Succubus Shadows (20 page)

The men near me—four of them—were speaking in a language I didn’t know. They were arguing. One kept trying to come to me, but another stopped him. That one was terrifying. His features were nothing extraordinary—tall, with dark brown eyes and hair—but there was something about him that made me cold all over. There was power in him, power all around him. I could feel it and see it. It reminded me of sulfur. His eyes fell on me as he spoke harshly to the others, and I cringed further. I felt certain I knew him, but he still scared me.

Suddenly, another of the men exclaimed something and touched the dark-haired one’s arm. This man was blond. I sensed power around him too, but it felt different. It was clean and crystalline. All four turned around, putting their backs to me as they stared at something. Nothing was there at first, then I began to see and feel it. A glowing purple orb appeared before them, becoming larger and larger. As it did, I saw it was more of a spiral, its arms whirling as it grew. The two men who didn’t radiate power stepped back. If the unseen wall had let me, I too would have moved away.

Out of the purple light, two black forms suddenly materialized and stepped forward. Two black figures who were somehow luminescent at the same time and had brilliant blue eyes. My own eyes widened. I might not know anything else that was going on around me, but I knew them. I knew them, and I was going to kill them.

I’m not sure how I did it since there seemed to be no spark of life left within me, yet somehow, I mustered the strength to spring up and run toward them. My shrieked words were incoherent, but it didn’t matter. Only their destruction did. I would rip them apart. I would make them suffer the way they’d—

Strong arms grabbed me, stopping me as surely as the wall had. It was the blond man, and his grip was like iron. “Let me go!” I screamed. “Let me go! I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them both!”

The dark-haired man glanced back toward us. “Do
not
let her go,” he said mildly, this time in a language I understood. I fought in vain against the arms but made no progress.

The dark-haired man turned to the Oneroi. “This isn’t your world,” he said.

“We’ve come for what’s ours,” said one of the Oneroi. “You took her.”

“I took back what was mine,” the dark-haired man countered. “You stole her.”

“We won her. She came to us of her own free will.”

The dark-haired man snorted. Jerome, I suddenly remembered. His name was Jerome. “We have different definitions of ‘free will,’” he said.

“We want her back,” protested the Oneroi.

“You’re taking nothing back,” countered Jerome, voice hard. “Go before I change my mind.”

I’d gone slack while they spoke, but now my fury was renewed. I struggled again. “Let me kill them!” I screamed. “Jerome, it’s my right! Let me destroy them!”

Jerome turned back, maybe surprised I’d used his name. “I don’t think you’re in any shape to kill anything.”

“It’s my right,” I said. “After what they did—they’ll suffer like I did. I will shred them. I’ll rip their souls out!”

“They don’t have souls,” he said dryly. “But I like your enthusiasm.” He turned back to the Oneroi. “So, you stole my succubus
and
tortured her.” His voice carried that reptilian chill. It froze my blood. It made the air crackle with tension. The Oneroi shifted uncomfortably. They weren’t unaffected.

“Because of her, our mother was recaptured,” one of them said. But he didn’t sound as confident or outraged as before. “We are entitled to revenge.”

“You believe insult to another justifies revenge?” asked Jerome. Oh, that voice. That voice made the air grow still.

“Yes,” said the Oneroi as one.

“Me too,” replied Jerome.

He didn’t even move, but I felt the power flare out from him, like a torch thrown into dry tinder. It exploded—and so did the Oneroi. Well, it was more like they imploded. That power hit them, and then—they were no more. Just like that.

“Oh, Jerome,” said the man holding me. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

Jerome glanced back at us and shrugged. “I don’t like people taking my things.”

The swirling purple gate had never left, and now it began to grow brighter and rotate faster.

“Shit,” said Jerome. “I was hoping no one would notice.”

The man holding me sighed. He looked down at me, and silvery gray eyes pierced my soul. “Listen to me. Do not move. Do you understand? Stay right here.” When I didn’t answer, he sighed again. “Do you know me?”

