Isaiah loathed having to do this himself.

He knew how this worked. He knew how to try the windows, how to pick locks and navigate to the second floor outside and go through unlocked balcony sliders. He knew how to step in multifloor houses and avoid noise, how to appease pets. He knew how to hide beyond the light. And he knew where his target was, where the occupants slept because he managed his homework and he spent time on this project. Without anyone to farm the work to, it fell to him to take special considerations for what would become of Isaiah Zähne's reputation when caught - though he still kept his license sporting his old name in pocket.

Isaiah watched from where he loitered - against a narrow yard tree toward the end of their lot. A yellowed light looked out from the kitchen where a girl, no older than 12, stood washing dishes. If Isaiah squinted, if he edged closer, he would say that she'd been crying, that red rims traced her eyes while bloodshot veins spidered through the sclera. And maybe, if he felt particularly connected to these ghosts of a nuclear family, he might feel bad for her. And perhaps, if he were just slightly buzzed, it would lead him to wonder how children would've turned out with Sidney James.

But the girl retreated afterward, leaving the light on, and only got just beyond his line of sight when mumbled voices echoed out from the house. The tone and cadence indicated argument; an older woman, probably the mother, fought with her child. How quaint, he thought in the dark. How traditional.

"Get on with it, send her to bed," he mumbled to the night air while he checked his watch. "She should've gone an hour ago." I'm tired of waiting around. Should've farmed out this shitty job. Too bad there aren't enough willful lawbreakers to take my little requests. I could be at home drinking instead, and paying out instead of penny pinching on this shitty night. It's going to rain soon, ******** this.

The lanky man sighed petulantly, considered smoking a cigarette, and nixed that idea due to the light from both lighter and cancer stick. No, he decided to sit this one out for a while longer, but if the mother didn't bother to take her kid to bed then he might just drift on from this whole endeavor.

There had to be a better way to do this.

It was no longer needful to gather energy since her promotion, but with nothing better to fill her time with until she managed to get herself some underlings, Cinnabar let herself fall into her old routine. It was even harder now, or maybe just an extra challenge, depending on how you wanted to look at it. There was no dressing herself up any more to hide anything, not when horns curled back from her temples and her eyes had gone dark. It meant leaving the crowds to the less experienced and farming the tougher, solitary humans who braved the night.

Finding them was the trick though… most stuck to well lit areas and the meager crowds there, whatever the time. It sent her wandering further than she might have gone otherwise, prowling from the business neighborhood to the bars and entertainment, even further to the residential area. As the General paced across the peak of a roof with her hands shoved deep into her pockets, she weighed her chances of finding prey here. People stumbling home from the bar? Out walking the dog, maybe?

Or maybe luck would smile on Cinnabar and she’d find someone as out of place as she was here. Someone who didn’t fit and held an air of suspicion. What fun do we have here?

There was a man standing beneath the tree across the yard, checking his watch. The line of his gaunt body, the way he stood, made her wonder if he was waiting for something, and none too patiently either. As she came to the end of the roof, Cin sank down into a crouch, her tail scraping dryly across shingles. A curious tilt of her head sent her hair cascading over a shoulder to tangle in the spikes there. If he were waiting for someone, she pondered, he’d be out where they could see him better. Dress in black, shading out of the path of the light, he was hard to pick out when you had human eyes. Maybe her slit-pupiled ones were not really much better, but she knew where to look. So what was he waiting for?

Glancing across the road, a girl left the sink to step back into the house and Cinnabar’s eyebrows raised. It looked like a warm, family home, fully occupied and unaware there was a stranger watching them through their uncurtained windows. Humans were incredibly dull and stupid sometimes. She wondered if they even bothered to lock their doors, but in DC, that seemed a very quick way to end up very dead one night.

Between inhale and exhale, she decided on her target for the night and teleported directly from the roof to the space beside the tree. Maybe he was doing nothing wrong, maybe she didn’t even care if he was planning to murder them all in their sleep, he had caught her interest and he was alone. Prey was weak when it was alone… Hopefully this one would prove to be some fun.

“What light through yonder window breaks, Romeo?” She purred as she leaned near his shoulder. The shadows that hid him could easily hide her too. Maybe he’d run… that would definitely be fun. Chase him down like a cat taking a rabbit…

Isaiah never heard an approach. It struck him keenly, and after the jump of hearing her voice so close, he glanced toward his new greeter to find out exactly why he hadn’t heard the clop of heel.

