by L. L. Frost
SUCCUBUS STUDIES: THE BLAZE
Copyright © 2017 by L.L. Frost
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the writer, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design by L.L. Frost
Book design by L.L. Frost
Printed in the United States of America.
First Printing, 2017
The (un)Lucky Succubus
Succubus Bargain
Serial Parts
The Offer
The Deal
The Terms
The Rules
The Gain
Succubus Studies
Serial Parts
The Torch
The Blaze
The Inferno
The Vortex
Table of Contents
(un)Decided
Fire and Ice
Crackles
Progress
One Step Forward
(un)Decided
The hunter steps forward, hand reaching out, and I leap away from him, closer to the cash register. Blood rushes through my body, wings bursting from my back to help me flee, but my chef coat traps them. They flap uselessly before snapping back to place along my spine.
Run, run, run.
The instinct shakes my bones, and I dart right to flee when a clatter from the kitchen reminds me I’m not alone. The imps. If I flee, they’ll be easy prey for the hunter.
My hand snaps to the cup of blue ballpoint pens next to the register, the only weapon available at the front of the shop. I raise the pointed end as I put myself between him and the kitchen.
“Stop!” The pink haired woman darts between us. The smell of clay and shadows tickles my nose once more as she waves slender arms in the air. “Reese will not harm you!”
“He’s a hunter.” My gaze darts down to meet her mahogany colored eyes, now wide with panic. “You’re not human. What are you doing with a hunter?”
She holds her hands out fingers spread wide. “Reese is not a hunter. Reese is special.”
The bell on the door jingles, and Slater, the DJ from Fulcrum, enters. “Hey, guys, I told you not to go in until I finished parking.” His smile fades as he takes in our stand-off. “What’s going on?”
“There’s been a misunderstanding.” The hunter’s mellow voice surprises me. He doesn’t sound concerned at all as he glances over his shoulder at the new arrival.
Slater’s dark-brown gaze narrows in on me. “I thought you said you were okay with the unusual. Reese is human, but Tally’s one of your kind.”
“Your kind?” I demand.
His eyebrows raise at my obliviousness. “Yeah, a foreigner.”
My nose itches with too many scents, but one thing I can say for sure is that Tally doesn’t smell like a demon. I point my pen at her. “What are you?”
Her arms drop to her sides, and she straightens with pride, the pink top of her head coming up to my nose. “I am baku.”
I laugh in disbelief. “No, you’re not.”
Dreamland keeps baku locked in, unable to cross the line into the human plane. They feed on nightmares and transform over time to take on resemble those dreams. Most have tusks, horns, and tails. The oldest of them become an amalgamation of an elephant and a tiger with a feathered ruff around their necks. Not humanoid at all. And not pink.
This woman embodies none of those traits. Instead, her heart-shaped face and wide eyes give her an air of innocence that begs me to trust her.
“I am,” she insists. “See?”
The wing tattoos on her shoulders shift, taking on an iridescent shimmer as it peels away from her skin to spread out behind her in a gossamer cloud that takes up four feet of space in either direction. A thin tail appears behind her, a pink tuft at the end.
With the revelation comes a flood of ozone and a heavy lassitude that tugs at my eyelids, encouraging me to sleep. On the display case, my sigil flares to life. It shoves the baku’s affects away while warning the demon it stands in my territory.
My arm drops to my side, my attention shifting between the three: the human, the hunter, and the baku. “I’m so confused right now.”
The baku’s wings shrink until they once more become a decorative tattoo, and her tail vanishes, along with the scent of ozone. Instantly, the back-and-forth ribbon of my sigil fades back to white and the image looks like a cupcake once more.
With her wings dormant, she no longer registers as a demon, which makes me more nervous than before.
“We’re sorry for the misunderstanding.” She takes a slow step back. “If you want us to go, we will.”
My focus shifts to the hunter, Reese, and my fingers tighten on the pen still clutched in my hand. I don’t know this demon-who’s-not-a-demon, and I have imps to think of. “That might be for the best.”
“I understand.” Her pink tinted eyes shimmer as she holds back tears, and my resolve wavers.
“Sorry, Tally.” Reese touches her back. “I shouldn’t have come today. I ruined this for you.”
My fingers spasm around the pen as my chest tightens. Oh, no, don’t let him be nice. Be strong, me.
“Don’t worry, Tails.” Slater abandons the doorway to move to Tally’s other side. Despite the dark glare he casts in my direction, his tone stays soft. “We’ll find you another place.”
“I know.” She snuffles quietly, the tip of her nose pink. “I just want to contribute to the household so much.”
Fuck my life.
“You and you.” I point at the two men, then to the booth farthest from the kitchen. “Go sit over there. Do not move. Do not approach my kitchen staff.” I point at Tally. “You, stop crying. You need to prove you can do the work before I’ll consider hiring you.”
