Kamchatka: Oct. 1917

"It smells like sugar in here. Did you burn your caramel?"

Nothing could startle her with such joy.

No hello, no I'm home, just the sudden sound of a new voice in her home, just behind her suddenly at the threshold between the kitchen and the dining room.

Yelp of shock escaped her.

Petite body ducked around her mixing bowl.

A lock of golden-blonde hair slipped out of the bun at the back of her head, skimmed the half-whipped frosting mixture.

Oh, Lord, if only she'd known in advance!

Brilliant sunlight spilled across the kitchen counter. Filled her home with warm morning light to match the heavy scent of fresh coffee burbling inside the brand-new French press that the new job had allowed them the luxury to afford. A lot of things the new job offered them, and she'd be damned if she wasn't feeling like a queen. Like the best hostess in the world.

If she'd known in advance, she would've cleaned up the cake crumbs strewn on the counter. Gotten the little splash of cake batter off the floral blue wallpaper, before it started drying at the edges. The unsightly huffing she made trying to whip butter like the German magazine said, would've tempered that a little. Would've had food ready. She would've had tea ready, and tarts, or -- Lord, help her, when she turned the sight that met her was ghastly.

Two boys. Two scrawny teens, no more than seventeen, and both filthy as could be.

Street rats. Urchins.

Just the sight of them could've broken her heart. Hadn't seen boys so filthy and bone-thin since she first met her own, a scrawny boy of fourteen with raven hair and dust-stained cheeks.

Mud and salt caked these boys.

Bright laughter spilled out of her as the thought graced her mind: she was sure if she looked, she'd find fiddler crabs in their pockets. Made sense, then. That'd be how her daughter met them.

Sheepish grins split their faces, daughter included.

Voluptuous even without a corset this century, her girl looked magnificent in lavender, a new ruffly thing that made her shock of ginger hair look like another bloom amid a field of fresh flowers.

Charlotta rushed her, enveloping her in her arms. The scent of sunshine, sea brine, and that cheap floral perfume she liked stuck to her piling curls.

"Hi, mum," she cooed, manicured fingertips -- how in all earth and heaven did she find the time to keep them so neat? No children, perhaps -- catching her face for la bise. "Sorry to drop in unannounced, have you eaten? Could I help with lunch?"

Shame she didn't have a moment to put down the bowl before she was embraced. It'd only been two days, but any visit from her kids was a treasure.

"If it's to feed those two babies back there, darling, you needn't worry at all. I've got just the thing to warm you boys up, have a seat, have a seat!" Shooing them toward the table, they traded a shy glance, and she watched them seat themselves at the table. Catty-corner. One boy, angular-featured and fair with dark waves to his cropped hair, placed a hand on the corner; the other boy, with warm brown skin and a physique that recalled the dock she'd probably picked them up at, squeezed it with his own. "Get them some coffee, my dear, your father'll be home any minute."

If this butter didn't whip right, she was going to have a riot.

Her damned arms were going to fall off for it.

But it was worth it, damn it. One's one-hundred-and-fifty year anniversary didn't come everyday.

Bless her little angel, though, a few inches taller than her and able to reach the mugs without the step-stool, or her father's height.

Steam escaped in a white cloud as she pried open the press.

The caramel was almost entirely integrated. Almost.

"Oh, I miss Corvo's baking arm. I could let him whip cream for days at a time and I swear he'd never be tired."

"Where's Dad? And what're you makin'?"

Loved the tinkling of ceramic mugs against her daughter's lovely nails. Loved that she had a daughter, when so much of her immortality had been spent in cold and lonely silence, and darkness. The winter days had been long, but it was worth it for such a brilliant sunshine in her life.

"Off to get the post. And have a smoke, if I know him. And probably stop and chat with every dockworker he recognizes."

"So he'll be back by bedtime?"

Who gave her such a wit?

Barked a laugh over the frosting, and finally gave up. Let the damn frosting be marbled, she decided with a great shake of her weak arms, it looked kind of pretty with a swirl of buttery ivory and mostly-dissolved soft caramel.

"And do you remember that honey cake I made---"

"Every year, Mum, every year."

"Right, well, I read in a magazine about this new frosting recipe."

"Is it Czech?"

"No, German. And it's mostly butter."

"Well, did you burn your caramel?"

Ah, she'd raised a sharp-edged girl!

Limp, tired hand planted on her back as the coffee was poured out, and she tipped her head against her daughter's shoulder.

"What a nosy girl!" A hissed whisper, and she could hear the sound of keys in the front door. How had Charlotta gotten so silent at it, and her father never was? "Only the first batch, silly. I'm going to see if the squirrels will take it."

"Oh, the rats will."

"You would know."

The sound of her laughter was a gift. Loud and hearty, like wedding bells cackling out of a little girl's chest. Remembered when that laughter wasn't so easy. When it was only Corvo who could stir such cheer in the little feral thing.

Charlotta called into the dining room:

"Jimmy. Sugar?"

The larger boy perked up. "Yes, please, but not very much, Miss Lottie. It can be a lot."

She balked.

"Oh, you make me sound like a school marm! Just Lottie's fine. To hell with your good manners with me, we don't need them. Leslie, will you spit it out if I put a touch in yours too?"

Icy blue eyes darted over the thinner boy's shoulder.

"I won't spit out nothing you make me, Miss Lottie."

"Oh! My God!" Drama and pomp cascaded out of her daughter, the lavender cotton swaying around her hips as she moved to the enameled mint refrigerator to retrieve the cream. "Do either of you even know how little seven years is? I'm not that much older than you."

That was a blatant lie, and at the counter, she took a fingerful of the frosting to keep herself quiet. Alright, the German chef in the magazine knew what he was talking about.

Creamy, velvety sweet frosting with the warm smoke of caramel -- she almost wanted to holler at her husband to rush and taste it as the front door shut behind him in the next room over.

Occupied herself rolling the frosting around her tongue, letting it melt into an oily syrup, lest she tattle. Couldn't tattle on Lottie, didn't know what these boys knew.

Didn't know what these boys were, other than urchins. Other than good at teasing her girl in ways that had all three of them giggling like little children.

The decision to turn her had been hard. Harder than Corvo's, perhaps, but it'd gone more smoothly at least. There had once been a deep desire in the both of them to provide her a mortal life, let her live and leave her descendants in their care, but they'd never anticipated becoming parents. Never anticipated the pain of Corvo's death, or that their own will would crumble at the thought of losing him so young. Never anticipated how hard a girl could cry.

Her husband's great shadow cast into the room, and he lumbered in not a second later.

Warm brown face split into a devastating grin.

Or maybe it was just that his smile always did that to her.

Still in his boots and woolen peacoat, his brilliant yellow eyes darted around the room.

There were mugs threaded tightly through her fingers, and Lottie cooed a sound to incite patience.

"Don't hug me yet, Daddy, I have a delivery to make!"

Eden's hands went up in a show of surrender.

"Sorry, absolutely, you've got it. I'll just..."

Yellow-gold eyes landed on her, and her stomach flipped.

Always did. Always had. Always would.

There was mail clutched in his hand, and the scent of pipe smoke lingering on his breath as he leaned down to kiss her. Soft and warm as he always was. Loitered there in her face with lips only resting together, and she could feel his walls coming back down.

How long had it been? Two hours?

"You're home quick," she remarked in a whisper, letting the boys descend into conversation with Lottie. "Did they close the docks for the day?"

As long as she had known him, N'Deige smiled like a lion. Lazed and lounged like a massive cat, a lazy beast of sunlight and leisure, and his features curled into a similar grin. She missed when the times had allowed his curls to knot into piles of locs like a mane all his own, but at least, when he leaned like this for her, she could scrub little circles against his shorn head.

"No," and he said it with such a particular o in his mouth, as if he was resisting her call, as if the temptation of her nails had already put him in a mortal battle between sleep and responsibility. "I took a shortcut so I would be home early to surprise you."

"Surprise for you."

"Surprise for me, but she did bring with the two I'd wanted to check on." A simple glance toward the boys at the table, and he pressed another kiss to the crown of her head, handed her the pile of mail to open the refrigerator. If he didn't make himself do it, she could hear him parroting a thousand times over in her head, he wasn't going to at all. "Mind if I toss the oven on, reheat that casserole for them?"

"Oh, I was going to. Please--"

Actually, stepping away with the mail in hand, she flipped the oven dial on, listened for the flame to catch inside.

"There you are. Have you checked these?"

Lottie was laughing again. Loud and boisterous as ever. A sound like freedom.

Wondered if they could see her fangs when she tipped back. If that frightened them, skittish as they were. Hoped not.

"Not yet." Aluminum rustling as he pried back the cover. The oven door squeaked when he opened it, placed the glass dish inside. "I was having a particularly interesting conversation with a crow that was following me, roof-to-roof."

Silly.

Rolled her eyes at him, watched the loll of his shoulders to shrug off his peacoat, and he disappeared around a corner.

Leafing through the envelopes, she read each sender. Bills. Invoices. More letters addressed to her husband, using the new job's title. One from Joella, which she gratefully sat aside for her later leisure, preferably with a glass of wine.

One, she recognized the handwriting.

Eden came back around the wall, boots and coat done away with. Sighing, unbuttoning his collar and relaxing his waistcoat. After so long seeing him doing physical labor in the states, as the times commanded they keep out of sight, seeing him again in the starched suit of a businessman felt silly. A level of bureaucracy that had always been beneath them, in a way.

"We got a letter from the twins. Leonidas's handwriting again. Do you suppose he drowned Ezekiel in the swamp, or do you think he's having too much fun to write us?"

There, that grin again. And she could picture it, too, plastered on Ezekiel's face as he proudly did whatever he could to annoy his brother.

"Are you joking? I bet Arcade's already taught him to wrestle alligators."

"They'd better come back with all ten fingers."

"Let me see." Handed the envelope over to him, beaming. "I'll check for blood."

Mrs. Jael Doubek-Shepard stood there, frosting dangling off the single lock of hair that had fallen across her centuries-pallid face, in her kitchen, in her modest home, in the warmth and beauty of her love, her family, the laughter of children she may never see again but would send on their way regardless only once they'd had a warm meal and loving hug, in the busy industrial hub of the waterfront district of Boston, Massachusetts, with one envelope left in her hand.

Paper tearing was the only harmony that rose above this sensation.

This sensation like being caged in her own body.

Vision dimmed.

Tunneled in on the letter in her hand. Details of her kitchen fell away.

Deep inside her, a little canary beat violently against the insides of its cage. Knew what was coming. Felt the slipping of the chain keeping her head on its shoulders -- before it was falling, plunging into an abyss she had long felt herself safe from.

Simple, looping cursive. Shaking English letters, as if the composer wasn't entirely familiar with the shapes.

To:

Mr. and Mrs. Eden Shepard

From:

Mr. Roman Sokolov

Cut sliced into her finger in the cold, trembling motion she took to pry it open. As if a snake would leap out and bite her just for unsealing the wax.

But it didn't.

And the violent drumbeat of her heart filled every inch of her.

Couldn't really hear Eden's voice, laughing and telling her about their sons' letter, over the nightmare playing back in her mind.

Lottie was small when it started.

Bone-breaking paroxysms.

Seizures, they'd thought. Until she'd started speaking. Until that little brand whoever orphaned her had left on her back began to burn through her dresses. Until her little feral best friend had bit and clawed and spoke in Russian that an English six-year-old shouldn't -- hadn't -- known.

And Corvo, bless him.

Tried so hard to protect her, when the monsters arrived. They hadn't even told him that they didn't really know if they'd follow through on their word, or if they would change their mind. Powerless to know whether their little girl could always be theirs.

They'd been huge men.

Lumbered through their tiny London home catching cobwebs on their heads, and this moment, right now, Jael was gripped with the same fear as that night. Blue-black darkness broken only by orange light. The moonlight through the window, drawing a silvery silhouette of Osian's fangs when he smiled -- not at her, but at her pregnant belly. Like a snake that had just seen a freshly lain egg.

Corvo had only been trying to protect his sister. Far from fearless, with his black hair dangling in his face, threatening them with a blade.

Felt the audible gasp again in her chest. Urge to run to him. Catch her boy before he struck -- saw the knife flung down. The demon recoiled, and blood dripped onto the floorboards. It'd been a frightening reminder until they moved.

Felt the fear again. Of Osian, like a rabid dog, whipping to look at her boy. Of knowing, in a split second, everything such a creature would've wanted just then.

Of her own protective instinct, and cowardice. That she hadn't had enough time to step in. That she could only draw the strength to whisper no.

"Honey?"

N'Deige.

Hand on her shoulder.

Sunshine. Boston. Lottie with her hands in the air and humored tears in her eyes. No more convulsions. Didn't know a lick of Russian. Her scars had faded to a delicate stamp. Happy girl.

And Corvo was safe with his cousin in Louisiana, hosting his brothers.

Some things were real. Some things weren't.

N'Deige's hand gently coaxing through her hair was real. Osian's breathy laughter on her neck was not.

The contents were direct.

"Jael."

Never was he so forceful with her. Not since she'd stopped experimenting with blood. Not since she'd last been too gone from her mind to hear him properly.

But Lottie was looking now. Those poor skinny babies were looking, and she swallowed a thick lump forming in her throat.

"It's... from Osian." The soft oval of his pupils constricted, shrunk into black slits. "They want us... to call them."

She tapped at the phone number written at the bottom of the page. Semi-correct grammar demanded they call "fast."

"There's a telephone in the office. I can call him from there. What does it say?"

Not without her, he wouldn't.

The truth of it, though, was always fear.

Fear that they would change their minds. Want Lottie back. Undo whatever it was they'd done to release her. Afraid they'd finally show up and his mouth wouldn't stop at checking if his fangs matched the husband's-mouth-shaped bruise on her throat -- afraid that he'd make good on whispering he could check if he fit her in other ways, too.

Afraid, honestly, they would mail her scraps of loved one's clothes. That they'd find her sons in the south, safe not with Emil but with the only man she trusted well enough to call brother.

The Blood King's tide was rising, and she wished only to find herself, her children, her family, eddied in the halocline.

"Emil has spies on Roman."

***

All of the barn floor earth beneath her had become a strawless chaos from whatever it was his legs had been doing without him.

That was the first thing he noticed as the barn door clicked open.

Second was exactly how silent it had become without her. Once the waves of green washed over her, trapped the end of his hunting knife in between her ribs, even her betrayed little panting had died.

No more Miroslava. No more visions. No more whimpers or laughter or even the passive sighing she gave when she thought she was alone.

Just his own desperate attempts at breath, echoing from the crook between Lyuba's pen and a massive barrel.

That meant a lot of things. Should've meant no more spell. Should've broken as soon as she died, and yet, here he was, his own breath gusting cobwebs littered with straw beneath the cask.

Some time ago, the light outside fully disappeared. Sometime before he'd retreated, fully sickened and awash with a strange weight, here, to curl against the cold spider-strewn floor. Closed the compound down into a night thick as honey, plunged the barn and its denizens -- who, thankfully, had mostly fulfilled routine on their own, and rested in their stalls with heavy breaths -- into a dim light sustained only by the lantern that still burned faithfully on the column above the crate.

Flickering amber light illuminated it.

The crate, where he'd left her.

Where she was still sat, statuesque in silent firelight.

Shadows played a wicked game across her figure; he could still feel the cold of her cheek, her lids, her frozen arms and legs, lingering like poison on his skin.

No sculptor could've carved her like that out of malachite, threaded so delicately with the sparkle of copper, her knees notched just wide enough to accommodate his hips. No artist could've intended this.

Unless, of course, the artist had seen him.

Seen the silhouette of him against her, a girl completely conned, and he the negative space of her traitor.

There was no likeness of him in her artistry. Only what he'd done. Only what she thought he was.

The curve of her spine arched upward, like she was still tipped against another's mouth. One hand out, where it'd gone stiff and cold around his forearm, and the other still dumbly holding the end of his knife.

Nothing helped.

Nothing fucking helped anymore.

Nothing at all.

Friendly old tendrils crept into his body.

Killing her was supposed to help. It was supposed to end the curse.

Tendrils had, really, crept in months ago. He'd just prayed they hadn't.

