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And after the effort Neve had made to avoid having sex with him again after that long night, she’d made it clear she wouldn’t do it again either…all so she wouldn’t be exactly what she was right now—nothing but holes to fill over and over again, to scream and moan because that’s what the things inside her wanted. Because Mikhail would take it all if he could. Every man would. If she collapsed dead, they’d still all be satisfied.

  She turned back to the being, stared into his unfamiliar elder god face with certainty he could understand her. “Enough,” she whispered. “End it.”

  She let go of one of the tentacles above her to rub around her clit. It hurt now, but she also rode him harder, rocking to ensure all the places that needed to be stroked were stroked, rocking until she squirted again and his cock surged inside her with another flood. They rained down on the concrete floor.

  The being knelt in it without a care. As he eased himself out of her, he wrapped her in more and more tentacles, bringing her closer to the body she couldn’t see. He slid back to the open door, taking his prize into the darkness with him as the reprised music concluded.

  Chapter Twelve

  As soon as the door closed, the being tangled around her began to shrink.

  She didn’t fight to get out of his grip. The tentacles receded on their own, and she couldn’t possibly be filthier without taking a dive in a septic tank. The secretions didn’t smell fishy, so she didn’t mind it as much as if she’d taken said dive. Besides, she was comfortable in whatever held her. Strangely enough, it was a welcome change, because the tentacles didn’t feel like hands.

  Eventually, they all fell away except for two pale arms and a slight, wiry man over her who was heavier than his height suggested—dense, then. Pale, slight and dense. He nibbled her ear.

  “Well, love, that’s what I call a show.” Lennon laughed, panting slightly.

  Somehow, a five-foot-seven British tumbler had become the gargantuan Lovecraftian being that had stuck her from every end as though she were nothing but a tiny voodoo doll.

  Neve pushed herself up onto her hands and knees as Lennon rolled to the side onto his back, groaning and shaking his head. He still didn’t look human. His pale skin was nearly chartreuse, and the hair that had been shoulder-length and black was still a writhing nest of tentacles. His eyes were black all the way through, his teeth sharp. But the demon beside her now wasn’t anything close to what he’d been during the performance.

  “I haven’t gone wriggly like that in half a century, darling,” he said. “But I never step down from a challenge.”

  She must have still been looking at him strangely, because he laughed again. “Water demon. When Bell brought the mermaid in, she challenged me, too. Without tapping into my demon side properly again, she would never have been satisfied. But as it is, we have our torrid little affair, and Bell gets a slimy monster on command. Just not usually that many tentacles.” He gave a flourish like taking a bow. “You’re welcome.”

  Under the influence of fatigue, her first impulse was sarcasm. But after everything she’d been through, after everything she’d done, she could hardly throw stones, much less barbs.

  “Thank you.”

  His expression suggested he hadn’t expected actual gratitude. He curled a finger and caressed the corner of her mouth. “Go see Bell about getting cleaned up there. I think I’m going to take a dip in the mermaid tank.”

  Her limbs shook, but she managed to stand. “I’d do that again.”

  “Really? Just give me a few minutes. I think I’ve got it in me to wriggle out again…”

  Neve giggled and punched his chest. “Not now, wiseass. Another Funhouse. I’d do that again.”

  “I like your thinking, ginger. Get along now. Daddy has to rest for a moment.”

  “Okay, now I’m saying ‘ew’.”

  Lennon grinned. “Interesting where a nymph like you draws the line. You hiding a cigarette anywhere on you, love?”

  “You would know.” She pressed her thighs together as though it would somehow convince what was between her legs to feel less open, but her body was bouncing back in its own sweet time. Intellectually, she knew she was already close to normal, but she still felt like she’d been rearranged.

  He playfully slapped her ass. “Have a good night.”

  Neve made her way out of the backstage darkness, although she didn’t see who she would have been having sex with had she chosen door number two. He or they had probably left after she’d picked Lennon, knowing she was the last damsel in the show.

