Son of a Succubus Series Collection

by Dorie, Sarina

  “Is there poison in the bread?” Lucifer asked.

  “No,” Kelsie said, gritting her teeth. “Do you think I’m so vain and shallow I would rather kill you than live in the same house with you?”

  “I don’t think you’re vain or shallow.” He knew her truth potion had worn off because he hadn’t added that he thought she was temperamental as the wind and too quick tempered for her own good.

  Lucifer used the spell for checking poison, hexes, and ingredients that would make him ill. The violet wisps of magic quickly dispersed above the soup. It turned green and smelled of sulfur above his roll.

  Baba sighed.

  Kelsie’s face turned pink. “It wasn’t poison.”

  “Got it. What does the spell do?” he asked.

  Kelsie crossed her arms. “It’s supposed to make you forget.”

  Lucifer stared at the roll. His life would be easier if he ate it and forgot. They both could forget about the awkward incident earlier. He wouldn’t have to think about any of the disturbing things the Fae had told him that he didn’t actually want to know about Abigail.

  And yet, he needed to know if there was another possibility. He would decide after he asked Baba, but he wasn’t ready to eat it yet. He pushed his bowl away and told Baba what he’d learned. She drank spoonfuls of broth and nibbled at mushy vegetables as she listened.

  Kelsie interrupted before he’d made it very far. “The leshi said he didn’t eat people, but that doesn’t mean he can’t capture them and kill them. It doesn’t mean he hasn’t tried to eat people.”

  “It’s possible he tried. And it’s possible the truth potion didn’t work on him because he is Fae, and everything he said was a lie.” Lucifer noticed Kelsie ate her soup. That probably meant his was safe. “But I don’t think the leshi lied to me. There were too many other things he said that he knew. Even if he had been eavesdropping, he wouldn’t have known about Abby’s past. I didn’t tell anyone how long ago it had been that Abby and I—well—how long ago we buried Coinneach.” Lucifer explained the rest of the story, working up to the part when the leshi told Lucifer his name and that he had asked if Abby might be his mother.

  “Was this leshi Witchkin or Fae?” Baba asked. It was a sensible question.

  “I’m not sure. I assumed he was Fae because he looked different, less human, but I didn’t examine his magic that closely. And by the time he started talking about Abby being ‘with seedling,’ I couldn’t think straight.”

  “Obviously,” Kelsie snorted. “If you had, you would have asked him better questions. You would have asked if he’d killed people before. Not just if he’d eaten people, but if he’d killed for pleasure.”

  “If I’d asked if he had killed people, he would have said yes. He’d already admitted that much. He said other leshi hunted him because he wouldn’t eat humans. That made him unnatural. It sounded like he defended himself. He admitted to killing the Witchkin who hunted him out of self-defense, but he was very specific about not eating them.” Lucifer leaned back in his chair. “Now that I think about it, he hasn’t ever been aggressive. He warned me not to drink his wine. He showed me the animals in his lures.” Coinneach had once claimed that leshi weren’t violent; they only caught food by luring them into their traps. They didn’t force them, though glamours and trickery were a kind of force.

  “He might have used a glamour to trick you into thinking he didn’t have human babies in his traps,” Kelsie said.

  MacCoinneach hadn’t tried to hurt Lucifer. During their previous encounter, MacCoinneach had run away when Lucifer had caught him spying. That was right after Lucifer had attempted to make a Coinneach golem to remind Abigail of her past. Everything suggested this leshi was telling the truth. And what motivation would he have for not telling the truth? If he had wanted to murder or eat Lucifer, he could have done so that day.

  Kelsie smacked her fist into her palm. “That dirty son of a Fae tricked you, but you’re just too dumb to see what’s right in front of you. It’s obvious he’s playing you. If I had been there, I would have asked better questions. I wouldn’t have let him sidetrack me. Plus, I would have brought an ax.”

