Succubus Lips

by Lina Jubilee

  “I did not!” said Alarik, winding up a fist. “You lying, foul—”

  Xerxes sidestepped Alarik’s blow and spun, grabbing my arm and tearing me from Roulette’s grasp.

  “No!” said Rou.

  I didn’t have a chance to think about why she might have been so afraid before a wave of fog came over me and I went slack in the elf’s arms.

  “Unhand her!” insisted Alarik, but two of the elvish soldiers who’d stepped away from the wall grabbed his arms instead.

  I could barely register what was unfolding before me, my brain was such a fog.

  “What’s your name?” asked a voice beside me. The hand grasping my wrist was cold and clammy, the voice familiar and causing bile to rise in my throat, but its question demanding an answer.

  “Aurora Haddix,” I said, feeling sick.

  “Xerxes, if you hurt her—” Alarik. I thought. My head was swimming.

  “And do you have plans of escape from your elven captors, my dear Aurora?” asked the voice. Xerxes.

  “Yes,” I said before I could stop myself.

  The rumbling voice laughed, and I felt myself swaying on my feet. “You have no intention of helping us destroy the accomplishments of your own people, do you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Aurora,” said a familiar voice—Roulette, I thought. She was fuzzy, though. Everything was fuzzy.

  “And what about Alarik, our elven king?” asked the echoing voice in my ear.

  “Xerxes, I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish with this,” said that same elvish king. I giggled. It was like I was getting drunk. But it hurt, too. My head throbbed.

  “This king is besotted with you,” said the voice—Xerxes. “I can sense you feel an animalistic attraction to him, too.”

  Snickering, I tried to hide my smile behind my hand, but I tugged and forgot someone was holding tightly to my wrist.

  “But do you love him?” asked the voice. “Can you see yourself willingly giving him heirs to the throne?”

  “Yes and yes,” I said, then I giggled again.

  Murmurs floated throughout the room, gnawing at my brain like buzzing bees.

  My wrist went cold and I collapsed to my knees, my brain suddenly snapped back to life like it had been doused with cold water. Palms on the cold dirt floor, I took a deep breath, filling my lungs.

  “Aurora,” said Alarik at the same time Roulette spoke. Roulette appeared at my side and Alarik struggled to get out of the hold of the two soldiers keeping him at bay.

  “Starlight,” he said, his voice wavering somewhat.

  “Confine them,” said Xerxes as he strode over to the seat in the tree wall I’d assumed to be a throne. Leaning back in the chair, he stretched his arms high overhead before gripping the armrests.

  Two more soldiers surrounded Roulette and me and I cocked my head at her, as if to ask why she didn’t see if her powers would come up “harm” and blast these suckers away. With her flaring nostrils and tense muscles, though, she didn’t need to say a word. She just squeezed tightly to my arm and that was enough.

  What had they done to her?

  Alarik didn’t stop screaming about traitors and injustices the whole way as we were dragged down a flight of stairs and along a winding wooden hallway.

  Alarik paced the room, his lips flapping and sounds coming out on occasion, but nothing intelligible. For the first time, I wondered why this alien race seemed to converse in perfect English, and whether that was a show all for our benefit—highly unlikely, considering there had been plenty of opportunities for them to speak another language and keep us out of the loop.

  Not that I wasn’t grateful they hadn’t.

  Perhaps this dimension was simply one of infinite possibilities where humans had evolved into elves, keeping their love for nature at the forefront of their hearts, and cobbling together a language eerily similar from ours through a series of events…

  I didn’t know. I wasn’t Wade.

  “Your brother-in-law started a coup?” I asked.

  “He’s not wed to my sister—yet—but yes,” snapped Alarik, intelligible at last.

  Gnawing on her lip, Roulette leaned back against the headboard. I’d surmised from Alarik’s ramblings that this was his bedroom—perhaps they had no need for prisons here. Usually.

  I’d confirmed for her that Darien was safe at home, and she’d relaxed somewhat. Zander had told her as much when scouring Nelia for me in his mind last night.

