The silence was soft for once. No doors slamming or noisy neighbors. This time of morning, everyone else staying at this hotel probably was hungover. Whatever the reason behind it, Chris decided to take advantage of the calmness. He pulled his beautiful dragon into his lap, kissing him ever so gently.

"Good morning." Kuza laughed, resting his arms over Chris' shoulders.

"I didn't say you could talk yet." He sleepily teased him.

Chris smiled so brightly whenever he could be close to him. He met their lips together, deepening their kiss when he slipped in some tongue. Despite them now being together for months, they still had trouble controlling their bodies natural instincts. Truthfully, they probably should be giving in to their screaming desires. It'd bring them one step closer to being able to lace, but now wasn't exactly the time and the place to have sex.

It was still weird for both of them that they had only gone all the way twice now. For them, Kuza especially, they were used to relationships where they got laid twice in one day. Every time things got intimate, they were reminded how raw and extreme their passion was. Some days it was unbearable.

Kuza grinded his hips against his mate's, making them both moan. He wanted it so badly, but he knew it'd be any moment before Deysa returned from whatever he ran off to do. Last night he'd fallen asleep almost immediately after they reached the room, which came as no surprise to anyone after he'd had such a long day. And of course, just as Chris was reaching to pull Kuza's shirt off, the door opened.

"Well, it is a little strange to see you in the submissive position." He joked.

Embarrassed, Kuza took himself off his lover's lap. "Sorry you had to see that."

Deysa shrugged, "You know it doesn't bother me."

"Where'd you go?" He asked.

"To make a call. Laced Ones are very rare here. So much so that they're treated as urban legends. People whisper around about catching glances of certain ones. There are even people obsessed with finding them, a lot like people were with Loch Ness and Bigfoot back on Earth. I asked an accomplice if he's heard of any new ones popping up recently and he said yes. A few months ago, rumors started of one they now refer to as the Wiccan."

"A few months ago can't be right. We saw them pass over two days ago." Kuza responded.

"Unless Hel's trial took much longer than we thought. I mean, think about it. We would be in one place where it was snowing and nighttime, then a second later be somewhere where it was a summer day. We could've been traveling through time as well as dimensions." Chris said, "Did your friend know anything else?"

Deysa smirked cockily, "Of course he did. He wouldn't be my friend if he was bad at getting intel. Most accounts of sightings have a few similarities in the descriptions; Dressed in all black, pale skin, bloody chest, covered face, and most prominently, red and black hair."

"We didn't get that good of a look at them ourselves, but that doesn't seem too far off." He replied.

"They were recently spotted heading towards Eris City." He added. Deysa didn't seem as pleased to deliver that bit of information. He spoke the location's name as if it'd rot his tongue.

"Why do you seem so off-put by that?" Kuza questioned him. Six years apart really didn't mean much for their friendship. He could still see right through him.

"There's not much there, aside from one of the prisons. It'd be the only thing I could think of that they'd be heading there for, but Eris..." He sighed, "A lot of the famous criminals on Earth, they're still big dogs down here. About a year ago, Jack the Ripper busted down Hera's door and took out their heavy hitters, including Heart. They're all serving their sentence at Eris. Serves 'em right, though... Prison got a new warden recently too, and I hear she's a real ball buster."

"Hera," Chris repeated the haunting term, "You mentioned them last night. Who are they?"

Kuza took a breath before explaining, "Back before the Ravagers came and all, there were three big crime guilds that ran most of everything; The Oath, Hera, and Demon's Card. Deysa and I both belonged to The Oath. We owned several casinos, but most our bread and butter came from having control over the docks. Hera took control of mines and several factories all over the world. Everything precious in life, diamonds, silk, gold, all of it, belonged to Hera. They are incredibly dangerous."

"Their leader, Heart, had a power that none of us dared to even fight. We never got into it with them like we had with Demon's Card. We avoided them the best we could. They needed our docks to move product, and we didn't want to cross them." Deysa said, "If that is your friends that are going to Eris, I really hope they have a better reason for going than visiting the prison. That wouldn't be a pretty sight."

"How far is it from here?" Chris asked.

"A few hours, if you can manage to catch the train."

Kuza got off the bed, grabbing his jeans from the night before. "Let's get going, then. When's the next train leave?"

"About an hour." Deysa answered, "It's a dangerous city. I'll go with you if it's what you want to do, but are you sure you want to step in a war zone like that?"

He hit Deysa's shoulder as he he passed by him to get to the bathroom. "Did you really just ask me that?"

The pirate faked a stressed whine, "You haven't managed to settle him down at all, have you?"

Chris chuckled, "Not an ounce. He was always like this?"

"I'd say he was probably a lot worse, but in his line of work, he'd have to be. He easily had the most dangerous job of all of us." Deysa continued, "I don't know how much he's told you, and there's a lot that's not my place to say, but among crime guilds there's a basic structure everyone follows; A leader, an assassin, a mage, healer, an archer, and a thief."

"Deysa played the role o the assassin, so I'm sure you could make a wild guess where I was placed." Kuza said.

"Hm," His mate muttered to himself, "He told me once he wasn't a thief."

"Not anymore." Deysa responded with a timid smile.

Times have changed, Chris knew that. He watched Kuza cry countless times over the past. There was no way he'd ever return to it, but he has some trouble accepting some of what he's done. How are we to know where we're going if we ignore where we came from?

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Eris is a dark city. A constant cloud loomed over the dirty buildings. The streets were always empty, almost like no one lived here. Inside the infamous prison, it was equally as depressing, if not more. The creature Hel recently appointed as the new warden was a good representation of this place. Grey, terrifying, yet strangely very beautiful.

The same could be said for a certain inmate, with one big difference. He actually smiled on occasion, whereas she didn't. She never even cracked. It was as if she was utterly miserable, forever alone. Her high heels echoed down the corridor as she walked through the high risk cell block.

A leather glove reached out of it's cell, a snake like voice following, "I have hopes that just once you'll approach as if you're having a good day." His arm was covered in traditional Japanese art with bits of his pale skin peaking through. Yellow eyes hid behind smokey eyeshadow and white lashes. Anyone who got close would be drawn in by his romantic scent.

Anyone but her, that is. Her milky irises were about one of the only things that could stun him too. One look and he felt his throat thicken. "You don't care about my happiness. You just want entertainment." She stated.

"Just because I'm an assassin, doesn't mean I can't care about people. We aren't much different. We are both Lost Ones without mates, allowed in on a technicality, and we're both trapped here." He elaborated.

An officer peaked her head in from the nearest door, "Warden Malarkey, you have a visitor."

If it hadn't been for that interruption, she might've sent him off to be tortured for his remark. His name, his real name anyways, was long ago forgotten. Those who did know him called him Autopsy, because he was a symbol of death. He'd decided, as he watched her walk away, that she was more of a queen of the end than he ever would be.

☤ ☤ ☤

Autopsy: