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Chapter Text

"All I need is for you to distract her for twenty minutes," Zoey said. She shone with sweat. The moon and the light from their weapons were bright as neon on her skin, and she was panting from exertion still. She held onto her left arm by the elbow, trembling faintly. Otherwise she projected strength, standing ramrod straight the way she always did when she was trying to look tough. "You can do that, right?"

"But we don't even—"

A low moan filtered through the fog, a flicker of purple and magenta glowing on the forest floor. Pine needles and burnt sugar drifted over them, a scent both familiar and repulsive with its sticky sweetness, its mockery of childhood comforts.

Mira cleared her throat, pointedly avoiding the demon on display at their feet. "We don't even know what kind of demon it is."

A little huff of disbelief. Zoey's eyebrows quirked up, her voice dry. "I think we know."

"Okay but." Mira reached into Zoey's bag and pulled out the first book she found, flipping through it. The dry old hanji paper was tougher than it looked, but Zoey still drilled holes into her head every time she gave it the rough treatment. "Okay, but."

"Twenty minutes," Zoey repeated, pulling out the container of salt from her bag. She started pouring it, a perfect line forming a circle around their captive. "The binding won't last long. I'll strengthen it while you keep her busy, then we send her back to the other side. Got it?"

"Sorry, when did you start giving me orders?" Mira said, irritated. She was the one funding this whole operation, after all, and it wasn't as though she threw her money around to get her way all the time. But what was the point of her stupid rich family if it didn't let her get her way some of the time?

Focused on her work, Zoey finished tracing the ring around their demon until she had returned to the starting point. Then she snapped and hissed at Mira, "Look at my finger."

She lifted it up, right under Mira's nose. The index finger of her left hand was black and swollen, ripe as a plum about to fall from its branch.

Again Mira averted her eyes.

"You're not looking," Zoey said, chasing her with the accursed finger.

Mira shoved her arm back. "Yeah, cause it's gross."

"It's also a sign we're not dealing with a normal demon. Part of the spell backfired when I threw my Shin-Kal at her." Zoey was keeping remarkably calm, considering. "Did you not read the book I sent you?"

"I did… but also, you know, demon hunting is half improv, kinda."

"Improv?" Zoey repeated. "Sorry, are you comparing this shit to fucking community theater?"

"If we killed her like I planned you wouldn't have gotten hurt," Mira snapped back. "You're the one who wants to try and be nice to demons!"

A low growl, smoke-filled and rumbling with threat, touched Mira. It was like a cold hand lifted up the back of her shirt and traced up her spine. Unwanted contact, all the more sinister for how it pulled at some string deep inside her, the one connected to old urges Mira thought she had lost a long time ago.

"Honestly," the demon said once her growling slowed down to a soft trill. "At this point I'd thank you girls for putting me out of my misery."

They both looked over at their captive. The demon looked like they all did. Eerie unnatural skin tone— dark purple, in her case— and marks like a tiger all over her nude body. Tusks, claws, a tail. Most unusually, only one fully-formed horn. The other seemed stunted, barely an inch long. Maybe they were dealing with some kind of runt.

She lowered her chin, tail swaying in a mesmerizing pattern. Dozens of Mira's Gok-do kept her pinned, a cage of glowing soul-steel. If she moved so much as an inch she risked grazing against the blade, and there were a lot of ways to get rid of a demon but force-removing them was by far the most painful.

Zoey always felt guilty about it. Which is why they were here, trying some godforsaken old-school demon-removal method. And Mira was the bigger sucker because she agreed to it.

"Oh yeah?" Mira said.

"Yeah," the demon said. "If you keep blabbing like this I'll die of boredom first."

Fucker. Even if her tits were perfect. Maybe especially so.

"Mira," Zoey said again, impatiently. "Twenty."

Mira broke into a cold sweat. "What exactly do you expect me to do?"

Zoey gave her another look. "Improv."

While Zoey retrieved and set aside the rest of her tools, Mira cautiously approached the demon. She regarded Mira with a surprising amount of trepidation. She hadn't realized demons could be nervous, too. Then again, maybe anyone would be nervous if they were spread open and butt naked in front of two women who had zero reason to keep her alive.

Mira dropped to a crouch in front of her. "Hey."

The demon's eyes flashed. "You'll never escape them, you know. Whatever your given name is will never matter as much as your family name. For the rest of your life."

"What the fuck, dude?" Mira twisted around and yelled at Zoey. "She's doing creepy demon shit and reading my mind!"

"Just reading your name tag," the demon responded in a low purr. Her golden eyes dropped down low to Mira's keys, attached to her belt loops by a heart-shaped carabiner. And yeah, sure enough, right on them was a little if found tag with her name and number on it. "You're famous even on the other side, sweetheart. Nice big demon hunting family. Why aren't they with you now?"

Mira didn't say a word. Humming with amusement, the demon appeared to stretch languidly. Her long, muscular body arched, inch by inch, from the tips of her clawed hands to her cat-like toebeans. Her tail flicked again. She was clearly testing the limits of her impromptu cage, trying to find a weak spot, a place to break free. Then she brushed against the haft of one of the Gok-Do; the demon paused.

Then she did it again, slower. Her head tilted back and Mira watched with horrified fascination as she found another stretch of the weapon to rub against. The blunt ends of it did her no harm, evidently, because soon the demon was sliding Mira's haft between her pussy lips, grinding out a long wet smear over it as she moaned.

"ZOEY," Mira said, unable to tear her eyes away. "SHE'S DOING WEIRD HORNY DEMON SHIT."

"Kinda busy," Zoey sang back, followed by the pop and rush of a match being lit. "Just keep talking to her or fuck her or something."

"Or something?" Mira's voice pitched even higher, cracking at the peak, and the demon laughed. Palms wet, Mira stood up stiffly and retreated back to Zoey, who had an assortment of bells and candles and books in front of her. "I didn't sign up to— we don't even know if—"

"She's pretty clearly a succubus," Zoey said. "And I'd do it but one, you didn't read the books like I asked."

"How long are you going to be on my ass about that?"

"I'm self-taught and I'd kill to have your family resources but okay," Zoey finished tightly. "Secondly, again, did you see the finger? I'm left-handed."

"So?"

"So I'm not gonna edge anybody with this thing," Zoey said, showing off her finger again and again Mira flinched and looked away, sick with guilt. "Okay?"

"But what if she." Mira was sweating now. If this kept on like this she was going to kill the freaking demon and be done with it. But Zoey had worked so hard, and gotten hurt, and if Mira didn't even let her try this method then… "I don't know how being trans works with this, but don't they… I mean, won't I be feeding her, or…"

"I think it's fine because you don't have nuts?" Zoey said, tone shockingly innocent despite the subject matter, like they were discussing a grocery run. "Or ovaries, so, you know. Y'ain't got any building components she can steal."

"Huh." Mira thought about it. Maybe being trans was the stealth sleeper build against fighting demons?

The demon cut in again, but this time she squawked with offense. "Building components!?"

Zoey sat up straighter. "Yeah? That's how you guys do it? You steal sperm or eggs during sex and do your wicked magic with it?"

The demon wiggled, trying to break free again, but this time much less dignified. "Is that what you people think of us?! You think if aliens came down right now from Planet Fleepflorp or whatever and I took one look at them I'd say, oh no! No human reproductive system! I guess I just can't do anything!" The demon growled harder. "Like you seriously think that?"

Frowning, Zoey took one of the books and hunted through its pages. "I mean, I did until you said that. Are you saying aliens are real?"

"Keep focus," Mira said, returning to the flustered, wiggling demon. She crouched in front of her again, determined to keep this thing from getting inside her head any further. "You know, you don't sound like most of the demons we've handled."

As if realizing that herself, the demon dropped back into her smoldering stillness. She tried to fuck Mira with her eyes, murmuring, "You've never handled anything like me. Touch me, Mira. Feel for yourself."

"Yeah? Maybe I will." Mira found the safest patch of skin she could, far from claws or teeth. She patted a palm over the demon's twitching thigh, firmly.

It was meant as a taunt.

But despite that. Despite the fact that she was the black sheep of the most famous demon hunting family in Korea. Despite the fact that she hadn't had sex or even really touched herself in at least five years. The unholy cocktail of dysphoria and her orchiectomy and HRT and SSRIs meant she hadn't had an orgasm in three years. The only person in the world she'd ever loved or wanted sex with was her best friend and she was terrified to ever admit that because she couldn't risk losing her, couldn't risk losing Zoey.

Despite all that.

Mira touched over the demon's patterned skin, stunned to feel it textured and rough on the black stripes and soft as silk everywhere else.

And she popped a boner.

"….Zoeeeeyyyyy!" she cried again, standing up and pacing nervous circles in front of their captive. "Can you please hurry?!"

"Magic's a hell of a drug, isn't it?" the demon said knowingly, and Mira clapped her hands over her ears and went lalalalalala!

That was when a pulse of blue energy washed over them both, a comforting wave. Mira dropped her hands and looked at the demon. The barrier was strengthened again, and on top of that, it looked like Zoey had successfully finished the banishing spell. Mira sighed with relief when the demon started to struggle and squirm, her black patterns falling off of her like ink and dripping away.

But when the squirming mass of black ink was gone and faded, and the demonic thrum was no longer present in the air like a distorted tinnitus…

There was still a woman trapped by Mira's Gok-do.

A human woman.

She groaned, setting a hand on one of the hafts imprisoning her. Then she yanked it free; the blade caught her by the cheek as she did. It opened her skin up and she hissed, wincing, but didn't vanish.

And she bled. Red blood, not black or magenta or blue or teal or any other of the million colors demons gushed when Mira had killed them before.

Achingly, the woman got to her feet. She shuddered, holding herself as she looked around at the surrounding woods. The cold was rushing in, no more balmy hellfire, no more ambient demon light keeping the area nice and toasty.

"Wh—" When she tried to speak, her voice was rusty. She coughed, shivering as she looked up at Mira with fear. "Where am I?"

"Mira?" Zoey was suddenly right at Mira's side. She had one hand on the small of Mira's back, comforting her as they stared at the woman. "What's going on?"

A little bit of clarity returned to the woman's eyes as she turned around, looking at the world around her.

"Am I in Korea?" She quickly turned back to Mira and Zoey. "Who are you? What year is it?"

"Uh," Zoey said.

She didn't have any room to say more, because the demon— woman?— chose right then to try and move closer. One step. Then she stumbled, falling to her knees and faceplanting onto the cold earth.

She fainted clean into unconsciousness.

"…Well, now what?" Zoey wondered.

Mira twitched, angling away from her. She still had a situation in her pants and being gently touched by her object of affection was not helpful. "Why are you asking me?! You're the one who read all the books!"

Chapter Text

They failed to account for the demon's shoulders when they dressed her. Mira was tall and they both assumed that would translate to clothing size, somehow. If they had more than a single brain cell between them they would have remembered women's clothing sizes were determined by the phases of the moon and complete bullshit. The demon didn't fit into any of Mira's small or extra small shirts, but thankfully she still had a few boymode hoodies buried deep in her closet.

For the rest, she raided her brother's room. Those also fit the demon well enough, though it did endless psychic damage to see her lying there on the couch in his fandom merch.

Mira stood over the demon for a long time. Watching her. Looking at her wearing a dead boy's clothing.

Two dead boys.

Eventually Zoey nudged her a few too many times and she realized hours had passed. It was morning.

"Hi." Zoey gave her some tea. "I wasn't sure if you wanted to try and sleep or not so it's caffeine-free."

"Thanks." She accepted and drank it too quickly, scalding her tongue. Mira winced but didn't say anything, just stood there blowing on it and staring at the unconscious demon.

"Mira?" Zoey said after a while. She had been standing right next to her. "This isn't in any of the books."

"Mhmm."

"Cause those books are older than I am," the demon groaned. She clenched her eyes even more tightly shut, furrows appearing on her brow. Then she covered her eyes with both hands. "Nnngh. It's so bright."

On instinct Zoey moved to shut the curtains, but Mira stopped her with a hand on her elbow. They weren't going to make a demon comfortable. The clothing was just a matter of human decency. As was the whole 'not killing her' thing.

Mira glared at the demon. "What are you?"

"My name is Rumi," she said. When she opened her eyes fully they were gold, bright like old coins. Then she squinted them shut again. "What did you do to me?"

"I asked what you are. Not what your name is."

Slowly, the demon stirred more. She rubbed her forehead, blearily tried opening her eyes again. The pre-dawn gloom was too much for her still. "A demon?"

"Why don't you look like one?"

"That's rude," Rumi said. "Demons look all sorts of ways."

"So you coincidentally have no patterns, no horns, no tusks, no wings, no tail?"

"I've never had wings," Rumi said. She slowly sat up, rolling a hand over herself. She felt at her clothing until she realized there was a hood. Quickly, she pulled it up and over her eyes. "Oh, thank goodness. That's much better."

Then she examined her hands. She held them in front of her, palms out. Slowly she turned them this way and that.

"Huh."

That was all she said. Then she was quiet for so long it became suspicious, and Mira reached out to try and pull her hood down. The second her fingers brushed against Rumi she fell over limp as a wilted flower, unconscious again. She had fallen asleep sitting upright.

Mira and Zoey looked at each other.

Next order of business was fixing Zoey's hand. The color had faded somewhat, thankfully. Her finger wasn't black anymore like a dead woman's, just faintly blue. Still not great, and she looked like she had lost all circulation in it. But it worked as normal, and Zoey said it still had sensation.

They lingered in the kitchen, brewing cup after cup of tea and mumbling about breakfast, but neither of them committed to the idea.

"Just looks gnarly," Zoey said. "I'll wear gloves for a while, I guess."

"Do you know what's wrong with it?"

Zoey shook her head. "I think our guest might. Though I'm not sure how much of her word we can trust, she's our only primary source right now."

"Well she's wrong about one thing," Mira said. "Primary source or no. She said she's a demon, and she's not."

Zoey's shaped eyebrow arched up. "She looked like a demon last night."

Mira gestured all around them. At her house. Her big, empty, sparse, minimalist white house. Everything she had inherited. When she went to the big glass doors leading to the backyard, she saw nothing but the garden, all slowly starting to go barren this time of year. "The Kang family estate has every anti-demon measure you can imagine, Zoey. Demons do not get in here, even if they're expressly invited."

"Then what is she?"

"I'm hungry," Rumi whined, shuffling into the kitchen. She had her hood pulled down all the way over her nose. Her bare feet stuck to the floor, slapping on them loudly. "My stomach hurts. Since you didn't kill me can you do something about that?"

The demon woman spent most of her time sleeping. Eating. Fiddling with the shower and everything in the bathroom. Looking out the window at night to stare at the city lights in the distance. She didn't seem very interested in Zoey or Mira, who kept debating if they should chain her to the fridge or keep her in a cage or something. It was true, she was no longer a demon, but that didn't mean they could trust her.

So then what could they do with her?

When they asked about Zoey's finger she sniffed and said, "Magic rebound. It will fade with rest, and time. The reason it affected you is, I can only guess it's like… uh… You know like in Star Wars, when he deflects lasers with his lightsaber… have you seen Star Wars?"

"I've seen the sequel trilogy?" Zoey offered.

"They made sequels?" Rumi asked.

"Yeah, like a bunch. And a bunch of TV shows, too. They're on Disney+. We have Disney+, right Mira?" she turned to Mira questioningly. Mira wondered if she had gone insane somewhere along the way and this conversation was an elaborate hallucination. "I mean, I've got nothing else to do while I wait for my hand to feel better."

"Food, shelter, and now you're offering entertainment." Rumi smiled, and it was an exhausted, shattered thing. "Under the laws of hospitality it would be very rude of you to kill me now, I hope you know."

Mira cut in sharp and hard before Zoey could respond. "We don't follow demon law in this house."

"Human law also generally frowns on murder," Rumi said, mildly.

They tried to watch Star Wars, but Rumi didn't seem very engaged. She kept nodding off, waking up in the middle of important plot beats. Asked a question or two. Out of politeness, it seemed, then she was out like a light again. Zoey gave up and swapped over to nature documentaries.

Mira wondered what the hell she was going to do.

They let her sleep in a room in the basement. Where it was dark, and where Mira could lock the door from the outside. Mira had to carry Rumi because she was snoring and wouldn't wake, no matter how much they shook her. Mira had been the one to carry her home, too, and both times was extremely grateful Rumi's evil boner magic appeared to have vanished alongside her patterns and horns.

"What the fuck are we going to do?" she hissed again for the millionth time, pacing around her parent's bedroom, which was now Zoey's bedroom. Mira had moved back into her own room months ago, after Zoey offered to strip it clean of her old life and redecorate. That meant there were a lot of extra shelves full of Zoey's earnest attempts at various arts and crafts. She had picked up and dropped a lot of hobbies over the years; Mira found it all extremely charming. "There's a demon in my basement! What are we going to do?"

"We can't kill her," Zoey reminded Mira. "She's a person— a human."

Mira held a crocheted panda in her fists, squishing it anxiously. It was her favorite because the shape lent itself very well to stressed-out fidgeting. "Of course not. But we also can't exorcise her. I mean we tried that and it didn't work."

"And we can't… keep her?" Zoey asked, leadingly.

Mira paused in the middle of her anxious pacing. "Like a stray cat?"

"We did kind of kidnap her," Zoey said.

She closed her eyes. Right.

Again and again Mira tried to think of what else she could have done. She couldn't leave a woman alone, naked and unconscious in the woods. She couldn't kill her. She couldn't drop her off somewhere— where? A hospital? A police station? The doorstep of a rival hunting clan? And say what?

Most pressingly, Mira thought, if Rumi was hiding her demonic nature somehow, they needed to keep an eye on her.

Black sheep she may be, exiled from the rest of the clan as she was, she was still a Kang at heart and took her duties very seriously.

Except a real Kang probably wouldn't have hesitated to cut off Rumi's head. And definitely wouldn't have let their best friend try some woo-woo pacifist bullshit to save a demon from torment and torture.

But this particular Kang was a stupid simp, so here she was.

"We didn't ask her," Mira said after a while.

"What?"

"We didn't ask Rumi what she wants."

"Oh."

It was so obvious. Too obvious, maybe. But Mira hadn't had a lot of conversations with demons, or ex-demons, so she was a little out of sorts.

They left a note taped to Rumi's side of the door to press the intercom when she woke up. Then Zoey added another note pointing to the intercom, just in case Rumi didn't know what that was. She slept through the rest of the day while Zoey and Mira pored over the Kang family library, trying to find the answer to this riddle named Rumi.

That evening, when the intercom buzzed, they both jumped. There was a short pause then another buzz, and another, and then Mira cautiously went downstairs and unlocked the door. When it swung open there was a faint scent that spilled through— smoked pine needles and burnt sugar, but it faded as soon as it came.

"We rang for servants back in the day," Rumi said. "I guess this is the same?"

"Back in the day? How old are you?" Zoey asked.

Rumi puffed up, shooting her a sly little smile. She looked more like the beast they had encountered in the woods, the one that dared Mira to touch her. It looked good on a human face, too. "Demons can be thousands of years old, sweetheart. You know that."

"Hey dumb-dumb," Mira said, "She asked how old you are."

"Dumb-dumb—?"

"If you don't want to answer then don't. But your deflections are very obvious." After she got no response, because Rumi was too busy steaming, Mira kept on. "I'm telling you that as a favor. In case you were under the impression you're very sneaky."

"Well obviously I'm not thousands of years old," Rumi snapped. The tips of her ears jutted out from her messy hair. They were bright pink. "But anything older than forty is ancient to you people."

Zoey's eyebrows rose. She unzipped her messenger bag and loudly began unwrapping her leftovers from lunch. "You people, huh. I guess Miss Demon didn't want half of my sando after all."

Very much like a cat that just spotted sudden movement on the floor, Rumi locked in on Zoey. Her eyes dilated wide.

"What's a sando?" she asked, her excitement blatant and honestly a little endearing; Rumi followed close at Zoey's heels when she walked away.

At first it made Mira's heart jump with concern— the demon was too close. She was pressed up to Zoey's back, almost, filling in her exact footsteps, the literal stalk before a pounce.

But if she pounced, so what? Rumi didn't have fangs, claws, or even extra limbs. She was taller and broader than Zoey, but a lot of idiots thought Zoey's size made her an acceptable target. They learned from their mistake in the form of broken ribs if they were lucky. And if Rumi could still extract souls, Mira had a feeling she would have done so already. So Mira just became their uneasy chaperone, watching Rumi open and close the fridge door over and over again because she was trying to figure out how the light inside worked.

More than once Mira thought about calling up one of the other hunter clans.

But she knew what they would tell her to do.

Rumi stood out. She had eerily pale skin and pitch black hair, hair so long it touched her thighs. The only hint that she wasn't entirely human were her eyes. Rumi's eyes were light brown most of the time. Only sometimes did they flash gold, in the deepest, darkest hours of the night. She candidly said that she had lived in the mortal realm for some time decades ago, but had no current connections, and would deeply appreciate abusing Mira's hospitality for the foreseeable future.

"Until you decide what to do with me, or figure out how you did this to me," Rumi said cheerfully, tugging on the strings of her borrowed hoodie. The most disarming part was how Rumi didn't seem the slightest bit upset or confused about this turn of events. Not even a little bit. "Though honestly— and can I be honest, girls?— I really don't think that will be anytime soon."

She looked so human, painfully human. Even when Mira tried her hardest she couldn't see any resemblance to the demon they had captured in the woods.

Rumi's big brown eyes locked in on Mira, probably because she assessed her as the money-haver in this relationship, and she said, "Can I have a cell phone?"

At first they worried what they would do if they got wind of another demon in their area— another hunt to complete. But not only did the demonic activity in their territory grind to a halt, but Mira heard over the hunter grapevine that all activity had stopped. Point blank. No invasions. No murders. No families discovered in a garbage bag… that hadn't been put there by other humans, of course. Demons didn't have a monopoly on gruesome killing sprees.

"Happens every so often," Rumi said, shrugging. She was seated precariously on a ladder rung, in the Kang library where she spent most of her time (until you remember you ought to kill me, she added every time her presence was noted). "You should have seen how dead it got after the Usurpation."

Zoey and Mira exchanged a glance.