  “So tell me what he did to me again?” I asked, looking at Roulette as much as Alarik.

  Shuddering, Roulette waited to see if Alarik would answer, but he’d taken to clutching the bedpost now—a bedpost that looked like the trunk of a small birch tree.

  “His power is to compel the truth to be spoken,” said Roulette quietly. “With a touch. That’s how he got me to speak about you. At least… I figured out as much.”

  Alarik seemed to come to life then, scrambling around the side of the bed we Natches were both seated on. He took my hands in his and went to his knees on the floor beside my calves. “Aurora, my starlight,” he said, now the gallant knight. He kissed my knuckles. “The one good thing to come of this—you… You feel it too.”

  Face flushing, I pulled my hands away from his grip, glancing at Roulette guiltily. She seemed unnaturally stiff as she narrowed her eyebrows at me. “They… When they asked me about you, he and his sister spoke of an attraction between you.” She looked to Alarik for confirmation or denial, but he said nothing, just hung his head low. “They said they could feel such things, though they didn’t feel anything between Darien and me.”

  I glared at Alarik then. “Because humans and Natches don’t give off tangible pheromones like wild animals,” I said.

  “Well, they said you did.” Roulette hugged her arms tight across her torso.

  “Rou,” I started. “Don’t give credence to—”

  “And now the truth guy, whose powers I know work, get you to admit you’re actually in love with him?” asked Roulette, her voice rising as her lips flattened into a curl.

  Roulette looked as if she wanted to smack me—and Alarik gazed up now from his continued position at my feet, his lips parted slightly.

  “I—no,” I said. “I can’t possibly love someone so fast—never mind the fact that he keeps leading the charge into my city and uprooting buildings, putting people’s lives at risk.” Looking down at wide-eyed Alarik, the tiniest bit of pain in his beautifully deep brown irises, I had to tear myself away, rubbing my forehead between my fingers.

  “And what about Nash?” asked Roulette, letting out an impatient huff. “And Jayden, for that matter?”

  Why does everyone insist there’s something between Jayden and me? Rubbing a finger over my lips, I remembered that kiss we’d shared at last and I mentally kicked myself for having zero self-control.

  Good thing she didn’t know about Zander to boot.

  “And what do you mean, you want to have his kids?” said Roulette, her voice growing louder. “When you thought you just might be pregnant with Nash’s, you said you weren’t ready—”

  “Who’s this Nash?” demanded Alarik, rising to his feet.

  Smacking my palm against my forehead, I shook my head, trying to shut them both out for a second. “I never thought about having kids, okay? When Wade figured out I couldn’t—I don’t know, I figured I’d deal with that someday, if I was ready to adopt… I just… Look, I never said I wanted this guy’s kids right now, right? Please give me a break. I don’t… I don’t even know what I want myself.” My lips dry, I pulled them in and ran my tongue over their surface before locking eyes with Alarik. His knees seemed to wobble, his tight expression softening, and he took a seat beside me at the edge of the bed. Roulette drew her legs closer to herself, pulling them against her chest and resting her chin on her knees. Her narrowed eyes didn’t leave Alarik.

  This was as good a time as any to explain to everyone present that
this was impossible—and also, that we had more important things to deal with just now.

  “Look, okay? You want me to be honest? I slept with this asshole last night,” I said, looking at Roulette more than anything. A slight shake of her head was all the indication she gave me that she’d heard.

  “Starlight,” began Alarik, but I put a finger to his lips. Startled, he actually went quiet.

  “And just so you know, that even if you weren’t my enemy, I have other men I’m attracted to—ones I can actually say I’m in love with and not question my sanity. As much.” I dropped my finger from his lips and set my jaw. “Multiple men.”

  A tiny scoff from Roulette was expected, but I didn’t imagine Alarik simply shrugging his shoulders. But that was what he did. “And this is this odd to you?” he asked. “My people believe in loving everyone they feel attraction to.” He rubbed a hand behind his neck, unsettling the silky green hair that hung over his shoulder. “I just… If you were pregnant with another man’s child, I wanted to know. It would affect succession.”

