Home for Horny Monsters - Book 9
Copyright© 2026 by Annabelle Hawthorne
Chapter 5: Making Time to Hang
Action/Adventure Sex Story: Chapter 5: Making Time to Hang - When a mysterious sleeping sickness begins to spread across the country, Mike and the household get caught in the middle. Yet turning to magic might rouse worse entities than the slumbering victims...Will Mike and the powerful women by his side only awaken more nocturnal terrors than they can conquer? Welcome to your worst nightmare. Expect the Unexpected.
Caution: This Action/Adventure Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Mult Consensual Romantic BiSexual Heterosexual Fiction Fairy Tale Horror Humor Paranormal Ghost Magic Vampires Demons Harem Polygamy/Polyamory Anal Sex Cream Pie Exhibitionism Masturbation Oral Sex Sex Toys Size Violence
It was nearly lunchtime when Mike and Lily reached the centaur village. Humans and centaurs alike were bustling about with their day-to-day activities. For a few minutes, Mike stood to the side where nobody would see him just to watch.
It wasn’t that he was trying to be sneaky. He enjoyed seeing how well the people of Avalon got along with the moon tribe. There was a bit of hero worship behavior from the former villagers, along with a semi-regular petition regarding a breeding program with Mike that he suspected was a long-term prank that Lily was somehow involved in.
The two of them had actually taken the long way in, through the entrance of the greenhouse rather than a shortcut portal. The walk was almost an hour long, but it was a pleasant one that gave him and Lily a little alone time.
Strangely, she had been quiet for most of it, content to hang onto his arm. He had been a little bit worried, but eventually she admitted that she was trying to figure out how to apologize to Callisto for what had happened with Ashton’s dad.
He had reassured her once again that this wasn’t her fault, at which point she had pointed out a clearing behind some bushes and offered to blow him. Satisfied that she was in better spirits, he declined the offer, blaming it on wanting to get home early enough to plan their mountain expedition. The succubus had become very excited at this, then proceeded to make mountaineering jokes for the remainder of the walk.
The village sprawled across a shallow valley floor. What had started as a loose cluster of yurts had since evolved into something resembling a settlement. Timber-framed longhouses with thatched roofs stood in a rough crescent along the creek, their walls a patchwork of salvaged lumber and woven grass panels that the centaurs had figured out on their own. Smoke curled from a pair of stone chimneys that the humans had helped build, carrying the smell of roasting grain and dried herbs.
The centaurs still lived in the yurts, but the people of Avalon were far more comfortable in walled structures. Tink and Dana had worked together to build them a proper saw mill, which ran on a pair of enchantments that Ratu had custom-made for the occasion. This was actually placed outside of the settlement due to the noise, which had originally spooked the centaurs.
Garden plots flanked the main path, some tended by centaurs and others by the former villagers, their crops growing in alternating rows that suggested a level of cooperation nobody had planned on paper. A few children, human and centaur, were chasing each other around a water trough near the center of the town, which was really just a hollowed-out log fed by a diverted section of the creek. Farther out by the tree line, newer structures were going up.
Timber frames stood like skeletons against the green canopy, evidence that the population had outgrown its original footprint. Someone had even strung up a clothesline between two of the buildings, and a row of blankets and small garments fluttered in the artificial breeze provided by a stone that Ratu had enchanted.
Entering the town, he and Lily were greeted with the occasional friendly shout and wave. However, he noticed more than a few members of the moon tribe giving him odd looks. While the tribe hadn’t held Mike at fault for the kidnapping of their people, there had definitely been some resentment over his marriage to Titania.
However, this felt different somehow. Centaurs were very logical by nature, and he and Zel had expected some of these hard feelings to fade in time. Up until today, he hadn’t experienced anything quite this frosty.
“Is it cold in here?” Lily asked, yanking on his arm to get his attention. Her nipples were standing at full attention through her shirt, which was clearly where she wanted him to look.
“You feel that, too?” he asked.
“I do.” Her smile was playful, but her eyes were calculating. “And it’s all directed at you.”
“But why?”
“Dunno. Probably has something to do with your continued refusal to start the breeding program.” She stuck out her tongue, and he laughed.
