Chapter 2: The Morning After Summoning
Consciousness returned in a nauseating wave. The first thing Evie registered was heat. A solid, living line of it pressed along her back, a heavy arm slung possessively over her waist. Her nose was filled with a scent that was nothing like her dorm—ozone, amber, and something deeply, inherently male.
Her eyes snapped open.
The blue glow of her laptop was the only light, casting the familiar chaos of her room into sharp relief. But everything was wrong. The shadows moved. A low, rhythmic thrum vibrated through the mattress, like the world’s largest cat purring. She saw a flash of dark violet skin, the curl of a horn against her fallen textbooks.
Memory detonated.
The Latin phrase. The crackling air. The feeling of being split open, filled, drowned.
A choked sound escaped her. She tried to jackknife upright, but the arm around her waist tightened, pulling her back against a hard, golden chest. Kael. He nuzzled sleepily into her hair with a soft, whining sound.
Her gaze darted. Zephyr, the silver-haired one, was curled on his side, his back to her, but his head was pillowed on the chest of the dark blue incubus from last night—Vorin, she thought his name was. Zephyr’s tail, a slender, spade-tipped thing, was draped over Vorin’s thigh. And Riven, the violet one, was asleep sitting upright against her dorm room door, his head tilted back, his jaw tight even in sleep. His tail twitched, a slow, restless metronome.
Panic, clean and sharp, lanced through the haze. This wasn’t a dream. The ache between her legs, the sticky tenderness on her thighs, the smell of them on her sheets—it was all horrifically real.
“Get out,” she whispered. Then louder, her voice cracking. “Get out!”
Kael grumbled, his hand sliding up to cup her breast. “Five more minutes, sweetheart. Your tits are the perfect pillow.”
She shoved his hand away, scrambling backwards out of his grip, tumbling off the side of the bed. She hit the floor with a thud, her legs buckling. She gripped the edge of the mattress, her chest heaving. All four of them were awake now, eyes opening, those runic glows igniting in the dimness like struck matches.
“You need to leave. Right now,” she said, each word trembling. “This was a mistake. I didn’t mean to—you have to go!”
Zephyr uncurled himself gracefully, his mercury eyes swimming with something that looked like pity. “Little verse, the gate is not a revolving door. You spoke the Binding of Sanguine Unity. A permanent tether. We are bound to your essence, and you to our… sustenance.”
“I don’t want your sustenance! I want you gone!” Her voice rose to a shriek. She grabbed a half-empty ramen cup from her nightstand and hurled it. It missed Zephyr and splattered against the wall, clattering to the floor.
The noise was too loud in the small room. Someone in the adjacent dorm thumped on the wall.
Kael sat up, his golden eyes now fully awake and annoyed. The playful smirk was gone. “You need to shut the hell up,” he said, his voice low and deadly serious.
“Or what?” Evie shot back, hysterical. “You’ll fuck me again? Big threat! Just disappear!”
“We can’t,” Vorin said, his stone-grind voice calm. He sat up, the sheet pooling at his waist. “The binding is metaphysical. We are anchored to you, as you are to us. To be apart for long is… agonizing. For all involved.”
“I don’t care! Get out! I’ll call the—I’ll call security!”
“And say what?” Kael swung his legs over the bed. He was naked, magnificently so, and utterly unselfconscious. “That you summoned four interdimensional sex demons with a bad Latin pronunciation and now you want a refund? Cool your tits, Evie. The RA is literally twenty feet down the hall.”
As if on cue, a hesitant knock sounded at the door.
“Evie?” a female voice called. Sarah, the Resident Assistant. “You okay in there? Sounded like a crash.”
Pure, icy terror locked Evie’s throat. She stared at the door, at Riven who was now fully alert and glaring at the wood as if he could incinerate it with his gaze. Four massive, horned, naked demons in her single dorm room. There was no explanation.
Kael moved. In a flash he was off the bed, crossing the room. He didn’t go to the door. He went to Evie. He grabbed her chin, his fingers firm, forcing her to look at him. His golden eyes were blazing, his runes flickering.
“Listen to me,” he growled, the sound barely audible. “You are going to go to that door. You are going to tell your friend you dropped your laptop. You are going to smile. And then you are going to come back here and deal with the fact that we are not leaving. Ever. Do you understand?”
The choice was obliterating. She gave a tiny, frantic nod.
He released her. She stumbled to the door, wrapping her threadbare blanket around herself like a shield. She cracked it open, just enough to see Sarah’s concerned face in the bright hallway light.
“Hey,” Evie croaked, forcing a smile. “Sorry. Yeah, I’m a klutz. Knocked my whole desk over. Laptop’s toast, I think.” She tried to laugh. It sounded like a wheeze.
