“It will be early—approximately seven. It will only take me a few moments to install them. Then we are all free to carry on with our day.”
“That’s great. Thank you.”
“No, no. My pleasure. I am glad to provide peace of mind. Now, if you will excuse me, I am preparing chicken. Dag.”
“Dag, Mila.”
She hung up, and I opened the Encyclopedia of Species (EOS) via the Paranormal Eyes VPN.
I began by searching for bone-eaters. Trolls came up first. Bone-consumption was a dead practice when it came to trolls. Gone were the days of hiding under bridges and gobbling up billy goats. Now, they worked wherever they wanted, wearing human skins, and lived wherever their bank accounts would let them.
Trolls were also resigned to their territory. They didn’t like to venture too far for too long from where they staked themselves out. Or where they protected. There weren’t many trolls in Amsterdam. The ones that did live in the city were all known to me, and they didn’t go around pulling bones out of bodies.
Or sucking them out.
Manticores came next. I was right about the last case being decades ago. I double-checked with some other documents I had open, files on unexplained cases before humans knew about us, some cold cases too—all via the DSC. Access to the DSC was password-protected, requiring a series of codes to be inputted due to the delicate nature of the information stored there. It was an incredibly useful resource.
That last manticore case on record had been in London, 1953. It’d been stalking the streets at night, preying on the homeless. A werewolf from the London pack had tracked it down and killed it.
The end. After that, there were only vague reports of manticore sightings around the world, no real substance to them, before those dried up to nothing.
According to the EOS, which I cross-referenced, victims of a manticore are swallowed whole. Nothing left behind. I’d been right about that.
There was a possibility the creatures could have evolved. Trolls did. Maybe manticores now fed differently and had made a comeback. This supposed evolution could have occurred due to exposure to a pod. If this was the work of manticores, they had a new way of killing and were about to experience a renaissance. I highly doubted that.
Jake’s witch or warlock ritual idea was plausible, but everything was still pointing to a pod-born perp.
What creatures sucked down their food? Spiders drank their victims. A bone vampire? A bone vampire with spider legs?
“Knock, knock.” I turned in my chair to see Jake standing behind me dressed in his snowflake pajamas.
“Hey, baby.”
“How’s it going?” He had a mug in his hand. “You’ve been at it for hours.”
I hadn’t even noticed the time go past. It’d just gone eleven. “Wow.”
“Yeah, you’ll get square eyes. Here.” He handed me the mug. “Have some cocoa.”
“Thanks.” He’d put some whipped cream and marshmallows on top. “All that sugar before bed?”
“Ah, shut the fuck up and drink it.”
I put the mug on the desk. “Come here.”
Jake slinked over and sat on my lap. I wrapped my arms around him, enjoying his weight pressed against me.
“How are you, baby?”
“I’m all right. Feeling less grrr now. All I wanna do is look forward to the party tomorrow. Food is done, Lou’s fast asleep.”
“Cool. I can smell it.”
“Smell good?”
“Not as good as you.”
He ground himself into my crotch. “Well, well, Mr. Tseng, is that a wand in your pocket, or are you just happy to have me on your lap?”
“Really?” I was rock hard.
“Glad to know I still get his attention four years in.”
He turned his slender body around, so he was straddling me in the chair. Those sapphire eyes of his bore into me, and I drank them in. The intensity of his gaze had my dick straining against the confines of my jeans even more. All blood had gone south.
I slid my hands down to his arse, giving it a squeeze. He liked that, and I gave it a spank for good measure.
He lifted his long-sleeve top over his head. His smooth flesh, lightly dusted with dark hair, was out for me to enjoy. I buried my face in his skin, breathed in the scent of caramel. The tease had put on that body cream we’d bought from a sex shop. I licked at him, nibbled, made my way up to a nipple.
He laughed as I sucked at the nub, rolled my tongue over it. My hands slid into his pajama bottoms, teasing his backside.
His hands were in my hair as he moaned softly. “Sorry,” he breathed. “I’m distracting you.”
“I like being distracted.”
God, I needed to be naked.
He bent down to kiss me, then climbed off.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, no blue balls for you. Wait there a minute.”
He left the study. My dick was aching with need.
It didn’t take him long to come back, completely naked, and holding a bottle of lube.
Excellent. I licked my lips with anticipation.
Without words, he pulled my jeans and underwear all the way down as I removed my jumper. I tossed it behind me, now completely naked. He went to his knees, taking me in his mouth, working me up some more. It was warm and delicious in there. He fingered my balls, licked at my Prince Albert piercing, tugged at it a little with his teeth. I loved it when he did that.
He stopped with the oral fun and slipped off his bottoms and was above me again, slicking himself up.
Our eyes locked as he poured the cool liquid onto my shaft, coating me with his hand. My God, that face, those lips and eyes, and midnight hair; that look of sexual desire so potent it could burn down the house. No wonder he was once a model.
I gripped the sides of the chair as he guided me inside him. His arse was the perfect fit for me, the perfect proportion of muscle gripping my cock tight.
“Oh, fuck,” he gasped. “Fuck.”
He fell forward,
