Outline for Messiah Shortie

1. Opens with Lucifer Dolofonos closing in on a target, a middle-ranking Cardinal who acted as
intelligence for the shedim but who has since been “compromised”. Lucifer arrives at the
Chateaux and finds the cardinal already slain.
2. He is attacked by a Sapientia nephilim wearing papal regalia and three of his goliaths – a trap!!! L
survives, but is seriously hurt in battle. He finds traces of a drug that was controlling the
Sapientia, leading back to the human known as The Leviathan.
3. L drags his bedraggled self back to Thelassar where he seeks out Levi – there is much accusation,
Levi mocks L – if he wanted L dead, he’d have him dead. Plus, you know, they’re best pals
forever and stuff. Lots of fighting. L, still weakened, attacks.
4. Levi, a drug-enhanced human, overwhelms him easily, more mockery ensues. Then there are
sexy times that, as always, dissolves into bitter fighting. L, strengthened from sexy times (new L
is an incubus), leaves.
5. We finish off with Doc Holiday and his Lab of Whacky, wherein we learn that he authored the
assault on L and planted Leviathan-evidence – why? To weaaaakeeeeeeen boooonds.

Tentatively

Thelassar – Shedim Capital

Leish – Northern territory – Shedim

Cardinal Alejandra Durras’ assassination was scheduled to take place on the last day of Blood Roses Cup,
an event held annually by the Reghains. It was a perfect diversion. The elite papal guards would be
busy, clustered away in the east, guarding officials far more important for the weeklong racing event.
The cardinal, a bitter opponent of the Reghain family, would not attend. Her animosity towards the
Keepers of Arms would play a hand in her demise after all, just not in the way she had often imagined.

At precisely a quarter past one in the morning, her assassin bypassed the security of the cardinal’s
sumptuous seaside chateaux. The sea wind howled pleasantly in the assassin’s ears, his lungs filled with
the pungent smell of ocean water soothingly. The assassin proceeded on his mission with patience and
solid conviction.

Conviction was a trait the assassin cultivated in himself; he liked knowing that the people on the wrong
end of his barrel were the right people after all. He was an assassin with principles.

After thoroughly examining the Cardinal’s life, habits and political views, the assassin was certain of two
things.

The first was that Cardinal Alejandra Durras was a spy. Which he had known, of course. However, if only
she had been a bit less greedy and singularly spied for the right people, his people, the assassin would
not be climbing the exterior walls of her home to kill her. The problem was that she was not merely
spying for the Shedim; she was also spying for the Nephilim. Trading information was a dangerous thing,
however profitable.

The Cardinal was most assuredly the right sort of people.

The second thing the assassin knew about the cardinal was simply this: the head of her personal detail
was not a loyal man. Working so closely to the privileged few, living in the shadow of opulence, eating
his meals in the chateaux but heading home every night to assigned housing, a gray and nondescript flat
devoid of excess, had left the security agent more than a little susceptible to bribery.

It was a common Nephilim mistake, this mismanagement of people, the unwillingness to part with
wealth for the greater good. A fatal arrogance that so many Keepers, especially those close up top,
seemed to share. The keepers’ hunger for all things shiny was an exploitable trait that his people, the
Shedim, used in their own political propaganda. Thanks to the Cardinal’s happy obliviousness, the agent
was a very wealthy man now. And, if he has any sense at all, he’ll be halfway to Leish, thought the
Assassin.

Leaving the unsuspecting Cardinal alone, more or less. Soon to be joined by her assassin, a man whose
codename the Reaper suited him just fine, dramatics aside.

*****

Leviathan settled into a cup of perfectly hot, aromatic tea with pleasure. His back molded to his chair
with familiarity. On his desk, a sparse few accessories sat in stoic parallel dignity from each other, all in
lovely ninety-degree angles. Expected things. It was all very good, very orderly for all of a quarter of an
hour. Exactly what his over-burdened mind needed at the end of the day.
Then the blasted Reaper arrived and ruined everything.

First, there came the knock on the door and Leviathan placed the teacup back into its saucer and folded
his hands. Consciously, he forced himself not to grind his teeth, a bad habit. He could be angry after
whatever this distraction was, if the need be, for now it would be best not to ruin the evening for
himself.

Then the door swung open to admit his lieutenant, Valencia Willoughby. He narrowed his eyes at the
petite, dark woman. Valencia was a woman he’d trust with his very life if need be, a distraction from her
was troubling.