Those watching from afar frowned on their way, but Mike made note of their faces. He didn’t really care if they were mad at him, as he hadn’t done anything wrong. His primary concern was that this was somehow related to his son.
They found Zel giving a basic lesson on alchemy to the younger children, human and centaur alike. Her assistant, a centaur named Alula, was pacing amongst the children handing out small bowls of shredded bark.
“In an emergency, willow bark can be chewed to provide some immediate relief. However, it would be far better to boil it down and strain the extract, much like a tea.” Zel spotted Mike and smiled at him.
A young boy raised his hand. “What does it taste like?”
“Chew some and find out,” Zel suggested. “The amounts given to you won’t be harmful, but don’t swallow the pulp, you might get sick.”
Some of the centaurs and human children immediately obeyed. The remainder eyed the bark in their possession, waiting to see the reactions of their peers first.
Zel moved to Mike’s side. “Do you need me?” she asked, wrapping an arm around him in a sidehug.
“Came to see Callisto.”
“Lucky boy,” she murmured, letting her fingers trail along his back as she withdrew. “I believe he’s with Nima.”
“Nima? Wait, really?”
She nodded. “They’ve apparently worked it out.”
“I guess that’s good. Hey, can I ask you something semi-private?”
Zel nodded, and leaned in while Mike whispered to her about the weird vibe he got on the way into the village. When he finished, she let out a loud sigh.
“Ah, yes. I think I know what that’s about. It’s actually related to Nima and Callisto working things out.”
“How so?”
She shook her head. “Nima’s parents haven’t been nearly as forgiving, which is understandable. They were not thrilled with the idea that the two of them have reconnected, but Nima is an elder now, so they have no voice.”
Mike studied the children, many who were making faces as they chewed on the bark. “I didn’t see them in town, though.”
“It’s a conspiracy theory. I’ve heard some rumors about a few centaurs who’ve been meeting in secret. They believe that the incident with the Fae was just the first of many tragedies that will befall the moon tribe due to your association with us.”
“I can understand that.”
“It’s not just them, either. Some sympathetic humans have also gotten on board.”
Mike scoffed. “Why the hell would they do that?”
“They’ve exchanged one master for another,” Zel muttered so that only he could hear.
Lily put a hand on Mike’s elbow to get his attention. “They were in an abusive relationship for generations,” she added. “When that’s all you know, you start to suspect that everything else is too good to be true.”
“Very astute.” Zel nodded her approval. “Anyway, there isn’t much I can do about it. I don’t know who all is involved, and they are entitled to their opinions. This group purportedly wants to separate properly, like centaurs have for centuries, for their own safety.”
“And you’d let them?”
She shrugged. “It’s not about what I would let them do. It’s your greenhouse. Where the hell else are they going to go? I fully expect them to demand a plot of land as recompense for what happened.”
“Which I wouldn’t give them.” Mike thought back to the incident with Bedrock. What was with so many troublemakers all of a sudden? “I have no interest in letting people remain on my property who don’t play well with others.”
“We’ve already got one of those,” Lily added, pointing at herself. “Which means we’ve already hit the limit. It’s the one diva rule.”
Zel nodded. “Indeed. I haven’t told you about it because it seemed like a non-issue. Sharing every rumor I hear wouldn’t be the most efficient use of our time. You don’t even want to know what I’ve heard goes down in a certain grove just south of here.”
“I wouldn’t mind hearing every rumor.” Lily pressed herself into Mike, allowing her to reach past him and pat Zel on the arm. “We should have a girl’s night and talk about boys and potential light sedition. Horse around a little.”
Mike saw a few kids give the succubus a dirty look at the word horse. Lily stuck her tongue out at all of them.
The succubus’ antics were already well known among the moon tribe. However, her ability to assist with emergency surgeries was also well known, so she was generally tolerated.
“I suppose you could ask Charlotte,” Zel suggested. “If anybody knows, she would.”
Mike nodded. If Charlotte was concerned at all, she would have told him right away. He was going to have to chalk this up to just his own paranoia for now. If these random detractors ever felt like it was time to act, well...
