Hate by K.A Knight

Imarch down the corridors with my mates. The dungeon is alive. Banging, yelling, and howling fills the winding passageways with life. Where there was once pain and suffering, now anger and hate bloom. They call for blood, crave it, need it. They want revenge. I know that feeling.

They will get it, my monsters. Those deemed wrong, not perfect enough, rich enough, strong enough. I will free them all and let them fill their aching souls and hearts with the pain and screams of those who hurt them.

For now, I have my own blood to bathe in. We have a few hours until the morning where the meeting will take place, and I know exactly how I will spend those hours. That man, Derrin, he hurt what is mine.

I’m going to show him what real pain feels like, what real hopelessness and panic tastes like. He thought he was the most powerful and smartest being in the room, just using his power to get what he wants, not thinking about the consequences of his actions. I will remind him exactly how wrong he was.

Actions have penalties.

He won’t answer in the next life, but will in this one, to me. A monster.

Somewhere between my pain and hate, a need to right wrongs arose, a need to protect those I love and care for. Because I know the pain, the hurt. Griffin is strong, so strong, and has survived things that others would not. He doesn’t know how to ask for help, but he came to me when he needed me most. He will never have to ask, I will always protect him. Always hurt those who try to hurt him.

He is mine. He’s damaged, broken, mad, and angry and all mine.

I lead them from the dungeons and to the house above, no longer sneaking. I almost wish Amos or his men would find me—let them. I will kill them all right now, fuck the plan. Fuck the meeting. I’m too filled with hate and anger to care.

They need to die.

But lucky for them, no one is about. They are busy preparing for the meeting or sleeping as we head through the hallways and up the stairs until we reach the incubus’s suite. I stand at the doors, feeling Griffin’s hand shaking in mine, and I look to him with black eyes. “Wait here.”

“No,” he snaps, his eyes swirling with our madness.

“You do not have to be there,” I tell him, giving him a way out.

“No, I need to see it. I need to see him die, and I won’t let you near him alone,” he growls.

“Baby—” I start, and he slams me into the wall. I hold my hand up to stop the others as Griffin lowers his head, his eyes angry and locked on mine.

“Where you go, I go, no more apart. We do this together, get that through your fucking skull, skinwalker.”

I shiver from the violence in his eyes and voice. “Got it, you can pin me to a wall and fuck me later, baby. Let’s go.”

He blinks, staring down at his hand like he didn’t even realise he had me pinned. Releasing me, he takes a small step back, not letting me too go far as I wink at Jair, Dume, and Aska to let them know I’m okay before turning to the door.

“You three wait out here, block the door. Kill anyone who gets too close, we need to do this,” I order. I can feel them wanting to come with me, but I look back and something in my eyes stops them.

“Be careful, my love,” Jair murmurs, and turns to watch the hallway.

“Neriso.” Aska nods and copies the vampire, crossing his arms.

Dume meets my eyes and, saying nothing, puts his back to the door, not letting anyone past as we slip in and shut them behind us. To the left is a hallway. It’s dark in here with no lights on, and the scent of blood and death wafts towards me, making my heart slam in my chest.

I’m called by it. I follow it down the corridor, Griffin on my heels, both of us silent and racked with a need so strong you can taste it. I reach a room at the end and the door is open slightly, so I push it inwards, cringing at the gaudy decor of silk, red, and gold.

And there, in the middle of the bed draped in fineries and bodies is the incubus himself.

Derrin.

Griffin sucks in a breath so I blast him with waves of love. I hear him groan and press closer as we watch the slumbering incubus who seems unaware that we have even entered his room. I mean, really? How does this man even survive? Is he so reliant on security and his powers he thinks he’s untouchable?

Of course he is.

I’m about to show him how wrong he happens to be.

I turn and slam the door, waking him. He jolts upright, his eyes blurry and hair messy as he blinks and runs his hand through his locks. He’s beautiful, has ultimate sex appeal, but all I feel when I look at him is hate.

He glances from me to Griffin and a smile tips his lips as he reclines naked in the bed. “Well, well, fallen, brought someone to play with me? I knew you liked it.”

I step in front of Griffin, holding him back as well as drawing Derrin’s attention to me. “I did come to play, in fact.”