Did I? Yes. The eyes. I knew the eyes. “Carter.” The word came out strangely on my tongue.

“Yes,” he said. “You know me. Trust me. Do
not
move.”

He let go of me, waited to see what I’d do, and then walked up to join Jerome when I stayed in place. Nothing could have made me move anyway, not when I saw what came through the gate.

It was monstrous. Literally. Yellow-eyed and scaly, mottled purple and gray. It had what looked like a pig’s snout, and seven horns ran over its head like points on a crown. It towered over Jerome and Carter as it emerged from the gate, but the two of them stood where they were, regarding it defiantly.

“You destroyed my subjects,” the creature growled. Its voice came from deep within its throat and made the floor vibrate. “You broke the laws.”

“Your subjects were in our realm,” said Jerome. He was perfectly calm. “They stole one of my people and abused her.
They
broke the rules.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to do what you did,” came the response.

“They would have destroyed her if they were capable of it. Next time, keep a better watch on your employees so that they don’t go causing trouble where they shouldn’t.”

The monster’s nostrils flared. “I could destroy
you
for this.”

“Try,” said Jerome. “Try taking on both of us.”

Those yellow eyes flicked over to Carter. A few teeth showed in the creature’s mouth. I think he was smiling. “An angel and a demon fighting together. It would almost be worth seeing.”

Heavy silence fell as everyone sized each other up. I had no sense of the monster’s strength. Physical size was not proportional to power. Jerome and Carter, however, were burning like small suns, ready to burst at any moment.

At last, the monster shrugged. Or did his equivalent of it. “But it’s been enough just to see you defend each other’s honor. I will not destroy you…today. There will be no more assaults on my people. If there are, I won’t be so forgiving.”

“And if your people don’t leave mine alone,” said Jerome smoothly, “I won’t be as forgiving either.”

The creature snarled, and for a moment, I thought he might very well change his mind. He didn’t. Instead, he stepped backward toward the purple light. He merged into it, vanishing to our eyes, and then the gate itself disappeared as well.

“He is such a fucking liar,” said Jerome. “‘Forgiving’ indeed. He knew we’d blast his scaly ass out of here.”

“Yeah, well, I hope we never find if that’s true or not,” said Carter. “Fighting a Morphean demon would generate paperwork even on
my
side.”

Jerome’s lips twitched into a smile. “Now that would be worth seeing.”

I looked between both of them, my fear from the near-confrontation fading. With the last of my energy, I lunged for Jerome, beating my fists against his chest. He caught them and stopped me as easily as Carter had.

“You should have let me do it! You should have let
me
destroy them! It was my right!”

“That’s what you’re pissed off about? Georgie, I’m not even sure how you’re still standing.”

“It was my right,” I repeated. “You don’t know what they did.”

“I can make some good guesses.”

I stopped in my struggles, and at last, the full force of everything that had happened descended on me. My being’s full depletion hit me. I sagged in his arms, and he caught me. The sights and people around me were still a little muddled, but lots of things were starting to come back.

“You were supposed to keep me safe,” I said in a small voice. I felt my eyes grow wet. “You shouldn’t have let that happen—let them take me. You’re supposed to protect me.”

Jerome looked truly surprised and didn’t respond to me immediately. I was afraid he’d get angry, but instead, he said quietly, “Yes. I am. I did in the end, but—I was late.”

“Great apology,” said Carter.

Now Jerome’s anger returned. “I have nothing to apologize for!” He turned back to me, and again, his voice was calm and patient. Almost gentle. I knew this was uncharacteristic for him. “I brought you back. You’re safe now. They will never harm you again. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Good. Now it’s time to finish this.”

