Chapter 2: Homecoming in the Throes
The apartment door groaned on its hinges, a familiar complaint. Ashanti stepped into the thick, close air. The smell hit her first: stale pot smoke, the greasy ghost of last night’s fried rice, and underneath it all, the sour-sweet musk of sex.
James was shirtless at the rickety kitchen table, the defined muscles of his back and shoulders tensed as he focused. A small digital scale glowed with a green light. His fingers, nimble and sure, picked apart fragrant buds of weed, placing them on the scale’s tray. The click of the apartment’s deadbolt made his ear twitch, but he didn’t turn.
Logan was a dark shape on the stained couch, wearing only low-slung sweatpants. A scar cut through his left eyebrow, a pale slash against his umber skin. He was staring at the silent TV, some late-night infomercial, but his hand around his beer bottle had tightened, the tendons standing out. He didn’t look at her either, but his whole body had gone still, a predator noting a presence in his territory.
From behind the closed door of the back bedroom, the sounds were unmistakable. The rhythmic, hollow thud of a headboard against drywall. A male grunt, low and strained. And Jackie’s voice, pitching between a theatrical moan and a breathy encouragement. “Yeah, just like that… fuck, you’re so deep…”
Ashanti kicked off her gym shoes. The linoleum was cool and gritty under her socks. She walked past James, her dress whispering against her thighs. She stopped in front of Logan. He finally lifted his eyes, dark and brooding, to meet hers.
She bent down, one hand on the arm of the couch for balance. She kissed him. It wasn’t gentle. She drove her tongue into his mouth, tasting the bitterness of the beer. He responded instantly, a low growl vibrating in his chest as his free hand came up to fist in the white dreads at the nape of her neck, holding her there. She pressed the thick, damp wad of cash—fifteen hundred dollars, now mingled with the heat of her body and the remnants of the goblin’s spend—into his other, calloused hand.
She broke the kiss, a string of saliva briefly connecting them. His golden eyes, flecked with amber, glinted in the low light.
Straightening, she moved to the kitchen table. James still hadn’t turned. She came up behind him, pressed her body against his bare back. She leaned down, her breasts against his shoulder, and nuzzled into the crook of his neck. He smelled of salt, cannabis, and cynicism. She kissed the skin there, then traced her tongue up to his ear.
“Hey, baby,” she murmured, her voice a rough whisper.
“Hey,” he said, his tone flat, his eyes still on his work. But he tilted his head, granting her better access.
She kissed him then, on the lips, slow and deep. At the same time, she ground her hips slowly, deliberately, against the side of his shoulder, letting him feel the damp, messy heat through the thin cotton of her dress. He returned the kiss with a practiced laziness, his tongue tangling with hers. When she pulled back, she left the second, slightly smaller roll of bills—the nine hundred from Grurk—on the table beside his scale.
Without a word to either brother, she walked down the short hallway. The sounds from Jackie’s room were reaching a crescendo—slapping skin, a choked shout, Jackie’s culminating cry that sounded genuinely satisfied. Ashanti opened the bathroom door, stepped inside, and locked it.
The shower was a rusted stall with a mildewed curtain. She turned the knobs. The pipes screamed in the walls, then spat out a spray of lukewarm water. She peeled the blue dress off over her head, dropped it in a damp heap on the floor. In the smudged mirror, she saw the faint, greenish marks on her hips from Grurk’s grip. She stepped under the weak spray, letting the water sluice over her skin, wanting to wash away the smells of the pharmacy, the subway, the anonymous touches. It never really worked.
She was still there, eyes closed, head against the tile, when the bathroom door handle rattled.
“Ash. Hurry the fuck up.” Logan’s voice, a graveled command through the wood.
She turned the water off. The silence that followed was heavy, filled only by the dripping showerhead and the distant sound of Jackie laughing in the other room. Ashanti toweled herself roughly, not bothering with clothes. She wrapped the damp towel around her body and unlocked the door.
Logan was right there, filling the doorway. His eyes swept over her, from her wet dreads clinging to her shoulders down to her bare feet. The hunger in his look was different from the clients’. It was possessive, heated, edged with a simmering anger that was always just beneath his surface.
“My turn,” he said, and it wasn’t a request.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her down the hall, past the kitchen where James was now bagging up the weighed weed, his expression unreadable. Logan shoved open the door to the room he shared with his brother. It was sparse: two twin beds, a dresser piled with clothes, a window looking out onto a brick wall.
He kicked the door shut. He turned her, pushed her back against it. The wood was cool and rough against her shoulder blades. He didn’t kiss her. He yanked the towel away and let it fall. His hands, big and rough, palmed her breasts, his thumbs roughly circling her nipples until they peaked into hard, sensitive points.
“You’re fucking cold,” he muttered, though her skin was still warm from the shower.
