasure. Hot, slick skin surrounded me on all sides, Sias's chest pressed to my back while Zane pinned me from the front, all while greedy hands gripped, and stroked, and pinched. The soft tickle of Sias's long hair trailed over my shoulders as I rolled my head back, my fingers lost in Zane's dark locks.

I pulled Zane closer to me, leaning my head against Sias's cheek to expose my neck. The threads between us vibrated like a strummed guitar, Zane's hunger flared like primal torches in his eyes. Across my back, Sias's heart hammered in anticipation as Zane's tongue trailed over his fangs.

"I don't want to hurt you, hunter," he whispered.

"You won't," I promised. "I put rose tattoos over my scars to cover up the bad memories. Tonight, I want to give them to you. Sias's threads will keep me grounded, keep the pain away, and let me heal."

"You're sure?" Zane met my eyes, holding them captive so he could peer into my soul. "I'll never forgive myself if I hurt you, Dallas."

"I trust you," I told him, leaning up to touch my forehead to his before turning to do the same to Sias. "I trust you both."

"I've got you, pet," Sias promised, hand sliding over my chest to rest at my heart. "I won't let you fall into the dark."

Zane leaned forward and kissed me, shifting his hips so I could feel how desperately he wanted to taste me again. I sighed into his kiss, my hand tightening in his hair as he trailed his lips down my jaw. Sias exhaled at Zane's cock sliding against his inside of me, his fingers pressing into my skin as his lips caught my temple and jaw.

Zane planted gentle, deliberate kisses from my lips to my throat, carefully placing each one to land in the center of roses etched across my scars. Feeling lips on my throat shook the threads around us though the raw scrape of panic drowned a quiet death as Sias tightened his hold around us.

My eyes stung with relief at feeling my fear quiet, giving me the strength to kick the door shut and stomp down on the lock. It wouldn't go away fully, not in one night. I knew it was going to be part of who I was for the rest of my life—that fear of a little boy being hunted in the dark, alone and afraid.

But this night, in the arms of the men I loved, I could at least starve those fears while I ran free for a little while. I could fall into a moment I never thought I'd ever be able to experience, knowing those fears couldn't reach me.

I shut my eyes and fell into that feeling of freedom, surrendering to them completely.

Zane's breath was hot on my skin, his fangs a shock of ice as they drove into my neck. The bite was fast and vicious, causing a thrum of ecstasy to pulse between us like a shared vein, shaking the threads tied around us. My lungs started to burn as I forgot to inhale, my heart squeezing as the edges of reality shook with shadows.

The void rippled out like a bloom, the fabric between realms danced with the sound of Zane's euphoric hum as he drank from me, wisps of black vapor pouring off his skin. In the seams between life and death, strings of amber draped over us like spider silk, tethering us and preventing us from floating away. The void moved like it always had, a dark expanse that neither ended nor began, radiating out forever in all directions between the cracks formed from the vampire's bite.

Standing still in the safety of the threads, riding on the magic bond between master and Thrall, I saw the network of pathways carved by the necromancers before me. Where the Thralls had been birthed was like polished obsidian, jewels extracted from bedrock as a gift from the Goddess. Tiny punctures of carefully sewn extensions left dots where lives had been stretched, given more time in this living world for a breath of time.

Others were scars left in the void by malicious, greedy claws, souls ripped and repurposed before being tossed back as rotten ghosts of what they once were. Not all dark magic was beautiful and kind. So much of it was taken, twisted and destroyed.

The void through the eyes of a necromancer was…beautiful. It was terrifying in its complexity, a network of fascinating and endless entropy that I could follow easily like a map. I saw the winding pathways, the scars, the windows left open and others nailed shut.

In the bliss of standing at the edge, my heart slowing from Zane's feeding while I held Sias's strings like a safety line, I saw the window we needed.

I peered through the eyes of a woman teetering on death's edge, the pull of the void like greedy hands at her back.

Around her was an incredibly tall crypt, a tower of skeletons loomed overhead watching with toothy grins and eyeless judgment. Her hands were too pale, blood slicked her palms. Flanked on either side of her like a swaying mob was an army of grunt vampires awaiting orders, their attention on their master. Their soulless eyes bled down their cheeks, fingers twitching and fangs ready.

She hated them.

Hated herself for being such a goddamn fool.

The flash of the crimson blade made her head tilt back, and she marveled at how beautiful the spray of blood was in the shine of the fae fire.

The soul that slipped into the void was stopped by the Goddess.

The threads in my grip yanked me backwards, my heart thundering as my body lit up like a fuse. I flew back into my reality as Zane lifted his head from my neck, teeth painted in my blood, a searing bolt of pleasure striking me the moment I felt him come undone. A vicious pluck of a harp string sang through us as we all shared the connection at the same time, losing ourselves completely.

I clung to them, sobbing as my body was hit with wave after wave of spearing pleasure, their bodies rolling against mine as they rode on the high of their releases. I was lost in the swirl of amber and roses, tobacco and rain-soaked novels. All I could feel was them, my fingers clutching black hair, my lips breathing into golden locks.

