Son of a Succubus Series Collection

by Dorie, Sarina

  CHAPTER SIX

  Leshi Tears

  After scrying, Lucifer followed the resonance of Fae magic to the leshi’s sanctuary in a sunny grove of trees. It wasn’t the same season, nor the same forest as the one he’d seen the leshi in last, but this one also was eerily quiet. Barbs of power hooked under Lucifer’s skin, drawing his feet closer. His instincts told him to fight it, but he knew he had to follow the lure to find this predator.

  So long as Lucifer didn’t become prey in the process, he would be fine. He sparked the Red affinity inside his core, keeping those embers ready should he have need of his affinity’s protection.

  The ground was covered in the leafy greens of curly dock, the chartreuse shoots of early chickweed, and clusters of musk mustard adorned with white florets. Budding flowers decorated the branches of a plum tree, a sharp contrast to the needles of rot and decay stabbing into Lucifer’s nostrils.

  The bulging bulb of the Venus man trap was as high as Lucifer’s head next to a tree. He couldn’t tell what was inside, only that it was large. Probably too big to be a man.

  “I suppose you’ll wish me to reveal what I’ve captured,” the leshi’s scratchy voice asked.

  Lucifer forced himself not to jump from the nearness of the creature. He turned slowly, watching the leshi circle closer. “It would make me feel better.”

  “I hope you’ll excuse me if I don’t wish to peel back the petals this time. It would be inconvenient. Some of my dinner might spill out.” The leshi waved a hand at the plant belly.

  Lucifer looked from his potential enemy to the trap. The orb began to glow, faintly at first, but then so bright it rivaled the sun. The silhouette of the form within grew easier to make out. It was an elk, curled up like a fetus.

  “Happy?” The leshi waved a hand, and the light faded. “Have I won your trust enough to convince you to bring me one of your sisters?”

  Sisters? There was an irony to that term. Lucifer had only said that he considered Kelsie like a sister hours before—which she seemed to resent. Abigail had once called him her adopted brother, though he didn’t think either of them thought of the other as a sibling.

  “I think I need more convincing,” Lucifer said. He recited the lie he’d practiced. “I have brought you a gift from the witch.” He set the bottle down and backed away. “It isn’t the same as your nectar wine, but it might be of interest.” He remembered how Fae liked strong drink.

  Slowly the leshi crept forward, the glowing embers of his eyes on Lucifer, even as he lifted the bottle and uncorked it to sniff. “How . . . quaint. Alcohol spiked with Witchkin magic. Only a fool would drink such a gift.” He corked the bottle and tossed it back to Lucifer.

  Lucifer dove and caught it, clutching the bottle of precious potion to his chest.

  Coinneach had drunk Abby’s gift. Perhaps Lucifer should have started with a gift of vodka that didn’t contain a spell. That was how she had started.

  “The spell won’t hurt you. It’s to help you.” Lucifer struggled with the truth, not because he was compelled to speak as he had earlier, but because he didn’t know how much it was safe to say. Already he’d seen how painful the truth could be. “You said you wouldn’t harm either of my sisters. But I have reason not to believe you. If I knew you spoke the truth, if I could convince Kelsie you mean no one any harm—and that you wouldn’t harm her—I would tell her so. I would bring her here to meet you. It might do her good to get over her prejudice.” He wasn’t sure if it was possible to undo the hatred in Kelsie’s heart, but he could try.

  Lucifer uncorked the bottle, hoping truth would convince the leshi better than guile. The scent of autumn and wisps of earth longing for rain wafted from the bottle. He took a sip. “The potion is a truth potion. I tested it myself earlier. If it didn’t hurt me, it won’t hurt you either. All it will do is make you tell the truth. I just drank it. You can ask me a question, any question, and I’ll have to answer.”

  Lucifer knew this might be folly. The leshi hadn’t drunk any, nor promised to do so. He could ask anything he wanted, and it might not help Lucifer come closer to finding the truth. It might not help him collect leshi tears. Yet one of them had to take the first step toward trust.

  The leshi tilted his head to the side. “Why does the witch truly want my tears?”

