Santanos’s smile shines with adoration for the big, beautiful man. “Will you make sure I don’t take too much from Hassan and Gregory while we’re working? I have a feeling I’m going to be pulling from all three of you.”
Edovard pulls his mate into a warm hug. “I will protect you all,” he promises, then he turns wide, serious eyes to the rest of us. “Is it ok if we do sex while you’re here? That’s how we feed Santanos.”
“We were planning on watching one of you fellate Gregory for dessert before The Hollow showed up,” I point out. “And even if you do have sex on this array while the Avatars arefighting The Hollow, I don’t think any of us will have any spare attention to give you.” I expect to be watching Darcy’s back.
Bellamy reaches out, patting Edovard’s hand. “It’s fine; I won’t even be looking at you.”
Hawthorn grins at Hassan and Gregory. “I’m going to enjoy participating, since I’ll be keeping a hand on y’all.”
Ethan shoots Edovard a smirk. “My hand’s gonna be on you too. You ready for that?”
Edovard confirms with Santanos that it’s ok, then nods to Ethan. “Yes. Thank you.”
Darcy reaches out and pats Edovard’s forearm. “Listen, Bud, if I look at you, yer gargoyle’s gonna teleport you to a safe place in a completely different galaxy.”
Edovard nods in understanding. “Alright. Thank you.”
With that settled, Darcy grabs my collar, pulling me down to his face. “Peach, yer gonna be good.”
“If I feel like it,” I promise softly, pushing in close for a kiss. I’m not going to die, but if I do, I want him to be the last thing to touch these lips.
Darcy sighs softly, sliding into a gentle kiss. There’s no desperation between us. Love, maybe, but we’re not hopeless. Everything is going to work out.
Darcy steps back, releases his grip on me, and turns. The array pops through the last of the teleportation hops, and there it is—an immeasurably large, glowing orange thing. It looks like a dirty anus with a significant overgrowth problem around the sphincter. I like buttholes, but this one smells like someone tried to cover the stench of rot with a cologne made from skunk musk. It’s gag inducing, and I’m not ashamed of the retching noise I make as soon as I see/smell it.
We’re not even that close to the thing. It’s just so fucking big that it blots out the rest of the universe behind it.
“Fuck,” Bellamy gags, which sets me off immediately.
Darcy cusses up a blue streak, waving his hands around as if that’s ever going to fix the stench.
“How the hell is it even possible that it exudes a stench in the middle of space?” Gregory demands, though he’s not gagging the same way the rest of us are.
Darcy gags again, shaking his head. “It really fucking shouldn’t be able to get through the bubble of the array like this.”
“Darcy, I may be able to help, but I need permission to manipulate the array,” Santanos says, voice tight as he glances at Edovard with concern.
The poor Pupper is retching at the edge of the array.
Darcy glares at Santanos, but he gives him a stiff nod. “Don’t fuck this up or we’re all dead.”
“That’s only a problem for the mortals,” Bellamy mutters.
Santanos doesn’t appear to do anything, but after a moment a light breeze tickles my hair, and the foul odor dissipates with it. After about a minute, the scent of rain replaces rotting corpse/skunk cologne, and we all breathe a little easier.
“Before it figures out a way around my magic, I suggest we link up the way we’re meant to,” Santanos announces, stepping toward the front of the array and holding out his hands to Darcy and Bellamy.
Darcy grumbles under his breath as he takes one of Santanos’s hands, but instead of letting Bellamy take the other, Darcy links himself to Bellamy and stands between the Avatar of Good and the Avatar of Evil. That makes sense. Neutrality should stand between good and evil.
Ethan’s grip on my elbow tightens as the Avatars figure out how to link up. There’s a shift in the energy inside the bubble, and that shift is accompanied by the opening of the orange anus.
So, when Darcy said that The Hollow ate entire galaxies, it didn’t really occur to me that in order to eat, it must have a mouth. Looking at the monstrous mouth opening up inpreparation for consuming us, I flash back to my sister and my parents, and I wonder what possible reason this thing could have had for sending a bug to kill my family. How did it even know that was my family? Why would it even target them?
Santanos said it was because I’m a danger to this thing, but what am I supposed to do?
The charge in the atmosphere makes my hair stand on end and every nerve in my body decides that right now would be a good time to start feeling everything all at once. Getting the jitters when you’re in imminent danger is a good way to end up hurt, but Ethan’s touch bothers me, and the longer his hand grips my elbow the more I want to rip away from him. It’s too much. I—I’m going to break my promise to Darcy, I just know it.
An uncontrollable full body twitch jerks my arm out of Ethan’s grip, and when he grabs for me again, I nearly trip over my own foot getting away from him. “Don’t!”