  Just like Abigail had used to get rid of Coinneach’s family. It was a wonder Lucifer had been able to keep that part to himself. But MacCoinneach hadn’t asked about those details. Lucifer hadn’t felt the compulsion to tell. He could see why Baba might have warned him about the truth potion. He’d already told more than he wanted. He wasn’t going to use it again.

  Kelsie stabbed at the mush in her bowl with her spoon. “The other thing you were too much of a knave to realize is you didn’t even get any leshi tears for—”

  Baba pointed to Kelsie’s roll. “Why do you not stuff bread into your face so you are too busy chewing to interrupt?”

  Kelsie glowered. She tore into her roll. Lucifer supposed that probably meant she hadn’t hexed all the rolls, just his.

  Lucifer told Baba about MacCoinneach being his rival’s son and the details of how he had been born. “He thinks Abby is his mother, that he was her seedling. Is it possible? Could she have given birth to some plant baby and not told me?”

  Baba looked to the empty chair at the table. She frowned. “Nyet. She had no such secrets to keep from you.”

  Kelsie cleared her plate. Lucifer hadn’t even started his meal. As Kelsie turned away, Baba switched his roll with hers. She tossed the roll into the fire. He assumed the one Baba gave him was safe for consumption.

  Lucifer cut the bread into sections with the knife Kelsie had left for Baba. “Abby was alone with Coinneach the night she went over there to his side of the stream. And then afterward, when she thought he’d died, all she wanted to do was lie in bed. She wasn’t well, and she was healing from her burns, but she tried to sneak out to the forest and turn into a tree. She couldn’t, though, because I’d drained her. I followed her, but I gave her space and privacy. She could have . . . planted something.”

  Baba patted his hand. “I would know if life had been within Abigail. Even seedling. Perhaps this Fae just wishes for mother? At times, you have wished for same, nyet?”

  Lucifer nodded. He was already feeling better. All of what MacCoinneach had told him was wishful thinking. Except, he had to have been born from someone. Fae children didn’t just happen.

  “But how can a pureblood Fae—a seedling—be born in the Faerie Realm?” Lucifer asked. “It’s supposed to be impossible these days. Fae need humans so their heirs will tolerate Morty-crafted toxins, but Fae can’t conceive children with Witchkin or humans anymore to make children tolerant of those toxins.”

  “Life is often mystery to uneducated. But we know about Red affinity. We do not fear forbidden magic.” Baba raised her chin, a spark of defiance in her weary eyes. “You worry Abby is father?”

  “Mother,” Lucifer corrected. He hoped her slip of the tongue was due to old age, not a potion Kelsie had fed her.

  “Abigail did not grow seedling,” Baba went on unfazed by his correction. “You are mother.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Last of the Leshi

  “What?” Lucifer choked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Kelsie gasped and clutched at her chest as though she might be having a heart attack. It unnerved Lucifer as well to hear Baba’s declaration that Lucifer was MacCoinneach’s mother. As far as Lucifer could tell, he wasn’t a mother or a father.

  “Please say you’re joking. If you don’t, I’m going to vomit,” Kelsie said.

  “Why?” Baba’s expression remained serious. “You are fine with two women as lovers, but you have problem with two men as fathers. Or one as father and Lucy as mother?”

  Lucifer had always considered Baba wise, but she had to be losing her sanity. It was her age. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

  He spoke calmly, trying to explain the birds and the bees without sounding like he thought she was senile. “Coinneach was male. I’m male. It takes a
male and female to reproduce. Even with plants. Unless there’s something about incubi you’ve never told me.”

  Baba pointed to the bookshelf. “Get book on botany. And books in Old High German. My memory isn’t what it used to be. I prove to you how this works.”

  Lucifer glanced at his cold stew. He didn’t entirely trust Kelsie not to clear his bowl after he left the table. He left his food anyway and retrieved the books.

  Baba showed him diagrams in her botany books of plants with bulbs dividing. “This process does not require male pollinator for seed.” She flipped through the book and showed him another on how to cut a rose and regrow it from the stem so that the cutting became another plant.

  “I see,” Lucifer said. “Coinneach was cut apart. I planted him and a new plant grew out of him. That makes me his . . . gardener, not his mother.”

