Well, fuck. What did it say about his supposed employer that their business name used the term monster? What exactly had the Supernatural Council signed him up for? As curious as thatparagraph had him after all the monster romances he’d read, he had no intention of sticking around to find out. Leaving the phone on the table in case it was being tracked, he scooped up the keys and headed for the door, determined to get out of the city.
He almost immediately second-guessed himself when he emerged into the hallway and almost ran face-first into someone very large and very green. With tusks.
“Fuck. Sorry,” he muttered.
“Welcome to the building, human!” the orc answered cheerfully, striding to the elevator to call it for him.
“Ah, thanks. You too,” Liam replied with a vague wave, wincing to himself at the awkward reply.
Thankfully, the orc must’ve been arriving home rather than leaving, because she just waved enthusiastically instead of trying to squeeze into the elevator with him.
When he stepped out of the front entrance, the street he emerged onto seemed quiet. Large draping trees arched over a road devoid of traffic, which was overlooked by buildings walled in lush green plants. Some of them were purely decorative, but the walls he walked past at street level often sported edible plants like kale.
He’d skimmed the map in the folder before he left, so he knew if he headed west, he should reach the border of the city within three blocks. Sure enough, a shimmering heat haze filled the air ahead of him as he reached a road sign that read ‘Sentry Street’. The haze stretched far overhead before arching back toward the centre of the city, like the whole place was enclosed in a dome.
Forcing his feet forward, he crossed the road until whatever it was he could see was right in front of him. Reaching out a hand, he touched a single fingertip to the place where light was twisting … and woke up flat on his back on the other side of the road from the barrier.
Groaning, he rolled onto his side before pushing back to his feet. He’d known it would be too easy if he could just walk out of there, but he’d had to try. Following Sentry Street around to the north, he searched for a gate or opening of some kind. Anything. He walked all afternoon until his feet ached and his mouth rasped with thirst. And he ended up right back where he’d started. There was no road in or out. No break in the barrier. Nowhere he could go to get free.
Giving up in disgust, he limped back to the apartment he’d been left in and shoved his face under the tap in the kitchen to drink straight from the water pouring out. He had just enough energy to microwave a serving of lasagne he found in the fridge and choke it down before staggering to bed and collapsing.
Sunday brought no more luck than the previous day, but with the added bonus of blisters from his impromptu hike. The only creepy silver lining was that someone had moved his entire wardrobe with him, so at least he had his own clothes to wear. When he finally sat down to read the folder more carefully from cover to cover, he cursed himself. He could’ve saved himself the trip if he’d read it first—the only way to enter or exit the city is by magical portal. If you require transport, please message your council contact for approval.
Where could he find someone who’d be willing to make him a portal? The wholly inadequate summaries of the species didn’t list which were capable, but he had to assume the lust demonwho’d brought him here could. Maybe he could track him down once he figured things out a bit more.
In the meantime, he ate comfort food and binge-watched baking shows in the hopes it would make him forget the list of species he’d just read about—gargoyles, orcs, demons, angels, fae, gorgons, hellhounds, and more. Along with the carefully annotated footnote that the existence of such species was entirely unrelated to any human religious or mythological concepts, and any individual purporting to be, or be associated with, a deity of any kind should be reported to the Council immediately. That footnote clearly had a story behind it.
It was all intimidating as fuck. Plus, he had to face his first day in a job he hadn’t applied for tomorrow. He didn’t even know what he’d be doing. They’d better not expect him to be some supernatural expert. His love life might’ve been a horny, drama-filled mess back home, but his work life had always been the opposite. At work, he was dedicated, respected, and conscientious. That’s part of why it had sucked so much to be laid off. He’d been damn good at his job!
Determined not to let these assholes at the Council ruin his life, he decided he was going toacethis fucking job while he searched for someone to portal him out of there. Monster Mercenaries would never have seen an employee as professional as him.