Sarah peered past her, but Evie’s body blocked the view. The room behind her was dark, the blue glow of the laptop screen now off. “You sure? Sounded pretty violent.”
“I’m sure. Just… studying stress. You know how it is.”
Sarah hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. Well, keep it down. Some people have eight-a.m.s.”
“Will do. Sorry.”
Evie shut the door, locked it, and slumped against it, sliding down to the floor. The blanket fell away. She put her head in her hands. She was trapped.
A moment later, a warm presence settled beside her. Not touching, just there. She lifted her head. Zephyr had pulled on his strange, silken trousers and now sat cross-legged on the floor, his back against her boxes. He held out a steaming mug. The smell of coffee, perfectly creamed and sugared exactly how she took it, filled the space between them.
“Riven prepared it,” Zephyr said softly. “He noticed your preferences last night. The empty cups.”
She stared at the mug. The mundane kindness of it was more destabilizing than the violence of their taking. Slowly, she took it. The heat seeped into her cold fingers. She took a sip. It was perfect. This small, correct thing in the midst of the impossible made her want to scream again, but her voice was gone, hollowed out.
“Who are you?” she finally whispered, not looking at him. “What are you?”
Zephyr watched her, his mercury eyes patient. “We are Incubi. We feed on human pleasure, on emotion, on the tangible energy of satiation.” He gestured slowly to the room, to the messy evidence of their feast. “You provided a banquet. And in doing so, you wove your lifeline with ours. The bond is irrevocable. We are loyal to you now, as the source.”
“Loyal,” she echoed, the word tasting bitter. “You mean trapped.”
“Semantics,” Kael chimed in from the bed. He was leaning back on his elbows, completely at ease, watching the conversation like a sports match. “You’re stuck with us, we’re stuck with you. I’m Kael, by the way. The fun one.” He flashed his smirk.
“I gathered,” Evie said flatly.
Zephyr continued, his voice a low stream. “The broody one guarding the door is Riven. The one currently pretending he didn’t just fix your laptop’s corrupted hard drive is Vorin.” He inclined his head toward the dark blue incubus, who was now silently reconnecting the power cable to her machine.
Vorin didn’t look up. “It was inefficient.”
“Riven and I are mated,” Zephyr added, as casually as someone mentioning a shared class schedule.
Evie’s eyes flicked to Riven, still a violet statue by the door, then back to Zephyr. “But you… with me… with all of us…”
“Yes.” Zephyr’s smile was slight. “Connection is not a finite resource. We enjoy sharing. The experience is… amplified.”
Her head throbbed. She gulped more coffee, the caffeine doing nothing to settle the riot in her mind. She noticed Kael had slithered off the bed and was now crouching behind her. His warm hands found the base of her spine, his thumbs pressing soft, insistent circles into the tense muscle there.
She jumped at the contact. “Stop that.”
“You’re wound tighter than a spring, sweetheart,” he murmured, his breath warm on her shoulder. “Just helping.”
She shook him off, scrambling to put a few more feet of distance between them, her back hitting her closet door. Her gaze landed on Riven again. He hadn’t moved, but his posture was all wrong. He was sitting in the corner now, away from the door, his long legs drawn up. His spaded tail was wrapped tightly around his ankles, a stark black line against his violet skin. His forehead rested on his knees, his face hidden.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, a sliver of concern piercing her own panic.
Kael sighed, as if put upon. “He’s pouting. Gets like this.”
Zephyr’s expression softened. “His heat is approaching. Our cycles are individual. Riven always grows broody and quiet just before his begins. He feels it as a weakness. It makes him… withdrawn.”
Evie stared. The words processed slowly. Heat. Cycles. A whole new layer of biological insanity stacked atop the rest. These weren’t just monsters; they had hormones, rhythms, needs that went beyond the frantic taking of last night.
Kael’s hand returned, this time just a light, persistent touch on her hip. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. We handle him. It’s just going to be a very… busy… few days.”
She shook him off again, harder this time. “Don’t touch me.” She looked at Zephyr, at Vorin by her desk, at Kael’s golden, amused face, at the coiled form of Riven in the corner. Four permanent, pleasure-feeding, hormonally cyclical demons. Bound to her. In her dorm room.
The coffee mug shook in her hands. The scale of it was too vast. It wasn’t just a single night’s catastrophic mistake. It was her life, irrevocably rewritten. The air felt too thick to breathe, charged with the weight of their collective attention.
The air felt too thick to breathe, charged with the weight of their collective attention. Evie set the coffee mug down with a sharp clack on her nightstand, the sound definitive in the quiet. She needed space, a bubble of air that wasn’t flavored with their scent, a moment to think without their glowing eyes dissecting every twitch of her face.
