She’d told her friends what was going to go down, and they’d told their friends, and so on. She assured me that everyone knew they’d be playing succubus snack bar if they came, and that they should speak up if I accidentally started drawing too heavily on anyone in the group.
I was wearing a narrow band of linen cloth wrapped around my breasts and tied in back, along with another length of linen worn loincloth style, draped through a thong tied around my hips so a skirt-like length of fabric covered my ass, and another length fell down the front of my thighs. It was sexy without being blatantly immodest, and I hoped it would reinforce my look-but-don’t-touch vibe.
Sharalynn was holding a sheet of linen around herself like a toga, but when everyone was settled, she dropped it to reveal naked flesh beneath. There were a few whistles and catcalls from the crowd. Sharalynn winked and blew a kiss, but then her eyes settled on a guy in the front row who looked like his cheeks were about to go up in flames, he was blushing so hard.
This, I assumed, must be the man in Sharalynn’s crosshairs. He was cute, despite the large port-wine birthmark covering his left temple and part of his forehead. I was guessing that accounted for a big part of his lack of confidence, and I hoped Sharalynn’s devious plan tonight ended up going well for both of them.
My partner in crime lay down on her front, cushioned by a thick blanket we’d thrown over the table. She rested her chin on her laced fingers, and I stepped up to play my role in the proceedings. I’d acquired a clay vial of some kind of fruity-smelling oil, vaguely reminiscent of olive oil.
Without ceremony, I dribbled a line of oil down Sharalynn’s spine and set the vial aside, then started a slow massage. She hummed in approval as my hands spread the oil over her back and shoulders, pressing into the muscles.
It took almost no time at all before teasing hints of excitement from the crowd began to brush against my awareness. As I’d expected, a lot of the male response was focused more on Sharalynn than me, but there were still several animus trails wafting in my direction, growing in strength as my movements became bolder and more confident.
My attention fell on Fatima and another person who’d been introduced as one of the elders. They were keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings, though I wasn’t sure if they were more worried about me draining someone too much, or about potential misbehavior from the spectators.
The crowd seemed content to watch, aside from the occasional murmured ribald comment. I returned my focus to the interweaving trails of animus, letting everything directed at me soak into my magical core, but not pulling on the sources to get more.
It was interesting—while feeding and replenishing my strength like this felt good, it didn’t feel particularly… sexual. I’d noticed the same thing at the fetish club before chaos had broken out. Having Rans splayed out like an offering in front of me had certainly been enough to get me going, but the lust from the onlookers had felt like eating a good meal; nothing more.
Since I wasn’t sexually attracted to women, our little sensual massage routine didn’t do much to turn me on. It was nice to touch someone in a way that was enjoyable for them, and I could appreciate Sharalynn’s beauty from an aesthetic standpoint. But I wasn’t excited.
What was so different about feeding from random people who wanted me, versus feeding from Rans? I pressed my lips together, not really wanting to think about Rans right now… or at all. Damn it.
I couldn’t help it, though. Rans had driven me to near-feral levels of lust using only the taste of his sexual energy. Why did he seem to be the only person who had that effect on me? Was it a vampire thing? I supposed it was possible, since Fae energy also affected me differently—though in an unpleasant, itchy way, like insects crawling on my skin. Whereas Rans’ animus felt more like mainlining the most potent aphrodisiac imaginable.
I gritted my teeth.
Stop. Thinking. About. Rans.
Dragging my attention back to what I was doing, I urged Sharalynn onto her back so I could work on her front. The interest from the onlookers intensified as I worked my way up her calves and thighs, skirting her thatch of pubic hair in favor of massaging her stomach and ribcage. I moved to her arms, and finished by kneading her breasts a few times as a final surge of animus soaked into my body, leaving me energized and tingly.
Sharalynn had basically been eye-fucking the object of her interest for the past few minutes, and the poor guy looked like he might faint on the spot. But when she got up and walked into his arms, pressing her lips to his, something seemed to snap inside him, and he kissed back as though he wanted to devour her right in the middle of the public square.