He dropped to his knees. He hooked one of her legs over his shoulder, opening her up to him, and buried his face between her thighs without preamble. His tongue was flat and demanding, licking up the lingering taste of the shower, then delving deep inside her. It wasn’t gentle or teasing. It was a claiming. He ate her out with a fierce, single-minded intensity, his stubble scraping the tender skin of her inner thighs, his nose pressed against her. One of his hands came up to grip her ass, holding her in place as his tongue worked her.
Ashanti’s head thumped back against the door. A sharp, shocked gasp escaped her. This wasn’t transactional. This was Logan, and it was always like this—a storm of intensity that bypassed her carefully constructed detachment and went straight to her core. Her hands tangled in his long dreads, not pushing him away, but holding on as a raw, trembling climax built and then broke over her, making her legs shake around his head.
He didn’t stop. He lapped at her through the pulses, growling against her slick flesh, until she was squirming, oversensitive. Then he stood up, his sweats already tented. He pushed them down, freeing his cock. It was thick, veined, the head already weeping. He was fully hard, the transformation’s proximity making him bigger, more animalistic than any normal man.
He lifted her effortlessly, her back still against the door. She wrapped her legs around his waist. He guided himself to her entrance and pushed up into her in one relentless, deep stroke.
“Fuck!” she cried out, the stretch intense, her inner muscles still fluttering from her orgasm.
He started to fuck her, hard and fast, driving her body up the door with each upward thrust. The door rattled in its frame. His breath was hot and ragged in her ear. He didn’t speak, just pounded into her, his own pleasure a tight, focused thing. She could feel the raw power in him, the werewolf strength held in precarious check. She bit his shoulder to muffle her own sounds, tasting salt and skin.
He came with a sharp, choked-off snarl, his hips stuttering as he pumped his release deep inside her, his arms locking around her like iron bands. He held her there, impaled, for a long minute, both of them panting, sweating in the dark room.
Finally, he let her slide down. Her feet hit the floor, her legs unsteady. She felt his spend beginning to leak out of her, down her thigh. He stepped back, pulling up his sweats, his expression already closing off, returning to its default broode.
There was a soft knock on the door behind her. “Logan. James.” Jackie’s voice, singsong and sly. “Client’s gone. He left an extra fifty ‘cause he came twice. Who wants pizza?”
Logan didn’t answer. He just looked at Ashanti, his gaze sweeping over her naked, used body with a satisfaction that was devoid of tenderness. He reached past her, opened the door, and walked out, leaving her standing there.
Ashanti bent, picked up the damp towel, and wiped herself clean. She walked out into the living room. Jackie was there, wearing a silk kimono that hid nothing, her violet hair a bright shock in the dingy room. She was counting a stack of bills on the coffee table. James was now on the couch, rolling a blunt, his movements economical.
“Pizza?” Jackie asked, looking up. Her golden slit-pupiled eyes took in Ashanti’s state, the fresh marks, the air of recent sex. A knowing smirk played on her lips. “Or are you still full?”
“I could eat,” Ashanti said, her voice roughened from Logan’s use of it. She didn’t look at Jackie, instead moving toward the pile of her own clothes on a chair. She found a pair of soft shorts and a tank top, pulling them on, the fabric a simple comfort against her abused skin.
James lit the blunt with a soft scrape of flame. He took a long pull, held the smoke, and let it out in a slow, fragrant cloud. “Half pepperoni, half mushroom. And breadsticks.” His tone left no room for debate. It was an order, like his brother’s, just packaged differently.
“Extra cheese,” Logan added from where he’d reclaimed his spot on the couch, his eyes back on the TV. He took a swig of his beer, the movement of his throat working. The room settled into a tense, familiar equilibrium, the silence broken only by Jackie tapping on her phone to place the order.
Ashanti walked to the small, grimy window overlooking the fire escape. The city’s night glow painted everything in sodium orange and deep shadow. She felt hollowed out, a vessel recently emptied. The money was in Logan’s hand and on James’s table. Her rent was covered. The transaction cycle was complete, for now.
“You’re thinking too loud,” James said from behind her. He hadn’t moved from the couch, but his awareness of her was a tangible thing in the room.
“Just calculating,” she replied, not turning. “Need more aconite. Mrs. Henderson’s prescription needs another adjustment.”
Jackie floated over, the scent of sex and perfume clinging to her. She perched on the arm of the couch, her kimono falling open to reveal a pale thigh. “Boring. I’m thinking about that client. Dwarf. Strong little fucker. Tossed me around like a ragdoll.” She grinned, flashing sharp canines. “Came in, like, thirty seconds though. Pathetic.”
Logan grunted, a sound of disdain or amusement, it was hard to tell.