Jerome turned toward the humans. One of them was old, very old—with dark brown skin and graying hair. His eyes were compassionate. The other man was younger, with messy hair and brown eyes that turned honey-amber when the light caught them. He was staring at me like he knew me, which wasn’t a surprise because I knew him too. I didn’t know how, but I did. In fact, I was beginning to realize I knew everyone in this room. Other names were coming back to me. This one man’s name eluded me, though, largely because several kept popping into my head. He studied me intently, like he was trying to figure something out, and I found myself falling into those golden brown eyes.

Jerome said something to the gray-haired man in that other language. I still couldn’t understand it, but there was something familiar about its sounds. The old man didn’t answer or move right away, and palpable tension fell over the entire room. At last the old man took a wand he was holding and began touching points on the circle upon the floor, murmuring softly as he did. When he touched the circle a fourth time, it was as though a great pressure—one I hadn’t even known was there—was released from the room.

Jerome exchanged a few curt words with the man and then turned to me. “As I was saying, how you’re conscious is beyond me—but considering all the other absurd things you do, I shouldn’t be surprised.”

He stepped toward me and pressed his fingers to my forehead. I gasped as a jolt of…something…raced through me. At first, it was shocking and prickly. Then, it transformed into something sweeter and more wonderful. The most wonderful thing on earth. It filled me up, energizing me, making me whole. Until this moment, how could I have thought I was alive?

The world came into greater focus, the sights grew more familiar. I staggered, not from weakness this time, but from the pure bliss of life Jerome had gifted me with. He said something to me in that other language, and I frowned, not understanding.

He spoke again in my own words. “Change back, Georgina. Time to go.”

“Change to what?”

“Whatever you want. Your current favorite, I’d imagine. Not this.” His hand gestured toward my body.

I examined myself for the first time. I wasn’t quite as tall as him, a few inches shorter, maybe. My legs and arms were long and lean, my skin tanned from the sun. A plain ivory dress covered me, and I could see the tips of black hair falling onto my chest. I frowned. This was me…and yet not me.

“Change back, Georgina,” he repeated.

“That’s not my name,” I said.

“Shake off what they’ve done,” he said, clearly impatient. “It’s over. They’ve fogged your mind, but you can clear it. Change back, Georgina. Come back to this time.” His next words were in that other language, and I shook my head angrily.

“I don’t understand. I shouldn’t be here. This is my body, but this isn’t my time.”

He gave another command that I still didn’t comprehend, and I uttered the same response. Three times we went through this, and then on the fourth, his words came through to me, perfectly understandable. I knew what he was speaking. The English language exploded in my mind, and with it, much more.

I held out my hands before me, staring long and hard as though seeing them for the first time. “This
is
my time,” I murmured in English. I looked down at my long legs. A strange sense of revulsion ran through me. “This is not my body.” Yet…it was. It was, and it wasn’t. With no energy, it was what I had reverted to.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

Letha. My name is Letha.

“Georgina,” I said. And with that, I summoned the power to make my body’s shape change. Slim and short, with light brown hair, and golden green eyes. The off-white homespun shift became a blue cotton dress. A moment later, I changed it to jeans and a blue shirt.

Jerome glanced at Carter. “See? No harm done.”

Carter didn’t acknowledge that. Instead, he asked, “So now what?”

“Now?” Jerome’s gaze fell on me again. “Now Georgina sleeps.”

“What?” I cried. “No! Not after…no. I’m never sleeping again.”

Jerome almost smiled before touching my forehead again.

I slept.

I
woke up in my own bed and found Mei sitting beside it. Not even Nurse Ratched could have startled me that much.

Mei was flipping through a magazine and glanced up, appearing bored. “Oh. You’re awake. Finally.” She stood up.

“What…what happened?” I asked, blinking at the light pouring in through my window. I was kind of surprised she hadn’t shut the curtains. She didn’t really strike me as a fun-in-the-sun person.

“You don’t remember?” Her disinterested expression sharpened. “Jerome said it would all come back to you. If it hasn’t…”

I sat up, drawing my knees to my body. “No, no. I remember…I remember what happened at Erik’s. I remember…the Oneroi.” Saying the word made me shudder. “But what happened after that? How long have I been asleep?”

