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thegnomelord · 23 days

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CH 3: Hold Your Demons Close Maybe Then You'll Feel Something

CW:NSFW blood, gore, mutilation, killing, cannon typical violence, child abuse (it's minor but still there), drugging, military inaccuracies, Mage reader, Monster cod AU, poly141, eventual poly141 X reader, reader isn't a good person, a few masc terms used but overall gn.

Ao3; Word count: 19.1k (It's a heckin chonker) Big thanks for @rodolfoparras and @princeguri66 for betaing for me, love you guys!

Masterlist; Chapter 2 <-Chapter 3 (You are here) -> Chapter 4

Aisha remembers the day she thought she would die.

As a gift for the 10th birthday her mother had taken her to the market in the big city. It had been chaotic compared to their little village, so many people donkey carts, and mopeds moving around like crazy ants in a freshly exposed nest. Aisha had gotten lost, swept away by the time of movement, and ended up at the entrance of a shady alley where she'd stumbled on an old beggar woman.

Long as she lives she will never forget the sight of the woman. Strip her of flesh and blood and the memory will still be etched into her bones — of ghostly blue lines forming impregnable chains across sunken sunburned skin. Of dirty rags loosely hanging off skeleton thin shoulders. Of blood crusted bandages wrapped tightly around her shaved head to not scare the children running about, the cloth dipping into the eyeless sockets of her skull. Of her asking passerby for alms with the handless stumps of her arms.

The sight alone had frightened Aisha, but then the beggar had turned her head to Aisha as if she could hear the frantic beating of her heart. A sad saccharine croon left the mage woman's chapped lips as she looked right at her. "Hello, fellow daughter of Magnus."

Her mother found her then, pulling Aisha back while shouting at the woman at the top of her lungs. Aisha's mind had been too full of thoughts to notice her mother drop their shopping in favor of scurrying out of the market with Aisha in hand. She had only snapped back to reality when her mother had thrown Aisha into her father’s rusted little car, barely able to sit up straight before they were driving home to their village as fast as the car’s geriatric engine could go.

Aisha had been locked in the room she shared with her sisters, but the door did little to mute the way her parents argued all day long, accusations of infidelity and cursed bloodlines thrown around like bird feed. Most of it flew over her head, but Aisha had understood one thing: Her parents were afraid.

The strange men came to her house just as the sun had set, drawn out by the dying light like coyotes hunting for a stray lamb. The strong stench of rot heralding their arrival made her sputter to hold back the bile burning her throat. She remembers the sparks of yellow and red and blue and all the other stolen colors of the rainbow swirling in their cold eyes.

They chatted while inspecting her like a cow in the market, their language just as rough and hard as their hands. But they lost interest quickly, unable to find what they wanted to see. They turned to throw lecherous looks at her mother and older sisters before her father had stepped between them and her, protecting his daughter now that he knew Aisha wasn't a freak. He'd tensely asked them to leave after paying for their time, standing in the doorway and only going back inside when the strange men were well and truly out of sight.

Her parents let them in without complaint; Her father held her down, his steely gaze watching the men crowd her. Her mother whispered trembling words into her ear to just be a good girl as the men tore her shirt off. Aisha's questions and pleas and panic fell on deaf ears, her mother pressing a worn hand over her mouth to silence her cries as the men inspected her chest and arms. They pinched and pulled on her skin with hands scarred like gnarled tree bark, the roughness of their palms chafing her soft flesh.

Aisha remembers the days she thought she would die.

Waking up each day to wash under her mother's stalwart gaze so she could ensure Magnus hadn't sown seeds into Aisha's body while she slept. Going each week to the village elders to drink the special brew of Morgana's tears, spending agonizing hours curled up and sobbing on the floor with a stabbing pain in her chest, her heart beating like the wings of a snared bird as the poison made its way through her system. She'd lost count how many times her heart would stutter after every bout of joy or childish argument on the rare moments the children of the village would interact with her — any lick of emotion would force her to run home to check the pads of her fingers in fear that this time magic had cracked through her skin.

She had been so happy on her 15th birthday — the danger had passed. She wasn’t a mage. She could finally live a normal life, meet a boy, get married, have a family.

She’s 16 now. All those years of worry and fear feel like childhood bliss.

Aisha knows she will die.

It happened so suddenly; When her friend had jokingly rubbed a feather duster in her face, Aisha would have never expected a stupid sneeze to force liquid frost through her fingers. Pain had raced through her chest at the speed of lightning, an unknown force pulling her arms up, and the next thing she knew she had frozen over her neighbor's entire crop field. Aisha had barely heard her friend scream over the pounding in her ears, her legs moving on their own long before her brain could understand the pain in her hands or what she had done.

Her mind might still have been reeling, but her body understood she needed to run, needed to hide, before the sun fell and the coyotes came for her.

The house she's found to hide in is one of the many corpses the Russians left behind, stripped bare to rotting wood bones and crumbling bricks, moldy wall paper peeling in long thick strips and rickety boards creaking under the slightest pressure. Gravel crunches beneath heavy tires outside the decrepit house and a rumbling engine cuts through the silence. Aisha scrambles up the stairs to the second floor, hiding in a dingy closet with it's walls closing in around her like the sides of a cramped coffin. Termite made holes in the closet door act as peepholes, letting her see into the bedroom and watch the long shadows created by the car's lights stretch across the floor.

She bites her lip as the slightest twitch of her pinky finger makes pain bloom across her entire hand, though she's barely able to move her fingers with how stiff they are. Her tan skin bellow the wrists is corpse pale and cold, blood crusting the creases of her knuckles. The creaking of floorboards has Aisha hastily pressing her ice cold hands against her lips, the taste of her blood — copper and iron with a hint of something sweet like antifreeze — failing to churn her stomach when even the hint of slowly encroaching rot has her heart clogging her throat so not even a whimper can make it past her lips.

She’s sure her lungs stop working when a man crosses the threshold into the room, and immediately she’s hit with such a strong smell of decay, like death had crawled up her nose and died there. Her throat and chest spasm with the need to cough, tears freely running down her cheeks from how much effort it takes to keep quiet, but past her blurry vision she can see the man slowly walk into the room.

He’s tall and gangly like a newborn foal, bulky clothes widening his frame that’s mostly skin and bones, thinning blond hair badly swept over a sizable bald spot. He wouldn’t be so scary if his eyes didn’t glow an unnatural mixture of toxic green and burning red— the sight alone has goosebumps spreading across his skin, followed by a deep seated discomfort as if leeches are crawling inside her bones.

“Come out little girl,” Even his voice feels wrong, like glass ground on sandpaper, but he speaks with so much sweetness it’s disgusting. “We only want to talk to you, don’t worry you’re not in trouble.” She can tell he’s not from Urzikstan by the rough accent that muddles the Arabic words he speaks.

The floorboards creak softly as she shifts. His head swivels to look around the room and the man quickly walks over to the bed, dropping to his knees to look under it. “Fuck!” His facade falls as he snarls when he sees she’s not there, stumbling to his feet like a drunk. “I mean uh- don’t worry I’m not mad kid,” He chuckles lightly, trying to put on an act of a worried Samaritan, though the attempt falls short when his predatory eyes fall on the closet she’s hiding in.

“Hey, did you find her yet?” Another voice rings from the entrance of the room, this one feminine and with a slight drawl to her words as she speaks in english. It makes Aisha jump, though the squeaking boards beneath her go unnoticed when the new voice continues. “Boss is starting to get antsy and if we don’t find her soon he’ll be sticking your ass with the pigs.”

She can’t see well, but she’s certain the man shows a middle finger to the unseen person. “Fuck off,” He spits out the response like it’s a mouthful of poison, “We both know you’re the dead weight.” He says, taking a few steps around the bed, but luckily for Aisha he stops in the middle of the room. Aisha can hear how deeply he breathes in, before something catches in his throat and he coughs. “I can smell the magic, the wench is still in the house.”

“Bullshit.” The woman scoffs, “You say that every hunt and we end up wasting our time.” A moment passes before the unseen woman chuckles and adds. “You couldn’t smell shit if you shoved your head up your ass!”

The man openly seethes, quick and heavy footsteps carrying him right up to the woman and out of Aisha’s field of view. “You take that back you fucking bitch!” The snarl is more animal than man. Aisha can only assume he punches the woman from the way the floorboards groan loudly in the otherwise silent night, shoes scuffing on the floor, grunts and swears filling the air as the noises of fighting steadily recede to another room.

She’s light headed by the time she manages to pull her hands away from her mouth enough to draw in a breath of stale air, her lungs burning from how long she had gone without breathing. Her heart drums loudly in her skull, her ears pricked to listen to the two strangers exchange angry words in a language she doesn't understand, each passing second of the continuing scuffle making confidence slowly form in her mind.

This is her chance!

. . . to do what?

She doubts she could take them on, she's pretty sure she saw a gun hanging off the man's waist, and she definitely knows she won't be able to outrun them. She's stuck. Cornered.

“Whatever, you just fin-” The sound of footsteps once again nearing the room she's in forces her body to act without her input.

Fishhooks tug on her fingers and force them to splay out flat in the air despite the pain. Her mind scrambles to think of something, anything, before unseen hands pull her mouth open. A shaky breath escapes her lungs and before she knows it words are falling from her lips, so smooth and fluent like her mind is reading a script carved into her bones. “Oh harsh creatures of brutal winter, please, I need your help-” Something cold and sharp stabs behind her chest, more of her skin turning pale as magic slowly crawls down her arms.

It hurts —

Spiderweb cracks of broken glass spread across her knuckles and a fat drop of blood rolls down her chin from how tightly she bites her lip. Her blood beads through the cracks in her skin, the dark crimson turned a light pink by the freshly exposed white light that pulses beneath her skin like a living thing. Aisha sucks in a sharp breath before continuing, “- I beg you, give me a crumb of your power, a ball of silent snow to hide my life-” The more she speaks, the more the white light cracks through her skin until it cracks through the pads of her fingers and escapes as shoddily formed snowflakes.

They dance through the air like drunken fireflies before finding the right position and floating in the air. More of them spawn from each finger with every word spoken, taking their own place in an unknown pattern.

Slowly the overlapping snowflakes take on the shape of a scratchy circle, trembling lines forming a complex web of shapes inside it. The pain grows with it; it turns her fingers pale and numb as if she had stuck her hands in freezing water, the icy bite of frost spreading up her wrists. Her frozen skin cracks from even the slightest tremor in her hands, white speckles dancing in her crimson blood as it leaks down her palms. Each second taken to breathe and bite back a whimper disrupts the fragile collection of snowflakes, causing parts of the circle to break off and drop to the ground in big watery drops.

Her chest feels like it’s tightly packed with soaked wool, a type of pressure building behind her sternum, her shoulders stiff as her body is getting ready for. . . something good—

The closet door swings open with enough force to break it off its hinges. White light of the circle refracts off the gun aimed at her.

Bang!

A bullet tears through the magic circle and shatters it into pieces, all the pressure that had been building in her body rushing through the crumbling remains of the circle right back at her.

She screams and shakes, fat tears freely running down her cheek like the blood flowing from her palms. There’s not a single word in any language able to describe the pain rushing through her veins, the liquid agony infesting every cell — sharp and blunt and deep and gnawing, like her body is trying to eat itself, like she’s infested with maggots; the bullet that tears through her side feels like a soft mercy.

“Fucking moron!” She barely hears the woman snarl over the rush of blood in her ears. The gun aimed at her is roughly pushed down. “Are you trying to get the boss to take our heads?” The stench of rot only worsens it, disorientating her further and she’s barely able to make her fingers twitch. She’s got no defense from the rough hand that roughly grabs her by the hair and pulls her out of the closet.

“I’d rather not die from a first time mage!” The man yells, grabbing her by the shoulder. Aisha’s legs can’t support her weight no matter how much she tries, but the man is far stronger than she had expected and has no problem holding her up. Her lungs manage a pained sound before her arms are grabbed and painfully wrenched behind her back, handcuffs softly clicking as they’re tightened until the steel digs into her aching wrists.

“Oh so when I’m the one on the end of the damn spells it’s fine then?” The woman’s anger shows in the way her cracked nails dig into Aisha’s scalp and pull her head back like she's trying to take it off entirely. Aisha struggles to breathe, gasping and wriggling to the best of her ability but it’s useless and a second later a thick metal collar is tightened around her neck, rusted needles on the inside of it pricking her skin enough to draw blood.

It burns. The collar rapidly heats up like she's got a string of hot coals around her neck, the heat traveling down her skin to grip her heart in a vice. The collar is so tight she can’t even gasp, fresh adrenaline pouring through her veins as she tries to scramble out of the handcuffs, tries to shake out of their hold, tries to just get away. . . but she’s about as strong as a kitten.

“You’re expendable. The girl could make a better spell than you.” The man holding her shoulder laughs and pulls her away as soon as the woman lets go of her hair, all too happy to drag her like a sack of potatoes behind him. Each step down the stairs has the base of her spine awkwardly hitting the step, accosting her frazzled brain with even more pain.

“We got the girl, boss!” The man says triumphantly, pulling her up so she’s facing another man. Even with the tears blurring her vision, Aisha can tell the ‘boss’ isn’t from Urzikstan; He’s a pudgy little man with a wide flat nose and other features that don’t quite fit his face, but his eyes — they glow the same rainbow hue as the other two, with the same malice.

“Finally.” The boss huffs, not wasting a single second and pulling a knife from his pocket. A rough hand holds Aisha’s head so she can’t squirm away from the knife as it cuts across her cheek. Just that small cut feels like a gaping wound and a small whimper falls from her lips as the boss pulls the knife back, specks of white floating in the dark blood coating the metal. A black tongue slips from his lips to lick up the bloodied edge, the sight making her stomach curl with disgust.

Another hand grabs her cheek, cracked fingers like claws digging into the cut until blood flows over the man's fingers. The man holding her pulls his bloodied fingers into his mouth, humming. A second passes before he curses and spits at his feet. “There’s barely anything there,” He says, the hold he has on her tightening. “Barely worth the bullet.”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem.” The boss waves him off, sharp rainbow eyes looking her up and down. “Couple of grams from ol’ daddy Magnus and we’ll have ourselves a proper sow.” He reaches out to pat the top of her head, condescending — like she's just a dumb animal. “Alright, put it in the truck.” The boss orders and the man holding her complies, starting to drag her to the truck parked in front of the house.

Somehow, behind the the loud beating of her heart, she hears rumbling. Somehow, though her mind is like tangled yarn and she can barely grasp a thought, she feels something — an emotion that doesn't belong to her: Anger

Violent anger. Burning hot in the cold night, so all consuming it leaves the world around her trembling.

"Hold on-" The boss says suddenly, quickly raising his head to sniff the air. "Do you smell that?"

Tires screech against the rocky road, orange flames sparking from thin air as a motorcycle appears out of nowhere. Aisha only manages to get a glimpse of glowing orange eyes before she's blinded by bright light. She closes her eyes, heat washing over her body before she hears the head of the man holding her explode.

Shards of bone and brain matter rain down on her, sticking to her dark curly hair. The body stands for a second, unaware it no longer has a head as the charred stump of the neck steams. The body falls to the ground and takes Aisha with it, falling on top of her.

The elbow digs into her bleeding side, her eyes flying open as she struggles to get out from under the man, managing to push him off. Her gaze flies to the steaming charred stump where the head used to be. Panic rising she breathes in and oh god the smell — it’s an automatic response; Her stomach convulses and she pukes, bile burning her throat, retching and crying as the scent of her bile only makes it worse.

She feels heat rush over her and she doesn’t need to see to know your magic makes the other man and woman’s heads pop like grapes. Their bodies drop to the ground somewhere behind her, but what makes adrenaline rush through her is the soft sound of the motorcycle stand clicking against the ground.

Her head flies up to look, heart beating like a bird in the cage of her ribs; Dirt crunches beneath your boots but to her it sounds like breaking bones, steam rises off your body, the bright glow of your arms and the intense glare of your eyes behind the tinted lenses of your mask. . . it all gives the image of a demon — of something she needs to flee from.

If the people had been coyotes, then this person— no. . . the thing that had found her was a starved lion.

She tries to scramble back but it's useless when the smallest twitch of a muscle has her whimpering, blistering cold gnawing on every inch of her nerves.

You reach her in seconds, leaning down to grab her by the front of her clothes to pick her up like she weighs nothing. Your scent floods her nose, rot and just a small hint of sweetness, like honey poured on the floors of a burning charnel house. She tries to kick you but can barely move her toes, her legs just swaying uselessly beneath her. Your fingers, warm but not burning hot, hook under the steel wrapped around her neck.

Your jaw tenses, trying to remember how to speak. "Hold still." You order.

Your voice is soft. Not the velvet softness of her mothers', more akin to the smoothness of a tar pit right before it pulls a hapless creature into its inky depths. But you don't hurt her.

Metal screeches as the rusted steel bends like clay under your fingers. It only takes a few seconds before the collar clatters to the ground. The sudden release of pressure has Aisha gasping for breath so quickly she starts coughing and almost pukes but luckily her stomach is empty.

She doesn't feel you free her hands, the world spinning a thousand miles a minute before her eyes. She's forced to close her eyes shut in an attempt to fight back the nausea, rainbow spots crackling in the darkness of her vision.

Casually stepping over the corpse of the Devourer you sit her down on the hood of the truck, keeping a hand on her shoulder to make sure she doesn't fall face first to the ground. She shivers under your touch, trembling hands slowly raising to grip your wrist. You don't need magical sight to know an aborted spell is ravaging her insides; her fingertips turning black in front of your eyes and the specks of white dancing in her pupil is enough.

Judging by the way you can barely pick up the scent of mage standard rot on her, you can only assume she's a late bloomer. With a small huff you place your other hand on the middle of her chest, casting a simple circle at your palm.

Aisha gasps, fingers scrambling to try and pull your hand off, too numb with cold to register how the cooling lava making up your skin warms up. But it's like trying to move a mountain. You don't budge an inch. She can feel something inside her move, burning frost shepherded by blistering heat slinking down her fingers back into her heart, increasing speed with every inch it travels. She barely notices the aching in her side subsiding, or the sensation returning to her fingers.

You let go of the girl when you’re satisfied she won’t die from either blood loss or mana shock, leaving her to sit on the hood of the car as she looks dumbly at you.

The bullet loudly clatters on the steel hood. She turns her head and her eyes nearly pop out of her skull at the sight of her blood literally bleaching out of her clothes like it's being drawn back into her body. Letting go of your wrist she lifts her shirt, and there's not even a mark on her tan skin.

She’s no threat to you.

No sooner that you take a step away from her does Beelzebub's cold presence rush out of your heart with enough force to make you stumble back. People say it’s madness for a spell, a tool, to have personality. But the way black candlelight flames spark at your fingers and immediately rush out like a swarm of locusts to devour the three bodies is. . . it's angry. Vengeful As it should be. You can't fool yourself into thinking the way Beelzebub's magical fires eat away the Devourers hands before spreading over the rest of the body, crackling and buzzing like thousands of flies as they devour skin, then muscle, then bone until not even dust remains, is anything but vindictive.

Like erasing mistakes, it brings you a sense of satisfaction.

Your fingers twitch but you stop yourself from reaching up to trace the faint blue magic gluing your throat together. Instead, you focus on converting the mangled chunks of mana Beelzebub deposits in your chest into something you can use. Devours are a pain in the ass, so much different mana all twisted and held together with gum and staples, all of it now bashing against your ribs like wailing ghosts. With a huff you focus, the rock chunks on your arms getting wider and bigger as you store the stolen mana for later use, steam lazily rolling off your shoulders.

Aisha watches you, eyes wide, but. . . not scared. She doesn’t notice when she opens her mouth, her voice far too loud in the silent night. “Are you a jinn?” She asks, and cringes at her words. Of all the things she could have said, she chose that?

You don't know how you manage to open your mouth enough to answer. “No.” Beelzebub, satisfied as a hog in shit, burns on the ground for a few seconds in the shape of the bodies before seeping back into the earth, settling back to slumber in your heart.

You roll your shoulders. The slight bite of pain and the spasm of your muscles reminds you of the glass sticking out of your back. A grunt forces past your lips, more from annoyance than actual pain. A simple thought is enough to activate the magic you had cast on yourself, vestigial sparks flickering across your shoulders and boring a hole into your jacket. The edges glow brightly before they birth flames that eat away the bulletproof vest and the rest of your clothing until a sizable chunk of your back is exposed.

Aisha catches the edge of a small circle scribed atop your spine in the middle of your back, but her eyes are soon drawn to the mess of glass shards sticking out of your skin. There’s not a speck of blood in sight, but somehow that makes the sight more disturbing. Her gasp falls deaf on your ears, your mind more focused in trying to remove them.

Forcing your opposite hand to cool down enough so the heat doesn’t shatter the glass, you reach back as far as you can, trying to feel as best you can with your numb fingers. But your hands are stiff and unfeeling, making you fumble about like a bull in a china shop as you try to get one shard and miss. The only time you manage to grasp the sharp edge, you break it when you attempt to pull it out. A curse slips past your lips and you crush the broken piece between your fingers.

Aisha doesn’t know what possesses her, nothing good probably, but she speaks up. “Can I-” Your head turns to her so fast she startles, mouth snapping shut with an audible clack of her teeth. She can only stare at those burning eyes for a second before her animal brain forces her to look away, focusing on the gas mask portion of your mask because looking at your eyes feels wrong. But she powers through it, forcing herself to speak. “Can I help you?”

That was not what you expected.

“No.” You say, your head swiveling to glance at the road and then back up to the sky, a pulse of formless magic slipping past your fingers on instinct to ensure you’re covering all your bases as far as relative safety goes. You don’t see nor sense any form of life besides the girl, nor any mage magic save for the tracker in your pocket.

You hate to admit it, but the wraith was good. And so was the mage that made the tracker, it took you a good while until you had sensed the small piece of enchanted rock hidden in your pocket. You’re still unsure what you want to do with it, maybe you could somehow game the situation or send the monsters after you on a wild goose chase, so for now you’ve only isolated it with your magic instead of destroying it.

Aisha persists. “Please,” She grits her teeth, resisting the urge to shrink back when your eyes once again settle on her. “I- you helped me, I don’t want to hold debts.” There is a kind of determination in her eyes you know too well, the same kind Frosty had right before you and him—

If anyone asks or puts a gun to your head, you will blame this moment on many things — the fatigue, the side effects of using too much magic, the spiraling descent into lichdom, finally losing what dredges of sense you have in your no good skull; “Fine.”

You take careful steps towards her until your knees press against the bumper before turning your back to her, forcing her to spread her legs to accompany your body. You keep your body turned in a way that still keeps her in your periphery. Not that it matters. Even if she had a knife hidden on her person nothing short of 30/06 ammo could leave any damage you couldn’t immediately heal off.

Aisha hates the part of her that regrets her decision now that she's presented with the large array of glass sticking out of your skin. She reaches out like she would try to pet a wild dog, cold fingers gripping the sides of one piece, bracing her other hand on your back. She tries to wiggle it out, and though you keep yourself from hissing, your muscles still spasm around the sharp glass. “Sorry, sorry-”

“You’re fine rookie,” You grunt automatically. “Just yank it out.”

She sucks in a sharp breath and prepares herself like she’s the one with half a ton of glass using her as a pin cushion. But she does as you say before she can shy away from it. The glass slides out easily enough, glowing orange blood staining it. Her eyes go wide when the blood suddenly drips off the shard in one continuous stream until she’s holding a perfectly clean piece of glass. The blood lands on your back and slithers up your skin into the wound, repairing muscle and flesh until there’s not even a mark to indicate where the glass had pierced your skin.

“Are you like me?” She asks tentatively, mentally hitting herself for such a stupid question; of course you’re a mage, what is she even thinking? Hoping to escape the embarrassment she pulls another shard out of your back.

“You and I are mages.” You say simply, occasionally glancing to the road and sky before turning your attention back on the girl. It feels… strange. You don't remember the last time you've spoken with someone who didn't want anything from you. Someone who didn't want to use you. Kill you.

“Ye- yeah, I figured.” Aisha bites her lip, squinting her eyes. “Why… why did you save me?” She finally asks the question that had been plaguing her.

“I just did.” You shrug your shoulder, a small breath slipping past your clenched teeth as the motion makes the glass dig deeper into your shoulder.

Aisha’s shoulders fall, a frown tugging on her lips. She doesn’t know what she had expected. “Thank you.”

Her words make your head turn to look at her fully, “Why?”

“Why not?” Another chunk of glass falls to the ground, “You saved me from. . . them. You killed to save me.” She says, nodding her head at the three body shaped scorch marks on the ground. She doesn’t know why talking about the death of them suddenly feels so. . . normal, like she’s walking through a dream and none of this is real. More like a nightmare.

“Killing bad men doesn't make me a good one.” You grunt, choosing not to voice how your motives for killing them had been far more selfish than she could imagine. Vengeance and anger are poor motives, but motives nonetheless.

Aisha clicks her tongue and scowls. “And saving me would make you bad? One good deed has to amount for something, right?”

A pregnant pause rings through the silent night.

“You are strange.” Is the only thing your mind can turn into words.

“So are you!” She shoots back quickly, lowering her head when her words register in her brain. Chewing on her bottom lip she pulls out the last glass shard from your skin, letting it fall from her fingers where it joins the small pile on the ground. She awkwardly pats your shoulder. “Who were they?” She finds her voice again.

“Devourers.” You fail to hide the hate in your tone. Stepping away from her you activate the spell you’ve cast on yourself. The magic burning at the edges of the hole in your clothing flares up, fire washing over your naked skin to reconstruct the fabric you had destroyed. “Humans who want magic, and will bleed you dry to get it.” The jacket feels bigger on you than it should, you don’t even doubt that you’ve lost a few pounds just in the past few hours as you’re forced to tighten your belt to keep your pants from sagging. "Kill them if you can, avoid them if you can't."

“Why did they want me?” Aisha asks, bracing herself on the car’s hood and slowly sliding down until her feet touch the ground. She feels lightheaded and sways on her feet, gripping the hood to keep upright. You glance at her but she just shakes her head — you two are even now, she hopes, she doesn’t want to have to ask for help for something as simple as standing.

“You’re a mage, they want magic.” You shrug, fixing the cuffs on your jacket so not an inch of your mage marked skin shows. “They want your blood, by drinking it they can use what they lack.”

Unwanted thoughts laugh at the back of your mind. Phantom pain blooms across your throat as you swallow, your lungs stuttering to draw breath. Memories you'd rather not revisit nibble at the back of your mind, just begging to gain your attention. Your hand reaches out to hold the tags—

Nothing.

You come up empty.

Your heart finally stops.

You hold your fist against your chest for a few seconds, the need to break something, even your own sternum, crooning soft melodies in your ears. Finally your fingers slowly uncurl so your palm rests flat over your heart. Your body is warm, but a blizzard rages inside your ribcage. You lost them, again. . . and you don’t feel fury, or sadness, or any other way. You don’t feel shit.

A low pathetic sound escapes you. Titanium wires stitch your jaw closed, pulled so taut you'd chip a tooth without your magic. For a split second you think of dispelling the magic around the tracker and letting them come to you. . . but you don’t; at least Taurus’s training remains effective. You’re sure your brain will let you feel anger as soon as you’ll be in a position to survive the consequences of anger birthed stupidity.

Aisha leans to her side just enough to see your front, confusion written on her face as to why you had suddenly gone quiet. Though your eyes still burn with an inferno, they feel empty to her. She remembers her father’s eyes had been the same when he had returned from fighting. “Did you lose someone?” She asks, voice soft.

“Yes.” You grunt, and fuck, it feels insulting to them how lost you sound. You’re one of the best mages on the planet for fuck’s sake, you’re not supposed to feel this way. “Lost a lot of people.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be.” You finally pry your hand off your chest, both hands now hanging by your sides, fingers curled into fists. “You had nothing to do with it.” You wish you could say the same to yourself.

You shake your head; feelings can come after the job is done. You know the general lay of the land enough to know there is a small city not far from where you are, one that isn’t too harsh on mages. It would take her a couple of hours on foot to reach, but it’s better than nothing. You tell as such, starting to walk towards your motorcycle. “Get to the city, don’t linger around here.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Aisha follows after you, struggling to keep up. “What am I supposed to do when I get there?” Her mind swirls with all sorts of questions, where will she go? What of her parents? What if—

“Do what you want.” You shrug and get on the motorcycle, the engine roaring to life. “Join the military or the circus or whatever else, just don’t stay here.” And with that you drive off.

. . .

"Well, would you look at that." A man sighs as he pulls the binoculars down to rest in his lap, a deep frown on his face. It only lasts for a scant few seconds before he smirks, crows feet forming around his eyes. "Our firebug's manners haven't changed one bit." The man chuckles and turns his head to regard his companion, eyes glowing the color of crystal clear quartz.

"Oh, I wonder who taught him that." The woman sitting next to him snarks, the blue chains marring her arms disappearing like a mirage when she dispels the illusion spell. The human skin melts away to coarse sand and weathered whalebone, red bone eating worms squirming and boring holes into the whalebone, small anglerfish lures softly waving through the air as if she's deep beneath the sea.

The man purses his lip, "I've no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm sure, mister 'I dropped a mountain on an oil rig with my second in command still in it'." Water flows between the seams of whalebone, extending past the stumps of her wrists to form hands of seafoam and salt.

She uses her newly remade hands to tug on the man’s ear like he’s a disobedient child.

The man scoffs and bats her hand away. "Hey now, you did say you wanted to go diving." He shrugs, "Oh, and looks like I won our bet." He smirks, catching the golden coin the woman throws him. Charles's face smiles on one side of it, but the man pays it no mind and puts the coin in his pocket; they’re both far too old to care about money and the dead kings on them.

“Yes, but not like that!” She snaps, not even the bandages around her head able to hide the glare she throws at him. But instead of following up on her anger she sighs and looks down at her hands. Glowing blue plankton swim in the crystal clear waters, but it feels like yesterday her hands were dyed a burning orange.

She hates what they had to do. What they continue to do. “Ifrit is still too reckless. Your plan failed.”

“No it didn’t.” He shoots back. “We just overestimated the kid again. It wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t coddled them all so much.”

The man fully expects the slap on the shoulder he receives, cool water splashing on his greying blond hair. He doesn’t comment on it, simply runs his hand over the patch of wet hair. Small green shrubs bloom on the cracked earth texture of his palm, moss crawling up the crystalline outcrops along his elbow bone, little flowers sprouting in his hair and beard.

They sit in silence for a moment before the woman sighs and hangs her head. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.” Lifting her head she angles it to look at the man. “I just… I wish we didn’t have to do this.” She confesses. “It breaks my heart to see Ifrit so lost.” As much as her still heart can be broken.

“I know, I know.” He reaches out to gently take her hands into his. Though she can’t see his face, even her magic can only go so far, she knows he’s sporting a gentle smile. “Ifrit will be fine. He has no choice.”

Two jet planes fly overhead, engines screaming, blind to their existence as they rush after their prodigal soldier like bats out of hell.

The woman grimaces, water easily sliding past his fingers as she pulls her hands away. “I know,” She tilts her head towards the abandoned house, and the girl slowly walking away from it. “I suppose I’ll find something to occupy myself with.” The woman gets up, glancing at the man once again. “I hope you know what you’re doing Taurus.”

"I always do Sierra."

. . .

The atmosphere is so thick a vampire could bite into it. They all know first hand how missions can go wrong in a moment’s notice, but none of them had expected it to go this pear shaped; some of the mages they had been given are dead, the rest are all in some kind of coma, and it’s a miracle that Captain Roberts had survived long enough to get medical evac with how burned up she was. Gaz had almost lost his lunch when he’d gone to pick up the mage captain and her arm had fallen off in brittle pieces of blackened bone, fabric and skin melted together all over her torso.

"Are you boys alive?" Is the first question out of Laswell's lips when the contact her. The shoddy connection makes her face grainy and pixelated, but her voice is clear enough, tinged with exhaustion and the light of the screen darkens the bags under her eyes.

“Yeah,” Kyle says, “Besides nearly getting turned into KFC we’re fine.” He moves his wings for emphasis, holding back a grimace at how the residual soot and ash irritates the soft skin beneath his feathers. He’ll be lucky if it’ll wash out after a week, though the grime is only secondary to the stench of death and heat clinging to him.

Soap grunts, not bothering or simply forgetting to pull the frozen piece of rubber from his mouth before speaking. “O-cgh ohnlhy ah fheph burhnrs.” Spit leaks down his swollen lip as he gurgles. It hadn't been noticeable at first, but when the adrenaline wore off the pain in his gums hit him like a truck. The medic had given him the rubber to soothe the burns all over his mouth, and he would have been pissed about how much it looked like a doggy chew toy if the relief it brought wasn’t worth it. Doesn’t mean he’s any less agitated about looking like a teething puppy.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Kyle chides, singed wingtips flicking against the back of Soap’s skull.

Johnny pulls the rubber out of his mouth enough to growl back and simultaneously tries to swallow the saliva. He chokes, hitting his chest a few times and coughing, “Yae try ta talk with a burned mouth! Feel like ah’ve been gargling devil pish.”

“Boys.” Price snaps, voice as cold and hard as his reptilian eyes. “Enough.” There’s a hardness in his gaze neither men have seen in a while or even think of challenging. It’s easy to see that something is bothering the dragon, even if he doesn’t say it, and whatever it is, it’s got Price angry.

Not the usual ‘shouting and arguing’ angry Price gets when he’s given dog shit orders, no. This is the cold and silent anger that precedes the destruction of cities.

Soap looks away, biting down on the frozen rubber. Gaz mumbles an apology.

“John,” Kate begins, sensing the storm in his head. “What did you find out?”

“Ifrit knows Ruin magic.” Price says, bits of steam rising from the corners of his lips as his anger shows. He had gone centuries believing that despicable magic had finally died out and rotted away like every mage that used it. He was wrong. Very wrong.

“Shit.” Laswell rubs the bridge of her nose, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Price’s wing flares out a bit, tail flicking side to side in a subconscious show of agitation. “I felt it.”

“Anyone care to share with the class.” Simon asks, arms crossed over his chest and claws digging into his biceps. The light pricks of pain keep him grounded enough to ensure his arms don’t turn into puffs of dark smoke; he’s had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach ever since the fight, something about you — how you moved, how confidently you used magic — he hadn’t seen it in a while.

And it didn’t bode well. It was better when a mage was scared of their own shadow and put on a cheap mask of confidence. But with you? There wasn’t even a single second of hesitation in anything you did.

Price looks at him, then at the two sergeants, finally looking at Laswell as the two exchange nods. “It’s nothing good.” A sigh leaves him. “Ruin magic is old and dangerous,” Price starts, eyes hard like stone. “The last time it was used a plague swept across Europe.”

“What?” Kyle’s eyebrows furrow. “Do you seriously mean the black death was caused by magic?”

"Yes," Kate says, "But we can have a history lesson later. Ifrit knowing ruin magic changes things, they're now our top priority."

"Ah dhogh geh-" Soap remembers they can't understand him and pulls the rubber out of his mouth. "Ah don't get it, what's so special about ruin magic? Ain't all that magical shite the same?"

"No." Price grunts, "A ruin mage needs the body of another person to learn a spell. They see anything or anyone living as chunks of meat to be used in their spells." His eyes darken, claws digging into his palms.

He shakes his head. “Did you manage to get any information about Ifrit from the tags?” Price asks. He had sent photo copies of each dog tag to Laswell as soon as Johnny had given them to him.

Soap pulls the rubber from his mouth, swallowing the excess spit before reaching out to grab the tags laying on the table. He doesn’t know why, but something about holding them feels sacrilegious to him; like he’s holding the pelt of another werewolf instead of pieces of metal.

“No, Ifrit’s tags aren’t ones made by the military.” Laswell says, and that piques Kyle's interest. He leans over to look at the tags as Johnny inspects them. The metal chain hangs loosely off his fingers, weighed down by more than a dozen tags dangling from it. They vary in damage, some are bent, some have black heat marks on them in the shape of fingertips, and some are so blackened he needs to use his fingers to feel the text. Silicon silencers prevent the tags from making noise when he lays them down in a pile on his palm, a couple of them spilling over to hang at the sides of his hand. The first thing he notices is the stench, nothing specific like the smell mages have, but it’s not pleasant either.

Soap takes a random tag and reads off the fine text —

‘JACHAL

VENENUM, ACIDUM, L9

MAJOR

O NEG

JEWISH’

“Yer telling me.” Soap huffs, taking out his own tags from beneath his shirt to compare the two, just to make sure he’s not insane and the tags don’t make sense.

“What kind of shite even is this?” Johnny’s tags sport his full government name and security name without mentioning his rank. The tags he has in his hand look more like the ones civies would get personalized than anything else. He grimaces and hands the tags over to Gaz, “Are they even real?” He asks.

“Why would someone just carry around a bunch of fake tags?” Gaz asks, inspecting them as well.

“Could be part of a wannabe militia. Wouldn’t be the first time some punks with guns tried to play army.” Ghost shrugs. “Could also be to throw us off.” Ghost suggests, tilting his head enough to see Kyle appraise the small hunks of metal. “Or it’s all for shits n’ giggles.”

Kyle’s sharp eyes spot the tag he had been looking for; the tag is the only one without a silencer, the metal caked in soot and ash that the letters are hard to see and Kyle needs to trace the metal with the pad of his thumb to understand what they say:

‘IFRIT

IGNIS, CINIS, RUINA L10

CAPTAIN–

“Whoa,” Gaz’s eyebrows raise. “Ifrit’s a bloody captain.”

“What’s someone like that doing as a terrorist’s dog?” Soap asks.

“Ifrit’s motives remain unclear, but I did find something.” Kate shuffles some papers off screen, pulling up two thin looking file folders. “Two of the tags you sent me have actual people on them.” She says, taking a paper from each folder. Even through the camera they can see how the once crisp white paper has been yellowed with age. “Lance Corporals Hutch and Lambert, both presumed KIA nearly 11 years ago along with their entire squad. Apparently they were led by Corporal Yerrow to conduct a reconnaissance mission in Iraq to investigate a human smuggling ring, but a shoot-out caused a forest fire and no bodies were ever recovered.”

Johnny sniffs the air, crossing his arms over his chest, tail tip slowly wagging. “Anyone smell bull shite?”

“You’re not the only one.” Kate turns the files so the text side is aimed at the camera. More than half of the documents are redacted to the point it looks like a rorschach test. “I haven’t been able to access the original files, if they even exist, but the agent that oversaw the mission was a predecessor of mine, I’ll see if I can get in contact with him. ” It wouldn’t be the first time the CIA covered something up, but what could have happened back then that even Kate couldn’t get to the files?

