The water blasts out of the showerhead hot, almost scalding. I don't turn on the cold water, though, and just stand under the hot spray. My body will adjust to it. It takes a few minutes, but it does, the heat becoming more tolerable.

Once I've adjusted to the heat, I begin scrubbing my body carefully, working it over thoroughly and making sure to clean every last part of it. There wasn't any blood on me – I'm not sure when it disappeared, but it wasn't on my spellsuit when I activated it again. Did it disappear when I entered the shadows? Or when I removed the spellsuit the first time?

Something I'll find out at some point, I'm sure. After all, I'm an assassin now. An assassin who protects the city from greater threats, not the small ones. Though soon, I'll protect it from smaller ones as well. At least as a vigilante, I won't have to kill people.

Usually.

Most of that work will be stopping crimes in progress, disabling and disarming rather then making dead.

Maybe it's the part of me that's not human – the fact that I'm an elemental, not a human – but I don't think it's normal to have recovered from a first kill this fast. I'm still shaking, still light-headed, but I'm rational again. I'm taking a shower, making sure every last bit of myself is clean…

Who am I kidding? I'm just trying to distract myself while I wait for Theo to return, and once he does, I know I'm going to try to distract myself further. It helps, I found as I brushed my teeth to get the taste of my vomit out.

However long I'm in the shower, it's enough to clean myself twice over. Strangely, Theo doesn't join me in here. Has he not returned yet? It's definitely been more than ten minutes since I returned. At least half an hour, actually.

I guess he got delayed further.

Shutting off the shower, I grab a towel and step out, taking a few minutes to thoroughly dry myself. Getting my hair dry with just a towel isn't really that easy, and while he does have a hairdryer, I'll just let it dry on its own. Since I need to eat again and I'm sure Theo will be home soon, I'll be up for awhile.

Though I guess if I have my way, I'll probably need another shower. Oh, well.

Once I'm dry, I use the towel to wipe off his mirror, then hang it up on a bar before looking at my reflection. My hair's gotten so long, I should probably cut it again. Maybe this time, I could go to an actual hair salon for a cut? Something to think about later, my stomach is rumbling.

I leave the bathroom to find Theo entering the bedroom. His face lights up in surprise when he sees me.

"Oh!" He exclaims. "I'd expected you to have fallen asleep! Sorry for taking so long, I got tied up right as I was getting ready to leave."

"Cyrus?"

"Returned safely to his family," Theo answers. "Good job on the kill."

He tilts his head a little, as if examining me.

"How are you doing?" He asks. "I know it's your first kill, so-"

"Either we're having sex right now," I'm not letting him bring me back to that, not after I just finished getting rid of those thoughts. "Or I'm going to the kitchen and cooking myself something to replace what I lost to your toilet."

"You are not," he says as I walk over to him. "Cooking, Kier. I'll make dinner. Are you sure you want sex right now?"

"You saw the boner, right?" I ask as I wrap my arms around him, using my right hand to tilt his head down. "I used my powers a lot tonight. I'm horny and I need a distraction and want to feel your body against mine. Or in mine. Preferably both."

I stand on my toes a little and kiss him, and Theo returns the kiss as I grab his hoodie and start to pull it up. He lets me pull off his hoodie, and I start rubbing his sides, his back, his chest, his really, really damn fine abs. Theo grabs my sides and holds me tight as we kiss.

"Do you really want a distraction?" He murmurs after breaking our kiss off a few minutes into it. "That might not be healthy to-"

"Sex or food, your choice," I interrupt. "And I need my mind off of how it felt, so I'd really like the former to happen now."

Theo kisses me again, his hands sliding down and around, rubbing my ass as they move beneath it. He then lifts me up, and I wrap my legs around him, feeling my dick rubbing against his stomach as he moves me to his bed, lowering me onto it before removing his shoes and joining me on the bed. We move so that my head is resting on the pillows, and Theo starts kissing my chest, sucking on and biting my nipples.

