Chapter 213: Stay Back *

The charm wasn’t holding Echidna. The memory of his tongue was. He stepped forward.

"Stay back."

He stepped forward again.

"Silas."

He kept coming. She lunged.

Wrong move. Her momentum carried her straight into him, and he caught her like she’d thrown herself at him on purpose, arms closing around her waist, breasts crushed against his chest, one horn knocking against his jaw. She clawed at his shoulders and drew blood, but he didn’t flinch.

"Release me!"

"You attacked me."

"I did no such thing, I-"

Anna’s hand closed around his cock.

Silas’s groan cut her protest clean in half. Echidna went rigid, her eyes dropping to the dark head bent at his hip.

"What is she..."

"Anna," Silas managed, "is saying hello."

Anna surfaced just enough. Her lips were slick. Her eyes smiled at Echidna over the head of his cock.

"He’s mine first," she said sweetly. "I’m sharing."

Echidna’s pride detonated. "He is not yours. He is... he is MINE."

"Mine," Anna agreed, and sank.

Echidna stared.

The Mother of Monsters, ancient and undefeated, watched a human nurse take Silas to the root beneath the water, and something hot and possessive cracked open in her chest. Not the charm. Something older. Something she had never needed a name for.

She turned on Silas. "When she is done, I will..."

Chloe’s hand touched her shoulder.

Echidna flinched. It was time for round two.

"I am not—"

"Why are you shaking?"

Her mouth opened and closed. Chloe’s other hand found her hip beneath the water, cold fingers tracing the scales at her waist, climbing.

"Stop that."

Chloe’s thumb found the seam of her thigh.

"Stop..."

Chloe kissed the junction of her neck and shoulder.

The protest died in her throat. Cold lips on overheated skin, the impossible contrast, and Echidna gasped. The gasp became a shudder. The shudder became her hips pressing into Chloe’s hand.

"No," she breathed. "I will not..."

Gromda rose behind her. In that instant Echidna understood what prey felt like. Gromda’s arms closed around her from behind, and her mouth found Echidna’s ear, speaking the old tongue they shared.

"You fought the magic. Good. Magic is for cowards." Her hips pressed against Echidna’s ass, runes burning against her scales. "This is real."

Echidna’s tail thrashed. Her claws found Gromda’s forearms and raked deep, drawing blood, but Gromda only laughed, low and delighted, and held her tighter.

"Fight," Gromda said. "We like it when you fight."

Chloe’s fingers found her clit again.

Echidna’s head snapped back against Gromda’s shoulder. That broken cry tore out of her again, and this time she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t swallow it, couldn’t pretend her hips weren’t grinding into Chloe’s cold hand.

"Please," she said. Then hated herself. "No. Stop. I command you to..."

"Say it like you mean it," Silas said.

She looked at him. Over Anna’s bobbing head, over her own traitorous hips, she looked at him, and he was watching her, calm and patient and utterly unafraid.

The first thing in an age that had ever made her want.

"I am not surrendering to your magic," she said, and her voice shook.

"I know."

"I am surrendering to..." She couldn’t finish.

"To us," Chloe said softly, fingers circling. "To this. To feeling something after all those cold centuries."

Echidna’s throat worked. Her claws scrabbled at Gromda’s arms. Her tail curled, uncurled, curled again.

"Don’t be kind to me," she whispered. "I don’t know what to do with kind..."

"Then don’t do anything," Silas said. "Just feel it."

Anna pulled off his cock with a wet gasp. She rose, water streaming, and pressed her mouth to his, sharing the taste before sinking back under.

Silas crossed the last of the water.

He took Echidna’s face in both hands, gently, and kissed her. A kiss with nothing in it but patience.

Echidna made a sound she had never made, small and broken, almost a sob.

Her claws came up, and instead of raking him, they buried themselves in his pink hair and held on like he was the only warm thing in a world of cold.

"Again," she said against his mouth. "I want..."

"Tell me what you want."

"I don’t know the word."

"Show me."

She couldn’t. So she kissed him back, and let Chloe’s cold fingers work her, let Gromda’s runes burn against her scales, and let Anna’s mouth work him under the water, and let herself be held- truly held- for the first time in her immortal life.

The pleasure built like a tide. Chloe found the rhythm: cold fingers, warm water, the contrast driving her higher. Gromda’s teeth grazed her neck, her shoulder, the base of her horn. Anna swallowed Silas to the root, and his groan traveled through his chest, through Echidna’s back, through her bones.

"Silas..."

"Let go."

"I can’t~."

"You can." His forehead pressed to hers. "You already did once. Do it again. Let us catch you."

Her eyes met his, molten, dazed, and terrified. And she let go.

She writhed. There was no other word for it. Her whole body seized and shuddered and rolled against Chloe’s hand, Gromda’s chest, and Silas’s mouth. Her cry rolled across the water and up into the steam, ancient and new and utterly hers. The charm had nothing to do with it. The system had nothing to do with it.

This was choice. This was surrender. This was an age of loneliness finally breaking.

She came apart in the water, and they held her through it. Chloe’s cold fingers gentled. Gromda’s arms stayed steady. Silas’s mouth rested softly against her temple. Anna surfaced to watch with something like wonder.

The water stilled.

Her chest heaved. Her claws were still buried in his hair. Her tail floated limp and satisfied.

"You are all dangerous," she breathed.

"We know."

She looked at him. At Anna, lips swollen. At Chloe, blue eyes soft. At Gromda, runes fading from green to crimson, blood still beading on her forearms.

"Again."

Silas blinked. "What?"

"Again." Her claws tightened in his hair. "I have an age of feeling to catch up on. And I am starting..." Her golden eyes blazed, "...with all of you."

The system pinged.

[Charm and Lust: resisted.]

[Outcome: irrelevant.]

[Target has chosen freely.]

[New status: Echidna — Obsessed (Organic).]

[Good luck surviving.]