What could he do if killing her didn't help? Now all his visions were of things he didn't want to see. Things he didn't want to think about. Things he didn't even want, period.

But tucked behind the barrel, snot-nosed and red-faced, it was hard not to feel like the tendrils of his old hates, of the needs, cradled his insides. Held on to every gap between his heart and stomach and squeezed with false comfort, and he stayed pressed right there with his forehead on the cold metal cask support.

Someday, his dad had told him, you might hear your granddad's voice.

Wasn't he hearing it now? Had to be. But was it the tendrils --- or the visions?

Tendrils that whipped around him, searching. Searching for something that fucking helped again. Opium had helped.

Shivering against the cold dirt. Saw nothing from behind his eyes.

Only the visions.

Visions of himself, dark head of hair floating through a grassy garden. Visions of the waft of summer pollen and smooth stone---

And when you hear him, remembered his dad's finger tapping his nose one-two-three when he'd been just small enough for the pad to be the same size as his whole damn nose, you must remember he is a liar above all else.

There were trillions of those tendrils whipping around inside him.

Starving and livid. It was his fault for never feeding them like he was supposed to. Like he promised to. His fault for feeding them too much of all the things they didn't want. For thinking he wasn't them.

Were those his granddad's voice? All these whims, and hates, and the endless hunger? Impulses, and the things he deserved because he was a god-damned prince, and the things he wasn't allowed for the exact same reason?

Had to've been. They were the cravings. The urges. And those things, which he had freedom to obey, Dmitrii hadn't been allowed to do at his age. Roman in his youth had just done them anyway. Where did that leave him?

Did he have the freedom to deny them? Or the prison of obeying them?

And why did the sentence for his prison time hurt so damn bad?

Because you were wrong, they whispered back, writhing around like laughter from another entity entirely.

If they didn't tell him that she was a witch. If they didn't keep him up at night with thoughts of her in pieces. If they didn't tell him he could just do it. If, if, if he'd not obeyed them with her, it would've been another time, another person, something else.

Would've had to obey eventually.

He always did.

They were what kept him hidden there. Kept him from having to really see her and what he'd done, kept telling him how good a sound her body made when mutilated.

Said if he saw her again, that was all he'd think of. Crunch, and her gasps.

Something else.

Focus on something else.

Creaking metal. Squeal as the lantern swayed. Tried to focus in on the creeaak...

It had to be his grandfather.

Yes, yes, positive.

That's why this hurt so much.

It was his old blood that made this so hard. Wouldn't have needed to kill her if not for his granddad's writhing tendrils in his body and mind, wouldn't have believed in the spell so hard if the tendrils didn't remind him just how fucking little control he had.

The moment that the barn door clicked open, Artyom flinched.

Folded a little tighter behind the barrel.

Kicked a soft cloud of dirt up around him.

Just barely, he caught a glimpse of a spectral white. A ghost -- a ghost he knew with a layer of safety above the others.

Rune stood in the middle of the barn aimlessly. Could just see the position of his slippered feet, and the gentle shuffling in place.

Had to be looking at the column. The lantern. The crate. Her. What he'd done.

Rune wouldn't think he was stupid. Rune had caught him before. But Rune had also never caught him with one that hurt in the aftermath. Artyom had never found one that hurt.

Shot up, squeezed out from the wall. Emerged from his hiding place, waited for Rune to catch sight of him just outside the brightest circle of the lanternlight.

The elder sucked in a breath.

"This your doing?"

Creeping out from behind the wall, Artyom came limpingly to stand diagonal of him. Didn't dare look at the statue. The answer should've been fucking obvious; his hunting knife was still embedded in the malachite.

Didn't answer, just waited for Rune to sigh.

"Jesus, Arty. How long have you been out here?"

Strained his voice, it seemed. Knew this feeling well, but the last time he'd screamed so much was the opium.

"I don't know. After dinner..."

Assessed the damage around her, at least.

Column was fine, despite the splinters in his knuckles that he idly picked out.

Crate had a broken panel, and that would be the gash between his fore and middle finger, then.

Bare dirt was exposed beneath in a telltale radius around her, haloed by loose straw and stone.

God, had he been flailing that bad? Like a rotten toddler.

Plush cardigan pulled a bit tighter around his shoulders, Rune only stood there. Stared at her, in that peculiar way of his. In the dim firelight, his usually albinistic pink eyes looked almost red.

"Dinner was three hours ago."

Had it been?

He hadn't noticed. Sniffled once, scrubbed at the hot orbits of his eyes, tried to use his palm to squeeze the last of the saltwater from them.

"Has she been dead since dinner?"

Axe in his gut.

Felt like, it at least.

Or, more apropos, a knife. Twisting via Rune's well-meaning analysis. Only strengthened the feeling that he couldn't -- couldn't -- bear to look at her. Tendrils tightened their grip with the twist of pain, hissed to look and enjoy.

Dead felt different coming from his most scientific brother. The one who had spent his immortality gaining medical degrees. The necrophiliac, whose habits he sometimes supplied.

If anyone knew dead, it was Rune.

Didn't make it less of a hot gash of guilt.

There was no hiding the gutted sob that rocked him forward. Hands to his knees.

Rune wouldn't judge.

"I don't want her to be dead."

How could he have made himself feel so much like a child? Like a spoiled little boy sobbing he'd broken his favorite toy?

Felt it, further, when Rune's quizzical brow turned on him.

"That looks like a killing blow to me."

Wasn't the first time they'd had a conversation like this, either.

Rune had caught him before, with a real corpse in his hands, and he'd even left a few where the second-youngest could find them. It was an unspoken courtesy between them, but this? This benefitted no one.

"I didn't mean it," was all he could manage through a fresh wave of hot tears.

Rune stayed calm, somehow.

"You can't just not mean it when you kill someone. You very much meant it by doing it. You know that, Artyom. Why did you do it in the first place if you didn't mean it?"

Fuck, was now the time for logic? For reason?

For hammering in the guilt?

How could his mind keep showing him things like this? Gasps of visions, of life moving beneath his palm, beneath her flesh, of a beautiful silence in her presence? None of those things were for him.

Weren't his dreams.

Blubbered his response, crouched to cradle his aching skull.

"Can you help her?"

Couldn't see much but the filth of the floor. The dirt that clung to the stone soles of her feet, and the slight shift in Rune's stance.

"Yes. But we need to talk first."

Yes.

Sore aches panged through his diaphragm when he rose. When would the crying just fucking stop?

Rune was silent, watching him. Could he not see, not hear, that he'd learned his lesson? Maybe those pink eyes could only see as well as he could now, blurred through tears.

"W-what are you waiting for? Help her."

Careful, patient, Rune enunciated each word:

"We -- need -- to -- talk -- first."

"F-fuck."

"Yes, well. Come in for tea and---"

"I am not leaving her." Guilt flowed over his thick tongue like venom, like an accusation. "I-I'm not leaving until she's better."

Even Rune. Even fucking Rune, his safest, his closest, dared to give him that look, that wide roll of his eyes, like the things he demanded were exorbitant.

Like Artyom didn't fucking understand what he was asking for.

At least Rune didn't fight back. Knew Artyom had his reasons.

The elf paused, sucked in a sharp breath. Rolled his head to the side, cast his face in a sort of waning gibbous light, and closed snow-white lashes against the sights of the barn. When he spoke again, his voice was softer.

"Okay. I understand that you want her back. That's step seven here. We have to start at step one." At a slurred question from him, Rune opened his eyes, expounded: "Step one is that you tell me how we... got here. I mean, I thought everything was going well with you two? Dad's always sending you off to chore together."

Some kind of combination of movements. An attempt at a nod, a shake of his head, and he bit back another sob. Tried to keep his balance.

"He just does that 'cause we're the same age and she listens to me best. I was getting so fucking sick of her, I... I thought she cursed me."

"Okay, we missed a step. You were getting tired of her. Then what?"

Damn him.

Couldn't he just do his stupid doctor shit and fix her?

The tears, it seemed, would stop when the questions did. Sobs bloomed out of him readily again. Knobby hands fluttered between covering his face and crossing his chest to try and contain its rapid dilation/contraction cycle. Spoke in between embarrassingly discordant wheezes.

"I keep seeing her everywhere and getting these... visions of her when she's fucking someone. That's why I fell, Rune, I was stashing something in the damn tree and saw her with Dima so vividly I got pissed and lost my grip and... I thought killing her would break the spell."

Now that he thought about it, he hated a just-about-insurmountable amount of things.

Hated how fucking incompetent his family -- brothers, fathers, even the new fringes -- was despite being so powerful compared to him. Hated that no one seemed to fucking care he was literally god-damned royalty. Hated that, despite being wholly unable to act on that, he still was royalty and had "responsibilities" and "inheritance" to worry about.

Hated, right now, the pensive look on Rune's face.

How his lips dipped at the corners, how he looked over the statue like he knew something. Why couldn't he just fix it and move on?

"Did it?"

Fuck.

Another punch in the gut.

Artyom clenched his eyes against the light. Sucked in a noisy breath.

She couldn't be dead forever. It couldn't have been that easy. She was supposed to come back.

"I wouldn't be begging you if it did," he warbled.

"That doesn't answer my question. Are you still thinking about her?"

Behind his eyes, immediately.

Life under flesh and her hands clutching his chemise, breath soft in her sleep.

Whose dreams were these, that the curse didn't stop when she did?

"Obviously."

A faint, thoughtful nod.

One of these days, he was going to find a good way to unspool Rune's brain, make him share his thoughts on more than bugs and medicine. Feared that it would've taken a whole hangar to contain the damn thing, laid out all flat and fractal as it was. It was probably bone-white too. Unsettling, to think of his brother's brain as a spiderweb. Unsettling to think of it as his only chance.

"If I fix her, how do I know you won't do it again?"

Oh, he'd plenty learned his lesson.

Watched her eyes start to lose her life, felt the exhilaration of her fading in his grip. Laughed clear and ecstatic. Positive he was going to be free of the visions of her where her eyes felt like lasers burning away everything but his nervous system, exposed to hot air. Positive he could move on to his next obsession, maybe salivate over someone in town again.

And then there was the utter silence.

Silence, as if he was skimming the bottom of the ocean, lost in soundless darkness. Dragging his belly along the sandy floor, grabbing stones and shells and bones of things long-dead to carry himself along with only his hands to pull. Silence as he realized that what he'd grabbed next had not been a stone to pull himself along, but the tooth of a far greater predator that had yet to succumb to the crush.

And he thought he wanted to be a shark.

Destined to grow from grazing on the sand to a great leviathan, megalodonic power sleeping within. It was his birthright. He need only be baptised.

But now, looking up through the silvery rose window of light that pierced these depths, the surface world had landed on his tongue.

If there was no one else he could be honest with, it was Rune.

Even if Lovrenc would have to tattle on him, Rune wouldn't. Didn't have to until he was baptised, too.

"If I do it again," Artyom whispered, "she won't laugh anymore."

Rune took a sharp inhale. Cast those grapefruit-shaded eyes on him in the fading lantern-flame. Lyuba groaned at the chill of a draft.

"Artyom. Do you know what this means?" Something odd was in the elf's voice. Gaze snapped to meet the fickle white moon of his angular features. Shook his head. Rune's stare was unwavering, but the point of his throat danced nervously. "Things are going to be more difficult from now on. If Dad and Papa notice preferential treatment, you may receive a gift that... also guarantees she won't laugh anymore. Do you understand?"

No.

No, not really.

Didn't understand any of this, but what was fucking new?

Didn't understand the offended crawling in his blood and how the tendrils seemed to recoil with those stupid visions.

One of the chickens ruffled violently on its perch. Bucked once and re-stabilized.

"Can't... let them know about the spell. The curse."

"Tyoma, it's not a curse. It's psychology."

Ugh. Logic and reason again.

"Let's call it obsession, shall we?" Cardigan pulled up again, his head tipped. "Step one in your therapy is going to be taking a deep breath and looking at her. You have to face what you did."

Despite it all, the impatience and frustration, he had to trust Rune. If no one else, Rune.

The breath he sucked in stung, sent tight flares of pain through his ribs.

He had to look at her. He had to.

Glimmering waves of green just as still as he'd left her, and it hurt to take her in.

Sputtered again.

Back arched up. Her face, a clear portrait of emotion. Round lips parted, brow furrowed. Tongue perched in place at the tip of his name.

Delicate fingers wrapped around the wooden hilt of his knife. Nails looked even smaller than they had on his arm. A wingless pixie, pinned to a post with the cruelty of those damn tendrils in his mind.

"How do I cure obsession?"

"Unfortunately, this kind is not curable. But perfectly livable, I assure you. I'll prepare you an herb blend to make it easier; see me in the morning." Nodded vigorously. Watched Rune produce a simple kerchief, perfectly folded, and took it gently. "Step two: clean your face. Gain some dignity, man."

His senior continued as he went about the messy business of tidying his face: "You've really got to watch yourself with her. Keep your obsession under wraps from our parents, at least. It would do you well to remember she's Dima's toy first."

Fuck truth, honestly.

He was sick of it. Every little truth Rune had to offer was cruel, and sliced in with a serrated rage not his own. Even if he didn't mean it so viciously.

Words came from somewhere without him. Somewhere within him.

"But she's my friend."

Only Rune could give him such gentility. Tipped his face to a dim blood-moon.

"Oh, honey."

Chanced a few gentle steps toward him, then seemed to stop. What made him change his mind? Was he too much of a mess for Rune to want to be around him? To be near him?

How could she ever, then?

"While... we're on it," Rune breathed, his voice just barely a rumble above the bubbling snore of Lyuba and her calf, "it would also behoove you to make steps toward... reconciliation with him."

Yeah, right.

When Hell froze over. When his dads made fucking sense.

When Dima let him.

"He won't apologize."

"You know his pride. Don't lose your nerve. He loves you, he's just afraid of how much he hurt you."

All the schooling had to make him make sense. Keep a level head. Had to teach him all that stupid logic and reason and find things that slowly unspooled the tight reel of Arty's mind and made fucking sense of it, too.

He could deal with obsession. Loved keeping his backbone against Dima. Would love to see the bastard explode finally and beg for forgiveness.

But his chest was tight again. Lip threatening a sob, more fucking tears burning his eyes. Or maybe it was her; he couldn't look away.

Needed to see her move again. Needed to know he hadn't really done something completely irreversible.

Even though it should've been. Even though he knew that's what death was.

Even though every other time, he liked that part.

Own voice was childish, a soft-spoken plea that made him feel knee-high again.

"Can you fix her now, please?"

Rune gestured once, and Artyom caught the quivering of his lip with the kerchief, his eyes spilling over again.

"Yes. You're going to, actually."

Had---?

No.

Had he always been able to?

Chest tightened like a viper.

"Me?"

Line of sight: wavering, inconsistent taking in every tiny detail of her. Mint and emerald wove streaks across her bottom lip. Sparkling copper thread stitched through her eye.

"Can't be me." Blasé.

"Why not?"

When the wind from the barn door drafted through, the lantern swung gently to the right overhead. Illuminated a circular bloom at the cusp of her sloping shoulder the colour of ripe honeydew, rippled out in fluidic pools of the dark moss he pulled from tree nooks.

"Her curse needs a prince. I don't have Dad's blood yet."

Unbaptised. Would Rune stop making sense to him, if he was baptised first?

Would Rune hear their granddad too?

Feel the tendrils?

"What do I do?"

Or did he already?

Tiny curls appeared at the corners of the elf's mouth. Slight smirk, the faintest smile -- like when he'd been but a child and Rune had pulled his innocent little pranks, waited for him to notice.

"Kiss her."

Was he serious?

Despite smirking, he seemed serious enough.

"I tried that."

Hadn't worked when he'd tried.

Or the first several dozen times he'd tried.

Her body had just gone stiff in his arms and desperation took hold, and he would've embarrassed himself if any of his brothers saw him. Screamed and cried and held her and begged, begged so much, kissed her mouth and face a million times over and it still hadn't done a damn thing.

"Try it again. Trust me."

Came to stand beneath the dim, swaying lantern.

Let the sound of his own breath fill the barn. Nervous, sputtering breaths.

What if it didn't work? What if he had killed her? Forever?

