Chapter 1
I slip out of the Freak Show Circus, bypassing my double decker wagon and moving straight for the craggy forest trail. I needed to collect firewood to stoke the fire, and a certain someone was always burning my supply.
My life was hard enough trying to host a failing rural Freak Show, and now I had to obtain basic necessities in the moment. I could not plan to store away or horde food nor firewood.
Talented freak cryptid co-workers were always going to garner a crowd. But off work, they were a whole ass problem. Their appetite for darkness and chaos was tricky to navigate.
Luckily, even with all the troublemaking around here, I was also a cryptid. If I was human, I’d have been dead meat a long time ago hanging out with this crowd of creatures.
As the only Rose Pixie in this part of the realm, the name that stuck was Pixie. And I could charm, walk with silent feet, see in the dark and breathe under water. This earthly realm doesn’t contain me. I can negotiate. I can slip between the cracks. I can even seduce monsters.
And right now? I can be quick.
I sprint down the forest path, legs aching from hours of training in the rings with swirling fire sticks. I was light like a feather, but that didn’t make the training any easier. The moment I’m done collecting this firewood, I’m planning on stoking a fire and going straight to sleep. I had a potentially life-changing meeting tomorrow, after all.
I hop over sharp, jagged rocks, my wrapped feet finding the right soft angles to land on, as I vault toward a dead tree. I get to work, cracking the brittle branches apart. I didn’t have time to bring an axe, and although these flimsy sticks would provide little fire, it was all I needed.
Besides, Olve, who took the bottom deck of the wagon, hated being too warm. He was layered thick in white fur, twice as thick as a polar bear. He took the brunt of the cold below and I took the upper deck to catch the rising warmth. Not just from the small fire but from Olve’s heat himself.
Olve was my dear Yeti protector. He scared everyone witless at first glance, but he was a big softie.
Tall and small, that was us.
When Olve wasn’t hibernating eighteen hours each day, he was like a bodyguard when it came to keeping the trouble trickster at bay. But Olve couldn’t always be there for me.
My stomach turns and I grimace thinking about my own personal nightmare. If I could spot that trickster’s twisted horns, it was a sign everything was about to become a problem or a challenge.
I keep glancing up, paranoid, searching the trees, my eyes able to discern the area as if it was day even while night. The coast is clear. No horns. I’m safe for the moment.
I swiftly gather my small bundle and then tie a long red ribbon around them.
I sling them over my back and turn back to the path. My silver leotard and pink hair made me stick out like a sore-thumb, but I couldn’t change now.
I didn’t have the luxury of time when the days were short and the nights cold and prolonged in the mountains.
I skip over the pile of rocks, and just as I’m about to take off at breakneck speed down the narrow trail, I hear an audible crunch to my left.
Fox?
Everything stills.
No. It’s a larger predator.
I twist, squatting, hissing and baring my teeth, “Who spies?”
When no one answers me, I fear it is my tormentor. Does he ever leave me the hell alone?
I don’t wait any longer to find out, because when he starts to run he is always more quick than me.
“Follow me and I will take your eyes!” I screech, hopping up and lunging into a sprint. The bats lurking nearby burst up from the trees, while I consider ditching the whole bundle of sticks if I must.
As I run, however, I hear strange panting.
And it is distinct.
It is so familiar that I break stride and lose sight of an upturned root. My foot slams into it and I cry out, dropping my bundle, then somersaulting over to the clear path.
I leap up, my foot limp. I hop around, looking for the threat. I limp backward, whimpering uncontrollably. And not from the pain.
The dark panting, that desperate bite of the air… it’s stopped, but it had reminded me of—no.
No. It can’t be him.
It’s not my ex-cryptid-lover. He was on the other side of the Kingdom. It has to be another Dog Man. And this one was panting for a quick Pixie snack.
Wings flare as an owl swoops down in front of me, onto the path, snatching a stray mouse.
I lurch and stumble sideways, the sole of my foot, rolling on a stick, sending me tumbling down again.
I land on my side, then immediately roll onto my back just as a form leaps over me, a foot pawing down on my throat, making me gasp.
And as we make skin contact, my vision ultimately dims. All my powers can be blanketed by a cryptid much stronger than I. Layered in ritual and bolstered by dark magics, I look up at the body of a warrior, with the face of a vicious, hairless dog, but the eyes are a light ember-brown. Smoldering at me.
Impossible—?!
“Lux?” I wheeze out, smiling, ever so briefly happy. The joy, lasting all but a moment before the memories of our last meeting freeze my loyal Pixie soul. This Dog Man had been my partner and promised me everything. Then he had been offered a scholarship from the prestigious North Kingdom. Miles from here. To be revered. To become famous.
He took power over love and my loyalty in a heartbeat, ripping my heart out of my chest.
Admittedly, I was offered an equal opportunity to join him, as we had been a team in the Circus, but I would never break the loyalty I held to the South Crags. Our terrain was hard to access, dangerous to find, and held all the weirdest creatures. It was my home.
The North Kingdom was for hand-selected royal creatures who were revered by the mortal population. But I wasn’t interested in being seen by thousands like Lux was.
I just wanted my home, my Freak Show Circus to be successful in its own right, in the South Crags; the loneliest, most isolated part of the realm.
Home is where the heart is, right?
Well, he abandoned all of us. I could not forgive him. Never!
Lux tilts his head, bares his canines, all of them small daggers, his giant but lithe body lowering as his foot lifts off my throat and his hand grasps over my neck instead, pinning me down to the spot.
He grins, “Hey, Thorn.”
