“She’s brilliant, brother! On a scale found nowhere else in the kingdom. You’ve seen it.” He appears in front of a cabinet and rips a tablet from inside. The tablet is thrown blindly in my direction, and if he wasn’t aware of my reflexes, I’d take offense.
Catching it, I stare down at the information on the screen.
“Forget her IQ score—”
“I’m more worried about what humans call her EQ,” I mumble, scanning the words.
“Yes. She’s emotionally unstable and unpredictable due to her succubus DNA and how it exacerbates her vampiric nature. But given enough autonomy, she can also thrive as our ancestor once did.”
I ignore his comment, scrolling through the information at a speed that would baffle mortals. Within those seconds, I’ve already absorbed everything on the medical records, the same ones he spent months hiding from me. “So if Calamity isn’t given reason to be upset, she can control the malicious urges of her succubus side. Do you realize what you’re saying? We’re to bend an entire civilization to her emotional whims day in and day out?”
“Of course not!” My brother’s pale skin reddens, and he has the nerve to glare at me as if I’m the problem here. “But we’ve given her the most autonomy we can within reason.”
“Within reason,” I mimic under my breath, once again aghast at the fact that he’s been trying to handle all this without my input.
“See? This is exactly why I didn’t bring you on board before.”
“Cut the fucking bullshit. You had the audacity to tell me there’s a chance Calamity might not wed. This would all make sense if you were actively seeking a partner for her.” Very true, yet uttering the words sends a flash of bloodlust and aggression spiraling through my cells.
Calamity wed to another.
Calamity allowing that male to bond with her in order to control her succubus-half.
Pushing the thought aside before my brother reads too much into my expression, I drop the tablet on a long side-table and face the wall. “A partner is the only way to control her. Someone willing to become her încusă.” The consort of a succubus, their sole provider of sex.
My fangs punch to full length inside my mouth.
Every muscle in my body bulges, preparing to hunt this male down.
Fuck me. My body’s bonded to her. This genetic weakness I have no idea how to fight is going to make accepting that impossible.
Unless I volunteer for the position.
Which leaves me where I’ve always been—trapped between two impossibilities, with no clue which path will cause the least damage.
“No one outside the royal family and the physicians know about her nature. Not even the council. They agreed to change the laws so that she’d inherit the throne simply because all the females in power demanded it.”
Because the same aggressive independence given to her by her succubus nature makes Calamity irresistible to those females starving for change.
“You can’t hide it forever.” Especially with the glimpses I’ve seen of Calamity when caught up in her instincts. Her odd wanderings at night. Her impulsive, erratic reactions. The longer she goes without a consort, the older she gets, the more powerful her natures will become.
“That isn’t the plan. The plan is to ease the consciousness of our citizens into accepting her before dropping this kind of bomb on them.”
“The medical files didn’t mention any reason why her succubus DNA is activated when for ten-millennia no female in our kingdom, not even Ninkasi and Marduk’s own daughters, showed any hints of it.”
Appearing as ancient as he is, Malachai shuffles over to another cabinet where containers of blood are stored. He makes quick work of serving himself a glass and mixing it with alcohol.
When he holds it out to me, offering it, I shake my head in denial. He doesn’t know this, but simply standing here before him is costing me untold amounts of energy.
Fucking succubus withdrawal. Every cell in my body is demanding her presence. Her scent. The feel of her skin.
Every drop of her blood.
Malachai takes the glass he served me for himself and downs it in a single swallow, once again evincing the weight of this burden he decided not to share with me. “The medical records haven’t mentioned it because we simply do not know. Her father’s body was cremated as is the custom, and no one in his direct family has any hint of the DNA in them. Tests are constantly being run on Calamity to try and pinpoint how the fuck it happened, ten-thousand-years later.”
And to think that for months my feverish brain, under the onslaught of this genetic addiction, pumped out one distorted image after another, trying to get me to understand what she’s doing to me. Warning me of the infamous succubi effect.
Modern mortals have come to believe they’re dream demons, invading and seducing men through their fantasies. And whereas part of that is true, it hasn’t actually been Calamity herself wreaking havoc upon my dreamscapes. It’s her effect on me that triggered the obsessive, feverish dreams.
“What are you going to do with this information, brother? Continue trying to slow the inevitable course of progression?” Malachai asks me tiredly.
I understand my stubbornness, my perhaps blind adherence to the old ways, yet his question is better off left unanswered.
Lest the urge to slam my fist into his face proves too strong.
“No more secrets,” I tell him. “I’m your second-in-command for a reason. I don’t plan on getting in the way of any progression, but if progress is what you want, a better course is needed. A more cautious one.” With that, I leave him, before I blurt out the other part of what I’m thinking.
The most dangerous idea of all.
What if I give in to this weakness instead of trying to survive the withdrawal?
What if I become Calamity’s consort?
It’s possible.
And the main reason I refuse to tell my brother yet is not only due to that caution I warned him about, but my own selfishness.