“Three days,” she said flatly.

“What?” I stared at her, my mouth agape. If Mei was the joking type, I would have expected the punch line now. “I don’t…I mean, it went so fast. And I didn’t dream.”

She crooked me a smile. “Seems like you’d want that. And heavy sleep heals you faster.” The smile changed to a grimace. “Not that waiting by your bedside for three days has really felt that fast. Jerome made me keep all your friends away.
That
was fun.”

“Did you just use sarcasm?”

“I’m leaving,” she said, back to her all business self. “I’ve done what Jerome asked.”

“Wait! What happened to Seth and Erik? Are they okay?”

“Fine,” she said. I waited for her to vanish, but it didn’t come. She peered at me curiously. “It shouldn’t have worked, you know.”

“What shouldn’t have?”

“That ritual. There is
no way
that human could have found you. Not among all those other souls.”

The Oneroi had said the same thing, and thinking back to the storm of color and disorder, I could understand their reasoning. “We…we love each other.” I wasn’t sure I had the right to those words, but they came out anyway.

Mei rolled her eyes. “That means nothing. Human love—no matter what all your songs and chick flicks tell you—isn’t enough. It shouldn’t have worked.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Well…I guess it did.”

“Jerome knew it would too,” she mused, a small frown wrinkling her brow. Her gaze hardened on me. “Did you? Do you know how it happened?”

“What?” I squeaked. “No! I don’t understand any of this.”

I expected her to deny this and question me further. Instead her frown only deepened, and I realized I was no longer of use in solving this dilemma to her. She vanished.

The instant she disappeared, Roman came bursting into my room. “She’s gone?” he asked. If he was nearby, he would have felt her signature go away.

“Have you been hanging out the whole time?” I asked.

He sat down in the chair she’d been in. “Jerome ordered her not to let anyone come near you.”

“You could have taken her,” I said, attempting a joke.

“Not without causing a whole lot of trouble.” He frowned, eyes troubled with thought. “Although, I would have revealed myself if I’d needed to if that…thing that came out of the gate had tried to take on Carter and Jerome.”

I shuddered at the memory. “I didn’t even know there were monsters like that in the—wait. How could you have helped them? Were you…were you in the circle?” I’d assumed he’d been watching from the sides.

“Of course.” He said no more, and the way he spoke implied that it had been a ridiculous question for me to ask in the first place.

“Are you crazy?” I exclaimed. “You weren’t just letting yourself get trapped. If you were discovered by Mei—even any of the dream creatures—you’d be fucked. They would have turned you in too.”

“There was no choice,” Roman said. “I had to be there, in case you needed me.”

“It was too big a risk,” I countered, my voice faltering this time. “If there’d been a fight, Jerome and Carter would have had no reason to defend you. And while that Morphean might have been afraid to hurt them, you would have been fair game.”

“I told you, it doesn’t matter. I had to be there for you.”

His eyes, those eyes that were so like the sea I’d grown up with, held such earnestness and affection that I had to look away. I couldn’t believe he’d risked what he had for me. Why? He had no reason to care about me after what I’d done to him, yet it was clear he still wanted me. The night I’d been captured seemed like a lifetime ago, but its events came back to me in perfect detail: his lips, his hands…

“I wish you wanted to kill me again,” I muttered. “It was easier.”

He rested his hand on mine, its warmth spreading through me. “Nothing about your life is ever easy.”

I looked back up at him. “That’s for damn sure. But I don’t know…I don’t know if I can do this…by which I mean, well, you know.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “We’ll just keep going on like we have. Roommates. We’ll see where things go. If they change, they change. If not…” He shrugged. “So it goes.”

“Did I mention that it was easier when you wanted to kill me? I’m not sure how I feel about you being so reasonable.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I just feel sorry for you right now after everything that happened. Maybe I’ll change my mind in a little while.” He squeezed my hand. “Was it…was it awful?”

