by Cassie Ryan
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Teaser chapter
Praise for the novels of Cassie Ryan
“From the first erotic word to the last sensual line, Ceremony of Seduction weaves a spell around its reader and doesn’t let go.”
—Joyfully Reviewed
“An incredibly creative read. If you’re looking for a sexy escape, you’ll find it here.” —Romantic Times
“Ms. Ryan creates a bold and beautiful world . . . I highly recommend it.” —Night Owl Romance
“An amazing journey between two worlds. Definitely a book that, once opened, won’t be closed until the final page has been read.”
—Kate Douglas
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2010 by Cassie Ryan.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. BERKLEY® SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / October 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ryan, Cassie.
Seducing the Succubus / Cassie Ryan.—Berkley Sensation trade pbk. ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 9781101453568
I. Title.
PS3618 Y33S43 2010
813’.6—dc22 2010027827
http://us.penguingroup.com
In memory of Anna Smith
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my amazing agent, Paige Wheeler, and my wonderful editor, Kate Seaver, for seeing promise in my wacky story idea about four succubi in Hell’s version of the witness relocation program . . . and not laughing me out the door. You both rock!
Thanks to the entire crew of my local Starbucks. This entire book was written there in my favorite squishy chair. So for all your support, terrible jokes of the day, love, encouragement, laughter . . . and of course all the Chai . . . my undying thanks.
Last and most important, thanks to Jon and Darian for not only enduring living with a writer, but doing it with humor, understanding, and love. I couldn’t do this without you guys!
1
“Dinner time, gentlemen,” Jezebeth said to herself as she raked her gaze over the many men crowding into the darkened club.
The heavy beat of hip-hop music thumped through the soles of her knee-high lace-up boots and made her heart beat faster as anticipation curled deep inside her belly.
A long mahogany bar ran the length of the back wall, and dozens of men crowded around jostling for their turn to order a drink. In the middle of the room scantily clad women gyrated on four raised platforms while colored laser lights panned over the audience in regular intervals, briefly illuminating the smoky atmosphere. Not that Jez needed the light. One of the perks of being a succubus was being able to see in the dark—not to mention sense and smell the sustenance-giving potential of those beings around her.
Her searching gaze fell on a large human male sitting at a back table with broad shoulders and just the right amount of muscle. A glowing aura of nearly white energy surrounded him like a pulsing mist, and Jez’s skin ached with longing—the succubus equivalent of a stomach growl. The size and general health of the man’s aura told her not only that he’d feed her well but that taking his energy and tempting him toward good or evil would also give her great brownie points with her boss, Lilith, the succubus queen. Especially since Jez was behind quota this month—again.
Jez concentrated on the man and a slow warm tingling flowed through her as her body shifted to become whatever form the man most desired.
She glanced down to see her now-overgenerous breasts nearly spilling out over a tight-laced bloodred corset, her skin milk-pale and her body fully curved. She wore a tight black miniskirt and short black ankle boots that displayed a winding rose tattoo snaking up her right leg to disappear under her skirt.
This body was shorter than she was used to, and she had to crane her neck and stand on her tiptoes to keep the man in her line of sight over the tightly packed crowd.
Jez reached up and tried to fluff out her hair, surprised to find it short and spiky instead of long and flowing. She shrugged as amusement spilled through her. The preferences of men were wide and varied, and as long as they provided her with what she needed, she didn’t care what form she had to take to get it.
Well—that was almost true.
There had been forms she’d outright refused to remain in.
She shuddered in memory of some of the more bizarre bodies men had desired her to take and wrangled her thoughts back to the situation at hand—dinner.
Jez started forward, weaving her way through the crowd, her gaze fixed on her target where he sipped his drink and watched the dancer on the nearest platform as she spun expertly around the golden pole using only her muscular thighs.
As Jez neared, the man turned his head, and she could tell the exact moment he became aware of her. His movements stilled and his gaze did a slow and very thorough exploration of her from head to toe and then back again. When he was finished, his lips parted in surprise and the bulge just behind the fly of his jeans grew larger in response.
Jez smiled at him from
under her lashes and wet her bottom lip with her tongue, suppressing a small giggle as she tasted strawberry-flavored lip gloss.
