“Wh-what was that?” I asked through clenched teeth.

Her eyes were as big as motherfuckin’ saucers and her pink lips popped open with a gasp. She didn’t speak, just… stared.

Leaning on the bed, my muscles straining, I asked her again, “Answer the f-f-fuckin’ q-question, Mae. What. The. Hell. Was. Th-that???”

She swallowed so loud I swear you could hear it all the way to Mexico. “D-did… did… I displease you?”

Her devastated face cut through me.

Out and out fear. Me. She f**kin’ feared me.

I dropped to the bed, groaning low as I drank in the sight of her perfect round tits, smooth with big fat dusky ni**les, big enough to spill out over my fingers when cupped and a flat smooth stomach, milky skin. Reaching down, I adjusted my cock, which was gonna smash through my jeans any f**kin’ second. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, calming down. Opening them again, I picked up my cut from my chair and passed it to her.

“C-c-cover yourself.”

Mae snatched it from me and hid her body, tucking her legs and arms under the mass of leather. Hades grinned up at me—no. Taunted me. Mae looked so small. Petrified and small. And I couldn’t help but note that she looked so f**kin’ hot under my cut.

Old lady good.

Shit.

Wrong time!

Shifting my legs slightly, I faced her. “B-b-babe, wh-why d’you do that?”

Lowering her eyes, she whispered, “I had made you angry. I was trying to make you happy. Is that not what women do here, on the outside?”

My fists clenched.

“Mae, I was p-pissed at what just happened, not at you! B-b-babe, I shouldn’t have shouted, b-but I couldn’t calm d-down. I have a short f-fuse. You g-got f**kin’ targeted today, Lois died and it was my f-fault! You coulda f**kin’ d-died if it weren’t for Rider!”

“Why was it your fault?” she asked quietly.

“‘C-c-cause I kept you! The club’s g-gettin’ shit, some other or-or… organization is t-trying to take us out. J-j-just have to figure out now wh-who and take the f**kers out first—a-a-ain’t the first attempt; won’t be the last.” I took a deep breath, relaxing my throat. It was getting easier to talk to Mae.

Yet another f**kin’ thing to like about her.

“What will happen now?” she whispered. I could still hear the fear in her shaky voice.

“You’re st-staying with me. G-gotta protect you. That means st-staying right by my side.”

I watched as she closed her eyes and sighed in relief, and Christ if I didn’t spit some cum in my jeans. At a sigh. Fuck I needed to get laid. I was too pent up, needed a release.

Running a hand over my head, I said, “Y-you gotta tell m-me why you were sh-shoving that f**kin’ perfect p-pussy in my face, babe.”

A pink blush covered her whole face and she sank lower into the leather of my cut. “You were displeased. I was providing you with pleasure. As a woman, that is what is expected of me. It is selfish and a sin to deny you pleasure.”

I swallowed back the growl about to let rip from my throat. “Y-you do that a lot wh-where you from? G-get f**ked like a d-damn sex-slave?”

She hesitated for a moment, eyebrows drawn, then nodded reluctantly.

That did it. I stood and had to shake out my shoulders. I needed to fight. Hurt someone. “Th-that how you f**ked, b-babe? Were you f-forced into that sh-shit?”

Hearing the catch of breath, I turned to hear the answer. “It is essential for sharing the Lord’s love, for the sacrificial exchange of bodies. For the leaders of my people… for the men of my people… I… I did not have a choice in this act… None of the sisters did.”

“Sh-sharing the Lord’s l-l-love? Sacrificial ex-exchange? What the f**k’s th-that shit ab-about?”

“Where the disciples got closer to God through… their sexual release… through the vehicle of our—the sisters’—bodies.”

I hesitated. Sometimes I got so damn confused with the shit she spouted. Who the hell’re the disciples? And why the hell were they f**kin’ Mae like an animal?

“And y-you? What did you g-g-get from it?” I asked, rolling my lip ring to stop from going Flame-level psycho.

Tears filled her eyes and her full bottom lip wobbled. “Nothing. I got nothing from it. In fact”—she paused and drops fell down her cheek—”I hated it. My Lord, I hated it. Every single time. None of the sisters ever got pleasure from it… We were forbidden to do so. Women should not feel pleasure. Sharing is for duty, not for love.” She took a hesitant breath. “We would be… punished. We had to adopt the position and endure it until the brother—or in my case the elder—was done.”

A pink blush brightened her porcelain skin and her lashes fluttered, her baby-blues meeting my attention. “I have never felt… gratification… from a joining. I do not know what that kind of pleasure is like… if I am even capable of feeling that kind of pleasure at all.”

My heart cracked, right down the damn middle. I moved across the room to Mae like a pu**y. “B-babe…” I wrapped her in my arms and she cried, f**kin’ cried a river on my shoulder.

I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand seeing her so torn. What the hell had she been through?

“Shh… Y-y-you’re outta that hell now. I g-got you… I got you… You’ll never have to go th-through that a-a-again…”

“They will be searching for me. They will not stop until they have me back in commune,” she cried.

Gripping her hair, I replied, “Far as y-you’re concerned, th-they’re dead. They’ll n-never find you here. Fuckers a-are nothing to th-the Hangmen.”

She sat up and shook her head. “The devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world he did not exist,” she said softly. “I know the guards, Styx. They are coming. They exist and they are coming. It is only a matter of time.”

“They c-come for you, they d-die,” I said through clenched teeth, and her eyes flared at my words as her hand ran down my arm.

I jerked as I felt her lips press to my bare chest, her tiny hand graze down my stomach, the sensation zinging straight to my cock.

“What should it be like, Styx? What should it feel like… to be intimate with someone… you know… normally?”