Among Demons : Succubus Divine

Ch. 29 : Triple Surprise

Three large men stood shoulder to shoulder by the front doors facing the open sitting area in front of them and long reception desk. They were all the same height, with broad shoulders, thickly, muscle packed arms and tattoos covering each man's left arm. All three of them have dark black hair that they each kept styled in their own unique way and each one of them had the same vivid red color in the inner ring of their eyes. The outer ring, however, was a different color for each of them and, along with their hair and personality, was the only way to tell them apart.

The oldest of the three obvious brothers was Theo, who kept his slightly long hair slicked back neatly which gave him a bit of a business-man look. He was always clean shaven and chose to wear dark button ups or any other semi formal wear everywhere he went. The outer ring of color in his eyes was a dark green color that was much darker than my pale green ring. And his personality was much more stoic than his younger brothers, since he was typically the one to run things for the three of them. Which made it clear to me why he was the one holding a bouquet of blue, red and black flowers for me, since either one of his brothers would’ve ruined them before arriving.

The middle brother looked like he had just rolled out of bed with the sides of his hair shaved short and the longer locks on top styled to look elegantly messy. He had his left ear pierced and wore a weathered and torn looking sweater that he had partially tucked in. His parents had named him Enzo and he was the more temperamental one of the three brothers, always impulsively saying and doing things that often got him into trouble. The outer ring on his eyes was an interesting deep blue that sometimes looked black under dim lights, which he used to his advantage to scare Humans that got on his nerves. And he was the one holding the ribbons to the gift bag that I guessed to be for me.

The youngest of the triplets had a darker stormy gray color as the outer ring of his eyes and was the more playful of the three. He was very friendly with everyone around him, even Humans, and tended to gravitate towards kids a lot too. He was also the more energetic of the brothers and had a massive sweet tooth that would make my own stomach ache just watching him eat. His black hair was shorter all the way around with those very locks curling at the ends and giving him an almost happy puppy look when he smiled. He had been a surprise to his parents who named him Nico a day after being born since they had only prepared names for the older two. And not surprisingly, he was the one holding onto a mass of birthday balloons with that easy-going smile of his as he looked around.

They were good looking men that tended to call attention to themselves, so I wasn’t surprised at all to find the large waiting area filled with the hushed voices of women talking while they eyed them. Even the three blondes at the reception desk were huddled close and gawking at the triplets, nearly drooling while they whispered to each other. Which was funny to me since I had seen many women get all kinds of hot-n-bothered by the brothers before reality kicks in and they truly take note of their eyes.

Of course, the triplets never had a problem when it came to finding a partner, no matter where they went. In fact, they tended to each go off on their own at times to have a little adult fun away from each other, though never committing to anyone seriously. It was the one and only time that the triplets would willingly split up from each other. And it never lasted more than a few hours since being apart made them extremely uncomfortable.

“So you’re my surprise!” I called out loudly, smiling as I closed the distance, ignoring the small cluster of women that were now glaring at me.

“Devin!” Nico exclaimed, rushing forward to hug me with his brothers close behind him.

“Damn, baby, you’re looking good.” Enzo stepped in after Nico and pulled me close by my arm roughly, making me shake my head as he openly eyed me with that saucy little smirk of his.

“Not even in your dreams, babe.” I told him, winking at him when he blew me a kiss.

“How’ve you been, Dev?” Theo smiled warmly as I stepped into his embrace, smiling at him and his calming aura.

“As good as I can be.” He nodded, needing nothing more to know exactly what I meant since he was a master at acquiring information.

Of course, that was thanks to how close he was to my brother Nick who instantly clicked with him and the others when they first met.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked, accepting the flowers, gift bag and balloons. “Last I heard, you three were still in Europe helping find the Humans behind that mass Demon k********g situation.”

Enzo growled a bit too loudly as he showed his annoyance and anger, making the Humans behind me flinch and stare at us cautiously.

“Don’t remind me of that s**t-show baby.” He racked his hand through his hair as he locked eyes with a quietly fuming Theo. “Too much s**t went wrong with that assignment.”

I glanced at Nico and was shocked to find that he too was pissed off beyond words, his eyes glowing softly as he glared at the floor.

“You’ll hear about it soon.” Theo sighed, smiling a little once he relaxed some. “In any case, we wanted to take a break from traveling so much and stopped by to keep you company for your birthday.”

I smiled back and hugged my flowers a little tighter.

