by Winter Fox
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
He looked sad, I thought.
“You didn’t come,” I whispered through cracked, dry lips.
He didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t sure if he had heard me. But he lifted a bottle of water from the table beside the bed, and pressed it to my lips. I needed no further encouragement, I was parched. Unable to actually remember the last time I had drunk anything.
When I was finished, I looked down at myself and noticed an IV line going into the back of my hand. Fear twisted its way through me, and I reached over with my other hand; trying to remove the foreign object.
His larger hand gently wrapped around mine. “Leave it for now. You were severely dehydrated when you got back. Fuck knows when Erebus last gave you water.” His voice grew dark and angry at the mention of his cousin.
The water had given my mouth enough moisture to make another attempt at speaking. “Where is he?” I needed to know he couldn’t get to me.
Adonis frowned. “I don’t know. But he won’t come back here. He knows I’ll kill him if he does.”
I turned my head away from him as tears started to trace their way down my face. He reached out and tenderly stroked my cheek with the back of his hand. “I’m so sorry I didn’t come sooner, Cara.”
I refused to look at him. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course, it fucking matters.” The dark anger had returned to his voice. “I can’t even imagine what he put you through over the last seven days.”
I shrugged, turning to meet his eyes with my own. “He was only preparing me for the truth. Wasn’t he?”
“No,” he snarled.
I was too tired to be afraid of him any longer. And too many parts of me had been broken to truly care about what he might do to me.
“You did this to me. You brought me here,” I whispered. “I remember you now, Adonis. The man in the bar, on business. I was your business, wasn’t I?”
He rested his elbows on his knees, dropping his head into his hands. “Yes,” he confessed.
I blinked back tears. “You and your family have owned me for my whole life.”
It wasn’t a question, but he answered me anyway. “Not me. I had no idea you existed until I was sent to collect you.”
“Sent by your father?”
He lifted his head. His eyes were wide with shock. “How do you know that?”
I gave a soft laugh. “Your family have a very distinctive name. When I found out that your father was Charles Olympus, I knew that he was the man who murdered my father.”
“I’m sorry for what me, and my family have done to you.” He spoke with such sincerity that I found myself desperately wanting to believe him.
“What I don’t understand is why your father killed mine?” I kept my eyes on his as I asked the question; wanting to know if he was going to tell me the truth.
He considered his answer for a moment, but he never looked away from me—maintaining eye contact the whole time.
“Your father was killed so that my father could take you.”
I closed my eyes against the white-hot pain in my heart. My father was dead because of me. “That seems like a lot of effort for a six-year old girl,” I managed.
“You’re not just a girl, Cara. I think you know that.”
His words were enough to make my eyes snap back open. “What am I?”
He shook his head in bewilderment. As though he couldn’t quite believe what he was about to confess. “You’re a succubus, and possibly the savior of my kind.”
“Why would I want to save your kind?” I spat. “After everything you’ve done to me.”
He reeled back as though I’d slapped his face. “Honestly, I don’t know why you would,” he said sadly.
I felt my anger returning and it felt good. So much better than the pain. “So, I was supposed to become a brood mare for your family. Providing little succubus babies who would grow up into a world of rape, and torture?”
“You make it sound so sordid, eighty-eight.” He shook his head as he spoke.
“Of course, it’s fucking sordid,” I screamed. “It’s worse than sordid. You’re monsters, all of you. Evil fucking monsters.”
“Succubi are naturally attracted to incubi, and vice versa. We are the perfect mates for each other. Your daughters would eventually grow up to desire a pairing with someone like me,” he explained.
“Well I don’t. I don’t want a pairing with anyone like you Adonis. You make me sick,” I snarled. My mind was trying to clear away the horror of the last week, and if that meant using Adonis as a verbal punch bag, then so be it.
He leaned forward and took hold of my hands, pinning them against the bed. I realized that I had been balling them into fists, and I laughed aloud as I wondered if he was seriously worried that I might hit him.
“Eighty-seven women came before you, Cara. Not succubi, just women. They were trained just as you have been, and then they were auctioned off to die while giving birth to an incubus child. And those are only my trainees. There have been hundreds, no, thousands of others over the years.”
I snatched my hands back from him. “Yes, exactly. You’re a monster.”
“You don’t understand. An incubus child wouldn’t kill you, it would just be like a normal pregnancy. You could be the one who stopped all of the suffering for those human women. The natural order of things would be restored.” His eyes pleaded with me to understand him.
I was silent. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t care. It wasn’t my problem. It wasn’t my responsibility. But could I honestly turn away, and let these horrors continue? Could I allow Erebus to “train” his slaves in the same way that he’d trained me?
“You need to stop kidnapping women, and killing them,” I finally said.
He sat back, running his hands through his dark hair. “Even if I stopped right now. Do you think my father would? Do you think Erebus would? If we don’t fuck, we die, Cara. We live because those women die.”
I pulled my knees up and under my chin, until I was as far away from him as I could get. I wrapped the bedcover over me like a protective cloak.