  Bell hooked her by the back of the necklace and swung her around the doorway into the green room. “You, my dear, are a naughty girl.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  Bell undid the clasp and held the necklace over her shoulders. It was covered in dripping strings of Lord knew what. “Well, that’s… You didn’t choose the door I thought you’d choose.”

  She couldn’t hold it in anymore. The whole awful, fascinating, exhausting night came out in a rush of giggles and choked sobs.

  “Oh, sweetheart, come here.” He stepped around her then pressed her face into his shoulder. The same magic that had cleaned her off after Samuel swept over her again and rendered the necklace sparkling again, left her dry and not smelling of tentacle goo and Cthulhu semen.

  As soon as she could stop sobbing and laughing and could find a breath, Bell wrapped the fleece blanket around her again. The diamonds were long gone, but she liked the fleece better.

  She sniffed hard and shook her head. “Sorry. I’m fine. Really.”

  “You did me proud. Go get some sleep. We don’t necessarily have an early morning with the golems doing most of the work, but we do have to get up, and no one is going to want to.”

  “Mmm, delightful.”

  Most of Bell’s people who hadn’t joined the orgy outside had already retired to the green room or the cots. Caroline reclined in the lap of her larger man while the thinner one kissed her neck. Ciarán and Moss were speaking to each other, in no apparent hurry to go to bed. The clowns protected all points of entry for the cast’s sleeping chambers. No one would be allowed to climb into anyone’s cot unawares.

  “I need to go back onstage in a minute,” Bell said, “but I sent the fire-eater out to distract the crowd so I could take care of this. Would you take on the Funhouse again, Neve?”

  “Ask me again next Wednesday after I’ve recharged. I could stand it if no one touched me for another month, but I’m going to have to deal with hands for another three days in a row.” Neve shrugged. “I’d perform again, but I don’t know about doing everything in one night. Just because I can orgasm indefinitely doesn’t mean I should. That should be an Arcanium needlepoint. Does Kitty embroider?”

  * * * *

  The cots were set up in makeshift rooms, about four cots to a room. They could be pushed together for those who wanted to sleep with someone else—or multiple someone elses—but a cot was good enough for her. The problem was that most of the rooms were taken by at least two people, and those two people were usually doing things that weren’t conducive to anyone else getting any sleep.

  The only room where sleep was actually happening was in the room where the Ringmaster slept with Kitty tucked against him and with Maya tucked against Kitty. Maya’s back appeared as flawless as it had started, with none of the effects of Bell’s piercings or the Ringmaster’s whip. Neve didn’t linger, intimidated almost equally by all three for different reasons.

  By the time she found an unused room, it was near the curtains the golems had set up to block the windows. They flapped inward from the wind outside the building. Between the fleece and her natural immunity to the cold, she didn’t mind winter drafting over her while she slept as long as she could sleep in relative peace. The cast as well as the audience were making noise, but the audience had many layers of partitions between them and Neve, and the cast was more discreet, perhaps in consideration of those trying to rest.

  Her head had barely hit the pil
low, though, when she shot up again, eyes wide and panic shooting through her chest.

  She’d seen Lady Sasha in her own private room with her cobras, but she hadn’t seen Lord Mikhail.

  Neve ran through the curtained hallway. She just managed to catch Bell before he went back to the stage.

  “Where’s Mikhail?”

  Bell didn’t say anything for a moment, blinking slowly as though in consideration. “He was in a state where he couldn’t be trusted. I let him fly to hunt. I allowed Sasha to go as well, but she elected to stay in.”

  “He’s going to kill someone,” Neve protested.

  “Yes. That’s what he does.”

  “But he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t want to.”

  “Whether he wants to is irrelevant. It’s what he does.” Bell tweaked her nose in a gesture that was oddly intimate. “And he doesn’t have to, but Sasha won’t fulfill him again.”

  Neve bit her lip. He knew perfectly well what her dilemma was, but he didn’t hurry, even when the fire-eater came through the stage door, smoke rising from his mouth and nose like steam rose from the incubus’ body.