"I love you," I told them, my heart light and body heavy, dizzy, tired, and so fucking happy. "Goddamn I love you both so much. I will spend the rest of my life proving to you how much you mean to me."

I kissed them both, sweet lips and sharp metallic taste, and stayed lost in the bliss of feeling them fill me completely before they eased out gently.

My body throbbed with muted aches and exhaustion, Sias's energy starting to wane even after he'd feasted on us. His orgasm must have shaken him hard, spent him more than he had anticipated. I leaned back against him as Zane bit into his palm with his teeth, lifting my chin to drip a few wonderful, healing drops of vampire blood onto my tongue.

I felt myself start to slip into the void again, eyes rolling back into my head as I fell backwards into the darkness. A golden net caught me, but I saw the floating soul the Goddess had stopped hovering just below me, peering up like a lost koi.

I inhaled, all the aches and pains from the night washing away as my body healed from my Thrall's blood. While I wasn't going to be physically sore anymore from being wrung out from two sex starved deviants, I was emotionally and mentally tapped. My head swam from the dizzying heights of the night, feeling very much like an overworked locker room towel.

"The thought of having to find my clothes, walk downstairs, bathe and somehow make it to a bed sounds too fucking exhausting," I mumbled. "Who loves me enough to carry me?"

"If we have to walk, so you do," Zane said, sounding equally as spent as me. "I'll throw you over the balcony though if you want. Shorten the trip."

"Aw, there he is. That's the Zane I know."

"No throwing over balconies. I don't have the energy to set broken bones tonight and I desperately want a shower." Sias extracted himself from behind me and stood, stretching his body up to the heavens as the storm finished its tantrum. His lithe muscles caught the light of the moon peering through the thinning clouds, the sheen of his skin giving his body a razors edge.

Zane stood from the couch and cracked his neck, skin flushed and bright from the blood he'd drunk from me. Only his red eyes and the cooling black vapor betrayed him as something undead, otherwise he looked like a happy, blushing brute who just had the night of his life.

I marveled at the pair as they went through the routine of finding their discarded clothing before slipping them over their bodies, movements languid and relaxed. Sias's second set of eyes had closed, his horns reset in their natural curve. Zane licked his blood-stained teeth clean and passed Sias his slacks which had been tossed away almost over the railing.

In my dazed bliss, I took stock of the situation we had found ourselves in. The creak of the couch under me sounded worn and tired, the jade dance floor serene in the moonlight. We were sitting on the throne of Biodome, my enemy's club, a man who had somehow found a path around his hatred for me to allow us to stay.

The entire Demon and Human Alliance and Protection force was after us, Florence was off somewhere in the world with the Goddess's scythe, we had no money, little supplies, and shit for a plan. There was absolutely no reason for me to feel as hopeful and happy as I was staring at the two men slogging through the chore of getting dressed in front of me.

"You look rather pleased with yourself." Sias slid his belt back into its loops, tossing me a sly look. "I'm shocked you haven't been gloating about winning your bet this entire time."

"I did, didn't I?" I felt myself smile a bit more. "Damn, I should have put some stipulations on that outcome. Made you two do a stupid dance or something as a reward."

"There's another reason you're sitting there grinning like an idiot then?" Zane tugged his shirt over his head, raking his hair back with his fingers.

"I'm happy," I answered, surprised with the lack of stinging doubt at the response. "Ridiculously happy actually. All things considered, I think I should be a little more freaked out about our situation, but I can't seem to muster the give-a-fuck right now."

"We have tomorrow to wallow in our misfortune. We should enjoy tonight. With that said, I want to shower and crawl into bed, so." Sias waved his hand at my state of undress. "Unless you feel like parading around naked, get something on. I don't mind the view but I feel like your brother and our begrudging host might get testy."

Zane offered me a hand and hefted me to my feet, my legs wobbly from being twisted around all night. My jeans were passed over, and I slipped them over my hips before Sias tossed me my shirt. The three of us lumbered downstairs, tired and trying to pretend like the other inhabitants of the bar hadn't noticed our activities upstairs.

I wasn't optimistic that the thunderstorm outside cloaked all the noises we'd made. Sias never cared if anyone could hear his throaty groans when he was getting what he wanted, and Zane growled like a goddamn werewolf when he had someone wrapped around him.

The memory of their respective soundtracks had me shivering as we descended down to the basement, the thrill bouncing between the three of us. Zane gave my ass a squeeze when I got lost in the memory, and Sias trailed his fingers over my nape. If I'd had anything left to give them that night, I would have demanded another round before we made it into the little game room.

By some blessed miracle, both Marthas and Austin were absent as we scurried past the dart board and empty beers. We had likely chased them off into one of the other wings of the club to try and escape our activities , which meant I was going to have to face them later. Barns had his door shut tight when we made our way down into the basement, another awkward encounter I wasn't looking forward to.

But that was tomorrow Dallas's problem. The only thing I needed to worry about in this moment was getting through the shower without passing out.

