Son of a Succubus Series Collection

by Dorie, Sarina

  Before he could speak, Kelsie said, “I did it. I was the one who used the spell.”

  “You? You worked forbidden magic? Not once but twice?” Baba looked Kelsie up and down with admiration in her eyes.

  Lucifer glanced from his fellow apprentice to their mentor. Baba didn’t seem mad. She lifted herself to standing with her cane, wincing at the pain. Lucifer winced along with her.

  “It didn’t work the other time,” Kelsie said. “I thought the first time was a fluke. Or maybe the good luck was a coincidence, not because of the spell.”

  Baba placed her hands on her hips. “Why do you need luck? What was so important?”

  Kelsie ducked her head down, mumbling. “I wanted Gertrude Periwinkle to come back and fancy me instead of Lucifer.”

  “Both my apprentices are knaves.” Baba threw her hand up in the air in disgust. “And you would do better with different spell for luck with ladies.”

  “Sorry, Baba. It won’t happen again,” Kelsie said.

  “Correct. It will not. Some knowledge is too dangerous to keep where simple minds might get grand notions. Where is my book?” Baba looked from Lucifer to Kelsie.

  He swallowed. “I had it last.”

  “Give it to me,” Baba said.

  “I can’t.” He tried to think of a convincing lie.

  “Do not try to tell me you must keep it because you must save Abby’s soul.” She jabbed an arthritic finger at him. “Bring it to me.”

  Kelsie coughed. “He can’t. I loaned the book to Gertrude.”

  Baba’s mouth actually fell open. She sat back down on her bed. “You what?”

  “She’s a librarian. I thought it would impress her.” Kelsie glanced up, her eyes locking on Lucifer.

  He’d never felt so grateful in his life.

  Baba’s face crinkled up in anguish. She looked so stricken one would have thought she’d lost a child. “That is rare book. No other in entire world.”

  “She’ll bring it back,” Lucifer said. “Gertrude has the highest respect for books.”

  “She will not find us,” Baba said.

  Lucifer had been afraid of that.

  “I’m sorry, Baba. I will get the book back for you.” Kelsie offered up a tentative smile. “You did say you were going to teach me how to travel using portals. I can call on Gertrude in a few days.”

  “Kelsie, come to me.” Baba gestured to the girl, a spark of cunning in her eyes.

  Lucifer remembered the first time she’d told him to come to her. He’d been ten, and he’d accidentally put the “demon” back into “demonstration” when he summoned a creature that had tried to kill them.

  Kelsie swallowed. “Am I going to be punished?”

  “It is not punishment. It is consequence.”

  Kelsie edged closer to Baba. He shook his head at her, but she didn’t see.

  Lucifer knew where this was going. He strode forward.

  The moment Kelsie came into Baba’s line of fire, the old woman struck her with her cane behind the knees. The hedge witch lashed out with enough strength to topple Kelsie to the floor. Pain flared up in Lucifer’s hands when Kelsie’s wounded palms struck the wood. Her throbbing was so intense, he had to lean against the table for support. Baba lashed out at Kelsie’s back.

  “Stop,” Lucifer said, stumbling between them.

  Baba didn’t stop. She hit them both. “I take pain as tithe to heal my ankle.”

  Lucifer usually tried to shield himself from pain as much as possible. But this time he didn’t. He was the one who deserved this punishment. Without knowing what he was doing, he put up a hand and sucked the pain away from Kelsie, drawing it into his own body. It didn’t spread to his limbs like he would have expected. It floated in his hand, a dark shadow flickering with red sparks.

  Kelsie lifted her head, confusion painting her features as she looked from Baba to him. Baba struck Kelsie again, but Kelsie didn’t so much as flinch. The orb of pain in Lucifer’s palm swelled.

  Baba ceased beating Kelsie like a piñata and leaned against her cane, breathing heavily as she eyed the shadow in his palm. “What did you do?”

  “I don’t know.” Lucifer lifted the flickering orb. “I think I have a ball of pain for your tithe.”

