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A cool breeze stroked over Lilith's skin. She blinked, rolled her shoulders, dug her toes into the mulch of the forest floor. The pain in her hand had settled from its first brilliant peak into a comfortable, warm throb. Silly Arthur, offering her such an irresistible invitation.
She could still feel him, thrashing about in the back of her mind like a trapped insect. Let him stay there for now. She swayed the body back and forth, stretched its arms as high as they could go. Smiled. So shiny and new, so clean. Small, obviously. Limited. If she happened across a better one, she'd happily return it. For now, though, this arrangement was probably for the best.
"Well isn't this fun? The two biggest thorns in my side, grafted together into one convenient little tree."
Lilith froze.
The distant shapes and shadows of the forest became Kayne.
There was something very wrong with him.
He approached in blinks, stops and starts, his movements sticking and dragging as if the very air of the dreamlands was trying to force him out. His shell had splintered into a patchwork mess of his former human skins, the seams between them all opening and closing as if he were breathing, as if he could breathe.
"Which one am I talking to, hm? Don't tell me both, now, you're both dreadful at sharing."
Lilith was naked.
Of all the things, that was the thought that choked off any possible retort. This wasn't the plan, she wasn't ready, she had nothing and she was exposed and he just kept smiling at her, kept dragging himself closer.
"Oh, daughter dearest," Lilith remembered her feet just in time to dodge the hand that reached for her chin. Her nostrils flared at the smell of blood. "Arthur would have been cussing me out by now. Surely you've not gone and eaten him all up, and left nothing for your poor old dad?"
"Fuck you, Kayne."
At least the words felt natural in this throat. Kayne simply laughed; Lilith's stomach lurched, and this time he caught her by the wrist. He drew her in, scoring red lines into her new skin as she struggled, until he was able to suck the bloody stump of her finger right into his shattered mouth.
The body went haywire. Overwhelming heat, floods of cold, pain that dulled all perception beyond the myriad tongues exploring the open wound, the layers of teeth toying with the edges left by her own. She could still taste it, she realised suddenly. Arthur's blood. Her own blood. Fuck, fuck, she was shaking, and couldn't work out how to stop it.
Eyes opened in Kayne's face and caught her licking her lips.
"He is delicious," a new mouth split one of his shoulders to leer knowingly at her. "I admit it, you have good taste."
"Here's an idea: how about you fuck off and die."
Another half dozen mouths tore themselves open just to laugh at her. Not her best work.
Once upon a time, Lilith used to wonder why she had been made. Maybe her creator had been lonely for another like him: another monstrosity on two legs, who understood mankind for the playthings they were. Someone who enjoyed playing with them as much as he did.
She soon realised that she was overthinking. Kayne did it for the same reason that he did anything: for his own amusement.
His skin was cold, damp, like a dead body left in a cellar. His insides were always so warm.
"You have no idea," he purred into her ear, "the things I've done to this body. Tearing the last one apart was uninspired, fine, I was, hm, distracted. You would not believe the things I've made it do… well. Maybe you would…"
Teeth closed on her earlobe, going through it like butter. Lilith screamed, feeling Arthur lurch up like bile at the shock. More mouths opened against her skin, more tongues tasted her, more teeth latched on, drew blood. The pain, oh the pain was spectacular. Human nerves, you just couldn't beat them. And the mind's attempts to protect itself, the chemical rush that set her floating high above it all, bright and clear and beautiful? She couldn't have designed it better herself.
Kayne caught her waist as her knees buckled, dug his fingers all the way in as she convulsed around them.
Now was not the time for this.
"He's mine," she snarled, and tore her arm out of him. Tongues tightened around her ankles, the momentum went wrong, and she landed flat on her back with Kayne's delighted screams of agony echoing through her head, his blood streaming down to mix with hers.
"What a coincidence!"
His mouths split him open like a blooming flower as he lowered himself over her, each one a glimpse into an impossible depth of squirming meat.
"You keep forgetting, silly girl, that you are mine."
And with that, he kissed her.
At first Arthur assumed that this must be yet another new body. This one was full of pain. Oh god, it was full of so many things.
It - he - lay on its back, being shifted roughly back and forth as a vast, shapeless, blood-hot something wormed its way into him from all angles, through dozens of stinging new wounds, everywhere he could feel, places he hadn't known he could feel. He could barely understand the shape of himself, too much sensation, no room for thought -
"Oh there you are, sleepyhead!"
There was no mistaking that voice, even as it bubbled and gurgled through the meat invading his. Arthur swore, but the… tongue burrowed halfway down his throat got in the way. He bit down; teeth of its own bit back until his jaw and his mind flinched away.
"Seems Lily decided that you shouldn't miss out on our little reunion. How sweet of her. Maybe she's finally learning how to share."
Lilith was silent.
"Aw, she's sulking. No matter. We can have plenty of fun without her, right Artie?"
Kayne pushed, all at once, the tongue down Arthur's throat lapping up his muffled screams, laughter echoing all through him.
Pinned together above their head, Lilith's bloody hand found Arthur's.
They did all they could, and held on.