maya's spilt ink

It was when she heard a chuckle in her ear that she was nearly petrified, her body rooted in her place as whispers curled like dark tendrils around her limbs and turned her rigid. “You playing it awfully safe,” the voice cooed—and though there was little she could discern from just the sound, she could still somehow tell that it was said mockingly. “So sheltered, and yet… so unguarded. You wouldn’t want people thinking you’re getting too lax, hmm?”

The faux sweetness in that tone made her wet her lips once, then twice. Asking ‘who are you’ somehow felt insufficient, and so she pushed past her trepidation and instead posed the question, “What exactly are you?” That—much to her dismay, knowing that for some reason it had satisfied the culprit to hear her say it like that—had earned herself a laugh that crawled down her spine and settled somewhere between her hips. It came with an alien ache; one that she couldn’t put a name to, and, frankly, terrified her just a little more than she wanted to let on to the eyes that seemed to have been following her.

“Something you wouldn’t want to see, sweetie,” the voice whispered slowly back, like it was relishing in the way every sound felt on their tongue, and the term of endearment lodged her breath in her throat.

She’d always been adored, that much was true, and many a time she’d heard “sweet dove” being lovingly passed between the people whose eyes sought no one but her… but no one had dipped their tongue in such poisonous honey like the owner of that voice had done, just to call her that saccharine name. Vigilance was futile when it lured her in like that with just one word, and yet she still tried to struggle against the stickiness of the web that had already begun to weave between her legs.

It was through that foggy haze that she managed to make out the faint outline of sharp crimson eyes burning right through her. That fierce gaze should’ve turned any human’s blood to ice and her bones to ash. But she was no mere human, and those eyes were no match to the morbid curiosity that thrummed right underneath her skin. Something that should’ve scared her away only made her want to know more.

Gathering every ounce of her courage, she met those eyes head-on, even as her pulse flew like a hummingbird. It was that stubbornness of hers that she’d been warned would be her demise, but right now, it might become her saving grace as she pushed the words out of her mouth. “Are you sure about that? Or do you simply fear showing yourself to me?”

She was within her realm, protected by her own power. Nothing could touch her, so long as she was on her guard. Those eyes couldn’t touch her, as uneasy as they made part of her feel.

Or at least, that’s what she told herself in order to placate the urge to flee that suddenly overcame her. It had gradually become too much for her, until her more base instincts had crept up on her. An almost imperceptible sound came from behind her, and she vaguely registered it as the faint ruffling of her feathers shifting into shape. Even her own body had started to shift into fight-or-flight mode, knowing something that her brain had yet to catch up to.

And yet, with fists clutching the silken sheets like they’d be able to ground her through this confrontation, she refused to back down in cowardice. Perhaps that was the correct choice to make, because the honeyed voice hummed in what seemed to be satisfaction, and with nothing more than a blink of her eyes, the glowering red eyes vanished into nothingness.

“Now, now, I don’t think doves are birds of prey,” came the light voice from behind her now. What felt like a breeze teased at the ends of the flyaways of her hair, leaving it to tumble down her shoulders like a lover’s caress. But despite how certain parts of her were betraying her and interpreting it as that, the rational part of her brain fought back against the syrupy feeling that now traced her nape oh-so-delicately. Eerily enough, the spoken words were almost breathed down her neck. “The truth of the matter is, you wouldn’t hurt me. There isn’t any flesh for you to tear at, should the craving for it arise. You know that as well as I do.”

It was her turn to laugh now, half-incredulously and with a pointed indignation that she knew would quickly sour into haughtiness if she let it fester. “You clearly don’t know me as well as you think you do. A bit too presumptuous for someone daring to trespass for the first time, don’t you think?”

There was a beat of silence after she’d turned her nose up in the air, but it didn’t linger. Not as much as the next words delightfully purred into her ear did, at least.

“Is it the first time, though?”

As though she were doused in ice, her breath caught and her limbs froze as the numbness spread to her nether regions. Though she’d never felt hunger, nor had she known what it felt like to have her stomach cave in, she faintly thought that it would probably feel somewhat like this—except that this was no worldly desire to be fulfilled. Quite the opposite, really; this was her body collapsing into itself at the mere thought of her sanctuary being barged into, and not just on this one occasion.

He—for only a male could be so bold and brash, and so arrogant at that—had been here before. He was only announcing it now.

Just as quickly as he’d pulled every one of her strings taut with just one heavy question, the oppressive sting of the air and the crawling of her skin disappeared. Like they’d never even been there before; like the entire interaction had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination, it all faded back into the white noise she’d grown so accustomed to her entire life. Only the ruffle of her feathers as she shuffled in place was any evidence that she hadn’t suddenly grown deaf and senseless.

Except now, there was no comfort in the silence she’d always known.

***

The second time she’d felt his penetrating gaze boring into her back—was he eyeing the smooth expanse of her skin, or was it some morbid fascination with her wings ruffling freely behind her?—she let it linger, like an aged wine that left more warmth the longer it remained settled. Her fingers were busy sifting through the delicate stems of the plants she’d so carefully plucked from her garden, flicking dirt off as she kept a mental count of her stores. She could afford to ignore him for a few minutes.

“It’s rude to stare.” Part of her felt a twinge of amusement at the way the impatience she’d felt behind her suddenly dissipated at her acknowledgment of his presence. Still, she knew better than to turn around and give him the satisfaction of meeting his crimson eyes. Would he challenge her presence once again, or would he lure her in with more silken words? She didn’t want to find out just yet. Some sense of self-preservation was still intact.

A huff of a laugh sounded from what felt like all around her. Rich as it was, it danced between the strands of her hair and every feather that pricked with something akin to delight. “And what am I supposed to be looking at? Your little herbs?”

At that, she arched her eyebrow and turned around, “Bold of you to call them little herbs. Are you not familiar with the practice at all?” They were anything but just that; she could weave an entire world with her bare fingertips and force it undone with nothing more than a few sprigs of those plants he so looked down upon.

But when she faced those sharp eyes that burned with something she couldn’t put her finger to, let alone name (and perhaps that, more than anything, was proof to any onlooker of just how isolated she’d become), she learnt that she’d fallen so easily into yet another trap of his. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve seen it firsthand, sweetie. Been on the receiving end of it, even.”

He’d goaded her into facing him. If she hadn’t been so irritated by him, she would’ve even called his actions childish and almost petulant. But now that he’d set off her agitation at her own failings and the nerve of him, her expression turned stony and she was forced to set her plants down, lest her clenching and unclenching of her knuckles damage the paper-thin leaves and fragile stems. They were just as sensitive as a human’s fickle emotions, and she couldn’t risk ruining an entire batch because of him—whoever he was.

It was that fact, that she knew quite literally nothing about the deep voice and sharp eyes that now seemingly haunted her living, that struck annoyance in her. It was a little petty of her, but she let it seep through her words when she spoke again, almost completely ignoring the implication of what he’d just said; that witchcraft was a weapon regularly wielded against him, like he was something malicious to ward off.

“Well, whoever it was that subjected you to that, they clearly haven’t been doing a good enough job of keeping you away, seeing as you’re still here.”

His laughter then was belly-deep, and her face heated up with a mix of that same unfamiliar warmth that toyed with her nerve endings and a bitter twinge of shame. She might’ve been on her own for long, but she knew from what she’d observed from mortals that this was him laughing at her words; at her expense. He made that much clear when he asked in that grating tone of his, “And you don’t think they’re that self-serving to just do enough to only protect themselves and no one else? You’re quite the optimist. As long as they were… safe, they couldn’t care less what I’d do after.”

Within the half-second she’d taken to steel her nerves in preparation of a reply, he’d somehow summoned a breeze to tease the pearls dripping between her collarbones. And as their melodious click-clack against the rising goosebumps on her skin and the fluttering in her core momentarily distracted her, a certain unfamiliar heaviness settled beside her. A strangled gasp caught in her throat at the sight of flesh and bones materializing beside her; too soon, and too close, and too sudden—

A face all hard lines and sharp angles met hers like it was a personal affront to let her look away. The bridge of his nose was high and curved, and she wondered—for a brief moment of silliness—if it had been there from birth, or if it was another proof of his run-in with those who intended to keep the devil out.

But, breathless (and momentarily stunned by the grace of too-long limbs that curled around muscles and sinew under flesh borne with scars) as she was, she wasn’t too sure if devils were supposed to be this wolfishly striking. An uneasy flickering of her eyes to the tail (and yes, it really was a tail of scales and leather snaking near her own feet) led her to believe that she should probably withhold from labeling him as one thing or the other.

What was he, exactly? And why was his fanged smirk not the bloodthirsty one of a beast, yet no less sharp?

“Are doves always this easily startled? I couldn’t imagine being this on edge my entire life, however long it may be.”

She chose to ignore the former half. “Not very long, if I’ll take your word for it,” she mumbled under her breath, before her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think it was an unwarranted reaction on their end if they chose to chase you away.”

“Oh, no, it certainly was,” he purred, satisfaction lapping at the edges of his words. “I wonder how long it will take for you to come to the same decision.” His eyes pointedly glanced at the uprooted herbs lying between them. “You might find yourself grateful for the fact that you have… aconite, was this?”

Refusing to let the surprise show on her face, she let the silence linger for a beat, before saying, “My guess is this isn’t your first encounter with wolfsbane?”

He made a non-committal sort of sound from the back of his throat, clawed fingers swirling through the air. “You’ll be hard-pressed to find something that I haven’t, ah… tried.” The sight of the jagged edges where nails would’ve normally been should’ve been more than enough of a deterrent. But to her, their movements were somehow hypnotizing, and she tracked them carefully, half out of caution, and half out of a fascination that she couldn’t resist or bother denying.

Swallowing past the apprehension lodged in her throat, she pressed on. “If you’re so sure I could do the exact same thing as them, then what gives you the gall to keep returning?”

There was the distinctly familiar sound of flapping, and for a moment she worried that her wings had grown a mind of their own—only to realize that it was him who was hovering a meter or so above the ground, his form dappled in shades of moonlight as he crossed his legs in mid-air. He could fly, she belatedly came to the realization, just as his chin nestled against his palm, elbow coming to rest on his knee. “Curiosity, you could call it,” he hummed. “And maybe hope that my very existence will serve as a reminder of the true nature of those you dote on, even from afar.”

It was her turn to openly laugh now, even as his eyes showed no amusement whatsoever. “Faulting the humans for knowing better than to trust you? I must say, that sounds a little desperate, even for someone like you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” came his light voice, as though he were relishing in hearing her replies; like he knew they were coming before they actually did. “I won’t stoop as low as to try convincing you now. It’ll be much more… entertaining to watch over time.”

No sooner had a sound of protest left her lips, before his very presence seemed to collapse onto itself, shrinking into a small wink in space-time. And once again he was gone, leaving her all alone in the silent night of her garden, with no more than a light thump of something falling to the soft ground to signify his leaving. Quite dazed and more than a little miffed, she looked down at her feet where the sound had come from.

A fresh laurel wreath had been dropped in front of her, right next to her aconite. Her fingers ached to touch the familiar leaves; to don them in shimmering shades of gold and wear them atop her head like she’d always done. Only this time, her heart hammered against her chest as she gazed upon it, and her stomach churned with every gasping breath she took, the coppery scent in the air dizzying.

The wreath had been splattered in blood.

***

There was no going around it: it was pure fear that rooted her to the spot every time his distorted whispers egged her on to walk to the brink of her balcony (and her sanity, if she had to admit it to herself). For weeks, she could hear the telltale signs of his appearance behind her; the temperature would drop around her, her breaths coming in chilly puffs, she would hear the drag of his tail against the marble floor, every rattle of every scale rattling in this emptiness, and his incomprehensible gaze would pin her form against the railings.

He never touched her, and never dared to come too close. But he didn’t have to, when one flicker of that flaming crimson gaze would force her to watch the scenes unfolding past her domain. And try as she might, she could never tear her eyes away from them.

“Look. Really look at them,” he’d slowly say, “Watch how they act, and then turn around and call my kind savages.” A low rumbling came from the depths of his chest, but she suspected that it was dragged out from even further depths; from a hollowed laceration that still oozed vitriol towards the humans who’d always worshipped her. “Beyond that false horizon they’re tearing at each other’s flesh, feasting on their innards. They’re bathed in the very same blood they claim I needlessly spill.”

Her eyes burned with the ache of having to strain them so hard. Did he really have to torment her with those visions of them shoving literal and metaphorical blades so deep that their entrails tainted every ground they tread upon? Was this torture necessary? And what did he hope to achieve with this?

A cross between a whimper and a plea escaped her. “They don’t—this isn’t how they normally act, and you know it. This… aberrance—”

A bark of venomous laughter, bleeding with bitterness and resentment, and he was already pulling away. “Only a fool would call it that. And you are no fool, sweetie.”

One of his hands reached up to thumb at one of the two horns atop his mussed silver hair, and as she glanced up, she belatedly noticed the multitude of pale gashes that littered the ebony spirals. And if she really focused, she could see that an entire portion of one of his horns was chopped cleanly off, though the edges were irregular; like someone had hacked at it with a blunt axe designed to agonize.

Pins and needles pricked at her throat, and she found it near impossible to swallow. There was the hint of a sting of betrayal that she couldn’t get past; like she’d been deceived by the very same people whose protection she’d sworn an oath to keep. How many times had she thought of them delicate beings that needed her aid, ones that lavished praise and worship upon her in relief? For how many eons had she bid her time crossing massive expanses of land with her beating wings, bestowing impenetrable wards and guarded fortresses of her own design upon them?

Why did it feel like some sort of treason, knowing that these humans had been the ones to cruelly saw away at him, like he was no more than a fish to gut? Even the most horrifying of creatures had never been treated this way in her realms, and they’d been reigning with terror over the lands that she now oversaw.

He could’ve… well, it might’ve been as a result of—

No. If she started making excuses for the irreparable harm inflicted on every visible part of his being, what other crimes would she start justifying? Where would it start, and where would it end?

And (this she thought to herself with an inkling of shame, despising how the question had even manifested in her mind in the first place) were the humans truly worth stripping herself of who she was and what she stood for, all just to exonerate them of the blame for what she could feel her own body recoiling from evidence of?

His lips curled upwards, but his smirk was devoid of any warmth. Something stung in her chest, but it wasn’t disappointment at his clear disdain. If anything, she knew that it wasn’t directed at her, but at the sour sting of visions she could only half-picture in dismay. It was that sheer resentfulness displayed openly on his face that she couldn’t bear to see.

“You’re leaving again,” she whispered, past the trepidation in her heart. It wasn’t a question, but a statement; a realization that he was only backing away to leave her to her worst thoughts. It was what she’d often needed after those surprise visits of his: time to register every sight her eyes had captured, and every harsh spit of profanity that was carried over in the wind. “After this…”

“You don’t expect me to stay, do you?” he asked, though he certainly didn’t expect an answer. “You can have your fill admiring them from afar. There’s more for me than this glorified marble chapel.”

His words should’ve made her ire rise. She should’ve felt indignation, fury even, at the demeaning choice of vocabulary; at the implication that what symbolized her entire existence was nothing but a façade of polished grandeur, built to trap her within her worshippers’ faith and blind her to the vile horrors they committed under the blanket of the night. But with the still-fresh memory of mangled gore and sickening lies that festered between those she’d been guardian to for millennia, she had no will to fight back and deny it.

In fact, she hardly noticed his wordless departure, too caught up in keeping herself upright, skin pale as a sheet of paper and knuckles white as she desperately clutched her balcony railings. The effort would kill her, if the stomach-churning visions she couldn’t blink away didn’t force her to her knees first.

***

Scrubbing didn’t work. Digging her fingernails into her flesh and scraping away did nothing at all but inflame her skin. Still it remained stained with the crimson color, and the coppery scent poisoned every cell in her body as she futilely scratched at the traces that refused to go away.

Or maybe they had, a long time ago. She wouldn’t know; wouldn’t notice if the entire world collapsed and fell away from around her. In a trance that she couldn’t escape, haggard hiccups left her shaking body as her knees buckled underneath the weight of both her body and the sins she’d been soaked in. An unwitting bystander, yes, but the blood that splattered across the treasured pearls on her collar and the shimmering fabric across her chest made her stomach roil.

With a heave that threatened to spill the contents of her stomach all over herself, she struggled against the agonizing pain of her entire body trapping her wings underneath her. Every single feather was slicked and stiffened by the slowly-drying blood that it was soaked in, and what possibly were the entrails of those who’d been slaughtered like they were no more than pigs in a sty.

The very thought and the images that had imprinted in her mind left her gagging violently against the cold marble floor, her fingernails digging freshly bleeding crescents into her flesh as she cried out—for help? For salvation?

Or for forgiveness for having stood there so utterly uselessly, frozen in place and eyes blown wide in the panic that had descended upon her after she’d realized that no one would be saving the humans from themselves, and that she was a witness silenced by her own fears? Maybe it really just was for someone to erase every wicked snarl and gluttonous glare past her like she was invisible from her memory; for someone to somehow absolve her of the crime of watching on, rooted where she stood as they ripped each other apart.

Would she ever be able to cleanse herself of that?

“Martyrdom won’t do anything for them now.”

She ground her molars so fiercely that she was so sure they would’ve splintered if she hadn’t been immune to it. Squeezing her eyes shut couldn’t block out the heavy sigh that came from above her, and neither could it stop the assault of gut-wrenchingly horrific scenes in her mind. All it served was to make her seem like a helpless dove, trapped in a cage of its own formation. How had she not seen the irony of it all, the fact that her own motif now was a mockery of her sheer uselessness in the face of humans’ greed?

Ignoring him was pointless, because she knew by now that he wasn’t the type to take that as a sign to leave. In fact, he might take that as a challenge and test the boundaries of her now-fragile mind. And sure enough, his shadow didn’t move further away—in fact, it only grew closer as she heard the rustling of his leather fabrics and the faint rattling of his scales being dragged across the floor.

Before she could even register the unwelcome proximity, calloused palms were firmly wrapping around her wrists, stilling her frenzied scratching. For a few moments she fought against the force, her fingers itching to dig at the raw flesh of her forearms and uncaring whether or not her skin had long been cleaned of any stains. But soon enough, her hands fell limply, all the energy suddenly draining from her body in seconds.

“You’ve made yourself bleed,” he quietly pointed out, calloused pads of his thumbs brushing against the blood beading at her fingernails’ marks. “Do you think they deserve to take this too from you? More than they already thirst for it?”

Something vibrated deeply within her chest, like a chord that had been struck too hard to the point that it nearly snapped in half. All she could do to stop herself from fracturing like pressurized glass was murmur (in a sort of hopeless, defeated way) under her breath, “As if you’re any different. Don’t pretend you don’t lust for it too.”

He grunted, apparent displeasure seeping into his words, though his hands still grasped hers tightly without hesitation, and his body curled up on the floor beside her. “I don’t sink my teeth into the vulnerable flesh of doves.”

“My mistake. You only threaten to.”

Now that had him halting. His hands unfurled from around hers, his grip loosening but not leaving her entirely. “I think I would remember something like that, sweetie.”

“Feigning innocence doesn’t suit you,” she finally snapped, a tremor going through her body as the memory of that day passed through her mind in the same way it had for the past weeks. She had half a mind to snatch her hands away, but the part of her that couldn’t bear to be left alone to her thoughts refused to let go. “You knew that you were marking me as next when you dropped that blood-stained laurel by my feet.”

When he barked out a laugh, she could hear the disbelief in his voice. “You think I bothered to do that myself? You truly think such underhanded tricks would be mine?”

“The place is teeming with visitors other than yourself that I keep by my side, as I’m sure you can see.” There was little sense in what she was saying now, but so much acridity spilling from her lips as his hardened face came into her swimming vision. “Definitely a testament to the number of possible suspects—”

“I don’t stoop so low,” he ground out, the corners of his lips curled up, though it certainly was no smile. “And hadn’t it occurred to you that maybe that gesture had another, more blatantly obvious meaning?”

Scoffing, she pointed her chin at him in a vain attempt at defiance; something that surely wouldn’t come across successfully, given that her body was still visibly weak for any passerby to notice, let alone for his sharp gaze to catch. “What else other than the fact that you, for some reason, want me gone?”

His eyes narrowed, until they were burning flames of red in slits that zeroed in on only her. “The fact that near damn everyone else did.”

Needles she'd now grown too familiar with pricked at her throat and she had to force herself to blink the dizziness away. “What’s that supposed to mean?” It didn’t make any sense to her, so it couldn’t be true—though the way her entire body grew ice-cold at his words was evidence enough that it knew something, innately. Still, she made weak attempts at an argument. “The humans hardly remember I exist now. They’re too caught up in their own endless cruelty to remember a relic of the past.”

Was that bitterness that leaked into her voice, or was it a twisted grief she’d thought she’d buried, yet hadn’t quite?

“Clearly not enough, if they still took the time out of their days to deface every statue of yours and pour pig’s blood over your laurel wreath offerings,” he snarled, an anger that had grown roots and branches evident in every word he spat out. It was that unwavering fury in his gaze that she couldn’t escape; that she felt compelled to meet. “They claim you’d abandoned them. That you’re at fault for their vile pursuits. Even after you slaved away in a prison of your own making for their safety for eons, they chose to defile your name. They strip you of your wings on every dias, and yet you still think of them above this?”

His chest was heaving as the anger in his eyes melted into a desperation she wasn’t unfamiliar with: it was the kind where you’d do anything to force someone to stomach poison to save them. Silver strands of hair fell in a mess from his growing agitation, and it was that mussed look of his that drove the final nail in the coffin. He was urging her to see that she was no longer exempt from the fire of their immense hatred. Every snowy white feather and every span of silk stretched across her skin was something they wished to rip apart to destruction, till she was no more than a mangled mess of remains.

And for some reason, he wasn’t part of that crowd.

“Your name,” she whispered, barely audible, voice shaking as hard as her body did in his hold. Torment kept her body upright when her nerves couldn’t, and this time it was her clutching at his scarred arms like he was the one thing keeping her afloat in the blackness of uncharted waters. “Your name so that I can call upon you again. I cannot… I will not stay here to have my throat slit over my herbs, over my pavilion, mine—”

The lips she’d once thought to herself were sinful parted, and a sound escaped the back of his throat, all stuttering clicks and deep snarls that she’d never heard—not in this life, at least. And yet her bones rattled as she heard it spoken, a resounding thud almost painful between her ribs. It was like an ancient language that had long been buried in the recesses of her mind, where she’d try to grasp at and fail, like smoke slipping through her hands. But against all reason, she recognized it; knew what every syllable uttered stood for, and what it meant in the tongue she’d adopted millennia ago. Her skin sung in recognition of the name that she now knew.

Sylus. Sylus. Sylus.

***

With every inhale, she could practically taste the ash that blackened her lungs. She took her breaths with wheezing gasps that were alarming enough to send herself into a state of panic just after hearing them herself. Maybe that made her weak, to crumble in terror at the sound of her struggling to breathe and get her chest moving. Some dead weight trampled her chest until her ribs caved in under the pressure, like someone’s million-tonne foot was lodged between her sternum and her lungs.

It hurt. It hurt. That was the only coherent thought that her brain could conjure up at the moment. Everything hurt. She was in so much indescribable pain that she could barely feel the searing underneath her skin with the agony that coursed through her veins. It burned like nothing else had done before, and she couldn’t do anything about it, save for letting the tears (the ones her pride and multitude of stages of denial had barred her from) cascade down her ruddy cheeks. It felt like her bones were creaking with every rattling breath she tried to take, and very distantly, her head miles away from where her body had failed her, she thought that it felt like her body wasn't even hers anymore.

Her domain had always only been lit up by the stars and the moonlight that bathed the marble floors and dressed the intricately carved arches in moonshine, and the sun that cast dancing shadows across the expanses of the grounds where her plants and herbs flitted in the breeze. It was never too hot or too cold, the lighting never too intense so as to be blinding, nor too dim to the point that she couldn’t move without her muscle memory. She could always hear the distant whispers of those who came before her; of those who called her name underneath the blankets of nighttime. It had all served a purpose, to settle into that rhythm.

But now? The entire antrum was doused in an angry red, orange licking away at the crumbling columns and tapestries she’d woven centuries of her life into. The gold that gnawed at every life force in her gardens wasn’t the same shimmering shade that embossed her tassels and her draped clothes, but a sickening sulfur that strongly smelled of sickness and hunger that ate away at everything that crossed its path. An all-consuming fire chased away every breath she’d uttered into this space, turning it into a lifeless vacuum where nothing survived, and it was so bright that it burned the dry backs of her eyelids even as she squeezed them shut.

All she could hear (aside from her heartbeat racing in her ears, and the frantically pulsating blood coursing through her as she slumped into a motionless lump) were the faint, harsh peals of laughter as they echoed off her sacred walls, and the striking of metal against the ground as they threw their axes down–but not before they’d hacked through the everlasting trees that had guarded her like sentinels for centuries. The sounds were every bit as malicious as the sights, perhaps even more so when both her own weak heart and the ash in the air had blinded her.

It was futile to try and find anything in their gleaming, beady eyes, anyways, other than pure sadism and the need to destroy everything in its entirety. He’d warned her before; Sylus had already told her that it was just a matter of time before they came for her. His prophecy now rang true, proving itself as she lay collapsed amidst the remains of her life, all set aflame and quickly returning to the earth as nothingness. Every inch of her screamed to fight through it, to push back against their frenzied whirlwind of malice, but she couldn’t move a single limb, try as she might.

How could she, when they’d managed to send arrows hurtling towards the base of her feathered wings, right before the wall of fire had separated her helpless body from them? How could she, when the pain had been so immense that it tore a blood-curdling scream from her depths, the poisoned metal tearing at her flesh and ripping the skeleton of her wings to shreds? She knew that they’d dipped the tips of their weapons in the deadly juices of her own herbs, the very same ones she’d nurtured since she’d known she’d been born to. But she’d never imagined that the burn of hemlock would be so torturously slow yet instant, tearing at the seams of her sanity with every paralyzing drip into her vessels and throughout her body.

And the humans? They only shouted and cried out in sick delight, her suffering a victory for them to celebrate. It didn’t even matter that they couldn’t deal the final blow, now that the curtain of flames had ironically shielded her from them hacking at her flesh–no, perhaps to them, it was another cause for mirth that they leave her to her slow demise, either for the fire to turn her to dust, for the poison to still her heart, or for her to drown in a pool of her own blood, wings twitching as she was drained dry.

Without so much as a glance back, they stomped away, feet snuffing out any sign of life that dared to peek past their hellstorm. Unbridled bloodlust besmirched their trails, and it only cried out one name: hers.

Her bitten-through lips couldn’t even utter the words that could be her saving. Crying out a name was a pointless act. Who would she ask for? And now that she’d been so completely and utterly abandoned, who would even come for her at a time like this, when it seemed that everyone on this wretched earth had conspired against her? She had no egotistical delusions that drove her to think that she was the only target for their loathing, but she certainly made an easy one that they could all pin all the blame on. Now that she was ostracized by the same people who’d once burnt incense at her altars, she couldn’t be so naive as to think that anyone other than herself could be trusted now.

Look where her gullibility had gotten her. With lungs burning with the acrid smoke she gulped in and limbs half-paralyzed over her almost-shredded wings, all she could feel was her grip on her life slowly slipping away. Maybe part of that had truly been because of the arrow that now nearly threatened to pierce all the other side through her guts with a pain so intolerable it had her teeth chattering as she moaned out in agony, but it was also partially because somewhere in her subconscious she knew that there was no point in fighting against it. What would be waiting for her after this? Her own stupidity had landed her in this open tomb designed to bury her alive. A symbol of the times changing at her expense, if you will.

Perhaps she deserved to die like this, all alone and with no trace of her existence left behind but the hatred they would always have for her.

She didn’t have time to dwell on that depressingly numbed down thought. A crack and swish sounded through the hot air as time and space warped in front of her, a familiar figure materializing in front of her barely-opened eyes. Still, she didn’t dare hope. Hope had landed her here, and now she was tempted to just close her itching eyes and let the encroaching flames lick at the soles of her feet. “You don’t get to give up that easily.” Sylus’ deep voice was sharp as it cut through the murky haze. “Not after they’ve desecrated everything that stood in their paths.”

Her trembling lips parted. “Too… too tired,” she managed to croak out. “I have,” she tried to swallow past the knives embedded in her throat, “I have nothing now.”

“You’ve given them precisely what they want, then, if that’s all you have to say as an excuse for just lying there” he spat out, and it was the closest thing he’d ever had to disgust when talking to her, his tail curling up in sharp figures that should’ve been intimidating but now only aroused a faint feeling of despondency. “Being unable to get up, that I could at least understand. But you don’t even want to accept help in the name of feeling sorry for yourself.”

“If you’re here to berate me, I’d rather you,” she paused with a violent shiver despite the scorching heat as the nerves of her back were pulled taut in a sudden lancinating pain that she couldn’t hide. “I’d rather you have your fill of seeing me suffer and leave–”

“Foolish,” he harshly interrupted her, lunging forward as the first embers of the fire dug teeth into the flesh of her feet. Strong arms slipped underneath her body, hauling her upwards and off the scalding marble floor. In the midst of the feeling that she was being ripped apart from the outside in, her brain didn’t register the surprising gentleness with which his claws curled around her shoulders and thighs, like he was taking extra care not to accidentally dig into her battered and bruised flesh.

But it was impossible for her to not notice the way his entire body trembled. Not with strain to balance her weight, but with barely restrained anger that she could see up close in the eyes that burned brighter than all the flames that had caged them in. “You didn’t strike me as a fool before, but there isn’t any other word for it now.”

And despite the fact that she’d counted herself dead just moments ago, not a single part of her fought against his hold on her when his thundering steps carried them both outside of the hell she’d trapped herself in, bounding through the endless corridors and empty rooms that smoke billowed from.

There was no denying the small seed of desperation that didn’t want her body to just fall there; the part of her that had always wanted to outlive the years that she’d borne witness to. There was no capacity in her to ponder whether that deep desire was a selfish one or not, but for whatever reason it was she just wanted to nurse her wounds someplace far away and somehow make it—just not here.

And for some incomprehensible reason, it looked like Sylus wanted the same thing for her.

With what little energy remained in her, she reached up with trembling fingers, letting them fall against his cheek and leaving slick blood in their wake. His bared canines didn’t terrify her in the least as he grit his teeth, a pained look deepening the frown on his face. For a moment, it felt so simple, and yet so unfathomable. The words escaped her in an almost-inaudible mumble before she could think too deeply about them. “I can’t see bloodlust in you.”

A wet cough ransacked her being, the fragility of the moment shattering to pieces as Sylus broke eye contact in favor of tightening his grip on her and leaping onto the crumbling railing they’d both leant against dozens of times before. It couldn’t bear the weight of them combined, not when it had already borne the brunt of the human’s heavier siege attacks from afar. But it was enough for him to gnash his teeth together and catapult them into the ashy air, the sound of wings unfurling behind him as they shot upwards with a force and speed she hadn’t known he was even capable of. But had she ever cared to ask?

Would she ever get the chance to?

“About time you finally noticed, sweetie.” His voice was deceptively stable, but it didn’t match the urgency with which he pulled her even closer to his chest, nor did it fit the way his Adam’s apple at her line of sight bobbed up and down with the difficulty of swallowing. “But I’d much rather you keep the much-deserved apologies for later.”

There was a later?

Sylus’ weak attempt at haughty humor was the last thing on her mind before she finally stopped fighting the urge to let her stinging eyes fall shut in face of the cold whipping winds and the icy pain that had spread through her body so rapidly that she grew limp in his arms. There wasn’t an ounce of strength left in her to try and pull herself together—not even for the appearances that she’d been trying so hard to keep up around him.

Maybe she was imagining the sharp inhale she heard from him as she began to fade away in every sense but the bodily, where she was still cradled to the scarred planes of his chest, blood still oozing out and trickling into the ridges of his ebony claws that deftly brushed past her wings. So achingly gentle they were, like he was doing his best to not make things infinitely worse. Did it really matter to him if she slipped away for good? She had to know. Everything had become a jumbled mess that she couldn’t make head or tail of now. It all felt heavy, too heavy.

Later. At least there was a later.

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It was when she heard a chuckle in her ear that she was nearly petrified, her body rooted in her place as whispers curled like dark tendrils around her limbs and turned her rigid. “You playing it awfully safe,” the voice cooed—and though there was little she could discern from just the sound, she could still somehow tell that it was said mockingly. “So sheltered, and yet… so unguarded. You wouldn’t want people thinking you’re getting too lax, hmm?”

The faux sweetness in that tone made her wet her lips once, then twice. Asking ‘who are you’ somehow felt insufficient, and so she pushed past her trepidation and instead posed the question, “What exactly are you?” That—much to her dismay, knowing that for some reason it had satisfied the culprit to hear her say it like that—had earned herself a laugh that crawled down her spine and settled somewhere between her hips. It came with an alien ache; one that she couldn’t put a name to, and, frankly, terrified her just a little more than she wanted to let on to the eyes that seemed to have been following her.

“Something you wouldn’t want to see, sweetie,” the voice whispered slowly back, like it was relishing in the way every sound felt on their tongue, and the term of endearment lodged her breath in her throat.

She’d always been adored, that much was true, and many a time she’d heard “sweet dove” being lovingly passed between the people whose eyes sought no one but her… but no one had dipped their tongue in such poisonous honey like the owner of that voice had done, just to call her that saccharine name. Vigilance was futile when it lured her in like that with just one word, and yet she still tried to struggle against the stickiness of the web that had already begun to weave between her legs.

It was through that foggy haze that she managed to make out the faint outline of sharp crimson eyes burning right through her. That fierce gaze should’ve turned any human’s blood to ice and her bones to ash. But she was no mere human, and those eyes were no match to the morbid curiosity that thrummed right underneath her skin. Something that should’ve scared her away only made her want to know more.

