Wired in Sin
Lea Barrymire
Victoria is a business owner, a friend and a succubus, the latter being something she despises with her whole heart. As she works to free others like her from the daily need to feed from sexual partners, she stumbles across her mate. Now she’s fighting destiny and the call of his lust, refusing to sate her need on the one male made for her.
Dominick is a technowizard used to living his life his way. When he arrives at a business meeting and senses his mate, he’s intrigued. When she slams walls up around herself and refuses to even look at him, he goes on the prowl. He uses her phone sex business to get her attention, but can he keep her on the line long enough to capture her heart?
A Romantica® paranormal erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave
Wired in Sin
Lea Barrymire
Prologue
November 1921
“Is she going to make it?”
“We don’t know.”
“She was screaming like a lunatic earlier when—”
Victoria struggled to see through the darkness. Her head and arms felt heavy, leaden and stiff. Her ears took in voices and sounds but her mind couldn’t make head nor tail of them. It was like thinking through a ball of cotton yarn, or soup, thick and sluggish.
“They say something attacked her. Maybe a dog, but she kept screaming about a winged devil.”
Who was that? She knew that voice. Didn’t she? It was the words that brought terror to her mind. Winged devil. Black, leathery, huge. Glowing red eyes. A forked tongue that spewed forth such disgusting and vile words at her. She whimpered in the darkness. What had that thing done to her? Memories came at her hard and fast. She’d been walking home from work, scared because it was so dark out even though it wasn’t past half past five. A noise had made her heart race and she’d sped her steps. The feeling of someone following her had made her skin crawl.
Then the voice. Oh God. The voice. So smooth and silky. It’d pulled a response from her body that she’d never experienced before. Arousal so hard and fast that it made her steps falter, nearly forcing her to her knees. Then his arms had been around her. Dark as night and strong, like steel. He’d carried her faster than she’d ever moved to an alley. It’d been so dark—not an ounce of light showed between the buildings. He’d murmured promises and temptations in a sinful voice, stealing her thoughts and stopping her denials. His lips had moved against her temple, stroking her heated flesh. Anything he wanted, all he had to do was ask and she gave.
She’d allowed him to do things to her that only a husband should have been allowed. He’d penetrated her virginal channel with the skill of a master. Not a single twinge of pain had caused her guilt. Nothing had hampered the passion he’d forced from her.
Victoria shuddered as images and memories filled her mind. He’d had wings that had wrapped around her, caressed her like a second set of hands. They’d been strong and thick, hot against her skin. When he’d finished inside her body, leaving traces of his seed dripping down her legs, those same wings had pulled her close to his chest for a surreal embrace.
A scream built in her chest. The next part…yes, that was the part she didn’t want to remember. The sex had been dirty, demoralizing. But the rest… The remembered struggle and pain pulled her from whatever dark, drug-induced world she’d been in. Her hands, clumsy still from the narcotics, battered at her chest. Bandages covered her ribs, hiding the damage that she knew was there. She needed to see if it was real. If he’d really opened her chest with a clawed hand and sucked her soul from her body. If he’d really dug into her chest cavity and manipulated her organs while he’d chanted words in a language she hadn’t understood. He’d marked her with symbols drawn in his own blood then tortured her.
The sound of her voice ripped through the hushed room. No longer human. That was what he’d told her. She was going to be like him—a demon, a devil. She screamed again, thrashing and clawing at the bandages. If she could just get them off and see that she didn’t bear his marks. She needed to see that she didn’t really have strange symbols burned into her chest over her heart. She’d be okay if it had all been a dream, a fever-induced hallucination.
“Stop her before she hurts herself.”
“John, sedate her for God’s sake. Get the chloroform if you need to—she needs to stop pulling at those.”
“Victoria, can you hear me?”
She couldn’t focus on the voices. None of them mattered. She needed to see her chest. Her life depended on what she’d see. If he truly had marked her, every single person in the room was in danger. She’d been turned into a demon, an employee of the devil. She had to get out of there.
