Hallows: Pretty Snakes & Devils

Emo Big Bird

Illenium, Excision & I Prevail- Feel Something

B.B.

They all lay down around me with their feet to the border of the pit. If I had been wearing a skirt, they'd all be able to see up it. I take a seat crossing my legs. The first thing I did on a whim when we all got back was mark them. Fully. Not having a single trace of them inside of me had been agony and not just for me. So, now even if I don't feed off them we're all still bound. I don't know what it feels like to not feed on them regularly and I'm kind of happy that Carson got rid of the contracts. That means no more threats.

I carefully selected each ward in the room to keep our essence leveled here. This is the one place we don't have to be on high alert at all times. When the doors are shut, we're the only ones that can open them from the inside and the keys opens them from the outside. I have waterproof wards, fireproof wards, and psyche-proof wards protecting the whole room. The runes along the outside of the pit are specifically designed for insomnia and physical exhaustion. Activating them isn't going to be easy because it needs to be a combination of all of us. I've only ever done this three at a time and we're usually completely naked. This requires my absolute focus.

"Are you okay?" Ahsan asks.

"You all have to be very still. Stay quiet. I'm sorry about the snakes,"

"f**k," Lucien groans. "Okay,"

They all take a couple of deep breaths and relax as much as they can. The floor creeks when Eve materializes around us. Remy is standing by her huge head with her boney hand on her as if she were comforting her. I look up at Remy and give her a nod. She steps down into the pit between Lucien and Carson and comes over to stand behind me. My spear appears in her hands and she lowers it to trap me between the rod and her body. The guys shift and she growls at them. They all stop moving immediately.

Eve slithers around us and then breaks down into hundreds of smaller snakes. They all slide down into the bed surroundings us. With their fear in full effect, their familiars begin to make themselves known. I smile when the crows materialize on their perches by their caverns. Carson's Devil screeches from inside his cavern. She's crouching on top of his desk. Dec's Devil stands in front of his cavern, silently taking in the other familiars. Ahsan's Devil is sitting in the high back armchair James put in his cavern completely unbothered.

The aura in the room completely shifts into something violent. If the demons hadn't prepped the room for it, the power we create would try to escape. It would tear anything in its path apart. It's why the seven of us can't take that step. It's reason number two. Reason number one is I'm f*****g terrified to be at the mercy of the six of them at once.

"Breathe," Remy whispers in my ear. She tucks the spear under my breasts. I take a couple of deep breaths to keep myself calm.

The room shakes when I shut my eyes to focus on them. Their essence. I've never had the six of them open up to me like this at the same time. Carson prefers us to be alone. Dec and Ahsan are one hundred percent okay with me feeding on the two of them at the same time. And the Crows, they love group therapy.

I can feel where they all begin like this. I can tell where their similarities cross. Lucien and Dec. Carson and Vic. Ahsan and Ro. I can also feel where I've bound us. The parts where our souls are wrapped up in each other. I grip the spear tightly when our essence swirls up into the air. A growl rumbles in my chest when the seven shades meet.

My body tightens up as the colors all mix and turns into darkness. The room shakes again as the cloud of power gathers around the light orbs above. All of my senses are running wild. My body is alive with anticipation. I let my snake instincts reach out for it and the cloud immediately responds. I feel the changes in me as a small portion comes down, the power caresses my skin before it strikes flooding into my mouth relentlessly. I cry out with pleasure and they respond just as enthusiastically.

Once the essence we lost today is replaced, there's more than enough to power the wards. The room shakes again and then begins to absorb the remaining essence. The carvings are all filled with our power. As the wards and runes are activated, our essence begins to spin. Remy's hold on me tightens as I try to get out of her hold. My body is throbbing. The ache between my legs is almost painful.

Remy laughs when the guys all growl. I look down to see that the snakes are holding onto them but there is no doubt in my mind that they're feeling the same thing I am. I close my eyes trying not to think about it but violent images of us together swarm my mind and I'm gasping for air. The faster our essence spins the worse the feeling gets. It feels like an eternity has passed by when it finally slows. I cry out when it suddenly stops. My body trembles as my orgasm explodes. She finally releases me and I fall forward on all fours trying to catch my breath. A soothing feeling comes over me as I let myself drop on my side.

"Is everyone okay?" I laugh.

"Holy s**t, I f****d up my slacks," Carson is the first to recover.

"I've never come that hard," Ro groans. We all laugh.

"What the f**k was that?" Lucien asks.

"That's why we don't do the seven-way," I roll onto my back. "If the wards hadn't taken as much as they did, our powers would be f*****g insane, right now,"

"Apocalyptic sized missions. Where the f**k are you?" Dec laughs.