Gathering every ounce of her courage, she met those eyes head-on, even as her pulse flew like a hummingbird. It was that stubbornness of hers that she’d been warned would be her demise, but right now, it might become her saving grace as she pushed the words out of her mouth. “Are you sure about that? Or do you simply fear showing yourself to me?”

She was within her realm, protected by her own power. Nothing could touch her, so long as she was on her guard. Those eyes couldn’t touch her, as uneasy as they made part of her feel.

Or at least, that’s what she told herself in order to placate the urge to flee that suddenly overcame her. It had gradually become too much for her, until her more base instincts had crept up on her. An almost imperceptible sound came from behind her, and she vaguely registered it as the faint ruffling of her feathers shifting into shape. Even her own body had started to shift into fight-or-flight mode, knowing something that her brain had yet to catch up to.

And yet, with fists clutching the silken sheets like they’d be able to ground her through this confrontation, she refused to back down in cowardice. Perhaps that was the correct choice to make, because the honeyed voice hummed in what seemed to be satisfaction, and with nothing more than a blink of her eyes, the glowering red eyes vanished into nothingness.

“Now, now, I don’t think doves are birds of prey,” came the light voice from behind her now. What felt like a breeze teased at the ends of the flyaways of her hair, leaving it to tumble down her shoulders like a lover’s caress. But despite how certain parts of her were betraying her and interpreting it as that, the rational part of her brain fought back against the syrupy feeling that now traced her nape oh-so-delicately. Eerily enough, the spoken words were almost breathed down her neck. “The truth of the matter is, you wouldn’t hurt me. There isn’t any flesh for you to tear at, should the craving for it arise. You know that as well as I do.”

It was her turn to laugh now, half-incredulously and with a pointed indignation that she knew would quickly sour into haughtiness if she let it fester. “You clearly don’t know me as well as you think you do. A bit too presumptuous for someone daring to trespass for the first time, don’t you think?”

There was a beat of silence after she’d turned her nose up in the air, but it didn’t linger. Not as much as the next words delightfully purred into her ear did, at least.

“Is it the first time, though?”

As though she were doused in ice, her breath caught and her limbs froze as the numbness spread to her nether regions. Though she’d never felt hunger, nor had she known what it felt like to have her stomach cave in, she faintly thought that it would probably feel somewhat like this—except that this was no worldly desire to be fulfilled. Quite the opposite, really; this was her body collapsing into itself at the mere thought of her sanctuary being barged into, and not just on this one occasion.

He—for only a male could be so bold and brash, and so arrogant at that—had been here before. He was only announcing it now.

Just as quickly as he’d pulled every one of her strings taut with just one heavy question, the oppressive sting of the air and the crawling of her skin disappeared. Like they’d never even been there before; like the entire interaction had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination, it all faded back into the white noise she’d grown so accustomed to her entire life. Only the ruffle of her feathers as she shuffled in place was any evidence that she hadn’t suddenly grown deaf and senseless.

Except now, there was no comfort in the silence she’d always known.

***

The second time she’d felt his penetrating gaze boring into her back—was he eyeing the smooth expanse of her skin, or was it some morbid fascination with her wings ruffling freely behind her?—she let it linger, like an aged wine that left more warmth the longer it remained settled. Her fingers were busy sifting through the delicate stems of the plants she’d so carefully plucked from her garden, flicking dirt off as she kept a mental count of her stores. She could afford to ignore him for a few minutes.

“It’s rude to stare.” Part of her felt a twinge of amusement at the way the impatience she’d felt behind her suddenly dissipated at her acknowledgment of his presence. Still, she knew better than to turn around and give him the satisfaction of meeting his crimson eyes. Would he challenge her presence once again, or would he lure her in with more silken words? She didn’t want to find out just yet. Some sense of self-preservation was still intact.

A huff of a laugh sounded from what felt like all around her. Rich as it was, it danced between the strands of her hair and every feather that pricked with something akin to delight. “And what am I supposed to be looking at? Your little herbs?”

At that, she arched her eyebrow and turned around, “Bold of you to call them little herbs. Are you not familiar with the practice at all?” They were anything but just that; she could weave an entire world with her bare fingertips and force it undone with nothing more than a few sprigs of those plants he so looked down upon.

But when she faced those sharp eyes that burned with something she couldn’t put her finger to, let alone name (and perhaps that, more than anything, was proof to any onlooker of just how isolated she’d become), she learnt that she’d fallen so easily into yet another trap of his. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve seen it firsthand, sweetie. Been on the receiving end of it, even.”

He’d goaded her into facing him. If she hadn’t been so irritated by him, she would’ve even called his actions childish and almost petulant. But now that he’d set off her agitation at her own failings and the nerve of him, her expression turned stony and she was forced to set her plants down, lest her clenching and unclenching of her knuckles damage the paper-thin leaves and fragile stems. They were just as sensitive as a human’s fickle emotions, and she couldn’t risk ruining an entire batch because of him—whoever he was.

It was that fact, that she knew quite literally nothing about the deep voice and sharp eyes that now seemingly haunted her living, that struck annoyance in her. It was a little petty of her, but she let it seep through her words when she spoke again, almost completely ignoring the implication of what he’d just said; that witchcraft was a weapon regularly wielded against him, like he was something malicious to ward off.

“Well, whoever it was that subjected you to that, they clearly haven’t been doing a good enough job of keeping you away, seeing as you’re still here.”

His laughter then was belly-deep, and her face heated up with a mix of that same unfamiliar warmth that toyed with her nerve endings and a bitter twinge of shame. She might’ve been on her own for long, but she knew from what she’d observed from mortals that this was him laughing at her words; at her expense. He made that much clear when he asked in that grating tone of his, “And you don’t think they’re that self-serving to just do enough to only protect themselves and no one else? You’re quite the optimist. As long as they were… safe, they couldn’t care less what I’d do after.”

Within the half-second she’d taken to steel her nerves in preparation of a reply, he’d somehow summoned a breeze to tease the pearls dripping between her collarbones. And as their melodious click-clack against the rising goosebumps on her skin and the fluttering in her core momentarily distracted her, a certain unfamiliar heaviness settled beside her. A strangled gasp caught in her throat at the sight of flesh and bones materializing beside her; too soon, and too close, and too sudden—

A face all hard lines and sharp angles met hers like it was a personal affront to let her look away. The bridge of his nose was high and curved, and she wondered—for a brief moment of silliness—if it had been there from birth, or if it was another proof of his run-in with those who intended to keep the devil out.

But, breathless (and momentarily stunned by the grace of too-long limbs that curled around muscles and sinew under flesh borne with scars) as she was, she wasn’t too sure if devils were supposed to be this wolfishly striking. An uneasy flickering of her eyes to the tail (and yes, it really was a tail of scales and leather snaking near her own feet) led her to believe that she should probably withhold from labeling him as one thing or the other.

What was he, exactly? And why was his fanged smirk not the bloodthirsty one of a beast, yet no less sharp?

“Are doves always this easily startled? I couldn’t imagine being this on edge my entire life, however long it may be.”

She chose to ignore the former half. “Not very long, if I’ll take your word for it,” she mumbled under her breath, before her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think it was an unwarranted reaction on their end if they chose to chase you away.”

“Oh, no, it certainly was,” he purred, satisfaction lapping at the edges of his words. “I wonder how long it will take for you to come to the same decision.” His eyes pointedly glanced at the uprooted herbs lying between them. “You might find yourself grateful for the fact that you have… aconite, was this?”

Refusing to let the surprise show on her face, she let the silence linger for a beat, before saying, “My guess is this isn’t your first encounter with wolfsbane?”

He made a non-committal sort of sound from the back of his throat, clawed fingers swirling through the air. “You’ll be hard-pressed to find something that I haven’t, ah… tried.” The sight of the jagged edges where nails would’ve normally been should’ve been more than enough of a deterrent. But to her, their movements were somehow hypnotizing, and she tracked them carefully, half out of caution, and half out of a fascination that she couldn’t resist or bother denying.

Swallowing past the apprehension lodged in her throat, she pressed on. “If you’re so sure I could do the exact same thing as them, then what gives you the gall to keep returning?”

There was the distinctly familiar sound of flapping, and for a moment she worried that her wings had grown a mind of their own—only to realize that it was him who was hovering a meter or so above the ground, his form dappled in shades of moonlight as he crossed his legs in mid-air. He could fly, she belatedly came to the realization, just as his chin nestled against his palm, elbow coming to rest on his knee. “Curiosity, you could call it,” he hummed. “And maybe hope that my very existence will serve as a reminder of the true nature of those you dote on, even from afar.”

It was her turn to openly laugh now, even as his eyes showed no amusement whatsoever. “Faulting the humans for knowing better than to trust you? I must say, that sounds a little desperate, even for someone like you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” came his light voice, as though he were relishing in hearing her replies; like he knew they were coming before they actually did. “I won’t stoop as low as to try convincing you now. It’ll be much more… entertaining to watch over time.”

No sooner had a sound of protest left her lips, before his very presence seemed to collapse onto itself, shrinking into a small wink in space-time. And once again he was gone, leaving her all alone in the silent night of her garden, with no more than a light thump of something falling to the soft ground to signify his leaving. Quite dazed and more than a little miffed, she looked down at her feet where the sound had come from.

A fresh laurel wreath had been dropped in front of her, right next to her aconite. Her fingers ached to touch the familiar leaves; to don them in shimmering shades of gold and wear them atop her head like she’d always done. Only this time, her heart hammered against her chest as she gazed upon it, and her stomach churned with every gasping breath she took, the coppery scent in the air dizzying.

The wreath had been splattered in blood.

***

There was no going around it: it was pure fear that rooted her to the spot every time his distorted whispers egged her on to walk to the brink of her balcony (and her sanity, if she had to admit it to herself). For weeks, she could hear the telltale signs of his appearance behind her; the temperature would drop around her, her breaths coming in chilly puffs, she would hear the drag of his tail against the marble floor, every rattle of every scale rattling in this emptiness, and his incomprehensible gaze would pin her form against the railings.

He never touched her, and never dared to come too close. But he didn’t have to, when one flicker of that flaming crimson gaze would force her to watch the scenes unfolding past her domain. And try as she might, she could never tear her eyes away from them.

“Look. Really look at them,” he’d slowly say, “Watch how they act, and then turn around and call my kind savages.” A low rumbling came from the depths of his chest, but she suspected that it was dragged out from even further depths; from a hollowed laceration that still oozed vitriol towards the humans who’d always worshipped her. “Beyond that false horizon they’re tearing at each other’s flesh, feasting on their innards. They’re bathed in the very same blood they claim I needlessly spill.”

Her eyes burned with the ache of having to strain them so hard. Did he really have to torment her with those visions of them shoving literal and metaphorical blades so deep that their entrails tainted every ground they tread upon? Was this torture necessary? And what did he hope to achieve with this?

A cross between a whimper and a plea escaped her. “They don’t—this isn’t how they normally act, and you know it. This… aberrance—”

A bark of venomous laughter, bleeding with bitterness and resentment, and he was already pulling away. “Only a fool would call it that. And you are no fool, sweetie.”

One of his hands reached up to thumb at one of the two horns atop his mussed silver hair, and as she glanced up, she belatedly noticed the multitude of pale gashes that littered the ebony spirals. And if she really focused, she could see that an entire portion of one of his horns was chopped cleanly off, though the edges were irregular; like someone had hacked at it with a blunt axe designed to agonize.

Pins and needles pricked at her throat, and she found it near impossible to swallow. There was the hint of a sting of betrayal that she couldn’t get past; like she’d been deceived by the very same people whose protection she’d sworn an oath to keep. How many times had she thought of them delicate beings that needed her aid, ones that lavished praise and worship upon her in relief? For how many eons had she bid her time crossing massive expanses of land with her beating wings, bestowing impenetrable wards and guarded fortresses of her own design upon them?

Why did it feel like some sort of treason, knowing that these humans had been the ones to cruelly saw away at him, like he was no more than a fish to gut? Even the most horrifying of creatures had never been treated this way in her realms, and they’d been reigning with terror over the lands that she now oversaw.

He could’ve… well, it might’ve been as a result of—

No. If she started making excuses for the irreparable harm inflicted on every visible part of his being, what other crimes would she start justifying? Where would it start, and where would it end?

And (this she thought to herself with an inkling of shame, despising how the question had even manifested in her mind in the first place) were the humans truly worth stripping herself of who she was and what she stood for, all just to exonerate them of the blame for what she could feel her own body recoiling from evidence of?

His lips curled upwards, but his smirk was devoid of any warmth. Something stung in her chest, but it wasn’t disappointment at his clear disdain. If anything, she knew that it wasn’t directed at her, but at the sour sting of visions she could only half-picture in dismay. It was that sheer resentfulness displayed openly on his face that she couldn’t bear to see.

“You’re leaving again,” she whispered, past the trepidation in her heart. It wasn’t a question, but a statement; a realization that he was only backing away to leave her to her worst thoughts. It was what she’d often needed after those surprise visits of his: time to register every sight her eyes had captured, and every harsh spit of profanity that was carried over in the wind. “After this…”

“You don’t expect me to stay, do you?” he asked, though he certainly didn’t expect an answer. “You can have your fill admiring them from afar. There’s more for me than this glorified marble chapel.”

His words should’ve made her ire rise. She should’ve felt indignation, fury even, at the demeaning choice of vocabulary; at the implication that what symbolized her entire existence was nothing but a façade of polished grandeur, built to trap her within her worshippers’ faith and blind her to the vile horrors they committed under the blanket of the night. But with the still-fresh memory of mangled gore and sickening lies that festered between those she’d been guardian to for millennia, she had no will to fight back and deny it.

In fact, she hardly noticed his wordless departure, too caught up in keeping herself upright, skin pale as a sheet of paper and knuckles white as she desperately clutched her balcony railings. The effort would kill her, if the stomach-churning visions she couldn’t blink away didn’t force her to her knees first.

***

Scrubbing didn’t work. Digging her fingernails into her flesh and scraping away did nothing at all but inflame her skin. Still it remained stained with the crimson color, and the coppery scent poisoned every cell in her body as she futilely scratched at the traces that refused to go away.

Or maybe they had, a long time ago. She wouldn’t know; wouldn’t notice if the entire world collapsed and fell away from around her. In a trance that she couldn’t escape, haggard hiccups left her shaking body as her knees buckled underneath the weight of both her body and the sins she’d been soaked in. An unwitting bystander, yes, but the blood that splattered across the treasured pearls on her collar and the shimmering fabric across her chest made her stomach roil.

With a heave that threatened to spill the contents of her stomach all over herself, she struggled against the agonizing pain of her entire body trapping her wings underneath her. Every single feather was slicked and stiffened by the slowly-drying blood that it was soaked in, and what possibly were the entrails of those who’d been slaughtered like they were no more than pigs in a sty.

The very thought and the images that had imprinted in her mind left her gagging violently against the cold marble floor, her fingernails digging freshly bleeding crescents into her flesh as she cried out—for help? For salvation?

Or for forgiveness for having stood there so utterly uselessly, frozen in place and eyes blown wide in the panic that had descended upon her after she’d realized that no one would be saving the humans from themselves, and that she was a witness silenced by her own fears? Maybe it really just was for someone to erase every wicked snarl and gluttonous glare past her like she was invisible from her memory; for someone to somehow absolve her of the crime of watching on, rooted where she stood as they ripped each other apart.

Would she ever be able to cleanse herself of that?

“Martyrdom won’t do anything for them now.”

She ground her molars so fiercely that she was so sure they would’ve splintered if she hadn’t been immune to it. Squeezing her eyes shut couldn’t block out the heavy sigh that came from above her, and neither could it stop the assault of gut-wrenchingly horrific scenes in her mind. All it served was to make her seem like a helpless dove, trapped in a cage of its own formation. How had she not seen the irony of it all, the fact that her own motif now was a mockery of her sheer uselessness in the face of humans’ greed?

Ignoring him was pointless, because she knew by now that he wasn’t the type to take that as a sign to leave. In fact, he might take that as a challenge and test the boundaries of her now-fragile mind. And sure enough, his shadow didn’t move further away—in fact, it only grew closer as she heard the rustling of his leather fabrics and the faint rattling of his scales being dragged across the floor.

Before she could even register the unwelcome proximity, calloused palms were firmly wrapping around her wrists, stilling her frenzied scratching. For a few moments she fought against the force, her fingers itching to dig at the raw flesh of her forearms and uncaring whether or not her skin had long been cleaned of any stains. But soon enough, her hands fell limply, all the energy suddenly draining from her body in seconds.

“You’ve made yourself bleed,” he quietly pointed out, calloused pads of his thumbs brushing against the blood beading at her fingernails’ marks. “Do you think they deserve to take this too from you? More than they already thirst for it?”

Something vibrated deeply within her chest, like a chord that had been struck too hard to the point that it nearly snapped in half. All she could do to stop herself from fracturing like pressurized glass was murmur (in a sort of hopeless, defeated way) under her breath, “As if you’re any different. Don’t pretend you don’t lust for it too.”

He grunted, apparent displeasure seeping into his words, though his hands still grasped hers tightly without hesitation, and his body curled up on the floor beside her. “I don’t sink my teeth into the vulnerable flesh of doves.”

“My mistake. You only threaten to.”

Now that had him halting. His hands unfurled from around hers, his grip loosening but not leaving her entirely. “I think I would remember something like that, sweetie.”

“Feigning innocence doesn’t suit you,” she finally snapped, a tremor going through her body as the memory of that day passed through her mind in the same way it had for the past weeks. She had half a mind to snatch her hands away, but the part of her that couldn’t bear to be left alone to her thoughts refused to let go. “You knew that you were marking me as next when you dropped that blood-stained laurel by my feet.”

When he barked out a laugh, she could hear the disbelief in his voice. “You think I bothered to do that myself? You truly think such underhanded tricks would be mine?”

“The place is teeming with visitors other than yourself that I keep by my side, as I’m sure you can see.” There was little sense in what she was saying now, but so much acridity spilling from her lips as his hardened face came into her swimming vision. “Definitely a testament to the number of possible suspects—”

“I don’t stoop so low,” he ground out, the corners of his lips curled up, though it certainly was no smile. “And hadn’t it occurred to you that maybe that gesture had another, more blatantly obvious meaning?”

Scoffing, she pointed her chin at him in a vain attempt at defiance; something that surely wouldn’t come across successfully, given that her body was still visibly weak for any passerby to notice, let alone for his sharp gaze to catch. “What else other than the fact that you, for some reason, want me gone?”

His eyes narrowed, until they were burning flames of red in slits that zeroed in on only her. “The fact that near damn everyone else did.”

Needles she'd now grown too familiar with pricked at her throat and she had to force herself to blink the dizziness away. “What’s that supposed to mean?” It didn’t make any sense to her, so it couldn’t be true—though the way her entire body grew ice-cold at his words was evidence enough that it knew something, innately. Still, she made weak attempts at an argument. “The humans hardly remember I exist now. They’re too caught up in their own endless cruelty to remember a relic of the past.”

Was that bitterness that leaked into her voice, or was it a twisted grief she’d thought she’d buried, yet hadn’t quite?

“Clearly not enough, if they still took the time out of their days to deface every statue of yours and pour pig’s blood over your laurel wreath offerings,” he snarled, an anger that had grown roots and branches evident in every word he spat out. It was that unwavering fury in his gaze that she couldn’t escape; that she felt compelled to meet. “They claim you’d abandoned them. That you’re at fault for their vile pursuits. Even after you slaved away in a prison of your own making for their safety for eons, they chose to defile your name. They strip you of your wings on every dias, and yet you still think of them above this?”

His chest was heaving as the anger in his eyes melted into a desperation she wasn’t unfamiliar with: it was the kind where you’d do anything to force someone to stomach poison to save them. Silver strands of hair fell in a mess from his growing agitation, and it was that mussed look of his that drove the final nail in the coffin. He was urging her to see that she was no longer exempt from the fire of their immense hatred. Every snowy white feather and every span of silk stretched across her skin was something they wished to rip apart to destruction, till she was no more than a mangled mess of remains.

And for some reason, he wasn’t part of that crowd.

“Your name,” she whispered, barely audible, voice shaking as hard as her body did in his hold. Torment kept her body upright when her nerves couldn’t, and this time it was her clutching at his scarred arms like he was the one thing keeping her afloat in the blackness of uncharted waters. “Your name so that I can call upon you again. I cannot… I will not stay here to have my throat slit over my herbs, over my pavilion, mine—”

The lips she’d once thought to herself were sinful parted, and a sound escaped the back of his throat, all stuttering clicks and deep snarls that she’d never heard—not in this life, at least. And yet her bones rattled as she heard it spoken, a resounding thud almost painful between her ribs. It was like an ancient language that had long been buried in the recesses of her mind, where she’d try to grasp at and fail, like smoke slipping through her hands. But against all reason, she recognized it; knew what every syllable uttered stood for, and what it meant in the tongue she’d adopted millennia ago. Her skin sung in recognition of the name that she now knew.

Sylus. Sylus. Sylus.

***

With every inhale, she could practically taste the ash that blackened her lungs. She took her breaths with wheezing gasps that were alarming enough to send herself into a state of panic just after hearing them herself. Maybe that made her weak, to crumble in terror at the sound of her struggling to breathe and get her chest moving. Some dead weight trampled her chest until her ribs caved in under the pressure, like someone’s million-tonne foot was lodged between her sternum and her lungs.

It hurt. It hurt. That was the only coherent thought that her brain could conjure up at the moment. Everything hurt. She was in so much indescribable pain that she could barely feel the searing underneath her skin with the agony that coursed through her veins. It burned like nothing else had done before, and she couldn’t do anything about it, save for letting the tears (the ones her pride and multitude of stages of denial had barred her from) cascade down her ruddy cheeks. It felt like her bones were creaking with every rattling breath she tried to take, and very distantly, her head miles away from where her body had failed her, she thought that it felt like her body wasn't even hers anymore.

Her domain had always only been lit up by the stars and the moonlight that bathed the marble floors and dressed the intricately carved arches in moonshine, and the sun that cast dancing shadows across the expanses of the grounds where her plants and herbs flitted in the breeze. It was never too hot or too cold, the lighting never too intense so as to be blinding, nor too dim to the point that she couldn’t move without her muscle memory. She could always hear the distant whispers of those who came before her; of those who called her name underneath the blankets of nighttime. It had all served a purpose, to settle into that rhythm.

But now? The entire antrum was doused in an angry red, orange licking away at the crumbling columns and tapestries she’d woven centuries of her life into. The gold that gnawed at every life force in her gardens wasn’t the same shimmering shade that embossed her tassels and her draped clothes, but a sickening sulfur that strongly smelled of sickness and hunger that ate away at everything that crossed its path. An all-consuming fire chased away every breath she’d uttered into this space, turning it into a lifeless vacuum where nothing survived, and it was so bright that it burned the dry backs of her eyelids even as she squeezed them shut.

All she could hear (aside from her heartbeat racing in her ears, and the frantically pulsating blood coursing through her as she slumped into a motionless lump) were the faint, harsh peals of laughter as they echoed off her sacred walls, and the striking of metal against the ground as they threw their axes down–but not before they’d hacked through the everlasting trees that had guarded her like sentinels for centuries. The sounds were every bit as malicious as the sights, perhaps even more so when both her own weak heart and the ash in the air had blinded her.

It was futile to try and find anything in their gleaming, beady eyes, anyways, other than pure sadism and the need to destroy everything in its entirety. He’d warned her before; Sylus had already told her that it was just a matter of time before they came for her. His prophecy now rang true, proving itself as she lay collapsed amidst the remains of her life, all set aflame and quickly returning to the earth as nothingness. Every inch of her screamed to fight through it, to push back against their frenzied whirlwind of malice, but she couldn’t move a single limb, try as she might.

How could she, when they’d managed to send arrows hurtling towards the base of her feathered wings, right before the wall of fire had separated her helpless body from them? How could she, when the pain had been so immense that it tore a blood-curdling scream from her depths, the poisoned metal tearing at her flesh and ripping the skeleton of her wings to shreds? She knew that they’d dipped the tips of their weapons in the deadly juices of her own herbs, the very same ones she’d nurtured since she’d known she’d been born to. But she’d never imagined that the burn of hemlock would be so torturously slow yet instant, tearing at the seams of her sanity with every paralyzing drip into her vessels and throughout her body.

And the humans? They only shouted and cried out in sick delight, her suffering a victory for them to celebrate. It didn’t even matter that they couldn’t deal the final blow, now that the curtain of flames had ironically shielded her from them hacking at her flesh–no, perhaps to them, it was another cause for mirth that they leave her to her slow demise, either for the fire to turn her to dust, for the poison to still her heart, or for her to drown in a pool of her own blood, wings twitching as she was drained dry.

Without so much as a glance back, they stomped away, feet snuffing out any sign of life that dared to peek past their hellstorm. Unbridled bloodlust besmirched their trails, and it only cried out one name: hers.

Her bitten-through lips couldn’t even utter the words that could be her saving. Crying out a name was a pointless act. Who would she ask for? And now that she’d been so completely and utterly abandoned, who would even come for her at a time like this, when it seemed that everyone on this wretched earth had conspired against her? She had no egotistical delusions that drove her to think that she was the only target for their loathing, but she certainly made an easy one that they could all pin all the blame on. Now that she was ostracized by the same people who’d once burnt incense at her altars, she couldn’t be so naive as to think that anyone other than herself could be trusted now.

Look where her gullibility had gotten her. With lungs burning with the acrid smoke she gulped in and limbs half-paralyzed over her almost-shredded wings, all she could feel was her grip on her life slowly slipping away. Maybe part of that had truly been because of the arrow that now nearly threatened to pierce all the other side through her guts with a pain so intolerable it had her teeth chattering as she moaned out in agony, but it was also partially because somewhere in her subconscious she knew that there was no point in fighting against it. What would be waiting for her after this? Her own stupidity had landed her in this open tomb designed to bury her alive. A symbol of the times changing at her expense, if you will.

Perhaps she deserved to die like this, all alone and with no trace of her existence left behind but the hatred they would always have for her.

She didn’t have time to dwell on that depressingly numbed down thought. A crack and swish sounded through the hot air as time and space warped in front of her, a familiar figure materializing in front of her barely-opened eyes. Still, she didn’t dare hope. Hope had landed her here, and now she was tempted to just close her itching eyes and let the encroaching flames lick at the soles of her feet. “You don’t get to give up that easily.” Sylus’ deep voice was sharp as it cut through the murky haze. “Not after they’ve desecrated everything that stood in their paths.”

Her trembling lips parted. “Too… too tired,” she managed to croak out. “I have,” she tried to swallow past the knives embedded in her throat, “I have nothing now.”

“You’ve given them precisely what they want, then, if that’s all you have to say as an excuse for just lying there” he spat out, and it was the closest thing he’d ever had to disgust when talking to her, his tail curling up in sharp figures that should’ve been intimidating but now only aroused a faint feeling of despondency. “Being unable to get up, that I could at least understand. But you don’t even want to accept help in the name of feeling sorry for yourself.”

“If you’re here to berate me, I’d rather you,” she paused with a violent shiver despite the scorching heat as the nerves of her back were pulled taut in a sudden lancinating pain that she couldn’t hide. “I’d rather you have your fill of seeing me suffer and leave–”

“Foolish,” he harshly interrupted her, lunging forward as the first embers of the fire dug teeth into the flesh of her feet. Strong arms slipped underneath her body, hauling her upwards and off the scalding marble floor. In the midst of the feeling that she was being ripped apart from the outside in, her brain didn’t register the surprising gentleness with which his claws curled around her shoulders and thighs, like he was taking extra care not to accidentally dig into her battered and bruised flesh.

But it was impossible for her to not notice the way his entire body trembled. Not with strain to balance her weight, but with barely restrained anger that she could see up close in the eyes that burned brighter than all the flames that had caged them in. “You didn’t strike me as a fool before, but there isn’t any other word for it now.”

And despite the fact that she’d counted herself dead just moments ago, not a single part of her fought against his hold on her when his thundering steps carried them both outside of the hell she’d trapped herself in, bounding through the endless corridors and empty rooms that smoke billowed from.

There was no denying the small seed of desperation that didn’t want her body to just fall there; the part of her that had always wanted to outlive the years that she’d borne witness to. There was no capacity in her to ponder whether that deep desire was a selfish one or not, but for whatever reason it was she just wanted to nurse her wounds someplace far away and somehow make it—just not here.

And for some incomprehensible reason, it looked like Sylus wanted the same thing for her.

With what little energy remained in her, she reached up with trembling fingers, letting them fall against his cheek and leaving slick blood in their wake. His bared canines didn’t terrify her in the least as he grit his teeth, a pained look deepening the frown on his face. For a moment, it felt so simple, and yet so unfathomable. The words escaped her in an almost-inaudible mumble before she could think too deeply about them. “I can’t see bloodlust in you.”

A wet cough ransacked her being, the fragility of the moment shattering to pieces as Sylus broke eye contact in favor of tightening his grip on her and leaping onto the crumbling railing they’d both leant against dozens of times before. It couldn’t bear the weight of them combined, not when it had already borne the brunt of the human’s heavier siege attacks from afar. But it was enough for him to gnash his teeth together and catapult them into the ashy air, the sound of wings unfurling behind him as they shot upwards with a force and speed she hadn’t known he was even capable of. But had she ever cared to ask?

Would she ever get the chance to?

“About time you finally noticed, sweetie.” His voice was deceptively stable, but it didn’t match the urgency with which he pulled her even closer to his chest, nor did it fit the way his Adam’s apple at her line of sight bobbed up and down with the difficulty of swallowing. “But I’d much rather you keep the much-deserved apologies for later.”

There was a later?

Sylus’ weak attempt at haughty humor was the last thing on her mind before she finally stopped fighting the urge to let her stinging eyes fall shut in face of the cold whipping winds and the icy pain that had spread through her body so rapidly that she grew limp in his arms. There wasn’t an ounce of strength left in her to try and pull herself together—not even for the appearances that she’d been trying so hard to keep up around him.

Maybe she was imagining the sharp inhale she heard from him as she began to fade away in every sense but the bodily, where she was still cradled to the scarred planes of his chest, blood still oozing out and trickling into the ridges of his ebony claws that deftly brushed past her wings. So achingly gentle they were, like he was doing his best to not make things infinitely worse. Did it really matter to him if she slipped away for good? She had to know. Everything had become a jumbled mess that she couldn’t make head or tail of now. It all felt heavy, too heavy.

Later. At least there was a later.

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It was when she heard a chuckle in her ear that she was nearly petrified, her body rooted in her place as whispers curled like dark tendrils around her limbs and turned her rigid. “You playing it awfully safe,” the voice cooed—and though there was little she could discern from just the sound, she could still somehow tell that it was said mockingly. “So sheltered, and yet… so unguarded. You wouldn’t want people thinking you’re getting too lax, hmm?”

The faux sweetness in that tone made her wet her lips once, then twice. Asking ‘who are you’ somehow felt insufficient, and so she pushed past her trepidation and instead posed the question, “What exactly are you?” That—much to her dismay, knowing that for some reason it had satisfied the culprit to hear her say it like that—had earned herself a laugh that crawled down her spine and settled somewhere between her hips. It came with an alien ache; one that she couldn’t put a name to, and, frankly, terrified her just a little more than she wanted to let on to the eyes that seemed to have been following her.

“Something you wouldn’t want to see, sweetie,” the voice whispered slowly back, like it was relishing in the way every sound felt on their tongue, and the term of endearment lodged her breath in her throat.

She’d always been adored, that much was true, and many a time she’d heard “sweet dove” being lovingly passed between the people whose eyes sought no one but her… but no one had dipped their tongue in such poisonous honey like the owner of that voice had done, just to call her that saccharine name. Vigilance was futile when it lured her in like that with just one word, and yet she still tried to struggle against the stickiness of the web that had already begun to weave between her legs.

It was through that foggy haze that she managed to make out the faint outline of sharp crimson eyes burning right through her. That fierce gaze should’ve turned any human’s blood to ice and her bones to ash. But she was no mere human, and those eyes were no match to the morbid curiosity that thrummed right underneath her skin. Something that should’ve scared her away only made her want to know more.

Gathering every ounce of her courage, she met those eyes head-on, even as her pulse flew like a hummingbird. It was that stubbornness of hers that she’d been warned would be her demise, but right now, it might become her saving grace as she pushed the words out of her mouth. “Are you sure about that? Or do you simply fear showing yourself to me?”

She was within her realm, protected by her own power. Nothing could touch her, so long as she was on her guard. Those eyes couldn’t touch her, as uneasy as they made part of her feel.

Or at least, that’s what she told herself in order to placate the urge to flee that suddenly overcame her. It had gradually become too much for her, until her more base instincts had crept up on her. An almost imperceptible sound came from behind her, and she vaguely registered it as the faint ruffling of her feathers shifting into shape. Even her own body had started to shift into fight-or-flight mode, knowing something that her brain had yet to catch up to.

And yet, with fists clutching the silken sheets like they’d be able to ground her through this confrontation, she refused to back down in cowardice. Perhaps that was the correct choice to make, because the honeyed voice hummed in what seemed to be satisfaction, and with nothing more than a blink of her eyes, the glowering red eyes vanished into nothingness.

“Now, now, I don’t think doves are birds of prey,” came the light voice from behind her now. What felt like a breeze teased at the ends of the flyaways of her hair, leaving it to tumble down her shoulders like a lover’s caress. But despite how certain parts of her were betraying her and interpreting it as that, the rational part of her brain fought back against the syrupy feeling that now traced her nape oh-so-delicately. Eerily enough, the spoken words were almost breathed down her neck. “The truth of the matter is, you wouldn’t hurt me. There isn’t any flesh for you to tear at, should the craving for it arise. You know that as well as I do.”

