Sloth (The Damning Book 4)

by Katie May

  through with Aaliyah. “Do you think it could help with his blood madness?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt.” Bash shrugged his shoulders, gently placing a hand on

  Jax’s bicep to lead him in the direction of the hut. “Though I’m worried

  Paco’s just going to tell him to feed. But fuck, maybe he’d be right—maybe

  it’s time for Jax to embrace his nightmare and feed on blood the way he’s

  supposed to. It can’t be healthy to resist.”

  “He fed on blood when he was with Aaliyah,” I pointed out, the only

  sound in the forest the crunching of leaves beneath our feet and the roll of

  Dair’s tires. “But the second he was away from her, he fell right back into his

  madness.”

  “I think that has something to do with Z,” Dair confessed. “He was

  coherent until she fell unconscious. And now that she’s sick…”

  “There might not be anything we can do to pull him out of this,” Bash

  finished.

  “You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here.” Jax’s voice was

  colder than I ever remembered it being, a slash of air that cracked open skin

  like a whip of fire. His sharp eyes swiveled in my direction, and I found

  myself tongue-tied, unable to speak around the man who had been my best

  friend for many, many years, even with his madness. “I know what you guys

  think, and I’m not mad. I’m not.” He turned away from us, his gaze fixing

  firmly ahead as he shrugged himself out of Bash’s grip.

  “We’re not saying—” I began diplomatically, but Jax cut me off.

  “Yes, you are.” His gaze turned vacant, and he quickened his pace so he

  was a few steps ahead of us all.

  Silence settled between the four of us as we finally reached the entrance

  to the tiny hut, then Bash knocked on the wooden door. Like before, I

  couldn’t hear anything besides our own hearts beating, so I focused on my

  other senses. I wasn’t as skilled as using them as some of the other incubi, but

  through the closed door, I picked up a heady amount of…lust?

  Was there someone with Paco?

  The lust inflated significantly, usually a sign that the person had…um…

  completed, and then footsteps pounded against the floorboards.

  “Whatcha want?” a snarly voice demanded as the door was thrown open,

  creaking on its rusty hinges.

  I blinked at the tall man standing before me, unable to formulate any

  thoughts or words.

  For starters, he was huge, his upper half practically bending in half,

  despite the hut being tall enough to fit two of me. He had peach-colored skin

  with dozens of intricate tattoos wrapped around his forearms and the hairiest

  chest I’d ever seen on a man before. His white hair was tied back in a long

  braid that touched his lower spine, though his beard was an untamed mess,

  caressing the middle of his pudgy belly.

  And he was naked.

  Completely and utterly naked.

  I wanted to say that I wasn’t a prude, but that wasn’t true. I totally was a

  prude. I didn’t like naked bodies, unless that naked body belonged to my

  beautiful mate.

  And I definitely didn’t like old guy penises. They were…flabby. And

  strangely colored. And his was pointing straight at me.

  “You brought Paco a present?” the man asked with a salacious sneer my

  direction. I blanched, trying to hide behind Bash’s broad shoulders and

  pretend that there wasn’t a withered and gray penis poking at my eyeball.

  “Not for you, Paco,” Bash said with a huff. “Can we come in?”

  The man—Paco, apparently, who liked to speak in third person—actually

  pouted, his hand moving down his hairy chest to touch his…err…manhood.

  But instead of stroking himself like I thought he was going to do, he began to

  spin it like a windmill, the movement almost absentminded.

  “Fine. Fine. Yer may come in.” He had a thick accent that I couldn’t

  place, but all thoughts of accents fled my mind when he spun on his heel to

  step back into his house and I saw his flabby ass.

  “Is that…?” I began, my eyes widening in horror.

  Dair turned green. “Bash, why the fuck did you bring us here? And why

  does that man have anal beads sticking out of his crack?”

  “Paco is the best at what he does,” Bash said, though he couldn’t quite

  hide his grimace of disgust as we entered the healer’s home.

  To say this place was humble was an understatement if I ever heard one.

  Everything was constructed out of wood, almost as if he ventured out into the

  forest, cut down a few trees, and used the bark to make the home and

  furniture. The only color I could see was a leaf stuck to the wall, the green

  turning brown with decay.

  Paco bent down when he reached what I believed to be a kitchen.

  “Yer want something to drink?” he called, his ass in the air, which gave

  me an unwanted view of his sac. Was that a…was that a bump? On his sac?

  He should really get that looked at.

  “We want to talk, Paco,” Bash said, just barely containing his irritation.

  “Paco waz buzy.” His accent turned even more pronounced, changing all

  of the Ss into Zs.

  Remembering the lust I felt before he entered, I searched the room for his

  partner. Instantly, I had a vision of a similarly tall woman with gray hair and

  a long beard leaning forward to put anal beads in his ass. In this horrible,

  disgusting vision, her breasts were so large, they scraped against the floor,

  and her entire body was covered from head to toe in coarse white hair like

  some sort of monster.

  Bile raced up my throat, and I coughed to hide my reaction.

