Chapter 1
Chapter One
" S pooks and specters, creeps and cunts..." The smooth-as-sin voice rumbled through the big top, making the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I peered through the pinned-up tent flap the troupe used to enter the ring, squinting through the murk to see the ringmaster floating over the house near the center pole, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.
No matter how many shows I witnessed, I still got this little thrill through my veins every time Alistair made his opening spiel.
“Crawling out to you from the Downside's underbelly is the greatest spectacle on Earth, featuring haunts and horrors known to give the vilest of monsters nightmares.”
"Look who I've found, Rifton," a familiar voice said behind me. I turned to see my favorite green-haired harlequin sauntering through the backyard, slinking his way between the makeup tables where the other members of our circus primped and preened. “Creeping on the boss. Hanging on to his every word.”
Right behind him, like a shadow, faithfully following just a beat behind, was his younger twin—younger by a few minutes.
Riff's exaggerated red mouth flexed into an unsettling grin that had my thighs clenching. "Oh yeah, she just loves watching the boss work. Bet if we checked, we'd find those panties soaking."
“Get bent, fuck clowns,” I said with a grin of my own.
The brothers cackled, each one coming to stand on either side of me, their arms snaking around my waist to tuck me between their lanky bodies. Riff and Raff were well over six feet, and at my five feet, zero plus inches, they towered over me, making me feel like a toy between them.
I fucking loved that feeling, and just like hearing Alistair in his element, addressing the monsters who traveled far and wide to see our show, I'd never get tired of it.
"You ready for the show, Hell Bat?"
I nodded and caught my reflection in one of the mirrors mounted to the makeup table behind Riff. My short bubblegum pink locks were styled to perfection, laying artfully around the set of black pointed horns protruding over my hairline. I wore a purple bodice with an upside-down heart cutout between my breasts and a ruffled skirt so short it left most of my ass exposed.
Unlike the twins, I was barefaced.
Catching me staring at myself, Raff's hands clamped over my hips, and he pivoted me to face the mirror. His brother stretched out my black, leathery wings, which were small compared to any other succubus since I was only a half-demon.
"You are so fucking beautiful," Riff murmured, pressing a kiss to my temple while Raff did the same to my other side, his tongue licking its way up my horn. Knowing how sensitive they were, his lips curved against the exposed bone as I shivered.
His grin melted when he caught onto the anxiety radiating from my aura.
As sex demons, we had the ability to read and feed on emotions like no other creature. It made sex a religious experience. Other times, when I preferred to keep certain things to myself, it was a pain in the ass.
Raff caught on a moment later. "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing. It's stupid..."
Unlike most nights, I wasn't performing with the twins in tonight's show. We had our own acts. This pang in my chest wasn't pre-show jitters. I never got those. I was just sad I wouldn't be doing the usual fuck show with the twins.
It was probably silly, feeling put out like this. I'd begged Alistair to give me my own act, and now I had one. But God, did I love being out there in the ring, wrapped like a pretzel around every appendage these males had, while the crowd looked on in envy.
"Tell us what's going through that pretty head, Hell Bat."
"We won't be performing together tonight. I still want everyone to know I'm yours."
My hand went to the leather collar around my throat, and I fiddled with the metal spikes. Everyone knew I was mated to Daemon. I wore his collar, and it never came off. Alistair's true form was as big as a building, so when he'd marked me, the scar took up my whole thigh.
The twin's mating marks were more inconspicuous.
Riff stretched out both my wings again, a twinge of lust bleeding into his aura when a small moan slipped from me—my wings were even more sensitive than my horns. "Everyone will know you belong to us, Meg."
The incubus bent to brush his lips over the mark he'd made on my wing months ago, in the tunnel of sin ride at the carnival. Then he moved to kiss his brother's mark on the other wing.
Small shock waves of pleasure worked through my body, and I burrowed closer to both of them. Suddenly, I was ravenous for a meal. Not for food, but for them .
I chewed my lip, examining my bare facial features in the mirror. "I wish I'd painted my face so we could match tonight."
Through the reflection of the glass, the twins exchanged one of their telepathic looks over my head, and Riff smirked. "Seems like our girl needs some attention before she goes on. Smooth some of those ‘jitters.’ Know what I'm saying, Rafferty?"
The green-haired demon gave an enthusiastic nod, his spade-tipped tail lashing the air behind him like that of a feisty cat.
Before I could parse the mischief rolling off them in powerful currents, Riff turned me around, picked me up and set me on the table with my back resting against the mirror.
"Guys, whatever you're planning, we don't have time. I go on in— Oh ." My protest died in my throat as Raff pushed my legs apart and shoved his head beneath my skirt.
My hands instinctively dropped to his curved horns, making for the perfect handlebars. The air grew hot and heavy with his need, and I could practically taste it.
His index finger hooked into my panties, pulling down the strap of fabric covering my entrance. He chuckled against me when he found that his brother had been right; I was soaking.
"Fuck." My hips bucked, desperate for more of the heat that barreled from the clown's mouth with every breath he took. He nipped my labia, causing me to cry out in pain, which melted into a grunt of pleasure on the next breath as he sank his tongue past my folds.
We weren't the only ones in the backyard, either. This was the area behind the big top where the troupe got ready for the show. Some of the other clowns sat at the nearby tables, applying their paint and smearing their faces as their attention veered in our direction. My fingers clenched tighter around Raff's horns, and my tail wound around his throat, pulling him deeper into my apex. We didn't care that they watched us. We feasted on the attention.
The low din of applause from the big top sounded, and my eyes drifted shut, pretending for a second they were clapping for us.
I opened my eyes when the table jerked beneath me to find Riff ripping open one of the drawers and sifting through the makeup. His upper lip curled, disappointed by the selection. "Why does everyone around here insist on using the cheap crap? Don't have time to go back to our trailer and get the good shit."
"It doesn't have to be the good stuff." My laugh fractured with a lewd groan as Raff's tongue pressed deeper inside me.
Riff shook his head in disagreement. "Only the best for our girl."
The blue-haired demon closed the drawer with a flick of his tail, then propped a hip against the table, watching the way my face contorted from his brother's ministrations with a thoughtful look in his eyes. Raff pulled his tongue from my pussy to prod my clit while his finger replaced his tongue and curved to hit that secret place that had stars dancing across my vision.
Riff's face lit up. His hand disappeared behind his back to appear on the next pound of my pulse, twirling one of his famed knives. "Do you trust me?"
"You mean, do I trust the psycho sex clown with a thing for watching people bleed?" The way the blade flashed in the light leaking from the big top had my nerves lighting up like a circuit board. I was a perfect match for the twins. For Alistair. For Daemon. For this whole damn circus. Because I was just as depraved as all of them.
A dreamy smile lifted my lips. "Always."