It was her turn to laugh now, half-incredulously and with a pointed indignation that she knew would quickly sour into haughtiness if she let it fester. “You clearly don’t know me as well as you think you do. A bit too presumptuous for someone daring to trespass for the first time, don’t you think?”

There was a beat of silence after she’d turned her nose up in the air, but it didn’t linger. Not as much as the next words delightfully purred into her ear did, at least.

“Is it the first time, though?”

As though she were doused in ice, her breath caught and her limbs froze as the numbness spread to her nether regions. Though she’d never felt hunger, nor had she known what it felt like to have her stomach cave in, she faintly thought that it would probably feel somewhat like this—except that this was no worldly desire to be fulfilled. Quite the opposite, really; this was her body collapsing into itself at the mere thought of her sanctuary being barged into, and not just on this one occasion.

He—for only a male could be so bold and brash, and so arrogant at that—had been here before. He was only announcing it now.

Just as quickly as he’d pulled every one of her strings taut with just one heavy question, the oppressive sting of the air and the crawling of her skin disappeared. Like they’d never even been there before; like the entire interaction had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination, it all faded back into the white noise she’d grown so accustomed to her entire life. Only the ruffle of her feathers as she shuffled in place was any evidence that she hadn’t suddenly grown deaf and senseless.

Except now, there was no comfort in the silence she’d always known.

***

The second time she’d felt his penetrating gaze boring into her back—was he eyeing the smooth expanse of her skin, or was it some morbid fascination with her wings ruffling freely behind her?—she let it linger, like an aged wine that left more warmth the longer it remained settled. Her fingers were busy sifting through the delicate stems of the plants she’d so carefully plucked from her garden, flicking dirt off as she kept a mental count of her stores. She could afford to ignore him for a few minutes.

“It’s rude to stare.” Part of her felt a twinge of amusement at the way the impatience she’d felt behind her suddenly dissipated at her acknowledgment of his presence. Still, she knew better than to turn around and give him the satisfaction of meeting his crimson eyes. Would he challenge her presence once again, or would he lure her in with more silken words? She didn’t want to find out just yet. Some sense of self-preservation was still intact.

A huff of a laugh sounded from what felt like all around her. Rich as it was, it danced between the strands of her hair and every feather that pricked with something akin to delight. “And what am I supposed to be looking at? Your little herbs?”

At that, she arched her eyebrow and turned around, “Bold of you to call them little herbs. Are you not familiar with the practice at all?” They were anything but just that; she could weave an entire world with her bare fingertips and force it undone with nothing more than a few sprigs of those plants he so looked down upon.

But when she faced those sharp eyes that burned with something she couldn’t put her finger to, let alone name (and perhaps that, more than anything, was proof to any onlooker of just how isolated she’d become), she learnt that she’d fallen so easily into yet another trap of his. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve seen it firsthand, sweetie. Been on the receiving end of it, even.”

He’d goaded her into facing him. If she hadn’t been so irritated by him, she would’ve even called his actions childish and almost petulant. But now that he’d set off her agitation at her own failings and the nerve of him, her expression turned stony and she was forced to set her plants down, lest her clenching and unclenching of her knuckles damage the paper-thin leaves and fragile stems. They were just as sensitive as a human’s fickle emotions, and she couldn’t risk ruining an entire batch because of him—whoever he was.

It was that fact, that she knew quite literally nothing about the deep voice and sharp eyes that now seemingly haunted her living, that struck annoyance in her. It was a little petty of her, but she let it seep through her words when she spoke again, almost completely ignoring the implication of what he’d just said; that witchcraft was a weapon regularly wielded against him, like he was something malicious to ward off.

“Well, whoever it was that subjected you to that, they clearly haven’t been doing a good enough job of keeping you away, seeing as you’re still here.”

His laughter then was belly-deep, and her face heated up with a mix of that same unfamiliar warmth that toyed with her nerve endings and a bitter twinge of shame. She might’ve been on her own for long, but she knew from what she’d observed from mortals that this was him laughing at her words; at her expense. He made that much clear when he asked in that grating tone of his, “And you don’t think they’re that self-serving to just do enough to only protect themselves and no one else? You’re quite the optimist. As long as they were… safe, they couldn’t care less what I’d do after.”

Within the half-second she’d taken to steel her nerves in preparation of a reply, he’d somehow summoned a breeze to tease the pearls dripping between her collarbones. And as their melodious click-clack against the rising goosebumps on her skin and the fluttering in her core momentarily distracted her, a certain unfamiliar heaviness settled beside her. A strangled gasp caught in her throat at the sight of flesh and bones materializing beside her; too soon, and too close, and too sudden—

A face all hard lines and sharp angles met hers like it was a personal affront to let her look away. The bridge of his nose was high and curved, and she wondered—for a brief moment of silliness—if it had been there from birth, or if it was another proof of his run-in with those who intended to keep the devil out.

But, breathless (and momentarily stunned by the grace of too-long limbs that curled around muscles and sinew under flesh borne with scars) as she was, she wasn’t too sure if devils were supposed to be this wolfishly striking. An uneasy flickering of her eyes to the tail (and yes, it really was a tail of scales and leather snaking near her own feet) led her to believe that she should probably withhold from labeling him as one thing or the other.

What was he, exactly? And why was his fanged smirk not the bloodthirsty one of a beast, yet no less sharp?

“Are doves always this easily startled? I couldn’t imagine being this on edge my entire life, however long it may be.”

She chose to ignore the former half. “Not very long, if I’ll take your word for it,” she mumbled under her breath, before her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think it was an unwarranted reaction on their end if they chose to chase you away.”

“Oh, no, it certainly was,” he purred, satisfaction lapping at the edges of his words. “I wonder how long it will take for you to come to the same decision.” His eyes pointedly glanced at the uprooted herbs lying between them. “You might find yourself grateful for the fact that you have… aconite, was this?”

Refusing to let the surprise show on her face, she let the silence linger for a beat, before saying, “My guess is this isn’t your first encounter with wolfsbane?”

He made a non-committal sort of sound from the back of his throat, clawed fingers swirling through the air. “You’ll be hard-pressed to find something that I haven’t, ah… tried.” The sight of the jagged edges where nails would’ve normally been should’ve been more than enough of a deterrent. But to her, their movements were somehow hypnotizing, and she tracked them carefully, half out of caution, and half out of a fascination that she couldn’t resist or bother denying.

Swallowing past the apprehension lodged in her throat, she pressed on. “If you’re so sure I could do the exact same thing as them, then what gives you the gall to keep returning?”

There was the distinctly familiar sound of flapping, and for a moment she worried that her wings had grown a mind of their own—only to realize that it was him who was hovering a meter or so above the ground, his form dappled in shades of moonlight as he crossed his legs in mid-air. He could fly, she belatedly came to the realization, just as his chin nestled against his palm, elbow coming to rest on his knee. “Curiosity, you could call it,” he hummed. “And maybe hope that my very existence will serve as a reminder of the true nature of those you dote on, even from afar.”

It was her turn to openly laugh now, even as his eyes showed no amusement whatsoever. “Faulting the humans for knowing better than to trust you? I must say, that sounds a little desperate, even for someone like you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” came his light voice, as though he were relishing in hearing her replies; like he knew they were coming before they actually did. “I won’t stoop as low as to try convincing you now. It’ll be much more… entertaining to watch over time.”

No sooner had a sound of protest left her lips, before his very presence seemed to collapse onto itself, shrinking into a small wink in space-time. And once again he was gone, leaving her all alone in the silent night of her garden, with no more than a light thump of something falling to the soft ground to signify his leaving. Quite dazed and more than a little miffed, she looked down at her feet where the sound had come from.

A fresh laurel wreath had been dropped in front of her, right next to her aconite. Her fingers ached to touch the familiar leaves; to don them in shimmering shades of gold and wear them atop her head like she’d always done. Only this time, her heart hammered against her chest as she gazed upon it, and her stomach churned with every gasping breath she took, the coppery scent in the air dizzying.

The wreath had been splattered in blood.

***

There was no going around it: it was pure fear that rooted her to the spot every time his distorted whispers egged her on to walk to the brink of her balcony (and her sanity, if she had to admit it to herself). For weeks, she could hear the telltale signs of his appearance behind her; the temperature would drop around her, her breaths coming in chilly puffs, she would hear the drag of his tail against the marble floor, every rattle of every scale rattling in this emptiness, and his incomprehensible gaze would pin her form against the railings.

He never touched her, and never dared to come too close. But he didn’t have to, when one flicker of that flaming crimson gaze would force her to watch the scenes unfolding past her domain. And try as she might, she could never tear her eyes away from them.

“Look. Really look at them,” he’d slowly say, “Watch how they act, and then turn around and call my kind savages.” A low rumbling came from the depths of his chest, but she suspected that it was dragged out from even further depths; from a hollowed laceration that still oozed vitriol towards the humans who’d always worshipped her. “Beyond that false horizon they’re tearing at each other’s flesh, feasting on their innards. They’re bathed in the very same blood they claim I needlessly spill.”

Her eyes burned with the ache of having to strain them so hard. Did he really have to torment her with those visions of them shoving literal and metaphorical blades so deep that their entrails tainted every ground they tread upon? Was this torture necessary? And what did he hope to achieve with this?

A cross between a whimper and a plea escaped her. “They don’t—this isn’t how they normally act, and you know it. This… aberrance—”

A bark of venomous laughter, bleeding with bitterness and resentment, and he was already pulling away. “Only a fool would call it that. And you are no fool, sweetie.”

One of his hands reached up to thumb at one of the two horns atop his mussed silver hair, and as she glanced up, she belatedly noticed the multitude of pale gashes that littered the ebony spirals. And if she really focused, she could see that an entire portion of one of his horns was chopped cleanly off, though the edges were irregular; like someone had hacked at it with a blunt axe designed to agonize.

Pins and needles pricked at her throat, and she found it near impossible to swallow. There was the hint of a sting of betrayal that she couldn’t get past; like she’d been deceived by the very same people whose protection she’d sworn an oath to keep. How many times had she thought of them delicate beings that needed her aid, ones that lavished praise and worship upon her in relief? For how many eons had she bid her time crossing massive expanses of land with her beating wings, bestowing impenetrable wards and guarded fortresses of her own design upon them?

Why did it feel like some sort of treason, knowing that these humans had been the ones to cruelly saw away at him, like he was no more than a fish to gut? Even the most horrifying of creatures had never been treated this way in her realms, and they’d been reigning with terror over the lands that she now oversaw.

He could’ve… well, it might’ve been as a result of—

No. If she started making excuses for the irreparable harm inflicted on every visible part of his being, what other crimes would she start justifying? Where would it start, and where would it end?

And (this she thought to herself with an inkling of shame, despising how the question had even manifested in her mind in the first place) were the humans truly worth stripping herself of who she was and what she stood for, all just to exonerate them of the blame for what she could feel her own body recoiling from evidence of?

His lips curled upwards, but his smirk was devoid of any warmth. Something stung in her chest, but it wasn’t disappointment at his clear disdain. If anything, she knew that it wasn’t directed at her, but at the sour sting of visions she could only half-picture in dismay. It was that sheer resentfulness displayed openly on his face that she couldn’t bear to see.

“You’re leaving again,” she whispered, past the trepidation in her heart. It wasn’t a question, but a statement; a realization that he was only backing away to leave her to her worst thoughts. It was what she’d often needed after those surprise visits of his: time to register every sight her eyes had captured, and every harsh spit of profanity that was carried over in the wind. “After this…”

“You don’t expect me to stay, do you?” he asked, though he certainly didn’t expect an answer. “You can have your fill admiring them from afar. There’s more for me than this glorified marble chapel.”

His words should’ve made her ire rise. She should’ve felt indignation, fury even, at the demeaning choice of vocabulary; at the implication that what symbolized her entire existence was nothing but a façade of polished grandeur, built to trap her within her worshippers’ faith and blind her to the vile horrors they committed under the blanket of the night. But with the still-fresh memory of mangled gore and sickening lies that festered between those she’d been guardian to for millennia, she had no will to fight back and deny it.

In fact, she hardly noticed his wordless departure, too caught up in keeping herself upright, skin pale as a sheet of paper and knuckles white as she desperately clutched her balcony railings. The effort would kill her, if the stomach-churning visions she couldn’t blink away didn’t force her to her knees first.

***

Scrubbing didn’t work. Digging her fingernails into her flesh and scraping away did nothing at all but inflame her skin. Still it remained stained with the crimson color, and the coppery scent poisoned every cell in her body as she futilely scratched at the traces that refused to go away.

Or maybe they had, a long time ago. She wouldn’t know; wouldn’t notice if the entire world collapsed and fell away from around her. In a trance that she couldn’t escape, haggard hiccups left her shaking body as her knees buckled underneath the weight of both her body and the sins she’d been soaked in. An unwitting bystander, yes, but the blood that splattered across the treasured pearls on her collar and the shimmering fabric across her chest made her stomach roil.

With a heave that threatened to spill the contents of her stomach all over herself, she struggled against the agonizing pain of her entire body trapping her wings underneath her. Every single feather was slicked and stiffened by the slowly-drying blood that it was soaked in, and what possibly were the entrails of those who’d been slaughtered like they were no more than pigs in a sty.

The very thought and the images that had imprinted in her mind left her gagging violently against the cold marble floor, her fingernails digging freshly bleeding crescents into her flesh as she cried out—for help? For salvation?

Or for forgiveness for having stood there so utterly uselessly, frozen in place and eyes blown wide in the panic that had descended upon her after she’d realized that no one would be saving the humans from themselves, and that she was a witness silenced by her own fears? Maybe it really just was for someone to erase every wicked snarl and gluttonous glare past her like she was invisible from her memory; for someone to somehow absolve her of the crime of watching on, rooted where she stood as they ripped each other apart.

Would she ever be able to cleanse herself of that?

“Martyrdom won’t do anything for them now.”

She ground her molars so fiercely that she was so sure they would’ve splintered if she hadn’t been immune to it. Squeezing her eyes shut couldn’t block out the heavy sigh that came from above her, and neither could it stop the assault of gut-wrenchingly horrific scenes in her mind. All it served was to make her seem like a helpless dove, trapped in a cage of its own formation. How had she not seen the irony of it all, the fact that her own motif now was a mockery of her sheer uselessness in the face of humans’ greed?

Ignoring him was pointless, because she knew by now that he wasn’t the type to take that as a sign to leave. In fact, he might take that as a challenge and test the boundaries of her now-fragile mind. And sure enough, his shadow didn’t move further away—in fact, it only grew closer as she heard the rustling of his leather fabrics and the faint rattling of his scales being dragged across the floor.

Before she could even register the unwelcome proximity, calloused palms were firmly wrapping around her wrists, stilling her frenzied scratching. For a few moments she fought against the force, her fingers itching to dig at the raw flesh of her forearms and uncaring whether or not her skin had long been cleaned of any stains. But soon enough, her hands fell limply, all the energy suddenly draining from her body in seconds.

“You’ve made yourself bleed,” he quietly pointed out, calloused pads of his thumbs brushing against the blood beading at her fingernails’ marks. “Do you think they deserve to take this too from you? More than they already thirst for it?”

Something vibrated deeply within her chest, like a chord that had been struck too hard to the point that it nearly snapped in half. All she could do to stop herself from fracturing like pressurized glass was murmur (in a sort of hopeless, defeated way) under her breath, “As if you’re any different. Don’t pretend you don’t lust for it too.”

He grunted, apparent displeasure seeping into his words, though his hands still grasped hers tightly without hesitation, and his body curled up on the floor beside her. “I don’t sink my teeth into the vulnerable flesh of doves.”

“My mistake. You only threaten to.”

Now that had him halting. His hands unfurled from around hers, his grip loosening but not leaving her entirely. “I think I would remember something like that, sweetie.”

“Feigning innocence doesn’t suit you,” she finally snapped, a tremor going through her body as the memory of that day passed through her mind in the same way it had for the past weeks. She had half a mind to snatch her hands away, but the part of her that couldn’t bear to be left alone to her thoughts refused to let go. “You knew that you were marking me as next when you dropped that blood-stained laurel by my feet.”

When he barked out a laugh, she could hear the disbelief in his voice. “You think I bothered to do that myself? You truly think such underhanded tricks would be mine?”

“The place is teeming with visitors other than yourself that I keep by my side, as I’m sure you can see.” There was little sense in what she was saying now, but so much acridity spilling from her lips as his hardened face came into her swimming vision. “Definitely a testament to the number of possible suspects—”

“I don’t stoop so low,” he ground out, the corners of his lips curled up, though it certainly was no smile. “And hadn’t it occurred to you that maybe that gesture had another, more blatantly obvious meaning?”

Scoffing, she pointed her chin at him in a vain attempt at defiance; something that surely wouldn’t come across successfully, given that her body was still visibly weak for any passerby to notice, let alone for his sharp gaze to catch. “What else other than the fact that you, for some reason, want me gone?”

His eyes narrowed, until they were burning flames of red in slits that zeroed in on only her. “The fact that near damn everyone else did.”

Needles she'd now grown too familiar with pricked at her throat and she had to force herself to blink the dizziness away. “What’s that supposed to mean?” It didn’t make any sense to her, so it couldn’t be true—though the way her entire body grew ice-cold at his words was evidence enough that it knew something, innately. Still, she made weak attempts at an argument. “The humans hardly remember I exist now. They’re too caught up in their own endless cruelty to remember a relic of the past.”

Was that bitterness that leaked into her voice, or was it a twisted grief she’d thought she’d buried, yet hadn’t quite?

“Clearly not enough, if they still took the time out of their days to deface every statue of yours and pour pig’s blood over your laurel wreath offerings,” he snarled, an anger that had grown roots and branches evident in every word he spat out. It was that unwavering fury in his gaze that she couldn’t escape; that she felt compelled to meet. “They claim you’d abandoned them. That you’re at fault for their vile pursuits. Even after you slaved away in a prison of your own making for their safety for eons, they chose to defile your name. They strip you of your wings on every dias, and yet you still think of them above this?”

His chest was heaving as the anger in his eyes melted into a desperation she wasn’t unfamiliar with: it was the kind where you’d do anything to force someone to stomach poison to save them. Silver strands of hair fell in a mess from his growing agitation, and it was that mussed look of his that drove the final nail in the coffin. He was urging her to see that she was no longer exempt from the fire of their immense hatred. Every snowy white feather and every span of silk stretched across her skin was something they wished to rip apart to destruction, till she was no more than a mangled mess of remains.

And for some reason, he wasn’t part of that crowd.

“Your name,” she whispered, barely audible, voice shaking as hard as her body did in his hold. Torment kept her body upright when her nerves couldn’t, and this time it was her clutching at his scarred arms like he was the one thing keeping her afloat in the blackness of uncharted waters. “Your name so that I can call upon you again. I cannot… I will not stay here to have my throat slit over my herbs, over my pavilion, mine—”

The lips she’d once thought to herself were sinful parted, and a sound escaped the back of his throat, all stuttering clicks and deep snarls that she’d never heard—not in this life, at least. And yet her bones rattled as she heard it spoken, a resounding thud almost painful between her ribs. It was like an ancient language that had long been buried in the recesses of her mind, where she’d try to grasp at and fail, like smoke slipping through her hands. But against all reason, she recognized it; knew what every syllable uttered stood for, and what it meant in the tongue she’d adopted millennia ago. Her skin sung in recognition of the name that she now knew.

Sylus. Sylus. Sylus.

***

With every inhale, she could practically taste the ash that blackened her lungs. She took her breaths with wheezing gasps that were alarming enough to send herself into a state of panic just after hearing them herself. Maybe that made her weak, to crumble in terror at the sound of her struggling to breathe and get her chest moving. Some dead weight trampled her chest until her ribs caved in under the pressure, like someone’s million-tonne foot was lodged between her sternum and her lungs.

It hurt. It hurt. That was the only coherent thought that her brain could conjure up at the moment. Everything hurt. She was in so much indescribable pain that she could barely feel the searing underneath her skin with the agony that coursed through her veins. It burned like nothing else had done before, and she couldn’t do anything about it, save for letting the tears (the ones her pride and multitude of stages of denial had barred her from) cascade down her ruddy cheeks. It felt like her bones were creaking with every rattling breath she tried to take, and very distantly, her head miles away from where her body had failed her, she thought that it felt like her body wasn't even hers anymore.

Her domain had always only been lit up by the stars and the moonlight that bathed the marble floors and dressed the intricately carved arches in moonshine, and the sun that cast dancing shadows across the expanses of the grounds where her plants and herbs flitted in the breeze. It was never too hot or too cold, the lighting never too intense so as to be blinding, nor too dim to the point that she couldn’t move without her muscle memory. She could always hear the distant whispers of those who came before her; of those who called her name underneath the blankets of nighttime. It had all served a purpose, to settle into that rhythm.

But now? The entire antrum was doused in an angry red, orange licking away at the crumbling columns and tapestries she’d woven centuries of her life into. The gold that gnawed at every life force in her gardens wasn’t the same shimmering shade that embossed her tassels and her draped clothes, but a sickening sulfur that strongly smelled of sickness and hunger that ate away at everything that crossed its path. An all-consuming fire chased away every breath she’d uttered into this space, turning it into a lifeless vacuum where nothing survived, and it was so bright that it burned the dry backs of her eyelids even as she squeezed them shut.

All she could hear (aside from her heartbeat racing in her ears, and the frantically pulsating blood coursing through her as she slumped into a motionless lump) were the faint, harsh peals of laughter as they echoed off her sacred walls, and the striking of metal against the ground as they threw their axes down–but not before they’d hacked through the everlasting trees that had guarded her like sentinels for centuries. The sounds were every bit as malicious as the sights, perhaps even more so when both her own weak heart and the ash in the air had blinded her.

It was futile to try and find anything in their gleaming, beady eyes, anyways, other than pure sadism and the need to destroy everything in its entirety. He’d warned her before; Sylus had already told her that it was just a matter of time before they came for her. His prophecy now rang true, proving itself as she lay collapsed amidst the remains of her life, all set aflame and quickly returning to the earth as nothingness. Every inch of her screamed to fight through it, to push back against their frenzied whirlwind of malice, but she couldn’t move a single limb, try as she might.

How could she, when they’d managed to send arrows hurtling towards the base of her feathered wings, right before the wall of fire had separated her helpless body from them? How could she, when the pain had been so immense that it tore a blood-curdling scream from her depths, the poisoned metal tearing at her flesh and ripping the skeleton of her wings to shreds? She knew that they’d dipped the tips of their weapons in the deadly juices of her own herbs, the very same ones she’d nurtured since she’d known she’d been born to. But she’d never imagined that the burn of hemlock would be so torturously slow yet instant, tearing at the seams of her sanity with every paralyzing drip into her vessels and throughout her body.

And the humans? They only shouted and cried out in sick delight, her suffering a victory for them to celebrate. It didn’t even matter that they couldn’t deal the final blow, now that the curtain of flames had ironically shielded her from them hacking at her flesh–no, perhaps to them, it was another cause for mirth that they leave her to her slow demise, either for the fire to turn her to dust, for the poison to still her heart, or for her to drown in a pool of her own blood, wings twitching as she was drained dry.

Without so much as a glance back, they stomped away, feet snuffing out any sign of life that dared to peek past their hellstorm. Unbridled bloodlust besmirched their trails, and it only cried out one name: hers.

Her bitten-through lips couldn’t even utter the words that could be her saving. Crying out a name was a pointless act. Who would she ask for? And now that she’d been so completely and utterly abandoned, who would even come for her at a time like this, when it seemed that everyone on this wretched earth had conspired against her? She had no egotistical delusions that drove her to think that she was the only target for their loathing, but she certainly made an easy one that they could all pin all the blame on. Now that she was ostracized by the same people who’d once burnt incense at her altars, she couldn’t be so naive as to think that anyone other than herself could be trusted now.

Look where her gullibility had gotten her. With lungs burning with the acrid smoke she gulped in and limbs half-paralyzed over her almost-shredded wings, all she could feel was her grip on her life slowly slipping away. Maybe part of that had truly been because of the arrow that now nearly threatened to pierce all the other side through her guts with a pain so intolerable it had her teeth chattering as she moaned out in agony, but it was also partially because somewhere in her subconscious she knew that there was no point in fighting against it. What would be waiting for her after this? Her own stupidity had landed her in this open tomb designed to bury her alive. A symbol of the times changing at her expense, if you will.

Perhaps she deserved to die like this, all alone and with no trace of her existence left behind but the hatred they would always have for her.

She didn’t have time to dwell on that depressingly numbed down thought. A crack and swish sounded through the hot air as time and space warped in front of her, a familiar figure materializing in front of her barely-opened eyes. Still, she didn’t dare hope. Hope had landed her here, and now she was tempted to just close her itching eyes and let the encroaching flames lick at the soles of her feet. “You don’t get to give up that easily.” Sylus’ deep voice was sharp as it cut through the murky haze. “Not after they’ve desecrated everything that stood in their paths.”

Her trembling lips parted. “Too… too tired,” she managed to croak out. “I have,” she tried to swallow past the knives embedded in her throat, “I have nothing now.”

“You’ve given them precisely what they want, then, if that’s all you have to say as an excuse for just lying there” he spat out, and it was the closest thing he’d ever had to disgust when talking to her, his tail curling up in sharp figures that should’ve been intimidating but now only aroused a faint feeling of despondency. “Being unable to get up, that I could at least understand. But you don’t even want to accept help in the name of feeling sorry for yourself.”

“If you’re here to berate me, I’d rather you,” she paused with a violent shiver despite the scorching heat as the nerves of her back were pulled taut in a sudden lancinating pain that she couldn’t hide. “I’d rather you have your fill of seeing me suffer and leave–”

“Foolish,” he harshly interrupted her, lunging forward as the first embers of the fire dug teeth into the flesh of her feet. Strong arms slipped underneath her body, hauling her upwards and off the scalding marble floor. In the midst of the feeling that she was being ripped apart from the outside in, her brain didn’t register the surprising gentleness with which his claws curled around her shoulders and thighs, like he was taking extra care not to accidentally dig into her battered and bruised flesh.

But it was impossible for her to not notice the way his entire body trembled. Not with strain to balance her weight, but with barely restrained anger that she could see up close in the eyes that burned brighter than all the flames that had caged them in. “You didn’t strike me as a fool before, but there isn’t any other word for it now.”

And despite the fact that she’d counted herself dead just moments ago, not a single part of her fought against his hold on her when his thundering steps carried them both outside of the hell she’d trapped herself in, bounding through the endless corridors and empty rooms that smoke billowed from.

There was no denying the small seed of desperation that didn’t want her body to just fall there; the part of her that had always wanted to outlive the years that she’d borne witness to. There was no capacity in her to ponder whether that deep desire was a selfish one or not, but for whatever reason it was she just wanted to nurse her wounds someplace far away and somehow make it—just not here.

And for some incomprehensible reason, it looked like Sylus wanted the same thing for her.

With what little energy remained in her, she reached up with trembling fingers, letting them fall against his cheek and leaving slick blood in their wake. His bared canines didn’t terrify her in the least as he grit his teeth, a pained look deepening the frown on his face. For a moment, it felt so simple, and yet so unfathomable. The words escaped her in an almost-inaudible mumble before she could think too deeply about them. “I can’t see bloodlust in you.”

A wet cough ransacked her being, the fragility of the moment shattering to pieces as Sylus broke eye contact in favor of tightening his grip on her and leaping onto the crumbling railing they’d both leant against dozens of times before. It couldn’t bear the weight of them combined, not when it had already borne the brunt of the human’s heavier siege attacks from afar. But it was enough for him to gnash his teeth together and catapult them into the ashy air, the sound of wings unfurling behind him as they shot upwards with a force and speed she hadn’t known he was even capable of. But had she ever cared to ask?

Would she ever get the chance to?

“About time you finally noticed, sweetie.” His voice was deceptively stable, but it didn’t match the urgency with which he pulled her even closer to his chest, nor did it fit the way his Adam’s apple at her line of sight bobbed up and down with the difficulty of swallowing. “But I’d much rather you keep the much-deserved apologies for later.”

There was a later?

Sylus’ weak attempt at haughty humor was the last thing on her mind before she finally stopped fighting the urge to let her stinging eyes fall shut in face of the cold whipping winds and the icy pain that had spread through her body so rapidly that she grew limp in his arms. There wasn’t an ounce of strength left in her to try and pull herself together—not even for the appearances that she’d been trying so hard to keep up around him.

Maybe she was imagining the sharp inhale she heard from him as she began to fade away in every sense but the bodily, where she was still cradled to the scarred planes of his chest, blood still oozing out and trickling into the ridges of his ebony claws that deftly brushed past her wings. So achingly gentle they were, like he was doing his best to not make things infinitely worse. Did it really matter to him if she slipped away for good? She had to know. Everything had become a jumbled mess that she couldn’t make head or tail of now. It all felt heavy, too heavy.

Later. At least there was a later.

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It wasn’t how she typically expected her Fridays to go, and frankly she hadn’t even planned for it to happen. In fact, if you’d asked her just a day or two prior to her getting her back royally blown out like this, she would’ve waved it off as nothing more than a mere fantasy that she shamefully got lost in every night, when her hand would reach out for a dildo she now knew could never replace any of them, and she would’ve fucked herself into a writhing mess on her mattress, with their names on her lips and the filthiest images she could come up with pushing her over the edge.

But nothing compared to the real thing, and never would she have believed that she’d get to live out what even her dreams hadn’t let her imagine, let alone the way it had come about. It felt like a fever dream, something she would conjure up in the back of her mind when she was delirious and half-insane, definitely not something that had been the shocking end result of the past months.

***

To say that it had started as all things did would be the understatement of the century, clearly. Because “things” usually didn’t refer to getting four ridiculously hot men—ones that actually cared about her beyond the physical magnetism that pulled them towards her—into her half-made bed, having her folded in half and split open over their cocks. “Things” usually didn’t have her mouth open in a choked out perpetual moan, chin slick with drool that slipped past her swollen lips. And generally in her life, she hadn’t ever predicted this outcome, given the way “things” had gone about.

Really though, she probably wouldn’t be able to pinpoint exactly when it all started. Not because they were fucking her dumb and any coherent thoughts went flying out the window the very second nimble fingers had slipped past her waistband and underneath her shirt (though they were and they had), but because she hadn’t exactly made any wicked plans for this or anything. Everything had fallen into place the very moment they’d crossed paths, and that itself had happened so naturally that it was hard to notice if it had started then.

Maybe getting accepted to work at the Hunters’ Association had been the catalyst for everything. Her chances had already been pretty low, so it was a bit of a miracle that it happened in the first place—or a stroke of impossible luck that she’d probably never have again. Whatever it was, she just crossed her fingers and hoped that the universe wouldn’t fuck things up for her in compensation for it. It was even harder to believe that fate had decided to play further in her favor after that, pushing Xavier her way as her coworker.

Their first meeting mid-mission had been… rocky, to say the least. Could she really blame him for being on guard the entire time, though? The flash of something eerily similar to pain in his eyes upon seeing her the first time had been enough then to tell her that something deeply human and almost fractured lingered in his depths, so she didn’t actually hold it against him. He wasn’t made of steel, after all, and how he’d stiffened up and adopted a distant voice could all be chalked up to caution in the middle of the danger they’d found themselves in.

But the multiple instances they walked directly into each other (both within the four walls of the Association’s daily hustle and bustle, and in wide-eyed surprise in the lobby of their apparently shared apartment complex) couldn’t just be chalked up to coincidence. Too many occasions of that happening had them relenting to the truth of the matter: they simply were meant to cross paths over and over again. It was almost laughably easy for them to accept their assigned roles as partners from there on out.

Maybe giving in to that fact was what gave them the final push to fall into a rhythm of daily life. He’d walk into the office, all bleary-eyed and blinking slowly, before giving her a soft half-smile and setting down a steaming cup of coffee, just the way she liked it. Every time she arched her eyebrow and asked him why he went through all that trouble every morning—or, well, every morning he bothered to show up at work, which really wasn’t often when he had a habit of overdoing it on missions to the point that he ended up with nothing to do for most of the week—he’d tell her that the café was on his way to work.

She didn’t have the heart to remind him that they were neighbors, and she knew all too well that that particular place was well out of their way to the Association’s headquarters. Though she had to admit, they had a mean brew that could power her through all 12 hours of her shift with no more than one espresso shot, so she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Anyway, it was endearing to watch him muttering excuses as he walked to his desk with flushed ears.

His companionship was easy, almost too comfortable. But it was all reliant on pure chance, and she wouldn’t lie and claim that she would’ve definitely noticed him as her neighbor had they not stumbled into each other at work that fateful day. He did have a tendency to try and blend into the walls most of the time, honestly, so she didn’t think he would’ve gone out of his way to get to know her otherwise.

Zayne, however… she didn’t think she could say the same for him. Their relationship with each other was certainly unique, to say the least. What could it even be called? A slightly wicked part of her wondered if it was a violation of some law somewhere. Thinking too much about it (and about why she reveled a little in the thought that it was somewhat taboo) made her head spin, and she was already confused enough as it is about whatever they had going on.

It wasn’t that Zayne was being particularly unclear. The vagueness to it all could be attributed to multiple things that couldn’t all be blamed on him. For starters, hadn’t she been the one to disappear from his life just as promptly as they’d grown closer in that stiff way a younger Zayne had allowed? There had once been a time when their families–unconventional as they had probably been–had been so entwined that she saw him over dinner more often than Grandma, who had a tendency to get caught up at whatever had her busy every other night. All of a sudden, things had changed so abruptly, and these shared meals became a distant memory. There wasn’t a single event she could even pinpoint as the reason for it.