  But alas, there was no woman. Only something that looked suspiciously

  like a pancake with a hole in it on his bed.

  He couldn’t…?

  “I’m sorry for bothering you,” Bash said cordially, his tone much kinder

  than I ever remembered it being with Z. I narrowed my eyes at him, but he

  ignored me, addressing the healer with earnest eyes. “But we were hoping

  you could help us with a few issues we have.”

  “Paco may be able to help.” He scratched absently at his bearded chin

  before coming to a decision and nodding. He smiled at me. “Paco whip him

  with his cock and then help.”

  Wait…

  The fuck?!

  Dair snorted on laughter as I stared in wide-eyed terror at the giant of a

  man. Did he really just say…?

  “You want to hit Killian with your cock?” Bash asked cautiously, like he

  was actually considering it.

  “Just one slap,” Paco insisted, once again twirling his cock in his fist. I

  was beginning to think he wasn’t sexually pleasuring himself, he was

  winding himself up to penis bitch-slap me.

  “No!” I protested immediately.

  Bash took a step closer to me and hissed under his breath, “Do it for Z.”

  “I’m not allowing him to whack me with his cock!” I whispered-shouted.

  “Just one little whack on the cheek,” Bash insisted. “It’s not like he’s

  going to fuck you or anything.”

  My eyes turned even wider with horror.

  “You don’t think…?”

  “Paco is getting impatient.” Paco folded his arms over his che
st and

  tapped his foot against the ground.

  “Just bend down and take it like a man,” Bash told me, but I was already

  shaking my head vehemently.

  “Killian…” Dair twisted his head to give me a severe look. “We don’t

  have a lot of time.”

  I grumbled under my breath, cursing out my brothers and life and Paco,

  as I squeezed my eyelids shut and leaned forward. I’d never been hit in the

  face with a penis before. Would it feel like a fish on my cheek? Not that I’d

  been hit with a wet fish either…

  Boisterous laughter had my eyes snapping open.

  Paco and Bash were holding their stomachs as they died of laughter. Even

  Dair was chuckling softly, though Jax remained stone-faced as he stared

  blindly out the only window looking back into the forest.

  “Gullible little incubus.” Paco clicked his tongue, still laughing, and

  moved to pat the top of my head condescendingly. It was then that I realized I

  was still leaning forward, putting my face only a few inches away from his

  cock, and I scrambled backwards with a…manly scream. Yup. Totally going

  with that. It wasn’t a squeal at all. Men didn’t squeal.

  “What the…?” I glanced back and forth between Bash and Paco, my eyes

  narrowing into slits. “You tricked me!”

  Bash offered me a sheepish smile. “Sorry, brother. I wasn’t lying when I

  said Paco was…a strange mage. He does require payment, but that payment

  isn’t whacking incubi with his cock.” A bark of laughter escaped him

  unbidden, but when he noticed my thunderous expression, he quickly

  sobered. “He requires humiliation.”

  “Humiliation?” I practically screeched as I watched Paco amble towards a

  cauldron bubbling in the corner of the room. A wide grin split open his

  whiskered face as he turned back to us.

  “Humiliation is Paco’s secret ingredient,” the crazy mage explained, his

  white braid swinging behind him. “Makes a delicious memory wiping

  potion.”

  “I really am sorry,” Bash murmured to me, lowering his voice so as not to

  be overheard by the healer. “I knew that we had to play along with whatever

  happened here. Last time I arrived, he made me dance around the living room

  while calling myself a pretty pony.”

  “Fuck you,” I grumbled, and his eyebrows rose at my swear word. As a

  general rule, I didn’t swear if I could help it. But I was freaking pissed at him

  for doing this to me. Granted, I knew my reaction had to be genuine or else

  Paco might not have helped us, but he still could’ve given me a heads-up.

  Obviously Dair knew, if his amused smirk was anything to go by.

  Bash flashed me another guilty look before schooling his features and

  addressing Paco.

  “Now that you’ve received your payment, can you help us?” Bash asked.

  Paco straightened, wiping off his hands, before nodding once.

  “Yes. Yes. Paco helps. Come.” He gestured us forward, and just when I

  thought he was going to take us to some supersecret lab underneath his shed,

  he took one step to the right. Literally one freaking step. I found myself

  shoulder to shoulder with Jax and Bash as we clustered ourselves around

  Paco in the smallest corner of the living room.

  “You like Paco’s shop?” The healer turned bright eyes on to each of us,

  and unsure what the desired response was to this situation, I nodded.

  “Yes. It’s…” Literally the corner of your house. “Nice.”

  “Paco like nice.” The healer winked at me, and I swore I felt myself die a

  little inside. Especially since with the way we were positioned, all he had to

  do was thrust his hips a tiny bit and his thing would be touching me.

  “Killian likes…um…his mate,” I stuttered out, mentally facepalming

  myself.

  Paco’s eyebrows touched his hairline. “Mate?”

  “Our sick mate,” Bash explained. “Which is why we’re here.”

