I kept the candle burning and let my mother’s words sink in as I made my way to bed. Had I demonized the succubi because they had abilities that I didn’t? Was I also guilty of fearing the unknown?
And if my answer was yes, where did that leave me in regards to the horde of who-knows-how-many incubi who currently lived within the same city I slept tonight?
Six
I shot from my temporary twin bed with a start and canvassed the room. Olivia rolled in bed to face me. “What is it?” she asked.
The sun hadn’t risen yet and a nearby streetlight sprinkled light through the window into our room.
“I heard something, movement, outside our door,” I answered.
Olivia flung the sheet out of her way and stood beside me, at the ready to burst through the door. She stood in a t-shirt and panties, not bothering to throw on her shorts she’d draped across the foot of her bed. I held three fingers up, then two, then one, and swung open our bedroom door.
I knew it was unwise to sleep in separate bedrooms, especially while staying in an apartment building full of succubi. A huldra can never be too careful.
The hall was empty. We hadn’t even crept out into it when we heard another noise from our sister’s room. Celeste was in trouble. Shivers ran up my spine. I couldn’t lose another sister, not even for a moment. My coterie had suffered too much already; our hearts couldn’t handle another blow. I motioned my head toward Celeste’s door and Olivia nodded. At once we both ran for her room. Olivia reached the door knob first and gave it a turn before I could smash through the wooden thing that kept us from our sister. I stumbled forward into Celeste’s room, set on rescuing her from a galere of succubi, or at least helping her to fight them off.
But only one succubus lay in Celeste’s bed, her naked body beneath my sister’s. Candle light flickered across their skin; shadows of their intertwined bodies danced across the wall farthest from me. Celeste paused from running her lips along the tattoo of three snakes interwoven to look like a belt under Marie’s breasts, around her ribcage, with Lilith in the middle.
“Can I help you two?” Celeste asked, still straddling Marie.
Marie only smiled at us, her fingers still woven through Celeste’s dark hair.
Awkward silence hung between Olivia and me until she excused herself and padded back to bed as though we’d just interrupted Celeste reading a book or something. And normally I would too, except the story my sister read was printed along the skin of a succubus with every ability to manipulate her emotions enough to invite the huldra to bed without realizing fully what she was doing.
“Your concerns do not belong here,” Marie said with a raspy voice. “Our affections for one another are organic.” She kissed the top of my sister’s head and leaned back onto the pillow.
Celeste caught my gaze for all of a second before scooting up to plant her lips on Marie’s. “You can shut the door behind you,” she offered between passionate kisses.
I backed out of the room, a little jealous and a little in shock. I hadn’t pictured Celeste and Marie together, with Celeste more of the controlling Type-A personality and Marie a leader who didn’t like to be questioned. But, since tapping into her huldra abilities, Celeste’s characteristics seemed to have found their stride, her nervous need to control rested into a comfortable sense of knowing what she wanted and sticking to that. Apparently, she wanted Marie, which brought me to my feelings of jealousy. While falling for another Wild hadn’t been done before, that I knew of, it’d be much more accepted than falling for a Hunter.
I shut the door behind me like I was told.
By the time I’d gotten a drink of water and crawled back into bed, Olivia was sleeping peacefully on the other side of the room. I thought to text Marcus, ask him how the drive back had been, ask him if he was still angry at me for pulling away when he left, but I couldn’t bring myself to open that can of worms, not when a wriggling snake lady lay two doors over from me, under my sister. Not when I currently attended my own pity party of one, wishing I didn’t always have to take the hardest road possible to get to my goals.
Exhaustion gnawed at me, made my mind weak. No, talking to Marcus would be better left for the morning. At least I hoped so because whether or not I was ready, I had to have a phone conversation with him before seven o’clock, bright and early, before my visit to the incubi.
Seven
Seven a.m. came too early. Or maybe too late. The fogginess clouding my head made it too hard to know. I’d tossed and turned as though worry concerning the incubi resided on one side of my body and fear for the future of Marcus and I lived on the other. And then there was the guilt. The United States Wild Women were prepared to follow me into battle. Hell, they already had once and eagerly waited to do it again. My mind should be on working out the newest kinks in my plan to take down the east coast Hunter complexes—the runaway succubi kinks. Should be. Yet I lay here concerned what my sister’s newest romance said about my own.
As I shuffled from the bedroom and down the short hall to the small kitchen beside the dining table, I was thankful succubi couldn’t read minds. My two sisters and Marie sat at the table, enjoying coffee and making small talk. The talk of friends and lovers, not new allies. Why did that bother me so much?
I chalked it up to lack of sleep as I poured my own cup from the half-full coffee pot and mixed it with a splash of creamer. I took the fourth and last empty chair at the table and drank a few swigs of the java before nodding to my sisters.
“Allow me to give you a tad of energy before we go,” Marie offered. She wore that red silk robe I’d seen her in the first time I’d met her. The time she’d propositioned to have a threesome with me and the strange man on her couch and then later propositioned just me.