It did hurt back then when he hadn’t seemed to want to seek them out himself either, she had to admit. But children tended to have shorter memories and held even shorter grudges, and it didn’t take long for her younger self to push back all disappointment at the loss of his undivided attention and longing for his quiet half-smile over a particularly exciting game of pretend in their living room. Time between then and her growing into adulthood had been reduced to nothing more than a singular point in time.

Past that point, Zayne had somehow lodged himself into her life once more. More accurately, it was her who’d shoved herself in the midst of his schedules–quite literally too, considering that her presence had become a series of appointments marked down on his calendar, and a number of calls that came almost too punctually. The fact that he’d become a doctor wasn’t one that took her by surprise (after all, even at her young age, she’d seen how remarkably quick-witted he’d been, and predicted that his visits had slowly gotten less frequent because he’d been skipping grades), it was more the fact that she’d become his patient one day.

There were few memories that she still had fully intact from her youth growing up, but she didn’t really remember being a sickly child. If she had been, would she really have spent most of her days covered in mud and with hair sticking out in every angle? Being such an active child, it made little sense that she’d suddenly find herself getting assigned under Zayne’s care for her Protocore Syndrome that she couldn’t recall ever suffering from prior to that. Oddly enough, it was like anything before that period, the one of chest pains that left her gasping for breath and clutching at her flesh until the squeezing and dizzy spells passed, had turned into a muddled haze.

In any case, she was in his care now, exasperated sighs at her abysmal sleep schedule and mildly berating phone calls and all. At first, it was… hard to deal with, alright. Every blank stare during her appointments was difficult to decipher, and it was unnerving not knowing what he was truly feeling whenever they’d coincidentally stumble into each other at random cafes and restaurants. Zayne’s mouth would say something, and she’d momentarily be taken aback at the bluntness with which it was delivered. In that split-second she’d hesitate if it was a good idea to approach him, he’d say something so oddly comforting it almost made her laugh.

Quaint as his personality was, she found it sweet how he’d get that thoughtful look on his face as he tried to phrase things so that there wouldn’t be any room for misinterpretation. It didn’t always come easy to him–as proven by the multiple times he’d accidentally set off her anger with a poorly chosen wording or two–but just seeing him trying so hard, standing at her doorstep on Thursday nights with a flicker of hope in his eyes and hands cradling a bag of donuts that was indulging for the both of them… there was no denying that she found it cute.

Cute, however, was probably the last adjective she’d use to describe someone like Rafayel. His actions were anything but that, really. How one body could store that much snark and bite, she had no idea.

Hell, even their first accidental meeting had been the furthest thing from smooth sailing. Hadn’t he taunted her for her lack of skills in a stupid children’s game, taking it as the start of a long verbal duel without even granting her a chance to fight back? No remorse whatsoever could be traced on his face when, upon their official meeting, he discovered that she was the same person hired to protect him. If anything, the verbal onslaught seemed to get stronger since then.

It seemed that he had a scoff and a sarcastic remark to wield at every second, paired with an exaggerated roll of his eyes that said more than any of his scathing words. There had to be some prize out there for the most aggravating person on earth, and it definitely had his name written on it. That could be the only reason why he always had such a smug look on his face whenever he (metaphorically) kicked her while she was down on her knees (not so metaphorically).

Oddly enough, though—as much as she sometimes fantasized about choking him with one of his expensive silk scarves, or replacing the cup of water he demanded with odorless paint thinner, or pinning him to a wall using his set of platinum daggers, or—he had his own unique charms, she’ll begrudgingly admit. The only reason why he’d managed to stay alive for this long despite getting on her nerves every other day was because he somehow had a way to undo all that anger with a word or two.

Honeyed words weren’t his forte; they rarely ever came out of his mouth, and when they did, she could tell that he’d forced them out with much difficulty. No; it was more of the fact that he was brutally honest—so every compliment that fell from his lips (which usually were in a sulky pout, as damage control before she could pummel him into a pulp) was an unbroken vow of truth. Rafayel would rather die than to flatter someone or curry any favors, and that’s what made every whispered praise drip with sincerity she could never weigh.

Being contradictory in that sense wasn’t the only thing that had softened her heart towards him. Subtlety wasn’t his strong suit, but maybe he had himself fooled that she wouldn’t notice the lingering gaze whenever she stood by his side at an event where he couldn’t seem to focus anywhere else.

Maybe he thought she wouldn’t notice the way his had instinctively moved to the small of her back whenever they were on another spontaneous midnight walk for inspiration; thought she was oblivious to the fact that his “impromptu seafood boil nights” coincided with the days her bones ached after a particularly long mission that had drained her of all her energy.

The things he brushed off as mere coincidences that she shouldn’t look into too much all spelled the ways he knew how to care. Clumsy at best, but heartfelt above all, they were the things she knew she could never face him with, because he’d jump to deny everything. Did he think she’d count him a sinner for daring to reach out, for baring himself to her? Why wouldn’t he allow himself that?

Not questioning it meant that Rafayel wouldn’t have to pull away at the first sight of something concrete, something that he’d have to admit being precious. It meant that, at the very least, she could indulge in his attention more. It meant that he wouldn’t find it necessary to hole himself up when he felt his sanity slipping away in front of her, and that he wouldn’t snarl at the trembling hand that reached for him. Silence was likely a small price to pay, then.

With Sylus, though… well, silence wasn’t something she could cling onto for long. It wasn’t something that would serve her well when his jagged edges could never be smoothed down with complacency; could never find comfort in familiarity born of laziness. Being too passive and letting her feelings take the backseat was a sure-fire way to ward him off, if anything. Which, at some point in time, had been a goal of hers, yes, and she had been openly hostile at the mere sight of him more often than she could count on her hands.

What else could she have done? Her training had been so deeply ingrained into her that it went directly against her nature to force her muscles to relax instead of readying herself to pounce. So finely attuned to her surroundings, she’d been taught constant vigilance the very first moment she’d become a Hunter—and all of her good senses had instantly caught onto the fact that he was trouble.

Once upon a time, the urge to dig her nails into his neck and bare it for the killing had been almost unbearable. It wasn't even bloodlust, at least she didn’t think it was. But it was akin to wanting to set things right; thinking that he represented everything that she stood against was enough incentive for her to want to capture him and watch him squirm under her thumb. If everything went back to him, and all crimes were done in his name, didn’t that make him deserving of it?

It was that sort of naïve thinking that had her baring her teeth at him at every chance, making his life a living hell. Somehow, he took it without protest, and that was probably the strangest thing of all. All he ever did was grit his teeth in a mix of a grimace and a smirk, and he was once again blocking her every attack with clenched fists and raised arms.

Sometimes it was infuriating, hearing Sylus languidly chuckling amidst their face-offs, only for him to take advantage of her momentary lapse of reason to force her to truly see things as they actually were. His deep voice in her ear as he tilted her chin towards the horrifying scenes that unfurled in the N109 Zone, he would hiss out the names of the perpetrators and their horrific list of crimes, his own paling in comparison. At times, they didn’t even seem as sufficient compensation, not enough to fight back.

For every part of her that fought against it, there was little she could do to deny what she saw with her own eyes. His hands couldn’t be washed clean of blood, that much was true, but he reminded her, over and over again, that it was a necessary sacrifice he was willing to make for some semblance of balance in a world that was never kind enough. It was a twisted form of justice, one she didn’t think she could fully get behind when she’d seen firsthand the consequences of the bullets that spear victim and perpetrator alike. But it was rational, in a way, and it was his form of justice.

What had once been disgust and shame curling in the pits of her stomach at ruby eyes boring into her figure as she pinned him down during another one of their duels had become an anticipation that bubbled underneath her skin. Whenever Sylus would pick her up from work with her helmet hooked onto his fingers and his body leaning against his motorcycle, it was another reminder of the stark contrast between what had once been and what currently was. She’d catch the corners of his lips lifting in a fond smile as he brushed back her hair, a far cry from the once unreadable glances stolen from behind half-empty wine glasses at dinner parties she didn’t belong.

In a way, her life had molded itself to accommodate the presence of all four men without her even realizing it. They flitted in and out of her day like they were handing over shifts, and she found herself meeting every one of them with so much eagerness that it almost terrified her. Common sense would’ve dictated that she’d feel scared of the fact that she could no longer picture her everyday life without them in it, but frankly she seemed to be lacking it recently.

After all, what kind of person simply “went with their gut feeling” to choose to trust not just one but four men around them? Who would feel their tummy flip a million times over and indulge in all of their little gifts that found themselves on their desk or doorstep, feeling like they were finally being seen for who they were? Was there anyone whose heart would swell twice its size and who’d have to shyly cross their legs and squeeze their thighs together whenever touches lingered and voices dropped lower from people they haven’t even known that long?

Someone that lacked common sense, obviously.

It really did elude her, it seemed, considering that despite all the signs that would’ve probably alerted someone else by now, she still couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that maybe, just maybe, they weren’t doing this just to earn her friendship. Not in the sense that there was anything nefarious going on behind the scenes; no, she doubted that they would’ve harbored any feelings like that this entire time. What she meant was that she simply couldn’t imagine them being remotely interested in her.

Were some of the lines between friendship and something more being blurred on a day-to-day basis? Yes, and it was doing a number on her muddled brain. Did she personally feel her nerves fraying at the edges and her skin growing warmer whenever they touched her or whenever indecipherable intense gazes met hers? Yes, but she believed that was her fault alone. It wouldn’t help anyone if she looked too deeply into why they sought her out so desperately in the first place, or if she started questioning the thoughtful gestures that had become second nature for them to direct towards them.

Everything could be chalked up to loneliness and a desire to connect with humans, if nothing else. Some small part of her, the part that always yearned to be seen and loved in any way that was given to her, didn’t want to risk undoing it all. She stuck to cool quips and casual smiles, going about her day like nothing was unnerving about the insanely attractive men that flanked her. On most days, her job was enough of a distraction from pointlessly pining after them.

If what they were offering her was only a platonic intimacy, so be it. She would only allow herself to indulge in these less-than-innocent fantasies when she was desperately searching for release with her fingers curled inside of her, their faces and names at the tip of her tongue. Other than that, she didn’t want to over-reach. The scariest thing about the whole ordeal was her possibly messing everything up by addressing something that was likely all in her head.

***

Already things were getting messy without her intervention. Blissfully unaware of it she was, but things almost went to shit on more than just one occasion. The one downside to having several men in your life was that the probabilities that they would stumble upon one another were higher than you would think.

Realistically speaking though, Zayne bumping into Xavier wasn’t that unusual. The Hunter was, after all, both her coworker and her neighbor, and with Zayne’s penchant for coming over when his schedule allowed it, him crossing paths with Xavier as he left her apartment was bound to happen anyways. There really wasn’t that much space in the corridor, and only two flats were on opposite ends per floor, so it was easy to induce where he’d just come out from.

Given that he’d already heard the man’s name in passing (something he’d had to put up with during appointments if he wanted to hear enough details about her day that would tell on her god-awful daily habits), he wasn’t completely ignorant as to whom he could possibly be. From the callouses on his hands and the almost-stiff posture, but also the sauce stains on the collar of his hoodie, he could infer that this was the unrivaled Hunter he’d heard so much about.

He shouldn’t have been surprised that (soft as his features were) Xavier was the one to speak first in his low tone. “It’s late, you know. Any visits now would be better replaced by a good night’s rest.”

“I have no control over my shifts,” he replied simply, irritation tugging at the space between his eyebrows.

Xavier’s gaze grew even steelier as he lingered in the hallway, unwilling to let him pass that easily. “Shouldn’t a doctor know better than to keep their patient up past hours?”

“Shouldn’t a Hunter better protect their partner so that they visit said doctor less frequently?” Zayne bit back, despite the more rational part of his brain telling him that this was ridiculous. It seemed to do the job, Xavier’s expression hardening and becoming unreadable as soon as the words landed. It was a low blow, yes, but comments on his professionalism were a sore spot—especially when he was reminded of the violations he was committing just by coming here.

That was probably what came to Xavier’s mind as well. “Then doctors shouldn’t try to earn more visits than what’s on paper.” His voice might’ve had a soft timbre, but the emotions in it were anything but. He didn’t stay longer, just took his leave before either of them could lacerate the other even deeper. They’d both come out losing if they tried to prod more at the guilt that festered under their skin for entirely different reasons.

There was no use in pretending Zayne didn’t notice his head hanging a little as he rang her doorbell.

***

If the altercation between these two was somewhat tame and limited to just a hurtful verbal back and forth, then the next time Xavier had the displeasure of facing off with one of them was anything but kind—but honestly, that was expected when dealing with someone like Sylus whose entire existence was built upon the chaos he brought about.

All niceties were thrown out of the window the moment Xavier had spotted the infamous crimson eyes flashing from behind the helmet’s visor, hips leaning comfortably against the motorcycle that was clearly parked near headquarters in waiting for a certain someone. He’d just been out for a quick coffee break to last through his night shift, when a carnivorous curl of thin lips had irked him enough to get him walking in his direction.

For someone like Xavier who’d been born and bred on myths and legends about the very man in front of him, it was almost too easy to spot him amidst the crowds of the late rush hour. There probably wasn’t a single person in the cosmos who hadn’t caught wind of tales of the pandemonium he’d caused. Sure, other earthly humans wouldn’t be able to pick him out in the crowd, eyewitness reports being lost in time and descriptions of him gradually being distorted into nothingness, but for Xavier who easily outlived all current generations that could’ve possibly sighted him, he’d recognize him anywhere.

Panic (or what was closest to it) began to bubble in the depths of his chest at the thought of Sylus waiting for her—and he knew he was, for a fact, because there wasn’t any other reason why he’d casually hang out at the same place that had a bounty hung over his head. It manifested as a deep-seated fury and protective instinct that made him want to pull out his sword and drive it through him in the middle of the bustling 5 PM street. But for now, all he could do was briskly walk up to him, fingers flexing angrily in his gloves.

“You have a death wish.” It wasn’t posed as a question, just a simple statement lowly voiced, to which Sylus’ eyes only lit up in mild amusement.

He huffed out what sounded like a half-hearted chuckle, slipping his helmet off and leaning against the handlebars as he did. “I would assume that’s less for the fact that I’ve shown up at your workplace, and more so for coming for her, hm?”

“Audacious as you’ve always been,” Xavier mumbled under his breath, the words every bit as venomous as his insides felt with every second that passed watching the leader of Onychinus languidly toy with the keys in his hand, like there wasn’t anything wrong with him openly admitting to picking her up from work himself; like he wasn’t the very personification of everything they stood against and still toeing lines with her Xavier had never imagined he’d watch being crossed. He gritted his teeth, grinding his question out, “Do you wash your hands of blood every time you try to touch her?”

“Do you?” Sylus shot back, with a swiftness that told him that he wasn’t the first person to pin a metaphorical or even literal knife to his neck with those questions at hand. It was a reflex made to intentionally chafe at the parts of him that already felt shameful and undeserving every time he played like a willing prey into her arms. Xavier may try to bury it with all his might, but Sylus was digging his fangs into that tender wound, snapping his jaws right where it hurt.

No matter how hard he tried, Xavier would still be a sinner asking for repentance in her name, wouldn’t he?

Hearing it from someone so… aberrant like Sylus didn’t make it feel any better, though. It was that bitterness that had him dropping yet another scathing remark. “Not when it’s spilt for her, no. It differs from getting your hands dirty to force her back your way when she’s already pushed you once.”

The eyes that glittered like rubies now could cut like glinting daggers, sharp with displeasure and the turmoil of emotions Xavier knew all too well. It was festering guilt, the kind that could never be washed away with newer memories. Sylus would forever bear the mark of someone who’d used brute force, regardless of all reasons why, and regardless of intent.

So long as he could breathe, Xavier would be sure to remind him of the worst transgression of all.

***

Sylus didn’t tend to believe in luck. Even his belief in fate had long wavered after having been separated from her for this long; whatever deities there were—if any at all—they were definitely all laughing at him from wherever they watched the two of them dance around each other. Taking two steps forward then ten back, it felt like this lifetime was often a hit or miss.

And yet, despite being a disbeliever, he had to thank whatever scale had unsuspectingly tipped in his favor so that he’d be able to catch Rafayel like this. It was one of those rare instances when he’d been caught in one of his not-quite human faces; when the softness of illusion was washed away by the rough lines of ill-hidden fangs, and when his ethereal beauty was all parts menacing and even dangerous, luring the eyes of everyone within the vicinity while the viciousness in his gaze and the sharpness of his black nails kept them far enough from disturbing his space where he lounged.

In that club where he found him, Rafayel was beautiful enough to hurt more than any human ever could. If nothing else, that was the first giveaway that he was in a vulnerable state, with his walls built twice as high and poised to attack, just like he’d been born to do. Looking pretty was a necessity for that, Sylus knew that all too well. It was in his siren nature.

Any possible common grounds were thrown away before he could dwell on it, though, knowing that the only reason Rafayel had shown up in the first place was to scout him out. It was almost funny, how someone so eager to draw blood had chosen to meet him at a place where so much of it could potentially be spilled, turning everything into a public fiasco. Sylus grinned to himself at the realization, a little bitter. That man was more deserving of the ruthless infamy than he was.

He approached him like he didn’t know he was on the top of the list of people whose hearts Rafayel was ready to rip out of their chests. “You’ll scare off all the regular patrons at this rate.”

Rafayel didn’t even look up, opting to twirl the ring on his index finger instead as he stared out at the sweaty masses grinding onto each other on the dance floor. “And that should matter to me because…?”

Shrugging, Sylus slid into the seat beside him. “Because you’ll wind up with no one willing to warm your bed tonight.” The venomous glare he received at that had him grinning in glee, knowing that he’d successfully baited him with the words he knew would throw him off. To anyone else, it might’ve seemed like he was calling him a loner, but to Rafayel, it was a reminder that he wouldn’t be going home with her. That his only alternative was to seek comfort in someone else.

“I don’t plan on sharing it with anyone.” Anyone that isn’t her, was the part left unsaid. It went directly against his Lemurian nature to fall into the arms of a stranger, someone he wasn’t bound to. But Sylus already knew that, and just wanted to watch as he twisted the knife in deeper. Rafayel’s sharp eyes met his, like he was parrying the attacks in equal measure. “And I didn’t come for that.”

There it was. “As flattering as it is, I’m not sure your attention being directed towards me is in either our favors—”

“Don’t bullshit me,” Rafael hissed in a low voice, now completely facing him and even lowering himself to block out all the noise of the packed place. For a moment, Sylus had started to think that he’d trapped them in a bubble of his own making, nailing him to his chair. “I only came here to warn you to watch your back. The longer you stick beside her, the shorter your time with her gets. I can promise you that.”

Even as the sharp almost-claws gleamed in the direction of his neck, his lack of good sense had him chuckling under his breath, arching an eyebrow and taunting him with nothing but a laidback smirk that gave away nothing but his relentlessness. “Is that a petty threat to compensate for the fact that you can’t have her either?”

Fingers tapping against the countertop behind them, he rhythmically counted the beats down as he watched Rafayel’s expression morph into one of barely-disguised malice. Again, there was that coldness in his expression that reminded Sylus of the deities painted on temple walls and sculpted into marble statues—except this one was very much alive, and held a bitterness as old as the sea was, and ran twice as deep as its turbulent waters.

“A better man than me would agree.” There was that flash of something unsettlingly inhumane in Rafayel’s eyes as his hand curled around the marble countertop, grip tightening for a moment as he laced every ounce of poison in his last words, before his entire being was pulled to full height as he got up from his seat with a particularly vicious curl of his lip in Sylus’ direction; like the conversation had turned far beneath him. “But I’m no man.”

***

So-called coincidences had piled up until it could no longer be denied that they were all being woven into one tapestry that had forced them together, irrespective of their desire to draw blood. In the more extreme cases it really was a brush with death every time they crossed paths, but even the tamest of them were dangerously close to hashing it out in hidden alleyways.

There was only so much they could keep hidden from her; so much that they could keep secret without her noticing the glares in between car rides and night shifts and beach trips. If they could keep it out of their lives it wouldn’t have mattered much that there was so much animosity between them, but as the moments they shared with her soured with memories of other men waiting for her hand to find theirs, it was impossible to remain that way for long.

An intervention was necessary, and it came in the form of Rafayel’s secluded beach house becoming a sudden meeting point one particularly warm night when even taking a stroll down its walkway had the skin of each one of them dotting with perspiration. But even the sheer humidity wasn’t half as suffocating as the atmosphere as soon as four pairs of eyes met across the spacious living room.

Thomas wouldn’t have recognized the place if he’d been there. Rafayel had cleaned up the entire house from any traces that could’ve given away anything about him. Not a single splatter of paint remained on the marble tiles, and all quaint crystal trinkets had been stowed away in their cabinets. The only thing that showed that life existed here in the first place was the lavender flame lamp on the coffee table that matched the one she had in her apartment.

Given the way Zayne’s eyes flitted to it, and how Xavier pointedly stood in front of it hiding it from plain sight, he knew they recognized it all too well. He was petty enough to allow himself the pleasure of taking in their souring expressions and puffing his chest a little underneath his crossed arms. There was pride in displaying what he knew would tick them off; evidence that the one thing he cared about was her.

“Was there any point in getting us to come here, or was this a complete waste of my time?” Sylus, of course, was the first to speak, a bored-sounding sigh leaving him as he did. Watching him casually polishing a gun as he leaned against the back of the sofa might’ve been alarming for a different audience, but for the three men in the room, he was only met with varying looks of disdain, and none of any surprise.

“Imagine how much of a waste of mine it would be, considering it’s my house,” Rafayel grumbled, before he turned on his heel and took a seat in the armchair by the window, leveling them all with a heavy gaze. “There has to be rules for this.”

Zayne blinked, expression unreadable as he folded a fist against the armrest of the couch. “For what, exactly?”

“You know what it is,” Sylus interjected with a scoff. “Don’t act like you’re blind to the four of us pursuing her simultaneously, even if that would make it easier to fool yourself into thinking you’re miles ahead.”

There was a stiff silence that lasted a few moments, like Zayne was doing his best to keep any anger from bubbling to the surface. It seemed to be more difficult for him to spit the words out this time, however. “Delusion is a cheap trick. Putting a name to something isn’t.”

“Regardless of what it’s called, it can’t go on like this any longer. No breathing space means no time spent properly with her,” Xavier interrupted them from the doorframe, clearly unwilling to move from there. Even with no sword in sight, his stance was anything but passive, and the place he stood gave off the impression of an unmoving bodyguard. “There has to be some kind of schedule, or else no one’s getting anything out of this.”

Rafayel shook his head, fingers tracing the edges of a glass of what looked like gin. “As if that’ll be any help. There’s no guarantee any of you will stick to it.”

“Excluding yourself from that as if you’re any better is rich.” Zayne’s words were pointed, the observation not slipping any of their notices, if the darkened gazes were anything to go by. “You’re giving yourself too much credit.”

“I know I’m not stupid enough to waste my own time with her, that’s for sure,” he sniffed haughtily, “If anyone else wants to, be my guest. I’ve lost too much time with her to make the same mistake twice.”

Heavy silence blanketed the room. There were no contemplative gazes; no lost looks on their faces as they thought back on all their lifetimes entwined with hers. Destiny was crueler than any of their sharp remarks ever could be, and it could stab far deeper at wounds that had never quite healed, the lacerations growing messier with every dig. It was always on the forefront of their mind, and Rafayel’s words were no novel reminder.

“If… sharing is the only option left,” bitterness coated that particular word as it left Sylus’ lips, “Then so be it. Whether that’s a momentary thing or else, it all comes down to her decision.”

The very concept of sharing her was as repulsive to him as it was to the three others, but it was either that or to not have her at all—and for all their desperation, it was understandable that they’d choose the lesser of two evils. It defied every part of their souls that ached to claim her with a possessiveness that would frighten anyone, but for the sake of keeping her in their lives they’d have to set aside all of those feelings, at least for the time being.

“That is, if she even realizes what we’re doing,” Xavier muttered darkly, earning collective grunts of dismay and exasperated sighs.

It hadn’t been lost on any of them that she was rather… oblivious to their advances. At first, a couple of them had even doubted it all, wondering if that was her subtle way of pushing them away. Sylus in particular could’ve read into it that way. After many instances of her grinning too widely and laughing too lightheartedly on their supposed ‘dates,’ though, it became apparent that she truly was none the wiser, thinking nothing more of their ‘friendliness’ and taking it at face value.

Then, after he’d pondered it for a few moments, Xavier went on to voice what they were all thinking, following that train of thought. “But what if she really does end up making her choice?”

“Then we’ll have no choice but to accept it. There can be no forcing it, if it’s not what she desires.” Zayne spoke with a finality that was both typical of him and deeply depressing. Knowing that it came from a place of resignation—the very same hidden nook in every one of the other three men’s hearts—was what made it especially heartbreaking.

Because what else would they do, if she truly did decide on one of them? All the in-fighting would be over in an instant, every one of them retreating to shells of their former selves and going into hiding the moment she chooses to spend this lifetime with the man of her choice. Selfish as their desires were, not one of them had the heart or the will to actually ruin that rare happiness for her. No; not after all this time of watching as she slipped away through the seams of time.

They’d lost her too many times to not take it with as much grace as they could muster and walk away from her life.

“Until then, all tricks are on the table,” Rafayel cleared his throat, shrugging a little as he did. “Not that it’ll make a difference if she’s already inclined towards someone, but impressing her until then is fine.”

“No sabotage, though.” Sharp blue eyes flitted between each of them, jaw set as Xavier watched their unreadable expressions. “We approach her at the same time. Or else this is all pointless.”

It was no promise, that much he knew, but at least they’d heard him. Now that he’d said it out loud, no one could feign ignorance down the line. Seeing the way even the least confrontational of them pushed glasses up his nose and pursed his lips was a reminder that he couldn’t trust any of them to stick to their words.

His fists curled in the pockets of his jacket, eyes hooded as he took in their faces. With no more reasons to stay after having said his piece, he was the first to leave the oppressive atmosphere of the house. The weather had changed outside, he thought to himself, but it wasn’t any chillier than it was inside among their company.

***

So how had they ended up like this?

The only possible explanation was that they’d somehow laughably taken those words too literally; to approach her at the same damn time was something beyond the scope of comprehension, and yet here it was, finally made possible in a way.

Zayne had come upstairs for hot chocolate, supposedly, a small smile on his face at the way her cheeks had warmed when he’d cupped them with the excuse of him brushing away a stray drop or two. She wasn’t entirely immune to his charms, it seemed, or at least that was what he’d interpreted it as. If nothing else, at least she’d invited him back to her apartment.

In true Xavier fashion, he’d just been waking up from a pleasant mid-evening nap on his balcony (with the weather getting cooler these days, curling up there with his blankets and warm clothes was a capital E Experience) when he’d heard the deep chuckles coming from downstairs. So accustomed to her laugh, he instantly recognized that one as not her own, and with growing annoyance and increasing wakefulness decided to make his way up to her.

It really didn’t take a genius to figure out how Sylus had come to pass by. That damn mechanical crow, Mephisto, had saved her from sticky situations on more than one occasion. He’d vehemently deny the claim that he was spying on her, and it would be rooted in truth; he never let him linger during private moments, only when it possibly spelled trouble. And maybe Mephisto was just as cunning as his maker, because he’d clearly thought of the doctor as a threat worthy of summoning Sylus to her apartment.

As for Rafayel… well, he didn’t have a sly enough excuse for him suddenly barging in on them unannounced. Call it intuition for someone breaching the shaky pact, call it a god’s lingering wickedness not completely washed off his fingers, or call it borderline paranoia that had him anticipating her being cornered, but for whatever reason it was, Rafayel had wound up rushing to her flat, breathless as he frantically knocked at her door and then feigning absolute nonchalance as she swung it open with an incredulous expression on her face.

That was when all four of them had blankly stared at one another, starting from the doctor who’d started it all and stood with a half-drained mug in his hand, the neighbor who stood with sleep-mussed hair and a definite downturn to his lips, the fiend whose eyes were narrowed with annoyance and whose attire showed he’d practically apparated over here, and down to the fallen deity who stood on half-numb legs and pretended to get distracted by his nails, despite the anger in his eyes that he couldn’t mask.

Greeted with her confused expression, Rafayel couldn’t help but melt. She’d never earned the anger or distrust that was now coming off of him in waves. He reached out then, taking her hand in his soft one and bringing it to his lips for a delicate kiss. “Just don’t blame me for this,” he mumbled against her skin, gaze unwavering as he nuzzled into her palm.

That only seemed to confuse her even more. “Blame you for what? Rafayel, you’re not making any sense. What’s going on?” Looking back between them all and reading similar expressions on all their faces was no help. Still, it didn’t take a genius to tell that none of them were pleased with how he’d taken that step towards her. “Just… get inside, before this gets messy.”

To her, all that bothered her was the fact that the threads of fate had twined them all together in a less than conventional fashion. Yes, she wasn’t aware of the fact that they’d met on more than one occasion, but she knew that some were the antithesis of each other, born to oppose what they stood for. If one of them was about to kill the other, she would rather that wouldn’t happen in the hallway of her floor where anyone could see.

Inviting him inside earned her a content smile, and more than just a couple of upturned noses. They weren’t one to lose, though, and all managed to cram themselves into the living room, where a disgruntled Zayne was still icily analyzing them from over the now-empty mug. He set it down, and with no more than a simple tug at her wrist pulled her beside him on the couch.

Infinitely closer than they’d been before, his fingers were much warmer than she’d anticipated as they cupped her shoulder. In this new position, she could feel the thumping of his heart against her back, half-curled into his body. “You can ask all your questions later. I’ll answer them if I must, but…” For a man with ice Evol, it threw her off to soak in the heat emanating from him and his intense gaze that flickered towards her pout. “For now, you need to only feel.”

Maybe she’d gotten so caught up in the electric charge in the air that she failed to notice how Xavier had sidled up on her other side, his hoodie long shucked somewhere in the room. It was impossible for her to ignore the teeth that tugged at her earlobe, though, earning a startled gasp from her. It was such a bold move that it momentarily stunned her, and for a few seconds it seemed like he’d even apologize for it. But before he could even consider it, she’d sighed softly, leaning back into him like it was completely natural to.

“Did you plan this?” she managed to breathe out as his tongue laved at the sting in her ear, her skin tingling with a heat she’d come to associate with him and his gentle but firm touches. If she allowed herself to admit it, there had been many times when she’d had to stop herself before her mind wandered off into dangerous territory, imagining all the different ways he could touch her so reverently.

It was Sylus who stole her attention then, a rich chuckle escaping him as he slowly made his way up to her, dropping to his knees right before her like a worshipper at the altar of his dreams. Ironically enough, he looked like pure sin where he sat, calloused hands inching up her calves, massaging all the sore spots and all the little places that ached as he did. “Not like you think, no. We’re only lucky enough to wind up here at the same time.”

“Even luckier still that you don’t seem to mind it,” Rafayel’s voice from behind her was luxurious silk, caressing the deepest parts of her and forcing her to involuntarily squeeze her thighs together. Before she could even call for him, he’d reached down from where he stood behind the couch, slender fingers tilting her chin up to him. “You’ll have to use your words though, pretty. Can’t give you what you want unless you say it, hm?”

Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, even more so as Zayne’s hand trailed a feather-light path down to her waist, each tender caress against the sliver of skin that showed from her top making her nerves go haywire. It was almost funny, how Rafayel was asking her to speak, but she was biting her lips, praying that her voice wouldn’t betray her and let the moan she’d been holding back escape.

Sylus clicked his tongue in disappointment at her silence. Not that it lasted long, anyways, after Xavier’s lips left her ear to suck at that pulse point in her neck. Her blood pulsated wildly as his teeth grazed her jugular, not quite biting but still mouthing at her and clearly enjoying the way he could feel her pulse jump and the way a shaky moan left her, completely unrestrained as Sylus’ thumb dug almost dangerously into the plush of her short-clad thighs. “That won’t be enough, love,” he whispered into her skin, nosing at the warmth between her neck and shoulder. “Say that you want this. That you want us.”

Swallowing thickly, her gaze shifted from each man before her to the next. They were the picture of unbridled want, of uncontrolled need right before plunging into the depths of desire. Zayne’s intensely furrowed eyebrows couldn’t hide the swirling blackness of his pupils, his fingers now toying with the hem of her shirt. It was no distraction, not when she couldn’t focus on that alone with the way Rafayel’s nails had somehow found their way to her scalp, lightly scratching and then tugging at her hair in a way that was far from playful.

It was maddening, how they were doing everything and yet nothing at all. It made her want for more; almost drove her to begging. But maybe what stopped her was the fact that she knew they were more likely to do that, their desperation to please and to feast on her like no other. All she had to do, to let them take their time pulling her apart and then piece her back together again, was simply say the words that she could no longer swallow down anymore.

“Please.” It came out more of a broken whimper than anything, even as she tried to restrain herself from sounding too needy. Her body couldn’t lie to them, nor could she keep lying to herself any longer. If this was another one of her insane dreams, she wasn’t about to let go of the chance to bask in all of it. “I want all of you, in any way you’ll have me. It doesn’t matter how,” she quickly said, then slowly blinking as if her mind was trying to fight through the haze of syrupy lust. Wetting her lips, she made just one request before she would lose all her senses. “But… in my bed, preferably?”

How silly of her to ask. Her wish was their command, really.

***

Taking her to her bed wasn’t the only way they could service her, apparently. If they could create a logbook of ways to draw sweet, tortuous pleasure from her and drag it out slowly, the list would be endless, and full of every filthy dream they’d each accumulated. But for now, they had to settle for getting a taste of her.

It was Xavier who’d suggested it, unsurprisingly. The man was an eater, and he never stopped unless he was fully satiated and warm—and that was with food. Now add the woman he was so irrevocably in love with in the mix? It was impossible for him to ever get enough of her. He’d try to calm himself down and feign level-headedness, though.

