Succubus, Interrupted (2 page)

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Jill Myles

SUCCUBUS, INTERRUPTED

But Zane only toyed with a lock of my hair, his gaze intent on me.

The woman sauntered away, rolling her hips as she walked. Though I was gratified that Zane hadn’t given her a bit of attention, I still shrugged my shoulders a little, tilting my head so he’d get a good look at my bare neck. That would drive him crazy with lust until we could be alone again.

I liked driving him crazy with lust.

Remy shoved a mouthful of pancake into her mouth and sniffed loudly. When the

waitress finally left, I leaned forward. “Well?”

“Remember back in the day, I told you I had to stay in New City to hang out close to my masters? Well, I kind of lied.” She stabbed the pancakes on her plate, chewing her oversized mouthful loudly. “One’s dead and the other’s not in New City.” She swallowed hard, then peered over at me. “I told you about how I was created, didn’t I?”

“Actually, no, you never have,” I pointed out.

Zane groaned and reached for the ashtray, then pulled out another cigarette. “Something tells me we’re going to be here for a while.”

Remy gave him a scathing look and then ignored him, turning back to me.

“Well. I told you I was in harem of Suleiman the Great, didn’t I? Nice guy, but kinda had more women than he knew what to do with. The harem was okay, but boring. No men. I only saw the sultan once before he got bored of me.”

She looked at Zane, daring him to say something.

He remained silent—wise man, my lover.

“Anyhow,” Remy continued, cutting her pancakes into triangles. “I was really lonely.

And because I was lonely and young and stupid, I ate all day long and smoked opium when I was 10

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bored. Which, was, like, all the time. At night, when it was cool, I walked in the gardens. Most nights it was just me, but one night, there was another man there. A beautiful man with shining black wings and bright red eyes. I thought he was a magical genie sent from my dreams. He wanted to rescue me from my prison, he told me. And he whispered sweet words to me until one night, I let him drink from me.” She shrugged and sipped her hot cocoa. “And the next morning, when I was trying to hump the eunuchs, someone figured out something weird was going on.

They tortured me to confess—“

“Tortured?” I echoed.

She nodded solemnly. “Feathers. To my nipples. It was horrific.”

Zane snorted. I blushed.

“After they tortured me, they were able to get the details from me. I told them about my midnight lover and so they wasted no time—they tied me up, tossed me into a sack, and flung it into the river.”

“Seriously?”

“Way serious. They got really mad when you cheated on the sultan,” she said, then poked at my pancakes. “Can I have one of yours? You have chocolate chip. Mine are just blueberry.”

I rapped her knuckles with my fork. “Get your own. You were saying? Did you die?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “No, dummy. Do I look dead?”

Now I wished I’d have rapped her knuckles harder. “So a Serim must have saved you, then?”

She nodded. “I think they planned it. They needed a serving girl and I was young and stupid. My soon-to-be master was waiting on the riverbank, brought me to shore, and freed me.

And when I told him how I’d been tortured, he took me to a nearby house and shagged me 11

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rotten.” She gave a small sigh at the memory. “And then, of course, that night I was handed to the vampire to finish the job. Poof! Insta-hotness for fat little Remiza, the sultan’s forgotten concubine.”

“Were you happy about the change?”

She shrugged. “It was that or death, right? So yeah, I was happy for a while, until I figured out that I was little more than an indentured servant. I fetched, I cooked, I cleaned, I sucked dick. It was all very mundane,” Remy said, and I choked on my bite of food. “Until they started fighting, of course.”

“They fought?”

She nodded thoughtfully. “They were lovers for a time, but the separation got to be too much, and whenever they were together, they quarreled. Eventually they split up and they had to decide what to do with me. It was determined that I’d go with one master for one hundred years at a time, and then when that hundred years of servitude was up, I’d go to the other.”

“You didn’t have a say in the matter?”

Her mouth twisted. “Not all of us are as lucky as you.”

I looked over at Zane, who devoured me with his eyes. No, I guess they weren’t. I was ridiculously lucky, wasn’t I? I decided I’d show Zane just how lucky I felt later that night, and felt my eyes flare even bluer with need.