“Great, what other shite can we pile on our plates?” Soap growls, ears twitching.

“Don’t jinx it.” Kyle says, gently setting the tags on the table.

“There’s another thing.” Kate adds, putting the files away.

“Nice going puppy.” Ghost grunts, ignoring the look Soap gives him.

“Whatever it is, it’ll need to wait.” Price says, speaking up finally. “Ifrit’s a ruin mage. We need to put it down before it melts half the country to slag.”

“That’s the problem.” Kate’s voice makes Price’s eyes sharpen, slitted pupils turning into thin black lines. “We’ve managed to identify the gas used in the terror attack. It was Sarin gas, remnants of Barkov. The same ones Makarov stole.”

“Told you they’re a damn magnet fer wankers.” Soap mutters under his breath. Price's eyes shift to him, giving him a hard look and making it very clear it’s not the time for his comments. Soap’s ears twitch and his tail curls around his leg.

“How did Al-Qatala get their hands on the gas? There’s no way Makarov would just hand over his toys.” Ghost asks.

“We don’t know yet. And we might not ever know if you don’t hurry.” Kate stresses. “The top brass figured out Khaled’s location, they think Ifrit’s going after Khaled so they’re sending troops to take them both out in one place as we speak.”

Price catches on quickly. “Kate, you’re not telling me we need Ifrit alive?” Price stresses, body stiff.

“I’m not,” Kate rebuts, just as tense. “This is an order.” Price flashes his teeth at her, but finally looks away, black smog escaping past the corner of his lips.

“If you can’t get to Khaled, Ifrit will be our only chance to get Makarov.” She ads.

“So go capture the human bomb without dying.” Gaz summarizes, claw tips nervously scratching at the fresh pin feathers growing from his forearms. “Sounds easy.”

“Walk in tae park.” Johnny snarks.

"Only the parks on fire." Ghost adds, tone dry as old bone.

Price stays still and silent for a few moments. Thunder rumbles in his chest and his tail tip lashes against the floor as indications of his anger. His claws scrape against his palms with the need to tear into the festered flesh of the ruin mage, to rip out the heart and destroy it so he can make sure that blasted magic is gone for good.

But he relents, only so he can have unrestrained access to you once they get the information they need. “Pack up. On the double.” Price growls. “We’ve got a mage to hunt.”

. . .

Why did you do it?

It had been a split second decision to divert course when you'd sensed the Devourers, and even then, the mana they gave you through Beelzebub was miniscule compared to what you were used to handling. Hell, you probably wasted more mana using the temporary invisibility spell to get close to the Devourers than what you made from them.

With Khaled's betrayal and an unknown military likely after your head, ignoring the Devourers would have been the smart move. Your ‘heroic’ act won’t earn you any brownie points with whatever made the mistake of putting you on the planet — that’s for fucking sure.

But. . . she reminded you of, well, you. The you violent flames had cremated when they first sparked across your fingers. The you you’d left behind when you took your friend’s hand and ran as fast as your legs could carry. The you you’d been forced to stuff beneath the floorboards and ignore as you lied to the recruiter. The you you sometimes wish you hadn’t forsaken for the sake of survival.

. . . eh, what does it matter? Frosty’s as dead as the rest of them and no amount of grief and tears (assuming you could even force yourself to weep) will bring him back. Maybe it’s a good thing you never found his tags, the universe’s way of keeping him from suffering the humiliation you’ve inflicted on the others.

The engine roars beneath you like a caged beast, each little rock and hole in the uneven terrain causing the motorcycle to buck, the back of the seat knocking up into your tailbone. It’s a necessary evil, driving far away from the main road with the lights off helps you evade detection slightly better, and you’ll take anything you can get. Your commander’s words are etched into your bones: “Only let your enemies know you’re coming when your knife is hilt deep in their throat.”.

The sizzle in your bones and little deep pinpricks of pain in your lower back are barely noticeable with how numb you feel. Both in body and in what’s left of your humanity. You’ve gotten good at that — turning off your emotions and doing what needs to be done; you’re sure if you got shot dead that your body would finish the mission before it figured out there was a bullet in your skull.

Sometimes you even wonder what a witch would see if she ever tried to scry into your heart. Would it still be the hellish landscape Taurus showed you all those years ago? Or would it be like Pompei? Or some other landscape of impeccably preserved tragedy?

Your fingers twitch around the handlebars in an attempt to stop yourself from reaching out for something that’s not there anymore. Some vestigial and selfish part of you whimpers and yearns for the brief respite the tags brought. Their absence feels more suffocating than all the times you’ve been hanged; more painful than when your throat had been used as an artistic butcher’s canvas.

Your magical senses pick up the life signs long before your enhanced ears hear the screech of jet engines. You nearly snap your neck with how quickly you look up, able to catch two jet planes flying overhead by the glow of their engines, trying to track both of their flight paths.

You tighten the grip on the handlebars and increase the speed. You don’t stop to see if they saw you, you know they did from the way the planes twirl in the air. . . and from the way they shoot rockets at you.

Letting go of one handle you let mana rush to your fingers, cinders burning away your sleeve and glove. Just as the rockets get close enough for you to hear their screeching you swing your arm up, a burning arch of flames following after your palm. The motion is enough to tell your brain what you want, a thick screen of roaring flames spreading out from the arc in front of you.

The missiles hit the wall of flames instead of you. You swear you nearly go deaf from the loud explosion the missiles make when they connect with your defense magic, everything around you shaking from the sudden force but the spell holds, not even a scratch in sight. The resulting smoke flares around the sides in a suffocating cloud, the thick wall of fire obscuring your vision and forcing you to blindly swerve side to side.

Your magic may protect you, but it can’t stop the rocket from hitting the ground right in front of the wheel. The whistle and screech of the missile is the only warning you get before the ground beneath you explodes and sends you flying. You hit the ground and roll, jagged rocks slamming into your bones, scraps of metal pelting your back. Magic washes over you to heal the bones you break.

It leaves you feeling every bit of pain when the motorcycle falls on top of you, pushing the breath out of your lungs. The sudden force has your jaw slamming onto the ground, your tongue caught between your teeth. Blood floods your mouth. It tastes like battery acid and burns your throat on its way down to your stomach, but it forces adrenaline to rush through your system and let you push the motorcycle off you.

Your spine cracks multiple times in the short seconds it takes for your magic to fix the bones, giving you back the sensation in your limbs so you can roll to your side and avoid another missile. You summon a few smaller flame shields to protect your head and vitals from the blast, but not from the sharp rocks that hit your back like grenade pieces.

Your vision swimming and ears ringing you scramble to your knees. You’re given no choice but to use your own blood. Even with the distraction of another missile hitting your shield, it’s easy for you to focus your mana. It flows from your heart to your fingers but you don’t let it escape like it wants. Forcing it to pool in your palms until the heat burns away your remaining glove and turns the stone of your hands into lava.

It only takes a few seconds for fat drops of brightly melted rock to drip onto the ground, and only then can you feel your blood, both the one in your veins and the rivulets of bright orange freely flowing down your back. Burning hot and brimming with so much mana it’s no problem for you to take hold of the blood you've bled. Bright crimson crawls across your back to draw a magic circle from memory alone.

Quickly hunching your back generates enough force to make your blood bust through your vessels, two arcs of blood tearing through skin and muscle like a knife. The bright glow of your blood lights up the dark, stray droplets hovering in the air like oil in water as more of it flows from your body and branches out until it resembles skeletonized wings. Fire sparks at your skin and follows the blood, forcing it to crystallize in place as ash takes up the space between the bones and cascades down in long shrouds. Obsidian sharp crystal blood digs into your skin with every little move of your new wings as they twitch erratically. Lighting races up your spine, your mind forced to create new nerves and deal with sensations it wasn’t designed for.

You summon a circle beneath your feet, ash bursting up to send you high into the air in a long continuous column like it’s the tower of Babel just as another missile hits the place you had been moments ago. The spark from the rocket ignites the ash, giving you an extra few feet in the air before you start to fall.

The leftover smoke swallows you whole, gravity forcibly tipping you back until you’re falling head first. The wind screeches in your ears and the grounds gets closer and closer with every second, the grim reaper laughing over your shoulder; you remember yelling and screaming, even passing out, many times during this type of training. Now, you are calm.

Your mind finally creates the right nerves to move your limbs. Your wings spread out with the same violence they burst out of your back, sharply pulling on your chest muscles as they swing out and down. The flap of your wings breaks off a bit of the ash covering your crystallized blood, flames burning at the tips of your wings making the ash erupt in an explosion and creating enough force for you to soar high into the air.

Flying is hard regardless of how often you’ve done this, your back muscles cramping as you struggle to use your new wings. Not that it actually is flying in the same sense the harpies or other winged creatures would call it. More like gliding with extra steps. Either way, it serves its purpose in making you airborne and mobile.

You shoot high up into the sky like a bullet, trails of ash following after you and wrapping around you like a shroud. The quick movement of your wings and sharp turns let you avoid a set of missiles shot at you, but even at your fastest speed you’ve got no chance of hitting the quick jets flying around you like flies. So instead you use simple spells and hope your aim hasn’t gotten rusty. The muscles in your core and arms tense, a circle forming flush with your palms. Mana rushes to your arms and you use the brief stability in the air between the flaps of your wings to set off your spell.

A solid beam of concentrated flame shoots out, thin as a pencil but it tears through the clouds and metal plane like butter. You manage to cleave off a wing, the wound left behind in the metal glows brightly, before a simple thought activates the latent magic and the entire jet explodes a second later.

Rockets and bullets fly at your back like plague carrying insects, only to be burned away by your magic. Your neck hurts from how sharply you jerk your head to look behind you, mana flowing to your eyes to enhance your sight until the jet is clearly visible. At least you have comfort in the fact your hand eye coordination is still as sharp as ever, another beam of fire cleaving the jet in two.

And just like that, you’re alone in the sky.

You don’t realize how rapidly your heart is beating until you take a moment to breathe, wings spreading out to let you glide through the sky. You reach into your pocket to pull out the tracker, a small piece of rich green rock. Your magic swirls across the surface of it, cinders worming through the stone; You don’t know how they found you when your magic is still active on the tracker, there are no ‘happy accidents’ in your line of work.

Gritting your teeth you dispel your magic around the tracker and toss it as far as you can in the opposite direction, wings pressing closer to your body to increase the speed of your glide.

With your motorcycle more than likely fucked, you have no choice but to rely on your bloodmade wings longer than you’d like. Using the mana you’d stuck on Khaled as a compass you let yourself fall and gain speed before spreading out your wings. The deep muscles in your back and chest scream for a second with each flap of your wings before your magic silences them, the discomfort of using temporary limbs easy to shove into the back of your mind. Your flying speed is much faster than that of the motorcycle, the ground moving rapidly beneath you.

You’re only mildly surprised to feel Khaled’s presence in his base. It’s an old oil refinery that was abandoned when the Russians restricted the production of oil in the country. Khaled found it and turned it into a bastion, hiding up high in the mountains like he’s some kind of king.

Any old dragon can attest a kingdom of steel and concrete like that won’t survive scorching flame.

Your only problem is that it’s got magic sensing tech, which just means there’s some extremely sensitive electronics that end up sparking like shoddily made light bulbs when more than just the smallest amount of modern magic is used. Sometimes you hate how thorough you are.

Luckily for you, it’s not the first time you’ve had to sneak past such tech.

You land near the base of the mountain, just at the edge where you know the range of those sensors ends. You’d like to say you land gracefully and with barely a sound, but you’re pretty sure a tank would have an easier time than you. The exhaustion and the added weight on your back doesn’t help you in any way to keep balance, making you stumble forward and almost trip on a root. Your arms spread out to grip the trees for support, but you underestimate your strength and the wood splinters under your right hand, making you fall face first.

The few seconds you spend flat on the ground is probably the longest you’ve spent laying down in the past month.

With a sharp breath you get to your feet, carefully leaning your shoulder against a tree. Your makeshift wings press against your back and pull on your muscles, but the thought of ‘what if you’ll need them?’ keeps you from dispelling them. Embers burn away the clothing shielding your front, giving yourself just enough sight of your skin to be able to cast the spells you need.

It’s one thing to push your mana to your hands and out as magic, it’s another to force the burning heat through every little capillary in your skin and pull on it in certain spots until magical circles etch themselves into your skin. It’s not that far off from using blood magic, only it requires a little less mana and focus. You’ve done this so much you could do it with your eyes closed, filling the insides of the circles with little diamonds and magical sigils only your mind can grasp.

The body enhancing spell has an immediate effect. The pain in your back disappears suddenly like it was never there, the vestiges of weakness from mana use getting pushed back to the back of your mind. It even dispels the base painful thrum in your skull you hadn’t realized you had.

With a clearer mind you go about casting more similar spells that carve themselves into your skin; one to temporarily strengthen your body beyond what you already have, another to force your mana generator to increase in productivity, yet a third one to increase the potency of your spells; Buffs that push your body past the edge of what it can take, to the point you barely feel human.

This is the closest man will ever come to godhood. ”Don’t let it get to your little head firebug.”

Your last spell to prepare is different. A dirty trick.

“Valefar.” You huff, speaking another name for a spell that deserves respect. Nothing happens at first, but then you feel it. Like a living thing deep beneath the earth, Valefar hums a soft lullaby to the tune of crackling flames. The dirt beneath you expands and black flames break through the earth, creating a spider web of dark old magic that fills up the empty root system spanning the entire mountain. The flames don’t dare touch you yet. They’re waiting. . . hungry.

Before the problematic thing in your skull can give you grief, you let the waiting beast in and welcome it like a brother. Valefar’s black flames shudder and slowly, carefully, crawl up your legs, scampering along your abdomen and kissing the sharp transition between skin and mage marks. They paint the yellow glow of your mage marks a pitch black, the magma of your arms and your crystalized blood turning black as obsidian. Even the flames tipping the ends of your wings turn black as pitch.

For a second you’re accosted with the sensation of every bit of magic you had pushed into the earth over the months, every drop of mana obediently waiting its time in the rotten root system. But Valefar soothes your mind, dampening the glow of your eyes and shrouding your brain in water cool flames. Valefar lacks the crushing weight or the freezing cold of most ruin spells, simply almost thrilled to be used.

Ruin magic is too old to be tracked by modern means, and you take the first step into the range of the sensors without fear. You knew Khaled would betray you, you’ve almost started growing old in an industry that killed its soldiers young, you knew to listen to your stomach. Khaled had been one of those people you wouldn’t trust as far as you could throw them, though you never expected him to be so brazen about it. It’s no different than the day hellfire rained down on your hea-

You stop yourself mid thought the second you register your anger trying to boil over, the burning heat inside your chest making steam rise off your shoulders. Asmodeus, the one spell you won’t ever use, sparks beneath your skin; angry, vengeful. You stifle it before it can gain an upper hand, sparks of black flame flying past your lips as you breathe out and escaping through the filters of your mask.

Taurus always blamed your hotheadedness on your magic. What is a mage if not the fire Prometheus stole for you? The suffocating hate Vesuvius spewed? The blackened rotten blood giving birth to spells like Beelzebub and Valefar?

Loud gunfire breaks through your thoughts; Khaled would never practice shooting drills in the middle of the night.

You increase your pace, turning your jog into a run. As you near the old refinery something immediately stands out to you – there’s way too many life signatures than there should be. Even without a good line of sight you can sense them, all those beating hearts and flickers of life fluttering together like moths until you find yourself with a massive pain in your skull.

Breathing out a small breath you duck behind the tall trees just at the edge of the compound. To say you’re surprised to find Urzikstan soldiers engaged in combat with Khaled’s men would be an understatement. And the army didn’t hold anything back. There’s a fuck ton of soldiers, most of them hiding behind tanks that block the only exit from the compound and sponge up the machine gun fire Khaled’s men are unloading into them. Bullets rain down on both sides, there’s even fucking helicopters flying in the air — this is a full on assault.

You can still sense Khaled is in the refinery somewhere, you would be able to narrow down on his exact location if there weren’t so many living bodies buzzing around like ants. Your mind whirls with ideas; you could use the distraction and sneak past, or you could just destroy both sides in one quick and clean attack, you doubt anyone would be able to notice you using magic when they’re more focused about the hail of bullets.

A tree branch snaps beneath you, followed by the clicking of a gun and three rounds going off. “Mage in sight! I repeat I got mage in sight!”

Nevermind.

The bullets tear through your vest but just bounce off your magic enhanced skin. You turn on your heel, holding your arm out. “Beelzebub.” Burning cold swells in your heart and crawls through your veins, black flames shooting out from your palm at the soldier. He barely has the chance to scream before the black fire eats away his vocal cords, his gun clattering to the floor. In only a few seconds the only thing left of him is the uniform and the black flames burning in the shape of a man.

Despite how stupid it might be, you let go of the fine control you have over Beelzebub. It doesn’t waste a second, thousands of little wisps of obsidian fire breaking off from the main mass and shooting out at the nearest source of organic matter. Be they tree or human, Beelzebub will devour them all the same.

Fresh mana fills your chest and you’re quick to turn it into something useful. This time it takes significantly less time to spread your wings, summoning ash beneath your feet and launching yourself up into the air.

Tree branches whack you over the head before you make it into the open air. . . and accidentally smash your head into the belly of a helicopter. A dull 'thump' sounds and you're not sure if it's your head that's empty or the helicopter.

Your vision blurs for a second, and you shake your head to get rid of the temporary headache. The helicopter swerves to the side, the tail swinging right at you, the soldiers inside yelling. Tucking your wings close to your body you fall just in time to avoid the tail, twisting your body as you careen through the air until you’ve got a clear line of sight. One magic circle is all it takes to blast a sizable hole through the center of the flying machine, taking out the engine and the blades all at once.

Quickly flapping your wings you dart up through the hole you created, ash flooding the inside of the heli as you pass and erupting in an explosion a second later. The heli plumets down to the ground but you stay in the air, spreading your wings out to soar. This high up you’ve got a clear view of everything — the entire compound, made up of two big buildings connected with a catwalk and oil storage towers; The machine gun men shooting at tanks with no regard for how many bullets they use; Beelzebub’s black flames spreading across the terrain like a forest fire, consuming everything in sight until the only thing left is scorched earth and dust.

First things first, the machine guns. Though not as dangerous to you as the tanks, you’ve had enough of them to sate you for a lifetime, and you’d rather not be on the receiving end again. With sitting ducks for targets it’s laughably easy to cast simple homing spells to kill the gunner and melt the machine guns mounted on the rails.

A bullet hits your chest, tearing through the bullet proof vest. It bounces off your skin but the force nearly knocks you out of the sky. You go with the force, tucking your wings and flipping backwards in the air until you can spread them out to glide down. You notice the snipers, two on the roof of each building, one on the middle one of the tall oil towers just behind the buildings. You go for the straggler first, diving down with the speed of a bullet.

The sniper tries to shoot you again but you barrel roll out of the way. You shoot a ball of flames at the sniper when you're close enough, completely disintegrating him on contact. Turning to your side you soar through the gap between two oil towers, making a sharp left turn around the tower with a quick flap of your wings so you can quickly soar up.

The building to your right is closer and your next target. Gliding down close to the roof you you summon your spell, incinerating the closer of the two snipers. The other one drops his rifle to shoot at you with a pistol, but you just tuck your wings close and barrel roll to evade the bullets.

Your wings suddenly spread out with the force of a tightly coiled spring, the crystalline edge slicing straight through the sniper's neck like a guillotine. You're given no time to focus on the remaining snipers when a massive artillery shell flies at you. With a swing of your arm your flames race out to collide with the shell, an explosion going off right in front of your face. Ash and soot cake on top of your lenses but that's a small price to pay when you can safely dart through the smoke cloud; looks like the tanks have noticed you.

Pulling your wings close to your wings close to your body you divebomb to take out the final two snipers. You crash into one of them, your boots making contact with his chest and the force you’ve generated from your flight means you completely smash through his ribs the second his back hits the roof. The concrete cracks beneath your boot, but that doesn't stop you as you race across it, pulling your arm back to swing a fist at the remaining sniper. The skull cracks the second your fist connects, breaking completely under your knuckles, blood and brains splattering on the lenses of your gasmask.

The roof you're on has a helicopter on it, and you think of destroying it, but the tanks present a bigger problem. Leaping off the edge of the building you launch yourself back into the air, turning your attention to the tanks. There’s four of them, all spread out in a vague arc across the empty field of land between the buildings and the road leading out. Not a problem for you.

Slowing down to a smooth glide you stretch your arms out in front of you. Your flames rush out to hit the artillery shells shot at you, but it also forces the mana Beelzebub keeps stuffing into your chest to move to your palms. Summoning four evenly sized circles in front of you is easy for a mage of your caliber. With mana burning in your palms you squeeze your hands, forcing all that magic to shoot out through the centers of the circles as concentrated beams of flame. As if struck down by some god's smite, The tanks blow up the moment your magic hits them, leaving smoldering half melted skeletons of steel behind.

You land near one of the tanks with enough force to crack the charred ground beneath you, stumbling a few steps forward. You turn your head, using the tattered remains of your jacket near your shoulders to wipe away the lenses. It makes you see the clear destruction Beelzebub has wrought, the once lush forest surrounding the compound turned baren. Yet the spell hungers still, given the chance it would easily devour the entire world, and you can feel it gnaw on the edges of your passive control in it's attempt to stray away from you. Biting the hand that feeds. Arrogant. Just like Lambert.

You're forced to snuff it out, dispelling Beelzebub before it tries to sweep through the country like all ten plagues.

A shuddering breath leaves you for the first time in a while, your lungs stuttering as you breathe in for the first time in a while. Despite how stuffed to the gills with mana your chest is, how you can barely breathe with the pressure against your ribs, you can feel the familiar sting of your bones — the cost of mana use burrowing into your marrow. The missions, the ambush, this, it’s all starting to pile on. It’s the cost, you suppose, no mortal will ever become god, this is simply a consequence for your choices.

Shots ring out above the crackle of flames, bullets bouncing off your body and only making you aware of the soldiers. Thy are too much of a problem to be kept alive, but killing them with magic would be a waste of mana considering you’re slowly reaching the breaking point of how much even your augmented body can handle.

Fortunately, you’ve got a cheap trick up your sleeve. Quickly sensing the exact location of the Urzikstan soldiers you cast another spell, circles forming beneath their feet before chains of living flame ensnare them like rabbits. "Belial." You say, your gaze fixed on the Urzikstan soldiers.

Belial is softer on your arteries than Beelzebub, but it still passes from your heart and into your fingers like a kidney stone. Big globs of tar black lava drip from your arms, sizzling and steaming when splatter on the ground. But they don’t stay inert for long. You’ve seen the sight a thousand times; Roaches made of pure black lava crawl out of the puddles by the dozens, quickly skittering towards the hapless humans. They crawl up the bound soldiers, fiery mandibles eating away the flesh and boring holes through muscle, squirming into every orifice, infesting every inch of their insides.

The soldiers try to scream but their vocal cords are soon devoured as the roaches eat everything they deem useless. They gorge themselves on the fat, groups of them peeling off the skin in long strips until the bowels and other organs fall out to the ground with a wet 'splat' to be eaten by yet more roaches. The bodies twitch and convulse, falling to the ground when you dispel the chains. Blood and mucus froths at their mouths but the roaches drink up even that like it's the finest wine.

When they're done feasting they crawl into the body that's nothing more but muscle, ligament, and bone. A single hand motion is enough to command the bodies to rise. They do so slowly, limbs twitching and bodies shaking as the magical roaches squirm in the homes they've made between muscle fibers. The bodies stumble to their feet, eyeless slack jawed heads full of roaches staring at you.

Your control over them isn’t as fine as Jackal had over his puppets, but it’s still better than what most militaries see. Your well hidden anger bleeds into your magic, you don’t even need to speak for the charred puppets to stumble past you, seeking out to devour the stragglers you missed.

With that done you turn your attention to the large two story building where you can still sense Khaled’s presence.

. . .

"Ah still think this is bollocks." Soap growls when his head bumps against the roof of the Humvee because Price drove over yet another pot hole in the road. "Go capture tae mage that can turn yeh into a kebab, wonderful idea, no wee problem there."

"Noted sergeant." Price grunts, knuckles almost white as he grips the steering wheel. "Anything else you want to add?" He asks but receives a few grumbles in return. They've heard that one part of the army had come to lay siege on the refinery, and from the preliminary reports Laswell gave them, it didn't end well for the poor bastards.

"Do we even have a game plan sir?" Gaz asks, glancing between Ghost and Soap sitting in the backseat. "One that isn't 'let the mage shoot at us until they tucker out'?"

"Got a better idea?" Ghost asks with a small huff. "Let me n' Price do the heavy lifting." He grunts, "You two stay back and provide support."

Even with irritation nibbling on his nerves, Soap can't help himself. "Oh, you like it hot Lt?"

Gaz gives a surprised snort. Ghost side eyes Soap. "Mhm, scorching."

"We're getting close." Price warns, switching gears as the road starts going up the hill. His sharp senses already pick up the lingering hints of smoke and ash along with the tang of burnt flesh. Beneath all of that is something older: the rancid festering flesh of crumbling empires and wild animalistic grief.

Price grits his teeth. "Remember, we need Ifrit alive."

"Laswell never said we had to keep 'em in one piece." Ghost ads.

"Thank fock for that." Johnny says and bumps his shoulder against Ghost's. "Yae reckon she won't mind if ah take a few fingers off?" He asks, a mean grin pulling his lips back to bare his teeth.

"Play nice and I'll throw you a femur too." Ghost chuckles, ignoring the look Johnny gives him.

"Are we even sure this thing will work?" Gaz asks, looking down at the heavy piece of metal in his hands. It looks like a metal collar, runes and circles etched into the outside surface, tiny needles poking from the inside. Three vials filled with bright purple liquid are slotted into the back of the collar. The thing buzzes softly beneath his claws, like there’s a thunderstorm stuck inside the metal, making his fingers go numb.

"That's why we brought the arm restraints to be sure." Ghost says, absentmindedly tapping a clawed finger against the restraints he's holding. They look like big elbow length mittens made out of metal, similar runes scrawled over every inch.

Kyle purses his lips before his gaze turns to the roll of silver tape Price had haphazardly thrown on top of the dashboard. "What's the tape for? Planning to put a bow on Ifrit?"

"Got to wrap up the gift somehow." Ghost shrugs.

"Oh yeah, an I reckon the mage will just sit nice n pretty and let us play dress up." Soap snarks.

"Focus." Price orders, pulling their attention to the front windshield. The forest surrounding the main road abruptly disappears as if a god had photoshopped a different part of the world in it's place, verdant green replaced by scorched black ground and nothing else. The smell of burning metal and flesh is inescapable now, seeping through the cracks of the windows and making Gaz cough.

"Fucking hell." Gaz mumbles, tears stinging his eyes and forcing him to quickly put on the gas mask hanging off his neck. It doesn't help a single bit with the god awful smell.

"This shite is useless." Soap complains as he secures the gas mask to his own face. Soap had smelled his fair share of foul things in the demolition school, from Sulphur to gas and everything that could be used in making explosives, but the stench he's exposed to now makes everything else smell like daisies. "How the hell did the matchstick do this?" He can't help but ask.

"That's the work of ruin magic." Price says, tone hard and clipped.

They're forced to stop a little bit away from the compound as their path is blocked by the wreckage of a helicopter, the steel melted into the concrete road and the sides of the road too steep to drive around. They pile out of the Humvee, Soap and Gaz clutching their guns close; it's uncommon for them to use human made weapons when they're monsters, but Price isn't taking any chances with his mens safety.

They inch carefully past the remains of the helicopter, burnt cracked dirt crunching beneath their boots. With no trees in the way the compound is easy to see, and it looks just as bad as the surrounding area.

"Steaming Jesus." Johnny mutters as they walk around one of the four tanks, the metal melted and flames still flickering a top it. The land here looks like the hell his ma would describe in an attempt to put some godliness in him; The ground is cracked and charred black, hot under their boots. Ash and steam blanket the ground, making it hard to see where they step. Parts of the buildings have been melted, long strands of slag running down the sides of them. There's no light save the fires burning haphazardly across the ground, but their eyes can see fine in the dark.

"Should we check for survivors?" Kyle asks, finger tightly pressed against the safety switch, his wings spread out just enough to be able to quickly launch himself into the air if the need arises.

"Don't bother." Simon says, dark smoke slowly fizzling off his hands. The air in the compound feels heavy, feels like he's back in that fucking coffin. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, anticipation crackling under his skin like static. "We didn't bring a dust bin. Or Henry the Hoover."

"Fuck Lt," Soap opens his mouth to speak more, but before he can make a sound, they hear a half mangled groan ring out from their side. Immediately raising his gun Soap narrows his eyes, managing to make out a dark outline stumbling towards them. At first Johnny thinks it’s a survivor, but then the steam clears enough to see it’s clearly not. What stumbles towards them is a completely skinned human, muscle and bone charred black, jaw gnashing as if it's already got their throat between its teeth.

Without thinking Johnny unloads a couple of bullets into the body, silenced gunshots echoing in the smoke. The body just soaks up the bullets, continuing to stumble after them. "Shit!" Soap hisses as he steps back, but before he can shoot at it again, Simon's shadows lash out at it.

The whips of darkness knock the corpse to the ground, managing to tear off a desecrated arm off in the process. A disgusting sound gurgles in it's throat as it tries to crawl towards them, the cracked bone of its fingers clawing at the ground. Simon moves his hand up and a spike of darkness erupts from the walking corpse's shadow, destroying the head in an instant. Soap doesn't even have time to breathe before the body starts convulsing, large black pustules rapidly swelling on its back. They explode without warning, black flames spewing out in a few feet around it like a miniature bomb, incinerating the corpse in the process.

A second of silence passes.

"What the fock was that?" Soap stresses, staring at the black flames as they burn on the ground.

"Belial." Price mumbles under his breath, blue eyes narrowing as a small breath of smoke escapes past his lips. "Magic made undead.” Price grunts. “Ruin magic lets the mage control the body like a puppet."

"Great." Soap grunts, trying not to breathe in the scent of burning flesh. "First the bomb shaped mage, now focking zombies? Firecracker's pulling out all the stops." Soap’s tail flicks to his leg and he grips his riffle tighter. "Shit, that smell too." He doesn't know how you keep managing to make things smell worse and worse, but fuck, he's sure the stench will be stuck in his pores for the rest of his life.

"Not a fan of barbeque?" Ghost asks as they step around the burning corpse. Or rather what remains of it.

"Not quite the cook out ah have in mind LT." Johnny grumbles.

"Remind me not to join you two at the next brass dinner." Gaz ads with a humorless chuckle before his harpy eyes spot more movement. "Tangos, one o'clock." He says, and doesn't need to be prompted to fly up into the sky to be their eyes.

"Stick close and aim for the head." Price orders, all of them slowly and quietly making their way into the compound. They encounter more zombies, some of them stumbling around mindlessly, some simply standing. Knowing where to hit they're easy to take out unawares, a couple of bullets through the skull enough to get the corpses on the ground.

Kyle lands behind them when they near a two story building. Another one is opposite it, a catwalk above them connecting the buildings together. A nearby door is torn off its hinges, smoke spilling through it into the surrounding air. It's the only place they can think of where you might be.

"Simon, with me." Price says, "Gaz, Soap, secure the perimeter." Price doesn't need to say it twice. Simon steps close to him, guarding his six as they enter the building. Large holding tanks are built in the center of the building, smoke filling the room up to their knees and the occasional cinder of ash gracefully fluttering through the air. Price automatically checks his right, eyes focusing on the stairs leading to a small room on the second floor, one set of stairs on both sides of the room. Bits of thick ash cascade down the stairs, and both of them can smell the rot.

He makes a small hand motion and Simon understands easily, leaving his side to duck behind the towering oil tanks, crossing the room and reaching the other set of stairs. Quietly they make their way up, making sure not to make a single sound. The door on Price’s side is torn off too, his pointy ear flicking as he hears what he assumes to be your voice, low and muffled, simply asking: "How?"

. . .

Your hand shakes from how hard you try to keep yourself from crushing Khaled's skull. You can already imagine the way bone would softly creak before finally splintering to pieces, the way blood and brains would squelch between your fingers. You grip his head hard enough to bruise instead, his skin bubbling and hair burning from the barely controlled heat of your hand.

Khaled looks exactly how other prideful men look when you come to collect your due — eyes wide, teeth clenched, legs weakly kicking you as you have him dangling in the air. You’d usually feel satisfaction, but the only thing in your heart right now is a suffocating cold.

The cold extends to your free hand, turning the lava into inert stone so not even a single thread of the patch laying in your palm is burned; A black decapitated right hand sits in a crimson backdrop. A crimson eye in the center of it cries bloody tears. ‘Mortem Opetere’ is stitched on top of it, boldly proclaiming what awaits you. Across both sides just three measly words turn your world upside down: ‘Red Right Hand’.

Your jaw feels welded shut as you try to open it, moving your tongue like your mouth's full of barbed wire before you manage to force out one word: "How?"

Khaled grunts instead of answering, coughing as the ash cascading off your wings continues to twirl in the air. Beelzebub’s flames dance at your feet, consuming the magical ash the second it touches the floor so the room feels suffocating, but it doesn’t make him pass out.

You grip him harder, claws of lava burning through the surface of his skin until you’re digging into the muscles covering his bones, his screams fall deaf on your ears. Even like this, barely able to hold yourself back from cracking his skull like an egg, your magic is controlled. You only let enough mana linger in your palm so the heat burns and stabs at his nerves, but not enough to completely destroy them. “How. Did. You. Get. This?” You ask again, each word like a sharp stab to your tongue.

Khaled bites his lip so hard it bleeds, glaring at you with utter disgust in his eyes. “Ask your- mh!- your commander lich-”

You notice the enemy presence a second too late, gunshots blasting in your ears. Having dispelled your body enhancing spells because of how taxing they were, you’re left with no choice but to blindly throw up a shield of crackling flames to destroy the bullets.

You miss one.

The bullet hits the crystalized bone of your wing and it's all it takes to create a spark. The ash making up your wings erupts, the resulting explosion unable to damage your wing but it does knock you forward. Khaled slips through your fingers as you both are tossed to the ground from the force. Your magic surges through your hand even as you scramble to stand, magic circles forming in the air to shoot uncontrolled flames at the two exits of the room.

Ropes of dark shadows shoot out from the right doorway, forcing you to throw yourself to the side to dodge them. You get to your feet just as the shadows hit the wall at the height of your head, quickly eroding a hole into the steel; The wraith has found you, and likely the rest of the misfits too.

You're careful as you stuff the patch into your pocket, but have no regard for the muscles in your back when you spread your wings out. Fresh ash cascades down the crystalline bones just as you flap your wings to send a gust of ash towards the front of the room. Mana surges to your cold arm and melts the stone into liquid lava which you fling into the cloud of ash, the heat from those drops of lava causing another explosion. Unable to sense where the wraith is, you focus on completely blocking off the exits in your flames, bright circles forming at the doorways and white hot flames shooting up, spilling over the door frame to scorch the ceiling.

You’re too distracted to notice Khaled move "Idiot boy have I taught you nothing?" the crackle of flames and the exploding ash masking his labored footsteps. His hand grabs your shoulder and pulls you back enough to jab a cold needle of a syringe into your neck.

Your wing shoots out automatically, knocking him back with enough force to have him crash into the wall. You yank the syringe out and toss it to the ground. The glass shatters, residual drops of bright purple liquid seeping into the ground.

But it’s too late.

You can feel Morgana’s tears course through your system, burning each cell in your blood vessels like battery acid, leaving your throat feeling numb and head light and heavy at the same time. You sway on your feet before your legs go weak and you fall to your knees with a gasp as if someone had punched you in the gut, your burning fingers tearing gouges into the floor as your muscles tense and relax a million times a second. Beelzebub’s black flames shoot out from between your fingers, freezing cold solidifying around your heart and in your arteries. It's a useless attempt to stave off the serum, to give you a few seconds more to escape, but you're glad for it.

You push on the ground with all the strength you can muster and get back on your feet. The weight of your wings nearly makes you fall on your ass as you’re forced to take a few shaky steps to keep your balance. From the corner of your eye you can see Khaled stumbling away from you, to the third exit to the room which leads to a catwalk connecting this building with another.

Raising your hand you try to summon a spell to take him out, a shaky circle forming at your palm. It breaks into a million pieces when a heavy body slams into you like a train, breaking your concentration and your ribs. You’re forced back until your wings hit the wall, forcing them to spread out as some of the crystal audibly breaks and cracks, accosting your brain with pain signals your mind was never created to handle.

Your hands shoot up, “Fire-” You force out in an attempt to combat the shroud Morgana’s tears weave around your mind. A circle forms, the usually crisp lines wonky and inconsistent. A few measly sputtering sparks flicker in the center of the circle before you’re able to force a bout of unwieldy flames in the face of your opponent.

You can feel how weak your fire is, you doubt you could give a man a second degree burn, let alone scratch the fireproof skin of the dragon that comes charging through your magic. Icy blue eyes dance in the periphery of your vision seconds before the dragon punches you right in the diaphragm.

You hunch over and almost vomit up an organ as all the air is forced out of your lungs. You feel your muscles tear and ribs break, your magic too focused on healing you to numb any of the pain that comes racing to your brain. You don’t know how you’re still standing but you weakly manage to slam your elbow back into the wall, quickly cooling lava scraping the metal and causing a spark.

The ash explodes for a second time, the force of it making your wings crack further yet they still hold. It creates a hole in the wall and forces the dragon to stumble back with a cough. You tip back and fall through the hole, the whole world weighing down on your body before you crash on the hot hard ground. The sudden stop knocks the breath out of you a second time, every muscle in your back screaming at you. Your chest is steadily growing colder as Morgana’s tears bypass Beelzebub, your arms feeling stiffer with every waking second as the serum forces your mana to slumber.

Your vision swims and blurs like the lines of a water drenched painting, voices somewhere close echoing in your ears. The dragon’s cold blue eyes stare down at you for a second before he jumps through the hole. You roll out of the way with great difficulty, avoiding him just in time as the dragon’s fist lands where you had just been and shatters the earth.

Stumbling to your feet you feel your blood leak down your back, pain pulsing in your chest as your mana struggles to heal each broken bone. Your mind is scrambling for the names of the spells you haven't needed to use in a long time, your thoughts further slowed by the fact you need to dodge out of the way of the dragon's fist. “Jump.” You speak. You summon a circle beneath your feet you that launches you into the air, the whirling world almost making you vomit and you barely manage to catch yourself on an oil containment tower.

