The Interloper Bk. 01

"Well," he dithered, "We can pretend to hold a few kids hostage and meet specific demands. Demands to make this a neutral space, sort of a roundabout asylum."

"And how would we do this?" Teeth growled.

"We'd need Duke's help for sure," Solar added flatly.

Shaking my head, I leaned my arms on the table. "That plan's bound to backfire in a serious way. We're all trying to mind-read and we just can't do that. The best option is for me to take what I've learned, compile it for the Magistrate and when the cavalry arrives, give it to them."

Solar bolted up. "If we call them here, they'll send us right back!"

"I highly doubt that. It'll take more than a snap to get everyone back home. Hell, I still don't even know half the places the kids are from."

They all muttered various forms of agreement as I dropped my body back into my chair. "We can do it in the spa. We'll call them there. Explain the situation. I'll give over my report and we'll hope for the best."

"And you'd be able to look yourself in the mirror and feel good about this choice?" Teeth cut in, hitting me right where it hurt.

Dude pulled no punches and I understood why. But this wasn't a plan I offered lightly. Time was moving forward, people were freaking out, and options were limited. How long before one region accused another of lying? Kidnapping? I wasn't sure how well these different creatures played with each other, but from what I'd seen it wasn't very well. It was fragile and tenuous and when you throw missing kids and terrified parents into the mix it didn't end well for anyone.

"We're out of options. The gas is turned off; the time has passed. What would you have us do?"

Silence stretched wide and yawning. As much as they didn't like my idea, playing bad guy or trying to set up parameters for parents desperate to see their children wasn't going to work. The smartest route was transparency.

"Thank you, Tilly," Solar said after a long moment, placing his hand over Teeth's fisted one on the table. "You've done so much for us."

"I'm sorry I can't do more." I wish I'd been a negotiator or diplomat on Earth. Wish I'd studied something that could have helped me navigate the complicated waters of this world. Maybe I'd have more useful ideas or find better ways to communicate. But I could want all day long, still had to work with what I got.

"Well, let's do this." I clapped, pushing up from the table on shaky legs I hope they didn't notice. "Call Roller in here and let's get this show on the road."

***

"You ready for this?" I asked Roller.

The pegasus-like kid nodded sharply, her voice coming into my mind and not freaking me out nearly as bad as the first few times. "Let's do this."

Hours passed as Roller finally managed to get in touch with her mother. From there it was just a matter of tracking our location. Can swam laps in the water, Spell stood trying out for a tree and I fidgeted: biting my nails, shifting my weight, crossing and uncrossing my arms.

A feeling of spatial distortion was the only warning, like the universe burped. Rowan and Milan stood side by side with Duke and Caster, armed to the teeth, in front of more than two dozen soldiers. This was not the entrance I expected. "Uh... Roller, what'd you tell your mom exactly?"

"The connection was distorted. But I told her where we were and to get here fast."

Okay, not the best thing to say.

Caster's eyes roved the spa before finally settling on me. His body jerked forward, the action looking involuntary before he caught himself. I felt myself do the same and mentally cursed, this was so not the time to deal with the connection between us.

"EXPLAIN," Rowan commanded, magical compulsion laced into the word.

I hadn't known he could do that. The careful speech I'd planned blanked out of my head as words tumbled without conscious thought. Everything was out before I could even think about what I'd said, and my tongue felt heavy and sore.

Milan and Rowan walked slowly toward me. "This is unexpected."

"Yeah, well, it's happening," I snapped, less than thrilled that they'd forced me to talk instead of just asking me. "What are you going to do about it?"

There was no doubt I was talking about the abuse and seventh situations. Whatever was going to happen that took precedence. I'd promised to lay it at Duke's feet, but that didn't mean that I wouldn't advocate and fight like hell to make sure he did the right thing.

"It is a complicated situation."

"They'll be killed," I practically growled. "They will die because you couldn't uncomplicate the situation."

Caster's arms were around me in a second, drawing me away as Rowan's usual lack of expression flamed into something very much like fury. I stared at Rowan over Caster's shoulder, ignoring the Incubus holding me back, hard against his chest.

"Caster," Duke snapped.

"Tilly," Casper whispered against my hair.

"Rowan," I bit out, worried and fearful that I'd made the wrong choice. That this was going to blow up in my face and hurt more than help.