“I can do the work!” She rushes over to grasp my hand, her bright smile displaying a tiny set of fangs. “I ate the dreams of three bakers last night. I’m confident in my abilities.”
“We’ll see.” Her skin feels unnaturally cool against mine, the scent of clay stronger, and I tug my hand free.
So she really is a baku demon. But how is she on the human plane? Her kind can’t take corporeal form. I stuff down the questions. They can wait until after I decide whether she can stay.
“I’ll test your decorating skills first. That’s the most important part right now.” I wait until the two men settle at their booth, then walk backward toward the kitchen, not ready to let them out of my line of sight. But when I reach the swinging door that separates the front from the back, I have no choice. Hand on the door, I call, “Coming through!”
Another clatter comes from the other side as I push through into the kitchen and freeze. My focus zeroes in on the island, now empty of magazines, then shifts to the mixer, spinning away in the corner with an empty bag of sugar on the cart next to it. Flour speckles the floor, with small footprints leading to the back pantry. A pan of water simmers on the stove top, a box of chocolate dangerously close to the flame.
No imps in sight.
Apprehension shivers down my spine as I spin on one heel to stare at the empty counter below the pass-through.
Tally peeks around me. “Where are the cupcakes?”
My shoulders slump. “I don’t know.”
What did I do to deserve this?
***
“Okay, so the first one we’re going to make is a sunflower.” I lift the cooled cupcake from the tray.
It only took an hour, but we’re back on track now. The imps reappeared as soon as the new batch of cupcakes went into the oven, and now they chatter behind us as they clean up their mess from earlier. Tally stared at them for only a moment before she gave a sharp nod, no questions asked.
“First, we put a layer of frosting on the cupcake.” I use the icing knife to scoop a small dollop of vanilla frosting from the bucket on the counter and smear it over the top of the cake. Next to me, Tally follows suit, her brows furrowed with concentration.
While she’s distracted, my attention shift to the pass-through. It gives me a clear view of the front, where the two men still sit quietly in their booth. Reese produced a sketchpad from somewhere and now hunches over it, pencil flying over the pages.
Across from him, Salter’s large body takes up most of his side of the booth. With his head shaved on the sides and his thick muscles, he’s ill-suited for the bakery. His blunt fingers tap against the table to a rhythm only he can hear.
“What’s next?” The question jerks me out of my eye stalking, and I glance at Tally to find her cupcake frosted in one hand, the icing knife in the other.
I shake myself to refocus. “Now we roll it in the brown sprinkles.”
With my cupcake held upside down, I gently dip it in the shallow bowl of sprinkles in front of us until they cover the white frosting. Tally follows suit, pressing a little too hard so that the wrapper crinkles. Before I can correct her, she eases back to roll the edges through the sprinkles to coat her cupcake.
She lifts it up to reveal one crushed side. Her shoulders droop as she looks up at me with wide eyes. “I can do better, I promise.”
“It’s okay. This is your first attempt.” With my cupcake, I motion to the large cooling rack next to us. “We have a lot to practice on.”
Next, I show her how to use the leaf-shaped frosting tip to pipe on bright yellow petals. Her first few attempts stop short, the tips jagged. By the time she gets to the second layer of petals, each one looks uniform and perfect. It makes me a little jealous. I spent a week perfecting this one, and all she did was eat dreams to gain the knowledge.
I shake it off, unwilling to wallow in negativity. We all have our own skills, and if she can learn fast, all the better for my bakery.
By the fourth cupcake, hers match mine perfectly, and I give her a break. She runs out of the kitchen, her most recent sunflower cake clutched in her hands, to show the men. Like a voyeur, I watch their interaction.
They seem comfortable together, happy even. Both men give her their full attention, seeming genuinely proud of her. It reminds me of the relationships I see on the happy-feel-good channels that always show movies of content couples.
What kind of relationship do they have? And why does my chest tighten watching them?
A light tug on the back of my chef coat pulls my attention away. I turn to find an imp behind me, dark eyes huge.
I study it, but can’t figure out which one it is. “Yes?”
“It is break time?” Its voice stays quiet as if unsure it should ask the question.
I glance at the clock and realize it’s already four in the afternoon. “Yes, I’m so sorry! Are you hungry? I can order food.”
At the offer of food, the other imps circle close in excitement, and I notice one now sports rainbow pigtails beneath its hairnet and stands a head taller than the others. I check the rest of its body. Still androgynous as far as I can tell through the chef coat.
“What’s your name?” I ask the rainbow one.
“Sabrina.” Its lips curl around the name, not unhappy, but not thrilled either.
“Would you like a different name?”
It shrugs, but interest fills its eyes.
I glance around the small group. “Would any of you like different names? You don’t have to keep the ones Julian assigned you. You have a choice, just like with the form you wear.”
The group shuffles together, uncertain for now, and I let it go. But I will stop by the bookstore, and tomorrow I’m bringing in a baby name book.
