Page 59 of Zodiac Demons

“Kind of? All I really know for sure is you needed my consent to seal our pact and it had something to do with swapping blood with you. Or was it the biting part that mattered? I’ve just been along for the ride for the most part, honestly.” She laughed sheepishly, as if embarrassed by her lack of knowledge that no one had shared with her. That was, well, all of our faults. On one hand, there was a lot she deserved to know, on the other hand, when you were born into this, and every aspect of this world has always been your everyday life, I didn’t really think about the banalities that were completely foreign to mortals. “I should probably be more afraid and overwhelmed by everything, but maybe it’s because I now understand that this is what I was always supposed to be, I’m finally feeling like I fit in somewhere, so I want to roll with the punches and not be all human about it.”

Lila was delightful, truly.

But also, that was a relief to hear. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Feeling tentatively more confident, I took another slow breath, and I continued. “The thing about shifters and mating rules is, there’s a lot of intimacy required from beginning to end. You can’t just go about biting random people to place a mark on them. There are prerequisites to being able to place even a one sided mark as an Alpha.”

“What kind of prerequisites?” She was more confused than alarmed, and I got the sense that she didn’t understand where I even could be going with this beyond giving her new information to absorb.

But I certainly wasn’t spending the moments before the moon hit the horizon to be her teacher.

“Prerequisites like you have to have swapped sexual fluids—in both directions—before any claim can be made. Adrian was able to mark you because he’d had sex with you the night before. Ceto, the same. I was able to mark Ceto because we’d been seeing each other intimately for a while first. It doesn’t matter how that fluid is taken in, just that it’s absorbed into the body.” She isn’t freaking out yet. Keep going. “For men, that’s pretty simple and straight forward. For women, you have to genuinely reach climax or it doesn’t work. It’s similar to how an Incubus requires an orgasm to feed, so the female body’s natural lubrication from arousal doesn’t qualify on its own.”

“So there’s no faking it for a mate pact?” She said with a laugh that was tinged in confusion.

“The Devil is a firm believer in sexual gratification, we’ll say.” I winked playfully, wishing this conversation might stay this light, but knowing I was going to keep digging until the sun was long out of sight. “It’s a failsafe that gives female shifters a touch more agency in finding a good mate. Not that you can’t be forced to orgasm without consent, but someone who can’t get you off isn’t going to be able to mark you. That even applies to Omegas, who have the least agency in their partnerships otherwise.”

“I guess that’s interesting to know, but I’m not really sure why that’s so difficult to talk about.” Lila shrugged, still not making the connection. I wasn’t going to make it for her, but I’d keep pulling the lead until it clicked.

I tipped my chin toward the forest, and started walking into the swathe of trees. Lila followed. She hadn’t asked why I brought her here. She didn’t ask where we were going. She trusted me implicitly, when she absolutely shouldn’t.

What broken part of me needed her to know that she couldn’t, when we were so happy right now?

“I could sense your mate mark right away with Ceto, which was why I had some idea of what happened that night. I knew when Adrian had marked you too, as I had already placed mine on you at that time. Though having found you in the cafeteria after the fact, I also knew what he had done, so the mark didn’t surprise me.”

Lila nodded along, and I simply waited for the question that I knew was coming. I wasn’t sure how I could be any less subtle, short of straight up saying it.

“Wait, now that you mention it, I had your mark first. I didn’t get Adrian’s mark until a while afterwards.” She finally found the words that snapped these simple puzzle pieces together. “We never slept together before the hot springs, though.” Next, she’d ask it. She had to ask it. “When did we swap fluids? When did you make me… I’m so confused.”

The way she was now eyeing me with a sense of fear and confusion should not be giving me a rush.

“On the night of the Capricorn, I was the one who unlocked the door to the cafeteria.” One more piece sliding into place.

“Right, you told me that. But then what happened?” She was increasingly unsteady, and a psychotic part of my brain wanted to see her reaction. “After Adrian shifted, I woke up in my room, and I already… had… your mark.” Her words came out slowly, and I could hear and feel every little doubt that she wouldn’t voice out loud. “You told me you had to mark me to be allowed to enter my room. But how did you mark me? Is it different for vampire hybrids?”

“It’s not.” I shook my head, but kept my expression neutral.

“I don’t understand.” She stopped walking. “I was still a virgin when Adrian had sex with me. So the only time you could have done something like that to me was…”

“When you were unconscious on the table.” I finished the sentence with the words I’d heard in her inner thoughts. Though I’d have said them whether she did or not. “When I found you there, alone and naked and dripping with him, I couldn’t seem to help myself.” This confession was supposed to be a moment of vulnerability, but the way she was looking at me was feeding the monster in me far more than the mouse, and on this night of all nights, I wasn’t going to shove that demon into his cage. We were deep enough in the woods now that it was just me and her. Quiet, alone, and dangerous. “Your whole body gave into me so easily, it was as if you were made for me.”

“I was unconscious.” She repeated. “I… You… Why didn’t you tell me that before we…”

“Before we made it permanent?” I heard my own chuckle, deep in my throat. Fuck, I needed to pull back on my own reins right now, but my conscience was fading with the retreating daylight.

She shook her head, so much emotion overwhelming her that I could barely pick out just one in order to understand what she was really feeling. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“You would have figured it out eventually, and I was tired of lying to you.” That was true. But it wasn’t good enough of an answer. “I was afraid if you knew, you wouldn’t have wanted to stay with me. I didn’t want to lose you, and I was terrified that if I admitted to the single most egregious crime I ever committed, it would change how you saw me. And how you saw us.”

“How could it not?” She shook her head, and I caught the gloss of tears in her eyes. “You… All this time, I thought you were the safest person here. I thought you were my friend.”

“I still am. Both of those things.” I shook my head. Now now, we weren’t going to get this twisted. “The thing you’re going to have to understand about monsters is we’re all fucked up in our own way, and that’s by design. I can say that it’s not my fault, blame fate, nurture, nature, and anything else, but the reality is this is who I always have been, Baby Doll.” I approached her as she started to back away. “Don’t pretend you didn’t fall in love with this part of the deal, too.” I bared my lion’s fangs, and I ran my tongue over my teeth. “Maybe the way we started was all wrong, but are you really that upset that we ended up here?”

She just shook her head. “I… I don’t know. This is a lot.”

The thought that she ‘needed space to think’ passed through her mind, and that was so adorable.

But tonight, with a vampire’s speed and a lion’s hunting prowess targeting my adorable little Virgo, that was never going to happen.