Silent

18+ only ladies and gents.

The day started like any other. Almost.

There was this sense of dread Nonali couldn't seem to shake, and it impacted her mood as she got dressed and made her breakfast. Her toast burned in the toaster- to her an ominous sign of what was to come. She couldn't put words to this gut feeling she had, but there was just an eerie way about the air that she didn't lessen as her morning routine continued. This feeling followed her to work, and then to lunch, where she met her best friend Vanessa Vereno, or Vee, as she'd been dubbed by Nonali a week into kindergarten.

Vee was an excitable girl with a quick temper, much to the amusement and chagrin of Nonali, who was more level headed and zen in comparison. Her green eyes were on fire at the moment, her angry ranting drowned out by the bliss of Nonali's first coffee of the day. She reluctantly set her cup on the table and tuned into the one sided conversation.

"-but it's not like he isn't still increadibly attractive just because he can be a jerk sometimes!" Vee stopped to take a breath and a sip of her almost untouched hot chocolate. Nonali wanted to cry.

More boy talk.

Vee had been dating a man on and off for a few weeks, and he apparently not only had trust issues, but was afraid of any type of intimacy, and had a tendency to lash out when pushed; or so she'd been told by the fuming blonde across from her every occassion she could manage to talk about him. Nonali didn't really care for the men her friend paraded in and out of her life, and cared even less to talk about them.

"Why not just dump him? Sounds like a lot of trouble," she grumbled, picking up her cup once more as if it would hide her from the flaming glare pointed in her direction.

Vee's shriek of anger and outrage caused the heads of some other café dwellers to swivel their way in curiosity.

"Dump him? I think not! I have to help him get through his issues and open up! Otherwise what good am I as a therapist?" She ended with a wink.

It was true, Vee had an obsession with dating those she deemed broken and in need of "fixing." She loved to use her psychology degree as an excuse for her decidedly unhealthy choice in men.

A long sigh was met with overly enthusiastic hands clapping together and a look of mischief in green eyes. Nonali knew no good could come from that.

"I made reservations at Vixen's! Be there tonight at nine if you would!" Vee says, glancing down at her watch and scrambling out of the booth. She chugs the rest of her drink and waves on her way out. She looks at her own watch and realizes she's already late getting back to the office and gently bangs her forehead on the table in defeat and begins the drive back.

Vixen's, or more promptly- Vixen's Kiss, is one of the more upscale restaurants in the city. The food was fantastic, and the service was always above and beyond, the only problem for Nonali was that it was owned and run by demons. The servers were human enough, but unfortunately to say she could see right through the disguises of the upper management. In fact, the stunning woman who owned the establishment wasn't even a woman at all. He was a six tailed fox ironically enough. A Kitsune she believed they were called.

For as long as she could remember, she could see into the world of the Unseen. Angels, demons, monsters, the like. Anything with a human mask. Even as she walked down the street to her office job she could see a man with horns sticking out of his forehead, a woman with a pointed tail, a child with feathers coming out of his shirt, holding the hand of a smiling lady with teeth too sharp to be normal. She tried relentlessly to not see them. Her gaze never lingered too long, she never commented on the things she saw, ignorance was bliss in her situation and she was determined to be blissful damnit!

She ignored everything. Including the fact that her coworker in the cubicle across from her had a lizard tail, purple scales, and slitted ice colored eyes underneath the attractive human persona. She greeted him as she greeted anyone, quickly and quietly, before sitting at her desk to resume the accounting book she'd been half finished with before taking her lunch break.

She could feel the weight of his eyes on her as the clicking of keys became a balm on her soul. The simple equations for calculating this quarters earnings made the rest of the world melt away. She genuinely enjoyed her work as this departments secretary and book keeper, despite the fact that her boss was an incubus and her cubicle neighbor was a dragon. Most of the rest of the staff were human, and no one bothered her, as she assumed a less than friendly countenance in order to keep her work place undisturbed.

At least, they usually didn't.

A gruff clearing of a throat at the opening to her square office didn't give her pause in her calculations, hoping if she just ignored it, he would go away, much like she hoped with everything else. For a moment, his hesitation could be felt in the air at her clear dismissal, but he seemed to gather his courage and shuffled a little further into her personal space. She sighed and put her books aside to look up at the intruder.

Callum was a tall man, though she supposed a dragon couldn't be anything less. His human body was fairly well built, and definitely easy on the eyes, what with his spikey brown hair, olive skin, and rippling muscles. He definitely didn't look as though he belonged in an office at any rate.

He was almost bashful in the way he held himself, hand reaching up to run through his hair in a nervous kind of way she'd recognized from her many days seated across from him.

"Hey, uh, I was wondering if maybe you'd be interested in going out tonight?" He questioned with a slight blush bridging his cheeks. If she had been normal, and he'd been human, she might have been more inclined to agree with what appeared to be a shy declaration of his interest. However, Nonali could see the hunger and blood lust in his serpentine gaze. If she were to go out with him she was unlikely to return.

She tried to control her fight or flight instinct as fear hammered her heart in her ribs. Swallowing, she replied with the blunt truth.

"I have plans tonight." His human facade frowned in disappointment, while the one underneath was boiling with rage.