"Ngh!" I moan as he applies a little more pressure than normal, and I move a hand onto his back. "Theo, don't stop!"

He snorts, then continues, spending a full three or four minutes just on my nipples, making me squirm a little from the pleasure and slight touches of pain. It causes my dick to rub against him more, and I can feel myself drawing close to my peak just from this. Theo probably notices this because he stops playing with my nipples and begins kissing his way down my stomach.

As always, Theo stops at my bellybutton and flicks his tongue into it, swirling his tongue around it, playing with it with his tongue. He really enjoys doing this, and I've thought about asking him to put something in it, like a blueberry or frosting or something, just as a 'treat'. The only reason I haven't is I'm not bold enough to most of time.

I am right now, but I'm also too horny to want to wait for him to get it and return if he agrees to it.

"Theo, just suck me off already," I say.

My boyfriend laughs, but stops playing with my bellybutton, licking down to my balls. He takes first the right one into his mouth, sucking on it and swirling his tongue against it, then releases it and takes the left one into his mouth, repeating.

"Theo!" I moan, putting a hand on his head. "Come on!"

He looks up and meets my gaze, then gently licks and kisses the underside of my dick. At this point, he's definitely just teasing me. I almost want to knee him in the side for this, my knees are in the right spot for that. Before I actually do that, though, Theo stops teasing me and just takes my dick into his mouth, going all the way down, his nose pressed against my crotch.

"Mmh!" I moan, and Theo looks up at me.

If he could smile right now, he'd definitely be smiling.

"Theo!" I gasp. "You took… too long! Gonna-gonna! Mmh!"

Theo pulls back a little as I moan-whimper in response to trying to hold back my orgasm, and he manages to get my foreskin pulled back just in time for me to begin shooting my load. He swallows every last drop of it and doesn't stop sucking, even adding suction with just the head of my dick in his mouth, his tongue rubbing against the sensitive head.

"Nnh!" I moan. "Theo!"

He releases my dick, smiling at me, and as soon as he does, I throw the lube at him.

"Hey!" He exclaims as he catches it. "Is that how you ask-"

"Just fuck me already, would you?"

Theo laughs and opens the tube as I lift my legs up. Once he's lubed himself up, Theo slowly begins to push his dick into my ass, and I moan a little, pushing my ass towards him.

"Don't hold back, Theo," I say. "I want it rough and hard right now."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Alright," he thrusts all the way in, and I moan, my back arching a little, lifting off the bed. "You okay?"

"Shut up and fuck."

Theo snorts, moving my legs beside him before grabbing my sides and beginning to thrust. His thrusts are faster, harder than normal. I like the way it feels right now, though can acknowledge that under different circumstances, I'd probably not like it. It feels good, and I like staring into those beautiful, electric blue eyes of his as sparks dance off his body. The way his fat, long dick slides inside of me, the way it stimulates my insides at high speed. It almost feels like he's going to break me, but I know he won't.

"Ungh!" Theo moans as he finally reaches his climax, still thrusting hard even as he pumps my ass full of his cum, his hot seed making his dick feel sticky inside of me. "Kieran!"

When Theo finishes his climax, he bends forward, moving his hands to my head and shoulders as he starts kissing me, still thrusting inside of my ass. I grab his sides, feeling the sweat that's begun to soak his skin, how warm his body's gotten. Our kisses are breathless, the two of us needing to stop for air a few times as Theo continues fucking me hard and rough, the feeling one I know I would probably have refused another day. But right now, it's what I want, and Theo's giving it to me. It feels amazing, especially with his sparks dancing across him, lightly zapping my body in that way they do without harming me.

Theo continues until he reaches a second climax inside of me, then he just rests with his dick all the way inside, still kissing me, his tongue inside of my mouth, wrestling with my own tongue.

"I was trying to get you to cum again through anal stimulation and rubbing it with my body," he murmurs, and I snort. "And that didn't work."

"Maybe next time," I kiss him. "I'm still building up libido. I might be ready for more when we wake. Though my ass is sooooore."