That vision again. Sleep-breath against his neck, a thump against the butt of his palm.

Needed to be rid of it. Needed to get that damn thing out of his head.

Fingers shook as he drew nearer. Had no choice but to look her in the face, the dimpled expression of betrayal on her features. Literally facing down what he did.

Rune still hadn't stopped him. Maybe he did mean it.

Something about her had made him sick again. Made him feel like he needed the opium again.

Up close, that thread of copper in her eye was almost a whole deposit, a red-gold gleam making up part of her sclera. Not seeing his own reflection in them -- that was going to keep him up a while.

Right now, he was trembling.

An invisible corset kept cinching his ribs. Cutting off circulation to his head, dizzying him, turning him freezing fucking cold. He needed opium, he needed blood, he needed violence.

Bite the bullet.

Pressed just a single, delicate kiss to her stone lips, and held.

Seconds felt like hours there. Maybe it was her malachite that made him sick, maybe she leeched toxins too. Maybe it was the frantic, pounding drumbeat in his chest begging that he feel anything from her, that she would move again, that it was a wicked nightmare wriggled into his eyes by the tendrils. Maybe it was that he couldn't let go.

In the tiniest crevices of his chapped lips, he felt it first.

Warmth.

A flutter, a twitch of her plush bottom lip.

Cold malachite turned tender beneath his touch.

Alive.

Couldn't give her another second -- she was alive, he hadn't ruined it, he would learn to live with the obsession just to hold her again -- and he grappled his arms around her like a spider, bracing her as her body softened.

Diaphragm ached and rattled with each sob he pressed into the crook of her neck. A plea.

"Mira. Mira, oh God..."

How did this part hurt too?

Breath gasped against his ear.

She was alive. Really, genuinely alive.

He sank slightly, could've pulled her down if he wasn't careful.

Alive enough for lungs that breathed. Alive enough to shift, even if stiffly. Alive enough.

Soft breath wheezed out of her. She moved slowly, her hand against his chest, then the blade of his knife thudded dully against his chest where it pried out of her. It was dry. Never again.

"Artyom," her voice, God, he'd expected never to hear it again. Squeezed dreadfully tight to her, like she was just a pillow with bones inside. Alive enough for her arms to move slightly, her nails dragging against his back. "You stabbed me."

Let her, of all people, hear him sob. She needed to. He needed her to.

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."

Faint squeal of her breath through her throat. She didn't sound happy to see him, but it wasn't like he could blame her.

"No, I mean... it still hurts."

Oh.

Oh, he was probably making that worse.

Forcefully let her go, mostly, with her face caught in his hands and a messy kiss to her temple, then he was done. Provided he could restrain himself from holding her again, if she let him.

But letting go meant he could look at her. Well and truly look at her again, and she was moving. Moving like her joints were stiff and sore, but movement was movement from a dead girl. Lids fluttered, and she clutched at the spot. A fleshy tan cavity carved through her ribs slowly rippled while he watched it.

What could he say next?

Gaped at her, eyes wide. Fish out of water.

Rune spoke for him.

"How are you feeling? All things considered?"

It took her a moment to process the question, and in that time, Artyom sank totally to his knees in the scuffed dirt in front of her. Shadows carved best across her face like this; cut her cheekbones into weapons, black clouds around her full eyes. Even in life, damn it, he could see her as art -- not a sculpture now, but a painting of a girl somehow lovely though just woken in a barn.

"All things considered, I think I'm okay. It will finish healing by morning, the way it feels. Perhaps--" Subtle, curt, but she groaned. Brow dipped just a second. "--someone could tell the Masters to be gentle on me, tomorrow? For the sake of my chores?"

He could do that.

"I can do that."

Over-eager, something spat. His granddad. Anything that lied to him had to be the old bastard. Wasn't wrong to be over-eager when she sucked in slow breaths like that, looked so gently upon him despite everything he'd done.

Everything his grandad made him do, something else corrected. Liked this something.

"No chores tomorrow, Mira. As soon as you leave this barn, you are my patient and to be under observation." Her eyes cast over his shoulder. Artyom could've cowed. A demanding fire in his belly said he deserved to, that he'd lift her up on his own like a queen just for surviving him. "We'll let the others know. Don't worry."

Dimples appeared above her brow, but it seemed she couldn't really argue.

Mouth started moving without him, and Artyom realized he was talking to her only once he'd gotten halfway through his sentence, that his mouth and brain had just bypassed the middleman of his good sense and reason. All that logic Rune had, out the window.

And by then, well, commit.

"Mira, I know you don't probably... want to see me right now, and I don't blame you and I'll leave you alone if that's what you want, but I want you to know I'm--" God-fucking-damn it, why had he looked up at her? Watery green eyes on him, no copper thread this time, and she still just looked so fucking sad. Because of him. "--I'm so fucking sorry and I'm never, ever going to do that again."

Fuck, his mouth was getting sticky again.

Sticky, thick-tongued, and he was sniffling away tears as fast as they came. Her words only worsened it; couldn't have stung more.

"It's... okay, I guess. I'm really quite used to it from Master Dima."

And again, there was no time to slow himself, second guess.

Found, this time, he didn't want to. Pledged this, his face freshly-slick with tears and his lips gummy. Let her see him gross. He had already been.

"Don't ever let me be like him."

***

Bundled in blankets, huddled on the floor of Rune's lab. This was a new angle, laying on her side against the wall, looking across the cellar floor to where the overhead light disappeared between crates and barrels and storage containers innumerable.

The burner to the side of Rune's desk squeaked off.

His body looked sideways like this, strands of white hair swaying toward her as he leaned down, poured from the small teapot to her cup. One hour to sunrise, and her ribs were still squirming inside her.

Four cups of tea hadn't fixed it. Not that the tea itself was particularly healing, but for its vibrant, almost spicy taste, he said it was good for inflammation. It was almost healed just from time alone, but not completely.

Miroslava just wanted to sleep, her eyes burning and body feeling leaden.

Dying wasn't the problem. Dying wasn't new.

Wasn't fun, but wasn't new.

Somehow, though, it wasn't on her mind at all.

Or, rather, her mind refused to linger on it. Refused to linger on the feeling that flooded her the moment she'd realized Artyom had stabbed her. The safe one.

Instead, she was driving herself insane.

Wracking her brain for memories. Would've trashed the place, if it would've helped. Somewhere in there had to be all the things that'd gone missing when she died the first time: her name, her sultanate, where she'd been the day before.

Yıldız was on her mind. Eluded her pursuit of her, actually.

Unlike the visage of her father, her memories of Yıldız were clear.

Just terribly disappointing.

Four hundred years later, and it still felt disrespectful to say that Yıldız had been nobody. Daughter of a nobleman in a long line of noblemen with a dowry of gold and horses and land and a treaty between the sultanates. One of the consorts of the harem. Not the loudest, nor the funniest, or even the one she remembered best. Agreeable to those who knew her, invisible to the rest.

A background woman.

All she remembered was the plump curve of her smile, stitch in her strong brow.

"There's something I need to tell you about Artyom."

Rune's voice almost carried over her through her exploration of the harem.

Felt herself there again, smooth stone beneath her feet. Like a soft rumble of thunder over the roof, dripping at the corner of the balcony. A dream, almost, where from the skies the clouds brought down that storm she had seen so long ago on the horizon, and instead of destruction, it bore soft and clean summer rain.

Something floral and spicy wafted off the delicate teacup in front of her.

In the cellar, in his lab.

"I'm awake."

"Is this a bad time?" The look he cast her was thoughtful. Benevolent. "It can wait, if you're ready to rest."

Shifted slightly, forced her head up and her eyes to blink crookedly. The dim light didn't help. "Can't. What about him?"

There had to be something about Yıldız. Something she remembered. Tried hard to conjure her features, and could find only the slope of her nose. Arched, like Mira's -- but hers had been shallower, tipped up slightly.

Rune, relinquishing the teapot, sipped at his own cup. Took in deep, clearing breaths of the steam.

Mira shifted on the floor, careful to keep her ribs from protesting. Still felt like there was stone in there.

At odd times, she found herself captivated by his portrait.

There was a classical beauty in the dimpling of his features, like a statue that'd come alive in white marble before her. Easy, smooth thunderclaps rolled out of his throat.

"You've noticed only Dmitrii and Artyom are really related to Roman. --- Hyun and Darcy and I aren't, in body. They were baptised in Roman's blood. As I will be."

Looking down, though not at her. At his nails, perhaps. Or something on the floor. It was hard to say; just not at her.

"Those two, though... They're his sons in body. While you may not understand this yet, that means something. Means they both... deal with the same things, in a way."

What did this matter to her?

Is that why those three were particularly hard to predict?

But the dimple above Rune's brow was only deepening, a translucent blue pool of shadow between his eyes. The square corner of his jaw seemed to work between sips.

"Darcy, when he was an angel, had access to information Dad still hasn't told us voluntarily."

This, and she shifted again, laid on her back so she could look at him more fully.

A halo of incandescent amber light crowned his face as a gently bleeding moon above her.

Wooden rafters crossed overhead, softly creaking with the slow movements of a household beginning to anticipate dawn.

"He'd said, a few months ago," or was it weeks? It was hard to tell anymore, "that Heaven had a piece of charred bone."

"Mh-hm." For all of the elf's beauty and elegance, the purposeful movements of his lean figure, he conjured a voice whose tender depth belied his intelligence. "From his human body. When he was first born..."

Mira finished for him: "They burned him at the stake for raping a princess."

Rune only nodded. Paused, then nodded again.

"Dima's told you some things."

"Roman told me."

"Right, well... I think there is no amount of vodka in the history of this planet that can get him to open up to us about the things that Darcy learned in Heaven. So it'd be incredibly terrible for you, if Dad ever found out that you knew about those things, right? Can you imagine what he'd do to you?"

Voice had turned cold.

Not him jumped into her throat, but his colorless pink eyes slid to her slowly, finger tapped at the cushion of his chew-split bottom lip. Spoke at a meticulous pace.

"So what we need to do is make sure he never, ever finds out that you know. Otherwise, I would be about to be putting you in the direct line of danger, and Dad will ask me to find a way to kill you, and I would have to oblige because I love my father, and frankly, I want to know how you work inside."

Well, plain as it was, at least he was being honest. Didn't even blink, as if he was just assessing his options aloud.

"And that would place me in direct opposition to my best friend. My little brother. He was twelve when the opium started. I got him off the opium. I manage his anxiety and depression. I am his medical provider and therapist. And killing you, however fun the aftermath would be, would be directly converse to all that."

Unbreaking gaze.

Direct eye contact.

Normally such things didn't make her feel so uncomfortable -- but Rune did not so much as waver.

Mira's voice stuttered carefully out of her. "So we make sure he never, ever finds out."

Something passed across his face. Less of a shadow, more of a light of its own, glancing across his features with an inexplicable combination of emotion. Passively, he whispered at her to drink her tea, and she obeyed.

He waited until she'd settled back again to begin his recitation.

"Dad was an orphan, left as a newborn on an East Slav hermit's stoop. No idea where he came from. The old hermit raised him to be as good a man as he could. But Dad's always had demon blood in him. Even when he was human."

"Like Artyom."

"Right. He did awful things as a child. Obeyed impulses most adults didn't have. And... many times, in his human life, he was targeted. Hurt. Cheated. Lied to by things he didn't even know weren't human. And the old hermit, Fyodor, was a good, honest man. Uncle Miles... caved, and answered me when I pressed about him. Every few centuries, he said, Dad makes a new carving of him from memory. Commissions a portrait from it." Not a single painting hung in Roman's cabin, not unless the influence of one of his sons was evident. "Keeps it hidden. He thinks we don't know, and to be totally honest, I'm not sure anyone else knows but me."

As if he couldn't before, Rune gave a protracted sigh. Hung his head, lips rolling together in thought.

Mira could only absorb.

"My point is... Dad loved him. Maybe more than he's loved any of us, and that's saying something. And an angel appeared to him, when he was sixteen, and lied to him. Said if Dad killed Fyodor in his sleep, under the angel's watch, he could keep him forever." Heart raced; stomach dropped. "So he choked his own father to death in his sleep. Uncle Miles said his screaming was... painful. Never heard anything like it."

Why did she need to know this? How was she going to look him in the face now?

On second thought, she could hardly do that in the first place.

Rune glared at something on the wall -- a ghost, perhaps, of his own. Or just a thought, carefully weaving together out of her sight, an intangible tapestry she wished she could see.

"Someone orphaned a demon child a very, very long time ago, and for all of his immortal life, he's been a constant target for other immortals. Now his son complains of impulses he can't control. Thoughts that encourage him to act only on violence and whim. It means something. But I don't think it means evil is genetic."

Much the same, Mira watched the cobwebs swaying on the ceiling. A fat grey-brown arachnid backed itself carefully into the corner of the rafters above her. Grounded herself in her own sense of reality while Rune muttered, some kind of scholarly babble like philosophizing that grazed just over her head.

What it meant to her was that the issues ran deep, to say the least.

An inkling of an idea: what if she could find the portrait? What if she could find the carvings?

Would it mean she understood him better? Would his father's goodly visage finally make Roman unravel?

Her tea was getting cold, she noticed, by the time she sat up, sipped at it again. Everything in her ribs stiffly protested the movement.

Did she, though, think evil was genetic?

Dmitrii was a good candidate for the argument it was. Artyom, it had become quite suddenly hard to say.

Waking up to Dmitrii was a nightmare. Liked to wake her as soon as he could, let her sit with the pain of repair. He destroyed the things she cared about, rendered her into little more than an undying accessory.

Waking up to Artyom--- it was like she'd been dead.

Like he'd grieved her, denied her death, begged for her to come back. Like he'd missed her while she was dead. And all things considered, yes, he'd stabbed her. Did his regret make up for that?

Perhaps that was a question better answered when the wound had finished closing.

"Did Master Artyom miss me, when he killed me?"

Realized, idly, that her fingertips beneath the blanket were grazing the wound. Sensitive new flesh, and she flinched, but traced the rippling maw of it, the tingling newness of the feeling. Wouldn't be much longer now.

Rune's eyes snapped to her again.

"That's an incredibly fucked-up question to ask."

"Should I ask about your cadavers instead, then?"

Slight flinch. Yes.

"Touché." Shot back the last of his tea, and set the cup on his desk. Settled back into place. "He'd be embarrassed, if I told you."

Yes.

Again.

Wait, though -- why did this one feel like she was winning?

Perhaps because it answered her question, and absolved Rune entirely.

"Is he embarrassed easily?" Why that mattered, she wasn't sure. Perhaps it was the newfound power she had here, to ask Rune private questions knowing the threat her life was under if Roman found out.

"He's seventeen and he hasn't had much socialization with folks his age out here."

Something dreamy had entered her voice.

"That's alright. I haven't either."

If she slipped her finger inside the wound, she could feel it like a second mouth, warm and electric, where the new thin layer of skin was all that separated her gently waggling index from her organs. Felt like an invasion, something that didn't belong. And yet something that did, exactly, precisely belong in an ecstatic way that felt not unlike the blooming warmth of fresh sunshine.

"Guess you two can be horribly weird together."

If he didn't want to hurt Artyom by killing her, then he couldn't hurt him by tattling either.

"Will you keep it secret?" Us, like they were anything?

Just what the hell did she want him to keep secret?

The stabbing, really. The whole awful ordeal, like a true moment of intimacy. And she hated, after everything, that it felt that way -- that he'd kept kissing her, pinned her to the crate, slipped something different entirely inside her and finally made love to her right there.

Strange shudders passed through her. The thought itself had her belly pooling with familiar, wet heat.

Her fingers plunged a little deeper into the wound. The hole, actually, the hole Artyom had carved for himself and maybe she was still a little bit high from Roman, her body frozen in the middle of processing it.

Sensitive, tiny pulses engulfed her finger. He'd threatened to fuck the wound, and yet he woke her devastated. How did that feel so much like he'd fucked her already and that was their secret to share?

Rune's voice was forceful.

"Miroslava."

Eyes shot open. Found Rune's boring directly into her, and realized exactly how warm her face had become, how shallow her breath.

"Stop that." Hissed almost. Gaze unwavering. "You have no idea what conversation I just had to have with him. You are off limits now. Do not let me see you touching that again."

