Chapter 280: So You Decided to Forget Us *

For a long while none of them spoke. The suite was quiet except for the soft sounds of settling breath and the occasional distant creak of the old estate. Moonlight had shifted across the floor, painting silver bars over the tangled sheets and discarded clothes. Silas’s pink hair was damp against his forehead; Chloe’s fingers traced idle patterns on his chest; Anna’s golden eyes were closed, but the faint smile on her lips said she was still awake.

Eventually Chloe stirred. "We should move to the shower before we stick together permanently," she murmured, voice thick with exhaustion and satisfaction.

Anna’s soft laugh rumbled against Silas’s spine. "In a minute. I’m comfortable."

Silas reached back and found Anna’s hand, then forward to lace his fingers with Chloe’s. "We have time," he said. "All the time we want."

They stayed like that a while longer, the three of them pressed close in the wide bed, the earlier frantic hunger replaced by a deep, bone-deep contentment. The void and the mission and the long days of separation felt distant now- something that had happened to other people. Here, in the quiet of the suite, with the warm weight of the two women who had waited for him, Silas finally let himself believe he was home.

When they did eventually rise, it was slow and unhurried. They moved together into the large adjoining bathroom, the steam of the shower already rising as Anna turned the taps. The three of them stepped under the hot spray, soap-slick hands sliding over skin, soft kisses exchanged beneath the water. There was no urgency left- only the quiet, thorough care of people who had almost lost each other and were determined not to take a single moment for granted again.

Later, clean and wrapped in soft robes, they returned to the bed. Chloe claimed the middle this time, Silas on one side, Anna on the other. The covers were pulled up, the lights dimmed. Outside, the night continued its slow passage over the estate grounds. Inside, three heartbeats gradually synchronized into a shared, peaceful rhythm.

Silas’s last conscious thought before sleep took him was simple and complete: he was home. And for the first time in a long while, that was enough.

Or so he thought...

Silas was still drying his hair when the bathroom door swung open again. He’d assumed it was Chloe coming back for something she’d forgotten, and he opened his mouth to tease her- then the words died.

Gromda filled the frame first. Seven feet of green muscle, her white hair loose except for two thick braids framing her face, her red runic tattoos already flickering toward that hungry green as her eyes found him.

Behind her, Echidna stepped in with the slow, deliberate grace of a predator entering a den. Her black hair hung in wet ropes past her waist, her golden eyes bright and slit-pupiled, her horns catching the light, and the scales along her arms and legs gleamed like polished slate.

Echidna’s lips pushed into a pout that looked absurd on a face older than the oceans. "So you decided to forget us."

Silas lowered the towel. "I didn’t- we were just-"

"You were just what?" Gromda’s grin split her face, wide and hungry. "Enjoying yourself without us?"

The door clicked shut behind them, and the lock turned. Echidna crossed the soaked tiles and pressed her palm flat to his chest, pushing him back until his shoulders hit the cold wall. Her tail curled around his thigh, tight and certain, and her golden eyes burned up at him from inches away.

"Anna and Chloe had their turn." Her voice dropped, low and dangerous. "Now we collect what’s ours."

She kissed him like she meant to devour him.

It wasn’t gentle. It was teeth and tongue and the iron claim of her claws curling into his damp hair, yanking his head back so she could take his mouth deeper.

He tasted the hot spring still on her skin, the salt of her, and his hands came up to her hips on pure instinct- then Gromda’s hand closed around his wrist and pinned it to the wall.

"Not yet." Gromda’s breath was hot on his ear, her body a wall of heat at his back. "We’re not done being angry with you."

Her free hand ripped the towel away. Echidna broke the kiss, breathing hard, her eyes fixed on the line of his cock, already half-hard, and already betraying him. Her smile was slow and wicked.

"He’s not sorry at all."

"Then we make him sorry," Gromda growled.

They worked him together, and there was nothing gentle about it. Echidna’s mouth found his throat, her fangs scraping the pulse there, while Gromda’s hands ran down his chest, nails dragging red lines across his skin.

Her fingers wrapped around his cock, stroking him hard and fast, and he heard himself make a sound that was half curse and half plea.

"Please what?" Gromda’s voice was a purr in his ear. "You forgot us. You fucked them all night and forgot we existed."

"I didn’t-"

"Prove it." Echidna sank to her knees.

Her golden eyes never left his as she took him into her mouth- no warm-up, no teasing, just the sudden, shocking heat of her throat swallowing him whole. She held him there, her nose pressed to his pelvis, her throat working around him, and the vibration of her growl traveled straight up his spine.