“Let me up! Don’t call me that!” I hiss and his body glows with a vibrant red hue, his veins crackling like lava, “Why are you here?” He wasn’t supposed to be here at all!
Lux moves quick, so quick I can barely notice the speed as he nuzzles his snout down to my cheek, his tongue licking up to my ear, “I sensed my brother needed me. Our souls share the same curse. We know when we need to reunite.”
“So you returned for him,” I laugh and turn my face from his hellishly hot breath, his lust burns, “Get your tongue off my face. We are not like that anymore.”
“I remember where you prefer it, Pink, I never forgot,” Lux keeps holding my throat captive with his piercing claws, and his body twists, his limbs creepily long. I am at his mercy, and my body is already warming at the thought of being ravaged. Damn it. I hated how exciting it was when he did this to me!
His face scouts and buries between my legs, which I had pinned shut, but he shoves them open with his bared daggers, knocking his face at my thighs, sniffing.
“I don’t love you anymore!” I yelp, “Please… please… d-don’t do this…”
“I’ll always take the opportunity to eat you up,” Lux growls over my stomach, as his wide hand curls around my thigh, pressing it open, exposing me further, “Especially when I catch you in the hunt. You know the rules of our world. The debt of being caught like prey.”
I whimper, my thighs automatically opening further with his help.
“Good girl, give me your flesh,” Lux flicks a claw under my leotard, pulling it and my undergarments aside as he licks his favorite prize.
“No, Lux, you, w-we can’t risk this… not this close to the Circus,” I beg him even as I lift my hips closer to his mouth. My eyes roll back into my head, his fingers grip my neck tighter, his claws applying enough pressure to warn me to keep quiet.
If I talk again, he’ll cut me.
I struggle to breathe as Lux licks between my petals, loving on my clit with savage rolls of his tongue, his hot breath matching his hot dick which lies heavy over my belly as he shifts and twists again.
I lay still as his shadow blocks the moon, and all I see are his pulsing, ember veins in his neck. Cursed blood since birth, he lives on hunting and eating the innocent. Anything he can catch is fair game. Now I lie under him as his dinner.
“Patrols are weak in the Crags,” Lux grins over me as he lowers his hips and slips his wicked shaft between my legs, “Open wider for me. I’m taller and stronger now. I’ve grown into my full form. And I’ve never forgotten this body. You always thought you could slip away from me, Pink, but I can smell you dripping for me always, anywhere. I missed your soft, sweet skin,” he licks over his hind fangs, still grinning as he thrusts his cock against me, wetting it.
“I didn’t miss you at all—” I hiss it, my heart squeezing in protest with the lie.
Lux answers by lining up and slamming home, his dick bulging and ripping through me.
My body immediately writhes and arches up, as my legs lock around his hips, my arms stretching up too, my hands reaching for his neck. I tug him closer as he grinds in too deep, carefully stretching me on his pulsing cock. He always wanted me to break under his monster’s girth.
“You were dying without me,” Lux purrs knowingly in my other ear, “It’s okay, Pink, I’m back,” he grinds even deeper, his dick growing in size, straining my limits, “When I caught you the first time, you were mine, now you are mine forever, you can never outrun me, Pixie, never,” oh, he loves to dirty talk when we fuck.
Especially when I’m the one panting, and he’s fucking me senseless through every word. He is speedy, ruthless, every thrust crushing me between the path and his balls. All I can do it clutch him close.
“No,” I deny it. I can’t give him my heart, even if his body is delicious.
Lux’s ember-brown eyes spark as he pounds into me. I turn my head, looking away.
He hisses in protest, “Don’t be stubborn now. Surrender. Don’t fight me. How many times. How many times. Do I have to catch and ravage you apart? Until you give me all you are.”
“I don’t ever give up,” I squeeze my eyes shut, “And never again to you—ah, f-fuck!” my eyes snap open as Lux starts long-stroking in and out of me, grinding down my resistance.
Meanwhile, as our pleasure builds with each heated stroke, the silhouette of a horse and rider trot forward from the shadows, looming with intent to intercept.
“Lux, Lux!” I whisper, hiss and spit, bucking up against him.
“Shh, relax, I’m almost done with you,” Lux shushes me and let’s out a guttural snarl, weighing down, burying balls deep, squeezing my neck so hard that I—
—I come.
I release a croaky scream, pleasure and shock rippling through my overstimulated pussy. I spasm as he dumps a hot load into me, my body tremoring under him.
Lux slides out of me and my pussy protests, clenching empty space just as lantern light falls over us.
Lux straightens and looks over his shoulder then back down at me, his eyes wide.
I scold him even as I get my breath back, “...you r-ruined e-everything. Like you always do.”
“Abominable Acts, Code 12, no fucking on public paths,” the Crag Ork patrol jumps off his horse and then comes forward with chains and loops at his belt, grinning, “You two fools are spending a night in lock up to get the humiliation tax handed to you; rotten fruit, thrown at you by noon tomorrow.”
“We can pay the fine instead,” Lux snarls.
“You can’t pay my fine,” the Ork grins with yellow, nasty, rotting teeth, as he eyes me, “Let’s talk about solutions when we get back to the Crag House, pretty Pink Pixie.”
Lux turns, clicking his claws, baring his fangs, as he tries to stand in between me and the Ork, who with one hand grabs him by the skull, and thrashes him into a tree.
He falls, limp. Incapacitated.
I know he will recover, but the violence from the Ork makes my small heart skip too many beats.
As the giant patrol bends and drags Lux by the ankles, back into the cart, I’ll be next.
Trouble had found us after all, and only more trouble could get us out of the lock up.