Cheers and whooping erupted, and I whooped right along with them, clapping and laughing. When he finally let her up for air, Sharalynn glanced over her shoulder at me and shot me a saucy wink. I grinned at her and mouthed, ‘Go get him, girl.’ She grinned back and started tugging Shy Boy away, presumably to someplace private.
A couple of hopefuls approached me, separated by the table in front of us. “Sure you don’t need to feed a bit more, demonkin?” one of them asked. “Vic and me could take you back to his place and show you a good time.”
I didn’t sense any malice from either of them. I just… wasn’t interested.
“Thanks for the offer,” I told them, “but I can only really control how much energy I take if there’s a crowd to draw from. One on one, or… uh… one on two, and I’d drain you way too much without meaning to.”
That was probably a lie, now that I’d learned to filter the energy I let in. But as ego-saving excuses went, I figured there were worse ones I could have chosen. The second guy looked taken aback, and the first one raised his hands in surrender.
“Ah, gotcha,” he said. “Oh, well. We figured it was worth asking.”
He ushered his friend away with a hand on his lower back, and something about the gesture made me think they’d manage just fine on their own. Fatima approached, and her presence seemed to act as a deterrent to anyone else who might have been thinking about trying their luck.
“Was that okay, I hope?” I asked, figuring that if it hadn’t been, she would have stepped in sooner.
The elder wore an expression of thinly veiled amusement. “It was fine, dear. Though I have to say, it was certainly a creative way of feeding, for a succubus.”
“I’m very far removed from your average succubus,” I said. “Two generations removed, to be precise.”
She gave me a knowing look, but didn’t press. “Nigellus said you might wish to return to the portal leading to Earth, so you could attempt to get through. Do you plan on waiting until morning, or would you prefer to try now?”
I thought about it. “Now, I think. This is about the strongest I’m likely to be, so waiting will only hurt my chances.”
Fatima nodded. “I’ll go with you, then. Grab a couple of the torches. The moons will be up shortly, but the torches help to light the way in the meantime.
I checked in on Dad and made sure Li Wei didn’t mind staying with him a bit longer. Fatima and I headed out of the village, up the sloping trail that led to the cave—the darkness turning our surroundings into something deep and mysterious. A couple of demon guards flanked the entrance, and I was fairly sure they weren’t the same two as when I’d arrived.
“Hi,” I called out as we approached. “I’m Zorah. Nigellus said it wouldn’t be a problem if I came back here and tried to get through the gate to Earth?
Glowing red-orange eyes inspected me in the torchlight. “The cambion’s daughter? Yes, we heard about that. Come on through.”
Fatima hung back. “If you don’t mind, I’m not big on caves. I’ll wait out here for you.”
I shrugged. “No problem.”
As I ducked through the entrance, I heard her call after me in a wry voice.
“Yell if you run into anything creepy-crawly!”
My first torch was starting to splutter, but it was sufficient to help me retrace my steps to the str
etch of stone wall that had tried to eat my hand on my first attempt to breach the gate. I lit the second torch and propped both of them a short distance away, before turning and regarding the gate of Hell.
There was nothing for it, except to press my fingers against the surface as I had last time. It was easier—no doubt about it. But there was still resistance, and that resistance grew greater the further in I pushed. As I had before, I panicked when it felt like I could go no farther and was trapped. This time, I’d gotten in as far as my elbow. I yanked, and the gate released me.
I stared at my arm in the flickering light. If I’d faceplanted into the portal rather than using my hand, I could have gotten my whole body into the stone barrier, judging by the length of my arm that had successfully gotten through. I knew I should try that, but the idea was terrifying. I couldn’t imagine getting my entire body inside stuck inside that clinging resistance without completely losing my shit.