His blue gaze burned into hers for a long moment before Jez stepped close and straddled him, making her already short skirt ride up high around her thighs. She sat on his lap and pressed close against his erection. The sensation of rough denim against the sensitive skin of her bare pussy was exquisite. She rubbed herself against him and laid her hand over his chest, noting how his heartbeat thumped a strong pulse under her palm and the energy surrounding him surged higher, tingling against her skin in tiny static electric shocks.
To her surprise, he didn’t push her away or show any signs of protest. For someone with such a clean aura, she’d expected a bit of a challenge, but she definitely wasn’t going to complain.
She leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “Buy me a drink?”
His strong hand settled against her lower back, the heat from his skin burning through the corset and making her pussy throb in anticipation of what was to come. She pulled back slowly, allowing her breath to feather against the side of his neck until she could look into his eyes.
“Only a drink?” he asked with mischief and lust dancing in the blue depths of his eyes.
Jez smiled and leaned forward again so her breasts pressed against his chest as she brushed her lips over his.
His lips were warm, and he growled deep in his throat and then deepened the kiss, exploring her mouth long and slow.
The tangy taste of Jack Daniel’s made her smile. That explained his lack of restraint. A few more drinks would probably make her job all that much easier.
His kisses were a bit sloppy and clumsy, but he made up for that with enthusiasm and the promise of a great energy payoff in the end. With one large hand he cupped her breast roughly, the hot possession making her gasp against his mouth.
She kissed him again, hard, and the familiar tingling and liquid warmth sensation of his life-energy siphoning into her hummed through her veins, ripping a long moan from her throat. Jez sighed against his lips as her clit hardened and slick moisture formed between her labia.
This was only an appetizer, but already her gnawing hunger receded and her skin tingled with vigor. She threaded her fingers into the man’s soft hair, capturing him close as she continued to kiss him.
Two sharp taps on her shoulder surprised her and she turned, ready to deal with a bouncer or an angry girlfriend.
Instead, she found a four-foot imp.
It was shamrock green with two tiny yellow horns poking out the top of his knotty head. His glowing red eyes reminded her of twin laser pointers, and he smiled revealing jagged yellow teeth. “Mind if I cut in for official business, Jezebeth?”
“What the hell is that?” The man stood abruptly, dumping her off his lap so she landed hard on her bare ass against the cold concrete floor.
A high-pitched squeak escaped her just before sharp pain radiated up her back from the hard landing. She turned to glare at the imp, who only smirked and shrugged.
Jez pushed to her feet, pulling the short skirt down around the tops of her thighs as she straightened and smiled up at her now-spooked dinner. “It’s okay.” She gestured toward the imp. “It’s leaving.” She took a step toward the man, but he held up a hand stop-sign fashion between them.
He shook his head and backed away from her, rubbing his eyes as if he thought he might be hallucinating. “I think I’ve had a little too much to drink if I’m seeing things already.” He took one last longing look at Jez before turning and melting into the crowd.
Jez sighed as the hip-hop song ended and a slow bluesy number started up in its place.
Since no one else in the bar was running away in horror, the imp was probably shielding his true form from all the human eyes—except the man she’d targeted. “Couldn’t this have waited another hour or so?” she said loud enough to be heard over the music.
“Lilith sent me to tell you Semiazas has escaped his prison and seeks revenge on you and your sisters.”
An icy chill of fear danced down Jez’s spine and bile threatened to inch its way up the back of her throat. She swallowed hard before she risked speaking. “How long do I have?”
The imp cocked its head to one side as if considering. “It took me several days to find you. Unknown.”
She swallowed back the fear that tried to smother her. “And my sisters?”
“Other messengers have been sent to warn each of them in turn.”
The sound of wrenching metal accompanied by an animalistic growl that prickled every hair on Jezebeth’s body grated through the air, sending patrons screaming and running in all directions. Sharp, hot anger churned inside her stomach, and she trained her narrowed gaze on the imp.
“You bastard, you led him right to me!” She reached out and grabbed the imp around the neck with both hands, lifting him off his stubby feet.
The imp kicked Jez in the stomach. Pain curled through her as the air was knocked out of her, causing her to loosen her grip on the imp as she doubled over. She rested her hands on her knees as she tried to suck in a new breath.