"I have to get back. I have class in two hours," Lucien reaches for me. He pulls me into him and tucks my body into his. "I honestly don't want to go. I feel calm without the high,"

"The wards are working," I nod.

I feel the same way. All the insane thoughts in my head are silent. It's just me and them. In this moment, all I feel is our power surging through us. All of us dancing around with each other in perfect harmony. Nothing else matters. My dad said that the only time he ever felt complete was when he bound my mother's life force to his. He said when the time came I would probably have to choose one and that once the bond was cemented, we're both be stronger than we'd ever been before. He then tried to convince me to choose Carson.

When I got back, Victor had been waiting for me and I marked him. There was no hesitation. I didn't even know it was happening until my fangs were up against his neck. By then it had been too late to stop and it didn't stop there. I marked them all and the bond stuck. Not just to Vic but all six of them. I think my familiars would agree to never tell either of them which one was first. That is a secret I'd keep tucked in my back pocket for an emergency.

"So. what's going on with the genies?" Victor asks.

"Oh, man. The Dark Jiinns won. It was f*****g beautiful. I'm sending you guys the video," he laughs without breaking our hold. Their phones all ping. "Delilah wants to post it. I've been working on a table to replicate the effects as VFX for her weird Goth Rider s**t. She has two million followers on that channel. She's going to be on the Midnight Special Show,"

"What about you? What are you working on?" I poke his cheek. "I saw the costumes you guys were making,"

"You saw them?" he laughs, his cheeks getting bright red. "I didn't know you followed me,"

"Aww, look it's the return of tomato Lu," Carson coos playfully.

"f**k off," Lucien leans into me hiding in my chest.

"Come on. Tells what the costumes were for,"

"The music video for Moon Ritual," he straightens up. He sighs when he gets to my hair and starts to play with it. Here we go. "What the f**k, B?"

"f*****g Victor," Ro growls.

"You asshole," Lucien shakes his head. He tucks me into his arms and squishes my head against his chest. "Honestly, I am in love with the pictures though," they all grumble agreeing with him. "I want to hear about the arch,"

"Yeah," the others say and playfully swat at Dec.

"Okay, so in order to generate enough power to be able to start building the clone tanks I need, I designed a natural generator using my grandpa's old journals. At first, I didn't know what he was trying to accomplish because the math was all insane but once I put everything in order I knew he was trying to power the town with the black stone shards and sulfur. He didn't know that he had to head them up. So, Dec and I made a laser out of the same system I use for the hot blades,"

"When we turned it on for our first test the FBI showed up and B.B. had to give up the C-four we had in the clubhouse," Dec laughs.

"They didn't have to know that, Dec," I groan.

"I knew. Babs called," Carson laughs.

"Me too," Ahsan adds. "Montoya has a thing for Reapers and she's dating one,"

"Wait, she's not married?" I ask.

"Her husband left her after they had a miscarriage midsummer," Victor answers. "That lady leads a very depressing life. This reaper s**t is rock bottom,"

"How the f**k do you know that?" Carson asks.

"The birds," our three crows answer collectively.

"I am really impressed by the way you deal with buzzing," Lucien praises him. "f*****g telenovelas,"

"What do you do to deal with it?" Ro asks.

"Old-timey reels. It's a trick my dad taught me when I was a kid. We had this slide machine and he'd help me sort everything out with blank slides once I started getting control of my crow,"

"What about you?" I ask Ro.

"Uh-" he clears his throat. "It's a puzzle. Like a Rubix cube, each space has the sight of one of the birds. It's always moving and changing scenes,"

"That sounds cool," Carson tucks his arms under his head.

"What about you, Private? What's got you busy?" Lucien asks.

"B.B.'s s**t, mostly," he growls. "She's got teams moving all over the city. It's distracting as s**t. One of the wolves drop a big ass f*****g antenna on one of our warehouses and I lost over five mil in product,"

"You're complaining about five million dollars?" I sit up. "What about twenty-five I lost because your guys cut the f*****g main wire on the crane starting s**t with the wolves?"

"Why the f**k are you putting up twenty-five million dollar antennas up all over the f*****g city, B.B.?" he shoots back.

"Why are you upset?" Lucien laughs.

"They're both for the private servers and the spell we're going to use David's death for," I explain.

"What?" Lucien asks.

"Oh, yeah. We're going to use David to power a census spell around the entrance of hell. That way we know what's here. It's going to be a while before I finish that project though. I'm still tracking some of the ingredients. Why are you just worried about me?"

"I'm not but every time I turn around there you are. Doing something f*****g weird," he huffs. The guys all laugh. "Now that Espinosa is Mayor, it's so much easier to move s**t. Construction is all in order. Everyone is f*****g behaving,"

"Are you bored?" Ro laughs.