  Baba snapped her fingers at Kelsie. “Fetch my tincture for inflammation and the balm we use for mending bones. We shall see if Lucy has successfully foraged pain or we need to collect more from you.”

  * * *

  Lucifer cleaned up the shattered mirror and tended to Baba’s broken ankle. He had to do this work himself so that others would benefit from his good luck. He applied salve to Kelsie’s burns and her welts and bruises from being struck.

  When he left the cottage to go outside, a doe made a mournful cry he’d never heard an animal make before. He watched the creature, wondering if he’d given this deer bad luck too. The doe continued to cry as he cleaned the white splatter of bird excrement from Abby’s face.

  They would need water and more wood for the fire. Lucifer scaled the fence and took an ax to the tree to clear it from the path. Abigail wouldn’t have approved of him chopping down a healthy tree in its prime, but it needed to be done.

  He was careful to ensure it fell away from the house. The doe scampered closer to the back of the house and then away. Along the fence, he found two fawns crushed under the weight of the garden. One of the fawn’s hindquarters stuck out from under the bones of the fence.

  Baba opened the window. “What are you staring at? That tree will not chop itself.”

  “The house landed on two deer.” He was by no means a vegetarian. He’d hunted game as a cat, and occasionally hunted for dinner, but the sight of the mama deer mourning her babies was heartbreaking.

  “We can have venison tonight. Their bad luck is your good luck.” Baba’s eyes narrowed, and she smiled.

  He didn’t doubt she knew it was him who had used the spell and had punished Kelsie anyway. If it wasn’t Abigail she was punishing for his mistakes, it was someone else.

  There was one small piece of luck that made up for every other bad element Lucifer had brought on them. In the forest, he found hot springs.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  For a Good Time, Call 1-800-Incubus

  Lucifer practiced the exercises he’d glimpsed in secret. He caught a mouse and a snake. The spell went wrong the first time he tried it and both animals ended up catatonic. They were alive, but he suspected they no longer had souls. Abigail would have disapproved of him doing this to helpless animals. Wasn’t what he’d done to the fawns bad enough? He didn’t want to be the kind of Witchkin who used anyone and anything so long as it benefited him.

  On the other hand, he had to practice.

  The second time he tried the exercise was with a hare and a fox. That didn’t work any better. He felt just as guilty. He wasn’t even certain how to feel the presence of a soul.

  He brought the rabbit back for the stewpot. He buried the other animals in the garden to nourish the soil.

  Hours later, Baba stooped over the cauldron to taste their dinner.

  “Something is wrong with this meat.” Baba stirred her soup in her bowl, shaking her head.

  Kelsie rolled her eyes. “It’s probably because you told me to cook dinner instead of Lucifer.”

  “I bet it just needs more salt,” Lucifer said. “It’s fine.” He hoped it was.

  What if his magic poisoned them? He used his spell for detecting poisons and bad magic, but it didn’t indicate he’d done anything wrong.

  Baba pointed to the shelves of herbs. “Add more rosemary and thyme.”

  Each day, Lucifer caught new animals and tested out his skills. It took a week before he made a worm strike a spider, but he wasn’t able to make a robin attack a snake.

  Each day, he passed the hot springs on the way to collect water from the stream. He considered when to suggest Baba should take a bath. Once he stole the
necklace, she’d know what he planned. That meant he had to master his abilities first.

  One night after dinner, he rubbed a balm over Baba’s swollen ankle. She said it wasn’t broken anymore, but every couple of days it flared up with inflammation if he didn’t apply a cold compress and remind her to elevate her feet. Rubbing her ankle seemed to help some, but it didn’t completely remedy the injury.

  “Should I try to use my magic?” he asked. “Like I did to heal Abigail?”

  “You are good apprentice.” She patted his head like she used to do when he was a child. “But no. I am too old for that kind of magic. My bones would break from that much pleasure.”

  Kelsie rolled her eyes. “If only I could be a good apprentice like Lucifer. So charming. So thoughtful.”

  “You shush.” Baba jabbed a knitting needle in Kelsie’s direction. “Master simple tasks. Then you will be given more challenging magic and become good apprentice.”

