Counterpart (Succubi & Incubi Assn.) (22 page)

There was a distant yell coming from the town square, grabbing
Bethany
’s attention. There must
have been an announcement that she didn't hear. She was in that much of a deep
sleep that she wouldn't have heard the crier’s bell.

And just because of that, the sunken feeling inside her grew.

She gripped at the fabric of her dress, lifting it so it didn't drag
on the ground as she walked quickly to the square.
Bethany
wasn't one to miss out on
announcements. Considering what she was, the announcements were of an
importance, especially when she fed the night before.

“Everyone needs to keep their eyes open. If something is out of the
ordinary then you must report to us.”

Bethany
walked up to the back of
the crowd. The whole town was here. She scanned the area, looking for either
her sister or Conrad. She frowned when she spotted her lover on the other side
of the crowd. He didn't seem happy—no, he looked pained. What was going on?

“How do we know what we're looking for?” A female asked, holding a
scared child securely to her side.

“We're looking for a woman. Described to be beautiful, addicting,
intoxicating, and she has the power to seduce you. She is a threat to our
people and especially, our kids.”

Concerned murmurs started, mothers held their children tightly,
husbands comforted their wives. Warning bells went off in
Bethany
's head. She didn't like
what was being told and she took a step into the shadows, obscuring the view of
her. No, this can't be happening. This shouldn’t happen.
Bethany
was hanging on every word
that the town crier was speaking, and with every breath she inhaled, a searing
pain ached at her chest.

She knew what was coming.

“Do we know who we are looking for?” someone called out.

“Yes,” the crier answered, “we have a name.”

Bethany found herself stepping further into the shadows, wanting
them to engulf her and take her away. Her eyes flicked over the crowd, pausing
when they spotted Conrad staring right back at her. His face was still pained
but at the sight of her being there, the pain stung more. He knew what was
going to happen too.

Her eyes never left his and her mouth formed the words “I’m sorry,”
but not even she could help but wonder if that was even enough. Conrad's eyes
narrowed, pain stricken as she confirmed his thoughts. He was losing her. After
all the pain of being together, the climax of it was starting to hit.

Bethany
kept her eyes connected
with his. An ache behind her eyelids formed and she swallowed down the lump in
her throat. Conrad took a step forward, wanting—no, needing to comfort her and
take her away from here to live their lives in a secluded area. When she took a
step back however, he got the message. It hurt him, but he understood. If he
was to move anywhere near her, they would find her. He didn't want that. It
killed him that he couldn't go to her.

The next words that came out of the crier's mouth confirmed their
thoughts, and
Bethany
felt a lone tear roll down her cheek.

It was their nightmare, coming to life.

“Her name is Bethany Judith Smith and we want her, dead or alive.”

“She told a human?” I exclaimed. My mind was still processing the
whole story, and I was lucky that I even managed to stay on my seat. “I thought
you got done for that?”

“You do, now,”
Rosa
confirmed, “back then the SIA wasn’t around. It was because of her that we even
established. If we wanted to live on Earth and prey on humans, we needed to set
some boundaries.”

And oh how those boundaries became annoying after a while.

A part of the story itched in the back of my head, nagging me to
ask. “How was Conrad immune?”

There was a small smile on
Rosa
’s face, like she was reliving a happy memory. “Actually, it’s so
simple that you'll never guess.”

“Did they do the dirty and
bam
, he's immune?”

The smile slipped and disappeared from her face. “No.”

It was worth a shot. “Then I'm out.”

“I told you, you wouldn't guess,” she said.

“Yes, but if you say something like '
you'll never guess
',
usually it means, '
oh hey, you'll never guess what happened, but I bet
you'll get it in the first try'
.”

It was like there was a big zit on my forehead with the way she was
looking at me. “What's the point in saying it if you know the other person is going
to get it?”

I motioned around the area we were in, even if it wasn't Earth.
“Welcome to the twenty-first century. So are you going to tell me or no?”

It took her a while to get out of her bewildered state, her mind
obviously trying to get around the language of this generation.

I was curious to know how this
Bethany
person made a human immune, not because I was interested or
anything—actually, no, I was totally mind-fucked into this story. It was like I
picked up a best seller, and now my life revolved around it.

“She transferred part of her demon into him,”
Rosa
said, catching me by surprise.

This would be the time where my ass would meet the floor in
astonishment. “You can do that?” I exclaimed.

Rosa
nodded. “Bethany and I were the only
ones capable of doing it. I was actually surprised when she came to me to say
that she had done it. I was such a proud creator.”

Well that sucked. Only they were capable of doing it, so I guess me
even trying it was out of the question. I can’t even enter dreams yet.

If I found out my creations succeeded at something, I’d be like a
proud mother too—wait. “You're the creator?” My mind was really slow at picking
things up today. “You created me?”

Rosa
shook her head instantly. “No. This
was only back then. Now, the demons choose their holders. I'm just there to
watch over.”

Interesting. “So, I’m like a hostage, technically?”

“Not as such, but close enough.”

Nice.

