by L. L. Frost
My breath catches, and I focus on his eyes, seeing the void and starlight married together. Extinction and life, darkness and light. Just like the ley line magic.
Instead of trying to grab the magic inside me, I focus on the endless opportunities it offers and ask it for life, for sustenance, for existence. The magic surges to make it happen, eager now that I gave it direction. Life floods through me, filling out the sunken hollows created by starvation and plumping my flesh once more with health. The ache of hunger fades, the cavern left by the beast filling, and strength surges through me once more.
I gasp as the constant pain vanishes to leave me with the satiated feeling of a good feeding.
But the magic pushes for more, offering to fix things that aren’t broken, to turn me into more than I am.
Hands grasp mine, pulling them from the circle of gold, and the magic cuts off.
I blink my eyes open to meet Reese’s fae-touched gaze, and he offers me a smile of understanding. “When it starts tempting you, it’s time to stop.”
“Right.” I nod, my body feeling floaty with too much magic.
But it doesn’t make me sleepy the way I usually get when I’ve taken power and need to hibernate to convert it into my own. The ley line magic already did that step for me, leaving me fully powered and ready to go.
I lift my arms above my head, enjoying the stretch of healthy muscles before I lean forward and loop my arms around Tobias’s neck and pull him forward.
I stop when our noses touch, and whisper, “Hey.”
“Hey.” He grins, the expression both foreign and familiar on his face.
I’ve never seen that specific look of softness and yearning before, but in the bottle, I felt it on a level that engraved itself into my being.
Then, Kellen launches over Tobias’s shoulders and joins the hug. His touch sparks against my skin, but full of power, it doesn’t tempt me.
Relieved, I free one arm from around Tobias to wrap it around Kellen and pull him closer.
Tobias, smashed between us, grumbles his displeasure, and I laugh, the relief at being able to touch them so strong that it leaves me light-headed.
Then, the imps join us in a cloud of baby powder and chitters that sound like scolding and happiness combined.
Tobias’s rumbles turn into full growls, and the imps instantly back off with quiet chitters of reproach.
I straighten and look around for my ice demon only to find him still huddled by the fire, Tac pressed close to his side. Snow fills his eyes, and frost coats his skin despite the heat generated by the flames.
Seeing it, my happiness plummets in an instant.
While we found a workaround for me, I still can’t perform the necessary task of draining off my demon of destructions’ power. Without being drained, they run the risk of not only destroying the human plane, but also exposing the existence of demons to humans.
Tobias’s hot hands cup my cheeks, drawing my attention back to him. “How do you feel? Do you need the bucket?”
“No, I think I’m fine.” I focus on the magic inside me, trying to find any sign my body will reject it, but the power hums with contentment. “It’s....happy where it is.”
Kellen’s fiery brows shoot up. “It’s happy?”
“Yeah, happy.” I mentally stroke the ball of power, and it pulses, much as Torch does when I give him treats.
Tobias pulls me to my feet. “Try to hyper-speed.”
I tell the magic to fill my limbs, to give me speed, but it bubbles at me in confusion. I frown, trying to prod it to do my bidding, and it just spins in a circle. “I don’t think I can.”
Kellen frowns. “What about lifting something?”
I grab his waist and heave, but he barely rises onto his toes before I drop him. “No.”
Confusion fills both their faces, and Tobias says, “But you’re not hungry anymore, right?”
I nod and glance at Reese.
The witch shrugs. “What purpose did you give the magic?”
Now, it’s my turn to frown. “To feed me?”
He shrugs again. “Then, that’s all it will do.”
My hands move to my hips. “But, when I consume power the normal way, I can make it do multiple things.”
“That’s because you don’t assign it a specific purpose. Or maybe you assign it multiple purposes at once?” He shrugs a third time, making me want to smack him.
As if she senses my growing annoyance with her witch’s lack of information, Tally pulls Reese a few feet away from me. “This is a new type of energy consumption. You’ll have to experiment with how you direct it.” She smiles brightly. “Think of it as starting over as a new succubus.”
“You can do things right this time,” Tobias teases.
Glaring, I shove out of his hold. “I don’t like you anymore.”
He swoops in and wraps me in his hot embrace. “Yes, you do. I felt how much you like me while in the bottle. There’s no changing that.”
I wiggle in his hold. “I’ve already forgotten our time together!”
He nuzzles my face with his scratchy cheek. “There are no take-backs in this. You’re stuck with me.”
At his words, memory spikes through me, bringing with it disappointment and pain, and I stop fighting.
Sensing the fun is over, he releases me slowly. “Adie?”
I focus on fixing my toga. “You should have told me about Cassandra. I had a right to know.”
“We had a deal with Landon—” Tobias begins, then cuts off as Emil glares at him.
But the damage is already done, and I turn to stare at Tobias. “The deal to take me in?”
He glances at Kellen and Emil, looking helpless for the first time in my memory.
“Honey, you have to understand.” Kellen reaches for me. “We didn’t know you when we made the deal—”
I snap up a hand to stop him. “I get it. I really do. But you could have told me since then.” I look at Emil. “I asked, and you chose not to tell me. You never planned to tell me.”