“What happens when you have sex with a succubus? How come you won’t kill me?” Now that he had confirmed what I was, I was curious to know more about it.
He seemed to relax at the change to a more neutral topic. “Incubi and succubi feed off of each other. We can both regenerate the lost parts of our auras when we sleep together. So, I feed on you, and you feed on me. That explains why you never seemed as worn out by our time together as you should have been.”
I nodded. It made sense. Now I knew that Emma had been right about my aura.
“And I’m the only succubus left in the whole world?” I asked him.
His mouth twitched. “You are more precious than the most priceless jewels in the world.”
I met his sad eyes with my own. “You know. Once upon a time, I would have killed to hear somebody say that to me.”
He reached out to graze the back of his hand gently against my cheek. “I’m sorry you’ve spent so much of your life alone.”
For a brief instant, I forgot about who and what he was. I forgot about the hurt in my heart, and I leaned into his hand. Craving the comfort of his touch.
“You’re not going to let me go, are you?” I said softly.
A long pause. Then, so quietly I almost didn’t hear it. “No.”
I pulled away from him, holding my hand to my cheek, as though he’d hit me.
“I hate you,” I whispered.
He stood up, never taking his ice-blue gaze from my own eyes.
“I know,” was all he said, before he crossed the room and disappeared through the open door; letting it close softly behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Adonis
Adonis couldn’t remember if he had ever felt this low. It had made his chest tighten, and his heart hurt, to tell her that she was still going to be his prisoner.
When she had told him that she hated him, he felt the truth of her words tearing a void between them that could never be crossed.
He jogged down the stairs, and outside to his waiting car. He was going to see his father. He needed answers.
It had taken Adonis every single ounce of his famous willpower, to hold back from returning to his cousin’s house yesterday, and ripping the throat from every man there. Even the ones who hadn’t hurt her. They would have, once the first two had finished what they were doing.
He felt sick at the memory of her on that plinth, and what made him feel the most ill, was the fact that they were technically only doing what he and Erebus had done to her. She may have enjoyed her time with Adonis a little more, because he always took the time to properly seduce his trainees. But it was ultimately the same thing; she was being forced to give herself to him.
But now he realized, that in her eyes—her beautiful green eyes—he was no different to Erebus, or to his father. And, he believed she was right; he was a monster.
He wasn’t quite sure of the exact moment in which eighty-eight had gotten under his skin. But now she was there, it was as though he looked at the world in a completely different light.
She may have been shocked at how easily he had killed those two men. But Adonis was more shocked by how easy it had been to walk away from the others without killing them. The Adonis before Cara would have taken them all apart. Yet, his only priority in that instant had been her safety.
He pulled up to the front steps of his father’s office. It was time for Charles to tell him what eighty-eight had done to him.
Adonis breezed through the reception, and into the elevator. When he arrived at the right floor, he bypassed the receptionist who frantically tried to catch hold of his arm, and searched his father’s empty office.
He turned back to the small, dark-haired woman who was hovering behind him. “Where is he?”
“I was trying to tell you, sir. He’s in the conference room, in a very important meeting.” The woman whimpered.
Adonis checked the name on her badge, “Anna.”
“Thank you, Anna.”
Then, he made his way to the conference room door, and before Anna could stop him, he slammed the door open with so much force it ricocheted off the wall with a bang.
Twelve incubi were seated around the long conference table. His father was seated at the head of the table—facing the door. He leaped from his seat when Adonis burst into the room.
“Adonis, what in seven hells are you doing?”
“I’m so sorry, Mr Olympus,” Anna wailed from behind the doorframe.
Adonis ignored his father. Turning his attention to the other men. “Out.”
Charles was standing in front of him now, the toes of his soft Italian leather loafers almost touching Adonis’ boots. “Adonis, get the fuck out of this room. Now.”
Adonis glared at the men, who were still sitting in shocked silence. But his words were meant for his father’s benefit only.
“Shall we all discuss eighty-eight together then, Charles? Perhaps your colleagues would be able to offer me some advice.”
Charles’s face paled, and he gestured to the door. “Gentlemen. If you would be so kind. I would speak with my son alone.”
Adonis knew for certain then, that Charles was keeping Cara’s true identity a secret from the other incubi.
“Go on. You heard him. Out,” Adonis snarled. Waiting for them to leave; before slamming the door closed behind the last man.
Charles quietly returned to his seat, and sat back in the plush leather; before steepling his long, slender fingers together.
“That outburst just cost me a lot of money.”
Adonis stood at the opposite end of the table, facing his father. He laid the palms of his hands against the glossy mahogany surface of the table, and leaned forward.
“Erebus,” he said.
Charles shrugged. “He told me what you did. I’m still considering his request that you be disinherited as punishment.”
Adonis couldn’t believe his fucking ears. “Disinherited? Me? He stole my fucking trainee.”