Maybe that was it. Maybe I didn’t like my sisters being so friendly with Marie because I knew more about her than they did; I’d seen her more manipulative side. I got to be at the receiving end of her ability to manipulate energy when she had her sisters pin me in place, when she thought me a threat. My sisters only met her once Marie had agreed to join our cause. I met her before, when we were still on enemy terms.
“No, thank you,” I said before taking another sip.
“Come on, Faline, let her help,” Celeste urged.
I shot my sister a look from above the rim of the mug. I didn’t need Marie messing with my energy. To be honest, at this point, the only other Wilds I trusted, besides my coterie, was the rusalki, and I hadn’t heard from them since we attacked the Washington Hunter complex. They lived completely off the grid—no cell phones or even email addresses. Although, a couple of times, I could have sworn I’d seen them out of the corner of my eye in my room at night. But no one was ever there. To me, the rusalki seemed like ancient women in the bodies of young women. There was a reverence to them I respected.
The mermaids kept secrets. The harpies were jumpy and usually assumed the worst. And the succubi were…what were the succubi? I couldn’t place my thoughts.
“Have you talked to Marcus yet?” Olivia changed the subject. “About the incubi?”
I regarded my sister with a smile. A little piece of me felt like all this Wild Women reunion stuff was pushing our coterie apart, not pulling us together. But then again, maybe the presence of Marcus in my tree home most nights was doing the job just fine.
“No,” I answered. “Not yet. I was waiting ’til he got up and ’til I had a cup or two of coffee.”
Marie scoffed. “She’s afraid.”
I shot her a glare. “Not today, Marie. I’m not in the mood.”
“No,” she answered. “You’re in fear. A great amount of fear. And I’m sorry, but your energy is too draining for me to just sit here and ignore.”
“Well, Marie.” I set my mug down. “If you’re so keen on hashing things out, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to walk in on you screwing my sister when we’re supposed to be here on business.” I regretted the words the moment my sister’s face twisted from hurt
to disbelief.
Celeste gasped. “I cannot believe—”
Marie placed her hand on my sister’s to gently quiet her, and then she spoke to me. “Technically, I wasn’t screwing your sister.” She smiled and it even reached her eyes. “And who said business and pleasure do not mix well?”
I replayed the old saying about just that in my mind, but based on Celeste’s pissed-off expression, I knew not to actually verbalize it. I shook my head.
“But seriously,” Marie said. Her smiled dropped and she let go of my sister’s hand. She turned her body to face me fully. “I will not allow you to go into the incubi lair with your current energy. In fact, I refuse to take you; I will not be responsible for your safety, and I do not wish to start another war with another group of males once they feel your fear and assume it’s caused by them. They would enjoy the power too much.”
She and I just stared at one another.
“For Freyja’s sake, Faline!” Celeste stood and walked over behind me. She placed her hands on my shoulders where I sat. “Go ahead, Marie. We need to leave soon; being late is not a great first impression to a whole species we’re trying to keep peace with.”
I fought the urge to shove her off and jump up. She was right. The succubi were our allies and this interaction with these incubi had to go smoothly. The faster we were in, the faster we could convince Marie’s sister to leave with us and show up to the next Hunter check-in as if the whole succubi galere were innocent Wild Women with no clue as to what the evil huldra did to their own Washington Hunters.
Still, Marie waited for my permission. And I couldn’t exactly level with Celeste that the Wild she held a proverbial candle for had instructed that her sisters energetically detain me against my will. The desperate feeling of helplessness wasn’t one I wanted to risk reliving.
“Fine," I said. "Go ahead and zap me.”
Marie didn’t bother to correct me. She scooted forward in her chair until her knees almost touched my own. Her hands slowly descended onto my thighs. She closed her eyes. I felt the urge to do the same as I exhaled. Warm tingles started in my thighs and spread throughout my body. My shoulders rolled back and down. My jaw unclenched. My arms fell away from my side.
I wasn’t sure why Marie chose to use touch this time in performing her energy work, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t noticed how tightly wound I’d been until I was unwound. I let out another exhale as Marie pulled away.
“You have a lot to think about, to weigh you down. Don’t let your sister’s and my relationship be another weight,” she said softly.
My eyes fluttered open.
She answered my gaze. “Her energy attracts me like none other in a way I am still trying to explore. But know that what you’ve seen from me in the past was a desire for pleasure. I realize I joked earlier about business and pleasure, but with your sister, it is neither. It’s so much more.” Marie stood and made her way toward the door of the apartment. “I’ll call and let them know we’re on our way. Meet me out front in ten minutes. And Faline?”
I looked at her in a bit of a daze, still relishing in the energy bath she’d doused me in.
"Stop putting off calling Marcus. We may not agree with his assistance, but when it comes to getting my sister back, I’d like all the information I can ascertain."
Marie closed the door behind her. Celeste sat back down and started up an unrelated conversation with Olivia. I stood with a groan and made my way to my temporary room to make a phone call that for some reason caused the pit in my stomach to drop out once again.
Eight
Marcus picked up on the first ring. “Faline?” he asked right away.
I nodded and realized he couldn’t see me. I blamed exhaustion. “Yes.”
His voice changed, laced with concern. “Everything okay?”
I answered on auto-pilot, “Yeah.”