Somehow through the ringing in your ears you hear the whirring of helicopter blades, turning your head to see a helicopter quickly rise from the roof of a building and start to fly away. You don’t need magic sense to know Khaled is in it. Your hand shakes as you raise it, Morgana’s tears steadily taking more of your mana hostage to the point it's getting hard to cast a single spell. “Fire bullet.” You manage to say, shooting off a shaky ball of concentrated flames.

You miss the rotor you had been aiming for, but by a lucky chance manage to hit the tail. Your fire isn't hot enough to melt the metal fully, but it still enough to make the helicopter swerve wildly. You watch it slowly loose altitude and crash somewhere beyond the tree line.

You’re not given even a second to catch your breath before the tower shakes violently, beginning to list heavily. You catch sight of a werewolf trying to scale it and that forces you to jump off the tower. You land on the one in front of you and don't stop, leaping across the three towers. Jumping off the last one you manage to flap your wings, the pitiful explosion that goes off beneath you gives just enough lift for your slowly liquifying wings to reach the roof of the second building.

You stumble as you land on the roof, the coagulated blood forming your Daedalus wings falling to the ground with a wet 'splat'. It feels like every single inch of your veins and arteries have been turned into pin cushions, the hot lava of your arms, absent of mana, quickly cools until there’s only a thin surface of cracked rock covering your muscles and bones. Your vision swims and you can barely move your arms, trying your best to just stay upright.

Asmodeus is the only thing unaffected, burning at the back of your mind like the last star of an empty universe. It tempts you with the heat of the magic it can give, with the power you could use if you just let it in. What's a few more drops of blood when you're drowning in it?

The harpy comes out of nowhere, slamming into you with enough force to knock you off the building.

You land on your back, barely able to utter a sound from how loudly your bones crack. Your leg is numb. Lingering dredges of your magic crawl across your spine, trying to fix your wounds with the same grace as cavemen with stole tools. You whimper like a child as you try to get up, barely able to dig your fingers into the scorched dirt to get some stability.

Footsteps approach you. A boot sharply kicks your side and forces you to roll on your front. "Playtime's over." A voice rings somewhere in your ears. Your scattered brain focuses on the accent — Manchester you think — instead of the clawed hands that yank your arms behind your back. Instinctively you try to scramble out of the firm hold but it's useless and the only thing you achieve is making the enemy pull on you harder.

Your arm is forced into a sickeningly familiar constraint; The mage cuff seals around your forearm and forces your hand into a fist, the binding spells making the metal feel like your arm is coated in liquid nitrogen. Your other arm follows suit, powerful magnets activating and binding the cuffs. They lock your arms together and painfully force your chest to stick out to the point you can barely move your arm without the risk of dislocating it.

More footsteps ring behind you as you weakly struggle. "Stay fucking still." The man above you growls as he yanks the helmet off your head with enough force you’re surprised he doesn’t take your head off. You gasp as the ash and smoke filled air enters your lungs, so unused to going without your helmet. A collar is quickly snapped around your throat, so tight you can barely breathe, needles on the inside digging into your skin. The binding spell on the collar is just as vicious as the one on the cuffs, forcibly pulling your brain into the bottom of the ocean.

Your vision swims with black spots and you’re barely able to see a man squat in front of you until rough clawed fingers grip your chin hard enough to make you bleed dark purple-red blood over his fingers. The enemy tugs your head up, but you’re unable to make out more than bright blue eyes and a stupid mohawk. "Huh, ah was expecting uglier."

Spite flares in your heart. A glob of spit and red blood shoots from your mouth at his face before you can think. The slap you receive nearly knocks your head off your shoulders and bashes your brain against your skull. His claws rake across your cheek, blood pouring down your skin. "Ahgk! Fockin' disgusting-" But It's worth it to hear the man curse.

"Told you not to take it off." The enemy on top of you growls.

"Charming." A lighter voice, you think it's the harpy, ads. "He's not going to turn into. . . one of them?"

"No." A new voice joins in, hard, angry, rumbling like thunder. You think it's the dragon, but your brain struggles to stay conscious let alone try to think. "Tape."

You shake your head to be difficult just out of spite, but sharp fingers bury into your scalp and pull your head up so the tape can be sealed over your mouth.

The enemy, wraith, your mind reminds, has no problem hoisting up your cold body, manhandling you like a doll.

You’re barely conscious as you’re roughly pushed into somewhere, somewhere without a lot of space. Two unyielding bodies squeeze you in on either side, your chest is barely able to move enough to ensure your lungs get a bit of air. Panic tries to get a foothold in your mind, to make your silent heart race. The walls and ceiling feel like they’re closing in, like you’re getting squished down and at any moment your organs will rupture—

But the drugs smooth out your brain like ocean waves weather down massive cliffs, your body so exhausted you can’t manage even a small twitch of a struggle. You feel the cold muzzle of a gun press against your temple, the cool sensation making you aware of the pounding headache.

"Move," The man on your left says, voice rough like sandpaper and with a distinct accent, "An’ yer dead." His threat sounds like an order, you don’t doubt he’s just itching for you to make a single move he can justify to his brass as aggression and kill you. You know you would do the same.

The vehicle you’re in rumbles to life but you can barely feel it, body and mind too exhausted to even hold your head up. Your stomach twists and turns as if trying to find a way to crawl up through your mouth, your lungs burn from the lack of air.

“Laswell we got-”

“-bout Khaled-”

“-ead, arsonist shot do-”

“-get out, the army reinforcements are co-”

You try to pay attention to what they say, but their words bang uselessly around your hollow skull, shapes and edges blurring together into abstract art. With nothing stopping it, Morgana’s tears leisurely branch through your blood vessels like brambles, making you shiver from how cold you are. You’re stuck in maddening limbo, there’s not enough of the drug in your system to turn you temporarily catatonic — your body is too used to the drug — but at the same time it’s fucking agony.

You've done this before, you know how much small victories count. You don’t know what they want from you, but you swear to yourself not to cry from the pain, both now and when the torture starts. You’re not a fucking child, not that snot nosed private you were when you first felt the sting of Morgana’s tears, you’ve been through worse.

But the problem is, you’re not out of tricks.

Your control over Valefar slips, the exhaustion and drugs slowly wearing down the rope of control you've been maintaining for months. Since the first day you started working for Khaled. You knew he’d betray you, you had that feeling in your gut. The collar beeps as mana suddenly sparks in your chest, thawed by the ancient magic you use. Without warning the needles in the collar jab into your neck as your mana builds, pumping more of the poison into your blood.

But it’s useless, with steam starting to rise off your chest not even you are able to hold it back. A rough chuckle forces its way out of your throat. You always figured you would die by your hand or not at all.

"What’s with the giggling?" The werewolf demands, gun still trained on you. "Something funny?"

You gather your strength and slowly roll your head back, every vertebra in your spine cracking from how much damage your body has received. The trembling wall of the truck gives you the support you lack. Black spots dance in your vision, but you manage to turn your gaze to one side.

On your right is the wraith. A creature of death. Violent Death.

You feel like there’s a joke about the situation somewhere. Figures you’d be sat against the personification of violent death. You’ve been living on borrowed time for too long, the reaper doesn’t like to wait.

Shadows darkening what little you can see of his face through the skull mask, making his eyes look like you’re staring into the void.

Unnerving.

You’ve been told your eyes are much the same.

The wraith stares at your face, into your eyes. You’re pretty sure this is the first time in ten years that someone has seen the eyes you were born with. The color is so painfully drab and human.

But it don’t last. Out of nowhere mana sparks in your eyes like a violent forest fire set off from the cinder of a forgotten cigarette. Oranges, reds, and yellows swirl around the pitch blackness of your pupil, bright and intense like staring into a black hole.

There’s no grand gesture to show the snapping of your control. Your heart skips a beat as it births Valefar, the soft cool magic nibbling on your veins as a pulse of cool mana rushes through to your fingers. You see the wraith stiffen, only barely able to sense how the world quivers.

The earth shatters.

The truck jerks forward and you almost fly out of the front windshield, kept in place by someone's rough hand gripping and pulling you back in place. The earth shakes violently as months of accumulated mana melts through rock and suddenly erupts from the ground as a beam of pitch black flames. You can feel Valefar laughing beneath the ground, inside your hollow heart. It takes joy in spreading your magic as far as it can, incinerating the arriving helicopters full of soldiers before they can even understand what's happening.

The car swerves to avoid the rocks falling from the sky, the air around you trembling as Valefar makes a crater out of the mountain. They’re lucky that your control finally evaporated when they were far enough to escape the impact zone.

You tilt your head, catching sight of the wraith. He stares at you.

Your eyelids flutter without your consent, all strength leaving you, but you manage to wink at him.

You pass out.

Tag list: @resident-cryptid @diejager @lovingtyrantkitten @lieutnt @lilpothoscuttings @krystiannng @crankyweasel @ashy-kit @fyolaizs @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @aldis-nuts @whoislucas @birdiiiiiiiiiii @thigh-o-saur @dont-look-at-me-im-shy @reaperxxxxzz @patronizingbitch @kaoyamamegami @mauvette268 @inspector-m3 @gaynesspersonified @fluffysteampunkd @fall-myriad

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frogchiro · 9 months

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Please please I'm begging on my hands and knees for my slasher!Graves because I just read it and I'm so unwell about it 😩🙏🏻

I can totally see Slasher!Graves as a type of guy to kill any man who even tries to look at his pretty little darling. And I have feeling he definitely intimidates her on purpose just to see her squirm and shiver, watching her from the shadows and stealing her panties and whatnot ughhh

Oh he definitely does!! I mean, who wouldn't be intimidated by him. He much older, 40 already, not to mention that something in his blue eyes is just...off to you and he's an old perverted fuck to :((

When he found out that you were renting out a room on old Mrs. Marjorie's farm he had mixed feelings. Sure you could stay in that dingy old motel just outside the town but it was far away, not to mention not a suitable place at all for a young lady such as yourself.

Staying with old Marjorie was a frankly much better option since it was safe and you worked for a living on the old woman's farm which made Philip's heart stutter a little and cock harden, such a hardworking girl you are.

The one problem was Marjorie herself. She was an elderly woman but incredibly strong and resilient for her age, she owned a much smaller farm which mostly consisted of a peach orchard, a few chickens and two cows. She's widowed, never remarried and never had children and even with her strength and health of an ox he guesses she took you in as a helping hand, but the thing is...The old hag is for some reason very protective of you so Philip had to be extra careful whenever he wanted to interact with you, but truth be told you didn't make it any easier.

You were a skittish thing, shy and easily flustered too and when he swung by the orchard the first time, all big and burly and proud like a prized stallion he saw clear as day that you were intimidated by him which Graves ate.up.

Now whenever he sees you running errands in town or you're working on the farm he makes sure to "accidentally" just happen to run into you and ump his charm up to the heavens; lowering his voice into a seductive low gravely drawl, flexing his broad shoulders and well-build biceps under the plaid shirt he had on, moving his strong hips a little in a way that made you stutter and shiver. But he just can't help himself! It's only natural that a man like him would go wild for a lady like yourself, your pretty tits almost spilling over the neckline of your dress and Philip feels his blood rush to his cock, oh what he wouldn't do to that soft body of yours~

It's only when the old had calls you back into the house and sends a glare his way is the spell broken and Graves almost bares his sharp teeth in annoyance, if it was anyone else other than the woman they'd be rotting in the middle of his corn field getting torn by coyotes or long gone after a visit to the pig pen.

The only consolation are your cute frilly panties that he managed to snatch from the drying line outside, your sweet scent still lingering on them despite the sharp bit of the wash machine powder. It's on that evening when he sits naked in front of his fireplace back on the ranch, panties to his nose as he jerks his thick cock roughly when he decides that he needs to see you squirm more, even if that means you'll start seeing a dark figure just outside in Mrs Marjorie's orchard <3

#kin speaks #asks #interactions #i have so many thoughts about this graves oh my god #slasher!Graves #cod mw x reader #cod x reader #philip graves x reader #graves x reader #philip graves

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teapartyprincess4two · 1 month

Text

Vampire- J. Guilbert (prologue)

pairing: Princess!reader x Vampire!Johnnie

classification: SMUT, fluff, slight angst, vampire AU

inspiration: request1, request2, Vampire by Johnnie Guilbert

warnings: 18+, MDNI, literal sex; mentions of mortality, biting, blood, parental death, death, killing; set in 14th-17th century Renaissance, pretty modern dialogue tbh, sub!Johnnie (kinda?), use of Y/n

summary: You take your relationship with Johnnie, your vampire lover, one step further.

Vampire PT.1

—

Autumn leaves crunch against your shoes as you walk through the castle garden. Beautiful red and white roses line the outer walls, each one beginning to die due to the cold temperature the season has brought.

You take a fleeting look behind you, footsteps quickening as you follow the row of roses to the garden’s outer gate. If anyone were to see or follow you, you’d have to save your escape for another day.

Luckily, no one is watching. The guards are too busy patrolling the front of the castle, your father is in a neighboring village, Bernadette is completing her chores, and your mother is deeply immersed in literature in the castle library.

Your hand pushes against the big, rusty gate. You hold your breath and wince when the metal creaks, examining your surroundings one last time before slipping through the crack.

The ground is soft, dead leaves and fog hiding your feet as they trudge through the mud.

“Johnnie?” you whisper shout, your delicate hand supporting itself against a tree. No response, just a howling gush of wind.

You decide to hike further, knowing that Johnnie hates meeting you close to the castle. After walking for some minutes, you find yourself in a clearing.

Moonlight shines through the gaps between the branches and the meadow’s bioluminescent moss glows with every footstep.

“Johnnie?” you try again, only raising your volume slightly.

You wait for a response, or to see his figure approach from within the forest, but all you hear is a coyote crying in the distance.

Every 3 days you venture out into the forest. Sometimes he shows, sometimes he doesn’t; it’s something that he’s explained to you time and time again. He’s a vampire, viewed as a predator by the rest of the world, and when he has villagers coming after him it just isn’t safe to meet you.

He’d never forgive himself if anything ever happened to you, and you know that, but it doesn’t hurt any less.

You’re about to give up and walk back home, when cold fingers swoop your long hair to one side. Johnnie’s lips find your skin, trailing kisses from your shoulder to the soft spot behind your ear

“I’m here, Princess,” he murmurs.

A smile forms on your face as your head falls back onto his shoulder. His arms have wrapped around your waist, holding you in place firmly as he continues feathering kisses all over your exposed skin.

“I’ve missed you, my love,” his breath fans against you, sending shivers down your spine. “I’ve missed you more,” you reply, and it’s true.

You turn to face him, warm hands delicately landing on his face. He’s so beyond beautiful, especially under the soft moonlight.

Your eyes dance over his face, watching as his fangs twinkle when he smiles. Most women would be running away in fear at the sight, but it only makes your knees buckle.

“3 days is too long.” His voice is still quiet, almost like he’s afraid someone is lurking nearby, ready to save you from a monster like him.

“You could just come visit me in the castle after everyone’s fallen asleep,” you suggest. His face was slowly inching towards yours, but he stops in his tracks at your comment.

“Y/n,” he warns, using your actual name instead of a pet name.

“We’ve been over this.”

“I know— it’s just— I miss you.” The last part sounds more defeated than you’d like.

“It’s not like we have forever, you know,” you whisper, wrapping your arms around your waist for some comfort. He knows that your time together is limited, and he hates that you’re constantly reminding him.

“Don’t start this again. Please,” he pleads. You only have a few hours together before the sun rises and he’s forced back into hiding, he doesn’t want to spend those fleeting moments arguing.

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” you say, your voice breaking slightly at the end. You’re close to breaking down into tears and he knows it.

“Y/n.” He pulls your gaze to his by your chin. Your eyes are glossy, a heartbreaking sight.

“I promise it won’t always be like this,” he says, not breaking eye contact. You’re not sure you believe him, mainly because of the ticking time bomb that is your mortality, but you want to believe him.

“Promise?” Your eyes hold so much hope.

“Promise.” He pulls your face in, finally kissing you after what seems like forever.

It’s slow and passionate, your lips moulding together at a steady rhythm. His hand holds a firm grip of your face, the other resting on your hip and pulling you closer to him.

You’re wearing a simple dress that contrasts your usual, elaborate gowns. So, as he pulls you in, you feel his erection pokes your lower abdomen. Subconsciously, his hips grind against you and a strained sound escapes his throat. He pulls away from the kiss, forehead flush against yours.

“What’s wrong?” you asks. His hand still holds your face and yours travels up to hold it, caressing his skin with your thumb.

“I should just— you should just go home,” he says, attempting to pull away from you completely, but you manage to keep him there. It’s surprising how someone so strong can be so weak when they’re in love.

“What? Why? We still have a couple hours left before the sun rises.”

“Because it’s dangerous out here. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

You roll your eyes. “No one is out here, Johnnie.”

He’s quiet. His mind his racing as he fights against his sinful thoughts. What he wants is to make love to you under the soft moonlight, but he’s worried that once he gets a taste of you, he won’t be able to control himself.

“Tell me what’s really wrong,” you say, pulling his hand off of your face to place gentle kisses on his knuckles.

“I’m just… I’m scared,” he admits. It’s an embarrassing confession coming from him, someone who doesn’t have to worry about anything other than what his next meal is gonna be.

You urge him to continue with your eyes.

“You do things to me that I can’t explain. I feel things that I’m not sure I can control when I’m around you.” Confusion is written all over your face.

“Here.” He guides your hand down to his erection, letting it cup his member over the fabric of his pants. “That’s what you do to me,” he gulps, struggling to hold himself back.

The feeling of your small hand wrapped around him is already excruciating enough, and the images that his imagination creates don’t help either.

“Johnnie,” you begin, already sounding breathless. A wetness grows between your thighs, and they subconsciously press together to relieve some tension.

“You’re not going to hurt me.” He appreciates the reassurance, but he’s still uncertain.

“I don’t want to risk it,” he replies through gritted teeth. His eyes clench shut when you begin massaging him, dick twitching and begging for release.

“Let me make you feel good. We can stop if it becomes too much,” you whisper, inching your face closer to his until your breath fans against his lips.

Your lips are ghosting his, barely grazing as he replies, “What if I can’t control myself? What if I hurt you?”

“You won’t. I know you won’t.”

Finally you close the gap between you two, opening your mouth to give him the access he’s been craving. It’s a sloppy, needy kiss fueled with passion and hunger. Your tongues battle for dominance, each lap mixed with moans and whimpers.

There’s a large tree stump in the middle of the clearing and you slowly guide Johnnie towards it by his hips. He walks backwards until his calves hit the bark, knees bending, causing him to sit.

His arms wrap around your waist, holding you like you’re his most prized possession as he stares up at you in awe. “I’m in control, okay?” you say, kissing him again before allowing your dress to fall past your shoulders and onto the ground.

Immediately, he tenses, feeling his animal instincts overcome him. The hunger is painful, so painful that his grip around you tightens. You’re not wearing a bra or panties, a beautiful sight that causes his pupils to dilate.

“Hey, look at me,” you say gently. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

Johnnie nods his head, allowing his eyes to dance over your body. You’re so beautiful; your round breasts bouncing slightly with your every movement and your curvy hips swaying as you position yourself between his thighs.

He can’t take it anymore, he needs to taste you. You gasp as Johnnie suddenly takes your left nipple in his mouth, gently sucking and licking on your sensitive nub.

“I really, really need you,” he rasps against your skin. “I know baby. I know,” you reply through a strained moan. Your hand finds his hair and pull him impossibly closer to you.

His lips travel from your nipple to the valley of your breasts, kissing licking his way down to your belly button. “You’re so beautiful.”

You’re about to reply but his mouth feverishly makes its way back to yours before you can, engulfing your lips in a steamy makeout session that has you whimpering. You can feel him trying to take control, and if you want this night to go well, that can’t happen.

So, you make work of his pants and underwear in between kisses, tugging at the fabric until it pools on the ground around his ankles. His penis springs free, slapping against his stomach.

“Remember who’s in control,” you remind him through the kiss.

He takes a deep breath, resting his forehead against your chest as he attempts to compose himself; to measure his strength as you two venture into uncharted territory.

You play with his hair, giving him the time he needs before pushing him back onto the tree stump until he’s laying on his back. Slowly, you crawl over him until you’re straddling his lap.

You lean down to his ear, placing a few open mouth kisses on the nape of his neck as you whisper, “We’re gonna take this slow, okay?”

“I—” he begins, cutting himself off.

“We can stop if you want to.”

“I don’t want to stop,” he says, “and that’s the problem because…”

“Because if I were to hurt you, Y/n, I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself. I’m struggling to keep my composure and we haven’t even done anything yet. If I get too carried away, pull me back into reality with you. Please,” he pleads the last part, tentative hands coming to rest on your hips. His touch is gentle, but firm.

You don’t respond, instead you nod your head and take his cock into your hands, dragging it up and down your slick folds before lining it with your entrance. His grip on your waist tightens as you begin to sink down on him, he clenches his jaw and watches tentatively as you take him without complaint.

A small moan escapes your lips at the stretch, your hands falling onto his chest for support. His skin is ice cold, a sensation that you quickly welcome. Johnnie fights to keep his composure, teeth digging so far into his lip that he’s drawing blood.

“Ready?” you ask sweetly. Johnnie responds by bucking his hips upwards, ensuring not to get too lost in the feeling.

He’s amazed that someone as delicate as you can hold this much power over him. He’s putty in your hands, he can’t remember the last time he felt this submissive.

You take the hint and begin moving up and down on his cock, bracing yourself with hands on his chest and knees on either side of his hips.

Johnnie’s grip on your waist is getting impossibly tighter, and if you weren’t so immersed in the pleasure, you might’ve registered the pain.

Your boobs bounce with your every movement, placing Johnnie in a lust filled trance. Your hair falls over one of your shoulders, swaying back and forth under the soft moonlight.

“Sit up please,” you command, your voice strained. Johnnie does as he’s told, and immediately you guide his face towards your breast. He’s hesitant at first, but the look you give him is enough to convince him that he can keep himself from taking a delicious bite from you.

His lips wrap around your left nipple as you continue bouncing up and down on his member. He’s completely lost in the euphoric feeling of you wrapped around him, a strong arm tightening around your figure.

“Johnnie,” you moan, your voice bringing him back to reality. He loosens his grip and brings you in for a kiss, drunkenly moulding his mouth against yours as you continue whimpering into his mouth.

His tongue swipes your bottom lip, begging for entrance so he can taste you. One of your moans serves as the perfect opportunity for him to slip his tongue in your mouth, drenching you like his existence depended on it.

Your tongue grazes one of his fangs, cutting you just enough for him to taste your blood. You feel the prick, but continue bouncing on his cock without paying too much attention.

“You’re doing so good, just like I knew you would,” you speak into the kiss. He loves the praise, especially because he just tasted your blood for the first time and can easily say he’s already addicted to

The position you were currently in was amazing, but your knees were starting to hurt and you really wanted to see what he’d look like from on top of you.

You hop off of him, earning a wince from him from the lack of contact. You lay back on the tree stump, innertwining your hand in his as you guide him over you. He follows your lead, immediately returning to the heated makeout session from before.

Slowly, he positions himself between your legs and lines himself up with your entrance. “Are you sure?” he asks breathlessly. This position gives him all the power, and he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop himself even if you try pulling him back to reality.

But you’re not scared of him, you never have been and you never could be. “Yes, my love. I’m sure.”

He looks beautiful on top of you, everything about his dark aura luring you in. Johnnie slowly sinks himself into you, one of his hands gripping the edge of the tree stump. The bark is rough against his fingers as he applies a pressure so powerful that it cracks the aged wood.

His thrusts are slow at first as he tries setting a manageable pace, but as he continues his eyes cloud with lust and desire and he begins pounding into you. The sound of your skin slapping together and your moans echo through the forest, his tip kissing your cervix every time.

His forehead is flush against yours. Johnnie loves you so much and it’s evident in the way his red eyes never break eye contact, despite the intensity of his movements.

He’s fighting against his strength to stop himself from breaking you in half, because if he really wanted to he could.

You keep bucking your hips into his as you chase your pending orgasm. Johnnie’s head falls onto your shoulder, grunts and groans fanning against your neck as his other hand pushes your hips down.

Your skin was sure to bruise, but none of that mattered right now. All that mattered was the feeling of his pelvis rubbing against your clit, bringing you dangerously close to your climax.

“I’m close!” you squeak.

Johnnie continues to snap his hips into you, fangs grazing your skin ever so slightly. He wants to do it; to take a bite of you, but he’s willing himself not to.

You wrap a leg around his waist, pulling him in until all he can do is roll his hips against you. Your pussy flutters around his cock as your orgasm washes over you.

The feeling of your spongy, warm walls clenching around him is enough to send him over the edge. His unmatched strength breaks yet another piece of the tree. He needed to occupy his mouth, so he’s latching onto your neck and sucking until the skin is bruised.

“I love you,” he murmurs through his orgasm, repeating the sentence so many times that it’s engraved in your mind.

Your voice is choppy as you try catching your breath, “I love you too.”

—

The next morning you wake up on a comfortable mattress surrounded by expensive pillows and a billowy comforter, but you wish you were still in the forest with Johnnie.

The night replays in your mind as you rub the sleep out of your eyes. A yawn escapes your lips as you stretch.

Suddenly you feel a throbbing pain on your waist. Your fingers trail down to the sensitive skin and you wince once they make contact.

Slowly, you throw the comforter to the side and walk over to your vanity. You bunch the fabric of your nightgown up against your breasts as you examine yourself in the mirror.

Your skin was lined with bruises so purple they were almost black. Quickly, you adjust your dress and make a mental note not to let Johnnie see them. You wouldn’t see him for another three days anyways, that was enough time for you to heal, right? Wrong.

Three days have passed and your bruises have only become more sensitive. They’re easy to hide when you’re home, mostly because you wear dresses so big that no one would ever notice them. The hickeys on your neck were masked with makeup and hidden behind your long hair.

You decide to stay home, because you know that Johnnie will somehow find out about the secret you hide under your clothes.

Just as you’re getting ready for bed, a sudden gush of wind blows past you. Johnnie enters through your bedroom window, looking around your room in a panicked frenzy until his eyes land on your figure.

“Johnnie?” you question in surprise. “Thank God you’re okay,” he sighs in relief, immediately walking over to you.

“You didn’t come to visit me,” he whispers sadly, “Why?”

When he waited in the clearing, and you never appeared, his mind raced with every and any possibly. Did someone hurt you? Was your kingdom under attack? Did you regret that night?

“I’ve just been really tired,” you say. It’s a lame excuse, but you hope he believes it.

“Did I do something wrong?” Johnnie’s hands land on your hips. You immediately wince, but try masking it with a cough. It’s no use though, he notices right away.

Johnnie bawls the fabric of your nightgown in his hands, ready to expose whatever you’re hiding. “Wait! No, Johnnie—” you try pushing him away, buts he’s so strong that he barely moves.

He wastes no time in lifting your nightgown, revealing the bruises that he left on your skin just three nights ago.

“I promise they’re worse than they look,” you try and reason, but he’s not hearing any of it. His jaw is clenched, eyes trained on the horrific colors that blend across your skin.

“Never again,” he grits, letting the fabric of your dress fall back down. It felt like a shameful curtain, you wanted to rip it off and crawl into bed.

“What?!” your voice cracks.

“You heard me. Never again. If that’s what I did with my hands, imagine what would’ve happened if I lost control.”

“But I can take it—”

“Yeah? You think you’ll be saying that when my fangs inevitably find their way to your neck?” he snaps, his tone so harsh that it slaps against your ears.

“So then turn me,” you reply. Everything always seemed so simple to you, but becoming a vampire wasn’t something he ever wanted you to experience.

“Don’t,” he warns.

“Why not, Johnnie? Huh? Why not? Are we just going to continue having this same conversation until the day I die? Do you think I asked for the bruises? All I wanted was to love you, but if I’m going to continue getting hurt then why not just turn me?”

He remains silent, watching as the tears brim your eyes.

“I can’t live in a world where I don’t get to love you, to properly love you,” your voice is hushed, tears streaming down your face as you sit on the edge of your bed. “It isn’t fair.”

“I’m a monster, Y/n. All I do is hurt everything and everyone I love. Trust me, you don’t want to love someone like me,” he spits. His words completely contradict what he truly feels.

“I didn’t ask to love you, Johnnie. I just... do.” You sound so defeated.

He sighs, kneeling front of you and trying to catch your gaze. “I love you too, Y/n. That’s why this hurts me so much. I don’t want to be the reason for your pain, even if it is accidental. I want to protect you so that I can love you for as long as possible. Do you understand that?”

“Then love me,” you plead, “What’s the point of protecting me if you’re not staying true to your promise? We’re running out of time, Johnnie. Everyday I wake up a little older and a little closer to death, so please just love me. Love me despite our differences. Love me even if you think I’m weak.”

You bring him in for a kiss, one that is so passionate that he can’t find it in himself to pull away. You lean back onto the bed, pulling him with you until he’s laying on top of you.

“Princess, please.”

“Just love me.” You murmur against his lips, and just like that he’s making love to you under the soft candlelight that illuminates your room.

From that moment forward, Johnnie has vowed to love you everyday like it’s your last.

—

MASTERLIST

A/n: thanks for being patient with me guys, ily! Also I hope you enjoy this anon (requests are linked) I haven’t proofread this so be gentle with me guys 🥹 I’ll proofread it mañana

- L.A.M.B👼🏻💗

—

taglist: @nickgetsmewetter @sturniololovers @raysmayhem-72 @worldlxvlys @gnxosblog @meg-sturniolo @creamoncreamoncream2 @mattnchrisworld @sanyi5 @lustfulslxt @whicked-hazlatwhore @tworosesblackthorn @mxqdii @fawned01 @junnniiieee07 @sturniolololover @missriddle03 @k-l-a-w-s @maryx2xx @biggesthat3r @herxyzblog @getosuckers @sturnioloarchive @tillies33ssss @fratbrochrisgf @aurizp @riasturns @sturnikitty @sturnrc @sturtriple16 @sillyfreakfanparty @imwetforyourmom @mattslovelygf @certifiednatelover @cartiiwannagotoplutoo @luvr4miya @somegirlfromasgard @l0vergrlll @pepsicolapussy333 @unbruisable @sugrhigh @khxna @wh0resstuff

note: if you want to be tagged in my fanfic related posts, you can access my TAGLIST and comment 💐 if your user is striked through, I wasn’t able to tag you :(

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thefallennightmare · 3 months

Text

The Coyotes Cry-One

*gif made by me. feel free to use, simply give credit*

Pairings: MafiaBoss!TattooArtist! Noah Sebastian x OFC.

Warnings/Tropes: violence, death, swearing, smut(very mature), angst, fluff, forced proximity, forbidden love, dark romance, mafia themes, arranged marriage, tattoo artist.

Summary: Centered on the story of a young bride whose fairy-tale vision of the Concrete Jungle is shattered when her father, part of the Irish Crime Family; McManus strikes a marital peace deal with the mafia head of OMNS, Noah Sebastian. Scarlett is faced with rage and conflict, as she is forced to work alongside her new husband in his tattoo shop that fronts for his mafia dealings. Devastating events leave Scarlett with the realization that there is more to Noah than meets the eye. "I would willingly, lay down my life for you if I had to." The power of love is thicker than blood.

Authors Note: Here is chapter one! I don't think this series will be more than six parts but you never know with how often I'm always adding things. This series will have mature themes throughout as a warning.

Tags[OPEN]: @thescarlettvvitch @sammyjoeee @happi-goth @lma1986 @iknownothingpeople @vinyardmauro @malice-ov-mercy @concreteemo @wheezybrenda @thisbicc @malerieee @mrs-zimmerman @srorgana1 @miserylovescompany1195-blog @embracethereaper42 @lizzieseveride @eclipseeetop @sundamariis @calleyx13 @krisslee18 @princessgh0st @aprosiacperson @xxrainstorm @ourdiabolikal-rapture @iamamatus @klutzy-kay24 @cookiesupplier @bngurngheart @idwt-money @rain-down-on-me

NOAH

The screams were muted due to the concrete confines of the room, the cold, moist air circulating us in a suffocating grip. But none of that mattered, the only thing that did was strapped to the chair in front of me. Cleaning the sharp blade on the once-white handkerchief, I clicked my tongue at the raw screams.

“Scream all you want. No one can hear you all the way down here,” I said while pointing to the concrete walls. “I mixed the concrete myself with a special formula. Think of it as soundproof.”

The man spat blood at my feet, nearly missing my black boots. “Fuck you!”

A chuckle to the left of me and I glanced over to one of my right-hand men, Joakim. Although, we in OMNS always called him Jolly.

“I applaud the fire in you,” Jolly nodded at the man. “You’ll need it.”

Twirling the knife between my fingers, I yet again asked the same question that I asked three times previously.

“Who killed Vincent?”

“I already told you fuckers, I don’t know!” The man, Barry, choked out on a mouth full of blood. “You’re asking the wrong guy!”

As Barry fought against the bindings, the chair scraping against the ground at our feet, I hummed in mock disappointment. “No, Barry. I don't think we are. My intel tells me that someone in the Irish Mafia killed a dear friend of mine.”

“I hate to tell you, your intel is wrong,” Barry said with a dry chuckle.

Suddenly his screams of agony sounded like music to my ears as I dug the knife deep into his thigh directly above the previous wound that Jolly had given him with the screwdriver. My hair fell into my eyes and I hastily brushed it back with my large hand, blood smearing in the dark strands. I’d been due for a haircut for the last few weeks but haven’t found anyone able to give me the correct Levi cut since my older barber passed away.

“My intel is never wrong,” I gritted out through clenched teeth while twisting the knife deeper.

Barry was a blubbering mess, dark tendrils of his hair covered the agony on his face so with a sharp nod from me, Jolly stood behind Barry and ripped his head back so I could watch in pleasure.

“Now, I’m only going to ask one more time,” I twisted the knife deeper. “Who killed Vincent?”

He did his best to writhe away but with my knife piercing him in place and Jolly’s tight grip on his hair, there was nowhere for Barry to run. Blood dripped from his mouth, his nose, and the cut on his eyebrow. Before we captured him, he had the looks of a movie star but now, I couldn't help but cringe.

“I already told you,” he sobbed, a mess of blood and snot. “I swear.”

Jolly and I shared a look for a brief moment before we pushed away from Barry to slink over to the far end of the room to have a conversation.

“Do you believe him?” Jolly tied up his hair into a messy bun.

I placed my hands on my hips and sighed. “I don’t think he knows who killed Vincent but he knows the right direction we need to look. We need to crank it up a notch and show him that OMNS isn't going to back down from this.”

Instantly, he understood and while he retreated up the stairs to my office, I titled my head at Barry.

“What family do you work for?” I asked.

His breathing was shallow and unsteady thanks to the hard blows of Jolly’s fists to his ribs but I had to marvel at this kid's drive to remain loyal.

“The Walsh’s,” he eventually answered.

My brows furrowed in confusion. “The Walsh’s haven’t been around since they moved their operations back to Boston. Why are you still here running the streets for them?”

Barry lifted his heavy head and wore a smug smile. “Call me committed.”

“No, I don't think that’s it,” I shook my head and took two large steps towards him, him shrinking back into himself. “I think it’s the fact that you’re lying to me and I fucking hate liars.”

“Fucking shit!”

He cursed when I ripped out the knife from his thigh to press the blade against his neck.

“You’re insane,” Barry shuddered when he noticed the playful gleam in my eyes.

“Maybe,” I shrugged. “But I also don’t like liars. Now, I’ll ask again. What family do you work for?”

“It’s a new family on the rise called O’shove it up your ass,” he spat in my face.

Literally.

His saliva and blood dripped down my cheek but I didn’t even flinch and made no effort to wipe it away. Instead, I broke out into a wide smile when I heard Jolly returning with something special in tow; something that made Barry’s eyes widen in fear.

“Wh-what the fu-fuck, man?! Do you just have that lying around?” He stuttered.

Glancing over my shoulder, I extended my hand to Jolly who in turn placed the handle of the katana in my palm. Standing straight now, I studied the old sword with careful precision.

“This used to be my great-great-great grandfathers; passed down through each generation. It might be old but I have the blade sharpened every once in a while, just in case,” I said while slowly removing the blade from the sheath.

The dim light overhead cast its faded yellow glow on the sharp blade and something inside of me twinged with sheer delight.

“Ju-ju-st in case fo-for what?”

Jolly snorted at the stuttering mess of Barry while leaning against the concrete wall.

“Tell us what we want to know and you won’t have to find out.”

The sharp tip of the katana pressed lightly against Barry’s jugular, all it would take would be one flick of my wrist to end it all however I refrained, not wanting to end the fun before I got what I needed.

“What family do you work for?” I asked again, this time with less patience than the last time.

Barry’s eyes glanced down from the long blade at his throat to Jolly then finally up to me as I towered over him. His bottom lip wavered as he finally nodded.

“Okay, okay. Promise you won’t kill me?”

He tried to wager but to humor him, I gave a curt nod. “Tell me what I want to know and I’ll think about it.”

“Fuck,” Barry sobbed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m good as dead anyway. The McManus family don’t like rats and a low-level drug dealer like me isn’t worth saving.”

My grip on my katana slipped slightly at the name but I was quick to recover. “The McManus?”

He nodded widely. “ Yea. I work for the brothers; Connor and Murphy. I deal their drugs and run their errands.”

“So you’re their bitch?” Jolly asked.

Barry’s shoulders fell. “Essentially, yes.”

“Did the McManus brothers kill Vincent?” I asked while tightening my grip on the handle of the katana.

“No,” he shook his head, the blood from the wound above his eye now pooling into his eyes. “But they might know who did it. I can try and set up a meeting with them, on your behalf. Maybe they can lead you in the direction you’re looking for?”

Jolly gave me a look and I held up a finger, not quite finished with my conversation with Barry.

“Why the fuck would they listen to you if you’re just their bitch?”

This brought a wicked smile to his face as he used his shoulder to wipe away the blood from his chin.

“Because Murphy McManus doesn't like it when his daughter is threatened.”

A loud rumble erupted in my chest, like a ravenous growl, as I dug the blade of the katana deeper into Barry’s neck, blood now oozing from the fresh wound. I ignored his wails of pain, now only seeing red.

“You’ve got some balls kid to threaten the daughter of one of the most feared Irish Mafia families,” I said.

Barry shrugged in his binds. “I didn’t say it would be coming from me. Word on the street is that McManus' grandfather had issues with your grandfather some odd years ago. They’d believe me if I said the great Noah Sebastian was looking to start a turf war.”

