Succubus Diaries 03 - My Fair Succubi

by Jill Myles

  Remy looked as if she wanted to argue, but she nodded and disappeared up the broken steps.

  I raised the hammer and swung. It smacked Caleb on the neck with a loud clang, sending reverberations through my body. A surge of pure evil shot through me, and I shuddered.

  I raised the hammer again for another swing, and another, but I might as well have been hitting the wall for all the difference it made. A sob caught in my throat. “You can’t have him,” I snarled, raising the hammer with tired arms. “No one gets to fuck with that vampire but me.”

  Zane’s eyes opened again and focused on me. His fingers strained, as if reaching for me, and I frantically pointed at my neck. The collar, I mouthed, then raised the hammer one more time.

  Zane’s eyes lit with recognition and his hand shot forward, grabbing on to the glowing collar. Caleb jerked backward, and my blow landed on the side of his head instead of on the collar.

  The room exploded with power.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Caleb went flying across the room, the image of Zane holding the flaring collar burned into my retinas. The pulse knocked me off my feet, shoving me backward. I gasped for breath in the miasma of the room, struggling to recover. Evil filled the basement—evil and hatred.

  Squinting at the bright light, I stumbled to my feet. As the haze cleared from my eyes, I gasped.

  Zane stood in the center of the room, collar still clutched in hand. It pulsed as if lit from within, and Zane’s eyes were glued to it as if entranced. At the far side of the room, crumpled and broken, lay Caleb. His chest still rose and fell as normal, though; it would take more than a blow to the head to destroy a vampire.

  “Thank God,” I said, lowering the hammer with exhaustion. I took a wobbling step forward. “Are you okay?”

  Zane ignored me, his hand beginning to shake. The collar glowed and Zane’s eyes grew even redder.

  Uh oh. I moved forward, keeping the hammer close. “Zane?”

  His hand began to shake and throb, his eyes wide. His mouth curled into a snarl, his wrecked body beginning to tremble as he began to slowly inch the collar toward himself.

  Put me on, I heard the air whisper.

  Oh shit. Shit!

  Caleb hadn’t meant to put the collar on, after all—it had talked him into it. Just like it was talking to Zane!

  I had to do something, and fast. But what? I stretched a hand to the collar, then withdrew it sharply—I didn’t want to put it on myself. There would be no way I’d be able to resist its power.

  “No,” Zane gritted, even as his hand moved toward his neck.

  “Zane, stop,” I cried out, moving forward. At my feet, the cat meowed and tried to wrap around my leg again. I pitched forward, nearly landing on the collar, and managed to shy away. Good lord, if I’d touched that thing …

  Wait—it needed any vessel to possess!

  I dropped the hammer and picked up the cat. “Good kitty. Nice kitty,” I murmured.

  “Jackie …” Zane whispered, sounding strained.

  I thrust the cat under the outstretched collar, forcing its head through the loop. “Drop it, Zane! Drop it!”

  The light flared again.

  The cat struggled in my arms, all claws and fury, then it gave an unearthly yowl.

  The collar hung off the cat, sliding down to fit around her chest. I snapped it shut around her, then jerked my hand backward when she swiped at me with a vicious paw. I dropped her to the floor, and her red eyes narrowed and she hissed at me.

  I’d just created a feline Cujo. I warily backed up a step as the cat crouched, preparing to spring at me.

  A large crate suddenly slammed down over the cat, hiding it from view. I heard it thump against the wood, but the huge crate didn’t move. Zane leaned on it, one wing listing, and gave me a wan smile.

  “Good job, Princess.”

  He looked bone tired, pale, and streaked with blood, some his own, and some not. One eye was nearly swollen shut. He looked vulnerable and exhausted.

  I gestured over at Caleb’s fallen body. “So do you think Caleb’s really evil, or was it just the collar?”

  The crate thumped angrily again.

  “Oh, he’s evil,” said Zane in a weary voice, still laced with humor. “But it was definitely the shenu driving him. I could feel the hate and the need in it when I touched it. Caleb’s been the queen’s faithful warrior for millennia. He wouldn’t betray her like that.”

