Page 40

IRIS

Remy wobbles and laughs. I feel just as loose, but in a light, floaty kind of way. Like I’ve lost a weight I’ve been carrying for years .

Did he suck out some trauma with that venom?

“How? Wha—?” Vhex stammers. He’s so shocked that his dick-stensions retract.

I pull off of his cock while I can, braving one last, long drag along his ridges. Shaking, I fall limp and sticky on the bed.

Holy stars.

I take my first deep breath in hours.

But Vhex’s least favorite thing?

Giving me room to breathe.

“It’s gone.” He frantically grabs my waist and traces my veins to my mound. “I’m gone?”

I guide his hand to my stomach. He needs my touch, but I don’t want his fingers anywhere near my throbbing clit until I’m sure we all survived that purge.

“No one’s gone,” I reassure him, stroking his horn as he fingers my veins.

Remy giggles . “Are you quite sure?”

He wears my blood like smeared lipstick, his marble skin weirdly hot and coated in a sheen of sweat.

“What happened to you guys?” I smooth Remy’s hair as I check in with his soul.

His shadowy silks bounce and twirl, coming close, then coyly pulling away as if coaxing me to chase them.

I gape.

Is his soul trying to play tag with me?

While Remy laughs, Vhex shakes back and forth, muttering. When he can’t find what he’s looking for inside my veins, he shifts to claw his hair.

What a fucking mess.

“Did you not want me healed?” I snatch his hands before he slices open his scalp with his suddenly knife-sharp devil claws.

Maybe Vhex did want me as his servant.

No. I quickly dismiss the thought.

I don’t always understand Vhex and what he’s spouting off, but he couldn’t have lied when our souls were tied.

He told me his version of the truth.

And now, his panic is real.

He yanks my hand to his face. Puffing hot air, he inhales my pulse. “Gone. Gone .”

“Easy. This is a good thing.” I adjust his grip again, letting him hold on to my waist. Then I grab his chin and bring his face to mine. Anything to help him breathe and calm him down. “Now I can take your venom without consequences. It’ll be easier to heal your pain.”

Vhex’s pupils lose focus.

His breath stops.

His thought stops.

He stares dead-eyed as his soul-silks boil like noodles in an unattended pot.

My breathing sharpens, though I don’t know why.

Something big just happened.

Between them? Between us?

I don’t know what, but a strange sensation crawls around my heart. “Vhex. What’s wrong?”

“You’re alive ,” Vhex whispers like a devil in a dark forest temple, telling me his secrets underneath the moon.

I shiver. “I should hope so?”

“ Iris ,” his rough reverence rips the air from my lungs. With trembling fingers and pink rabbit eyes, the devil softly kisses my nose. “I can keep you.”

My objections are always ready.

But they’re not fast enough. “You— nn~ !”

His tongue plunges into my mouth. Then his hands are all over, cradling my head and hips. His silks fucking snap , desperately weaving every inch of my soul, clinging and looping and trying to permanently bond.

My skin pebbles down to my curling toes.

What in the heavens?

Vhex must sense me melting into a confused and quivery puddle.

He chuckles darkly. “I can do it now.”

I gasp. “What?”

“Make love.”

My pussy pulses.

I want to understand what’s going on, but I’m not exactly cranking on all gears.

I’m more like a barely functioning cuckoo clock, slowly drowning in a barrel of monster-flavored lube.

Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

Time to get railed!

Remy hooks my waist.

Before even Vhex can react, he has me curled in his arms on the other side of the bed.

Control? What’s that?

“Let me take off your coat,” Remy says richly. His shadows balance me over his thighs.

I couldn’t do a button to save a life, so the coat already hangs open. All Remy has to do is tug my arms out of the sleeves.

Even venom-drunk off his ass, Remy is in no rush.

He drags the collar off my shoulder. The thick fabric rasps, then Remy swoops in to kiss my bared skin. As his lips feather from the curve of my neck to my collarbone, his soul whispers desire and delight.

Remy swallows to clear his flooding mouth, but he doesn’t flash fangs.

He’s savoring his appetizer.

My soul-silks freeze as my Guide instincts go offline.

Existential panic.

Even my soul doesn’t know what to do.

“Relax. Let me take care of you.” His muzzy voice flows like honey over satin. He’s stealing the lines that are supposed to be mine.

Instead of listening, I stiffen even more.

I’ve said those words thousands of times.

I’ve never heard them said by someone else.

Not by a Sentinel.

Not by my mother or father or fiancé.

“ I’ll take care of her,” Vhex snarls, clawing at the shadows that disappear when my eyes flick sideways. “And I’ll do it better than you. You limp-dic?—”

“How crude,” Remy drawls, covering my ears.

There’s a sharp clink as his shadows undo his belt buckle. Working hard so that Remy doesn’t have to, they peel his pants down his hips and steer my hands to feel.