“Is that so? And who are you, little bird?” he coos, and slips from the bed, prowling my way. He moves like a panther, graceful and sensual, but it does nothing for me. His cock is at half-mast, and as I look on in disgust, he runs his hand across his chest to cup himself as he stops before me. Griffin’s hand darts out and grabs the back of my dress, trying to tug me back from the incubus as he lowers his head and blows power right into my face. “I promise you will love it, cher. Why don’t you show me what that dress is hiding? Let’s put on a little show for the fallen, show him what he ran away from.” His eyes pulse with power, it fills the room, slamming into my veins like a drug, trying to create a reaction, but I feel nothing.

This is nothing.

Compared to the pull, the utter lust, need, and magnetism of my mates and their bonds, this is fake, false, and wrong. I scowl at it, pushing it away, and he blinks in shock before stepping back. I take it no one has ever rejected his powers before, I’m happy to be the first.

“What are you, cher?” he murmurs, his voice husky, and Griffin growls, making Derrin tut. “I am not talking to you, fallen.” He slams power into Griffin who shivers, so I press my back to his chest, offering him my strength. He dips his head onto my shoulder, sucking in my scent as I reach for his mind and share myself with him, blocking out the incubus.

“He is mine. Don’t ever look at him again or this will be over before we even start,” I warn, my eyes black and my own voice low and velvety with power.

He mistakes it for need, for want, not for the hate and anger it is. He can’t fathom someone not wanting him. He winks at me. “As you wish, my beauty.” He turns and heads to the bed, sitting on the edge with his legs spread. “Why don’t you come over here?”

An image of Griffin ripping off his head flashes into my mind from my surly mate, making me laugh. I pull away from him after sending him a mental kiss and saunter towards the bar instead. I pour myself a drink and sip it as I turn to see Derrin watching me with interest, like I’m a bug under a microscope. Something different, something he isn’t used to.

“Tell me, Derrin, has anyone actually ever wanted you without the magic? You’re pretty and all, but I can smell your rotten soul from here,” I muse, sipping on my drink.

His face clenches in anger as he leaps to his feet, his gaze going to Griffin. “How dare she speak to me like that! Bring her here, now!” he orders.

I flick my fingers and the incubus flies back onto the bed as I step closer. “I told you, he’s mine. You do not get to order him around, you do not even get to look at him, understood?” I snarl.

He fights my hold, thrashing on the bed, so I drain my drink and stop at the foot of the mattress, staring down at him. He stops fighting and glares at me. “Who are you?”

“No one to you, just a woman. A woman whose mate you touched,” I reply, and he growls, his eyes trying to slide to Griffin. “Yes, him, and I don’t take too kindly to what you did.” Leaning down, I grip his chin, forcing him to stare into my pitch-black eyes. “You think you can hurt people? Force them to want you? To do whatever you want with no consequences? You think forcing them with your power means they want you because they can’t resist or say no? You are a fucking parasite, a fucking rapist wanker hiding behind his title and power. You touched him. You hurt him. You will pay for that.”

His eyes widen, even as his bravery and power resurface, his expression wiping clear until I see the reason he’s part of the council. He might not be the smartest, but he is powerful. It knocks me back a step as he gets to his knees on the bed, his eyes flaring with it. I laugh in the face of his power and leap at him.

He doesn’t expect it, they never do. Not when faced with a small blonde. They don’t cower or hide, but they should. I pin him to the bed as he gapes, my legs on either side of his stomach as I lower my head and lick a line across his cheek. “You taste like sex. I wonder if your blood tastes the same...do you still bleed red or is that rotten as well?”

“Get off me! They will kill you for this, I’m a council member!” he yells, making me giggle as I lift my head to meet his eyes.

“Oh, I know, don’t worry, you will serve two purposes—a warning to them as well, since they fucked with the wrong monster.”

Ignoring his protests and swearing, I look over my shoulder to Griffin who is watching me. I feel his anger and hate towards the man, muddled with his need for me, his lust at seeing my monster come out to play. I extend my hand once again, this is his choice. Either way, Derrin dies, but if he wants revenge, wants to be a part of this, he can, whatever will help him.

He looks at my hand for a moment, indecision warring on his face before he steps forward once, and then again and again until his fingers touch mine. I grip him and pull him closer, and he comes willingly. Turning, we both look down at Derrin. “What do you say, baby? Should we torture him first or just rip him to pieces and fuck in the aftermath?”

“Make it hurt,” he growls, his eyes swirling with madness. “I want him to scream.”

