Page 49 of Zodiac Demons

I’d fucked her in the month of Capricorn, too, but was she shifted then? I had no idea. I didn’t check or pay any fucking attention to anything but her body’s convulsion and the taste of her blood. I had been out of my mind enough to take her on the table while she was completely unconscious, but I just blamed that on the moon. I would have noticed her pheromones. I think. But when Adrian fucked her back then—

“Wait, but she was still a virgin when you fucked her. She wasn’t shifted yet.” I chewed my lip, no longer satisfied with the resolution. “So that’s not really definitive evidence.”

“I still shifted back.” He shook his head. “I didn’t attempt to shift again, but I was able to go home afterwards, when ordinarily I’m stuck in the school compound all night during winter moons, since the sun sets before my last class finishes. I think our base transformations are fine.”

The emphasis on ‘base’ was noted, as I didn’t think either of us were confident that our alternate forms were still intact. I suppose only time would tell us that.

“Then I guess I won’t worry about it this month.” I relaxed, only a bit, but there was still a tension in my gut that was hard to explain.

Since I’d mated with her, I now had control while shifted, but having lived with this curse so much of my life, it had become deeply ingrained in my identity to be the entire Zodiac wheel. I’d had plenty of bad nights due to moon fueled magic, so I should be happy about this possibility. But the broken, unruly parts of me were still me, and I didn’t know that I wanted to lose my flaws, especially now that I could control them.

The only respite I had here was that this month would be okay.

But after that?

Had I gained more than I lost, or lost more than I gained?

I got up from my comfortable spot on his taupe colored couch, and stretched my arms toward the ceiling, before glancing at my half-brother who was still buttoning his shirt.

“You look like shit, by the way,” I said, as I scanned the bags under his eyes, the dark circles, the premature wrinkles, and overall vague sense of dehydration and lack of sleep. “When’s the last time you fed? You look like you’ve got one foot in the grave.” Not that I was concerned. Adrian was wise and mature—just ask him—but considering he was an incubus, and I’d all but completely commandeered his girl at this point, I couldn’t help but wonder how much he was or wasn’t making up for it elsewhere. The possibility that Adrian would suffer to the point of death just to avoid the trap I had set for him would be so like him.

Adrian sat back down and hunched forward with his elbow on his thigh as he rubbed his temples. “You’re the last person on the Devil’s black earth that I’ll be having this conversation with.” He groaned.

So dramatic.

“Are you… not feeding?” I asked anyway, because I was nothing if not annoying.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He reiterated, as though that was an option.

“You’re not worried about cheating on her or something, are you? Sex is your literal sustenance. I’m sure she’d understand.” She was more understanding than anyone reasonably should be about a lot of things, honestly. Loved that girl, but sometimes I wondered if I was still the primary psychopath in this relationship, or if she’d been the puppet master the entire time.

Still, there was something more off than usual about his reaction.

“We’ve discussed it.” He was being notably short with me, and this was where I wished I could read minds of people who I wasn’t mated to.

“And she said…” I insisted, because he seriously was starting to look like he was half zombie.

“She offered herself, and I declined.” So touchy. So disciplined. So fucking stubborn.

“Of course you did.” I scoffed, while he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“When did you swap fluid with her that night anyway? She was a virgin when I took her, and you were able to put your mark on her, so when?” His complete and total change of subject was noted, but also was a question I’d been dancing around and avoiding for months. “I was the one who taught her to suck a dick on the night of the Aries, so I know it wasn’t some spontaneous pregame where she was only a virgin by the state of her hymen. But she was blacked out when I left her in the cafeteria, so explain that to me.”

I froze, and I didn’t know how to answer that in a way that was acceptable. Though it wasn’t like I could lie about it either. Lila was the only one who wasn’t aware of what was necessary before a pact could be initiated. I hadn’t clarified that for a reason. There were a million times it could have come up, and I’d been subtly avoiding all of them.

“I…” I shook a hand through my hair, and glanced at the floor, not sure how to construct that sentence.

“You fucked her while she was unconscious so you could stake your claim, immediately after you’d fucked me over by forcing my shift.” He summed it up much more easily than I could.

“If you already figured that out, then why are you asking me?” I wasn’t liking where this was going at all.

“Does she know you took advantage of her when she couldn’t consent?” He’d completely turned this conversation around, and I was now asking myself why I’d come here to talk to him at all.

“It doesn’t seem that important to mention now…” I trailed off. Admittedly, I’d been planning to ignore this point forever, preferably. “You’re an incubus, so why would that be so offensive to you? I wasn’t thinking clearly, and it was a temporary lapse of good judgment all around. It worked out in the end, so I try not to think about it. If I look at where I am now, I don’t even know that I regret it, because I probably woulnd’t have fought for her so hard if not for having her adorable stream of consciousness in my head every time I get near her. I might not have bothered to get to know her as a person at all and just used her as a weapon against you, when she deserved so much more than that.”

“That’s supposed to make this better? That you fell in love because you read her mind without her permission, after having sex with her without her permission, and since you liked what you found, it’s all fine? Because you normally wouldn’t have given a single fuck about her, but preying on her ignorance got you off?” That was an offensive way to paraphrase.

“Like how you always get to know everyone you’ve slept with first?” I scoffed a laugh. “You want to compare our red flag relationship tendencies? I’m pretty sure if you could have fucked and forgot about her, kicked her out of your class, and never seen her again, you would have. But I talked her into staying, and because of that, you had to get to know her and actually confront your own toxic bull shit. And what happened? You’re here getting angry at me on her behalf because, what do you know, you fucking care, Adrian. You’re just as obsessed with her as I am. The only difference is I embrace that, and you’re pretending your life is ending because you’re permanently bound to a girl you actually adore. So you can fuck off with your judgment.”