He shook his head to release the surprisingly dark thought that had surfaced. That was likely the result of being pissed about Callisto’s soccer situation.
“I’m off to find Callisto,” he said. “Lily, did you still want to come?”
The succubus was looking at him funny. She ended up shaking her head.
“I just remembered something I need to do,” she told him. “Back at the house.”
“Are you just trying to get out of talking with Callisto?” Mike asked.
She shrugged. “You told me it wasn’t my fault. Wish you had said something before I let the Nirumbi swarm me while you met with Beth.”
“You could have just come inside like a grown-up instead of making up a reason not to come.”
“Bold of you to assume I’ll ever make mature decisions.” She blew him a kiss, then headed toward the edge of town where a portal would take her directly to the front yard.
“That was ... odd.” Zel watched Lily go, then turned her attention back to the class. “Who can tell me what local remedy can be used for a stomachache?”
Several hands went up. Mike gave Zel a quick kiss and headed in the opposite direction of Lily. His magic led him in the general direction of his son, a feature that was either related to Tink’s ability to always find her loved ones, or some sort of chaotic evolution based on his ability to interact with souls.
The trail out of the village thinned, eventually becoming a strip of packed earth surrounded by tall grass that wound through the undergrowth. The greenhouse’s interior forest was dense here, the trees old enough that their canopy blotted out much of the light overhead which cast the ground in a permanent dusk. Ferns as tall as his waist lined either side of the path, their fronds brushing his arms as he passed. Something small and furry bolted across the trail ahead of him and vanished into a rotting log.
Mike slowed when he noticed a familiar tangle of green creeping across the path about twenty yards ahead. Mandragora vines. The thick, ropy tendrils had wound themselves around the base of an oak and were spreading outward in a slow, deliberate crawl, their waxy leaves already beginning to unfurl. A few of the younger shoots had crept across the trail itself, which meant the centaur patrols had either missed them or hadn’t come this far out recently.
He skirted around them carefully, giving the cluster a wide berth. The vines weren’t aggressive unless disturbed, but a careless hoof through one of those tendrils would result in a very unpleasant afternoon for whoever was attached to it. He made a mental note to tell Zel where they were so the centaurs could prune them back before they got any ideas about expanding.
The main plant, now relocated in Hawaii, still had offshoots throughout the woods here. Sweetpea was more than happy to eat whatever the merfolk gave her, along with the occasional magical trespasser. In fact, about eight months ago, some sort of bossy shaman had gotten it into his head that the volcano somehow hid his birthright, and had ignored miles of warnings only to be devoured by the plant. They had only learned about him after the fact by the pile of bones he had left behind, alongside a handmade journal.
As Mike walked, his magic churned low in his stomach, a slow simmer that he’d grown accustomed to over the years but which had been running hotter than usual today. He pressed a hand against his abdomen and took a slow breath, letting the sensation settle. It wasn’t pain exactly, more like something was trying to get his attention from the inside. He thought about the cold looks he’d received walking into the village. The faces he’d cataloged. The quiet resentment behind polite nods.
He’d handled Bedrock. He would handle the Maxwells. He’d battled harpies and trespassers and a dozen other problems that had crawled out of the woodwork in the last year alone. But the idea that people living under his protection, eating food grown in his soil, on land he let them use for free, were meeting in secret to discuss how he was the problem?
That one sat differently. It wasn’t anger, not exactly. It was the precursor to anger, the part that tasted like iron in the back of his throat and made his fingers want to curl into fists.
He forced himself to relax. He was a father walking to see his son, not a king marching to put down a rebellion. The distinction mattered, even if nobody else could see it. Somehow, voicing these thoughts internally helped, as if his magic actually heard him.
The forest thinned as the terrain rose, and the trail opened onto a grassy hillside that sloped gently upward toward a stand of birch trees. The grass here was long and soft, the kind that swayed in the faintest breeze, and it was on that hillside that Mike found them.
Callisto and Nima lay on their sides in the grass, their equine bodies stretched out lazily while their human halves were propped up on their elbows. Their other hand was pointing at the sky, and even from a distance, Mike could hear the low murmur of conversation punctuated by the occasional laugh. The old centaur’s walking stick lay abandoned in the grass behind him, and Callisto’s tail flicked slowly back and forth, keeping rhythm with something only he could hear.
