“So much better from the source, all nice and warm with no plastic after taste,” she commented with a moan, her stomach heavy with the fluid, and her body warming as it worked to absorb it. She felt as if she needed to curl up on the bed and have a long nap.
“They were not as potent as you or your mother’s blood,” Elior opened the window to vent the acrid smoke from the carpet before walking by her on his way to the bathroom. She lazily watched him check his reflection, smoothing the waistcoat and fixing his hair. “A bit more like Cael’s. Which is lucky,” he checked his teeth in the mirror. “As I now have fifteen minutes until the press conference, which would be insufficient time to sober up.”
“Is it cannibalism to eat your own kind?” Cael wondered from where he lay on the bed. “I am so full,” he groaned, his hands on his stomach.
“Well, you did eat before your shower, too. Even vampires have limits as to how much we can consume,” Elior dropped a kiss on Ashlynn’s forehead as he made his way to the door. “We will tidy this up when I return.”
“Ugh,” Ashlynn stood feeling queasy. She knew what Cael meant. Her stomach sloshed with blood. The Wingless woman Elior had drunk from still lived, her heartbeat thready and her breath wet. Her eyes stared glassily at Ashlynn, the person behind them fading. “Elior didn’t finish his food. But I don’t think she can do much harm as she is.”
She lay onto the bed next to Cael with a groan. “I guess I don’t have to worry about the Wingless anymore.”
“Not unless there is more of them,” Cael agreed.
“What a cheerful thought,” she grimaced. She sincerely hoped there were no more Wingless. They had proven very efficient at eradicating the descendants of Evelyn, and she was the last in the line. She was tired of being a target for no other reason than the origin of her birthright, especially one that had been a burden without any advantage. Even wings, she thought ruefully, were not worth being hunted over.
“I hope there are more,” Cael’s pupils had pinned, and his grin was wide and savage. There was a dangerous glint to the red Other in his eyes. Greedy and fierce, she thought. “There is a nice… potency to the blood.”
“Oh god,” she regarded him with recognition. Elior’s face often wore the same expression when he had drunk from her. “I think your own people’s blood has an intoxicating effect on you, Cael. You look a bit like Elior when he has drunk from me. It didn’t seem to effect Elior, at all,” she added thoughtfully. “And I feel fine. Full, but fine.”
“Just me then,” the golden-haired devil grinned revealing bloodstained teeth. “I feel like I have drunk too much wine.” He tugged her down onto the bed and nuzzled under her chin his lips kissing and sucking and his teeth grazing her skin. “I want to f-k,” he decided.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “I am all sloshy with blood, Cael, I think I will vomit if you try.” But she didn’t resist when he peeled her clothing from her, coaxing and stroking until she rolled onto her side in complicity, so that he could rock into her, bringing their hips into alignment.
She moaned as he pressed kissed along the line of her shoulder and began to thrust into her, his hand stroking down her body to find the centre of her pleasure. “I think I can hear my stomach sloshing,” she complained. Cael’s response was a hedonistic, guttural groan of gratification, his body pressing against hers and his breath in her ear.
There was no rise of sweat between them, she thought, no sense of breathlessness or exertion. Their changed bodies did not experience those things. But, where Elior had always felt cool against her before, Cael’s warmth felt normal, because, she realized, her own body temperature was lower.
Cael was picking up speed, his grip on her hip tightening as he did so, holding her in place against the force of his thrusts, and his groans and grunts increasing in frequency as he neared his release. She slid her hand down her own body, bringing herself nearer to orgasm so that he would not come alone, and arched back against him, crying out his name as she came, and feeling him spill a moment after.
“Oh,” he moaned into her hair. “That was good. So good. Better as a vampire, I think. Perhaps that is why my people are forbidden from f-king with the slaves. We would make ourselves extinct within a generation, becoming hybrids in order to f-k like them. I wonder if werewolves are the same?”
“Mmm, I wouldn’t know about werewolves. But, yes, sex as a vampire is so much better,” she reached behind to pat his arse. “I think I need to sleep the meal off though now. I don’t know how Elior was able to feed and then cheerfully walk out.”
“He didn’t drink it all,” Cael pointed out wrapping his arm around her and holding her body tightly into the curve of his. The feel of him against her was blissful, she thought, her eyes heavy, sated on blood and sex. “I could sleep, too.”
