Son of a Succubus Series Collection

by Dorie, Sarina

  “Yes. It feels like flying.”

  “I pushed you on the swing once, and that’s what you said before. I bet part of you remembers enjoying it.” He walked around to the back of the swing and pulled it by the rope before releasing it.

  She swung through the air, moonlight catching her pale dress as she drifted out from under the eaves, making her look like a ghost floating out of the shadows before sinking toward him again.

  “I don’t really want to swing right now. I want to talk to you.” Her expression was serious.

  The momentum of the swing died away. Lucifer caught her against himself and shifted to lean against her side. She slid her hand to his where he held the rope, but she didn’t speak.

  He didn’t know where to begin. There was a chasm of hurt dividing them. He didn’t know how to cross it.

  “You were going to tell me about the day with the unicorns,” he said.

  “Yes.” Still she didn’t answer.

  Wind rustled the leaves. Lucifer wondered whether her friends were out there listening, Khaba and Yoshi. He projected his awareness, but only sensed plants. Fireflies shifted, and Amni Plandai spells wove around them.

  They were alone. Exhausted from using so much energy already that night, he retracted into himself. He didn’t know how he was going to be able to work soul magic without replenishing himself.

  “Whatever those unicorns told you, they were wrong,” Lucifer said. “I’m not going to be mad at you if you fell in love with someone else. Or if something else happened. I won’t think less of you because you aren’t a virgin. I told you that in my letter. Didn’t you get it?” He had worried about his abilities to transport inanimate objects. That letter had been one of his first lessons.

  “I read it. But they told me you would probably lie.” She sighed.

  “They? Clarissa? Godric?” She was surrounded by people here.

  “No! The unicorns.” She sighed, sounding forlorn.

  He nudged her foot with his. “Unicorns are elfing donkule mongers.”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned against his side. “Clarissa said I shouldn’t talk to them because they have filthy mouths. She’s afraid they’re going to put bad ideas in my head about things I’m not adult enough to understand. And Vega said they’re a bunch of chauvinistic idiots who say things that aren’t good for a growing girl’s self-esteem.”

  Lucifer couldn’t disagree with either statement. “Unicorns don’t have a lot of discretion. And they aren’t always nice.”

  “Yes, but they’re pretty, and I wanted to ride them, so I disobeyed Clarissa. I try to listen and do as I’m told, but it’s so hard sometimes. Especially when adults don’t have time to tell me why I have to listen.”

  He placed a hand on her head, smoothing a gloved hand over the soft curls that had been pinned in place. With his gloves, he couldn’t actually feel her. He bit into one fingertip and wiggled his hand free. He was careful as he stroked the soft skin of her neck, not wanting to ruin her hair.

  “It’s all so embarrassing to have to admit to anyone.” Her words came out in a nervous rush. “Godric was visiting Izzy and me that day. We saw unicorns had snuck on the grounds to eat the flowers, so we borrowed apples from the kitchen to bribe them into giving us rides. They would only give me a ride, but they tolerated Izzy because she was holding the baby. They were rude to Godric, but he stayed back far enough not to annoy them. It was when they started insulting Izzy that I got mad. I didn’t like what they were saying to her because she wasn’t ‘pure’ enough for them anymore.”

  “I’m happy to hear you didn’t agree with their assessment of your friend.” Lucifer wondered how Izzy had taken it as a new mother who had already been accused of being low and unfaithful by the Fae court she’d left.

  “I kicked Clyde while I was riding him. I never told Clarissa that part. Hitting and kicking aren’t very nice, but he deserved it.” She buried her face against his side. “He raced off and jumped over a hedge. He landed really hard, and I felt this . . . um . . . twinge between my legs. Clyde dumped me off his back and started cursing at me. My back hurt from landing on the ground. That part was obvious. I didn’t understand why my lady parts hurt, but he told me. He was furious because I’d just broken my hymen, though I hadn’t realized it. He said he could cure me if I wanted, but he’d have to stick his horn somewhere very private, and I didn’t want him to.”