  “Nyet.” Baba smacked her hand against the table. “Now you get out next book. Read me titles.”

  Lucifer read Old High German painstakingly slowly. Reading and writing was one thing. Speaking was another challenge. Kelsie didn’t clear his bowl or bread at least. Maybe she still hoped he would eat it and lose all memories that would embarrass her.

  Baba pointed to the second book. “That one. Find spell on regrowing plants. You tell me ingredients to potion and how spell works.”

  Lucifer used his cheat sheet of translation notes for the table of contents. There was a spell for regrowing plants. He had written partial notes on the spell, but he’d never put much effort into finishing the translation until now.

  Baba sipped at her soup as he read. “This soup is best meal you have made yet.”

  Kelsie almost smiled at the compliment.

  Lucifer pointed to the ingredients. “There’s virgin’s tears, blood, pain, and electrical magic in this spell.” He swallowed the dry lump in his throat. “And death. Something has to die for a new plant to grow. In the case of a Fae or Witchkin with a plant affinity, someone with a similar affinity has to die for a new Fae life to be born this way.”

  “Just so. Abby was virgin, nyet? Her tears were first ingredient. There was his blood and pain. You had given him dose of electrical magic. There was death.”

  Lucifer kept reading. “There’s also a part in the spell that requires a unicorn horn.”

  “Perhaps that was accident. Or fate.” Baba drummed her knobby fingers on the table. “A unicorn who randomly stabs horn into earth?”

  “Or not random,” he said, thinking of Clyde cleaning his horn after Lucifer had touched it.

  “You created a monster,” Kelsie gasped.

  Lucifer tore his roll in half and dunked it into his soup. He was ready to not think about this anymore. Too bad Baba had thrown his roll into the fire.

  * * *

  Lucifer was almost asleep when he felt a hand smooth over his hair. Instantly he was awake and alert. The muscles in his belly tightened with anxiety. He was ready to launch himself up and attack if he needed to.

  Kelsie sighed. He didn’t think she had a pillow in her hands to smother him. Not that he could tell. She was behind him, so he was guessing. Baba had given him her roll after she’d thrown his away so that Kelsie would think he had eaten her baking. He had pretended not to remember her admission of love. He had hoped it would end there.

  Unfortunately, he remembered every detail of the day. Every detail he didn’t want to know about Kelsie, Coinneach, and how he had created a new leshi.

  Kelsie sat on his bed. She was too young for him—even if she was older than Abigail cognitively and in spirit. And what he’d said was true. He thought of her as more of a sister. A friend.

  Kelsie stroked his hair and rubbed behind his ears. He realized what she was doing then. She was petting him, like she did when he was a cat. He turned his head, melting as she found his favorite spot on the back of his head.

  “Would it be easier if I turned into my feline form?” he asked. “It makes petting so much more socially acceptable.”

  “No.” She sniffled. “You won’t be able to talk.”

  “Isn’t talking what always gets me in trouble?”

  She scooted closer. “No. It’s me not being able to listen to the truth that gets us both into trouble.”

  He covered her hand with his and tugged her closer as he shifted to the side to make room.

  She flopped onto his mattress, kneeing him in the back as she did so. He grunted, and she actually laughed. He was in pain, so he suspected that brought some joy to her heart.

  She slid into his bed and curled up behind him. Everything about this moment was a dangerous temptation for them both. For him because she was too young, and he didn’t want to break her heart. For her because she had a crush on him, and this moment might mean something more to her than it did for him.

  He tucked her hand under his arm and pinned it there. “Just for the record, I didn’t ask for all this petting. But if you’re going to invite yourself onto my bed, I’m going to hold your hands where I can keep them out of trouble.”

  “I wasn’t going to seduce you. I just . . . wanted a hug.” The reluctance in her voice made her words lurch like when she’d drunk the truth potion. “I wanted to know you were still my friend.”

