Page 4

I SMELL HER BEFORE I even open my eyes. A calming scent of jasmine and warm skin ... and cum. The latter has my eyes opening to the riot of curls tickling my chin.

Sera.

My Sera. I don’t care what Warrick says. She’s mine.

Gingerly, I sweep a lock of inky silk off her temple. My little obsession nuzzles her face deeper against my chest. Her body presses tighter to mine in the morning chill and I drag her closer still.

My everything.

It should concern me that there is literally nothing I wouldn’t do for this pint-sized woman with her moss green eyes and crooked smile. She’s been the center of my world our entire lives. My constant. The only person who never left my side.

When Warrick first pushed for dominance, the assault nearly killed me. It was supposed to. The human host is supposed to die and the incubus takes their place at the start of puberty. But the whole time I lay in bed, fighting for my life, Sera stayed with me. Stayed curled against my side. Every time I opened my eyes, her face was the first thing I saw, wet with tears, begging Warrick not to take me. It made me realize just how deep my love for her actually was, how unwavering. It surpassed every known human emotion to something rooted so deep in my soul I would die without it.

Without her.

My fingers ghost the slender column of her neck. I trace the delicate line of her jaw. It must have tickled because dusky lashes flutter and lift. Soft, green pools lift to my face. Her lips pull into a smile that cuts into my chest.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” I murmur.

She stretches and her naked legs brush mine. I watch her face for any sign of discomfort, an inkling that she’d been tongue fucked by a monster. But she sighs and smiles up at me like there isn’t cum crusting her pubic hair.

“Are you helping with the—?”

“I want you to stop feeding him,” I blurt, interrupting her.

There. I said it. Fuck you, Warrick.

The bastard in question is still and silent in my head. My guess is he’s still sleeping or being a weirdo and lurking in the dark somewhere. He’ll slink out when he’s ready to be annoying.

Sera jerks her head back, brows creased. “What? Why would—?”

I push up onto my elbow and peer down into her face. This close, I can count the freckles on her nose. I can walk the rolling hills in her green eyes. I’m so close, I could bend my head and...

“Because I said so. I don’t want you near him anymore.”

Sera watches me with confusion, but there’s a stubborn defiance in the steady scrutiny that makes it painfully clear that I’m not winning this argument.

“I won’t do that.” Her small hand cups over my mouth when I start to speak. “I’m okay. I know what I’m doing.”

She has no idea what she’s doing. She doesn’t know Warrick the way I do. She’s fighting a monster with no morals or empathy. A bastard who only cares about himself and his next meal.

“He took advantage of you last night,” I tell her, wrapping my fingers around the delicate bones of her wrist and dragging her hand down.

“I let him,” she corrects.

I shake my head. “I mean after he fucked you with his tail. When he brought you to bed.”

A wave of crimson floods her cheeks. “You saw that?”

Caught in her eyes, I can only nod.

“He let you watch? How much?”

She’s missing the point.

“That doesn’t matter. I don’t want you near him anymore. Tell him to fuck off.”

“No.”

I grit my jaw. “Sera...”

Her chin tilts in defiance. “I said no.”

Without waiting, she shoves off the covers. The crisp, morning chill distracts me and I’m not quick enough when she throws a leg across my stomach and tries to slide over me. My hands reflexively catch her hips to steady her. Hers come down on my chest to brace.

But rather than slide the rest of the way off the pullout, she stops, pussy perched on my erection. Both of us covered by scraps of fabric.

“Sera.” Even to my own ears, her name is a plea. I just don’t know for what.

“I can’t lose you,” she whispers. “He’s not hurting me.”

But he’s touching you, I want to snap at her. He’s taking advantage of you while you sleep.

“He touched you last night,” I blurt. “He ate your pussy before cumming inside you.”

I think I’ve gone too far when her eyes widen. Her head snaps down to where she’s straddling my cock.

“He fucked me?” Her face jerks up to mine. “You watched?”