With a scowl, I snapped my head at Jolly. “Get this piece of shit his phone so he can make the call.”

Never once faltering the blade from Barry’s neck, I watched with narrowed eyes as Jolly removed one of the binds around his wrist and tossed the phone on his lap.

“Make the meeting. If I hear one threat on the daughter, I’ll end your life before you even hang up the phone,” I seethed behind the mask of my hair as it fell into my eyes.

My heart beat like a thunderstorm in my chest at the thought of the McManus daughter. No one knew of her and what she meant to not only the family but me as well; besides my closest allies.

Barry’s fingers worked fast to type out a message before showing me the screen and with my free hand, I snatched it from him to read it.

Barry: The brother's food will be delivered at six p.m. tonight.

Unknown: What’s on the menu?

Barry: Japanese with a side of Swiss.

“Joakim is Swedish,” I corrected Barry. “I’m assuming this whole dinner rous is to keep the authorities off your back if they go snooping?”

“Look at you! I think you earned yourself a gold star,” Barry joked.

Jolly’s fist collided with his face, his neck snapping to the side, and the faint red mark from his ring began to rise on Barry’s cheek.

“Let me guess, he’s the muscle between the two of you?” Barry spat out a chunk of blood.

Not bothering to look away from his phone as a new message came in, I answered his question.

“No, that’s Ash. Trust me, you don’t want to meet him.”

Unknown: Dinner will be served in the study. 6 o’clock.

“It’s set,” I tossed the phone to Jolly who dropped it to the ground seconds before his boot came crashing down on it.

“What the fuck! You guys owe me a new phone!”

Placing the sheath back over the katana, I set it on the table along with the other wide variety of weapons and turned back to Barry with my hands crossed behind my back; grasping the weapon tightly. He glanced between Jolly and me and noticed the sinister gleam dancing behind my honey eyes.

“Hang on,” he began thrashing in the chair, free hand swinging widely. “You said I could live.”

“I did. But watch what you say next.”

Quickly, Jolly grabbed Barry’s free arm to drag his still-bound body over to the table behind me and held his wrist down. His hand was on display for my wicked plan.

“Barry, I have a question for you. If you answer wrong, well-,” I pulled out the hammer from behind my back and shook it in front of him.

His eyes widened in fear but I paid no mind to it, simply asked my question.

“Will Murphy’s daughter be there tonight?”

“Fuck no! Dumb broad never leaves her bedroom,” Barry answered. “She’s holed up in there all hours of the day. The only time she leaves is at 8 o'clock for her nightly walks.”

Jolly sucked in a breath just as I raised the hammer, bringing it down on Barry’s pinky, whose cries were overshadowed by the noise of his bones breaking.

“Why are you so obsessed with this broad?!”

I brought the hammer down again, this time breaking his ring and pointer finger. Now he was practically having an exorcism with how he was moving about on the chair, struggling to break free from the binds.

“One more question then I’m finished with this game,” I said while craning my neck to the side before getting eye level with the man. “Do you suspect the McManus family killed Vincent?”

While he stayed silent, the look that flashed over his hazel eyes told me everything I needed to know. Turning on my heels, I dropped the hammer on the table and began walking upstairs to leave Jolly to clean up until Barry’s voice halted me in my tracks.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the broad pulled the trigger herself. She’ll do whatever she can to get Daddy’s attention since she was never the favorite..”

My shoulders went rigid and I could faintly hear Jolly mutter under his breath something in Swedish before I grabbed the gun from behind my back that had been tucked in the waist paint of my black slacks and fired two rounds straight into Barry’s chest.

“Noah,” Jolly started.

I waved him off before dropping the gun on the table. “Let’s be real, Jolly. We weren’t letting him walk out of here alive anyway.

“McManus,” he sighed while rubbing his jaw. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

I cleaned the blood from my fingers and rings before letting out a long breath. I knew he wouldn’t remember the name but that name haunted me for years, plagued my entire existence in more ways than one.

“They’re one of the most notorious Irish Mafia families. Their lineage started in Ireland generations ago before relocating to Boston where the McManus brothers were raised by their grandfather, Fergal. They moved to Los Angeles when the brothers were in their mid-twenties.”

“Wait,” Jolly’s head snapped over towards me. “The twins that went on that killing spree all those years ago in Boston. The last anyone heard from them is when they shot Yakavetta in open court.”

“Exactly why they moved here. Fergal didn't appreciate the hot trail on them so they hid out here for a few years. But Fergal couldn’t handle laying low for long because he began building the ranks here. Overstepping on my grandfather's turf, because he was still young at the time.” I grabbed the weapons we used on Barry and tossed them into the bucket of bleach in the utility sink.

“You know a lot about this family,” Jolly noted.

I hummed. “My grandfather told me all about them growing up. He wanted to make sure I was well versed in the McManus family once I took over.”

Glancing down at myself, I hummed again in displeasure when I noticed the blood spatter all over my white turtleneck.

Should have worn the black one, idiot.

I went about cleaning up the mess, ignoring the slumped-over body in the chair for a moment.

“The daughter. Do you think she did it?” Jolly wondered.

I halted unraveling the plastic we used to wrap the dead bodies for a few seconds before letting my shoulders drop slightly. “I don’t believe so. While the McManus brothers do hire hitmen to do their dirty work, there’s no way Murphy would make his own blood do it.”

“I know there’s some sort of history between you and her. With all of us-”

His words trailed off when I snapped my eyes over to him. “There is no history, Jolly. She’s just someone who went to high school with us. That was years ago and I doubt she even remembers that we went to the same school. She was too busy being preoccupied with other things.”

All of us in OMNS grew up together since we were twelve years old, Jolly moved here from Sweden when he was ten. We’d all been inseparable for the last sixteen years in the schoolyard and now the streets of the Concrete Jungle.

Not saying another word, the two of us busied ourselves cleaning up our mess and by the time we returned upstairs to my office. The staircase to the hidden basement was located behind a bookshelf and while Jolly closed it, I rummaged through the drawers of my desk to find a different shirt.

Now dressed in a fresh black t-shirt, we stepped out of my office and the sounds of tattoo machines reached my ears and I smirked walking into the open lobby. Every one of my artists had someone in their chairs and my most sought-after artist, Nicholas, glanced up at me for a second before returning to tattooing his client.

“How’d the meeting go?” He asked.

“Didn’t work out. We have another one set for 6 tonight,” Jolly informed.

I went up to the counter of my tattoo shop and glanced down at the book. It was a full day of appointments not to mention the group of girls that came in for a walk in. They were chittering like birds about how it was the blonde's bachelorette party and she specifically wanted me.

In more ways than one.

While she was cute, she wasn’t my type.

Roger, the receptionist of Under The Right Lights Tattoo Parlor, and newest recruit of OMNS glanced at me over his shoulder.

“Oh hey, Noah. Are you ready for the walk-in?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not tattooing today. But I do have a job for you.”

His eyes lit up. “Yeah?”

“Tonight when the shop closes, stick around. We need your help with something,” I patted his shoulder.

“You got it, boss,” Roger nodded with a wide smile.

Turning on my heels, I stuffed my hands in my pockets to glance at my studio. I opened Under The Right Lights about six years ago and even though we had a slow start, once word got out that Noah Sebastian and Nicholas Ruffilo tattooed here, business flowed in through the doors.

I took over my grandfather's other business eight years ago but needed something to cover those dealings so that's when I thought of opening a tattoo shop with my best friends; my brothers. While Nicholas tattooed, Jolly ran the financial side of things, and Nick, or as we called him Folio, ran the motorcycle shop right next door. He was a mechanic, one of the best in town, and he often frequented here through the door to the left of Nicholas’ booth when he wasn’t busy fixing bikes.

Above my tattoo shop housed thirty apartments, all owned by me, and I lived in the penthouse on the tenth floor. Everyone in OMNS also lived in their own units so we could always be close to each other, in case something came up. With nine of the units being occupied by us, I rented out the other twenty-one for another form of income each month.

I treated everyone as an equal with the tattoo studio and OMNS but they also respected me enough to know that I had the final say with both. Things didn’t get approved unless I gave the okay.

Glancing down at my watch, I noticed that it was only four in the afternoon meaning we had a few hours until we met with the brothers. So I walked over to the back area of the shop where we used a private section to make a small gym where I knew Ash and Byran would be.

Ash was not only my bodyguard but he was also my trainer and Bryan took photos of the tattoos and ran our social media account.

“Tonight, six o'clock,” I said while crossing my arms.

Bryan wiped the sweat from his forehead and nodded. “I’ll make sure the SUV is loaded up.”

“Thank you,” I then turned towards Ash. “I’ve got a body downstairs. Do you mind?”

He shook his head. “Not at all. I’ll bring Matt. He needs a break from managing everything. Get out and smell the trees in the woods. Or the salty brine of the ocean.”

With a snort, I bid them goodbye before retreating into my office and ignoring the preposterous waves of the blonde in the waiting area and instead thought of a certain redhead.

SCARLETT

With a longing sigh, I brushed away the fire-red strands of hair from my face and adjusted my position on my bed to continue reading the book in front of me. It was the book Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation by L. David Mech. This was the third time I’ve read but every time, I somehow learned something new.

I've been out of college with my degree for four years now and although I haven’t done anything since then, I still tried to keep up with my studies. The possibility of opening up a wildlife rescue still weighed heavy on my mind but I knew my father would never agree to it. His money was to be used for other business opportunities.

The spiral notebook was filled with my chicken scratch handwriting and after tossing down the pen, I shook out the cramp from my hand to glance at the clock on my nightstand. It was nearing six in the evening and when it would be time for dinner with my father and uncle, they had to cancel due to a meeting that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Next to the clock was a picture that made my heart drop to my stomach like it did every time. It was of me, my father, and my mother back on my eighteenth birthday and high school graduation; the last picture we took together.

Because she was murdered that night.

Eight years later the tears still burned in my eyes when I thought back to that night. We were driving home from dinner when someone crashed into our car and ran it off the road into a ditch. My father managed to pull me from the wreckage before the car burst into flames; my mother however wasn’t that lucky. We never found out who ran us off the road that night and whenever I asked about it, my father would wave me off and say one word only.

Revenge.

The relationship with my father was never the same since that night and once my Uncle Connor moved in, I retreated into myself. I loved them both dearly, but I blamed their life in the Irish Mafia for my mother's death. I did my best to remain respectful because I still lived in the McManus estate and knew I couldn’t make it on my own; not yet. My father had made it clear more than once that the only way I was to move out was either if I had my own money or married.

Hence why I was doubling up on my studies, I needed to find some kind of job with my degree, a simple job at a store or fast food place would not be enough to survive on my own. And clearly, my relationship with my boyfriend was nowhere near marriage level yet; we’d only been together for less than a year and never spoke about getting married.

I checked my phone and noticed Cory texted me a little while ago.

Cory: I have to cancel tomorrow night, sorry. Work is sending me out of town and won’t be back till Sunday.

I rolled my eyes knowing damn well he wasn’t the slightest bit sorry.

Me: OK. See you then, I guess.

I locked my phone, the sound echoing in the quiet of my bedroom, and I busied myself once again with the book in front of me until there was a soft knock on my door.

“Yes?” I called out.

The door cracked open slightly and a head of white curls popped their head inside and I instantly smiled.

“Hi, Dortha.”

“Hello dear,” our housekeeper smiled, resting her frail hands in the pocket of her apron. “I know your father and uncle can’t make dinner but I still made your favorite. If you’re hungry.”

My stomach growling gave way to my answer so with a chuckle, I let my studies be to follow Dortha out of my room and down to the dining room where I knew she already had a plate of food set up for me.

NOAH

The car ride across town to the McManus estate was filled with the ramblings of the other members of OMNS while I sat quietly behind the wheel, mind filled with more pressing matters. I gripped the wheel so hard that my knuckles were turning white, something Nicholas, who sat in the passenger seat, noticed right away.

“Are you alright?”

I nodded. “Just going over what I’m going to say.”

Pulling the car to a slow stop at a red light, I drummed my fingers against the dashboard, trying another thing to calm my nerves since the deep breathing exercises my therapist recommended weren’t working.

“Hey boss,” Roger spoke up from the back seat between Ash and Bryan. “Maybe someone else should drive. You seem nervous.”

My eyes sliced into him through the rearview mirror. “No one drives my car but me.”

With a shaking hand through his golden locks, he nodded and kept his head down the rest of the drive once I hit the gas again.

“Do you know what you’re going to ask them? Folio wondered from the seat behind me while tapping the wooden drumsticks he always carried on his lap.

“I’m thinking of coming out right and asking if they have any idea who killed Vincent,” I answered.

Jolly shifted in the seat behind Nicholas and without having to gaze over at him, I knew he wasn’t too thrilled about my idea.

“I’d say we just pop these fools. End this turf war once and for all,” Roger pipped up again.

His excitement for being brought along tonight was evident but I was suddenly regretting my decision.

“Chill, we need to be smart about this,” I said.

“We can’t go in there with guns blazing,” Jolly added.

I came to a stop in front of the large, gothic-like gate, and rolled down my window so I was able to click the button on the intercom.

“Yes?” A thick Irish accent responded.

I cleared my throat. “I have the brothers' dinner. Japanese with a side of Swiss.”

Only static came from the speaker for a long moment until the loud creak of the gate caused Roger to jump in surprise and Byran to stifle a laugh behind his hand. The SUV glided up the long drive with ease as the setting sun spilled inside casting all of us in an orange and purple glow. We all piled out as soon as the car was parked in front of the McManus manor and I nodded towards Bryan, Ash, and Roger.

“You three hang back in the foyer in case the brothers don’t want all of us in the meeting,” I said while clicking the safety on my gun before stuffing it in my back waistband.

While Ash and Bryan agreed, both double-checking their weapons, Roger on the other hand made his distaste for my orders known with a low scowl.

“All due respect, Noah,” he began.

I adjusted the peaky hat on my head and raised a brow. “Is there a problem, Roger?”

He shifted on his feet. “I’ve been the recruit for six months now, don’t you think I worked up being involved in one of these meetings?”

I bit the inside of my cheek to my snarky remark to myself but Folio was quick to respond in my place.

“Kid, calm down. It took Bryan six years to work up the ranks. Ash, it took him ten years.”

Roger gaped at the two of them who seemed to have played along with Folio’s joke and agreed with a nod.

“Can I atleast get a gun?” He outstretched his arms. “You guys are sending me into the warzone with no weapon!”

“It’s only a warzone if you make it one,” Ash said.

“No weapons for recruits,” I said.

Not wanting to waste any more time out here, I led the group of us up the crumbling steps and came to a stop in front of the door. Motioning to Roger, I waited for him to ring the bell, and glanced around the vast grounds of the McManus estate while stuffing my hands deep into the pockets of my black peacoat.

“Nervous?”

Peering to my left, I nodded to Nicholas. “A bit.”

He clapped my shoulder. “Let’s keep our questions short. Try to get the info we need then we can leave.”

“Yeah,” Folio agreed while shivering. “This place gives me the creeps. It looks like it's days away from caving in.”

Glancing up at the old brick mansion, I had to agree with him. It looked as if neither of the McManus brothers bothered to keep up with the maintenance of the home and the overgrown grass on the other side of the driveway was proof of that.

Suddenly the front door opened with an eerie creaking and all of our eyes met with an older lady with a head full of white curls.

“Yes?”

I stepped forward. “My name is Noah Sebastian. OMNS has a meeting with the brothers.”

Her brown eyes shifted between all of us before she slowly stepped to the side, letting us all pile inside the grand manor. While the outside needed some work, the inside was marvelous with expensive pieces of art and not a speck of dust anywhere.

“My name is Dorthea. I will let the brothers know you’re here,” she said with a thick Irish accent.

Movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention and when I gazed up at the top of the stairs landing, all of my breath left my soul when those familiar hazel eyes met mine. All of the hairs not only on the back of my neck but on my arms stood straight with the buzz of electricity that shot through me when I noticed her eyes double in size. The brightness of her gaze struck a chord in my heart, playing a soft melody that only the two of us could hear.

It had been a long while since I’d seen her last but fuck, she still looked absolutely breathtaking like she did the night of high school graduation.

Her hair was deeper red than the last time we saw each other, now it cascaded down her back, and when she outstretched her arms on the wooden banister, her head tilted to the side in a way to assess all of these strangers in her home.

Although four of us weren’t strangers to her. We all went to high school together even though she wouldn’t remember us. She was always with the group of kids that were rich, too good to be seen with the bottom dwellers like us.

I removed my hat to hand it to Roger to hold onto it then shook out my hair from my eyes before slicking it back and I could have sworn I heard someone’s breath catch in their throat.

“Noah Sebastian, standing here in my house. I must say, I almost didn’t recognize you without the long hair.”

Well, shit.

“Saoirse McManus,” I hummed in response to her sarcastic tone.

A low scowl pulled on her lips before she pushed herself away from the banister and quickly scurried down the hall, disappearing around the corner.

It was almost bittersweet seeing her again after all this time. While I wish it had been under better circumstances, I knew that I couldn’t allow myself to get wrapped up in Saoirse McManus; not again. I had built an empire since dropping out of high school and I couldn’t let anything tear it down, especially a silly little crush.

It never was a silly crush. It was always more than that. You’re just bitter that she never felt the same.

Why would she ever have feelings for me? In her eyes and her financial stature, OMNS were nobodies; the gum on the bottom of their shoe. While they ran their empire up in the rich estates of the wealthy, we ran ours in the slums of the Concrete Jungle. There may have been a point in my life when I wanted to be in the same stature as her but now having earned my wealth, I realized that all I needed was my brothers.

Bullshit.

If that were the case, seeing her tonight wouldn’t have taken my breath away and cock twitched with such a dire need for her.

“What was that about her not remembering you?” Jolly asked.

I ran a hand over my mouth. “I didn’t think she would.”

“Hey,” Roger’s head popped in between Jolly and I. “That’s the daughter, right? You know, rumors are going around the CJ that she’s the one that killed Vincent.”

My eyes sliced into him and Jolly had to press a hand to my chest to keep me from wrapping my hands around his throat.

“The CJ?” I spat out through a clenched jaw.

Roger swallowed thickly. “Yeah. The Concrete Jungle. I thought you would understand the nickname since you were the one who created the Concrete Jungle. I spend a lot of time in the tunnels with groups of guys who tell stories of OMNS success. Why do you think I wanted to join so badly?”

“Do me a favor, kid. Stop lingering in the underground parts of the jungle because you don’t know what dwells underneath there. You don’t want to find yourself in a situation you can’t sweet talk your way out of,” I said.

“What?” He let out an airy chuckle. “Are you hiding a tank full of sirens? Or creating your own artificial intelligence?”

With a dark look filling my eyes, I gave him a smirk before giving him my back when I heard the faint footsteps of Dorthea returning.

“Just the Japanese and Swiss,” she pointed to us.

Jolly let out a groan. “I’m Swedish.”

“Follow me,” she hooked a finger at us, ignoring Jolly.

Giving the rest of my brothers a nod, we followed Dorthea down a long wide hallway, and I took in the sight of all the pictures lining the wall, noticing that they were family pictures of the McManus family.

The first picture was of the man who started it all over one hundred years ago, Cillian McManus. It continued for a long while until Fergal’s familiar face caught my eyes, followed by his son, then Connor, then Murphy with his wife and Saiorse.

Coming to a brief stop, I studied the picture for a long moment, before Jolly pulled me along.

“The brothers are allowing you five minutes of their time,” Dorthea informed as we stopped in front of a set of double doors and her hands wrapped around the golden knobs.

“How generous,” I grumbled under my breath just before the door opened.

Inside was a huge library/office combo. Three out of four of the walls were just bookshelves full of books, the smell of old literature tickling my nose. Thick black carpet covered almost every inch of the floor and in the center of the room were two long burgundy couches that sat horizontally to an old fireplace that was blazing with hot flames. I felt the warmth on my face when Jolly and I stepped inside.

On either couch sat the brothers, both having a glass dangling from their fingers, and their hushed conversation seized when they noticed our presence.

“Ah,” the taller one with shorter hair muttered as he slowly stood to his feet and extended his free hand toward me. “You must be Noah. An acquaintance of mine said I’d be expecting you. I’m Conner.”

After we shook hands, Connor motioned to the other man on the couch, who still had yet to stand up. “That is my twin brother Murphy.”

Giving him a curt nod, I clasped my hands behind my back. “This is Joakim. We won’t take much of your time. But we do have one question to ask.”

While Murphy muttered something in Irish under his breath, Connor urged me to ask.

“About six months ago, a dear friend of ours Vincent Riquier was murdered, his body being left on the doorstep of my tattoo shop. I had some intel point me in the direction of someone in the Irish family.”

Connor's brow raised as he took a small drink of his amber liquid. “Are you saying we had something to do with it?”

Jolly shook his head. “Not at all. We were just wondering if you could let us know if our intel was correct since it came from one of your men.”

This caused Murphy to snap his head towards us and brushed away the long hair from his face; blue eyes boring into us. “One of our men?”

“Barry,” I said flatly. “Movie star looks. Although, I must say that was before.”

The twins shared a look before Murphy rose to his feet with a roar. “You killed him?”

I stood toe to toe with him, not showing him an ounce of fear because I knew guys like this could smell it.

“Never said I did,” I answered with a shrug.

“Imigh leat,” Murphy waved a hand in my face before turning on his feet to face the fireplace.

Connor let out a displeased noise at his brother before giving Jolly and me a tight smile, the lines in his face creasing. “You must ignore my brother, he just argued with his daughter before you arrived.”

Saoirse’s face crept into my mind but I did my best to push away those feelings. I couldn’t give away my feelings for her; the ones that stayed buried for so long.

“Again with this foolish dream of opening an animal rehab facility. Why she wants to work when she has all the money I can give her if she just stays here is beyond my thinking,” Murphy muttered after downing the rest of his drink, slamming the cup on the table next to the couch.

“About Barry,” Connor ignored his brother while stuffing his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “If you did kill him, one less thing for us to worry about. He was a pain in our arses anyway.”

“So then, as a token, you’ll give us the direction we need to look into for our friend's death,” Jolly tried while scratching the facial hair on his chin.

With Connor’s silence, his gaze locked in on us with his hand on the holster on his hip, and Murphy’s back still to us, I nodded towards Jolly, who understood and we bid the brothers goodbye.

“Thank you for your time,” I said before ushering Jolly outside of the room before me.

Once we were back in the solitude of the hallway, we rushed back to the foyer with a burning feeling at the back of my neck. Something wasn’t right, their silence told us way too much and I needed to get far away from here.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” Jolly noted.

I agreed with a low rumble in my chest, placing my hat back on. “I know. They were quick to dismiss us and I didn’t like how Connor reached for his gun.”

Hearing our footsteps echo loudly on the marble floor, Bryan glanced up from his phone with furrowed brows.

“That was quick.”

“We’ll discuss it in the car,” I said while ushering everyone outside quickly.

One by one we all piled out of the house and before I stepped through the threshold, I dared a glance back up to the stairs landing, hoping to catch sight of her but instead, I locked eyes with two large guards who had their guns in their grasp.

“Boss, this doesn't make sense,” Roger turned swiftly on his heels and blocked me.

“Roger, not now,” I said sternly. “Get to the car. Now.”

“All these rumors, they had to start somewhere,” he continued to ramble on.

I backhanded his chest and then threw a thumb over my shoulder to the men who were now descending the grand staircase. Finally, when Roger noticed them, he scrambled out the door, me swiftly following behind him.

All of us gathered around the SUV to discuss what our next plan of action would be. There were other Irish families I could talk with but they all had connections to the McManus brothers so they wouldn’t give me anything.

As I was chatting with Nicholas, Roger began pacing in front of the car, running a hand through his hair.

“What’s his problem?” Nicholas mumbled to me.

“He thinks the brothers are hiding something,” I informed him while shrugging. “I must admit, I feel the same. They were too closed off in there. And the way those guards were staring at me, I swore they were looking for a fight.”

“In retaliation for Barry?”

“Could be,” I ran a hand over my chin. “Or they don’t appreciate us showing up tonight. Either way, we need to get out of here.”

Everyone began loading into the SUV, besides Roger, who was still pacing.

“Roger, get in,” I demanded from behind the driver's door.

"They're a bunch of liars. all of them. I bet you that broad upstairs knows something.”

All I saw was read for a few moments before I realized that I had Roger pinned to the hood of the car by his throat, my tattooed fingers cutting off his oxygen. Strands of my hair fell into my eyes but I made no effort to let up my grip.

“Watch how you speak about her,” I spit out.

Roger’s eyes were white as he struggled to fight me, his nails digging into the skin of my wrist.

“Shit,” Ash muttered while scrambling out of the car to wrap his arms around my chest, trying to pull me away. “Let him go, Noah. You’re going to kill him.”

With an effortless grunt, I tossed Roger to the ground and did my best to fix my hair when Ash let me go as the front door of the manor opened; Saiorse walked out with the two guards following closely behind her.

She paid us no mind as she trotted down the steps and began walking the opposite way of us. Glancing at my watch, I noticed that it was 8 p.m.

“The only time she leaves is at 8 o'clock for her nightly walks.” Barry’s words from earlier rang in my ears.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I grumbled while adjusting my jacket.

Roger quickly scrambled to his feet and when he finally noticed the two guards who had stopped walking to watch us with careful eyes, something switched in Roger’s mind. My jaw began to drop when I saw him reach for something underneath his shirt, my next words came out slow, almost inebriated.

“Roger, no!”

The sound of gunfire erupted, and all of us dropped to our knees around the car for some sort of protection. Bullets ricochet off of the car, one nearly missing my forehead as it blew the hat clear off my head. I strangled out a vacant cry while pressing my body closer to the car. My heart was beating widely in my chest and my hands shook but I didn’t have time to dwell on almost dying, I needed to stop this before it became worse than it already was.

“Mother fucker!”

Glancing over my shoulder, I cursed when I saw Folio go down to the ground clutching his thigh, his gun skidding halfway down the long driveway. I crawled over to him, keeping my head down when I noticed that a couple more McManus guards had emerged from inside and now we were outnumbered; seven to nine.

Blood oozed out from the wound on Folio’s thigh and I grabbed a handful of his shirt, ripping a large piece from it.

“You’re alright; just a flesh wound,” I reassured him while fixing the makeshift tourniquet.

“Where the hell did Roger find a gun?” Folio asked through clenched teeth when I squeezed too hard on his wound to stop the bleeding.

“I’m about to find out,” I patted his cheek before ripping my gun from behind my pants and clicked off the safety.

Using the open door of the SUV as a shield, I peered around it to see that four guards were lying dead on the ground, two were hiding behind the pillars of the manor for their own protection, and one was coming towards us.

Firing off two rounds, both hitting the mark of the guard's chest, I watched him crumble to the ground and then gave a sharp whistle towards Jolly who was firing his weapon in the car through the shot-out back windshield.

“Two on the porch!” I yelled over the sounds of gunfire.

Jolly nodded and I gave him protection against the other two guards who were firing their weapons from behind a bush, he snuck up to the two guards hiding on the porch, their lives ending before they even noticed him.

Now the numbers were in our favor so slowly rising to my feet, I stepped out from my shield and called out to the last two McManus guards.

“You’re not walking out of this alive!”

“Imeacht go fánach ort féin is ar do chnapán miúlach!” A deep voice rumbled out from behind the bus.

A flash of red caught my attention and I forgot for a moment that Saoirse was outside when the shootout began. I could hear my heart in my ears with worry if she’d been hit but when I saw her slowly rise to her feet due to one of the guards pushing her to farther safety, I breathed a little.

Until a gun went off to my left and with sharp eyes, I watched as the bullet hit Saoirse in the arm, blood splattering against the fading white paint of the house.

“Bitch! That’s for Vincent!” Roger bellowed his victory.

I let out a vicious growl as I tackled him to the ground, laying fist after fist into his face. Poor kid never saw me coming and gave no fight against me. By the time I finished, my knuckles were broken and raw, covered in not only my blood but his as well. Roger’s face was a mangled mess as he rolled over to his side, spitting out chunks of spit mixed with blood. For a final measure, I laid a swift kick to his stomach making sure he wouldn’t get up for a while. Through the white noise in my brain, I did my best to calm my breathing when I gazed over my shoulder to the carnage that lay in our wake; all thanks to Roger’s trigger finger.

Besides Folio, all of my men were unharmed and it seemed as if Folio would be fine. However, out of nine McManus guards, only two remain. One held something to Saoirse’s arm while the other tossed his gun to the ground, showing us he surrendered.

“Is she alright?” I called out to them.

“Fuck you, Noah!” She spat, eyes almost as red with fury as the color of her hair.

Yeah, she was fine.

Through the eerie silence of the night air, I watched as the front door carefully opened then both the McManus brothers stepped into the carnage.

“Saoirse!” Murphy’s voice boomed.

“She’s over here!” The one guard who was tending to her wound called out while pulling them out from behind the bushes.

I sucked in a breath when I saw all the blood staining the gray long sleeve of her sweater as the guard quickly whisked her inside, her father right on her tail. The look of pure hatred was on Connor’s face as he ran a hand through his hair.

“Whose bullet hit my niece?” He asked.

I pointed to the broken body of Roger, who was still struggling to rise to his feet. “I’ll take care of him, I promise you.”

Conner gave a curt nod before hooking his finger in my direction. “You. By yourself. Now.”

Licking my lips, I nodded and handed over my gun to Ash, who looked at me with bewilderment in his eyes.

“Are you insane?” He demanded. “You can’t go in there by yourself.”

“If they wanted me dead, I would be,” I said with more reassurance in my voice than I was feeling.

Giving a soft smile to the rest of my men, letting them know I’d be fine, I stepped back inside the manor with Conner close behind.

SCARLETT

“What the fuck!” I screamed while pushing myself away from the table, but hissing as pain shot through my arm.

The doctor we had on standby informed me that it was merely a flesh wound I suffered and closed it up with a few stitches and some pills for the pain.

“Watch your tongue,” my father warned while not looking away from his plate of food.

“You just told me that I’m supposed to marry Noah Sebastian! How the fuck can I watch my tongue?! This is absurd! You can’t make that decision for me.”

He pushed away his plate with a sigh and then steepled his fingers together. “I can because I am your father. And for the price of peace, I couldn’t deny his offer.”

I nearly fell back into my seat at the dining room table. “His offer? This was his idea?”

My Uncle Conner nodded. “That man is quite the negotiator. He didn’t want any more bloodshed and for a truce, he asked for your hand in marriage; we agreed on one condition.”

“Oh, I can't wait to hear what this condition was,” I placed my hand on my hip. “Does he want a baby in a year? Do I have to abide by his command? Am I to be locked away in a castle for the rest of my life?”

“Far from that,” my father lit his cigar, puffing the smoke into the air. “We agreed that you can marry him as long as he kill the man that shot you.”

My eyes widened. “The kid? Fucking hell, dad! He can’t be more than twenty years old!”

“Then he shouldn’t have been involved in a game that was designed for men!” My father’s fist slammed on the aged oak of the table.

I didn’t even flinch, being so used to his outbursts like this. Instead, I fought back harder against this offer.

“What about Cory?” I questioned.

“Who?” My father’s thick brows furrowed as the age lines in his forehead creased.

“The boyfriend,” my uncle informed him while swirling the ice cubes around in his cup.

My father did a double take. “How the fuck do you know?”

“Fuck you, I know shit,” he shrugged.

“Very well,” my father sighed. “It’s not like this relationship would have worked out anyway. You will end it and move in with Noah by Friday.”

“FRIDAY?!” I screeched. “That’s in two days!”

“The wedding will be at the end of the month,” my uncle informed me.

Too much information had been thrown at me all at once and I pinched the bridge of my nose to keep myself from crying. I typically wasn’t a crier but from the moment I laid my eyes on Noah Sebastian in the foyer of my home, all of my old feelings came rushing in like a tidal wave and I still didn’t have time to process that.

“If I say no to this deal?” I shot back.

Neither my uncle nor father said anything, simply motioned to the guns that lay next to their plates. Now, I knew they didn’t mean they would kill me. Instead, they would kill Noah and every last mother fucker who had anything to do with tonight.

“This is unbelievable!” I yelled while throwing my hands up and storming my way up the stairs to my bedroom.

The sound of my door slamming shook the old bones of the manor and I yanked the ends of my hair with a scream. I despised not only this life but also the fact that I couldn’t do anything about this arrangement. Not when the lives of innocents were on the line.

Innocents? They shot you!

Shaking the thought from my mind, I fell back onto my bed with a groan. It was easy to tell that the kid was the one that started the unnecessary gunfight. Noah was only doing what he could to protect his people.

Those gorgeous almond eyes haunted me for years, plaguing my entire existence since I first saw them freshman year of high school. I never could do anything about it, however, knowing that we ran in different circles and it was forbidden. His family ran the slums while mine ran the prestige wealth.

The last I saw of Noah or any of those guys was the night of high school graduation. While Noah dropped out three months before, the rest of his friends walked across the stage and he was there for support. Our eyes locked across the vast space of the room. His hair was long but pulled back into a high bun, showcasing the sharpness of his cheekbones as he gave me a gentle smile. Of course, I had to ignore the pull of my heart strings, no matter how strong they were.

If someone had told a teenage me that now, eight years later, I’d be marrying that man who captured my heart so long ago, I’d laugh in their face.

Running a hand over my face, I sat up in bed and quickly dialed Cory’s number so I could deliver the news. On the eighth ring, he answered almost breathlessly.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” I played with the ends of my hair. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

There was some rustling on his end before his breath came through. “I suppose.”

Ignoring the tone, I took a deep inhale to prepare myself for breaking the news to him. “There’s no easy way to say this. But my father just informed me that he arranged a marriage for me. I have to move in with the guy on Friday. I tried to fight it, tried to fight for us, but I didn’t have a choice. It’s something I have to do.”

There was a very long beat of silence on Cory’s end before his voice broke through. “Ok. Thanks for letting me know.”

My heart dropped to the pits of my stomach. “W-what? That’s it?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Scarlett? You said it yourself, you don’t have a choice in this. Why fight for something that has no end in sight?”

I bit down on the inside of my cheek hard to not snap at him but eventually failed.

“You know, you’re right. What’s the fucking point,” I seethed.

Before I could hang up on him, I heard the click and stared down in disbelief at my now black screen.

“What a piece of shit!” I bellowed while tossing my phone onto my bed.

My knee bounced in anger, that conversation adding more fuel to the fire, and as much as I wanted to scream out my frustrations I knew that it would be futile. Instead, I dragged my feet into the large walk-in closet and began packing up things that I knew I would need in my new life.

NOAH

Wiping away the blood from my rings, I stepped into the lobby of the quiet tattoo shop and noticed Nicholas closing up his section.

“How’d it go tonight?” I wondered after tossing the rag into the bag he had opened.

The one we planned on burning anyway so any evidence would be gone in the flames.

“Slow night but those aren’t bad every once in a while,” he answered before motioning to the door I previously walked through. “All finished?”

“Yeah, Jolly and Folio are cleaning it up. This one was messier than I would have liked. I’ll admit, the kid put up a hell of a fight,” I said while leaning against the wall with crossed arms.

The tattooed muscles in my forearms flexed.

“Did he say where he found the gun?”

“Bought it off of someone on the street before we left that night. Apparently, he had a feeling I wouldn’t allow him to have one and he felt like he needed protection,” I informed Nicholas.

Who, in turn, snorted while packing up his tattoo gun. “A lot of good it did.”

My lips parted to speak but with the sound of the bell dinging above the door, revealing that someone had stepped inside.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” the words died in my throat when I saw who walked inside.

Her hair was pulled back into a tight braid, her green eyes standing out amongst everything else about her. She carried two suitcases behind her and one large duffel bag on her shoulder.

“Hi,” I said while standing straight up.

All of the breath inside of me left me with a whoosh of air as the excitement of our arrangement finally filled me. When I first brought up the idea to the McManus brothers, I fully expected them to deny it. Much to my surprise, they agreed almost immediately with the exception that I take care of Roger, as promised.

Not even an hour after sending the picture to Murphy, his daughter was standing in front of me; bags in tow.

“Hi?” Saoirse scowled. “Do you know what the fuck I had to go through to get here? The number of times I had to circle the building to find somewhere to park? Two blocks away. Not to mention, how many homeless people stopped me along the way to ask for either money or drugs? And all you can say is hi?”

Biting my lip at my smile, I walked over to the receptionist's desk to rest my elbows on it.

“Are you finished?” I teased with a playful gleam in my eyes.

She scoffed, appalled. “Am I finished? No, Noah. Far fucking from it. How dare you bid for my life without my consent? This isn’t the 1900’s where this was a common thing! I have a say in who I should marry!”

“Then why are you here?”

Saoirse pursed her lips and when I realized she had nothing to say back, I pushed off the counter to close the distance between us, my height towering over her.

“Let’s get one thing straight. I didn’t pay for you. I don’t plan on holding you prisoner here. You have a say with anything and everything however to keep the peace from stumbling into my empire, if I had to arrange for your life, you bet your fucking ass I would do.”

Her lips mimicked a fish and when her shoulders slumped in defeat, I held out my hand to her. “Keys.”

“Excuse me?” She raised a brow.

“Give me your keys. OMNS Legacy Villas has underground parking. There’s already a reserved spot for you,” I informed her.

Shoving the keys in my hand, she sliced her eyes into me. “If it says Saoirse, change it.”

I quickly tossed the keys to Nicholas, who understood and slipped out of the shop to retrieve her car.

“Change it?” I repeated her words.

“The only people who call me that are my father and uncle. Everyone else calls me Scarlett,” she tossed her bags on the ground at my feet before crossing her arms over her black sweater.

This sass that fell from her blood-stained lips made me want to toss her onto the counter, rip off that sweater, and attack every inch of her skin with my teeth but I refrained. Instead, I brushed a hand through my hair and smiled.

“Scarlett it is.”

Scarlett glanced out the large window in front of the shop, watching as people walked past, every single one of them dealing with something in their own lives. The trash that littered the street was figuratively and literally. I had to admit that when I first opened up my empire here, the slums were extremely bad but with my help and funding, the streets had been cleaned up immensely; with a few stranglers still lurking around.

Especially in the underground.

“I don’t understand how you live here. The homeless, the drug deals, and the illegal activities I saw walking in here. It’s disgusting,” she shivered.

I stood next to her now, stuffing my hands in the back pockets of my pants. “Welcome to the Concrete Jungle, Scarlett.”

She turned her head up to me as I bent low towards her, my warm breath fanning those beautiful lips. “Where I’m the fucking king.”