  “Son of a Fae!” Lucifer swore. If he never saw a unicorn again in his life, it would still be too soon. He hoped the unicorn Vega had stolen the horn from for her scepter had gotten what he deserved.

  “Even after Clyde told me all the reasons I should let him cure me—about you not wanting me if I wasn’t a virgin—I still wouldn’t let him. Izzy ran off to get help because she was afraid I might have broken my back. Godric yelled at the unicorns and drove them off. He thought Clyde did that on purpose to try to coerce me to let him touch me with his horn. He said I was smart to refuse them. But I was so upset. I was afraid they were right. The old Abigail was a virgin when you met her. And you want the old Abigail.”

  Lucifer hugged her tighter. “I knew you before and after you were a virgin. It really isn’t an important detail to anyone other than unicorns. Please believe me, I’m not just saying that. Consider who told you I would mind.”

  Her face was dark in the shadows, but a hint of moonlight caught the glisten of tears in her eyes. “But you do want the old Abigail. She’s the one you fell in love with, not me.”

  “You’re the same person. You just don’t remember.” He thought she was, anyway. Sometimes he wasn’t certain whether her soul had grown into something else. Her face looked the same, and that could be misleading. She didn’t have the same memories and experiences he had shared with the old Abigail. Nor would she if he didn’t give put the remainder of her soul back inside her before it was too late.

  “Godric told me you wouldn’t care either. He tried to console me.” She turned her face away. “I was so upset. He was afraid I was crying because he thought I’d hurt my back worse than I had. He said he would try to heal me. But he has hardly any magic.”

  Lucifer nodded to show he was listening. “I’m aware.”

  Her chin was ducked down, her eyes downcast. “Godric thought he could try to help me turn into a tree like you did. He didn’t know it was your magic that made me do that, not mine. I mean, it sort of is mine, but it was before I learned to shift on my own without Yoshi’s help to heal myself. I didn’t know Godric’s way of helping meant he would kiss me. Neither of us realized it wouldn’t work, only that it didn’t after he tried it.”

  “No, that’s not how your magic functions.” Lucifer tried to speak about it rationally, not to let his annoyance of Godric leak into his tone. “You would need sunlight, earth, water, and nature to heal. Not kissing.”

  “Despite what you might think about Godric, he meant well.” She shifted in the swing, squirming back. “He wasn’t trying to seduce me—though the guards think otherwise because they were the ones Izzy brought back. She’s been vexed with him since then. That was why he wanted to go to my room—to see her. She isn’t allowed to go to the party because King Elric still hasn’t told the Verde Court we have her. Godric wanted to apologize, and I knew it was the only way he would be able to find her in the castle. Godric said I shouldn’t feel ashamed about the unicorns and him kissing me, but I think we both feel embarrassed about it.”

  Understanding washed over Lucifer. All that sneaking off and secrecy earlier had been about Godric wanting to apologize to someone. Lucifer couldn’t have felt more horrible.

  “So there it is, my humiliating story that I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want you to know we’d kissed, and I didn’t want you to know about the rest.” She kicked at a rock. “Now you know about the most embarrassing day of my life.”

  He didn’t think it was half as bad as what he’d imagined. He wanted to laugh, b
ut he didn’t, knowing how long it had taken her to share this. The wound in her heart was fresh and raw.

  “I owe you an apology,” he said. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about you and Godric earlier. I should have just listened.” It would have been so much easier if she had just told him. But she hadn’t, and he had made everything worse.

  He lifted her from the swing and sat down, pulling her onto his knees so he could hold her close. “I don’t want us to have secrets from each other. Promise me next time you’ll just tell me the truth.”

  Her tone was sad more than angry. “You have secrets from me.”

  “I don’t think I do.” Her arms were cold under the heat of his hands, and he rubbed warmth into them.

  “You didn’t tell me you were an incubus. You didn’t tell me you need to have sex with women.” She leaned her cheek against his, lessening the blow of the accusation.

