Page 26 of Zodiac Demons

Maybe mate separation sickness is worth the pain.

“And your brother is a Zodiac Shifter and a…” I knew who Marcus’ father was, obviously, and I knew his brother was also only half blood related, so the shared parent had to be his Zodiac Shifter mother since he’d also been able to place a mark on her.

“Half Capricorn, half Incubus.” He confirmed without any hesitation over outing his brother’s species make-up. An Incubus tracked for Lamia. A Serpent, a vampire, and an incubus. Poetic. What poor fools we all were. “If you think about it, you and your brother’s parent situation was toxic and aggressive, while my parental dynamic was an almost disturbingly happy throuple, so there are a lot of parallels to how we’re all about to be—”

“Stop, by the damn devil, don’t even put those words out into the world.” I groaned.

“Too late.” He laughed, and it was not at all funny.

My expression flattened at the mental image that I did not need, because I knew his image of a ‘happy throuple’ somehow involved me in between the both of them. “Well if it was possible to be any less excited about this, we’ve reached a new circle of hell.”

“Can’t wait,” he added coyly before I hung up and threw my phone into a pile of laundry. His brother. An Incubus no less.

This just kept getting worse and worse and worse.

Chapter 10

Sixteen Months Ago

“Veloce Hot Springs never disappoints,” I said to Ceto as he walked behind me in the hall to our assigned room. We’d be sharing a room together, and I still didn’t know what to make of that. He’d been another level of timid around me since last full moon, but every now and again, he’d say something that made me think it was all an act.

I wanted to pull that darkness out of him. There was always more to the quiet nerds than they let on, and there was something about this one in particular that I couldn’t look away from.

“I’m just glad it’s not a full moon for once.” Ceto kept his eyes trained on the floor as he spoke. Considering we were half way through the month of the Aquarius, and I couldn’t touch water without shifting during the full moon, I was actually pretty happy that the field trip had been delayed until the new moon. He’d been ignoring my texts and acting extremely guarded during Astrology Club, so the serendipity of getting assigned as roommates for this little overnight getaway meant getting his full attention at a time that felt a bit less like a time bomb.

That was better for our… relationship, whatever that was.

Maybe he just saw me as a mistake of a one night stand when neither of us was thinking straight, but I wasn’t really interested in being forgettable. He certainly hadn’t left my mind, anyway.

I arrived at the door to our room and inserted the key into the old lock. This resort had been around for ages, and in many ways, it showed. But no sooner had I stepped inside did both of us stop in our tracks.

“They must have made a mistake.” Ceto’s dark complexion did not hide the bright red in his cheeks, and I didn’t need the ability to read his mind to guess why he was so hot and bothered the moment he saw there was only one bed.

Interesting.

Whatever was this little Omega imagining in that bed?

I placed a hand over the lower half of my face to look contemplative, while I was actually just trying to hide my accidental grin.

“I’m pretty sure we got the last room, so this might have just been the only option.” I won’t say I had any intention of fucking him in that singular bed, but I also won’t say I wasn’t picturing what kind of face he might make if I did. I also won’t say that I was particularly upset about this mix up.

“It would be unreasonable to expect two grown adults to share only one bed on a school trip. I’m sure they must have something else left.” He couldn’t even look at me anymore, and by the devil, he was so damn cute. “I’ll go talk to the receptionist.”

Ten minutes and a heated argument with the staff later, we were unpacking our things in this quaint little room, with this comfortable, singular bed that had plenty of room for ‘two grown adults’ to ‘sleep.’

“W-well, being you’re a vampire, I assume you won’t need to sleep anyway, so I guess it’s not a problem.” Ceto carried on, his distress absolutely decadent from my comfortable position with my hands behind my head, laying on that bed we would be sharing.

“I’m as much shifter as I am Vampire, which has oddly enough made me primarily Diurnal instead of Nocturnal. Though I suppose I can tolerate late nights as well as the next college guy. But you’re mostly snake, right? So I assume the night is typically your preferred hunting time.”

“I’m a Basilisk, not a snake,” he snapped, like it made any difference. “We look like serpents, but we’re demons with completely different rules. I have never ‘hunted at night.’ I don’t actually need to hunt at all in the modern world, actually.”

I suppose that made sense. Unlike Vampires and Incubus, their food wasn’t any different than what humans already farmed and produced for consumption.

“Can’t relate.” I waved him off dismissively. “Do you even count as a so-called ‘monster’ if you don’t need humans for sustenance in any capacity? That’s weird. And not very scary. I don’t get why the ancients feared the Basilisk so much.”

Ceto’s brow twitched, and I was enjoying this way too much. “This is crazy, I know, but being able to shut down a human’s organs one by one, before turning their entire body to stone with nothing more than a wayward glance, does scare your average mortal.” He sounded needlessly exasperated. “What kind of shifter are you mixed with exactly? You talk about being a vampire all the time, yet you seem to conveniently avoid mentioning what else you are.”

“I’ll tell you as soon as you tell me.” I rolled my head to the side to face his general direction, while he was packing his clothing into the closet. Adorably hypocritical when he was so blatantly avoidant about his own species make up. Everyone born and raised in Graves knew the Arya were Basilisks, just like everyone knew Emery was a vampire legacy, but I did not know what else the serpent king stuck his dick in.