Her claws dug into his hips, holding him still, and when she pulled off it was with a wet gasp and a string of spit connecting her lips to his cock.

"He tastes like them," she announced, furious and fascinated.

"Then lick them off him." Echidna’s eyes flashed.

She took him again, harder, her tongue dragging along every inch as if she could scrub the other women off his skin. Gromda watched for a moment, her runes blazing green, then grabbed Silas by the jaw and turned his face to hers.

"Look at me while she does it." Her mouth crashed into his, rough and possessive, and he tasted the wildness of her- the same woman who’d begged him to hurt her in the gym, now claiming him like territory. Her teeth caught his lower lip and pulled, and he groaned into her mouth as Echidna’s throat milked him from below.

They switched without a word.

Gromda shoved him to his knees on the wet tile, and Echidna’s tail whipped around his torso, hauling him back against her- her massive breasts crushing against his spine, her mouth at his ear while Gromda stripped off the thin shorts she’d worn.

Gromda’s green eyes blazed at him as she spread herself, and he saw how ready she was- slick and swollen, her thighs trembling with the effort of restraint.

"Eat me as if you missed me," she commanded.

He couldn’t refuse.

Her hand fisted in his pink hair and dragged his face between her thighs, and she was so tight and hot and wet that the taste of her nearly undid him. She rode his mouth with a brutal rhythm, her hips grinding against his face, her nails raking his scalp as she used him for her pleasure.

Behind him, Echidna’s claws tore at her own clothes. The halter went first, her breasts spilling free, and then her own bottoms followed, her tail thrashing as she watched Gromda use his mouth.

"My turn," Echidna snarled.

Gromda laughed, low and delighted. "Take him."

She hauled Silas up by the hair and spun him around. Echidna met him with her arms already around his neck, her legs jumping to wrap around his waist, and she was so slick from the hot spring and her own wanting that when she guided him into her, he sank into the root on the first stroke.

The sound she made was a scream and a claim all at once.

"Yes- there- you forgot us, you forgot this-" Her hips bucked against him, hard enough to drive him back against the sink, and the tiles cracked under his shoulder blades. Her tail lashed the air. Her claws raked his back, drawing blood, and he roared and drove into her harder, pinning her to the wall, fucking her with everything he had.

"More," she demanded, and her fangs found his shoulder.

Gromda came up behind him, her sweat-slick chest pressing against his back, her hands gripping his hips and pulling him deeper into Echidna with every thrust.

"Don’t stop," she growled in his ear. "Don’t you dare stop, or I’ll make you pay for both of us."

He was caught between them; Echidna’s impossibly tight heat clenching around him, Gromda’s iron grip guiding his rhythm, the two of them trading gasps and insults over his shoulder as they fought for dominance over him.

"Move- I want to feel you come inside her-"

"Then let him go, he’s mine!"

"He’s neither of yours," Silas snarled, and he grabbed Gromda by the hips and spun her around, bending her over the counter before she could fight him. Her runes flared so bright they lit the room. She was so tight- impossibly tight- and when he drove into her, she screamed his name loud enough to crack the mirror.

Echidna didn’t wait.

She climbed onto the counter behind them, her tail wrapping around Silas’s waist and pulling him out of Gromda and into her in one slick, brutal motion. They traded him back and forth, a relentless, savage relay; Gromda bent over the counter, Echidna braced against the wall, each one taking him with a ferocity that bordered on war. The bathroom tore itself apart around them.

The mirror shattered. The glass shelf came down with a crash, bottles scattering across the flooded floor. The shower curtain was ripped from its rod. Water sprayed from the still-running tap, soaking all three of them, turning the marble into a slick battlefield.

Gromda’s fist punched through the tile when she came- a full-body convulsion that she rode out screaming, her walls milking him so hard he saw white, and Echidna finished by biting down on his shoulder hard enough to draw blood, her climax ripping through her in wave after wave as she clung to him like he was the only thing holding her to the earth.

Silas came last, buried inside Echidna, Gromda’s body pressed against his back, and he spilled into her with a roar that echoed off the ruined walls.

For a long moment there was no sound but breathing- three bodies tangled in the wreckage, steam rising from the flooded floor, water still running, glass crunching underfoot. Echidna’s claws gentled in his hair. Her golden eyes opened, dazed and satisfied.

"You remembered," she murmured.

Gromda laughed, low and wrecked, her runes fading back to crimson.

"We’ll make the workers clean this up." Silas looked at the bathroom, the shattered mirror, the cracked tile, the water creeping toward the door, and started laughing helplessly.

"It’s a crime scene."

"Our crime," Echidna agreed, and kissed him again, soft this time, a reward.