“Leviathan, listen.” She held up a hand to ward off a protest that had not left his lips. “Before you bellow
murder at me - listen, because you want me here, really.”

“I request an hour of peace and quiet every day, a measly hour out of twenty-four.” He said and looked
quite pointedly at his cooling teacup sitting forlornly beside the teapot in its silver tray. “I can only
assume someone’s dying.”

“Well,” she began, “God knows you above all deserve a shred of peace and quiet.”

“I’d settle for solitude. Peace be damned. Between the Nephilim and Shedim the one certainty we have
is that there is no blasted peace to be had for miles and miles around.”

“While that’s all true,” she afforded him a very rare smile. “peace will have to elude you for a while still.
You have a guest.”

Guest, that was certainly less ominous than death but Leviathan felt no more reassured. One person
came to mind strikingly fast, a man that, at the best of times, he found trying. Leviathan was suddenly
exhausted.

“I change my mind,” he said, teeth grinding. “Silence and solitude. Quiet seems to never be enough, so
now it is silence. Not a whisper, not a word. Total, dead silence.” He was grumbling. He was
begrudgingly aware of it. The childishness of ‘no, do not want’. Go away and let me have my evening. I
have earned it.

“Yes, exactly! Dead silence, your friend is here.” She stressed, confirming his suspicions.

Leviathan sighed.

“Can I let him in or should I let him bleed out on our doorstep?”

*****

Asher came to in a foreign bed, in a foreign room, cautiously decorated in pale grays, monochromatic
whites and black in quite a foreign way. Foreign, clinical and controlled with a tinge of violence just
below the surface.

Ah. So, he had arrived at Leviathan’s compound.

He propped himself up on an elbow and, unavoidably, began to sputter and cough.

A ropey black drool rose during the fit, freeing itself like a snaky ribbon. This good, black blood fed his
second stomach that fueled his inhuman body.

This was alarming.

Asher did not become sick. He had been wounded before, certainly and he had a recovery period. Half a
day, even a day. Trivial. Aching muscles that still functioned just as they should, reflexes that were
unperturbed. Nothing that had ever given him cause for worry. He was a well-crafted, well-oiled
machine.

By his calculations, it had been three days since the Sapientia trap. Whatever the flesh-crafter had done
to him in that horrific moment, caught helplessly between the goliaths, it exacted a heavy price from his
body.

Laboriously, he pushed himself up into a sitting position on the bed and discovered that he was half-
dressed. He had been dressed in a pair of sensible gray pajama bottoms but his chest was a maze of
bandages. Clean.

The room was uncomfortably cool. Asher’s skin was cold. Unusual. Nephilim skin was feverishly warm to
the touch.

The room that he was in fed into another set of rooms, but he could not see much from his ailing
position on the bed. He had to get up. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, long toes settling on
cold marble floors when the metallic click of a door caught his sensitive hearing. A woman, mid-forties,
all human, came in carrying fresh bandages and a small case. A nurse.

She let out a little surprised “oh” on seeing him awake, half falling off the bed.

Twenty minutes later Leviathan was sitting before him.

“You are doing it, you know.” Leviathan was saying, “that nurse, she was flushed, panting, could barely
articulate.”

“Crap, Asher.” Valencia, standing at Leviathan’s back, said. “Ella’s been with us for six years, she’s
married with children. How do you live with yourself, again?”

Ah, so he was doing that. He had not been certain before, there were a few queer looks his way, the
male nurse who took over the fumbling first nurse’s work had given him a look. Hurt as he was, Asher
could not be sure of the offer.

Sex. Sexual energy boosted his own set of special skills. It might possibly even speed up the healing
process. He had never had to rely on sex for healing before.

Moreover, he could not control the pheromones his body was surreptitiously pumping into the air.

Not in this state.

“It’s not easy but someone must. Might as well be me.” Asher said watching his hosts closely.

Leviathan was smiling, calm and confident. His lieutenant was not fairing as nicely.
The look Valencia gave him was cold, calculating and she was alert. She was a damn good security officer
but her body betrayed her for he could taste her desire on the tip of his tongue. Her lust boiled ardently,
thick and dark, resentful. That was another part of his special package. He knew when others wanted
him. His body called, willing bodies responded.

Asher tried to shrug, found that the gesture caused him pain and stopped.

“Beyond my control.” He said simply.

“Right,” answered Leviathan. “We’ve done all we can for you. So, for now, enlighten me, Reaper. Why
did you come?”