My mind ran through the story again, picking out things that
intrigued me. I almost felt jealous that they got to have this connection, when
I'm stuck trying to even commit to a friendship with a guy. I wondered how it
would feel to have that with Tristan. Would it make everything easier?

Then there was the ending of it all. They found out about her. I
could just imagine how it would feel if that were me. Yet, it seemed...
unfinished in a way. “What happened to her?
Bethany
, after everyone found out?”

I could feel something fall down amongst us, like I hit a sensitive
subject.
Rosa
was staring down
at her nails, her lips set in a straight line. “She died.”

The silence that soon came was filled with sadness—from me. I
couldn't tell what
Rosa
's face
was, and her body was showing no signs of anything. I could feel tension
though, as if I shouldn't be asking about it. I was just so curious though and
it was getting the best of me. “The town people found her?”

“No,” she said quietly, bringing her dark eyes back up to mine,
“someone much worse.”

Rosa
stood her ground at the head of
the circle. The original five succubi would be standing here, but no, she was
missing two of her people. And she knew why.

“Are you telling me that one of our own has killed another?” Rosa
resisted the urge to throw something, but the temptation was getting too much.

“
Rosa
,
I am just passing on what I know.” The incubus looked down on
Rosa
with sympathy, she could see
it. Not once had succubi and incubi worked along one another, and
Rosa
knew that she could appear
vulnerable at any time. “Bethany's head was given willingly to the town people,
by Cassandra.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” I needed to interrupt before I had more things
thrown at me. “We didn’t get along with the incubi? I thought you created
them?”

It was quite sad, but I couldn’t imagine a life without incubi. They
were like the apples to our pies or some bullshit like that. It was simple
though, we needed them as much as females need the male population.

“At first, no, we did not see eye to eye on a lot of things. Males
in general are very dominant creatures. Just because I created them doesn’t mean
they liked me. Recently, we have managed to configure a relationship between
the two, and now we work together.”

“By recently, you mean?”

“A century, give or take a decade or two.” She shrugged. “Can I get
back to the story?”

“Sorry, continue.”

The annoyance of having the incubus around was nothing compared to
the fury that was within
Rosa
. If there was anything that could ruin everything it would be this.
She tried to swallow down the anger inside her, not wanting to lose control at
this moment. “Where is she?”

“Right here.” Cassandra showed up behind Rosa, a bored look on her
face. It only infuriated
Rosa
more.

“You have gone against everything I had said.” The concrete walls of
the underworld shook with every word that came out of
Rosa
’s mouth. Just the sight of
Cassandra pushed the thought of controlling her temper away. “You have released
our secret into the Earthrelm.”

As much as
Rosa
had power over every succubus and incubus, Cassandra wasn't at all
intimidated. In fact, she rolled her eyes. “It needed to be done.
Bethany
was going to be the reason
we were revealed.”

“Yet you were the one who did it, why Cassandra?”
Rosa
stepped towards the brunette
and a trickle of flames followed. “Tell me why.”

Cassandra held a slight point of fear on her, but it was simply
diminished. “Neither succubi or incubi should ever be involved with humans. You
let her be with one. If anything, you let our people down.”

“I did nothing of the sort.”

“Really,
Rosa
? So when the rest of us feel that connection with a human, the
human dies, but when
Bethany
does, she is all of a sudden a liability? Tell me how fair that
is.” Cassandra's voice rose with every sentence she spoke.

“That is what this is all about, because I sent
Bethany
to kill your humans? I did
that for a good reason, Cassandra. You were getting too close.
Bethany
was a different story.
Conrad was immune.”

“Conrad was immune because
Bethany
transferred her soul into him. How is that fair,
Rosa
? It's not. Why do we have to
suffer while she lives happily ever after?”

Rosa
stopped mere inches away from
Cassandra. She knew why Cassandra was angry. She understood where she was
coming from. But
Rosa
also knew that she was not telling all of the truth. “The only
connection you were forming with humans was a connection so you could make them
your puppets. That is not how we work, Cassandra. We blend in with the humans,
feeding off them, never do we repeat. If you were truly in love with a human,
you would have found a way to make them immune. But you did not, instead
Bethany
did and you got jealous.
That's why she's dead.”

Cassandra didn't speak, only because she knew
Rosa
was telling the truth. She was
taken-back by the remark and not a single retaliation came to her head.

“You can leave.”
Rosa
looked down at the succubus with pity. “Because of you, we are
known to the humans. So, as your punishment you can leave. Do not come back.
Survive up there with no support from the council.”

Cassandra narrowed her eyes at Rosa, trying to catch a bluff from
her creator. “You would really do that?”

There was nothing but a hard face from
Rosa
when she said, “as much as you
would kill your own sister.”

“Talk about family drama,” I murmured. How could her own sister do
that to her? I get that jealousy was a key part in this but seriously, she
would kill her own sister over it? I couldn't even imagine if Melinda killed
me, even though she wasn't my sister—she was close enough. I didn't count
Delilah in this, only because the only time she'd ever been a sister to me was,
well... never.