“We bargained to keep her away. She doesn’t matter to us,” Emil says, ice cracking in his voice. “You do. And as soon as we can get out of that contract...”
But when will that be? The knowledge burns through me that they may never escape that contract. The High Council doesn’t just rip up their mandates. If they did, every demon under their rule would be looking for loopholes to wiggle out of their bindings.
Once demons hold the advantage, they don’t let it go.
I look back at Tobias. “There’s no end to it?”
He shakes his head. “So long as we’re on the human plane and she exists, no. And we’re bound not to harm her, the same as we’re bound not to harm any succubi under contract with us.”
I flex my fingers, suddenly missing the weight of claws. “I’m not restricted from harming her. She’s owed retribution.”
Alarm shoots across his expression. “Not even Landregath can destroy her. He could only keep her from his territory. She has centuries of power, Adie, and even after you live that long, too, she will always be that much more powerful.”
He’s not wrong to be cautious, but I remember the ease with which Marc shot her down, and I remember the red light that tried to enter Dreamland. Aren had been keeping someone out, and now I wonder if that malevolence was Cassandra.
If he somehow blocked her from Dreamland, then she’s left to feed in her corporeal form, which could account for her sudden desire to reclaim my demons. It takes more time and care to feed on the human plane. If she’s not making the extra effort and simply hunting humans, then she’s putting demons at risk. And we all know how the High Council feels about that.
I just need to keep her from my men and bide my time until I find my opening.
The next morning, I wake up snuggled beneath Tac’s wing with his fur in my nose.
I don’t remember falling asleep last night after Tally, her witches, and Flint and his team left the house. Tobias, Kelle
n, Emil, and I had stayed up, putting the living room back together, then finding reasons to linger downstairs. No one had been willing to be the first to leave, and at some point, exhaustion must have claimed me.
I stretch, then freeze when sharp needle claws dig into my side and twin tails bap me in the face. Patting my hand around, I find small wings, tiny tufted ears, and a muzzle filled with sharp baby teeth that clamp onto my finger for daring to disrupt Prem’s sleep. Gently, I disentangle myself and lift him to rest beside his sister on Tac’s side before I crawl out from under his wing.
The beast’s bottle swings from a strap around my neck, clacking quietly against the Dreamland talisman. I don’t know if the talisman will work in my current state, or if Dreamland is once again off the table. I was too overwhelmed last night to try, and today, it scares me to find out if I’ve lost yet another part of myself to this curse.
As I stand, I tuck both necklaces inside my tank top. My usual yoga pants and sleep shirt had sounded like a good idea last night when I was curled up with the fire roaring. But now, despite the dancing flames, it feels like winter inside the house. The chill raises goose bumps on my bare skin and my breath fogs in the air.
Shivering, I wrap my arms around my stomach and glance around.
Kellen lays sprawled out on the leather couch, while Tobias leans back in his chair, his mouth slightly agape as he snores softly. Tac had wedged himself into the space in front of my floral couch near the fireplace, and I have no idea how I ended up on the floor, tucked beneath his wing like one of his whelps.
My eyes sweep over the room once more, searching for Emil, but I don’t see him. Did he go upstairs to his heated blankets?
The quiet click of glass sounds from the kitchen, and I tiptoe to the archway to peek inside. In the shadows of early morning, Emil stands at the stovetop, holding his hands out to the lit burner the kettle heats on. The special mug I gave Emil for Halloween sits on the counter, and I spot open cocoa packets beside it.
When I step into the room, his head jerks up, his eyes wide with alarm for a moment before he spots me and relaxes once more.
“Morning,” I whisper as I join him at the island.
“Good morning.” He looks back down at the kettle as if willing it to boil faster. “Did you sleep well?”
“I did.” I glance around the shadowed room before counting the number of empty cocoa packets, and my gut tightens. “Did you sleep at all?”
He shakes his head, his white locks disheveled and making him look younger than his years. “Someone needed to stay awake to guard the house.”
In case Cassandra returned to try to claim her spot once more. But I’m still free, and my contract with the demons of destruction is very much active. She has no place in this house.
Angry it’s even a factor, my hands curl into fists beneath the counter, out of his view. “Did you think I was her when I came into the kitchen?”
His shoulders tense, and he refuses to look up to meet my eyes. “It wasn’t that we never planned to tell you about the contract. It’s just....” He takes a shaky breath and releases a white cloud of frost into the air. “If you knew, you would also know we are weak. And that is a difficult thing to reveal to the one we want to protect above all others.”
My lips part in surprise, and the urge to go to him shivers through me. But Emil holds up his hand, asking me to maintain my distance, so I settle onto one of the stools. If he needs the separation to say what needs to be said, then I’ll give him that. I need to hear this story, to understand the reason for their secrets.
The kettle releases a quiet whistle, and Emil pulls it from the burner before turning to the cabinet behind him to bring out a regular mug. He then opens his drawer of fancy cocoas and selects two packets before adding them to the waiting cups. The smell of white chocolate and strawberries fills the air, and he slides one across the counter to me.