Rumi looked up from her book.

"You don't know what that is, do you?"

So she eagerly dragged a big chalkboard out of storage, one Mira hadn't even realized was in storage. She drew out a truncated timeline for them, her captors. A lot of names got thrown around, but the most pressing one was Gwi-Ma.

"Oh!" Zoey's hand shot up, like honest to god a little schoolgirl. "I know him! I know him. The demon king!"

"Wrong." Rumi also dug up a pointer. She jabbed it at Zoey. "Gwi-Ma was the demon king. How do you not even know who the current demon king is?" That last part was directed at Mira, who arguably should know something like that… if any hunter knew.

"Our most recent knowledge still says he's ruling over you guys." Mira had been quiet until now, prompted to speak. "We don't. Uh. Keep up with demon politics. I guess."

"Clearly." Rumi rolled her eyes. "So the Usurpation happens, because nobody likes a tyrant, not even demons. Some… oh, let's say, some smarmy and stupidly handsome upstart takes over, unseats Gwi-Ma, becomes the demon king, et cetera, et cetera…"

"Huh? Wait, don't et cetera that." Mira reached up and yanked the pointer out of Rumi's grasp. "We don't know what that implies."

Rumi's long, dark eyelashes fluttered in surprise. "Oh? I thought it was common knowledge. Um, let's see… it's Latin in origin, I believe. Et means 'and' and cetera is, like, 'all the rest'? So in this case I'm using it—"

"We know what et cetera means!"

"Ohhhh." Rumi jutted her hip out, standing off-balance and staring at them wide-eyed. "Okay. Well, I guess what I'm implying is that when things are crazy over there, no one has time to cause trouble over here. Does that make sense?"

"Too much sense," Mira said. "That's why you're being a leech. You wanna stay where it's safe and quiet. Cause some shit's going down in your hometown."

Rumi's grin spread across her whole face. That was when Mira noticed one other demonic feature that hadn't gotten completely scrubbed. Her teeth were sharp. Not vampire-sharp, but… sharper than most people. "Ah, Mira. Only a few weeks together and you already know me so well."

"Aren't you worried?" Zoey asked. Rumi's light brown eyes focused on her.

"Not really. Whatever is happening is probably very dumb." Rumi shrugged again. "They'll live."

"Don't you have friends or family over there who might be worried about where you are?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm actually really excited to see what they'll do without me! Ever feel like that? Like this whole operation will fall apart without you, but you like the operation so you keep it running. Well, now I'm not there to keep it running."

Zoey nodded sagely. "Just like my first job."

"Oh? What was your profession?"

"Flippin' burgers. You know, you have a really bizarre set of speech patterns. Like you can't decide what time period you're trying to fit into."

"Probably because she doesn't know what time period she's trying to fit into," Mira said. The first thing Rumi asked was what year it was, after all.

Though she acclimated to their diurnal schedule fast enough, Rumi still preferred to stay indoors during the day time. At night she (correctly) assessed that it would do her no favors if she was caught skulking around the estate grounds. But she wanted to go outside anyway so she dragged Mira along as her chaperone, to prove she meant no harm.

"One of the lovely Kangs," she said, arms swinging wide with every exaggerated step. Rumi was pretty clumsy without the counterbalance of her horns or tail, and made up for it with big steps and wide movements. "I can't believe that name is still around. You've done pretty well for yourselves. I noticed a big wine cellar down in the basement; some of those bottles are as old as me! Can I have some?"

"Go nuts."

"Back in my day every house made their own soju. But you have so many foreign drinks."

"They were my father's… My parents were the ones who bought them all. I don't drink. Alcohol," she added, when Rumi gave her a puzzled look.

"Past tense," Rumi noted.

"They're dead, yeah."

The ever present smile fell from Rumi's face. "Hunting."

"Yeah. Demons. My older brother, too."

Once a week a van came onto the property. Gardeners who had worked for Mira's family for the past twenty years piled out, cleaned the place, and then piled back in and left. They were paid on an automatic system linked to the family bank account. Mira didn't need to talk to them, didn't need to do anything except exist in this house. It persisted on its own, puttering along on pure momentum, no input needed from her.

Cleaning services, laundry services— the only thing Mira cancelled were the groceries and personal chef, since they were no longer a family of four, and Mira liked to cook.

At the base of one of the obnoxious tiger-shaped topiaries, Rumi stood with her fists on her waist. She was facing the lights in the distance, a city that was probably alien to her. A time traveler who couldn't go home. In the night air, Mira thought she smelled burning pine, like someone out in the woods had started a campfire.

"Those who live by the sword," Rumi said after a while. Not that Mira had expected a ton of pity from the very people her family wanted to exterminate. She turned around, mouth twisted. "Are you any good at killing demons?"

"Very good," Mira said.

"How many?"

"Thirty seven."

"So that's three a year every year since you were thirteen."

"That's a specific guess."

"Thirteen is the age of majority for the Kang family. If you started older, then you would have killed much more frequently. I would have heard of a Kang who reaped through nearly forty demons in a very short timeframe." Rumi hummed, rocking from side to side with her eyes closed. "Birthday hunts still a thing?"

"Yeah."

"They'd hold it down while you finished it?"

"No. I had to do it by myself."

"That's very cruel," Rumi said, a neutral fact. Not judging, or horrified, or full of pity. It was probably wrong that her prey was the one telling her this. No one else in Mira's life ever had.

Her phone buzzed. Mira slid it out of her tight jean pockets and answered. "Hey Zo."

"Are you in the house? I was looking for you but this place is too big and I realized we might be ships in the night."

Mira saw movement up on the third floor. "Look out the window."

She turned her phone around and activated the flashlight, waving it. After a moment, she saw Zoey doing the same thing. Mira pressed the phone back to her ear just in time to hear Zoey giggling uncontrollably. "Okay. Taking the family pet for a walk, I see. Is Rumi behaving?"

Rumi was currently boring holes into the phone, nigh lustful with her open fascination.

"I keep giving her chances to kill me and she hasn't yet."

"I guess that's the same thing," Zoey said. "Mind swinging by my room before you go to sleep?"

"If you're up."

"I'll be up," Zoey assured her. "Bye, love you!" And hung up.

Eventually Mira gave up ignoring the demon at her elbow. She unlocked her phone and handed it to her without any instruction, curious to see what she would do. Rumi blinked a bit at the brightness, but quickly figured out how the touch-screen function worked. She continued walking, making thoughtful noises and swaying with every step, as if following the motion of a wagging tail that didn't exist anymore. When the screen went dark she shook it to try and get it working again, only to be confronted with the lock screen.

"It's guarded by my thumb print," Mira said. She unlocked the phone again and Rumi crowed with delight.

At around two in the morning Mira finally indicated she wanted to head back inside and Rumi dutifully followed.

She asked, "Would you mind if I was allowed to roam the first story freely at night? Or are we going to continue pretending the locks on your basement doors can contain me?"

"We pretend a lot of things in this house," Mira said. "But you're just going to stay up all night wrecking my Wavve algorithm, so whatever." She only gave brief thought to how incomprehensible that sentence must be to a demon. To her credit, Rumi seemed entirely unfazed.

As promised, Mira dropped by Zoey's room. The light was still on so she cautiously knocked and stepped inside. Zoey was spinning on her desk chair, a pencil held between her upper lip and her nose; she jerked to a halt when she spotted Mira.

"Hey, babe!" she said, and pulled out her earbuds. "Damn, you're up late."

"And you're not?"

"I'm working," Zoey said, holding up her notebook. Calculations, sigils, and spells littered its pages.

Much more than any natural-born hunter Mira ever knew, Zoey was hungry for the arcane. It was how they met. If Mira's parents knew she had single-handedly guided a complete outsider through the initiation rituals, acclimated her to the spirit barrier, and allowed her to draw her own weapons from it— well. They were dead. And Zoey was very good with her Shin-Kal.

And she, before anyone else, recognized that Mira was tired of killing.

"You wanted to talk to me?" Mira said.

Zoey shook her head quickly. "I wanted you to say goodnight before you went to bed. We haven't had chill time in a while."

Well, they had been busy tracking down an obnoxiously powerful presence that turned out to be an obnoxious-in-general demon who was now their willing prisoner. "Yeah, I guess."

"So we should have a sleepover," was Zoey's obvious solution.

"Zoey. We live together."

"But we never sleep together," Zoey said.

And several weeks of Mira pretending she wasn't in love with her best friend came surging to the forefront of her mind, pounding like a drum. Mira didn't want Zoey, not like… that. Not in the way where sharing a bed could be dangerous. It was probably for the best that Zoey didn't appear to see her as a sexual creature either. That meant she didn't see her as a sexual threat.

But sometimes Mira wanted to want. That probably would have been so much easier to deal with than the unbearable stark truth of being in love with her, every atom of her, down to the way she breathed.

Mira ground it down underneath her heel and said, "Yeah?"

"Yeah!" Zoey spun her chair once more. "Every bed in this house is big enough for two people! We should totally have a sleepover. And also it's, uhhh, for safety reasons, in case a demon attacks."

As if on cue, they both heard the TV blast a start up noise. It was quickly lowered as Rumi adjusted the volume. Mira snorted.

"Okay, but it's gotta be my room." Mira nodded at their surroundings. "I always hated this room."

It was much nicer now, though. Lined with shelves and shelves of plushies and dolls and rare books, instruments and toys and artwork. Zoey asked if she could paint the walls. Mira had told her go nuts. So she did, and the place looked like a coloring book had exploded on it.

Mira still didn't like it.

They brushed their teeth and changed into their pajamas— Zoey in a giant pale yellow sleep shirt that stopped at her knees, and Mira in matching long sleeved shirt and pants, navy blue with polka dots. She was a little on edge. Objectively there was nothing wrong with or abnormal about sharing a bed. But she'd never done it in a platonic way before. Her parents never let her in after nightmares. Her girlfriends and boyfriends had been romantic partners. Not that any of them had ever stuck around for very long.

Her brother…

I can fix you.

Well, she never asked. He didn't seem to crave her company the way she craved his.

Zoey jolted her out of her thoughts by belly flopping onto the mattress next to her. "Chill time!"

Chill time lasted for all of ten minutes before Mira was nodding off. Zoey, too, though she did have a lot to share about the spells she'd been researching.

"Tomorrow," Zoey promised with a yawn.

"It's already tomorrow."

"Later today, then."

Before Mira had time to overthink how much space was appropriate for chill time in bed together, Zoey had tucked herself right up against Mira's body. Her body was warm, overly so. Hot. She pulled Mira's arms around her like she was owed them, sighing with contentment before she fell still.

They lay there in silence for a while. Long enough that Mira was convinced Zoey fell asleep.

Until her voice slipped through the darkness, soft as her palm rising up to rest over Mira's heart.

"Can I say something weird?"

Mira stared resolutely forward, over Zoey's head, at the wall.

Zoey didn't wait for permission.

"Whenever I can't sleep I… fantasize about this. Something like this. I pretend we knew each other when we were little," she wound a strand of Mira's long brown hair around her finger, the injured one. "I pretend we're both still little. And we're best friends, and I'm spending the night sleeping in your bed." When Mira's eyes flicked down she found Zoey already gazing up at her. "It's probably not a very realistic fantasy."

"Yeah. My parents wouldn't have let that happen. Definitely no sleepovers."

"I'm glad we get to have them as adults. I'm glad I met you when I did."

Zoey snuggled in closer, her bare legs warm against Mira's. Her toes grazed over Mira's calf, stroking. One hand still coiled in her hair, the other resting lightly on Mira's waist.

And then lower.

And then even lower.

"Uh," Mira said after another long moment. "Zoey? Can you knock it off?"

Zoey blinked rapidly. Then she zipped to the furthest edge of the bed until she was nothing but a vague blur, stammering. "Oh. Oh! Oh god. I'm sorry, Mira. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I was just— I mean I— I was only cuddling— well, at first I was trying to cuddle— I mean I wanted to be closer to you, and I thought you did too, but you obviously don't, and I made it weird, I made it so so so so weird—"

Mira sat up and flicked on the lamp at her bedside table. Exhausted, she slapped around for her glasses and pulled them on so she could see Zoey again.

"Did you want to have sex?" Mira asked. She waited for an answer.

Zoey didn't give one. Not at first, not out loud. But her body language said a whole lot. She was flushed to the point of discomfort, her cheeks shiny and red like apple skins. Under her shirt her nipples stood out, hard and pointed and needy. Her long black hair was loose and fell in waves over her shoulders, textured and beautiful after being pinned up all day. For just a moment she was still openly wanting, worrying at her lower lip in a sensual bite, her eyes dark and heady.

"Is there something you'd like to say to me?" Mira asked.

Reality evidently crashed whatever train of thought she was riding, because Zoey went pale as the sheets under her half-naked body. She turned away, arms crossed tight as she continued to flail for real words. "Wh— Y— No— no? I mean. Y-you know."

"I don't think I do," Mira said, "Because you're going from zero to a hundred after five years together and there's a succubus downstairs. So it doesn't suuuuuper feel like a coincidence?"

That got Zoey's attention. "This has nothing to do with her."

"Okay." Everything about this was so uncomfortable, but Mira did her best to try and get comfortable anyway. She lounged on the bed, fluffing up her pillows again as she regarded her best friend. "You snuck into my bed, no pants on, and started touching me without asking. If you were anybody else that would have earned you an ass-whooping and you know it."

Zoey climbed closer, suddenly furious. "But I'm not anybody— I'm not just— I'm wearing pants, Mira!"

She leaned back and lifted up her large sleep shirt. Mira instinctively covered her eyes and flinched away.

"Look!" she snapped. "Will you please look? Look at the pants!"

Mira opened her fingers a bit to peek. And while the cream-colored terrycloth pajama bottoms were pants in the legal sense of the word, they hardly covered any more than a bikini. They were daisy dukes, at best. And Zoey had pulled her shirt almost to her breasts, her toned belly exposed, her soft hips exposed. Dark whorls of ink caressed her left hip, the rounded globe of a stylized octopus head. Tendrils mapped out over Zoey's lower body. The tattoos curled around her upper thigh. Snaked under her belly button, over her womb. Down between her legs to her—

Mira tore her eyes firmly up to Zoey's scowling face.

"The pants are not the issue here," she finally said.

The minute they made eye contact Zoey flushed bright red again. She did a 180, turning around so that her back was to Mira. She held her knees up to her chest. "I swear to god I wasn't trying to be a creep. I was just cuddling with you, that's all I wanted was to be as close to you as possible. But the longer I stayed there the more I kept thinking about how much I love you—" Zoey curled forward, wrapping her hands around the back of her own neck. "I guess maybe I thought it would be romantic and impulsive— I thought we were both feeling the mood— I never ever ever want to make you feel bad, Mira, I didn't mean to— I only want to make you feel good, and I thought I could do that— aren't you supposed to be the best at reading people? Couldn't you tell?"

Mira was reeling. As if Zoey had just strapped on a pair of boxing gloves and started wailing on her. "I had no idea what was going through your head, no. Other than sex. Which. Like. Could have meant anything?"

"Anything?" Zoey yelped.

Mira grimaced.

"Well it's not about Rumi," Zoey said with another angry huff.

And then, quieter, "It's not just about Rumi."

"Oh, here we go."

Zoey abruptly got up. "I'm going to bed. I can't do this right now, I'm going to bed."

Mira untangled herself from the blankets long enough to try and stop her, a hand around her wrist. "Wait."

"Please let me go," Zoey quietly begged, her whole body tensed and pulled away from her. "Please, please, please just let me go. Please let me go."

"I don't want you to leave. I just want to talk."

"I can't." Zoey sounded on the verge of tears.

"Even if I somehow knew you liked me." Mira swallowed a tight knot in her throat. "Don't you think I deserved to hear it out loud, too?"

Zoey didn't have an answer for that. She resolutely kept her face turned away; all Mira saw was the tense back of her neck.

She let her go and Zoey left, slamming the door behind her.

Rumi really loved sugar. Her tastes were childish and she craved simple carbs, fatty meat, and lots and lots of starch. One of the pleasures of the human world that she indulged endlessly in was how many modern foods contained sugar. Zoey insisted on her eating more vegetables, of course. And Rumi always did, diligently, watching over Mira's shoulder as she peeled and chopped and sliced. But it wasn't a surprise to find her gnawing on granola and surrounded by candy wrappers when Mira finally went downstairs.

She had tossed and turned all night, finally giving in to the allure of pharmaceuticals and popping another pill to help her sleep. So it was nearly three in the afternoon when she was told, "Zoey took off hours ago!"

"What?" Mira asked.

Rumi repeated, "Zoey took off. She said she was going out. There was a lot of sexual frustration in the air, did you two have trouble putting it on last night?"

Mira ignored the rest to ask, "Put what on?"

"You know." Rumi's eyebrows jumped twice. "I might not look like one but I'm still a demon, Mira. I can sense these things."

"Yeah? How about you sense that stain on your shirt?"

Rumi blinked and glanced down, holding out her big white t-shirt. "Aw, man."

She sighed and stripped, thankfully wearing a sports bra borrowed from Zoey underneath. Rumi grumbled and swayed over to the sink to rinse it off. Rumi seemed to sway everywhere, always a little off balance. Sometimes it made Mira feel bad for what they had accidentally done to her, but then she remembered the little shit was living in the lap of luxury here and had no reason to complain.

"Just toss it," Mira said. "I ought to take you shopping for some real clothes soon, anyway."

Rumi wrung out the shirt in the sink. "But it's your brother's. It smells really good. Like he was loved."

"He was the family favorite, so that tracks."

"Your parents have been dead for a little under a year, Mira." Rumi spoke flatly, like she was explaining basic math. "I mean he was loved by you."

Mira had nothing to say to that. Rumi hung the shirt over the back of her chair. She perched on the seat like a gargoyle as she finished her snacks, a habit that didn't strike Mira as too odd since she sort of sat that way, too.

"You know what you said, about pretending we don't see things to be polite?" Rumi asked.

"Yeah?" Mira responded, cautiously.

"When we first met, I showed you how easy it is to make you feel good." Rumi popped open a bag of shrimp chips. "I can help with that again, if you want."

Her entire body thrummed at the memory. Mira leaned against the island counter, gripping it behind her as she forced her body into a relaxed slump. It really had been politeness, she assumed, that kept them all from bringing up how much touching Rumi affected her. Mira felt an echo of it there in the kitchen. An alien prickling sensation, some outside force beyond her control, grabbing her. Taking her.

She half-listened as Rumi's voice went lower and darker, soft like candy, sticky-sweet.

"It appears you and Zoey might be a little mismatched…" Rumi tilted her head to the side, eyelids lowered so that she looked almost demure. "…I can fix that."

I can fix you.

Burnt sugar assaulted her senses. Mira sniffed sharply, coughing once. She went to the sink, blowing her nose hard enough to get it all out. Once her face was dry, the smell had gone.

"I've always been mismatched," Mira said, slowly. She grabbed another dish towel and dabbed at her face. "With everyone. Sex doesn't really mean anything to me, so it's not something I ever wanted to fix about myself." Honestly, it had been something of a relief to get the surgery and remove what little libido she had to begin with.

"Okayyyy," Rumi sang. Abruptly she was back to normal, focusing on her snacks. "I only thought I'd offer to be polite in a demon way. Since you're letting me live here without rent I do owe you something, limited as my powers may be. And I lived in San Francisco in the eighties Mira, please, of course I know what rent is, don't give me that look."

"If I'm giving you a look it's because I don't want whatever demon quid quo pro thing you're offering."

"Quid quo pro is a human affectation," Rumi said.

"Yeah? You figure you know a lot about humans?"

"Well of course I do," Rumi said. "I was born human."

That wasn't exactly a surprise— Mira knew humans were tempted over sometimes. They gave up their souls in exchange for whatever the Demon King could offer them. But it was troubling, to say the least, to wonder if that was why their exorcism hadn't worked on Rumi. And if Mira had killed other demons who could have been saved, too. She tugged the shirt from the back of Rumi's chair and muttered about tossing it in the laundry, heading upstairs. "I'm getting you something to wear. Hang tight."

Her heart was pounding as she twisted the wet shirt in her hands.

I can fix you.

She went into her brother's room, heart still pounding, hot under her skin. It still smelled like him, untouched where so much of the estate had been taken over by Zoey's exuberance or Mira's destructive vendetta against everything her parents built. She used it as storage for everything she didn't want to think about, including piles of trash bags filled with her parents belongings.

In his bathroom, she found the box she had swept all her parents toiletries in. Over the counter meds and toothbrushes stiff from months of disuse. Half-empty tubs of shaving cream. Everything they had been prescribed, though it was always shameful to admit they needed anything. Mira had been made to feel like a freak for going to therapy, yet here were her mother's anti-anxiety medicines, same brand and dose as hers.

And of course what she had really been looking for. A little orange bottle of Cialis with her father's name on it.

The last time she saw her brother alive she had been standing right here. He had been holding another orange pill bottle with a very different prescription.

This is insane, Mira thought, the bottle in the palm of her sweating hand. This is insane, this is insane.

She couldn't be contemplating whether or not she might use her dead father's dick pills for a girl who she wasn't even sure liked her. It was a fact that she could have just gone and gotten her own. But that would have involved talking to a doctor. Admitting to someone else out loud that she wanted.

Not even wanted, but wanted to want. Mira never had before, was always under the impression she was the only person in the world who was normal about sex, actually, but her skin was burning still.

She didn't need a thrice-damned demon to help her. Human ingenuity could do it all.

Half an hour passed like that, in strained contemplation, before she remembered she had come here for other reasons. She shoved the pill bottle into her back pocket and swept through the room. Piling more of her brother's clothing into her arms, she nudged the bedroom door open and nearly jumped with fright to find Rumi right outside waiting for her.

"Oooh, I want this navy blue one," Rumi said. She tugged another shirt out of Mira's stiff hands. A happy little moan got muffled when she hugged it and pressed it to her face, inhaling deep. "I know they don't fit me very well, but I like these clothes a lot, Mira. They smell like someone loved."

I can fix you.

"You said that already," Mira said.