“Didn’t know it was a crime to want to see a friendly face.”

“My, you do lay the charm on thick.” Valencia’s keen dark eyes flashed violet for a moment, an odd side
effect of her techno-enhanced prosthetics. Eyes made for a sniper, which he knew she had once been.
An assassin too, only now she worked on keeping her target alive.

“Asher, please help me understand. You arrived at my doorstep half-dead, possibly leading back god-
knows-what with you to me. Implicating me in your…” Leviathan trailed. “Mess.”

Leviathan cocked his head. “A dangerous thing indeed.” He said.

Asher could see that, but really, returning half-dead to Abbadon without answers and only riddles
hadn’t been an option. He needed Leviathan and he needed a plan.

“The things I do for your attention, Levi.” Asher said and was awarded with a rich, dark laugh from
Leviathan. Valencia didn’t as much as smile.

“I’ll give you this,” Leviathan said, smiling. “You could do a whole lot worse for my attention.”

“About that,” Asher shifted, pulled himself up straighter and fixed his friend with a stare. “We need to
talk.”

“This is precisely what I’ve been saying.” Leviathan said.

Asher looked at Valencia where she stood beside Leviathan, her small dark hand resting on his chair.

“Alone.” He said and offered her what he hoped was an apologetic smile.

“Ah,” Leviathan’s lieutenant smiled back pleasantly. “Under the circumstances I’m afraid that won’t be
possible. Rather, let’s say, I decidedly find it impossible.”

“If this is a ploy to kill me, Valencia, it is certainly a unique one.” Leviathan said to her.

“That might be,” she conceded in a tone that was anything but concession. “However, until we are
certain there is no threat to you then as your security officer I will remain. Besides, he can speak freely in
front of me. I, for one, am dearly loyal.” Her lips tightened.

Asher took notice of the odd phrasing.

“Valencia,” Leviathan began in a voice that betrayed a lack of patience. “Does have a point, charming as
that may be.”
“I served with the Reaper at the siege of Leish.” She lifted her chin. “That was twenty years ago and I
can still remember being knee deep in flesh. I can still remember you cutting through dozens of men
and women as if it were…nothing. So effortlessly. You were soaked in blood and yet you never stopped
moving, never grew tired. Such bloodlust, that’s what the captain called it and he admired you for it.
That was the night you earned your name.”

Asher caught Leviathan’s eyes and he could see that the man also remembered the taking of Leish. That
dark knowledge of terrible, unspeakable things filled his eyes. But it was a knowledge they shared.
Valencia didn’t remember things as well as she liked…that was part of Leviathan’s great charismatic
leadership. He was so good at making people forget.

“And you earned yours, Brize.”

“It’s been a long time since anyone’s called me that.” She said with a smile.

Leviathan pressed his long, pianist fingers together into a steeple. A handsome man, the Leviathan was
made of long lengths and sharp angles with eyes as gray and dark as the sea. Long ago he and Asher had
been recruits together, practically children then, Leviathan hadn’t earned that name yet and Asher
hadn’t been a reaper. He remembered the young Levi clearly, good memory being an unfortunate part
of his makeup. As a boy, Levi had been angry and hungry. Easy to anger and hungry for more. A kid with
a constant split lip and bruised cheeks.

However, he was also good at managing others, good at tying people to him because, above all,
Leviathan was a provider.

Unfortunately, he had never tamed that anger.

It was a different anger than most. The difference lay in the temperature of Leviathan’s anger. It was not
the hot and scorching rage of the foolish or mad. No, his anger was cold like ice but it burnt you twice as
viciously. Such is the anger of the righteous.

Painstakingly Leviathan, fueled by that anger, had carefully fashioned this section of an empire, the east
wing of Thelassar, their most important city for his warden. An impressive feat for a boy who once
hadn’t even owned his name.

But Asher knew, better than most, how every immaculate choice of garments, every lock of groomed
hair on Leviathan’s body hid chaos.

Thus, he knew that only clarity would serve him in dealing with Leviathan.

“Think,” Asher hissed and Valencia’s eyes narrowed at him. Leviathan’s face, grey eyes downcast, was a
blank canvas, as intended.

“Think,” he said again, “if I meant to kill him I would not have come through the fucking front door.
Loyalty’s precious, girl, but if my orders were to kill the Leviathan, you wouldn’t be the thing to stop
me.”

“Cheeky bastard.” Levi smirked.

