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ARIES WOKE FEELING BETTER THAN HE HAD IN... FOREVER.
The morning sun streamed in from overheard, rousing him from a deep and peaceful sleep. His dreams that night were more elaborate than usual—fantasies where the sexy men from the bar took turns with him...
Everything in his body sang as if he’d been reborn. His bones weren’t as achy from pulling all-nighters in his rigid writing chair. His muscles no longer burned from fatigue and stress. His head wasn’t pounding or clouded by a foggy haze that required coffee and a freezing shower to cure.
On the contrary, he woke up energized and ready to take on the day. His brain buzzed with ideas that he eagerly wanted to write down. But to do that, he’d have to get up and find his pen and notepad...
Aries finally opened his eyes.
He blinked into the sun-kissed chest of a very hot, very naked Brava. The man from the bar with horns and pointy fairy ears.
There was no chance in hell Aries could forget someone like him.
Looking around, Aries found himself surrounded by gorgeous naked men equally cut as Brava. Some men would call such a wake-up a miracle or a dream-come-true.
Aries agreed with those conclusions.
A puddle of drool had formed where Aries’ lips were moments before. Embarrassed, he wiped his mouth and tried to get rid of the evidence before anyone noticed. But before he could so much as move, Brava’s amber eyes fluttered open, and he wrapped his arms around Aries, pulling him closer.
“How are you feeling?”
His words jogged Aries’ memory. Suddenly, he recalled everything at once.
Meeting them at the bar.
The walk home with Rae.
The strange two-story house.
And...
“Mrs. Mayweather!” Aries gasped.
His hand shot up to where the hidden blade at the end of her cane had stabbed him. Although Aries felt no pain, fear gripped his heart. His pulse pounded in his ears, and his palms were slick with sweat. In a few seconds, the memory of his elderly neighbor’s attempt on his life replayed repeatedly.
Despite feeling better than he ever had before—Aries couldn’t say the same for his racing mind.
He thought about the strangeness of it all. What would Mr. Mayweather do when he discovered his wife was dead? Would he blame Aries and come after him? And what about the police? Would they come to question him about her disappearance at some point?
Then there was the issue of what Rune told him the night before.
Was Aries an incubus? How could such a thing even be possible? Sure, he had never met his father... but his mother was as human as could be. So human, in fact, she lived in a little gated community with a Pomeranian named Benji, cared for by her own nurse.
If either of his parents were to be considered supernatural—his father was the primary suspect.
The only problem? How secretive his mother had been about him. There were no pictures of his father in their family home, not even ones where the three of them were together. She’d never even uttered his name. Aries knew shockingly little about him for his age—and now that his mother was struggling with dementia, he doubted he’d ever learn the truth.
For now, his mind wandered, returning to ruminations about their passionate—albeit hazy—night.
Before they had sex, Aries had never felt so horrible in his entire life. Whatever they’d put on the end of that blade did a number of his body—leading to his condition rapidly deteriorating without immediate intervention.
He’d derived his knowledge of incubi from fiction novels—hardly a reliable source for something happening in the real world... For all he knew, Rune meant something else entirely when he called him an incubus. But still. The facts lined up too easily to be denied.
When they were riding him, Aries felt stronger—and unlike his experiences of the past, the four men didn’t appear weaker for having done it. Quite the contrary. The longer they made love, the more energetic they became.
It was as if having sex with Aries revitalized them—a miracle on its own.
Even though it had taken the work of three to bring him back from the brink of death, nothing bad happened.
Looking around, he counted four naked bodies.
Everyone was alive, but would it last?
Brava smoothed Aries’ hair, pulling him out of his unsettling thoughts. “You are safe here... She will not hurt you again.”
To Aries’ surprise, Brava’s words comforted him. He took a deep breath and waited for his heart-rate to settle. Once it did, he rested against Brava’s chest.
“It wasn’t a dream, was it?” he concluded after a moment.
Brava rumbled with laughter. Aries stared up at him as he reached down and gently wiped his thumb along the edge of the author’s lips.
“No, love, it wasn’t.”
The way he addressed Aries made him tingle all over. His body reacted, and before he knew it, he was hard again.
Lying below him with little specks of light dancing across his beefy chest, temptation called Aries’ name. But at that moment, he also realized how vulnerable, bare, and in need of a shower he was.
He noticed his clothes were strewn onto a chair across from the bed, filthy from the night before, and sighed.