"It bears repeating." Rumi tugged it on, swimming in it, and Mira realized she couldn't keep this up for long. She shook her head and tossed the rest of the clothes back into her brother's room, ignoring Rumi's complaints as she firmly shut the door.

"Come on," she said, brushing past Rumi. "We're going out."

Rumi perked up at once. "Where?"

"I'm gonna get you a cell phone."

First Mira had a pit stop to make. Bells jingled overhead and the cloying scent of too much incense plugged up her nose. This bookstore had been here longer than Zoey and Mira's ages combined; her parents had brought her here often. It was full of phony bullshit mysticism books, but just as frequently contained true, rare, real spellbooks. If nothing else, it was always fun to wander in and see if the owner's cat was hanging around.

Mira was here for one reason only, though. She found Zoey curled up in a corner with her headphones on, nose deep in a book. She crouched down in front of her suddenly, smiling at the way she twitched.

"Mira!"

Zoey's first instinct was to smile with delight.

Then she went pale again, glancing away. She let the book rest on her lap and wrung her hands, covered in tight black leather gloves to hide her injured finger.

"I thought I'd find you here," Mira said under her breath. "I missed you this morning."

Zoey fiddled with the book on her lap, opening it up to a random page like she might get back to reading. Mira saw it was a book on the deep ocean, one of Zoey's favorite subjects. As far as Mira knew, she was the only person Zoey had ever confided in about the origin of her fascination.

When she was a child, Zoey wanted to be an astronaut. She wanted to fly. But somewhere along the way those dreams were crushed, and Zoey learned that humanity knew less about the ocean than outer space. It was a consolation prize, somewhere closer to Earth that she could dream about. So far, that dream remained intact.

But learning to fly was what had brought her to the occult, and from there, to Mira. It was something she adored about her. The way she still held onto something like that. The passionate way it motivated her to push further, more, deeper into magic that Mira couldn't make heads or tails of.

Zoey still wanted to fly. It was the white whale of a lot of hunters and magicians, as of yet unlocked.

Mira wasn't sure she wanted anything that bad. 

"I missed you too," Zoey said.

"You're avoiding me."

"You slept in," she said defensively. "Should I have waited all day for you?"

Mira sat down next to her. "I'm here now."

"We're in public."

"And you know I'm like a dog with a bone when I want to talk about something," Mira said. "Did you think I wouldn't find you here? This is where you always go when you're upset."

"I broke this," Rumi said, interrupting. She walked over with a torn book in her hands. It looked like one of the old ones, too, leatherbound and hand stitched. How Rumi got her hands on it would probably remain a mystery. "Does that mean it's discounted?"

Mira snatched the book out of her hands. "No, it means I'm buying it full price and you're waiting outside." When Rumi scowled, Mira just sucked her teeth sharply and pointed outside with her chin. "Out!"

Rumi grumbled but did as she was told.

Every day the air grew more chilly. Zoey was bundled up, her gloves not looking so out of place alongside her knitted cap and her bomber jacket. Her eyes were focused on the book still, but shimmered on the verge of tears again.

"Zoey," Mira said. "Can't you talk to me? That's all I want. Some honest talk. Do you believe me?"

"I do," Zoey said. She sniffled a few times before pulling out a tissue from her purse. Wiped her eyes before blowing. "And I promise I can keep it together. I'm just… so embarrassed I want to die."

Mira didn't understand, not really, but she empathized. She waited for more.

Zoey said, "I made a fool of myself and I, I pushed you and I didn't mean to, and I feel like a complete idiot, and you seem to think sex means just anything with me, and honestly I keep wishing I could say let's do this tomorrow so we don't have to do this today."

And Zoey said, "If I lose you because of this I'll never forgive myself."

"Yes you will," Mira said with a snort, and while Zoey glaring at her wasn't great, it was better than Zoey wallowing in this alternate universe where they were talking about something that held as much weight as the apocalypse and not Zoey's libido. "I'm great, but so are you. Don't sell yourself short. It'd be easy to find another woman. Promise."

Zoey shut the book and leaned into Mira's space, whispering fiercely. "I don't want another woman. I want you."

Hearing it out in the daylight made Mira wonder if she was still asleep somehow. It was everything she ever wanted; Zoey was awkward and earnest and afraid but trying. Accepting her for who she was. Wanting her despite her flaws.

Zoey said, "But you haven't been honest with me either, Mira."

Instant dread snapped over her heart like a steel trap. "About?"

"About the initiation. About making me a hunter." Zoey lowered her voice even more. "Rumi told me—"

Oh, there it was. "You should know to take anything Rumi says with a grain of salt."

"Did you adopt me?"

Mira's eyes widened. Everything sputtered to a stop.

"Or did you marry me?"

"What?"

"Rumi said the initiation ritual wasn't just to get me in tune with the spirit barrier." Zoey spoke firm and clear, but it was taking a lot out of her. She was red in the cheeks, eyes still shining. "It was to pull me into the Kang family itself. Is that true, or not?"

Oh, good god. "It's a five hundred year old ritual, Zoey. Stuff's probably gotten lost in translation."

"So you don't use it that way anymore?"

Sweat prickled on the back of Mira's neck.

"…The Kang family almost got wiped out a few times, so yeah, it's a special spell to give bloodline-only powers to non-bloodline people. That's what you wanted. So… that's what I gave you."

More than once it had been used on somebody's husband, if there were only daughters that generation, and he was pulled in so there could be a man at the head of the family.

"It can be… it often is a spouse thing." Mira looked away. "But it's not legally binding or anything like that," Mira assured her when Zoey didn't say anything for a long time. "I didn't marry you or… or adopt you on the sly. Promise. Is that what this is all about? I'm kicking Rumi's ass the minute I see her."

"Please don't," Zoey said, hiding in the collar of her bomber jacket now. "I think maybe she didn't mean it the way it came out."

"Well I think she needs to be a little more goddamn careful when she's talking to you," Mira said. She stood up, torn book in hand, and offered her other hand to Zoey. "Let's go home. Okay?"

Zoey accepted, letting Mira pull her to her feet. She was still turtled in her jacket. "Are you still upset that I…"

"Wasn't ever upset. Just wanted a little clarity." She paid for the books and Zoey was velcroed to her side the whole time, needy and clingier than usual. "I like you Zoey, a lot. But I didn't know what you wanted from me."

The bell jingled again as they stepped out. Zoey unglued herself from Mira to anxiously wave her hands. "N-n-nothing! Nothing like that. I mean ninety percent of the time I just want to kiss you! And cuddle, and hug and hold hands and be your girlfriend!" She covered her face. "I know you don't… Or I thought you didn't… but the night we captured Rumi and I made that joke, to have sex with her… I know it's wrong and you wouldn't, and you didn't, but for a second you… You looked like you wanted to. Like it wasn't a joke."

Mira closed her eyes, deeply embarrassed by the memory. Of course. More things they were politely pretending they didn't see.

"I haven't stopped thinking about it," Zoey confessed. "The other ten percent of me won out and I wished so badly, so badly, that I was the one you wanted. Even if it meant I was the one you trapped in a cage."

Mira peeled Zoey's hand off her burning cheek, staring intently at her.

"What?" Zoey asked, nervous.

"Can we go back to the part where you said you wanted to be my girlfriend?"

Somehow Mira didn't kick Rumi's ass. It helped that when they found her lingering outside, she had bought sandwiches for all of them. Mira reluctantly got her a cellphone and a new wardrobe, full of clothes meant for a woman her size.

It was a short car ride, but Rumi spent the whole time chattering. Mira did what she did best and she listened, gaining secondhand nostalgia for a time when there was no North and South, just Korea.

Zoey had a hand on Mira's knee the whole ride home.

Chapter Text

Things didn't change much, on the surface. Especially when Zoey took a closer look at that book Rumi had torn. She worked off the cover to find more notes hidden within, the kind of sigil-spell-formula bullshit Zoey was always hunting for, "Which I'm sure is a complete and total coincidence, riiiiight?"

Rumi was sitting on the kitchen table, legs crossed underneath her as she tapped on her new phone. She started preening in front of it, dropping a pair of heart-shaped shades over her eyes. "I have no idea what you're trying to insinuate. And I'm still mad at you for hiding sunglasses from me, by the way."

"I didn't hide them," Zoey said. She had dark circles stamped under her eyes and kept yawning no matter how much rest she got. More than once Mira had checked in on her only to find her scribbling away, feverishly working on her new find. Sometimes until two, three in the morning. "And aren't you eleventy-hundred years old? Are sunglasses new technology? How did you not think to ask for them?"

"I was busy," Rumi said, and the shutter noise of her phone camera went off. Ten seconds into owning that thing and she was already taking thirst traps. She set it down just to comb through her obnoxiously long hair, humming as she fixed the braid. "Kang girls are always so rude."

"Didn't realize our reputation was that bad," Mira said.

Rumi shrugged. "I know more about them than most others. I sold my soul for a Kang woman."

Zoey exchanged a surprised glance with Mira. "Oh. I didn't know."

"How could you have?" Rumi sounded a bit sharper than usual. She frowned at her braid, tightened it. "Mine is an unhappy story. I avoid discussing it."

"So why bring it up now?"

Rumi blinked at her with her big, brown, soft eyes. "Because I want you to forgive me for the hole in the basement."

"The hole—"

There was in fact a hole in the basement. Right on one of the whitewashed walls. Distressingly, Mira smelled it before she saw it. Faint on the edge of her senses, something rank and musty, like wet wood burning. Rumi led them, glancing over her shoulder every so often like a dog eager to lead them to the quarry. She fell to her knees when she reached the spot, tearing at it more with her long fingernails. Then Rumi took a few steps back and kicked at it, and with a wet wheeze the rest of the wall fell down.

"Ew." Mira wrinkled her nose at the smell wafting out. Bitter and burnt. She lifted the hem of her shirt over her lower face, squinting inside. Rumi already had her phone out with the flashlight on, rummaging in until she dragged a large shape out.

It was a chest. Mira was intrigued enough to not be upset about the state of the wall; it might be her house legally, but it was never her home. She'd be happy if Rumi tore the whole thing down so long as Zoey wasn't inside when she did it.

Speaking of. Zoey started squealing and yammering the minute Rumi cracked open the lock. She rattled off about the books and scrolls inside, explaining them all to Rumi while Mira further examined the hole. The whole place was a weird mix of burnt and damp. It didn't make any sense to her until she remember that centuries ago the original Kang estate had burnt to the ground, and a new house was built on top of it. And then the new house on top of that.

"This must be some of the original structure," she said, awed despite herself. It seemed impossible, and definitely unsound. She'd need to hire a specialist to come fix whatever was causing the dampness, too. But… "It was still intact after all this time."

"And hiding treasure," Zoey said, eyes gleaming.

Rumi's eyes were gleaming too, gleaming gold as she stood at the entrance to the hole.

And swishing at her ankles was a spade-tipped tail.

"My my my," Rumi said, craning sideways to take a look. Her tail was long, purple, and thin. Maybe the width of her pinkie finger, and at least two feet long. "Looks like I got a little rush of my power back when I destroyed some of your house, Mira. That's dangerous knowledge to have… what if I go bulldozing while you're asleep? Hmm?"

Her tone went testing, tail swishing fast and nervous at the tip.

"Tear up the whole west wing if you want," Mira said, not at all intimidated. The two of them had already beaten her once before at full power, and they knew Rumi absolutely did not want to be killed or be sent back home to the demon realm. "Just ask my permission first before you go digging again? And make sure you hide that thing—" she pointed at Rumi's waggling tail. "When we go out."

"Yes boss," Rumi sang, though she was too busy admiring her tail for Mira to really believe her. When she noticed Zoey staring too, she lifted it up so the other woman could get a better view. "You like it?"

"Curious, I guess! I've never seen a true demon tail up close," Zoey said.

"You could argue you still haven't," Rumi said. When Zoey leaned a little closer, though, Rumi flinched and darted her tail away. She crossed her arms over her chest, scandalized. "Zoey!"

"What?"

"I felt that."

Zoey said, "Oh." Then, "Oh!"

"I've tempted people through envy of my body," Rumi said. "But never anything like that. Congratulations, I suppose."

"You two wanna fill me in?" Mira said warily.

Zoey shook her head and said, "I've always wanted a tail."

"And I always know what people want from me," Rumi said. "Even if I'd rather not know."

"Sorry!" Zoey said, whipping around and focusing on the treasure trove of books they'd unearthed. "I'll keep a lid on it. Sorry, Rumi."

After a little bit of huffing and whining, Rumi and Mira helped carry the trunk upstairs, where it stank less. They dropped it in the center of the living room and went about carefully— "What is this? Exhuming? Recovering?" Mira wondered.

"Well some of these definitely need expert hands before we even risk opening them," Zoey said. "But some of these look okay to read just like a normal book."

Rumi was doing that very thing, sitting on top of the trunk and carefully studying an old hunter tome.

"So what's the verdict?" Zoey teased lightly. It was cold downstairs and her hand still wasn't feeling too great so she was wearing gray cotton gloves. Mira privately thought they needed to come up with a more permanent solution, because the way Zoey's hand phased in and out of being okay, looking okay, and then going right back to being cold and blue and achey? That couldn't stand. "Are they older than you?"

"Some of them," Rumi agreed. She ran fingers through her long black hair, combing through it as she read. "So fucking boring. Celine would have loved these."

The name rang a bell. It wasn't the first time Rumi had mentioned her. "Your Kang woman, I assume."

"Ahuh. The only Kang who was ever kind to me, believed in me. I would have given anything to save her… I did give it all to save her, exactly as he promised me." Rumi's tail thrashed even as her expression remain cool and bored. "But in the end no one can bring back the dead, not even the Demon King."

"Wait, so she died?" Zoey asked. And Mira knew her well enough to know what Zoey was trying to ask was So he lied to you?

But to Mira, and most likely to Rumi as well, the question sounded like So it was all for nothing?

"Yes," Rumi said. Her eyes flashed with demonic light as she sought out Mira's gaze, maybe feeling how hard she was being studied. Mira held onto her lingering yellow stare for longer than was polite. Just long enough to know she was answering all three questions.

Jaw clenched, Rumi swung her legs harder and grabbed another book at random. She was careless with it and flipped through hanji paper like it was a fashion magazine.

Zoey sat next to her, hesitating only a moment before offering her hand. Rumi resolutely refused to acknowledge her at all, gaze steadfast on the crumbling book on her lap. But her tail slinked up and wrapped around Zoey's wrist. "Rumi. I'm so sorry. That's awful."

"It was a long time ago," Rumi said. "But it led to good things. Gwi-Ma had pushed too many people too far. I wasn't the first he had tricked, but it meant I was very happy to help when the Usurpation happened."

"Who is the king now?" Mira wanted to know. "You never told us."

"Pfft." Genuine amusement lit up her eyes. "How should I know? It's been radio silence ever since I came up here, and… Well. If I ever go back, I'm expecting Jinu will tell me there's been another change in management."

Jinu? Mira didn't pry further, but she did tuck that away.

Nothing they did would ever erase what happened in that house. But for a single moment it felt possible, in the hallway that led to the ball room, in the late morning light.

Zoey was in socks and Mira said she could probably beat the world record if she tried, and Zoey asked what world record so Mira told her about one of her few good childhood memories.

"Did you have any siblings?" Mira asked, suddenly aware she didn't know the answer. Zoey had barreled into her world like she had always been there, and she rarely talked about her life before meeting Mira.

"Only child," Zoey said. "What's the game?"

"Run as fast as you can and see who slides the longest." Mira lifted up one foot, showing off her ankle socks.

So they slid down the hallway over and over again, laughing and shrieking and racing to see who slid the furthest. Until they tumbled into each other and Mira held onto Zoey for dear life, not wanting her to fall and crack her head on the stark white floors.

Zoey clung onto her, crying with laughter.

Then she threw her arms over Mira's shoulders, blurting out, "Kiss me!"

Mira leaned over and kissed her on her cheek, a long and firm kiss that had Zoey giggling even more.

"Kiss me again!" She did. "Again!" She did, all over her face, the corners of her eyes, the edge of her lips, and then directly on the lips. Mira felt like melted sugar, warm and clinging. She felt like wood smoke, floating away.

The minute Rumi used her cellphone to call someone, Mira knew. She was the one paying for it after all, and felt absolutely zero guilt about the spyware she installed before handing it over to the demon mooching off her dead parent's fortune.

It lingered on the back of her mind that evening as Zoey chattered about the book she was transcribing.

"Mmm?" Mira made a noise to show she was listening. She opened up her medicine cabinet to look for the floss and instead came face to face with the bottle of beloathed dick pills. Quickly, she slammed it shut and stood up straighter. "Uh, is there something blocking you? That I can help with?"

"Ahheh eh ghehahgh," Zoey said coherently, around her tooth brush. Then she spat. "Need to email an expert. Don't worry, I know a guy."

Then she got up on her tiptoes expectantly, and Mira gave her a kiss with a smile.

Now that she knew she could, she loved kissing Zoey. It was a piece of her relationship that felt so right and true it was a miracle she hadn't kissed her the very same night they met, during the rainy season. Zoey had been in the passenger seat of her car with a broken nose and Mira was cleaning a cut on her cheek, briefly introducing herself. In retrospect she realized that odd look on Zoey's face meant something, meant this. The 'kiss me this second!' expression that was so obvious now that Mira felt blind. But it was useless to grieve the years she spent not knowing.

Especially because now she got to indulge as much as she wanted, making up for lost time. On the cheek, squishing Zoey's freckled face. On the wrist and the back of her hand, over her gloves, thoughtlessly, when they sat together and sorted through the mail, some of it still in her father's name. On her neck when she was distracted, to hear her giggle and shriek. On her lips just to have the complete set. All the kisses. Normal kisses.

And other kisses. On her temple when she was boiling water for ramyeon. On the back of her neck when she was slumped over her desk, reminding her to take a break. On that tender space behind her earlobe when they were training and she had her pinned facedown on the mat. All the spots where Zoey's skull was most vulnerable and she could drive a knife in.

Neither of them were blind to the level of trust Mira was asking for, and that Zoey freely gave.

So that night they snuggled up in Mira's bed, happily coiled together, and Mira spooned Zoey and kissed the base of her neck where it met her shoulder until the other woman fell asleep.

She was tempted to stay. Zoey was so soft, so sweet, so warm. She buried her head in Zoey's hair and took a moment to breathe her in. For so many years she wanted something exactly like this, and now that it was in her arms, she had no idea what to do with all her feelings.

That was a lie. She knew exactly what she wanted to do.

Let's get married, she thought, so loud that she imagined they projected out of her forehead. I'll take your name instead of mine and then there will be no more Kangs, no more hunting, no more magic, no more me.

Then a sick weight dropped into Mira's gut. The only reason Zoey had ever found her was because she'd been trying to study the occult and stumbled into the Kang family legacy. It was the whole purpose driving her. She'd never give it up, not willingly, not anytime soon.

Mira pulled away, slipping out of bed. They'd find a way to make it work, she was sure of it. But not while they lived in this house. They needed to move out, pronto, and maybe set up Rumi somewhere she wouldn't cause too much trouble.

Right. Rumi.

"Mira?" Zoey asked sleepily when she opened the bedroom door.

"I'll be right back," she promised.

"Mmkay." Zoey blinked a few times then flopped back under the covers. "Love you."

Eyes on her phone, Mira closed the door.

The call led her downtown. She strode through the streets confidently, four inches of heels on her boots giving even more height to her impressive frame. This wasn't exactly a subterfuge mission, just scoping out the neighborhood. Mira had hid for a long time, but that part of her life was over, and there was nothing out there that could frighten her into doing it again.

So Mira nearly got herself killed, because she wasn't anticipating an ambush.

She was loitering in front of a rundown old apartment building. This was the addressed listed under the number Rumi called. An address that was insultingly easy to gain access to. Mira tried not to think about how much better life was, having all this money again after her parents cut her off. And now it was hers to do whatever she wished. To keep two women with, if she wanted, because the Kangs were dead.

A warm shadow lifted up and landed delicately next to her. When Mira glanced to the side, she saw a handsome man standing there. Taller than her, notable enough on its own, but he was also devastatingly beautiful.

"Didn't even make it 24 hours before showing up," the man said. "How did I guess?"

Mira didn't say anything.

His eyes flashed gold. She summoned her Gok-Do and thrust into where his face had been, but the demon leaned impossibly far back. He kept leaning, landing on his palms before bouncing up and sprinting away.

Mira sprinted after him. She summoned another weapon, tossing it after him like a javelin as he fled. It landed just short of his feet, right in front of him, and he stumbled and darted another direction.

Fights with demons went by very quickly. They had to, because every half-hour it dragged on your likelihood of dying went up five percent. Mira had never tested those numbers because she usually finished in under a minute.

Then he vanished completely, into a puff of smoke. Mira screeched to a halt, focusing hard. Every time she summoned a new Gok-Do it took focus, but she could keep some in reserve, for lack of a better word. Currently she had three that she could pull upon at a moment's notice, and slowly kept producing as she tried to spot where the demon had fled.

"Miiiii-raaaaa Kang," he said, just behind her. Intentionally making his feet hit the ground loud enough for a step to be heard, because all demons were quiet as cats when they wanted to be. "Freeeeeak-king Kaaaang. It's always a Kang at the scene. Ever notice that?"

Mira tapped her thigh, slowly. Four times. "Only because you're in my jurisdiction. The Park territory is a few kilometers that way if you'd rather deal with them."

"Oh, of course. That's why you're here." When Mira glanced over her shoulder, there was no one behind her. "Jurisdiction."

Five taps. "Demons don't normally take the time to talk to me."

Was he stalling? Definitely.

But Mira also knew she was hesitating on purpose as well.

She was weak. She was weak, she was weak, she was weak, she was weak, it had been months since she last killed someone and she didn't want to do it again. Maybe she could exorcise him. Without Zoey's new woo-woo method it'd be painful— agonizing for the demon— but preferable.

"Mmm. Because they're all boring." When he flashed into existence again it was several feet in front of her, both hands up for peace. Disarming. "So, Kang, I gotta know. Why give Rumi a phone if you're going to monitor her calls?"

"She said she didn't have contacts in the mortal realm. I wanted to see if she was lying."

Hands deep in his pockets, the demon paced. Slowly. "Trust issues. That's gotta be rough."