The imp’s smug laughter sounded from nearby. “I fulfilled my promise to Lilith, I delivered the message. And now I’ve paid a debt I owed to one of the bounty demons as well. It’s a good day all the way around.”
When Jez could finally draw a breath, the stench of fresh sewage crossed with rotting flesh filled her lungs and stung her eyes. She stumbled backward, trying to put distance between her and the demon, but by the intensity of the stink she knew it was already too late.
The sweeping laser lights showed the crowd of humans still streamed toward the exits. The bluesy music continued to play like a macabre accompaniment to the human screams, sounds of breaking wood, and screeching metal.
Jez dodged around overturned tables and chairs, trying to lose herself in the crowd of stampeding humans.
As she neared the exit door, her survival instincts screamed and her gut clenched, surging adrenaline through her body as she whirled to look behind her.
A flicker of movement was all the warning she had before red-hot pain sliced through her shoulder and left arm and she found herself flying backward. Her back smacked against something hard, and her breath whooshed out for the second time in a few minutes.
She gasped against the pain, even as her brain belatedly told her she’d been slammed against the wall. A few long seconds later, she glanced up into the glowing red eyes of the bounty demon.
Fear and frustration warred inside her belly as she struggled against the poison-tipped demon’s claws that were sunk inside her arm and shoulder, pinning her back against the wall. Her movements were sluggish, which told her the poison had already begun to affect her.
“Jezebeth, follower of Lilith. Finally, we meet.” The demon’s hot, rotten breath huffed against her face with each cultured word. It towered over her, the laser lights flashing off its thousands of jagged sharklike teeth. Mottled black skin covered every inch of the demon and maggots and worms crawled along its flesh in a constant sea of putrid motion.
A pestilence demon.
Jez tried to ignore the shiver of revulsion as some of the maggots slid off the demon’s hands and crawled onto the bare skin of her shoulder.
She shoved aside her fear, glared up into the demon’s glowing red eyes and raised her chin. “You’d better hope Lilith never finds you. She’ll rip you into tiny little shreds to send back to your master.”
The demon laughed. “The size of the reward that Semiazas has on you will go a long way toward protecting me from the anger of the queen of the whores, little one. Besides, you’ll be dead long before that.” He opened his mouth revealing ten rows of razor sharp teeth, and Jez tensed as she waited for the deathblow.
A sizzling sound drowned out the music, and the stench of burning flesh filled her lungs just before the demon’s jaws snapped closed like a deadly animal trap just an inch from her nose. The demon let out a high-pitch
ed squeal and wrenched his claws out of Jez’s flesh.
White-hot pain sliced through her, and she crumpled to the floor as she was freed from the demon’s grip.
“Run!” shouted a very deep voice.
Not about to argue and waste her chance to escape, Jez scrambled toward the door on all fours, trying to ignore the sudden rush of warmth down her arm as blood gushed out of her wound.
Another loud squeal from the demon made her glance back as she pushed to her feet.
A human male nearly as tall as the demon stood holding a Super Soaker toy gun Rambo style in front of him. There was no trace of fear in his gaze as he pumped the gun and then shot a stream of liquid toward the demon.
A sound like a thousand skillets of frying bacon filled the air along with another keening sound from the demon. The demon convulsed as plumes of black acrid smoke rose toward the ceiling in lazy curls.
The man turned his head toward Jez as if he sensed her scrutiny. Their gazes locked and Jez jumped like a guilty child caught eavesdropping. “I said run, damn it!”
The terse command jogged her out of her reverie, and she turned and stumbled out the door along with the last few straggling humans.
Cold night air hit her blood-soaked clothes, and Jez gritted her teeth against the sudden round of gooseflesh that marched across every inch of her skin. She envisioned herself whole and healthy and wearing long sleeves, tennis shoes, and jeans.
When no familiar warm tingling signaled her body changing forms, Jez huffed out a breath as frustration churned inside her belly. “Damn.”
As a succubus, blood loss and cold alone wouldn’t kill her, but those would make her more vulnerable to those who could kill her. Besides, it was her fault the human was inside facing off with a pestilence demon. But she couldn’t do anything to help him in her present condition.
