She trusts me. Sheshouldn’t.
I don’t deserve it.
I carry the bowl back into the bathroom and drop to my knees. I try to speak the words I haven’t prayed in centuries.Forgive me.But they burn in my throat and fall dead at my feet.
I don’t look up when I hear the door creak.
Deimos leans against the frame, arms crossed, violet eyes flicking between me and the bed. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to.
I shoulder past him. Into the hall. Into the dark.
“You’re too soft for a demon,” he murmurs.
I don’t argue.
“I wasn’tborna demon like you,” I say, voice flat. “You should put your toys away when you finish playing with them.”
He chuckles. But he knows. I didn’t do it for herbody. I did it forher.
Bastion’s on the couch with a drink in one hand and nothing resembling shame in the other as I enter the living room. Deimos takes the armchair. I stay standing.
He doesn’t even hesitate before saying it. “I’m bonded to the girl now.”
Bastion raises a brow. “Do we know how that happened?”
Deimos shrugs like it doesn’t matter. “Orgasm. Knife. Death. Transformation. Take your pick.”
“Romantic,” Bastion mutters, smirking.
I watch Deimos’s face closely. He hates this. The bond. The vulnerability. The unknown.
He doesn’t do fate. Doesn’t do permanence.
“Maybe you were always meant to be mates,” I say softly.
He sneers. “Fuck off.”
“Think about it,” I press. “Succubi are all but gone. Incubi are dying out. Maybe this wasn’t random. Maybe it’s biological. Survival. Nature’s last effort.”
He doesn’t answer. But Bastion leans forward, intrigued.
“Would explain the hunger,” he muses. “The way she took all of us and still wasn’t full. Like she was… made for it.”
“She was,” I say.
And then I remember her words—quiet, guilt-laced.I’m not supposed to feed.
My brow furrows. “She said she’s not supposed to feed. What did that mean?”
Silence.
Even Deimos doesn’t have a snide retort. Because none of us know. But we will. Soon.
Whatever that girl is—it’s not ordinary. And it’s not safe.
But she’s ours now. Bound to us by blood and breath and need.
And me? I’ve already lost.