“So 2011,” I asked as she scraped her fork along the bottom of her now-cleared plate.

“Time to serve your master? You said one is dead? Which one?”

“Isaiah’s the only one that’s left,” Remy said. “Ezekiel picked a fight with a few of the queen’s favorites a while back, and they got rid of him. I wasn’t sad to see him go. I got a hundred years of freedom in the bargain,” she said. “Except now the hundred years is up…”

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Her lip quivered and she stared down at her empty plate.

“So now you have to go back,” I filled in, my heart aching for my friend.

“Hey, what’s a hundred years or so between immortals, right?” But her eyes looked suspiciously watery.

“Right,” I said slowly. “Is there something we can do to help?”

“Not a thing,” she said. “Can’t kill him because then I die. I have no choice but to serve.”

She turned her head and snapped at a passing waitress, “Hey! What’s a girl gotta do to get some chocolate chip pancakes around here?”

I pushed my plate toward her, no longer hungry. “You can have mine.”

“That’s why you’re a true friend, Jackie,” she said sweetly.

I
was
her friend. And that was why I was going to save her from this fate.

Just as soon as I figured out how.

#

Remy was silent on the car ride home. I agonized over her silence—it was so unlike her.

Normally she’d yak a mile a minute and look for any excuse to play lame car games. She drove Zane insane with her incessant, cheerful chatter. Tonight? She was utterly silent. Her mind was probably focused on having to return to her master. Poor Remy. I felt guilty that just when we were starting to enjoy ourselves, she was going to have to serve a cruel master for the next hundred years. I couldn’t even fathom that. A hundred years of service.

I pulled the car into Remy’s long, winding driveway and stopped, then glanced over at Zane in the passenger seat.

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“All that breaking and entering and we didn’t even steal anything,” he said with a rueful grin at me. “You should have at least lifted some jewelry.”

“The manuscript we needed wasn’t there,” I said softly and watched with more interest as Remy left the car and headed inside the house, her shoulders slumped. “The manuscript can wait another day.”

“It can?” Zane arched an eyebrow at me.

I nodded, leaving the car and trotting after Remy. My friend needed me.

I followed Remy inside the house and stopped in surprise at the sight of Ethan, down on one knee, his head bowed. In his hands, he held a carton of ice cream, upraised it like an offering.

“I have returned with your request,” he said in a grave voice.

Remy looked uncertain, tossing her long black hair over her shoulder. “But, Pooky, I said I wanted Canadian maple syrup ice cream. From
Canada
.”

Ethan looked up, his eyes flashing silver with his good deed. “This is made in Canada. It is available in your grocer’s freezer.”

Remy burst into tears again.

Immediately, Ethan’s face darkened. He crushed the carton of ice cream in his big hand, a devastated look on his face. He clearly thought he was the cause of Remy’s fresh tears, and that he had failed her.

Oh crap. Here Remy had tried to chase him off and now she wouldn’t be able to get rid of him until she thought of a new task.

I rushed forward and grabbed Remy’s shoulder, pulling her close in a hug. “Remy is so touched by your thoughtfulness, Ethan.”

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His big hands stopped squeezing the ice cream carton and he gave Remy an uncertain look.

“It’s true,” she said in a wobbly voice, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I was just so surprised and delighted to see you back so quickly that I was… overcome.”

Ethan nodded slowly, the look on his face skeptical. “You know I will do anything for you, Remiza.”

“I think you kids should test that theory. Upstairs,” I said, giving Remy a little push toward Ethan. She could probably use a few hours of distraction. “You and I can talk later, Remy.”

She gave me a nod and then turned to Ethan, sliding her fingers up his arm. “Looks like my warrior got all dirty-wirty, didn’t he? Someone needs to be licked clean, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he does,” Ethan said in a grave voice.

Remy took him by the hand and led him up to their room, baby-talking all the dirty things she was going to do to him. I grabbed some towels from the kitchen and mopped up the spilled ice cream.