  “The witch doesn’t. It’s for a spell she’s teaching me.” Lucifer didn’t try to fight it.

  “What does the spell do?” The leshi crouched in the curly dock.

  Lucifer corked the bottle. “The spell will help me create a lure so that I can capture the soul of my true love and put her back into her body.”

  The leshi’s masklike face was inscrutable. “A lure? That sounds very much like what a Fae might do.”

  “Witchkin are half Fae. Our magic isn’t that different.”

  “Different enough.” The leshi brushed his fingers over spiral tendrils of curly dock. “This is the girl with autumn hair? Abby? She’s the one you love?”

  Lucifer didn’t like this leshi knowing her name. It was another reminder he’d spied on them. “If I tell you her name, does that mean you won’t try to eat her?”

  “Why ask a question if you won’t believe me?”

  “I would believe you if you drank.” Lucifer held out the bottle. The leshi slowly rose. He shifted from foot to foot uneasily. Slowly, he stepped closer. An arm stretched forward, spindly fingers like spikes.

  Lucifer’s magic wanted to surge forth and burn the Fae. He kept it concealed. Ready. He didn’t want it out in the open where it would scare the creature back.

  The leshi snatched up the bottle. He removed the cork and sniffed again before he drank. “I will not eat those maidens. I do not eat people.”

  Lucifer watched the Fae’s face for signs that he was fighting the potion, but the bark of his face was peaceful and still.

  The leshi toed a rock. “This maiden you love. . . . Does she love you too?”

  “I hope so, but even if she didn’t, I would still bring her back.” Even if it was to bring her back and she ended up with someone like Coinneach or Adam. If she had been happy with Coinneach, Lucifer would have been happy for her.

  “Then you do love her.” The leshi regarded him solemnly. “Abby is the autumn-haired girl. Kelsie is the one with hair like the blue sky. What is your name?”

  “Lucifer Thatch.”

  The leshi corked the bottle and set it down in the curly dock at his feet. “But they call you Lucy.”

  Lucifer shrugged. “It’s a nickname. You can call me either.” Lucifer stared into the leshi’s burning eyes. “What should I call you?”

  “MacCoinneach.”

  Mac was the Scottish term for “son.”

  Son of Coinneach.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Spellbound and Starstruck

  Lucifer stared at the Fae in horror. This leshi claimed to be Coinneach’s son? Even if the potion wasn’t effective in drawing out the truth from a Fae, it was such an obscure name and one connected to Abby’s past, there was no reason to believe he would have made it up.

  “How is that possible?” Lucifer’s mouth went dry. “Pureblood Fae can’t conceive children anymore.”

  “So I’ve been told. Perhaps I’m an anomaly.”

  Lucifer looked the spindly man up and down. “Your parents were pureblood Fae, weren’t they?”

  “I imagine that is the case, though I don’t know.”

  MacCoinneach was smaller than his father. Either that or Lucifer had grown enough since he’d encountered Coinneach that he now dwarfed a man of the same size. It was conceivable MacCoinneach was born before the days that Fae had been exposed to cold iron, Morty-made chemicals, and electricity that had made them sterile. MacCoinneach might be like Elric of the Silver Court, one of the last pureblood Fae born five hundred years ago. If that was the case, he had been separated from his kin before they had been trapped behind the stream.

 
Lucifer opened his mouth to ask, but MacCoinneach beat him to the next question. “You knew my father?”

  Lucifer shook his head, but the lie wouldn’t leave his lips. He covered his mouth before the truth escaped and he admitted more than he wanted.

  MacCoinneach crossed his arms. “I heard you say his name.”

  “I didn’t know him well. Abby knew him better.” He amended that. “The old Abby. This one doesn’t have the same memories. She doesn’t have the same soul.”

  “Oh. That’s why you want to bring her soul back. So she’ll remember you and be the same person. You were trying to get her to remember my father.” MacCoinneach wrapped his arms around himself. “Do you think Abby—the other Abby—do you think she’s my mother?”

  “No.” Lucifer shook his head again. He couldn’t stop the words. “I don’t want her to be your mother.”

  “But she could be? I heard you with the other girl, Kelsie. Abby had a past with Coinneach. She cared about him.”

