The Devil's Wolf

Darkness and light, she thought fondly, was an apt description of her two mates. Both beautiful in their own unique way. Where Cael was all straight lines and square jawed, Elior was all sharp cheekbones and smouldering eyes. Cael was action, and Elior planning. Cael overwhelmed and Elior calculated. Both conquered.

"It will take time," Elior replied, leaning back in the seat, and crossing his long legs at the ankles. "There are a number of difficulties ahead of us. Some humans will react with hate against the Other world. Some Others will hold us accountable for their exposure. Eventually it will calm, and then we will hold an election. Once new governments have been established, the military will release its hold on the cities.

"We need to control the population, but we also need them to return to their jobs. There is still a need for practicalities such as food, medical care, and education, and we need to maintain the power and water facilities, which means we need those employees to return to work as soon as possible. It is obtaining the balance between the two needs that is difficult as we don't want people to riot.

"And so, we will discourage congregation by keeping restaurants, cafes, and other public places closed, and if people can work from home, we will encourage them to do so. And we will re-open the schools within a week as it will give a semblance of normality to keep everyone calm." He rubbed his temples. A lot of organizing, Ashlynn observed, had been undertaken in the time she had slept and made a mess of her parent's den.

She slid out of bed and walked around to stand behind his chair, releasing his hair from its band, and sank her fingers into its darkness to rub his scalp. He groaned, his eyes closing, and his head sagging forwards. "Oh, that is very good," he murmured. "So good."

"You have given yourself a headache with all your plotting and planning," she scolded gently.

"Mhm," he lost the ability to speak as she moved down his neck and along his shoulders, releasing the tension there, digging her fingers into the muscles that bunched heavily, the body of a fighter beneath the suit of a politician. A facade, she thought, or a facet of a man of deep complexity.

"What did you do with Caleb Roth and his wife?" She asked him.

"Celeste," Elior drawled the name, groaning beneath her touch. "They have been disposed of. More victims of the building collapse."

"Ah, of course." She released him and moved around to kneel before him, sliding her hands from knee to thigh, following the precise line of the crease, before releasing the closure of his trousers. He watched her, his eyelids almost closing over his grey eyes as she took him into her mouth. He slid forward on the chair, his head against the back rest, his hair falling to hang free, angling his hips to increase her access. His fingers stroked through her hair, a caress and encouragement. She took him deep, striking the back of her throat, testing her gag reflex, and he groaned. She watched his face as his jaw relaxed and his brow smoothed, the tension melting into the pleasure of her mouth around him. She took her time, not rushing him towards his orgasm, building the sensation slowly, keeping him to the point where his muscles stayed lax, so that when he did come, it did not tear through him, but was more of a release, lingering in lazy twitches against her tongue.

"Oh, god," he moaned.

"Better?" She put him back together, closing his trousers up neat and tidy again, from lover to world conqueror with the zip of a fly and a button, as if nothing had happened in the interim, the only evidence that she had taken him, the way he hung slack in the chair, his long body abandoned, his eyes still closed, and his hair falling over the back of the chair.

"Oh, god."

She stood and returned to the back of the chair, stroking his hair as he slowly got him body back under him, moving like his limbs were heavy, drugged with the ghost of his pleasure. She repaired his hair, returning it to its tidy pony-tail, preparing her mate for the role he needed to perform.

"There you are," she told him. "Camera ready, again."

He caught her waist with his arm and drew her onto his lap so that he could bury his face into the curve of her neck and shoulder, his lips against her throat. "I love you," he barely breathed it, a caress against her skin. "I love you more than I have ever loved anything in this world. You and Cael. My mates."

"I know," she kept her embrace gentle and tender, pressing her lips against his hair, soothing. "Do you feel better?" "So much better." "Good."

Over his scent of patchouli and rosewood, she caught the sharper bite of magic, at first subtly, and then almost overwhelmingly strong, so that it itched the roof of her mouth and irritated her nostrils. The scent reminded her of Alatar and the many times the warlock had entertained the cubs of the pack with his magic. Normally the scent recalled family barbecues and warm spring days chasing fairies in the garden, flowers and roasted marshmallows. Games of hide and go seek, and the distant pop of champagne corks and laughter.

Planning your weekend reading? Ensure you're on 000005s.org for uninterrupted enjoyment. The next chapter is just a click away, exclusively available on our site. Happy reading!

