Succubi Are Forever (9 page)

~*~

“This doesn’t have to be awkward,” Noah said, tucking my hand in the crook of his elbow as though we were heading to a dinner party.

“Doesn’t it?” I said. “You’re holding me captive, more or less. I told you I couldn’t stay.” The last thing I wanted was to be here this afternoon. “Zane will be up soon and—”

“Don’t mention him again,” Noah said in a cold, unfriendly voice.

Grr. A command. “You get more high-handed the longer I know you.”

“I tried to do things your way, Jackie,” Noah said. “Gave you a bit of lead, but you don’t seem to want to cooperate.”

“That was doing things my way?” I gave a bitter laugh. “That’s rich.”

His jaw clenched. “Since you refuse to listen to what I have to say, I’m forced to have you as a captive audience. If that’s what it takes to get my point across, that’s what it takes.”

“And here I thought I was lucky to have two masters who were nice to me,” I said. “Guess that was wrong on my part.”

“Nothing so bad as that, Jackie. I merely want to catch up with you, not hold you captive.”

So he said. “You promise?”

His gaze darkened, his mouth thinning. “Have you forgotten I am covered in promises?”

“Then you won’t mind making one more, will you?”

“I promise,” he said, his teeth gritting. He paused in the hallway, his gaze roaming over me. “I have missed you, Jackie.”

I melted a little at that, my thorniness abating a little. Before Noah had left, we’d been happy. We’d been friends and lovers, and he’d supported and shared my enthusiasm for archaeology.

All of that seemed so long ago now. I smiled at him, relaxing and just a bit wistful. “I miss you too, Noah. We had fun together.”

“But not enough?”

Sigh. “No, not enough for me to give up Zane. I’m sorry. That’s not what I want.”

Instead of digging into that, he simply studied me. “Are you in trouble, Jackie?”

“It depends.” How much was Yue going to blame me for that broken neck?

“You’re on the run again, aren’t you?”

“Not me exactly,” I hedged.

He gave me an exasperated look. “How does one lone immortal manage to find herself in so much trouble?”

God, I asked myself that all the time. “Maybe I was conceived under an unlucky star,” I bit back. “You didn’t think to consult my star chart before having sex with me that first night, did you?”

“What is it?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell Noah. As soon as he found out that I was seeking two more haloes, he’d stick his nose in and try to take over things. Noah wanted to help me. Sometimes too much. And the last time he’d bailed me out, he’d earned himself a body full of tattoos and indentured servitude.

I eyed the tattoos now, and I reached for his sleeve, tugging it. Words danced along his skin, written in an old script that no one could read but those who had fallen. “So why don’t you tell me about all this, Noah?”

“You know what it is. My penance.” His expression became grim. “A hundred tasks, remember?”

It had been three months. I stared at the tasks, my mouth dry. Each word represented another promise he owed. “How many have you done?”

“Six.”

Six? Oh jeez. Noah would be serving the Serim for a decade at this rate. Maybe longer. Were they going to draw his penance out deliberately? “Noah, I am so sorry about all of this. It’s my fault.”

“You did not ask to be made, Jackie,” he said quietly. “You can blame Zane for that. I know I do.”

I rolled my eyes. “Here we go again.”

“I am surprised you are here with Sophie at your side,” he admitted.

“Sophie? Why?”

He gave me a long, hard look. “You don’t know?”

I stiffened. Oh great. Another tidbit of information that Noah was going to dole out to try and wreck my relationship with Zane and my friends. Or both. “You know what? We can’t stay after all. Let me leave.”

“Not until you’ve told me what you’re running from. What sort of trouble have you gotten into now?”

Not a command. I glared at him, refusing to answer. Knowing him, he’d get it in his head that he needed to find Phryne and get that page back from her, and I suspected that she’d want it for herself once she found out what we were after.

Damn it. Without that page, we were flying blind. That was the closest I’d gotten to the missing haloes yet. Damn Phryne and her twisted sense of helping me out.

“Jackie,” Noah said in a warning tone.

Down the hall, a door opened, and I could hear the sound of cutlery scraping against plates. A man came down the hall, dressed in robes. He extended his hands toward me, his skin gleaming like mahogany, a wide smile on his sculpted face. “Ah, you must be our guest. Come, join us for dinner.”

I looked over at Noah uncertainly. The last Serim I’d met had been a rapey asshole who’d tried to impregnate me.