"How about tomorrow?" he tried.

The lean form of her boss Everett, or, Mr. Norse as it were, peaked around the opening with a charming smile, though the smile underneath the mask was angry and strained.

"Office relationships are prohibited mister Bennett. That's a rule we take quite seriously here. This is your first and only warning."

She'd never been so happy to see the bastard before. The dragon underneath the skin rumbled and bared his teeth at her savior, even as on the outside he just laughed it off and clapped Mr. Norse on the shoulder before returning to his own desk.

"Is everything okay Miss Beauchamp?" His velvety voice questioned, though his eyes were drawn to her heaving bosom. She struggled to get her previously panicked breathing under control and smiled up at him politely. Everett had never been anything but professional with her in the work place, and while she didn't like demons, she respected him as her employer.

"Thank you for the intervention," she said in a low tone, aware that the pissed off dragon next door didn't take kindly to her rejection, or the interference of their boss.

"Of course, I'd hate to have to fire the only secretary in this building that's worth a damn," he grinned at her, eyes still locked onto the cleavage her button up shirt provided, though her fearful heaving had since ceased.

"I'll have the reports you need and your scheduled meetings on your desk before the day is out," she tones, trying to distract him. He groans and nods, trudging away from her desk and back into his dark tinted office.

When the day finally let out, she found the drive back to her empty apartment to be a slow one, caught up in afternoon traffic and her thoughts. She hoped she didn't see Mr. Norse in her dreams again tonight.

Of course, that's how she'd found out he was an incubus afterall. A few weeks after she had first started her new job, she'd caught him staring at her over the papers handed to him along with his morning coffee in quite the same way he'd been staring at her today. He had two faces, but they so closely mirrored one another that she wasn't entirely sure she was just imagining it. It was his cow like tail that sold him out, but she was still unsure of what kind of Other he was.

At least until she woke up drenched in sweat from the naughtiest dream she'd ever had. She knew he had to be an incubus then and there because there was just no way she was that creative, having only ever slept with two people in her twenty-five years of existence. One being her highschool sweetheart and the other a mistake at a college grad party.

She'd had a few dreams about him here and there for a month or so after the first one, but they quickly died off when he realized she had no plans on acting on the desires he instilled in her nightly, and that the quality of her work was lacking on the days after his visits. Unfortunately he stilled used her like an energy drink when he got it in his head that he desired her, though in the few years they'd worked together he only visited a total of maybe fifteen times.

Her keys turned in the lock and she threw her bag onto the couch as she kicked off the heels and slammed the door behind her with her foot, undressing the further into her apartment she went. The clock on the wall gave her around two hours to get ready to meet Vee, but she really just wanted to lay in bed in her underwear and binge Netflix.

The sweet relief of removing her bra was only momentary as she reluctantly began plugging in her curling iron and digging out her makeup bag. It took her the better part of an hour just to find a decent dress, settling on a knee length deep red number with long sleeves and generous cleavage. She wrangled her inky tresses into manageable curls and smeared on lipstick the same crimson as her dress, only bothering with mascara before giving into the desire the be lazy until she absolutely had to get up.

Her thirty minutes of immobility was short lived, unlike the sigh she released, slipping her work heels back on while locking the door on her way out. The intense feeling of unease she'd felt this morning returned and magnified upon her arrival to Vixen's, only getting worse as she gave the hostess the name of the reservation and was led to one of the balcony tables overlooking the restaurant garden. She had to admit the kitsune had taste and a fine eye for beauty.

Already seated, Vee squealed to get her attention, excitedly standing, causing the metal chair to screech violently across the floor. Nonalie grinned and hugged her before taking the seat across from her as was customary. The waitress was quick to swoop in, setting a menu before her and a glass for the bottle of wine at the center of the table, advising her to take her time with a polite smile.

"You know this is your treat right?" Nonali remarked casually as she filled her glass with the sweet smelling red. Truthfully she never cared for wine, but her day had been long, and it would take the edge off of the bad feeling she couldn't get away from.

"Naturally," Vee rolled her eyes. "I wanted you to meet Ezra, and I knew the only way to get you to come was to lure you out with expensive food."

Her stomach soured at the thought of meeting another one of Vanessa's unfortunate pass times, and she desired nothing more than to get up and leave. Sensing her distaste, Vee quickly put a hand over hers to stop her from standing.

"Anything you want. You can get anything you want from the menu. No matter the cost," she bargained.

Nonali remained firmly planted in her seat.

"Well, it would be awfully rude not to give him a chance, besides, I did get dressed up and everything," she acquiesced slyly, Vee dismayed at how easily she'd been played.

"Nonali!"

"So where is this mystery man anyway?" Nonali cut her off.

"He had to take a call, but he should be back in a minute. Oh! There he is now!" Her friend points, the man in question causing her heart to drop into her stomach and flutter in fear.

On the outside, he was breathtaking,a thick messy bun of red hair, broad and heavily muscled, green eyes reminiscent of spring, but she could see him. The real him. The version of him that had perpetually smoldering and broken black wings, ram horns adorning each side of his skull, scars covering every inch of that pale skin, and eyes darker than pitch from corner to corner. He was terrifying to behold.