Page 2

Surprise-Surprise

The small boat cut through the murky waters, the hum of the motor the only sound besides the steady splash of the current against the hull.

The swamp stretched wide around them, moonlight catching on the thick mist rolling low over the surface. Fetch sat near the back, one hand steady on the tiller, the other curled around his phone.

His little Lucy sat beside him, curled into a ball under the oversized jacket he’d wrapped her in. She was quiet, her little fingers tracing patterns along the seat, eyes flicking between the water and the stars overhead. Comfortable. Safe.

Fetch exhaled slowly and brought the phone to his ear. The line rang twice before Rowan picked up, her voice bursting through with relief. “Ah, love! Thank the saints! We been worried sick! How are ye? And Fathom and Fin? Rosalie and Elenore been wearin’ holes pacin’ the floors, prayin’ and weepin’ and gnashin' their teeth like the world’s done ended.”

His grin and cock both grew with every cute word. “My human missed me.”

“Bloody hell,” she cried. “Don’t be soundin’ surprised about it and piss me off. I missed ye more than the damn air in me lungs.”

Fetch’s eyes rolled shut as her decadent words lit up his neurons. “I have missed you, wife,” he whispered, bringing a sudden silence on the line.

Her shaky breaths filled his flourishing humanity. “I missed ye more,” she said, her tiny choked words erotic licks.

“Did you,” he whispered, desperate to see her face beneath him in their bed.

“I did,” she assured back, still crying. “Now…what’s this souvenir ye done went and got me?”

He resisted a sigh. The looming error, according to his brothers. “Yes,” he said, glancing at Lucy and finding her fast asleep. He stroked her little forehead, still convinced his sweet Rowan would feel exactly the same as he did. And yet… He exhaled slowly. “I possibly should have asked before I obtained my gift.”

A brief pause, then light scold. “Husband. What is it?”

For the first time, Fetch experienced something in his humanity he hadn’t before. “I’m faltering,” he mused, grinning at the paradoxical growth glitch.

“Ye are!” she cried. “An it ain’t like you!”

“I adopted a child.”

Instant silence.

“I didn’t plan on it,” he quickly added to her processing. “Her mother and father and brother were all killed, and she had nobody and needed…somebody,” he finished, even though it had been him she’d needed.

Rowan suddenly gasped. “You mean right now! Like... you have a whole child with you this second!”

He had to laugh. “A whole child, this second, yes.”

Another gasp. “A bloody child! How old is she? What’s her name?” she demanded, her excitement making him grin.

“Lucy is her name. I think she is five.”

“Five!” she shot out, choking on breaths. “Bloody hell, you bought us a… a child!”

“Brought,” he chuckled.

“Right! Right, duh, you don’t buy people, oh my God, Fetch,” she gasped. “Where are you? Are you on your way?” she panicked.

“Ten minutes from you.”

“Bloody hell!” she barely screeched. “I need to get ready, does she know about me? What does she think, is she happy about this, is she sad, what? I need to know so I can prepare. Oh! We can clear out that office and make her a room, I think? Does she have clothes? Bloody hell, I’m thinking that’s a negative given the poor state of affairs this world be findin’ itself in, yea?

Why ye laughin’ at me?”

“Because you give me unfathomable power without even trying.”

“Me! What sort of power ye gettin’?” she accused, reminding him of her cute power hungers.

“I believe the human term is called joy.”

Another round of sudden silence. “I make ye so very happy?” she barely asked, her breaths shaking again.

“So very,” he swore, the hunger to kiss her growing with every breath.

“Ye growlin’ about it,” she whispered, her voice smiling. “I missed that bloody sound.”

“I am,” he said. “Did you know that you created that sound?”

She sucked in her breath. “What ye be meanin’?”

He smiled then slid his tongue over his lips. “Your voice has always been the driving force in my program. From the moment I laid eyes on you. From the moment you showed me… things.” And yet not all. He’d given her mercy but hadn’t forgotten their unfinished business.

“Na, na, na, na, mate! I ain’t bloody takin’ the blame for ye perviness, that’s all yous!”

He belted out a laugh. “Perviness. That’s called love in my language.”

