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AFTER THE ATTACKS ON BOTH PROPERTIES, SHEN AND THE OTHERS DECIDED TO TAKE TURNS PATROLLING THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
First on the list to patrol was Shen.
His inner shisa didn’t particularly like leaving his mates’ side, but at the same time, it could not rest knowing a threat lurked somewhere just beyond their warded home.
Just to make sure, Shen triple checked the wards that surrounded the property. Each of them were lit and buzzing with magic.
Now that he knew they were working, he could get on with his patrol.
Unlike his mates, Shen’s shisa worked like a walking ward. The enemies they faced wouldn’t be able to track him down so easily—and because of that, he was the one best suited for the job.
He walked down the gloomy streets, listening for any strange sounds.
When he arrived at the Mayweather’s house, a single-story building with a bright red, white, and blue flag with stars hung out front, he paused.
Something about the place called out to him.
It wasn’t the two rocking chairs or the dreary curtains hanging within the front windows; the way the porch light flickered, or the way the shadows danced across its outer walls, that made him stop and stare.
It was the silence.
He had heard before from Aries that the Mayweather’s took care of dogs. Whatever that meant.
But would dogs be so quiet with a stranger standing right outside of their turf? Wolves wouldn’t... Even his shisa would have something to say about it.
Yet even as he crossed over from the sidewalk onto the stone steps that lead up to the Mayweather’s front porch, not a sound could be heard from inside.
Were the dogs sleeping, perhaps?
And now that he thought about it, who was feeding them?
A sick feeling settled at the bottom of his gut.
He ascended the stairs and stopped in front of the front door. From where he stood, Shen couldn’t see any kind of activity inside.
A horrifying thought crossed his mind: what if the dogs had died?
Shen grabbed the knob. To his surprise, it turned.
He gulped as it creaked open.
His heart raced as he debated whether entering was a breach of their rules. Behind him, a neighbor’s porch light suddenly illuminated the street between them. Shen cursed under his breath and quietly slipped inside the Mayweather’s home, closing the door behind him.
The inside of their home smelled musty from the lack of air circulation. A quick survey of the kitchen revealed the power was still connected, as the appliances worked.
It wasn’t unusual, considering few knew about the Mayweather’s disappearance just yet. (Though some who knew what happened to the Mayweather’s had their memory of the events wiped by Rune...)
Shen continued through the home. He walked down a narrow hallway with three doors and carefully opened each one to check inside.
Empty rooms and no dogs in sight... he thought.
He pressed onward down the hall until he made it to the master bedroom. The air in the room felt thicker than the rest of the house, but if Shen judged the space by its outward appearance alone, he wouldn’t have found anything amiss.
Instead, he stepped into the large room and slowly wandered from side to side, checking around furniture. After bending over to check beneath the bed and finding no trace of any animals, Shen wondered if someone else had taken them.
As he stood up, he noticed a closet door and another beside it. The closet was full of clothes hanging from a metal bar. Boxes filled with shoes were stacked below. Shen abandoned the closet and opened the next door.
The bathroom looked normal enough until he pulled back the shower curtain.
There, laying in the bathtub, was a pile of bones.
Shen recoiled and reared back against the nearest bathroom wall, where he slunk down to the floor and waited for the shock of his discovery to fade.
As he caught his breath, he thought he heard the bedroom floor creak and his blood ran cold.
Slowly, Shen rose to his feet and peeked his head out into the main room.
No one was there.
He checked the rest of the home but found that he was alone.
Must have been my imagination, he thought.
Shen shook his head and headed back to the house to tell the others what he’d found.
––––––––
WHEN HE RETURNED, HE discovered everyone in the living room. Except for Aries, who paced in front of the fireplace, the others sat seated on the sofas behind him.
The air sizzled with electrified energy. Shen had a strange feeling when he walked in and took a seat. Looking across at Terra, Rune, and Brava, he noticed an odd twinkle in their eyes.
“Welcome back, Shen,” Terra greeted him with an angelic smile.
“Thanks. Did something happen?”
“We don’t know yet,” Brava told him.
“Aries said he has something to tell us—but he wanted to wait until you got back to tell us what it is,” Rune added.
“Oh?”
Shen wanted to tell them about the bones he’d uncovered in the Mayweather’s bathroom, but decided to hear Aries out first.
Four heads swiveled toward the pacing incubus, who stopped and turned toward them. He crossed the space between the fireplace and the sofas and plopped down next to Shen. Aries leaned his head against his shoulder and sighed. Shen’s inner shisa about keeled over from joy at being so close to his mortal mate.
“You guys said before that having sex with me was giving you power, right?”
The mortal’s question stunned everyone, Shen included. Their cheeks turned rosy red and suddenly, his shisa could sense a twinge of pheromones lingering in the air. He ignored it and focused on Aries’ question. “Yes, what about it?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking... Rune’s said the neighborhood is getting more dangerous by the day. People are dying. Now, more than ever, we should be fighting back. If sleeping with me gives you guys a power-up, shouldn’t we be exploiting the hell out of it to win this war?”
Shen observed the others as they pondered Aries’ words. Then, he looked down at the mortal mate curled up against him and said, “where are you going with this?”
“Let me get to the point... Does claiming someone make you more powerful?”
“It can to an extent—but incubi like you are rare,” Brava answered. “Last one to grace Blackhallow vanished about two centuries ago.”
Aries pushed his glasses up and rubbed his chin as he thought about what the half-demon said. “So no one knows if the power will stack?”
“Stack?”
“You know—you guys have sex with me, you power up... If you claimed me as your mate, I thought maybe it could, uh, double the effect.”
Brava leaned back into the sofa and pulled at the crotch of his pants to adjust himself. His eyes gleamed devilishly. “As tempting as that sounds, there’s no way to know if it would work.”
“Maybe, but there is one way to find out,” Aries announced, standing up.
“Where are you going?” Rune asked.
Aries smiled at them. “To find out, we have to try it first. Anyone who wants to can follow me upstairs to the nearest bedroom.”
Shen and his mates watched Aries leave. The moment he was out of sight, they leaped off the sofas and scrambled after him.