Strange, she realized, prying her finger from what she could no longer think of as anything but the hole Artyom carved for himself. Strange she'd started touching it in the first place.

***

As the true middle of siblings, Darcy felt it was his duty and responsibility to his brothers -- and, really, his family at large -- to annoy each and every one of them at least once a day. As long as they all lived together, it kept them on their toes and united against a mutual cause.

And being that cause was an honor.

Of course, it helped to have moments like this.

Seated at the kitchen table, a rare day of sleeping in for most on a chilly early autumn afternoon, the pressure had just dissolved from the room.

Sunlight filtering through the kitchen window lit the room in a clean blue-grey shade, spilled onto the maid's arms and the soapy basin of dishes.

Brunch and tea had been interrupted by the telephone. No matter the silence the room full of boys tried to keep, their father had been tense, and intent not to let them overhear.

Darcy had had the honor of breaking that tension.

And that feeling was golden, above all else.

Parents and brothers. Human and demon. Even the maid had giggled. Even Dima.

Even Artyom, the unwitting victim of one barley pellet flicked directly into his eye, once he'd recovered from the brief explosion of anger that overtook him.

Laughter had buoyed the room in a truly holy kind of joy.

No harm. No foul. Just amusement, and Darcy floated along it in a cloud of his own joy as his family set to piecing apart the mail that Hyunwoo had brought back from town the night before.

The eldest had relaxed since then. Bathed, slept, cleaned up again, and Darcy grinned as his eyes met the dark of Hyun's through the steam on his coffee, the throng of sleep-mussed siblings and half a room between them. Where he stood, behind the maid in her pumpkin-flesh-orange dress, she shifted about her chores and he moved around her to place things in higher locations than she could seem to reach. Whether she noticed or not, her plump posterior more than brushed his hips.

Beside him, Dmitrii remained silent.

One hand clutched a delicate sheet of parchment. Stark black lines drew across it in a delicate handwriting, and if Darcy craned -- which Dima shouldered off -- the strokes began to rearrange themselves into the curling Cyrillic he was used to.

Could've squealed like a little girl at the first line when it stopped moving.

Dmitrii, my beloved,

Could've knocked him to the fucking deck for continuing to stay quiet.

Darcy, instead, delicately pried the coffee cup from his hands.

Mira must've given him a fresh shave that morning; looked baby-faced in a way that had Darcy's free hand scrubbing his own soft cheeks in neutered frustration. Still nothing.

Bother Dima instead.

"Who's your secret admirer?"

Rude, protracted silence. Darcy sipped earthen hot coffee, washing down the taste of his porridge.

Christ alive, he could hear the muffled shuffling of that pumpkiny orange cotton against Hyun's trousers.

Artyom joined in, his eye still a touch red from the barley. "Anyone admiring him'd have to keep it a secret."

Azure eyes studied the letter. Kept reading. As if he hadn't even heard Artyom insult him this time.

Broke, finally, with a deep sigh, when he was damn good and ready.

"My ex is going to be passing through Russia."

Darcy's fingers pinched excitedly at Dima's side. Pain radiated from a hearty thwap on the arm. "Ooh, you gonna rendezvous with her?"

How could so much hate for his own kin boil up in Dmitrii's eyes so fast!

Brought a teeth-clenched snicker from Darcy, happy to be caught. Inhaled from the cup deeply and drank, stealing a glance at Hyun who'd finally cut out the extra space and now buried his face in Mira's neck.

"She's coming here, actually."

Stillness overtook the room.

Even better!

Another girl! And Dima's exes, frighteningly few as they were, were nothing if not fonts of stories ripe for his taking.

Though, he supposed perhaps that wasn't why his brothers had gone still.

Roman, across from Dima, was the one to break it this time. Head tipped down, staring at them over his own coffee.

"Just invited herself?"

Only once, Dmitrii nodded. In the pale afternoon light, their eyes looked almost identical -- in jewel-like hue, and in measured darkness.

Darcy adored how hate looked on each of his family members. Adored how well they all wore it, but his father especially. For all the horror he'd wrought, all the pain he'd once caused them all, Darcy most of all saw the divine way that hatred laurelled Roman. Fit him like a crown.

Only that Roman would never suit a crown. Looked more regal without it.

Hyun, with one hand on Mira's hip, his coffee abandoned on the counter. "Which ex is it?" Fresh pink petals bloomed on the side of the maid's neck.

"Which one do you think it is?"

Hyun took only the distance he needed from Mira to gesture crudely at the shape of full breasts.

"Your little 'gumo geisha?"

The way Dima's eyes slid shut was confirmation enough.

Yes.

That one.

A thoughtful chorus of chuckling filled the room. Dima had been plenty generous in his stories, rifling through bowls once to find the right one to describe the size of her tits, but from what Darcy could remember, she had been a yokai alone on a mountain for centuries. There were bound to be more stories there than just the ones Dima had about her body.

Attention turned back to Roman, who lit a cigarette with a spark from his fingertip, Dmitrii set the letter down finally. Snatched it back before Darcy could.

"You sure you're okay with that, Dad? Says she'll be here about a week."

Tip of the cigarette glowed into a brilliant spark.

Roman nodded, spoke through a small cloud of smoke. "Where's she going?"

A lock of dark hair shook with Dima's head, fell into his face. "Won't say, she says. Needs to get out of Japan while she can. Yokai and inhumans are disappearing, so she's going off the map."

"Oh, if she needs," Hyun offered, his face completely cool save for a faint smirk, "I'd be happy to make more with her."

A round of laughter washed over the room. Even Roman grinned past his cigarette.

"I'm fine with it, Dima..." Pulled it from between his lips, and gestured. "Because I won't be here."

Aghast!

Another stillness fell over the room, this time of an entirely different flavor.

Something palpable like disbelief.

"Don't start panicking on me, boys. It's nothing to worry about." Still, he was so damn calm! Darcy leaned forward. Felt a wash of heat in his face, his chest. Something like anxiety. "I've already made arrangements with Miles. You'll all report to him in my stead, but. We're well-hidden, well-guarded. Regular patrols. Consider it a test of your strength as a family. If anyone's life is in mortal danger and Rune can't help, you know my sigil. But don't disappoint me with your reason. We're going to be gone for three months--" A collective groan echoed throughout the room. Nervous fluttering filled his belly. "--and I want to see you all on your best behavior while I'm gone. No leaving the property. Obey the patrols. Share the chores. You know the drill."

"Can I ask for a rule to be added, Dad?" Dima, who'd leaned back in his chair. How did that bastard have a five-o-clock shadow already? "Can I institute a 'no in-fighting' rule?"

Roman's smile curled at the corners, dimpled the weathered surface dusted with stubble. Jealousy ran fucking deep, but maybe he just wanted a reason to be angry.

Three months?

In a lockdown?

Maybe it was the detective in him...

"No mortal injuries. If you break it, you fix it. If you lose it, kill it, destroy it, or ruin it, you replace it. Cash or labor, Miles knows. Hyun knows. And for the last god-damned time, if I have told you not to fuck it, do not fuck it. Am I understood?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Darcy caught the slight movement of Hyun's hips grinding subtly against the maid's. Cheating dog.

If he thought that was going to count toward their tally, Darcy was going to have words about it.

"Papa will be going with me. We leave at the end of the week."

"Masumi will be here in a fortnight."

"Then you'll be in the clear." Another long puff on his cigarette, and Roman leaned forward. Let out the smoke in a thin sneer that morphed to a faint smirk, resting his elbows on the table, and gestured in a jerking motion. "Can't say I blame you if there's a few more webs sprayed in the basement, eh? Leave it cleaner than you find it, boy."

Laughter rose in a freeing chorus around the room.

Felt for a moment like he wasn't, even a little bit, scared what the fuck exactly would suddenly demand a three-month excursion in the middle of the first lockdown they'd ever called at the compound they'd spent so long building and had really only locked down just now and they were really protecting strangers as far as they were concerned and he needed to fucking breathe.

Dima's hand on his back was grounding.

Subtle, but grounding, and Darcy rubbed one eye with his palm. Came back with a slow breath, centered again on the lay of the room.

He needed something normal. Maybe Rune knew something good for facial hair. Maybe he could focus on that. He liked research.

"We'll be good," Hyun promised. His movement was masked behind a soft swaying he'd taken up, wrapped around her while she dried the remaining dishes. Rune said they needed to be gentle with her a while; variety of guesses why.

Oh, and he could get Hyun in on a bet with that, couldn't he? Darcy was willing to put all of his money down that their dads had finally gotten ahold of her; suppressed a shudder up his spine at the idea of what the words Daddy or Papa must've sounded like whimpered out of her mouth.

Filed it away for later.

Wheedled for his father instead.

"We'll be like angels," he promised, hands pressed together in prayer. "We'll even keep the brats in line."

"Good. Dima's got a good whip collection if you need it." Another round of chuckles, and Roman finished off his tea. "We'll call every---"

***

Kåre's feet pounded the earth with all the speed he could pray for from Hermod and his own semi-humanly body.

Left his bow, his favorite, with Kyrith, but he had no doubts about her shot on a horse. A person, maybe not so much. She'd always been the fighter. He worried more about the state his bow would be in after she fired it, if she had to.

Didn't have time to worry about his bow.

Didn't have time to appreciate how beautiful it was out here in the fading charm of rural Russia's mountains, either. A damn shame.

Kåre vaulted over a rich spill of rippling earth, crossed a half-rotten moss-ridden oak.

No time to absorb.

Straight path. Dodged low branches. Leapt a short ravine.

Skidded once, down a deeper one, but the momentum made the ascent that much easier on his poor thighs. Travel had made him too stiff.

Caught his palm, rough, on the bark of a dry tree.

Cast off a scatter as he hurtled toward the cabin.

There were two steps up the porch.

Fuck steps. Fuck doors. Fuck introductions and niceties, this was the one thing his fathers asked him to do.

Burst through the front door.

Roman, at the table, that was all that mattered, and only then did Kåre truly stop, heave a breath that felt cold and chemical in his chest.

"Uncle Roman. Intruders."

The bench he shared with his youngest son skittered.

It was a damn miracle -- or a testament to the kid's upper body strength, he guessed -- the teen stayed seated with his bum leg and the angle the bench splayed at.

"Hyun, Dima. Get Miles and load a cart with what we can spare."

A command, well and truly.

Uncle Roman didn't use those unless he had to, so their fathers said. If, in fact, that was that was. He'd only heard about it, about Magnus's refusal of the mark that would've given Roman control like that.

"Darcy." As the first group shot up, as if under the sudden spell of mutual agreement, the next came to attention. "Hide the women and children. Get to Rune in the basement."

Strange, to watch the same look overcome each of them.

Strange to be breezed by like he was nothing.

Made a discordant kind of eye contact with the wide-eyed maid, who stood at the sink catty-corner Kåre, looking somehow betrayed suddenly. He didn't have time to explain that whatever Uncle Roman's plan, it was for her protection.

Or, at least, Kåre had to hope it was for her protection, as an inhuman.

Hoped it was the right thing, even if he knew better.

"Kåre," Roman commanded, but there was no change in his eyes when the tone in his voice definitely changed, rung a little different in his ears. Kåre was no fool. Roman had tried. "Where's your sister?"

"She's got an eye on the intruders. Following them up the route to the valley."

Roman paused, caught Kåre's bicep tight in his grip.

"You left her?"

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

Play nice, Bleddyn had begged. It's safety.

Kåre wrenched his arm back. Bleddyn didn't beg.

"She's a better fighter. I'm a better runner. Tell me your plan."

A dark shadow flitted across his eyes.

But he nodded, gestured.

"Walk with me."

Fine. As equals, fine.

Kåre did just that.

Followed Roman out the front door, into the cooling autumn air.

No time to appreciate the chill in the air, the sweet musk of leaves or rustle of trees slowly shimmying out of their summer dresses with the most seductive sound.

He needed to get some time by himself, with Kyrith.

It'd been hard with patrols.

Something about being twins meant she knew him better than anyone else -- only she knew how to really help him translate the precise emotions he had into words. She was no wordsmith herself, but her eyes each time helped find the finishing touches.

"What's the count?"

Oh, and the crunch of grass and drying earth beneath his feet, when he didn't have to be flying across it--!

Kåre kept pace with his uncle's long stride. Headed toward the front of the property, where the valley path led in with the forest all around. A good choke point, but there was limited time.

"Two men, on horseback. Soldier uniforms. Poor-fit. Military green, red armband."

"Fuck."

The word came out like venom.

Roman padded his mouth to the back of his hand.

"News, Uncle?"

Spoke briskly. "You know the Red Guard, boy?"

"No, sir."

"Is your sister a better shot too?"

"No, sir, but she can hit a horse from a hundred meters."

"What's the most fucked up thing you've ever seen, son?"

That caught him off guard.

Kåre paused, nearly stumbled. Hadn't heard Roman's voice so genuine in the short time he'd been here.

Maybe he could consider giving his uncle a touch more respect. Caught up, kept pace.

"My sister slaughtered our parents to save me. I came home to her soaked in their blood. Holding our mother's head."

Couldn't help the strength of the memory as it came to him. The sight of her shaking form, silhouetted in the fireplace that roared with the remains of a childhood that'd been a life behind him by then anyway.

Roman's hand clapping on his shoulder brought him back to reality. Caught the scent of acrid smoke and rotting leaves and the clean ozone of a misty grey sky rolling in.

Gods, it was pretty here.

"I'm sorry to say I'll be adding one more today, but you're my personal sight, understood? Do you know how to use a firearm?" Nod. "Preference?"

"Rifle, sir."

"My bedroom, in the wardrobe, it's still unlocked right now. Get it, load it, have your ass on me by the time things have gotten ugly, do you understand?"

Oh, he took orders just fucking fine.

Only a barked response of sir before he was off again, bolting toward the cabin.

***

This was not how he fucking wanted to do this.

Artyom's voice echoed in the open air, arguing loudly with his brother. Hollered and spat and kicked. Nothing the teen could do against Darcy, at least.

Marla and Vinny were arguing somewhere far behind the cabin proper, not yelling recklessly like Artyom but chattering nervously after Miles on his way to help load the requested cart.

As long as he didn't have to worry about the kids, he could handle this.

Things would all go according to plan, as long as the kids stayed in check.

Hoofbeats pounded up the trodden path.

Two chestnut geldings rounded the corner. Sunlight gleamed off their oiled haunches.

Deep breath.

Inhale. Cool autumn air.

Hold.

Exhale. Shoulders square.

Dusted his hands together and stood, patient, in the line of sight at the edge of the path.

The boy was right.

Two men on horseback, clad in a dull moss-green uniform that fit only in the perfunctory ways, cinched with belts where it didn't.

Proud cantering horses with broad working bodies; it'd be a shame if they had to kill those too.

Each man dismounted with a flurry of tinkling and jangling as he brought his horse to stop.

Gaunt, the both of them.

Left moreso than the right. A leather strap pinched tight enough across his chest to puff out the bottom of the overcoat. Looked like a little boy playing soldier in pants that wide, but he threw up a precise salute.

"To your good health, sir."

Reedy voice, interspersed by a wheeze. Mid forties, perhaps, with half-lidded tired eyes and deep cuts scored by time between his brow. A veteran, perhaps.

The other, younger, less precise in his movements. There was a baby-soft quality still to his underfed, ivory flesh. Probably him.

Roman's own salute was languid in comparison. There was a distant sea roiling in his belly, a rage he couldn't yet act on.

How dare they pursue him.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, gentlemen?"

Couldn't show it. Couldn't let them know.

A quick glance traded between them.

The younger had a fair ten centimeters on the first soldier. Built a bit like Darcy, too, lean and athletic.

Yeah, it'd have to be him.

"We come on behalf of Mr. Lenin."

Sure they did.

"What an honor. Is he with you?"

Another glance, a telltale frown writing into the first soldier's face. "No, sir. We come on behalf of Mr. Lenin, with the Bolshevik party. As a citizen of the Soviet Union, your property is subject to taxes that are yet due."

Of course.

Roman refrained from rolling his eyes. No matter how difficult.