What he found himself faced with produced a visible start and stole his breath away.

Horns.

Tail.

Fangs.

The smile bloomed quickly and unabashedly across his face as a quiet laugh started up in his throat. This girl - whoever she was - not only dressed in hooker fashion, but wore the regalia of some kind of succubus. He figured it fake, it had to be with the meticulous care in placing every single scale along her body, along with the articulated whipping motions of the tail. Was she supposed to be a dragon or a demon? It didn’t matter, really; already he saw opportunity knocking, and with two very large knockers.

“I know exactly who I could sell you to,” he responded, voice low in their shared trespass. He started around the figure almost immediately, beginning with surveying the material of her coat (real leather, biker quality at that) to checking the tail (it certainly felt real, and it responded accordingly when caught) and the curious fingernails she sported (they weren’t glued on, he could tell from afar). Once he was satisfied with the quality of the costume he laid eyes on, he looked back toward her eyes themselves and found the slitted, blackened sclera staring back at him. “Look at you.

“Forget what I’m doing. I just found a dream come true. So what do you go by? Hecate? Lilith? Juliette?” Bony fingers probed pockets for a dwindling pack, and opened the flip-top to shuffle out one of the cigarettes. He offered it to her wordlessly; most demons indulged in every manner of sin they could, so if she really intended to play that part, she’d likely want one.

“More seriously, you look like you just left a BDSM club. And I do know someone quite willing to make a purchase of those services. You don’t even have to put out. It could be a decent deal, between the two of us.”

Things started out okay… he startled, as expected, and spun to face her, shock written across his angular features and widening bright eyes. But that is where the whole scenario she had been fully prepared to enjoy had fallen entirely apart.

Rather than being scared, rather than screaming or running or doing any of the things any normal person would do… he grinned instead, and came alive with animation. He seemed to practically vibrate as he came towards her, rather than moving away. Cinnabar stiffened as he circled her, her brows drawing down in a frown before rising high in disbelief. Completely knocked off kilter by his reaction, she stood passive through his examination, only the touch to her tail drawing her to flick it out of his hold and finally shift around to face him. Clawed hands shoved back her long coat to find her ample hips and she gave the man another long look over, head to toe and back again.

A blank hardness entered her features he spoke of selling, digging into his pockets and firing questions at her. Sell me… as though my body were currency. As though the ghost of my past has come back to haunt me at long last. Had this been a scant few weeks ago… she’d have ripped him open from throat to crotch and left him to bleed out, just for suggesting it. Over reaction, perhaps, but she never had been real rational when it came to triggers. Now? Now she felt displeasure, but there was confidence behind it. He could talk all he wanted, her body was her own and there was a precious few in this life who had any say over it. More than the displeasure though… was a building curiosity. Who was this man? Did he really think all of this was fake? And even if he did… was there nothing in the oddity of it that would alarm him? She found she wanted to know more than she wanted to see him dead. It was worth seeing where this went for a bit, before she made a decision about him. He seemed eager enough to talk.

Red eyes dropped to the hand he held out to her, cigarette between his long, thin fingers. She stared for only a moment before she reached for it, plucking it from him without touching skin.

“I feel like when you were created, something very vital to your survival got left out.” Cinnabar said as she settled the white stick between her fingers with the habit of years. She held out her other hand expectantly, claws sheathed, to await his lighter. “I would freak people out even at a BDSM club, Pet.”

Eyes narrowed, she played with the filter with her thumb, her lips pursed.

“I don’t sell my body. Someone did that for me, once, and if I ever manage to find him, I promise no one else ever will. Cinnabar. Or, if you want something more sensational as your other guesses suggest... Cin. And who might my hopeful-future-pimp be?”

”Brian Steele. I would say you were right, if I did not know myself.” Even as she about-faced, hazel eyes crawled over her scales, her coat, the way her hands framed her figure. She looked like everything in a Dante’s Inferno dream, from the typical devil horns to the thick scales for texture. He wondered how they felt when lubed. A single bony finger came to cross his chin thoughtfully when he finished looking her over. “But there comes a time in every person’s life where they cease caring if they survive. You know, a moment where you ask yourself if death would really be such a bother right now. It’s what urges people to jaywalk across highways, or talk back to cops, or discuss prostitution with girls who dress up like demons.”