“He’s right.” She said and glared down at Leviathan. “This is why I’m always telling you that we need
rephaim for your guard.”
Rephaim, not Nephilim, interesting thought Asher.

Recently there had been a commotion over the nomenclatures. A Shedim versus the Nephilim sort of
thing. Older, influential members of their organization, people like the Leviathan, had taken offense to
calling their inhuman members by the dreaded word nephilim.

It seemed that Valencia, the once upon a time Brize, had proudly bought into the propaganda. He didn’t
begrudge her that, he was all in favor of the Shedim nation.

Nevertheless, he did not believe in the bureaucracy created in the name Rephaim.

Never mind that they were of the nephilim race. Calling them that simply wouldn’t do. It was bad form,
the Nephilim were their entitled, technophobic, sluggish enemies who swallowed, indiscriminately, the
world’s precious remaining resources. There was no place in Shedim philosophy for the word Nephilim.
A solution had to be found.

Asher had watched the entire proceedings with great amusement.

Eventually they settled on the name Rephaim.

A petty slight that the Shedim delighted in.

Often Asher imagined the Keepers sitting in their pristine abodes, enjoying the best lands following the
cataclysm. Safe, fertile, resourceful. He didn’t imagine a rat’s ass was ever given.

“And, as I’ve explained to you quite patiently,” Leviathan said with a wry smile. “I don’t trust nonhumans
and anyhow, I wouldn’t know where to find the living creature that could stop our Reaper. And I’ve no
wish to see him dead.”

“Asher might be your friend.” She said with some reluctance. “Or something to that end. But there are
other things out there.”

“She’s right,” Asher agreed pleasantly. “the Witch of Endor employs a household of rephaim.”

Leviathan frowned. “I’ve never understood why Abbadon indulges her paranoia; the woman is packing
more firepower than some squadrons.”

“In my line of work I find paranoia… sensible.” Asher said. Leviathan studied him for a moment then
said:

“Tell me something that will put my guards at ease, Ash.”

“I wish I could, but let’s settle for this: the thing that almost killed me is now dead. There will be no
return attack, not this night or many nights to come.” He was not certain of this but he could hardly tell
Leviathan that, the man was plenty neurotic as it was. “And what I do know would be dangerous to
share with anyone other than you.”

Valencia stared at him. “There is no one who is more loyal to the Leviathan than I am.”

“I don’t doubt your loyalty.” He said quickly. “But there are things out there that can read you with their
touch and unravel all your secrets. Think about what you know, Valencia. We do not need to run that
risk.”
“Sensible,” said Leviathan with a smile.

“Yes, it is.” Valencia said and shook her head. “I trust you only about as far as I can throw you, Reaper.”
She said and her eyes trailed down the length of him. Even propped in a bed he was impressive, 1.98
meters of hard flesh and muscle. She smiled a little. “Which isn’t far.”

“Valencia,” he said her name gently and saw her soften a bit towards him. It was the pheromones. He
knew it and was sure she did too. “What I know is dangerous but it is also not important enough.”

“The Reaper’s assassin.” Leviathan mused with the faintest of smiles. “Definitely dead?”

“Thoroughly dead. Again, dead.” He answered and watched as tiny, pseudo-delicate Valencia shivered in
her leather jacket.

“You are dismissed, Valencia.” Leviathan said to her.

She blinked as if in a haze and then nodded sharply to clear her mind. Casually she placed a hand on
Leviathan’s shoulder. Intimately, Asher noted. He realized then that his pheromones working defiantly
in the enclosed room, had affected her more powerfully than expected. She was in love and she was in
carnal misery. He could see now how her body reacted to the man sitting before her, how she inclined
her head towards him. Eyes filled with more than lust.

This, Asher thought, is why she is no longer the Brize. She had given up rank for her lord. The revelation
in her body should not have surprised Asher and yet it did.

The woman had a harsh exterior, a capable eye, she was nothing to toy with and yet…

And she was in love with Leviathan. Oblivious, cold as the abyss Leviathan. His friend. Asher felt a
strange emptiness.

“If you need me just call.” Valencia said and Leviathan nodded not even bothering to glance up at her.

But she looked at Asher with her violet, long-seeing eyes, eyes affected by his carnal call, and he felt the
impact of that connection.

She smiled in satisfaction and turned around. He watched with a dry mouth as she swung her hips all the
way to the door. Giving him full view of her curvaceous behind. The woman certainly was lacking in
nothing. He wondered what was wrong with Leviathan.