"Enough!" Teeth bellowed from the doorway, striding into the room with Solar at his side. "These are our lives you're talking about, so we get a voice in this."

"Right," Solar agreed, sliding his hand into Teeth's and gripping it tightly. "You've done more than enough, Tilly; let us take over."

One by one, their friends joined Solar and Teeth, a united front against those who controlled their lives. If I'd had a camera I would have taken a picture.

It was in me to join them, choose a side and stand as a no longer impartial CEM. Fuck, I still didn't even know what exactly I was supposed to do besides be a glorified recorder. But it wasn't my place. It wasn't my planet, these weren't my kids, and I'd already overstepped. Really overstepped.

So I let Caster lead me away, extremely aware of the look Duke flashed our way: equal parts worry and irritation. It was only when we were on the other side of the room, sequestered in an alcove of heated marble slats and muted purple crystals that I understood the worry in Duke's gaze.

Caster was holding on by a very thin thread.

"Calm. Down," I groaned as my nipples hardened and wetness seeped out of me. Shaking, I gyrated my hips, rubbing against him, even as I tried to maintain some modicum of brain power. "Turn. It. Off."

"I can't," my partner, the fucking sex demon, panted, eyes blown wide, fangs dropped. "Not anymore."

Fuck. It was all happening too quickly. I tried, in vain, to scramble away but his powers took me under: unadulterated, unfiltered, raw. Stumbling, I fell to my knees, gasping, coming. Hard.

"Duke!" I screamed, knowing that if I didn't get away from Caster now I never would.

"Don't, Tilly," my incubus seethed, falling to his knees, fists hitting the warm granite and fracturing it. "I'm barely... holding on... I can't take you... screaming another male's name."

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I gasped through another—has the first one even ended?—orgasm as Caster kept his distance from me. As out of control as his power was, the demon himself wasn't taking liberties. I wasn't sure how to feel about that. My body was screaming for him, eating me up inside to get him, but at the same time a small piece of my brain not lost in a lust-haze knew that this wasn't the way I wanted Caster. Fucked-out and uncontrolled. Not for our first time together.

All at once the room darkened further until the purple crystals glowed a bit brighter to make up for the complete lack of light. I looked to the door and the shimmering bricks. Did he put that there? Could Caster's sex powers also be used to build walls.

"Mages," my partner panted, lurching forward before catching himself and rearing back. But I didn't understand what he was saying. None of it. Where I was or why I was there or why he wasn't inside of me. God, why the fuck isn't he inside of me? Clawing at my clothes, I tried to make up for his mistake, but there was no coordination, no understanding of my body's needs because it wasn't mine anymore. It was his. He just needed to claim it.

"Caster," I panted, trying to crawl toward him, even as my body was wracked with orgasms as painful as they were pleasurable. "Need. You."

"Fuuuuuck," Caster growled and if anything his powers, those fucking sex hormones that felt like the best and worst vibrator and made every nerve ending feel like my clit on the cusp of orgasm, grew. "Blood... calms it. Ties us. You smell fucking ripe."

"Yes," I slurred, drunk on him. I couldn't... anything. Talk. Think.

My mind was a roue, thickened with desire, everything combined until there was no separation or knowledge of what it had been before. Because there wasn't anything before Caster or this moment.

I was in his lap in the next instant, sweat drenched, body shaking, eyes blown. "Take it."

Whose voice even was that? It didn't sound like me. Not any version I was familiar with. This Tilly was all animal, all cave woman who didn't even need to be bashed over the head and dragged. No, she walked willingly into the lion's den, spread her legs, sunk her claws deep.

"I can't—"Caster didn't touch me, didn't even seem to acknowledge my body pressed against his. Instead he slammed his fist on the stone floor rapidly, forcefully, until the crack of bone echoed in the chamber, and the cloying, sweetly metallic scent of blood permeated the air. Then he was in my mouth, the hamburger meat of his bloodied hand forced to my lips.

I barely felt his fangs in my throat, but I came again when he sucked out my blood, tongue lapping up the excess even as I swallowed the steady stream of his blood as it poured down my throat.

It was sort of like waking up after a night of binging. Instant headache, sour stomach on the ever-present cusp of vomiting, the heaviness in every limb like lifting a finger was just too much damn work. Turning my head, I gagged on the blood still coating my tongue. "What the fuck, Caster?"