These triplets had been a huge help to me when I was first appointed as Matron. They had been in Seattle for a few weeks taking a break from all the assignments and ran into Nick during the start of the entire shift in power in my territory. And this all happened after the previous Patron had been so grateful to me for accepting my position, only to leave for his retirement after two short weeks of showing me the ropes. This left Nick and I in the thick of it, fighting to set up our own system to run things smoothly, while also getting bombarded with many active tasks and projects. So when Nick met the three brothers and realized that they had knowledge of how Matrons and Patrons do things, he brought them in.

The three of them grew close with Nick during the time they stayed and helped us out and I grew comfortable and close to them as well. They were good guys that I would gladly call my friends. We all shared a strong desire to do anything and everything in our power to help our people no matter what, and more than willing to sacrifice anything if it benefited our people too. So their help was always greatly appreciated by not just me, but by many Patrons and Matrons too. And since they were highly skilled in various fields, even having connections to some high ranking Human officials within top government organizations, these three Demons were very widely known by Matrons and Patrons around the world.

There was, of course, another reason why they were so highly respected, even by the Royal Demon Family. And that was because they were an extremely rare sub-race of Shifter that had only appeared three other times in the three hundred years that we’ve been stuck on Earth.

Cerberus: the Humans mythological three headed beast that guards the underworld.

I had been excited and shocked beyond words when I first saw them shift a little over a year after we became friends. Their bodies had morphed together within a thick black and red mist as they Shifted, which was why they were never apart, and their Cerberus form was massive. They had been as big as a small building when they stood on all fours, but shifting took a whole lot of energy out of them so they only ever do it if absolutely necessary.

Being a Cerberus also meant that they were born with special abilities that made them deadly as well.

Theo was able to make people hallucinate anything he wanted if he locked eyes with them for too long. He also had the ability to conjure fire at will and even learned to use the smallest spark of heat to burn someone from the inside out. Enzo was the lightning conjurer and was known to use said ability to torture people until they said or did what he wanted. He could even block a person's senses, causing total sensory deprivation, and drive them completely insane. Nico was the poisonous one out of the three and could pour a thick heavy fog out of his hands that I’ve heard causes the most unbelievable pain to every nerve and muscle in the body. His secondary power was a very unique form of mind manipulation that stems from dreamwalking. So he could literally rip a person's consciousness out of their body and lock it within his own mind, tormenting them in all kinds of nightmares that he can control until he releases them.

“You guys are sweet.” I told them, slowly moving to the side so we could all walk out of the building.

“Anything for you baby.” Enzo said, following after me and his brothers. “I do have a question for you though.” I paused and raised a brow, waiting for him to ask. “Who’s the pissed off looking Human that’s been tracking you with his eyes this whole time?”

I looked back and jumped a bit when I found Detective Marcus standing by the reception desk fiddling with some papers.

His body was stiff and clearly filled with tension as he stood there, and his steel gray eyes were tightly packed with emotions that felt like a hurricane. Those same eyes softened a fraction when they locked with mine, but they quickly moved to scan over the three men beside me before returning to me. A very obvious question screamed back at me from those eyes and I smiled a little stiffly at him, unsure of what to do or say before turning away.

“Coworker.” I answered flatly, feeling my heart race as my mind spilled over with the realization that he was acting… jealous.

Detective Marcus was actually acting jealous, even without knowing anything about what was going on.

A part of me wanted to smile at this and made the fluttering in my stomach kick into overdrive. But the other part was stunned that he was feeling the effects of our bond so strongly, and so quickly. Especially when bonds only grow stronger when the two sides of said bond interact more and more.

But we don’t interact that much, even while working a case. And it’s not like we spend time together outside of work either. So said bond shouldn’t be this strong. True, there had been moments in which we would surrender to our need to be close to each other. Like when he helped soothe my dark emotions in our last case. Or even just a few hours ago when we were both in my small office going over what his team wanted to learn. But that wouldn’t have had THAT big of an affect on the bond. Especially since it hasn’t even been that long since I had confirmed that he was my Match.

It’s not like we’ve known each other for a long time or grew up together or anything.

We were strangers to each other before my transfer… though something in my gut was saying the opposite, which didn’t make any sense.

So why was this bond of ours growing so quickly?

And what kind of effect would this have on my curse?

These thoughts left me mute as I climbed into the triplets car with my gifts, clutching my necklace through my sweater again and wondering what the hell it was that I was missing.