They'd trekked out into the nomadic wilderness for this. For a government that had been fine until now to ignore him, let him remain in the anonymity of myth for centuries. Because the tumult of the time had given humans some sort of sense of being owed by the very things that owned them.

But that was fine. They'd addressed this possibility.

Just hadn't expected it so soon.

The younger spoke next. Less strict, less military. More loose-tongued. Even the attention he stood at was softened. Strong brown eyes, squinting against the sun.

"And with all due respect, it appears our leads were insufficient for the size of the property. What's the protocol, sir?"

Dry, unbothered droning. This must've just been Monday morning for him. "We'll need to take a general stock and census before reporting to our superiors. Failure to comply is punishable by death. Any citizens found not necessary here can expect to be drafted or deported to Moscow for labor."

Just words, really.

Roman smoked slowly at his cigarette. Inhale. Cool sour smoke. Rotten autumn air. Not too humid.

Didn't matter what it was the humans wanted. They only had one choice here, and it was to play his game. Whether they knew it or not.

Paperwork produced from the satchel at the older man's side. He rifled through it in search of something.

"Now, sir, what is your name?"

Exhale.

"Roman. Sokolov."

Poor bastard was going to try and write it down. No fucking chance, even if he found his pencil.

Gust of wind disrupted the parchment, burned the tip of his cigarette a little brighter when he dragged again.

The younger interjected: "Are you, then, the source of the rumors of a demon out here? The demon Sokolov?"

Took everything in him not to laugh.

Let his smile crawl into a slow grin, a furrow of his brow. Shifted his weight.

"They call me a demon?"

Colour rushed the younger's cheeks. "My apologies, sir. Our leads on your location were scarce. A bit of folktales, it seems. Fear-mongering."

"No, you know," sucked in a sharp breath of smoke, held it with a puffed chest. Glanced to find Magnus's boy, just a shadow on the porch. Good. "I can see why they would think I'm a demon. That makes sense."

As he peered around the rest of the property, all seemed well. Tiny dark shadows of poor hiders, but it was good enough. Barn door peeked open.

Younger man locked and unlocked his knees, just once.

"Why is that?"

Roman tested one step off the path; no one moved. Used the moment to begin a lazy stride toward the edge of the forest encapsulating the path and property.

"I have a particular way with the bears out here." Paused just a few steps off before turning, gesturing for the young soldier to follow. "Come, come. Let me show you."

Down the faint decline, at the treeline, Roman studied the woods. No sign of Kyrith amid the thin shade of brilliant yellow leaves. The underbrush seemed to rustle only with the familiar rooting of creatures too short to make themselves visible, but on one gnarled bough some meters in, a one-eyed rook had perched with a meal Roman could no longer discern the species of. Ulric had eyes on him too, then.

Roman whistled once, two fingers in his mouth.

Nervous steps away from his superior, but the young soldier tried to keep his shoulders squared and gait confident. Like Artyom, when he thought Roman hadn't noticed him bringing someone else onto the property. Trying to pretend he was braver than he was, trying to act like he was just humoring an old man.

Dry grass and leaves crinkled underfoot.

"Living out here in the wilderness, you get to know the animals a little, you understand? Like your neighbors."

The man was close enough now, still stood at attention, looking out into the graveyard of crooked trunks. Fragments of birch paper floated to the forest floor not far from the cabin, and the perpetrator, a long-eared squirrel flattened to the trunk.

"They come to your call?"

"It's more of a suggestion. He may take a moment. Keep watching."

Suspicion filled the young soldier's chocolate eyes. Filled well enough almost to spill over beneath the overcast clouds.

Roman shifted his weight where he stood, leaned against a grand old ash with one hand on his hip. Stared out into the forest like he expected anything to come up without the smell of food first.

"You suppose the village folk think you're a monster because you talk to bears?"

Among other things.

"Well, you know. What you don't understand, and so on." With a short shrug, Roman scanned for movement. Likho had moved on to cleaning his beak. "About that draft... were you drafted?"

Brow furrowed. Dark eyes studied the woods, intent for a sight of a bear.

"Yes, sir. Drafted this spring. I'm proud to bring Russia to glory again under the Bolsheviks."

Roman reached out, patted his back.

It confirmed the boy had hearty muscles, but he didn't move away. Good.

"As you should be. Service will make you a good man."

Didn't bother to take his hand back.

Now was as good a time as any.

Roman sprung; whipped his arm around the man's throat. Shocked grunt, quiet choking.

Wrestled with him suddenly. All the power of youthful athleticism wrenched uselessly against him. Short nails tore at his arm.

Turned like this, Roman couldn't see if the older soldier responded. Didn't matter. Forced himself against the side of the tree, use it to whip around to face the path again.

Magnus's boy had better've been as good a shot as he said.

Caught the sight of the elder soldier, mid-run toward him. Arms stopped trying to claw him, swung back with elbows that landed dull. Flailed again.

Wet squelching of a tongue trying to escape. Roman pulled hard against the power of a well-toned fighter -- hot pain seared into his leg.

Yes.

Just a glance; issued knife protruded from the top of his thigh. Didn't matter.

Pulled harder, until the boy's toes left the ground and the pain radiated gently through his spine.

It was just a matter of shivering right, almost.

Felt it engage like a muscle he missed using.

There was no soft wash of heat.

Flames exploded from his flesh. Cloth incinerated in a matter of seconds, sticking to his skin. In his leg, the metal started to burn.

Barely saw the older man land on his ass in the dirt past scarlet tongues of fire.

Searing white pain rippled across his body. Being familiar didn't make it less painful.

Did make it worth it, though.

Below the grip he had on the boy's throat, there were screams building. Writhed against the spreading flames. Stung afresh with every movement covering the boy in the sticky, blackened remains of Roman's skin and gave nice windy bridges to the fire that was so eager to eat away at that green uniform, his shorn hair, his pale lashes.

Chanced a few steps away from the tree.

Legs flailed in the air, pedalling desperately. Roman's only choice was to stand there, letting him thrash and writhe as the fire started to eat up the black bubbles it drew up for itself. Must've hurt not to scream with all that, he supposed.

Stayed there until the flailing became a stiff contortion, and his own body had shrunken to charred bone lashed by dark tendons. Stayed until the bare muscle of the boy's body had grown too hot, and the top of his abdomen dehisced into a spritzing font of steam.

Stayed until another familiarity caught him -- the sound of leaves crunching under heavy, lumbering foot. Stayed as long as it took to be sure the corpse was only sticking to him because of rigidity, and the stretch of burnt flesh.

Still ablaze, Roman thrust the remains into the grass to extinguish it.

Just for a second, he met the old soldier's eyes, followed the thick white path around his irises with a sense of satisfaction.

Hefting the body up by the arm, he flung it into the woods. Watched it sink into the underbrush with a silhouette of missing foliage.

Drawn by the sizzle of meat, the mouth-watering scent of roasting pork, one lumbering shadow remained meters off.

Roman let the flames die off him with another faint shiver.

Hard to really tell when his body became again human, and altogether nude, but he turned, body smeared by ash and char, to flash a stark-white grin at the earth-bound soldier still vibrating with shock.

"There's really only bears out here," Roman gave through the painful rasp of a burnt throat.

The cart was ready. Full of crates and barrels, sacks and bags, bundles of potatoes and flour and firewood. Anything they could spare. Hyunwoo was hard at work lashing it to the spare horse.

No further adieu.

Man scrambled up. Mud and ash freckled his uniform.

"See that?" Roman pointed at the cart, striding up toward where the horses had been lashed to one another. Just so happened that the soldier was running, gasping, in the same direction. "This right here, this is for your family. They're starving, aren't they? Take it. Keep it secret. Take it and tell your superiors there's only bears out here, do you understand?"

Must've.

Only once the man had clambered up onto the horse and begun kicking did Roman finally stop.

"And tell them the demon Sokolov doesn't exist," he added, watching the horses struggle to sort themselves out. "If I see another of you bastards out here, it's your wife next!"

Hell if he was even heard over the sound of hoofbeats, racing off toward the path they rode in on.

Hyunwoo, bless him, lingered with him.

Roman breathed in a slow, measured breath. Cool autumn air, and the faint powdered ash on his skin, and the silence of his property once more at peace.

Likho cawed. Landed on the fence near the chickens, who all startled off in a round-bottomed run, before dropping down into the feed they'd just abandoned. Nothing to worry about for Likho. Nothing to worry about, then.

Frying meat was still wafting through the valley. Maybe he could convince Mira to cook a roast that night; the scent reminded him just how little he really liked barley porridge. That girl would've put bilberries in everything if he let her.

The hulking shadow in the woods had drawn closer as Roman returned to the path.

Hibernation was still a few months off for the regional bears, but the irrationally-sized boar had already packed on a decent amount. Roman had spent more than enough time admiring this specimen, but he was only the latest in a long sirehood of males grown to unusual sizes, and this one still had a few years before he was done growing.

Regardless, he'd found the treat.

Meaty paws carved the underbrush silhouette wider.

A massive head shook, flung steaming white meat against a nearby tree to break it apart. Pulled and gnawed and Roman knew there'd be a new tiny pond of drool if he cared enough to check the underbrush.

Hyun nudged his shoulder, held out the offering of Roman's wooden pipe. Still had some weed in it, thank god, and Roman took it with an arm around his eldest son. Mira would get the charcoal smears out of their clothes -- or she wouldn't. Found it hard to care.

"This is why you're my favorite."

Broad grin. Didn't miss a beat.

"Don't let Dima hear that."

"Yeah, yeah." Flick of his finger to light his pipe, waited to catch a deep breath of something more soothing. "Didn't happen to grab me a spare set of trousers, did you?"

"Didn't expect you to roast him."

***

"What did I tell you?"

Lecturing didn't look good on Rune, even in the dim cellar-light.

Good thing she couldn't see him well, past the crush of Artyom's arms around her head.

"Did you know? Did you know, Rune?"

He was practically squeezing her skull, but she was happy at least that he had only the human strength his body could muster.

Mira hadn't put up nearly as much of a fuss as Artyom had about being trapped in the cellar. She'd heard the cry of intruders, and that was all she needed to obey exactly as she was told. Almost a full day gone without a dose, she was tired, shaky, had decided that thinking was secondary to completing. If the Sokolovs were this bad, there was no telling what intruders would've been like. She didn't need told twice before she hurried off to the cellar, happily held the door open for Darcy and Rune as they hauled their youngest brother downstairs.

What they'd witnessed had turned the tables entirely.

Now it was she who was stock-stiff and incoherent, and Artyom whose joy kept him grappled around her cold frame.

"Of course I knew. Keep your fucking voice down, you ingrate."

There was a chorus of things occurring inside his chest, all of which she could hear.

Champion among which was his heart, frantically pounding out a beat too quick to count.

"Holy fuck, did you see it?" Rocking, back and forth. Was he talking to her this time? "Did you see? That was so fucking cool! I never-- He's never--"

Had a modicum of power here, and gently pried her head away from his vice grip. Couldn't make it far, but far enough to look up at him, squinting past the threads of her hair to see the way his eyes glittered in the single bulblight of Rune's office space.

"Artyom, your father just burned a man alive."

And still, he was grinning at her! Holding her around the shoulders, as if she was the treasure he'd been looking for. The pressure, at least, was nice around the aching wound in her side.

"I know! Wasn't it just--?" Groaned, squeezed a little harder.

How could he sound so happy about this?

Beaming like it was his birthday, swaying with her in his arms, and Mira just let herself be taken by it. Gave her a moment to process what'd happened.

They'd busted out of the cellar in a flurry.

More like Artyom had, and she'd followed in some kind of fear-drunk curiosity. They'd peeked out from behind the cabin stacked like inquisitive children, and what she saw, she regretted. Made a lot of things make more sense, certainly.

Roman had just gone up in flames, as spontaneous as the sparks from Dmitrii's fingers. Had just immolated himself in the blink of an eye, and she'd watched the soft tissues burn away first. Watched his skin bubble away into nothing, the meat on his body turn to char, the cartilage on his body fall away until he was a horrible, skinless thing grinning through flames.

Watched the man's clothes and skin dissolve against him and burn away into the tissue. Watched his belly swell with an accumulation boiling inside, before the pressure finally burst and a fine mist of fluid began to spray out from a split above his belly button.

And she'd watched the bear, tearing off chunks of meat like it'd been given a lovely treat. Chewed with its massive jaws half-open. Didn't care that what it chewed was an eyeball, a fire-toasted skull and the steaming meat inside.

"Wasn't it amazing?"

No.

"That was awful," she barked. "He was trying to scream."

"And he couldn't! Those bastards. Those fuckers won't even know!"

No wonder she couldn't make sense of them. Of him, specifically.

They were a different breed. Thrilled by the most disgusting of things.

But the contact was nice, and with how tight he held, her head didn't spin quite so bad. Couldn't tell at all that she was trembling or couldn't walk a straight line.

"I forgot you hadn't seen Dad change," Rune added finally, never once moving from his post at his desk. The light over him made a stark halo. "Now get away from the door before you're noticed."

She, too, moved with him.

Waddled backward in his clutches, toward Rune in his little section of the cellar. His laughter still cawed over her head.

Just in time. The cellar door creaked open faintly. Marla and Vincent came spilling down into the cellar in a bushel of laughter, nearly careened into Artyom's back.

Immediately, the boys: "Vinny, wasn't that fucking awesome?" -- "Never seen anything like it." -- "Isn't it so fucking cool?" -- "You'll get to do that?" -- "I'd better! Something like that, I'd better be able to!"

Marla, equally entwined in Vincent's arms, grasped Mira's arm. Gaps stared out of her grin.

"Did you see? Wasn't that amazing, Mira? I'm so hungry now."

Let her eyes flicker shut. Let herself be rocked by the motion of Artyom and Vincent joking around over her head.

Reminded herself what the twins had seen, what they'd done. What they'd eaten.

How could none of them be like her?

The scent of cooking meat had yet to leave her, or the nausea in her belly.

She was going to struggle cooking pork for a long time.

"How are you all so happy?" They were giggling and joking and making a rave of it over her head. "It was disgusting. He died."

Marla answered. "I wish I could do that! I could just cook someone right up, wouldn't that be grand?"

Had she even listened?

Probably not.

Vincent was celebrating the idea when the door opened again.

Striding down into the cellar on long legs, half-dressed, with a rag in one hand. Roman had gotten most of the ash off his face, missed large swaths of it on parts of his body he didn't seem to find a priority.

Hyunwoo followed, par-smeared with ash too.

"Uncle Roman!"

Marla's voice was all that broke Artyom's grip on her. Threw himself toward his father, away from Mira, and only then did she catch sight of the room for the first time in a while.

Artyom's hair was a wreck.

Caught his father in an open-armed hug.

Marla bounced in place, her cloud of misshapen curls springing with her. Jarring to see her so ecstatic for him; jarring to see him catch her in a chaste half-hug.

Mira nearly reared back. Her eyes burned for the split second that they made contact with Roman's, watched him dip his hand to squeeze at Marla's ass. The girl squealed, giggled. Vincent only grinned.

Soot clung to the back of her dress in the shape of his palm.

"Was it hard? Did it hurt?"

Vincent, taking back possession of her space, "How close can I get to the bear?"

With a bark of laughter, Roman turned from them, let his eyes finally drift away from her.

"You can watch him from the treeline, I know that. Only lets me and Arty get any closer, though. Maybe next time I feed him, he'll let you come up, huh?"

The boy turned wide black eyes on Marla. "That'd be so cool."

"Dad, Dad, Dad. When you kill me," Artyom's hands shook in the air as he spoke, as if he was describing with fervor a new discovery, "you have to use fire, okay? I can't be the only one without fire. Right? So you have to use fire, right?"

With a radiant grin splitting his weathered cheeks, he faced his son.

Mira found herself retreating back, tiny steps further into the darkness of Rune's unlit medical space. Out of sight, out of mind.

"Listen, if I don't give you fire---"

"If you don't give me fire, how am I gonna light stuff all cool like you and Dima?"

Pointed at him. "Don't let him hear you say that."

"If you don't give me fire, I won't match the sigil! I will be the only Sokolov who doesn't match the sigil!"