For long moments, I wavered, before finally wimping out and gathering up the torches. Feeding on animus had made it easier to push against the gate. It seemed more sensible to try doing that a couple more times in the coming days before coming back for a fresh attempt. If I still couldn’t make it, I’d have Fatima contact Nigellus for me so I could talk options with him.
“Any luck?” Fatima asked when I emerged.
“Almost,” I hedged. “I bet if I hang around in Hell for much longer, I’ll be able to do it. I don’t suppose you’re hiding any other female exhibitionists looking for a way to gain male attention?”
Fatima laughed, but I was only half-joking.
“From what I could see,” she said, “Sharalynn owes you now. Maybe she knows someone.”
“I’ll ask,” I answered dryly. “Though she’s already offered to help me with Dad, so I don’t want to push the boundaries too much.”
“Not to worry. If that girl has any boundaries, I’ve yet to see any evidence of it,” Fatima told me with a smile.
We walked slowly back to the settlement, the light from the three moons making the torches unnecessary now that they’d breached the horizon.
* * *
My days fell into a sort of pattern. I came up with ways to make the younger male population of the village happy—or more precisely, horny—so that I could feed more. Sharalynn nominated a female friend of hers for the massage routine on the first occasion, but the poor girl seemed way more nervous than Sharalynn had been at becoming the center of attention. The second time, I went solo, performing the most suggestive scantily clad yoga routine I could come up with, and that seemed to work all right.
It was interesting to me how well behaved everyone was, for lack of a better term. I always had a handful of hopefuls approach me directly after I put on a show, but they took no for an answer easily enough. That was more than I could say about many of the guys I’d known on Earth, and combined with the knowledge that I could protect myself, if necessary, by sucking their animus dry, it made me feel more secure about what I was doing than I might have otherwise.
Meanwhile, Li Wei and Sharalynn were as good as their word, stopping by regularly to help me with Dad. My father responded to Sharalynn’s presence on a few more occasions, though never with more than a simple sentence or two. However, he nearly gave me a heart attack by getting up from his cot and walking outside to sit on the chair I’d set up for him on the stoop one morning, when I was running late.
“Dad?” I asked hopefully, after hurrying out to him.
He frowned a little, and I thought for a moment that he might speak to me. But then he gave a faint shake of his head, as though dislodging an insect, and withdrew into himself once more.
As the days passed, I tried to stay focused on the here and now. To be honest, it wasn’t working very well. I slept poorly, my nights disturbed by dreams of Rans disappearing into thick fog, slipping away from me even as I tried to catch him.
Yeah… all right. I never claimed that my subconscious was big on subtlety.
I was still angry, but I was heartbroken, too. That seemed terribly unfair, given how hard I’d worked at not falling for him. I wondered where he was, and what he was doing. Had he moved on from St. Louis? Had he moved on from me? I ground my teeth together whenever I so much as thought about the possibility.
Of course he’d moved on. Just because I was walking around bleeding like someone had cut off one of my arms, it didn’t mean he was. It didn’t mean he hadn’t found some little doe-eyed human to seduce with those wicked blue eyes and perfect features. Someone to help him turn off the hamster wheel in his brain… someone, presumably, who didn’t have a host of skeletons in her family’s closet, and who didn’t need to be rescued all the damn time.
Christ. I needed to learn to relax my jaw when thoughts like that crept in, or I was going to end up cracking a tooth. And god only knew what the dental plan in Hell looked like.
I took up jogging almost as a form of self-defense. It was easier to keep my thoughts in the present when I was physically tired. I also started practicing the self-defense and knife-fighting moves I’d learned, even though I had no one to spar with. The humans here seemed fairly bewildered by the idea of running when you didn’t have to, and none of them appeared to have any clue about fighting.
It was kind of weird, honestly. I’d expected humans to be humans, no matter what realm they resided in. And humans fought with each other. The oddly peaceful nature of the place was starting to make me wonder about some things. Were the demons really as hands-off as they seemed to be? Was there something about Hell that calmed people down?