The tiny shower in the basement was a basic fixture held together with tape and a faded, flower covered shower curtain. Marthas had been right about the abysmal water pressure, but it had a large enough water tank to survive all three of us washing clean. We all ended up smelling like generic bar soap and hotel towels, which was arguably better than what we had started out with.

When I shambled out of the shower, last in line to bathe after Sias had entered the bathroom first like it was his right, and then losing to Zane in rock-paper-scissor for second place, I caught sight of the tail end of a mattress sliding into a bedroom. Wearing just a towel, I followed the curiosity into the room, wondering what the hell possessed the thing to move, only to find Zane setting up a second bed in the tiny room.

The beds Marthas had originally provided were maybe queen sized, impossible to fit more than two of us on there at a time. I had assumed Sias was going to claim a bedroom to himself, leaving me a bed and Zane a couch to lounge in to read the night away.

I hadn't been expecting a bed heist.

"What are you doing?" I asked, tired and dumbfounded as I watched them slide the beds together and stretch a sheet over, tossing pillows and blankets onto it lazily.

Zane unfurled a blanket over the right side and set his book on the edge. He punched a pillow into shape, propping it up against the wall for him to lean back on, then turned and motioned to the clothing I held in my hands. "I'm going to do some laundry while you sleep. Leave those by the door and I'll get to them."

Sias set his clothes where Zane had indicated, then slinked naked between the sheets like they were silk and not stiff, cotton monstrosities. He took up the left side and rolled over to tuck a lumpy pillow under his head. Malphie bullied past me so he could heave his massive body onto the mattress next to Sias, dropping his skeletal head onto his feet and sighing with absolute satisfaction. His claws snagged onto the blanket as he adjusted his big paws, butt wiggling as Sias called him a "good boy."

My mind was either too exhausted from the bombardment of mind splintering sex or the trip into the void I took to catch up with what was happening. I was in the middle of tossing my shirt near Sias's clothing when the scenario caught up with me.

"Wait." I got momentarily tangled in the garment as I flailed a bit, throwing it a little more forcefully that I should have. "We're all sleeping in here?"

Zane waved his book and I flipped him off with my missing hand.

"You don't like sharing a bed," I told Sias. "You're comfortable with us being in here?"

"I am." His eyes were emerald coated in moss, twinkling with shades that were an unnamed mix of both.

I felt a flutter in my chest, like a thread being stroked with the tip of a finger. My cheeks flushed as a thought came into mind, hilariously coy considering we had just spent the better part of the night exploring each other in truly personal and delicious ways.

Sias stretched his arm out and gave the space in the mattress between himself and Zane a pat.

"Come rest, pet."

I swallowed down the fist of emotions knocking against my chest, its fingers curled into my ribs and surging me forward. The last of my clothing and my towel was tossed away to join the pile Zane was going to wash, and I crawled into bed to sleep beside Sias for the first time ever.

"We've never done this." I knew I was smiling too much for something this simple, but it felt too amazing to stop. I had to angle my legs around the huge, undead lump taking up the foot of the bed, Malphie's eyes dimming as he tried to settle into whatever version of sleep void creatures could achieve.

"No, we haven't. I'm sorry for that." He ran his fingers over my cheek, lips and chin. "I haven't held someone since my spouses left me. It was too hard to imagine someone else in their place. I like sharing my body, I enjoy sex as the social and physical need it gives, but this is something I only wanted when, and if, I ever fell in love again."

I captured his hand and kissed his knuckles, my chest almost suffocating the words from existence before I had a chance to whisper them.

"I want to spend every single night in bed with you."

A sharp gleam of magenta shone over emeralds as his throat bobbed, and he leaned forward to kiss me. His lips were soft, careful, like the moment was fragile and precious.

The mattress behind me dipped as Zane crawled in, his arm draping over to stroke Sias's hair back over his horn. A warm hand landed on my shoulder, my vampire tugging me in his direction.

"Come here, hunter. I know you like to cuddle."

"You were supposed to keep that a secret." I looked over my shoulder at him. "The fuck, man?"

"Yeah, I wasn't ever going to do that." He pulled me close and settled into his pillow, scooping his book up with his free hand.

I rolled so that I could toss a leg over his, smiling as Sias curled up to be the big spoon in our interspecies sundae. Sias's arm wrapped around my chest, a long breath across my shoulder as Zane stroked his hair.

I placed my hand over Zane's heart to bring our hands together, and let the rhythm of his heartbeat against my palm, and the steady beat of Sias's at my back, soothe me into the abyss between consciousness.

I had almost drifted off, happier than I had ever been, calm and content, and reveling in the magic of being loved like I never thought I would, when the realization of where Florence was hit me with a brilliant backhand of clarity.

"Florence is at the Silence Steps," I blurted out, lifting my head from the drool already pooling on my pillow. Zane looked down at me as Sias kept snoring; Malphie kicked me a little for disturbing his sleep. I didn't have time to process the fact that the incredibly sexy incubus I had been longing to sleep next to for years was snoring when I tacked on a quick, "And I think she's dead."