Artyom wrenched the old towel from his father. That same radiant grin dimpled his lanky features as he skipped around Roman, engulfing his head with the towel. The elder exclaimed a single swear, held his hands out in shock.

And laughed.

Laughed with a freedom she couldn't fully perceive. Laughed like waves lapping up against the coast, like marine birds whooping and landing and she wondered for a moment about that ocean she found herself in.

Could she have been fooling herself? Was it as deep as she feared?

Or was it really so shallow it could be played it?

Or maybe only she was caught at the deep end.

Retreated further back; couldn't let Roman see her shivering, beginning to get woozy, riding soft waves of nausea. Held herself tight around the midsection, squeezed until she could feel the pressure in her ribs from her wound.

Artyom scrubbed maniacally around his father's head, laughing out sing-song threats. Roman was a cloud of laughter, didn't even have to duck for Artyom to reach for the boy's height, his arms trying to keep in place to orient himself.

"You have to give me fire or I'll look lame! I need fire or I'll look like the dumb idiot bald sheep of the family! You have to give me fire or I'll cry in your hands every day for the next two centuries and maybe longer and you'll have to look at me every day while I make big eyes at you and cry..."

Looked dizzy as Artyom went on, pulling the towel away. Blinked haphazardly and grinned lopsided and looked over his shoulder at his son, who took this opportunity to ball up the towel and turn it into a soft flail that he whipped at Roman's sides, the dark spots he'd missed. Just barely, she could see Hyun leaned against the cellar steps, grinning warmly.

How was he a hero so suddenly?

Saved them from intruders, perhaps.

But an inkling settled in her mind, driven by the image of Roman's knuckles on the meat of Marla's ass: what if intruders might've been better?

What if the intruders were right, and they'd been hidden to keep them from being rescued?

It was that question that stayed stuck in her mind.

Was lodged there solidly by the time Roman had them all gathered upstairs in the cabin proper.

Mira had tucked herself back in the corner of the living room beside Roman's door, the twins clustered around her. Artyom had taken up the arm of the chair Darcy occupied.

Most everyone else scattered through the densely-packed room. Even Belle, halfway across the room, looking incensed to have been disrupted. Her hair was loose against her back, knotted and unbrushed.

Roman and Osian stood at the fireplace, illuminated by the roaring fire. Woodsmoke warmed the inside of the tiny cabin.

Weight had just pressed in on the room. Reminded that they were leaving for three months. To some, it was news entirely.

It was Dima who spoke up first, seated on the far side of the sofa. Hands templed against his mouth, there was no furrow in his brow, only a cold glaze over his eyes.

"I'm just gonna say it. I don't think you should go."

Dark shadows slid across Miles's features when he shook his head, seated close to the fire in Roman's old chair. Scruff cut an almost curved silhouette on his mustache.

"Some things don't work that way, Dima. Some things we don't get to choose."

Magnus, this time, filling the kitchen doorway with his broad frame: "Think it's time to come clean. Quit fucking around."

Darkness flit fast across Roman's face. Whatever cat he'd been keeping, it was out of the bag.

Was this all the secret stuff she'd been hearing?

"We don't have a choice," the eldest demon reiterated.

Osian, leaned on the fireplace, delivered the truth.

"Our visit is to my sire."

More shocks of subtle emotion ran across Roman's features. Bob of his brow, flinch of his lip. He must have hated this.

"Yes, alright." It wasn't a concession so much as an accusation. Something heavy entered his movements, but whatever cover story he'd invented fell away. Even if it took him a moment to breathe, inhale and exhale audibly, before he would say.

Roman was going to tell the truth.

Marla's hand fluttered against Mira's thigh, as if she had the same thought.

"It's not just the humans at war. Inhumans are rallying behind this new figure, a vampire calling himself the Blood King. I wouldn't have given a damn except that I found out he had spies on me. On us. So now the Blood King is my problem. And the only person who knows the Blood King... is married to Papa's sire."

Darcy spoke up next, his warm tan brow furrowed. "The Shepards?"

Mira caught the faint tightening of Osian's knuckles on the mantel. Caught Marla's hand in her own.

"I thought they were good Catholics and all that. Altarless faithful, self-martyrship, right?" Shifted on the chair beside Arty, pushed his glasses up on his nose. "I mean, that is who you guys freed that girl for, right?"

Interesting.

What girl?

Miroslava cocked her head. Roman's eyes were already on her when she looked at him. Wondered if he'd had the same though; if they freed one, they could free another.

Osian's voice was a hiss. "And the little witch who cut your father."

Hidden behind a hand on his face, Roman's features were masked when he nodded.

"It is, yes. And as far as I know, they still are. But I have to sit and talk to her, either way. It's her brother."

"Jael's brother?" Still Darcy, but there were puzzled looks on the rest of their faces.

Dima. "She has a brother?"

"They're twins," Hyun answered, "go figure. It was more of a big deal, back -- what was it, Dad? Seventeen-hundred? Yeah, late sixteens -- back when she was the Sun Queen."

"I hate when shit goes over my head," Artyom swore.

Darcy answered him, close enough for Mira to hear. "It was a big deal that the First Borns never made any kind of public appearance for centuries. Sired nobody. Never talked. But around then, Jael published her first recipe for sunscreen for vampires."

Beat. Pause.

Mira could only absorb so fast. Could only really understand so much when they went on about inhumans, even if she wanted to understand it all.

"What, so, she's like an entrepreneur?"

"More like a politician with a cookbook."

"Got it."

"Everyone called her the Sun Queen, 'cause that recipe made it so a lot of vampires could day-walk, and---"

"Yeah, I got it."

"---I'm not done! She became the face of holistic vampirism, there, are you happy?"

Couldn't see his face, but she could hear the click of his tongue. "You mean herbivorous vampires?"

This time, though, it was Osian, straightening his spine. Never looking away from the fire. Said her name with such vitriol. "Jael believed it was possible for vampires to exist without harming humans. Published a list of nutritional equivalents, too. Pig's blood is swill."

Spat.

Sizzled, in the fire.

Mira could still feel his hate in her spine.

"Why would some goody two-shoes have eyes on you?" Dima. There was a tension in his shoulders; she hated that she wanted to take it from him.

"Because the Blood King..." Roman seemed to measure his answer in his mouth. "Is somehow connected to another demon. And I need to figure out who, and why."

"What's his deal, anyway?" Artyom chirped. "Why's he get a cool name?"

Roman clicked his tongue. "Aside from turning vampires at an alarming rate? I aim to find out."

"Why even go?" Dima again, and he finally leaned back against the sofa, one leg half-crossed over the other. "If it's not safe for us, it's not safe for Papa. Not safe for you to leave us."

"It is safe for me to leave you, because you're isolated out here."

"I think," this time, it was Kåre who responded, leaning on the wall behind Miles with flask in hand, "today proved that wrong."

Mira's eyes darted between him and Magnus, where some information was passed invisible to her.

Kyrith voiced it before her brother could: "You're not as hidden as you seem to think you are."

Knew well enough to know where Roman's eyes were, when he turned his glare on her. She didn't shift at all, head tipped back against the wall, only held his gaze.

The stillness -- Mira pushed into the corner further, pulled Marla with her as if it could hide them both from what Kyrith was incurring.

"How many people know about this valley? How many villages are around you? How many soldiers before their attention's not on you?" Beside her, in the gap of shadow, Bleddyn rested a gentle hand on her arm and squeezed. "No. I'm serious. You made a stupid fucking mistake taking him by yourself. It was two this time. How many will be it be next time? How many before they overpower you? How many will it take before you don't notice them taking your son?"

How could she speak so loud?

Projected it through the room like it was hers to occupy. Mira wanted to grab Marla -- and Vincent by proxy, she knew -- and run. There would be a repercussion she could not stomach, building in the tension of Osian's spine.

Roman's voice was only a whisper, eyes locked on the tattooed woman.

"My record is twenty-five."

"And what if they show up with twenty-six? What about fifty? What the fuck do you do when they bring a hundred or more? What protection is this valley if they don't just trickle in?"

Mira's eyes snapped shut. She could feel the venom in Osian's voice first.

"Keep your tongue in your skull, girl. Before---"

"Enough."

Magnus's voice, calm as ever, gave her a moment's hope to let her eyes open again. He'd only pushed off the doorframe, rocked on his heels.

"She's right, Roman. You lose all control of facts when you control truth." Wet his lips, tightened the tie in his hair. "Don't be mad she's a sharper tool than your blunt instruments."

Osian spat again. This time, it seemed, just for something to watch.

Glared at it while it sizzled.

But the eldest demon only sighed.

Leaned his weight on the mantel.

"Some things we don't get a choice."

***

Dinner was a sort of communal affair that night. A kind of huddle in the barn, with the sun long since descended past the horizon, and the funk of disquietude had become a taste lingering on every tongue well before the bread was broken for the night.

The adults had all chosen to sup in the confines of the cabin proper, while the bear who had briefly graced them with his presence had left shortly after finishing his snack.

Even the boys had become quiet. Hadn't said much since leaving the cellar about the events of the afternoon, nor the truth that had suddenly deluged over their heads.

In all the books Dmitrii had given Mira in the year leading up to her arrival, there had been so many advances in the world. Illustrations in charcoal-stick, reproduced with stamped ink, or worse -- lifelike still frames of real people, stolen from reality by boxes whose use felt insulting to Allah's creations. She could remember the man's face so clearly in the image, divided by the shadows of some blinding light, dark holes where his features should've been.

Dima had worked his words well to convince her that photography was no more than a capture of light, but the features were so defined. Once, her father's scientists had brought with them a trick of the light, a way to duplicate the image of life through the gap of a moth-hole. She'd thought then her heart had never raced so fast, that this picture-making had brought a cancer to the palace, but they said it was science.

The way Dmitrii explained it, the camera worked the same as that little trick, but the image of the man in that book had been stood beside a definite mockery of Allah's power. A metal man, a thing with tubes and bends and rivets, and while it didn't look human enough to go against the law she'd once known, the look of it felt blasphemous. Felt wrong, like it knew it was captured, it was being seen from just a snap in time.

The book had called it a diving suit. Described it as safe to put a man in and drop him to the bottom of the ocean.

As terrifying as that suit was, she wanted one right now. They all could've used one, for what they faced in the silence of the barn at dinner time.

Guilt was powerful inside Miroslava: she was grateful to no longer be alone at the bottom of Roman's ocean, but seeing them drown with her was itself painful.

No one had spoken yet.

Damn near twenty minutes, by the buzzing drag of what really felt like hours, and no one had spoken. They'd moved a few crates close together in the gap between stored carriages, sat near and opposite each other. As soon as Artyom had settled in to eat, one of the hens left her perch, clearing the roost pen on noisy wings to waddle at full tilt toward him. Alighted onto the crate, and pecked at his shirt until he made room for her on his lap.

And they ate, in quiet discomfort, with only the hen's snoring and the tinkling of forks on plates to buoy them along.

Vincent was the first to break it, the dripping remains of roasted meat speared at the tip of his fork. Neither of them handled utensils like friends, only obstacles between they and the food.

"What's wrong with the white one?"

Shrill squeak of Artyom's plate beneath the tines, and he fell still. The hen ruffled her head violently, blinked with wide orange eyes up at him. Dark hair clung to his lashes, danced across the smooth curve of his lids. Swallowed the bite in his mouth before looking to his left, to the offending skeleton of a boy.

"Do you mean Rune?"

"Roo-nah," Marla parrotted. Never once looked up, tongue lolling out dramatically to catch a mouthful of vegetables. A slice of beet dangled from her mouth while she chewed. "He's got pink eyes."

"Is he sick?"

Couldn't say she begrudged them the question. Somehow, though, she was beginning to think Rune was the only one here who wasn't sick.

"He just looks like that," she answered simply.

Artyom sucked in a sharp breath, tore his bread, expounded: "He's not from here."

"Russia?" They echoed almost in tandem.

"Earth, I guess." Shrugged, pet roughly along the back of the chicken's neck. "He's an elf."

Marla, this time, yelped her answer.

"An elf? A little hill-folk?"

"He's too big for fair folk, Mar."

"What do you know?"

"I know he's taller than me and he doesn't speak in riddles like you."

Shaking his head, Artyom mopped drippings from his plate with a chunk of bread. "No, like... he's from, uh... shit, what was it called?"

Unknown voice.

"Àlfheimr."

Mira whipped around.

Kåre, on long lazy strides, sister steps behind him. He'd since shed his leathers, traded for a muslin chemise and dark breeches. Frayed golden braids refused any attempt at smoothing, creating a gilded crest along the unshaven part of his head.

Sharp blue-green lines carved down the sides of his cheekbones, bracketed his cupid's bow and his flushed bottom lip, drew a runic split down the stubble-dusted dimple of his chin. Indeed, the largest tattoo occupying the side of his head was the visage of serpent, fangs to his temple and tail knotted at his nape.

Bread still occupied the majority of Artyom's mouth when he spoke.

"How the fuck did you two get in here without the door squealing?"

Good question indeed.

The squeal of the door had become a telltale sign that she needed to stir -- or else pretend not to.

"Eh, you know." Shrugged, brought himself to lean against the back end of Dima's carriage. "Did a little dance with it."

Where Kåre had a loose swagger to his movements, Kyrith's gait was measured, square. Even dressed down, now, as she hadn't been before. In a dress of all things, and Mira wondered briefly why that felt so odd to her.

Realized it all at once: with her own long unshaven hair braided back, in a navy woolen gown atop billowing muslin, even the vicious face of a bear across her head failed to maintain her image as a weapon.

The idea stuttered her brain. How was she both? Mira chose, instead, to focus on finishing her garlicky vegetables.

"He lifted the left door with a toe under it and a slight upward angle on the handle," she confessed upon joining them. No questions, no niceties, simply arrived and seated herself on the crate Mira sat upon. A warm presence and strong back, even if her skin was cold. "Cousin Rune is quite interesting. Jittery, but interesting. I never thought I'd meet a ljósálfar. It's a shame he doesn't remember much of Àlfheimr."

Marla's grin was almost infectious, a dribble of red juice dripping off her chin.

"You know what's wrong with him?"

Artyom: "It's--- He's not--- Ngh."

"Elves, where we come from... we only see them in glimpses, like ghosts. Like bog lights, dancing over the thin spaces."

Kyrith interjected: "That's a good one, màni. You should write it down."

Flashed a sharp grin over his shoulder at her, passed right through Mira --- still in shock from their sudden silent entrance, still unsure how much to trust them. "Cousin Rune is startlingly real for the ljósálfar wisps we've seen. Although I think it's us who startles him."

Dark eyes pointed right at the inked elder, Vincent licked his mouth clean, remained a kind of physically still that had Mira's spine beginning to crawl. Marla's empty plate was sat on the floor, tucking her legs

No growl, no wolfish warning, but his stare alone suggested he would spring at a moment's notice.

"Do you think you're not startling?"

"You're creepy-quiet," Marla added. "And we're creepy and quiet."

"Did I startle you?" Something like wheedling entered Kåre's voice, but his shoulders sagged, grabbed the flask at his hip and unscrewed it with a practiced flick.

"Do you need to ask?"

Cutting, once again, the woman beside Mira sighed, rubbed at her forehead. "He's being dramatic. We wanted to check on you. Today was unusual."

Finally sitting down his plate, Artyom adjusted how he sat, splayed one leg further out into the little circle. The hen in his lap adjusted with him. "Today was fucking awesome."

"Are you sure you didn't see anything that disturbed you?"

Oh.

Even-keeled, plain, Kyrith's voice remained soft. She leaned on her knees, braid drooping against the twisted visage of a bear, the long line across the middle of her face. Nothing, not a single muscle, twitched.

Line of her gaze felt right to Artyom; caught between them, Mira slowly finished the remainder of her food, desperate not to be caught next in the conversation. Hadn't yet figured out what it was about Kyrith that had her skin crawling and stomach turning.

Glanced briefly at the room.

Kåre sipped at his flask. Marla stared at him, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. Artyom kept Kyrith's stare, but Vincent's brow furrowed, his own stare locked loosely on the straw-strewn barn floor.

"You talked to Rune. You know we only saw Dad coming back."

"You're a bad liar, cousin Artyom. Miroslava---" Oh, Allah, no. "---what did you see?"