Theo slowly pulls out of my ass, and if there was any way to do it gently, he'd probably be doing it like that, too. He gives me a kiss as I lower my legs down. My hips and ass really are sore, he gave it a rather good pounding.

"Thanks," I tell him.

"You're welcome," he says. "I'm going to go make you food, okay? Just rest, and-"

"Carry me?" I hold up my arms. "Or do you not want your cum leaking out of-"

Theo flips me onto my back, then does something with his nightstand, though I don't bother to look. A few seconds later, I hear the lube opening up again, and not long after that, something is pushing into my ass.

"Mnh!" I moan. "Theo?"

"Butt plug," he says. "That way, you don't leak."

I snort, and once he's pushed it all the way in, he flips me back over, then picks me up. I wrap my arms and legs around him, resting my head on his shoulder, and Theo carries me out of his room and to the couch, gently setting me down on it.

"It's softer than the chairs," he kisses me on the neck. "So it will be easier for you to sit on. I'll go cook now. We could both use food."

"Thanks," I kiss him, then he heads to the kitchen.

Before beginning to cook, Theo fills a glass with water and gives it to me, and I drain it completely almost immediately. Laughing, Theo zaps himself over to the kitchen to refill it, and once I have the second glass, he gets to work on cooking.

"You know," Theo says after a few minutes. "You kind of surprised me, Kier. I know we've only been together a week, but you've never come across as that, well, aggressive when it came to sex. You even prefer to bottom because you feel topping is too much of being in charge, but you were really demanding tonight."

I almost agree with him in that it's strange, but stop myself before I do.

"It doesn't surprise me that much, in hindsight," I tell him. "There was this time that Lucas and I got into a big fight. I was feeling… well, I was feeling extremely down after that, and he went to leave my apartment to head home. I basically ordered him to get in bed and spoon me to make me feel better. This is basically the same as that, just with me having a libido. Once I calm down from… um… having freaked out over how easy it was to kill someone, I'll probably be back to normal."

"So if you get into a bad mood," Theo says. "I can expect you to get pretty demanding?"

"Or if my mood is just low," I say. "Is that a problem?"

"Not as long as I still get a choice in everything," he tells me. "While I love getting to do stuff with you, tonight's was more my style, to be honest. So while I hate the idea of only getting it when you're feeling down or upset, Kier, I'll look forward to them as a special treat. I just hope they don't happen too often."

Because getting to do it like this would mean that I'm feeling down or we've gotten into a fight.

"Hey," I try to pout at him. "You can still go rough with me other times, Theo. Just not, like, every night."

"No," he grins. "I mean where my partner is a bit more aggressive. How aggressive you were with getting me to do stuff really tells me you're okay with it. I know you're not that way, which is why I try to make sure you're okay with it – I'm worried that if I don't, you'll not tell me if something's wrong."

"Theo," I say. "I will tell you if something's wrong. I just don't really get in charge much… except in cases like tonight. But I'm not going to let someone do something I don't like without saying something. So rest assured on that."

"Okay," he says.

He returns to cooking in silence, though I can tell he's happy that I promised him that. Happy, but also a little uncertain. We did just meet, so it will probably take him a little bit more time to be comfortable with the idea of me letting him be in charge so much.

It's not something I'm upset over because it would make sense to try to make sure of that until he's certain I really am okay and really would say something if something's wrong or I don't like it. There's a difference between trusting your boyfriend and actually knowing their limits and how willing they are to say something.

"Hey, Theo?" I ask after a few minutes.

"Yeah?"

"Are you versatile?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because you have butt plugs," I answer. "Ones thick enough to fill the gap caused by a thick one."

"Oh," he snorts. "I actually bought them for the guy I hooked up with before – don't worry, they got sanitized after every use. We also stopped seeing each other a couple of months ago. He liked my dick about this thick, too, so we used that one after sex to keep the cum in. He wears plugs while he goes about his business, but when he hung out here, he'd wear one with a tail. It was kind of cute, but there was no spark between us.