“We will take a nap together then,” she yawned. “And then f-k some more.”
The woman wingless sighed out a breath as she died.
“I guess we won’t be asking her, then, if she has got any friends back home,” Ashlynn shoved the body off the bed. “Wake me up if anyone else decides to kill us.” She lay awake however as she felt Cael’s body relax into sleep, thinking about how much her life had changed since the Wingless had totalled her Audi and Cael had appeared to rescue her.
She had wanted to be a werewolf so much that she had risked dying in order to achieve it. She never would be a werewolf now, she thought, but there was no sadness to the thought. She would not sacrifice her men, her vampire-devil hybrid and her vampire, even for a wolf.
It was a nice feeling, she thought, as if she had been incomplete before, and they had been her missing pieces.
She woke, her eyes sleep-heavy and her thoughts bleary, with Cael curled around her, his breath against her shoulder and his big body warm against hers. For a moment she was unsure what had woken her, or whether she had simply surfaced from sleep naturally. No, she had woken because Elior had entered, she thought, scenting her other mate in the room, along with his children. He must be back for the bodies, she reasoned.
“Elior?” She murmured groggily, not moving as doing so would disturb Cael.
Rebecca walked into view and dragged one of the bodies by its feet, from where it had fallen beside the bed across the floor and out the door. Cael grumbled in his sleep, stirring, and rolled onto his back. Freed, Ashlynn sat up and watched Jacinta, perfectly put together in a sequined mini dress and heels, drag the last body out the door and close it behind her. She could hear the thump and snags of the bodies being pulled down the hallway as well as the rise and fall of the vampire women’s voices.
“Go back to sleep,” Elior murmured, sitting on the side of the bed, and stroking her hair back from her face. “We are just tidying up.”
“What will they do with them?” She wondered.
“Dump them in the debris of our building and claim them as vampires, victim to human violence,” he replied. The simplicity of the answer disguising the amount of thought put behind it, she thought. Elior was not a man given to action without fully weighing up the potential repercussions.
“Oh, that is clever,” she wasn’t surprised that he would think of something so devious, turning the disposal of bodies into a political manoeuvre. “By the way, I left a mess in mum and dad’s den, and told them you would send someone to clean it up.”
“Ah, I will send Nate, then. He has finally made his way back to us and he is sulking around the hallway. It will give him something to do to work the sulk off.”
“I bet he was surprised to find that I had caught Caleb Roth for him.”
“Surprised would be an understatement,” he went to the door, leaving it open behind him as he went down the hall. She heard Nate’s voice, but the conversation between them was muffled. After a moment, Elior returned and closed the door behind him. “He will go right away. I need to keep my in-laws happy, after all,” he added with a smirk.
He removed his suit jacket and hung it neatly over the back of a chair so that it would not get creased, before loosening his tie letting it hang from his collar like a noose as he released the collar button. “We will relocate tomorrow,” he told her removing the cuff-links from the cuffs of his shirt and folding them back, something that told her that he did not intend to get naked and in bed with her and Cael, which meant he was between meetings and simply taking a break. He set the cuff-links onto the table surface, and Ashlynn watched them roll lazily. Their gold faces bore the same family insignia as the ring on his smallest finger.
“I need to assume a more public role, to lead this world through this transition, and it is not practical to do so from this location,” he told her. “It is not secure enough and there will be some who will seek to kill us. I have a country estate, half an hour outside of the city. It has a bunker… a bit like your people’s dens, and it is fully fenced. We will go there.”
“You are expecting more problems,” she ran her fingers through the soft gold of Cael’s hair. The devil was not as asleep as he appeared, and his eyes opened a slither before closing again. He was content to lay in his drowse without contributing to the conversation. He was beautiful, every feature on his face perfect, she thought, as if an artist had carved him lovingly out of stone, considering the effect of each feature from every angle. There was no bad angle from which to view Cael, he was always beautiful.
Just looking at him was a temptation to see if she could seduce him out of sleep and into a round of sex but, she refocused on Elior. Her other mate needed her more than this one. She could see the weariness in the pallor of Elior’s skin, in the shadows beneath his eyes, in the tension of his jaw and the set of his shoulders straining the fabric of his shirt. He gave the impression of utter and effortless control, but underneath, he was working very hard, and against a burden he had carried for over twenty years.