  There were so many things wrong with that sentence, I barely knew where to begin. “First, I probably—probably”—I emphasized, sending Roulette a careful look not to get into that just yet—“can’t get pregnant. The other time was unlikely and just a fluke.”

  Alarik shifted to cross his arms then and hung back a little, as if observing me.

  Sighing, I continued. “And secondly, I’d say you have more of an issue with holding on to that throne at the moment than you do worrying about your future line of succession, don’t you?”

  As if that served as a harsh reminder, Alarik took a sharp intake of breath. He shut his lips tight and looked to both Roulette and me. Then, tossing his shoulders back, he grabbed for my hand.

  “I love you,” he said, sending a tightness through my chest and a rumble between my legs. “I don’t care if you have others, but I’ve never felt this way with any of my lovers before. I don’t know… I don’t even know if I ever want to take another woman, elven or human.”

  Roulette snorted then and I had to shoot her a look to get her to stop rolling her eyes. At the enemy confessing his devotion to me. Okay, it did seem ridiculous. That is, it would seem that way to me, too, if I didn’t feel what I felt…

  Clenching my other hand tightly against the soft blanket beneath me, I steeled myself to get him to drop the subject, to focus on something that really mattered.

  “I don’t care if you can’t bear children,” he said. “I don’t care if you can and simply don’t want to…” He put his free hand to my cheek, the soft touch sending shivers down my spine. “You’re right. I’ll worry about succession later. After putting Xerxes in his place. I just want you to know—I love you. And you can always be with me, even if you always need to be with others, too.”

  I opened my mouth to speak and then shut it. There were so many things wrong with what he was saying—what I apparently felt myself when compelled to tell the truth.

  “I won’t help you take over Earth,” I said. “And by the way, I don’t know if you’re aware, but you’ve been attacking the same moderately sized town over and over—it’s like one-ten-thousandth the size of the whole Earth.” I looked to Roulette for confirmation, but she shrugged. “Or even less, I don’t know.”

  Alarik dropped his palm from my cheek and I snatched it, giving both his hands a squeeze. “So you had a lot more work to go. Not to mention, the military is probably working on ways to stop you whenever they can figure out where exactly you’ll appear and how long you’ll be there. And they—they can do so much damage to the planet in their efforts to stop you.”

  Roulette guffawed wryly. “You think he cares about…” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Alarik. “No, seriously? That’s what you were doing? Going on a crusade for Mother Earth?”

  “I…” Alarik’s bravado had waned more and more in the past few hours. He swallowed visibly. “I knew the planet must be large, and I knew you had technology that we don’t have…” He dropped one of my hands to pat the pouch at his belt, where I knew he’d stashed the MP3 player. I found myself smiling, and he met me with his own weak grin. “But I… It can’t be so hopeless,” he said, his voice growing quiet. “I have you two now—”

  “Ha,” said Roulette, and it was clear she didn’t find this very funny. “Not me. Not willingly.” She looked to me and I nodded. “And even if she wants to fuck you, she’s not going to do it again while it stands to potentially benefit an attack on our planet, right?”

  Reluctantly, I nodded, biting down on my lip. Yes, reluctantly. What is wrong with me?

  “Not even if I order you to?” said Alarik, his voice practically purring, his hand growing warmer and wetter in mine.

  Startled at the shot that sent to my groin, I gasped and pulled back out of his grip.

  “Oh, brother,” said Roulette.

  Clearing my throat, I stood. “Okay, enough of this. Rou, you can still use your powers, right? Alarik, you too?”

  Roulette flicked her palm lazily at a tree trunk table and shot it with what turned out to be a white light, causing the dead lumber to burst forth with flowers. “Yup,” she said, quickly closing her hand and shutting off the light.

  “That means Alanna isn’t nearby,” I said, looking to Alarik. “Right?”

  He nodded, his face grim. “She could be somewhere in the village—she must be, surely, Xerxes wouldn’t be so cruel as to send her away—but she’s not within five hundred tree limbs from us right now. Or we’d lose our powers.”