"I didn't have a choice," he rasped, voice sounding just as wrecked as I felt.

"You didn't have to come here."

"It wasn't a fucking choice," he replied bitterly. "It never was."

"Because you think I'm your seventh."

"Yes, because you're my fucking—what did you say?"

Apparently incubus hangovers were over quicker than alcohol induced ones. Pushing back from Caster, I gritted my teeth and refused to acknowledge the slick mess between my legs, spread across my thighs and his lap. Christ, I couldn't even remember losing my pants.

"Was it supposed to be a secret?" I grumbled, moving away from him, trying and failing to stand. I crawled once again across the floor, at least this time it wasn't toward a sex demon's lap.

Ugh, his blood still coated my mouth and I was horrified that I wasn't disgusted. Terrified that his blood tasted sweet, that I wanted more—to bathe in it, fucking drown in it. I turned and spat. "What the fuck was that?"

"Consider it a preamble to marriage. We're engaged."

"What?!" I screamed, swiping my arm across my mouth as I settled on the wall opposite him.

He made a gesture of frustration as if this was somehow my fault. "You were out of your mind. There was nothing else I could do."

"I was out of my mind?" I barked out a laugh. "No, I'm pretty sure that's you. Coming in here full sex demon."

"I wasn't 'full sex demon'," he grumbled. "I thought you were in danger."

"So what just happened here—" I gestured to the wetness coating the both of us, my lack of pants, and his raging hard on. "—was totes normal. Not sex demon-y at all."

He turned away and I nearly missed the words. "I didn't know where you were. If you were alive or dead. I didn't know."

Well that just took the wind right out of my sails. Caster'd been worried and showed up in the only way incubus knew how: deadly sexy. "Ugh, fine. But why didn't you turn it off sooner? Those were kids out there? They're going to be scarred for life."

He gave me a look I wasn't able to interpret at all. "Are you all right?"

Rolling my neck, I shrugged. "I mean, I'm fine. Fine as can be, I guess."

"When Rain—"

"Can we not talk about the centaur? Please?"

"It's going to get brought up sooner or later. Sooner not that we've..." He gestured to my neck and I slapped my hand over the spot, feeling the soreness where his fangs penetrated and feeling...

"Don't rub it."

"I wasn't rubbing it," I lied through my teeth.

"It's an erroneous zone now. You rub that and you might as well rub my cock."

"Will your hand work the same way?" That was bound to get awkward.

Thankfully, he shook his head. "You didn't bite; you sucked."

A very lame joke was on the tip of my tongue but I stuffed it, sure he wouldn't get the American-Human humor anyway.

"Now, Rain."

Ugh. I pulled on my pants, feeling like this would be a more pants-on than off discussion. "Yes. Rain."

"He started a bond by..." He trailed off and I looked up to see fully elongated fangs with an expression made from pure nightmares. I quickly looked away. "What he did made you his."

"Yup. I was there for the dick measuring. It's why I'm here now."

"But by exchanging blood I overwrote it."

"You put dibs on me?"

"What?"

"You claimed me." Is that all he did? "I'm a demon now, right? Or am I about to turn into your sex slave? Really, just what else do I need to add to my goddamn list of shit I really don't have the time or mental energy to deal with. Please, elaborate about how your blood has completely and utterly fucked up my currently fucked up life even more."

He pushed up from the ground, coming to crouch in front of me. "Seven," he spat. "There are only seven of you. And if you know that you are my Seventh then you know what that means."

"I know I'm lost," I argued. "I might be the fourth for all you know."

He came closer, caging me in. "Whichever one you are doesn't matter because you are here. And I have fought with myself for weeks, because you are human. But who cares? You. Are. Mine. Duke, Rain, Fever—no one's coming between us again. Not even me."

"Caster," I said softly, trying my best to soothe the wild look in his eyes, "I can't have this conversation right now. Not only is the timing completely inappropriate but look at where we are. You need to back up because we have hundreds of kids who need our help."

Before the last word left my lips, Caster captured my mouth, fingers threading through my hair. It was a sweet kiss, gentle and reverent. But, with the quickness of a switch, he deepened it. Tongue and teeth and all kinds of fire my body craved. I didn't realize I was all over him, kissing him back, and gripping his forearms until he rode hard and thick between my thighs, seams mashed against my clit.