My brain takes that moment to flash me images of her tight hole stretching to take his head and dribble his cum. But I can’t tell her that. What kind of protector am I that I allowed that to happen to her?

“I tried to stop him,” I try to explain, disgusted with myself for the lie.

Sera’s nails bite into my skin. Her thighs tremble against my ribs and I can feel the hot rush of heat soak through her panties to dampen my crotch.

“How long did you watch?” Her words are jagged, breathy.

I wonder if she can feel the erratic thundering of my heart under her palms as I whisper, “All of it.”

Her lashes lift and I’m captured in the smoldering heat of her arousal. “Did you—?”

Whatever she’s about to say is swallowed by the resounding bang of something hitting the side of the trailer. Sera scrambles off me. She rushes to grab her skirt and sweater from the foot of the bed just as Bloom throws open the plaited doors and hobbles out with a cloud of smoke.

There is nothing motherly or warm where Bloom is concerned. The woman is a walking plague with the emotional range of a teaspoon, but Sera won’t leave her, and I won’t leave Sera.

Bloom pivots narrowed eyes from me still on the bed to Sera struggling to pull her cardigan over her shoulders.

“It’s not what it looks like—” Sera whispers.

The hand not wielding a cigarette closes around the wooden handle of a spatula resting in the drying rack. She starts forward like she’s ready to swat Sera.

I’m between them before Bloom can finish her first step.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” I warn.

“Kill her!” Warrick’s roar vibrates through my skull.

Sera’s small fingers close into mine. “Aiden, don’t.”

Bloom barely comes to my chest, but she glowers up at me through bloodshot eyes and a cloud of tobacco. “You think you scare me?”

Sera tugs on my arm, begging me silently to stand down, but enough is enough. “You think I’d ever let you touch her?”

Thin lips curl back over teeth black with rot. She throws up her hands, sending ashes flying. “Go ahead. Fuck her. I’ll make money off your freakish bastards. I’ll put them in the show—”

“You will never touch them.” It comes from my throat, but I know it’s not me. “I will disembowel you before you come anywhere near my mate or my children.”

Bloom barks a laugh. “I own you. Both of you. Anything that comes out of her cunt is mine. I can put it in a sack and drown it like a dog—”

Warrick lunges before I can stop him. Hands that are mine but wield his strength close in Bloom’s filthy robes.

“Aiden!” Sera grabs my arm and tries to haul me back. When that doesn’t work, she squeezes around me and puts herself between me and the woman struggling to detangle herself from the monster’s grip. “Stop. Please.”

The tears in her eyes kick me in the gut, but Warrick gives no shit. He’s only seeing red as he shoves our mother back and fists his hands in Sera’s hair. She’s dragged into the curve of my body and imprisoned as his mouth — my mouth — slams down over hers.

It’s an assault of tongue and teeth that elicits a whimper from her. It’s hungry and violent, and it doesn’t elude me that I’m still me and he’s just wearing me like a suit. That it’s my tongue in Sera’s mouth. My hands cupping her naked ass and hoisting her up. I tell myself he’s too strong to fight, but when her legs lock around my hips, I’m not sure who’s doing what. Only that she tastes like everything I imagined.

She’s panting and flushed when he finally frees her. Her swollen lips glisten, sweet and parted, and begging for more. But her eyes are dark and ravenous as they search mine.

“Aiden,” she whispers with a mixture of confusion and surprise.

But it’s Warrick who answers her through me.

“You are my queen,” he growls. “The mother of my children. I will tear her throat open with my fangs and let her bleed out at your feet. I will gift you her corpse.”

Behind her, Bloom makes a choking sound, but Warrick has eyes only for Sera.

“No, please,” she begs, as I already knew she would.

Bloom is her mother. The woman who raised her, and that seems to mean something to her. To me, Bloom is a waste of natural resources. She’s a stain that needs to be wiped clean.

Warrick agrees.

“If she touches you again, if she threatens our children, I will gut her and make you a crown with her bones.”