I pull my phone from my pocket. “Okay, Sabrina, what would you like to eat for lunch?”
Their heads dip together in quiet whispers before Sabrina announces. “Noodles.”
A smile pulls at my lips. “What kind of noodles? Spaghetti? Chow mein? Yakisoba? Ramen?”
Sabrina peeks at the others “Chow mein?”
“Okay.” I pull up the delivery listing for my area and find a Chinese place nearby. “Do you want egg, pork, beef, chicken, shrimp, tofu, or veggie?”
Around the group, eyes widen as they listen to the list. After another huddle, Sabrina says, “Shrimp?”
“Done.” I put two large shrimp chow meins in my basket, add a pork fried rice in my basket, then glance at the three in the outer room.
Manners and hospitality dictate I ask if they wanted food, but my bank account gives a silent whimper at the expense. Tomorrow, I’d bring in lunch.
I turn back to the imps and give them a severe frown. “I’m going into the front room. Do not touch these cupcakes or you won’t get your chow mein.”
They bleat in protest and scurry away to huddle around the kitchen island, long fingers gripping the edge of the stainless steel counter to keep them from temptation. I don’t trust they’ll be able to resist for long, though, and hurry through the swinging door into the front room.
My steps slow as I near the table. The hunter, Reese, glances up at me, his slit pupil freezing me in place. My heart leaps with instinctive panic, but I force a smile and raise my phone. “I’m ordering Chinese. Do you guys want anything?”
“That sounds good.” Salter smiles as he unwedges himself from the booth and closes the six feet between us. “Can I check the menu?”
“Sure.” I shove the phone at him, my eyes still locked with Reese’s.
He’s the boogeyman of demon kind, and I can’t bring myself to ignore it, no matter how cozily Tally snuggles up to his side. It doesn’t help he won’t stop staring like he can see past my corporeal form to the energy that rolls inside my core.
“You guys good with Mongolian beef?” Slater asks.
“Yeah, make it four star,” Reese answers without blinking. He tips his head to one side. “You’re a succubus, right?”
I skitter back a step. “What’s it to you?”
He shrugs. “You don’t look like the other succubi I’ve seen. You’re different.”
My wings rustle in irritation. “We’re not cookie cutter demons. We all look different.”
Is he implying I’m lacking in some way? While a little short, I’m attractive, just like the rest of my kind, but that doesn’t mean we appeal to everyone. Born of different passions and storms, we each have our own flair.
He tilts his head the other way, trying to get a different read on me. “Yeah, but—”
Tally pokes him in the side. “Stop it, you’re making her uncomfortable.”
“Sorry about my roommate. He’s an artist.” Slater hands back my phone and scowls at Reese. “He doesn’t understand that his fixation can make him creepy sometimes.”
Reese blinks and red floods his cheeks as his eyes drop to his sketch pad. “Sorry.”
“Whatever.” I check the shopping cart on the food app and fight down the urge to flinch at the total before hitting submit. The app goes into a hold window for a couple seconds before popping up with an estimated delivery time. “Food should be here in thirty minutes.”
“Really, I’m sorry,” Reese says again. He keeps his eyes down to avoid looking at me. “I haven’t been off my meds long. This is all new to me.”
Surprised, I take a step closer. “You were on medication?�
��
That eases my worry. The fairy touched who get on the anti-hallucination drugs early in life rarely become hunters.
“Yeah, until about a month ago.” He peeks at Tally with a shy smile. “A persistent demon convinced me I wasn’t crazy.”
“We know about hunters,” Slater adds. “We stay far away from those sadistic assholes.”
Tally nods, her pink hair falling across her eyes. “They’re evil.”
And back comes the worry. If they know about the hunters, does that mean the hunters know of Reese and want him to join them? Do they know about Tally, despite her questionable existence on the human plane? Will hiring her bring trouble to my door?
A hard knot forms in my stomach.
I’m already protecting a group of imps from my evil cousin, Cassandra. Can I afford to take on more potential danger, right before my bakery’s launch?
Fire and Ice
Despite my ergonomic, neon blue clogs, my feet ache by the time six o’clock rolls around. After our late lunch, Slater handed me a twenty and he left for his shift at the club. He planned to walk there and left the car behind for his roommates.
Between training Tally in cupcake design, coming up with tasks for the imps, and keeping a watchful eye on not-a-hunter Reese, my mind can’t focus anymore. By the time Tally and Reese leave, and Philip arrives to collect the imps, I barely have the energy to close down the bakery.
I replace the bowl of milk next to the ovens with a fresh one, and trade out the hard bread with one of the sunflower cupcakes, in the hope something sweeter will lure a Domovoi. While I’m not sure how the house spirits find the offerings, I hope a sweeter option will tempt one if any live in the bakery’s vicinity.
That done, I open the hatch on the side of the oven and coo, “Hello, Torch, thank you for your hard work today.”