I looked away again. “Yes. Beyond awful. It’s hard to explain. They showed me every nightmare I could have, every fear made flesh. Some of the things they showed me had already happened—and were almost as bad as the nightmares. I couldn’t tell what was reality anymore. They showed me you guys…but it wasn’t always real. I doubted everything: who I was, what I felt…” I swallowed back tears, glad I had averted my eyes.

“Hey,” he said softly, reaching out to tip my chin and make me look back at him. “It’s over. You’re safe. We’ll help you get better—I’ll help. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Again, his feelings for me made me uncomfortable and confused. Was it a lingering effect of the Oneroi? No, I decided a moment later. This was the kind of situation that would confuse anyone. My heart was still tangled up in Seth, someone I knew I should let go, but who had found me against impossible odds. And here was Roman, someone I could be with a bit more easily—well, kind of—and who had risked his life for me. Could I move on with him? I didn’t know. But I could try.

I found his hand again and squeezed it. “Thank you.”

He leaned toward me, and I think we might have kissed, but the ringing of my cell phone jolted us out of any romantic spell. I pulled my hand from his and grabbed the phone from my side table.

“Hello?”

“Miss Kincaid,” came the kind, familiar voice. “It is a pleasure to speak with you again.”

“Erik! Oh, I’m so happy it’s you. I wanted to thank you—”

“There’s nothing to thank me for. I would gladly do it again.”

“Well, then, I’m still thanking you anyway.” Roman, realizing this had nothing to do with him, got up and wandered off—but not before giving me one more fond look.

“As you wish,” said Erik. “Are you feeling better?”

“More or less. Certainly better in body. And I think the rest will come.” I wished that with my body’s healing, I could also forget all the horrible things I’d seen. That wouldn’t happen, though, and I felt no need to trouble him with my problems.

“I’m glad,” he said. “Very glad.”

Silence fell, and a suspicious feeling nudged its way into my brain. I’d assumed he was simply calling to check up on me, but something now told me there was more.

“Miss Kincaid,” he said at last. “I’m sure you don’t want to talk about what happened….”

“I—well.” I hesitated. I knew Erik. He wouldn’t bring this up without a good reason. “Is there something we
should
talk about?”

Now it was his turn to hesitate. “You thank me…but to be truthful, what we did shouldn’t have worked. I didn’t expect it to.”

Mei’s comments came back to me, as did the other conversations I’d witnessed via the dreams. “Nobody seemed to.”

“Mr. Jerome did.”

“Where is this going?”

“I don’t know how it worked. Mr. Mortensen should not have found your soul.”

I loved Erik and hated the irritation in my voice. “I keep hearing that over and over, but obviously he did. Maybe it should have been impossible, but after what I went through? I don’t care how it happened.”

“I would imagine not, but still…still, I can’t help but wonder at this. Would you mind telling me what it was like when he found you?”

That was one part of the ordeal I didn’t mind recounting, largely because it had had a happy ending. Of course, the logistics of explaining it weren’t so easy. I did my best to describe what it was like being adrift in the dream world and how Seth had seemed to call to me. Erik listened patiently and then asked if I’d tell him about my contract with Hell and how I’d sold my soul.

That was a little harder to tell, not to mention a bizarre question. The Oneroi had shown me so many versions of what had happened with Kyriakos and me, and while some had been true and some false, they’d all been horrible. Still, sensing something big might be going on here, I haltingly recounted the whole experience: how I’d cheated on Kyriakos with his best friend, infidelity that was later discovered. It was the sorrow from that that had driven Kyriakos into suicidal grief, which in turn drove me to sign a contract with Hell. I’d sold my soul and become a succubus, in exchange for everyone I knew—including Kyriakos—to forget me and the awful things I’d done.

“Tell me the terms one more time,” said Erik.

“It was that everyone I knew back then would forget me and forget what happened—family, friends, and especially my husband.” My voice choked a little. “It worked. I came back later, and no one knew me. Not even a glimmer of familiarity.”

