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  The sad clown stroked Caroline’s face and her stomach. She tilted her head this way and that like she had before, as though inspecting Caroline, considering her. She seemed to be trying to reassure Caroline, but Caroline couldn’t relax, not when the happy clown crawled closer, forcing himself between her legs. He insinuated his hands under her skirt, holding her down by her bare legs. And those hands were creeping up, grasping her higher and higher on her thighs.

  “Let go of me! Goddammit, let me go! What are you doing? Stop!” Panic sluiced through her like liquid lava. Her heart raced, pounding fiercely against her ribs. Tears pricked at the corners of her waterproof-mascaraed eyes. Was this really happening?

  Madoc had promised. He’d promised she would be safe and unharmed. She trusted him on so little, but she’d trusted him on that.

  The jinni had lied. And that lie had led to her letting down her guard.

  Caroline thrashed like an eel on a hook, but she couldn’t budge the two male clowns as they stared at her. The happy clown pushed her skirt up to reveal her panties.

  The happy clown tilted his head the way that the sad clown did. He leaned in, his nostrils flaring. Then he rose up again, meeting Caroline’s eyes.

  And he smiled.

  It was the most horrifying thing Caroline had ever seen. Almost from ear to ear, his smile broke open like a gash in his face, ignoring the contours of human lips at the center. He smiled with the sound of a hundred cracking knuckles, exposing four rows of dozens of thin, conical sharp teeth. He had no lips to speak of, just lines where his face opened up.

  She flailed even more violently than before, screaming, but she couldn’t even hear herself with the rush of blood in her ears. She twisted to beg the gentler sad clown to help her, but her mouth was the same, snapping open to reveal those teeth. And when she looked up at the clown holding her upper body, he had the same terrifying maw that had been painted onto his face—a sort of sick inside joke.

  The happy clown’s tongue slithered out over his teeth and waved obscenely in the air before he dipped his head between her legs. The tip hovered near her panties. She could feel the heat of it emanate through the cloth.

  Caroline squeezed her streaming eyes shut. Her screams had devolved into choking cries. No one was coming to save her. This was really happening to her. Her whole body trembled under the clowns’ hands. The tender strokes of the sad clown now seemed like a mockery. Would they kill her after? Those teeth weren’t there for decoration like their painted faces. Was this her end, to be used then consumed by a trio of demonic clowns? How much would it hurt? How much would they torture her?

  Suddenly, although the clowns didn’t release her, they were hissing, their tongues writhing as though they were in pain. Caroline blinked away tears. Madoc emerged from the blur behind the sad clown. Caroline couldn’t stop shaking, sobs expelling from her like poisoned breath on every exhale, but a wisp of hope rose within her. Not a lot, but she had no control over the little bit that Madoc’s presence inspired. She just didn’t want that hope if it wasn’t real.

  Madoc reached out his hand. The sad clown wriggled in the air as he conjured her to him. He wrapped his fingers around her neck, glaring down at her with bared teeth. His weren’t as intimidating as the clowns’, but for the first time, Caroline glimpsed how much of his human persona masked something much greater and more powerful than he made himself appear. He, like the clowns, demonstrated preternatural strength, holding the sad clown up, her legs dangling almost a foot from the sawdust.

  The sad clown cowered, hissing, clicking, blinking and chittering at him, sounds that Caroline didn’t understand.

  Madoc threw the sad clown aside. She collapsed to the ground. As he approached the chaise longue, he signaled to the two male clowns, who softened their grip but did not release her. That made Caroline tense up again and wrench away when Madoc sat next to her.

  “Shhh, it’s okay.” Madoc brushed the tears from her face with the same tenderness as the sad clown, who still quivered on the sawdust floor, looking up at Caroline from under her spiky orange mohawk and false cricket leg eyelashes. Caroline couldn’t believe it, but she thought she almost saw hurt in those radioactive yellow eyes, like a chastised dog.