Darkness and light, she thought fondly, was an apt description of her two mates. Both men were beautiful in their own unique way. Where Cael was all straight lines and square jawed, Elior was all sharp cheekbones and smouldering eyes. Cael was action, and Elior planning. Cael overwhelmed and Elior calculated. Both conquered.
“It will take time,” Elior replied, leaning back in the seat, and crossing his long legs at the ankles. “There are a number of difficulties ahead of us. Some humans will react with hate against the Other world. Some Others will hold us accountable for their exposure. Eventually it will calm, and then we will hold an election. Once new governments have been established, the military will release its hold on the cities.
“We need to control the population, but we also need them to return to their jobs. There is still a need for practicalities such as food, medical care, and education, and we need to maintain the power and water facilities, which means we need those employees to return to work as soon as possible. It is obtaining the balance between the two needs that is difficult as we don’t want people to riot.
“And so, we will discourage congregation by keeping restaurants, cafes, and other public places closed, and if people can work from home, we will encourage them to do so. And we will re-open the schools within a week as it will give a semblance of normality to keep everyone calm.” He rubbed his temples. A lot of organizing, Ashlynn observed, had been undertaken in the time she had slept and made a mess of her parent’s den.
She slid out of bed and walked around to stand behind his chair, releasing his hair from its band, and sank her fingers into its darkness to rub his scalp. He groaned, his eyes closing, and his head sagging forwards. “Oh, that is very good,” he murmured. “So good.”
“You have given yourself a headache with all your plotting and planning,” she scolded gently.
“Mhm,” he lost the ability to speak as she moved down his neck and along his shoulders, releasing the tension there, digging her fingers into the muscles that bunched heavily, the body of a fighter beneath the suit of a politician. A facade, she thought, or a facet of a man of deep complexity.
“What did you do with Caleb Roth and his wife?” She asked him.
“Celeste,” Elior drawled the name, groaning beneath her touch. “They have been disposed of. More victims of the building collapse.”
“Ah, of course.” She released him and moved around to kneel before him, sliding her hands from knee to thigh, following the precise line of the crease, before releasing the closure of his trousers. He watched her, his eyelids almost closing over his grey eyes as she took him into her mouth. He slid forward on the chair, his head against the back rest, his hair falling to hang free, angling his hips to increase her access. His fingers stroked through her hair, a caress and encouragement.
She took him deep, striking the back of her throat, testing her gag reflex, and he groaned. She watched his face as his jaw relaxed and his brow smoothed, the tension melting into the pleasure of her mouth around him. She took her time, not rushing him towards his orgasm, building the sensation slowly, keeping him to the point where his muscles stayed lax, so that when he did come, it did not tear through him, but was more of a release, lingering in lazy twitches against her tongue.
“Oh, god,” he moaned.
“Better?” She put him back together, closing his trousers up neat and tidy again, from lover to world conqueror with the zip of a fly and a button, as if nothing had happened in the interim, the only evidence that she had taken him, the way he hung slack in the chair, his long body abandoned, his eyes still closed, and his hair falling over the back of the chair.
“Oh, god.”
She stood and returned to the back of the chair, stroking his hair as he slowly got him body back under him, moving like his limbs were heavy, drugged with the ghost of his pleasure. She repaired his hair, returning it to its tidy pony-tail, preparing her mate for the role he needed to perform.
“There you are,” she told him. “Camera ready, again.”
He caught her waist with his arm and drew her onto his lap so that he could bury his face into the curve of her neck and shoulder, his lips against her throat. “I love you,” he barely breathed it, a caress against her skin. “I love you more than I have ever loved anything in this world. You and Cael. My mates.”
“I know,” she kept her embrace gentle and tender, pressing her lips against his hair, soothing. “Do you feel better?”
“So much better.”
“Good.”
Over his scent of patchouli and rosewood, she caught the sharper bite of magic, at first subtly, and then almost overwhelmingly strong, so that it itched the roof of her mouth and irritated her nostrils. The scent reminded her of Alatar and the many times the warlock had entertained the cubs of the pack with his magic. Normally the scent recalled family barbecues and warm spring days chasing fairies in the garden, flowers, and roasted marshmallows. Games of hide and go seek, and the distant pop of champagne corks and laughter.