Finally he took the last cigarette from the pack and pursed it between lips, then lit both hers and his own with the jet lighter hanging about his neck. He drew deep before he sighed through his nose, casting acrid smoke into the clear night air. For now, the family remained forgotten, along with all the treasures therein. He found, before him, a living story that demanded his attention.

He considered it blasphemy to refuse.

The pet names helped, but he flashed a courteous smile nonetheless. “Have you been to a BDSM club before? I promise you’d be a star. They could theme whole rooms after you, and all you’d have to do is crack a whip and tell someone that you’re going to piss on them if they don’t shape up. It isn’t selling your body so much as selling your cruelty. People want to be treated like dirt in this day and age, you know. Look at all the abusive relationships, the sordid headlines. They want to hurt, because their lives got too good to enjoy anymore. You’d be doing them a favor, or just enjoying how much they want your boot on their necks. It could be fun.” He shrugged.

He spared a glance toward the street, as if suddenly becoming aware of his surroundings again. The city proper indulged more traffic at night but most knew to avoid slowing down in the less savory areas. The south side of Destiny City proved exactly that, with run-down industrial intermixed with the oldest houses of the region, so most cars simply flashed the pair with headlights and moved past with no further recognition. No one bothered to speed up, but none slowed down either.

“But if you don’t want to partake…” He paused, flicked the ash from his cigarette. The smoldering flakes fell to the ground and burned themselves out not far from her heels. How did he not hear her coming? “I suppose it doesn’t really matter. So how did you manage all of… this?” A quick gesture to horns, eyes, tail.

The tip of her cigarette glowed red and she drew deeply. For a moment, the taste was acrid and she found herself faintly missing the sweetness of Cavendish… Spoiled, that’s what she was. These were no worse than what she had smoked herself, in another lifetime.

Are you at the end of your rope, Boy toy? I could help you with that. It would be like picking an apple, reach and pull and done. Would you thank me for it?

“I’ve been to one before, but not like this. I had a girlfriend once… dry as a bone, unless her hands were tied to something.” The memory crooked a smile across her lips and she let the smoke curl between them in lazy ropes. “I don’t doubt I’d draw a lot of attention.”

Probably not only the attention he meant, either. Not when her signature rolled outwards like a smoke cloud to those who could sense it. Tucking a hand under her other arm, Cin balanced her hand near her face, taking deep draws from the cigarette as she stood hip-shot.

“You’re an amusing little man, Pretty.” She hummed as she tilted her head to the side, her horns holding back her dark hair. “I don’t think you’d really appreciate the story though. Not when you seem to think all of this is just a fancy costume.”

A deeper draw pulled the ember all the way to the filter in one go and she flicked it to the grass, her stance shifting from lazy to focused in an instant. Reaching out, she caught her hand in his shirt to stop him moving as she stepped in close. She smiled and lifted her hand, showing him the scales across the back and her black nails. Making sure she had his attention, she flexed her fingers and claws shot from the thick tips, sharp as razors when she turned them to run down his jaw.

“Its all very real, I can assure you. I ate a monster, and became one. Are you so new you haven’t heard the stories? Seen the vigilantes on the news? Maybe not, since you were stupid enough to be loitering around alone in the dark…” It didn’t matter so much what she told him, any more, did it? He’d already seen too much of her, his starseed needed to be in her pocket when she left him. “Or was whatever it was really worth dying for? Were you looking for death tonight?”

Leaning in, her grip solid in his shirt, she bared her fangs at his jaw, pointed teeth set to scrape over his skin, baring any excited flailings. She half wanted to feel him squirm… his lack of fear was a disappointment thus far. By rights, she should be the scariest General to meet alone in the dark… there were plenty of officers, even, that showed fear when she was around. Why aren’t you afraid?

’Amusing’ and ‘little’ being both pejorative terms, some of Isaiah’s excitement softened into neutrality. He didn’t expect to make any particular impression on this woman, but her air of condescension irked him. Or was that part of the charade? One could not act the part of a demon without behaving imperiously. All men, all women as worthless slaves to be had, right? This one looked too unique to simply castigate and dismiss. He would bite his tongue, for now.

And the suspicion that she was something worthwhile found confirmation in a hand curled into his perfectly good mesh and leather shirt, where her fingers prodded through the fishnetting and pulled him close. He drew breath on instinct and held it during demonstration time. Up close he could see the way the scales formed along her hand, as if they grew out of the skin. And her nails, curious as they were, grew far more interesting with a sudden lengthening. Confusion laced its sticky fingers through his mind while he tried to reason out what he saw. Optical illusion? Magic trick? He couldn’t make sense of it.