A strong chemical smell accosted her, making her mind fuzzy once more. Her movements slowed with each inhalation of the noxious scent. Her limbs grew heavy. She couldn’t find oblivion, but she should have.
Chapter One
Present Day
Phones rang in the distance, echoing down the long hallway outside Victoria’s office. Three distinct ringtones warred with each other, clashing against her eardrums. The sound reminded her of the switchboard offices she used to work in. At least now the phones were portable and the girls who worked for her weren’t required to wear headsets that weighed a ton. And even though her employees were required to answer, now they could do so from the comfort of their own apartments.
Back in the day, as her girls said way too often, she’d been known to sit for hours wired to a switchboard, directing calls, chatting with nosy neighbors and trying to earn enough money for her family to pay their debts. Those memories were clouded by time, softened by the years that had passed. The images that played through her mind were from back when she’d worried about bills and what the wars would bring to her home. Back when she’d been human. Her thoughts and fears had been so trivial then, revolving around a finite existence that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
In the 1920s her only concerns had been about having a family and being a good daughter. Her goals had been so simple. Settle down, keep a nice house, cook meals for her husband. Plans to find a caring man to marry and to move from her parents’ house had ended the moment her Maker had attacked her and stolen her innocence and her soul. The attack, thankfully, had started to fade in her mind over the years.
The terror still woke her every once in a while, but she could no longer close her eyes and see the male, the incubus, who’d nearly killed her. His face was fuzzier now, shrouded in misty forgetfulness. The attack played more like a movie, distant and not as potent as it had once been. The feel of his body against hers, the pain as he shredded her soul and threw her forever into the fiery pit of demonhood had finally started to fade as well. If she concentrated hard enough she could pull up the memory of the exact smell of his cologne on his skin, but those thoughts never got her anywhere. Shoving the imprinted images, smells, tastes from that day deep into the depths of her psyche was the only way she had been able to deal with it. At least she didn’t have to know who he was, didn’t have to pretend that he was important to her as her Maker. The sickening chuckle that had echoed off the buildings as he’d ravaged her would never again race chilly and evil down her spine. Not like it had on that fateful night.
She shuddered and shook her head to clear the macabre thoughts. None of that mattered now. She was what she was—a demon who fed on sexual energy to survive. Those few moments in her past had sealed her fate and forever changed her life. Mortal to immortal, blessed to cursed, human to supernatural. It had only taken a few moments, just long enough for the demon to tear her apart, body and soul.
Even with her change in status, the fact that she was now a demon living in a human’s skin, she still had to work. The ringing of distant phones haunted he
r, taunting her with her human past and the ever-present stretch of eternity in front of her. She’d never escape them now. Giving succubi the ability to feed without actually touching another being was her gift to her kind. It had taken years and millions of dollars, but she didn’t have to run a brothel or an escort service any longer. Now it was all virtual. Pretend sex with real energy exchanges. The technology had branded her as a savior and a troublemaker. She’d been called many things. Brilliant. Revolutionary.
She employed fifteen girls and just as many males who had no desire to troll bars looking for their next feeding, or find another stranger for a string of one-night stands to satisfy their cravings. Victoria’s company gave the succubi and incubi a safe way to feed without all the mess of sex, dead bodies to clean up if the feeding went wrong and the emotionally clingy victims. Now her employees could live their lives as they wanted. Sin Incorporated had freed them, even if it hadn’t done the same for her.
Another round of phones ringing down the hall pulled her mind back to the task at hand. She stood in the middle of her office trying to stare through the long-lost humanity “filter”. She wondered what her old self would have thought of the room. It reflected what she was now—inhuman, immortal, succubus. Her old apartment would have easily fit within the office. Beautifully ornate furnishings held nothing in the way of emotion or connection for her, but they served to show her standing in the supernatural community. The desk she used for business was from an era of perfection. Gilded scrolls graced the sensual curves. Hand-painted cherubs peeked from hidden locations along the legs and sides. Everything held a sense of balance, artistic perfection. Sort of like her own adornments. Both showed how grandiose the craftsman was. At least in her case the crafter was herself.