That scent did not belong, however, in the bedroom she shared with her mates. It did not belong with such strength that she felt she had inhaled pollen, her eyes watering, her nose twitching, and her lights tightening. It did not belong in the darkness and quiet of night.
She tensed, trying to puzzle out its source, sitting up and swinging her legs to the floor.
“What is it?” Elior was instantly alert, reacting to the change in her and her alarm.
“Magic,” she scented the air, searching for the source. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, without direction. “I can smell it. Strong. Can’t you?”
Elior inhaled. “Petrichor. Rain isn’t forecast.”
“It’s not f-king petrichor. That is magic you are smelling.” She slid off his lap. Her entire body sung with alarm, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end with it, and her muscles were so painfully tight that her bones hurt, instinct reacting to a hidden danger. The scent of magic permeated the air entirely. “I smelled something like this a moment before the Wingless opened their portal…”
Cael exploded off the bed, cushions, sheets and blankets tangling around him, so that he almost went to all fours before fighting free of their grasp, and he struck the wall with the force of his movement before he managed to co-ordinate his limbs sufficiently enough to throw back the curtains covering the window. “F-k.” He went from window to window, throwing them all open as if hoping the view would change with each reveal of glass from behind fabric. “F-k, f-k, f-k.”
The sky was red. The bright red of blood with twisted snarls of orange and black, like a fire burnt the ozone. Elior and Ashlynn walked to the window to stand behind Cael, astounded by the sight, drop-jawed and wide eyed. Elior’s phone began to ring, but he ignored it, his eyes riveted to a sky that should have been black with night but instead burnt. He placed his hand on Cael’s shoulder to calm the distraught man.
“F-k. F-k. F-k.” Cael repeated his voice breaking on the word, every muscle standing out against his skin with tension, as if his body prepared for fight or flight. He quivered with nervous energy, rising onto his tiptoes as he leaned against the window frame.
“What is it Cael? What has turned the sky red?” Ashlynn demanded frightened by his terror. “What magic is this?”
“The portals were too much,” Cael’s hands went to his hair, pulling at the gold in his distress. “I knew it. I knew it. They must have detected them. They must think we grow too strong; we venture too far. They have opened the realm to the games, to the cull. I have done this. This is my fault.”
“Cael,” Elior rubbed his hand in soothing circles. “Whatever this is, it is not your fault. Not your fault, my devil.”
“Oh f-k,” Cael turned and grabbed the vampire, burying his face in Elior’s neck, his hands closing on the other man’s back, his fingers clutching the satin backing of Elior’s waistcoat as he sought comfort in his embrace and pressing himself tightly against him. Elior’s hands stroked over the bare, bronzed, flawless skin of the devil’s back, and his grey eyes met Ashlynn’s over the devil’s shoulder. “Oh, f-k,” Cael moaned.
Elior held him tightly, and Ashlynn put her arms around both men, murmuring words of comfort. Cael’s reaction seemed so out of proportion, so extreme, and yet, she thought, she had never known the devil to be afraid. He had always been so sure, so confident. Whatever it was that put this fear in him, must be truly terrible, she thought, sharing his terror because it was his.
“What is it, Cael?” Elior murmured, stroking his fingers through Cael’s hair with tenderness. “What is it?”
“They are coming,” Cael’s declaration was on the edge of hysteria, his voice grating on his fear and despair. “They saw the portals, and they are coming.”
“Oh my god,” Ashlynn realized what he meant. He had warned her before when they had spoken of opening portals for the vampires the first time. “Your people, Cael? Your people?”
“Yes, my people,” Cael broke from the embrace, his eyes red with his tears and his cheeks hectic with points of colour like fever spots. “This is bad, very bad.”
“Okay,” Elior, a man who had planned and plotted his way through an accidental Armageddon and had manipulated the exposure of the Other world to humankind was not daunted by a red sky and the threat of the origin of all Others bearing down upon him. “They are not here yet, Cael. The sky is red, and they are opening portals… We can handle this. What do we need to do?”
“Run.” Cael returned his eyes to the sky. Ashlynn hissed out a breath as she saw black shapes against the red, like a flock of birds in migration, but these were not birds. They grew in number, multiplying before her eyes, and she realized the black amongst the red was an army forming, ready to attack. “Hide. And hope they leave a world behind when they are done.”