In his first display of anger since Adonis had burst into the conference room. Charles raised both of his hands in the air; before bringing them smashing down against the wood of the table.
“You killed two fucking incubi, Adonis. You’re a loose cannon, you always have been. Now this woman has taken you over the edge. The council would be calling for your head if Erebus had told them what happened yesterday.”
“I’m surprised that he hasn’t,” Adonis replied coolly.
“Oh, trust me he wanted to. Only because I persuaded him to let me deal with you, did he swear to back off.”
Adonis suddenly felt as though there had been a power shift somewhere along the way. He had come here confident that his father would punish Erebus for what he had done. Stealing another trainer’s slave, was deeply frowned upon. He had been certain of his father’s support.
Charles appeared to calm down a little. He sat back in the chair, and shook his head slowly.
“I made a deal with Erebus. I won’t disinherit my only son. But in return for his silence on this matter, he can have eighty-eight back. Your cousin will continue with her training.”
“No,” Adonis snarled.
Charles raised one, gray eyebrow. “It’s not negotiable, Adonis.”
Adonis rapidly drummed his fingers against the table. A thousand thoughts flew though his mind, until he finally settled on the only compromise that he could think of.
“Do it the other way around. Disinherit me, but let me complete eighty-eight’s training first? It’s only seven more weeks.”
Charles’s eyes were wide. “Are you serious, boy? You would give up your family, your money, your home. For that whore?”
“She’s not a whore. She’s only what we’ve made her.” Adonis stood up straight as he spoke, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
“You would betray your whole family for Cara fucking Westenra? I should have killed her when I had the chance.”
“You mean when you killed her father? Your friend,” Adonis snapped.
“She’s a succubus, Adonis. The only one left in the world. She can change everything for us, and so I did what I had to do.”
“Did you really have to kill her father?”
“He wouldn’t have given her up. I know he had made plans to hide her from us. She was supposed to become your wife, you know. Once she came of age,” Charles sounded almost melancholy, as he strayed back into old memories.
“And instead you killed James, and she became my slave. It’s no wonder her father didn’t want her anywhere near me,” Adonis yelled.
Charles seemed to change his approach. “Listen to me, boy. She’s designed in the exact same way that we are. She’s a seductress. You must know what that means she’s capable of. You must have felt it. I’m guessing she’s been the most spectacular lay of your life, hasn’t she?”
Adonis’ face flushed. He couldn’t deny what his father was saying. It was true, all of it. He nodded.
“She’s caught you in her snare, Adonis. Just like you seduced all of those other women before her. I’m taking her away from you to protect you, not to punish you.”
Adonis thought this through for a moment. “You told me she was to be delivered on Christmas Eve. Obviously, she isn’t going to a house, she’s going to a person. If not me, then who will she belong to?”
Charles narrowed his eyes, and studied Adonis. It was as though he was trying to judge his son’s mood before he spoke. “Me. She’s going to be my wife, and if fate is agreeable, she’ll give me sisters for you.”
Adonis felt sick. By the time Christmas came, Cara would have been fucked by every single living member of his family. What was even worse, he knew that his father was not a kind man. He’d seen the state of some of the women he’d used in the houses.
“Why you?”
Charles pointed
to his missing eye. “Do you remember the night that I came home like this?”
Adonis nodded, still too disgusted to speak.
“It was the same night that I killed James Westenra.”
“So, because her father maimed you, you’re going to punish the woman who was six-years old when it happened?”
Charles laughed then. It was a long deep rumble. “Adonis, the father didn’t maim me. The six-year old did. And she’ll pay me back for it every day, for the rest of her miserable, fucking life.”
He had a sudden strong desire to laugh. Eighty-eight was the feistiest woman he’d ever met in his life. Six-years old, and she’d stolen the great Charles Olympus’s eye. He briefly wondered if she really could ever, truly be tamed.
His father frowned at him, and Adonis quickly sobered. Cara’s fire would be her undoing, his father would not tolerate a disobedient wife. Her new life was going to be a living hell for her.
A sudden thought occurred to him. “My history might be a little rusty. But don’t both parties have to be willing to create a child during an incubus and succubus union?”
Charles nodded. “Yes. We have always been considered equals in every way, and a succubus will not conceive unless she wishes to.”
“She won’t do it, you know,” Adonis said confidently. “She won’t let you get her pregnant.”
“If she refuses then I will beat her. Or perhaps I’ll send her back to Erebus and his friends. There are always ways to get what you want, son.”
Adonis was filled with a sudden disgust for the man who sat before him. He realized that he had to buy some time while he tried to work out a plan. “Let me train her? Please? I can persuade her to be compliant. I can talk the sense into her which she needs. I can shape her into a good wife for you. Erebus will ruin her, but I will ensure she comes to you willing to give you a child.”
Charles seemed to consider the offer for what felt like hours, when in fact only a few short minutes passed. He finally leaned forward in his seat, and spoke in a loud, clear voice.
“If I let you continue to train this woman, you must swear to abide by two rules?”