Seven taps.

"Did it ever cross your mind that she dialed it by accident?" He stopped suddenly, as if the idea just occurred to him. He turned slightly to Mira, face scrunched in disdain. "Even for a second?"

"Yeah. For a second." Mira tracked him. "But she didn't."

"She also didn't lie." He had tiger stripes all over his body, like Rumi did when they first met. They pulsed on the last word, an edge of emotion threatening to spill over from his nonchalant face. "Rumi is a lot of things, but not a liar. I only came through the spirit barrier because I was looking for her."

"Sure."

"Does it feel good?" he demanded, pace quickening. His hands twitched, claws erupting from his fingertips. For whatever reason this demon seemed genuinely upset— not angry, but almost on the verge of tears. "Keeping her in that house? In that body?"

Huh.

"She seems to like it okay," Mira said. She tilted her head to the side. "You're not her boyfriend, are you? She can leave whenever she wants, dude. Maybe I just fuck her better."

It was such a low blow that Mira was genuinely surprised when it worked. He bared his teeth in a smile, long and leonine. The next time she blinked the demon was already on her, teeth closing on the air right next to her neck. They snapped shut, so close and so loud she felt the vibration.

Mira took a half step back and threw out one hand, palm-first. Five Gok-Dos erupted from her palm, aimed directly at him.

This was how she had captured Rumi, too, eventually, after wearing her down, but this guy was a little quicker. He escaped the cage and swiped. Mira dropped and sprouted the rest of her weapons in a semi-circle around her, standing her ground.

The demon lunged again, snarling.

Then he quickly changed course again, yellow eyes widening as a rain of Shin-Kals thundered down. It fell like a waterfall all around Mira, so bright it was almost daylight, and she covered her eyes on instinct. Dropping her arm, she quickly looked around to find Zoey standing in front of her, trembling with anger.

"You said you'd be right back!" She kicked aside a handful of the weapons, wading through them without fear. 

Faced with this, with the knowledge that she was out of her depth, that she wasn't in control anymore, there was only one path for Mira to follow.

"….Zoeyyyyyyy—"

Zoey got in her face. Or tried on her tiptoes to get in Mira's face, falling quite short, of course. "Don't you Zoey me!"

"But Zoeyyyyyyyyyyy there's a demon," Mira tried again, shrinking a little.

Said demon was hissing at them like a feral cat, arched on all fours on a nearby lamppost. It was basically the only free real estate nearby, considering the landscape absolutely littered with Zoey's weapons. She must have spent a long time building that up.

"Two?" he seethed, getting upright. "Two Kangs? There's only supposed to be one left alive!" He sharply pointed, all his patterns flushed and fuchsia. "And what the hell is thaaaat!"

Mira turned to see what he was pointing at.

It was Rumi, standing some distance away.

She held her hands at her waist like a chastised little girl, completely smothered by her borrowed hoodie, her eyes on the ground. "Hey, Jinu."

"Hey Jinu?" The demon— Jinu!?— clutched at his head. "Sixteen weeks! Sixteen weeks I've been looking for you! Everyone thinks you died! You did die, I saw you explode! There's Rumi confetti everywhere in the demon realm, did you know that? Do you have any idea how hard it was to collect all of youuuuuuuur excess before it became a feeding frenzy?! And now you're here and you're wearing that man's clothing?!"

"Well," Rumi said, glancing down at her hoodie. Mira's brother's hoodie.

"And all you have to say is Hey Jinu?"

Then she grinned up at him, her head tilted coquettishly. She curled her long tail up over one shoulder, forming a heart with it. "You can just say hey back, you know."

Zoey let out a long breath; Mira could feel the tension ease out of her body. "Can you tell your friend I'll put my weapons away if he does the same?"

"He doesn't need a translator," Rumi said, golden eyes fixed up at Jinu.

With another disgusted noise, he extended one hand. It twitched, sharply, all the claws retreating and leaving smooth, soft, human skin behind. Zoey relaxed even more, and the Shin-Kals all dissipated. Except the ones she held behind her back, clutched tightly in a fist. Zoey leaned back against Mira, using her to smother some of the tell-tale glow.

"Mira?" Rumi asked, soft and sweet.

Mira licked her lips. Then she waved her hand dismissively, letting her weapons vanish as well.

But she still kept a few in the tank, ready to deploy.

Rumi grinned, all her sharp teeth on display. That was all she got as thanks before Rumi's legs tensed and she skipped, hopping up to stand next to Jinu. She wrapped her arms around his waist suddenly, surprising him if the way his hands flew up was any indication. Then they slowly lowered over her shoulders and he returned the embrace. They said something to each other that Mira couldn't hear, but she saw Jinu's lips move, and it looked an awful lot like I'm sorry.

He stepped off their perch, marks glowing as they slowly floated down. A safe distance away from Mira and Zoey, they landed, still tightly wrapped together.

"Am I in trouble?" Rumi asked. Still hiding her face in his chest, and Jinu's hand on the back of her head.

"So much."

"With you or all the others? Because I only care about you."

Mira felt a twitch jerk through Zoey's body.

"That's what you say to everyone." Jinu peeled her off of him, pinching her cheek. "Wretched little animal."

"Stooooppp," she whined until he let her go. She rubbed her cheek as she tilted her head over at the waiting hunters, a noticeable calculation entering her gold-flecked eyes. "So about those friends I mentioned."

Friends felt weird and off-putting from a demon's lips. Especially this demon. But Mira wasn't sure what else they could have been to each other. "Looks like you failed to mention some important details about us."

"I thought I'd have more time to work him over, Mira." A flash of temper bit through her sweetness like ozone after a lightning strike, her smile deranged for how wide it went, with so many more teeth than belonged in a human mouth. Behind Rumi, her tail rose up to slink over Jinu's broad chest and wrap around his neck. "I really, truly did think I'd have longer than a day before you stalked me like this."

Jinu kept his hands deep in his jean pockets, chin lifted slightly as he regarded Mira. Without the patterns he looked very much like any other man. Maybe a little more fashion-conscious. Mira found herself locked in another staring contest with him until Zoey spoke up.

"So um." She leaned further against Mira. The Shin-Kal vanished and she reached out, fingers making grabby motions until Mira linked their hands together. "What's up? I'm Zoey, this is Mira. Are you like, Rumi's demon boyfriend?"

Neither of them answered at first. Rumi's tail released him just to sway, slowly.

"He's not my boyfriend," she said at last. "He's just mine."

"She's bashful," Jinu said.

Rumi slapped the back of her palm on his chest without looking and he winced, rubbing the spot and mouthing ow.

"And what about you?" Jinu demanded of Mira.

"I'm also not her demon boyfriend," Mira said, but she thought, wuh-oh.

He bared his teeth again, hissing like a pit viper. "But you're fucking her?"

"No!" all three women said as one, and Jinu's face crinkled in displeasure.

Rumi added, "Neither of them are. I'm… hm, what was it?" She was grinning again. "The family pet?"

Every single one of Jinu's patterns lit up like a Christmas tree, phasing in and out of red and pink. Zoey paled and dropped her gaze to her high-tops.

Jinu spoke tightly, forcing a smile. "Oh you are disgusting."

"Leave," Rumi said, abrupt and soft, in the tone of a well-trodden argument. Though she wasn't looking at him, it was clear she was addressing Jinu. When he opened his mouth to argue she tutted sharply. "I can't return with you in this state." Petulant, she added, "I'll get bullied to death."

"You," he started.

Rumi waited.

"Okay, you don't look that bad," Jinu said, unconvincingly. She snorted. "That doesn't mean I should let you go to the home of— hi!— your mortal enemies, who kidnapped and enslaved you, who stole from you, and who I'm not entirely convinced aren't treating you as a pet and a fuck toy!"

Well when he put it like that, Mira sort of empathized with the guy. Demonhood aside, his concern for Rumi seemed sincere.

"Stop describing it," Rumi said. "I can only get so flustered."

And there was Rumi, extremely annoying on purpose, constantly.

"One of them is clueless and the other is a liar," she said. Facing him, she slung one arm across his chest, winding it up around his head. She pulled him down a bit, speaking into his ear. "And before it was their home, it was mine. Relax, Jinu. Tell the boys to behave, and I'll be home before you know it."

Jinu spared Mira one last grimace.

He set his hand on Rumi's waist, bending down even further to press their heads together.

"I promised," he said, eyes on Mira.

And then he was gone, in a circle of ash and smoke.

Rumi sighed and turned around, headed back towards them with her hands deep in her hoodie pocket. "What a shitshow that could have been. Come on, girls, let's go. I think Zoey parked the car nearby—"

She nearly walked right into the tip of Mira's Gok-Do. It pressed into her chest, forming a divot on navy blue fabric. Rumi froze a moment before looking down at it. "Hm."

"So which of us is the liar and which of us is clueless?" Mira asked.

"Oh, you take turns," was Rumi's easy answer.

Mira's grip slowly tightened on the haft. She stepped closer, forcing Rumi to back away.

"Mira." Zoey spoke like one would to a spooked horse, soft but urgent. "What are you doing? Rumi is—"

"A demon." How many times did this fact need to be repeated? Did Zoey not understand there was some kind of plot here, unfolding right under their nose? A promise. What promise? "The only reason I let you stay as long as I did is because I felt guilty, which I'm sure you already know. But I'm done being nice. Who are you?"

Rumi had her hands palm-out for peace. She widened her fingers before she slipped them behind her head, elbows out as she arched to the side, like she had actually been stretching the whole time. But her legs were tensed to flee. "A demon. As you said."

"I didn't ask what you are, I asked who you are. Don't think you can get away with bullshit half-answers like you do with Jinu."

Fleeting as a flicker of light, Rumi's expression softened into wide-eyed hurt. Then it hardened, pleased, her irises flashing gold.

And she whispered, low so only Mira could hear, "I'm not yours."

Then her head lolled like she was so bored and she pointed at Zoey. "Ask her."

Another deflection.

"As if I'm going to fall for—"

"Mira," Zoey said quietly.

Just her name, but it was enough.

Somewhere along the way, between the fight and her paranoia and the demon giving her gleeful, mischievous grins, Mira had started breathing hard. She was heaving, cold with sweat when Zoey carefully set a hand on her forearm and lowered her weapon for her.

"It wasn't on purpose," Zoey started, and Mira was already spiraling. "I didn't mean to… keep it. I didn't think it meant keeping you, a— against your will."

"I know, sweetheart," Rumi said from somewhere far away, sounding reassuring. "I know. No one ever does wrong on purpose at first, do they?"

Zoey pulled away just long enough to pull off her glove and put her cold palm on Mira again. Mira dared to look down, but she already knew what she'd see. Zoey's injured finger was clammy and blue, but not the kind of shade humans got when they died, not from cold or blood loss.

Shaking, she held Zoey's hand closer, turning it this way and that, finally forcing herself to face what she had avoided out of shame.

There were stripes on it. Small ones, hidden in the space between her pointer and middle finger.

Ambling closer to test the temperature, to see if it was safe to approach yet, Rumi let out a low thoughtful noise. When Mira let her weapon dissipate, Rumi began to change. Her hue darkened, pale to peach to tyrian purple. Stripes formed all over her whipping tail, her exposed skin. All of her except for her index finger, stark and white when she put her hand on top of both of theirs.

"Yeahhh," Rumi drawled, linking her finger with Zoey's. "I'm gonna need that back if I want to get out of your hair."

The drive home was awkward. Zoey hesitantly explained that she was the one who noticed Mira was missing, and Rumi had quickly figured out where she must have gone. As if Mira gave a fuck about that at this point. If Zoey had said they hired a pack of scent-hounds to track her she wouldn't have so much as lifted an eyebrow.

The lights striped over her. On the dashboard, the time blared out in white and dark blue. 2:45AM.

There was garbage in the footrest of the passenger seat. Wrappers and plastic bags and receipts. Usually it was Mira driving, since public transit didn't make it all the way out to her family estate. Too remote. Pine trees as old as the country rose up around them the further away from the city they got. Then the lights became more sparse. Then they became rare beacons in the night, upheld by some old duty or law that no one remembered the origin of anymore.

Resting her fist on her chin, gaze fixed out at the increasing darkness, Mira asked, "Who are you?"

She felt Zoey's eyes on her, briefly, before her girlfriend's focus returned to the road.

"I don't care what spell backfired or who stole what," Mira said. "Answer me. I'll make you sleep on the lawn if you don't."

Even Rumi knew this wasn't a moment to test her.

"I was born human," Rumi said, stilted and tight. "But I was born wrong."

When Mira caught her reflection in the rear-view mirror, Rumi was covered in even more stripes. The darkness, the shadows, her skin. She was picking at the cuticles on her finger— on Zoey's finger?— and trying very hard to not draw more attention to herself.

"What did Jinu promise you?"

"The world," Rumi said. "His loyalty. His soul."

"In exchange for…"

Rumi said nothing.

Mira twisted in her seat. "If you make me go back there and force a real answer out of you—"

"Yeah?" Rumi said sharply. "How? What will you do to me? That you haven't already done."

Zoey was also very intentionally not saying anything, which Mira chose to interpret as a betrayal.

"What did you promise him in exchange for his soul?"

"Nothing," Rumi said, and Mira knew it was the truth. By now Rumi was fuming, no longer nervous but pissed, and even if she wasn't a total open book with her heart on her sleeve, her flickering patterns and lashing tail made it clear. "All Jinu ever wanted to was protect me from you people. He gave me his soul so that he could kill every Kang he ever saw. I was the one who made him break that promise today."

"Tough to be him," Mira said. "So the Kangs killed your girl, you sell your soul, Jinu swoops in where she was and sells you his soul—"

"My girl?"

Rumi's laugh was so sudden and so sharp that Mira twitched. Light flickered at her fingertips, the nascent beginnings of her Gok-Do, before she relaxed and waved it away.

"Celine was my mother."

They rolled into the driveway but Mira ordered Zoey to stop before they went into the garage, filled with cars that Mira ought to sell by now since no one ever drove them except her.

The car rumbled.

"Did I forget to mention that?" Rumi held her tail across her lap, shoulders hunched in.

Again Mira twisted in her seat to stare at Rumi, not sure if she was putting the pieces together correctly. "Your mother. Was a Kang."

"I'm adopted, don't worry," she said with a weak smile. She made a small heart with her thumb and forefinger. "It's technically not incest if you still want to fuck me."

Mira kicked her door open. She was spiraling still when she ignored whatever protests Zoey made and tugged Rumi out of the backseat.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Mira hissed under her breath, leaning over her, and Rumi bit her lower lip and refused to make eye contact until Mira shook her. "What game are you playing? What else are you hiding from me?"

"Mira, I don't need to tell you what your family did to me. You lived it." Almost in desperation Rumi cast her glance back up to Mira, golden eyes wavering. Her conviction lost. She clung to the lapels of Mira's trench coat like she was the only thing holding her up. "And you could have killed me, but you didn't, and you were— you were nice to me. You were different from them. You are different. So please, for the first time in four hundred years, let me go to our home believing that someone, anyone, actually wants me to be there."

The way Zoey handled them was too gentle for the term, but she pried them apart, somehow. One hand on each woman's shoulder, she held them both at arm's length.

"Hey," she said at first, because there was nothing else to say. Her thumb rubbed soothing circles over Mira's shoulder. "Hey. Let's just go inside, okay? We can decide what to do next after I, um, return what I stole."

The demon pulled her hood up. Sheltered deep in navy blue fabric. Hands and face hidden, Rumi shrugged. Zoey took her by the elbow and led her towards the front door, but Mira reached it first and barred them from entering, one arm across the frame.

"Seriously?" Zoey's lips thinned.

"It's my house, Zoey."

She'd never pulled that card on Zoey, never. Mira didn't like the way it made her feel. She ignored the pit in the center of her stomach anyway.

"I'm not done asking you questions," Mira said.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're the finest hunter this family ever produced?" Rumi asked.

Mira didn't move. "No."

"Well you are," she said. "If we fight again, I'm going to enjoy it very much. I want you to know that."

Mira grit her teeth, not sure how to respond to that. So Rumi ducked under her arm and hummed as she entered the house with Zoey in tow, and Zoey gave her a hard glare like she was daring Mira to say something.

She didn't.

Rumi deposited the other hunter on the couch and pulled off her hoodie, shaking her long braid free of its confines.

"So how do we do this?" Zoey asked, looking up at her.

Mira paced nearby. Silent, not approving, but also not sure what other course of action to take. Stupid stupid stupid, she was so stupid, listening to Zoey, trusting Zoey every time she insisted she was fine. But for some reason, Zoey kept lying to her. Lied to her for months. So now Mira could only listen and hover angrily with her arms crossed, too many jumbled thoughts to keep track of.

"I mean, do I…" Zoey pulled a Shin-Kal from the spirit barrier and lifted her eyebrows. She made a slashing gesture over her hand.

"No!" Rumi said at the same time Mira snapped, "Absolutely not!"

"I'm not even sure how we swapped," Zoey said. "Or when. It wasn't instantaneous, was it? I feel like one or both of us would have noticed sooner."

Rumi sniffed. "I did. I just thought it was another one of those things we were politely ignoring."

Nearby, Mira huffed. Loudly.

"Anyway. I'll only be taking back the energy stored within." Rumi waved with just her fingertips. "We can keep the flesh and blood parts of each other as a souvenir."

"Great," Zoey croaked.

"Think of it another way. This is just more… confetti." Rumi was perhaps feeling more like herself, her voice prim and intentionally not acknowledging the only real Kang in the room. She stood in front of Zoey, lacing their hands together. "When you captured me, there was quite a stir in the Demon Realm. The parts of me that aren't human must have gotten scattered… I assume a small portion of it is living inside you right now, Zoey."

"And you kept this from me because…" Mira trailed off, burning holes into her girlfriend's profile.

"Oh I think I can answer this," Rumi said. "Taking it back is going to hurt, by the way."

Zoey twitched again. "Don't."

It wasn't clear which part she was responding to.

"It's magic," Rumi explained, looking at Mira over her shoulder.

"Don't."

"She wants demon magic. Even though you can't use it, you reeeally want to try, don't you?" Rumi leaned forward, daring Zoey to rebuke her again, and getting only frustrated silence. "All the things we can do that your books never taught you. Holding onto my energy like a spare battery that doesn't fit any of your toys. And you didn't even have to sell your soul for it… thief."

Rumi laughed, softly, as Zoey shrank further and further into her seat.

"It's possible." Zoey sounded like she was biting off every word and chewing through it. "I can use it. I only need more time. I just need more time."

Holding onto Zoey's gaze with an expression that Mira could— resentfully— only describe as loving, Rumi lifted Zoey's hand to her mouth. She kissed her over that dark, striped flesh. "That's what they always say."

Then her lips lifted up and she bit down, canines digging in. The hunter made a noise of fear and flinched.

"Rumi!" Even though her breaths came out in sharp, ragged gasps, Zoey held still as best as she could. She gripped onto the couch cushion with her free hand, butt lifting for a minute before she sat back down hard. "Rumi, that… that really hurts."

Mira was not so generous. She was on Rumi in a second, gripping her by the braid and yanking her head back. Light spilled from her hand and she had the blade of her Gok-Do over Rumi's bare throat. "Knock it off!"

A feral hiss was Rumi's only response, toxic yellow eyes turning into slits. Her hands were open yet grasping, ghoulish as she let Zoey go.

"Wait wait wait wait." Zoey stumbled to her feet and held onto the haft, pulling Mira's blade away from Rumi's throat. She kept her other hand on Rumi's shoulder, using her as leverage. "Mira, wait. Give her a chance. Let her try."

"Why?"

"Because it isn't fair." Zoey's eyes shone, her hand shaking from the effort of keeping Mira's weapon at bay. "Because this is all my fault. Because you're mad at me, not her. If you have to be mad at anyone you should be mad at me!"

They were all so close.

All the moisture had left her mouth. Her voice cracked when she spoke again.

"I'm not mad at you," Mira said.

When Zoey leaned in, she pressed Rumi's body into Mira's. She rested her head to Rumi's, eyes closed. The blade was up against her neck too, now.

"I'm sorry," Zoey said. "I'm so sorry. For all of it."

A rumble rose from Rumi's throat. Mira felt it all the way through her chest as the demon nuzzled her head into Zoey's.

"No one's been able to best me in four hundred years," Rumi said, nosing over Zoey's jawline despite the danger and the shining weapon at her neck. Her lips moved dangerously close to Zoey's ear, long tongue stroking down over her cheek. "No one even dares. No one dares even ask for what you took from me with your own two fists. And I don't think… you know… what that does to me."

A fresh wave of sticky, sweet sugar washed over Mira's senses, undercut with bitter black smoke and pine.

And all at once, Mira recognized it.

That was it. That was the scent she'd been trying to place for weeks now. This little freak smelled like songpyeon, like— like Chuseok, like the last time she'd seen her brother alive, or her mother, or anyone else who was supposed to just fucking love her.

Her eyes burned. For the first time in years. Not even at the funeral had she dared. She was afraid if she looked weak in front of her father he might climb out of the coffin right then and there. Like he couldn't even do her the favor of staying dead when it was the only thoughtful thing he'd ever done.

Mira let her weapon dissipate into the air. She shifted her grip up from Rumi's braid, grabbed her tight against her scalp instead. The other hand gathered both Rumi's wrists into the small of her back.

Tears fell from her eyes, hot and ceaseless, onto Rumi's borrowed tshirt.

"You expect me to believe this—" she shook Rumi, shook her again, fingers lost in waves of loosening black hair as Rumi groaned with torment. "This is the only way to take it back? With your fucking mouth?"

Rumi's head lolled back, completely slack in her hands. Her lips parted in a smug, satisfied little smile as she panted. "I never said it was. It's just the most fun." Her tail curved into a heart shape again, pleadingly. "Most fun for me at least."

"Hurting Zoey is fun to you."

"It'll only hurt for a little bit," she promised. She tried to lean forward again, back into Zoey's neck, before Mira roughly yanked her away. "Ow."

"And then?" Zoey asked, holding onto Rumi by her waist.

After a few hard, heaving gasps, Rumi said, "…Then it's going to feel very, very good. Now where do I put my mouth, Mira?"