  Lucifer didn’t feel like a good apprentice. He was a liar and a sneak. That, he might have forgiven himself for, because his reasons for doing so were to help Abigail. But he didn’t like catching animals and leaving them vacant and soulless.

  They reminded him of Abigail, defenseless and vulnerable.

  Lucifer couldn’t accomplish the first part of his plan to return Abigail’s soul. That meant he needed to plant the seeds for the second part so it would be ready when he was.

  “You know what I was thinking might do you some good?” He tried to make his voice sound like that of a concerned apprentice. “A hot bath.”

  Baba shook her head. “Hot bath make inflammation worse.”

  When Lucifer and Kelsie weeded the garden together the next day, he whispered, “Has Baba mentioned anything about taking a bath?”

  Kelsie shook her head. “I suggested that we go down to the hot springs yesterday, but she said it was too far to walk.”

  “Tell her she should make me carry her,” Lucifer said.

  She glanced at the open window. “Maybe I will, but you need to keep your mouth shut. You almost gave yourself away the other night.”

  “I did not.”

  “Did too.”

  “What are you two arguing about?” Baba called from the house.

  “She said I smell like a dog, and I should take a hot bath.” Lucifer winked at Kelsie. “But I don’t smell that bad, do I, Baba?”

  “You do not smell like dog. You smell worse.” She cackled. “Take bath tonight. We will see if you are improved.”

  * * *

  Lucifer made a point of grumbling about bathing as he looked around for the soap. The hot springs turned out to be perfect. He relaxed into the water, surprised how much he liked bathing now that he was a man rather than a cat. It was far more enjoyable than the stream. The hot water welcomed him like a lover, embraced him all over, and eased muscles he hadn’t known were tight. The pleasure of a bath fueled his affinity almost as much as sex. He wondered whether he might have been part siren. Was there such a thing as hot-spring sirens? Maybe he’d inherited this from the succubus side of the family tree.

  The following day when Lucifer switched a frog’s soul with a water shrew, the frog attacked the shrew.

  Lucifer returned to the hot springs each night after that. With the replenishing of his magic, he continued to be able to increase his skills. Hot baths were practical for charging his magic, but he knew it wasn’t a replacement for what his affinity truly needed. If he was to put Abigail’s soul back in her body, he needed more power.

  Baba had never disapproved of his dalliances to increase his affinity. When he asked her to help him divine to find Witchkin women who might not be opposed to rolling around in the clover with him, she showed him how to dowse.

  Kelsie lifted up her nose when she saw Baba showing him how to hold the forked branch of a yew tree. “I cannot believe you are dowsing for women. That is so messed up.”

  Baba winked at him. “He put his dowsing rod to good use. In more ways than one, nyet?”

  As it happened, he did put his dowsing rod to use. He felt less guilty about trysts with Witchkin and Fae women so long as he gathered magic to fuel his affinity.

  It had been a long time since Lucifer felt so content. His magic was stronger than it ever had been. Perhaps this was because he felt less reservations about using it now that he had the right motivations to do so. Now that he wasn’t resisting her teachings, Baba was more like a grandmother than a wicked witch. Kelsie was more of a friend than an adversary. Every day, he checked Abigail’s fingers and toes and found them free from harm.

  He was confident in his abilities and that he would soon be able to wake Abigail, and the world would be right again.

  All that changed the night the troll arrived.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Luck of the Draw

  The sound of bones snapping and thudding to the ground woke Lucifer in the middle of the night. Something had struck the fence. The entire cottage shuddered.

  Kelsie sat up. “What’s that?”

  Lucifer stumbled out of bed, not daring to waste a second looking out the window. Abigail was out there. He had to be sure she was all right.

  A deep growl rumbled through the cottage and into Lucifer’s bones. The cottage quaked and lurched, not so different from when the chicken feet took them to another location.

  Baba shouted something, but Lucifer didn’t hear. He fell out the front door, his feet meeting air. He somersaulted through the air, taking in the giant chicken feet that had unearthed themselves from the ground. He would have fallen on his head fifteen feet down, but a gust of wind swept him sideways instead.