That scent did not belong, however, in the bedroom she shared with her mates. It did not belong with such strength that she felt she had inhaled pollen, her eyes watering, her nose twitching, and her lights tightening. It did not belong in the darkness and quiet of night.

She tensed, trying to puzzle out its source, sitting up and swinging her legs to the floor.

"What is it?" Elior was instantly alert, reacting to the change in her and her alarm.

"Magic," she scented the air, searching for the source. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, without direction. "I can smell it. Strong. Can't you?"

Elior inhaled. "Petrichor. Rain isn't forecast."

"It's not f-king petrichor. That is magic you are smelling." She slid off his lap. Her entire body sung with alarm, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end with it, and her muscles were so painfully tight that her bones hurt, instinct reacting to a hidden danger. The scent of magic permeated the air entirely. "I smelled something like this a moment before the Wingless opened their portal..."

Cael exploded off the bed, cushions, sheets and blankets tangling around him, so that he almost went to all fours before fighting free of their grasp, and he struck the wall with the force of his movement before he managed to co-ordinate his limbs sufficiently enough to throw back the curtains covering the window. "F-k." He went from window to window, throwing them all open as if hoping the view would change with each reveal of glass from behind fabric. "F-k, f-k, f-k." The sky was red. The bright red of blood with twisted snarls of orange and black, like a fire burnt the ozone. Elior and Ashlynn walked to the window to stand behind Cael, astounded by the sight, drop-jawed and wide eyed. Elior's phone began to ring, but he ignored it, his eyes riveted to a sky that should have been black with night but instead burnt. He placed his hand on Cael's shoulder to calm the distraught man.

"F-k. F-k. F-k." Cael repeated his voice breaking on the word, every muscle standing out against his skin with tension, as if his body prepared for fight or flight. He quivered with nervous energy, rising onto his tiptoes as he leaned against the window frame.

"What is it Cael? What has turned the sky red?" Ashlynn demanded frightened by his terror. "What magic is this?"

Planning your weekend reading? Ensure you're on 05s.org for uninterrupted enjoyment. The next chapter is just a click away, exclusively available on our site. Happy reading!

"The portals were too much," Cael's hands went to his hair, pulling at the gold in his distress. "I knew it. I knew it. They must have detected them. They must think we grow too strong, we venture too far. They have opened the realm to the games, to the cull. I have done this. This is my fault."

"Cael," Elior rubbed his hand in soothing circles. "Whatever this is, it is not your fault. Not your fault, my devil."

"Oh f-k," Cael turned and grabbed the vampire, burying his face in Elior's neck, his hands closing on the other man's back, his fingers clutching the satin backing of Elior's waistcoat as he sought comfort in his embrace and pressing himself tightly against him. Elior's hands stroked over the bare, bronzed, flawless skin of the devil's back, and his grey eyes met Ashlynn's over the devil's shoulder. "Oh, f-k," Cael moaned.

Elior held him tightly, and Ashlynn put her arms around both men, murmuring words of comfort. Cael's reaction seemed so out of proportion, so extreme, and yet, she thought, she had never known the devil to be afraid. He had always been so sure, so confident. Whatever it was that put this fear in him, must be truly terrible, she thought, sharing his terror because it was his.

"What is it, Cael?" Elior murmured, stroking his fingers through Cael's hair with tenderness. "What is it?"

"They are coming," Cael's declaration was on the edge of hysteria, his voice grating on his fear and despair. "They saw the portals, and they are coming."

"Oh my god," Ashlynn realized what he meant. He had warned her before when they had spoken of opening portals for the vampires the first time. "Your people, Cael? Your people?"

"Yes, my people," Cael broke from the embrace, his eyes red with his tears and his cheeks hectic with points of color like fever spots. "This is bad, very bad."

"Okay," Elior, a man who had planned and plotted his way through an accidental Armageddon and had manipulated the exposure of the Other world to humankind was not daunted by a red sky and the threat of the origin of all Others bearing down upon him. "They are not here yet, Cael. The sky is red, and they are opening portals... We can handle this. What do we need to do?"

"Run." Cael returned his eyes to the sky. Ashlynn hissed out a breath as she saw black shapes against the red, like a flock of birds in migration, but these were not birds. They grew in number, multiplying before her eyes, and she realized the black amongst the red was an army forming, ready to attack. "Hide. And hope they leave a world behind when they are done."