But he did recognize quite well the giddying pain that came from an open cut awarded. Her finger, her nail, left a thin red line that spread outward slightly before a single droplet trailed down the slope of his neck. He breathed a short sigh, little more than a normal breath.

But perhaps the goosebumps beneath the fishnet sleeves offered a better response.

Whether acting as another or being herself, she knew the game and played it well. He was hooked, interested, at a loss. No real bargaining tools lay at his disposal beyond what meager interest he could draw into ‘Brian Steele’. A few options came to mind from part-time night mortician, to ex-gang member to a host of other cliche or wholesale strange options. But mostly he watched those fangs and struggled to respond with an ounce of intelligence.

He found it difficult, considering how blood to the brain suddenly became a secondary priority.

“I chose to move here, knowing the stories.” Whether that meant he looked explicitly for death in an active or passive sense, he wasn’t certain. Passive, he would guess, as he expected that if these vigilantes existed, they might end him eventually. Current experience suggested that they did not, but after meeting Cinnabar, she drew some interest to it. “But you don’t hear gunfire. There isn’t a military presence. The police force is still fairly small. If there was some truth to the danger, wouldn’t you say there’d be more to it? This town is in a panic.” And I wanted to take advantage. Could I assume it was just staking out a grave?

“I’ve been to Vegas and seen some of the best costumed performers. You’re right up in competition, Cinnabar, or even past that. And I’d keep trying to figure out your trick, but I’m having trouble getting past the fact that I just want to ******** you senseless.” The words were spoken conversational, without implication that he could succeed, while she held his shirt and his attention.

She couldn’t help laughing as he reacted to her in a way she recognized on a deep level. He wasn’t scared, which had been the entire point of the attempt, but turned on was a surprising little delight. It pandered to her need for dominance, she realized that readily enough.

“You don’t hear gunfire because we don’t fight with guns. You don’t hear about it on the news, because the cattle are kept ignorant to keep them docile...” She murmured, watching the bead of red roll down his throat. She swallowed roughly, feeling a cramping in her stomach as the ever present hunger woke up and made itself known. Cin couldn’t help it… she leaned in and ran her tongue up the side of his neck, licking the trail of red from his pale skin. The taste of iron was heavy in her mouth and it made her hungry. “I told you, Pet… Its not a trick. You need more convincing, obviously.”

This was such a bad idea… she knew that that. She should have killed him already and been done with it, but he was such a pleasing surprise… she wanted to puzzle him out before she ended him. What secrets lurked in his history, to produce the reactions he gave to her? Maybe Schörl could appreciate this… but on the other hand, she could as likely find her actions worth punishment. It was a good thing she wasn’t her superior any more.

That thought decided things, in the end.

The view around them abruptly changed, concrete and grass turning to short, pale blue carpet. The yellow of streetlights faded to be replaced with the silver of moonlight, this far above the traffic. The noise had lessened, surrounding them in silence and still air. Cinnabar released ‘Brian’ immediately and stepped away, her teeth flashing in the dark as she gave him a little space while she shrugged her coat off her scaled shoulders. The office building still had the ‘For Rent’ banner draped down its side. She’d seen it on the way to meeting him tonight and now it felt fortuitous. They shouldn’t be disturbed here, and he had no where in particular to go, unless he could fly. They could get to know each other in a more casual and intimate sort of way. Walking away from this would depend greatly on how the next few minutes went.

He wasn’t aware of any great changes to his conscious perception in the span of a few minutes.

In one moment, Cinnabar - or Cin - was explaining the lack of gunfire and military presence in a trite and boring way. Next, and most keenly remembered, she stooped inward from her greater height to lick some of the blood off his neck. He remembered taking that moment to thread a hand through her hair, soft as it was, and trace the sturdy horns with the pads of his fingers. he wanted to press her to his neck for further enjoyment but she relented. He remembered reminding himself to exhale, because somewhere in that display he forgot to continue breathing. And while he wanted to blame the lightheadedness, no amount of carnal advances or neglect to respiration would produce a reaction so violently jarring.

