Page 31 of Zodiac Demons

“It won’t be fine.” I shook my head. “I can’t just… You have no idea what’s expected of me as an Arya family heir.”

He neared the edge of his bed, and I scooted back, trying to maintain distance.

“And I don’t care. The old guard doesn’t get to decide what we do for fun. You’re not just some one-trick basilisk. You’re an all powerful hybrid. Why should you have to be someone’s political pawn just because your parents founded the city? Live a little. Let yourself have some fucking agency.” The words sounded nice, but they weren’t based in reality. He came from a family that, in all of their importance and prestige, had no obligations to maintain the species. He wasn’t the last of his kind, and a rare descendant of a King. Vampires were prevalent species, and despite the impressive lineage of Hidalgo Emery, his offspring would never be bound to laws or covenants that the Aryas were.

If he fucked up or mated with someone his family didn’t approve of, he’d just be disowned at worst. If I did the same, I’d be removed from the family line to preserve our image, or my mate would be removed from the realm of the living to free me of the bond without risking permanent rejection. I could sleep with anyone I wanted, but another shifter had the potential to force something monogamous, or put me in a position to require full rejection where I’d lose all ability to mate, since I had shifter blood myself.

People like father or even Omari could choose to sleep with as many breed-able mates as they’d like, since ultimately they couldn’t be marked or forced into a bonding pact. Even mother was only his wife so long as he enjoyed her company. Fortunately that had been a long time, and they actually loved each other, but there was no magic dictating their relationship like mine could have.

“So what, you want me to just run away with you? Disappear into the ether where no one will ever find us.” I scoffed, while Marcus placed his knee on the mattress. “You think my family would let me get very far? I’m not just a Basilisk. I’m an Omega.” I reminded him sharply. Fucking Alpha privilege could never understand. “The amount of value that gets imposed on Omegas, especially now that the magic realms have discovered I could potentially impregnate any species without obstacle or exception, is something you should be grateful you’ll never experience.”

“How badly did your upbringing fuck you up that even you talk about yourself like you’re nothing more than a useful object? You’re no one’s fucking tool.” He rolled his eyes, while those words hit something in me that meant more than he would ever know. “You’re a person, you’re a monster, you’re an untouchable demon.” His snide grin as he climbed on top of me and placed a hand on my chest was annoyingly charming. “They can’t force you to do anything. No one is going to chain you to a bed and make you their breeding conduit without your permission.” I kept my eyes on his as he pressed me down into the comforter. I didn’t push back like I should have. “I would rip out their throats if they even tried, I promise.” He punctuated with a flash of fangs.

“You have the power to do that though.” I glared at him, both of us knowing exactly what kind of position I was still in with him. “You made a point to put me at your mercy, and that’s just as bad.”

“Is it, really?” He started undoing the top button of my shirt, his nails brushing the enchanted beads around my neck. He smirked at my only protection, which he could so easily remove if he wanted to. I’d made the mistake of telling him what those beads did when he’d asked why I always wore it, and I was regretting that now. “I’m pretty sure your body disagrees. If anything, it seems like just thinking about all of the power I could have over you gets you excited.” He pinned my wrists beneath him, and I just stared up into those golden eyes that I wished I could trust. “I’m pretty sure you’re dying to let me fuck you, but you’re so tangled in these bullshit politics that you won’t let yourself just fucking exist.”

“I…” I bit my tongue. He was wrong. We’d already gone further than we should have, more times than we should have, and anything he was thinking of doing on this bed was a level of intimacy that was too far. “You’re wrong.”

“Mmmhmmm.” He shook his head with pure amusement, my lie completely unconvincing to the both of us. “I wish I could read what you’re thinking in that head of yours. I can only imagine the depraved things you’re hoping I’ll do to you without having to ask.” He chuckled, and I looked away, no longer able to stand the intensity of his eye contact, while the heat in my cheeks was becoming too much for me to handle. “I thought giving you a safe word as easy as ‘stop’ would be more than enough to help you feel like you’re in control, but all you ever say is ‘we can’t, we shouldn’t, this is too much,’” He hooked one finger beneath my necklace and rolled the bead around its string. “Why is that word so difficult for you to say?” The question was rhetorical, even if just because I didn’t want to answer it. “It would be so much easier to know what you really wanted if you’d just let me in.” He leaned in close and sniffed along my neck, taking in my scent like a hungry animal.

“I’m telling you what I really want,” I said, while the soft touch of his breath tickled my skin. My whole body shivered from the contact, while my cock had been fully at attention from the moment he’d pushed me beneath him.

“Liar.” He leaned down and touched his lips to my neck. “You’re telling me what you think you’re supposed to want.” He slid one hand down my body, and he cupped me between my legs, adding pressure as he tasted my skin. My breathing was slow and shaky, as he nipped at my neck, and kneaded me where I needed it most.

“M-Marcus…” I bit my lip, subconsciously wanting to silence any protest that might come next. At some point, I was going to have to admit that neither my body, my mouth, nor my mind were actually betraying me. That I felt something so electric with him, that there wasn’t a single cell in my body that wanted to argue.

At some point I’d admit that. But right now, I wasn’t ready, internally or otherwise.

My eyes fluttered closed as he undid the button on my pants. My hands had long been freed, but I didn’t push him off me, as he threaded his fingers beneath my underwear while he pressed increasingly breathless kisses to my neck. I hissed a sharp moan as he gripped my cock, and I may have even laced my fingers through his soft hair, in some misguided and confused bid for more.

“Tell me you want it.” His words were unraveled as he smeared precum down my cock. “Or tell me you don’t, and I’ll stop. We can end this right here. I won’t bother you anymore. No more hard decisions. No more confusing, uncomfortable, ‘what are we?’ discussions.”

Of everything I wanted and needed right now, telling him to stop was the only request that felt impossible.

“Use your words,” he whispered, while he started removing my pants with a harsh jerk. “Yes or no, stop or go. You’re not restricted. You have a choice. Tell me to you don’t want me to continue, or I’m going to keep going until you do.”

I looked away and covered my own mouth, both as a way to stop myself from protesting, and as a silent admission that I wouldn’t be making any such demands. I knew better, but he also knew me better, and this was the only way I could convince myself it was okay to keep going.

“That’s what I thought.” He smirked before he tossed my clothes aside. He pulled back only long enough to take off his shirt, offering a view of well-defined muscles on a lean build. I watched him, breathing heavy, but unable to look away as he started to undo his own belt.

Was I really going to go through with this? He… he could already mark me. He already had that power. I knew that. But why did this feel like I was consenting to something so much more? And why couldn’t I argue? I knew his compulsion didn’t work on me, but to admit that he worked on me—his heart, his dominance, his fucking everything—was more honest than I knew how to be with myself. “Do you want a new safe word, cupcake?”

I shook my head, and that was my last chance to use logic or reason, before he had me fully beneath him, my body pinned to the bed with his, and his tongue tangling with mine. He prepped me slowly with his fingers, slickened with my Omega’s natural lubricant, while he took my voice in fevered kisses and set my whole soul on fire with every desperate, devouring connection. I was holding onto him, digging my fingers into his back, letting myself beg for more, when he removed those fingers and replaced them with the hard tip of his cock.

“Please say yes.” He broke our kiss long enough to ask me one last time.

And I didn’t let myself think before I responded with that “yes” that he wanted so damn badly. It was a temporary moment of insanity, where I’d given into the teasing and my own desires for once, and immediately I knew I’d fucked up.

Because that was…

That was consent.

Fuck, that was too much consent. That was enough to appease the devil, himself.

Maybe he was the devil, himself.

Maybe that was what I liked about him.