#noah sebastian #bad omens #noah sebastian x ofc #mafiaboss!noah sebastian #tattooartist!noah sebastian #the coyotes cry noah sebastian #noah sebastian fan fictions

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writeforfandoms · 8 months

Text

Vicious

Find my CoD masterlist

Looking to expand your territory, you find a military group in more or less the middle of nowhere, and spend a few days observing them. Of course, things are never easy, and soon you find yourself a permanent guest of one Commander Graves.

Coyote shifter f!reader x Phillip Graves

Warnings: Smut, unprotected sex, piv sex, teasing, biting, dirty talk, blood, injury, gunshot, emotional slow burn, enemies to lovers, eventual happy ending. PoV does shift.

Everybody thank @sprout-fics for literally plotting this out with me I don't even know how long ago. Thanks for infecting me with the Graves brainrot, love.

Word count: 11.5k (might wanna go grab a drink)

You approached the base with caution. You'd circled around the base for a few days before deciding to approach. You wanted to know what this was since it was in your territory. Well. Sort of. It was kind of right on the edge of your territory, but since there was a very rude pack of wolves pushing on your territory, you were looking to expand.

Thus, investigating.

The base was big and mostly flat, several buildings set up. You could vaguely see a hanger in the distance. Hmm. Interesting.

Trotting along, you lifted your nose to sniff the air. Lots of scents - men and gunpowder and oil. Hmm. Not terrible, but not great.

Maybe you should look elsewhere to expand.

There was a thunderous crack and a line of fire erupted across your back. You yelped, scrambling away, even as warm wetness seeped into your fur. You bolted, ignoring the pain, ignoring the blood. You needed to get somewhere safe to shift back and get medical attention. Or at least hide until you healed.

If the wolves found you like this, they'd kill you.

You made it away from the shooter, getting as far as an abandoned-looking building before you collapsed. Your legs gave out with a wobble and you whined softly to yourself. Your back hurt, a solid line of fire that pulsed steadily with your heart.

That was probably bad. You must have gotten hurt worse than you thought.

Jaws parted as you panted, you debated your options. You could try to sleep here, you could try to get somewhere safer, or you could shift back.

Even the thought of shifting made you hurt, and you laid your head down.

You needed medical attention. And liquids. And rest.

But rest would have to come first, because your body refused to cooperate with you otherwise.

As much as you knew it wasn't safe here, as much as you longed to get back to your own den… you closed your eyes.

Just a nap. Just enough rest to get you back on your feet to get home.

–

Graves had had a good day. Drills had gone well. One of his boys had shot at a coyote. All was well. He'd even authorized a couple boys to go find the coyote and put it out of its misery.

The last thing he expected was to see those two boys come back with a woman bundled between them, passed out cold and wrapped in one of their jackets. Her legs were bare beneath the jacket.

"What the fuck?" He muttered to himself, standing up straighter.

"Found her out in the middle o' nowhere," one of them said, flagging Graves down. "She's bleeding."

Graves frowned. Bleeding, unconscious, left in the middle of nowhere? Sounded like she'd run into some trouble.

"Bring her to medical," Graves ordered, already striding over to pull the door open for them. "And for fuck's sake find her some clothes." He held the door for the two and his gaze dipped down to what he could see of her. Mmm. Nice legs. Nice ass, too.

He resisted the urge to follow them to medical, trusting that they'd get her there. Instead he went to start on the necessary paperwork.

Medical paged him once she was cleaned up and dressed, and he told them to alert him as soon as she woke. Fingerprints hadn't gotten any pings yet, which was a good thing.

But still. He needed answers.

Graves huffed softly and leaned back in his chair. Nothing he could do about her for now but wait.

–

You woke slowly, warm and not sure why that felt wrong. Not at first. Then the smell registered.

This was not home.

You sat up quickly and then groaned softly, clenching your teeth. Oh, ouch. Your back fucking hurt.

"Oh good, you're awake."

You jerked your head to look at the door, eyes wide. A good-looking man stood there, eyes raking over you. He looked military - the way he stood, the cut of his clothes, the subtle bulge of a gun tucked in the back of his waistband. Oh fuck.

"How you feelin'?" His voice was mild as he grabbed a chair, pulling it over closer to your bed.

"Back hurts," you answered carefully. "Where am I?"

He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes, which remained cool. "Medical. I have a few questions for you."

You noted he didn't ask if you were up for it. Clearly this man was used to getting his way. You swallowed. His scent wafted to you, warm and a little spicy and far too alluring. "Okay."

"Do you know where my boys found you?"

You narrowed your eyes a little, thinking. Right. You'd been shot and ran away, and had collapsed outside that abandoned building. "Sort of?"

"Do you remember how you got there?" His gaze was more intense now and he leaned forward.

You had two options here that you could see. Make up some lie, or lie and say you didn't remember.

"I… don't remember." You swallowed hard, shifting your weight. Your back hurt and tugged a little. "What happened to my back?"

"Nice long scratch. Had to put in some stitches to keep your skin together." He didn't even flinch at the description. Not that you did either. You'd spent enough time as a coyote to see your fair share of blood.

"Thank you." You forced yourself to meet his gaze. His eyes were pretty. Alluring. Dammit.

"You're welcome." His smile was all arrogance now. "I'd appreciate some information in return."

"Like what?" Your gaze darted to the door nervously. This was bad. This was very bad. You needed to get out.

"Where were you before this? How did you get hurt?"

"I don't remember." You eyed him now carefully. You were injured, but maybe you could get the drop on him…

"Well. That's a damn shame, darlin'." He pushed to his feet, gaze fixed on you. "I'm afraid I need some answers before you can go."

"You can't keep me," you immediately retorted, twisting to face him. "That's not legal."

His smile turned condescending. "And who's gonna stop me?" He spread his hands out from his body, still smirking.

You tensed, gauging, and then lunged at him. You couldn't shift, not here. But maybe you wouldn't need to. You slammed into him, pain lighting up your back, and tried to shove past him. He recovered fast, faster than you expected, grabbing you and hauling you back to him. You growled, low and angry, and bit his shoulder. Hard.

He shouted, jerking under your teeth. But he didn't let you go. Just yanked your wrists behind your back, securing them with one hand before using his free hand to get a grip on your hair and yank.

"Feisty, huh?" His grin showed far too many teeth. Even for a human that was a clear threat. "'S alright, sweet pea. I've got time. I'll have you singing before long."

You whined when he tugged your hair again, forcing your head back, exposing your throat. He held you easily, not even breaking a sweat as he kept you contained.

You'd miscalculated. Badly.

The room he escorted you to was plain and not comfortable. Little more than a concrete box with a cot bolted down, the room lacked any warmth.

"I'll give you some time to think about your answers," he told you before he pushed you into the room. You stumbled, off balance from the shove, and the door slammed shut.

The lock clicked, loud and ominous in the room.

You had really, really miscalculated.

–

Graves walked back to his room before checking the bite, which was already blooming color on his skin. "Fuck," he muttered, half impressed and a little turned on. "Helluva bite." He sucked his teeth, fingers rising to press gently to his skin. The little bloom of pain made him groan softly, arousal rising. Damn but he liked that.

He wanted to tame this one.

"Damn, sweet pea," he muttered, pressing down again, ignoring the blood rushing down to his cock. For now. "Damn."

–

You were brought food regularly, so at least they weren't starving you. That would be bad, on top of your injury.

And the asshole came back at least once a day to ask you the same questions. What happened to you? Where had you been? How did you end up out here? Who hurt you?

You, at least, stuck to your line. You didn't know. That was all he was getting out of you. Nothing else.

You didn't try to bite him again. At least, not for the first few days.

Then he got mean.

"Y'know, sweet pea, I could make this so much nicer for you," he murmured. "Or so much worse. I've been generous, you know."

"You call this generous?" You curled your upper lip, hands curling into loose fists.

"Coulda left you to my boys." His smirk was downright nasty now, eyes glinting with mean amusement. "I'm sure they'd appreciate you."

You stiffened, a low growl rumbling in your chest. Excitement sparked through his scent and his lips stretched wider. "Don't you fucking dare."

"Then gimme what I want," he purred, leaning closer. "Or a good reason not to."

You lunged. He was prepared this time, though you still got your teeth in his shoulder before he grabbed you and twisted. You yipped, startled, as he manhandled you face-down on the cot, pressed up tight to your back to keep you down.

The hardness pressing into your ass made you jerk.

"Told you," he growled into your ear, breath hot against your skin. "Give me a good reason not to."

"Fuck off," you snarled, trying to buck him off, ignoring the hardness of him.

"Rather fuck you." His teeth were sharp on your ear.

You snarled, deep and rumbly, squirming under him. But you couldn't deny the thrill of arousal at how he held you down. He was strong. Very strong.

"Fuck," he muttered, pressing his hips harder into yours. "Better hold still, sweet pea, unless you think you can take me."

"I dunno, you think you can handle me?" You couldn't resist taunting him, baring your teeth.

He huffed a little laugh and shoved one knee between your legs, leaning his weight onto you. "Oh I can handle you, sweet pea." He shifted, biting down on the back of your shoulder. You moaned, almost startled at how much you liked that, how good it felt. "Yeah? Pretty girl likes it a bit rough?"

"You all mouth?" You shot back, managing to free one hand. You reached back to claw at him, not sure if you wanted him closer or wanted him off of you.

He swore softly when your nails caught skin under the sleeve of his shirt, dragging down. "Feisty pretty girl," he growled. He grabbed your wrist again and shoved it back down to the bed, pushing you harder into the mattress, his chest to your back. One hand let up, but he compensated, keeping you trapped under him. "Guess you don't wanna get fucked tonight." His free hand slid slowly down your side to your hip, and he pulled you back and down onto his thigh.

You gasped at the feel of his thigh firm between your legs, fanning your arousal. You squirmed, hands twisting, tilting your face to the side. "Mm, feels like you're all teasing and no follow through."

"Good girls ask nicely." He lifted his hips away from yours, using his grip on you to push you further into the bed, away from the warmth of him.

You snarled into the bedding, twisting harder. But he didn't budge, didn't give you an inch. He was absolutely infuriating.

But he was also possibly going to fuck you, and you possibly wanted him to.

"I don't do nice." You kicked out with one leg, and he grunted as you pushed him off balance enough to have him crashing back into you. You could admit to yourself that though he was an ass, you wanted more.

"You will, sweet pea," he grunted, fingers tightening around you. "You'll beg me for it." He rocked his hips into yours and you arched, no longer trying to get him away or get him off. No. Now you wanted more.

When he pulled back again, your lips parted in a snarl, and you almost asked what he was doing.

Except you felt fingers at your back, pushing the shirt they'd given you up until it bunched under your arms. His fingers were warm and a little rough as they slid along the path of your injury, just to the side so he didn't actually hurt you. The nurse had insisted on leaving the bandages for another day, although you didn't really need them - you healed faster than a human.

"One day you'll tell me," he murmured, low and promising. "And I'll be here for all your secrets."

A shudder ran down your spine and you squirmed. "Keep it up and I'll think you're actually interested in me," you quipped. You needed his attention off your back, needed him to leave it alone.

"Oh but I am," he purred, lowering himself again so you could feel the press of his shirt against your back, the flat plane of his stomach leaving you nowhere to go. "You're just too temptin', sweet pea. I can't resist."

You sucked in a breath when he bit down on the back of your shoulder again, a little gentler this time. But the feeling of teeth in your skin, even with the shirt in the way, only made you want more. You bucked into him, struggling, a low whine escaping without permission.

"Sound so sweet like that," he murmured, too pleased with himself. "Let's see what other pretty noises you can make for me."

"Arrogant," you shot back, wiggling your ass back against the bulge of him.

"Confident," he corrected, grinding into you. "Now, you gonna be a good girl if I let go?"

"Define good." You grinned into the sheets, hiking one knee up to get leverage to push back into him. He only pressed you harder into the cot, pulling a groan out of you.

"Guess that's a no," he huffed, nosing the side of your neck. "Shame. I'd love to take my time with a pretty thing like you."

"Sure know how to make a girl feel special." You squirmed again, trying again to free your hands.

"Baby, I'll make you feel so good," he promised, low and crooning. You shuddered hard, twisting one hand free and reaching back to pull his head closer, fingers scratching through his hair. He huffed against your neck, warm and damp. "Still gotta ask for it."

You gritted your teeth, digging your nails into the back of his neck. "Make me."

He groaned softly, pressing his bulge harder into you. He was a flurry of movement, pushing your shirt up over your head but leaving it tangled around your arms. "Such a little brat," he growled, teasing. "I can fix that."

"Such an ass," you gasped as he yanked your sweatpants down, leaving them pooled on one ankle.

"All you gotta do is ask, baby," he murmured, hand smoothing over your ask. "I'll fuck you real good if you ask."

"Not on your life." You whined softly when his hand dipped down between your legs, teasing, testing.

"Oh yeah?" He huffed an amused noise. "We'll see about that, sweet pea." One big finger slid into you and you gasped, legs shifting further apart to give him more room. "Knew you liked this," he muttered victoriously, his finger making a lewd noise as he moved it. "Fuckin' knew it."

You opened your mouth to snipe back at him and ended up moaning instead at the stretch of a second finger. “Fucking tease,” you managed, tilting your hips to allow him deeper.

He huffed. “Already told you what you have to do,” he murmured, pumping his fingers faster. The coil of pleasure in your belly grew tighter, and you rocked your hips back into his fingers. Not yet willing to give him the satisfaction of hearing you. But the scent of his arousal, his clear enjoyment of this, was near dizzying.

You bit your lip hard enough to taste blood as you got close, eyes shuttered, determined not to give him satisfaction while getting your own.

And his fingers slipped out of you.

“What–?” You started to demand, pushing hard against him.

“Told you,” he said, amused now, even as you heard his belt buckle clink. “Gotta ask, baby.” He nipped the shell of your ear and then groaned softly. There was a soft, wet noise.

Your eyes blew wide and you froze. He was stroking himself, slow and rhythmic, his knuckles just brushing your ass. He was just going to leave you like this.

Unless you asked.

You clenched your jaw for a moment before you gave in with a little whimper, tilting your hips and ducking your head down against the cot. “Please,” you murmured.

“What was that, sweet pea?” He sounded unbearably smug, even as he brushed his knuckles over your skin a little more firmly.

“Please,” you repeated, pressing your forehead into the cot. The smell of him was intoxicating and a little addicting and utterly ruining your composure.

He hummed, teasing, and the noise stopped. Still-damp fingers pressed to your ass and then curled around your hip, guiding you into a better position. “Please what?”

You growled a little, debating kicking him off and taking care of yourself. But damn he’d gotten you riled up, and now you wanted him. “Please fuck me,” you ground out, tone far from pleading.

But that must have been good enough for him. “Good girl,” he cooed, condescending and overly-sweet. You fought down the urge to bite him again, mostly because you could feel him beginning to press into you.

He did not go slow, and he was not gentle. Which was fine - you didn’t want gentle. You didn’t want slow. You wanted him to fuck you hard enough that you saw stars.

He was relentless, searching for your g-spot and then hitting it as often as possible. He released your hands to fist your hair, tugging your head to the side so he could kiss and nip at your neck. His groans vibrated against your skin, making you whimper.

“Yeah? Feel good?” He nipped sharply at your skin and soothed the spot with his tongue. “Tell me, sweet pea.”

You resisted. For a moment. “Feels good,” you agreed with a gasp, getting one hand behind you to scratch through his hair, keeping him exactly where he was. “More.”

“More what?” The words were growled into your skin, his grip tightening on your hip until you thought you’d have bruises.

“Need more,” you gasped, bucking your hips back into his. “Please.”

“Knew you could be so good for me,” he crooned, far too pleased. But he did move his hand to rub your clit, not giving you a chance to mouth off to him again.

“Fuck!” Your fingers scrabbled at the sheets and fisted in them, shaking a little.

“Good girl,” he murmured, lips brushing your ear now. “Come on, baby. Come for me. Come on, come on, baby.”

Later, you’d be humiliated, but you did. You came with a shout, body tensing under his, hand in his hair clawing down the back of his neck. He hissed, shuddering hard against you, and roughly pumped into you a few more times before he spilled in you.

“That’s it,” he murmured, almost dazed sounding. “Fuck you feel good.” He ground against you, probably just to hear you whine.

He didn’t quite collapse on you, but it was close. Fortunately, you got to just melt into the cot, breathing hard.

“Have fun, sweet pea?” He slid out of you smoothly and stood, fixing his clothing. You kind of hated him for that, even as you turned your head to glower at him over your shoulder.

“Still an asshole,” you grumbled, stretching out. You needed to move, to wipe yourself off. But you couldn’t resist the moment of tormenting him with the sight of you on display.

He chuckled, undeterred. “Better rest up, sweet pea,” he advised, smirk clear in his tone. “I’ll be back later.”

The door locked behind him as always.

Fine. You’d just bide your time. Someone would slip up eventually.

It took another week. A week of acting more compliant, of not trying anything. Graves didn’t come back for that entire week, either. Why, you didn’t know, but you weren’t going to ask.

Finally, the soldier that brought you food forgot to lock the door.

You waited until you couldn’t hear him anymore before you crept to the door, cracking it open just the tiniest bit. Nothing. No sound near you.

You had to sternly remind yourself not to just go tearing off, you had to do this smart. So you snuck out of your room, shutting the door again. Hopefully that would keep them from looking.

Getting out of there was perhaps one of the most stressful things you’d ever done. You listened hard for people, and once had to duck into a cleaning closet to avoid a couple chatting soldiers. Your heart pounded against your ribs the entire time, so loud you had to focus to hear past the blood rushing through you.

But you did it. You made it outside. The sun was setting, the land open around the base. You’d blend better if you shifted, and you’d be faster.

A quick look around showed you were the only one in sight. Moving fast, you nearly threw your clothes off and shifted, landing on four paws.

This was so much better.

You left the clothes where they fell and started trotting off, away from base. You were more careful this time, darting between bushes and generally being stealthy.

So when something tackled you from the side, you yelped, totally caught off guard. You struggled until a firm hand grabbed your scruff, holding tight and lifting you a little. You whined and went still.

“Well, well, well,” Graves murmured, smirking down at you. “I’ll be damned.”

You lifted your upper lip to growl at him, hoping he’d take the hint and back off. Instead, he fearlessly wrapped his free hand around your muzzle.

“You’ve already bitten me before, sweet pea,” he said, looking over you again, awed and not at all scared. “Not gonna let you with bigger teeth.”

You stared at him, fear a cold wash down your spine. You realized with perfect clarity in that moment that not only had he put together exactly what you were, but he was never going to let you go.

Graves carried you back to your room, shutting the door behind the two of you before he released you. You skittered away, putting some distance between the two of you. “Go on, sweet pea. Show me.”

You were momentarily confused, ears twitching as you looked at him. But he didn’t move, didn’t step away.

“Don’t get shy on me now,” he teased, smirking like the bastard he was. “Already seen all of you before.”

Understanding dawned, and you briefly pinned your ears back. But if there was one thing you knew about Graves, you knew that he was stubborn.

So you shifted back.

“There you are.” He grinned, wide and satisfied and distinctly smug. “Quite a trick you got there, sweet pea.”

You crossed your arms over your chest, glowering at him. “Why did you grab me again?”

“Can’t let such a fascinating little thing run off now can I?” He finally took a step closer to you, gaze fixed on your face.

You clenched your jaw. “Sure you can, it’s easy.”

He chuckled, taking another step closer, until he was just outside your space. “Oh sweet pea, told you I’d be here for all your secrets, and I meant it.”

You swallowed, not sure how to react to that. He held all the power here, and you both knew it. But you didn’t want to yield, didn’t want to bare your neck to him. So you bared your teeth instead.

“Mm, that too,” he purred, not at all deterred. On the contrary, he reached for you with one hand, licking his lips.

You took a step back, eyeing him. “Do I get any say in this?”

“I’m not a monster,” he told you amicably, allowing you some space.

“No. You’ll just keep me here.”

He shrugged. “You know too much,” he said easily. “And knowing what you are? I’d be a fool not to use all advantages I can get, and I ain’t a fool.”

You puffed out a breath. “I think you overestimate how much I know.”

He smirked. “Perhaps.” He took a step back finally. “Tell you what, sweet pea. You behave and I’ll get you a nicer room to stay in.” He didn’t give you a chance to answer (or object), just turned and left, locking the door again.

You groaned softly and fell back on the cot. Well. Fuck. That had gone the opposite of how you’d wanted. Now not only were you stuck here, but Graves knew what you were.

Hopefully he wouldn’t try to do anything awful.

Graves visited you every day for the next several days. He never asked for anything. Just seemed to be enjoying the power he held over you. Sometimes the visits were short, mere minutes, more check ins than anything else. Sometimes he’d stay for longer, chatting, slowly getting to know you.

As you were getting to know him.

You didn’t pretend to understand his interest in you, but you didn’t exactly discourage him, either. You only snapped playfully at him. You didn’t try to kill him. You also didn’t spend more than a day or two feeling sorry for yourself and being sullen and mopey.

Coyotes were adaptable creatures. It’s how they’d become one of the most successful predators in North America.

So you adapted.

“Brought you a little somethin’.” Graves was in a particularly good mood tonight, eyes bright, smirk firmly in place.

“Oh?” You didn’t even bother to get up, staying seated with your back to the wall, book still in your lap. (He’d finally caved the fourth time you’d threatened to die of boredom.)

He crouched in front of you, holding out a bracelet. It was simple metal beads, though just from looking at it you guessed not all of them were so simple. He looked far too smug, putting you a little on edge.

“This has got a tracker in it,” he told you, letting it dangle from one finger, swinging gently and catching the light. “And a couple little surprises. Gimme your wrist.”

You huffed softly but held out one arm for him, watching him fasten it on you. “And what stops me from just taking it off?”

“One of the surprises.” He smirked, thumb rubbing the soft underside of your wrist, pressing briefly against your pulse. “You can test it, but I wouldn’t recommend it, sweet pea.”

Curiosity warred with caution, and caution won. You puffed out a breath. “Alright, so you can, presumably, track all the time I spend sitting here reading. Wow. Fascinating.”

He just grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way that was absolutely not endearing. At all. Not even a little. “Well, I was thinking you could come on a walk with me.”

“Seriously? Not yanking my chain?” You raised both eyebrows at him.

“Seriously.” He stood straight again, using his hold on you to tug you up with him. “C’mon. Lemme show you around properly.”

Curiosity won out over caution, this time. You followed him.

The base was larger than you’d initially guessed. Graves kept you close to his side as the two of you walked, which didn’t stop you from looking around. Several of his men saw the two of you, but none of them approached. Hm. Fine with you.

Graves probably enjoyed showing off the base a little too much, although you realized he was also showing you off with a hand on your lower back. Conniving man.

You could respect that. Especially if he was less of an ass.

“Wanna go explore?”

You side-eyed him at the offer, and especially at the grin he shot your way. “Eager to see if your little gift works as promised?” you drawled.

“Nah. You’re not a fool.” His eyes gleamed as he watched you.

You huffed softly, amused despite yourself. “Well, you’re not wrong.” Not giving him a chance to retort, you walked away. You heard his chuckle behind you, but he didn’t follow.

Exploring by yourself was… interesting. But not in the way you expected. The men looked at you, yes, but none of them approached you. One or two even stepped out of your way.

Very interesting. They were not exactly a pack, humans didn’t work that way, but they clearly had their own pecking order.

You made your way towards the fence, looking up at the guard posts. Considering the way the land stretched out flat before you for miles, the base sticking up like a sore thumb, you were both surprised and not. Only one actual road in and out of this place, and you didn’t bother going towards that gate.

Instead you started towards the nearest guard post, determined to get up the ladder and see the view.

“Uh, ma’am, you can’t go up there.”

You looked at the young man in front of you - not as tall as Graves, definitely younger, a little uncertain. Adorable. He looked more like a pup than a man.

“Graves told me to explore,” you drawled, dry as dust. “I’m exploring.”

“You still can’t go up there.” He pulled back his shoulders, trying to intimidate you. Aw. Cute. His radio crackled, and very faintly you could hear Graves on the other end. Just his voice, not what he said. But the soldier nodded once and stepped aside. “He said it’s okay.”

“Thanks.” You kept your tone dry and purposefully made noise going up the ladder. The guard on duty glanced at you but didn’t say a word, allowing you to take your fill of the view.

This area had been your home for a long time. Sure, not here exactly, but, well… You’d been wanting to expand your territory anyway, hadn’t you? This wasn’t a bad expansion. Especially if you could convince Graves to let you go hunting properly.

You could come to see this as home. In time.

Coyotes were adaptable. This would not break you.

Graves’ hand at your back didn’t even startle you this time. You’d heard him coming, after all.

You’d ask him about hunting some other time. No need to push too fast, after all.

You had time to win him over.

–

Graves was pleased - the tracker worked exactly as it should. And you behaved perfectly, exploring, poking your nose places. All without even trying to leave.

He’d gentle you to him yet.

Eventually, he’d be able to move you into his room. But not yet.

For now, he contented himself with dinner with you, watching your barely restrained curiosity. He didn’t quite chuckle to see that curiosity mirrored in his men, but it was a close call.

"Enjoying, sweet pea?"

You scoffed softly. "Yes, well, meals in my room were rather dull." Your teeth flashed in a grin.

He chuckled. “Don’t have to do that anymore,” he offered, watching you. “Long as you behave.”

You tipped your head, and he could see the predatory gleam in your eyes. But you nodded once.

He’d definitely be keeping an eye on you. Not that he minded - you were a pretty little thing, after all.

Maybe he’d get his hands on you after dinner.

–

Days passed faster now that you were no longer confined to your room. Graves let you have free roam of the compound - nothing was off limits to you.

Which is how you stumbled upon a training exercise.

Graves beckoned you to join him without looking away, arms crossed loosely over his chest as he watched two teams with paintball guns attempting to get each other out.

"Training?" You guessed, stopping next to him, observing the game closely.

"Mmhm." He didn't look at you but his hand settled just above your ass, thumb stroking gently. "Paintballs only."

You nodded. "Just trying to tag each other out?"

"Timed game," Graves told you with a flicker of a grin. "Team with most people left standing when the timer goes off wins. My boys are competitive."

You hummed acknowledgement, watching them dart around. It looked like this entire section of compound was open - the terrain and buildings were all being used in the game.

When the timer went off, Graves took you with him to see who had won. You only half paid attention, admittedly, busy examining the ones who'd been counted as out.

"Looks like somethin's on your mind, sweet pea." Graves smirked down at you.

"Let me play."

He blinked. That was clearly not what he'd expected you to say. "What?"

"Let me play." You bounced a little on your toes. "It looks like fun."

Graves blinked, giving you a quick once-over over. You were smaller than most of his men, and untrained. But he knew your secret. "Alright, but don't cry when you get out first."

You grinned, showing far too many teeth. "No tears," you promised, low and silky.

It took no time to get outfitted with a vest and a paintball gun. Graves even graciously gave you a one minute head start.

You darted away, finding a good hiding spot. Your aim was not the best, and you usually did your hunting with your teeth, but you'd make do.

A timer went off, signaling the rest of the teams were being released onto the playing field. Graves hadn't actually told you which team you were on…

Guess that meant everyone was fair game.

Your teeth showed in a grin as anticipation raced through your veins. Finally. A hunt.

The first pair you spotted were clearly on the same team and patrolling together. You waited until they passed and got both of them in the back. (One shot went totally wild, but you elected to ignore that.)

They both looked surprised to see who had shot them but moved off the playing field.

After that, you slunk away to another good hiding spot. This time you managed to get four - another patrol of two, then a single man a few minutes later, and another single man passing close enough for you to get him.

Your smaller stature served you well, letting you get into smaller spaces than they could. And you knew how to hunt, to wait, to be still and focused.

By the time you'd gotten your tenth "kill", your heart was thrumming, easy confidence in your eyes.

But you paused when a PA system flicked on with a crackle.

"Change of plans, boys," Graves called. "First man to take her down gets a prize."

Fuck! That wasn't the game! But you had to admit… the change thrilled you.

Teeth showing in a grin again, you abandoned your current spot to climb. You needed to get up higher to see what you were up against.

Roughly ten men remained, some having been knocked out by other teams. You could briefly see them as they split up.

Good. Make this a real challenge.

But you had one advantage they didn't. You could hear them coming.

That was your only saving grace as one tried to corner you. You could hear him coming, and escaped around a corner before climbing to get away.

He swore extensively when you managed to shoot him.

Two of them got smart and tried to flush you towards a third. It might have worked, except that you spotted him up ahead, and threw yourself through a bush to get away.

Unfortunately, that only worked until one of them got physical, tackling you to the ground. Your yelp was more surprise than pain, and you had to resist the urge to bite him.

Graves would not be pleased if you made his men bleed.

"Caught, sir." The man who'd tackled you hauled you to your feet, and you narrowed your eyes at him. You were no misbehaving pup to scruff!

Graves sauntered up to the two of you, smirking. "Well, well, well," he hummed. "You did better than I expected."

You smirked right back at him. "Next time, you will not be so surprised."

He laughed once, short and amused. "True," he agreed. "Now, for your reward."

The man released you and you turned to see who was left. Only eight. (Either you'd miscounted or there had been a bit of foul play among the remaining players.) You memorized their faces.

You'd take them out first next time.

You didn't bother to pay attention until Graves had a hand at your back, guiding you forward again. The training seemed to be over, as most everyone was putting away their gear.

Graves didn't lead you back to put away your gear, though. He handed off the paintball gun to one of his men and pushed you back towards your room.

Fully aware of what you were starting, you bit him for being pushy, growling low in your throat. He just swore, hands clenching around you, and bit you back.

Honestly, you were a little amazed the two of you made it back to your room before the clothes came off.

–

Graves had never expected you to do so well at paintball, but you did. You were light and fast, hard to hit when you were on the run, and clever. Not trained, but clever.

He threw you in the paintball games as often as he could, now, just for the joy of watching you.

And the fun afterwards.

Finally, though, they got called out. He debated bringing you with, but… there was no easy way to explain your presence, and he wouldn't risk your life.

You'd just have to stay and be good.

You took the news better than expected, honestly. Only a little growling and biting. (And Graves really, really didn't mind the biting.)

But then you did something very unexpected.

You saw him off.

You stopped in front of the group, eyeing them all. Graves noted with amusement how they all straightened - you'd gained a lot of respect by joining in training.

"I expect I'll see you all again soon." The look you leveled at all of them made it clear that was an order, not a suggestion.

The various noises of assent just made Graves hide his grin.

You nodded once and looked at him, one eyebrow raised. But you did lower your voice, at least. "Bring me back something sweet." You winked and walked away.

From this angle, it was easy to see that you were a predator, stalking through his base as confidently as if it were your own.

Graves tried hard not to think about that too much, because if he did, he'd have to haul you back and fuck you on the plane.

–

You kept yourself busy while Graves was gone. There were still people on base, so you weren’t alone. You thought briefly about going hunting, but you didn’t want to distract Graves at a potentially vital moment.

So, you kept yourself entertained by poking your nose into every nook and cranny you could find.

That lasted you a few days. Watching several movies lasted you a few more. And finally, just when you thought you’d risk giving Graves a heart attack just to go for a proper run, they returned.

You did not rush them as they all disembarked the plane, standing back with your arms crossed over your chest. Some of them were injured as they got off the plane, but they were all back. You counted. Twice.

And then there was Graves, directing his men, making sure everything got done. You met his gaze across the distance and couldn’t help but smile, just a little.

There was no sense of challenge in meeting his gaze. No fear. Just the visual confirmation that this asshole hadn’t gotten himself killed.

He finished up quickly and made his way over to you, swagger uninterrupted, gaze fixed on you.

He surprised you, though, grabbing your hand instead of your wrist to tow you back to his room. His, not yours. Not that he gave you time to look at much before he was kissing you like he was affirming he was alive.

It wasn’t until much later, after you both lay sated and warm, that he grunted like he’d just remembered something.

“Brought you back something,” he murmured, moving away from you and ignoring your displeased huff. Not bothering to put any clothes on yet (something you very much agreed with), he stepped over to his duffel bag and bent over to grab a box. He smirked at you over his shoulder. “Close your eyes.”

“What?” You blinked at him, caught off guard.

“You heard me, sweet pea.”

You rolled your eyes pointedly and then closed them. This was silly. But you were willing to play along, for now.

To your surprise, you heard the box open, heard Graves step closer. “Smell,” he ordered softly.

You sniffed, head tipping in curiosity. You could smell the sugar, absolutely, and something floral. You huffed softly, amused at the little game.

“Sugared flowers?” you guessed without opening your eyes, leaning a little closer.

Graves chuckled softly, and the box rustled as he did something. “Open,” he murmured.

You briefly made a face but you did as he asked. He put a single piece on your tongue, fingers brushing your skin as he retreated. The flavor was more intense than the smell, and you hummed in satisfaction, eyes fluttering open again. Graves licked his lips, watching you as he pulled another piece of sugared flower from the box. This time, you accepted it and sucked on his fingers, swiping your tongue over the tips to get every last bit of sugar from his skin. The scent of his arousal quickly overpowered the florals, and the box dropped to the pillow next to you.

Somehow you both missed dinner.

–

Graves had been considering how to tell his men about his coyote. Oh, sure, they all knew that you were his, but they didn’t know you were a shifter. And that could become dangerous, if he didn’t tell them. In case of emergency.

(The fact that he wanted to tell them had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that he wanted to show you off more. Not at all.)

His timeline got pushed when you let yourself into his office, near bouncing on your toes.

“I’m going hunting,” you said before he could ask.

Graves leaned back slowly, giving you a thorough once-over. “Need to borrow some gear?” he asked.

You rolled your eyes, clearly exasperated. “No. I’m going hunting.” You showed your teeth to emphasize your point.

Ah. That kind of hunting. “Alright,” he agreed slowly. He knew you still had the tracking bracelet on, and he had to admit some curiosity to see how well it held up after you shifted. “I’ll make sure nobody shoots at you.”

“Again,” you drawled.

Graves didn’t feel bad about that, because nobody had known about shifters at that point. Besides, it was hard to feel bad about the thing that had brought you to him. But he would make damn sure you weren’t injured under his watch. “You shifting here or out there?”

“Here,” you answered after a moment. “Easier to not deal with clothes.”

Graves nodded again, still watching you. “Good hunting, then, sweet pea.”

Your teeth flashed again as you grinned. “I’ll bring you back something good.” And you were gone, bouncing back out of his office before he had a chance to properly respond to your words.

You’d promised to bring him something back.

This was something new, and Graves was going to find out what that was about.

His boys didn’t take the news about you being a shifter quietly, but they took it. He could see they didn’t believe him yet, but they would.

And they all knew he was a man of his word. So they knew he was not exaggerating when he threatened to kill anyone who breathed a word of this to anyone else.

But Graves trusted his boys. He trusted they wouldn’t betray him. Or you, by extension.

The day was mostly gone by the time he heard the commotion. The call to open the gate came first, then a chorus of whistling and clapping. That was enough to pull him outside to see what the commotion was all about.

A coyote was dragging a whole ass white tail deer into the compound, jaw clamped tight around its throat. Graves felt his eyebrows shoot up in surprise - the deer was considerably bigger than the coyote, but the coyote didn’t even slow down.

Until you stopped in front of him, depositing your trophy and looking up at him.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. Both the deer and you. “Dragged it back by yourself?”

You huffed at him, briefly showing your teeth.

“Course you did,” Graves chuckled, crouching in front of you. He debated for a moment before he held out one hand. It took only a moment before you shoved your head under his hand, and he stroked your fur, silently thrilled. His coyote. “Gonna let one of my guys fix it up?”

You stepped back and lifted your lip in a silent warning.

Graves chuckled, holding his hands up in a pacifying manner. “Alright, sweet pea. You just let me know what you need, then, and I’ll let you handle it.”

Mollified, you grabbed the deer again and started dragging it away from the buildings, which he appreciated. He watched you maneuver your kill around without assistance, admiring your strength and determination. His men all kept out of the way, though he did hear a few compliment you on your kill.

This was something he could get used to.

–

You honestly hadn’t realized how much you missed shifting until you could, anywhere you wanted. The men got used to you quickly, opening the gate for you to come and go as you pleased. An unofficial new game had popped up - try to pet the coyote. You took great joy in evading their hands and occasional playful tackles. Honestly, it was fun.

You didn’t expect to be approached by one of the men on his own while you were sitting outside. You blinked at him, head tipping to one side.

“Do you have a moment?” He shuffled his feet a little, scent caught between shame and embarrassment.

“Have a seat.” You turned a little to face him fully, on high alert now.

He sat next to you, giving you a moment to find his name patch. Roberts. His sandy hair was nearly the same color as Graves’, though he was shorter and leaner. Roberts sighed softly before he looked at you, meeting your gaze. “I wanted to apologize.”

You blinked, caught totally by surprise. “For?”

“I shot you.” He made a vague motion towards your back. “I mean, I didn’t know it was you, I just shot at a coyote. But still.”

You shook your head with a little smile. “Don’t fuss over it,” you advised. “It’s long in the past now, and I healed.”

He frowned at you, disapproving. “Anyway, a few of us were out last week, and, well…” He rolled up his sleeve to show off a still healing tattoo. A coyote in front of the Shadows symbol.

He had simultaneously claimed you as pack, and put himself under you. And he’d sort of spoken for the rest of the Shadows, too.

At least, your coyote brain was trying to convince you that you now had the biggest pack ever to protect and provide for.

You grabbed him, pulling him into a hug and rubbing your cheek over the top of his head. He held himself stiff for a few long moments before he awkwardly patted your back, looking absolutely bewildered when you pulled back.

“Thank you,” you murmured, breathing in deep. “That’s… it means more than you know.”

He smiled tentatively and nodded. “Sure,” he mumbled. “So, not mad at me?”

You huffed a little laugh. “Not at all.” You shook your head, gaze drifting down to the tattoo again. “May I?”

He held his arm out for inspection, and you looked over the line work and the details of it. That was definitely a coyote, and definitely the insignia of the group.

Well. Your pack had just grown. Quite a bit.

“I love it.” You sat back and smiled.

He puffed up a little, clearly proud of himself. “Did the line art myself.”

“Good to know.” You smiled slowly. “I might ask you to do something for me at some point, then.”

“Would be my pleasure.” He puffed up even more, resembling a fluffy rooster. “Anyway. Just wanted to show you that.”

“Appreciated.” You nodded to him and watched him go, still puffed up with pride. You, on the other hand, were wrestling with your instincts to provide for your pack.

Dammit. Fine. You’d make a couple loaves of bread, that would satisfy the itch for now.