Noah gave a tight smile. “Jackie, this is Samuel, one of my brother Serim.”

Samuel smiled sweetly at me and took my hand in his own. “Noah has told me so much about you.”

Had he? Well, at least I wasn’t a dirty little secret. “I don’t know if we can stay,” I protested. “My friends—”

“It will be taken care of,” Samuel said with another gorgeous smile. His eyes were a startling pale blue in his face. “Please give me but a moment.”

As I watched, he took Noah aside. “One of their company is in need,” Samuel said in a low voice, and I edged closer a fraction, listening in.

“I do not care,” Noah said in a hard voice. “We’re not here to service others. We’re here for a measure of peace.”

“It’s very important to the council that succubi are encouraged to visit. If they know we will see to their needs, perhaps they will return to us when they need a favor. You know the council encourages such things.”

I shuddered. So Noah was being asked to go sweet-talk Sophie in the hopes that she’d owe them a favor somewhere down the road? And then what? Have her bear an Enforcer baby? Manipulative jerks.

I could practically hear Noah’s jaw clench at Samuel’s words. “I am not the council’s puppet.”

“Are you not?” Samuel asked, touching a word on the side of Noah’s jaw. It lit up as if on fire from within, the symbols darkly outlined against his tanned skin.

A pained expression crossed Noah’s face.

“I invoke a promise from you, Noah Gideon,” Samuel said quietly. “Seek out the succubus Sophie and see to her needs this day. Treat her as you would a treasured lover. It is a favor to all of us.” When Noah said nothing, Samuel added, “I could tell that she appreciated your form. I am sure hers was equally pleasing. I will keep your friend occupied.”

With a glance back at me, Noah gave Samuel a tight bow and then stalked back down the hall.

Leaving me alone with Samuel. Goody. The Serim was all smiles as he approached me, noting my apprehension. “Do not be alarmed, sister. You are safe in these walls.”

“You’ll forgive me if the last Serim I chatted with was a big fat liar.”

He laughed. “We also are not so fond of Ariel.”

“In that case, any enemy of his is a friend of mine,” I said dryly.

“Come, eat,” Samuel said, drawing me back toward the dining hall once more.

“I don’t know,” I hesitated. “We really should be going soon.” Zane would be waking up at dusk, and Sophie’s eyes were lit up like beacons—I didn’t want her pouncing on my vampire as soon as he was awake. And Remy was likely slaking her thirst as we spoke.

“You and your friends must stay overnight. Let us refuel you before you head back out on your journey.”

The delicious scents carried from the dining hall. Were those tater tots I smelled? Curse my succubus stomach. “I really shouldn’t,” I forced myself to say.

“Your friends are taken care of. Ethan has seen to Remy, and Noah will see to your friend Sophie. As you heard, I have requested that he see to her needs.”

I stared at Samuel. “You mean you pimped him out.”

“The promise I invoked is not compulsion,” Samuel said with an easy smile at me. Too easy. “If Noah truly wished to avoid the succubus, he would ignore my request. Servicing her needs services his own.”

Servicing? Gross. Poor Sophie was mad with the Itch right about now. Looking at Samuel’s face, I decided that he was nice and smiley, but underneath, he was the same old asshole as Ariel. He didn’t care about what Noah wanted, just what it could do for him.

To him, this was all hospitality, just like dinner. Invite the guests in, serve them an afternoon snack, diddle the succubi.

God, immortals were bizarre.

And Noah had looked furious at the command. I felt a twinge of pity for him. Weird that I wasn’t jealous. I was simply relieved that Sophie wouldn’t be digging her claws into Zane.

“Really should be going,” I muttered again as Samuel entered the dining hall a few steps ahead of me. How fast could I get through this meal and back out of here? Not so fast that I would catch Sophie on Noah, or something. I wasn’t jealous, but I also didn’t want to see that. At all. But Phryne and her cronies would be looking for us, which meant we needed to keep moving if we wanted to get to that halo before she figured out what she had in her possession.

The thoughts died as I stared up at the ceiling of the dining hall. Ornate symbols lined the walls in perfect, familiar patterns. Seven perfect circles traveled the length of the arched ceiling of the hall, surrounded by ancient writing. A spiky crown lay at the cardinal points, and ancient writing looped all around the entire drawing.

I’d seen those symbols before.