Damn it, damn it, damn it, there was no time to control her expression.

Might have flinched a bit.

Marla! "You can't ask her that. She has different rules."

A droplet of an amber liquid lingered on Kåre's lips, and he wicked it with his tongue. "We're assassins, not snitches, cousin."

Kyrith's eyes turned to her -- to Mira. Feared she'd gone wide-eyed against her own wishes.

"This not a scolding. Just tell us. You saw everything, didn't you?"

Before she could nod, Marla spoke up again, this time pointed right at her brother. "Granddad's eyes." Seemed to shudder something distasteful in Vincent, a faint sneer appearing. "You saw. It wasn't right."

Felt the inked pair glance at once another over her. With a pensive sigh, Kåre took another swig. "Your granddad's Miles, right? -- He was under command." Marla echoed him, her slightly-too-big front teeth digging into her bottom lip. "Our fathers explained it to us, a long while ago. Uncle Roman... he can tell certain people to do certain things, and they obey. Perfectly. Like magic. It's..."

"A curse," Kyrith finished. "The Sokolov's curse."

Oh.

Mira whipped to look at her, only realizing she'd done so once Kyrith met her eyes. So close to her, she had to take in all of the ink on her face; the bear, the horizontal bar, and four thick runic bands draping down from her bottom lip. An otherwise squarish face, her features bold and brow forgiving.

Didn't need to ask.

"People under Uncle Roman's control. Our father Bleddyn was made by him and will forever be under his control. Our father Magnus refused the brand that would give him control. The Sokolov sigil."

"Your granddad didn't." Swigged again. "Uncle Osian didn't."

In almost a whisper, Artyom's voice didn't seem to want to leave his mouth. "Rune's got a brand. His parents... gave him as a sacrifice. They branded him. That's--- that girl Darcy mentioned. She was a sacrifice too."

"Wait--" --- "Why are people making sacrifices--" --- "--to Uncle Roman?"

Marla and Vinny's eyes were tiny black holes fluttering between the elder twins.

But the silence that stretched on made every tiny squeak of Mira's fork on her empty plate seem like brief screams tearing through the barn. Artyom's hen ruffled again.

"Cults," he answered, scrubbing gently around the top of the hen's sagging waddle. "That's what Dad says. There's cults out there that kinda just... pick demons out of obscure books to worship. And sometimes they make offerings that get delivered whether the demon knows it or not."

Mira blurted:

"But he released that girl, right?"

This time, the hen did not interrupt the silence. Only Artyom's oceanic glare across the circle, stinging Mira's figure. Let him be angry. Let him be affronted. That was fine, all things considered, her ribs still ached and her body shivered and if he didn't think she'd want to leave by now then he'd sorely misunderstood their exact relationship.

"Listen, you'd have to ask someone older. It was... like two centuries ago. They're vampires and stuff but... look, I just know she was branded as an offering and Dad didn't want her."

Could've been a lot to her, actually.

Could've been a lifeline. A way out.

Wondered what that girl had done for Roman not to want her.

***

Just how the hell she'd been ignored for two days straight, she wasn't sure.

Grateful, sort of, except that there were still things to do. Couldn't stand around nursing pheromones out of dirty clothes in the river. Couldn't let nausea and confusion stand in the way of getting dinners and bread and dishes done. She had shit to do that didn't involve getting back-handed by any of her 'masters,' least of all on one of the last truly warm days leading out of the season.

And, in truth, Mira could've asked any of them for a dose -- any of the Sokolovs proper, anyway.

Considered, briefly, asking Ulric or Lovrenc, but remembered how just one touch had left Bleddyn's fingerprints all over her oldest memories, and didn't want to chance whatever the others' powers were. Which, all things considered, the day before had showed her that all the demons here seemed to have unique powers so really any of them could've been more dangerous than she thought.

But the devil you know and all that.

Today of all days, the power to choose her devil was crucial. Empowering, even, in its own way.

Withdrawal had her ribs not yet healed. Should've been healed early the day before, but here she was, toting a hinge-lidded basket in her non-dominant hand, because the weight would've strained the hole Artyom had carved for himself.

Still couldn't call it what it was. 'Stab wound.'

Some thirty minutes before, he'd watched her pack the basket. Stared at her in the amber glow of the kitchen light with mud-scuffs on his knees, shoulders slumped like a spindly giant a touch too close to the ceiling. Always with that spider-splay of dark hair in his face.

Asked her gruffly what all that was for, flinching but not turning to acknowledge the creak of wooden floorboards beneath his fathers' feet in the next room over. Waited just a second, listening to the sound travel, and when no door opened, Mira continued with her task. She gently laid an unused, folded sheet at the bottom.

"I'm taking Master Darcy a spot of lunch, since he missed it."

Artyom glared at the bottle of wine in her hand as she tied a towel around it, laid it in. Next, the plate which she'd carefully prepared. Baked just for this. A wicker cloche gently wedged into place atop it.

"No one lets me eat chocolate cake and wine for lunch." Said dryly, as if waiting for her to divulge ulterior motives. What did he care?

He'd stabbed her. Admitted to spying on her, wanting to kill her. What help was he going to be?

Napkins and a blown-glass carafe whose stuttering hinge was fit to drive her mad, full of potable water.

"You gonna add flowers to that, too?"

Snapped the lid shut, and finally cut him a wide-eyed glare.

What did he know? Why the fuck did he keep having to stand between her and things she needed to do?

Even if, now, he only stood stock still, half-turned aside like an animal pretending not to beg for food.

"Master Artyom---"

"Mira, just---"

"No, sir," her voice barked a touched louder, and he cowed, brow furrowing. Wondered herself where the audacity had begun to grow inside her. "You know as well as I do Master Darcy has a sweet tooth. If he's isolated today, I should think my duty as the woman of the house is to ensure he eats something, even if indulgent, and perhaps provide him a pleasant moment of company. Is that not my duty?"

Laughing.

He was laughing at her.

A momentary flare of rage in her belly -- where had his audacity come from? -- that stole her breath and forced her to grasp the edge of the counter, steady herself before he had a chance to notice just how dizzy she'd become.

Chuckling, really, busy scrubbing the side of his face instead of just letting her do what she needed to.

"You are sixteen. You are not the woman of the house."

By de facto, she was. But Latin was even less familiar than anything else she'd heard spoken on the farm.

Didn't bother to respond, just tucked her arm under the handle of the basket, slipped on her shoes without bending over at the door.

"Mira..."

"What?" Hissed out between her teeth.

And the bastard was smiling slightly, not even looking at her when she threw her glare over her shoulder. Didn't even have the balls to bother her with anything important.

"Ask Darcy if he finished resetting the fence posts yet."

Seriously?

Shoes on, ruana thrown around her shoulders, she retreated out of the front door -- and stopped just short to cast her last shred of frustration at him. "I will, Master Artyom. Let me know how your visions go."

Slammed it before he could answer, and disappeared on the path through the forest valley, the contents of the basket gently tinkling together in their cloth-bound confines. By the time she'd entered the woods proper, the leaves clouding the path with a crunchy musk escaping with every charged step she took, the rage had mostly dissipated from her.

Being alone helped, maybe.

Side still ached, but the scent of autumn was one that reached to her through centuries of sacred slumber.

Likho cawed overhead, sang her a hearty tune as she followed the path, and he followed her as a fat black shadow jumping branch-to-branch above her head. She needed to ask about him sometime; there was an intelligent curiosity to him, or perhaps it was that he already knew something she had yet to learn.

In not asking, she'd inadvertently begun to anthropomorphize him. Become a bit fond of his near-constant presence, to at least know someone would be able to find her were she hurt, but that gave way for the idea that someone would be able to find her were she unwilling to be found. Likho could've been a friend, and she wished that he would be.

Feared that he was more of a warden, though.

The path faded around the thirty minute mark, and Mira followed the instructions she'd been given: when the path disappears, descend into the evergreens.

It was a dense patch of them, for certain. Dithered throughout the streaking aspens, oaks, and birch, firs and pines remained a warm verdant colour even now. Painted a near-black pthalo where they clustered.

She followed the faint slant of the earth a scarce few minutes before the glade was apparent: smelled, first, the sharp resinous fragrance of sap.

It was still so green down here.

Moss and ivy littered the half-stony earth. Rich, dark pockets of splintered and rotting wood nestled around the curves of the ground in semi-straight lines that had once been fallen trees, feeding the remains of low ground cover yet unwilling to admit defeat.

Spied a little mushroom peeking out between shuddering shrubbery in one such pocket. Maybe if she was lucky, she could remember afterward to harvest it.

Found him, some ten meters off, seated away from her on a time-rounded boulder whose slope demanded that his long legs brace his weight beneath him to justify the limp-covered book open across his thigh.

Chilling breeze whistled through the glade, tousling crisp leaves into the live grass like little reminders of what soon awaited it. Tossed Darcy's curls back just a touch, and Mira hesitated for a moment.

Even by himself, he was smirking out at the world. Strong dip of his brow, jut of his sharp nose, thin cheeks tipped up as if to catch the brilliant sun thoughtfully. A pencil, dangling from his lips like a cigarette.

Turned only slowly when she hollered for him.

"Master Darcy. I've brought you something."

When he turned, the breeze shifted his curls, pushed them back into his face again. Grinned anyway, hand struggling to keep them off his glasses.

"Princess!" Excitement? Relief? He invited her forward and she obeyed; spoke again when she'd drawn close enough for her to be in arm's reach when he pried himself off the stone, book in hand. "Well, to what do I owe the occasion?"

Warm palm to her bicep. The scent of pine seemed to have settled on him.

She lifted the basket, patted it gently. "You missed lunch today. I've brought you something, if you'd care to sit with me."

"Sit with you? Oh, I'd be honored. You're too sweet."

Even caught off guard, even innocent by all accounts today, he was quick to handle her, lavish compliments like it really mattered.

With the basket set down, Mira set to gently extracting the sheet, shaking it out with the next gentle gust of wind that passed through. Her own hair whipped into her face as the sheet rippled out; Darcy, leaning at the boulder, let out a delighted peal of laughter.

Once the wind passed, both settled comfortably on the sheet, pinning it well enough against further disruptions.

She hadn't expected this to go quite so smoothly, to be honest.

Basket placed in front of her, he stretched back, splaying out on the ground beside her with a great sigh. The book rested closed against his side; loosely, she could read the words do not touch upside down engraved in its cover.

Nodded to it while she unpacked the basket, wobbling the cloched plate first.

"Is that your journal, Master Darcy?"

Was there anything he would not respond to with a playful smile? Felt like she knew the shapes of his teeth better than the shape of his personality.

"You worried what I write about you?"

Kind of.

"Irrelevant; I would think sir wouldn't like his personal thoughts shelved with the living room books should I find it misplaced."

Low chuckle, and he rotated onto his side to face her, head propped on his slender arms.

"That's correct, yeah. If you find it, put it back in my room. And no, technically, it's not a journal." Shrugged, the motion awkward at that angle. Mira delicately sat out a squat glass otherwise inappropriate for wine, a bundle of utensils, the napkins. Darcy's eyes were wide, rapt. "It's a bird-watching log."

Carafe, then the bottle of wine, which she carefully unwrapped from its cloth protection.

Almost immediately, she could hear the smile change in his voice, a rising lilt like she'd brought him a treat. Supposed she had.

"Is that wine, princess? Did you bring me wine?"

Let the pop of the cork be his answer. A smattering of sparrows alighted from the fir at the northern edge of the glade.

Mira gave him a glance, a smile. Rocked forward on her knees to gently fill the bottom of his glass, before corking it again.

"I'm not very used to you being away from the farm, in all honesty." Voice felt not her own, but that was fine. She'd used voices not her own for Dmitrii all the time. Didn't have to feel the things she said. "I feel a responsibility to make sure you're all well-cared-for and it started to worry me. I know you're on patrol this evening and I'd hate for you to do it on an empty stomach."

With the faintest groan, Darcy sat up slightly to claim his glass. Didn't seem to mind it was the wrong shape, swirled and inhaled it anyway with a warm chirping sound in his throat.

Hated the genuine smile that bubbled up on her own features. Hated that watching him gently sip, wet his lips, breathe in and sip again with a determined tongue -- hated that she found him cute.

Hated that they looked so alike, when his hand found hers, and she was brought quickly to face his mossy, deep-set eyes.

Fervor in his grip.

But he was grinning, and his words were soft like a confession. Reverent.

"You brought me pomegranate wine."

Had she? Hadn't checked. Just knew it wasn't off limits.

At least it meant he was happy.

Mira sank with his grip to sit curled on her hip with the wine upright in the basket. Carefully, she lifted the cloche, and the scent of rich chocolate wafted out with the motion.

A little cake, topped by a dense layer of fluffy ermine frosting, chocolate in every element. She'd even taken some of the raspberry harvest yet awaiting its fate to candy, and did her damnedest to decorate its top with six little upturned frosted raspberries.

Darcy's feverish grip tensed once, then softened.

Slid up her forearm to her bicep, shoulder, to cup her neck gently. "Oh, Mira." Yes, knew his teeth better, definitely. Even those back ones which revealed themselves now, with the sheer thrill in his wide grin. "Wine and chocolate? Mira, Mira, Mira, if I didn't know any better--" Thumb swept her cheek, and she swallowed hard. Turned to meet his glimmering eyes locked on her, and the reflection of the sun in them. "--I'd say you're trying to romance me. Out in the woods, all alone?"

Was it better to be honest with him?

Or keep playing?

Maybe, if she could ask the right question, his answer might divulge.

"How well do you keep secrets?"

Darcy drew toward her. Lowered his voice, almost a whisper.

"Oh, I love secrets. Is that your secret?"

It wasn't just the pine that wafted off him, a soft undertone of the cologne that seemed only to cling to his most well-worn clothes, a scent that reminded her of stewed plums. He smelled like a warm winter hearth, a well-lit home, and for a moment, Mira let herself fall into the image of such a thing promised to her. How easy it was to dream of better lives with each of these boys when she met the best parts of them!

Let herself fall into a momentary lullaby of that hearth, the winter snow, a warm cabin. Could see herself there at the window, nuzzled in against him for heat, belly swollen with a child whose features were an uncanny prediction, sharing a warm cup of spiced chocolate. Maybe he'd be softer, away from his parents. Maybe he could use his special magic to make her fall in love so easily.

"That you're in love with me?"

Fuck.

Reality felt too slow at times, too fast at others, and she felt the whiplash of it with the faintest flinch as her time came to a screeching halt.

Wasn't. Was. Both.

"Would you like it if I was?" The whisper came out more damp than she meant; couldn't quite tell if it was her throat or eyes which threatened superfluous fluid.

Another soft gust of wind tossed his curls in the space between them, unraveled half a ringlet. He shifted up, pulled his glasses off his face, rested them gently beside the basket.

Whispered with that grip on the nape of her neck, pulled steadily to him until she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. "Tell me this, princess: would you like it if you were?"

This was what she'd come for.

Why was she so fucking nervous?

Reminded, perhaps, that he was a demon before he was cute or gentle.

Eyes like impenetrable, freezing jade locked onto her. "You're shivering."

"I know."

Needed to explain; needed to slow him down. Just a brief glance to guide her motions, and Mira scooped up a fingerful of the still-lukewarm frosting, along with one of the raspberries.

Closer. She didn't resist.

"Am I scaring you?"

Red-brown lashes crowned his low lids, brow gently bumping against hers. Darcy's air became hers -- and her air became the undeniable warmth of pheromone. Like amber and warm fruit, spice and smoke, and her mind was coming apart at the seams.

Vaguely, she realized, his mouth was open. So was her own.

Smeared her fingerful onto his tongue.

Fresh air.

Snapped out of it with a gasp, but he caught her wrist tight.

Met her eyes again.

Suckled gently at her finger, lathing her offering with a kind of focus that took her breath again. Felt the soft, warm tip of his tongue slip between her fingers, toy with the tiniest bit of webbing there.

Allah, she had to speak before that was impossible.

"That's-- that's why I came out here." Deep breath. Still shivering. His tongue curled around her knuckle. "I thought... I thought I could trust you, most of any, to listen. I need a dose. But... Master Rune said to be gentle with me, right? And... no one else has touched me, but I really need a dose, and I really, really need you to be gentle."