The bread was a huge success. As were the next four loaves. (Graves grumbled about sending a few men for supplies, because apparently the demand for fresh bread was quite high.)

You didn’t expect to see more of the tattoos. But you did.

Over the next two weeks, nearly a dozen of them approached you, usually individually, to show off their own tats. Most of them got the tat on a forearm, but one got his on his back, and one got it on his calf. You couldn’t help it - you hugged every one of them.

You never would have predicted this would happen when you’d been shot those months ago.

“You’re not tired of that damn thing yet?” Graves asked, clearly grumbling, after the most recent soldier had jogged off again.

“The tat?” You grinned, looking back down at your bread dough. “Nah. I like it. Might get one for myself.”

Graves grumbled wordlessly, coming up behind you to wrap his arms around your middle, teeth digging into the back of your shoulder through your shirt. “Won’t find one on me.”

“No?” Your breath hitched at the brief pain of his bite. This had become a habit between the two of you. “Too bad. I was thinking of offering an exchange.”

“Exchange?” His head peeked up over your shoulder. “Of what?”

You hid your smile, amused. “Marks,” you said blandly. “Thought you might like the idea of me wearing something of yours on my skin.”

The quickly-stifled groan against the skin of your neck proved you right, and your smile turned victorious. “Not that,” he mumbled, lips moving against your skin, making you shiver. “Something unique.”

You hummed softly, poking the dough one more time before tossing a towel over it to let it rise. “Well…” You trailed off, taunting, leaving the bait for him to take or ignore.

He, of course, took the bait. “Well?”

“Family tradition is a bite,” you mused, pushing your hips back into his. “But I don’t think that will work here. Don’t think you want a big scar.” You smirked teasingly back at him.

“Could just get it tattooed,” he pointed out, hands settling on your hips, pulling you back into him.

“Get a tattoo of your teeth marks?” You could feel the way he responded to that, an involuntary little jerk of his hips. “I could wear that, easy.”

“Yeah? Wanna show off that you’re mine?” Graves tightened his grip on you, scraping his teeth lightly on the skin behind your ear.

“More like have a permanent reminder,” you mumbled, tipping your head. “Pack already knows I’m yours, and you’re mine.”

He bit down on the back of your neck with a groan, hands nearly fumbling as he rucked your clothes up and out of the way to get at your skin.

It took only a few days to make the arrangements for your corresponding marks.

–

Graves normally didn't mind Shepherd. He was a demanding ass sometimes, but overall not bad.

Until right this very moment.

"Didn't catch that, sir," Graves ground out, working hard to keep his temper. He didn't want to go flying off the handle, not now.

"Don't play coy with me, son," Shepherd said, firm and a little condescending. "I know you've got a shifter there."

"Don't know what you mean." Graves dug the nails on his free hand into his skin, the pain helping ground him and keep him from doing something monumentally stupid.

"No? Then the coyote shifter isn't yours? She's a pretty thing, figured she's your type." The smirk in the general's voice was clear.

Graves didn't respond, torn between demanding to know how Shepherd knew about her, and denying her existence.

"I'll have a couple of my men there in a few days to bring her in."

"Bring her in?" Graves repeated, sharp and serious.

"I'm taking her. She could be a valuable asset to me."

Graves hit his limit. That? Was unacceptable. "No, sir."

Shepherd paused for a moment. "No?"

"No. She stays here." Graves knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he handed you over to Shepherd, you’d never be seen again. The general was a merciless man. He’d break you, or dissect you. Or possibly both. And that was something Graves found he couldn’t live with.

Shepherd let the silence grow between them before he snorted softly. "You sure you wanna do this?" He asked, soft and threatening.

“I am.” Graves clenched his jaw. He was willing to let a lot of shit slide, hell, he’d done a lot of shit himself. But this? No. He’d never admit it aloud, but he was too attached to you.

He’d never hand you over to anyone. But especially not Shepherd.

“This won’t end well for you,” Shepherd promised. And hung up, not giving Graves a chance to respond.

Graves breathed out slowly, putting his phone down. He knew Shepherd, knew the general wouldn’t give up so easily.

This would come down to a fight. One he was determined not to lose.

Graves started planning.

–

When Graves first insisted you learn how to use a gun, you rolled your eyes. Why did you need a gun? You had teeth. But he didn’t let up, going so far as to ask while balls deep inside of you, holding you still under his weight and refusing to move until you gave in. That earned him a few days of nasty looks.

But you did learn.

The worst part about it for you was the noise. Even with the headset to muffle the sound, it was jarring and took some getting used to.

You noticed the changes on base slowly. The guards seemed more alert, constantly watching the horizon. One of the Shadows was always nearby, though they always made it seem coincidental. Graves held you tighter at night (he’d moved you into his room shortly after you both got tattooed).

But any time you tried to ask, Graves evaded. Stricter training. Upcoming op. Refreshing their skills. All were excuses he tried.

You didn’t quite believe any of them.

But he clearly didn’t want you to know, so you didn’t push. You just grew restless, often walking the perimeter of base.

He was keeping something from you and you wanted to know what.

None of the Shadows would tell you. Apparently Graves had given them orders not to, because when you cornered one younger man he outright panicked, gaze darting all over the place, hands shaking. You left him with a snarl of discontent, stalking away.

Not that you had to wait long, after all.

A shout went up from one of the guards that night, well after dark. You could hear radios going off around base too, just caught a few words: vehicles, armed, Shepherd.

You had very little idea what it meant, but the way the rec room emptied hinted that it was nothing good.

“Come with me,” Graves demanded, hand fastening around your wrist.

“What–?” You didn’t get a chance to finish your question as he pulled you along with him. He got a vest on you first, then handed you the rifle you’d been practicing with and ammo.

“Stay with me, sweet pea,” he ordered. And it was very clearly an order. “Okay?”

“Okay,” you agreed, confused but rapidly realizing how serious this was.

Graves got his own gear on with practiced motions, clicking his comm. “How far out?” he asked briskly. You could just hear the voice on the other end, but not the words. “Copy.” Graves started moving, and you stuck close to him.

Outside the building was nearly unrecognizable. Shadows were running around prepping, putting up barriers and hides. Graves strode through the organized chaos, right up to the gate.

You could see vehicles approaching, four of them. The rumble of engines grew steadily louder, though the gates remained closed.

The vehicles stopped, people piling out of them, guns down for the moment. You didn’t recognize any of them. Not that that was truly a surprise - you knew few humans.

“Graves,” one of them called in the kind of tone of one used to being obeyed. “Last chance to hand her over.”

Graves clenched his jaw and didn’t look back at you, though you realized with sudden startling clarity that this was all about you. Because somehow that man out there knew you were a shifter.

And Graves had apparently refused to hand you over.

It was an interesting feeling, warmth suffusing you from Graves’s actions while dread tried to remind you of how very bad this could be.

“Not a chance, Shepherd,” Graves called back. He nudged you back just a little, hands gripping his gun securely.

“I’m sorry it came to this. If you hadn’t been such a fool…” Shepherd trailed off.

You only had a moment to wonder what he meant before the shooting started. You ducked back behind cover, Graves right behind you.

“I want them all dead,” Graves said into his comm, eyes utterly cold. You realized with a start you hadn’t seen him like this since the very beginning of your stay here. “Let’s get it done.”

You were not ashamed to admit that you were not much help. You didn’t have the experience of these men, and this was not a fun game of paintballs. Besides, your movements were restricted to keeping with Graves.

But you did surprise yourself when you spotted one attempting to flank around the barriers, and you shot him. He fell silently.

For a bare moment, you wondered if you should feel bad. Not that you did - you’d killed your fair share of prey before. But prey had never been human before.

Then again, humans had never attempted to infiltrate your territory nor threatened your pack before. Not like this.

“Good shot, sweet pea,” Graves said, speaking up over the din around you.

You had just enough time to see his faint grin before the world exploded around you.

You blinked at the dirt under you, ears ringing, head aching. Hands grabbed you and you growled, disoriented, at least until you heard the familiar sounds of your pack shouting. Pulling you back, away from danger. Presumably. Your hearing was still fucked, and you couldn’t smell anything through the gunpowder and smoke.

One of them fell with a shout, something you just barely heard. You stumbled as his support vanished, falling to your knees. The other Shadow tried to haul you to your feet before he was shoved away, much harsher hands grabbing you. You yelped, the sound too canine to come from a human throat, still disoriented enough that you couldn’t properly resist.

You almost got your feet under you, except a harsh yank from one of the two pulling you along sent you right back off-balance. You swore, clumsily grabbing for something to hold on to. Your hearing was coming back, slower than you liked but enough.

They were dragging you off base. To Shepherd.

If they got you that far, Graves wouldn’t be able to get you back.

You twisted hard, managing to get a hand on one of them. He tried to yank you off balance, muttering curses.

But you took advantage of the bare skin of his wrist that you could see and lunged, jaw locking and teeth clamping into his skin. The hot taste of blood filled your mouth but you refused to let go, even as one of them hit you in the back, hard.

It wasn’t until you heard two gunshots, closer than expected, followed by the dead weight of the soldier dragging both of you down that you released your grip. You spat blood out of your mouth, swaying a little.

“Sweet pea!” Graves hit the ground next to you, one hand immediately going to your cheek. Blood matted down his hair on his right side, and he seemed to be favoring that side in general, right arm kept tight to his side. Shadows surrounded the two of you, keeping Shepherd’s forces back.

“I’m okay,” you managed, still a little dizzy. But you latched on to Graves’s vest, because he was right there and comforting.

Graves let out a relieved sigh, giving you a quick visual once-over. His thumb smeared the blood on your chin.

“Not mine,” you reminded him, paying no mind to the two bodies around you now.

He nodded, tugging you closer. “Marry me.”

“What?” You blinked at him rapidly, sure you’d misheard him.

But he grinned, bright and a little mischievous, totally disregarding the active battlefield you were on. “Marry me.”

“Let’s finish this first,” you pointed out, lips twitching in response to his humor. “Kill Shepherd first. And then I expect a proper proposal.”

“Anything you want.” He pressed a hard kiss to your lips, uncaring of the blood, before he got to his feet. You followed him, swaying only for a moment before you caught your balance.

Shepherd’s force had been decimated, only four remaining, huddled behind the protection of the armored vehicles. One tried to put down his weapon and back away from the fight, only for Shepherd to turn on him and shoot him.

“You can end this,” Graves yelled to Shepherd in open mockery of Shepherd’s earlier offer. “Nobody else has to die.”

Shepherd didn’t respond, gaze flitting between the Shadows and Graves and you. “You really think you can get away with this?” he asked, voice absolutely venomous. “I’m a general!”

“Shouldn’t have tried to take my coyote, then.” Graves backed up, gently pushing you back as well. You were confused for a moment, trying to figure out what the plan was. There was no way he was just letting Shepherd live, was he?

The Shadows all swarmed back behind cover, still keeping you surrounded. Something rolled under the vehicle Shepherd hid behind, and the whole thing blew up. You ducked a little, reflexively, before popping back up with wide eyes to watch. The other vehicles were also quickly destroyed.

You followed Graves over to check the bodies. All dead. You tipped your head, looking down at Shepherd, silently wondering if he’d really been willing to die to get his hands on you.

“Let’s clean up this mess,” Graves ordered, and Shadows immediately jumped to obey. But grief hid in his eyes as he looked at his base. You leaned into him, silently offering support. You’d help count the losses.

“You still owe me a proper answer,” Graves murmured, his hand settling low on your back.

“You still owe me a proper proposal.” You smiled, leaning harder into him. “Even though you’re already mine.”

He huffed. “Bold of you,” he mumbled, head dipping closer to yours. “I like it.”

“You always have.” You smirked, tipping your head enough to bare your teeth at him and watch as his pupils dilated.

“Trouble.” But Graves just grinned at you.

–

The base was a mess. Graves helped as much as he could, contacted families and next of kin as necessary.

The general was disposed of quietly, their trail covered. His Shadows wouldn’t face the fallout of this.

You held up better than Graves had expected, supporting his men when needed, doing whatever you could to help with cleanup and disposal. Honestly, he was impressed.

He also hadn’t forgotten his promise to you.

Once he was sure the danger had passed, he made some arrangements. Flight plans, necessary permits, a few phone calls. Everything was set and arranged exactly how he wanted.

He had basically everything. The last thing was something he needed to pick up himself. He snuck out while you were hunting, knowing you’d more than likely pout but he’d be back soon.

“How do you feel about goin’ on a little trip, sweet pea?” He asked a few days later, so as not to arouse suspicion.

You shrugged from your place in his lap, idly watching a few of the younger Shadows playing a video game. “Never done much of it,” you admitted easily. “Never had a chance.”

He hummed, one hand squeezing your hip gently. “You interested?”

“Sure, if you want.” You shot him a little smile over your shoulder, relaxed still. That told Graves everything he needed to know.

He didn’t quite pick out your clothes for you, but he did insist on a few things. Like something nice to wear. (And if he snuck in a brand new set of lingerie for you, well, he liked seeing you in pretty things.)

You didn’t like the plane trip, that much was obvious. Tension pulled your shoulders tight, and it took you a long time to get comfortable and settle down. Graves kept one hand on you to help where he could, and was finally rewarded when you fell asleep against his shoulder.

Watching your awe looking around somewhere new warmed him in unexpected ways. (Maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised. He did ask you to marry him, after all.)

He gave the two of you three days to adjust to the timezone change and do some touristy things. Not that he much cared - he’d been all over the world by now. People were people everywhere. But giving you this experience? So much better.

You eyed the Eiffel tower with distrust when he led you to it, and he couldn’t help but smirk.

“Don’t worry, sweet pea,” he drawled, extra sweet. “You’ll be fine.”

You immediately scowled at him (just as he’d hoped) and stalked up to the lifts. He followed a little more leisurely, knowing everything was taken care of.

He caught your expression as the sun set, the wind whipping against the two of you, the city sounds all but gone. You looked awed again, hands gripping the railing as you looked over the city. Graves smiled, pleased with his timing, and settled next to you for a minute, just letting you look your fill. The softer light on your skin filled him with a kind of warmth he’d never thought he’d experience.

“Hey, sweet pea. Got a question for you.”

You turned to him and blinked, totally unsuspecting. Graves took a knee in front of you, pulling the ring box out of his pocket, and your eyes went wide, one hand flying up to your mouth.

“I promised I’d do this proper,” he murmured, looking up at you, blind to everything else. (There were at least two of his Shadows in the crowd, you were safe, that’s all he cared about.) “Never thought I’d be here, but you’ve been a surprise from the beginning. I want you to keep surprising me, sweet pea. Will you marry me?”

You nodded and then huffed a soft almost-laugh. “Yes,” you managed, hands settling on his cheeks before you kissed him. The crowd around the two of you clapped, a few whistles coming from his boys. Graves grinned at you, honestly ridiculously happy, and slid the ring on your finger.

Standing there with you in his arms, the stars slowly emerging even as his boys put on a hell of a fireworks show for the two of them, Graves knew one thing for certain.

He’d gentled his coyote, but you’d gentled him every bit as much. And he was just fine with that.

#shifter au #phillip graves x reader #phillip graves x you #f!reader

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lovers-tucked-into-a-quiet-cafe · 7 months

Text

Chapter 2 [IKYLHT]

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Wrapping the last of the bandage around your bicep, you take the water bottle from where it’s propped on the hood of the car and attempt to rinse off the dried blood that’s beginning to bind itself to your skin. You haven’t checked, but your hand definitely feels dislocated, and until Soap’s got the opportunity to set it back into place, you’re resigned to not touching it. Your leaning spot between the two headlights doesn’t provide much light for seeing the gunshot wound, but it does allow you to somewhat comfortably watch Soap push Hassan to the ground.

“Y'all got a clear picture?”

“Crystal.”

“All set.”

“Alright, we are live folks.” Clapping his hands together as he looks around, Graves calls out.

“Up here, Gun.”

He doesn’t get a response, and you watch as his eyes skin over your barely visible silhouette.

“Rabbit!”

Pushing yourself off the grill and taking a few steps forward, you remain out of the field of the headlights, still much more noticeable now.

He spares you a glance and a nod before turning back to Hassan.

You move to stand between Soap and Alejandro, watching his smirk fall as he fails to provoke Graves.

“I have no doubt you’d take pleasure in torturing me.”

Graves laughs, face tight in decently concealed frustration as he glances over to you.

“Oh I’d enjoy it. Not as much as she would, though.”

Your gaze snaps to Graves, his eyes sparkling with a sort of mirth you’re not entirely fond of at the moment.

You have just enough time to remove your grip on your bicep with a poorly concealed grimace, folding your hand behind your back and hoping Hassan wouldn’t notice the few fingers a little less straight then they’d left as.

He doesn’t get the chance, moving to turn his head in your direction but stopped by Soap’s firm tone.

“Who’d you get the American missiles from?”

The yapping of the coyotes threatens to put a smile on your face, but your gut still churns at Graves’ earlier statement.

What the fuck was that?

It was just a scare tactic. It had to be. He was trying to get under Hassan’s skin- piss him off with the prospect of being bested, and by an American woman, no less. Nothing more, nothing less. Right?

You can’t help but feel it was personal, though. Something about the tone in which he said it, the way his eyes raked over your face as you concealed your shock.

What if it was a dig at me, though? Was he making a statement or looking for confirmation? Had my reaction been the answer he needed?

You spend longer than you realize contemplating the meaning behind his words, attention only directed when Shepherd’s voice blares over the small speaker.

“I want this bastard in permanent custody or looking up at the goddamn grass.”

“General, killing Hassan is an act of war, keeping him is illegal. Right now, he is too hot to hold.”

“Tell me you’re getting something actionable, Laswell.”

“Working on it. Stand by.”

You don’t miss the way Graves glances towards you once more before rounding on Hassan again.

“I’ll ask one last time. Where are the missiles headed?”

Hassan scoffs, turning his head towards the camera and avoiding Graves’ glare entirely.

“Fine then. Go ahead, Rabbit.”

Darting your eyes to his, you glance at the soldiers around you before laughing nervously.

“Uh… come again, sir?”

“This is your specialty, Rabbit. We need answers. You know how to get them.”

Your eyes scan the faces around you a second time. Soap looks about as confused as you imagine you do, Ghost’s expression completely obscured by the mask.

“I can’t interrogate him here, Graves. That’d be a war crime, I could be court-martialed for that.”

“Hasn’t stopped you before, has it, Victoria?”

You don’t realize you’re lunging until you feel Soap’s hands on your shoulders, holding you back and blocking your view of Graves.

“How the fuck-”

“Am I wrong, Rabbit? All I’m asking is that you do what comes naturally and beat the answers out of this prick-”

“That’s enough, Graves.” Laswell’s voice filters through the speaker.

You barely notice Soap’s quiet words trying to calm you down, too busy watching Graves move towards the screen and attempt to speak to Shepherd directly.

“Actual, let me finish this.”

“There is nothing I would like more. But Laswell’s right. Without proof we need to turn him loose. See where he leads us.”

“He’s right here. You can’t be serious.” Still in Soap’s grasp, you shake your head at his words with a frown, murmuring a quiet “We can’t, Johnny.”

“I’m afraid I am, son.”

You detach yourself from Soap’s grasp and move to guard Hassan across from Ghost, grabbing the scratchy cloth and waiting for the go-ahead to shove him back into the jeep.

The cuffed man turns, locking eyes with you before smugly smiling.

“Smart girl.”

You break the eye contact with a growl.

“Shut the fuck up.”

The bag is over his head before you’re given the order, Alejandro pulling him up as Ghost slips the phone back into Hassan’s pocket.

Huffing out, you make your way back to the screen.

“Couldn’t have spoken up a little sooner, Laswell?”

You cut off her response, slamming the laptop closed with a scoff.

Beside you, the masked man looks at you, simply observing. It doesn’t ease your nerves.

Eyes closed, you take a deep breath out, screwing your eyes shut as Soap pops two of your carpal bones back in place.

“I know, Bun, I’m sorry. Hand’s done. Fingers won’t hurt so bad.”

Letting out a chuckle, you focus on the way his hands hold yours before he bends a finger, yanking it quickly and apologizing quietly.

Once he’s done, he rubs a soothing hand over your back and taps his boot against yours. It’s rare you get a moment to breathe when out on the field, so you savor the light kiss he presses to the crown of your head once everyone’s back has turned.

“Alright. Up and at ‘em, Bunny. We’ll be sure to ice it once we’re back at base.”

Patting the small of your back, he prompts you to climb the ladder first, trailing closely behind and watching to make sure he could catch you if you fell. It’s never happened before, but that fact won’t stop this little routine anytime soon.

When you reach the top, Ghost extends a hand that you accept appreciatively, and Soap rests his on the bottom of your thigh to steady you.

You appreciated the cool breeze of the rooftop overlooking the humid city, or at least you did, until Ghost’s words have your hands going clammy.

“What was that with Graves and Laswell?”

“I’m sorry?”

He doesn’t respond, eyes narrowing.

“Come on, Ghost. We both know Hassan was right. I have orders to interrogate enemy POWs, which he most definitely wasn’t. I can’t get around that, even when I want to.”

His glare remains as you watch him digest your words. You can’t entirely tell if he’s satisfied with your answer.

“That’s not what I was asking.”

Your brows furrow as your temper slowly worsens.

“What were you asking then?”

His eyes glance towards Soap who stands at the edge of the roof, offering his hand and helping the rest of the team up.

“You’ve worked with Graves before, Victoria?”

“That’s not my fucking name.”

You watch his eyes, the way they shift into something you can’t quite read.

“Laswell?”

Face dropping, you push down your desire to scoff in Ghost’s face. Your words are clipped.

“Am I the one being fucking interrogated now?”

Done with the conversation, you walk to the edge of the roof opposite the ladder. It’s only a few moments before the group joins together as one to discuss capturing El Sin Nombre.

Your mood is still sour, but you take the team’s banter as a chance to get level headed again.

“I’m just saying… one house shouldn’t be a problem.”

“We need Sin Nombre alive.”

“Well… then we need to meet him.”

“How?”

“Give ‘em what they want. Intel. They wanna know who’s here. Let’s tell ‘em.”

“In person?”

“Correcto. Get one of us inside, find the boss, roll him up.”

Rejoining the group, you lower the binoculars and finally speak up.

“I’ll go. I know Spanish, I can listen in on background chatter. Specialized in interrogation, might be able to gather some intel while I’m being questioned. It’s perfect.”

Alejandro’s face morphs into one of slight shock for only a moment before he nods firmly.

“Alright. Rabbit, when you go in-”

“No.”

You turn with an incredulous grimace.

“Excuse me?”

“Negative, Gun. You’re not going.”

Your brain lags in its attempt to force your mouth to move, half paralyzed in shock.

“That makes no goddamn sense, Ghost. I meet all the criteria-”

“Which is exactly why you’re not going. That’s an order, Gun.”

Eyes narrowing, you audibly scoff.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

“Fine. Have fun trying to keep the mask on in there, Fantasma.”

Arms crossed, you turn your cheek with a sneer.

“I’ll do it.”

Snapping your head to face Johnny, your breath hitches and knocks the air out of your lungs.

“You go in there and they’ll kill you, hermano.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Your body finally catches up to your brain and you protest with your voice raised.

“No you will not! John!”

He clamps a hand over your shoulder.

“Bunny. We came here to stop a missile, let’s stop it. I’ll offer intel for a meet with Sin Nombre. And if he’s there, we pounce. End of story.”

“Johnny-“

He gives you a look that snaps your jaw shut without your brain's permission.

It bothers you, how easily you give into his glare despite the fact that he’s in no place to be giving you orders. He knows you’ll give in, because it’s Johnny, and you trust his judgment wholeheartedly. Still, it doesn’t do anything to quell the sudden palpitations of your heart and the flashes of anxious heat suddenly overtaking your body.

“Orale- Tienes huevos, cabron. You make it in, you’ll need eyes and ears. I’ll go too.”

“I’ll take overwatch. Shadow circles the target in a helo.”

“Roger that. They are going to want proof. Show ‘em this. Call me when you need me.” He gives Soap a fist bump and a pat to the shoulder. “Alright, let’s gear up and get after it.”

Walking towards the ladder, you watch Graves slide down. Ghost stands ahead of you and offers a gloved hand that you ignore completely, turning your cheek to the man with a frown. He takes the hint and slides down after Graves.

It isn’t until Johnny outstretches an arm for you to take that you nod your head for him to go first, gripping Alejandro’s arm.

You feel your hands shake.

You’re unsure of how everything seemed to go to shit so quickly. You feel your control over the situation quickly slipping from your fingertips, and you use every bit of your military training to keep yourself in check.

“Colonel Vargas.”

He turns and looks to the arm you’re white-knuckling.

“I heard you saved Rodolfo from a house fire.”

“Correct.” He glances down again, this time in confusion.

“I like him. He’s a good man, Sergeant Major Parra.”

“He is.” He tries to gently pull his arm away but your grip only tightens. You look at him with a desperation he’s only seen a handful of times in his life. Your voice is low, he barely picks it up over the steady wind.

“Sergeant MacTavish is a good man. Sacrificial to no end, much like Rudy.”

“I-”

“You pulled your friend out of a burning building. I expect you to do the same for mine.”

He nods with a furrowed brow.

“We’re working as a team. He has the same protection as any of my men.”

He shifts to continue walking but you grip his arm all the same.

“It’s going to have to extend a little beyond that.”

He inhales to reply but you’re quick to speak first.

“I’m trusting you on this, you understand me? He’s killed under your orders? Rudy rogará por una muerte tan placentera como ser quemado vivo.”

Only briefly diverting your attention, Graves yells into the air.

“C’mon, let’s go! This is no time for chit chat, people.”

Loosening the grip on his arm, you pat his bicep with your free hand and force a smile. This time, your voice rings out steadily.

“We clear?”

“I understand, Rabbit.”

“Good. I’ll be on standby in case you need backup at any point. Just say the word.”

Releasing his arm, his hand subconsciously goes to rub at the area now feeling of pins and needles. He watches as Soap and Rudy converse, the former animatedly waving his hands as he speaks.

“You’ve been to Las Almas before?”

“No. Spent years in Mexico, though. Requested my transfer after that.”

You let a beat of silence ring out, following his gaze and locking your eyes onto the pair. You feel the corners of your mouth tilting into a small smile.

He notices, eyes shifting to your shaking hands and the way they slowly settle.

He wonders if your priorities are more aligned with his than you realize.

The tension in his face finally falling away, he nods at you with warm eyes and a genuine grin.

“You have my word, Coneja.”

Letting a small smile wash over your face, you nod once more before making your way down the ladder.

Please, if anyone’s listening, let them come back safe. He really does have a beautiful smile. I’d hate to have to break it.

Hopping off the bottom step, you make your way to the jeep, sliding over Soap and into the middle seat.

“Took ya’ll long enough. Let’s go.” Graves complains as you allow Soap to buckle you in.

You don’t have the heart to be mad at him, not when this is completely uncharted territory he’s volunteered himself for. It doesn’t help that you were more than ready to offer yourself up for the role, either. You could argue about it later, though.

Grasping his wrist as he lets go of the now-secured buckle, you pointedly ignore Ghost’s eyes following your hand from the seat next to you.

Settling further into your seat, you let yourself soften against Johnny’s form. He looks to you, holding your nervous stare with one of determination. Giving you a small nod, he brushes his thumb over the skin of your wrist with the gentleness he’s become accustomed to showing you.

With a small smile, he knocks his boot into yours, twice.

Pretty as she is, Valeria is not a woman in your good graces. Of course, being El Sin Nombre is a solid part of the reason why, but even more than that, she needs to be guarded. Being guarded means high amounts of military personnel, and high amounts of military personnel means you don’t have a minute alone with Johnny.

The steady pumping adrenaline from capturing Valeria and destroying the oil rig, along with the heavy onset of mixed emotions directed towards Soap’s reckless actions has you wanting to jump his bones. It doesn’t help that the Las Almas base is facing a shortage of size large shirts, Johnny forced to squeeze twenty five pounds of lean muscle into a medium cotton tee, now sticking to his toned chest under the tac vest.

Your gaze is redirected from his strong arms over to Alejandro’s half-smile. For such a reserved, patient man, he sure loved filling the silence with conversation.

“So, Coneja, when were you gonna tell the rest of us you speak Spanish?” He shouts over the rain and crashing waves.

You watch as Ghost turns his head in your peripherals, choosing to briefly glare in his direction before answering.

“Don’t worry, you haven’t said anything embarrassing.”

You mentally pray he doesn’t bring up the rooftop conversation you’d had after the rest of the group departed, but you see the way his head tilts and know something is going to be mentioned.

Might as well beat him to it.

You turn to him again, going to speak before he holds his hand up with a smile.

“Don’t apologize. Like you said, we both have amantes imprudentes. Have to stick together, yes?"

He averts his gaze from Soap back to you, and you feel your cheeks warm in the slightest.

“Yes.”

You’re not entirely sure what he’d let you off easy for- threatening two superior officers, concealing your linguistic capabilities, or the way he’d caught your blush at Valeria’s condescension- we just won’t mention that one.

“You two did well today, Coneja.”

There’s a glint in his eye you can’t immediately identify, soaking in his gorgeous smile and the way his silky hair reflects the light as he tilts his head.

Yeah, definitely glad he kept his word.

“Rodolfo and I are going to celebrate. Something small, drinks and dinner at the little restaurant near base. You and Soap are more than welcome to join.”

“Yeah?” You mumble with a small smile, glancing at Rudy from across the small raft. He’s watching you intently, no doubt gauging your reaction.

He smiles- it’s sheepish and hardly noticeable yet still so boyishly charming.

A light brush of his hand against your knee and you’re brought back to Alejandro.

“Yeah. What do you say, Coneja?”

Smiling and bumping your shoulder with his, you let your gaze drift back to Johnny. Feeling your stare, he turns to you with his own soft smile and taps his boot against yours.

“We’d love to.”

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orphicrose · 3 months

Text

The Co-Host (Alastor x FemReader) X

Summary: You are Alastors Co host in life, perhaps more. But are separated by a sudden death. When you are finally reunited in the under world, it is up to Alastor to figure out why you don’t remember him.

Warnings ! ! Mentions of Death and Bl00D

W/C: 2.3K

Note : Thank you so so so much to everyone who has enjoyed this story. This is the last chapter to this book BUT I can make another book if anyone is interested. I really do appreciate the love this has gotten. As when it started I thought no one would open it and now i have so many readers.

@cannibalcoyote @kahlan170 @sugxryratz @multifandom-superlover @t0xic1vi @saccharine-nectarine

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Rage filled his body, replacing his lust. Surging through his veins like some sort of adrenaline booster. "Satan...."

A cane appeared in his fingertips, gripping to tight they turned white. Circulation scared to temper with the angered wendigo. Shadows tailed behind his hooves like an army of deviancy. Nothing more to lose but his second life, but that was meaningless anyway without y/n. His minions disperse from him like pathogens looking for a host, flying through the walls and dimly lit areas of hell, looking for their target. Satan.

Alastor rampaged through hell, his demonic form replacing any evidence of someone who was a human once upon a time. Radio dials replacing his pupils, and black tar like legs emerging from his torso like something from the deep sea. Face like a crazed killer relapsing, reminding him of who he was supposed to be. Lilith hadn't given him this great power for no reason, and he was going to use it.

On the other side of hell, Y/n lay battered on a warehouse floor. Abandoned by its former workers, bought by Satan to be turned into another means of business without a doubt.

"There were no distractions" She spluttered on the floor, arms bringing her away from the dirt. "My numbers are up, I don't understand..."

"Not even your sins can be of deterrence to that fool." The man mumbled, trailing around her like a coyote. "I should of killed him when I had the opportunity"

Y/n sat still, doe eyes following his movements with any anticipation to flee for her life. "I never asked for any of this"

"No one asks for anything!" He bites back, stopping in his step to lean towards the cowering demon at his feet. "I gave you a job to do, and you failed. I gave you opportunities to be a great overlord, a wealthy power to be reckoned with. And what do you do with it?"

She remained quiet, face falling to avoid his gaze.

"What do you do with it?" He repeats. Voice quieter, more sinister. "You don't even use it" The quiet whisper turns to a dark chuckle. Repeating the sentence over and over. "You don't even use it". He can't even comprehend how anyone wouldn't want the power, how anyone would fail to use it.

"What could one want more than raw magic?"

"Normality" Y/n mumbled. Feeling the blood running from her heart to her fingers, a sensation she missed from her previous life. "What do you need a million souls for? " Her tone became accusing, bolder. Climbing to her feet and balancing her stance to oppose the large man in front of her. She couldn't lose more than her life in this moment, she thought. "There is a limit for power, even for a sin as important as you. So, why so many?"

He bared his teeth, psychotic grin turning upside down to a menacing frown. Words nor forming audible, except for the growl vibrating the glare from his fangs.

"Why do you need the souls?" Her voice raised, coming closer. Too close. One move and he could bite her head from her shoulders like a rabid bear.

"Power?"

"I must bring her back!" A vociferous outcry escaped him. A new level of hostility replacing his aura, a hand reaching out and grasping her neck. Restricting any air from escaping his prey. "They took her from me" Guttural sounds gave her goosebumps, watching the tormented memories in his eyes crying, driving him to the brink of insanity as the seconds passed. His anguish pouring out in a storm of shattered words and furious tears.

Y/n clawed at the broken flesh of his fists in desperation, her fear doing the work for her as her body flailed about under his undeniable grasp. Air struggling to escape her muffled ranting for help. Her vision began to fade to the darkness of her eyelids, bloodshot at they roll away from the world. Her fighting against his merciless force taking her life from her.

"You are replaceable, everyone is. That's what they told me. That's what they said when they took her" His fist grew tighter with ever slow word to fall from him. "They took her, so I'll take you"

Something flew through the air, something sharp. Hitting him in the hand, resulting in another nasty outburst of roars and splattered words from the sin.

"So, this is why you are the Sin of wraith. Not very composed, I see. How fitting" Static rung in the air as y/n took in as much oxygen the world around her could offer. Clutching her throat in agony.

The same static got louder and louder from the life outside the building, till it stopped abruptly. The sense of inevitable danger weighed on satans shoulders, looking around in a panicked state for the source.

"A lot more paranoid than I suspected.." A hand landed on his shoulder, and sunk its claws into him. The large figure swung round, landing an elbow in Alastor's face. Stunning him.

Satan took a long second to compose himself of the almighty being in front of him, almost too big for the large ceilings. "Impressive" he put a hand over his shoulder, a flicker of light hitting him before the wound was swiftly removed. "But not that impressive".

The sin tripled in size in just a minute. Legs stretching out, and new ones forming from his torso. Face warping into another species, one that Alastor feared the most. A hellhound, Hades himself would be scared. The absence of skin, replaced by hard bone, gave Alastor a feeling of doubt. Yet, his will to win never making a mark on the sinister grin sprawled across his jaw.

Strong brick and infrastructure of the warehouse began to crumble. Falling around y/n like heavy snow. She had little time to comprehend what was happening as she was pulled out from underneath a falling brick. She sat, confused, on a patch of grass on the outskirts of a forest. A familiar shadow floating next to her on the floor, giving her a sad smile. Gesturing for her to remain in her place, before flying back to his owner.

Green and Purple hues floated atop the skyline, rocks flying for miles around her as the two beasts began their decent on one another. Primal echoes of their agony sent a wave of anxiety into confused citizens. Scared to see what the commotion was about. A symphony of raw power emitting from the two, clashing and crumbling buildings around their feet.

Y/n swallowed her fear, and struggled to her feet. It was true, she had power unlike any other overlord. Gifted to her from a sin himself, maybe she wasn't the most powerful being in the universe. But anything could help Alastor win this battle. She took a deep breath, and let it out. Letting her form sink into the ground with a purple mist following her to her destination. Materializing a few meters away from no-mans-land.

Alastor nor Satan took any interest in her presence. Till the ground shook under their feet, and Violet radiance blinded them. Almost like a storm was brewing from the core of the Earth. Years of pent up aggression and frustration came out in a loud bellow, her form warping into what could only be described as a Phoenix. Her large, dragon like body emerged from the human flesh on her back, ripping and burning it to ashes. Fur mixed with dark scales on her winged being, reminding everyone she was still a being from hell. A large beak let out a god awful screech, gaining the attention from everyone in the pentagram, and deafening those too close. Her feathers Ebony and Royal purple, resembling flames the colour of a dawning sky. Ash settled at the talons that broke the concrete below her weight, ash from her former body.

Everything froze, to admire the beautiful beast in their presence. Mistaken for a corrupt god. Satan would have been proud, if the circumstances were different. He fell backwards a few inches, his form seemingly shrinking. Barely noticeable.

"Y/n?" Alastor's figure remained the same, but the look in his eyes returned as he looked over to the large beast next to him. A mix of adoration and fear overcoming him. Y/n dared to move her gaze to him, then back to the offender. Remaining silent like a titan.

Her stance shifted, a foot coming forward with great force in an instant. Letting out another unnerving scream.

"What in my fathers name is going on here?"

Everyone looked over to y/n. Who did her best attempt at a shrug with her bird shoulders. Eyes widened as she, too, looked around for the source of the voice. The three of them turned to see a small man, hanging in the air with his large wings. Anger painted on his scowl, and arms crossed like a disappointed father.

"Down!" He shouted, like they were animals, as he pointed towards the floor. The three of the beats shares a confused and almost embarrassed look, as they hesitantly retook their position as an average hell being. Shrinking simultaneously to their previous sizes.

"Lucifer! How good to see you aga-"

The small man landed in front of Satan, taking no second to strike him across the face. "What do you think you are doing in pride? Destroying my buildings? Scaring my sinners?"

The large man looked down on him with a saddened look, holding the red mark on his face. "I had business to tend to"

Lucifer let out a frustrated laugh as he gestured to the damage around them. "Ya call this business?" He laughed again, stuttering, and holding his temple firmly "I don't even know what to say. Go home!" He flashed him with his horns for a brief second before letting himself calm down. "We will be discussing this later... But a few of your souls are going to be conviscated!"

Y/n stood awkwardly next to Al, holding an arm with the other. The king of hell turned to the two after Wraith had disappeared from his sight like a toddler with a tantrum. "And you two..." His arms crossed again, looking them up and down. Leaning uncomfortably close to them. "I expect more from overlords of my ring."

"I apologies... You're majesty" Y/n inched closer to Alastor for comfort, who remained silent. Staring at the short man in his gaze.

The king shook his head, mumbling to himself. "This just won't do"

"Do you mind... getting my soul back?"

He returned her question with a very unimpressed stare.