No, he quite keenly remembered standing adjacent to a wan tree, beneath the waxing moon, and watching a house that sat kitty-corner to the tree itself. He remembered the girl doing dishes, and the yelling match that ensued afterward. The garbled words echoed in his mind perfectly. And he most certainly remembered staring at the concrete sidewalk and Cinnabar’s footwear in an attempt to learn why he did not hear her approach.

His first concern was the disorientation - a dizzying lurch came over him that sent him stumbling into a nearby counter, which he soon recognized as some sort of reception area. The formica looked thick with dust that stuck to his hands relentlessly. A bitterness flooded his mouth and urged him to vomit but he spat the acrid saliva onto the floor to prevent vomiting. A thin sigh escaped him, he threaded a hand through his hair, and the thin sheen of cold sweat soon abated with the bizarre shift completed. When he was certain his legs would hold him, he pushed away from the counter and tried to evaluate the past minutes.

But he came up with no answers beyond accepting the obvious.

Nowhere near him stood the tree he loitered around. Windows offered a view to the main street, and across from their location he recognized a frozen yogurt shop that he liked to poke through about a mile from his house. It must’ve been two from the house, he figured, and unless he passed out, he knew of no possibility to cross that great distance in such a short time. But he hadn’t - he was sure of it.

Indoors he recognized the stifling banality of typical office space - a can light over the elevator door, the reception counter built into the floor, white walls, baseboards that crawled six inches up from the carpet, the typical industrial rug look, and the curving corridors that likely led to more office spaces. No - he recognized this place, since he often stared at it while eating across the street. He often wondered what it might be like to simply sit down in an empty office, to lie on the floor and know that no one would disturb him beyond the locked glass doors.

Well, now he knew. More or less.

The startle had not yet abated, so he lost a lot of the careful wit he often flaunted. “What just happened?” in a sense, he already knew but looked for outside clarification.

Cinnabar dropped her heavy leather coat across one of the chairs that sat ready and waiting for visitors to relax on. There would be none tonight, they might as well be useful for something.

“I teleported us from where you were window peeping to a rental office space I passed on the way there.” She said as she braced her hands on her hips again and paced towards him. Her hips swung lazily, her tail sweeping in time. He looked ready to throw up and it was amusing. The first couple of times were disorienting, but like much of her skills in the Negaverse, skill had come with more ease than most. She was glad he hadn’t blown chunks though. It would have killed the mood.

“Its one of the many things I can do. I just thought we could use some privacy while I convinced you. Are you still doubtful that I’m real? You can touch me now, if you want. Where do my horns attach…? Where is the motor for my tail…?” She teased him as she unbunkled her belt and tossed it onto the dusty counter with a rattle of metal spikes against formica. “I used to be human like you, Pet, but I’m not any more. Tell me why you didn’t run screaming away from me. Even if I were a woman in a costume like you assumed. Does money mean that much to you? Do you have some reason why danger doesn’t make you want to escape?”

She resisted the urge to lean over him and put her hands on the counter. The shift had put him off and she didn’t particularly want him to try and hit her yet.

”Teleportation. That’s calling it what it is.” The words tasted uncouth to him. His mind railed against the lack of logic involved - or perhaps the reformation of logic. If he could not disprove it, then did he have any reason against taking her at her word? Part of him felt sick, and the other part well pleased for this find. She presented another facet of reality to him here, and while standard logic urged him to disprove, he wanted this little fascination - this tale of his own. “And you say you have natural horns, and scales and tail.”

It was all so hard to disbelieve.

The clank of metal on metal drew his attention, a commanding sound that struck him each time. She now stood in a simple corset-type costume, with attached bottoms. It flattered her figure - not that it needed assistance. Between ample chest and a**, along with the slim waist demanded by common hourglass culture, Cinnabar looked like a proper model. It excited him, in a way, to know that he could touch someone that looked so fantastical and impossible. And if she invited it herself, why wouldn’t he?

So Isaiah approached, and at first he tried to make his tests clinical. Reaching upward, bony fingers parted through hair to find out the horns connected seamlessly to her head. He already believed what she had mentioned of being another kind, but that wasn’t the point when he could touch her on request. Those fingers sank back through thick, wavy hair to fall to scales on the shoulder. They felt hard, keratinous, and much like fingernails. He wondered, for a moment, how they might feel when trawled down back or stomach. And when his attention fell to the tail that connected so well to back, when he prodded fingers up beyond the thin corset material to find no connecting facet for the expanse of vertebrae now in his hand, he thought about how flexible it might be. He gave it a light tug. “Right, about that motor for your tail…” Teasing as well, hands such to the swells of her a** and gripped firmly. “I guess there is none.”