She paused at the door, hand on the frame and turned back to them. Firm breasts, firm body, a warrior
of a woman. She bit her full lower lip and slowly released it, darting her pink tongue to lick the plump
flesh. The gesture was the sort of ridiculous thing women often did for provocation and which, under
better circumstances, Asher was more than happy to oblige and reciprocate. However, with Valencia,
he was certain there were no real offers.

“I’ll be just outside, if you need me.” She said and slipped out.

“You’re spewing pheromones all over the place. It’s distracting.” Leviathan said when the door clicked
shut.
“Not in control of that. And I hadn’t thought you noticed.” Asher said in surprise. “But, as you obviously
have, I suggest, for your honor, you move that chair back a meter or two.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Leviathan said. “Besides, a meter or two would hardly make a difference. You
reek.”

“As you wish, but remember I play both sides.”

“Ash,” Levi said with a strained smile, “you won’t ever be up to playing again if you don’t start talking
soon.”

Asher laughed.

“Shall I start at the beginning?”

“I don’t see why not. Tell me everything.”

It was testament to their friendship that Asher did.

*******

“The difference between us, Asher,” Leviathan said when Asher finished. “Is that, I, if I even ever
presumed that you were behind a plot against me, would never have come looking for you.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it, Levi? It is too simple.” Asher said. Levi reached into a coat pocket and
pulled out a slim gold case. Inside there would be Levi’s custom rolled smokers, bitter sweet and
hallucinogenic.

“Care for one?” He asked as he opened the case revealing six little monster, one already gone.

“Not in the slightest,” Asher said, “besides, they’d do absolutely nothing for me.”

The Leviathan smiled. “You’d be surprised the punch this little thing packs. It’s new, something my
chemists have been working on for…years.”

“Better than Kiss?” Asher asked in reference to the drug for which Leviathan was synonymous. The
Leviathan’s Kiss could knock the Nephilim out of their shoes. So said all the cool kids.

Leviathan took a smoker and tapped it against the end table thoughtfully.

“If injected,” he allowed. His casual, composed manner infuriated Asher. Something he was certain
Leviathan knew. Asher had lived next to Leviathan for two long, horrible decades. Ate next to him,
fought next to him…and sometimes with him. However, Leviathan’s cold consumption of narcotics never
failed to rile him.

Asher cursed. Leviathan raised an eyebrow.

“None for you then.” He said and clicked the box shut.

“Senseless numbing shit.” Asher snapped. “That’s your contribution to Shedim.”

“I do try my best but we can’t all be first rate killers.”

“For fuck’s sake, Leviathan, you are the front-runner to replace Abbadon should a papal assassin
succeed. God knows they’ve grown better.” Asher gestured to his torn flesh angrily.

“Heaven forbid.” Leviathan said drolly.

“Act like you give a shit, man! Isn’t it time you do more than think about the girth of your pockets?”

“Do more?” Leviathan looked at him coldly. “Do you know how many families reside in my wing of
Thelassar, Asher? You do not, of course. You earn your credits in death tolls.”

This was all true, of course. Asher was The Reaper for a reason, a cause he believed in firmly. The world
needed the Leviathans to shape it and give it sustenance but it needed men like Asher to eliminate
threat and keep all those families Levi liked mentioning sleeping soundly on their pillows each night.

“I’m not eligible to be The Voice after Abbadon. I reside in the shadows of polite society, Leviathan. It
has been years since I was last invited to attend a rally. I don’t recall you protesting.”

“All a matter of convenience.” Leviathan said dismissively as he lit the smoker, a pungent odor soon
followed. Leviathan dragged slowly on it. Asher watched him, squelching his contempt. “There are those
who don’t like to be reminded of you.”

“We chose our paths.” Asher said repeating the well-loved Shedim adage. As young recruits to the
cause, he and Leviathan, had attended many lectures on the subject of Shedim ideology and as an adult
he found holding unto such things helpful.

Leviathan looked at him with dilated pupils, the blue irises obscured by all that black. “And here we are,
good friends having a chat.” There was venom in the normally cool voice.

“Is that what we’re doing?” Asher said and felt something coiling in the pit of his stomach. “Are we
having a chat, Levi?”

“Of course,” Leviathan snapped. “My childhood friend appears before me bloody and wounded,
requesting – no, demanding an audience with me and what else would we do but have a chat?”

“You think I’ve grown soft.” Asher said with some surprise. “Do you think I’d fail my training and come
here for protection? Putting absolutely everyone in jeopardy?”