"For Lucifers sake... Alastor!" Y/n's voice echoed through the house like a siren in the deer's ears.

"Yes, Mon Cheri?" He appeared behind her in the kitchen, startling her. He spun and wacked him lightly in the chest in retaliation. "What's wrong?" "You ate the last of the snacks? I was saving them for our movie night" Y/n pouted, holding up an empty box of wafers.

"I did no such thing. I don't even enjoy those bland creations" He pretended to take offence, holding his heart.

"Well, who else would have eaten them?"

He grinned wider, staring at her with little to no expression before grabbing her arm. "We are going to be late for our broadcast, dear. Lets solve this mystery later" He began to drag her behind him.

"I think it's already solved" She mumbled, keeping up with his pace.

After the long journey they had suffered together, the two decided to bring a sense of normality to their life's. Staring a new Broadcasting service for all the rings of hell to enjoy. Y/n and co-host. Her name going from the overlord of souls, to the overlord of media. For now, at least. . They did broadcasts 6 days of the week, updating hell on gossip or general news. Even being introduced to sinners who listened to their broadcasts in life. Growing their names, all over again.

If you want to know what happened to Satan, Lucifer had him put in mandatory therapy for his anger issues. And for his problems surrounding grieving. But y/n's soul was returned to her by the king himself. Well... not so much returned as it was re-located to lucifers possession. Giving a soul back is a lot harder than it sounds. But the point it, it is in a safer place. Satan's Business has been put on hold, for now. Losing over 70% of his workers to lucifer, due to mental instability. Maybe he will rise to power again one day, but at least y/n no longer has to worry about it.

"Good morning you foul sinners, and today me, and my wonderful co-host Alastor, are bringing you todays news!"

"Thank you Y/n! Yes, today is already a day not to forget. Turf wars making their way through the east side of the pentagram with someone known as Sir Pentious!" Alastor chuckled "He doesn't seem to be doing so well!"

The two laughed together. The static from the radio emitting from the small device in a kitchen. Electronic fingers reach out to turn the dial, turning the volume up as the chatter continued. A large figure was perched, listening intently to the noise. A bored expression on his face. "you too, won't be doing so well soon" The boredom shifted to an amused grin. Baring his electronic teeth on his flat face. Static emitting from his body like a circuit. Vox gave a knowing look towards his small radio.

#fanfiction #x reader #alastor x reader #hazbin angel dust #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin alastor #hazbin husk #hazbin hotel charlie #alastor fluff #the co host #hazbin lucifer #hazbin hotel alastor x reader #alastor imagine

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blackbackedjackal · 1 year

Note

What was the weirdest thing you've worked on taxidermy-wise? It doesn't have to be like an unusual species, but maybe something odd about the anatomy when you first prepped an animal, or finding an odd color morph or something (or maybe a little of everything lol since you're very into like genetics and collecting Weird Bone specimens with wry noses and extra teeth).

One that really sticks with me is the coyote that solidified my interest in doing research on pathologies seen in the species.

Notice the strange greenish stain on both the jawbone and in the teeth? I'd never seen staining like this before and at this point had been collecting and cleaning some really strange coyotes for a while.

Unless I'm the person who cleans the animal, I'm often missing vital information and clues left in the skin or tissue to figure out what caused a certain abnormality. I'm careful about cleaning every animal separately, all the while taking notes of any initial strange things I see during the cleaning process. Before the skull was clean enough to me to notice the green staining, I did see some pitch black stains where the bullet I assumed had killed the animal was stuck in the tissue. Not an uncommon thing as I'd seen that kind of staining before. These are typically perimortem injuries, around the time of death, so the injury shows no obvious signs of healing. The bullet or fragments of it break off in the tissue when the animal is killed and will still be left in the tissue by the time I get to work. Lead-based ones can stain the bones a dark color while soaking and typically whitens up after being process, but this one didn't.

Not only were the teeth this strange green color, but the surrounding bone had a lot of heavy bloodstaining. This is typically caused from brute force impact injuries, like animals hit by cars but are alive for at least several minutes after being hit. It's usually related to bruising, but in some cases is also be seen in areas where the bone or tissue around the bone is infected. It's these dark pink spots around the orbit and jaw.

I saw where the bullet had struck the animal, but before it was clean assumed this was the bullet that killed the coyote. It's not uncommon for trappers or hunters to shoot animals in the head to kill the animal quickly but there was no bullet hole in the cranium. There was however, a fragment of the bullet lodged in the right body of the maxilla, right in where the marrow and some blood vessels that supply blood to the jaw and teeth were.

This wasn't what killed the coyote. The fragment was lodged in living tissue, long enough that the coyote was suffering from lead poisoning. here's another angle where you can see where the fragment was lodged and how bad the stain was near the point of contact.

In typical Americans hate coyotes form, someone had shot at this coyote at least several weeks before the coyote was killed. Could have been a missed shot and the coyote escaped, but people are extremely cruel and disrespectful to the species, and will shoot at them to haze and injure them, but not kill them. Injuries and infections like this will greatly effect the coyote's ability to hunt, so that can cause them to become "problem" coyotes. They're too sick or injured to hunt wild animals effectively, and will be more prone to scavenging or opportunistic behaviors like attacking outdoor pets or farm animals. Again, I can't determine why the animal was shot to begin with, but I do know why it was killed several weeks later. It was sick, injured, and probably acting really strange. At that point the coyote being killed was blessing, as it would have suffered for weeks before succumbing to it's injures and infection.

When I buy an already cleaned/partially cleaned skull online, I have to work in reverse to identify potential causes of the pathologies I see. Many sellers won't take note of any shards or fragments or foreign objects in the tissue while cleaning. I often loose important clues as to the exact cause of the abnormality. When I clean them myself, I make sure to save everything I find in the tissue and take notes. That way I can refer back to them when I find strange things like this.

Though it greatly saddens me to see any animal suffer in such a way, I know it's important work because it gives me solid information I can use to educate others about coyotes. This skull was sitting in this person's freezer for at least a year or so before I happened to get it in a bulk lot of raw skulls I purchased to clean for sales and for research. It's been invaluable already as it's one of the skulls I cite a lot when doing public education and getting the people I get coyotes from thinking more critically about the species. Many of the taxidermists, hunters farmers, trappers, etc. I work with are very interested in the research we're doing, and like to know the stories of the ones they've crossed paths with. Many of them have stopped hunting coyotes in reckless ways, and no longer view them as pests. In fact, one guy I get coyotes from went from killing maybe 5 or so a month before he met me, to about 5 every 6 months. He no longer views them as pests and pays attention to their behaviors much more closely. He now culls ones he notices are sick/injured on his camera traps or ones that are actively bothering or killing his livestock. He's had far less issues with his local coyotes overall by listening to the advice I've given him, and donates the ones he does take for our group's research. It's a win for everyone, less coyotes are killed indiscriminately, we get coyotes for research that are sourced responsibly and sustainably, and not only is he interested in our research, but he shares the information with his family and neighbors so they spread the information and have really changed the culture of how they feel about the animals and wildlife around them. It's really awesome to see.

Sorry that got into a little ramble but it's the weird animals that have really made such a huge impact on me and the people around me. I'm glad that even in death they can be used as ways to educate others and essentially "save" some of their living relatives. My goal is conservation, preservation, and education about the species, and working with pathological specimens is a big part of that c:

#ask #this got long and I don't feel like editing my grammar so I sure hope this is ok lol #faq

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witchofthesouls · 5 months

Note

Hey! I saw an earlier post you had about the boys in the grocery store and it got me wondering about how they would react to hunting. I’m a hunter, have been all my life. I hunt deer, boars, ducks, coyotes, turkeys, quails, pheasants, wild Burmese pythons, and I fish locally too (strictly a vermin exterminator and food hunter, I find sports hunting to be distasteful and I strictly use a bow and arrow, no traps or guns as I take issues with those too). I can picture the absolute horror of the TFP or Lost Light bots seeing their/a human skinning and processing an animal that they just hunted for food, they see the modern convinces that are grocery stores so it’s easy to forget where human food actually comes from 😂

Weirdly enough, IDW/MTMTE does have Cybertronian edibles like cesium salami and rust sticks.

But then again, there's a big percentage of the crew members who were produced by the war, so there's a great chance that they didn't get a crash course on things that were deemed "unnecessary," like Cybertronian cuisine and fauna to forage and hunt.

TFP Cybertronians, on the other hand, have Questions.

Get ready to pull up diagrams, manuals, videos, and live demonstrations via YouTube or your own hands because they got the curiosity of two-year-old with the capacity to keep you in their palm for no escape.

Ratchet absolutely hates it. It's too messy and squishy and completely unalike the organized and relatively clean method of converting crystals to fuel. Horrified over the mysteries of hotdogs and how everything can and will kill humans without specific preparations to negate the toxins. Ratchet is boggled over spice challenges and how the hell humanity hadn't died in its infancy over culinary explorations. Someone told him to look up Hákarl.

He takes great displeasure when the kids sass him over Cybertronians eating their own blood. Different. Absolutely different. He clucks over the base kitchen and is not above making things disappear. He argues with June and Agent Fowler over the groceries and fast food bags. Ratchet's crunchy.

Bulkhead actually enjoys fishing. He's more catch and release rather than for keeping and gutting. He likes soaking up the heat of the sun, the sound of running water, birdsong, and insects buzzing, the gear setup and picking out the right lure and bait. It's a different kind of downtime, but it's nice. All he's missing is engex, but he's able to throw a line farther out than anyone else and has the capability to detect motion far greater than an average human. He still wants an engex cube.

Arcee has mixed feelings. She enjoys hunting. Patience, tracking, stealth, and the sense of accomplishment with a clean catch. She likes less the process of handling carcasses, but really hates waste anything that could have been useful. Meat, leather, tools, jewelry, and raw ingredients that could be sold or traded. Arcee just doesn't like sharing something with Airachnid's methods.

Bumblebee's a scout. People expected him to like foraging or the wilds. He prefers domesticated stock. In particular, beekeeping. To him, it represents a more equivalent partnership: he provides accessible resources and safe quarters and the bees yield honey, comb, and wax in return. If the hive don't like him or the area, then they can leave elsewhere.

Optimus is deeply fascinated by how Earth's biodiversity is so immense and how ecosystems are so diverse and complex, yet so fragile. He quietly wishes for Alpha Trion's presence because Optimus is seeing familiar similarities of Cybertronian long gone biomes: wetlands, woodlands, and reefs. The Sea of Rust once was a massive ocean of mineral-laden Energon. It has long since disappeared by the consensus of heavy, unregulated industrialization, but if Earth has the water cycle, ocean currents and belts, and complex system of thermoregulation that replenishes itself, then Cybertron had to have something similar at one point, no?

#ask #transformers #transformer prime #tfp #optimus #optimus prime #ratchet #bulkhead #arcee #bumblebee #culture clash #cybertronian culture #maccadam #my writing #look Ratchet is completely scandalized and crunchy #Optimus would watch too many nature docs and try to fish exactly like a bear #the autobots get fascinated by cooking shows tho

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barrenclan · 6 months

Note

“Did you kill her?”

“Hm?” Ranger cocked a smug eyebrow, pretending not to know what he was talking about. “I’ve killed plenty of animals, little blue cat; you’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Don’t play dumb!” Pinepaw snapped. “My sister! It was you, it had to be!”

“And what makes you so sure?”

“I…” Pinepaw froze. What was he supposed to say, that he saw it happen in a dream? “…I just know it was a canine who did it. And…and if Rainhaze knows you, then you must have known about her.”

Ranger’s eyes glittered cruelly as he shared a knowing glance with the falcon perched on his shoulders.

This is going to be fun.

“Ohhh, her!” he chuckled. “Well, I appreciate the enthusiasm, kiddo, but I didn’t kill her. But lucky for you, I—we—happen to know who did.”

“Who?”

Ranger couldn’t fathom how Pinepaw hadn’t pieced it together yet, but nevertheless he gestured to the second, larger blue cat cowering beside them.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

The ground seemed to give way beneath Pinepaw’s paws; he hadn’t felt like this since the day he found the bones…no, that wasn’t right…he hadn’t felt this way since Dustfeather.

“No…” His voice came out as a single, shaky breath. “N-no, it was a canine, I saw it—”

“Well, you saw wrong.”

“But it had to be! It couldn’t have been…he…he couldn’t have…he wouldn’t…”

Rainhaze stared blankly at the ground, fidgeting with his own paws, but Hacksaw fluttered down towards him, sinking half of her talons into the back of his neck and the other half into the space between his ears as she jerked his head upright in one swift, rough motion, while Ranger hooked his claws firmly under Rainhaze’s chin to keep it in place; the odd couple working together to force him to make eye contact with his nephew. Even then, Rainhaze still couldn’t look him in the eye.

“Go on, Rainhaze,” Ranger sneered. “Tell him. Tell him all about how you struck your poor niece down in cold blood…”

“No, y-you’re lying, he would never—”

“Tell him about how excited she was to see her dear old uncle again, before she realized just why you were there…”

“Stop it…”

“Tell him how she barely even had time to unsheathe her claws…”

“Shut up.”

“How her scream rattled around in your brain…”

“I said…”

“The way her blood tasted as you sunk your fangs into her neck—”

“SHUT UP!!!”

Before any of them even had time to react, Pinepaw had lashed out and struck Ranger across the muzzle with an unsheathed paw, causing him to lose his hold on Rainhaze. He hadn’t intended to lose his temper like that; it just sort of…happened. Hacksaw reared up to strike him in return, but Ranger gave her a quick nuzzle, and she settled, returning to perch on top of her mate’s head. Though he was briefly taken aback, he didn’t even seem mad; just amused at the guts this little cat seemed to have.

“Why should I believe anything you say?!” Pinepaw spat, his entire body convulsing with fury. “You’re lying, y-you’re just trying to get inside my head! Rainhaze would never turn on his family!”

“Hey, don’t take my word for it,” Ranger shrugged. “He’s the one who hasn’t said a word this whole time.”

Dread began to creep its way up the length of Pinepaw’s spine, tickling the back of his neck. Though he didn’t want to admit it, the coyote had a point; Rainhaze had been awfully quiet throughout the ordeal. Taking a breath to steady himself, he shifted his focus towards his uncle; it was time to acknowledge the proverbial bear in the den.

But deep in the back of his mind, he was afraid he already knew what the answer would be.

“Rainhaze,” he began, trying his best to maintain composure. “What he’s saying, it can’t be true, right? I know you would never hurt her, that’s not who you are.”

Rainhaze could offer no response; still refusing to meet Pinepaw’s gaze as he nervously pawed at the ground.

“Rainhaze,” Pinepaw repeated, shakier and a little more urgent than before. “C’mon, quit playing around. There’s no way you could have done it…right?”

Rainhaze could only hang his head shamefully, his deafening silence broken only by the sound of Ranger snickering to himself with a sickening, gleeful grin, not even trying to hide the amusement he was getting out of this; of course it was all just a twisted game to him. Pinepaw could feel bile rising in his throat, but still he told himself he wouldn’t believe anything unless he heard it straight from Rainhaze’s mouth.

He knew he was fooling himself. But he didn’t care. All he wanted was just one single, solitary sign that his uncle was still there, somewhere inside this pathetic husk of a cat that stood before him.

“Rainhaze,” he said one last time; anger slowly seeping into the desperation already present in his tone. His vision began to blur with tears that stung the corners of his eyes, and it was only then that he realized he had been crying. “Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t kill her.”

Rainhaze could do nothing but stare at the ground and shake his head, tears pooling in his own eyes.

“Tell me!” Pinepaw barked suddenly, causing Rainhaze to flinch and nearly fall over while Ranger did fall over, bursting into surprised, mocking laughter as Hacksaw flitted above him. Pinepaw couldn’t hide his disgust, nor Ranger his delight; here he was, a grown warrior, the prodigal son of BarrenClan, the so-called “golden child” of his family…acting like a scared kit who had been caught sneaking out of camp at night. But it wasn’t enough; Pinepaw still needed an answer, and his voice rose into a screech as he finally said what he had been wanting to say from the beginning.

“TELL ME YOU DIDN’T KILL ASPHODELPAW!”

When Rainhaze finally spoke, his voice came out in a cracked mumble, but Pinepaw’s ears just barely managed to register his words:

“I c-can’t…”

“Wh—” Pinepaw opened his mouth to retort, to say something like “What do you mean you can’t?” but his words died on his tongue; it was his turn to flinch and fall silent as Rainhaze slowly, excruciatingly raised his head to stare Pinepaw dead in the eyes. And as their shared gaze reflected back into each other moons of indescribable horrors that neither wished they could have ever born witness to, the cruel reality of Pinepaw’s situation finally began to sink in: that whoever this cat—whatever this thing—was in front of him, it wasn’t his uncle anymore. Sure, his body might have been there, but the blank emptiness in his stare made it evident that, wherever his mind was now, it was long gone, and something new, something that perhaps had always been there, had torn its way out of his chest in its place.

And in the midst of this spiral, Pinepaw found himself snapped out of his thoughts by Rainhaze, his tone now distant, dazed, and devoid of whatever emotion it used to hold, confirming exactly what he had suspected—and feared—all along.

“I killed Asphodelpaw.”

DUDE!! It's been so long since I've gotten a piece of fic! :D I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.

I freaking love the way you've written Ranger in this, his bitchy little personality is down a T. For two characters who've never interacted, his dynamic with Pinepaw is totally perfect.

Hehe, I see the "bear in the den" line was for this. That's so cool. In general I love how you wrote all the descriptive text... so good and so in-line for the canon story.

Rainhaze all dazed and confused is great, and oooh he's so GUILTY. Hiding from Pinepaw cause he's completely unable to face him, not wanting to admit what he's done, I love it. Face the music, you stupid blue cat.

#ask #fanfic #ranger #rainhaze #hacksaw #pinepaw #this fucking SLAPS audrey thank you so much

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ellabsweet · 10 months

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[*ੈ✩] 𝐈𝐓𝐒 𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐍 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊 • 𝐄.𝐖

synopsis: in which the new girl in jackson attempts to easen her way into ellie williams’ heart after a tragedy

pairing: ellie williams x reader

warning: set in an alternative universe where ellie stays in jackson after joel’s death though she is dealing with severe depression, self harm and health issues, mentions of alcohol and drug usage

authors note: this is very much a sensitive topic very self harm focused as i made this heavily based on john keating and camille preaker from ‘sharp objects’ so please do not read if you are sensitive on this subject!

Ellie had grown so familiar to nightmares they barely stole a shiver out of her, the ever present foul feeling of poison building up at the pit of her stomach a mere proof of survival, tickle of life and its horror burned into her body as other things had been before.

But bad dreams, those were different. Skilled knives of the subconscious, aching for blood in the format of Joel’s aged face. I think you’d be a dog, kiddo, he stated simply shutting down her coyote self image. Loyal, he said.

Ellie had been a hound, certainly. Stared at herself through the mirror to face a rotten animal, monster-like dog with canines falling out of its gums, a beast not worth loving back. Her eyes had grown so sunken their green turned hazel, hair too long, existence bloodshot. The kids called her Scary Ellie. The bitter drunk at a dimly lit corner. The frozen in time and space, left to gather dust in greyer memories.

She glances at her bitten arm under the shower, traces the tattoo with water drops at the edges of her finger, twists the knob into closing the reservoir and drags a knife across the bite. She wants it out, needs it out. Joel’s death was etched into her skin and she needed more than a tattoo to rid herself of those thoughts. The tiled floor quickly filled with red. Part of her wished the reopening of wounds would finally turn her. Wished they’d have to shoot her in the head. She passed out soon enough.

“Morning, sunshine” You said softly, the banging in Ellie’s had from the fall still insufferable as she adjusted her eyes to the newly bright lightning of the infirmary, a girl she has only once seen before standing above her, wrapping her arm in lightly stained white gauze “You had us worried there for a moment”

Jackson’s people baptised you flower, from the gentleness and gardens and all throughout personification of a love practice like bouquets. There had been whispers at first, once you arrived a deer in headlights bloody, shaken and wide-eyed, how someone so careful could’ve survived so long alone in this new world that set out to kill all remnants of good fragility. The mystery of your ever so long sleeves even in summer and odd screams midst the night that carried your history were to remain hidden from the general public. But Ellie knew, because she had fucked you. She had felt it underneath her fingertips, and she had dismissed it.

She had been exhausted that night, two years since Joel had been killed, she wanted a distraction and you were breathtaking and lively in a way that inspired hatred inside her and Ellie wished to ruin it, to dig her fingers inside you and stain you with her own suffering, have your sunshine kneeled and begging, taste you senseless. It had been the opposite. You had dragged out softness out of her touch, so foreign it quickened her own heartbeat. Somewhere in between hunger filled kisses it had dawned on her you could not be corrupted, as though your souls found similar suffering within eachother in a perfect puzzle fit. Ellie thanked the broken lights for masking the tears that escaped her from your loving touch. She was tired and God, you were comfortable and you held her. There was no energy to fight back, secretly she did not want to. The next day she pretended you did not exist– you had never stopped waving her good mornings.

“What happened?” Ellie croaked out, throat dry.

“You know what happened, Els” You sighed and she cringed in response, defensive, sitting up on the bed before her body was fully ready to do so, head reprimending the feeling.

“I’m not some sort of suicidal if that’s what y-“

“You don’t have to hide from me” She scoffed in response, opening her mouth for a snarky retort that could not be left as you continued “Let me take care of you”

“It’s rotten work”

“Not for me. Not if it’s you.”

She rolled up your sleeve and squinted her eyes, an attempt to comprehend the lines that painted your skin as an artist examined a painting’s brush strokes, the self consciousness of the situation eating up at your insides, forming an emptiness pit. Ellie was adamant on her hold, a searching, sweet look plastered across her eyes so unfamiliar to you. It was exhausting to hide as you did, over a decade devoted to concealment, never once an interaction where you hadn’t anticipated which scar would reveal itself and blow your cover to a friend, a fellow patroller, even the damn clickers who surely had no conscience to mind. It had dawned on you that freedom looked a lot like Ellie’s gaze. There was no need to hide from someone courting oblivion as ardently as you were.

She rolled up your other sleeve, and there sat your exposed arms, so naked it made you breathless. The intimacy of it threatened your composure with a quivering a lip, both afraid to meet her eye and eagerly searching it for a reaction, met with a tenderness that contrasted the rough exterior she held.

“No one’s seen this?” Ellie asks quietly and you shook your head, the lump in your throat too strong to allow a proper answer, she accepts it regardless.

Ellie sucks in a sharp breath and stretches her arms above her head, removing the long sleeved fabric that covered her torso to reveal a now wretched forearm tattoo, ferns and a moth artistically arranged and destroyed by a needle and thread attempt to reconstruct it from her hurt. She faced you once before taking hold of your soft hand in her calloused ones and patting it down the ink, a feeling of high relief beneath your fingertips unveil the existence of scarring beneath. You gasp with a chuckle of understanding.

“You’re beautiful” you mutter before lowering your head to her reach, planting a soft kiss atop the centre of the tattoo, it is Ellie’s turn to be surprised. She opens her mouth as though you did not understand her, ready to claim herself a failure at the top of her lungs like a confession for an absolution she felt unworthy of, but the words failed to come out as you continued your venture in softness and lips “you are worth something as you are”

Ellie’s eyes swelled in tears, free falling out of control for the first time in a century, your warmth had given her a strange gift, the agony coming to surface past her protective walls. She felt her skin on fire, thought this to be the closest anyone could come to raw, took it upon herself to return you the favour, pushed your sleeves further up, kissed you in the middle of broken.

“I see you too” she said, running her fingers over the scars until you got a chill of goosebumps “Let me see it all”

Ellie pulled your shirt over your head as you sat still like an obedient child, wanting desperately to be praised for your newly found openness. Eased off yours shoes and socks, pulled down your slacks, and once only in a bra and panties, shivers covered your body in the frosty room, the air conditioner blasting a chill over me. Ellie pulled back the infirmary covers, motioned for you to climb in, and you did, feeling feverish and frozen all at once.

Her hands ran all over you, and you allowed them to, reaching your back, your breasts, thighs, shoulders. Her tongue in your mouth, down your neck, over your nipples, between your legs, then back to your mouth, you tasted yourself on her lips.

You both felt exorcised.

#ellie williams x reader #ellie williams #ellie x reader #ellie williams fanfic #ellie williams angst #lesbian #the last of us fanfiction

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writing-till-i-am-dead · 4 months

Text

Tylyn oneshot

“We need to go on a supplies run,” Ashlyn said. “We need more ammo, batteries for the flashlights, gas for the car, and better protective equipment.”

They all groaned and sinked deeper into the couch, wishing they could just spend their Saturday resting.

“No complaining. This is necessary for survival. Now, I’m going to separate us into 3 groups. Logan and Aiden, you guys get us batteries and gas tanks.”

Aiden smiled at Logan, who tried to remain calm, but was terrified deep down.

“Ben and Taylor, you two get the protective equipment.”

“Yay!” Taylor exclaimed. “Grocery run, Ben!”

“So that leaves us?” Tyler asked in an annoyed tone.

“Yep,” Ashlyn said, equally unhappy sounding. “We’re in charge of ammo.”

“You don’t sound enthused either. Why pair us up then?”

“I just used a random name picker to make the groups..”

Tyler groaned and him and Ashlyn began to put their shoes on to run this stupid errand.

“I’ll drive,” Ashlyn said.

“Oh, hell no. Not after what happened last time I was in a car you drove.”

“Seriously?! We’re not gonna be driving from a monster trying to kill us. You’ll be fine!”

“I’ll drive,” Tyler said darkly with that tone that says he’ll just be a stubborn ass about this to the end.

“Fine,” she said, tossing the keys to him.

They got in the car and drove in awkward silence to get their supplies.

They reached a pawn shop that specialized in guns and ammo.

Ashlyn pulled out her hunting license as her and Tyler looked for what they needed.

Tyler grabbed several packs, Ashlyn glaring at him. “All that’s gonna be really expensive. Put some of it back.”

“Wouldn’t it be smart to get as much as we can get?”

“Just put a couple away,” she said, annoyed.

He grumbled under his breath as he put a few away. They eventually went to the front to pay and went back to the car.

“So where are we gonna plant this stuff?” Tyler asked as he started the engine.

“The forest. Somewhere we can find easily, but can’t be tampered with.”

They drove to the edge of the forest, Ashlyn tying up her hiking boots.

“We’ll have to look for the spot we were at last night and we can put the stuff there. And then we can send those coordinates to the others.”

“Right..” Tyler was always taken off guard by how responsible and level headed Ash was at all times. As much as he hated it, he found it admirable.

The two walked through the forest and eventually reached the area they were at the night before.

“It’s weird..” Tyler murmured. “To be out here.. not running for our life…”

“Well, there are wild animals out here like bears and coyotes. So it’s still technically not safe.”

“Way to calm my nerves,” he said sarcastically.

They looked around for a good spot and along the way, they struck up awkward small talk.

“How was the hospital?” Ashlyn asked.

“It was fine.. the food was probably the worst part.”

Ashlyn chuckled ever so slightly. “Yep. That we can agree on.”

“You’ve been to the hospital?”

“Ya. Multiple times when I was younger.”

“….You gonna tell me, or-?”

“Migraines. Real bad ones that caused me to pass out.”

“Oh, really?” Tyler had no idea she had to deal with stuff like that.

“Another side effect of my curse.”

“Curse?”

“My ‘super hearing’ as Aiden puts it,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Ah. Right…”

Another moment of stifling silence.

“I’ve also been to the hospital before..” Tyler said eventually. “Things like sprains and broken bones.”

Ashlyn let out a soft breath, sounding like a half-laugh. “Ya, sprains are the worst. I’ve dealt with those because of dance.”

“Oh. Ya, I forgot you did ballet.. that’s cool.. you ever do any performances?”

“I just do it for the exercise and because it’s fun. Performing isn’t really my thing..”

They eventually stopped walking, looking around their area. “This area looks familiar..” Tyler said. “But I can’t quite name it..”

Ashlyn nodded in agreement. She found a steep cliff and went over to it. Her breath got caught in her throat and her blood ran cold after what she saw.

“Ashlyn? What’s up-“ Tyler stopped in his tracks once he saw it.

The tree.

He felt a sharp pain in his stomach. He remembered his organs mangled on the branches and the blood dripping down to the grass as the red moon glowed like a blood splatter in the sky…

He backed up, clutching his sides as he tried to keep himself from vomiting.

“Tyler!” Ashlyn exclaimed as Tyler began to sink to the ground.

She grabbed him by his shoulders in an attempt to steady him.

“Don’t throw up,” she urged him.

“Great advice!” He yelled, panicking.

He grind her teeth and got to her knees to be at his eye level.

“Tyler, you’re ok!”

He didn’t, couldn’t, hear her. The world was spinning and all he could see was crimson red, like when he was forced to stare up at the moon that night…

Ashlyn placed a hand on his stomach. “Tyler, look at me. You’re ok..”

He looked up, seeing her green eyes, hard and worried as she tried to remain calm. That sense of calmness, steadiness, managed to help him.

He followed her breathing and his heart rate slowed to a steady pace.

After he calmed down, a wave of exhaustion hit him. He rested his head on her shoulder, trying to keep his breathing steady.

Ashlyn was taken off guard, but didn’t pull away, instead continuing to try and comfort him. She pat the back of his head and continued to instruct his breathing while also lifting him back to his feet.

“Cmon..” she said. “Let’s hide this ammo and then go home.”

He nodded slowly.

She looked down at the tree and lead him to it.

She looked up at its branches and scoffed.

“This is one ugly tree..” She pulled out a pocket knife and stabbed at the bark. She stabbed, and stabbed, wood chipping off and burrowing into her hands.

She let out one final grunt as she left the knife stuff in the tree. She then turned to Tyler, who was looking at her life she was crazy.

“You give it a try,” she said. “This tree..” She looked up at it. “It’s.. it’s pretty ugly..”

He couldn’t believe she was trying to cheer him up. It was a different form of cheering up, but it was Ashlyn’s way to show she cared. And that’s all he needed, maybe..

He pulled the knife from the tree and stabbed at it. He remembered that night, that horrible night. But he also remembered his friends rushing to his aid. The way they all hugged him at the hospital. The way Ashlyn had hung over him at the hospital, unable to say what she really thought. But her stare had said it all:

I do care about you.

He eventually stopped, his wrist hurting. The tree looked like someone swung a full ax into it once or twice before leaving it.

Tyler took deep, heaving breaths before turning to Ashlyn, who had her arms crossed and a half smile on her face.

She tucked the ammo into a hollow in the tree before turning back to him.

“Let’s go home.”

“Ya…”

As they approached the car, Tyler stopped.

“Ashlyn.”

“Hm?”

He pulled the car keys out of his pocket before tossing them to her.

“You… you can drive..”

She blinked in surprise before letting out a breath in amusement. “Ya.. thanks.. now get in..”

He nodded slowly, climbing into the passenger’s seat.

As they drove, Tyler wasn’t afraid anymore. It was like a new beginning started, even if it was small.

All he had to do was trust Ashlyn.

#ashlyn banner #Ashlyn sbg #tyler hernandez #Tyler sbg #tyler x ashlyn #Ashlyn x Tyler #school bus graveyard #Sbg #oneshot #fanfic

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archivallyfound09 · 1 year

Text

Stars & Stripes pt.2

Summary: Jake meets a new girl on base and pursues her, not realizing that she may be exactly what he needed all along.

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x reader (no y/n, afab) Warnings: Everything is mature folks, swearing, drinking, adult-y stuff- the usual rules for my stuff :)

----------------

"I'm sorry....you...went for a JOG?"

Horrified, her hands flew up to take her phone off of speaker.

"Yes, sometimes I do actually enjoy going out and getting some fresh air and being near the-"

"Oh cut the shit, who is he?" The stuttering that happened on the other end of the line confirmed the suspicions. "See- I knew it. You pick up a weird random hobby when there's a guy around."

"Actually, if you must know," her tone was still a bit shaky, but the confidence was returning, "I went out for a run hoping to avoid the guy I literally ran into last night."

The loud male chuckle on the other end made her blood steam. "You went for a jog on the one road that leads to the military base and it's hangers to avoid the one guy who was clearly going to go to work on the military base and it's hangers...."

"Shut up, Edward," she tried to growl, a smile pulling at her lips, "maybe you should've left me a map!"

"I'm back in two weeks. You think you can handle yourself until then, Magellan?" She rolled her eyes and gave an affirmative. "Alright, good. Stay out of trouble, okay? Can't beat anyone up for hitting on my lil' sis!" She groaned at the nickname- though they weren't related Eddie had been in her life far longer than any of her other siblings. He had certainly been around enough to know all of her annoyances.

"Goodbye Edward."

------------

Jake tapped his eraser on the tip of his front tooth, clearly not interested in the recounting of Rooster's latest conquest. This time, Coyote wasn't the only one to notice Hangman's clear disinterest. Normally, it would become a one-upping contest, with someone making an outrageous lie, being called on it, and then the liar being forced to get the first round of drinks that night.

The day had passed relatively uneventfully. Hangman had been correct- Maverick had swapped him for Rooster to fly with Phoenix and Bob. Their unsuccessful kill made him feel much better about the decision.

He had gone up with Harvard and Yale and, though unsuccessful, they had come much closer to hitting their target. Hangman internally clung to his two confirmed air kills and puffed out his chest and shrugged when Maverick asked what went wrong. He partook in his push-ups silently (shockingly according to Phoenix) and then had wound up here, sitting on top of his desk ignoring Rooster's antics.

Fanboy had had enough. "Alright, Hard Deck, let's go!" Everyone let out a halfhearted cheer and looked at the clock, thrilled to see they had meet their training requirements. Normally, Monday was a bit early for drinks, but with the impending mission looming in the distance and the inability of anyone to complete the simulation successfully, it was the one thing Fanboy knew they needed.

He also got no resistance and ignored the voice in his head that said "You're all crazy and alcoholics."

-------

For a Monday night, the Hard Deck was just about empty. A few booths were taken up by a couple or two, a rescheduled first date, and a small group of women who were clearly just trying to get away from their kids for a few hours.

Penny looked up from the bar amusedly. Her arched eyebrow asked "that bad, huh?" and Fanboy and Coyote's fervent nods confirmed her fears. She was still figuring out her stuff with Pete, but whatever this mission was, he was putting these kids through hell.

"Alright, first round on me. After that, your problem, ok?" There was a tired, but relieved cheer that went around as Penny pulled the draft pull and started filling pints. Hangman took one of the first poured and raised it up to their fabulous bartender, winning a smile from Penny.

Soon the group had settled after a beer or two (or 4 in Bob's case...) over near the pool table and the darts. Hangman had played Coyote twice and smoked him, so he had moved on to Fanboy and pool. Rooster had tried to go to the piano twice but had been persuaded away by Phoenix and Halo, begging him to wait until Friday night (and not wanting to disturb literally everyone else in the bar).

"Hey Penny- tried to find the screw setter bits for the drywall in the back, but hardware store was fresh out. They say they'll have them in Thursday- want me to hed back then?"

Fanboy had spotted her first. Then Coyote, then Phoenix, then-

"Hey, Hangmaaaaan. Look who's here!!" Rooster's voice cut through every conversation like a knife. Hangman rolled his eyes, half expecting to see Jesus Christ himself at the bar after Bradshaw's introduction.

What Jake had not intended for was that the woman he had met last night (and again this morning on her run) was standing in the same, semi-empty bar that he was in. She had heard Rooster's idiocy and peered over Penny's shoulder to lock eyes with him. She gave him a small smile, doe-eyes twinkling, and then it turned into a stifled laugh, her lips curling into each other as he looked down.

It was then that he felt it: Jake had managed to spill was was left of his beer on his lap. As the cold liquid settled on his thigh, he jumped up, pushing it further down his leg, into his sock and onto the floor. The entire squad around him had seen the fiasco and were losing it. Over the cackled and jeers, Coyote had made his way up and placed a sympathetic hand on Jake's shoulder.

"Smooth move, Seresin! You gotta leave some ladies for the rest of us!"

Hangman rolled his eyes and headed away from the group and up to the bar. In the moment since he had held her gaze, she had vanished. Penny handed him a dry bartowel and gave him a bit of a smirk.

"You hurt my girl, Lieutenant, I'll make sure you never see the sky again."

Jake smiled and finished wiping down his pants, handing the rag back.

"Yes ma'am," he shot her his thousand dollar smile and headed out the front doors, leaving the crew to their laughing fits.

-----------

"Hey Stripes!"

She froze, her hand on the key in the ignition. She had left the window down due to the cool ocean breeze (and the broken A/C), but she was thrilled that she had. Here came sex on a plate, running out to her car, calling her name (kinda), and wanting to talk to her. THe butterflies had migrated up into her ribcage and she felt like she was vibrating.

In the bar it had taken everything in her to waltz in as cool as she did. She had spotted Jake's car from this morning in the parking lot (along with the rest of the team- she didn't exactly get new neighbors in military housing) and she had spent 15 minutes outside trying to get her cheeks to stop flushing and her heart to stop pounding out of her chest.

"This is ridiculous," she told herself over and over again, pacing a line into the gravel parking lot, "You met a guy, IN THE DARK, and are now acting like this? Come on, you're not that shallow...but maybe he's nice and sweet and-" She could hear Eddie's voice now "HE'S A GUY. And a military one at that! You know what he wants..."

She finally had calmed her conniption down enough to go in (after rehearsing the line to Penny over and over again in her head), but when she saw him in the back, the orange glow of the lighting and the wood against his tan skin, his blond hair a bit more tidy than when she had met him last night, the top of his uniform undone, she froze. It felt like a magnet had locked her in place and all she could see in the room was him.

Once the beer had started to tip, the magnetic field broke. She stifled a laugh and Penny rolled her eyes, nodding towards the door with a knowing glance. She had heard Penny give "the talk" to Eddie lots of times when she was visiting, but this was the first time it was going to be threatened on her behalf.

She walked slow, countered step to the Jeep and sat in the cool air and silence for a few moments. Everything seemed like an eternity, so just as she was about to turn on the ignition and play (literally) hard to get, she heard his voice.

His forearms crossed and were over the precipice of her open window in seconds. She could see the slightest shine of sweat near his hairline and the few freckles that coated his nose. He was so close that-

Her eyes finally met his. She was completely lost in the pale green eyes that stared back at hers, the smile lines crinkling in the corners, the slight glint of the setting sun. She felt time slow down and could feel every pinprick of sweat start to form on her skin.

What she didn't know is that the man standing in front of her was even more enraptured by the woman in his view. He tried desperately to capture every detail of her face, every fleck of color in her eyes, every dotted freckle, the way her lashes curled at the ends, the slight pink that dusted her cheekbones- Jake was terrified he was going to forget something.