Calamity can have more than one consort throughout her life. Her first one doesn’t need to be permanent. Just someone to help her control her urges until she chooses another.
Yes. Because you’ll be perfectly fine letting someone else have her once you’ve owned her.
Damn it. Making this kind of choice while under her influence isn’t a smart idea.
Own her in secret, give her what we both want, then one day hand her off to another.
Or own her permanently, demanding a title that was never supposed to be mine unless my brother died without heir—a direct connection to one day becoming king—and tear both my family and this kingdom apart with the choice.
eighteen
I fell asleep.
That’s the first mistake I made.
My second? Underestimating how far gone into the withdrawal I am. It’s already been weeks since I fed on her that first time. Weeks since I had my mouth on her cunt. The delirium grows each day; what reason do the dreams have to abate?
None. And as soon as I’m under, I’m lost once more.
I’m awakened by the sound of multiple gasps. In a stunning moment of clarity, the velvet walls of the harem come into view. All around me, beings scatter backwards, scrambling away from my sudden entrance.
That is, until they recognize who I am.
“Obsidian.” On her knees, naked except for her honey-blonde hair and the silver chain around her waist, Almira eases closer to me.
The hunger in her eyes isn’t new, yet the way she licks her lips while staring at my cock is the first hint I get that something’s off.
Namely, my clothes.
I fell asleep naked again and after another dream featuring Calamity, it’s no surprise my erection’s bobbing before all of them.
A few more of the females sigh my name.
Without offering them a reply or explanation, I will myself back to my chambers, where I make my third mistake.
The decision has already been mad
e. Subconsciously I know it. Hells, at the forefront of my consciousness, that voice is calling out in perfectly pronounced statements, every one leading to a single point.
I won’t let anyone have her.
I can’t allow her to continue running around at the mercy of her unstable impulses.
More than anything, my body’s an array of contradicting symptoms, feverish aches clashing with teeth-chattering chills. The fire in my gums, down my throat, is worse than any I’ve battled yet.
I have a matter of hours, if that, before I lose myself to it. Whatever “it” is. Maybe it’s rabid bloodlust. Maybe it’s the near-death experience of a withdrawal from a succubus’ hold. More likely, it’s a combination of both, and if I remember correctly, Marduk eventually gave in to save himself as well as his fledgling civilization from Ninkasi’s influence.
Look at me. Talking about my long-gone ancestors as if I knew them.
No matter how hard I rake my brain, I can’t remember if Marduk’s recorded symptoms were anything like my own. Another trip into the catacombs to confirm it—I’m surprised when I see my brother hasn’t tried to lock me out—costs me another half-hour.
I’m back inside my room, struggling with the futility of it. Trying to rearrange the pieces in my mind and predict several different outcomes.
My cell rings on my desk and I almost don’t realize it. Seeing Tallon’s, the head of the royal guard, name on the screen, I feel a shift in the very air around me. A premonition too powerful to be false.
Already suspecting what this is about—since I requested updates from him on every one of the princess’ excursions—I take the call.
“My liege, I’m calling as per your request in regard to the princess—”
“Where is she?”
“Sh-she came here with nine of her friends and demanded an immediate escort out into the human world—”
“Where. Is. She?” I can’t dematerialize in her bloody direction unless I know where I’m fucking going.
“I—we—she demanded they all travel without the armored vehicles, dematerializing straight to the location. And then . . . sire, then she seemed to mentally will everyone, including the guards. They all disappeared!”
This fucking impulsive succubus . . . there’s at least four confirmed bounties on her head now that she’s a general in our cyber division, and she’s been informed of this! She knows the danger she’s putting herself in! “Track the god damned cell phones!”
“We’ve tried, sire! All fourteen vampires have vanished off our tracking grid.” Tallon is beside himself, clearly unable to understand how Calamity accomplished what she did.
He doesn’t know that a vampiress with active succubus DNA is walking among our kind. Every vampire and vampiress in that party was susceptible to her. Aroused by her. Hence her ability to exert her will over them so easily.
And me? I’m even weaker than they are. Prolonged exposure will give her unprecedented power over me.
“Have the cyber teams search for any kind of malware and get those fucking coordinates!” Calamity hacked into our servers. That’s the only logical explanation. She blocked our ability to track her—the fucking princess. “I’m heading into Bucharest to search for her.” I hang up before he can reply, molecules dispersing.
bucharest, romania
The pounding beat is almost tribal, the flashing lights a composite of colors meant to incite the senses. If the humans filling the place to the rafters are lost in the primitive call of distraction, imagine one such as myself, with senses magnified ten times beyond their own.
It’s deafening, a hot rod poking at every base instinct I possess. Confusion equals aggression for one of my kind, and this bombardment on my senses is nearly more than I can bare.
Ignoring the wide-eyed, appreciative gaze of the human females that follow me—poor, lost creatures that covet their own dooms—I tilt my head back and inhale once more. Sifting through the hundreds of contradicting scents fuels the mounting lethality.