  “You might catch him before he leaves,” Bell said, “but I’m not going to call him back, Neve. I won’t force him to remain because you don’t like the outcome. Him being here is like chaining a starving dog in a butcher shop, and when he’s like this, it’s best to let him fly, especially if you’re done for the night. Excuse me, I really do need to go now.”

  Bell stepped through the doorway again.

  Neve spun around to search at the open end of the building on the other side of the Funhouse maze. At first, she thought she’d missed him, but after running past the working bathrooms, she caught sight of him at the edge of the floor, naked and as strange and strong as he’d been at her window.

  Though he didn’t have wings and she’d never seen him fly, Mikhail bent his legs in a clear preparation to launch, expression contorted with reluctance.

  “Wait.”

  Until she called, she hadn’t been sure she would. But she kept seeing him in her window, seeing him over her, the disappointment that had passed over his face when he’d finally moved to take her, to feed upon her.

  Lord Mikhail froze at the edge.

  This part of the third floor had a few feet of concrete between them and all the action. It was quiet, peaceful rather than eerie, the sounds of the city at night a welcome change from the outskirts Arcanium tended to frequent.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  He clenched his teeth over and over, balled his hands into fists. “Bell gave me leave to hunt. What difference does it make to you?”

  “You really don’t want to, do you?”

  It wasn’t just desperation masquerading as anger. He was actually angry, without the restlessness that would betray need instead. When he turned around, however, his massive cock was still erect and a deep, furious, purplish red, sagging under its own weight yet defying gravity.

  “I can’t wait much longer, Neve. What do you want?”

  She let the blanket drop to the floor then took his fist, led him away from the edge.

  “Neve…”

  “Don’t.” She gently pushed him against one of the concrete columns.

  “You didn’t want—”

  Neve knelt in front of him, shaking her head. Just taking his hand had awakened her all over again, her desire a tireless engine—far more tireless than she was. After Bell’s cleansing spell, she barely felt used except for some residual aches and the sense of being stretched.

  “You don’t want to kill anyone,” she said, “and I don’t want anyone to die.”

  “There’s always someone who has to die. When a man or woman trespasses, I’m more than willing to kill.”

  “And innocent women in their own rooms, their own beds?” Neve trailed her fingertips up his thighs. They twitched at her touch.

  His lips thinned. He covered her fingertips with his, stopped her. “I never understood how others could do it without regret. It is a useless death—a life snuffed out, all because she chose to be fucked by me. And with all my power, what choice does she really have? It’s what I am, but I have never liked the waste.”

  “I’m tired,” Neve said. “Really tired. I don’t want anything rough, okay? All I ask is that you take what you need, no more. Come as soon as you can, feed as much as possible. Can you do that?”

  He stared at her, the glow in his eyes a dying fire, the rest of him inscrutable. “I won’t take long,” he said finally.

  She continued to stare up at him as she brought her hands around the base of his cock. He was so hot she thought he’d burn her, but he didn’t.

  Mikhail gritted his teeth again, but a brief groan made it past his lips. The back of his head hit the column, the tendons of his neck tight, as she slid the head of his cock over her tongue and closed her mouth around him.

  One would think he hadn’t been with a woman in years rather than hours. She had no impulse or desire to put on a show after exaggerating her responses all night—not by much, but enough to exhaust whatever muscles made expressions. Nor was she interested in any kind of gymnastics her tongue could offer him. But with contact made, even the bare bones of fellatio had its own vibration, strumming through her in waves she couldn’t hear but she could feel.

  He brought his fingers to her hair, sliding them through the taut strands, tucking into the bun. He tried to push her deeper, but she resisted the impulse to swallow him all the way in, though she knew she could and that he wanted her to. When she withdrew, he hissed as though in pain.

  “No,” she said gently. “Not deep, not forever. Just what you need. Okay?”