“I have class,” she said, the words brittle.
Kael’s smirk returned, sharp and knowing. “Skipping seems pretty justified today, don’t you think?”
“No.” She stood on legs that still felt unreliable, clutching the blanket tighter. She refused to let her life shatter completely. The routine was a lifeline. “I’m going. You will stay here. All of you. You will not leave this room.”
A wounded, puppy-like sound escaped Kael. “You’re locking us in? Come on.”
“Figure the rest out while I’m gone,” she continued, her voice gaining a sliver of steel as she backed toward her closet. “Where you’ll sleep, what this… bond… means for daily operations. But until I get back, you do not open that door. You do not let anyone see you. Is that clear?”
Zephyr watched her with an inscrutable, silver gaze, then dipped his head in a slow, graceful nod. “As you command, little verse. The sanctum is maintained.”
Vorin didn’t even look up from her iPad, his dark blue fingers moving swiftly over the screen. “Understood. The security protocols on this device were laughable. I am rectifying it.”
Kael just flopped backwards onto her bed with a theatrical groan, his horns denting her pillow. “Fine. Abandon us. See if I care.”
Evie turned her back on them, a tremor running through her shoulders. She dressed with hurried, fumbling movements behind the closet door, pulling on jeans and a sweatshirt, trying to cover the vivid marks on her skin. She shoved her laptop and books into her bag, her hands shaking. When she emerged, they were exactly where she’d left them: Zephyr moving toward Riven in the corner, Vorin typing, Kael staring at the ceiling.
She paused at the door, her hand on the knob. “Do not leave.”
“We heard you the first time,” Kael muttered, waving a dismissive hand.
She fled.
The silence she left behind was absolute for three full seconds. Then Kael swung his legs off the bed. “Well, this is fucking boring.”
Zephyr had reached Riven. He knelt, placing a hand on the back of Riven’s neck, his touch feather-light. Riven didn’t pull away, but a full-body shudder wracked his lean frame. Zephyr began to murmur, words too low for the others to catch, his free hand stroking down the tight line of Riven’s spine.
“His temperature is rising,” Zephyr said, not looking away from his mate.
Vorin nodded, still engrossed in the iPad. “The data tracks. His cycle is predictable. I have optimized her calendar to block out the projected peak days. She will be unavailable for outside obligations.”
Kael wandered over to the desk, peering over Vorin’s shoulder. “What are you even doing?”
“Efficiency. Her files were a labyrinth of duplicates. Her battery was draining at a seventeen percent higher rate than necessary due to background processes. I am creating order.” Vorin’s tone was one of pure, focused satisfaction.
“Great. Thrilling.” Kael’s golden eyes roamed the cluttered room, landing on Zephyr tenderly massaging Riven’s nape. A slow, mischievous grin spread across his face. Boredom always led him to the same destination.
He sauntered over and crouched in front of the pair. Riven’s face was still pressed to his knees, but the tense set of his shoulders was incrementally loosening under Zephyr’s care. Kael reached out and poked Riven’s horn.
Riven went perfectly still.
“Don’t,” Zephyr said softly, a warning.
Kael ignored him. He traced the elegant, curled spiral of the horn, from the base near Riven’s temple to the sharp tip. “Always so tense, Riv. You’ve got to relax.” His voice was a teasing sing-song.
Riven’s tail unwrapped from his ankles, the spade tip lifting to twitch in clear irritation. A low, vibrating growl emanated from behind his knees.
“See? Even your tail’s all grumpy.” Kael’s fingers drifted down, skirting the edge of Riven’s jaw, then dipping lower. He brushed them lightly over the side of Riven’s throat, where his pulse beat a rapid, visible rhythm. “Getting all worked up already? And she’s not even here.”
In a blur of violet motion, Riven’s hand shot out. He caught Kael’s wrist in a grip that could splinter bone. He finally lifted his head. His eyes were no longer just glowing; they were fully ignited, a blinding, searing amethyst fire that filled the entire socket. His breath came in short, sharp pants.
“Touch me again,” Riven snarled, his voice stripped raw, “and I will break your hand.”
Kael’s grin only widened, a flash of white in the dim room. He didn’t pull his wrist back. “You gonna do it, then? Or are you all growl and no bite?” He leaned in, his breath ghosting over Riven’s feverish skin. “What’s the matter? Heat making you shy?”
Zephyr closed his mercury eyes briefly. “Kael, for the love of silent stars, cease.”
“He’s practically begging for it,” Kael sang, using his free hand to tap a finger against Riven’s clenched jaw. “Look at him. A big, scary volcano about to pop. It’s adorable.”