Purring, I lean down to Derrin whose eyes are wide and flickering between us. He’s finally getting it. He’s not the predator in this room, I am. “You hear that? I can’t wait to see how he makes you scream.” I stroke across his face with my nails, cutting him as I go, making him hiss. “When he first met me, he tried to drop me from the sky to kill me and I’m his mate…I wonder what he’ll do to you, his enemy?”

He starts to struggle again, emitting feeble attempts at power. “You will pay for this, fallen, the council will finally kill you!”

“They can try.” Griffin shrugs, dropping a kiss to my shoulder and making me shiver. “They won’t be living past dawn, so I’m not too worried. Before the day is through, I’ll be wearing all of your blood for what you did to me and mine,” he growls, his madness leaking out. It pushes into my head, infecting me with it. It’s addictive, so freeing and yet powerful. They did this, they created us both.

Two abominations, never meant to live, and now we’re here to end them.

They birthed their own deaths.

Derrin stops struggling and watches me, his eyes narrowed in anger. “Then get on with it already, you are boring me,” he snaps, his voice filled with false bravado.

“Boring you?” I purr, leaning down. “Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” I murmur, almost pressing my lips to his. I feel the need to consume his power, but I won’t. I refuse to drain this man or wear his skin, his power and vile, rotting soul dies with him.

I feel it call to me, the seductive edge, and it only makes me angrier. This man did that to my mate, forced him, and now I will force him to feel every ounce of pain he can before he dies. Slashing my claw-tipped hands down his chest, I watch the blood well as he screams, his eyes slamming shut as he jerks beneath me. Licking my lips, I watch the crimson liquid slither down his side and drop to the sheets below him. They start to stitch together so I drag my nails back down the same wounds, digging them deeper, almost slicing him open.

He howls in pain, bucking and kicking, and between his screams, he swears at me in French. I let him calm until he’s still on the bed, his chest heaving as he pants, his eyes narrowed in pain and anger as I look at my handiwork. Tracing one, black-tipped nail down his torso, I stop above his cock. “What do you say, Derrin? They used to cut these off for less, shall we?”

He shakes his head, his eyes wild as blood pumps steadily from his cuts. “Baby, do me a favour,” I address Griffin. “Heat me a knife, we wouldn’t want him to die before we have had our fun.”

Griffin slips away as I keep my hand there, digging into the soft skin of his stomach and making him whimper. “Not so strong now, are you, little incubus?”

“Fuck you!” he screams.

“Real original, no thanks,” I purr, just as Griffin comes back, holding a large, glowing knife in his hand. Turning back to Derrin, I know my smile isn’t nice as I grab his cock and rip it from his body. He screams and then slumps, passing out as blood squirts across Griffin and me. I take the knife from my fallen and press it to his skin, the sizzle loud as it cauterises the flow. It wakes Derrin back up and he snivels, tears trailing down his face as I regard the bloodied cock still in my other hand.

“I have to say, it’s small. I thought as an incubus it would be bigger.” I laugh, but Griffin snarls and grabs my wrist, his eyes wild.

“You do not get to look at him, Vasculo,” he growls possessively.

Grinning, I toss the cock into the fire and turn back to Derrin to see him sobbing big, ugly cries with snot dripping from his nose onto his quivering lips. “Which hand did you touch him with?” I ask.

He shakes his head, whimpering, and I roar, “Which hand?”

He still doesn’t answer. “Fine, I’ll take both.”

Griffin grabs his right arm and presses it to the bed as I switch my grip on the knife. Humming to myself, I begin to cut through his wrist. He screams, the sound echoing around the room as I continue to cut through skin and then muscle, blood squirting at us in an arc before pumping steadily. I feel it dripping down my face and onto my lips, so I lick them clean, stopping for a second as I look at Derrin. “You taste like terror,” I inform him, then go back to cutting until his hand only hangs from an tendril of sinew and bone that I can’t get through. Sighing, I lean back, sad I couldn’t get it off.

“Let me, Vasculo.” Griffin smirks at me, and with quick moves rips away the hand and throws it behind us.

“That was hot,” I murmur, licking my lips again. He follows the movement with his eyes, the man beneath us fading away for a moment as I’m locked under Griffin’s possessives and wild gaze. Only the scream of pain from Derrin interrupts us.

Sighing, I turn to look down at him. “Do you mind? You are being very rude.”

“Fuck you! He wanted it! He fucking loved it, he was so hard—” I slash my hands across his neck to stop the words, Griffin doesn’t need to hear those vile lies.