She drew a huge, sharp breath. “Say it again!”

“What,” he grinned. “Perviness?”

“Say it! Ye know what I mean!”

His smile faded as he drew power and packed it into the words so she would know them as infinitely as he did. “I love you. My sweet human. My Rowan. My wife.”

His heart ached in his chest at her sniffled sobs. “Am I your everything?”

“You are,” he swore. “You’re my everything and my eternity.”

****

“We have a problem,” Handy said, hurrying into the medical room, flicking his gaze to the pod holding the Marsh King before locking onto Harlow and Quantum now both eyeing him. “The backlash is fucking up when Kaphas tries to bond with Celeste.”

“Define fucking up,” Harlow urged, his stern gaze moving between him and the screen.

“It’s hitting me and boomeranging back to her. She’s got bruises everywhere and signs of internal bleeding.”

“Is she healing?” Quantum asked, worried.

“For now, yes, until it decides to kill her. You need to get me out of his body.”

“Fuck me,” Harlow muttered, palms on the desk, shaking his head before looking at Quantum. “Why now? The separation between him and Kaphas has been stable, what’s changed?”

“You ripped the demons out of us, that’s what changed,” Handy said as he paced.

“Removing the demons could have shifted the balance between him and Kaphas,” Quantum theorized. “Making their separation even sharper.” His brows furrowed. “If that extraction deepened the split, it might’ve redefined how the backlash power perceives you—pushing you from integrated to fully distinct.” He regarded Harlow. “We’ll need to get him into the Neuromancer and locate the split. We’ll map Handy’s portion, and extract the data to design his new body.”

****

Lyric blinked back tears as she searched her phone for Nidev’s original text. She was missing something. She had to be.

Finding it, she pulled out her small notebook, eyeing the crack in the stall door when the bathroom filled with laughter from several incoming students. She flipped to a clean page and glanced at her watch. She had fifteen minutes before he texted her the day’s assignment. She was on day five of them and failing royally. It was time to backtrack. She’d handwrite all the assignments he’d given her so far and figure out what she was missing.

Her breaths shuddered as she eyed the text on the screen and began scribbling.

Lyric,

Your training begins today.

My lessons are designed to

strip away who and what

you think you are and

replace it with what

I demand you to become.

Each day, you will receive a text from me.

You will obey it.

Every evening, you will

tell me why I chose the test.

If you are correct, you will

spend the night with your King.

If you are not, you will spend

the night with your Dominus.

Your King desires your excellence.

Your Dominus demands it.

She wiped the tears from her face, hating how childish she was being. She really wanted to spend one night with her King. Not that she didn’t love her Dominus with all her being but… her king desired her excellence. And she clearly wasn’t being excellent. He didn’t say or imply that she was disappointing him in any way, but that’s what it amounted to in her mind.

Her Dominus was an exceptional punisher or corrector, but she really longed more each day to experience her King. Even though her Dominus was… Mercy. His corrections from the very first night tingled through her blood still .

Her assignment had been:

'Go to the library.

Take the book from the top shelf on the far right.

Open to page 42 and write down the first paragraph exactly as it appears.

Then, remember it.'

The task was performed correctly, but her answer to why he’d requested that— ‘ To test my submission’ —was not.

And the correct answers to all the questions would come after all were complete.

Her discipline had been being blindfolded with whispered commands, all requiring her to see with her hands.

‘Kiss me.’

He didn’t say where and she’d started at his chest.

‘Lower. Slower.’

At his cock he whispered, ‘There. Don’t move.’

Soon, it went to ‘Use your fucking teeth’

and then ‘only your tongue now.’

Her favorite was the vicious ‘moan on the fucking head baby’ in a sexy, ruthless, voice.

The second day he’d texted, ‘I left something for you. A scent. Wear it today.’

Another easy one. While kissing her neck softly that evening, he tested her with the ‘Why did I choose that?’

‘Because you wanted to see what it smelled like on me?’ She’d felt his lips smile. ‘I did, yes. But no. That’s not why.’

Her discipline? Forced to jack him off till he orgasmed in her hands. Then he rubbed it all over them. ‘You will not wash my scent off but carry me all day tomorrow.’

