{Cult of Night Compound | Sacramento, CA}

Korac settled into his room for a night of pleasuring Sagan. Of watching full lashes flutter closed over those magnificent violet eyes of hers. The way she gripped the sheets when the height of ecstasy consumed her.

Tonight, they’d try spanking—

Someone with a death wish knocked on Korac’s door.

Short of the King, he couldn’t imagine anyone else entitled enough to disturb him at this pre-dawn hour. Korac slipped back into his red silk button-down, leaving the buttons undone and cursed as he answered the door.

“What the fuck… Colita?!”

The viper’s mascara ran down her face as she held herself, trembling. Deep bruises healed before Korac’s eyes as her nacre’s soft tissue repair system worked overtime courtesy of her superior nanites. Colita beseeched him, “Korac, something’s wrong with Nox.”

He didn’t hesitate. “Where is he?”

But Colita spiraled into a terrified tangent. “He’s always made drinking rough, but he’s never… He hurt me.”

More gentle than Korac thought himself capable of with Colita, he held her by the arms until those sky-blue eyes focused on him. “Colita, tell me where he is.”

She swallowed audibly, preparing to answer, when screams erupted from down the hall and answered for her. Destructive sounds followed—wood busting, glass shattering.

Korac set Colita in his quarters and warned, “Stay here. Don’t come out for any reason.”

She hiccuped a sob before asking with her heart broken in her eyes, “Korac, what’s wrong with him?”

For the first time in their long history together, Korac realized Colita’s feelings for Nox were sincere. And she was right to worry. Korac said, “I may know, but there’s nothing you can do. You did nothing wrong. Stay out of the way until I fetch you. Can you do that?”

Colita nodded after another hiccup before settling in an armchair. Almost too soft for Korac to hear, she said, “Help him, please.”

A thunderous crash which shook the walls prevented Korac from providing further reassurances. It was time to face the beast. Korac emerged from the hall into the courtyard—All CoN compounds included a courtyard the size of a football field for their festivities.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Sacramento’s was on fire.

Flames consumed mountains of debris where there’d been picnic tables and supplies earlier. Buildings fell apart. The water tower collapsed, and the basin spilled onto a pile of bodies.

A woman ran by Korac, and he shouted, “Stop! Go back!”

Too late.

A familiar silhouette manifested against the flames and clutched the woman by the throat. Nox wrenched her head to the side, hard enough to break some vertebrae, and tore a chunk out of her neck. The King of Cinder drank deep in his madness.

This was total collapse, and Korac feared it.

Seconds later, the woman’s drained body careened across the field, landing in the pile of corpses beneath the spilling water.

Atramentous.

Korac wanted to look away from Nox’s eyes, but he stood his ground, awaiting his King’s orders.

The chilling depth beyond Nox’s usual baritone prickled warnings along Korac’s skin. The King said, “I must feed.”

“Yes, sire.”

Nox ordered, “Do what you must.”

The Icarean King meant as far as damage control. Korac assured, “No survivors, your majesty.”

Two young CoN members made a break from their hiding place, and Nox was on them within a heartbeat. Bone broke and organs squelched as he unleashed on their fragile, nacre-less bodies.

This was Rayne’s fault. Celindria’s descendant had failed to keep her virtue intact, and now Nox must reap a month’s worth of carnage. Korac despised the girl for her weakness all the way to the barracks.

“Squadron Twelve.”

The Icarean troops hopped out of their cots and stood at attention.

Korac ordered, “Defend the perimeter. No one leaves this compound alive.”

They grunted in the affirmative and set about their task.

Fuck, Korac could be dominating Sagan right now, but here he was salvaging relations between the Icari and their human sponsors. Lest they risk anyone escaping and spreading news of Nox’s proclivities.

Sacramento was no small sector. The invasion force would lose four hundred human resources this night, leaving Korac to redistribute the five hundred Icarean soldiers across other compounds. Not to mention manufacturing a reason these members had deserved punishment of this magnitude.

What a PR disaster.

A howling shriek pierced the night, and blood sprayed in an arc across the barracks.

Nox would never tire, and, judging by the mounting body count, it wouldn’t take him long to finish the humans.

Why had Rayne given in?

Now the King and his second-in-command were on equal footing regarding Phase I of the wager. From here, they faced Phase II. And Korac already tired of lying to Sagan. He’d stopped her from confessing her feelings for him, so seducing her in the waking world would take very little.

But that’s not what Korac wanted anymore. He wanted her out of the way of the speeding train coming off the tracks that was the King of Cinder.

Another wail sounded in the night to punctuate Korac’s point.

The invasion came closer with each day, and they couldn’t afford breaks in Nox’s sanity like this.

This mess was Rayne’s fault, and nothing would make Korac believe otherwise.

He sighed and went to aid his King, as always. As was right. Korac only wished he could see Sagan’s smile at least once this night.

But wishes rarely came true.