Chapter 36 Zak
ZAK
“How soon is too soon to ask her for another taste?” I whisper to Ian as I gaze across the charred backyard at where Heidi stands beside Asher.
I’m happy as fuck that she didn’t cover her face up with makeup before we left her place.
“Right now is too soon,” he assures me without missing a beat.
“Yeah? How do you know?”
Kaenon is standing at my other side and motions toward Heidi. “He is right. Watch how my mate yawns. She is exhausted from the pleasures upon her bed earlier. Ask to lick her sweetness again after she has rested.”
“That’s assuming we’ll get any rest,” I point out.
About twenty minutes ago, Asher transported all five of us to this big house set on several acres somewhere in West Virginia. At least, he tried to transport us to it. Apparently, he’s kind of shit at transportation spells, so we had to walk a small distance to actually reach the house.
Now we’re standing in some stranger’s backyard while Asher checks a tripod camera pointed at the ground. He said it’s to track heat underground, which isn’t a surprise to me. After all, Kaenon figured out the guy lost his pet hellhound. I’ve seen plenty of hellhounds respawn, and demons, too.
So I’m bored.
And I want to taste her again. Now that I’ve been inside my sweet empath while her addictive merit sent me to the only kind of Paradise a half-demon like me can ever experience, I’m fucking dying for more.
Kaen’s right, though. She needs rest. Once this hound pops out of the ground, we’ll crash for the night—but I plan to spend all day tomorrow fucking our girl to our hearts’ content, if she’ll let us.
Three women step out of the back door of the house we’re visiting.
According to Asher, an all-female quintet lives here.
Their keeper is a fae named Jada, a former bounty hunter friend of his who buried his hound’s fangs here a while ago.
Apparently, she also made the translation thingy attached to Kaenon’s ear.
When the three women move closer, Ian makes a dry, strained sound in his throat and squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing his neck.
“Fuck. I need to go hunting.”
“Their presence pains you?” Kaenon frowns.
“Their pulses are just really fucking inconvenient right now.” Ian braces his hands on his knees. “Damn it, this thirst was a lot easier to tune out in Heidi’s bed.”
The three women stop to talk to Asher and Heidi, but the thrall’s in bad shape. Kaenon glances at me before he touches Ian’s shoulder reassuringly, raising his other arm out.
“Sate yourself with my blood, for if you go to hunt, you may miss the reunion.”
No wonder the ancient shifter’s merit is so fragrant. He’s almost as good as Heidi.
Ian squints at him. “Are you seriously offering? Because I’m dying.”
“Of course. Heidi would weep if you die,” Kaenon adds, too damn literal for his own good.
Glancing quickly across the charred backyard to make sure he won’t alarm anyone, Ian wastes no time before biting into the shifter’s wrist to feed.
“Oh, sure. Put up a fight when I offer, but you’ve got no qualms slurpy-slurping him, huh?”
Ian rolls his eyes at my use of that phrase again as he continues to drink. If Kaenon’s surprised that it feels good to be fed on, instead of painful, he doesn’t pay it any attention. Instead, he looks at an empty space near us.
“Yes, of course. What other reason would she have for the way she teases you so openly?”
I’m confused about who he’s talking to until I remember the bracelet on his wrist. “You talking to a ghost right now?”
Kaenon glances at me. “Yes, Athanis, my fae priest friend, wishes to know if I believe Jessica is taken with him.”
“How the hell did they even catch up with us here?”
“Ghosts can travel through magic if they are near enough to those traveling when the magic takes them,” he explains before frowning back at the ghost. “What? Yes, I have seen that she is forward, but you don’t seem to mind.
Ah. Well, if that is your concern, why not go to where Jessica waits beside my mate and ask her this question yourself? ”
He’s seriously trying to help a ghostly virgin with his love life? What a fucking wingman.
Ian finally releases Kaenon’s arm with a satisfied sigh, wiping a trace of blood off his mouth. “That helped. Thanks. I’ve been meaning to ask, what kind of shifter are you, anyway?”
Kaen hesitates. “The answer to your question is long.”
“Great. Something to kill the time while we wait for the infernal dog,” I shrug, leaning against the fence of the backyard.
Kaenon debates before he shares some of his past—how he was born with no beasts and volunteered as a child to undergo fae experiments to hopefully find a solution.
How, through a mix of holy magic and complex fae research, they were able to awaken multiple beasts inside of him.
How, thanks to those beasts, as he got older, he became well-known throughout the ancient Nether as a warrior on behalf of all people, and later the fae sealed him away when Amadeus began to take over the Nether.