If so, it wasn’t working on me—more’s the pity.
The days were starting to run together, but I knew I’d been in Hell for a bit more than three weeks. I’d made two more attempts to get through the portal. The last attempt had been the best yet, but I still got the distinct impression that if I tried to push my whole body through, I’d get stuck halfway.
For that reason, last night’s insomnia session had been devoted to thinking about whether or not I should contact Nigellus and ask him to bind me. In a prime example of wishy-washiness, I’d decided to give it a few more days, arrange for another mass feeding, and try one more time on my own. If there was no noticeable improvement compared to my last attempt, I’d run up the white flag.
The way I saw it, there was no overwhelming reason why I needed to be able to leave right away. And while I was willing to trust Nigellus if it came down to it, I wasn’t exactly in a hurry to sign away the part of my soul that wasn’t already deeded to a certain undead English asshole.
The sun was low in the sky, and I was stirring a pot of the rice-and-lentil dish that seemed to be a staple here. Dad was dozing in his chair, but he startled me by jerking awake with a small gasp.
“Whoa,” I said. “Easy there. Did you have a bad dream?”
But Dad wasn’t looking at me. He was looking over my shoulder, at the far corner of the room. I turned to follow his gaze. My eyes fell on Myrial, who had popped into existence inside the small hut without any warning or invitation.
Again.
TWENTY-ONE
THIS WAS THE FIFTH time the demon had shown up unannounced since I’d arrived, and it was seriously grating on my nerves at this point.
“You could materialize outside and knock,” I pointed out helpfully. Then I cursed as a glop of rice detached from the spoon I was still holding and fell to the floor.
Myrial was in her female form, as she had been for every visit since the first one. She waved an airy hand. “Dear, we’re family. I didn’t realize you expected me to stand on ceremony.”
I mentally counted to ten.
“Myrial, I’m not trying to be rude. But it upsets Dad when you pop in like that.” Deep breath. Let it out. “And given that my kitchen skills aren’t the best to start with, doing it while I’m standing in front of a boiling pot is just asking for trouble. Now, why are you here?” And how soon can I convince you to leave?
“It�
�s your father I’m here about, dear,” Myrial said, as though I was somehow behaving unreasonably. “It’s been nearly a month. You need to make a decision about getting him some real help.” She gestured. “Look at him.”
I looked at him. Then I looked at her again.
“And by real help, you mean a soul-bond,” I said flatly. “I’ve already told you that I’m not ready to do something so… irreversible. Besides, he’s improving on his own.”
Myrial raised her eyebrows and waved a hand at him. “Is he?” she asked in a wry tone.
“Yes he is,” I snapped. “He responds to people sometimes, and I’ve seen him make decisions on his own about small things, like which food to eat first, or where he wants to sit.”
Myrial crossed her arms. “I find it interesting that you’re so resistant to something that could potentially make him whole again within minutes.”
I set the pot away from the flames and crossed my arms to mirror her. “And I find it interesting that you’re so set on doing this. You’re supposed to be immortal. Why would a measly month matter so much? What’s in it for you?”
Myrial looked offended. “He’s family. Of a sort, at least. Though I am starting to wonder if there’s some reason you don’t want him in full possession of his faculties.”
My temper flared, at least in part because the words hit too close to home. I’d reached a sort of peace with the current circumstances. There was no way Dad and I would be able to live together peacefully in a tiny two-room building for weeks on end if his mind and personality were intact. As it was, our relationship was more of an idea than an actuality. I took care of him—with the generous help of other people—and he didn’t say horrible or hurtful things to me.
He didn’t say anything to me.
But despite what Myrial was implying, that wasn’t the basis for my resistance to the soul-bond. It probably made me a hypocrite since I was contemplating just such a bond for myself, if that was what it took to be able to travel from Hell to Earth. But I trusted Nigellus… mostly. And I didn’t trust Myrial.
The Last Vampire Box Set Page 48