  Lord Mikhail nodded, eased his hold on her hair, waited without a sound for her to take him in again. This time, he didn’t close his eyes. They were slits as he watched her stroke over his shaft and move her mouth over the head of his cock.

  His hands tightening again over her head and his quickened breath told her he was close.

  “Beautiful. Need.”

  His teeth were bared, body taut and contoured with mounting tension. She stared back up at him, wondering if she’d heard him at all. Her abdomen twisted with uncertainty, but she increased the suction around the head and tightened her grip around the rest of his erection.

  “Need.”

  Arousal flooded her as he spilled into her mouth. He pulled her lust to its peak in tandem with his to feed upon it. She clamped her mouth around him, drawing his pleasure into her, her orgasm like stepping into a hot bubble bath. Her low moans and his prolonged, animalistic growl broke the silence, as though Arcanium couldn’t help but penetrate every corner of the floor.

  She sank inch by inch down his cock, taking in more to chase the sweet pleasure down. Her vision clouded and blurred, so she closed her eyes, sinking down, down, down—not needing to breathe, just needing him inside her, needing him deep.

  Mikhail did as she asked and drained as much from her as he could through her mouth, which wasn’t as effective as her cunt, and she’d known that. She just hadn’t wanted anything else between her legs, hadn’t wanted to feel as intimate with him, as possessed, as she had the first night or that long night. In that respect, she succeeded, but she still felt like his blood pumped through her body, that some of her thoughts were his—not necessarily that she was overhearing them, but as though their thoughts overlapped.

  She didn’t pass out, but she went blank for a moment.

  Lord Mikhail withdrew from her mouth with the delicacy of removing a sword from a wound. He cradled her head then crouched down to rest her on the blanket.

  She wasn’t sure, but she thought he mouthed beautiful.

  He stood guard over her while she recovered, his cock mercifully soft now, much less intimidating in size though still impressive.

  Once she was able to stir, he lifted her head so he could wrap her once again in her blanket. When he picked her up in his arms, none of his skin touched hers.r />
  Mikhail carried her back to the makeshift sleeping chambers, finding her another quiet room and setting her down on one of the cots. With careful hands, he unwound her hair from the comb, which eased her forehead and scalp.

  He didn’t say another word, just brushed her mouth lightly, tracing the seam of her lips. Then he backed out of the partitioned room to leave her alone.

  Neve’s story continues in the next book of the series, Haunted.

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  Arcanium: Haunted

  Aurelia T. Evans

  Excerpt

  Wednesday after the Funhouse found Neve where she’d never expected to be.

  “I think this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done,” Valorie said, setting down her wine glass.

  “I feel like we’re going to get in trouble,” Caroline said, “for doing something so…”

  “Normal?” Neve poured herself another glass of red then settled cross-legged on one of the cushions in Kitty’s tent, which was the largest tent that wasn’t the big top and somewhere the men weren’t likely to interrupt during the week. “I wasn’t the one who came up with the idea.”

  “Still, an Arcanium book club. Is this even allowed?” Caroline asked.

  “Maybe if we discuss books while tied up in shibari bondage?” Maya offered.

  “I’m tied up enough. I don’t need that here.” The Spider had refused a wine glass, opting instead for the flask she’d brought in. The woman knew what she wanted.

  “Me too.” With hands rather than rope, which meant Neve didn’t have to worry about rope burns, but sometimes her wrists still bruised a little, depending on how hard she struggled when guests passed by.

  After the Funhouse event, the golems had provided coffee and breakfast for the road, and once in the vehicles, the cast could sleep a little while longer, but they’d still had to stumble out of the caravan and get themselves done up for the circus opening in an hour. Neve hadn’t had a good chance to breathe, away from things touching her, until Monday. With the promise that there wasn’t another Funhouse event for another three weeks, she’d take all the no-contact time that she could, even though the hands in the haunted funhouse had aroused her all over again. It was curiously relieving not to act on her desire for a few days, despite the distraction, and to have something like this to do instead.