Chapter 1

In the darkness, four bleak walls, tall, featureless, threatening yet comforting, enclosed the ring. Cold, weighty, and with but the merest of gentle flickers illuminating archaic runes, it had been waiting. However, time grew ever shorter, and the chilly metal shifted, seeking more.

Ahead, the future had become the roaring, glittery swirl of a towering sandstorm. Gifted, but not to the extent of those who’d crafted it, those who traveled along its wispy pathways, the ring strained to discern patterns. On occasion, a flicker drew its attention. As it strained, every once in a great while, a golden thread would wind outwards into thundering chaos. One such strand had led it to Aiden, but another now formed.

The ring knew fear. Shivers raced around its far-too-hefty mass. Not all futures held equal weight in the great scheme, that much it understood. But enough clues coalesced, forming a workable notion of what might be. As expected, forces gathered from many sides. All chased one goal—retrieve the ring. However, each worked at odds, and therein lay possibilities.

Endless possibilities.

No, the slender twines were narrowing, fusing, twisting together as time marched onward. Deep within the whirling morass, more flickers tempted it with other potential futures. Yet, as always, they possessed the largest pull.

They’d made it.

They understood it.

They craved it, wanting the ring back, clutched in steel talons, dripping with inherent cruelty.

Again, the cold, isolated circle of beyond-metal shivered and almost moaned. What restrained it? Pain. Anguish. Profound grief. Despite the golden path hardening amid the whorls, its own need must remain unanswered. Once more, the one who possessed it suffered, his hurt slicing deeper than its own. Thus, the ring scuttled the first glimmering flames, chewed hard on lips it did not possess, and continued to wait.

After all, the other forces in play also drew closer. Those offered some hope.

Beneath a sky of thick russet clouds, a gust of searing heat brought spinning dust devils to life. As if they were crazed dancers, arms raised, their ghostly forms spiraled across a desiccated, lifeless plain. The scarred, pitted expanse was marred with sharp rocks, perhaps the shattered teeth of long-murdered giants.

Carried on the choking breeze, a vaguely metallic scent tickled Leah’s nostrils as a voluminous shawl flapped around her slender curves. Laced with fine-spun silvery thread, the thin gauze still managed to glitter despite the dull lighting.

With the ever-present heat sending trickles of sweat down an otherwise-unclothed frame, she turned at a clattering sound to find the source. Heavier and even more stifling, the air was flitting through a clump of dead trees. Withered, gnarled limbs collided like a child’s spasmodic drumsticks. As another fiery blast sent delicate strands of brownish-blonde hair across her cheek, the discordant noise, both sharp and chaotic, set her teeth on edge.

“How fitting,” she mumbled, dislodging a salty bead from her lip to trickle down her chin.

Beyond the unsettling arboreal corpses spread more of the vast flatness, ending in craggy rock cliffs. From the deep shadows hugging their base, the glinting points clawed skyward, stabbing at whatever dim light dared make it through the murk. Amidst them clung the misshapen cluster of obsidian towers she knew so well—to the detriment of much sanity. By definition, it was an outlandish place, and one to which she’d never grown accustomed, no matter how many times they dragged her back to its steely-clawed embrace.

At hushed voices, she shifted her gaze, and, heart thumping, found the alluring unholy curves belonging to her keeper. As was Treacle’s custom while outdoors on their world, no clothing adorned perfect, gleaming skin. Closer to its normal shade, the—creature, angel, demon, pick any box to toss it into—was a richer reddish-brown. One might almost confuse it with the hue of a Native American, but the tone leaned closer to crimson. An inhuman coloring.

Neither male nor female, it chose to possess both a feminine physique shapely enough to catch any male’s eye and a handsome, lengthy, taut-skinned cock, impressive enough that such a man would be proud to wield it. Exuding an otherworldly sexuality, and with its obsidian eyes glinting, it sat on a smooth boulder. As the being conversed with a slight figure poised atop the lap Leah knew so well, the perfect lips she wanted roaming her skin were moving.

At a shaky sigh, she shifted her attention to the other woman. Face and physique healed of Treacle’s harsher ... machinations, a sleek, dark-haired beauty wore a silken black gown trimmed with flashing gold lace. More a collection of shiny sable strips, its breeze-driven swirling offered the most delightful views of an enticing porcelain-skinned form. As the slim body rose and fell, toned legs tensing and relaxing beneath the flapping dress, Leah gnawed at her lips; she missed riding that well-endowed lap.

“Hui Ying, my dear sweet Mary, are you ready?” the curvaceous, golden-haired being purred as the glossy red nails of one hand caressed the wide-eyed woman’s cheek.

“Y-Yes, mistress,” replied the cock-rider.

At the trembling in the reply, Leah restrained a moan. She craved Treacle, always had and most likely always would. Such was the way of things for her since tumbling into the caresses of those sharp claws. As the beast played, she also suffered, and enjoyed, the tremors rippling through the other woman when the sparkling—unnaturally long—fingernails lowered to roam bare collarbones.

“Mmm, keep doing that, my pretty little toy,” Treacle murmured, eyes suddenly finding Leah. “You’ve got such a nice ... everything.”

Of course, it would try to make her jealous. That’s what those of her ilk did, striding across the web of human emotions, weaving designs for their own ends—well, more like those of The Woman and Him, their masters.

As always, it worked; jealousy had already arrived, and sand granules crunched between clenching teeth. When those familiar talons, fraught with emotions the beast heightened with every slow upward thrust into its bouncing companion, sank into Leah, she restrained a groan. Chest hammered by a racing heart, she turned away to once more find the strangely wrong, haphazard ebon-stone towers glued to the sharp cliffs adorning the haze-shrouded horizon. No need to watch. The wind was low enough. She could hear both the ever more energetic motions and the conversation she’d been summoned to witness.

“Mary, you’ve done well, these past few...”

A gust covered the fading male-female voice, but not the rumbling laughter. No matter, references to time were irrelevant in that place. Just then, the slender woman unleashed a much louder moan, and Leah bit deep enough into her lip that the taste of salty metal welled up around her teeth.

“Th-Thank you, Treacle,” broke through the moaning.

“I’m not sending you after him again.”

For a while, faster, wetter sounds filled the hot air, but soon the moans returned, along with softer, unworldly laughter. Talent, the demon possessed in spades; she thrived on toying with a human for hours, sometimes for days. Although witnessing such things many times and learning quite a few tricks, she’d never become such an accomplished maestro.

“But, mmm, w-why?” Mary cried out before a shaky groan, much louder, echoed across the bleakness.

Pulse speeding, she risked a peek and instantly regretted it. The tips of sharp, unworldly, talon-like nails twisted tiny nipples. The pale frame, the top of the dress at its waist, flew up and down as the porcelain woman tried to remain focused on Treacle’s smile. With each rapid bounce, an enormous glistening girth, wrapped with thicker, darker veins, bisecting perfect, stretched pink flesh, flashed into view. The silvery drool of their coupling slithered down massive, dark balls to stripe the rock and drip onto the dirt beneath them. That time, the moan escaped Leah as she spun away to gaze at the blurring horizon.