He made her suck him, then he came on her neck and chest, again rubbing it all over her. ‘I’ll be in every breath you take. Every second of the day.’ She was made to suck him a second time, her inner thighs coated with his hot cum, then used as lubrication while he masturbated her. He brought her to the edge of climax three times and on the fourth, gave her the hardest orgasm she’d ever experienced.

While kissing her in the aftermath, he’d whispered, ‘I didn’t give you that. I took it.’

By the third text, she was no closer to figuring out the why’s. ‘I’ve left something for you in the bathroom. Put it on. Wear it all day and all night. Do not remove it, no matter what. As you wear it, be aware of what it feels like—how it presses against your skin, how it reminds you of me. Let it connect you to me in every moment.’

It was a simple, sleek silver bracelet.

Why?

‘ To show others I belong to you?’

‘Mm, yes. But no.’

Another night with her Dominus. And not a fun one.

He’d bound her wrists, her legs, and even blindfolded her then poked her with a needle for two hours. After the tenth poke, she figured out he was giving her a tattoo! At one point she cried, not because of the pain but the things he’d said to her.

‘This won’t come off. It won’t slip away. Neither will I...’

‘You’ll know me through this. You’ll feel me in it, even when I’m not here...’

‘Every touch, every brush of your fingers over it—it’s me. Always me…’

When it was done, he untied her but didn’t remove her blindfold. She wasn’t allowed to look till the next day. Then he carried her to his bed, only giving her delicate kisses all over her face while his fingers stroked and petted all the non-sexual spots on her. When she realized he wasn’t going to do anything sexual, she surrendered to the heavenly feeling of him adoring her, then gave in to the warm sleep that followed.

She eyed the crack in the bathroom door when the giggly group finally left, nearly dropping the phone when it buzzed.

Her finger raced to the button then froze right over it, shaking with her insides. She swiped quickly and read.

Tonight, I will feed you. But what I give you will be more than food.

She suddenly gasped, quickly going over all the texts again.

Read and write Wear the perfume Wear the bracelet Listen

And tonight was food.

She suddenly gasped. The five senses! Sight, scent, touch, sound and taste!

She sat with mouth opened for many seconds then giggled happily, shoving her tablet in her backpack and her phone in her pocket. She hurried out the stall, her heart pounding. Tonight he’d feed her something more than food. She paused, realizing that didn’t help her with the why’s.

How many of these lessons were there? What if she never got any right? Would that mean she failed? And couldn’t become his…whatever he was creating?

Ugh, he needed to tell her more! She couldn’t exist like this!

****

The hum of the Neuromancer filled the room as the machine completed its final pass, thin threads of light mapping Handy’s essence with surgical precision.

Quantum’s gaze stayed locked on the console, his fingers occasionally tapping as he tracked the progress. “This is new,” he said, pointing to the screen. “The scan’s flagging parameters for the female bond he’ll need in order to sustain the containment.”

Harlow stood beside him and crossed his arms. “Resilience, power, and a high tolerance for chaos,” he read out, curious. “That’s a hell of a combination.”

“The warden system isn’t just syncing with Handy,” Quantum realized. “It’s treating the bond as a vital component. Those traits aren’t just bells and whistles—they’re required for the system’s success. Without a bond that meets them, the containment could fail.”

Harlow exhaled sharply, his arms tightening across his chest. “That’s asking a hell of a lot of a fucking woman, bruh. These nuns are amazing, but this? This is beyond that.”

Quantum’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully on him. “The Creole Kings have gifted students at their academy. They’ve trained some of the most resilient talents we’ve ever seen.”

Harlow raised his brows. “You think one of them could handle this?”

“It’s possible,” Quantum said. “Their training emphasizes adaptability and mental endurance, and they specialize in preparing their gifted for exceptional challenges.”

Harlow regarded the screen, shaking his head. “I bet they’ll be thrilled to provide one of their gifted females to pair up with our warden of Hell.” He flicked Quantum a sarcastic gaze.

“Right. I'll let you handle it.”

“And why the fuck?”

He held up a trembling hand, eyes drilling into Harlow. “I’m the exact risk and reason they should say hell no to this.”