Mike stopped at the edge of the tree line and leaned against a trunk, watching. His son’s face was relaxed in a way he hadn’t seen in months. There were no furrowed brows, no clenched jaw, no thousand-yard stare directed at nothing. Callisto was a kid lying in the grass with a friend. They pointed out the clouds’ shapes and talked about nothing important. The knot in Mike’s chest loosened and he let out a sigh.
He waited as the two hung out. It broke his heart a little to shatter the sense of peace that had fallen over his son, but at least he could allow the feeling to hold for a few more minutes.
Eventually, Nima noticed him. The old centaur was more bone than skin these days, but his soul was strong, and he casually got to his feet as if the effort didn’t trouble him at all. The centaur’s spine drooped dramatically across his equine back, which cast the relief of his hip bones in sharp angles along his rear.
Mike had no idea how the old timer was even still going, even though he knew that fae magic ran through his veins. Titania had explained that people could come back from her realm changed, but even she couldn’t predict how or why.
Nima approached, then stopped and took a knee.
“Your Majesty.”
“I am not your king,” Mike replied.
“Aren’t you?” Nima looked up at Mike with a smirk and a twinkle in his eye. “I am not of the moon tribe, though it is mine by birth. And you have become the Queen’s consort. I am beholden by fae law to address you by your greatest title. Or, perhaps, I was. The old habits die hard, even if they needed killing in the first place.”
“Uh huh.” Mike wasn’t about to debate the guy. Nima had spent his entire life talking with the fae, and could likely speak circles around him if he wanted. “I don’t mean to interrupt, I need Callisto for a few minutes.”
“Then by all means.” Nima gestured at Callisto, who was walking over.
The conversation wasn’t very long, and it was clear that Callisto was disappointed. He tried to apologize again for his actions, but Mike reassured him that this was not his fault. They exchanged a hug, and Mike left Callisto and Nima behind, looking back just once.
It was clear that Nima was listening patiently as Callisto ranted, the boy now red in the face. Mike had no idea what words were being said, but this was clearly a conversation for a friend, not a family member. He left them to their talk and walked back to the village.
This time, he didn’t notice the open animosity from others, but assumed that was because they had made themselves scarce. He needed to think about the best way to approach that particular problem, but was out of ideas for now.
He returned to Naia’s fountain. Cerberus was napping in a sunbeam by the water’s edge, one head resting on the fountain wall and occasionally lapping at the water. Amymone for some reason had a book in each hand and was scanning back and forth between them. He was curious, but decided not to ask.
Naia surfaced near the edge closest to him, her chin resting on her folded arms as she watched him approach. The blue of her hair rippled with the current, and her smile was the kind of warm that made him feel like he’d just stepped into a bath after a long day.
“Hello, lover.”
Mike sat on the edge of the fountain and let his feet dangle into the water. Almost immediately, the warmth crept up through his legs and into his lower back, pulling at the tension he’d been carrying around all day. He let out a long breath.
“Rough morning?” Naia slid closer, resting her head against his knee. He placed a hand on top of her head without thinking about it, his fingers threading into the wet strands of her hair.
“Not rough, exactly. Just a lot of moving parts.”
“I saw you come back from the greenhouse.” She tilted her head to look up at him. “You had that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where you’re trying very hard not to be upset about something while also being extremely upset about something.” Naia poked his shin with a finger made of water that was just solid enough to tickle. “You’re not as mysterious as you think, lover.”
He laughed, more out of reflex than humor. “Callisto’s doing okay, all things considered. He and Nima have really hit it off, apparently. So that’s some good closure for him.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“It is. I just...” He trailed off, staring at the marble tiers in the center of the fountain where birds were currently splashing around. “Have you ever had to be everything to everyone at the same time?”
Naia gave him a sarcastic look. “I am a body of water that simultaneously exists as a bath, a fountain, a lover, a therapist, and babysitter.”
“Fair point.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess what I’m really asking is whether it ever gets easier.”