His eyes widen, tears dripping from his lashes, his mouth dropping open in a gasp. I watch as a bubble of blood forms on his lips as his blood slowly pumps from the wounds. He lifts his good hand to try and stem the flow of blood, so I stab the knife through it, pinning it to his chest as he chokes and struggles. His eyes remain locked on me in terror, true terror, the type you get before you die. I know because I’ve felt the same way.

As he chokes on his own blood, Griffin tangles his hand in my hair and yanks my head around, his lips coming down on mine. Hard. Groaning into his mouth, I arch into his touch, tasting his need and anger on his lips. He pulls away, eyes dark as the outline of his body shakes, almost misting.

“You are magnificent,” he growls. “I feel it, that madness flowing between us, your need, my need. Our need.” He moans, his eyes closing for a second as I watch blood drip down his cheek, the ruby red bright against his pale skin.

My chest heaves, my nipples tightening at the utter dominance as he holds me here, taking his time and even sitting on a dying man. He’s right. I want him. My pussy is slick, feeling empty as I imagine him throwing me to the bed and fucking me. He must see it in his mind, because his eyes open and catch on me, not blinking. In those depths, I see my life and death. If anyone was ever going to kill me, it would be Griffin, and I know I would deserve it.

“Yes, no one else gets to. Your life is mine, always mine to take, Vasculo.” He tightens his hand, tugging my hair and making me cry out, but not in pain. He leans close, brushing his lips against mine. “And you would love it, you would come around my cock even as I drained every last drop of blood from your body, as I killed you, my blade in your heart. You would ask for more.”

“Griff—” I gasp and he growls, biting down on my lip and drawing blood. “Yes, more,” I demand, pulling my lip free and tearing the plump flesh until more blood flows.

He groans at the sight and drags me closer, kissing me with desperate, open-mouthed kisses, the taste of blood and need filling our mouths, and when I pull back, I see my blood coating his chin and lips.

Derrin stops sputtering and I look down to see his eyes are vacant, his mouth open, his lips coated in blood. His neck has started to stitch back together, but his body clearly gave out. I can’t feel him or his power anymore.

He’s dead.

“Huh, he died quickly, shame.” I turn to Griffin. “Guess you will have to entertain me,” I purr, and then dive for him. He rolls us backwards and throws me. I spin and land on all fours on the rug, watching him with black eyes as I grin. His wings are out, his chest heaving, his leather pants slung low and bulging at the front.

He wants this.

He needs this.

A fight to prove he is in control. To prove to himself the strength of his power. I’ll do it gladly, I’ll be his whipping boy for all time, whatever he needs. Even if it’s my death, that’s the dance of me and my fallen. Always.

I love it.

He comes straight for me and I meet him mid-air. He throws me into the ceiling and I fall downwards, grunting as he catches me mid-flight and flies us up, slamming me back into the ceiling next to the chandelier, which shakes from the impact, the twinkling of diamonds filling the air as cracks fracture around it. Laughing, I grip Griffin’s hand which is clutching my throat as he snarls at me.

Darting my head forward, I smash mine into his, and he growls as he falls backwards, blood blooming from a cut on his head as I plummet. I crash into the floor, my stomach flipping, and he’s on me in a second.

He grabs my hair and slams my head into the floor. It rings for a moment as I groan, pain flashing through me, meeting the lust in my stomach and igniting. “Stop fighting me,” he demands.

“Make me,” I taunt, as I crawl forward and grab a decorative vase next to the wall. Turning, I smash it into his skull and roll away laughing as he rears back, clutching his head.

“Dawn,” he warns, his voice deadly. I hear my death in it, his anger...and his need. His need for this, to fight, to get it all out, even if he doesn’t know it.

“Scared, fallen?” I gibe.

He flies at me, cutting through the air with a yell. I roll away from where he lands, but his hand catches my hair and drags me back to him. My spine smashes against his chest as his hand slides around my throat to try and still my thrashing body. “Behave,” he shouts.

“Or what?” I laugh and then I let myself fall forward. He releases my neck to try and stop the fall, and I wiggle from beneath him, grinning even as I pant. This fighting is turning me on like nothing else, and I can feel his desire as well, mounting, wanting. “You will have to catch me if you want to fuck me, Griff.”

He lifts his head, crouched on the floor with his wings behind him, his eyes alight with power. He looks like a god and I catch my breath. “Then you better run, Vasculo,” he advises, his tone low and gravelly.

I stare at him for a moment longer before leaping up and racing towards the door, my feet slipping on the polished wood. I’m moving quickly, but it still isn’t fast enough. I hear the beat of his wings, the air crashing into me before he’s there.