The sound Riven made was not a growl. It was the snap of a tension wire.
In one fluid, violent motion, he rose. He used his grip on Kael’s wrist not to break it, but to yank the golden incubus forward, spinning him, and shoving him face-first over Evie’s cluttered desk. A textbook and several pens skittered to the floor. Kael’s smirk vanished, replaced by a grunt of surprise that quickly morphed into a sharp, hungry laugh.
“Oh, finally,” Kael gasped, bracing his hands on the wood.
Riven didn’t speak. He kicked Kael’s legs apart with a rough boot. He didn’t bother with trousers. One hand pressed between Kael’s shoulder blades, pinning him down, while the other guided his own massive, violet cock. It was already slick, dripping with a need that had been simmering since before dawn. He pushed the broad, leaking head against Kael’s entrance, the small, pretty pussy that was part of their shared physiology.
He thrust. Not a slow claiming, but a single, brutal, shearing drive.
Kael’s laugh cut off into a strangled shout. His back arched, his golden horns scraping the desk’s surface. The stretch was obscene, immediate, a brutal invasion that made his knuckles bleach white against the laminate. Incubi bodies were built to accommodate each other, designed for this very exchange, but Riven was exceptionally large, and his current state erased any semblance of gentleness.
Zephyr, still kneeling on the floor, watched the scene unfold. A slight, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. He reclined back against a stack of boxes, getting comfortable. “I did try to warn you,” he murmured, his voice a quiet counterpoint to the wet, pounding rhythm that now filled the room.
Riven set a pace that was pure punishment. Each withdrawal was a near-total exit, each forward drive a full-depth impact that hammered Kael into the desk. The desk legs squeaked in protest, sliding a fraction of an inch across the linoleum with every slam. Kael’s earlier bravado was being systematically fucked out of him, replaced by guttural, fragmented sounds.
“Fuck—Riv—ah!—okay, I—shit—!”
His words dissolved into sharp, punched-out whines. His fingers scrambled for purchase, sending a highlighter rolling. His tail lashed wildly, then went taut, the spade tip quivering. The golden runes across his skin blazed like embers. Every brutal, pistoning stroke knocked the breath from his lungs, replacing it with a ragged, desperate moan.
Vorin looked up from the now perfectly organized iPad. He observed the scene: Kael pinned and ravaged, Riven a creature of single-minded violet fury above him, Zephyr watching with detached amusement. Vorin’s dark blue face remained impassive, but he let out a slow, soft breath. He shook his head once, a gesture of fond, long-suffering exasperation, and returned to his work.
Riven’s control was a frayed thread. The pre-heat sensitivity, the constant, gnawing hunger, and Kael’s infuriating prodding had combined into a flashpoint. He fucked like he was exorcising a demon, his own hips a blur of desperate motion. The slick, rhythmic sound of their joining was loud, lewd, a private symphony in the tiny dorm.
Kael’s protests had fully melted into pleas, but they were pleas for more. “Don’t stop—gods—right there, you fucking—ah!”
His own cock, trapped beneath him against the desk, leaked a steady stream onto Evie’s abandoned sociology notes. The brutal fullness was translating, transmuting from pain into a blinding, toe-curling pressure. He was close, his body tightening around the relentless invasion.
Riven felt it. He leaned forward, covering Kael’s back, his mouth near a golden horn. His voice was a broken, wet scrape. “You. Asked. For this.”
His thrusts lost all rhythm, devolving into a frantic, shallow pounding. He buried himself to the hilt and held, his body seizing. A raw, cracked cry was torn from his throat as he emptied himself, the hot pulses forcing another broken shout from Kael, who came untouched, his release adding to the mess on the desk.
For a long moment, the only sound was their ragged, overlapping breaths. Riven slumped over him, his forehead between Kael’s shoulder blades. The blinding amethyst fire in his eyes began to dim to a simmering glow.
Kael, face still pressed to the wood, let out a weak, breathless chuckle. “Okay. Point taken. Maybe don’t poke the incubus in heat.”
Zephyr’s soft laughter floated from his corner. “A lesson written in the oldest of languages, yet one you never learn.”
The dorm room door clicked open.
Evie stood frozen in the doorway, her backpack sliding from her shoulder to thump on the floor. Her eyes, wide and uncomprehending, took in the scene: the displaced desk, the scattered school supplies, and the two incubi very obviously, very recently joined in the middle of her workspace. The scent that hit her was musky, sharp, and unmistakable.
Kael managed a wobbly wave without lifting his head. “Hey, sweetheart. Welcome back. We, uh… we figured some things out.”