  “That isn’t a secret. I just didn’t tell you because . . . you’re younger than I am. It isn’t an experience you’ve had yet. I don’t want to corrupt you.”

  “Why are people always talking about sex like it’s something bad and forbidden? You don’t like the unicorns because they say sex is bad, but so do you—and it’s your affinity. You look down on Godric because he’s had girlfriends, but it wasn’t like he used them for sex. Not according to Izzy anyway.

  “He was in love, but his parents wouldn’t allow him to marry a maid, and they sent the girl away to work elsewhere. The other two young ladies he kept secret so his parents wouldn’t find out, but they broke up after a while. They weren’t flings.”

  He wondered whether Godric had used that word “fling.” Or Izzy might have. He couldn’t imagine the old Abigail using such a modern term so casually.

  “Is that what he told you I do with women? Have flings with them?” Lucifer wished he had a better term for it. He didn’t know what to call it. Trysts? Affairs?

  “I heard gossip. It wasn’t from Izzy or Godric. They don’t say bad things about you.” She held herself taller. “But you aren’t very nice to Godric, and he doesn’t deserve that.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. I’m a hypocrite.” He kissed her forehead, letting his lips linger against her skin so he could smell the fragrance of fruit and flowers in her hair. “Thank you for putting me in my rightful place. I’m sorry if I’ve given you the impression my affinity is something bad. It hasn’t been easy for me figuring out how to be a Red affinity.”

  “It’s because Baba is your teacher. You don’t have a school with other people like you.”

  “No, it’s because I’m in love with you.” He leaned his face into her hair, inhaling her scent of springtime and flowers. “I want to be faithful to you, but I don’t know how to do that. I have to use pleasure. Sometimes the physical pleasure of a bath, dancing, or a delicious meal sustains me, but it doesn’t fuel me to the same extent that sexual gratification does. When I need to use healing or the advanced spells Baba taught me, the best thing that recharges me is spending intimate time with a woman. I wouldn’t be able to do that at a school like yours either.”

  She smoothed a hand over his cheek. “Why can’t you spend that time with me? I could help you.”

  His gaze flickered to her lips. “Because you’re young.” He wanted to take her up on the offer, to satiate the ache in his own body and soul, but he hesitated.

  “Because I’m too young to be a teacher, and I don’t know enough about the Red affinity?” She buried her face against his chest. “Or because you think I’m too young to feel . . . lust?”

  He tried to find a way of phrasing what he wanted to say without implying sex was something to feel ashamed of. “In our culture, people put a lot of emphasis on the age that it’s appropriate for young people to be old enough to give consent. You’ve only just woken up. It’s like you’ve just been born. Everything is still new to you, this body your soul has grown into and everything you experience. You don’t remember your past. You don’t remember being married or raising children.”

  She squirmed against him. He sensed the ache in her heart as he spoke about the old Abigail.

  He struggled for the right words. “It isn’t right for me to use you to fuel my affinity. Do you understand that? Once we’re intimate, I can’t undo it. You have no idea how much lust you’re going to feel. It isn’t going to be your true feelings for me. It’s going to be incubus magic. You’ll feel like a spell has been cast over you.” He considered how much Kelsie still resented him for the accidental spell. He had only intended to use it on Baba to compel her to give him the books he’d needed to learn soul magic.

  “I think I do remember some things from before. I remember loving you.” She touched her lips to his, the brush of hers a ghost against his skin. “From the first moment I woke, I knew that. I think I knew it before I woke.”

  His throat tightened at her words. He couldn’t tell the yearning in his own body from hers. The amount of focus it took to close off his affinity and suppress it made it challenging to concentrate on speech. Or perhaps the thrill of her sitting on his lap was making it more difficult.

  He leaned back. “Can you understand why I would want to wait?”

  “It’s because you want the other Abigail. You need me to be the other Abigail to want me like that.” She placed a hand on his chest, her palm cupping the vial.

  He didn’t know whether she meant the virgin Abigail that she thought she needed to be or a complete soul with memories of the past.