“There was nothing else in the contract?”

“No. An imp I know looked it over recently and verified it.”

“Oh?” This caught Erik’s interest. “Why would he do that?”

“She. As a favor. The imp who’d brokered my sale was the one who worked with Nyx and kept messing with Seth. Hugh said when an imp shows that much interest, there’s something wrong with a contract. So Kristin—this other imp—looked at my contract.” She hadn’t been very happy about doing that. If she’d been caught snooping in Hell’s records, there would have been some very, very bad consequences. Her gratitude over me hooking her up with her boss had overpowered her fear. “She told me it was airtight. Everything was like it was supposed to be. No errors.”

More silence. This conversation was starting to make me uneasy. “Did this imp—Niphon?—end up doing anything to Mr. Mortensen?”

“Not so much…I mean, it was part of what led us to breaking up….” I paused to collect myself. “But there were a lot of other factors that caused that too.”

“Has Niphon been back?”

“No, but there has been this succubus.” With everything else, I’d forgotten about Simone. “She was impersonating me. Kept trying to seduce Seth…but it didn’t work. I
think
Jerome sent her packing, but I’m not sure.”

Again, Erik took a long time in responding. Finally, he sighed. “Thank you, Miss Kincaid. You’ve given me much to think about. I apologize if I’ve brought up painful memories. And I’m very happy you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks again for your help.”

We disconnected, and I wandered out to the living room. Roman was in the kitchen, plating up some grilled cheese sandwiches. “Hungry?” he asked.

“Starving,” I said. He handed me a plate, along with a cup of coffee, and I smiled. “Thanks. Not sure what I did to deserve this.”

“You don’t have to do anything. Besides, I had extra. Wanted a big meal before going to work.”

“Before—what?”

The grin he gave me indicated he’d been dying to deliver this news. “I got a job.”

“You did not.”

“I did. Went back to the school I used to teach at. They had a couple openings, so I’m doing a few classes.”

I was dumbfounded. After all my badgering, Roman had sought gainful employment—in his specialty, no less: linguistics.

“Does this mean you’re going to pay rent now?”

“Let’s not get carried away, love.”

He grabbed a plate of his own, and we ate in the living room while the cats watched hopefully for leftovers. Seeing Godiva, I felt a frown coming on. The dream. The man in the dream. The Oneroi had said it was Seth…but that was impossible. I lifted my eyes up to Roman, wondering if I could rekindle the love I’d once had. If there was any man in any dream, he would be a better candidate.

“You talked to Erik for a while,” Roman said, noting my scrutiny.

“He’s weirded out by my rescue. He says it shouldn’t have worked.”

“Yeah, I heard that too.”

Between bites, I recounted the conversation, including Erik’s interest in Seth and my contract. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” I concluded. “Seth and I still have feelings for each other—feelings we’re trying to get past.” In that moment when our souls had met, though, separating from him had been the last thing I wanted. “Maybe that was enough. Maybe people don’t have faith in the power of love.”

“Maybe,” said Roman. But he looked thoughtful now too.

A knock at the door interrupted further conversation. I felt no immortal signature and hoped it wasn’t my neighbor trolling for more sex. He’d mercifully left me alone so far.

But no, it wasn’t Gavin. It was Maddie.

And she was crying.

I asked no questions. When friends are in trouble, you take care of them first. I pulled her right inside and led her to the couch, immediately putting my arms around her. “What’s wrong?” I asked finally. “What happened?”

She couldn’t speak right away. Her sobs were too great, and she was choking on her own tears. Something nudged my arm. It was Roman handing me a box of tissues. I shot him a grateful look and gave some to Maddie.

At long last, she gasped out, “It’s Seth.”

My heart stopped. For a moment, a hundred awful scenarios flew through my mind. Seth hit by a car. Seth struck by some deadly disease. I clutched her arm, so tightly that I realized my nails were digging into her. I relaxed my grip as best I could.