On my freaking page that Phryne had stolen.

“You know what?” I told Samuel, forcing myself to look away from the ceiling. “I am just famished.”

“Woe to the woman who falls in love in this business. It’ll lead to nothing but heartbreak. You need to learn to fuck well and to fuck without emotion. Otherwise, you’ll just get fucked in the end. Also, how cool is it that I just used ‘woe’ in a sentence?”—
So You Want to Be a Porn Star,
by Remy Summore

~*~

I forced myself to ignore the ceiling all through dinner, lest I give away my true motive. Instead, I played the sociable guest. I smiled and chatted with Samuel (who seemed nice enough, I supposed, for one of his kind) and the other Serim.

Three Enforcers ate dinner at the far end of the table, and it was obvious from the looks they cast in my direction that they didn’t know what to make of me. That was just fine, since the sight of them disturbed me just as much. Three of them, not including Ethan. And this was not the only Serim monastery. How many Enforcers were there? I thought of Phryne and the others, and as Remy and Ethan entered the room and sat down to dinner, I compared Ethan’s high cheekbones and almond eyes to Yue’s beautiful, delicate features. Was she his mother? How many succubi had been forced to breed a son and had the child taken away from them?

Jesus. The more I thought about that, the more I thought Phryne and her “Girl Power” crew weren’t so crazy after all.

I kept these thoughts to myself, though. Remy seemed happy enough, her eyes bleached a cheerful, sated silver. She fed hot dogs and tater tots to Ethan and cooed to him during dinner. Ethan was quiet, the look on his face alternately adoring and awed as he stared down at Remy. Someone’s world had clearly been rocked just a short time ago.

The meal seemed to last an eternity. When dinner was over, I yawned hugely, hoping that the Serim would see my pretend exhaustion and assign us a room for the evening.

Remy stared at me.

The Serim stared as well.

Oops. I patted my mouth and smiled sheepishly. “Been around humans too much. Have to fake being tired and all.”

They seemed to accept this, though Remy gave me an odd look.

“Will you be staying the evening with us, Jackie?” Samuel asked.

“Oh no,” Remy began.

I kicked her under the table and leaned forward, resting my chin on my hands. “
Love
to.”

“I’m pleased to hear that. Noah will be happy to see that you’ve decided to stay for a short time. He has many things he wishes to talk to you about.”

Oh, I could just imagine. And he hadn’t even had time to order me to do anything but stay for dinner. “So do I get a room? What about my vampire?”

Samuel shook his head. “I’m afraid the grounds are warded. He won’t be able to enter.”

“That’s okay,” I said quickly. “Sophie’s with him so I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Remy stared at me, jaw slack. “Who are you and what—”

I kicked her under the table again, smiling. I needed alone time with this ceiling, and I was not going to get it if Remy kept sabotaging me.

She gave me a puzzled look, then shrugged and turned back to Ethan, wiggling another tater tot at him. “Open wide, snuggums.”

~*~

Soon enough, the Serim retired. I was shown to a room, Ethan went back to his own room with Remy, and I could hardly contain myself with excitement. The symbols were on the ceiling. All I needed to do was take a picture of it with my phone…

Shit. I hadn’t had my phone in my dress when Phryne had stolen us. We’d left it back at the hotel, so it was probably long gone. I chewed my lip, thinking. Maybe Remy had hers. Or Sophie.

Actually… Sophie carried swords. And knives. A phone might not fit in that weapon belt of hers. I rummaged through the guest room looking for pen and paper instead. If I couldn’t take a picture, I’d just have to recreate it myself with my limited artistic skill.

Pen and paper tucked into the cleavage of my borrowed dress, I smoothed my hair and then peeked out my door. An Enforcer stood at the end of the hall, holding a staff. Not Ethan. This one had the gangly form of a teenage boy and probably had not hit maturity yet. Well, that was a good thing—that meant my admittedly wimpy succubus powers could probably take him out.

I didn’t hesitate to use those powers, brushing my fingertips on his skin and watching with satisfaction as his eyes rolled back in his head. He went down quickly, crashing into a heap, and I waited a moment for a telltale snore. Satisfied, I knelt at his side, keeping my fingers pressed to his forehead to see what I’d learn. He didn’t have a phone in his pockets and to my annoyance, he didn’t know anything about the large painting on the ceiling in the dining hall, other than that it had always been there. Not helpful.