Page 41 of Zodiac Demons

I didn’t have to answer. I could just pretend I wasn’t here. I was enduring this night, dammit.

“Can we talk?” Lila’s voice was audible through the door, and I couldn’t say if that was a relief or the worst case scenario.

Did I want to answer? Was it safe to confirm I was here?

I hesitated, I swallowed, then I drew a deep breath through my nose.

“Are you alone?” I asked, still cautious, still noncommittal.

“Yeah, Marcus went back to the room. I just wanted to see if you were all right.” She was being honest, right? I didn’t feel his presence, and I didn’t get a sense of deception from her. She wouldn’t lie. She wasn’t like that. Lila was a rare good person among the beasts.

I got up, and I opened the door just enough to let her in. She was alone, with no sign of her other mate. She was also dressed in a gorgeous blue dress that complimented her full figure so well, I couldn’t have designed it better myself.

I closed and locked the door behind her, and let myself exhale.

“You’re shifted,” I stated the obvious, not sure what else to say.

She brushed her hair behind her pointed ears that were otherwise well hidden under her thick black locks. “Is it that obvious?”

“It is.” I nodded, while that sweet scent of cinnamon and apples was as completely disarming as it always was. I was so glad for her that she wasn’t an Omega with her irresistible pheromones.

Lila accepted that response, then she paced over to my only bed and sat on the edge. I was still trying to come down from the transferred sensations and seeing her on that bed was not helping that. “I feel bad that your club won this vacation, and you came all the way out here, and you’re not even out enjoying the festival,” she said, like it was a confession she’d been holding in. “It’s my fault you can’t relax, and it was my fault that you shifted last month, and we ended up in this situation, and I don’t want to lose your friendship over this, even if everything that happened last month was a mistake.” She hugged her arms around her chest, and my first instinct was to say something to reassure her.

“I’m not much for partying. If not for you, I would have just ignored the invite, so you didn’t do anything wrong.” I chewed my lip, then inhaled and continued, “I only wanted to come out here at all because I wanted you to get to see what this is like. I’m not afraid of mate separation sickness, but I am afraid of ruining your life because I put you in a position to be stuck with me.” I didn’t know why I said that out loud, but if she was going to be honest with me, I could be honest with her.

She touched her fingers to her lower abdomen, sending a warmth down my spine at the contact with my mark. “I never once thought of this as being ‘stuck’ with you.” Her tone hit something melancholy, while a sense of affection passed through our bond.

I had to swallow in order to speak. “You consented to this mark while we were both out of our heads and running on our animal instincts, and I didn’t give you any of the information you needed to make a decision this severe. I know it doesn’t mean anything—”

“It does, though,” she interrupted. I met her gaze, and I wasn’t prepared for how intense her eye contact would feel when she was the only one of us in shifted form. She stood, and she walked over to me, then placed a hand on my chest and nudged me back. I followed her lead, taken aback by this level of boldness, while too curious to simply paralyze her in my gaze to stop her. She walked me back two, three, four steps, until the backs of my knees hit the edge of the chair, then she nudged me again, and I let her push me into the cushion. She mounted my lap, and she settled on top of my obvious arousal that I hadn’t been intending to share. “I don’t want it to mean nothing. Because it didn’t mean ‘nothing’ to me.” She whispered, and my heart fucking stopped.

“What are you doing?” I could stop this at any point. Shifted or not, I could steal her ability to breathe if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to hurt her right now.

“I’m making a point.”

Chapter 17

“Lila, Baby, why don’t we play a little game?” Marcus had suggested as we’d started back to the room.

“What kind of game?” I’d asked, feeling especially open tonight.

And as I settled on Ceto’s lap, in his room, staring into the stunned, and uncertain eyes of my mate and coworker and classmate, I wondered if this was too far. He was noticeably at attention beneath me, and that made it all the more difficult not to grind against his lap, but he was hesitant to touch me, even when I was begging him for it.

He thought I was afraid of what he showed me, but I wanted to meet his demon again, and I wanted even more to know Ceto in a context more intimate than work.

“Can you feel it through the bond?” Marcus asked directly into my mind. “Can you feel how badly he wants you to continue, but how fucking terrified that makes him at the same time?”

I didn’t need to answer. For once, I could read some part of Ceto’s feelings, and they were overwhelming. It was fear, arousal, curiosity, excitement, guilt, confusion, desire, lust, rejection, and need all at once. His heart was racing, and he was teetering between fight, flight, and commitment.

“You’re drunk on the moon.” Ceto pressed back into his chair, shifting in his seat beneath me, but that only made his predicament more obvious. He placed his hands on my thighs, pretending that was just an idle place to rest them. “I don’t think this is what you want right now, Lila. You’re just riled up from the power of it all.”

“Don’t say anything. Just drop the straps of your dress.” Marcus conducted the scene, and I was too turned on right now to argue. I nudged the straps of my sundress down my shoulders, then tugged the bust line down, exposing my breasts. I’d never quite noticed before, but if I listened closely enough, I could almost hear the sound of his pulse quickening as his cheeks heated in a red that out shone his dark complexion. His eyes dipped only for a second, before he returned to unfettered eye contact. “Let me teach you a few interesting things about the Hybrid Basilisk of the Arya Clan, Baby Doll. First being, he would paralyze you if he wanted you to stop. And he does not want you to stop.”

“L-Lila.” He repeated my name, but he didn’t manage anything beyond that. His only reaction was to swallow and watch me, while he started rubbing small circles on my skin with his thumb.

“Was this mark really a mistake?” I asked, upon unthreading my arms from the straps of my dress, and sliding my dress down further, until I revealed the Gemini symbol on my lower abdomen. “You fucked me for hours before you drew blood, and you want to tell me you never actually wanted me?” This was what I had wanted to say all month, as he avoided me more and more pointedly as the days went on. He never texted me anymore, he wouldn’t schedule me for any shifts at the shop, even once my mother flew home, and he seemed afraid to be around me.

It was all too much.