  No, it seemed the queen had everyone well and good under her thumb, my own lover included. My gaze slid to the control collar she’d put around his throat.

  “Come here, Jackie,” Zane rasped.

  Part of me thought I should resist, but he looked as if he were about to collapse—and so was I. I moved a step forward, then another, finally standing close enough to him to smell the metallic tang of the blood covering him, to see the midnight pulse of his collar.

  He grabbed me by the waist and lifted me to sit atop the crate. The cat thumped against it once again, as if trying to attack me through the wood. My breath caught in my throat as he leaned in, his eyes raking over me. I swallowed. “What are you doing?”

  “Checking you over. Making sure that you’re not hurt.” He took my trashed arm in gentle hands and pulled off the remnants of his shirt, then began to wrap my arm.

  Tears burned in the back of my throat. Here he was, wings torn, weaving from exhaustion, and covered in blood—and he was tenderly wrapping my wound as if I were the only one hurt. His touch was incredibly gentle, careful to avoid the jagged edges of the wound and ensured that I was taken care of. “I should be asking that about you. Are you all right?”

  He gave a slight shrug, which emphasized how much his wing was listing to one side. “My body will heal. That’s one benefit of being immortal.” His mouth pulled up on one side in a sardonic half smile. “My heart is not quite so quick to mend.”

  “Zane …” I whispered.

  He fell to his knees before me, holding my hand. He pressed it against his forehead and exhaled long, his shoulders shaking. “I never meant to hurt you,” he said, and kissed my fingertips. “Never.”

  I swallowed hard, realizing we were talking about Rachael now.

  “But you did hurt me, Zane,” I said softly. “All those times you kissed me—it wasn’t me. It was her.” It still hurt just to think about it.

  “Jackie, that’s not true—”

  “Just don’t lie to me anymore, Zane. I’m so tired of the lies.”

  “Then tell me what you need to know.”

  I swallowed hard. “Did you kill Rachael? When you found out she chose Noah over you?”

  His flinch could be felt, and he sucked in a ragged breath. “I … yes.” He swallowed hard, his throat working. “I was angry and I took my anger out the only way I knew how. I didn’t know she was nearby …” Zane’s words were filled with self-loathing. “If you’re asking if I regret it? Every day for the last four thousand years. One reckless, stupid mistake … and I destroyed her.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. I couldn’t hate him for that—not when he clearly hated himself. “I see. And that’s why you turned me?”

  His forehead felt hot against the backs of my fingers. “It was the reason I turned you. When you landed at my feet and you were drunk and disheveled and warm … you looked just like her. It made me ache just to see you. Back then you were just another girl, so it didn’t matter to me if I ruined your life. So after I bit you, I delivered you to Noah, knowing that he’d be unable to resist taking you to bed as well.”

  I flinched and tried to pull my hand out of his. At least he was honest, even if it hurt.

  But he wouldn’t let me go.

  “When you turned, you didn’t look much like her anymore. That’s why I didn’t recognize you when you first came into the club. And you’re nothing like Rachael in personality. I didn’t like you much at first, Jackie. And I called you Princess because you were so prissy about being a succubus.”

&
nbsp; I swallowed hard.

  “You crept under my skin, Jackie. With your jokes, and your smile, and the fact that you tried so hard at everything, even if you weren’t good at it. That you were so determined to be moral and good, despite the succubus curse. I admired that about you. Before I knew it, I was falling in love with you. Not Rachael’s double. Not the girl I loved four thousand years ago. You. The Jackie who gets excited about old vases and teases me about hieroglyphics. The Jackie who isn’t afraid to tell me what she likes, and likes me for what I am.” He kissed my fingertips again, ignoring the faint hiss of his black collar as it burned him. “The Jackie who takes my hand and pleasures herself when I’m asleep, because she wants to be with me.”

  Heat crept up my cheeks. “How did you know about that?”

  “I was asleep, not dead,” he said, a hint of the old Zane’s grin returning to his face. “And my dreams took a decidedly interesting turn once you started touching me.”