  “Sick mate?” I swore his eyebrows didn’t move an inch from where they

  now rested at the top of his head, confusion permanently splayed across his

  face.

  “She was poisoned,” Dair explained, and his words turned the atmosphere

  somber. I didn’t think any of us thought too closely about Z’s condition. The

  thought of her not pulling through, of not opening up her beautiful eyes and

  spearing us all with a cocky look, of not surviving…

  It was unfathomable.

  Like, I literally couldn’t wrap my head around a world without her in it.

  Paco’s eyes drifted to Dair as if noticing him for the first time. His lips, if

  it were even possible, turned thinner.

  “You need Paco’s help too, no?” Paco turned—I barely jumped out of the

  way before his dick could whip me—and began to sift through his cabinets.

  He muttered under his breath as he sifted through shelf after shelf of what

  appeared to be potions. Each one was in a translucent jar with no label,

  making me wonder how he knew what he was looking for.

  “This help.” Paco grabbed a jar on the top shelf and all but threw it at

  Dair. The mermaid’s eyes widened as he struggled to catch the glass

  container.

  “What is it?” Dair made a face as he stared at the slimy, green substance.

  “Help fix legs.” Paco nodded towards Dair, and I watched my brother’s

  face closely, his incredulous expression giving way to unreadability. “One

  spoonful every day. Not permanent. Will help,” Paco instructed.

  “I…eat it?” Dair’s expression was carefully blank, and I wished

  desperately I could get him alone and ask him what he was thinking. I hated

  to see any of my brothers like this, but him most of all. He’d gone through

  hell, and I blamed myself every day for not noticing sooner how much pain

  he’d endured.

  Paco gave Dair a droll look, as if questioning his mental stability, before

  he mimicked spooning soup from a bowl and swallowing it whole. There was

  a whole lot of tongue licking going on, and I shuddered in revulsion.

  I took that as a resounding yes.

  “Now, the poison,” the old man continued. “Paco needs to know—”

  Something roared in the distance, the noise nearly shattering my

  eardrums, and the earth began to shake erratically.

  “What the…?” Bash murmured.

  All four of us exchanged wide-eyed looks as one name passed our lips.

  One word. One letter.

  Our entire lives tied up in it.

  “Z.”

  TEN

  BASH

  I raced outside, my magic crackling in my hands. Green light emitted

  from my palms as I stopped to inspect the scene before me.

  Z was awake, standing outside the van with Ryland beside her. Her

  head was tilted upwards, a look of utter horror etched onto her face. I

  followed the direction of her vision, a curse spilling from my lips at the

  monster nosediving for us.

  A dragon.

  A motherfucking dragon.

  I’d never seen one before outside of the occasional history book. They

  were one of the species that had become extinct over time. But now it was

  here in the flesh, looking just as menacing and goddamn terrifying as one

  would expect a mythical
creature to look.

  Its scales were a verdant green, a few shades darker than my own magic.

  Its body was easily the length of the capital and the width of a small car. Dark

  horns erupted from the top of its head, directly over its pitch-black eyes, and

  its tail was covered in a number of pointy triangles.

  Only one person had the power to bring extinct supernaturals back from

  the dead.

  Aaliyah.

  The bitch was attacking us again.

  “Get her in the car!” I bellowed at Ryland as I stalked across the

  driveway. Z whipped her head in my direction, her stare indignant while her

  eyes spewed vitriol.

  “Fuck off, Bash-hole.” She had a dagger in each hand, and her legs were

  bent slightly as if waiting to pounce.

  “I just want you to be safe!” It was hard to speak over the roaring

  reverberating across the sky from the rapidly approaching beast.

  “And what better way to be safe is there than to save myself?” she

  retorted immediately, and I growled, wanting nothing more than to spank her

  ass into submission.

  Instead of doing any of that, though, I moved to stand beside her. I could

  hear Killian speaking in hushed tones to Dair and Jaxon behind us, but I

  couldn’t focus on what was being said. My attention was consumed by the

  monster bearing down on us.

  “Does anyone know how to kill a dragon?” Ryland asked almost lazily, as

  if he were discussing the weather and not an immensely dangerous creature

  bearing towards us with death in its eyes. Because this monster totally wanted

  to eat us.

  I didn’t know about the others, but I would be a horrible dragon meal.

  Absolutely disgusting.

  “Um…are we supposed to?” Killian’s voice trembled ever so slightly, but

  he stood firm, one of his hands resting on the hilt of a dagger in his

  waistband. Jax was beside him, standing slightly in front of Dair, who was

  staring into the jar Paco gave him with wide eyes, his expression inscrutable.

  “If only Lupe were with us…” Z muttered, her brows furrowing together.

  Sweat beaded on her forehead as she swayed precariously to the side. I was

  there in a flash, placing one hand on her upper arm to hold her upright.

  “Z…” I warned, my voice a rumbling growl. She was right—if Lupe and

  Devlin were here, you could bet your sweet ass that they would’ve forced Z