  “I’m afraid there has been some grave miscommunication,” Madoc said. “Since the clowns do not speak as humans do, it was, perhaps, inevitable. It’s just that they have never done this before, and I didn’t even think to look ahead to see if it was possible. But trust me when I say they don’t want to hurt you.”

  “The fuck they don’t,” Caroline said, pulling against the hold on her, but the male clowns still didn’t release her. “I told them to stop. They understand English. I know they do. They held me down. He was going to…” Madoc had seen her with her legs spread and her panties exposed, tears smeared over her face and her eyes red and nose snotty. She didn’t think she could be more humiliated by the situation until she almost started to cry again. For some reason, it seemed critical that she not allow that to happen—not in front of Madoc, not in front of the clowns.

  “Make them let me go.”

  “If I tell them to let you go, you’ll run,” Madoc said.

  “Damn right I will,” Caroline snarled.

  Madoc reached into the bag at his hip and brought out a handkerchief. He wiped under her nose, then folded it and indicated for her to blow. He was thorough in cleaning her face, even though it was unpleasant that she had to do it this way.

  “They aren’t going to hurt you, Caroline. Or at least that was not their intention. They don’t understand why you’re struggling when Tragedy only wants to give you a gift they’ve seen that you like,” Madoc explained patiently.

  “The fuck?” Her humiliation was slowly melting into anger.

  “You know now that they’re not human. They’re demons. But they’re not demons the way that the Ringmaster or Lennon are demons. They barely pass for human, you see. And since they do have taste for human flesh, particularly young human flesh, they can only have regular human contact when they’re on my leash, under my rules, and the artifice and theatrics that pantomime clowning provide them,” Madoc said.

  When Caroline had calmed down a little, he set a hand on both the monster clown and the happy clown’s arms, and they loosened their grip even more until Caroline wasn’t pinned down. She had some range of motion. But they still didn’t let her go.

  “They don’t interact with my people very often. They almost exclusively deal with me, because I understand them. And they avoid the humans in my care, separated from them by more than a language barrier. But you, Caroline… Tragedy has taken a shine to you.”

  Madoc looked back at the sad clown. Like a broken china doll, she twitched upright, but she didn’t close her mouth all the way.

  “What?” Caroline asked.

  “She was the one who presented the organs to you,” Madoc said. His expression was deadly serious, but he softened it with a curve to his lips. “They were not the threats you believed them to be. They were her attempt at gifts.”

  “Colm thought they were art,” Caroline said.

  “She didn’t understand why I told her not to send you more hearts and lungs. She misunderstood your reaction and my order not to do it again by sending you a different set of organs,” Madoc continued. “It took some time for it to finally occur to her that you might not enjoy human organs the way that she does. To her, it was no more of a faux pas than giving you a book by an author you don’t like. So she changed her tack and tried to figure out what you would like from her.”

  Caroline stared at him. He couldn’t be serious.

  He nodded. Of course he could hear her unspoken incredulity.

  “You mean this is another gift?”

  “You must forgive her ignorance,” Madoc said. “You don’t have to forgive her or them for what they’ve done, but forgive their ignorance. They saw what you and your men were doing last night, and Tragedy wanted to give that to you. Since she cou
ldn’t give it to you personally, she asked Comedy and Murphy to fulfill the biological requirements. I warned her to be careful, but Tragedy really didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “The screaming wasn’t a sign?” Caroline asked, hating the shrill edge of hysteria in her voice.

  Madoc finally nodded for the two male clowns to release her. When Caroline rocked forward to run, Madoc rested a warm hand on her shoulder.

  “Please, Caroline,” he murmured.

  Caroline was reluctant, but the clowns had let her go. They were far enough away that she could at least get a head start running, and Madoc was the one who had convinced them to step down. She settled back down on the chaise, but she didn’t relax.

  “You are as baffling to her as she is to you,” Madoc said. “She doesn’t have any desire to harm you. She is confused by your fear. She only wanted Comedy to give you the pleasure she believed you would like.”

  “Why me?” Caroline asked. “Why did she fixate on me?”