It was her smile that finally broke him out of his panic. She had taken in a deep breath, her lips slightly parting as she adjusted herself in the driver's seat. She handed him a small piece of paper.

"We can't keep bumping into each other like this, " she said, confident but also completely unsure of herself. Jake quickly opened the paper and smiled. He saw a name and a phone number.

"Nice to officially meet you, Stripes," he smiled, giving her a small Texas bow. She giggled.

"Nice to officially meet you too, Hangman."

------

#top gun maverick #jake hangman seresin #hangman top gun #jake seresin #jake hangman x reader #jake seresin x reader #jake hangman seresin x reader #top gun hangman

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roosterbruiser · 1 year

Text

𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐄𝐋 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑 — 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄 —— 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐖𝐎

—𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍 𝐎𝐍 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐒. —𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐒: 𝟕.𝟐𝐊 —𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 —𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 —𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐁𝐎𝐀𝐑𝐃 —𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐎𝐀𝐊𝐒, 𝐌𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐏 𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐀 𝐉𝐔𝐋𝐘 𝟐𝟏𝐒𝐓, 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟕

Payback draws the first short straw. His face falters, falls, crumples. His bottom lip trembles and his eyes are wet suddenly. He is just about to take a quivering breath, just about to swallow his pride and beg everyone to let him stay, when Fanboy suddenly squares his jaw.

“I’ll go,” he says. “I’ll go with him.”

Payback doesn't have the strength to say anything at all. But the urge to beg evades him instantaneously. He claps his hand on his best friend’s shoulder and holds it there for a long time.

Fanboy’s heart is hammering in his chest. He knows it’s the right thing to do and he almost always does the right thing--even if it makes his stomach sour.

“Someone should probably go to Paul’s cabin, too--just to…eliminate or whatever,” Phoenix says. She’s trembling. “Maybe he’s still…”

Bradley glances at you--you won’t even look at him anymore. And Jake still won’t look at you. Fuck. Everything’s fucked up right now. This isn’t how this summer was supposed to go.

You nod, sighing.

“Good idea,” you comment softly. You’re staring at your hands. “Someone should go.”

God, there’s so much blood beneath your fingernails. You haven’t been able to wash off at all. Mentally, you’re thinking about everything that needs to be packed in Fanboy and Payback’s packs when they go. But really, you wish you could even just think about washing off. You think even just that would make you feel cleaner.

“I’ll go,” Bradley volunteers. “Don’t need to draw sticks again.”

Coyote glances at Bradley--he’s watching you intently as you pick at your fingers and furrow your brows. Then he glances at Jake, who won’t look up from the ground. It’d do the three of you good to have some distance--maybe he can even talk some sense into Bradley if they’re alone together.

“Me too,” Coyote agrees. “We should get on outta here, though. It’s gonna get dark soon.”

“Right,” Bradley answers. He takes a deep breath. “Let’s boogie.”

So, now you’re here, standing at the edge of camp before Payback and Fanboy. Jake is in the mess hall with all the campers, guarding the front door with the shotgun. Phoenix hasn’t left Bob’s side once. Coyote and Bradley are trekking through the thick trees to get to Paul’s cabin.

Fanboy and Payback have their backpacks on--sleeping bags, bandages, rations, water, flashlights, kitchen knives included. They’re each holding an ax, which was your idea, and Coyote gave each of them walkies with an extra battery.

The sun is beginning to set. Everything is orange and pink as you look at the long and winding path before them, your breath caught in your throat.

“Got everything?” You ask.

They nod identically. Payback fiddles with the switch on the flashlight--he can never stop moving when he’s nervous.

“Got enough food to feed a horse,” Fanboy says.

You smile small--the dry blood on your face cracks.

“Didn’t want you to go hungry,” you say softly.

As if hunger is what’s going to kill them.

The wind kisses the tips of your nose, your ears. It smells overwhelmingly of iris. All three of you look up towards the trees, the sky. It’s going to be dark very soon. They need to start moving.

“You believe in monsters, Gale?” Payback asks, hands on his hips. He didn’t until a few hours ago.

Biting your lip, you nod.

“Have to in my line of work,” you whisper.

“Think they live under the bed?” Fanboy follows.

“Sure,” you say with a shrug. “What do you think?”

Payback pauses, eyes unfocused as he stares past you.

“I think they’re sneakier than that.”

A pregnant pause fills the air. You don’t know quite what to say to these men that you’re sending off into the dark night, all the spirits and ghouls and boogeymen hiding behind trees just waiting for them with watering mouths.

“Two days,” you finally say softly. “Two days and then everything’ll be hunky dory again.”

You don’t even believe yourself when you say it.

Fanboy nods. Beads of sweat are rolling down the back of his neck.

“Yeah,” he says, voice thin. “We’ll be back, okay?”

“With a horde of rescuers,” Payback adds softly. The smile gracing his lips is sad and small. “We’ve probably got a better chance than y’all, huh?”

Nodding, you shift all your weight to one side.

“Probably.”

It doesn’t make any of you feel better to say it.

Payback clenches his fists--they’re sweaty. He doesn’t want to go. And he doesn’t want to stay, either. He wants to go back home to his girlfriend and her awful tiny dog and eat good barbecue and forget all of this ever happened.

But then he glances at Fanboy and Fanboy is looking at him already, squinting under the sun. And he thinks that he is the most friend-looking creature to ever grace this earth. He thinks that he didn’t stutter at all when he volunteered to come with Payback. And then he feels a little bit better about doing this--about leaving and getting help.

“We’ll be heroes, right?” Fanboy asks, a mischievous smile tugging on his lips pathetically.

“Yeah,” Payback answers. Then he glances at you. He knows you feel guilty, but he knows you’re backed in a corner, too. You’re doing what you can--just like him, just like Fanboy. “Hold it down, alright?”

Choked up on all the apologies and all the grief and all the anger of today and yesterday, you can only nod. Alright, you’ll hold it down.

“We’ll check in every half hour,” Fanboy says.

You nod again. You grab his wrist, glance at his watch--it’s a Mickey Mouse watch, one you’re sure was a gag gift given his first name, but that he dons proudly all the same. But then your eyes are watery because you hope you see this watch on this wrist again soon. So, so, so soon.

“It’s eight now,” you tell them. You let go of Fanboy’s wrist.

“And we’ll be out of range…shit, like, a couple miles out, I think. So, if we don’t respond…” Payback says. He doesn’t finish his sentence and neither you nor Fanboy jumps at the opportunity to either.

The three of you just stand there for another moment. It’s getting darker--a lavender light is starting to fall all over camp. Shit. Bradley and Javy still aren’t back from their trek to Paul’s cabin yet. But at least all the campers are back inside the mess hall.

“Don’t die,” you tell them.

They nod solemnly.

“No doy,” Fanboy says. “Ditto.”

And then they turn around, their backpacks bulging, and start to walk away from Camp Arcadia. Just for a moment, as the white rice moon untethers itself from the pink clouds, you wonder if this is the last time you’ll ever see them.

But then you shake your head and look down because the thought is too vicious to bear.

Payback’s heart is racing as they start down the path, the trees tall and the cicadas loud. He’s gripping the handle of his ax hard, hard enough that it’s splintering his skin. And he’s taking deep, deep breaths.

“Hey,” Fanboy says because he can practically hear Payback’s heart hammering out of his chest. “Maybe we got out scott-free.”

“Doesn’t feel that way,” Payback whispers.

“It will when we get to town and have a couple cold ones,” Fanboy says. “Hopefully everyone else is still alive by then.”

Finally, when their figures disappear behind the treeline, you turn around and face camp again. The day is fading very fast now. You’ll only just have time to wash yourself off in the lake.

You don’t bother getting naked--you don’t even bother taking your shoes off. You just walk down the incline of pebbles, the warm water lapping at your ankles and pulling you in until you’re standing on your tip-toes with your chin atop the water.

How could someplace as Camp Arcadia be so beautiful--the towering trees, the deep green leaves, the cotton candy skies, the white stones, the blue-green water--and so horrifying all together in utter tandem?

Trying to move quickly, you dunk your head beneath the surface and begin to scrub your scalp. God, it’s so quiet under here beneath the water. The continuous hum of underwater life, the muffled cicadas and crickets, the soft moss-bottom. It’s the quietest it’s been in your head in hours and hours. You wish you could stay here forever, dunked just below the rippling surface.

Jake watches you go under from the mess hall windows. He’s watching you closely--has been since you escorted Fanboy and Payback to the edge of camp, which looked more like a death march than anything else. Bubbles race to the surface as you exhale and then it all goes still.

“C’mon, Gale,” he whispers to himself, eyes narrowed. He’s waiting for you to bob back up to the surface, to exhale and wipe your eyes now that they’re clean of blood. “C’mon, baby.”

He imagines something is wrong--that the killer somehow found you in the lake, as ridiculous and sleep-deprived a thought that is. He imagines blood and bubbles and flesh and you resurfacing just to scream his name before you’re pulled back under. He’s so tired, so scared just thinking about it, that his palms begin to sweat.

Ignoring all the ruckus of the kids behind him, he stands with his hands firmly on the shotgun. He has half a mind to stomp out there and pull you out of the water, but then you finally come up and oh. You’re fine. Totally and completely fine.

He glances behind him--everyone is settling in. The kids are playing. Phoenix is with Bob. You’re probably the one that needs the most protection right now, anyway, all alone out there. So, he very quietly slinks out the door and starts for the shore.

You can hear him coming--somehow, you just know that it’s Jake. Maybe because he likes to get you when you’re alone or maybe because you just know what his footsteps sound like on the gravel.

But either way, you know he’s there, watching you wash off.

“Can we talk?” He asks softly.

“Yeah,” you answer, not looking at him. You’re picking the blood out from under your fingernails. “Go ahead.”

Jake sighs. He’s thinking about how you yelled at him--how he felt like a kicked dog after. You were right, of course. He needed to calm down, grow up, realize there are bigger things in life than what’s going on between you and Bradley and himself.

“Listen, I…” he trails, scratching the back of his head. But he can’t think of anything to say.

“I don’t want to talk about me and you or me and Bradley, alright? So, if that’s your prerogative, then just march on back to the mess hall,” you say. Your tone is even and quiet.

You turn your face so he can see your profile against the dying sky. He’s already looking at you, shirt crumpled and face soft and hair messy.

“Okay,” he answers. He doesn’t wanna leave you. “Can I sit down?”

If you weren’t so exhausted, you’d tell him he can do whatever he wants on account of it being a free country. But instead, you nod. You just nod.

He sits on the rocks with the shotgun across his lap, sniffing and digging his fingers into the soil.

“Are you pissed?” You ask finally. You aren’t looking at him again, busy scratching blood off your calves.

“About what?” He asks, brows furrowed.

“That I slept with Bradley,” you whisper.

“Thought you didn’t wanna talk about it,” he says quietly.

You shrug, sighing.

“Changed my mind,” you whisper. “I just…I wanna get on the same page, you know? I feel like I’ve been so confused and everything’s just been so--so…muddled. Best to just get it all out there, right?”

What you mean is: above it all, all the shit and the gore and the horror, you don’t want Jake to be mad at you. You don’t want to wreck what you had. And you just don’t know what you’re doing.

“Not pissed,” Jake answers. “Confused, maybe.”

“Why?” You ask.

“‘Cause of our night together,” he answers. “I thought things…changed that night.”

“They did,” you insist, brows furrowed. “I mean, I thought they did.”

“Then why him?”

You turn to him and finally, he can look at you. You aren’t slathered in blood anymore. You’re washed off now--as washed off as the lake water can get you.

“Because you can only look at me when I’m clean.”

Jake swallows hard. He doesn’t want it to be true, but he knows that in your private way, it is. He can’t look at blood and you’ve been covered in it for hours and hours.

“I can’t help it,” he says. He sounds like he’s pleading.

“I know,” you answer. Casting your gaze back on the rippling water, you bite your lip. “I know.”

“Are you…in love with him?” He asks. His heart is in his throat.

“I’m not in anything with anyone,” you tell him. It’s a half-truth, you think. You could be in love with Bradley easily--very easily. But you’re standing on that edge, your toes just barely breaching the murky air. You won’t fall. You won’t let go. “Are you in love with me?”

Jake laughs--it’s short and humorless.

“Baby, look at you. Of course I’m in love with you.”

You nod, a smile tugging on your lips.

“What are we gonna do?”

Jake almost says love each other. Be together. But then he realizes that you mean right now, right here. What are you going to do to stay alive?

“Maybe Bradley and Javy found something,” he says. “Like, a radio or something.”

“Fat chance,” you answer.

And then you wash the last of the blood off your skin and start to wade back towards Jake--the sun is almost entirely set now. Your fingers are numb when you think about so many of your co-counselors being out there in the dark, thick woods.

Jake stands up, leaving the gun on the rocks beside the two of you. You’re soaking wet and the air is getting cooler--he knows your skin must be goosed, he knows your scalp must be prickling.

“Here,” he offers, opening his arms. He watches you, your lips a tint bluer than they were before, eye him carefully with all the skepticism of a mutt eyeing the dogcatcher. Then he rolls his eyes and beckons you closer with a cut nod of his head. “C’mon, you’re freezing.”

You submit then because you are freezing. You’re freezing and you’re exhausted and you’re scared and you feel like nothing in the world is going your way.

Falling into his arms, you bury your cold nose in his chest and inhale him. He smells like he always does, like deodorant and sweat and grass--but mainly sweat and grass. It’s a good smell, one you inhale as he wraps his arms around you and pulls you close to him. And you remember that just a few days ago, being in his arms was good. Comforting. Warm. Safe. Soft. But now everything is different. Everything is gone. Everyone is gone--or at least, that’s what it feels like.

“Jesus, your nose is an icicle,” Jake says, holding the back of your head and pushing your face further into his chest. “You’re shivering.”

But you’re not shivering just because you’re cold. You’re shivering because you’re suddenly crying so hard that you can hardly breathe. Your shoulders are shaking and your spine is curved and your eyes are wet. You don’t even know when the dam broke, when you started sobbing, but you are. You’re so exhausted that your cries are silent.

He’s stroking your back as the bullfrogs begin singing, his hands warm against your soaked clothing. But then he feels how warm your face is suddenly, how quiet you are. He’s just about to ask if you’re alright when you suck in a deep, quivering breath and sob into his chest.

He’s never seen you cry before. You’re level-headed, cool, calm, collected. It must mean something, Jake decides, that you’re falling apart right here and now in his arms. It must mean something--it has to.

Jake isn’t going to say anything. He doesn’t know what to say right now that would make you feel any better. He just holds you close, holds you tight. You’re fisting his shirt and he’s stroking your hair. And because he’s a weak man, because he’s a weak man who is in love with you, he sinks his face into your hair and breathes you in.

You are hardly clean right now and he’s able to do this. He thinks, if he really tries, if he keeps being in love with you, he’ll be able to stomach anything just to look at you.

“Jake,” you whimper. “Jake, I feel like--I feel like we’re being punished for something awful.”

He tuts softly, stroking your hair gently.

“Whatcha mean, baby?” He asks quietly. “Who’s punishing us? For what?”

“God,” is all you can manage to choke.

You don’t know why you feel like this, why you feel like something bigger than you, than everyone, is punishing you. But it is an ever-present knot in your gut.

“Shh,” he whispers. “You’re just tired, baby. That’s all.”

But now a rock sinks in his belly.

♀

Jake is sitting on the ground by the mess hall doors, the shotgun laying just beside him. It’s late now--so late that there’s not even a speck of light outside. He’s been the one checking in with Payback and Fanboy every half hour, he’s been the one sitting up and watching the doors, he’s been the one peering over his shoulder at the slumbering campers in their sleeping bags. Phoenix is asleep with Bob in the kitchen and you--finally--laid your head down on his lap and fell asleep after he told you to lay down for the eightieth time.

“But they’re not back yet,” you said softly, glancing out the windows into the dusk. “What if something happened?”

Jake swallowed, squaring his shoulders. Your face was still puffy from crying and your hair was still wet.

“I’ll check it out if they aren’t back by midnight, okay?”

You bit your lip, considering your options. You really didn’t think it would take this long for Coyote and Bradley to go to Paul’s cabin and come back. There’s a knot in your belly and a headache behind your eyes just thinking about it. But over everything else, you’re so fucking tired. So tired that you’re delirious.

“Okay,” you whispered. “But you’ll wake me up if you go, right?”

“Of course,” Jake said, face serious as ever before. “C’mon. Get some shut-eye.”

The clock is racing towards midnight--only a few minutes ‘til. Jake doesn’t want to wake you up. Quite frankly, he doesn’t wanna go out there in the dark. But then he thinks of Coyote hurt--Hell, he even thinks of Bradley hurt--and a strange sense of duty tightens his sense of right and wrong.

“Mr. Jake?”

He jumps--cranes his neck to look beside him. Mable is standing there, her hands clasped before her. She’s red in the face and there are tear tracks marking her cheeks.

He’s just about to ask what’s wrong when he sees it instead--her bandage is bright red with blood.

“Oh,” he says softly. His stomach turns, his saliva grows thick. But still, he looks at Mable. “It open again?”

She nods. She had a nightmare about the Devil--the one who wanders the camp, the one who cut her with the Swiss army knife, the one who she is so petrified of. And then she woke up with her cut oozing hot, hot blood.

“Can you--can you help me?” She asks.

She sees you, clear as day, sleeping on Jake’s lap. She would much prefer if you helped her bandage the cut, but she doesn’t want to wake you. And she knows, somehow, that Jake doesn’t wanna wake you either.

“Sure,” Jake says after a few moments of silence. “Like, just…reapply the bandage?”

Mable shrugs. Right. She’s a kid.

So, as carefully as Jake can, he slips out from under you, carefully laying your head on the wool blanket you’re laying on. And then he leaves the shot gun behind, ventures to one of the tables where you set up your nurse’s station. Mable follows behind him, wiping her face.

“So…a bandage, probably. And maybe some cotton, right?” He glances at her. She shrugs again. “Didn’t you watch her bandage you?” Jake asks.

“No,” Mable says quietly. “I was scared.”

Jake nods. He gets it.

“Well, okay. Um…just--why don’t you take off your bandage and put it on the table.”

He’s preparing himself--steeling his gut, straightening his shoulders, taking a few deep breaths when he starts to feel lightheaded.

Mable unwraps her wound--a few deep red drops of blood fall onto the floor. Jake squints, lips wrinkled as he tries his hardest not to start gagging.

“Good,” he says weakly. He presses cotton to the wound and sighs in relief for a moment--at least he can’t see it anymore. But then he can feel it--hot and velvety beneath the pads of his fingers. “Shit--uh, alright. Yeah. You hold it there, okay?”

Mable does as she’s told.

Jake struggles with the bandage for a second, unraveling it before wrapping it around Mable’s thin arm a few times. The cotton bulges beneath it, but at least he can’t see the slice anymore.

He holds the bandage in place then glances at Mable, who’s already looking at him.

“Now what?” He asks quietly.

“The tape,” she whispers, nodding to the roll on the table.

“Right,” he says. He smiles weakly. “I knew that.”

He rips the tape with his teeth, carefully applying it to the jagged end of the bandage while Mable watches carefully.

“There,” he offers quietly. “All better, right?”

She nods, examining the shoddy work. It surely isn’t as good as it is when you do it, but it’ll do. It’ll do.

There’s a pause between the two of them. Jake is proud of himself--he bandaged a bleeding kid all by himself. He almost wants to wake you up just to tell you that he did it. And if he can do that, he’s certain he can do anything else. Mable is chewing on her lip now, too afraid to go back and lay down, but still sleepy.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Mable whispers. “When I said he was coming for you.”

Jake swallows hard, shrugs.

“All in the past,” he sighs.

She struggles for a moment, sniffling.

“But I wasn’t lying,” she tells him. She looks at his face--his furrowed brows, his twisted lips. “He still is.”

Jake isn’t mad exactly. But he’s scared and he’s tired and he wants this to be over and done with.

“Why?” Jake asks because he knows it’s no use arguing. “Why me?”

“Because he wants all of us and you know how to shoot the gun.”

In your restless slumber, you’re standing outside in the middle of the courtyard. You’re by yourself, covered in blood again, feet planted firmly in the gravel. It’s dark and windy and the waves of the lake are crashing against the white stone uncarefully.

There’s a sense of something, like a sheer curtain shielding a sunny day, that you can’t quite put your finger on other than it is the feeling of loss. Everyone is dead and gone. Only you are left, all by yourself, barefoot in the onyx night.

In your hands is the shotgun, but even it is slimy with blood--you can hardly get your grip on it. Rage and terror are fighting inside your cut--so vicious that bile is rising up your throat.

And there, standing before the lake with that wicked curve in its neck, is the entity. It is as dark and fleshy as ever before, looming over you and everything else as it takes deep and rapid breaths. You don’t know how you know, but you know that its face is covered in blood, you know that it is waiting for you to make the first move.

You’re going to fight it. Just you and just it.

The wind is blowing something wicked. You’re scrambling to find the safety. The entity is twitching, snarling, snapping its teeth. It wants to press is mouth to yours, it wants to breath in your scent as it blunges a claw through your throat, it wants to feel the life drain out of you like it felt the life drain out of your friends--

The mess hall door rips open and the sound of clattering footsteps rips you out of your nightmare. And in the dim light, in your haze of upset and in your frenzy of panic, you sit up and reach for the shotgun beside you. Jake is gone--you don’t know where he is--but you know that you have to protect what you have.

“Don’t fucking move!” You scream, cocking the shotgun and pressing the safety off. You’re still blinking yourself awake as you scramble to stand. “Get the fuck--!”

Bradley blinks at you--Coyote’s eyes are wide.

The barrel of the shotgun is aimed directly at them.

“Whoa, whoa!” Jake calls, hurrying over to your rigid form and Bradley and Coyote. “Hey, hotshot, put the gun down!”

Still in shock, you lower the weapon. Your heart is racing. Your mouth is dry.

“I’m sorry,” you say, shaking your head, swallowing hard. “God, fuck--I’m so…I’m so sorry.”

Jake takes the gun from your hands, stroking your hair as you stumble back. Your fingers are numb with panic.

“Jesus Christ,” Bradley gasps, eyes narrowed at you. “Were you gonna fucking shoot us?”

“No!” You answer, shaking your head. “No, I was just--I panicked. I didn’t know it was you coming in.”

“Well, it’s not like you gave us a secret knock,” Bradley hisses.

“I know,” you say, holding your face.

“Christ, we’ve been busting our asses out there, running through the woods with a killer on the loose--and we come back to that?” Bradley cries. “Way to show your gratitude, Gale.”

He isn't calling you Birdie.

“Lay off her, man,” Coyote insists, clapping Bradley’s shoulder. “We have bigger fish to fry.”

Bradley looks at you long and hard--the way you’re holding your face, the way Jake is standing beside you like he belongs there. He’s burning from earlier still--angry at himself and at you and at Jake.

“Here,” Bradley says, throwing a flurry of newspaper articles and papers at you and Jake. “Read ‘em and weep.”

Coyote scoffs, slapping Bradley on the back of the head.

“Don’t be a dick, man,” Coyote insists.

“Fuck off,” Bradley grumbles. “They need to read ‘em.”

“I didn’t know it was you!” You insist. “I never would’ve--Bradley, I wouldn’t--!”

“--I really don’t care right now,” Bradley interrupts, holding a palm up to you. “Read the newspapers.”

With quivering hands and wet eyes, you lean down and grab the newspapers. They’re old--yellowed and stained. The scent of old ink floods your nose as Jake claps Coyote on the shoulder.

“Glad you’re back,” Jake tells him. “I was just about to send out the troops.”

Coyote smiles weakly--he’s more afraid now than he was before. Not even just because they finally made their way back to camp, but because of what him and Bradley found.

You’re reading as fast as you can, your brows furrowed, your stomach at your feet.

HORROR AT CAMP ARCADIA. July 19th, 1957.

“What…?” You whisper.

Bradley is watching you with his hands on his hips.

“Paul’s cabin was ransacked. He wasn’t there. God, there was--there was shit everywhere. And a fucking bulletin board full of shit like this.”

“What is it?” Jake asks, brows furrowed.

Phoenix peers out from the kitchen, her eyes heavy with sleep.

“What’s going on?” She whispers.

“What’s going on is that some shit went down in 1957. You know--like it’s going on now. Like, a guy running around fucking killing type shit. Read it.”

Your stomach is in knots.

“‘All seven of the camp counselors and the camp nurse were found brutally slain on camp grounds’,” you read aloud, your voice quivering. You’re lightheaded suddenly, choking on panic. “What the fuck is this?”

“The Great Oaks Gazette,” Coyote answers. “As in…it’s real.”

“What do you mean?” You ask. “This is--Jake, isn’t this the story you told at the bonfire?”

Jake swallows hard, eyes wide.

“I thought it was--Jesus, I thought it was just some spooky story.”

“Well, it’s not,” Bradley answers. “It happened. Like, it happened here thirty fucking years ago.”

“‘The maniac’…” you whisper. Then you have to close your eyes and breathe through a bout of nausea. “Christ…what the fuck is going on?”

“He’s here,” Coyote answers. “Whoever did that--he’s here.”

“Except that he isn’t really ‘cause he was found dead, too,” Bradley says. “So, someone who knew about him is pretending to be him. And they’re trying to pick us off one by one.”

“People got murdered here?” Phoenix asks, clutching another newspaper clipping. “Like--here? Camp Arcadia?”

“Catch up,” Bradley snaps at her. “A whole staff. Just like us. Seven camp counselors and one nurse.”

Coyote nods stiffly.

“Two girls and five boys,” you whisper softly. “Just like us.”

“Yeah,” Bradley confirms. “Just like us.”

Jake’s head is spinning. He grips your shoulder, his eyes wide.

“My God,” he mutters. “I didn’t know…I thought…”

That’s when all the bottled-up rage from today, all the fear and the horror, surfaces in Bradley’s chest in a puddle of red. He turns to Jake, his eyes narrowed.

“How did you hear the story?” Bradley asks him, suddenly turning towards him. “Like, where did you hear about it?”

Jake’s brows furrow.

“I…I don’t remember,” he answers honestly. “I feel like I’ve just--like I’ve just always known about it.”

“Why?” Bradley continues, narrowing his eyes. “None of us knew about it.”

“C’mon,” Phoenix says, glancing between Jake and Bradley. “Cool it.”

You’re too stunned to realize how lethal this argument between Bradley and Jake is going to be. If you were less shocked, less hurt, less tired, you would see in their eyes just how bad things are about to get. You would see it in Bradley’s red chest and Jake’s clenched fists.

“No, no,” Bradley says. “‘Cause while we were out there, trying to get some fucking answers about what’s going on, I kept thinking about it. No one answered me earlier when I asked who would hike all the way out here. Shit, who knows we’re even out here, right?”

“Someone who knows about Gwyar,” Phoenix says. His name tastes bitter on her tongue. “Someone from town. I don’t know.”

“Right. You don’t know,” Bradley says, not ripping his gaze from Jake. “I’ll bet it was someone who knew about Gwyar, too.”

The tips of Jake’s ears are bright red. His face contorts in rage as he scoffs at Bradley.

“The fuck are you saying, man?” Jake asks.

Bradley smiles.

“I’m saying that maybe you’re the one who’s trying to slice and dice us.”

“Fuck off,” you hiss at Bradley, stepping closer to the two of them. “You’re not helping!”

“Oh, I’ve been helping,” Bradley insists. “I put my ass on line to get this information--but Jake already knew it, right? You already knew.”

“It was just a story!” Jake insists.

“Except that it wasn’t,” Bradley says. The toes of his tennis shoes are grazing Jake’s now. The men are eye-level, each of their gazes fiery as they stare at another. “You know, I was thinking on the way back: how could it be him? And then shit started to add up, you know? The stars really aligned.”

Coyote is stunned into silence. Bradley never verbalized any of this on their trek back.

“Fuck off,” you say again. You attempt to get between them when Bradley suddenly juts an arm out and puts it in the middle of your chest. “Hey-!”

“Stay back,” Bradley says. “I think we found our killer.”

“You can’t just say that, man,” Coyote says. “You need to check yourself.”

“Where did you find the ax?” Bradley asks Jake. Jake swallows hard. “Right…your cabin. I remember now. And the Swiss army knife--that was in the bus barn, right? You found it. Didn’t he, Coyote?”

“You’re making something out of nothing,” Coyote spits. “Leave him alone.”

You’re watching the two men with your heart in your throat. This display of aggression, of dominance, is making your throat tight with anger.

Jake’s grip tightens on the gun.

“He can’t stand the sight of blood,” you say. “How’s he gonna chop Bob’s arm off?”

“You know, did anyone ever know that Jake was in his school’s musicals?” Bradley asks. He recalled it during the long walk back through the dark woods--that tiny detail Jake shared a few summers back when he’d had one too many, slurring the lyrics to Suddenly Seymore. “‘Cause I remember that.”

“Mr. Jake isn’t afraid,” Mable pipes up from behind everyone, her heart in her chest. From afar, she thinks that she’s coming to his defense. A sudden loyalty for Jake has sprouted in her chest. She holds her hands on her hips, then juts her arm out towards everyone. “He isn’t afraid of anything. He wrapped my arm back up.”

Fuck.

“Convenient,” Bradley sneers. “You can handle the sight of blood when all of us aren’t looking, huh? What else you doing when we’re not looking?”

“Bradley, you’re way out of line,” Coyote says.

“And didn’t you tell me that you were gonna kill me? Like, a few hours ago?”

“That’s taken way outta context!” Jake demands. “You were fucking--you were--!”

“--I was what? Talking about your girl? And you didn’t like that?”

Bile rises in your throat.

“What are you talking about?” You demand. “Both of you--just--just quit it!”

But they aren’t quitting it. They’re stepping closer to each other, not ripping their gazes from each other.

“Coyote heard it,” Bradley says. “Didn’t you, Coyote?”

Coyote doesn’t answer. He did hear Jake say it--but he knows…or at least, he thinks he knows, that Jake would never hurt anyone. He wasn't being serious. He was just angry.

Jake glances at Coyote, whose face is pulled together in agony.

“C’mon,” Jake says. “You know I didn’t mean it.”

Your blood runs cold.

“You said you were gonna kill Bradley?” You whisper.

“He was talking about you,” Jake insists, incredulous.

You turn your back on the two men, reeling. Your heart is beating out of your chest. What the fuck is going on?

“You fuck,” Phoenix sneers. Her emotions are running high, her heart is ripping apart in her chest every moment she has to watch Bob settle in an agonizing slumber. “Did you fucking hurt Bob?”

“No,” Jake gasps. “Phoenix--you know me. C’mon. We all know each other! I would never hurt Bob!”

“Yeah, but you’d threaten to kill me,” Bradley insists. “You’re a man of your word, right? Maybe you thought Bob was me.”

“We need to calm down,” Coyote says. “Let’s--fuck, let’s put the gun down and just talk this through?”

Jake snaps his head in Coyote’s direction, rage burning the tips of his fingers.

“Put the gun down?” Jake asks, gaping. “You think I’m gonna…you think I’m gonna hurt someone?”

Coyote is sorrowful as he shrugs and shakes his head.

“I don’t know what’s going on!” Coyote cries. “No one does!”

“I do,” Bradley interrupts. “It’s you, isn’t it? You were gonna shoot me earlier today, too. I heard the safety click off.”

“What?” You whisper. You look at Jake, who is looking like he’s about to start scrambling for purchase. “What did you do?”

“No, I didn’t!” He looks at you--all that hurt in your eyes is making his chest ache. “Gale, baby, you’ve gotta believe me! I would never do that! You know me! You know me!”

Bradley steps between the two of you.

“Leave her out of it,” he sneers. “Give me the gun.”

Jake tightens his grip on the gun.

“No,” he says, shaking his head firmly. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Jake,” Phoenix says, sobbing. “Give him the fucking gun!”

“No!” Jake yells, stepping back. “No, I won’t give Bradley the gun.”

“Then give it to me,” you say quietly. Your face is softer now, your brows pulled together in anguish and your face twisted in confusion. “Give it to me, Jake. It’s okay.”

In this tizzy, you’ve hardly thought about what’s real and what isn’t. Everything feels real and nothing feels real. You’re living a waking nightmare, you’re having nightmares when you close your eyes. You’re losing. Everywhere you turn, everywhere you look, there’s blood.

“Gale…” Jake says. He’s crying now, staring at you. “I didn’t do it.”

“Okay,” you whisper, stepping closer to him. “I believe you. Give me the gun.”

Jake’s palms are sweaty.

“Give it to her!” Phoenix sobs. “Jake, give her the fucking gun!”

Jake gives you the gun and you take it slowly, not breaking your gaze from him. And then you swallow hard and look around at everyone. You’re just about to tell everyone to calm down, about to say that you should all calmly talk about what’s going on, when Bradley suddenly jumps on Jake.

“What are you doing?” You scream at the two men. The campers start to russell in their sleeping bags, start to sit up. “What are you fucking doing?!”

Coyote is panicking, holding his hands on top of his head.

“Stop!” Coyote yells.

The two men are a blur. It’s fists and blood and legs and hair until Jake is laid out flat on his belly and Bradley is sitting on top of him.

“Get the fuck off me!” Jake demands. “You stupid son of a bitch! You fuck!”

“We need to talk about this,” you cry. “Stop it! Stop it, Bradley!”

“He’s gonna hurt someone else,” Bradley hisses at you, pressing his knees into Jake’s back. “He can’t be in here with us.”

“What?” You screech. You’re quivering. “We don’t know that he did it! We don’t know what’s happening! He just--Christ, he just heard a story, okay?”

“And he found the weapons. And he said he was gonna kill Bradley,” Phoenix says. She wipes her face, stares down at Jake. “I don’t want him in here.”

You turn to her, flabbergasted. Phoenix, the pillar of maturity and level-headedness, suggesting that Jake be cast out when there’s a slasher on the loose. Your knees nearly buckle.

“Phoenix,” you whisper quietly. Your throat is too choked to say anything else.

“Please don’t do this,” Jake cries, stills struggling beneath Bradley. “Please, please don’t fucking do this!”

“Get off of him,” Coyote snaps, pulling Bradley’s shoulder. “He isn’t hurting anyone!”

“Not right now,” Bradley says. “But he could start again. Any fucking time.”

All the campers are standing now, watching the showdown.

“You’re a son of a bitch,” you snap at Bradley. “Get the fuck off him!”

“Why? So he can kill you? So he can kill me? Not a fucking chance, birdie.”

Panicked, you shove Bradley’s shoulder. It’s enough to rock him but not enough to move him. And before Bradley can shove you away from him, Coyote’s gripping your elbow and pulling you beside him.

“So, what? What do you wanna do now, Bradley? Wanna stick him outside? Fuck you!” Coyote says.

“We’ll lock him in a cabin,” Bradley says. “No harm, no foul.”

“You’re gonna kill me,” Jake screams. “You’re trying to fucking kill me!”

It’s clear as day to you suddenly, reality. Jake wouldn’t hurt anyone. Jake didn’t do this. Jake would never hurt you. He would never hurt Bradley. Jake wouldn’t hurt anyone. It isn’t him. It isn’t him.

“Please get off of him,” you cry. You’re sinking to your knees, still holding the shotgun in your hands.

“Get her outta here, Phoenix,” Bradley says. “She’s hysterical.”

“Fuck you,” you mutter, spitting at him. “I hate you!”

“Yeah, yeah, you hate me so much for keeping you alive! I get it! That’s the thanks I get, baby!” Bradley sneers at you. “Nix--take her.”

Phoenix wraps her arms around you, carefully tugging you up. You are shaking your head, crying, scrambling. But then Coyote is tugging you up, too. He nods towards the kitchen.

You keep fighting, keep trying to get back to Jake and Bradley, when Coyote suddenly holds both of your cheeks in his hands. His nose grazes yours and his eyes are open and honest.

“Bob needs you,” Coyote says very seriously. “Okay? You gotta keep your head. It’s okay. I won’t let anything happen to Jake, alright? I promise.”

You don’t feel any better about it, still choked up on anger and grief, but you allow Phoenix to tug you back towards the kitchen. And just as you’re about to cross the threshold, Jake’s cries still echoing inside of the mess hall, you look at Bradley. For one moment, just a fleeting thing like the flap of a hummingbird’s wing, you see it: he winks at you. Or at least you think you see it.

“C’mon,” Phoenix whispers to you. “Let them do it. It’s okay, it’s okay.”

“Fuck off,” you mutter to her, voice trembling. You break from her grip. “You know it isn’t him! You know it.”

The kitchen door swings shut.

Bob’s feverish body lay crumpled on the floor. Phoenix looks at your face, her own stained with furious tears.

“No, I don’t,” she says quietly. “But I know that my best friend in the whole fucking world is dying. And I want someone to pay. I don’t care if you’re fucking him or not.” Offended, you gape at her. She stares back at you. “Look outside your feelings for him,” she insists, softer now. “Don’t be one of those girls who wears horse-blinders when it comes to men.”

Horse-blinders.

“I’m not,” you spit. “I just know he didn’t do it.”

“How?” She asks, voice hard.

You can’t answer.

“Right,” she answers. “‘Cause your word is lord.”

The room is quiet. You stare at each other, chests heaving.

“I don’t wanna fight,” you tell her, shoulders sloping. “I’m…I’m fucking scared.”

“Me either,” Phoenix says. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” you tell her. “But I don’t think he did it.”

She nods.

“Okay. We’ll see.”

Bradley throws Jake into his own cabin, the one he shared with the littles. Jake is bright red, cursing Bradley, shaking his head at him.

“Fuck you,” Jake sneers as Bradley stands in the doorway with his arms crossed. “You’re trying to get me killed, you fuck!”

“Look, man,” Bradley says. “I’m just trying to keep everyone else alive.”

And before Jake can respond, Bradley is slamming the door shut and locking it from the outside. Coyote watches with his head hung, his heart racing. Fuck. It wasn’t supposed to go this way. Nothing was supposed to be like this.

“Hey, man,” Coyote calls to Jake. “I’ll…I’ll check in on you every thirty, alright?”

“Fuck off,” Jake sneers, pacing the length of the dark cabin. Panic has seized his heart. “I’ll be dead by the fucking morning.”

“Drama, drama,” Bradley says, rolling his eyes. “Don’t let him out, okay?”

Coyote nods, not looking up.

Jake sits on the floor, burying his head in his knees. Fuck. Fuck.

“I’m gonna die,” Jake whispers. Coyote still hears him. “You’re fucking killing me, man.”

𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: JAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!

𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑

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