I’m beyond bloodlust. Possibly in a bleak, quasi version of withdrawal. All I know is that I can feel the sweat prickling along my forehead; my fangs are so large that only my beard and the flashing lights could be responsible for the humans not noticing.
Soon, I’ll be full-on blood-sweating again, eyes flooding completely black from this hunger, and the reason for all of it is nowhere in sight.
I’ll find her. Gods help her.
Struggling to maintain a mortal-like speed, I work my way towards one of the two VIP areas. On the circular stage in the middle of the club, a leather-and-jewel clad female rotates around the pole. On either side of her, acrobats twirl amid pure, white lace, lithe bodies glowing thanks to the spotlights.
The sensitive tips of my fangs graze along my lower canines and I feel them elongate as well.
If I don’t find the one female I’m dying to feed on soon, every mortal in this place will be at risk. The final snap is always instantaneous, where we go from rabid with hunger to an instinctual attack mode that’ll leave the closest victim in grave danger.
Possibly more than one victim.
At that point, stopping myself before draining the life out of them will be impossible.
Ascending the short flight of steps to the second level, I pause to scent the air one last time, fully aware that each second is precious. Due to Calamity’s succubus-side, her influence over me has turned purely demonic.
I could feed on everyone here and it still won’t stop this descent into madness.
A faint trace of her scent reaches me and my body jerks, head snapping in her direction. The edges of my vision tunnel, leaving me with only one view: Calamity at the end of a narrow hallway, a human male pinned to the wall by her hold on his throat.
A human male she’s leaning into, fangs bared, poised to strike.
Behind and above her, the blinking red orb of a security camera is a beacon among the shadows.
For all anyone knows, there could be mortals watching her at this moment, seeing what appears to be a hundred-and-twenty-five-pound woman holding a two-hundred-pound man up by his neck.
They’re about to watch her feed.
My vision blacks out.
The tunnel expands, encompassing every one of my senses. Noises filter in as if from afar, nearly muffled by the pressure.
“What—Obsidian! Let. Me. Go. Stop!”
My surroundings slam back into focus with a snap, just as my ears pick up the sound of heels screeching along concrete.
Heart roaring between my ears, I fight to catch a decent breath, eyes ping-ponging around me.
The sound I just heard was Calamity’s indecent, sky-high heels. Either I instinctively flung her, or she ripped herself out of my hold. Yards away at the end of the alley—we somehow ended up between two short buildings somewhere in Bucharest—she’s crouched before the deep groves she left in the concrete, the tips of her black claws embedded in the ground beneath her.
Completely black eyes zone in on me and her cherry-red lips part with a hiss.
At the other end, the lights of a city founded nearly two-thousand-years prior spill halfway into this alley. Mortal citizens walk about, and most likely immortal ones too. Our enemies permeate these streets.
And the female I’ve come to collect, the female I need to feed on before I finish devolving into my most base form, is trapped in her own bloodlust, the fury in her gaze absolute.
She shifts in her crouch, long black hair sliding along the blood-red leather of her dress. The huge, black diamond affixed to her choker glints and her chest rises and falls beneath that see-through collar of lace attached to the bodice of her dress. “How dare you take my prey from me?”
It’s not even Calamity in there. It’s pure animalistic urges, any rational thought stripped away.
Panting, I tear at the collar of my shirt, shredding a good portion off to expose my neck. Tugging my leather jacket out of the way, I tilt my head and offer it to her. “You’ll b
e feeding off me from now on,” I growl past my fangs. “Only. Me.”
The space between her brow scrunches, eyes flashing to my neck. I can feel her fixating on the artery, her thirst rising in the air. Yet she jerks her head, tearing her stare away, and braces herself to pounce. “No. I want the one from before.”
The human male I shouldn’t have left alive.
The one I’m going to go back and eliminate if she isn’t careful.
I step closer, prepared to force sense into her, when she flashes out of her crouch, aiming past me for the mouth of the alley.
Cursing, skin burning from the need to have her, I aim to block her, my hand already shooting out to grab onto any part of her I can.
nineteen
M y fingers wrap around hot, soft flesh. We’re moving too fast for me to actually see anything, but as soon as I realize I have her in my grasp, I fling us around. Calamity slams against one of the buildings and the facade shakes with the impact.
Never call human attention down upon yourself. If you do, leave the scene as quick as possible. Erase all evidence of you being there. The rules we vampires live by to avoid mortal detection.
Rules I’m ignoring right now.
Calamity lets loose another of those hisses, rearing away from the building.
Blocking her path, I press my body into hers, our combined weight causing the centuries-old bricks to crack.
She scrambles in my hold, pushing at my chest. “Out of my way, damn you. I’m hungry.”
Cupping the back of her head, I turn my head and bring her closer to the exposed side of my neck. “Feed. Off me. Now.”
Her struggles intensify, confounding me. Her hunger for me is all over both our skins, the scent of it an inferno in this alley. “Not you. Get off me.”
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