  He said he loved me … but did he mean it? Or was he just afraid of losing to Noah again? How could I know for sure? “I … still need time to think about this, Zane. I don’t know.”

  Zane simply nodded. “I can wait for you.”

  I ignored the warm, fuzzy feelings his words brought forward. The cat thumped underneath me again and began to yowl. “Help me find a cat carrier for this little bugger,” I said to Zane. “I’ve got someone to deliver him to.”

  Zane looked wary. “Who did you have in mind?”

  “The Archangel Gabriel.”

  His scowl showed his anger. It was obvious that he didn’t approve. Too bad.

  When he opened his mouth to speak, I raised a hand. “Just trust me on this, will you?”

  He clamped his mouth shut and nodded once. “I trust you, Jackie,” he said huskily. “And I will follow your lead, wherever you want it to take us.”

  The warm fuzzies coursed through my body again, but I forced myself to tamp them down. “Right now, let’s just get this out of here before Caleb wakes up and insists I give the queen our little kitty cat.”

  “It must be quite a deal that you’ve made with the archangel,” Zane said in a rough voice.

  Gabriel’s favor to me would be worth it—I could ask him for anything. Even to go back through time, to resurrect the dead … anything I wanted.

  A thought suddenly occurred to me—and my heart gave a heavy, aching thump as I realized what I would ask from Gabriel.

  Zane was stranded here on the mortal plane with me, a pale shadow of the woman he’d truly loved. Sure he professed to love me now, but if Rachael was standing next to me, I wasn’t sure which of us he would pick. It was easy to choose me when he had no other options. But … I could give him those options. As I played with the thought in my mind, I realized that it was brilliant. It was unselfish.

  It was going to be so hard to do. I could ask Gabriel for Zane’s redemption. Then Zane would be free to return to Heaven and receive his wings again—real wings, not demon-spawned ones.

  And best of all, he could be with Rachael. He wouldn’t have to settle for her replacement, like he’d been forced to settle for replacement wings. I could give him everything back—his wings, his first love, eternity in Heaven. Everything.

  It felt like a knife in my breast, and tears spilled down my cheeks as I realized that I loved Zane. With all my heart and soul.

  I loved him so much that I’d have to let him go back to the arms of the woman he loved more than Heaven itself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Here, kitty kitty,” Remy said, wiggling her finger in front of the cat carrier that Ethan held.

  The cat yowled and swiped at her through the bars of the cage. Hissing, it attacked the front of the carrier as if, by sheer persistence, it could somehow get through the reinforced bars.

  Remy jerked her hand backward and grinned at me. “Joachim’s still a little ticked off at being a cat, I think.”

  “Let him stay ticked off,” I said, watching the two vampires having a conversation on the sidewalk—probably about Joachim. “He’s a cat. He can’t do anything but piss on the carpets.”

  She giggled.

  I wished I was as happy as she was. We had the halo and were set to deliver it. Soon we’d be free of Joachim’s evil forever, and I’d have a boon from an archangel—no mean feat.

  But it felt like my life was about to be over. I was going to lose Zane forever.

  I rubbed at my breastbone to stop the ache. Remy and I sat in a rental car, parked at the curb of a church downtown. The streets were dark and empty with the onset of dawn except for the two vampires clad in full-length trench coats, smoking cigarettes under a streetlight.

  After forcing our demon cat into a reinforced cat carrier, we had escaped the destroyed house. Zane had torched it and all the bodies within, and we drove away before the authorities could arrive at the massive fire. I thought of all the families who would wonder endlessly what had happened to their loved ones, and sadness nearly overwhelmed me. All those innocent people dead, because of one evil halo. It had to be destroyed before Joachim could cause more damage.

  We’d returned to Remy’s house to find Dee’s stuff gone and a note stuck to the front door. She and Noah were going to take a little time away from New City. If we needed her, we could call her cell phone. I tossed away the note. Hell would freeze over before I’d call and check and see how she was doing with my boyfriend.

  Make that ex-boyfriend, who’d given me up to Zane.

