The thought that pulled me out of my daze was the most unexpected one. After I came out of the water, still stiff and embarrassingly staggered by Lust's blatant refusal, he had the audacity to tenderly drape his robes around me again and brush my hair back behind my shoulder. That was the moment it occurred to me: were these damn demons still walking around naked?
It couldn't be comfortable. Dicks and balls bounced when there was nothing to contain them, like bare tits oscillating at mach speed when running naked over a snowy mountainside, for example. Not that I'd know personally, right? Anyway, gravity was no one's friend. Not to mention that if I was the only one clothed, that meant there was only one layer of resistance between me and another out-of-control threesome that would probably end with me rupturing a kidney from too much fucking. They needed to find some clothes. Alternatively, I could wrap myself up in leaves and vines like in those old Baroque paintings of Eve, and the Princes could split this one between themselves if Lust was feeling generous.
In the middle of shaking out excess water from my sopping hair, I paused, hands stilling in my tresses. Eve... That was right. I'd meant to look in that, the cryptic stuff Lust said before about bloodlines. Adam and Eve, Lilith, the old stories that I'd never believed were real. Maybe my answers lay there. I shouldn't ask Lust; he'd proven I couldn't trust him when it came to my best interests. I'd wait until I returned to civilization, find a way to sneak around without him on my back, and dig up ancient secrets until I found one that would help me out of my predicament.
Easy. That went right on the to-do list. I'd sort that out when I got to it.
In the meantime, I had to field questions from Lust about the damn birds, of all things, though I had a feeling his real move was to distract me from the frigid confrontation we'd just had. Fair. He was a demon, in the end. His best interests came first for him. Why would he sacrifice his tastes for anything else?
"Can you describe them for me, love?" he asked earnestly as he pulled my hair back over my shoulders again, from behind this time. "When did they begin? How are they affecting you? What are they saying?"
"What. They're not saying anything. And they're annoying. They sound like birds, that's all, just really loud. Or maybe they're just really big. Didn't you say earlier that the trees on the island are bigger than normal, or something."
"... They are..."
"So maybe the animals are just bigger and louder, too. It's not a big deal. I shouldn't have said anything." I pulled away from him yet again. Didn't he get it? I didn't want to be near him right now. Well, that wasn't accurate. It felt more like I didn't care anymore. Couldn't, too heavy, so every touch from him or anything else was an irritant like a horsefly. God, I just wanted to sit on a couch and sleep in the middle of the day and not give a crap when I would wake up. How nice would that be.
"Sable, please. This is important. Neither Mammon nor I can hear them, which means the sounds you're hearing now are magical in nature. Do you understand? It could be a curse."
"A curse to hear bird calls? That's a thing?" I mulled it over as I wrung more water out of my hair. Jesus, was my sense of touch overly sensitive, or did it feel like an entire clump had fallen out? I clumsily gathered as many lost strands in my palm as I could before tossing them away. "Okay, I can see that. I've heard of stranger ones. But if it is a curse, if I'm aware of it, then its potency is already weakened. That buys me more time before it takes full effect. And maybe it's localized? Most curses have a stationary point of origin, right? Once we get out of here and move somewhere else while looking around, it might not be an issue anymore."
"But this island has other strangeness about it," Lust cautioned. "Until we know what it is, we can't move carelessly. Mammon, tell her what you told me."
"Don't order me around."
"Ah..." Lust sighed, too impatient to even sound defeated. He seemed about to tell me himself what it was, but Mammon interjected before he had the chance. A low, rumbling, animal growl subtly laced his voice.
"The scents are unnatural. Too familiar. A place like this far away from any mainland, if it's not a new island just come up from the water, it should be isolated. Ancient. Places like these have their own identities, you should be able to scent it from miles off and know which one it is. I've never been here, but I recognize too much of it, and I shouldn't. Those scents aren't embedded in the island. It's like they've been moved here, somehow, and now they mask the native scents."
My eyes shot back open. Hang on! I strained for a minute, trying in vain to see the demons' faces so I could read their expressions, but soon gave up. "That's a good thing!" I exclaimed, buoyed up by a sudden rush of hope. "That means there must be travel of some kind, right? People coming here from somewhere else, bringing scents from those places or whatever. That's what we need! A way off the island! Okay, where are the scents coming from? Can you track them? If we find a settlement, worst case scenario, we can stow away on the next—"
"That's not what I mean," Mammon said. "The trees. The plants. The animals. They don't belong here. The scents aren't left behind by anything. They've been planted here unnaturally. Do you understand? Someone brought it all here... a long time ago, but not long enough that I can't tell they don't belong in this place."
"... The trees?" I asked, disbelieving. "Wh... Does that have anything to do with their size? They're a little bigger than usual or something, right?"
"Much bigger," Lust answered. "If you could see now, you would understand."
Were we talking prehistoric sizes, like when mushrooms were the size of humans? I couldn't fathom it. Yeah, I couldn't see, but everything felt normal, or as normal as a sub-tropical jungle island would feel considering I'd never been on one. But honestly, I wasn't interested. What was I, a biologist? "I don't see what that has to do with us leaving the island, or anything. If something weird happened to this island, let it be. I just need to find a way off of it."
"The birds you hear that we cannot, my Sable, are another clue. Mammon has keen hearing that far exceeds ours, yet he can't hear them. That can mean one of the three things. The sounds could be illusionary, meant only for you to hear."
"A spell, right."
"Yes. The second possibility is that your magic has proven itself more sensitive than you think, yet again. Witches and demons possess different abilities. You may be hearing something only witches are capable of detecting."
"That'll go at the bottom of the list of possibilities. What's the next one?"
"The next is the most dangerous. And I hope, irrelevant." Lust's fingers brushed my cheek, palm cradling my jaw with careful affection. Goosebumps raced down my body, radiating from where he touched me so tenderly. "Witches and humans share many traits. The overlap means that magic intended for human ears can be detected by those with witchblood as well, if they are sensitive enough."
"And the reason that that's dangerous?" Both were creepy, but this seemed little different from magic aimed only at witch ears, fundamentally. What was the big deal?
"Humans are among the lowest of intelligent life forms in all the greater realms, my love. They occupy a much different niche than witches, despite similar appearances, in the same way that a common sparrow differs from a falcon."
Well... that made sense, considering that biologically speaking, humans could never measure up to demons, angels, or all the other elder races, even the ones that humans used to look down on back when they still remembered magic and non-human peoples existed.
"Witches are predators in their own right, powerful and capable of certain things no others can do. A cooperative relationship with one can result in great gains. There are entire species that seek symbiotic relationships with witches, going so far as to evolve to become witch-adapted."
"Right. You're talking about familiars. I know a little bit about it."
"Among other things, yes. But you understand that there is a natural incentive to connect to witches in various ways, and not necessarily harmful ones. Many species coexist in peace. Sometimes they even help each other thrive."
Sure, like a rhinoceros allowing birds to perch on it and eat bugs and dead skin off of its body, or so National Geographic said. And clownfish and anemone, all that. Symbiosis, like Lust said. And his point was... ?
"On the other hand, if someone specifically seeks out a human, what can that human offer them? What is the incentive they present that others cannot? Say, a witch?"
I opened my mouth, sure I would come up with an answer. I'd been following his explanation smoothly until now despite my limited knowledge, after all. But several seconds passed, and I had nothing. I closed my mouth again, stumped.
"The answer is nothing good," Lust said softly. He caressed my cheek before squeezing his hand around my jaw, as if holding me in place in case I tried to run away. "Anything that specifically seeks out humans is something evolved to prey on them. An enemy. A natural predator of humans. That is all."