  “Yes, but she didn’t do anything with him besides kiss him, I think. She wasn’t ever with child. We weren’t even in the forest longer than the spring and summer season. I would have noticed if she were pregnant. And she didn’t keep secrets from me. She would have told me.” He nearly choked as more came out of him. “Except, she didn’t want to tell me she’d fallen in love with him. She could have kept other secrets from me.”

  Lucifer would have liked to turn into a cat right then. He would have been silent. He could find a warm lap to curl up on, and someone would hug him and make him forget about this horrible conversation.

  “She probably was never ‘with child,’ as you call it. You would have known.” MacCoinneach dug his clawlike fingers into the soft mulch of the earth. “Was she ever ‘with sapling?’”

  “No. I don’t want to think about this.” Lucifer backed away.

  “Why not? Because you despise leshi?”

  Lucifer had known the tables would be turned on him at some point, and the leshi would use this game of truth to his advantage. He could walk away now, but if he did, there was no chance of convincing MacCoinneach to give Lucifer his tears.

  “I don’t despise leshi, but your kind can be dangerous. I didn’t like your father. Not at first. I thought he was toying with Abby. By the time I realized they both truly loved each other, it was too late. I tried to intervene, and there was an accident.” He worded his answer carefully so that he spoke the truth, but gave no more information than was necessary. “I wasn’t trying to hurt him or her. But I drained Abby and injured your father. I told her he was dead so she wouldn’t look for him. And I let him think she was dead. Neither forgave me when they found out I had misled them.” A great burden lifted from Lucifer’s chest to admit so much of the truth.

  MacCoinneach tilted his head to the side, trying to understand. “Wouldn’t it be better, then, for you to leave your Abby as she is? Then she wouldn’t remember, and she would forgive you?”

  “I-I don’t know. I think she did forgive me. In any case, Abby found out Coinneach was alive and went to see him. I tried to stop your father from crossing the stream. Do you know about the curse? His kin—your kin—they couldn’t cross the stream because of a witch’s curse. They were trapped on a plot of land between streams and could only live by luring creatures to their side. Mostly it was people, but your father only captured animals out of respect for Abigail.”

  “Oh, that must be why I only eat meat, not people. I had wondered about that.” MacCoinneach nodded.

  “Your father thought the curse was broken because Abigail loved him. That was what the witch told his kin it would take to break the curse. I tried to warn him not to cross the stream. Baba Nata had told me that wasn’t how the curse really worked. The witch who had cursed them—not Baba—had given them false hope. She wanted them to try to cross and see their kindred suffer.”

  Lucifer could see Coinneach’s demise as vividly as the day it had happened. Coinneach had made it halfway across the stream. He had flailed his limbs in panic as the rock had shifted under his feet and rolled onto him, pinning him under.

  The truth tugged at Lucifer, and he unburdened himself. “I warned them. I tried to save him from the rock, but it crushed him. When I carried him out of the stream, he was still alive. Abigail sang to him and kissed him. I caused them both heartache because I waited too long to interfere, because I tried to help, but I made everything worse.”

  “Then what did you do with my father?” MacCoinneach’s voice was cool and empty.

  “He was dead. I buried him.”

  MacCoinneach plucked up a curly dock and chewed on it. “I see.”

  “When is the last time you saw your father?” Lucifer asked.

  “I’ve never met him exactly. I only know of him.”

  “You were raised by your mother?” Lucifer realized immediately after he asked, the question was pointless. MacCoinneach had thought Abigail was his mother. “A woman you thought was your mother raised you. An aunt?”

  “No. I raised myself. I was all alone.” MacCoinneach sank down into the shrubs, looking like he wanted to shrink into the earth.

  “Then who taught you only to eat animals? Who told you it was wrong to eat people?”

  “I don’t know. I just woke up knowing things. Eating was instinctive. Setting up my lures and using certain kinds of magic came naturally to me, but I couldn’t eat people. Even when Witchkin attempted to hunt me, and I had to defend myself, I couldn’t eat them. Certainly it would have been practical to do so, but something wouldn’t let me.” MacCoinneach buried his head in his hands.