Naia studied him for a moment, her expression softening into something that was less playful and more knowing. The runes along her arms and shoulders caught the light, their faint blue glow pulsing in time with the fountain’s current.
“You don’t really want to ask me that question, do you?” she said quietly. “You want her.”
He looked down at her. “Maybe,” he admitted. “Don’t take it the wrong way. I don’t have anybody to go to for stuff like this, and she’s the closest thing to a parent I have.” That wasn’t quite right either, but was the best metaphor he had.
Naia nodded. There was no offense in her expression, just understanding. She slipped beneath the surface for a moment, and the fountain went still. The birds on the island stopped chirping. Even Amymone looked up from her two-book combo long enough to decide to set one down and half listen in.
When Naia resurfaced, it was different. The same body, the same face, the same blue hair fanning out around her in the water. But her eyes were gold. Not a trick of the light. Not a reflection. Gold like molten metal poured into porcelain, ancient and impossibly bright. The runes that decorated her skin, normally a faint shimmer, now glowed the same color, tracing luminous lines along her torso through her white gown. The air around the fountain grew warmer, and tiny clouds formed along the surface of the water, making the basin look like it was holding the sky.
“Caretaker.” The voice that came out of Naia’s mouth was hers, but layered. Deeper. The kind of voice that sounded like it had been used to call families to dinner tables for several thousand years.
“Hestia.” Mike inclined his head. “Thanks for seeing me.”
“Of course, my champion,” she replied. The golden eyes studied him with a calm that bordered on unsettling. “You are troubled.”
“I am.” He shifted on the stone edge, suddenly aware of how ridiculous his problems were going to sound when spoken out loud to an actual goddess. “I could use some advice. Family stuff.”
Hestia’s lips—Naia’s lips—curved into something that might generously be called a smile. “You wish to ask the goddess of the hearth for advice on family matters.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds like a setup for a really bad joke.”
“It is, perhaps, more ironic than you realize.” She folded her hands on the fountain’s edge, her posture straighter than Naia ever held herself. “But please. Speak.”
Mike ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve got a son who just got kicked off his soccer team because he beat the shit out of a bully. I’ve got a household full of people who all need different things from me at the same time. I’ve got centaurs in my greenhouse meeting in secret because they think I’m bad news. I’ve got a gargoyle teenager who challenged me to a duel over a woman who doesn’t want him.” He paused. “Oh, right. And a stupid lawsuit.”
“I see,” Hestia said, and the amusement in her golden eyes was unmistakable now.
“What?”
“Forgive me. I do not mean to diminish your struggles. It is simply that your list of grievances is ... charmingly mortal.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was intended as one.” She shifted in the water, the glow of her runes casting patterns across the surface. “You are asking how one maintains a family when the obligations of that family threaten to pull it apart.”
“Yeah. Basically.”
“And you believe that I, as a goddess who has presided over hearth and home since before your species learned to stack stones, might possess some secret wisdom on the matter.”
“I didn’t think about that in so many words, but yes.” Honestly, he figured if anyone could give him advice, it would be either Titania or Hestia. Titania’s advice would probably be a bit extreme.
Hestia was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice carried the weight of something old and tired.
“My father ate his children.”
Mike blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Kronos. The Titan lord. He was told that one of his offspring would overthrow him, and so he devoured each of us as we were born.” The golden eyes held Mike’s without flinching. “I was the first. The eldest. I sat in my father’s stomach for quite some time before my brother Zeus freed us.”
“That’s...” Mike struggled to find the appropriate response. He sort of knew this, but had learned long ago that half of what was written down about the gods, religion, and other non-worldly entities were based on only kernels of truth. “That’s objectively horrifying.”
“It was unpleasant,” she agreed, with the understatement of someone who had been processing the trauma for roughly four thousand years. “My mother, Rhea, devised the plan that saved us. She loved her husband and she loved her children, and the two were fundamentally incompatible. Does that sound familiar?”
“Not the eating part, hopefully.”
“Not the specifics, no. The shape of it.” Hestia watched a bird land on the island and preen itself. “After we were freed and the Titans were overthrown, one might expect that my siblings and I would have formed a harmonious family. We had, after all, suffered together.”