She sighed. Her watch showed 8:30 p.m. She had fifteen minutes before her first client of the evening called and the dreaded sound of her phone reverberated through her apartment. She grimaced, knowing she’d be tied to that piece of technology for hours. She couldn’t scrape up enough enthusiasm for the evening to get her moving. She should have closed down her computer before, should have changed and eaten something. But doing those things meant she’d be sitting around her apartment thinking about the night. Nothing made her squirm more than time to think. She scoffed at her own musings. If she were a child she would’ve been scuffing her feet and whimpering something like, “But I don’t wanna go.”
The lack of excitement should have worried her, but nothing excited her these days. Living day to day, hour to hour, feeding from others like a fucking parasite had taken its toll on her. She spent so much time burying her emotions, stripping herself of everything remotely related to a feeling, that she was icy inside. The fact that her heart continued to beat within her frozen chest surprised her. Being a succubus enabled her to siphon energy from others’ emotions, feeding from them, taking vital nutrition from others. But there was more. What she’d also learned was that she could encapsulate her own feelings and the energy she’d sucked from her prey, using it as a barrier between the small piece of her soul she retained and the outside world. Nothing could affect her any longer—she was stone, cold and unbending. She was better off that way. Are you so sure? Loneliness isn’t making you happy either.She shoved the voice of her other half down, ignoring it and refusing to understand its longing.
Her internal debate seemed to be raging this evening. How many times had she flip-flopped on her stance of remaining alone? Hundreds, thousands of times a day? Some days, when she was being weak and feeling sorry for herself, she wanted to feel connected to someone again. Spending years of holding everyone at arm’s length, even those whom she counted as friends, wore her down. During those moments she craved a male of her own, someone whom she could be with, talk to, be herself with.
With a shake of her head she glanced at her watch again. She had fifteen minutes to get her mind in the game and ready to invade another’s head to sustain herself. A shiver of disgust slid down her spine. Another night of feeding someone else’s fantasies, living out their deepest wants and needs, didn’t make her giddy. Nope, it made her downright irritable. Always giving to satisfy her clients’ wishes so she could pull their lust from them had drained more from her than anything else.
To others she was the example the Makers pointed to, the epitome of the succubus hierarchy. They sent their new “children” to her for training, instructing them to observe her, mimic her, to become the best demon they could. If only the Makers knew how little she wanted to keep going, keep surviving. The hours she spent every day in blackness within her own mind were a secret no one would ever understand. The days of castigation weighed her down even now. If suicide had been an option she would have ended her demon existence days after she was turned.
Now, with years under her belt, she was the master of illusion. To the Makers, her employees—hell, everyone—she was the beautiful being she saw staring back at her from the portrait on the wall. They didn’t know her, the real Victoria. It was safer that they didn’t. Safer for her and for them. She’d long ago given up the idea of taking her own life and now knew she’d fight with everything in her to remain alive, even if she hated her life. Until something changed she would continue being the beautiful shell everyone saw, no matter how empty she truly felt. Well, aren’t you a happy girl tonight? She snorted at her own thoughts.
Walking to her desk helped to ground her mind. She needed to be in the moment until after she’d fed. Being as old as she was, feeding three nights a week was enough. It kept her sated and her succubus side happy. It had been a long couple of days and she could feel the stirrings of her demon just under her skin. She’d siphon deeply from her clients to ensure she was fully satisfied. No one was safe if she became too strung out. Her demon would only allow her to starve for so long before it came out, all leathery and evil. Deaths piled up quickly when she didn’t keep a grip on her other side and her demon emerged.