  Zane. Who, if my plan came to fruition, would soon be happily in Heaven, reunited with both his wings and his first love. It would leave me terribly vulnerable—with only Noah left as my master (and him not speaking to me). I’d be in a tricky situation, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop me from carrying forward. Zane’s happiness was more important than anything else.

  Zane, who didn’t know that he was about to get the biggest gift ever. I blinked away sudden tears, gripping the steering wheel. I had to be strong. If I blubbered like a baby, everyone would guess what I was about to do. But the love I kept trying to fight kept surging forward.

  How was I stupid enough to love a man who had used me as a cheap replacement for the true woman he loved? And after knowing that, how was I stupid enough to continue to have feelings for him?

  And how was I ever going to let him go?

  Outside, I watched the vampires argue. Both were nearing hibernation and their eyes were reddening with the need for blood. Both were smoking heavily to try and take the edge off, since feeding wouldn’t happen until after they had finished day-sleep.

  Caleb began to pace.

  My gaze focused on my lover, my heart doing a little flip at the sight of him, his hair in its familiar tousle that fell over his forehead. Underneath his coat, his wing had been bound and bandaged—I’d done the bandaging. The rest of his body was scarred and bruised, but he was healing quickly. Another day and he’d be fine.

  Caleb had not fared as well. He still had that hollow-eyed, worn look. His wings had nearly lost all their feathers while he’d been possessed—I guessed that was part of the curse, since Joachim had been condemned to never have wings again. Still, Caleb should have been thankful that we’d saved him and that he remained relatively whole.

  He didn’t look thankful at the moment. A cigarette hung from his mouth and he continued to pace, arguing with Zane. They kept glancing back toward the car where we waited, Remy and Ethan watching over the cat in the backseat.

  When Caleb shook his head for the third time, I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Be right back,” I told Remy and Ethan, and got out of the car. I stalked toward Caleb and Zane, hugging my long-sleeved sweater close to my body. The wind was picking up as the new day eased onto the horizon.

  “Hi there,” I said, approaching the two of them and trying not to wince when two reddening pairs of eyes focused on me. I probably smelled like a succu-buffet.

  Zane threw down his cigarette and ground it under one boot. “Ev
erything okay, Princess?”

  I gave him a thumbs-up and glanced warily over at Caleb. “Something wrong that you two want to share with the rest of the class?”

  Caleb’s expression darkened. “You really think giving the halo to Gabriel is a good idea? He could take the halo from you and then destroy us all.”

  I raised my wrist, displaying the archangel’s mark. “I have his word that he won’t. See?”

  Both vampires stared at my wrist for a moment, and then Caleb shrugged. “I still vote we should turn it over to the queen.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not yours,” I retorted, shoving my sleeve down over my wrist. “And you know how well you controlled yourself when Joachim possessed you. You murdered an entire subdivision without even thinking about it. Now imagine that power given to the queen.”

  “She’s my queen. What do I care what she does?” Caleb sneered.

  “You’ll care when she murders everyone on Earth,” I retorted. “Then who do you plan on drinking from? Each other? Won’t that be a clusterfuck.”

  Neither one said anything, and I didn’t blame them. I’d have nightmares thinking about the situation myself.

  Caleb shrugged again. “The three days is up, anyhow. I have to return to Queen Nitocris and tell her that it’s been disposed of. She won’t be pleased that I had it in my grasp and lost it.”

  “When is she ever pleased?” Zane said.

  “And when are you going to tell her your news, Zane?”

  Zane grew very still. “I’m not sure.”

  “Tell her what?” I said in a sharp voice. Zane wouldn’t look me in the eye. Why did he look so guilty? “Tell the queen what?” I repeated.

  Zane glanced over at me, his mouth lifting on one side in a heart-melting smile. “Tell her that I’m not returning to the fold.”

  My heart hammered with a mix of hope and fear. “But … I thought …” He’d given himself up to her six months ago to save me from her wrath. What would happen to him—and to me—if he elected to go for his freedom?

  And did this mean we could be together? Hope began to spiral through me, only to be crushed by the realization of what I was about to do.