Chapter 1: The Invitation
Romy stretched on the grey sectional, the muscles in his back rolling like topography under his skin. Sunlight cut across the polished concrete floor of his luxury apartment, highlighting the dust motes dancing in the air. He flexed his hand, watching the cords in his forearm tense and release. It was still a thrill.
Six months ago, this body had been a scrawny, apologetic thing—all sharp elbows and nervous sweat. Now, he took up space. He owned it.
A slow smile spread across his face as he thought about last weekend. The memory was a heated, blurry reel of taut limbs and eager mouths. The cheerleading squad—all of them, the ones in skirts and the ones in pants—had been a collective, sweaty experiment in his new reality. He hadn’t asked; they’d offered. A reverse gangbang, they’d called it, laughing as they pushed him onto the bed. He’d been the center of a storm of hands and hungry kisses, and he’d revelled in every second of it. No more virgin. No more nerd. Just power, and the palpable proof that he was wanted.
A knock at the door shattered the memory.
It was sharp, precise, and completely unexpected. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He rose, the movement fluid, and padded to the door, not bothering with a shirt.
He peered through the peephole.
Two figures stood in the hallway, looking effortlessly out of place amidst the normalcy of his building’s beige carpet. Vivienne, with her raven-black hair and a smirk that seemed to find the world endlessly amusing, and beside her, Sebastian, whose watchful calm always felt like a counterweight.
Relatives. Of a sort.
Romy opened the door. “Hey. This is a surprise.”
“Darling,” Vivienne purred, her piercing gaze sweeping from his face down to his bare chest and back up. “Look at you. Simply radiating… vitality.” She stepped in without waiting for an invitation, the scent of night-blooming flowers and cold stone trailing behind her.
Sebastian gave a slight, polite nod as he followed. “Romy. You’re looking well.” His eyes, a quieter grey than Vivienne’s stormy blue, missed nothing. They took in the apartment, the expensive but barely-lived-in furniture, the air of newfound confidence.
“Can I get you something?” Romy asked, suddenly aware of the domestic normalcy of the question. “I have… water. Blood orange soda.”
Vivienne’s laugh was a low, silvery sound. “We’re fine, thank you. We were in the neighborhood. And we’ve heard things.”
Sebastian settled into an armchair, steepling his fingers. “Your adaptation has been remarkable. The transition from human to alpha is rarely so… seamless. Or so enthusiastically embraced.”
Romy crossed his arms, leaning against the kitchen island. “What can I say? The suit fits.” He couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice.
“And how are you enjoying the, ah, perks of the position?” Vivienne asked, her tone dripping with casual salaciousness. She wasn’t one to hedge.
Romy shrugged, a cocky grin touching his lips. “The new packaging helps. A lot. People tend to say yes now. It’s been educational.”
“But only in this form,” Sebastian observed, his head tilting slightly. “You haven’t explored the other?”
A flicker of something—not uncertainty, but curiosity—passed through Romy. “The wolf? No. That seems… separate. This,” he gestured to himself, “is what gets me through the door.”
Vivienne exchanged a glance with Sebastian, a whole conversation happening in the space of a blink. “Well,” she said, turning back to Romy with a dazzling, predatory smile. “That’s partly why we’re here. We think you might be ready for a more advanced education.”
Sebastian reached inside his impeccably tailored jacket and produced a sleek, black envelope. He placed it on the coffee table. “We host a gathering. Annually. A confluence of like-minded individuals with certain… liberated appetites.”
“An orgy, Romy,” Vivienne said bluntly, delighting in the word. “A monster orgy. Our circle is creatively immortal and sexually free. We eat, we drink, we fuck. It’s a splendid time. No expectations, no judgments, just exquisite sensation.” Her eyes glinted. “We thought you might appreciate an invitation.”
Romy’s heart gave a hard, sudden thump against his ribs. The cheerleaders had been a human fantasy. This was something else entirely. A real test. A playground for things like him.
“Yeah,” he said, the word coming out rough. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I would love that.”
Sebastian smiled, a rare, genuine expression that softened his features. “Excellent. The details are inside.” He rose, smooth as shadow. Vivienne followed, brushing a cool, fleeting hand against Romy’s bicep as she passed.
“Wear something you don’t mind ruining,” she whispered, and then they were gone, the door clicking shut behind them.
The apartment felt too quiet, too bright.
Romy snatched the envelope. It was heavy, the paper thick as velvet. Inside was a single card with an address, a time, and a directive: Bring your thirst. Paperclipped to it was a small, bound folio.
He sat and opened it. It was a guest list, each page featuring a name and a photograph. They weren’t mugshots; they were captures, moments.
They weren’t mugshots; they were captures, moments. Seraphina, scales glinting emerald and gold under moonlight, her forked tongue tasting the air. Marina, submerged in a black pool, only her pale, luminescent face and hungry eyes breaking the surface. Briar, suspended in a tangle of glowing vines, thorns catching on the sheer fabric of their wings. Lenore, a transparent figure fading into the stacks of an ancient library, a melancholy smile on her faint lips. Rafe, caught mid-shift in a dark alley, muscles straining, fur erupting along his jawline. Az, all smoldering eyes and sharp, ink-black tattoos coiled around sinewy arms, a chalice of something dark in hand. Corvin, pale fingers tracing the line of a skeleton’s jaw in a candlelit crypt.
But that’s when his eyes fell on Harrison. Aka Harry.
The photo was different. It was a candid, daytime shot. Harry was sitting at a messy, sun-drenched kitchen table, wearing a faded band t-shirt, stirring a mug of tea. He was slim, almost delicate, with a tousled mop of sandy hair and intelligent, tired eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. He looked human. Soft. A witch, the folio said. A twink.
Something hot and immediate coiled low in Romy’s gut. It was an attraction so sharp it felt like a punch. It wasn’t just the delicate beauty of him; it was the stark, ordinary contrast to the other photos. This wasn’t a creature posing with its power. This was someone who looked like he’d sigh over a broken coffee machine. The thought of those clever hands, that distracted mouth, in the midst of the chaotic, sweating press of bodies Vivienne had promised… it short-circuited something in Romy’s brain.
He laughed, a loud, raucous sound that bounced off the minimalist walls of his empty apartment. He was going to have a great time at this orgy.