"I'm not the one you need to ask permission from," she said.

Some of the clouds dropped from Rumi's eyes. They grew sharp and insistent as her bared fangs; she pushed her head further into Mira's fist and dared to tell her, "I think we both know that's not true."

Mira kicked out the back of Rumi's legs. All the blood in her body was rushing through her head, rushing in and out with her pulse like the roar and pull and push of the ocean. She bracketed Rumi's hips with her thighs as she forced her to kneel, bowed her over with a fist on her head. Rumi's tail cinched around Mira's waist like a belt, securing them together.

There were no orders given but Zoey knew her better than anyone else. When Mira's gaze snapped up to her, she wondered if she looked half as crazed as she felt. Whatever expression was on her face meant Zoey didn't need to hear Mira snarl sit for her ass to hit the couch cushions.

She extended her hand out to Rumi, trembling faintly as she offered it to her once more.

"Then take it," Mira said, and pushed Rumi's open mouth onto Zoey's waiting finger.

She bit her immediately, latching on like an animal taking the bait. Rumi growled. A single rolling vibration hit everywhere they touched. Her tail gripped Mira and then relaxed, tightened and then softened. It kept up this pattern steady as a pulse. Then Rumi purred, a longer and more sustained vibration than the growl but lower, softer.

There were noises. Mira hadn't anticipated noises. Inside that house big enough for a family there were only two people and a demon loudly sucking one of them into her mouth. Rumi heaved with a sigh, tongue slick and busy as she licked Zoey's bruised skin like it was a dripping ice cream cone. Her lips pursed and pulled, a soft smack like a kiss.

And then Zoey suddenly tensed again, letting out a breathy noise as she gripped her knee. She had been watching Rumi like her life depended on it, grimacing and wincing when Rumi bit her a second time, and then a third. "Hah— hah. Rumi, you really didn't need to bite me at all, did you? To take your magic back. Is this just my punishment for stealing it in the first place?”

"Mm-hmm," Rumi rumbled around her. When she let her go, there were strings of spit clinging between her fangs, blood-tinged and pink. She broke the strands with a greedy swipe of her tongue. "I thought I made that obvious."

Then, in the kind of voice one uses when tattling to the teacher, Rumi said, "She's not letting go of it. I can't go back to the Demon Realm without my power, Zoey."

Zoey said, lowly, "What if I don't want to let go?"

All the corded, deceptively strong muscles in Rumi's arms flexed at once. She tested Mira's hold on her, laughing darkly. "You like me that much?"

Zoey ran both her hands over Rumi's head. Her hair was in shambles, half loose and half braided, wild and messy. "Ever since you moved in, Mira's been really, really happy. Happier than normal. It's nice."

That was the last answer she expected; Mira flinched to hear her name in the context of Rumi, of wanting, of happiness. With the way these two were looking at each other, Mira thought she could be forgiven for forgetting she was even in the room.

"All I do is argue with this little brat," Mira said.

"Yeah." Zoey rolled her eyes. "That's cause you love to argue. You're just a little too good at it, so not a lot of people can keep up with you."

Sagely, Rumi nodded.

"I can relate to that." She twisted as much as she could in Mira's hold. "Maybe it runs in the family."

Mira pulled her stupid head back and kissed her. She did it to shut her up. She did it because her lips were lined with a pink ring of blood, too, and Mira was struck with the urge to lick them clean like it was frosting. She was tasting Zoey on her, tasting Rumi's moans and the different pitches they could make depending on how Mira hurt her, punished her for her nasty, evil back talk.

When she came back into reality she immediately had to face what she'd done.

Zoey was— well, she looked like Mira had just ripped her heart out and stomped on it, but was also unsurprised by the cruelty. And her mouth was slightly slack, her eyes dark, and every inch of her was screaming kiss me, kiss me too, right this very second so Mira let go of Rumi's wrists to pull Zoey closer by the back of her neck. She crushed their mouths together, holding her and Rumi tight in the shelter of her arms.

Immediately Rumi started wiggling to be free. She adjusted herself, sitting criss-cross on the floor with Zoey on her lap. Mira caressed Zoey's legs, locked tight around Rumi's waist, and then Mira guided Rumi's face into Zoey’s neck.

The cry Zoey let out was like Mira had just shoved her whole cock inside her.

"Mira—!"

Rumi rumbled nonstop, teeth speared in to the meaty part where shoulder met neck. Her tail slunk around aimlessly before it settled on Zoey's thigh. It gripped her right over where Mira knew her tentacle tattoos were. Rumi bit Zoey again and pulled another moan out of her.

Scrabbling at Rumi's back, Zoey's fingers clawed needy furrows down the fabric of her shirt. She shoved the hem up, rocking on Rumi's lap and gasping, crying, alternating between holding her closer and desperately reaching for Mira.

"So it feels good?" Mira asked, her mouth inches away from Zoey's.

"So good, g-good, feels so good Mira, feels so good." She tried to say something else, sobbed and babbled instead, hid her face against Rumi, and then moaned again and could only manage, "Mira, Mira, oh my god— I'm s-sorry—"

Mira cradled her head in the cup of her palm. "Give her what she wants Zoey. Give it back. All of it."

She clenched her eyes shut, gasping. Below, Mira spotted Rumi using her newfound freedom to slink under Zoey's shirt too, stroking up and down her waist soothingly before grabbing her ass and yanking her closer.

"Let go," Rumi said. "Give it to me."

Mira watched with a mix of sick fascination and envy as they dissolved into each other. Kissing filthy, filthy. Zoey licked her way into Rumi's mouth. Rumi bit her lower lip with the same amount of viciousness as before; she snarled and blood spilled down her chin as Zoey snuck a hand down the front of her pants. Her elbow pistoned and pumped roughly. A wet sucking sound accompanied each one.

A provocative giggle shuddered out. "Okay, give it to me like that."

They were fucking, Mira realized. Distantly at first. Then excited, confused, jealous in equal measure. A demon was getting fucked by Mira's girlfriend basically on top of her, close enough to hear all the slick movements, to feel their bodies grinding while she held them steady, close enough to smell blood and salt.

Her eyes dropped down to Rumi's grasping tail; how it clutched and released in a new pattern now, following Zoey’s thrusts. It squeezed Zoey furiously when she was deep inside, and Rumi went nnnnn or ahh or Zoeyyyy, yessss, and when Zoey pulled out Rumi sighed and relaxed her tail and squirmed onto Mira, sometimes reaching back to hold her around the neck or stroke her face, whimpering more, more, more.

Eventually even Rumi realized she shouldn't be so greedy. A patterned wrist abandoned Mira to vanish inside Zoey's pants. Rumi fumbled to give back, and Zoey hummed her approval when she found the mark. The outline of her hand jutted and twisted in frantic circles under Zoey's maroon sweats, a dark spot forming on her crotch.

It was like it was over before it even started; it was like it lasted ten hours. Zoey must have felt it when the finish came because she crooned with delight a millisecond before Mira heard it. Rumi gasped and jerked in Mira's arms, throwing her head back onto Mira's shoulder and going rigid. Her tail rippled from base to tip. It let go of Zoey to writhe obscenely, the muscles inside pulsing and twitching. Fast at first and then slow, regular with the aftershocks. Every single time Rumi shuddered and whimpered, hips grinding up and seeking more.

"That's a good girl, Rumi." Encouraged by the noises she was pulling out of Rumi, Zoey rocked her hips sharper and harder and faster, racing like a horse to the finish line. She kissed her bared neck and fucked her hand, eyes closed. "We've got you. Stay right there— right there—"

Zoey came with another short scream. Her whole body tensed up, bucking violently onto Rumi's hands, and then she was shuddering and trembling, slumped against her.

Sweat drenched all three of them. They hadn't removed a single scrap of clothing. Warmth suffused every tendon in Mira's body. She only realized she had a handful of Zoey's hair in death grip, close to the scalp, when her knuckles cramped in complaint.

Rumi started laughing before the afterglow was over, hard and wild like she couldn't stop.

In fact, she didn't stop for quite some time.

"Zoey… Zoey, what did you do to me?" Mira heard Rumi gasping for breath. She sounded a million miles away; Mira had to filter everything through a haze of emotion. They were on the floor, her back propped against the foot of the couch. Both women rested their heads on her shoulders, mirroring each other. "Ugh, Zoey… you still didn't give it all back. And what you did give me was… different. What kind of genius are you, my little thief?"

Somehow, even though she was exhausted and sticky and sweaty, Zoey blushed. She cuddled under Mira's arm. "I— I'm sorry. I really tried."

"I know you did." Rumi stroked a hand over her face. "Do you know when someone has their life in your hands, you can see their soul? I think when you captured me, you must have really liked what you saw."

"Maybe," Zoey said, still flustered. She patted at her hair, and for the first time in a long time her hand looked completely normal. "If I can— I can try again—? Um, maybe, without sex this time."

"No… no. I got what I needed and then some." Rumi kissed her brow, her cheeks, her bleeding lips. "Keep your share. You earned it. See if you can surprise me again, darling."

Then she shuffled higher on Mira's lap and kissed her, too.

"Look, Mira," she said. And Rumi slid out of her shirt, taking Mira's hands and putting them on her patterned skin. "Look what Zoey gave me."

Her body rippled.

It changed.

The stripes grew longer, darker. And she got bigger on Mira's lap, her limbs stretching out. Rumi moaned as she arched like a cat, eyes falling shut and a smile on her face.

And then two wings erupted from her bare back.

Mira and Zoey both flinched away, but Rumi just started laughing again. She struggled to stand; the demon slumped forward onto all fours, falling off Mira's lap.

"This is amazing," Rumi said, laughing still. "I never knew I could change so much."

She was laughing for a long while, the membranes on her wings trembling, wet and fleshy as new birth.

Rumi couldn't walk without help. She stumbled until Mira made the decision to hoist her up into her arms again, like she had when she first carried her home. Zoey delegated herself to 'material recovery duties' and went to get her water.

It was a strangely long trip down to the basement. Rumi erupted into fits of laughter every two steps.

"What are you giggling about?"

She carried her downstairs, past empty storage and the hole in the wall they'd hastily boarded up. Mira really needed to get around to calling a contractor about that. The inside of Rumi's room— which Mira realized she had not set one foot in ever since the demon arrived— was stuffed with her possessions. Zoey must have helped her put up some shelves, and even though there was a laundry service and all Rumi had to do was put her dirty laundry in a basket there were clothes everywhere.

"Nothing."

Mira placed a knee on the bed, holding onto Rumi tightly with one arm as she pulled the blankets down for her. Then Mira set the demon into bed like a child, tucking her in all the way up to her neck. Rumi gazed up at her with shining gold eyes.

"I like your girlfriend."

"Yeah. I like her a lot too." Despite it all, Mira smiled. "Zoey makes me happy."

Before they had begun their little trek, Rumi had completely changed back to her human shape. She claimed holding the other form was exhausting, even with some of her power returned.

"So? Are you staying?" Mira asked, rubbing a hand down Rumi's back. "If you have what you need. There's nothing keeping you here if you don't want to."

"Ask me tomorrow," Rumi whined, and hid under the blankets. She was out like a light in ten seconds. Zoey would have to leave the water on her bedside table.

At least that was what she thought until she turned out the lights and saw two yellow eyes staring at her in the dark.

"What about me?" Rumi asked, plaintively.

"What about you?"

"If I made you happy… really, really happy… would you like that? Would you say thank you?"

There was something more there. Something hidden in the question.

Mira couldn't pin it, though. So she just said, "Maybe."

"And what gods, if any?" Rumi pushed herself up, groggy and half naked under the blankets. "Have you ever thanked any gods when you were very happy, Mira?"

Mira had. Once.

But she didn't confirm that aloud as she returned and sat at Rumi's side, rubbing circles onto her back until she fell asleep.

Chapter Text

I CAN FIX IT

Chapter Text

The next morning arrived with a pale dawn light, the kind that said it was almost winter. Mira gasped for breath, her lungs full of smoke. She had a nightmare but couldn't remember the details, only that her fists were full of long black hair, and it was slipping through her fingers.

The nightmare made more sense when she realized she could smell Rumi as if she were right next to her, but Mira was alone in her bed. She instinctively felt around for Zoey's warm body and got nothing but a giant, empty nest of blankets. When she pressed her face against them, for a moment she could drown out the charred pine. Zoey didn't have a specific scent. She rotated through perfumes. This month it was a tart, juicy, expensive one Mira had gotten Zoey for her birthday. It smelled like apples. Mira closed her eyes and breathed her in until acrid wood smoke and sugar slowly invaded again.

It was so close, closer than Zoey's sweet perfume, but… Rumi never slept here.

Last night Mira had collapsed into her bed without taking a shower. She huffed the collar of her own shirt. Pressed her palms to her face. There it was, the source. Her clothes. Her own hands. They still smelled like Rumi's skin, where Mira had touched her, grabbed her, pulled on her hair, groped her, stroked her, soothed her to sleep.

Everything Mira had done flooded her at once.

She was wet, fiendishly wet, dripping into her panties as she fumbled around desperately in her bedside drawer for a vibrator. It had been months since she last tried to use it. She sent a prayer to whatever god would listen that the battery still had enough charge to get the job done.

Mira gasped, face down, forehead to her pillows. Fresh green apples smothered in burnt sugar— in caramel. She felt smothered, surrounded by them like they were both here, both inside her. She pushed the wand head over herself, over her pants, and rocked onto it until the bed frame started to squeak. Humiliating. Distracting.

Blood spilled down Rumi's lips, onto her brother's shirt. Rumi was in a cage of Mira's weapons fucking herself shamelessly. Calloused hands scraped over Mira's naked waist, cupping her ass. Zoey's hands, strong, greedy. This time nothing stopped her from pulling Mira open and plugging Mira's ass with a finger, fucking into her as she rutted between Zoey's thighs. They were neck to neck like birds of prey, preening each other, a razor sharp edge the only thing between them. Zoey was— bleeding, so much, more than anyone should after a kiss. Bruising already, her skin soft and white, purpling every time she bumped into something or Mira accidentally grabbed her too hard, always on accident and never during training, because she was better than them, she was better than them, she was different from them—

The vibrator died.

Mira flopped onto her side and let the useless hunk of plastic roll out of her open hand and onto the floor.  

It was early enough that she wouldn't risk a caffeine headache by staying in bed a while longer. If perhaps she stayed there all day. But even if she ordered something delivered, she'd have to leave her room eventually to pick it up. Though knowing Zoey, she'd probably bring it right to her door and leave without knocking, if Mira asked.

Antsy and itchy in her own skin, she got up out of bed and into the shower, and warmer, cleaner clothing. She made coffee and stepped out into the garden, wanting to try and enjoy it while the weather still permitted. It was sparse and gray but still beautiful, at least Mira thought so. She enjoyed the way it encouraged her to meander, leading to a gazebo at the center of the property. Freshly painted white, but no one had swept it, so there was a carpet of dead leaves and pine needles crunching underfoot.

Eventually she got a text.

I think Rumi left

That was to be expected. If Mira were in her shoes, she would have split the second she could, too.

Mira texted back, You okay?

Three dots floated up as Zoey typed something, then halted. Then started up again. Two more times before she responded, Yeah! and after a moment little tired and then what about you? how are you feeling?

So Mira responded 🍑

to which Zoey responded ASS???!!!!!

I'm feeling peachy! Mira texted, bursting into laughter.

The peach emoji is an ASS, mira

You were telling me you felt bootyass

or maybe horny

Mira huffed, texted 🍎🍎🍎 , and hit send.

okay now you're just fucking with me

Mira waited.

Oh! Zoey texted. I see them.

I'm in the gazebo Mira sent back.

Zoey arrived with a messenger bag slung over one shoulder. She rarely went anywhere without one, even when she didn't leave the house. Frequently Zoey would stop mid-conversation to take a notebook out and start furiously scribbling. Everything was too immediate, too important. She wasn't forgetful, in Mira's opinion. She just had a million thoughts a minute, and the newer ones were louder.

"Hi," Zoey said, stopping a few inches shy of Mira. Her hair was loose this morning.

"Hey," she said back, lowly. She had been leaning against one of the support posts but straightened out when Zoey didn't come closer.

Bright pink mittens made her hands look like little paws as they nervously wrung at her bag's strap. They clashed horrifically with her goldenrod sweater and emerald scarf and thick pearl puffer vest. Zoey had always been more susceptible to the cold, but she was bundled up extra tight, and Mira knew it had nothing to do with the temperature.

She also had a blue medical mask over her face.

Mira decided to be honest and say, "Missed you last night."

Her girlfriend hadn't made any promises to only sleep in her bed.

They hadn't made any promises to each other at all, actually.

"Oh. Um." Zoey twisted her bag strap some more. She stepped a little closer, trying very hard to sound casual. "You were with Rumi a while. I thought maybe you two wanted to be alone."

A chunk of Zoey's hair was puffed up, caught in a way that suggested she had slipped the mask on last-second. Mira reached out and combed through it with her fingers.

"That's thoughtful and all," she said, because she wanted to take Zoey at her word. "But there's never gonna be a time when I don't want you close to me."

Zoey's eyes brightened, her smile clear even with the mask on. "Oh. Okay! Thanks… for saying that. That's good because, I also. Me too. I feel that way too. You're really stuck with me now, Mira, you know that? If you didn't want me to catch feelings, last night was your last exit."

A little knife of guilt worked its way in deeper. She looked down at her, at the scarf and the mask and Zoey uncharacteristically covered up. Unbidden, the mental image of Rumi sinking her teeth into Zoey over and over again wouldn't leave her alone. Worse than the guilt was the warmth in her gut as she thought about how they all looked afterward, with Zoey and Rumi both dripping, with red-black crusts on their skin.

Fuck.

"Last exit?" Mira tried to gentle her voice, keep it softer than her usual monotone burr.

Her eyes widened a bit in worry. "Yeah, I mean. We had sex…?"

"Did we?" Mira didn't really doubt it, but teasing Zoey was too easy, and too fun. She relished in the harmless little jolt of fear it caused. "As far as I'm concerned, I was just the bed you two were fucking on."

And even though Zoey knew her well enough to get that she was kidding, that just meant she was cranky rather than devastated. "Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't realize it was a spectator event. I was under the impression we had a threesome. Guess I won't make that mistake again!"

"That's all I ask for, y'know? For you to always admit when you're wrong."

Zoey went pink, her brow sweaty. She rummaged around in her bag and pulled out the apples Mira had left out on the counter. The top halves of her mittens folded back so that her fingers could wiggle free... but Zoey only freed her right hand. All the while she kept mumbling under her breath. "Sure, a demon threesome isn't how I thought it would happen, but I also was under the impression it would never happen. So I'm happy with what I got."

She stroked her thumb over Zoey's exposed temple before taking the apples. It was awkward at first because every time they did this, there were normally only two. She had asked Zoey for three without thinking, and Zoey had obliged without comment. Two got set on the gazebo railing. Mira tossed the last apple into the air and it came back split in half.

She examined each, a half in either hand, looking at them from side to side. "I want a smaller slice."

Zoey grinned, three Shin-kal clutched between her fingers. "It's been a while since we've done this one."

"I had a craving."

Mira tossed one half up and it came back split in three even slices. It smelled sweet, and tart, and juicy. She drooled a little before it even touched her tongue.

Mira spoke around a mouthful of fruit, "I said I want a smaller slice. Singular."

"I'm skipping ahead."

Mira grinned at her and Zoey leaned in on instinct to be hand-fed her slice. But she had the mask on for a reason and Mira wasn't about to ask her to take it off, so Zoey unconvincingly turned it into an embrace.

She hugged Mira tight and said, "I'm not hungry. You finish the rest."

"…Did you, uh, put anything on them?" Mira asked, once she finished eating it. "On the. You know. On you?" She gestured at her mouth.

"Yeah, I know how to treat a bite wound, Mira."

As she rubbed a palm soothingly down Zoey's back, the pain in her heart nearly wrenched it apart. "I didn't take care of you at all last night."

Zoey shook her head and squeezed Mira tighter. "Rumi could barely walk. It made sense you were more worried about her."

"That doesn't matter." Her hold became possessive; she angrily tucked Zoey in as close as she could, rubbing her cheek over the top of her head as she glared off at the house. "I mean I didn't take care of you at all. I told myself I'd have a knife at her throat the whole time, but I… I didn't."

I put her mouth on you wherever I wanted it.

"Uh…" Zoey's voice went raspy and she squirmed. "Uh-huh. Well, need I remind you, I also could have had a knife at her throat at any point and I didn't. So. And it's not like I didn't consider doing it! Just to remind her I could. If I wanted to."

They were silent.

"Do you think she was hypnotizing us or something?" Zoey blurted it out first. "I had a bucket of demon gasoline fermenting in my body for at least a month, it's not outside the realm of possibility."

"It crossed my mind," Mira admitted. "But I didn't— don't— have anything like that going on, and I trusted her too."

"I was the one keeping her here the whole time and I didn't even know…" Zoey pulled back with a moan, hands on her face. "And I told her I didn't want to let her go! Mira!" Mira started laughing and Zoey beat on her chest with feather-light punches. "Mira, don't! The ethical violations, Mira! She was my prisoner! Mira! What if that's why she didn't say goodbye?!"

Ah.

Mira stopped laughing.

Lost in thought, Mira tossed the other apple half into the air. Zoey flicked her fingers without looking and it came back in fourths. Two for each of them. Evidently Zoey forgot to pretend she wasn't hungry because she slipped both under her mask and munched on them with an air of gloom.

"You think she really left?" Mira asked. She only ate one slice; she tossed the other and it came back in even smaller slices. "For good?"

"Her phone was dead in her room and she wasn't in the house."

That did seem damning.

"Then the next time we see her…" Mira didn't want to say it, but she'd be doing a disservice to Zoey if she pretended nothing was wrong. "She might be our enemy again. Prepare yourself for that."

"Our enemy again? That's fun.” Zoey didn’t hide her bitterness. “I wonder if she ever thought of herself as anything else."

"Yeah," Mira said.

"I really did like her, Mira. I hope that she really liked us too."

They worked through the second apple in silence.

For the third, Mira said, "I want you to focus for this one. Try to bring it back to us."