Before I had the chance to correct myself, he filled the silence. “Good, because we have a new development over here.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Another Washington Hunter approached me at my apartment when I stopped by to pick up my mail and grab a few things,” he said. “He was waiting outside my door.”
“Is he going to tell the others that you’re fine and well? Did he tell you that you have to go back?” I asked, a little more awake than moments earlier.
“No, that’s the thing,” Marcus explained. “He left the brotherhood and needed a place to crash, to get away from everything and think. Said he came to me because I’ve left before.”
“Why did he leave?” I asked because inquiring minds and all.
“He said he’s tired of pretending he’s not gay.”
“What?” I said, shocked. “What’s wrong with being gay?”
“Nothing in my book,” he said. “Everything in the Hunter’s book. But hey, I told him I was going out of town for a much-needed vacation and that he could stay at my place. I did a quick sweep before I left, made sure he couldn’t find anything incriminating.”
“Why? Is he snoopy or something?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“He could be a spy,” Marcus answered mater-of-factly.
Damn, this exhaustion crippled my bounty-hunter brain.
He paused on the other line. “You don’t sound like you’re firing on all cylinders.”
“I need some information,” I blurted.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked a second time.
I let out a sigh and mulled over the best way to explain my thoughts. “Yes and no.”
“You know how the missing succubus is with males of the un-human persuasion.” He kept quiet, so I continued. “Males that I have no experience with and was hoping maybe you would know a thing or two about them. Because I have to leave in a couple minutes to meet them in what Marie is calling their lair, whatever that means. She’s being secretive about them.”
“Okay,” Marcus responded. “You going to tell me what kind of beings we’re talking about?”
I just spat out the word. “Incubus.”
I pictured Marcus shaking his head and rubbing his chin stubble as he exhaled and said, “Shit.”
“Is that a good ‘shit’ or a bad ‘shit’?” I asked.
“It’s a don’t-go-within-a-mile-of-these-guys shit,” he said.
“Well, that’s not an option.” I stopped pacing and stood in front of the dresser, examining myself in the mirror on top, leaning against the wall. I ran my fingers through my red hair to straighten the wavy fly-aways. “If every succubus doesn’t show up for check-in in two days, the Oregon Hunters will have enough reason to think they were involved in the Washington Hunter complex being destroyed and they could detain them. They’re probably on edge as it is. They don’t need something like a missing succubus to push them over.”
“My dad called while we were at one of the wineries. I returned his call when I got back to Washington and stopped by my apartment to grab a few things and listen to my voice mail,” Marcus said.
He carried a throw-away cell phone for him and me to get ahold of each other, but he gave the number to nobody else. He didn’t want his phone tracked to us Wilds. His excuse to the others was that his phone must have burned when the complex burned down, seeing as they always kept their personal phones in a locked box while on Hunter duty. In reality he took the battery out and canceled his service. “He said it was to check up on me; he knew I’d been hurt in the battle with the Wild Women at the complex and stopped by my place, but I hadn’t been home. He said he was worried.” Marcus scoffed. “I call bullshit.”
I paused from my self-grooming. “What do you think he wanted?”
“To sniff around.”
“Do you think he suspects anything?” I asked.
“He’s a Hunter official; he suspects everyone and everything.” Marcus paused. “But no, he’s not on to me. I asked if I needed to report to him or anyone else and he said they were still sorting things out. That they were calling in what’s left of the Hunters,
but not the new recruits, which, since I’d left and then re-joined, they see me as new. They’ll call in the new recruits last.”
I sighed in relief. What little plan we’d created before storming into the Washington Hunter complex, Wild Women fighting, did not include the aftermath for Marcus—if he’d stay a member or not and what that’d look like either way. So far, he thought it best to stay, to keep his ear to the ground, so to speak. He didn’t think the Hunters knew where us huldra resided, but it wouldn’t be too hard to find out, even with most of their files burned in the fire. He figured if there was an effort to storm our homes, they’d call him up to do the storming. But in my mind, and his heart, he was an ex-Hunter. I just wished my coterie could see it that way.
So far though, he’d been given a leave of absence from his police job for the time being—Hunters in high places and all. I suspected the higher-ups wanted to make sure the surviving Washington Hunters who were present during the attack didn’t turn tail and run. They’d eventually need all the man-power they could get with so few remaining, so treating them like war heroes made sense. We just weren’t sure how long that’d last.
“You can’t go meet with the incubi, Faline,” Marcus said, circling back to our discussion. “What if there’s Hunters watching them?”
“Is that why you’re so against it?” I asked. “We’ll be careful. I won’t be seen.” I didn’t know where we were going exactly, not enough to make such a promise, but I trusted Marie in her skills to go unnoticed. The first day I’d met her, before I’d even entered the succubi apartment complex, Marie was there without me knowing. Even spoke to me and I couldn’t find her.
“They’re males with the ability to entice women and manipulate energy to their will,” Marcus said. “Manipulate you to their will. And they don’t have the history of allegiance you Wild Women have. There’s nothing to keep them from trapping you like they’ve trapped Marie’s sister.”
Wild Women Collection Page 32