James stood up. The blunt was half-gone, pinched between his fingers. He walked to Ashanti by the window. He didn’t touch her at first, just stood close enough for her to feel the heat radiating from his body. He offered her the blunt.
She took it, inhaled the sweet, skunky smoke. It softened the edges of the room, of the lingering ache between her legs.
“You’re tight,” James observed, his voice low. “Shoulders.” It wasn’t concern. It was an assessment of a tool.
“Long night,” she exhaled, passing the blunt back.
“Turn around.”
She did, leaning back against the windowsill. James stepped into her space, his hands coming up to knead the muscles of her shoulders. His fingers were strong, knowing. He worked at a knot near her neck, the pressure just shy of painful. She let her head drop forward, her white dreads curtaining her face. For a minute, it was just this: a mechanical relief.
But his hands slid down, over the thin tank top, tracing the sides of her breasts. His thumbs found her nipples through the fabric, circling, applying a firm, insistent pressure that made her breath catch. This wasn’t a massage.
“James,” she said, a warning that held no real heat.
“Quiet,” he murmured, his mouth near her ear. One hand stayed on her breast, rolling the stiff peak between his finger and thumb. The other hand slipped down, over her shorts, palming the damp fabric between her legs. He pressed the heel of his hand hard against her clit, a steady, grinding pressure. “Logan got his. You think I don’t smell him all over you?”
She didn’t answer. He pushed his hand inside her shorts, his fingers sliding easily through the slick mess his brother had left. He shoved two fingers inside her cunt, a sudden, thick invasion. She gasped, her hips jerking forward.
“See?” James said, his voice a dark chuckle. “Still loose. Still wet for it.”
He pumped his fingers in and out, a crude, quick mimicry of sex. His other hand tugged her tank top down, exposing a breast. He bent his head and took her nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, biting down just enough to make her yelp. The dual sensation was overwhelming—the rough penetration below, the sharp, possessive claim above.
“Fuck you,” she breathed, her hands gripping the windowsill behind her.
“Yeah,” he agreed, pulling his wet fingers from her. He unfastened his jeans, freed his cock. It was thick like his brother’s, but he was slower, more deliberate. He pushed her shorts and underwear down just past her hips. He didn’t lift her. He simply turned her around, bending her forward over the back of a nearby threadbare armchair.
He spat into his hand, slicked himself, and pressed the broad head against her from behind. He pushed in with one long, continuous, controlled stroke, filling her utterly, a deep, stretching burn. He bottomed out and held there, letting her adjust to the full, intrusive feel of him.
Then he began to move. His pace was steady, deep, each thrust a measured possession. He fucked her with a cynical rhythm, one hand fisted in her dreads, the other splayed on her lower back, holding her down. The armchair squeaked across the linoleum with each drive of his hips.
“This what you need after dealing with those freaks all day?” he grunted, his voice tight. “Something real?”
She couldn’t form a coherent sentence. His cock was hitting a spot inside her that sparked white behind her eyelids. Her cunt clamped down around him, greedy, pulling him deeper. She came with a shattered cry, her body convulsing around his relentless thrusts.
He fucked her through it, his own control fraying. His pace broke, becoming ragged, brutal. “Take it,” he snarled, his fingers digging into her hip bone. His orgasm ripped through him; she felt the hot, pulsing flood of his release join his brother’s inside her. He shuddered, pushing in as deep as he could, grinding against her as he emptied himself.
He stayed there for a moment, panting against her back. Then he pulled out with a wet, slick sound. More fluid trailed down her thighs. He zipped his jeans, walked back to the couch, and picked up his blunt as if he’d just taken out the trash.
The doorbell rang. “Pizza!” Jackie chirped, hopping up. She glanced at Ashanti, still bent over the chair, exposed and dripping. “You want a plate, or you just gonna eat like that?”
Ashanti pushed herself upright, her legs trembling. She pulled her shorts up, the fabric clinging unpleasantly. “Plate,” she said, her voice hollow.
She took her slice to the far corner of the room, eating mechanically. The cheese was greasy, the pepperoni slick. It tasted like nothing. Logan was counting the money she’d brought home, stacking the bills into neat piles. James was back at the table, reviewing a ledger. Jackie talked between bites about a new client who wanted a fantasy involving a hydra.
Ashanti finished her food. She stood, walked past them all, and went into the tiny closet she called her own. Inside, on a shelf beneath folded clothes, was a wooden box carved with closed eyes. Her private stash. She opened it, inhaling the scent of dried herbs, crushed crystals, and potential.
She took out a small mortar and pestle, a few sprigs of wolfsbane, and a vial of her own blood, drawn last full moon. Here, the transactions were different. Here, she wasn’t just a vessel to be filled. She began to grind, the rhythmic scrape against stone the only answer she had to the silence that clung to her, a silence no amount of fucking or money could ever truly fill.