Nothing limp there.

Remy’s cock finally found enough blood. The shadows twine his shaft, kissing my fingers and promising they’ll stick around to play.

“ Mine ,” Vhex hisses, grabbing for my arm.

Remy parries. “Mine.”

I can feel them trading mental daggers.

Vhex deflects Remy’s wrist and pounds it into the mattress hard enough to melt the box springs.

But I don’t even bounce?

Butterflies spiral through my chest.

That’s new.

This is more dangerous than when they were tossing fireballs and shadow lassos with me in the crossfire.

I don’t believe they care .

I just can’t.

Not two S-classes forced to compete for the same un-imprintable Guide who they can both drop as soon as a better option comes along.

Vhex and Remy can’t be trusted to remember my name, let alone to care about me.

I sigh.

Has that ever really mattered?

I’ll give them my heart.

I always give myself away.

I try to be smart, I try to play cool, but when someone needs my help, I don’t know how to be any other way than I am.

I care too much.

Especially for the ones who’ll never love me back.

I don’t want to stop caring.

I just wish I could stop pretending it’ll ever be my turn to be on the other side.

“Look at me.” I lean on Vhex’s shoulders, putting my body in the way.

The fighting stops when gazes lock to my curves.

I must be doing something right.

They watch me like the other Sentinel just disappeared, and we’re finally all alone.

That’s fucking terrifying.

I breathe through the shakes.

It’s not my first time, or even my first time with them, but something’s changed.

In their eyes. In their souls .

“Lean back,” I say through the gravel in my throat.

Vhex reclines for me.

I shift pillows under his shoulders. He moves wordlessly, obedient to my every nudge and glance.

I kneel between his knees.

“Let me.” Remy moves against my back, anticipating what I want next.

As I smooth down my stomach, teasing my clit and dipping my fingers to prep for my first cock, Remy’s shadows curl into tongues.

They lick around from the backs of my thighs.

This time, they don’t delve straight inside. They flow around my fingers, adding length, girth, and a subtle sucking swirl that gives me the golden opportunity to fuck myself on five enthusiastic tongues at once.

I have so many emotional hang-ups, but even I’m not fucking dumb enough to say no to this .

My three favorite fingers plunge inside. The shadows corkscrew even deeper. They rumble.

Circle.

Suck .

“Holy—!” I pant.

The thick coil at my thumb finds my clit while the smallest pinky shadow drags a rotating path to my ass. They wiggle in sync, licking my clit and nudging my tight rim.

Every inch of me is teased and tickled.

“Delicious.” Remy smacks his lips against the shell of my ear. A hot, heavy cock joins the shadows between my ass cheeks.

I can’t tell if the length is made of flesh or shadow.

I don’t care. I want it inside me.

I tremble, hovering over Vhex.

“Come to me, Firefly.” He steadies my hip, then caresses my arm, dragging my shaky grip around his horn.

The contact sparks pain in my jaw. My lower belly clenches, echoing their anticipation—like my own cock is about to burst.

I suck a breath.

Waiting hurts.

I lower myself as gently as I can on shaky knees. The shadows help. They spread my lips and loop Vhex’s cock, showing it the way.

His wide head stretches me open, arching my spine. I take his shaft faster. I’m so slick, I don’t even feel his ridges until he bottoms out.

Then I feel everything .

Vhex’s textures and heat.

I’m finally full.

Finally seated and ready to enjoy the ride.

“ Yessssss ,” Vhex hisses.

His pleasure adds a layer to mine. Remy’s lust coils close and hot, ready to join and overwhelm me even more.

Vhex hitches my hips forward.

I stop fighting, stop guarding, and let myself fall against his body. Propped on a pillow incline, his angle is juuuuust riiiiight.

My clit finally seals to the bony ridge it’s been flirting with so long.

Vhex’s diabolical grin comes with a spine-melting purr. “You’re mine now.”

Wasn’t I always?

Fuck.

His deliciously bruising grip pins my hips and keeps me where he wants to keep me.

Then that fin fucking flies .

It flickers side-to-side, up and down. It’s more muscle than bone. Soft enough to grind, but rigid enough to drive me wild.

I’m undone.

My body runs hot, every muscle rippling.

I moan, rattling his head as my hips buck while I hold on to his horn.

“Told you,” he says roughly, “The fin. You like?”

“You can feel how much I like it.” Just how I feel Vhex.

He loves my slicked, hot weight grinding him into the mattress, and the way I can’t help squeezing him tighter when his buttons tease me from the inside.

Shadows caress my thighs and outer lips. Remy’s whisper digs down the tunnel of my ear. “I want to feel it too.”

His shadows flatten to follow the length of Vhex’s cock. At first it’s so subtle, I’m only feeling Vhex’s bumps.

Then the pressure builds.

And builds.