“Perhaps we should head upstairs too,” Zane said, leaning against the frame of the still-open front door. “A tongue bath sounds like just the thing.”

I sighed, unable to muster a playful retort. “I’m worried about her, Zane. This business with her master. A hundred years of servitude. It’s… it’s not good.”

He moved forward, shutting the front door behind him, and tugged me into his arms, pulling me close. “You can’t save the world, princess. You’re a busy woman. You have two halos to track down before you can be free of the Serim.” His fingers rubbed against the promise 15

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burned onto my wrist. “Remy’s a big girl. She can fight her own battles, or get that lovesick goon to do it for her. You can’t rush in and save the day for everyone.”

“Can’t I? She’d do it for me. She’s done it for me in the past. Any time I’ve been in trouble, Remy’s been there for me,” I said. “Why would I abandon her?”

“Because you have other things on your mind than babysitting a brainless girl who made a bad deal with her master,” he said cajolingly. “And I have it on good authority that your own master wants to keep you selfishly at hand.” He toyed with a lock of my hair, his hand sliding down to cup my ass. “I think it’s because you taste so delicious.”

I leaned in close, and when his lips brushed mine, I licked his fangs. They scraped along my tongue, and the taste of blood filled my mouth. I swept my tongue against his, then ended the kiss, enjoying the flare of red in his eyes. I ran a finger along his chin.

“But helping Remy would make me so very, very happy,” I said softly.

He leaned in to my throat, his mouth brushing against the skin just under my jaw. “How happy?” he growled against my neck.

I thought for a moment, curling my fingers into his short black hair, holding his mouth against my skin, feeling the brush of his fangs there. “So happy that I’d be willing to stay in bed for a week and do nothing but play biting games with my master. I think there’re one or two spots on my body that he hasn’t bit me at yet.” When his tongue brushed against the skin of my throat, I whimpered with need. “A few very specific, very naughty places.”

“Your master could just command you to let him taste those particular spots anyhow,” he said, running his mouth down the column of my neck in a tease. He loved the foreplay of the bite almost as much as the bite itself, knowing that it drove me insane as well. As my fingers twined 16

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in his hair, his hand reached up to cup my breast, thumb teasing the nipple and sending a rash of goose bumps over my skin.

“But my master never commands me,” I said softly and pulled my hair away from the one side of my neck and over the opposite shoulder. I tilted my head, giving him clear access to my throat, a physical acquiescence to his hunger. “My master loves me and wants to please me.”

“It’s going to be his downfall,” he murmured against my skin.

I felt the barest prick of fangs against my throat, just as I felt him pinch my nipple. It sent a shockwave of pleasure through my body. I sagged against him, feeling the rush of an orgasm beginning to set in. God, I loved a vampire bite. “Does this mean you’ll help me help Remy?”

He whirled and pushed me up against the wall, lifting my hips until both my legs were off the ground, and I wrapped them both around his hips, locking my ankles at his back. At this angle, his cock rubbed against my core, already slick with wanting him.

“Well?” I said breathlessly.

His hand curled in my hair and tilted my head back even further, and I felt his fangs scrape over my flesh once more. “If you try and leave me behind, I’m going to chain you to the bed.”

My smile of triumph turned into a cry of pleasure as he sank his teeth deep into my throat, the bite-induced orgasm crashing over me.

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When I crept downstairs for a midnight snack, I saw Remy heading to the door, bag in hand. “Hey! Where are you going?”

She turned and gave me a guilty look. “Oh, nowhere.”

Seriously?
She was such a bad liar. “That so? Where’s Ethan?”

“Upstairs,” she said evasively, then added, “Napping.”

I gasped. Ethan’s kind didn’t have to sleep. “You put him under? Why, Remy?”

Her shoulders drooped. “Because that’s the only way I could think to get away from him.

He’s going to flip out if he finds out I have to go bow and scrape to my master for the next hundred years.” Her eyes, currently silver, gave me a doleful look. “The last time I was with Isaiah, I had to pretend to be his wife. It sucked.”