When he’s done explaining, Ian stares at him.
“You’re saying you can shift into an entire zoo?”
“Zoo?”
“It’s a place where animals are kept in cages for people to gawk at,” I explain. “I went to one in California with my aunt and her smiley-ass boyfriend once. Smelled like monkey shit.”
Kaenon’s nose in distaste. “Beasts roamed freely in my time, as the gods intended. I am not like a monkey shit zoo.”
“Fine, but how many beasts do you have in there?” Ian presses, curious.
“Five.”
“Holy shitballs,” I whistle. “What’s it like in your head? Crowded?”
“No. My beasts and I are in utter harmony. They are just as eager to please my mate as I am, and they are also fond of you both. They respect Asher.”
Speaking of Asher, I glance up and notice that Heidi and one of the women who live here are both now crossing the big, night-shrouded yard, skirting around the burnt expanse of it before stopping in front of us. The sweet, heady scent of my girl’s merit fans around me, making my mouth water again.
“The hound should be waking up at midnight,” the woman informs us.
She’s a dark-skinned fae with pointed ears, her hair in braids, and multiple piercings in her ears. I spy the same bounty hunting mark Asher’s got on his neck on the back of her hand when she lifts a phone from her pocket to double-check the time.
“This is Jada,” Heidi tells us.“She’s the keeper of the quintet who lives here and a friend of Asher’s.”
I greet the woman with a nod. “Hi. We’re Heidi’s boy toys.”
Just like I wanted, Heidi blushes. “That’s not—”
“He means boyfriends,” Ian amends. “For now. We still need to go ring shopping.”
I laugh when that makes Heidi do a double-take, eyes wide in shock at what he’s implying. Before she can say anything, Kaenon dips his head respectfully at Jada.
“My deepest thanks for allowing us into your home so Asher may reunite with his hellhound.”
Jada waves off his gratitude. “It’s nothing. Honestly, I’ve been hoping this hound would wake up for months. For a while, I was convinced it would be the only thing to give Asher the motivation to wake up finally.”
“Wake up?” Heidi frowns, tucking her hair behind one of her ears. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not surprised he hasn’t told you. His recovery was so recent, and he’s been so godsdamned stubborn about getting back to normal…” Jada looks at Heidi, guilt written all over her face. “Listen. In the Battle of the Citadel, I…I shot Asher.”
“You shot him?” Ian repeats.
The fae nods, unflinching. “Asher and I were somewhere in the chaos inside the Entity’s arena, fighting alongside a couple of other bounty hunters.
One of those Nether monsters, a siren, got into my head, and…
gods, I just remember aiming at the back of his head and pulling the trigger.
I get nightmares about it. I’m so fucking glad he was far enough away that it didn’t do even worse damage—and that the other two hunters got him to the healers outside the battle in time.
I’m not sure I could have lived with myself if I’d killed him, but… he was still in a coma for months.”
Heidi has gone pale from this little revelation, but seeing the fae’s guilt makes her reach out to squeeze the woman’s hand reassuringly.
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“Not sure about that. I could have been paying more attention and shot that siren before it got to me,” Jada grumbles.
“Sounds like it was just an accident,” I shrug. “No sweat.”
“That’s what Asher and my quintet keep telling me,” she says, glancing at the other two legacies she came out here with.
They’ve joined two other women chatting on the back porch, wrapped up in blankets to ward off the spring chill. They lean their heads on one another’s shoulders, cuddling as they watch the yard.
“After everything we’ve been through together, I’m just glad Asher’s doing so well now. He can be rough around the edges and a fucking grouch, but he’s an extremely good guy. A natural leader.” She looks back at us. “And I can tell he’s happy right now, with you four here. Maybe it’s fate.”
Fate, khaos.
Demons believe they’re not that different.
“I’m so glad he made a complete recovery,” Heidi murmurs, watching Asher recheck the cameras. He’s getting impatient as midnight gets closer.
“Except for those nasty headaches and that right ear of his,” Jada sighs. “A few healers have tried to fix it, including himself—but you know what they say, magic has its limits even if we can’t always understand them. It rarely cures deafness.”
Huh. I had no fucking idea about his ear, and I can tell from their faces that the others didn’t know, either.
When the conversation moves on with Heidi asking Jada how her quintet has been doing since the Upheaval ended, I decide to stretch my legs. Strolling across the backyard, I don’t bother going around wherever the hellhound’s buried.