"Why'd you stop seeing him?" I ask. "It was just hookups, right?"

"Right," Theo nods. "And he started developing feelings for me. I couldn't return them, so we agreed to end it."

"Elementals are only attracted to elementals," I murmur.

"Correct," Theo says. "While we can get into relationships with others, or have sex with them no problem, we don't hold true feelings for them. Zane got into all of those hookups trying to find someone he felt a spark with."

"Zane said he did love someone once," I say. "But they died before he could ask them out. The way he talks if the guy is ever brought up-"

"Erm, yeah," Theo says. "This is the norm, Kier. In an exceptional case, we can still hold an attraction for someone else, especially if their magic is beautiful, even if it's like you and how Zane used to be – subconsciously sensing it. Zane's crush was one such case. I actually sensed his magic once, and for a human, it was pretty damn appealing. It's kind of sad that Zane lost him, it's probably part of why he was delaying getting with you. I do feel guilty for taking you before then, but I also like being with you. He'll find someone soon, I'm sure."

Nah. Not soon. He's already found someone, I'm sure of it. But I'll not say that for now.

"Okay," I say. "By the way, while I was shadow-gliding around, the Patron asked me if I wanted the role of an assassin. If not, I could switch over to being a vigilante immediately as we figure out a better style for me as a guardian."

"What did you say?" He asks.

"If there's a job only I can do," I say. "Then I'll do it. He was interested in me because my powers are good for assassinations, so I'll be an assassin. It might take me some time to get used to killing people, though. I didn't expect it to be so easy…"

There's a burst of electricity, and Theo's standing in front of me, a hand on my shoulder. For a moment, the fact that he's wearing an apron surprises me, but then I remember that he tends to do that while cooking. He didn't get rid of his dick this time, though. It's not hard, so I can only see a slight bulge where it's pressing against the apron. I guess he only removes it if he's actually hard while wearing the apron?

Either way, it's kind of sexy.

"No wonder you wanted distractions," Theo bends down and kisses me. "Food will be ready in about thirty minutes. Think you can hold out?"

"As long as we keep chatting," I answer.

"Alright," he says, then zaps himself back to the kitchen. "Speaking of the job, Aiden and Zane were given more information after you left. The main point is the pay for both sides of being a guardian."

"Right," I say. "I forgot about that. Will it be enough to sustain me, even if I had my own apartment?"

"That's actually up to you," Theo tells me. "You get paid five hundred for every job as a Sivalshi Guardian. An additional two-fifty for an immediate job, and massive jobs can get bigger paychecks. So that part depends on how many jobs you have to do that month."

"Did I get five hundred or seven-fifty for this one, then?" I ask. "Crap, my phone and laptop are in your room, so I can't check."

"Seven-fifty," Theo answers. "It was an immediate job. It's possible that's your only job this month, or you might get five or six jobs. It all depends on how many big threats to the peace of the city itself occur.

"As for being a vigilante," he says. "We get paid one-twenty for every eight hours we work, or fifteen an hour. However, we don't get paid unless we've worked eight hours, and it's only for every block of eight. So if you work fifteen hours, the deposit only has eight hours on it. If you work seventeen hours, it will only have sixteen on it. There's no limit to how long you can take to earn that – so if you work exactly seven hours, and then spend a year not being a vigilante, then work another hour, you'll get eight hours' pay. The payments for both jobs are done on Fridays at midnight. That is when it turns Friday, as that's midnight on Friday."

"That's why you said you guys get to schedule your own shifts," I say.

"Yeah," he confirms. "We basically pick our times and areas. The Patron sometimes makes suggestions, usually when he feels something might happen."

"Okay," I say. "By the way, I think I know what I want to use as my vigilante power."

"What?" He asks.

"Chains of shadows," I answer. "Be a counter to Lumilxal."