  “I can understand why you don’t see it,” Madoc said. “She likes you because she sees herself in you—like looking into a mirror.”

  “We look nothing alike,” Caroline said.

  “Not anymore. Not after the alterations to make her more palatable as the kind of clown she and the others are,” Madoc explained. “But when I found them, she and you had quite a bit in common. Aside from her demon mouth, she and Tragedy and Murphy all look human, normal, under it all—better camouflage to hunt. You’re not quite her doppelganger, my dear, but she misses what she used to see. She’s intrigued that she sees herself in a human being. She likes it.”

  Caroline looked over at Tragedy. The clown tilted her head as though in question. When Caroline didn’t jerk away or deny her, Tragedy crawled closer. She wiped her sawdusty hands on her skirt and put them on the chaise in a kind of supplication. She clicked her tongue, bringing her mouth close to Caroline, and this time Caroline wasn’t panicking to the same degree. She saw detail that she hadn’t seen before. She was pretty sure Tragedy could bite her face off if she wanted to, but she clearly didn’t want to.

  Madoc watched without interference, so Caroline tensed but didn’t pull away when Tragedy touched her face again, as though tracing her reflection.

  “Does she understand me?” Caroline asked softly. Now her anger, while not fading entirely, pulled back for fascination to have a turn.

  “They understand English,” Madoc said, “although they cannot speak it. Their mouths and tongues don’t work that way. But just because they understand the language does not mean they completely understand humans, any more than you completely understand cats or dogs.”

  Tragedy gestured to Comedy—their names made sense, but Caroline couldn’t figure out why the monster clown with rainbow suspenders was named Murphy—then looked back at Caroline, as though Tragedy was presenting him to her.

  “As you have probably interpreted, she’s offering you his services once again now that you know what she was trying to give you before. They may not understand humans, but they are physically compatible,” Madoc said. “And he will not bite the way that your men do.”

  “Is she really…?” Caroline asked.

  “It is up to you to refuse or accept her gift. If you refuse, she will simply look for another way to show her affection.” Madoc lifted Caroline’s chin. “Tragedy knows fear. She feeds on it. But she doesn’t understand trauma, my dear. She doesn’t know what she’s done to you. Most of those who fear her die immediately after, so she doesn’t know fear’s repercussions. I intend to explain your reaction at length to her later, and I can advise her on a better gift. But now you must decide what you want. Will you accept her gift or refuse it?”

  It should have been an easy question. Everything in her mind screamed for her to let Tragedy down gently then run until her heels bled. But now that she wasn’t bound, some of the panic had diminished. Tragedy crooned, taking her hand. Caroline looked between her and Comedy, who still waited on his knees at the end of the chaise.

  They looked less human now that she knew their mouths were the stuff of horror movies and their eyes weren’t that way from contacts.

  But while staying here at Arcanium, Caroline had seen malice, maybe even evil. Neither Tragedy nor Comedy held malice or evil in those creepy eyes. Their demeanor had nothing in common with hunting behavior, especially with Madoc there.

  They hadn’t been trying to attack her. They had been insistent and confused. That didn’t change how she’d felt—how they’d made her feel—but it did reframe their intention, just as Madoc’s protective tendencies had reframed his.

  “What do you think I should do?” Caroline asked. “What do you see happening?”

  “Interesting,” Madoc murmured. “I knew you would ask, and it still intrigues me.”

  “Does your answer change the outcome? Is that why you’re always so cryptic?”

  Madoc’s smile was wide and open, surprisingly boyish on him. “No, I think the crypticisms are just me. But yes, my answer does affect the outcome. This can go any number of ways, and my answer narrows the possibilities.”

  Caroline swallowed. She was taking a risk, a risk that pounded through her with her still rapid heartbeat. She didn’t have a great track record with risk-taking these last few weeks. It had gotten her here, hadn’t it? But it had also given her Riley and Colm—she might be questioning how great a gift that was, but she couldn’t deny how good it could be.