“I’m guessing that’s not what happened.”
“Zeus became king and immediately began bedding every creature with a pulse and several without. Hera, his wife—also his sister, I should mention—spent the next several centuries punishing the women he seduced rather than confronting him directly. Poseidon and Zeus nearly destroyed the world arguing over territory. Ares started wars for entertainment. Demeter lost her daughter to Hades and cursed the earth itself out of grief. Aphrodite manipulated mortals like pieces on a game board. Athena and Ares could not share a room without it devolving into threats.” She paused. “Apollo and Artemis were actually quite close, but their father’s favoritism created fractures even there.”
Mike stared at her. “So the most powerful family in the history of mythology was a complete disaster.”
“We were the definition of disaster, Caretaker. We were disasters on a scale that altered the course of civilizations. When my family had disagreements, rivers changed course. Mountains were born. Cities were buried under the sea.” The gold in her eyes flickered. “Your son punched a boy at a sporting event. Zeus once turned a woman into a cow to hide an affair.”
“Into a cow?”
“A cow. Hera was not fooled.” Hestia’s expression was dry enough to age wine. “She sent a gadfly to torment the poor girl for years. The woman wandered the earth as livestock, stung endlessly, because two gods could not communicate honestly with one another.”
Mike let out a laugh of disbelief. “And you just ... watched all of this?”
“I tended the hearth.” Something shifted in her voice, a thread of something that might have been sorrow if it hadn’t been so well-worn. “That was my role. I gave up my seat on Olympus so that Dionysus could take it, because I had no interest in the politics. I kept the sacred flame burning. I maintained the home while every member of my family set fire to everything outside of it.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It was my purpose. I do not regret it.” She tilted her head, studying him with those impossible eyes. “But I think you understand the feeling. You are the hearth of your household, Mike Radley. You are the fire that everyone gathers around. The warmth they return to. And you are wondering if the flame is enough.”
The use of his actual name caught him off guard. Hestia rarely used it.
“I just want to do right by all of them,” he said, and was surprised by how small his voice sounded. “Callisto needs a father who can protect him from a world that doesn’t understand him. I have wives and lovers who want to go on dates. Lily needs...” He waved a hand vaguely. “I don’t even know what Lily needs. We all pretend that it’s attention, because that’s the game she plays, but I know it’s so much deeper than that. The kids need stability. And everyone else needs me to be the guy who has it figured out.”
“And you are asking me how to be all of those things simultaneously.”
“Yes.”
Hestia was quiet again. The fountain water lapped gently at the stone, and somewhere in the distance, he could hear children laughing. The sound carried on the warm air like something precious.
“I have no advice for you,” she said at last.
Mike’s shoulders dropped. “Seriously?”
“I am the goddess of the hearth, not the goddess of solutions.” The gold flickered with what he suspected was amusement. “I had a nephew who was literally chained to a rock and had his liver eaten by an eagle every day for, well ... centuries at least. Maybe he’s still there. Either way, this wasn’t something I could fix.”
“Prometheus, right?”
“Indeed. My family invented the concept of dysfunction, Caretaker. We defined it. We perfected it. If there existed a secret to managing such chaos, I assure you, I would have discovered it several thousand years ago.”
Mike laughed. It somehow shook loose the heavy feeling that had been sitting in his chest. “So even the gods couldn’t figure it out.”
“Especially the gods.” Hestia’s expression warmed, and for just a moment, the ancient weight behind those golden eyes seemed to lighten. “What I can tell you is that family has always been complicated. It was that way before gods walked the earth, and it will remain so long after we are forgotten. The hearth does not burn because the family is perfect. It burns because someone chooses to tend it.”
“Even when it’s hard.”
“Particularly when it is hard.” She reached out and placed a hand on his knee. The touch was warm. Not Naia’s flirtatious warmth, but something deeper and older. The kind of warmth that radiated from a fireplace on a cold night. “You will not solve every problem, always say the correct thing or make the right decision. Your children will struggle, your partners will feel neglected, and there will be days when the flame gutters and you fear it will go out entirely.”
“Wow. Pep talk of the century.”