Yanking my head back, I stared into his kaleidoscope eyes, panting. I expected a self-satisfied smile, maybe a shit eating grin, or at least some form of smugness, but I got a whole lot of vulnerability.

"Say it," he whispered, putting his head between my breasts and rocking us. "Say you're mine."

I was attracted to Caster. Who wouldn't be? But I believed in 'The One' as much as I believed in Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy. "Caster, we need to—"

"Say it."

"Caster, don't—"

"I need to hear it."

The pleading in his voice undid me. I'd brought this demon to his literal knees by doing nothing but existing; falling down the metaphorical rabbit hole and landing in his lap. Even if I didn't believe it, even if this was bound to fuck things up beyond repair, it had to be said. "I'm yours."

"My what."

"Your Seventh."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

There was a fine line between tense and the word forced out between gritted teeth until it became a hiss. We were currently experiencing the latter.

Gone were the soldiers along with all the kids that'd been packed onto the dance floor, leaving only my team of teens and the menagerie of hidden kids who couldn't go home. For once, I was glad that Teeth had thought to keep everyone in the dark. Razor'd majicked up some potion that we all drank to forget where they'd hidden, the spell releasing when our very specific terms were agreed to by the adults.

Smart cookies all around.

Caster stood, shackled to my side and I was...whelp, I was a lot of things and good, okay, and fine weren't any of them. But my state wasn't the one I was worried about. On Tilly's team—coming in at young, naive, and in love—we got Teeth, Solar, Spell, and Edge; on the opposing team, weighing in around teeth-rattling menace and disapproving frowns, we have the adults: Caster, Rowan, and Duke.

"Where are the rest?" Rowan repeated for what had to be the hundredth time, trying a different compulsion in the words that was the equivalent of a cheese grater to my brain. My eyebrow twitched, but that was as much as I let show. Trial and error had found that when I felt pain, Caster reacted to it and not well. Which meant Caster got a dose of that same pain and mine ratcheted up even further, an ever increasing loop of shit.

Blood ties were fun like that.

"Ask me again, why don't cha?" I snickered as the pain eased. "You'll get the same answer because the initial problem hasn't been solved."

"There is nothing to solve."

"You're condemning them to death!" I screamed, emotionally and physically wrung out. "Why even come here if you were just going to kill them?"

"What happens to them is not my call to make."

"And yet, you're making it."

We glared at each other, the puny little human that I was and the magical god-like creature that they were.

"Just leave us here," Solar pleaded, not for the first time.

"We cannot do that," Milan said. Again.

Teeth turned to Solar, holding his partner fast. A conversation passed between their eyes, wordless but deep. "Then it is done."

But I'd been waiting for that look ever since Roller'd pulled me aside, mental voice thready as she told me Teeth and Solar's back up plan. I hadn't been quite as shocked as I might have been if I hadn't read William Shakespeare and watched a buttload of teen dramas. So I moved, figuring they'd throw back a vial of poison and call it a day. My hands were up, stretched out, reaching for their mouths.

Except this was Teeth, badass demon teen. If I'd had a second to think, I would have known he'd never take his life with poison—wasn't enough of a fuck you to everyone. Nope.

"Fuck," I groaned as twin daggers pierced either side of me, somehow slipping between my ribs and into my lungs because that was my luck. "Shakespeare bullshit."

Then the pain set in as the initial shock faded and my lungs began to fill with blood. Blinded by agony, I couldn't concentrate on any one person or voice as everyone frenzied around me. All I knew was that one minute I was standing between two dagger-wielding teens, skewered like a kabob and the next I was on the floor, coughing, struggling to breathe, fading in and out of consciousness.

At least the pain was mostly gone now, leaching from me like my lifeblood. Surprisingly, the confusion and fear I expected, when Death was past the point of knocking on the front door and just strode in like he owned the place, never came. Everything felt muted, like my feelings were being placed through a fine mesh sieve with only halfway tolerable things passing through.

And the voices were coming in a little clearer. "... got her, though... about the child. ... him?"

"Dampened... restrained."

It was getting harder and harder to concentrate on their voices as exhaustion tugged at every muscle. And then, I was gone.

***

"I know you ain't leave that door open," Grandmama hollered from the kitchen, accent thick around the words. "Lettin' all that heat out."