  His voice came out rougher than he would have liked. “I love you. Your sexuality isn’t going to make me love you more or less. I don’t think there’s anything you could do that will change the way I feel about you.” He crushed her against him and kissed her.

  There was a stillness in the air that hadn’t been there before. The music still played in the distance, though it wasn’t classical any longer. It was closer to jazz. A woman sang.

  “But it should matter,” Abigail mumbled against his lips. “If I committed a crime like murder, it would make sense for you not to love me anymore.”

  “If you had to defend yourself, I would love you. I hope you would feel the same about me if I committed a crime for a good reason.” Like stealing from the people she loved.

  A leaf crunched. Lucifer listened to the sounds of the garden.

  Someone else was out there. He wanted to project his awareness, but he didn’t have the stamina for it. The moment he did try, he felt as though he would collapse in exhaustion. Or perhaps the barriers of his affinity would simply collapse, which was even more dangerous.

  “The old Abigail wasn’t defending herself when she hurt other people.” Abigail’s voice was grim, darkness creeping in. “She did it for revenge.”

  “Are you saying that because you remember what happened? Or someone told you?” He didn’t know who else knew besides Baba. Kelsie knew some, but neither woman would have had the opportunity to tell her. Abigail had never told Clarissa about her life in the Faerie Realm, possibly out of shame, possibly to protect her.

  “I didn’t ever hurt anyone. That was the old Abigail. I don’t want to be like the old Abigail. I want to be me. I want you to love me for being me. Is that too much to ask? You would know whether you were willing to love me as much as her if you made love to me.” She pressed her lips against his.

  He wasn’t sure if that was the reason, but he couldn’t say so. He didn’t want to say so. All he wanted was to kiss her. He parted her lips and drank her in. His affinity swelled.

  Someone cleared his throat nearby. “Ahem. Is this a bad time?”

  It was the worst time. Lucifer didn’t want to know who had caught them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kiss and Tell

  Lucifer drew his face from Abigail’s. His heart lurched as he scanned the shadows. A figure stood there, hidden by a screen of clematis vines. Lucifer wondered what this spy was going to tell Clarissa and how she mi
ght then deny Abigail from seeing him again if she didn’t think it was in her best interest.

  “Miss Abigail, cake is being served.” It wasn’t the stuffy tone of the valet, but the formality suggested one of the servants.

  “Cake?” Abigail asked.

  The figured moved through the bushes. Whoever it was had decided to be discreet enough to allow Abigail some privacy at least.

  “You missed champagne and the queen’s toast. But your classmates are having cake in the kitchen. Trevor thought you might not want to be left out.”

  “Oh. Yes, that’s true.” She planted a peck on Lucifer’s cheek. “We’ll join them.” She drew away.

  Her absence was as painful as tearing away an adhesive bandage. Lucifer shivered as her warmth left him. Did she have any idea how horrible it was for him that she could kiss him and become distracted by cake a moment later?

  Lucifer stood. His body craved hers, but he resisted the urge to kiss her again.

  “There was a special ceremony for the young ladies who came of age tonight. I suppose we missed it.” Abigail sounded sad.

  “I didn’t mean to distract you from the party,” he said, wishing the party hadn’t distracted her from him.

  “It isn’t your fault.” She took his arm and guided him back toward the castle.

  His feet crunched over the path. “I’m glad we made up.”

  “Me too.” He was certain he could see in the dark better than she did, but she stepped along the path with ease.

  “I just wish we hadn’t argued. We could have enjoyed dancing together this evening.”

  “There’s going to be lots more dancing,” she said. “After the cake, there’s to be a special performance. And Vega intends to dance in the special magic show. That’s part of her affinity, you know. Dancing.”

  “I didn’t know.” He wondered what that said about Vega dancing with him publicly. Was it the equivalent of having sex in front of an audience? He couldn’t tell.

  Then again, he’d mated with her as a cat. That was far more clandestine than dancing.