I’m thrown into the door and it closes with a bang as he rips up my dress and presses my face to the gold surface. He kicks my legs apart while I laugh, his hands rough and mean. I hear the hiss of his zipper, loud in the room, as he frees his cock and I start to struggle—I need this too. I need to forget about my fear of what is to come, the dive into the unknown and the odds we’re taking on in just a few hours.

I need him, I need him to control me. To force me, to make me into nothing but a living, breathing pleasure vessel, his to do with as he wishes. This started all about him, but I guess what one needs...the other needs too.

We are twisted together that way.

I push back, using my hands on the door, my muscles straining, and he slams me forward again, making my breath whoosh from me as his mouth meets my ear. “Stop,” he snarls.

“Never,” I pant, and push back again, this time adding some power to it. He goes flying backwards, and I turn with a grin to see him getting to his feet. “That all you got, fallen? Going to let one little girl beat you?”

Sauntering towards him, I run my hand down my thigh, and he watches the movement. “Can’t even dominate your own mate?”

It unleashes something inside him. I see the moment he stops being Griffin, stops being worried about hurting me. He lets everything go until he’s just a feral fallen, his madness leaking into the room and infecting everything. It even sends a spike of fear through me for just a moment. He senses it, his nostrils flaring as he smirks—it only seems to spur him on.

I don’t see him move, he turns to mist and is gone. Turning, I gaze around the room, but I can’t see him.

“Boo,” he whispers in my ear, and when I spin he’s gone again.

Suddenly, I’m launched at the bed. I fly through the air and land on the soft edge of the silk and slip to the floor. I grunt as I’m pressed to the flooring, mist covering my entire body, and in that mist I spot his eyes. Moaning, I look down to see almost ghostly fingers tracing up my thighs and pushing them apart.

He wrenches them wide, sending pain through me as those ghostly fingers glide across my wet pussy, making me still as I stare into those floating orbs. “What were you saying?” he asks, his voice coming from everywhere and nowhere.

“That you can’t even—” I end on a scream as those fingers suddenly turn corporeal and plunge into my pussy, stretching me around them as he fucks me with them with sharp, mean thrusts. He twists them, which has me bucking and lifting my hips. Needing more, needing him.

“Still, can’t,” I pant, mocking him.

He snarls and then his weight comes down on me, his body turning solid as those lips I love turn up into a snarl and he yanks his fingers free, wrapping them around my throat. He squeezes, harder than he ever has before, and for a moment, I see the flash of death written in his eyes—he will kill me.

He keeps me on that edge, my vision blurring, my ears ringing as my chest screams for air. I can’t even fight him, the energy is sucked from my body as he grabs my leg and throws it over his shoulder, and with one hard thrust, spears my pussy.

My mouth opens on a wordless scream as he stretches my channel, the pain and pleasure of him filling me mixing with my body’s natural panic at feeling myself slip away. He fucks me through it, pulls out and slams back inside me, filling me, fucking me, each thrust painful and oh so fucking good.

Leaning down, he grins against my lips. “Like I said, I could kill you and still make you come as you die,” he utters, his voice flat, emotionless, and so opposite to the harsh, angry hand around my throat as his hard cock slips through my clenching pussy. He’s right, my own cream is dripping down my thighs, even as I feel myself die.

I bring my hand up and scratch at his, trying to loosen his grip, but he just laughs. It’s a cruel sound, all while those powerful thrusts jerk my body beneath him as he drags on my nerves, setting off fireworks through my body, ones I can see as my eyes go black. Bright orange and red lights flash before me, my body clenching and tightening, already on the brink of release as I ride the knife’s edge of death.

He keeps me there, controls it, showing me exactly who is in charge. Just how much he has been holding back. This isn’t Griffin, this is his madness. This is the monster who hides so deep within he doesn’t even know it, the one that craves death and blood, pain and pleasure, who needs it to survive.

I feel my body slump, the pounding of my blood in my ears as my heartbeat slows, turning sluggish even as he fucks me. Then, suddenly, I don’t feel him anymore. I’m floating in the dark. Ropes surround me, twisting me, keeping me attached, dragging me back, and abruptly with a snap I’m back in my body.