He released his grip before she decided to end the charades altogether, and backed away only so far to keep her tail within his grasp. He threaded fingernails through the thick tuft of fur thoughtfully. “My lack of fear is straightforward. When you get hurt, you build scar tissue. It compromises your ability to feel. And when you’re hurt enough, you lose that ability to feel. Life doesn’t have flavor anymore. You don’t get hurt, but you don’t enjoy anything either. Everything becomes this… Apathetic wash. It lets you do anything you want. The downside is, you can’t even feel enough to enjoy that sense of freedom. It’s a conundrum, but it’s my conundrum.”

She stood still as he came to her and reached for her horns, her head bowing to give him easy access to them. It was surprising, how much she enjoyed his fingers threading through her thick hair and sliding downwards. It made her wonder how it would feel to have his hands wrapped around her horns in a slightly different situation.

“Teleportation, yes. What else should I call it? I formed a picture in my mind, perfect to the last detail, of the place I wanted to be, then I reached out with my mind and my power, and I pulled... and we popped into existence here. Its not so hard, with practice.” His hands were on her a** now, gripping the firm flesh beneath the scales before he tugged at her extra appendage. It wasn’t enough to truly hurt… he could pull harder, really. A rich sound rolled from her throat then, a rattle a human throat shouldn’t be able to make. She purred, and it was very much a feline sound.

“You felt something, a moment ago.” She said with a pointed glance downwards. “Before I pulled you across town. I know what that feels like, though, oddly enough. I can attest that, given enough time and even without you being aware of it, you’ll start feeling again… and then you’re ********, because you’ll realize it just in time for all new levels of pain. Isn’t life grand?”

Schörl would say something about pain, at this point, she was sure. About the joys of it, or whatever. Some pain was fun, she could agree with that, but some of it was not. He struck a chord in her she didn’t like to admit to, and there were better things to do than wallow in the damaged portions of their minds.

“I can make you feel something else for a while.” Cinnabar offered as she trailed after him, angling herself so he was between her and the countertop. Her tail twitched in his grip, flexing against and between his fingers. “You’ll have to forget you met me, afterwards, if you want to keep on living your blissfully ignorant life. I’m not supposed to let people remember me who aren’t one of ours… but if I’m just a dream, then you can go on pretending there’s nothing dangerous in this city.”

”Considering I’ve never sat down and decided to practice teleporting before, or really meditated on demonic existence, I don’t think I’d have the same luck with it.” The sarcasm rolled with the absurdities and Isaiah left his retort at that. She posed teleportation as a simple task, one that demanded little more than a thought. And perhaps that was so, but what of the rest of them? Did this power belong solely to things like her?

The guttural sound emanating from Cinnabar caught his attention immediately, and several seconds passed before he recognized the noise for what it was. Isaiah’s brows arched when he looked up to her, questioning with incredulity. Is that a purr? She’s purring? So she’s a cat devil? I can’t tell. It looks like my demonology has gotten a little rusty since the last time I bought something related to astaroth or baal. Shame on me for letting it lapse so far; I would’ve enjoyed picking out which demon she matched so well.

This might be a one time chance, and I’m not going to waste it by asking her about her purring.

Her cynicism brought to mind thoughts of having cyanide with his morning coffee. Leaning against the counter, Isaiah’s nails picked at the formica. He dug and tore and pried while he fought against thinking about the eventualities of life, and all the dolorous and depressing minutia that he must slog through in order to reach a decent baseline again. Such thoughts brought to mind his sobriety, and whether he still found it worth the effort. But when he could get high to abandon all these hopeless thoughts, why wouldn’t he?

Finally he relinquished his grasp on her tail. He imagined that holding it captive before her felt odd and might’ve tampered with her balance. She enjoyed playing dominant, and he happily obliged. She bespoke a tall and imposing presence, between her sexualized appearance and the sheer size of her, down to the nonhuman portions that urged a certain primal fear of wrongness. “Considering I’m wondering if I haven’t gone completely mental myself, this seems like something you’d want to keep under wraps.” His thumb pressed to the thin cut from earlier.

“So spare me some enlightenment, Cinnabar,” he paused as he straightened to graze her jaw with teeth. Lips remained pressed to mandible while he spoke. “Afterward you’ll be a figment.”

[quote="Whimsical Blue]