As she did every Thursday, she closed her computer down, saving the accounting documents and filing all the papers she’d accumulated throughout the week. She might not enjoy being what she was, but it kept her and her employees well fed and a roof over their heads. She wandered into the bathroom and washed her hands, breathing in the fragrance from her organic soap and letting it relax her. One of the few pleasures she’d found was that smells were so much more intense in her immortal body. She could pick out the individual ingredients of almost everything. The soap she used was oatmeal and almond milk, all natural and organic.
She mused about her calls for the evening. Her first client was new. She’d taken him on as a favor to Gynger, after the girl had begged for weeks. Normally Vic didn’t do favors for anyone—they tended to be bad for business—but Gynger was a friend and she’d been owed a favor or two. Victoria didn’t know the client, but he’d obviously made it through the screening process. Nick. That was his name, or at least the name he used for interacting with the girls. She didn’t even know what kind of super he was. She didn’t need to know. The magical safeguards would combat all forms of ill intent. She’d paid a fortune to guarantee her employee’s safety.
Sin Incorporated was not a standard phone sex, nine-hundred-number line. Victoria had made sure of that when she founded the company. Each client was screened thoroughly on both the human and the supernatural side. None of the potential callers ever made contact with one of her employees without extensive background and financial checks. The company employed four full-time psychics and other supers to keep tabs on every single male or female who became one of the chosen few to be assigned to one of her workers. If a client turned obsessive or abusive they were mindwyped and never allowed to call again. Every precaution to keep the staff safe was taken.
Victoria’s first few years as a made succubus had been filled with death and pain. She’d refused to let her employees go through the same thing. She’d suffered enough for all of them. Without a Maker to claim and teach her, she’d been left to fend for herself, leading to mo
re than a few disastrous feedings. She pushed the memories away with a shake of her head. They wouldn’t help her to do her job—they would just distract her.
If she’d learned anything in the business it was that men wanted her undivided attention when they called her. Sex with her came with a price. Energy and money were paid each time one of her clients called, but they gladly paid as long as she kept her real feelings buried deep inside where they couldn’t detect them.
Ten minutes. She sighed. You’re stalling. She knew she was. It wasn’t like she even despised her clients on Thursdays. She just didn’t want to have to do this again. Another night of being someone else for men who didn’t care at all about her left a bad taste in her mouth. In one of those rare moments where she gave in and felt sorry for herself, she wanted someone to want her for her, not for who she could be. Always being someone else caused her enough nightmares to fill a library. It was one of the few things she kept from her employees. She would never share the anger, disappointment and disgust she felt for every male she serviced and fed from.
Perhaps she needed to take a paramour as so many of the others had. Someone to actually connect with, even if only for a while. The dream of having someone to curl up with, to snuggle against in front of the fireplace, to chat about work with, was tantalizing. But the possibility of killing another man by draining him too far kept her from doing that. She’d spent so long locked inside that even the thought of getting close to someone terrified her. Even her girls didn’t touch her heart. No one did. She was cordial, helpful, a good boss, but she never let anyone near enough to know her. Loneliness threatened to pull her to her knees. She sighed and shook her head. Nothing you can do about it now, Vic, so move on.
Three minutes. She wandered to her bedroom and turned down the lights. The room was so different from her office that the contrast was like walking into another world. Her bedroom was her space, filled with the things she found soothing. Candles bunched together in small clusters were mixed with large stacks of books. Soft down pillows were piled along the back of a small cream-colored couch. The walls were a deep burgundy, broken only by a chair rail done in the softest of grays. Her bedding was in shades of cream and tan. There wasn’t a single gilded item to be found. No gaudy cherubs smiling at her. The furniture was rich mahogany, dark and shiny. Sturdy dressers and tables were punctuated with filled-to-overflowing bookcases. She knew that if she took a deep breath her senses would be washed clean by the smell of old books and sandalwood.
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