  Tragedy held Caroline’s hand, nudged it with her nose in a gesture of almost universal affection. It seemed important that Tragedy’s hand was warm. Not cold, not hot—warm, like a human being, even though she wasn’t and there was no mistaking it.

  “I’d still like the answer,” Caroline said.

  “They will be punished either way,” Madoc replied. “It will be less than it might have been if they had intended to hurt you, but they have broken my rules and there are consequences.”

  Tragedy tightened her grip on Caroline’s hand, but she nodded, lowering her eyes. The two male clowns chittered in agitation. Tragedy hissed back, and they quieted.

  “But if you’re wondering whether the gift Tragedy is offering will give you pleasure, the answer is yes,” Madoc said.

  “So even though their mouths…”

  “Below the neck, they function very much the same as us,” Madoc said. “They are anatomically compatible. In fact, you will find that demons and jinn are more than just compatible, but exceptional.” He adjusted Caroline’s skirt so that it covered the top of her thighs. She relaxed even more, although she twitched when he cupped her knee.

  “I can’t tell if you’re joking,” Caroline said.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t joke about things so easily confirmed.” But there was laughter in his hazel eyes.

  “So if I say yes, I’ll like it?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes,” Madoc said. “Quite well. If it makes you feel safer, I can stay and observe to ensure nothing gets out of hand.”

  “Is that what this has been about the whole time? You being able to watch?” Caroline asked.

  “You are an honest delight. No. I am truly offering my services as protector, not voyeur—although I plan to enjoy what I’ve already seen will happen, in my own way. I cannot deny that.”

  “You’ve seen…me?”

  “You asked me to look into future possibilities in which one included you engaging in any number of esoteric acts at the hands of Comedy and at the command of Tragedy. Of course I’ve seen you,” Madoc said.

  Although her fear didn’t fade, she could practically feel her inhibitions evaporate with the remnants of cold sweat on her limbs. Was she considering doing this? Her? After what had just happened? But fear tightened her chest and arousal tightened her abdomen. Her legs and panties were hidden, but Comedy ran the tip of his tongue over the edge of his mouth after her pussy clenched with unrestrainable desire. She knew he smelled her and understood what it meant.

  If Caroline bel
ieved Madoc—and she did, there was nothing for it—then Tragedy had been trying so hard to please her. Now that the panic had subsided, it was almost sweet. Almost. The human organs thing wasn’t so sweet when she thought about where it had come from and what the clowns had to have done with those mouths to cause it.

  So why was she still going to let them touch her, their hands stained with human blood? Because they didn’t know any better? Because they weren’t human? Was there any point to yelling at a cat for putting a dead mouse in one’s slippers? These demons were predators. It was what they were. Every single one of them had the teeth to prove it. But they weren’t predatory all the time. Their actions spoke louder than their bite radius.

  “What about Maya?” Caroline asked.

  The watershed question. She’d already moved from whether she was going to let the clowns have their way and into whether Madoc was going to stay. It was Tragedy who had decided her—so earnest and eager, her fingers gentle though her mouth branded her a killer. And while Caroline hadn’t seen it before, now she couldn’t stop herself from seeing the resemblance between the two women. No wonder she had identified with Tragedy back before she’d known what Arcanium was and what it contained.

  “She’ll be touched that you asked about her well-being,” Madoc said. “I love Maya, and she loves me. We do, however, seek pleasure from other people, other partners, sometimes without the other present. We always return to each other. Our choice binds us, not our exclusivity. In Arcanium’s particular atmosphere, I’m sure you understand that monogamy is a bit difficult to maintain.”

  And we all take what comfort we can, Caroline thought, but it was Kitty’s voice she heard.

  “Yes,” Madoc whispered in her ear. He kissed her on her forehead, the same place Kitty had kissed her. Now that she knew about Maya and Madoc’s arrangement, she wondered whether Madoc was Kitty’s experience into the murkiness of sleeping with demons. But that question, Madoc didn’t answer.