Rather than straight up into the air, Mira tossed it over her shoulder. Zoey's eyes widened and she took the time to aim. A single Shin-kal flew out, humming as it whished past Mira's ear. It came back around in a sharp circle with the apple pierced on its tip, and landed hard into Mira's waiting hand.

Zoey was breathing heavy, sweating so much her mask stuck to her face and turned dark blue. The Shin-kal dissipated and Mira inspected the apple. Too hard and Zoey would have cut it in half again. Too light and the skin wouldn't have broken. To say nothing of the amount of control it took to make the Shin-kal return.

And Zoey had done it with her non-dominant hand.

"You did really well!" she said, and Zoey glowed even brighter. "Did I ever tell you oppa and I used to train like this?"

"No." Zoey's eyes went wide.

Understandable. Mira had spent so much of her life— and her life with Zoey— railing against her family, the way they treated her, the way they hated her more than anyone else. Now that they were gone it was easier to access the good memories. Before, the memories had been anything but sweet. They made Mira flinch when she touched them. The presence of kindness and love made the cruelty so much worse, more confusing, more unfair.

There were some good memories, yes. Few and far between as they were, they didn't hurt anymore.

"One time just to be a dick he brought a bucket of raspberries," Mira started, and then the world erupted overhead into a cataclysm.

They both reeled, staring upwards with weapons in their hands as if they could fight the sky itself. The spirit barrier shimmered, wobbling and staticky but holding strong. For an instant they could see across it, in flickers and flashes. Another world, an alien world, a place hostile to life as they knew it. A howling like gale force winds buffeted them, and even though they knew it was spiritual and not physical Mira couldn't stop herself from standing in front of Zoey, wishing she could protect her from it somehow.

It faded slowly, calming down. Their heartbeats never did.

They retreated inside the gazebo on instinct. The animal part of their brain was screaming that they needed to take shelter now, and the primate part of them reminded them that they were small and easily plucked and shouldn't risk running to the house when the garden was so open and exposed.

Mira pulled her phone out of her coat pocket with a trembling hand. Most other hunters avoided her, but she did lurk in one group chat exclusively populated by the youngest generation out in the field. None of them saw any point in holding onto old family grudges, and all of them were already checking in to see who else had felt that.

"What the fuck was that?" Mira asked, out loud and on the phone.

She was only dragged out of it when Zoey started tugging on her elbow, frantic. "Mira!"

Mira was about to snap what but she didn't need to. A second later, she heard it too.

Wings, large ones. The steady rush of something terrifyingly huge in the air, kicking up the dirt and dead leaves from the gazebo and scattering them away.

The demon landed loud enough to rattle the earth under their feet.

Only visible from the (very naked) waist down, until it bent over and the top half of its head peered through the white lattice decorations, yellow eyes narrow with glee, and gleaming.

Thick hair swung over its shoulders in silky black curtains.

Then it shrank, smaller and smaller. Steam erupted into the cold air, purple lightning sizzling and popping as Rumi groaned and shifted into something more comfortable.

She stretched, arms above her head and her tail flexing. The base of her tail was thicker now than last night; Mira could probably fit her hand around it, but just barely. And the whole thing had grown twice as long, tapering off to a thin, whip-like end with the familiar spade on the tip. It was dark purple for the most part. A long trim of dark hair sprouted from the back. It looked like it belonged on one of those old dragon paintings.

"Oh you two look spooked," Rumi said. Her tail hovered next to her, so long it needed to coil into two loops to do so. A large tote bag hung onto the very end. The demon shivered and pulled some warm clothes out. They were seasonally appropriate: a dark red cable-knit sweater and extremely cozy black sweatpants one size too big for her. Rumi spoke as she hopped around trying to slip on some socks. "Don't worry! Remember, it's very rude for us to kill each other now!"

Once she had both feet firmly on the ground, she had the nerve to turn away from them, like she was so unbothered she could expose her unguarded back to them while they were fully armed. Flipped her hair a little with a coltish toss of her head, all spoiled and girly. "Not that I want you dead. I'd have waited until you fell asleep if that were the case."

"Damn, Rumi," Zoey said first. She had a death grip on Mira's forearm. "Why didn't you warn us you were packing heat?"

Rumi frowned slightly. She silently mouthed out what Zoey had just said, confusion creasing her brow. Packing heat…?

"Oh!" Then her dark eyebrows jolted up, eyes widening. "Oh! That. Zoey, you gave me that alongside the wings, my darling little pervert. Not that growing a cock is very difficult. It's one of the first things I learned to do, but it's mysteriously been my default ever since last night."

"You're fucking with me," Zoey said at once.

"I'm always fucking with you," Rumi agreed, and— this had clearly and quickly become a reflexive quirk for her— the thin end of her tail curved into a heart shape.

Mira had been watching her, unblinking, Gok-Do pointed straight at her heart the whole time.

She just asked, "What did you do?"

Not at all subtle, Rumi deflected and got busy digging through her tote bag again. "I bought breakfast. You two want breakfast, don't you?"

Mira recognized the logo on the take-out container as being from a very popular local bakery. Zoey must have as well, because she said, "Please tell me you didn't fly through downtown Seoul looking like that!"

"That would have been funny, but no. I do have some common sense." There was a large assortment of pastries inside, mainly cream-filled buns.

"Rumi," Mira said again. "What did you do?"

"Nothing." Her tail lashed at the tip.

"Then what did you let happen? Assisted in? Watched without comment, or refused to intervene? Why did the spirit barrier act up the minute you left the property, huh? It's like talking to a fucking genie with you to get the truth."

Her eyes changed color, Mira noted. They had always changed color slightly, but it was more visible now. Always yellowish but sometimes gold, sometimes burnished down to bronze.

Right then they were acid yellow, with anger, Mira assumed. "How would you even know if I told the truth? Hmm? You talked to Jinu, didn't you? I bet he told you I don't lie, or something equally ridiculous. I've been lying to you since the beginning, you idiotic little hunter, and if you took two seconds to think for yourself you'd know that."

Once she calmed down, Rumi tore a cream bun in half and ate it steaming hot. "I bet you like savory breakfasts. That's why you're so cranky."

Mira checked her phone again, thumbing open her bank app on a hunch. "And you used my credit card to buy them."

"Do I look like I have money?" Rumi asked into the air.

Then her gaze dropped like a stone, down to her feet where her tail wrapped around her ankles.

"Jinu went home," she said, uncomfortably rummaging around until she found a soboro bread and popped it into her mouth. "Didn't think you hunters could feel that kind of thing."

Zoey and Mira exchanged a glance.

Zoey said, "Jinu?"

"Yeah."

"Jinu went home and it made the whole spirit barrier scream like a horror movie?"

"Yeah?" Rumi's voice tilted it up into a question. "Hey, why is it such a surprise that I came back? I thought I made it pretty clear that while I couldn't leave without my power— thanks for that again, Zoey— I also do not want to go, and I'd rather stay here in my house. Soooooo."

"Your house?" Mira yelped.

"I mean yeah. I'd have trouble legally contesting that, but…" Her grin spread wide. "Mira, I'm a demon standing on your front lawn. Did you get so used to me being here you forgot that's supposed to be impossible?"

After a long moment, Mira forced herself to stand down. The Gok-Do vanished from her grasp and drifted back into the ether. She rubbed her forehead. It was true. Demons weren't supposed to be able to get onto the property. Mira had assumed Rumi's de-powering was what created her exception, but here she was with ink-fine patterns all over her face and hands, eating another fucking soboro-ppang.

"Give me one of those," she demanded, hand outstretched. "Not that one— the cream filled one."

She did like sweet breakfasts. It was very childish of her.

Mira sat on the railing and tore into the bun; after a cautious circle around the interior of the gazebo, Rumi hopped up next to her. There was a deliberate three inches of space between their thighs.

"Normally there isn't a big fuss when one person goes through the barrier." Rumi sounded thoughtful, unlike herself. Or the 'self' she presented most often to the other girls. "I didn't think twice before he, well, I mean he tore a brand new hole in it, which, you know, the Demon King's power can do that."

Zoey tucked her face into her scarf, but even with two layers covering her mouth, Mira heard the faint, stuttered gasp of fear.

"Jinu did that?"

Rumi grit her teeth and looked up at the roof of the gazebo. "Yes! That's what I said!"

Now they knew she was lying.

She had to be lying.

It couldn't be. This couldn't be happening because Mira didn't want to live in a world where the Demon King knew her as 'the hunter who is raw-fucking my girl'. That wasn't a complication anyone needed in their life but especially not her because it wasn't true but she couldn't very well go oopsies! just kidding! now, could she?

It hadn't been true when Mira taunted him with it anyway— and it still wasn't! Technically? She doubted he'd appreciate Mira's I'm just the furniture in this threesome stance or Mira stammering um actually, my girlfriend is the one fucking your girlfriend, so. Not that she would throw Zoey under the bus like that.

But no, no, no, no.

Calm down, Mira. She's fucking with you again.

"Tell me who Jinu is," Mira demanded.

Rumi's tail waved from base to tip, ending in a huffy little flick. "Say thank you first."

"Hell no." Mira offered the other half of her bun to Zoey, who stood close enough to rest her fingertips on Mira's knee. She ate it under her mask. "Tell me who your little buddy really is."

The mask thing didn't escape Rumi's notice. She also made no attempt to hide her interest, staring hard at the other hunter until she said, "Answer Mira's question. Cause she's right, there's no way the Demon King followed you around the human realm like a sad R&B music video protagonist, pining away for you to notice him."

Rumi laughed so hard a spit-sogged wad of chewed up pastry went soaring across the gazebo.

Gross.

"Did I imply he's the Demon King? Oh nooo… how silly of me! Especially because Jinu is… a… jester?" Rumi asked herself. "I think I'm using the right word. The official jerk of the king? He can say, hey king, you're acting like a dumbass and he can act in the king's name and the king isn't allowed to execute him on the spot." She wiggled her fingers, miming some kind of stringed instrument. "He plays a bipa?"

"Fuck you," Zoey said, with a huge breath of relief. "Scared me on purpose."

"It's very fun. And easy."

Mira had to privately agree, though she didn't appreciate taking it as much as dishing it out. "So there isn't a new demon king, I take it."

"Yeah, unfortunately. So Jinu is pissed because he has to do his job. Nobody else is trusted with holding onto all the King's power, but Jinu wanted to look for me, so he had to sneak over here and hunt for me in secret." She snorted. "Guess he got tired of being quiet."

Zoey grabbed the last soboro-ppang from Rumi. "You're the official jerk of the king," she muttered before eating it.

Rumi's attention flicked between her pastry and Zoey, back and forth with the restless energy of a horny teenager. But she gave one final look to Mira before she mustered up the nerve to touch Zoey. The sleeve of her sweater stretched back, exposing more of her patterned wrist as she extended one hand. Her claw-tipped fingers caught in the elastic looped around Zoey's ear.

"Well you're all bundled up," she said. "Cold?"

Zoey also glanced at Mira first; she gave nothing but stone-cold passivity.

"You know that's not why," Zoey said.

"Yeah? Lemme see."

So Zoey stood still while Rumi peeled her mask off, slowly. She let it drop to the ground without a care. Mira wondered if she was just feeling leftover adrenaline still. Because her heart started thudding harder at the sight of Rumi taking what Mira wanted, asking for what she hadn't dared to ask for. Hadn't the nerve to ask for.

The bites looked way worse in the morning light. Her lower lip was faintly swollen, the little pin-prick sized holes had scabbed over, and Zoey hunched her shoulders and flushed scarlet when the two of them stared down at her mouth with open hunger.

"You fucked her up," Mira said.

"Nothing she didn't deserve."

Even with the dam broken and someone else taking what she wanted— what was hers— Mira was still visibly shaking when she tugged at the knot and unwrapped the scarf around Zoey's neck. Mira always took a long time to pull away the protective plastic coating on new electronics. She wasn't sure why. It was the same here, she supposed. She just knew she wanted to do it before Rumi did.

She sucked her teeth in a hiss when she saw the other bite marks. The weirdest strip tease, the sickest thrill.

More was exposed; Rumi slid down the zipper on Zoey's vest and her tail snuck inside to shrug it off Zoey's shoulders. Her sweater had dark brown buttons that Mira plucked at with one hand until it was open to her navel. She wore a camisole underneath, white, the shape of her nipple piercings clear. Rumi took Zoey's left hand in both of hers and tugged off her mitten so they could lace their fingers together.

A pale patch of flesh cut through Rumi's patterns like a scar. Zoey had a matching stripe on her index finger, supposedly. Mira couldn't see it over the bruises. 

Zoey's skin was warm to the touch. Her blush had spread all the way down her neck, mottled and patchy, and her chest rose and fell in sharp breaths. She had her eyes lowered; she couldn't bring herself to look at either of them.

The cold air made Mira's eyes burn and reminded her she hadn't blinked in a while. When she finally did, they watered.

"Oh jagiya," she said, Zoey's fluffy scarf fisted tight, her thumb rolling over Zoey's exposed cheek. "We could have killed you."

It wasn't an accident or a slip of tongue. Mira chose then to say we, linking her and Rumi's actions together. In that moment she knew whatever happened from here on out was entirely her fault. She was the one allowing this under her roof. 

This was all her fault.

Zoey closed her eyes and tilted her head to the side, all the bite marks on display. They were mainly on her shoulders, only one edged close to the junction where it curved into her vulnerable neck. It was still inches away from a lot of important blood vessels.

They were angry red, was the other worrying part.

Zoey finally cracked. She shook with giggles, and from the cold, and nerves. "Does this look infected to you?"

"Like you got bit by a wild animal," Mira murmured her agreement.

"Excuse you. My mouth is perfectly sterile."

Rumi stuck out her tongue at Mira, and it rolled down her chin, long and wet. There was a strange, vaguely familiar sigil stamped onto the dark pink flesh.

"See?" She said, sucking it back in with a smile.

Mira didn't smile back.

"It's red because it's aggravated," Rumi added, a little less confidently now. "And a mask wasn't the best move, keeping the injury warm and moist isn't—"

"I want to," Mira said, "Kiss you again."

Rumi's mouth tightened into a little o of surprise. Then she leaned in, her free palm on that scant space between their thighs and her tail yanking Zoey even closer—

"Pause!"

Zoey set her hand in between their faces, her palm facing Mira. The poor girl was blushing so hard it looked painful.

"Time out," she said. "Pause pause pause. What the hell is this?"

"We're all very attracted to each other?" Rumi hazarded a guess. She held up their linked hands to demonstrate, kissed the back of Zoey's palm. "We're kissing about it? Are you jealous?"

"No, just, like— last night felt like a fluke?" Her voice cracked and Zoey had to keep clearing it. "You know, like, ahhh, crazy energy transference is happening and we all wanna fuck. Cool! Weird stuff happens sometimes when there's three bad bitches in a room with blood magic! But this? This is like…"

Zoey trailed off, gesturing helplessly. Whatever her meaning was completely flew over Mira's head, and she was still holding onto Rumi's hand while she did it.

"In the cold, sober light of day, you might have to admit you like me," Rumi agreed, purring with amusement.

"Uhhhh duh, of course I like you." Zoey risked another glance at Mira. "If I didn't I wouldn't have… I don't do… I don't… Is this really okay? We're demon hunters. You're a demon! Mira and I just started dating. We haven't even— with each other—" Zoey suddenly gripped her own head tight. "You're from the same family!"

"As much as you are," Mira pointed out. "We're all Kangs here, as far as our magic is concerned."

"But some of us are more Kang than others," Rumi said.

One by blood, one by choice, and one by love— if what Rumi said was to be believed. And Mira still wasn't sure she believed her.

"So you're okay with this?" Zoey asked Mira. Rumi's tail snuck down from her hips to her thigh, squeezing it in slow, rhythmic pulses, exactly as it had last night. Zoey slapped her bare palm over it before pointing aggressively at Rumi. "Hey, you stop that."

Quick as a fleeing snake, Rumi withdrew her tail; she batted her eyelashes as innocently as possible. "Aren't you gonna ask what I want?"

"What you want?" Mira made eye contact with Zoey. And against her better judgement, Mira put an arm around Rumi and pulled her closer so that she could rest her head on Mira's shoulder. Rumi was startled by the move, her eyes widening a fraction before they narrowed again, her tail-tip twitching back and forth. "Okay. Let's hear it."

Rumi frowned. Hesitantly, her tail slipped around Zoey's waist this time. Thought-lines creased over her brow; she hid her face into Mira's chest, clutching onto her, clutching onto Zoey.

"Do you trust me?" she asked.

"Of course I don't," Mira said.

"I'm glad," Rumi said. Then she trembled, violently, not the way Zoey did but like a seizure victim. It only lasted a second before dark tendrils crept into the corners of Mira's eyes; she blinked and vertigo hit her like a truck, gravity flipping them upside down. "You shouldn't."

Mira fell from several feet up and landed with a squeak. The mattress groaned from their combined weight. Warm bedding hit her back, the scent of apples wafting up. Rumi was on top of her on all fours, hands on Mira's shoulders. Zoey was right next to them, completely wrapped up in Rumi's tail. They were in Mira's paren— in Zoey's room, the bright colors and sunshine decals, the wall covered in stickers nearly from floor to ceiling.

Their weight shifted when Rumi sat back, her ass on Mira's lap. She purred, tail slinking away from Zoey to shrink into a more manageable size. All her objections tossed to the wind, Zoey struggled to her knees.

Zoey grasped onto Rumi's shoulders, turned her towards Zoey for a long, frantic kiss. She slid her hands up to hold Rumi by the head; the jet black rings on her thumb and middle fingers got snagged in Rumi's long hair, wild and unmanageable out of its braid.

They parted as much as they could with Zoey's teeth sunk into Rumi's lower lip. Zoey rumbled and pulled, eyes slightly open during the whole kiss to watch Rumi's expression.

Rumi whined plaintively.

When she finally let go Zoey gasped, "That's payback."

Rumi bared her teeth in a smile. Then all her hard edges softened, her eyelids fluttering when Mira ran a hand up the front of her sweater. Touching her bare skin made a lightning bolt of arousal shock her again, but this time she was ready for it. Still, she didn't dare go very high, resting where it felt safe, fingers splayed over her twitching belly. When Rumi ground down on her stomach, Mira made a soft noise to feel there was one hard edge left, actually, creating a sizable tent in Rumi's sweats.

Teleportation was not a common demon skill. Even among the oldest, the strongest. If demons could snap their fingers and appear anywhere they wanted, there would be no need for hunters anymore because it would be nearly impossible to track them down, much less exterminate them. So Mira gazed up at the person on top of her and wondered, not for the first time: who the fuck are you?

In the middle of another long, wet kiss with Zoey, Rumi managed to open her eyes just enough to smolder down at Mira. Once she had a second to breathe, she kept that focus on her, furnace-hot.

"Is there something you'd like to say to me?" Rumi asked.

Mira's stomach lurched again. "No."

Rumi leaned down and kissed her too. She only pulled back long enough to shuck her sweater and toss it aside, then she was close and kissing her again. An acre of scorching hot flesh was there for Mira to touch. She hesitantly thumbed over her dark brown nipples and was rewarded by Rumi grinding down on her again, hips rolling like a dancer. On instinct she pinched them, then pulled hard, and Rumi moaned into her mouth. Her breasts were the perfect size, a little bigger than a handful so the excess spilled out of Mira's clutching paws. The texture of her patterns went smooth, then rough, and Mira couldn't stop herself from exploring the sensation any more than she could stop her hips from rocking up in needy thrusts, an itch she couldn't scratch.

"Poor Rumi." Zoey shifted to sit right behind her, careful to keep any extra weight off Mira. "Your little tail doesn't fit any of your pants, does it?"

Mira stopped tracing over the patterns on Rumi's breasts to crane over and see. It was true. Rumi wore her pants slung low on purpose, even when she didn't have a tail, and in retrospect it should have been obvious why. It had to fit over the waistband.

Unsympathetic, Mira gave into the urge to grab her by the base. Rumi squeaked again and bolted upright.

"You could just shapeshift it away," Mira said.

"Are you kidding? I just got it back and you think I won't wear it as often as I can?" Rumi opened her mouth wide, face scrunched in a silent hiss. "You try walking without half your spine and tell me how you like it!"

Zoey rested a cheek on her shoulder as she pressed against Rumi's back. "How about the wings? Are they holding up good?"

"Mhm." Rumi sounded proud. "Having my magic inside you so long did something to it, Zoey." She pulled Zoey's arms around her waist and purred again, guiding her calloused hands where she wanted to be touched. All over her hips, her chest, her stomach, up over her head and messing up her hair some more. "Makes the whole world a little brighter."

"You can leave now, right?" Zoey kissed between her shoulder blades. "You're not stuck here? Not… mine?"

"Not yours," she confirmed. Rumi guided Zoey's hand knuckle deep into her hair. She got the memo quickly. Zoey tugged, and Rumi started grinding harder on Mira's stomach until her shirt rode up and she could feel the growing wet spot on her abs.

"Really?" Zoey murmured, tugging on Rumi's hair again to bare her neck more. "Like that?"

Rumi laughed with delight. "Yeah!"

"That's cute, Rumi." She pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. "I'm not normally rough with girls I like."

Rumi curled an arm under Zoey's head, keeping her right where she was. "What about girls you tried to kill?"

Mira saw Zoey's teeth flash and Rumi cursed, hips picking up speed.

While they chatted with each other, Mira hooked her fingers into the waistband of Rumi's sweats and tugged them further down her ass. She was glad to see her new addition didn't look… as intimidating as before, when she had been flying around in her giant shape. If anything it was cute, springing free and standing up for attention. It had stripes. Purple ones.

"So how do you want me to treat this?" Mira asked, carefully rubbing her hands up Rumi's thighs, purposefully avoiding any other touches no matter how much Rumi squirmed and gasped and shook. Though she wasn't sure how gender roles shook out in the Demon Realm, she knew Rumi had been born a human woman. Waking up with a different set of genitals unexpectedly could be— well, Mira had sympathy for however Rumi felt about it. "We don't have to play with it at all, if you don't want."