  “Tree limbs?” I asked, wondering how they determined the average length of something that came in all shapes and sizes.

  He nodded. Okay, so there was something different about the language anyway.

  “So what are we waiting for?” I asked. “I can boost…” Roulette shot me a look before I could continue. “I can boost one or both of you—it’s just for a few minutes, Rou—and then we’ll get out of here.”

  “And go where?” asked Roulette. “In case you didn’t get a good look, this whole planet is full of giant warthog creatures out to get you. There are no other places to go.”

  “No other cities?” I asked Alarik, who looked confused that I’d even ask. “No other elven settlements?”

  He shook his head. “Nelia is the heart of Mother Nelia as a whole. And it belongs to the mother goddess. My people are just caretakers allowed to live in it.”

  Hmm, well, that was more admirable than the positions humans took—but then again, there were far too many of us to try to attempt to squeeze all together in one giant tree.

  “But so what?” I said. “At least we’ll be away from here, away from the coup. Maybe we could just rough it in the wild.”

  “Even if that were tempting, and it’s not,” said Roulette, leaning back against the pillow and crossing her hands beneath her breasts like Sleeping Beauty, “it wouldn’t be home. It just… wouldn’t be home.”

  You’d think she’d been imprisoned here for years instead of two days. I pounded a fist on the soft blanket, but it didn’t make much of an impact. “Then what do you propose we do?”

  “Don’t ask me. You’re here to rescue me, aren’t you?” She frowned. “Or maybe you’re just here to fuck him.”

  “Rou,” I said, urging her to heed the warning.

  There was a knock at the door and Alarik shot to his feet, his hands reaching for a dagger that was no longer there. His traitorous guards had taken it when they’d shoved him in here with us.

  “Your Majes—er, Alarik,” said a voice, soft and familiar.

  “Tianah?” he asked, striding to the door. He opened it. It wasn’t even locked.

  Oh, my freaking god. He—and Roulette—really didn’t believe there was anywhere to run, did they? Had no one ever heard of camping?

  Tianah carried a tray of food past two guards at attention, followed by another—Normak, who had his hands similarly full. Alarik shut the door behind them as they made their wa
y to the table that had grown a few new blossoms.

  Tianah gasped, her cheekbones becoming prominent as she put the tray down. The liquid—in a wooden cup—sloshed slightly and I noticed her limbs were trembling. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  Alarik’s fast-paced strut to her side startled Normak as he nearly mowed the other elf man down. “Isn’t it? And that was before the healer got my consort’s boost.”

  “I have a name,” said Roulette, not even bothering to lift her head from the pillow. “And Rora hasn’t agreed to be your consort yet, buddy.”

  Normak put his tray beside Tianah’s and I shrugged, figuring at least Xerxes didn’t wish us to go hungry. Alarik gestured wildly, practically bouncing on his feet. “You see how my plan to take over the human planet could work—”

  Roulette shifted to lean back on her forearms. “Hey, I just explained to you that I have no interest in helping you. Can’t speak for Aurora, apparently—”

  Gaping, I shook my head and rubbed a careful hand up my neck. I wouldn’t help Alarik take over Earth. That much should have been obvious.

  “We have to at least try, though,” said Alarik, his voice going hoarse as the smile vanished from his lips. “Right?” Was he seriously asking that? I didn’t know how he expected to force Roulette and me to try his boosted-vine-growing plan. If we ever even got back to Earth to begin with.

  The two elves exchanged a glance.

  “Your Majesty,” said Normak quietly. “We can send you there.”

  Alarik blinked. “You would do that? Against the order of Xerxes?”

  “Xerxes is not my king,” said Tianah, her shoulders pushing back as she tightened her fists at her sides.

  Alarik studied them and then nodded, running back to my side and yanking on my arm to pull me around the other side of the bed, where he tugged on Roulette’s arm, too.

  “Hey,” she said as she stumbled up and to her feet.

  Tianah and Normak stepped several feet apart and opened their arms wide, as if holding on to an invisible circle.

  “What?” I said, my brain slower to catch up than my eyes.