“I think I need a cold shower,” he muttered.
“Getting up so soon?” Brava sounded disappointed, but loosened his grip.
“It’ll help me feel more awake,” he admitted.
Truthfully, Aries had a million questions he wanted to ask, but he needed to be alert enough to process their answers.
“Suit yourself. The bathroom’s downstairs on the right. Terra put clothes down there for you.”
How thoughtful, Aries thought.
Quietly, he untangled himself from Brava and crawled over the others, who were curled up together like a three-way sandwich with Terra in the middle.
He paused at the side of the bed to admire their handsome, sleeping faces. Aries would need to thank them later.
Although he still didn’t understand what Rune meant when he called him an incubus... Aries knew one thing with certainty: if not for them, he would be dead.
They saved his life—and for that, Aries owed them a tremendous debt.
With one more backwards glance at Brava, Aries tiptoed out of the room. He found the stairs just outside the room and descended to the bottom floor. Aries spotted the bathroom door on the right—just where Brava said it would be.
He entered and closed the door behind him.
Aries expected the bathroom to be like the one he had at home—simple and practical—but discovered the opposite upon entering.
The bathroom was larger than any he’d had the pleasure of using before. Aries figured it was at least the same size as the old studio apartment he’d rented when first starting out as a writer...
Instead of a bathtub or a shower as he knew them, Aries stared at an open bath that took up most of the floor. Steam rolled off the surface of the water and spilled over onto the tile below. Off to the side, Aries noticed a single shower-head sticking out from the ceiling overhead.
Near the door, Aries turned toward a granite sink with decorative candles and a tall, rectangular mirror. A stack of clean clothes sat waiting for him beside one of the sinks.
After a quick check to make sure they fit him properly, Aries prepared to get into the bath.
The tile felt cold beneath his feet as he wandered over to the shower-head. He turned a knob on the wall, and water flowed down like rain.
Aries stepped beneath the water and allowed it to wash over him, taking the dirt and the grime with it down the drain. Each droplet stung like a needle as it came into contact with his skin. Its coldness woke up his senses and stifled his erection.
Once he felt sufficiently washed, he turned the faucet off and waited for his body’s temperature to stabilize. Then, he approached the edge of the bath, careful to avoid slipping.
Aries dipped one toe in and shivered with delight.
He loved the hottest showers his bathroom could provide—which wasn’t saying much. His hot water tank usually struggled to keep up with the demand, as Aries often turned up the heat until his skin reddened like a tomato. To him, there was very little that compared to the way a piping hot bath (or shower) made him feel—unless you counted sex.
Needless to say, Aries thought the temperature of the bathwater was perfect.
He slipped into its steamy depths and exhaled a pleasant sigh as its intense warmth washed over him. The heat penetrated deep into his muscles and bones.
“Lovely...” he sighed.
As he sprawled out, getting comfortable, Aries looked down at the spot on his chest where Mrs. Mayweather had stabbed him.
To his surprise, the wound healed overnight—but a strange star-shaped scar remained. He reached up and touched it. The day Mrs. Mayweather stabbed him was surreal. He almost didn’t want to believe it was possible, but the scar was real—and that meant the events of that day were, too.
It was undeniable proof stamped on his chest.
A day ago, if anyone had told him Mrs. Mayweather was capable of such violence, he would have laughed. Now, he had the scar to prove it.
The only problem was: his elderly neighbor had been reduced to a pile of ashes. By now, the wind would have dispersed the evidence if the others hadn’t. Beyond that, even if he tried to explain what happened, no one would believe him.
They would undoubtedly blame it on the “Aries curse” and use it as one more excuse to avoid him.
Oh well.
He had too much on his plate and too little time to deal with what others thought of him.
Aries needed to unravel the mystery of Rune’s comment.
But what would he do with the truth once he knew it?
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the edge of the bath, letting the water absorb all of his problems. He imagined them leaving his body with every drop of sweat the hot bath wrung out of him, until none were left.
By the time he climbed out and toweled off, Aries felt much better.
He put on the clothes Terra chose for him. They fit perfectly.
Terra must have an eye for this sort of thing, he thought, impressed.
Aries left the bathroom just as Brava and the others—save for Terra—were bounding down the stairs.
The aroma of bacon hung in the air. Aries’ stomach growled hungrily, and his mouth salivated.
Terra poked his head out of a side door and beamed at him. “Breakfast is ready. I hope you’re hungry.”