"Yes," he groans.

"He's been in my face for a while now," Vic says.

"Dude, New City," Carson shakes his head. Lucien sits up with me and the others follow.

"What happened?" Ro asks. "Aside from the kids,"

"Did you guys find out what they were doing with them?" I ask Ahsan.

"No," he shakes his head. "Not yet. So far none of them are talking. Did you get anything useful?"

"I have Zero One searching the laptops and accounts I found," I shrug. "Once she's done we'll have everything,"

"Sweet, I'm going to need those,"

"Again, what happened?" Lucien asks.

"Okay, so Damian quit the Fringe," I tell them. Ahsan nods when they look at him. "He quit because of the way Daemon was treating Vic. They wanted him out,"

"My guess is that this was what Mariah was hiding. b***h didn't even say a word about this when we had her here," Vic pulls his legs up and wraps his arms around them. "I am so glad Damien didn't see that,"

"Why?" San asks,

"That's how he lived when he was a kid. I guarantee you that this s**t is linked to f*****g dad. He would have lost his s**t,"

"I can't believe I missed it when we arrived. Their suffering," I shiver. "I can still taste it. If my dad hadn't been there I would have probably killed everyone,"

"What were your parents doing there?" Carson asks.

"I called David. I didn't know how to describe what I was seeing so I popped in to get him and they were all there," I shrug. "Vanessa can barely walk. Mom's been staying with her,"

"What happened when you went with Dante?" Ahsan asks.

"I went out to the devil's edge. I just released the essence that was suffocating me,"

"Is it Hallow ground now?" Lucien asks pressing his lips to my neck.

"No, my dad took the hit. He needed it to stop himself from sucking the life out of me. When we got back, I was so depleted I stole some of his energy and I can see the ghosts,"

"Still?" Dec asks.

"Yeah, it won't go away for a few days. They've been trying to steer clear. Now they can't come in here,"

"I love that. Ghost-free room," he drops back. Lucien laughs and bumps him with his leg.

"Okay, I've seen Ro's bird thing. I know Vic has premonitions. What is your thing?" I ask Lucien.

"Yeah, none of us know what you do," Vic says.

"You guys want to see?" he laughs.

"Yes," we all answer.

He presses a kiss onto my shoulder and stands up. He bounces a little on his toes and holds out his hand. Felicity screeches and takes flight, gliding around the room. Lucien takes a deep breath and exhales as she expands her massive wings. She goes for his hand with her claws. As soon as her feet meet his hand, the room shakes and the two of them burst into feathers. We all jump back when a loud screech rocks the room pushing the feathers away.

"Holy s**t," I blurt out. In his place is a massive crow. Bigger than the wolves, bigger than a horse. "Lucien?" I stand up. The others are on their feet and this thing just towers over all of us taking up the entire bed. If he were to open his wings I'm sure they reach both ends of the room and still aren't able to fully expand. He bumps my hand when I reach for him. "Oh, my god. Transformation. Death," I point at Ro, "Omen," I point to Vic. "And f*****g transformation,"

"This is nuts," Carson reaches for him. We both bury our hands in his silky feathers.

"You're so pretty," I throw my arms around him. Carson and I fall on top of him when he poofs back. The feathers all vanish when Felicity flies back to her perch.

"That was terrifying," Dec places his hand over his chest. I think he forgets he's usually the scariest guy in the room. Vic and Ro burst into laughter, falling on the bed next to us.

"f*****g Emo Big Bird, Bro," Ro shoves him playfully. The others start to laugh.

"This is why I didn't want to f*****g show you motherfuckers," Lucien sighs. "Silence," he growls and they instantly stop. "Yeah, bitches. Who's your daddy?"

"f**k off," Vic is the first to recover.

"Alright, alright. Now we address the elephant in the room," Carson waves them off. They all get serious. Even I get a little nervous. What's the elephant? We all kind of have a big thing happening. "What the f**k are we going to do about these two f**k sticks?" he points from Ahsan to Ro. Oh, that elephant. "We can't keep putting this off, guys,"

"I don't-" Ahsan starts but then shakes his head. We all feel his guilt.

"We talked about it," Ro looks up at me. "And we decided that-" he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "If you wanted us to stop, we would,"

"Seriously?" Dec asks.

"Yeah," Ahsan meets my gaze. "The last thing I wanted was to hurt you,"

"That was never the intention," Ro adds. "It just happened, B. It was like us. From the moment we met. Obviously, I didn't f**k you up like I did him. But I think the only reason it happen was because we both fought it as hard as we did. It was a little spark and the longer we ignored it the bigger it got until it exploded,"

"Those were the exact same words I used this morning," Ahsan glares at him.