  He hadn’t ever heard her call him a friend. “We’re still friends. Why wouldn’t we be friends?” He hesitated before he turned around. He shimmied himself up so he could tuck her head under his chin and kept his waist well away from her as he embraced her.

  “I know my spell didn’t work, and you can remember. You don’t have a poker face.”

  So much for Baba’s assistance. “I should take pointers from my brother.”

  “It was . . . kind of you to pretend to spare my feelings, but you’re going to have to work on your acting skills.” She was careful not to thank him. Even if he wouldn’t use the admission to force her to pay him a boon, it wasn’t a good habit to get into.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take a truth potion to know what I’m thinking. I don’t have a lot of secrets. I would have told you without the potion.” And he might have told her more gently.

  “I know. I haven’t been fair to you. You made it clear you never wanted to seduce me. You’ve always been . . . brotherly.” She drew in a shuddering breath.

  He shielded his own heart from her heartbreak and then stopped himself. It was better to know what she was feeling so he wouldn’t make assumptions.

  “I just don’t understand why you make love to all those women to fuel your affinity, but you won’t even look at me.” She sniffled.

  “Oh.”

  “Am I that horrible to look at?” The anguish in her voice spoke of a world of pain inside her that he usually didn’t see. She hid it too well under her indignation and snotty replies.

  “No, you’re cute.” He tried to think of a compliment to pay her, but it was difficult, considering he didn’t think of her romantically at all. “I like your blue hair. It’s unique. And your cooking has improved.”

  She laughed at that and buried her face against his chest.

  “I just consider you off-limits. You’re younger than I am. You live in the same cottage, and Baba told me long ago that she didn’t condone relationships between apprentices—which Abby and I completely disobeyed. And we got into loads of trouble for it.”

  He considered the long list of other reasons. “When I go to the forest to fuel my affinity, there aren’t loads of women. Sometimes I don’t find a Fae or Witchkin at all. I fuel myself in other ways. But when I do, I’m very selective about those I couple with. I try not to choose someone I think will fall in love with me. Like Gertrude Periwinkle. Sirens and wood nymphs have their own sort of fertility magic. They’re less likely to fall under an incubus’s spell. Not permanently anyway. But with you, it’s different. You never wanted to become besotted. I would be taking advantage of that. I know you think I’m that kind of person, but I’m not.”


  “I’m not besotted.” She huffed in exasperation. “I just . . . pine for you. Every single miserable day. It was before that day when you tried to put the whammy on Baba, but that was the day I lost control.”

  “I’m sorry.” He patted her shoulder. “I don’t know how to help you. I would introduce you to a mermaid to take your mind off me, but they’d probably drown you. And it might be awkward babysitting you during their idea of foreplay.”

  She punched him in the arm. “I’m not a baby. I don’t need babysitting.”

  “A lifeguard, then. With mermaids, everyone needs a lifeguard. Or metal armor to keep them from biting. I would show you my mermaid scar, but . . . it probably wouldn’t be appropriate for you to see where it is.”

  She snickered.

  “How about I let you know the next time I encounter a wood nymph who won’t try to enslave you forever? One who might be open to some special time with a lady?” he asked.

  “This isn’t about getting laid. It’s about my feelings for you.”

  “That does make it harder. No pun intended.” He squirmed back farther to ensure he didn’t poke her.

  She groaned in exasperation.

  “But I bet you wouldn’t complain if you found yourself in bed with Gertrude,” he teased.

  “No. I definitely wouldn’t complain.” Kelsie giggled and circled her arm around his ribs and gave him a brief squeeze before drawing back. “Just promise me you’ll give me an occasional hug like a friend would, instead of acting like you’re too good to deign to touch me.”

  “I can hug you anytime you want,” he said.

  Lucifer supposed it wasn’t just Red affinities who needed human contact. He’d always suspected he was abnormal, but maybe other people liked hugs too.

  Kelsie returned to her bed.

  His worries returned to Abigail. The new Abigail, the one he’d sent away, would no longer be under his influence. His magic couldn’t make her love him when she was far away. That was for the best. He wouldn’t torment her as he unwittingly had Kelsie.