Only then did he pry his mouth off her finger, cleaned perfectly.

"Did you bake this just for me?"

Was that a sign he hadn't listened?

"Yes. Did---?"

"No, no, shh. I heard you." No earthly idea what the expression on his face was, only marked by a smile, something distant in his eyes. "I have one more question, princess. And then I promise I'll be gentle with you."

Okay.

Okay, no, he'd listened.

She nodded faintly in his grip.

Silenced both of them with the slant of his mouth against hers, and for once she gave in of her own volition. Let his plush tongue slide wet and warm along the underside of hers.

"Tell me why we need to be gentle with you. What happened?"

Tiny bubble of saliva clung to her chin when he pulled away, briefly tipped his forehead against hers before planting a more chaste kiss to her forehead and relinquishing his grip in favor of a fork.

Something was sparking in her chest.

Breathed in slowly, let the crisp autumn air and warm scent of chocolate bring her back into herself.

Nerves fluttered in her stomach.

Not for what she was doing. For the cake.

Sunlight gleamed along the straight edge of the fork. Tines sank in slow, the ermine frosting cushioning gently.

Tnk.

Crumb separated with a delicate pull, squealing against glossy ceramic below. One tiny morsel loosened, dropped in the space between. Damp fog lingered on the plate below when he lifted it.

Held her breath in the infinitesimally protracted second it took for the tender cake, par-severed, to tremulously survive the journey from plate to mouth.

No resistance when he pried it off the metal, the gap between his otherwise-perfect front teeth snagging on one tine.

Every heartbeat made the time feel longer. Watched him roll it around on his tongue a moment too long, felt her breath give up on being held in a short gasp.

Jade eyes fluttered open on a smirk.

"You are amazing, do you know that?" Flattery! Felt good, perhaps even so without a mouthful of his saliva to send her heart racing. Compliments were always backhanded from Dmitrii. Couldn't help the grin that filled her blood-flushed features, heat burning her face. "You activated your cocoa, didn't you?"

Yes.

Why did her heart race that he recognized that?

"Yes, sir. And a little caramel with the leftover coffee from Master Roman's first pot this morning. Salted."

Carefully, he set the fork onto the plate, moved expertly to lift it back into the basket.

"Here's what we're going to do. Putting this back... and I'm going to finish my wine while you tell me," took a little sip, planted one weighty hand on the cusp of her knee, "what happened. And then we're going to have cake, right after I have you. Does that sound alright, princess?"

She was already flushed, she told herself. Couldn't get redder.

Something distant in her brain, something tiny and useless right now, begged her to answer how he could make her feel so strange and special, given what he'd already done.

But the hand on the side of her knee dragged lazily up the curve of her thigh beneath her dress. Heart thrummed in her chest like she'd never been here before.

"I, uh... I got injured." Realized she wasn't sure why, but that outright telling on Artyom felt wrong. "I got injured and need to heal."

Grinned past the glass.

"That's too vague. Let's keep this easy, right? You want me to fuck you nice and sweet, be sweet with me. Be honest with me, baby. Did one of my brothers hurt you?"

Wasn't just the pheromones that made him dangerous, she realized.

How could breathing feel so heavy? Like there were irons pressing on her chest, and her ribs ached for it.

"M... Master Artyom. I don't... know what came over him. A few nights prior, he came into the barn and stabbed me." Felt terrible to confess to this. But who else could she tell? His hand squeezed at the meat of her thigh, walking forward on his knees.

"Artyom, huh? Didn't think he had it in him." Rise in his eyebrows, and he took another drink. One left.

Some empathy that sounded like.

"Why're you keeping it a secret?"

That, however.

That was hard to answer.

"I... I don't know," she breathed. Hand, now, quested between her mid-thighs. "It just felt like something that... should've stayed between us."

Threw back the rest of his wine.

Time was up. Glass deposited back into the basket, pushed aside with the napkins and utensils.

"That's alright, princess. Now it gets to stay between us. Along with a few other things." Lowered himself into her space, legs thrown over his. Questing fingers carried further up the course of her thighs, met with no barriers but her dress, until they found the crease of her thigh and vulva and she shivered involuntarily. Met his grin with wide, knowing eyes. "Miroslava, how desperate did we let you get? Is it so bad you had to neglect panties to see the incubus? Surely you didn't forget..."

Tip of his middle finger slipped in against her clit softly, drew from her a shuddering sort of heat.

"Gentle, please," she reminded, unspooling her legs for him. He guided them apart, cupped one hip with the hand that did not stay between them.

Curls falling into his eyes again. Couldn't help but study him, the lackadaisical grin slapped across his face, the way he sank back between her legs. Planted his chest on the sheet-covered earth.

Wrapped his arms, warm and forceful, around her thighs to tug her into place. Mira gasped.

"I'll be gentle," Darcy wheedled, tossing back the hem of her dress. Parted the cluster of her own blonde curls, grinning all the while up at her. "Oh, I'll be plenty gentle, I promise. Tell me; where'd he stab you?"

This again.

Sucked in a breath to answer him -- and his hot tongue pressed at the root of her.

Warbled out something like a moan. Somewhere off to her side, a squirrel scattered up a tree, a gust of wind casting scattered leaves onto the surface of the sheet.

Darcy lapped a gentle rhythm from her slit to the top of her clit.

"I, uh-- He... Here, in my ribs. Wi-with a hunting knife. It-- I died pretty fast, it..." There, his tongue cupped. Whimper escaped her. "You can't tell anyone. You promised."

Paused, only long enough to speak, a faint laugh in his chest. "I won't. Your secret's safe with me. You have my word."

What good was the word of a demon, she wondered? What good was his word when he tugged again at her hips bringing her down to her elbows, dragged his tongue around the shapes of her labia, stared up at her expectantly?

What good was his word when his tongue worked clever circles around her without even needing to speak?

Every stroke had her caught in a seemingly endless loop of sharp inhales and shuddered exhales. Her thighs trembled against her will, growing hot as that feeling spread in her gut as if she'd wet herself.

Only once he seemed satisfied with the puddle beneath her did he come up again, smear his mouth against her thigh. Licked a strip of flesh there, and bit only lightly, eyes locked on her.

Didn't take him but a moment to undo his trousers, already visibly hard beneath them, but it seemed he hadn't bothered with undergarments either; when he crawled up the length of her body, she caught the briefest glimpse of his head, a raspberry shade above his honey tan, peeking out at her.

Not much time to think about the rest of it all.

One hand behind her head, he pulled her to take deep drinks of his mouth. The familiar carnal off-sweet scent of herself lingered on his tongue but she found she didn't mind it -- sighed against him, gave her own tongue to his mouth like the feeling in her heart was anything but withdrawal. Let him lower her languidly to the hard earth beneath the sheet, let his hands climb up the curve of her navel and tuck beneath the bodice of her dress to pry it up over her head.

And, by the time his tongue left her mouth again, to finally free her arms and ears from the blasted thing that stood between them, the trembling had faded: something like reverence seeded deep in her belly.

Smiled as he sat back on his knees, balled her dress beside the basket. Shucked off his own button-down, watched it catch in the wind when he shook it out, before tucking it beneath the weight of her dress.

How, after everything, could she still find this feeling inside her? That somewhere, in a distant and yet adjacent world, there was a version of her that loved and was loved by them all. Somewhere, this was the start of that long walk to a snowy cabin, to feeling safe and warm, to a future filled with joy. Wished every time that it could've been true.

Darcy's trousers slipped the rest of the way down his knees, kicked off in the half-motion it took to come back down to her and feed her another mouthful of his tongue. One arm tucked beneath her knee, used the grip to press his warm length against the slick of her core, and Mira let out a stuttering moan.

Spoke as he rutted against her, free hand tracing first the curve of her breast, then the knotted indentation below. Pressed at it gently, until the invasive feeling of something still stuck in her drew a winge on her features, and he caught her with another long kiss.

"This where he got you, princess? -- Yeah. I'm sorry. You must've been so scared yesterday, then. Couldn't have protected yourself anyway, you sweet little lamb."

Notched the head of his cock against her entrance, and rolled his hip; slipped right in, and a twinge of pleasure shot through her legs, curled her toes. Felt the vicious throbbing of him inside her immediately.

"I was-- I was scared a lot yesterday," she conceded between breaths. Moaned against his mouth as he kissed her again, set a soft rhythm of sinking in.

His breath, at least, was heavy when he spoke. Wasn't just her being desperate.

"Yeah? What scared you? You were supposed to be in the basement."

"You can't tell."

Another laugh, and he kissed the edge of her jaw, the space beneath her ear. Hot gasps punctuated every steady slide through her. "I'm not gonna tell."

Felt her own muscles starting to hold him, trying to grip to the warm path he carved.

"Master Roman."

"I bet you're not used to seeing people die."

"Not that. His..." Bumped against her cervix, brought a nervous fluttering inside her almost like nausea -- but Darcy seemed to like it, lingering on a tight path that bumped it every time. Almost to balance herself, Mira gripped at the curve of her breast, the tingling wash of heat from her nipple. "H-his fire. The way he... burned."

"Mmh," and she wasn't at all certain it was a word, "you haven't seen a lot of us change. Dad's not really all that scary, princess, I promise."

Like hell he wasn't.

Darcy just had to be used to it.

Struck her, for a moment, how lovely this was, even if she knew she'd hate it soon. Just the quiet, just the wind and them and the hitch in their breaths. How peaceful, her body whispered, just to lie and let the ripples of bliss pass over her, let him fill her how he pleased, let herself give in to the simple slick sound of their union.

Darcy rose slightly, a wicked grin on his features. Fed her two small kisses only.

"You wanna know who's really scary?"

Hyunwoo, probably. Dmitrii. Allah, if Dmitrii was so violent with her as a human, how bad could he be as a demon?

Hands smoothed softly over her ribcage. She shook her head, studied the sunlit sky above his head.

"Do you wanna see?"

Oh.

Him?

He meant himself?

The rise of her heart rate in her throat was insurmountable.

"Be gentle," Mira demanded. Darcy only grinned, nodded -- drank deeply of her mouth again, then sat up. Truly haloed by the sun, his image darkened to just the flash of his grin.

In total truth, she had no idea what to expect. What the limits of demonhood were, how one such thing was determined. Roman had said that the way they died left an imprint on them; something else about baptism, but there was an amiable glow filling her body that said she had no reason to remember. Just guess. Imagine. Would Darcy simply spit up water on her, or look starved as a phantom? How could he have died that would frighten her now?

Pictured, and smiled at the thought of, a cyanotic version of Darcy with a crooked neck, and how could she find such things comical now?

And in the limits of her imagination, she could not have in a million years come to a truth so horrid as what her 'master' unfurled into.

As if she'd just blinked and missed the slow fissure of the image that was Darcy, the changes seemed to occur to her as if they'd always been there -- and yet the realization that they could not have been started a cruel separation inside her body that she had yet to identify.

Perhaps because she strained so hard to see his face against the glaring white-gold light of the sun, but something had gone amiss with his mouth. There was not supposed to be a dividing line straight down his chin, and sequentially, not supposed to be: a gap detaching his jaw from his throat; such length to his torso; a mis-matched and sharp splay to his too-long arms; some large series of divisions to his abdomen that reminded her loosely of the underside of some of Rune's insects, scored by fleshy red lines.

In the span of a few seconds, she noticed these things, and a further complication that had a groan of almost-pain escaping her: his otherwise-agreeable size had changed too, now feeling like something thick had coiled inside her, kissed tight to her cervix.

Two voices.

He had two voices, speaking in tandem, one of his own familiar reediness, and one impossibly low, echoing out from visible strands beneath his jaw. Came down close to her, spine no longer straight to press against her, but arced up just to meet her face with his own.

"It's better you see this now." Said in a coo.

Fear and disgust wrestled within her.

Darcy's face, yes. Segmented. Carved by bony lines flushed with blood, like his forehead was meant to be three different fleshy plates. The dark red slope of his throat was strung tight with his vocal cords, turning into ovaline blurs with each word.

Exposed them in a grin that split his lower jaw. Straight down the middle, like mandibles, and Mira could hear the moist clicking of their movement as he leaned down in, dragged his exposed tongue along her neck.

No time to think, to speak. Just blind, animal fear of something that should not have been.

Her eyes were rapt on those segments of his abdomen.

Watched them stir, stretch out -- watched them unfold, two massive fleshy appendages that left behind a flushed cavity where his ribcage should have been. From the tip, they unfolded once more.

Maybe it was the pheromone fully in her system again.

Maybe it was that his majesty deserved such reverence.

Massive scales of some flesh-like composition, somewhere between thin chitin and keratin, shuffled quietly, out and open to block that halo of the sun.

Veins cast visible through their iridescent surface. Shook slightly as he stretched them out.

"Gentle," was all that could beg from her mouth again.

"Don't worry," both Darcys growled, fucking still so gently into her, even though the kiss to her cervix seemed never to sever. "I'm gentle, princess, I promised."

Something tickled at her sides.

A brief glance down revealed two yet-unnoticed appendages, extending thin and tendinous from that left-behind cavity. Tiny claw-like barbs tipped them, and carefully, he pulled them around her waist.

Felt them dig in, slightly, at the small of her back -- threatened to pierce, but did not.

What monster---?

Knew exactly what monster. Handed herself to this monster, and though his mandibles were wrong, and every grunt, every sigh, was visible right there in his throat, the fear couldn't win. Couldn't. Darcy was sweet. Darcy was still a Sokolov.

Dima loved nothing more than her fear.

Though now her hands trembled not for her missing dose, and she refused to let herself feel how wide her eyes had gone, how unlike her own her face felt, Mira held her palm to the plate of his cheek -- warm, soft, and he closed the last of the distance, pushed his tongue into her mouth once more.

And she gave herself to that, shut her eyes to what he showed her, even if she could feel the shade of those great wings, even if those barbs kept her arched into him. Even if her body was beginning to coil in on itself, legs trapped beneath the distorted form of his own despite the way she was beginning to squirm.

A hitch entered his motions, a hard gasp against her mouth, and for just a moment as the feeling built, his grin pressed against her cheek.

Before his tongue forced its way down her now-shrieking throat, gagged into sudden silence. The force of it knocked her head back, the muscle questing down her esophagus.

No way that she writhed against him made a difference -- just overloaded her own body with the sudden snap of that coil deep in.

Orgasm choked out against his tongue. Legs shook.

Darcy's breath was her own, fucked hard into her just once, twice, stuttered and pressed deep in. Didn't move for what felt like forever, yet she didn't care, couldn't. That kiss to her cervix remained unchanged. Somehow, it seemed, he moved inside her, a sort of fluttering pulse that flooded her with warmth, and an expeditious cloud that cushioned her thoughts almost immediately. Placebo, something whispered distantly, must've been.

Didn't matter.

Stayed there, in his -- barbs? claws? arms? -- for as long as he wanted. Soft wind gusted cool against her face, soothed sweat that had risen on her flesh. Ran cold between her legs.

Maybe it was that chill that changed his mind. Didn't matter.

Laid her back gently against the sheet, and Mira blinked heavily, tried to take in the obscene insectoid thing that had held her. But a sheen passed over him, and the glossy cock that he pulled out of her was human, normal, if generous, if dimming fast in the cool breeze.

Kissed her cheek. Helped her up. Didn't matter.

Sat upright, as upright as upright came right now, and let her body drift again into that fantasy, that snowy cabin wrapped in his arms. So easy now. Could've loved him forever if it worked that fast.

Already, that fantasy had changed.

Watching a very-human Darcy, nude as the day he was--- well, in truth, she wasn't sure if he was born, but he looked so human, so simple and understandable bare to the sun like this, unpacking again the cake she'd made him.

But that fantasy of his seed in her belly, enjoying the warmth of the hearth, that image of him held to her frame, could she live that knowing? Knowing his body could come apart like that, knowing he was not a sun-tanned and sharp-toothed thing with angelic roots, knowing that horrid segmented body lie just beneath the beautiful facade he wore so well?

Tines squeaked on the plate again. A forkful of chocolate extended to her, and she took it with a reverence of her own sort. She had outdone herself on the cake.