Leviathan studied him over lazy spiraling fumes.

“Fuck.” Asher said and Leviathan shook his head.

“No,” he said. “That’s the problem. I know you too well.” Leviathan took another drag of the smoker and
held it for a long fraction of time. Slowly, mesmerizingly he released it. “I’m worried.”

Asher smiled bitterly. “Charmed.”

Leviathan pointed the smoker at him. “No ordinary flesh-crafter did that to you, Asher.”

“She was drugged, I told you, out of control.”

“And apparently unstoppable.”

“She was certainly stopped.” Asher said and, unwillingly, saw the woman’s face frozen in terror. The
beautiful flesh-crafter’s face danced before his eyes tauntingly, her eyes finally seeing clearly for the last
time. A shudder passed through him.

Leviathan noticed his reaction and nodded.

“Stopped, you say. But at what cost, Ash?” His friends face was etched with worry. There were more
worry lines, Asher thought, than there had been only a couple of years ago. Humans aged faster than his
kind, Asher felt that old discomfort over the thought. Leviathan looked at him now with eyes that were
serious and tired, not bitter and demanding. “If they have creatures like that at their disposal, why
haven’t they used them yet?”

“It’s a brand new world you’re inheriting, Leviathan.” Asher said. “I don’t envy you for it.”

Leviathan rose to his feet and began pacing the room. Asher could not help but watched him.
Leviathan’s movements were purposeful, interesting to view, sharp and military. In Asher’s weakened
state they were entirely too interesting. He would need a sexual partner soon. Someone to take the
edge off and maybe help his healing along.

“I really wish you hadn’t come here.” The man said. “We could have flushed out the culprit. Let them
think we’re aiming for one another.”

“I’m unsure I was meant to survive that.” Asher said with a bitterness that surprised him. As the Voice’s
Reaper he hadn’t ever really considered his own mortality but there it was, looming, in the back of his
mind after all. All things must come to an end, he thought.

Leviathan grunted.

“Of course you were, why plant my signature drugs otherwise?”

“Your signature drugs are what put her out of control, she didn’t even know where she was, Leviathan”
Asher said and a dark thought crossed his mind. “She didn’t even know where she was.” He repeated.

Leviathan glared at him. “Be careful, assassin.”

“It’s not a new strain of Kiss, is it Leviathan?”

Leviathan’s jaw clenched, he dragged furiously on the smoker. After a moment, he spat, “it wasn’t
available for the population, it wasn’t ever meant to be. Our ancestors used….different weapons.
Biochemical warfare, have you heard of it, Asher?”

“So now you’re in the market of weapons, does Garuda know you’re edging in his territory?” Asher said,
not bothering to conceal his disgust.

Leviathan stared at him hard. “Don’t be naïve. Garuda deals in guns that predate the Keepers
themselves. Broken things reliant on old world ammunition. We are years away from the technology.”
He said. “We’re doing all we can for a measly shit piece of land while the Nephilim squander water and
food. I’m in the market of drugs, that was a drug….it just also happens to be a weapon.”

“A powerful weapon,” hissed Asher.

“Yes, it is. It was meant to work on powerful creatures.” Leviathan stood a foot away from Asher’s bed,
hands angrily clenching the footboard. “I have a traitor.”

“You do have a traitor and you’re still too close.” Asher said and leaned forward, the sheet pooling on
his lap. His muscles rippled under tanned warm skin and unwittingly Levi’s eyes fell upon that expense of
muscle and warm flesh. “And I don’t believe for a moment you’ve truly considered how problematic the
latter is for us both.”

“Shut up, you absurd monster.”

Asher gave a bark of a laugh, a deep rumble that came from some delicious dark place. Leviathan felt his
skin prickle. “As you like then, when you break in sweat don’t blame me.”

“Clearly you overestimate yourself.” Leviathan said, nostrils flaring, a nagging thought registered the
challenge in his words.

*****

It was Valencia, hands expertly shedding clothes, throwing her jacket across the room. “Fuck me,
Asher.” She growled, her voice desperate. He did not care anymore. He needed the sex. Fuck Leviathan,
he could go to hell.

Asher took one of her slim wrists in his hands and threw her onto the bed with such violence that her
eyes grew unglazed, sharp and wary. Then he was upon her with lips, hands, tongue and teeth. He used
his body to distract her, licking and nibbling at her sensitive ears, long neck.

Valencia LOVES Leviathan