"No!" Rumi disentangled from the two other women only so she could flop over onto her side. She tried to rabbit-kick her legs free. "Please! Please… play with me. Play with me like this! Unless you want me to change. I can! It'll take a few minutes though, but please—"

Zoey took mercy on her and helped her out of her pants. And Rumi was naked, as she had been several times before in front of them, but never quite like this. Not naked for them, to enjoy and explore. She sprawled out like a cat exposing her belly, twisting with her hands making anxious fists into the pillow just above her head, waiting expectantly. Mira wondered how she felt with two hunters hovering over her, one on either side.

She broke first. Rumi propped herself up on one elbow and reached for Zoey. "I know what you want, darling, I can help you. Just sit on my cock—"

As one, Mira and Zoey both gripped a shoulder, pushed her back down, and kept her pinned there.

They weren't done yet.

The touches started slow, experimental. Over well-trodden territory at first. Innocent. Zoey and Mira were in sync here as everywhere, never lingering too long, or in the same place.

Mira rubbed the back of her knuckles over Rumi's patterned cheek; she affectionately kissed the one that went over her right eyelid. "I liked hearing you say please."

Rumi chuffed, but made no comment.

Zoey combed her hair out of her face to get a better look at her. Mira kissed her again, over her jaw, her neck. And Zoey tongued her prominent collarbone, marveling at how soft and yummy her skin was.

Mira had to agree. Touching Rumi wasn't the unwelcome shock it had been months ago. The unfamiliar warmth stirring in her gut wasn't sharp and noxious. It was strange, and Mira still wasn't sure if she liked it, but she liked touching and kissing Rumi a whole lot.

She wanted to do it more. Instead of traveling further down, Mira went back up to her impossibly plush mouth. Every kiss was warm and inviting, even when Rumi threatened to press her teeth in.

"No more biting until I tell you to," Mira chided. She wasn't sure how Zoey was managing to muscle past her injured lips to kiss them both, but Mira didn't want to find out firsthand.

Not that she seemed to be listening. Zoey had reached her ribs and seemed fascinated by the patterns there, much to Rumi's delight. They were finger-width at their widest, then tapered off to thin points all around her belly, the only part of her body that was unmarked. She licked them, touched them, lingered over the blank spaces in between.

Zoey pulled her sweater off. She had kicked off her own pants at some point and wore only tight boy-shorts and her camisole. Mira could just barely make out some of her tattoo, and her gaze must have burned enough for Zoey to notice. She stopped toying with Rumi's body to look up at Mira again.

Zoey chewed on her lower lip like she always did when she was deep in thought. But her teeth found one of her still-healing scabs and she winced, swearing under her breath. Mumbling more curses at herself, Zoey took a deep breath and then reached over to put a hand on Mira's thigh.

Even through the thick fabric she could feel the heat of her.

Zoey grinned so big and so cute Mira couldn't stop herself from kissing her. Their mouths collided, slow, but fiercer than she meant to be. Zoey flinched again and hissed.

Iron flooded her mouth.

Mira froze.

A bead of blood welled up on Zoey's lower lip bright as a birthstone; Zoey sucked it in, pressed her fingertip to it and checked to see how strong the flow was. Evidently she rated it as beneath her concern and leaned in for another kiss.

"Come back," she complained. "You liked it, right?"

She did. Of course she did. She loved every kind of kiss Zoey wanted to give her. After last night, licking it off Rumi's mouth and tasting it straight from the source, Mira realized she liked this kind, too.

She took more, and more. Mira wanted to drink deep, kiss her until she was aching from it.

"Nooo," Zoey moaned in pain when Mira could finally bring herself to leave Zoey's mouth alone. But not because of the bite. Because she wanted more. Because she didn't want Mira to stop kissing her. "Miraaa. Come back. Come back."

"Hey, c'mon," Mira said, gentle so that it didn't feel like a rejection. It wasn't. They simply had more pressing issues. "We've got a guest, Zoey. We can't be all rude."

Zoey sucked in a trembling breath, eyes closed, still leaning in towards Mira like she had a gravitational pull. "Right, right. Rumi has been waiting sooo patiently."

"If you want to believe that, you can," Rumi said, but her voice cracked when Mira led Zoey's hand between her legs and set her loose. She was curious and grabby, holding Rumi's balls in her palm and stroking her thumb over the seam between them. Carefully, Mira pressed Rumi's cock up against her soft belly, bare of stripes. She rubbed up along its underside with her fingertips, wetting them on the little drop of arousal beading on her tip.

"Hey Rumi, are you the only one here who isn't fixed?" Zoey wondered conversationally, slipping behind her balls to press in small circles just underneath them. "Cause Mira and I are."

Mira huffed out a laugh as Rumi whined and squirmed; she fisted her tight on the base of her cock, not giving her any mercy or movement. "Yeah, we went the same day and got a two for one special."

Zoey shoved her lightly, but then thought better of it and yanked her in close for another breathless kiss.

"Please, I need, please, I need—" More wetness drooled out from Rumi's slit, dripping from her tip down her shaft. Mira rolled her thumb over it before steadily stroking her; she gasped in relief. "—Fuck, yes. I'm close, I'm close, I'm close—"

When Mira stopped, Rumi made a noise underneath them like she was being electrocuted.

"Don't stress out." Zoey cupped her face in one hand. "We'll get there, okay?"

The gesture turned from gentle to dirty as she cupped Rumi's breast instead and squeezed it.

At the same time Mira gave her one solid, slow stroke and Rumi arched her back, overwhelmed— then burst into laughter unexpectedly. "…Fixed! Oh! Oh, I see!"

"Did you just get what that meant?" Mira asked dryly, as Zoey ducked her head down and took Rumi into her mouth.

Whatever Rumi was going to say got taken over by a long, loud cry. She twisted and gripped the sheets, head turning into the bed, eyes closed.

"You're so damn noisy," Mira said.

After humming her agreement, Zoey kept the pace agonizingly slow. She lingered on the tip, licking it and kissing it before she sank down again. She did that again, this time going deeper until her mouth hit Mira's hand, still holding onto the base of Rumi's cock.

"…Fuck, Zoey," Mira breathed.

Zoey pulled back to find Mira already staring at her. She winked. "You can use my mouth next once we're done spoiling Rumi."

Use her mouth— her mouth—? Mira needed a moment to buffer, staring hard at her lips, the bite marks that were still healing. Her mouth like that— Her mouth like that—

"I want that," she had to admit. She at least wanted to try, which was new, and she knew without a doubt Zoey wouldn't get mad at her if she changed her mind. Mira tucked Zoey's chin into the crook of one hand, testing her with a thumb over her lips. She didn't flinch. Zoey let her in and showed her what she could do. "I didn't before. Why didn't I before?"

"Iunno," Zoey said around her thumb, sucking her in deeper and swallowing around her. Once she was free, she flushed real pretty, eyes dreamy. "I wanted it day one. After you saved me. I was scared, I was a complete stranger, I… I didn't even know your name but I wanted you so bad. I wanted to bend over and give you head right there in the passenger seat."

Mira pressed her thighs together tightly at the thought. A thrill rippled up her spine when she remembered that night, the rain drumming on the window, the hot air, and Zoey looking at her like she was some kind of hero. Mira had just been doing her job. She'd seen someone in trouble, attacked by a demon, and she did what she was trained to do. "I think I would've let you."

A loud, angry growl interrupted them. Rumi was pouting— sulking— and her eyes were acid yellow again as she wiggled her hips.

"Very touching," she said in between panting breaths. "But if you keep ignoring me I'm going to become a problem."

Zoey spanked her on the underside of her tail and Rumi jumped.

"Ask me nicely," Zoey said. "If you're a rude little brat, Mira and I are gonna call it a night and cuddle and make goo-goo eyes at each other instead."

Rumi snorted, but stopped wiggling.

Then she said, quietly, "And if I'm so, so nice and sweet…?"

"Well, I mean, I'd really like to—" Zoey glanced between them. "I mean I've got a few things I'd like to put in you, if you're up for it."

Rumi hadn't expected that answer, somehow. She looked cowed, her tail across her chest as her eyes turned gold and hopeful. "Okay."

So just like that they had a perfectly well-behaved demon waiting on them to make the next move. Her girlfriend was the smartest, coolest, funniest, most badass person she knew, and she still found new ways to impress Mira every day.

Mira lifted an eyebrow at her.

"What?" Zoey said. "I'm a top." She waggled a hand. "Mostly."

As if that was the surprising thing here.

"I feel like I should have known this about you."

"There's a lot you don't know about me." Zoey carelessly slapped her hand aside and took Rumi's cock all for herself. She pulled Rumi in deep until all the stripes vanished into her mouth and held her there, swallowing and slurping in between soft sighs.

The sheets had a few tears on them already. The demon tensed up more and more under Zoey's attention, claws kneading until Mira gently corrected her. She shifted her hands to be more human, claws sheathed for now. Rumi's body immediately melted under Mira's hands, soft and pliant and rumbling as she purred. Mira kept kissing her, tasting sweetness and smoke. She reached down and stroked Zoey's head to let her know she was doing a good job.

Sitting next to her, Mira could read every little microexpression on Rumi's face. Mira used it as her guide, directing Zoey with nothing but a firm touch to go slower, to hold deep, to linger on the verge of letting Rumi completely slip out of her mouth. She heard her trembling breath, the sharp sssp every time she drooled too much and sucked it back into her mouth.

It was only when Rumi wrapped her tail completely around herself, clutching it with both hands as she gasped and stared at Mira with a helpless want, that Mira realized what was missing here.

"You want to touch us?" Mira asked. Ever since she got it back Rumi's tail had done little else except touch them, but now she was keeping it tight and polite.

Rumi nodded hurriedly.

"Aw. Were you waiting for permission? You are being sweet."

"Uh-huh," Rumi said, her eyes dropping down to Zoey before they rolled back with another shudder.

"Tell you what. Zoey's kinda busy…" Mira pet a hand over her bobbing head again, warm and affectionate. In response Zoey groaned approvingly. "And you shouldn't be distracting her. But you can touch me."

Rumi grabbed her at once, knocking her glasses askew when her tail curved around her upper body and circled her head. It was solid muscle and dexterous as a hand; it dragged Mira down for another kiss. Trench coat, pants, sweater; Rumi tore off her clothing. Not literally, of course. They were designer. Mira would have never forgiven her.

She stopped her with a firm grip around her wrist when she tried to work off her underwear; Rumi passed her knuckles over Mira's stomach in a way that felt like an apology for overstepping.

There was no room to be nervous with Rumi devouring her with kisses. Her ravenous mouth, her hungry hands. Mira was pulled down to lie at Rumi's side; the skin to skin contact soothed her more than she anticipated. Rumi's rough patterns rasped over Mira's skin and made her feel soft, small, warm, coddled.

It was Zoey's hesitant touch at the curve of her knee that made her nervous. Tentative, like she wasn't sure if she was allowed even this much, Zoey stroked over that small patch of flesh with reverence.

"Oh wow, Mira." Zoey stopped long enough to stare. Her bruised lips shone, slightly slack with adoration, her hair mussed. "You're so beautiful."

Mira worried at her lower lip while Rumi dove into her neck, kissing her as she stroked her naked waist. "Yeah, I know."

Zoey laughed, then reached out with one hand as she had hundreds of times before. Even when they weren't dating and both utterly convinced their feelings were one sided. Mira took it and laced their fingers together, rested her head on Rumi's shoulder and held one of her hands, too.

For the first time Mira thought of sex as a connection. The way so many people insisted it was. Maybe other people had been having sex like this the whole time. Maybe she was the only one who viewed it as a series of bargains and how much ground she was willing to cede. At best just synapses engaged by friction and patience, at worst another indignity to endure.

They were all lying on top of each other, linked hand in hand in hand. Mira kept squeezing her thighs together, nothing left to rub against but herself. Rumi would have— either of them would have— but Mira didn't want that. Didn't know what she wanted except it was something like this. In control, close but not too close, Rumi falling apart right in her arms. In between kisses, they breathlessly watched as Zoey made those pretty patterns disappear back down her throat.

"Mira," Rumi said, their heads tilted together. Her grip tightened suddenly, desperately. "Mira, please don't let her stop again. I want to… I want to…!"

"Hmmm." Mira wanted to laugh at the expression on her face. "Yeah?"

"Yes. Yeah." Her tail writhed, like it was preparing itself to put on the same show as last night. Her hips twitched minutely as she fought the urge to buck up into Zoey's mouth. "It's so good."

"Want her to finish?" Mira asked, and Zoey answered ahuh and rubbed deep circles into Rumi's hips with one thumb; her other hand squeezed Mira's tight. Still, Rumi was looking at Mira with pleading eyes, waiting for her permission too. A wave of pleasure nearly knocked her over at the thought.

Heady with a power she wasn't sure she had earned, Mira nuzzled their sweaty foreheads together. "It's okay. Let go."

A shudder rolled through her whole body. Rumi's tail lifted and fell in long waves, her whimpers getting louder and louder until her lips peeled back in a snarl. Rumi grit her teeth and screwed her eyes shut like she was in pain. Mira somehow managed to drag her gaze from Rumi's tortured expression down to what Zoey was doing to her.

Lying on her belly so that she was half tangled in their legs, Zoey's lips formed a tight ring around Rumi's cock. She fisted her shaft, giving her slow pumps everywhere her mouth didn't cover, occasionally dropping low to play with her balls some more. Again she made it clear when she felt Rumi's orgasm coming; she shifted restlessly, eager noises forming deep in her throat.

At the last second she pulled back, her eyes locked onto Mira's. Rumi's cockhead rested on her outstretched tongue as she kept stroking her. This time Mira could see it all. The twitching, the first pulse of cum shooting into Zoey's open mouth. And then another as Rumi cried out in ecstasy. Rumi loudly enjoyed herself with a long, satisfied trill, burying her face into Mira's shoulder and gasping and panting and purring through every shockwave.

Mira breathed in rushed, hiccuping gasps. It was the only way she could keep herself quiet, and it was making her lightheaded. When Zoey closed her eyes Mira felt as though she'd been released from a physical hold. She slumped and shivered as Zoey sucked Rumi back into her mouth, swallowing the rest of her orgasm as it came.

Mira squeezed. Her grip on Zoey and Rumi's hands tightened, her thighs pressing together tight, tight, tight. The overhead lamp shone on Rumi's limp cock. And a strand of spit clung to Zoey's lips, broken when she started licking Rumi in soft, steady laps, like there was anything left to clean when she had already taken everything Rumi had to give.

It was too much. Somehow that was what broke her, that Zoey enjoyed it so much she wanted more. Every inch of Mira's body throbbed. An uncontrollable clench and release that left her squirming. She gasped and let go of both of them to hold herself, waiting, because she couldn't believe it, but—

It hit her again and she flinched. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't contain her surprised oh… oh… oh's, a whispered chant as she flooded her underwear. She came more than she thought was possible. The white fabric was so drenched it was translucent. Obscene, leaving nothing to the imagination as she was left a trembling mess in Rumi's arms.

When she came back to reality Zoey was staring at her with huge, round eyes.

"Holy shit," Zoey said, and Mira immediately wanted to sink into the floor. "Hey baby. Did I get a twofer or do you just get really, really wet when you're horny?"

Mira covered her face. On instinct she turned to hide, turning and burrowing into Rumi's chest. Her girlfriend was the coolest and also the worst. "Please don't call it a twofer?"

Zoey giggled and patted her calf, grunting with effort as she tried to wiggle off the bed. "Okie doke, one sec. I'll go get a towel and clean you up!"

"Wait," Mira said, into her palms.

Zoey waited. "Yeah?"

Now that she had gotten what she wanted, Rumi had the same indolent, sated energy as a big cat. The tip of her tail waved slightly, and she combed her fingers through Mira's hair like she could spend all day doing that. Casually, she took a few shanks of Mira's hair and started braiding them, her expression drowsy and pleased.

"You said…" Mira was still reeling, still out of breath. "You said I was next."

Zoey's voice pitched lower than Mira had ever heard before. Intrigued. Aroused. "…Yeah?"

When she could bring herself to look at Zoey, her girlfriend was staring at her. Her eyes were dark and hot as summer midnights, at odds with the dreary gray sunlight still streaming through the windows. Her fingertips were braced right over Mira's calf, waiting for permission like a dog pointing for master's benefit.

"You still want my mouth?" Zoey carefully stroked those fingers down her damp skin and it left a trail of goosebumps. It should have been illegal, how effortlessly she shifted from a sweet, goofy young thing to a predator waiting to pounce.

Quiet but certain, Mira said, "Yes."

"I get it. Cause you made such a mess." Zoey crawled a little closer, dropping a little kiss on Mira's thigh. "You want me to clean it up like I did for Rumi?"

"You're a pervert," Rumi said fondly.

Zoey only flashed Rumi a cheeky grin.

Mira shuddered as Rumi casually started stroking soothing patterns over her collarbone. Her heart was going to pound out of her chest.

Her shoulders hunched up to her ears, Mira slowly nodded.

Chapter Text

The world shifted when Rumi yanked Mira over so that she sat between her legs. It was like she wanted to remind Mira of how strong she was. It was easy to forget when Mira's mental image of her was still the naked animal she'd had to carry home from the woods. Now, when Rumi's forearms wrapped snugly around her stomach, the patterns shifted with the flex of her muscles.

"You two are so cute," Zoey said. Then she finished crawling up to reverently reach for Mira's underwear, ghosting over the waistband instead of digging in and demanding. "Let me take these wet panties off you, baby."

When Rumi tried the same move, Mira had nearly hissed at her. If it was Zoey, Mira found she didn't mind so much.

She groaned when Zoey kissed over the fabric; she bit down and tugged hard enough to let the elastic snap back against Mira’s skin. Mira impatiently lifted her hips and Zoey got the hint, tugging them down past Mira's ankles. Then she held them to her face, huffing and sucking on them as Mira watched, mortified and horribly turned on.

"Wish I was your panties so I could be between your legs all day," Zoey said after rubbing it, wet and dirty, on her face.

"Booooooo," Rumi said, giving her a thumbs down.

Mira just squeaked.

"Whatever." Zoey twisted and casually chucked the panties off to a corner of the room before turning her attention to Mira. She kissed her knees and lingered on her inner thighs, licking any streaks her wet underwear had left. "I need to fuck you both so bad. Can Rumi touch me? Can I touch her more?"

Mira forgot she hadn't given Rumi permission to do that yet. "…Whatever you guys like."

"Thank you," Rumi sang, nibbling Mira's ear. So much of her naked patterned skin was touching Mira. It banked that low fire inside her, like she could raise it up to a full blaze again. I can fix you. Change you.

And that was… different. It was nice.

Rumi reached past Mira to tug Zoey closer. Zoey stumbled, palms on Mira's shoulders for balance as she leaned over and kissed Rumi open-mouthed. From there it was a short trip to Mira's face, kissing her so hard her glasses fogged. While she did that, Rumi tugged her camisole down so it hung around her like a belt.

"Nice piercings," Rumi said, palming her breast, and Zoey started giggling and flushed pink.

"Yeah, uh… I was wondering! Last night, you didn't say anything…" Zoey glanced briefly at Mira before her attention returned to Rumi, eyes hooded, biting her lower lip until it turned pink, too. God, her poor mouth was taking so much abuse but she didn't even seem to notice. Mira played with her other breast tentatively, tugged on one of her studs. Zoey whined happily. "Like, people usually say something."

"I was distracted," Rumi said.

Zoey rubbed her palms up and down Mira's shoulders. "They haven't gotten a lot of action in a long time, so… please give them all lots of attention!"

Heard. Mira took Zoey's tit in her mouth and sucked on it until she moaned; the sound got muffled when Rumi sank a thumb into her mouth.

Mira had known about them, obviously. Every time Zoey walked around without a bra she showed them off. The piercings had honestly blended into the background of everyday life, not worth noting. Who knew they were the perfect chew toy?

Unfortunately she didn't get too much time to play with them before Zoey remembered she had a job to do. She kissed Mira lovingly, dozens of little pecks all over her face, and neck, over her cleavage in her bra. Down her belly. Back to her thighs, huffing into them and licking them.

"You came this much just from watching me suck someone else's cock," Zoey murmured, nosing in deeper, licking the crease of Mira's thigh as she throbbed and twitched again. "Fuuuck, Mira. You're so perfect. So beautiful. Pretty little clit, too…"

The rest of her muttered little sweet nothings got lost as she licked her again, and again. Zoey was touching her, Zoey was touching her, Zoey was touching her and there wasn't a demon in between them anymore. Hardened palms held her by the waist. Rubbed circles in with her thumbs. Squeezed her ass, her hips, reached up once to grab her breast just because she could and she was greedy.

Zoey cleaned her, mouthed over her tip and sucked until she trembled like a live wire. It was half tease and half exploration; Zoey tore her camisole all the way off and wiggled to get comfortable, setting Mira's legs over her shoulders like she intended to stay there a long time.

And she did. Long past the point where she had finished sucking every drop of Mira's mess from her skin. Mira was the complete and total focus of her attention and all Mira could do was sit there and squirm and pet her and tell her that it felt good.

Mira had already come, and so had Rumi, and Zoey hadn't made any indication she wanted her shorts taken off at all, so Mira lowkey thought they were already finished… it didn't make sense, but it really, really, really felt so so so good, she also didn't want her to stop, but this felt a little unfair and she should probably say something—

"Don't you want a turn, Zoey?" Mira asked, and both she and Rumi caressed her head, tangled their fingers in her pitch black hair.

Zoey giggled again at their touch, when Rumi grabbed her freckled cheek and pinched. "I'm good for now. Wish I could—" she shot up suddenly, nearly flipping Mira like a pancake. "OH! Wait one second!"

Her girlfriend rolled over and grabbed her messenger bag out of the pile of clothes. She dug through it, tossing aside her pens and notebooks and an umbrella and snacks and a travel-sized bottle of painkillers and a transparent makeup bag (a bag inside her bag? that she briefly glimpsed through to see if it had what she was looking for, but it only had more toiletries) and an empty water bottle and a full water bottle until Zoey found: A tub of lube and a bag of unopened latex gloves.

"…Do I want to know why that was in your bag?" Mira asked, cheeks on fire.