"That does sound like something stupid Asshat would say. It's always the boom with him," Vic smirks. The rest of us laugh.

"I am not going to stop you guys," I shake my head. They both let out a sigh of relief. "I get it. Your connection. All of your connections along with my own," I sit back to feel them. How they're connected to one another. How I link us all. How they're all the missing pieces of me. "My dad told me what happened the night Chance saved me. I was dead and he brought me back by combining all the souls my dad reaped. So, to my understanding, I don't exactly have a soul and I also have all of them or fractions of them and that's what makes up my essence.

"I've always felt blank. Not numb. Not like I want to die. Not like anything. Then suddenly I had you guys. All of you and in one way or another, you each make me feel alive for different reasons. You were mine. You are mine. From the start, you guys told me that I held immense darkness inside of me and that just one or two of you weren't going to be enough. I never stopped to think about how that affected you or how much it hurt until I saw you two together. That feeling of not being enough-"

"B-" Ro shakes his head.

"Let me finish," I growl at him. He smiles as if my rage were cute. "I was upset because I was angry that I wasn't enough and it's not even like that. You're not just my mates. The seven of us are connected. You don't just belong to me. We belong to each other and it's stupid of me to get upset about this,"

"That's-" Ro sits back and looks away not knowing what to say.

"Oddly mature of you?" Vic suggests. We all laugh.

"f**k off. I am very mature for my age. I just choose to ignore it because you guys all piss me off sometimes," I roll my eyes.

"Now, for the last elephant," Lucien looks over at me.

"What?"

"You marked me," he points at his neck. "Reaper and Snake,"

"Me too," Carson places his hand on his neck.

"Wait, me too," Vic places his hand on his chest where I bit him. "I thought you could only do that to one of us,"

"Nope. All of you," I shake my head.

"Dante said only one. Which is why we agreed never to do it," Lucien points at me.

"Well, I was able to mark all of you. It's a moot point. I love that word I'm going to say it now. Thank you, Car,"

"Don't play cute, B.B. You f****d around with the mark theory," he growls angrily. See, it was a good choice to keep that one little detail to myself.

"None of you complained while I was doing it," I shrug. "What does it matter anyway?"

"Who was first?" Vic demands.

"I breathe you in with smoke. In the backyard lights," I sing ignoring them. When Vic tries to grab me I pop over to the couch and continue to sing. I didn't see it earlier but there's a black-and-white piece of marble that makes a cute little coffee table. "We used to laugh until we choked. Into the wasted nights,"

"She's not going to tell us," Carson says.

"B.B. who was first?" Dec asks.

"What does it matter? We've all betrayed each other," I laugh. "Me when I marked you. You when you didn't stop me and then didn't say anything to the others," I look back at them. "In fact, Lucien is the only one that came clean and he only did it because he wanted to rub it in your faces,"

"You f*****g little asshole," Carson growls. I laugh and pop back over to them.

"The contracts are officially terminated," I grin. "So there's not a single thing any of you can do about it. Anyway, since Ro and San are a thing now. I'd like to see if we can all wear our marks. That would be so cute, I was thinking about getting a tattoo with something that represented all of you going down my right leg, but with the serum, the tattoos go away. A mate's mark doesn't go away. I'd like your marks going up my arm and I can do my first sleeve around them. What do you guys think? We can all do it,"

"Wouldn't we all have to f**k each other for the mark to stick?" Lucien asks.

"Yeah," I nod.

"Pass," they all say collectively.

"It was worth the try. I'd still like mine though. So, I don't know plan something cute. Vic's birthday is next week so I already got him,"

"The fair thing would be you doing something cute for all of us," Ro shakes his head.

"Unless you guys want to wait until your birthdays it's gonna be a no from me," I shrug. "Actually, I also have Carson. Uh, I have to make up for the power drill thing,"

"I'm sorry?" he smiles my favorite smile. "What power drill thing?"

"I found my power drill that you actually didn't take," I roll my eyes.

"Where?"

"In Vic's apartment," I laugh. He turns to Vic with a glare.

"You motherfucker. You sat there and watched her verbally abuse me?"

"I did," he laughs. "It was great,"

"d**k," Carson's hand lashes out. Had I blinked, I would have missed it. His fist connects with Victor's thigh with a loud slap. It only serves to make him laugh louder.

"It worked out for you in the end," I shrug. "I'd give him a thank you kiss,"

"Is this going to be your thing now? You're going to try and get us all to f**k?" he sneers.

"Yup," I laugh. "For science,"