  Lucifer waited for the truth to spill from him. He wanted to believe it was the truth, anyway.

  “I did meet other pureblooded leshi once—and only once. They were like me, but they weren’t. They mocked me and said I was unnatural. From what I gather, I suppose I am. The other leshi used fancy glamours to try to trick me. I ran away, but they said they would hunt me. I had to defend myself. But even after I destroyed them . . . I couldn’t eat them. They were people.”

  Abigail had made Coinneach promise not to lure people. Not to eat people. He’d owed her a boon for a favor, and this was what she had chosen. But surely a promise couldn’t be passed along a lineage. Unless. . . .

  “How were you born? When were you born?” Perhaps he wasn’t Coinneach’s child at all; he was his sapling. That still didn’t explain how a Fae could conceive or sprout a child when all were said to be barren.

  MacCoinneach rested his head on his knees. “I don’t know how exactly. I sprouted up from the earth like any other plant. I was born about thirty years ago—if we’re going by Morty time. It might be longer, or it might be less. How long ago did Abby know my father?”

  Lucifer didn’t want to answer but the words escaped his lips. “Thirty years ago.”

  Damn Kelsie for making a strong potion that had lasted this long.

  “I’m done asking questions,” Lucifer said, backing away.

  “Abby is my mother, then? I have a mother?” Sheer joy carried through in MacCoinneach’s voice, like that of a child with hope for a family for the first time in his life. By Fae standards, he probably was a child. “Will you bring her here so I can meet her?”

  Lucifer wanted to ask MacCoinneach for the tears. The idea of belonging to a family after not having one for so long was enough to inspire tears in many. Lucifer could have agreed to bring Abby. That also might have brought MacCoinneach to tears. Or even Lucifer’s refusal might have made the son of a Fae cry, but Lucifer was the one too overwhelmed to keep his head straight.

  He couldn’t speak. He needed to get away. Lucifer clamped a hand over his own mouth and ran before any more truths he didn’t want to hear slipped out. He left the bottle of potion behind.

  * * *

  Lucifer didn’t want to believe Abigail might have been impregnated by a leshi seedling and given birth to a baby plant. He wished MacCoinneach had
never put such ideas in his head.

  It wasn’t like he hadn’t known about her relationship with Coinneach. After all this time, he thought he’d forgiven her for falling in love with another man. He had forgiven her for living with Adam and being happy while he’d been stuck as a cat. Lucifer was an incubus and needed to use sex magic to charge his affinity, but he’d saved his heart for her. The idea that she could have had secrets she’d kept from him resurrected old wounds he thought had healed.

  Lucifer was bursting to tell Baba and ask her what other explanation there could be. Surely there had to be one.

  So long as it wasn’t that Abigail might have known and not told him.

  Lucifer rushed through the door of the cottage out of breath and leaning against the door. Kelsie looked up from pouring pottage into his dish, glaring at him. From her puffy eyes and pink nose, he suspected he would need to tread carefully. She would be upset enough about admitting her secrets earlier.

  It would be no consolation that he hadn’t killed her supposed enemy in cold blood.

  Lucifer slumped into his chair and turned to Baba. “I need to tell you what I learned.”

  “Kelsie make special soup for dinner,” Baba said.

  “Special in what way?” Lucifer asked. It didn’t smell pungent like love-potion borscht.

  Kelsie dropped a roll next to her bowl, one next to Baba’s, and one beside his.

  “Old family recipe.” Baba pointed to the poppyseed rolls on the table. “Where is bread knife?”

  Kelsie scowled. “You don’t need a knife for rolls.”

  “I want knife. It is hard for my fingers to break bread.” Baba held up her arthritic hands as if to prove how feeble she had grown.

  Kelsie rolled her eyes and turned away. Baba pointed to Lucifer’s roll and shook her head. She pointed to the fire. Perhaps she wanted him to throw it in.

  “Poison?” he mouthed.

  Baba’s lips pressed into a line. Her gaze flickered to Kelsie. The blue-haired apprentice laid a knife beside Baba’s plate.

  Lucifer wished Kelsie’s drama could wait until he was done with his, but he figured he might as well confront this new problem head on.