The last thing he wanted was to scare her away, and so he tried his best to pose it as a simple request. “Sit on my face,” he softly said, even as his nerves were thrumming under his skin, and even as his fingers trembled against her hips with the effort of keeping himself still. Shirt skewed and his eyes blearily blinking up at her situated on top of him, he swore under his breath at the vision of her.

How could Xavier pretend like his heart wasn’t about to burst from his chest at the mere sight of her plush thighs digging into his sides, and her stunned expression, full lips parted at his blunt words? His fingers itched to drag her up until she was hovering over his face, her natural scent enveloping him. He’d gladly lie there all day if he could—if only she’d let him.

So he swallowed, and squeezed the fat of her hips. “Let me taste you, love. Take a seat here.”

Gnawing at her bottom lip, she looked torn for a moment. “Are you sure? Won’t I be too—”

“Too sweet, probably.” Sporting that dreamy look in his eyes, Xavier was already drunk on her without even putting his lips on her. “Don’t worry about anything. I’m right where I want to be. Focus on what you want.”

That was all she needed to hear for her to tentatively push herself up and glance back at the three men shamelessly staring at her with desire clouding their eyes. Zayne seemed to read something in her gaze, getting up from where he sat to steal a breathtaking kiss from her, his scarred hands cupping her face like she was all he’d ever cherished in life.

His lips chased hers, breath warm against her mouth and so wholly distracting that she barely noticed how his fingers had slowly looped into the waistband of her shorts, inching them down as he licked across her bottom lip, asking for permission that she didn’t hesitate to grant him. Her eyes had long fluttered shut, melting into his grip as he shucked her shorts somewhere across the room, turning her around in his embrace until she was facing him. With his tongue twining with hers in the warmth of her mouth, she couldn’t help but moan his name, as though begging for more of him.

In her nearly-mindless haze, she barely noticed that his hands had pushed her by the hips all the way up to Xavier’s face. Clad in nothing but her panties and the rumpled top Zayne’s hands had slipped underneath, she could feel him chasing every one of her goosebumps with a searing heat. His mouth alone had made her go half-numb, kissing her senseless as she hovered on her knees, her soft breasts pressed into the breadth of his chest.

The first contact of Xavier’s tongue against her had her jumping with a cry, even as she felt it through the fabric of her underwear. “Xavier, don’t tease—!”

The man in question hummed against her. “‘M not. Just taking it slow.” Again he was licking a strip up her slit from behind, the tip of his tongue pushing against her clit as he did. It was electrifying, the thin layer between them making the friction feel too much and not enough at the same time. It was like she was being slowly tortured. “Want you to want this even more,” he mumbled into her now-soaked panties, before pulling it to the side with one hand and letting his fingertips ghost over her dewy lips.

Wet with slick and glistening right above him, she was a vision straight from his wet dreams that had him humping his pillow and needing a cold shower every morning before work. “I’m heavy, you can’t… oh my god!” Before she could even register it, he’d pulled her down all the way until she was probably suffocating him. Nothing she’d be able to worry about though; Zayne was quick to swallow any protests with his ravenous kiss, all messy and desperate as he consumed her alive.

It distracted her for the half-second before Xavier’s tongue had plunged into her wet heat, getting his first proper taste of her. She would’ve collapsed onto him, had Sylus not instantly left for her side, strong arms holding her in place as Zayne’s lips only left hers for the occasional shaky inhale of air, before whispering through gritted teeth. “Don’t think. Just feel what we’re doing to you. Give in to what your body wants. You’ve neglected that for so long, haven’t you?”

The silver-haired man, however, had the nerve to chuckle at her drunken nod, nosing at the junction between her jaw and her neck. “Now, was that so hard to admit, kitten?” The kiss he left at the angle of her jaw was almost deceptively tender, completely contradicting the noisy lapping of Xavier against her cunt, licking at her folds loudly, even as it was muffled by her on top of him. It felt heavenly, like he knew exactly when to thrust inside her and when to drag his mouth to her clit and suckling at it like an expert. “Sit down on him properly, he can take it. Hell, he probably likes being buried in your lovely cunt. I know I would.”

Xavier’s moan of assent was almost louder than her whimper of pleasure into Zayne’s mouth, both his teeth grazing against her clit and Sylus’ filthy words causing even more wetness to gush between her legs. Rafayel couldn’t just keep watching from the foot of the bed, an almost wicked grin on his face as he unbuttoned his blouse and made his way up to her on the bed. “You like hearing how perfect we find you, pretty? Does it get you wet knowing we’d give anything to get our hands any inch of your skin?”

Distantly, in the part of her mind that wasn’t yet consumed by dizzying lust, she felt grateful for the fact that her bed was big enough to accommodate them all, even with Rafayel’s hands reaching to cup her breasts. With Zayne’s addiction to her open-mouthed kisses that only got sloppier the more far-gone she was, and Sylus suckling at her neck as his hands began to drag her hips against Xavier’s face, her soft mounds had been almost neglected in their desperate tangle of limbs and broken whines.

Keen on changing that, Rafayel almost instantly latched his lips around her hardened nipples. With a groan deeper than she’d ever heard from him, he sucked on one, deft fingers toying with the other and rolling it between his fingertips. “Can’t fucking believe you taste sweeter than I ever imagined,” he breathed out into her skin, teething carefully at her sensitive tip and earning a deeper arch of her back. As his tongue soothed the light sting, Xavier nudged his nose deeper against her as she ground harder onto his face, eating her out with a fervor that matched her jerking hips.

It was too much all at once, made worse by the way Zayne seemed dissatisfied with kissing only her lips. Seeing her body pliant in his arms and thighs slickened with her arousal tugged at his deepest desires to mark her as his; to litter her perfect skin with the prettiest purple bruises that would take days to fade. Faintly, he thought of how he would be seeing her in his office in just two days. He grew impossibly harder, cock jumping against her waist as he sucked those blooming marks onto her collarbones, thinking of how they’d peek out through her shirt when he’d have to examine her.

He might revert back to being her doctor, but that would never undo the way he’d seen her in the most primal state. “Don’t cover them up,” he gasped out, pupils blown wide. Only momentarily pulling away, he tossed his glasses off his face without a single care in the world, hyper-focused on the way her teary eyes could barely meet his. “Don’t ever cover them up. Especially not when you’re seeing me. I’ll frame the picture in my office. My love, I need to—”

My love. My love. My love. The desperate words shot straight to her fluttering cunt, clenching around Xavier’s tongue that was dragging against her walls like he was memorizing the taste of her. “Won’t, I won’t. Promise I’ll come as I am,” she whined out, one hand clutching at Zayne’s arm, seeking purchase so she wouldn’t go insane with their combined attentions on her body. “Fuck, I want you to see me again like this.” She was like a string pulled taut, nerves fraying as heat bloomed wherever their lips and hands found. In her desperation, her other hand tried to find Sylus, nails digging into shoulder as she did.

Like a chain reaction, Sylus clicked his tongue in faux disappointment as she writhed in his arms. “Come on now, don’t make it easy for him. Make him work for it.” With Xavier lapping up the same juices that trickled down his chin, Sylus’ fingers found her clit with practiced ease, teasing her in figure-eights that brought her even closer without tipping her over the edge. It was torturous, having his mean whispers in her ear while Rafayel pinched her aching nipples and Zayne left hickeys on every inch of skin his hungry mouth could reach.

“Or does playing with your tits get you that worked up, sweetie? Can’t control your body when they’ve got your pretty tits in their mouths and you’re riding his face? Can you cum from my fingers on your clit, then?” Sylus cooed at her, flicking the small bud with his forefinger so fast she began to see stars. The kiss he left on her cheek was far too tender for the way he was mercilessly dragging her pleasure. “So breathtaking when you’re being ruined. You’re so sensitive, it’s almost cute.”

Xavier’s hands on her ass spread her apart even more for him, like he took Sylus’ words as a challenge to make her fall apart on his tongue, and this time she almost fully crumbled at the way he fucked her even deeper with it. If that was what he could do without even raising a finger, she shuddered at the thought of him wrecking her with the leaking tip of his cock alone. Rafayel pulled his mouth away from her heavy tits now, but a string of his spit kept them connected for a beat longer, before he smacked his full lips once, then twice, like she was a divine feast.

“I’ll fill you up soon, like a goddess deserves to be pleased.” The glint in his eyes was both dangerous and devastatingly sensual, and the promise made her wish her cunt was being stretched out by him now. “Just stay focused on me. I’ll give you everything you want, until you’ll think you’ll go crazy without it.” It was too late, she was already halfway to losing her mind with his words alone, and his eyes grew a darker shade of indigo as he watched the first tear of pleasure escape her, her eyes squeezing shut as she tugged at Zayne to suck at his tongue to numb the buzzing in her head.

It was the surprise of Xavier’s thumb ghosting at her achingly empty back entrance; the gentle press against it and the seconds when it fluttered in anticipation that had white heat exploding in the back of her eyes, her orgasm coming crashing down on her as she spasmed wildly around his tongue. Overwhelmed, her whole body shook with the sheer force of it, clit throbbing under Sylus’ relentless attention. All too quickly, it began to teeter towards overstimulation, sobbing as she arched away from his slick fingers, yet leaning her head closer to his shoulder and pulling away from an unfocused Zayne.

With an unquenchable thirst, Xavier lapped up every single drop of her release like it was the sweetest ambrosia, thumb still rubbing wet circles against her still unused hole, like he was half-begging her to open up for him; to get a teaser of what was coming next if she wanted it. And to say she wanted it was an understatement, even as she collapsed against him and her whole body gave out with the mind-blowing climax they’d gifted her.

She barely had enough strength in her to hold herself up, thighs and hips trembling as she tried to maneuver herself away from his face. “S-sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” she managed to say in her broken voice as she turned to face him.

The pussy-drunk look on his face pushed all concerns out of her brain, the entire lower half of his face completely drenched in a mix of her slick and his spit. His faraway gaze told him that this was exactly what he’d wanted when he’d offered this, though, and his sweet smile as he reached up to caress her waist was further reassurance. “I wouldn’t mind going like this, lovely.”

Even after she’d just cum, her walls fluttered at that. God, she needed more from all of them. And now, before she lost her mind.

***

Perhaps it was their biggest mistake, letting their conjoined anger be the fuel for this moment right then and there. Or maybe it was the best thing they could’ve done, looking at it from another perspective. Because only such visceral fervor could get them to this point, driving into her with the weight of a thousand crushing suns and consuming her alive. It was a little crazed, all uncontrolled emotions and raw need, but it was satiating every part of her that craved it.

Her rational side had tried to convince her against it; to stop her from almost begging for their cocks with needy hands and shaky legs. But logic couldn’t possibly win out when they’d sat before her, clearly affected by the state she was in, almost to the point where just watching her was edging them. No matter how hard she tried to deny it, it was pointless to abstain from the four men she’d been wanting to warm her bed every night since they’d entered her life.

Who were they to deny her what she wanted? If the woman they were entranced by looked at them with shiny eyes and furrowed eyebrows, face contorted in neediness and inner thighs sticky with her release, they weren’t strong enough to draw it out any longer. The foreplay had dragged on for what felt like hours, and as much as pulling the sweetest sounds from her was a game they clearly liked to play, every second that passed without them filling her up was a second wasted. That much they could all agree on, at least.

And with a split-second agreement, that was how they wound up like this: Zayne underneath her and staring up at her with wide glistening eyes, his long cock bullying past her entrance and stretching her out deliciously with every inch he thrust inside her welcoming walls. Rafayel’s hands were busy drawing tight circles around her clit, cooing at her so sweetly it almost distracted her from how he was only making sure she was wet and relaxed enough to take more of the man she was struggling to take.

Sylus was busy leaving his own marks down the side of her neck, part of him bristling at the idea of Zayne being the only one to stake his claim. Rationally, he knew it wasn’t that; knew that the last thing a man like him would do was be selfish about her. But love and lust were a dangerous combination, and it made him all the more hellbent on decorating her collarbones with angry red bite marks. He’d give her a necklace of rubies to match later, if she’d let him.

For now, though, Xavier was perfectly content where he lay sprawled across the armchair in front of the bed. He watched with hawk eyes, narrowed as he took in the filthy sights and sounds of them making a mess of the bed, his hand shamelessly tugging at his cock. Now completely naked, his chest rose wildly with his harsh breathing, skin flushed red as he jerked himself off on the chair, his thumb catching the drop of precum at his tip, making the glide down his shaft easier. Still, he didn’t look away, not for one second.

It had taken them so long to prep her weeping cunt for Zayne, and yet still she was struggling with his size after cumming twice on Rafayel’s long fingers. Finally, Zayne managed to bottom out inside of her, the sheer force of him knocking the breath out of her briefly as she weakly slumped against him. With her palms on the broad planes of his chest, she trembled as she pulled herself upright and sat still on top of him for a beat or two, trying to adjust to him.

His mouth had fallen open a little, his normally warm hazel eyes a dark forest green that held little regard for anything but the stunning woman that had taken his cock so well. All it took was an antsy wiggle of her hips, and a huffy, “C’mon, I’m dying here,” from her, and he was digging his fingers into the flesh of her hips, stabilizing her for a second before he began pounding up into her from below.

She’d fucking squealed at that, and all the blood in Rafayel’s body had shot down to his chubbing cock, so much so that his hand had stilled at her slickened clit, and he grew lightheaded at the images he conjured up in his head of ways he could draw even lewder sounds from her. Seeing her stretched around the obscenely large cock and hearing the quick schlick-schlick-schlick of sex and her stuttering moans that couldn’t keep up with the steady thrusting inside her already messed with his head more than he cared to admit.

If she wanted him, then no deity in all the worlds could stop him from making her his in even more debauched ways.

For now, he only rubbed her clit with even more fervor—not enough for it to ache, but more than enough for the pleasure to blur the edges of her mind, and for her to legs to spread open even more, like her body knew had fallen into an ancient rhythm it recognized. Never one to watch silently, Sylus hummed in amusement at the way she pliantly fell into them. “Is his cock really that good, that you’re already close to forgetting your name? Or is it just that you were born to take us perfectly?”

“For—for any of you, mmgh, yes, right there!” she gasped out, twisting her back as her nails dragged down Zayne’s chest, pushing her breasts further into Sylus’ waiting hands. She fit perfectly in his palms, the softness of her spilling between his fingers and almost absolving him of all common sense. “More, wan’ more. I can… I can take it.” Even in her wanton state, her determined gaze directed towards each and every one of them was like a spell that bound them to her.

If more was what she wanted, then more she would get.

“Slip two fingers inside of her. She’ll take it like a good girl, won't she?” Xavier’s words carried a hint of sharpness that had her gushing even more around Zayne’s length, and Rafayel snarled at that, knowing that this was directed at him.

“Don’t tell me what to do. What do you think I was prepping her for? She’ll need to be stretched out properly if she wants to take my cock too.” Then, like the nasty tone had been a mere mirage, he turned back to his beloved with a voice smoother than honey, fingers more delicate than silk as they slipped past the thick ring of white between Zayne’s base and her creaming walls. “Don’t you want that, pretty girl? Want me to teach you how to get stuffed with two cocks at once?” he sweetly offered.

The sudden but more than welcomed intrusion startled her enough to cry out his name; enough for her to get distracted while Sylus restrained both her hands behind her back and tugged her closer to him. Rafayel’s sounded almost like a siren tempting her with slender fingers plunged inside her heat, Zayne’s length carving itself inside her too. The double stimulation was enough to drive anyone to the brink of insanity. Rafayel fingered her mercilessly, the wet squelching sounds getting louder as his words hit her full force.

“Kiss that spot behind her ear, she makes the sweetest sounds when you bite at her skin a little,” Xavier offered, absolutely unhelpful from his place as he heaved out a breath, his eyes lidded and dark as his palm stroked almost lazily at his cock, like he was taking his sweet time pulling the pleasure and keeping it at bay.

Just like anyone could’ve predicted, the light provocation—because there was no way it could be interpreted as otherwise—had Rafayel biting the inside of his cheek, but instead of wasting petty words on him, he let that be encouragement for him to curl his fingers deeper inside her, earning an almost pitiful mewl from her with each brush of the pads of his fingers—now three, pushing against the spongiest spot inside of her in tandem with the relentless strokes of Zayne’s cock.

Sylus’ lips were pulling into a smile before he could even stop himself, shaking his head in disbelief. “Who would’ve thought you’d take it this well, sweetie. If we’d known, we wouldn’t have waited this long and wasted our time.” Her hands twitched under his grasp, aching to pull someone, anyone closer, but Sylus’ grip remained firm, pinning her in place and ghosting kisses down the side of her neck with enough teeth to make her whine.

“Didn’t—too much, ‘s so deep, Zayne!—didn’t even know if…” she gasped for air, hips swiveling to meet him, “If you wanted me too.”

Zayne’s voice was almost breathless as he ground her hips down on him, driving himself even deeper inside her and battering at that spot that had her back curving deliciously. “I don’t think there’s a world where I wouldn’t do anything for this. For a chance with you.” His words barely lucid, he threw his head back against the pillow, the warmth and wetness of her maddening, to the point where he feared it would be over too soon.

Even as Zayne’s eyes were starry and blown wide like she’d personally made him see heaven the very moment she’d slid down on his cock, fitting him perfectly inside her, Sylus refused to let him bask in the pride of being the first to stuff her full. He leaned down to whisper in her ear, “But that’s barely anything compared to what you’ll feel when you take me.”

Making sure to press his throbbing hard-on against the small of her back, he let his hand wander down her navel, pressing below it just enough that he could feel the bulge of her tummy with every stretch inside her. “Maybe up to here, maybe even more. And I’ll make it so you’ll feel like nothing else is ever enough.” The sensual purr was a promise; one that had her tightening around the man being ruined underneath her.

“I’m sure after tonight I won’t take much to convince you to stay in bed with me a little longer every morning.” Rafayel’s fingers slipped out of her as he said that, leaving her feeling somehow emptier, as absurd as it sounded. Before she could protest—and she did, in shameless dulcet tones that made him want her even more—he shushed her with a kiss to her damp lips, palm cupping her chin.

The sweetness in it would have been deceptive, had he not pushed his long cock inside her to the hilt in one thrust, pulling a scream from her depths that would’ve stunned him—that is, had he not been too busy fighting the urge to cum at the obscene sight of her stretched around him and Zayne, and had they both not taken a pity on her body spasming in his hold and given her time to adjust.

She was the picture of eroticism that no painting or sculpture in the world could imitate, teary eyes halfway rolled and kiss-swollen lips parted in a silent moan. Her tongue was begging for him to press on; to stuff her mouth with his fingers wet with herself, and let her get a taste of how sweet her nectar was. For now, he managed to barely control himself until her body got used to the intrusion of two not-quite-human men finally getting to have her cunt hugging their lengths.

Sylus took that chance to thumb at her clit, stroking her steadily and rekindling that dormant heat to completion. Something told him that she wouldn’t properly open up on their cocks until she’d cum around them at least once; until she was so wet she’d soaked through the ruined bedsheets, and her thighs clamped around them in a vise-like grip, keeping them nestled snugly inside her. Her gummy walls clenching around them both would’ve been enough to drive them over the edge, had Zayne not turned his head to pant into the pillow, and Rafayel bit down onto her shoulder.

The pain of that combined with the unimaginable fullness made her push back into Sylus’ chest, her hands fumbling to reach for anything, but still bound in his hold. “Please, need to see you, Sy, please?” she openly pleaded, nuzzling her head into his neck as soon as Rafayel’s teeth were off her and his lips were soothing the ache of the bite. The tear tracks still glistened on her cheeks as she gazed up at him like he would be her salvation. “Want you closer. Too far. ‘N Xavier too, don’t you want to fuck me?”

There wasn’t any need for her to beg, but asking for Xavier to please her like that had his fist tightening around his cock to stop himself from cumming instantly at that. “Fuck, like anyone could deny you anything, princess.” He stalked up to her, a storm waging behind those usually unreadable blue eyes. Now, it was crystal clear, even to her, how much he wanted her in ways he could never fully voice—whether out of internalized shame, or out of worry that he’d drive her away with their sheer intensity.

“It’s all I’ve wanted since the day I met you. I can’t stop thinking about how your body would feel around me, and tasting you ruined me, and you think I don’t want to cum inside your pretty cunt?” Coming to a stop by the bed, he reverently touched the shell of her ear, in a way so unlike how his eyes vowed that the very moment he got his hands on her he’d make her cry out his name like a mantra. “I’ve waited for years. I can wait a little more to finally fuck you.”

While she was momentarily distracted by the way Xavier swore himself to her, Sylus decided to let her have her way and let her go—only for one of her hands to blindly twitch behind her, like it sensed his presence before her body did. Readjusting more towards her front so he’d be easier for her to reach, she surprised him by curling her fingers his length, already slickened with all the heavy precum that leaked from his tip. It was clumsy in an almost cute way; her delirium stopping her from being able to truly focus on giving him a proper handjob. But it didn’t matter; just seeing her small hand wrapped around him had him nearly spilling into her hands.

Patience wearing thin, Rafayel gave an experimental roll of his hips inside her, her body jerking forward as he did. It was an impossibly tight fit, and with every inch he pulled out he could feel himself dragging against both her slippery walls and Zayne’s cock still nestled inside her. Just as the mushroom head of him caught against her entrance, he pushed back inside her with a lewd pop, torturously slow and dragging that beautiful moan of hers into a half-sob.

And she wasn’t doing any good trying to hold onto any flyaway thoughts when her brain was lagging trying to catch up to the immense pleasure that shot sparks down every inch of her skin. “Shit, too big,” she whimpered, her breath catching in her throat as she stilled her hand around Sylus’ length. “‘M gonna cum too soon, don’t want this to end… shit, need more, harder!”

Her words were contradicting themselves every other second; part of her wanting to prolong the burning warmth that she’d spent nights between her softest sheets daydreaming about, and part of her needing to take it all in with a desperation she’d normally feel even somewhat humiliated to express. Now that she was so far gone, though, she didn’t care about these particulars, just to get them to fuck her the way she was craving so viscerally.

Unable to even think, let alone focus on jerking someone off when the two men inside her were turning her insides into liquid heat, she pushed her hips back to meet every thrust. When Rafayel felt like he was almost carving his cock into her tummy, Zayne was quickly pulling out right under his head, but never fully—just enough to tease her and drive her crazy, never the both of their cocks stretching her out at the same moment.

That was something she absolutely despised in her cock-drunk haze, of course. She made them know just as much instantly with a wet sob and a laughably weak slap at Zayne’s navel, turning back to Rafayel to shoot him a pointed glare that looked more sulky and whiny than actually angry. “Can’t you just fuck me properly? How much do I have to beg for it?” Even when sex was dulling her senses, she had it in her to snark at them. And maybe that was because part of her knew that they’d do anything for her regardless.

It was futile for her to act like she was unaffected, especially when her eyes fluttered shut the instant they decided to become dedicated to proving her wrong, pushing into her wetness to the base at the exact same time. Their combined girth at their hilt was so much that she could swear that she could feel them in her throat, choking on a silent gasp that she could barely control. She no longer had it in her to be mortified about the sounds she was making, or the way she’d completely forgone the handjob she’d been giving Sylus, or the way her cunt fluttered uncontrollably around the two men who pounded into her simultaneously, like she was nothing more than a cocksleeve.

No; she no longer cared what they thought, so long as she could chase the pleasure they were so keen on giving her so freely. And part of her—the part that had conjured up even dirtier fantasies in the blackest nights and the stillest days—felt immense pride over the fact that they’d wanted her this much; had even been ready to get down on their knees (both literally and metaphorically) for a taste of her salty skin and to get buried between her soaked folds.

What had that simmering heat nearing bursting so explosively underneath her skin, was the newfound knowledge that they truly loved her, and the lust sweeping her off her feet was born from those emotions they’d been burying for that long. It was surreal to accept at first, but with the way Rafayel looked at her like she was his entire world and lifeline wrapped around him, how Zayne whispered her name like the only prayer he’d ever believe in in the throes of passion he’d let consume him, and with Sylus’ body leaning into her every move like his was made for her to entwine with, there was no denying that something much bigger than carnal desire had stripped them of all rationality.

Even calm, collected Xavier was temporarily blinded to the absurdity of it all when he was within such close proximity to her and her heat. No amount of self-depreciation could stop her from seeing just how fucked out his gaze had been when he’d eaten her out like a feast he’d craved for eons. It had turned his head inside out, so much so that even now as his cock twitched against his stomach, all he could zero his gaze on was her face, taking in her every micro-expression with every thrust she got lost in the overwhelming feeling of.

Even though he was so hard it was probably painful, he still left the sweetest kisses at her temple, soothing her as she got louder with every squelching coordinated thrust that felt like it would tear her apart in the best way possible. Sure, she’d tried taking two dildos at once in her lewdest masturbation sessions, even going as far as to try and suck on a third when she’d felt her mouth watering at the thought of the men who’d ruined her perception of everything as she knew it, but it was nothing compared to the real thing.

Back then, the intrusion of silicone in her mouth couldn’t have prepared her for how filthy it felt to have Xavier’s index finger press down on her tongue that threatened to slip past her slackened jaw, or how quickly she’d take to that and begin eagerly sucking at it. Amidst the whirlwind of sex with them, it was almost soothing; like a hibernating habit that Xavier had pulled out of her depths. Swirling her tongue around the digit and hollowing her cheeks to suck on it even better was like an instinctual reaction, and her tummy warmed at the sight of his gaze hardening at that, like she’d done something she couldn’t take back now.

“Could do more than this for you, Xav,” she murmured, her mouth preoccupied with lavishing him with attention that spelled a promise for later. Whatever that action would make him do, she welcomed it with open arms and parted legs.

Literally too; with her practically folded over Zayne’s front as he and Rafayel mercilessly pushed her right to the precipice of something that would kill her with its intensity, her bare back was now exposed to a waiting Sylus, who’d made her completely abandon the weak attempts at her bringing him to orgasm with her fist. Futilely, she’d tried to make grabby hands at him, but her body had fallen hands-first against the man below her. Instead, he swept his finger through the mix of Rafayel and Zayne’s precum and her sticky cream around their bases, his thumb then ghosting over her other hole, so empty in comparison to how mind-numbingly full her cunt felt.

While she suckled on Xavier’s fingers—now three of them thrusting inside her mouth and curling around her tongue sloppily twirling between them—Sylus’ touch caused her to jolt in surprise, the sudden touch scalding her skin. She had only entertained the thought some very rare times, tracing the tight ring of muscle with her own slick-soaked middle finger to the richness of his voice in the texts he’d sent her one night, but that was nothing compared to the way he was actually toying with the idea and teasing her puckered entrance with a finger lubed up with their combined desire.

He met some resistance as her body was stretched beyond reason, unused to having something tease at her back entrance. But her sheer greed; her irrational and senseless want to have something inside her there and to have Sylus be touching her in any capacity as he chuckled at the way she openly craved more, had her loosening up and relaxing as his finger slid inside past more than a knuckle.

“So tight around my finger, sweetie. Never had anyone play with your ass like this?” Though he clicked his tongue, she heard zero remorse in his voice as he began to open her up even further, pushing deeper inside her and causing big fat teardrops to dot her waterline, threatening to slip past as both Zayne and Rafayel chose that very moment to pound faster into her, their lengths carving a path inside her body that could never be erased. The sloppiness of their thrusts, combined with Sylus’ stimulation where she’d gone almost completely untouched her entire life, was enough to make her moans around Xavier’s fingers grow into high-pitched whines straight from the most pornographic scenes she’d ever seen.

As Xavier pushed down on the back of her tongue, she gagged a little, pushing his wet fingers out of her mouth only to choke around the words as the tears cascaded down her cheeks. “N-no, just sometimes played with it,” she rasped out, turning to meet Sylus’ gaze, which left hers for a moment to drift to where her tummy was prominently bulging with the two men fucking her into oblivion, grunting and groaning as they stretched her out in ways she didn’t think were even physically possible, battering at that spongy spot inside her she’d never been able to reach so good and so deep.

Even as she tried to formulate sentences, her eyes squeezed shut with a gasp, an unfamiliar ache building in her core at the force of them drilling into her. It was so intense, like a pressure building behind a dam, and her tongue turned to cotton wool around the words she tried to whisper out, before her whiny cries cut through the air. “When… when I fucked myself with both hands listening to the voice messages. The ones—fuck, ‘m gonna cum, gonna fucking cum all over you, need all of you inside me, fill me up, I can’t, can’t—!”

“Let go, pretty, just let go. Even if it feels strange, I’ve got you, yeah? I’ll give it all to you if you want it.” Rafayel’s voice in her ear was more gruff than she’d ever heard it, and that alone was so erotic she had to dig her nails into the ridges of Zayne’s abdomen. And just as if he wanted that pain, Zayne’s hands left her hips and grasped hers firmly, eyes shining like stars up at her.

“Cum for me, my love,” he moaned out, his pace getting messier but faster with every anticipatory swirl of her hips against his. More than him pushing up into her fluttering heat, she was slamming herself down on his length, desperate to take them all the way inside her. “Can feel you clenching around us even tighter. I’ll give you everything, fill you up all you need, just cum with me.”

With one particularly well-timed thrust of them together that she swore she could feel all the way to her ribs, the dam inside her burst, and that unfamiliar sensation swelled into a crescendo of white-hot flashes of pleasure that had her entire body tightening like a thread before snapping. Amidst the toe-curling heat that had her muscles spasming and her cunt pulsating with the strength of her climax, she heard the wet splash of her release as she felt it gushing out of her too-full insides. Black dotted her swimming vision for a few seconds, her hands against Zayne’s contracting abdomen getting soaked.

In the haze of her blinding orgasm, her warmth had almost trapped Sylus’ two fingers inside her, earning a sharp inhale from him, watching her fall apart around the two men she’d been taking so wantonly, soaking him up to the wrist. Rafayel’s voice was pitched with disbelief as he pulled her further onto him, hissing out, “You fucking squirted? You’re killing me, I swear you want to kill me with your perfect body. Your cunt was made for me to die for.”

His babbling made little sense when she was still riding the aftershocks of her release. “I know it happens sometimes, but with you it’s beyond anything I could ever dream about.” Breathlessly, Zayne dragged her hands up to his chest, his skin getting wetter with the trails of her release. He didn’t seem to care; not when he was busy taking her kiss-swollen lips between his teeth and biting down on them sharply to completely consume her like she’d always wanted him to.

After two sloppy thrusts that had her crying with overstimulation, he buried himself right before her cervix, moaning her name like it was all he knew. Too much warmth flooded her insides, and she knew then that both Zayne and Rafayel had cum at the same time, filling her to the brim with their sticky release; so much so that she could feel so much of it dribbling past her entrance and down the insides of her quivering thighs. Everything was so wet, so messy, and so much that it felt like her whole body was on fire, belly so full with all the cum they’d painted her insides with.

When they both slipped out of her, the emptiness felt so eerie that she wondered if she’d ever be satisfied in her life without having at least two cocks stretching her out at once as she was just nestled on top of them. Her gummy walls needed to take them up to the base; it was like she was molded for them to fuck so good and so full. Her brain was fuzzy, thinking of all the filthiest, most depraved ways she would take them, in every position that could make her feel them the deepest and the most. She wondered if she could even take Xavier inside her next time, daydreaming about the limits she could test with him, and the prettiest cries she could hear him make with her.

Post-orgasm bliss and craving for more in the future almost made her forget the man who’d opened her ass up for him, had he not taken advantage of her cock-hungry daze to completely sweep her into his embrace, earning a squeal as she clamped around the two fingers inside her fluttering hole, glaring back at him through red-rimmed eyes, though it didn’t look particularly threatening when her back was curving against his chest already, and her mouth was dropping open in preparation for Xavier once again.

More than happy to do whatever she wanted, Xavier even let her defiantly turn her head away from Sylus just to lewdly gaze up at him and try to take his fingers down her throat, pushing back her gag reflex for a while. “Want to suck on them again, princess? Or do you want something else?” The warmth in his voice was at odds with the look in his eyes that made it feel like he was already fucking her throat before she’d even asked for it. “Don’t be shy. Take what you want. My fingers, my cock, whatever you want to drool all over. ‘S all yours, after all.”

Sylus pretended to sigh, his free hand reaching up to cup a handful of her soft tits, all bruised up with the marks they’d left on her. It was impossible to tell which where whose; just easy to tell that she was well-fucked enough. “A shame they took your first time squirting, when you’re so receptive to me finger-fucking you here and could probably cum from that alone,” Sylus pretended to sigh, curling his fingers inside her so that it amplified the feeling of every brush against her walls. It was a different kind of fullness, somehow deeper than when she had the two men—now delicately circling her clit and pushing the mix of their cum between her folds and back inside her—fucking her full.

A good kind of different, she thought to herself as her cunt fluttered around nothing, sweet vibrations of her throat forming around Xavier’s fingers as she eased up around Sylus’ knuckles stretching her opening intentionally slow. “At least they made it easier for me to get you ready for my cock now. Is that what you want, kitten?” Deftly, he traced her inner walls, shallowly thrusting three fingers inside her at a steady pace, then alternating between that and scissoring her open. That steady stretch and his other hand leaving her sore tits to palm at the fat of her ass made her nerves tingle with anticipation. “Want to give it a try, see if you could fit me inside, hm?”

Her nod was almost instantaneous, and a satisfied purr escaped from behind her. She knew that if they had more time, he’d probably drag it out and make her beg for it; make her body nearly give up with all the attention they were giving her, but when he slipped his fingers out of her and her unused hole gaped just a little, there was no turning back for either of them. The thick head of his cock brushed between her thighs, catching the droplets of cum that had dripped out of her before pushing between her folds and against her clit from the back. For just a moment, she tensed at the combined stimulation of that and Zayne thumbing at her overly sensitive nub.