I curl my fingers around the warmth and wish I had a sweatshirt, but it’s not worth leaving to get one if it means interrupting this moment of trust and vulnerability.
Emil remains on his side of the island, sipping his cocoa from the mug I asked the witches to spell to withstand even his chill. For a moment, the blue in his lips fades, a blush of pink showing through the ice before he lowers the mug and the frostbite returns. “When the mandate first came demanding that demons who could not pass as human return to the demon plane, we didn’t know that our world was dying. The spread of the wasteland took time, but when the summer storms stopped coming, and frost never chilled the air, we knew that we would not survive in our homeland much longer.”
He takes another sip of cocoa and sighs, snowflakes dancing in the air before melting on the countertop. “We could pass for human, so we returned to the human plane, but the temptation to destroy was too strong. It was a dark time for us, and the High Council demanded a solution. Our existence or a cessation to our destruction. A solution was found that allowed us to remain on this plane without destroying humans.”
“The Succubus Contract,” I guessed.
He nods stiffly. “Volunteers were requested, but our powers were feared, even with the compensation we offered. Only one stepped forward.”
“Cassandra,” I whispered.
A shudder wracks through him. “Cassandra very much wants to be a demon of destruction, and she made no attempt to disguise her reason for volunteering. She had been devouring other demons for some time, and she did not fear our destructive powers. The deal was made, but with the caveat that, if another succubus stepped forward, they could temporarily supersede her claim.”
His white lashes flutter. “She fed voraciously, and because of the contract, there was no way to stop her. Eventually, she grew discontent with the speed with which we recharged, and she left to hunt for other sources of power. But the time she spent with us proved to the other succubi that our powers would not destroy them, and with a large cash incentive, others stepped forward to fill Cassandra’s place. It worked to keep her away, for a while.”
My gut clenches, and I hug my mug close to stop from going to him. The pain in his voice belies the frozen mask of indifference he wears, and it makes me want to destroy Cassandra all the more.
When the silence stretches, I prod, “What changed?”
“Landregath put the word out that if the succubi and incubi living in his territory wished to continue to receive his protection, they would not sign further contracts with us.” He glances at me. “Then, he contacted us about you, his new apprentice who was struggling to find her place on the human plane. There were many conditions on how you would be handled, and in return, he agreed to keep Cassandra away.”
I hunch my shoulders. “So that’s why you guys were so lenient with me. You had no other option.”
“We could have moved,” he points out. “We’ve been in this city longer than is prudent, and we have other businesses that we’ve left alone long enough that returning to them wouldn’t raise suspicion.”
My brows pinch together. If they had so many options, then why let Landon shoehorn them into taking me in? No demon likes to lose in a test of wills. Was the risk of leaving Landon’s territory and running into Cassandra again that horrible?
“Why didn’t you go that route?” I ask because I need to know, even if it will hurt.
“You may have noticed I’m resistant to change.” He offers me a humorless smile. “I was stuck in how we currently lived, and I really didn’t care who filled the spot in our house so long as it meant I didn’t have to put effort into it. I very much desired life without effort. I was growing...tired of this existence, but lacked the will to change that.” He sips his hot chocolate and sighs with appreciation. “But then I actually met you, and you were unlike any succubi I’d encountered before. You didn’t want our power or wealth, you wanted nothing to do with us.” His smile grows. “You were very troublesome.”
I lean forward across the island. “I interested you.”
“You irritated
me,” he counters. “I don’t know the last time I felt so irritated. And then you showed up with your own contract, which demanded nothing of us beyond skimming the bare minimum of our energies. It was quite...irritating.”
Warmth fills me at the way he says the word, like it’s a placeholder for an endearment. “You were pretty irritating yourself, Frosty Pants.”
“I’m glad we found each other equally abrasive,” he murmurs before the humor flees his voice. “But you’re right to be upset. No matter what light it shone on us, we should have told you about Cassandra when it became apparent we would want more from you than the year our contract allows.”
“Yeah, you should have.” I slip off my stool and circle the island to press up against his frozen body. “We could have been working on this problem together instead of leaving me in the dark about it.”
“I didn’t want you to go after her.” Slowly, he slips an arm around me. “You are precious and filled with possessive jealousy. I would not see you crushed by her.”
“I’ll sign another year-long contract.” Unhappiness fills me at the idea, but if it’s all we can do for now, so be it. “And another year after that, and another year—”
Emil bends, his frozen lips claiming mine. They burn with ice and freeze me in an instant, but the pain is worth it to touch my ice demon again. But he keeps the kiss chaste and pulls away before he tempts me to take the winter from him, no matter how much damage it will do to me.
My numb lips make forming words difficult. “Want to take a shower? We can drain all the hot water.”
He shakes his head with regret. “I’ll freeze the spray.”
Dread pools in my gut, and I force myself to ask the next question. “How long do you have?”
He cups my cheek, and ice crystals creep across my skin. “As long as necessary to fix this curse.”
But how long will that be? No matter what Emil says, he can’t contain the power growing inside him forever.
“We have other methods to stave off the winter,” Tobias says from the archway.
I jump at his appearance. How long has he been standing there? Are my senses so dull that I don’t even register when another demon enters the room?