  Kelsie sang, her voice knitting together ribbons of wind that carried him to the ground safely. The giant chicken feet of the cottage scratched at the earth underneath. On the other side of the house, illuminated by the moonlight, loomed a beastly figure almost tall enough to reach the bottom of the house. His eyes glowed like embers, and his nose was disproportionately large. He was as shaggy as a sasquatch, but the hunched shoulders and thicket of weeds growing from his back told Lucifer this was a troll.

  Lucifer scrambled back. His instinct was to place himself between the troll and Abigail, but her bed was hidden in the shadows of the cottage. If he went to her, he would be drawing attention to her. He assumed the troll’s night vision wasn’t as good as his or else he would have gone to her first.

  The troll’s voice was like gravel shaking down the side of a mountain. “Who be the churlish skamelar who crushed me home and ground me pets into pulp?”

  Lucifer noticed the doe at the troll’s side. His good luck had come back to bite him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Don’t Feed the Trolls

  Baba cleared her throat. “I am responsible for my apprentices’ conduct. Or lack of.” She stood in the doorway in her housecoat, peering down at Lucifer.

  The troll stomped through the foliage to gain a better view of the front door. He squinted up at her. “Ah, Baba Nata, the Witch of Nightmares.” His accent was somewhere in between Welsh and Norse, the dialect Fae.

  Lucifer edged back, hoping he remained invisible in the shadows.

  He had used up most of his sexy-time magic on switching the souls of a tortoise and a hare and back into their own bodies earlier that day. If he was to use his electrical magic to strike down a threat, he would need to recharge. He attempted to think of sexy thoughts fast—not an easy task when a ten-foot monster stood paces away.

  “Me pet be witness to magic most unnatural going about in these parts since yer cottage landed in me territory. Now I come to see for meself what ye’ve done.” The troll swept a hand at the thicket of branches under the house. “It be me right to demand retribution for this attack on these fawns and destruction of my dwelling.”

  “Of course. Anything that is mine to give will be yours.” Baba inclined her head in acknowledgment. “What price do you ask?”

 
The troll placed his hands on his hips. “Have ye any delicious morsels in yer hut? Any children?”

  “Nyet. Not currently.” Baba waved a hand at Kelsie. “My apprentices are too old for your liking. Too tough.”

  The troll’s gaze turned toward Abigail.

  Lucifer sucked in a breath. He hoped the troll didn’t spot her.

  “What about the sleeping princess?” the troll asked.

  Baba sucked her teeth. “You can have her, but she will taste like oak and acorns. Probably bitter.”

  “No. You cannot have her. She isn’t yours to give. She doesn’t belong to you,” Lucifer shouted.

  The troll stomped toward Lucifer. He scrambled back, but not quick enough. The troll snatched him up. He held Lucifer so tightly he could scarcely breathe.

  A grin stretched across the troll’s face, revealing teeth that resembled miniature boulders. “Who be this hedge-born levereter?”

  “My foolish apprentice. I’d give him to you as peace offering, but he is not a good trade. I taste his toes once before. His blood is no good.”

  The troll dropped him on the ground. Lucifer fell hard enough that the wind was knocked out of him. The troll strode toward Abigail.

  “She be a pretty doxy for me belly. Or bed.” The troll leaned over her bed.

  Lucifer rolled over and gasped in a breath. He tried to gather the pain of his throbbing back into his palm like the time he’d gathered Kelsie’s pain, but he couldn’t. He staggered toward Abigail.

  “We have a goat. Trolls like goats,” Lucifer said.

  The troll’s voice came out a low rumble. “Goat be troll stereotype. Princess be better.” The troll shoved him aside.

  Lucifer landed hard against the fence. Something in his shoulder popped, and pain blinded him. He suspected he’d broken something.

  “A princess is worth more than any troll’s shack. Three times as much,” Baba said. “I give you goat and her fingers and toes.”

  The troll growled. “I take the goat and her hands and feet.”

  “Deal,” Baba said. More quietly, she whispered to Kelsie. “Get belts to make tourniquets.”