"Easy." Zoey pointed at her. "I've got a hot as fuck girlfriend now! And if she wanted to have a good time I needed to be ready to give it to her. Anytime, anyplace! Rain or snow! I'm a top!"

"Yeah, you said that." Mira believed it a little less every time she heard it.

It was so like Zoey to carry that around. During her slut era— when she had a lot of inadvisable, meaningless sex with pretty much anyone giving her any sort of attention— Mira probably should have been as prepared as Zoey was for everything life threw at her.

"Plus if we found more rare books it might be a good idea to have these." Zoey waved a set of gloves around; they flopped proudly. Then she flushed and squirmed, avoiding eye contact. "…And the lube is for me, too. I'm best friends with all my toys, y'know."

All my toys spurred another aching twitch of interest from her dick. She reclined her head against Rumi's chest and huffed hard with embarrassment. Their demon responded with another long purr as her tail wrapped around Mira too, holding her extra tight.

fix you

"Do I count as one of your toys?" Rumi wondered, licking Mira's cheek.

"No." Zoey pointed at Rumi with her injured finger. "You're the reason I have to use my right hand for this."

Rumi was busy kissing Mira's neck, unbothered. "You did okay with your left last night."

Abruptly, Mira realized Zoey had used her left hand last night. Everything happened underneath the waistband where she couldn't see, and she was too overwhelmed to realize. Zoey must have been freely bleeding when she thrust herself inside Rumi's cunt.

"But don't worry," Rumi said. "I can fix it."

Another wave of arousal washed over Mira, sudden and unwelcome as a bout of nausea. She was hard again immediately, more urgent than before, and whimpered when Rumi pressed up against her ass.

Rumi leaned over her to wrap her lips around Zoey's finger, molded herself to Mira's spine.

Zoey twitched a few times, maybe afraid of more bites, but eventually relaxed. She thrust another finger inside Rumi's mouth with an expression of lust so keen and so sharp it looked painful.

"For energy transference!" Zoey said, when her braincells activated again. She pulled out with a nervous laugh, shaking her hand like it had fallen asleep. "That's uh, why I did that. Last night—"

"Zoey," Mira said in alarm.

Zoey paused mid-yap. Slowly, she examined her left hand.

Her finger was completely healed, unmarred except for that single purple stripe.

"…You motherfucker!" Mira said first, and Rumi shook with loud cackles. "This whole time you could have— You let Zoey suck our dicks— Zoey, don't laugh! You're encouraging her!"

"It's a little funny," Zoey said, wiping at her eyes.

Both women practically fell onto Mira, slumped over with helpless giggles while she glared off into the ceiling.

"You're the pervert." Zoey's lips were hot on Mira's ear, but the accusation was leveled at Rumi.

Rumi fanned a palm over Mira's stomach. "If you hadn't been so eager I might have healed your mouth first."

"Fix it now and I'll forgive you," Zoey gasped.

Mira was squished deliciously between them when they strained to reach each other. She held onto Zoey, listened to them kiss. She traced the lines of Zoey's tattoo, sinking a few fingers under her waistband to try and see more of it.

As they kissed, Rumi's tongue worked its magic over Zoey's lips. They broke apart just to turn their attention to Mira, stroking their hands all over her, Zoey in her mouth and Rumi licking her ear, her shoulder, groping her breasts. Zoey bucked against her, grinding her pussy over Mira's dick. She was so wet, her underwear soaked through.

"Mira first," Rumi said.

"You sure?" Zoey murmured.

Rumi shrugged. "I feel bad for her."

Then Rumi's teeth closed over the back of her neck.

fix

Mira stiffened. "I told you not to bite."

"Oh." Rumi had the nerve to sound wounded. "I didn't break the skin, though…"

Mira rubbed the back of her neck and checked. No blood, not even any pain, but… she was very suddenly not okay. And she didn't know how to fix it in a way that didn't involve everyone putting their pants back on. She didn't want this to stop, it had been so long since she felt so unabashedly good and she wanted more. To see how far this could go— to see how deeply her family's legacy could be destroyed by just one woman.

She was fucking a demon in her parent's marriage bed.

At once Zoey was razor-sharp and sober, meeting Mira's eyes in an unspoken question.

She licked her lips, soft and clean now.

"Turn around for me, jagi," Zoey purred. As if she was the one who gave the orders around here.

Of course Mira did it. She pulled her long hair over one shoulder and glared imperiously down at Rumi before she straddled her. "I'm mad at you."

She looked like a mess. Her thick black hair was in long tangles, strewn over her smug face. Rumi's sinuous tail gripped the bottle and snapped it open. Lube dripped onto her twitching cock. It was cold; Mira couldn't help but gasp.

"You'll get over it," Rumi said.

Her tail swung, tossing the bottle for to Zoey deftly catch.

Then the thin, whiplike end of her tail wrapped around their shafts and squeezed them together.

Mira nearly blacked out.

"Zoey." Rumi sat back, hands braced behind her so she could get a better view. Her patterns shifted with every subtle motion, her stomach hitching. "Take her slow?"

"Duh." Warm, gloved fingers spread Mira open. Perfect Zoey and her soft, perfect mouth kissed away the tension in her shoulders.

Somewhere along the way Mira lost control. She would never do anything so demeaning as beg, but the girlish whines spilling out of her mouth were almost as bad. Zoey wasn't even thrusting. Neither of them were, that was the horrible part, so she thought maybe that meant she ought to stay still too, insomuch she was capable of thinking about anything.

Rumi had them both locked up tight, every idle shift grinding them together, and Zoey was mouthing at her neck, rubbing circles around her asshole.

"Do you want me inside?" Zoey asked, so sweetly, genuine. "Is it okay? Or should I lick you again, right here…?" Her slick fingers stroked further between her legs. "Or here? You could sit on my face and put my tongue wherever you need it."

Rumi chose that moment to give them both another squeeze, her cock snug and hot against Mira's.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK.

"Fuck," Mira said, and Rumi's eyes slitted with excitement. "Fuck it. Yeah. I wanna try. Your fin… fingers."

Zoey pressed her head to Mira's, kissing over her hair. "Tell me if it hurts. Even a little. Okay?"

Some part of her expected Zoey to be too excited for a gentle touch. Peppy and eager and sometimes accidentally thoughtless. That was Zoey. So Mira tensed up and then breathed out as she felt Zoey's delicate, strong fingers apply more pressure. Deeper and deeper circles until she was breached.

Mira's hands whipped out and she yanked Rumi closer, holding onto her for comfort, for the pleasure of her patterned skin.

"Not so bad, is it?" Rumi asked, under her breath. "I'm sorry about the biting... I know I can be scary."

Mira grit her teeth and knocked their foreheads together. "I'm not afraid of you."

Rumi answered her with a fond kiss.

They parted with a noise like the click of a tongue, and Rumi's focus dropped down to the two of them linked together.

"Good. Don't be. I'm different," she murmured. The spaded tip of her tail slicked over her cock, covering and rubbing her tip like Zoey's tongue had, and she shivered. Then she did it to Mira, paying close attention to her every little move. "I'm different from them, Mira… I want to be different."

They started rocking together, little twitching thrusts. She couldn't get far or move much in the tight clasp of Rumi's tail. And slowly, back and forth, the tip of her tail kept caressing her cock head in little semicircles, in gentle rubs. It teased open her slit, threatening to dip inside before Rumi returned it back to herself to start it all over again.

Rumi reached down to hold her ass open for Zoey.

"But Mira," Rumi said, voice rough. "I need you to relax."

She did, immediately. Mira exhaled hugely, every muscle in her body relaxing into the security of Rumi's arms.

Zoey whispered a harsh curse and sank in a little deeper. "Good?"

"Uh-huh," Mira said into Rumi's chest. All three of them were damp with sweat, sticking and sliding against each other. Every part of her was wet and warm and taken care of, like a bubble bath. Zoey fucked into her more, searching for her spot, and Mira loudly let her know when she found it.

Mira melted when she was held by them. She was happy there between them, safe in that place where nothing hurt, and no one wanted to hurt her.

They were surrounding her entirely, kissing and stroking her thighs and her hips and her ribs and her calves and anywhere they could reach, her spine and her chest. Two fingers rested inside her. Zoey breathed heavily into her ear, pumping shallow thrusts right on her spot, never fully leaving it alone or pulling out.

Rumi held her around the waist with her chin on Mira's shoulder, keeping them pressed tight as her tail flexed and squeezed. Mira's cock leaked so much they didn't even need the lube to slip against each other, and Zoey was pushing more and more slick out of her every time she worked her fingers just right.

She'd never felt like this before in her life.

She wondered if her clothes smelled like someone loved her.

"I wanna feel it this time," Zoey said it in a rush. Nervous, and quick. She wrapped an arm around Mira's stomach, fighting with Rumi for real estate, and held her tight. The three of them molded together, Zoey's soft body pressed to her back, Rumi’s heart beating on top of hers. "Please… I wanna know how it feels when you cum. Let me feel it."

Instead of thrusting recklessly, Zoey stayed pressed inside her. She demanded more, rubbing insistent circles. No matter which way Mira moved she was touching one of these women, getting fucked by them, feeling them grind on her for pleasure. She also wanted Zoey to feel what she was doing to her. She wanted Rumi's help getting there.

In between Rumi's dick twitching against hers and the overwhelming trust of having Zoey inside her body, whatever was left of her self-control snapped in half. Mira thrashed in silence, cum spilling into the tight clasp of Rumi's tail.

Zoey crooned, "Oh sweetheart, yes, that's it baby, you're so good. Move how it feels good, fuck me back."

She did, dropping back onto Zoey. The other hunter braced her wrist and kept herself still for Mira to grind against. White lightning flashed behind her eyes, and every time she lifted her hips forward she was pushed into Rumi's rippling tail, her rigid dick, and then back onto Zoey’s waiting hands. It felt like it lasted forever.

Distantly, she recognized their hands on her were the only thing keeping her upright. Rumi's tail held them loosely; her cock was still very, very hard and the stripes were pulsing.

Zoey stayed inside her for a while, massaging Mira to ride out every last flutter of her orgasm. After pressing her a few more times to make sure she'd been milked dry, Zoey's fingers withdrew slowly from her ass. An elastic snap, a wet slick of latex peeling off skin. Zoey tossed her glove into the trash bin by the bed.

She was propped up by the headboard, reclining on a veritable mountain of pillows. Someone took her glasses off. Mira didn't know who. Didn't care.

Shit. Was this what sex was supposed to feel like? She still didn't know. But she liked it a whole lot better than the sex she'd had before.

If she could have opened her chest like the hood of a car, root around and yank out her trauma (she thought, with slowly growing vertigo) maybe she'd find everyone had been right when they told her over and over again that one day she'd find the right person, that she just had been wrong, she was wrong, wrong, wrong—

"You look exhausted." Zoey sat next to her, combing her fingers over Mira's sweaty bangs. She was close enough that her face wasn't blurry. Her neck and shoulders were still a landscape of bruises and bites. "Had a hard time sleeping last night?"

Everything went quiet.

Mira leaned into her hand. "Mmm."

"We all went to bed pretty late," Zoey agreed softly.

She stayed there resting in Zoey's palm, drifting in and out of consciousness. The sound of conversation remained on the edge of her senses as white noise, both of them keeping their voices low to not disturb her.

"So what are you trying to prove?" Rumi wanted to know. "I know you don't have any disagreements with your body."

"Maybe I just really like these underwear."

"I can smell you. How wet you are."

Zoey freed her hand from where Mira was using her like a pillow, but only so she could stroke her bangs again. "You're still looking pretty excited yourself."

"Not exactly by choice… I don't know if you noticed, but Mira came all over me. I can't imagine anyone could maintain composure through that." At her name, Mira stirred a little more. When she opened her eyes, Zoey and Rumi were a hair's breadth apart. "Don't you want me to make you feel good, Zoey?"

"And embarrass myself like you two?" Zoey's voice sparkled with mischief. "As if."

Rumi's patterned hands spread over Zoey's thighs, rubbing up to her hips. "But I know what you want."

All of Zoey's warmth left Mira as she wrapped her arms loosely around Rumi's shoulders, sitting up to face her. Mira only mourned it for a second though because she had a really good view of them making out.

"It's not a secret," Zoey whispered, reaching between them to hold Rumi. She stroked her slowly, lipping over her cheek. "I gave you a gun and asked if it was loaded."

"It is." Rumi breathed raggedly. "And Zoey… I could. Say the word and it's yours. We wouldn't even need to touch… it doesn't even have to be mine."

"Sure," Zoey said. Heavy on the sarcasm.

"Your doubting heart. How many fairy tales are about a woman who can't conceive making a deal with a devil like me?"

"No, I mean, I'm sure you could." Zoey rolled her eyes. "But why would you? Any baby of mine would be a Kang, and your friends would kill you for undoing all the hard work of exterminating us. A demon doesn't work for free; whatever price you ask, I'm not going to pay up. And it's 2025." She shoved Rumi back down onto the bed. "Do it without my permission and I'll abort that thang."

Mira burst into laughter, getting both their attention.

"You woke her up," Rumi chided, before Zoey tilted her face back and kissed her hard.

Zoey braced herself above Rumi on her forearms. She had her head clutched in both hands. "Open your mouth. I want to see it again."

The demon obeyed without complaint. She unhinged her jaw wider than should have been possible, all her kitten teeth gleaming white and sharp. Rumi stuck out her tongue for Zoey to touch and memorize the mark carved onto it.

"Huh… looks like the hunter sign for purity." Zoey stroked over it with two fingers. "What made you decide to put it here?"

Rumi pulled away.

"I didn't," she said.

"Oh."

"Very useful before modern dentistry," Rumi said.

Mira finally spoke up. She had been curious, too. "Is that why you have it?"

Rumi said, "No."

Zoey caressed her face before leaning over to kiss her again, gently. Patterned clawtips scraped up her back, scratching over her freckles. She held Zoey by the waist, keeping her close.

"You have an alarming grasp on half-dead languages," Rumi said when she was free.

"That's not a surprise, you knew this already."

"Doesn't make it any less alarming." They kissed again. "The books don't have what you want, Zoey. You won't find it in this house. Not going to find them in those books. As for why I'd give you a baby… well, I'd give you anything you wanted just because you asked for it."

Zoey dropped her head to Rumi's shoulder. "Yeah, of course. And you'd ask for absolutely nothing in return."

Rumi smiled. She closed her eyes and a long purr rolled out of her chest. Her hold on Zoey tightened as she wiggled and nuzzled into her bruised neck.

"Well of course I want your soul," she said into her skin. "I'd be an idiot not to ask for it."

She blinked slowly, lazily at Zoey when the hunter retreated. Rumi's breathing hitched as she found the lube and gloves again.

"Yeah?" Latex snapped against Zoey's wrist. "Does that approach work often for you? Just asking for souls?"

"I can be very convincing." Rumi's doe eyes came into play, unfairly large and demure. "People love to give me what I want. They do it because they love me… Don't you love me?"

"Not yet."

They were a blur right outside Mira's range of vision. She heard them more than she saw them. Zoey on top of their demon, patterned legs over her shoulders. She bullied another orgasm out of her, making her beg, making her howl.

Zoey complained about the cold, and Mira's heart lurched. She promised she'd turn on the heat ASAP, and that she could actually turn on the system that heated the floors, but wasn't sure if it was cold enough yet and it had been so long since she lived here she forgot it was even a thing. Zoey made listening noises and shuffled under the blankets, still half naked, and shivered.

"Rich girl," Zoey murmured without any bite.

Rumi sprawled out between them with her eyes closed, tail waving slightly. A dark line furrowed her brow. She rested on top of the blankets. Evidently the temperature didn't bother her.

"You look very serious. Did I do good?"

"I don't think you could do bad if you tried." Rumi smiled over at Zoey. The stress line on her face melted away. "You're unreservedly sweet and attentive. Even when you think you're being mean."

Zoey flushed deeply, but sounded proud. "Good, then."

"Very good," Rumi said. And then, "I don't know if it matters what I try, either."

One clawtip reached for the space between her and Mira and found a long strand of Mira's hair. She wound it around her claw before letting it slip free.

"I'm trying, too." Rumi said, the back of her arm over her eyes. She pulled it down just to meet Mira's gaze, maybe because she understood the impossibility of what they all wanted. More than Zoey would. "Trying to find a way where this doesn't end with us killing each other."

Mira's stomach clenched with anxiety.

"Sounds easy enough." Mira found her voice eventually. "Let's all just pinkie promise right now not to do that."

"You know it's not that simple."

Of course. This closeness they developed, this affection, would have been impossible if the conditions hadn't fallen exactly so. It was only because of the turmoil in the Demon Realm they were afforded this brief respite from their duties. That, and the isolation and protection of the estate, this bubble they were in— and that only because they were all three broken failures by Kang family standards. Outcast, interloper, prodigal daughter.

If Mira hadn't run away, she might have died with her family. So Zoey would have never met her, never learned to hunt. Then the two of them wouldn't have become such a lethal pair, enough to take down a demon who declared it her first loss in four centuries.

And if they weren't who they were, they wouldn't have shown Rumi mercy.

With her parents and older brother gone, Mira was the head of the family now. And after four hundred years she had welcomed Rumi back into the clan.

She'd carried Rumi over the threshold herself.

I want to be good. Want to be different.

Nothing about this should be happening.

"…I want to be different too," Mira whispered. She was a failure because, "I don't want to hurt people anymore."

"Mannnnnn." Zoey was tucked in up to her chest, arms above the blankets. She stared up at the ceiling. "This pillow talk sucks."

The other two burst into near-hysterical laughter, startled out of their melancholy.

"You're right! I'm sorry." Rumi turned towards her, coddling her with soothing touches. "What should we talk about instead?"

"I dunno, how tasty Mira is? Maybe a few words of encouragement? I worked really, really hard today!" Zoey whined even after Mira leaned over Rumi's body to kiss her. "Mannnnn. I don't wanna hear all this fated enemies shit! We all like each other and that's all that should matter!"

Maybe that could be all that matters, Mira thought, briefly, hopelessly.

"Yeah," she said. "Maybe."

After Zoey insisted she was good for now, Mira took a shower alone. Maybe it was a mistake, but she didn't use her own bathroom. This would be fine, she thought. Zoey's bathroom smelled like her, too, was full of her things.

She was, frankly... overstimulated. Every part of her. She felt like a cat that had been pet too roughly and it made her want to bite. Of course that made her think of Zoey's wounds all weeping blood and— nope.

"Nope. Nope, nope." Mira lowered the temperature. "Nope nope nope."

Once she was clean she found the two of them talking in low voices, facing each other and snuggling for body heat. Mira immediately went to adjust the thermostat, only feeling a little guilty.

She had an idea. Sort of. But she didn't have all the information, and even suspecting as she did that Rumi might really be telling the truth and might really want to change, there was something bothering her.

It was worth a shot, anyway.

"Zoey," she said, interrupting them. "Have you seen my keys? They weren't in my purse this morning."

"Which ones?"

"The bike."

Rumi sat up at once, perching on all fours at the edge of the bed. Her tail whipped with excitement, batting Zoey in the face. She shoved her away, but Rumi was unfazed. "The motorcycle?"

"Uh. Yeah."

"You're going for a ride?"

"I need to grab something." She tilted her head to the side, waiting for the followup.

Rumi didn't disappoint. "Can I ride with you?"

"I'm not a very exciting driver. It's not like the movies, you know."

"That doesn't matter. I've never been on a motorcycle before."

"Ever?" Zoey asked. "But you're older than motorcycles."

"Yes, and I've never had the chance to use one!"

After considering it, Mira nodded sharply over to the bathroom. While the demon zipped over to get clean, her girlfriend fished the keys out of the messenger bag. Mira didn't even bother asking why or how she had them; she used Zoey's bag as an extension of her own pockets more than she probably should.

"Where're you headed?" Zoey asked.

There was only a short moment of hesitation. "The Library."

"Oh." Zoey's eyes flicked over to the bathroom where Rumi had started to sing in the shower. She didn't say anything but Mira could see her gears whirring.

That's okay, Zoey. I'm honestly curious to see what'll happen, too.

"You want to come with us?" Mira offered. "We could take the car instead."

Zoey shook her head. She pulled the blankets up over her chest. "I've got some stuff I'd like to do here. I'll text you if I think of anything I want you to borrow, though."

"Of course." Mira smiled. She couldn't help it. Zoey was so cute, exhausted but satisfied. It was a vast improvement over how glum she'd been just a few hours ago. "I'll catch you later."

"In time for dinner!" she demanded, and Mira agreed. "I'll order in."

"Thank god. If you were offering to cook, I'd eat out."

"Mean to me?!"

When she leaned over, she liked how much distance she had to crane in order to reach Zoey. They kissed, and Mira held the back of her head affectionately.

"Will you be okay without me?" Mira was suddenly worried. "I planned to go today anyway, but that was before. Um. All this. And I was gonna invite you! So you know. If you'd rather... I mean..."

What was she even offering?

"I mean if you want me to cuddle you more, we can do that." Mira knew she sounded awkward, but it was an earnest offer. "This is two days in a row of really intense sex and, well, I dunno— maybe that's what we should do. Put on a movie or something."

The bathroom door opened and steam poured out into the cold room.

"No no no no." Zoey waved her hands and sat back. "If you have work, go do it. I'm all good on cuddles."

"There's no way that's true," Rumi said, which was funny because Mira had been thinking the exact same thing.

"For now," Zoey amended. "Later you owe me double. With interest."

Then her eyes, warm and dark like cream sherry, lingered on Rumi again.

And for once, Mira couldn't read her.

"Do I get a goodbye kiss too?" Rumi asked.

"Do you want one?" Zoey asked back.

After looking to Mira for assistance and finding none, Rumi hazarded, "Please?"

So she got a kiss too, beckoned down into Zoey's warmth. Then she bounced excitedly and ushered Mira out the door.

It would probably be too cold to ride soon, Mira figured, so she wanted to get some miles in while she still could. It helped to have Rumi latched onto her like a backpack filled with hand-warmers, glowing and cuddly and more affectionate than ever before.

"I don't need a helmet," Rumi said before she could ask.

Normally, Mira would have insisted.

But instead she said, "Okay. I'll trust you."

They took off.