When her jaw fell open at the pleasure being drawn out of her, Xavier’s fingers slipped out of her mouth. She didn’t seem to mind his wet fingers cupping her chin so she’d meet his eyes. “You have to relax for us, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt by getting too ahead of yourself. Even if you want me to fuck your throat, you can’t push yourself too far.” That was the only warning he gave her before he pulled her forward with just enough force that she had to position herself on all fours, both her holes clenching around nothing.

It wasn’t nothing for long, though—in one swift move, Zayne was once again pushing his cock inside her, and her eyes blew wide. “Wait, I don’t think I can—”

“I won’t, I won’t,” he was quick to reassure her, his finger tracing her cheekbone adoringly. “Your pretty cunt can’t take anymore, my love. You’ve clearly reached your limit, so I’ll just keep you plugged full of cum until we’re done. How does that sound?”

It sounded absurd, hearing those words coming from such a composed man like him. But the idea of him cockwarming her? Too good to refuse, especially when he was the perfect girth to keep the warmth inside her still nestled deep. “I’d… really want that,” her voice was breathy, nearly dreamy as she wiggled her hips a little for him to snugly fit inside. Rafayel’s soft smile from next to her was a balm to the ache that begged for him too, and before she could whine for his touch, he was pressing kisses to her eyelids as a distraction while his hand slid down her front and to her sticky clit, lightly tapping the pads of his fingers and causing electric currents to sting right there.

“Can’t stay away from you, darling. Not after I’ve known what it’s like to get a taste of how your body perfectly fits mine.” Then the glint of his grin was sharper, almost mean, and her heart sunk for a beat or two. “But I’m not letting you off easily this time. You’ll have to make do with these two making you cum or not at all, alright? I won’t be the one to get you off.”

Anyone could tell that the words were a pointed challenge for the other men as he lightly flicked her clit, nowhere near enough for her to get anything out of it. Xavier’s eyes flashed, and instinctively she lolled her tongue out, already knowing what was coming. He tapped his flushed tip against her tongue, the beads of his precum leaving a slightly bitter taste in her mouth. Her tummy tingled, and she thought to herself that despite all of this being so new, she couldn’t think of a happier way to be on her hands and knees every night from now on.

Her hand wrapped around the base of him as she began to slip his length inside her mouth, the weight of him on her tongue only making her grow wetter and wetter. She’d never imagined that one day the practice she’d put mouthing at wet toys in her shower would pay off, her dreams of using her lips to wrap around the impossible girth of him manifesting. Her fingers around his base tried to jerk him off as she took him down her throat inch by inch, but still her fingertips couldn’t touch. Trying to take him down her throat was a process so slow, she thought she’d die before she’d taste his cum. Rafayel’s fingers barely touching her clit and Sylus’ cock sliding from her folds to press against her empty hole made it feel like torture.

Her desire for Xavier won against her impatience and the anxiety that she’d even be able to take him at all. Before long, she’d taken him to the hilt, her nose buried into the thick bush of darker hair. She gagged for a second around him, unused to the feeling of swallowing around something so thick as her tongue licked at the underside of his cock. When she’d settled down a little more, she began to gradually bob her head up and down his length, her hands curling around Zayne’s biceps as she tried to balance herself.

The pace she’d set was thrown off the moment Sylus chose to finally, finally open her up with his cockhead, slipping inside her with a plap. She could only moan around Xavier’s length, as the cock inside her ass began to slowly stretch her out, reaching places she never could with her fingers. He was so slowly pushing inside her, and she knew it was for her own good as he was the first to take her from there, but she couldn’t help but arch her back just enough to push back into him, trying to force him inside faster. It was such a foreign feeling, something she’d never imagined she’d derive so much pleasure from, but here she was, her body practically begging him to use her.

“Careful, sweetie, there’s only so much you can handle.” Even as he pulled out a little, only to drive his cock even deeper inside her, he sounded so utterly tender it made her chest ache. “I don’t want to cum too fast either. I wouldn’t be able to help it, if you’re this tight and I don’t take it slow.” Sure enough, he made sure to drag every thrust so deliciously inside her, every brush against her walls a test to her sanity; for how much pleasure she could take before she started fucking herself on him.

With him picking up the pace at which he fucked her and Zayne still inside her, she was being pushed more and more towards Xavier, taking him in further, and she felt stuffed full from both ends. There was no way she could control the tears falling down her cheeks, the heat being wrung out from the depths of her. “That’s it, there you go,” Xavier’s voice wavered, a sigh escaping him before he let his hand dig into her hair, nails lightly scratching her scalp in a way that made her limbs feel like jelly. “So good, taking me so well. Feels like heaven, darling.” One hand reached out to trace against the bulge forming at the front of her neck every time he pushed back inside her wet warmth. “Can even see my cock stretching out your throat. It’s such a gorgeous sight.”

There wasn’t much she could bring herself to care about when she could feel every vein and curve to Sylus’ cock; it took all the strength she had to keep herself from folding into the mattress as he fucked into her. He didn’t even have to be rough or manhandle her for her to feel her sanity slipping away. All he had to do was stretch her out, the combined release from the earlier session making the glide so much easier. Through the fog of her brain, all she could make out other than how she was being fucked open like a toy was the taste of Xavier on her tongue, and the somehow comforting warmth of Zayne still inside her.

She didn’t even have the power in her to produce any muffled whines after Rafayel had snatched his fingers off of her clit, wanting to keep her on edge for a little longer and just barely tracing small circles around her nipples. Not quite off her skin, but still never giving her the stimulation she needed to her hardened peaks, she constantly wanted for more and her greed knew no bounds when it came to the four men who’d turned her world on its head. But even then, part of her—the part that tried to cling to any remaining scrap of rationality—felt like she might die if he set his mind on making her cum using just his fingers. That didn’t stop her body from chasing his touch, though, the arch of her back deepening as she did.

All Rafayel did was click his tongue, his fingers dancing across the soft expanse of her back. “Told you I wouldn’t be making you cum, pretty girl. That’s up to these two.” His touch reignited sparks that refused to die down, the embers catching flame as every part of her body begged for release again. Her grip on Zayne’s arms tightened, her cheeks hollowing out as she worked twice as hard around Xavier with every measured thrust inside her mouth. With every catch of Sylus’ tip against her tight ring of muscle, she clamped around him, like she didn’t want him to even think of pulling out of her, and if Sylus’ groans were anything to go by, he could feel it every time.

The bass in his voice had her squirming, her hips subconsciously grinding down on Zayne to take him deeper as she chased her nearing climax, throwing away all thoughts of aching muscles and her guaranteed soreness after. Not one part of her cared; not when Xavier was full-on fucking her face now, never too fast but his grip on her head firm. That alone—the sheer control in his grasp, and how he knew her limits before she’d even meet them—made her clench around the two cocks filling her up both ways, her body brought so close to the edge she could taste it on the tip of her tongue, even more electrifying than the tang of Xavier’s precum.

“‘M gonna cum, now. You’re too good, fuck, I can’t hold back” His voice was low, rougher around the edges. “If you don’t want to swallow, you have to tell me now.” Gritting his teeth, he said, “Push me away or stop me, tap my leg. You have to.” Her eyes tracked the beads of perspiration trickling down his neck and temples, the dampness of his hair making the tips of it stick to his skin. The sight of him so close to ruin above her, with his eyes a dark sapphire and his lips half-parted as heavy breaths left them, was so lewd it made her walls flutter around Zayne, who’d already gotten hard once again sheathed inside her warmth.

Her glassy eyes meeting Xavier’s as she kept sucking on him was the last straw. That was all the confirmation she could give now, that she wanted to taste all of him. All restraint thrown out the window, he fisted the roots of her hair, locking her head in place and causing her to gag for a second as he throbbed inside her mouth, before shooting his entire load down her throat. It briefly felt like he would cum forever in thick ropes, his cock pulsating as she swallowed it all. Even as he began to pull out, he was still twitching on her tongue, and she had to lick her lips to make sure not to waste a single drop she’d been craving for so long.

The slap of Sylus’ skin against hers, and his balls heavily pushing against her were enough to paint the filthiest picture in her far-gone mind. He was taking her from behind, even as she was stretched around Zayne, like all he cared about was bringing her all the pleasure he could as he pounded into her with enough force that pulled broken moans from her scratchy throat. Zayne choked on a whisper of her name, gravelly and desperate. “I’ll cum again inside you like this, don’t do this.”

To no avail, of course. Her mind didn’t even register the words, too caught up in the feeling of being fucked full and too needy for more to think of holding back her body’s desperation. “More, I can take it. Doesn’t—fuck, yeah, like that—hurt, just feels so good, Sylus,” she sobbed, falling forward against Xavier’s hips, his still-twitching cock pressed against her cheek, as Sylus jostled her body as he picked up the pace.

“Knew you’d like it, sweetheart. Had to make you feel good, even if I’m not fucking that sweet cunt.” She could hear the smirk in his voice. “God, I can still feel you clenching around us. You’re really that hungry for more? I can always give it to you. Any time you ask, I’ll be glad to stuff you full of my cock.” Before she could think of conjuring up a half-drunk answer that made little sense and was barely coherent, long fingers curled gently around her throat, and she was pulled up from her position to meet the depths of Rafayel’s violet eyes. The sheer intensity and beauty of them paired with the feeling of his light grip expertly on her neck had her breath catching in her throat.

“I’ve changed my mind, I’m too selfish for this,” he murmured darkly, thumb tracing her racing pulse, but not pressing. “Cum, my love. It’s all you want now, isn’t it? To lose control like this?” And there was something entirely otherworldly about him when he said those words; like he was writing it into fate and damning her to a world of blissful pleasure sending her hurtling off the edge.

Her second climax was even more intense than the first, all of her muscles contracting as she came so hard she could hear her blood pounding in her veins and the gush of more liquid from between her legs. She squirted with so much force that Zayne’s cock slipped out of her, her moans synchronizing with his as he painted the ridges of his stomach white. A mix of her clear release and all the cum she’d had plugged inside her gushed out of her, soaking the ruined sheets beneath her as she collapsed with her ass up.

Sylus’ grip tightened on her soft flesh, parting her just right so he’d watch with a deep groan as her entrance spasmed around his cock and milked him of his cum for a few more sloppier thrusts, his own orgasm washing over him like a tidal wave. Only when he slipped out of her, her gaping hole pushing his thick release out of her and letting it slide down between her sticky folds, did she begin to mourn the loss of the fullness. Her nipples were too sensitive as she nestled into Zayne’s chest, panting with the exertion of cumming so hard that her vision had swam. Someone’s fingers delicately brushed her eyebrows, with a tenderness that made her want to curl up into a ball and cry. It was Xavier; somehow she was sure of it, like her soul recognized his.

But even that she could no longer bring herself to do, all her energy drained to an absolute zero. She couldn’t move a single muscle, a heaviness bearing down on her entire body, even as Sylus moved from behind her. The downside to having experienced such immense pleasure was that she now couldn’t feel her limbs, a dull ache spreading from the lower half of her body as she was thoroughly spent. Somewhere in the back of her head, she thought that this must be what a truly good fuck did to people.

For her, there’d be no one else other than these men that could ever make her feel this way again. They’d effectively ruined her for everyone else, and changed the very idea of sexual gratification she thought she knew before.

After a few minutes of letting the fuzz of her brain take over, indulging in every sweet kiss pressed against the crown of her head, and every brush of fingers against her nape, soothing the knot of tension there, she slowly felt her soul return to her. “C’mon now, my love,” Zayne’s voice could be heard saying from above her, faintly distant in the post-sex haze she found herself captivated by. There was a hint of concern lacing his words. “You need to use the toilet and take a shower. We can rest afterwards all you want.”

“Can’t get up, later,” she whined, dragging the last syllable. She only curled further into herself, cozying up to his heartbeat and leaning into the touch of someone who ever-so-gently parted her legs, before carefully patting her down with what felt like a damp towel. When it made contact with her folds and clit, she had to bite back a hiss at the uncomfortable sensitivity that sparked up where she was being touched, causing her to swallow harshly.

“Sorry, sweetie. We can’t just leave you like this.” Sylus said from above her, voice sympathetic as he wiped her down as gently as he could. “You’d bite my head off if I let cum dry on your skin.”

“As she should,” Rafayel’s lips curled around the words in distaste, and her eyelids fluttered half-open to watch him walk up to the balcony doors, opening them a little. “It’s bad enough that the entire room reeks of sex. Imagine sitting in a puddle of cum too.”

Xavier snorted at that, his fingers stilling over her brows before they tapped her nose sweetly, earning a slow blink of her eyes, like she was still processing this all. “I don’t think that was at the forefront of her mind when she was taking it that well.”

She felt the vibrations of Zayne’s chest against her ear when he spoke again. “Well, sex with more than one person is a lot messier once it’s all over.”

That sentence served as a reminder of what had transpired between them; that this had truly happened, and that the past two hours or so of frantic sex had not been just a particularly lewd wet dream. Her stomach churned a little at the thought, feeling a little unsure as she realized that she’d really slept with them all. Was she supposed to feel embarrassed about how she’d fallen into bed with no hesitation? Should the deep-seated satisfaction have been replaced by regret down to her bones?

What had she done, now? And what would happen to them going forward, after she’d crossed the lines that could never be drawn again, and changed everything between them forever?

“I… I didn’t properly think this through, did I?” she whispered as her voice cracked a little, her body tensing once more at the onslaught of what-if situations that hit her all of a sudden now.

“Hey,” Xavier called out to her in his soft timbre, as Sylus tossed the towel away in favor of turning all his attention on her. “Don’t work yourself up so much, okay? We’ll figure it out together later.”

“You don’t have to worry your pretty head about this right now. Let yourself enjoy something for a change, sweetie,” Sylus added, his words infused with a gentle kindness he’d often used with her, and despite herself, she felt half her worries crumble away into dust.

Her eyelids were then kissed, once then twice. “Just close your eyes for a couple of minutes. I’ll wake you up so you don’t doze off too deeply, ‘kay?” Rafayel mumbled against her skin, his warmth inviting her to relax just a little more.

As steady as ever, and as soothing as his presence alone had always been, Zayne’s heartbeat under her ear and the strokes of his palm against her back were a rhythm she found herself melting into. “Rest, love. It’ll all solve itself when it comes down to it.”

His soft-spoken words were probably the last thing she heard, before her entire being drifted away. There’d be enough time to untangle all of this later on. For now, they really had worn her out, and the darkness was calling out to pull her under, into a dreamless sleep she definitely needed.

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It wasn’t how she typically expected her Fridays to go, and frankly she hadn’t even planned for it to happen. In fact, if you’d asked her just a day or two prior to her getting her back royally blown out like this, she would’ve waved it off as nothing more than a mere fantasy that she shamefully got lost in every night, when her hand would reach out for a dildo she now knew could never replace any of them, and she would’ve fucked herself into a writhing mess on her mattress, with their names on her lips and the filthiest images she could come up with pushing her over the edge.

But nothing compared to the real thing, and never would she have believed that she’d get to live out what even her dreams hadn’t let her imagine, let alone the way it had come about. It felt like a fever dream, something she would conjure up in the back of her mind when she was delirious and half-insane, definitely not something that had been the shocking end result of the past months.

***

To say that it had started as all things did would be the understatement of the century, clearly. Because “things” usually didn’t refer to getting four ridiculously hot men—ones that actually cared about her beyond the physical magnetism that pulled them towards her—into her half-made bed, having her folded in half and split open over their cocks. “Things” usually didn’t have her mouth open in a choked out perpetual moan, chin slick with drool that slipped past her swollen lips. And generally in her life, she hadn’t ever predicted this outcome, given the way “things” had gone about.

Really though, she probably wouldn’t be able to pinpoint exactly when it all started. Not because they were fucking her dumb and any coherent thoughts went flying out the window the very second nimble fingers had slipped past her waistband and underneath her shirt (though they were and they had), but because she hadn’t exactly made any wicked plans for this or anything. Everything had fallen into place the very moment they’d crossed paths, and that itself had happened so naturally that it was hard to notice if it had started then.

Maybe getting accepted to work at the Hunters’ Association had been the catalyst for everything. Her chances had already been pretty low, so it was a bit of a miracle that it happened in the first place—or a stroke of impossible luck that she’d probably never have again. Whatever it was, she just crossed her fingers and hoped that the universe wouldn’t fuck things up for her in compensation for it. It was even harder to believe that fate had decided to play further in her favor after that, pushing Xavier her way as her coworker.

Their first meeting mid-mission had been… rocky, to say the least. Could she really blame him for being on guard the entire time, though? The flash of something eerily similar to pain in his eyes upon seeing her the first time had been enough then to tell her that something deeply human and almost fractured lingered in his depths, so she didn’t actually hold it against him. He wasn’t made of steel, after all, and how he’d stiffened up and adopted a distant voice could all be chalked up to caution in the middle of the danger they’d found themselves in.

But the multiple instances they walked directly into each other (both within the four walls of the Association’s daily hustle and bustle, and in wide-eyed surprise in the lobby of their apparently shared apartment complex) couldn’t just be chalked up to coincidence. Too many occasions of that happening had them relenting to the truth of the matter: they simply were meant to cross paths over and over again. It was almost laughably easy for them to accept their assigned roles as partners from there on out.

Maybe giving in to that fact was what gave them the final push to fall into a rhythm of daily life. He’d walk into the office, all bleary-eyed and blinking slowly, before giving her a soft half-smile and setting down a steaming cup of coffee, just the way she liked it. Every time she arched her eyebrow and asked him why he went through all that trouble every morning—or, well, every morning he bothered to show up at work, which really wasn’t often when he had a habit of overdoing it on missions to the point that he ended up with nothing to do for most of the week—he’d tell her that the café was on his way to work.

She didn’t have the heart to remind him that they were neighbors, and she knew all too well that that particular place was well out of their way to the Association’s headquarters. Though she had to admit, they had a mean brew that could power her through all 12 hours of her shift with no more than one espresso shot, so she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Anyway, it was endearing to watch him muttering excuses as he walked to his desk with flushed ears.

His companionship was easy, almost too comfortable. But it was all reliant on pure chance, and she wouldn’t lie and claim that she would’ve definitely noticed him as her neighbor had they not stumbled into each other at work that fateful day. He did have a tendency to try and blend into the walls most of the time, honestly, so she didn’t think he would’ve gone out of his way to get to know her otherwise.

Zayne, however… she didn’t think she could say the same for him. Their relationship with each other was certainly unique, to say the least. What could it even be called? A slightly wicked part of her wondered if it was a violation of some law somewhere. Thinking too much about it (and about why she reveled a little in the thought that it was somewhat taboo) made her head spin, and she was already confused enough as it is about whatever they had going on.

It wasn’t that Zayne was being particularly unclear. The vagueness to it all could be attributed to multiple things that couldn’t all be blamed on him. For starters, hadn’t she been the one to disappear from his life just as promptly as they’d grown closer in that stiff way a younger Zayne had allowed? There had once been a time when their families–unconventional as they had probably been–had been so entwined that she saw him over dinner more often than Grandma, who had a tendency to get caught up at whatever had her busy every other night. All of a sudden, things had changed so abruptly, and these shared meals became a distant memory. There wasn’t a single event she could even pinpoint as the reason for it.

It did hurt back then when he hadn’t seemed to want to seek them out himself either, she had to admit. But children tended to have shorter memories and held even shorter grudges, and it didn’t take long for her younger self to push back all disappointment at the loss of his undivided attention and longing for his quiet half-smile over a particularly exciting game of pretend in their living room. Time between then and her growing into adulthood had been reduced to nothing more than a singular point in time.

Past that point, Zayne had somehow lodged himself into her life once more. More accurately, it was her who’d shoved herself in the midst of his schedules–quite literally too, considering that her presence had become a series of appointments marked down on his calendar, and a number of calls that came almost too punctually. The fact that he’d become a doctor wasn’t one that took her by surprise (after all, even at her young age, she’d seen how remarkably quick-witted he’d been, and predicted that his visits had slowly gotten less frequent because he’d been skipping grades), it was more the fact that she’d become his patient one day.

There were few memories that she still had fully intact from her youth growing up, but she didn’t really remember being a sickly child. If she had been, would she really have spent most of her days covered in mud and with hair sticking out in every angle? Being such an active child, it made little sense that she’d suddenly find herself getting assigned under Zayne’s care for her Protocore Syndrome that she couldn’t recall ever suffering from prior to that. Oddly enough, it was like anything before that period, the one of chest pains that left her gasping for breath and clutching at her flesh until the squeezing and dizzy spells passed, had turned into a muddled haze.

In any case, she was in his care now, exasperated sighs at her abysmal sleep schedule and mildly berating phone calls and all. At first, it was… hard to deal with, alright. Every blank stare during her appointments was difficult to decipher, and it was unnerving not knowing what he was truly feeling whenever they’d coincidentally stumble into each other at random cafes and restaurants. Zayne’s mouth would say something, and she’d momentarily be taken aback at the bluntness with which it was delivered. In that split-second she’d hesitate if it was a good idea to approach him, he’d say something so oddly comforting it almost made her laugh.

Quaint as his personality was, she found it sweet how he’d get that thoughtful look on his face as he tried to phrase things so that there wouldn’t be any room for misinterpretation. It didn’t always come easy to him–as proven by the multiple times he’d accidentally set off her anger with a poorly chosen wording or two–but just seeing him trying so hard, standing at her doorstep on Thursday nights with a flicker of hope in his eyes and hands cradling a bag of donuts that was indulging for the both of them… there was no denying that she found it cute.

Cute, however, was probably the last adjective she’d use to describe someone like Rafayel. His actions were anything but that, really. How one body could store that much snark and bite, she had no idea.

Hell, even their first accidental meeting had been the furthest thing from smooth sailing. Hadn’t he taunted her for her lack of skills in a stupid children’s game, taking it as the start of a long verbal duel without even granting her a chance to fight back? No remorse whatsoever could be traced on his face when, upon their official meeting, he discovered that she was the same person hired to protect him. If anything, the verbal onslaught seemed to get stronger since then.

It seemed that he had a scoff and a sarcastic remark to wield at every second, paired with an exaggerated roll of his eyes that said more than any of his scathing words. There had to be some prize out there for the most aggravating person on earth, and it definitely had his name written on it. That could be the only reason why he always had such a smug look on his face whenever he (metaphorically) kicked her while she was down on her knees (not so metaphorically).

Oddly enough, though—as much as she sometimes fantasized about choking him with one of his expensive silk scarves, or replacing the cup of water he demanded with odorless paint thinner, or pinning him to a wall using his set of platinum daggers, or—he had his own unique charms, she’ll begrudgingly admit. The only reason why he’d managed to stay alive for this long despite getting on her nerves every other day was because he somehow had a way to undo all that anger with a word or two.

Honeyed words weren’t his forte; they rarely ever came out of his mouth, and when they did, she could tell that he’d forced them out with much difficulty. No; it was more of the fact that he was brutally honest—so every compliment that fell from his lips (which usually were in a sulky pout, as damage control before she could pummel him into a pulp) was an unbroken vow of truth. Rafayel would rather die than to flatter someone or curry any favors, and that’s what made every whispered praise drip with sincerity she could never weigh.

Being contradictory in that sense wasn’t the only thing that had softened her heart towards him. Subtlety wasn’t his strong suit, but maybe he had himself fooled that she wouldn’t notice the lingering gaze whenever she stood by his side at an event where he couldn’t seem to focus anywhere else.

Maybe he thought she wouldn’t notice the way his had instinctively moved to the small of her back whenever they were on another spontaneous midnight walk for inspiration; thought she was oblivious to the fact that his “impromptu seafood boil nights” coincided with the days her bones ached after a particularly long mission that had drained her of all her energy.

The things he brushed off as mere coincidences that she shouldn’t look into too much all spelled the ways he knew how to care. Clumsy at best, but heartfelt above all, they were the things she knew she could never face him with, because he’d jump to deny everything. Did he think she’d count him a sinner for daring to reach out, for baring himself to her? Why wouldn’t he allow himself that?

Not questioning it meant that Rafayel wouldn’t have to pull away at the first sight of something concrete, something that he’d have to admit being precious. It meant that, at the very least, she could indulge in his attention more. It meant that he wouldn’t find it necessary to hole himself up when he felt his sanity slipping away in front of her, and that he wouldn’t snarl at the trembling hand that reached for him. Silence was likely a small price to pay, then.

With Sylus, though… well, silence wasn’t something she could cling onto for long. It wasn’t something that would serve her well when his jagged edges could never be smoothed down with complacency; could never find comfort in familiarity born of laziness. Being too passive and letting her feelings take the backseat was a sure-fire way to ward him off, if anything. Which, at some point in time, had been a goal of hers, yes, and she had been openly hostile at the mere sight of him more often than she could count on her hands.

What else could she have done? Her training had been so deeply ingrained into her that it went directly against her nature to force her muscles to relax instead of readying herself to pounce. So finely attuned to her surroundings, she’d been taught constant vigilance the very first moment she’d become a Hunter—and all of her good senses had instantly caught onto the fact that he was trouble.

Once upon a time, the urge to dig her nails into his neck and bare it for the killing had been almost unbearable. It wasn't even bloodlust, at least she didn’t think it was. But it was akin to wanting to set things right; thinking that he represented everything that she stood against was enough incentive for her to want to capture him and watch him squirm under her thumb. If everything went back to him, and all crimes were done in his name, didn’t that make him deserving of it?

It was that sort of naïve thinking that had her baring her teeth at him at every chance, making his life a living hell. Somehow, he took it without protest, and that was probably the strangest thing of all. All he ever did was grit his teeth in a mix of a grimace and a smirk, and he was once again blocking her every attack with clenched fists and raised arms.

Sometimes it was infuriating, hearing Sylus languidly chuckling amidst their face-offs, only for him to take advantage of her momentary lapse of reason to force her to truly see things as they actually were. His deep voice in her ear as he tilted her chin towards the horrifying scenes that unfurled in the N109 Zone, he would hiss out the names of the perpetrators and their horrific list of crimes, his own paling in comparison. At times, they didn’t even seem as sufficient compensation, not enough to fight back.

For every part of her that fought against it, there was little she could do to deny what she saw with her own eyes. His hands couldn’t be washed clean of blood, that much was true, but he reminded her, over and over again, that it was a necessary sacrifice he was willing to make for some semblance of balance in a world that was never kind enough. It was a twisted form of justice, one she didn’t think she could fully get behind when she’d seen firsthand the consequences of the bullets that spear victim and perpetrator alike. But it was rational, in a way, and it was his form of justice.

What had once been disgust and shame curling in the pits of her stomach at ruby eyes boring into her figure as she pinned him down during another one of their duels had become an anticipation that bubbled underneath her skin. Whenever Sylus would pick her up from work with her helmet hooked onto his fingers and his body leaning against his motorcycle, it was another reminder of the stark contrast between what had once been and what currently was. She’d catch the corners of his lips lifting in a fond smile as he brushed back her hair, a far cry from the once unreadable glances stolen from behind half-empty wine glasses at dinner parties she didn’t belong.

In a way, her life had molded itself to accommodate the presence of all four men without her even realizing it. They flitted in and out of her day like they were handing over shifts, and she found herself meeting every one of them with so much eagerness that it almost terrified her. Common sense would’ve dictated that she’d feel scared of the fact that she could no longer picture her everyday life without them in it, but frankly she seemed to be lacking it recently.

After all, what kind of person simply “went with their gut feeling” to choose to trust not just one but four men around them? Who would feel their tummy flip a million times over and indulge in all of their little gifts that found themselves on their desk or doorstep, feeling like they were finally being seen for who they were? Was there anyone whose heart would swell twice its size and who’d have to shyly cross their legs and squeeze their thighs together whenever touches lingered and voices dropped lower from people they haven’t even known that long?

Someone that lacked common sense, obviously.

It really did elude her, it seemed, considering that despite all the signs that would’ve probably alerted someone else by now, she still couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that maybe, just maybe, they weren’t doing this just to earn her friendship. Not in the sense that there was anything nefarious going on behind the scenes; no, she doubted that they would’ve harbored any feelings like that this entire time. What she meant was that she simply couldn’t imagine them being remotely interested in her.

Were some of the lines between friendship and something more being blurred on a day-to-day basis? Yes, and it was doing a number on her muddled brain. Did she personally feel her nerves fraying at the edges and her skin growing warmer whenever they touched her or whenever indecipherable intense gazes met hers? Yes, but she believed that was her fault alone. It wouldn’t help anyone if she looked too deeply into why they sought her out so desperately in the first place, or if she started questioning the thoughtful gestures that had become second nature for them to direct towards them.

Everything could be chalked up to loneliness and a desire to connect with humans, if nothing else. Some small part of her, the part that always yearned to be seen and loved in any way that was given to her, didn’t want to risk undoing it all. She stuck to cool quips and casual smiles, going about her day like nothing was unnerving about the insanely attractive men that flanked her. On most days, her job was enough of a distraction from pointlessly pining after them.

If what they were offering her was only a platonic intimacy, so be it. She would only allow herself to indulge in these less-than-innocent fantasies when she was desperately searching for release with her fingers curled inside of her, their faces and names at the tip of her tongue. Other than that, she didn’t want to over-reach. The scariest thing about the whole ordeal was her possibly messing everything up by addressing something that was likely all in her head.

***

Already things were getting messy without her intervention. Blissfully unaware of it she was, but things almost went to shit on more than just one occasion. The one downside to having several men in your life was that the probabilities that they would stumble upon one another were higher than you would think.

Realistically speaking though, Zayne bumping into Xavier wasn’t that unusual. The Hunter was, after all, both her coworker and her neighbor, and with Zayne’s penchant for coming over when his schedule allowed it, him crossing paths with Xavier as he left her apartment was bound to happen anyways. There really wasn’t that much space in the corridor, and only two flats were on opposite ends per floor, so it was easy to induce where he’d just come out from.

Given that he’d already heard the man’s name in passing (something he’d had to put up with during appointments if he wanted to hear enough details about her day that would tell on her god-awful daily habits), he wasn’t completely ignorant as to whom he could possibly be. From the callouses on his hands and the almost-stiff posture, but also the sauce stains on the collar of his hoodie, he could infer that this was the unrivaled Hunter he’d heard so much about.

He shouldn’t have been surprised that (soft as his features were) Xavier was the one to speak first in his low tone. “It’s late, you know. Any visits now would be better replaced by a good night’s rest.”

“I have no control over my shifts,” he replied simply, irritation tugging at the space between his eyebrows.

Xavier’s gaze grew even steelier as he lingered in the hallway, unwilling to let him pass that easily. “Shouldn’t a doctor know better than to keep their patient up past hours?”

“Shouldn’t a Hunter better protect their partner so that they visit said doctor less frequently?” Zayne bit back, despite the more rational part of his brain telling him that this was ridiculous. It seemed to do the job, Xavier’s expression hardening and becoming unreadable as soon as the words landed. It was a low blow, yes, but comments on his professionalism were a sore spot—especially when he was reminded of the violations he was committing just by coming here.

That was probably what came to Xavier’s mind as well. “Then doctors shouldn’t try to earn more visits than what’s on paper.” His voice might’ve had a soft timbre, but the emotions in it were anything but. He didn’t stay longer, just took his leave before either of them could lacerate the other even deeper. They’d both come out losing if they tried to prod more at the guilt that festered under their skin for entirely different reasons.

There was no use in pretending Zayne didn’t notice his head hanging a little as he rang her doorbell.

***

If the altercation between these two was somewhat tame and limited to just a hurtful verbal back and forth, then the next time Xavier had the displeasure of facing off with one of them was anything but kind—but honestly, that was expected when dealing with someone like Sylus whose entire existence was built upon the chaos he brought about.

All niceties were thrown out of the window the moment Xavier had spotted the infamous crimson eyes flashing from behind the helmet’s visor, hips leaning comfortably against the motorcycle that was clearly parked near headquarters in waiting for a certain someone. He’d just been out for a quick coffee break to last through his night shift, when a carnivorous curl of thin lips had irked him enough to get him walking in his direction.

For someone like Xavier who’d been born and bred on myths and legends about the very man in front of him, it was almost too easy to spot him amidst the crowds of the late rush hour. There probably wasn’t a single person in the cosmos who hadn’t caught wind of tales of the pandemonium he’d caused. Sure, other earthly humans wouldn’t be able to pick him out in the crowd, eyewitness reports being lost in time and descriptions of him gradually being distorted into nothingness, but for Xavier who easily outlived all current generations that could’ve possibly sighted him, he’d recognize him anywhere.

Panic (or what was closest to it) began to bubble in the depths of his chest at the thought of Sylus waiting for her—and he knew he was, for a fact, because there wasn’t any other reason why he’d casually hang out at the same place that had a bounty hung over his head. It manifested as a deep-seated fury and protective instinct that made him want to pull out his sword and drive it through him in the middle of the bustling 5 PM street. But for now, all he could do was briskly walk up to him, fingers flexing angrily in his gloves.

“You have a death wish.” It wasn’t posed as a question, just a simple statement lowly voiced, to which Sylus’ eyes only lit up in mild amusement.

He huffed out what sounded like a half-hearted chuckle, slipping his helmet off and leaning against the handlebars as he did. “I would assume that’s less for the fact that I’ve shown up at your workplace, and more so for coming for her, hm?”

“Audacious as you’ve always been,” Xavier mumbled under his breath, the words every bit as venomous as his insides felt with every second that passed watching the leader of Onychinus languidly toy with the keys in his hand, like there wasn’t anything wrong with him openly admitting to picking her up from work himself; like he wasn’t the very personification of everything they stood against and still toeing lines with her Xavier had never imagined he’d watch being crossed. He gritted his teeth, grinding his question out, “Do you wash your hands of blood every time you try to touch her?”

