your seat at the Mouth because you’re suddenly a picky eater?” He sounded incredulous, but I didn’t miss the undertone of worry. The big idiot thought I was bluffing and was getting ready to call me out.
Good. Try me.
“I’m willing to take my chances among them,” I hissed, the pain now turning to numbness, “before spending another minute on your nasty demon dick.”
He laughed, but I’d spent enough years among his kind to know he was furious. All these demons were fucking ego-driven. Their sense of self-importance was all they truly had.
“Go then, little succubus. Let the humans get one look at those pretty horns and see how kindly they take to you.” He yanked me up by my arm, bringing his hot, slimy mouth next to my ear. “And when you come crawling back, I won’t feed you nicely.”
With that, he threw me violently. And not for the first time, I wished I’d been a fallen angel instead, with the ability to fly to my freedom.
I was no angel. I had no wings and I couldn’t tell which way was down or up.
But I was falling.
2
Bless Me, Father
Stavros
"Bless me father, for I have sinned—"
"Stav—"
I made a soft growl at the back of my throat, cutting Zach off. "It's been…two and a half months since my last confession."
"We don't have to do this in here," Zach murmured, his shadow shifting through the screen of the dark confessional. "If you want to talk—"
"No, like this." I pinched the frayed knee of my jeans between my fingers, grimacing at nothing. I didn't want to sit across a table from Zach and his pretty-boy face, eerily beautiful mismatched eyes watching me as I talked about…about her.
"Where's Kais?" I asked, realizing I didn't want to be talking to Zach about this at all. Zach was… well, he was also a topic I felt similarly guilty about sometimes, and talking to him about this was all a little too closely related.
"Scouting the border," Zach said. "Is this about him?"
"No," I said immediately. "I've been…having lustful thoughts."
In spite of everything, in spite of the world we lived in, the roles we played, Zach still had it in him to laugh. Well, snort at least.
He cleared his throat and his hands ran over his thighs in the booth next to me. "Stav, you've gotta be kidding me with this."
"It's different," I muttered. "They're dreams but…not normal ones."
I expected him to laugh again, and harder, but this time he was serious. "What kind of dreams?" he asked, voice pitching up with curiosity.
I scowled. "What kind of dreams do you think?"
"Hey, you wanted confession, man."
I groaned and bent forward, my elbows on my knees, hands scrubbing my face.
"Man or woman?" he asked.
I blinked, suddenly wanting to peer through the screen. Had I ever mentioned being bisexual before? I didn’t think so. Zach knew me, knew my…habits with a couple of the women in town. But I was glad he didn’t sound judgmental as he asked the question.
"Woman," I said. "Beautiful, but…you know how in dreams someone you know might not look the same, but you know it's them anyway? Or a stranger in your dream might look like someone you know?"
"Mm." Noncommittal agreement.
"Well, she's unfamiliar on both counts."
"What happens in the dream?"
"It's not about that," I said quickly. She has me pinned to the bed somehow, even though there are no ropes or cuffs, and her mouth runs over every inch of me like she's inhaling me…
"What does she look like?"
I scowled at Zach's open curiosity. Fuck. I should've waited for Kais. "It's not about that either."
"I'm confused about what this is about then, Stavros," Zach said, voice taking on weight.
Zach wasn't a little dude, but he was undeniably young, at least in mine and Kais' eyes. Still, he had a command to him, and you could see the faces of the community brighten when he gave sermons full of hope, as if he could infuse it into them. He'd come of age at the end of the world and it hadn't beaten him in the same way as the rest of us. Maybe you could adapt to the apocalypse if it happened when you were a kid.
"Maybe I'm not confessing the lustful thoughts," I said. "I…these dreams are like waking up somewhere else. I don't remember what's going on in the world in them. I don't remember anything but her, and it's like she's…real. And she's all there is. It's a fucking relief, honestly." Zach hummed again. "Two