I rear up, sucking in lungfuls of air, my eyes wide and locked on Griffin’s smirking face as he pushes me down and continues to fuck me, even though my body won’t respond. My throat aches, my lungs scream, and my eyes are dry and yet, yet with one press of his finger to my clit, I come with a silent, ragged, raw scream, my pussy clenching around him and milking his cock. He roars, filling me with his cum just as the door smashes open behind him. I peer over his shoulder, still panting and shaking from the most intense orgasm I’ve ever had.

There, in the doorway, is my forest god. Dume and Jair are behind him, but all I can see is Nos. His head is covered in his skull, his eyes black in those sockets, his body tall, almost touching the ceiling, and I feel his panic, his utter hopelessness, but when he sees me alive he stills, staring at me from those black holes as that panic recedes and a burst of relief and love flow to me.

“You have been busy, Little Monster.”

* * *

Griffin rollsfrom me as I sit up, staring at Nos as tears well in my eyes. All this time I’ve been so strong, but looking at my first mate now, I’m weak, needing his embrace even though I was just in Griffin’s. It’s been too long, too fucking long without him.

Griffin brushes a kiss across my cheek, tasting my tears. “Go to him, Vasculo,” he says softly, his voice filled with love.

He might have just killed me—well, partly—and then brought me back, but he knows I need Nos right now.

A cry slips from my throat and then I’m on my feet. I stumble, my body still recovering from almost dying, and fly across the room. Nos storms towards me and meets me halfway, scooping me into his arms and pressing his skull to mine, those black eyes flickering white for a second as I shiver in his grasp.

This is home.

With them, all of them.

“I missed you,” I whisper raggedly.

“I missed you so much, Little Monster, so very much. I felt you—I thought you had died,” he rasps, the end filled with pain, and I shake my head.

“You know me, no one can kill me,” I tease, even as I bring my lips to his, my nose crashing against the skull. His big hand comes up and covers the back of my head, holding me softly as he brushes sweet kisses along my fumbling lips.

“Shh, I’m here, Little Monster. I promised, did I not? I will always come for you, no one will ever stop that. Not death itself,” he reminds me, lending me his strength.

I nod, shivering and shaking in his arms. With him, I always feel so small, so weak, but when he holds me, I feel his strength bolstering me, his love filling me up. I didn’t even notice the hole where he should have been, but now that he’s here, I feel it and it hurts until it’s replete, like a piece clicking back into place so I can breathe again.

“Where have you been?” I question.

“Here. I spoke to a fate and gathered others, they are outside waiting for orders. And you, Little Monster, you’ve been busy.” He lifts his head and looks around, noting the bodies and destruction.

“Yes, so much has happened I don’t even know where to—”

“Shh,” he hushes me, and the skull melts to reveal his human face, his eyes white and hair flowing over his shoulder. “Show me if you wish. Just reach for my mind and I will look.”

I nod and close my eyes, focusing on his link, his pull. I follow that line and throw open the door to my mind. I feel him rush in, his warmth and the fragrance of nature that follows him filling my head and relaxing me. He flickers through everything, I can almost see it, and then pulls back, leaving a trace of his love in its wake.

Opening my eyes, I meet his gaze as he smiles sadly. “Do not believe him, my little monster. They might have made you, but you are so much more. You choose what you are and what you will become. You are the strongest of us all, and not because of magic or science, but because it was willed. You are special, not just to the world, but to us. To me.”

I shiver. How did he know I needed that? I was so worried about what I could be, what they might have made me, that I didn’t even think about asking for reassurance, yet he knew. He always does.

Just then a pop sounds and we all turn just as a panting Aska skids to the doorway, his eyes going to me as he slumps in relief. My wolf trots behind him with a snarl on his lips as he growls at the others, coming towards me and only stopping when I reach down and pet his silky fur on his head.

Together, we are all together.

It feels so right, I feel so full that I could burst.

But a voice interrupts my happy thoughts, a low, velvety, rough one. Like whisky on rocks that flows through me with a promise of pain and chaos.

“Well, that was interesting. Got to say, you are a lot crazier than I thought you would be. Do you enjoy being killed, walker? I’d be happy to oblige those fantasies.”

We all turn to the voice, and Aska groans as he hesitates in the doorway. “Dawn, meet...Lucifer.”

The man smirks at me, his full, plump lips curling up dangerously. His red eyes flare, his cheekbones are high and arched, and a shadow of horns on his head interrupts the rich darkness of his black hair. He bows, his eyes still on me, ancient and knowing, which sends my heart pounding for some reason. “A pleasure, I can assure you.”

Lucifer…as in the devil?

Oh fuck.