“Do you?” Sylus shot back, with a swiftness that told him that he wasn’t the first person to pin a metaphorical or even literal knife to his neck with those questions at hand. It was a reflex made to intentionally chafe at the parts of him that already felt shameful and undeserving every time he played like a willing prey into her arms. Xavier may try to bury it with all his might, but Sylus was digging his fangs into that tender wound, snapping his jaws right where it hurt.

No matter how hard he tried, Xavier would still be a sinner asking for repentance in her name, wouldn’t he?

Hearing it from someone so… aberrant like Sylus didn’t make it feel any better, though. It was that bitterness that had him dropping yet another scathing remark. “Not when it’s spilt for her, no. It differs from getting your hands dirty to force her back your way when she’s already pushed you once.”

The eyes that glittered like rubies now could cut like glinting daggers, sharp with displeasure and the turmoil of emotions Xavier knew all too well. It was festering guilt, the kind that could never be washed away with newer memories. Sylus would forever bear the mark of someone who’d used brute force, regardless of all reasons why, and regardless of intent.

So long as he could breathe, Xavier would be sure to remind him of the worst transgression of all.

***

Sylus didn’t tend to believe in luck. Even his belief in fate had long wavered after having been separated from her for this long; whatever deities there were—if any at all—they were definitely all laughing at him from wherever they watched the two of them dance around each other. Taking two steps forward then ten back, it felt like this lifetime was often a hit or miss.

And yet, despite being a disbeliever, he had to thank whatever scale had unsuspectingly tipped in his favor so that he’d be able to catch Rafayel like this. It was one of those rare instances when he’d been caught in one of his not-quite human faces; when the softness of illusion was washed away by the rough lines of ill-hidden fangs, and when his ethereal beauty was all parts menacing and even dangerous, luring the eyes of everyone within the vicinity while the viciousness in his gaze and the sharpness of his black nails kept them far enough from disturbing his space where he lounged.

In that club where he found him, Rafayel was beautiful enough to hurt more than any human ever could. If nothing else, that was the first giveaway that he was in a vulnerable state, with his walls built twice as high and poised to attack, just like he’d been born to do. Looking pretty was a necessity for that, Sylus knew that all too well. It was in his siren nature.

Any possible common grounds were thrown away before he could dwell on it, though, knowing that the only reason Rafayel had shown up in the first place was to scout him out. It was almost funny, how someone so eager to draw blood had chosen to meet him at a place where so much of it could potentially be spilled, turning everything into a public fiasco. Sylus grinned to himself at the realization, a little bitter. That man was more deserving of the ruthless infamy than he was.

He approached him like he didn’t know he was on the top of the list of people whose hearts Rafayel was ready to rip out of their chests. “You’ll scare off all the regular patrons at this rate.”

Rafayel didn’t even look up, opting to twirl the ring on his index finger instead as he stared out at the sweaty masses grinding onto each other on the dance floor. “And that should matter to me because…?”

Shrugging, Sylus slid into the seat beside him. “Because you’ll wind up with no one willing to warm your bed tonight.” The venomous glare he received at that had him grinning in glee, knowing that he’d successfully baited him with the words he knew would throw him off. To anyone else, it might’ve seemed like he was calling him a loner, but to Rafayel, it was a reminder that he wouldn’t be going home with her. That his only alternative was to seek comfort in someone else.

“I don’t plan on sharing it with anyone.” Anyone that isn’t her, was the part left unsaid. It went directly against his Lemurian nature to fall into the arms of a stranger, someone he wasn’t bound to. But Sylus already knew that, and just wanted to watch as he twisted the knife in deeper. Rafayel’s sharp eyes met his, like he was parrying the attacks in equal measure. “And I didn’t come for that.”

There it was. “As flattering as it is, I’m not sure your attention being directed towards me is in either our favors—”

“Don’t bullshit me,” Rafael hissed in a low voice, now completely facing him and even lowering himself to block out all the noise of the packed place. For a moment, Sylus had started to think that he’d trapped them in a bubble of his own making, nailing him to his chair. “I only came here to warn you to watch your back. The longer you stick beside her, the shorter your time with her gets. I can promise you that.”

Even as the sharp almost-claws gleamed in the direction of his neck, his lack of good sense had him chuckling under his breath, arching an eyebrow and taunting him with nothing but a laidback smirk that gave away nothing but his relentlessness. “Is that a petty threat to compensate for the fact that you can’t have her either?”

Fingers tapping against the countertop behind them, he rhythmically counted the beats down as he watched Rafayel’s expression morph into one of barely-disguised malice. Again, there was that coldness in his expression that reminded Sylus of the deities painted on temple walls and sculpted into marble statues—except this one was very much alive, and held a bitterness as old as the sea was, and ran twice as deep as its turbulent waters.

“A better man than me would agree.” There was that flash of something unsettlingly inhumane in Rafayel’s eyes as his hand curled around the marble countertop, grip tightening for a moment as he laced every ounce of poison in his last words, before his entire being was pulled to full height as he got up from his seat with a particularly vicious curl of his lip in Sylus’ direction; like the conversation had turned far beneath him. “But I’m no man.”

***

So-called coincidences had piled up until it could no longer be denied that they were all being woven into one tapestry that had forced them together, irrespective of their desire to draw blood. In the more extreme cases it really was a brush with death every time they crossed paths, but even the tamest of them were dangerously close to hashing it out in hidden alleyways.

There was only so much they could keep hidden from her; so much that they could keep secret without her noticing the glares in between car rides and night shifts and beach trips. If they could keep it out of their lives it wouldn’t have mattered much that there was so much animosity between them, but as the moments they shared with her soured with memories of other men waiting for her hand to find theirs, it was impossible to remain that way for long.

An intervention was necessary, and it came in the form of Rafayel’s secluded beach house becoming a sudden meeting point one particularly warm night when even taking a stroll down its walkway had the skin of each one of them dotting with perspiration. But even the sheer humidity wasn’t half as suffocating as the atmosphere as soon as four pairs of eyes met across the spacious living room.

Thomas wouldn’t have recognized the place if he’d been there. Rafayel had cleaned up the entire house from any traces that could’ve given away anything about him. Not a single splatter of paint remained on the marble tiles, and all quaint crystal trinkets had been stowed away in their cabinets. The only thing that showed that life existed here in the first place was the lavender flame lamp on the coffee table that matched the one she had in her apartment.

Given the way Zayne’s eyes flitted to it, and how Xavier pointedly stood in front of it hiding it from plain sight, he knew they recognized it all too well. He was petty enough to allow himself the pleasure of taking in their souring expressions and puffing his chest a little underneath his crossed arms. There was pride in displaying what he knew would tick them off; evidence that the one thing he cared about was her.

“Was there any point in getting us to come here, or was this a complete waste of my time?” Sylus, of course, was the first to speak, a bored-sounding sigh leaving him as he did. Watching him casually polishing a gun as he leaned against the back of the sofa might’ve been alarming for a different audience, but for the three men in the room, he was only met with varying looks of disdain, and none of any surprise.

“Imagine how much of a waste of mine it would be, considering it’s my house,” Rafayel grumbled, before he turned on his heel and took a seat in the armchair by the window, leveling them all with a heavy gaze. “There has to be rules for this.”

Zayne blinked, expression unreadable as he folded a fist against the armrest of the couch. “For what, exactly?”

“You know what it is,” Sylus interjected with a scoff. “Don’t act like you’re blind to the four of us pursuing her simultaneously, even if that would make it easier to fool yourself into thinking you’re miles ahead.”

There was a stiff silence that lasted a few moments, like Zayne was doing his best to keep any anger from bubbling to the surface. It seemed to be more difficult for him to spit the words out this time, however. “Delusion is a cheap trick. Putting a name to something isn’t.”

“Regardless of what it’s called, it can’t go on like this any longer. No breathing space means no time spent properly with her,” Xavier interrupted them from the doorframe, clearly unwilling to move from there. Even with no sword in sight, his stance was anything but passive, and the place he stood gave off the impression of an unmoving bodyguard. “There has to be some kind of schedule, or else no one’s getting anything out of this.”

Rafayel shook his head, fingers tracing the edges of a glass of what looked like gin. “As if that’ll be any help. There’s no guarantee any of you will stick to it.”

“Excluding yourself from that as if you’re any better is rich.” Zayne’s words were pointed, the observation not slipping any of their notices, if the darkened gazes were anything to go by. “You’re giving yourself too much credit.”

“I know I’m not stupid enough to waste my own time with her, that’s for sure,” he sniffed haughtily, “If anyone else wants to, be my guest. I’ve lost too much time with her to make the same mistake twice.”

Heavy silence blanketed the room. There were no contemplative gazes; no lost looks on their faces as they thought back on all their lifetimes entwined with hers. Destiny was crueler than any of their sharp remarks ever could be, and it could stab far deeper at wounds that had never quite healed, the lacerations growing messier with every dig. It was always on the forefront of their mind, and Rafayel’s words were no novel reminder.

“If… sharing is the only option left,” bitterness coated that particular word as it left Sylus’ lips, “Then so be it. Whether that’s a momentary thing or else, it all comes down to her decision.”

The very concept of sharing her was as repulsive to him as it was to the three others, but it was either that or to not have her at all—and for all their desperation, it was understandable that they’d choose the lesser of two evils. It defied every part of their souls that ached to claim her with a possessiveness that would frighten anyone, but for the sake of keeping her in their lives they’d have to set aside all of those feelings, at least for the time being.

“That is, if she even realizes what we’re doing,” Xavier muttered darkly, earning collective grunts of dismay and exasperated sighs.

It hadn’t been lost on any of them that she was rather… oblivious to their advances. At first, a couple of them had even doubted it all, wondering if that was her subtle way of pushing them away. Sylus in particular could’ve read into it that way. After many instances of her grinning too widely and laughing too lightheartedly on their supposed ‘dates,’ though, it became apparent that she truly was none the wiser, thinking nothing more of their ‘friendliness’ and taking it at face value.

Then, after he’d pondered it for a few moments, Xavier went on to voice what they were all thinking, following that train of thought. “But what if she really does end up making her choice?”

“Then we’ll have no choice but to accept it. There can be no forcing it, if it’s not what she desires.” Zayne spoke with a finality that was both typical of him and deeply depressing. Knowing that it came from a place of resignation—the very same hidden nook in every one of the other three men’s hearts—was what made it especially heartbreaking.

Because what else would they do, if she truly did decide on one of them? All the in-fighting would be over in an instant, every one of them retreating to shells of their former selves and going into hiding the moment she chooses to spend this lifetime with the man of her choice. Selfish as their desires were, not one of them had the heart or the will to actually ruin that rare happiness for her. No; not after all this time of watching as she slipped away through the seams of time.

They’d lost her too many times to not take it with as much grace as they could muster and walk away from her life.

“Until then, all tricks are on the table,” Rafayel cleared his throat, shrugging a little as he did. “Not that it’ll make a difference if she’s already inclined towards someone, but impressing her until then is fine.”

“No sabotage, though.” Sharp blue eyes flitted between each of them, jaw set as Xavier watched their unreadable expressions. “We approach her at the same time. Or else this is all pointless.”

It was no promise, that much he knew, but at least they’d heard him. Now that he’d said it out loud, no one could feign ignorance down the line. Seeing the way even the least confrontational of them pushed glasses up his nose and pursed his lips was a reminder that he couldn’t trust any of them to stick to their words.

His fists curled in the pockets of his jacket, eyes hooded as he took in their faces. With no more reasons to stay after having said his piece, he was the first to leave the oppressive atmosphere of the house. The weather had changed outside, he thought to himself, but it wasn’t any chillier than it was inside among their company.

***

So how had they ended up like this?

The only possible explanation was that they’d somehow laughably taken those words too literally; to approach her at the same damn time was something beyond the scope of comprehension, and yet here it was, finally made possible in a way.

Zayne had come upstairs for hot chocolate, supposedly, a small smile on his face at the way her cheeks had warmed when he’d cupped them with the excuse of him brushing away a stray drop or two. She wasn’t entirely immune to his charms, it seemed, or at least that was what he’d interpreted it as. If nothing else, at least she’d invited him back to her apartment.

In true Xavier fashion, he’d just been waking up from a pleasant mid-evening nap on his balcony (with the weather getting cooler these days, curling up there with his blankets and warm clothes was a capital E Experience) when he’d heard the deep chuckles coming from downstairs. So accustomed to her laugh, he instantly recognized that one as not her own, and with growing annoyance and increasing wakefulness decided to make his way up to her.

It really didn’t take a genius to figure out how Sylus had come to pass by. That damn mechanical crow, Mephisto, had saved her from sticky situations on more than one occasion. He’d vehemently deny the claim that he was spying on her, and it would be rooted in truth; he never let him linger during private moments, only when it possibly spelled trouble. And maybe Mephisto was just as cunning as his maker, because he’d clearly thought of the doctor as a threat worthy of summoning Sylus to her apartment.

As for Rafayel… well, he didn’t have a sly enough excuse for him suddenly barging in on them unannounced. Call it intuition for someone breaching the shaky pact, call it a god’s lingering wickedness not completely washed off his fingers, or call it borderline paranoia that had him anticipating her being cornered, but for whatever reason it was, Rafayel had wound up rushing to her flat, breathless as he frantically knocked at her door and then feigning absolute nonchalance as she swung it open with an incredulous expression on her face.

That was when all four of them had blankly stared at one another, starting from the doctor who’d started it all and stood with a half-drained mug in his hand, the neighbor who stood with sleep-mussed hair and a definite downturn to his lips, the fiend whose eyes were narrowed with annoyance and whose attire showed he’d practically apparated over here, and down to the fallen deity who stood on half-numb legs and pretended to get distracted by his nails, despite the anger in his eyes that he couldn’t mask.

Greeted with her confused expression, Rafayel couldn’t help but melt. She’d never earned the anger or distrust that was now coming off of him in waves. He reached out then, taking her hand in his soft one and bringing it to his lips for a delicate kiss. “Just don’t blame me for this,” he mumbled against her skin, gaze unwavering as he nuzzled into her palm.

That only seemed to confuse her even more. “Blame you for what? Rafayel, you’re not making any sense. What’s going on?” Looking back between them all and reading similar expressions on all their faces was no help. Still, it didn’t take a genius to tell that none of them were pleased with how he’d taken that step towards her. “Just… get inside, before this gets messy.”

To her, all that bothered her was the fact that the threads of fate had twined them all together in a less than conventional fashion. Yes, she wasn’t aware of the fact that they’d met on more than one occasion, but she knew that some were the antithesis of each other, born to oppose what they stood for. If one of them was about to kill the other, she would rather that wouldn’t happen in the hallway of her floor where anyone could see.

Inviting him inside earned her a content smile, and more than just a couple of upturned noses. They weren’t one to lose, though, and all managed to cram themselves into the living room, where a disgruntled Zayne was still icily analyzing them from over the now-empty mug. He set it down, and with no more than a simple tug at her wrist pulled her beside him on the couch.

Infinitely closer than they’d been before, his fingers were much warmer than she’d anticipated as they cupped her shoulder. In this new position, she could feel the thumping of his heart against her back, half-curled into his body. “You can ask all your questions later. I’ll answer them if I must, but…” For a man with ice Evol, it threw her off to soak in the heat emanating from him and his intense gaze that flickered towards her pout. “For now, you need to only feel.”

Maybe she’d gotten so caught up in the electric charge in the air that she failed to notice how Xavier had sidled up on her other side, his hoodie long shucked somewhere in the room. It was impossible for her to ignore the teeth that tugged at her earlobe, though, earning a startled gasp from her. It was such a bold move that it momentarily stunned her, and for a few seconds it seemed like he’d even apologize for it. But before he could even consider it, she’d sighed softly, leaning back into him like it was completely natural to.

“Did you plan this?” she managed to breathe out as his tongue laved at the sting in her ear, her skin tingling with a heat she’d come to associate with him and his gentle but firm touches. If she allowed herself to admit it, there had been many times when she’d had to stop herself before her mind wandered off into dangerous territory, imagining all the different ways he could touch her so reverently.

It was Sylus who stole her attention then, a rich chuckle escaping him as he slowly made his way up to her, dropping to his knees right before her like a worshipper at the altar of his dreams. Ironically enough, he looked like pure sin where he sat, calloused hands inching up her calves, massaging all the sore spots and all the little places that ached as he did. “Not like you think, no. We’re only lucky enough to wind up here at the same time.”

“Even luckier still that you don’t seem to mind it,” Rafayel’s voice from behind her was luxurious silk, caressing the deepest parts of her and forcing her to involuntarily squeeze her thighs together. Before she could even call for him, he’d reached down from where he stood behind the couch, slender fingers tilting her chin up to him. “You’ll have to use your words though, pretty. Can’t give you what you want unless you say it, hm?”

Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, even more so as Zayne’s hand trailed a feather-light path down to her waist, each tender caress against the sliver of skin that showed from her top making her nerves go haywire. It was almost funny, how Rafayel was asking her to speak, but she was biting her lips, praying that her voice wouldn’t betray her and let the moan she’d been holding back escape.

Sylus clicked his tongue in disappointment at her silence. Not that it lasted long, anyways, after Xavier’s lips left her ear to suck at that pulse point in her neck. Her blood pulsated wildly as his teeth grazed her jugular, not quite biting but still mouthing at her and clearly enjoying the way he could feel her pulse jump and the way a shaky moan left her, completely unrestrained as Sylus’ thumb dug almost dangerously into the plush of her short-clad thighs. “That won’t be enough, love,” he whispered into her skin, nosing at the warmth between her neck and shoulder. “Say that you want this. That you want us.”

Swallowing thickly, her gaze shifted from each man before her to the next. They were the picture of unbridled want, of uncontrolled need right before plunging into the depths of desire. Zayne’s intensely furrowed eyebrows couldn’t hide the swirling blackness of his pupils, his fingers now toying with the hem of her shirt. It was no distraction, not when she couldn’t focus on that alone with the way Rafayel’s nails had somehow found their way to her scalp, lightly scratching and then tugging at her hair in a way that was far from playful.

It was maddening, how they were doing everything and yet nothing at all. It made her want for more; almost drove her to begging. But maybe what stopped her was the fact that she knew they were more likely to do that, their desperation to please and to feast on her like no other. All she had to do, to let them take their time pulling her apart and then piece her back together again, was simply say the words that she could no longer swallow down anymore.

“Please.” It came out more of a broken whimper than anything, even as she tried to restrain herself from sounding too needy. Her body couldn’t lie to them, nor could she keep lying to herself any longer. If this was another one of her insane dreams, she wasn’t about to let go of the chance to bask in all of it. “I want all of you, in any way you’ll have me. It doesn’t matter how,” she quickly said, then slowly blinking as if her mind was trying to fight through the haze of syrupy lust. Wetting her lips, she made just one request before she would lose all her senses. “But… in my bed, preferably?”

How silly of her to ask. Her wish was their command, really.

***

Taking her to her bed wasn’t the only way they could service her, apparently. If they could create a logbook of ways to draw sweet, tortuous pleasure from her and drag it out slowly, the list would be endless, and full of every filthy dream they’d each accumulated. But for now, they had to settle for getting a taste of her.

It was Xavier who’d suggested it, unsurprisingly. The man was an eater, and he never stopped unless he was fully satiated and warm—and that was with food. Now add the woman he was so irrevocably in love with in the mix? It was impossible for him to ever get enough of her. He’d try to calm himself down and feign level-headedness, though.

The last thing he wanted was to scare her away, and so he tried his best to pose it as a simple request. “Sit on my face,” he softly said, even as his nerves were thrumming under his skin, and even as his fingers trembled against her hips with the effort of keeping himself still. Shirt skewed and his eyes blearily blinking up at her situated on top of him, he swore under his breath at the vision of her.

How could Xavier pretend like his heart wasn’t about to burst from his chest at the mere sight of her plush thighs digging into his sides, and her stunned expression, full lips parted at his blunt words? His fingers itched to drag her up until she was hovering over his face, her natural scent enveloping him. He’d gladly lie there all day if he could—if only she’d let him.

So he swallowed, and squeezed the fat of her hips. “Let me taste you, love. Take a seat here.”

Gnawing at her bottom lip, she looked torn for a moment. “Are you sure? Won’t I be too—”

“Too sweet, probably.” Sporting that dreamy look in his eyes, Xavier was already drunk on her without even putting his lips on her. “Don’t worry about anything. I’m right where I want to be. Focus on what you want.”

That was all she needed to hear for her to tentatively push herself up and glance back at the three men shamelessly staring at her with desire clouding their eyes. Zayne seemed to read something in her gaze, getting up from where he sat to steal a breathtaking kiss from her, his scarred hands cupping her face like she was all he’d ever cherished in life.

His lips chased hers, breath warm against her mouth and so wholly distracting that she barely noticed how his fingers had slowly looped into the waistband of her shorts, inching them down as he licked across her bottom lip, asking for permission that she didn’t hesitate to grant him. Her eyes had long fluttered shut, melting into his grip as he shucked her shorts somewhere across the room, turning her around in his embrace until she was facing him. With his tongue twining with hers in the warmth of her mouth, she couldn’t help but moan his name, as though begging for more of him.

In her nearly-mindless haze, she barely noticed that his hands had pushed her by the hips all the way up to Xavier’s face. Clad in nothing but her panties and the rumpled top Zayne’s hands had slipped underneath, she could feel him chasing every one of her goosebumps with a searing heat. His mouth alone had made her go half-numb, kissing her senseless as she hovered on her knees, her soft breasts pressed into the breadth of his chest.

The first contact of Xavier’s tongue against her had her jumping with a cry, even as she felt it through the fabric of her underwear. “Xavier, don’t tease—!”

The man in question hummed against her. “‘M not. Just taking it slow.” Again he was licking a strip up her slit from behind, the tip of his tongue pushing against her clit as he did. It was electrifying, the thin layer between them making the friction feel too much and not enough at the same time. It was like she was being slowly tortured. “Want you to want this even more,” he mumbled into her now-soaked panties, before pulling it to the side with one hand and letting his fingertips ghost over her dewy lips.

Wet with slick and glistening right above him, she was a vision straight from his wet dreams that had him humping his pillow and needing a cold shower every morning before work. “I’m heavy, you can’t… oh my god!” Before she could even register it, he’d pulled her down all the way until she was probably suffocating him. Nothing she’d be able to worry about though; Zayne was quick to swallow any protests with his ravenous kiss, all messy and desperate as he consumed her alive.

It distracted her for the half-second before Xavier’s tongue had plunged into her wet heat, getting his first proper taste of her. She would’ve collapsed onto him, had Sylus not instantly left for her side, strong arms holding her in place as Zayne’s lips only left hers for the occasional shaky inhale of air, before whispering through gritted teeth. “Don’t think. Just feel what we’re doing to you. Give in to what your body wants. You’ve neglected that for so long, haven’t you?”

The silver-haired man, however, had the nerve to chuckle at her drunken nod, nosing at the junction between her jaw and her neck. “Now, was that so hard to admit, kitten?” The kiss he left at the angle of her jaw was almost deceptively tender, completely contradicting the noisy lapping of Xavier against her cunt, licking at her folds loudly, even as it was muffled by her on top of him. It felt heavenly, like he knew exactly when to thrust inside her and when to drag his mouth to her clit and suckling at it like an expert. “Sit down on him properly, he can take it. Hell, he probably likes being buried in your lovely cunt. I know I would.”

Xavier’s moan of assent was almost louder than her whimper of pleasure into Zayne’s mouth, both his teeth grazing against her clit and Sylus’ filthy words causing even more wetness to gush between her legs. Rafayel couldn’t just keep watching from the foot of the bed, an almost wicked grin on his face as he unbuttoned his blouse and made his way up to her on the bed. “You like hearing how perfect we find you, pretty? Does it get you wet knowing we’d give anything to get our hands any inch of your skin?”

Distantly, in the part of her mind that wasn’t yet consumed by dizzying lust, she felt grateful for the fact that her bed was big enough to accommodate them all, even with Rafayel’s hands reaching to cup her breasts. With Zayne’s addiction to her open-mouthed kisses that only got sloppier the more far-gone she was, and Sylus suckling at her neck as his hands began to drag her hips against Xavier’s face, her soft mounds had been almost neglected in their desperate tangle of limbs and broken whines.

Keen on changing that, Rafayel almost instantly latched his lips around her hardened nipples. With a groan deeper than she’d ever heard from him, he sucked on one, deft fingers toying with the other and rolling it between his fingertips. “Can’t fucking believe you taste sweeter than I ever imagined,” he breathed out into her skin, teething carefully at her sensitive tip and earning a deeper arch of her back. As his tongue soothed the light sting, Xavier nudged his nose deeper against her as she ground harder onto his face, eating her out with a fervor that matched her jerking hips.

It was too much all at once, made worse by the way Zayne seemed dissatisfied with kissing only her lips. Seeing her body pliant in his arms and thighs slickened with her arousal tugged at his deepest desires to mark her as his; to litter her perfect skin with the prettiest purple bruises that would take days to fade. Faintly, he thought of how he would be seeing her in his office in just two days. He grew impossibly harder, cock jumping against her waist as he sucked those blooming marks onto her collarbones, thinking of how they’d peek out through her shirt when he’d have to examine her.

He might revert back to being her doctor, but that would never undo the way he’d seen her in the most primal state. “Don’t cover them up,” he gasped out, pupils blown wide. Only momentarily pulling away, he tossed his glasses off his face without a single care in the world, hyper-focused on the way her teary eyes could barely meet his. “Don’t ever cover them up. Especially not when you’re seeing me. I’ll frame the picture in my office. My love, I need to—”

My love. My love. My love. The desperate words shot straight to her fluttering cunt, clenching around Xavier’s tongue that was dragging against her walls like he was memorizing the taste of her. “Won’t, I won’t. Promise I’ll come as I am,” she whined out, one hand clutching at Zayne’s arm, seeking purchase so she wouldn’t go insane with their combined attentions on her body. “Fuck, I want you to see me again like this.” She was like a string pulled taut, nerves fraying as heat bloomed wherever their lips and hands found. In her desperation, her other hand tried to find Sylus, nails digging into shoulder as she did.

Like a chain reaction, Sylus clicked his tongue in faux disappointment as she writhed in his arms. “Come on now, don’t make it easy for him. Make him work for it.” With Xavier lapping up the same juices that trickled down his chin, Sylus’ fingers found her clit with practiced ease, teasing her in figure-eights that brought her even closer without tipping her over the edge. It was torturous, having his mean whispers in her ear while Rafayel pinched her aching nipples and Zayne left hickeys on every inch of skin his hungry mouth could reach.

“Or does playing with your tits get you that worked up, sweetie? Can’t control your body when they’ve got your pretty tits in their mouths and you’re riding his face? Can you cum from my fingers on your clit, then?” Sylus cooed at her, flicking the small bud with his forefinger so fast she began to see stars. The kiss he left on her cheek was far too tender for the way he was mercilessly dragging her pleasure. “So breathtaking when you’re being ruined. You’re so sensitive, it’s almost cute.”

Xavier’s hands on her ass spread her apart even more for him, like he took Sylus’ words as a challenge to make her fall apart on his tongue, and this time she almost fully crumbled at the way he fucked her even deeper with it. If that was what he could do without even raising a finger, she shuddered at the thought of him wrecking her with the leaking tip of his cock alone. Rafayel pulled his mouth away from her heavy tits now, but a string of his spit kept them connected for a beat longer, before he smacked his full lips once, then twice, like she was a divine feast.

“I’ll fill you up soon, like a goddess deserves to be pleased.” The glint in his eyes was both dangerous and devastatingly sensual, and the promise made her wish her cunt was being stretched out by him now. “Just stay focused on me. I’ll give you everything you want, until you’ll think you’ll go crazy without it.” It was too late, she was already halfway to losing her mind with his words alone, and his eyes grew a darker shade of indigo as he watched the first tear of pleasure escape her, her eyes squeezing shut as she tugged at Zayne to suck at his tongue to numb the buzzing in her head.

It was the surprise of Xavier’s thumb ghosting at her achingly empty back entrance; the gentle press against it and the seconds when it fluttered in anticipation that had white heat exploding in the back of her eyes, her orgasm coming crashing down on her as she spasmed wildly around his tongue. Overwhelmed, her whole body shook with the sheer force of it, clit throbbing under Sylus’ relentless attention. All too quickly, it began to teeter towards overstimulation, sobbing as she arched away from his slick fingers, yet leaning her head closer to his shoulder and pulling away from an unfocused Zayne.

With an unquenchable thirst, Xavier lapped up every single drop of her release like it was the sweetest ambrosia, thumb still rubbing wet circles against her still unused hole, like he was half-begging her to open up for him; to get a teaser of what was coming next if she wanted it. And to say she wanted it was an understatement, even as she collapsed against him and her whole body gave out with the mind-blowing climax they’d gifted her.

She barely had enough strength in her to hold herself up, thighs and hips trembling as she tried to maneuver herself away from his face. “S-sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” she managed to say in her broken voice as she turned to face him.

The pussy-drunk look on his face pushed all concerns out of her brain, the entire lower half of his face completely drenched in a mix of her slick and his spit. His faraway gaze told him that this was exactly what he’d wanted when he’d offered this, though, and his sweet smile as he reached up to caress her waist was further reassurance. “I wouldn’t mind going like this, lovely.”

Even after she’d just cum, her walls fluttered at that. God, she needed more from all of them. And now, before she lost her mind.

***

Perhaps it was their biggest mistake, letting their conjoined anger be the fuel for this moment right then and there. Or maybe it was the best thing they could’ve done, looking at it from another perspective. Because only such visceral fervor could get them to this point, driving into her with the weight of a thousand crushing suns and consuming her alive. It was a little crazed, all uncontrolled emotions and raw need, but it was satiating every part of her that craved it.

Her rational side had tried to convince her against it; to stop her from almost begging for their cocks with needy hands and shaky legs. But logic couldn’t possibly win out when they’d sat before her, clearly affected by the state she was in, almost to the point where just watching her was edging them. No matter how hard she tried to deny it, it was pointless to abstain from the four men she’d been wanting to warm her bed every night since they’d entered her life.

Who were they to deny her what she wanted? If the woman they were entranced by looked at them with shiny eyes and furrowed eyebrows, face contorted in neediness and inner thighs sticky with her release, they weren’t strong enough to draw it out any longer. The foreplay had dragged on for what felt like hours, and as much as pulling the sweetest sounds from her was a game they clearly liked to play, every second that passed without them filling her up was a second wasted. That much they could all agree on, at least.

And with a split-second agreement, that was how they wound up like this: Zayne underneath her and staring up at her with wide glistening eyes, his long cock bullying past her entrance and stretching her out deliciously with every inch he thrust inside her welcoming walls. Rafayel’s hands were busy drawing tight circles around her clit, cooing at her so sweetly it almost distracted her from how he was only making sure she was wet and relaxed enough to take more of the man she was struggling to take.

Sylus was busy leaving his own marks down the side of her neck, part of him bristling at the idea of Zayne being the only one to stake his claim. Rationally, he knew it wasn’t that; knew that the last thing a man like him would do was be selfish about her. But love and lust were a dangerous combination, and it made him all the more hellbent on decorating her collarbones with angry red bite marks. He’d give her a necklace of rubies to match later, if she’d let him.

For now, though, Xavier was perfectly content where he lay sprawled across the armchair in front of the bed. He watched with hawk eyes, narrowed as he took in the filthy sights and sounds of them making a mess of the bed, his hand shamelessly tugging at his cock. Now completely naked, his chest rose wildly with his harsh breathing, skin flushed red as he jerked himself off on the chair, his thumb catching the drop of precum at his tip, making the glide down his shaft easier. Still, he didn’t look away, not for one second.

It had taken them so long to prep her weeping cunt for Zayne, and yet still she was struggling with his size after cumming twice on Rafayel’s long fingers. Finally, Zayne managed to bottom out inside of her, the sheer force of him knocking the breath out of her briefly as she weakly slumped against him. With her palms on the broad planes of his chest, she trembled as she pulled herself upright and sat still on top of him for a beat or two, trying to adjust to him.

His mouth had fallen open a little, his normally warm hazel eyes a dark forest green that held little regard for anything but the stunning woman that had taken his cock so well. All it took was an antsy wiggle of her hips, and a huffy, “C’mon, I’m dying here,” from her, and he was digging his fingers into the flesh of her hips, stabilizing her for a second before he began pounding up into her from below.

She’d fucking squealed at that, and all the blood in Rafayel’s body had shot down to his chubbing cock, so much so that his hand had stilled at her slickened clit, and he grew lightheaded at the images he conjured up in his head of ways he could draw even lewder sounds from her. Seeing her stretched around the obscenely large cock and hearing the quick schlick-schlick-schlick of sex and her stuttering moans that couldn’t keep up with the steady thrusting inside her already messed with his head more than he cared to admit.

If she wanted him, then no deity in all the worlds could stop him from making her his in even more debauched ways.

For now, he only rubbed her clit with even more fervor—not enough for it to ache, but more than enough for the pleasure to blur the edges of her mind, and for her to legs to spread open even more, like her body knew had fallen into an ancient rhythm it recognized. Never one to watch silently, Sylus hummed in amusement at the way she pliantly fell into them. “Is his cock really that good, that you’re already close to forgetting your name? Or is it just that you were born to take us perfectly?”

“For—for any of you, mmgh, yes, right there!” she gasped out, twisting her back as her nails dragged down Zayne’s chest, pushing her breasts further into Sylus’ waiting hands. She fit perfectly in his palms, the softness of her spilling between his fingers and almost absolving him of all common sense. “More, wan’ more. I can… I can take it.” Even in her wanton state, her determined gaze directed towards each and every one of them was like a spell that bound them to her.