"Hm," Theo thinks for a few moments. "That might not be a bad idea. Since you're supposed to be a 'secret' Sivalshi Guardian for now, you might even be able to start sooner. Learning how to make the chains shouldn't be too difficult if you're in your elemental form, though you'd probably have to stay in it while being a vigilante in order to actually use it well. At least, at first."

"Yeah," I say. "Do you think the Patron would let me start sooner?"

"Just train the power," he tells me. "When the Patron's okay with you making your debut as a vigilante, he'll let you know that you have a second spellsuit you can manifest."

"Okay," I say, then realize something. "Crap."

"What?"

"If I'm increasing my power at a rate of fifty percent a month by training in my elemental form," I say. "Then Lucas will realize something's up – there's no way I'd be able to handle hiding that from him."

"It's in publicly-available records," Theo tells me. "That elementals have a higher improvement threshold. While it's not really that well-known what the higher threshold is, you just have to tell Lucas you found out you're an elemental and show him your other form."

"Erm… is that allowed?" I ask.

"Yeah," he answers. "The Patron wouldn't have let you understand me saying that if it wasn't. He also wouldn't have let Zane and Lucas meet if Lucas knowing about elementals would have been a problem."

"How do I explain finding out?" I ask.

"Orientation," he answers. "It's the truth, after all. You showed up for orientation and found out that the company had approached elementals, and not just ones who knew they were elementals, then informed them that they were and taught them how to shift."

Which would also give a better explanation for why the company was willing to hire me after just one month: I can gain five months' worth of improvement to my spells per month, so by the time my probation period is over, I'd be significantly stronger. However, they hadn't wanted to tell me that before I was hired because they didn't want me to know unless I was hired.

"Now that I think about it," I say. "That's four of seven elementals who align with the Patron, four who are guardians. Was Zach not told about his true nature? Though I guess Zane probably mentioned it."

"Yeah, Zach knows," Theo says. "The Patron would rather elementals know what they are without finding out through tragedy, so he prefers to have someone approach them and tell them, preferably when they're hired. This also avoids having them wonder why they still look seventeen when they're fifty, too."

"…what?"

"Elementals stop aging by the time they're twenty," he tells me. "Though it can be as young as fifteen normally. I stopped aging at nineteen, according to the Patron, and Zane did when he was eighteen. The Patron won't say if you have or not, but he's always been weird about information regarding you. Since you haven't really used your powers until the last month or so, you probably haven't, unless kicking you into your elemental form caused the halt."

The fact that elementals are nigh-immortal didn't really sink in until now. I'd only thought about the part where only an elemental really had the ability to kill an elemental, but I'd assumed we'd age all the same. Does this mean Zane's parents aren't elementals, then? That their power really was just shifting into stone form, but then Zane and his brother were born with greater power? What's their mother's ability? Probably something stone-related, to have caused them to awaken their elemental nature.

"So it's probably a good thing an elemental is attracted to elementals," I say. "And rarely others. We'd outlive pretty much anyone else."

"Yeah," he confirms. "And if you're wondering what happened to the elementals of the past, the Patron said that we normally only have one in the city at a time, and they usually end up moving. For us to have seven at once is strange, even by his standards."

So the Patron didn't manipulate things so that more elementals were born, then. Could there being so many of us here be a sign of something to come? Some sort of cosmic hand at work, preparing the back of Sivalshi for a greater threat that only we can handle?

"Anyway," Theo interrupts my thoughts. "I'm at a critical part of cooking this. Do you want me to use wine in the sauce, or no?"

"I don't think I've ever had wine in the sauce before."

"The I'll wine it up."

"Isn't wine expensive?"

Making alcohol takes up extra space, so there are only a couple of places for it, and they're subject to the same high prices for produce as everyone else.

"Dude, I'm a Sivalshi Guardian," Theo laughs. "And have been for almost two years now. Trust me, a bottle of wine isn't that much. But you aren't getting to drink any. With your current size and meat amount and your current mindset, that would be bad for several reasons."

"I'm not interested in drinking alcohol," I assure him, then stifle a yawn.

After we eat, we are definitely going to bed.