That determination lasted him all the way through getting his security card from the slender receptionist with glitteringwings, past the orcs and hellhounds on the ground floor, and down to the basement where he’d been directed to report. The rest of the workers located down there must’ve been later starters because there was no sign of anyone as Liam hurried past a dozen desks covered in knick-knacks and what looked suspiciously likestray bladed weapons, and through a cosy employee lounge and kitchen.
The desk just outside the office he was heading to was clear of anything but a closed laptop, presumably waiting for Liam. The office itself was walled in the kind of high-tech glass that could be switched from clear to opaque at the touch of a button.
The door swung open before he could knock, followed by a wave of an all-too-familiar fiery scent. The stern face of the horned demon sitting behind the desk gave nothing away as Liam stepped inside.
So much for professionalism.
What were the chances his new boss would be the same lust demon he’d been all over instead of running away from when he kidnapped him? The same one who’d finally gotten sick of Liam’s whining and knocked him out by making him come in his pants.
He was mortified. He was also hard.
CHAPTER 3: AYDEN
The human wasthe horniest little thing he’d ever met, and he’d met more horny people than most. Ayden leaned back in his chair as he took in the image Liam made standing in his office and fought to hide the way his demon soul was sucking down the energy of the human’s arousal like he’d been parched for years instead of months. It was so tempting to slide his glasses down his nose and peer over them so he could see the human’s fantasies that the lenses screened from intruding on his mind, but he resisted the urge.
Ayden didn’t really have a physical preference, but he could admit Liam’s slender lines and short stature had a certain appeal. He was strong enough to man-handle even the largest orcs and gargoyles, but it was always easier to play that way with someone he could tuck under his chin. The human’s skin was pale in a way that contrasted beautifully with his neatly trimmed black hair and would flush delightfully red when he blushed or under any impact play. His grey eyes were lined with just a hint of eyeliner, and his enticingly lush lips shone with an apple-red gloss.
The previous night, Liam had been a vision in a short, pleated skirt, a crisp black shirt, and heels. Ayden wasn’t sure if that was fancy dress for the party or his usual clubbing attire. His outfit for work was more subtle, a masterpiece of what Mish, their receptionist, would call ‘corporate goth’—wide black slacks and a sleeveless collared shirt with lines of silver snap-button details that begged to be ripped open without revealing nearly enough.
As stunning as Liam was to admire, Ayden was more about energy than looks, and Liam’s was intoxicatingly, mouth-wateringly satisfying. Fuck knew what was going through the human’s head, but he was generating more desire just standing there than some orgies Ayden had started. It was enough to have the tip of his tail slipping inside his pants to wrap around his dick before he thought to control himself.
How irritating. He hated it when Lucian got one over on him like this. His demon boss had not been impressed when Ayden had to call in back-up to their last large-scale portalling because he hadn’t been feeding enough to handle it himself. Foisting the human rescue on him had been pitched as punishment for that failure, but now he suspected his interfering boss was being more nefarious, a favourite pastime of demons. Liam’s horny presence next to him was basically like providing him a packed lunch every day—nutrition on tap.
He wasn’t a child who needed to be fed, dammit! It was bad enough that Lucian had seen him at his lowest and offered him the helping hand of this job managing the entire portalling division of his company. Even desperate, Ayden would have turned him down if he’d thought it was just out of pity, but he was one of only two demons known to have portalling magic—the other being his boss—and Ayden’s unique health challenges made him even more well-qualified for the job. His insatiablehunger had left him able to contain much more energy than most demons of his level, perfect for excelling at energy-intensive portals. It had also lost him literal decades to a haze of gluttony.
Ayden didn’t trust himself not to fall back into old habits despite the treatment he was now receiving. It would take more than a few months to undo a lifetime of never feeling full, no matter how much he devoured. In the meantime, he might have taken the blessed relief from hunger too far and developed a slight avoidance of feeding that, ironically, meant he was still often hungry and had led to his failure at work.