If more was what she wanted, then more she would get.

“Slip two fingers inside of her. She’ll take it like a good girl, won't she?” Xavier’s words carried a hint of sharpness that had her gushing even more around Zayne’s length, and Rafayel snarled at that, knowing that this was directed at him.

“Don’t tell me what to do. What do you think I was prepping her for? She’ll need to be stretched out properly if she wants to take my cock too.” Then, like the nasty tone had been a mere mirage, he turned back to his beloved with a voice smoother than honey, fingers more delicate than silk as they slipped past the thick ring of white between Zayne’s base and her creaming walls. “Don’t you want that, pretty girl? Want me to teach you how to get stuffed with two cocks at once?” he sweetly offered.

The sudden but more than welcomed intrusion startled her enough to cry out his name; enough for her to get distracted while Sylus restrained both her hands behind her back and tugged her closer to him. Rafayel’s sounded almost like a siren tempting her with slender fingers plunged inside her heat, Zayne’s length carving itself inside her too. The double stimulation was enough to drive anyone to the brink of insanity. Rafayel fingered her mercilessly, the wet squelching sounds getting louder as his words hit her full force.

“Kiss that spot behind her ear, she makes the sweetest sounds when you bite at her skin a little,” Xavier offered, absolutely unhelpful from his place as he heaved out a breath, his eyes lidded and dark as his palm stroked almost lazily at his cock, like he was taking his sweet time pulling the pleasure and keeping it at bay.

Just like anyone could’ve predicted, the light provocation—because there was no way it could be interpreted as otherwise—had Rafayel biting the inside of his cheek, but instead of wasting petty words on him, he let that be encouragement for him to curl his fingers deeper inside her, earning an almost pitiful mewl from her with each brush of the pads of his fingers—now three, pushing against the spongiest spot inside of her in tandem with the relentless strokes of Zayne’s cock.

Sylus’ lips were pulling into a smile before he could even stop himself, shaking his head in disbelief. “Who would’ve thought you’d take it this well, sweetie. If we’d known, we wouldn’t have waited this long and wasted our time.” Her hands twitched under his grasp, aching to pull someone, anyone closer, but Sylus’ grip remained firm, pinning her in place and ghosting kisses down the side of her neck with enough teeth to make her whine.

“Didn’t—too much, ‘s so deep, Zayne!—didn’t even know if…” she gasped for air, hips swiveling to meet him, “If you wanted me too.”

Zayne’s voice was almost breathless as he ground her hips down on him, driving himself even deeper inside her and battering at that spot that had her back curving deliciously. “I don’t think there’s a world where I wouldn’t do anything for this. For a chance with you.” His words barely lucid, he threw his head back against the pillow, the warmth and wetness of her maddening, to the point where he feared it would be over too soon.

Even as Zayne’s eyes were starry and blown wide like she’d personally made him see heaven the very moment she’d slid down on his cock, fitting him perfectly inside her, Sylus refused to let him bask in the pride of being the first to stuff her full. He leaned down to whisper in her ear, “But that’s barely anything compared to what you’ll feel when you take me.”

Making sure to press his throbbing hard-on against the small of her back, he let his hand wander down her navel, pressing below it just enough that he could feel the bulge of her tummy with every stretch inside her. “Maybe up to here, maybe even more. And I’ll make it so you’ll feel like nothing else is ever enough.” The sensual purr was a promise; one that had her tightening around the man being ruined underneath her.

“I’m sure after tonight I won’t take much to convince you to stay in bed with me a little longer every morning.” Rafayel’s fingers slipped out of her as he said that, leaving her feeling somehow emptier, as absurd as it sounded. Before she could protest—and she did, in shameless dulcet tones that made him want her even more—he shushed her with a kiss to her damp lips, palm cupping her chin.

The sweetness in it would have been deceptive, had he not pushed his long cock inside her to the hilt in one thrust, pulling a scream from her depths that would’ve stunned him—that is, had he not been too busy fighting the urge to cum at the obscene sight of her stretched around him and Zayne, and had they both not taken a pity on her body spasming in his hold and given her time to adjust.

She was the picture of eroticism that no painting or sculpture in the world could imitate, teary eyes halfway rolled and kiss-swollen lips parted in a silent moan. Her tongue was begging for him to press on; to stuff her mouth with his fingers wet with herself, and let her get a taste of how sweet her nectar was. For now, he managed to barely control himself until her body got used to the intrusion of two not-quite-human men finally getting to have her cunt hugging their lengths.

Sylus took that chance to thumb at her clit, stroking her steadily and rekindling that dormant heat to completion. Something told him that she wouldn’t properly open up on their cocks until she’d cum around them at least once; until she was so wet she’d soaked through the ruined bedsheets, and her thighs clamped around them in a vise-like grip, keeping them nestled snugly inside her. Her gummy walls clenching around them both would’ve been enough to drive them over the edge, had Zayne not turned his head to pant into the pillow, and Rafayel bit down onto her shoulder.

The pain of that combined with the unimaginable fullness made her push back into Sylus’ chest, her hands fumbling to reach for anything, but still bound in his hold. “Please, need to see you, Sy, please?” she openly pleaded, nuzzling her head into his neck as soon as Rafayel’s teeth were off her and his lips were soothing the ache of the bite. The tear tracks still glistened on her cheeks as she gazed up at him like he would be her salvation. “Want you closer. Too far. ‘N Xavier too, don’t you want to fuck me?”

There wasn’t any need for her to beg, but asking for Xavier to please her like that had his fist tightening around his cock to stop himself from cumming instantly at that. “Fuck, like anyone could deny you anything, princess.” He stalked up to her, a storm waging behind those usually unreadable blue eyes. Now, it was crystal clear, even to her, how much he wanted her in ways he could never fully voice—whether out of internalized shame, or out of worry that he’d drive her away with their sheer intensity.

“It’s all I’ve wanted since the day I met you. I can’t stop thinking about how your body would feel around me, and tasting you ruined me, and you think I don’t want to cum inside your pretty cunt?” Coming to a stop by the bed, he reverently touched the shell of her ear, in a way so unlike how his eyes vowed that the very moment he got his hands on her he’d make her cry out his name like a mantra. “I’ve waited for years. I can wait a little more to finally fuck you.”

While she was momentarily distracted by the way Xavier swore himself to her, Sylus decided to let her have her way and let her go—only for one of her hands to blindly twitch behind her, like it sensed his presence before her body did. Readjusting more towards her front so he’d be easier for her to reach, she surprised him by curling her fingers his length, already slickened with all the heavy precum that leaked from his tip. It was clumsy in an almost cute way; her delirium stopping her from being able to truly focus on giving him a proper handjob. But it didn’t matter; just seeing her small hand wrapped around him had him nearly spilling into her hands.

Patience wearing thin, Rafayel gave an experimental roll of his hips inside her, her body jerking forward as he did. It was an impossibly tight fit, and with every inch he pulled out he could feel himself dragging against both her slippery walls and Zayne’s cock still nestled inside her. Just as the mushroom head of him caught against her entrance, he pushed back inside her with a lewd pop, torturously slow and dragging that beautiful moan of hers into a half-sob.

And she wasn’t doing any good trying to hold onto any flyaway thoughts when her brain was lagging trying to catch up to the immense pleasure that shot sparks down every inch of her skin. “Shit, too big,” she whimpered, her breath catching in her throat as she stilled her hand around Sylus’ length. “‘M gonna cum too soon, don’t want this to end… shit, need more, harder!”

Her words were contradicting themselves every other second; part of her wanting to prolong the burning warmth that she’d spent nights between her softest sheets daydreaming about, and part of her needing to take it all in with a desperation she’d normally feel even somewhat humiliated to express. Now that she was so far gone, though, she didn’t care about these particulars, just to get them to fuck her the way she was craving so viscerally.

Unable to even think, let alone focus on jerking someone off when the two men inside her were turning her insides into liquid heat, she pushed her hips back to meet every thrust. When Rafayel felt like he was almost carving his cock into her tummy, Zayne was quickly pulling out right under his head, but never fully—just enough to tease her and drive her crazy, never the both of their cocks stretching her out at the same moment.

That was something she absolutely despised in her cock-drunk haze, of course. She made them know just as much instantly with a wet sob and a laughably weak slap at Zayne’s navel, turning back to Rafayel to shoot him a pointed glare that looked more sulky and whiny than actually angry. “Can’t you just fuck me properly? How much do I have to beg for it?” Even when sex was dulling her senses, she had it in her to snark at them. And maybe that was because part of her knew that they’d do anything for her regardless.

It was futile for her to act like she was unaffected, especially when her eyes fluttered shut the instant they decided to become dedicated to proving her wrong, pushing into her wetness to the base at the exact same time. Their combined girth at their hilt was so much that she could swear that she could feel them in her throat, choking on a silent gasp that she could barely control. She no longer had it in her to be mortified about the sounds she was making, or the way she’d completely forgone the handjob she’d been giving Sylus, or the way her cunt fluttered uncontrollably around the two men who pounded into her simultaneously, like she was nothing more than a cocksleeve.

No; she no longer cared what they thought, so long as she could chase the pleasure they were so keen on giving her so freely. And part of her—the part that had conjured up even dirtier fantasies in the blackest nights and the stillest days—felt immense pride over the fact that they’d wanted her this much; had even been ready to get down on their knees (both literally and metaphorically) for a taste of her salty skin and to get buried between her soaked folds.

What had that simmering heat nearing bursting so explosively underneath her skin, was the newfound knowledge that they truly loved her, and the lust sweeping her off her feet was born from those emotions they’d been burying for that long. It was surreal to accept at first, but with the way Rafayel looked at her like she was his entire world and lifeline wrapped around him, how Zayne whispered her name like the only prayer he’d ever believe in in the throes of passion he’d let consume him, and with Sylus’ body leaning into her every move like his was made for her to entwine with, there was no denying that something much bigger than carnal desire had stripped them of all rationality.

Even calm, collected Xavier was temporarily blinded to the absurdity of it all when he was within such close proximity to her and her heat. No amount of self-depreciation could stop her from seeing just how fucked out his gaze had been when he’d eaten her out like a feast he’d craved for eons. It had turned his head inside out, so much so that even now as his cock twitched against his stomach, all he could zero his gaze on was her face, taking in her every micro-expression with every thrust she got lost in the overwhelming feeling of.

Even though he was so hard it was probably painful, he still left the sweetest kisses at her temple, soothing her as she got louder with every squelching coordinated thrust that felt like it would tear her apart in the best way possible. Sure, she’d tried taking two dildos at once in her lewdest masturbation sessions, even going as far as to try and suck on a third when she’d felt her mouth watering at the thought of the men who’d ruined her perception of everything as she knew it, but it was nothing compared to the real thing.

Back then, the intrusion of silicone in her mouth couldn’t have prepared her for how filthy it felt to have Xavier’s index finger press down on her tongue that threatened to slip past her slackened jaw, or how quickly she’d take to that and begin eagerly sucking at it. Amidst the whirlwind of sex with them, it was almost soothing; like a hibernating habit that Xavier had pulled out of her depths. Swirling her tongue around the digit and hollowing her cheeks to suck on it even better was like an instinctual reaction, and her tummy warmed at the sight of his gaze hardening at that, like she’d done something she couldn’t take back now.

“Could do more than this for you, Xav,” she murmured, her mouth preoccupied with lavishing him with attention that spelled a promise for later. Whatever that action would make him do, she welcomed it with open arms and parted legs.

Literally too; with her practically folded over Zayne’s front as he and Rafayel mercilessly pushed her right to the precipice of something that would kill her with its intensity, her bare back was now exposed to a waiting Sylus, who’d made her completely abandon the weak attempts at her bringing him to orgasm with her fist. Futilely, she’d tried to make grabby hands at him, but her body had fallen hands-first against the man below her. Instead, he swept his finger through the mix of Rafayel and Zayne’s precum and her sticky cream around their bases, his thumb then ghosting over her other hole, so empty in comparison to how mind-numbingly full her cunt felt.

While she suckled on Xavier’s fingers—now three of them thrusting inside her mouth and curling around her tongue sloppily twirling between them—Sylus’ touch caused her to jolt in surprise, the sudden touch scalding her skin. She had only entertained the thought some very rare times, tracing the tight ring of muscle with her own slick-soaked middle finger to the richness of his voice in the texts he’d sent her one night, but that was nothing compared to the way he was actually toying with the idea and teasing her puckered entrance with a finger lubed up with their combined desire.

He met some resistance as her body was stretched beyond reason, unused to having something tease at her back entrance. But her sheer greed; her irrational and senseless want to have something inside her there and to have Sylus be touching her in any capacity as he chuckled at the way she openly craved more, had her loosening up and relaxing as his finger slid inside past more than a knuckle.

“So tight around my finger, sweetie. Never had anyone play with your ass like this?” Though he clicked his tongue, she heard zero remorse in his voice as he began to open her up even further, pushing deeper inside her and causing big fat teardrops to dot her waterline, threatening to slip past as both Zayne and Rafayel chose that very moment to pound faster into her, their lengths carving a path inside her body that could never be erased. The sloppiness of their thrusts, combined with Sylus’ stimulation where she’d gone almost completely untouched her entire life, was enough to make her moans around Xavier’s fingers grow into high-pitched whines straight from the most pornographic scenes she’d ever seen.

As Xavier pushed down on the back of her tongue, she gagged a little, pushing his wet fingers out of her mouth only to choke around the words as the tears cascaded down her cheeks. “N-no, just sometimes played with it,” she rasped out, turning to meet Sylus’ gaze, which left hers for a moment to drift to where her tummy was prominently bulging with the two men fucking her into oblivion, grunting and groaning as they stretched her out in ways she didn’t think were even physically possible, battering at that spongy spot inside her she’d never been able to reach so good and so deep.

Even as she tried to formulate sentences, her eyes squeezed shut with a gasp, an unfamiliar ache building in her core at the force of them drilling into her. It was so intense, like a pressure building behind a dam, and her tongue turned to cotton wool around the words she tried to whisper out, before her whiny cries cut through the air. “When… when I fucked myself with both hands listening to the voice messages. The ones—fuck, ‘m gonna cum, gonna fucking cum all over you, need all of you inside me, fill me up, I can’t, can’t—!”

“Let go, pretty, just let go. Even if it feels strange, I’ve got you, yeah? I’ll give it all to you if you want it.” Rafayel’s voice in her ear was more gruff than she’d ever heard it, and that alone was so erotic she had to dig her nails into the ridges of Zayne’s abdomen. And just as if he wanted that pain, Zayne’s hands left her hips and grasped hers firmly, eyes shining like stars up at her.

“Cum for me, my love,” he moaned out, his pace getting messier but faster with every anticipatory swirl of her hips against his. More than him pushing up into her fluttering heat, she was slamming herself down on his length, desperate to take them all the way inside her. “Can feel you clenching around us even tighter. I’ll give you everything, fill you up all you need, just cum with me.”

With one particularly well-timed thrust of them together that she swore she could feel all the way to her ribs, the dam inside her burst, and that unfamiliar sensation swelled into a crescendo of white-hot flashes of pleasure that had her entire body tightening like a thread before snapping. Amidst the toe-curling heat that had her muscles spasming and her cunt pulsating with the strength of her climax, she heard the wet splash of her release as she felt it gushing out of her too-full insides. Black dotted her swimming vision for a few seconds, her hands against Zayne’s contracting abdomen getting soaked.

In the haze of her blinding orgasm, her warmth had almost trapped Sylus’ two fingers inside her, earning a sharp inhale from him, watching her fall apart around the two men she’d been taking so wantonly, soaking him up to the wrist. Rafayel’s voice was pitched with disbelief as he pulled her further onto him, hissing out, “You fucking squirted? You’re killing me, I swear you want to kill me with your perfect body. Your cunt was made for me to die for.”

His babbling made little sense when she was still riding the aftershocks of her release. “I know it happens sometimes, but with you it’s beyond anything I could ever dream about.” Breathlessly, Zayne dragged her hands up to his chest, his skin getting wetter with the trails of her release. He didn’t seem to care; not when he was busy taking her kiss-swollen lips between his teeth and biting down on them sharply to completely consume her like she’d always wanted him to.

After two sloppy thrusts that had her crying with overstimulation, he buried himself right before her cervix, moaning her name like it was all he knew. Too much warmth flooded her insides, and she knew then that both Zayne and Rafayel had cum at the same time, filling her to the brim with their sticky release; so much so that she could feel so much of it dribbling past her entrance and down the insides of her quivering thighs. Everything was so wet, so messy, and so much that it felt like her whole body was on fire, belly so full with all the cum they’d painted her insides with.

When they both slipped out of her, the emptiness felt so eerie that she wondered if she’d ever be satisfied in her life without having at least two cocks stretching her out at once as she was just nestled on top of them. Her gummy walls needed to take them up to the base; it was like she was molded for them to fuck so good and so full. Her brain was fuzzy, thinking of all the filthiest, most depraved ways she would take them, in every position that could make her feel them the deepest and the most. She wondered if she could even take Xavier inside her next time, daydreaming about the limits she could test with him, and the prettiest cries she could hear him make with her.

Post-orgasm bliss and craving for more in the future almost made her forget the man who’d opened her ass up for him, had he not taken advantage of her cock-hungry daze to completely sweep her into his embrace, earning a squeal as she clamped around the two fingers inside her fluttering hole, glaring back at him through red-rimmed eyes, though it didn’t look particularly threatening when her back was curving against his chest already, and her mouth was dropping open in preparation for Xavier once again.

More than happy to do whatever she wanted, Xavier even let her defiantly turn her head away from Sylus just to lewdly gaze up at him and try to take his fingers down her throat, pushing back her gag reflex for a while. “Want to suck on them again, princess? Or do you want something else?” The warmth in his voice was at odds with the look in his eyes that made it feel like he was already fucking her throat before she’d even asked for it. “Don’t be shy. Take what you want. My fingers, my cock, whatever you want to drool all over. ‘S all yours, after all.”

Sylus pretended to sigh, his free hand reaching up to cup a handful of her soft tits, all bruised up with the marks they’d left on her. It was impossible to tell which where whose; just easy to tell that she was well-fucked enough. “A shame they took your first time squirting, when you’re so receptive to me finger-fucking you here and could probably cum from that alone,” Sylus pretended to sigh, curling his fingers inside her so that it amplified the feeling of every brush against her walls. It was a different kind of fullness, somehow deeper than when she had the two men—now delicately circling her clit and pushing the mix of their cum between her folds and back inside her—fucking her full.

A good kind of different, she thought to herself as her cunt fluttered around nothing, sweet vibrations of her throat forming around Xavier’s fingers as she eased up around Sylus’ knuckles stretching her opening intentionally slow. “At least they made it easier for me to get you ready for my cock now. Is that what you want, kitten?” Deftly, he traced her inner walls, shallowly thrusting three fingers inside her at a steady pace, then alternating between that and scissoring her open. That steady stretch and his other hand leaving her sore tits to palm at the fat of her ass made her nerves tingle with anticipation. “Want to give it a try, see if you could fit me inside, hm?”

Her nod was almost instantaneous, and a satisfied purr escaped from behind her. She knew that if they had more time, he’d probably drag it out and make her beg for it; make her body nearly give up with all the attention they were giving her, but when he slipped his fingers out of her and her unused hole gaped just a little, there was no turning back for either of them. The thick head of his cock brushed between her thighs, catching the droplets of cum that had dripped out of her before pushing between her folds and against her clit from the back. For just a moment, she tensed at the combined stimulation of that and Zayne thumbing at her overly sensitive nub.

When her jaw fell open at the pleasure being drawn out of her, Xavier’s fingers slipped out of her mouth. She didn’t seem to mind his wet fingers cupping her chin so she’d meet his eyes. “You have to relax for us, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt by getting too ahead of yourself. Even if you want me to fuck your throat, you can’t push yourself too far.” That was the only warning he gave her before he pulled her forward with just enough force that she had to position herself on all fours, both her holes clenching around nothing.

It wasn’t nothing for long, though—in one swift move, Zayne was once again pushing his cock inside her, and her eyes blew wide. “Wait, I don’t think I can—”

“I won’t, I won’t,” he was quick to reassure her, his finger tracing her cheekbone adoringly. “Your pretty cunt can’t take anymore, my love. You’ve clearly reached your limit, so I’ll just keep you plugged full of cum until we’re done. How does that sound?”

It sounded absurd, hearing those words coming from such a composed man like him. But the idea of him cockwarming her? Too good to refuse, especially when he was the perfect girth to keep the warmth inside her still nestled deep. “I’d… really want that,” her voice was breathy, nearly dreamy as she wiggled her hips a little for him to snugly fit inside. Rafayel’s soft smile from next to her was a balm to the ache that begged for him too, and before she could whine for his touch, he was pressing kisses to her eyelids as a distraction while his hand slid down her front and to her sticky clit, lightly tapping the pads of his fingers and causing electric currents to sting right there.

“Can’t stay away from you, darling. Not after I’ve known what it’s like to get a taste of how your body perfectly fits mine.” Then the glint of his grin was sharper, almost mean, and her heart sunk for a beat or two. “But I’m not letting you off easily this time. You’ll have to make do with these two making you cum or not at all, alright? I won’t be the one to get you off.”

Anyone could tell that the words were a pointed challenge for the other men as he lightly flicked her clit, nowhere near enough for her to get anything out of it. Xavier’s eyes flashed, and instinctively she lolled her tongue out, already knowing what was coming. He tapped his flushed tip against her tongue, the beads of his precum leaving a slightly bitter taste in her mouth. Her tummy tingled, and she thought to herself that despite all of this being so new, she couldn’t think of a happier way to be on her hands and knees every night from now on.

Her hand wrapped around the base of him as she began to slip his length inside her mouth, the weight of him on her tongue only making her grow wetter and wetter. She’d never imagined that one day the practice she’d put mouthing at wet toys in her shower would pay off, her dreams of using her lips to wrap around the impossible girth of him manifesting. Her fingers around his base tried to jerk him off as she took him down her throat inch by inch, but still her fingertips couldn’t touch. Trying to take him down her throat was a process so slow, she thought she’d die before she’d taste his cum. Rafayel’s fingers barely touching her clit and Sylus’ cock sliding from her folds to press against her empty hole made it feel like torture.

Her desire for Xavier won against her impatience and the anxiety that she’d even be able to take him at all. Before long, she’d taken him to the hilt, her nose buried into the thick bush of darker hair. She gagged for a second around him, unused to the feeling of swallowing around something so thick as her tongue licked at the underside of his cock. When she’d settled down a little more, she began to gradually bob her head up and down his length, her hands curling around Zayne’s biceps as she tried to balance herself.

The pace she’d set was thrown off the moment Sylus chose to finally, finally open her up with his cockhead, slipping inside her with a plap. She could only moan around Xavier’s length, as the cock inside her ass began to slowly stretch her out, reaching places she never could with her fingers. He was so slowly pushing inside her, and she knew it was for her own good as he was the first to take her from there, but she couldn’t help but arch her back just enough to push back into him, trying to force him inside faster. It was such a foreign feeling, something she’d never imagined she’d derive so much pleasure from, but here she was, her body practically begging him to use her.

“Careful, sweetie, there’s only so much you can handle.” Even as he pulled out a little, only to drive his cock even deeper inside her, he sounded so utterly tender it made her chest ache. “I don’t want to cum too fast either. I wouldn’t be able to help it, if you’re this tight and I don’t take it slow.” Sure enough, he made sure to drag every thrust so deliciously inside her, every brush against her walls a test to her sanity; for how much pleasure she could take before she started fucking herself on him.

With him picking up the pace at which he fucked her and Zayne still inside her, she was being pushed more and more towards Xavier, taking him in further, and she felt stuffed full from both ends. There was no way she could control the tears falling down her cheeks, the heat being wrung out from the depths of her. “That’s it, there you go,” Xavier’s voice wavered, a sigh escaping him before he let his hand dig into her hair, nails lightly scratching her scalp in a way that made her limbs feel like jelly. “So good, taking me so well. Feels like heaven, darling.” One hand reached out to trace against the bulge forming at the front of her neck every time he pushed back inside her wet warmth. “Can even see my cock stretching out your throat. It’s such a gorgeous sight.”

There wasn’t much she could bring herself to care about when she could feel every vein and curve to Sylus’ cock; it took all the strength she had to keep herself from folding into the mattress as he fucked into her. He didn’t even have to be rough or manhandle her for her to feel her sanity slipping away. All he had to do was stretch her out, the combined release from the earlier session making the glide so much easier. Through the fog of her brain, all she could make out other than how she was being fucked open like a toy was the taste of Xavier on her tongue, and the somehow comforting warmth of Zayne still inside her.

She didn’t even have the power in her to produce any muffled whines after Rafayel had snatched his fingers off of her clit, wanting to keep her on edge for a little longer and just barely tracing small circles around her nipples. Not quite off her skin, but still never giving her the stimulation she needed to her hardened peaks, she constantly wanted for more and her greed knew no bounds when it came to the four men who’d turned her world on its head. But even then, part of her—the part that tried to cling to any remaining scrap of rationality—felt like she might die if he set his mind on making her cum using just his fingers. That didn’t stop her body from chasing his touch, though, the arch of her back deepening as she did.

All Rafayel did was click his tongue, his fingers dancing across the soft expanse of her back. “Told you I wouldn’t be making you cum, pretty girl. That’s up to these two.” His touch reignited sparks that refused to die down, the embers catching flame as every part of her body begged for release again. Her grip on Zayne’s arms tightened, her cheeks hollowing out as she worked twice as hard around Xavier with every measured thrust inside her mouth. With every catch of Sylus’ tip against her tight ring of muscle, she clamped around him, like she didn’t want him to even think of pulling out of her, and if Sylus’ groans were anything to go by, he could feel it every time.

The bass in his voice had her squirming, her hips subconsciously grinding down on Zayne to take him deeper as she chased her nearing climax, throwing away all thoughts of aching muscles and her guaranteed soreness after. Not one part of her cared; not when Xavier was full-on fucking her face now, never too fast but his grip on her head firm. That alone—the sheer control in his grasp, and how he knew her limits before she’d even meet them—made her clench around the two cocks filling her up both ways, her body brought so close to the edge she could taste it on the tip of her tongue, even more electrifying than the tang of Xavier’s precum.

“‘M gonna cum, now. You’re too good, fuck, I can’t hold back” His voice was low, rougher around the edges. “If you don’t want to swallow, you have to tell me now.” Gritting his teeth, he said, “Push me away or stop me, tap my leg. You have to.” Her eyes tracked the beads of perspiration trickling down his neck and temples, the dampness of his hair making the tips of it stick to his skin. The sight of him so close to ruin above her, with his eyes a dark sapphire and his lips half-parted as heavy breaths left them, was so lewd it made her walls flutter around Zayne, who’d already gotten hard once again sheathed inside her warmth.

Her glassy eyes meeting Xavier’s as she kept sucking on him was the last straw. That was all the confirmation she could give now, that she wanted to taste all of him. All restraint thrown out the window, he fisted the roots of her hair, locking her head in place and causing her to gag for a second as he throbbed inside her mouth, before shooting his entire load down her throat. It briefly felt like he would cum forever in thick ropes, his cock pulsating as she swallowed it all. Even as he began to pull out, he was still twitching on her tongue, and she had to lick her lips to make sure not to waste a single drop she’d been craving for so long.

The slap of Sylus’ skin against hers, and his balls heavily pushing against her were enough to paint the filthiest picture in her far-gone mind. He was taking her from behind, even as she was stretched around Zayne, like all he cared about was bringing her all the pleasure he could as he pounded into her with enough force that pulled broken moans from her scratchy throat. Zayne choked on a whisper of her name, gravelly and desperate. “I’ll cum again inside you like this, don’t do this.”

To no avail, of course. Her mind didn’t even register the words, too caught up in the feeling of being fucked full and too needy for more to think of holding back her body’s desperation. “More, I can take it. Doesn’t—fuck, yeah, like that—hurt, just feels so good, Sylus,” she sobbed, falling forward against Xavier’s hips, his still-twitching cock pressed against her cheek, as Sylus jostled her body as he picked up the pace.

“Knew you’d like it, sweetheart. Had to make you feel good, even if I’m not fucking that sweet cunt.” She could hear the smirk in his voice. “God, I can still feel you clenching around us. You’re really that hungry for more? I can always give it to you. Any time you ask, I’ll be glad to stuff you full of my cock.” Before she could think of conjuring up a half-drunk answer that made little sense and was barely coherent, long fingers curled gently around her throat, and she was pulled up from her position to meet the depths of Rafayel’s violet eyes. The sheer intensity and beauty of them paired with the feeling of his light grip expertly on her neck had her breath catching in her throat.

“I’ve changed my mind, I’m too selfish for this,” he murmured darkly, thumb tracing her racing pulse, but not pressing. “Cum, my love. It’s all you want now, isn’t it? To lose control like this?” And there was something entirely otherworldly about him when he said those words; like he was writing it into fate and damning her to a world of blissful pleasure sending her hurtling off the edge.

Her second climax was even more intense than the first, all of her muscles contracting as she came so hard she could hear her blood pounding in her veins and the gush of more liquid from between her legs. She squirted with so much force that Zayne’s cock slipped out of her, her moans synchronizing with his as he painted the ridges of his stomach white. A mix of her clear release and all the cum she’d had plugged inside her gushed out of her, soaking the ruined sheets beneath her as she collapsed with her ass up.

Sylus’ grip tightened on her soft flesh, parting her just right so he’d watch with a deep groan as her entrance spasmed around his cock and milked him of his cum for a few more sloppier thrusts, his own orgasm washing over him like a tidal wave. Only when he slipped out of her, her gaping hole pushing his thick release out of her and letting it slide down between her sticky folds, did she begin to mourn the loss of the fullness. Her nipples were too sensitive as she nestled into Zayne’s chest, panting with the exertion of cumming so hard that her vision had swam. Someone’s fingers delicately brushed her eyebrows, with a tenderness that made her want to curl up into a ball and cry. It was Xavier; somehow she was sure of it, like her soul recognized his.

But even that she could no longer bring herself to do, all her energy drained to an absolute zero. She couldn’t move a single muscle, a heaviness bearing down on her entire body, even as Sylus moved from behind her. The downside to having experienced such immense pleasure was that she now couldn’t feel her limbs, a dull ache spreading from the lower half of her body as she was thoroughly spent. Somewhere in the back of her head, she thought that this must be what a truly good fuck did to people.

For her, there’d be no one else other than these men that could ever make her feel this way again. They’d effectively ruined her for everyone else, and changed the very idea of sexual gratification she thought she knew before.

After a few minutes of letting the fuzz of her brain take over, indulging in every sweet kiss pressed against the crown of her head, and every brush of fingers against her nape, soothing the knot of tension there, she slowly felt her soul return to her. “C’mon now, my love,” Zayne’s voice could be heard saying from above her, faintly distant in the post-sex haze she found herself captivated by. There was a hint of concern lacing his words. “You need to use the toilet and take a shower. We can rest afterwards all you want.”

“Can’t get up, later,” she whined, dragging the last syllable. She only curled further into herself, cozying up to his heartbeat and leaning into the touch of someone who ever-so-gently parted her legs, before carefully patting her down with what felt like a damp towel. When it made contact with her folds and clit, she had to bite back a hiss at the uncomfortable sensitivity that sparked up where she was being touched, causing her to swallow harshly.

“Sorry, sweetie. We can’t just leave you like this.” Sylus said from above her, voice sympathetic as he wiped her down as gently as he could. “You’d bite my head off if I let cum dry on your skin.”

“As she should,” Rafayel’s lips curled around the words in distaste, and her eyelids fluttered half-open to watch him walk up to the balcony doors, opening them a little. “It’s bad enough that the entire room reeks of sex. Imagine sitting in a puddle of cum too.”

Xavier snorted at that, his fingers stilling over her brows before they tapped her nose sweetly, earning a slow blink of her eyes, like she was still processing this all. “I don’t think that was at the forefront of her mind when she was taking it that well.”

She felt the vibrations of Zayne’s chest against her ear when he spoke again. “Well, sex with more than one person is a lot messier once it’s all over.”

That sentence served as a reminder of what had transpired between them; that this had truly happened, and that the past two hours or so of frantic sex had not been just a particularly lewd wet dream. Her stomach churned a little at the thought, feeling a little unsure as she realized that she’d really slept with them all. Was she supposed to feel embarrassed about how she’d fallen into bed with no hesitation? Should the deep-seated satisfaction have been replaced by regret down to her bones?

What had she done, now? And what would happen to them going forward, after she’d crossed the lines that could never be drawn again, and changed everything between them forever?

“I… I didn’t properly think this through, did I?” she whispered as her voice cracked a little, her body tensing once more at the onslaught of what-if situations that hit her all of a sudden now.

“Hey,” Xavier called out to her in his soft timbre, as Sylus tossed the towel away in favor of turning all his attention on her. “Don’t work yourself up so much, okay? We’ll figure it out together later.”

“You don’t have to worry your pretty head about this right now. Let yourself enjoy something for a change, sweetie,” Sylus added, his words infused with a gentle kindness he’d often used with her, and despite herself, she felt half her worries crumble away into dust.

Her eyelids were then kissed, once then twice. “Just close your eyes for a couple of minutes. I’ll wake you up so you don’t doze off too deeply, ‘kay?” Rafayel mumbled against her skin, his warmth inviting her to relax just a little more.

As steady as ever, and as soothing as his presence alone had always been, Zayne’s heartbeat under her ear and the strokes of his palm against her back were a rhythm she found herself melting into. “Rest, love. It’ll all solve itself when it comes down to it.”

His soft-spoken words were probably the last thing she heard, before her entire being drifted away. There’d be enough time to untangle all of this later on. For now, they really had worn her out, and the darkness was calling out to pull her under, into a dreamless sleep she definitely needed.

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